Sugar Land Bible Church

Dr. Andy Woods: Good morning, brothers and sisters in Christ, ladies and gentlemen, those listening by way of live stream, and those who will be viewing on the archives. We're so delighted that you're participating with us here this morning and gathered together to worship the Lord God and dig deep into His word. I know that's why you're here this morning. Let's go to the Lord in prayer.

Precious and loving Abba Father, we come before You. We thank You so very much for Your great love for us. I was just speaking with my wife about Your love, Lord, and I'm overwhelmed when I realize that as Your child, You're not angry with me, You're not mad at me, You don't condemn me, and You don't look down on me when I fail You. I fail You so often, but as my Abba, You just continually woo me and love me. Lord, I just thank You so much because I need that love so desperately.

I come before You right now and I humble myself before You. Father, we all want to just pause for a moment because we recognize that even as we saw in the Upper Room when the Lord Jesus came off of His chair and walked through the room, He went from disciple to disciple and washed their feet. He came to Peter and Peter got kind of upset because he said, "Lord, if You're going to wash me, wash all of me." The Lord told him, "Well, those that are clean only need their feet washed."

Lord, that's such a great picture of 1 John 1:9, that we get our feet dirty as we walk through this life. So Father, I thank You that You tell us that if we confess our sin, You're faithful and just or righteous to forgive us of our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Lord, I'm so very thankful that we have this wonderful provision made for us so that we have no excuse to let sin abide in our hearts. All we have to do is come to You and get right.

Father, I'm so thankful that You're so amazing that when we do that, we're instantly restored and it's just as if we've never sinned. Lord, what an awesome thing it is to have this privilege. So we just pause for a moment because we want our hearts right with You, especially me, because I am here today to deliver Your word. Lord, You know I am not equipped nor am I capable of doing anything unless the Holy Spirit speaks through me to Your people. So we just pause for a moment to get right.

Again, Father, thank You. Thank You for Your great love for us. My prayer this morning, Lord, is that You would speak to the hearts of Your people, that You would give us insight and discernment. As our Pastor Andy often says, Lord, that we might have and see and feel and experience the illuminating ministry of the Holy Spirit so that we might properly divide Your word. It's in Jesus' name we pray, and God's people said, "Amen."

Well, as you can see on the screen here, we're back in Law and Grace. I hope that you're enjoying this series even though I realize that the episodes are few and far between. Nevertheless, I think it's a very important subject. So let's look at our outline here. We want to talk about our purpose, aim, and objective, then we'll do a bit of a review for Session 47 to kind of catch us back up. Then if you want to be turning in your Bible to Matthew chapter nine, we'll cover verses 18 through 38 today. We'll start with some general information, then we'll look a little bit more verse by verse and we'll have some concluding observations.

I always like to start out with our purpose, aim, and objective. The whole purpose of this series of lessons is to compare and contrast law and grace because it's so vitally important that we properly understand these two themes and how they're related to the life of the New Testament believer. I always give you these quotes and sometimes I read them, sometimes I don't. It's been quite a while, so let me go ahead and read this one. This is William R. Newell.

He said, "It is because Reformed Theology has kept us Gentiles under the law, if not as a means of righteousness then as a rule of life, that all the trouble has arisen. The law is no more a rule of life than it is a means of righteousness. Walking in the Spirit is now taking the place of walking by ordinances. God has another principle under which He put us His saints, and that is that we're not under law, but we are under grace." What a joy it is to know that.

I do want you to note the PDF download there at the bottom of the screen. Also, I notice from time to time people want to take pictures of the screen. You're welcome to do that, but let me remind you that you can go out to our website to the sermon archives. All of the material that we use here, this material, is all there for free for downloading. So that might save your battery on your phone. Just a thought.

Here's another excellent quote from Henry Ironside. He's talking about the distinctions between what we see in Romans 7 and Romans 8 regarding the believer. He says in Romans 7 we have a man renewed by the Spirit of God but struggling under law. I want to pause there just for a second because I want to confess to you that that was me. That is exactly who I was for the majority of my early Christian walk. I was trying so hard to be good, to be a good Christian.

He goes on and says that people that are doing that are hoping thereby to subdue or find deliverance from the power of the old Adamic nature. Then he says in chapter eight we have God's way of deliverance through the death and resurrection of Christ with which the believer is identified before God. I'll pause for a second here again because it was this understanding of identification truth that liberated me. It brought freedom to me. The weight of the law was taken from my heart from that day forward.

So we're identified before God in Christ. The chapter begins, that is chapter eight begins, with "no condemnation" and ends with "no separation." I lived so much of my life under condemnation because I did not understand who I was in Jesus. He goes on and says all who are in Christ Jesus are accepted in the Beloved and as free from every charge of guilt as He is Himself. He paid our penalty on the cross. Now we are linked up with Him in resurrection, not under the law, but under grace. That's a sermon in and of itself, isn't it? That's probably the best thing you're going to hear today.

It's always important that we remind ourselves we're in the book of Matthew. Matthew has a purpose for writing his particular gospel. In this instance, his purpose was to explain to his believing Jewish brethren that Jesus was indeed the long-awaited Messiah. Remember at this point in time they were under heavy persecution and they were being moved to come back in under the fold of Judaism. So Matthew is dealing with that issue.

He's explaining why the kingdom which they were all waiting for had been postponed in spite or despite the fact that the King had arrived. Then his third reason was to explain the interim program of God during the King's postponement. The interim program being the very Church of God, the body of Christ. So this is what Matthew's doing in his gospel, and it's vitally important that as you're reading through his gospel, whenever you are, that you keep this in mind because context is very important.

In Matthew 5:20, we encounter something very significant. This is Jesus speaking and He's teaching on the Sermon on the Mount, of course. He says, "For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven." Now I've mentioned this before but it bears repeating that you have to understand that at this particular time in the life of the average Israeli, the Jewish individual there in Israel, they had roaming groups of rabbis and such that were going around teaching.

One of the things they were telling everyone was that all Jews go to heaven. In fact, it was even worse than that. They would say that Abraham himself was stationed at the entrance to hell to prevent Jews from going to hell. That was surprising for me to find that out. So it's very interesting then that the Pharisees, of course at this time, they're the self-appointed representatives as interpreters of the law of Moses. So they've now heaped on top of all of these people that they're ministering to all kinds of rules and regulations that were impossible to keep.

Then Jesus makes this statement and you can imagine how the people when Jesus said this, it must have been absolutely crazy to hear this. The rabbis were telling them don't worry about hell, we've got that covered, Abraham's going to take care of you. But Jesus says no, that's not true. I imagine that their feeling when they heard this come from Jesus's mouth probably produced a reaction that was shocking. So that's what's going on in this particular instance.

Now I bring that up and then I want to throw this chart back up again. We've seen it multiple times. I did go in and highlight a couple of things on here. I don't want to read through the whole thing, but once again you can get the chart online if you'd like to have a copy of it. But notice we're talking about contrasting and comparing the Mosaic law and grace. As you can see here, just a cursory look at this, yes indeed there are some very significant differences between the two.

If we just look at what is the result of the law toward man, well it's death. What about the result manward of the grace of God? It's life. What about the purpose? The Bible, Paul makes it very clear that the purpose of the law was to bring condemnation. It was to reveal and to accentuate sin in the life of every individual. But the grace of God is what? It's to reveal the righteousness of God through Christ Jesus.

I got this from Dr. Constable as is listed there at the bottom of the screen. So if you'd like to go look at his commentary, if you happen to have the Logos Bible Commentary, you probably have this on there so you could go look at this for yourself if you'd like. But that's some pretty significant differences there.

Let's take just a moment and we'll review Session 47, our last time we got together. Of course, I feel obligated to start with a poem. "Roses are red, violets are bluish. You know the rest. Those to whom Jesus is speaking are Jewish." This is one of my favorite ways to keep my mind centered on the context of Matthew. This is Jesus in the land of Israel speaking to Jews living in the land of Israel under the law of Moses at the time. So that's our context.

What's happened? In the last session, we saw Jesus and He went over to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. He encountered the demoniacs and the pigs and all that great stuff that happened there. Now in chapter nine, at the beginning of the chapter which we covered last time, He's come back to this side to Capernaum. It's going to pick up here with what transpires now that He's returned.

We're going to see here by way of review again that Jesus had not incurred religious opposition at all in chapter eight. But then at the beginning of chapter nine, He began to encounter the first of three instances of opposition to His ministry. That was manifested when the scribes and the Pharisees accused Jesus of blasphemy for forgiving the sins of the paralytic. Never mind that He just had healed the paralytic and the guy jumps up and walks off. That didn't matter, you blasphemer you.

Then there were two other issues that we talked about last time there in verses 9 through 17. We noted that in 9 through 13, Jesus calls Matthew the tax collector. That was great, but it also caused a little bit of a problem because then the Pharisees began to question Jesus's disciples about eating with the tax collectors and sinners. In verses 14 through 17, the disciples of both John the Baptist and the Pharisees asked Jesus why it is that they fast, but they don't see Jesus's disciples fasting.

The real key point here to catch is what they add at the end of the question: "according to the Jewish tradition." Well, what were you really supposed to follow? Pharisaic Judaism, or were you supposed to follow the law as revealed by Moses and which Jesus was coming to correct, correct their understanding? But no, they wanted, "Well, you know, this is a tradition and boy, this tradition is every bit as important as the law itself. So why aren't your disciples fasting? Shame on you."

Then we see we asked a couple of questions. We said, did the Pharisees recognize their spiritual need? We said that they did not recognize their need for the Savior because they believed their competence in the law of Moses and the traditions was totally adequate to meet their needs. So they rejected Christ. I mean, why do you need the Messiah if you've orchestrated and you've stacked the deck in your favor, so to speak? That was kind of the attitude that they had.

Then we also asked the question, well what about John's disciples? Did they recognize their spiritual need? Just between you and me, brothers and sisters, I just find this amazing because John the Baptist's disciples did recognize their need to a point. We have to acknowledge that. Why do I say that? Well, I mean they recognized something Judaism wasn't fulfilling something in their lives. So they went out and listened to John and they became his disciples. Okay, we'll give them kudos for that.

But they didn't see the greater need for the one to whom John had been pointing. This just, if I can use a vernacular a common expression, this blows my mind. Because what was John saying to his disciples? He was saying, "Behold the Lamb of God." He was saying, "He must increase and I must decrease." So somewhere along the line, the disciples of John hadn't quite put the pieces of the puzzle together and therefore they were still operating in some ignorance.

That's kind of a quick run-through of what we covered last time. I encourage you to go back and look at that material if you'd like to get a little bit more detail there. So if you haven't done so already, go ahead and turn in your Bibles to Matthew chapter nine. We're going to be looking at verses 18 through 38 here. There are six things by way of introduction here this morning that Jesus is going to do in this passage.

First of all, we're going to see that Jesus is going to stop a woman's chronic blood loss and we'll get to that shortly. What else does Jesus do? Then Jesus, secondly, He raises Jairus's daughter from the dead. Let me just, while I'm here, let me make a comment you might want to make note of. In Matthew's account, this individual is not named. He's just called the synagogue official. But because of Mark and Luke's parallel accounts, we know that indeed it's Jairus. So if you maybe want to put that out in the margin of your Bible.

The third thing that Jesus is going to do is He's going to heal the blind men. Then next, He's going to deliver a man who was demon-possessed. In this particular instance, the possession was manifested in the form of muteness, so this particular individual could not speak. The fifth thing, we're going to get a summary statement from Matthew. This is designed to express and indicate that Jesus was teaching and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and that His mighty works validated the gospel of the kingdom. So there's going to be this summary statement there.

Then finally, the sixth thing is that Jesus is going to look on the crowds that are there listening to Him and He's going to be moved with compassion for them. Interestingly, He's going to turn to His disciples and He's going to say, "Pray." Isn't that interesting? We'll talk some more about that in a moment. So there are the six things again with the pictures. Again, we've stressed in previous sessions that Jesus's purpose is to proclaim and to validate through His healings and miracles that He is without doubt and without question Israel's long-promised Messiah.

Now into the verse-by-verse portion. So let's look at verse 18 here. While He, Jesus, was saying these things to them, who are the "them"? The "them" are the disciples of John with whom He had been having this discussion about fasting that we talked about. So this is coming off that conversation. He was saying to them, a synagogue official came and bowed down before Him and said, "My daughter has just died, but come and lay Your hand on her and she will live."

It's very interesting that again you'll notice that you don't see the name here, but you might note again that that is Jairus. So he comes to Jesus and he says, "Come Jesus and heal my daughter." And so what happens next? The synagogue official, and there's the word in the Greek for official is "archon," is very likely the leader at the synagogue right across the street from Peter's home.

Do you remember us talking about that? I've shown you this picture before. The sort of round building there at the bottom is a structure that has been built over the excavation of what they believe to be Peter's home. Interesting, you look literally right across the street and we've talked about this before, but here is the white synagogue. It's called the white synagogue because of the stones that are used there. So that's kind of interesting when it brings some illumination to your understanding when you read about these things. Peter could get up on Sabbath morning and he could just walk across the street and go to synagogue.

Matthew merely gives a summary of events here, but as previously noted in Mark and Luke, it indicates that the synagogue leader's name was Jairus as I mentioned. In those two accounts, Jairus first came to Jesus asking for healing. So we get a little more detail in the other accounts. It's interesting because only after Jesus agrees and starts to proceed toward Jairus's home does he then later hear from his servants that his daughter has already died. So at this point, Jairus is coming to Jesus with hope and expectation that he can get Jesus to come with him to heal his daughter. But as we find out again in the other accounts, on the way, his daughter dies. And that will be significant.

Let's look at the next verse. Jesus got up and began to follow him, and so did His disciples. And a woman who had been suffering from a hemorrhage for 12 years came up behind Him and touched the fringe of His cloak. For she was saying to herself, "If I only touch His garment, I will get well." But Jesus turning and seeing her said, "Daughter, take courage, your faith has made you well." At once, the woman was made well.

As Jesus and the disciples are going along to Jairus's house, now keep in mind we get more detail even in the other accounts, but we know that He was surrounded by the pressing crowd because of course when Jesus came on the scene, everybody wanted to see Him, everybody wanted to talk to Him, everybody wanted to touch Him. He was the movie star of the day, so to speak, right? So here's this situation, get this picture in your head that Jesus is trying, He's fighting through the crowds to make progress.

It's interesting because this woman somehow, some way manages to get in close enough to Jesus just to just touch the the edge of His garment which actually was colored blue and it was symbolic of healing and you can find that in the in the Pentateuch. Now Mark adds a little more detail. Mark says, "Immediately, Jesus perceiving in Himself that the power proceeding from Him had gone forth, turned around in the crowd and He said, 'Who touched my garments?'" Now again, get this image in your head of the crowd, right? And then it's interesting because Peter, being the interesting character he was, he said with a bewildered look on his face, "Jesus, You see the crowd pressing in on You and You say who touched me?" Well, that was a legitimate question I imagine, right?

So this woman had suffered with this condition for 12 years, but Jesus, notice what He does. He encourages her and He declares that her faith has made her well. And that's really fascinating. And what's also fascinating is that Jesus knew who touched, knew that He'd been touched. And He knew that something very unique and special had happened because as I said, no doubt people were trying to touch Him all along, which is something to consider.

Notice that Jesus did not say to this woman, "You have merited or deserved healing." Rather, He said that her faith had made her well. Notice also that even the healing offered by the Messiah, and keep this in mind who was operating under the principle of law, was still by faith. It wasn't by merit. And you know what we call that? We call that grace.

And that's an important thing to point out here because God's grace was apparent during the dispensation of the law. I might even add that in every dispensation we see God's grace manifested. Why is that? Because one of God's attributes is that He is gracious. I'm so very glad of that, are you?

Now we find an interesting situation that happens here. I notice I titled this slide, "Jairus, You're Too Late." Why did I do that? In the meantime, while this is happening, the woman has touched Jesus. Now He's stopped the crowd and He's stopped to deal with her. Jairus is right there with Jesus and I'm just imagining in my mind he's probably frantically trying to get Jesus and the disciples and the crowd moving. "Okay, we don't have time to stop and wait around here. My daughter needs to be healed." But according to the accounts again in Mark and Luke, during the delay, Jairus's only daughter has died.

So Jairus's servants tell him, "Don't bother the Master. It's too late, Jairus, don't bother the Master." Can you imagine Jairus's frustration as the crowd moves at a snail's pace with everyone wanting Jesus's attention? They're impeding the forward progress. Then Jesus stops to address this woman who had tapped into His healing power. The progress is already slow enough without any further disruptions or interferences. Yet this woman had to come on the scene and make it worse. Can you imagine how desperate Jairus must have been feeling? Put yourself in his shoes. If it were you, how would you have felt if it was your child?

So now it's too late. The time has run out. Jairus, I'm sorry, but your daughter has died. Don't bother this man any longer. It's too late to do anything. Wow. But notice what Jesus does. He assures Jairus that he need not be afraid, but only believe. And so they press on literally through the crowd to the house.

Now in verse 23, when Jesus came into the official's house and saw the flute player and the crowd in noisy disorder, notice how the Scripture describes that: noisy disorder. He said, "Leave, for the girl has not died but is asleep." And they began laughing at Him. But when the crowd had been sent out, He entered and took her by the hand and the girl got up. And this news spread throughout all the land, Matthew says.

Now at this time in Israel, let me give you a little historical background. When someone was nearing death, it was the obligation because of the Pharisee traditions that they've added on to the law, it was required of you to hire professional mourners and flute players. Their job was to make, and it was a job, their job was to make mournful noise and sorrowful sounds. They were supposed to weep and to wail and to play sad tones on their flutes. But they had no personal investment in the well-being of the family of the deceased. That's a significant point.

So that's what Jesus and Jairus and the twelve apostles encounter when they arrive at Jairus's home. Now let me back up for a second. This was all going on, so they didn't just realize that when they got there. As they were approaching the home, you could hear it from afar. You were hearing this as you approached the house. I'm sorry, I didn't do a very good wailing moaning there. I'll work on that for the next time I present this. Yeah, so.

The atmosphere is somber and dark when they arrive. The weeping and the wailing and the flute playing has already begun because Jairus's daughter has died. But what must have seemed like the ranting of a crazy person, Jesus tells them all that Jairus's daughter isn't dead but sleeping. Wow. When Jesus says this, the professional mourners all begin to laugh at Him. This is amazing to me because it demonstrates at least to me their utter indifference and hard-heartedness.

So Jairus's hope was up. Jesus is with me, my daughter's going to be healed. And Jesus walks in on the scene and says that's what's going to happen here, she's just sleeping. And they just laugh Him to scorn. Again, they don't really care about the family. They care about their paycheck. I wrote a note here. I said clearly their only concern was the fulfilling of their contract and getting paid. So obviously Jesus sends them out of the house.

According to Mark and Luke's account, Jesus does not bring all of the disciples into the inner room but only Peter, James, and John and the parents. You might ask yourself, "Well, why would He do this?" I think maybe a couple of reasons for this. He most likely did this because He was sensitive to how this miracle might draw unwanted attention to the family. It could also be that He didn't want His actions to become a public event. But it's also likely that there was very limited space in the little girl's room. I think all three of those are possible.

In any case, Jesus brings only the girl's parents, Peter, James, and John into the room. Then as the account goes on and tells us, He takes her hand. This is again from Mark and Luke's accounts. He takes her hand, He raises her from the dead, He issues a command, and then He charged to get her something to eat. Now in all the times I've read this, I've never really stopped to think about why did He give her something to eat.

As I thought about this, I thought, "Well, you know, it could very well be that she was hungry." I mean, I don't know how long she'd been sick and couldn't eat, who knows, right? But here's something else you might think about. By making her eat, Jesus demonstrated to everyone that she was not merely a phantom or some kind of zombie, but she was actually alive. And so the girl is raised.

At this point, and again I want to emphasize in the parallel accounts in Mark and Luke, Jesus then instructs the parents to tell no one what happened. Once again, I think this is to prevent unwanted attention to the family, but also Jesus did not want unwanted attention for Himself and His disciples either. Remember, we've had all these mourners and flute players and servants running about declaring that the girl was dead.

And so again, I have a very vivid imagination as you can't tell, so I'm thinking about this and so I asked myself, "What do you imagine is going to happen when the girl casually walks outside to play or fetch water?" You ever stop to think about that? I mean, forgive my perverted humor here, but I thought it was rather humorous. Can you imagine the neighbors, they all know that she's died, the mourners and the flute players are there, and the next thing you know, she walks out with a pail to get some water? Everybody was probably going, "Wow." Well, that's just my imagination. I can tell you all have no imagination this morning.

All right, let's go on. Verse 27. As Jesus went on from there, two blind men followed Him, crying out, "Have mercy on us, Son of David." And when He entered the house, the blind men came up to Him, and Jesus said to them, "Do you believe that I am able to do this?" They said to Him, "Yes, Lord." Then He touched their eyes saying, "It shall be done to you according to your faith." And their eyes were opened. And Jesus sternly warned them, "See that no one knows about this." But they, like you and I probably, went out and spread the news about Him throughout all the land.

All right, these two blind men followed Jesus into the house and again, it's very possible that this was indeed Peter's house. They begged Jesus to have mercy on them. But it's very interesting how they approached Him. They said, "Son of David." And of course, because we have a very astute congregation and we have an awesome senior pastor who makes sure we know these things, right? We know that the term "Son of David" is a term that is associated specifically with Israel's Messiah.

What you may not know is that this is the first time in Matthew's gospel that anyone has called Jesus the Son of David. And again, that's pretty significant because when these individuals, these two blind men, said this, you know the ears would have been perking up. "Oh, you just identified Him as the Messiah."

All right, so what happens next? Jesus asks these two men if they believe that He can restore their sight. Now again, notice that He didn't say to them, "What have you done to deserve or to earn this healing?" Jesus asked, "Do you believe that I am able to do this?" That's an interesting question. Why would He ask them that?

Off the top of my head, I'm not sure I can recall any instances where Jesus healed somebody where He asked them that question. Now I could be my memory could be faulting me a bit here, but I do think it's significant that He asked them that question. Why? Why did He ask them, "Do you believe that I am able to do this?" I think it's because God values faith. He does. He values faith. And there was no way that they again as I've said they could have deserved or earned this healing. So this had to be a faith-grace issue once again. I love their response. Notice the response: "Yes, Lord." And because of their faith, they were healed.

As I read that expression, "Yes, Lord," I sort of examined my own heart and I was thinking to myself how many times have I come to the Lord and I've had a petition from the Lord and you know the Lord could very well have said to me, "Well, do you believe I can do it? Do you believe I can fulfill that request?" and you know, I want to say "Yes, Lord!" but then many times I find myself walk away from the throne room of grace saying, "I hope so, Lord." Well, that's not faith. And that's just a challenging thing to me. I'm not pointing any fingers anyone else, they're all pointed at me. I think that I want to be more like these blind men. I want to say "Yes, Lord! Yes, Lord!"

It's important to point out here that the expression "according to your faith," now don't miss this, does not mean "in proportion to your faith" as the Word-Faith teachers claim, but rather what it means literally is "because you believed." "Do you believe that I am able to do this?" "Yes, Lord." And Jesus says because you have believed, be healed.

Then their eyes were opened. And Jesus sternly warned them, "See that no man knows about this." But they did just the opposite, telling everyone they could. And just being a human like they, I made a note and said I guess one can hardly blame them. I'll throw this out. I've said this before. My brother was born blind. And he's my older brother. And I have to tell you if Jesus healed my brother and told me don't tell anybody, you might as well just call for the rapture because I mean I'd been telling everybody too. Let me just tell you.

Let's keep going here. 32 through 34. As they were going out, who's the "they" going out? It's the formerly blind men. And I don't know how they got blind or how long they got blind, but I know that when they went out that nobody was leading them. Hallelujah to God. But as they were going out, a mute demon-possessed man was brought to Jesus. After the demon was cast out, I love how Matthew just he sort of leaves details out. He just summarizes it. "Okay, so a man was brought to him. After the demon was cast out, the mute man spoke." And the crowds were amazed and were saying nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel. But the Pharisees, ah yes, the Pharisees. What were they saying? "He casts out the demons by the ruler of the demons."

As the two blind men were going out, as we said here, a mute demon-possessed man was brought to Jesus. Notice something interesting here, that demons don't always cause the same symptoms. Some demons will do one thing in one situation and something else in another situation. If you'll recall, we saw this actually when we saw that the demons kept the men from speaking in the prior instance with the two possessed Gadarene men. They were able to speak, excuse me, they could speak. They were not prevented from speaking.

So you see different occurrences of demons and different results in terms of how their influence is manifested on individuals, but the final result when Jesus comes on the scene is always the same. Amen. Jesus cast out the demon and the man is then able to speak. And the crowds, how do they respond? They are absolutely astonished.

The Pharisees, however, are not impressed and say that Jesus casts out demons by the prince of the demons, who's Satan. And this is the for the Pharisees this is the first time we see here where they make a very, very serious accusation, but it won't be the last time they make this accusation. We're going to see this encounter that Jesus is going to encounter the same kind of thing later in Matthew 12:22-32 and again that's the passage that deals with the unforgivable sin. And also that's significant that that declaration is the one that ultimately seals the deal for the nation of Israel. Jesus is no longer going to be offering the kingdom to them from that point forward.

Okay, Jesus now in verse 35. Jesus was going through all the cities and villages teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness. So once again, what we have here is Matthew, as he has done already before, he gives us a summary statement. So Matthew just sums up Jesus's activities.

So he says this, Jesus was going through all the towns and villages in Galilee and the surrounding areas. Now we know that because we saw that he'd gone over to Capernaum. Now he'd gone across over to the other side of the lake. So he's got this itinerant ministry going back and forth. But he's teaching with certainty and authority. And remember that the scribes and the Pharisees could not do that. We mentioned this previously that Jesus was a rabbi, but he wasn't a rabbi like they were. He was different because he spoke with authority.

The everyday, if I can use that term, rabbis could only appeal to other rabbis, which would leave the common folk in a state of perpetual uncertainty. So if you came to a rabbi and you had a question, "Rabbi A, can you tell me what's going on?" well Rabbi A, he would give you his opinion on what Rabbi ABCXYZ said. And then you'd go to Rabbi B because you weren't satisfied with the answer you got, and he would say, "Well, let me check Rabbi JKLMNOP, right?" And then you'd come away and you'd be shaking your head going, "Well, oh my gosh, who's right here? What do I do?" And the reason for that was because they couldn't provide an answer because only God knows who's right.

But Jesus, as we said we've seen Him interact with the people, you would hear Jesus say things like, "You've heard that it was said." Who's He talking about? He's talking about those rabbis. "You've heard that it was said." And then He'd follow that up with, "But I tell you." And then He wouldn't just give you some fluff-muff answer. Jesus would then speak authoritatively on whatever the matter or issue was at hand. And so He would leave His listeners with no uncertainty. This is why the people were enamored with Jesus's teaching because He was speaking with authority. He speaks with authority in our lives too, doesn't He? Amen.

Now here's a question: what is Jesus doing? And again, we see this kind of summed up here in verse 35. Jesus is proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and what is that? That Jesus is the King of Israel, confirmed, proven, and verified, that He is the Messiah born King of the Jews. And as we saw earlier in Matthew, He is offering the kingdom to Israel if they will only accept Him as their King.

And then again, we see that Jesus validated His kingship offered by, as we mentioned, healing, casting out demons, and performing other miracles. So Jesus didn't just come saying "I am the Messiah," He did what the Messiah was supposed to do. And let's see, if you look at this slide here, you see all those references I have listed there? Those are all references from the Old Testament that specify miracles and healings that would take place when the Messiah arrived on the scene. So Jesus wasn't just talking a good talk, He was backing it up with literal fulfillment of Scripture. So Jesus is making and validating His offer of the kingdom of the gospel of the kingdom to Israel and by the way, this is a genuine offer. It's a genuine offer.

So we've asked and answered the question: what is Jesus doing? Now we're going to ask and answer another question: what is He thinking? So Matthew 9:36 and 37. Jesus, then seeing the people, He felt compassion for them because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd. Then He said to His disciples, "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Therefore beseech," this is the verb "deomai," it means to plead with with feeling, with emotion, with sincerity. So He says, "Do this: pray, beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest."

So what is Jesus thinking then? Jesus saw the people and He observed that they were very distressed and dispirited, which again simply means they were lacking a hopeful spirit. And He said that they were like sheep without a shepherd, which is a fairly common Old Testament theme for Israel's people. Here is an example of that: Zechariah 10:2. And look what that says: "Therefore the people wander like sheep; they are afflicted because there is no shepherd." And then I give you a number of other references there. So again, this is a theme you find all through the Old Testament and you could go look those up at a later date if you'd like to do so.

What is Jesus thinking? Jesus did not see Israel's present condition as one without remedy, but rather as a spiritual opportunity. Therefore, He told His disciples to do what? To pray, to plead for the harvest workers. And as I mentioned, the idea here is a sincere heartfelt petition. "Oh God, these people need salvation. Oh God, send laborers." Do we not pray that way as we send forth missionaries? As we think about the lost in our lives? "Oh God, send someone to them! Put someone in their path, dear God!" Maybe you have family members, loved ones, others, friends that don't know Jesus. And I know that when you're praying for them, you're doing exactly what Jesus told His disciples to do. Pray, we need workers.

Well, this brings us to a few concluding comments and I'm going to do this conclusion through a series of questions. Here's the first question. Have you ever felt frustrated when God allows delays or bad news? As we think about that in terms of the passage this morning, I think we can sympathize with the synagogue ruler, Jairus, who not only had to wait for Jesus to return from Capernaum from the other side of the lake, right? He had to wait for that. And then he had to suffer with the pressing crowd. And then he had to suffer with the delay associated with the woman with a flow of blood. And then finally he had to deal with the skepticism of his own servants who were telling him "it's too late, leave Jesus alone, don't bother him anymore."

I'm certain that all of us have been through or are going through circumstances right now, perhaps, that involve endless and countless delays or times of what seem like tidal waves of bad news. I'm not going to ask you to raise your hand, but let me just tell you I find in my Christian walk that I have the times of refreshing seem way too short because the times of trial and tribulation and affliction and all those things, i.e. spiritual warfare, boy, they sure seems like they take up a lot of my time. Wonder why that might be.

As a child of God, it's comforting to know that God wastes nothing. I want you to think about that today. It's comforting to know that God has a purpose in and for everything and to know and understand that His purpose and I love this about our God: He is not capricious. What does capricious mean? It means God isn't impulsive. He doesn't act on impulse. He's not fickle. You know, He doesn't say, "Well, you know, I just changed my mind," you know? No, He's not erratic. And you know the terms I've just used perfectly describe exactly the way the Greek and Roman gods were. That was their main characteristic.

But our God isn't that way. He's our loving Abba Father. Do you know Him as Abba? You know, I have to tell you another revelation in my life was when I realized that although Father is a wonderful term, don't miss hear me here, but Daddy's a little different, isn't it? And Abba means Daddy. And the Bible says that the spirit within us cries out, "Abba, Father!" Now I don't know what kind of image you get but when I think about a Abba, my Abba, I think about someone that I can approach that never rejects me, that doesn't condemn me, that doesn't push me away, that isn't disappointed in me. His arms are open wide. He's always welcoming no matter what my condition is.

Abba Father is blessing us by conforming us through these things to the image of His Son because He's doing this to make us more and more like Jesus. Isn't that our cry? Or is it our cry? "God, I want to be more like Jesus." He says, "Okay, I'm going to work with you on that." James 1:12 says, "Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial, for once he's been approved he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him."

Here's another question. Some people accuse the Bible or the biblical authors of coming from a culture that is male-dominated and treats women like cattle. While accusations can rightly be made regarding the shared values, beliefs, behaviors, or customs among social groups, those accusations can never, never, never rightly be made of Christ and the God of the Bible. In the case of the woman who suffered for 12 years with a flow of blood, Christ didn't just walk by. No, He stopped. He engaged her. You know, He may even have touched her, which if you'll recall would have made Him unclean until sundown. He didn't care about that. He encouraged her and He commended her for her faith. That doesn't sound very chauvinist to me.

Then Jesus walked from one side of Capernaum to the other side of Capernaum, pressed by the crowds, just to raise a 12-year-old girl. Wow. Does God love women? You betcha. In our passage today, we see Jesus ministering to a family, to parents which by the way included a grieving mother. We also see Jesus ministering to two other individual females: one a mature woman, the other a young girl about 12 years old who was an only daughter. But does God love women? Yes, He does.

Here's another question. Does God love feminism and chauvinism? No, no, no. Why not? Because God hates sin. We have multiple incidents of Christ not bowing to culture. I am so thankful for that. Not only do we see Christ dealing with a woman and a girl with sensitivity in this passage, but we see the same when in John 8:1-11, He dealt with the woman caught in adultery. You remember that. And by the way and of course this is a very well-educated congregation so I know you know this but for those who may not know this, the law required that both the man and the woman must be put to death, right? Deuteronomy 22:22. So where's the man in that encounter? Can you say setup?

But what did Jesus do in that situation with the woman caught in the adultery? He said, "Go and sin no more" to this woman. The first witness or the first witnesses, plural, to the resurrection of Christ were all culturally considered unreliable women. And why do I say that? Because of the influence of the Pharisees who were only concerned with Pharisaic righteousness as expressed in the multitude of additional restrictions they added to the law of Moses and under which the Jewish people agonized. Pharisaic righteousness abolished a woman's right to act as a witness in a court of law because her testimony was considered insignificant and untrustworthy. But don't forget Jesus called out Pharisaic righteousness time and time again. So the Lord Jesus is not a chauvinist and He cares about individuals.

Here's another question. Jesus was not campaigning for a public office answering the question why did Jesus tell everyone, well don't don't go tell anybody? Well, he wasn't campaigning for a public office and more importantly, he knew that the motives and intentions of the people were earthly oriented and they were not God oriented and they would attempt to compel him to conform to their self-serving plans of a conquering Messiah. That's what they wanted.

How do we know that their motives were wrong? Well, if we look at John 6:26, Jesus says to the crowd that were trying to find him. He says, "You're not seeking me because you saw my signs," let me par put a parenthe in here, "you're not seeking me because of the signs which I do to validate the fact that I am who I say I am. That's not why you're seeking me. You're seeking me because you're wanting Jesus, me Jesus, to become your welfare provider." And now don't miss hear what I'm saying. I'm not saying that we shouldn't help the poor, but their motivation here was not on that. It was "Jesus, feed me. Jesus, clothe me. Jesus, fix my roof," right? They were not seeing Him as the person He really was. That's not acceptable, is it?

Obviously, Jesus knew that the Israelites were going to publicize His words and deeds. But out of His graciousness, have you ever thought about this now? He knew He told them, "Don't do it," and then they did it anyway. But out of His graciousness, He never threatened them or reversed His miracles because His miracles were an undeniable confirmation of His prophetic claim to be the Messiah. What a loving Savior.

Here's another question. Does a lack of faith mean no healing for you? Should we tell people that they aren't healed because they don't have enough faith? I have personal knowledge regarding individuals who were healed, but I have I have also personally prayed for individuals who were not healed. I cannot nor would I say to anyone in either situation that faith was the difference. It was that is healing was and always is based upon God's sovereign will.

Now why am I saying that? Let me give you a little bit more information here. Contrary to what many modern Christian leaders and believers say, we have not been given the assignment that the Father gave primarily to His Son, the apostles, and a very limited number of first-century individuals like Philip the Deacon. The Lord healed as a validation of His kingship and claim to be Israel's Messiah. The apostles healed after the Ascension, first, as a validation of Christ and the as the chief cornerstone and His message. Secondly, as a validation that they were appointed and commissioned as the foundation of the Church, and a foundation is only laid once.

So does God heal today? Let me emphatically say, absolutely. But it is according to His sovereign will and not based on the faith or lack thereof of the one to be healed. I'm thankful for that. And keep in mind that every believer who needs healing will be healed eventually. I have a picture of Joni Eareckson Tada there. There's going to be a day when that young lady gets healed. But my goodness, can you imagine the what about the ministry she has had in that wheelchair? Holy cow. I mean, you want to talk about crowns in heaven, that young lady's going to have a stack of them.

Here's another question. We're almost done. How often does the crowd have it right? Look at my little chart there. If you look at this, 19% of the people said in this poll, "Yeah, yeah, of course." 5% went "Huh?" and 76% of the people said they didn't know. That's public opinion poll for you. That's the to lighten the the atmosphere a little bit. Didn't work. Of course, Jesus regularly dealt with the crowds and He will continue to do so. We're going to see references to crowds all the way through the end of His ministry. We'll also see Him often being intentional and deliberate in His efforts to remove Himself from crowds at times for prayer and private instruction.

So one of the things that we don't want to miss is that Jesus, while He tried to get away from the crowds, He also cared for individuals. The crowds were like sheep without a shepherd, yes, but in the chaotic environment that that was, Jesus stopped for one desperate woman. And as the mass of people were hindering His movements, delaying His progress toward Jairus's emergency at a point in time that where time where time was of essence, you know essential, I mean Jairus's, you know servants had come and said, "Oh, don't bother him anymore," you know, "your daughter's dead." What did Jesus do? He looked at that individual Jairus and he said, "I got this."

You know, Christ loves the church and every individual in it. And the church is kind of like a crowd, isn't it? We we have sort of a crowd here. Maybe you're listening by way of live stream, maybe you're here physically, maybe you're going to see this after the fact on the archives down the road. Maybe you're feeling lost in church, you know? Maybe in your heart you're crying out to the Lord, "I'm here, I'm here, but I feel so lonely." I have very good news for anyone in that situation: you're not lost to Jesus and you're not lost to Abba Father.

Let me remind you that Christ's death was the bride price paid for us all corporately and individually, and it was done so joyfully. You see Hebrews 2 there 2:2 on the screen. We're added to the beloved body of Christ. How are we added? In a crowd? No. One by one, one at a time, instantaneously the moment we believe. And what is belief? It means to place your faith, trust, confidence for the safe-keeping of your soul in the Lord Jesus Christ.

But that's not all. The Lord Jesus Christ also desires fellowship with each and every one of us individually. Do you meditate on that? That's a profound statement that the God of who created everything cares so much for you and me individually that He desires, He welcomes, He wants fellowship with us. And you know what's wonderful about God? He always has time for us.

The question I want to leave you with is this: do we have time for Jesus? Let's pray.

Abba Father, we thank You for Your individual care for each of us. We also thank You for Your immeasurable love for us as the body of Christ corporately but also individually. And in the days ahead as we stop to consider and reflect on the passage today, as we meditate on the questions and issues that have been introduced, we thank You for the illuminating ministry of the Holy Spirit who provides clear and solid answers that we can count on.

We thank You, Lord, for the insights that we receive from Your word and we look forward with eager anticipation for those new insights that You have in store for us in the days and weeks ahead. And Father, if there is anyone present or listening by way of our live stream or the archives who hasn't yet placed their faith in Jesus, I ask that the Holy Spirit might bring loving conviction to them and lead them to the Savior who loved them, died for them, rose again for them, ascended to heaven for them, and is presently seated at the right hand of the Father for them. May Your name be glorified in all we have said and done in this time of teaching. In Jesus' name we pray, Maranatha, and God's people said, "Amen." God bless you. I apologize for going over a little bit. Enjoy your break.