“Lunatic, Liar, or
Lord” Mark 3:20-35
SCRIPTURE INTRO:
We’re back to Gospel of Mark after a two month break.
Someone has said that the Gospel of Mark is an invasion.
The Son of God
invades our world and challenges our perceptions
about what God is
really like.
And everyone who encounters him must decide
whether
to trust their eternal destiny to him or not.
Before we get into this passage. Want to give credit where credit is due.
Dr. Tim Keller’s
sermon on this passage was excellent.
Lots of the things
you hear from me today, including outline, got from him.
INTRO: When you hear the name CS Lewis, you
probably think of Narnia.
But Lewis, as you know, did not just write children’s books.
One of his most
famous is Mere Christianity—
which
presents and defends the Christian faith.
Even though Lewis was responding to objections against
Christianity
during
his time—first half of the 20th century—
his
arguments are still fresh today.
Most Englishmen during Lewis’ time—
and
many scholars he rubbed shoulders with in
would
say that Jesus was a great moral teacher.
He was like Buddha or Confucius or Mohammed.
In fact, he was
probably the greatest moral teacher—
but he was not
God. Just a great man whose teaching we
can learn from.
In Mere Christianity
Lewis proposed a famous argument against
this
commonly held idea that Jesus was a great moral teacher.
His argument was this:
If you look at what
Jesus said about himself,
then
you cannot call him a great moral teacher.
In fact, you only have three options.
Let’s read Lewis’
words themselves—printed in bulletin on Meditations page.
“A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things
Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher.
He would either be a lunatic—on the level with a man who says he is a
poached egg—or he would be the devil of hell.
You must take your choice. Either
this was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool or you can
fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God.
But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a
great human teacher. He has not left
that open to us. He did not intend to.”
These three options:
That Jesus was either a lunatic, or a liar, or the Lord
is
called the trilemma.
One of the great arguments in Christian apologetics.
Lewis was the first person who articulated this—
but
he got it right out of the Bible.
In fact, you can find it here in this passage in Mark.
In this passage
there are two false views of Jesus.
And then Jesus
speaks and says who he really is.
But notice—as we study—this is not just an interesting
intellectual exercise.
Your view of Christ, and your response to him has eternal significance.
Do you accept Jesus’ testimony about himself, and the
testimony of Holy Spirit?
Or do you reject
him? That’s the challenge of this
passage—all Mark.
Passages like this in Gospel, where we see Jesus challenged—
are
intended to encourage your faith,
and
cause you to commit yourself afresh to following Him.
I’d like us to look at this passage under two headings.
1. False views of Jesus. 2. Who
Jesus says he is.
And then we’ll see
what difference this makes in your life.
MP#1 False views of Jesus
There are two in this passage.
verse
21, His family said, “He is out of his mind.”
verse
30, Teachers of the law said, “He has an evil spirit.”
Why did they say this about Jesus?
They were trying to
make sense of the things that he was saying about himself.
Jesus repeatedly called himself “the Son of Man.”
The “Son of Man” is
a divine figure in Daniel 7
who
comes on the clouds of glory to judge the world at the end of time.
Jesus said that the Son of Man has authority to forgive
sins.
All sins committed
are really committed against me, I can forgive.
Jesus said that the Son of Man was Lord of the Sabbath.
Jesus was saying,
all your rest, meaning and acceptance in me.
If your next door neighbor always
saying things like:
I am going to come
at the end of time and judge all things.
Your eternal
destiny all depends on me and your faith in me.
You would think he
was crazy.
But if people started following him, hanging on his every
word—
then
you might decide that he was evil, trying to trap them.
Nobody who heard what Jesus said about himself called him a
great moral teacher.
If they didn’t
believe he was Lord, they thought he was insane or evil.
But many did believe.
And these were not superstitious people.
They were Jews, who
had a high and holy view of God through Old Testament.
They were the least likely people on earth
to
believe that God would become a man.
But they believed because Jesus’ life and character matched
his claims.
And of course, it
was ultimately his resurrection
that
confirmed he really was the Son of god.
People today don’t say that Jesus was a lunatic or liar.
It’s not that they
have accepted him as Lord,
but
the view that Jesus is a great teacher has come back in a new form.
In CS Lewis’ day it was that Jesus was a great moral
teacher.
People don’t like
morals today.
Now people say: Jesus
was a great teacher of self-fulfillment.
Came to tell us that we
all have the divine within.
You won’t hear that view in
Cullman, but it’s the party line in academia.
If you ever hear the media quoting an “New Testament scholar” will be this view.
Gets into the mainstream
in popular books like the Da Vinci Code.
To have this view of Jesus,
you have to get rid of the Gospels.
They do it by saying that the Gospels are
legends written by church leaders
after Jesus’ death
to consolidate their power in this new religion.
The real Jesus is buried
under all of the legends of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John.
Some of the things in the Gospels he really
said, like:
“Judge not, lest you be judged.” “Let him who is without sin cast the first
stone.”
But he never claimed to be God. He never made moral judgments against people.
Never condemned sin. Never talked about hell and
judgment.
All that was all put in
there by the early church leaders to get power over people
by making them feel
guilty and need the church for forgiveness.
You can’t get rid of the
Gospels by calling them legends. Three
reasons:
1. Gospels were written too
early to be legends.
All the Gospels were written
within the lifetime of eyewitnesses.
You can’t make up legends when there are
still eyewitnesses.
These church leaders who
were supposedly trying to consolidate their power
by making up things
about Jesus, would have been immediately discredited.
Do you remember the Swift
Boat controversy during last election?
John Kerry made claims about what had
happened in
These men stepped forward who said, that’s
not what happened, we were there!
Mark was written 30 years
after Jesus’ death. Other
Gospels in following decades.
In one of Paul’s letters he mentions that
over 500 people saw Jesus after risen,
and that many of
them were still alive when Paul wrote letter.
Impossible
to write legends about public figure few decades after death.
2. Content of the Gospels is
damaging to the early church leaders.
If they were writing it to consolidate their
power—did a lousy job.
Just look at this
passage. Jesus brothers thought he was
insane.
Tried to take charge of
him. Trying to arrest him, have
him committed.
After the resurrection
Jesus’ brothers did believe in Him.
Brother James became the leader of the
If Gospels written to
consolidate power of early leaders,
would they have
chosen to put this detail in the Gospels?
The leader of
actually thought he
was crazy and tried to have him committed.
And you know that all of the
apostles—are shown as petty, dull, cowardly.
There is a much more reasonable explanation—
they are a record of
what happened—not propaganda.
3. Details of the Gospels
consistent with historical writing.
The Gospels are not written
like legends.
Written with all sorts of
historical details, true to life details.
And you can’t call it a historical
novel.
Novel was not invented for
another 2,000 years.
CS Lewis once said: People who claim that the Gospels are novels
have simply “not
learned to read.”
The modern version of Jesus
the teacher of self-fulfillment doesn’t hold water.
The Gospels are not legends to support the
leaders of the early church
by making people
feel guilty and dependent on them for forgiveness.
The Gospels are credible,
early, historical records of the life of Christ.
So we’re back to the trilemma.
Some who saw him said he was insane, other
said he was evil.
Now let’s get to the exciting part, let’s
see who Jesus says he is.
MP#2 Who
Jesus says he is
Of course, he says that he is the Lord—but it’s so much more rich than that.
Jesus responds to these two claims made about him with some
strange words.
“How can Satan
drive out Satan? . . . “No one can enter a strong man’s house and carry off
his
possessions unless he first ties up the strong man. Then he can rob his house.”
Mark tells us that this was a parable.
What Jesus was
saying is that this world is like a kingdom or a castle
that
is dominated by a strong man—an evil warlord.
In this castle are possessions that this strong man controls—
Jesus is talking
about people. About
us.
He is saying that the world is in bondage to the devil and
sin.
But that he has
come, not to teach people how to be better individuals.
But to rescue them
by destroying the evil that holds them in bondage.
In claiming this for himself, Jesus was tapping into the
deepest and oldest prophecy.
Genesis 3:15, at
the Fall, when seemed that Satan had won, enslaved
race.
God said to
Serpent, One day, man born, seed of woman, will crush your head.
Whole Old Testament is just a development of the prophecy—
preparation
for coming of the divine/human warrior
who
would rescue mankind from the dominion of the strong man, Satan.
Of course Jesus came to teach us—but before he can teach
us—has to rescue us.
And how did he do it?
How did he bind the strong man and plunder his possessions?
By allowing himself to be bound and plundered. By going to the cross.
That was the only
way for him to defeat evil and save us at the same time.
If Jesus had some with a sword and started swinging—
he
would have had to destroy us all—because of the evil in all of us.
The human race is captive to the evil one—but we are willing
captives.
And so to destroy
evil by judgment would have meant our destruction as well.
So Jesus, the mighty one, the divine warrior of prophecy—
stronger
than Satan, stronger than sin, stronger than death—
allowed
himself to be bound and plundered on the cross because he loved us.
The Judge received divine judgment as the penalty for our
sins.
In that way, not
only was evil destroyed, but we were saved.
What difference does this make for your life? Two huge things.
First, it means that
the evil one cannot harm you.
He’s been bound and
plundered by Christ.
No matter what
comes against you, it cannot do you eternal harm.
At the end of first Harry Potter book, Lord Voldemort, evil lord shows us.
Commands
one of his servants to kill Harry Potter.
But when he tries to grab Harry, he cries out in pain, his
own skin burns, blisters.
Harry realizes that
for some reason, evil can’t touch him.
Later he asks his good teacher Dumbledore.
Years ago, Lord Voldemort tried to kill you.
Your mother gave her life to save yours.
“Love as powerful as your mother’s for you leaves its own
mark—not a scar, no visible sign. To
have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, it will
give us some protection forever.”
What evils are you facing now?
Is something external coming against you—
financial
trial, hostility of someone at work?
Is something closer to home coming against you—
storm
in family, marriage?
Or perhaps it is something even closer—
emotional
turmoil, depression, struggles with a besetting sin?
Your hope not in a teacher of self-fulfillment who teaches
you have divine within.
It’s in the divine
warrior of prophecy.
He gave his life in love for you to bind the strong man.
His love has put a
mark on you. Evil cannot get a grip on
you.
And although you will surely suffer in this life—just as
Jesus did—
the
worst that comes against you cannot do you eternal harm.
So lift up your face.
Look to the cross. Take
heart. Fight the good fight.
Weeping may endure
for a night, but joy comes in the morning.
Second, this means
you have a totally different way of fighting evil.
When someone wrongs you, what do you want to do? You want to hurt him.
You want him to
feel the pain that he has caused you.
You want to fight
evil by spreading evil.
But if you believe that you were in such bondage to the evil
one—
that
Jesus the divine warrior had to give his life to rescue you—
that
gives you the ability to fight evil in a totally different way.
Charles Colson, the founder of Prison Fellowship, was at the
graduation ceremony
for
inmates in a
Witnessed something amazing.:
As an inmate approached me for his certificate, out of the
corner of my eye I saw a tall, stately woman rise from her seat among the
visitors. Her name was Mrs.
If you believe that Jesus is just a good teacher—
You will find yourself thinking:
I’ve obeyed Jesus’
teaching. I’ve done everything right.
I’ve raised my kids right. I’ve
treated my spouse right.
I’ve run my
business right. I’ve lived right.
How can this person treat me like this?
And even if you
don’t lash out, you’ll fantasize.
Some day he’ll be
sorry. Some day she’ll get what’s coming
to her.
But if you believe that Jesus is who he says he is—
the
one who came to bind the strong man and plunder his possessions—
and
when you see that you were one of those possessions, reclaimed.
Only then will you be able to respond with grace when you
are wronged—
and
try to rescue those who have wronged you by bringing them
face
to face with Jesus Christ.
Is there someone who has wronged you who you have been hoping
will
feel some of the hurt he or she has done to you?
There is a new way to fight evil because of Christ.
Pray for the
person’s blessing. Bless and do not
curse.
If Jesus had come swinging the sword—you would be gone—
but
he came to rescue us from the dominion of darkness—
by
allowing himself to be bound.
In so doing, he made us who were once his enemies—his family
and followers.