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Reading Luke 13:10-17 where Jesus is teaching in the synagogue on the Sabbath, and He calls to Himself a woman who was crooked and heals her of her infirmity. Visit wwutt.com for all our videos!
There was a woman who was bent over crooked because of an evil spirit. Jesus cast out the spirit and straightened her. And that's what happens for every one of us when we come to Christ. We were crooked and he straightens us out when we understand the text.
This is When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible teaching podcast that we may be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. Tell your friends about our ministry at www .utt .com.
Here once again is Pastor Gabe.
Thank you, Becky. In our study of the gospel of Luke, we come back to chapter 13. And here we're gonna read of Jesus healing a woman with a disabling spirit. We also wanna look at the couple of parables that follow the parable of the mustard seed and the parable of the leaven.
So I'm gonna start reading here in verse 10 and go through verse 21. Hear the word of the Lord. Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And behold, there was a woman who had a disabling spirit for 18 years.
She was bent over and could not fully straighten herself. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said to her, woman, you are freed from your disability. And he laid his hands on her and immediately she was made straight and she glorified God.
But the ruler of the synagogue indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath said to the people, there are six days in which work ought to be done. Come on those days and be healed and not on the Sabbath day.
Then the Lord answered him, you hypocrites, does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger and lead it away to water it? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan bound for 18 years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?
As he said these things, all his adversaries were put to shame and all the people rejoiced at all the glorious things that were done by him. He said, therefore, what is the kingdom of God like? And to what shall I compare it?
It is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his garden and it grew and became a tree and the birds of the air made nests in its branches. And again, he said, to what shall I compare the kingdom of God?
It is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour until it was all leavened. So let's come back to verse 10 here with this miracle that Jesus does for this woman with a disabling spirit.
I've heard this healing, this particular miracle used to justify what we call deliverance ministry, casting out evil spirits and believing that people are being healed by doing exorcisms. But I'll show you how that isn't the understanding here and what's going on in this particular healing.
So verse 10, now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And behold, there was a woman who had a disabling spirit for 18 years. Now remember, we've read previously about a woman who had a discharge of blood for 12 years.
Remember that? That was back in chapter eight. She just touched the hem of Jesus' garment. And just by reaching out and touching his cloak, because of her faith, she was healed. Jesus saying to her, your faith has healed you.
And the discharge stopped. She wasn't bleeding anymore. That was a 12-year disability. This one is an 18-year disability. And here it says the woman had a disabling spirit, but it doesn't say that she came to Jesus to be healed.
With those who had these possessions, these evil spirits, they don't go to Jesus to have the spirit cast out. There have been occasions where somebody brought someone else who had an evil spirit to have the spirit cast out, but the spirit itself, if this person is under the influence of some evil spirit, a demon or possession or whatever else, that demon doesn't go running to Jesus and saying, here, cast me out.
There was the man at the garrisons, at the tombs, that had run up to Jesus and he had legion. He was possessed with legion, many demons that were inside of him. But the reason they ran up to Jesus was really to say, don't judge me.
Not to say, hey, cast us out into these pigs. As an alternative, why don't we go into the pigs so that we don't get cast out of the region? That was kind of the suggestion that they made to Jesus. But demons don't just run up to Jesus and say, hey, exercise us, cast us out.
So there's nothing here that seems to indicate that she goes to Jesus to be healed. This is just by his mercy. This is a gracious, loving act that Jesus does for this woman who has not even asked to be healed, nor do we have any indication that she believed that Jesus would heal her.
And this isn't the only place. There are other times where Jesus has done miracles, like the man by the pool at Bethesda. This is John chapter five, I believe it is. He wanted to go down into the water and be healed, but he couldn't get up off his mat and go down, and there was nobody to carry him down to the water.
Jesus just tells him, get up, pick up your mat and walk. The man has no idea who Jesus is. He doesn't put faith or trust in Jesus in any way. He just gets up and walks, and he's miraculously healed. And this by the grace of God.
I mentioned this because there are a lot of those faith healers out there that will say, you need to believe, you have to have a certain measure of faith in order to be healed. Well, sometimes the faith isn't required at all.
God simply does it out of grace. And then the person believes, because God has done this thing. And it says that the woman glorified God. So let me keep going here. Verse 12, when Jesus saw her, he called her over.
So he brings her to himself instead of her coming to him and asking for healing. And he says to her, woman, you are freed from your disability. And he laid his hands on her, and immediately she was made straight and she glorified God.
So she has this disabling spirit, it's called, that is causing her to be doubled over or bent over in some way. And this is the evil spirit that Jesus casts out so that she can stand up straight. She can straighten herself.
Now, I did mention something about demonic possession. It doesn't look like she's possessed here because there isn't anything about the demon like mocking Jesus or calling out to Jesus or trying to resist him in any way.
But it is some evil spirit that is causing her to be this way. Now, I've heard this miracle used. I've said this earlier. I've heard this miracle used to say that this is the way that all diseases are.
All diseases are the result of evil spirits. God doesn't make anybody sick. It's Satan that does that. And they might also point to the book of Job. Job was afflicted with these boils, these sores, and it was when God gave Satan permission to go and afflict Job in this way.
So whenever we get sick or we have some sort of a disability, it's not God who does that. It is an evil spirit that has done that. But beware of that doctrine because that's not consistent with what we see even in Jesus' ministry and the healing that he did.
Going back again to the woman who had the discharge of blood for 12 years in Luke 8, it does not say there anywhere that she had an evil spirit that was causing this discharge of blood. So sometimes the disabilities that we have are not the result of some evil demonic thing.
It really is a physical disability. Many of the people that Jesus healed, it was not about casting out demons. It was healing their actual physical disability, such as with the woman who had the discharge of blood.
And it was certainly some of the ailments that we've seen that Jesus has cured were caused by demons, this one in particular. Which chapter was it? Back in chapter 11, I think it was. Yeah, chapter 11, verse 14, where you had the boy who was mute because of an evil spirit.
So the spirit caused the boy to be mute. So that was a physical disability that was caused by an evil spirit. But by and large, most of the healing that Jesus does, he's healing physical ailments. It's not caused by an evil spirit.
Can it be? Like even to this day, can somebody have some sort of disability that's caused by an evil spirit? Yeah, perhaps. But is that always gonna be the case? Very rarely. Most of the time when a person has a disability or they are sick or some kind of handicap or otherwise, those things are physical.
It's a real physical disability that they have. It's not something spiritual. It is something that has happened within their body. So you can't just cast out a demon and expect that it's gonna heal a person.
A lot of these faith healers, and even those who get into the discernment ministry, that's the way that they'll try to read this or the way that they'll try to convince you of your problem. See, what you have is an evil spirit and we need to cast this out.
I was part of one of these services years ago. I can't remember when this was, 2011 or 2012. I was a pastor at the time, but I was still kind of charismatic. I was baptocostal, was the expression that would be used of me.
This was a church in Indiana. They had invited me out to play piano and sing songs for this. It wasn't a retreat, because it was at the church. It wasn't really a conference. It was some sort of revival meeting.
I guess that's what they would have called it. It was a revival meeting. And this went on for several days. I'm playing piano and singing songs. There was somebody else that came in to speak. But of course, being a charismatic church, the intention of that service would be disrupted by suddenly the spirit is moving and we gotta start healing people.
And so people would come up to receive healing. There was somebody up there who was not the speaker. It was another guy, a faith healer, most likely is what he called himself, who would lay hands on people.
And then they would shake and quake and do the whole thing, fall on the floor and flop. And it would be like they're having spirits cast out of them. But this was somehow healing them of their disabilities.
I'm on the stage playing piano this entire time when all of this is going on. So I'm providing the background music. And as I said, I was still kind of charismatic at that time. So as I'm watching all of this happen, there's some level of it that to me seemed extremely silly because we're there to learn.
We're not gonna grow in godliness without the teaching of the word. And so the intention of us being there to sing praises to our king and to hear his word spoken to us was not being fulfilled. Instead, we're doing this self-serving thing of healing people if they were actually being healed, which I would argue that they were not.
There was even at one point where it seemed like everybody who wanted healing had already come forward and received their healing. And they sat down in their seats. And the guy that was doing the healing said, listen, the spirit's moving right now.
So if you got stuff, bring it up here right now so that we can lay hands on you and heal you. I remember one guy coming up and saying that his mother had cancer or something to that degree. I know it was his mother.
She had a physical disability. The man laid his hands on this guy. The healer laid his hands on this guy. And as he lays his hands on him, he starts flopping and like calling out to God and falling on the floor and all this.
And I'm playing piano and I'm watching this. I'm going, why is he flopping? His mother was sick. Why is he acting like he's having an evil spirit cast out of him? It was just the power of suggestion. Everybody else is doing it, so I have to as well.
All of that just seemed, even in my charismatic mindset, it all looked very silly to me. But it did have that appearance of these people believing that all of these physical ailments were the result of something spiritual.
And so if we can cast out that demon, then we can heal the disease. But sometimes people just have physical disabilities and the evil spirit has nothing to do with it. See, the other thing to look out for with this, especially in these charismatic circles, is they'll use that, the demonic possession or the evil spirit is the one that's causing the physical disability.
They'll use that and turn it into a spiritual thing so that if you aren't healed, they can say you didn't believe hard enough. That demon has more power over you than you believe Christ has over you. So you're still kind of, you know, your mind or your heart is locked in with that demon instead of focusing on Christ.
If you could turn your eyes to Jesus, you could walk on water. You could have your disability healed. But because you're not looking at Christ and you're still more convinced by this evil spirit, then that's why you're not being healed.
And so therefore it doesn't fall on the person's inability to heal you, it falls on you because you didn't believe hard enough. That's the con. That's the way that they twist this thing and throw it back on the other person.
But again, in what we've seen in Luke's gospel, sometimes an ailment is caused by an evil spirit. Other times a disability is because it's just a physical disability. Remember at the beginning of John 9, when Jesus and his disciples passed by a man who was blind from birth, his disciples asked him, Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind?
And Jesus answered, it was not that this man sinned or his parents, but that the words of God might be displayed in him. And then Jesus heals the man and he's able to see. Like this even happened to this man so that the power of God might be demonstrated right before their very eyes, that this man once blind was now able to see.
And then we make a spiritual connection from that. It's not, that man was not blind for a spiritual reason. Like he sinned and so therefore he's blind or there's some evil spirit and therefore he's blind.
It was none of that. He was born blind. He had a physical disability, but this was done so that the disciples would see the power of God through Jesus Christ, who is God, and that we would see it also because we read John nine and we read of this incredible miracle that Jesus did.
The spiritual connotation is that if Christ has the ability to open a man's physical eyes, then Jesus can also open a man's spiritual eyes. And we are all blind. We're all born blind in that we as born sinners rebel against God.
We go our own way. But when we hear the gospel and we believe those words are true, we've come into that belief because the Holy Spirit sent by Christ has opened our hearts, has opened our spiritual eyes where we were previously blind and dumb and unable to know these things, unable to see Christ, even through the preaching of the gospel.
Suddenly we see him and it's because of the healing that has been done. Not because we had enough faith, not because we went to Jesus and said, heal me, but because by his grace, he opened our eyes that we may see and we have been healed that we might know the power of God that is at work in each and every one of us who have come to faith in Jesus Christ.
With this man, with the blind man, it was not by his faith that he received his healing. It was simply because Jesus had mercy on him. And for every one of us who come into faith, it's because Christ has had mercy on us as well.
Again, that's a physical ailment. He had a physical problem, but it did point to a spiritual reality. And here with this woman as well, she is disabled, she is doubled over. She can do nothing to straighten herself just like we're all crooked and unable to straighten ourselves except by the working of God in our lives.
And so Jesus casts out this evil spirit. The woman is able to straighten herself and she glorified God. But the ruler of the synagogue was indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath. And he said to the people, there are six days in which work ought to be done.
Come on those days and be healed and not on the Sabbath day. But if you'll remember, Jesus and his disciples are traveling to Jerusalem. He may not have been here the next day. At least on this day, he's there.
He sees this woman, he heals her. And so Jesus rebukes this man and the rest of the Pharisees who are there. He says, you hypocrites, does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger and lead it away to water it?
Now, this is a kind of argument that Jesus is using that is lesser to greater. It's a lesser to greater argument. Meaning that the value of the animal is less than the value of a human being. An animal's thirst is much less of a need than a human being's ability to stand up straight and walk.
And so Jesus using this argument from lesser to greater, putting it back on them. Do you not on the Sabbath untie your animal and go and lead it to water so that it may drink? Is that not work? You do that on the Sabbath for your animal.
Jesus didn't even work here to heal this woman. He just did it. What effort was exerted in that except that he laid his hands on her and said, woman, you are freed from your disability. He did even less.
It was less effort for Christ to do this than it is to untie your animal and take him to the watering hole so that he can drink. That's more work. So you say, that's not work, leading your animal to water.
That's okay to do on the Sabbath, but I can't heal this woman? Ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan bound for 18 years, ought not she be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day? And as he said these things, all his adversaries were put to shame and all the people rejoiced at the glorious things that were done by him, which by the way is supposed to happen on the Sabbath day.
The people are supposed to rejoice and give glory to God. And that is exactly what is happening here. You also consider the context of what's happening. Jesus is in the synagogue on the Sabbath. That's verse 10.
He was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. The woman is there in the synagogue. Why is she there? She's there to hear teaching, to hear the word of God on the Sabbath. That's why she's there.
And she received something else amazing, that Jesus would even heal her body that day, that she may stand up straight. A woman who was previously crooked, now by the power of God was made straight again and all the people rejoiced for it.
And if there is any miraculous healing that's gonna be done in a person's life, why not on the Lord's day? Why not on that day that we gather together to hear the teaching of Christ, to hear the word of God proclaimed, which offers the greatest healing that we could get.
It is healing to our hearts and therefore not only healing to our spirits, it's healing to our bones. As David talked about in, I think it's Psalm chapter 32, Psalm 32. So as we hear God's word preached and it is healing for us, it is that healing balm and it gives us hope and a cheerful expectation of the future, then we all rejoice together in the good word of Christ that has provided healing to our spirits this day.
And we should rejoice to do those things for one another, especially on the Lord's day, caring for each other, praying for one another, encouraging, building one another up in love. And may we do this more and more.
It puts our adversaries to shame, especially the adversary, Satan, who was trying to beat us up all week long, but we come together on the Lord's day to gather and be together as the people of God. And it puts Satan in all that work that he was doing on us all week long.
It puts all of that to shame, that we may glorify God together for the great healing that he has given to us, the forgiveness of our sins, the promise of everlasting life for those who believe in Jesus, who died on the cross for us, who rose again from the dead so that by faith in him, we will have everlasting life, eternal healing, eternal life in Jesus Christ.
Amen.
Now, I didn't leave enough time to be able to do these couple of parables, but we'll come back to that again tomorrow, the mustard seed and the leaven and see if we can't finish out the chapter tomorrow as well.
Let's finish here with prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this word that you have given. And I pray that we understand the application here. We were all crooked and needing to be straightened out.
We could not straighten ourselves out. We come to Christ, you called us to yourself, and you straighten us out. And this, as we read about in this story, was done on the Sabbath among the people of God.
They rejoiced in God together because of the goodness that you have done, because of what Christ had done in their lives. We know you have done great good in our lives as well. And so may we rejoice daily because of the kindness that you have shown to us, because Jesus died on the cross for our sins.
He rose again from the dead, and all who believe in him will have their greatest infirmity healed. The sin that had separated us from God, the death that is the wages of sin, these things have been cured.
We've been healed of these things in Christ Jesus. We're still gonna suffer on this side of heaven. The body is still going to die, but we have the promise of everlasting life with Christ forever in glory because of your goodness to us.
Let not Satan have his way with us. Let us not be kept down by his evil schemes, but instead we pray as we were taught to pray, deliver us from the evil one. May we not fall in with the world or with the temptations of our flesh, but we're able to put all of these things off and look to Christ who gives us great healing and great hope through his word.
It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Thank you for listening to When We Understand The Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. If you'd like to support this ministry, visit our website, www .wutt .com, and click on the Give tab in the top right corner of the page.
Join us again tomorrow as we continue our Bible study when we understand the text.