And I invite you to turn in your Bibles to Isaiah chapter 55 for our Old Testament reading this morning. Isaiah chapter 55. And we’ll read verses 6 through 11. Isaiah 55 verses 6 through 11. Listen to this. This is the very word of God. Seek the Lord while he may be found. Call upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to the Lord. That he may have compassion on him. And to our God. For he will abundantly pardon.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain and snow come down from heaven and do not return there, but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be. that goes forth from my mouth. It shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it. Now turn to the gospel according to Luke. Where we are currently in Chapter 4 and our reading will be verses 31 to 37. Luke 4. 31 to 37. And he went down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee, and he was teaching them on the Sabbath. And they were astonished at his teaching, for his word possessed authority.
And in the synagogue, there was a man who had the spirit of an unclean demon. And he cried out with a loud voice, ha, what have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God. But Jesus rebuked him saying, be silent and come out of him.
And when the demon had thrown him down in their midst, he came out of him, having done him no harm. And they were all amazed and said to one another, what is this word? For with authority and power, he commands the unclean spirits and they come out. And reports about him went out into every place in the surrounding region.
That’s the reading of God’s word. Let’s pray that he’ll bless it to us now. Father in Heaven, we thank you that we now come to the Holy Scriptures, and as they are opened and expounded, we pray for the ministry of your Holy Spirit among us, and that your word would accomplish what you desire and succeed in the matter for which you sent it, even in our midst, just as it did when Jesus spoke your words. We’re asking for the ministry and the power of your Holy Spirit today, and we pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
It’s good to have Friends in high places, isn’t it? If you know someone in place of responsibility and of influence who knows you and cares about you and your well-being, it’s always nice to have friends in high places. I thought of a lot of illustrations from movies and TV shows, but I’ll spare you those. I want to give you an example from my family’s life.
I have a cousin who many years ago went and applied for a job at Walmart. And she’s being interviewed for this job, and at this point she was still unmarried, and so her last name was still Walton. And the person interviewing her probably half-jokingly asked him, oh, are you related to Sam Walton? And she said, yeah, he’s my grandfather. By which the interviewer was very shocked. because he didn’t realize that my cousin was talking about retired Air Force Sergeant Sam Walton, who lived right there in that town, and not Sam Walton of Bentonville, Arkansas, who is the owner and CEO of Walmart Corporation.
I don’t even remember the end of the story. I don’t know whether she got the job or not. But you can imagine how, if this interviewer actually thought that my cousin was granddaughter to the Sam Walton, that she would have gotten a job, and she probably would have gotten a pretty good one.
But having close relationship with someone in a position of authority has a tendency to open doors for us, doesn’t it? kinds of opportunity to have help getting us out of trouble. If we know someone in authority, if we have friends in high places, people with real authority can make things happen.
And that’s what we see happening in the synagogue in Capernaum, as Jesus was teaching there. He’d, prior to this, been rejected by his own kinsmen, his own townspeople in Nazareth. And the scripture says he left the hill country where Nazareth was and went down to the sea.
And these same events are recorded in Mark’s Gospel, Chapter 1, and both Mark and Luke, they speak of Jesus’ mighty works and how his fame was spreading. But the first specific example of a wondrous work performed by Jesus that’s given by Luke or by Mark is this event in the synagogue, and it has to do with the casting out of a demon.
And that’s noteworthy for Luke, because as a physician, you might expect Luke to take more interest in healing of the sick. And so he begins to relate examples of the wondrous works that Jesus did. He might, we would think, be more inclined to talk about Jesus healing a person who is afflicted in some bodily way. And he’ll get to that, of course.
But the first miracle recorded in Mark or Luke is this casting out of the demon. And the point of this passage is that Jesus had real authority. And he had real authority, not only in the physical realm, but in the spiritual realm also. He had authority over the very demons. And what happened that day in that synagogue, when Jesus told that demon to be silent and come out of the man, was unlike anything anyone had ever seen.
And we learn from this passage that the words and works of Jesus of Nazareth testified to his incomparable authority. The words and works of Jesus of Nazareth testified to his incomparable authority. Don’t believe the outline is in your bulletin, this this week, and I take the hit for that. But it’s just a two-point sermon today. First, Christ’s word possessed authority, and secondly, Christ’s works possessed authority. Those two things, Christ’s word possessed authority, and Christ’s works possessed authority.
First of all, his word then, the passage begins with Jesus teaching in the synagogue on the Sabbath, and the word Sabbath there, interestingly, in the Greek is actually plural. teaching on the Sabbaths, which indicates to us that he taught each Sabbath, and probably he spent an extended period of time in Capernaum. In fact, not only did he, on this particular visit to Capernaum, did he probably spend multiple weeks and multiple Sabbaths in Capernaum.
Capernaum was, to use modern jargon, was sort of Jesus’ home base for ministry. That’s where he lived, so to speak. And so if we follow Matthew’s account of Jesus’ early ministry, we’re told in Matthew 4, verse 13, that leaving Nazareth, Jesus went and lived in Capernaum by the sea. That was his home. He moved away from Nazareth, and he made his home and made the home base of his ministry. in Capernaum.
That’s going to figure into some things we’ll see later in Luke’s Gospel. But what we see is that preaching and teaching of the Word of God was the centerpiece of Christ’s ministry, and the local synagogue was always his jumping-off point. And that should remind us of what the Apostle Paul did in his missionary journeys. Each new town that he went to, the first thing Paul almost always did was he tried to find a synagogue. If there was a synagogue in the town, that’s where he went. And he began his ministry there. And he preached from the scriptures and proclaimed that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ. And that was his procedure.
It seems that Jesus set the example for Paul because he would go around and he’d preach and teach in their synagogues. And we know he preached and taught elsewhere, too. But it always started there, started in the synagogue, and he would teach. And then he’d have opportunities, obviously, because of the amazement that people had at his teaching, because how astonished they were by the authority of his words, that he’d have opportunities throughout the rest of the week to teach and to preach on the mount, for instance, or on the plane or wherever else anyone would gather to hear him.
And we see very clearly that The people were astonished at his teaching and that was the usual response. That was par for the course. With Jesus teaching every time he got up and spoke every time he taught in a synagogue or anywhere else. The people were amazed and this passage explains what it was that amazed them. About his teaching. They were amazed at the teaching of Jesus because His word possessed authority.
Now, I know you’ve come across that passage or similar statements in the Bible before. We’re told that people were amazed by this authoritative nature. of Christ’s words and of his teaching. But have you ever wondered, well, in what sense was it authoritative? What was it about Jesus’ teaching that the people who sat or stood and listened to him got that profound impression that this man’s teaching is authoritative? He teaches, he speaks with authority. Well, one of the commentators I read described or proposed that Jesus’ teaching came across with a certain confidence that the teaching of other rabbis didn’t have. It had freshness. He taught with simplicity. He didn’t speak above the people’s heads, but he proclaimed the truths of God’s word in terms that were accessible to his audiences. And he taught with directness. All those things would have set Jesus far apart from most of the rabbis of his day.
But the authority that Jesus had, the authority that his words had, involved more than just a pleasant voice or his manner of delivery. In what sense, then, did Christ’s word possess authority? Well, we have kind of a little add-on explanation from other Gospels. It says, for instance, at the end of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter 7, when he’d finished all these sayings, the people were amazed at his teaching and they took note of the fact that he spoke and he preached and he taught with authority and not as their scribes.
So there’s this huge contrast between the way in which Jesus preached and taught and the way that their rabbis customarily spoke and taught. Most rabbis in Jesus’ day leaned heavily on the traditions and sayings of earlier rabbis. So they ended up just basically quoting other teachers all the time.
What is, and I don’t know if you’ve ever had the pleasure of reading any of the, the rabbinic writings that we still have available to us. But if you haven’t, all we really need to do is go to God’s Word and we can learn some very telling things about the teaching of the rabbis in Jesus’ day. For example, we see clearly from Scripture that the scribes, the teachers of the law, the rabbis of Jesus’ day had a tendency to add to God’s Word.
God’s own word says, do not add to my words. Don’t take away from my words. But the rabbis did exactly that. They added to God’s word, and so Jesus, as he’s saying, you’ve heard this, but I say to you, he mentions particularly, you have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. Well, God’s word clearly says to love your neighbor, but it says nowhere that we should hate our enemy. But that’s what the rabbis taught. So they added to God’s Word.
They also watered down and obscured the Word of God. We see an example of that in Matthew 23. Verse 16, where Jesus is pronouncing woes on these very rabbis, these very teachers, these scribes. He says, woe to you blind guides who say, if anyone swears by the temple, it’s nothing. But if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he’s bound by his oath. They’re diminishing the significance of an oath in that way.
So they added to God’s word, they watered it down, they obscured it, and they also obsessed over minor things, minutia, to the neglect of the more important things, the greater things. So in that same passage from Matthew 23, Jesus says, Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you tithe mint and dill and cumin and have neglected the weightier matters of the law. Justice, mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done without neglecting the others. They were fixed on the small things they were majoring on minors in their teaching. In other words, and.
They applied God’s word unfairly. Jesus rebuked the teachers of his day and said they tie up heavy burdens hard to bear. Can you hear the compassion in Jesus’ voice there? They tie up heavy burdens hard to bear and they lay them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger. In contrast to all that, Jesus taught with authority. Matthew Henry said, There was weight in every word that he said. There was a commanding force to it.
And when teaching is characterized by adding to or taking away from God’s Word, or watering down the Word of God, or obscuring it, majoring on the minors, or unfair or inequitable application of God’s Word, you know that that preaching and teaching isn’t going to have any power. And maybe you’ve heard examples of it. I remember distinctly hearing a man preach. I use the word kind of loosely, but hearing a man preach and he held an advanced degree in preaching and homiletics from a very prestigious seminary.
You almost sense the. The self satisfaction. In him when he. Stepped into the pulpit. But I can only describe the message is unremarkable and unmoving. He had the credentials. But I’ve also heard preaching that gripped my attention. Preaching that moved my soul and convicted my heart and motivated me to godliness. And you’ve heard such preaching too, I suspect. That’s the kind of preaching that possesses authority. And far more than anyone ever. Far more than the best preacher any of us has heard with our own physical ears, Christ’s word possessed authority. But then in that synagogue in Capernaum that day, as Jesus taught and as the people were amazed, something happened. And it revealed that also Christ’s works possessed authority. That’s our second point.
Jesus is preaching in a Sabbath service, at a synagogue in Capernaum, and that worship service was interrupted. There’s been all over the news a worship service in Minnesota that was interrupted by protesters. And the thing is sort of unheard of because their law is protecting the sanctity of places of worship. And it’s against the law to just barge into a worship service and disrupt it if you’re unwelcomed, if you’re not invited. Well, something like that happened at Capernaum, and it wasn’t a group of protesters complaining about federal policy.
It was a demon. It was an unclean spirit dwelling in a man, and he cut Jesus off while he was teaching. Can you imagine? Verse 33, in the synagogue, there was a man who had the spirit of an unclean demon. He cried out with a loud voice. a man possessed by a demon in the synagogue. He was among the people of God, right in their midst, hearing the Word of God. And this creature, this created being, interrupted the teaching ministry of the King of Kings. Verse 34, we find out what he said when he barged in and interrupted.
First of all, you got the word ha in your ESV Bible. It might say something else depending on which version you’re using, but you might be scratching your head and thinking, well, what’s that about? Well, first of all, it’s an approximation. It sounds a little bit like this Greek interjection that’s actually in the text. But it’s essentially, as I say, it’s an interjection. It’s a cry of surprise. There’s an element to it that could include disgust and hostility, certainly.
It carries a sense of astonishment, like all of a sudden this demon realizes, well, I know who this is. In the spirit realm, he could see who was standing there in the synagogue before him. And so that that expression, again, it’s just ha in your ESV Bible, but it carries with it an element of terror.
The demon speaks to Jesus, what have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are. The Holy One of God. The words that he spoke, this demon, using, commandeering and making use of the man’s vocal cords, speaking in this congregation in the synagogue. The words that he spoke indicate several things. First of all, he speaks in reference to many.
Did you see that? Do you notice the plural? What have you to do with us? In other words, all himself and all the other unclean spirits. who were in league with him, not that there are multiple spirits necessarily in this one man. But the demon knows already that if the Son of God is there, it’s trouble not just for him, but for all the other unclean spirits. What have you to do with us, he says.
And he has an awareness of Jesus’ power, an awareness of Jesus’ authority, So he asks, have you come to destroy us? He knows Jesus is able to do that. He knows Jesus has the authority to do it. He’s terrified that Jesus might do it right then and there. And he knew Jesus full identity, he recognized him.
David Brown, commentator of Jameson, Fawcett, and Brown fame, wrote this. He said, themselves, speaking of the demons, themselves tormentors and destroyers of their victims, they discern in Jesus their own destined tormentor and destroyer, anticipating and dreading what they know and feel to be awaiting them. This demon could see the coming kingdom of God. He could see, because he’s a spirit, that the kingdom of God was already in their midst, in the person of Christ Jesus. He could see that demons were being driven out. The demons know. The demons know that the abyss awaits them.
So like later on in Luke, we’re going to see in verse 8, chapter 8. If you’ll turn there with me. Chapter 8, verse 31. This is where Jesus heals that man who’s possessed by the legion of demons, the multitude of demons. It says in verse 31, they begged him not to command them to depart into the abyss. They know that’s their destiny. But they also recognize that. It’s too soon.
And so the demon protests the very presence of Jesus, and he’s afraid that Jesus might send him to the abyss already, or that he might destroy him. He knew Jesus was. one of my former pastors made this point. He recognized him instantly because he used to live with him. All these demons are nothing but angels that rebelled against God and were cast out of Heaven along with Satan himself.
Now, this little conversation, brief as it may be, is important for us to understand that this demon spoke no more and no less than Jesus permitted him to speak. And that’s true of every encounter that takes place, recorded for us in scripture, between Jesus and demons that he casts out. Sometimes they cry out, they say things, and then Jesus silences them. But no demon could even say what they were initially saying had it not been Jesus permitting it to happen. So then after this demon cries out, and it was recorded in scripture for our instruction, Jesus says to him, be silent, come out of him.
There were in Jesus day Jewish exorcists. You read about them in the Bible. You even have an account of a failed attempt that some of them made recorded in the book of Acts. But there were exorcists in Jesus day because in the days of Jesus. Demon possession was Maybe it’s unfair to say it was a common thing, but it was happening. It was happening extensively. We don’t read much. In fact, we read very little at all about demon possession prior to the days of Jesus and very little after the days of the apostles. And I think there’s a very clear reason for that.
But the point is, demon possession was happening and there were Jewish exorcists who would seek by incantations and so forth, by ceremonial processes to cast demons out of people. And it’s possible that in certain cases they may have had a measure of success in doing that. But they were there, they were out there, these Jewish exorcists. But as I say, they used rituals, they used incantations, things that inspire Hollywood movies that we’ve seen. But Jesus didn’t use an incantation. He didn’t chant a chant or perform some ritual. He just uttered a command. That’s all he had to do. No one had ever seen such a thing.
So the people, after it happens, after he casts out this demon, it says in verse 36, they were all amazed and said to one another, what is this word with authority and power? He commands the unclean spirits and they come out. Be silent, he said. more literally, is be muzzled. He tells the demon, put a cork in it and get out. And the demon had to obey.
He didn’t have a choice. He wasn’t able to resist or to protest. In Christ’s interactions with demons, nothing is outside his authority. Nothing is outside his control. What they were allowed to say or do is recorded mainly for our instruction. Because Jesus could have and perhaps in many cases did simply cast out the demons without a word and they never got in a word edgewise. But he had that authority to do it. Another thing that the demon could not have done had it not been allowed by Christ was the fact that in verse 35 it says that the demon threw him down in their midst.
So he threw the man down. before he exited the man. And that’s all he could do. He threw the man down and he came out of him having done him no harm, showing that Christ is the controller and the conqueror of Satan. What was the significance of the fact that the demon threw him down?
You know, there are other places where a demon will convulse somebody before they come out. Here’s what Matthew Henry had to say about that. So the devil showed what he would have done when he threw the man in the mist, but Christ showed what power he had over him in that he not only forced him to leave, but to leave him without so much as hurting him. Even the prince of the power of the air is Christ’s vassal and trembles before him. What we’re going to see in the next passage, which Lord willing we’ll look at next week, and I mention this because we’re looking at the passage that has to do with demon possession.
We’re going to see that New Testament writers, contrary to the opinions of some, New Testament writers did not superstitiously attribute all ailments to evil spirits. People looking back on the ancients with a certain contempt and smugness, pride in our modern knowledge and achievements. I think all those backwards ancient people, anytime anybody got sick, they just thought it was an evil spirit. Well, that’s not true.
And the way we see that is in the very next section, verse 38, take a glance at it with me. They rose, left the synagogue, entered Simon’s house. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was ill with a high fever. appealed to Jesus on her behalf. So you see, Luke, a physician, would have understood that quite well.
He knew the difference between a person who’s possessed by a demon and a person who’s got a cold. A person who’s possessed by a demonic spirit and a person who’s suffering from some physiological malady. Demon possession was more than a pathology. Demon possession was more than just a disease. William Hendrickson wrote, the fact that according to Scripture, a distinct and evil being, the fact is that according to Scripture, a distinct and evil being foreign to the person possessed had taken control of that individual. That’s what’s going on in demon possession. And Jesus had power over that demon. His works possessed authority. He could command the demon to come out. and He has to do it.
Now, looking back on verse 31, we see that in verse 32, people were astonished at Jesus’ teaching. In verse 36, it says, they were amazed at His command over unclean spirits. Jesus’ ministry was remarkable in every imaginable way. His teaching, His healing, His casting out demons, everyone was awestruck by all of it. news got around.
Verse 37, reports about Him went out into every place in the surrounding region. Remember we saw something similar in verse 14 of this same chapter it says, Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and a report about Him went out through all the surrounding country. The point being as Jesus continues to teach, as He continues to heal, as He continues to cast out demons, the reports continue to go out. The news cycle continues and his reputation is not only spreading further and further, but it’s continuously being related through the grapevine. Just a few closing points of application as we consider Christ and his authority. Think about this congregation in Capernaum who heard Jesus teaching and they were amazed by it. It’s not enough to be astonished by Jesus. It’s not enough to be amazed by him. Astonishment doesn’t save. Amazement is not atonement.
Scripture reveals, as we go on through Luke and read the testimony of the other gospel writers, Scripture reveals that most of the people in Capernaum did not repent, and therefore Jesus later in His ministry denounced them. Because He had been in their midst, He had been teaching in their synagogues, and they did not repent. They were amazed by His teaching, but they didn’t respond to His teaching.
They were hearers only, and not doers of the Word. And so it’s important for us to keep that in mind and seek to be hearers of God’s word, but also to be doers of God’s word. It’s not enough to be just a hearer. It’s not enough to hold Jesus in high esteem or to speak well of him.
Being amazed that Jesus won’t save anybody. Secondly, this passage illustrates for us anecdotally that the Lord Jesus Christ has absolute authority over all things. He’s the King of Kings. He’s the Lord of the nations and it is imperative, not optional. It is imperative. That all people worship and serve him. In one of our hymns this morning is that the one we sang before the ministry of the word is we sang all the nations. Oh him worship.
And they need to be told that. So when we contemplate how to reach people with the gospel, certainly we want to tell them about sin and the need for salvation. We also need to proclaim Jesus as King. We need to proclaim Jesus as Lord and urge upon people that, look, He is the sovereign of the universe and you owe Him worship. You owe Him service. You owe it to Him to bow the knee to Him and be His disciple. And put it in that sense, in that framework. This is why we have to make disciples. By and because of Christ’s authority.
And with that same authority that he used to silence the demon and cast him out, Jesus will summon all people from their graves on the last day. And just as surely as that demon had to come out when Jesus had come out of him, when he says, come out to the whole human race, we will all come out of our graves. The sea will give up the dead that is in it. An hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out.
Those who have done good to the resurrection of life. Those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment. This passage reminds us of that, because Jesus’ Word has power. It has authority. And that brings us to the Lord’s Supper, because it’s Christ’s return that is that great end that we anticipate in the Lord’s Supper.
I asked the congregation of resurrection this morning, knowing that some of them have been celebrating the Lord’s Supper for many, many years. Some of them were relatively new to it, relatively new to Christianity and to the church. And so they haven’t partaken of the Lord’s Supper as many times as others maybe had. And I said, how long is the church going to keep doing this?
And of course, the answer is we’re going to keep observing this ordinance until Christ returns. We anticipate it. When you eat the bread and drink the cup, you proclaim his death until he comes. That’s what we’re doing and. That’s our great hope that he’s going to come. With the clouds, he’s going to come again to judge the living and the dead. He’s going to come and receive us to himself and welcome us into his eternal kingdom. Receive us to the marriage supper of the Lamb.
He is high above all rule and authority. And he rules in the very highest of places. and he’s a friend of sinners. Let’s pray. Father in heaven, thank you for giving us a friend in the highest of places, Jesus the righteous, our Savior, who came to save us who came into the world to save sinners such as we are. And so now as we prepare to come to the table, we ask that we would have a posture of heart and of spirit that is suitable. Lord, we come humbly and we pray that you will bless unto us this means of grace, this ordinance which Christ established for us. May he be lifted up and glorified in our midst. Now we pray in his name, amen.