Book of Luke - Ch. 7, Vs 1-18 (03/29/2020)

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killed him. So the normal process was when a slave's health interfered with the performance of his duty, he was simply dismissed, disposed of, maybe even killed.

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This centurion had the right to do that. The fact that the life of this slave was of concern to this centurion that this was no ordinary centurion, but was probably one whose life had already been touched with the one true

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God. So now we go to the next verse. And when he had heard of Jesus, well, my question is, what did he hear?

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We find the answer to that back in Luke 6, which I've posted in. And by the way, as you look at this, the light blue color is today's text.

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The yellow is quotations from different places. So is green. And anything that's gray is a quotation from something other than the

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Bible. Okay, so what did he hear? And he came down with them and stood in the plain and the company of his disciples and a great multitude out of all of Judea and Jerusalem from the sea coast of Tyre and Sidon, which came to hear him to be healed of their diseases.

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And they that were vexed with unclean spirits, and they were healed. And the whole multitude sought to touch him for there went virtue out of him and heal them all.

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So what he heard was that if you simply touch Jesus, you would be healed.

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Jesus had the ability to heal sick. He had the ability to cast out devils. And the centurion had heard of all this.

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So he sent unto him, that is the centurion, the centurion sent unto

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Jesus the elders of the

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Jews, beseeching him that he would come and heal his servant. It's a great measure of the respect that this man had in the community that the

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Jewish elders would be willing to bring his case to Jesus. He loved the

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Jewish nation, and he was somehow personally responsible for the building of the local synagogue.

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And he obviously was being brought to Christ by God himself.

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If you look in John 6, 44, no man can come unto me except the

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Father which hath sent me, Rahim. And I will raise him up at that last day.

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Like all men under that conviction, he deeply sensed his own unworthiness, and that's why he used intermediaries rather than speaking to Jesus personally.

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So now we're back to the text. And when they, that's the

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Jewish elders sent by the centurion, came to Jesus, they besought him instantly saying that he was worthy for whom he should do this.

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For he loved our nation, and he hath built us a synagogue. Now I have three questions.

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Question number one, why did the elders think the centurion was worthy?

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Now, am I going to get answers on this, or do I just go on? Yes. As a matter of fact,

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Ben can put some of the answers up on the screen, or questions, I should say, and answers.

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So if there is an answer, they can put it into chat, and I can repeat back that answer. That's probably the easiest way.

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Okay, let's do it that way. Why did the elders think the centurion was worthy? He was a commander.

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Okay. Someone is saying that because he helped to build the synagogue. That's a good one also.

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Here's a good one. Because he had done something for them. That's right.

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He was a good man. He loved the Jewish people. All of those, all of those are good.

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And I think I agree. The elders thought the centurion was worthy because he did good things for them.

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He loved them. He built the temple. He loved the nation. They viewed him as worthy because of the deeds that he did.

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And that's the way we normally judge people in our society as well, by the things that they do for us.

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Okay, my next question is a little bit more subtle. Did Jesus see the centurion as worthy?

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Worthy to be saved. Okay. Yes, he knew the centurion's heart.

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Oh, one answer, no, because he would have known his heart. Jesus knew that he had faith.

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Gentiles were in line behind the chosen, so yes. Jim says, because Jesus draws all people to him, he is worthy and he wants to reach him for the kingdom.

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Bill, if you want to see those answers as well, all you have to do is pull up the chat. They're popping up in the little black box at the bottom of the screen, but I appreciate you reading them.

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I would like to add my comment. I do not think that Jesus saw the centurion as worthy.

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Jesus saw the centurion as exactly what the centurion was, a man. And a man that, no matter how hard he tries, no matter how many good things he does, is, as Isaiah said, his righteousness is as filthy rags.

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Jesus sees the centurion as a man that he loves and a man that he is going to be willing to die for to transfer his righteousness to us so that the

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Father can see him as righteous. So that's my, that's my answer, and I thought all the answers that we had were very good.

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Jesus looked out and saw a man that he loved, and because he saw a man that he loved, he wanted to redeem him, and he did.

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And my last question is, what about God the Father? How does he see the centurion as worthy?

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And the answer to that question is, yes, God the

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Father, acting out of time, dwelling out of time, sees the centurion as he sees all that are saved.

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He sees the centurion covered with the righteousness of Jesus, and that's what this is all about.

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This message is about the unworthy getting the righteousness of God, of Jesus, and becoming worthy.

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Okay, let's go on. Then Jesus went with him. Jesus did not hesitate to go to the centurion's house, and we halfway wish that the centurion had not intervened.

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The question would have been, would Jesus have entered a Gentile's house? There was nothing in the law that said a

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Gentile's house was unclean. However, it was completely against the

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Jewish custom. A rabbinic writing known as Obelok 18 .7

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says, the dwelling place of Gentiles are unclean. Now, I'm a skeptic, so I did a word search, and I found the word unclean 194 times, and not once was it attached to a dwelling place or a house of a

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Gentile. So although the Jews viewed the house of a

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Gentile as being unclean, there was nothing in the law about it, and that's one of the things that is a temptation for us all to do, is add our own understanding to God's.

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Then Jesus went with them, and when he was not far from the house, the centurion sent friends to him, saying unto him,

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Lord, trouble not thyself, for I am not worthy that thou shouldest enter under my roof.

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The centurion didn't want to cause trouble for Jesus. He knew it might be problematic for a rabbi to come into his house, since his was the house of a

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Gentile. So he had his friends meet Jesus on the way to say that it was not necessary for him to come all the way to his dwelling place.

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So he says this, Lord, trouble not thyself, for I am not worthy that thou shouldest enter under my roof.

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Wherefore, neither thought I myself worthy to come unto thee, but say in a word, and my servant shall be healed.

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Now, it's interesting to look at the characteristics of this centurion.

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He was a remarkable man. The elders said he was worthy. He said he was not worthy.

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They praised him for building a house of worship. He felt unworthy that Jesus would even come into his house.

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They said he deserved help from Jesus. He knew he was undeserving.

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So it's not unlikely or allowable that strong faith and great humility go together.

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They are entirely compatible. The centurion then continues, for I am a man under authority, having under me soldiers.

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And I say unto one, go, and he goeth. Unto another, come, and he cometh.

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And to thy servant, do this, and he doeth it. Well, I had a picture of this little crop down too small, but that's a picture of a centurion pointing and hoping that someone will, not hoping, knowing that the person that he calls will do what he says to do.

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The centurion totally understood that Jesus's healing power was not a magical trick that required the presence of the magician.

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Instead, he knew that Jesus had true authority and could command things be done and see them committed outside his immediate presence.

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In fact, he knew that even though he had great authority granted to him by Rome, Jesus had a far greater authority granted by a power far greater than Rome.

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Anyone know what that authority is? That power that granted Jesus his authority?

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That would be God himself. God is a greater authority than Rome.

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And when Jesus heard these things, he marveled at him and turned him about and said unto the people that followed him,

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I say unto you, I have not found so great a faith, no, not in Israel.

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Actually, Jesus marveled at two things. First, at the great faith of the centurion.

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And second, the lack of faith of Israel. Now that's not to say that there was no one in Israel that had faith.

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There were certainly people in Israel that had great faith, but the bulk of the nation of Israel does not have at this time, great faith.

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And they that were sent returning to the house found the servant whole that had been sick.

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So Jesus honors the faith of the centurion and proves that the faith of the centurion is justified, that Jesus indeed had the power to heal, even if those healings took place far away from the presence of Jesus.

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Remember what he had heard? The centurion had heard that the whole multitude sought to touch him and there went virtue out of him and healed them all.

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To touch Jesus was sufficient, but not necessary. In mathematics and in logic, we have conditions that say these are sufficient, but not necessary.

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Sometimes things are necessary, but not sufficient. Sometimes they're necessary and sufficient.

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It's like if you're playing basketball for a NBA team, it's necessary that you be in the arena on game day.

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That's necessary, but it's not sufficient for you to play. There'll be a lot of people in the arena that are in the arena that can't play.

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You also have to be a member of the team, and you have to be appointed by the coach to go in and play.

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So, the condition for healing for Jesus was a little bit backward to that.

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To touch Jesus was sufficient, but it wasn't necessary to touch him. Jesus could heal you even without touching, and that is a great, great thing.

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And, okay, good. Now, and of course, I'm going to repeat what

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I guess David Mitchell's already said to everybody, that God is showing, Jesus is showing that it's

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God that is in control. And it came to pass that the day after that, the day after the centurion servant was healed, that Jesus went into a city called

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Nain, and many of his disciples went with him and much people. Now, you see a little picture, a little map there.

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You'll see Nain highlighted with a little red balloon. Six miles northwest, northeast of Nain is

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Nazareth. If you look on up to the north, you see Cana. That's about 10 miles north.

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That's where Jesus did his first miracle. And if you look about two miles from Nazareth, you see

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Gath Helper. That's the hometown of Jonah. And so when the

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Pharisees said that no prophet had ever come out of Jonah, I'm sorry, out of Gath Helper, he'd forgotten

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Jonah. Now, if you look a little bit further, and I cut the picture too small, about 30 miles to the north of Nain is

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Capernaum. And so, but now

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Jesus is in Nain. And when he came nigh unto the gate of the city, behold, there was a dead man carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and much people of the city were with her.

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Now, any funeral is a tragedy, but this was a special loss.

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The deceased was the only son of his mother, and that mother herself was a widow.

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The loss of her only son, having already lost her husband, means that she was without a, she was without a, she was without a means of support, and her life would be difficult.

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Brother David, could you scroll up a little bit? Now, when the

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Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said unto her, weep not.

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And he came and touched the buyer. Now, that was under normal circumstances a defiling act, but there's nothing normal about any circumstance involving

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Jesus. What's happening here is Jesus is graphically illustrating how impervious he was to such defilements.

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When he touched the coffin, the defilement didn't taint him. Rather, his power immediately dispels the presence of all death and defilement.

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Originally, I had in this presentation a story about D .L.

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Moody, who was asked to perform a sermon at a funeral, and so he went into the

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Bible to check and see how Jesus handled those circumstances, how Jesus preached funeral services, and he found that Jesus didn't preach any funeral services.

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Every time Jesus came in contact with a dead person, the dead person was brought to life, and I thought that was interesting, but I didn't, wasn't sure we would have time to get it in, but we did anyway, didn't we?

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And it came to pass that when Jesus was returned, this is another kind of rabbit trail,

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Luke 8, 40, and we're going to see a couple of issues about defilement and about the fact that Jesus was never defiled by anything, but when things came in contact with him, the unclean thing, that was horrible.

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The unclean things were made clean. And it came to pass when Jesus was returned, the people gladly received him, for they were all waiting for him.

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And behold, there came a man named Jairus, and he was ruler over the synagogue, so he's clearly a

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Jew, and he fell down at Jesus's feet and besought him that he would come into his house.

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You see, he felt that his house was worthy of having

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Jesus come into it, unlike the centurion's house. He fell down at Jesus's feet and besought him that he would come into his house, for he had only one daughter, about 12 years of age, and she lay dying.

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But as he went, lost my place, but as he went, the people thronged him.

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They swarmed all around him. And a woman having an issue of blood, 12 years, which had spent her all her life living upon physicians, neither could be healed with any, came from behind him and touched the border of his garment, and immediately her issue of blood stanched.

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This woman's affliction was not only serious physically, but it was also left her unclean for ceremonial reasons.

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If you look at Leviticus 15, 25, it says, if a woman have an issue of blood for many days, and then it talks about all the uncleanliness there, every bed whereon she lath, all those days of her issue shall be unclean, and whosoever shall touch anything, any of those things, shall be unclean, and shall wash his clothes and bathe himself in the water and be unclean unto the eve.

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This meant two things. Number one, Jesus should have been when he touched her, ceremonially unclean, but he wasn't.

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And this also meant that she would have been shunned by all, including her family, and would have been excluded from both the synagogue and the temple.

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Now, Jesus goes on to say, who touched me? When all denied

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Jesus and they that were with him said, Master, the multitude throng thee and press thee, and saith thou who touched me?

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And Jesus said, Somebody touched me, for I perceived this virtue gone out of me.

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Now, I'd like to add something. This in no way implies that Jesus lost any virtue, that only the woman gained it.

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All you mathematicians out there know that if you have an infinite amount of virtue, as Jesus had, and you give half of it to the woman, you still have the same amount left.

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She gets virtue. You don't lose it. That was Jesus.

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For the rest of us, it's not that way. Well, maybe it is.

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But this in no way implies that Jesus lost any virtue, only that the woman gained it.

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And when the woman saw she was not hid, she came trembling, falling down before him and declared unto him before all the people, for what cause she had touched him, and how she was healed immediately.

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And he said unto her, Daughter, be of good comfort. While he yet spake, there cometh one from the ruler of the synagogue's house, saying unto him,

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Thy daughter is dead. Trouble not the master.

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But when Jesus heard it, he answered him, saying, Fear not, believe only, and she shall be made whole.

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And when he came unto the house, he suffered no man to go in, save Peter, James, John, and the father and the mother of the maiden.

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Now, I'd like to add here, the people he sends are his three closest disciples, the three he allows to go in with him, the three closest disciples and the mother and the father of the maiden.

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And they all wept and bewailed her. And he, as Jesus said, weep not, for she is not dead, but sleepeth.

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And they laughed at him to scorn, knowing that she was dead. Now, it's not difficult to imagine that perhaps they thought they knew more than Jesus.

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So, Jesus put them all out. Who did he put out? All of the disbelievers. He put out

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John and James and Peter and the mother and the father. And he took her by the hand and called, saying,

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Maid, arise. And her spirit came again, and she arose straightway, and he commanded to give her meat.

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So, he called for food for her. And her parents were astonished. And I'm sure so were

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Peter, James, and John. But he charged them that they should tell no man what was done.

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Okay. Now, we're going to go back to the widow and her son. Luke 7, we're in verse 14 now.

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And he came and touched the mire that bare him and stood still.

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Now, all the people around were shocked. They thought Jesus had deliberately made himself unclean.

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But they were wrong. He didn't make himself clean. He made everything else clean. And he said,

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Young man, I say unto thee, arise. And he that was dead, set up and began to speak.

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And he delivered him to his mother. And there came great fear on all.

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And they glorified God, saying, That a great prophet is risen.

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A great prophet is risen among us, and that God has visited his people.

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This rumor of him went forth throughout all Judea and throughout all the region round about.

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So what rumor? The rumor, the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, demons are cast out, to the poor the gospel is preached.

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But most of all, God has visited his people.

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And the disciples of Jesus showed him all of these things.

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Let's go to the word, Lord, in the word of prayer. Most gracious Heavenly Father, thank you for this day, and thank you for giving us the technology that we may, even though we're separated by thousands of miles, some of us, meet together, join together, and worship you by studying your word.

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Thank you for giving us the Holy Spirit to guide us, to allow us to receive whatever message it is that you want us to receive.

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And we understand that each one of us at particular times in our life have different needs and have different messages that we need to hear.

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I don't know what that message is. Brother David doesn't know what that message is. Brother Ben doesn't know what that message is.

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But you can rest assured, we can rest assured that you understand the message that you have for us.

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And most of all, Lord, thank you for giving us your son, who died to redeem us, to make all of us who are unrighteous in our own acts as best we try to be.

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You gave us your righteousness. You took our unrighteousness.

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You pinned it on the cross with you, and you made us clean and pure and righteous in the sight of God the

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Father. Thank you for all of that. I ask that you go forth with us today as we go into the rest of the service.

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Bless us and protect us. In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen. And that's it for me,

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I guess. Amen, Bill. If you want to, you can take any questions that folks may have, but you get a lot of great comments out there while you're teaching.

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I heard some of those. I saw some of them. And I'm getting used to, a little bit better, the technology.

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But this is a wonderful thing that we have available to us.

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I just can't say how happy I am that we're able to meet, even though it's a virtual meeting.

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Well, you're... You can have lunch together in the church.

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That's true. But the size of your class doubled. Oh, at least. Yeah, at least.

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I saw lots of people, lots of people, some from the church logged in, some whose names

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I didn't know. And I want you all to know that I do the best

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I can. Brother Dave does the best he can. Ben does the best he can. We all do our best, and our best is not good enough.

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But one thing we know is that the Lord will clean up our work and make it, give to the people the message that they need to have.

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And that is the most important part of all. Absolutely.

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I notice here we've got folks listening in from Qatar. How about that? Oh, more than a thousand miles away.

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Just counting Ben, that's a thousand miles away. I also saw somebody pop up from Maryland. So there's coming in from all over, and that is great.

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Super. Good. Great job. I do think it's interesting that we've got a couple of questions.

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So do you want to talk through a couple of questions? I will. If you'll tell me the question, I'll do my best to answer.

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Sure. So this is Jeannie and David. Interesting thought. He took our sins, and then he died.

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Did he make an end of our sins and his death? Was it only his body that was defiled, or was it his spirit?

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Interesting question. Well, I don't think Jesus' spirit was ever defiled.

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I think it was only his body, but I may be wrong. I know this, that when he presented his blood on the throne to God, that God was satisfied, and we all should be.

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So then the corollary and the follow -up to it was, if it was only his body that was defiled, because his spirit couldn't have been, does that equate to us?

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So now that we have been made righteous in Christ, does that mean that our body, our physical body is defiled, but our spirits are not?

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I think that's the truth, because we know that if we belong to him, we'll always belong to him, and nothing can take us out of his hand.

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Amen. It's pretty powerful to see all the lessons we learn as Jesus as a man operated as the

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God -man, showing us what it is that we're supposed to be. Wow, that's pretty powerful. It is.

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So another question from Doug. Did Jesus ask those who didn't believe to leave the room because of disbelief?

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What do you think Jesus asked those that didn't believe to leave the room? You know,

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I don't know. I thought about that as I went through. He did ask them to leave, and I don't think that their presence would have caused him to be unable to perform what he was going to do, the raising of the dead.

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I don't think that that would have made any difference, but maybe it's kind of like you lose some of your rewards.

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I know that one of your mentors, Chuck Missler, always talks about you can't lose your salvation but you can lose some of your rewards, and maybe this is the reward that they lost.

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They didn't get to see this dead person rise from the dead. So the difference between justification, sanctification, all those anctions about salvation, yes.

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It gets interesting, doesn't it? It does. Well, so the other question is, so what do you think that the

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Pharisees and other Jews that were so used to defilement, what do you think message, what was the message

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Jesus was trying to send to the Pharisees about being defiled? Okay, I think he was telling them that there is a new way.

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There's not a way of the law saying do the things that you're not able to do anyhow.

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If you try to go through... I lost my train of thought.

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My screen's changing. I kind of lost out. Yeah, Pastor David's still sharing his screen, so...

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Yeah, that's fine. I can still answer the question if you'll repeat it so I can get my line of thought back.

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Sure. So what was it that Jesus was trying to tell the Pharisees as he went to the briar and touched the coffin, making himself unclean?

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What message was he attempting to send to the religious leaders? Okay, he was attempting to send to the religious leaders the lesson that it's not a matter of your works that make you clean or unclean.

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It's a matter of your association with me. He's saying there's a new way to God.

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The old way of the law was a taskmaster. It was used to show people that they could not follow the law no matter how hard they tried.

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Even the Pharisees, not one of them followed the law exactly. But it's not a matter of following the law.

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It's a matter of believing and trusting and having relationship with Jesus. And that's the new thing that he's trying to tell them, that there is a way outside the law, a new way that's coming.

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It's not ready for them yet. It is ready for us now, but it's not ready until Jesus actually paid for the sins of all of us that did sin, and that's all of us.

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So that's the best I can do with that. He's trying to tell them that there's a new and better way.

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The old way is gone. The new way is better. That's also the lesson he was telling them in the parable of the sand.

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The house built upon the sand, the house, the structure, no matter how beautiful it was, if it was on unsolid ground, when the storms came, it would fall.

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But the one that was built on the rock, the one that was built on Jesus, was steady and safe throughout all of the storms, and I guess that's it.

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It's a powerful thing to realize that, you know, Jesus was attempting to show them how, in my opinion, you know, when

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I thought through that question, Bill, the thing that came to mind for me was that Jesus was attempting to show them that the religious approach to God was actually going to be a barrier to them seeing the miraculous, and I think that there is so much where that is what caused them to not see who

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Jesus really was. They had created their own mental barriers, and Jesus was doing all he could to show them how wrong they were and how stuck in their thinking they were.

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That's right, and you know, he referred himself as a stumbling block to the

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Jews. Psalm 118, right? Yeah, and so it's a, it is an amazing thing.

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You can't read, you can't read a single verse in the Bible, I don't think, without coming in contact with Jesus.

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Amen. Well, the question board is clear, brother Bill. Thanks for your time. I thought that today's lesson was really good.

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Stepping through verse by verse, being able to see how the pieces of the puzzle come together. Thank you, my friend.

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A great job, and good job on your first ever internet broadcast. You did it, my friend.