MARK 14:3-9

MARK 14:3-9

“The house of Simon the leper.” We know nothing as to this man, but the presumption is that he had been a leper and was cleansed by Jesus. The “woman having an alabaster box of ointment” was Mary, of whose act of devotion we also read in John 12. She considered nothing too precious for Jesus, upon whose head, and feet also (as John tells), she poured the spikenard as He reclined at the table. It was a beautiful tribute to the One whom she recognized as the promised Messiah. 

“Why was this waste of the ointment made?” asked some. Judas, we know from John’s account, was the prime spirit in this murmur of discontent. It indicated how little he and the rest understood of the events soon to take place, though Jesus had foretold them again and again. Mary anointed His body beforehand for its burial (v. 8).

“It might have been sold for … three hundred pence, and have been given to the poor.” The Roman penny, or denarius, was a silver coin of a little less value than our twenty-five cent piece, but it had far greater purchasing power, and was the ordinary daily wage of a laboring man in those times; so that, according to the computation of Judas, the ointment represented a full year’s wages, if the sabbath and special feast days be omitted. This seemed too much to lavish on Jesus, but true love knows no limit of what it delights to give and do for the Beloved. The suggestion that it might rather have been used in almsgiving did not mean, however, that Judas cared for the poor. We are told it was because he was a thief and kept the bag and bare away what was put therein (John 12:6, literal rendering).

“Let her alone; … she hath wrought a good work on Me.” Jesus always appreciated every evidence of sincere affection, and He placed a high value upon Mary’s act of devotion. Nothing is wasted which is lavished on Jesus our Lord. He deserves the best we have. He gave all for us. Mary’s act of worship was an apt illustration of what we read in the Song of Solomon (1:12). She recognized in Jesus Israel’s true King.

“Ye have the poor with you always … Me ye have not always.” It is ever right and proper to minister to the needy, who can always be found if we desire to help them. Such ministry is commendable at all times. But Jesus was about to leave them, and Mary seemed to realize this.

“She hath done what she could.” There can be no higher commendation than this. All cannot do great things for Christ, but it is well if each one does what he can as unto the Lord Himself.

“Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached … this also that she hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her.” Mary had no thought that day that her kindly expression of love for the rejected King was to make her name known throughout the entire world; yet so it was, for the story is told in three of the Gospels and has been carried throughout every land where Christ is preached.

In these three friends of Jesus we have illustrated three things that should characterize all believers in Him. In Martha we see service, which is at its best when free from worry and anxiety and done as unto the Lord Himself. In Mary we see discipleship and worship. She delighted to take the place of a learner at the feet of Jesus and to pour out her choicest treasure upon Him. Lazarus, who sat at table with Him (John 12:2), speaks of communion or fellowship. Blessed it is when all these characteristics are seen in any one individual!

MARK 14:1-2

MARK 14:1-2

Events now move on rapidly to the consummation, when our blessed Lord was to die on the cross as the great Sin-offering. In Matthew we have seen Him as the Trespass Offering, restoring that which He took not away (Ps. 69:4). Here He gives Himself up to death in order to meet all God’s claims against sin, viewed not only as actual trespass, but also as an innate principle in the heart of fallen man, hostile to God and manifested in acts of rebellion. The steps leading directly to the cross are all intensely solemn and deeply instructive.

These wily hypocrites who served the devil in the livery of heaven were too crafty to risk arresting Jesus openly on the feast day as there would be too many of the common people in Jerusalem for them to cope with at that time; so they plotted secretly, waiting for a propitious hour in which to carry out their nefarious plans.

Meantime a little group of those who loved Him sought to honor Him in a special way. The home at Bethany, where Mary, Martha, and Lazarus dwelt, was, for our blessed Lord, one of the brightest spots on earth. It was one place where He was always welcome and where His mission was understood to a large extent. Mary, perhaps, entered into His thoughts better than the others, for she learned at His feet what may have been hidden from her busier sister, and even from Lazarus himself. To these three, the Lord Jesus could allow His affection to go out in a way He could not always do toward others. We read that Jesus “loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus” (John 11:5), and it is very evident that they appreciated and reciprocated that affection, for, when the brother was ill, the sisters thought it was quite sufficient to send a messenger to Jesus to say to Him, “He whom Thou lovest is sick” (John 11:3).

I know that some take it for granted that there are two women involved in the different accounts of the anointing of the Lord in Bethany, but to me this seems utterly preposterous in view of the fact that practically the same conversation is given in each account. In each instance the disciples object to the waste of the ointment, on the ground that it might have been sold for three hundred pence and given to the poor; and in each case the Lord defends the woman for what seemed to them like waste and expresses His personal appreciation of this woman’s action. To me these words prove conclusively that it was Mary of Bethany, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, who anointed the Lord, and only she.

It is interesting to note how the Holy Spirit speaks of Bethany as “the town of Mary and … Martha.” Doubtless, many important people lived in that suburban city, so nigh to Jerusalem, and one might have identified it more naturally with them than with this quiet, unassuming family. But to God it was their town, because they loved and believed in His Son. May this not be more than a hint of the way the Lord looks upon our cities and villages today, valuing them, not as the places of residence of those great in the eyes of the world—whose names are prominent in political, scientific, or business circles—but rather as the place where some of His saints dwell who are numbered among the “quiet in the land” (Ps. 35:20), the poor of this world, rich in faith (James 2:5), unknown to men, yet well known to God (2 Cor. 6:9).

MARK 13:34-37

MARK 13:34-37

Like a man gone on a journey who gave instruction to his servants as to their duties in his absence but did not intimate the day or hour of his return, so Jesus our Lord has ascended to heaven, declaring that in due time He will come again but without naming the time. Meanwhile we are here to serve Him, who has appointed “to every man his work” and commanded the porter to watch.

Because of the uncertainty of the hour when He will come back to earth all His servants should ever be on the qui vive, waiting and watching expectantly lest, coming suddenly, He find them sleeping. To every one the word is spoken, Watch!

MARK 13:28-33

MARK 13:28-33

In this section the fig tree is used as a symbol of Judah, or the Jewish people. It speaks, as we have seen already, of Israel nationally. When the fig tree puts forth her leaves one may know that summer is near. So when these things come to pass—when the Jews once more acquire national consciousness and the predicted signs begin to come to pass, all may know that the consummation, the coming of the King, is at hand. Until that day the unbelieving generation of the Jews will abide. All Satan’s efforts will be unable to destroy them.

No matter how unbelievers may scoff, God’s Word will stand. Heaven and earth may pass away, but His words never.

It is useless to try to work out some chronological system in order to locate the time of His coming. This is a secret, unrevealed even to angels, and as Man on earth the Son Himself chose not to know. It is the Father’s prerogative to set the time, as Jesus also declared in Acts 1:7. How slow men have been to accept this, and what blunders they have made by attempting to compute the time of His return!

It is for us to take heed to His words, to watch and pray, as we wait for the fulfillment of His promise.

MARK 13:24-27

MARK 13:24-27

It is certain that this prophecy of the great tribulation does not refer to any event already fulfilled, as for instance, the destruction of Jerusalem, or persecutions of the Church under either pagan or papal Rome, for the next verses tell us what will take place just as this period of wrath and judgment comes to a close.

Observe that all these portents and the actual return of the Son of Man are to take place immediately “after that tribulation.” Therefore, this condition has not yet taken place, for the Lord’s second advent is still in the future. How near it may be none but God can say; but it is still the expectation of the people of God, and not something to which they can look back.

His coming to the earth will be attended with great natural convulsions, when everything that can be shaken will reel to and fro like a drunken man, and supernatural events will occur among the heavenly bodies. The expression, “The powers that are in heaven shall be shaken” is most significant in view of the atomic age upon which we have entered, for uranium is an element named from the Greek word for “heaven.”

Note the difference between this stage of the second advent and that depicted in 1 Thessalonians 4. Here the Son of Man comes to the earth with power and great glory. There the Lord descends from heaven, but calls His saints to meet Him in the air. Here He sends forth His angels to gather together His elect (the remnant out of Israel and the nations who will be waiting for Him in that day) from the four winds, from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven. There His heavenly election, the saints of the past ages and of the Church, the Body of Christ, will be raptured (caught up) to meet Him in the air, in order to return with Him in glory when this passage in Mark is fulfilled.

MARK 13:14-23

MARK 13:14-23

It is clear from the ninth chapter of Daniel that the last week will be divided into two parts. The entire period is called a “time of trouble” (Daniel 12:1), and “the time of Jacob’s trouble” (Jeremiah 30:7); but it is the last three-and-half years, beginning with the full manifestation of the Man of Sin, which is designated “the great tribulation.” This will be ushered in by the setting up of the abomination of desolation predicted in Daniel 12:11.

We need to distinguish between “the abomination that maketh desolate” spoken of in Daniel 11:31, which refers to the image of Jupiter set up in the temple by Antiochus Epiphanes in the distant past, and the “abomination that maketh desolate” of Daniel 12:11, which refers to a desecration yet to take place. It is this latter abomination of which our Lord was speaking. Whether it will be a literal image of the Beast (Rev. 13:14, 15) to be erected by the false prophet, the lamb-like Beast (the Antichrist) in the last days, or whether this image is itself a symbol of some secret agency acting on behalf of the blasphemous head of the coming world empire, we may not be able to speak positively. But in the light of the Lord’s words the remnant living in that hour of trial will be able to understand, and they will know that the power of evil can last only twelve hundred and sixty days thereafter, and at the end of that time the kingdom will be set up. The great tribulation, therefore, will go on throughout three-and-a-half years after this abomination is made manifest. This will be the time when the wrath of God will be poured out upon apostate Christendom and apostate Judaism. To Christians the promise is given that they shall not be exposed to wrath. We look for our Lord Jesus to snatch us away (literal rendering) from the wrath to come (1 Thess. 1:10).

The instructions given in verses 14 to 18 apply particularly to the Jewish remnant in Palestine during the reign of the Beast and the Antichrist. As in the days of Titus, warning is given to avoid the city and to flee to the wilderness where they will be protected from the wrath of the devil as manifested through the Antichrist.

Daniel predicted “a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time.” Jesus here used similar language saying, “For in those days shall be affliction, such as was not from the beginning of the creation which God created unto this time, neither shall be” (ver. 19).

So terrible will be the catastrophe which shall fall upon the nations that except the Lord shorten the days “no flesh should be saved.” But He tells us that for the elect’s sake—referring to the elect of Israel and those who shall be spared out of the nations—those days shall be shortened.

Three-and-one-half years would come to approximately twelve hundred and seventy-eight days. But the power of the Beast will be limited to twelve hundred and sixty days. The eighteen days of “shortening” will permit the salvation of many from actual destruction.

In the light of the destructive power of the atomic bomb we can see readily how literally these words of Jesus can be taken.

In that awful time of strong delusion and hardness of heart many will be misled by false Christs and false prophets, as well as by the supreme Antichrist at Jerusalem; but the elect of God will be preserved from their deceitful and blinding influence. To these Jesus says, “Take ye heed: behold, I have foretold you all things.”

MARK 13:9-13

MARK 13:9-13

MARK 13:9-13 - The suffering saints referred to here are clearly those of Israel who will be God’s final witnesses after the Church, as we know it, has been caught away to heaven, and the last week of Daniel 9 has begun. Then God will raise up a host of wise ones (the Maskilim of Daniel 12) to bear testimony and proclaim the gospel of the kingdom among all nations. These will be the special objects of Satan’s enmity and will be exposed to fearful suffering and relentless persecution; nevertheless the gospel must be proclaimed to all nations ere the end shall come.

We of this present age may appropriate these words to ourselves when found in similar circumstances, but it is important to see their exact application. 

  While portraying this time of persecution, verses 11 to 13 also give comfort and encouragement to those who will suffer arrest and imprisonment in those dark days. The Holy Spirit of God will enable them to answer those who accuse them falsely, in such manner that their adversaries will not be able to gainsay or resist. This passage might seem to suggest that these words could apply only to this present dispensation of grace when the Holy Spirit indwells all believers, but we need to remember that even when His present work in the Church comes to an end, and He will be no longer personally dwelling in the saints as now, yet He is ever omnipresent and so will be with all who turn to Christ in those dark days, even as He was with Old Testament saints before Pentecost. 

Betrayal by one’s own relatives, even unfilial children giving evidence against godly parents, or vice versa, will call for great patience and longsuffering on the part of those who shall be witnesses to the coming King in that time of stress. Hated by all who are subject to the power of Satan working through the atheistic governments of the last days, those who confess Christ as earth’s rightful King will be tried to the utmost, but “he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.” This is not to say that salvation in that hour of crisis will depend on individual faithfulness, but rather that endurance to the end is ever the evidence of reality. Mere profession will break down then, as now, but where one has actually been regenerated, power is given to continue in the path of devotedness to the Lord, no matter what he may be called upon to endure.