Mark 8:9-7

Mark chapter 8, and we'll go to verse 2. I have compassion on the multitude, because they have now been with me three days, and have nothing to eat. If I send them away fasting to their own houses, they will faint by the way, for divers of them came from afar. Now verse 14.

Now the disciples had forgotten to take bread, neither had they in the ship with them more than one loaf. And he charged them saying, Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod. Now verse 22.

And he cometh to Bethsaida, and they bring a blind man unto him, and besought him to touch him. 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 upon him, he asked him if he saw art.

And he looked up and said, I see men as trees walking. After that he put his hands again upon his eyes, and made him look up, and he was restored, and saw every man clearly. Now verse 29.

And he saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Peter answered and saith unto him, Thou art the Christ. Now verse 31. And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.

Now chapter 9. Verse 2. And after six days Jesus taketh with him Peter, and James, and John, and leadeth them up into a high mountain apart by themselves, and he was transfigured before them. His raiment became shining, exceeding white as snow, as no fuller of the earth can white them. Verse 7. And there was a cloud that overshadowed them, and a voice came out of the cloud, saying, This is my beloved Son, hear him.

Now maybe that will do for the reading, and we know that God will bless his word. Now first of all we read about the feeding of the multitudes, and I'm going to just call that the compassion, his compassion in the hungry. Before God saved you and I, we had a great hunger.

It was a hunger that the world couldn't satisfy. And many of us rejected the Lord Jesus. We heard the gospel often, but we went our own way.

But the Lord had compassion on us. Isn't that wonderful? You know there were others that we knew that we thought would be more suitable for God to save, and yet they were passed by. Not that it was God's fault, but they missed God's salvation.

But God in his love, and his grace, and in his compassion, he satisfied the longings of our heart. There's even more left over. We'll never be completely know everything regarding the Lord Jesus Christ, even in eternity.

But you know, since God saved us, he still feeds us. We've heard a little bit about that this morning, how the partook of the peace offering. So God still feeds his people.

And we could ask ourselves the question, is that what I'm feeding on? Am I feeding on the Lord Jesus Christ? Because he himself, as he said, he is the true bread that came down from heaven. The true, genuine bread. If we feed on him, we're going to be saved.

We appropriate his body and his blood. But then, day by day, are we feeding on him? The Lord is compassion. How do we live our lives? What are we occupied with? But still, in spite of it all, the Lord wants to feed us.

And the Lord has a provision for us, so that we would enjoy the Lord himself. Well, now that we have his correction of the disciples, he's telling them now what not to feed on. Don't feed on the leaven.

Leaven always speaks of sin. The leaven of the Pharisees, of course, would be legalism. Leaven of the Sadducees, not mentioned here, would be ritualism.

And the leaven of Herod, that would be political leaven. So he's saying, don't feed on these things. There are many things in the world, and if we feed on them, then we're not going to be really feeding on the Lord.

And if we're feeding on the Lord, these other things won't matter. It doesn't matter what's going on in the world, and it's not a matter of just following a ritual or trying to figure things out in a natural way, like the Sadducees, or to be involved in the politics of this life. We have something far better than that.

So the Lord has compassion on the hungry, and in his grace, he's able to correct the disciples. Isn't it wonderful how the Lord corrects us? We maybe aren't so careful when we try to correct someone else. But the Lord, he loves his people, and he wants us to be feeding on the proper thing.

Now, you have the condition of the blind. And this might seem to be a difficult miracle. It's the only one that we have fulfilled in two stages.

Why would they see men as trees walking? Well, the first thing I would learn from that is the man wasn't born blind. He knew what a tree looked like, and when his eyes were opened, he could see men as trees walking. Someone has said maybe he could see men far greater than what they were.

That's a very dangerous thing for us, isn't it, to put someone on a pedestal? We know some that have been put on pedestals, and Mr. Wark, he used to say, when you're up on a pedestal, the only way to go is down. But we shouldn't put men, and you can see that this is running right through this passage. I know there's not much time, but anyhow, it's running right through because they didn't have a proper appreciation of the Lord himself.

Let us build here three tabernacles, one for Moses, one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah. They were putting men up in an exalted position. But as well as that, I think it would tell us that we don't see things clearly.

God has saved us, and we don't see everything clearly all at once. As a matter of fact, we only see things very dimly. We're going to see them more clear in the future.

So that's another thing that we appreciate. We don't think we know everything now. We're very limited in our knowledge.

But there's a day coming when there's going to be a greater knowledge among God's people. But what about now? It's the same thing now, and it could speak of the nation, but anyhow, we just look at it this way. Here we are.

A conference. We're learning things. We're never going to reach a plateau where we think we have arrived.

We just see things, we may not so clearly. And we shouldn't think that we see it clearly, and everybody else has to see things the same as we. That's an evil among God's people.

When the successful seed grew, it didn't produce all the same. It did in the gospel of Luke. It's the gospel of God's grace.

But 30, 60, 100, 100, 60, 30. Some of us are saved, and we don't make too much progress. And you know, we don't think, well, I'm 100.

I don't mean years of age, but I'm 100. I have attained something. And everybody else, if they're really going to be anything, they need to be like me.

It doesn't work that way. The Lord is patient with us, and we should be patient with others. God can change us.

We can't change anyone, but God will change us through his word. So anyhow, we appreciate the fact, don't we, that we don't see things all that clearly. But we're going to see it in the future.

Now, the next thing is the confession of Peter. Thou art the Christ. There's some other things that are added in the other gospels.

Thou art the Christ. And he said, flesh and blood have not revealed it unto you, but my Father, which is in heaven. And each one of us, we know who the Lord Jesus Christ is.

We didn't attain that by any intelligence that we had. It was a revelation. This is the Son of God.

Later on, Peter said, not so, Lord. That's a statement that doesn't make any sense of he's Lord. He's Lord.

Not so, Lord. When he found out that the Lord in love to us was going to the cross at Calvary. He's going to open our eyes even clearer now.

The Lord must suffer. He must go to Calvary. And he went there for you.

And he went there for me. We know who he is. The Lord's from heaven.

The eternal Son of God. One who made the worlds. And the one who took the lowest place here on earth.

It's amazing that the Lord would do this for you and do this for me. I wonder what he saw in me to suffer such deep agony. That sounds plausible, but you know, he didn't really see anything in us.

Not one thing to commend us to God, but God commended his love toward us. And that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. So the Lord, in love to your soul and mine, he went to the cross at Calvary.

Forsaken of his God and the cross, all alone were the wrath and judgment of God. So we have the compassion, his compassion for the hungry, his correction of the disciples. He does that in love.

Shows us where we're wrong and shows us how we can be right. The condition of the blind, not seeing clearly. That was what Peter, when he said, not so Lord, you can tell he wasn't seeing things clearly at all.

He needed to have his eyes opened again. He needed another touch to show him that the Lord must go to the cross at Calvary. We have the crucifixion of Christ, but in chapter nine, we have a compensation in the kingdom.

And now we see things a little more clearly, don't we? And you know, Peter, he said, let us build here three tabernacles, one for thee, one for Moses, one for Elijah. But when he wrote about this in second Peter chapter one, he didn't mention Moses or Elijah. The voice from heaven, he said, came to him.

No mention of Moses or Elijah. What happened? Well, you know, when the mount, when a bright cloud overshadowed them, they saw no one save Jesus only. And that's what we want to get our eyes focused on the Lord Jesus Christ.

And in all aspects of Christian life, we want to be like him. We want to feed on him and to feed on him. It's appropriating.

We are what we eat. If we're occupied with Christ, we're going to be like him. But in a few minutes, we're going to remember the Lord.

We're not going to remember ourselves. Sometimes we do that, you know, and I tell the Lord what awful people we were. Nothing wrong with telling the Lord I'm a sinner for eternity.

It's unto him that love with us as cleanses are loosed us from our sins and his blood. But the main thrust is to remember him and is to tell the father the things concerning the son. What was it that made the change with Peter? Well, I'll tell you, he was an eyewitness of the sufferings of Christ and the partaker of the glory.

That's first Peter chapter five. He saw something there on the cross that was so different from what he saw on the mount. He saw the Lord Jesus crucified between two thieves, two criminals.

On the mount is between Moses and Elijah, two great servants in the Old Testament. We won't say anything more about them. His clothes, they mocked him, put a purple robe upon him and so on.

Here he's bright and shiny. What a transformation. They not only saw the thieves that were with him in the close of the war, but so many contrasts that we have.

His company, a cloud, a bright cloud at Calvary. It was a blackness of darkness when the Lord Jesus all alone went under the wrath and the judgment of God. And this is what touched Peter's heart.

And this is what should touch our hearts as well. Countenance changed. His visage marred more than any man and has formed more than the sons of men.

Just think of it. The Lord in all his greatness and all his glory here on the mount and then at Calvary. What a contrast.

And the heart of Peter was touched and he never was the same again. Is that true of you? Is that true of me? Have our hearts really been touched? May the Lord touch us. The Lord touched Jacob's thigh and he changed his walk.

The Lord touches us. Our life should be changed completely. Isaiah's lips were touched and he was given words to speak.

And I hope that as we gather together to remember the Lord that our lips will be touched from a cold from off the altar so that we'll be able to offer praise and worship unto God and unto the Lord Jesus Christ. May the Lord help us to think of the compassion of the Lord and how he has dealt with us. Bring us into such a position in such a place and touch our hearts and touch our lives.

Put us among the children so that we can gather together in scriptural simplicity with one object and view to see no one save Jesus only.