So, Luke 4, and in verse 13,
we've got several points in verse 13, and I'll read it again for
us. Now, when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed
from him until an opportune time. Now, the King James translation,
it says that the devil left Jesus for a season. Whereas many of
the newer translations state that he was leaving Jesus until
an opportune time, as it states in the New King James Version
that I'm reading from. And the point is not that the
devil cared. You know, we have, when we hear season, when we
say season, we mean spring, summer, fall. The devil didn't care what
season of the year it was. But as he was, ever the false
accuser. He was biding his time until
he could perform another malicious act meant to thwart the purpose
of the Son of Almighty God. Now his first attempt had failed
to find any sin in the Lord Jesus and so he backed away and he's
just plotting his next move. Now we all know the story of
the devil's first attempt. at the temptation of man and
what followed thereafter. The effects of it are still with
us. We are still sinners in a world
that returns thorns for the tilling of the ground and pain at childbirth. The devil's first temptation
that we know of, the first representative of man, was a great success in
his mind. In his mind. He defeated the
first man, the first son of God on earth, the first of God's
creation, the first man of God's creation. And ever since then,
the devil has been wandering the world, accusing and lying,
as he does. And then, many years later, along
came the second representative of man. And so, I suppose the
devil, just seeing that, thought, well, he needs to tempt this
one, too. And he needs to cause the downfall of this one, too.
And but this time, The devil failed. And this illustrates
one of the reasons we wish to be like Jesus and we yearn to
be as he is in glory. He got the devil to leave him
alone. I haven't accomplished that. I don't know about you guys.
I haven't done that yet. We've not succeeded in that because
the devil has plenty of material to work with in us. If he accuses
us of something, just one little thing, we're beaten. We're done. It doesn't take much.
And even if the devil weren't nearby to accuse us, our sins
accuse us too. And we can't outrun that. Every
time we try to outrun our sin, it catches right up. It won't
leave us alone until we die. Yet with our Lord, The devil
lied and he strived to make one accusation after another stick.
And he had to walk away with nothing to show for it. He tried. Four different temptations. He
tried. Now there wasn't exactly nothing
to show for his efforts. There was this. It proved that
Jesus was a righteous man. And that's important. Now, what I'm gonna say next
is just speculation on my part. I do not know if this is true,
but I suspect that that was the first time that the devil failed
to tempt someone. I suspect that's what it was. And to that I say, good, good. Let the devil accuse my Lord
again if he wants. because it will only prove how
perfect Jesus is and what a liar the devil is. Do you who hear these words and
read scripture believe that Jesus is unfit for the throne? Well,
tempt him with power as the devil did. And he will say, you shall
worship the Lord your God and him alone or him only you shall
serve. Or do you believe that Jesus
does not have wisdom and knowledge? Tempt Him to ignore it, and He
will say, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every
word of God." That's wisdom. That's wisdom. Or do you believe
that Jesus is too cavalier or irresponsible concerning His
work? Well, tempt Him to be reckless
with it, with His position, and He will say, You shall not tempt
the Lord your God. Yeah, that's my Lord. The one
you tempted who cannot be tempted. Does anybody have anything to
say about verse 13? Alright, in the next few verses,
it says, then Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to
Galilee. And news of him went through all the surrounding region,
and he taught in their synagogues, being glorified by all. So he
came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and as his custom
was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood
up to read. And he was handed the book of
the prophet Isaiah." And we'll stop right there in the middle
of verse 17. And I want to look at First,
the phrase in verse 15 that says, being glorified by all. That phrase means that Jesus
was glorified in all things that He did. And as well He should
be. He did many works, and not one
of them failed to glorify Him. The Bible says that the people
marveled at His wondrous works. And some saw Jesus as the Son
of God, as they were supposed to see Him, as they should. While
some only saw the popularity and the miracles, He was... They wanted to see the spectacle.
They wanted to see what was happening. They wanted to be a part of it. But no matter what was believed,
there is still the truth from John chapter 17 where Jesus says,
Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son
also may glorify You. as you have given him authority
over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many
as you have given him. And this is eternal life, that
they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ." The Hebrew
word for the Greek word is actually anointed. Anointed. The Greek used the word Messiah
for Christ. But the Hebrew word is anointed.
He was anointed. to be in this position. The only true God in Jesus Christ
whom you have sent, I have glorified you on the earth. I have finished
the work which you have given me to do and now, O Father, glorify
me together with yourself with the glory which I had with you
before the world was. Now this is a proclamation And
it's a promise to us that there is no way that Jesus will not
be glorified. He will always be glorified. And another thing to notice is
that Jesus, He taught in the synagogues. Now isn't that a
bit strange of Him to go there, where the truth of Him was not
told? To us, it would seem like a waste of time. to teach those
who have been worshiping the wrong God all their lives. These priests in the synagogues
were the blind ones and they were leading others down the
wrong path. Why teach the ignorant ones or
the defilers or the backward thinkers? Because if you didn't
teach people like that, no one would hear the truth. We're all
backward thinkers. Not even the Jews would have
heard the truth, even though they had it, in scroll upon scroll. Jesus taught the very same things
that Scripture had already been telling them for hundreds of
years. Thousands, possibly. I can't imagine a better teacher of Scripture than
Jesus. The books are about Him. He inspired their writing. You
could say He wrote them. Not only did Jesus teach and
preach because He had compassion on some, but also because it
was His purpose. It was His purpose. He says in
Mark 1, verse 38, Let us go into the next towns that I may preach
there also, because for this purpose I have come forth. To preach the gospel and to declare
glad tidings and to save those that are lost, That was His purpose,
and so that's what He did. Now, it says in verse 16 and
17 that Jesus stood up to read in the synagogue and He was given
the book of Isaiah. I'm not certain that He asked
for it. It just says He was handed it. Now, this was not an uncommon
part of a Jewish worship service, actually. Paul does the same
thing in Acts 13, verse 16, and it says, before Paul stood up,
the rulers of the synagogue had just finished reading from the
law and the prophets. And they said to the general
assembly there, men and brethren, if you have any word of exhortation
for the people, say on. And so, that's when Paul stood
up and preached about God's promise, and he preached about Jesus and
His crucifixion and His resurrection. And it says after that, many
Gentiles and Jews followed Paul and Barnabas. And they heard
the Gospel and it says that on the next Sabbath day, almost
the whole city, the whole city came together to hear the Word
of God. But here, in Luke 4, one better than Paul's has stood
up in the synagogue. to read and to exhort the people. It shows that it was Jesus' custom
to read to the people at the synagogue on the Sabbath day. Now I know that God has everything
planned out to the smallest degree so that even the flight path
of a fly over a heap of dung is planned out before it ever
occurs. But isn't it a marvel that Jesus stood to preach on
the day of the week that was called the day of rest? The day of rest. The Sabbath
was established by God as the day of rest, the day on which
no works should occur. The Jews had six days to work
and to gather for themselves, but the Sabbath, like many things
in the Old Testament, was a picture of something to come. The Sabbath pointed to the day
of rest for the elect of God, that they may rest in the salvation
had by grace alone. And many years after God established
the Sabbath, Jesus comes, the Sabbath. And he would perfectly
perform all the work for our salvation Or, I'm sorry, He who
would perfectly perform all the work for our salvation was teaching
the marvelous words of the Gospel on the day of rest that He earned
on our behalf. God's ways are a wonder to behold. That's all I've got to say about
that. Does anybody have anything extra to add? Well, the beautiful thing is
verse 17, and there were delivered unto Him the book of the prophet
Isaiah. They could have delivered him Ruth, because I'm your boy. He delivered Genesis. He said,
I'm that priest after the orphan. I'll kiss your neck. He could
have delivered Leviticus. He said, I'm the priest that
said, be thou clean. You got an old leper. On and
on and on. It's ordained that this was,
but they could have given him any book. And boy, what a study
that would have been. It would have worked, but I actually,
the next few verses explain why he got this book, why he got
this and went to this specific passage. It's actually a pretty
good segue, Drew. Pretty good segue. That is exactly right. Well, it says here in the latter
part of verse 17, it says, and when he had opened the book,
he found the place where it was written, the spirit of the Lord
is upon me because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the
poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the
blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim
the acceptable year of the Lord. Then he closed the book and gave
it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all
who were in the synagogue were fixed on him. Now the passage
that Jesus reads from is found in the first verses of Isaiah
61. Now turn there with me because there's more to it than what
Jesus has read. Isaiah 61. It says, the Spirit of the Lord
God is upon me. Because the Lord has anointed
me to preach good tidings to the poor, he has sent me to heal
the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and
the opening of the prison to those who are bound to proclaim
the acceptable year of the Lord, and here's the extra part, and
the day of vengeance of our God to comfort all who mourn, to
console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes,
the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the
spirit of heaviness, that they may be called trees of righteousness,
the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified." Now why
would Jesus stop reading halfway through verse 2 of Isaiah 61? My guess, and again this is speculation,
but I was reading other commentators and they seem to agree So my
guess is that this part of the passage showed what Jesus had
already accomplished in time. In time. Whatever his age was,
this is what he had done, or was immediately about to do. In other words, he has been anointed,
and the Spirit of the Lord God is upon him. That's true. That
was true before the foundation of the world, but in time, also
true. He has begun to preach good tidings
to the poor. He will heal or has already healed
many of their infirmities and chronology, especially for me,
but it's difficult to follow among the Gospels because some
of them are out of order. So he may have healed people
already, I am not sure, but we go on. He proclaims himself to
be the liberty for God's people and this is the acceptable year
of the Lord. or as sometimes it is often translated,
acceptable time, acceptable time. Other commentators said that
it would have been unsuitable for Jesus to have read from another
chapter in Isaiah that perhaps mentioned His sufferings because
they had not yet occurred, even though He was the Lamb slain
from the foundation of the world. And because this was essentially
when Jesus first opened His mouth to proclaim the truth of himself. God anointed Jesus. There was a heavenly anointing.
And he anointed Jesus to perform this task, just as it says in
the book of Isaiah. And so, Jesus reads up to a certain
point so that he can say the following in the next verse in
Luke 4, which is verse 21. It says, and He began to say
to them today, this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. And it says in verse 22, so all
bore witness to Him and marveled at the gracious words which proceeded
out of His mouth. And they said, is this not Joseph's
son? Now if I were a Jew in those
days, I believe that I would have had a difficult time understanding
all the prophecies in the book of the law and the prophets.
It's because so many of them did not establish a time frame
or were too ambiguous about their meanings, like who was this king
and who was this state, country, governor, who was it? I would most likely have the
very same frame of mind as that Ethiopian eunuch on his way that
Philip taught. Now remember, he's in the chariot
and he's reading from Isaiah and he doesn't understand what
he's reading. And the first words from his mouth to Philip are,
I ask you, of whom does the prophet say this? Of himself or some
other man? Or to put it another way, what is Isaiah talking about? More importantly, who is Isaiah
talking about? I don't know what this means,
Philip. Tell me what this means. So Philip must explain to this
man because the truth is that natural man cannot understand
the things of God. In the book of Jeremiah 9, God
says that the Israelites, his people, by the way, his people,
they speak deceit. Would you want that known about
the people you love? Well, I heard your son, I heard
your daughter telling lies all the time. I saw her steal from
the candy store, whatever. No, you wouldn't like that. God
says of Israel, one speaks peaceably to his neighbor with his mouth,
but in his heart, he lies in wait. Shall I not punish them
for these things? Shall I not avenge myself on
such a nation as this? He's saying, shouldn't I punish
you? Don't you deserve punishment? I know what you did, I saw you. So God says, I will make Jerusalem
a heap of ruins, a den of jackals. I will make the cities of Judah
desolate without an inhabitant. So is God going to wipe out Israel?
If he does, what about the promise back in the garden? What about
that? What about the promise to Abraham?
What about the promise to David? Even Jeremiah says in chapter
nine, verse 12, who is the wise man who may understand this?
And who is he to whom the mouth of the Lord has spoken that he
may declare it? He's throwing up his hands. I
don't know. God must reveal it. God must reveal it. Everything
written down in scripture points to Jesus Christ in some way.
Yet even the brethren must be taught of God. Everybody must,
if they want to come to the truth. And we are so like unbelievers
in our limited minds and our fleshly weaknesses, take any
two people, give them a Bible, put them in a room and tell them
to write what they think the gospel is. And you'll get two
wrong, but very detailed answers. And they'll be covering the law,
they'll be covering man's merit, they'll be covering living a
Christian life, what you gotta do, what you gotta don't do. And they probably won't agree
with each other either. It just takes two. But if Jesus comes
in and teaches and he opens their hearts, you'll have to correct
but very short answers, and the answers will be in agreement.
Here's what they will be. The blood of Jesus Christ, his
son, cleanses us from all sin. Open and shut, that's it. The
answer, it may be short. It may not sound philosophical,
and it may not excite anyone, and it may not increase church
membership, and it may not indulge your feelings, which is what
so many religions this day do, but it will save a lost soul
if they hear that and God makes it effective. This is why Jesus must teach
to you directly, directly, because only his teaching has the power
to save a life. I went over a lot of verses right
there. Does anybody have anything they want to add? That's the
end of my notes. Well then, Bruce, could you close
us in prayer, please?