Sermon for Sunday March 27, 2022 Loosed and let go. Luke 13:10-17

Luke chapter 13, we're going to begin reading in verse 10 and read through verse 17 in your hearing this morning.

Stand with us if you would to honor the reading of God's Word. This is the

Word of the Living God. Now He was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath, and behold, there was a woman who had a disabling spirit for eighteen years.

She was bent over and could not fully straighten herself. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said to her,

Woman, you are freed from your disability. And he laid his hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and she glorified

God. But the ruler of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had healed on the

Sabbath, said to the people, There are six days in which work ought to be done.

Come on those days and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day. Then the

Lord answered him, You hypocrites, does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger and lead it away to water it?

And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the

Sabbath day? As he said these things, all his adversaries were put to shame, and all the people rejoiced at the glorious things that were done by him.

Our Lord, as we come before you one more time today, come thankful for the privilege and for the honor of being gathered together in your house with your people.

Thank you, dear Lord, for what we have already learned from your word while being here today with the saints of God.

And our prayer is this, that you would show us Christ in the text. Help us, dear

God, that we might worship you in spirit and in truth this day. For it's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.

And amen. We kind of joked with William a day or so ago on the title of this message.

We were going to call it Woman Thou Art Loose, but it seems that T .D. Jakes has already taken that title.

And this is certainly the non -T .D. Jakes version that we're going to be preaching today.

This is a beautiful passage of scripture that we have before us today, not that the rest of the scripture isn't beautiful, but this is particularly beautiful today.

It's several questions that we want to answer, several things that we want to look at this morning.

If you're taking notes, I'll go ahead and list you out the questions. There's going to be seven questions that we're going to ask and answer this morning.

And the seven questions, if you just want to leave some space in between them. The first two questions we're going to answer as we list them out to you, and then questions three through seven really we'll look in depth at the text on those questions.

But the first question is, for context, where is this event taking place?

We have our answer in verse 10 in the synagogue. Where is this event taking place in the synagogue?

The second question that we want to ask and address is concerning really women in the synagogue, not going into great depth into this, but there are some commentators who say that women were not allowed in the synagogue during the time of worship.

And I personally would say that those commentators who say such things, as I do myself many times, need to pay more close attention to the scriptures because we have it recorded here in Luke, in Luke's account, that there was a woman there.

So obviously women were allowed to be there. In a reference to an article from the website

Jerusalem Perspective, they state this, women regularly attended the synagogue and took part in its services, listening to sermons and listening to the reading of the

Torah. Women even also studied in what's called the Bet Midrash in the study hall in the

Tabernacle. And so in the words of the wise Forrest Gump, that's all

I've got to say about that. So we're going to really look in depth at our next series of questions, question three through seven, that we want to set before you and we want to answer from the text of scripture this morning as far as kind of an outline, a question and answer form goes.

Question three is this, what was the woman's issue? What was the woman's issue?

And in short, she had a disabling spirit. We see that in the text of verse 11.

The next question, which is one of those challenging questions, where did the disabling spirit come from?

Where did the disabling spirit come from? That's question four. And according to Jesus' own words in verse 16,

Satan had bound her. The next question, question five, what does it mean to be loosed or what does it mean to be set free?

What is the text saying when Jesus said, you are free?

Question six, what was the ruler of the synagogue's response to Jesus healing this woman?

These are things that we particularly must pay attention to. What was the ruler of the synagogue's response to Jesus healing this woman?

The answer is found in short in verse 14. The ruler of the synagogue's response was indignation and self -righteous anger.

And the last question, question seven, what was Jesus' response to the ruler of the synagogue?

And we see this in verses 15 through 17. What was

Jesus' response to the ruler of the synagogue? The short answer is that Jesus used their backwards and self -righteous use of the law against them.

It was an epic backfire. Have you ever had anything backfire on you?

Husbands, have you ever thought you'd come up with a doozy to say to your wife and then she turns it around and uses it against you?

Well, this is worse than that. So let's begin here and look at question three and four as we answer these from the text.

In verse 11, we see the scripture said, behold, there was a woman who had a disabling spirit for 18 years.

She had this for 18 years. We are not given this woman's age. All that we have is the period of time that she had this disabling spirit.

She had a disabling spirit for 18 years and we have the description of this. She was bent over and could not fully straighten herself.

It was likely, it was likely worse than what an account

I shared with April a while back. There's an older gentleman that comes in Home Depot from time to time and he is literally almost hunched over at a 90 degree angle, can't raise himself, can't even hardly raise his head from the ground.

But I imagine that this woman was even in worse shape, almost probably, almost completely doubled over.

The scripture says she was like this for 18 years. Vance Havner states it this way in an old sermon.

He said the Lord was teaching on the Sabbath in one of the synagogues. The day of worship found him in the house of the

Lord. And in the dry sarcasm of Vance Havner, he said he was not one of those whose manner is to forsake the assembling of themselves together with other believers on a pretext of worshiping in the great outdoors.

He found his audience, in his audience, a woman afflicted with a spirit of infirmity bent over for 18 years.

Havner said, I am struck with the phrase spirit of infirmity. Our Lord went on to say later that it was

Satan who had crippled her. Now, Havner said there are thousands today, and this is true even in our day.

There are thousands today shackled with the spirit of infirmity, bound by Satan.

Some are not really sick organically, but they are bound in mind by fears and obscure mental conditions.

They think that they are sick, but what they need is the liberating touch of the

Lord. The Greek word used in this verse here, the Greek phrase here literally says that it was caused by a spirit.

Now, it's also important for us to draw attention to this fact that all sickness is not demonic oppression.

It's important that we understand this, that we have a balanced understanding. The Bible is generally specific to clarify to us if a sickness is a malady naturally occurring or if it is due to demonic oppression.

For example, let's note what Matthew chapter 4 verse 24 states. Matthew chapter 4 verse 24 makes this distinction.

The scripture says, so his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, those having seizures and paralytics, and he healed them.

So this is important that when we read in the text of scripture that we make this distinction, that we look for the context so that we understand what's taking place.

In Matthew chapter 17, Matthew chapter 17 verses 14 through 18, the scripture says this, and when they came to the crowd, a man came up to him and kneeling before him said,

Lord, have mercy on my son, for he has seizures and he suffers terribly, for often he falls into the fire and often into the water.

And I brought him to your disciples, and they could not heal him. And Jesus answered,

O faithless and perverse generation, how long am I to be with you?

How long am I to bear with you? Bring him here to me.

And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him, and the boy was healed instantly.

It's important for us to note that epilepsy, or seizures, was the father's assessment of his son's situation.

But Jesus, Matthew, Mark, and Luke all call it a demon, and Jesus cast it out as he did other demons.

In an article at GotQuestions .org, they do a good job of bringing clarity to this matter.

They wrote this. The Bible gives some examples of people possessed or influenced by demons.

From these examples, we can find some symptoms of demonic influence, and we can gain insight as to how a demon possesses someone.

In some of the passages, the demon possession causes physical ailments, such as an inability to speak, epileptic symptoms, blindness, etc.

In other cases, it causes the individuals to do evil, like Judas being the main example.

In Acts 16, 16 -18, we see that the evil spirit apparently gave this slave girl the ability to know things beyond her own learning.

The demon -possessed man of the Gadarenes, who was possessed by a multitude of demons, Legion, he had superhuman strength, and he lived naked and among the tombstones.

King Saul, for example, after rebelling against the Lord, was troubled by an evil spirit, with the apparent effect of a depressed mood and an increased desire to kill

David. Thus, there is a wide variety of possible symptoms of demon possession, such as physical impairment that cannot be attributed to an actual physiological problem, a personality change, such as depression or aggression, supernatural strength, immodesty, antisocial behavior, and perhaps the ability to share information that no one has a natural way of knowing.

It is important to note that nearly all, if not all, of these characteristics may have other explanations, so it is very important not to label every depressed person or epileptic individual as demon -possessed.

This is why we must have that balanced approach and look to the text itself. Question five.

What does it mean to be loosed? What does it mean to be loosed?

Concerning verse 12, Jesus saw her, he called her over to him, and he said to her,

Woman, you are freed from your disability. That Greek word that is used there, it means to let go.

It means to free, as the statement says. It means to release. It means to unshackle.

It means to unburden. The similar term is used in Matthew's Gospel, again,

Matthew chapter 27. If we read Matthew 27, 15 through 26, this is what the

Word of God states. Now, at the Feast of the Passover, the governor was accustomed to release for the crowd any one prisoner whom they wanted to release.

It's the same word used there. And they had then a notorious prisoner called

Barabbas. So when they had gathered Pilate, Pilate said to them,

Whom do you want me to release to you, Barabbas or Jesus, who is called the

Christ? For he knew that it was out of envy that they had delivered him up. Besides, while he was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent word to him saying,

Have nothing to do with this righteous man, for I have suffered much because of him today in a dream.

Now, the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and to destroy

Jesus. The governor again said to them, Which of the two do you want me to release unto you?

And they said, Barabbas. Pilate said to them, Then what shall

I do with Jesus, who is called Christ? And they all said,

Let him be crucified. And he said, Why?

What evil has he done? But they shouted all the more, Let him be crucified.

So when Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took water and he washed his hands before the crowd, saying,

I am innocent of this man's blood. See to it yourselves. And all the people answered,

His blood be on us and on our children. Then he released for them

Barabbas, and having scourged Jesus, delivered him to be crucified.

What Jesus was doing was setting an example of what he was about to accomplish.

Jesus released, allowed them to release Barabbas, and he took his place.

What has Christ done for us as sinful men, women, boys and girls?

He has taken our place. And the scripture tells us over in the book of Isaiah that he came to set the captive at liberty, to loose and to free the captives.

And truly we are and were captives to sin.

Now, concerning verse 13, the scripture says he laid his hands on her and immediately, immediately she was made straight and she glorified

God. She went from being doubled over, completely crooked if you would have it, to being straight.

It is a beautiful and an amazing text. Charles Spurgeon said on this concerning that statement, and she glorified

God. Spurgeon said, I should think she did glorify God. He said, we have no record of what she said.

She might have merely cried out, Hallelujah. But the very look of her eyes streaming with tears, filled with gratitude, her face beaming with delight.

All of this tended to glorify God. And Spurgeon said, even if she had said nothing, her being made straight would of itself have glorified

God. Just as at that once crooked woman could glorify

God, so now can a guilty sinner. Crushed and helpless, the sinner can now glorify

God. It was Christ's hands who were laid upon her that she was made straight.

Oh, Spurgeon said this, and I echo this. Oh, that he would lay his hands on some of you today.

Oh, that today would be the Sabbath day where your heart and your mind are changed, where you are born again by the spirit and by the grace of almighty

God. Van Taber said this, Jesus healed this woman and immediately she was made straight and glorified

God. He said it must have been an exciting time. The man who finds himself released from his spirit and infirmity has a right to praise

God. And though he may be a disturbing nuisance to the dignified, God is pleased with the praise of his creatures.

Please don't ever think that you're so dignified that you ought not to praise God and that you ought not to rejoice in what

Christ has done for you. For Christ has translated us, the scripture says, out of darkness into his marvelous and into his glorious light.

He has granted and given to us the forgiveness of our sins. He has given to us eternal life.

Friends, it's because of this fact that the psalmist said, Bless the Lord, O my soul, bless his holy name and all that is within me.

May I ask you a question today? Are you glorifying God with your life?

Has your heart and has your mind been renewed by the Holy Ghost of God?

Know this today, that Christ Jesus, the Lord, has shed his own blood for your sin.

Come to Christ today. Repent and believe the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The gospel being proclaimed to you today is your wake up call.

It is your wake up call. Arise. The old timers would say something like this.

Arise, O dead man. Awake from your sleep and live unto the

Lord. It is the mercy and it is the grace of God right now that leads you to repentance.

Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. Verse 14.

The ruler of the synagogue, indignant. This goes to question six. What was the ruler of the synagogue's response to Jesus healing this woman?

Again, it was indignation and self -righteous anger. How do we know this?

Because the Bible tells us so. The ruler of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had healed on the

Sabbath. And he said to the people, there are six days in which work ought to be done.

Come on those days and be healed and not on the Sabbath day. So this ruler of the synagogue turns with self -righteous indignation.

And he doesn't even address Jesus, but he addresses the crowd in the synagogue, the folks there in the synagogue.

And he says, basically, he begins to spout out what the law says. And remember what

Jesus does. He turns this man's abuse of the law into a rebuke against the man himself.

Now, what it means to be indignant? It means this. It means to show signs of grief, to be displeased with, to be grieved, to be vexed.

It's translated even more strongly, sore displeased.

Now, let's remember and consider who's being displeased? The ruler of the synagogue.

And who is he being displeased with? Jesus Christ. You all know that don't work, right?

Listen, we have a wonderful example in the Old Testament of what self -righteous indignation looks like.

We have a perfect illustration in the Old Testament of this, which, by the way, the ruler of the synagogue himself was well aware of.

This example, this illustration of self -righteous indignation is found in the book of Jonah.

Jonah 4. Jonah 4, verse 1, the Word of God states this.

After the Lord had shown mercy to the people of Nineveh, the Scripture states, but it displeased

Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. Jonah was angry because God showed mercy to the people of Nineveh who deserved death, right?

And he prayed to the Lord. So Jonah begins to pray. He prayed to the Lord, and he said, O Lord, is not this what

I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish, for I knew that You are a gracious God, and that You are merciful, that You are slow to anger, that You are abounding in steadfast love, and that You are relenting from disaster.

And then listen to what Jonah says. Now therefore, O Lord, take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.

Get over it. Pity party extraordinaire here.

And the Lord said, Do you wail to be angry? Are you right in your anger?

And Jonah went out of the city and sat to the east of the city, and he made a booth for himself there.

He sat under it in the shade till he should see what would become of the city. Now the

Lord God appointed a plant and made it come up over Jonah a gourd that it might be a shade over his head to save him from discomfort.

So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant. But when dawn came up the next day,

God appointed a worm that attacked the plant so that it withered. And when the sun rose, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint.

And he asked again that he might die and said, It is better for me to die than to live.

You see what the Lord continually kept showing him mercy. The Lord continually kept showing him grace.

The Lord kept sovereignly and providentially and divinely intervening in his life, and yet his response was always,

It's just better for me to die. I am displeased with what's being done. But God said to Jonah again,

Do you wail to be angry for the plant? And he said, Yes, I do wail to be angry. I'm angry enough to die.

And the Lord said, You pity the plant for which you did not labor, nor you did not make it grow, which came into being in a night, and it perished in a night.

It was the work of the Lord. And should I not pity Nineveh, that great city in which there are more than 120 ,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle there?

So we have this illustration, this example of righteous, self -righteous indignation, and that it ought to teach us, as God's people, that self -righteous indignation will take us nowhere with the

Lord. Question 7. Last of all, what was

Jesus' response to the ruler of the synagogue? In verse 15 through 17.

Notice the word of the Lord. Then the Lord answered him, and he said,

You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger and lead it away to water it?

And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan bound for 18 years, be loose from this bond on the

Sabbath day? Remember, they quoted the law to the people. He quoted the law to the people as though he was going to embarrass

Jesus. Jesus turns, re -quotes the law, and lets him know the right interpretation and the right application of the law here.

So Jesus used their backward and self -righteous use of the law against them. The terminology, again, the terminology in these two verses here, just verse 15 and 16, is so very, very important.

Because it is first, first of all, Jesus calls them out, right?

What does Jesus call them? Hypocrites. And do you remember that this term hypocrite is not just a simple dis.

It's just not a simple insult. But what he was saying, in the true, full meaning of that word hypocrite,

Jesus was calling these men who claimed to be super -religious, irreligious. These men who claimed to be super -holy and super -sanctified, to be unholy and to be unclean.

It is a strong term. Lest we forget, Jesus is calling them godless, irreligious, heathen.

Strong language that's being used there. Secondly, Jesus uses the very same law that they were attempting to misuse to remind them of the fact that they loose their own donkeys from the stable and they lead them away to water them.

Now, let me say this as lovingly as I can. And I believe it's providential this morning,

Jessica mentioned this in class to Sarah. Animals do not have souls.

Right? God made man in his image. After his likeness, God breathed the breath of life into man and man became a living soul.

So Jesus had previously reminded his disciples that they are valued above the birds of the air and the beasts of the field already.

Right? But what this ruler of the synagogue was doing, he was esteeming his own donkey higher than this woman who was bent over in a terrible shape for 18 years.

Friends, we need to value human life. We hear it in the abolitionist movement all the time and we ought to continue to echo it, but my friend, everybody needs to understand that God places the highest value on human life because men, women, boys, and girls, whether they are newly conceived in the womb until the day that they die, are living souls.

So, verse 16, this is where Jesus makes one of the most beautiful statements in all of Scripture for he says,

Ought not this woman, who being a daughter of Abraham, whom

Satan has bound for these 18 years, should she not be loose from this bond on the

Sabbath day? Matthew Henry puts it this way. She is a daughter of Abraham in relation to whom you all pride yourselves.

She is your sister and shall she be denied a favor that you grant to an ox or an ass, dispensing a little with the supposed strictness of the

Sabbath day? She is a daughter of Abraham and is therefore entitled to the

Messiah's blessings, to the bread which belongs to the children. Spurgeon said in another place, point of fact here, nobody told

Jesus that she had been in this shape for 18 years, but Jesus knew.

Spurgeon said nobody told him that she had been 18 years bound and no one had told him

Satan had any role in the malady. This is why we don't go around looking for demons.

You're not God. I'm not God. We cannot see into the souls of men and women.

My friend, if a malady is demonic oppression, then my friend, the Lord is able to deal with it.

If a malady, if a sickness is simply a physical ailment, an organic physical ailment, know this, the

Lord is able to deal with it. But we need not try to be doctors of the soul, for we are not doctors of the soul.

There is one great physician, his name is Jesus Christ. Spurgeon went on to say this, but he knew all about it.

He knew how she came to be bound. He knew what she had suffered during the time. He knew how she had prayed for healing and how the infirmity still pressed upon her.

In one minute, Spurgeon said, in one minute Jesus read her story and he understood her case.

Beloved, what are you dealing with that you think Jesus doesn't really understand what

I'm going through? You've got to know this, Jesus knows. And not only that, not to sound cliche, but Jesus cares.

Spurgeon said, cast the thought aside. He cares, he knows, and he is able.

He is able to loosen you if that is his good and that is his acceptable will.

This is why we pray, your will be done. And finally, in verse 17, in verse 17, we read in the text, as he said these things, all his adversaries were put to shame and all the people rejoiced at the glorious things that were done by him.

First term, his adversaries were put to shame.

That was not a misprint. That is not a typo. That was not an accident.

His adversaries, his adversaries were those who professed to know him but with their words, but denied him with their deeds and in their heart.

They were men and women who Jesus warned about in the Sermon on the Mount when he said, many will say to me in that day,

Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name? Have we not cast out devils in your name?

And in your name, have we not done many wonderful works? And Jesus replies, then

I will respond to them. I never knew you. Depart from me, you that work iniquity.

There was a gentleman came up to me at work the other day. He said, you know the

Lord? And I respond, I shook my head, yes. I said, yes, sir. And then after I walked off,

I wish I'd have been able to think like I thought when I walked off because the truth is it's not that I know the

Lord but that the Lord knows me. Does the Lord know you today? Have you been to Jesus for the cleansing power?

Are you washed in the blood of the lamb? Are you trusting daily in his grace this hour?

Are you washed in the blood of the lamb? His adversaries, you heard it correctly.

Luke said his adversaries and that's exactly, exactly, please don't miss this.

That's exactly what they were. And that's exactly what we are and were outside of Jesus making reconciliation for our sins.

We are not any better than the ruler of the synagogue. We are not any better than any other sinner in the world.

We are, before we are born again, we are dead in our sins, in our trespasses.

We stand in need of the savior. Now the scripture says next, they were put to shame.

I love this phraseology here. I love this phraseology here. Much like what he was about to accomplish by his work on the cross as spoken of by the

Apostle Paul to the church of Colossae. In Colossians chapter 2. Colossians chapter 2 and moving to close here.

Colossians chapter 2 verse 6 through 15. This is the word of God. The Apostle Paul writes to them and he says this,

Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him. Being rooted and being built up in him, being established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding with thanksgiving.

See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of this world, and not according to Christ.

For in him the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him who is the head of all rule and all authority.

Paul said in him you also were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands by putting off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, and having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God who raised him from the dead, and you who were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh,

God has made alive together with him, having forgiven us all trespasses.

How? By canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands.

This he set aside. How? By nailing it to his cross.

And he disarmed the principalities and the powers.

He disarmed the rulers and the authorities, and he put them to an open shame by triumphing over them in it.

Friends, the victory is Christ. The victory is

Christ. Perhaps your soul today is disfigured, is misshapen.

Perhaps today you were not able previously to see straight on, to look full on the cross of Christ, to look full at the sacrifice that Christ made.

But today, maybe the Lord is pulling off the scales from your eyes.

Maybe the Lord is breathing life into you in such a way that you can now respond to him savingly, and that you can leave this place, that even if you leave this world tonight, you will know that all is well, because Christ has died for me, and Christ has arisen for me.

Do you know this today? Do you know this today? How are we to make application to the text today?

Quite simply, this is it. How are we to make application to our lives?

Trust in Christ. Believe on the Lord. Know that God's ways, as he states in the prophet

Isaiah, God's ways are higher than our ways. He sees further than we can see.

He knows far more than we can even think about ever knowing, because he is

God. He is the eternal self -existent one. And my friend, what

God has done for many in this world in times past, and he shall continue to do because of his faithfulness, he is able to do for you today.

He is able to save your soul. He is able to make the crooked straight.

He is able to make the vile clean. He is able to make the filthy spotless.