Book of Luke - Ch. 4, Vs. 28-29 (02/02/2020)

Park Meadows Church

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Okay, we're up and going now. We're going to finish, we hope,

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Luke 4 today. I'm going to just read it first. Luke 4, starting with verse 28, and just go down through and then

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I'm going to highlight some things I want you to focus on as we go through and then we'll go back and backtrack.

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And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath. And they rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him into the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong.

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But he passing through the midst of them went his way, and came down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee, and taught them on the

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Sabbath days, and taught them. And they were astonished at his doctrine, for his word was with power.

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And in the synagogue there was a man which had a spirit of an unclean devil, and cried out with a loud voice, saying,

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Let us along. What have we to do with thou, Jesus of Nazareth? Art thou come to destroy us?

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I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God. And Jesus rebuked him, saying,

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Hold thy peace, and come out of him. And when the devil had thrown him in the midst, he came out of him, and heard him not.

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And they were all amazed, and spake among themselves, saying, What a word is this!

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For with authority and power he commendeth the unclean spirits, and they come out. And the fame of him went out into every place of the country, round about.

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And he arose out of the synagogue, and entered into Simon's house. And Simon's wife's mother was taken with a great fever, and they besought him for her.

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And he stood over her, and rebuked the fever, and it left her. And immediately she arose and ministered unto them.

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Now when the sun was setting, all they that had any sick with diverse diseases brought them unto him, and he lay his hands upon every one of them, and healed them.

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And the devils also came out of many, crying and saying, Thou art Christ, the

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Son of God. And he rebuking them, suffered them not to speak, for they knew that he was

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Christ. And when it was day, he departed, and went to a desert place.

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And the people saw him, and came unto him, and state him that he should not depart from them.

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And he said unto them, I must preach the kingdom of God to other cities also, for therefore am

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I sent. And he preached in the synagogues of Galilee. Let us pray.

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Most gracious Heavenly Father, thank you for this day, and thank you for the blessing of bringing us together here to study your holy word.

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Thank you for giving us this place to come to, and thank you for giving us the Holy Spirit to guide us, and the

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Son to redeem us. Bless us and keep us, and go through the services today, in Jesus name we pray, amen.

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So, there are five things, at least Brother Davey talks about the thirty things that happened to us at the moment of acceptance of the

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Lord. There are at least five things that Jesus did as part of his three year earthly ministry.

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His ministry began at the time he came up out of the Jordan River, actually going into the desert area to be tested.

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When he came out from the desert area to be tested, his ministry began, and it lasted as an earthly ministry about three years.

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We saw four examples of those things that Jesus did in this passage. And the fifth one will be revealed later at the appropriate time.

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Now, there are probably a lot more things to talk about than just these things. Jesus will do the following things.

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He will heal the sick. As we read that, we saw several instances where Jesus healed the sick.

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He healed Peter's mother -in -law. He cast out devils, or cast out demons.

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He taught and he preached. There are four things.

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At the appropriate time, he will do a fifth thing. He will atone for the sins of the elect.

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Not the sins of everyone. He does not atone for the sins of everyone that sinned, only of the elect who sinned.

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So, let's begin. We're going to go back just a little bit. We're going to have to because 28 says, and all they that all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath.

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So what things did they hear that made them full of wrath? Well, the first thing they heard was in Luke 4, 25,

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I tell you the truth. Many widows were in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up for three years and six months, when great famine was throughout the land.

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But unto none of them was Elijah sent, save Serapita, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow.

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So there's plenty of people that were widows in Israel at that time.

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But only to this one was Elijah sent. And the second thing that they didn't like to hear was in Luke 4, 27.

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And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Elijah, when Elijah, the prophet, and none of them was cleansed, saving

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Naaman the Syrian. And when they heard these things, they were filled with wrath.

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This is Luke's first mention of any hostile opposition to Christ's ministry.

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What seemed to have sparked the fury of the Nazarenes was

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Christ's suggestion that divine grace was given to the Gentiles while there were plenty of Jews available with the same maladies.

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There were plenty of Jews that had devils. There were plenty of Jews that were sick. There were plenty of lepers.

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There were plenty of people to go around. He could have reserved his goodness for the

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Jews, but he chose to share them with the Gentiles. And that was an issue with the

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Jews. Verse 28, again, And they all in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath.

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And they rose up and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong.

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But he, passing through the midst of them, went his way. Now we talked about that last week, and I thought it was kind of funny that that's the very miracle that he chose to show them.

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They asked for a miracle, and he just disappeared. I guess he just disappeared. At least he went out with them in seeing him.

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The implication is, though, that this was some sort of miraculous escape. It's just the first mentioned in Luke of several similar incidents in which he escaped a premature death at the hands of a mob.

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There were several places where this kind of incident is mentioned. In John chapter 7, you don't need to go there.

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It's just a quick verse. Then they sought him to take him, but no man laid hands on him, because his hour was not yet come.

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In John 8, verse 58, it says, And Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily,

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I say unto you, Before Adam was, I am. Well, that made them unhappy, because what he's doing is claiming to be the great

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I Am. Then they took up stones to cast at him.

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But Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed them by.

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So in other cases, they wanted to stone him, and he just walks through the middle of them, and apparently they don't see him. And in John 10, verse 39, it says,

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Therefore they sought again to take him, but he escaped from their hand. So what we have here is just another example of a miraculous escape.

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The question is, why must he escape all of these incidents? It wasn't his time.

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It wasn't his time, because his mission had not been complete. That's something we can take a little heart in.

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I don't think the Lord's going to take any of us until whatever mission he has for us is complete.

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Unfortunately, we don't know when that mission will end. So he may take any of us today.

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But if he does, as Paul said, I'm not sure which one I'd rather have, whether to be with him or to be here doing his work.

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And he said, It's better that I be here doing his work for you guys. For me, it would be better if I went.

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So he passed through the midst of them and went his way, and came down into Capernaum, a city in Galilee, and he taught them on the

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Sabbath days. Who did he teach on the Sabbath days? Those that were in the synagogue. Part of his mission was teaching the good news of the gospel.

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And he hadn't had time to teach all the good news yet. And they were astonished at his doctrine, for his word was with power.

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There are some other versions. The English Standard Version translates that word not as power, but as authority.

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And in some ways, that's a better word, authority, rather than power. If you have authority, you have the power.

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If you're God and you have the authority, you have the power. The word is the same word as sometimes it's translated power, sometimes authority.

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Scribes quoted other scribes to establish the authority of their teaching.

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Sometimes, they even quoted the scripture.

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But they always quoted something to establish their authority. And Jesus is not quoting things to establish his authority.

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He's not quoting Isaiah. Sometimes he does, but he doesn't always. He is his own authority.

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I'm going to read one more verse out of sequence. Matthew 28, verse 18.

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I'm going to read this one twice, once now and once in a few minutes. And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying,

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All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Or you could have read that as saying,

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And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All authority is given unto me in heaven and in earth.

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He doesn't have to quote someone else as an authority. In fact, it was this matter of authority that was a major issue between Jesus and the

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Jews. They thought that his speaking with authority challenged their authority.

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So he's not quoting the Targums like they did. He's not quoting the scripture like they did.

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He is speaking directly as one that had authority, not one that's barring his authority from someone else.

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Any comments or questions? And there's going to be another passage or two that's going to show great interest as we go through.

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The first thing they say after they say, You're the

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Son of God? We know who you are. You're Jesus, the Son of God. Are you come to destroy us?

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So they recognize that he has the authority, the power to destroy them, and that he's going to.

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They just don't want it to be now. And we're going to get to those passages very quickly.

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In fact, at 33, we're going to begin that whole passage. Okay, verse 33.

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And in the synagogue there was a man which had a spirit of an unclean devil and cried out with a loud voice.

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Now, having a spirit of an unclean devil indicates that the man was under the internal control of an unclean devil or a demon.

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In all cases dealing with Jesus, we will have in Luke 8, and we'll get to that passage in a minute, rendering them mute.

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Which was a problem for the disciples in Mark 9.

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But going on here, Luke 33. And in the synagogue there was a man which had the spirit of an unclean devil and cried out with a loud voice saying,

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Leave us alone. What have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth?

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They know he's Jesus of Nazareth, but they know more than that. Art thou come to destroy us?

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Implying that they understand that he can? I know thee who thou art, the

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Holy One of God. And so you're absolutely right. They understand exactly who

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Jesus of Nazareth is. The other Nazarites didn't, but the demon -possessed one did.

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Demons always recognize Christ immediately when they see him. They are not blinded.

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I'm glad you brought that up. They are not blinded by Satan, by the prince of this world, like people are.

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They have a clear vision of who Jesus is. They always recognize him immediately.

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And Jesus rebuked him saying, Hold thy peace and come out of him. And when the devil had thrown him in the midst, he came out of him and heard him not.

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And I've got a question. Why do you think Jesus did not want the devil to speak of him, of Jesus?

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What the demons have just said is, We know who you are, Jesus of Nazareth.

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We know you are the Holy One of God. We know that you have the ability to destroy us.

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And what Jesus says to them is, Hold thy peace. Come out of him, but don't say anything about it.

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And when the devil had thrown him in the midst, he came out of him and heard him not. And my question is,

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Why did Jesus not want the devil to speak of Jesus? Okay, that's a possibility that he did not want to imply that they had any authority.

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He didn't want his message to be in any way delivered by them. Now, will he allow his message to be delivered by people that are not quite all we know and hope them to be?

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Let's say, okay, go ahead. Will Jesus allow his message to be delivered by people who are proclaiming part of his gospel, to have an influence in a positive way toward their audience in spite of the fact that they are wrong in many things?

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I'll say it that way. And in fact, the disciples wanted at one point to silence a person that was not exactly what they were, and he said,

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Leave them alone. So he will allow, for example, can anybody that attends a

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Catholic church be saved while he's at the

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Catholic church? What about a Mormon? What about a

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Muslim? I think that he allows his people to get his message from whomever he brings them in contact with.

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And sometimes it is just exactly like we would approve of, like the disciples in Jesus' case would have approved of.

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And sometimes it's of ways we would not approve of, but it's always in a way that he approves of.

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If they actually are saved, it's only because he approved of it.

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Something funny could be, we used to go to church and say we would go and eat.

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And I had a problem with doing that, you know. Otis finally came around to saying, he makes me study.

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He makes me, I am a better Christian because he makes me study to find what he's saying is correct.

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And, you know, I can kind of see that. It does make us... And let's suppose you are an elect person that's attending a

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Catholic church. And you're seeing that service every Sunday. It will make you study to see whether it's true or not.

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You get a conviction. You yourself, you'll hear something and it's like, you know, and that makes you look into it as it were.

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Well, let's go on and pick up Mark 1, chapter 23. Mark 1, verse 23.

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Yeah, that was pretty good. And there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit.

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And he cried out saying, let us along. What have we to do with thee, thou

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Jesus of Nazareth? Art thou come to destroy us? I know thee, who thou art, the

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Holy One of God. And Jesus rebuked him saying, hold thy peace and come out of him.

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And when the unclean spirit had torn him and cried out with a loud voice, he came out of him.

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And they were all amazed in so much that they questioned among themselves saying, what thing is this?

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What new doctrine is this? For with authority he commands even the unclean spirits and they do obey him.

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John, he recognizes, they recognize that Jesus has authority over the demons.

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And immediately his fame spread abroad throughout all the region round about Galilee.

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That's the same exact same incident. It's just told from the perspective of Peter through Mark rather than from Paul through Luke.

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Later we have an even more familiar account involving Jesus casting out demons.

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I want to look at it in Luke 8 verse 26 and then in Matthew. And I'm just going to quickly read them and then we're going to point out a couple of similarities, a couple of differences.

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And they arrived, this is Luke 8 verse 26, and they arrived in the country of Gardenius, which is over against Galilee.

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And when they came forth to land, there made him out of the city a certain man, which had devils a long time, and wore no clothes, neither a boat in any house, but in tombs.

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And when he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him, and with a loud voice said,

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What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God? Most I. I beseech thee, torment me not.

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For he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. For oftentimes it had caught him, and he was kept bound with chains and in fetters, and he broke the bands and was driven of the devil into the wilderness.

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And Jesus asked him, saying, What is thy name? And he said, Legion, because many devils were entered into him.

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And they besought him that he would not commend them to go out into the deep.

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And there was a herd of many swine feeding on the mountain, and they besought him that he would suffer them to enter them.

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And he suffered them, and then went demons out of the man, and entered the swine, and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the lake and were choked.

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So the whole herd, there was enough demons to go around for the whole herd to get one, just pigs.

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The demons were not choked, the pigs were choked, and the pigs all died. Well, I'm going to tell you one time when he will do it, when he casts them into the lake of fire eternally.

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And another one, you have another one? Torment them.

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So there will be a time when he does torment them by throwing them into the lake of fire. I guess he can put a herd on them right now if he wishes.

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After all, he's God, and he has authority and power over them, and they know that he can. But he allowed them,

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I mean he could have just said, get out of, they like to dwell in bodies.

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And he could just have consigned them to not have a body. Well, he kind of did here.

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They got, they jumped into the pigs, the pigs ran into the ocean and drowned, and now where are they? They've got to find somebody else.

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Cast them out. I always just, and I see it has to do,

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I guess, with your background. I always just took that to mean don't cast us out into the sea, because that's where they went.

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So I don't know that that's the answer, but that could be one.

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And so okay, you can go where you want to go. You can go into the pigs. They'll take you out, and they'll drown, and you'll be in the deep just where you didn't want to be.

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They are not clever enough to outsmart the Lord. Oh, but they are clever enough to outsmart us.

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So you've got to be careful. And one thing I wanted to comment on when Brother David talked about it, he kind of quoted an authority, right?

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He quoted a person who quoted a person. Brother Rocky was the authority that you quoted, and what he told you he quoted from someone else.

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Both you and Rocky and me are not speaking as a person of authority, because we don't have it.

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Only God has it. So Brother Rocky wouldn't say, I am going to cast your demon away.

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There are people that do that. But he wouldn't speak that way, because he was not speaking with authority.

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He was relying on someone else's authority, the person that actually has the authority, that's who he's counting on.

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Okay, anything else? And the answer,

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I believe, is yes. And here's what they're going to accuse

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Jesus of in a little while? Casting out the demons by the power of demons.

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I think so.

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I think so. I do, and I wish we had had this conversation before, and we could have already researched a lot of it, but that's something that needs to be done.

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That's what I tend to believe, but I'm... Well, here's one thing we do know.

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Jesus came and spoke with him and said, all authority is given unto me in heaven and in earth.

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So he has the authority. He has the power. No one else has it. Only people that can display power are those that have him as their source of power.

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Any other thing that happens is, in some sense, a falsehood.

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Counterfeit. Counterfeit. And sometimes it will change his mind.

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Oh, okay. So I remember the specific thing was, you know, there's this big movement about getting saved over there, and they're saying that, you know, they never had a missionary, the

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Bible was nothing, but Jesus appeared to them in a vision and saved them. And now they're writing books about it, it's getting into the church here in this country.

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And I told Terri, I said, I don't think it happens that way. She said, well, you can't in Hebrews 1, 1, 3 say that and then do it.

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She said, hmm, you know, so he didn't agree or disagree, but he'll think about it. That's what I like about my friends.

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But isn't that correct? I mean, God wanted to use the terminology.

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There's things God is, and you can't change that. So in a sense, that's what people... See, people, when they say, you can't put

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God in a box, what they're trying to say is, you can do anything you want to do. You can't find

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God, so that means I can do anything I want to do. That's what they mean sometimes. So, false arguments, you can't fight them all, it seems like.

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But anyway, back to this, I think, I think if God said that these things will pass away, talk about tongues speaking and this

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I cannot speak to with knowledge for it go over and happen. But there is a, there is a time,

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I believe, when it will come back. At least... The prophecy part, maybe all of it.

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And so, and so we may be, we may be coming into the edge of that now, who knows?

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Well, but it's the second three and a half years, so we know we're not in the building.

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You're right, you're right. We're not there yet, so it's all huge it is.

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Yeah, we're really blessed. The Baptists didn't bless us. Here's the magic stuff.

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People can visit that one church in Dallas one time where they had hearing rooms where they'd get in a room together and they'd have one person basically, basically tell them their future, but there was the

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Holy Spirit telling them what their future was. So, I mean, that could easily be demonic stuff, just like a fortune teller.

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Sure. It's just with a different length. And so I do think there's plenty of stuff going on, aside from the whole him -the -devil cast out.

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Oh, sure, sure, yeah. And so I definitely think that is permeating big time.

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Well, there was one more passage I kind of wanted to read. I'm not going to.

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It's Matthew 8, 28, a version of the same account that we just looked at.

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But here it says, there met him two possessed with devils.

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That's two demon -possessed men. In Luke and in Mark, it only mentions one.

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So is that a contradiction? It's not, because the Bible will not contradict itself.

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But evidently, one of the men was more dominant than the other and served as the spokesperson for the two.

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I'd never really seen that until I went back to here.

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And I had problems when it said, and there met him two possessed with devils, coming out of the tomb, exceedingly fierce, so that no man might pass that way.

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And they cried out, saying, what have we to do with thee, thou son of God?

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Who is the ones that are crying out? Not either of the two men. It's the legion.

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It is the legion of demons that are calling out. Further down it does.

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Yeah, it does. It says, and I believe it does.

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Okay, this is the passage with the pigs.

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It does talk about the herd of swine. Yeah, and the important part was not whether it was two men or one man.

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It was that however many there were, one of them served as the spokesperson. Yeah, Jesus dealt with what he was saying.

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Well, you know, yeah, I never noticed that.

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I hadn't either until actually John MacArthur brought that to my attention in his commentary that there were two men.

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Mark's description of this event and Luke's description only mentioned one of them, but that one was the spokesperson for the two of them.

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It would be like if two people were possessed by demons and they were together, one of them would be more dominant than the other one, and when

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Jesus was to cast them out, one of them would have spoke. It was like when

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Nadler and the other guy and Adam Schiff both ran to the mic to sum up and Nadler got to be the one that summed it up and Schiff was angry.

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So one of them must serve as the spokesperson. I doubt that I can find anything, but we'd have the answer to our question that we asked earlier today off tape.

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We're on tape right now. I know. We can edit that out.

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That is such a strange theory, and it is so satisfying in many ways.

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It explains a lot of things. It has a vulnerability. Yeah. Wow. It even has the two becoming one.

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Yeah. That's creepy enough to write a book.

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You're right. Yeah. Together.

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In the wilderness. Uh -huh. In a cave. That's enough evidence for me, I find.

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It's the same Greek word as the bottomless pit. So they were talking about the 80s. Oh, she looked that up?

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Or you looked that up? I'm glad to know. Yeah.

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The bottomless pit is the storage place for them before they're cast into the lake of fire.

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Yeah. Good. They didn't want to go there before their time. Yeah. So they were in the

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Bible. Yeah. They know what they're done. They didn't know whether it was their time or not.

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They said it earlier. Yeah, they did. They did. They knew it wasn't their time.

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So that Greek word didn't move.

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Well, I was totally convinced we would get through with Chapter 4.

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But we didn't make it. And we're already into your time. Most gracious Heavenly Father, thank you for this day.

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And thank you for all the many blessings that you've given us. Thank you for giving us the Holy Spirit to guide us in our search for truth.

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And thank you for giving us your Son that came to redeem us for our sins.