LEAVING ROOM FOR GOD

He said again, "Give it to the people that they may eat; for thus says the Lord:  They shall eat and have some left over."  2 Kings 4:43.

In Mark 8, we find the disciples out to sea in a boat with Jesus.  It occurred to them then that they had forgotten to take food, and they only had a single loaf of bread among them.  These same disciples were fresh off witnessing a great provision, for Jesus had just fed four thousand people with seven loaves and a few fish.   Mark 8: 5-9.  And, by the Father’s miraculous power, there had been seven baskets of leftovers.

Yet, just a little bit later, here they were out to sea, preoccupied with the fact that they had only one loaf.   As they wondered how they were going to eat later on, Jesus looked at them and said something very strange.   Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod!   Mark 8: 15.  They didn’t understand His words, and asked among themselves what He could possibly mean.  Then, they decided He must have said it because there was no bread, and He was perhaps cautioning them about trying to get it from the Pharisees.  Mark 8:16. 

No doubt, the Pharisees and Herod were not far from Jesus’ mind.  John the Baptist had recently been brutally killed at Herod’s command.  Matt. 14: 6-12; Mark 6: 22-25.  Also, He had just had another run-in with the Pharisees.  Mark 8: 11.

The Leaven of the Pharisees

The Pharisees had come looking to argue with Jesus, and asked Him for a sign from heaven.   Jesus refused, saying there would be no sign to that generation.   Mark 8: 12.  It was the same approach that Satan had taken with Him earlier, when he challenged Jesus to cast Himself down from a pinnacle of the Temple if He was the Son of God.  Christ’s answer then was, Do not tempt (test) the Lord your God.  Matt. 4:7.  God had given a sign in the provision of the Living Word made flesh, but the Pharisees wanted to be perverse, and their unwillingness to receive the truth made them try to bait Him.

When the devil and the Pharisees asked for a sign, Jesus who was the meaning, purpose and culmination of any sign from heaven was in front of them.  What more remained but to believe?  I believe that asking for a sign at that point was really a denial of the reality of God that was already present before them.  In the same way, the disciples weren’t receiving or understanding the reality of God that they had been given in the person of Jesus Christ, and in the power He had already given to them.   As a result, they started wondering and worrying about what they were going to eat, and perhaps their train of thought was headed in the same direction as the Pharisees’.  They were well on their way to testing God in unbelief.

The Leaven of Herod

Herod had just given in to demands from his wife and daughter to have John the Baptist beheaded and put on a platter.  Mark 6: 23-27.  He had done this even though he feared John and recognized him as a holy man (6:20), but he denied what he knew was the power of God in order to please others, and to give in to his carnal desires.  He followed a carnal mind instead of the witness of God in his spirit.

It seems then that when Jesus warned the apostles to beware of the leaven, He was admonishing them against unbelief, and against favoring the thoughts of a carnal mind over their inner knowledge of God.  Jesus’ very next words to the disciples got to the heart of their issue.  Why do you reason because you have no bread?  Do you not yet perceive or understand?  Is your heart still HARDENED?  He chided them,

 

Remember the five loaves I broke for the five thousand? How many

baskets of leftovers did you pick up?"

 

They said, "Twelve."

"And the seven loaves for the four thousand - how many bags full of

leftovers did you get?"

"Seven."

 

He said, "Do you still not get it?"

                           

Mark 8: 18-21.

Jesus was trying to explain to them what He had done right before their eyes more than once when He fed the multitudes.  Surely they had heard the Scripture account of the time when through Elisha He fed 100 men with 20 loaves of bread and some grain.  2 Kings 4: 42-44.   So the idea of God using His servants to bring provision should not have been new to their thinking. 

I think Jesus was  trying to explain to them that He had already taught them what to do.  Not long before, the disciples asked Him how they were supposed to feed the 5000 who had come to hear Him.   On that occasion He said to the disciples, You give them something to eat.  How many loaves do you have?  Go and see. 

He was trying to tell them that they were able to take up the task of feeding these people who, in His compassion, He likened to sheep without a shepherd.  Mark 6: 37-38.  The tragic irony was that He found it necessary to break down the lesson that He had modeled for generations to their parents to these followers who were supposed to be the closest to Him.  The disciples had walked with Him and seen Him do great and mighty things.  I imagine it was almost commonplace for them to see sick people healed, lives transformed and God’s grace illuminate the hearts of many.  Yet, they still could not see what was possible, much less believe.  Leaven had entered their faith. 

There in the boat on this day, Jesus asked them if their hearts were still hardened.  In the original text, the word "hardened" was poroo, which means calloused.  It is used to describe spiritual deafness and blindness in hearers of the Word who repeatedly resist its convicting truth.  In the case of the disciples, I believe they were resisting faith and so were failing to comprehend the authority that Jesus had given to them when He sent them out to minister as apostles.  Mark 6: 7-8.  He sent them out with no money, no bread and no bag, but He gave them a STAFF.  

Throughout the Scriptures, the staff is used to symbolize delegated power and authority, for example to Moses, Aaron and Jacob (Exodus 4:2, 7:8; Numbers 17: 8; Heb. 11:21).  The staff is also symbolic of God’s compassion.  Psalm 23:4.  Jesus had imparted His compassion (heart for the people) and His creative authority to believe in faith for divine provision for them.  He looked at the five thousand, and later the four thousand, and had compassion on them.  Here are the shepherds he had appointed and given to each a staff, or creative authority, yet they were at a loss as to what to do.  I believe the disciples still had not figured out how to use the  authority that Jesus had given them, to declare the will of God over their situations, and to exercise active faith to loose the power and provision from Heaven.  

Today, we still struggle with the same issue that the disciples had back then.   Use of that staff requires active faith.   As Paul says, we are to call those things that are not as though they were.  Romans 4: 17. Our hesitation about walking in active faith and creative authority may show itself in the area of our finances, our relationships, even in the way we apply ourselves to follow the plans we know God has for our lives.  We do not use the delegated authority that is available to us, and instead we try to figure out how to provide with the one loaf we can lay our hands on.  We box our expectations into what we can see or imagine with our limited minds.   But, I believe the Holy Spirit is saying that we must declare the creative Word of provision, get ready to take a walk on the wild side, and leave room for God! 

Take no bread, take no money, but take [and use] the staff.  Weep with those who weep, mourn with those who mourn, and leave room for Me.

Deanna