He's got to be better than ours. Maybe. Ask me later. Book of
Luke chapter 4 and we'll be starting in verse 31. It says, Then he went down to
Capernaum, a city of Galilee, and was teaching them on the
Sabbaths. And they were astonished at his
teaching, for his word was with authority. Now in the synagogue
there was a man who had a spirit of an unclean demon, and he cried
out with a loud voice, saying, Let us alone. What have we to
do with you, Jesus of Nazareth? Did you come to destroy us? I
know who you are, the Holy One of God." But Jesus rebuked him,
saying, Be quiet and come out of him. And when the demon had
thrown him in their midst, it came out of him and did not hurt
him. Then they were all amazed and spoke among themselves, saying,
What a word this is! For with authority and power
he commands the unclean spirits, and they come out. And the report
about him went out into every place in the surrounding region.
Now he arose from the synagogue and entered Simon's house, but
Simon's wife's mother was sick with a high fever, and they made
request of him concerning her. So he stood over her and rebuked
the fever, and it left her. And immediately she arose and
served them." Would you pray for us, Matt? I believe we were last in Luke. It was last year sometime in
August, so it's been a while. But we ended around verse 31. And this is when Jesus, he casts
out an unclean spirit. It says here that he went down
to Capernaum, a city of Galilee, and he was teaching them on the
Sabbaths, kind of like what Paul did. And they were astonished
at his teaching, for his word was with authority. This is as
one who speaks with authority compared to one who doesn't.
I'm sure we've all been in situations like that. Some people like to
speak for the one in charge, and others are the one in charge. It's the difference between the
CEO and the doorman, or the teacher and the student. God has the
authority. That's just the end. There are,
there's no tiers of people, there's no flow chart or anything like
that, organizational chart. God has the power and the word
of God is the same. That word being Christ. The one
who preaches does not have, the one who preaches isn't us up
here. The one who preaches does not have the authority or the
power. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 2, and my speech and my preaching
were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration
of the Spirit and of power. That your faith should not be
in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. Because nobody
up here has been given a power. Not of themselves. If the words
that come forth from our mouths end in the saving of an elect,
it still wasn't us. Don't trust in men to save you.
Trust in the one who has the authority. Not only should you trust in
him, but you should also believe. Knowing facts and having faith
are two different things. You can have facts and still
not believe. I'm trying to think of someone.
There was that Ethiopian eunuch. He did have facts. He didn't
know what they meant, but he did have them. It wasn't until
Philip came along and explained to him that he had faith. And
it wasn't Philip doing it. It was God and his power. It
says in Romans, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word
of God. And that's power right there.
That's power. Just as Jesus spoke to them and
taught on the Sabbath, they were astonished at his teaching for
his word was with authority. And I'll stop. Does anybody have
any questions or thoughts? And we'll move on to the next
couple of verses there. Now in the synagogue there was
a man who had a spirit of an unclean demon, and he cried out
with a loud voice saying, let us alone. What have we to do
with you, Jesus of Nazareth? Did you come to destroy us? I
know who you are, the Holy One of God. Now first of all, I don't
know whether demonic spirits possess people anymore, It doesn't
matter too much, but it hasn't stopped the Hucksters from staging
exorcisms on TV or up on the church stages. At best, it's
just a spectacle. It's just a spectacle. But at
worst, it's a mocking of the power of Jesus and of God. Because as far as I can tell,
only Jesus was able to cast out demons and after he bestowed
that power to some apostles or disciples as well, no one else
was recorded to have that power. It was there for a time. Yet the idea that we can draw
on the power of God is simply reciting some words or doing
some motion and then these evil spirits just come out of the
person, that's just laughable. A lot of movies do that. They'll
hold a cross up to something and then of course they disappear
or whatever, they vaporize. But if we could do that, if just
recite some words, do a ceremony, it's kind of like one, two, three,
you get to the finish line, you get what you want. Why not draw
the power of God to stop a tornado? Or, you know, what if you did
something bad and you reverse time and fix it? Fix a leaky
faucet, I mean, how low can we go here? Turn to Matthew chapter 24, starting in verse 24. This is
Jesus speaking here. It says, and false prophets will rise
and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even
the elect. See, I have told you beforehand.
Therefore, if they say to you, look, he is in the desert, do
not go out, or look, he is in the inner rooms, do not believe
it. For the lightning comes from
the east and flashes from the west, so also will the coming
of the Son of Man be For whatever the carcass is,
there the eagles will be gathered together." I may have written down the wrong
set of verses. I did. Give me just a moment. It was actually supposed to be
the verses where they call Jesus the ruler Or he calls out demons
by the ruler of demons, or Beelzebub. Anyway, I'm sure you all know
that. That's what they accuse him of. The unbelievers of that day,
those religious folk, the scribes, the teachers of the law, they
accused Jesus of casting out demons by the ruler of demons. And they were so certain that
no one could do this this casting out of demons on their own, that
they were willing to lump together Jesus and the boogeyman of the
day in an attempt to save their own
reputations. But Jesus, he turns around and
says to them, every kingdom divided against itself is brought to
desolation and every city or house divided against itself
will not stand. If Satan casts out Satan, he
is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand? Or the way the thinking goes,
only those who are in league with the Lord of demons can cast
out demons, but that's just foolishness. That is a supplanting of God's
sovereignty, who has power over all things. and has put all things
under Jesus' feet. If God does not have power over
demons, he could not have cast Satan out of heaven, or kept
him from Job. And if God does not have power
over demons, then it begs the question, what else does he not
have power over? If Jesus was acting by the power
of Beelzebub, then does that mean no one can
cast out demons? That God has a limit? He can
only go so far? But Jesus had an answer for the
Pharisees. See, apparently their sons, the
sons of these people who are questioning Jesus, were practicing
the dark art. of casting out demons, so Jesus
said to them, and if I cast out demons by Beelzebub, by whom
do your sons cast them out? Therefore they shall be your
judges. Or said in another way, you claim
that the only people who can cast out demons are those who
made a bargain with the ruler of the demons. So your sons are
casting out demons by the ruler of the demons as well? Is that
what you're saying? He was saying that they couldn't
have it both ways. And then the last verse, but if I cast out
demons by the spirit of God, surely the kingdom of God has
come upon you. Now, does anybody have any questions?
Not about the wrong verses I read. They use man's reasoning to try
to fit what they're seeing in with their false worldview. That's
what we all try to do. I mean, we have a belief and then if truth doesn't
fit it, we try to make it fit. Yeah. Easier to move a mountain than
it is to change our beliefs. Alright, third thing about these
two set of verses here, verses 33 and 34, let's take a closer
look at the demon-possessed man. Did you notice where he was found?
I didn't notice this the first time. He's in the synagogue, which is a place of false worship
and strict adherence to works-based salvation. It seems natural to
assume that no demon would want to set foot or even a toe into
a building dedicated to a religion founded on the name of the being
that has power over them. Why would they want to set foot
in a church? But what is a demon except a being that does not
believe God? They would feel content then
among unbelievers, they don't believe God either. The demons
didn't believe God, they knew He existed. That's it. And it says the hearts of the
Pharisees were far from God. Sounds like a perfect pairing,
doesn't it? But here in our passage there
is one key difference between this demon and all the others
that were cast out and the Pharisees. The demon knows the Holy One
of God when he sees him. These Pharisees couldn't place
the man, but this demon recognized him. And you would assume that
the self-proclaimed children of Abraham would recognize the
Son of God that they claimed to worship, but they didn't. He was the exact opposite of
what they thought the Son of God should be. He mingled with sinners instead
of theologians. He forgave sins. Instead of giving
sinners a list of do's and don'ts and acts of penance, he declared
that the law could not make a person clean. Instead of forcing everyone
to adhere to the law for salvation, that's what they thought you
needed to do, this demon in the synagogue recognized
the Son of God. Why didn't they? And that's a
rhetorical question, we all know the answer. Now verse 35, it says, but Jesus rebuked him,
the demon, saying, be quiet and come out of him. And when the
demon had thrown him in their midst, it came out of him and
did not hurt him. And I want to focus on that last
phrase. It says, it came out of him and Did not hurt him. Did not hurt him. Why even record
that part? You would think that after a
demon is cast out, there's no more cause for alarm. There's no reason to have to
be on your guard. The demon's gone. It should be
sufficient that the demon's just out. You know, if the demon no longer
possesses someone, that person cannot be called demon possessed,
but it writes. did not hurt him after it came
out. You know, if we choke on a piece of food and someone helps
us get that piece of food out so we're no longer choking, no
one has to worry about that piece of food hurting us again. It's
out. It can only harm us when it's
in our bodies. Of course, this demon's not a piece of food.
because it is a living being, but we know from the book of
Job that a demon can harm us even from outside of our bodies. So that last phrase is very telling,
and I liken it to the forgiveness of our sins. After Jesus cleansed
us of our sins by the power of His blood, the sins came out
of us and no longer hurt us. They didn't come back. They're
gone. Not only were they cast outside
of our bodies, but He kept them out of reach of us. A person cleansed of sins by
the blood of Christ has no cause to fear that those sins will
cause harm again. Any thoughts? That's right. Go for it. I know that part of
the scripture is that it's about a guy who, among these group
of guys, they go to cast out these demons, and the demons
say, you know, and we don't know you, and they call up. So the hymn in this verse, we're
saying that's applying only to the man that the demons came
out of. I'm wondering if it applies also
to Christ. They didn't hurt him like they
hurt the other people who were cast out. Oh, it didn't go out. No, it didn't go. The hymns,
well, in my Bible, they usually will capitalize the ones that
mean God or Christ. I don't have those. They are
talking about the demon-possessed man. Yeah. And of course, the
demons never hurt him. Capital H. So... Yeah. Well, that's for sure. I don't
think they would dare try to possess him, that's for sure.
But as it pertains to this one man, because Jesus never went
out and just said, alright, all demons possessing all people,
get out. He never said that. But He did
go to particular people and save them. Which is why I compared
it to getting, yeah, redemption of people. Yes, the swine. That was Legion, I believe. Yeah. It's a good point. Stuff we should not be doing. That is a good point. And there was a demon-possessed
man, and they mention this specifically, that once he was cleansed, he
was in his right mind. And I never did look that word
up. But I imagine it could be compared to how a believer feels,
if I could use that word, after he's been saved. I'm like, wow,
compared to your old self, look what I believed. I wasn't in
my right mind. Now I am. But even in my old
age, I still sin all day long. I mean, you just do it. Even in doubt or something, in
doubt of Christ, of what I should do or where I should be, You're
not alone in that, for sure. Well, Jesus, He said to this
demon, be quiet and come out of him. And we don't need to
guess what the demon would do next. He obeyed. He obeyed the words of Christ. It isn't recorded, but it seems
that there's no shrieking, no screaming, no words. because
the first command was, be quiet. And the demon came out of the
man because Jesus, who he recognized as the Holy One of God, had told
him to. There shouldn't be any confusion
about the supremacy of Jesus Christ. That's what I'm getting
at here. The supremacy of the One who
walked among us, who condescended from the throne. Even though He looked like a
man and there was, again, nothing about Him that would seem pleasing
to us, He's just a person. Even though He was all that,
He was still God. And I want to read one note by
Spurgeon about this passage. He said, Christ not only comes
to those who seek him, but in the splendor of his grace, he
is often found of them that sought him not. Yea, those who cried,
let us alone, are not let alone, for grace brings them beneath
her blessed sway. Now the next two verses, 36 and
37, oh yeah. So he could have a better job
eventually. What they really wanted to go
to college is that there was no future up here in Mexico.
So we came down here, left our family, left his family, my family,
and we came down here. And now we have a beautiful wife. And, oh, by the way, we found
the grace of God. He brought us here. That's true. We wanted to be here. We stayed
here after we graduated. And some people don't see that
as power. I say some people. In movies, I know it's dramatized,
but when people come to some sort of great revelation, you
know, it's always as if it's almost a quick thing relative
to you know, relative to other things that happen in time. It
might happen over a day, a week, or month. You meet somebody and
it's like, it's it, you know? But how many years were you alive,
you know, until you came here? And he worked that. That's still
power. That's still supremacy of him. I mean, I was born in it. Doesn't mean I was a believer
right out of the gate, but you know, that means that he also
had to take both my parents through the roads to get to where they
were to drop me there too. I mean, that's, and even before
them, their parents, it all leads down and he works it all out. That's very true. We can probably finish up with
these two verses here. Verses 36 and 37, it says, then
they, who were in the synagogue, were all amazed and spoke among
themselves, saying, what a word this is. For with authority and
power, he commands the unclean spirits and they come out. And
the report about him went out into every place in the surrounding
region. No, we humans, we people, we're
amazed by new things. It's like when a new and improved
product comes out. We just can't stop talking about
it. We might even start to want it. And I'm not comparing Jesus
to a new and improved product, but He is an improvement, or
was an improvement, compared to the priests of that day, if
we're talking about just religious matters. And the passage here
says that his prominence grew among the people. Now, the statement,
I want to focus on the statement they made by these congregants
of the synagogue. That must have stung the Pharisees
and the Sadducees, if you think about it. It says, for with authority
and power He commands the unclean spirits and they come out. Now it sounds to me as if the
members of the synagogue held an opposite view of their religious
leaders. If they were amazed that Jesus
spoke as one with authority and with power, then it meant that
the religious leaders had neither. They had neither authority nor
power and here comes Jesus with so much of both that not one
thing could disobey Him. Not one thing. What a word this
is indeed. It is by His word that we are
called and it is only by His word that we are called and that
calling is effectual. with authority and with power.
Who else but Jesus can say to the deaf, here, or to say to
the sick, be well, or to the sinner, be cleansed? The priests
couldn't do it. To the Jews, the authority of
Christ was a new thing. It was a new thing. Just as the
word of Christ is a new thing to every sinner who believes
on his name. And once we've heard of it, we
can't stop talking about it. We've hit the end of our time.
Does anybody else have something they'd like to add? Bruce, would you close us please?