The Authority of Jesus Christ

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Well, if you have your Bibles, open them with me to Mark chapter 1 and we will continue on.
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I mentioned earlier that I didn't know if we were going to be able to finish out the chapter before the end of the year, but tonight and tomorrow night are our last...
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or tonight and next week are our last times together before the end of the year because we're not going to meet between Christmas and New Year.
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So we have between verse 23 and 45 to get through if we are to get through...
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I'm sorry, 21 and 45 to get through if we are to get through the entire chapter.
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So there's...
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it's possible.
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It's possible the way I have it outlined, but you know me.
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I tend to get stuck on certain words or ideas and look up and time's gone, and so we'll see how that works.
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But we are going to begin tonight simply by reading verses 21 and 22.
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See how...
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because I want to talk about verses 21 and 22 because I think that sets...
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it sets the idea for the rest of the chapter.
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So let's do that.
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Let's begin with reading Mark chapter 1 verses 21 and 22.
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And they went into Capernaum, and immediately on the Sabbath he entered the synagogue and was teaching.
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And they were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority and not as their scribes.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I ask that as we open the Word tonight and we examine the latter half of the first chapter of the Gospel of Mark, Lord, that first and foremost that you would keep me from error.
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For Lord, I am a fallible man, capable of preaching error, and I don't want to.
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And Lord, I do pray for the people in this room that their ears and eyes would be open to what your Word has to teach us.
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Lord, that our minds would be not on autopilot as we think about these things, but that our minds would be active and that we would be moved by the Spirit toward a better understanding of our Lord Jesus Christ and what it means when we say that he has authority.
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Lord, I pray this in Jesus' name and for his sake.
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Amen.
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When we look at the latter half of the first chapter of Mark, we see, as has been Mark's custom, we see him giving to us short stories about Jesus' life, each one intending to point to something specific, but at the same time, all of them pointing toward one bigger idea.
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We see between verses 23 and 28 the story of the healing of the demon-possessed man.
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And then we get to verses 29 to 31, and we see the healing of Peter's mother-in-law.
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And then verses 31 to 34, Jesus heals the multitudes.
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And then in verses 35 to 39, we see Jesus separating himself to pray.
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And then in verses 40 to 45, we see Jesus healing a man with leprosy.
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So what we have, and essentially, is we have three individual specific healings, one demoniac, one mother-in-law of Peter, and one with leprosy.
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And then we have multitudes being healed.
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So that's sort of the focus is all of these healings.
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But also we see in the midst of this, Jesus separating himself out to pray.
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And my thought was maybe I would focus a little bit on that next week, is that need of Christ to separate from the people and to go and to pray, and how that ought to teach us how much we need times of committed, dedicated prayer.
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But tonight, what I want to show is that what I think is happening is verses 21 and 22, what we just read, is actually starting sort of a section here for Mark, where he's making a point about the unique nature of Christ.
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And then he's solidifying or justifying that point with all of these stories that come after.
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So it's like, here's the big idea.
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And then here's, it's like if you're writing a paper, you give your thesis, and then you back up your thesis with your points or your sub points.
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And so the big idea is you have this man has come, Jesus, who's providing this instruction that's new and different, and everyone recognizes it's different.
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And what accompanies that is a man who's doing things that other people aren't doing.
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He's not only saying things that are different, but he's doing things that are different.
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And so I do think all of this sort of fits together, because what we're seeing is we're seeing Christ's popularity rise.
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And when we come back after the new year, we get into chapter two, we're going to see that popularity breeds opposition.
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And so in chapter two, we almost immediately begin to deal with Christ having to deal with the opposition to his new popularity.
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And we see immediately those people who are coming against him because of these things that he is saying and doing.
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So that's sort of the idea of what we're looking at tonight.
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So let's look again at verses 21 and 22.
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It says, And they went into Capernaum, and immediately on the Sabbath, he entered the synagogue and was teaching.
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Mark's gospel tends to focus quite a bit on the Sabbath.
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There's going to be a later section where in only Mark's gospel, we hear Jesus say something specific about the Sabbath.
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He talks about man being made for the Sabbath.
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I'm sorry, the Sabbath made for man, not man for the Sabbath.
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That's a specific quote that's only found in the gospel of Mark.
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We know Jesus said it because Mark records it, but it's only recorded in one gospel.
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And it tends to indicate to us there's something about the Sabbath that Mark is trying to focus in on and try to help us to understand something about this particular thing.
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And we know that the Sabbath was important among the Jewish people.
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The Sabbath was what separated them really from the world.
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That and circumcision were the two signs that they bore.
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The circumcision was the sign given to Abraham to separate his people out from the world.
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But that's not a sign that everybody just walks around able to see all the time.
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Obviously circumcision is a hidden sign, something that we keep undercover.
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But the keeping of the Sabbath was a public sign.
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When all the shops are closed on the seventh day of the week, when no one's going to work on the seventh day of the week, when all the food has to be prepared on the sixth day so that you can rest on the seventh day, that shows the world something different.
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And this is why when we go back into the book of Exodus, what we find about the Sabbath was that according to the books of Moses, particularly Exodus, the Sabbath was given to Israel as its sign of the covenant.
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The covenant that God made with Abraham, he gave him the sign of circumcision.
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But the covenant he gave to Moses was the Sabbath.
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There are several passages where he says the sign that accompanies this covenant is the Sabbath.
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And what's interesting about that is because we often wonder, why is that one of the top 10? We think of God's top 10 commandments, right? The 10 commandments given to the people of God in Exodus chapter 20.
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Why the Sabbath? I mean, obviously murder is important and obviously stealing and lying and bearing false witness, all these are important.
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But why does he include the Sabbath? It's because this is the sign of the very covenant that he's making.
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And the 10 commandments are the covenant.
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He says, these are the words of the covenant and this is the sign of that covenant that you will separate yourself from the world by keeping this one day special.
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So this is a unique to the people of Israel that they would keep this day holy.
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So Jesus goes into this, yes, I have all of them but not with me.
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Unfortunately, I don't have those written down.
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But back when I did my debate on the Sabbath, that was a big thing that I stressed was, because a couple years ago, I don't know if you know if I did that, but I did a public debate on the subject of the Sabbath.
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And I stressed the point that what we find in the old covenant is we find several references, I think there's at least four, where God says, this is the sign that I've given to you.
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And it was the Sabbath, that this was the sign of the Mosaic covenant.
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Each covenant has an accompanying sign.
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Noahic covenant has the rainbow, Abrahamic covenant has the circumcision, the Mosaic covenant has the Sabbath, that's the sign.
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And yes, I can give you those references later.
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In fact, when I post this, I'll include that in the notes of the recording.
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No, it's a good question.
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And I honestly should have had them ready, but I don't have them right now.
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And what's funny, I don't know if you guys know this, I only have my New Testament up here because it's my Greek New Testament and Old Testament's in Hebrew.
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So I don't have the Old Testament to look it up, but I will get them for you.
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I will get them for you.
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So the Sabbath is important among the people of God.
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It's a sign given to the people of God as a sign of God separating them from the world.
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It makes them a peculiar people.
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We often think a peculiar is bad.
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If somebody calls you peculiar, that's usually a negative thing, but God calls his people peculiar because they're supposed to be different from the world.
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And one of the ways that they were different was the Sabbath.
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So Jesus, we often see is entering the synagogue on the Sabbath because that had become a traditional time where the people would come together for worship was on the Sabbath day.
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And the synagogue, what's interesting, let me ask you this.
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Here's another just historical question.
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How many times do you read the word synagogue in the Old Testament? That many.
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It's not there.
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The synagogue was actually something that arose during the intertestamental period.
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This idea of gathering together on the Sabbath in the synagogue was a relatively new thing within the people of God.
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It had not been around forever.
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And so this idea of the synagogue, meeting in the synagogue, Jesus is going in.
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He's doing what the tradition is, going into the synagogue, worshiping, and teaching.
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And what's interesting is he's recognized as a teacher, even though for all that we understand, he has not undergone any type of rabbinic training.
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He didn't sit at the feet of Gamaliel like the Apostle Paul.
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Jesus did not sit with Rabbi Shammai or one of the other major leaders at that time.
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And these were men who were important leaders at that time.
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He had not sat under these men.
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And so we wonder, at least probably in our minds, is to say, well why is he teaching? If he's the son of a Nazarene carpenter, he doesn't have the pedigree to be teaching.
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And yet we know that if we go to the other gospels, the only event that occurs between his birth and his introduction into ministry is what? When he was 12 years old, and he was left behind, and he was found among the teachers, right? And he's there among the teachers, and it's being recognized that this young man has a special gift from God.
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Something is different about this young man.
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So his going in and teaching is based not upon any authority that he received from having went to rabbinical school.
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He didn't go to Yale Divinity School.
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He didn't go to Harvard Divinity School, right? Thank God because he'd come out a liberal.
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But he didn't have the letters behind his name.
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But what he did have is he had a message that he proclaimed with authority.
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And that's the part I really wanted to focus on tonight is the authority of Christ, which was bolstered by his works.
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He not only said it, but he could back it up.
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He didn't just have words, but he had word and deed.
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And that's why the Bible calls him mighty in word and deed, right? He said it and could do it.
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And so I want to consider for a moment this idea of authority because this is different than what the people were used to during the time of Christ.
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I'm just going to write on the board.
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I'm going to write the word authority because I want to talk for a minute about where authority comes from.
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Now, on a basic level, we should just always understand what a word means.
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The word authority has a root.
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What is it? Author.
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So the idea of authorship, the idea of someone who is the source of something, right? So for instance, let's say I wanted to know more about the writings of a particular author.
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Let's just say, and I'll pick somebody who's not alive anymore, but let's say C.S.
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Lewis.
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There's a lot of debate right now online about C.S.
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Lewis's fidelity to Christ because he had so many views that seemed to be very unorthodox.
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Even though much of his writing is celebrated by Christians, Christians celebrate the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe, and the Christians celebrate mere Christianity, which was probably one of his greatest works.
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But yet when we read other things, we read that there were certain things that he seemed to have not right.
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Things like even his doctrine of the Trinity seemed to be off, and other things that C.S.
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Lewis was wrong about.
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So the question becomes, okay, I want to know about Lewis.
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Who would be the best person to talk to? Lewis.
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If I had the opportunity, obviously he's gone now, but if I had the opportunity to sit down and ask, I would sit down and talk to him because he's the author.
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He's the person who knows what he's saying.
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He's the person who knows what he meant, right? Now again, I know I'm getting real basic here because there's a point that I'm driving to.
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Christ comes on the scene as preacher.
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Christ comes and preaches with authority, and the text clearly says, not like our scribes.
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Now, what was a scribe? Okay, just for a moment.
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We hear often about the scribes and the Pharisees, right? Scribes were professional writers, those who had been trained to inscripturate or to write, and they were copyists, but they were also experts at what they were copying.
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It wasn't just like me.
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If I were to sit down, I could copy a letter of Hebrew writing simply by drawing the pictures, right? But when I'm done, I'm not going to know any more than when I started because it's just going to be copying what's on the page, but the scribes were experts.
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So they were not only writers, they were often teachers because they were experts in what they had written, and when they taught, they taught having learned what they wrote and having learned the commentaries on what was written because they would also copy the Talmud, which was commentaries on the Old Testament.
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They would copy those things, and when they would make their statements about something, they would appeal to an authority.
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Well, we know that this means this because Rabbi Shammai has said this, or we know that this means that because Rabbi Gamaliel has said this, or they would reference some other, and I've mentioned those two.
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There's also another one.
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There was Rabbi Shammai, and there was Rabbi Hillel, and those were the two that were disagreed on marriage.
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Remember when Jesus was asked, can a man divorce his wife for any cause? One of them believed that you could divorce your wife for any reason.
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The other one said you can't divorce your for any reason, and that was a division within first century Judaism was whether or not divorce was allowed, and you had two competing rabbinic schools, the Hillelian school and the Shammaian school, which debated over that topic, and so how do you come to a conclusion? You come to a conclusion based on the authority of your source, right? So well, according to Rabbi Hillel, you can, or according to Rabbi Shammai, you can't, or I don't remember which one it was.
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It was one or the other, but you understand they would cite the source of someone else, and there's nothing wrong with that on its face, because I do it all the time, and me doing it doesn't make it right, but what I'm saying is if it were wrong, I would hope I wouldn't do it, but when I stand behind the pulpit, there are times when I will say, you know, Dr.
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R.C.
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Sproul has said this.
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By the way, today is the fifth anniversary of the death of R.C.
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Sproul.
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Today is the day he passed, and there are times when I'll stand, and I'll say, you know, and reading this passage, Dr.
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Sproul said this, and I'll read a quote from him, or I might say Dr.
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John MacArthur said this, and I'll read a quote from him, or I might even go further back in the past and say John Calvin said, and if there's anybody that's got a little weight, you know, if you can quote John Calvin in a reformed church, it's almost like quoting the Apostle Paul to some people.
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It's not, but that's the way some people think, because we tend to put authority in these men because of their vast learning, because of their education, because of what they have taught us, so we give to them a certain weight of authority.
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Now, there is a logical fallacy, perhaps you've heard of it.
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There is a logical fallacy which is called an appeal to authority.
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Are you guys familiar with that? A little bit? You guys know what a logical fallacy is? There are several.
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If you study logic, and you study reason, you will find that there are certain arguments that shouldn't be made because they are logical fallacies.
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One of the most common ones is called an ad hominem.
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An ad hominem means against the man.
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So, let's say I'm arguing with Mike over whether or not we should use a certain translation.
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Yeah, and Mike looks at me and he says, well, the reason why you don't want to use this translation is because you're a fool.
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Well, that's attacking me.
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It's not attacking my argument, right? And that's an ad hominem attack.
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Now, that's the grossest kind.
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A more subtle one would be something like this.
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Well, Mike, the reason why you use that translation is because you're older.
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You see where I'm headed? Yeah, but you get it, right? That's an ad hominem.
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There's nothing that, your age doesn't matter when it regards that, because that's not what you're basing your decision on.
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And my lack of or not of intelligence isn't what I'm basing it on.
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But when we use that to attack someone, that's called a logical fallacy.
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And when you study debate, and I'm a student of debate because I think debate is an important way that we discourse with people.
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When you study debate, you learn to identify failed arguments based upon logical fallacies.
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And one of the logical fallacies that's very common is called the appeal to authority.
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So for instance, if we were debating and I were to say, well, the reason why I know this is right is because Dr.
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R.C.
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Sproul said it was right.
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Well, all I'm saying is that R.C.
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Sproul knew what was right.
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And I'm not really giving any evidence.
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I'm just appealing to another person and saying, now, if I said R.C.
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Sproul was a linguist and he was a textual scholar and he did this work and whatever, and that's the argument I use, well, that would have more weight because yes, he is an authority in that area.
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But he's still baptizing babies.
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And that's why I say you have to be careful when you cite sources.
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You have to be careful when you cite authorities, because you could end up in a logical fallacy.
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You could end up citing someone who is either not authority in that area or you're still have the possibility of being wrong because just because Rabbi Shammai said it, or just because R.C.
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Sproul said it, or just because John MacArthur said it, don't make it so.
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Because all of these men are apt to failure.
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Here's the thing that's amazing about Christ.
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And all this was just to simply point to this.
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When Christ came in teaching, Christ didn't come in.
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And again, I didn't hear him preach, but I've read his sermons.
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Never did Christ come in and say, based upon the teachings of Rabbi Shammai, I say this, or based upon the teachings of this, I say this.
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Now he did appeal to the word of God.
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And we'll talk about the authority of the word of God in a moment because there are times, but there were even times when Christ says, you have heard it said, do not commit murder.
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Well, that's in the word of God.
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But I say to you, do not even hate your brother or do not even say you fool.
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So Christ has the authority to interpret infallibly what the word of God means.
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That's what's amazing, is Christ can say, based upon his own authority, because he is creator of the universe enfleshed, he can say without any appeal to any authority, this is so.
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And he can hold the word of God in his hand.
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He can open it up and he can read the prophecy of Isaiah.
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He can close it as we see he does in the gospels.
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And he could say today, this prophecy is fulfilled in your hearing.
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Remember when he said that from the prophecy in Isaiah, it was talking about the time that would come, the good news will be preached to the poor.
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And he says, this has been fulfilled in your hearing.
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He's saying, I have the authority to give the infallible interpretation of this text.
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That's an amazing thing.
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It's unprecedented that someone would come with that type of authority and speak with that level of power and not like the scribes.
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That's what made it different.
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Christ's message was not only a better message, it was an authoritative message.
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And the people knew it was different than anything they'd ever heard.
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I heard this, I heard, I can't quote it directly, but there was a, someone had written something.
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It said something about Christ to the effect of a man who never went to any school, who never received any, you know, degrees, spoke as no man had ever spoke and taught as no teacher had ever taught and had the power that no man had ever had.
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And it's just amazing.
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That's what, in short, that's what Mark is saying here.
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He spoke with authority.
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He didn't have to appeal to anyone else other than his father in heaven and to the word of God, which is of course him.
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He is the word of God enfleshed in, and there's no way he's going to do, he's going to have anything different to say than what the word of God says.
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And that's important too, because we're going to see some places later in the gospel of Mark where people will challenge him and say, you have broken God's law.
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And you got to think this is the writer of the law.
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This is the author of the law.
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Again, authority, authorship.
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He is the one.
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He's not breaking anyone's law.
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And he says, what'd he say? The son of man is what? Lord of the Sabbath.
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You see the Sabbath issue comes up because this issue of Jesus breaking the Sabbath.
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And there are some people who believe Jesus broke the Sabbath.
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I don't believe Jesus broke the Sabbath because I don't believe Jesus sinned ever once.
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I don't believe Jesus broke the law, but he did have authority over it because he says the son of man has authority over the Sabbath.
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Why? Because I, because again, authorship, authority, authorship.
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He created it all.
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Nothing was over him.
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He, everything was subject to him and he spoke with that level of authority and it had within the people a stirring, um, within them because they knew this man was different.
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And as I said, no one before him spoke as him.
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No one after him has ever spoke like him.
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You ever think about the fact that even, even people who don't believe in Jesus, even atheists and agnostics, they can't get past the fact that Jesus still had words that are amazing and that no one ever in history spoke like him.
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It's one of the great testimonies to who he was is that this man isn't like Buddha or Muhammad or any of these other men, but he had a, a weight and authority to his word that was different than anything that had ever been before and would ever be.
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So looking at that in verses 21 and 22, the authority of Christ proclaimed and recognized, we now see the subsequent stories that affirm that authority.
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And what I want to do is I do want to read through these.
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Like I said, I, I'm going to make a few comments as we go.
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I'll take any questions.
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If you have questions, if I can answer them, I will.
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If I can't, I'll tell you, I don't know the answer, but I want to simply read through and show that what we're seeing in verses 23 down to 45, we're going to go slow, as slow as we can.
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We're going to see, this is bolstering the idea of Christ's authority.
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Remember word and deed.
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He has spoken, the people have heard, now he does and the people can see.
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So we see in verse 23, and immediately there was in their synagogue, a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, what have you to do with us? Jesus of Nazareth, have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.
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Now, can you imagine? I'm not going to get too far because I'm going to be doing this a lot, but can you imagine? You got a man preaching.
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This is says immediately there was in their synagogue.
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So this is still in that moment.
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Jesus is preaching.
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It's still in that moment.
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They see him having the authority, not as the scribes, and this demon possessed man cries out.
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Now, a couple questions.
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How did he get in there in the first place? Is he demon possessed always, like the man in Gennesaret, who we'll see later, who is like breaking chains and hurting people? Or is this man kind of turn on, turn off, like a schizophrenic? And I'm not saying schizophrenia is demon possession.
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I don't know.
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I'm just saying that the idea is, does it come on and off? We don't know.
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What we do know is this man is there, and he cries out, and he speaks to Jesus as one who knows Jesus.
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Something important to just note from that.
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Demons know Christ.
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This is why, you know, sometimes people will say, you know, I believe in Jesus.
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Say, well, wait a minute.
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James makes a point.
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He says, even demons believe and tremble.
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So the idea that you know Jesus doesn't, does he know you? That's the, because in John or in Matthew seven, I'm sorry, Matthew five.
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No, it is Matthew seven, twenty-two.
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He says, this is depart from me.
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I never knew you.
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Right.
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It's always about Christ knowing you.
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Whom he foreknew, he predestined, right? It's God knowing us.
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But this demon knows who Jesus is.
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He says, I know who you are.
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And he names you.
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You are the holy one of God.
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He got it right.
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This is he.
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But Jesus rebuked him saying, be silent and come out of him.
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And the unclean spirit convulsing him and crying out with a loud voice came out of him.
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And they were all amazed so that they questioned among themselves saying, what is this? A new teaching with authority.
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He commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him.
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And at once his fame spread everywhere throughout all the surrounding region of Galilee.
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Again, this one event makes him the most popular man in the area because he's preaching.
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They automatically recognize this man is special.
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This man's message is different.
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It has authority.
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Crazy man stands up.
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We know who you are.
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I know who you are.
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Jesus says, come out of him.
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Boom.
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The man's clean, immediately made clean.
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And then what? The people realize word and deed.
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What he has said is matched by what he does.
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And by the way, I knew I wasn't going to get very far because what's interesting about all of this, I mentioned earlier, how many times do you read about synagogues in the Old Testament? You don't.
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Now think how many times you read about demon possession in the Old Testament.
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Also, we don't.
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Now there are times where there's evil spirits mentioned, but think in your mind, compare Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, even to Acts in the amount of demonic activity that is concentrated in and around the work of Christ.
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We don't read about that in the Old Testament.
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I'm not saying it's not there.
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I'm just saying we don't see that concentration.
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We don't even see that concentration later in the New Testament where we see it is in and around the person of Christ.
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All of hell has shown up.
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All of the darkness has tried to come to snuff out this light.
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And so what are we going to see throughout all the Gospels? Over and over and over, Jesus is going to confront men who are demon possessed, men and women.
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It's just an amazing reality.
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So much is here.
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This is why people ask me today, they often say, do you believe that demons still exist? Do you believe demons still oppress people? Do you believe demons still possess people? The answer is yes, yes, and yes.
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I do believe those three things, but I do not think that it is as common as it was in Christ's time, at least not in the visible realm.
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This was so recognizable and it was for a purpose.
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It was to show the power of Christ.
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Remember what we read in Colossians just two weeks ago? That he has the power over the authorities, over the dominions, over the principalities, over everything.
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He has this authority.
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It's about putting that authority on display.
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Demon stands up, we know who you are, I know who you are, Jesus come out of him.
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Now there were other exorcists during the time of Christ, other men who practiced magical exorcisms.
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You remember you read about in the book of Acts, Simon who sought to be a magician who had the power to cast out demons, the sons of Sceva who had the power, you know, who said that they could cast out demons, right? Except for they got whooped.
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They didn't quite make it, but there was in Jesus's time a, I don't want to call it a profession, but there was a, there were incantations that were done.
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You can actually read in Josephus, they're actually statements that were made, incantations that were made that were that were meant to remove foul spirits or demonic spirits.
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And we have those today.
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Anybody who's ever heard of somebody being demon possessed now, what do they say? Come out ye foul spirit in the name of Jesus, right? Like that's like our incantation.
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That's what we think works, right? As we say it and people do.
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And that's, I mean, that's, we see that in the tent revivals and stuff.
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You know, people think that they can banish the foul spirit simply by invoking the name of Christ.
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I just, again, reminds me of the story, you know, Jesus, I know, and Paul I've heard of, but I don't know you.
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Wouldn't you just love to watch Benny Hinn get whipped by a demon? No, I'm sorry.
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I shouldn't have said it, but just, you know, cause you know, we don't got the real Holy Spirit.
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You know, that man's preaching a false gospel, but he says the name of Jesus, right? Scary stuff.
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So anyway, I got a little off track there.
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I'm sorry.
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Again, though, what happens as a result? Verse 28, the fame spreads.
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The fame of Jesus spreads throughout the region.
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His popularity is on the rise all because he speaks and works with authority.
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Now verse 29 to 31, we see a second healing.
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It says immediately, again, that word was in verse 23 as well.
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That word immediately over 40 times in the 16 chapters of Mark, because Mark is hastening through these stories.
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Immediately he left the synagogue and entered the house of Simon and Andrew with James and John.
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Now, remember we talked about these guys last week, right? Simon, Andrew, James, and John were the four fishermen that he called from the boat.
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And he said, follow me and I'll make you fishers of men, right? So he's, he is now in a discipleship, rabbi discipleship relationship with them.
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And he's in the home of Simon and Andrew with James and John and Simon's mother-in-law lay ill with a fever.
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And immediately they told him about her, again, that word immediately.
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And he came and he took her by the hand and he lifted her up and the fever left her and she began to serve them.
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Different type of healing altogether, by the way.
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This is interesting.
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One of the thing, one of the issues I often take when people want to talk to me about modern faith healers is modern faith healers like Benny Hinn and Kenneth Copeland and others who stand on a stage and invite people up on the stage and touch them and they fall down and things like that are often only effective within the structural environment that they put themselves in.
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And that environment is micromanaged by a team of handlers.
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And one of the saddest things, and Justin Peters talks about this because Justin Peters is a man who's investigated these false teachers and he himself has cerebral palsy and was, as a young boy, was taken to a healer and his dad took him to a healer and the healer asked his dad, how much money do you make? That was the question as to whether or not he was going to get healed.
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Terrible thing.
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But if you go into these events, you'll see the really sick people in the balconies and off to the side and they're not allowed to go up onto the chancel.
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They're not allowed to go up onto the stage because those people aren't going to get healed.
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But they do have people that they can get to stand and walk who are sitting in wheelchairs and those are the people who get wheeled up because the modern faith healers are not healing organic disease.
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They're healing things like tinnitus, back pain, knee pain, things that you can't quantify on a scientific examination.
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I mean, if I come to you and I say my eyes are hurting, you might can figure out why.
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But if I say now my eyes don't hurt, you might not be able to tell me why.
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I'm talking, he's optometrist in case you don't know.
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So you know what I'm saying, right? It's that kind of thing.
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There's a difference between organic disease and the way people feel.
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Sometimes you can be very sick and not feel bad or sometimes you can feel very bad and not have anything that, you know, I've gone to the doctor, felt awful.
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They did 15 tests and nothing came back.
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They couldn't figure out what was wrong with me.
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There's something wrong but they can't figure out what it is.
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By the way, this may seem like an excursus but I promise I'm going to bring it back to the text in a minute.
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But my biggest issue with modern faith healers is no one's coming back from Iraq missing a leg and they're walking in having somebody regrow that leg.
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Now Jesus took a man's ear that had been cut off in battle and he put it back on.
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That's the difference when we talk about what Jesus did.
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Jesus took a woman who had a fever, he touched her hand, lifted her up and the authority of God by the power of the Holy Spirit, she was made well.
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Not in an hour, not in three days, not after a round of antibiotics and some Tamiflu.
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No, no, no.
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She was healed immediately.
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So well that she began to serve.
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She didn't need to go rest and put her feet up.
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She didn't still have swelling in her lower extremities that she needed to get over but immediately she returned back to normal life because of the power of the one who touched her.
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Again, what is Mark doing? He's showing us the authority of this man in word and deed.
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All right, let's move on.
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I do want to, if we can, and we're going to skip the prayer part because we're going to talk about that next week.
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So let's just read.
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We see in verse 32 to 34, it says, that evening at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or oppressed by demons.
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And by the way, that was the thing I forgot to mention.
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There's two things we see.
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Christ heals the demon possessed.
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Christ heals the physically organically sick.
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Two different things.
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Not all sickness is demon possession.
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I do believe in demon possession, but like I said earlier, I don't think all mental illness is demon possession.
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I don't think every time somebody is sick, it's demon possession.
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There are some people who think if you've got a fever, you got to pray the demon of fever out of them.
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No, there's a distinction made.
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There's those who are sick and those who are demon possessed and they're not the same.
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Now, can they have some overlap? Yes, but there's a distinction right there in verse 32.
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It says, he brought to them all who were sick or oppressed by demons.
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So making a distinction between the two.
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Not all sickness is demon possession.
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Verse 33, and the whole city was gathered together at the door and he healed many who were sick with various diseases, cast out many demons, and he would not permit the demons to speak because they knew him.
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This is a big part of Mark chapter one also.
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Jesus actually is playing down his own popularity.
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Now, we're not told exactly why, but later we're going to see in verses 40 to 45, he actually says, you know, don't, don't, don't say, um, who I am or whatever.
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And they do.
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And what happens is his popularity explodes.
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And so he's not letting the demon speak.
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What did the demon say when it did get to speak? I know who you are.
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You're the Holy one of God.
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So Jesus has muted the demons.
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Now, verses 35 to 39, we'll jump past because we're gonna look at that next week.
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I want to focus on that part.
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And verse 40, and a leper came to him, imploring him and kneeling said to him, if you are, if you will, you can make me clean.
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Now, interesting leprosy among organic disease had to have been the worst that one could contract because one, it was physically visible.
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So no one would want to be around you.
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There were laws that kept you separate from people.
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And there were communities that you had to go and live in.
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Um, a couple months ago, my dad and I were doing a podcast together and, um, he, he had told a story about his young life and he lived in Hawaii.
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And didn't you mention there was a leper colony in Hawaii? I never knew that.
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So I looked it up and it's an interesting fact of history that on one of the islands, it's a place where they were separated.
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And I never, I never heard of it until dad told me about it.
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And I went and looked up more about it.
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But so it's, it's a disease that separates.
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It's a disease that marks.
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And so among organic disease, it's the easiest to see.
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And it's one of the worst to experience.
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So as Mark ends this chapter, he's, he's talked about a demon possessed man.
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He's talked about a woman with a fever, again, organic disease.
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He's talked about all kinds of diseases, all kinds of demon possession.
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And now he ends this chapter with this man.
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And this man asks a beautiful question.
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He says, well, it's not really a question.
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It's a statement.
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He says, if you will, you can make me clean.
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That's a that that that, again, this could be a whole other sermon, so I won't let it be.
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But I think sometimes that's the heart of every sick person.
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We know God can heal us.
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But we also know it's not always God's will to heal us.
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There are people, Christian people who die of cancer.
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There are Christian people who die of organic disease or Christian people who die in accidents and falls and things like that.
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We know that happens and we pray that God will heal.
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But we also know it's not God's will always.
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And the next words out of Christ's mouth are beautiful or out of the writer's mouth, he says, moved with pity.
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Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand, he touched him, and he said, I will be clean.
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That's just that's a beautiful just thinking.
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And again, I like to read existentially, which means you sort of put yourself in the story and imagine yourself as this person going to Christ, having the worst disease, the most terrible organic disease that you can have and saying, if you will make me clean.
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And another way of saying, will you? I know you can.
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I'm not saying, can you? I've seen you do it.
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I'm not asking if you have the power.
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I'm asking if you will.
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And it says moved with pity.
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Now, there's a there's a major debate in textual criticism at verse 41.
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This was actually in the debate when Bart Ehrman debated James White on this on the subject of textual criticism.
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And if you're not familiar with who Bart Ehrman is, he's one of the leading textual critics, agnostic textual critics in the world, and does not believe in the truth of the scriptures and tries to argue against them.
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And there is a variant here where there's two words, it's splat in the face and august face.
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It's whether or not pity or anger.
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And there's one manuscript where it says moved with anger.
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He says, I will be healed.
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And if I remember correctly, Bart Ehrman was convinced that was the right reading.
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And it makes no sense at all that it was anger that drove Christ to heal this man.
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And so I absolutely think that's foolishness.
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But I bring it up because it just goes to show that no matter how smart you are, if you want to try to find something to attack, you can look and find it.
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But Christ is moved with love.
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He's moved with pity.
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He stretched out his hand.
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He touched me.
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He says, I will be clean.
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And immediately, again that favorite word, immediately the leprosy left him.
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He was made clean.
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And Jesus sternly charged him and sent him away at once and said to him, see that you say nothing to anyone.
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See that you say nothing to anyone, but go show yourself to the priest, offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded for a proof to them.
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Again, Jesus is following the Mosaic law.
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This man was a leper.
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Remember Brother Andy preached about the 10 lepers just a few weeks ago.
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They had a rule.
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They had to go to the priest.
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They couldn't just walk back into society, even if they were completely clean.
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Because if they had one spot on their belly button, they would still be infectious.
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So they had to be investigated by the priest to make sure they didn't still have this leprosy.
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They had to be examined.
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So he said, go.
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Verse 45, but he went out and began to talk freely about it and to spread the news so that Jesus could no longer openly enter a town, but was out in desolate places and people were coming to him from every quarter.
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And again, it doesn't tell us why Jesus told him not to tell, but that last sentence kind of gives us an idea because as Jesus's fame spread, so did his inability to move about freely.
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Because now everywhere he goes, there's a sick person or a demon possessed person or a person with a child who is at the verge of death, who is coming to him and laying at his feet.
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And it's not that Jesus didn't care.
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Again, moved with pity, he healed this man.
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But understand this, Christ came to do more than heal the physical body.
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Christ had his heart and mind set toward Calvary and he had a mission.
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And so he commanded, don't say anything.
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And this man could not help but speak.
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And so I'll end with this thought.
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If Christ has truly saved us, it is almost impossible not to proclaim it.
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And this man who had his whole life changed in an instant by Christ could not help but speak, even though commanded, don't say anything, just go to the priest.
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He could not help but speak.
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I think that should remind us that we too, who have been saved from something infinitely worse than leprosy, we have been saved from eternal separation from God in a place called hell by the gospel.
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We too should be unable to not proclaim.
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So anybody have any questions? I know I went through a lot of text tonight, but I thought I was hopefully showed you how it all connected to verses 21 and 22, that authority idea.
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Christ is showing his authority.
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All right.
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Well, if that's it, let's pray.
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Father, I thank you for your word.
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I thank you for your truth.
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And I thank you for Christ who is, he is the astonishing savior.
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He is one that men saw and men heard and men felt and knew that they never seen or heard or felt anything like it and never would again.
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Lord, what an amazing thing it must have been to see Christ walk and to walk with him.
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And Lord, we know that now the Holy Spirit resides in the heart of all believers and the power and love of Christ continues to walk with us.
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Help us, Lord, to be as vocal about what Christ has done for us as this man who Christ saved from leprosy.
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Lord, we pray it in Jesus name and for his sake.
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Amen.