Now look across the page and you’ll see our scripture for today. We’re in the book of Mark, of course, and today reading verses 9 through 26. Mark 8, 9 through 26. This is God’s holy word. And there were about 4,000 people, and He sent them away, And immediately he got into the boat with his disciples and went to the district of Dalmanutha.
The Pharisees came and began to argue with him, seeking from him a sign from heaven to test him. And he sighed deeply in his spirit and said, Why does this generation seek a sign? Truly I say to you, no sign will be given to this generation. And he left them and got into the boat again and went to the other side. Now they had forgotten to bring bread. They had only one loaf with them in the boat. And he cautioned them, saying, Watch out! Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod. And they began discussing with one another the fact that they had no bread. And Jesus, aware of this, said to them, why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread?
Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts 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 broken pieces did you take up? They said to him, Twelve. And the seven of the four thousand, how many baskets of broken pieces did you take up? And they said to him, Seven.
And he said to them, Do you not yet understand? And they came to Bethsaida, And some people brought to Him a blind man and begged Him to touch him. And He took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village. And when he had spit on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, Do you see anything? And he looked up and said, I see people, but they look like trees walking. Then Jesus laid His hands on his eyes again, And he opened his eyes, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. And he sent him to his home, saying, Do not even enter the village.”
Thus far, God’s holy, inspired, and infallible Word. It will please the Lord to take His Word, and by the power of His Spirit, to transform that into effective service for Himself. Thanks be to God. Heavenly Father, we pray today that this passage with its missing items might become clear to us and that we will see what’s missing in our own lives and seek to have what is missing replaced with what you provide. We do ask this now in Jesus’ name. Amen. In Mark chapter 6, Jesus miraculously fed 5,000 men, women, and children. Probably more than 5,000 when you add in the family members there.
Here at the beginning of chapter 8, we didn’t read the beginning, and I’ll tell you why. Because He repeats that miracle, this time with a less number. There were only 4,000 this time. And there’s more bread than there was last time. So there are a few little differences, but essentially it’s the same miracle. Feeding the 5,000, feeding the 4,000 comes out to the same thing. Other than to say that the miracles are almost identical, we don’t need them to have to read it again, but I encourage you to take your Bibles when you have time and read the first eight verses of chapter eight.
Mark is not clear on exactly when Jesus and his disciples crossed back from the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee over to the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. to a place actually called Dalmanutha. We don’t really know exactly where that was, but we think it was sort of the southwest corner of the Sea of Galilee. In any event, that’s where the narrative picks up today, and it returns to the ongoing challenges from the Pharisees, and Herod’s name is included here as well. But he’ll also talk about the discomfort of the disciples, and then a two-stage miracle, the giving of the sight to the blind man.
But in each case, and there’s three of them here, the request for a sign, and the missing bread, and the need to touch the man twice for his sight, I call it the missing of clarity. We see that in each case something is missing, something is missing. Now if you’ve ever been overseas, and maybe even some places in this country, You might get lost in the city, even though there are signs all over the place, but you can’t read the signs. Maybe they’re in a foreign language, maybe their printing is not so clear. For one reason or another, there are signs, but you can’t quite make heads or tails of them. We’re going to talk first about the missing sign.
Show us a sign from heaven, said the Pharisees. Some sign that will verify, authenticate your claims to be the Son of God. Your claim to have come to save Israel and to be their king. Give us a sign like that. Well, let me say first of all, there is one sign above all other signs, and that is Christ himself.
If He’s not a sign, then I’m not sure you’re ever going to find a sign. Jesus is the sign from heaven. And it’s very sad that these students of the Bible and of the Jewish faith were not able to see that the sign that they expected from heaven was right there before them, even allowing them, if the need arose, to touch Him, certainly to see Him, to speak with Him. The crowds that followed Jesus seemed always to say, yeah, yeah, but what about a sign?
And again, there’s a great irony. There was the sign right in front of them. But we’ll look a little closer here. There were lots of other signs, of course, healings that Jesus performed, resurrections from the dead. There was his control of natural things. He could tell the wind and the waves to be still. He could make the fish go in certain direction that he wanted them to go.
There were plenty of signs that only for these folks, there was never enough. Just one more, please. And then we’ll believe. It was always one more, one more. Give us a sign from heaven. Now, we should add that Satan is keenly aware of the need for signs. And as we said, Jesus had provided lots of signs, including himself. But those counterfeit signs always proved to be empty, not only in the result that was hoped for to prove that Jesus was the Savior, but just also as they never really worked out the way that people thought they should.
I think about, for example, the story of Jonah. Another occasion, it might have been this one, I don’t know, but an occasion, Jesus said, no sign will be given to this generation, He goes on to say, except the sign of Jonah. And Jonah, you see, is a picture of the resurrection. Here was a man who was swallowed by the waves and then swallowed by a great fish. And who could survive that? Buried, as it were, in the depths of the sea and kept there by the sea creature. And yet he came up again and went on to serve the Lord.
That’s another story in itself. But the sign of Jonah is the resurrection. And Jesus is saying, here I am, I’m that sign. And the capstone of that, the cherry on top of the pudding, as it were, will be my resurrection from the dead and the resurrection, therefore, that I promise to everyone else.
Well, we have to ask ourselves, what exactly did the Pharisees and the people expect the Messiah would show them that he hadn’t already showed them? I’ve heard it said that someone who was witnessing to an unbelieving Jewish person, just ask him this simple question, because the Jews, generally speaking, are still looking for the Messiah to come. And he asked this simple question, well, when the Messiah comes, what will he do differently than Jesus did? Of course, there was no real answer to that other than, yes, he did messianic things, Christ himself is the sign.
But what did they expect? Well, I think they expected somehow that the Messiah when he came in to get rid of the Romans. And suppose there were other conquerors and oppressors of the Jewish people. And when the Messiah comes, he’ll get rid of all our oppressors and he’ll lift us up and make us the greatest nation on earth. There’ll be a great earthly kingdom with which nothing can compare.
Perhaps they wanted a voice from heaven, but guess what? but there was a voice from heaven. When Jesus was baptized, the voice from heaven said, this is my beloved son with whom I’m well pleased. And there were other instances when Lazarus was raised from the dead that people thought they heard thunder, but it was God speaking. Maybe they wanted to hear that voice from heaven or certainly something that seemed to be a voice from heaven, but never enough, never ever enough. What was missing? The sign that they wanted. What was not missing? The sign that they needed. What’s missing in your life at this point? Is there anything that’s keeping you from the Lord?
Oh, if He would only do this or that or the other thing. There have been a lot of soldiers that said in the midst of battle, oh God, if You’ll only get me out of this, I’ll serve You. There always is something you want from God. God says, open the book, open the scripture, see the same things that the Pharisees saw, that the crowds saw in that God speaking to you. And it takes really the work of grace. It takes the Holy Spirit of God to say, this is it. Somebody, and I think I’ve used this illustration before, but when I was overseas one time, somebody, some foreign person, and I was a foreigner over there too, but he said, what does hallelujah mean? And the answer was, I think it means hot dog, this is it.
Well, if you can’t look at the Lord Jesus Christ from the scriptures and with the help of the Holy Spirit and say, hot dog, he’s the one, he’s it, then you’re hard to reach, I must say. But God can change your hearts. But I just want to ask you today, do you sense that you know who Jesus is because he is the sign? He is the revelation of God. He is what you need today. Come to Him. He said, I won’t tell you to go away. Come to Me. I’ll give you rest. I’ll rest you.
And then there’s the second of these missing things, the missing bread. King David, many years before Jesus, had found himself on the run. Saul was after him. He gathered a few of his men and they ended up at a place called Nob. And there were priests there, and evidently the tabernacle had been erected there at that point.
And the priest said, I don’t have any bread to give you. And David said, we’re starving or hungry. But there is some bread inside the tabernacle, the show bread that’s finished its course and all. You’re not supposed to eat it, but if you think God is with you and in this, and you’re serving God, I’ll give you that bread.”
And they did. They ate that bread. So there was missing bread, you see, all the way from Jerusalem or wherever Saul was located at that point, and David had run And he had no bread, but there was bread there, enough bread to keep them going. But something more significant than that was that there’s always enough bread where Jesus is, always enough. And you can substitute other things for bread. if you need money, if you need housing, if you need friends, God has all these things for you. Now, we see these 12 disciples of Jesus, and he makes a number 13 person there, but the disciples particularly were obsessed with two things, one with bread, and then they were obsessed with the fact that they had forgotten bread.
So what are we going to do? And so they had a big discussion. Now Jesus said, you should be discussing, and I think this indicates that he had been talking to them before about the false teaching or the misguided teaching of the Pharisees and others. And Jesus said, that’s what you ought to really be talking about. Where did they go off the rails?
Why did they not see my messiahship, my rule, my reign, my power, and so forth. They said, oh, we’re concerned about the bread. We only have one loaf here. How’s one loaf going to feed all of us, all 12, 13 of us? How’s that going to happen? And then, of course, they felt guilty. They, oh, we should have thought of that. We really let the Lord down this time. So Jesus had to rebuke them, actually, for that.
Perhaps they thought, well, feeding 5,000, 4,000, that really demands something, but we’re just a few people, and we can’t really call forth God’s help for just a few, right? And of course, Jesus would say, you can be one or you can be a multitude, but I can supply all of your needs.
And so I ask you today, you look upon the Lord that way. I feel so alone here, or I only have a few friends here, or life just seems to have isolated me. And the Lord says, I can remedy that. I can help you with that. Just look unto Me. Remember what I did in other situations. How was I going to feed a total of 9,000, and if you take women and children, many more thousands of people. How was I going to do that? Because I’m God and I’m able to do that.
Well, Jesus’ first rebuke to them focused on their not being upset at the figuratively leavened bread of the Pharisees. The Pharisees weren’t giving out loaves of bread, of course, but they were giving out verbal morsels, if you will, verbal loaves to the people. But in the Scriptures, the bread that’s unleavened is the holy bread set apart for the Lord. The leavened bread is common and so forth. And Jesus was saying these Pharisees and teachers like them are not really giving you anything substantive to eat.
And I rebuke you, he says, for not being concerned about that, not being able to answer these arguments and obstacles that are put forth by the Pharisees. That was the first rebuke. And the second rebuke amounted to his saying that even when it comes to such a mundane thing as just the bread to keep your stomach satisfied You’re not craving things all the time. He says, I can take care of that as well, too. Don’t you think I have enough power to do that? Or that I care enough for you as a small group as I cared as much for the larger group? Well, one thing Jesus wants to say is there are no missing loaves, whether you take the first rebuke or the second rebuke. There are no missing loaves that Jesus cannot supply. Jesus is the great supplier. He’s the supplier leading to the first rebuke there. He’s the supplier of truth.
They’ve got it wrong. They’re misguiding you. They’re not leading you in the right way, but Jesus can give you the truth. I can give you the truth. Listen to Me. What did God say? A voice from heaven. This is My beloved Son. On another occasion, He said, listen to Him.
He can give you what the Pharisees and the other teachers of the law cannot give you. And if you need bread, I can give you that bread. But remember, he said, and he said this right after the feeding of the 5,000, he said, I am the bread that has come down from heaven. He said, I am the bread of life. If you eat of me, as it were, spiritually speaking, if you take in what I have to give you, you’ll never be hungry. Ever. I am the bread of life, he said.
There was clearly some bread missing. The disciple said, we don’t have but one loaf. And with the teaching that was giving out, there’s just not the truth of God. You say, what’s missing here? What’s missing is what Jesus can give you. And if you’re concerned, whether spiritually or materially, I just want to encourage you today that Jesus can supply your needs. He’s the chief supplier. He is the one who can supply, as it were, a whole army if necessary, but certainly all my disciples. One last thing that Jesus said in this regard, and it was again right after he had fed the 5,000, but he warned those who were saying, give us more bread.
He said, do not labor for the bread that perishes. What were the bakers of Dalmanutha or any place else giving out? Good bread, but it was the bread that perishes. What were the Pharisees and their followers and attenders giving out? Spiritual bread that perishes. But he said, I give you the bread which if you eat of it, you’ll live forever.
That’s what he told the woman of Samaria. Well, we go on then to the third and final missing item, and that’s clarity. And it shows up in the healing of this blind man. Very interesting case. There’s none other like it in Scripture that we know of. There may have been others like it, but there’s none recorded of it.
Let me just give you this illustration. was a great battle fought in Europe, of course, back in the early 1800s, the Battle of Waterloo. And on the outcome of that battle between Napoleon and the British forces under Wellington and some German forces that had joined them and so forth, what was Europe going to turn out to be? Would it be Napoleon’s fiefdom or would it be the putting away of Napoleon and Maybe not perfect as we would think of it, but at least a better European situation than with Napoleon in charge of things. Well, it’s said that there were those who stood on the coast of England, and they could look across that narrow strait, and if they had a telescope or something, they could see signals. I don’t know if they were flags or some other kind of signal, but the outcome of the battle would be relayed across the channel there.
And it was a foggy day, misty day. And so the person with the telescope was looking, and all he could see for the first few minutes were, Wellington defeated. Wellington defeated. And you can imagine their hearts would have sunk at that point. But then the fog lifted, and they got the rest of the message. Wellington defeated Napoleon. Wellington was victorious. It makes a lot of difference whether things are foggy or clear.
Now, this blind man that was led to Jesus evidently was led by people of faith, and I have no reason to doubt that he himself was a man of faith. And they believed in Jesus. Now, maybe it was a weak faith. Maybe they said, maybe Jesus can do this. But anyway, it was a kind of faith. And there had been other people like that before. But they led the man to Jesus and said, please touch him, please heal him. Now we know that this man was not born blind. Some people that Jesus healed, that is blind people, had been born blind. But evidently this man had gradually become blind. His sight at some point just began to fail.
And it’s reflected in the way Jesus deals with the man. He could remember before his sight failed him what it looked like for men to be walking about. So that when he said to Jesus, I see people and they seem like trees walking. Well, he remembered that for when he could see. And then his sight failed him. And Jesus comes along and he said, well, let’s back up. Let’s reverse the process. Your sight began to fail you, and at a certain point there, you could just barely see.
So he says to the man, what do you see now? After his first touching of the man. And he said, I see men, or people, like trees walking. Well, that was the last stage before he became totally blind, but Jesus had brought him back, you see, to that point. where he could see something. And then he continued with him, of course, and touched him.
And he says, what about now? and says, I can see everything clearly. Everything is just right. And I think that’s how you have to observe what’s going on here. He lost his sight over time, and then he became totally blind, and then now he sees kind of like he used to before total blindness came, and then he can see perfectly after that.
Why did Jesus do it this way? Well, of course, he had a lesson to teach in doing it this way. I think you have here an indication that faith is already present. So there’s really not any missing faith here, but there’s clarity. And I think this is a situation that a lot of the Old Testament people, you see. They were seeing men walking like trees or something like that. but they couldn’t really grasp the whole thing.
And Jesus is saying, you know, what God has revealed to you has brought you up to a certain point. Now I’m going to finish it. I’m going to make you see clearly, perfectly. And there were still people like the Pharisees that said, no, no, it’s only up to a certain point. It’s just the Old Testament that we pay attention to.
And Jesus says, no, now I’m taking that and proceeding it further so that you see clearly. Well, the Lord here shows us how faith grows. Maybe we just have a little faith, but faith grows. Even when we become true believers in the Lord, there’s still growth to take place. One thing we see here is that Christ takes His time. I could probably ask you today, how did you become a Christian? Some of you could say, well, it was just an overnight thing almost. I just came to believe in Him. And other people would say, well, it took a while. It took a while.
But Jesus takes His time. Jesus works in us to accomplish what He wants to teach us, what we need to understand about Him. It’s not that He can’t just snap His fingers and everything be just the way it is. But He works with us so that we grow, so that we become more understanding, more like Him. more servants of his, whereas one time we were less prepared, now we’re much better prepared. And ultimately, of course, when he comes again, takes us all to be with himself, everything will be crystal clear. There’ll be not the least little bit of fog or misunderstanding at that point.
Christ takes His time, and so He keeps touching, and He keeps working. If you’re discouraged today about your Christian life, if you wonder, how can I really say I’m a Christian on these things, and that thing happens, just remember the Lord is working with you, like the old bumper sticker, you know, be patient, the Lord isn’t through with me yet. The Lord takes His time and He knows what’s best. And He does certainly teach that here.
What’s missing here is not faith so much as clarity. Clarity. Clear vision. And it’s the Lord’s will that we eventually see, as it says here, everything clearly. Everything clearly. Until it’s perfect when He comes again. Well, these are the three missing things, but they weren’t missing at all. There was a missing sign, but Jesus was Himself the sign, and there were a lot of other supporting signs. There was a missing bread. Yes, it was just one loaf that they had, but Jesus is able to feed thousands.
He’s able to provide whatever we need, spiritual bread or real material bread. And when we don’t have clarity, when the fog has obscured things a bit, He’ll clear it away for us if we truly seek Him, if we truly study His Word and ask, Lord, help me to understand. Help me to see what I need to see. Well, that’s our study this morning. And may the Lord help us to realize that when it comes to our trust in Christ, nothing is missing, nothing. Heavenly Father, bless this word to our hearts today and enable us to live by it and share it with others who may be going through some of these same things, ideas, and thoughts that say they’re missing things. Help us to see it’s all there in your word and in our lives as that word is impressed upon us by the Holy Spirit.
We ask this in Jesus’ name, amen. Please turn to the back of the bulletin and we’ll sing a closing hymn together. Now blessed be the Lord our God, the God of Israel, for He alone doth wondrous works in glory that excel. And blessed be His glorious name, to all eternity. The whole earth let His glory fill, Amen, so let it be. Well have a blessed day and maybe we’ll see some of you during the week ahead. But as you go now, take God’s blessing with you. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all, now and forever. Amen.