The Point Is Who Had The Authority
Luke 4:39 And he stood over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her, and immediately she rose and began to serve them.
Luke 4:40 ¶ Now when the sun was setting, all those who had any who were sick with various diseases brought them to him, and he laid his hands on every one of them and healed them.
Luke 4:41 And demons also came out of many, crying, “You are the Son of God!” But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew that he was the Christ.
Luke 4:42 ¶ And when it was day, he departed and went into a desolate place. And the people sought him and came to him, and would have kept him from leaving them,
Luke 4:43 but he said to them, “I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns as well; for I was sent for this purpose.”
Luke 4:44 And he was preaching in the synagogues of Judea.
If this passage was the only part of the Bible that you ever read, you’d think that Jesus was a healing machine. He just came from a synagogue teaching like no teacher ever before. He cast out a demon right there at the synagogue and then restored domestic tranquility forever by healing Peter’s Mother-In-Law.
(Note they appealed to Jesus on her behalf. There was a popular belief at the time that you yourself had to want the healing and confess it yourself in order for God to heal you. Jesus canceled that with Peter’s Mother-In-Law and with everyone that ever had a mute spirit.)
People from all over come to be healed of sickness and various diseases. Jesus heals them all. We understand that. We know what sicknesses and diseases are. We have friends and family members that have died from such things. But healed?
Then the demons. It seems like there are two kinds of people in the Tri-state: the people that acknowledge that demons must exist because the Bible mentions them, and the crazy people that say they have experienced demons. Am I right? Well whatever you’ve heard from a youth group cassette tape or read in Frank Peretti novels or seen in movies, let’s stick with what the Bible says. And yes, even that can sound crazy when you read it.
We, unfortunately, don’t get an exciting showdown between hero-handsome Jesus and some wicked bad-guy demons. It comes back to what happened yesterday to make people marvel: AUTHORITY.
A mom loses her authority when she starts counting to 3. That kid just bought himself 3 more seconds to misbehave before he has to submit to mom’s authority. The hero in a movie loses her authority over the bad guy as long as the bad guy is fighting back. The fight scene is exciting, but it’s a fight for authority, not a show of it.
Jesus had authority, so there was no battle scene. People brought their sick and demon possessed and Jesus showed that He had authority over all of it. Like a Centurion over 100 men or a General over an army, Jesus gave the command and obedience to His authority was instant and mandatory.
Let’s not get lost in details and doubts, but stay focused on what matters here: Jesus and His authority over all things.
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