Worship call 0673 A snare in the synagogue.
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Worship Call 0673
Tuesday June 21, 2022
Sitting a snare in the synagogue
Friends, get me to the church on time!
Col 3:16 Let the word of Christ 1 dwell in you richly, teaching and exhorting one another with all wisdom, singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, all with grace 2 in your hearts to God.
We covered a recent survey in Gallup concerning the spiritual condition of the United States. The pollster noted that there was a decline in the belief in God, but more important to note was the fact there were steeper drops in church attendance and church membership which reminded me of a story.
A disgruntled church-goer wrote a letter to the editor of a newspaper and complained: "I've gone to church for thirty years now, and in that time I have heard something like three-thousand sermons. But for the life of me, I can't remember a single one of them. I think I'm wasting my time and the Pastors are wasting theirs by giving sermons at all."
This began a major controversy which went on for weeks until someone wrote in this reply:
"I've been married for thirty years now. In that time my wife has cooked some three thousand meals. For the life of me, I cannot recall the entire menu for a single one of those meals. But I do know this ... they all nourished me and gave me the strength I needed to do my work...”
Hmmm. So true. We need our spiritual nourishment to be able to do the work of the Lord effectively! Corporate worship, fellowship with our brothers and sisters and Godly counsel are a great means to get it!
Friends, God does not want us to isolate ourselves! He wants us to be in consistent fellowship with like-minded believers, teaching and exhorting one another, singing psalms and spiritual hymns together! Let us not forsake the assembling of ourselves together (Heb.10:25)!
Your family in the Lord with much agape love,
George, Baht Rivka, Elianna & Obadiah
Baltimore, Maryland
Mark 3:1–3 (NASB95) — 1 He entered again into a synagogue; and a man was there whose hand was withered.
Luke specifically identify it as the right hand, probably from some accident. The man comes to the Synagogue maybe with some expectation that Jesus could heal his hand. Others had hopes that he would too, but for different reasons.
2 They were watching Him to see if He would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse Him.
How many are we threatened by in the world today? Who puts us at unrest? Jesus was never threatened or caught off guard. There is no heart that is hidden from the Lord, no heart that sets itself up against his beloved is hidden.
You know on the contrary, there is no heart who loves the Lord which is hidden from Him either.
The religious police were watching Jesus in order that they might bring charges against Him.
3 He said to the man with the withered hand, “Get up and come forward!”
Maybe this took the man by surprise. Waiting for a message, he did not know the battle that was taking place between Jesus and the religious leaders. He was just their as a practice of a good Jew.
To these Jesus among other things was a Sabbath breaker. With it they could accuse Jesus and even put him to death. (Exodus 31:14-15 335:2 Numbers 15:32-36)
Was the Lord of the Sabbath worried in the Least?
They had already confronted Jesus the previous Sabbath for doing work on the seventh day. But the way they saw it, Jesus talked his way out of it for they were not ready to argue against the truth which would have put them on the spot by losing the argument and looking as though they rejected the word.
Mark 3:4 (NASB95) — 4 And He said to them, “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save a life or to kill?” But they kept silent.
Multiple choice was always hard for them. It always put them in the corner of the debate, it put them on the defense.
remember when we, the followers of Christ are put in a position to defend the faith, make those who attack us defend their unbelief.
Before the crowd was a pitiful man with an unusable hand. It put him out of work. and it made him dependent on charity for him and his family. It would set them up as ones without compassion.
It was the use of that which was sacred, the gift from God, the Sabbath, that These men were using to entrap and to kill another. The heart of some came into the Synagogue for true worship, others came to kill.
Remember it was Levi and Simeon who used the sacred rite of circumcision to kill and destroy
Nothing about them were righteous, and good their hearts full of evil which Jesus saw, but they themselves had to guard from any one else from seeing.
Mark 3:5 (NASB95) — 5 After looking around at them with anger,
It cannot be good when you have the creator of the universe give you a glare in anger.
ever Got a glare from your father or mother or someone in charge when just the look spoke volumes?
These men were more than happy to let this man go on to suffer to advance their evil agenda. They would step right over this poor man and use him to get at Jesus.
Before history is done, there will be many in politics and in religion and business and in other arena’s where personal agenda to do evil superseded the compassion for others.
grieved at their hardness of heart, He said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored.
25.276 συλλυπέομαι: to feel sorrow or grief together with someone or at the same time—‘to feel sorry for.’ συλλυπούμενος ἐπὶ τῇ πωρώσει τῆς καρδίας αὐτῶν ‘at the same time he felt sorry for them because of their willful stubbornness’ Mk 3:5.[1]
Interesting, that while he brings the man forward with a need and restores the hand of the man, what grieves the Lord is the hardness of heart. a Heart that will doom them to hell.
While Jesus later will weep outside the tomb of Lazarus, his hurt was not for his dead friend but for the lack of faith that weighed upon the hearts of the others.
27.52 πώρωσις, εως f: stubborn unwillingness to learn—‘unwillingness to learn, mental stubbornness, closed mind.’ πώρωσις ἀπὸ μέρους τῷ Ἰσραὴλ γέγονεν ‘the stubbornness of Israel is for a time’ Ro 11:25.[2]
Καρδία
The Hardened heart is an idiom which means that a heart that is in locked in negative volition.
A heart can be hardened by God himself as it was with Pharaoh in the days of Egypt.
Exodus 4:21 (NASB95) — 21 The Lord said to Moses, “When you go back to Egypt see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders which I have put in your power; but I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go.
A hardened volition locked into doing Satan’s bidding is often times the result of rejecting the truth. When truth is rejected one makes a choice to remain with the father of lies and to do His bidding.
With every step in the darkness the heart grows more desperately hardened until there is no turn around.
Evil is incapable of repentance.
Is there a point of no return for one with a hardened heart?
Romans 1:18–24 (NASB95) — 18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, 19 because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. 20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. 21 For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. 22 Professing to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures. 24 Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them.
What was the Lord grieved? Even when it came to those who sought to kill him?
He knew their destiny.
2 Peter 3:9 (NASB95) — 9 The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.
Mark 3:6 (NASB95) — 6 The Pharisees went out and immediately began conspiring with the Herodians against Him, as to how they might destroy Him.
The Herodians were a political party that generally supported Herod Antipas regime
The Herodians were a body of individuals associated with and loyal to the tetrarch Herod Antipas. Herod, under Roman support, ruled Galilee and Perea from 4 bc—ad 39. Allegiance to Herod Antipas was a minority position during his reign as many people were in opposition to his rule.
As representatives of Herod, Herodians may have functioned as informants to the tetrarch, monitoring what was occurring in Galilee. Herod Antipas imprisoned John the Baptist merely on the suspicion that John, by drawing large crowds, might become the focus of some future uprising (Mark 6:14–29). Thus, the Herodians suspicion of Jesus in the Gospels is unsurprising.[3]
There was nothing out of Jesus’ knowledge or control. The efforts that were underway to get Jesus to the cross was all the part of God’s plan.
For as evil will seek to advance its agenda God will use the evil for good for it is the very cross that their evil will nail Jesus to, which will be their ultimate defeat.
Evil and its cause was on the move in the days of Jesus and it will lead to victory of the Lord.
Jesus’ grieving heart was not that he was not liked and that people planning to kill him. Jesus will use their evil to advance God’s agenda. Yes, those who will be complicit in the plot to Kill Jesus will and are right now suffering. It is not God’s or the Lord’s good pleasure that there are those who are in hell, but the reality is that they made their choice they chose their allegiance.
In our time evil is on the move. The agenda is wicked to depths that many of us never could have imagined. And it is getting worse. And more and more it is coming to a neighborhood near you.
While it grieves us, may it be that our hearts are not troubled to the point of giving up. continue to let you light shine as Christ was the light of this world now we are his image and we are followers of the Christ.
Our light must shine in a dark environment.
Study and learn the way the Lord handled evil and as imagers of the Christ we are to follow the same pattern.
[1]Louw, J. P., & Nida, E. A. (1996). In Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament: based on semantic domains (electronic ed. of the 2nd edition., Vol. 1, p. 317). United Bible Societies.
[2]Louw, J. P., & Nida, E. A. (1996). In Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament: based on semantic domains (electronic ed. of the 2nd edition., Vol. 1, p. 332). United Bible Societies.
[3]Seal, D. (2012, 2016). Herodians. In Faithlife Study Bible. Lexham Press.