Today's section seems to be just
a little joining passage between the meal that Lord had participated in at Simon's
house that we looked at last week and the well-known parable
of the sower which comes next in this chapter. But I think
Luke opens up in the first few verses of chapter eight a whole
range of subjects which I thought were quite interesting to think
about and so I decided that we would look at these verses separately. So I want to read Luke chapter
8 and verse 1. And it came to pass afterward
that he went throughout every city and village preaching and
showing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God and the twelve
were with him. and certain women which had been
healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary called Magdalene, out of
whom went seven devils, and Joanna, the wife of Chusa, Herod's steward,
and Susanna, and many others, which ministered unto him of
their substance. Amen. May the Lord bless to us
this little reading from his word. As I say, I thought that
there were a number of interesting little things in this passage,
little ideas that were sort of there that might easily be passed
over if we didn't just stop and pause and think about them. And
the first thing that I thought was very important was that Luke
is showing us in these verses just how hard-working and methodical
the Lord Jesus was about his own preaching ministry. We learn
that he left Capernaum and he appears to have systematically
visited many of the towns and villages throughout this whole
region of Galilee. And he did so, we're told, with
this purpose, preaching and showing the glad tidings of the kingdom
of God. And by this, we learn that the
Lord's ministry was a preaching ministry, or we could equally
say a prophetic ministry. And in this way, he fulfilled
the Old Testament type of the Messiah who would come, who was
foretold by Moses, who said, the Lord thy God will raise up
unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren. like unto me. And so Moses had
spoken of this one who would come, the prophet, and starting
at Moses, beginning at Moses and down through the history
of the Old Testament revelation, the Old Testament believers and
the Old Testament church, this Messiah, this one who would come
as a prophet, had been long foretold and anticipated. And what this
shows us is that prophesying and preaching can be considered
as synonymous so far as a prophet preaches and a preacher prophesies. A prophet does not always foretell
the future. And we've kind of given that
word prophet the sense of foretelling what is going to happen in the
future. But really, the central sense
of the word is not foretelling, but forth telling. It is declaring
what the Lord says. and a prophet does not always
foretell the future. In this broader sense, we find
that it is a declaration of God's word, a revelation of what God
has done, is doing, and certainly will do, and it brings God's
warnings to light as well. And the Gospel writers, Matthew,
Mark, Luke and John, they record the Lord's miracles, certainly
they do. And they record his contentious
encounters with the scribes and the Pharisees, for example. and
they record his preached sermons. And next week, Lord willing,
if things go to plan, we will spend a little bit of time thinking
about the parable of the sower, which follows these verses. And
that is an example of the Lord's preaching, the Lord often preached
in parables. But generally, we should understand
that the miracles that the Lord performed were performed to complement
his preaching. And these sermons, as I say,
often in the form of parables, served to communicate to the
Lord's hearers the gospel. what Luke here calls the glad
tidings of the kingdom of God. And I really thought that that
was a lovely little phrase. And I just draw your attention
to it. Perhaps you might think about
it in the coming days and just go back and reflect upon it. The glad tidings of the kingdom
of God. That is what the Lord Jesus Christ
preached. The glad tidings of the kingdom
of God. Now, we're going to come back
to that in a moment or two, but I'm sure that these also, these
times with the Lord as he was preaching, as he travelled through
these villages, that they had another benefit too, an ancillary
benefit if you like. They were an example to the disciples
and they prepared Christ's disciples for their own ministries in days
to come, in the days following Christ's death and resurrection
and ascension. so that here as the Lord goes
through all the towns and villages of this region of Galilee, and
as he preaches, and as he shares the glad tidings of the kingdom
of God, the 12 apostles, the 12 disciples were with him. And
through the thoroughness of the Lord and the diligence of the
Lord in visiting every town to preach the gospel to the people,
we find that this was part of the preparation and education
of the disciples for their own ministry after the Lord returned
to heaven. So the Lord went through these
villages, he went with these men, the twelve as they are called
here, but we also learn that there was a group of women who
went along with them as well. and several of them are named
for us. Here, for example, we meet Mary
Magdalene for the first time. And there are a number of Marys
spoken of in the Gospels. And therefore this title, Magdalene,
is given to this Mary to distinguish her from the others. and there's
been several explanations as to why she was given this name
or what this name means, but probably the most natural explanation
is that this was the town that she came from. She was Mary of
Magdala, or Magdala, and so she was called Mary Magdalene, Mary
from Magdala. And I want to just make a little
point here that there's no reason to assume that this Mary is the
same as, for example, Mary the sister of Martha and the brother
of Lazarus. or that she was the woman at
the feast that was hosted by Simon the Pharisee in the previous
chapter. That lady came and she bathed
the feet of Jesus with her tears and she applied ointment to his
feet. But she is an unnamed lady. She
was called a sinner. And we saw last week that that
word is elsewhere used, that she was a sinner, is elsewhere
used to implicate the person as a harlot. and it's the linking
of this Mary Magdalene here in this verse with the lady from
the house of Simon the Pharisee that has given us the idea that
Mary Magdalene may have been a prostitute prior to her healing
by Christ. but I don't think there's any
real evidence for that connection. This Mary does, however, appear
to have been a poor soul. She was much blessed of the Lord
and we're told that he cast seven devils out of her. Now that number,
seven, implies that her possession was severe and Mary is mentioned
amongst this group of women, this number of women who had
been healed of evil spirits and infirmities. So here along with
the Lord going through all of these villages are his 12 disciples
and in addition to that, a group of women amongst whom Mary is
one. And there's no doubt that Mary
loved her Saviour. Here she was, touring around
these little towns and these dusty villages with Jesus and
his disciples. Later, she would be present during
the hours of the Lord's agony on the cross. She remained close
by the cross until the Lord gave up the ghost. She waited then
until Christ's body was taken down in order to see where it
would be taken. And she watched as it was placed
in the garden sepulchre by Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea. She
was first at the tomb with spices on the first day of the week
when Christ arose, and she was first to see the risen Saviour,
by which the Lord Jesus Christ honoured her more than any other
disciple. That little fact caused Robert
Hawker to suggest, and I like this, that Christ will be most
gracious where Satan has been most cruel. And that's a sentiment
worth considering by those of the Lord's people who struggle
greatly with the trials and troubles of this life, as Mary Magdalene
did. Two more women are mentioned
specifically among the many others. And one of them is a lady called
Joanna, the wife of Chusa, Herod's steward, and Susanna. So that this must have been quite
a large group of people who moved around the countryside from town
to town with the Lord. Joanna, this wife of Chusa, she
too was at the garden tomb on the resurrection morning and
she too met with Christ on that occasion. We're told that she
was the wife of Chusa, Herod's steward, which thought in itself
is really quite provoking. How is it that this lady, wife
of Herod's steward, finds herself to be wandering around the little
villages of Galilee with the Lord Jesus Christ and his disciples? It implies that she was a woman
of some honour, some standing in the community, but here she
is with the Lord. Now, whether Chusa was still
alive or whether he was now dead, we can't tell, but she was evidently
at liberty to travel with the Lord and his disciples and these
other women. Susanna means lily and the phrase
is that these ladies, Mary, Magdalene, Joanna and Susanna ministered
unto him, that is the Lord Jesus, of their substance. And that
seems to imply that these women were sufficiently wealthy to
be able to make these travels. and perhaps also to cater for
the Lord and his disciples in their journey because they ministered
to the Lord out of their substance, their wealth. At the very least,
it shows the gratefulness of these women. They wanted to be
close to the Lord. They had received blessings from
the Lord in body and in soul. And by way of thanks, they gave
of their substance. They provided for him out of
their earthly wealth. And that also indicates perhaps
the poverty of Christ and his disciples, because they benefited
from the generosity and the provision of these women. And this too,
I'm sure, would be a lesson for the future. The disciples learned
how the Lord would provide for their needs as they, in turn,
went forth to preach the gospel. And the Lord's people also learned
how to demonstrate their thanksgiving to support and to minister to
those by whom the gospel is ministered to them. However, let me return
briefly to the Lord Jesus and the way that Luke describes his
preaching as we bring our thoughts to an end here today. The Lord,
we're told, was showing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God. And I think that that's a lovely
phrase, a lovely description of the gospel of grace at the
root or at the foundation of the church. I don't think we
should overlook this phrase, the glad tidings of the kingdom
of God. The kingdom of God had long been
anticipated by the Jews and now it was among them in the person
of Christ. And Christ's purpose was to gather
his church and establish his kingdom. Now the gospel literally
means glad tidings. And showing it is preaching,
is declaring it. Showing glad tidings is preaching
the gospel. It's exactly the same thing.
And Christ showed the nature of the kingdom of God. He showed
what it is. It's a kingdom. It's a united
people, a united family, bound together, a divinely saved people. and he showed what the kingdom
of God will accomplish, what it will achieve, bringing many
sons to glory. And he revealed in his preaching
the doctrines of the kingdom of God, its doctrines of sovereign
grace, its doctrines of forgiveness of sin by Christ's atoning blood
and of righteousness apart from the law. All these things, Christ
preached in his sermons, in his parables, for the salvation of
his people and for the gathering in of his elect. And that is
simply what we do today. That is what the church continues
to do. When we gather on the Lord's
Day, or when we share fellowship together on a Tuesday, what we
are doing in the 21st century is what Christ did in the first
century. In all of these cities and villages
of Galilee, we are showing the glad tidings of the kingdom of
God. just as the Lord Jesus Christ
showed the people of his day. He showed them that there was
a better righteousness than they could earn by their works. He
showed them that there was a holiness that surpassed the righteousness
of the scribes and Pharisees. He showed them that there was
an acceptable purity in the sight of God, which is freely given
on account of the Saviour's representative sacrifice. and enjoyed by faith
in Christ. And that remains our message
today. We may not have been privileged
to walk the highways and byways of Galilee with the Saviour and
his little band of followers, but we may enjoy the same gospel
and by grace appreciate the same truths as the Lord himself preached. May we continue to do so until
the Lord takes us into his presence. Amen. Amen.