This miracle, this healing is preserved in Scripture in three
different places. I want to read all three accounts
to you. It begins here in Matthew 8 and
verse 14. And when Jesus was come to 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." And
then over in Mark, Mark chapter 1, beginning in verse 29, And forthwith, when they were
come out of the synagogue, they entered into the house of Simon
and Andrew, with James and John. But Simon's wife's mother lay
sick of a fever, and Anan they tell him of her. And he came
and took her by the hand, and lifted her up, and immediately
the fever left her, and she ministered unto them. And then again in
Luke chapter 4, there's two verses here that Luke gives us on this
miracle. It says in verse 38, And he arose
out of the synagogue, and entered into Simon's house. And Simon's
wife's mother was taken with a great fever, and they besought
him for her. And he stood over her and rebuked
the fever, and it left her, and immediately she arose and ministered
unto them. Now, Matthew chapter 8, in these
accounts, in Mark chapter 1 and Luke chapter 4, he tells us about
this miracle. This was an entire day of miracles. There was more than one miracle.
that Christ performed on this day. And this was an entire day
of it. But in this, there's two things. And I told you this last week,
and I told you this the week before last. That these miracles
of Christ, they were an exhibition of His power, His authority,
and all these things. But these things also were confirmation
of who He was. It is by these miracles, God
did miracles through him and by him upon this earth to establish
him as the Son of God. You know, we don't have any question
about it because we've been looking into these things for some time,
but if you had known nothing whatsoever, let's say you was
raised a Buddhist and you didn't know anything at all about Jesus
Christ, and you came in here this morning and I began to tell
you about Him, well, how do you know? How do you know that this
man, this Jew named Jesus, born in the house of Mary, how do
you know that this is the Christ? Because God did by him things
that no other man could do. That's one of the ways that I
know this. He raised the dead. Now, you
might question. Somebody comes in here and they've
got something that's very difficult to diagnose and very difficult
to see. And some faith healer stands
up here and says, you're healed. And she goes out believing she's
healed. And you see evidence that seems
like she's healed. But that's kind of iffy. But
now, somebody's laying here dead. It's been dead for three days.
And you bring them back to life. That's a miracle. I'm going to
give you some special notice if you can do that. I'm going
to give you a special honor, a special notice. So, there's
two things, and these two things, even his enemies, This is what
I want you to see here. Even his enemies could not refute
these things or even call these things into question. Now, they'll
question everything and they'll question why he did it and by
whose power he did it, but they won't question what he did. They
couldn't deny what he did. Not only was it a matter of public
record, but there was how many witnesses, just multitudes of
witnesses that witnessed these things. And there's two things
here. First of all is the genealogy
of Christ. They never questioned that He
was born of the tribe of Judah, or that Mary and Joseph was His
father and mother. They never questioned that. He
was of the lineage of the house of Judah. And they never questioned
that, they never brought that, never doubted that at all. And then the miracles of Christ.
And these two things were matters of public record. And to deny
these things would reveal them as false accusers. And so they
never went that route. And the miracles of Christ served
two purposes. First of all, they were the undeniable
evidence that He was the Christ of God. That's what it says in
Acts chapter 2, verse 22. that God did these miracles through
him. And then in John chapter 5, turn
over there with me. John chapter 5. Let's just take
a few minutes and look at some of these things. In John chapter 5 verse 36, look
at this. He is comparing himself to John. He is talking about John the
Baptist, the forerunner of Christ. And then who he was and who John
was. And listen to what he tells them
here in verse 36. He said, I have greater witness. Now he said John was a witness. A God sent witness of the coming
of Christ. He was spoken of in the Old Testament
prophecies that he would come. All of these things were spoken
ahead of time. And John was a witness. But he says here in verse 36,
I have greater witness than that of John, for the works which
the Father hath given me to finish, the same works that I do bear
witness of me that the Father hath sent me. And he said, if
you don't believe what I'm telling you, you better believe for the
very work's sake, because you can't deny that. You can't deny
that. And then, secondly, there are
pictures in themselves of how God saves sinners. In the leper,
that was the first miracle of Christ. In the leper, He teaches
us the true condition of the repenting sinner. He comes as
He is. He's alive, but He's dead. That's
how the Scripture describes leprosy. You remember when Aaron and Moses
pleaded for Miriam. Miriam questioned the authority
of Moses. And God smote her with leprosy.
And when they began to plead for Miriam, He said, don't let
her be as the living dead. They're alive, but they're dead. That's the sinner. He's alive. He moves. He hears. He sees. Just like the leper. But he's
dead. He's dead. He's not coming out
of that leprosy unless God brings him out of it. He's dead. He's dead while he lives. And
that's how we come to Christ. We come to Him as we are, living
but dead. And then the centurion comes
to Christ in faith, and he pictures here the faith of God's elect.
His coming was a demonstration of it, a manifestation of it,
and the evidence that real faith exists. And this faith that the centurion
exhibited, this faith, he tells us of the nature of it. This
faith was caring faith. It wasn't just faith. Sometimes
we see men and we listen to their confessions of faith, and we
listen to the great principles and things that they say, and
we talk about great faith and strong faith. But true faith
is caring faith. It's caring faith. It thinks
on others. And it's active faith. It never
just sits. Faith doesn't sit. Faith is active. It goes about, Christ said, I
am always about the Father's business. It's active. And it's
expecting. Faith has things it expects.
That's right. It expects. I tell you, if you
don't expect anything, you don't believe anything. And then this faith is obedient
faith. And this centurion, when he comes
to Christ, he declares the power of that faith. God declares the
power of faith in him. And he declares the object of
it, which is Christ. And then the Lord comes to the
disciples' house, and He heals his mother-in-law. And there's
a lot here for us to see. I'm just going to give you a
few little things that maybe you've never thought about. First
of all, and I'm going to start off on a negative thing, but
the papists who look upon Peter, I'm not picking on the Catholics
this morning. I could say just as much about
the Baptists or the Nazarenes or the Church of Christ or any
of the rest of them, but this particular healing has to do
with something that they believe that's wrong. It's totally wrong. They believe that when Peter
said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God, and our
Lord looked at him and told him, flesh and blood didn't reveal
that to you. And they told him, upon this rock, well, the Catholics
say that that rock was Peter and not Christ. And so upon this
rock will I build my church. And so all the successors of
Peter, which they call popes, they're successors of Peter.
And so that's the basis of the building of the church. And if
you'll study the that particular point in any book that talks
about Catholicism, I think you'll agree that what I'm saying is
so. I'm not making these things up.
This is what they say they believe. And then they say this, that
celibacy is required for true spirituality. These men, these
successing Popes or leaders of the church that's appointed and
are supposed to succeed from Peter, are not allowed to be
married. You can't have the spirituality
that's necessary for these things and be married. But here it tells
us that Peter was married. Isn't that what it says? Peter's wife's mother-in-law. Isn't that what it says? So I
kind of shoot that in the head, don't I? And it's the same thing,
you can go into the Baptist church and you can find these things,
but this particular thing has to do with that and so I wanted
you to see it. And then in fact, Peter and Andrew,
his brother, wasn't even from Capernaum. He's in Capernaum
now doing these miracles. They were from Bethsaida. And
they were living here in all likelihood in the house of his
wife's mother. because of their call to the
ministry. This is where they were staying. And I find all these things in
union with the fact that the Lord does heal her because she
was ministering to His disciples and ministering to Him in that
they gave them a place to stay and fed them and did that service
to them and so the Lord raises her up. The second thing that
this shows is that sickness is a universal thing, as is death,
and both are the result of sin. Before the fall, there was no
death and there was no disease. No disease. Your plants didn't
die. Nothing died. Everything lived. There's no death and no disease,
no aging. No growing wheat, no getting
senile, losing your memory. Oh, I'll tell you how I'm experiencing
that right now. But after the fall, we run into
this phrase, when you come to the genealogy of the saints.
Now, I don't think there's any need for me to talk about the
genealogy of the wicked. I don't even find the genealogy
of them in the scriptures anywhere. But we're talking about those
who had favor with God, those who were blessed of God, His
saints. And you find this phrase, and it's attending their genealogy,
and after it tells when they were born, and how long they
lived, and how many sons and daughters they began, it says,
and they died. They died. Who died? The saints. The saints died. Why does God still allow sickness
and death to be experienced by his saints? Several reasons. One, I believe he wants us to
know by experience the horrible effects of sin. Sin. All we know about sin really
except what God allows us to experience. The only thing we
really know, we know theoretically, don't we? I read in here that
sin is like leprosy, and I read in here that sin is like this
and like that, but if there was no leprosy, I wouldn't know anything
about what he's talking about, would I? If there was no death,
I wouldn't know what this death was. If there wasn't any paralysis,
how could I know how God saves sinners? He comes to them. They
can't do anything for themselves, and so He comes to them and saves
them. And so He does these things that we might experience just
a little bit of the horrible effects of sin. And I can only
warn you that are here today and don't know Christ of the
consequence of sin. If He allows His saints to experience
such things, what do you think your payday is going to be? Huh? The Bible uses terms like everlasting
punishment. That's going to be the effects
of sin. Everlasting fun. It talks about weeping and wailing. I have heard a couple of times
in my lifetime real wailing. And I tell you, it was a horrible
thing. It was a horrible thing. And gnashing of teeth. God allows
us to experience the effects of sin to teach us to despise
it. To see what it does to the world
and to your bodies and to your children. See what a horrible
end is the end of sin. And then secondly, allows us
to suffer disease to prepare us to let go of this world. If
we don't find anything evil in this world, anything hurtful
in this world, any suffering in this world, why would we want
to leave it? Huh? And it's usually those who have
had no suffering and had no disease and had no pain who want to stay
here the worst. They don't see anything wrong
with it. But God allows His saints to suffer these things to prepare
them to leave this world. You young men and young women
in here, you need to talk more to these among you that are up
now in their 80s and see how they look now on these things
that they used to treasure. and those that are sick here
this morning. You need to talk to them a little
bit and see their point of view now on these things that meant
so much to them. in the past. They've all lost
their glitter, haven't they? Boy, you thought you just had
to have that car. You work overtime, you work double overtime, because
you had to have that shiny new car. And then you had to have
that house. I've got to have that house.
Man, if I could just get that house, I'd be satisfied. And
you get that house, and in a few years, it's the old house. Now
I'm looking for the new house, and so on, and all through your
life. And then you get old, And all of a sudden you realize,
I'm going to meet God. And now all these things lose
their glitter and they lose their glamour. Need to talk and listen
to some folks who's already been down the road. I think they could
give us some good advice. Houses and lands and furniture
and cars and beauty and strength and even wisdom. They're all
living witnesses of how the treasures of this world appear as you draw
near to death. And then thirdly, sometimes God
lets us suffer these things to draw us near to one another.
Do you ever notice how somebody gets sick in a family, how that
family comes together? Huh? It has an effect, don't
it? It has an effect. Hard feelings, all of these things
that every family's got them. But something happens. Something
happens. And even those who've separated
themselves seem like they have a word of compassion or seem
like they draw a little nearer. And I can't tell you how much
my wife's cancer has rallied the prayers and concern of churches
all over this country. It's just absolutely amazing.
Amazing. It seems to me like every day
when I open my eyes, I get a new glimpse of God's mercy and grace. It has a drawing together effect. And then fourthly, we know that
disease is a trial of faith to believers. Job's wife looked
on his... Here he was, God smote him with
balls and he was down, took away his children, took away his money. Even his friends, his dear, close,
lifelong friends sat at a distance and was quiet for three days.
They didn't know what to say. And Job's wife looked at him
and saw him in his balls and saw him in all this loss and
she said, why don't you just curse God and die? That's what
she saw in him. You know what Job said? He said,
the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name
of the Lord. That's faith. That's what faith
says when the trial comes. Blessed be the name of the Lord.
Do you know why this has come upon you? No, I don't. But I
know Him. I know Him. And I know His true
wisdom. And I know His true righteousness. He can't do wrong. And I'm satisfied
with that. Blessed be the name of the Lord.
And I know this, He gives. Satan couldn't touch Job until
God said, OK, go ahead. Huh? That's right. Man is a great pretender. He
loves to make long prayers and give great gifts and be publicly
recognized as a pretense. That's what our Lord said. He
does it as a pretense. He's the great pretender. But
suffering has a way of revealing the pretense. God brings upon
you disease and suffering and death. Playtime's over, ain't
it? Huh? That doctor comes in doing this.
Boy, playtime is over. Now it's all truth now. Now you can talk to me, preacher.
Now listen. Now listen. I tell you, no saint. I'm just
talking about saints this morning. No saint of God is so urgent,
so careful, so attentive as those who are about to die. They're
not going to miss reading the Bible. They're not going to find
something else to do when it's time to pray. They're going to
pray. I'm telling you what I know.
No saint of God is so urgent, so careful, so attentive as those
who are about to die. And this is the trial of faith. Come what may, faith shines on. It shines on. And then, fifthly,
he allows sickness to come to his saints to make them sympathetic
to others. I tell you, if I have a preacher
talking to me about deliverance from sin, I want one that was
delivered, don't you? I don't want some pretender who
went down here to college and learned how to speak. I want
somebody that God dug out of the pit. Let him deal with me. I want somebody who knows something
about sin. to tell me about sin, something
about being healed, to tell me about healing. Isn't that what
he told that woman? He said, now you go back where
you come from and you tell them what I did for you. That's the
one who can. He's the only one who can. You
remember that servant of David came in from the battle to the
king. And this one, he wanted to go so bad, he ran. He outran
the other one. He got there, and David said,
well, give me some word from the battle. And he said, well,
I don't have any word. He said, well, you go stand over
there then. And then finally, the other one
got there. Now, he had the word. He allowed sickness to come to
his saints to make them sympathetic to others. And then, sixthly,
God sends disease to His saints for His glory, and they're good. How does all that work? I don't
know. I'm not God. But I can tell you what He said
in Romans 8, 28. It said, and we know. Who knows? Every saint of God should know. And we know that all things work
together for good. to them that love God, to them
who are the called according to His purpose, even disease,
even death. Oh, death is the end of it all,
isn't it? It is if you don't have hope.
But if you have hope, that's the open door into glory. You
see what a difference? It all depends on where that
door is headed, what's on the other side of the door. Is judgment
and hell, is that what's on the other side? Oh, then death. But if glory's on the other side
of the door, everlasting life, fellowship with God, if all that's
on the other side of the door, then I don't grit it so bad. And this is something we learn
as we grow in grace and knowledge of Christ, as we learn something
about His love and mercy and wisdom and purpose. He worketh
all things, Paul said, after the counsel of His own will,
that we should be to the praise of His glory who first trusted
in Christ. Who first trusted? Well, God
did. God first trusted in Him. And every time He brings a saint
home to glory, glory is given to the Father who first trusted
in Him. And then sometimes, God allows
sickness to come upon His saints to manifest His power and mercy
to heal. The only difference between dying
and being healed is the purpose of God. It's just the purpose
of God. We're all going to die. It's
just a matter of when. It was the purpose of God in
Peter's mother-in-law to heal her because He purposed to use
her still in this world to accomplish His purpose. It says, after her healing, when
the Lord healed her, what did she do? She ministered to them
all. Now, if there's one thing that
I could impress on you this morning, it is this. She ministers yet
to us all. She ministers all these things.
She tells us all these things. It was the purpose of God to
bring her about to accomplish His purpose in this world. And
after her healing, she served them all. Actually, Paul said
this. He said, for me to live is Christ. That's why the only
reason I'm here is to preach Christ and to do His purpose
and to do as a servant to Him. That's the only reason God leaves
His people in this world. He's already provided them with
a righteousness. They're not getting more and
more righteous. They're as righteous as they're ever going to get
in Christ. And their sins is gone. He's not leaving them here
to do penance for their sins. Their sins are gone. So why are
we still here? To accomplish His purpose. He'd
given us that privilege. And Paul said, for me to live
is Christ. To die is gain. It's gain. In another place,
he said, to die, which is far better. It's far better. So long as we live in this world,
we live under the effects of sin, tormented, hindered, and
handicapped. Like Israel in the wilderness
of sin, it's not the pleasant journey that they thought it
was going to be. They thought they were going
to have a seaside stroll and enter right into Canaan. But
God took them down through the sea and through the desert. He
took them the long way around, didn't He? And it wasn't the
pleasant journey that they expected. It was hot. It was dry. It was
full of poison reptiles. They were in constant need of
God's care. And they suffered nearly every
day of their lives. To the spiritual eye, this world
is like a great mission field. You just think about this for
a minute. We don't go into it because it's a desirable place
to be. We go into it and we survive
in it to accomplish the purpose of God and to do what God called
us to do. But the minute the work's done,
I want to go home. I want to go home. Now, before we leave this wonderful
healing of God, let me point out just a few more things. I
want you to see, first of all, that the prayers of God's people
were preserved here with the healing of this woman. Don't
take prayer lightly. Don't take it lightly. It's a
great privilege and a great honor given to God's children to be
able to approach the King of Glory. Now see, here's the difference
between ceremonial prayer and true prayer. True prayer understands
who's on the throne. And they understand what a privilege
it is to be able to come and welcome into His presence with
open arms and hear your request. What a privilege. Don't take it lightly. It's a
great privilege and a great honor given to God's children to be
able to approach the King of Glory. And nothing should more
inspire us than to know that He who is our Savior is also
our King. He's the King of Glory. Another
thing I want you to see here is that the Lord Himself attended
their prayers. He heard their request. He came
to the bed. He stood over the woman and He
took her by the hand. It's all in Him. And then I see a couple of things
here that we need to think about, and then I wind this up. The
Lord didn't need to use means. He proved that with the centurion.
The centurion said, there's no reason for you to go down there.
I too am a man of authority, and I understand this. I command
me, and I understand what authority is all about. All you have to
do is just say the word. You'll be taken care of. My servant
will be healed. And he was. The Lord didn't go
down. The Lord didn't touch him. The
Lord didn't do anything. He just said the word. He was
healed. But here, the Lord comes to her. He hovers over the bed. He reaches
over and takes her by the hand. He uses means here. He uses means here. Now, the Lord had already proved
that He didn't need to use means. His Word was sufficient. But
He chose this time to use means to teach us that when the means
are purposed of God, God will accompany the means. That's what
I want you to see. Prayer is often lost in the shuffle
because we don't really believe that God accompanies the prayer. Now that's the reason. It's unbelief. Unbelief. Preaching often goes
unattended because we lose sight of the fact that God ordained
it and He accompanies the speaker. That's why it gets lost in the
shuffle. I don't blame you. If I didn't think God was in
it, I wouldn't sit there and listen either. I'd go somewhere
else. The assembling of ourselves together,
the daily devotions, and reading of God's Word is set aside because
we don't really believe that God attends His Word and those
devotions. If we really believed it, we
wouldn't miss them. Now that's just the truth. I do it. You do it, but we shouldn't do
it. And the reason we do it, because
we don't really believe that God attends the means. Now, I
want you to tell me the truth. If you really believe that every
time we meet in this place, God was here, God himself was here,
you wouldn't be anywhere else, would you? Huh? You mean you'd
stay home, watch a basketball game, or watch something on TV
if you really thought God was here? If you really thought God accompanied
the message that that man preached who stood before us, you'd listen,
wouldn't you? Huh? Your mind wouldn't be wandering
off on what you're going to eat, or wondering if your meal got
burnt in the oven, or wondering if you left the iron on. If you
thought God attended that message, boy, you'd be just like this,
wouldn't you? Huh? That's right. Well, God
attends the means that He purposes to use. He attends those means. God said, were two or more gathered
together in My name, what did He say? I will be in the midst. He will. The question is, are
we gathered in His name? Listen to this one. It pleased
God through the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. Listen to Peter. He said, being
born again, not of corruptible seed, but incorruptible by the
Word of God. And this is the Word preached
unto you through the Gospel. He said. Do you believe that? Do you believe sinners are going
to be born through that gospel preach? That's what God said.
Paul looked straight in the eyes and said, I have begotten you
through the gospel. That's what he said. Several places he calls himself
their spiritual father. Paul did. His children. And you can just go on and on
and on with these. Listen to this one. Whosoever shall call
upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Boy, I tell you, if
we really believed that, we'd call on Him, wouldn't we? And
you will. And you will when God gives you
true, saving faith. You'll call on that name. You'll
call on it. And everybody calls on who's
going to be saved. Every last one of them. Lord, bless the
lesson.