Mark 2

Chapter 2. The Beginning of the Master’s WorkAfter John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark 1:14-15)The second section of the Gospel of Mark, chapter Mark 1:14-39, describes the beginning of the Master’s own work. There was a place for preparation, but now the work itself begins. There is a time to tarry, but there is also a time to go, and the Gospel of Mark is the gospel of “Go.” One word rings out as a sort of keynote of the whole story. It is a Greek adverb variously translated “immediately,” “forthwith,” “straightway,” and it emphatically expresses the strenuous side of the Master’s life which is so prominent in the picture of Mark. We shall see how that strenuous spirit enters into every moment of this first chapter of His ministry. The Time The Master’s first word is translated “The time has come” (Mark 1:14). This is another emphatic Greek word denoting not merely a period, but a point of time. It was a crisis moment which it was important He should not miss. And the Master was there on time as all His servants should ever seek to be. How sad it is to wake up a little too late and think what we might have said or done, but the opportunity has passed never to return. There was nothing more remarkable about Christ’s life than the timeliness of everything He said or did. His words were always in season and His movements in perfect accord with the divine order and plan. When action was delayed, it was because “My time has not yet come” (John 2:4). And when action was begun, He could always say, “Father, the time has come” (John 17:1). So here He was beginning His ministry at the very moment for which all preceding ages had prepared. The immediate occasion was also opportune. John had just been cast into prison by his false friend, Herod, at the instigation of his own angry paramour, and also with the hearty consent of the rulers of the Jews. Herod thought he had suppressed the strong voice that was dealing too frankly with his sins, but a mightier voice was there to take up the echo and repeat the message in weightier tones. So Jehoiakim of old thought he had destroyed the disagreeable prophetic role which Baruch brought him from Jeremiah the prophet, as he cut it into ribbons and flung it into the fire. But he found soon after that the roll which he had destroyed had risen phoenix-like from the flames clothed with new terrors to avenge his presumption and his sin. So Jesus followed John; and soon after when Herod had consummated his crime by the murder of the forerunner and learned of the miracles of Jesus, his conscience terrified him with the suggestion that John had risen from the dead and had come back again to avenge his murder. It must have been a great relief to Herod when he met Jesus at the mock trial in Jerusalem to find his fears were vain. Perhaps this explains the levity with which he treated the Lord when he found that he was mistaken in his dread, and sent Him back to Pilate with mock honor, clothed in a purple robe. The Message The Master’s message had in it an echo of John’s gospel of repentance, but it reached a higher plane and a loftier tone. “The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news” (Mark 1:15). “The kingdom of God” was His message. The world had had its kingdoms of men, plenty of them. Nimrod, Pharaoh, Sennacherib, Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus, Caesar had all run their despotic course and proved how little mere kings can do for the welfare of humanity. Israel, too, had had its kings, Saul, David, Solomon, Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, Ahab, Ahaz, alternating between the best and the worst, but all that they had done for the chosen people was to leave them subject to the oppression of their heathen masters. Jesus came to announce a new kingdom, the reign of God. This is really the distinctive feature of Christianity. All other religions are based on the principle of self help. Christianity tells humanity, “You have destroyed yourself, but in Me is your help.” It is a supernatural religion. It is the revelation, the incarnation, and the indwelling of the living God in human life. Its message is “In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son” (Hebrews 1:1-2). This was the dream of Hebrew prophets, little understood, perhaps, by their own times. Isaiah had written of the coming of Immanuel, which being interpreted is God with us, and had proclaimed from the towers of vision, “‘Here is your God!’ See the Sovereign Lord comes with power, and his arm rules for him” (Isaiah 40:9-10). But now, at last, the vision was fulfilled, and that God whom even His own people were to fail to recognize was standing in their midst. He was bringing with Him a divine revelation, for His message was “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). He was bringing in a divine redemption through the cross and the resurrection from the dead. He was leaving behind Him a divine presence, the blessed Holy Spirit, to reside and abide in the Church and in the heart of the believer. He was bestowing a divine experience in that regeneration which means to be born from above, and that sanctification which makes us partakers of the divine nature. He was calling His people into a divine sonship as the literal children of the living God, and He was unfolding the vision and prospect of a future life higher than the angels and enthroned with God Himself in the kingdom of glory. Surely this was the kingdom of God. Nay, more, the outcome and the issue of the gospel which He proclaimed is to be realized not only for the individual and the Church but for the world itself in that glorious age which He came to usher in when the reign of God will embrace the globe itself from pole to pole and shore to shore, and the old chorus shall reverberate from earth to heaven, “The Lord reigns, let the earth be glad” (Psalms 97:1). “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ” (Revelation 11:15). “The dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God” (Revelation 21:3). The nation perhaps had caught something of this glorious vision, but to them the ideal of the kingdom was as yet one of earthly pomp and political power. And so the Master introduces this kingdom by a message wholly unlike what their national pride had looked for. “The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news” (Mark 1:15). This kingdom was to be entered not by the portals of pride and ambition, but by the lowly gateway of penitence and moral transformation. The humbling message which John had introduced is taken up by Jesus also. It was as if he had said, “You must give up your cherished ideas of being children of the kingdom and come in as Gentiles and proselytes through the gateway of repentance and a new birth from above.” The gospel of Jesus Christ abates nothing of the righteousness and the heart-searching requirements of God’s ancient law. There is no easy vaulting over the barrier of righteousness and condoning the guilt of sin. The message of the gospel still is “turn to God in repentance and have faith in our Lord Jesus” (Acts 20:21). But repentance is not the whole gospel. The man who has nothing but a negative message and a call to righteousness will never move men permanently or lift them effectually into any sort of spiritual transformation. Law and judgment never can go farther than they went in the story of ancient Israel. But that story only shows us how: Law and terrors only harden, All the while they work alone. Christ’s message was a positive one. It was a gospel of love, of grace, of help, of salvation, of encouragement and of confidence. Its supreme message is, Believe the gospel. It recognized the fact that the Fall had come in when faith went out, and that only by a return to faith could there be a return to God. The difference between faith and works is just this: works bid us try to do it ourselves; faith tells us that it is all done, and we have but to believe this, rejoice in it, and enter in. How this new message changed the whole face of religious life. As the sinful woman heard it, how it lifted her above her despair and bade her go and sin no more. As Zacchaeus heard it, how it melted his stony heart, and enlarged his little soul, and enabled him to cry out spontaneously, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor” (Luke 19:8). Beloved, that is the message for us Christian workers. Never let us forget it or get away from it to the petty appeals of mere moral reform or humanitarian help. We have been entrusted with the best of news, a gospel of love, and help, and victory, and all men have to do is to believe it and spring into the glorious liberty and triumphant victory which it assures. We have not to save men, but to tell them they are saved if they will but believe it and to echo the glad tidings the world around, “He is able to save completely those who come to God through him” (Hebrews 7:25). What is it to believe the gospel? It is a very personal, practical and powerful experience. No man can believe the gospel without being instantly and infinitely changed. I remember talking to a patient in a yellow fever hospital about his personal salvation, and his easy answer was that he believed the gospel as, of course, everybody believed in Christ. “But what do you believe?” I asked. “Why, I believe that Christ lived, and died, and was a good man, and is the only Savior.” “But,” I asked, “do you believe that He has saved you?” “Why, no. How can I until I know that I am saved?” “Do you believe everything this Bible says about the gospel?” “Why, yes.” I turned to 1 John 1:9 and asked him to read, “The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.” He read it glibly, and I asked him if he believed it. “Why, yes, of course,” he said. “Do you mean to say that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth you from all sin?” “Why, no. I believe it could cleanse me from all sin”. “Then you do not believe what it says.” After a good while the light began to break on him, that believing the gospel meant actually believing that the gospel was true for him then and there, and that and nothing else saved him. How hard it is to get people to see this point. And yet the very essence of believing the gospel is appropriating it to your own soul, and saying as Hedley Bicars said that night when on the eve of a sinful dissipation this same verse first flashed like a lightning shaft into his awakened conscience, “If that be true for me, I will live from this moment as a man that has been cleansed from all sin in the blood of Christ.” Setting Others to Work One of the best ministries that any of us can render to God and our fellow men is to start other lives in useful service. And so one of the very first things the Lord did was to call His first apostles. Walking by the sea of Galilee, He found two fishing parties. The first was Simon and Andrew who were casting a net into the sea. The Master called them with a strange authority of His heart-searching voice and glance, “‘Come, follow me,’ Jesus said, ‘and I will make you fishers of men’” (Mark 1:17). And we are told that “At once they left their nets and followed him” (Mark 1:18). The second party was one of no greater consequence. It consisted of James and John with their father and some hired servants. They had some property and standing. But they, too, heard His urgent call, and they left their father, their property and the hired servants, and also went after Him. The word “straightway” occurs twice in these two pictures. There was something urgent about His call and something instant about their response. The Lord is still calling for workers. He does not call idle and unsuccessful people. But He wants men and women that are already busy in the callings of earth. The man that makes a poor fisherman will very likely be a poor preacher. And Christ calls men who have something to give up. Abraham gave up his country. Moses gave up a throne. Elisha gave up 12 yoke of oxen. What have you given up for Christ? Ask these men today if they regret their sacrifice. When all earth’s honors have faded, and earth’s palaces are dust, “Those who lead many to righteousness, [will shine] like the stars for ever and ever” (Daniel 12:3). What a fine suggestion is implied in the Master’s figure, “I will make you fishers of men” (Mark 1:17). Our earthly callings fit us for heavenly ministries. God wants to consecrate our worldly wisdom and make us wise to win souls. They did not learn it all at once, for He said He would teach them and make them to become fishers of men. How much of heavenly tact and spiritual discernment is implied in this fine figure. Are we letting the Master teach us the art of winning souls and catching men? Preaching in the Synagogue Next we see the Master in the synagogue at Capernaum. “They went into Capernaum; and straightway on the sabbath day he entered into the synagogue, and taught” (Mark 1:21). Here we have another “straightway.” It seems intended to emphasize the fact that the first thing He did on a Sabbath morning was to go to the synagogue. We always find the Lord Jesus honoring the Sabbath and the sanctuary, and in the ministry of the apostles we note the same example. Our modern laxity in church going receives no sanction from the Lord and His example. There was not much, humanly speaking, to attract Him to the synagogue, but He went there to meet God, and because it was the time and place for public worship. How much we need today to emphasize this lesson. We have to look to the votaries of superstition and ignorance to see the devoutest examples of religious worship today. Our Roman Catholic neighbors may well make us ashamed. There may be much ignorance and much imperfection in their religious character, but at least they are inspired with a deep and reverent regard for the house and day of God. It is a shameful reflection upon our boasted Protestant liberty and progress that in New York City there is not church accommodation for more than one-third of the citizens, and yet the churches as a rule are not more than one-third full. The supreme idea of church attendance is not to hear an attractive preacher or a pleasing address, but to meet and worship God. But the Lord did not go to the synagogue merely to worship, but also to witness. And so we may find work to do in helping others and winning souls. But the one feature of His testimony in the synagogue at Capernaum was that “He taught them as one who had authority, not as the teachers of the law” (Mark 1:22). What an important hint for every Christian worker! Our ministry ought to have authority. If we really are speaking and acting in the name of God, it is our privilege to feel that He is behind the message and that men are answerable to Him for the way they receive it. We ought to have such a clear-cut, God-given message that we can hold men accountable to the judgment seat of Christ for the way they receive it. There is also another sense in which every Christian worker and minister should have in a very real way a prophetic message, a message not obtained from books and scribes, but warm from the mouth of God, and fresh from the Holy Spirit. Then men will recognize that it is not we who speak, but our Father who speaks in us. Power Over Satan But we note also in the Master’s ministry at this time another element of power and authority. He is immediately confronted with a demon spirit. Whenever God works, the devil will surely oppose, and the best evidence that we are sent of God is Satan’s challenge. But like Him we must be ready also to claim our victory and exercise the authority which He has given us. The Lord had met the adversary alone in the wilderness, and now He was prepared to meet him on the battlefield of public service and in contending for the souls of others. So every Christian worker must be prepared, not merely for the opposition of the human heart, but for the hate of hell and the utmost resistance of the evil one. As surely as you attempt any definite work for Christ, the enemy will try to baffle you. In seeking to bring a soul to Christ, you will find yourself confronted not only by the resistance of the human will but by the wiles of Satan; and you must know how, like David of old, to rescue your lambs from the jaws of the destroyer. If you have not already won your personal victory, you will not be of much use in trying to help others. You will find in every Christian effort you make that you will be opposed not only by the indifference, willfulness and folly of men and women, but that Satan will do everything in his power to discourage and defeat you. This is the very first thing the Christian worker must learn, that we wrestle with principalities and powers and all the hosts of hell. If you allow yourself to be discouraged by difficulties, the Lord can never make much use of you. If you expect to serve God only when everything goes nicely and the people are all like angels, you had better ask the Lord to take you to heaven at once. This is part of our commission and equipment: “I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy” (Luke 10:19). The Ministry of Healing The Master’s pattern ministry is not complete until He has also taught us that part of our commission is to preach “freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed [or sick, as the word really means]” (Luke 4:18). And so as He returns from the synagogue to the house of Andrew and Simon, His work is waiting for Him. Simon’s wife’s mother is lying sick of a fever. They seem to expect something from Him, for they tell Him of her. We read, “He went to her, took her hand and helped her up. The fever left her and she began to wait on them” (Mark 1:31). But lest it might be thought that this healing ministry was only for a favored few, we read in the next verse, “That evening after sunset the people brought to Jesus all the sick and demon-possessed. The whole town gathered at the door, and Jesus healed many who had various diseases” (Mark 1:32-34). Here we have not only the ministry of healing in a few isolated cases, but the larger gospel of physical help and health through the name of Jesus for all who can touch Him and trust Him. Matthew tells us that He did all this in pursuance of the promise of the ancient prophet, “He took up our infirmities and carried our diseases” (Matthew 8:17). As Christian workers, how dare we limit our commission to mere spiritual help? If it was necessary for Christ to fulfill Isaiah’s prophecy, then it is just as necessary for Him to fulfill it in every age, if Jesus Christ is indeed “the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). The Ministry of Prayer “Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed” (Mark 1:35). Here is the secret of power for the Master and all that would be master workmen. Perhaps the night before His work had so pressed upon Him that He had little leisure for communion. But no day could be passed without much waiting upon God in such a life as His; and so the morning finds Him “while it was still dark” (Mark 1:35) in a solitary place in prayer. How often we hear people excusing themselves from much prayer for lack of time. You have all the time the Master had. Shame on your Sabbath indolence and lazy, self-indulgent Slothfulness. You have no more right to rob God of two hours on Sabbath morning than you have to rob your employer on a weekday morning. Prayer and early rising have been associated in many of the most eminent Christian lives. General Gordon used to have a card fastened on his tent every morning long before sunrise forbidding any interruption for the first two hours of every day. Little wonder that such a life made its profound impression upon his age and time. No Christian can do without much solitary prayer, but every Christian worker must literally be steeped in prayer. Aggressive Work Meanwhile the crowds gathered in the early morning for more of the Master’s ministry, but He could not be found. Simon, however, seems to have already learned some of the Master’s ways, and so they followed and found Him in His morning watch and said unto Him, “Everyone is looking for you” (Mark 1:37). They were evidently greatly excited and delighted at His popularity. To Him it meant little. He was looking over the heads of the people to the white fields and the distant cross. He knew how much there was to do and how little time was left to do it. And so we hear the quiet, touching answer, “Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also. That is why I have come” (Mark 1:38). The vision of the field was before Him. The regions beyond were calling Him. It was the spirit of the great apostle. It is the spirit of every true evangelist and soul winner. There is another man to be rescued. There is greater need still unreached. “So he traveled throughout Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and driving out demons” (Mark 1:39). What a picture we have of one day of the Master’s life in these last few verses—one Sabbath day’s strenuous work. Beginning with the early morning, we find Him in the synagogue teaching. Going home with Him in the afternoon we find Him ministering to the sick in the house of Simon. Far into the night He is still amid the suffering, healing and helping. Long before the dawn He is wrestling in prayer alone with God, and with the sunrise He is off again to the next towns. A writer has told us of the hundreds of towns at that time in the populous province of Galilee and how no less than nine times did the Lord on foot travel these rugged pathways of toilsome service. Once only did He ride on the little colt that bore Him to Jerusalem as the Son of David. His life was one of intense, unceasing toil and service. As we gaze at that spectacle of holy earnestness, we are reminded of the description of His last march to the cross, “As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem” (Luke 9:51). “And the disciples were astonished, while those who followed were afraid” (Mark 10:32). Oh, how we fail in the light of that majestic pattern! Lord, give to each of us a life in earnest, too. Not many lives have we, but one, One, only one. How precious should that one life ever be, That narrow span. Day after day filled up with busy toil, Year after year still bringing in new spoil.