Power Personified (Luke 4:31-44) | The Gospel of Luke (Part 34)

Transcript

JRNT 85
06/06/2025
The Gospel of Luke: Power Personified
Luke 4:31-44
Jesse Randolph


Well, after a few weeks off, we're back in the Gospel of Luke this morning. I'm giving you no advance warning or illustration. I'm going to ask you to go ahead and turn with me in your Bibles to Luke 4.

Now you may or may not remember, and we may have some new folks who are here, this is by way of update, that the last time we were in this book we devoted two sermons to this single scene where Jesus is teaching in this synagogue in His hometown of Nazareth. While the reception there was initially favorable to Jesus's teaching, He received, you'll recall, hometown honor as He returned to His hometown. That reverence for Him and that acceptance of Him quickly turned to rage against Him, the hometown honor within a matter of minutes turned into hometown hatred. In fact, look with me, if you would, at Luke 4:28. This will kind of set the scene for what comes this morning. “But all the people,” it says, Luke 4:28, “in the synagogue were filled with rage as they heard these things. And they stood up and drove Him out of the city and led Him to the edge of the hill on which their city had been built in order to throw Him down the cliff.” But why? Why had His countrymen, why had the Nazarenes become so angry? Why had they gone from being openly supportive of this hometown hero sort of figure to hating Him and being openly hostile to Him, and even being murderous toward Him? The answer is found in verses 24-27, where Jesus had called them out. He had called them out as a people who, spiritually speaking, were no better than a pair of Gentiles who had lived hundreds of years before. He singled them out in comparing them to a Gentile widow from the town of Zarephath, where a woman named Jezebel hailed from. He compared them to a Syrian named Naaman, who had to be washed of his leprosy in the Jordan River. Jesus, in mentioning those two figures, He did so intentionally. To this religious crowd which had convened in this synagogue there in Nazareth, a crowd which was used to form and ritual and tradition, a crowd which had been taught long before to look for their Messiah, and a crowd which had been told by Jesus that He was their Messiah, to be compared to two lowly Gentiles infuriated them. And so, they ran Jesus off to the edge of town to be done with Him. But as we concluded our sermon last time in Luke, the crowd was unsuccessful in putting an end to Jesus. Look at verse 30 where it says, “But passing through their midst, He went on His way.” Somehow miraculously, He was able to pass right through them untouched, unscathed, unhurt, and also unwelcome to ever come back again.

Now with that, let's turn to our text this morning. We're actually going to cover the rest of Luke 4 today. Not because I'm trying to set some new personal record for how many verses I can cover in a single Sunday morning sermon, but rather this is a single unit of thought that I'd like to try to keep together. This is a single unit of thought which is framed by Jesus's ministry in this single place, a village called Capernaum. And further, the events recorded here in Luke 4 capture Jesus's ministry in Capernaum on a single day. So, though I'll need to go quickly, I will do my best here to take this scene in one big bite. With that, let's go ahead and read our text for this morning, Luke 4:31-44. God's Word reads, “And He came down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee, and He was teaching them on the Sabbath. And they were amazed at His teaching, for His message was with authority. And in the synagogue, there was a man possessed by the spirit of an unclean demon, and he cried out with a loud voice, Let us alone. What do we have to do with You, Jesus the Nazarene? Have You come to destroy us? I know who You are, the Holy One of God. But Jesus rebuked it saying, Be quiet and come out of him. And when the demon had thrown him down in the midst of the people, it came out of him without doing him any harm. And amazement came upon them all, and they were talking with one another, saying, what is this message? For with authority and power He commands the unclean spirits, and they come out. And the report about Him was spreading into every place in the surrounding district. Then He stood up and left the synagogue and entered Simon's home. Now Simon's mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever, and they asked Him to help her. And standing over her, He rebuked the fever, and it left her.
Immediately she stood up and began waiting on them. And while the sun was setting, all those who had any who were sick with various diseases brought them to Him, and laying His hands on each one of them, He was healing them. And demons also were coming out of many, shouting and saying, ‘You are the Son of God’. But rebuking them, He was not allowing them to speak, because they knew Him to be the Christ. When day came, Jesus left and went to a secluded place. And the crowds were eagerly seeking for Him and came to Him and tried to keep Him from going away from them. But He said to them, I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other cities also, for I was sent for this purpose. So, He kept on preaching in the synagogues of Judea.”

Now I mentioned just a moment ago that what we have in these verses is Luke's description of a single day of ministry for our Lord, which He performed in a single place, Capernaum. What's described here is a roughly 24-hour period representing this one-day business trip that Jesus took to Capernaum, a day on which our Lord was incredibly busy. Not just busy for being busy's sake. No. What we see here is Him doing things which demonstrate His authority and demonstrate His power. That's the title of the message this morning, Power Personified. That is really what we see throughout this account, this section of Luke's Gospel, Jesus demonstrating His power in various different situations and realms and occasions. Doing so in such a way that He is establishing and demonstrating that He is the Messiah and the Son of God. Here's how I've outlined the sermon this morning. In verses 31-32 we're going to see Jesus demonstrate Power in Proclamation, in verses 33-37 He demonstrates Power in Pandemonium, verses 38-39 it's Power in Purging, verses 40-41 Power in Priority, and verses 42-44 Power in Purpose.

We'll start with Power in Proclamation, again verses 31-32. It says, “He came down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee, and He was teaching them on the Sabbath. And they were amazed at His teaching, for His message was with authority.” Again, we leave off last time and Jesus is in Nazareth, and we saw that His visit to His hometown was very short lived. It came to this unceremonious end when the townspeople there, His fellow countrymen, tried to murder Him by throwing Him off a cliff. Well now, Jesus, never to return to His hometown again, lands in this new city of Capernaum. Capernaum, like Nazareth, we see here in verse 31, was a city of Galilee. Now Capernaum is about 35 miles northeast of Nazareth. It was this small fishing village that was perched on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee, probably fewer than 1,000 residents—a small town, a small village. Though Jesus would have gone up in terms of geography to get to Capernaum from Nazareth, the way that we would go up in geographical terms to get to Sioux City from here, He was going down in elevation to get there. Nazareth sat at about 1,300 feet above sea level, and Capernaum was at about 700 feet, so He's descending by about 600 feet. So, no surprise there, but Luke is being accurate as he gives us God's Word that Jesus came down to Capernaum. And Capernaum, we're going to soon see, would become Jesus's base of operations during His ministry in the region of Galilee. You could jot down a few references here, but Matthew 4:13 reports that after Jesus left Nazareth He came and lived in Capernaum. And in fact, Jesus would become so associated with the town of Capernaum as He carried out His Galilean ministry, that in Matthew 9:1 Capernaum is called His own city. So, in other words, though Jesus was born in Bethlehem and raised in Nazareth, though He was headed to Jerusalem, really Capernaum would become our Lord's adopted hometown.

Look at what He was doing there in Capernaum, end of verse 31. It says, “He was teaching them on the Sabbath.” He was teaching them on the Sabbath day, the seventh day of the week, the day on which people laid aside their usual activities and gathered in their local town synagogue. What would have happened in this synagogue setting, just as it would have back in Nazareth, is they would have gone through their typical first century Jewish order of service. They would have started with the singing of psalms. Then they would have read from Deuteronomy 6, the Shema, Hear, oh Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one. Then they would have recited some prayers. Then there would have been some customary benedictions. Then there would have been the reading of Scripture. Then there would have been the teaching of Scripture. Jesus, who was already growing in notoriety in the district of Galilee, who was already getting more frequent speaking engagements in the district of Galilee, was invited to speak, invited to teach. He rose up to speak, as we see here and just as had happened at Nazareth in the scene prior, His teaching at Capernaum struck a chord. Verse 32, the people there, we're told, were amazed. “They were amazed at His teaching,” it says. Now that word amazed is a fun one to say in the Greek language, it's ekplesso. It literally means to be struck by a blow. So, the sense here is the people, as they heard His teaching, were struck out of their senses. A word we might use to kind of smooth it out to our vernacular would be, they were dumbfounded. The idea here is that the crowd at Capernaum, as they heard His teaching, they were wondering, they were marveling, they were astonished at what He was saying. What He was teaching them was creating this deep impression, it was causing a buzz in Capernaum, and jaws were hitting the floor. That same phrase or that same term, ekplesso, amazed, it's the same word that's used of the disciples or those who heard the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 7. Matthew 7:28-29 says, “The crowds were astonished,” same verb, “at His teaching, for He was teaching them as one having authority and not as their scribes.”

Now why? Why was this crowd at Capernaum in this synagogue on this day on this Sabbath so amazed by what Jesus was teaching? Well, Luke tells us at the end of verse 32 that “His message was with authority.” See, He wasn't going through some dusty old liturgy. You know, He wasn't reciting with a monotone voice the Mishnah, the Jewish tradition of the day. He wasn't quoting rabbi so-and-so on what rabbi so-and-so thought about God's law. He wasn't appealing to any higher authority because there was none. He wasn't teaching pithy moralistic lessons and sort of giving the crowd the option as to whether or not they wanted to follow the lesson. No. As we see all over the Gospel accounts, Jesus was firm and unwavering in His teaching. He was clear and He was compelling in His teaching. He didn't serve up sugary spoonfuls of platitudes on how to live your best life now. No. He was serious as a heart attack in His teaching. Jesus taught on life and death, Jesus taught on sin and judgment, Jesus taught on heaven and hell, Jesus taught on how to receive eternal life and to be spared from the wrath that is to come. He didn't come to tickle ears, He came to prick consciences, and He demanded acceptance of what He was proclaiming. He was preaching for a verdict. He taught with authority. We think of that repeated expression in the Sermon on the Mount where He says, “You have heard it said,” but then He says authoritatively, “but I say.” His words were convicting, compelling, authoritative. They were delivered with power. They were a showcase of His power. So, there was power in Jesus's proclamation. As He proclaimed truth, He did so with authority.

Next, we're going to see, and this is our second point, that Jesus demonstrated Power in Pandemonium. Yes, I had a thesaurus out this week, and I did find some synonyms for pandemonium. I guess I did the other way around. But chaos, mayhem, bedlam. These are words that are like in definition to pandemonium, but they don't start with “p” so pandemonium it is. I think it's a fitting word because in verses 33-37, we're going to see quite the chaotic scene unfold, and we're going to see Jesus demonstrate His power in it. Verse 33, “And in the synagogue there was a man possessed by the spirit of an unclean demon, and he cried out with a loud voice, ‘Let us alone. What do we have to do with You, Jesus the Nazarene? Have You come to destroy us? I know who You are, the Holy One of God’. But Jesus rebuked it saying,’ Be quiet and come out of him.’ And when the demon had thrown him down in the midst of the people, it came out of him without doing him any harm. And amazement came upon them all, and they were talking with one another, saying, what is this message? For with authority and power, He commands the unclean spirits, and they come out. And the report about Him was spreading into every place in the surrounding district.” What is laid out here is clear enough, the story is actually quite straightforward. Jesus is teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum. The people are awestruck and dumbfounded by the words that are coming out of His mouth. Then all of a sudden, this commotion starts breaking out somewhere in the assembly as this demon possessed man begins to shout. Jesus then rebukes the demon. The demon leaves the man, leaving the crowd once again amazed. That leads to this word about Jesus and the things that He's doing spreading further and further outside of this territory.

So the story is actually really simple on one level, but there really is a lot going on here, Biblically and Theologically, and it's important that we drill deep into this to get the totality and the richness of what is being revealed here. Picking it up in verse 33, “And in the synagogue there was a man possessed by the spirit of an unclean demon.” We'll stop there. Right away, we're introduced to a couple of terms that we need to work through.

First is the term demon and also the verb there, possessed or possession. To start with, what is a demon? What are demons? Well, demons are fallen angels, and we looked at this last Sunday in the sermon on pride and Satan's fall. But Satan is a fallen angel. When Satan fell from the presence of God on account of his pride, a whole segment of fallen angels went with him. Those fallen angels, those evil angels we know as demons, and they roam the earth, and they do Satan's bidding. Like any angelic being, demons are creatures. They're not eternal beings, they're created beings. They're created spirit beings; they're not physical beings. While they have intellect, and while they have strength, and while they have volition, demons always function in lockstep with their ruler, Satan. Meaning they are wicked, they are evil, they are morally perverted in their personality, in their doctrine, and in their conduct. They function in a manner that runs completely against God and His will and His purposes. But ultimately, and this is important to know, demons are on a very short leash, they have a limited time to carry out whatever evil they have designed to do. A time is coming when, and you can jot down a few more references here, Matthew 25:41, a time is coming when they are going to face the eternal fire which has been “prepared for the devil and his angels.” Demons, we're told in II Peter 2:4, are “being kept for judgment.” Jude 6 tells us that the demons are “being kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day.” They know it, demons know that their time is short, they know that they have but a limited period in which to carry out their evil deeds. Which is why they asked Jesus the question in Matthew 8:29, “What do we have to do with You, Son of God? Have You come here to torment us before the time?”

Back to our text here in Luke 4:33, such a being, a demon, specifically the spirit of an unclean demon, had possessed this man in the synagogue there in Capernaum. Now you might be wondering why is Luke calling this demon or referring to this demon as unclean? Aren't all demons by definition evil and unclean? Isn't Luke sort of being redundant here? Well, the likely reason that Luke uses the word unclean there is audience awareness. Remember that the original recipient of Luke's Gospel is Theophilus, a Gentile, who though a recent convert probably had been influenced by Greek culture, Greek civilization, Greek mythology. And in Greek thought at this time, there was such a thing as both good and evil demons. So, in addressing Theophilus here Luke is being precise, he's being careful. He's specifying for the benefit of his Gentile audience that this demon was unclean. “There was a man possessed by the spirit of an unclean demon.”

Now that word possessed, I mentioned there are two major terms that we need to work through here—the term demon and the term possessed or possession. That term possessed is supercharged with potential for controversy in our day, even among different churches and different Christians. Because on one side of the spectrum, you will have those who will ascribe any verbal attack or mean-spirited thought or fever that they're going through or acid reflex to being demon possessed. Right? But on the other side, you'll have those folks who are so uncomfortable with the supernatural and how the Scriptures record supernatural events that they tend to look away from or dismiss what the Scriptures reveal about demon possession, specifically during Jesus's day. We should be very careful not to fall too quickly, or at all, into either ditch. Right? One ditch would be assuming that every bad thought, every physical symptom that we experience can be blamed on the devil and his angels—I just couldn't help myself, the Devil got hold of me again. The other ditch though would be dismissing out of hand what the Scriptures plainly do teach about the Devil, his angels, and demon possession. The reality is that the Scriptures, and especially the Gospels, do give us much to consider and take in to develop a balanced and Biblical perspective on demons, what they are, what they do.

In fact, in the Gospel of Luke alone, I had to count this this week, demons are mentioned 23 times. And 14 of those 23 times fall between where we are in the Gospel and Luke 9:50, which encompasses what's known as Jesus's Galilean ministry. I'm not going to be able to turn you to every single instance this morning of demon possession in the Gospels or even in Luke, but here are a few to consider. First is the account in Mark 5 of the demon possessed man who was living among the tombs in the region of the Gerasenes. Mark describes him, this is in Mark 5:3, as being “bound with shackles and chains. And constantly night and day, among the tombs and in the mountains, he was crying out and gashing himself with stones.” Then you get to Mark 9:17. Jesus there encounters a man whose son was “possessed with a spirit which makes him mute. And whenever it seizes him, it slams him to the ground, and he foams at the mouth and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid.” Then you get to Luke 9:42, our Gospel, and there's an account of Jesus encountering a boy who's been possessed by a demon who “slammed him to the ground and threw him into a convulsion.” Putting all this Biblical data about demon possession together, and then admittedly this is a very small sample size, we can draw some conclusions here. But demon possession involves a demon occupying and controlling a person. This is far more than a tummy ache. This is overpowering the faculties of that person so that that person is experiencing now some form of physical impairment or otherwise acting very erratically. Whatever actions that person now does or whatever words that person now says, they're really the work of the demon who's possessed him.

That's what we have in our text. The demon had possessed this man in this synagogue in Capernaum. Look at how this incident of demon possession unfolds. Into verse 33-34. It says, “And in the synagogue there was a man possessed by the spirit of an unclean demon, and he cried out with a loud voice, Let us alone.” So, who's being quoted here is the demon possessed man shouting out these words, but they're not simply his words, rather they're the words of the demon who has now overtaken him. And these are words of alarm and disgust. These are words of surprise and hostility. Take note of that, that demons are not only evil angels, and they're not merely spirit beings, they're not merely capable of possessing humans. They're able to communicate, which is what we see happening here. Then through the man this demon had possessed, the demon asks Jesus these questions, still in verse 34, “Let us alone. What do we have to do with You, Jesus the Nazarene? Have You come to destroy us?” Now the literal reading here is, What to us and to you? But that's a pretty clunky expression in the English language, so it's been rightly smoothed out here as, “What do we have to do with You?” Why are You bothering us? Why are You interfering with us? See, Jesus's presence, we're going to see this all throughout Luke's Gospel, absolutely and always perturbs the demons. When they're in His presence, they wail, and they howl, and they moan. Now this single demon, though he's actually speaking for the entire demonic realm, that's why he uses the word us, not we or not I, this single demon, he knew who Jesus was. This demon had heard Jesus's authoritative teaching there in that synagogue in Capernaum. This demon was agitated, as forces of darkness tend to be when they're in the presence of light. This demon knew that one of the reasons that Jesus had come was to defeat Satan and his angels, Satan and his demons, the entire demonic realm. This demon knew the truth that would eventually be expressed in I John 3:8, that the “Son of God was manifested for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.” This demon was simply and in futility trying to ward off the inevitable with those questions. “What do we have to do with You, Jesus the Nazarene? Have You come to destroy us?” He knew the answer. It knew the answer, I should say, that Jesus did come to destroy it, its works.

Now still in verse 34, look at the next words which come from the demon. As these words are bubbling over and coming through the vocal cords of the man this demon had possessed, it says, “I know who You are, the Holy One of God.” Now far from a confession of faith, this was an admission of truth that Jesus is the Holy One of God. This demon, in other words, was admitting to the truth that Jesus is God. What we see across the board in the New Testament, in the Gospel accounts specifically, is that when a demon speaks when in the presence of Jesus, there's this consistent pattern of acknowledging that Jesus is who He claims to be—God, God in flesh, God incarnate. A couple examples would be Matthew 8:29, this is a demon speaking. “What do we have to do with You, Son of God?” Mark 5:7, “What do I have to do with You, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?” Then here, Luke 4:34, “I know who You are, the Holy One of God.” So though it was perturbed and agitated by being in Jesus's presence, the demon who had entered this man in that synagogue in Capernaum rightly recognized Jesus as being who He is, the Son of God, the Holy One of God, the One who was conceived by the Spirit, the One who the angel Gabriel had told the young virgin Mary in Luke 1:35. That He would be a holy child, the One whom God dedicated and set apart as the Messiah. The Savior of the world, the One who would go on to live a perfect and spotless and sinless life. The One who would go on to defeat sin and death through His death and resurrection. The One who would eventually Himself destroy Satan and his angels, the demons. So yes, this was, in verse 34, a confession of truth by this demon. But at the same time, it was a cry of terror because this evil angel knew exactly whose presence He was in. This demon knew exactly who Jesus was, and this demon knew exactly what Jesus came to do. Though this demon had sufficient strength to take over the faculties of this man in the synagogue, ultimately, this demon knew that it was in the presence of One who was infinitely mightier and One who would one day cast it into outer darkness.

Now for the Bible students in the room the words of James 2:19 ought to be percolating right about now, that “the demons also believe and shudder.” The demons also believe, meaning demons have knowledge—they know who God is, they know who Jesus is. But the issue is that demons fail to properly respond to the knowledge they possess. They have intellectual affirmation. What they lack is heart devotion, heart affection, they know but they fail to do. That's a dire warning for any one of us here this morning to know, to remember, to make sure that we know the difference between saying true things about God and knowing true things about God. Knowing a lot of stuff about God and actually knowing God. As J. C. Ryle once put it, “We may go on all our lives saying, I know that, and I know that and sink at last into hell with those words on our lips.” What a terrifying thought. I know a lot of Bible; I know a lot of Theology. I know the words to all the hymns; I know the church lingo. I know a lot about Jesus, in fact. But then if you've never actually put your faith in Him and believed upon Him and submitted your life to Him and taken up your cross daily to follow Him. To think that you'll stand before Him on that last day and hear those bone chilling words from Matthew 7:23, where He says, “Depart from Me, I never knew you.” Friend, if you're here this morning, if you've not put your faith in Jesus Christ, I would beg you, urge you to make sure that you take stock of your life, any profession you've made or lack thereof, and measure it all against what the Bible teaches about what salvation is. Salvation isn't doing more or doing better. Salvation is putting your faith in Jesus Christ, trusting in what He has done for you on the cross. Trusting that He rose from the grave, certifying His claim to be your Savior. Putting all of your faith and stock in what He did for you, not on what you could ever do for Him. That's what salvation is. That's the salvation offer. I pray if you've not put your faith in Christ, that today would be the day that you would do so.

Back to our text. The demon who had possessed this man knew who Jesus was. The demon knew that Jesus is, verse 34, “the Holy One of God.” But again, knowledge wasn't going to spare this evil angel from its ultimate fate. Look at verse 35. It says, “But Jesus rebuked it,” meaning the demon, “saying, ‘Be quiet and come out of him.” Jesus wasted no time. After hearing this demon correctly identify Him as the Holy One of God, He instantly rebukes the demon giving this twofold command, “be quiet and come out of him.” And as is always the case, the Lord's words were authoritative. Not only authoritative, but effective and powerful in achieving their purpose. Look at the rest of verse 35. “And when the demon had thrown him down in the midst of the people, it came out of him without doing him any harm.” So, in the face of the Lord's command, this demon in a desperate rage throws the man it had been possessing down to the ground, but the power of Christ is simply too great. The demon can't do anything more, and the demon has no choice but to leave this man and leave him unharmed. Again, this whole scene is pointing to Jesus's power, His authority, coming through His words and His commands. Jesus said to the demon, “Be quiet and come out of him,” and the demon obeyed. Jesus spoke those words as an exercise of His power and the demon submitted. Remember, we're still in this synagogue scene in Capernaum. Jesus is demonstrating His power through proclamation, and now He's demonstrating it in the pandemonium caused by this demon who had possessed this man.

His power has impact. Look at verse 36. “And amazement came upon them all, and they were talking with one another saying, what is this message? For with authority and power He commands the unclean spirits, and they come out.” So, Jesus's exorcism of the demon amazed the crowd. Like the power in His proclamation, the power over this demon amazed them, and their amazement led to conversation. Luke says, “they were talking with one another.” That's what amazed people do. They turn to each other and say, can you believe what we just saw? Look at what they were saying. “What is this message?” Verse 36, “For with authority and power, He commands the unclean spirits, and they come out.” See, the crowd in Capernaum, they recognized that they were in the presence of power, authoritative power, divine power. The man in their midst, this teacher, this Nazarene, was no mere exorcist and no mere worker of miracles. No. His was truly a Spirit-empowered ministry. Not only did this man teach in their synagogue with authority, and doing so as one who had the right to tell people what to believe and what to do, He was able and demonstrated this to overtake the forces of evil which had occupied this demon possessed man. Then defeat with His power and His authority that demon from the possession events. In other words, it's all starting to click for the crowd. It's all starting to click for those in the synagogue that Jesus truly was and Jesus truly is the Holy One of God.

Almost needless to say, as we turn to verse 37, news of this event begins to spread far and wide. It says, “And the report about Him was spreading into every place in the surrounding district.” What Jesus did in the synagogue, in other words, with this demon possessed man was so great a miracle that the audience was stirred. So astounding were these events on this Sabbath day in Capernaum that news spills out of the synagogue and into the streets and into the surrounding district, it says. This news was too good and too exciting to be confined to one small town, and instead, reports began flooding the surrounding region. He was becoming, the Lord was, more and more known. He was becoming more renowned. Now at this point in the narrative He's reached celebrity status in this small little region surrounding the Sea of Galilee. But it didn't affect Him, it didn't change Him. No. He kept on plodding away.

That takes us to our third point, where we're going to see now in verses 38-39, Power in Purging. Verse 38 says, “Then He stood up and left the synagogue and entered Simon's home. Now Simon's mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever, and they asked Him to help her. And standing over her, He rebuked the fever, and it left her. Immediately she stood up and began waiting on them.” Now the shift from verse 37 to verse 38 is an interesting one, because in verse 37 we have this statement that “the report of Him is spreading into every place in the surrounding district.” Now especially in today's culture of kind of “celebrityism” among pastors and Christian leaders, for instance, you would think that that would be when He signs His book deal. Right? When He starts reveling in His fame and hanging out with the popular crowd. Not at all. That's not what we see here. He's not basking in what just happened, He's not reveling in the attention, He's not soaking it up. In verse 38, in fact, after this happens in the synagogue, it says “He stood up and left the synagogue.” More to get done, more to do, more to accomplish.

We're told that the next thing He did, after leaving this synagogue, was enter Simon's home. He had a very personal ministry. Simon here, of course, would be Simon Peter, or as we typically refer to him or think of him as Peter. This is the first time we see Peter mentioned in Luke's Gospel. But this isn't the first time that Jesus met Peter. No, that occurred earlier during Jesus's Judean ministry, which preceded His Galilean ministry, which we're studying now. You might recall we covered that a few Sundays ago, that before Jesus's ministry in Galilee began, He ministered for about a year in Judea, which is captured in the early chapters of the Gospel of John. In John 1:42 we're told how Simon Peter's brother, Andrew, brought him to Jesus, brought Peter to Jesus. This is from John 1:42. It says that “When Jesus looked at him, He said, you are Simon, the son of John. You shall be called Cephas, which is translated Peter.”

Then there's the account in Mark's Gospel. In fact, we need to turn at least once today. We're going to be in Luke. We have a lot of Luke to cover, but turn with me to Mark, Mark 1. There's an account in Mark's Gospel which will further highlight the truth that before we get to our scene in Luke 4, Jesus had already met Peter. Peter was not a stranger to Him at this point. Look at Mark 1, we'll start in verse 16. Mark 1:16 says, “As He was going along by the Sea of Galilee, He saw Simon and Andrew, the brother of Simon, casting a net in the sea, for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, Follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of men. And immediately they left their nets and followed Him.” Now I had you turn here because Mark has this event, that first encounter between Jesus and Peter, happening immediately before the events that we're studying in Luke. Look down the page at Mark 1:21. Now it says, “And they went into Capernaum. And immediately on the Sabbath, He entered the synagogue and began to teach. And they were astonished at His teaching, for He was teaching them as one having authority and not as the scribes. And immediately there was a man in their synagogue with an unclean spirit, and he cried out saying, ‘What do we have to do with You, Jesus the Nazarene? Have you come to destroy us? I know who You are, the Holy One of God.” Now I'll stop there, but unless you've been sleeping for the first 40 minutes of this sermon, you can see that this is the same scene that Luke mentions in our text in Luke 4. You can go through it with a fine-toothed comb a little bit later and pick up some of the nuanced details between Mark's account and Luke's account. But I'm bringing all this in to show us that Jesus and Peter were acquainted. They knew each other. They had met each other before we got to our scene in Luke 4.

You can go back to Luke's Gospel, Luke 4:38, back to our text where it says that our Lord entered Simon's home, Peter's home, which evidently was in Capernaum or in some neighboring village, some say Bethsaida. Look what comes next. “Now Simon's mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever, and they asked Him to help her.” Now I hope you'll indulge me with maybe one more minor off-ramp from the trail of thought just for a minute. Note what the text here in verse 38 plainly says, that Peter, Simon, had a mother-in-law. Now if Peter had a mother-in-law, what does that mean by definition? He had also a what? A wife. Now I'm not sure how many here this morning are ex-Catholics, or you have Catholic family members, or you are a Catholic. If so, welcome. Go back to the Gospel message I just shared about ten minutes ago. But you must at least ask the question, where in the world did the Roman Catholic Church get the idea if they claim that the Papal line goes all the way back to Peter and that all in the priestly line come through him? Where do they get the idea that priests must be unmarried and celibate when their so-called first pope was married? Answer? Man-made tradition. It was at the first Lateran Council of 1123 that the Roman Catholic Church officially mandated that clergy be unmarried and celibate. You at least have to point out the inconsistency between that position and what Scripture itself plainly teaches about Peter, on whom their church supposedly rests, who had a mother-in-law and also a wife. I digress. Because what Luke is really emphasizing here, the point here really isn't about Peter having a mother-in-law and Peter having a wife. The fact here is that this woman, his mother-in-law, was ill. Verse 38. “Now Simon's mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever, and they asked Him to help her.”

Now, going back to some of the earliest sermons I've preached in this Luke series, recall that Luke was a medical doctor, Luke was a physician. He's referred to that way in Colossians 4:14, “Luke the beloved physician.” Here in verse 38, we see some of Luke's familiarity with medical terminology coming through. See in Greek, that word “fever” in verse 38 is pyretois, at the root of which is the word fire. It's where we get our term pyromaniac from. Many of you will be pyromaniacs in just a few weeks. You might already be pyromaniacs, but you'll reveal yourself to be pyromaniacs on the Fourth of July. But fire is an appropriate description, right? for a fever. When we have a fever, what is one of the main sensations we experience? We feel burning. Right? That's why mom feels the forehead and says, oh, sweetie, you're burning up. Or, oh, sweetie, you're not burning up. You can go to school now. Right? The symptom is always something about a burning of the skin. Well, according to the medical conventions of Luke's day, fevers were classified as either being major or minor, depending on the severity of the symptoms. Peter's mother-in-law here was experiencing a major fever, “a high fever,” we're told. She would have been in her condition very weak and bedridden with skyrocketing temperatures and shakes and shivers and clammy skin. She would have likely been totally incapacitated. In fact, the term suffering there in verse 38 where it says “she was suffering from a high fever” literally means she was held in the grip of that fever. The fever had taken her captive. This was a big deal, and Jesus had been asked to come to her aid. End of verse 38, “they asked Him to help her.”

The Lord obliged. Verse 39, “And standing over her He rebuked the fever, and it left her.” So, Jesus stepped up to the bed or the rug or wherever it was she was laid up with her fever and He bent over her. Mark 1:31 gives us the additional detail that “He took her by the hand,” and then it says here, “He rebuked the fever.” The fever here is being personified as if it were an evil spirit. In fact, this is that same word, rebuke, that we see back in verse 35, where Jesus rebuked the demon. Like that demon which left the man in the synagogue in Capernaum, the fever left Peter's mother-in-law immediately and completely. One moment, just before He had taken her by the hand and rebuked the fever, she was experiencing all those symptoms—the flushed cheeks, and the burning hot skin, and the profuse sweating, and the shivering. But the very next moment those symptoms had vanished. Not only had those symptoms vanished, but this new surge of strength had overtaken her, and what it records here in verse 39 is that “immediately she stood up and began waiting on them.” Good as new, as though she was never sick in the first place. She gets up and starts carrying on her duties of a busy hostess, most likely preparing the evening meal. Now what does all this show us? It shows us that Christ is powerful. He's powerful in His proclamation, He has power in the pandemonium caused by the demon possessed man, and He has power in purging illnesses and diseases. He has power over all principalities and rulers and authorities. He has power over all sicknesses and illnesses and diseases. He has power over all of life. That's what's being showcased here in this scene.

Well, next we're going to see, as we turn to verses 40-41 as this scene continues to unfold, Jesus demonstrate Power in Priority. That's our fourth point. Look at verses 40-41. “And while the sun was setting all those who had any who were sick with various diseases brought them to Him. And laying His hands on each one of them, He was healing them. And demons also were coming out of many, shouting and saying, You are the Son of God. But rebuking them, He was not allowing them to speak because they knew Him to be the Christ.” Now note the time marker there at the beginning of verse 40. This next turn in the narrative takes place “while the sun was setting,” meaning temporally Luke is still referring to the same day as he was referring to back all the way up in verse 31. On that same day, near the end of that same day, “while the sun was setting, all those who had any who were sick with various diseases, they brought them to Him.” So apparently the news was traveling fast. News about Jesus's authoritative teaching and His power over demons and diseases was spreading quickly. So as the shadows got longer and the sun got lower, as this day drew to a close, people began bringing their sick and their ill and their diseased loved ones to Him, no doubt thinking, if He healed Peter's mother-in-law, surely He can heal my daughter or my aunt or my paralysis or my limp or what have you.

Now there's a reason, by the way, the townspeople in Capernaum waited until sundown to bring their sick and diseased to Jesus. That reason is everything that we've considered in this account so far took place on the Sabbath day. According to the Jewish traditions of this day, transporting the sick and the diseased on the Sabbath was forbidden. It was a forbidden form of exertion or work. Now according to the way, the Jewish conception of a day works, a new day began at sundown. So as soon as the sun set on Capernaum on this specific day, the Jewish people in town were free to bring their sick and diseased relatives to Jesus, asking Him to heal them. In verse 40, that's what happened. “While the sun was setting, all those who had any were who were sick with various diseases brought them to Him.” So blind, deaf, mute, deformed, paralyzed, helpless, hurting, it didn't matter what they had or what they were suffering from. Here they come.

Next, we're told that He was “laying His hands,” verse 40, “on each one of them, He was healing them.” Though in His humanity Jesus must have been getting tired by this point in the day, and though He was under no obligation to do so, He obliged. He healed the sick that were brought to Him, He ministered to them one after the other, tending to their physical needs. No matter what their disease was, how far it had progressed, what its severity entailed, wholesale healing, miracle upon miracle, the kindness of the world's one and only Savior on total display in Capernaum on this day.

Luke then gives us this detail, verse 41. “And demons also were coming out of many, shouting and saying, You are the Son of God.” So, it wasn't just individuals who are being brought to Him who were sick and ill. People with all sorts of maladies were showing up, some of whom were sick, and some of whom were not only sick but also demon possessed. And our Lord here, it says, as a demonstration of His power, was healing both. Note what the demons were shouting as they were coming out of the sick and the diseased, still in verse 41, it says, “They were shouting and saying, You are the Son of God.” Again, one thing we cannot pin on demons is having bad theology. They know their theology, they know who God is, they know who Jesus is. They are acknowledging here that Jesus is the Son of God, just as we saw back in verse 34, that they were acknowledging that He is the Holy One of God. But as before, this was not a cry of worship. There is, in this language here, no desire on the part of the demons to fall at Jesus's feet and love and obey Him as their Creator forever. No. This is a cry of fear and despair. This is a cry from a class of beings who know that their fate is sealed.

But Jesus didn't even let them say anything more. He stopped them. Look at the end of verse 41. “But rebuking them,” that's now the third time we see that verb, rebuke, in this passage. “But rebuking them, He was not allowing them to speak because they knew Him to be the Christ.” Jesus rebuked these demons. And then as an exertion of His power over them, He prohibited them from speaking. He was not only driving these demons out of the sick and the diseased, but He was also shutting up their mouths. He was doing so here, it says, “because they knew him to be the Christ.” In other words, Jesus was preventing the demons from saying anything more about His identity. He was doing so precisely because they knew who He was. But why? Why stop the demons from pronouncing that Jesus was the Messiah? That Jesus was the Son of God? Well, there was a right time for those truths to be announced, and this wasn't that time. As Jesus would say to His own disciples in Luke 9:22, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and raised up on the third day.” See, Jesus didn't want to be prematurely made into some sort of hero, and He certainly didn't need the testimony of demons to stoke any nationalistic fervor in His countrymen. He didn't come to be some political messiah, but as a suffering Savior. He came to suffer and die and give His life as a ransom for many. So, by His power, He stopped the demons from saying anything more about Him. He would reveal His identity to His people as their Messiah, as God, on His own terms. He was being, in other words, patient, demonstrating power in patience.

That takes us to our fifth and final point and the final verses here of Luke 4, where we see Jesus's Power in Purpose. Verse 42 says, “When day came, Jesus left and went to a secluded place. And the crowds were eagerly seeking for Him and came to Him and tried to keep Him from going away from them. But He said to them, I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other cities also, for I was sent for this purpose. So, He kept on preaching in the synagogues of Judea.” The account, again, is actually quite straightforward. What we are seeing here is essentially a full and close to 24-hour period of ministry where Jesus is regularly showcasing His power. As we've seen, He's been showcasing it in the synagogue, He's been showcasing it over sickness, He's been showcasing it over Satan's evil fallen angels. The account closes, we see here, with Jesus going to a secluded place, apparently in or within proximity of Capernaum. Mark 1:35 adds the detail that He got away to pray at this time. But we see here that the people of this town still found Him. There's quite a contrast between the people of Capernaum and the people of Nazareth. Right? Unlike the people of Nazareth who immediately, after He taught there, drove Him out, the people of Capernaum wanted Him to stay. It says they “tried to keep Him from going away from them.” At least at this point in Capernaum, He was appreciated. They wanted Him to remain; they wanted Him to stay. They enjoyed the miracles and the signs especially. But He declined. This is where He demonstrates His power in purpose.

Jesus came with a ministry to fulfill. He wasn't interested in limiting His ministry to one aspect. Right? Healings and exorcism. Or even to one group of people in one specific place like Capernaum. No. He had a mission, and that mission was to the rest of the people of Israel at this time as a whole. He had a task before Him, which as it says here in verse 43, was “to proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to His countrymen.” So, the exorcism of demons, sure that was a thing to behold, healing sick people, that would have been amazing to witness. But Jesus principally was a teacher. He came to teach and preach and proclaim. He came proclaiming a message, a message which was the great earthly hope of the prophets of old who spoke to Israel back in the Old Testament; a message that dealt with a period of future blessing for the very people that Jesus came to serve and to teach, Israel; a message with which at its core was that Israel's promised Messiah would one day come and deliver them and defeat their enemies and allow them to rule with Him. That's what He was proclaiming. He came proclaiming the kingdom of God. In fact, there are 32 references to the kingdom of God in Luke's Gospel alone. So, we are going to have plenty of opportunities in this series in Luke to expand on and understand what the kingdom of God is and what it's not. I'll give you one little clue for the purposes of our discussion this morning. The kingdom is not today; we are not in the kingdom right now. The kingdom is not the church. No. The kingdom is going to have a specific meaning in Luke's Gospel. And that Jesus's first coming to His people Israel, the kingdom of God was offered to Israel. But because of their failure to repent of their sin and trust Him as their Messiah, because of the rejection of His offer of the kingdom, God's kingdom program for Israel has been postponed. Not canceled, delayed. Not superseded, postponed. But as of Jesus's time, that kingdom offer to Israel was being presented. It was still on the table. Jesus knew that His priority, His purpose was to get around to each of the surrounding districts and regions and preach the good news of the kingdom. “I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other cities also, for I was sent for this purpose.” Yes, Jesus had power over disease. Yes, Jesus had power over demons. But ultimately, He had the power to transfer sinners from the domain of darkness, the domain of Satan and his angels, the demons, into one day “the kingdom of His,” Colossians 1:13, “beloved Son.”

That's the good news Jesus came to proclaim. He would go on to fulfill that purpose with power. He would do so, verse 44, not only in Capernaum, but throughout the region. It says, “So He kept on preaching in the synagogues of Judea.” Small point here, but that word Judea there is not referring to the district of Judea proper like Judea and Galilee and the Decapolis. Really, the reference here is to the entire region surrounding the Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee; broadly speaking, the land of the Jews, the country inhabited by the Jews. Luke's point here is that after Jesus left Capernaum, wherever He went, He fulfilled His purpose by proclaiming to His people that the Messiah, their Messiah, had come. Going back to what He preached to Nazareth, look up the page at Luke 4:18, this is the message that Jesus would proclaim to His people. Luke 4:18, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.” That is the message that Jesus, in His earthly ministry, would go on to proclaim. As we turn to Luke 5, not today but next time, that would be the message He would call on His disciples to proclaim as they went out as fishers of men.

I'm out of time; we need to close.

Let's pray. Father, we thank You for this chance to work through this really incredible piece of Scripture, these last concluding verses of Luke 4. God, I praise You for Your power and the power that You have demonstrated in creating the world and everything in it. The power that You've demonstrated in upholding all things by the word of Your very power. The power that You've shown in regenerating sinners like us and drawing us to You. That power, of course, is shared with Your Son, the eternal Son of God, and we praise You for the power that we've witnessed in the Word this morning, where Jesus has demonstrated power over illness and power over demons and power through proclamation of the Word and power over all things. We praise You, oh God, as our magnificent, powerful Creator. May Your power work through us effectively for Your glory this week. We pray in Jesus's name. Amen.