#28. Luke 4:30-37 THE WORDS OF
JESUS, WORDS OF AUTHORITY AND POWER
Introduction:
In our text last Sunday Jesus went back to His home town of
As in other places, when He went into the
synagogue on the sabbath
day, He
was invited to read the
Scripture and to speak. Jesus read a
passage of
Scripture from the prophet Isaiah about
the Messiah and explained to the
people
that He is the fulfillment of that prophecy.
The people acknowledged that the things He had been doing in His
ministry
was just exactly what the prophet Isaiah had said the Messiah would
be doing. But they challenged
the idea that He is the Messiah on the grounds
that He was born in the home of
the lowly carpenter, Joseph. They
furthermore
rejected Him as the Messiah on the grounds that He had not done
the same mighty miracles in
refused
to believe in Him As Messiah until He would do locally the same kind
of mighty miracles He had done
at
Jesus pointed out to them that it was their fault that He had not
performed
any great miracles in
miracles
there because they had not brought their sick people to Him to be
healed. At this point the people got so angry at
Jesus that they carried
Him out of the synagogue to a great high
bluff intending to throw Him
headfirst
down the bluff. Jesus simply walked
away.
Our text today informs us where He went.
He went back to
where
He had already performed numerous mighty miracles.
I.
Back to
V. 30-31, "But he passing through the midst of them went his way, And
came down to
located
in the same general vicinity as
miles
from
Luke says, "...and taught them on the sabbath days."
Note that Luke
said, "...sabbath days...," plural---not, "...sabbath day, " singular.
Repeatedly sabbath after sabbath He
taught the people in the synagogue at
The procedure in the synagogue, of course, was the same as it had been
in all of the other synagogues
that He had taught in. He would first
read
to the people a Scripture and
then He would explain to them what the
Scripture meant and show them how the
Scripture applied to their lives. He
would
especially show them what the Scriptures had to say about Himself and
His ministry. No matter what Old Testament Scripture might
be read, all Old
Testament Scripture testified of Him in
one way or another. On one
occasion
He said to the scribes and Pharisees, "Search the Scriptures for in
them ye think ye have eternal
life and they are they that testify of me."
Within my own mind I am certain that the people at
looking
forward from one sabbath day to the next. They could not wait to
hear what He was going to say next
sabbath. They
were astonished by His
teaching
of the word of God.
II. The people astonished at His teaching
V. 32, "And they were astonished at his doctrine..." The word,
doctrine,
just means "teaching." They
were astonished at His teaching.
They had never heard anything like it
before. (V. 32), "...for his word
was
with power."
The Greek word here for power means "authority." They were astonished
not only at the contents of His
message, but they were astonished at the
authority
with which He delivered the message.
When Jesus said that
something
was so, there was not much argument with what He said. He showed
so clearly from the Scripture,
and He delivered it in such an authoritative
manner
that there was just no reasonable doubt that what He said was so. He
was right and they recognized
that He was right. To borrow an
expression
from a presidential campaign of
several years ago, "In their hearts they
knew that He was
right." That is, the most of them
did.
III. A man with unclean spirits
Eventually, however, on one particular sabbath day, there did come one
man into the synagogue who
raised a voice of opposition to Jesus.
V. 33,
"And in the synagogue there was a
man, which had a spirit of an unclean
devil..." The word, devil, as it is used here refers to
a demon spirit.
All demon spirits are unclean
spirits. They are spiritually
unclean. They
are immoral, they are vile, and
they are opposed to truth and righteousness.
(V. 33), "...and cried out with a loud voice." I mean Jesus had read
His Scripture text and had already begun
His explanation of the Scripture to
the people when all of sudden
there was this ear-splitting cry from a man in
the congregation. He was shouting to the top of his voice: V. 34, "Saying,
Let us alone; what have we to do with
thee, thou Jesus of
thou come to destroy us? I know
thee who thou art; the Holy One of God."
Needless to say, this disrupted everything. It took the attention of
the people away from Jesus and
drew their attention to this man. The
voice
was the voice of a man, the man
who was doing the hollering. But the
words
were not the words of the
man. The words were coming from the
unclean
spirits. They were from the demon spirits that were
within the man. The
demons
had such control of that man that they could actually control the
words
that he would speak.
The demons said, "Let us alone. What have we to do with thee, thou Jesus
of
those
demons was speaking for them all. They
said, "Let us alone." Those
demons
had a pretty good idea what was going to happen before that service
was over. They had a pretty good idea that Jesus knew
that they were within
the man and that before the
service was over He would cast them out of the
man. That is what they meant by "Let us
alone."
They said, "What have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of
They said, "What have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of
truth
of the matter is that they did not have anything for Jesus. They were
totally
opposed to Him personally. They were
opposed to the Scripture that
He read.
They were totally opposed to the explanation that He would make of
the Scripture. They were opposed to people hearing Him and
believing in Him
as the Messiah of God, the
Christ of God. They were bitterly
opposed to
Him. They had been for a long time. They had long ago pledged their
allegiance
to Lucifer, whom we know today as Satan.
Listen, I think those
very same demons must be loose
today. I hear that same kind of talk on
the
television
and I read it in magazines and books. I
hear the cry of people
saying
to Jesus, "Let us alone." I
hear them say that they want nothing to
do with Jesus Christ and
Christianity. I hear them speak in
opposition to
the word of God and I hear them
ridicule all that Christianity stands for.
Those same devil are loose today, either
them or some just like them.
They said, "Art thou come to destroy us?" The idea is that they were
afraid
that He was going to cast them back into the abyss where they would
be tormented. They knew that eventually that time would
come when they
would
be sent back into the abyss and they were afraid that this was what
was about to happen right now.
Then demon who was the spokesman for the others said, "I know thee
who
thou art; the Holy One of
God." There was no question in the
mind of this
demon
just who Jesus really is. Even though
Jesus was at this time living
within
a human body, that demon still recognized Him for who He really is.
He, himself, before he had joined Lucifer
in his rebellion against God, had
stood
before the Son of God in heaven and had bowed before His presence.
Men could look on Jesus and see only the
fleshly body, but the demon could
see the Holy Son of God who
dwelt within. Jesus is one whom the
demon had
now come to despise and he knew
just exactly who He is. This is one time
that people would do well to
believe the devil. Jesus is indeed the
Holy
One of God. He is the Son of God dwelling in human flesh.
IV. The unclean spirits cast out of the
man
V. 35, "And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Hold thy peace..." The first
thing
that Jesus said to him is, "Shut up!
Don't you say another word."
Jesus, of course is talking to the
demon. He is not talking to the
man. He
is talking to the demon within
the man.
Then Jesus said (V. 45), "...and come out of him..." Demons have no
business
being in any human being. God made man
for Himself. He did not
make man for the Devil nor for
the demon spirits who follow the Devil.
Jesus said, "Come out of him"
and the demons had no choice but to come out.
They may not like Jesus. They may hate Him with every ounce of passion
they
can muster. But may work against Him and fight against
Him, but they cannot
win. When He speaks to them and gives them a
command, they have to choice
but to obey.
(V. 35), "And when the devil had thrown him in the midst, he came
out of
him, and hurt him
not." The idea is that the demon
tried to hurt the man in
the process of coming out of
him. He threw the man down to the
floor. If
you have ever experienced a
fall, you know that could smart. You
know also
that a great deal of damage
could have been done. But the Lord's
protecting
power
was with the man and the demon was unable to hurt him. He would never
be able to hurt him again.
V.
The authority and power of the words of Jesus
V. 36, "And they were all amazed, and spake among themselves,
saying,
What a word is this! for
with authority and power he commandeth the unclean
spirits,
and they come out." The words I
want you to zero in on are the
words,
authority and power. With authority and
power Jesus commanded the
unclean
spirits to come out of the man and they came out.
What mighty words had fallen from the mouth of the Lord. He spoke with
authority
to give a command and even to demon spirits and He had the power
to back up what He said. See Jesus on another occasion when He was out
on a
boat in the sea when a mighty
storm was upon them. Jesus stood in that
boat
and spoke to the winds and the
waves of the sea and said, "Peace! Be still!"
and the winds and the waves
obeyed His voice. What mighty
words. He has
the authority to speak to the
winds and the waves and He has the power to
see to it that they obey. See Him later as He would stand at the tomb
of
Lazarus after Lazarus was dead and the
odor of his body was strong. Jesus
said, "Lazarus, come
forth," and Lazarus walked right out of that tomb.
Look all the way back to the beginning to
that time when there was no earth
and there was no universe and
He spoke and the heavens and the earth were
suddenly
there. In Isaiah 48:3 He said,
"...they went forth out of my
mouth......I
did them suddenly and they came to pass."
Look to Genesis 1:3
when He said, "Let there be
light and there was light." Look
forward into
the future to the time when the
unsaved will stand before Him and He will
say, "Depart from me ye
cursed into everlasting fire." He
has the authority
and He has the power.
But even more important consider the Lord when the lost sinner calls
upon His Holy name and confesses
his sins and asks Jesus to have mercy upon
him and save him from
hell. Let me tell you, my friends, Jesus
has the
authority
and Jesus has the power to save that soul and to speak peace to
his soul.
V. 37, "And the fame of him went out into every place of the
country
round
about." There is hardly a place in
this whole world that His fame has
not spread. The gospel message has been preached in
virtually every land
and in almost ever tongue. But it is not enough that men recognize that
Jesus can speak mighty things and do
mighty things.
VI. What men need to do today about His
words
What men need to do is to see themselves as helpless sinners who will
die and go to hell unless Jesus
saves them from the fire. Jesus has the
authority
from God the Heavenly Father to save the soul of any lost person
who will turn to Him and call
on Him and trust in Him for salvation.
How
pitiful
it is that a lot of people who believe that Jesus can save never
turn to Him and trust in Him to
save their soul.
Conclusion:
Have you been saved? Have you
ever trusted in Jesus to cleanse you from
all your sin and to take you to
heaven? I am not asking you if you have
ever joined a church. I am not asking you if you have ever been
baptized.
I am asking you if you have ever been
saved by the grace of God through
Jesus Christ.
If you are not saved, I do not hesitate to tell you that you need to do
that right now. If you do not call on Jesus and ask Him to
save you right
now, then you may never be
saved. The chances are that you will
wind up in
the fires of hell and then I
know you will never be saved. Won't you look
to Jesus and call on Jesus
right now in this service and ask Him to save
you? The beauty part of it is that just as surely
as you trust Him, just
that surely He will save
you. Do it. Do it now.
Perhaps I speak today to some who are already saved who stand in need of
a church home. I am not going to tell you that if you come
and join the
What I will tell you is that you will find
people here who truly love their
Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. You will
find a people here who will welcome
you and love you and whom you
will learn to love in return.