Three Reasons People Are Not Willing
to Follow Jesus
Mark 11:27-33
Main Idea: People refuse to trust Jesus not because He is not worthy but because of the hardness of their own hearts.
I. They Do Not Want to Submit to His Authority (11:27-28).
II. They Refuse to Examine Honestly the Evidence (11:29-32).
III. They Fear Men More than They Fear God (11:32-33).
In Matthew 23:37-39 (also in Luke 13:34-35) we find some of the saddest words found in the whole Bible:
Jerusalem, Jerusalem! She who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her. How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, yet you were not willing! See, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will never see Me again until you say, “He who comes in the name of the Lord is the blessed One!”
The phrase “you were not willing” has the feel of a clock when it strikes midnight. Time has run out.
Jesus has just cleansed and cursed the temple for its corruptions and abuse (Mark 11:12-25). In response, the religious leaders were “looking for a way to destroy Him” (11:18). You would think Jesus would avoid the public eye, but He does nothing of the sort! He returns to Jerusalem and the temple with courage, looking for a fight—not a physical confrontation, but a spiritual one that will place His claims and identity front and center.
Mark 11:27–12:44 records five temple controversies in Jerusalem that parallel five earlier controversies in Galilee (cf. 2:1–3:6). In both cases His opponents are the religious leaders. Now that He is in Jerusalem, the stakes are much higher and the intensity of the conflict much stronger. Things are moving to an inevitable climax: the cross.
In this first of five temple controversies, we will see some common reasons people are not willing to come and follow Jesus. Not much has changed in two thousand years. The same kinds of reasons cause people to refuse Him today.
They Do Not Want to Submit to His Authority
Jesus “came again to Jerusalem.” At some point the religious authorities show up—the Sanhedrin, the Jewish high court, who exercised both political and religious authority in Israel. It consisted of 71 men led by the acting high priest. Their power was enormous. They were supersensitive to anything that could threaten their authority, and Jesus was clearly a threat.
They question Him regarding His authority, which clearly they reject. The immediate context of their interrogation is His actions during the previous day in the temple. In essence they are asking, “Who gave you the right to wreak havoc in our temple?” However, this is not the first time the issue of authority has come up:
They were astonished at His teaching because, unlike the scribes, He was teaching them as one having authority. (1:22)
Then they were all amazed, so they began to argue with one another, saying, “What is this? A new teaching with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey Him.” (1:27)
“But so you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins,” He told the paralytic, “I tell you: get up, pick up your mat, and go home.” (2:10-11)
This man teaches with authority, casts out demons with authority, and heals with authority. He does what only God can do! But they request His ordination papers. They are not motivated by a willingness to know who He is, and they have no interest in bringing their lives under His authority. Their goal is to ensnare Him, embarrass Him, and discredit Him. If He admits He has no religious credentials and that He is acting on His own authority, He will probably lose the respect and following of the people, and they can be finished with this troublemaker. On the other hand, if He makes a claim to divine authority, then they could charge Him with blasphemy, arrest Him, and start the process for His destruction. Either way, this “hick from the sticks” would be finished.
The question of authority is important. We all have a source of authority in our lives, someone or something that guides us and drives us, something that rules. For most of us, like the Sanhedrin, it is ourselves. We are not really interested in surrendering that rule to anyone else.
Aldous Huxley noted that part of what drove him to atheism was a desire for emotional liberation in the area of his sex life: “We objected to the morality [imposed by God] because it interfered with our sexual freedom” (Huxley, Ends and Means, 273). Huxley died on the same day as both John F. Kennedy and C. S. Lewis. The latter’s perspective was radically different from Huxley’s. In Mere Christianity, Lewis wrote,
The more we get what we now call “ourselves” out of the way and let [Christ] take us over, the more truly ourselves we become. . . . In that sense our real selves are all waiting for us in Him. It is no good trying to “be myself” without Him. The more I resist Him and try to live on my own, the more I become dominated by my own heredity and upbringing and surroundings and natural desires. . . . What I call “My wishes” become merely the desires thrown up by my physical organism or pumped into me by other men’s thoughts or even suggested to me by devils. . . . I am not, in my natural state, nearly so much of a person as I like to believe: most of what I call “me” can be very easily explained. It is when I turn to Christ, when I give myself up to His Personality, that I first begin to have a real personality of my own. . . . Sameness is to be found most among the most “natural” men, not among those who surrender to Christ. How monotonously alike all the great tyrants and conquerors have been: how gloriously different are the saints.
But there must be a real giving up of the self. You must throw it away “blindly” so to speak. Christ will indeed give you a real personality: but you must not go to Him for the sake of that. As long as your own personality is what you are bothering about you are not going to Him at all. The very first step is to try to forget about the self altogether. Your real new self (which is Christ’s and also yours, and yours just because it is His) will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him. . . . Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favorite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end: submit with every fiber of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in. (Lewis, Mere Christianity, 225–27)
Here is an authority worth submitting to. What a tragedy that so many say no.
They Refuse to Examine Honestly the Evidence
This question asking for “board certification” is on one level understandable and even wise. After all, we are seldom helped in spiritual matters by religious “nut cases” running around and stirring up trouble. However, when there is insurmountable evidence that would indicate they are the “real deal,” we reject the evidence at our own spiritual peril.
Jesus would have been a masterful chess player. He brilliantly makes a counter move: “Jesus said to them, ‘I will ask you one question; then answer Me, and I will tell you by what authority I am doing these things. Was John’s baptism from heaven or from men? Answer Me.’” Jesus’ counterquestion was a common debating technique among rabbis in that day, and it exposed their hearts and motives.
Jesus basically says, “Let’s look at the evidence of the one who paved the way for My coming and with whom I closely aligned Myself: the ministry of John the Baptist.” Those who come to Jesus with hostile intentions never receive a direct answer. The response forces them to think. Jesus twice commands them, “Answer Me.” The implication is they lack the courage to give an honest answer.
Like Jesus, John came preaching a message of repentance. And, like Jesus, he bypassed the temple and the official religious authorities. If Jesus was a hick from the sticks, John was a “wilderness wacko” in the opinion of the temple mafia. Not so, however, among the common people, hence the dilemma of the religious leaders. “They were afraid of the crowd because everyone thought John was a genuine prophet” (v. 32).
They do not deny the evidence as they huddle up to draft their response. They struggle with how to set it aside. John was popular with the people, and his ministry was universally believed to have been given to him by God. So what if he had no human credentials, he had God’s! Yet in spite of the evidence, the religious leaders rejected him and did not lift a finger when he was unjustly murdered by Herod (6:14-29).
Jesus’ question is pure genius. He is not being evasive. His argument is basically this:
My claim to authority is based on the possibility of a divine authoritative ministry given directly by God without human endorsement. John the Baptist is a perfect example universally affirmed by the people. Now, if you are unwilling to grant My premise and accept the evidence I have put before you, then we are at an impasse, and we have nothing further to talk about. If you cannot judge the ministry of John based on the evidence, then you are not qualified to judge Me either! Your willful blindness condemns you.
When Mark began his Gospel, he cited Malachi 3:1 and Isaiah 40:3, linking the ministries of John and Jesus to prophetic promise. The evidence is there, but the hearts of these men will not embrace it. They may attempt to put forth a rational argument against Jesus, but in the end it is an emotional reaction rooted in a fear of losing control, losing their position, and losing their way of life.
For so many people the real problem is not the evidence. The problem is internal: it is us and our sin. The idols of the heart are the real issue. If I accept that Jesus is the Son of God who died for my sins and was raised from the dead, then my life will never be the same. But I like my life. With eyes shut and ears plugged, I do not want to talk about this anymore. As Abraham says to the rich man in hell in Luke 16:31, “If they don’t listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be persuaded if someone rises from the dead.”
They Fear Men More than They Fear God
Few things in life are more paralyzing than fear. According to a recent Gallup Poll, more American adults—51 percent—fear snakes than any other common possibility the pollsters suggested, including heights, flying, storms, the dark, or going to the doctor (Brewer, “Snakes”). Women, in particular, are terrified by the slinky slitherers. And what else are Americans afraid of?
Public speaking 40%
Heights 36%
Being enclosed in a small space 34%
Spiders and insects 27%
Needles or shots 21%
Mice 20%
Flying 18%
In this text God’s Word addresses a fear that is common to all people: the fear of man. Proverbs 29:25 says, “The fear of man is a snare, but the one who trusts in the Lord is protected” (cf. 1 Sam 15:24; Luke 12:4-5).
Mark 11:32 lays bare what is at the core of the religious authorities’ being: “They were afraid of the crowd, because everyone thought that John was a genuine prophet.” And so they beg off: “We don’t know.” Jesus shuts them down: “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things,” although the parable of the wicked tenant farmers that follows will give them a big hint (see 12:1-12, esp. v. 12).
It’s sad, isn’t it? What was expedient and safe was more important to them than what was true and right. “We don’t know” was a lie motivated by fear. They would rather keep their position and live a lie than submit to Christ and walk in the truth. They had neither sincere motives nor an open mind. Cowardice instead of courage now registers on their barometer.
Conclusion
So here is a question for all of us to consider, especially if you have never trusted in Christ and submitted your life to His authority: What is holding you back? Is it your desire to be the lord of your own life? Is it your refusal to honestly consider His claims? Is it that you fear men more than you fear God? Is it really that you have not been given good answers to your questions? Is it really that Jesus is not sufficiently good and glorious and true and kind and loving? Or is it that you are paralyzed from moving forward for the same reason these religious leaders were?
Twice in this section of Mark, it says the religious leaders were afraid of the people. The fear of man hindered their movement toward Jesus. Their fear of what others would think paralyzed them. Their fear of losing face, of losing power and position and prestige, condemned them.
Be honest with yourself today. How much of your hesitation and alleged doubts and unanswered questions are really a mask to hide your fear of what faith in Christ might cost you socially, culturally, relationally, and financially? Look once more into the face of this Jesus. Listen once more to the words He speaks. Watch once again how He loves the unlovely. Ponder once more His claim to be God. Be willing to come to Jesus. The end result will not disappoint you.
Reflect and Discuss