That's a home group here tonight or this morning. I recognize almost everybody here. Great. Can't hear me. Can you hear me now?
Okay, thank you. Well good. It's good to see everybody. Oh, I'm going to go in and out in and out. Okay. How's it going now? Good. All right. Karen says I'm good. All right. She doesn't know. So anyway, I appreciate you all being here. It's the official start of the not summer, even though it's going to feel like that. Maybe today, but we're looking forward to a great fall on into the end of the year here. We're going to be carrying right through, you know, the book of Luke doesn't stop where we finished last week. And so we aren't either. We're going to be doing this every week. Just a couple announcements real quick. I wanted to let you know that we've now scheduled the next session for the new believers guide to the Bible. So I'll be teaching on Monday nights, starting on the 19th of the main campus. If anybody has somebody who's in need of a real basic introduction to the Bible, we're going to have that. It'll be a seven week course. We'll start on an introduction to what the Bible is all about. And then we'll go right through the Bible step by step for six weeks. You know, we'll do the Pentateuch, the Torah. We'll do the history books, then the prophets, the gospels, the book of Acts, and then the epistles. So we'll look forward to anybody in here that would like to get that real basic information. And then we'll also look for you to advise your friends who need some of that to get looking at it. The signups will be up at the small groups table and online also, I believe. So take take note of that. We have no other announcements here. Let us know how the air conditioning works today. We're doing some experiments. We got these fans in now. We're going to try and move the air while we're talking. All right. So let's have word of prayer and then we'll get started. Gracious Lord, thank you so much for allowing us to be in your house this morning. We know that this teaching environment here, Lord, is dedicated to you. And it's for us to get close to you through your word. Instruct us. Keep our minds open in our hearts, willing Lord, as we encounter you through your word today. We ask a blessing on Mark Strauss as he leads us this morning just to empower him with everything you want for us to know. And all of the people working here in the code this morning, Lord, just thank you for them in Jesus name. Amen. In the very back, whoa. There we go. Well, last week I had jet lag, but this week Dennis has jet lag. He's just returned from Ireland, but so maybe he'll. He said he got a lot of reading done on the plane, which is always a good thing. Well, if you are a football fan, you know that today is the first full weekend of the NFL season. Spousal support groups are popping up all over the countryside. And if you're a charger fan, everyone. The chargers have been this team with incredible potential for so long now. Great players, Super Bowl bound each year and always seeming to fall short. But this is the year, everyone saying it. This is the year. And the key is strategy as all the coaches in all of all of the league plan their strategy, develop their playbook with a winning game plan. You can accomplish that you can accomplish victory. You can you can win the Super Bowl. Well, that does have some application what we're talking about today. We're talking about Luke's gospel. And last week Jesus set out his game plan. We looked at what we call the Nazareth sermon Luke chapter four. If you have your Bibles, turn with me to Luke chapter four. We saw the season opener last week. If you will, the Nazareth sermon. And I want to go over this briefly. Jesus, if you remember returns to his hometown. He's had a preaching ministry throughout Galilee. Now he returns to his hometown. And he gets a chance and opportunity to speak in the synagogue there. He opens the scroll of Isaiah to Isaiah 61. And he announces his program. He announces his plan. He says he's here to bring good news to the poor. Good news to the poor to free the oppressed to give sight for the blind to announce God the year of the Lord. Then he sits down in front of the synagogue and he announces today this prophecy has been fulfilled. Now the prophecy in Isaiah 61, that's a prophecy of God's final salvation. God's end time salvation. And Jesus says it is coming to fulfillment right now. He gets a favorable response. Do you remember everyone speaking well of him? Why? Who do they think that the poor and the oppressed are? It's them, right? They are the ones. They are the recipients of God's blessings. Israel had it in their mind that God's blessings were for them alone. That God would judge and punish the Gentiles, but that he would reward the righteous. And they were the righteous. They were the poor. They were the oppressed. But then in that sermon, what does Jesus do? He applies it to the Gentiles. He notes two episodes in the Old Testament, one with Elijah and one with Elisha, where God showed favor to the Gentiles. That is to the whole world, people of the whole world, not just the Jews. And what happens in response, his old people rise up in opposition and try to kill him. They drive him out of the city and try to push him off of a cliff. Home town boy makes good. Home town boy almost gets lynched basically is what the story of the Nazareth sermon is. Now what do we see? It's this passage as we said is viewed by Luke scholars as critical and essential, programmatic, programmatic for the whole of Luke's gospel. Because it sets the stage for everything that will follow. It sets the program. Jesus sets out what he's going to do. First of all, so we get a sort of a definition of the message he's preaching. And then what happens, what happens then is that the sermon plays out in miniature, what's going to happen in the rest of the gospel. Because Jesus will proclaim the message, ultimately he will be rejected by his own people, just like he's rejected in Nazareth. He will suffer and die and rise from the dead and then the gospel will go to the Gentiles. So you can see why this episode is so critically important because it sort of sets the stage for everything that happens. The game has begun, right? The season I should say has begun. And what is interesting, the gospel writers, I said this at the very beginning, our first week when we talked about the gospels and what they are. The gospel writers are authors, theologians, narrative theologians, and they are crafting their stories to present the truth about Jesus Christ. And Luke is doing that. And so what we see in the episodes that follow is the plan, the program that Jesus has set out in Nazareth now begins to unfold. And the episodes that we see reflect basically what he's proclaimed. What did Jesus proclaim in the Nazareth sermon? Good news for the poor, right? In other words, the proclamation of the message. And what do we see Jesus doing? Let me go through these first. Freedom for the oppressed and sight for the blind. And what do we see Jesus doing then in the episodes that follow in the ministry that follows we see him preaching the word proclaiming the message, proclaiming good news to all the people. We see him casting out demons. You see what is freedom for the oppressed? Who is the greatest oppressor in the world from the very beginning? It's Satan, right? And so Satan's demons are in charge of people's lives. And what is Jesus doing? He's freeing people from Satan's satanic oppression. So freedom from the oppressed. We see these exorcisms. We'll talk more about them today. And then we see him healing the sick. So sight for the blind represents restoration of people who are sick. So we're going to see that. But there's more to it than just setting out the program and doing it. Walking forward with it, these are pictures or illustrations of the message. What's the message Jesus proclaiming the kingdom of God is what he's proclaiming the kingdom of God is at hand. And what he's doing is he's giving little snapshots of what the kingdom is going to look like little pictures of what the kingdom is going to look like last week. I came back from Uganda. And for just a few minutes, when we began, I showed you some snapshots of Uganda, right? Whoops. I'm not looking at my nose very well. Okay. Here, let's go back. Let's go back one step. What are these things mean? The message of salvation, the message of the kingdom. God's salvation has arrived. The salvation promise. These are snapshots. There's our point that I just made. These are snapshots of the power and presence of the kingdom of God. Last week, I showed you some snapshots, right? Here's a snapshot of Uganda. Here's a snapshot of the ministry that we had. What am I doing? I'm trying to give you a glimpse, an image of what we accomplished, what we did there. So you could join in and understand and participate. So when Jesus heals the sick, what is he doing? It's more than just compassion. It's compassion for God's people. It's more than just compassion. It's a glimpse. It's a snapshot. It's a picture of what is coming. It's a picture of the kingdom. Now, we use that phrase all the time. Don't we? The kingdom of God. What do we mean by the kingdom of God? Well, Jesus is telling us what he means by the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God means the restoration of creation, the way it was meant to be. The restoration of all things, the way God created them. I'm going back to a slide now that we started off with weeks and weeks ago. The message of the kingdom of God, we have to understand what the whole Bible is about in order to understand the kingdom of God. Because the kingdom of God means God's sovereignty over all things. God's reign over all things. So as we read the Bible, what do we understand about God's interaction with human beings? Well, God created the world. There's the beginning. God created a perfect world. And he put Adam and Eve in that garden, a perfect world to be in relationship with him. But what happened? Adam and Eve rebelled against God. What happened? They sinned exactly. They sinned and rejected God's authority in their lives. And so judgment came upon the earth. And all of creation entered a fallen state. The rest of the Bible is God's purpose to restore creation. It's not just to save souls. Did you know that? It's not just to save souls. It's to restore all of creation to a right relationship with God. And the climax, of course, is the coming of Jesus, the Messiah, the Savior who would restore creation. So now the Messiah comes on the scene. The Old Testament is about the promise. The New Testament is about the fulfillment. The Messiah comes on the scene and what does he proclaim? The kingdom of God is at hand. God is taking back his creation. And what does he do? He gives a slide show. That's what he does. He gives a slide show for what's happening. There's no snapshots of what this ultimately means. Now obviously, we know it hasn't been completely fulfilled, has it? People still get sick, don't we? Satan still has some control in this world. But these are snapshots of what it means that God is taking back his kingdom. What it means for us to come into submission to what God is accomplishing here. So let me just talk about these two that we're going to see. We're going to see the exorcisms. We're going to see the healings as well as Jesus goes on. Do you remember this passage? We started off in talking about the prophecies for the Messiah. Genesis 315 is the very first prophecy related to the Messiah that is related to God's purpose and plan to restore creation. And what does God say in the judgment on the serpent? He says, I will put enmity, hatred, between you and the woman and between your offspring and hers. Now that's very significant. Your offspring and hers. We're talking about snakes, first of all, right? And we're all sort of EBGB about snakes. Most of us are anyway. Snakes are scary things. So in one sense, it's about snakes and human beings. But it's another sense, who are Satan's offspring? Those loyal to Satan, those who are promoting Satan's purpose. In the gospels, that's the demons, right? So enmity between the seed of the woman, the descendants of the woman that is human beings and the descendants of Satan, that is his demons. It goes on to say, he will crush your head, you will strike his heel. So Satan's going to strike the heel of the Messiah. He's going to wound the Messiah in the crucifixion, but ultimately the Messiah is going to crush Satan's head. So the descendant of the woman will crush Satan's head. So what are the snapshots? What's the snapshot showing? The exorcisms are demonstrating that Satan is being defeated. Jesus arrives, how do we know that he's going to have the power to defeat Satan? One by one, he's taking out these demons. He's demonstrating his authority, you see, over the demonic realm. Turn over to Luke chapter 11. Before we get into our passage, I should tell you how we're going to do this. Before we get into our passage, I want to set the framework so we'll better understand what is happening. Luke chapter 11. Now notice what Jesus is doing. He's doing something he's going to be doing in this passage. Start in verse 14. Jesus was driving out a demon. There it is. A demon that was mute, that was causing the man not to be able to speak. When the demon left, the man who had been mute spoke and the crowd was amazed, but some of them said, by beausable, another name for Satan, by beausable, the prince of demons, he is driving out demons. Others tested him by asking for a sign from heaven. Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them, any kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and a house divided against itself with fall. If Satan is divided against himself, how can his kingdom stand? I say this because you claim that I drive out demons by beausable. Now if I drive out demons by beausable, by whom do your followers drive them out? So then they will be your judges. Basically, he first of all refutes the claim. He says, wait a minute. Why would Satan send me to cast out his own demons? Why would Satan be fighting against himself? He says, that's just nonsense. Then he says, if you're accusing me of being demon possessed to cast out demons, what about your exorcists who cast out demons? But then this is the verse I want you to say, look at verse 20, because this is crucial, verse 20, but if I drive out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. Do you see what Jesus is saying? He's saying if my demon, casting out demons, is in fact God's purpose and plan. That means the kingdom of God is arriving right now. That means that God is claiming back his authority. Now that phrase kingdom of God, you've got to remember what that always means. It always means God's restoration of his creation. So now think again what I just said, if I cast out demons by God's power, then the restoration of creation has begun. You see? This is the turning point in human history. Jesus says, you guys need to pay attention. He's talking to the religious leaders of Israel. You need to think about the significance of this. If I'm coming on the scene and Satan is being beaten down and ultimately defeated, what does that mean in terms of human history? This is the center point in human history. Jesus says, so there we have it with the exorcisms. Let's talk about the healings, the promise of creation's renewal. One day, all sickness will be destroyed. One day, all sickness will be destroyed. What's the cause of all sickness? What's the cause of all death? Ultimately. It's sin, ultimately, not individually. In other words, someone doesn't get cancer necessarily because they've sinned. But ultimately, all sin is the result of our sinful nature and the fall of humanity. So if we defeat sin, we defeat sickness, ultimately, and we defeat death, ultimately. Turn over to Isaiah, chapter 35. So excited, this group is starting this study of Isaiah. Isaiah is a great book. Healings then are a snapshot of creation's restoration. Isaiah chapter 35. All through the Old Testament prophets, we get these prophecies that were related to the restoration, the ultimate restoration of all things. Okay, I'm going to just start with verse 5. Well, no, let's go back. Let's go back to verse 1. I want you to see the context. The desert and the parts land will be glad. The wilderness will rejoice in blossom. Like the crocus it will burst into bloom. It will rejoice greatly in shout for joy. The glory of Lebanon will be given to it. The splendor of Carmell and Sharon. They will see the glory of the Lord, the splendor of our God. Do you see the context here? What's the desert? The desert, a symbol of desolation, fall in creation. Now, we go on the desert as beautiful, the flowers, and all that stuff. But the desert is a symbol of sort of fall in creation. God, in the desert, there's no water, desolation, and death in the desert. And so it's a picture of that. So what's going to happen when God restores all of creation? The desert is going to bloom again, essentially. See the picture? These are snapshots. These are snapshots of what it's going to what's going to happen when God restores his creation. Now look at verse 5. Then will the eyes of the blind be open? And the ears of the death unstopped? Then will the lame leap like a deer? The mute tongue shout for joy. Once again, water will gush forth in the desert and streams in the wilderness and streams in the desert. Do you see the picture? This is a picture of God's restoration. The Old Testament promises that one day God is going to step in and restore creation. Turn over to Luke chapter 7. Notice we're staying in Luke. You see this is Luke's theological perspective. He's giving us Luke's perspective on who Jesus is, his portrait of Jesus. Luke chapter 7. Back up to Luke chapter 7. I'm jumping you around this morning, aren't I? This is going to set the stage for a lot of what we're going to see over the chapters to come. We know John the Baptist, right? We learn the story of John the Baptist. John the Baptist gets arrested by Herod, put in prison. He's eventually going to get executed but he's in prison and he's beginning to get concerned a bit. He's concerned because he expects, he knows Jesus is the Messiah, he believes he's the Messiah. What does he expect the Messiah to do? Well, free him from, I think, come get me out of prison, right? Absolutely. And he expects him to establish Israel's authority to establish the kingdom. And even for John the Baptist, John the Baptist is thinking, what does that mean? That means that Rome is going to be destroyed and the Messiah is going to reign in Jerusalem. The King is going to reign in Jerusalem, right? Do you understand what I'm saying here? So Jesus isn't doing that. Jesus isn't doing what he expects. So John is beginning to get concerned. That's hard for us to see doubts arising in these great men of God. But John is wondering is Jesus really the one? Is he really the one? So look at this. Chapter 7 verse 18, John's disciples told him about all these things. Calling two of them, he sent them to the Lord to ask, are you the one who was to come or should we expect someone else? You see the doubts? See the doubts? When the men came to Jesus they said, John the Baptist sent us to you to ask, are you the one who was to come or should we expect someone else? At that very time, look at what Jesus is doing. Jesus cured many who had diseases, sicknesses and evil spirits and gave sight to many who were blind. So he replied to the messengers, go back and report to John what you have seen and heard. The blind received sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the death here, the dead are raised. Good news is proclaimed to the poor as a 61, 1 and 1 and 2. Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me. Jesus does just what he does when he's tempted in the wilderness. He quotes scripture. He points back and he says, now look at what I'm doing. You're not seeing Roman soldiers destroyed, you're not seeing Roman legions wiped out, but what are you seeing? You're seeing demons cast out, you're seeing the sight for the blind, you're seeing good news proclaimed to the poor. And any Jew in the first century knows exactly what that means because they've read Isaiah before, right? It means God is stepping into restore his creation. Jesus says, don't you remember the slide shows? I've been showing the slide shows all over Galilee. The pictures, the pictures are the healings. We sometimes ask why didn't Jesus heal everyone? Well, because his purpose wasn't to heal everyone, his purpose was to accomplish ultimate salvation, to suffer and die. So the healings are snapshots and pictures of what the kingdom is bringing. Ultimately, what the kingdom is bringing. So we respond in faith to the kingdom knowing that ultimately it means a new body. It means no sickness, it means no death, it means no demons, right? Okay, that's all background. That's all background to all of the healer. We're going to see exorcisms use casting out demons. We're going to see healings. Whenever you see those, think back to Genesis chapter three and the promise to defeat Satan. Think back to Isaiah chapter 35, the promise for the desert, the bloom and for eyes to see and for ears to hear. That's what it's all about. It's all about the kingdom of God. And the kingdom of God means the restoration of a relationship with God with his creation as it was meant to be. All right, let's go now. Now we can get in our passage. We've got plenty of time left. Luke chapter four, turn with me to Luke chapter four. The setting is cavernium. Let's get a little orientation. Most of Jesus' ministry takes place in the north of Israel and the region known as Galilee right there. There's Galilee and cavernium is a very significant spot. The cavernium is the home of Peter. Actually, it's where his fishing business was. And this becomes Jesus' center of operations while in Galilee. Whenever it says Jesus went home, Jesus didn't have a home, did he? Especially not since Nazareth drove him out. Nazareth down here on the left. I don't know if you can see Nazareth there. Nazareth rejected him. He made his home in cavernium up there just north of the sea of Galilee. So in this passage, Jesus goes into the synagogue in cavernium. Now you can still see a synagogue in cavernium. When you go to Israel, I won't say if you go to Israel, you go to cavernium, you'll see the synagogue. This is actually a fourth century synagogue. So written about, or built about 400 years after Jesus' time. What is fascinating though, at the bottom of the synagogue, you can see a line of black basalt. That is the foundation of the first century synagogue where Jesus was. So we actually know if this is the same site. We're pretty sure it's the same site. That this is where Jesus actually cast out this demon. This is where a lot of his ministry took place in the cavernium synagogue. Alright, let's read chapter 4 verse 31. Then he went down to cavernium, a town in Galilee, and on the Sabbath he taught the people. They were amazed at his teaching because his words had authority. Okay, we're going to see three key points here. We're going to see preaching the word. We already showed them because they're announced in the Nazareth sermon. Preaching the word, casting out demons, healing the sick. There's the key. There's our snapshots. There's our pictures. So we're going to start with preaching the word. And notice, this may surprise us because we would think, no, just heal people. Set up a big clinic and bring people in and just focus on that. But the primary focus for Jesus is preaching the message proclaiming the message. You see because it's the message that's going to carry on. It's the message that ultimately is going to turn things around in the world as people turn to God and recognize his authority in their lives. So we see this high priority. I want to show you this structure. I've done this before for you. We talked about these bookend structures in scripture. This what we call inclusio where an author will state something. Tell a story and then state it again and sort of frame that story in that theme. Do you remember that? We saw that when Jesus as 12 year old boy was taken to the temple. We saw his wisdom talked about a story about his wisdom and then his wisdom talked about again. So this is a bookend. So Jesus preaches in the synagogue and then we get this episode of healings and exorcisms and then look at the end of this passage. Look down at verse 42. This is where we're going to get to at the end of our passage. At daybreak Jesus went out to a solitary place. The people were looking for him and when they came to where he was they tried to keep him from leaving them. Now do you see what has Jesus been doing in cavernium? He's been healing. Healing spectacular when people see healings they want to see more. He's been casting out demons. They've been seeing all these acts of power and they want more. They want Jesus to crank up the traveling Jesus show again and heal some more and cast out more demons. But he said what did he say? I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also because that is why I was sent. Jesus says you've had your slideshow. It's time to go on to the next town. They need to hear the message too. They need to know the message too. So this is why this priority is in Jesus' proclamation of the kingdom of God. So there's that inclusio he kept on preaching then in the synagogues of Judea. So proclaiming here's our point. Preaching the kingdom of God is Jesus' priority. The miracles illustrate. They're the snapshots. They're the pictures of the presence and power of the kingdom. The next slide, some of you are writing that down so I won't go on to the next slide. The next slide is simply the takeaway. Look at our first takeaway there. The first takeaway is the priority of sharing the good news of the kingdom of God. The priority of sharing the good news of the kingdom of God.
Let me ask you a question here as we talk about some application. What's the essence of the Christian faith? What's the essence of the Christian faith? Some might say it's to worship God and there's something very true about that. But think about it. If all we were to do right now is worship God, why are we here on earth? Why doesn't God just take us right to His presence? We will be able to worship Him much better in His presence. So ultimately our primary focus here on earth is not just to worship God. That's critically important. The first two commandments, love God and love others. So some might say yes the key is to love others. That's what we're here on earth to do. And there's a measure of truth there. But if ultimately our goal on earth was just to create a utopian society, we could never do it in our fallen state. Could we? I was a psychology major in college. Have I told you that? I have a BA in psychology and I read a book by B.F. Skinner who was one of the foundational behaviorist psychologists. It's called walled in two. And walled in two describes Skinner was convinced that if we could just, if we could just shape people's behavior, we could create a utopian society. In other words a perfect society just by by using these behavioral techniques to change people's behavior. And this book is about this supposedly utopian society that doesn't really turn out to utopian at all. But ultimately that will never work. Because we are fallen human beings and fallen human beings will always mess it up. That's by the way part of the story of the Bible. Have you noticed that? Is it over? No matter what happens ultimately we mess it up. Why? Because we need a new nature. We need to be restored first and foremost in our relationship with God. Understand amen for that? You see the point is that relationship with God, that restoration, that relationship with God is the critical piece. Now what's interesting is some Christians really focus on just proclaiming the message of salvation, just saving souls. Other Christians just proclaim the need to reach and help the poor. We can't have an either or Christianity. We have to have a both end because it's about whole persons. But ultimately Christians are first and foremost people of a message. You see where people of a message. That message is the kingdom of God. That message is you can have a right relationship with God. When you come back into a right relationship with God, then the other pieces are going to fall into place. Then ultimately other things we will love God. We will worship God. We will love others. So the first thing is that relationship with God. And that's why the priority on proclaiming. What was the commission that Jesus gave us disciples? Go and be my witnesses. Go and be my witnesses in word and indeed. All right. Okay. Let's read on in our passage. The people are amazed. They're amazed because Jesus teaches with authority not as the scribes, not as the teachers of the law. Why was this significant? You have to understand a little bit about Judaism in the first century. If you ever pick a get a hold of a book called the Jewish Mishnah, the Jewish Mishnah is the code of Jewish law. And as you read that, you'll see basically it's a collection of legal legal decisions, if you will. And it will say rabbi so and so said this rabbi so and so said this so they'll raise a question. What should we do in this case? What should we do on the Sabbath? Are we allowed to do this? And rabbi and they'd quote the rabbis rabbi so and so said this rabbi so and so said this. That's the way they taught basically by repeating the traditions of the elders. Jesus had a very different teaching style. In fact, we won't turn it there because of time, but in Matthew 5 through 7, we see this. Jesus says, you've heard it said this, right? You've heard what the elders and traditions have said, but I say and he goes way beyond that. He's teaching with authority. You've heard it said you shall not kill. That's great. That's great. But you know what? That's not enough. That's shocking. The Bible is not enough. The Old Testament is not enough because it's not about external observance. It's about internal transformation. Just what we're talking about. So Jesus says, if you hate someone, it's the same as killing someone. That's shocking and powerful teaching. That's teaching with authority. So Jesus is teaching with a radical new authority and a radical new message. I was in St. Paul this weekend. We had a faculty retreat so I had to go back to St. Paul for a Bethel faculty retreat. And I got on the plane and as always on the plane, they go through the safety instructions. Anyone listen? You do. I'm very impressed. You probably pick up the little plastic thing and read through it as well. Most people don't pay any attention. I happen to be in an exit row and I still didn't pay any attention. You know, you just pull the thing down and you open the door and you let everybody out if it ever happens. Same old thing. Same old thing. That's kind of what the teachers of the law. Same old thing. That's nice to be reminded just in case. And then Jesus comes along. Now suppose I was sitting there in that airplane and the safety instructions went through and suddenly the pilot came on and said, and by the way, in addition to the safety instructions, we've been informed there's a bomb on this airplane. And so you should probably make your way to the exit. At that point, I would realize, that's a new message. I haven't heard that one before. I'm looking on the guide, the sheet. I don't see the bomb one. You know, I would, that would be a message that would cause me to act. Right. So Jesus comes along and the people are shocked. Why are they shocked? Because Jesus isn't just saying, yes, that's. Rabbi so and so said this. Rabbi Judah said this. Rabbi Simeon said this. He's saying, the kingdom of God is in hand. Sorry, did I scare you in the back? Wake anyone up. Do you understand the significance now that we've gone through Isaiah? This is the center point in human history. The thing you have waited for for centuries is here. So the people are saying, what? Now remember the Nazareth synagogue today. Jesus says today for hundreds of years it's been. Yeah, it's coming. One day it's coming. One day it's coming. And Jesus says today this prophecy is fulfilled in your ears right now. So you see what's that? This is a authority that Jesus is speaking with. This is a brand new message. How does he demonstrate that message? We've already talked about. Let's read through it. Casting out demons. Still in the synagogue. Verse 33, in the synagogue there was a man possessed by a demon, an evil spirit. He cried out at the top of his voice. Go away. What do you want with us? Jesus of Nazareth. Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the holy one of God. Now a shocking scene here, a disruption in the service. You ever get disruptions over here in the service? You know, cell phones. Those are the worst. You know, cell phones go off. People get disrupted. I was preaching in church where a man in the front row always had, he had Tourette syndrome. So he shout out now and then so we'd have those occasional disruptions in the service. One point my dad was preaching. My dad was preaching. A man came in the side door, walked up to him, put his hand out and said, hello, I'm Jesus Christ right in the middle. So that was a bit of a shocking disruption in that service. I want to tell you another time what happened after that. That's a whole story. But so this demon shows up. The service is shocked because a man who is demon possessed suddenly stands up. But I think it's fascinating what happens. A demon disrupts the service. What does he say? He says, go away, Jesus of Nazareth. What do you want with us? Have you come to destroy us? Now first of all, it's a comical scene because think about it. You see a demon or you see a man possessed by a demon. You see a ghost. Who screams? You are the ghost. Think about it, right? You scream, right? So the demon, the demonic man comes up. Who screams? Jesus or the demon? The demon, right? Who's scared in this situation? Do you see the picture here? Who's scared? The demon says, he's here. And notice what he says. Go away. What do you want with us? Now read the passage carefully. How many demons are here? One. There's only one demon. There's a man with one demon. He says, have you come to destroy us? We know who you are. Who's he talking for? Satan and the demonic realms. They see. They know the terminator has arrived. You see it's hostile of this. Is that what? Yeah. Baby. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. So you see what's happening here? They get it. The people are just beginning to get it. But the demons know what this means. This is their doom. This is their end. Have you come to destroy us? Why the fear? Because the Messiah has arrived. Because salvation is coming. Because the kingdom of God is at hand. I know who you are. The holy one of God. Now there's a big debate. I don't want to get into scarly debates here. But why the demon tries to identify him? It's really interesting, isn't it? This happens a lot. The demon says, we know who you are. This is what the demon says. We know who you are. The son of God. Well, why would the demons announce to use his identity? You think they'd want to keep it under wraps, right? In the first century, in the ancient world, there was a belief that if you could name a spiritual presence, you could gain control of that spiritual presence. If you could name it, if you knew its secret names. In fact, there's a book written between the Old Testament and the New Testament. It's called the Testament of Solomon, not written by Solomon. But it's about Solomon. And then it's got all this demonology in it because what Solomon does is he uses a magic ring to coerce demons to build the temple, you know, Solomon built the temple. Now it's fanciful. It's completely fanciful. But it gives an idea. He knows their names. And by knowing their secret names, he can control them. So it's possible that the demon thinks, I know who you are. Therefore, I have control over you. You see what could be happening? See how he names him? Jesus is Nazareth. I know who you are. The Holy One of God. Now you have to submit to me. Why do the demons identify Jesus either to control him or possibly to discredit him? They're trying to because later Jesus accused of being in league with the demons, right? So yeah, we're buddies with Jesus. We know who he is. So trying to connect themselves with him to try and discredit Jesus. So two possibilities, if you're interested in scholarly issues, two possibilities either to control Jesus, they name him or else to discredit him so that he will be accused of being in league with them. The quiet come out of him. Jesus silences demons again and again. He silences demons because he doesn't want them to proclaim his identity. Why? Because Jesus is revealing his nature and purpose. He even silences human beings as we're going to see. In other words, he'll heal someone. He says, don't tell anyone about this just yet, right? Because Jesus is concerned that if too many people start proclaiming him to be the Messiah, the same thing with John that John the Baptist is struggling with is going to happen. They're going to try to make him a physical king. And he won't be able to accomplish his purpose. His purpose is to suffer and die on the cross. So Jesus has his strategy. He knows what he has to do. And so he's trying to keep some of this messianic expectation, a little temper down so that they don't immediately make him king. The same thing with demons, he doesn't want the bad press. He doesn't want them to announce who he is, his identity, his purpose. He wants to define the purpose on his own terms. Once again, all the people are amazed. What amazed them? Notice this, what it says. Well, first of all, the exorcism, be quiet. Jesus had certainly come out of him, then the demon threw the man down before them all and came out without injuring him. Verse 36, all the people were amazed, just like in the first verse there, they're amazed it is teaching and said to each other, now I've got a TNIV, the revision of the NIV, what does the NIV say there? What, something about the teaching, right? What is this teaching? Okay, mine says, what words these are? With authority and power, he gives orders to evil spirits and they come out. And news about him spread throughout the surrounding area. The key, though, notice is the authority of the words, the authority of the message. So they're hearing the message, the first statement in this passage, they're hearing the message and they're amazed because Jesus is speaking with authority. He's proclaiming the kingdom. Now he casts out demons and basically they see that this is confirmation of the message. This is evidence. This is the snapshot. This is the proof that what Jesus says is true. Here's the point, you don't have to write this down because we already said it earlier, I'm just reinforcing it here. Casting out demons is evidence of the presence and power of the kingdom of God. At this point, we could turn back to Luke 11 where Jesus says, if I cast out demons by the finger of God, the kingdom of God has come to you. You see, that's what that passage is right there. All right, here's our second takeaway. The priority of confronting spiritual forces in opposition to God. Now there's a tough one. How many of you had a demonic encounter ever? Let me just start with that. That's probably maybe I should, this is something that that happens to Christians but doesn't happen to a lot of us. I was in Africa and Africa, we hear a lot more about power encounters and we have to ask I think, what is Satan's strategy in our context? I think too often we don't even think that really it's a spiritual battle at all. We think of it more as a cultural war in our society but look at what Paul says. Ephesians 6-12, for our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, against the spiritual forces of evil and the heavenly realms. Paul wants us to realize just what was happening in Jesus' day is happening today. There is a spiritual struggle going on for the hearts and souls of people around. But then we have to ask, what is Jesus' most effective strategy in Southern California? It might be one thing in Africa and I think there's a lot of talk, we heard a lot of talk about. We heard a lot of talk about witch doctors and people, if prayers aren't getting answered, they're tempted to go to the witch doctors. You see, Satan is alive and well in Africa and you can see it in the occultic practices that go on. But what is Satan's strategy? We talked about game plan, right? The beginning? What's the charger strategy tomorrow night? What's Satan's strategy in Southern California? I'm not sure that his greatest strategy is to get you to go do a Ouija board somewhere. I mean, I don't think you should do that. Don't get me wrong. I don't think he's really concerned that you go down to that little palm reader on Elkohon Boulevard down there. I don't think that's Satan's greatest strategy. What do you think? Let me just throw this open to you. What are some of Satan's strategies? Materialism. That's not a problem with us because we're okay. We work for what we deserve, so it's we're just pulling our materialism in Southern California, right? Probably Satan knows. He knows. In fact, I think I have a quote here. Oh, that was so perfect. That comment was so perfect to start with because I had this quote. This is in C.S. Lewis's screw tape letters. If you haven't read screw tape letters, I don't know whether to tell you to read it or not. It's basically a senior demon giving a dice to a subordinate demon about how best to affect the people he's trying to influence. It's C.S. Lewis trying to look at it from the other side of the battle, trying to see the enemy strategy. But look at this quote from there. The senior demon is telling the subordinate demon that what we need to do is produce an ever increasing craving for an ever diminishing pleasure. There's the key to materialism, right? Evermore, just more. You get a lot. You just need a little more. Just a little more. Just a little more and you never have enough and you get to the end of your days and you're the rich fool, right? Tonight your soul will be taking food. So materialism, others. I saw a lot of other things. Yes. Okay. So if it's the occasion that intellect over rationalism over God, very good. Yeah. Absolutely. New age teaching, which really present a whole different world view. God is not personal. Salvation is internal. Just you can do it yourself. Yeah. Sex drugs and rock and roll. Yeah. Yeah. The the the the the gravity, the degradation of society in terms of sort of a nihilism. The fact that, you know, life is meaningless. So enjoy it. You know, either dull it or enjoy it any way you possibly can. There's that quote there for that one as well. Yes. I don't want to listen to anyone else. No. Okay. Okay. Anyone prone to workaholism? Anyone prone to be constantly busy? I have to force myself to stop and meditate and reflect on God. That's I would say. Yeah. That's probably one of my biggest temptations. Yes. Yes. Here. If the devil can't make you bad, he'll make you busy. So you're telling me that no, no, yeah. I pray about that one this week. No, no, that's good. That's good. Excellent. Thank you. Yes. Okay. Yeah. It never changes. That's right. That's good. I never put those two. Those two quite together. Okay. So what's what's my point? My point is that Satan is alive and well in Southern California. We just don't see it. Turn on your television. Turn on your television. Any any week night and write down the values. This is a great exercise. By the way, if you've got teenagers, they won't do it with you. They'll run away as you start to do it. I once I once tried to sit through a music. I think I might have told you that. I tried to sit through a music video with my daughter. I refused to let her go to a concert. And I said, let's sit down and watch this woman in this music video and we'll talk about what she's suggesting by her actions. And it was incredibly explicit. And this is the concert that the harmless as another parent told me. The harmless concert. That this was going to be. So, you know, sometimes do this with just sitcoms. Just sitcoms. Sit down and ask, what's the value? What moral values is this suggesting for me? What materialistic values is this suggesting for you? It's very eye opening. We so much goes by us. It washes over us in our culture. And we don't even think about it. And then down the road, we don't realize that as the waves, you know, you stand there in the waves, don't push it. You don't think you're pushing it. But you wake up in your back here. You've just, you've been gradually pushed. Yes. Absolutely. You do. And we do. I know I do. I'll be watching something. And I'll say, oh, that's funny. And then if I stop and think, wait a minute, what am I just affirming in this? Right? Sure. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, you know, the dismissal of Satan is part of Satan's strategy, isn't it? I mean, just because it's not, it's not an issue. And then we see, that's why I think Satan keeps, keeps low, if you will, because he, in a society where, that's enamored by rationalism, there's no need to play his cards outright. He's winning the war without it. Yeah. One more. And then we'll go on. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And if you wrote down the language of clothing and the values, the whole scene, you would see how far we have moved. And I'm not saying leave it to beaver was, you know, the ideal model for all of us, but, but certainly you can see where we've just sort of, we've become extremely accepting of things that, that really have more, are morally wrong. Sally, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's a great point. That may not just be physical site. It's spiritual site. You get a lot of that interplay between spiritual enlightenment in the, in the Gospels. Excellent. Great stuff. One more. Yeah. The, what, the dividing the church, Satan. Oh, yeah. And that's in the screw tape letters a lot, dividing the church, this unity among the church is Satan's greatest ploy. And hypocrisy is the other one that just devastates the church. When we see leaders fallen in front of, you know, the media, yeah, we could do this one all week. We'll do this one again, because there'll be plenty of, plenty of chance. We're going to see lots of demons. Okay. Showing up. And we're going to looking for their application. We need to finish up this because we've got five minutes before question time. So if you have questions, hold them for a moment. All right. Our third point, our third point, remember proclaiming the message, casting out demons, healing the sick, we get the episode, I love this little episode, because this is the only time we see another family member to a disciple in the Gospels. Peter's mother-in-law. Peter had a mother-in-law. This is how we know Peter was married, by the way. We know Peter was married, because who would want a mother-in-law without a wife? No. There's that mother-in-law stereotype. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know Satan's working, yeah, or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. Paul also refers, incidentally, to Peter's wife, because he's talking about, he says, don't we have the right to take a believing wife with us on our missionary journey? He's like Peter does. So we know Peter was married from that. We know he was married from this, his mother-in-law, Simon's mother-in-law, Simon is Simon Peter, is lying sick with a fever. They asked Jesus to help her. So he bent over her, rebuked the fever. It left her. She got up at once and began to wait on them. Now we read this in our culture and context. It's a little demeaning. Well, some people would say it sounds demeaning that the first thing she did is she hopped up and she weighed on them, because that's what women do. They weighed on men. That's not really the point. The point that Luke's trying to stress here is that she was fully recovered. This is shocking. She didn't just start to feel a little better, take a couple of Advil, and you know, she's going to give her some aspirin and say, you'll be better in the morning. She's up immediately completely healed. So Luke is just trying to stress that this is a supernatural act. Jesus has the power to heal the sick. She got up at once, and now she's in the kitchen bringing, you know, or serving in some other way then. So we've got Peter's mother-in-law and then more healings in verse 40. At sunset, the people brought to Jesus, all who had various kinds of sicknesses, and laying hands on each of them, he healed them. Moreover, demons came out of many people shouting, you are the son of God, but he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak. Why? Look at this, because they knew he was the Messiah. So Jesus is silencing demons because he doesn't want their accolades. He wants to define his Messiah on his own terms. So once again, healing the sick is evidence of the presence and power of the kingdom of God. We've already been here. This is just as a reminder. This Luke 7, this is the John the Baptist passage, right? Where John the Baptist says, Jesus, are you really the Messiah? And what does Jesus say? He doesn't say, hold on, I'm going to wipe out the Romans next week. That's not what he says. He says, look at what I'm doing. I'm healing the sick. I'm casting out demons. I'm raising the dead. These are all signs of the restoration of all of creation. And then he says, blessed is the one who doesn't stumble over me. In other words, blessed is the one who realizes what these snapshots mean, who recognizes that God's salvation is about to come. Here's our third takeaway, the priority of meeting the needs of God's people. I mentioned a little earlier, there's a tendency for Christians to be either focused on social action or focused on soul saving as they say it. And I think both extremes are wrong just to focus exclusively on either ones. I was raised, I don't know if I've talked much about this, I was raised in a more fundamentalist conservative Christian kind of an environment, or basically we, it's the liberals who ran the soup kitchens. We didn't do that. We went out and proclaimed the message because you've got to get people into heaven as quickly as possible, because the world's just going to burn anyway. So we don't need to worry about creation. We just need to worry about saving souls. The Bible has a much more holistic picture of salvation. Salvation is about the restoration of whole people. And you can't bring someone to Christ if they're hungry still, right? You can't bring someone to Christ if they're homeless. The two have to go hand in hand. And so we need to preach, and we talk about the whole gospel. The full gospel message is a message of body, soul, and spirit. We are, as people, we are a unity, and we need to always meet those needs. The church should be careful not to go to either extreme. We have to always keep both in balance. Some churches air on the one side and some churches air on the other. Here's our final takeaway, and that is the priority of going where the gospel has never gone before. We've already read these verses, but the last verse demonstrates the priority of the message. Remember the people come out to him, they want to see the miracles, they want to see the traveling Jesus show, but instead what is Jesus saying? Jesus, I've got to go further. I've got to proclaim the gospel elsewhere. Great message for us today. We have enormous resources, don't we? I mean, God has given us so much. I have a library of Florida ceiling books, I mentioned last week. I have computer program. I have software on this computer right here that's equivalent to an entire library of material. I was with pastors in Africa who have a Bible and nothing else. And not that that's not what they need. But the resources that they need to study God's word, to understand it, to proclaim it, to teach it, to do discipleship, just aren't there. We need to realize the priority needs to be to get the word out. The whole message, the whole message out, and so the resources that God has given us are not resources for just us, just to enjoy and to be nurtured by. Their resources then to make sure that this gospel is going forward. Because our message is to go to Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and ultimately to go to the ends of the year. So let's keep that in mind. Even as a Bible study, let's keep that in mind. As we think about the resources that we do together, how are also we impacting the world. Okay, we got about three minutes. Any questions? We did some interaction, but I haven't taken any questions. They can be questions about this passage, of course, or other questions that have come up in the course. Did you want to ask your question? Come over here, Dennis. This was a question that came up earlier. The whole study of the other night, the question came up. Why to the Jews first? Why did the message go to the Jews first? Great question. Why did the Jews first? And if we go to Isaiah, we see, well, we offer the Old Testament. Why did God call Abraham? Why did God call David and establish a covenant with him? Because God chose a people and that people was to be a light of revelation for the Gentiles. Isaiah 42.6, Isaiah 49.6, Israel was meant to be a light of revelation to the Gentiles. In many ways, they failed. No doubt. But when Jesus came, he said, go first to the law sheep of Israel. Remember, he told his disciples, go first to Israel. Why? Israel was still meant to be a light to the Gentiles. And the Apostle Paul, who's the one who says to the Jew first, it's in Romans 1. The Jew first, he always went to the synagogue first. That wasn't just because he'd get a hearing in the synagogue. It's because the Jews had the right to hear it first because they were meant to be the light of revelation. That's why they were given the Old Testament. That's why they were given the promise so they could go out and proclaim the message. So everywhere Paul went, he went to the synagogue proclaim the message so he could gather God's chosen people to send them out to be a light to the rest of the world. So Israel's role was meant to be a light of revelation. So Paul said, that's our strategy. We go to Israel first. Then we've got the missionaries to reach a lost world. So that's really I think the key. The image of the servant, we'll talk about later on, is really crucial to that because Israel, in the Old Testament, Israel is the servant. And then Jesus becomes the servant, Parexalans, who takes that message of salvation. Any other? That's a really good question. Any other? Yes, Sally. I also was a psych major. And I remember I was reading, I was studying social psychology, I think it was. And in our text, it was a secular school. And I was amazed though that it started with, you know, it was talking about the efficacy of committee work, you know, committees. And it said, for God so loved the world that he didn't send a committee. Very true. Yeah. Right. Right. Right. There's many ways in Jesus's one voice. And then there's five million gurus out there, especially an insan either. Yes. Yes. Why did there's a great question? Why did God send a savior? Why do you think? No. How about we need a savior, right? We need someone because we do bad things. And so God provided away through Jesus that we could come back into a relationship with him. That's a great question. One more. One more. And one of the first passages about the finger of God, they're talking about belesable. And you kept talking about as if that were Satan. Yes. You should mention that belesables of pagan God, who more or less became to be the equivalent of Satan. Another snapshot, basically, that's a fascinating thing. Belesable, be is a boob. And that's the way it sounds. It's in Hebrew. It's a Hebrew word. It means Lord of the exalted realm. And the Jews mocked that name and called it belesable, which means Lord of the flies. Okay. So basically you've heard the book Lord of the flies. That's based on that. That's based on that name. And so they mocked the pagan God's name and made it into a derogatory name. And then they began to call Satan by that name, essentially. So it's another name. It became by the first century another name for Satan. Yeah. Thank you very much, Mark. Let's close in prayer. Let's we should close in prayer. Let me let me do that for us. Father, thank you for your word. And its power and Lord, we are incompetent subjects in many ways to open it and read it. But we have the power of your spirit. So Lord, help us to be able to understand, to read and understand. Make us diligent servants of your word. Lord, not just in our ears, but in our hearts and then in our hands. Lord, help us to come out in terms of how we live with others, how we love you and how we love others. So Lord, help us this week's message even to change the way we live this week. And in your world, in your world, for your kingdom. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen.