Mark 8:17-21
What Aggravated God?
Have you ever noticed this text? It seems that Jesus was frustrated,
perhaps even aggravated. What makes me think that? Several things:
1. The number of questions asked. I counted nine questions—right in
a roll.
2. They came rapid fire, one right after another.
3. They were about the same basic topic. All of them seem to be
expressing a similar frustration. Read them again while I paraphrase
them.
(1) \\#17\\ "Why reason ye, because ye have no bread?" - Why are you
thinking about bread?
(2) "perceive ye not yet, neither understand?" - Don’t you get it?
(3) "have ye your heart yet hardened?" - Are you deliberating being
stubborn? (stupid)
(4) \\#18\\ "Having eyes, see ye not? - Can’t you see?
(5) "and having ears, hear ye not?" - Can’t you hear?
(6) "do ye not remember?" - Have you forgotten already?
(7) \\#19\\ How many baskets did you take up when I fed the 5,000?
(8) \\#20\\ How many baskets did you take up when I fed the 4,000?
(9) \\#21\\ Why don’t you understand?
To me, that is frustration and aggravation. What was aggravating
Jesus? Let’s notice some things.
I. It was aggravating to Jesus that no one understood who He was.
A. To understand we need to back up.
B. \\#Mark 8:1-9\\, Jesus had fed 4,000.
1. Mark does not tell us but \\#Matt 15:39, 16:5\\ tells us
that they were somewhere around the Sea of Galilee.
2. Apparently, they were in a desert place as \\#Mark 8:2\\
tells us that the people had been with Jesus for three
full days and had not eaten ANYTHING.
a. That indicates that they had come without preparation
and that there was no place to get food.
b. It also indicates there was some preaching going on
for these people did not leave for THREE WHOLE DAYS
even though they had no food.
3. That verse also tells us one of the reason why Jesus did
a miracle that day.
a. I believe Jesus always had at least two reason for
doing every miracle that Jesus performed.
b. One of the reasons was always to help the person or
the people for whom the miracle is performed.
c. Mark told us what Jesus said when He performed this
miracle, "I have compassion on the multitude…."
d. Jesus did not want the people to pass out from lack of
food on the way home. That is, He wanted to help
them.
e. That will always be one of the reasons why Jesus did a
miracle.
4. When Jesus did this miracle, He started with nothing more
than seven loaves of bread \\#Mark 8:5\\ and a few small
fish \\#Mark 8:7\\. Yet from this small beginning, Jesus
fed 4,000 people and then took up seven full baskets of
left overs \\#Mark 8:8\\!
a. One writer described the baskets as huge, perhaps
large enough for a person to sit inside!
b. That was just his opinion but there is merit to it.
c. These were likely the baskets that the women used and
they were both strong and large.
(1) Women had no cars and few if any carts in that
day.
(2) Only the wealthy would have had camels, oxen, or
mules to use.
(3) So the women would have large baskets that they
would carry on their heads to carry what they
needed to carry.
(4) These are likely the kind of baskets that were
used both to distribute and to gather the food.
(5) Yet, Jesus only started with seven loaves of
bread and a few small fish!
d. How did Jesus do this?
(1) It is called a miracle.
(2) Jesus used power that mankind does not possess.
(3) Why? To show who He was.
(4) And who was He?
(5) He was God!
C. \\#10-11\\ But look what happened just a short time after.
Mark 8:10 And straightway he entered into a ship
with his disciples, and came into the parts of
Dalmanutha.
11 And the Pharisees came forth, and began to
question with him, seeking of him a sign from
heaven, tempting him.
1. The Pharisees wanted to see a sign, something that would
show them that Jesus was from God!
2. Question - What had they just seen?
3. No wonder \\#12\\ says…
Mark 8:12 And he sighed deeply in his spirit….
4. You know what this is?
a. That is frustration if not aggravation!
b. Why? Because they would not accept who Jesus was.
c. Don’t you know God gets aggravated every time someone
says,
(1) "I’m an atheist?"
(a) So you know how many times people have said
"There is no proof of God?"
(b) Look around!
(c) Do you really believe that something can
come from nothing?
(d) Do you really believe that life—thinking,
reproducing, creative life—can come from a
THING?
(e) Do you really believe that all life and all
things—with all of its order and structure
and magnificence—came by random happen-
stances over any amount of time?
(f) How that must frustrate and aggravate God!
(2) "I think Jesus was probably a good man but he was
not God."
(a) Really? Well you do know He claimed to be
God, do you not?
(b) He claimed on numerous occasions to be
God’s Son, sent down from heaven to save
the world from their sins.
(c) The people to whom He was speaking
understood what Jesus was saying. Why
can’t we?
(d) By the way, since Jesus made those claims,
He was either telling the truth or telling
a lie.
i. If He was telling the truth, believe
Him.
ii. If He was telling a lie, He was not a
good Man.
(e) How such illogical thinking must frustrate—
even aggravate God!
D. But it gets worse.
1. \\#Mark 8:13\\ tells us that Jesus just walked away and
left the Pharisees, then He and His disciples got on a
boat to sail to yet another side of the Sea of Galilee
and while they are sailing, Jesus warned the disciples
of falling into the doubt and contempt of the religious
leaders.
2. Their reply tells us that they did not really understand
who Jesus was either!
a. \\#14\\ They realized that they had forgotten to get
any of bread from the seven baskets for themselves
and \\#15\\ they thought Jesus was rebuking them for
forgetting to bring bread.
b. Hello, disciples? What did Jesus just do?
(1) He feed 4,000 with almost nothing—and you are
worried that you didn’t bring any bread with
you?
(2) That is like standing in a warehouse of bread
that rises to the moon with pockets full of all
the riches of the world and being worried about
whether you will ever eat again or not.
(3) They were standing in the presence of God!
c. That’s when Jesus began asking all of the questions!
(1) It is one thing when the world forgets who Jesus
is but it is something totally different for His
own to forget!
(2) Is that not what the children of Israel did…
(a) When they stood at the Red Sea frightened of
Pharaoh’s puny armies?
(b) When they stood at edge of the Promised Land
and refused to enter?
(3) Isn’t that what we do whenever there is a problem
in our life? Oh, how that must frustrate and
aggravate our God!
II. It was aggravating to Jesus that no one understood His enemies.
A. The statement that Jesus made which got the disciple thinking
about bread is found in verse 15.
Mark 8:15 And he charged them, saying, Take
heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, and
of the leaven of Herod.
1. The word that got them thinking about bread in that verse
was "leaven."
2. Leaven was and is a yeast, an ingredient that makes bread
rise.
3. But in the Bible, leaven is sometimes used as a symbol for
sin.
a. We can’t take the time to study that but you can look
up some Bible verses if you want to check me out.
b. \\#1Cor 5:6-7, Luke 12:1\\
c. For that reason, bread offered to God in the Bible did
not have leaven in it and the bread that we use for
the Lord’s Supper does not have yeast in it.
B. So Jesus was not talking about bread but about the God-
doubting, antagonistic, hypocritical behavior of the
religious leaders.
C. It was just after the disciples started talking about bread
that Jesus began asking the nine questions.
1. Why?
2. Because the disciples did not understand that Jesus was
warning the disciples about the enemies of the cross not
talking about bread.
D. Consider those that were Jesus’ enemies.
1. They were the religious and political lost of that day.
2. Jesus specifically called them out, the Pharisees (the
religious lost) and the Herodians (the political lost).
3. Why would Jesus warn His disciples about these?
a. The religious lost do much damage to souls of mankind.
b. The political lost do much damage to the lives of
mankind.
III. It was aggravating to Jesus that no one understood the
significance of the bread miracles.
A. It is interesting to me how many people are still missing the
significance of the bread miracles.
1. I cannot tell you how many times I have heard or read of a
person claiming that the feeding of the 5,000 and the
4,000 were actually the same miracle.
2. No, they were not.
3. How do I know?
a. Because the Bible says that Jesus fed 5,000 at one and
4,000 at the other and that is not the same!
b. But also because Jesus started and ended with 12
baskets when He fed the 5,000 and 7 when He started
with the 4,000.
c. \\#19-20\\ But one of the best reasons is because Jesus
mentioned them both right here.
4. This should help every Christian to understand that Jesus
said and did some things more than once.
a. We do not have to reconcile everything that does not
match exactly.
b. Jesus fed more than one multitude. Jesus preached the
same sermons more than once. Jesus healed more than
one person with the same disease.
B. Why did Jesus fed more than one great multitude with bread?
1. As we have already seen, in part because they were hungry.
2. But in part, because Jesus wanted the Jews to connect the
God of the New Testament with the God of the Old
Testament.
a. Do you remember another time when a lot of Jews were
in the wilderness and were hungry, needing to be fed?
b. Sure, when they came out of Egypt and wondered in the
wilderness for 40 years.
c. What did Jehovah do?
(1) God fed them.
(2) Six days every week, they found manna on the
ground.
3. In the Old Testament, the Jews seemed to want a physical
god to worship.
a. I remember what the false god makers said when they
made the golden calves. "Behold, Israel, these are
the gods that brought you up out of the land of
Egypt."
b. They were liars.
c. God in the Ten Commandments told the Jews to never make
an image of Him, that doing so would always be
idolatry.
d. Why was God so adamant that no physical object every
be worshipped?
e. Because God did not want anything to lessen the impact
the appearance of Jesus Christ would have.
f. Jesus was feeding the multitudes bread in the
wilderness wanting someone to stand up and say,
"Behold, Israel, this is the God that brought you up
out of the land of Egypt!"
g. But no one did.
h. How frustrating and aggravating that must have been to
God!
i. They missed the connection all together.
What about us? Have we been a frustration, an aggravation to God?
Are we part of the religious lost? Are we part of those that
frustrate God.
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