00:00
00:00
00:01
Transcript
1/0
He, that is Jesus, arose and
left the synagogue. Of course, that after he'd been
preaching and the astonishment of the people as he taught there.
He left the synagogue and entered Simon's house. Now Simon's mother-in-law
was ill with a high fever, and they appealed to him on her behalf,
and he stood over her and rebuked the fever. And it left her, and
immediately she rose and began to serve them. Now when the sun
was setting, all who had any who were sick with various diseases
brought them to him and he laid hands, excuse me, he laid his
hands on every one of them and healed them. Jesus from the time that he arrives
on the scene publicly, is amazing one person after another. The
scenes of his public appearances here in the early days of his
earthly ministry seemed to always end with people being astonished.
You didn't leave a moment when the Lord spoke or certainly when
he performed some miracle of casting out a demon or healing
those with various sicknesses. You left there deeply impacted
by what Jesus had done. I pray today that the same is
true for us when we meet together from Sunday to Sunday in our
midweek Bible study. And as you meet with the Lord
on your own and in your own private time of prayer and meditation
and reading of God's word, I pray that our astonishment might grow
throughout our lives. Jesus has cast out a demon. He has taught in a way that was
so different and so much more powerful and authoritative than
the people had ever heard from any scribe or Pharisee. And we
saw that last week in the message that we tried to give on the
authority and the power of Christ. And now the scene changes once
again, but it's It's yet another powerful scene, if not one so
publicly consumed in Peter's house, but then you have this
great crowd of people that come, and the scripture tells us that
he heals each one of them. But Jesus comes to Peter's house,
and his mother-in-law, you know this story, she's sick. with a high fever and no telling
what the particular disease was. Certainly malaria was a common
disease of the time and the day and would lead to fever, but
any number of things could have been the individual ailment.
And Peter and those in the household were told, appealed to Christ. Erotao is the Greek, and it means
a sincere, deep, personal request on behalf of another. Those in
the household were deeply concerned about Peter's mother-in-law,
and no doubt they had tried other traditional methods of healing,
and she didn't get any better. And they appealed to Christ to
heal her. And he's going to respond positively
to that appealing. And the Scripture says that Jesus
rebuked the fever. And that's what caught my attention
as I began to study this passage of Scripture as God directed
us in this way. He rebukes the fever. I want
to speak to you today about the healing rebuke of Christ. the healing rebuke of Christ. Jesus wastes no time. He immediately
responds to the request, and we're told again He rebukes the
fever. You know, it might be said this
way, that Jesus' entire life was spent rebuking sin And his
entire life was spent as a rebuke of sin, and it demonstrated,
again, his authority to overcome everything that was contrary
to God's intended purpose for man. But he rebukes this fever,
and in verse 39, that's exactly what we're told. He rebuked,
he stood over her, he rebuked the fever, and it left. And that
Greek word in verse 39, rebuked, is the same Greek word that was
used when we're told that Jesus rebuked the demon, when he cast
out the demon. He rebukes the fever. He treats the fever almost like
the demon. He treats it as an intruder that
needed to be commended to leave. He literally calls out the fever
and says to it that it must leave. And that is, in a sense, what
he was saying. He was saying, we might say this
way, fever, it's not right for you to be here, so be gone. He rebukes the fever. And as I thought about that,
I think that for all of us, there are many things in our lives
that we might say it's not right that they're here. It's not right. In a way, I see Jesus saying
that about this fever that Peter's mother-in-law was suffering from.
He rebukes it, says it's not right that you are here. And
there are many things in our own lives, are there not, where
we might say the same thing. It's not right that that's here.
It's not right that men and women commit sin and harm themselves
and others. That's not right. And Jesus came
to rebuke that. to say it's not right for that
to be among us. And so be gone and it must leave. It's not right. We might think
that men live their whole lives and they die and their bodies
returned to the grave and to the dust from which it was made,
never coming to know the God who made them. That's not right.
That's not right. In Jesus' life, was a rebuke
of that that is not right. Of all that isn't right, Jesus
came to rebuke it. It's not right, we say, for men
to live and to die without ever knowing any peace or purpose
or meaning beyond the temporary pleasures of this world. That's
not right. It's not right that people grow
ill and pass away. To us, that's not right. It's
not right that we suffer pain and sorrow and loss. In the household
here, Peter and his mother-in-law sitting there, it's not right
that she's sick. And Jesus comes on the scene
and and they implore him and they plead with him. This isn't
right. Jesus would you heal her. Things
are not right. And maybe in your own heart right
now there's something in your life or many things in your life
and you say this is not right. I beg you to go to Christ with
that. There are things in our lives that are not right. And
Jesus, his entire life, when we look at it in a certain aspect
and with a certain lens that I believe is an accurate way
to look at his life, he came to rebuke all that is wrong in
the world. And of course, all that is wrong
in the world is rooted in sin. rooted in disobedience and rebellion
against God. But you know, when men often
say, this isn't right in my life, and that's not right. I'm not
paid enough. I don't have a good enough job. I don't have the
advantages that I should have. It's not right that I'm not rich
and powerful. It's not right that I don't get
to have this or that. Or it's not right that I have
to go to school every day. It's not right I have to go to
work every day. These things are not right. It's not right
that people get sick. It's not right that we lose people
to death. And sometimes when we think this way, when men think
this way, they'll blame God. They'll point their finger at
God and say it's not right. And God's to blame. Some will say God is the one
who has the power to change all of this. They'll read the scripture
in Genesis, and they'll point their accusing finger to God
and say, why did he allow an opportunity for sin? He's the
one that put the tree there, so he's to blame when Adam and
Eve fall and eat of the fruit. He's to blame. Isn't that what
we say sometimes? Isn't that how men and women
think sometimes? If it's God's fault, if he had
not allowed this to take place or that to take place, it's his
fault. But you know, in a way, that's
similar to saying a judge who gives a man and lets a man loose
on bail, and that man then goes and commits another crime for
that criminal then to say, well, it's the judge's fault. He's
the one who let me out. It's like the child who's given
an allowance, and when they waste it all on candy, they say, well,
it's my mom and dad's fault. They're the one who gave me the
money. Or this is perhaps more frequent. Sadly, a doctor gives a very
specific prescription for a very specific need. and it's misused,
and then complications arise, and people grow addicted to it,
and people say, well, it's the doctor's fault who prescribed
it to me, and granted, there's some accountability there, but
the fault is ours. For you to blame God for the
things that are wrong in your life is to misplace the blame. Now, listen, don't misunderstand
me. There are things that are not
right in your life for which you are not directly responsible.
See Job as an example. But just because it's not your
direct fault does not mean it is God's. Our position, listen, our position
as sinners in a fallen world, that's to blame. The fact of the matter is Jesus
came to make right all the things that men have made wrong, all
the way down to this fever that afflicted Peter's mother-in-law.
He rebukes it. He rebukes this fever and Jesus
rebukes all that is wrong in the world by coming and taking
upon himself the human flesh and becoming a man and living
among us and dying on a cross to satisfy the law of God. And
he makes right in that all that is ultimately wrong. Jesus' entire
life was about righting the wrongs. It's about rebuking the wrong. One day, Jesus is going to speak
a final word of rebuke against all sin and command it all to
depart. One day and one day sooner rather
than later, I believe we are going to hear the rebuking command
of Christ that sin is to be forever done away with. In Revelation
chapter 21 verse 4 and 5, He, Christ, will wipe away every
tear from our eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall
there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain any more. For the former
things have passed away, and He who was seated on the throne
said, Behold, I'm making all things new. And in doing that,
he rebukes all that is old and all that is sinful, and he rebukes
the sin. Jesus is going to rebuke the
tears of our sorrow here in this world. He's going to wipe the
last one of them from our cheek. He is going to rebuke our pain. He's going to rebuke death itself. He's going to rebuke all these
things. And as He rebukes them, they will have the same option
that everything else Jesus ever rebuked had, which is to leave. When Jesus rebukes, that that
is wrong leaves at His rebuking power. I want us to look very carefully
today at this passage and what happens both with Peter's mother-in-law
and with the crowd. I think there are a number of
things that we can learn about Christ and about how he deals
with people when we look at this. One of the first things I'd like
to point out to you is that Jesus works here in an individual nature,
one-on-one. He deals with Peter's mother-in-law,
one woman out of many. Throughout his life, we find
Jesus dealing with, healing, and saving individuals. I do not believe that Jesus ever
spoke salvation over a crowd and said, you're all saved. I
pronounce you all saved. It was always an individual experience
between the one who was saved or healed and Jesus. Always. This year that we're now in of
Jesus' earthly ministry in the fourth chapter of Luke, again,
as we've said, it's been called and referred to as the year of
popularity, great crowds came to see him. People from all over
traveled far distances to hear this preacher from Nazareth,
this one who people had heard could perform miracles. Great
crowds, throngs of people would come and hear Jesus and desire
to be near him and to hear what he taught. And certainly many
brought, as we even in our passage today, brought people who needed
to be healed. But there's a... there is a much
greater focus in the Gospels with Jesus dealing with individuals
than with a crowd. We could take time, there's at
least 19 that I could list, I won't list all of them, of these individual
encounters that are recorded in the New Testament. Here with
first, this by the way is the first recording at least in the
Gospel of Luke, if not all four Gospels, the first healing miracle
of Christ is Peter's mother-in-law. One person Jesus in Luke chapter
4 later, he's going to heal. Prior to this, he healed the
man with a demon. He cast out the demon. Jesus
heals an individual leper. Jesus heals a centurion's servant. He heals the paralytic. one individual
that was let down through the roof. He heals one man with a
withered hand. He heals Jarrah's daughter. He
healed the woman with an issue of blood, the man who was born
blind, the man at the pool of Bethesda, the boy with an unclean
spirit, Malchus' ear. He raised Lazarus individually. He heals a nobleman's Son, there
is just a count, after a count, after a count in the New Testament,
and in the Gospels in particular, where Jesus heals one on one,
individually. He did not, I do not believe,
though some have argued. Some of the reading that I did,
they argued that Jesus just pronounced the whole crowd saved here, and
I don't read the scripture that way. We'll say more about that
in a little bit, but in many of these individual encounters,
Think about it. In many of these individual encounters
where Jesus healed someone, there were likely others nearby with
the same affliction. But Jesus didn't heal the crowds.
He healed individuals. There were other graves nearby
when Jesus called Lazarus from the tomb. But Jesus does not
call forth all of the dead from the tomb. In John chapter 11,
he calls Lazarus. Jesus healed multiple blind men
at different times instead of healing all the blind men in
the world at the same time. Even in instances like the one
before us today, where Jesus healed many, listen to the scripture
very carefully. It says he touched his hands
on every one of them. I believe when he healed them,
he looked in their eyes. I believe they looked upon him. I believe
there was an individual encounter with Christ on the part of these
individuals that were in the crowd that day. Why does Jesus do this? Why is
this important? Why am I making a point of this? Why didn't Jesus just heal everyone
with a wave of his hand? We might ask this question, why
doesn't Jesus just fix all the problems of all the world all
at once? Why doesn't he do that? We think,
and even might say things like this, if I had the power of God,
I would make everything better for everyone. So why doesn't
Jesus? I believe there are at least
a couple of reasons that I would like to give to you to think
about. First, listen, Jesus isn't interested
in being your icon. or your hero who swoops in and
out of your life when you have some need. He's interested in
being your savior and your Lord and your friend every day. He
does not want to merely be your get-out-of-jail-free card. He
does not want to be merely the one you call when you find some
trouble. Now listen, if you're in some
trouble, Jesus is the best place to go. But this Jesus does not
simply want to be at your disposal when you have need of him. Think about it carefully. I believe
we need to think about this very carefully because I believe that
much of Christianity, at least in the West and America, has
become more concerned with the entertainment of the people than
the healing of the person. The temporary pleasure of the
crowd over the eternal peace of the individual. Jesus deals
with individuals one at a time. He has the concern for all the
world, but when I was saved, when I was 11 years old, I dealt with him and he dealt
with me individually. Second, and I believe it's related
to the first but different, If all that Jesus did was pronounce
healing over all of the crowd, I believe the crowds would seek
comfort instead of Christ. In fact, in John chapter six,
we read something where Jesus acknowledges this, and there
were a great crowd of people following him after he had fed
the multitudes in a miraculous way, and they were still following
him, and Jesus looked at them and said, you're not following
me to find life, you're following me because you ate and were fed
yesterday. He said, don't seek the food
of this world. Seek the spiritual things that
lead to eternal life. If Jesus simply healed everyone,
I believe many, if not most, would never truly seek him or
love him in the way that he desires to be loved at all. You know,
many show up to be fed or blessed in some earthly manner by Christ,
but few seem to show up just to be near Him and with Him. If Jesus fixed every problem
you have in your life, would you still serve Him? If every problem you had in your
life suddenly was dealt with in the way that you think best,
Would you bow the knee and thank him? The ironic truth is, the ironic
truth, I believe, is that our earthly pain and poverty, our
earthly pain and poverty are far less deadly to us than our
earthly pleasure and prosperity. You know, when we think about
Jesus dealing with the individual, I think that many people would
prefer it not be that way. They just prefer that Jesus work
in the crowd in which they find themselves. Because you see in
a crowd, many people, it's the only experience of Christianity
that they know is Christianity in a crowd. all kinds of energy
and all kinds of well-orchestrated service, all kinds of beautiful
things to look at, wonderful singing to listen to. well-arranged
and not really challenging sermons, but entertaining enough and storytelling
enough to capture your attention for the 30 minutes that it's
going to require. And they shuffle in, in a crowd
of thousands, and they shuffle out with a crowd of thousands.
And the only concept of Christianity that they have is in the midst
of a crowd. And I believe that a lot of people
would just prefer it to be that way. You want to know why? Because there's far less responsibility
individually in a crowd. You can avoid it. There's far
less accountability in a great crowd of people. There's a sense
of belonging in the crowd. Many seem to be just fine sitting
in a church pew in relative anonymity of the crowd, but avoid entirely
any real and direct and true presence of Christ. They'd rather
be lost in the crowd than found by Jesus. They'd rather be unaccountable
in the countless numbers of people around them than to be solely
alone standing before Jesus Christ who deals with men and women
and children one on one. Anything but that. If the only Christianity you
are familiar with is Christianity in a crowd, I I beg you to consider that. It's important. Do you know Christ? Are you willing to be with him
whether the crowd comes or goes, whether they're present or not? Many might even prefer to think
themselves saved because they're in the right crowd, but have
never been truly in the presence of the Lord alone. But this is
not how Jesus works according to the New Testament. He deals
one-on-one. He heals individually. He saves
individually. You know, I had heard of the
need to be saved before God convicted me of my sin. I had been in the
midst of many other people. I considered myself a Christian.
I'd gone through the motions of being baptized and joining
the church. I'd done all those religious
things. I was part of the group. But I didn't know Jesus. He'd
never worked in my heart. I found comfort in being a part
of that crowd, but everything changed when Jesus called me. And, you know, when we think
about the healing rebuke of Christ in Peter's mother, Peter's mother-in-law's
case, it was a fever. Christ is going to come to you
one day and he's going to rebuke your sin. and he's gonna rebuke
your sins so that he might heal you. He's gonna convict you of it.
He's gonna call it to your attention. He's gonna call you out of the
crowd. He's gonna call you to himself
and his rebuke of your sin is his call to you individually. Come to me, he says, all ye that
labor and find rest. When I was a boy, I found comfort
in that crowd. But that day that the Lord convicted
my heart of sin, and I knew that I was lost before Him, and I
knew and I admitted and acknowledged without any argument intellectually,
there was no argument to be made, I was a sinner by nature, and
I was a sinner by choice, and because of my choice, I stood
condemned before God as a sinner, and He came that day and rebuked
my sin, and He rebuked it so that He might heal me of it. Now, though many would prefer
Christ to work in a crowd, think how much better it is that He
works with an individual instead. Think of how much better it is.
If Jesus just healed everyone all at once, listen, if Jesus
would have just waved His hand over this crowd, and they all
of a sudden, miraculously so certainly, were healed of whatever
infirmity it was, they had no one to thank. He's over there at a distance.
I never got to say thank you. Remember the 10 lepers that were
healed by the way? Who came back? One. One came
back and was pronounced, you're whole by Christ. lost in a crowd
found by Christ. This rebuke of this fever in
Peter's mother-in-law reminds us and shows us again that Jesus
deals with people individually. And I believe the scriptures
say it on purpose that Luke says he touched every one of them. And I refer you back again to
chapter 1 as we've been working our way through this gospel.
Why did Luke write this gospel to Theophilus, his friend? So
that Theophilus might know and be persuaded of the things that
he had been taught, and what a loss it would be if Jesus healed
us somehow, but never spoke to us or never listened to us. We think we want salvation in
a crowd, but we don't, not really. We need and desire, the human
heart does, to be in communion one-on-one with our God, our
Creator, our Lord, our friend that sticks closer than a brother.
Surely these people, had they all been healed all at once as
a crowd and in a global way, but not individually, they would
have left a maze at being healed, but they would also go away without
the opportunity to thank the one who had changed their life.
I remember the day that I got saved and as joyful and as wonderful
as that moment of salvation was, and it is incomparable. It's
just the down payment I understand of that that I'm going to experience
when I finally leave this world, which is one day out there in
the future. And I don't know when it is, but when I leave
this world, I know I'm going to be with Christ. And in that
moment, it became real. And I knew and I understood whether
there was a crowd of people there or not. I didn't care. I didn't
know. I was dealing with Jesus, and
as wonderful as that moment of salvation was when he gave me
peace, it was a wonderful thing to be able to say, thank you.
Thank you, Jesus. But if Jesus just heals in a
crowd, how can you thank him? Jesus deals with you. He wants
to. He wants to and he proved it
again and again in his earthly ministry. This is how I work. This crowd had been, if they
had been healed all together all at once, they'd have gone
away healed, never having met their healer. And in meeting their healer,
though instead they went away not only with newly recovered
body, but a newly recovered purpose because I now know him and he
knows me. This one who healed me, he's
not some distant icon like popular culture likes to follow. He's
not some hero that saves the day here and there. He's my hero
who saves my every breath. and I know him and I walk with
him. I fear there are many today who
believe themselves healed who have never met the healer. Serious thought, I believe, should
be given to that because the clear pattern of scripture shows
that Jesus might teach the people, but he heals the person. Now, I think another thing that we
see here as we try to make our way through this passage is we
see his care for physical ailments. Some have made the mistake of
thinking Jesus is entirely concerned with spiritual things and entirely
unconcerned with our physical well-being. This isn't true. He is concerned. It does concern
him. Some take what I have said earlier,
already this morning, about the spiritual realities of the healing
of Christ. They take that to the entirely
wrong conclusion, and they believe Christ cares little about our
physical pain and suffering. This is not the case. As Scripture
clearly demonstrates, Jesus, we're told in Matthew 14, 14,
had compassion on the crowds, and He healed their sick. James
tells us Strongly, he rebukes the idea that we ought to ignore
the physical ailments of those to whom we long to minister and
serve. James says it this way in James
chapter two, verses 15 and 16. If a brother or sister is poorly
clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to
them, go in peace, be warmed and filled without giving them
the things needed for the body. What good is that? Jesus is concerned about these
things. If we then are to imitate Christ,
then we too ought to do what we can to rebuke the poverty
and the pain of the physical nature of those among whom we
live. Now again, we know that the spiritual
ailments are of much greater importance because no matter
what we do, No matter how we might feed and clothe the poor,
every one of those people whom we have fed and clothed is going
to die one day. We know that the spiritual things
of Christ are more important from an eternal perspective,
but that does not dismiss our need to recognize that Christ
is interested in our physical well-being here in the world. Consider this too. I mean, Lazarus,
Jesus brought him forth from the grave. He called him from
the dead and Lazarus left the tomb just to, at some point in
the future, go right back. We think, you know, was it Ponce
de Leon, Fountain of Youth? Want to find the fountain of
youth so I can live forever. Do you want to know, perhaps?
I'd have to think about it a while. Well, there's one that's worse,
but I can give you a few examples of anything that would be worse
than this. You found the fountain of youth
and you drank from it and you lived here forever. That is not a blessing. That
would be one of the greatest curses ever. I would say to you
that after a few hundred years, you would go stark raving mad. You'd lose your sanity. It's not designed for this side
of eternity to live forever. We think we want immortality
here. It would be the worst thing we
were ever given. There isn't a single one of us
who would enjoy such a deadly gift. Yet, this does not mean that
we should be dismissive of the physical needs of those to whom
we long and attempt to minister. Remember this, God is, he's not,
he's not done remaking me or you. If He has saved you, there's
yet more work that is left, and that is the new body He's going
to give you when you enter into eternity. But He's going to give
you a new body. He's interested in the physical.
We're human beings. We inhabit physical reality,
and we inhabit that physical reality, I believe, in time and
eternity. that body that we're going to
receive will not be ever, I don't believe it will ever suffer pain,
I believe I believe that it will know striving. I do believe that,
but there is a striving that is a blessing that is joyful,
that is fulfilling, that is hopeful, and then there is a striving
that we so often encounter here on this side of eternity, which
is none of those things, but it is draining and it is painful. That's not the kind, but those
bodies that we receive then, I believe they're going to be
able to handle the matchless glory of Christ and enjoy life
eternal. I want to say just a few final
things here today. We note with Peter's mother-in-law
that the fever left immediately. We don't want to overlook that.
Immediately it's gone. Christ rebukes it and it's gone. We've all had the flu, likely,
and you're miserable for however many days. It's just horrible. Your brain's in a fog, your body
hurts, you've got chills, you can't breathe well, the throat
maybe even hurts, and all of these things, and then one day,
Those symptoms are gone, and your body has fought the infection,
and you feel better, but you know what? You're still completely
exhausted, and a recovery time is needed, even after you start
feeling better. It's not what happens when Jesus heals his
mother-in-law, Peter's mother-in-law, hops up right out of bed, starts
serving. What's next? When Jesus saved my soul, it
was not a gradual process. It was not a graduation from
one understanding level to another. I didn't go to Salvation 101,
Salvation 201, and then the third year, Salvation 301, and then
my senior year of Christianity, go to Salvation 401. When Jesus
pronounced peace to my heart when I was 11 years old, he did
the healing, and he did it entirely, and there was nothing left to
be done. And in a moment, I was changed. And thus is said, I
believe, about all who Christ changes. There was not a need
for recovery. There was not a need for time
for her to say, you know, just give me a little bit. I feel
much better now, a little bit. I feel like I'm improving. No,
she gets up and she does what you and I ought to do, by the
way, when God heals us, begin to serve. Do not fail to serve
when Christ has rebuked the pain and the sorrow in your life and
given you peace. The healing rebuke of Christ. My thought, my hope is that we
would see this and understand the very inescapable truth of
Christ dealing with us as individuals. and that there is no such thing
as corporate salvation. There is only individual salvation.
There is only one-on-one knowledge of Christ. There is not, in the
last day in Revelation, we do not read that we are, or in Thessalonians
and in other places in Corinthians, when we read about the end time,
we do not read that Christ is going to gather groups before
Him. He says He's going to gather
everyone before Him. That includes you and me and
everyone else. And people say, well, how can
that be? I have no trouble leaving that to the Lord, how he's going
to arrange that. I'm with the psalmist in that
I try not to exercise myself with things that are too high
for me. I know what the scripture says and I trust what God has
said in it. I pray that we would each one
be individually connected to Christ, not merely as part of
a congregation or a crowd, but that we would know him and that
we each know the healing touch of his hand in our life. And
if you don't, I encourage you to seek it. Seek it while it
may be found.
The Healing Rebuke of Christ
Series The Gospel of Luke
| Sermon ID | 526251537223963 |
| Duration | 41:47 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Luke 4:37-40 |
| Language | English |
Documents
Add a Comment
Comments
No Comments
© Copyright
2026 SermonAudio.