This morning I want to invite you to turn
back to the first chapter of the gospel of Mark. As you remember, Mark opens his history of
the life and ministry of Jesus in verse1 with a declaration of truth, that is that Jesus
Christ is the Son of God. That is the affirmation that Mark will prove. He says it at the beginning, he is going to
write a history, at least the beginning of the history of Jesus Christ the Son of God. To say that any man is the Son of God is a
grandiose statement. It must be supported and so Mark begins immediately
to give unmistakable testimony to the fact that his identification of Jesus as the Messiah,
the Son of God, is supportable. The Old Testament promised a forerunner would
come who would announce the arrival of the Messiah. Mark introduces us to that forerunner, John
the Baptist, and quotes John the Baptist in verse 7 who said, "After me, one is coming
who is mightier than I and I am not fit to stoop down and untie the thong of His sandals. I baptized you with water, but He will baptize
you with the Holy Spirit." And so, Mark first gives us affirming testimony
to the deity and messiahship of Jesus Christ from the forerunner, John the Baptist. And then, in verses 10 and 11 Mark takes us
immediately to the baptism of Jesus. He was baptized by John in the Jordan in verse
9. Immediately coming up out of the water, he
saw the heavens opening and the Spirit like a dove descending upon Him and a voice came
out of the heavens. It is the voice of God the Father, "You are
My beloved Son, in You I am well-pleased." The forerunner, the last Old Testament prophet
and the greatest prophet who had ever lived up to his time identified Jesus as the Messiah,
the Savior, the Son of God. The Holy Spirit identifies Him as the Son
of God by settling upon Him to empower Him. The Father identifies, affirms Him as His
beloved Son by speaking out of heaven." Jesus then gives testimony to His own authority
in chapter 1 and verse 17 when He says to some fishermen, "Follow Me and I will make
you become fishers of men." A demon gives testimony to His identity in
verse 24 when Jesus goes into a synagogue at Capernaum. The demon seeing Jesus there is terrified
and panics and screams out in verse 24, "What business do we have with each other, Jesus
of Nazareth? Have You come to destroy us? I know who You are, the Holy One of God." Testimony from the prophet, John the Baptist,
testimony from the Holy Spirit, testimony from the Father, testimony from Christ Himself
about His power to rescue men and testimony from a demon as to the identity of Jesus Christ
sums up the immediate evidences and testimonies to the claim of Mark that this one known as
Jesus is indeed the Messiah and the Son of God. It's fine to make those claims, but can Jesus
sustain them? Can He demonstrate them? Can they be proven? Are there evidences for them? Well we saw, didn't we, in the last study,
verses 21 to 28, that Jesus gives clear evidence of who He is in the synagogue by casting out
that very demon who identified Him. Verse 25, "Jesus rebuked him saying, 'Be quiet
and come out of him.'" Verse 26 says, "He threw the man into a convulsion
and then the unclean spirits screamed with a loud voice and came out of him." People were amazed. They said, "What is this? A new teaching with authority, He commands
even the unclean spirits and they obey Him." Our Lord demonstrates His authority over the
souls of men by saying, "I will make you fishers of men. I will lead you to rescuing the souls of men." The Lord demonstrates His power over the spiritual
realm of demons by commanding a demon who instantly obeys against his own will. By the time you get to verse 28, you have
amassed a great amount of evidence from all different testimonies, to the deity and authority
of the Lord Jesus Christ. That brings us to verse 29, and starting in
verse 29, Mark gives us one day in the life of the Lord, in fact, one part of a day, just
what's left of the day. You remember verse 21 said they went into
Capernaum and went into the synagogue because it was the Sabbath and Jesus was teaching,
and that's where He cast the demon out. It's the same day. That would have occurred in the morning. And the services in a Sabbath synagogue would
end at noon, and so we pick the story up at verse 29. "Immediately after they came out of the synagogue,
they came into the house of Simon and Andrew with James and John. Now Simon's mother-in-law was lying sick with
a fever and immediately they spoke to Jesus about her. And He came to her and raised her up, taking
her by the hand and the fever left her and she waited on them. When evening came, same day, after the sun
had set, they began bringing to Him all who were ill and those who were demon-possessed
and the whole city had gathered at the door. And He healed many who were ill with various
diseases and cast out many demons and He was not permitting the demons to speak because
they knew who He was. In the early morning...this is the next day...while
it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, went away to a secluded place and was
praying there. Simon and his companions searched for Him
and they found Him and said to Him, 'Everyone is looking for You.' He said to them, 'Let us go somewhere else
to the towns nearby so that I may preach there also, for that is what I came for.' And He went into their synagogues throughout
all Galilee preaching and casting out demons." The supernatural power, cosmic authority of
Jesus is displayed as proof of His deity. It's unmistakable. If He is to be the Savior of the world, He
has to be able to rescue souls from Satan, He has to be able to rescue souls from sin. If He is going to raise men and women in resurrection
form into the glories of heaven, He must have power over the effects of the curse on the
body. That is to say, He must have power over the
physical and spiritual effects of the curse. We all understand that when Adam sinned, the
whole human race fell. We were all cursed, we all bear the marks
of that curse both spiritually and physically. The Savior of the world has to rescue us from
the effects of the curse in the spiritual realm, as well as in the physical realm. And that is why when Jesus came He showed
His power over the spiritual realm by casting out demons who are spirit beings so that it
would be clear that He had control over spirit beings, and that would obviously include the
spirits of men who could be by His power rescued from sin and condemnation. And He healed diseases day after day after
day to show that He had power over the physical effects of the curse and could create a body
fit for a resurrected glory in heaven. This is powerful evidence. So we go through the ministry of Jesus and
His life, we constantly see Him healing diseases and casting out demons to demonstrate His
power over both the physical and spiritual realms which had both been devastated by the
Fall and by sin. And so, in a very brief summary of just a
day, there are countless healings and deliverances that occurred in that one day, literally a
day, a part of a day from after noon to sundown. Now as we look at this text that I read to
you, I want to show you three things that are here. We'll call one proof, one power, and one priority...proof,
power and priority. It is clear that He is declaring Himself to
be the Messiah, the Savior of the world, the Lamb of God, the Son of God, can He prove
it? Does He have power that belongs only to God? Well He does and He demonstrates that power
over the spiritual realm, demons, and over the physical realm, disease and even death. It is still the Sabbath. The healing has...I should say the deliverance
has just occurred in the Sabbath as recorded in verses 21 to 28, Sabbath service has ended
and we come to the proof of His person...the proof of His person. Is He who He claims to be? Verse 29, "Immediately they came out of the
synagogue, they came into the house of Simon and Andrew with James and John." Capernaum is the city, the largest city on
the Lake of Galilee, the center of the fishing industry there and the center of the trade
routes east and west and even north and south. Service would end about noon on the Saturday. They came out, meaning Jesus and His followers
who would be Simon and Andrew his brother, and James and John who were also brothers. They're all fishermen. They're all associated in the fishing business
which was a huge business, not an unsophisticated one at all, but rather the fishing business
on the Lake of Galilee produced enough fish to be literally transported, exported to the
Mediterranean world....fish being the staple meat in the ancient world. So they're business men. They know each other well. Two sets of brothers. They had been at the synagogue. They had been following Jesus since He called
them. And we read about that in verses 16 and following. They had left their nets and they had left
their business to now become full-time followers of Jesus. And they had been there in the synagogue. This isn't the first time they had seen Him
do a miracle. According to Luke chapter 4, He had done many
mighty works in Capernaum already. He had done many mighty works in the year
before in Judea in the south. They knew His power. And it's because they knew His power that
they invite Him home for lunch. By the way, they were originally Simon and
Andrew...Simon who later became known as Peter...they were originally from Bethsaida. Bethsaida is a town on the north shore of
the Lake of Galilee, a little bit to the east, easy walking distance. They had relocated. John 1:44 says they were from Bethsaida, they
had relocated to Capernaum, no doubt for the sake of business. And so, they invited Jesus to come home. They would be regular synagogue attenders
anywhere that they went, but certainly here in their home town synagogue, they were there
when Jesus spoke. Now Simon Peter was married. We know that from 1 Corinthians 9 verse 5
where it is said that Simon Peter has a wife who literally goes with him on missionary
trips. And the implication is that the church supported
that, that he took his wife along on mission trips would indicate by the time he's into
his full-blown ministry in the book of Acts, his children, if he had some, and tradition
says they had children...the Bible doesn't say anything about it...but if they did have
children, they would be old enough to care for themselves and Peter could take his wife
along with him on mission trips. That's the statement of 1 Corinthians chapter
9 verse 5. But at this particular point early in the
ministry of Jesus, Peter still lives in Capernaum and he has quite a house there. You say, "How do you know what kind of house
he had there?" Because I've been there, I've been to Peter's
house and any of you who have been to Israel have been to Peter's house and you say, like
so many people say, "Is that really Peter's house? Or is that just some late decision by some
board of tourism creating a thing and calling it Peter's house so they could make money." Look, it's every likelihood that that is in
fact the location of Peter's house. Excavations have been done in that area that
have unearthed the synagogue. And if you go to Capernaum today, about all
there is in Capernaum, there's one little tiny building that is a kind of a monastery,
that's the only occupied building in Capernaum area, the rest is ruins and the dominant ruins
are the ruins of the synagogue. The synagogue, some of the ruins would be
later synagogues built on top of earlier synagogues, but they would put a synagogue on a synagogue
on a synagogue on a synagogue, like when you go to Geneva, Switzerland, you visit the church
where John Calvin preached, if you go down in the basement deep enough, you come to a
church from the first century because they built churches on churches on churches through
history. So there's every reason to think that the
synagogue is a place where the synagogue was. A one minute walk from the slope where the
synagogue is toward the water, and you come to Peter's house, what is traditionally known
as Peter's house. One writer describes it as a house that's
part of a large insula(?) complex. In an insula complex you have all the windows
and doors on the inside, surrounding a courtyard and the walls are not windowed on the street
side. You go into an entrance door and you have
a large plaza courtyard and apartments all surrounding it that were shared by all the
members of the extended family. That's why Peter could live there and his
wife would live there and his mother-in-law would live there and Andrew would live there
and the children would live there. It tells us a little bit about the fact that
Peter was not just a guy with a hook and a fishing rod, he was a little more up the food
chain than that. This house, the excavations of this house
they have found hearths, several of them, meaning there were a number of kitchens there. They have found millstones for grain. They have found stairways to the roofs of
the dwellings. The building itself originally was built out
of black base salt, stone over which a flat roof of wood and thatch was placed. What is really interesting about it is that
archeological investigations have discovered sacred devotional graffiti written on the
stone in Greek and Latin and Syriac and Aramaic scratched also in plaster indicating that
it was a gathering place for Christians and most likely a church, get this, going back
to the end of the first century or the beginning of the second century. So they were close enough that they knew people
who knew Peter, who knew where Peter lived. When you have a tradition that is that old,
one writer says this is a strong possibility that the site indeed preserves Peter's house. Well the synagogue, a one-minute walk to Peter's
house and that's what Jesus was invited to do. They see Jesus being in Capernaum in this
occasion as an opportunity for Him to display His power in behalf of a family member. Verse 30, "Now Simon's mother-in-law was lying
sick with a fever." Luke the physician adds, "megas fever," high
fever. She had some kind of a severe infection, that's
what produces a fever, right? The body working really hard to fight the
infection. Understand, as I told you a few months ago,
that no one was really cured of a disease until 1885. In the ancient world they didn't know what
we know in modern medicine. They didn't know about viruses and bacteria. People just languished. She had a severe infection, producing a high
fever which was of grace concern to her daughter and her son-in-law, Peter. So it's a family crisis. And it's clearly the reason they invited Jesus
to lunch. And it says in verse 30, "Immediately they
spoke to Jesus about her." There's that "immediately" again, everything
with Mark is immediately. No sooner had He come to the house than they
made request of Him in Luke's account. Luke 4 has an account of this. Matthew 8 has an account of this. Luke says they made request of Him. The request was, "Can You heal our mother-in-law?" As I said, they had already seen evidences
of healings. Look at Luke 4, I think it's verse 43 where
it talks about many, many wonderful works that He had done already. Verse 23, Luke 4:23, "Many wonderful works
that He had done in Capernaum." Well Jesus responded. Verse 31, "He came to her and raised her up." Luke adds, "She was lying down and He was
standing over her." So she was so fevered that she was lying flat. He was standing over her. And it simply says, "He raised her up." How did He do it? By taking her by the hand. He just pulled her up. And Luke adds, "He rebuked the fever. 'Go away, fever.'" that's some kind of power when even a fever
obeys, when all of the causes of the fever disappear. You remember back in verse 25 he said...Mark
said, "Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, rebuked the demon." Here He's rebuking fever. He has total sovereign control over the spiritual
world and total sovereign control over the physical world. He commands and there is instant compliance. Luke says she immediately arose. Mark's account, "Taking her by the hand, raised
her up and the fever left her." I don't know how long she had been ill but
she had been ill long enough to be prone, flat and they were fearful. But at that very moment, the fever left her. And it says, end of verse 31, "She waited
on them," diakoneo, she served them. She got up and made lunch. That's maybe the most important comment. The infection was gone. The fever was gone. The symptoms were gone. Now you know if you've had any kind of a fever
for any length of time, that even when your temperature starts to come down, you feel...what?...weak
and that when you don't want to do nothing but have somebody bring you chicken soup or
something. She had no weakness, no dizziness, no sweating,
no struggling. All symptoms were gone. She was as if she had never been ill. So well, she served Sabbath dinner and she
didn't have a microwave and she didn't have an oven and there wasn't a store nearby and
she didn't have a freezer. She did everything you had to do to feed four
big fishermen and Jesus and the rest of the family would have all been there. Now listen, folks, this is an important place
for me to say some things I want to say about healing. So hold on to your seatbelt and just listen,
okay? I'm saying this because I care and because
it's true and it's necessary. There have always been false healers who claimed
to be able to heal, who prey on people's sicknesses, who prey on people who are suffering, who
prey on people who have disabilities for money...for money. The are, I think, the lowest of the low, the
basest of the base. You don't get any lower than to get rich by
promising a healing to suffering people, a healing you cannot deliver, and a healing
God does not promise. Every time I hear Benny Hinn and his ilk say
if you send me your seed faith, you send me your money, I'll pray over your letter and
God will send you a healing...I grieve in my heart. Those false promises prey on desperate people
and the world is full of them. It is to me the most heinous possible mis-representation
of God and Christ. To me it is a kind of blasphemy because the
net effect is, you got all my money, I'm still sick, I reject your God. It's horrendous. Look, since the Fall of man in the Garden
of Eden, disease has been a terrible reality, has it not? We live in a very, very different world than
some other people on our planet, places like India and Bangladesh and Africa. But in ancient times, everybody lived like
that. Everybody lived like a third-world country. There were no cures. There was no ability to diagnose or deal with
disease at its root level. So for millennia, the search for cures to
alleviate illness and suffering has consumed mankind and created ground for false healers. People used to travel around America in covered
wagons selling snake oil, right? Taking advantage of sick people. Cults promised healing cause people are desperate,
totally desperate. Can I tell you something? If there was such a thing as a gift of healing,
I'd ask God for it. I went to the hospital the other night, a
man I've known for 60 years, critical care, tubes going in everywhere. I walked through that hospital, I saw little
children who were seriously ill. I saw all kinds of people who were suffering. I went in and stood by the bed of my friend
and talked with him and to pray with him. I would have given anything for the gift of
healing. I would love to be able to do what Jesus did. I'd love to just go up and down the halls,
go in the room, out of the room, in the room, out of the room, in the room...have everybody
get out of bed and walk out. By the way, I didn't run into any healers
there. Benny Hinn was not there. I've stood by the parents of a young person
fighting for life in an intensive care ward cause he had a motorcycle accident. I was powerless to do anything. I've seen parents weeping in a hospital room
because their little child is dying of leukemia. I've been with those people who are watching
their spouse die of cancer. I've been in those places where the people
are comatose and the family is weeping. I was with a friend in Houston having a heart
transplant, he never survived. I was there to sort of catch the broken-hearted
people. I've been there with the disabled people. I know a lot of them right here in our own
church who come in here in a wheel chair, who have a hard time talking, can't walk,
have to be cared for. I wish I had that power. I don't have that power and no one does. Think about how thrilling it would be if I
had that power, or if somebody had that power. If you could just go through the cancer ward
and heal everybody, go through the AIDS clinic and heal everybody. Go where they have tuberculosis and whatever
other diseases, tumors, just heal everybody. Why don't the healers do that? Where were they? Well maybe if they all got together and they
just...like 20 of them went through a hospital, maybe they could do it collectively. You're never going to see one of them in a
hospital unless he's visiting his sick friends or is sick himself. They have to stay in their tent or their building,
or their TV studio to pull off their deception. They aren't going to go to Africa and heal
people. They aren't going to go to India and Bangladesh. Why? Because they can't heal, no one can heal. And listen to this, even God doesn't promise
you healing. What He does promise you is death. "It's appointed unto men once to die." You have that promise from God. You will die. You have no promise that you will be healed. Your faith has nothing to do with whether
you're healed or not healed. You can't activate some kind of healing by
just believing. That kind of positive thinking is useless
and pointless and people are becoming filthy rich by selling that deceptive lie. I watched one the other night that said, "Send
me a thousand dollars...send me a thousand dollars and I will talk to God and your healing
will come." The gift of healing has been claimed by Roman
Catholicism through the years. They say they have John the Baptist's bones,
Peter's bones, pieces of the cross of Christ and some of Mary's breast milk in a vial. And if you come in contact with that, you
can be healed. If you go to Lourdes, as what? Twenty-million people...I think it's like
20 million people have gone to Majorie in Yugoslavia because supposedly the virgin showed
up there and talked to six kids in 1981. Look, people are desperate for healing. And if you offer it, they'll unload their
money if you're clever enough to deceive them. They even have it in the pagan world, the
oriental bloodless healers. But there's no promise of healing, none at
all. And whatever they say is a healing is totally
bogus. Let me tell you how Jesus healed. Let me give you some...let me give you six
realities about the healings of Jesus. This is a good place to do this. Number one, He healed with a word or a touch. He healed with a word or a touch. He rebukes the fever, picks her up, she's
healed by His word, His touch. You find out throughout His healings, there
are many of them like that. Secondly, He healed instantly...He healed
instantly. Centurion's servant, Matthew 8:13, was healed
that very hour. The woman with the bleeding problem, Mark
5 as we'll see, was healed immediately. Jesus healed ten lepers in Luke 17 instantaneously. He touched the man with leprosy in Luke 5
and immediately the leprosy departed. It's always that way. He heals with a word or a touch, not some
incantations, not some formulas, a word or a touch and He heals instantly. I've heard people say, "I've been healed and
ever since I was healed I am getting better." What in the world? Jesus never did anything that made people
start to get better. It was all instantaneous. Thirdly, He healed totally. Mark 1, we just read it. She may well have been dying from infection. He rebukes the fever and she is fully functioning
in full strength, no recuperation period. He didn't say to her, "Sip a little honey
and water and take it easy for a few weeks." He didn't say, "Claim the healing by faith
to make sure you can secure it." Fourthly, Jesus healed everybody. He healed everyone. In Luke's account, it's the parallel to this
passage, Luke 4:40, and Luke says, "And while the sun was setting, all who had any sick
with various diseases brought them to Him and laying His hands on every one of them,
He was healing them." Everyone of them...everyone of them. You didn't have to qualify to make it to the
healing line. You notice that people missing a limb or people
paralyzed never make it to the TV healing line, or people who have no eyeballs in their
sockets. He healed everyone, absolutely everyone. It says in verse 32, "When evening came after
the sun had set, they began bringing to Him all who were ill and those who were demon
possessed." And Luke's comment on that same scene is that
He healed all of them. We'll get back to that in a minute. He healed absolutely everyone. This is just one day and He did it every day. He vanished illness from Israel. Fifthly, He healed organic disease. He didn't heal lower back pain, or heart palpitations
or headache, or some other invisible ailment. He reversed paralysis, palsy, things that
were undeniably supernatural. So when you look at a healing the way Jesus
did it, He healed with a word or a touch. He healed instantly. He healed totally. He healed everyone. He healed organic disease. And, sixthly, He raised dead people. That was no more difficult than any other
healing because you had to create in any case. He had to create a new limb. You had to create health where there was disease. It was all creative. He went to a funeral in a city called Nain. Walked up to the casket, said, "Young man,
I say to you, arise. And the young man rose up and began to talk." He raised the dead. I don't see the healers at the mortuary either. Where are they? Or I don't see them at the grave yard. I don't see them in the funeral lines trying
to relieve people's suffering by raising their dead. I mean, it's ludicrous. And by the way, Jesus did all of this healing
in full public view every day in a different location. Not in some kind of fixed environment, high
control circumstances, but any place, any time in any condition, any circumstance and
always in the open. Oh, and by the way, His miracles didn't require
faith. It would be pretty hard for dead people to
have faith. "If you believe, I'll raise you." His miracles didn't require faith, virtually
everyone He healed was an unbeliever. Some of them came to faith as a result of
the healing, like one of the ten lepers, but they weren't believers when He healed them. That wasn't the point. To say to somebody, "If you have faith, you
can be healed," there's no precedent for that in the Bible. His miracles were strung out through His whole
ministry, not in special controlled environments or circumstances. Everywhere all the time, every day just as
a routine of daily activity. And He healed everybody. There were no categories that were beyond
His power. And so, He healed Simon's mother-in-law. Well, verse 32 says, that triggered a response,
"When evening came, after the sun had set, they began bringing to Him all who were ill
and those who were demon-possessed and the whole city had gathered at the door." Why did they wait till the sun had set? Cause they couldn't carry anything on the
Sabbath. So as soon as it was dusk, believe me, as
soon as the sun went down over those western Galilean hills, they grabbed all the demon-possessed
folks they knew, all the sick people they knew, and everybody brought everybody and
it says in verse 33, the whole city had gathered at the door...the whole city. End of a long day, end of a long day, maybe
Jesus would have liked to have rested, but in the dusk of that Sabbath evening, the people
did what they could not have done any sooner because they were Sabbath-bound people. They began bringing to Him...began bringing,
imperfect tense, steady stream, they just kept coming and coming and coming, all the
ill, Luke says the ones with various diseases, and the demonized, the daimonizomai, and the
whole city finally ends up at the door. This is a crowd...can you imagine looking
out and looking at this crowd? All the demoniacs and all the paralyzed people,
and all the sick people, and all the ill people and they're all jammed at the door. By the way, it is important to notice they
brought all who were ill and verse 34 says, "He healed many who were will." Somebody might conclude, "Well He didn't heal
them all then." It doesn't say that. It simply says that the "all" was many as
opposed to a few. You know what I'm saying by that. The all were healed. Luke says He healed them all and there were
many of them who were ill and there were many of them who had demons. Not a small number. In fact, some take the word many and it's
pretty consistently this way as a sort of Semitic expression, a Hebraism meaning the
whole. You could apply that in other portions of
the Scripture, like in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 7. But they wanted to be healed. They brought everybody. I might add at this point that they were looking
for healing and they were not looking for salvation. They were not looking so much for the...for
the soul issues as the body issues. Are you surprised by that? Hey, you ask yourself the question. If you offered our generation of people in
our society physical perfection, physical health and physical wholeness, or spiritual
salvation...nine out of ten of them would take...what? Physical...the physical. Has there ever been a generation more consumed
with that than ours? They want the healing. That's nothing new. Verse 34, they got it, He healed many...the
all who came were many, various diseases, cast out many demons. This is just one day in a three-year power
display. There are 90, 9-0, gospel texts on healing. During our Lord's ministry, there was an unparallel
healing explosion that virtually banished disease from Israel. This one little spot on the earth, disease
was banished. Never was there in history such a healing
barrage. You know, the implication of modern healers
today is "God has always been a healer, and God is the healer and He's always wanted to
heal and people of faith, they've always been able to claim their healing." That is just not true. The first healing in the Bible is in Genesis
20 at the time of Abraham...at the time of Abraham. That's 2200 B.C. That's a couple of thousand years after creation. There are no healings before that. There's a lot of other stuff, as you well
know, in the opening 19 chapters of Genesis, a sweeping look at 2,000 years of history,
but there's no healing there. You do have a healing in Genesis 20 and then
from Abraham to Isaiah, let's go from say 2200 B.C., 2300 B.C. to Isaiah 7:50 B.C.,
that's 1500 years, you can search that entire period of 1500 years in the report of Scripture
and find maybe 20 miraculous interventions by God that resulted in a healing...maybe
20 among the millions and millions of people who lived in the hundreds and hundreds of
years that passed. And then if you want to go from Isaiah, 750
B.C. to Christ, there are no healings in Scripture, none...not one. And during that period of time, sickness and
disease were everywhere. Everybody was dying. That is why when Jesus did a miracle, the
Jews responded with shock. Look at Mark 2:12, He had just healed this
paralyzed man and in verse 12, man got up, picked up his pallet, his bed, and went out
of the sight of everyone so they were all amazed, glorifying God saying, "We have never
seen anything like this." Which is to say, we have never heard of anything
like this. Matthew 9:33, at one of Jesus' miracles, they
said, "Nothing like this has ever been done in Israel." So the idea that the healing explosion that
occurred around the ministry of Jesus Christ is some kind of standard operating procedure
for God among His people, is just not true. Jesus had the power of healing and the power
to cast out demons and He delegated that power to two groups, the 70 who represented Him
and the twelve and Paul. Why? Because they were going to preach the gospel. How do you know if what they were preaching
was true? Because you had all kinds of people preaching
all kinds of messages. The ability to demonstrate power over disease
and power over demonic sources, demonic powers, was to say that the message of Jesus Christ
is the message of the one who has power over the physical and spiritual effects of the
curse. It was a supernatural authentication of true
teachers. By the way, if God did give the gift of healing
today, He wouldn't give it to people with really, really bad theology. What would He authenticate that? You think God is authenticating Benny Hinn's
theology who wrote a book that said there were nine members of the Trinity, that each
member himself is a trinity himself? No, God doesn't authenticate bad theology
by giving miracles to people who espouse heresy. The only people who ever did miracles was
the people who are given that power by Jesus directly, the 70 and the 12 so that their
message could be authenticated and it disappeared very fast because once the New Testament began
to be written down, then any true teacher could be measured by whether he agreed with
Scripture. Today, you don't need to do any tricks to
prove to me you're a true prophet. I can measure that by how faithful you are
to revealed Scripture. But before the Scripture was written, these
were authenticating signs. As the Scripture becomes written, as the message
of the gospel becomes clear and known, healing begins to disappear. You go into the New Testament, you get in
to the book of Acts, into the epistles of Paul, the general epistles, all of a sudden,
guess what ? Paul is sick. Trophimus is sick and Paul leaves him sick. Timothy is ill. Epaphroditus is ill. There's no mention of healing in the final
pastoral epistles, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy and Titus. There's no mention of, you know, have a healing
ministry. There's no promise of healing in the future. The healing explosion was not to provide health,
it was to affirm the true gospel and the true Messiah to show His power over disease and
demons, to show His power over the physical and spiritual world, to show that He had the
power to conquer sin and Satan and to rescue souls and to show that He had the power to
raise a glorified, perfect body into heaven. In Matthew's account of this same miracle,
there's one statement at the end of it that's worth noting, Matthew chapter 8. Matthew says that Jesus came into Peter's
house, saw His mother-in-law lying sick in bed with a fever, touched her hand, the fever
left her. She got up and served them. And when evening came, again the same thing,
they brought to Him many who were demon possessed and He cast out the spirits with a word and
healed all who were ill. Again it was with a touch, or a word, that
was all and they were totally healed. And then this closing comment, verse 17, "This
was to fulfill what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet and what was spoken through Isaiah
the prophet, Isaiah 53:4, "He Himself took our infirmities and carried away our diseases." The prophet said that He would have the power
to bring our diseases, our infirmities to an end. Will He heal all our diseases? Yeah, in the future...in the future. But He proved that He was able to do it in
the future by doing it when He was here. By the way, go back to the text in verse 34. He cast out many demons. Forget the healing gift, give me that one. Give me that one, I want the one about...I
want to cast out demons. That's what I want to do. If I have a choice, I would love to do that. Can you imagine? I would go to every false cult, every false
teacher, and I would say, "Come out of Him," because they're all demonic, they're all...they're
all basically instruments of the doctrines of demons, according to 1 Timothy 4. All the gods of the nations are demons, the
Old Testament says. Can you imagine that? Look, I...you know, I don't spend a lot of
time with the cults because I think there's a greater enemy and it comes out in this verse,
verse 34. "He was not permitting the demons to speak
because they knew who He was." Jesus doesn't want any affirmation from demons. What do you mean by that? Look, the most dangerous form of religion
is the religion that affirms Christ and teaches lies. I met right over there in that other building
with the leaders of the Mormon church a few years ago. I met with them a couple of times. And I said, "Why are you here to meet with
me?" "Because we really appreciate what you write." I said, "What do you mean?" They said, "Well your book The Gospel According
to Jesus, we made it a text book at BYU." "What? I've got to go back and write that again. What are you talking about? How can it be a text book?" "Well, we like the fact that you love Christ
and you honor Christ." And they said, "Would you come to BYU and
would you speak to the students and to the faculty?" And I said no. I don't...I don't need affirmation from a
demonic religion that purports to represent Christ. Remember Acts 16, I mentioned it a week ago? The demon possessed girl following Paul and
saying, "Oh, he speaks for God." Get out! I don't need you. You just confuse the issue. No, if I had the power to cast out demons,
some people think they do, if I had that, I wouldn't be going over to somebody and try
to get rid of the demon of post-nasal drip or the demon of anxiety, or the demon of.... I'd be going to the headquarters of every
false system, every false representation of Jesus Christ and I'd be saying, "Out! All of you!" I don't have that authority so I have to spend
my life fighting them another way, writing books and preaching sermons and attacking
all those people who falsely represent Jesus Christ. I haven't spent a lot of time on Buddhism
and Islam and Socokacgi(????) and that kind of stuff because they don't name the name
of Jesus Christ. There's no subtlety there. But when they take on the name of Jesus Christ
and totally misrepresent Him, that's beyond tolerance to me and I want to silence them. I was called by the History Channel and they
said to me, "We want you to become a regular commentary expert on the History Channel about
Christian religion." I said, "No way...no way." You turn on the History Channel and you hear
anything about Jesus Christ, the gospels, the Bible, God, you can be sure it's a bunch
of lies. I'm not going to throw myself in there with
a silly smile on my face and give everybody else credibility. No, if I had the power to cast out demons,
I could fix that channel. If I had the power to cast out demons, I could
fix the National Geographic Channel too and cast out all the demons of evolution. Jesus doesn't want promotion from people who
say good things about Him and suck the people in to the kingdom of darkness. Well, so that you have the proof then of His
person in His power over demons and His power over disease. Secondly, you have the power of His action. Don't worry, we're going to have you out in
five minutes. (Laughter)) I know some of you looked right
down at your watch and thought, "Oh no." Okay, the power of His action...the power
of His action. This is so obvious. Verse 35, "That day is over..that one day
is over." What a day, that one day is over. "It's the next morning, in the early morning
while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, went away to His secluded place
and was praying there." Folks, it's so simple. The power of His action was in prayer. The proof of His person was in miracles. The power of His action was in prayer. Why? Because He was subject to the will of the
Father and the power of the Spirit, "And so He went before the Father to seek His will
and to invite the power of the Spirit of God." Critical communion and dependence on His Father. Before the sun even comes up, He is up indicating
He had been sleeping, that's His humanity. He goes to a secluded place, the word is eremos. It's the word translated wilderness four times
already in this chapter. Here it's translated a secluded place, away
from people. He went to pray because He was fully dependent
on the Father's will, fully dependent on the Spirit's power. Remember I told you the Spirit came on Him
because the Spirit intermediated between His deity and His humanity. Three times in Mark it tells us that He went
into that kind of secluded place to pray, Mark 6 and Mark 14. But He prayed all the time. You look at the four gospels, He prayed before
His baptism, He prayed before calling the Twelve, He prayed before feeding the multitude,
He prayed at is transfiguration. He prayed before He taught the disciples how
to pray. He prayed before He raised Lazarus. He prayed on the last night with His disciples
in the Upper Room. He prayed in Gethsemane, and He prayed even
hanging on the cross. Why? Because He was subject to the will of the
Father and the intermediary power of the Holy Spirit and He placed Himself always under
the Father's power and under the Father's will, I should say, and under the Spirit's
power. He prayed that all those things that were
in the will of God would be accomplished. You can read how He prayed in John 17, there's
a model of His prayers right there. Communing with God was crucial to Him. He had laid aside His prerogatives as the
Son of God. That's what Philippians 2 means when it says
He emptied Himself. He didn't give away His deity, He just gave
away the free exercise of it and submitted Himself to the Father and the Spirit as a
part of His humiliation. That's why He said, "I only do what the Father
tells Me to do, what the Father shows Me. I only do what I see the Father do. I only do what pleases the Father. I do it in the power of the Spirit. And if you say I do it by the power of Satan
as in Matthew 12, you blaspheme the Holy Spirit." Wonderful dependence on the will of God and
on the power of the Spirit. That dependence is made manifest in His prayer. One final point, the proof of His person,
His miracles. The power of His action, His prayer. Finally, the priority of His mission...the
priority of His mission is preaching...preaching. Look at verse 36. Simon and his companions searched for Him. They wake up in the morning, "Where is He?" They search for Him. "They found Him, and they said to Him, 'Everyone's
looking for You, they're back...they're back from the night before.'" Well they brought all the sick, all the demonized,
you know, and now they're back. What are they back for? Oh, now they're moving down another dimension,
you know, they've got a bad finger, they've got a bruise here, whatever's left to be attended
to. They're back, or maybe they just went further
away from Capernaum and collected more people, but they're back, reminiscent of John 6 where
He fed the 5,000 in the afternoon. Remember that? And they were back on the other side of the
lake in the morning, clamoring for a free breakfast. They're back. Luke says, "They tried to keep Jesus from
leaving Capernaum." You've got to come back. Hey, this is what we hoped for. You are popular, do You understand this? This is Your moment. Wow! This is it. You've got to capitalize on this. They're all back, come on. Verse 38, "He said to them, 'Let's go somewhere
else.'" I like that. I made My point, right? It's not about everybody getting their little
healing, it's about proving who I am. I've done enough to make it evident. Let's go somewhere else because somewhere
else we can do it again. Let's go somewhere else, to the towns nearby. Listen to this, "So that I may preach there
also for that is what I came for." Folks, that's worth underlying. If you ever ask why Jesus came, He came to
be a preacher. "The Son of Man has come to seek and to save
the lost." "I am come to call not the righteous, but
sinners to repentance," Mark 2:17. Here He says, "I've come to preach." How does He call sinners to repentance? How does He seek and save the lost? By preaching. That's what I came for...to preach. Remember when He went to the synagogue at
Nazareth just before this event? And He came into the synagogue and He opened
to Isaiah 61, "The Lord has anointed Me to preach the gospel." God only had one Son and He was a preacher. That's why He came, to preach. The miracles only verified the authority and
the truthfulness of His message but there was no salvation in the miracles, the salvation
was in believing the preaching....believing the preaching. And so, verse 39, He didn't go back to Capernaum,
"He went into their synagogues throughout all Galilee." In that verse Mark sums up weeks if not months
of Jesus doing exactly what He had done in Capernaum, preaching and casting out demons. It's all about preaching, folks. I can't heal. I can't cast out demons. But I can preach. You can't heal and you can't cast out demons,
but you can preach. What is...how is preaching different than
teaching? It's louder. The content is the same. It's a proclamation, it has a commanding rather
than a didactic nature. So He left. This is so important. Listen to Romans 10:13, "Whoever will call
upon the name of the Lord will be saved. How will they call on Him whom they have not
believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have
not heard? How will they hear without a preacher? How will they preach unless they're sent?" No wonder it's written, "How beautiful are
the feet of those who preach the good news of good tidings." Jesus was a preacher because faith comes by
hearing the Word. Same passage, Romans 10. So for weeks, even months, He went from town
to town, village to village preaching and proving the truthfulness of His message by
miraculous deliverances from demons and healings. Savior not only verifies who He is, but proclaims
salvation through faith in His name. And so, Mark pulls together these three realities
that we will see played out throughout our Lord's entire ministry, a ministry of proof,
a ministry of prayer and a ministry of preaching. Let's pray. Father, thank You again for this great text
and its riveting and compelling nature. We're so blessed to know the truth. Protect...protect the name of Christ from
all the charlatans and all the fakes and the phonies and the frauds who prey on people's
struggles, pains, sufferings, fear with false promises that You've never made. Silence them and lift up those who are the
true preachers. Make Your true Word heard, the true gospel. Lord, we know we don't have a promise of healing
in this life but we have a promise of healing in the life to come. And this life is only a vapor, appearing for
a little time and then vanishes away. The Christian gospel is not Jesus wants you
healthy, it's Jesus wants you in heaven where there's no sickness, no sorrow, no death,
no tears. Healing in the atonement? Absolutely! Eternal healing. Father, we pray for those who might be here
today who do not know Christ, who have not yet come to Him in repentance and faith. Would You work that miracle in their lives
now? Would You deliver them from the power of Satan
and the power of sin? Would You open their heart to understand the
gospel, the beauty of Christ, the forgiveness of sin that is available simply through faith? Grant them the faith to reach out, repent,
confess their sins and embrace Jesus as Lord. Amen.
