Marcos 6

Marcos 6

Johnson - Theological Wordbook) Around (surrounding, round about)(2945) (kuklo from kúklos = a circle) literally means in a circle or from the circle and so all around or round about. So as an adverb kuklo is used in the sense of going around in an arc or a curve. Daniel Akin - Conclusion: 1) The preacher Phillips Brooks (1835-1893) was an American pastor who well said, “Familiarity breeds contempt, but only with contemptible things or among contemptible people” (Wiersbe, 59). The contempt shown by the citizens of Nazareth said nothing about Jesus. However, it said a lot about them! 2) What about you? What about me? Do you show contempt towards the Jesus revealed in Scripture? Do you allow the biblical evidence to slay your biases, reshape your preconceived notions of who Jesus must be for you to accept Him? Believe in Him? Trust Him? 3) Are you “scandalized” by the simplicity of His gospel? The unfairness of its message that says a child-molester or even a serial rapist and murderer on death row can be made right with God by child-like faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of God? 4) Or, have you become so familiar with Him having been raised in church all your life that His words no longer convict? His miracles no longer astonish? His death on the cross for you no longer strikes the cord of “Amazing Grace?” 5) Familiarity can blind us to the greatness and glory of a Savior if we are not careful. Spiritually inoculated at some point in life, we become immune to the real thing! I have seen it far too many times. You do not come to Jesus on your terms. You come to Jesus on His! This prophet was without honor in His own hometown! Please, do not make the same mistake in your heart. The consequences are of an eternal nature. (Sermon) Donald Cantrell - "When the Work Is Hindered" Mark 6:5—And he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed [them]. Mark 6:6—And he marvelled because of their unbelief. And he went round about the villages, teaching. In this passage our Lord had just returned to his own country, the little place called Nazareth. In this country the people knew who Jesus was, at least who they thought that he was, to them he was the carpenters son. The people were very familiar with his earthly family, Mary, the sisters, and his brothers, to them there seemed to be nothing special about this man called Jesus. The people questioned his wisdom, his healing powers, his reputation, they questioned to the point that they literally got mad at him. It would do all of us good to remember that familiarity breeds contentment, often times it difficult to allow the normal to become abnormal. The Saviour realized that a prophet would receive no honor from his own people, they would easily write him off. The Lord only healed a few sick folk in his own backyard, then he did something that most of us overlook, he went, he moved on down the road. Upon being rejected he would move on until someone was ready to receive a blessing. The text reveals to us that their unbelief was so great that the Lord himself marveled at them. Unbelief is the greatest of all sins, unbelief will keep a person out of heaven, unbelief will send a person to heal, unbelief will shut down a church, it will destroy every fiber of faith that a person has stored up. It would help us greatly to pray and ask our Lord to expand our faith and expose our unbelief, upon exposing it, we need to extract it from our life, get rid of it, and do it today!!! 1. Unbelief Hinders the Work—Realize It Immediately 2. Unbelief Hinders the Word—Recognize It Infinitely 3. Unbelief Hinders the Worker—Remove It Individually I wonder if we have allowed unbelief into our heart, have we let it set up residence, have we given it a foot hold in our life. We need to strongly resist the desire to doubt the power of God, we must reject the very thought of disbelieving any portion of the word of God. The word of God will bring to fruition the work of God, his will can only come to pass when one has total belief in his might word, in his wonderful works. In the space below ask God to help grow your faith and remove all unbelief from your life Adrian Rogers - The measure of your success or your failure as a Christian is your faith. For the Bible clearly and plainly says, "According to your faith be it unto you" (Matthew 9:29). Now, we meet one another, and we say, "How are you feeling?" We ought to say, "How are you faithing?" Right? How are you faithing? Because how you faith is a lot more important than how you feel. It is not according to how you feel; it is not according to your fame; it is not according to your fortune; it is not according to your fate; not according to your friends; but, "according to your faith be it unto you." UNBELIEF PROCEEDS FROM Hardness of heart Mark 16:14 ; Acts 19:9 Disinclination to the truth John 8:45,46 Judicial blindness John 12:39,40 Not being Christ's sheep John 10:26 The devil blinding the mind 2 Corinthians 4:4 The devil taking away the word out of the heart Luke 8:12 Impugns the veracity of God 1 John 5:10 R A Torrey - Topics QUOTES ON UNBELIEF If you are an unbeliever when you die, Christ did not die for you. - Ambrose Living without faith is like driving in a fog. - Anon. Unbelief in the face of evidence is either stupidity or sin. - Anon. All unbelief is the belief of a lie. - Horatius Bonar In all unbelief there are these two things: a good opinion of one's self and a bad opinion of God. - Horatius Bonar Can any man perish more justly than they who refuse to be saved? - John Calvin Infidelity is always blind. - John Calvin Our own unbelief is the only impediment which prevents God from satisfying us largely and bountifully with all good things. - John Calvin The blindness of unbelievers in no way detracts from the clarity of the gospel; the sun is no less bright because blind men do not perceive its light. - John Calvin Unbelief... is always proud. - John Calvin Unbelief makes us rebels and deserters. John Calvin Unbelieving and irreligious men have no ears. - John Calvin As faith is the greatest grace, so that which is opposite to it must be the greatest sin. - Stephen Charnock Is not he as much guilty of his own death that rejects a medicine as he that cuts his own throat? - Stephen Charnock Unbelief was the first sin, and pride was the first-born of it. - Stephen Charnock When God is not believed we must needs give credit to the devil. - Stephen Charnock Christ distinguished between doubt and unbelief. Doubt says, 'I can't believe.' Unbelief says, 'I won't believe.' Doubt is honest. Unbelief is obstinate. - Henry Drummond Disobedience and unbelief are two sides of the same coin. - Ronald Dunn What loneliness is more lonely than distrust? - George Eliot Alongside getting faith out of a heart that is utterly hostile and unbelieving, making a silk purse out of a sow's ear or getting blood from a turnip is child's play. - John H. Gerstner Unbelief is always conceited. - Richard Glover Unbelief in the biblical view is not passive, an innocent but inaccurate view of the world that has unfortunately 'got it wrong' at a few points. Rather, unbelief is active, driven by a dark dynamism - Os Guinness God excludes none if they do not exclude themselves. - William Guthrie Gospel light is justly taken away from those that endeavour to extinguish it. - Matthew Henry None so blind as those who will not see. . - Matthew Henry Nothing is more offensive to God than disbelief of his promise and despair of the performance of it because of some difficulties that seem to lie in the way. - Matthew Henry There are those who will trust Christ no further than they can see him...; as if he were tied to our methods, and could not draw water without our buckets. - Matthew Henry Unbelief is apt to mistake recruits for enemies, and to draw dismal conclusions even from comfortable premises. - Matthew Henry Unbelief is at the bottom of all our staggerings at God's promises. - Matthew Henry Unbelief is at the bottom of what sinners do ignorantly. - Matthew Henry Unbelief is the great obstruction to Christ's favours. - Matthew Henry Unbelief may truly be called the great damning sin, because it leaves us under the guilt of all our other sins; it is a sin against the remedy. - Matthew Henry Unbelief, or distrust of God, is a sin that is its own punishment. - Matthew Henry Unbelief is the shield of every sin. - William Jenkyn Unbelief... makes the world a moral desert, where no divine footsteps are heard, where no angels ascend and descend, where no living hand adorns the fields, feeds the birds of heaven, or regulates events. - F. W. Krummacher Unbelief is a matter not only of the head but of the heart. The unbeliever's trouble is that his heart is not right with God. - R. B. Kuiper Unbelief is radically all other disobedience. - Robert Leighton The Bible itself gives us one short prayer which is suitable for all who are struggling with the beliefs and doctrines. It is: Lord I believe, help Thou my unbelief. - C. S. Lewis When you are arguing against God you are arguing against the very Power that makes you able to argue at all. - C. S. Lewis No difficulty in believing the gospel is intellectual, it is always moral. - D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones Incredulity robs us of many pleasures and gives us nothing in return. - James Russell Lowell As no one can give himself faith, neither can he take away his unbelief. - Martin Luther What greater rebellion, impiety, or insult to God can there be than not to believe his promises? - Martin Luther Birds lack faith. They fly away when I enter the orchard, though I mean them no ill. Even so do we lack faith in God. - Martin Luther Unbelief is the mother of sin, and misbelief the nurse of it. - Thomas Manton Ultimately, the acceptance of the gospel is a moral problem not an intellectual problem. - Will Metzger Unbelief is not failure in intellectual apprehension. It is disobedience in the presence of the clear commands of God. - G. Campbell Morgan The natural man does not want to believe that God has spoken. - Tom Nettles For the most part we live upon successes, not promises. Unless we see and feel the print of victories we will not believe. - John Owen Unbelief makes God a liar and, worse still, a perjurer, for it accounts him as not only false to his word, but to his oath. - A. T. Pierson Unbelief is far, far more than entertaining an erroneous conception of God's way of salvation: it is a species of hatred against him. - A. W. Pink Unbelief is not simply an infirmity of fallen human nature, it is a heinous crime. - A. W. Pink No maniac ever reasoned more illogically than the unbeliever. - William S. Plumer What sends people to hell today? It is not lying, not murder, not rape, not arson. It is not sexual perversion, not pride, not arrogance. It is this: unbelief! You see, Jesus died for all those other sins. Those sins have been paid for with His blood. It is unbelief—and unbelief alone—that shuts the door to heaven. In the spiritual realm, nothing is possible if you do not believe, but "everything is possible to the one who believes" (Mark 9:23). Just as you live physically by breathing, you live spiritually by faith. As the Bible says, "The righteous will live by faith" (Rom. 1:17). - Adrian Rogers Unbelief...is our greatest stumbling block in life. Unbelief is the chief wickedness. Unbelief is the mother sin, the father sin, the parent sin. It is the sin of all sins. Unbelief caused Eve to sin against God in the Garden of Eden. She failed to believe the Word of God. - Adrian Rogers Unbelief is wickedness. Unbelief makes God a liar. Unbelief comes from an evil heart. Grace is released by faith. Grace is taken prisoner by unbelief. - Adrian Rogers The errors of faith are better than the best thoughts of unbelief. - Thomas Russell If men do not have eternal life it is never because God did not love them, or because Christ was not given for them, but because they did not believe on Christ. - J. C. Ryle No sin makes less noise, but none so surely damns the soul, as unbelief. - J. C. Ryle The difficulties of Christianity no doubt are great; but depend on it, they are nothing compared to the difficulties of infidelity. - J. C. Ryle Unbelief about the existence and personality of Satan has often proved the first step to unbelief about God. - J. C. Ryle We can never be too much on our guard against unbelief. It is the oldest sin in the world. - J. C. Ryle God . . . has created us perfectly free to disbelieve in him as much as we choose. If we do disbelieve, then he and we must take the consequences in a world ruled by cause and effect. - Doroty Sayers Those who deny God are bound to bestow all his attributes on flesh and blood. - Isaac Bashevis Singer The revelation of the gospel is to a world that is already under indictment for its universal rejection of God the Father. - R. C. Sproul Those who spurn the gospel challenge not the power of the church but the sovereignty of God. - R. C. Sproul There are no infidels anywhere but on earth. There are none in heaven and there are none in hell. - C. H. Spurgeon Unbelief calls itself 'honest doubt', and not without cause, for we should not have known it to be honest if it had not labelled itself so. - C. H. Spurgeon Unbelief will destroy the best of us. Faith will save the worst of us. - C. H. Spurgeon Unbelief is so deeply rooted in the human heart that when God performs miracles on earth, unbelief doubts whether he can perform them in heaven, and when he does them in heaven, whether he can do them on earth. - Friedrich Tholuck If the way to heaven is so narrow, and so few seek it, what will become of those who never seek it? - William Tiptaft Every man will have to decide for himself whether or not he cannot afford the terrible luxury of unbelief. - A. W. Tozer Human unbelief cannot alter the character of God. - A. W. Tozer I do not believe there is anybody who ever rejects Jesus Christ on philosophical grounds. The man who continues in his rejection of Christ has a pet sin somewhere—he's in love with iniquity. - A. W. Tozer It is unbelief that prevents our minds from soaring into the celestial city, and walking by faith with God across the golden streets. - A. W. Tozer Every man will have to decide for himself whether or not he can afford the terrible luxury of unbelief - A. W. Tozer A great many believers walk upon the promises at God's call in the way to heaven even as a child upon weak ice, which they are afraid will crack under them and leave them in the depth. - Robert Traill Infidelity is the mother of apostasy. - John Trapp Faith unlocks the divine storehouse, but unbelief bars its doors. - Curtis Vaughan Unbelief is the foul medley of all sins, the root and receptacle of sin. - Thomas Watson Unbelief is the root of apostasy. - Thomas Watson The root of all apostasy is the primal sin of unbelief. - Geoffrey B. Wilson Sources - Complete Gathered Gold, Draper's Quotes Limiting God Psalm 78:41KJV - Wade H Horton INTRODUCTION: God's wise and benevolent purposes are often frustrated. There are many things God would do for men, but there are things that hinder or limit God. I. INCONSISTENT CHRISTIAN LIVING LIMITS GOD. A. "Your iniquities have turned away these things, and your sins have withholden good things from you" (Jeremiah 5:25). B. "Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear: But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear" (Isaiah 59:1, 2). II. LACK OF FAITH LIMITS GOD. A. Jesus "did not many mighty works... [in Nazareth] because of their unbelief" (Matthew 13:58). B. "If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed... nothing shall be impossible unto you" (Matthew 17:20). III. SHALLOW AND SELFISH PRAYERS RESTRICT OR LIMIT GOD. A. "Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts" (James 4:3). B. The Pharisee in his prayer exalted his own goodness; but it was a selfish, self-centered prayer, and he received no answer (Luke 18:10-14). IV. A STUBBORN WILL LIMITS GOD. A. "He came unto his own, and his own received him not" (John 1:11). B. God extends His gifts, but we must accept them. C. Jesus invites us to come, but He does not compel us to come (Matthew 11:28-30). D. He says, "Behold, I stand at the door, and knock" (Revelation 3:20). But we must open the door. E. The key is on our side. We should by all means let Him in because He is the heavenly visitor. F. And He is the best visitor we will ever have. For His visit will not be for a day, a month or a year, but for all eternity. CONCLUSION: Let us quit limiting our heavenly Father; let us simply trust Him to do as He has promised CAN GOD, THE ALMIGHTY, BE LIMITED? - Al Bryant And [they] limited the Holy One of Israel (Ps. 78:41). God’s wise and benevolent purposes are often frustrated. There are many things God would do for men if permitted. 1. Inconsistent Christian living limits God. “Your iniquities have separated” (Isa. 59:2). “Your sins have withholden” (Jer. 5:25). 2. Lack of faith limits God. We limit the Holy One of Israel by distrust. Jesus at Nazareth “did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief” (Mt. 13:58). Many of us lack an adventurous faith. We are afraid to “launch out into the deep” (Luke 5:4). When you say, “My sins are too many to be forgiven,” you have limited God. You have put your sins above His grace. 3. Shallow and selfish prayers limit God. They restrict Him. “Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss” (James 4:3). See the parable of the Pharisee and the publican. We often limit God by the narrowness of our prayers. Also by our lack of praying. 4. A stubborn will limits God. “He came to his own, and his own received him not” (John 1:11). “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem … how often would I have gathered thy children … and ye would not” (Matt. 23:37). To limit God is to set bounds to His operations, to circumscribe or confine Him in His ability to effect certain purposes or works. The penitent sinner often does this when he doubts God’s willingness and ability to save. The Christian in trouble often does this in confining God to a certain mode of deliverance. God extends His gifts, but we must accept them. Jesus invites us to come, but He can’t compel us to come. Jesus stands at the door and knocks, but we must open the door. The key is on our side. LIMITING GOD - Flawed Memory (Read Psalm 78:40-53) The older we get, the more we forget. This is especially true when it comes to our relationship with God. The people of Israel often remembered what they should have forgotten and forgot what they should have remembered! "They did not remember His power: the day when He redeemed them from the enemy, when He worked His signs in Egypt, and His wonders in the field of Zoan" (Psalm 78:42,43). How amazing. The Jews had seen God perform ten miracles on their behalf in Egypt. Moses even pointed out that this was the hand of the Lord, yet they forgot all about it. After they were delivered from Egypt and living in the desert, the first time they were thirsty, they complained. The first time they were hungry, they complained. Their constant cry was, "Let's go back." What did they remember about Egypt? The bondage? The taskmasters? Being beaten and whipped? Carrying the heavy burdens? They didn't remember those things. They remembered the leeks and the onions and the garlic and the cucumbers. They remembered the things that satisfied their stomachs. They did not remember the spiritual victories that God had given, His deliverance or His guidance. He had fed and led them, protected and provided for them; and they forgot about it. The same is often true of us. We forget what God has done for us, and when we forget, we start to go backward. Forgetfulness has consequences. "Yes, again and again they tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel" (Psalm 78:41KJV). Imagine--feeble, unbelieving man limiting Almighty God! But that's what happens when we forget Him. Don't limit God in your life today. He has unlimited wisdom and unlimited power, and your life has unlimited potential in His hands. Don't turn back. Look ahead. Don't test Him. Trust Him and remember his mercies. The same God who worked miracle after miracle for Israel is the One who is working for you today. Don't live with a flawed memory. Meditate on God's faithfulness and goodness. (Warren