Those Who Murderously Desire to Silence Jesus

Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church.

Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern Minnesota.

We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

And now here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg.

The Holy Gospel according to St. Luke chapter 4 verses 16 through 30.

Jesus went to Nazareth where he had been brought up.

And on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue as was his custom.

And he stood up to read.

The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him.

Unrolling it he found the place where it is written the spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has

anointed me to preach good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind.

To release the oppressed.

To proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.

Then he rolled up the scroll gave it back to the attendant and sat down.

The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened to him.

And he began by saying to them today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.

All spoke well of him and were amazed at his gracious words that came from his lips.

Isn't this Joseph's son they asked.

Jesus said to them surely you will quote this proverb to me.

Physician heal yourself.

Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.

I tell you the truth he continued.

No prophet is accepted in his hometown.

And I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah's time when the sky was shut for three and a

half years.

And there was a severe famine throughout the land.

Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of

Sidon.

And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet and yet not one of them was cleansed

only Naaman the Syrian.

And all the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this.

They got up drove him out of the town and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town

was built in order to throw him down the cliff.

But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.

In the name of Jesus.

Here again verses 28 and 29 from our gospel text.

When they the people of Nazareth heard these things all in the synagogue were filled with wrath

and they rose up and drove Jesus out of the town and brought him to the brow of the hill

on which their town was built so that they can throw him down the cliff.

Now Lutheran theologians have said for centuries that there are only two religions in the world and this is true.

The religion of works which takes on many different forms by the way including pietism

and Islam and other religions like that and the other religion the one that's true is the religion

of grace.

And our gospel text today shows us that what divides these two religions are really belief

and unbelief.

And as we walk through this text this fact will become painfully clear.

Unbelief or the religion of works yes you heard that right unbelief will always lead you into

the religion of works and unbelievers are very religious in this way.

They cannot bear that religion cannot bear the words of Jesus and in hatred and in

rage to both him and his word that religion murderously seeks to silence Jesus

and often times seeks to silence Jesus ironically in the name of God.

Now here's our context for our gospel text.

This account keep this in mind occurred in a synagogue.

Think of this as well a first century church if you would.

The people in the synagogue there are people who profess that Yahweh the one true God is their God and

they had gathered to hear God's word.

But did they?

Did they really gather to hear God's word?

And so we return now to our text and I will be preaching from my translation and you can follow along.

It says this Jesus came to Nazareth where he had been brought up a little bit of a side note here.

This is one of these things I love about being able to read the Bible in the original languages.

Here it says where he was brought up and when we talk about somebody growing up in that town or growing up in that house we

always use the term growing up.

But the Greek word here is actually quite fascinating.

It's teframenos and it means the place where he was nourished.

The place where he was fed.

So the emphasis isn't on him growing up.

It's the emphasis on those who cared for him.

And that's the place where he was nourished and fed.

So he entered according to his custom into the synagogue on the day of the Sabbath.

This is a Saturday.

He stood to read.

That's what he was supposed to do and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him and on rolling the scroll he found the

place where it had been written.

We'll pause right there.

A little bit of a note.

First century Judaism they had a lectionary.

This is the assigned text for the day.

Now they didn't have a New Testament reading at this time just in case you were confused about this.

So they only had the Old Testament reading.

So the Old Testament reading is from the prophet Isaiah.

Jesus opens up to the assigned reading for the day and he reads the spirit of Yahweh

is upon me who because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor he has sent

me to proclaim release to the captives to the blind recovery of sight to send

out with a release give liberty to the ones who haven't been broken or shattered and to proclaim the

acceptable and favorable year of the Lord.

So Jesus reads the text and he rolls it back up gave

it to the attendant and he sits down and all the eyes of everyone in the

synagogue were looking intently at him and you can almost see him kind of pausing for some dramatic effect.

Have you all seen the movie Planes, Trains, Automobiles at the beginning of it where the guy in the ad agency

is looking at these ad copies and he goes back to looking at it.

It's that kind of thing.

So Jesus, everyone's looking at him.

He's sitting waiting for him to speak and here comes the big sermon.

Are you ready?

Today, this scripture has been

fulfilled in your ears.

That's it?

Okay.

That's quite a sermon.

But they all understood the implications of it.

And you have to understand this at this point they're starting to chew on what it is that Jesus is saying.

Wait a second.

You're saying you're the Messiah.

This text that Jesus read is from Isaiah chapter 61.

It's the opening verses of Isaiah 61.

This is a messianic prophecy.

The Lord has anointed me.

Jesus is saying in their hearing that not only is he the Messiah oh but get this.

He's saying that they're captives.

That they're poor.

That they're blind.

And he is there to release them.

To give them sight.

To set them free.

And give them liberty.

He's proclaiming the good news in and of himself.

And well, see if their response sounds like the response of belief

or unbelief.

So they were all testifying concerning him marveling at the words of grace that came from his mouth

and then they were saying wait a second is this not one of Joseph's sons?

Hmm.

This doesn't sound like the response of belief does it?

It's the exact opposite.

This is unbelief.

This reminds us of the gospel of John chapter 8 where we remember we've

read this chapter maybe what 4, 5, 6 weeks ago.

It says this Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him if you abide in my word you are truly my

disciples and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.

Great gospel text right?

So some of the people in the crowd who didn't believe in Jesus they answered him and said well we are offspring of Abraham and

have never been enslaved to anyone.

How is it that you say you will become free?

Right?

So Jesus answered them Amen.

Amen.

Truly I say to you everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.

Slave does not remain in the house forever but the son remains forever.

So if the son sets you free you will be free indeed.

Then you think in the gospel of John when Jesus multiplies loaves and fishes and feeds the 5

,000 right?

And he says unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you have no life in you.

And they say isn't this Joseph's son?

Aren't his brothers and sisters?

They're nearby aren't they?

Right?

Listen to how unbelief responds to the words of Christ.

Rather than saying Amen thank you Lord for coming and setting me free.

Unbelief responds yeah who do you think you are?

What do you mean I need to be set free?

Alright?

So notice the difference.

So then Jesus knowing their unbelief in their heart he's going to stir them up a little bit more.

He's going to whip them up into a unbelieving frenzy if you would.

He says this well surely you're going to say this proverb to me physician cure yourself

do also here in your hometown all that you we have heard that had taken place in Capernaum but he

said truly I say to you that no prophet is welcome in his hometown and I say to you in

accordance with the truth there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah when the heavens

were shut for three years and six months when a great famine took place over all of the land and Elijah was sent

to none of them except to Zarephath of Sidon to a widow woman.

Oh now Jesus is really getting nasty here.

And I mean it.

He's really pushing the buttons so that their sin starts coming out in droves.

Because what do we know about the Jews of this time?

We know this from these texts in the gospel as well as the book of Acts.

Jews didn't look so kindly on Gentiles and so Jesus here just taps

right into their racism and their bigotry and points out God's mercy to Gentiles.

And how God didn't send Elijah to the Jews.

He sent him to some pagan lady in Sidon.

Oh and then he gets really nasty when he says this.

And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of Elijah the prophet and none of them was cleansed except for

Naaman the Syrian.

Naaman the guy who was over the army of Syria.

The enemy.

God showed his grace and mercy and healed him and gave him faith.

Well this was about all they were going to put up with.

So notice.

And they were all filled with rage.

Where?

In church.

There's the God they claim that they worship in human flesh standing before them.

Giving them great news.

That he's the Messiah.

Telling them that he's come to set them free.

To open up their eyes.

Well and to set them at liberty and they're having none of it.

So the church council gets together and they vote to kill Jesus.

This makes no sense.

Does it?

Right?

So they brought him to the brow of the hill on which the city of Nazareth has been built.

It's still there to this day.

You can see it.

In fact the valley of Armageddon where the great last battle is supposed to take place.

On the hill way over on one of the sides of the valley of Armageddon.

There you can see the city of Nazareth.

So they're going to take him to the cliff and throw him down in order to kill him.

In other words the people of Nazareth these wonderful church goers.

They murderously attempted to silence Jesus.

Enough of your words Jesus.

Thus proving that they were not believers.

Proving they were unbelievers.

They were not people who professed to be atheists.

They were not people who worshipped Baal and Asherah.

These were Torah observant Jews yet they did not believe.

They went to church religiously every Saturday yet they did not believe.

But these murderous attempts to silence Jesus by the way still take place today in many

places called churches attended by many people who profess to be Christians.

And this is where we have to pay attention to some of the parallels in our own time.

I'm going to give some examples.

The pastor who preaches his own man -made doctrines from the pulpit.

This is a man who is seeking to murderously silence Jesus and instead exalt himself and his

ideas rather than what the Bible says.

This is one way in which this takes place in churches today.

The pastor who scratches itching ears silences Jesus.

Murderously so.

By telling people what they want to hear rather than telling them what God wants them to hear.

Who's playing God in that sense, right?

The pastors who strip mind the scripture for relevant life principles that people can apply to their

lives.

They murderously try to silence Jesus by only preaching law rather than doing what scripture

commands them to do to preach both the law and the gospel.

The pastors who read themselves into every biblical text silence Jesus

because the scriptures are not about you and I.

The scriptures are about Jesus.

And when you make yourself the hero of the Bible, you silence Jesus.

The pastor who preaches his life experiences Jesus.

Spends practically the entire sermon talking about himself.

Baptizing it with a couple of out of context verses here and there.

That one is also murderously silencing Jesus by refusing to do what he's told to do and that's to preach the word

in season and out.

The pastor who preaches dreams and visions.

Oh, I went to heaven.

I had coffee with Jesus.

That guy, right?

He is also silencing Jesus by replacing the written word of God with pseudo words from God false

words that God never gave him to speak.

The pastors who say that miracles are not possible and that the Bible is not inerrant

and authoritative.

They also murderously attempt to silence Jesus and they also try to keep

Jesus in the tomb because of miracles are not possible.

Jesus hasn't risen from the dead.

Those people, those ones, they'll never allow you to hear what Jesus said without a big yeah, but

as they censor Jesus and decide which part of Jesus is words can be heard and which parts

must be stricken from the record.

These are all signs of unbelief.

Yet Jesus says, anyone, if anyone loves me, he will keep, he will guard my

word.

My father will love him and we will come to him and make our home with him.

Whoever does not love me does not keep my words.

So the pastor who says, oh, I love God, but refuses to preach God's

word and aggressively silences.

Jesus is lying to you.

He doesn't love God at all.

Doesn't love Christ at all.

If he loved Christ, he would keep and guard and preach Jesus is words.

That's what Jesus says.

Yep.

So keep this in mind, then no pastor who aggressively

strives to silence Christ actually deserves to be heard in Christ's church

and any congregant or group of church members who conspire with such pastors are every

bit as guilty as they are every bit as guilty as the people of Nazareth for trying to

murderlessly silence Jesus.

That's what's going on.

This is how unbelief works.

Jesus said the prophet is not welcome in his own town.

Not only is a prophet not welcome in his own town, but we live in days when Jesus is all too often not welcome in his own church

and his words are not welcome to be preached in his own church.

And this is exactly what scripture warns us about in 2nd Timothy chapter 4 for the time is coming when people will not endure

sound doctrine, but having itching ears.

They notice who's at fault here.

It's not the pastors.

It's the congregants, the church people.

They will gather to themselves people who will tell them what their itching ears want to hear to suit their own

passions and they will turn away from listening to the truth turn away from listening to Jesus

and they will wander off into myths.

Remember the third commandment and how Luther comments on it in the small catechism.

Remember the Sabbath day.

To keep it holy.

Luther asks what does this mean?

Answer, that we should fear and love God so that we do not despise God's word

and the preaching of the same.

But instead we deem it holy and we gladly hear and learn it.

You see, it's really easy to talk about those pastors out there who aren't preaching the word

but the reality is that those pastors are manifestations of what's going on in the hearts of many people who

call themselves Christian.

And if you're really honest with yourself and consider whether or not you'd love to hear what God

has written in His word what He reveals in His word, you along with me will have to confess you know,

all too often I'm just not all that excited to hear God's word.

When I open up the Bible my mind wanders and I find myself working through my grocery list

rather than paying attention to the words of God, right?

Or when I come to church and the pastor goes a little bit long I start to get antsy

and think about, well, the things I've got to get to after church in the afternoon.

Not exactly thrilled about sitting through long sermons and things like that, right?

Keep it short, pastor.

There are many different ways in which we despise God's word showing us

that we are just as guilty as the people of Nazareth.

Now as Christians, as Christians we know that we have a new nature that loves to hear God's word.

Yet at the same time we have our old sinful nature and that old sinful nature of ours is not a believer is a rank

unbeliever and just has no patience for or desire to listen to and hear the word of

God.

And see the thing is that there's not a difference between you and your sinful nature.

You are one in the same.

At the same time there's not a difference between you and your new nature in Christ.

You are one in the same.

It's a mystery how this all works.

And so as we read a text like this, before you're quick to condemn the people of Nazareth for murderously wanting to silence Jesus,

ask yourself this question.

Have I not done the same?

Do I not do the same?

The answer, if you're honest, is yeah, I do.

That first table of the law, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength starts to come into play.

Where we hear over and again in scripture, the man doesn't live by bread alone,

but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

And yet how many of us are physically overweight and spiritually starving?

And if you're saying, well pastor, pastor, you're stepping on my toes, this is hitting a little bit close to the mark.

Yeah, I know.

I'm preaching about myself too.

How can you say that?

You're a pastor.

There's a reason why I wear black.

Right?

Because that's the color of my heart too.

And so if this is you, and you're guilty of this, repent.

Repent.

And believe.

Believe the good news that Christ has bled and died even for your inattentiveness and despising of His word and

seeking to silence Christ.

You could do it aggressively, or you could do it passive aggressively.

It's still aggression against Him.

Is it not?

And so be reminded again of what Christ said in our Gospel text that is the good news.

Remember the text He was preaching from, Isaiah 61.

The spear of the Lord is upon me because the Lord has anointed me, Jesus, to bring good news to

the poor.

Is that you?

Are you poor?

Jesus isn't talking about money here.

This text is about a poverty of the soul.

He's come, He's sent me to bind up the broken hearted.

Is that you?

Broken hearted, knowing that you stand guilty before God.

And here's the best part.

To proclaim liberty to the captives.

Liberty to the captives.

And the captives here, again, that's us.

Sheboyim in the Hebrew as well as the word in Greek talks about those who are taken captive at spear

point.

That was us.

That is us.

By the devil, the world, the temptations of our own sinful flesh.

Drug into bondage, sin, death, the devil.

Jesus proclaims to you liberty.

Proclaims to you the concentration camp has been liberated.

The one the devil has been holding you in.

You are now set free.

To open the prison doors to those who are bound and to proclaim the year of the Lord's

favor.

The year of the Lord's favor really begins at the cross and never ends for us.

It's the great year of Jubilee when all the debts are cancelled.

And that's exactly what Christ has done for you on the cross.

So let us look now back at our Old Testament text and take a look at the people of

Israel during a time when they didn't despise the hearing of God's word and they believed.

It's in the time of Nehemiah and if you know your Bible, you know full well that the children of

Israel were sent into captivity because of their refusal to

repent and to give up worship of the false gods of Baal, Asherah, and Ashtoreth, and Molech.

And God sent the prophet Jeremiah.

And we will hear this next Sunday.

I wish the Old Testament text were today because it would have fit perfectly with life Sunday.

Before you were born, I knew you God says of Jeremiah, right?

And so we learn in this opening of the prophet Jeremiah that God is sending Jeremiah to proclaim

His word to a stubborn and obstinate people and that they will not believe.

God sends His word sometimes to judge people.

So the word of the Lord becomes a judgment against them.

And ultimately, God's threats that if they persisted in sin and unbelief and refused to repent of their

idolatry that He would raise up Nebuchadnezzar to come and conquer them, well that happened.

90 % of the people of Judah died.

Died at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar.

Only 10 % of them remained alive, taken into captivity for 70 years.

But God remembered His people and brought them back.

And so we come back then to Jerusalem in the time of Nehemiah after the wall has

been rebuilt.

The scant remnant comes now to hear the word of the Lord.

It says this, all the people gathered as one man into the square before the water gate.

And they told Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses that the Lord had

commanded Israel.

So Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly, both men and women and all who could

understand what they heard on the first day of the seventh month and he read from it facing the square

before the water gate from early morning until midday.

It's about six hours.

Six hours.

You think my sermons are long, right?

They let me preach for almost two hours in Norway.

I want to let you know that.

Don't worry, that won't happen today.

So in the presence of the men and the women and all those who can understand and the ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the law.

Notice that they are listening attentively for six hours.

Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people for he was above all of the people and as he opened it all of the people

stood.

Which is one of the reasons why, by the way, we stand to hear the gospel text.

We stand just like the people of Israel in the time of Nehemiah.

And this is the reason why pastors have a pulpit.

We get all of this from the book of Nehemiah, from this passage.

Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and all the people answered, Amen.

Amen.

Lifting up their hands, they bowed their heads and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground.

They read from the book of the law of God clearly and they gave the sense so that the people

understood the reading.

Which is what a pastor is supposed to do.

A pastor is not to concoct his own things.

He is supposed to study and show himself approved as one who can rightly understand and help the people of

God to rightly understand the sense of God's word.

Nehemiah, who was the governor, Ezra the priest and the scribe and the Levites who taught the people said to the people,

this day is holy to Yahweh your God.

Do not mourn or weep for all the people wept as they heard the word of the law.

They wept.

They were crushed when they heard what God's holy law commanded of them.

They were crushed because they knew full well that they had not kept that law.

These are the ones who had come out of captivity in Babylon.

These are the descendants of the survivors knowing full well that they had

earned God's wrath for their sin and they were cut to the heart.

And Nehemiah and Ezra, rather than pounding them with more law,

gives them the gospel and says this, this day is holy to the Lord.

Go your way.

Eat the fat.

Drink the sweet wine.

Send portions to anyone who has nothing ready for this day is holy to our Lord

and do not be grieved for the joy of the Lord is your strength.

And what exactly is the joy of the Lord?

It is the joy of the Lord to set captives free, to pardon sinners, to forgive

those who are guilty, to announce to them pardon, mercy

and grace.

Or as Jesus said at the beginning of our text, the Spirit of the Lord is upon

me to bring good news to those who are poor, to bind up the

brokenhearted and to proclaim liberty to the captives.

This is the joy of the Lord.

And you, brothers and sisters, were once held in bondage to the devil.

You, brothers and sisters, were once blind, poor, brokenhearted.

And now in Christ you have been set free.

You have been forgiven.

You have a right standing before God.

So do not mourn.

Rejoice for the joy of the Lord.

The good news of the forgiveness of sins is your strength.

In the name of Jesus.

Amen.

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