Trinity Baptist Church

The Book of Mark

Amazing Unbelief

Mark 6:1-6

 

Mark 6:1-6a

 

There are numerous times when people were amazed with Him, but only two times was He amazed at them. Once was at the faith of a centurion and the other, which we just read about, was the lack of faith in His own hometown.

 

There is a valuable lesson found in those two occurrences.  Not only is faith powerful, but unbelief is powerful also. The power of unbelief is so great that it extends throughout all eternity. In fact, it has massive power. 

 

For example, Eve exercised unbelief in the Word of God and brought the entire human race down into a curse and eternal judgment.

 

In the days of Noah, Noah was a preacher of righteousness warning the world.  But the world would not believe and the unbelief of the world caused the destruction of the whole human race and all creatures and all life living on the earth.

 

It was unbelief on the part of Israel in the wilderness that caused them to die there before ever entering into the Promised Land. And the story of Israel’s ongoing unbelief even after they entered the land of Canaan is clear for all to read in the Old Testament. They were judged again and again by God for their apostasy and their unbelief.

 

If we had time we could look at personal examples of unbelief in men like Aaron and Moses and Judas and on and on the list goes, both Old Testament and New. 

 

So without going into all the details and examples, suffice it to say unbelief is an unbelievably powerful force, enough so that Jesus said to Nicodemus, “He who does not believe is condemned because He has not believed in the Son of God”.  It is unbelief that activates the judgment of God and  brings about the forfeiture of eternal life.

 

As we come to the sixth chapter of Mark, we come to the conclusion of the first section of Mark’s gospel. The section began with an introduction of the purpose of the book.  Mark is going to talk about the Son of God.

 

And for the next five chapters, we see the Son of God giving evidence to that claim.   In the first chapter we find Jesus preaching the gospel and calling out His disciples. Then in the second and third chapters He is teaching and healing the people.

 

In chapters 4 and 5 we have more preaching, more teaching, more miracles of healing, deliverance from demons and danger and death. In fact, just prior in chapter 5 verses 21 to 43 we saw the great healing power of Jesus as He raised the dead daughter of Jairus and on the way to Jairus’ house, He healed a woman who had a bleeding problem for twelve years.

 

And notice the response people are giving Him at the end of verse 42 in chapter 5.

Now that is talking about the resurrection of Jairus’ daughter in particular, but it is also kind of a general statement about His ministry in Galilee.  Primarily the response was curiosity and astonishment. That doesn’t necessarily equal faith or repentance or salvation.  But He certainly had their attention.  They were astonished at what He did.

 

But now, when He goes back to His hometown of Nazareth, it is not the crowds that are astounded, but instead it is the Lord that is astounded.

 

Now remember, we’ve already seen His family’s response to Him back in chapter 3:21.  They thought He had lost His mind. They thought He was a maniac. For all that they knew, He grew up there for 30 years as a quiet carpenter and now, all of a sudden, He’s catapulted Himself on to the public scene.

 

By verse 31 we find His family trying to get Him out of the public situation He was in and save both the public from His madness and Himself as well. And we read in John chapter 7 that His family did not believe in Him.

 

As He begins His ministry in Galilee, Luke 4 tells us news about Him spread throughout all the surrounding district. He’s teaching in synagogues and He’s praised by everybody and this is early in the Galilean ministry. And somewhere near the beginning of that time He comes to Nazareth where He had been brought up.  And as was His custom, He goes to the synagogue and begins to teach.

 

 

 

And at first they welcome Him and are anxious for Him to do the same things in Nazareth He’s been doing in Capernaum.  But eventually He reads to them from the book of Isaiah regarding a coming Messiah and tells them the Scripture has been fulfilled before them that very day. 

 

And they become so enraged they tried to throw Him off a cliff and kill Him.  Only one sermon and they wanted Him dead. And these are the people who knew Him best in a small village, His own family was involved.

 

So that was the attitude of Nazareth toward Him. And now He’s back for a second visit.  Nothing has changed with their attitude.

 

But true to His nature and character, He wants to once again extend the gospel message and invitation to them and again they reject it and He is amazed at their unbelief. 

 

Unbelief is really powerful. It’s amazing what unbelief does in the face of full evidence. It is so startling that it even amazes Jesus.

 

I want to show you four things about unbelief. This is how Jesus was treated by unbelievers and it is what you and I can expect from unbelievers in our day and age as well. 

 

 

Verses 1-2

 

 

Isn’t it obvious where He came from and from where His message originated?  There is only one sensible answer to where it came from, and that is it came from God and that He is who He says He is. He is Messiah. He is the Son of God. That’s obvious.

 

There’s no other explanation for what He did than the power of God. In John 10:37, He said, “If I do not do the works of My Father, don’t believe Me. But if I do them, though you do not believe Me, believe the works so that you may know and understand that the Father is in Me and I in the Father.”

 

There’s only one way to explain Jesus and His power and His words, unbelief by nature obscures the obvious. It blocks out the obvious. This is the nature of unbelief. It will go everywhere but to the truth. It will look everywhere but to the reality. 

 

Think about those who teach and embrace evolution.  They know there is no credible scientific evidence to support what they believe, but they refuse to acknowledge even the suggestion that there could be a God who is responsible for creation.  Unbelief always tries to obscure the obvious.

 

 

Verse 3

 

Look at these ridiculous questions.  What does who His brothers and sisters are have to do with anything? But that’s the way they thought. They don’t want to focus on the obvious, so they focus on the irrelevant.

They have already rejected Him and now they want to discredit His family.  He comes from a local well-known family.  But they are just common people. To imagine that He’s the Messiah is unacceptable. 

 

His family’s probably right.  He is a deranged maniac. He can’t possibly be who He claims to be. After all, He is nothing more than the son of a carpenter.  He’s not a rabbi, not a Pharisee, not a scribe, not a local synagogue leader.  He’s not from the right blood line to be a priest.  He’s a carpenter.

 

And that doesn’t mean carpentry was not an honorable trade.  It was.  But it certainly didn’t qualify you to be the Messiah.  So they focused on what is irrelevant.

 

Then they dig even deeper.  After all, He is “the Son of Mary”.  We may say that with love and respect, but that’s not how they said it. They’re still not past the shadow of illegitimacy.  Typically, you would refer to a son by his father’s name. We still do that. 

 

But here He is called Son of Mary. They are slandering Jesus for what they believe is an illegitimate birth. The implication is His father was unknown.

 

Now remember, the subject at hand is His power and teaching and the amazing things that He’s doing.  But they choose to focus on the irrelevant. They’re stuck on the idea that He is a nobody from a nothing family with an illegitimate birth who is a common man with a common job.

 

 

Then there’s a third characteristic of unbelief, it attacks the messenger

 

Notice the end of verse 3

 

It was an absolute blasphemy in their minds that He would claim to be the Son of God. In fact, the word translated “offended” is the word from which we get “scandal”.  This is scandalous.

 

This is the attitude of an unbeliever when pressed with the truth, when the truth is obvious and the truth is relevant. He tries to obscure the obvious, elevate the irrelevant and then turn on the messenger.

 

That’s one of the devices of Satan.  Unbelief assaults the messenger. It will try to diminish the message being shared by attacking the messenger.

 

Listen to what Jesus told His disciples in Matthew 10.

 

Verses 16-17

 

Why?  What is the crime?  Did they rob? Did they kill? Did they plunder? Did they break the law? No.

 

Verses 18-23

 

Jesus told us what to expect.  They will attack the messenger that comes in the name of the Lord.  That’s what unbelievers do. They ridicule, they show disdain, hostility, and persecution and as their response to the truth.

 

And that’s tough, isn’t it?  Especially when your motives are pure.

When you, out of love in your heart, want to give the gospel to somebody in your family or some friend, or in some environment, in some class, or to some professor, or somebody at work, and they turn on you and it’s especially true if they know you well and you’re not from out of town.

 

Imagine what that must have been like for Jesus to be rejected by those who knew Him best.  And absolute stranger have embraced Him and loved Him and given their lives to Him.  But when He goes home, He is rejected and assaulted. 

 

In His own hometown, He had no honor whatsoever as a prophet. They thought He was a man who had lost His mind.  Unbelief obscures the obvious. It elevates the irrelevant. And it attacks the messenger.

 

Last, unbelief rejects the supernatural

 

Verse 5

 

So what’s the problem?  It’s not a power problem.  It’s a purpose problem. What is the purpose of miracles? They attest to the truth.  They are to verify the message of Jesus.  So if you’ve rejected the message, there’s no need for the miracles.

 

Their response is so strange.  Here they had a man in their midst who could heal diseases, conquer death, deliver from demons, with a word provide a mean for thousands, was compassionate and could provide eternal life and yet, they killed Him. 

 

 

In fact, when push came to shove, they chose Barabbas instead of Jesus. That is so bizarre. And yet that was the ultimate disaster of unbelief.  It literally shuts a person off from God. He can do nothing if you don’t believe.

 

How foolish is unbelief? Unbelief chooses hell. Unbelief chooses Satan. Unbelief chooses sin. Unbelief chooses to travel alone in the darkness. 

 

Is that really what anybody wants? They don’t want   love, joy, peace, gentleness, faith, meekness, self-control. You don’t want prayers answered. You don’t want divine intervention in your life, supernatural wisdom, supernatural direction, hope, the promise of heaven, peace that passes understanding. You don’t want those things, right?

 

That is the tragic result of unbelief.  No wonder Jesus was so amazed.

 

Let’s pray.