Mark 02 Nazareth rejects Jesus

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The prophet must point you to the Word not to himself

John the Baptist was the forerunner who was sent to point the people to the Man Jesus.

JOHN 1:6   There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.

In other words, the people were supposed to look through the quotes of John until they could understand and believe the Light of the Word.

JOHN 1:7   The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe.

People had to look through John's statements in order to understand Who Jesus was.

We have to look through brother Branham's quotes in order to understand the meaning of the difficult Bible verses.

The key point that very few grasped was that John was a light but not the Light.

John was a son of man (prophet) but not the Son of man.

John was a Christ (an anointed one) but not the Christ.

Only Jesus is the Son of man.

John revealed Jesus as a Man to the Jews.

Brother Branham revealed Jesus as the King James Bible (the Word) that can be understood.

65-0725   THE  ANOINTED  ONES  AT  THE  END  TIME

What is it? Not the angel is the Son of man; but the messenger is revealing the Son of man. Can you get it separated now? That's where it seems to be so hard for you, you see.

Not the Son of man, Himself; but the seventh angel, the seventh messenger, is revealing to the public the Son of man,

JOHN 1:8   He [John the Baptist] was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light.

The prophet’s quotes are not the “Voice of God”. They explain the Bible which is the Voice of God.

65-0801   THE  GOD  OF  THIS  EVIL  AGE

… so that the peoples that has believed the Message

that the Lord Jesus has given me for this hour, might know what's taking place,

and placing it in the Scripture.

You have to prove the message from the King James Bible.

64-0614  THE  ODDBALL

That's what the Angel told me, "Get the people to believe you."

And if I tell the Word of God, it ain't "believe me," it's "believe the Word."

63-0630   THE  THIRD  EXODUS

… for they can hear plainly the God's Voice, calling, through His Word

...  Listen to the Bible, the Voice of God calling to you in this day.

Jesus is rejected in Nazareth and has to start in Capernaum once John the Baptist is off the scene and locked up in prison.

The disciples of John the Baptist were so wrapped up with the quotes of John the Baptist that they did not really notice that Jesus was on the scene.

LUKE 12:48   For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required:

The disciples of John the Baptist received a big head start as far as truth was concerned. Thus, God expected much from them. But then they refused to move on and follow Jesus, the Word.

Thereby the disciples of John the Baptist actually hindered the start of the ministry of Jesus. They were so devoted to John and dazzled by the brightness of John’s ministry that they became blinded as to where Jesus fitted into the Picture.

They so rejoiced over John’s quotes that they ignored Jesus.

Brother Branham does not point out Jesus as a Man but he points out Jesus as the revealed Word that we can finally understand.

By saying that William Branham is the Voice of God and is Infallible, the message-people are stopping the revealed Scriptures from spreading as message-people become increasingly Bible-illiterate.

62-1007 THE  KEY  TO  THE  DOOR

... and they're preaching that men should leave their wives and hunt for their spiritual mate, and that--that I am perfectly infallible. That there's nothing... And, oh, some of the awfullest things you ever heard.

“I have a quote” has replaced “It is written”.

Those who neglect the Word in order to follow quotes will have much to answer for.

It was only when John was out of sight in prison that Jesus could get started.

MATTHEW 4:12   Now when Jesus had heard that John was cast into prison, he departed into Galilee;

We are warned.

Once you recognize the forerunner you are easily persuaded to take your eyes off the Bible. Meanwhile, the forerunner came to explain the Bible to us.

Message believers who follow William Branham and cannot prove what they believe from Scripture are going to be in big trouble. They were given much but then took their eyes off the goal which is the revelation of the Bible mysteries that restore us back to the first church age.

64-0823  QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS.1

But those who can accept the Word in Its fullness,

not me preaching It, because It's the Bible says so.

Those who accept that is free, because the Word's already been judged.

John had to be taken off the scene so that Jesus could get going into Galilee.

Jesus chose Galilee because that was far away from the hatred that the temple priests had for Him. Jesus threatened their money income. Religious leaders are in the game for the money.

The Temple symbolizes the church organizations which hate certain Bible truths. That is why in the last church age of the Laodiceans, Jesus stands outside the church as the rejected Word.

Jesus is rejected by Nazareth as they try to kill Him

The next step for Jesus was for Him to be rejected by those who knew Him best, the Jews of Nazareth where He grew up.

LUKE 4:16   And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read.

He preached to them and they wanted to kill Him. That is what happens when complacent church-goers hear the truth. Jesus spoke of the Gentile Naaman who was healed by Elisha of leprosy. Naaman had to dip seven times in the river Jordan. Then He mentioned Elijah being sent to a Gentile woman to be looked after during the great 3.5 years of drought. The implication was obvious. God would turn away from the Jews to the Gentiles.

The Jews retaliated by trying to kill the Man Who told them this Truth.

It is the same today. Churches react readily to reject anyone who tries to correct them as the churches refuse to accept that they could be wrong.

LUKE 4:29   And [the Jews] rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong.

LUKE 4:30   But he passing through the midst of them went his way,

How could He move through a crowd of angry Jews who had surrounded Him?

We move in the three dimensions of space which are length, breadth, and height.

Time is part of the fourth dimension which is the spiritual dimension of good and evil spirits where Satan and the demons live, as their time will finally end in the Lake of Fire. We are not free to move around in time as we can only move from the past to the future. Our human spirits, which are a mixture of good and evil, use our complex brains to contact this fourth dimension.

But Jesus could also move in the higher spiritual sixth dimension of Heaven.

JOHN 3:13   And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven,

even the Son of man which is in heaven.

When He chose to move through the sixth dimension then no human could touch Him.

That is why, after His resurrection, He could appear in a room even if its doors were locked.

Jesus had grown up in Nazareth. But those people who knew Him well rejected Him when He began to preach about God dealing with Gentiles. They realized that meant that God was turning away from the Jews. Religious humans always feel that they are right with God. Then the Nazareth Jews wanted to kill Him for telling them that they were not right with God.

Thus, people who knew brother Branham well have no advantage when it comes to revealing the truth from the King James Bible.

Message believers who have been fooled into believing that you only have to read the quotes do not know what to do when the quotes say different things. Then they fear the implication that God is leaving them and, like the Jews of Nazareth, they seek to destroy the reputations of those who only believe the quotes that can be proven from Scripture. Because Jesus is the Scripture.

In the end, Jesus the Word is more important than the prophet messenger.

Nazareth was the place of the Branch

The Hebrew word Netzer means a Branch.

Netzeret means the place of the Branch.

From the Hebrew word Netzeret we get Nazareth in the Greek New Testament.

ISAIAH 11:1   And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots:

ZECHARIAH 3:8   Hear now, O Joshua the high priest, thou, and thy fellows that sit before thee: for they are men wondered at: for, behold, I will bring forth my servant the BRANCH.

:9   For behold the stone that I have laid before Joshua; upon one stone shall be seven eyes:

Seven candles to provide light for seven eyes. God's seven messengers to the seven church ages.

This speaks of a seven-branched candlestick with six branches coming out of the main central Branch.

EXODUS 25:31   And thou shalt make a candlestick of pure gold: of beaten work shall the candlestick be made: his shaft, and his branches, his bowls, his knops, and his flowers, shall be of the same.

:32   And six branches shall come out of the sides of it; three branches of the candlestick out of the one side, and three branches of the candlestick out of the other side:

Jesus is the central Branch of the branched candlestick. He used the apostles to establish the first church age as the real truth of the New Testament.

From Christ's Life would branch forth the history of the Gentile church over the next 2000 years.

The Gentile Naaman dipping seven times in the Jordan River symbolized the individuals in the Gentile church during seven church ages as each individual was washed in the water of the Word in order to get rid of unbelief.

The Gentiles are not saved as a church, they are saved as individuals.

Going to church does not make you a Christian in the same way that living in a garage will not make you a motor car.

Around AD 170 the second church age started as a Bishop claimed to be the head of a church, instead of a group of local elders guiding the local church. Each church then had a one-man-human-head. This was never done in the New Testament first church age. Then, in the same way that the Jews in Nazareth tried to kill Him, these church Bishops accepted the political influence of the Roman Emperor Constantine at the Council of Nicaea in AD 325 in the third church age (They were well paid for this). Constantine introduced the unscriptural Trinity by saying that Father and Son were of the same essence. Essence is an unscriptural word that can mean whatever you want it to mean.

This killed the love of Bible truth and opened the door to the churches having many unscriptural beliefs. Christmas. 25 December. Christmas tree. Good Friday. Easter Monday. Lent. Easter eggs. Easter bunnies, etc.

Then in the long Dark Ages of the fourth church age, tens of millions of Christians were slaughtered like oxen.

So, the love of Bible truth, as well as so many Christians, died.

EVIL meant moving away from what the first church believed.

As people tried to kill Jesus in Nazareth, so people tried to kill Bible Truth between the Nicene Council of AD 325 and the Dark Ages that ended around AD 1520. Jesus is the Word. He is the Bible Truth.

Nazareth was an obscure and unnoticed sleepy town

In the Dark Ages, true believers faded into obscurity as many sought refuge in wilderness areas like the Alps. In 1620 the Pilgrim Fathers fled to America to escape persecution.

Nazareth was also an unnoticed town that branched off the main road.

In the Old Testament and other ancient histories there is not one single mention of a rustic settlement Nazareth tucked away in a region known for its obscurity.

Nazareth was an uncelebrated, forgotten town, a sleepy town off the beaten path, even for Galilee. The first mention of Nazareth outside the New Testament is made by a historian about AD 200.

To leave Jerusalem was to “go down” — not just geographically but socially. And yet, as a glimpse into the self-emptying pattern of his incarnation when God-became-flesh, the Son of God “went down with them and came to Nazareth”.

Jesus basically grew up unnoticed in the middle of nowhere.

LUKE 2:51   And he [Jesus] went down with them [Joseph and Mary], and came to Nazareth,

Jesus was later forcibly ejected from Nazareth and He then moved to Capernaum which became His new centre of operations.

Capernaum became the centre of operations

LUKE 4:31   And came down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee, and taught them on the sabbath days.

Capernaum (the name means Village of Comfort) became the centre of Christ’s ministry for a while. They heard Him preach and saw His awesome power and love. Yet they rejected Him. A comfortable life had robbed them of any spiritual zeal.

Luxury murders zeal and then walks grinning at the funeral (Omar Khayyam).

The last and seventh church age is rich and increased in goods.

REVELATION 3:17   Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:

Materialism drowns out spirituality.

In the struggles of everyday life we feel it is not important to devote time to understanding difficult Scriptures. Trying to solve our immediate selfish problems and security is our major goal in life.

MATTHEW 4:13   And leaving Nazareth, he came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is upon the sea coast, in the borders of Zabulon and Nephthalim:

The borders of the tribes of Zabulon (Greek) and Nephthalim (Greek) met at the city of Capernaum.

GENESIS 49:13   Zebulun (Hebrew) shall dwell at the haven of the sea;

Jacob was making a future prophecy about Jesus when He was in Capernaum, which is on the border between Zebulun and Naphtali.

A haven is a harbour or a place of safety and refuge. That is what Jesus, as the Word of God, represents. Once you understand the Scripture then you are on the path to Absolute Truth. A revelation of Scripture is a refuge for the human soul.

Understanding the Scriptures for the end time that restore us back to the first church age is far more important than what we realize. We are distracted by the cares of this life and think that solving those problems is the most important issue. Thus we are fooled and join the foolish virgins.

GENESIS 49:21   Naphtali (Hebrew) is a hind let loose: he giveth goodly words.

Jesus is the Word of God which is the source of goodly words. There are no better words that we need to listen to or obey.

But Jesus was restricted at first and had to be let loose from the incredible influence that John the Baptist had on his disciples. Blinded by their devotion to John, there were so many of John’s disciples who could not follow Jesus.

JOHN 3:22    After these things came Jesus and his disciples into the land of Judaea; and there he tarried with them, and baptized.

While Jesus the Word was with His group of disciples, the disciples of John the Baptist formed a separate group. They were both doing the same thing, baptizing.

But John's disciples insisted on following John, not Jesus.

JOHN 3:23   And John also was baptizing in AEnon near to Salim, because there was much water there: and they came, and were baptized.

While John was free and active, his disciples preferred to stay with John and thus they regarded themselves as being closer to the Truth as they listened to John’s quotes. And ignored Jesus the Word in the process.

JOHN 3:24   For John was not yet cast into prison.

:25   Then there arose a question between some of John's disciples and the Jews about purifying.

John’s disciples tried to answer the Jews’ questions without consulting Jesus. Message believers see no need to be Scriptural today as long as they are trying to interpret some quote. Thus, they decided that Hillary Clinton would become President in 2016. They got it wrong.

JOHN 5:35   He [John the Baptist] was a burning and a shining light: and ye were willing for a season to rejoice in his light.

John had a great ministry and his disciples refused to believe that John was not the infallible Absolute.

JOHN 5:36   But I have greater witness than that of John:

The quotes teach us to understand the Scripture but it is more important that you can prove the truth of the quotes from Scripture.

“It is written” has more authority than “I have a quote”.

JOHN 3:30   He [Jesus] must increase, but I [John the Baptist] must decrease.

Proving the truth for yourself from the Bible is more important than just parroting a quote that is what brother Branham said.

AN EXPOSITION OF THE 7 CHURCH AGES. CHAPTER 9.  LAODICEAN CHURCH AGE

…for a true prophet will always lead one to the Word and bind the people to Jesus Christ and he won't tell the people to fear him or what he says, but to fear what the Word says.

By relying too much on John, his disciples learned to repeat John’s big mistake. After all, they made up the doctrine that you cannot correct the prophet.

LUKE 7:19   And John calling unto him two of his disciples sent them to Jesus, saying, Art thou he that should come? or look we for another?

These two disciples of John were so far under John’s influence that they believed the huge mistake that John made when he doubted that Jesus was the Messiah. We never read of those two disciples again.

Jesus never criticized John the Baptist. John was human and humans make mistakes. It was John’s disciples who were at fault. So they convinced themselves that John's mistake was the truth. They had no excuse for doing that.

Andrew was the only disciple of John who became one of the original 12 disciples of Jesus.

JOHN 1:35   Again the next day after John stood, and two of his disciples;

[one of those two disciples of John was Andrew].

:36   And looking upon Jesus as he walked, he saith, Behold the Lamb of God!

The prophet John was not sent to magnify himself but to point out Jesus as a Man as He walked.

The prophet William Branham was not sent to magnify himself but to point out Jesus as the revealed Word as He walks through the pages of the Bible.

JOHN 1:37   And the two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus.

The two disciples of John ended up following Jesus after John had pointed Jesus out to them.

That was the correct way to treat the prophet-forerunner’s ministry. Recognize the revealed Jesus as the Word and then follow the Word by living and believing what is written.

Allow the prophet William Branham to teach you the revelation of the Bible mysteries until you can prove what you believe just by following the pattern of linking up the relevant Bible verses. Then you follow the Scripture. The Word of God.

Mistake 1. John’s disciples preferred him to Jesus.

Mistake 2. The Nazareth Jews who knew Jesus best, as He grew up there, wanted to kill Him when He said that God would turn to the Gentiles.

Mistake 3. The city of Capernaum that saw so many great miracles rejected Jesus and became a virtually uninhabited ruin for many centuries.

This is a warning. Knowing brother Branham well and preferring his quotes to Scripture and rejoicing in the spectacular power of his ministry does not mean that you are on the right track.

Four men represent the 4 beasts around the throne

MARK 2:1   And again he entered into Capernaum after some days; and it was noised that he was in the house.

“After some days”. A strange delay. People’s wrong reactions to the truth make it difficult for the truth to spread around.

MARK 2:2   And straightway many were gathered together, insomuch that there was no room to receive them, no, not so much as about the door: and he preached the word unto them.

Crowds are a problem. Big churches develop their own ideas until the Bible truth is lost amidst the church traditions. The preachers remain popular by telling the people what they want to hear. With a big crowd, you cannot get close to Jesus. People get influenced by the opinions of the people who are around them and thus they never get an actual revelation of the true Word.

It takes a determined effort to get an individual into the presence of Jesus.

58-1005   GOD CALLED MAN

And as we see the people pressing in, standing in the doors, hundreds turned away from the little church, it reminds us that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. That in the days when He visited us here in a form of flesh, the press was so great, they could not even get to Him with a man, and had to bring him through the roof of the building. And we pray, God, that tonight that everyone that's had to press in this way shall be rewarded as that man was.

At His First Coming, Jesus appeared as a Man.

At His Second Coming, He appears as the revealed Word, the King James Bible that can be understood.

MARK 2:3   And they come unto him, bringing one sick of the palsy, which was borne of four.

A paralyzed man was taken to the roof by four men who carried him. They made a hole in the roof and lowered him into the room.

MARK 2:4   And when they could not come nigh unto him for the press, they uncovered the roof where he was: and when they had broken it up, they let down the bed wherein the sick of the palsy lay.

This symbolized the paralyzed faith of the individual Gentile people in the seven church ages. The four men symbolize the four beasts around the throne of God who bring spiritual revelation from above to guide the church. This enables the Gentiles whose faith was paralyzed by their pagan traditions and church traditions to rise up as they come into the personal Presence of Jesus and the revealed Scriptures. We are not saved by joining a church but by having a personal experience with Jesus Christ.

REVELATION 4:7     And the first beast was like a lion, and the second beast like a calf, and the third beast had a face as a man, and the fourth beast was like a flying eagle.

The roof that we build for our physical safety and materialistic protection stops us looking up to  Heaven and putting our faith in God. We cannot see past our physical assets and physical welfare. Our prayer life revolves around our health and wealth, our work, and family and friends. The money in our bank account is usually the limit of our faith and we believe and do and justify anything as long as it secures our income.

We first get saved by a personal experience with Jesus, which is good, and then we build a “roof” of unscriptural church ideas as a barrier between ourselves and the Bible truth. Thus, each church churns out “cookie cutter” copies of its "group-think" man-made beliefs that everyone must conform to as no church member is allowed to disagree with the organized church rules and doctrines. This has resulted in 45000 different types of churches and denominations forming.

A hole must be ripped in this viewpoint of materialistic Churchianity so that we can look upwards to God and draw from Him the faith to fulfill His Will and understand the mysteries of His Word. The lion, young ox, man, and eagle surround God’s throne in Heaven and their function is to make the church Scriptural over its history of 2000 years.

These four beasts describe the attributes of Christ’s Holy Spirit that guided the church through the seven church ages.

Coming from above, they lowered the paralyzed man into the Presence of Jesus.

All the influences that come from the Heavenly Holy Spirit are focused on bringing an individual into the presence of Jesus Who is the revealed Word that can be understood. That was the success that was achieved by the 7 church ages. Not the indoctrination of a church member but the ability of individuals to come into the Presence of Jesus and have their paralyzed faith, which depended on the church ideas and worldly success, transformed into a living relationship with Christ as an individual.

An individual who can stand on his own feet and understand the truth of the Bible mysteries for himself from the Scripture thanks to the insights of the eagle end-time prophet.

These revealed mysteries take us back to the lion-age beliefs of the early apostolic church. The ox is the beast of slaughter where tens of millions of Christians were killed in the long centuries of the Dark Ages when there was time for the calf to grow into an ox. The man represented the human scholarship of Martin Luther in Germany who restored salvation by faith alone. Then human scholarship translated and checked the King James Bible from 1604-1769 until it was published as the Absolute and Infallible Word of God.

John Wesley in England restored holiness and outreach which led to the great missionary age. Tens of thousands of missionaries left England to spread the Gospel, based on the King James Version of the Bible.

MARK 2:5   When Jesus saw their faith, he said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, thy sins be forgiven thee.

Here Jesus gets to the heart of the matter.

Sickness is not the real problem. The single big problem which faces the earth is sin.

If sin had not entered Eden then sickness would never have appeared on earth. Everything that goes wrong has sin as its ultimate source.

But the sins that we see are actually just the effects of a deeper problem.

The source of our sins is unbelief.

I tell lies because I do not believe. When my unbelief ends, then I automatically stop telling lies.

JOHN 16:9   Of sin, because they believe not on me;

We must believe on Jesus and He is the Word of God. So, we must believe on the Bible.

Jesus is not just healing a paralyzed man to show His power. He is using this man as an illustration of the millions of individual Christians who were paralyzed by unbelief until they personally accepted Jesus as their Saviour. These individuals will form His church over the next 2000 years as they learn to believe the Bible.

Each individual is useless until they come individually into the presence of Jesus.

We are not saved by the church. We are not saved by good works. We are saved only by a personal experience of repentance as we accept Jesus.

REVELATION 3:14   And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write;

REVELATION 3:16   So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.

A woman represents a church. The seventh or last church is doomed to end up in great Tribulation.

God says he will vomit the last church of the Laodiceans out of His mouth.

REVELATION 3:20   Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.

But He will not vomit out the individual who listens to His voice which is the Bible.

A man speaks of an individual in a church.

There is still hope for an individual who wants to be Scriptural.

63-0630   THE  THIRD  EXODUS

… for they can hear plainly the God's Voice, calling, through His Word

...  Listen to the Bible, the Voice of God calling to you in this day.

MARK 2:6   But there were certain of the scribes sitting there, and reasoning in their hearts,

:7   Why doth this man thus speak blasphemies? who can forgive sins but God only?

:8   And immediately when Jesus perceived in his spirit that they so reasoned within themselves, he said unto them, Why reason ye these things in your hearts?

Jesus could discern the thoughts of their hearts. This should have convinced them that He was God because God alone can read the thoughts of the heart.

I KINGS 8:39   Then hear thou in heaven thy dwelling place, and forgive, and do, and give to every man according to his ways, whose heart thou knowest;

(for thou, even thou only, knowest the hearts of all the children of men;)

MARK 2:9   Whether is it easier to say to the sick of the palsy, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and take up thy bed, and walk?

Sickness is a product of sin.

So, Jesus is going to give them a demonstration.

If Jesus is God then He can discern thoughts and forgive sin. Thus sickness cannot stand in His way either.

MARK 2:10   But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (he saith to the sick of the palsy,)

MARK 2:11   I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy bed, and go thy way into thine house.

This was a practical demonstration. Sickness fled once sin was forgiven. Proving that Jesus was God.

MARK 2:12   And immediately he arose, took up the bed, and went forth before them all; insomuch that they were all amazed, and glorified God, saying, We never saw it on this fashion.

MARK 2:13   And he went forth again by the sea side; and all the multitude resorted unto him, and he taught them.

The seashore is the dividing line between the sea and the land. The sea represents the restless, unsaved nations. The land represents the born-again righteous believers who seek the Bible truth.

Jesus, as the Word of God, is the dividing line between the unsaved restless masses and the unscriptural fashions and ideas that sweep through the churches, and the true believers.

The teachings of Jesus drew a distinct line between right and wrong. The seashore is a very distinct line that cannot be mistaken.

Jesus thought differently to the people

MARK 2:14   And as he passed by, he saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the receipt of custom, and said unto him, Follow me. And he arose and followed him.

Mark shows Christ as the great Servant.

Servants are people who work and have to pay taxes.

So, Mark as a servant is agreeing that there is nothing wrong with paying taxes. Tax money allows a country to provide roads, airports, harbours, schools, hospitals, police, and armies, etc.

But tax collectors are unpopular. So Jesus chose an unpopular man to be His disciple.

MARK 2:15   And it came to pass, that, as Jesus sat at meat in his house, many publicans and sinners sat also together with Jesus and his disciples: for there were many, and they followed him.

Jesus offended the self-righteous Jews by eating with sinners.

MARK 2:16   And when the scribes and Pharisees saw him eat with publicans and sinners, they said unto his disciples, How is it that he eateth and drinketh with publicans and sinners?

:17   When Jesus heard it, he saith unto them, They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

In order to do evangelism, a person has to miss with the sinners who need saving.

MARK 2:18   And the disciples of John and of the Pharisees used to fast: and they come and say unto him, Why do the disciples of John and of the Pharisees fast, but thy disciples fast not?

Critics like to compare and criticize. Why did John's disciples fast but the disciples of Jesus did not.

By claiming to be the Bridegroom of the Bride-church, Jesus said that no fasting was necessary while He was on earth. This was because He alone knew what had to be done.

MARK 2:19   And Jesus said unto them, Can the children of the bridechamber fast, while the bridegroom is with them? as long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast.

But when Jesus returned to Heaven then the church would have to seek guidance by fasting.

MARK 2:20   But the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then shall they fast in those days.

Things were going to make a comprehensive change on the Day of Pentecost. There was no way that the disciples could have understood that before the death of Jesus. They did not even know that Jesus had to die.

MARK 2:21   No man also seweth a piece of new cloth on an old garment: else the new piece that filled it up taketh away from the old, and the rent is made worse.

New cloth will rip open old material. So it would have to be a totally new church that began on the Day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came down. The old religious gatherings of the Jews could never handle the Holy Ghost baptism and the New Testament doctrines that stressed spiritual issues rather than physical issues.

MARK 2:22   And no man putteth new wine into old bottles: else the new wine doth burst the bottles, and the wine is spilled, and the bottles will be marred: but new wine must be put into new bottles.

The keepers of the Law would not be able to comprehend the Gospel of Grace. It was just too different.

The Sabbath became a rest from sin not a rest from work

MARK 2:23   And it came to pass, that he went through the corn fields on the sabbath day; and his disciples began, as they went, to pluck the ears of corn.

The Sabbath is the seventh day which represents the seventh church age when the harvest takes place. The harvest is when the seeds are pulled off the dead plants. That is when the Bride is caught up to meet the Lord in the air.

MARK 2:24   And the Pharisees said unto him, Behold, why do they on the sabbath day that which is not lawful?

The Jews tried to classify a few handfuls of corn for breakfast as if that was a day's work.

They had endless arguments over what was work and what was not work.

MARK 2:25   And he said unto them, Have ye never read what David did, when he had need, and was an hungred, he, and they that were with him?

David broke the Law. He was hungry and ate the shewbread that was only for the priests to eat. His men that were with him also ate. So how was David able to get away with this?

MARK 2:26   How he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar the high priest, and did eat the shewbread, which is not lawful to eat but for the priests, and gave also to them which were with him?

They had to see a deeper picture.

Jesus is the Son of David. So David showed the ministry of Christ in his own life. David was the only one who could defeat the giant Goliath. David took 5 stones from the water. This represents God on the throne and the four beasts around the throne.

Then he fired one stone at the forehead of Goliath. This is like asking one question of a theological church intellectual giant.

"What is the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost?". There is no answer. There is no single name for the Trinity God. The forehead of any man, where his brain is, cannot find an answer. That question kills the Trinity doctrine that dominates the churches like a giant.

So David saved the Jewish army from Goliath who they could not beat.

Jesus went up against the giant of Death at Calvary and pulled out his sting by dying for our sins. Sin is the sting of death because when we die we have to pay for our sins. Jesus paid for our sins. Thus, Death can no longer destroy us.

David lived out part of the life of Christ.

He was anointed king but could not become king before his enemy Saul was killed.

Jesus was anointed King on the banks of Jordan by the Holy Spirit. But He cannot become King in the Millennium of 1000 years until after His enemy, the final Pope is killed at Armageddon.

In the meanwhile, Jesus serves as the High Priest of the order of Melchizedek.

After being anointed king, David was allowed to act out the role of a priest by eating some of the shewbread before he became king. Because David had to manifest part of the ministry of Christ in his own life.

MARK 2:27   And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath:

The Sabbath is no longer a set of rules of what we are not allowed to do in terms of our works.

The rest from sin and unbelief means that we are not allowed to do any of our sinful works.

We can only achieve this when Christ is in us because then alone do we lose the desire to sin.

MARK 2:28   Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath.

Jesus is Lord of the True Sabbath, as His indwelling Spirit makes us rest from our sinful works. The Spirit of Christ in us is our true rest from sin and worry.