And so I've entitled this message,
The King and His Stripes. The King and His Stripes. Because
in verse 17 we see that it was by His stripes that we are healed.
So let's read now from chapter 8 verse 11 through verse 27. And I say unto you, Jesus said,
that many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit
down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.
But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer
darkness, there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. And Jesus
said unto the centurion, Go thy way, and as thou hast believed,
so be it done unto thee. And his servant was healed in
the selfsame hour. And when Jesus was come into
Peter's house, he saw his wife's mother laid, and sick of a fever. And he touched her hand, and
the fever left her, and she arose and ministered unto them. When
the even was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed
with devils, and he cast out the spirits with his word, and
healed all that were sick, that it might be fulfilled, which
was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities,
and bare our sicknesses. Now when Jesus saw great multitudes
about him, he gave commandment to depart to the other side.
And a certain scribe came and said unto him, Master, I will
follow thee whithersoever thou goest. And Jesus said to him,
The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests,
but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head. And another
of his disciples said to him, Lord, suffer me first to go bury
my father. But Jesus said to him, Follow
me, and let the dead bury their dead. And when he was entered
into a ship, his disciples followed him. And behold, there arose
a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered with
the waves. But he was asleep. And his disciples came to him
and awoke him, saying, Lord, save us, we perish. And he said
to them, why are you so fearful, O ye of little faith? Then he
arose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great
calm. But the men marveled, saying, what manner of man is this, that
even the winds and the sea obey him? I think the theme of Matthew
is the King, the Lord Jesus Christ as our King. And here you see
His authority over the leprous man, over the paralytic man,
over the feverish woman, And then His authority to the scribe
and His disciple that came to Him, commanding them to follow
Him. And then His authority over the
winds and the sea. In all of these we see the Lord
Jesus Christ as our King. And I've titled the message for
this reason, The King and His Stripes. Because those two things
sound like they're in opposition to each other, but it's necessary
that we understand the Lord Jesus Christ's authority has a foundation,
and that foundation is his sufferings, according to the will of God,
to put away the sins of his people. And so we'll see this. Now in
verse 11, let's just go through these, and I feel almost like
today it's more of an exposition than a sermon, but nevertheless,
let's go through these verses. Look at verse 11 with me. It
says, "...and I say unto you that many shall come from the
east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and
Jacob in the kingdom of heaven." What is this verse saying? It's
saying that many Gentiles will be saved while many Jews will
be cast out of the kingdom of heaven. Many religious people
will be eternally lost while many despised and outcast by
religion will be saved. Many do-gooders will perish while
many sinners will be saved. It says here that many will come.
Many meaning many Gentiles will come from the East and the West. That's what the Lord is referring
to here. They'll come to sit down. Means that they come to
receive the blessings that they received. That Abraham and Isaac
and Jacob received in the promise of God. And the blessings that
God promised Abraham were eternal life. justification before Him. All the blessings that are in
Christ He gave to Abraham and all those who, like Abraham,
look to Christ only. But these come because salvation... Why is it that even though the
Gentiles are coming from the East and the West to sit down
with Abraham and Isaac, why does it say then in verse 12 that
the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness? Well, because men forsake their
own mercy. Jonah 2.8 says this. Look at
Jonah 2. I'll take you to a few verses
here. If you want to exercise your Bible to follow along, I
think it's profitable to see these. So Jonah, I even have
trouble finding Jonah in the Old Testament, to tell you the
truth. I never did commit to memory
the order of the books. Okay, so Brad is helping me. Jonah, there it is. Jonah chapter
2 verse 8. He says, "...they that observe
lying vanities forsake their own mercy." A lying vanity would
be anything that's opposed to the truth, especially idolatry.
"...but men forsake their own mercy." What a statement that
is, isn't it? It's just like it says in 2 Timothy
2.25. Turn there with me. 2 Timothy 2.25. He says, in meekness instructing those
that oppose themselves, if God, peradventure, will give them
repentance to the acknowledging of the truth." We naturally do
oppose ourselves. We forsake our own mercies. Men, naturally, are like those
who have lifted up their hand against the God of heaven. Look
at Daniel chapter 5. I'm showing you a few verses
here. thinking that maybe it will help
you retain these words in your own study. It says in Daniel
chapter 5 verse 22, Belshazzar was the son of Nebuchadnezzar.
He learned nothing from his father's mistakes. And Daniel says to
him, And thou, his son, O Belshazzar, hast not humbled thine heart,
Thou knowest all this, how God treated Nebuchadnezzar for his
pride. But thou hast lifted up thyself against the Lord of heaven,
and they have brought the vessels of his house before thee, and
thou and thy lords, thy wives, and thy concubines have drunk
wine in them. And thou hast praised the gods
of silver and gold and brass and iron and wood and stone,
which see not. nor hear nor know, and the God
in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, thou
hast not glorified." This is what men do. This is why the
Jews were forsaken. Remember what we read last week
in Luke chapter 4? Remember that? There were many
widows, according to Jesus, in the days of Elijah. But only
one widow, God only sent Elijah to one widow, which was a woman
of Sarepta, a city in the region of Sidon. Now, I looked a little
bit more carefully at what Zidon is. In the Old Testament, Zidon
was just on the border of the land of Israel. Zidon was notorious. They were bad people, because
they served idols. In fact, their god, their goddess,
who was actually a female god, Ashtaroth, was the God that was
side-by-side with Baal in the idolatry of Israel. And the Zidonians
were careless. They didn't worry about Israel
coming and attacking them, because they were right on the border.
Their position of their city was strong, because they were
naturally defensed against attackers. But Israel wasn't even given
the right to go in and take them. And Zidon was the son of Canaan.
And Canaan was the son of Ham, and Ham was the son of Noah,
who was cursed by Noah for what he did. But you remember all
these things because Canaan was the land where God told His people
to go in and take the land and destroy the inhabitants of that.
The Zidonians were bad people. And yet, when Jesus comes to
Galilee, And he opens the book and he reads how he had come,
and the Spirit of the Lord was upon him, and he had come to
set the captives free, to preach the gospel to the poor, to heal
the brokenhearted, and all these things. The people of Galilee,
he said, but this is what you're going to say to me, physician,
heal yourself. Because a prophet is only without
honor in his own country. And so he refers to that to tell
them that they would not receive the Lord Jesus Christ. They would
forsake their own mercies. They were opposed to their own
salvation. They lifted up themselves like
Nebuchadnezzar's son, Belshazzar, and they did not glorify the
One in whose hand their breath and life was. And so that's why
they were forsaken. But then the question is, well
why did God send Elijah to this Zidonian widow? And why did He
heal Naaman the leper who was of Syria? And the answer to that
question is because God's mercy is His sovereign prerogative.
Salvation is of the will of God and is of the sovereign mercy
of God. God said to Moses, I will make my goodness pass before
thee and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee
and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and will show
mercy on whom I will show mercy. And Paul quotes this in Romans
9 15 to answer the objection that God, that men have. God
is unrighteous if he loves some and hated others. And the answer
that Paul gives him is that no, God's mercy is His sovereign
prerogative. And he shows these examples to
us to teach us a very important thing. That men will, if they
could, would destroy themselves universally. This is the way
we are. And yet God saves some. And the only explanation you
can give for these two things is that God is just. in sending
His judgment on those who refuse His Son. But at the same time,
even though men do this, we have the whole account of the whole
Old Testament. In the book of Hosea, there's
this woman who is an adulterous woman, and she goes after lovers,
and this pictures the nation of Israel who forsook God for
idols. In idolatry, this adulterous
woman. And yet, God wouldn't forsake
her. God wouldn't forsake His people. And that's the story
of Hosea. That's the story of the whole
Old Testament. God had mercy on His remnant people. And so,
in Matthew 25, turn to Matthew 25. This was the thing that made
the people of Galilee want to destroy Jesus at the outset of
His ministry. Chapter 11. I don't know what
chapter I said. Matthew 11, verse 25. He says, After citing the evil of Capernaum,
because so many works were done in them and yet they didn't repent,
he says in verse 24, But I say unto you that it shall be more
tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for
thee. At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father,
Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from
the wise and prudent. Men who in themselves think themselves
to be wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Why?
Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight. That's the
reason. Why are men destroyed under the
wrath of God? Because of their sin. Why are
they saved by the mercy of God in spite of their sin? Because
of God's mercy in Christ. And that's the only explanation.
It seems good to God to save His people out of this. And so
we see over and over that no man is entitled to mercy. And
yet God, and men are angry at God because He will not show
them mercy under their control. And this is a problem. As I touched on it a little bit
last week, We naturally, when we hear of the sovereign mercy
of God, we become upset. We say, we have one of two responses. One is we say, well, if God's
going to do what God's going to do, then there's nothing I
can do about it. And so we just go on indifferently,
in apathy, and we live our lives and we just ignore the whole
thing. Or, we get angry at God, and this is really in both of
these viewpoints, we get angry at God because we know we can't
manipulate Him. We can't get Him to do what we
think we deserve, which is mercy from Him. We cannot leave ourselves
in the hand and under the mercy of a sovereign God, and so we
get upset. But neither of these responses
is legitimate. It's neither legitimate for us
to say, well, God's going to do what He's going to do, so
I'm just going to give up. Or, the more severe one is, God
just pushes people around, and He does what He wants, and He's
sovereign, so He just does what He wants, and people end up going
to hell, and they don't deserve it, really. He's just going to
do it anyway. Neither of these responses is not right. Neither is legitimate. They both
deny Fundamentally, my personal guilt before God. Both of those
responses, which is in the heart of every one of us, naturally.
We will not respect God as God. We will not fear God. That's
what it means to fear God. It's the beginning of wisdom
until God brings us to the point like the leper. Lord, if you
will, you can make me whole. We will not find mercy with God. Sinners have been made guilty. Sinners who have been made guilty
under the convicting work of God's grace own their sin as
their own fault. And they own that their sin is
against the true and living God. And what do they do? They ask
God in mercy to forgive them for Christ's sake alone. And
you see this in different accounts, and I'm just going to refer these
to you. Let me read a couple of cases.
David said to God, he said in 1 Chronicles 21.8 when he numbered
the people, he said, I have sinned greatly. Because I have done
this thing, but now I beseech thee, do away with the iniquity
of thy servant, for I have done very foolishly." Two things in
David's prayer. I sinned against God, it was
a wrong thing, it was foolish, but there's this beseeching on
his part for God to forgive him. Another one is in Psalm 41.4.
I read this last week. It said, I said, Lord, be merciful
unto me. Heal my soul, for I have sinned
against thee. That's the proper attitude. Or
in Psalm 25.11, For thy name's sake, O Lord, pardon mine iniquity,
for it is great. There's always these two things
joined together in the response of the one convinced by the Spirit
of God. There is a confession of sin,
and there is a beseeching God for mercy. But listen to what
Saul said in 1 Samuel 15 30. He said, I have sinned, yet honor
me now, I pray thee, before the elders of my people and before
Israel, and turn again with me that I may worship the Lord thy
God. His concern wasn't so much about his guilt before God and
his forgiveness from God as it was his appearance before men. He was more concerned about what
His sin would do to Him if men found out than it would be if
God found out. And that's typical. Judas said
this, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood.
And that was the end of what he said. And they said to him,
what is that to us? But listen to what God tells
His people to do. One of my favorite places in
Scripture, in Hosea 14, Turn with me to Hosea 14. Whenever
I think about, can I come to God? Can I even come to Him? I'm such
a wretch. Can I even come to the Lord for
mercy? I read these words in Hosea 14. Hosea is right after the book
of Daniel. He says in chapter 14, in verses
1-4, Oh, Israel! This is God's plea with his elect people. He says, O Israel, return unto
the Lord thy God, for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity. Take
with you words and turn to the Lord. Say unto him, take away
all iniquity and receive us graciously. So will we render the calves
of our lips. Asher, that's the Assyrians,
shall not save us. We will not ride upon horses,
neither will we say any more to the work of our hands. You
are our gods, for in thee the fatherless find mercy. This prayer
is given by God, given by God to sinners. The whole book of
Hosea is about the wretchedness of this woman, which typified
the whole nation of Israel in their idolatry. And God says
to them, you, you who have gone away from the Lord, He says,
take with you words and say this, Lord, I have sinned against you.
Receive me graciously. Pardon all iniquity. And then
say, everything I have previously trusted in will not save me.
I abandon all hope in those things. This is the prayer of God's people.
And it's only given by the Spirit of God to us in the gospel. And so this is the right attitude.
We confess that sin is against God and His goodness and His
light, and we ask God to forgive us. Ask God to forgive us of
all of our sin. Lord, forgive me of all my sins. What a blessed thing it is to
be able to ask God to forgive us of all of our sins, isn't
it? Sin is my fault. Adam blamed Eve. Eve blamed the
serpent. Cain cried that his punishment
was more than he could bear. But God judged Adam for his sin
and Eve for hers. And God held Cain to justice.
God is just. His punishment of men for sin
will be shown to come after much long suffering on God's part. And man's stiff-necked rebellion
in light of God's long suffering will make his punishment all
the more unbearable. Stop opposing your own salvation. Stop forsaking your own mercy.
Fear the Lord. To fear the Lord is to own my
place before Him as guilty. as a condemned sinner and own
the fact that mercy is found in him as he's declared in the
gospel in Christ. Nothing can be said against God.
He's inflexibly just and his mercy is sovereign. His mercy
is shown at the highest cost of justice against his own son. Who can fault God for being just
and punishing sin? None of us can. And there's so
much we could say about this. But to say that, yes, God is
sovereign, and therefore He is bigger than I am, and I have
no inclination, and I'm not going to go to Him, I'm not going to
humble myself, that's to put God on the judgment seat, and
judge Him as a creature. It's like Job said, are you,
the creature, more righteous than God, your Creator? Your
breath is in His hands. All of your ways are in His hands.
And to stand there and think that your thoughts, that God
has created you, that your thoughts are not known by your Creator?
And to think that you're more righteous as to call His justice
into question and His sovereignty into question? This is the height
of foolishness, isn't it? But it's what resides in the
heart of man. In Romans 1.30 it says we're
haters of God. Haters of God. Jesus said when
he was on the earth in John 15.25, they hated me without a cause. And this is how God comes to
his enemies. He comes declaring he has laid
aside, he has laid aside his wrath, which was justly against
us for our hostility against him. And because He's laid it
aside in Christ and buried the wrath of His justice in the soul
of His Son, He beseeches us, sinner, be reconciled to God. It's like, we will not be able
to come to God unless we know that He has laid aside His wrath. Just like when you have a personal
relationship with somebody. If you give the appearance of
anger towards them. It's very, very difficult for
them to love you, isn't it? How can someone feel tender affection
toward you when all you are is harsh towards them? And this
is the way our conscience works as sinners. We know we're guilty.
And God has to teach us and tell us what He's done in Christ,
that He Himself has taken the initiative and made provision
and done everything needed to reconcile us. and has finished
the work, and there's nothing that remains, come, come to the
Lord Jesus Christ. Lay down your weapons. Lay down
your anger against God. Put it aside. Plead for mercy,
and find in Christ all that you need." So that's the first verse in
verse 11. I wanted to get there. Now verse 12. Look at this with
me. He says, But the children of the kingdom shall be cast
out into outer darkness. There shall be weeping and gnashing
of teeth." Punishment, God's punishment fits the crime. The
wrath of God is punishment. Men have conscious existence
after their death. It's clear here that the children
of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness where
there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. It teaches us that
the greater the severity of our crime, the greater the severity
of our judgment. The Lord says in Luke 12, verses
47 through 48, that to him who knew his master's will and didn't
do it, he will be beaten with many stripes. But to him who
did not know his master's will and didn't do it, will be beaten
with few stripes. Because the punishment fits the
crime. Greater light means greater punishment.
And the Jews had the greatest light possible. Thousands of
years they had the oracles of God given to them. But many,
most, didn't believe. Where was the fault? Was it with
God's revelation? With God's prophets? With God's
miracles to them? God's goodness and long-suffering
to them? No. It was their stubborn and stiff-necked
unbelief. And so we have to plead, Lord,
turn me. Turn me. Another place in Hosea,
Hosea 13, around verse 14, it says, Oh Israel, you have fallen. You have fallen, but But let's
see, I'm misquoting it now. Let me read it to you, Hosea.
thou hast destroyed thyself by thine iniquity, but in me is
thine help." That's what it says. I haven't got there, but I'm
pretty sure that's the way it's written. He says in Hosea 13,
he says in verse 9, O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself,
but in me is thine help. What a mercy! What a mercy from
God that He would look on us in the in the destruction that
we have brought on ourselves and say, by your sin you've brought
yourself low and destroyed yourself, but in me is your help. This
is sovereign mercy, isn't it? Isn't this the way God's mercy
works? And the warning is there to us.
What are we going to do if we escape this, if we neglect this
so great salvation? How will we escape? And so God
gives us this warning in Matthew 8, 12. The children of the kingdom,
those who were the natural seed of Abraham, will be cast out
because they rejected their own mercies, opposed their own salvation,
rejected God's Christ, their salvation. And they didn't avail
themselves of it. They didn't come to Him. They
didn't submit themselves to the righteousness of God. And now
look at verse 13 in the same chapter. And Jesus said to the
centurion, Go thy way as thou hast believed, be it done to
thee. And we covered this a couple Sundays ago. But here, I want
to go right on to verse 14. When Jesus was come into Peter's
house, he saw his wife's mother laid and sick of a fever, and
he touched her hand. and the beaver left her, and
she arose and ministered unto them." Notice, there's several
things we can see here, just practical things. First of all,
Jesus came to Peter's house. Now, Peter had forsaken all,
hadn't he? You would expect him therefore to be homeless, but
here he has a house. Peter forsook all and followed
Christ, yet he lived in a house that was either his or his mother's.
and mother-in-laws. So to leave all doesn't mean
we make ourselves homeless. It doesn't mean that we have
no possessions. What it means is that we look
on all that we have as belonging to the Lord Jesus Christ. It
means that we are ready and quick to give ourselves and all that
we have to the Lord. I was reading in 1 Chronicles
29.14, Solomon said this, he says in his prayer, Who am I,
and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly
after this sort? For all things come of thee,
and of thine own hand have we given thee. That's all we can
say. We're servants. We're unprofitable
servants. The Lord has given us what we have, and of His own
hand do we give. And Paul told the Corinthians
how the Macedonians had given themselves first to the Lord.
He says in 2 Corinthians 8, 5, he says, And this they did, not
as we hope, but first gave their own selves to the Lord and unto
us by the will of God. So when we forsake all for Christ,
we don't forsake our possessions, we use what we have for the Lord's
sake. And that's what we see here.
Peter had a house. And also we see in this place
is that Jesus Peter was Christ's disciple, and yet Peter had a
mother-in-law who was sick. You would think, well, if you're
following Jesus, then everything's going to be good, and everything's
going to be fine. But that's not the way it was.
His mother-in-law fell sick with a fever. And so Jesus came to
his house and healed her. And you know, there's a thing
that goes on in religion today, at least in my experience, where
people would say, if you only believed, then you wouldn't be
sick. Blaming our sickness on our lack of faith. But remember,
Paul told Timothy to take a little wine for his oft infirmities.
And if Timothy's faith was the issue, Paul would have told him,
you just need to believe. But he didn't. He said, take
some wine. When Lazarus became sick and died, Jesus said it
was that way in order that Martha and Mary and all of Christ's
people would see the glory of God in his death and his resurrection. His sickness was for the glory
of God. And so was this woman, Peter's mother-in-law. The blind
man in John 9 was the same thing. The disciples asked Jesus, was
it this man or was it his parents who sinned that he was born blind?
Was he able to sin in the womb? They were confused by this, and
Jesus said, No, neither one. It was so that God's works would
be made known through him. And God told Moses, Who made
man's mouth? Who made the dumb? Who made the
deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? Have not I the Lord? In all these
things, we see that sickness and handicaps and limitations
are in God's plan and His purpose, and they're not directly attributed
to our personal sin. To sin in general? Yes. To our
guilt? Perhaps. But God isn't connecting
them that way. He's saying there's a greater
and overarching purpose. It's to glorify Himself. Job's
friends were guilty of accusing him of being a sinner. And that's
why they said these things came upon him. They were ignorant
of the fact that in Job's sickness, God taught Job and us how men
are justified freely by His grace. Because Job asked that question,
how can man, who is born of woman, be clean before God? How can
man be just before God? And it was later in the book
of Job, in Job 33, that God taught him that when God finds a ransom,
then He is favorable to him. It's all God's sovereign mercy
in Christ. So that was the second thing
I saw here. And then, I want you to see here
too, that it was Jesus who saw Peter's wife's mother. It says,
look at verse 14. When Jesus was coming to the
house, He saw his wife's mother. Jesus saw his wife's mother.
It was Jesus who saw his mother-in-law. Now, That may seem like a small
thing, but think for a minute. What was Jesus doing? Have you
ever been doing something really important? And someone comes
by and they ask you something trivial. My mind is only able
to handle one thing at most at a time. And I'm barely able to
handle one at a time. And when I get interrupted, I
get a little irritable. The Lord Jesus was sent from
heaven to glorify His Father in His eternal purpose of saving
sinners. And here He is in the house of
a disciple, and He sees this mother-in-law who's got a fever.
And He puts His hand on her hand, and touches her hand, and says
to her, and raises her up by a touch. Why would he spend his
time even dealing with something so insignificant about this woman,
his disciple's mother-in-law? We would think, that's wrong
thinking, isn't it? This gives us a great encouragement.
If someone we love is sick, go to Jesus. Tell Him your heart. Wasn't it Peter himself that
said in 1 Peter chapter 5, casting all your cares upon him,
for he careth for you." Wasn't that Peter who said that? And
then Paul also said, be careful for nothing, but in everything,
by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests
be known to God. And the peace of God, which passes
all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through
Christ Jesus. What a wonder of God's, of the Lord Jesus Christ,
of His compassion and His attention to detail God has given Him.
He has the wisdom of God. He searches the hearts. He knows
the thoughts. He sees His people. Hebrews chapter
5. Look at the first two verses
of Hebrews chapter 5. It says here what the requirements
are for a high priest. He says in verse 1 of Hebrews
5, every high priest taken from among men, that's the first requirement,
taken from among men, is ordained by God for men, so his purpose
is for men, in things pertaining to God, that he may, and what
are those things? That he may offer both gifts
and sacrifices for sins. But look at verse two, who can
have compassion on the ignorant and on them that are out of the
way for that he himself also is compassed with infirmity.
You see the Lord Jesus Christ understood what the sorrow of
sin was because he bore our sins in his own body on the tree.
He understood this and when he sees a woman and her fever, his
disciples' mother-in-law, and he has compassion on her. It
reminds me of that song, Does Jesus Care? Oh yes, he cares. He cares. And if he didn't care,
we wouldn't care. This is the Lord Jesus Christ. He has more interest in the salvation
of his people than His people have in their own salvation."
Isn't that what we were just talking about? We oppose by nature
our own mercies. And yet the Lord Jesus Christ
comes in His sovereign mercy and saves, raises this woman
up from the dead. Not from the dead, but from her
fever. He healed the leprous man. He heals leprous souls.
He healed the paralytic, the paralyzed man. He gives the lame
to walk and leap. the sinner, the lame sinner,
to walk and leave. And here He heals this woman
who had a fever, just like when we're overwhelmed with our sin,
the fever of our concern over our sin and our guilt and all
these things, the Lord Jesus Christ raises us up. And he says
this in verse 17, that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken
by Isaiah the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities
and bear our sicknesses. And in 1 Peter 2.24, turn with
me to 1 Peter 2.24, because I didn't read this last week, and I want
you to see this. If you don't know this verse
by heart, it's definitely one you should read. And I look at
these words in here, in 1 Peter 2.24, and I see several personal
pronouns. Maybe that's the wrong category
of the word, the grammar here, but they're pronouns nonetheless.
Look at this. three of them stacked up together.
Why does God do that? Why do we do that even in our
writing? When I say, He Himself, or when I speak about, I name
someone in a sentence, and then I add the words, I, Myself, or
He, Himself, those kind of, why do we do that? It's for emphasis. Here we have a triple emphasis.
There's a name for this in grammar. I'm not going to go into that
right now, but here we have a triple emphasis. Who his own self. If nothing else, if we get nothing
else out of those words, we have to understand this. God wants
us to know that our salvation is in a person. Who his own self. Bear our sins. in his own body,
his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins—how did
we become dead to sins? He died because our sins were
in him and we were one with him and when he died we therefore
died to sins that we should live unto righteousness by whose stripes
you were healed you were healed when the lord jesus christ put
away our sins and so that's a quotation from the same verse which in
matthew eight seventeen is is are referring to sicknesses the
lord jesus christ was able to heal the sick, because He, on
the grounds of His own suffering and death, removed sin, which
was the cause of sickness, and took the sins of His people,
and therefore was able to heal them. And isn't that our hope?
That He will call us forth, our dead bodies, He will call, He
will raise us from the dead and redeem us, and we will see Him
in a glorified spiritual body, That is our hope. So he raises
up this woman. And then it says here in verse
19 that Jesus, a certain scribe came to Jesus and said to him,
Master, I will follow you. I will follow you. Oops, actually
I skipped a whole verse here. I'm sorry. Verse 16. Look at
this. After Jesus healed Peter's mother-in-law, you know what
happened? Everyone heard about it. And they gathered around.
And it says, And when evening came, And I don't know if it was in
the same house, but in the same place. It says, "...when even
was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed with
devils, and he cast out the spirits with his word, and he healed
all that were sick." They brought to him. Do you know, this is
such a great encouragement. Have you ever found a place in
the New Testament where someone brought Someone who was sick
to Jesus or possessed by a devil. That Jesus did not heal them.
That he did not cast out the devil. I can't find one place. What an encouragement. What a
mercy. Everyone who was brought to Christ.
And notice, a lot of people came to the Lord Jesus Christ. But
many were brought to him. Many were brought. I think what
a mercy of God it is that when I see someone who brings their
family or their friend to church and they're able to come. My
heart weeps with joy because I think of these things. These
people, they had sick loved ones and loved ones who were possessed
by devils and they did the only thing that could provide any
help they brought them to Jesus. I'm so thankful that God put
this into His Word. And notice, these were possessed
with devils and He cast out the spirits with His Word. Again, He healed people of their
sickness because He bore their sicknesses. And now we see the
basis of Christ commanding evil spirits to depart. Look at this
with me. So many verses on this, and I
won't have time to take you to all of these, but we need to
look at these, a few of these. So let's look together. Look
at, in fact, let's start with 2 Corinthians chapter 4. Maybe we won't have time to get
to all these. There's several places in scripture where it
talks about what happened at the cross with respect to the
devil. 2 Corinthians chapter 4. I should have taken you to Luke
11 first. When you get to 2 Corinthians 4, just put your finger there,
okay? Go back to Luke chapter 11. We're not going to get to the
end of this sermon today, so I'll spare you the details. Look at Luke chapter
11. In Luke chapter 11, In verse 14, it says, "...and
Jesus was casting out a devil, and it was dumb." You can't tell
when Jesus cast out a devil sometimes the difference between the person
and the devil. They do things, and you're not
sure, is it the devil that's doing it, or is it the person?
"...and he was casting out a devil, and it was dumb. And it came
to pass, when the devil was gone out, that the dumb," the person
who had the devil in him, who couldn't speak before, "...spake,
and the people wondered." But some of them said, He cast out
devils through Beelzebub, the chief of the devils. Now, I don't
know how I would have answered that accusation. How could you
prove that? Jesus did. Very easily. It says, "...and others tempting
him sought of him a sign from heaven. But he, knowing their
thoughts, said, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought
to desolation. And a house divided against a
house And a house divided against a house falleth. If Satan also
be divided against himself, how shall his kingdom stand? They
claim that he cast out devils by the prince of the devils.
He says, that can't be, because Satan would be fighting against
his own house. Because you say that I cast out devils by Beelzebub. But then he turns it around and
he says, oh, and if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, then by whom
do your sons cast them out? They claimed to be able to cast
out devils. Therefore their claim, if they were to apply the same
reasoning, made them also the devil's servants. So He silences
them on both accounts. They were the children of the
devil. They didn't cast out devils. And yet they accused Him of being
of the devil, because He actually did cast them out. In verse 20,
But if I with the finger of God cast out devils, no doubt the
kingdom of God is come upon you." Then he gives this analogy. We
can see the analogy more easily than we can see what it means.
When a strong man armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in
peace. It's pretty easy to see that.
He's got a moat around his castle. He can't get at him. High walls. heavy armament, strong guards,
and inside, his prisoners. And he's totally at peace. Nobody's even attacking him,
or thinking that they can attack him, because he has his captives
in prison, and he's at peace. He's just sitting in his easy
chair, thinking everything's just fine. That's what the picture
is here. But, he says, Jesus says, When
a strong man armed keeps his palace, his goods are in peace.
But when a stronger than he shall come upon him and overcome him,
he takes away from him all his armor wherein he trusted, and
he divides his spoil. Now, in this analogy, the strong
man is the devil. His goods are the people who
are unsaved in the world, the unregenerate. including the elect
and non-elect. And so when Satan rules in the
hearts of men, that's where his palace is. It's in the hearts
of men. When he rules in the hearts of men by deceit and by
unbelief, the men, they don't think there's anything wrong.
Unregenerate men is at peace with the devil's doctrine. This
is just the way we are. We're at peace with lies. We're
okay with lies. Just feed me more. I'm at peace.
And the devil's at peace, and they're at peace, and nobody
even knows better. The man who's a captive doesn't
even realize he's under bondage. He's so at peace. But then the strong man comes,
and he takes away from the devil his armor that he trusted in.
What was the armor he trusted in? What did the devil do? He usurped God's authority. How did he do that? He tempted
men to sin. Men were made in the image of
God to worship God, but the devil tempted men to sin in Adam, and
in Adam they fell, and what happened? Because they sinned against God,
God's justice was against them, and His wrath was upon them,
and the sentence of condemnation fell upon us. And the devil,
who was a murderer from the beginning, he thought, I've got him. They're
my captives. They're under the bondage of
fear, because they fear God. They fear Him in a way that causes
them to never approach. They hide. They make up excuses. And they can't come to God for
mercy. He's at peace. And these men
are under the fear of bondage, who don't know the light of the
gospel. because they're under the sentence
of condemnation. And the devil thinks he's deceived
them, he's murdered them, he now accuses them. He holds God
as if he is controlling their outcome. He holds God to do against
these men what they deserve and kill them. And so everything's
fine. But the Lord Jesus Christ comes
and takes away his armor. How does he do that? Every issue
is settled in the court of heaven. If I wanted to go out and change,
let's say, signs in the town, or do something, I have to get
permission from the government, don't I? And if it's an issue
where someone's done me wrong, I've got to take it to the courts.
Everything ultimately has to be handled by the law. And the
court is where the judgment of the law is made on all matters. And so the Lord Jesus Christ,
He goes to the court of heaven. In order to defeat the devil,
He goes to heaven's court. His people are under the debt
of their sin and under the wrath of God. And He answers that debt
with His own blood. Pays the ransom. The remittance
is made. And God forgives all their sin.
Death is taken away from them. Sin reigned unto death. Now righteousness
reigns unto eternal life. The devil has no more armament.
He cannot get God to come against his people. If God be for us,
who can be against us? It's God that justifies. Who
can condemn us? Christ died. And this is the
way it is. And so in 2 Corinthians 4, listen
to the way it says it here. If our gospel, in verse 3, if
our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost, 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 into them. For we preach not ourselves,
but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servants for Jesus'
sake." First of all, Christ disarmed Satan in heaven. In the court
of heaven, God ruled against Satan and cast him out. Secondly,
Jesus told Peter in Matthew 16, that I will build my church and
the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." Because Christ has
overcome Satan in his death on the cross, and God judged Satan
because of that, Because he received full compensation from Christ
for his people. Therefore the gospel goes and
nothing, not even the gates of hell can prevent the light of
the glorious gospel of Christ to shine to his people. And when
it shines in our hearts, we see what's true in heaven. We see
what Christ has done. We see that, as it says in Hebrews
chapter 2, verse 14, that by his death, he destroyed him that
had the power of death. He took away from him his armament
that he trusted in. And so if you look at Ephesians
chapter 6, you see this in our walk. Not only did He do this
at the cross, not only did He do this when the gospel first
came to us, but look at this in Ephesians chapter 6. Verse
10. Finally, my brethren, be strong
in the Lord, and in the power of His might. Put on the whole
armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles
of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh
and blood, but against principalities and against powers, against the
rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness
in high places. Wherefore, take unto you the
whole armor of God." What is that? Well look, he says in verse
14, "...having your loins girt about with truth." Don't look
for a 44 Magnum. Don't think of a Horvitzer, or
whatever the name of it is, the cannon, or a nuclear bomb, or
planes. Don't think of political manipulations
in the world. Your loins gird about with truth,
having the breastplate of righteousness, your feet shod with the preparation
of the gospel. And above all, take the shield
of faith. Wherewith ye may be able to quench
all the fiery darts of the wicked, and take the helmet of salvation,
and the word of God, the sword of the Spirit, which is the word
of God, praying always with all prayer and supplications in the
Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance, and supplication
for all saints and for me, that utterance may be given unto me,
that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of
the gospel." You see how Satan's kingdom has been gutted? His goods, the men he held in
his kingdom, have been taken from him. Christ has spoiled
his kingdom. He takes his people right out
of it. He preaches the gospel, the light shines, and men are
translated from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of
his dear son. Acts 26, 18 says something like
Jesus sent Paul, he says, I'm going to send you to the Gentiles
to open their eyes, to deliver them from the power of Satan.
to God and that they might receive inheritance with all them through
faith that is in me. And so you see, this is the gospel. Satan was destroyed the cross.
Satan was cast out of heaven. In the preaching of the gospel
we hear and we believe and we see what God has done. And God
puts us in his kingdom and we walk in the truth and the righteousness
and the salvation and the word of God and all these things.
And God is the one who shuts him down. God is the one, the
Lord Jesus Christ. Let's pray.