Hating and Loving Christ (Part A)

The feast of weeks, and at the feast of Tabernacles shall not appear before the Lord empty-handed lessons written that one verse. Many do show up to the house of God empty-handed empty-handed. Empty hearted, empty headed, so something we should be mindful of her in our own lives not critical of others, but concentrating on ourselves right into Ecclesiastes said says you better be careful when you go to the house is not a trivial thing with God.

It shouldn't be with us. This is cross reference radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville*is currently teaching through the gospel of Mark. Please stay with us after today's message here. More information about cross reference radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching, but for now let's join Pastor Rick in Mark chapter 14 for a brand-new study called hating and loving Christ Mark's gospel chapter 14 verses one through 11, after two days it was the Passover and the feast of unleavened bread, the chief priest and the scribes sought how they might take him by trickery and put him to death, but they said, not during the feast list there be an uproar of the people being in Bethany at the house of Simon the leper. He sat at the table. A woman came having an alabaster flask of very costly oil of spikenard. Then she broke the flask and poured it on his head, but there were some who were indignant among themselves and said why was this fragrant oil wasted grid might have been sold for more than 300 denarii and given to the poor criticized her sharply. But Jesus said, let her alone. Why do you trouble her. She has done a good work for me. You have the poor with you always, whenever you wish you may do them good but me you do not have always.

She has done what she could just come beforehand to anoint my body for burial.

Surely I said you, wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world with this woman has done will be told as a memorial to her then Judas Iscariot, one of the 12, went to the chief priest to betray him, to them when they heard it, they were glad and promised to give him money so he sought how he might conveniently betray him. We are going to now start that walked towards the cross and the empty tomb. This 14th chapter of the men who hated Jesus Christ were publicly daring to defy their corruption and expose them now plot his death Mark and Matthew tell the same story. Matthew gives us a few more details would both interject into this story of betrayal this moment of love being poured out on Christ from one of his followers. And yet the betrayal of another follower to stark contrast is fraught with lesson for anyone who would consider the Bible has put these two together on purpose. Christ is in total control.

Even though he is in his humanity and he matured into this matured state of his humanity.

If you will. As he grew in stature in favor with God and men. The Bible tells us is in total control of this crucifixion that is coming his enemies. They don't realize this is in control of my life and as you look at the crucifixion of your one of his disciples, and you see him murdered and you go through those three days of blackout. You've got to be questioning your faith sometimes for us is more than three days that were questioning our faith. Where is Christ. Where is the one that loves me. Why are these things happening.

Why am I less the person that I that I wanted to be but he still in control. Absolute control.

Jesus said the very hairs of your head are numbered, and this is the Christ, we are considering this morning. Returning to verse one.

Mark writes after two days it was the Passover and the feast of unleavened bread, and the chief priests and scribes sought how they might take him by trickery and put him to death that two days there are not necessarily a 24 hour. It gets kind of difficult to track everything with the Jewish you do you know can think they count the days from sundown to sundown and we counted from midnight to midnight.

That's all 24 hour run and theirs is different and we have to remember that as students of the Bible of if we want to get more from what the Scripture saying I believe, but I calculate this to be there Thursday in a beginning and still our Wednesday they were at the Passover season. That means there would be quite a few Jews, a million or more men converging on Jerusalem. This was mandated God required assembly still does New Testament Old Testament and God required men to show up at the house of God.

There are three holidays that this was demanded was we get this from Deuteronomy 16 I'll read it to you three times a year. Your males shall appear before Yahweh your God in the place which he chooses at the festival of unleavened bread, the feast of weeks, and at the feast of Tabernacles, they shall not appear before the Lord empty-handed.

Many lessons are in that one verse. Many do show up to the house of God empty-handed empty-handed. Empty hearted, empty headed, so something we should be mindful of her and and our own lives not critical of others, but concentrating on ourselves the right into Ecclesiastes said says you better be careful when you go to the house of the Lord is not a trivial thing with God and shouldn't be with us anyway. The Passover began in the first month of the Jewish calendar on the 14th day, and with the slaying incidentally of the Passover lamb were not there yet were two days out. According to Marx, writing in verse one of Mark 14, but it commemorated their being delivered from the messenger of death, the blood was put on the doorpost and they were passed over, and those that did not have the blood on the doorpost of the angel of death. The messenger of death did not Passover, that house in the first one was slaying his judgment upon Egypt, a God had warned them and given them a way out, they did not take it so that God intensified his his dealings with Egypt and for some 1500 years. The Jews have celebrated their emancipation from Egyptian bondage with the Passover on the Jew spoke of the Passover. It included the feast of unleavened bread, so they would just but when they said is the feast of unleavened bread. They knew that meant the Passover to because as they were having the Passover meal. The feast of unleavened bread would be starting because at sundown the day transitioned and so they were considered together, the true Passover lamb. However had been in their mitts for over 33 years. Most did not know it. John the Baptist he called out early about 3 1/2 years before this event. John said he was in the world John the apostle is writing this I get to John the Baptist saying in a minute John the apostle writes he was in the world and the world was made through him, and the world did not know him, and nothing has changed in 2000 years.

The difference between the church and the world as the world does not know him, and by world in the context of the Scripture and how I'm using it. Of course we mean those who do not believe who live on the planet. He continues John does. He came to his own and his own did not receive him. This again is Jesus Christ. The Passover lamb and the Jewish leaders will have none of it. They want to kill him, but not as the Passover lamb.

They just want to silence in the John the Baptist qualities that I baptize with water, but there's dozens one among you, whom you do not know quite a powerful pastor. He was shedding of his blood would open this fountain of cleansing for all humanity, not just the Jew. This is what's so powerful about just thinking about it this way, you, he's the Jewish Messiah, but he is the Christ. It now takes on a different language and Gentile word is gone beyond Israel there included there very much a part of God's love saw the Gentiles less Satan as he wears we know he does common comes and drives a wedge of division, but shedding of his blood opens this fountain making salvation available. John's gospel chapter 4 whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst said Jesus with the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life. You were born again, you who are born again you recall the excitement water that was welling up going to spring out of you and maybe some of you look back and you're not as excited about your faith anymore because you've taken so many hits that you thought Christ was going to protect you from prices I'm going to shield you within these problems. But I will not take them all away. It rains on the just and the unjust alike. Revelation 21 Jesus speaking and he said to me, it is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.

I will give the fountain of water to lot of life really to him who thirsts. He is the fountain of life with the Jewish people as a nation would have to wait until the end of the great tribulation. For the fountain of pardon to open up on them as a nation. Zechariah the prophet wrote in that day that is the when Christ returns in glory, a fountain shall be opened. The house of David for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness to go back to my original statement. He is the Passover lamb and at his death. This fountain would be open and this fountain would be for sin and for cleansing dealing with sin and cleansing at the very thing we need wherever going to get to that banquet in heaven is going to be through Jesus Christ and the feast of unleavened bread. He says here in verse two.

This was the last meal. It commemorated as slaves in Egypt and Africa. As the eight the Passover lamb them red, they would've already written their homes. Of the 11 yeast that goes into the bread and for seven days. This feast would would last if you were making bread and heading out of Egypt packed up with as much as you could carry having bread that was not bloated with yeast would be easier to carry stack more of it into your suitcase kind of adjuster know the Lord. Looking ahead when he told the Jews to make the ark of the covenant. It was wood overlaid with gold and the. The Levites would carry. What if he had said I want it made out of solid gold liquid not been able to carry goals very heavy.

Remember years ago working in the airport loading planes in the every Tuesday this armored car would show up and we load gold onto this flight to Argentina and it was just a small box is, why does this pulpit but not as tall. Just a few inches tall, and it took two men struggle to get that into the plane to try to take samples home but they they didn't go for that. Anyway, my point is, gold is very heavy and God in his mercy gave them the goal that he would see on the outside and the what a blessing that was. I don't want to go down that rabbit trail that would just take us away from this for the moment but anyway it says here in verse two and the chief priests and scribes sought how they might take him by trickery.

These are supposed to be holy men. Why are they up to this deceit. Why are they liars and cheaters.

Holiness depends on honesty and integrity, and the truth of God. It cannot function under God and find his favor and at the same time be dishonest, be deceitful, be false and be murderous.

We cringe when we find our pastors behave this way.

And what about when we behave this way. Honesty means something we would win usually when people lie is because they run under some pressure and be there their image.

Or maybe the norm. Once something found out it's always wrong. You shall not bear false witness, and I think that any Christian that is comfortable lying is in serious trouble.

Their hatred of Jesus began when he defied their unholiness in public because they were pretending to be holy men with their roles and how they walk around spread around and criticize everybody else in be the celebrity characters in Christ call them out to expose their hypocrisy and they are now going to kill them for these same men when they died. They stood before Jesus forever doomed as far as we know, none of these characters repented and the ones that would have repented would've found mercy. Luke chapter 13 there will be meat weeping and gnashing of teeth. When you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God and you yourself thrust out and scary part for me. I never knew you on this case. Though these were not pretending to have known him. Revelation chapter 1 we read, behold, he is coming with clouds, and every eye will see him, even they who pierced him. Now that is a direct reference to the Jewish people, but it does not leave out these characters to those Jewish hearts among the Jews who approved of Christ's death comes judgment. Thank God there were Jews that did receive Christ is not anti-Semitic. These are the facts. Peter, who was a Jew and love the Lord and is in heaven never lost sight of who these guys were and after Christ ascended to heaven, and Peter began to come to the front of Christianity and begin to preach with boldness. He let everybody know that they plotted the death of the holy one of Israel. Acts chapter 2 him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands and crucified and put to death Peter saying the prophecy was fulfilled what was your choice to be against God. God was going to fulfill this prophecy is interesting thought Judas was upon of Satan and also God got in the sense that God is in control.

He is sovereign. You are free to be wicked, but not not out of God's control. Acts chapter 3, Peter continues you denied the holy one and the just, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and killed the Prince of life, and God raised from the dead which we are witnesses, so there's Peter and he is holding them accountable and many of the priests were converted at his preaching, but he never forgot we should have some of that this should be sermons preached and experiences in Christianity that we never forget that we used to the glory of God in our lives. It says here in verse two and put him to death.

These guys played for keeps. Did they not that's what they were going to do.

They want to put him to death and they did.

They wanted not only to be death, but they wanted it to be shameful and painful. They did not want a quick execution. Verse two they said not doing the feast lest there be an uproar of the people. This is very important to the sovereignty of Christ and God who reports Christ being God the son, they said, not during the feast they wanted to wait till the Passover and feast of unleavened bread was finished because all the men were required to be there and they wanted the multitudes to be diminished before they pull their act, but he was arrested at the feast in spite of them because they were in control. Just like right now the very hairs of your head numbers good God is in control. Men were in control of their choices, but never in control of the outcome. He overrules their plans, forcing them to conform to his will, he controls every fall and bound them the whole lot of them to cooperate with the fulfillment of his purposes's plan for salvation, he had found those whose hearts were wicked wicked and would not change and so he used them same with Judas Iscariot got and I put a knife to the throat of Judah since that you will be a betrayal went when Judas was born a baby and his mother looked into his eyes. She did not see a trader. It was a child like everybody else, but as he grew he decided to take that path of greed that path of self and God honored him so is amazing when you treat adults as at some sheet some adults as an adult and there insulted you said XYZ and I'd honored what you said now you're angry with me for honoring what you said. How does that work if I said you are lying to me or dishonor do you come at me for that. Well, that's just how it is all of this could have been avoided in the lives of these men were cast out at judgment all they had to do was side with Jesus Christ. The very thing they refused to do. They would never give him the satisfaction of considering him a legitimate rabbi, let alone Messiah.

So we see him in control, deliberately moving towards the cross the will of the father and his will.

The plan was set for salvation, not allowing the wicked to choose the hour or the method or the Purpose Later He Will Dr., Judas out into the night. When Judas goes out into the night. John says and it was night. It's an intentional word to us.

He Would Dr., Judas out to earn his 30 pieces of silver at the hour of his choosing is again he's going to send him out during the feast, not as his instructions were not in a wait till after the feast. Later he will also keep righteous Peter from interfering to and he says put your sword and achieve is not how I we do business here it says less there be an uproar of the people part of the problem was the crowds consider Jesus Christ to be not only a miracle working profit of quote that's what they did they consider him a mirror miracle working profit and profit music preach the truth in holiness and righteousness.

The people had this mindset from first Chronicles chapter 16 touch not my anointed ones do my prophets no harm, and if they tried to arrest Christ with the multitudes they feared that the civil disturbance would be disastrous for them at a even if the people did not get their hands on the leaders individually. The Roman authorities would these guys are gangsters or sub gangsters do business. They find someone getting away with opposing them diminishing their profits. They look to execute them to put a hit out on them. Verse three and being in Bethany at the house of Simon the leper as he sat at the table. A woman came having an alabaster flask of very costly oil of spikenard, partly costly oil of spikenard. Then she broke the flask and poured it on his head. As I read these words is in reading Scripture verses.

I want to say this, I want to say that I can. It's this God's word so robust, but at the end of it.

I hope wanted when it comes my time to die if I die that I'm still excited about God's word. If someone says well you got about 30 minutes to live well and maybe hobbling to study something in maps and see how it relates to the profits of something I want to go out defying death. I wanted collapsing. I love God's word in season and out of season because it is real, not because it is become a favorite pastime of mine and I can enjoy when I read the Scripture and study the Scripture I forget all about the boneheaded things of life, to some degree, except when we talk about the persecution notice. You have to keep it real. That's where I'm going with it.

What good is a Bible study if it's not real is just religion or if it's just something that's interesting what the story now moves from the haters of Christ to the lover of Jesus. It is the same story is found in John's gospel chapter 1 with Mary of Bethany there some little differences, not contradictions, additions or and omissions yes not contradictions. You might think so because Johnson six days before the Passover. This happened in Bethany, but Mark just said what two days before the Passover was in on Mark's not even trying to keep the sequencing that was for what the Pharisees were doing and he injects this into the story because it's setting up shooter saying this was the last straw when Judas is scary when he finally decided to trade on the Lord to the authorities. It was because his feelings were hurt.

He was in salt.

Move thanks for tuning into cross reference radio for this study in the book of Mark cross reference radio is the teaching ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia to learn more information about this ministry. Visit our website cross reference radio.com once you're there you will find additional teachings from Pastor Rick. We encourage you to subscribe to our podcast. When you subscribe will be notified of each new edition of cross reference radio. You can search for cross reference radio on your favorite podcast app that's all we have time for today, but we hope you'll join us next time. As Pastor Rick continues to teach through the book of Mark Reiki on cross reference radio