Mark 8: 10-33
APPREHENSION OF OUR GLORY LEADS TO DISCIPLESHIP
6th July 1916
I have read this scripture wanting to speak of it especially in regard to the blind man. You will have noted in all my addresses I have kept very much on individual lines but I feel that is the line very much needed. I may perhaps later be led to speak of that which pertains to Christians in the company, but the company, after all, is made up of individuals and our corporate condition depends on our individual walk.
Our spiritual lesson tonight is this, that the apprehension of our glory leads to discipleship. You may not understand that statement at the start, but I hope to make it clear to you before I have done. We cannot be in the path of discipleship apart from knowing our glory. That is what is before my mind tonight and the incident of the blind man recorded here, and only here, will help me to develop my thought.
There are two blind men to whom sight was recovered mentioned in the Gospels - this one in Mark and the other in John and I need not say the thing is not repeated. There is a distinct difference between the two and the difference is this, the blind man of John has his eyes opened to see the Person of Christ; Jesus says to him, “Dost thou believe on the Son of God?” and he replies, “Who is he, Lord, that I might believe on him?” Jesus saith unto him, “Thou hast both seen him, and he it is that talketh with thee”, and he said, “Lord, I believe. And he worshipped him”, John 9: 35-38. We have in that account his progressive apprehension of Christ. He was turned out of the synagogue, they made him an outcast, but at the last he became a worshipper. That is characteristic of the Gospel by John: all the signs in John are given to show the glory of the Son of God - the blind man saw it and he became a worshipper.
Mark’s account also has a distinctive character. In Mark you never get the assembly or church as you do in Matthew; Mark is occupied very largely with the subject of discipleship. Therefore this blind man gives character to this Gospel. I will briefly give you the context that leads up to it. The Lord had fed the multitude and He crosses the sea and “the Pharisees came forth, and began to question with him, seeking from him a sign from heaven, tempting him”. They did not know what they were asking, for if the Lord had given them a sign to meet the case it would have been judgment. “There shall no sign be given unto this generation”. The Sign was there in their midst, the lonely Jesus, but they had no eyes to recognise Him. Very well! There was no sign to be given and immediately He leaves them and goes over the waters again. From that time there is a definite break with that generation.
When in the boat, the Lord instructs His disciples. He warns them against the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Herodians. In Matthew He warns them against the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees. Mark the accuracy of Scripture and the beauty of its detail. The three warnings are given and what do they mean? They present man in three aspects:
- What he is religiously
- What he is mentally
- What he is politically
And that is man, not only as God sees him but as we know him to be in ourselves. Here it is religious leaven and political leaven put together; but they do not see the moral force of the Lord’s remarks. They think of their material need, “They reasoned among themselves, saying, It is because we have no bread”. They were the loaf the Lord was speaking of but they were too much taken up with material interests to understand the spiritual thought imparted to them. The blessed Lord says, ‘Have you forgotten?’ It is very touching. The Lord reminds them of how He fed the five thousand and then the four thousand. These disciples were very much like the Pharisees in spirit - there was affinity between them and that nation they were leaving. The Lord recalls to their memory those two miracles. The feeding of the five thousand with twelve baskets of fragments gathered up is perfect administration through man - that refers to Pentecostal times. The feeding of the four thousand with the seven baskets of fragments refers more to Remnant times - that is those times in which we live. In a sense it is the breaking up of the church - we do not see full administration of blessing, but I would rather be here now than at Pentecost (not putting aside, of course, God’s will is best for each one of us as to where we come in the stream of time). And why? Because in the miracle of the seven loaves there is the divine sufficiency of Christ to all who look to Him. (Seven is the perfect number and four the universal number.) What a comfort in the present broken up state of things - the fruit of the will of man - we have Christ and He will not fail us. He will greatly bless you! Now is the time to prove the divine sufficiency there is in Christ. He will prove it to be so if you but come to Him.
Just one lesson before I pass on; the Lord says, ‘Now don’t you remember?’ How often it is when we are in distress that He comes in. He hears our prayers, He answers our distresses, He soothes and relieves us. Now, if through that exercise you have not a better knowledge of God the thing has failed. When the joy of deliverance is over you will forget. Why does He allow these things? Could He not spare us everyone? He allows them that I might have a better knowledge of Himself. That is the gain of going through a trial with God. They soon forgot. The point was, Jesus was there and what could He not do.
Now we will look at the incident of the blind man. It is full of remarkable detail - all these incidents are given to teach us spiritual lessons and therefore they are full of instruction if we can but see it. Why is this incident introduced just here? It is because they did not see, they did not understand. The blind man shows why it is and that is why the Spirit brings it in just here. Here is this blind man and the Lord is going to bless him and the first thing He does is to remove him from adverse influences. “He took the blind man by the hand, and led him out of the town”, v 23. This blind man represents the disciples’ state. Though they companied with the Lord when here they had not, as yet, received the Holy Ghost and they had not as yet the ability to look up nor to see. “How is it that ye do not understand?” When the Spirit should be given they would see all things clearly. Beloved Christians, we often ask the Lord to bless us, we are constantly thinking of our needs down here. However in His grace and goodness He does most wonderfully consider us - assuredly He does - but that is not His great concern. His greatest care is for your soul. As to our bodies, He will not let us lack anything - God cares for the fifth sparrow, that is the one that is thrown over - but He is working on spiritual lines. He has our destiny in view. He would draw us from influences here. To be withdrawn, to be laid aside in weakness or sickness, to have some deep trial which perhaps almost stuns you at the time being, these things are often the forerunners of great blessings. What are you after? Is it soul prosperity you are seeking? That is the only thing that can make you truly happy.
You remember the incident in 2 Kings 4 of the woman who cried to Elisha in her deep need, saying, “Thy servant my husband is dead; and thou knowest that thy servant did fear the Lord and the creditor is come to take unto him my two sons to be bondmen”, v 3. What does Elisha say to her? “What hast thou in the house?” And she replies, “Thine handmaid hath not any thing in the house, save a pot of oil”. Now after she had borrowed many vessels, what was she to do? She was to bring her sons into the house and shut the door - a very happy thing that man was excluded and God was there. She is there with her pot of oil and her deep need. If the door is opened or half opened the clamour of man will intrude, the voices of men will confuse. How often the Lord lays us aside on a bed of sickness maybe; it is that in the rest and stillness His voice may be heard.
You would not like the Lord to leave you alone would you? Would you care to be like an old horse put out to graze, no longer of use here? Are you seeking an easy pathway? Christianity is not an easy pathway but it is a pathway full of joy, often marked by sorrow and trial, but marked by learning what God is.
The blind man was removed from the influences of the town, and mark - he never goes back to the town. That is a very important point in this passage. In the town is the leaven of the Herodians: in the town you are an Englishman, in the town you are a politician. Christianity never gives you a place in the town. Christianity opens out a new town, a new city, the new Jerusalem.
The next thing is that Jesus spat on his eyes (v 23) and virtue went out of Him so that the eyes of the blind man were opened. As I said before, this man represents the disciples as they companied the Lord here, before the Spirit was given. What was the result of His action? The blind man saw “men as trees, walking”. His vision was distorted. I do not think we perhaps realise the difficulties in the minds of the disciples. They were poor feeble things drawn to Jesus by affection and though in close proximity to Him were fondly nursing the idea that the leaders of their nation would receive the blessed Master. Their hearts were beating high with this hope - it comes out in their thoughts and their actions in many passages. Before redemption was accomplished and the Spirit given it must be so. They were, so to speak, in the infantile stage, it could not be otherwise.
You see the mother yonder in her cottage. She is ironing, and in the cradle lies her baby, and as she irons she talks to it. ‘Your father is coming home’ she says and so she goes on ironing and talking. Does the child understand? No, not a bit, and yet she talks to it. Exactly, she finds her pleasure in talking to her child of her interests.
The Lord said much which the disciples did not understand, but afterwards they understood. The Spirit would bring all things to your remembrance. At present they had an exaggerated idea of men, they gave undue prominence to them in their thoughts. Their religious leaders were to them “as trees, walking”. We want to get clear of the scribes and Pharisees - clear of the three leavens in fact, to see all things clearly.
I trust you are following, I am gradually working up to my point that the apprehension of our glory leads to discipleship. This is the road to it. Lower down in the chapter the Lord tells them He is going to suffer. He was their Master - they loved Him and when He begins to teach them that “the Son of man must suffer many things and be rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests, and scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again”, Peter cannot bear it. Peter saw “men, as trees, walking” - the elders, the priests and the scribes - those who sat in Moses’ seat had an important place in his mind. Peter rebukes the Lord! He really loved his Master, he could not bear to think of Him suffering. Do not go that way, Lord! Peter had been trained to look up to these people and in effect he says, ‘I cannot bear you to suffer at the hands of these men’. “But when he had turned about and looked on his disciples, he rebuked Peter, saying, Get thee behind me, Satan: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men”. Jesus really says to Peter, ‘Satan is handling your flesh’. Striking words, “Get thee behind me, Satan”.
The Scripture said, Christ must suffer; the Lord Himself said so and yet Peter stands up before the Lord and rebukes Him. The Lord replies, “thou savourest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men”. I trust that you will pay attention to this, beloved brethren, Satan is always watching uncovered flesh, especially in the Lord’s servants, in order to dishonour the Lord and to distress His people. The cross of Christ alone keeps flesh in the silence of death. Satan works to dishonour Christ and to injure His beloved people. It is necessary therefore for us to walk in constant self-judgment. We must be practical. It is not what we say at the desk but what we are that matters. It is a serious question - Christianity is intensely serious and real and it behoves us to be real also. It is not what a man says but the way in which he says it and the way in which his life is affected by it that tells. A person may speak of the removal of man - these three kinds of man, the religious, the mental and the political - at the cross, but what do we know of it in our practical experience? We shall be free of them in proportion to our appreciation of the way in which they have been dealt with at the cross.
In verse 25 we get the second touch of Jesus on this man. “After that he put his hands again upon his eyes and made him look up and he was restored and saw every man clearly”. The second touch lies in the gift of the Spirit. He commanded him to look up. How far did he look up? Into the glory of God. The Man in the glory of God should be your glory. So later, it came about that Peter, after receiving the Spirit, was a very different Peter from that one in this passage - a different man entirely. Under the second touch he was delivered from the religious man here. A time comes when you are brought not only to the precious Saviour, as you all do, but you look up and are occupied with a Man in the glory. Then God’s purpose for you becomes your purpose for yourself. How many of you have looked up into the glory? How many of you are conscious of a link with Him there? He is your precious Saviour - one could not make too much of that - but have you reached that point in your history when Christ becomes your true glory. It is then that we see things distinctly. We talk about conversion, that is a conversion indeed! It would revolutionise our lives. God’s thought for you is presented in Christ and where He is, is God’s thought for you. I cannot bring you there; I can effect nothing. It is by the Spirit alone that it can be done.
I cannot, of course, follow out this passage without linking it up with the third chapter of Philippians. That is essentially the blind man under the second touch of Christ. But before doing so I will relate an anecdote which may help you to grasp my meaning when I say that every man has his glory. I relate this especially for the young people. It is told that the Earl of Roseberry, and I believe it to be quite true, that when a boy at school he once said, ‘I propose three things for myself: I will be Prime Minister, I will marry the richest woman in England and I will win the Derby’. He did all three. It is an illustration of my point. These three things constituted his glory. What you propose for yourself becomes your glory. I am speaking now of natural things.
What you propose for yourself you seek after and your whole life is coloured by it.
A certain man I knew spoke to me once thus, ‘If I could earn £500 a year I would just settle down comfortably’. He reached that figure but then he said, ‘I would like to reach £1000 a year’. He shifted his glory from £500 to £1000 a year. That is what he was pursuing.
The true glory of a Christian is Christ, Christ where He is. As He is known in your soul by the power of the Spirit, you see Him and know Him where He is, and you will have reached the point that HE is your true glory. Man does not reach true happiness by attaining his object here, but when your eyes are opened to see Christ where He is there is true satisfaction. There is no mistake about it, you have come under His gracious influence to become like Him. ‘Grace will end in Glory’.
I will now return to what I proposed saying as to the third chapter to the Philippians. This is the language of Paul. In the twelfth to fourteenth verses he says, “Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press towards the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus”.
What a blessed thing! These are the words of the man who hated Christ with deepest hatred, in whose heart was concentrated Jewish and Pharisaical pride. He hated the name of Christ, he pursued the saints even to their deaths. He raised his voice against them and hailed them to prison. He it was who sat and witnessed the death of the martyr Stephen - and yet a blameless man in his outward walk. In his religious days none could bring a charge against him - the most blameless man the world ever saw.
He is only a pattern of hundreds of others in this day of great religiousness - outward zeal, yet burning with hatred to Christ. The Lord looked down on Saul as he set out on his mission of destruction and said, ‘I will capture him’. “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?”, Acts 9: 4 A light from heaven shone upon him and he fell upon his face. The blessed Lord took charge of that man. He placed love in that heart where there had been hatred. ‘You shall go my way now, Saul’. There never was a man who loved Christ so much; never was there a man who, after conversion, loved the saints so much. “And I will very gladly spend and be spent for you; though the more abundantly I love you, the less I be loved”, 2 Cor 12: 15.
The early verses of the third chapter of Philippians tell what he was. (vv 4-7): “If any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more” etc. etc. He was jealous, orthodox, blameless. Imagine in front of you a blackboard and with a piece of chalk set to write out all that he was. In the centre of the blackboard is a small spot in which one can read the words, ‘Gain to me, I get the credit of all that’. That spoils the whole thing.
Now what follows, “But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord”, &c”, vv 7 & 8. All that life could be written out on another blackboard and what is in the centre of it this time? ‘Christ the living spring of it all and getting the credit of all that He did’. Now this man speaks, his eye and heart fixed on that blessed Christ. He is drawing nearer and nearer to the glory and his apprehension of it is increasing as he approaches. The first time he speaks of his conversion it is “a light from heaven” that shone round about him. In his second record he says, “a great light”. In the third account, when he stands before Agrippa it is “a light … above the brightness of the sun”, Acts 26: 13. His appreciation gets stronger. Now he says ardently, ‘I am going after that’. There is power in Christ to draw that man’s foot along a path of suffering, shame and loss. It was the gain of Christ that drew him along that path. Well now, the apostle is pursuing his course, “Not as though I had already attained” &c. “Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded”, vv 12 & 15. Note the word “perfect” in each of those verses. What is the difference between the “perfect” of verse 12 and that of verse 15?
We are told of a celebrated artist in Italy who had several young students. These young men had been under his tuition some long while and one day he said to them, ‘I want you each to paint me a picture’. He had a high gallery and he allowed them take their choice from the same. The young men loved their master, they were willing to please him, so they spread their canvasses here or there according to their choice and all settled down to work - all except one. He roamed the gallery till at the bottom he found a masterpiece, a perfect picture, and there he stopped drinking in all its beauties as only an artist can. ‘If I must copy’ said he, ‘It must be this’ and he commenced his work. At last the master, going round reached him and enquired, ‘How are you getting on?’ ‘Oh!’ he exclaimed, ‘don’t look at my daub, look at that’, pointing to the original and he commenced to dilate on the copy before him. The master was pleased; he recognised in this student one with an eye for what was perfect.
In the presence of present circumstances, leaving out the natural side of it, ask yourself, why is all this permitted. He has permitted it to show us how little we know of our heavenly calling. We have to own it, and yet, we need not be downhearted, yet if we would but let the truth work, our lives would be revolutionised. If you see all things clearly you will say, “All things work together for good” (Rom 8: 25), you will begin to acknowledge all His ways with you are according to His purpose for you here.
Many a time I have stood upon the beach and watched pieces of driftwood washed up by the waves and washed back again, and I have said to myself, ‘William, that is like you’. Again, often in the Downs I have watched the ships riding majestically over the waters. Ah! When you see Christ and have known Christ, then you will ride majestically. No longer driftwood, Oh no! No longer a creature of circumstances, degraded as a Christian. What are you here for? I ask you, since the Saviour drew near to you in your night of misery, what have you learnt of Him? What headway have you made? He had in His mind for you that you should be like Him and with Him for ever. It is a very great thing to live in the light of your glory. And how encouraging it is to know that He is helping you on in that line. If you walk up to the light you have got, more will be revealed to you.
Listen to the apostle, as he writes by the Spirit the tears drop on the paper as he sorrows over the earthly minded. There is the contrast, “as many as be perfect” and those who are “otherwise minded”. He recalls them to their calling. “our conversation is in heaven” (v 20) “from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ” &c.
The blind man was to go back to his house - he was never told to go to the town. You go back to your house to bear the heavenly character and you will be a better man, a better child, a better wife, a better husband, a better servant - whatsoever relationship you are set in will be filled in a better way. But you are not told to go to the town - there is no direction given by which you may be a magistrate or other official, and why? Because your citizenship is in heaven.
I ask the Lord to help you. He alone can effect anything. Look to Him. If you want to be miserable look in; if you want to be distracted look around; if you want to be perfectly happy look up. Sweet is the thought that I belong to another world where Christ is. God has touched me from the place where He is to show me that my place is where Jesus is, and the support will come from that place. We have a spot, let us look up, may it be so.
The knowledge of our glory leads to discipleship and the knowledge of a glorified Christ will enable you to pursue your way down here in this world. I had to come here because I had to go there. What sets me in movement is Christ in glory.
May these feeble words be used of Him to rouse each one of us to follow in that path, for His name’s sake. Amen.
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