A Man With Authority Part 2
Notes
Transcript
Review.
Last week we saw Jesus begin to establish his authority.
Authority to teach. he’s not a man with borrowed authority from other Rabbis.
Authority to drive out demons. He doesn’t have to go through a certain process. He just speaks and the demons obey.
Jesus Continues to establish his authority. In this account we have a private miracle, and then many public miracles, as Jesus continues to establish himself as a man with authority over both the physical and spiritual realms.
First, we see Jesus has authority over physical illness
29 And immediately he left the synagogue and entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. 30 Now Simon’s mother-in-law lay ill with a fever, and immediately they told him about her. 31 And he came and took her by the hand and lifted her up, and the fever left her, and she began to serve them.
This was still the Sabbath day. It was the custom to retire to one’s nearby family’s house after attending the gathering at the synagogue. The pharisees has rules about how far you could travel, after all.
Apparently Simon’s family lived close by, so that’s where they went.
And we immediately encounter a crisis.
Simon’s mother-in-law is sick. In those days, the fever was the illness and not just a symptom. Additionally some viewed illness as a sign of God’s judgment. And if a fever is God’s judgment, then only God could take it away. That understanding only adds great significance to the implications of the events that are about to unfold.
So you can imagine the concern on the part of the family.
They inform Jesus.
Why?
Did they know he could heal her? What were they expecting? At this point he had done no miracles other than cast out a demon. Was that enough for them to believe he could do more? Were they just telling him in hopes that, as a Rabbi, he could inform them about something they didn’t know? Was this a thinly veiled request?
We also see the personal compassion of the Savior here. He takes her by the hand. This shows us two things.
1. That it was a result of His action. We know that he didn’t even need to touch her. In other places Jesus would heal people that weren’t even present. but Jesus wants it to be clear that he was the one that healed her.
2. That he has such personal compassion for others. Again, he didn’t need to touch her. But in his compassion, he goes to her, takes her by the hand and lifts her up.
I don’t know how many of you have had experiences with Drs who have terrible bedside manners. They are gruff and rough and to you they are just job, just a project, or just a paycheck.
Jesus doesn’t come across that way. Simon’s mother-in-law is not just a hurdle to overcome, just a project in front of him, just another sick sinner in the way of his journey to the cross.
No. Jesus approaches her with compassion and gentleness. He cares for her, heals her, and raises her up.
She gets up and begins to serve. This is a statement about the thoroughness of her healing. We would not expect someone to be serving dinner for a group immediately after breaking a fever.
Often when we break a fever, though the fever is gone, we are still weak from our battle with the illness and in no condition to entertain. Often we can still be contagious even though the fever is gone.
But when Jesus heals this woman, he heals her completely. So completely that he restores all her strength, he removes all aspects of whatever was causing the fever, and he gives her the strength to entertain her family.
Jesus has just done something that they believed only God could do. At the very least this is a demonstration that Jesus is operating with the power of God.
That was a private miracle. In the next verses things go public.
We are about to see a number of people come to the house. I don’t know if they are responding merely to the casting out of the demon in the previous passage. I’m sure some are, since he is going to cast out more demons. I don’t know if word from Jesus healing Simon’s mother-in-law has somehow gotten out and word is spreading that rapidly.
What I do know is that Jesus has instantly become the most important thing going on that region.
After all, when you have a man who can heal people with the power of God in your midst, what do you do? You bring him all your sick people!
32 That evening at sundown they brought to him all who were sick or oppressed by demons. 33 And the whole city was gathered together at the door. 34 And he healed many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons. And he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.
That evening at sundown.
This is an important detail. We must remember that they were in the synagogue on the Sabbath day and it was still the Sabbath when they returned to the house. In Jewish custom, the Sabbath day begins at sundown on Friday evening and lasts until sundown on Saturday evening.
The people were good Jews here. They didn’t want to break the sabbath so they waited until the Sabbath was over to bring all there people.
And what does he do? He heals everyone who comes to him.
Notice the language used here. There were a variety of things that Jesus healed. Jesus was not a one-trick pony. He could heal a fever, but not other things. No, he healed many people who were sick with various diseases.
Jesus has authority over the physical realm.
Again, here we see the compassion of Jesus. He stayed up well into the night in order to heal everyone who came.
Finally, look at the last portion of verse 34.
He cast out many demons, and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.
Here Jesus once again demonstrates his authority over the spiritual realm. Jesus has already shown us this in the casting out the demon in the synagogue. But here he does it on a much larger scale. Many demons are cast out, and each of them silenced by the powerful word of the Lord.
There are several questions to be addressed here.
First, who, or what, are demons?
Scripture tells us that the evil/unclean spirits, the demons, were all once holy and pure spirits. The demons were once angels that served the Lord God. Satan himself was also one of God’s holy angels. When Satan rebelled he was able to convince many other angels to join him in his rebellion. These rebellious angels have become known as demons. They are no longer God’s holy angels, but evil spirits. But since they were once God’s holy angels, they would have been very familiar with Jesus. It should not surprise us that they recognize him straight away for who he is. They used to serve Him, after all.
Second, why did he not permit them to speak?
The text says, because they knew him. Because they knew who he was, Jesus silenced them. We saw this last week as well. When Jesus rebuked the demon he said “Be silent and come out of him”
That’s a bit odd, don’t you think? If they are being truthful, why wouldn’t Jesus welcome their testimony?
This silencing is sometimes called the “Messianic Secret” by commentators. They look at all the times that Jesus silenced the demons, or at all the times that Jesus is going to instruct people he heals not to tell anyone, and the say that Jesus wants to keep his identity a secret.
But that still leaves us with the question. Why?
There are at least two possible reasons for this:
The source of the information is important. Though these demons spoke what was true, Jesus did not want his identity to be revealed by evil spirits. That would be like if a false teacher like Benny Hinn, or Creflo Dollar introduced me as a proclaimer of the Gospel. While true, I don’t want that information coming from those men because I don’t want to be associated with their message and what their conception of the gospel is. It could be that Jesus simply doesn’t want demons making known who He is, not because it isn’t true, but because of the source of that information. Jesus wants to establish his own identity in His own way. So he commands the demons to be silent and does not permit them to speak, and in so doing, he still is able to establish His identity through his authoritative actions.
The timing of the information is important. Another possible reason is that Jesus was not yet ready for this information to be publicly known about him. Jesus had much he wanted to accomplish in His earthly ministry, but if reports of him being the Holy One of God began to spread before it was time, then it would jeopardize what he wanted to accomplish. Other places in Scripture Jesus will make the comment or the narrator will make a comment that “my time is not yet full”. Everything must unfold according to the timetable that Jesus Himself is establishing. And Jesus ensures that timetable will unfold as desired by silencing the evil spirits.
And so, desiring to reveal his identity in his own way and in his own time, he commands the evil spirits to be silent and he does not permit them to speak.
What do we learn from this text?
Jesus is a man with authority. This is a theme we shall revisit for several weeks in a row here as we continue to see Jesus demonstrate his authority over various realms. The key issue that we must grapple with is this: why does he have this authority? It’s tied to his very nature and being. He has authority because of who he is.
Jesus shows us what it means to be his disciple. Jesus called his disciples to follow him. To be his apprentice. To learn from him and imitate him. Later on we will find them being sent out to do the same works that he was doing. He was showing them, this is what it looks like to follow after me.
A disciple wasn’t just someone who was along for the ride, like a fan club who would “ooo” and “aahh” at every miracle. No, a disciple was someone who was to learn from their master. A disciple’s goal was be able to perfectly imitate the master.
Jesus cares about the whole person. He cares about the physical suffering of people, and he shows mercy to the afflicted.
When a church gets involved in caring for people’s physical needs, this is often called “mercy ministry”
There is a very careful balance that must be struck here.
Our circles, fundamentalist Christians, typically tend to place a very high emphasis on teaching and preaching, and rightfully so. We rightly and correctly emphasize the need for correct doctrine, good theology, and good preaching. We study the Scriptures, we have Bible study, our sermons come from the biblical text. We have Sunday Schools, and Bible institutes. We teach systematic theologies, and do book studies. etc. There is nothing wrong with this emphasis whatsoever. Here at Pillar Fellowship, we share that zeal for rightly understanding the Word of God, for rightly handling the Word of Truth. We want people to know the Word of God so that they might live by it.
But often that emphasis wrongly comes at the detriment of other avenues of ministry, like mercy ministry. It is very common in fundamentalist churches to have a neglect of intentional mercy ministry. What’s more, often in our circles we can be quick to criticize others who do engage in mercy ministry because, by our estimation, they aren’t doing enough to preach the Gospel to the people they are serving.
I mentioned the need for careful balance in this discussion. There was a movement many years ago that was called the “Social Gospel” and it has done much harm over the years. The social Gospel was a movement born out of theological liberalism. This movement taught that Jesus did not come to bring personal salvation for sinners in need of grace, but rather to liberate those who were oppressed by society, and thus the gospel was engaging in social action that would result in some improvement in society. Through this movement churches engaged in unhealthy ways in politics, they abandoned teaching the word of God in favor of social talking points, and the true Gospel of salvation by grace through faith was lost.
We see many churches beginning to slip into this same trap once again today with the emphasis on social justice priorities within the church. Jesus is absolutely concerned with justice. God’s word absolutely gives us the wisdom we need to for good public policy. Those who make so-called “social justice” the priority usually end up forsaking biblical definitions of justice in favor of the world’s.
How do we find the right balance? Jesus was concerned with people’s physical well being. We too ought to concerned with that as well. Though we do not have the ability to heal with the touch of our hands as Jesus did, we can still care for people in other ways. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard this phrase “People don’t care what you know until they know that you care” its pithy, and maybe even a bit cliche-ish, but it is true.
Finally, it must be noted. The mistake of the Social Gospel was to make social action the Gospel. We must never make that mistake. We must never divorce our mercy ministries from the love of the truth and helping people understand their need for the savior. If we engage in mercy ministries all day long and never tell a single person about their need to repent and trust in Christ, we have failed. The proclamation of the Gospel and our willingness to help with their physical needs when and where we are able must go hand in hand.
This is a challenge for us today. One of our core values at this church is “others-oriented service” “We selflessly serve others both in the church and in the community as an expression of the love of Christ”
It will look different for us than it did for Christ and the apostles. God was authenticating the message through miracles. That message has been authenticated. Now we get to proclaim it and serve people as we do.
So I leave us with that today. We see the compassion of our savior. We see how he did not forsake people’s physical needs as he sought to address their deeper spiritual need. Let that be a call for us to show compassion as well, always pairing physical mercy with the proclamation of the mercy of God toward sinners who will trust in Him.