Luke 4:31–44

0:00 Let me invite you to take a Bible and turn to Luke chapter 4. That's where we're going to be this morning as we're continuing this study of the book of Luke. No particular introduction for it this morning because we've got a lot to do down inside the sermon. But if you're new to 3rd Avenue, welcome. We're glad that you're here. This is, for the next few minutes, this is why we gather together. This is the main thing that we do. Everything that we've done so far, reading and praying and singing and all the rest, is really meant to be a setting for this time when we open up God's Word, the Bible, and we study it together.

0:33 So we're glad you're here for this. You're going to be very much helped by opening up a Bible. You can grab one of these red pew Bibles in front of you if you've got one of those, either usually in the pew rack in front of you, maybe under your seat if you're up in the balcony or on the sides, but you'll be very much less lost if you'll open up the Bible and join us there. If you're new to the Bible, if you're using a Red Pew Bible, you can find the passage for today on page 860 near the end of the book. So we're in Luke chapter 4.

1:05 Over the last few weeks, we've seen that Luke's purpose in writing this book was to lay out in an orderly fashion a case for Jesus being the long-awaited Messiah King of Jewish hope. So in the very first couple of verses of the book, he addresses this person. We don't know much about him. We don't know anything about him other than that Luke knows him and writes to him. He addresses him as most excellent Theophilus, which probably makes him some sort of mid-level, at least maybe even high-level official within the Roman Empire.

1:35 And so he has at least shown some interest in Christianity and in the life of Jesus. And Luke says, all right, Theophilus, I'm a historian. I'll just lay the whole thing out for you in a very orderly fashion. and I'll make the case for why Christians believe Jesus is who he said he was. And so for the last three and a half chapters or so, what's been going on is that Luke has just been laying it out one piece at a time. It tells us about his birth and his presentation at the temple, his ancestry, his temptation by the devil out in the wilderness. And step by step by step, a little bit at a time, which is going to kind of be the MO for the rest of the book, he's been given a little bit of information, more and more about who Jesus is and what he came to do.

2:17 Well, last week we looked at sort of the second third of chapter 4, where Jesus launches his public ministry. This is kind of where it all starts. He's 30 years old. He's been working as a carpenter, living in this little backwoods town of Nazareth, just doing what Nazareth people do. Nothing really spectacular very much except for that 12-year-old, you know, the incident at 12 years old in the temple. But all of a sudden, when he's 30 years old, he goes into the synagogue in Nazareth. He reads a portion of Isaiah 61 from the Old Testament, then he preaches on it, and the whole thing launches his ministry, and the result of that launch is that the people want to throw him off a cliff.

2:57 Not exactly the auspicious beginning that you want for your ministry, and yet that's what happens. Well, today, we pick up the story right after that, when Jesus' public ministry is sort of in full force. Luke kind of elides some of the details of that, and by the time you get to our text today, everything is going in full force. Jesus has already done some things in towns around the area. Luke doesn't record any of those. In fact, the first miracle that he records is the one that's going to happen today in our text. And from here through the rest of chapter 5, what you get is really this rapid volley of six different miracles.

3:34 Six different things that Jesus does that are just astonishing to the people around him. What's interesting about these miracles, though, is that they're not what we think about typically when we think about miracles. Normally we had this idea that miracles are just these kind of little, you know, magic tricks that make people say, ooh, and ah, and oh, an axe head floated or something like that. But that's not what these are. These miracles that Jesus does for the next chapter and a half or so are carefully targeted to show Jesus' power and authority over various principalities, powers that have tended to dominate and grind human beings into the ground ever since the fall in Genesis chapter 3.

4:16 So essentially, these six miracles in the end of chapter 4 and on into 5 are Jesus' declaration of war against the powers and principalities of hell that have held humanity captive for so long. And it all begins right here in the middle of chapter 4 with a showdown against what seems to be, I mean, there's really no way else to get around it, one of Satan's maybe lesser minions. He doesn't seem to be much of a big deal. But let's read what happens.

4:48 Luke chapter 4. I'm going to start reading in 31. He went down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee, and he was teaching them on the Sabbath. And they were astonished at his teaching for his word-possessed authority. In the synagogue, there was a man who had the spirit of an unclean demon, and he cried out with a loud voice, Ha! What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God. But Jesus rebuked him, saying, Be silent and come out of him. And when the demon had thrown him down in their midst, he came out of him, having done him no harm.

5:20 And they were all amazed and said to one another, What is this word? For with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits, and they come out. And reports about him went out into every place in the surrounding region. And he arose and left the synagogue and entered Simon's house. Now, Simon's mother-in-law was ill with a high fever, and they appealed to him on her behalf. And he stood over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her. And immediately she rose and began to serve them. Now when the sun was setting, any who were sick with various diseases brought them to him. And he laid his hands on every one of them and healed them.

5:52 And demons also came out of many, crying, you are the son of God. But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak because they knew that he was the Christ. When it was day, he departed and went into a desolate place. And the people sought him and came to him and would have kept him from leaving them. But he said to them, I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns as well. For I was sent for this purpose, and he was preaching in the synagogues of Judea. So this section that we're looking at makes up the last third or so of chapter 4, and it shows a quick series of three miracles, all of which happen on one particular Saturday.

6:28 So one particular Sabbath day, this whole episode takes place. You've got the casting out of the demon, then you've got the healing of Peter's mother-in-law, and then you have a sort of set of miracles that are talked about all at once, where people come to him with various diseases and demons and are healed as the sun is going down on this particular Sabbath. Now, what we're doing here in looking at this section is just kind of following Luke's logic because it's clear from the way he puts it together that this whole thing is meant to be read as one self-contained unit. And we know that for a couple of reasons.

6:59 One of the reasons that we know it's a self-contained unit is that it all happens on one day. And you can tell that from the sort of time stamps that Luke puts in there. So in verse 31, he says there, he was teaching them on a Sabbath. And then you look at 38, and you see that we're in the same day. He arose and left the synagogue. So where he was teaching, he now leaves and goes into a house, and more things happen. And then in 40, when the sun was setting. So you see how those time stamps are pulling all this kind of thing together?

7:30 That's how the Bible tells you that you've got sequential events. Now, if you look at 5.1, you can see that that sequential, you know, sequence is broken. Because in chapter 5, verse 1, Luke just says, on one occasion. So he doesn't mean to be time stamping. It's just at one point this happened. And you've got to be careful in putting the Bible together to see if we're talking about a sequential, you know, set of events. Or if we're talking about just something that happened at one point or another. And if that's the case, then it's probably there for a theological reason.

8:01 So that's one way to know it's a self-contained unit. Also, I want you to see how Luke has put this thing together before we start looking at the details. So it's time for you, as a church, to do a little bit of exegesis. You ready? Look at verses 31 and 32. Just kind of look at them for a second. Now look at verses 42 and 44. Not and, but through. 42 through 44. What are those two sections mostly about? 31 and 32, and then 42 to 44.

8:35 What are they mostly about? They're mostly about teaching and preaching, right? It's about Jesus telling the people that certain things are true. So at the very beginning of this thing and at the very end of this thing, you've got preaching and teaching. Okay. Now, look at verses 33 to 37. All your heads should go down. 33 to 37. And then look at verse 41. What are those sections mostly about? Demons, right?

9:08 So now you've got teaching at the beginning and the end. Then just inside that you've got demons, right? Now look at 38, 39, and then look at 40. What are those mostly about? Healing of people, physical ailments, right? That's what those are about. So did you see the way Luke set this thing up? It's got preaching at the beginning, preaching at the end. Then in the middle, you've got demons, or next inside, you've got demons. And then in the middle, you've got these two sections about healing. Now, if you've been here at 3rd Avenue for very long, you know that what we call that is a structure called chiasm.

9:42 Meaning it sort of looks like an X, sort of, if you put the other side on it. But that's what Luke has done here. He's created a chiasm. Now, the fun thing about chiasms is that they are meant, at least in the first guess, they're meant to draw you to the center. And usually what you'll end up with is something like this where you have preaching, preaching, demons, demons, healings, healings, and then something in the middle. What's missing from this one, though? What's missing from this one is the thing in the middle, right? Because you just run from healing to healing, and there's nothing sort of to take up the middle of the X.

10:16 So what do you do with that? Well, what Luke is signaling to you to do there is to say, look, the point of this particular structure, chiasm, is not the middle. It's the outside. If there's a missing middle, then the focus shifts to the outside. So Luke is wanting you to see that above all, of all the spectacular stuff that is going on here, what he wants your focus on is the teaching of Jesus. What matters for the demons being cast out, for the healings that are happening, for all the spectacular stuff, what really matters is what Jesus is saying.

10:51 And the demon fights and the healing of diseases is just backing that up. It's proving that you really should listen to what Jesus says. So that leads us to the main idea. The main idea that Luke is trying to get across to you is this man, Jesus, is worthy of your trust. So listen to him. This man, Jesus, is worthy of your trust. So listen to him. And what he does through the whole set of stories is that he's showing you that Jesus' kind of authority is the kind of authority that deserves your faith.

11:28 It's the kind of authority that deserves your commitment and your trust. It's the kind of authority that deserves your life from top to bottom. That's what Luke is trying to tell you. So I want to look at three things in this whole story, this whole structure. I want to look at three things about Jesus that call us to trust him. Three ways that Luke presents Jesus that call us to trust him. Here's what Luke says. Jesus is, number one, the source of all truth. He is the source of all truth. Number two, he is the conqueror of hell. And number three, he is the healer of humanity.

12:01 Those three things, that's how Luke presents Jesus. He is the source of all truth, he is the conqueror of hell, and he is the healer of humanity. One of the things you'll notice about when you read Luke is that at the end of almost every one of these miracle stories, the people are said to be astonished at what's going on. Or they're said to marvel at what Jesus is doing. Well, my hope and prayer this morning is that as you look at this story, this will not just be ho-hum. This is just another story about Jesus casting out another demon and healing another person instantly from what could have been a deadly disease.

12:32 Ho-hum. I hope you will marvel, too, at who Jesus is and what he does, and that because of that, you will love him more. That's my prayer for you. All right, number one, Jesus is the source of all truth. Now, an observation before we even get into the details of the text. It has been over the past, I don't know, what, six or nine months, fascinating to me to watch on the internet how people are starting to use artificial intelligence systems. Now, I don't want to get into a big debate with you about what AI should and could be used for.

13:05 I'm just saying it's fascinating to watch how people are using it because it's actually, at least on social media that I've seen, it's become a little bit of a joke, right? So Elon Musk with his ex, you know, formerly known as Twitter, has this AI attached to it that's called Grok, right? And one of the things that's kind of become a joke is that someone will post something and maybe even include a link to an article or whatever. And they'll be saying, you know, this happened and that happened and that happened. And literally within like two minutes, someone else will come in and reply to that post with, Grok, is this true?

13:40 I don't know if you've seen that, but it's just, it's everywhere. You almost have to block the word grok to prevent it. It's just grok, oh, all-knowing, all-wise AI, is this true? It happens on almost every post. Because people want an authority. They want someone, or in this case, something, who's able to cut through the noise, cut through the arguments, cut through the falsehood and the spin in order to get to something that is bedrock truth.

14:10 And the best thing we've got right now, according to most people on social media, is a thing called grok. I mean, there were a few years there, you know, 10 years or so when we tried it with fact checkers, right? Particular people in the media who were charged with checking the facts of what politicians said. But it turned out that, you know, that didn't work so well because those fact checkers needed to be fact by fact. They needed to be checked by some other fact checkers. You know, it's like the old movie said, well, who's going to monitor the monitors that monitor the monitors, right?

14:42 It's all humans all the way down. So fact checkers didn't work. Now we're on to AI as the great referee in human arguments. But what people are starting to find out as they repeatedly say, Grok, is this true? Is that the great AI referee, it turns out, is just getting its information from the great screaming argument on the internet itself. So somebody just this week put out a study that said 80% of Grok's info, 80% of what it uses to referee the great conversation going on among humans comes from Reddit and Wikipedia.

15:21 God help us if that's the referee. Well, see, that kind of authority, though, to say what is and to say what ought to be, is exactly what the people of Israel were longing for when Jesus all of a sudden showed up on the scene. And look what Jesus writes about him, verse 31. He went down to Capernaum, the city of Galilee. He was teaching them on the Sabbath, and they were astonished at his teaching because his word possessed authority. Now, apparently, Jesus did this kind of thing a lot in the synagogue.

15:55 He did it in Nazareth, if you remember last week. Certain details of the text here even make us think that this was kind of a repeated, regular occurrence for Jesus to go into the synagogue, read the scriptures, and then teach it. But where the people in Nazareth had heard Jesus teach and then just mocked him and then tried to kill him, the reception here in this other town of Capernaum was completely different. You can see it there in the text. The people were astonished at his teaching because his word possessed authority.

16:26 Okay, now what does that mean? I mean, you know the meanings of all the words, his word possessed authority. Okay, great. But if you really try to pick it apart, what does it mean? Like what distinguishes a word that does not have authority from a word that has authority? And how can you recognize it? Is it just one of those things that you know when you see it? Or is there a way to define it more particularly? Well, there are ways to define it a little bit more. Luke helps us with that. Just in terms of the normal cultural context of things, at the most superficial level, the idea of a word with authority is a contrast between how Jesus spoke in his teaching and how Jewish rabbis were famous for speaking at the time and teaching.

17:08 See, the typical style of Jewish rabbinical synagogue teaching was basically for the person who was speaking to pile up quotation after quotation of one famous, older, sometimes even ancient rabbi after another. So typical sermon became, I'm going to read this text to you from Isaiah 60, and then would commence something like this. Well, Rabbi Hillel says blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but Rabbi Yitzhak comes along and says blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

17:39 Rabbi Abraham avers with blah, blah, blah, blah. Eh, I leave it to you to decide. And that was the teaching. Well, that is not how Jesus taught at all. He did not just pile up quotes from rabbis, Hillel, and Yitzhak, and Abraham. That's just not what he did. I mean, Jesus came in with teaching that hit like a thunderbolt, and it was more like, you have heard it said that something was the case, but I say to you that something else is the case. Or even like the text last week, today.

18:14 Today, this scripture from Isaiah 61 has been fulfilled in your hearing. And so what he said was just utterly electric. He spoke in a way that made you want to listen. He spoke in a way that said, I know what the scriptures mean, and now I'm going to communicate that to you. Now, this is an extremely weird application. But if you aspire to preach, there is something to learn there.

18:45 Now granted, you're never going to be Jesus, nor you're not even going to be an apostle at any point. But still, when you preach the Word of God, whether it's at a Sunday evening service here or Sunday morning service, or if you go off to another church to preach, you should preach the Word of God as if you understand the Word of God. If you constantly just muck up your sermons with appeals to authority and quotes from other preachers and sayings from this guy and that guy, you won't speak as one who knows the Scriptures and speaks with authority.

19:17 You'll just sound like a drone that's just parroting what you've heard. Don't do that. Speak with authority as if you know the Scriptures and you know how they should be applied. That's what Jesus did, and that's part of it. That's part of what he means when he says he spoke with authority. But I think Luke means more here when he says the word came with authority. I think he means more than just Jesus was a good preacher. That's not all it meant. And it's the rest of the story that helps us to fill out what he means by saying Jesus' word had authority.

19:49 Now, how do I know this? How do I know that the rest of the story helps to fill out what that means? Because it's not just an assumption. It's not just me saying, well, the story must fill it out, right? No, it's that Luke signals to us that the story is filling it out, right? So let me tell you how we get there. Look down at verse 36. They were all amazed. This is after the demon is cast out. They were all amazed that the demon has been cast out. And they said to one another, what is this word? For with authority and power, he commands the unclean spirits and they come out.

20:23 Now, what do you notice there? What rings a bell there? Well, what ought to ring a bell there is that Luke uses the exact same words here in 36 as he did up in 32. His word has authority. So what Luke is obviously wanting you to do is take whatever it is you've learned from the casting out of this demon, which we'll get to later on. He wants you to take that and attach it to the idea of Jesus' word having authority. Right? Learn what authority means by looking at the casting out of the demon.

20:54 Now, he does this again in a different way. Look at 35. How does Jesus actually cast the demon out? How does he do it? I mean, does he like grab the guy by the lapel and pop him in the forehead? Does he wrestle him down to the ground and do a suplex on him and the demon pops out? No, he rebukes it, right? Kind of a strange word, but he rebukes the demon. He speaks to the demon and the demon goes out, right? That's how he does it, with his word. Now, look at 39.

21:28 How does he actually heal Peter's mother-in-law? He rebukes, same word, the fever. Now, that is an exceedingly weird thing to say, rebuking a fever. But that's what he does. And what Luke is doing is he's like flashing a red light at you and saying, I'm going to use, even though it's a weird word to use here, I'm going to use the same word that we use to talk about the demon. He rebuked the fever. And the point is that he's wanting you to see what happens in these two miracles, that Jesus acts by the power of his word, and then connect it back to that idea of Jesus' word having authority.

22:08 What kind of authority does this word have? This kind. The kind that can cast out a demon or heal a fever just by speaking to it. Now, that is an extraordinary thing to think about, because what Luke is saying is not just that he's a good preacher. He's saying that Jesus' word uniquely has the power to change things, to change and even create reality that did not exist before.

22:44 That's an insane thing to realize. Because for the most part, your words and my words don't have that kind of authority. They do not have that kind of power. There are very few times in life when the things that you say actually affect reality, right? One of them for me is a wedding, right? When I say I pronounce them to be husband and wife, boom, there is a new reality that is created. But that doesn't happen very often with my words. My words just are not that powerful.

23:17 So that kind of authority to change reality, to create reality with a word, is unique to Jesus. But notice also how he uses that authority. I mean, what could Jesus have done with the ability to speak reality into existence? Satan tested him on it, right? Turned that stone into bread. What could he have done? And yet, look how he uses it. He doesn't use it for himself.

23:48 He doesn't use it for his own good. He always uses his authority for the good of other people. I mean, just think about these stories that we're looking at right here in Luke. And you see it just everywhere. You see Jesus' compassion and his goodness. He's not wielding his authority to push people down, but rather to love them and to build them up, to rescue them from a demon that's oppressing them, to save Peter's mother-in-law from a fever that might be about to kill her. He's doing it against really all odds.

24:18 I mean, think about this demon-possessed guy. I mean, this was a public deal, right? Jesus is just in the synagogue preaching as he normally preaches, and this crazy person interrupts him. And Jesus could have, he'd had every right to cast him out of the synagogue, sometimes even with violence, whip him out of the synagogue for interrupting the teaching and preaching of God's Word. But he doesn't do that. He goes directly at what was harming the man. He uses his authority to help. and do good. You see from this what kind of person Jesus is? You see what kind of savior he is? If you're here and you're not a Christian today because you think somehow that you're not worthy of coming to Jesus, you need to see what kind of person Jesus is. You need to see how he uses this incredible authority that God has given him. Don't let your sin and guilt over your sin keep you from Jesus.

25:12 Your sin and the guilt of your sin is exactly what he came to deal with. And if you're the kind of person, if you're the kind of person who's sitting there knowing you're a sinner and guilty and helpless and not worthy to be with Jesus, then you are exactly the kind of person that Jesus would run after. Know this Savior for who he really is. I think this compassion shows up everywhere, everywhere. There's whole life, it's right there.

25:44 I mean, there's never a time, never a single time in Jesus' whole ministry where he uses his power just as a display of raw power. All his miracles, every single one of them are somehow in service to others. Yeah, they're proving who he is, right? But they're also in service to others. When he turns the water into wine at the wedding, that is in service to others. When he takes two fish and some loaves of bread and turns it into a feast for 5,000 people, that is for others. All of it, raising the dead, healing the sick, all of it is for other people.

26:19 Maybe the closest you ever get to just a raw display of power is walking on the water. But even then, what's that for? It's to pull Peter onto the water so that he can teach Peter to trust him. Now, Jesus uses this vast power and authority to love and serve other people. That is who he is. There's one more thing to notice here. It's true very much that Jesus' authority was personal.

26:53 And it was unique to him. But it's also interesting to note throughout the whole story of his life that his authority is also always rooted in the scriptures. in the Old Testament. He's constantly tethering his own authority to the scriptures. You ever notice that? At all the key moments of his life and ministry, Jesus speaks with authority, but he does so with the authority of the Old Testament. And think about it. At the temple when he was 12 years old, what were people astonished by? His insight into the Old Testament scriptures.

27:27 When the angel took him, when the spirit took him into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil, How does he counter the devil's temptations? By quoting the Old Testament. In Nazareth, his launching of his public ministry happens in a sermon from Isaiah 61. On the cross, he quotes Psalm 22. You see the point? Even the incarnate Son of God rooted his authoritative word in the authoritative word of God. Which is why, for people like me, pastors of churches throughout all time and history and around the world, that's why our job is to stand up here and open the Word of God.

28:08 Not just give you our opinions on what happened in the world this past week. We preach the Word. We ought to do what's called expositional preaching, which means to expose you to the Word of God. To open it up and explain it and apply it. It's one of the most fundamental things I want you to understand about what I do up here. What you've called me aside to do up here week in and week out. The authority is in the Word, not in me.

28:44 I mean, for Jesus, if you think about it, that wasn't even the case, right? It wasn't true that the authority was in the Word, not in Jesus. The authority was, in fact, in Jesus. He could have just spoken, and his bare word would have come with all the authority to shake hell to its foundations. And yet, even he, again and again, rooted his words in the Word. Why on earth would we try to do anything different? That's point number one.

29:17 Jesus is the source of all truth. Number two, Jesus is the conqueror of hell. Jesus is the conqueror of hell. So in verses 33 to 37, Luke tells the story of Jesus confronting a demon that had taken control of a man who was in the synagogue. Now, we don't get any background information here. There is no story about how this guy came to be oppressed or possessed or under the control of or the authority of this demon. It doesn't say how it happened. It doesn't say what it normally looked like in his day-to-day life. It doesn't say if it had been happening for a long time.

29:50 We just don't know. And the Bible nowhere gives you a kind of theology of demon possession. So, you know, if you came in with the question, I want to know all about demon possession. Who can be possessed and how do you get unpossessed and all this. Most of the answer is, I don't know. But the Bible just doesn't tell us a whole lot about demon possession. It just doesn't give us a whole lot of info. This guy just shows up at the synagogue. And as Jesus goes on speaking and preaching, the demon gets to a point where he just kind of seems to lose it. He just really doesn't seem to be able to stand being in the presence of the Son of God.

30:25 So in the middle of the sermon and in the middle of the whole congregation, he just screeches out what you see in verse 34. Ha! What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are. You are the Holy One of God. Okay, so let's see what the demon says because it is both instructive and amusing what he says. The word ha there is not laughter. He's not laughing. That's not what's going on.

30:55 It's a Greek word, ea. So it's like ea, ea, right? And it's not exactly clear what that word is. Sometimes in Greek poetry, ea is a kind of sigh. It's a sad ea, right? So that's how it's used sometimes in Greek poetry. But it's also just a word in a sort of, you know, form of command, right? Greek has different forms for its words depending on how the word is supposed to be used. And this one, ea, is the command form of go away or leave.

31:29 So as I read it, it seems to make more sense to think that this demon is going, go away, get out of here. You know, because he keeps talking. It's not just, ugh. It's not that. He doesn't seem to be in that frame of mind. He seems to be more in an escape frame of mind. I have to get out of here that question there what have you to do with us is a Hebrew idiom it's used various places throughout the the Old Testament and it means something like why are you bothering me right why are we interacting in any way whatsoever so it's it's almost an annoyance at being interrupted in in what's going on you know so if you're if you're working on your work and you're deep into it right and somebody comes up and starts bugging you you might look at them and say, what have you to do with me, right?

32:11 In other words, why are we interacting in any way whatsoever? You are annoying me. And the point just seems to be that the demon really does not like being in Jesus' presence, and he desperately wants Jesus to go away. And that's because it's obvious that he knows who Jesus is. And he actually names him twice. You can see it there. First he names him as Jesus of Nazareth and then as the Holy One of God, which is kind of a quote of what the angel said.

32:42 He will be called the Holy One, the Son of the Everlasting Lord, whatever that was in chapter 1. He names him a couple of times. Now it's funny because throughout the story of the New Testament, the demons that encounter Jesus do this all the time. They almost always, when they meet him and encounter him, They almost always say who he is. I mean, you can see it down in 41 also, verse 41. Demons also came out of many. And it looks like every single one of them was crying something like, you are the son of God.

33:15 But he rebuked them and wouldn't allow them to speak because they knew that he was the Christ. They know who he is and they say it when they encounter him. Why do they do that? That seems odd. I mean, are they trying to help people understand who Jesus is? No, it's definitely not that. But as for exactly what they're doing, we're honestly not exactly sure why they do that. It just seems like you come into contact with Jesus and it just gets like, you know, ripped out of them. Like, you're the son of God, right? They just can't help it.

33:46 We don't know exactly what they're doing. Some people have guessed, and this isn't a bad guess, I think. Some people have guessed that they're trying to use a kind of ancient, pseudo-religious, pseudo-magical idea, which we know existed in the ancient world, that if you know someone, if you know their name, if you know their origins, if you know their identity, then you have power over that person. Now that might be right. I think that's a pretty good guess because the people of Nazareth last week did that very thing.

34:16 You remember that, right? We get power over this guy. We don't have to listen to this guy. We don't have to submit to his authority because we know who he is. He's the son of Joseph and his origin is that he grew up among us. here in Nazareth. So that might be what's going on. The demons might be saying, we know who you are and therefore we're taking authority over you. But if that is what is going on, it backfires spectacularly on these little guys. I mean, think about it. Think about what they're trying to do. They're trying to say, I know who you are and therefore I assert my authority over you.

34:50 But what do they have to say in order to say who he is? They have to say, I know who you are. I'm taking power over you. You are the son of the living God who could blast me into a puff of smoke with a word. There's no power in that, right? It's just them ending up confessing that he is the most powerful being in the universe, the incarnate almighty God. It backfires spectacularly. And this one, at least, seems to understand instinctively what that means for him.

35:21 So he asks that question there, have you come to destroy us? Well, of course the answer is yes, right? I mean, in Acts, which Luke also wrote, Peter preaches that Jesus came to destroy the work of the devil. The answer is yes. He has come to destroy you, though it might not be time for that right, you know, just yet. But the point is that this demon knows the score. He knows who this is, and he knows what his ultimate fate is going to be. It's like James said, even the demons know that there is one God, And they shudder.

35:56 Now, before we go any further, I think there's a couple of things to learn here that should heighten our vigilance as Christians. That should heighten our sense of dependence on this Jesus who can cast out demons. The first thing that ought to happen that we can learn from this is that there is, in fact, a spirit world out there that we don't see very much of. And that we don't know very much about. In fact, I doubt many of you think very much about that unseen spirit world on a daily basis.

36:28 And in some ways, that seems to be a good thing. The Bible doesn't spend a whole lot of time giving us information. And it does that for, I assume, a reason. One of those is that a lot of times we can just use the spirit world as an excuse for our own sin. Right? It's all the famous phrase, the devil made me do it. I remember when I was in ninth grade, there was a preacher that came and he was taking aim at that idea of the devil made me do it. He did this whole theology of Satan, which basically amounted to Satan cannot be everywhere at once like Jesus can. He's not omniscient, he's not omnipotent, and he's not omnipresent, right?

37:03 So he can't be everywhere at once. And the fact is, the devil has far more important things to be doing in his own mind than messing with you. The devil did not make you do it. You did it yourself. We can use the spirit world as an excuse. But I think even though the Bible doesn't give us a lot of information, it's important too not to let Satan, the great enemy, lull us into a false sense of security. Because the reality is that there is in fact a real Satan and there are real demons who are bent on destruction.

37:40 And in fact who are bent on destroying you as a Christian. That's what they do. They destroy Christians. No, if you're a true Christian, they can't destroy your soul. They can't ultimately destroy your faith and make you lose your salvation. But they can destroy your effectiveness in the kingdom for the rest of your life. So it ought to cause us to be more vigilant than we typically are. You know those secret sins?

38:15 The ones that you don't think anybody sees, the one that you think, you know, the only ones that see that are just me and God and God will forgive me. Do you really, do you really think that you and God are the only ones who know about those secret sins? Brother, sister, I promise you that they are not. The demons know about it too. And if it weren't for God's grace preventing it, if it weren't for God's powerful hand covering up all the chinks and holes in your armor, they would destroy you with those sins.

38:51 We're to be vigilant. Second, though, the other thing that we should notice here is that Jesus has absolute authority over all of them. He has absolute authority over all of them. I mean, I love how Luke presents this. It's just when the man, you know, when the demon makes himself known in the middle of the synagogue, the way Jesus handles it, it is just a backhanded slap. Shut up and come out of him. I mean, be silent is a kind little translation, but it means shut up, stop talking.

39:26 All this blathering that's coming out of your mouth, shut up and come out of him. And these demons, this one right here and all of them that Jesus encounters know, they all know that they don't stand a chance against him. They generally surrender before the fight even starts. Have you come to destroy me? Is this the time? And why wouldn't they? Why wouldn't they just give up before the fight? I mean, Jesus had already defeated Satan in the wilderness, the greatest of them. He stood as his people's champion, and the shockwaves of Satan's defeat must have thundered through all of hell.

40:03 They knew who he was. The conqueror of Satan, the conqueror of hell, which is, of course, great news for us as Christians. It is truly excellent news. Why? Because Jesus' dominion over hell is for our sake. It's for our good. We, his people, are why he did it. This is what Paul writes in Colossians. You who are dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands, and set that aside, nailing it to the cross.

40:38 And then listen to this line. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in Christ. Brothers and sisters, that is amazing news. That is gospel. And it is important for us to put that in our hearts because Satan is destroyer and accuser. That's what he wants to do to you. Destroy and accuse. In fact, what he does is that he destroys by accusing. He accuses you and reminds you of sin and he uses those accusations to destroy you.

41:15 And here's the shocking truth of the matter. The shocking truth of the matter is that he is not wrong in his accusations against you. He's exactly right in all his accusations. I mean, it's not like when we say, Satan, you're the accuser of the brethren. It's not like he's making stuff up when he does it. His accusations against you and me for our sin are not false. They're true. So if Satan is ever going to be defeated, it's not going to be by you and me. It's not going to be by us making arguments about why his accusations are false.

41:49 Satan looks at us and says, you did that. You rebelled against God like that. You're not going to win by saying, yeah, but it was a really hard day. It was really tough. And I know I did that. I know I acted like that toward those people. But you don't understand, Satan, what I was going through and have Satan go, oh, man, you really got me there. If Satan's accusations, which are true, are ever going to be defeated, it's not going to be because you and I are the ones to do it. If it's just you or me against Satan, it's a rout.

42:24 You did this, I did. And you did that, yes, I did. You did all those things, yes, I did your rights. But with Jesus, the conqueror of Satan by your side, that conversation goes very differently. Because Satan, the accuser, looks at you and then looks at Jesus and says, Jesus, he did this. You know what Jesus says back?

42:56 Yeah, he did do that. But I didn't. And he's with me. Jesus is the conqueror of Satan, the conqueror of the accuser, and praise God for it. Number three, Jesus is the healer of humanity. So in 38 to 40, Luke says that after this synagogue meeting was over, Jesus went to Simon's house. Simon there is Peter, so everybody must have known.

43:26 He must have been famous enough by the time Luke was written that Luke doesn't need to specify any further. It's Peter. And apparently Jesus stayed at Peter's house a lot during his public ministry. There are places in the Bible that say Capernaum, this city where he's at, is his home. This is the place where he lived. And it seems that he probably, when he was there, he lived with Peter. Anyway, when he gets to Peter's house, it turns out that Peter's mother-in-law is laid up with what Luke calls a mega fire. That's literally what the Greek is, a mega fire. And sadly, your English translations have, you know, sort of dumbed that down and bored that down to high fever.

44:02 But personally, I like mega fire better. And I plan to use that the next time I have a man called babe. I am sorry, but I'm just gripped by this mega fire. Well, it doesn't look like, I mean, it's hard to tell. It doesn't look like mother-in-law is dying here. She's just very sick. So what happens? Well, again, Jesus speaks. he rebukes the fever, and look how Luke puts it. Immediately she was well, and she rose and started serving. Now that is pretty incredible again, isn't it? We get so desensitized to Jesus healing people at a moment's notice, and yet that's what happens. His authority is absolute. I mean, look at the way the sickness leaves her. It's just gone. And if you look at the healings later in the day in Verse 40, he lays his hands on them, and they're healed just right now.

44:55 You know, it's not like antibiotics. It's not like chemotherapy. It's not like laying in the hospital. It's not, you'll start feeling better in a few hours. It's immediate, and the sickness is gone. Verse 39, immediately, the fever left her, and she hopped up and started hosting. This is not a gradual recovery. Now, here's the question. Does this mean, as we read this story and see Jesus' authority here, does this mean that we have the right to assume that Jesus will always do this for us?

45:28 Does this mean that we have the right to always assume that Jesus will always do this for us? I mean, it's a live question, right? It's a live question for us because we're human beings. It's a live question because of where we are and who we are as a church. I mean, we have some people in our congregation who are beset by some serious illnesses, even ones that at least the doctors say are terminal. So does this passage teach us that we should expect Jesus to heal us and to heal those members of our congregation like he did Peter's mother-in-law?

46:05 Well, before you go straight to no, it certainly teaches us that he could. He could heal like that in an instant. And in all our prayers for doctors and wisdom and peace and trust, we should never ever lose sight of the fact that our God could heal instantly and completely.

46:42 In fact, I'm sure many of you sitting here right now have stories of the ways you have seen him, in fact, do that very thing. But even though that's true, that he could, it's also true that often God has purposes for us, even for the wider world, that go far beyond just making us right now well and healthy. In fact, the scriptures teach us that sometimes our being sick, even sick unto death, is part of God's good plan for doing good to us and bringing glory to his son.

47:17 That's what Paul says in Romans. We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only that, we rejoice in our sufferings. Because we know that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope. God is about something bigger than just taking away your suffering. James says the same thing. Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds. For you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And steadfastness needs to have its full effect so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. God is about something bigger than just getting you out of suffering.

47:51 Now, it is not an easy thing to rejoice in sufferings. It's not an easy thing to count it all joy when you encounter trials. Not easy. But it is a distinctly Christian thing to do. Because we know that our God is working all things together for good. And in doing that, in learning to rejoice in suffering that God does not take away, in learning to count it all joy when we encounter trials that God does not take away, we're just learning to be like Jesus.

48:31 And that's what Jesus did. This is what he knew when he went to the cross. Hebrews chapter 12. For the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Friends, to suffer in hope of good and glory, and not simply to long for suffering to be ended, is a uniquely Christian and a uniquely beautiful thing. Several years ago, a man named James Montgomery Boyce, who was a longtime pastor of 10th Presbyterian in Philadelphia, was diagnosed with terminal liver cancer.

49:12 He was only 61 years old at the time, a young man. And he died after that diagnosis within a very short few months. As soon as the diagnosis was made public to the church, he addressed the congregation one Sunday morning. And I want to read to you some of what he said, because I think in a particularly straightforward and realistic and moving way, his words capture what it means to be someone who is a Christian and yet suffering with something that everyone around you tells you is probably going to end in death. And to do that as one who trusts God.

49:44 Here's what he said that Sunday morning. He said, a number of you have asked what you can do. And it strikes me that what you can do, you are doing. This is a good congregation. And you do the right things. You are praying, certainly, and I've been assured of that by many people. And I know of many prayer meetings that have been going on. A relevant question, I guess, when you pray is, well, pray for what?

50:16 Should you pray for a miracle? Well, you're free to do that, of course. My general impression is that the God who is able to do miracles, and he certainly can, is also able to keep you from getting the problem in the first place. So although miracles do happen, they're rare by definition. A miracle has to be an unusual thing. So I think it's far more profitable to pray for wisdom for the doctors. Doctors have a great deal of experience, of course, in their expertise, but they're not omniscient, they do make mistakes.

50:50 And then also pray for the effectiveness of the treatment. And sometimes it does very well and sometimes not so well. And that's certainly a legitimate thing to pray for. But above all, I would say pray for the glory of God. If you think of God glorifying himself in history and you say, where in all of history has God most glorified himself? He did it at the cross of Jesus Christ. And it wasn't by delivering Jesus from the cross.

51:22 Though he could have. Jesus said, don't you think that I could call down from my father ten legions of angels for my defense? But he didn't do that. And yet that's where God is most glorified. If I were to reflect on what goes on theologically here, there are two things I would stress. One is, of course, the sovereignty of God. That's not novel. We've talked about the sovereignty of God here forever. God is in charge. When things like this come into our lives, they are not accidental.

51:54 It's not as if somehow God forgot what was going on and something bad slipped by his notice. But what I've been impressed with mostly is something in addition to that. Because it's possible, isn't it, to conceive of God as being sovereign and yet indifferent. Maybe God is in charge, but he doesn't care. But it's not that. God is not only the one who is in charge. God is also good, and everything he does is good.

52:27 And what Romans 12 verses 1 and 2 say is that we have the opportunity by the renewal of our minds, that is how we think about these things, actually to prove what God's will is. And what is his will? Well, then it says his good, pleasing, and perfect will. Now, does that mean good, pleasing, and perfect to God? Yes, of course it does. But the point of it is that it becomes good, pleasing, and perfect to us. If God does something in your life, would you change it?

53:06 Because if you'd change it, you well know that you would just make it worse. It wouldn't be as good in the end. So, that's the way we want to accept things like this and move forward. And who knows what God will do. Some of you in this room are dealing with some hard, hard things in your life right now. But I want you to hear James Montgomery voice.

53:40 Knowing what you know about God. That everything God does is bringing out the most good for you and the most glory for Jesus. Would you change what he's done? If you're tempted in your heart to say, yes, I would, then just spend some time meditating on this. If you change it, if you change what a good and glorious God has done, you'll just make things less good in the end. Friends, that's bedrock stuff in our Christian faith.

54:14 That God always does what is best, even if we can't see exactly how it's best right now. So take comfort in that. I'm going to say one more thing. Take comfort not even in that, but take comfort in knowing that Jesus is not indifferent to your suffering. It's not impersonal to him. It's not just a big chessboard that he's playing impersonally. Look at verse 40. When the sun was setting, all those who had any who were sick with various diseases brought them to him, and he laid his hands on every one of them and healed them.

54:57 What Luke says there, the way he says it, is emphatic. He means you to see something in it. Because he could have just said, he laid his hands on them and healed them. In fact, the Bible says that a lot of times. He laid his hands on them and he healed them. But it's not that. Not here. It's he laid his hands on every single one of them, and he healed them. And what I want you to understand is that this wasn't some magical thing happening. Jesus didn't have to lay his hands on them in order for them to be healed. He healed many times, just with a word, from a distance.

55:29 He didn't need to do that. This is personal. This is Jesus caring for them one by one by one. So listen, whatever your struggle, if you belong to Jesus, if you're a Christian, know that he is not indifferent to you. He cares for you. He's using your pain for your ultimate good. And in the meantime, until the day that he decides to take you home, whether that's soon or whether that's decades from now, and not a single one of us in here knows that timeline, he's got work for you to do.

56:09 so let's get on with it let's pray our Lord we thank you that even as you sit enthroned as king of kings and lord of lords yet you care for your people and you are working all things together for our good and for your glory our God we pray that you would take these truths and push them deep, deep down into the foundation of our souls so that when the difficulties come, when death happens, when the diagnosis comes, when the illness begins, we'll be able to stand on that bedrock and our faith in you and your goodness and your power and your wisdom will be immovably secure. Our God, we pray all of these things in Jesus' name. Amen.