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Chapter 44
The True Sign
"AGAIN He went out from the borders of Tyre, and came through Sidon unto the Sea of
Galilee, through the midst of the borders of Decapolis." Mark 7:31, R. V.
It was in the region of Decapolis that the demoniacs of Gergesa had been healed. Here the
people, alarmed at the destruction of the swine, had constrained Jesus to depart from
among them. But they had listened to the messengers He left behind, and a desire was
aroused to see Him. As He came again into that region, a crowd gathered about Him, and a
deaf, stammering man was brought to Him. Jesus did not, according to His custom, restore
the man by a word only. Taking him apart from the multitude, He put His fingers in his
ears, and touched his tongue; looking up to heaven, He sighed at thought of the ears that
would not be open to the truth, the tongues that refused to acknowledge the Redeemer. At
the word, "Be opened," the man's speech was restored, and, disregarding the
command to tell no man, he published abroad the story of his cure.
Jesus went up into a mountain, and there the multitude flocked to Him, bringing their sick
and lame, and laying them at His feet. He healed them all; and the people, heathen as they
were, glorified the God of Israel. For three days they continued to throng about the
Saviour, sleeping at night in the open air, and through the day pressing eagerly to hear
the words of Christ, and to see His works. At the end of three
days their food was spent. Jesus would not send them away hungry, and He called upon His
disciples to give them food. Again the disciples revealed their unbelief. At Bethsaida
they had seen how, with Christ's blessing, their little store availed for the feeding of
the multitude; yet they did not now bring forward their all, trusting His power to
multiply it for the hungry crowds. Moreover, those whom He fed at Bethsaida were Jews;
these were Gentiles and heathen. Jewish prejudice was still strong in the hearts of the
disciples, and they answered Jesus, "Whence can a man satisfy these men with bread
here in the wilderness?" But obedient to His word they brought Him what they
had,--seven loaves and two fishes. The multitude were fed, seven large baskets of
fragments remaining. Four thousand men, besides women and children, were thus refreshed,
and Jesus sent them away with glad and grateful hearts.
Then taking a boat with His disciples, He crossed the lake to Magdala, at the southern end
of the plain of Gennesaret. In the border of Tyre and Sidon His spirit had been refreshed
by the confiding trust of the Syrophoenician woman. The heathen people of Decapolis had
received Him with gladness. Now as He landed once more in Galilee, where His power had
been most strikingly manifested, where most of His works of mercy had been performed, and
His teaching given, He was met with contemptuous unbelief.
A deputation of Pharisees had been joined by representatives from the rich and lordly
Sadducees, the party of the priests, the skeptics and aristocracy of the nation. The two
sects had been at bitter enmity. The Sadducees courted the favor of the ruling power in
order to maintain their own position and authority. The Pharisees, on the other hand,
fostered the popular hatred against the Romans, longing for the time when they could throw
off the yoke of the conqueror. But Pharisee and Sadducee now united against Christ. Like
seeks like; and evil, wherever it exists, leagues with evil for the destruction of the
good.
Now the Pharisees and Sadducees came to Christ, asking for a sign from heaven. When in the
days of Joshua Israel went out to battle with the Canaanites at Bethhoron, the sun had
stood still at the leader's command until victory was gained; and many similar wonders had
been manifest in their history. Some such sign was demanded of Jesus. But these signs were
not what the Jews needed. No mere external evidence could benefit them. What they needed
was not intellectual enlightenment, but spiritual renovation.
"O ye hypocrites," said Jesus, "ye can discern the face of the
sky,"--by studying the sky they could foretell the weather,--"but can ye not
discern the signs of the times?" Christ's own words, spoken with the power of the
Holy Spirit that convicted them of sin, were the sign that God had given for their
salvation. And signs direct from heaven had been given to attest the mission of Christ.
The song of the angels to the shepherds, the star that guided the wise men, the dove and
the voice from heaven at His baptism, were witnesses for Him.
"And He sighed deeply in His spirit, and saith, Why doth this generation seek after a
sign?" "There shall no sign be given unto it, but the sign of the prophet
Jonas." As Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, Christ
was to be the same time "in the heart of the earth." And as the preaching of
Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites, so Christ's preaching was a sign to His generation. But
what a contrast in the reception of the word! The people of the great heathen city
trembled as they heard the warning from God. Kings and nobles humbled themselves; the high
and the lowly together cried to the God of heaven, and His mercy was granted unto them.
"The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation," Christ had
said, "and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and,
behold, a greater than Jonas is here." Matt. 12:40, 41.
Every miracle that Christ performed was a sign of His divinity. He was doing the very work
that had been foretold of the Messiah; but to the Pharisees these works of mercy were a
positive offense. The Jewish leaders looked with heartless indifference on human
suffering. In many cases their selfishness and oppression had caused the affliction that
Christ relieved. Thus His miracles were to them a reproach.
That which led the Jews to reject the Saviour's work was the highest evidence of His
divine character. The greatest significance of His miracles is seen in the fact that they
were for the blessing of humanity.
The highest evidence that He came from God is that His life revealed the character of God.
He did the works and spoke the words of God. Such a life is the greatest of all miracles.
When the message of truth is presented in our day, there are many who, like the Jews, cry,
Show us a sign. Work us a miracle. Christ wrought no miracle at the demand of the
Pharisees. He wrought no miracle in the wilderness in answer to Satan's insinuations. He
does not impart to us power to vindicate ourselves or to satisfy the demands of unbelief
and pride. But the gospel is not without a sign of its divine origin. Is it not a miracle
that we can break from the bondage of Satan? Enmity against Satan is not natural to the
human heart; it is implanted by the grace of God. When one who has been controlled by a
stubborn, wayward will is set free, and yields himself wholeheartedly to the drawing of
God's heavenly agencies, a miracle is wrought; so also when a man who has been under
strong delusion comes to understand moral truth. Every time a soul is converted, and
learns to love God and keep His commandments, the promise of God is fulfilled, "A new
heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you." Ezek. 36:26. The
change in human hearts, the transformation of human characters, is a miracle that reveals
an ever-living Saviour, working to rescue souls. A consistent life in Christ is a great
miracle. In the preaching of the word of God, the sign that should be manifest now and
always is the presence of the Holy Spirit, to make the word a regenerating power to those
that hear. This is God's witness before the world to the divine mission of His Son.
Those who desired a sign from Jesus had so hardened their hearts in unbelief that they did
not discern in His character the likeness of God. They would not see that His mission was
in fulfillment of the Scriptures. In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, Jesus said
to the Pharisees, "If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be
persuaded, though one rose from the dead." Luke 16:31. No sign that could be given in
heaven or earth would benefit them.
Jesus "sighed deeply in His spirit," and, turning from the group of cavilers,
re-entered the boat with His disciples. In sorrowful silence they again crossed the lake.
They did not, however, return to the place they had left, but directed their course toward
Bethsaida, near where the five thousand had been fed. Upon reaching the farther side,
Jesus said, "Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the
Sadducees." The Jews had been accustomed since the days of Moses to put away leaven
from their houses at the Passover season, and they had thus been taught to regard it as a
type of sin. Yet the disciples failed to understand Jesus. In their sudden departure from
Magdala they had forgotten to take bread, and they had with them only one loaf. To this
circumstance they understood Christ to refer, warning them not to buy bread of a Pharisee
or a Sadducee. Their lack of faith and spiritual insight had often led them to similar
misconception of His words. Now Jesus reproved them for thinking that He who had fed
thousands with a few fishes and barley loaves could in that solemn warning have referred
merely to temporal food. There was danger that the crafty reasoning of the Pharisees and
the Sadducees would leaven His disciples with unbelief, causing them to think lightly of
the works of Christ.
The disciples were inclined to think that their Master should have granted the demand for
a sign in the heavens. They believed that He was fully able to do this, and that such a
sign would put His enemies to silence. They did not discern the hypocrisy of these
cavilers.
Months afterward, "when there were gathered together an innumerable multitude of
people, insomuch that they trode one upon another," Jesus repeated the same teaching.
"He began to say unto His disciples first of all, Beware ye of the leaven of the
Pharisees, which is hypocrisy." Luke 12:1.
The leaven placed in the meal works imperceptibly, changing the whole mass to its own
nature. So if hypocrisy is allowed to exist in the heart, it permeates the character and
the life. A striking example of the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, Christ had already rebuked
in denouncing the practice of "Corban," by which a neglect of filial duty was
concealed under a pretense of liberality to the temple. The scribes and Pharisees were
insinuating deceptive principles. They concealed the real tendency of their doctrines, and
improved every occasion to instill them artfully into the minds of their hearers. These
false principles, when once accepted, worked like leaven in the meal, permeating and
transforming the character. It was this deceptive teaching that made it so hard for the
people to receive the words of Christ.
The same influences are working today through those who try to explain the law of God in
such a way as to make it conform to their practices. This class do not attack the law
openly, but put forward
speculative theories that undermine its principles. They explain it so as to destroy its
force.
The hypocrisy of the Pharisees was the product of self-seeking. The glorification of
themselves was the object of their lives. It was this that led them to pervert and
misapply the Scriptures, and blinded them to the purpose of Christ's mission. This subtle
evil even the disciples of Christ were in danger of cherishing. Those who classed
themselves with the followers of Jesus, but who had not left all in order to become His
disciples, were influenced in a great degree by the reasoning of the Pharisees. They were
often vacillating between faith and unbelief, and they did not discern the treasures of
wisdom hidden in Christ. Even the disciples, though outwardly they had left all for Jesus'
sake, had not in heart ceased to seek great things for themselves. It was this spirit that
prompted the strife as to who should be greatest. It was this that came between them and
Christ, making them so little in sympathy with His mission of self-sacrifice, so slow to
comprehend the mystery of redemption. As leaven, if left to complete its work, will cause
corruption and decay, so does the self-seeking spirit, cherished, work the defilement and
ruin of the soul.
Among the followers of our Lord today, as of old, how widespread is this subtle, deceptive
sin! How often our service to Christ, our communion with one another, is marred by the
secret desire to exalt self! How ready the thought of self-gratulation, and the longing
for human approval! It is the love of self, the desire for an easier way than God has
appointed that leads to the substitution of human theories and traditions for the divine
precepts. To His own disciples the warning words of Christ are spoken, "Take heed and
beware of the leaven of the Pharisees."
The religion of Christ is sincerity itself. Zeal for God's glory is the motive implanted
by the Holy Spirit; and only the effectual working of the Spirit can implant this motive.
Only the power of God can banish self-seeking and hypocrisy. This change is the sign of
His working. When the faith we accept destroys selfishness and pretense, when it leads us
to seek God's glory and not our own, we may know that it is of the right order.
"Father, glorify Thy name" (John 12:28), was the keynote of Christ's life, and
if we follow Him, this will be the keynote of our life. He commands us to "walk, even
as He walked;" and "hereby we do know that we know Him, if we keep His
commandments."1 John 2:6, 3.
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