Well, good morning again. Welcome to our weekly Bible talk. Today, I'm going to try something a little bit different. Instead of reading a long passage and then only covering a few verses, I'm going to read a shorter passage and see how it goes. Like I mentioned last week, my hope is to keep these to like 20-25 minutes as opposed to 30 minutes, which I know they sometimes go for. Again, I remind you, kind of the idea here is that I'm sort of modeling for you how you could have a wonderful time just in your personal devotions engaging with God through His Word. My hope is that by doing this often enough, you'll sort of learn by osmosis how to properly engage with God's Word. We're modeling proper principles of interpretation, reading passages in context, thinking about how they apply to our lives, thinking through how you can pray back to God, all things that I'd love to see all of us doing in our personal devotion. So that's kind of the idea here. So again, we're going to try and keep it a little bit shorter. And today we're going to look at verses 29 through 34 of Mark chapter one. So get your Bibles open Mark chapter one. We're going to read verses 29 through 34 and then talk about what the Lord has to say to us through it. Let's pray first for help. Pray with me. Gracious God in heaven, thank you so much for your precious word. Lord, your word is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword. Your word gives light to the simple, it regenerates, it gives us life, it transforms, it renews our minds. Thank you so much for your precious word. Thank you for your son, King Jesus. Thank you for the way that he came down from heaven to seek and to save the lost. Please, bless now this time, open our minds and our hearts to hear you address us through your word. Take this ancient word that was written 2,000 years ago and speak to us through it now. Help us to interpret it correctly, to apply it to our lives. Help me to make comments that bring out the real meaning and the implications of the passage. As always, we pray for grace that we would be doers of your word, not hearers only. Through Jesus we pray. Amen. Now, just to put Mark 1, 29 and following in context, you'll remember the gospel of Mark is all about Jesus, who he is. That's sort of the big unifying theme. When you get into the gospels really, but Mark in particular, that's kind of Mark's goal. He's explaining who Jesus is to a lot of people that aren't thoroughly familiar with him. Maybe they've heard rumors of him. They've heard, yeah, there was this traveling teacher in Galilee, but they really don't have a full, accurate understanding of who he is. So that's why Mark writes this gospel. As we've seen, John the Baptist prepared the way before Jesus, kind of broke up the hard ground so that there would be a greater reception of him when he came. We saw Jesus baptized in the River Jordan and Connecting this to the other Gospels, that was a important event where Jesus is declared to be the Son of God. The voice comes from heaven, this is my beloved Son. Now, interestingly, immediately after that, Jesus is driven out into the desert to be tempted by the devil. And for 40 days, he's tempted by the devil. And again, connecting with the other Gospels, he defeats the devil's every temptation, even though the devil appealed to the lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, pride of life. Jesus defeated all of those temptations, and again this doesn't come from Mark, it comes from Matthew and Luke, but he used scripture, the Word of God, to break the devil's temptations. Then we saw Jesus call his disciples, he starts building his, basically the foundation of what would become the church. As I understand the Bible, the church really doesn't get its kick off until the day of Pentecost, but we see the church sort of forming in a in almost like a pregnant form, you know, a seed form in Jesus' ministry. So he gets James, Andrew, John, and he's gradually gathering these folks together who would go on to become these apostles who are then the foundation of the church. Like we talked about last week, we saw Jesus' power over demons. He can simply speak the word and the demons are forced to obey. And somebody asked a question in the comments last week, does this illustrate Jesus' deity? And I think it totally does. Jesus' word, just like the word of the Father, you think back to Genesis 1. God's word in creation had the ability just to create. Creation was forced to obey when God said, let there be light. So also, Jesus' word has power in it, similar to the words of God the Father. He simply obeys and the demons fall on their faces in his presence. So I do think that this is a subtle allusion to the fact that he is fully God, having the same powerful word that God the Father has. Well, today we're gonna start talking about Jesus' healings and what's going on there and their significance. Let's read Mark 1, 29 through 34. It says, and immediately he left the synagogue and entered the house of Simon and Andrew with James and John. Now Simon's mother-in-law lay ill with a fever, and immediately they told him about her. And he came and took her by the hand and lifted her up, and the fever left her, and he began to serve them. That evening, at sunset, they brought to him all who were sick or oppressed by demons, and the whole city was gathered together at the door. And he healed many who were sick with various diseases and cast out many demons. And he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him." Now, what quick comments, observations can we make on these verses in maybe 15 minutes? Well, first, you'll notice that word immediately. This is going to come up a lot in the Gospel of Mark. You've got immediately there in verse 29, immediately again in verse 30. If you read the book of Mark, this is actually one of Mark's favorite words. He uses immediately over and over and over again. And part of the idea there is that this is a very fast-paced gospel. This is, it's intense, it's, you know, certainly it fits perfectly with the other three Gospels, Matthew, Luke, and John, but this is sort of the condensed, intense version, and because of that there's, like, immediately this happened, immediately that happened, immediately this happened. There's not a really slow building background that you might get from, say, Luke or Matthew. Well, immediately connecting that to the previous passage, he had just cast the demon out of the man in the synagogue. Immediately he left the synagogue, which indicates it's what day of the week? It means that this is still the Sabbath, the Old Testament Sabbath, which was not Sunday, but Saturday. I know that people go around and around about Sabbath and whatnot, but clearly the Jews gathered on Saturday for their Sabbath. and Christians gather on the Lord's Day, so there's a difference there. So it's still the Sabbath, and he goes into the house of Simon, Andrew, James, and John. Now Simon's mother-in-law lay ill. Real quick pause there. Simon, as you'll know, is Simon Peter. The fact that he's got a mother-in-law indicates what? It indicates that he's married. Now it's interesting, we don't know where the disciples' wives and families may have gone. Did they travel with them? Did they temporarily abandon them? Probably not. The idea that they all suddenly died when they started following Jesus is kind of hard to imagine. But there's really nothing mentioned in the Gospels about the other disciples' wives and or kids with this exception that Simon Peter has a mother-in-law indicating that he was at least married at one time and probably still married. Something to keep in mind. These disciples are probably rather young men. We see movies and whatnot, and sometimes we see movies of Jesus, and they've got this 55-year-old guy playing Jesus. Realize the disciples are probably in their 20s and maybe even early 30s. We think that Jesus was roughly 30 years old when he began his ministry. And if these guys are, you know, his peers, they're probably, you know, 30s or if not younger, so relatively young guys. If Simon Peter is married at, let's just pick that he's 25, the likelihood of his wife still being alive is fairly high. So, you know, again, where these individuals went, we don't know, but evidently some of them, at least Peter here, had a wife. One real quick aside, I'm not going to pursue this for the sake of time. If you know Roman Catholic theology, you know that they think of Simon Peter as the first pope. And they also think that marriage is like a lowly state, that you're not really, you know, if you're really holy, you won't get married, you know, you'll be devoted entirely to the church and that's why priests and popes and whatnot don't get married in the Catholic Church today. But here the so-called first pope, which, you know, wink wink, we don't actually see him as the first pope, but the first pope clearly had a wife and it is interesting, it's kind of ironic that the only apostle mentioned having a wife is the one that the Catholic Church views as the pope. Anyway, just something for you to think about more. But anyway, on the Sabbath day, they go into their house, and she's got a fever. Now, you might not realize this, but until relatively recently, fevers were often very, very deadly. I heard somebody mention that until about 1900, the chief killer in the Western world was fever, because without things like pain relief, simple stuff like Tylenol, acetaminophen, without those, fevers often just keep going up and up and up, and they just kill people. So realize that this is a potentially dangerous situation. This is not just like, you know, when your five-year-old gets a fever, you give him some Tylenol and no big deal. This is a potentially dangerous situation. So they notify Jesus, Jesus, we got a deadly situation here, can you help? And it is interesting that they're kind of quickly figuring out a little bit about Jesus' identity. I don't think at this point that really any of them get that he's God incarnate, but they're able to see that he's got the ability to cast out demons, that he's got the ability to heal. And look at the way in which he heals Simon's mother-in-law. So an immediate, instantaneous healing by virtue of simply touching her. And the clear idea is that Jesus' power is flowing through him to heal her. His power is greater than the fever, greater than the death that has invaded her life, and he's able to drive out that death. merely by touching her. And you'll notice that little phrase there, she began to serve them, I think that's there to indicate how complete the healing was. It wasn't like she started feeling a little bit better. You know, sometimes we get sick and then we're getting better, but you know, we might not be totally up to speed yet, you know, not totally recovered yet, and it takes a number of days. This is not that. This is a complete, instantaneous healing where she goes from like in a sick bed possibly approaching death, to now all of a sudden running around the house serving them. That's how powerful Jesus' mere touch is. Again, see in this a lot about the identity of Jesus. Not only is his word powerful, not only does his word have authority, not only does his word have the authority to drive out demons with a word, but his mere touch has the ability to drive sickness and death away. Now I want us to think a little bit about what Jesus is doing in his miracles. There's enormous misunderstanding about what Jesus is doing with his miracles. If you know the Gospels, you'll know that Jesus does a lot of miracles. Healings, walking on water, turning water into wine, cleansing lepers, so forth. And you gotta ask the question, why is Jesus doing this? There are different answers to that. Some people see these as almost like little magic tricks or something like that. Just, you know, Jesus pulls a rabbit out of the hat and says, wow, look at me. Other people, and this is more of what say Charismatic and Pentecostal folks say, they claim that these show us our potential if we have enough faith. Just like Jesus did these miracles, if we have enough faith we can follow in Jesus' footsteps and cast out demons and heal the sick and walk on water and turn water into wine. And the clear implication is that if we don't have Faith, you know, if we can't perform these miracles, we lack the prerequisite faith. Let me instead lay out what I think Jesus is doing with his miracles. He's giving us foretaste of the kingdom of God that he's offering. Remember, we talked a couple of weeks ago, I think it was, that Jesus has said, the kingdom of God is here, repent and believe the gospel. Well, what's going to characterize the kingdom of God? The kingdom of God, as I read the Bible, is still largely future. Sure, there's a spiritual kingdom that we're in now, those of us who trust in King Jesus. But the full experience of the kingdom of God is yet to come. It's after Jesus comes again and the lion lays down with the lamb and we beat our swords into plowshares and all of that. you know, thorns and thistles no more. That's the kingdom of God. And again, that's 90% or so yet in the future. But what Jesus is doing, he's giving us previews of what life in his kingdom will be like. In his kingdom, there will be no demons tormenting us. In his kingdom, there'll be no sickness, no fever, no headaches. There'll be abundance, there'll be joy. So he's giving us previews of that through these miracles. So keep that in mind. Don't get confused and think, if I just have enough faith, I can walk on water. Try that, and if you don't know how to swim, make sure you're wearing a life preserver. Because again, Jesus is doing something unique. Instead, our ministry is to advance the Great Commission by proclaiming the gospel and making disciples. The miracles were largely confined to the early church and Jesus' ministry. Now having said that, that does not at all mean that I'm saying that God can't do miracles or doesn't do miracles. I think God certainly can do miracles and does do miracles. I pray for miracles literally almost every single day. But I do not expect the sort of constant miracles nowadays that characterize Jesus' ministry because something different is going on. The incarnate God is not here with us offering to us his kingdom and giving us previews of what his kingdom is going to be like. Things have changed. So that's what's going on with the miracles. So instead, see through the miracles, Jesus' glory. Not human potential, if we just have enough faith. See Jesus' glory, that He is God incarnate. He is the promised Messiah, King Jesus. And this is what His kingdom will be like when He fully brings it to earth. Now, in order to get to that fully consummated kingdom, a lot's got to happen. I mean, Jesus has got to be rejected, crucified, resurrected, ascend to heaven, pour out his Holy Spirit, a lot's got to happen. But nonetheless, these are little previews. And again, part of that heavenly kingdom is that we'll be healed from every sickness and disease. And that is encouraging, don't you think? I mean, the older I get, the More my body wants to fight against me. I don't really like that. You know the what am I 44 almost 45 and you know, I'm starting to get stiff getting back aches headaches You know, it seems like I'm taking ibuprofen Pretty regularly and the older I get the again the more my body is fighting against me. I am really looking forward to that day No more headaches. No more back aches. No more kovat. No more sickness and that is largely yet to come in the kingdom of Jesus after Jesus comes again and Now again, do we pray for healings? Of course. Do we hope and pray that God takes backaches and headaches away? Yes, but we should not expect anything remotely close to life in God's fully consummated kingdom after Jesus comes again. Anyway, enough on those verses. Let's continue on verse 32, see what we can say there. That evening, again, same day. So again, so much of this is happening so rapidly. That evening, still the Sabbath day, they brought to him all who were sick or oppressed by demons. So we're just starting to get out. There's a healer here. There's a guy with the ability to cast out demons here. So everybody is gathering to him. And that's something that we're going to need to deal with as we go through the Gospel of Mark. Jesus became wildly popular. thousands gathering to him. You remember, if you know your Gospels, he fed the 4,000, he fed the 5,000, and both of those occasions there's 4,000, 5,000 males, indicating that there are probably, what, 20,000 females there. So gigantic crowds gathering to him. But as we're going to see, they were not there seeking forgiveness of their sins. They were not there embracing him as God's Messiah, they were there merely for the benefits that he had to offer. They want the demon out, they want the sickness out, they want to be healed, but then when they grasp what Jesus expects from them as his followers, the large majority of them reject him and fall away. Again, we'll talk about this more, but don't necessarily see all of these people gathering to Jesus as sincere believers who are seeking the forgiveness of their sins. A lot of times people come to God not for forgiveness, not to know God, but for some benefit that they're looking for. You know, this is really the big error of the so-called prosperity gospel. Come to God and He'll make you a millionaire. Come to God and He'll take all of your sicknesses away in this life. That's the whole prosperity gospel. So what happens is Basically, people come to God not because they want God, but because they want some idol. They want the Rolls Royce, or they want the healing, or whatever. And really, I know this is going to sound kind of dark, but the prosperity gospel is really just idolatry with Christian terminology on it. So be extraordinarily careful if you I have friends dabbling in that. If you visit a church and they're talking that way, you know, believe God and he's going to give you a million dollars or, you know, anything along those lines. Because really all that's doing is encouraging this kind of unbelief that really doesn't embrace Jesus as the promised Messiah. But anyway, verse 33, the whole city was gathered to him, and he healed many who were sick with various diseases and cast out many demons. So he's, again, giving us a foretaste of what life in the kingdom is going to be like. And the idea was that the first century followers would put two and two together and think, okay, we ought to embrace Jesus. But again, a lot of them did not so that then John can say he came into his own but his own received him not. Now we'll conclude with that last sentence there in verse 34. He would not permit the demons to speak because they knew him. Now what in the world is that all about? We can say a lot about this. You'll remember like we talked about last week, the demons knew who Jesus was and they would speak truth about Jesus. If you go back to verse 24, "'What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? "'Have you come to destroy us? "'I know who you are, the Holy One of God.'" So demons know who Jesus is and they know him accurately and they actually speak of him accurately. This will come up in a number of the passages where Jesus casts out demons. They do speak truth about him. Why then does Jesus not want the demon speaking truth about him? Wouldn't you think that if it's truth, he'd want truth spoken no matter where it came from? Not necessarily. It's interesting that this reminds me of an account, I think it's in Acts 16, where Paul and I think it's Barnabas, you'll have to check, might be Silas, but Paul and Barnabas they go to Ephesus and they cast out demons from this girl that's able to predict the future and whatnot. And this girl, she's saying that these individuals, Paul and Silas, or Barnabas, can't remember, are servants of the Most High God. But Paul did not want her proclaiming that, even though that's true. So why do we seem to see this pattern that God, Jesus, the apostles, they don't want demonic messengers even preaching the truth? Any idea? Well, I think the reason for that is because it's really, at the end of the day, not bare truth that saves and transforms, but it's truth accompanied by God's Spirit. God's not going to bless truth spoken by the devil. He's not going to bless truth spoken by demons. But he will bless truth spoken by true followers, true apostles, true preachers, and so forth. Not always. I mean, God is sovereign. He can do it as he pleases. You know, sometimes my sermons are great and people are edified and transformed, and other times they're stinkers and people sleep through them. But, you know, as I speak the truth, God's spirit works to save and to edify, and God will not do that in cooperation with demons. You know, I think it's 1 Corinthians, you know, what partnership has the table, you know, Jesus and Belial, and the temple of God and the temple of demons? They cannot play for the same team, so God is not going to bless demons, even when they speak truth about who Jesus is. You know, God wants his followers to be doing that instead. So that's why I think he doesn't permit the demons to speak, even though they're speaking the truth. Now, can you think of ways we could pray this passage back to God? A few things that I can think of. First, if you are currently suffering from some physical ailment, by all means, pray for healing. You know, backaches, headaches, cancer, COVID, anything like that. Don't hesitate to pray, dear Lord, please heal me. Dear Lord, even if it's miraculous, please heal me. I think, again, God can and does do miracles from time to time in this age. Having said that, we have to largely set our hopes on the life to come, largely set our hopes on that kingdom which is yet to come after Jesus comes again, when our bodies will be resurrected and there'll be no trace of sickness in them. So as we pray for healing, again, fix your hope on that, that one day I will be completely healed. God might heal me in this life, but he'll surely heal me in the life to come. Fix your minds on that. We could praise God that this is part of Jesus' ministry. Jesus could have left us perpetually ill. Just imagine that. Imagine Jesus saves us, but doesn't address our physical ailments. So for all eternity, if you get backaches, you got backaches. For all eternity, if you're crippled, you're crippled. But praise God that God in his mercy not only forgives us of our sins and gives us eternal heaven, but he also will resurrect and glorify and give us bodies that will not suffer physically. Such a gift. Also along the lines with not allowing the demons to speak truth, let's pray that faithful gospel preachers, teachers, evangelists will proclaim God's word and that God's spirit will work through that to save and to edify. Because again, that's who God wants speaking his truth, not demonic imposters. Anyway, hopefully this has given you something to think about. Let me pray and we'll be done. Let's pray. God in heaven, thank you so much for the gift of your son Jesus. Thank you for the way that in his kingdom there is no sickness, no suffering, no death, no fevers, no headaches. Lord, we do pray for those who are listening now who are suffering physically that you would heal them. Have mercy. And yet, Lord, we do pray that you'd help us to primarily fix our hopes on that kingdom which is yet to come. That kingdom will be resurrected and fully healed. Lord, please make that our ultimate hope. Lord, we do thank you for the grace of Jesus exemplified here. He didn't need to heal people. He doesn't need to heal us. He doesn't need to resurrect us and glorify us, but you're so gracious and merciful that you do. Thank you for that. Lord, we also pray that you would raise up more faithful preachers, more faithful pastors and evangelists and missionaries to proclaim the gospel of God. Lord, that's who you want speaking your truth. So please raise them up from your church and send them forth and do advance the Great Commission mightily in our day. Bless now the remainder of our day here. Help us to love those with whom we interact. Through Jesus we pray. Amen. Thanks for tuning in. Have a great day.