Matthew chapter four, rather,
beginning at verse 12 is where we're gonna start with the subject
of preaching, calling, and ministering. Now that was the ministry of
Christ here on this earth, in his earthly ministry, from the
time of his baptism to the time of the cross and his resurrection
and ascension, about three and a half years. And what did he
do? What did he do? He went from
place to place. Here we're going to see where
he departed Judea and went into Galilee, verse 12. Now when Jesus
had heard that John, John the Baptist, was cast into prison,
he departed and went into Galilee. What was he doing? He was preaching,
preaching the kingdom of God, preaching the gospel of grace,
He was calling, calling out his disciples, his people, and he
was ministering, serving in whatever way. Mainly by healing the sick. We read over in the book of John
about him feeding 5,000 and other of the gospels. But he was ministering,
he was serving. And that is an amazing thing
when you think about it. Don't let that just go by you.
Because here's the Son of God incarnate. God manifests in the
flesh. What's he doing on this earth?
He's serving. He's ministering. He's the servant
of the covenant. He's the minister of the covenant.
He's fulfilling all righteousness. That's what he's doing. And of
course, that was kept on the cross in his obedience unto death.
That's the righteousness that he worked out. Well, if you compare
the four gospels, You'll notice that between here in Matthew
chapter four, verses 11 and 12, there's a big gap of about a
year. You know, Matthew, he was inspired
by the Spirit to record the Lord's life on earth mainly as the fulfillment
of Old Testament prophecy for the sake of the Jews. And that's
why he wrote it. And therefore he picks up here
in verse 12 and verses 13 through 16 as the fulfillment of one
of those Old Testament prophecies in the book of Isaiah. Well,
the Apostle John was inspired by the Spirit to record the events
of that year that led up to this. And you'll find that, I've got
this in your lesson, you'll find that in John 1, 19, through John
4 and verse 2. And after spending the initial
year of his public ministry in Judea, that's where he was, here
we see, and then the brief visit to Samaria is recorded in John
4, he went to Galilee. And Galilee was predominantly
Gentile. in its population. But there
were a large number of Jews, Jewish cities, and he went into
the synagogues, which was made up of Jews and Gentiles. Synagogues
were the worship gatherings of Jews and Gentiles who had converted
to Judaism. So there's that year. But the
reason I believe that the Lord inspired Matthew to skip that
year is because he went right to the next fulfillment of a
prophecy that's recorded in Isaiah. And look at verse 13. It says,
leaving Nazareth, he came and dwelt in Capernaum. which is
upon the sea coast, in the borders of Zebulun and Nephthilim, that
it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet,
that's Isaiah, saying, the land of Zebulun and the land of Nephthilim,
by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles,
the people which sat in darkness saw great light, and to them
which sat in the region and shadow of death, light is sprung up.
So there, we see, and you see God's providence in this. That's
what I especially noted in this, because he had disciples in this
place, and he's gonna call them out, and we see God's providence,
for example, in Christ, the good shepherd who not only lays his
life down for the sheep, and deals with their sin issue, and
brings forth that righteousness, but he also seeks out his sheep
and he calls them to himself. And so everything that he did
was for the glory of the father and the salvation of his people.
And so here Matthew records the fulfillment of this prophecy
in Isaiah nine. The people which sat in darkness
saw great light and to them which sat in the region and shadow
of death, light has sprung up. Well, Christ is the light. He
himself is the light. He came to that region, largely
populated by Gentiles, just like Isaiah said. Darkness and the
shadow of death speak of the spiritual condition of all of
us by nature. As we fell in Adam, we're born
in sin, spiritually dead, and darkness is our abode. Darkness
is our state naturally. And so, the only way that salvation
can come to us personally is that God essentially turns on
the light, and that light is Christ. Now, we can say this,
you know, that Christ, in John 1, it talks about how Christ
is the light of the world. Well, he is the light, but that
light specifically, powerfully, and invincibly comes to his sheep
in the new birth. and they see what they didn't
see before. We have eyes to see and ears
to hear, but all of this is the giving of spiritual life from
the God of all grace. Now, the majority of the people
of Capernaum, they didn't realize what a blessing it was that the
light was in their city, that Christ was in their city. In
fact, later on, Christ pronounced judgment upon Capernaum for their
unbelief. You can see that in Matthew chapter
11. But the Lord had some sheep in this place. And he came to
redeem them. And he called them and brought
them to himself for salvation. His disciples, look at verse
17. From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, repent
for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Here again we see the
necessity of preaching the word. Christ did not come along and
just zap people. Now I know he spoke. And some
of his disciples immediately stopped what they were doing
and followed him. And we see the power there. But in this
thing of conversion, salvation and conversion, the necessity
of the preaching of the gospel is there. And the Bible teaches
that. And I've got a list of passages
there that you cannot deny if you read the word of God. And
so he preached the same message as John the Baptist. Repent for
the kingdom of heaven is at night. Now repentance is the gift of
God. It's that change of heart and mind that brings a sinner
to deny himself, to turn from his dead works. And the way repentance
comes, the gift of repentance is given, is through God-given
faith. And we read about that and preached
about it last week in Philippians chapter three, where Paul said,
because of the light of the glory of God, the righteousness of
God in Christ, that's what caused him to run to Christ and to turn
from himself. So both that faith and repentance
are gifts from God. They're not natural to us. It's
not a natural thing for us to believe and repent. They have
to be given. If man's left to himself, we will not repent.
So both are sovereign works of the Holy Spirit in the new birth
where he gives spiritually dead sinners spiritual life, gives
us a new heart, the scripture says, the light of truth to those
who sit in darkness. And so when a sinner is brought
to faith in Christ and repentance of dead works, it's the power
of God. That's not our own power. That's
not a product of our free will, as people say today. Christ said,
if I be lifted up, I'll draw all unto me, all of his sheep.
Well, how does he draw them? He turns on the light, everyone
who's taught of God. learns of the Father, hears the
gospel in the power of the Spirit. And so he preached that the kingdom
of heaven was at hand, that's the spiritual kingdom of God
that was established and brought in by the coming of the Messiah.
It's not a physical kingdom, it's not an earthly kingdom,
as the unbelieving Jews thought. It's the kingdom of God's elect.
It's the kingdom of those who are chosen by God, who have been
chosen by God before the foundation of the world. It's the kingdom
of those who have been justified in God's sight, forgiven of their
sins, justified by his righteousness imputed to him. It's the kingdom
of those to whom he gives life and turns on that light. the
kingdom of God's people, which they enter by faith in him. Look
at verse 18, he says, and Jesus walking by the Sea of Galilee
saw two brethren, Simon called Peter, so here's Peter, he lived
there in Capernaum, he had a house there, and then Andrew, his brother,
casting a net into the sea, for they were fishers, they were
fishermen. So, Here's the providence of
God. Why did he go to Galilee? This
place that was mainly full of Gentiles, which the Jews hated. Now again, there were Jews there.
Peter and Andrew both were Jews. But here they were, fishermen. And verse 19, he said unto them,
follow me and I will make you fishers of men. Now he had a
drawing power here. What all that involved, we're
not told. We're not gonna fill in the blanks here. but he meant
to have his disciples. And so he calls them to himself
and look at verse 20, they straightway, that means immediately, they
immediately left their nets and followed him. Now, what caused
them to do that? Well, it was the power of God.
I mean, this was their livelihood. Fishermen, that's what they did
to earn a living. And here this man from Nazareth,
comes through and looks at him, he says, come follow me, I'll
make you fishers of men. And immediately, they didn't
argue, they didn't put up a fight, they didn't reason themselves
out of, so wait a minute, Lord, how are we gonna make a living?
Where's our next paycheck coming from? No, they just followed
him. And so we see a drawing power here, and probably just
providentially, that he's going to have his sheep. And so look
at verse 21. Oh, one other thing, in the book
of Mark, he puts it this way, he
says, come ye after me and I will make you to become fishers of
men. Now what we know of that is this, this is their calling
that was for their training and their preparation to be later
on preachers of Christ in the gospel. So they're gonna sit
under him, they're gonna be taught by him in his word. And so immediately
they followed him. We'll look at verse 21. And going on from thence, he
saw other two brethren, James the son of Zebedee, and John
his brother, in a ship with Zebedee their father, many their nets,
and he called them. Now, over in the book of John
chapter one, we see where some of these had already seen him
before this, and attested that he is the Messiah. that he is
the one that was prophesied in the Old Testament and all the
Old Testament prophecies that would be the Messiah. And so
they already understood that, but now here he comes and he's
calling them to himself to sit under him to be taught, to hear
the preaching of the gospel, to see him minister. And look
at verse 22, it says, and they immediately left the ship and
their father and followed him. And you can only imagine what
all went on in their minds. I don't know what their father
thought about this. Dad, we're leaving. We're going
with this man. And I don't know if their father
understood that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah or not. But look
at verse 23. It says, And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching
in their synagogues, That's the Jewish worship service made up
mainly of Jews and Gentiles who had converted to Judaism, and
preaching the gospel, the good news of the kingdom. The kingdom
of God is at hand, the kingdom of heaven is at hand, the Messiah
has come, and I'm sure that he preached what the Old Testament
taught concerning the Messiah, because that's what the gospel
is, of how God could be just and justify the ungodly, how
God is sovereign, how he's holy, how we're sinners who cannot
save ourselves, who are void of righteousness. This is the
one of whom Isaiah spoke and Jeremiah spoke and Zechariah
spoke as the righteousness of God. And he preached that the
kingdom was coming, the kingdom was here. And then it says also,
and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among
the people. Now, all of this, this healing,
as a healer, he demonstrated his power to cure every disease
and ailment, which pointed to his power to cure the awful disease
of sin in the salvation of his people. And these miracles attested
and proved that he was and is the Son of God. And you remember
back over in John chapter three, Nicodemus even said this, he
said, we know you're sent from God, because no man could do
these miracles except he be sent of God. So these miracles were
given not as ends of themselves, just to heal, you know, that
wasn't his main ministry. But they were given to prove
that he is who he said he is. And that his word was the authority
of the word of God. He spoke and it happened. And
so the ultimate goal of his life on earth as the Messiah was not
to be a healer of physical diseases even though he did that and did
a lot of it. Now he didn't heal everybody. I mean there were
some still left sick. So, but he did heal. But his
life on earth as the minister of God and the minister of the
church was not simply to heal physical sickness. His life on
earth, as he said, and he summarized it at his baptism, was to fulfill
all righteousness by keeping the law and obeying unto death
for the sins of his people and the salvation that he accomplished
on Calvary. That's where he was hidden. He's
the great physician But even he used that typology, that symbol,
to talk about spiritual healing. Remember he said the whole need
not a physician when the Pharisees challenged him. They said you're
eating with publicans and you're consorting with sinful people.
And he said, you know, in their mind the Messiah would come into
the world and meet with them and consort with them and consult
with them, pat them on the back. He wouldn't go around with a
bunch of sinners. And so he told him, he said,
well look, he said, the whole need not a physician. They thought
they were whole, but they weren't. You do indeed appear righteous
unto men, he said, but you're full of dead men's bones, you're
like an open grave. But he said, the whole need not
a physician, but those who are sick. I didn't come to call the
righteous to repentance, but sinners. And that's what he came
for. So his main, you know, people
today, you know, this health and wealth gospel that you hear
about today that's so popular, you know, that preachers, they
want to heal, they want to promise riches and great success here
on this earth. And it's just not so. It's a
lie. And though Christ did heal people,
he healed lepers. He healed people who even didn't
have limbs, cause them to grow. He healed the cripples. He healed
all kinds of people. But that wasn't his main mission.
All that did was confirm the word. Mark 16 says that about
the disciples, that the miracles that they performed were given
to confirm the word. The word was life. The word was
spiritual healing and the power of the spirit. And the miracles
they performed, because they didn't have a Bible like we have,
which is our authority, it confirmed the word that they preached.
And so the great physician going about serving Christ, he, listen,
Christ, he could have cured the whole world of every sickness,
but he didn't do that. But his main mission, he can
cure every spiritual condition that plagues us with the price
of his blood and his righteousness. Everything that sin is. Original
sin, sins of omission, sins of commission, past sins, present
sins, future sins, all cured by the blood of Jesus Christ.
Our sins charged to him, his righteousness to us. And the
life that he gives us, he gives us spiritual life, he gives us
a new heart. He gives the blind eyes to see
spiritually, ears to hear spiritually. A heart for the power and the
presence and the glory of God, which we didn't have before.
Look at verse 24 now. He says, and his fame went throughout
all of Syria, began to spread. You could imagine that. If somebody
came to Albany and started healing people, and there was no doubt
that they were sick before and that they were healed after,
their fame would spread. Well, his fame spread throughout
all Syria. And they brought unto him all
sick people that were taken with diverse or various diseases and
torments, and those which were possessed with devils. Not only
could he heal the physically sick, he could cast out devils. And it says, and those which
were lunatic, mental problems, whatever they were, that's what
that is, those that had the palsy, and he healed them. And there
was no question about it. They didn't have to prove it
in any other way other than these people knew the ones that were
sick and they saw that they were healed. Just like that blind
man in John chapter nine. I was blind, but now I see. And he saw. And these were miracles. And I've got in your lesson three
things about this that typifies salvation. In this healing of
the sick, they were many, all sick people, of all manner of
sickness and disease, both physical and mental. Well, any sinner,
any sin-sick sinner, made so by the Holy Spirit's convicting
word who comes to Christ, will and shall be healed. There's
no doubt about it. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no wise
cast out. Secondly, these healings were miraculous. Those who were healed were in
need of divine power. Doctors couldn't help them. Drugs
couldn't help them. Mental power couldn't help them. You remember the woman with the
issue of blood? I think that's over in Matthew 9, I can't remember
though. She went to doctors, and she
exhausted all of her money trying to be healed. They couldn't heal
her. She had one hope of being healed,
and that was the power of God. Well, that's the way it is with
us in our sin sickness. Man cannot cure us, we cannot
cure ourselves. There's none righteous, there's
none good, there's none that seeketh after God. but only one
can heal us, the great physician, which is Christ. And that's a
divine power. It's of the Lord totally and
exclusively. Thirdly, they were acts of mercy
costing these sick people nothing. Christ didn't charge for healing
people. They didn't have to have insurance with him. And that's
like it is with the salvation of his people. It's without money
and without price. It's totally grace. If you're
a sinner saved by grace, you've been healed and you didn't pay
a dime for it. You didn't do anything for it. You didn't earn
it and you didn't deserve it. It's all mercy and grace, sovereignty. And so in verse 25, it's written,
and there followed him great multitudes of people from Galilee,
from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from Judea, and from beyond
Jordan. Now all of these came from various
places, Jew and Gentile, and that's the way it is with salvation.
God has a people all over this world, and elect people out of
every tribe and nation, and they will all come to him, just like
these. And they are all, the Bible says
that all who come to him, they're all spiritual Jews, they're all
spiritual Israel. They believe in him. They're
all spiritual children of Abraham because they believe the same
gospel Abraham believed. They come to Christ. He said,
come unto me, all ye that are labor and heavy laden, I'll give
you rest. And that's what he does for his people. All right.