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Aug. 23, 2024 - Health Ranger - Mike Adams
54:23
Mike Adams Sermon #026 - Mark 1-4 Jesus activates God's healing miracles in us all
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Welcome to today's sermon.
I'm Mike Adams, and today we're going to cover the gospel according to Mark.
I'm reading from the New King James Version, and how can we resist an author of a book who says he showed up eating locusts and honey, right?
Remember back in Leviticus, I believe, when God said it's okay to eat grasshoppers and certain kinds of bugs?
Well, Mark took that to heart and he was chowing down on locusts and honey and Now, this is interesting, obviously, since our focus is covering foods and herbs in the Bible.
But also, people ate locusts because that was a food source that was readily available.
And the wild honey might make them more palatable.
In any case, this is going to be interesting.
I want to step back.
Because we need to cover some philosophical concepts first before we get into this.
And I also think this is going to take at least two sermons to cover in its entirety.
But let's back up in time.
Well, first, so Mark the Evangelist here.
He was believed to have lived in the year, what, A.D. 42?
Somewhere around that time.
So this is, of course, many centuries, many centuries after, for example, Exodus in the Old Testament.
But if you go back to Exodus, I want to ask you a question about Moses.
Now, God spoke to Moses.
We all agree on that.
I ask you an interesting question that will apply to Mark here.
In what language did God speak to Moses?
So it's easy to assume, those of us in the modern Western world who most of us speak English, it's easy to assume that, well, God must have spoken English.
But of course, that's silly.
English didn't exist in Moses' day, right?
Yeah.
So he was speaking to Moses in the languages that Moses knew.
And given that Moses was raised as a prince in Egypt, right?
Remember that?
He would have spoken probably Egyptian, but then again, Moses also reportedly knew Hebrew and probably quite a bit of some other languages too, even potentially Akkadian languages.
Okay.
We don't know for sure, but whatever it was, God spoke to Moses in the language that he knew.
So let's just say it's Egyptian.
And there's something important to recognize in this, which is that God speaks to people all over the world and all throughout time.
And angels speak to people as well.
And as you know, I've shared stories with you of two times in my life that angels spoke to me.
One time, very audibly verbal, that was the Archangel Michael, and I heard it.
I heard it as if I was hearing it in my ears, and the voice was speaking in perfect English.
But suppose if I had been a Mexican person or a Spaniard, well then...
Wouldn't the archangel have spoken to me in my native tongue?
Or you go back in time and maybe Christians in ancient Rome.
And there were, obviously, there were quite a few Christians in ancient Rome.
Wouldn't God have spoken to them in their tongue of the day?
Wouldn't those angels or wouldn't God have spoken to ancient Romans in maybe Greek or Latin?
And you get the idea.
And is it possible that God spoke to people who are Chinese?
Yeah?
I mean, we know he spoke to people all over many different regions throughout the Middle East and throughout Europe.
And why wouldn't he also have spoken?
I mean, and also Central and South America and so on.
He would have spoken to people in their own languages, right?
Yeah.
So let's agree on something very simple here up front, that when God speaks to a human being through just the divine power of God to put voices or thoughts into your head, that he does so in your native language, and therefore God knows and speaks all languages and all forms of communication.
Can we agree on that as a default?
Yes.
Now, here's another question along those lines.
There have also been, especially in the Catholic Church, there have been many, many cases of miracles of apparitions or images that have appeared.
And sometimes these images appear as sort of fully animated, you know, 3D images or A person would say, well, I saw, you know, I saw the Virgin Mary.
There she was.
Or they would see an angel, or they would see perhaps a personification of God.
Or some people have been visited by what they say is the body of Christ, or the image of Christ, let's say.
Now, in all of these different cases, the images of God also appear in ways that are familiar to the person.
So just as God can speak to people in a language that is familiar to them, because it wouldn't make any sense for God to show up to you and speak Russian if you don't speak Russian, right?
So let's say God speaks to Russian Christians in Russian, right?
But God also presents himself as visions that are familiar to people, right?
So if your expectation of what Christ looks like or what God looks like, if it is a certain type of person, a certain ethnicity of a person or a certain size, then it seems that that's what God would use to speak to you.
When God appears to you, he appears to you in a form that is familiar.
This makes sense, right?
We're not saying anything radical or crazy or anti-Christian or anything like that.
We're just saying God speaks to people in familiar ways, whether through voice or through imagery.
Or through knowing.
It's another way.
And this concept is fundamentally recognized as true across Catholic religions, across Judaism, across various forms of Christianity.
Now, there's a tangential side chapter to all of this, which is something that I experienced as a child when I was taken to a church with a family member at this church.
And I don't recall what kind of church it was.
I don't know if it was an Assembly of God church or a Baptist church.
I don't recall.
I was quite young.
But I do recall that this church, the congregation, became...
Very emotional.
The preacher was really going at it and there was this powerful emotional vibe in the room, this spiritual vibe.
You could actually feel the presence of the Spirit in the room.
This was a small country church in the Midwest.
And wouldn't you know it, somebody right next to me or very close to me in the pews started speaking in tongues.
And I had no idea what that was.
What's going on?
My heart was racing.
I was a little bit freaked out.
I did not know what this is.
And thinking back about it, it sounded to me like a kind of maybe a Native American language.
And sure enough, I found out later that person had very strong Native American ancestry.
And then I learned later that it's actually common in some of the churches that one person will, quote, speak in tongues and And then another person will translate that word into English for the rest of the congregation.
Now, I probably would not have believed this, especially in my younger years, if I had not experienced it myself.
But I did.
And I'm just curious, for those of you listening, have you ever experienced that?
Or if you haven't, do you believe what that is?
Do you believe it's true?
See, to me, it's very simple.
It's just God speaking to people in different languages, which we know he's capable of doing.
And why would a churchgoer try to even fake that?
And how would you?
I mean, if you were trying to speak a fake language, there would be a lot of effort in that to make it sound sensical.
And I'm kind of curious.
I wonder if there are any recordings of people speaking in tongues during church services.
I imagine there must be.
And I'm very curious if any of those recordings have been analyzed.
Maybe some of you know that they have.
But in any case, we know that God speaks to people in different languages and he appears to people in different forms.
And this is not weird.
This is actually part of the supernatural gift of being God.
You can speak or appear.
You can project sounds or visions or imagery.
I mean, if you're God, you could even throw space rocks at the city of Gomorrah if you wish to.
You can unleash a giant flood on the earth.
So speaking in different languages is not a difficult thing.
This is like a minor, minor, little teeny tiny skill of being God.
I mean, he created everything in the universe.
Of course he can speak every language there is.
So with that stated, let's get into the book of Mark.
I want you to keep all that in mind.
Now, remember that Mark, Mark the Evangelist, as he's often known, he was documenting much of the life of Christ and the recognition of Christ being the Son of God, which we will So we're going to go through this in some detail.
In chapter 1, verse 4, John came baptizing in the wilderness and preaching a baptism of repentance and For the remission of sins.
So this is John the Baptist saying, you know, if you repent before God, then you can be forgiven for your sins, right?
Then all the land of Judea and those from Jerusalem went out to him, and they were all baptized by him in the Jordan River, a river that is quite...
Noticeable today, or quite famous today because of the conflict in the Middle East, and of course the saying, from the river to the sea, which refers to, at least my understanding is that refers to the Jordan River.
So, you know, here it is in biblical times, still the same river.
Anyway, comma, confessing their sins.
Okay, now, John, this is verse 6, John was clothed with camel's hair, That sounds itchy.
And with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey.
So, this is a scrappy dude, right?
This is an outdoor survival adventure guy.
Maybe you've never heard John describe that way, but he's wearing camel's hair and he's eating locusts and honey.
This is like, you know...
The ancient biblical version of Daniel Vitalis or someone like that who knows how to eat wild foods, right?
Interesting guy.
And John says, quote, Right?
Like, there's someone coming that's super powerful.
Super awesome person is coming.
I indeed baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.
It's like setting the tone for the arrival of Jesus, right?
This is starting to get chills on this.
Verse 9.
It came to pass in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan River, right?
And immediately coming up from the water, he saw the heavens parting and the spirit descending upon him like a dove.
Then a voice came from heaven.
You are my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.
So, question.
What language was this voice speaking?
Trick question, huh?
Right?
I don't know the answer to that, but it wasn't English.
Right?
So, It might have been ancient Hebrew.
That would make a lot of sense, but maybe there are better answers.
Maybe there are some biblical, archaeological academics who can give a better answer, and I'm open to that.
But anyway, whatever it was, it wasn't English.
So God spoke to the people in the language they recognized, and in this moment, it seems as if God infused the body of Jesus Christ with God's Spirit.
Now, this is an interesting question to me because I thought that at the moment of immaculate conception that the unborn body of Christ was infused with the Spirit of God, and maybe that's the case.
Maybe at this moment God is just saying that you have done well so far to this point, and now we are granting you additional spiritual upgrades of some kind.
But we'll get to that more in this chapter.
And then Jesus was tested.
So verse 12, So yes, he's tempted in the wilderness.
He's surrounded by satanic forces.
They're testing him, but they're also mentoring him.
They're making sure that he is worthy to carry out his acts on earth as the Son of God.
Now, Now, after John was put in prison...
Jesus came to Galilee preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God and saying, quote, the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand.
Repent and believe in the gospel.
Now, this message was easily acceptable to many people of faith in that time.
He hasn't said anything crazy radical yet, but it's coming.
And then Jesus begins to recruit other disciples or soon-to-be teachers or ministers of the faith.
Verse 16, and as he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew, his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen.
Jesus said to them, follow me and I will make you become fishers of men.
Right?
I mean, fishing as a metaphor, instead of harvesting fish from the ocean, let's harvest and nurture the spiritual bounty of men.
And then verse 18, And so Jesus begins to gather a following of much more than two people, probably hundreds if not thousands of people over time, which of course eventually gets the attention of the enemy forces who oppose Jesus.
And next we're going to see Jesus perform an exorcism to remove demonic spirits from a man.
This is getting really cool.
So verse 21 says, And by the way, pardon my pronunciation of some of these cities and towns.
Sometimes I may not be familiar with how it's usually pronounced in American English today.
Other times I disagree with the pronunciations, and I will pronounce it the way I prefer, such as the city of Ephesus.
I think that makes more sense than Ephesus just because of the, well, the Latin influence on the names.
But anyway, that's just my opinion.
So just forgive me if I pronounce something in a way that you're not familiar with.
Verse 21, then they went into the Capernaum and immediately on the Sabbath, he entered the synagogue and taught.
And they were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes.
So my interpretation of this is that Jesus began to teach as if he has the authority of the Lord expressed through him.
And this was astonishing to the people of the time because no one else at the time would, I mean, no serious person would claim to have the authority of God speaking through them.
Who would dare make such a bold claim?
Verse 23, Now there was a man in their synagogue with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, saying, Let us alone.
What have we to do with you, Jesus of Nazareth?
Did you come to destroy us?
I know who you are, the Holy One of God.
That seems like an odd thing to say.
Like, if you're saying he's the Holy One of God, then why would you think that he came to destroy you?
Unless you were infested with the spirit of Satan, right?
Because, of course, this is exactly what has happened.
God has projected his spirit into the human form of Jesus Christ in order to be, well, a number of things, teacher, but also, in essence, a spiritual warrior to defeat Satan.
So this person speaking out here is actually recognizing the truth of what this is.
This is spiritual warfare back like 2,000 years ago.
Verse 25, but Jesus rebuked him, saying, Be quiet and come out of him.
He's talking to the demon spirit.
You know, demon be gone, right?
And when the unclean spirit had convulsed him, we're talking about like the exorcist movies, the heads spinning around, like climbing on the ceiling.
Anyway, when the unclean spirit had convulsed him and cried out with a loud voice, he came out of him.
Yes, the demon left the man.
Well, what choice did the demon have?
I mean, it's in the presence of Christ.
I mean, today, exorcists in the Catholic Church, they invoke the name of Jesus Christ to say, like, in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, I command you, you know, leave this body of this man.
And then they would use, like, the holy water and they'd use, like, a cross, the symbols of the Holy Spirit.
And that's all very powerful, but...
If Christ is doing it himself, it's like the ultimate exorcism power, right?
It's like, I'm Christ.
Be gone, demon.
And it's done, right?
So, that's why I love reading scripture.
It's so exciting, actually.
It's very amazing.
Verse 27, Then they were all amazed.
Of course they were.
So they questioned among themselves, saying, what is this?
What new doctrine is this?
For with authority he commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.
See what's happening to people like, whoa, this Jesus guy...
He just tells the demons to leave, and they do.
They leave.
They have no choice.
Because, well, you know, this Jesus guy that's new to us right now today, this Jesus guy, apparently, he's got the power of God through him.
Which is exactly the case, right?
So, verse 28, and immediately his fame spread throughout all the region around Galilee.
You know, you can imagine people telling each other, you know, hey, you know the crazy neighbor who's got demons?
Yeah, send them over to Jesus of Nazareth.
He'll fix that right up in no time.
They get the demons out.
So, you know, people were talking about this.
Remember, they didn't have iPhones.
They didn't have Netflix.
They were talking about the miracles of Jesus, not even knowing how You know, how cosmically amazing this was and that this would echo throughout all of time for human civilization.
You know, can you imagine them sitting there next to Jesus and not even realizing what history was unfolding in front of them?
Can you imagine?
They thought, oh, this is just another guy with sandals.
Nope, not exactly.
Verse 29, now as soon as they had come out of the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew with James and John.
So here we go.
This is where Jesus heals people.
So not only can he tell the demons to get out, he can perform miracles of healing.
Verse 30, but Simon's wife's mother lay sick with a fever, and they told him about her at once.
So he, Jesus, came and took her by the hand and lifted her up.
And immediately the fever left her, and she served them.
So this is Jesus saying, Be healed!
Be well!
And he touched her.
He took her by the hand.
This is a kind of laying on hands of healing the Spirit of God working through Jesus Christ, the personification of God, Healing or that is, let's say, instantly altering the physiological state of another person to eliminate sickness and create instant, spontaneous healing.
Now, I have something to say about this and I want you to consider this.
God gave all of us the gift of self-healing.
But self-healing does take time.
And you've experienced this, no doubt.
You've overcome, you know, sickness and colds and flu or injuries and you've healed and what have you.
We've all been there.
Otherwise, we'd be dead by now because, you know, we live in a world of toxins or accidents or biological weapons unleashed on us, right?
So we've all experienced healing.
And did you know that the healing that you are born with is a gift from God?
It is.
Your body is designed to achieve its own healing, and we could call it spontaneous, but it does take time.
There is kind of a cause and effect progression of healing that's required for your body to mend torn tendons, for example, or ligaments, or to repair torn skin, or to rebuild blood vessels.
I experienced this myself over a year ago.
I nearly cut off my index finger.
It was a severe laceration.
I've told this story in my other podcast.
And it cut tendons and nerves and did not break the bone, however.
And so I got to experience the healing over time as the body regrew the blood vessels, regrew the nerves.
I even regained a very sensitive sense of touch in my fingertip.
It became more sensitive than it had been before.
And regrew or healed the ligaments, regrew the skin to the point where today, because I did not have any stitches, I chose not to, there's no scar whatsoever.
And I have near full recovery.
Not 100% mobility.
There's some internal scarring.
But my finger essentially grew back what it needed.
And I gave thanks to God while watching this.
It was a process that took several months.
Ligaments don't grow back instantly.
So when Jesus takes the hand of this woman and it says, and immediately the fever left her, I submit to you that Jesus didn't necessarily, quote, heal her in the active way.
All he had to do was activate the healing that she already has in her body, which is a gift from God.
He just made it happen in the now.
In other words, Jesus simply invoked God's healing gift that already exists in each of our bodies.
This is a very important way to think about healing and healing with prayer and healing with the presence of the Lord or healing with the touch of someone who is living and acting in faith.
It's not that they heal you.
It's that you heal yourself with God's gifts that are simply accelerated or activated in the presence of someone who is, in this case, the personification of God.
You could say Jesus performed miracles, and of course, you know, he raises a person from the dead.
But these miracles actually exist already in each and every one of us because we are reflections of God and God's miracles.
And you've heard me talk about so-called senescent cells.
There are zombie cells in your body that are not quite dead, but not really alive.
And they can be resurrected, reactivated under the proper circumstances to where they are healthy again.
It's a kind of cellular resurrection.
And so, yes, Jesus resurrected a man, brought him back from the dead.
But God gave you the power within your cells to also achieve a cellular resurrection when you are free from toxins and when you have the right nutrition.
the right circulation, the right level of nutrients that your cells need to reawaken.
And there's another really important verse that we've covered in a previous sermon about this.
And that's Ephesians 5, verse 14.
A little tiny poem there.
Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.
And I've related that to light healing and how infrared rays from the sun in the sky, which you could say could also be a metaphor for the Son of God, S-O-N and S-U-N both, The light of the sun shines on you.
It penetrates your body with ultraviolet rays, which go up to six inches inside your tissues, just as, quote, Christ will shine on you spiritually.
See, this all happens at multiple levels.
And then the cells in your body are activated, and some of them, if they were senescent cells, they can be resurrected.
And that's the first line of this.
Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead.
Guess what?
Your body is capable of doing that.
So part of the understanding of the miracles of healing that I believe Christ wants to teach us through demonstrations, I think the message he's trying to get across to us is that you too have been blessed by God with this miracle.
That he, Christ, is simply showing you a faster version of something that you're capable of as well.
And I don't mean to say by that that you can rise from the dead if your whole body dies, you know, if your heart stops beating for 24 hours.
I'm not saying that you can just click your fingers and arise from the dead.
I'm not saying that at all.
But, I mean, Jesus can do that because he is the direct empowerment of God.
But for the rest of us, We have smaller versions of that same miracle at the cellular level or the tissue level.
And that's key to recognize.
As God moves through us, God's miracles are also performed within us.
So, of course, word began to spread throughout the town.
Verse 32, At evening when the sun had set, they brought to him all who were sick and those who were demon-possessed.
Because everybody knows where those people are.
Just go to the back alley behind the cafe.
Get the demon-possessed people.
Bring them out.
We've got Jesus now.
Come on, bring him out.
We can solve this problem.
Verse 33, And the whole city was gathered together at the door.
Then he healed many who were sick with various diseases and cast out many demons.
And he did not allow the demons to speak because they knew him.
You see, the demons knew that he was God, expressed or personified in Jesus.
The demons recognized him, in other words.
And they were so scared that they fled.
They could not disobey His command.
This is really critical to understand.
When you command demons in the name of Jesus Christ, being a person who lives in alignment with Jesus Christ, that is someone who studies Scripture, someone who acts in a way that is morally equivalent to the teachings of Christ and the teachings of Paul
and so on, someone who is acting in faith, someone who does not deceive, who does not carry out thievery or wickedness against others, then you have greater spiritual power because you have this sort of bandwidth with God.
And this is why exorcists in the modern day, they're more effective when they are people who are in greater alignment with God.
But if there were to be an attempted exorcism by somebody who was wicked and themselves deceptive or demonic, the demons would say, we're not afraid of you.
You're one of us.
We don't have to do what you command.
Interesting, right?
Because evil recognizes evil.
But evil also recognizes the light of God, and evil cannot resist the commands of the light of God, or the commands of Jesus in this case.
So, he did not allow the demons to speak, because Christ knows there's power in the Word.
So the demons were not allowed to carry out their spells and their sorcery.
So he silenced them.
He may have even said it, silence, demons, and leave.
And then, of course, he healed the people who were sick, but again, through the mechanism that I just mentioned, I think he activated the healing miracles that already exist in each and every one of us.
That's my interpretation.
All right, verse 35.
Now in the morning, having risen a long while before daylight, he went out and departed to a solitary place, and there he prayed.
And Simon and those who were with him searched for him, Like, where's Jesus?
Has anybody seen Jesus?
When they found him, they said to him, everyone is looking for you.
Yeah, because more people need to be healed and there are more demons that showed up and we've got to get rid of them.
Verse 38, but he said to them, let us go into the next town so I may preach there also because for this purpose I have come forth.
He's saying, hey, I'm not here just to...
Just to heal all your sick people, I'm here to evangelize the Word of God throughout multiple towns and cities and to reach a large number of people.
Verse 39, And he was preaching in their synagogues throughout all Galilee and casting out demons.
You know, the demon ratio of the population definitely dropped.
And then Jesus healed the leper and told the leper, To not tell everybody about it.
But of course the leper went out and said to everybody, hey, Jesus can heal you.
And so then, of course, you can imagine what's starting to happen.
So everybody's telling everybody else that this new guy in town, Jesus, he can solve all your problems.
He can cast out the demons and heal your leprosy and make you well and eliminate your sickness.
And, you know, pretty soon everybody wants Jesus to heal them.
And this is becoming a very interesting story about morality, right?
So chapter 2 in Mark, skipping ahead a little bit, immediately many gathered together so that there was no longer room to receive them, not even near the door.
So a crowd was spilling out of the building into the streets, and he preached the word to them.
You know, he's trying to preach the word of God.
Then they came to him, bringing a paralytic who was carried by four men.
And when they could not come near him because of the crowd, they uncovered the roof.
They're like, we're going to go through the roof, you know?
So when they had broken through, they let down the bed on which the paralytic was lying.
Can you imagine?
Like, they're coming in the windows, Jesus.
They're coming through the roof.
They're coming down the chimney.
Oh, call him Santa Claus.
It's like suddenly Jesus is being besieged by all these people.
And so, Jesus, he was impressed by the commitment that people have.
Like, well, if you're coming down through the roof, you obviously are very committed to this action of helping this man heal.
So, verse 5, he said to the paralytic, Son, your sins are forgiven you.
And then this got the attention of the people sitting around the scribes, says in verse 6, and some of the scribes were sitting there and reasoning in their hearts, why does this man speak blasphemies like this?
Who can forgive sins but God alone?
So they're saying, basically, who do you think you are?
You're not God.
How can you forgive people of their sins?
So you see, Jesus is starting to step on the toes of the other priests who claim to be representing the Word of God.
And this, of course, feeds into the reason why the church establishment and the government establishment ultimately killed Jesus Christ, because he was showing people that they can have Miracles and power directly from God.
Basically, Jesus was teaching decentralization of spiritual salvation and forgiveness, while the government and the church establishment wants to monopolize that process.
And they want to say, no, you can't speak to God except through us, the high priests.
And, you know, you have to give us more money so we can have more riches, and you have to bow down to Rome or the government...
And you have to do what we say because we command God.
In fact, God had to get a permit from us, the government.
You know, this kind of thinking.
Governments always want you to have permits for everything.
How dare you do something on your own without a permit?
Oh, you planted blueberries without a permit?
You know, there's going to be a fine.
They'll send like a government squad to pull up your blueberries, that kind of thing.
And Jesus is saying, you don't need government permission.
You can have a relationship with God through me.
And he said his job was to go around all the towns and preach the Word of God and bless people with the power of God and teach people how to have that relationship themselves.
And he even says this.
So I call this the spiritual decentralization.
Again, this is Mark 2, verse 10.
But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins.
He said to the paralytic, I say to you, arise, take up your bed, and go to your house.
And immediately he arose, he took up the bed, he went out in the presence of them all, so that all were amazed and glorified God, saying, we never saw anything like this.
But you see what Jesus is saying.
Again, verse 10, but that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins.
He's saying that I, Jesus Christ, I have been given the authority from God to forgive your sins, which of course he did later for all of humankind.
So this was just sort of the warm-up round of just Christ showing, sort of demonstrating that he has the authority and the power of God.
And then it talks about in verse 13, he went out again by the sea, and all the multitude came to him, and he taught them.
And so then if we fast forward to chapter 3, then we see the trap that was set for Jesus, the trap by the church and government establishment to try to catch Jesus performing miracles on the Sabbath.
And then they would accuse him of crimes against God.
Because now, of course, Jesus was gaining a following.
He was gaining notoriety.
And this was a threat to the establishment.
Just as today, by the way, anybody who truly teaches the Word of Christ may be considered a threat to the government-obedient church establishment.
That bows down to the IRS instead of bowing down to God.
And that's a whole discussion right there that maybe we'll get into in another sermon.
But here we are in chapter 3.
And he entered the synagogue again, Jesus did, and a man was there who had a withered hand.
So they watched him closely.
Talking about the Pharisees here.
So they watched him closely whether he would heal him on the Sabbath so that they might accuse him.
You know, this was entrapment.
And he said to the man who had the withered hand, Step forward.
And he said to them, Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?
So this is Jesus asking the Pharisees, Is it okay to perform acts of goodness on the Sabbath?
Right?
But they kept silent.
And when he had looked around at them with anger, being grieved by the hardness of their hearts, this is Jesus saying to these supposed men of faith, basically saying, what's wrong with you?
Do you have no humanity?
He said to the man, stretch out your hand.
And he stretched it out.
And his hand was restored.
So this is another miracle where Jesus accelerates with the power of God through him, accelerates the spontaneous healing capabilities that are inherent in each and every one of us because we are representations of God's loving energy because we are children of God, right?
So, and his hand was restored as whole as the other.
Then the Pharisees went out and immediately plotted with the Herodians against him, how they might destroy him.
See?
So, in their dark hearts, like, we got him on a technicality.
He performed a miracle on the Sabbath, and this is against our laws.
It's not against God's laws.
It's just against our laws.
So, this is kind of like the old-school equivalent of January 6th.
This was entrapment.
You know, how dare you come here and peacefully speak out and perform these miracles?
This is a violation of law.
You'll burn for this.
That kind of attitude.
Actually, we'll nail you to the cross for this, right?
And then in the next few verses, it talks about how Jesus became even more popular A great multitude from Galilee followed him and from Judea and Jerusalem and Edomia and beyond the Jordan and those from Tyre and Sidon.
A great multitude, when he heard how many things he was doing, they came to him.
And so he said, we need to have a boat ready.
If so many of them rush me from the beach, we need to have a boat so we can kind of row out into the water.
Anyway, In verse 11, it says, Jesus
is delegating the authority of God through these other people.
This is really important to understand.
This is a gift that can be given to others.
So Jesus maybe takes a part of his spiritual connection with God and then blesses that upon someone else and says, here, you can heal.
Verse 16, Simon, to whom he gave the name Peter, It talks about all the people.
James, the son of Zebedee, and so on.
And it names them all.
And then, Jesus is accused.
In verse 22, and the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said about Jesus, said, He has Beelzebub, And by the ruler of the demons he casts out demons.
They're saying that Jesus must be working for Satan and that's why the demons obey his voice, his commands.
See?
They can't believe that he represents the word of God and that the demons must obey the word of God because God is all-powerful and the demons cannot withstand the command from God.
But because these scribes or religious leaders, because they themselves want power and fame and wealth, they want to be the ones through whom the power of God is delegated, they accuse Jesus of working for Satan.
That's pretty evil.
And in verse 23, Jesus answers this.
So he called them to himself and said to them in parables, How can Satan cast out Satan?
If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.
Of course, this is one of the most famous lines out of the Bible.
The kingdom is divided against itself.
That kingdom cannot stand.
And if a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand.
And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand but has an end.
No one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods unless he first binds the strong man, and then he will plunder his house.
So what is he saying here?
I mean, multiple things, but one of the things is that Satan can't infest the body of a person unless he first binds with that person.
And then that man or that person can no longer defend his house, his body from infestation.
And how does Satan bind with that person?
Well, when that person succumbs to sin.
And if that person carries out horrific sins of sexual immorality or deception or denouncing God or any number of other things like, you know, child grooming and pedophilia and child trafficking, you know, horrible, horrible sins.
But there are other sins, of course, of extreme drunkenness, for example, or wife beating, you know, or similar types of things.
What this does is it opens your house to Satan entering and taking hold of you.
And so this is a very important lesson from Christ about how to defend yourself against satanic infestation.
So in essence, if you have an unclean spirit, then you are vulnerable to possession or infestation or influence by satanic forces.
And Jesus talks about that in the next verse, verse 28.
So he's saying...
You can be forgiven if you cursed, if you sinned, if you did wrong, and if you, with honesty in your spirit and integrity in your heart, if you come to God or through Jesus and ask for forgiveness for your sins, you can be forgiven of that.
What you can't be forgiven is attacking God himself or blasphemes against the Holy Spirit or if you say that God is the devil, for example.
Then you're subject to eternal condemnation, which is separation from God.
Now, one more thing, and then we'll close out this sermon.
There's a lot more to cover here in Mark, but this is important.
This is about the family of Christ.
This is about his mother and brothers.
And in verse 31, it says, Then his brothers and his mother came, and standing outside they sent to him, calling him, And a multitude was sitting around him and they said to him, look, your mother and your brothers are outside seeking you.
And Jesus answered them saying, who is my mother or my brothers?
This is a philosophical question.
It's not that he doesn't recognize his family, but that he has transcended The version of family that we humans tend to assume.
Verse 34, You see?
Verse 35, very powerful.
Whoever does the will of God is my family.
We are brothers and sisters.
We are mothers and fathers and sons and daughters, all of us who carry out the will of God.
We are not isolated because of lineage or blood.
We do not only have our blood siblings.
If we live and act with the will of God in our lives, as Jesus Christ said, then all others who share those values, they are our brothers and sisters.
And understand that Jesus died on the cross for the sins of all human beings.
That includes, you know, the Assyrians and the Babylonians and the Akkadians, and it includes the Indians and the Chinese and the Russians of the modern day and so on.
Jesus died for the sins of all people.
Whoever does the will of God is my brother and my sister and my mother.
We are all one family.
It's the human family.
And the forces that are opposed to humanity are satanic forces.
They infest humanity, but they are fearful of the Word of God.
They are fearful of the power of God that moves through those who live lives with integrity in the teachings of Christ and the commandments of God.
If you live in the covenant with God and do not practice deception and wickedness and evil and incest and whatever all the crimes are that are mentioned repeatedly throughout the Bible, and if you follow the Word of God,
behave with morality, behave with courage, act in accordance with the teachings and help others around you, and have compassion and humility, Then you are immune to demonic infestation and possession because the shield of God works through you.
And we talked about, you know, the armor of God, putting on the whole armor of God so that you may be protected from what?
The wiles of the devil and the fiery darts that are thrown at you.
But you've got everything you need in the armor of God, don't you?
You've got it all.
This is from Ephesians 6.
What is it?
The shield of faith.
The helmet of salvation.
The breastplate of righteousness.
I call it the belt, but it was, I think, like the loincloth.
But the belt of truth.
And, don't forget, the boots are sandals of peace.
Don't forget about the sandals of peace.
And the spirit of the sword also.
So, It all comes together when you understand this.
We are not separate from each other.
This is why part of what I attempt to share and teach is a pro-humanity point of view.
We must have compassion for fellow human beings.
And notice that Jesus didn't say that, you know, except for black people or except for Palestinian people or except for Jews or except...
No.
Jesus said, all the people who carry out the will of God are my brothers and my sisters.
Regardless of what language they speak, remember what we said opening this sermon, regardless of what language they speak, regardless of what country of origin, where they came from, their ethnicity, regardless of what foods they eat, regardless of where they came from, regardless of what foods they eat, regardless of where they came from, how they look, how they talk, how they dress, they're all my brothers and sisters if they carry out the will
I'm sorry.
And so, remember what we started out with in this sermon?
How God appears to different people and speaks their language.
And even visually appears to them in the way that is familiar to them.
In this passage in the Gospel according to Mark, I'm going to challenge you and mention something here.
Jesus is appearing to the people that he needed to reach In the form that is familiar to them because God willed it so.
God wanted to grant his authority and power in the form of a human being that was familiar to the people of that region.
That's why Jesus looked like them and spoke like them and was accepted by them without fear of his physical appearance or speaking like an alien or something.
Understand that.
God's power to appear before you is infinite.
He can do so in the way He speaks.
He can do so in images or apparitions.
And He can also do so through the personification of the power of creation rendered into flesh and blood in human form.
And in this case, that form is Jesus Christ.
Now, there's much more, obviously, to this book of the Bible and this story, and we will continue in the next sermon with what happens next.
Thank you for listening.
This is Mike Adams, and we've got 100 sermons for you to enjoy and learn from.
Many of them focus on foods and nutrition and herbs out of the Bible, but others focus on relating the Bible to modern-day challenges in morality, spirituality, the rule of law, and many other topics.
So I hope you'll find wisdom and inspiration in each one of these.
Wherever you found this sermon, you should be able to find the other ones as well.
And this is, I think, sermon number 26.
Out of 100, so good news.
We've got like 74 yet to come.
I can't wait.
This is really exciting.
The Bible is so amazing.
It's a document that casts out evil and demons, and it's so powerful that I said if it were published today for the first time, Amazon would ban it.
That's how powerful the Bible is.
So being that this is the most pro-human, pro-faith collection of writings and teachings that has ever been gathered that we know about in human history, it's worth reading.
So read the book of Mark and give it some thought.
It's deep.
Thank you for listening today.
God bless you all.
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