Mark 8:22-3822And he cometh to Bethsaida; and they bring a blind man unto him, and besought him to touch him. 23And he took the blind man by the hand, and led him out of the town; and when he had spit on his eyes, and put his hands upon him, he asked him if he saw ought. 24And he looked up, and said, I see men as trees, walking. 25After that he put his hands again upon his eyes, and made him look up: and he was restored, and saw every man clearly. 26And he sent him away to his house, saying, Neither go into the town, nor tell it to any in the town. 27And Jesus went out, and his disciples, into the towns of Caesarea Philippi: and by the way he asked his disciples, saying unto them, Whom do men say that I am? 28And they answered, John the Baptist: but some say, Elias; and others, One of the prophets. 29And he saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Peter answereth and saith unto him, Thou art the Christ. 30And he charged them that they should tell no man of him. 31And he began 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. 32And he spake that saying openly. And Peter took him, and began to rebuke him. 33But when he had turned about and looked on his disciples, he rebuked Peter, saying, Get thee behind me, Satan: for thou savorest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men. 34And when he had called the people unto him with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. 35For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it. 36For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? 37Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? 38Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels. (Mark 8:22‑38)
We have considered the first two incidents in this chapter, and I would ask your attention for a little just now to these last two incidents, that is to say, the healing of the blind man at Bethsaida, and the circumstances connected with the Lord’s intercourse with His disciples at the towns of Caesarea- Philippi.
First of all, we have this gracious incident in His life in connection with this blind man, and I think you will see this stamped upon the narrative from the first, that such was the kindness and the goodness of our Lord Jesus Christ in this world that when need came to Him, He never repelled it. He oftentimes withdrew Himself from mere prurient curiosity and the idle gaze of men, but wherever there was need, felt need, and expressed need, in whomsoever it was found, there was the ready answer and the willing and loving response of His blessed heart. And I think you will admit that it was just that which accounts for the constant recourse that was had to Him in cases of distress like this. There was something about Him here in this world that drew the heart to Him. Now when I think of that, when I trace those wondrous footsteps of mercy, when I think upon that marvelous grace and kindness to all, even the most unworthy, I cannot help feeling how sadly in contrast with it we are; I cannot help being impressed with the sense, that we, Christians, are to a great extent repellent, that there is a sort of icy coldness about us, a kind of hard callousness, which drives away rather than draws. That is the first great impression that His lovely, blessed grace makes upon the heart with regard to His poor people in this world. We seem to have got His Spirit so little, and to reflect His love so little, and we seem so little to be in His, company, and in the atmosphere which marked Him in all His blessed ways here! It is that thought which impresses itself at once upon my mind when I read the words with which this incident opens, namely, that they brought this man to Him. Evidently the friends of this blind man felt, there is no one for us but Jesus Christ. Do we feel that, friends? You have got some person blind who is perhaps very near to you—to whom do you bring him? You have got some case of distress, some case of want or sorrow; it may not be something connected with yourself, but it is near you. Where do you bring that case? Have we come so in contact with One whose equal is not to be found, the “One among a thousand,” verily, that we can say, Well, there is a heart that I can count upon for this distress, and can come to with this misery? I will bring my need, my want, my affliction, to Him. That is what drew these people here, they brought this blind man to Jesus. Oh they were wise in doing it! They did well; they counted upon a love that never disappointed, and a willingness that never refused, and so they come with their, burden. That is the way the incident opens.
What does He do? I want you to ponder the little things that are here; there is a sweetness about every word which expresses the ways of our Lord. First of all, He took this man away from all human influence; He took him “out of the town.” Let us learn something from that. There is an unhealthy craving for publicity at this moment; people seem to think that they never can do anything except they are under the blazing sun of men’s eyes. Ah! I do not see that in Jesus Christ. I see retirement; I see how entirely His whole heart was far away from all that kind of thing amongst men, idle curiosity, human influence; a harmful influence it is, too, man’s influence. He took him away from all this. And if you are to be the subject of the grace of the Lord Jesus, you must submit to be removed from human influence and from all curiosity of that nature. This action was just as if He said, I want to have you altogether alone, apart by yourself, with Myself. Are we ready for that? Are we ready to be blessed in that way, to get your sight in that way? That is the first action of the Lord Jesus in this case.
But there is another: mark it well, I beseech of you. “He took him by the hand” I do not know a picture in the gospel history that is more affecting to the heart than to see that blessed One taking the poor hand of a blind suppliant for His mercy. He took him by the hand. Oh the grace of it! Oh the blessed familiarity, as it were, the homeliness, of that dealing! Is not this a sight for angels and for men to see the Savior, He who was both God and Man, “God over all, blessed evermore,” that blessed One whose like was never to be found, taking the hand of a poor blind suppliant, and leading him just as tenderly and as graciously as you would see any blind man to-day led by his little daughter or his little boy? These are things that touch the heart, and give us to understand something more of His character who was “God manifest in flesh” down here. “He took him by the hand and led him out of the town.” He brought him away from all idle gaze and from all human influence; He led him forth Himself.
But now mark once more, and look at the verse for an instant further, that we may get distinctly the action before our thoughts. “He took the blind man,” we are told in verse 23, “by the hand, and led him out of the town.” Man made the city, the town, the public place, the place connected with all that is of man, his skill and power; He took him outside all the range of that influence, all the deteriorating effects of that influence, “and when he had spit on his eyes”—mark the words, He anoint those eyes with that which came from Himself. I believe that to point to the efficacy of the Person who was there; it was something that came from Himself that was applied by His own hands to those sightless eyes; there is a loveliness about that action, “He spit and put his hands upon his eyes.” What was of Himself, with all the virtue that it had, with all the blessedness that is in it, He applied to the blind man’s eyes. Do let us take that in, for I believe that is what it sets before us, the personal virtue that was in Jesus Christ Himself, that was applied by His own hands to the sightless eyes of this poor suppliant.
Mark the effect it had; there are two things I earnestly want to bring before you. Do you notice that this cure is a little in contrast with the Lord’s usual ways in the gospel history of effecting cures? I have remarked when speaking in this place before, that the characteristic feature of all the cures wrought by our Lord Jesus Christ in this world was the instantaneous effect of the exercise of His power, that He spake or He acted and the person was at once cured. Man is very well up in the healing art, but he cannot do that, he cannot effect a state of whole soundness at once, immediately, from disease or misery or wretchedness. Here it is gradual, and this is the only instance where it was gradual. This is the solitary exception to the usual presentation of instantaneous power in the actings of the Lord here; there were steps in it. Now I am going to try and account for those steps for a moment, for I think there was a reason why this was not instantaneous as in other cases, and why it went on from one step to another.
The Gospel of Mark, as we have seen already, is the Gospel of the great Servant-Prophet amongst men, and particularly, I suppose, amongst His own people Israel; it is the Gospel of service. But I am not altogether contented with merely calling it the Gospel of service, I prefer to call it the service of the pre-eminently great Servant-Prophet. Of course it is the Gospel of service, but it is the Gospel of service of the Servant beyond all servants. Therefore you see service in Mark set forth in its entirety and divine perfection: it is the service of One who, though He was “God over all blessed for evermore,” yet was truly and really Man, and who rendered that service as Man here in perfection. It is the perfect service of the perfect Servant; the perfect Servant must render perfect service; no other can. And therefore when God gives us a picture of what service is, He does it by setting before us the Servant. And we get a better conception of what true service is when we have the true Servant before us.
Now you will observe all through this Gospel of Mark, in connection with the service of the great Servant, that step by step there was a growing rejection of His service, even by Israel and by men; that they refused the greatest service that ever was rendered in this world. It was not only that they refused His kingly rights; we have that elsewhere; but they refused His gracious ministry here, they refused the acts of mercy which he rendered as the true Servant here. And just as there was this growing rejection on the part of Israel and of man, so I see along with it (which, I believe, is inevitable and which always follows) the secondary means come in, and the spontaneous going forth of divine power in human sympathy and human grace and human kindness that marked Him, was chilled by the unbelief and refusal that were found everywhere amongst men where He rendered that service. And hence, I believe, in the very chapter before us, in this very instance, the gradual nature of the cure, and the secondary means employed in the cure. The others were instantaneous, as we have observed before; He spake the word and it was done; He put His hands upon another case and the cure was effected; but here it is more at a distance, and it is more intermediate. Now, I believe that accounts for the character and nature of the cure here.
But again, as soon as ever the spittle was applied to the eyes of this man, mark what the effect was. The Lord’s question to him, which was the next point, brings out the effect. He asks him if he saw anything. He says, “I see men as trees walking.” That is to say, that what he received was a faculty; he had not yet the power, the ability, to apply the faculty; he had got here the faculty of sight; he could see, but it was all confused, “men like trees walking”; nothing, so to speak, was in its right place; he could not see anything at all before; now he could see, but he did not see anything clear correct, right. Now let us learn this, from the incident, how that a man may be born again, but have as yet no power. Power always comes with the Holy Ghost; and when a person has the Holy Ghost that person has power, because the Holy Ghost is power. I do not believe in what is called a second baptism; I do not find it in scripture. I find in scripture that if persons have the Holy Ghost they have Him though He may be grieved. I believe that at the root of what is called a re- baptism of the Spirit of God, lies a grievous error. And I will tell you what it is; it is shifting the want of power over upon God, instead of taking the blame to ourselves, because we have grieved the Spirit of God. That is the secret of it, and that is a very serious thing. A grieved Spirit of God leaves you powerless, as far as action is concerned. Oh, dear brethren, the Friend within is sensitive. Watch: “grieve not the Holy Spirit of God.” He does not say, Look for fresh power, or fresh blessing. He does not say, Look for a fresh baptism. He says in effect, Do not grieve that power that dwells in you. If you are a Christian you have got the Holy Ghost dwelling in you. “Live in the Spirit,” “walk in the Spirit,” cherish the movements of the Spirit, minister to the Spirit, “grieve not the Spirit.” Observe how the other weakens all that, and therefore people cry to God to give them new power. If they would judge themselves the power is there.
Now I think we can understand the little lessons that we are learning, from the fact that here was a man who from being blind has got this faculty of sight, but as yet cannot see any-thing clearly, cannot put things together distinctly; “men like trees, walking.” The second thing which completed the cure is this: it is lovely to mark verse 25, “After that he put his hands again upon his eyes,” the Savior’s hands, the Lord’s hands; first there was the spittle, then the hands, “and made him look up.” Ah! Jesus never makes you look anywhere else; man will make you look within, he would occupy you with the floating feelings of your own poor heart within; but Jesus always by His Spirit makes you look up. There is only one place to which His blessed hand will point your eyes, and that is the place from whence He came; thank God we can say, the place where He is now gone. He came from it, He dwelt in it in heart and affection even when He was here; He was “the Son of man who is in heaven” even when He was upon earth; He was out of heaven as He came here, He was in heaven when He was here; He is in heaven now in body. And oh! where can we go, what place is there, I ask you affectionately worth our eyes being on, except there? He “made him look up,” He put His hands upon him, He connected him with power. I notice that power always turns the eye there; weakness and self-occupation turn it within; that is the difference. Power connects you with that place; power turns your eye to that place; feebleness is in introspection; microscopic investigation of your own miserable heart and your own miserable feelings; the hands of Jesus, the power of Jesus always lead you up. He “made him look up.”
And now we see another word. He “saw every man clearly.” It is a very strong word in the original; in the Greek language the force of the word is “He saw everything far beaming, far shining, far and near.” (J08"L(TH) Now he can see everything; he has got power, he can concentrate his faculties; he has not only got sight but he can concentrate the sight, the thing is perfect and completed.
And then mark what the Lord says to him. O the blessed retirement of the Lord Jesus Christ! O the lowly, beautiful path that He walked in this world! He did not want popularity, He did not seek admiring crowds to come and own Him; He did not want to be lauded by men here as the great friend of every one’s need. “Neither go into the town”—you will only get deteriorating influences there—“nor tell it, to any in the town.” Do not go into the town for yourself, and do not tell it to anybody in the town for My sake: that is to say, do not you go into the deterioration of human influence; you have been under divine power, keep away from human influence; you have been the subject of divine blessedness, now avoid the town. O dear friends, would to God I could warn you as my heart feels I would like to warn you! The influence of the town is solemn! You will not think me hard, will you, if I say this—I always feel, O what a struggle it must be with the children of God in London to keep out of the influences of a great city like this! There is a kind of influence that it has upon us almost insensibly to ourselves: it is not that we wish it; but it is exactly like the effect of an ill-drained house upon a man that lives in it; he is not conscious of the polluting influence of the gas that is there, yet he is affected by it. So, beloved friends, I believe it is with us; I read a great deal of the town in scripture; do not go into the town, take care of the town. The meaning of it is, beware of human influence and its deteriorating effects upon the soul. And then one word more; “Do not tell it to any one in the town.” He did not want to be popularized, did not want the laudation of the crowd, or to pose as a great philanthropist or benefactor of mankind. “Do not tell it to any one in the town”; He sought retirement. Are not the ways of our Lord Jesus Christ here in this world lovely? The Lord help us to gather these things up and learn from them.
Look at the other incident. When He came to Caesarea Philippi, the first thing I observe in these verses is that He found speculations and opinions rife. That is just what it is to- day; there is plenty of speculation, plenty of opinion, of reasoning and argument. It is a day of speculation. We want to know God’s thoughts; man’s opinion is not worth much. It is a wonderful thing to see that there is no subject under the sun that people are so ready to speculate, and reason and argue about as subjects connected with the truth of God; and those are the very subjects of all others where their opinions and arguments and reasonings are entirely out of court. I beg to say affectionately to you that we are not competent to form an opinion at all about those things; they are out of your range and ken. It is idle work, and yet people are indulging in it continually every day. So it was here. What was wanting, but what was absent, was just this—faith. And that is what is wanting today; alas, there is but little faith. What is wanting is faith in His word. I bless God with all my soul for grace to believe every word that is in that book; be it foolish, weak, senile, contemptible as much as ever you like, I believe every word that is in that book. And more than that—and I am thankful for this opportunity to avow my faith in it—I not only believe what is in that book, but I believe that in the language in which God has been pleased to communicate the subjects that are in that book, He chose the words and gave the words to the persons who communicated them. I do not believe that it contains the word of God; it is the word of God. And there is where faith rests. It rests on that which is the word of God. Oh, thank God for that certainty; I see people positively driven about like leaves before the wind on every side; they are all adrift, they do not know what to believe, and it ends in their believing nothing at all. Why? Simply because they have got away from the word. And that is exactly what it was here at Caesarea Philippi; opinions, speculations, arguments, reasonings, and no faith at all. There are two circles, you observe: first, the outside circle, “Whom do men say that I am?” Well, say the disciples, one says one thing and another says another, and no one is right. Then He comes to the inner circle: “Whom do ye say that I am?” That is a home question, is it not? Supposing the Lord Jesus Christ were to come into this company tonight and put that question direct to each one of us here, “Whom do ye say that I am?” Personal, pointed, is it not?
And now mark; there is one man here who is taught of God, who has obtained his information, not from his brains, or his intelligence, or his education; he did not derive it from any human source or from any antiquated medium down here in this world; he received it direct from God, and his answer proves it. You are the Christ, he says; you are God’s anointed Man, that is the meaning of “the Christ” It is interesting to note, in passing, the difference between this gospel and Matthew in this incident. I believe you get the whole confession given, but one gospel records one part and the other gospel records the other. Matthew records what suits his gospel, Mark what suits his. What Matthew records is, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” That is what Matthew specially lays stress upon, and therefore you get the very truths that are connected with that revelation to Peter and that confession by Peter. “Son of the living God” pointed to His triumph over death and His resurrection glory; and there- fore the Lord unfolds to him then and there the great truth of the church. That is not here at all, because that is not the subject of Mark; that would not be in keeping with the object of the writer of this gospel, though It was in keeping with the object of the writer of Matthew. What was in keeping was, “You are God’s anointed Man, the anointed Servant-Prophet of God; you are the Christ.” Now the Lord says, The time for that testimony is past, do not tell anybody of it. That testimony was fully rendered, and therefore it ceases now. They had rejected Him; the thing was over; and He falls back upon another glory, a glory that was connected with another title that belonged to the Lord Jesus Christ that is used here, and He speaks of Himself as “the Son of man”: He does not say “the Christ,” but “the Son of man” (v. 31): “And he began 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.”
Now it is the rejection of this blessed Son of man here in this world; it is His suffering path that comes out; it is not the revelation of His glory as the Son of God, victor over death, and the founder of the church in its appointed time. No; here we find His path of scorn and rejection and shame and martyrdom at the hands of man; they should cast Him out, and refuse Him, and hate Him, scorn Him, and kill Him.
Then the man that was taught of God, the man that had got this divine revelation really, that knew who He was, that said He was the Christ, Peter, His own Peter, “took him and began to rebuke him.” Now, is not that a very sorrowful thing! Do you know what it came from, what made Peter do that? The Lord treats it in a very solemn way; “You are Satan,” “Get thee behind me, Satan.” What was that principle in Peter that led him to that action? It was inherent worldliness that stumbled over the cross; it was the unchecked and unjudged worldliness of heart that could not bear the shame that came upon the Master whom he loved. O dear friends, how solemn it is to think of it! I believe that is one great lesson we learn from this incident. A man may be very sincere, may have true faith, may truly love Christ, and yet not know himself at all, and, as we find here, the flesh within not be judged so as to use in faith the revelation he had got, and to understand the deep meaning of it in Christ’s path. That is what affected Peter. Worldliness always shrinks from the cross. Ah! friends, the cross is the test today. Talk to people about heaven, or about Christ and His grace and goodness, and they are very glad to hear it; tell them what He speaks of here, tell them of His scorn, of His shame, of His rejection, of His murder by men, tell them of that cross, and they shrink from it. I beseech of you to weigh these things over and look at them. It is very solemn. Do you want to be a follower of Him? I hear people ask that question sometimes, Are you going to be a follower of Jesus Christ? Are you going to be a servant, a true servant through grace in your measure, of that blessed One? Do you long to serve Him and follow Him in this world? Do you want to have your feet in His footsteps? I cannot conceive that any child of God would not say, “I want to have my footsteps down in the footsteps of my dear Lord and Master? Then let me show you the path now for a moment. We will just read the verses, and they will show it to you; I do not need to say one word on them (v. 34): “And when he had called the people unto him with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” I avow to you, I am profoundly impressed with the sense that popular Christianity will not have this at any cost. We are very glad to have the cross for salvation; how do you like it for your path down here? You are glad to have it to get your sins forgiven, glad to have it as a passport to glory and as the road to heaven; do you like it in your path down here in this world, Christ’s cross, Christ’s shame, Christ’s rejection? People have shrunk from it; they will not have it. On the contrary, what we find now is that the world, forsooth, is pressed into the service of Christ, and so we have that greatest of all contradictions, and that ugliest of all appearances, a thing called the Christian world. Oh read those verses, brethren in Christ, here tonight; I would put those verses upon our consciences and upon our souls: “If any man will come after me,” if you want to follow Me, to have your footsteps down in My path, to be in My circumstances, to be My disciple, “let him deny himself.” And that is a great deal more than self-denial; self-denial is a very good thing, but that is not denying yourself; many have self denial who do not deny themselves. To deny yourself is a very big thing. “Let him abnegate himself to death.” Let him be out of sight, and kept there, not under the water and out of it again, but under the water and kept there, kept out of sight, unrecognized, unrecognizable; “let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” That is the path. There is no other for Christians, there is no other for those who belong to the Lord Jesus Christ. And therefore, as my concluding message to you tonight, I press it earnestly and affectionately upon all our hearts here—Christ’s solitary, lonely, rejected, outcast, forsaken, despised, refused, scorned, hated, despicable path in this world, is the path of all that would follow Him. Now is that the path that you and I are on, that is the question? God meets us with it tonight. It is a very easy thing to merely float down with the stream of current Christianity, and there is a certain amount of credit attached to a great deal that is done, a sort of applause, a kind of “well done” from this world; as if it were capable of judging or appreciating anything at all that is of God! But oh! to be hated for Him, scorned and rejected for Him! As the Lord says to that church amongst the seven churches, to that one feeble, weak little company, that just had strength enough to keep their heads above water, so to speak, “I know your. works”; as much as to say, nobody else would recognize them or give you credit for them: “I know your works; you have a little strength and you have expended it upon Me; you have kept My word and not denied My name.” Well, I could not wish anything better for you, beloved friends—and I do wish it with all my heart and soul—that His path might be your path and mine through grace. “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.”
The Lord Jesus Christ grant that His own words may stick fast in our souls tonight, that what we have learnt from this beautiful instance of His grace and goodness here may really be revealed to us by His own power, so that we might more truly and really and whole-heartedly be found in His footsteps and in His path, for His name’s sake.
(Notes of an Address.)