Believing is Seeing (Part A)

I wouldn't have to deal with lust and temptation and people on the road and just a host of things. Dissatisfaction with life for no reason. Some of you younger ones may not have gotten there yet.

Some of you older ones, well, you might be there. You're just dissatisfied with life. You don't even know why. I don't know why it feels so bad, like I feel like crying.

I can tell you why. Sin is in the world. There's nothing wrong with you.

There's something right with you. You're picking it up. 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 book of Mark chapter 8, as he begins a new message called, Believing is Seeing. Mark's Gospel chapter 8, we will take verses 14 through 26. You've heard of seeing is believing.

Well, we believe believing is seeing. Verse 14 is where we will begin through verse 26. Now the disciples had forgotten to take bread, and they did not have more than one loaf with them in the boat.

Then he charged them, saying, Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod. And they reasoned among themselves, saying, It is because we have no bread. But Jesus, being aware of it, said to them, Why do you reason because you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive nor understand?

Is your heart still hardened? Having eyes, do you not see? And having ears, do you not hear? And do you not remember when I broke the five loaves for the five thousand? How many baskets full of fragments did you take up? They said to him, Twelve. Also, when I broke the seven for the four thousand, how many large baskets full of fragments did you take up?

They said, Seven. So he said to them, How is it you do not understand? Then he came to Bethsaida, and they brought a blind man to him and begged him to touch him. So he took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the town. And when he had spit on his eyes and put his hands on him, he asked him if he saw anything. And he looked up and said, I see men like trees walking. Then he put his hands on his eyes again and made him look up, and he was restored and saw everyone clearly.

Then he sent him away to his house, saying, Neither go into the town nor tell anyone in the town. Quite a bit of stuff going on here in this chapter, as is not uncommon in Scripture. On the surface it can seem quite, you know, a ho-hum, a little boring even.

But then you begin to dig into it and it comes to life. When we come to Christ, our understanding, everything about it changes. Everything now is filtered through Jesus Christ because the light is on, because of faith. We believe in him and now we see things different, and yes, believing is seeing.

Belief allows us to see what we would never have recognized or identified had it not been for this newfound faith in Christ. But he expects us to develop. Christ does not expect us to be born again as a babe in Christ and remain that way.

That would be something drastically wrong with us if that's all that happened. He expects development. Well, Satan knows this and he pours into the equation as much trouble and evil as he can to disrupt our belief and our trusting in God. Paul wrote to the Ephesians, the church in Ephesus, he says, For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light.

What'd they do? Well, they did walk as children of light for a while, but by the time we come to the days of John and the revelation of Jesus Christ, they're being rebuked that church in Ephesus because they lost their first love. Faith is to get us to see Christ, what he is doing, and out of that flows the riches of our faith. And you have to press into it. It doesn't come naturally. It certainly does not come naturally.

It comes spiritually, but that does not mean it comes easily. And so with that brief overview, we look now at verse 14 because there's a lot here, at least I hope you agree with me by the time this is over with this morning. Verse 14, Now the disciples had forgotten to take bread, and they did not have more than one loaf with them in the boat. A very slight oversight. It really wasn't a problem. They made it a problem because they read into it, and they read the wrong things into it as a matter of fact. Verse 15, And he charged them, saying, Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod. So where he says, where at least Mark records, then he charged them. Serious and short to the short and to the point.

That's the idea. This is a serious thing. He said, I'm telling you something, and I want you to hold on to what I'm telling you and do something with it. He says, Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees. Well, leaven, of course, is a big part of our biblical education. Its meaning, its symbolism. It is not something that is trivial.

It is very important. And again, Mark has prefaced here with Jesus charging them, Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod. Now at the Passover of the Jews, you remember that when God was leading his people out of Egypt the night of the Passover, the night that it was instituted, leaven was to be removed from the home completely. It is an emblem of corruption, and it was not to be in the home when God was to move in judgment upon the enemies of his people.

Passover made a distinction between God's people and those who were not God's people, those who were trusting in God and those who had no desire to trust in God. Leaven, which is yeast is what we're talking about in Scripture, is uniformly evil when it is used as a metaphor. I mean, there's nothing evil about the yeast and the bread itself, but when it works its way into Bible teaching, when it comes from the lessons of those prophets and the Lord himself, it is speaking of corruption, especially corrupt teachings.

It also speaks of an outside influence because it is does not come along with the wheat, with the flour that is made from the wheat, it is introduced. And the influence of the Pharisees was hypocrisy. They were corrupting the way people thought of God and how they should walk in their own lives because their leaders were giving them a corrupted example. These leaders were claiming to be the authority when it came to seeking God, but they themselves had really little interest in adhering to the very things God spoke. Hidden formalism was part of the Pharisees' problem.

You know, appearances, traditions, rituals. Luke's Gospel chapter 12, Luke adds, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. They're wearing, I'm not trying to tie this into our current times independent of that, but they were wearing an actor's mask. They were showing you one face, but behind that mask was another person, moral compromise for the sake of material gain in the name of God. That is how the Pharisees and many others did business then, and many have done down through the centuries to this day. He says here, and the leaven of Herod. So the corruption of the Pharisee, which is primarily hypocrisy, but not limited to, but Herod.

Politics. Those in politics who were not only corrupt to gain for themselves, but they were deadly. They were brutal. By this point, Herod had already had John the Baptist murdered in a very grotesque way, at least by our standards. Some would say it was a merciful act to decapitate someone instantly.

If you got it right on the first shot, maybe. Anyway, the leaven of Herod was corrupt also. It was a deadly political element. The Sadducees, another religious group made primarily of aristocrats who were liberal thinkers. They did not really receive the scripture, but they they had a lot of power, and they were in cahoots with the Herodians and not identical, but they were there. Matthew remembered Jesus expanding this warning to include the Sadducees, saying that not only were the Pharisees and not only the Herodians, but also the Sadducees were corrupt. Matthew 16, and then Jesus said to them, take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. And we listen to these words and we say, Lord, what is the point? And the point is you watch out for those who corrupt faith, who pretend not to corrupt faith.

Don't lose this lesson. That's what he's telling them. Remember, he had just left the Pharisees demanding a sign, insisting on a sign, and he said no sign is going to be given to you because you guys are fake.

And so when he leaves, he says to his disciples here in the boat, you got to watch these guys. They make everyone think they're religious and righteous. You can be religious and not righteous at the same time.

It's very easy. If your religion does not make you righteous, what good is your religion? And these were corrupting influences spreading through the lives of the people that lived in those days. Here's an interesting verse from Psalm 11. For look, the wicked bend their bow.

They make ready their arrow on the string that they may shoot secretly at the upright in heart. They're doing that to us today, but it's not new. Satan's really good at this. The angels struggled to get to Daniel because the Prince of Persia, the satanic influences, were hindering the work of God in the spiritual realm.

The Prince of Persia had got his hand on the Persian Empire, and Michael had to come and assist. That's how intense the spiritual warfare was then and is now and has always been and always will be. But that is not so much our concern, and that's why we don't get a lot of it in Scripture. What we do get are the things that we are to be concerned with—our moral behavior before the Lord, obedience to the commandments, that is, righteous behavior, and the preaching of the gospel. And this should occupy us.

This should take up a lot of our time. These Pharisees, incidentally, they had formulated some sound things in their teaching, but their example was corrupt, and it was corrupt without warning. And that made them like snakes. But if leaven, if the introduction of leaven in Scripture speaks of corruption, so does honey speak of those things that are sweet and attractive.

Psalm 119, which is a song that celebrates the Scripture, the Word of God. How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth. And so yeah, the devil is going to look to bring yeast into everything righteous, and we bring the honey. We're not at a disadvantage.

It's just an ugly situation, but we're not at a disadvantage. By faith, we fight, and by faith, we win. And when we get to heaven, we'll be surrounded by people who by faith entered in. I could wrap that. That whole thing rhymed.

I wouldn't dare. Anyway, verse 16, now we're not heated up yet, and they reasoned among themselves, saying, it is because we have no bread. Well, he was referring to the Pharisees' mindset. He's not referring to food. Maybe they were hungry, and that was primarily what was on their mind. The disciples thought he was buking them for not bringing enough food for everybody in the boat, an oversight on their part, but no big deal.

I mean, he could just multiply food if there was that, if the situation was dire. He spoke of leaven, and immediately they thought of bread. They saw nothing beyond the natural, sort of Esau-esque. Esau was that character in the Bible who was just about the here and now. He was probably a good friend, Esau. He just wasn't into the things of God. Well, after the miracles, you would think that this would not even be an issue for the Gentiles or for the Jews. He multiplied bread.

Why? This is almost insulting for them to think this way. It was never about food. It was about spiritual perception, which they were very dull with, and Jesus is not going to give them a pass. He's going to call them out on this.

He's going to call them out pretty hard, too. Verse 17, Jesus, being aware of it, said, Why do you reason because you have no bread? Do you not perceive nor understand?

Is your heart still hardened? He's a little annoyed here. He's going to hit them with nine question marks in a row. That's annoyed. He's not angry.

I don't think that at all, but he is a little annoyed, and he wants them to know that he's annoyed because he's saying to them, this cannot be overlooked. You cannot keep going with me and stay this dull. What a profound lesson. We know what happens when it's ignored. We know what happens when Christians come to Christ's love. Oh, I love the Jesus, and they stop. They never grow. Well, there may be worse. They become self-righteous, obnoxious little snobs that think they know the Bible better than everybody else, and therefore they are better than everybody else.

That won't work either. Spiritual perception. They didn't have it. They were not sensitive to it. They were missing the point, and by this time, having been exposed to this much ministry of Christ, remember, not only did they see the miracles, they heard the sermons. They had private sessions with him, and he is saying, you guys have unbroken.

We like the seed that falls, not when it comes to salvation, but when it comes to the education, the seeds of knowledge. They're not getting in. They're not penetrating because your head's too hard, and they're not going to, after this, they're not going to go, oh, okay, we got it. They're that hard-headed, but they will start making progress. They have been served notice, and they will act on it.

It will take time, but they will get it, just not today. Believing is seeing beneath the surface, and he was a little annoyed, and to make this point, let's look at the questions. I'm going to read them without the narrative, just the questions.

Verses 17 through 21. Why do you reason? Because you have no bread. Do you not perceive nor understand? Is your heart still hardened? Having eyes, do you not see? Having ears, do you not hear? And do you not remember? When I broke five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of fragments did you take up?

And when I broke the seven for the four thousand, how many large baskets full of fragments did you take up? How is it you do not understand? See, that's just the words of Christ, the red words, in most Bibles. That is just laying it out to them.

I don't get it. I don't know why you're not understanding. When I said beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, you should have been right on top of that.

Instead, you're thinking about, oh, we don't have any food. Again, I do not understand. Again, I do not think his tone, he was angry at them. Annoyance, you know, there are degrees of being annoyed and this was a lesser degree, but it was there. I, if I were one of the apostles, I would have worked to make sure that didn't make its way into the Bible.

I don't want anybody to see he was laying me out like this. Of course, I would not have been one of the apostles if I thought that way. He only, Jesus didn't pick me to be an apostle because I wasn't born yet, that's all. Yeah, anyway, I'm glad you laugh and know that I'm not serious.

Verse 8, being so uptight as a Christian that you get nothing but attacking other people is not a virtue. Anyway, you say, well, that was random. No, no, I got some people's head in my head.

That's not as random as you think, but none of them are here right now. Having eyes, verse 18, do you not see? Having ears, do you not hear?

And do you not remember? Having eyes, do you not see? Believing is seeing, but it's not automatic. Doing something with the knowledge that Christ is exposed, is given to us, that we are exposed to, whether from his word or from the processes of discipleship, and yes, discipleship has never gone out of style.

It is still to be practiced. I think some are too obnoxious to find somebody else who's ahead of them in Christ, and they just, you know, I love that person. I want to be more like that person.

I hope that is not the case with most of us. It is good to be here. It is good to have someone who is an influence on us for Christ.

I think of Chuck Smith. I mean, I would not be standing here today were it not for Pastor Chuck Smith, and there were there are others, but he is the dominant by far. My understanding of ministry, that it can match the comes from such a man as he.

Well, Philippians chapter 4, Paul writes to that church. He says, Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble. What a big word!

What a big thought! Nobility! It doesn't mean you're a landowner in this context. It means honorable. Whatever things that are honorable. So whatever things are true, that's first. Honorable, just, pure, of good report. If there is anything praiseworthy, if there's any virtue, meditate on these things.

Not that silly transcendental, you know, when they keep asking that question, um. Not that stuff, but thinking a matter through the value of a lesson, how it applies to life. Filing in a way, okay, this may not be me today, but it may be me tomorrow. And that's how you meditate on these things. Paul wrote to Timothy, a pastor, probably in his 30s at this time, when Paul wrote to him. Meditate on these things.

Give yourself entirely to them, that your progress may be evident to all. Well, at this moment, there was no progress evident in these disciples. We don't have any food. I'm not talking about food!

He's banging his fist on the boat. And so, he was letting them know that he expected better of them. That they were spiritually out of shape, and they were to get in shape. That it was not okay to be aloof in the lessons that were to be picked up and gobbled up, especially on matters of corruption. If they were going to be with him, if they were going to be used by him in ministry, as they were being used, as he was preparing them to minister without him around anymore, he needed them to up their game. You cannot do what I need you to do if your head is not in the game. That's what he's telling them.

And he does it with a barrage of questions that nobody could answer. In verse 19, he says, when I broke the five loaves, with a five thousand, how many baskets full of fragments did you take up? And they said 12. Okay, so they remembered. They remembered the situation.

You couldn't apply it to life. To them, one of the apostles might have wanted to say, you know, we were just having a bad day collectively. He's referring to verse 19, that first time he multiplied the bread and the fish amongst the Jews when they had their little traveling baskets with them. And then verse 20, also when I broke the seven for the four thousand, how many large baskets full of fragments did you take up? And they said seven. And this was again when he multiplied the bread and the fish amongst the Gentiles, but that time they had those utility baskets, the larger ones. And you couldn't forget these things. They were there. They saw this.

They ate the fish and the bread. In verse 21, so he said to them, how is it you don't get it? How is it you don't understand? I don't understand how you don't understand. Silence.

It was quiet. You can't be indifferent about the things of Christ and go boasting how much you love him. I don't know how you can say. I love the Lord and have no interest in what he has to say in his word, his miracles, his profound teachings. They were lost on his opponents.

They were not supposed to be lost on his people. And there is more to what I am doing, Jesus is saying, than filling bellies with these miracles. There's more to everything that I do.

To believe is to see, and to see is to understand for a purpose, not just to debate and have these truths and as precious gems you've got to go out there and do it. How nice it would be if I could just study in my study and life could just leave me alone and I wouldn't have to deal with lust and temptation and people on the road and just a host of things. Dissatisfaction with life for no reason. Some of you younger ones may not have gotten there yet.

Some of you older ones, well, you might be there. You're just dissatisfied with life. You don't even know why. You walk around like, I don't know why it feels so bad, like I feel like crying. I can tell you why.

Sin is in the world. There's nothing wrong with you. There's something right with you. You're picking it up. What are you going to do with it? Don't go run to somebody and get advice. Run to the scripture, Acts 2 42, apply it. Continue steadfastly in the apostles teachings, in the communion with the saints, in prayers, in the communion with the Lord, and struggle because it's worth it. Do you have a better plan?

You don't. We know what happens when Christians deviate from these plans. They can stand and sing and praise the Lord, but then when you start peeling back the layers, you see there's heresy within the ranks. 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.