#29. Luke 4:38-39 JESUS IN THE
HOME OF SIMON PETER
Introduction:
In our previous text Jesus left
to kill Him and returned to
and were using Him as their
principle speaker at the synagogue each
sabbath
day. However, one sabbath day as Jesus was teaching, a man who
had demon spirits indwelling
him yelled out against Jesus right in the
middle
of the worship service. Jesus cast the
demons out of the man.
All of the people were amazed at the great
authority and power with
which
Jesus spoke because even demons obeyed Him.
Needless to say, all
of the people of the synagogue
were very excited about what had
happened
there that day.
I.
Jesus going to the home of Simon Peter
When the synagogue services closed out Jesus went to the home of
one of disciples. V. 38, "And he arose out of the
synagogue, and
entered
into Simon's house." The Simon who
is under consideration here
is, of course, Simon
Peter. Simon Peter was one of the first
men whom
Jesus called to follow Him and be fishers
of men.
Simon Peter and his brother, Andrew, lived there at
prior
to becoming a follower of Jesus, they had worked with their
father
in the fishing industry. Our text makes
it apparent that Simon
Peter owned a home there at
home of both Simon Peter and
Andrew, his brother.
At any rate when the worship service at the synagogue was over,
Jesus went to the home of Simon Peter and
Andrew. It is apparent that
they had invited Him there. They had a home in that city and Jesus did
not. Some believe that Simon Peter and Andrew had
invited to Jesus to
make this His place of dwelling
as long as He was in the city. Their
home was His home. I strongly suspect that this was so.
Mark says that it was not only Jesus who went home with Peter and
Andrew on this sabbath day, but that James and John also went with
them. They had been friends in the fishing business
and now they were
even closer friends in the
ministry of Jesus Christ.
II. The bad news they received when they
arrived
When they arrived at the home of the Apostle Peter, they were met
with bad news. (V. 38), "...And Simon's wife's mother
was taken with a
great
fever..." Now before we give out
attention to her sickness, let
first
give attention to the fact that Simon Peter was married. There
are those who teach that men
who are in the gospel ministry should not
be married. In fact they make it much stronger than
that. In their
particular
denomination those who are in the gospel ministry cannot be
married. Their church simply will not allow it. If one of their
preachers
does get married, they force him to give up his ministry.
These very same people teach that when Jesus left this earth and
went back to heaven that He left
the Apostle Peter as the head of the
church. In other words, they say that the Apostle
Peter was the
successor
of Jesus as the head of the church.
Now it is not my purpose to bad mouth any other religious group for
holding
to some belief which is contrary to that which Baptists hold
to. It does, however, fall my duty both to God
and to you, to try to
point
out to you the error of such teaching.
It is my duty to show you
that what they teach on this
matter is not in harmony with what the
Bible teaches.
In the first place, there is no place in the Bible that teaches
that the gospel minister should
remain unmarried. The Bible teaches
that marriage is honorable. Hebrews 13:4 says, "Marriage is
honorable
in all..." This is true not just of some men but for all
men. This is
true even of the gospel
minister. It was honorable for the
Apostle
Peter to be married. It would be honorable for any of the other
apostles
to be married. It would be honorable for
any gospel preacher
to be married.
But now here is their inconsistency.
If it is forbidden for gospel
preachers
to be married, how is it that they hold that this particular
married
preacher, Simon Peter, became the
successor to Jesus as the
head of the church?
This is where they are wrong again.
The Apostle Peter has never
become
the head of the church. Jesus never gave
up that position.
Jesus is still the Head of the
church. Ephesians 5:23 reads, "For
the
husband
is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the Head of the
church..." The church does not have two heads. It has only One Head
and that Head is Jesus. The word, Head, here indicates the one who is
in charge, the one who is in
authority, the one who is in command.
And
that is Jesus Christ the Son of
God. Jesus is the head of each New
Testament church.
Now before we leave this matter let me point out to you that some
seek to solve the problem by
suggesting that Peter was no longer
married. They say that He had once been married by
that he was no
longer
married at the time that Jesus healed Peter's mother-in-law.
They say she was at this time his former
mother-in-law. But according
to I Corinthians 9:5 Peter was
still married later when the Apostle
Paul wrote that letter to the Corinthians.
But now let us get back to the text and we note that when Jesus,
along
with Peter and Andrew and James and John, arrived at Peter's
house. There were those who met them with the sad
news that Simon
Peter's mother-in-law was very sick. Luke, as you may recall was a
medical
doctor, and he avoids using the expression "deathly sick" or
"at the
point of death." Luke chooses his
words carefully and says
that she was sick of a great
fever. The situation was, to say the
least,
very serious. While she might not be at
the point of death yet,
if she did not soon make a
turn for the better, she might soon be at
the point of death. Death was a distinct possibility. It could go
either
way. She was definitely so sick that she
was confined to the
bed.
III. Jesus requested to heal Peter's
mother-in-law
(V. 38), "...and they besought him for her." That is, on her behalf
they besought Jesus to heal her
from her illness. They asked Jesus to
look in on her and to heal
her. The impression I get is that she
was
so sick that she was not able
to come out to meet then and make the
request
for herself. I suspect that all she
wanted at that time was to
be left alone. When one gets just so sick, that is usually
what they
want. They want to be left alone. But those who met Jesus and
informed
Him about her condition make the request in her behalf that He
would
heal her.
IV. The instantaneous healing
V. 39, "And he stood over her, and rebuked the fever..." Matthew
says that He touched her
hand. Mark says that He took her by the
hand
and lifted her up. But at the same time that He lifted her up
with His
hand, He spoke to the fever and
commanded it to cease. Just as earlier
that same day He had spoken to
the demon spirits and commanded them to
leave
the man at the synagogue, even so He now speaks to the disease
that had caused this fever and
commanded it to be gone. He was most
certainly
expecting fast results because He was lifting her up at the
same time that He was commanding
the fever to leave her.
Now note carefully the next words in this text (V. 39): "...and it
left her and immediately she
arose ..." Note that Luke did not
say
merely
that she arose. With somebody lifting
her by the hand she could
have possibly arisen without
being healed. But Luke said that the
fever
left her and she arose. The fever
immediately left her and she
immediately
arose. She was well by the time she
arose.
Then when she arose she showed the evidence that the fever was
gone. (V. 39), "...and ministered unto
them." It was dinner time and
she immediately got us and
started fixing dinner for her guests.
There
is no question about it; this
was a genuine miracle. This woman had
been desperately ill and now
immediately she is up and working as if
she had never been sick.
V.
The dilemma Peter would have faced if Jesus had not been there
But now let me ask you a question:
What would have happened if
Simon Peter had not asked Jesus to come to
his home? What would have
happened
if Simon had just gotten up from the synagogue service and
went his merry way home and had
left Jesus to provide for Himself the
best way that He could? Do you think that once Peter got home and
found
his mother-in-law gravely sick that he would have turned around
and went looking for
Jesus? Do you think that he would have
found
Jesus in time and got Him back to his
house in time to save the life of
his mother-in-law?
Well, of course, we have no way of knowing what would have
happened. But we can see that it was definitely to the
advantage of
the Apostle Peter to have Jesus
with him when he arrived home from the
synagogue. She may or may not have died if Jesus had not
been with
him, but since Jesus was with
him she did not die. It was definitely
to his advantage to have Jesus
with Him when he came home.
But let us look at the motive of the Apostle Peter and even his
brother,
Andrew, when they invited Jesus to their home.
Perhaps, as I
have already mentioned, when
they first arrived at
perhaps,
this was the very first occasion when they invited Him to come
to their home and take food
and find rest. But at any rate, I am
very
sure that they were very glad
that Jesus was with them on this
occasion. They would hate to think what could have
happened if Jesus
had not be there. They were exceedingly glad to have His help.
But not knowing in advance that the mother-in-law would be
extremely
sick, seeking His help was not their motive for inviting Him
to their home. What then was their motive? They invited Jesus to
their
home to be of help to Him. They were not
trying to get His help.
They were trying to help Him. They wanted to provide food for His
need. They wanted to provide for a Him a place to
spend the night, a
place
that was warm and comfortable, a place where He would be
protected
from the weather. Where
He would be surrounded by friends.
They
wanted to help in any way they could the spread
of the gospel
message. They wanted to do whatever they could in His
cause. They
wanted
to do something and they felt that this was something they could
do.
Most of all, they wanted to show that they love Him. They were
thankful
to God for sending Him to the world.
They were thankful to
God for the salvation of their own souls. They were thankful to God
for all that Jesus had meant to
them and they just wanted to show that
they love Him.
VI. The dilemma people face today without
Jesus
Listen, I wish that every home would invite Jesus in. Every home
needs
Jesus. Some people may think they are getting along just fine
without
Jesus, but they just do not know what is going to happen at any
time when they will need Jesus
in a great way. At any time one could
come home and find a loved one
desperately ill. Oh, sure, you can
carry
the loved one to the doctor and to the hospital, but when the
doctor
says, "I cannot help you" what then?
When the best of doctors
can do no good, what then?
Oh, we can work with our hands and we can labor with our back and
we can earn our bread by the sweat
of our brow. But when the job plays
out and you are told, "We
don't need you any more" what then?
Where
will you turn? To whom will you go?
Or if the effort to achieve peace in the middle-east does not
succeed
and war breaks out and your loved ones have to go to war, what
then? Where will you find someone who can help you
in your need?
Or when the end of your days run out and it is time for you to step
out into eternity, what
then? What in this world are you going
to do
if you do not already know
Jesus as your Savior and Lord?
Please take a lesson from the life of the Apostle Peter. He did
not wait until he needed Jesus
to heal his mother-in-law to invite
Jesus into his house. But when the trouble came and his
mother-in-law
was desperately sick, Peter was
extremely glad that he had Jesus right
there
with him to face the problems of life with him.
Let me tell you
that whatever problem you may
face in life, those problems are a lot
easier
to cope with you if you already know Jesus Christ as your Savior
and you have already invited
Jesus into your home.
I have already told you that it may or may not have been too late
for Peter to try and find Jesus
to help his mother-in-law if Jesus had
not been right with him, but he
did not have that to worry about. He
already
had Jesus right there with him. I can
tell you that it will be
too late for you to try to stay
out of hell if you wait until you are
dead to ask to be your
Savior. Right now is the accepted
time. Right
now is the time to call on
Jesus and to trust in Him to save your soul.
If you are saved already then there is every reason in the world
for you to take Jesus into your
home and let Him be the ruler in your
home. Let direct your life. Let Him lead you and guide you and show
you the way. Show the Lord that you love Him by the way
that you live.
Do what you can to promote His cause in
this world. I will guarantee
you one thing. You will see the time that you are very glad
that you
are already saved and that you
have already started to live your life
for Him.