As we continue in our ongoing study of the book of Luke, I
would remind you that Luke has been presenting a series of credentials as to
authenticity of the claim that Jesus is the Messiah, the promised One, the Son
of God. This passage that we have
come to today should not be examined irrespective of it’s context. We can learn much from it, but to be
certain that what we learn is accurate, it is important to keep scripture in
context.
Therefore, what we see Christ doing in this passage -
healing the sick and casting out demons - should be understood in the greater
context that Luke is presenting the credentials of Jesus Christ as the Messiah. In the first three chapters, he has
given us expert testimony from credible eyewitnesses who testify to the
divinity of Jesus Christ in accordance with prophecy, with scripture and with
angelic pronouncement.
Finally, in chapter four, Luke begins to record the ministry
of Jesus Christ, and he starts with the temptation of Christ. In the temptation
of Christ, the humanity of Jesus was being tempted by the devil. And we have shown in previous studies
that Jesus answered every
temptation with the Word of God.
The Bible says in Ephesians 6 that the Word of God is the sword of the
Spirit. So we see Jesus doing
spiritual battle with the prince of darkness, not with weapons of this world,
but with a spiritual sword;
specifically the Word of God.
The fact that Jesus was able to withstand the temptations of Satan
himself again attests to the credentials that Jesus is the Messiah. He demonstrates that He has power over
sin and therefore power over Satan.
Then, as we looked at last week, Luke fast forwards a year
in Jesus’ life and records as the first example of Christ’s ministry Jesus
returning to his home town to preach a message in the local synagogue. And again, Jesus preaches the Word of God to establish the
fact that He is the Messiah. The
passage Jesus picks is from the book of Isaiah, particularly chapter 61 which
says, “"THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD IS UPON ME, BECAUSE HE ANOINTED ME TO
PREACH THE GOSPEL TO THE POOR. HE HAS SENT ME TO PROCLAIM RELEASE TO THE
CAPTIVES, AND RECOVERY OF SIGHT TO THE BLIND, TO SET FREE THOSE WHO ARE OPPRESSED,TO
PROCLAIM THE FAVORABLE YEAR OF THE LORD."
Now, the passage tells us that His hometown neighbors
rejected the idea that Jesus was the Messiah and when He told them that because
of their rejection of Him that the gospel would be preached to the Gentiles,
they became so enraged that they tried to throw Him off a cliff to stone Him to
death. But He miraculously passed
through their midst undetected and unharmed.
So Jesus leaves Nazareth and goes about 20 miles down to
Capernaum, a town on the edge of the Sea of Galilee. And again, the next Sabbath, He goes to the synagogue and
preaches the gospel. This will be
the practice of Christ, to teach and preach in the synagogues of Israel. This is where the Jews congregate on
the Sabbath to hear the Word of God read and taught. And their tradition makes it possible for Him to not only
find an audience, but an opportunity to preach.
And the Bible tells us repeatedly that when Jesus preached,
the people were amazed, because He preached with authority. He preached the Word of God. As He did in Nazareth, and as at the
temptation, He either opened the scriptures or recited the Word.
Though the Apostle John says that Jesus was the Word, yet for Jesus there
was always a dependence upon the written Word of God. The Word of God is authoritative. And as a preacher of the Word, I stand on the authority of
the Word of God. I’m not teaching
my opinions, or what I think sounds good, but I can say with authority that
this is what the Word of God says.
And therein is the power of preaching the Word; it’s not my words, it’s
God’s Word.
I think it is remarkable that God appears on earth in the
flesh, to usher in the Kingdom of Heaven, and yet He limits himself to simply
the preaching of the Word of God.
He could have called down fire from heaven, He could have called 10,000
angels to bow before Him, He could have brought to bear all His creative power
as the Creator of the Universe to prove to everyone that He was the
Messiah. And yet Jesus simply
preaches and teaches the Word of God as His primary means of presenting the kingdom of heaven.
To be sure there are miracles that Jesus does, and yet they
are without fanfare, they are without the usual drama that we see on television
today when these so called miracle workers put on these elaborate, staged
performances. Jesus did not come
to town and rent out the Convention Center and advertise on tv and radio that
there was going to be a great healing service on such and such a day, and build
up all this drama and publicity to make sure that everyone knows how gifted He
was.
But rather, when we see Jesus doing these miracles in
Capernaum, their purpose is in fulfillment of the scripture in Isaiah 61. He is preaching the gospel to the poor,
that is the spiritually needy. He
is releasing prisoners in captivity to an evil spirit, He is healing the blind,
He is setting free those who are oppressed. All of that is in direct fulfillment of the prophecy of
Isaiah that He was preaching in these towns. And in the process of preaching the gospel, He demonstrates
that He has the power to accomplish deliverance.
By the way, I can’t help but notice that when Jesus began
His ministry and went about Israel preaching and teaching the Word of God, that
there is no mention of music in all the gospels except on the night before He
was crucified in the upper room, at the end of the Passover Meal, they sang a
hymn and went out on the Mount of Olives.
There is no mention of a worship leader in all of Jesus ministry. It’s amazing that just the Word of God
being preached with authority was enough to hold a crowd. Unfortunately, that
doesn’t seem to be the case today.
We just finished going through 1 Timothy in our Wednesday
night Bible study, and 1 Timothy is the manual if you will for church
operations. It lays down God’s
requirements for worship in the church, for leadership in the church and so
forth. And again, there is no mention
of worship leaders or even music in 1st or 2nd Timothy. And I say that to say this; I don’t believe that the Bible has
anything against song leaders or worship leaders per se. But they need to be
held to the same Biblical standards of leadership as prescribed for elders and
deacons. Both in Ephesians and
Colossians we are told to sing hymns and psalms and spiritual songs. But I am afraid that the church today
has gotten our priorities turned upside down. There is scarce teaching of the Word of God, and the
assembly of the church is given over to a concert style performance that is
light on doctrine and often glorify the worship band more than the One that we
are supposed to be worshipping.
The average church service today features 30 to 45 minutes of music, and
if you’re lucky a 15 minute homily that may throw in a verse or two of scripture
for good measure that serves as a framework for three jokes, two illustrations
and a poem.
We need to get back to the preaching of the Word of God
folks. Hebrews 4:12 says “For the
word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword,
piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and
is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” That’s what is needed in the church
today. Rather than trying to
make the church relevant to the world, the gospel has the power to make sinners relate to God. Romans 1:16 says, “For I am not ashamed
of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who
believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.”
The Word of God is powerful. It has the power to change lives. So many of these contemporary worship songs today are like
eating a bowl of whipped cream. It
tastes good, and it gives you a sugar-like rush that may make you buzz around
for a while, but it doesn’t take long for the buzz to wear off and leave you
feeling like you’re in a spiritual slump, because there is no substance
there. But Hebrews 5 tells us that
the oracles and principles of the Word is solid food and that eating it leads
to maturity, that is it is able to teach us discernment in spiritual things.
Now Jesus was preaching in the synagogue in Capernaum, and
it more than likely may have been the same message that He preached in
Nazareth, the prophecy of Isaiah 61 that the Messiah would release the
captives, heal the blind and free the oppressed. And verse 33 tells us that “In the synagogue there was a man
possessed by the spirit of an unclean demon, and he cried out with a loud
voice, "Let us alone! What business do we have with each other, Jesus of
Nazareth? Have You come to destroy us? I know who You are—the Holy One of
God!"
First of all, I want you to notice that in this group of
worshippers, in this religious gathering in the house of God, there is a man
there who was possessed by a spirit of an unclean demon. Now that may be surprising to some of
you. That the devil would be in
the house of God. A man
masquerading as someone who was worshipping God was actually possessed with the
spirit of a demon.
It should not be surprising. In fact, I think it is rather common. 2 Cor. 11:14 tells us
that “Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Therefore it is not
surprising if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of
righteousness.” Jude tells us that
they have crept in to our churches unnoticed, that “these men, also by
dreaming, defile the flesh, and reject authority, and revile angelic majesties.” Notice they reject the authority that
God has set up in the church. They
take pride in their flesh. He goes
on to say that they are “hidden reefs in your love feasts when they feast with
you without fear, caring for themselves; clouds without water, carried along by
winds; autumn trees without fruit, doubly dead, uprooted; wild waves of the
sea, casting up their own shame like foam; wandering stars, for whom the black
darkness has been reserved forever.”
Clouds without water; that
means they seem like they are clouds that bring rain, but they don’t bring
rain. They don’t have any real
fruit, in other words. They are
tossed here and there by every wind of doctrine. They are compared to a dangerous reef hidden under the
surface of the water. And so we
need to understand that there are people in the church who look and maybe talk
like Christians, but are under the power and influence of the devil.
I’m amazed that so many times when something bizarre happens
in the church, there are people that automatically assume that it has to be of
God, because it happens in worship. 1John 4:1 warns us, “Beloved, do not
believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God,
because many false prophets have gone out into the world.” And the test is the Word of God.
This guy might have been seen by some people to be affirming
who Jesus was. He might have been
someone who seemed to be spiritual.
And yet Jesus recognizes that he was possessed by an evil spirit. Sometimes it can be difficult for us to
recognize a person that is possessed by an evil spirit. We have these zombie images in our
imaginations that have been fostered perhaps by movies and television horror
films. But I would suggest to you
that the 7 to 10 actual examples of demon possession we see in the Bible does
not always give us a picture that looks like that. They do usually exhibit bizarre behavior to some degree or
another. Some seem more bizarre
than others. But there are psychological problems that some people have that
can cause extreme behavior as well, however that in and of itself is not
indicative of demon possession.
But one common characteristic common to demon possession seems to be
shown consistently in scripture.
And that is the supernatural recognition that Jesus was the Son of
God.
Notice verse 34, “"Let us alone! What business do we have
with each other, Jesus of Nazareth? Have You come to destroy us? I know who You
are—the Holy One of God!"
This was knowledge that even the disciples at this point did not fully
understand. It was a supernatural
recognition of God in the flesh.
You see the same thing further down in verse 41, “Demons
also were coming out of many, shouting, "You are the Son of God!" But
rebuking them, He would not allow them to speak, because they knew Him to be the
Christ.” In Mark 5:7 we see
another example in the man possessed by a legion of demons when he said, “What
business do we have with each other, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I implore
You by God, do not torment me!"
We see a similar statement by the girl that had the spirit of divination
that Paul cast out in Acts.
So it seems there is a direct correlation between
supernatural knowledge and demon possession. Notice another characteristic about this man. He interrupts the teaching of Jesus
with this loud outburst. The Greek
doesn’t translate very well into English this verse. The first phrase is actually an outburst of indignation and
fear, much like “ah ha!” But it is
really a loud cry, almost a scream of fear. And the second phrase is a Hebrew idiom, or saying, that
literally says, “What to us and to you.”
While we may not understand the exact meaning of the idiom, we can know
for certain that this man was disruptive and drawing attention to himself. That is the same thing that the servant
girl was doing that Paul delivered.
The work of Satan is always to draw us away from the Word of God and put
the attention on a person, or on ourselves. God is not the author of confusion.
Luke 4:35 “But Jesus rebuked him, saying, "Be quiet and
come out of him!" And when the demon had thrown him down in the midst of
the people, he came out of him without doing him any harm.” Notice how simply Jesus delivers him
from the evil spirit. There are no
drawn out incantations. Jesus
didn’t have to bind him, or bind Satan, or have long drawn out prayers. He simply speaks a word and the demon
comes out. He comes out because
Jesus has authority over the unclean spirits. And Jesus is demonstrating that authority in fulfillment of
the prophecy of Isaiah 61, that He will release the captives and free the
oppressed.
Luke 4:36 “And
amazement came upon them all, and they began talking with one another saying,
"What is this message? For with authority and power He commands the
unclean spirits and they come out."
They are asking, “what is this Word that with authority and power casts
out even demons?” The message of
the Word of God is powerful, living, active and sharper than a two edged
sword. And this sword of the Lord
is the same sword we have today as our weapon against the works of the devil. The gospel is the power of God unto
salvation to all who believe.
Salvation means deliverance.
It is the power of deliverance from the captivity of sin and the
enslavement of the devil.
Listen, some Christians are always excited by the
possibility that they might obtain the supernatural power of Jesus Christ to
cast out demons and heal the sick.
These folks love to quote the verse from John 14:12, “I say to you, he
who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works
than these he will do; because I go to the Father.” And such power is very enticing. So we get really excited by this prospect that we are going
to be able to go around smacking people on the forehead and binding Satan and
doing all kinds of great miracles.
But while I believe a desire for such power is not a godly
characteristic but rather a carnal one, there is a power that is available to
all of us through the Word of God that is greater than just physical
deliverance. And it is the
spiritual deliverance of salvation that comes through the Word of God.
Please understand this. The deliverance of this man from demon possession is a prime
example of the greatest deliverance of all, our salvation. While we were unsaved we may not have
exhibited the degree of bizarre behavior of a demon possessed person, yet the
Bible tells us that all mankind is under the power of the evil one. 1 John 5:19
says “that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.” Jesus said in John 8:44 “You are of
your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a
murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is
no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for
he is a liar and the father of lies.” 1 John 3:8 says, that “the one who
practices sin is of the devil.”
So folks, in our natural state, our carnal, unconverted
state, we are sons of our father the devil. We are children of darkness. We are unable to discern the
truth of God because the 2 Cor. 4 says the god of this world has blinded our
eyes. We are unable to come to God
because John 6:44 says that “no man comes to the Me unless the Father draws
him.” In our natural condition, we
are hopelessly lost, blinded, children of darkness, condemned to eternal death,
to be thrown into the Lake of Fire along with the devil and his angels.
But that’s why Jesus message is good news. That’s what the gospel means, good
news. Jesus said, “"THE
SPIRIT OF THE LORD IS UPON ME, BECAUSE HE ANOINTED ME TO PREACH THE GOSPEL (the
good news) TO THE spiritually bankrupt. HE HAS SENT ME TO PROCLAIM RELEASE TO
THE CAPTIVES of sin, AND RECOVERY OF SIGHT TO THE spiritually BLIND, TO SET
FREE THOSE WHO ARE OPPRESSED under the dominion of Satan,TO PROCLAIM THE
FAVORABLE YEAR OF THE LORD."
The good news is Jesus has power over sin. Jesus has triumphed over death. Jesus has triumphed over Hell. Jesus has defeated Satan and his demons.
1 John 3:8 says, “The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the
works of the devil.” Colossians
1:13 says, “For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred
us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the
forgiveness of sins.”
Listen, this is the message of the good news; That Jesus Christ has come into the
world to save sinners. To save the
spiritually bankrupt, who recognize that they are blind and destitute, that
they are lost, that they are dead in their sins, that they are held captive by
the devil. For those that
recognize their condition, and call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ for
forgiveness, Christ says He will not turn them away. He says that those who confess Him as Lord before men, He
will confess before the Father in heaven.
The good news is there is forgiveness of sin through the sacrifice of
Jesus Christ on the cross. Jesus
paid for my sins in full. And God
is willing to transfer the righteousness of Jesus Christ to us, in exchange for
our sins upon Jesus Christ, that we might be made righteous through Him.
This righteousness is not something that we have to
earn. It’s not something we can
earn. This is a supernatural
deliverance that we are not capable of.
You know, the man possessed by the evil spirit was powerless to change
himself. But Jesus delivered him
by an act of grace. That is, it
was a gift of God. And that same
gift is available for all who come to Jesus. Come to Jesus just the way you are, dead in your sins, held captive
by the devil, oppressed by sin, blind to the truth of God, and Jesus will
deliver you. Jesus will set you
free. Jesus will heal your
spiritual blindness. Jesus said in
John 6:37 "All
that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will
certainly not cast out.”
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