Dangers to Look Out For

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Tonight, we move ahead in our study of the gospel of Mark, and specifically we come to a passage that I've entitled, "Dangers to Look Out For," because really that's what it's about. Our Lord Himself warning us of dangers that we should be careful, to prepare for, to beware of, to be on guard against. It's one thing for me to warn you, it's another thing for our Lord Himself to say to His disciples and to us, "Beware. Be careful. There's danger for your souls ahead." Which is exactly what He says in this passage.

As I thought about this passage, I couldn't help but think about a recent news story, we've all seen it and heard about it. An article was in the New York Times on April 11^th of this year, when a plane carrying the Polish President and dozens of the countries top political and military leaders to the site of a Soviet massacre of Polish officers during World War II crashed in western Russia, killing everyone on board. The President's plane, the Times says, tried to land in a thick fog, missing the runway and snagging treetops about half a mile from the airport, scattering chunks on fuselage across a bare forest.

A top Russian military official – and here's the tragic part – said, "Air traffic controllers at the airport had several times ordered the crew of the plane not to land, warned that it was descending below the glide path, and recommended it reroute to another airport. Nevertheless, the crew continued the descent," said the First Deputy Chief of the Russian Air Force staff.

Unfortunately, the result was tragic. Russian emergency officials said 97 people were killed, they included Poland's Deputy Foreign Minister, a dozen members of Parliament, the chiefs of the Army and the Navy, and the President of the National Bank. An entire country's leadership decimated, because somebody (and they're still trying to sort out exactly who's responsible) ignored the warnings.

There're equally severe and serious spiritual dangers that lie before us, and in Mark 8, our Lord warns us about those dangers. It's as if He were in the control tower saying to us as His disciples, "Pull up, there's danger ahead. Be careful." And if we crash and burn spiritually, the fault will not be our Lord's, it will be entirely ours. That's the context for His warning in Mark 8. Let me read it for you; Mark 8, beginning in verse 14.

And they [that is the disciples] had forgotten to take bread, and [they] did not have more than one loaf in the boat with them. And He was giving orders to them, saying, "Watch out! Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod." They began to discuss with one another the fact that they had no bread. And Jesus, aware of this, said to them, "Why do you discuss the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet see or understand? Do you have a hardened heart? HAVING EYES, DO YOU NOT SEE? AND HAVING EARS, DO YOU NOT HEAR? … do you not remember, when I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces you picked up?" They said to Him, "Twelve." "When I broke the seven for the four thousand, how many large baskets full of broken pieces did you pick up?" … they said to Him, "Seven." And He was saying to them, "Do you not yet understand?"

In this passage our Lord warns us about several serious dangers to the souls of His disciples. Those dangers come both from within our own hearts, as well as from outside influences that come against us.

What are these dangers? Well, Jesus warns His disciples about three specific dangers that we should all be aware of. These same dangers are still around today. Their purveyors wear different clothes and have different names, but they're found in school and college classrooms; they're leaders in American businesses; their voices are heard in all different forms of American entertainment. And tragically, all of these dangers can be found even in churches, and several of them are found among the most devoted of Jesus' followers, and in churches like ours, in people sitting in our church tonight, as we're here this evening.

Let's let our Lord tell us what these dangers are. The first danger is the danger of negative spiritual influences; negative spiritual influences that come from the outside and influence our souls. Notice how He begins; look back at verse 13, "Leaving …" you remember that confrontation with the Pharisees, "… He again embarked …" got in the boat, "…and went away to the other side." (of the lake there in Galilee.) "And they had forgotten to take bread and did not have more than one loaf in the boat with them."

Now just to remind you of kind of what's gone on, here is an arial view of the lake of Galilee. In the previous two accounts, the previous two stories that we looked at, Jesus had fed some 4,000 Gentiles on the eastern side of the lake and had ministered on this eastern side of the lake of the Sea of Galilee. Then, He had gotten in a boat and traveled with His disciples across the lake to the plane of Gennesaret, where He had encountered the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and they confronted Him and demanded, "Look, you haven't given us enough signs," they said, "When the Messiah really comes, He's going to give us a sign in the heavens. So do something dramatic. All of Your miracles have been earthbound, do something in the heavens, and then we'll believe in You."

Jesus refuses to add more proof to all of the proof that has already been offered, and by the way as I said last time, He had already furnished proof from heaven; remember even in His baptism the Father spoke from heaven and said, "This is My beloved Son. Listen to Him." So, with that in mind Jesus and His disciples leave Dalmanutha, that area on the western side of the lake, They were in that region, and they head by boat up to Bethsaida, according to 8:22; when they get out of the boat, they're eventually in a community called Bethsaida, where the arrow, the final arrow there is pointing on my overhead.

Now as the disciples are on the boat, between Dalmanutha and Bethsaida where they're heading, they realize that in their haste to leave, they have forgotten to take bread with them. All except for one loaf. Now, we use the word "loaf"; in reality this would have been a flatbread, more like a flat pancake loaf, than our sort of traditional Wonder bread loaf, and so picture that, they have one flat cake of bread with them.

Now, it doesn't appear that Jesus has any concern about this whatsoever; this is not on His mind, He's not worried about this. Instead, while they're on the boat, Jesus decides to seize the opportunity to give them an important spiritual warning. They're all bothered that they haven't made adequate provision and plans, and Jesus is worried about their souls, not about their bodies. And so, in verse 15 He seizes this moment while they're on the boat, He's alone with His disciples (that was really hard to find those times in the busyness of the crush of ministry), and He was giving orders to them.

The implication is, this was an extended speech to them, and this is what He was saying, "Watch out! Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod." "Watch out!" That means be mentally alert. Be alert! Be on your guard; and "beware of" means just as our English word beware; the Greek word means, to keep your eye on the source of danger, and intentionally avoid it.

It's as if you were walking through your yard and you saw a snake, and you weren't sure but what that snake was a poisonous snake, you would beware of that snake; that means you would keep your eye on that snake as you purposely attempted to avoid it or go get some implement to kill it or remove it. You go to a yard, you see a sign that says, "Beware of the dog." If you go into the backyard where that sign is posted, you're going to be especially careful to be constantly looking for that source of danger and doing your best to avoid it. That's what this word "beware" means. And both of these verbs by the way, are present tense, they're commands that we're to be constantly watching out for. We're to be continually aware of the source of danger and seeking to avoid it. Don't ever let down your guard, Jesus told His disciples.

Now what are they to stay constantly on guard against? What are we to stay constantly on guard against? "The leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod." Now, Matthew adds they're also to watch out for the leaven of the Sadducees, in Matthew 16:6; Matthew adds that.

Now some have said that means, and I'm not going to drag you through all this, but some have said that means Herod, who's mentioned in Mark, must have been a Sadducee, and that's why Mark just mentions Sadducees and not Herod; but Herod was not a Sadducee, that's very clear, because Sadducees had one defining point of doctrine, they didn't believe in the resurrection or the supernatural, and Herod did. You remember what happened when he heard about Jesus' ministry? "Uh oh, I know who that is, it's John the Baptist raised from the dead." So, he wasn't a Sadducee.

So, here's the bottom line: when you put Matthew and Mark and their accounts together, there were really three distinct groups that Jesus was warning His disciples about, and specifically, about their leaven.

Now, that's an interesting word; really, it's a one-word parable. Our Lord was a master teacher, and in just one word, He presents an entire parable – leaven. Let me just remind you of a little bit of the biblical history of leaven. Leaven is simply yeast, by the way, the word we use is yeast, it's leaven, the biblical word.

Initially when they celebrated the Feast of Passover, you remember when they were coming out of Egypt, they were to use unleavened bread because they had to leave Egypt quickly. And so, from that point forward when they commemorated the Passover, they didn't leaven their bread; they didn't put yeast in it; they didn't take the time because that meant they had left so quickly, that they didn't have time for the yeast to rise. So then, leaven was excluded from other festivals as well and even from certain kinds of sacrifices.

At the eventual Feast of Unleavened Bread, the entire house had to be cleansed of leaven. You had to go through (and this is still done today, by the way, by Orthodox Jewish families); they'll go through and (in a ceremony), rid the house of all yeast in preparation for the celebration of this festival. And so, it came to be associated then, with evil and sin.

When you come to the New Testament, it's used a number of times in the New Testament, yeast or leaven, but only once positively. It's used of the growth of the kingdom, the quiet pervasive growth of the kingdom of Christ, in the kingdom parables in Matthew 13:33.

But most of the time, about a dozen times, it's used negatively. One example is 1 Corinthians 5:7, "Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump …" as he warns them about the sin that intruded into the life of the church, "… just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover [has] also … been sacrificed."

Now, why would Jesus choose this word, yeast or leaven? People have been eating bread since the beginning, but it was not until Louis Pasteur in the year 1857, that yeast was identified as a microorganism Yeast is a living thing. It is a single cell, microscopic organism of the fungus family. It's estimated that there's some 600 different species. Bakers put this living organism into bread, into dough, to make it rise. Initially when that yeast is exposed to heat, it increases in its activity, and the bread rises even more. But at 140 degrees, the yeast dies, and the bread continues to bake, and you have your wonderful loaf of bread when it's done. It's also used in the production of beer and wine and other alcoholic beverages.

Yeast exists almost everywhere in nature, including the air. That's initially how bread was made, it was just left to be exposed longer to the air, and the yeast in the air itself would begin to affect that dough.

They reproduce rapidly; they grow especially well in substances that contain sugar. Yeast lacks chlorophyll, the green material that plants use to make their own food, and so yeast relies on other sources for food, specifically they feed on sugar from a variety of sources, including fruit, grain, nectar, molasses and so forth. And when they feed, they produce chemicals called enzymes, or ferments, that bread down their food, and that's what causes the bread to rise; that's what causes the beer or alcohol to ferment.

If you could examine yeast under a microscope, you could see that it moves so quickly, it appears to almost explode into the next cell as it works its way through the dough, through the substance in which it's found. It's a microscopic stealth weapon.

So, it's not surprising that on several occasions the Scripture uses yeast or leaven as an illustration of sin. What does yeast or leaven have in common with sinful influences? It is invisible; it is powerful; it spreads quickly; it spreads constantly; it never stops; it spreads silently; it produces deadly results in many cases. And so, leaven comes to speak of the power of negative spiritual influence; and in this case that's exactly what Jesus has in mind. Because here's how He meant leaven in this conversation with His disciples. Here's what Matthew says about it, Matthew 16:12, "… He did not say to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees." Jesus is concerned about the negative spiritual influences that come through teaching on His disciples, through the teaching of others.

So, what specific negative spiritual influences is He concerned about? What are the concerns He's warning us about? What are those negative spiritual influences we ought to beware of, we ought to keep our eye on, and be careful to avoid the danger?

There are three of them, as I told you; the first is "the leaven of the Pharisees," you see that in verse 15. The leaven of the Pharisees. Beware! Be on your guard, the permeating negative influence, the yeast-like spreading, pervasive power of the teaching of the Pharisees. The Pharisees and I agree with several commentators who made the observation that what you have here is dead, superficial, traditional religion. We don't have the sect of the Pharisees alive today, or at least not in all of the particulars they embraced, but we have similar teaching. That's what Jesus is warning us to be on guard against. The pervasive, insidious teaching of superficial, traditional religion.

We've already studied the Pharisees in great detail, you know they were fastidious in their religious practices, but as we saw in 7:1-13, they had a flawed view of Scripture. In fact, notice verse 9 of chapter 7, Jesus was saying to them, "You are experts at setting aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition." You have, verse 13, "… invalidated the word of God by your tradition which you have handed down …" They had substituted human tradition for divine revelation.

Their other problem was that they had a flawed view of human sin and salvation. We saw that in verses 14 - 23 of that same chapter. You remember Jesus said,

You think the problem is coming from the outside. You think men are contaminated from the outside . The reality is: it all starts in the heart. That's where man's basic sin problem begins, and that means, he needs to be saved; he needs to be delivered; he needs to be cleansed; he needs God to intervene"; and so they had a flawed view of Scripture and a flawed view of sin and salvation. But they had their religion, they had their tradition, they met and had a wonderful time worshiping God.

Jesus says, "Beware." Whenever you encounter superficial, traditional religion that has a flawed view of Scripture; that has a flawed view of sin; has a flawed view of salvation, beware. In fact, look at how specific Jesus gets about this in Matthew 23. During the Passion week, Jesus is on the Temple Mount, speaking to His disciples and to the crowds that have surrounded Him, and in chapter 23 of Matthew, beginning in verse 1, "… Jesus spoke to the crowds and to His disciples, saying, 'The scribes and the Pharisees have seated themselves in the chair of Moses.'" In other words, the chair of instruction.

And then He goes on and in the 11 verses that follow, to warn His disciples about the influence that comes from the Pharisees. Notice the kinds of influences that come from them. They're completely unconcerned and uncaring about people, verse 4. They're harsh with people. They're all concerned about external religion, verse 5. They do everything they do to be noticed by others.

"They love the place of honor at banquets and the chief seats in the synagogues and respectful greetings in the marketplaces, being called Rabbi by men."

It's all about prestige and honor and position and place. They've misunderstood true leadership. They think it's about exalting themselves, but Jesus says the greatest among you shall be your servant.

So, Jesus warns His disciples, be careful. But you know, the danger with the Pharisees, the influence of dead, superficial religion, is even worse on those who've never been truly converted. Look at what Jesus says in verse 13 of Matthew 23, "… woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from people …" Your religion keeps people from coming to a true knowledge of God. "… you do not enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in."

Verse 15, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves." Beware the teaching of dead, superficial, traditional religion. And folks, our country is filled with it. I could name a half a dozen churches within the communities represented here tonight, that are exactly like the leaven of the Pharisees. They have a form; they say they worship God; they claim the Scriptures; but like the Pharisees, they have a flawed view of Scripture; They've substituted human tradition and other things for the revelation of God; they don't take the Word of God seriously; they don't understand sin, and they don't understand how a person is made right with God. Don't think this is something to be trifled with, Jesus says. This is serious; don't let yourself be influenced even a little.

There's another warning Jesus gives here, and it's the "leaven of Herod." The leaven of Herod. Now that's kind of a strange one on surface of it. We've met Herod, we've seen the kind of person he is in several passages already. Herod really represents secular worldliness. Herod occasionally, we know from history, attended some of the Jewish festivals and feasts. He tried to make some show of religion occasionally just because he was in fact the leader of a ostensively religious nation, but Herod himself was essentially irreligious and utterly corrupt. What he cared about most, was power and prestige and worldly success. In fact, you remember just recently we studied the execution of John the Baptist, and he let John the Baptist be beheaded for this very reason.

Look back at 6:26. Mark 6:26, "And although the king was very sorry …" about the request that was made for John's head, "… yet because of his oaths and because of his dinner guests, he was unwilling to refuse her." In other words, he was all in to reputation, success, power, prestige, and he wasn't going to let an innocent man's death stand in the way.

This kind of influence can also be deadly. This kind of idea, the idea that there's something to be gained, there's attractiveness in secular worldliness, in living and pursuing the things that matter to the people around us. As John said, the lusts of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, thinking those things are really important. That's where Herod was, and that kind of teaching is also like yeast, it's insidious. Let a little in, and it will explode through your mind and heart, and it will ruin your life.

You doubt that, look back at Mark 4. Mark 4, you remember the parable of the sower and the soils? Well, you remember one of the soils was where the seed of the gospel fell among thorns? And Jesus explains what that means in Mark 4:18,

"And others …" [that is other human hearts] "… are the ones on whom [the] seed …" [the seed of the gospel] "… was sown among thorns …" [So, here the soil represents a human heart; this is a particular kind of human heart where the gospel falls, they're ones who've heard the Word it says in verse 18], "but" verse 19, [here's what happens] "… the worries of the [age] …" [in which they live] "… the deceitfulness of riches, … the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful."

You know this is what happens unfortunately in so many lives of young people who grew up in the church but don't really embrace Christ. The seed is sown; it springs up; it looks like for a while the real thing, but then they get all enamored with the stuff around them; with the world around them; the age in which they live; the deceitfulness of riches; desires for other things; and those things come in and choke the Word. Jesus says, "Beware the leaven of Herod." Beware the influence of the teaching of the ideas that happiness and joy is really to be found in those sorts of things. It will choke out your spiritual life.

That's true for believers as well. You can actually come to genuine faith in Christ and this insidious sort of worldliness and a longing to be involved in all of that can choke out your spiritual life.

Look at Timothy; 1Timothy 6. Paul warned Timothy about this very thing. He says there are those, verse 5 of 1 Timothy 6,

"… who suppose that godliness is a means of … gain. But godliness actually is a means of great gain when accompanied by contentment … we … brought nothing into … this world … we … can't take anything out of it either. If we have food and clothing, with these we shall be content." (Now watch verse 9,)

But those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is … [the] root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. But flee from these things, you man of God…. [Beware the leaven of Herod. Beware the appeal of secular worldliness.]

There's a third leaven that's mentioned here, it's the leaven of the Sadducees. Actually, it's mentioned not in this passage but in the parallel passage in Matthew 16. This is liberal, anti-supernatural religion. The Sadducees, as we've discovered, were usually of the wealthy aristocratic families who controlled the office of high priest, who were the political leaders in the country. The Sadducees embraced the Pentateuch literally. They rejected oral law, but here's the key, they were anti-supernaturalist.

That is, they did not believe God intervenes in the world He made. They said there is no spirit world, that is, angels and other beings like that, there is no resurrection, and they rejected the whole concept of the immortality of the soul. So basically, this life is all there is – enjoy. You can imagine the practical choices that led to in the lives of the Sadducees. They were pragmatist, they assimilated the Greek culture around them. Jesus said to His disciples, "Beware." Keep your eye on and be careful to continually avoid the teaching and influence of liberal, anti-supernatural religion.

The Christian world, and I use that term loosely, is filled with those who are frankly Sadducees in much of their theology. They reject the Bible as God's Word; they reject all miracles; they deny the deity of Jesus Christ; they deny the resurrection. These are the guys who often show up on our Christian holidays on television, talking about what "really" happened as opposed to what the Bible says happened. Jesus says, like the Sadducees, their teaching is like yeast; you let a little of it in, and it will spread; it will permeate, and it will destroy. More than one evangelical budding scholar has been exposed to this deadly leaven in some academic institution and has been destroyed. Jesus said, "Beware! Look out." This is not something to be trifled with. I'm not telling you that, Jesus is telling you that. It's dangerous.

Now, here's the heart of Jesus' warning in all three of these influences: it only takes a little yeast to leaven an entire loaf of bread; it doesn't take much of these evil influences to produce a spiritual train wreck. So, Jesus is saying to His disciples and to us, don't allow any foothold for these influences in your life; avoid them like the plague; stay away from them. Don't put yourself under those who would influence you in these ways. Don't read their blogs; don't read their books. Don't have discussions with them that act like they're spiritual equals. Beware.

That's the first danger that you and I have to look out for, the danger of negative spiritual influences.

The second is the danger of spiritual dullness. Some of us are very much careful and aware of the need to guard ourselves from those leavens that Jesus has mentioned. But here's another danger that we're often not quite as aware of, the danger of spiritual dullness. Look at verse 16. "They began to discuss with one another the fact that they had no bread."

Now, you say, "Wait a minute; do those two verses go together?" Yes, they do. Remember back in verse 14 they were all worried that they didn't have any bread with them in the boat; they only had one cake of bread. And so, when Jesus now brings up the issue of yeast, i.e., bread, they think that must be what He has in mind. They were already bothered about having neglected to bring adequate provisions with them. They have only this one flat bread cake on board, hardly enough for one disciple much less for the 13 men who were on board, so when Jesus mentions bread their minds continue down the same track they've already been on. "Jesus must be upset about the bread, too. And He's warning us that when we get to Bethsaida, don't buy any bread from those other guys, from the Pharisees and the Sadducees or from Herod."

You think now, were they really thinking that? They probably were. Before you're too hard on the disciples, understand that some of the rabbis taught these things. They said you could be contaminated by buying and eating bread that had been improperly handled and prepared, especially if it was made by Gentiles, but there were other issues and factors involved as well.

So, they take Jesus' warning on a completely physical level; don't buy any bread from those guys. They should have understood Him, but they don't, so Jesus responds to them, notice in verse 17, "… Jesus, aware of this …" He's seeing, you see it's a small boat, which I've shown you pictures of what a first century boat looked like, they're there, and there's nowhere really to go, they're having this conversation, and He knows what's going on, and so He responds to them.

... Jesus, aware of this, said to them, "Why do you discuss the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet see or understand? Do you have a hardened heart? HAVING EYES, DO YOU NOT SEE? AND HAVING EARS, DO YOU NOT HEAR? ..."

Jesus here asks a series of questions designed both to rebuke them and at the same time, to draw their eyes back to Him to strengthen their faith in Him.

This passage is frankly, one of the most confrontive conversations Jesus ever had with His disciples, and these questions confront their spiritual dullness. Jesus' seven questions here echo the voices of the prophets. For example, in Jeremiah 5:21, "Now here this, O foolish and senseless people, Who have eyes but do not see; Who have ears but do not hear." Or Ezekiel 12:2, "Son of man, you live in the midst of the rebellious house, who have eyes to see but do not see, ears to hear but do not hear; for they are a rebellious house."

They also sound a whole lot like what Jesus said just a couple of chapters earlier. Turn back to Mark 4. Mark 4:10, "As soon as … [Jesus] was alone, His followers, along with the twelve, began asking Him about the parables." [So here is a group of those who believe in Him, including the disciples, the twelve.] "And He was saying to them, 'To you has been given the mystery of the kingdom of God, but [to] those who are outside [they] get everything in parables, so that WHILE SEEING, THEY MAY SEE AND NOT PERCEIVE ... WHILE HEARING, THEY MAY HEAR AND NOT UNDERSTAND, OTHERWISE THEY MIGHT RETURN AND BE FORGIVEN.'"

Jesus here puts all of humanity, as we studied, into two categories: His followers, and those on the outside. And Jesus tells His disciples that to them, God has granted them to know the secret of the kingdom of God. "To you it has been granted …" Matthew even adds to those on the outside, "… it has not been granted."

So, the disciples shouldn't have been like verse 12, they shouldn't have been described this way. They had been granted to understand. They should have gotten it. Now go back to what Jesus says in Mark 8. He says to them, His first question is, "Do you not yet … understand?" What does that imply? By this time, they should have understood. So, Jesus is not getting onto His disciples, and this is very important for you to understand, Jesus is not getting onto His disciples for spiritual immaturity; a baby only knows what a baby knows and has to grow into understanding. He's not getting onto them for spiritual maturity here, He's getting onto them for a spiritual dullness that they should not have had. They were acting like those on the outside who hadn't been granted to know.

We, too, can grow dull to spiritual things. We have to ask ourselves, "How did it happen with them? And how can we avoid it? How did they become so spiritually obtuse, as to come to these conclusions in light of what Jesus said?"

There are two primarily ways that we have to be careful of and beware of, that will bring us to spiritual dullness. The first is, they were distracted with their bodily needs, so they failed to see first Christ's kingdom. They were all worried about what? The bread. "Did you bring bread? Do we have anything to eat? What are we going to do about bread?" They only heard Jesus talking about bread because they were so completely absorbed with the material world.

Folks, we too, can become equally spiritually dull because we are too obsessed with material things. If that's all our minds focus on, if that's where our mind goes constantly, then we are not thinking about spiritual things, and we will become spiritually dull.

Ask yourself this question: When I don't have to think about something else, at my job or driving or whatever it is, when I don't have to think about something else, where does my mind go most often? If it's not to Christ and to His Word and to spiritual things, but instead if it goes to the stuff of life, then you're in danger of becoming spiritually dull, dull to the spiritual realities.

Jesus warned about this, by the way, didn't He, in Matthew 6? You don't have to turn there, but remember He said to His disciples, "Don't worry about the stuff, about what you're going to wear or what you're going to eat. Don't let your mind be obsessed with that. Your Father knows you need these things. He's going to provide for you. Look at the lilies of the field, look at the birds of the air." Instead, seek first what? His kingdom.

There was another cause, and a cause we need to avoid of spiritual dullness, and that is, familiarity with Christ in spiritual things. Ken Hughes writes, "The repeated exposure to His teaching, when not reflected upon and acted upon, worked a progressive insensitivity and dullness in their lives." Let me read that again. "The repeated exposure to His teaching, when not reflected upon and acted upon, worked a progressive insensitivity and dullness in their lives." I think he's exactly right, and the same thing happens to us. You remember back in Mark 4:25? "For whoever has, to him more shall be given; and whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him."

As Hierbert writes, "Truth received and carefully assimilated, enlarges one's capacity to receive more truth." But the opposite is equally true; whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him. If you fail to constantly use your capacity to understand the truth, it undermines your capacity to understand.

Very practically, as A. W. Pink says, "No verse of Scripture yields up its meaning to the lazy man." Your capacity to understand the Scripture will only grow as you work hard to understand it. And if you don't, your capacity will dwindle, and there will become a sort of familiarity, and that familiarity will breed laziness, and laziness will render us spiritually dull.

Let me just ask you again the simple question, has there ever been a time in your life when you were more diligent with reading and studying and meditating on the Word than you are today? If that's true, then you may very well be in danger of the same sort of spiritual dullness that the disciples manifested that day on the Sea of Galilee.

How do you overcome that? Look at James 1 – here's how. I love this passage. We worked our way through this when we were going through the book of James, and it still stands out in my mind as one of the high points. He's making the point that one of the tests of true faith is your response to the Word of God. A true Christian responds like this, verse 19; he's quick to hear the Word of God; he's slow to speak in arguing or responding to the Word of God; and he's slow to anger when he's confronted by it.

… the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God. Therefore, putting aside all filthiness and all … remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls. But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves.

Don't be like somebody who looks in a mirror and forgets what you look like and goes away unchanged. When you look into the Word of God, remember what you look like, and work at changing what you look like, through the power of the Spirit. Be diligent to apply the truth.

You're exposed to a lot of truth at Countryside Bible Church, and through whatever other sources you receive that truth, books and radio and CDs and iPod players and on and on the list goes. Let me just ask you, are you applying it? Are you seeking to put it in practice? Can the people you know you see a real effort to put that into practice in your life? There's a danger of spiritual dullness.

So, what are the dangers Christ warns us in this passage to look out for? The danger of negative spiritual influences, the danger of spiritual dullness.

And there's one more danger, the danger of weak faith; the danger of weak faith.

Simply from reading Mark's gospel it becomes clear what Jesus is getting at, but if we had any doubt, the definitive statement for understanding what Jesus says to the disciples here is found in Matthew's account. In Matthew's account he writes this, "But Jesus, aware …" of the fact they were talking about bread, said to them, "You men of little faith." There's the issue. "You men of little faith, why do you discuss among yourselves that you have no bread?"

On the surface it looked like they were simply trying to solve a problem. They were just being responsible, but their real problem, Jesus said, was a spiritual one. It was their faith in Jesus was weak. Notice that Jesus doesn't chastise them for their lack of planning; He doesn't chastise them for their lack of foresight in bringing bread, He chastises them for the spiritual issue, their lack of faith. The real reason they were so obsessed with no bread is that they didn't have yet real faith in Jesus Christ to provide it.

First, they were weak in their faith in Jesus' ability to provide. So, Jesus recounts to them that He's never had any problem dealing with a bread shortage. Look at verse 18,

... do you not remember, when I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces you picked up? They said ... "Twelve." When I broke the seven for the four thousand, how many large baskets full of broken pieces did you pick up? … they said to Him, "Seven."

The disciples remembered the facts; they knew the details. What they failed to do was to reflect upon the significance of what they had seen. Think about this. Think about what Jesus is saying. He's saying, "Listen, guys. If I can feed 5,000 men plus woman and children, with five bread cakes, and have all those leftovers, and if I can feed 4,000 men, plus women and children, with seven bread cakes and have all those leftovers, don't you think I can feed 13 people with one bread cake, or with no bread cake at all?"

Verse 21, "… He was saying to them, 'Do you not yet understand?'" This last question wasn't so much as of an indictment as it was an appeal.

There is good news in the story, because while Mark doesn't record it for us, Matthew does. The good news is the disciples did finally get it. Here's what Matthew writes, Matthew 16:12, "Then they understood that He did not say to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees." They finally got it. But the issue was their faith; they had weak faith in Jesus.

We're often like the disciples. Jesus miraculously provides for us, or I shouldn't use that word so loosely, not miraculously in the true sense, through providence, He provides for us, for our physical needs, for our spiritual needs, and He does so not just once but several times. Have you experienced that in your own life? Have you seen God move in a dramatic way to provide for you, to meet your needs? I have. But then when a similar situation arises sometimes later, what do we do? Do we immediately remember His previous provision? Do we immediately remind ourselves that, "Oh He'll continue to provide, He has in the past?" No, what do we most often do? We worry again!

I hate to remind us of what the Bible calls that, but it's "weak faith." We don't really yet trust our Lord to take care of us, just like the disciples.

There was a bigger issue with their faith, though, not only was it His ability to provide, but their faith frankly was weak in Jesus' true nature still. They had wavered on this question. Do you remember back in Mark 6, Mark 6:51, after He, Mark 6:51, after He had walked on water, verse 51 says,

[Then … He got into the boat with them … the wind stopped; … they were utterly astonished, for they had not gained any insight from the incident of the loaves, but their heart was hardened.

So, they hadn't yet gotten fully who He was. The reason they were terrified by all of this is that they had failed to seriously reflect on what the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000 really meant about Jesus. As William Hendriksen writes,

The obtuseness of the 12, their inability to draw the necessary conclusions from the miracles of Jesus, was the result of sinful neglect to ponder and meditate on these marvelous works and on the nature of the One who performed them.

Apparently though, after Jesus got in the boat the truth begins to dawn on them, because Matthew says, when they got "… in the boat they worshiped Him, saying, 'You are certainly God's Son!'" They were beginning to get it. They were beginning to realize who He really was, but that doesn't come completely clear until the last section in Mark 8. We'll get there but look at Mark 8, and notice verse 27. While they're in Caesarea Philippi,

… on the way He questioned His disciples, saying ... "Who do people say that I am?" They said, "John the Baptist … others say Elijah … others, one of the prophets." But He continued by questioning them, "But who do you say that I am?" [And] Peter answered and said to Him, "You are the Christ." [And Matthew adds,] "The Son of the living God."

So, not only is their faith in Christ weak in His ability to provide for their needs, but their faith is still weak in terms of who He is at this point. They understood a lot, but they had not yet come to a full realization that He was the Messiah, the Son of the living God, to the point that they didn't question that or doubt it.

Their faith was weak; ours is too, isn't it? So how do we strengthen our faith? How do we grow strong in faith? Well, very briefly, I love the example of Abraham in Romans 4, and I'm not going to have you turn there. I just want to cite a couple sections from that passage. In that passage we're told that Abraham didn't become weak in faith, instead he grew strong in faith. That means, folks, there are degrees of faith. The New Testament speaks of little faith; it speaks of great faith; it speaks of being full of faith. Understand this: faith is not a switch you turn on, and it's either on or it's off. Faith is a muscle that you build through exercise.

So how do you make faith grow strong? Paul tells us in Romans 4 that Abraham grew strong in faith by focusing on the promise of God, by focusing on the Word of God. That's exactly what Paul says in Romans 10:17, isn't it? Faith comes by what? Hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. Same thing in Galatians 3; faith is based on the word and promises of God. We grow strong in faith by knowing what God has said and trusting what God has said. Knowing who He is.

John Calvin writes, (speaking of this passage in Romans 4 about Abraham,)

Let us also remember that the condition of us all, is the same with that of Abraham. All things around us are in opposition to the promises of God. He promises immortality, we are surrounded with mortality and corruption. He declares that He counts us just, we are covered with sins. What then must be done? We must with closed eyes pass by ourselves, and all things connected with us, that nothing may hinder or prevent us from believing that God is true.

In other words, get your eyes off of yourself, off of your circumstances, get them back on the God of the Bible and the promises that He has made, and put your trust in Him. He is trustworthy. He has earned your trust.

So, Jesus says, there's a clear and present danger to our souls; it's the danger of negative influences, superficial traditional religion, liberal anti-supernatural religion and secular worldliness. Beware of those things! Don't let even a little, like a little yeast, into your souls; it will destroy you.

Beware of the danger of spiritual dullness, familiarity with Christ, not seeking to meditate on and apply what you learn. And beware of the danger of weak faith, of not taking God at His word. Instead looking at your circumstances and like Peter, looking around at the waves and beginning to sink. Put your eyes back on the One who's promised and the promises He's made; and that will strengthen your faith.

Let's pray together.

Father, thank You for this passage.

Remind us as our Lord told us, to stay mentally alert, and to keep our eyes on these dangers, and to carefully avoid them. Father, I pray that You would make us disciples that are filled with faith, that take You at Your Word because we know who You are, and we know what You've said. Father, may we not be spiritually dull, but may our spiritual senses be sharp because we're thinking about and meditating on what we read and what we learn, and we're seeking to apply it to our lives, and our minds are continually going back to Your truth when there's time to go anywhere.

And Father, help us to avoid those insidious teaching influences that would get in just a little and bring spiritual ruin to our souls. Remind us, Father, that it's our Lord Himself who warned us of these things; may we think about these things; may we meditate on what we've learned tonight, and be careful to do them.

We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.