We are told in Luke chapter 4
verse 31 that Christ came down to Capernaum, the city of Galilee,
and taught them on the Sabbath days. Our Lord was now coming
from the city of Nazareth where He had declared to them the grace
of God, and they were happy at first when they heard the the gracious words concerning
the character of the Messiah, the person of the Messiah, the
blessed works that Christ would accomplish for them as the Messiah,
what he did and what he does and what our Lord has done for
his people in his redemption. They rejoiced in that until he
made particular application of that word of grace to them. And then they understood, wait
a minute, You're glorifying God. You're declaring that God is
sovereign to save whom he will. What about me and my works? What about what I bring to the
table? What about my fleshly advantages? You're just dismissing them.
And the problem is they were, all Christ did was quote the
scriptures. He spoke the truth according to the scriptures.
He declared the grace of God that declares God sovereign to
save whom he will and how God is able to save any sinner. Even John the Baptist said at
one point, think not to say within yourselves, we have Abraham for
our father. Why? Because God is able of these
stones to raise up sons of Abraham. He can bring children of God
out of anyone, the worst and the lowest of us. And so we don't
want to have confidence in this flesh. They did and Christ passed
them by. Christ went right through them
and they did not. know the salvation of God. They
didn't know Christ. And so we've got to be saved
entirely by the Lord Jesus Christ. Otherwise we will perish in our
sins. Now there's two things in these
closing verses of Luke chapter 4 now in Capernaum. There's two
things in these closing verses that I want to show you. First
is the power of Christ's word. power of Christ's Word. And then
the second thing is that Christ is shown to us here as the Savior
of His people from all our ailments of sin. He delivers His people
from every trouble, every problem that is the result of sin. Christ
is the one who restores us and saves us. Now the first thing
of note that we see here in this passage is the importance of
the gospel, the importance of preaching the gospel of our salvation. And this is demonstrated for
us by the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Look at verse 31 and 32. Christ came down to Capernaum,
a city of Galilee, and taught them on the Sabbath days. This is how Christ teaches his
people. It's through the preaching of
the gospel. When we go to the Lord in prayer,
that's a sweet and blessed time because we're able to pour out
our hearts to the Lord and to speak to him of all that's in
our hearts and minds and what we're thinking. He knows it,
but it's a sweet time. It's a blessed time to go to
the Lord with your cares and concerns and worries. and fears
and hopes and it's good. And then what the Lord does is
he speaks to us through the preaching of the word. He speaks to us
in his word, but there's a blessed fellowship in being gathered
together with the Lord's people to hear his word. And that's
where he ministers his grace and the doctrine of his grace
to the hearts of his people. It says in verse 32, they were
astonished at his doctrine, for his word was with power. So our Lord didn't shy away from
doctrine at all, and His preaching was the doctrine. I think He
spoke almost word for word what He said in Nazareth. He said
to them here in Capernaum, except they heard it, and they were
astonished at His doctrine. They were astonished how He pointed
out the things of God to them in the Word and what that meant,
what the Lord was teaching us and showing us about how He saves,
how gracious He is, how wonderful our God is to save sinners. Because that's us. We're sinners. We're sinners. And so throughout
this passage, you'll notice that the Word of our Savior is exalted. His Word is with power. His Word is power. His Word delivers
His people. His Word instructs His people
and teaches us and doesn't leave us in darkness, but gives us
light. Because He is the light and understanding
and wisdom of God. And so, His Word triumphs over
all our foes and all the troubles that we have as sinners. Now, we see this here in verse
36, drop down there. They said, what a word is this? For with authority and power
he commandeth the unclean spirits, and they come out. Look at verse
39. He stood over her and rebuked
the fever, and it left her, and he spoke his word. Look at verse
41. The devils were identifying him
as Christ, the Son of God, and he rebuking them suffered them
not to speak. And then again at the close of
the chapter, verses 43 and 44, he said unto them, I must preach
the kingdom of God to other cities also, for therefore am I sent. And he preached in the synagogues
of Galilee. Our Lord is showing us here that
the business of Christ was to preach the gospel. He made it
his business to preach the Kingdom of God, to declare to the people
the good news of our salvation is found in Christ Jesus. He's here, He's come, He's arrived,
and He's redeemed us. He's accomplished our redemption.
Our salvation is accomplished by Him, and He's bringing the
power of that salvation in life to the hearts of His people through
the gospel. Through the gospel. And so, this
is how sinners come to know the power of Christ, through the
preaching. That's how he makes his power
known in the hearts of his people, through the preaching of the
gospel. And this is how we bring that word of Christ to the people,
through the preaching of the gospel. And that's why He gathers
us, and that's why we're gathered here to hear His Word, to be
taught of the Lord, that He might bless us with His Word, and comfort
us, and teach us, instruct us, and gather us together to Himself.
This is how He saves you that believe it's because of the power
of His Word made effectual to your hearts by His Holy Spirit. Otherwise, you wouldn't believe.
You wouldn't hear it. Now, we see this not only declared
here, but throughout the scriptures. Paul instructs us, saying, and
turn over to 2 Corinthians 4, Paul speaks to the church that
this is our ministry, is to preach the word. Our business is to
be about preaching the word of God, to preach the gospel of
our salvation, of what Christ has accomplished for his people.
2 Corinthians 4 verse 1 Therefore, seeing we
have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not,
but have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking
in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but
by manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves to every
man's conscience in the sight of God." He's saying this is
our ministry that God has given to us. It's not about instructing
people in the form of religion. It's not about baptisms and prayers and hymns and standing
and sitting and the right clothes and things like that. That's
not what it's about. It's about Christ. These things are profitable
to us in an orderly manner, but this isn't the blessing. This
isn't salvation in doing the form of religion. Christ is salvation. He's all. And so that's why Paul's
saying we don't handle this deceitfully. We're not trying to convince
you, do these things and you'll be saved. We're saying, look
to Christ. He's salvation. And all who believe
him have eternal life. All who believe him have been
given life. That's why they believe. That's
why we confess him and cry out to him. But, and this is how
he taught us through the gospel, but if our gospel be hid, it's
hid to them that are lost. So our ministry is the ministration
of the word. In whom the God of this world
hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light
of the glorious gospel of Christ who is the image of God should
shine unto them. For we preach, not ourselves,
but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servants for Jesus'
sake. For God, who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts to give
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. And so through the gospel, through
the preaching of the word, exalting the Lord Jesus Christ, the light
of God, which is Christ, shines into the darkness of our hearts
and the darkness of our minds. stripping and tearing down and
breaking down those things built up by the flesh and the folly
of the flesh and the foolishness of our wisdom. He breaks those
things down and the light of Christ comes in and gives us
hope and light and understanding to the things of God. Not trusting
ourselves, but trusting the Lord Jesus Christ. and this is the
power of God, verse 7, but we have this treasure in earthen
vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and not
of us. In other words, the Lord raises
up men who are weak in themselves and not able to affect these
things in your heart so that unequivocally, you must give
all the glory to God. You that believe in, you that
hear, you that are comforted, you that are encouraged, you
that are strengthened, it's because of the power of Christ and not
because of me and not because of another man, but because Christ,
it's his power, his power. And so these immediate verses
here that follow our Lord's baptism and follow him through the temptation
in the wilderness by the devil, they're to emphasize for us that
Christ taught the people and was manifested to the people
through the preaching of the gospel. And that's why we preach
the gospel. That's why we declare Christ
and emphasize in our gathering the preaching of the gospel,
because that's the power of God unto salvation for them that
believe." It's the Lord. And so that's why we follow the
example of our Lord and his apostles. That's where the sheep and the
lambs of God are fed and brought out of darkness and go in and
out and find pasture in the Lord, in the preaching. That's where
we're delivered from the bondage of sin. And that brings us to
the second thing that's highlighted for us here in our text. the deliverance by Christ's word
that we see worked in all the people, there's a variety here that's showing
us that all the ailments of sin have been conquered and overcome
and defeated in us by the Lord Jesus Christ. We're going to
see these examples here. There's these examples here of
how we're delivered from all these different types of effects
that are in this flesh because of sin, because of sin in us. And through these examples, Christ
is shown to us to be the complete Savior. Christ is shown to us
to be all and in all. Now this passage is revealing
to us that Christ is the Great Physician. Whatever your trouble
is, because of sin, go to Christ. And all your troubles are because
of sin. If it wasn't for sin in us, if
it wasn't because of our fall in Adam in sin and being by nature
in the body of sin, the body of death and under the dominion
of sin, we wouldn't have all these ailments and all these
problems and all these troubles. It's because of sin. It's because
of sin. And so the Lord gives us some
examples here of His power triumphing over the ruin and the works of
sin. So first let's look at verse
33 through 36 back in Luke 4. 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, thou 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 word is this? For with authority
and power he commanded the unclean spirits, and they come out. And
so in this triumph over devils, We see the truth that the Apostle
John declared in 1 John 3.8, when he said, For this purpose
the Son of God was manifest, that he might destroy the works
of the devil. And that's really what this passage
is showing us here, is Christ destroying the works of the devil. When he came in, in his lies,
in his murder, and he deceived Eve, and Adam fell in sin and
plunged him and his whole race into sin, death, and ruin. That
work there is all being destroyed by Christ. And our Lord does
this salvation, this saving work for all of His people. One thing
we see in this passage is religion doesn't cleanse us of our sin. Religion doesn't clean us up
and cleanse us from the filth and the stain and the guilt of
sin. Where was this man found? He
was found in the synagogue on the Sabbath day to worship God
with all the other people that were gathered there. That's where
this man was. He wasn't out on the street somewhere.
He was in the synagogue on the Sabbath day. And he has an unclean
spirit. And Christ is the one that delivered
this man of the unclean spirit, not religion. He was fine in
religion. He was happy to be there in religion.
Christ saved him. That's what we need too. We need
Christ to save us. We're not told about this man's
appearance. I don't think this man looked
any different from anybody else. I don't think this man's voice
sounded different from anybody else's. When I used to read this,
I would imagine this man in this little crickety old hissy kind
of devilish sounding voice. It probably was a normal voice
just like you and me. So what was it? What was it that
betrayed his unclean spirit? He opposed Christ. That's what
it is. That's how we know he had an
unclean spirit. Opposed to Christ and that's what we all are by
nature opposed to Christ That's the unclean spirit that that's
that's the the wickedness in us Christ came to save people
from his people from their willful opposition to Christ and and
and shutting themselves up against the truth of God and Christ has
to do that because we don't turn ourselves, we don't bring ourselves
to Christ. Christ comes and he delivers
us from death. He delivers us from that opposition
and enmity against God, just like Romans 8 says. The carnal
man is enmity against God. The natural man's enmity against
God. Paul reminds us of this in Ephesians 2 verses 2 and 3. When he said, wherein in time
past ye walked according to the course of this world, according
to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now
worketh in the children of disobedience, among whom also we all had our
conversation in times past, in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling
the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature
the children of wrath, even as others. That's being under an
unclean spirit. And that's every one of us by
nature, under that influence of the devil, and going about
the course of the world. But let me pick up now from Titus
3, verse 4 and 7. But after that, the kindness
and love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of
righteousness which we have done, not going to the synagogue on
the Sabbath day with everybody else. That's not our salvation. But according to his mercy, he
saved us by the washing of regeneration. Our unclean spirits must be washed
away and stamped in its place, the Holy Ghost. and renewing
of the Holy Ghost. Verse six, which he shed on us
abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that being justified
by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of
eternal life. This man was not looking for
deliverance. He showed up to do what he did
every Sabbath day, and he was content in that, but Christ intervened. And Christ saved him and delivered
him, even though he wasn't looking for it. And thanks be to God,
that's exactly what he did for every one of us. We weren't looking
for it. We would have been content in
dead religion or content in this world. But Christ intervened. Christ interposed his blood.
Christ came and delivered us from that oppression of the devil
and that work of the devil, that power that he had over us through
sin. And so, such is the salvation
of our God's people. It is a sovereign act of our
God to save whom He will, to deliver His people in the day
of grace of His choosing, when He will save them. Christ shows
Himself here to be the deliverer from all of Satan's devices. because we can't free ourselves
of it, but Christ is able and Christ did. And that's what he
works in us right now in his people. Now, the second example
picks up in verses 38 and 39. And he arose out of the synagogue
and entered into Simon's house. And Simon's wife's mother was
taken with a great fever and they besought Him for her. Now I love those last few words
of that verse. They besought Him for her. That's a blessing. That's a blessing
that we have in one another, brethren, as a body we have the
blessing of having our brethren interceding for us. You know,
I was sick all this last week, and I received phone calls and
texts from a lot of you, a lot of the brethren, asking me, how
are you doing? Are you getting any better? Are
you still sick? How's Michelle? Is she getting better? And what
about everybody else? And they said, you know, they
were asking about me, and they said, we're praying for you,
and we're praying for the brethren, our brethren. And that was a
lot of people. They're praying for you. You
know, and you're praying for them. And there's a real care
there and a love there. And that really encouraged me
to know that my brethren were thinking of me. And then that
motivated me. As I was feeling better, I wanted
to, and I started reaching out to others and telling them. I
was thinking of them and praying for them as well because it's
an encouragement. It's an encouragement. And it's
just nice to know that somebody cares about you and thinks about
you and does pray for you. And so that's what they did there.
They besought him for her. And he stood over her, verse
39, and rebuked the fever, and it left her. And immediately
she arose and ministered unto them. And so here we see that
even those ailments which are most common among us, the sicknesses,
the fevers, the aches, the pains, and the sufferings that we have,
they don't escape the eye of our Savior. He knows and he cares
for us. Sickness had visited the house
of one of the Lord's disciples, Simon Peter, and his mother-in-law
lay sick with a great fever, meaning it was probably a very
high fever and probably lasted for a very long time and didn't
seem to have any breaking up of that in sight. And they were
worried for her probably. Maybe she was near to death,
but by the power of his word he rebuked the fever, and it
left her. and sickness and disease just
like unclean spirits are a result of sin in us, in our flesh, in
our infirmity. It doesn't mean that we get sick
because of some sin that we've committed. That's not at all
what I'm saying. It's because we are sinners. That's why the
body is weak and infirmed and susceptible to sicknesses and
why we have these these trials like this in the flesh and diseases.
It's because of sin in the world. Sin in the flesh. It's because
by nature we're all sinners in this flesh. And so it's because
by one man sin entered into the world and death by sin. And so all men died because all
have sinned. Romans 5 12. It's because sin
is pervasive throughout this world because of us. Because
of man. And that's why there's sin here.
And that's why there's sin and diseases and unclean spirits
and all these things that trouble us because of sin. That's why
there's evil in the world. That's why people are hateful
and hating one another and doing horrible wicked things and saying
horrible wicked things about one another. It's because we're
sinners. That's why. That's where it comes
from. And so Christ has the power and
the authority over all our sicknesses and all our diseases so that
we see him healing the people here. We see him casting out
demons and delivering, healing their sicknesses. We'll see cases
where he healed a withered hand. He had that man stretch his hand
out, and it formed whole, and he healed the lame, and he delivered
them of sicknesses and diseases. And if you're troubled and say,
well, why isn't it now? Why aren't I, like, I was sick
all week. And some of us have various diseases
and ailments that aren't getting better and aren't going away.
And we rely on the medical system to keep us going. Why don't we
see deliverance from that? Because, well, as we'll see here,
because we walk by faith. But the Lord has demonstrated
that when I die, I know that sin here in this flesh has no
power over me. The second death has no power
over you that believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, because you've
been made a partaker by His grace of the first resurrection. He's
given you life from the dead in the Lord Jesus Christ, and
He's given you faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. I was reading an
article by Greg Elmquist, I should have put it in the bulletin,
I didn't, but he was noting that we get to thinking that the disciples
that walked with the Lord had it better than we have it. And
his point was not at all. You have faith and the sight
of faith and the hearing of faith is much greater than the natural
eye, the eyesight and the natural ear. How do you know that? Well,
because they still they still forsook the Lord. They still
had to be corrected by the Lord. They saw him. They heard him
with their own ears and it didn't do any improvement for them.
They still had to be taught and recovered and delivered. Peter
had to be converted and the Lord still had to save them because
they needed faith too. And so we all are saved by faith. And through the eye of faith,
you know Christ is my Savior. And though I still see in my
flesh the remnants of sin, and I see sin, and I see the infirmities
of sin as a result of sin and the sicknesses and diseases and
all kinds of problems, that's not my hope. My confidence is
in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so I'm thankful for the faith
that we have. We don't need to be delivered
from everything. Sure, it'd be nice, and if the Lord wills,
He can do it. But we have faith. He's given us that precious gift
of faith to know when this is all over, Christ has conquered
it all. Conquered it all. It's got no
power over me. It's got no power over you. And
so he went on to heal more sicknesses and more evil from sin. Of all
that was brought to him, look down, well first look at verse
37. After he cast out that unclean
spirit, verse 37 says the fame of him went out into every place
of the country round about. And then you come down to verse
40 and 41. So they heard this and now they
started coming with their sick and infirmed. And it says in
verse 40, Now when the sun was setting, all they that had any
sick with diverse diseases brought them unto him, and he laid his
hands on every one of them, and healed them. And devils also
came out of many, crying out and saying, Thou art Christ the
Son of God. And he rebuking them suffered
them not to speak, for they knew that he was Christ. And so our
Lord is showing us is that this Jesus of Nazareth is the Savior
of every malady caused by sin. He's the deliverer of everything
that's wrong with us because of sin. He is the one. You don't
have to go to him for one thing and to another Savior for another
thing. He's the one and only salvation of God, the Lord Jesus
Christ, and there's not another. There's not another. There's
only one way to the Father. That is through Jesus Christ,
the Son, the Savior of His people. So go to Him. Go to Him with
your sicknesses. Go to Him with your diseases.
Go to Him with your needs and your cares and your worries and
your troubles and your doubts and your fears. All that you
have that has filled your heart and your minds, go to Christ. He's the Savior. He's the great
physician. He's the healer of His people.
He's the one who comforts his people so that by his grace,
we don't need to have every cup pass from us. But Lord, nevertheless,
thy will be done. He gives us that grace. He gives
us his spirit. He gives us that power of his
to trust him, to trust him in him, that we may know that in
him we have life and liberty and salvation perfectly, just
as he said. Now in closing, I just want to
look closely with you and show you just a few of the glorious
effects that we see as a result of His grace, as a result of
His power and working in His people. First, when He healed
Peter's mother-in-law of that fever, verse 39 says that she
immediately arose and ministered unto them. That's what the Lord
does. When He comes to you with power,
He gives you a heart to rise and to serve your Lord and to
serve His people. She rose and ministered to them.
It wasn't just Christ and it wasn't just the people, it was
Christ and His people. That's what He does for all of
us who are saved. Next, verse 42. And when it was
day, He departed and went into a desert place And the people
sought him, and came unto him, and stayed him, that he should
not depart from them." What we see here is that when Christ
ministers salvation and life to His people, their heart is
changed. They're a new creature. They
want to know the Lord. They want to go and be with the
Lord. They seek Him out, and they want to be with Him, and
they want the Lord to stay with them and never depart from them.
They want to be there with the Lord's people. they want to be. And so that's their true heart's
desire. And especially when there's been
an occasion where we've seen just what happens when all our
focus is on the world and we wander away. When we see that,
more so, we want the Lord, Lord, please stay near. When we've
been recovered and delivered from that temptation, we pray,
Lord, don't ever leave me. Don't depart. Don't let me fall
back into that same place where I was when the temptation came
the last time. I don't want to do that again,
Lord. I don't want to go there, Lord. And so stay near me." And
that's what we want. That's what he does for us. And
then look, this was his reply. And his reply to them is his
word to us also. Verse 43 and 44, he said unto
them, I must preach the kingdom of God to other cities also,
for therefore am I sent. And he preached in the synagogues
of Galilee. What is the Lord saying by saying
this? What does that mean? Is he going
away? Did He leave them there? Is that what He's saying to us?
That He's going to depart from us? No. What He's saying, what
I believe He's saying here, what He's showing us is that it's
going to be a walk by faith. You're going to need the Lord.
You're going to see your need of the Lord. And He's going to
teach you through the preaching of the Word, just like we began
this message. This is how He teaches His people,
through the preaching of the Gospel. He promises He will never
leave you, nor forsake you. But He's going to speak to you
through the preaching of the Word. And He's going to gather
you and draw you. He's going to show you the importance
of the Word. He's going to show you the importance
of worshiping Him, because He's going to give you the need. to
worship Him. He's going to give you the need
to hear His Word. And you're going to depend upon
it. And you're going to be gathered
here because you want to hear the Lord. And this is where He's
going to speak to you. More than any place else, He's
going to speak to you to comfort you, to instruct you in what
He's doing, why He does what He does, why He teaches you the
way He teaches you, how it's good for you, how what he's done
for you has indeed been good for you, and how he's separated
you through the various trials and difficulties from the love
of this world, and he's kept you from the love of this world,
and given you so many more better precious things in Christ. Even though, as Paul said, though
this outward man perish and it dies daily, it's good. It's good through all those trials
because it results in the food and the blessed word of what
Christ has done. And it makes it all the more
precious to us and all the better understood by us of Christ and
what he's accomplished for us, why he's done it, why he does
it this way. And so that's why he says, You're
gonna think I'm not here, but I'm here. But it's to instruct
you through the preaching of the word. This is why I'm doing
it. And it's for your good. There's
a good, gracious purpose of God in all of it. And so through
it all, we learn the preciousness of Christ Jesus, our Lord. Now
I'm gonna close. Let's turn over to Ephesians
chapter three. And we'll just close with these
closing verses from verse 14 verse 14 so Ephesians 3 verse 14 for this
cause Paul says I bow my knees unto the father of our Lord Jesus
Christ of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named
that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to
be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man,
that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, that ye, being
rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with
all saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height. and to know the love of Christ,
which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the
fullness of God. Now unto him that is able to
do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according
to the power that worketh in us, unto him be glory in the
church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end.
Amen. So trust your Lord. Believe Him.
He knows exactly what He's doing. He is the Savior of all your
ailments, of all the problems you have in this flesh because
of sin. Christ has conquered it all.
Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid of it. Don't
try and fix it yourself. Seek Christ. He's the blessing.
Amen.