“The moral is: If you don’t know what’s going on, it’s better to find out first before taking action. It might be you that takes the beating.” continued the pastor. The text of the sermon was Mark 3:1-6, the story of Jesus healing a man’s withered hand. Our pastor was making the point about the Pharisees who were spying on Jesus to catch him healing on the sabbath (verse 2). It’s clear that Jesus was carrying out God’s will—healing the man’s hand. However, the Pharisees didn’t see it that way. They saw it as bad. Why else would they report it to the Herodians? They reported it so they might “destroy him.”
“This is where the Pharisees would have been better off if they would have stayed back and to themselves. Sometimes we do things and maybe our motives are good. But you can do the wrong thing even with good intentions. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. You can be sincere, but you can be sincerely wrong.” noted our pastor.
Jesus went to the synagogue the same as he always did on the sabbath. The Pharisees knew he would be there. Jesus is not surprised. He turned straight to them and spoke, “Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath days, or to do evil? To save life, or to kill?” But they held their peace. Their hearts were hardened to the point that they no longer gave weight to his questions. Rather, their only cause was to find fault and seek a way to destroy him.