Insightful Musings on the Scriptures

by

Raymond P. Sparre
Northwest University class of '67

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April 4, 2010
    Good evening, dear people.
    Yes...it's evening now.  7:18pm to be exact.  And since I now have one of those fandancy atomic watches, that is very exact.  A number of things interferred with my launching this earlier.  But here we are.
    What would we do without a risen Savior?  That's infinitely better than a dead ideology.
    Be blessed as you wind down your day.
        Love and prayers.  Dad/Ray
   

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4 April 2010
Passage: Mark 2:23-3:12
Focus: “He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’”  Mark 3:5.

            There are many who misrepresent Jesus as being someone who was always kind and soft and loving.  Here we see Him clearly angry.  That’s right.  Jesus gets angry.  But this is no impulsive out-of-control irrational anger.  It is a godly anger.  It is righteous anger.
            More important than seeing Jesus’ capability of anger is to understand what causes His anger.  Make no mistake about it—Jesus is very intolerant of hypocrisy, pride, rebellion, and legalism.  If we had time we could launch a study to substantiate that.  We see Him here facing all those attitudes in this confrontation with primarily Pharisees.  And we see them so absolutely consumed with their rejection and hatred of Jesus that they depart the scene of this miraculous demonstration of Jesus’ deity and go out to plot His murder.  That really doesn’t make any good sense—but it’s still pretty common today.  Their anger was irrational and unjust.  Jesus’ anger was deliberate and just—it was godly anger directed at evil.
            May I suggest that you do everything you can to avoid the failures of the Pharisees (hypocrisy, pride, rebellion, and legalism) like you would avoid a black mamba.  Solomon spoke of the foolishness of one to incite the anger of a king (Proverbs 16:14).  How much more the King of kings?!