Educated by Facts (Part A)

He's telling them that the Messiah is to be killed. They didn't see it that way. They didn't see that in the teachings of the Scripture, because they had so fallen under the popular views of rabbinical teachings that left that part out. The apostles had envisioned a Messiah that would be victorious, conquering the enemy, setting up his kingdom, and they were going to be part of that kingdom.

And that's why they were arguing on the road which one was going to have the highest rank. This is Cross Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of Mark.

Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. But for now, let's join Pastor Rick in the Gospel of Mark chapter 9 for a brand new study called Educated by Facts. The Gospel according to Mark chapter 9, we will take verses 30 through 37, beginning at verse 30. Then He departed from there and passed through Galilee, and He did not want anyone to know it. For He taught His disciples and said to them, The Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of men, and they will kill Him.

And after He is killed, He will rise a third day. But they did not understand this saying, and were afraid to ask Him. Then He came to Capernaum, and when He was in the house, He asked them, What was it you were discussing among yourselves on the road?

But they kept silent, for on the road they had disputed amongst themselves who would be the greatest. And He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, If anyone desires to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all. Then He took a little child, and set him in the midst of them.

And when He had taken him in His arms, He said to them, Whoever receives one of these little children in My name receives Me, and whoever receives Me, receives not Me, but him who sent Me. Educated by Fact. That is the title of this consideration. And it starts off with the prophetic word.

That's when He begins to teach them. And the prophetic word of God is, of course, fact. There's nothing we can do to alter it. We either join ourselves to God's word, or we side against it. In John chapter 10, Jesus said, Scripture cannot be broken.

It's a fact. Whatever prophecies God has laid forward, they're going to happen. The Lord is educating His disciples as they're leaving the mountain area where the transfiguration took place. And then, of course, there was that child that was hounded by a demon at the base of the mountain, and of course, He dispatched that demon.

And now they're on their way to Capernaum, and He is teaching them. The reality of Scripture, however, seems to be too much for them. The fact of God's prophecy is something that they're not ready for.

On this subject, not at all. And in this section, He's teaching the prophetic outline because He's fulfilling it. He's telling them that the Messiah is to be killed. They didn't see it that way. They didn't see that in the teachings of the Scripture because they had so fallen under the popular views of rabbinical teachings that left that part out. The apostles had envisioned a Messiah that would be victorious, conquering the enemy, setting up His kingdom, and they were going to be part of that kingdom, and that's why they were arguing on the road which one was going to have the highest rank when the kingdom is finally set up. Not until the Lord was risen were they able to receive and be educated by the fact of Scripture that He was trying to impart to them on this day as He's heading towards Capernaum, towards Jerusalem. That is His goal, and we have today the Holy Spirit to help us with unpleasant facts that come from Scripture. There are things that they didn't like that He said, but they had to face them, and there are things that we read in the Bible that we may not care for either. But we must keep an open mind and an open heart and surrender to the facts, be educated by them and not closed-minded to them, and that's what we're looking at today, and now looking at verse 30.

Then they departed from there and passed through Galilee, and He did not want anyone to know it. Well, that departure is the beginning of the end of His public ministry. Now He's focusing on the cross. Yes, He will still minister in public, He will still heal, but that's not where the emphasis is now. The emphasis is getting to Jerusalem and preparing the disciples as much as He can for what's coming, and they're not going to be prepared. Not until He is risen from the grave.

Then it will all come back, not at one time necessarily, but it will by the time they begin ministering and teaching the church. It says here in verse 30, and He did not want anyone to know. He wanted to be unnoticed because He wanted to concentrate His efforts on His apostles. And the interference that the people would bring to His teachings is something He was not going to have happen if He could avoid it. As I mentioned, His public ministry was now winding down, and now it was going to be about the suffering of Christ. And so He wants to spend time with them, and instruct them, and prepare them for what lay ahead. And His determination to reach the cross is central to His teachings to them. We can look at this, we look back at this, and we get it because we understand the cross.

We even have, you know, Resurrection Sunday. We understand much better now than they did at the time these events were taking place. Because we read this and we say, how could they miss this? He tells them right out.

What is happening? How dense are they? Well, they're as dense as the popular teaching would make them.

It is very difficult to break out of a mindset unless you're committed to opening up. And they were not. They didn't know how. These were not scholars.

These men were used to throwing nets in the water and hauling in fish. They were not used to thinking through philosophies. It takes a while for the brain to learn how to chew through Scripture and how it applies to life. I think pastors who teach the Word, they spend a lot of time just getting their head around what's going on. How to make it effective to the congregation and not just a bunch of, you know, bakery goods handed out that really don't have anything to do with anything. How does the pastor look at the Word and say, this is God's Word to man. There's an application in every bit of it.

If I could receive it, if I could find it. And again, that takes years. In the early years, you repeat the men who have figured it out.

But in the latter years, now you're repeating yourself. What has gone through your head in your preparation time before the Lord. So pastors today, how are they preparing the flock? Here we see the Lord preparing his apostles. How do we take this lesson and prepare the flock? And prepare them for what?

What do you need to be prepared for? You can put your finger on some things, but not all of them. I can't either. We need God to do that. God has to point out, this is where you aim your guns. This is where you turn your attention.

This is where the piece of wood that needs to be planed or sanded and prepared for whatever use that he has for it. And so we do seek to strengthen the saved. First, before reaching the lost, let's get the saved right. Or else, what are we reaching the lost with? What are we preaching to them? If we ourselves don't know what we believe, how can we, you know, the blind lead the blind. You have a big problem.

Someone's going to get hurt. Strong sheep begets strong sheep. That's the idea. It is a fundamental of creation. To know God's word. That's how we make ourselves stronger in Christ, but not in isolation. Not saying no church is good enough for me to go to.

That won't work. A lot do it. To know God's word and to carry it out. To help us face the facts. We do that when we get with each other. As much as we may disturb each other from time to time, there's a lot of work that gets done by being in the body.

That otherwise cannot get done. That's why Satan tries to shut churches down. And we're seeing this in the time we live in.

More than ever. I'll come to that in a moment a little bit. And so to equip the flock for what? To be stronger Christians, yes. But to preach the gospel with authority.

Not with, you know, I think it means, but this is what it means. This is salvation. This is who Jesus Christ is. Or, many times, that is not Jesus Christ. I don't know where you pick that up, but that's not scriptural. And to associate that with Christ is wrong.

Call him out on these things. So when Paul writes to the Ephesians from jail. Suffering for Christ. You know, that's becoming more real for us, this suffering for Christ. And the age we live in. Well, Paul, it was just a matter of life.

It's all he knew. Very rarely do we find Paul not under some sort of pressure. He says, for the equipping of the saints, for the work of ministry, for the edification of the body of Christ. This is the care these men put into the church, the assembly I'm talking about also.

It's included. Because many come along and try to amputate themselves from the body. With a smirk, no less. So the pastor is to look to apply the Bible's teachings to current events.

Whether it is wartime, or peacetime, or persecution time. Which is, again, ramping up in this country. How much of it will we face? How far will it be allowed to go?

We'll find out. But Satan will find this out, that we're ready. It's not one-sided. It's not like they get to do all this harm to us and we get nothing to do back in return. We do. We get to preach. We get to stand up in our faith. We get to show that excellent witness as Christ did before Pilate.

As Paul did before Caesar. Or you can sit around and wring your fingers and wonder what the loonies are going to do next. I don't care what the loonies are going to do next. I care what I'm going to do next. Am I going to be able to stand in the face of persecution?

Should it come my way? I'm more concerned with that than what they're going to do. And so, forever reminding believers to be believers. To be Christ-like.

To bring the message of salvation that nobody else has. Nobody else can deliver this. It's us. We are the deliverers of the message. We are the angels of today. Not the ones with the wings and the white garments.

Although we might have white garments, they're not as bright as theirs. Well, the world does not like this. They don't approve of it. Well, we're not asking for their approval. We're not trying to be abrasive.

The message itself will do that. If that's how they want it. But to teach what our faith is to teach, the world forbids. At some point, in the end, when the persecutions come to the church, it's because the world forbids the church for being a church. They're angry towards us for not celebrating sin.

For daring to oppose them. This was the story of Cain and Abel all the way back. When they assembled before God, Cain was angry with Abel because Abel was righteous and Cain was not.

This has been played out through history. The world is angry at us for having the audacity to call their madness crazy. I mean, the things they do is so ridiculous, you have to say they have subjected themselves to hell because nobody is born that stupid. I mean, we're seeing this with the gender reclassification, all the kooky names they come up with. And, you know, the arrogant looks of how they look down at everybody else for not agreeing that your little boy should be a girl.

Or your girl should be a boy. It is crazy. And we call it madness because that's what it is. And we're hated for it.

No, we can't really help you with that. If you insist on hating me, guess what? I'll be hated. But not without giving you a dose of the truth because that's what you lack. So to keep believers focused on the mission, he himself has given some to be apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastor, teachers, for the work of ministry, for the equipping of the saints, for the work of ministry, for the edification of the body of Christ. The edification means, you know, we live in the days where everybody's, I'll use a word we don't use much, everybody wants to go down to the gymnasium to be in shape.

All right, nothing wrong with that. Well, we want to be in shape when it comes to God's word. We want to be robust in the things we preach and not caught up in arguments over pointless points of doctrine. Not the serious points.

Those we need to have right. Matthew chapter 10 verse 22, Jesus said, And you will be hated for my name's sake, but he who endures to the end shall be saved. I'm not ready to disagree with Christ on that because I've enjoyed most of my Christian life. Not being hated to my face for my Christianity doesn't mean that at some point it will not come or will come. Acts chapter 21, then Paul answered.

Now this, let me set this up a little bit. This is the apostle Paul. He, too, is going to Jerusalem long after the resurrection of Christ and the ascension. And he has been told prophetically that imprisonment and persecution await him. And so he tells the Ephesian elders, he tells the people of the various little towns he stopped off at on the way to Jerusalem that I'm going to Jerusalem.

I know I hear the prophecies. I don't disagree with them. I just don't care. And so then Paul answered because they fell on his neck. They're crying. They're weeping. Paul, we don't want to lose you. We love you.

And he says, What do you mean by weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus. These men are always teaching us by just what they do. And we're watching them. We're attracted.

We're drawn to this. One of the marks of being a Christian is that we're drawn to what the Bible says. And that's what Christ is trying to get his disciples to understand. I'm trying to tell you, he says to them, that this is prophetic, that the Messiah will be killed.

It's in Isaiah 53, for example. And well, now on the way to the cross. And he wanted to avoid the now miracle hungry crowds because they were a distraction from what was now most important. And he was not a dead man walking. He was a man that is that a risen man walking, you could say. I mean, surely he was going to die. And just as surely he was going to rise again. A risen man walking. That's who Christ is at this point in his ministry.

John goes into more detail in his gospel about the emotional side that Christ dealt with in his own heart. How he wishes that this was done. He had this passion that he had to get this fight on. Reminiscent of David running towards Goliath. Let's get this fight on.

Let's get this settled. And that's what David did. And that's what Jesus did. In verse 31 now of Mark chapter 9, For he taught his disciples and said to them, The Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And after he is killed, he will rise a third day. I mean, he's facing this as much as the Lord he is. And though he's initially not succeeding, as I mentioned, he will later. They'll put it together after Pentecost. It will all come into light.

That's why we have the record. Only they could have told what took place on this road. That he was trying to teach them. That they didn't get it. That they were sorrowful. That they were afraid. That they didn't want to ask and push the point. That their minds were closed. They'll tell us that later by publishing the Gospel accounts.

But as the events are unfolding, they're completely in the dark. And it is a great encouragement to us to understand that these men didn't get it. And Christ kept moving forward nonetheless with his plan. And then, as I said, they get it later.

That's encouraging to me. I may not understand certain things about Scripture, which is life. Which has to do with life. We don't study Scripture just because it's entertaining or we enjoy it. We study it because it's God's Word and it is life. And it prepares us to face life.

It educates us to face facts. To the glory of the Father and to the benefit of those around us. And so the future of God's program through the church for the next 2,000 years will depend on these men.

And you're looking and you say, who planned this? Who planned to entrust the church with these guys? God did.

A perfect, infallible, loving, gracious God. That's who entrusted these men for the next 2,000 years with the church. Because the church moves based off what these men wrote. If it weren't for the apostles, we would not be paying attention to the Old Testament. That's just the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. The apostles first, the ministry of the New Testament. It encompasses, incorporates the Old Testament.

All of it God's Word. But the Old Testament is not understandable in Christ without the new. Otherwise, all the Jews would be saved, would they not? They'd be following Christ. But they need the New Testament revelation.

God has arranged this. A lot of Christians don't want to hear this. They think that somehow it, you know, lessens the Old Testament.

It doesn't lessen anything. There's no weakening of the Old Testament scripture. It just, it must go with the New Testament scripture. God has said himself, when he walked the earth, I've not come to destroy the law and the prophets, but to fulfill them. And if you want to know what it means to fulfill the Old Testament prophets, you've got to know about Christ. And to know about Christ is not enough to have the gospels.

You have to have the precepts too. And that's not enough, said God. I'm going to reveal to my servant John things that must soon take place.

And so, it was far more important for him to prepare his men for what was coming than to heal any more sick people, though he still did. He continues here in verse 31. I'm going to pause here. So I hope I sound like I believe what I'm saying. Because there are many that come to church and they just, they hear a mouth talking and they see a head and a body, but they're not getting it. They're not understanding the day will come when they will stand in front of God Almighty and have to give an account. And there will be no excuses.

He already has the answers for them. So the best thing to do is pay attention to what God is saying in the Word. You say, well, you sound so angry. I'm not angry. I'm passionate. If I'm angry at anything, it is sin, my sin. But I am very passionate about God's Word. Satan, as he's done with many of you, spent a lot of time trying to get you to not be passionate about God's Word, to be frustrated with the Lord, to be disappointed with what he allows and disallows. The righteous keep moving forward because they know in whom they have believed, which is the whole story of Job, the story of Joseph, the story of Jeremiah, the story of Jesus Christ, the story of Paul the Apostle, and countless Christians down through the ages.

This is real stuff here. And if you want to wait until you're dead to find out, it would be too late to benefit from it. You can learn now. Throw yourself into what God is saying at his pace. Verse 31, For he taught his disciples and said to them, The Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of men, and they will kill him, and after he is killed, he will rise the third day. It hit them, you know, he's going to be killed.

And they didn't care for it. So when he says the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of men, it's prophetic. That is prophecy. The Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of men. It's solemn prophecy.

And he speaks in the present tense. Was Judas already in dialogue with the Pharisees? The enemy is mobilized against him for sure. Did he know that, or perhaps just in the head of Judas, he was already planning? Maybe Judas was singed because he did not get to go up to the mountain with Peter and James and John, but was left in the valley and further frustrated by the fact that he could not cast out the demon.

Whether that's true or not is really not important. The important thing is, the Lord is saying, the Son of Man is being betrayed. And the whole talk of death and dying to Judas would have meant no position in the Messiah's kingdom.

That would have been a great big disconnect for him. For the others too, but the others would not have betrayed him. They loved him.

Judas betrayed him because he didn't love him. He followed him. He liked what was going on. He was in phases. He was certainly attracted and useful to the Lord. Then he hardened his heart until finally Satan filled his heart. And they will kill him, and after he is killed, he will rise a third day.

That's direct enough. The victory of the cross. The only hope for mankind. There's a song. We don't hear it much. You probably have to watch Lilies of the Field to get it.

I'm sure it's on the internet. It's an Amen song. He was led before Pilate, then they crucified him, but he rose on Sunday.

The song says Easter, but I prefer Sunday. Anyway, this they didn't get. That when he was led before Pilate and then he crucified, of course, they fell out of step with that. This is the third time Mark records him bringing up this subject. Thanks for tuning in to Cross Reference Radio for this study in the book of Mark. Cross Reference Radio is the teaching ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia. To learn more information about this ministry, visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com. Once you're there, you'll find additional teachings from Pastor Rick. We encourage you to subscribe to our podcast. When you subscribe, you'll be notified of each new edition of Cross Reference Radio. You can search for Cross Reference Radio on your favorite podcast app. That's all we have time for today, but we hope you'll join us next time as Pastor Rick continues to teach through the book of Mark right here on Cross Reference Radio.