Monday, October 10, 2022
“And the multitude cometh together again, so that they could not so much as eat bread. And when his friends heard of it, they went out to lay hold on him: for they said, He is beside himself” (Mark 3:20,21 KJV).
Who here is “beside himself?” Why has this designation been applied?
Quoting Messiah seven centuries in advance, the Prophet Isaiah penned in chapter 50 of the Book that bears his name: “[4] The Lord GOD hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: he wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned. [5] The Lord GOD hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back. [6] I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting.”
When Christ Jesus conducted His earthly ministry, He did so according to what He had studied and believed in the Hebrew Bible (our Old Testament Scriptures). His Father was speaking to Him through these words, and, as a faithful and obedient Son, He listened to those words and lived according to them. He was “about [His] Father’s business” (Luke 2:49). “…I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things” (John 8:28). The words Christ said and the works He did, were to fulfill Bible prophecy (for example, compare Isaiah 61:1,2 with Luke 4:16-21). Had Israel been walking by faith in these very Scriptures, they would have recognized and accepted Jesus as their promised Messiah/Christ.
Since Jesus Christ had a “renewed mind” (thinking like Father God), but they did not (they were thinking like “father” Satan; John 8:44), they failed to value what He was doing and saying among them for those three years. They supposed that listening to Him was a complete waste of time (see John 10:20): “Why pay attention to that nutcase, that loon, that mentally-unstable person?!” Again, in actuality, it was just the opposite. They were the crazy ones, and they themselves were expressing the ravings of a madman….
333 Words of Grace 