The Gospel of Luke 4:14-30 Homecoming

Good morning. We're going to continue our investigating Jesus as we go through the Gospel of Luke here. And as you may recall, a couple of weeks ago we finished up chapter 3 where Jesus was baptized and then there was a very complete genealogy given from Christ all the way back to Adam.

And then last week we looked at the first 13 chapters, excuse me, verses of chapter 4. And Christ was tempted by the devil out in the wilderness. And now we turn a corner here and Jesus has begun his ministry. And he ends up in Nazareth. Now let's look at Luke 4, 14 and 15. And Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit. That is, He had been along the wilderness area near the Jordan River.

And news about Him spread through all the surrounding district. That is, the whole area of Galilee. And He began teaching in their synagogues and was praised by all. Off to a good start, it sounds like, right? In each of the four chapters that we've seen so far of Dr. Luke's Gospel, the Spirit is involved in the birth of Christ, the growth, the start of ministry, and as he fills, leads, and empowers. So the Spirit has been not just incidentally involved or in the behind the scenes, but integrally involved and essential. We saw just last week, Jesus is full of the Holy Spirit.

As it's described, he is led around by the Spirit in the same verse, Luke 4.1. And then in 4.14, just initiating this passage, Jesus is in the power of the Spirit. So we see the Spirit's continuing involvement with every step of the initiation of Christ's ministry here. There's something to kind of take a little side trip on. And that's that this passage here introduces synagogues in the land of Israel. And it so happens that that's been an area of contention that essentially just got resolved about two and a half weeks ago.

In 1996, Richard Horsley wrote that Luke was wrong about the synagogue. The idea that there are synagogue buildings He said not we don't have any in Israel during the time of Christ. So Luke is wrong He claimed that there are no synagogue buildings in Israel at the time. So that's the book archaeology history and society in Galilee That's chapter 6 He focuses the whole chapter chapter 6 on Luke is wrong Luke is wrong Luke is wrong and Luke is wrong and by the way Luke is wrong right so as reported just two and a half weeks ago a Archaeological excavations have revealed a synagogue in Magdala, and you've actually probably been familiar with that because that's where Mary Magdalene was from, from Magdala, that dates from the time of his ministry and was likely a place where Jesus spoke. That would even make it very likely a place that Jesus spoke. If Jesus had Mary Magdalene was involved with Mary Magdalene and in her being restored and becoming a believer, then most certainly would have gone there.

It is the major town on the west side of the Sea of Galilee, aside from the Roman city of Tiberias. So very likely that he spoke in this very synagogue perhaps more than once, possibly several times. So here we are, here is the Sea of Galilee, and there's a map on the middle of your first page handout there. And so here's Migdal or Magdala, depending on the language and dialect, there on the west side of Galilee.

That's actually been going through excavation over the last several years, and it's just recently, two and a half weeks ago, that it was announced, Christmas week, that this synagogue had been discovered. Here is from the excavation. This is the earliest menorah inscription found to date. They're at Magdala, and so that's kind of a new revelation there. Here is the initial excavation where how they first found it, and they just began the digging. And then here is the condition latest. And this is not quite open to the public yet. They're going to turn it into a little archaeological park, and they've got other developments in place. But it's right there.

It turns out that the city of Magdala, when the Jews rebelled against the Romans, was the last holdout in Galilee. And so when the Romans finally conquered Magdala, they went in and pushed everything down and broke the thing apart. But it's being reconstructed as well as they can do so. The synagogue is not mentioned at all.

In fact, it's a Greek word in the Law of Moses. It developed as a tradition with traditions of its own. In other words, there are traditions about everything among the Jews, including traditions about our traditions in the centuries before the time of Christ. So the oldest synagogue dates from about the 3rd or 4th century And that's in Macedonia. That's the oldest one they found. This is now the oldest one they found in Israel. There are others, but this is the oldest one found in Israel.

The synagogue became a Jewish religious center. Now, if we think, well, it's just like a church. No, it's a little different. It's a religious center, it's also a social center, but it's also a place of carrying out civil law, including carrying out essentially court actions, fining people, and even whipping people. So it was not just equivalent to a church. We haven't met very many people around here. So at any rate, these synagogues were quite a center of a number of things and not simply a religious center, not just a spiritual gathering place.

Let me back up a little bit. This is the synagogue in Nazareth. It's not the one that we're reading about today because it was built at a later time. This is inside that synagogue. Again, it gives you an idea what one of them might look like, but because it's not the one that Jesus read in, we can't point that out. Now, the synagogue didn't replace the temple. Why? If you think about it, what did they do at the temple? One thing, they did sacrifices. They didn't do any sacrifices here in the synagogue.

Every Jew of any particular tribe could come into the synagogue. In the temple, only certain particular qualified Levites could carry out sacrifices and that sort of thing. So it didn't replace the temple. It was simply a place where you could gather regularly. And there were even synagogues in Jerusalem. So it wasn't necessarily anything to replace the temple at all. Once the temple, however, was taken out, the synagogue had even greater importance. Now, it says there, he was praised by all. Initially, Jesus not only accepted, wasn't just accepted or tolerated, but he was very well received, initially.

So Dr. Luke connects that up with Jesus teaching the synagogues, and that part certainly is true. What we're going to see as we go through the rest of this chapter, however, The picture of Jesus' earthly ministry in the region of Galilee was Jesus also did healing and preaching the gospel of the kingdom.

We're going to postpone talking about the gospel of the kingdom for a week or two here. Simply, we won't have time to get into it all, but we'll look at it later. It was a message that the Jews were eager to hear. And one reason why the Jews were eager to hear this message was because they had the oppression of the Romans and when they finally got rid of Herod because he died March of 4 BC then all of Herod's sons took up rule over different areas of what Herod once ruled singularly and again lots of taxes and lots of oppression So we'll see about the healing and the gospel in Luke 4, 31 through 44. So that's the next two weeks we'll be going through that passage.

Now in Luke 4, 16, it says this, And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and as was his custom, he entered the synagogue on the Sabbath and stood up to read. And that was, in fact, the custom of the Jews. They'd go to the synagogue on the Sabbath. They'd go there for other times as well, but particularly on the Sabbath they would have their synagogue observance. So Nazareth, the place where he was brought up, except for a brief time in Bethlehem, and we read about that recently. after his birth, and then a brief time in Egypt.

And by the way, those times may each have been as short as about two months long. Possibly longer, but as short as two months long. Jesus had spent more than 30 years in the little town of Nazareth with a few hundred people. Estimates vary, as you might expect, but probably a few hundred people is a good figure to work with.

So here is Capernaum at the north end of the Sea of Galilee. Here's Magdala that we just looked at. And I can say that just two and a half weeks ago I had an announcement on finding the synagogue there. So here is Nazareth. Nazareth is a place where he'd been brought up. He'd been brought up under his mother, Mary, and father, Joseph, in this small town setting, where everybody knows everybody's business. And I know, because I went to high school in a small town.

Jewish setting, having learned the carpenter's trade before, It appears, before it appears, that Joseph had died. Why do we conclude that? Joseph shows up at the time we studied earlier here in the Gospel of Luke, when Jesus is 12, and Joseph and Mary both come back and search for three days trying to find Jesus. But Joseph is not mentioned at any time after that. So it's assumed sometime in the intervening time, Joseph had likely died. We live in an era where we can go and there's an urgent care center and ER and places like that if you get something that suddenly comes up.

Being a carpenter in biblical times, they didn't have the Nazareth lumber yard, right? So you had to go and fall your own trees. So a carpenter was a logger. So that was one thing. A carpenter was also a stonemason. So there's a range of skills there. And those are all crafts in which you have to be careful. You could get injured or worse. And there are also health issues that arise, things that we think nothing of in those days could be fatal.

So, as was his custom, it was traditional, boy the Jews had their traditions, that the Jews would gather at the local synagogue on the Sabbath. It was traditional as well for the synagogue to welcome a rabbi passing through. Any qualified Jewish male could read, as Jesus did, and teach in the synagogue, but when you had a rabbi passing through, and there were approximately 150 of them in Israel at this time, if you had a rabbi passing through, it was customary to whatever the schedule was, make sure you make time for this rabbi to at least read, if not speak before you.

So here's Jesus. He would be put on the schedule. The synagogues in Galilee were mostly inclined towards the sect of the Pharisees, rather than toward the Sadducees. The Sadducees didn't believe in a coming Messiah. Caiaphas, for example, that interrogated Jesus. We'll get there. Caiaphas, when he interrogated Jesus, asked, Are you the Christ? What did he mean? Are you the Messiah? And Caiaphas was asking that facetiously.

Because it didn't matter what Jesus said. He wasn't going to believe it, right? Because he didn't believe in one. They also did not believe in the resurrection. Can you imagine this perspective of, boy, I've got to follow the law all the way down to the last minute, and after that we're all done. Nothing matters. We're through. No resurrection.

Now, it says Jesus stood up to read. As a visiting rabbi, Jesus would be welcome to read from the Old Testament scrolls or to read and also teach on the passage or a related subject. So he could choose to do either one. Reading in the synagogue would be done by a man.

A woman would not be allowed to do that. He would be standing up to show proper respect and with one's head covered to show respect for the words of Scripture. So what we see here, so far this was all just standard stuff. It would be expected. This was the way you would proceed. Scripture scrolls would be both valued and valuable.

Valued because of their content, and valuable because a handwritten scroll, especially one like Isaiah, in our Bibles has 66 chapters. That's a long one, right? And if you had a good quality copy, it would be on some kind of an animal skin, goat skin or sheep skin. And to have it long enough so you had all 66 chapters of the book of Isaiah, that's going to be one very expensive item. So getting the Isaiah scroll, that was a very prized item, not only for its content, but just simply it cost a bunch of money and not everybody had one. If you think about it, we're very fortunate. We all have access to Bibles, and even electronically. If you want, I can email you one. We have easy access and easy reproducibility.

That wasn't true here, so to actually have an Isaiah scroll in your possession was rather a rare thing. So in Luke 4, 17-19, it reads like this, And the book of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him, and he opened the book, and found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord. Now, the way things operated, there was a synagogue ruler and there was a synagogue attendant. The attendant is going to be mentioned here shortly back in verse 20. The synagogue ruler was the one who kind of directed things. Not having a bulletin as we do, you know, what's going to happen next was something that the synagogue ruler would orchestrate. And he would appoint by delegation this attendant, the one who was responsible for handling the scrolls, making sure that the scrolls were well cared for, and then handed off to the proper person that the synagogue ruler designated, and then given back to the attendant, who would then make sure that the scroll was put away where it was supposed to be.

The attendant, so that's Luke 4.20, would be the one who was delegated to manage all of the scrolls, keeping them always well cared for, and only making sure that they go into good hands, not just passing them around. he would hand the scroll to Jesus and when Jesus was done reading he would take it back so Jesus read the spirit of the Lord is upon me so we see again here chapter 1 through chapter 4 the Holy Spirit is involved all the way along and so this is what Jesus reads at the beginning of the passage out of Isaiah So from Luke 4.1, Jesus is full of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus is also led around by the Spirit. We saw that in 4.14. Jesus is in the power of the Spirit, and now he's reading in 4.18, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me. So the Spirit is involved, and he's going to tell them, this passage here applies to me. So we keep seeing the Holy Spirit involved here.

What he read comes out of Isaiah chapter 61. verse 1 and only the first part of verse 2 and as a matter of fact he stopped mid-sentence right in the middle of the verse right in the middle of the sentence he stopped the spirit of the Lord is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted to proclaim liberty to captives and freedom to prisoners And then the first part of verse two, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord. Stop. Right in the middle of the sentence. So this part is about Christ's first coming. That's the part that he read that day in Nazareth and then rolled up the scroll and handed it back to the attendant. Stop right in the middle of the sentence.

It has me three times, Jesus as he is reading it, is expressing, this applies to me. I'm saying me, not as some general statement or somebody else or Isaiah. I'm reading it as the Son of God, as Jesus Christ. That's what I mean by me, right? And one other thing, the Lord has anointed me. Anointed refers to the anointed one, which is the meaning of Christ in the Greek, or Christos, and Messiah, as we anglicize it, or Hamashiah, as it would be said in the Hebrew. And both of those, Christ or Messiah, meant the anointed one. So, because the Lord has anointed me, Jesus, the Son of God, The next part, Isaiah 61, the next part of verse 2, which we call 2B, into verse 3, he didn't read that day. and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, to grant those who mourn in Zion, giving them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting, so they will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified."

This part refers to the coming, yet future, tribulation period, which could be starting today, Christ's second coming, and the Millennial Kingdom. That would explain why Christ stopped mid-sentence. Because those things were, and even now, are yet to come. All future things. Here's the timeline. You have this as a slide on page 2. And one of the things we see is Isaiah 61, 1 and 2a, the first part of verse 2. is the same as what Jesus read in Luke 4, 18 and 19. And that's all about the first coming.

And that's why he stopped right mid-sentence, right in the middle of the verse. Just stop. And imagine, at first they might even have been a little bit puzzled, because it's like I was taught Well, you get the idea. Okay, it's right in the middle of a sentence, right? And people are puzzled by things stopping in the middle of a sentence. Because here's us, okay, in this perspective.

We're somewhere here. I might put that closer to the Tribulation Period, right? Okay, and then here's Isaiah 61, 2b, that he didn't read, but the first part, that's the vengeance of our God, right? That's the seven-year Tribulation Period, that is yet future and then in the Millennial Kingdom that is Isaiah 61 to C and on into verse 7.

So you have that breakdown but he didn't read any of the rest of that because that wasn't something you could say it's fulfilled right today. So let's think also about time gaps that are not immediately apparent. Because if we look at this, we say, hey, wait a minute. He stopped in the middle of the sentence. And then at 61.2b, we got the tribulation period. 61.2c, we got the Millennial Kingdom. You've got centuries of time gap. Now, is that something, I mean, does that make sense?

Well, it turns out that there are other, many other Bible passages where that time gap, sometimes large, is not readily apparent when you read the passage. Not readily apparent when you read the passage. The term that has been applied to these many passages is called prophetic postponement. It looks right together, but there's actually a gap in place.

There's more information if you want to dig that up. World of the Bible, click on resources there, and prophetic postponement. That's one of the many documents. You may find other documents there that are interesting. That's Dr. Randall Price. Randy and I have met him. He's a believer who has been a pastor, he has a PhD in archaeology, and also writes on prophecy subjects. Anyway, good guy.

Now, something else here, we should keep in mind Isaiah's words here, which are the very words Christ read. They were spoken to the people of Israel, and yet there's application to us. Think about this. Are we not in this world afflicted in various ways? Yes. Yes we are. Are there not many among us who at least were broken hearted if not still mending? Were we captives until we believed? Yes. So there is even application to us here during the church age.

Now he uses at the end of this quote from Isaiah, this reading of Isaiah, the words, the favorable year of the Lord. And I think, well, wait a minute, Jesus' ministry was longer than that. The year of Jubilee, this is in Leviticus chapter 25, the slaves were set free.

And the debts were forgiven. See, that wasn't the case out in the Gentile world. Just like it isn't, you know, the case here. But that was true, or at least it was supposed to be true, of the Jews. They were to, in this year of Jubilees, to set the slaves free.

One. And two, forgive all debts. That's it. Just write it off. Okay? That's what they were supposed to do. Jesus is coming, proclaiming release from slavery to sin. Okay? And the indebtedness of sin. In Colossians chapter 2, there's one place where it talks about our debt note. It's a handwritten debt note. Our debt note was nailed to the cross. The debt is forgiven.

So Jesus is proclaiming that. There's one other perspective on this, and the favorable year of the Lord is a time when God's grace and mercy are shown. When the tribulations start, that's not the favorable year of the Lord. But this is the favorable year of the Lord, right?

So, he takes the scroll. It says he closed the book, but he takes the scroll, okay? Closed the book, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. Everybody's eyes are riveted on him. One, he's talking about something that, to them, gives them hope. These are good words at a time when these Romans and all the rulers that they put in place, they're just nasty. They're horrible to work for and to be taxed by. All in that synagogue just had their eyes riveted on him. And he began to say to them, today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. and all were speaking well of him, and wondering at the gracious words which were falling from his lips."

So, it says close the book, it actually means roll up the scroll. The idea of having pages that are bound on one side like we have, you have examples of that right in the pew racks here, where it's bound on one side, that didn't happen until the second century AD. So everything if you call it a book, was a scroll or they would have pages of papyrus and they'd tie them up together and hold them together. But in this case it was rolled up the Isaiah scroll.

So he just read that part of the passage and just that very intentionally and he stopped right in the middle of the sentence in order to not read about the tribulation, his second coming, and the coming kingdom. He didn't want to read that. And why? He rolled the scroll back to the attendant in charge of the scrolls, the attendant who'd been assigned that duty by the synagogue ruler.

Then he told them, today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. When I say me, I mean me, right? That's what Jesus was doing. So these are words coming right out of his mouth, even though Isaiah had written them about seven centuries before. Your words coming right out of his mouth. Lord has anointed me. Now see, up to this point, everyone was saying good things about Jesus.

We have Luke 2.52, it says, Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and stature in favor with God and men. This is reflecting on the incident where Jesus at age 12 was found some days later to be in the temple. And then in Luke 3, 22, the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove, and a voice came out of heaven. This is the Father speaking. You are my beloved Son, and you I am well pleased. So we have the testimony of the Father and the witness of the Holy Spirit at this event.

Luke 4, 14, news about him spread through all the surrounding district. This guy, man, he says incredible things, amazing things. And he does amazing things. and word spread. Having spent some time growing up in a small town, I can tell you that's the way it happens. Word spreads quickly.

In Luke 4.15, as we saw earlier in this passage, he was praised by all.

And here in Luke 4.22, and all were speaking well of him and wondering at the gracious words which are falling from his lips. But I put a dot, dot, dot. Why? Because now we turn the corner. So Luke 4.22c, that's the third part of that verse, to verse 24 reads like this. And they were saying, Is this not Joseph's son? And he said to them, No doubt. You will quote the proverb to me, Physician, heal yourself. And whatever we heard was done at Capernaum, do it here in your hometown as well. And he said, Truly I say to you, no prophet is welcome in his hometown.

The effect here is, hey wait a minute! Isn't that Joseph's son? We know this guy! We know this guy. Jesus had not long before left Nazareth to begin his ministry which he headquartered out of Capernaum. So he went to Capernaum and made that transition And now, after having made that switch, now he goes back to Nazareth for a visit. He's passing through, and he hasn't been gone that long. And Nazareth isn't that big a place. And now people are starting to recognize him. The townsfolk are starting to think, hey, wait a minute, isn't this guy the town carpenter? The son of Joseph? Hey, we know you, right? So the townspeople liked what he read. They were happy with that.

But they couldn't believe that this carpenter, who makes things out of wood, who's a stonemason, who does his own logging, this carpenter, who was Joseph's son, was actually the long-promised Messiah. They might say something like, hey, that guy made a stool for me. Right? Something like that. What's more, he hadn't come doing the signs and wonders that he, and they'd already heard about it, that he had done in Capernaum. He knew that they were going to expect them, especially to overcome their disbelief that this lowly carpenter is actually God's long-promised Messiah. I can't believe it. of all the gall to come in here and say you're the Messiah when that guy made my stool. Right?

But Jesus on the other hand had said in Matthew 16.4 and he said similar things elsewhere, an evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign.

So doing a show for them is not something he's prone to do. Now, no prophet is welcome in his hometown. Familiarity and hard hearts together make for a bad reception to the prophets whom God has sent over the years. God had sent various ones and they were treated badly, and especially in their hometown. Especially in their hometown. Isaiah, for example, after a long career as the court prophet, especially under Hezekiah, and Hezekiah's son sent soldiers out for him, and he was son and two. Other prophets were treated very badly, Jeremiah being another one.

Now that the long-promised prophet, capital P, that's in Deuteronomy 18, 15 through 19, where Moses tells them a prophet will come, one specific one, will come. That's the one that they were asking John the Baptist, are you that prophet? He said, nope. But Jesus is that prophet. When that prophet had come, the townsfolk in Nazareth were doing as Jews had done for many years.

Oh, we know you. We know you. You're just this. You're just that. The Jews seem to suffer from the expert from afar syndrome, right? You get an expert from far away, of course that guy knows what he's talking about. But this guy that made my stool, uh-uh. Not believe in it.

Luke 4, 25 and 26 reads like this. and this is Jesus speaking, but I say to you in truth there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah when the sky was shut up for three years and six months three and a half years when a great famine came over all the land and yet Elijah was sent to none of them but only to Zarephath in the land of Sidon to a woman who was a widow now think about this a woman who was a widow She's not likely to have a whole lot of wealth. So this is an interesting situation. The Lord sends him from, not from Judah, but from Israel up to Zarephath, which is farther to the north and outside of the domain of Israel and Judah. And so here is Elijah was sent to the northern kingdom of Israel.

That's where God had him ministering. which had no good kings both Israel and Judah had about 20 kings each not one of the kings and queens of Israel were good they were all rotten and the Lord had Elijah ministering in the time of Ahab and Jezebel who were the rottenest the most rotten And by the way, as we're pointing out things, this is Jezebel's seal. Her personal seal.

That's it. Ahab and Jezebel were the most wicked rulers in all of Israel's history. The worst. They're all bad. These guys are really bad. So God had Elijah tell Ahab, talk to this really bad dude, that it would not rain in Israel until Elijah himself allowed it to rain. You're getting no rain. I don't mean it's a little bit of a drought. You're getting none. Zip. No rain. So here's 1 Kings 16, 29-34 to give us a sense of how Ahab and Jezebel are. Now Ahab, the son of Omri, became king over Israel in the 38th year of Asa, king of Judah. And Ahab, the son of Omri, reigned over Israel and Samaria 22 years.

And Ahab, the son of Omri, did evil on the side of the Lord more than all who were before him. It came about as though it had been a trivial thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat. And he married Jezebel, the daughter of Esbaal, king of the Sidonians, and went to serve Baal and worshiped him. So he erected an altar for Baal and a house of Baal, which he built in Samaria. Ahab also made the Asherah, which is a pole-type idol. Thus Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God in Israel than all the kings of Israel who were before him.

One really bad dude. So Elijah was sent to the northern kingdom of Israel, which had no good kings. All the kings and queens were evil. Good and godly prophets were slaughtered in great number, and Elijah himself was forced to flee and leave Israel. So what does that do? God sent Elijah to minister to this Canaanite widow in Zarephath. performing miracles in the supply of food, she always had sufficient food, just miraculously appeared, and raising the widow's son. So here the Lord sent Elijah to this Canaanite woman. Why? There's no opportunity in the land of Israel. Driven out. So here's the path. He went from the Brookereth up to Zarephath and stayed there. Now, Elijah was from Tishbe, and so they called him Elijah the Tishbite. Now, I have no idea how bad a Tishbite is, so I have no idea.

Anyway, so here's Luke 4.27. Now, here we go from Elijah to Elisha. And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian. So, let's get the story here.

While the northern kingdom of Israel had many leopards, none of them was cleansed of the disease, since the Jews could only be healed if they obeyed the law. That was from Exodus 15, 26, Deuteronomy 28, and a few other passages. The only way the Jews would get healed is if they obeyed the law, and since they're all disobeying the law, None of them will get healed. None whatsoever.

This gives you an idea of what leprosy is like. It's a bacterial infection. It's a combination of a couple different antibiotics to knock it out in our era. But it was a terribly disfiguring disease and people would sometimes lose digits. I'll tell a brief side story. My grandmother was a missionary to the cannibals in Fiji. And then after that, she was a missionary in Hawaii.

And there was a lady who came to church and had on white gloves. And so the lesson that day had to do with the lepers, and only one came back and thanked the Lord for it. Well, after that story, after that lesson, the lady, whose name was Hattie, who had the white gloves, came up and said, do you think that you could pray for my leprosy and Have it be healed. I said well, we certainly can and so the missionaries prayed for Hattie She had two daughters and if she was sent away to a leper colony, that's why she hid it She heard nobody would be around to take care of her daughters and so the Lord healed Hattie's hands and grew back all the fingers all the way back to the fingernails.

Okay, so the Lord can do that but That was at a time when there wasn't just, OK, here's your antibiotics and you're taken care of. In the same way, back in the biblical times, there wasn't any way to deal with it with any technology that they had at the time. So Naaman, the Syrian officer under the direction of Elisha, was told, wash in the Jordan River seven times, which he did, and he was healed. So Naaman, the Gentile, again, here's another Gentile, acted in faith when the Israelites didn't.

And he was healed. So Jesus at times refused to do miracles for the Jews because Jesus was not carrying on his ministry just to put on a show to impress people. These were signs that he was the Messiah. But he's not there to put on a show. And those who wanted just a show frequently didn't believe in the end anyway. Because wanting a show was a sign of evil, not of faith.

So we're going to see later on in the Gospel of Luke, Luke 11 29, as the crowds were increasing, he began to say, this generation is a wicked generation that seeks for a sign, and yet no sign will be given it but the sign of Jonah. So we'll see that when we get to Luke chapter 11. Just as the Jews of the time of the northern kingdom of Israel were all evil at heart, So Jesus knew that these of the town of Nazareth were evil at heart as well, wanting more proof that he was in fact the Messiah, especially because he made their stools. So here's Luke 4, 28-30.

And all the people in the synagogue were filled with rage as they heard these things. Isn't it amazing? They went from, oh man, this guy says such great stuff, and all of a sudden, hey, wait a minute, he's claiming to be the Messiah. They were infuriated.

And they got up and drove him out of the city and led him to the brow of the hill on which their city had been built in order to throw him down the cliff. Off the edge. But passing through their midst, he went his way. So the people who heard Jesus were first speaking well of him, rather quickly they turned into a murderous mob. Boy, he makes me mad! The audacity of claiming to be the Messiah. Though they intended to push him off a cliff to kill him, Jesus avoided that outcome by slipping away.

And we don't know, because it doesn't say, you know, did he do some kind of aikido move and, you know, happen to get through them? Or did he, you know, do some kind of a miracle? We don't really know. But one way or another, he got away. Though this is the very first event that Dr. Luke records for us in Jesus' ministry in which the Jews tried to apprehend and or kill Jesus, it won't be the last as we're going to see as we continue investigating Jesus in the Gospel of Luke. Now we might ask some questions here.

Since God knows in advance who will respond favorably to Jesus' message and miracles, why does God spend the time and effort These people why doesn't he only spend time and effort on those who respond favorably? Hmm As far as we can tell nobody responded well to his message, I'm the Messiah Okay, why grace? God's grace We could also ask to in this account of Elisha since God knew Ahab and Jezebel would reject the call to repent and the clear signs of judgment, okay Why does God even bother with sending a powerful and faithful man like Elijah to Ahab and Jezebel? Why give them any warning at all?

Grace. Christ died for the sins of the whole world, even though God knows who will reject the message. It's grace. Ah, questions for this Sunday. These are ones we posed last week. When Jesus visited his hometown of Nazareth, were all of them speaking well of him? Yes, at first. Yes, at first.

When Jesus read the book of Isaiah, why did he stop in the middle of the sentence? Because he said, it was all fulfilled in this day, in your hearing. And so he couldn't continue on reading about the tribulation, and the second coming, and the coming millennial kingdom. So he had to stop right in the middle of the sentence.

Thirdly, when in the end the townspeople wanted to kill him, why didn't Jesus just let them do it so he could die for our sins like he planned? Why not just say, hey, you know, this is a good opportunity. I can die for people's sins right now. Well, there's a few things that say that's not a good idea yet.

Jesus had to finish preaching the gospel of the kingdom to Israel, and we're going to talk about what that is a couple weeks from now. Jesus had to fulfill all of the prophecies and depending on how you break up the details there's over a hundred Had to fulfill all the prophecies about his first coming and about his death burial and resurrection All those prophecies had to be fulfilled. And so if he died at this point in time Those would be cut short not fulfilled. Jesus had to select train and prepare the disciples for the ministry that was ahead of them Okay And so far, we haven't seen him select any. So that had to all be done. Fourthly, Jesus had to build his church, which was established by the apostles whom he chose.

And if he died here, that wouldn't have happened. Now, questions for next Sunday for you to ponder. Jesus' ministry in Capernaum sure seems to have started off well. Did it end well? Were there many demons in the man at the synagogue or just one demon in the man? Because there's one place where you see demons and another place where you see demon. So is there one or many? What's with this? What's up?

Why did God allow demons to run loose on the earth instead of getting rid of them? And who are they anyway? I mean, wouldn't it be a lot nicer if God just got rid of all the demons and didn't have that problem? Should we, in the body of Christ, have any concern about the demons? Or should we ignore them, or what?

Those are some questions. We'll look at that next Sunday. as we continue exploring Luke 4 31 through 44 let's pray Lord we thank you for your word we thank you for what you've made clear here we thank you for even in this instance where it turns out nobody responded well you've just shown your amazing grace by presenting the truth and the truth needs to be responded to And Lord, as we look at this passage, we also see you have indeed inspired Dr. Luke to have written this book, as well as the book of Acts. And we thank you for that. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.