Luke 5:27-32

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27 After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. “Follow me,” Jesus said to him, 28 and Levi got up, left everything and followed him. 29 Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them. 30 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” 31 Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 32 I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” ~ Luke 5:27-32

No one can enter into the kingdom of God without a recognition of our sinfulness.  This concept of Original Sin was foreign to the Jewish establishment at the time of the Lord Jesus. The day the Lord Jesus went into the synagogue He read  Isaiah 61:1-2a, He announced He was the long-awaited Messiah. 

And the people sitting in that synagogue that day were offended. They did not accept the assessment of their condition by the Lord Jesus Christ. They did not acknowledge that they were the poor, prisoners, blind, oppressed, and spiritually bankrupt. Admitting Original Sin is our starting block to entering into a personal relationship with God.

As indicated by our text today, the Lord Jesus didn't come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. There is no salvation, no forgiveness of sin, no eternal life for anybody who thinks he's righteous in and of himself. As a result, the Lord Jesus' ministry was most accessed by the poor, by the prisoners, by the blind, and by the broken. These who had access to acceptance before God understood their true condition and subsequent need for the Savior.

In v.27, we are introduced to a Tax Collector named Levi. He was a crook of the worst kind. This dishonest tax collector is also known as Matthew which means "gift of YHWH." This is the Matthew who penned the first gospel, the first book of the New Testament.

In all four gospels, not one statement from Matthew is recorded. Nothing that Matthew said was ever recorded in the gospels. He only mentions himself twice; once in this incident when he names himself, telling the story about his conversion, and one other time in Matthew 10:3 when he includes his name among the list of the apostles.

Tax Collectors were the lowest of the low. Rome ruled the world and Israel was an occupied country. The Romans established taxation for their occupied countries and they established a certain tax amount for Galilee. Taxes were collected by Tax Collectors and then given to Herod Antipas who then paid it to Rome. And, these Tax Collectors were the scum of society back then. 

Herod Antipas sold tax franchises to the highest bidder. Tax collecting was a very lucrative business and, if one didn't mind lying, cheating, stealing and abusing people, one would make bank. These Tax Collectors were considered traitors, because they abused their own people, extorting money from them, and giving that money to the Roman Gentiles.

Somewhere along the line, Matthew sold his birthright, bartered away his heritage and his reputation and any social place at all and perhaps dishonored his family and anybody and everybody who knew him and sentenced himself to a life of association with thugs by buying a tax franchise.

The Roman government established an amount at the end of the year to be paid. Anything beyond that, the Tax Collector would keep. There were fixed taxes, there were poll taxes, there were duties of all kinds. All of these kinds of taxes left room for larceny and extortion and exploitation. And then when someone could not pay their taxes, loan agents would loan the needed money at 50 percent interest or more. And if someone didn't pay, they were in great trouble with the most powerful in the land.

The Jewish people hated the Tax Collectors who were considered to be unclean animals.  They were not allowed in a synagogue. In addition, they were forbidden to give testimony in a court of law because they were known to be liars. These Jewish traitors were some of the most hated people in Israel.

Matthew, according to v.27 was "sitting at his tax booth." He may well have been the most hated man in Capernaum, but the Lord Jesus saw him. The word "saw," means to gaze intently.  He didn't just glance at Matthew, He fixed His eyes on him and God had a divine appointment with him. 

In addition, according to v.27, the Lord Jesus said to Matthew, "Follow Me." Notice He didn't say to him, "If you can kind of clean up your act, you can be a part of my group." No, the Lord Jesus saw into Matthew's heart and saw that he knew he was wretched.

In v.28 we read, "and Levi got up, left everything and followed him." He recognized his need and he understood the risk. He walked away from a very lucrative career, never to be recovered again. The Lord Jesus calls him to follow and immediately he does. Unlike the paralytic who sought the Lord Jesus, the Lord Jesus sought Matthew. 

In v.29 we read, "Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them." Having experienced meaning in life through God's forgiveness, Matthew gathered around him everybody that he knew in his world and introduced them to the Lord Jesus. He throws a big party. This is what happens when we move from the darkness to the light. Now that we see reality, that we have gone from death to life, we want to be a part of the rescue mission that so many around us need.

So, Matthew is there in the new joy of his conversion, the disciples are there, and then all the scum of the world. According to v.30, "But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?" That day the Lord Jesus was ultimately and finally outed by the religious leaders. He was not welcomed in the elite group of supposed representatives of God.

The religious leaders were shocked, they were outraged that Jesus and His disciples would associate with this crowd. They were the moral majority. They were void of grace, they were void of God and salvation. The religious leaders were void of the heart of God because they had never presented their hearts to God.

Having overheard the complaints of the hard-hearted religious leaders, the Lord Jesus said in v.31-32, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." By their own admission these religious leaders were the sickest of the sick, but they were unaware of this reality. The heart of the gospel is this: God came to rescue sinners. The religious community hated the Lord Jesus for this. They did not understand that the law of God was given to convince us of our need for God's help. In order to be a recipient of the Good News, we must be first convinced of the Bad News that we are sick and in need of a Savior.

The only way anyone finds salvation is when God shows up in our lives and He calls us to place our faith in Him and we follow suit. If we look around identifying other sinners as worse than we, we are missing the point. The Lord Jesus came to call sinners to repentance from self dependence to God dependence. Like the religious leaders, we can not earn God's favor through our goodness.

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Luke 5:21-26

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21 The Pharisees and the teachers of the law began thinking to themselves, “Who is this fellow who speaks blasphemy? Who can forgive sins but God alone?” 22 Jesus knew what they were thinking and asked, “Why are you thinking these things in your hearts? 23 Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’? 24 But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” So he said to the paralyzed man, “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.” 25 Immediately he stood up in front of them, took what he had been lying on and went home praising God. 26 Everyone was amazed and gave praise to God. They were filled with awe and said, “We have seen remarkable things today.” ~ Luke 5:21-26

When the Lord Jesus said to the paralytic man, "Yours sins are forgiven," in v.21, a theological battle broke out. Rabbinical theology taught that all physical infirmities were signs of divine displeasure and came as a punishment from God for specific sins. Since God was the one displeased with sin, and the one who had punished this paralytic because of sin, then only God Himself could forgive his sin. Thus, the "religious leaders" accused the Lord Jesus of blasphemy.

In v.22, we read, "Jesus knew what they were thinking," giving clear indication He could read their minds. This underscores the fact that He knows all things. In fact, He knows everything there is to know about you and me, even things we do not know about ourselves. And, He knows the combinations that are useful to unlock our imprisoned souls, souls that have been severely damaged by the fallenness of this world.

In v.23, we read, "Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’?" One would think it would be easier to say, "Your sins are forgiven," for this simple reason: the forgiveness of sin, you can't see. It's all inward. Anybody could say, "Your sins are forgiven." 

Forgiveness is an invisible action. The Lord Jesus healed the man visibly to prove that his invisible act of forgiving sins was legitimate. It is hard to conceive of how the Lord Jesus could blaspheme God in one moment and then heal with God’s power in the next. His healing demonstrated that He had authority from God to do both.

In reality, it was far easier for Jesus to heal the man than it was to forgive him. Forgiveness of sins before a just and holy God is a far more significant than any physical miracle. To heal the man’s body took a simple command; to forgive the man’s sins required Jesus’ blood. The first was done in the house of friends; the second on a hill with thieves. One took a word; the other took His life. 

The Lord Jesus knew the cost of grace. He knew the price of forgiveness. But He offered it anyway. Love broke His heart for mankind. The same face that invited the paralytic invites all of us who have known brokenness in some fashion. And, on that day the Paralytic heard, "Your sins are forgiven," the Lord Jesus was tuning His vocal chords for us to hear and be defined by those most sacred of words for ourselves. 

Only the Lord Jesus is able to forgive the sins that keep us physically, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually crippled. Only He is able to give us the courage to take up our mats and walk, setting us free from guilt and shame. Setting the man free from his physical abnormalities was one thing, but deliverance from the prisons of the soul is quite another.

You see, God's choice to remove our sin from our ledger has much farther reach in our lives than being healed physically. It has to do with us experiencing Him and His holiness. And, everything God wants for us can be summed up in one word, wholeness.

Since we live in a broken world, we all have wounded hearts. These “heart wounds” are caused by real or perceived instances of cruelty, personal trauma, lack of love and other experiences that have wounded the core of our being. These wounds directly affect our spiritual lives and make us far more susceptible to sin.

For example, people who were verbally abused by a parent often have issues with authority figures. They will likely struggle with areas of sin involving disagreements and anger. This issue isn’t necessarily evidence of a lack of holiness, but rather a lack of “heart wholeness.” If the verbally abused heart wound is healed, the disagreements and anger will subside, allowing the person to grow in God's holiness.

Until we faced this lack of wholeness in our souls and allow God to heal it, we will be stalled in our spiritual progress. Our habitual sins will not disappear through sheer will-power. No. We have to go to the root of our problems, our souls. The application of God's holiness to our souls involves learning to love ourselves as He loves us. We mustn't be defined by our puny definitions of this life. This is most difficult because we have long been defined by the hated wounds that have long kept us in bondage and have defined us in such a way that we are paralyzed.

It is tempting to spend all of our time helping other people and it is easy to feel guilty about taking care of ourselves. But this unbalanced approach to Christianity can make us lose sight of the love of God who has totally accepted us through the cross of the Lord Jesus. In fact, the love of God for us and ministry are linked: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

In the early years of my relationship with God, I had learned that living a life of holiness meant refraining from any act or behavior considered unholy or unrighteous. This limited perspective of holiness overlooks a powerful reality about wholeness. To expect pious behavior externally from a person who isn’t becoming whole internally is like expecting the Paralytic to walk without Jesus' pronouncement. It won’t happen.

God’s process of making us whole is His guarantee that wholeness will follow. Right doing was never more important to God than right being. God’s plan for us is wholeness which will always be the product of His realized holiness in our lives. God’s goal for you and me is that we see the version of us that is defined by the application of His Son to us in every way. Knowing that we are positionally perfect in His eyes through His Son, we are enabled to confront the demons within and choose to allow God to chase them away and begin and continue the process of being defined by Him.

Finally, the focal point of our text for today is v.25-26, "25 Immediately he stood up in front of them, took what he had been lying on and went home praising God. 26 Everyone was amazed and gave praise to God. They were filled with awe and said, “We have seen remarkable things today." God does all that He does in our lives so that we will ultimately be defined by Him on a moment by moment basis.

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Luke 5:17-20

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17 One day Jesus was teaching, and Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there. They had come from every village of Galilee and from Judea and Jerusalem. And the power of the Lord was with Jesus to heal the sick. 18 Some men came carrying a paralyzed man on a mat and tried to take him into the house to lay him before Jesus. 19 When they could not find a way to do this because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and lowered him on his mat through the tiles into the middle of the crowd, right in front of Jesus. 20 When Jesus saw their faith, he said, “Friend, your sins are forgiven.” ~ Luke 5:17-20

For all of the people who had followed the Lord Jesus to date, they wanted His miracles more than the message. They wanted His works more than the word. And, when the Lord Jesus spoke of the requirement of eating His flesh and drinking His blood for salvation, they were disgusted and they turned away.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is: God will forgive all our sins through His Son's finished work on the cross if we turn away from self-dependence to God-dependence. Forgiveness is the single most important benefit that God can provide because it debilitates that which separates us from Him. Forgiveness is the door to all blessing. 

Now, since the Lord Jesus is forgiving sin, He is indirectly claiming to be God because only God can forgive sin. This is what tripped the religious leaders up. They just could not fathom that God became a regular man from Galilee. The lack of human status caused them to lack the ability to see the humble God come to save His creation.

In v.17, we read, "One day Jesus was teaching, and Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there. They had come from every village of Galilee and from Judea and Jerusalem. And the power of the Lord was with Jesus to heal the sick." 

Matthew identifies this story happened in Capernaum in Galilee. And, it happened right after the Lord Jesus had returned from land of the Gadarenes where He delivered the man from the demons, and sent them into a herd of pigs. So, this is fairly early in the ministry of the Lord Jesus and His primary message is forgiveness. 

Now, the religious leaders were looking for the opportunity to discredit the Lord Jesus and get rid of Him. They tried to kill Him in Nazareth just before He read Isaiah 61:1-2 in the synagogue. According to v.17 of our text, "And the power of the Lord was with Jesus to heal the sick." 

In v.18 we read, "Some men came carrying a paralyzed man on a mat and tried to take him into the house to lay him before Jesus." Mark tells us there were four men who brought the paralyzed man to the Lord Jesus. And, the man couldn’t walk. He couldn’t stand. His limbs were bent and his body twisted. A waist-high world walked past as he sat and watched. And ... he was totally dependent on others. This is a good thing, as we shall see later.

This man had a form of paralysis which very well may have been caused by a venereal disease. People who were in this condition were generally left out of society. They weren't like lepers in that they had a highly communicable disease and so they were allowed into society but they were stigmatized. This man bore a social stigma that would have alienated him, made him somewhat of an outcast. And people tended to think that people like he were like that because of some sin.

This man's four friends wanted their friend to be healed, but the man's greatest need was forgiveness. The man needed forgiveness and along with the forgiveness, of course, would come the healing. Good for him, the Lord Jesus could see beyond his physical needs to his spiritual need.

The four friends of this man tried to bring him in and set him in front of Jesus, but they had no handicap access. So, these concerned friends devised a plan to lower him through the roof of the house where the Lord Jesus was teaching that day. Imagine being the owner of that home.

According to v.19, "When they could not find a way to do this because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and lowered him on his mat through the tiles into the middle of the crowd, right in front of Jesus." Most of the houses were one-story houses. This was probably a big house built out of sticks and mud. Spanning the walls were beams that were set below the height of the walls so that they would create a short wall and a roof and then the roof would act as a patio. The beams would cross and then in between the beams would be a combination of sticks and mud that would be put in there. 

Luke tells us they got up on the roof and they let their paralyzed friend down through the tiles. The word for "tile" is keramos, from which we get our word ceramic. The four men calculated where the Lord Jesus was teaching in the house and all of a sudden tiles start coming off above the Lord Jesus. And the next thing they know, down through the hole comes this man, through the tiles with his stretcher right in the center in front of Jesus. 

In v.20 we read, "When Jesus saw their faith, he said, “Friend, your sins are forgiven." The Lord Jesus knew exactly what was in that man's heart. Here was a poor, dependent, and oppressed victim of his own sinful desires. He was the perfect candidate for forgiveness. It wasn't the faith of the four guys that saved the man that day. It was his faith. I'm sure the faith of his friends impressed the Lord Jesus. They all had faith, but no one is ever saved because of someone else's faith.  His faith was more than just ordinary faith. His was a strong, insistent, persistent and  dismantling faith. His was unstoppable faith, overcoming all barriers, all barricades, all obstacles. His strong faith was the result of being so dependent in his need.

The Lord Jesus healed people with no faith and sometimes He healed people with little faith. And, of course, He sometimes healed people with great faith. But this was not a healing. This was salvation. The Lord Jesus saved this man from his sin. A must for this salvation was this man's faith. And, the object of that faith is the key here. Everyone has faith, but the key is who is our faith in?

Did you notice that no one made of the Lord Jesus a request? The man is lying there in his paralyzed condition before the Lord Jesus who looks right at him and said, "Friend, your sins are forgiven you." This is written in the pluperfect tense in the Greek, meaning this was a permanent condition. Literally, the Lord Jesus told this hopeless man, "Your sins are and always will be forgiven."

No one's ever forgiven apart from faith. The Lord Jesus saw into this man's heart, and He saw a longing to be forgiven. He saw this man's wretched spiritual condition and said, "Your sins are dismissed permanently." And, this is what He does for everyone who cries out to Him.

The wretched are forgiven and the self-righteous are not. Forgiveness is the most important thing God can do for us, far more than physical healing. God effortlessly parted the Red Sea, but it took nothing less than the death of His Son to achieve the forgiveness of our sins. And the results this renders to our souls? ... Well, that is the topic for tomorrow's blog.

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Luke 5:12-16

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12 While Jesus was in one of the towns, a man came along who was covered with leprosy. When he saw Jesus, he fell with his face to the ground and begged him, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”13 Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” And immediately the leprosy left him. 14 Then Jesus ordered him, “Don’t tell anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.” 15 Yet the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses. 16 But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed. ~ Luke 5:12-16

Imagine you have a beautiful wife and two adorable little children. Life is normal and good, even though nothing in your life is perfect. Then, one day you come home from a long day at work and you notice a small sore that has developed on your hand. In time, this sore develops into the serious condition known as leprosy.

Leprosy is a death sentence. And the process of dying by leprosy is worse than dying itself. In most cases, the body rots to pieces while the Leper continues to live. Although the physical ravages of leprosy are bad, the social, mental and emotional damage it causes is even worse.

Leprosy begins with pain in certain areas of the body. Numbness follows. Soon the skin develops spots and then loses its original color. It becomes scaly. As the sickness progresses, the thickened spots become dirty sores and ulcers due to poor blood supply. The skin, especially around the eyes and ears, begins to bunch, with deep furrows between the swellings, so that the face of the afflicted individual begins to resemble that of a lion. Fingers drop off or are absorbed. Toes are affected similarly. Eyebrows and eyelashes drop off. 

In Numbers 5:2, we read, "If you find anybody with leprosy, put him out of the camp." Lepers were confined to the outskirts of town. They were quarantined from those whom they loved and who loved them. In v.12 of our text, we learn he "was covered with leprosy." This man had leprosy in its maximum form. He had been stricken with this disease for quite some time. As a result, he had no connection with anybody in society who wasn't a leper. He could have been stoned for violating the quarantines that surrounded leprosy, but he ran the risk to get to the Lord Jesus.

Anyone with leprosy was stamped as "unclean." According to Leviticus 13, "the leper remained unclean all the days in which he has the infection." He was ordered to live alone, outside the camp, away from those who were themselves not diseased. And, the Leper was required to yell out "unclean, unclean," when anyone would come near them.

One day, according to v.12, this Leper learns of a man who has the ability to heal. He goes to Him and starts shouting, “Unclean! Unclean! Stay away from me! I have leprosy! Unclean!” Even as the disciples draw back, the Lord Jesus invited the man's physical presence. “Unclean!” the man shouts louder. But, the Lord Jesus kept coming. “Doesn’t He know the law?” the man thought to himself. “If the Lord Jesus gets any closer, He will become unclean Himself.” 

Then the Lord Jesus gets close enough to look the man in his eyes. And the man sees something he has never before seen in another human being. He doesn’t see disdain. He sees concern. He doesn’t see fear. He sees sympathy. He doesn’t see rejection. He sees love.

“When he saw the Lord Jesus, he fell with his face to the ground and begged him, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean." The leper begged the Lord Jesus to heal him. This was more than a prayer. This man was not halfhearted in his request because he was on his last leg. This desperate man challenges my prayer life. Desperate people do desperate things.

This leper doesn’t turn to one of the disciples. He doesn’t turn to another leper. He doesn’t even turn to the priest. He knows that none of them can help him. He turns to the Lord Jesus. "Falling on his face this man begged the Lord Jesus to make him clean." This man is pleading for his life. He has endured shame and alienation. He is worn out, at the end of his rope and desperate for relief.

How many years had it been since someone had hugged this man? How many years, do you think, had it been since this man had been touched? He couldn’t even pet a dog without it being killed. The Lord Jesus knows this and so He put out His hand and touched him. He could have healed this man with just a word. He could have healed him from a great distance, without a word and without any touch. But, the Lord Jesus knows that this leper needs love just as much if not more than he needs healing. 

According to v.13, "Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” And immediately the leprosy left him."  The Lord Jesus saw this man's desperation, urgency, and faith. As a result, He healed him.  

Contrary to Leviticus 5:3, which says "never touch a leper," "the Lord Jesus reached out His hand and touched the man." The Lord Jesus not only healed him with a touch, He not only communicated compassion to him, He also made a connection with the man. "And immediately the leprosy left him." He was given a new life where he once thought was hopeless.

According to v.14, we read, "Don’t tell anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them." The Lord Jesus tells the Leper not to tell anyone. He did this because He didn't want people attracted to Him just because He could heal them physically. He wanted them to seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness.

So when this man shows up cleansed and healed at the priest’s doorstep, this priest would have known that something amazing had just taken place in his town. Possibly this was the very priest who had pronounced the man unclean years earlier. And now here he was again, but this time he is whole and healed. 

But, look what happened in v.15. "Yet the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses." The people didn’t really want to give glory to God. They only wanted to be healed. Very few today want to feed on the Word of God, but we will gladly take a free meal. 

In v.16, we read, "But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.” Notice the Lord Jesus embraces loneliness. Perhaps He has traded places with the Leper in a way. The Lord Jesus is in the process of being the one "who knew no sin, yet, the one who became sin so that you and I could become the righteousness of God in Him." 

Have you come to the place where you are exhausted and you have exhausted everything in this life to discover the Lord Jesus is your only answer? Have you been touched by Him? If so, He wants to teach you to become a fisher of men, and the first step in that is learning to love all people, learning to touch the untouchable.

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Luke 5:7-11

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7 So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink. 8 When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” 9 For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken, 10 and so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, Simon’s partners. Then Jesus said to Simon, “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will fish for people.” 11 So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him. ~ Luke 5:7-11

Peter starts to pull the net in, and he can’t even handle it, it is so full of fish. He yells to James and John and they come out to help him. They end up filling up two whole boats full of fish. The Lord Jesus blew Peter's mind by demonstrating His power over something that Peter thought he knew more about than Jesus.

In much the same way He works in our lives, the Lord Jesus reveals a little bit more of Himself each day and we, like Peter, are slowly going deeper into fellowship with the Lord. He is truly the Lord of everything, including that which we think we are experts about.

Peter has seen other miracles, but this miracle is personal, because it’s about fish. He had spent his lifetime studying fishology. We often think we are better at running our lives than the Lord. We get upset with Him when He doesn't give us our desired definition of life, only to discover His is far better. We often say, "I prayed about it but the Lord didn't answer." Oh, He answered! He just was not in line with our prayers. 

In response to this miracle, the eyes of Peter are opened and we find him flat on his face in front of the Lord Jesus, saying, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man.”

Throughout Scripture, when God reveals Himself to people, the response is that we end up on our faces. The person who is growing in arrogance is not growing in a personal relationship with the Lord. I think of the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 6:1-5. He goes into the temple, and God gives him a vision of Himself. Isaiah sees the Lord high and lifted up, and winged seraphs flying above Him, worshiping. Isaiah ends up flat on his face: “Woe to me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips.” 

According to v.10, the Lord Jesus then said, "Don’t be afraid; from now on you will fish for people." In every instance in Scripture when God pulls back the veil and asks people into His presence, He says, “Do not fear.”

The theme of fear is important in Luke’s gospel. Seven different times Luke records some revelation of the majesty and power of God after which God speaks in some way and says, “Do not fear.” The first is when the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary and called her to be the one who would carry the Son of God in her womb. He looked at Mary and said, “Do not be afraid....” (Luke 1:30.) Next, on the Judean hillside, the shepherds were blown away by the angelic chorus and announcement of Christ’s birth, terrified by the overwhelming majesty of God, and God’s voice came out: “Do not be afraid....” (Luke 2:10.) And there are five other times in the gospel of Luke when His invitation of grace simply says, “Do not fear,” including this incident in Peter’s life. 

There is always a progression in God’s revelation of Himself to us. It has to be the way, otherwise, we would not be able to handle it. We must keep in mind, this is a process. It does not happen over night, and God is not in a hurry. God graciously continues to give us more and more revelation of Himself, and a deeper understanding of Him, that we might obey Him at an increasingly deeper level.

This is why the Lord Jesus said to Peter at the end of v.10: “from now on you will fish for people.”  In the same way the Lord Jesus filled those nets beyond comprehension with fish, He is saying to Peter, “If you will follow me and trust me, you will be someone through whom I will continue to bring in the harvest of souls, catch the people that I’m going to put into your life. I’m going to do what I promised to do. You can trust me to accomplish it.”

According to v.11, "So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him." Obedience is responding to the revelation the Lord gives us. It’s our starting point as His friends who follow Him. What we do is follow some pattern that we think is the right way for a Christian, and we end up fulfilling someone else's call. 

Now, granted, there are things that all Christians ought to and ought not to do as followers of Christ. But when that’s our focus, we end up getting trapped into robotically following our ideas instead of His. I have found, His way is always more radical than mine, and subsequently more exciting. 

Finally, in v.11, Peter and his buds “pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him.” I'd say our number one god is "comfort." We like the easy life. This is not and will not be the case with the Lord Jesus. His idea is an adventure. It is exciting and it is scary, but it is worth it. To see Him do His thing through our lives is the greatest thing ever. And, who knows, we may be tackled by several in heaven when we get there because God used us to help them get there.

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Luke 5:1-6

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1 One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, the people were crowding around him and listening to the word of God. 2 He saw at the water’s edge two boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets. 3 He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat. 4 When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.” 5 Simon answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.” 6 When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break.  ~ Luke 5:1-6

Luke's gospel is the lengthiest of the four gospels. Today's narrative is set at the lake of Gennesaret which was 13 miles long and 7 miles wide. To the east are low ridges and then the flat lands of the wilderness that goes to the east. To the north are the great high mountains of Lebanon from which the water flows creating the lake. To the west are the fertile fields of grain and crops. 

This was a good place to speak to people because one could be at the shore and the slope would be a place that would create sort of a natural amphitheater and the people could hear. The events of this day were so convincing that these fishermen left everything to follow the Lord Jesus.

According to v.1 the crowds were getting bigger and bigger. This was a typical problem as the Lord Jesus' popularity was fast growing.  And, He was standing by the lake of Gennesaret, a freshwater lake fed by the snowmelt out of the Lebanese mountains.

So there He is on the shore with this mass of people coming out of towns and villages and cities, crowding around and eventually pushing Him. The people came to hear the Word of God. They were listening to the word that comes from God. This is the first time Luke uses the phrase "the Word of God." 

God is the source of truth. God by nature is truth. And the truth is what He speaks. As the Lord Jesus stands by the lake and speaks the very word of God, the crowd is pushing in on Him. In v.2 we learn the Lord Jesus saw two boats by the waters edge. 

In that area of the Sea of Galilee, it is shallow. The Lord Jesus sat down in Peter's boat and asked Peter to pull it out a little bit. That would give the Lord Jesus a natural amphitheater effect. In the spot where they were that day, there is a natural sloping. There, the water is flat, and then the shoreline goes up, sort of like an amphitheater. In that setting, the voice of the Lord Jesus was amplified. It bounced off the water and was heard easily on the shoreline. His voice, as a result, was projected as the people were pressed on the shore. 

In v.3 we read, "He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat." The Lord Jesus doesn't do anything just by accident.  Everything is intentional and purposeful. His actions here were making it conducive for Peter to decide to follow the Lord Jesus as His disciple.

The Lord Jesus first met Peter back in John 1. Then, later on, as recorded in Mark 1 there was a second meeting. So, Peter had already had a couple of encounters with the Lord Jesus. Peter was with his brother Andrew on that first day, the second day he was with James and John. So, these actions were impacting these brothers, as well.

The Lord Jesus was in the process of getting to know Peter. This explains why Peter is following Him. This is why in Luke 4 after the synagogue service, when it was lunch time, the Lord Jesus went to Simon's house.  

The fishermen had fished at night and they are now repairing their nets. Galilean fisherman typically fished at night because at night when it was cooler out, the fish would come closer to the surface. In the sea of Galilee, the hot sun causes, to this day, the fish to go deep in the middle of the day. So, during the daytime the fishermen would work on their equipment. The nights were for fishing. It was daytime now and the Lord Jesus had begun teaching. The crowd is pushing in and He notices the two boats on the edge of the lake.

According to v.3, the Lord Jesus gets into Simon's boat. And, in v.4 He says to Peter, "Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch." But, Peter and his buds had fished all night and had caught nothing. No doubt, Peter was convinced fishing for that day was over. But, this was not about fishing, the Lord Jesus had much more on His mind for Peter that day.

Then, in v.5, it is as if Peter is saying, "We fished all night, we caught absolutely nothing.  I'm telling you, the fish aren't there. Master, at your bidding, I will let down the nets. That is the least I can do for you for healing my mother-in-law." The lake is seven miles wide by thirteen miles long. The deepest part of the lake in the center is about 141 feet or so. All the fish go there during the day. At night when it's dark, they come to the surface and they feed. But, unbeknown to Peter, the Lord Jesus knew exactly where the fish were.

Peter thought this was about what he was doing for the Lord Jesus. But, in reality, this story is about what the Lord Jesus is doing for Peter. We always benefit when we allow the Lord to be the Lord of our lives, when we are allowing Him to define us. Note that in v.5 Peter calls the Lord Jesus here, "Master."   

In v.6, we read, "When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break." Peter, now, has entered into a new adventure with God. Up to this point all the world that Peter knew was the shoreline of the Sea of Galilee, maybe going down to Jerusalem a few times a year for a feast, but all he knew, his whole world was wrapped in a fishing business of a little inland lake called Galilee. That was his whole world. But, he has entered into a new realm, now, it has entered the greatest adventure known to man. 

Peter had never caught this many fish. I am sure he is thinking, "With the Lord Jesus involved, my business is about to really take off." But, the main teaching in this passage is that when we follow the Lord Jesus and develop a personal relationship with Him, not only is our lives blessed. Others are blessed, as well. God rarely blesses us with only us in mind. God's goal in blessing us is that others might be blessed through us. And, God sometimes calls us to ministry when our business is at its best, which requires us to turn our backs on our plans, availing ourselves to His control.

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Luke 4:38-44

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38 Jesus left the synagogue and went to the home of Simon. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever, and they asked Jesus to help her. 39 So he bent over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her. She got up at once and began to wait on them. 40 At sunset, the people brought to Jesus all who had various kinds of sickness, and laying his hands on each one, he healed them. 41 Moreover, demons came out of many people, shouting, “You are the Son of God!” But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew he was the Messiah. 42 At daybreak, Jesus went out to a solitary place. The people were looking for him and when they came to where he was, they tried to keep him from leaving them. 43 But he said, “I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent.” 44 And he kept on preaching in the synagogues of Judea. ~ Luke 4:38-44

Our text gives a summary of the evidences that Jesus is Messiah who came demonstrating His authority and power over three realms. These three realms are the natural realm, the supernatural realm, and the eternal realm. 

All of us are constantly subject to the devastating effects of the Fall physically. Our birth is the first step in our death. As soon as we are born the clock starts ticking toward death. In v.38-40, the Lord Jesus demonstrates His power over the natural realm, that He can, in fact, break the debilitating, decaying, diseasing, and deadly impact of sin on our human bodies.

In the first half of v.38, we read, "Jesus left the synagogue and went to the home of Simon." The Sabbath Meeting at the Synagogue generally ended around noon. Afterwards, they had their major meal of the day. The family would sit together and they would enjoy their time around the provision of food. In this case, the Lord Jesus and His disciples went to Simon Peter's house.

The rest of v.38 reads, "Now Simon’s mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever, and they asked Jesus to help her." Peter is not yet been called as a disciple of the Lord Jesus. He becomes a disciple in Luke 5. At this time Peter is just a man in the synagogue named Simon. "Now Simon’s mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever, and they asked Jesus to help her." The word was getting around that the Lord Jesus could heal disease and sickness. 

Now, Peter's mother-in-law had some kind of an infection which gave her a fever. According to v.39, "So he bent over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her. She got up at once and began to wait on them." This term "rebuked" is reserved almost exclusively for people, but here in today's text, it is identified with a disease, or a fever. The intent of the statement is to show that the Lord Jesus has power over what debilitates the human body. He can speak to a fever and it disappears. After being delivered of the sickness, there is no lingering weakness in the body of Peter's Mother-in-Law. Usually when someone has had a high fever, fighting some serious infection, there is going to be a lingering weakness. There is no trace of lingering weakness. Peter's mom-in-law immediately rose up and waited on them.

In v.40, we read, "At sunset, the people brought to Jesus all who had various kinds of sickness, and laying his hands on each one, he healed them." In the case of Peter's mother-in-law the Lord Jesus healed with a word. Here we find He laid His hands on them.

Luke 4:40 begins with, "At sunset," which means the Sabbath was over. As the sun goes down on a Sabbath, the people now could do what they couldn't do during the Sabbath. They couldn't travel and they couldn't carry anything. So, now that the sun is setting, they can travel to where the Lord Jesus was and they can carry their sick to Him. 

Mark says the whole town showed up, the whole town. And, the Lord Jesus receives them all. There are no conditions of faith. He just puts His hands on everybody and everybody is healed. And that, folks, is the healing power of Jesus over the human body.

These people wanted healing in their bodies, but they didn't want salvation in their spirits and their souls. In the three-year ministry of the Lord Jesus there are nearly ninety New Testament texts in the four gospels about His healings. He did this everywhere through His ministry. The first healing recorded in the Bible was during the time of Abraham. There are no healings recorded in the first 1,600 years of biblical history up to the Flood, no healings recorded. And there were billions of people alive when the Flood hit. The first healing is recorded in the time of Abraham, that's about 2200 B.C. 

From Abraham to Isaiah would be from 2200 B.C. to 750 B.C., a 1,500 year period, there are recorded twenty healings, 1,500 years twenty healings, five of them from Job, five in Moses' day, two in Samuel's day, eight from David to Isaiah for a total of twenty.  Twenty healings in 1,500 years.

From Isaiah, 750 B.C., to Christ, there were 750 years. There are zero healings recorded. There was sickness, disease, and death, but there were no healings.  That is why when the Lord Jesus began to heal in Matthew 9:33, the people said, "Nothing like this was ever done in Israel." They knew there had never been anything like this. They had no experience of this. They had never seen anything like it.

The healing explosion had a purpose and John 20:31 tells us: "These have been written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God and believing you might have life in His name."

In addition, the Lord Jesus also demonstrated He has the ability to stop the destructive nature of sin in the supernatural realm. In v.41, we read, "Moreover, demons came out of many people, shouting, “You are the Son of God!” But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew he was the Messiah." 

As the Lord Jesus went about preaching, He literally shattered the demonic world. His preaching traumatized the demons. And, these demons were living inside people. When the Lord Jesus showed up this particular day, they were screaming. Luke uses the word, kraugazō, which means involuntary shrieks of terror. The ministry of the Lord Jesus unmasked these fallen angels of the darkness.  

But notice the next line in v.42, "But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew he was the Messiah." He would not allow them to speak. He has power not only over the natural, but over the supernatural.  He had the power to shut that demon up, to silence that demon so that that demon can no longer speak. And, the Lord Jesus wanted them silenced because didn't want their publicity. He wants everyone to discover Him for themselves.

Finally, the Lord Jesus has power over the eternal realm. In v.43, we read, "But he said, “I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent." 

The Lord Jesus said, "I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God." Notice the theme "the kingdom of God." This is the first time that phrase is used in connection with Jesus’ ministry in the Gospel of Luke, but it will occur again and again in Luke 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22 and 23. Over and over, the Lord Jesus will preach and teach about the good news of the kingdom of God.

We get mesmerized by physical healings and demonic exorcisms, but the real deal is the kingdom of God’s reign through God’s people over God’s place. God reigns through His people. This was His design from the beginning. Adam and Eve were commissioned as representatives of the King. Instead, they chose to seek their own path to power and glory, apart from God. Their rebellion fractured humanity’s relationship with God and shattered the goodness of His creation. Ever since sin entered the world, God’s message has been, at its heart, a rescue mission for rebellious sinners, drawing us into His loving rule.

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Luke 4:31-37

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31 Then he went down to Capernaum, a town in Galilee, and on the Sabbath he taught the people. 32 They were amazed at his teaching, because his words had authority. 33 In the synagogue there was a man possessed by a demon, an impure spirit. He cried out at the top of his voice, 34 “Go away! What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!” 35 “Be quiet!” Jesus said sternly. “Come out of him!” Then the demon threw the man down before them all and came out without injuring him. 36 All the people were amazed and said to each other, “What words these are! With authority and power he gives orders to impure spirits and they come out!” 37 And the news about him spread throughout the surrounding area. ~ Luke 4:31-37

In today's text, Luke continues to introduce us to the Lord Jesus Christ, this One who is the only one who has it all together. Luke directs our attention in on the power of the Lord Jesus over the demonic world.

According to Scripture, demons are fallen angels, banished from heaven with Satan because they rebelled against God. In Revelation 12:3-4, we read, "Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on his heads. His tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth."

Mentioned in nineteen out of the twenty-seven New Testament books, demons are real. Demon possession is when one comes under the control of the spirits of darkness. It is not a physical disease, but there could be physical torments associated with demon possession. 

Luke mentions the authority of the Lord Jesus in v.32,36, showing His engagement in the domain of Satan. Here, the Lord Jesus displays His power over Satan on the behalf of this one who had availed himself to this possession. One is not just possessed without knowing it. One has to knowingly allow the residence of the demonic within. 

Most do not know that the people of this world who are not saved are under the control of the god of this world. Of course, this is not the same as demon possession. But, we read in 2 Corinthians 4 that "the god of this world has blinded their minds lest the light of the gospel should shine unto them." This means Satan and his followers deceive, lie to, and keep the world of unregenerate people in his clutch of darkness. 

 

In today's text, the Lord Jesus is confronted by a demon possessed man in the Synagogue in Capernaum. The emphasis here is not the demon-possessed, the emphasis is on the fact that the Lord Jesus had power over the demons. He had the power to show that He can break the power of hell and set the prisoners free. 

The Lord Jesus just spoke the Word of God which came with tremendous clarity. No one could escape its meaning. And, it came with tremendous conviction; nobody could escape its application.  And when the force of the Word hit that place, it strangely hit a demon in v.33-34 which reads, "33 In the synagogue there was a man possessed by a demon, an impure spirit. He cried out at the top of his voice, 34 “Go away! What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!"

Now, you will notice that the man doesn't even say anything. We don't even see this man repent. We don't even know whether he believed.  A demon spoke out of him and in v.35 the Lord Jesus rebuked the demon and said, "Be quiet and come out of him." Then, after this, "the demon threw the man down before them all and came out without injuring him." The Lord Jesus commanded the demons to come out of this man and they did.

Since the Lord Jesus is the Messiah, He has the power over the kingdom of darkness, and so, He delivered the man from the control of the demons. In Colossians 1:13 we read, "He has delivered us from the domain of darkness into the kingdom of His dear Son." We, even though we are not possessed by demons, have been delivered like this man in the synagogue that day.

In v.34, we know the demons knew that the Lord Jesus was the Holy One of God. This demon in this text screams in the middle of the Lord Jesus' sermon and it's apparent to everybody that a demon is in this man. The demon knew the identity of the Lord Jesus. He said, "I know who You are, you're the Holy One of God."  The demon panicked because his kingdom is being plundered and Jesus is after the soul of that man in whom that demon lives.

Now, there are four things in this text that gets the attention of the demonic world. The preaching of the Word of God, the purpose of the Son of God, the purity of the Son of God and, the power of the son of God.

The word "amazed" in v.36 means to be stunned or shocked, literally to be out of yourself, to literally lose your equilibrium you're so shocked.  It could be translated “dazed,” or “dumbfounded.” It was in this confusing context that the truth produced clarity and conviction. 

So here is this man just sitting there and this gospel is coming out of the mouth of the Lord Jesus with tremendous force and it hits the demon and the demon screams. Literally the demon screams with a loud voice, right in the middle of the preaching. The proclaiming of the word of God exposed the demon. And the demon felt the power of the word. The Lord Jesus came to provide salvation to the poor, the prisoners, the blind, and the oppressed. This demon-possessed man in the synagogue in Capernaum became the recipient of the first miracle recorded in Luke.

The response of the Lord Jesus, recorded in v.35, is "Be quiet!" Even though what the demon said was true, the Lord Jesus did not want the testimony of a demon. We must not base a theological position on the testimony of a demon. The Lord Jesus would not accept the testimony of a demon because Satan is the "father of lies." And if we start taking what demons say as what we ought to do, we'll have a tough time discerning what is true from what is false since Satan is the father of lies. 

After saying, "Be quiet," the Lord Jesus then said, "come out of him!' Notice that there were no theatrics or magical incantations. The Lord Jesus simply commands the demon to be quiet and come out. 

According to v.35, "And the demon, after he threw the man in the midst of the crowd, came out of him and did not hurt him. The implication seems to be that in coming out of the man, the demon tries to hurt him, but failed even in this. Though the demon had threatened to hurt the man, it was unable to do anything other than throw him down in the midst of the crowd. The Lord Jesus is in complete control here, even over the disruptive and destructive intentions of demons.

In v.36, "All the people were amazed and said to each other, “What words these are! With authority and power he gives orders to impure spirits and they come out.” The authoritative word of the Lord Jesus was accompanied by this powerful miracle, but the emphasis is still on His word. It is His word, not His works which changes us. It is through His word that we are defined. Of course, we must allow Him to define us, but this is the emphasis in this passage.

According to v.37, as a result of this event, "And the news about him spread throughout the surrounding area." News about Him spread, and questions about Him would be raised. At the end of the day, this is the focal point of all creation, the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world. He is the perfect One, He is God.

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Luke 4:22-30

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22 All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” they asked. 23 Jesus said to them, “Surely you will quote this proverb to me: ‘Physician, heal yourself!’ And you will tell me, ‘Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.’” 24 “Truly I tell you,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown. 25 I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. 26 Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. 27 And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.” 28 All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. 29 They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff. 30 But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way. ~ Luke 4:22-30

In today's text the Lord Jesus has just read the scriptures in His hometown synagogue. His words, according to v.22 gripped His hearers. After reading Isaiah 61:1-2a, the Lord Jesus declared He was the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecy therein. The result is that salvation is available to anyone who acknowledges themselves as spiritually bankrupt.

In v.22, "All spoke well of Him." This doesn't mean they believed in Him as the Messiah, it just means that they spoke of Him in a positive way. The people who heard the Lord Jesus that day were eager for the Messiah to come and take out vengeance on their Gentile enemies. They hated their oppressors, the Romans. It bothered some of them that the Lord Jesus didn't include the last part of Isaiah 61:2 which is about the day of God's vengeance.

These disappointed Jews heard that day that salvation is available to anyone who acknowledges themselves as spiritually poor, prisoners, blind and oppressed. And they're the only ones who will be saved. These, who were increasingly being made angry, who were unwilling to confess their spiritual poverty, and bondage, they viewed themselves as deserving because they thought they were already righteous.

In v.23-24, the Lord Jesus reveals His understanding of these hometown Jews. His comments in v.23 shows He knew they wanted Him to perform miracles as He did in other cities. But, miracles never change hearts. In v.24, the Lord Jesus said, "Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in his hometown." He was saying, "All experts are from out of town. I can see that it's hard for you to get past the fact that I grew up here and that I am Joseph's and Mary's boy." 

Then, in v.25-27, to drive home His point, the Lord Jesus strategically uses stories from the Old Testament of Elijah and Elisha. These two prophets were largely hated, and rejected by the people of Israel. Elijah served around 850 B.C. At that time, there were many widows. In addition, in the days of Elijah lots of the Jews in Israel had turned to worshipping Baal. In fact, the King of Israel was married to a Gentile woman named Jezebel who was a Baal worshiper. And, Ahab was a worshiper of Baal, as well, who was the Canaanite god of fertility. 

Elijah comes on the scene in 1 Kings 17. The first thing that he does is he announces a drought. The Lord Jesus says here in v.25 that there was no rain in Israel for three and a half years. The result we see at the end of v.25: "there was a severe famine throughout the land."  In addition, there were lots of widows in the land, and God cares about widows. And, it was a time in Israel of apostasy, they're worshiping Baal. Then, God sends a judgment on Ahab and Israel, and the people start to die. 

In v.26, we learn "Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon." The Jews didn't like hearing this story, and they are angry. And, to make matters worse, according to v.26, Elijah was sent to Gentile territory on the north coast of Israel. That area was the home of the father of Jezebel, Ethbaal, who was so devoted to Baal He named himself after Baal. Ethbaal means "Baal is alive." According to 1 Kings 17, God sends Elijah in this midst of all this famine to this widow who believes in the God of the Bible. She is a pagan Gentile widow in the midst of a pagan godless area but she believes in the true and living God. And so to her goes the prophet of God rather than to Israelites. She was desperate, impoverished and she believed.

The Lord Jesus was saying to those Jews, "You may be Jews, you may be part of Israel, you may be the people of the covenants and the people of the Messiah, but I'll tell you this, God will save an outcast Gentile widow who admits her spiritual destitution before He'll save any of you."

These hearers of the Lord Jesus are getting angrier by the moment. They don't  like the fact that He's telling these stories. In v.27, we read, "And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian."  Elisha followed Elijah in 850 to 790 B.C. At that time, leprosy was a major problem in Israel. Leprosy made the victim unclean, cut off from all fellowship, all social activity, cut off from the families and isolated because of the contagion that was believed to be a part of this disease. At that time, the people didn't like Elisha because they were still worshiping Baal.

Naaman was a commander-in-chief of a section known as Aram. He was a soldier who commanded a set of troops that were always raiding Israel. They would come across the border and they would terrorize and raid Israel and they would take prisoners and haul the prisoners back to Syria.  

Naaman was a Gentile who had leprosy. On one of his raids he took captive a girl who became a servant in his house to help his wife.  She knew about Naaman's leprosy and she told him, "You need to go find the man of God, Elisha, because God can heal you." Here is an enemy, a Gentile, somebody who has attacked and killed and plundered Israel and he's a leper. This is the outcast of all outcasts. And Elisha says to him, "The God of Israel is willing to heal you. All you have to do is go over to the river and go down seven times." So, Naaman dips down into the dirty river, and, he was healed, he was made clean! 

According to v.28-29, when the people heard these stories, "they were furious. 29 They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the crest of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff." The people's pride led them further into their unbelief. These people were so angry with the Lord Jesus, they could not hear that if they humble themselves like a Syrian leper, unless they see themselves as no better than a pagan Gentile woman, unless they see themselves as no better than outcasts, they aren't going to get saved.  

The people grabbed the Lord Jesus and led Him to the hill on which their city had been built. They meant to throw Him off the hill but they were not successful. These people were so entrenched in their self-righteousness, so unwilling to see their sin that when the Messiah came, they tried to kill Him. There's only one reason why people who know the truth about Jesus do not believe. It is because they do not see themselves as the spiritually poor, blind, and broken. God offers nothing to people who do not recognize their own need of a Savior, except judgment.

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Luke 4:16-21

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16 He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: 18 “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free,19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”20 Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. 21 He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” ~ Luke 4:16-21

As we pointed out in our last blog, Luke moves us from the temptation of the Lord Jesus to the launching of the formal Galilean ministry of the Lord Jesus. During this time in Galilee, the popularity of the Lord Jesus was rising. According to v.16, the Lord Jesus began teaching in the synagogues which were the perfect place for Him to teach. Every town and village had one. 

All of the synagogues in Galilee faced Jerusalem. And so the speaker would look to the back out the door and would be looking directly toward Jerusalem. Synagogues that were built to the east of Jerusalem faced west. Those built to the south faced north because Jerusalem was always the focal point because that was where the temple was located. For the Lord Jesus, every synagogue He ever preached in faced Calvary, and so He taught in the synagogues.

I find it quite interesting that the Lord Jesus had performed no miracles in Nazareth. He had neither taught there nor had He told anybody He was the Son of God or the Messiah. He just worked in His father's carpenter shop. The people of Nazareth didn't know He was the Messiah. They didn't hear Him speak and they didn't see any of His power.  

At this point of the narrative, the Lord Jesus is back in Galilee and the word is traveling regarding what He had done at the marriage at Cana which is adjacent to Nazareth. The people there had heard about the miracle in Cana and they heard about the cleansing of the temple because it happened at Passover and many of the people of Nazareth were there when it happened. And so there was this growing interest in this local young man who had come back home.

On this particular day, the Lord Jesus entered the synagogue on the Sabbath. For the first time He stood up to read. In v.17, we read, "and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: 18 “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free,19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor."

In the synagogue, when they read the Torah, they read it in one to three verse increments and several people would read. And, on this day, the Lord Jesus was the only reader and He was reading the text for the sermon that He would give.  He had been approved by the ruler of the synagogue or else He wouldn't have been given the opportunity. This was the first time the Lord Jesus taught in a synagogue. 

In v.17, we read, "and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him."  And the Lord Jesus reads Luke 4:18-19 which is a quotation of Isaiah 61:1-2. Now, the people knew that this was a messianic passage. They knew that Isaiah's prophecy was largely a prophecy about the Messiah.  And it is a quotation of Isaiah 61:1, which reads "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me because He anointed Me." 

Interestingly, in v.19 where the Lord Jesus reads from Isaiah 61:2: "To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord." He stops in the middle of the verse because the rest of Isaiah 61:2 says, "And the day of vengeance of our God." The Lord Jesus leaves the latter part out because it was not time to talk about vengeance. It was not time to talk about judgment. It was time to talk about salvation.

After He read that portion, He closed the book, rolled it back up and gave it back to the attendant, sat down, because being seated was the traditional posture for teaching. Then He said, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing." He was saying, "I am the Messiah." 

Another reason the Lord Jesus closed the book and turned the comma into a period is because He will come again. There will be, yet, another coming. Yes, He is coming again. And when He does, he will fulfill the second part, "the day of vengeance of our God," the great tribulation period, the wrath of God upon the earth. 

So the Jews believe the Messiah was coming. He had come. He's announcing, "I've come." What they didn't know yet, and now we know, there's a thing called the "church age" between His first coming and His second coming of Isaiah 61:2. That comma turned into a period has lasted more than 2,000 years. 

We should be thankful for this punctuation the Lord Jesus provided that day when He spoke in that synagogue. Be thankful for the comma, because we were saved by the comma. The church age is the comma. The age of grace is the comma. The worldwide gospel going out to all of creation is in that comma. One day there will be "the day of vengeance of our God." There will be no more comma left.  

There will be a final reckoning, period. But until that period, we live in the comma. We live in the age of grace. It is still the acceptable year of our Lord. So, the Lord Jesus announces, "I'm the Messiah. I'm sent to the poor, to the brokenhearted." And, He turned the comma into a period.

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