Thru the Bible

Steve Schwetz: In Matthew chapters 8 through 10, we see the power of Jesus on full display: power over storms, over sickness, even over the forces of darkness. But you know, the greatest display of his power may be the one still happening, when he heals broken hearts and forgives sin.

Welcome to Thru the Bible. In Matthew chapter 8, our teacher Dr. J. Vernon McGee reminds us that Jesus not only has authority over all creation, he has the power to change lives. He saves us, and then he begins the lifelong work of shaping us to be more like his Son.

I'm Steve Schwetz, and as you find your place on the Bible Bus, Greg and I have some stories to share about how God is using Thru the Bible to reach speakers of the Mandarin language.

Greg: One of the most widely spoken languages in the world, maybe the most widely spoken, probably.

Steve Schwetz: Yes, it actually, from a native speaker standpoint, I did a little research on this: 930 million native speakers against a backdrop of, you go, what's English? English is only 390 million native.

Greg: See, I love hanging out with you because I learn things all the time. Often not what not to do—just kidding. No, that was great. That is very interesting, I didn't realize that. So native speakers is definitely the most widely spoken in the world.

That's amazing, and we have the privilege of working with my old colleagues at FEBC, lovely people that have been ministering to China since 1949. Steve, I think it's safe to say they're probably the longest standing Christian organization, I don't know, Hudson Taylor's got something...

Steve Schwetz: Hudson Taylor would have been there earlier, but I shared this a few months ago. I met his great-great-grandson and he said that after Mao Zedong kicked out all the missionaries in 1949, about half the Christians they met decades later heard the gospel through radio. So it's a powerful, powerful medium.

Here's a testimony, this is from Sister Liu, who listens to our traditional Mandarin broadcast and tells us this: "I've been listening to this program for some time. I feel that it has helped me a lot. My father also listens with me, and we would like to support the program team more."

Greg: Wow, that's great. That's great. Another listener shares his trouble keeping up and asks us to pray. He says, "Greetings to you. I really love Thru the Bible, but I have to be honest, I'm not very consistent. I want to keep going, but sometimes I don't persist. Please pray for me that I would return to God's word and let it guide me back to him."

Steve Schwetz: That's great. Hopefully he'll continue on. He needs to hear—you've done some really good talks with our listeners to say don't sweat it. If you fall off the wagon, just get right back on. Just start a new day, don't worry about catching up. Maybe we need to teach you to speak Mandarin.

Probably not going to happen. I'm not gifted in language. I am English. Let me read this last one. This is a listener from China: "In Zephaniah 2 verses 1 to 3, the prophet implored the people to seek the Lord God, to repent quickly before the judgment comes, and said the righteous are to keep seeking the Lord and to do what is righteous. This is an apt reminder for myself. May the Lord help me in keeping a humble attitude and always walk with him."

Greg: And Steve, these letters are coming from different parts of the world because Chinese Mandarin and Cantonese are spoken all over different parts of Asia and all over the world. But this is a good opportunity for us to remind people of the importance of our world prayer team. If you've never heard about it, Steve, tell them.

Steve Schwetz: Oh my friend, just go to TTB.org and you can sign up to get a daily email, only Monday through Friday, and it'll revolutionize the way you go through your inbox. There is a brief—we travel the world figuratively speaking on our knees. There's typically a brief testimony about someone in that region and ways that you can pray for them. And it is a great way to connect with us, to connect your prayer life with the way God is so significantly moving all around the world. So do that today, TTB.org. Greg, why don't you pray for us?

Greg: Father, what a privilege that we get to give your word out in over 250 languages all over the world and then to hear how fellow believers are being strengthened and helped along in their daily walk with you. We're just so grateful to be part of this ministry and thank you for all you're doing. And now we turn to you and ask you to do the same for us. Help us to walk well today as we study your word in Jesus' name, amen.

Dr. J. Vernon McGee: Now today we come to the eighth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew. Last time we concluded the Sermon on the Mount, and it is conceded by friend and enemy alike that there has been given no higher ethic than you have in the Sermon on the Mount.

Now the question arises, how would you attain to that high ethic? How would you attain to it? And Matthew brings together here a series of miracles which demonstrate that the one who gave the ethic also has the dynamic for its accomplishment and for carrying it out.

Our Lord made it very clear to us who are believers today. He says, "Without me, ye can do nothing." I wish we could keep that before us all the time, that you and I in and of ourselves are unable to accomplish anything, but it's only as you and I, by the power of the Spirit through Christ—he works through the Spirit that he sent into the world, and the Spirit of God alone can accomplish.

Now that reveals something that's very important: that Matthew's not attempting by any means to give us a biography of the Lord Jesus, nor is he attempting to put in a chronological order the series of events that even took place in his ministry. Now there's a movement here, if you miss it, I think you miss the gospel altogether.

Now having given the Sermon on the Mount by the King, the King comes down from the mountain and we have a series in this chapter actually of six miracles. But the next chapter also has miracles in it, six there, so that we have 12 miracles that he performs that demonstrate the fact that he has the power.

And these miracles that are recorded are given in a very definite, organized, logical order, but not chronological at all. Matthew's not seeking for that. What he's attempting to do is to give you this movement that reveals the King. The King went to the mountain, enunciated his manifesto, the law of the kingdom. Now this one's able to accomplish it through the citizens of the kingdom.

Now the Sermon on the Mount is, I think, here in an abridged edition. We'll have the unabridged when you get to the Millennium, and there'll be many more things, I'm sure, that are to be carried out. But this illustrates something.

Now the miracles: we don't have all the miracles that demonstrate his power, but they're given in a very definite way. Let me call your attention to this. First of all, the one of the leper. He touches him, and that's human disease at its worst, incurable in that day. The centurion's servant: now he didn't have any contact with him at all, but he healed him from a distance.

Peter's wife's mother: he touches her. And the demons were cast out. He moves into the supernatural realm of the spirit. He stills the winds and the sea, and that's in the realm of nature, power over natural forces. He casts out demons of the two Gadarenes, and that's supernatural, it was a very difficult case.

So he moves in all of these different areas, and it's not in a chronological but a logical order. And there is this movement therefore in Matthew that we need to see. Now let's look at these miracles that we have recorded here.

First of all is the miracle of the leper. And I begin reading now at Matthew 8 verse 1: "When he was come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him." Now I must call attention to these references as we go through, it's very important or again you'll miss Matthew. Great multitudes followed him, not just a few.

You see, he's up in Capernaum, that was his headquarters, and this next miracle is there at Capernaum, I'm confident. Of course it raises the question of just what mountain that he gave the Sermon on the Mount on, and I must confess I don't know. I read of three different ones, I don't think that's important for us anyway.

But when he came down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him. Now is the King who's able to enunciate an ethic up there, is he able to move with power among humanity? That's very important.

When I was in college, I had a roommate. When we had our graduation, we had a speaker that, oh my, he carried us to the clouds, telling us what we ought to do, you know, that's generally what a graduation speaker does. And my roommate had a rough year. He was a very attractive fellow, very popular, and he got in really with the wrong crowd.

In fact, it took him out of the ministry. He began to drink, and he was in real trouble. I'd talked to him several times, but it did no good at all. Finally, at this graduation, I never shall forget he came in the room, he dropped down on his bed, just sat down very dejected, and he looked up at me and he said, "Mack, I don't need anybody to tell me what to do. I need somebody to tell me how to do it."

May I say that's what we need, isn't it? Now he's enunciated the ethic. Does he have power? Well, he moves down and this is a tremendous movement. Notice this, verse 2: "And, behold, there came a leper." That's one of the worst cases, incurable in that day. "There came a leper and worshipped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean."

Now this leper when he came to the Lord Jesus, he didn't come and say to him, "Will you make me clean?" or "Are you able to make me clean?" He came with faith. The Lord Jesus now has come from the heights, he goes down to the depths, he's confronted by a leper. And the leper puts it on this basis here, he said, "Lord," and he recognizes his lordship.

And he says to him, "If you will, if you will, you can make me clean." It's not always his will, friends, but if it's his will, he can do it. And the will of God must come first. Oh, that's so important, and it's so difficult for me. Now maybe it's easy for you, but I find it difficult to put the will of God first.

I put it like this: "Lord, will you do this because I want you to do this?" That is the basis. This leper says, "You will, you can, I know you can, but will you? Is it according to your will?" That's a little different than we hear it today, is it not, when we hear some people saying that you can demand of the Lord to do certain things, and that he will do these things? May I say to you, let him decide it, and that's the only way it's going to be done anyway.

Now notice verse 3, for this is a very wonderful thing: "And Jesus put forth his hand, and touched him." Now if I had touched a leper, what would have happened? I'd have got leprosy, it wouldn't have healed him. But our Lord touched him saying—listen to him, he responded to that—"I will; be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed."

Now there's something here that I don't want you to miss because it's so important. It says that he touched him. Have you ever stopped to think that this man not only had the physical disease of leprosy, but he had a psychological hang-up that was terrible? I do not know his background, but I imagine that one day he noticed that there was a breaking out in his hand. He'd been out plowing.

He came in and showed it to his wife, and his wife said she'd put some ointment on it, maybe some figs that night. Next morning it was just as red as it could be, and he went out and plowed again. That went on for about a week and his wife became a little uneasy. She said, "You go to the priest."

He went to the priest and he put him up for the 14 days. After 14 days it had spread. The priest said to him, "You have leprosy." He said, "Well, let me go to tell my wife and children goodbye." And he said, "I'm sorry, you can't tell them goodbye. You can't put your arm around your wife again. You'll never be able to hold those little ones in your arm again. And when you come near anyone, you must cry out 'Unclean!'"

And so he saw his children begin to grow up. They would come and leave food at a certain place, and he'd come and get it after they withdrew. He could only see them at a distance. He had been able to touch no one, and no one had been able to touch him. And one day he comes to Jesus and he said, "Will you? You can, if you will, you can make me clean."

And what did the Lord Jesus do? He touched him. He touched him. My friend, may I say to you that touch was one of the most wonderful things that ever happened to the man. Not only cleansed his leprosy, but it brought him back into the family of mankind and the family of God, and immediately his leprosy was cleansed.

Jesus said unto him, "See thou tell no man; but go thy way, show thyself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them." Now in Mark, you find out this man so overjoyed, you can't blame him, he went and just told everybody about it. May I say to you that here's one man who disobeyed Jesus, I'm rather on his side because he did tell everyone. It caused the Lord Jesus to withdraw from Capernaum.

Now we're told verse 5: "And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion, beseeching him." I'm sure the centurion had heard about this. He was a Gentile, a Roman on the outside. He built a synagogue there, we find out later, I think Dr. Luke tells us that. And I have been in that old synagogue, I mean the ruins of it, it's pretty much down today, but the ruins of it are still there.

If there's any place where Jesus walked, it would be in that synagogue. But anyway, this centurion came. He'd heard probably about the leper, saying, "Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented." Now this man was in a very terrible condition.

And we're told here, "Jesus saith unto him, I will come and heal him." Listen to this centurion. "The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed. For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it."

Now this man is a man in a position who recognized authority, this kind of a power. The kind of power that where he wore a Roman uniform and he could say to a soldier, he'd say, "Look, do this," he did it. Why? The power, which is authority, the tremendous power. Now he looked at the Lord Jesus and he said, "You have that kind of power."

He recognized that. When Jesus heard it, he marveled and said to them that followed, "Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel." It is recorded that on two occasions the Lord Jesus Christ marveled. One was at the unbelief of Israel, which we'll see in the Gospel of Mark the sixth chapter. And then here, he marveled at the faith of this Gentile, by the way.

Now he says, "And I say unto you, That many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven." It's interesting, the east and the west. At the time our Lord said this, your ancestors and mine were in the west, and there be some listening to me today your ancestors were in the east. And he said this message is going to get out to them where they can trust me and have faith in me.

What a tremendous statement. "But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." You see, each individual has to exercise personal faith in Christ. You can't claim your church membership or you can't claim the fact that your father and mother were wonderful Christians.

Verse 13: "And Jesus said unto the centurion, Go thy way; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. And his servant was healed in the selfsame hour." The man wasn't there, but he knew the servant was healed because of his faith in the Lord Jesus. He touches the leper and now at a distance heals this servant.

Then we have here Peter's wife's mother, verses 14 and 15. He touched her, she was sick of the fever, he heals her. Notice these three types of diseases: one's leprosy, incurable; the other is a palsy, paralysis; here is a fever, a disease that the only one that's more or less of a temporary disease. She probably would have got over it in time, but he healed her also.

The fourth one that's recorded here, it says, "When the even was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed with demons"—now that should not be devils, it should be demons—"and he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick."

Two things I should call your attention to here: they brought many to him, no isolated cases given. And again, I must say this that if you'll watch this gospel very carefully, Matthew will make it clear to you that there were literally thousands of people healed in that day that were walking around. For instance, there was thousands of blind men with their eyes open. There were thousands of those that were crippled, thousands of deaf that had been healed. That's the reason the enemy never questioned whether he had performed the miracle or not. They asked how he did it, that was the important thing.

Now will you notice "That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses." Isaiah 53:4 that he's quoting. Now this verse, by the way, is the verse that is used, I suppose, by modern so-called healers more than any verse. They say that healing is in the atonement, and of course this is the basis for it.

But let's go back to Isaiah and look at this. Isaiah 53:4, let me begin there. "Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed."

Healed of what? Our transgressions and our iniquities. And you say to me, "Are you sure of that?" Oh, I know it because Peter in 1 Peter 2:24, he says, "Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed." Healed of what? Healed of sin.

And that is the thing that he's making very clear. "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him"—what? "The iniquity of us all." That is what was laid upon him. Now Isaiah therefore is referring to the fact that Christ would grapple with the great fundamental problem of sin.

Now to contend that healing is in the atonement, I think, is beside the point. So is a glorified body in the atonement, but I don't have mine yet, how about you? And a new earth with the curse removed is in the atonement of Christ. It's obvious that we do not have these yet.

Now in this day, when sin and Satan still hold sway, there is no release from sickness as an imperative of the atonement. If that is true, then why did Paul urge Timothy to take a little wine for his stomach's sake? Why didn't he tell him to get his healing in the atonement? Why didn't James urge the saints to claim the atonement when he asked them to call in the elders to pray and to use oil, which I believe was healing oil?

Why didn't Paul claim healing in the atonement when he mentions the fact that there was given to him a thorn in the flesh? And he says, "For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me."

And there are other examples. Paul in Philippians had a regular hospital on his hand, Epaphroditus had been sick there. And he never used the atonement to claim healing in it at all. May I say to you, it's not always his will to heal.

But after all, instead of going through an individual down here who claims or doesn't claim he has the power, instead of going to a tent or an auditorium today, why don't you go directly to the Great Physician and find out if it's his will? I tell you friends, that's the place to take physical sickness today. And I believe in divine healing, but I believe in going to the head doctor. I believe in taking it to the Great Physician and put your case before him and, like the leper, saying, "If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean." And he gets the glory, you see, and we want him to have that. Until next time, may God richly bless you, my beloved.

Steve Schwetz: It's true: whether you need physical, mental, or spiritual help, the Lord will do what's best for you, and he will get the glory. Read ahead in Matthew chapters 8 and 9 and then get back on the Bible Bus next time as we study some of the greatest miracles Jesus ever performed. Listen with our app or over at TTB.org or just call us at 1-800-65-BIBLE if we can help you find a local radio station. I'm Steve Schwetz and as always, I'm going to save a seat just for you.

Narrator: Our journey on the Bible Bus today is supported by the prayers and gifts of fellow passengers as we travel through the Bible.