Most people are willing to acknowledge that Jesus Christ was a great moral teacher who made a positive impact on his times. But Scripture makes it clear that Jesus was so much more than an inspirational leader. His miraculous moments of healing and redemption set Jesus apart as God in flesh.
In verse 8, beginning at verse 5, in this passage we're invited to witness an amazing conversation with a commander in the Roman army. Chuck titled today's message, Snapshots of Power Far and Near, and he begins with prayer. I thank you today, Father, for the hope we have through Christ, a hope that is limitless.
It's really beyond our ability to comprehend. You do things that we couldn't imagine and would never have expected. And you do them in a way that we could not have predicted. But always in your time, and always for your purpose and plan, may we hear what you have written. May it make a difference.
May we learn from it. May we be different people changed by it. Find in us willing hearts to hear and to heed what has been given for our own admonition and exhortation. May we see in it and beyond it the magnificent love of your Son for us, the deep, deep love of Jesus. We give enveloped in that love today. Through Christ we pray these things. Everyone said, Amen.
Visit our website, world.org slash studies. And now the message from Chuck titled Snapshots of Power Far and Near. The work that is done by the Godhead is always awesome work. All inspiring. Usually making us quiet as we let the wonder in. So we come to these three vignettes and we want to closely observe his power at work. The first is an occasion which we find healing at a distance. What do I mean by that? The one who is in need is away from Jesus.
Look closely. When Jesus returned to Capernaum, a centurion came and pleaded with him, Lord, my servant lies in bed, paralyzed and in terrible pain. Jesus says right away, I will come in and I will heal him.
But the officer said, no, no, no, no, no, not necessary. All you need to do is say the word and he'll be up doing fine. Verse 13, Jesus said to the Roman soldier, go back home because you believed it has happened.
How does he do it? The power of Jesus is the only thing I know to put on that line. The invisible power of Christ is at work. And let me say to you, we'll come back in application, but let me say, don't let distance hold you back from faith. Someone you love very much is a long ways away and you can't get to them. And even if you could, you can't change them. You can't heal them. You can't bring about a transformation of their hearts.
He's able to do this. The faith of the centurion speaks to all of us. Never let distance hinder your faith.
The centurion certainly didn't. And he, in fact, invites Jesus to take care of it right where he is. Well, that passes and Jesus decides to visit in the home of Peter.
Another comment. If you're ever in Israel, you need to be at Kaffir Nahum. We know it today is Capernaum. It's on the northwestern point of the Sea of Galilee, a little little village. And there they tell us there is a house that is Peter's house. Whether it is or not is debatable, but maybe a house like Peter had when he lived there. So right there at Capernaum, he goes into the house. And the first thing he encounters is a woman in need. It's Peter's mother-in-law who was sick in bed with a high fever.
Back to your outline. Who is it in question? Peter's mother-in-law. Where are they?
Peter's home. She's in bed. She has a high fever.
She's sick. What is it that is needed? Healing, obviously.
And what is it Jesus does? How does he take care of it? He touches her hand and the fever left her altogether different than the servant of the centurion. He's right there, reaches over, touches her hand. With his hand, he touches her and we read the fever left her. Incredible. Miraculous. How do we know it was immediate? We'll read on. She got up and prepared a meal for him.
Don't you wish you knew what she fixed? I mean, wouldn't you like to know what his favorite meal was? Or maybe leftovers? You ever thought of Jesus eating leftovers? It just dawned on me.
Maybe they were leftovers. She fixed the meal completely well by the power of Christ. No big deal. No healing lines. No money exchanged. No secrecy behind a curtain. No big broadcast announcing to the world, come see the healer in action. That's not the way God does his work.
Jesus is alone in the house and we know of it because Matthew takes the time to record it and leaves it for us to see. Never doubt the Lord's ability to bring an immediate change. Never doubt that. Everything within us is based on our scientific upbringing. Teachers who had too much influence on us, who were given to empirical evidence. Discounting things like faith and trusting in a God you can't see. Here's an example of what the Lord is able to do. You have someone who is in great need. Learn from verses 13 and 14, 14 and 15.
God can do it and he can do it immediately. The third group, it's easy to pass over them because everything is sort of anonymous. We have no names. We have no numbers. We don't even have an exact place.
But back to our outline. Who came? Let me mention this very carefully. This rendering of the Bible says they were demon-possessed people. No such words appear in the New Testament. We have oppression and possession and influence. All of these are nuances we use to try to describe the depth of demonic impact.
There is no such. In the New Testament, it's only daimonidzo or daimonidzimai. We get the word demonized from it. They have demons. Demons control them. Whether or not you want to believe that is of no concern to me.
I know it's here and I believe what this says. They are in torment. If you have never seen a demonized individual, you can't imagine this.
I have. Stationed on Okinawa, I saw a demonized woman in the city of Naha. Five people in the military could not control her. It's the most frightening setting I believe I've ever seen.
I stood back and a chill goes up my back as I tell you the story. And I watched them as they did everything they could to bring this screaming, out-of-control woman under control. I learned from a close friend of mine who was acquainted with her and the family, the demons control her. Don't make fun of demonism. Don't play with demonic activity.
Don't discount the power of the invisible supernatural. These people found where Jesus was and they came. They came in all of their torment. So who are they? They are demonized people. Who else came? There were those who were sick. What does he do with the demonized people? Well, where are they?
Probably out in the street. There were too many to come into the house. So he went there to meet with them or they brought them to him and he cast out the evil spirits with a simple command. He exorcised the demons. I take it all of them in all of the victims.
Otherwise it would identify a few. But here we have a group and here they are coming in all of their tormented condition. And he relieves them of the presence. He expels them.
Please notice with a simple command. That is the power, the awesome power of Jesus Christ. He also healed all the sick. Now it might seem a little innocuous. Let's go on since we've obviously come across the healing of the sick before.
But this is a little different. The word for sick is kakos. Which often in the original Greek means bad. Bad. I was intrigued by that. In fact, I was so intrigued I checked it out carefully. I discovered that these are individuals who quite likely were social outcasts. Which might explain why they came to him in the street. Walter Bauer and his outstanding Greek-English lexicon suggest that the word kakos refers to the socially and morally reprehensible.
Stay with me. Those who are evil. Later it came to mean harmful, injurious, even a few renderings dangerous. Harm caused with evil intent.
These don't seem to be those we think of as physically or just emotionally disturbed. These people are bent toward evil. They do wrong. They commit deeds that are evil.
And they can't stop. Apparently it is so serious that they came for some kind of healing. Some kind of restoration. That intrigues me also because of the word used. He healed all the sick.
Therapule is the word. We get our word therapy from it. It's the normal word for healing admittedly but it's interesting that in light of this context as he restores these people in this category he does it in a way that changes the direction of their lives. It says he healed all of them.
All of them. Now I've saved a little bit more time than normal for application because I think this speaks to all of us in one way or another. Maybe to some in several ways.
I'll come to the three points as I close with in a moment. But let me speak generally. Today I may be talking about someone you love very much. You care very much about this individual. But that person is beyond your ability to change. It's humanly impossible. You would if you could. But you have no supernatural power. You pray. You care. You love. But you can't say the word.
I like to think of it as throwing the switch. It's impossible for you to do that. It may be a situation that defies human intervention. You can't solve it. You can't unravel it.
It's complicated. Others may know of it or it may be secret. I'll be bold enough to say it may be you.
You may be in this scene, one of these scenes. Some physician may have told you it's terminal. The physician doesn't know if it's terminal. He means or she means well. And based on their scientific training, it bears the marks of a terminal. You and I have seen people live beyond terminal. I know those who have lived years beyond a date. Be careful about hinging everything on a date given you or a time some other individual stays.
Remember, the power of Jesus is limitless and authoritative. It may be you. It may be an emotional struggle. It may be a raging issue that surfaces in moments that are for you shameful as you look back on them.
You can't change. So let me say first, by way of illustration or application, let me deal with distance. Maybe physical distance. It may be a relational distance you feel from someone else.
You can't bridge it. You can't bring the two together. Maybe a spiritual distance. I have several friends who admit that they just simply cannot get close to God. They cannot go there.
Their prayers sort of reach the ceiling and they stop. Let me say to you who struggle with distance, this application applies. Do not allow distance to weaken your trust in the power of Jesus. Commit that situation to Him. Leave it with Him like the centurion. Know that the Lord can say a word or even without a word, bring a change. Let it be.
Leave it with Him. How about time? You're in a waiting period like Peter's mother-in-law.
Who knows how long she was on that bed with that high fever? You need the Lord's touch and it hasn't come. Bill Gaither wrote of it, remember, shackled by a heavy burden, neither load of guilt and shame in the hand of Jesus. Touch me and now I'm no longer the same. Do not be afraid to ask for the Lord's divine touch.
Count on Him to step in in His way and at His time to do as He pleases. Now this third category, this tormenting presence. Not all demonism is as obvious as I described in the streets of that capital city of the island. Demons are at work all the time. The demonic power of the enemy is constantly in surveillance, looking for chinks in the armor, looking for ways to bring us down. Admittedly, some of you may fight with that in your own life.
My heart goes out to you. You do things that you cannot later explain. Sometimes the things you do are harmful.
Downright evil may be vile. Let me say to you who work as therapists with people who are this troubled, take heart. God uses you. We need you. Nothing is impossible to the one who is awesome.
So let me say this third comment. Do not think your torment is too evil or too bad for the power of Jesus to resolve. I've waited until the end to note the final verse in this passage where Matthew says, this fulfilled the word of the Lord, one of Matthew's favorite statements because he's presenting Messiah as king, the one who fulfills the prophecies of the prophets in the Old Testament. Here is one through the word of the Lord, the prophet Isaiah, who said he took our sicknesses. He removed our diseases. If you were to ask me about that passage, my first answer would be I believe it relates first and foremost to the cross. It's there that our entire sin condition, which includes sickness and diseases, is all taken care of and paid for. But I think there is a way that it might be applied, for that's what Matthew says. He doesn't use the word forgive, does he? He says he took our sicknesses.
He removed our diseases. It takes power to do either one, to take it, to remove it. Yours may be in the form of an addiction. I don't know. The addiction may be severe and longstanding. He can take it.
He can remove it. So let me close with words of hope, and I'm through. We need to live our lives in light of this promise. The Lord is for us, not against us. The Lord is full of compassion and understanding. He's not some distant deity frowning, judging us. The Lord is intimately interested in the details of our lives.
He even goes into details in each of these three vignettes. Whatever it is that troubles us, he's not an unconcerned power removed from us. He's intimately acquainted with all of our ways, says the psalmist in 139. The Lord is capable of handling whatever we're struggling with. He is not impotent. The power of Jesus is like nothing you've ever heard or seen measured before.
Limitless, incredible, inexhaustible. The Lord is ready to hear us when we call. He's not preoccupied with all of his own issues and affairs. I urge you to turn to him. Rather than living your life behind the shades of depression, discouragement, and doubt, and denial, open the shade. Focus on the power of Jesus Christ and let that drive you in your life. Let that give you the strength to get up each morning and take on the day, whatever it may involve.
If you're like me and you care very much, and I know you do, your tendency is to think about what isn't done or what hasn't changed or how long it's been. And I urge you to get beyond that. It's a shackle that has you in its grip. And finally to you with addictions, there is no impossible situation with the Lord God. Isn't that a relief? Isn't that magnificent? Bow with me, will you?
Just sit very still right there. You've listened so carefully, I commend you. This isn't a message about definitions and theological theories. This is a message about life and claiming the power of God to intervene.
If not changing the life of the individual you care about, changing your whole perspective on it, giving you a quiet confidence that God and God alone is having his way, though the situation is beyond your ability to understand. Leave it alone. Let him take the burden. Release it rather than living under the weight and the shadow of it.
I say again what I said earlier, if it's a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ that is not in proper place, take care of that first. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, you will be rescued. You'll be delivered. The word is saved.
Eternally and saved in your life from the journey you're on. Now's the time. Come to him. No wonder large crowds followed your son, Father. No wonder a hardened centurion would be confident that he could handle the need of a beloved servant. No wonder the home of Peter was changed by the touch of the master. No wonder the torment stopped in the street as people who came with all of those afflictions left, freed, relieved, changed. May we do the same, Lord, rather than this being simply another time of instruction or another worship service. May this one stand alone. May we not forget what we have heard. May it make a difference in how we live. For your glory, we pray these things through Christ. Everyone said, Amen. We never know what suffering may have come into your household as it did for the Roman centurion or as it did for Peter's mother-in-law.
And yet we know God's power continues to serve his people today. I'm reminded of a recent note received from someone who listens to Insight for Living in California. Raised in a very traditional church, this woman met her challenge early in marriage. She said, I lost a child at one year of age and did not understand why God would let this happen to me.
I wanted him so badly. I began to search for answers and found Chuck Swindoll on the radio. And then she added, I have never stopped reading the Bible as you taught me to do. Thank you, Pastor Swindoll. I feel that you are my lifeline to the Lord and I thank you for that. I have given everything to the Lord and I have faith that he will lead me. It's a beautiful story of someone who's clearly still in process and still relying on God to sustain her.
And it's precisely why Insight for Living exists. Would you be among those who give financially so that we continue to reach men and women all around the world? Even during the global pandemic, while many churches have been restricted from meeting, this daily radio program has continued without missing a single day. And it's because people like you have stepped forward to give during this unprecedented season of isolation. As God leads you to give a donation today, we invite you to speak to one of our friendly ministry representatives by calling us. If you're listening in the U.S., dial 1-800-772-8888. Or to give a donation online, go to Insight.org. Tomorrow Chuck Swindoll delivers a bold warning. It's not enough to follow Jesus. We also have to do it right.
Listen Friday to Insight for Living. The preceding message, Snapshots of Power, Far and Near, was copyrighted in 2015 and 2021. And the sound recording was copyrighted in 2021 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited.
