Mark 12 – The Listening Plan

Devotional

“Have you not even read this Scripture: ‘The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This was the LORD’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes’? ”

– Mark 12:10-11

In his first letter Peter also refers back to Psalm 118:22-23, just as Jesus does here in Mark 12. Peter writes of Jesus, “to you who believe, He is precious; but to those who are disobedient, “The stone which the builders rejected Has become the chief cornerstone, is the precious cornerstone.” Peter goes on to write, “Rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious.” Interestingly I find myself studying this very passage in 1 Peter right now to preach it this Sunday. It is from this passage that the great Prince of Preachers, Charles Spurgeon, preached my favorite message of his called “Christ, Precious to Believers” in 1890. In it he declares.

So precious is Jesus to believers that they cannot speak well enough of him. Could you, at your very best, exalt the Lord Jesus so gloriously as to satisfy yourself? I make free confession, that I never preached a sermon about my Lord which came anywhere near my ideal of his merits. I am always dissatisfied whom I have done my very best. I have often wished that I could rush back to the pulpit, and try to preach him bettor; but I am kept back from such an attempt by the fear that probably I might fail even more conspicuously. He is so glorious as to be glory itself. Who can describe the sun? He is so sweet in our apprehension that we cannot convey that apprehension to another by such feeble expressions as words. Our thoughts of the Lord Jesus Christ are far, far below his worth; but even those thoughts we cannot communicate to another, for they break the backs of words. Language staggers under the weight of holy emotion which comes upon us in connection with the Lord Jesus. We can never say enough of God’s unspeakable gift. On any other subject there is danger of exaggeration, but it is impossible here. If thou findest honey, it is well to eat cautiously of it, for it may pall upon thee; but when thou findest Christ, take all in thou canst, and pray for an enlarged capacity, for he will never cloy. When thou beginnest to talk of what thou hast tasted and handled concerning Jesus, speak with an open mouth, and give thy tongue unbounded liberty. Thou needest now no bridle for thy lips. Rather let a live coal from off the altar burn every bond, and set thee free to speak at large of him who is still as far beyond thee as the heavens are above the earth.

– Charles Spurgeon