The Move of the Slave-Savior's Gospel Service (7)

0:00We praise the Lord for thy great plan, that we might well in place may be." Welcome to Life Study of the Bible, a presentation of Living Stream Ministry. Witnessly, a servant of the Lord for over seven decades, culminated his ministry with a 21-year book-by-book exposition of the entire Bible, which he called Life Study. This life study is the basis for our program today and includes short portions of the spoken messages given by witnessly. Now, let's join today's program. The record in Mark is unique among the four gospels in that the events follow their actual chronological order. With that in mind, it's insightful to realize that there is a marvelous progression in the cases mentioned in Mark. Spiritually speaking, each case takes us as it did the disciples

1:03a step at a time higher and higher until a peak is reached in chapters 8 and 9. In these chapters, the disciples are finally able to receive a full vision of the Lord Jesus in His divinity and His humanity. But before reaching such a place, they had to first pass through all the steps signified by these crucial cases. Chapter 7 and 8 show us five of these important steps. Matt Miller is here as we touch, Matt, a section that's really dense, isn't it? There's a lot in the program today. There's a lot in these few verses in chapter 7 and 8. There is Chris. We're going to cover five crucial matters, starting with verse 31 in chapter 7 and going all the way through verse 26 in chapter 8. That's a printed life study of Mark, message number 23, and it's packed. We've got a lot to cover today. Let's begin by reading some of these verses, Matt. I'm going to start at 32, even though in scope we could start at 31, but for time's sake. And they brought to him one who was deaf and who spoke with difficulty, and they entreated him to lay his hand on him.

2:07And he took him aside from the crowd privately and put his fingers into his ears. And he spat and touched his tongue. And looking up to heaven, he groaned and said to him, F Fatha, that is, be opened. And immediately his ears were opened, and the bond on his tongue was released, and he spoke clearly. Matt, we're going to hear in the presentation today that the cases early on in Mark of healing were more general and covered the whole person, the whole being. You know, there was a paralyzed one who was healed and we have the case of Peter's mother who had a fever. These are kind of general healings of sickness that affect the whole body. Now, as we get farther along in the progression, the cases get more specific, don't they? It's a very particular healing mentioned here, Chris. And as we're going to see, witness Lee point out, this is the progression in the Lord's dealing with us. And in our salvation, we get a general healing, but then eventually, there's still a problem with our hearing and our speaking. So the Lord deals with the ears

3:10and the tongue, the speaking and the hearing, to critical specific healings that the Lord's going to touch. And I hope our listeners will stay with us, Chris. This is a real significant picture that we see with the Lord here and this man. All right, let's join witness Lee, Matt. Before chapter 7, the healing is mainly the healing of a complete person. For instance, Peter's mother now was sick of fever, sick God heal. That was the healing of a complete person. The, for logic was healed, the complete person. Then the labor, the same thing. Before chapter 7, there was no healing of the eye, no healing of the ear, no healing of the speaking organ. But after chapter 7, the healings are always healings of organs, to heal the brain, then to heal the death, and to heal the death. Very

4:15meaningful. Even today, with us, the sequence is the same. Firstly, we got saved. We got healed in general. And then we know the real condition of our inward heart. And then we run to enjoy the as the inner supply and the life supply inwardly. That is our brain. But how about your ears? How about your eyes? How about your tongue? You see here? And they bring to him one who was death. And dumb. But Mark, wonderful, this is, who was deaf and spoke with difficulty. Isn't this your situation today? Why a person becomes dumb? Just because he was deaf. The learning to speak,

5:22based upon the listening. And whatever child, little babe, hears, see others. You say, they're difficult for you to speak and reading. You know what was the reason? You don't listen to the speaking of God very much. Why? We don't speak so easily, just because you listen to the Lord speaking carelessly. You don't exercise the best listening. If you do, spontaneously. Matt, there are a couple of things. Maybe we can touch in this portion. First, it struck me very much this sequence and how it matches our own experience. You know, as you think about it, to heal the whole person would seem like maybe a greater miracle than to heal a particular single organ. But actually, the reverse is true in our spiritual experience, isn't it? We come to the Lord and experience kind of an initial healing. But later on, the Lord gets a lot more specific.

6:25Yeah, Chris, if you think about it, how many people are in church meetings today who have difficulty in speaking, just like the words that Mark uses here? He had difficulty in speaking. And so the Lord needs to do a further dealing with so many that fill the church today. They've had a general healing, but they haven't had the particular healing. And it says he took him away from the crowd. Like that verse, verse 33, it says, and he took him aside from the crowd privately. That's what you need for a particular dealing. You need a private time with the Lord. And he wants to take you away for a private time and put his fingers into his ears. The Greek word for put there means he thrust his fingers into his ears. And so the Lord is doing a very definite work to heal the hearing organ because once the Lord knows, and anyone that has realization knows, once you heal the hearing organ right away, you can speak. One who had difficulty speaking, once

7:31the hearing is fixed, the words come easier. What happened to that person? He can talk so clear now. Well, he had a private time with the Lord. And spiritually speaking, the Lord thrust his fingers into his ears, healed his hearing organ. He's hearing the word of God clearly now in a careful way. And as a result, he can speak for the Lord in a fluent way in the church meetings. Matt, we could talk about this. It may seem a little odd to some of our listeners, but you know, the tradition that's common today in most churches of one man speaking, almost the entire time is really not the biblical tradition. We know in the early church, all were encouraged to speak. All could prophesy. That means all could say something for the Lord could speak the Lord forth. And we believe the Lord is very much interested in recovering this function of all the members. But the problem is, as you said, all of us members have got a problem with our hearing and with our tongue, don't we? We need some specific dealing. We need his fingers thrust into our

8:33ears and we need his spittle to touch our tongue, don't we? We do, Chris. And one of witness Lee's favorite verses that he used a lot was 1 Corinthians 1426, which says, whenever you come together, each one has. Yeah. Okay, it says more than that, but they're just focusing on that. Whenever you come together, each one has. Okay, so if you have that vision and you know when Christians come together, everyone should have something to speak. It shouldn't be just one man speaking. So if you try to get everyone to speak, it becomes a nightmare because their ears haven't been fixed. And unless the Lord can fix the ears and you can hear the word of God properly, what are you going to say? You have difficulty speaking. Right. And so it's hard to force people to speak in a Christian meeting, even though you have the vision, whenever you come together, each one has something. Well, I should speak something, but we still need that personal time with the Lord where he gives us a particular healing specifically to our ears and then touches our

9:35tongue with the spittle, which signifies the anointing, something that comes out of the Lord's mouth, the anointing, the word of God, to heal our tongue that we would have something to speak from the Lord. Boy, Matt, we get this initial kind of general healing, but the problem is today, the church is full of the deaf and dumb and we need a specific healing. We could spend a lot of time on this, but we have a lot of ground to cover today. Let's go on. I'm going to pick up chapter eight and now starting at verse one, in those days, since there was again a great crowd and they did not have anything to eat, he called the disciples to him and said to them, I am moved with compassion for the crowd because for three days now, they have remained with me and they do not have anything to eat. And he asked them, how many loaves do you have? And they said seven, and he charged the crowd to recline on the ground and taking the seven loaves he gave thanks and broke them, and he gave them to his disciples to set before them, and they set them before the crowd. And they had a few small fish, and having blessed them, he said that these also should be set

10:39before them. And they ate and were satisfied, and they took up the surplus of broken pieces, seven baskets, and there were about 4,000 people, and he sent them away. Another case amount of feeding the thousands, very similar to the famous case of feeding the 5,000 this time 4,000, what's significant, again the sequence, this comes right after the healing of the hearing and the speaking, here's when it's late. To have our person generally healed is somewhat easy. You don't need the Lord to touch you. You just touch, no need to touch his body, just touch the hinge of his garment. Just touch the little thing connected to him, you got healed. But listen, to heal your deafness and dumbness, you read it, verse 33, and teaching him away from the crowd privately. Don't stay with the crowd. If you will receive the particular healing,

11:45a healing of your ears, a healing of your tongue, you need the Lord Jesus to take you away, particularly. And he put his fingers into ears. All our ears need such digging. Our ears are too much close to the Word of God, to the Spirit of God. And our thing is done because we don't have the essence of the Word that comes out of God, the spiritual signifies the very essence of the Word of God coming out of his mouth. Let the essence of the Lord be a kind ointment of higher than let the Lord anoint your tongue with the essence of his Word. Then following this another case, the Lord Jesus fed 4,000 again. The fading continues. This indicates once we

12:54got healed that we can hear and that we can speak, we are qualified to feed others. We are qualified. And today we just cannot feed others because we are deafs, we are dumbs. We don't listen to God speaking carefully and we don't have an anointed pen to speak so we cannot feed others. Until we got so healed, not in general way, but in particular way. Then we got qualified to be with the feeder. That is the Lord Jesus. Could you see in the case of the Syrian Phoenician woman, the feeder was the Lord Jesus only. He was only a unique feeder. But in these case, feeding 4,000, all the disciples became the feeders. This is after the case of the healing,

14:01of the listening organ and the speaking organ. When we got healed in these organs, we will become feeders. Matt in our previous program, we had the story of this woman, the Syrophonician woman, and there she's asking for a kind of a healing for her daughter and the Lord presents himself as bread. And eventually she wants the crumbs under the table. He uniquely could feed her. Now he's expanding the feeding role, listening after he's been able to deal with the ears and the tongue. Very significant. It is, Chris. I like the Lord's word in this portion. He's filled with compassion for them. They're hungry. He haven't eaten. And he says, how many loaves do you have? It's how many loaves do you have? How many loaves do we have? And we look and we say, well, we only have seven. And so we think we're inadequate, but the Lord will multiply it. But it comes from us. In other words, it's right in the progression here after the Lord heals their hearing organ, heals their speaking organ. Now he can feed the multitude through them. They become the feeders.

15:04So before they don't have the proper hearing and what they would speak is nonsense. This is like many Christians before they get the Lord's particular dealing. But after the Lord has this kind of personal private dealing of healing, the hearing, the digging in the ears, having the proper speaking of the word, then the speaking of the truth. It's not nonsense anymore. It's the truth that will feed the multitude. What a wonderful picture. It really is a wonderful picture. And to realize that we may want kind of a healing kind of a dealing because we think we have a particular need. But the Lord's dealing here, Matt, is really, it takes care of our need. I mean, we need our ears dealt with. We need our tongue, our difficulty in speech, helped. But really, it's to take care of his need, isn't it? He's trying to create. He's trying to mature these disciples to become feeders so that they can take care of the flock of God. They can take care of the body of Christ and build up the body of Christ. So it's marvelous to be able to step back and get away from our own

16:07situation enough to see that the Lord is really working toward his purpose, his goal here, isn't he? It's an encouraging picture, Chris, to see how these ones who seemingly are so short are brought through a progression that eventually thousands are fed through them. And this is the Lord's way. The Lord didn't even do it directly. He did it through these disciples. And that's exactly what he wants to do today, through the listeners who are listening right now wherever they are. The Lord wants to bring them a healing so that they could become feeders and through them feed thousands, feed the multitudes because there's a great need for this. There's thousands who are hungry, who the Lord has compassion for. The Lord said he had compassion for him and he's waiting for us to go through this progression to be those feeders. Well, the progression continues. We have a couple of cases left here, Matt. Now we come in chapter 8, pick it up at verse 11. And the Pharisees came out and began to dispute with him, seeking from him a sign from heaven and tempting him. And he groaned deeply in his spirit and said, Why does this generation seek a sign?

17:12Truly, I tell you, no signs shall be given to this generation. Jumping down out of verse 22, and they came to Bethsaida, and they brought to him a blind man and entreated him to touch him. And he took hold of the hand of the blind man and let him forth outside the village. And he spat on his eyes and laid his hands on him and asked him, Do you see anything? And he looked up and said, I see men, for I see them as trees walking. Then again, he laid his hands upon his eyes, and the man looked intently and was restored. And he began to see all things, clearly. Hard to miss the progression here, Matt, but let's join in this way and have this portion opened up in a marvelous way. Then what follows? The Pharisees come again. This time, the Pharisees come in not to accuse, not to find fault. They come to pretend to be spiritual. But the Lord knows their heart. He knows

18:21their heart. He wouldn't give them any sign. He said, What? You want a sign? You pretend so much. You are just a crooked generation to such a generation. No sign. He left. Then after these, the Lord, privately, warned the disciples of the 11th Pharisees, hypocrisy, and also the 11 of Herod, who martyred the foreigner of the gospel. He was all together in jest. He was all together in dodging, yet he was in power. So the Lord told the disciples, beware of these two kinds of leavens. The leaven of hypocrisy by the Pharisees and the leaven of injustice by Herod. But you see, the disciples were so much occupied by the material food. When they heard the word

19:28leaven, they saw megunas, probably, because we didn't bring sufficient bread on the boot. So the master talked about the leaven. They were laughing at them. Where I just say this. After these, the last case of this message. Again, the healing of a blind man. To heal the brain is harder, verse 23, and taking hold of the hand of the blind man. He led him forth outside the village, not just to a private place outside the village. There was a distance. And having in his eyes, lots of his spittle got in his eyes. That becomes the eye-safe, the ointment, and laid his hand on him. And he asked him to see something looking up. He said,

20:29I behold men as trees working. He got the sight, but not so clear. Then again, he laid his hand upon his eyes. And he looked intently and was restored. And he saw all things clearly. Hallelujah. After this find, you and I, we all could get a clear view concerning the things of God. Well, mad in the sequence, after our spiritual ears have been opened, after our spiritual tongue has been loosed, our eyes, our spiritual eyes can be touched. But in between, they're very interesting. The Lord gave them a step. They may be weren't expecting a kind of a warning against these two kinds of leaven. How does this fit? Well, the leaven of the Pharisees deals with the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. And the leaven of Herod deals with the corruption of the politics

21:31represented by the leaven of Herod. So you see these two evils that the Lord warned them of. And they're completely misunderstanding what he meant, which is typical. You know, we hear a message and we misinterpret it, which is exactly what they did. But before that, he told the Pharisees, he would not give them a sign. And so you have this contrast between these hypocritical Pharisees who are outwardly seeming to want something and seeming to have a spiritual purpose, but they're hypocrites. They're pretentious. And then on the other hand, you have these genuine, with the picture of genuine Christians. Some are sincere Christians who genuinely want to have a time with the Lord for him to deal with their hearing, to deal with their speaking. And then we go on to another example of a genuine one who wants to deal with his sight. Let me read verse 23. And he took hold of the hand of the blind man and led him forth outside the village. So you have the exact same situation where the Lord wants to have an intimate, private, personal time with this person to heal his sight this time before it was the hearing and the

22:35speaking. Now it's the sight. And this is exactly what we all need. And I like that about radio, Chris, because a lot of times the people listening right now, they're outside the village. They're in their car. In fact, one of my good friends, he got saved this way. He was listening to Christian radio and he was out in the country. He was outside the village. And right there in his truck, he had a personal, private, intimate time with the Lord outside the village where he just opened up to the Lord, changed his whole life. We've all had that experience hopefully so that we could be these genuine sincere Christians where the Lord's dealing with our sight, our hearing, and our speaking. And we're not like those Pharisees who are pretending spirituality and the Lord called them hypocrites. Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees. That's hypocrisy. And beware of the leaven of Herod, which is corrupt politics. Yeah, along the way, Matt, by this time the disciples had become somewhat useful. They had had these progressive experiences and they were able to

23:35finally feed this enormous crowd. And he's about to touch their eyes because what's coming ahead is the vision of visions for them. And there's a temptation, I think, in all of our walk, all of our particularly those who are involved in Christian service, you reach a certain point and there's a temptation. And this temptation can come from the corrupted religious entity that is so full of hypocrisy and so much wants to puff up and elevate the person rather than the Lord himself. And then, of course, there's another kind of corruption, the corruption of politics. And these things are always right at the door, aren't they kind of bidding for our attention particularly if we had some spiritual success. And Chris, and I like the condition of these believers who are there, they saw men like trees. And through the Lord's further dealing with them, they saw all things clearly. Don't we all want to get to that point? And I'm really looking forward to the next program that we're not going to touch today. It's the high point of all the dealings where the result of seeing all things clearly. Really so. And so that is a good recommendation for the next program.

24:40If you're not able to get it, you may want to contact us about getting the printed life study messages so that you can follow along. Of course, the recovery version has some wonderful footnotes in these passages as well. These resources and others are available if you'll call us total free 1-888 life study is our number. It's 1-888-543-3788. We do very much encourage you to be with us for the next program. It's a high peak program in this life study of the gospel of Mark. For Matt Miller, I'm Chris Wilde. Thank you for being with us today. You've been listening to Life Study of the Bible with Witnessly, brought to you by Living Stream Ministry. Whether you're hearing this program via radio, online, or as a podcast, you'll find hundreds of audio studies just like this one by visiting our website, lsmradio.com. We also hope you'll email us with your questions or comments. Radio

25:47at lsm.org or call us toll free 1-888 life study. That's 888-543-3788. Thanks for listening.