The title of the lesson is Truly
Following Christ. And that's what we want to do,
isn't it? I want to follow Christ. Following Christ is salvation. Not based upon our following
Him, but because of the grace of God that brings us to follow
Him. And really that title is taken
from the latter part of this lesson, But I wanted to emphasize
it as we go through here. This lesson begins in verse 14,
starts off with two miracles that Christ performed. One is
the miracle of healing, again, which points to the greater healing
that Christ gives, the great physician gives to his people
from our sin sickness and death. He has the power to heal physically,
Healing physically is nothing compared to our spiritual healing
by the blood of Christ. He's our medicine. He's our physician. He's our healer. And then another
one has to do with healing sick people and many that were possessed
of devils, demons. And I'll talk about that, and
of course that points to his spiritual power to overcome the
devil and his demons in our lives, which takes many forms and all
of that. But here it opens up, listen to this, verse 14, and
when Jesus was come into Peter's house, now this is the apostle
Peter, the disciple, who is sometimes called the spokesperson of the
Apostles. I don't know that Peter was appointed
to be the spokesperson of the Apostles, but he was just the
one who was more ready to talk sometimes. And you'll see many
instances where Peter let his tongue get ahead of his brain.
But then there are other times when he spoke the truth. I think
about when, later on, in Matthew 16, when Christ asked, who do
men say that I am? And Peter, when Christ confronted
the disciples, he said, whom do you say that I am? And Peter
spoke up, and he spoke aright. He spoke by the power of the
Spirit. He said, you are the Christ. You're the Messiah, the
Son of God. And you remember, Christ said,
flesh and blood didn't reveal that to you, Peter, but my Father
which is in heaven. And then you know about Peter
when he denied Christ three times. We read about that when Peter
said, I'll never deny, I'll die with you. And Christ said before
the cock crows three times, you'll deny me three times. And so you
see Peter, Peter's a good example of us all. Sinners saved by grace. And I can remember, especially
in my youth, but I do it sometimes today, too, even in my maturity,
letting my tongue get ahead of my brain. And we do that sometimes. But you see a marked difference
in Peter's attitude, I think, as he's portrayed in the gospel
narratives. than as he speaks and writes
in his letters, 1 and 2 Peter. So you see that, the maturity. But he was a believer. He believed
in the Lord Jesus Christ. He had a home. It says, and when
Jesus was come into Peter's house, he saw his wife's mother laid
and sick of a fever. This is Peter's mother-in-law.
And so it says in verse 15, and Christ touched her hand and the
fever left her, and she arose and ministered or served them."
What a miracle. Again, we see Christ touching
a sick person. I don't know what brought on
this fever. It could have been something
that was contagious. You remember I mentioned that
when Christ touched the leper last week. That was forbidden
by law because it would defile a person. For you to touch a
leper would defile you. But Christ could do it and still
keep the law because it didn't defile him. When he touched the
leper, the leper was healed. And that's the key. And I made
that point again, I'll make it here again because it's so important
for us to see that Christ died for our sins in a real way, a
judicial way. but it was a real suffering unto
death based upon our sins imputed to him, but our sins did not
defile him. He didn't have to wear a mask
or get a shot or anything to go through these. He didn't have
to even get the booster. He didn't have to do that because
he is God manifest in the flesh. He's undefilable. He's incorruptible. And then what the scripture says
of him, the incorruptible Christ, So our sins didn't defile Him
or corrupt Him or enter into Him in any way. They were charged
to Him legally, and that's a real issue. And because of that, He
suffered and bled and died on that cross. But one thing about
it here, see, this is a This is a great miracle that points
us, as I said, to our spiritual healing from our sin sickness.
Christ is able to heal us. He said the whole need not a
physician. He said, I came to call sinners
to repentance. And that's how he heals us. He
gives us a new heart. Somebody, you know, today it's
pretty common that they perform heart transplants on the physical
heart. And of course, I know from firsthand,
and some of you all do too, what they can do with angioplasty
and stents and all of that, and bypass, all of that. But this
heart, at some point in time, that God appointed before the
foundation of the world, this old heart's gonna stop. Yours
is gonna stop. But he gives us a new spiritual
heart that will beat forever and ever and ever. spiritual
life that'll never die, never get sick, never sorrow. That's what this points to. I
put down here in your lesson, Christ gives us the cure for
our legal condemnation by establishing righteousness for us which God
has imputed to us. That's the cure for our legal
problems that separates us from God. Sin separates us from God.
And the only way that sin can be taken care of is for justice
to be satisfied. And you can say that's a legal
cure. If you get in trouble with the law and you get a lawyer,
and he finds out how, he or she finds out how they can get you
off legally now, not by some loop in the law, but legally,
and that's a cure for your problem. But then there's the cure for
the spiritual disease of our sin and our depravity. And in
spiritual death, we've gotta have ears to hear and eyes to
see. Christ gives us that. And I want
you to take note of one thing here. I just put this as a sideline. Peter was not, as the heretical
Catholics contend, a celibate priest or a pope. He had a home,
he had a wife. And this proves it. And they
probably had children. He was an apostle. And he was
one that Christ commissioned to preach the gospel. And so
any notion that God forbids priests or ministers or whatever to marry,
the false church of Rome goes contrary to the scriptures. Peter
had a wife. And really there's no historical
proof that Peter even went to Rome. Now I know a lot of the,
you'll read a lot of histories about it, and they'll say Peter
went to Rome and he was crucified upside down. I know he died a
martyr's death, it may have been crucifixion, it may have been
in Rome, I don't know. But I know this, he wasn't the
first pope. And he wasn't a celibate priest.
And if you are a celibate priest, that means nothing in the kingdom
of God. Absolutely nothing. You can take
the vow of celibacy or what they ought to take, every one of them
ought to take the vow of silence because they need to shut up.
But that does nothing to contribute to a righteousness that we need
to be saved. That's all Christ and it's all
grace. So Peter, Jesus healed his mother-in-law
and the healing was so immediate and so complete that the moment
she was healed, she got up and served them. She didn't even
have to have the, what do they call that? The convalescence.
She didn't have to go to the rehab or anything like that.
She just immediately started serving them. It says, immediately ministered unto them. Okay, look at verse 16 and 17. It says, when the evening was
come, evening, 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. And it says that it might be
fulfilled, which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying, himself
took our infirmities and bear our sicknesses. Now, of course,
that's in fulfillment, most commentators say, of Isaiah 54. Verse four,
where it says, surely he hath borne our griefs and carried
our sorrows. And again, I want to emphasize
that doesn't mean that he took our sicknesses into himself.
He didn't become sick in himself. He's God manifest in the flesh.
Keep that in mind. But this, what I believe is happening
here is the Holy Spirit is inspiring Matthew to tell us to look beyond
the miracle of physical healing. Look beyond that. Now, I'm with
you. I wanna be physically healed.
I'm going to the doctor Tuesday, and I hope he can give me some
relief from this arthritis. I don't think he's gonna heal
me. I don't think he is, because I don't think there's any healing
for arthritis. God could do it. I mean, all he'd have to do is
just say the word and I'd be healed. And you know that. So
we all want physical healing. But the point of these miracles
with Christ in the Gospels here is to look beyond those to the
greater healing that I'm emphasizing. And so here he brought those
who are possessed of the devil. Now demon possession, there's
a lot of mythology and a lot of lies. that revolve around
what people think of as demon possession. And of course, Hollywood
hasn't helped there, you know that, with movies like The Exorcist
and all of that. Demon possession, a lot of times
back then, somebody could have a mental illness, and they called
it demon possession, and it could have been. Now Satan has demons.
We don't deny demons. And somebody's talked about a
preacher years ago who got into the study of demonology and he
went crazy and killed himself. I don't know about all that.
But there are demons. And our shield and safety against demons
is the word of God, especially the gospel. Look over at 2 Corinthians
chapter three. Now, by nature, I'll say it this
way, and I don't think this is an exaggeration. By nature, we
are all somewhat demon-possessed. And you can't tell it by looking
at us. We're not going around going crazy and cussing and spitting
and vomiting and all that. But here's what the Bible says
in 2 Corinthians 4, verse 3. Look at this, but 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 unto them." That's Satan's goal in the minds
of the non-elect and in the minds of lost people. to keep them
from seeing the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
Now look at verse five. Verse five, for we preach not
ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord. Now if we preach ourselves,
we're doing something inspired by Satan. If we preach salvation
conditioned on ourselves, And he says, and ourselves, your
servants for Jesus' sake. Now here's the cure for that
demon possession, that blindness, that deception, that darkness
that Satan wants to keep us under. For God who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness has shined in our hearts, our minds,
our affections, our wills to give the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And his face
means that which identifies and distinguishes him. It's his glorious
person and his finished work of redemption on the cross. To
put away our sins. You see, Satan is the accuser
of the brethren. He accuses us. But his arrows
of accusation cannot stick if we have the shield of faith,
the robe of righteousness on. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It's God that justifies. Who
can condemn us? It's Christ that does. So the
cure for demon possession there is not holy water. It's not laying
a cross on their heads or any kind of mystical mythology like
that. It's the word of God. It's preaching
Christ. The glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. And look what happens here in
this. It says, when the evening was
come, they brought him many that were possessed with the devils.
He cast out the spirits with his word. His word is powerful. But think about this now. We
have his word. We have the Bible. We have the
gospel. And that's why we have the authority
of Christ in us because we preach his word. And it says, and healed all that
were sick, that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by Isaiah the
prophet, saying himself took our infirmities and bear our
sicknesses. Well, Christ is the one who heals physically. You
know, we go to doctors, we use the means, but you know what? If you're healed physically,
it's God who heals you. You know that? He's the one who
gave that doctor that knowledge and that skill, who brought forth
men to develop these instruments of healing. And we know it's
appointed unto men once to die after that, the judgment. I don't
care how many doctors you see and how many procedures they
do on you, or how much medicine you take, if it's your time to
go, you're gone. Isn't that right? Nothing's gonna
stop. I mentioned that brother out
in Louisiana, Bart Barfield. He's about 80, 82 years old,
I think. And he's had diabetes for years,
but now it's the lung cancer. Well, is the Lord gonna heal
him physically? Don't know. Right now, it doesn't look well
for him. He's in ICU and hard to breathe, you know that. So
we don't know. We may spare him for another
day, I don't know. But if the Lord is gonna take
him, what a glorious sight that our brother Bart Barfield's gonna
see. Isn't that right? Now I believe that. Do you believe
that? I believe it. And I'm not saying I wanna die
right now. I'd like to see that little girl in there grow up
a little bit. I would. And you all know what I'm talking
about. You know exactly. But we're all standing in line
waiting our turn, aren't we? That's what we're doing. And
if I live to be 80, 90 years old, I don't know. If I feel
like I do sometimes these days, I don't think it'd be a very
pleasant thing. Hopefully I'll get some relief from that. But
you know, the Lord's gonna call us home. And when he says, this
is in fulfillment, when Isaiah made that statement over in Isaiah
53, 54 in verse four, it's 53, isn't it? I think I put 54 in
your lesson. Surely he hath borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows. That's 53, so you might wanna
correct that in your lesson. I do make mistakes. but he's pointing us beyond the
physical to the spiritual and eternal. And if you're one of
God's sheep, what did he say? He said, I laid down my life
for you. And what did he do when he laid down his life for us?
He took your infirmities and he bore your sicknesses. He wasn't
contaminated by them. He wasn't made sick himself,
but he bore them, and he satisfied the justice of God for them,
and he brought forth an everlasting righteousness. Well, let's go
on. Now look at verse 18. Now when Jesus saw great multitudes
about him, he gave commandment to depart unto the other side. He's going over the Sea of Galilee
to the other side. And all those great numbers are
here. Now, he's got a crowd. Could you imagine a preacher
leaving a crowd these days? He said, we better stay here,
you know. Christ said, let's go to the other side. And he
gave commandment to depart. He didn't say, boys, y'all think
we ought to go to the other side? He didn't say, let's take a vote
whether we should stay here or go. No, he gave a commandment.
We're gone. We're gone. And I make sure that
I put this in the lesson, because we need to understand this. Every
place Christ went in his earthly walk, he did so by his own predeterminate
counsel and will. He had a purpose. And you know
what his purpose was? That divine appointment given
him by the Father to save his lost sheep. He told his disciples
back in John 4, he said, I must needs go through Samaria. Why didn't they say, well Lord,
all you gotta do is heal a few people and you'll get a crowd
here. That's what religion's all about, getting a crowd. Now
don't get me wrong, I'd love to see a crowd. Wouldn't you? I sometimes grieve over the fact
that we have small numbers, but I know it's the purpose of God.
And my grief is not going against the sovereign will of God, it's
just I'd love to see more people come to know Christ. And I'll
say it this way, especially our loved ones, wouldn't you? We're
human, we don't have to act inhuman to be Christians. I'd love to
see my earthly family. My children and grandchildren,
all of the, I can't tell you how much comfort I receive in
myself knowing that our son Aaron knew the Lord. That he's with
the Lord. And then I've got other family
members that I don't have any confidence of that at all, and
it grieves me. I know that I cannot deceive
myself on that though. But Christ had some sheep on
that other side. And that's where he went. You
remember in John chapter 10, he said, other sheep that I have
that are not of this foe, them also I must bring. And that's
what he's doing. And that's why he's given the
gospel to his church, so that we can go out. And somebody said
one time, we're to be fishers of men, not keepers of the aquarium.
Well, we're to do both. We're to preach to the church,
we're to preach to the lost. And I believe we're to do it
every time we preach. So, he must needs go to the other side.
And it was all for that purpose. Well, look at verses 19 and 20.
And a certain scribe came and said unto him, Master, I will
follow thee whithersoever thou goest. Think about that. I'll
follow you wherever you go. That's why I titled the lesson,
Truly Following Christ. I want to follow Christ. Well,
what if he goes down there and tells the scribes and the Pharisees,
you're a bunch of hypocrites. You appear righteous, but inside
you're dead. Will you follow him there? What does it say in Hebrews chapter
What is it, 13? That he went outside the camp
and we're to follow him outside the camp, that is outside the
confines of social popular religion. And do what? Remember what it
says? Follow him and do what? Bear
his reproach. That's following Christ. Think about it. What did he say? He said, take up your cross and
follow me. Now taking up a cross is not
a pleasant thing to do. What does the cross mean? It
means suffering. Now I say it's not all suffering.
I mean, we're here this morning in the comfort of our fellowship,
basking in the sunlight of Christ. And I love that. This is like
our oasis in the desert, you see. Feeding on the word of God
together in love and unity, knowing that Christ is our only hope.
Knowing that were it not for his grace, we wouldn't think
a thing of his word, his gospel, his righteousness. So this man,
a scribe, now you know about the scribes, they were the scholars.
They're sometimes called lawyers, Robert, but they're not lawyers
like you are. They were lawyers because they
were considered experts in the law of Moses. And that's why
they were called lawyers. I had a jailer up in Greenup
County, Kentucky one time. He got upset with the county
attorney, a lawyer. And I would go down there with
an elderly man to preach to the prisoners in the Greenup County
jail. Going up on the elevator one time, The jailer asked me,
he said, what does it say in the Bible, woe be unto the lawyers? He wanted to put that on the
county attorney. And I told him, I said, well,
I told him where it was, and I said, but that doesn't mean
lawyers like you think. That means the scribes. And the
reason it said woe be unto the lawyers, the scribes, is because
they, like the Pharisees, were leading people in a way of righteousness
by works of the law. a false gospel, works-oriented
salvation. Do you remember when Christ said
back over in Matthew 520, he says, unless you have accepted
your righteousness, exceed the righteousness of the scribes
and the Pharisees, you shall in no wise enter the kingdom
of heaven. So these scribes were the scholars, they were the commentators,
they wrote the commentaries, they taught the people, and just
like the Pharisees, They taught salvation by the works of men,
conditioned on sinners, not by grace. And they despised Jesus
of Nazareth on the whole. Now this man, he kind of separated
from the other scribes, but based upon Christ's response to him,
I think it's safe to say this man had an evil motive. This
is what he says. Now the scribe said, Master,
I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest. And Jesus saith unto
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. It seems to
me Christ knowing our hearts, he knew this man wanted to follow
Christ because he saw Christ perform all these miracles. And
he felt like he could get some physical attainments and possessions
by doing this. A home, so to speak. Now, to
be a Christian, you don't have to be homeless. Peter had a home. Remember, he went to his home?
So that's not what it's saying. But it reminds me of Simon Magus
back in the book of Acts. You remember when he saw Peter
and the apostles doing miracles? He said, give me this power.
He wanted that power. He didn't want to follow Christ.
He didn't believe the gospel. He just wanted that power so
he could get money or gain possession. And it seems to me that this
fellow, and we're not told that the fellow did follow Christ. So he said, the foxes have holes and all
of that. So I believe that the Lord exposed him. Look at verse
21. It says, another of his disciples
said unto him, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father.
And this is that passage where he says, but Jesus saith unto
him, follow me, let the dead bury the dead. Now, Burying the dead is something
necessary. When one of our loved ones dies,
we prepare for their burial, go to the funeral home, go to
the funeral, go to the graveside. And so you look at passages like
this, you say, well, why did the Lord respond that way? Because,
you know, at first glance, when you first hear that, that might
sound kind of cruel, doesn't it? Kind of mean. But it wasn't. Christ spoke the truth always,
without fail. And doesn't sometimes the truth
hurt? Doesn't sometimes the truth seem so unkind and mean? It's not intended to be. The
truth is the safety and the security of our souls. And I believe his point was this,
I've got this written out in your lesson. Even though it's
necessary to bury the dead, others, even spiritually dead people
can do that. What this man needed was to follow
Christ. And so Christ says, let the spiritually
dead take care of the things they can do. But we know the
Lord has a far greater work for us to do. and we must be about
our father's business. So I put it like this. If a loved
one of yours dies, you do what you need to do to help bury them,
unless it interferes with the business that God has called
us to do. And somebody may think I'm cruel
about this. If I'm off at a meeting preaching
the gospel somewhere, And one of y'all dies, should I stop
that meeting and fly back here? I don't think so. Now what you
should do is wait for me to get back. Now if I was off on vacation
or something like that, I would come back. Does that make sense
to you? Because if I'm called to preach
the gospel, that's what I'm to be about my father's business.
So y'all think about that. I'll probably die and y'all just
have somebody just throw me in a hole somewhere. But I believe
that's what he's saying here, is the important things for us
is not the burial of the dead, it's following Christ. And he says, let the dead bury
the dead. And then verse 23 says, when
he was entered into the ship, his disciples followed him. Well,
let me give you these things real quickly. I've got them at
the end of your lesson. What is it to follow Christ? It's
to believe, trust, depend, and cling to him in the glory of
his person, the power of his finished work. That's faith,
God-given faith, following Christ. Secondly, it means denying self,
standing in opposition to all that would deny or oppose Christ. That's God-given repentance.
You can't follow Christ and follow the world. You can't follow him
with a divided mind, divided heart. Thirdly, it means to seek
and strive to be like him. That's perseverance, following
Christ. Believe his word, follow his,
I wanna follow Christ. Now, sometimes it goes against
my fleshly nature to follow Christ. Fourthly, it means to be a witness
in this world to the lost, seeking his sheep. That's evangelism,
confession. And then fifthly, it means to
fellowship with brethren in the love and truth of the gospel
and the whole word of God. And that's God-given love. That's
what it is to follow Christ. And may the Lord enable us to
do so. Okay.