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Home , Mark 3

“IS THE ACCUSATION CORRECT?” MARK 3:20-35 JULY 5, 2015

And He came home, and the crowd gathered again, to such an extent that they could not even eat a meal. When His own people heard of this, they went out to take custody of Him; for they were saying, “He has lost His senses.” The scribes who came down from were saying, “He is possessed by Beelzebul,” and “He casts out the demons by the ruler of the demons.” And He called them to Himself and began speaking to them in , “How can cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. If a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. If Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but he is finished! But no one can enter the strong man’s house and plunder his property unless he first binds the strong man, and then he will plunder his house. “Truly I say to you, all shall be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever they utter; but whoever blasphemes against the never has , but is guilty of an eternal ”— because they were saying, “He has an unclean spirit.” (Mark 3:20-30NASB) As we get into our text this morning there is a couple of things that is important for us to know. First, at this point in time, is well into His ministry. Since chapter one of Mark to this point in chapter three, Jesus has been on a traveling ministry for well over a year. It is during this time that He healed the sick, demonstrated His power and authority over demons, cleaned the Temple, and performed many other . The second thing the text says, He came home. Jesus is back in . It is important to understand He is in His home town base because those who came to accuse Him has traveled all the way from Jerusalem, approximately 85 miles. I think it is important because it is in His home town that these Scribes make the accusation that Jesus is possessed by Beelzebul the “ruler of demons.” What an incredible accusation to make. Yet there still are many who make accusations about Jesus today. Many of you will be familiar with the name C.S. Lewis. C.S. Lewis, the great writer, the great thinker, the great Christian apologist has written many, many things that many of us are very, very familiar with. And in his effort at apologetics, he came up with a paradigm that has probably become somewhat well known, maybe it's more widely known even then its author. Lewis was concerned that there were too many people who were saying about Jesus that He was a good teacher, that He was a noble, moral leader, that He was a religious revolutionary that He was a man of immense compassion and great , and there were many people in his time, as there always have been and there certainly are today, who want to throw all kinds of laurels at Jesus and all kinds of accolades and paint Him as this nice and noble and compassionate and kind insightful exceptional teacher. C.S. Lewis was convinced that that is one option that is not possible...that is not possible. That is not a possible consideration of Jesus, he said. He could not be a good man, He could not be a moral man, He could not be a religious teacher, He could not be a trustworthy leader, He could not be wise, He could not be a spiritual mentor only because of one very important matter and it is this, He claimed to be God. And as soon as He claimed to be God, He eliminated Himself from that category because good people, wise people, sensible people don't think they're God and they don't want you to think they're God. Jesus has even been deemed by many people as very humble, meek and mild. Which is another for another day. C.S. Lewis then said, "One of three things is true," He is either a lunatic on the level of somebody who thinks He's a poached egg, or He is a liar at such a calculated and clever and extreme level as to probably be unequaled as a purveyor of deception, or He is Lord.” So those are the options. So if you came to church today and you think you have an acceptable view of Jesus, and you're here to give Him some honor as a good teacher, as a great religious leader, as a righteous man, you don't have that option. You've got to join one of these three categories. Now the is written clearly to make it obvious to any reader that Jesus is not a lunatic. Lunatics don't heal sick people, raise dead people and dominate demons. Lunatics don't speak the way Jesus spoke, think the way He thought. Lunatics don't act the way He acted. Lunatics don't attract women and children. Lunatics aren't marked by kindness and mercy and compassion. Nor is Jesus a liar. Nor is He the cleverest of all deceivers because liars don't raise dead people either. Frauds don't heal sick people, don't banish disease from a nation for a duration of three years. Frauds don't dominate the world of demons either, and neither do frauds die and having been buried come out of the grave. So really we're left with one alternative with regard to Jesus, unless you want to join those who think He's a lunatic, or those who think He's the greatest liar of all time. You're left with one option and that is the option that He is who He claimed to be. Let take a look at this first accusation. . . I. A Lunatic. When His own people heard of this, they went out to take custody of Him; for they were saying, “He has lost His senses.” I guess that could be a possibility. I'm always amazed that lunatics like to say they're God and they like to say they're Jesus. I don't think I've ever heard about one say he's Buddha. I don't think I've ever heard a lunatic claim to be Mohammed, or Baal, or some other god. But they all want to be Jesus. It shouldn't be too hard to figure out why cause that's the one name that Satan wants to corrupt. Could Jesus just have been a lunatic? I guess that is a possibility. Just like the guy in the mental institution lying in bed saying, "I'm Napoleon, I'm Napoleon, I'm Napoleon." The guy in the next bed says, "Who told you that?" He said, "God did." The guy quickly turned and said, "Oh no I didn't." Was Jesus somebody on the level of a man who thinks he's a poached egg, whose irrational? Not hardly. His mind was the most pure, perfect, His articulations were the most profound. No one ever spoke like He spoke. As a matter of fact many times we read, “And He taught with authority.” Yet they were saying He had lost His senses. What evidence in His 30 years of growing up in the family was there that He was a madman that He was irrational, illogical, insane, detached from reality? None. Was Jesus a lunatic? The closer one looks at the life of Jesus the more difficult it is to find abnormality and imbalance as found in a deranged person. Here we find meekness without weakness, holiness without hypocrisy, power without pride and arrogance, suffering without self- pity, success without self-seeking, love that knows no limit even in the face of death. So if we say that Jesus wasn’t a lunatic, could He have been . . . II. A liar And He called them to Himself and began speaking to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. If a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. If Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but he is finished! Now, I know in this passage Jesus doesn’t come out and state that He is God, and He does a good job explaining that satan divided against himself cannot endure or stand, but what does the teach us? The claims from Jesus Himself are many and varied. He said that He existed before Abraham (John 8:58), and that He was equal with the Father (John 5:17, 18). Jesus claimed the ability to forgive sins (:5–7), which the Bible teaches was something that God alone could do (Isaiah 43:25). The New Testament equated Jesus as the creator of the universe (John 1:3), and that He is the one who holds everything together (Colossians 1:17). The apostle Paul says that God was manifest in the flesh (I Timothy 3:16, KJV), and John the evangelist says that “the Word was God” (John 1:1). The united testimony of Jesus and the writers of the New Testament is that He was more than mere man; He was God. So if He isn’t a lunatic, and He isn’t a liar, then there is only one thing Jesus can be and that is He is. . . III. Lord Not only did His friends notice that He claimed to be God, but so did His enemies as well. There may be some doubt today among the skeptics who refuse to examine the evidence, but there was no doubt on the part of the Jewish authorities. When Jesus asked them why they wanted to stone Him, they replied, “For a good work we do not stone You, but for ; and because You, being a man, make Yourself out to be God” (John 10:33, NASB). When Jesus was standing before those who accused Him, the high priest, the chief priest, the elders, and the scribes, or basically those who knew and understood the Scriptures, the Old Testament, Jesus made a profound statement. “But He kept silent and did not answer. Again the high priest was questioning Him, and saying to Him, “Are You the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?” And Jesus said, “I am; and you shall see THE SON OF MAN SITTING AT THE RIGHT HAND OF POWER, and COMING WITH THE CLOUDS OF HEAVEN.” Tearing his clothes, the high priest said, “What further need do we have of witnesses?” (:61-63NASB) A person might well have missed the import of Jesus’ words. and the council, however, did not. They knew that in saying He was “the Son of Man” who would come “on the clouds of heaven” he was making an overt reference to the Son of Man in Daniel’s prophecy (Dan. 7:13–14). During His ministry, Christ stilled the storms, walked on the water, healed the sick, cleansed the lepers, fed the hungry and raised the dead. Wherever the true message of Jesus has gone, new life, new hope, and new purpose for living have been the results. Yet those very things are not the icing on the cake. What validates who Jesus is, is the resurrection! So Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I observe that you are very religious in all respects. For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, ‘TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.’ Therefore what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you. . .Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.” (Acts 17:22-23, 30-31NASB) Conclusion; in our text today the people thought Jesus had lost His senses, but is the accusation correct? What are you going to do with the man named Jesus? You simply cannot put Him on a shelf as a good man or a great moral teacher. He has not left that option open to you. Either He is who He claimed to be or He isn’t. Who is Jesus? A liar, a lunatic, or Lord? Your life upon this earth and for all eternity is affected by your answer to this question. The apostle John wrote, “but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the ; and that believing you may have life in His name.” (John 20:31NASB)

Amen