Luke 4 verse 31 Verse 31 and came down to Capernaum
our Lord it says passed through the midst of those that would
kill him before his hour, and he went his way, and came down
to Capernaum, a city of Galilee, and taught them on the Sabbath
days. And they were astonished at his doctrine, for his word
was with power. And in the synagogue there was
a man which had a spirit of an unclean devil, and cried out
with a loud voice, saying, Let us alone. What have we to do
with thee, thy Jesus of Nazareth? Art thou come to destroy us?
I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God. And Jesus rebuked
him, saying, Hold thy peace, and come out of him. And when
the devil had thrown him in the midst, he came out of him, and
heard him not. And they were all amazed, and
spake among themselves, saying, What a word is this? For with
authority and power he commanded the unclean spirits, and they
come out. And the fame of him went out into every place of
the country round about. Now our Lord went into the synagogue,
into the place where these Pharisees and the Sadducees and the scribes
did their business and had their religious meetings and holy days
and things like that. And clearly they had never heard
anything like what he said to them. It caused a stir. We're not told the specific words
that he spoke on this occasion in this account. But we know
what our Lord taught because we have it recorded all through
the Gospels. He taught the same truth everywhere
he went. But also the way that he spoke
was astonishing to them. So let's talk about how he spoke
and also what he said. This is key now, the way that
he spoke. It says they were astonished
because of two things. His doctrine, the word just means
teaching, the subject of what he taught, the substance of what
he said. But also, the second thing, the
power with which he spoke. And as I said, this is key. If
you look at that word power in the original Greek definition
of that word, you'll see that it means this. There are different
kinds of power in there. A lot of different kinds of power. This is the power this is talking
about. Power of choice. Liberty of doing as one pleases. Think with me on that for a minute. Here is, aside from the doctrine,
the message itself, here's the most important difference between
what our Lord said and what everybody else was saying. A lot of people
in religion saying things. They'd heard a lot of sermons
in that place, in the synagogue, wouldn't you imagine? Heard a
lot of sermons. In one place it says, he didn't speak like
the scribes do. He spoke with authority. That's
what this is talking about. They heard a lot of messages,
but what was the difference, apart from the message itself,
of course, and that's most important. But here's somebody who speaks
as though he can do whatever he pleases. Do you know why he talks like
that? How do you talk as though you can do what you
want? He spoke with power, with power
of choice, with liberty of doing as one pleases. He spoke like
somebody that does what they want. How do you speak like that?
Well, you say things like, all authority is given unto me in
heaven and earth. You say things like what our
Lord said in John 5, 21, as the father raiseth up the dead and
quickeneth them, even so the son quickeneth whom he will. That's somebody that sounds like
they're talking like they can do what they want. For the Father judges no man,
but hath committed all judgment unto the Son. All decision-making,
all verdict-rendering, all deciding of every case is up to God the
Son. That's how you talk like you
can do what you want. John 5, 26, same context there
in John 5. For as the father hath life in
himself, so hath he given to the son to have life in himself,
and hath given him authority to execute judgment also. In
other words, to decide who gets life and who don't. because he
is the son of man, capital S. You make statements like this. This here is how you talk like
somebody that does what he pleases. You walk up to a lame man and
everybody is expecting you to say because they've heard about
you. They've heard that you have another
kind of power that you're able to give lame men the ability
to walk. You're able to make blind men
see. They know something about that kind of power. They associate
you with that kind of power. And everybody's expecting, you
just walked up to a man laying on a bed that's being carried.
He can't walk. Everybody's expecting him to say, arise and walk. But
what does he say? Your sins are forgiven. They
didn't see that coming. And he said to them in Matthew
9, 5, what's easier to say? They had a problem, but they
said, nobody, but God can forgive sins. They're right about that. But he said, what's easier to
say? Your sins are forgiven or a rise and walk. It's easier
to say your sins are forgiven, isn't it? Because nobody's going
to know whether they were or not. You could get away with
that and be an imposter, couldn't you? You could say your sins
are forgiven. People are doing that today. People are absolving
other sinners of their sins and getting away with it. Because
nobody can tell. Either way, that's pretty easy
to say. Not so easy to say, rise up and
walk, because that's going to fall flat unless somebody gets
up and walks. That ain't supposed to be walking. But here's what he said. But
that you may know, that the Son of Man has power on earth to
forgive sins. Then saith he to the sick of
the palsy, Arise, take up thy bed, and go home. Go unto thine
house. And he arose and departed to
his house. Now he said the thing that's
not so easy to say, and it happened. And think about it this way,
if our Lord said to this lame man, get up, take your bed and
go home, and he did, what do you think happened to him when
he said, your sins are forgiven? That's why our Lord did it that
way. So our Lord spoke like somebody
would speak if they can do anything they want. He spoke like somebody
who can just forgive sins if he wants to. Who can just give
life if he wants to. Who can do anything they want. And that got their attention. And you know something, we gotta
speak like that too. Not like I can do anything I
want, but I have to speak of the one who can do whatever he
wants. Not like we can do anything.
But you remember the two things that Job learned on the ash heap,
don't you? What was all of that about? Why
in the world would the Lord put Job through all of that? Well,
in 42.2 of the book of Job, Job said, I know that thou canst
do everything. And that no thought can be withholden
from thee. And if you look in your margin,
what that says is, no thought of thine can be hindered. If
you think it, nobody can stop you from doing it. Just whatever
you want to do. Not only are you able to do it,
but there's not anybody that's able to stop you. That's what
Job learned on the ash heap. Was that worth all of that? You want to astonish somebody? Some people, a group of people,
go into one of these free will Baptist churches and preach and
show from the Word of God how that salvation has nothing to
do with anything that they do, have ever done, or ever will
do. Tell them that salvation is completely given or withheld
at the sovereign discretion of the Son of God. Speak to them as though Christ
does what he wants. Without consideration of their
decisions or their will or their works of any kind. He just saves
who he wants to save. That'll do it. That'll shake
them up. It always has. And it would do
so this morning. And teach the doctrine that our
Lord taught. What doctrine did he teach him? Well, we know even
though it's not in this account because everywhere he went he
taught the same thing. He taught that your problem before
God, your sinnerhood before God, is not the bad things that you
do. That's just the result of it. He taught that it is out
of your heart that evil thoughts and deeds proceed. He said If you've thought about
it in your heart, you've already sinned. The sin is not just the
act, it's the heart, it's the thinking, it's the mindset, it's
the attitude, it's the nature from whence that evil springs.
He said, quit cleaning the outside of the cup. The Pharisees do
that, but inside, it doesn't change the inside. Understand
that what has defiled the outside is the inside. Your heart, your
will, your mind, you are the problem. That would astonish most people,
wouldn't it? There's not one person in a thousand,
and I'm being kind, in this world that believes that. I doubt if
there's one in a million. You're talking about simple,
just basic, Gospel truth is astonishing. We all ought to go to hell. That would astonish some people,
don't you reckon? We all richly deserve God's wrath. Sin is not
a disease that you catch making you a victim of something beyond
your control. Sin is you. The truth of our
sin is that you and I are evil. We deserve God's unmitigated
punishment forever. And nothing we can do can change
that. He taught them that their religion
and their religious heritage as Jews was worthless. And they
didn't like that. That's the equivalent of somebody
saying that I'm a Baptist. Well, that's worthless. What's the point of that? He taught them that the only
hope for any sinner, Jew or Gentile, was himself. Come to me and I'll
give you what you need. You're not going to get it any
other way. And the things that you need are not what you need.
Don't labor for the meat which perisheth. You have one need. He said, if I make you free,
you'll be free indeed. They said, look, we've never
been in bondage. You've never been anything else
but in bondage. It's astonishing, isn't it? Believe on me and be not condemned,
but have everlasting life. I am the way to God. I am the
truth of God. I am the life. Of God, I'm the
bread, I'm the door, I'm the water of life. Is anybody thirsty? You talk about how much you love
the scriptures, and you know the scriptures, and you love
God, and God is your father, and Abraham is your father, but
you won't come to me, and the only way you're gonna have life
is if you come to me. Is anybody wore out trying to
please God by the works of the law? Are you tired of starting things
and quitting things and making resolutions? Are you tired of
failing? Our Lord walked around doing
things that only somebody who does as he pleases does. He walked through crowds of people
who were desperate diseased, deformed, incurably
wretched, and he singled out individuals and healed them fully
for no good reason. You know what I mean by that.
Why that one? I don't know. Why didn't he give everybody
at the pool of Bethesda a chance? That's what religion would demand.
At least give everybody a chance. And I'll tell you what, he hasn't
changed. He still does things the same way this morning. He
might heal you this morning. He might heal you. He might heal
only you. He might heal everybody. Sometimes
he would sit there and they would bring everybody diseased and
sick in the whole area and he'd heal them all. Other times he'd
walk through a crowd and say, what about you? He might heal everybody here
this morning. He might heal just you. He might not heal anybody.
You know what I'd do? I'd cry to him. Because, you
know, that seemed to work for blind Bartimaeus. That seemed
to help. Wouldn't you say? That got his
attention. I recommend that. Look at the response to his doctrine
and authority. Now here's a synagogue full of
people. Imagine this now. And there's
a demon-possessed man there. And these synagogues were pretty
big, you know. This is quite a crowd, I imagine. Do you think he was the only
one there that had a demon in him? You reckon? I don't know for sure. But what
I want to impress upon us is we don't know for sure that he
was. I'll tell you this, he wasn't
the only one there that wasn't glad to hear what they were hearing. I suspect there was more than
one demon there that day. And how long had that demon,
this crossed my mind, how long had that demon been going to
church there without anybody having any idea? that a demon was a member of
their synagogue. Remember when the disciples said,
Lord, is it me? Am I the wretched devil that's
going to betray you? But on this day, he was revealed
to be what he was. There might have been others,
and he may not have been the only one, and he probably didn't
get possessed that day, you reckon? But today, here he is now, and
he's speaking for a lot of them. And what did he say? Think about
this. Leave us alone. Leave us alone. Here's a church
now. A synagogue. Think about the
irony of this. I guess that's the right word,
irony. When you say it's ironic that they're in a house of worship
and the one that we are to worship comes in and they said, get it,
leave us alone. Well, how many times that's happened?
In places called churches or synagogues or cathedral or whatever
they call them. Leave us alone. We're having
church and you're messing it up. We've been worshiping here
for years and years without any disruption or any controversy.
Now here you come and blow it all up. Just leave us to our religious
rituals and routines. Leave us to our free wills and
our decisions for God. Leave us to our program. We're
busy deciding things for God. Leave us alone. We're busy recognizing
people and giving braggamonies. We have a play to put on this
morning. Leave us alone. We're trying to get people to
let God save them. Leave us alone. The presence
of the Lord would absolutely ruin just about all of what passes
for worship services in our generation. The actual word of God would
not be welcome in most so-called churches. The doctrine of God. The doctrine of Christ. All he did was just say some
things. And this man said, leave us alone.
Leave us alone. A Christ with authority. Think
about who it is now. The one with power and authority. is the one he's saying, leave
us alone. Everybody loves Jesus, but the Lord Jesus is not welcome. A Christ with authority, a Lord
who does as he pleases, when he pleases, with whom he pleases,
that's the one rejected here. The one who spoke like somebody
that does what they want, that's the one they don't want. He has
no place in what passes for a church these days. What do we, let's go to the next
thing. He said, what do we have to do with you? You talk about
condemning yourself with your own words. Isn't that what Proverbs
says? The snare of your own lips. And
by your own words, you'll be justified. And by your own words,
you'll be condemned, I would say. What do we have to do with
you? You just sentenced yourself to
everlasting hell. I have nothing to do with you
and don't want anything to do with you. You just cursed yourself
for eternity. And that's what people are doing
this morning, who despise the Christ who does what he wants. You've forsaken your own mercy. What do we have to do with you?
Well, that's a good question, isn't it? But how sad. How sad
that is. Have you come to destroy us?
Have you ever wondered when these demon possessions are recorded,
we look at them in scripture, is that the demon talking? Or
the man who is possessed talking? It's the same thing. Same thing. It's the same thing. I've had
to wonder this in my lifetime, son. When I hear somebody say, I've
heard this a few times in my life, there's a whole lot more
in the Bible besides Christ. You know what I wonder? Is that
a demon talking or a man? There's no difference. It's indistinguishable. We read in John 13, 27 that Satan
entered into Judas Iscariot. Is Satan still doing it? Is he
still allowed to do that? Maybe we should just avoid that
question so we don't scare our children. Let me say this about that. If
you hate the Lord Jesus Christ this morning, if you hate the
Christ who does what he wants, if you refuse and reject him,
If you just want the Son of God to leave you alone this morning,
then demons are not your biggest problem. That might be the scariest thing
to you. They're not a big deal. They're not your biggest problem. This thing of demon possession
in the scripture is just a picture of our sin problem, just like
leprosy, blindness, death. It's our problem by nature, our
sin problem before God by nature. We are evil on the inside. We
are satanic by nature. We are helplessly dominated by
sin. We are affected in all that we
do or say or think by the evil of our nature. You talk about wretched now.
We need help. We desperately need help. We
are a walking hell. spewing defilement and corruption
everywhere we go. We can't help ourselves. How
long would that Gadarean demoniac have gone on dwelling among the tombs and
cutting himself and threatening everybody and he was untamable,
he was uncontrollable, he broke every control that was put upon
him and everybody was scared to death of him. You think he was just gonna wake
up one day and turn over a new leaf? We're in bad shape by nature. And those who know how to look
for it can see it. And we often see it in those
that we love the most. We need a ray of heavenly light. To shine in our dark, evil hearts,
we need the one who said, let there be light, and there was
light. To shine there. And when and
if he does, we'll see the horror of our case. But more importantly
and gloriously, we will see Christ as our hope, our only hope, and
we'll cry, Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me. People who are demon-possessed
know that they don't need to make a decision. They need mercy. Mercy. Notice that this demon knows
who Christ is. He said, I know you're the Holy One of God. The problem with religious sinners
is not that they don't know who Christ is. It's that they don't
like Him. And that's of course an understatement,
they despise him. They nailed him, they, we, nailed
him to a cross and spit on him while he died. You can't hate somebody you don't
know anything about. The problem with people who hate
him is they know too much about him. This is why this demon knew he
didn't want anything to do with him. How do you know you don't
want anything to do with him? I know who you are. I don't want anything
to do with you. What do you have to do with us? This is why he wanted Christ
to leave him alone because he knew who he was. Now our Lord speaks. First things
first. First things first. What's first?
Shut up. Verse 35. Shut up. We must be
rebuked. That's what it's going to take,
you see. That's astonishing, isn't it? Well, we're supposed
to be nice to people. Well, that is being nice to people. Rebuke. He rebuked him and said,
shut up. All that we know, all that we
say, all that we do, all that we think is satanic. And it's
not that the devil's making us do it. The devil doesn't make
anybody do anything. It is Antichrist. You think the
Antichrist is some raging beast with glowing eyes, you know,
who commands the armies of hell. Maybe look a little closer to
home than that. You got a mirror at home? Now we know that what things
soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law,
that's all of us, that every mouth may be stopped and all
the world may become guilty before God. God gave his law to shut
you up. You say, well, he's never told
me to shut up. Oh yes, he has. You may not have heard him, but
he did. He gave his word to shut you
up and to force you to acknowledge your guilt before him, your hopeless
situation, that you are satanic. You're a child of hell, and that's
where you belong by nature. But what about my free will?
Shut up. What about, well that's not fair.
Shut up. But if God is sovereign, isn't all this his fault? Shut
up. Have you ever become guilty before God? And then notice that the Lord
commanded the demon to come out of the man. He commanded him
to come out. He didn't tell him what he needed
to do to be saved. He didn't offer him anything.
He didn't teach him how to act. How you act is a symptom of the
problem. Our Lord dealt with the problem. And he did so with a command,
not a suggestion. Did you know the gospel is a
command? The Lord commandeth everyone everywhere at this time
to repent. Not an offer, a command. Religion is all about the outside.
Our Lord changed this man on the inside. He still does. Aren't you glad? That's what
our loved ones need. That's what our children, our
grandchildren, that's what they need. They need for the one who
does what he wants now to command a change on the inside, a change
of nature. Our Lord changed this man on
the inside forever, forever. He not only spoke as one having
authority, he shows us here. that he is the one who has all
authority. Sinners don't cast demons out
of themselves. You don't just decide you don't
want to be demon-possessed anymore. This man didn't want this. He
didn't ask for this. He just wanted to be left alone. You know, if the Lord leaves
you alone, what's going to happen to you? Now my advice to sinners is to
call upon the name of the Lord on the authority of the word
of God I beseech you call upon him cry for mercy ask for his
saving grace But what this scripture teaches us that you're not even
going to do that until Christ does something for you first This is what our Lord said he's
teaching it right here what he said in John 6 where no man can
come to me and All you're going to do is sit there and say leave
me alone until and unless my father which has sent me draw
him And I'll raise him up at the last day The way that the father draws
sinners to his son is by the power of the word of his son
the command of the gospel To this day that's how now That's
how he did it on this day, and that's how he'll do it on this
day. Christ's saving power is irresistible. He didn't give
the demon any options. And God saves sinners this way. And when he does, there's a result
in there. There's a certain result. Everybody
that witnessed this said, what a word. What a word. What a word. And they marveled at two things,
his authority and his power. The first word there, authority,
is the same word that we saw in several scriptures before
that. It's the same word, power of choice, the liberty of doing
as one pleases. The second word, power, means
inherent ability and strength Power residing in someone by
virtue of their nature. Our Lord does what he wants because
as God the Son, he has the right to do what he wants and he does
what he wants because he's able to do anything. He's not limited
in that. When Christ is preached in his
authority and power, sinners are gonna be amazed and they're
gonna acknowledge two things. That Christ does as he pleases Power of choice and that there's
nothing that he cannot do inherent ability With regard to salvation you
need to know you need to know sinner demon-possessed wretched
evil person That Christ is able to save to the uttermost Those
that come to God by him. There's no sinner too far gone.
There's no case too hard for him. That madman of Gadara, nobody
would even go near him, but our Lord did. Possessed by a whole
company of demons, living in the tombs, cutting himself, running
around naked, uncontrollable, breaking all restraints. scaring
everybody to death, Christ left him sitting and clothed and in
his right mind and saying, Lord, let me come with you. I don't
want to be without you anymore. I want to say you ain't got to
worry about that. You can tell everybody what I did for you
today, how I had compassion on you. Our Lord said to the blind man
in Matthew, what are we talking about? Inherent ability. Matthew
9, 27, when Jesus departed, then two blind men followed him, crying
and saying, are you crying? Oh, thou son of David, have mercy
on us. And when he was coming to the
house, the blind man came to him and Jesus saith unto them,
You believe I'm able to do this? And they say, yeah, Lord. That's
pretty simple, isn't it? Salvation is not complicated.
You just need to know who does it, that He does it for whom He pleases. He does it for His glory. He
does it because He wants to. If you come to Him, He'll save
you. They said unto Him, Yea, Lord. Only the Lord can save you now.
Sweet Jesus, waiting on you to do something, can't save you.
The Lord saves. We see in the scripture, in His
doctrine, that man's will, far from being the solution, man's
will is the problem. He said to the Jews, you will
not come to me. That's the problem. You have
no desire. That's what that word meant.
You have no desire for me. And that's why you don't come.
But we read in Psalm 110.3 that Christ by his power is able to
make sinners willing to come to him. Jude 24 says
he's able to keep you from falling and to present you faultless
before the presence of God's glory with exceeding joy. We saw already where we read
a while ago that He has power on this earth to forgive sins. He hasn't relinquished that power
this morning. He still has power on this earth
to forgive your sins. We read in John 17 too that Christ
has all power from His Father that He might give eternal life
to every sinner chosen by God given to Christ in the eternal
covenant of grace. Do you believe that he is able? Do you believe he does what he
wants? And do you believe that he's
able? Paul said, I know whom I have believed. I believe he's
able. I believe he's able. The only
other question, once you know who he is and that he's able,
there's just one more question. You know what it is? You believe he's able? Yay. Do you believe he does what he
wants? You need to know now that it's
not up to you. Preachers are lying to people this morning.
They're saying God's done his best now, but now it's up to
you. You need to know this morning that it is not up to you. You
need to come to the one who it is up to. There's just one more question
now. That leper understood this in Matthew 8. We look at him
a lot, don't we? Because what a testimony. What
a cry. This is the kind of faith, you
know, where our Lord, it says he marveled at it. Behold, there came a leper and
worshipped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make
me clean. Those are the two issues dealt
with in our text this morning, power and authority. He does
what he wants and he can do anything. But here's a leper coming to
find out if he will save me. I know he's going to save somebody,
don't you? I know he's going to save somebody. I know he loves
sinners. I know he's plenteous in mercy.
But Lord, this is what the publican said, have mercy on me. I know you have mercy on whom
you will. I know it's up to you. I know
you do what you want and that you can have mercy on anybody
you want. Have mercy on me. Have mercy on me. That's how
you come. If he will, he can. Think about
this in closing. Those are the two words in our
text. Again, the word power in our text means he can. The word
authority means that it all hangs upon his will. This is kind of
the opposite of what's being preached, isn't it? By virtue of his own nature,
and by virtue of his accomplished work on Calvary for sinners,
the power of his precious blood, by that power he is able to forgive
sins. Will he forgive your sins? You don't have to ask him that.
I don't know. I don't know if he'll forgive
you or not. You don't have to do business with him on that.
But I'll tell you this, you need to do business with him. You
need to ask. You need to come. And I know
what he said. He said, him that cometh to me,
I will in no wise cast out. Whosoever shall call upon the
name of the Lord shall be saved. The spirit and the bride say,
come and let him that hears say, Come, have you come? Then say
come. And that everybody that's thirsty,
you know why we say come to Him? Because everybody that's thirsty,
whosoever will, can freely take the water of life. Come to Him. Look unto me and
be ye saved, all the ends of the earth. There's no God like
Him, a just God and a Savior. Let's pray.