FAITH AND UNBELIEF CONTRASTED
‘There was a man there which had a withered hand.’
Mark 3:1
The narrative, like the whole of Mark’s Gospel, is marked by picturesqueness.
I. The obedience of faith is exhibited.
( a) This man was obedient in the presence of a great foe. ‘And He saith unto the man which had the withered hand, Stand forth’; and Luke adds, ‘He arose and stood forth’ ( Mark 6:8). Luke also informs us that the ‘scribes and Pharisees watched’ Christ. The foe of Christ and of the Truth was now present. Of the Pharisees Josephus has said, ‘They had so much weight with the multitude, that if they said anything against a king or a high priest they were believed.’ May we follow the courageous example of those who lived and died for the faith!
( b) This man was obedient although suffering from natural inability. Jesus said, ‘Stretch forth thine hand’—yea, the dry, withered hand—‘and he stretched it out.’ So Christ now bids the spiritually dead believe, obey, live.
( c) This man was obedient to the reception of a great blessing. ‘And his hand was restored whole as the other.’ To-day Christ gives to such as are obedient to His call the unspeakable gift, the new life.
II. The hostility of unbelief.—This unbelief was not doubt or the suspension of judgment, but the positive rejection of Christ and His claims upon them. Such unbelief is characterised by—
( a) Unfriendliness. They observed Him narrowly that they might accuse Him. The mind which thus labours is contemptible. Such unbelief is always unfriendly to Christ.
( b) Callousness. They were unsympathetic. To them the welfare of the maimed man was a small matter. They were morally impenetrable. Unbelief is always associated with hardness, callousness; moral petrifaction is the sure end and companion of persistent unbelief.
( c) Madness. This is shown by its bitter hatred of goodness. Christ was goodness personified, yet they bitterly hated Him. It is shown by their purpose to suppress the truth by the murder of its exponent and advocate. ‘How they might destroy Him.’ To act thus is to challenge the Almighty to arms.
Illustrations
(1) ‘The old Gospel of the Hebrews informs us that the man was a mason by trade, and there is no reason to doubt the tradition. He is said to have addressed his supplication to the Lord in these words: “I was a mason seeking sustenance by my hands; I beseech Thee, O Jesus, restore Thou me to health, that I may not shamefully beg my food.” Luke ( Mark 6:6) adds the characteristic note, which would come naturally from the pen of the physician, that the man had his right hand withered.’
(2) ‘Our Lord goes into the synagogue at Capernaum, where He had already wrought more than one miracle, and there He finds an object for His healing power in a poor man with a withered hand; and also a little knot of His enemies. The scribes and Pharisees expect Christ to heal the man. So much had they learned of His tenderness and of His power. But their belief that He could work a miracle did not carry them one step towards a recognition of Him as sent by God. They have no eye for the miracle, because they expect that He is going to break the Sabbath. There is nothing so blind as formal religionism. The poor man’s infirmity did not touch their hearts with one little throb of compassion. They had rather that he had gone crippled all his days than that one of their rabbinical Sabbath restrictions should be violated. There is nothing so cruel as formal religionism.’

THE HUMAN SIDE OF A MIRACLE
‘Stretch forth thine hand.’
Mark 3:5
By the command of the text three conditions were demanded:—
I. Faith was required.—Unbelief hinders God’s merciful designs, excludes the light of His presence, arrests the arm of His salvation. Faith is the handmaid of His goodness, the almoner of His bounty. Faith is the mysterious moral force which thrusts out the hand of humanity to take the gift Divine.
II. Obedience was rendered.—It was not a small matter to stand forth before that hostile company, and incur the charge of complicity with Jesus in the breaking of the Sabbath. Obedience to Christ, in this case, meant disobedience to the rulers and lawyers and scribes. It meant forgetfulness or disregard of the traditions of the elders. And this implied much more. One man, we know, was cast out of the synagogue because his life of darkness had been lit up by the Son of God. We know that the Jews sought to put Lazarus to death, because in his grave he had heard the voice of Jesus, and come forth. This crippled man, then, might well have much to apprehend. But undaunted he obeyed, and in the very act of obedience he found the blessing that he craved. This obedience was the fruit of his faith, and the faith which does not produce obedience is of little worth. Saving faith is always obedient faith.
III. A strong resolution was needed.—‘Stretch forth thine hand!’—the very thing he could not do—the very thing he longed to be able to do! We can well imagine the man exclaiming, ‘Behold, Lord, my hand is withered, powerless, nerveless, practically dead. Lord, give me the power, and I will obey.’ But he found that the law of Christ is, Obey, and thou hast the power. ‘He stretched forth his hand, and his hand was restored.’
Illustration
‘There is a great difference between the miracles of the Old Testament and those of the New. Compare the wonders of Moses with the works of Christ. The former were chiefly displays of judgment; the latter, of mercy. In either case they were designed to accredit their author as the messenger of God, but in the case of our Lord this was not the chief purpose. He claimed the faith and homage of men on higher ground, and only appealed to His miracles as a last resource. “If ye believe not Me, believe the works.” The works He did bare witness of Him, but He Himself was the true and perfect witness. His miracles were not so much to prove His Divine authority as His Divine compassion.’

CALLING AND ELECTION
‘And they came unto Him.’
Mark 3:13
I. Here is the evidence of our calling.—We come because He calls. Let us not trouble ourselves with the doctrine of election. Let each one ask himself the question, ‘Have I come to Jesus?’ If you have, then Christ has called you, and you have heard that call. You are one of the elect, for you have come to Jesus. In order to answer the question, “Am I one of the elect?’ first ask another: ‘Have I come to Jesus?’ ‘Am I one of the elect?’ is not the first question. ‘Have I come?’ is the first. Your answer to this question will be the answer—the only answer—to the other. Are you at His feet?
II. All who hear His voice go ‘unto Him.’—‘My sheep hear My voice; I know them, and they follow Me.’ Take care you make no mistake here. Take care it is to Him you go. There are many voices all around you. God’s call is to come first to Jesus. This is the voice of the Good Shepherd. Jesus first—‘Jesus only.’
III. That they should be with Him.—Mark the important word here—‘with Him.’ He called them ‘ unto Him.’ For what purpose? That they should be ‘with Him.’ We were redeemed that we should walk with God. We were bought with His blood that we should be ‘with Him,’ that we should never leave His side, that we should have Him nearer to us than any earthly friend, however near or dear. Why are so many satisfied with having been ‘called unto Him,’ and care so little about being ‘ with Him’? Most of God’s people are walking at a distance. They have forgotten why the Saviour called them—‘that they should be with Him.’ This is the only tenure on which you hold the great blessings of redemption. You have no right to one of them except on this condition—that you walk with God.
—Rev. F. Whitfield.

THE MINISTRY OF PREACHING
“He ordained twelve, that they should be with Him, and that He might send them forth to preach.’
Mark 3:14
Such is the Evangelist’s brief account of the origin and purpose of the Apostolate.
I. The decay of preaching.—Does the preaching of the message of Christ, does the preaching of Christ, hold anything like its proper place at present among us of the Church of England? If I see things at all as they are, it is far otherwise. A certain slight of the sermon is in fashion, and the preacher himself is not in love with his work—he allows himself to deal scantly and perfunctorily with his sermon. Perhaps it is not only brief (a merit, in the modern fashion) but thin. Perhaps it is but a glib essay, clever or otherwise, and sometimes all the colder and weaker to the soul for being that poor thing, clever. It is a discussion, a suggestion, an appreciation, a sketch, or what not; anything rather than a message; totally other than that delivery of Divine truth through human personality which Phillips Brooks finely tells us is the idea of the sermon.
II. The scriptural valuation of it.—Turn from such unworthy estimates of this great and sacred thing to the scriptural valuation of it, and to the reverent honour set upon it by the Church of England. Think of the sermon not as it can be travestied, but as the utterance by a man commissioned by the Lord and the Church, and who comes forth to his duty from converse with the Lord, of that ‘Word of God which liveth and abideth for ever,’ that ‘engrafted Word which is able to save the soul,’ yea, by which man can be ‘begotten again to a lively hope.’ In the name of the Bible, in the name of the Ordinal, in the name of prophets and apostles, and of an innumerable company of witnesses, are we not right in making all the appeal we can to the Church, and all the prayer we can to God, for a great revival of the pulpit?
III. The preacher and his sermon.—The man goes forth to preach, because his Master sends him. To go at his own bidding would be intolerable. What is not the rest and power of that thought, He hath sent us forth? And then, coming from that presence, from that Divine and human companionship, from the feet of that King, from the Cross of that Redeemer, what shall we go forth to preach? Not our ideas, but His Word. Not our guesses at a thousand things, but His revelation of the ‘one thing needful’; and the one thing needful is our Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
IV. A remedy for our divisions.—In the revival of the preaching of Christ—Christ in His glorious Person, His finished work, His never-finished working, Him first, midst, last, and without end—there may lie, by the mercy of God, one great means, perhaps the greatest means, of deliverance at last from the distresses of our divisions.
—Bishop H. C. G. Moule.
Illustrations
(1) ‘ “A few nights ago,” once said Bishop Moule, “it was my privilege to address one of those great congregations of our Durham mining people whose listening, when they listen, is indeed an inspiration to the preacher, an appeal to him to give out his whole self for their service, mind and soul. My theme was Jesus Christ, and I could not but tell them that I could take no other. ‘I used long ago,’ I said, ‘to preach of many things; but as life runs around and age draws near, I can preach of only one thing, it is Jesus Christ.’ ” ’
(2) ‘Well and nobly does Dr. Arthur Mason write ( Faith of the Gospel, ix. § 2): “First among the appointed means of grace comes the preaching of the Word of God. There is a truly sacramental grace and power in preaching.” “The words are not mere words, but vehicles of something beyond words.” “If preaching is not reckoned among the Sacraments, but parallel with them, it is because it is more, not less, than a Sacrament. The gift conveyed through it indeed may not be greater, but it more immediately influences the springs of thought and will.” ’

‘BOANERGES’
‘And James the son of Zebedee, and John the brother of James; and He surnamed them Boanerges, which is, The son of thunder.’
Mark 3:17
St. James and John were together in desiring to rival the fiery and avenging miracle of Elijah, and to partake of the profound baptism and bitter cup of Christ.
I. The two brothers.—It is remarkable that St. James, he whom Christ bade to share His distinctive title with another, should not once be named as having acted or spoken by himself. With a fire like that of St. Peter, but no such power of initiative and of chieftainship, how natural it is that his appointed task was martyrdom! Is it objected that his brother also, the great Apostle John, received only a share in that divided title? But the family trait is quite as palpable in him. The deeds of John were seldom wrought upon his own responsibility; never, if we except the bringing of St. Peter into the palace of the high priest. He is a keen observer and a deep thinker, but he cannot, like his Master, combine the quality of leader with those of student and sage.
II. John a follower, not a leader.—In company with St. Andrew he found the Messiah. St. James led him for a time. It was in obedience to a sign from St. Peter that he asked who was the traitor. With St. Peter, when Jesus was arrested, he followed afar off. It is very characteristic that he shrank from entering the sepulchre until St. Peter, coming up behind, went in first, although it was John who thereupon ‘saw and believed.’ With like discernment he was the first to recognise Jesus beside the lake. St. Peter, when Jesus drew him aside, turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following, with the same gentle, silent, and sociable affection, which had so recently found him with the saddest and tenderest of all companions underneath the Cross.
III. John and St. Peter.—John was again with St. Peter at the Beautiful Gate; and although it was not he who healed the cripple, yet his co-operation is implied in the words, ‘Peter fastened his eyes on him, with John.’ And when the council would fain have silenced them, the boldness which spoke in St. Peter’s reply was ‘the boldness of Peter and John.’ Could any series of events justify more perfectly a title which implied much zeal, yet zeal that did not demand a specific unshared epithet? Add to this the keenness and deliberation which so much of his story exhibits, which at the beginning rendered no hasty homage, but followed Jesus to examine and to learn, which saw the meaning of the orderly arrangement of the grave clothes in the empty tomb, which was the first to recognise the Lord upon the beach—and we have the very qualities required to supplement those of St. Peter without being discordant or uncongenial. And therefore it is with St. Peter, even more than with his brother, that we have seen John associated.
—Bishop G. A. Chadwick.

THE CONFLICT BETWEEN GOOD AND EVIL
‘No man can enter into a strong man’s house, and spoil his goods, except he will first bind the strong man; and then he will spoil his house.’
Mark 3:27
We have no a priori right to deny the existence of evil spirits. It has been urged that in a world created by a good, and wise, and powerful God, a being like Satan can have no conceivable place. But the argument obviously proves too much. We have not a few bad men, and not a few bad women, around us, who act the part of tempters to others, and labour hard to make them as depraved and as wretched as themselves. How are they to be accounted for? And unless we are prepared to show cause why an unseen and spiritual personage should be an utter impossibility—the very fact of the existence in the world that we do know of such people as I have spoken of may well raise the presumption that there may be something corresponding to them, and even on a larger scale of intelligence and power, in the world that we do not know.
I. Our Lord’s testimony.—In the passage before us, our Lord is quite at one with His accusers in the crowd as to the fact of the existence and the agency of evil spirits. He speaks of Himself and of another person (not impersonation) who is opposed to Him. The latter is strong, and hold his goods and keeps his house; but Jesus is stronger, and enters into the other’s house and binds him and wrests his possessions out of his hand.
II. The opposing forces.—In this great universe, of which we men form apparently so inconsiderable a part, there are two kingdoms—the kingdom of light on the one side, and the kingdom of darkness on the other; or, to express oneself in different words, the kingdoms of good and of evil, or of truth and of falsehood. Each of these kingdoms has a personal Head. On the one side stands Jesus Christ, the God-man, the source of all light and knowledge, of all holiness and purity and goodness, the loving, gentle, kind, sympathising Saviour and Sovereign of mankind. And ranged behind Him, and guided and directed by Him, and working under Him, are the multitudes of the ‘saints,’ the men and the women who believe in His Name and desire to extend His influence over the earth, and with them an innumerable, but invisible, company of the holy angels. These three together (the Captain and his two bands of soldiers) constitute what may be called the ‘army of the living God.’ On the other side stand the dark hosts of Satan. They form (we suppose) a vast organisation. St. Paul’s language seems to intimate as much when he tells us that we ‘wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities; against powers, against the ruler of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.’ The idea conveyed in this language is, first, that of great numbers. Then, of the formidable power. This huge organisation, bound together not by the tie of love, but by the tie of fierce, consuming hatred against God, is led (as it appears) by one mighty chieftain, whom our Lord denominates ‘Satan.’ Is it fanciful to suppose that this dark potentate and his subordinates, who have now studied our human nature, and the circumstances in which we live, for thousands of years, know all about us, and all about each individual member of the human family; understand our weaknesses, our proclivities; are acquainted with our past and our present; and, like the hunter, who prepares the most tempting bait for the creature he wishes to entrap, are skilful to spread the toils into which we are most likely to fall, to weave the airy, unsubstantial phantoms by the fascinations of which we may be most easily led on to the very verge of the pit of destruction? Such a view, I think, we are justified in taking. It is not fanciful; it is not poetical. It is plain, simple matter of fact.
III. No neutrality.—The conflict between these two kingdoms is even now going on. And the formidable, the almost appalling thought is this, that we are compelled, whether we like it or not, to take our part in it. We might wish to stand aloof as mere spectators; perhaps we do wish to be spared the trouble, the effort, the strain, the risk of it. But that cannot be. We must take one side or the other. We must be for Christ, or against Him. And the veriest trifler, who flits about, butterfly-like, from pleasure to pleasure, in apparent innocence and gaiety of heart, doing no harm (as we say), but also doing no good, is and must be implicated in this great strife, which is going on through the ages, and which, if we had only the faculties to look into the heart of things, we should see to be in deed and in truth shaking both heaven and earth.
Rev. Prebendary Gordon Calthrop.
Illustration
‘In that terrible scene, when the future Judge of all was brought up to the bar of a human judge, and was accused and condemned by His own creatures, Pilate laboured hard to exonerate himself from responsibility, to lay the burden upon others’ shoulders, to stand aside himself, so as not to be implicated and entangled with one party or the other; and he took water and washed his hands before the multitude, in order to show how completely (as he thought) he had succeeded in the attempt. But he had not succeeded. He was under the necessity of taking his side for or against, as all men have to do when Christ appears before them.’
(SECOND OUTLINE)
THE STRONG MAN ARMED
When Christ cast out an evil spirit from a man, it was in itself a great act. But Christ gave it a far greater importance, by the way in which He taught us to regard it. It was not, He said, a solitary miracle; it was a part of a great undertaking which He was accomplishing.
I. The house.—Every one’s own heart is ‘a house,’ or ‘a palace,’ which Satan, as ‘a strong man armed,’ holds and keeps. So long as ‘the strong man’ holds his ‘palace’ on an undisputed tenure, it is all quiet; ‘his goods’—alas that the man himself is among the chattels!—‘his goods are in peace.’ But when Christ, Who is represented as the stronger One—when ‘the stronger One’ comes, there is warfare, warfare to the death; and this warfare in the breast is the first, and for a long while, the only token for good.
II. The ‘binding.’—See how He ‘binds.’ A little while ago some straitening circumstances happened to you, and you felt strangely circumscribed. You chafed against the restraint which you felt but could not overcome. Or a very heavy trial almost crushed you, or a very deep humiliation visited your heart, or for a while you were utterly shut in to dark and dreary thoughts. The mystery grew very deep. But, unknown to you, ‘the stronger’ was binding ‘the strong one.’ The fire of persecution and shame and suffering that was kindled upon you—it was not to burn you, but the enemies that were spiritually oppressing you; and at the same time, it consumed the bands that encircled you, and set you free, to walk joyfully through the furnace.
III. ‘The spoil.’—‘He will bind the strong man, and then He will spoil his house.’ The habit of sin broken, the power of sin reduced, the love of sin destroyed, the soul is emancipated; and now Christ is free to claim His own property, which His own blood has purchased and His own right hand has rescued. Has not He a right? Are not all ‘the spoils’ His?