MARK 3

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=100 BGCOLOR="#CCCCFF" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="04600640egdysm.jpg"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#000066" FACE="Arial" ><B>BOOK OF JOB</B></FONT><FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#000099" FACE="Arial" ><B> </B></FONT><B>    |     </B><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="BOOK OF JOB"><U><B>home</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id17.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="My Content"><U>My Content</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id18.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Photo Album"><U>Photo Album</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id19.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Favorite Links"><U>Favorite Links</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id20.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Contact Us"><U>Contact Us</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id36.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="JOHNS GOSPEL"><U>JOHN'S GOSPEL</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id37.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="PSALMS"><U>PSALMS</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id38.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="EASTER"><U>EASTER</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id21.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="SERMONS ON MARK"><U>SERMONS ON MARK</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id22.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="MARK 2"><U>MARK 2</U></A>   |   <B>MARK 3</B>   |   <A HREF="id24.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="MARK 4 THRU 6"><U>MARK 4 THRU 6</U></A>   |   <A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="BOOK OF JOB"><U>BOOK OF JOB</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id25.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="MARK 7 THRU 12"><U>MARK 7 THRU 12</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id26.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="MARK 13 THRU 16"><U>MARK 13 THRU 16</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id28.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="BOOK OF REVELATION"><U>BOOK OF REVELATION</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id29.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="SONG OF SOLOMON"><U>SONG OF SOLOMON</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id30.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="TOPICAL SERMONS"><U>TOPICAL SERMONS</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id31.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="GODS NATURE"><U>GOD'S NATURE</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id32.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="JAMES"><U>JAMES</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id33.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="IJOHN"><U>IJOHN</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id34.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="IIJOHN"><U>IIJOHN</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id35.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="IIIJOHN"><U>IIIJOHN</U></A></div> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=200 BGCOLOR="#0000BF" TEXT="#F7F7FF"> <bR> </td> <td valign="top" height=380 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <I>MARK 3</I></div> <bR> <bR> <div> LOVER'S ARE WINNERS  MARK 3:1-6</div> <div> BY PASTOR GLENN PEASE</div> <bR> <div>      Dr. Richard Selzer, the famous surgeon and author, in his book, Taking The World In For Repairs, tells about Interplast, which stands for International Plastic Surgeon, Incorporated.  Since its founding in 1969, this organization has performed over ten thousand free operations on poor people in undeveloped countries.  Dr. Salzer was part of a team of 20 surgeons and nurses who went to Peru for 2 weeks to patch up people who could never dream of affording a plastic surgeon.  </div> <bR> <div>     This is indeed, a loving organization that meets the need that no one else is meeting in our world.   But as loving as it is, it does not yet reach the level of agape love, which is unconditional giving.  These surgeons give plenty, but their motive is still to get plenty in return.  Dr. Selzer writes very honestly about the motives.  </div> <bR> <div>      "The surgical residents have come for the experience of operating on great numbers of these deformities.  Within two weeks they will have performed more of these operations than most surgeons will do in  lifetime.  For some, it is the opportunity for virtue that we are seeking.  Such opportunities are not without the element of self-aggrandizement.  For still others it is the exhilaration of the exotic that beckons, or the lovely sense of camaraderie that is to be found in working together for a purpose we think high.  Last, there is a need for human beings to challenge themselves.  In surgery it is best done by tackling the most difficult of clinical situations and prevailing."  </div> <bR> <div>      I am sure the people who have their bodies restored do not care what the motive is.  They consider it an act of love.  The world can be grateful for love on any level, and Christians too should be grateful that even millions of non-Christians have an humanitarian heart that does loving things for others.  Maybe their motives are mixed, and maybe they do good for selfish reasons, but it is still better than doing evil.  Most all that any person does, is done with mixed motives.  </div> <bR> <div>      Jesus alone illustrates pure agape love.  He heals with nothing to gain for Himself. In fact, in the healing miracle of this man with the shriveled hand, Jesus really had to reverse the usual doctor-patient arrangement.  He had to pay to heal the man.  It cost Jesus His peace of mind, for He became very angry at the stubborn hearts of the Jews who resented His healing on the Sabbath.  He had to argue for His right to do good, and the end result was the Pharisees and the Herodians went out of the synagogue that day plotting how to kill Jesus.  </div> <bR> <div>      Jesus gave up His reputation, and laid His life on the line just to heal a man's hand on the Sabbath.  This was not a life-threatening problem.  The man was not having a heart attack or choking on a piece of steak.  He could have waited until the Sabbath was over to be healed.  But Jesus was as stubbornly insistent that he be healed on the spot as the Pharisees were as stubbornly insistent that he not be healed on the Sabbath.  This healing incident reveals the moral issue in the world of healing, and it makes clear there is a right and wrong side.  This miracle thrusts us into the morality of healing, and establishes to basic principles:  It is wrong to resist healing, and it is right to restore to health.  </div> <bR> <div>      The Jewish leaders said, it is right to resist this man's healing.  They said it is right because it is wrong to work on the Sabbath.  They said the law was more important then this mans health, and that it should be respected and held sacred even if it means the man has to wait to be healed.  Jesus took the others side and said it is right to restore this man now,  for love takes precedent over the law.  The Sabbath was made for man not man for the Sabbath.  The law is to prevent evil, not good.  It is a perversion of the law to use it to prevent good from happening.  It is always right to do good on the Sabbath, or any other time, and to resist the doing of good, such as healing, is wrong.  </div> <bR> <div>      Thus, the lines are drawn, and all the world is separated into two categories on this issue:  The legalists and the lovers.  The man with the withered hand is not the issue.  Jesus could have put a robe on a cold child, or given a cup of cold water to a thirsty stranger, or anyone of a hundred acts of love, and the result would have been the same, for the issue is, which is to be the supreme loyalty of our lives, the law or love?  Which you chose determines if you are a winner or a loser in the eyes of Christ.  The legalist is a loser, and the lover is a winner.  The successful Christian life is achieved by avoiding one, and being the other.  Let's look at these two choices so we can learn to clearly identify them, and chose to be a winner.  </div> <bR> <div> I.  THE LOSERS.</div> <bR> <div>      The legalist is a loser because he rejects love as the supreme virtue, and puts law there instead.  Paul says in I Cor. 13 that everything minus love equals nothing.  It is zip, zero, absolutely nothing.  The Pharisees would not buy this new math of grace.  They said the law minus love is no loss.  As long as the law is upheld, love is irrelevant.  Love has its place, but it can never replace the law.  Law is supreme.</div> <bR> <div>      The power of legalism to blind one to the light is nowhere more evident than with the Pharisees.  They saw Jesus do miracle after miracle, and people rejoicing and praising God, but they were plotting to kill him as an enemy of God.  How can this be?  How can anyone be so blind to love?  It is easy.  All you have to do is put any  value above love, and you are a prisoner of that value.  They said it is evil to do good on the Sabbath.  No matter how loving and compassionate it is, it is evil to do it on the Sabbath.  So the love of Christ meant nothing, and neither did it mean anything that he could do miracles.  All it matters to a legalist is that the rules be kept.  </div> <bR> <div>      They had to see the joy on peoples faces, and they had to hear their voices lifted in praise to God, but all this was mere background static.  All they could see and hear was a big no no.  Their rules were being broken.  </div> <bR> <div>      Amos Wells has described how this man with a withered hand may have responded to his healing.  </div> <div> "Praise God!  Praise God!  Give me my tools again!  </div> <div> Oh, let me grasp a hammer and a saw</div> <div> Bring me a nail, and any piece of wood,</div> <div> Come, see me shut my hand and open it.</div> <div> And watch  my nimble fingers twirl a ring,</div> <div> How good are solids!  Oak, and stone, and iron,</div> <div> And rough and smooth and straight and curved and round!</div> <div> Here, Rachel:  For these long and weary years</div> <div> My hand has ached to smooth your shining hair,</div> <div> And to touch your dimpled cheek.  Come wife and see</div> <div> I am a man again, a man for work, </div> <div> A man for earning bread and clothes and home,</div> <div> A man, no more a bandaged cumberer.  </div> <div> And did you hear them muttering at him?</div> <div> And did you see them looking sour at me?</div> <div> They'll cast me from the synagogue, perchance:</div> <div> But let them:  I've a hand, a hand, a hand!</div> <div> And, ah, dear wife, to think he goes about</div> <div> So quietly, and does such things as this,</div> <div> Making poor half men whole.  </div> <bR> <div>      Legalist is not moved by this emotion of joy, for any joy gained at the expense of the law is illegitimate and not acceptable.  Thus, the legalist is a loser in the judgment of Christ.  All of us have some of the loser in us.  All the record of the Pharisees and their blindness is not recorded for all time so posterity can look back and laugh at these ecclesiastical dinosaurs.  This is recorded so men of all ages can see and identify the Pharisee in themselves.  To the degree that any of us care more about anything rather than people, is the degree to which we are losers.  The only way to stop being a loser is to become a lover.  </div> <bR> <div>      Leighton Ford in the magazine, World Vision, gives a very contemporary illustration of the conflict between the legalism and love that can be in all of us.  Life is full of civil wars because of this conflict.  He writes, "A 16 year old girl once told me, 'my father is a leader in the antiabortion forces back home in our state.'  Then,</div> <div> her voice trembling, she said, 'what he doesn't know is that I had an abortion.  And I can't tell him because when my brother made a serious mistake, my father threw him out of the house.  If I tell him I've had an abortion, I'm afraid he'll do the same to me.'  Yes, as Christians we must struggle with the issues facing the market place, the laboratory and the public square.  But we must win more than arguments and political stands, we must also win people.  We cannot change society without changing people's hearts."  Many Christians have lost their own children because they chose legalism over love.  Any of us can make this bad choice if the issue is one we have strong feelings about.  Any of us can be the Pharisee on some issues.  Now let's look at-</div> <bR> <div> II.  THE LOVERS.</div> <bR> <div>      The lovers of the world are synonymous with the healers of the world.  To love is to heal, for to love is to care, and to act in such a way that healing is the result.  Lovers are people people.  They put people before power, possessions, or position. This makes the losers of the world mad, for they are often, as they were in the day of Jesus, the people with the power, possessions, and positions.  Lovers and losers are unusually in conflict.  The people who made Jesus most angry in life were the legalistic losers who resisted loving and healing people, because it did not fit into their legalistic agenda.</div> <bR> <div>      In deliberately provoking these people by not waiting until the Sabbath was over, Jesus was making a strong statement.  He was saying, "Lovers are to act and express their love, and not be restrained by the legalists who would try to limit their love, so as to force it to be submissive to legalism."  The essence of idolatry is making the infinite subordinate to the finite.  This is what the Pharisees were up to, and Jesus was angry.  He refused to let His love be bound by their legalism.  Anger is a virtue when it makes you a winner, and it does that when it motivates you to acts of love that overcome attitudes of resistance to love.</div> <bR> <div>       Abraham Lincoln was one of the great lovers of American history.  He loved people intensely, and though he, like Jesus, was hated and attacked by those whose legalism resisted giving all people equality, he in anger went right ahead and did it anyway.  He said, "I know there is a God, and that He hates the injustice of slavery. I see a storm coming, and I know that His hand is in it....I know I am right, because I know that liberty is right, for Christ teaches it, and Christ is God."  A detailed study of Lincoln reveals he had mixed motives in all he did to liberate the slaves, and in all he did to end the Civil War.  But the fact remains, he was a lover.  There has never been a President in our history who so fought to show mercy when the legalists were ever on his back to judge and condemn.  </div> <bR> <div>      Lincoln spent a great deal of his time as President finding ways to pardon soldiers who would have been shot had he not spared them.  He said one day to a visitor, "Tomorrow is butchering day, and I will not be interrupted until I have found excuses for saving the lives of these poor fellows."  One young soldier who had deserted was to be shot, but Lincoln found in his record that he had been wounded. He said, "Scripture says that in the shedding of blood there is remission of sins.  I guess we will have to let him off this time."  Lincoln took a lot of flack for being a lover.  It is one of the paradoxes of life that lovers have to suffer and endure conflict in order to be lovers.  </div> <bR> <div>      Jesus created a civil war by His love for the sick.  He refused to wait to do good. He healed people on the Sabbath because that is when He saw them in the synagogue.  This led to the legalists plotting His death.  But Jesus refused to halt His healing on the Sabbath.  It was right and good, and His love went marching on.  </div> <bR> <div>      Julian Ward Howe wrote her famous Battle Hymn Of The Republic for the Union Army, as they marched forward fighting for truth and love in the Civil War.  They were marching to the rough popular song, John Brown's Body when she visited their camp in 1861.  That night she slept soundly, but woke before dawn with this song in her mind.  She wrote down the stanzas in the dark, and then went back to sleep.  She wrote 5 stanzas, but most hymn books have only 4.  The one left out is this:</div> <bR> <div>        I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel;</div> <div>        As ye deal with my contemness, so with you my grace shall deal.</div> <div>        Let the hero, born of woman, crush the serpent</div> <div>        With His heal, since God is marching on.</div> <div>                            </div> <div>      The point is, the legalists and losers can make life miserable for the lovers, and even kill them, but the lovers will eventually win and crush the foe, for they are fighting for that which is ultimate, and God's will, and that for which He will keep the troops marching on to victory.  America is a great nation because all of its major wars were fought as lovers against losers.  We fought of liberty and equality, and for the freedom of people to determine their own destiny.  We have fought against oppression, repression, and depression.  I know enough to know our nation has not always been pure or perfect, but the reason we have been blessed of God is because we have always chosen to march against the legalists, and carry the banner of the lover.  </div> <bR> <div>      Charles Colson was a legalist who became a lover.  He never felt any of the things that he did in Watergate were wrong.   They were all done according to the rules of the game of politics.  He was playing according to the rules, and even if the rules were unloving, and hurt others that was tough.  When Chuck came to Christ, he ceased to be a legalist and a loser, and became a winner, because he learned to care more about people than the rules of politics.  In love, he now reaches out to thousands of people in bondage, who are in prisons all over the world.  He brings healing and love, and is now a winner because he is a lover.  </div> <bR> <div>      The fascinating part about being a lover is that, not only does it make you a healer of others, it makes you the healer of yourself.  Jesus had an enormous amount of stress, and yet we have no record of His being ill.  He was exhausted and Hungry, and He went through all the stress that anyone else would under His pressure, but He never became ill.  Modern medicine has learned that the more loving we are, the less likely we are to become ill.  Jesus was the greatest lover who ever walked the earth, and thus, the healthiest person as well.  </div> <bR> <div>      Dr. Mack, a fifty year old surgeon at Swedish Medical Center in Seattle said, "It has been said that love cures people, both those who give it and those who receive it."  Dr. Bernie Siegal, surgeon and professor of surgery at Yale Medical School writes, "If I told patients to raise their blood level of immune globulious or killer T-cells, no one would know how.  But if I can teach them to love themselves and others fully, the same changes happen automatically.  The truth is:  Love Heals." </div> <bR> <div>      If you are in to love, you are into healing.  You can't escape it.  God so made us that love has healing power in our bodies.  Dr. David McClelland, of Harvard, has demonstrated this scientifically.  He showed a film to a group of students that portrayed Mother Teresa caring for the poor in the streets of Calcutta.  It was designed to inspire feelings of love and caring.  He then checked their bodies and discovered and increase in the antibody salivary IgA, which provides major protection against colds and upper respiratory infection.  Then he showed a film on Attila The Hun, and their antibody levels dropped.  This study revealed that people who are friendly and interested in close loving relationships are healthier.  Married men live longer than bachelors because they experience more love.  </div> <bR> <div>      Dr. Blair Justice, professor at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston, and author of over 50 professional journal articles, goes so far as to say in his book, Who Gets Sick,  that love may be more important to health than healthy living.  He gives an enormous amount of evidence to support this. Hans Selye, the most quoted researcher on stress in the world, also concluded that the healthiest people in the world are people who love others.  The voices of authority in medicine and psychology are telling us, lovers live longer and healthier lives. </div> <bR> <div>      Lucy scorned Linus who just announced that he planned to be a doctor.  "You can't be a doctor,"  she laughed, "because you don't love mankind."  "I do so love mankind," said Linus, "its people I can't stand."  The Pharisees loved mankind too, but they did not love this particular man, or other individuals that Jesus healed on the Sabbath.  Their love was flawed.  Jesus not only died for all mankind, He came to minister to obscure people even though it cost it dearly.  If we are not involved in loving specific people, we are playing the role of the loser.  </div> <bR> <div>       When Jesus said love your neighbor as yourself, we had no idea it was the Great Physician giving a prescription for health, but that is exactly what it is.  A loving life style is the healthiest life style.  The doctors of the world are coming to the conclusion that the Great Physician had the best medicine of all.  "He who loses his life saves it."  The legalist clings to his life and refuses to share it.  He will not break his rules for the sake of meeting another need, and by so doing becomes a loser, for he loses his own life, and loses the chance to be a channel of life to others.  The lover not only gives life to others, but by so doing, gets life for the self.  The message of this miracle of Jesus is very simple:  No matter what the cost, be a lover.  </div> <bR> <div>      If Jesus was willing to pay any price, even the cost of His life, to heal, how much more should we be willing to be lovers at any cost.  The legalist in us will find a thousand excuses to resist and hole back, and not try to win the lost.  But our prayer should be that the lover in us will find just one reason to do it, and the one reason that can motivate us is this truth:  Lovers are winners.    </div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>ACCEPTABLE ANGER  Based on Mark 3:1-7</B></div> <div> <B>By Pastor Glenn Pease</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     I had an awful temper as a child.  When I was in first or second grade I broke a pool cue over the head of one of my brother's friends, and for years after I was reminded that I caused the scar on his forehead.  My older brother came close to getting even worse.  In one of our fights he picked me up and threw me down on the floor.  In a rage of anger I grabbed the steel stove poker, and would have clobbered him had it not been for parental interference.  Blood banks could triple their business if they could figure out how to prevent parents from preventing sibling violence.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     I don't know how many doors my father had to fix because of my angry slamming of them, and yes, I was one of those kids who shouted at my parents in anger, "I hate you!"  The point is, I didn't learn it all from TV, for it didn't exist then.  I knew from personal experience how anger can be filled with potential for evil and senseless destruction.  In the process of maturing, and by growth by a Christian, I got over being a hot head, and gained control of my anger.  This is the case with many, and even most Christians, but my question is, can we get so in control of our anger that we lose the value of being capable of anger?  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Is it possible that we eliminate the vice of anger, but in so doing also eliminate the virtue of it?  It is obviously not Christlike to be losing you temper and blasting people, and seeking revenge.  But on the other hand, it is also not Christlike to never be angry at the forces of evil.  Jesus was the perfect man yet He got angry at the Pharisees for their hardness of heart that made them more concerned about their Sabbath legalism then the life of a fellow worshipper.  So what we have in this same context is perfect illustrations of the two sides of anger-the awful anger of men, and the awesome anger of God.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The worse kind and the best kind of anger are illustrated right here side by side in verses 5 and 6.  We want to focus on each in order to see the clear distinction, and thus, be able to channel our own anger in the proper direction.  Let's look first at-</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>I.  THE AWFUL ANGER OF MEN.  v. 6</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     This verse reveals the most wicked example of anger the world has ever seen.  Here were good and godly men who were the religious and political leaders of God's people, and yet they let anger motivate them to plot the murder of the only perfect man who ever lived.  This is depravity at its lowest depth.  Anger is the worst emotion man is capable of, for it leads to the justifying of the murder of another human being.  Cain in anger killed his brother Abel, and most murders every since have been motivated by anger.  Every person in a state of anger is a potential killer, and, therefore, anger is the most dangerous of human emotions.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Anger is the emotion that led men to despise and reject Jesus, and then crucify Him.  You look in vain to find a more dangerous emotion.  But let me keep the paradox before you.  Jesus was angry, and so we cannot loose sight of the fact that there can be value in this most dangerous of emotions.  In 1899 a school teacher by the name of Billy Rankin was convinced that a certain hill in Idaho was filled with copper.  He started to dig, and continued to do so for years.  He left off from time to time to work in a saw mill to buy enough dynamite to keep blasting deeper into the earth.  He dug for 50 years until he died.  He poured his whole life into a hole in the ground and found nothing of value.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     It would seem equally futile to try and dig into the dark pit of this emotion of anger to find anything of value.  But the fact is, there is treasure to mined from this pit that has produced so much evil.  This emotion which can make us potentially among the worse of men is also a vital ingredient in the character of the best of men.  This is a paradox if there ever was one.  So as we look at the awfulness of anger I don't want you to forget it also has great potential for good.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The usual message about anger is that it is bad stuff, and so get rid of it.  Paul in Eph. 4:31 says just that:  "Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger...."  In Col. 3:8 he says, "But now, you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips."  There are a lot of things that are just not appropriate for the Christian, and among them is anger.  The Greek word Paul used in these two texts is the same Greek word Mark uses to describe the anger of Jesus.  So we can forget trying to make a case for two different emotions, and pretend that righteous indignation is some sort of sanctified version of anger.  Anger is anger, and whatever the cause or the consequences, it is the same emotion in the saint and the sinner.  Christians do not have a specialized anger.  It is the same anger they had as non-Christians.  The emotion that Jesus felt was the same as that felt by Cain when he killed Able.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Paul is negative about it because anger in Christians is almost always just as bad a source of evil as it is in non-Christians.  It is just a high risk emotion anyway you look at it, and the primary goal of the Christian is to avoid it.  You do not have to be a bad person to be a poor handler of the emotion of anger.  Some of the best people in history have failed to control their anger.  Moses made God mad because of his hot temper, and he was shut out of the promise land because of it.  Jonah, one of the best known prophets in the Bible, was a temper-tantrum prophet, and has a terrible reputation because of it.  James and John, two of the three closest disciples to Jesus, were such hot heads that Jesus had to rebuke them and calm them down or they would have been guilty of homicide against the Samaritans.  The best of people as well as the worse of people can have a problem with anger control.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Paul wrote to Christians, "Be ye angry and sin not."  It was also to Christians that Paul wrote in Eph. 4, "Never go to bed angry, don't give the devil that sort of foothold."  The point is, Christians do this and let Satan trip them up all the time in the area of anger.  It is the sin of the most morally upright and other wise outstanding Christians.  Joyce Landorf in The Fragrance Of Beauty is one of the  famous Christians who admitted her battle with anger.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     She was a hot head who often lost her temper, and she was a mother-monster.  Not as a non-Christian, but as a Christian.  She was 5 foot 6 inches tall before she became a Christian, and 5 foot 6 inches tall after she became a Christian.  She had the emotion of anger before she came to Christ, and she had it after she came to Christ.  She was a Christian for 15 years and still had her inner fire.  The problem was not in having the fire.  The problem was that the fire had her.  She was not using it, it was using her.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     She realized that a Christian woman should not be having temper tantrums, and so she worked at control and she grew.  But the point I am making is that Christians have this battle.  It is not one by coming to Christ.  There is a lot to do in Christ to learn anger control.  Paul Hauck in his book Overcoming Frustration And Anger says that the single greatest cause for divorce is anger.  Yes, there is money, sex, in-laws, jealously, job stress, and dozens of other factors.  It is anger over these things that destroys the marriage.  If people did not get so angry, all of these things could be worked out.  Awful anger multiplied by two equals disaster.  The world and the church are both damaged by the awful anger of men. </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Will Rogers said, "People who fly into a rage always make a bad landing."  Anger is often far more hurtful than the injury that caused the anger.  We could go on and on about the awful anger of men, but we need t shift gears and figure out how our Lord could have anything to do with an emotion that is so awful.  So let's look at our second point which is-</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>II.  THE AWESOME ANGER OF GOD.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The anger of Jesus here is the anger of the God-man.  It is human anger, but it is Godlike, and thus, not a vice but a virtue.  It is a part of the very holiness of God.  C. S. Lewis in the Narnia tales says, "Aslan is not a tame lion."  The lion, of course, represents Christ.  For God not to be angry at sin, cruelty, and injustice would be to deny his very essence.  It would be like a bride not being angry at one who threw mud pies at her wedding gown.  It would be like a surgeon not being angry at one who put all his surgical equipment in a pail of bacteria infested slime.  It would be like anybody not be being angry at one who deliberately violates their being and values.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The person who does not have the capacity to be angry at such evil as gone to the opposite extreme, and does not murder the evil one, but murders the Spirit of God.  The Bible calls it quenching the Spirit, but it is a form of murder, for it kills the Spirit of God and eliminates the will of God from the conflict, and lets evil have the victory.  For Jesus to have said, "I'm sorry fellas, I didn't mean to upset your traditions by healing this brother on the Sabbath," would have been to choose evil rather than good.  That would have been sin for Jesus.  He would have lost His state of perfection had He not gotten angry at these men.  To be indifferent to the need, and to walk away saying, "I must conform to their hardness of heart," would have been to forsake the will and love of God.  The only way Jesus could avoid sin was to become angry and to defy their evil attitude.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Some Christians worry that Jesus was bordering on sin by getting angry, when the fact is, He would have fallen into sin had He not become angry.  So we see this emotion, which is the worst of human emotions, as the best emotion that is possible in certain settings.  Jesus could not remain sinless without anger, just as God the Father could not remain holy without it.  How does this awesome power of anger differ from the awful power of anger we considered first?  It is really quit simple to grasp as we compare them in this text.  Awful anger leads to evil, but awesome anger leads to good.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The anger of the Pharisees led them to plot murder.  To do this they had to lie, deceive, bribe, and break the law, and who knows whatever evils?  The awful anger of men is known by its fruit which is rotten fruit.  In contrast, the awesome anger of God, which is seen in the righteous anger of those who walk in His Spirit, leads to good.  Jesus did not ask Simon the Zelot to revert to his old ways and put a dagger in a couple of his enemies.  Jesus did not do anything to His enemies.  Good anger is not interested in revenge, but in doing what is right and just.  The anger of Jesus compelled Him to heal the man, and to go on healing every chance He got.  Henry Ward Beecher said, "A man that does not know how to be angry does not know how to be good."  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Unrighteous anger is self-centered.  It says, "I'm going to get him for doing this to me."  Righteous anger is other-centered.  It says, "I'm going to help this man even if it hurts me."  The focus is altogether different.  When Paul said, "Be ye angry and sin not," he was saying the motion  of anger is as natural as the feeling of hunger.  Anger just is.  It is not good or evil in itself.  We make choices as to which way our anger goes.  We decide if our anger is going to be evil or good.  If we chose to let it motivate us to do harm, it becomes evil, and we sin.  If we let it motivate us to do what is helpful, it becomes a force for good, and we sin not.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>      Anger then is like any other energy source.  You can use it for good or evil just as is the case with fire.  You can become an arsonist with it and destroy houses and forests, or you can become a furnace installer to warm the home and comfort people.  Energy is just the power that is used to express love or hate.  Anger is a power source that both love and hate can use.  The Pharisees used anger to express hatred, and Jesus used anger to express love.  Anger then is just energy, and you decide whether it will be used for good or evil-the worst or the best emotion.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Secker said, "He that would be angry and sin not, must not be angry with anything but sin."  Jesus was angry with the sin of the Pharisees and nothing else.  </B></div> <div> <B>Anger at sin is always right, for it is Godlike.  But it is possible for even this kind of just anger to lead us to make wrong choices.  If Jesus would have said to His disciple Simon the Zelot, "I want you to follow these Pharisees and use your old skills and sink a dagger into a couple of them in a narrow alley.  This will let the scoundrels know that I won't tolerate their opposition any longer," then Jesus would have been choosing to make His anger a force for evil, and He would have been as guilty as they were.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Jesus did not chose to let His anger go that direction.  In fact, as you read this chapter of Mark, and come to verse 22, you see the teacher of the law accusing Jesus of casting out demons by the power of Beelzebub.  Jesus could have been so angry, but instead He warns them so they can't escape this eternally deadly trap they were so close to choosing.  Jesus does not want revenge, but He wants them to be saved and not to perish by committing the unforgivable sin.  Evil anger would leave them in dark, and let them stumble into the pit of eternal darkness.  Righteous anger does everything possible to save the sinner even as it hates the sin.  Evil anger says, "I'll make you pay forever for being rotten to me."  Righteous anger says, "As rotten as you are I will not let evil have you forever, but make the way clear so you can escape its clutches."  </B></div> <div> <B>     </B></div> <div> <B>     The awesome anger of God is the power behind the whole plan of salvation.  God will not let Satan win and drag the human race to hell with him.  He provides a way of escape, and in love makes it possible for His enemies to become a part of His eternal family.  The test of all anger is simple:  Does it lead you to do the hateful and revengeful thing?, then it is evil.  Does it lead you to do the loving and helpful thing?, then it is good.  Anger is neither good nor evil.  You determine that by the choices you make.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     It is like lust, or sexual energy.  It is a source of power to motivate you to action.  You decide if you will use the power to do what is out of God's will or within His will.  You choose to use this energy to do harm to the institution of marriage, or to help it be all God wants it to be.  The energy just is; you choose to make it good or evil, and so it is with the energy generated by anger.  Sometimes we can only be truly righteous, as Jesus was here, by getting angry.  The absence of anger in some situations is not a sign of a good man, but rather of a hardened man.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     David became very angry when the prophet Nathan told about the rich man with great flocks who took the poor man's one pet lamb and killed it, and his anger was just, for it was a great evil to be angry about.  But Nathan was illustrating David's own sin of taking the one wife of Uriah when he had a harem of wives.  Had David been angry at this evil, as he was of the stolen lamb, his anger would have kept him from the sin.  Anger at what sin does to you as well as others will keep  you from sinning.  His lack of anger led him to adultery and murder.  So we have come full circle.  Anger can lead to murder, and lack of anger can lead to murder.  The only solution to these two extremes is the Christlike anger that hates all evil, and keeps us motivated to a life of loving action that is perpetually counteracting the consequences of sin.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     One of the highest degrees in the school of spirituality is the Master of Anger.  Prov. 16:32 says, "Better is the man who controls his anger than one who takes a city."  To master your own anger is to be a general and a hero in the army of the Lord's disciples.  You master it, not by eliminating it, but by channeling it so that it is energy put to good use for the kingdom of God.  If you are never angry, you will not have much energy for the kingdom, and so getting rid of anger is not the answer, but learning to channel it is.  Get rid of anger when you feel it compelling you to acts that are not loving, and which will damage rather than heal relationships.  But if you feel your anger compelling you to acts of love and helpfulness, then be angry and sin not.  Let the fire burn and bring warmth to those around you.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Most anger is going to burn you and others, and is, therefore, to be dropped like a hot match about to reach your finger.  But some anger will move you to give your energy to bring healing and blessing, and enable you to outwit the forces of evil.  This anger is good, and ready to accomplish a task without risk of doing injury.  Anger is a part of life, and all of us need to deal with it wisely, or it will become an enemy and never a friend.  It was always a friend to Jesus because he never let it push him in a direction He did not want to go.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Many write of the anger that comes to them when they see a loved one have to endure long suffering.  They get angry at God and the medical profession for not solving the problem.  They get mad at the loved one who is dying for putting them through this ordeal, and because they didn't take care of themselves.  They finally get angry at themselves for feeling so angry at everybody.  The result of all this hostility is often a victory for evil for the person who goes through all this.  If they survive, they may be bitter resentful people who become an added burden to their family and society.  There is plenty of this going on all the time, and anger is doing its dirty work nonstop.  But the other side is also alive and well, and the fact is, most of the good things done in this world to help the victims of sin and folly come from people who are angry, and use this energy for good.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Cindy Lightner was devastated by the lose of her 13 year old daughter who was killed by a drunken driver.  Her grief became an intense flame of anger at a society that would tolerate drunk drivers on the road.  She could have gotten a rifle, and gone to an overpass, and started to shoot drivers as they approached her.  That is what anger does to some.  But she formed the Mother's Against Drunk Drivers called MADD.  This group has channeled their anger into constructive ways of changing the system to save other people.  They goal is not revenge for their lose, but prevention of the lose of others.  Their anger has changed laws and saved lives.  It is this kind of anger we see in Jesus, and we can thank God for this anger and others like it which change our world for the better.  Thank God for acceptable anger.  </B></div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>POSITIVE ESCAPISM  Based on Mark 3:7-12</B></div> <div> <B>By Pastor Glenn Pease</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Some of history's greatest battles have been won by means of retreat.  The 13 colonies won the first day of battle with England in the Revolutionary War because of a wise retreat.  When Captain John Parker saw several hundred British Redcoats marching on the double toward his 70 or so minute men, forming a line on the Lexington Green, he knew at once he was facing a disaster.  They had vowed earlier never to run from the British, but Parker realized there is a time for everything, and now was the time to run.  He shouted, "Disperse, you men! Do not fire.  Disperse!"  They made a hasty retreat into the countryside.  Paul Revere and others took off warning the people that the British were coming.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The result of this strategic retreat was that only a few Americans were killed in that first encounter.  By the time the British were marching toward Concord the Americans were prepared.  The British were shocked that these untrained farmers could shoot.  The British suffered 250 casualties, and the Americans suffered less than 100.  It was a day of victory because of a Captain who knew the wisdom of withdrawal.  The Captain of our salvation, the Lord Jesus, demonstrated this same wisdom in His conflict with His foes.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Take note of the context of our text.  In Mark 3:6 its says, "Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus."  The kid gloves were coming off.  No more games.  They were in a conspiracy to murder this miracle worker.  Homicide was their only solution for the solving of the mystery of a man like Jesus.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     It is in the light of this context that we read verse 7: "Jesus withdrew with His disciples to the lake."  The Greek word for withdrew is anachoreo, and it caught my attention because Matthew uses the same word in telling this account of the reaction of Jesus to the plot to kill Him.  The word is most often used to refer to a retreat, and a getting away from a dangerous situation.  Jesus is not ready for a showdown, nor does He have any macho need to prove His courage by courting death.  Instead He retreats from the city, and escapes the clutches of the connivers who kill Him.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     By so doing Jesus makes it clear that there is a time to take your stand, and there is also a time to retreat from your enemy so that you can be in control, and not at the mercy of the enemies choices.  This same word is used to describe the withdrawal of the wisemen in Matt. 2:12.  They took a new route home to their country to escape Herod.  Were they cowards by this retreat and refusal to face up to the wrath of Herod?  Not at all.  They would have been fools to die for no cause, and they would have done just that had they not taken the way of escape.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     It is not only right to flee from evil men to avoid their anger and evil schemes, it is a Christian obligation.  To cooperate with evil by letting evil men kill you when you can escape is folly.  The wisemen are heroes because they escaped and outwitted Herod.  The same word is used also in Matt. 2:14 where Joseph took the Christ child and Mary, and departed to Egypt to escape the wrath of Herod.  Joseph did not stay and fight for his right to have a son who would grow up to be a king.  He ran away.  There is such a thing as positive escapism.  We almost always think of escapism as negative.  It is a refusal to face reality, and a fleeing from reality.  But the fact is, there is some reality that it is wise and right to escape from.  There is the deadly reality that evil men will do you harm and even kill you, and it is not usually God's will that you die at the hands of evil men.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The theme of positive escapism runs all through the Bible.  </B></div> <div> <B>Noah escaped the evil world and the flood.</B></div> <div> <B>Lot escaped from Sodom.</B></div> <div> <B>Israel escaped from Egypt.</B></div> <div> <B>Jonah escaped from the whale.</B></div> <div> <B>Daniel escaped from the lion's den.</B></div> <div> <B>His friends escaped from the fiery furnace.</B></div> <div> <B>David escaped from Saul.</B></div> <div> <B>Job escaped by the skin of his teeth and lived.</B></div> <div> <B>Peter escaped from prison and Herod's wrath.</B></div> <div> <B>Paul escaped from the Jews in the night.</B></div> <div> <B>All believers have escaped the judgment of God in Christ.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The greatest escape artist of all is Jesus.  In John 10:39 we read that in a context where the Jews were trying to stone Him, "They tried to seize Him, but He escaped their grasp."  On another occasion Dr. Luke tells of the mob spirit that arose so that the Jews dragged Jesus to the hill on which Nazareth was built, and were about to throw Him over the cliff to snuff out His life, but Luke 4:30 records, "But He walked right through the crowd and went on His way."  The crowning event was when Jesus did finally decide to lay down His life and be taken captive by the power of death.  Then came the grand finale; an event that Houdini could only dream of:  Jesus escaped from the clutches of death, and rose again in triumph.  He became the way of escape from sin, death, and hell, for all who will trust Him as Savior.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Positive escapism is the very essence of salvation.  It is the goal of God for all His people.  The ideal life is the life where there is perpetual escape from reality. It is folly to think that all reality is somehow good.  This has lead to the corruption of the media.  People curse God and profane all that is noble and precious.  Therefore, because this is part of reality it must be made a part of all our entertainment.  The same logic is used to justify all manner of evil being displayed because it is part of reality.  The Bible says this is the very part of reality the Christian is to escape.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The Bible fully agrees with the thesis that sexual temptation and the temptation to break every commandment of God is a basic part of reality.  But it has a different answer as to how we are to deal with it.  The world says exploit it and experience it, but the Bible says to escape it.  Paul in his well known words of I Cor. 10:13 says, "No temptation has seized you except what is common to man.   And God is faithful:  He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.  But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it."  Here is the recognition of the reality of our being subject to all the temptations of a fallen world, but here is also the recommendation that you take the way of escape that God provides.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The Christian who is not into escapism is a Christian who is a victim rather than a victor.  There is no way for the Christian to conquer all evil.  He has to retreat from it and gain his victory by escape.  Like Jesus, we must withdraw from the battlefield when it will only give evil the advantage.  The Christian who thinks he can stand up to evil and win the battle is often the Christian who falls.  It is he who stands who is to beware lest he fall.  Why?  Because his very stand may be his biggest mistake.  It is more often the wiser strategy not to stand, but to flee.  Paul gives this advice over and over.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>In I Cor. 6:18 he told them to flee fornication.</B></div> <div> <B>In I Cor. 10:14 he told them to flee idolatry.</B></div> <div> <B>In I Tim. 6:10 he told Timothy to flee from love of money.</B></div> <div> <B>In II Tim 2:22 he told Timothy to flee youthful lusts. </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     There is just no escape from the reality of positive escapism in the Bible.  Those who refuse to practice this Biblical escapism end up as victims of reality rather than victors over reality.  You can't escape the need for positive escapism.  It is wise; it is good, and it is right.  It is also Christlike.  He practiced positive escapism, and He expects His disciples to do the same.  Peter makes this clear in II Peter l:4, "...He has given us His very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires."  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Escapism is a vital part of the Christian life.  Like Jesus, we need to practice the wisdom of withdrawal.  Instead of charging the enemy, or trying to make a stand against the onslaught, we need to retreat.  We have stressed the point that greater is He that is within you than he that is in the world to the point where Christians are often presumptuous.  They think they can face any foe and not be injured.  This leads them to fight according to the enemies game plan and they often fall.  Jesus, by His example, teaches us to develop our own strategy, and if retreat is to our advantage, then we are to do it.  He was not ready to confront the wrath of man, and so he escaped.  The Christian has no obligation to suffer at the hands of those who plot evil.  Preventing evil from succeeding is more noble and heroic than submitting to it.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     If we explore just this one chapter of Mark, we see Jesus practicing the excellence of escapism over and over.  In verse 9 we see Jesus preparing His disciples to have a boat ready so He could escape the pressure of the crushing crowd.  Here is an example of very practical positive escapism.  Jesus could see that the circumstances were shaping up to produce a problem.  The mob could be dangerous, and He could be crushed by their enthusiasm, or be so surrounded that He could not have an effective ministry to them.  He had to plan for a way to escape this negative circumstance, and keep open the door of opportunity.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Many times we assume that the sovereignty of God means that we must accept everything that is as His will.  Not so!  The reality of a fallen world is, that even those who mean well can spoil things, and we need to be aware of what can go wrong, and make a plan for a way of escape from negative circumstances.  Jesus had foresight, and could see what might develop that could be a problem, and He had a plan to escape that problem if it arose.  He did not just expect God to solve all his problems without any thought or planning on his part.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>    History shows us that when the good guys do not have a good plan the enemy can win.  Peter Marshall in his book The Light And The Glory has a fascinating account of the American invasion of Canada during the Revolutionary War.  We do not have the time to detail this great historical folly, but everything went wrong.  There was no plan to escape all the things that could go wrong, and the result was a nightmare for the American soldiers.  Many died from sheer exhaustion and lack of supplies. </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>      They ate their dogs, leather boots, and even their cartridge boxes.  By the time they arrived to attack Quebec they were a pitiful lot.  All the officers were killed in seconds, and they were without leadership and had to surrender.  The whole fiasco was over in a few moments, and the entire American force of 400 men was taken prisoner.   Those who fail to plan, plan to fail, and this goes for the good guys as well as the bad.  If Christians expect to escape negative circumstances, they have to follow their Lord and plan for a way of escape.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>      In verse 12 we see Jesus giving orders to the evil spirits not to tell who He was.  Jesus had to escape being accepted by everyone as the Messiah, or He never would have been crucified.  So in order to assure He would go to the cross for us, He had to hold back the storm of popularity that could have spoiled that plan.  The worst thing the evil forces could have done was get Jesus so popular with all men that He no longer had enemies who would kill Him.  Jesus had to escape from their plot to destroy His own plan of dying for the sin of the world.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     In verses 13-19 He escapes the loneliness of being the Messiah by choosing 12 to be with Him.  He also by this method escapes the dying of His movement with His own death by having disciples to carry on His plan.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     In verse 20 we are reminded again of why Jesus had to escape the crowds.  They could not even eat because the place was so packed.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>      In verses 22-30 Jesus is engaged in argument with the teachers of the law over the source of His power to cast out demons.  They say it is by the power of Beelzebub the prince of demons.  Jesus escapes this accusation by the logic of pointing out that a house divided against itself cannot stand.  He also warns them to beware of blaspheming the Holy Spirit.  Forgiveness is mans ultimate escape from all sin and evil, but there is no escape for this sin.  Escaping is the goal Jesus has for all men, and He wants even His worse enemies to escape the consequences of their  sin and folly, and so He warns them to avoid this path of no escape. </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     If Jesus would have had a spirit of revenge, He could have let them walk this path to their own destruction, but He warns them, for He wants all to escape.  Escapism is the very essence of His ministry.  He taught, that men might escape the darkness of ignorance.  He healed, that men might escape the bondage to sickness.  He died, that men might escape the slavery to sin.  Everything Jesus did He did to provide a way of escape.  Christianity is a way of escape from the reality of a fallen world, and fallen nature that is out of God's will.  To escape the world, the flesh, and the devil is what Christian living is all about.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     In about 250 A.D. Cyprian of Carthage wrote a letter to his friend Donatus.  Listen to a portion of that letter that has survived the centuries.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     "This seems to be a cheerful world, Donatus, when I view</B></div> <div> <B>     it from this fair garden under the shadow of these vines. </B></div> <div> <B>     But if I climbed some great mountain and looked out over</B></div> <div> <B>     the wide lands you know very well what I would see.  Brigands</B></div> <div> <B>     on the high roads, pirates on the seas, in the amphitheaters men</B></div> <div> <B>     murdered to please applauding crowds, under all roofs misery</B></div> <div> <B>     and selfishness.  It is really a bad world, Donatus, and incredibly</B></div> <div> <B>     bad world.  Yet in the midst of it I have found a quiet and holy</B></div> <div> <B>     people.  They have discovered a joy which is a thousand times</B></div> <div> <B>     better than any pleasures of this sinful life.  They are despised and</B></div> <div> <B>     persecuted, but they care not.  They have overcome the world.</B></div> <div> <B>     These people, Donatus, are the Christians-and I am one of them."</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     To be in the world but not of it is Christian escapism.  By thinking ahead and planning; by avoiding and by retreating, the Christian is to rob the forces of evil of their victories.  The time came when Jesus no longer withdrew, but put Himself in the hands of His enemies.  Even then the goal was that He might die for us and make a way of escape that is permanent, and gain a victory over all the forces of evil forever.  The goal of all Jesus did was positive escapism.  Let us be thankful, and follow our Lord in practicing in our own life the value of positive escapism. </B></div> <div> <B>     </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>PRIVACY  Based on Mark 3:7-21</B></div> <div> <B>By Pastor Glenn Pease</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Jean Paul Sartre in No Exist has three characters in the play who are one by one ushered into hell.  To there surprise it is not a place of punishment.  There are no demons torturing and inflicting pain.  They are left in a moderate size room with a few articles.  There are no widows or mirrors, but only each other to look at.  They are, at first, quite pleased with their good fortune.  But then it dawned on them, none of them had eyelids.  They were condemned to live forever with their eyes open, and under the gaze of one another.  "It is a life without a break."  This endless lack of privacy was their hell.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The lack of privacy was part of the cost that Jesus paid to be the Messiah.  He descended into hell in His death, but He also did so in great measure when He left heaven and descended to live the life of a man in a fallen world.  Aristotle said, "The ideal man is his own best friend and takes delight in privacy."  Jesus was the ideal man and He loved privacy.  But He had to fight for it, and live an unusual life style to get it.  The only two ways that Jesus succeeded in getting some privacy was by getting up early and going off by Himself to pray, or by getting in a boat and going out into the sea of Galilee.  But then He was still with His disciples, and so Jesus had a hard time being alone.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     In Mark 6:32 Jesus departed into a desert  place privately.  He thought by going to a remote place He could be alone, but the people ran around the lake on foot, and when Jesus landed the crowd was there already waiting for Him.  That is when He had compassion and fed the 5000.  Imagine trying to get away from it all and ending up hosting 5000 for supper, and all of them unexpected guests!  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     In our study of Mark 3 we discover we are in Mark's crowd chapter.  He uses two words to refer to the vast crowds around Jesus 5 times in this chapter.  He no where again refers to the crowds so often, even though Jesus is in the midst of crowds all through this Gospel.  The crowd here, however, is very specifically described as no where else.  It is unique and impressive.  The popularity of Jesus had spread across the land.  Jesus was no local preacher, but had national and even international fame.  The crowd from Galilee in the North was joined by many from Judea in the South.  They were coming from Maine to Florida is what we would say using our geography.  From end of the country to the other people were flocking to Jesus.  Mark adds from Jerusalem to show that though the leaders of Israel were out to kill Jesus, the people saw Jesus as a friend.  Sometimes people know more than their leaders.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Mark adds that people came from Idumea and the region across the Jordan.  It is surprising to note that this is the only place in the New Testament where Idumea is used.  It is the land of the sons of Esau; the land of the Edomites, the traditional enemies of Israel.  Yet the fame of Jesus had spread across the Jordan to those people, and they came over the Jordan to expand the massive crowd that followed Jesus.  Finally, Mark records that the people also came from Tyre and Sidon, the two great cities of the Phonecians.  The crowds were a mixed multitude of both Jews and Gentiles.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     There was no discrimination in the ministry of Jesus.  He healed people of all races and nations.  He was a friend to all, and He died for all.  Jesus is getting a taste of what He will experience in eternity.  In Rev. 7:9 we read, "..there was before me a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne."  John goes on to say they were shouting, "Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb." Jesus will be popular forever among people's of all the world.  We see it already in His life on earth in this crowd chapter of Mark.  Jesus was the most popular person of His day, and He will be the most popular person for all eternity.  There was a price to pay for this popularity, however, and that price was loss of privacy.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     This is one of the costs involved in the motto, we will follow the Lord to win the lost at any cost.  We tend to think in terms of time and money, but these are even easier to give up than to give up privacy.  But this is what it takes to break down the walls between the Christian and the world in order to reach the world.  Billy Graham learned this, and it is a major price he had to pay to be used of God.  "Billy is often asked, "Does being a public figure bother you?"  "Yes," replies the evangelist.  "One of the most difficult things I have had to face was the lost of personal privacy.  I did not seek the publicity, and how it all came about I truthfully don't know.  I'd much rather be the minister of a small parish somewhere, but Ruth I and decided long ago that as it was this way, we'd go ahead with it.  Years before I discovered that if your wife is behind what you are doing, the path becomes much smoother."  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Graham often comes home after a long time away in crusades, and even though he lives in the mountains, tourists find him and he has to visit with them.  But over the years he has led scores of individuals to Christ in his own study.  In every eight hour period there are fifty long distance phone calls to his home.  This, of course, is beyond human endurance, and so most of them are diverted to assistants.  He has to eat alone because if he tries to eat in public he is recognized, and people want to express their gratitude and get his autograph.  It may sound glamorous, and we all think we would love such attention, but the fact is, it gets old very fast, and is a burden rather than a blessing.  When Graham tried to visit Disneyland he had to give up in half an hour, and when he took his son to the New York World's Fair they only got to three pavilions before the friendly mob made it impossible to go on. </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The price Graham has paid to win the lost is his privacy, and that is no small price.  Every once in awhile he says to his associate T. W. Wilson, "Wouldn't it be a tremendous relief just to have a little pastorate and preach three sermons on Sunday and visit a few people, and see lots of our families and play plenty of golf?"  Envy is a two way street, and many who envy Graham are also envied by him.  It is a heavy price to pay when you have to sacrifice your privacy to serve Christ.  But that is the price Jesus paid to save us.  Once He began His public ministry Jesus was seldom able to find privacy.  His life was so hectic that His family seriously felt He was having mental problems from the stress of it.  Verse 20 says the crowd so filled the house where He was that He and His disciples were not even able to eat.  What a reverse of the feeding of the 5000.  There He fed the crowd, and here the crowd is keeping them from being fed.  Jesus did not feed every crowd, and here was a case where He was so busy He didn't even feed Himself.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The next verse tells us His family was fed up with the whole business of His perpetual business with the crowds.  They came to restrain Him, for they said He was out of His mind.  If your son or brother worked from morning to night day after day dealing with masses of people pushing and shouting, and trying to get near Him, and He was so dedicated He didn't even eat right, or get His rest, what would you think?  I have a hunch most of us would say, "Son, you must be out of your mind."  They didn't know that He only had a short time to live, and He just as well use His strength in service rather than conserve it for no good reason.  Jesus was burning the candle at both ends, for there was no end to the human needs about Him, and He knew He was going to die in the prime of life.  But for those who loved Him, He was running a 24 hour three ring circus, and they felt He was losing  it and cracking up.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The fact is, Jesus did experience a lot of stress, and when His disciples were able to stay awake and keep going, He needed to sleep.  He would send them into town for supplies, and He would stay by the well and rest.  Jesus pushed Himself to the limit, but He did not demand the same from His disciples.  He would rise and pray long before their day began, and He did not scold them for not rising with Him.  His plan was not that they all die at 33, but live on to spread the Gospel to all the world.  Jesus did not expect any of His followers to burn out in 3 years, so there are somethings that Jesus did that are not for our example.  If you know you are going to die in the prime of life, then it would be legitimate to be fanatical and burn the candle at both ends, but Jesus does not demand that of us.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Jesus is our example in the area of privacy.  There are two things He did in relationship to privacy that are guidelines for all Christians.  He searched for privacy, and He sacrificed privacy.  This sounds paradoxical that He would both search for it and sacrifice it, but this is what the record shows.  It is part of the whole battle for balance in the ideal life, and Jesus was able to keep that balance by both finding and giving up His privacy.  We want to look at each side of this struggle, and start with-</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>I.  HIS SEARCH FOR PRIVACY. </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Jesus taught His disciples to enter into their closets to pray, and to not be like the hypocrites who love to pray in public and make it  a matter of public display.  God hears the private prayers of believers and rewards them.  Public prayer is a high risk practice, for it leaves you open to pride.  We never see Jesus praying in public except to give thanks for food, and for the raising of Lazarus.  He only prayed very brief sentence prayers, and not once did He give a lengthily prayer in public.  The only long prayer we have of Jesus is the one in John 17 which was given in the upper room with only His disciples present.  This is a comforting fact for many Christians, for they do not feel comfortable in public prayer.  There is no New Testament goal of trying to get Christians to learn to pray in public.  The goal of Jesus is that we learn to pray privately, and this is what He practiced Himself.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     I remember A. W. Tozer saying that he felt it was very unbiblical and wrong for any person to tell another person to lead us in public prayer.  Prayer is a matter between an individual and God, and is not to be assigned at the whim of someone else.  I have done it as have many of you, but the point is, there is nothing Biblical about it.  It is just a popular custom.  Jesus always sought to be alone, and to pray in private.  We do not even see Him calling for small group prayer with His disciples.  Alfred North Whitehead said, "Religion is solitariness and if you are never solitary you are never religious."  In other words, it is in privacy that you validate your religious faith.  The person who only has a public faith has no faith at all, for it is mere show.  If a person is only publicly religious, he is a hypocrite, for his religion has only the intent to please men and not God.  The religious faith of such a person is nothing more than an act, and has nothing to do with a relationship to God.  A relationship to God by its very nature has to be private.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Their is the social side to religious faith as well, but it is much ado about nothing if there is no private foundation. If you do not love God, loving your neighbor is of no value religiously, even though it has humanistic value. All that Jesus did for man grew out of his private and personal relationship  to God and commitment to do the Father's will.  Mark tells us in vv. 13-19 of how Jesus went up  into the hills to get away from the crowd to appoint his 12 apostles. Dr. Luke tells us he spent the night in private prayer before he did this. The disciples came to Jesus privately on a number of occasions to ask him to clarify his teaching in his parables. Jesus had to spend a lot of time with his 12 disciples in private and closed sessions to keep them ahead of the masses of disciples who followed him.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The example of his life teaches us this: You have to develop your private relationship to God to be all you can be spiritually. There is no substitute for this private devotion. Now we do not know precisely what Jesus did in his private time because they were private and not open to even the Gospel writers.  He prayed is about all we know.  But the very secrecy and silence on this issue gives a loud message.  Private devotion is to be private.  It is personal and individual and does not have to conform to anyone else's practice or conviction. That which blesses many leaves me cold.  I have never once been able to enjoy devotions by reading a chapter out of a devotional book.  I gave that up in college and developed my own method for devotions.  I share this because I know many feel guilty because they cannot seem to develop a devotional time that corresponds with what they have read and been told.  My advice is to find a way to learn of God, and relate to Him that fits your personality and schedule.  It is a private matter and will not be meaningful until it fits who you are.  Now, let's look at the other side-</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>II.  THE SACRIFICE OF HIS PRIVACY.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Jesus refused to become a religious loner who forsakes society to go off into the desert to pray and meditate, and to spend His life relating to God alone.  The monk finds no example in our Lord.  He was a social Savior, and He gave up a major portion of His private life to seek, save, and to serve the lost.  He sometimes had to give up more than He wanted to, or even intended to.  Once He became a public figure He often lost His choice, just as we have seen with Billy Graham.  Jesus tried to get away and could not.  He sought for privacy and did not find it.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     In Gethsemane Jesus was involved with the intimate spiritual struggle of His life with His heavenly Father, and He wanted His disciples to watch and stand guard over His privacy.  He was greatly disappointed that they fell asleep, and could not watch with Him even one hour to assure He would not be interrupted.  Jesus gave up more even than what was necessary because of the impossibility of regulating human choices.  The crowds, and even His disciples, did not always cooperate, and He could not leave them free and still control their choices.  The result was that Jesus sacrificed His privacy, not only willingly, but also by the necessity of circumstances beyond His control.  By so doing Jesus has fully identified with the stress filled life of the popular public figure.  He sacrificed His private life for the sake of a public cause greater than His privacy.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     It is not only Billy Graham that needs to see this, but all Christian workers who feel the pressure and wonder if the sacrifice of so much of their private life is worth it to serve the cause of Christ.  Ledia Munsell shares the experience of five girls who were on their first vacation together two years after their graduation.  They were all busy workers with people, and this is how their conversation developed.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>          "I dearly love my work," said one of them, </B></div> <div> <B>          "But sometimes it seems to me I would give</B></div> <div> <B>          anything to get away from people awhile.  I</B></div> <div> <B>          never have a quiet moment to myself.  There </B></div> <div> <B>          is always someone who wants to see me.  Do</B></div> <div> <B>          the rest of you ever feel that way?"  </B></div> <div> <B>          "Oh, yes," said one; and "Yes," sighed another,</B></div> <div> <B>          "I feel as though I would like to go off to a desert</B></div> <div> <B>          island where I would not see a soul."  Then Mary</B></div> <div> <B>          Vaine spoke.  "I know  just how you feel.  I have</B></div> <div> <B>          felt the same way.  But when it seems to me I </B></div> <div> <B>          can not stand it any longer I think of how the </B></div> <div> <B>          throngs follow Jesus.  He never turned any </B></div> <div> <B>          away.  He must have been very weary at times,</B></div> <div> <B>          But He was never impatient with the crowd.  That</B></div> <div> <B>          thought has helped me so often."  There was </B></div> <div> <B>          silence for a moment, then the first speaker </B></div> <div> <B>          said, "I had not thought of that, but it does </B></div> <div> <B>          help."  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     When you are giving up time in Christian service that you could be giving to achieve personal and family goals, remember, that is the price Jesus paid.  He does not expect us to burn out in three years like He did, but He does expect that all who follow Him be willing to make some sacrifice of privacy.  Nobody can do it all, and that is why Jesus chose the 12.  They could not do it all either.  Nobody and no group can meet the needs that are endless, but all can do a share of sacrificing to serve the cause of Christ.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     It is a busy world, and life is full of more than any of us can do.  We have to sacrifice every day out of necessity, just because we are not ten people.  But the issue we need to focus on in the light of our Lord's example is this:  How much do we search for privacy, and how  much of the world do we give up to develop our relationship with God?  How much do we sacrifice our privacy to give our life to the public causes of the kingdom of God?  To love God with all our heart is to seek privacy.  To love our neighbor as ourselves is to sacrifice privacy.  I challenge you to evaluate your Christian life in the light of this truth, for to truly be a disciple of Christ involves the seeking and sacrificing of your privacy.</B></div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>PUZZLING APPOINTMENTS  Based on Mark 3:13-19</B></div> <div> <B>By Pastor Glenn Pease</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Jamie Buckingham is one of the great preachers and authors whose books have sold in the millions.  What I like about him is that he makes so many comical blunders in his ministry that he makes other pastors feel less threatened by their human errors.  If you sometimes feel like your life is a comedy of errors, you will be relieved to know you are not alone.  In one solemn service where he was piously leading his people to a point of silence, he bowed and heard laughter rippling across his congregation.  It suddenly dawned on him as his mind replayed what he had just said:  "Please bow your eyes and close your heads." </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     On another occasion he was to officiate at a formal wedding, and he came into the sanctuary directly from the restroom.  He did not realize until he was in front of all those people that stuck to his shoe and trailing behind was an eight foot stream of toilet paper.  Seldom to never is this fitting for formal occasions, regardless of the beauty of the pattern.  Even more embarrassing, if that is possible, was when he put his hand on a casket at the front of the church, and the flimsy stand it was on gave way.  It was not the send off he had planned. </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Most laughable of all, because it has come close to happening to many pastors, is the time he baptized a very large woman on an Easter morning.  She displaced far more water than he had anticipated.  The overflow rushed into his waders, and filled them to the brim.  When the woman came up, the water went down leaving him stranded in the middle of the baptistry with 400 pounds of water in his boots.  He was rooted to the bottom of the baptistry and could not budge.  Before an entire Easter congregation he had to lower his suspenders and crawl out of his boots in his underwear.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Have you ever wondered why God choses the people He choses, and why He lets the leaders of His people do so many strange, foolish, and embarrassing things?  They could be multiplied by the millions you know.  Maybe it is just because God loves a good laugh, and the angels never blunder, and so He has to get His enjoyment through men.  I do not doubt that God is entertained by the silly mistakes of His people, just as we are by those of our children and grandchildren.  But I think there is another reason for why God chooses men who fumble and blow it time after time.  I think the reason becomes more and more evident as we study the 12 men that Jesus chose to be His special disciples who would become the 12 Apostles.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     You do not have to examine these hand picked men for very long before you realize they were a fallible lot who added their share of blunders and folly to a world already in the flood stages of this stuff.  We must assume that these 12 were the creme of the crop, but it seems incredible how soon they begin to exhibit that they are often sour cream.  We all know about Judus, of course, and that is a whole issue in itself.  The rest of these men are not exactly paragons of virtue, and knights on white horses in shining armor.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The fact is, some feel that the greatest miracle Jesus ever performed was His endurance of these men as they blunder their way through to the point of their final desertion of Him as He goes to the cross.  Never did 12 men ever change the course of history like these 12, but never did a noted leader ever have more trouble with His followers than Jesus had with these 12.  I do not like to be critical of the judgment of Jesus, but the New Testament evidence forces us to ask, why in the world did Jesus choose this bunch?  Did they lie on their resumes, and did Jesus not check them out and call former employers?  Did Jesus turn off His deity, and go only by His human feelings in making these choices?  These questions are motivated by the New Testament evidence which reveals to us that which we want to study.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>THE NATURE OF THE 12.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     If there was anything extraordinary about these men, it is not evident to the naked eye.  Jesus was debating theology at 12 years old, but none of the 12 were sharp theologians.  They did not understand what Jesus was teaching most of the time, and He was perpetually giving them private tutoring to help them grasp His parables.  In Mark 4:13 Jesus said to them, "Don't you understand this parable?  How then will you understand any parable?"  Then He went on to explain the parable of the sower.  You can detect the frustration in the voice of Jesus.  It is the teacher's frustration with students who cannot see the obvious.  It is like asking, "When the war of 1812?  Or who is buried in Grant's tomb?"  The student is puzzled as he searches for an answer.  "Magellan made three trips around the world, and on one of them he died.  Which one was it?"  The teacher begins to lose patients when the student cannot come up with an answer to such questions.  How will they ever answer a hard question if they cannot answer these?</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The frustration of Jesus grows as they seem to get stupider with each lesson.  In Mark 8 Jesus warns them to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, and they get into a discussion about bread.  In Mark 8:17-18 we read, "Aware of their discussion, Jesus asked them, 'Why are you talking about having no bread?  Do you still not see or understand?  Are your hearts hardened?  Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear?  And don't you remember?'"  He goes on to explain again what He means.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Jesus, the greatest teacher who ever lived, and He is stuck with a class of boneheads.  But its hard to feel sorry for Jesus, after all, He chose them to be His students.  Most teachers just have to take what they get.  Jesus had a choice, and these were the ones He picked.  Some people like a challenge, and Jesus was one of them, but we see signs of regret that make us wonder if He would make the same choices if He had to do it over again.  In Matt. 15:15-16 Peter says, "Explain the parables to us."  Jesus replies, "Are you still so dull?"  It is obvious Jesus did not select these 12 on the basis of their school records or IQ.  Peter is the leader, and he is about as sharp as a tack after its been run over by a train on the track.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Peter had some high points where he pulled an A, like the time when in Caesarea Philippi he said to Jesus, "You are the Christ the Son of the Living God."  That was the best answer he ever gave to a question Jesus asked, and Jesus praised him as never before.  But 6 verses later, after Jesus said He must go to Jerusalem and die and rise again, we read this response from Peter that puts him back to nerdsville.  Matt. 16:22 says, "Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.  "Never Lord!" he said, "This shall never happen to you."  With the disappointment of a teacher whose A student has just flunked, Jesus says in verse 23, "Out of my sight, Satan!  You are a stumbling block to me..."  In John 13 Peter cries out, "No you shall never wash my feet."  Jesus has to rebuke him again.  Here was the leader of the 12, and he had to be dragged into understanding, kicking, screaming, and resisting all the way.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The others were no better, however, and how Jesus must have envied the Rabbi's who had students who learned rapidly and who obeyed their precepts. But lets not forget, they were not assigned to him, and they did not apply.  He chose them, and that is the mystery-why?  Why these puzzling appointments?  They seem like rejects who were the least likely to succeed.  Even after all that Jesus taught was fulfilled in the resurrection, these guys were the last to let the evidence penetrate their thick skulls.  If you think this is being disrespectful to the noble company of the Apostles, let me point out that I am only reporting what the record reveals.   Mark 16:14 reveals our Lords closing remarks to this chosen band.  "Later Jesus appeared to the eleven as they were eating; He rebuked them for their lack of faith and their stubborn refusal to believe those who had seen Him after He had risen."  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     No wonder Jesus  once complained in Mark 9:19, "How long must I put up with you guys?"  Jesus could not have had a harder time training His elite band had He chosen them from the hells angels.  We haven't even scratched the surface of the negative file on these men.  It is thick with blotted records of their self-centeredness.  In Mark 9:33-34 we read that when they entered the house in Capernaum Jesus asked them, "What were you arguing about on the road?  But they kept quiet because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest."  Don't kid yourself that Jesus can't identify with teachers of kids.  These men were just like Jr. boys fighting over whose father or brother was the biggest or strongest. Two of them, James and John, even cooked up a scheme by which their mother was to help them get the right and left hand seats next to Jesus when He was king.  The other disciples were so angry at this, mainly because they did not think of it first.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Jesus had to spend a great deal of His time and energy dealing with discipline problems.  A lot of His teaching was just to get this elite class of His to grow up and act like men instead of the brat brigade.  As with every new idea, there is a period where the bugs have to be worked out.  Jesus was building His church on the foundation  of these chosen men, and talk about bugs!  It is hard to believe He ever shaped these men into a team that would turn the world upside down.  You would think Jesus would have learned a lesson from the Old Testament.  God chose the Jews to be His special people, and what a lemon of a choice.  Sure, He was able to make lemonade and accomplish His purpose, and bring the Messiah into the world as the seed of Abraham, but what a job.  They were so rebellious, stiff-necked, and slow to learn.  God was rebuking and judging them most of the time.  And yet after all this history Jesus turns around and starts the New Israel, then new people of God with 12 guys who do not look like a greatly improved product over the 12 sons of Jacob that God used to start the old people of God.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Are we to conclude that even God does not learn from history, and is, therefore, condemned to repeat it?  Let's face it, there is a lot of mystery as to why Jesus would chose these particular men.  Even more so, since we know He had other options.  These 12 were not the only men who qualified to be one of the 12.  Peter in Acts 1 tells us the requirements to be one of the 12.  They had to be men who were with Jesus from the beginning, from the baptism of John until Jesus ascended to heaven.  There were more than the 12 who could fill these requirements.  They proposed two men, Joseph and Matthias, and Matthias won by the drawing of lots.  The point is, here were two men who qualified to be of the 12, but they were not chosen.  12 was the cut off number even though Jesus could have had at least 14, and no doubt many more.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The 12 was obviously a symbolic number that Jesus insisted on maintaining.  He later sent out 70 to preach, heal, and cast out demons.  All of the 70 probably could have qualified to be an Apostle, but the number 12 was not to be tampered with.  It was to be no more or no less.  When Judas was dead they voted in another to bring the 11 back up to 12, for 12 was the sacred number.  Commentators are in agreement that Jesus was clearly saying that He was the new king of a New Israel.  The 12 tribes failed to fulfill God's purpose to be a blessing to all the families of the world.  His 12 would not fail, but would fulfill the promise of God, and they have.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>      Jesus and His 12 were a public symbol that He was the Messiah, and His 12 disciples were the beginning of the New Israel.  The number 12 was not to be changed either in the Old Testament or the New.  Jacob had 12 sons, but he also had two grandsons by Joseph named Ephraim and Manasseh, and these two were counted as one tribe.  But this would make for 13, and in order to keep it at 12 the Levites were not counted, for they had no land.  But if they were counted the two grandsons would not be, for it always had to be an even 12.  This important symbolism would be shattered if Jesus had appointed 11 or 13, or any other number but 12.  This number is maintained all through the Bible right to the very end where we read in Rev. 21 that the New Jerusalem has 12 gates, and on them the names of the 12 tribes of Israel, and 12 foundations with the names of the 12 Apostles.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     There is perfect and precise consistency on this number 12.  It is so easy to be orderly with numbers.  Precision and accuracy is characteristic of the mathematical sciences, but this does not mean that the 12 men themselves can be tied together in such a neat package.  There is no way to avoid loose ends and complexity when you are dealing with men and so we are back to the mystery of the issue we are seeking to understand.  Why did Jesus chose these particular 12 men when a blind man can see they are such fallible specimens of humanity.  If he had other choices, why did He choose them, and why does He go on all through history choosing to use instruments which are so weak and inadequate, and who blunder as often as they bless?  We are questioning the choices of God and His Son.  As someone said, "How odd of God to choose the Jews, "And another mystery is why did He choose the 12? </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>      We have asked the question enough times.  Now we must start trying to answer it.  First of all, we need to see that the Bible reveals that the God of perfection deliberately chooses imperfect instruments to accomplish His purpose.  For one thing, if He is going to use men then He really has no choice but to use imperfect instruments.  That is all there is, and even God has to settle for less than perfection in all except His Son.  His options are not the good or the bad, but the bad and the less bad.  God is infinite but His choices are not.  Even He has to live within the limits of the reality that is.  He does not have the choice to use just perfect people and ideal instruments, and so He does just what we do, He uses what is.  But God goes further yet, and He even deliberately chooses to use less than the best of what is available.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     There were peoples in the world who were better than Israel.  The Egyptians, Assyrians, and Babylonians, not to mention the Greeks or the Romans, would have been better choices.  They had more power, and more in the way of civilization and arts, and we could go on and on about their superiority to Israel.  God did not choose Israel because she was the best choice.  She was a nothing; a zip, and a zero with the rim off.  God even calls her an abandoned baby left in her blood to die.  Yet god chose her, not for what she could do for God, but what God could do for her, and with her.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The same is true for Christ's choice of the 12.  They were not the best men in the world.  They were extraordinarily ordinary.  Jesus does just as the Father did in the Old Testament.  It is God's way, and Paul described it so clearly in I Cor. 1:27-28, "But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.  He chose the lowly things of the world and the despised things, and the things that are not, to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before Him."  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     God deliberately uses inferior tools to build His kingdom so that the beauty of all He creates can be attributed to Him and His wisdom and not to the cleverness of men.  It is sheer folly to praise Israel for anything she has done, or to praise the church, for that matter, for its turning the world upside down, and changing the course of  history.  The glory does not belong to the 12, or the 70, or the 120 at Pentecost, or to the millions of Christian servants through the centuries.  The glory is God's alone, and all praise is to the Lamb who by the fallible instruments of men has succeeded in building a universal empire greater than any ever seen, and one that will go on forever.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The amazing good news in all this is, you don't have to worry about being qualified to be used of God.  If you lack self-esteem and feel ungifted and inadequate, do not fret, for that makes you just the sort of person God can use if you surrender your inadequacy to Him.  He specializes in using people who are not fit for the job.  The reason is simple, for when God does a beautiful thing through such an inadequate channel both the channel and those who see it cannot fail to recognize the grace of God.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     I have a suspicion that the greatest untapped resource in this world for the kingdom of God is the mass of ordinary Christians who feel unqualified to do just about anything.  They feel unable to teach, and incapable of witnessing, and unprepared to achieve any task for the kingdom.  They become pew potatoes because they think the Lord of perfection will take none but the best.  Give of your best to the Master is a song we sing, and we look at our best and say its second and third rate, and He deserves better, so we let only the gifted people do the job.  This misses the whole point that God's strength is made perfect in weakness.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Job said, "I abhor myself."</B></div> <div> <B>Moses said, "Pick somebody else, I'm no good at speaking."</B></div> <div> <B>Isaiah said, "I am a man of unclean lips."</B></div> <div> <B>David cried out, "My sin is ever before me."</B></div> <div> <B>Peter said, "Depart from me, for I am a wicked man."</B></div> <div> <B>Paul said, "The evil which I would not, that I do."</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     If you want to find dirt on God's elect, and the elite among the elect, take a shovel for you will find plenty.  Why does God use such vessels of clay?  Because, that is His strategy.  He wants to show a fallen, lost, and sinful humanity that anybody can be used for the glory of God.  Don't ever use your weakness and inadequacy as an excuse for not being a more useful Christian.  It won't hold water.  If  yo surrender who and what you are to Him, He can do wonders through you just as He did through the 12.  It is possible that you will make even fewer blunders than they did.  Jesus chose the 12, not for what they were, but for what they could become.  It was their potential that made them His choice.  What is your potential for being a disciple?  Certainly you can be used just as well as these puzzling appointments.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     </B></div> <div> <B>CHRIST AND CRITICISM Based on Mark 3:20-30</B></div> <div> <B>By Pastor Glenn Pease</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Some years back at the University of Wisconsin a group of literary students formed a club.  The purpose of the club was to criticize.  The members would submit a story, and it would be dissected mercilessly with no punches pulled.  The sessions were so brutal that the club members dubbed themselves, "The Stranglers."  This was a masculine club only, so the girls on campus formed "The Wranglers."  They read manuscripts also, but the criticism was much gentler, and more constructive.  Every effort, however feeble, was encouraged.  20 years later an alumnus made an analysis of his classmates careers.  He discovered that not one of the Stranglers had made a literary career of any kind, but out of the Wranglers had come half a dozen successful writers.  The Stranglers had fulfilled their name well.  They took developing talent and by excessive criticism they strangled it.  The Wranglers by use of constructive criticism lifted struggling talent to its feet so it could climb to success.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     There are  few things more destructive and harmful then criticism.  The only sin Jesus ever said was unforgivable is directly connected with criticism, for blasphemy of the Holy Spirit means to speak against the spirit with scornful and malignant criticism.  There is a legitimate place for expressing critical feelings.  It is just that it is a delicate matter.  It is almost as delicate as trying to catch soap bubbles on a pin.  Dr. Curtis Hutson says we must make distinctions in criticism.</B></div> <div> <B>There is:</B></div> <div> <B>1.  Destructive criticism.  Jesus forbids this when He says, "Judge not."  It is a desire to damage and destroy. </B></div> <div> <B>2.  Deluded criticism.  The brother with the log hanging out of his eye trying to help another get the speck out of his eye.  This is folly.</B></div> <div> <B>3.  Discriminating criticism.  Jesus says, "Give not that which is holy to dogs, and don't cast your pearls before swine."   You have to be critical and make judgments to avoid being stupid.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Jesus was critical of the Pharisees.  </B></div> <div> <B>Paul was critical of the Judaisers.</B></div> <div> <B>Christians are critical of the cults.</B></div> <div> <B>Americans are critical of communists.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Criticism is what keeps us on the right path.  It is essential in our form of government that wrong actions be criticized.  The world is full of valid criticism. Wise and mature Christians need to develop a critical spirit by which they test all things, and hold to that which is true.  But we are looking at that negative critical spirit which makes us agents of evil and quenchers of the spirit.  By a spirit of pride we easily think we are experts in all areas, and can make critical judgments of the works of others.   The poet illustrates the point.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>               "That owl up there, </B></div> <div> <B>               Said the man in the chair,</B></div> <div> <B>               Is stuffed all wrong, I do declare.</B></div> <div> <B>               See the feet-wrong size!</B></div> <div> <B>               Wrong feathers, wrong eyes."</B></div> <div> <B>               And the barber kept on shaving,</B></div> <div> <B>               And, then when the man in the chair got through,</B></div> <div> <B>               The owl hopped off its perch and it flew,</B></div> <div> <B>               And the barber kept on shaving.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>  CRITICISM IS INEVITABLE.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The life of Jesus makes it clear that even perfection cannot escape the poisonous tongue of the critic. One author wrote, "Be thou chaste as the lily, be thou as pure as the unsullied snow, thou canst not escape criticism!"  If the very Son of God, with perfect love and wisdom, doing only the will of God, which is always the best for man, and fully fulfilling the highest ideals of man, could be called a devil, then let us not hope to do better, and get through life without criticism.  We have so much to be justly criticized for,  but Jesus did only good, and yet He was accused of being an agent of Satan.  Because of ignorance, even his own family thought he was losing his mind, and they wanted to stop his ministry.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The criticism here is so vile and vulgar that it is unbelievable that the tongue of man could pronounce such blasphemy.  The Pharisees said Jesus had power to cast out demons because He was possessed by the prince of demons.  Beelzebub was the fly-god of the Philistines, also known as the dung-god, for flies and the dung heap would be naturally connected.  This low and foul criticism was directed, not at the blood thirsty Romans who delighted in seeing Gladiators kill one another; not at the pious frauds who prayed on the street corner, but secretly devoured widows houses by unjust maneuvers, but, rather, at the perfect and sinless Son of God.  His life was pure and undefiled that the shedding of His blood washed away our sin, and made it possible for us to become white as snow.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     What a lesson this teaches us about life.  It shows us that any person who wants to succeed as a servant of God is going to have to learn how to cope with criticism.  If criticism is a weapon that will stop you, then you can plan on not getting very far.  John Henry Newman said, "Nothing would be done at all if a man waited till he could do it so well that no one could find fault with it."  Those who do anything will be criticized.  As soon as any person lifts his head above the level of mediocrity he will be shot at.  Any person who insists on making his life useful will be open game for the critics.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     When Sir John Simon held the unpopular post of Chancellor of the Exchequer in England, his wife embroidered this on the living room wall to keep him ever conscious of the price one must pay to escape criticism:  "To escape criticism, say nothing, do nothing, be nothing."  This is bound to work, for no one kicks a dead dog.  Be like a dead dog and you will have tranquillity, but as soon as you come alive you will be criticized.  Addison said, "There is no defense against criticism except obscurity."  This does work marvelously, for we see it working even for Jesus.  He really had it nice as an unknown carpenter.  Had He continued in this obscure role He could have lived a tranquil life and died possibly without an enemy.  All of His troubles began when He threw off the cover of obscurity, and launched out into public life.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Jesus dignified the common peaceful life, but He had more to do than cut another common rut.  He had a job to do which called for plowing right across the ruts of society, and forcing men to stop and ask themselves where they are going, and if they are on the right road.  Jesus began to teach with authority; to heal with great power, and to influence public opinion about life, God, and salvation.  Jesus began to rock the boat, and those of the establishment who defended the status quo, and were satisfied with the old ruts, saw that it was either Him or them that had to go.  There is always a crisis when the new challenges the old, for it is a duel unto death.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     In the beginning the weapons of combat are words.  If one can win by verbal attacks and drive the opposition into obscurity by undermining public confidence, then there will be no need for physical violence.  This is exactly the strategy of the Pharisees in our text.  If they can get the people to believe Jesus is so powerful because He is an agent of Satan, they will have saved their positions as the righteous leaders of Israel.  They lost, however, on the level of words, and had to resort to nails to silence Jesus.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     We know Jesus never could have allowed their bitter and malicious criticism to cause Him to forsake His mission.  The salvation of the world depended on His fulfilling God's will regardless of the cost.  We can not doubt, however, that it was a heavy burden for Christ to bear.  Driving nails into His hands could not have wounded Him more than these vicious verbal darts thrown at Him, saying that His loving service was really only a trick of the devil.  This had to hurt Jesus deeply, for it took people away from following Him.  The ministry of Jesus was hurt by criticism.  In His own town of Nazareth He could do no mighty works because of the critics who said that He could not be the Messiah, for He was only the Son of a carpenter.  In the wrong hands criticism can even hinder the work of Christ.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     History is filled with victims of the critics.  Most great men of music and art have become so, not because of lack of critics, but in spite of them.  Most good politicians serve their country well, not because they are allowed to go uncriticized, but in spite of their critics.  Some have died of broken hearts, and others have bled with deep wounds.  Thomas Jefferson, for example, said, "I find the pain of a little censure, even when it is unfounded, is more acute than the pleasure of much praise."  In spite of His sensitivity to criticism, however, He took much slander and survived.  George Washington and Abraham Lincoln were both slandered maliciously, and called everything from murderers to ape, yet they refused to be strangled into defeat.  Lincoln said, </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     "If I were to try to read, much less answer all the attacks</B></div> <div> <B>     made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other</B></div> <div> <B>     business.  I do the very best I can; and I mean to keep doing</B></div> <div> <B>     so until the end.  If the end brings me out all right, what is said</B></div> <div> <B>     against me won't amount to anything.  If the end brings me out</B></div> <div> <B>     wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference."</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Lincoln was too busy doing his best to be defeated by criticism.  No one with a worthy goal can afford to forsake that goal because of critics.  If politicians must face the sharp knife of criticism, and not draw back, but steadfastly march ahead, how much more should the Christian be willing to suffer the same for the name of Christ.  Let the critics tongue lash and cut, it can never be as bad as what Jesus had to suffer for us.  He gave up tranquility for hell that we might escape hell and gain eternal tranquility.  God forbid that we should now be silent concerning our love for Him because we fear criticism. We need to have the attitude of Epictetus who said, "If you hear that someone is speaking ill of you, instead of trying to defend yourself you should say he obviously does not know me very well, since there are so many other faults he could have mentioned."</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Another challenge for us in this study of criticism is to examine ourselves lest we slip in among the stranglers unaware.  We must constantly examine our motives for criticism.  Do we criticize because we hope to help the one we feel should be doing better, or is our criticism a mere running off at the mouth because we get pleasure in making life harder for those who are doing something in an area of life where we are doing nothing?  The poet said, </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>          When you hark to the  voice of the knocker,</B></div> <div> <B>               As you list to his hammer fall,</B></div> <div> <B>          Remember the fact that the knocking act</B></div> <div> <B>               Requires no brains at all.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The dove flies over the landscape and sees all that is lovely and peaceful, but the buzzard and vulture flies over the same area and spots a loathsome carcass. The dead carcass is just as real as the flower, but the Christian is to be dovelike and look for the good and not the evil. It is a matter of focus. We are to be aware of the evil and the defects all about us, but still focus on what is good and virtuous, and make that our emphasis. A focus on the negative tends to make one negative. We do need to be aware of our own defects, however, so we do not become judgmental of others.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>                    Said the elephant to the giraffe</B></div> <div> <B>                    "Your neck is too long by one half."</B></div> <div> <B>                    He replied, "Since your nose</B></div> <div> <B>                    Reaches down to your toes,</B></div> <div> <B>                    At others you'd better not laugh.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Keith Miller in his book Habitations of Dragons tells of his critical spirit toward other Christian speakers, especially if they spoke to the same groups he did. He realized that he was threatened by those who had gifts that he did not have. He looked for weaknesses in others to assure himself that they were not better than him. So much criticism comes from our own insecurity. We want everyone to like us, and we feel if people like someone else they will not like us, and so we want to criticize others to keep ourselves on top and well liked. We forget that people can like many other people and not like us less because of it. We fear to lose the affection of others and so we criticize those who we feel are competitors for affection. This actually produces the very thing we fear, for nobody likes a criticizer. We need to see what we are doing and confess it to get rid of it.</B></div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>     It doesn't take much size to criticize.  Christian criticism ought always to be constructive, for this takes brains, and we are commanded to love God with all our mind.  What we haven't said could fill volumes, but what we have said can fill your life with Christlike determination and concern.  We have said that criticism is inevitable if you do anything worthwhile, so never let it stop you, and as you move ahead make sure you are not holding others back by abusive criticism.  God grant us the heart to take the cruelty of criticism, and the head to avoid handing it out.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>      </B></div> <div> <B>RUIN WITHOUT REMEDY  Based on Mark 3:22-30</B></div> <div> <B>By Pastor Glenn Pease</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     A certain seer warned Caesar to be on guard against a great peril on the day of March which the Romans called Ides.  When the day came and Caesar was on his way to the senate house he greeted the seer with a jest, and said, "Well, the Ides of March are come."  "Aye," said the seer.  "They are come, but they are not gone."  In other words, the warning would not be proven false until the day ended, and as we know, the Ides of March prove to be the last of Caesar.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Jesus gave His critics a very serious warning; in fact, the danger was so great that there is nothing else to equal it.  He warned them concerning the unforgivable sin.  It is such a terrible thing to consider that many prefer to ignore it, and others just dismiss it as a sin that could only be committed by people in the day of Christ, and it does not concern us now.  They would dismiss the warning with a Caesar-like, "Well, that danger is past and gone."  But the Sovereign Seer, our Savior, I fear would reply, "Aye, that danger is past, but it is not over.  It is also present.  It has come, but it has not gone."  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     It is unreasonable to think that Jesus would declare a sin to be unforgivable, and mean by it, it is only unforgivable if you do it now rather than later.  If blasphemy of the Holy Spirit was unforgivable before the Holy Spirit was given at Pentecost, then by what logic can it be maintained that it is not now unforgivable sense the Holy Spirit has more prominence then ever in God's plan?  If Jesus meant to limit the danger just to those Pharisees who criticized Him that day; who said He was filled with the devil, He did not make it clear, and if this was the case, there would be some weight behind Bertrand Russell's criticism of Christ in giving this warning.  Russell, the well known atheist writes in his book, Why I Am Not A Christian, concerning this passage: </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     "That text has caused an unspeakable amount of misery in the world</B></div> <div> <B>     for all sorts of people have imagined that they have committed the sin</B></div> <div> <B>     against the Holy Ghost, and thought it would not be forgiven them either</B></div> <div> <B>     in this life or in the world to come.  I really do not think that a person with</B></div> <div> <B>     a proper degree of kindliness in his nature would have put fears and terrors</B></div> <div> <B>     of that sort into the world."  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The facts of history will back him up as to the misery this warning has caused.  Doctors, psychiatrists, and preachers can testify to the fact that many people have gone insane over worry about this sin.  D. L. Moody said in his wide experience, "We have not been in a place in this country-and I think we were not in more than one or two places while we were abroad-but we found some people who thought they had committed the unpardonable sin."  We could quote from ancient history and modern days from men who find this same thing to be true.  This means that if Jesus meant only to say that this sin applied just to those who criticized Him, and to no others, but did not make it clear, he would be guilty for all this history of unnecessary agony.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     This leads us to the obvious conclusion that the warning was not just for them, but for all time.  Men can blaspheme the Holy Spirit today just as they could then. This being so, it was not unkind for Jesus to give the warning as Russell charges, but was an act of marvelous mercy.  Jesus could have let these cold-hearted cruel critics go on in their evil to a ruin without remedy, but as verse 23 makes clear, He called them aside purposely to show them their folly, and to warn them less they go beyond the point of no return.  Where can one find an act of kindness to match this?  Warning men who have just maliciously slandered you by calling you an agent of the god of flies and dung, in the hope that they might stop short of a sin beyond hope.  The vast majority of commentators agree that the Pharisees were not yet guilty of this sin, but would be if they persisted in their accusation after this warning.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     We have established then that the unforgivable sin is still possible, and will be to the end of history.  And also that to be warned of it was an act of kindness on the part of Christ, there being nothing kind about letting men plunge to their doom without warning because you didn't want to make them nervous by telling them the bridge was gone.  Any sane person would prefer the kindness that warns over the kindness that leads one blind.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The fact remains, however, that there are masses of people, and many of them Christians, who go through awful but unnecessary anguish because of this warning.   The problem is not in the warning, but in the ignorance of people concerning the warning.  The vast majority who fear they have committed this sin are dupes of the devil, and are unaware of the subtle tricks of Satan whereby he can bring even a believer to despair about his salvation.  Many men of God have had to go through real battles over this sin.  This can be avoided if we cease to be ignorant of Satan's devices.  I trust that our approach to this subject will diminish our ignorance, and give light for our own walk as well as light to help others who are in the dark.  First we want to consider what this sin is not, for this will help us clear away a great many cobwebs of misconception.  Then we will be able to see the light concerning what this sin really is. </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>I.  WHAT THE UNFORGIVABLE SIN IS NOT.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     It is not any sin that can be forgiven.  This might sound simplistic, but a great deal of misunderstanding arises because this simple truth is missed.  As you can imagine, there are a number of different ways men have interpreted the meaning of the unforgivable sin.  There is usually so much truth in each of them that one gets confused as to which can be the right interpretation.  By simply keeping in mind the fact that the unforgivable sin is not a sin that can be forgiven, you eliminate all the theories of men and narrow yourself down to the words of Christ.  For example, could the unforgivable sin be a rejection of Jesus as the Son of God?  Not a chance.  Why?  Because this sin is forgivable.  No sin is more forgivable than the rejection of Christ, for when one repents of it and receives Christ, God and all the angels of heaven rejoice.  Paul was a great Christ rejector.  He writes in I Tim. 1:13, "I formerly blasphemed and persecuted and insulted him; but I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief."  He even blasphemed Christ, but he was forgiven.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     This gives us another clue.  The unforgivable sin is not a sin you can stumble into accidentally, or perform in ignorance.   You can blaspheme God and Christ in ignorance not knowing what you are doing, but the unforgivable sin is a sin done with clear and  certain knowledge.  It is a definite sin against light.  Jesus said on the cross, "Father forgive them for they know not what they do."  Men who do grave sin like the men who crucified Christ, and like Paul who blasphemed and persecuted Him, but do so in ignorance, are forgiven.  Any sin of ignorance is forgivable, and so no person need fear they can ever stumble into this unforgivable sin unknowingly or against their will.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     This is important to understand, for it is just at this point that Satan is able to make so many miserable.  Here, for example, is part of a letter written to Dr. W. L. Northridge, a Christian doctor who deals with many Christians who are distressed about this sin.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     "I hope you will forgive me writing to you, but I feel terribly</B></div> <div> <B>     distressed.  I am worried about the unforgivable sin.  My</B></div> <div> <B>     thoughts are bad even when praying.  I confess to a Christian</B></div> <div> <B>     friend and gave her a fair idea of the bad words that come into</B></div> <div> <B>     my mind.  They are about holy personages and things, and about</B></div> <div> <B>     the Savior Himself.  I hope that these thoughts do not mean the</B></div> <div> <B>     unpardonable sin mentioned in the Gospels.  They haunt me, and</B></div> <div> <B>     force themselves on me.  Do tell me that I have not committed the</B></div> <div> <B>     unforgivable sin."  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     It was easy, of course, for him to assure her that she had not done any such thing.  Her experience was a perfectly normal one which millions of Christians go through, but which can affect sensitive Christians even to the point of a breakdown, because they are ignorant of Satan's devices.  One young married women came to Dr. Northridge, of whom there was no doubt as to her genuine Christian experience, yet she was a nervous wreck because she was obsessed with the thought that ran through her mind about damming the Holy Spirit.  Other Christians have sacrilegious and obscene thoughts about Christ and God.  None of these involuntary obsessions are even sin, let alone the unforgivable sin. The wise Christian does not suppress them, but recognizes them to be a normal possibility for anyone thinking on holy things.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The mature Christian will not give Satan advantage to use these obsessions, but will immediately take them to the Lord who knows they are involuntary, and come into your mind against your will.  He will give you assurance that you are not cut off from Him by such thoughts.  The unforgivable sin, we repeat, is not any sin that can be forgiven, or any thought that is involuntary.  We need to stress in the emphasis of Jesus that this sin is the great exception.  All other sin is forgivable.  Only this one is not.  It is distinct and in a class by itself.  Many by not paying attention to this build up elaborate explanations about hardening the heart until one cannot repent, as if this was the unforgivable sin.  They complicate the issue by making this, not an act, but a whole way of life.  This leads to a total neglect of the exceptional nature of this sin.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Many men harden their hearts by a life of crime and immorality, and they die without Christ unrepentant.  If you call this condition the unforgivable sin, you ignore completely the teaching of Christ, plus you make all sin that is never forgiven, unforgivable.  You eliminate any idea of a distinct exceptional sin as Jesus stresses.  We must be careful to distinguish between a sin that is unforgivable, and one that is never forgiven.  Any sin can be in the second category, but there is only one in the first category.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Any sin can go eternally unforgiven if it is not repented of, and this will be the case for millions of sins that are not the unforgivable sin.  The vast majority of people who will be lost will never even think of committing the unforgivable sin.  Masses will be lost who are living in all kinds of sin, but not one of which God would not gladly forgive if they repent.  Many sins will send men to hell, but not because they are unforgivable, but simply because, though forgivable, they have never been repented of and forgiven.  Now lets consider-</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>II.  WHAT IS THE UNFORGIVABLE SIN? </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Jesus defines this sin very specifically as blasphemy which is directed against the Holy Spirit.  It is not a matter of the hands that kill, the eyes that lust, or the feet that run to do evil.  It is a very specific matter of the tongue.  It is, of course, a matter of the heart as well, for the tongue draws it's material from the heart, but the act itself can only be done by speech.  The context gives us a very clear idea of what this speech is.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The Pharisees who were trying anything to undermine his popularity with the people said that the spirit of Christ, that is the origin and source of His power, was unclean.  His spirit was the spirit of evil.  It was of Beelzebub, the god of flies and dung, and the prince of demons.  This is a very unique and exceptional charge, and if you are honest you will have to admit that you have not heard anyone level such a criticism against Christ.  D.L. Moody in all his contacts around the world wrote, "Now, I have met a good many atheists and skeptics, and deists and infidels, both in this country and aboard, but I never in my life met a man or a woman that ever said or ever thought that Jesus Christ was possessed of the devil."  Many unbelievers in history has praised Jesus as a  great and marvelous man.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The point is, that though this sin is still a danger, and can still be committed, it is rare that even an unbeliever will commit it, let alone a believer.  D. L. Moody went on to say, "I don't believe any man or woman has a right to say they have committed the unpardonable sin unless they have maliciously and willfully and deliberately said that they believe that Jesus Christ had a devil in Him, and that He was under the power of the devil, and that He cast out devil's by the power of the devil."   Moody did not complicate things as so many others do.  He took the words of Scripture at face value, and saw the distinct and exceptional nature of this sin.  Let us also be fully Scriptural in our attitude about this sin.  Let us not be quick to suspect it, but give even the worse of sinners the benefit of the doubt.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     John Chrysostom said many centuries ago, "It is notorious that men who imagine that they have committed the sin against the Holy Ghost invariably become Christians and live exemplary lives."  Almost everything that men fear is unforgivable, the Lord stands waiting to forgive.  The good news is that every sin but this rare exception is forgivable.  There is more, however, to fear from common ordinary sin then from this rare exception, for it keeps only a very few, if any, out of heaven, but the great mass of the lost will be so because they never repented and asked Christ to forgive all their forgivable sins.  More tragic than this ruin without remedy is the ruined lives that are never restored when the remedy is at their fingertips.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Dr. Curtis Hutson points out that technically all sin is unforgivable.  If sin was forgivable, God was foolish to let Jesus die for our sin.  But sin is not forgivable.  It all has to be paid for.  The sinner is forgiven and pardoned, but not the sin.  God never says this sin is now okay and no problem.  The sin remains out of His will, and never gets reconciled to His holy nature.  All sin is repulsive and rejected by God, and never forgiven.  But the one who commits the sin can be pardoned and forgiven if the penalty for sin is paid.  It is sinners who are forgiven and not sins.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     There is one exception just because God cannot forgive Satan, and so He cannot forgive a sinner who becomes so one with Satan that he calls good evil and white black.  When one gets to this point one is satanic and part of the kingdom of darkness.  Anyone who comes to the point of blaspheming the Holy Spirit is one with Satan.  But why is blasphemy of the Holy Spirit worse than blasphemy of Jesus Christ?  Since they are both members of the Godhead why should one be more serious than the other?  It is because the sin of rejecting Christ was a sin of ignorance.  Even Jesus said they did not know what they were doing.  But the sin of blaspheming the Holy Spirit is not done in ignorance.  It is a deliberate calling of what is good and of God, evil, awful, and satanic.  It is a hatred of holiness.  To call the divine diabolical is a specific sin, and not just a persistent rejection of Christ.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Charles Woodbridge says, "God will never pardon the person who persistently, purposefully rejects until death the entire saving ministry of the Spirit:  He is guilty of the unpardonable sin."  The problem with this idea is that God will also never pardon the pleasant and lovable non-Christian who is very honest, ethical, and who lives by the Christian value system, even though he sins less than the average Christian.  He is lost and has no Savior, and is forever unpardoned.  But did he commit any unforgivable sin?  Not at all.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     So what is the difference if one does, or does not, if all it means is that one is lost.  Very good people are lost who have not committed this sin.  It is interesting that both God and Jesus are frequently used for slang and cursing, but the Holy Spirit is never so used.  Even evil men do not seek to blaspheme the Holy Spirit, even though they freely blaspheme the Father and the Son.  This sin is clearly dealing with the Holy Spirit and not the Father and the Son. It is also clear that it cannot be done by an act. The Pharisees were close by calling Jesus of the devil, but they had not yet committed the sin, and so one act of blasphemy does not make one hopeless. It has to be a process whereby one becomes so hardened that one is of the same mind with the devil himself. </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     John P. Milton, the Lutheran author, had defined it like this: "The unpardonable sin is the willful rejection of the Holy Spirit when He calls you to repentance and faith, until by continued rejection you so harden your heart against Him as to be incapable of repentance." The one who loves darkness long enough will not be able to respond to the light, no matter how bright it gets.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     We should note that not all sin against the Holy Spirit is unforgivable.  We grieve the Holy Spirit, resist Him, and quench Him, but all of these are forgivable.  The question that is often raised is, can this sin still be committed today?  Some like Richard De Haan say, "No!  Not at all!  It could only occur while Christ was on earth and in actual physical contact with men."  He goes on to write about a man's experience.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>            "Some time ago I read about a certain person who foolishly </B></div> <div> <B>            came to the conclusion that he had committed this great</B></div> <div> <B>            transgression.  He believed that he had passed beyond the</B></div> <div> <B>            point of forgiveness.  He went to his pastor and sought for</B></div> <div> <B>            some assurance that he might be mistaken.  Unburdening </B></div> <div> <B>            his heart to the minister, he told him about his morbid fear</B></div> <div> <B>            that he had "crossed the line" and had committed the sin</B></div> <div> <B>            for which there is no forgiveness.  The pastor responded</B></div> <div> <B>            by asking, "And just exactly what sin did you commit?"</B></div> <div> <B>            The troubled soul quickly answered, "I opposed the Word</B></div> <div> <B>            of God."  "So did Paul," the pastor replied, "and he was</B></div> <div> <B>            saved."  "Oh, but, I also denied Christ," the man blurted</B></div> <div> <B>            out.  "So did Peter," said the minister, "and he became one</B></div> <div> <B>            of the greatest and most effective preachers of all time."</B></div> <div> <B>            "Yes, but I doubted the power of Christ even after I </B></div> <div> <B>            received strong evidence in His favor."  "But," said the </B></div> <div> <B>            wise pastor, "so did Thomas.  Wasn't he forgiven?"  The </B></div> <div> <B>            man who had been tormented so long by fears and doubts</B></div> <div> <B>            finally saw the folly of his anxiety, and realized that this </B></div> <div> <B>            thing that he dreaded was a misunderstanding of Scripture.</B></div> <div> <B>            He saw that even if such a hopeless state were possible in</B></div> <div> <B>            this age, the very fact that he was so concerned about his</B></div> <div> <B>            spiritual condition proved that he could not have committed</B></div> <div> <B>            this great transgression.  No, the "sin against the Holy </B></div> <div> <B>            Spirit" cannot be committed today."  </B></div> <bR> <div>     <B> Dr. Charles Stanley, a great Bible teacher and preacher, agrees with this view. He writes, "The term </B><B>blasphemy</B><B> may be defined "defiant irreverence." We would apply the term to such sins as cursing God or willfully degrading things considered holy. In this passage the term refers to the declaration of the Pharisees who had witnessed undeniable evidence that Christ was performing miracles in the power of the Holy Spirit. Yet they attributed the miracles to Satan. In the face of irrefutable evidence they ascribed the work of the Holy Spirit to that of Satan. </B></div> <div> <B>I agree with a host of biblical scholars that this unique circumstance cannot be duplicated today. The Pharisees had seen proof of Christ's deity. But instead of acknowledging Jehovah God, they attributed the supernatural power to Satan instead of the work of the Holy Spirit. </B></div> <div> <B>Christ is not in the world as He was then. Although the Holy Spirit still accomplishes supernatural things through His servants, they are merely representatives of the King. The circumstances of Matthew 12 make it impossible for this sin to take place today. This incident, I might add, is the only one in which a sin is declared unforgivable. The Bible states, "Whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved" (Rom. 10:13). No invitation to salvation carries with it an exception clause, "unless you have committed the unpardonable sin." </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     No matter how evil our sins, there is pardon for them. God forgave David for his adultery, dishonesty, and murder (2 Sam. 12:13, Ps. 51). Simon Peter's denial of our Lord accompanied by profanity was forgiven (Matt. 26:74-75). The apostle Paul was forgiven of his pre conversion merciless persecution of Christians (Acts 9:1). Just about every possible sin is listed somewhere in the New Testament. And every one of them falls into the category of forgivable. </B></div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B>Although there is no unpardonable sin today, there is an unpardonable state - the state of continued unbelief. There is no pardon for a person who dies in unbelief. The Bible refers to this in terms of having a hard heart. The hardening of the heart is not a one-time act. It is the result of a gradual progression in which sin and the conviction of the Holy Spirit are ignored. The hardened heart has no desire for the things of God. But if you have a desire in your heart for God, as expressed through concern that you have committed some sort of unpardonable sin, you do not have a hardened heart. Your concern confirms your innocence. God always welcomes those whose hearts are sensitive toward Him." </B></div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>      My problem with this view is this:  Why would Jesus see to it that all three synoptic Gospels record this warning to be read for all of history if it only applied to those of His day?  His life would soon end and this warning would be obsolete before it ever came into print.  I think this view is commonly accepted because if it can still be committed it leads so many sensitive believers to have such fears.  Dr. Samuel Cox, for example, the great Bible expositor, wrote, "I shall never forget the chill that stuck into my childish heart so often as I heard of this mysterious sin which carried men, and for ought I knew, might carry even me beyond all reach of pardon.  And since then, I have again and again met with men and women of tender conscience and devout spirit who, by long brooding over these terrible words, had convinced themselves that they had fallen into this fatal sin, and whose reason had been unbalanced by a fearful anticipation of the doom they held themselves to have provoked."  W.B. Riley, founder of Northwestern College wrote, "As a boy of 15, I greatly feared lest I had long since sinned away my day of grace."    Such fears of believers have led to a number of theories as to what this sin is.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Many like to say it is the persistent rejection of Christ. This is the most common theory, because it is true that if one rejects Christ for all his or her life they will be eternally unforgiven. If this was what Jesus meant, it means this is the most common sin in the world then, for it is the cause for most people to be lost. Instead of a rare sin, it is the most common of all. It is a false theory because at any time this sin can be forgiven if the person repents and seeks forgiveness. This sin is clearly distinct from rejection of Christ. This sin has to be rare, and the great exception, and not the most common sin of all.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     I like the view that it cannot be committed today, but it seems that the possibility of it still needs to be kept alive, for even though it has to be extremely rare, and as far as we know has never been actually committed by any human being, because it is recorded as a warning, and no warning should be eliminated, for it has a purpose. It is still a warning that can keep men limited in their opposition to Christ and the things of the Spirit. Let us keep it as the great exception.</B></div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>     </B></div> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>