The Overcoming Life (Luke 4, Jeff Kliewer)

The Overcoming Life and God’s Providence in Luke 4

Luke chapter four, the overcoming life. You'll notice I'm sitting in my office and not standing in the pulpit for this fourth installment here in the book of Luke. Actually the fifth because we did two chapters in Luke, I mean two sermons in Luke chapter two.

But now we're into Luke chapter four. I'm in my office because unfortunately we lost the audio-visual data for Sunday sermon. And so what I would like to do is preach it again into the camera. Because I believe that whenever anything happens, whether good or bad, God has providence over those things.

His providence is not just making the best out of situations even when things go wrong. His providence is meticulous, meaning it extends to everything that happens. God is working for the good for those who love God and are called to according to his purpose.

He is the God who creates. He has a creative decree and nothing can happen apart from his plan. He has a purpose in everything. I find comfort in this because it means that there is no such thing as purposeless evil.

The alternative would be that when bad things happen that there's no purpose in it and God simply has to pick up the pieces and make something good come out of it. Rather I find it more comforting and of course more biblical to say that God has a purpose in it.

That there is no such thing as purposeless evil because God is working all things together for good because he has ordained them. He foreknows things because he has ordained things that come to pass. So why is it that I'm preaching today rather than last Sunday?

Well I did preach last Sunday. We lost the video. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? I know that God has a purpose in this and so I think it's for this very moment, for such a time as this, for me to have the opportunity to go through Luke 4 a second time.

That I would know it better. That I would have more time in God's Word. That it would push me back into the text. But maybe there's going to be something that I say today on this video that I didn't say in the sermon.

That's going to minister to you where you sit watching this video and minister to me as I preach it. So I see God's hand of providence in this. So let's do it. Let's get into Luke chapter 4. It's about temptation.

Christ’s Victory Over Temptation in the Wilderness

The overcoming life. Overcoming temptation. Temptation is universal to all of us as fallen sons and daughters of Adam. Because we have a sin nature, we will continue to be tempted. We need to know how to overcome temptation.

So as we take an inventory of our lives, we know there are areas where we tend to struggle with temptation. And today is an opportunity to get into the text of the Word of God and find, first of all, a champion.

A victor. A conqueror. Jesus Christ the righteous who overcomes temptation. And through his vicarious suffering, imputes the righteousness that he has, because he's the obedient son, to us who are sinners.

So there's hope in his substitutionary atonement. His righteousness in obeying the will of the Father. Obeying the law. Keeping the law at every point. He becomes for us a. But secondly, he models for us how we can likewise resist temptation.

How we can overcome temptation. So that in our day-to-day lives, we have an overcoming life in Christ. So to the first point, whereas Israel fails in the wilderness by receiving the bread from God, yet being discontented, by not being thankful, the manna from heaven was not enough for them, and they fell into temptation with regard to bread.

Jesus will resist the temptation of the enemy and be content with the Word of God. Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Father. And he resists temptation, whereas Israel, representing the people of God, fail.

Secondly, they build an idol a golden calf. While Moses was gone for 40 days, they were tempted in the wilderness, and they worship and serve the false pagan gods of Arabia. Jesus will be tempted in that way, and yet say to Satan, worship the Lord God only, and him only shall you serve.

Jesus resists temptations where Israel fails. And then finally, the third temptation is that they would put the Lord their God to the test. And they were given the Word of God, but twisting it, perverting it, rejecting it, they all one by one fall in the wilderness, except for Joshua and Caleb, who were regenerate believing Israelites.

Jesus will be tempted in the wilderness to twist and pervert the Word of God, and yet he will say, do not put the Lord your God to the test, and point us back to Deuteronomy chapter 6. He overcomes. He is our champion.

And in all of these things, the way he fights Satan is then a model for us, for how we can overcome temptation. So are you struggling with temptation today? Here is the Word of God to give you victory over the tempter, victory over the adversary that you can trample on the serpent, and find victory in your Christian life.

You do not, you are no longer a slave to sin if you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. If you belong to him, you are free. And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness for 40 days, being tempted by the devil.

So the temptation is an ongoing thing for these 40 days, but we're going to hear about the final three, the big major three. After 40 days, he ate nothing during those days, and when they were ended, he was hungry.

The devil said to him, if you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread. So here is the first temptation. Jesus is tempted to turn a stone into bread. Why is that wrong for him to do? He has the power to do it.

Well, the issue is that it's outside of the plan of God. It's outside of the boundary, what God has marked off for Jesus to do. His first miracle, according to the plan of the Father, is to turn water into wine, not this bread, not this stone, into bread.

He's not to serve himself by making bread for himself, but rather to rely on the provision of the Father. And so, it would be sin for him to do this because it's not within the plan of God. We will all be tempted to do things which, in and of themselves, are not sinful.

The action or the thing that is provided by God is often a good thing created by God. Food for the stomach, the stomach for food. It's a good gift from God. Drink comes from God. God is the creator of all of these things.

Sex comes from God. Yet, God also is the one who has a plan for these things and a boundary that he draws around these good gifts. And so, the first temptation is a simple base temptation of the flesh, to take a good gift from God outside of the boundary that God has drawn around it.

So, with regard to food, in this case, to eat what is not provided, to turn this stone into bread, outside of the plan of God, the design of God. In the same way, we all might struggle with food or with drinking too much and becoming drunk with sexual activity that's not within the boundary of God that he has drawn around that gift that he has given.

A good gift taken out of bounds. This is the temptation. How does Jesus overcome this temptation? The temptation of the flesh? And Jesus answered him, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone.

Jesus defends his own integrity. He defends his purity, his righteousness by quoting Scripture. He uses the Scripture as a weapon against the enemy. He uses it as a sword to fight off the temptation. Next temptation, and the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time and said to him, to you I will give all this authority and all their glory, for it has been delivered to me and I give it to whom I will.

If you then will worship me, it will all be yours. So, the second temptation regards is in regard to pride, to elevating self to the place of God or to making idols to worship other than the one true God.

This is not something that is a like the temptation of the flesh, which uses something that's good and that belongs to man, like food and drink and sex inside of marriage. These things are good and it's a gift from God to man.

This is a temptation that takes from what belongs to God alone for the human. The glory, the splendor, the majesty of God, the right to be worshipped, these belong to God. Everything that we do should be for His glory, not for our own.

And Jesus is tempted here to take glory for himself by excluding the worship due his Father, to break that Trinitarian unity where Jesus glorifies the Father by obeying and serving and worshiping Him in that sense.

Satan is tempting Jesus to steal glory from the Father. We all face a similar temptation. We all desire, I think in a healthy way, to be accepted, to have significance in this life, but we are tempted to take those things away from the glory of the Father.

And rather than glorifying God, to receive glory for ourselves, to take credit for the things that we do, to want to be honored, recognized, worshipped. Fame is a temptation. Power is a temptation. The desire to gloat or to feel better than others and to exalt ourselves, this is a temptation that creeps in and a motive can come in and twist anything that we do.

Whether it's playing a sport, to become boastful and prideful, and to delight in ourselves and in our ability over against other people. Pride is at the heart of this temptation. How does Jesus overcome it?

The same way He did the first, and Jesus answered him, it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve. Another point about this temptation that Satan makes here. He gives him a temptation, offering him all the kingdoms of the earth.

He is offering Jesus a path to glory without suffering. A path to glory without suffering. Jesus knowing that He needs to go to the cross to glorify the Father, He is now tempted to glorify Himself without the cross.

Satan is offering this temptation. I think he has the authority to offer a kingship to Jesus. If you imagine Ezekiel 28, if you remember that scripture, Jesus is tempted, I'm sorry, the king of Tyre is exalting himself as God.

He's exalting himself in the place of God and Ezekiel will rebuke him for that. Say, you have exalted yourself. You say that you are a God and then all of a sudden, as if he's still speaking to the king of Tyre, he begins to speak to the spirit that's behind the king of Tyre.

He says, you were in Eden. You were a cherub, a guardian cherub. You had all the splendor, but you wanted to be God. And so, he is cast down. He's rebuked. So, from that scripture, we learn that behind this king, behind this ruler, is the animating spirit.

The power that's behind him, which is Satan in the background. In the same way, Satan is offering to Jesus that Jesus could be the front man. He could go sit in Jerusalem as the king. And yet, not with the father ruling on his throne in heaven, with Satan as the animating power behind Jesus, the the king of darkness, the prince of the power of this age, the God of this age, 2nd Corinthians 4 .4.

Behind him, giving him the power to do that. He offers him a kingdom without suffering. You know, I think there's many opportunities for us in this life to receive glory without suffering. To receive glory by taking from what belongs to God the Father.

Shortcuts to glory. Compromises that we can make. We could look at it financially. It's possible to make money by cheating on your taxes. To have more money because you've taken from what was rightly given to the government.

Cheating financially in many other ways. There is a path to fame and to glory which is against the will of God. And to desire fame and glory in the first place is against the will of God. Here, Jesus is offered this temptation but resists it by saying, it is written.

And once again, it's the sword of the Spirit that changes everything for him. That delivers him from the hand of the enemy. Third temptation. And he took him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, if you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here.

For it is written, he will command his angels concerning you to guard you. And on their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone. Amazing temptation. Satan now takes the Word of God and twists and perverts the Word of God to offer a temptation to Jesus.

He's heard Jesus answer him and rebuke him. It is written, man shall not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Father. He's heard Jesus answer, it is written, worship and serve the Lord God only.

Him only you shall serve. Now, he tempts Jesus with, it is written. It is written, he will command his angels concerning you to guard you. Now, I find it interesting that he's quoting from Psalm 91, but he doesn't keep going with the rest of the quote.

Because the rest of the quote is a rebuke against him. Psalm 91 verse 11. For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.

Satan quoted that part, but he didn't keep reading on to verse 13. Wonder why. You will tread on the lion and the adder, the young lion, and the serpent you will trample underfoot. Satan is the serpent and Jesus tramples Satan underfoot the way Adam should have trampled the serpent back in the Garden of Eden.

In the Garden of Eden, Satan came as a tempter, as a serpent, a beast of the field that rises up over Adam and Eve to offer them a command and to tell them what to do, to tempt them to take of that forbidden fruit.

Adam and Eve then submit themselves to Satan. And there is a reversal of rule in this, where now Satan becomes the god of this age, 2nd Corinthians 4, and begins to rule and have authority in the kingdoms of this world.

So that the whole world system now is turned upside down and is now an evil thing, headed up by Satan himself. Jesus though, the new Adam, will come and crush the serpent who was offering this temptation.

So whereas Adam submitted to Satan and Satan achieved this rule or authority over Adam, now the true Adam, the true man, the one who will come, the second Adam, will crush the serpent. So Psalm 91 is actually prophetic in that sense, that the serpent will be crushed underfoot.

And here's how Jesus does it. He answers him, it is said, you shall not put the Lord your God to the test. Jesus goes to Deuteronomy 6, 16. Deuteronomy is the book of the Old Testament that Jesus quotes more frequently than any other.

Deuteronomy 6, 16, you shall not put the Lord your God to the test. Deuteronomy 6 is a crucial chapter, because the answer that Jesus gives here, first of all, refutes what Satan has to say. You know, you should throw yourself off the temple.

Well, Jesus says, no, don't put the Lord your God to the test. He rebukes that thought, that temptation, through the Word of God. But he also points to this context of Deuteronomy 6. Hear, O Israel, this is verse 4, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. You see, Satan was quoting the Word of God, but not from the heart. He was quoting it to make it say what he wants it to say.

And this is a crucial point, because all across our land, all across America, people quote the Word of God. But very often, it's taken out of context, and it doesn't come from a pure heart submitted to the text of God's Word, submitted to what God says.

To truly love God is to obey His Word as it was given, to love His Word, not to import meaning to it. So, in Deuteronomy 6, verse 5, it says, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart. There needs to be not only an ability to quote Scripture, but a love for the Word of God.

Jesus delighted in the Word of God. That's why He, as a 12-year-old boy, He was sitting in the temple for three days talking about the Scriptures with the teachers of the law, asking them questions, answering their questions, discussing the Word of God.

It was on His heart. He loved the Word. Verse 6, and follow me, and these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and you shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.

You shall find them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house, and on your gates. This is the picture of a father, especially, but also a mother, parents who so love the Word of God that they're speaking of it all the time, teaching their children, writing down the Scriptures in various places, reciting them, and talking about them day in and day out with their children.

It's a love for the Word of God. This is what the devil cannot stand. This is what the devil cannot stand up against, a love for the Word of God. Consider the view of Scripture that Jesus had. He says that he comes not to abolish the law, doesn't come to abolish the Old Testament, and especially the Torah, but to fulfill the Word.

He says that not one jot nor one tittle of the Scripture will disappear from the law until its purpose is accomplished. Now, the jot and tittle were the smallest stroke of the pen in the Hebrew language.

It'd be like dotting an I or crossing a T. Jesus is saying this every dotted I, every crossed T, every stroke of the pen is from the Father. It's the breath of God. 2nd Timothy 316, it's God breathed.

Jesus's view of the Scripture was so high that every word, every letter, every stroke of the pen mattered and was to be believed and submitted to. It was the rule of faith and of life. Jesus said the Scripture cannot be broken.

He says you search the Scripture because in these you think you have eternal life, but these are they that testify of me. He knew the value of the Scripture and he knew that all of it pointed to himself because he himself was the Word of God.

John chapter 1 verse 1, the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God. So, Jesus the person is called the Logos, the Word and the words that are written in Scripture encoded for us in language are from him.

They're his very word. It's his mind expressed onto the pages of a text. This is a view of Scripture that will carry you in your battle against the devil. If you will give in to the temptation of our age, which is to demote the Scripture to something of a pool of suggestions that you can take from and choose what you want, you will always do like Satan and twist the Word of God.

But if you take the Word of God as authority in and of itself and the meaning that the authors intended in any context is the Word of God rather than what you want to pick and choose, there's many who will say, you know, I'll just I'll pick on Bill Clinton for a moment.

In talking about immigration, he quotes from Deuteronomy Leviticus 19, but when he speaks about homosexuality or abortion, any of these things, he literally said, abortion is not spoken of in the Bible.

Therefore, he supports Roe versus Wade. God must be leaving it up to us to say what the truth is about abortion because the Bible doesn't use the word abortion. That was Bill Clinton's line of reasoning.

You see, he read into the text what he wanted to support from his political position. And where his political position did not agree with the Word of God, he didn't find it there. Now, of course, we know Psalm 139 talks about how God knits together a human being in the womb of the mother.

So, it speaks to life being formed and made. God making this person in the womb of the mother. We know that the the Ten Commandments, I think it's a sixth commandment, says thou shalt not commit murder.

So, the Scripture does speak to abortion. Just like it speaks to so many other things. But the spirit of our age is to pick and choose from the Scriptures those things which support what we already believe.

You see that that's what Satan was doing in this temptation? He tells Jesus to just jump down off the temple. And then he quotes Psalm 91. Picking and choosing just a little portion of Scripture there to support what he has to say.

Not submitted to the full or teaching of the Word of God. The worldview presented by the Word of God and the specific commands that are throughout Scripture. The moral law, the general equity of the Scriptures on any given point.

Many will twist and pervert the Word of God to say whatever it is they want to say. And this is so prevalent in our culture. Even in evangelical culture. To pick and choose the Scriptures that are appealing and that support what we already believe.

The Scriptures can be twisted that way, but they cannot be broken, says Jesus. Meaning that even if someone twists the Scriptures, it's to their own destruction. It's to their own failing. Ultimately, they will find themselves breaking themselves up against the Word of God.

That's why the Word of God, that those tablets were written in stone. You'll find that if you try to butt heads with a tablet of stone, you lose. You'll bruise your head against that stone. Jesus answered him, it is said, you shall not put the Lord your God to the test.

So he uses the Word of God that comes from a heart of love. Deuteronomy 6. A passion for all of the Scriptures. A submission to the Word of God. And defeat Satan. When the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time.

We'll learn in Luke 22 53, Satan comes back. That's the opportune time, just before the cross, to tempt Jesus not to go through with it. To offer him and to discourage him from remaining faithful to God.

To give him an easy way out, rather than that Garden of Gethsemane, and then that Roman cross. Jesus resisted temptation. So here then, we have a picture of defending integrity, of overcoming temptation, and a model for us.

And what is the key to it all? The Scriptures. Submission to the Word of God. Not just being able to quote a couple verses, or to pick and choose certain things that support us, but to have a love for the Word of God.

To submit to it at every point. To hold it like a sword. And when temptation comes, to take from that pool of understanding and knowledge, and resist temptation with truth. To fight the lie with truth.

Temptation is really just a, it's just a baited hook for us. We're like fish, and there's this dangling hook in the water that will destroy us. It will hook us and kill us. But Satan puts that bait on top of it.

Makes it look so good. How is it that we will recognize that bait for the lie that it is, swim right past, reject it, flee from temptation, and not get hooked? The answer is by the truth. By seeing the truth, we recognize these lies when they come.

When offered this quick path to pleasure, this quick path to fulfilling the flesh, the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eyes, the pride of life, we will recognize those lies by the truth that we hold so deeply in our hearts.

That's how you resist temptation. It's by the Word of God. Now Jesus takes from the defensive position to an offensive position. And coming back from the wilderness, after these 40 days of temptation in the wilderness, he's filled with the Holy Spirit.

He comes back and goes on offense. And once again, the Word of God, which was a defensive weapon, now becomes a weapon to go on offense. Guys, if we are stuck in temptations and falling to temptations, we become impotent.

We become powerless to advance the kingdom of God. But when we are victorious, when we overcome and resist temptation, then we have power to advance the kingdom of God. And we do so by the Word of God.

Jesus’ Authority in Nazareth and the Rejection of the Messiah

Verse 16 and following,. And he, Jesus, came to Nazareth where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him.

He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written. Once again, the key is what is written. The Word of God is central to the storyline of Jesus. He's using it is written to resist the enemy.

Now, he reads from Isaiah 61. Now, it says he took the scroll and sat down to read it. It was given to him. And he finds this place in Isaiah 61. It's interesting because this is the only place where this happens in Nazareth.

It's not a coincidence. That is his hometown. This is Jesus's home synagogue. So, the way it would work in a first century synagogue would be that there would be seven readers of Scripture. One would be a priest, the second would be a Levite, and then five local members of that synagogue.

So that Jesus is here and is given the scroll to read. He's one of the five readers. He's a member of this local synagogue. And he finds the place. Here's the providence of God. It's a passage given to him.

Now, we're not told particularly whether he's told to read from this passage, which I think is the case. Or it could be that that he just himself turns to that as if he has freedom to go wherever. But I think there would be a reading for that day.

Isaiah 61 is the place. And it just so happens to speak of the Messiah. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me. The anointed one is the Messiah. Mashiach in Hebrew means anointed one.

From which we get Christ in the Greek. Christos means anointed one or the Greek equivalent of Messiah in the Hebrew. To proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind.

To set at liberty those who are oppressed. To proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him.

Just picture this crowded synagogue. People just bustling to get in. Looking over one another's shoulders. And there's Jesus. He reads this text. He's already becoming famous because of the miracles he's done.

And throughout Galilee his teaching. We learn in verses 14 and 15 that in the surrounding country he's teaching and he's being glorified by them. So people are taking note of him. So they've come to hear him speak at his hometown.

And what does he say? This kind of pregnant pause after he's read the scripture. He sits down to teach. Which would be the teaching posture in that day. And he says, today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.

In that very moment the Messiah is identified to you. The Anointed One. He identifies himself as the Messiah. He says, in your hearing today this scripture is fulfilled. And they marvel at what he has to say.

And they're taken in by it. And with many other gracious words he's instructing them. And they're they're digging it. But then they begin to think in their minds. Wait a minute. Isn't this Joseph's son?

And a prophet is never welcome in his hometown. And he said to them, doubtless you will quote to me this proverb. Physician, heal yourself. What we have heard you did at Capernaum do here in our hometown, in your hometown as well.

So they're gonna want miracles the way he's done in other places. And he said, truly I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his hometown. Now he'll actually, rather than try to calm things down, he will continue to reveal the state of their hearts.

By pointing out that back in the day of Elijah and Elisha, that God often healed someone who wasn't even from Israel. Naaman the Syrian who had leprosy. God chose to heal him even though there were many lepers throughout Israel.

And in this he's provoking them in a sense. Stirring up the hatred of their heart which was already there. Which belonged to them and for which they are responsible. Their own hatred toward him. And they take him up on a cliff to throw him off.

So some kind of homecoming, huh? Some kind of a way to to go home to Nazareth and expect to be cared for and welcomed. They take him to a cliff to throw him off. But this was not according to God's providence.

We learned from Acts 4 27 and 28 that the providential plan of God, his hand and plan, was for the Romans and the Jews, for Herod and Pontius Pilate, to conspire together to crucify Jesus. That was God's plan.

And God's plan will be done. So they are unable, their their evil is restrained. By the way, it's the restraining of evil that explains why it is that people assume that others around them and all people are generally good.

That people are just good by human nature. Everybody has a good human nature. That's the assumption of our culture. The truth is people are totally depraved. The nature of humanity is to be depraved and to be set against God.

To be rebels against the throne. To seek to serve oneself. As John Calvin says, our hearts are idol factories. It is the nature of man to make idols and to worship anything that's not God. And especially to worship oneself and to put that oneself in that place of an idol.

Well, here that's the nature of those who are attacking Jesus. But God restrains their evil and so they don't murder him. He's able to walk right through their midst and walk out of there. All around us today, the evil of people is restrained by the Holy Spirit.

He's the restrainer of evil. And Thessalonians tells us that things will continue like this until the restrainer is taken out of the way. And I think the seven years of tribulation in the book of Revelation is a good picture of what human depravity looks like without the restraining power of the Holy Spirit holding humanity back from what it truly is at the heart.

And we are still made in the image of God, but as fallen sons and daughters of Adam, people are totally depraved. The restraining power of the Spirit keeps them from throwing him off the cliff. And they rose up to drive to drove him out of town and brought him to the brow of a hill on which their town was built so they could throw him down the cliff.

That's within their hearts. But passing through their midst, he went away. Next, verses 31 to 37, we see Jesus's power by his word over Satan. And he went down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee, and he was teaching them on the Sabbath.

Again, once again, he's advancing the kingdom by teaching, by the Word. Christianity is very much a teaching religion. It is about God's Word. It advances by the Word, by the teaching of the Word. And they were astonished at his teaching, for his word possessed authority.

Yeah, it does. It's a sword. It's authoritative. And it cuts. And it is authoritative in everything it says. It's not something to be trifled with. It's not something to be twisted like Satan tried to do.

This is the Word of God. And in the synagogue, there was a man who had the spirit of an unclean demon. And he cried out with a loud voice, Ha! 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. You see, temptation is not only about our flesh. Sin conceives in the flesh. It comes from our heart, and it conceives. But there's also the influence of demonic forces.

Satan himself, we may never have encountered Satan, because he is a spirit being that's probably more wrapped up in people like the King of Tyre, and the prince who was over Persia in that time, and the great kings and rulers.

He wants to influence at the highest level, so he can cause the most damage and cause the most harm to people, and thus hurt God. He hates God. And so, he gets at God by coming through the creations of God who are made in his image.

So, we may never have encountered Satan, but Satan has a whole host of demons, a whole hierarchy that follows these powers and principalities of the air that are following Satan and are assigned to each of us.

You know, we run into these demons from time to time that are sent out to tempt us. So, when tempted, recognize that the evil one is at the the root of this. That there is a real personal devil who's out to destroy us, like a roaring lion.

1 Peter 5, seeking to devour you. Don't mess around with sin, because in so doing, you're playing with Satan. You're playing games with the demon. It's not a good place to be. But Jesus doesn't play games, but Jesus rebuked him, saying, be silent and come out of him.

And when the demon had thrown him down in their midst, he came out of him, having done him no harm. And they were all amazed and said to one another, what is this word? Notice, it's the power of the word that Jesus speaks that amazes them.

Yes, the demon is cast out, for with authority and power, he commands the unclean spirits, and they come out. But they're amazed by his word. It's by his speech that the demon is driven away. Do you see?

It's the offensive weapon of the kingdom, the word of God. You want to go win a friend to Christ? Learn the scripture and be able to quote from your heart, from a testimony that you also have, the word of your own testimony, that these words are true.

Jesus’ Healing Ministry and the Advance of the Kingdom

Verse 38 and following, and he arose and left the synagogue and entered Simon's house. Now, we have a string of miracles that he does. First, he heals Simon's mother-in-law of a fever, and then he turns around and heals anybody who comes to him.