Epaggelia

Key Texts: Luke 7:18-35 & Matthew 11:1-24

The honest inquirers from John the Immersionist are not criticized, but rather served by Jesus in the performance of many miracles. This shows the value God places on fervent prayer for faith & wisdom in searching for truth in our life. James 1:5-6 & Mark 9:23-27. But after the honest messengers from John, leave with good news, then Jesus addresses evil in the worst sense.  When good people do nothing in the face of wickedness, sin itself grows worse.  It’s one thing to start a lie, it’s another thing to knowingly remain silent.  The first sin was Adam’s, in not stopping Eve from doing what he knew was bad for her, Gen. 3:6 & Rom. 5:12.  Yes there are degrees of sin, just as there are different levels of temperature to fire, here and in hell. Whatever the world exalts, the Lord finds nauseating, Mt. 11:20-24, Lk. 16:15, Rv. 3:16.

“THEIR GENERATION”  (Lk 7:24, 31) was complaining like children, and are not accepting John’s standard of living and rejecting Jesus’ standard of morals.  They felt John’s diet of locusts and honey was insane and proof of demonic possession. They felt that the fellowship of Jesus with tax collectors and sinners was proof that He was one of worst kind of sinners. But this passage shows that Jesus thought the men of his generation were rejecting the will of God. Why? Because they wouldn’t accept baptism! (Lk. 7:29-30) His generation ought to know better, but they didn’t care, nor did they see reality, they were living a pretence. Mat. 13:14-17. Does our generation care about the reality of our morals in comparison to God’s morals? How does our generation view baptism? Yet in the face of this blind apathy towards the morality and message of God, He still searches for people who want to worship Him in truth and spirit, Jn. 4:24. God in Jesus is so gracious & merciful!

WISDOM IS JUSTIFIED, v35.  &   GOD IS JUSTIFIED, v29. Solomon often talked about wisdom itself, as if it was a woman, Prv. 1:20-33 & 9:1-6. Jesus takes the same view, Mt. 11:19 & Lk 7:35 and gives her children! Christian disciples are fruit of God’s wisdom and in our heart we grow His fruit, Gal. 5:22-23, so that it’s passed on to others to become Christians. Therefore God is made to be seen as justified (made right in their eyes). Before people become Christians, they often see God as unfair and somehow ruling in an oppressive way, over the lives of people in the world. Worldly people seem to always regard God as uncaring, but in Christians, we regard God as love and try to share Him. So were the tax collectors receiving baptism, v29.

The WOES of Jesus, Mt. 11:20-24.  Woe is used to express how much a person deplores something, and Paul uses it to express divine wrath upon himself, see 1Cor. 9:15-18. What exactly did Jesus find so tragic? The apathy of Chorazin, Bethsaida, & Capernaum would cause worse divine wrath upon themselves, than what Sodom experienced, Gen. 19:24.  The cities Jesus quoted were all on or very near thelake of Galilee, with Capernaum being the largest and having the most recorded miracles within it. Bethsaida was very near where Jesus fed the 5000 and people from Chorazin must have seen miracles of Jesus on the lake, as it was on the shore. The calming of the storm must have had an enormous reaction. In March 1992 a storm on the lake caused 10ft waves causing damage to downtown Tiberius.  Today, all of them are just ruins, only Tiberias remains on the west coast of the lake, retaining it’s name which John used, Jn. 6:1 & Lk 5:1.  If Jesus came to your neighbourhood healing the sick and teaching the truth, what would the reaction be?

Key Text:  Luke 7:11-17

The first attempt, successfully raising the dead, but Why? –  Compassion for a widowed mother and the gift of a son to care for her. Since the beginning God has always wanted us to honor our parents and Paul stressed this to Timothy, (1st Timothy 5:4).  The Lord’s wondrous work of miracles does not spring from a distinct purpose of establishing his credentials as Messiah, but rather from his infinite sympathy with human suffering. Later at the end of Mark, we learn that God’s purpose in miracles was to confirm His words as from God, not necessarily proof of His nature or credentials, Mark 16:20. Nain was a walled city having a gate, this record is the only mention of Nain, it is only Luke that records this resurrection. Perhaps the  reason why others don’t repeat the record of this resurrection is because they don’t want to detract attention from the resurrection of Jesus. The firstborn of the dead, Colossians 1:18.  Unique, in that His resurrection was self-instigated and performed by God’s Spirit innately. Acts 2:27.

Many people can’t accept the bodily resurrection and deity of Jesus. Here are the main points in Scripture proving it true. Proof is simply evidence written by eye-witnesses which has never been disproved with contrary evidence. In order to prove the bodily resurrection of Jesus false, someone must present evidence against the eye-witness accounts in the New Testament. Today, there are theories abounding about alleged bones of Jesus being discovered in Jerusalem, but they are simply that, theories. However, non-Christian scholars refute the bones as even legitimate evidence, and conclude that they are anonymous bones. Let us consider what the New Testament says. Afterall, it is the most well authenticated ancient writing in the world. Here are five internally Biblical facts as logical evidence confirming the resurrection.

1. Buried in a Tomb!  From the event to present day, no one is on record historically to deny the tomb is empty, neither did anyone produce a body.  Jesus was placed in an identifiable tomb owned by Joseph of Arimathea with burial preparations and women watching as the body was placed in the tomb, when they returned with more preparations, they found it empty. The heavy stone covering was large, and was officially sealed by enemies of Jesus, providing a witness to the fact that the disciples could not have stolen the body.  The Temple guards of the tomb, faced the possibility of execution upon failure to carry out their duties. The only thing found in the tomb were grave clothes, tidily unmoved, yet stained with His precious blood, the redeeming price for the sin-sick souls of humanity. Jn. 19:31-20:10.

2. The Disciples of Jesus. Before his death, they proved to be cowards, but after the resurrection, James his own physical brother had a change of heart, Peter’s past denial turned into a proclamation, Thomas’s skepticism turned into confession and in all of them, the message of the resurrection brought upon them brave sacrifice and even martyrdom. They did not expect Jesus to rise! So why would they plan to steal the body, as falsely reported?  If the resurrected body of Jesus was a hallucination, they would need to have had an expectation to have seen it. They were brought to belief after the resurrection against their own past doubts. Jesus led them to face the truth, because of his undying love for us, Jn. 20:19-29. The change in Saul and the early Apostles is phenomenal.  1st Corinthians 15:1-17 & 2nd Corinthians 11:22-28

3. The Appearances of Jesus, are noted in over 15 occasions in varying times, places and by different people. Sometimes being in small groups or in a large crowd. People saw him, touched him and even ate with him. Eye-witnesses are the best proof for undeniable truth which can’t be proven false in the future. In order to logically disprove the bodily resurrection of Jesus, the unbeliever must produce some evidence contrary to these reports. Evidence which could out-weigh eye-witness records in the most authenticated historical document the world has ever known, the New Testament.  Paul claims the deity of Jesus rests on the undeniable resurrection of Jesus, Romans 1: 1-4.

4. Jesus claimed that he would rise from the dead, prior to his death. His disciples heard this publicly, but did not understand the reality of it, until after it happened and then recorded it. This act of self-prophecy by Jesus, would either make him out to be a liar, an idiot or God with us.  The fact of his own resurrection proves life goes on, as every human craves for it beyond the grave.  Jesus truly met & defeated our greatest fear, Jn.2:13-22. The Old Testament prophets predict the resurrection, Gen. 22:5-14, Psa. 49:15 & Hos. 13:14, showing fulfilment in Jn. 8:56. Jesus identified with theses prophecies before his death!

5. The Establishment of the Church verified by the New Testament was completed and recorded within the lifetime of people who could argue against it’s claims and provide the body of Jesus as evidence against their teachings, but it never happened. Yet the resurrected body of Jesus was central to the church’s message.  The new religion was so different, they forever revoked their holy day as the Saturday Sabbath to the Sunday “Lord’s Day” because of the resurrection. The church’s most public displays of faith are the Communion and Baptism, both of which focus their purpose on the death and bodily resurrection of Jesus.  Whenever the day arrives for the unbeliever to present evidence against the resurrection, the Church will dissolve. Until then, the burden of evidence rests on the unbeliever, not Christians. 

In all honesty, in view of the five facts above, can anyone dismiss the resurrection as a factual historical event today without sacrificing their own reason or logic?

Key Text: Matthew 5:1-12 

Blessedness is a constant fact of daily life, not a consistent feeling every day. When Jesus was teaching to help people enter into being blessed, he was telling them how to obtain the position or location so that we can view happiness while we are in it. Happiness or blessedness is many different things to different people, but Jesus wants us to know that God has only one definition for joy, and it is the best.  John says that there is no greater joy, than to see your children walk in the truth (3Jn 4). Whether they are spiritual or physical children doesn’t matter. The greatest joy is to see your faith influencing someone else in the truth! When you experience that, you are beginning to get a taste of eternal joy in heaven on earth. 

Jesus uses eight different ways to help us focus on the fact of happiness, so that we can experience being blessed.

“Poor In Spirit”, being able to admit that we are individually spiritually bankrupt and destitute, and have nothing to offer God in and of our self. We are prideful, conceited, self-centered sinners, and when we humbly submit to God for a change, we are being ‘poor in spirit’. This leads to blessedness and should be a constant fact we are focused on! See James 4:7-10.

“Mourning”, being sincerely and sadly sorrowful for our sins and trespasses, to the point of expressing repentance in prayer, and where appropriate, even fasting in a way that confesses our sin This is spiritual mourning which leads to a blessedness in knowing your forgiven, loved and fully accepted by God. See 2nd Corinthians 7:10.

“Meekness”, being able to bring your human willpower under the control of God’s willpower. Christians who are able to submit what spiritual talents we have at our disposal to God’s service and not our own, will be blessed in enjoying physical things from God. See 1st Timothy 6:17.

“Desiring Righteousness”, being able to quench our spiritual thirst with God’s spiritual strength and fill our spiritual appetite for God’s truthful word, practiced in our daily life, is indeed a blessing. Psalm 34:8 & Romans 1:17

“Mercy”, being able to refrain from condemning or criticizing others, so that in return, God will not condemn our selves. This is truly helping our happiness when we realize we are not receiving the wrath of God our sins deserve. Colossians 3:12-13.

“Purity”, being able to see things from God’s perspective, is a clean view. Our happiness is dependent upon how and what our heart searches for. When our heart’s motive is absent of self, we can be pure in our intent. Our problem is that the human heart is inherently deceptive and incapable of maintaining purity all by our self, we need a constant diet of God’s word, love and wisdom, in order to be pure in heart, then we can see the world and our self as God sees. This is enjoyable! Acts 15:8-9 & 2nd Cor. 7:1 & 1st Peter 1:22.

“Making Peace”, being able to help someone else to befriend God is the heart of evangelism. The beginning of peace is the establishment of a rapport between enemies. Therefore a Christian tries to mediate between God and alien sinners, this is when we prove we are His children, because that was thrust of Christ’s ministry, to seek and save the lost. When we accept and fully realize that Jesus is our peace, he brings inner rejoicing in the friendship with God, Ephesians 2:14 & Galatians 6:1-5.

“Steadfast Suffering for Our Savior”, being able to prove to yourself that you are a genuine disciple is a big blessing, even when your proof is painful. James 1:2-4 & 1st Peter 4:12-18.

Key Text: Mark 1:21-39 & Luke 4:33-41

A man who was in the synagogue and who had an “unclean” spirit cried out loudly, confessing/declaring Jesus to be the Hoy One of God. Stating that evil spirits and unclean demons were disassociated with Christ. Asking if Jesus were then and there going to destroy/torture the demon before the expected time, ref. Mt. 8:29.What about demon possession? Demon possession does not appear to be identical to any disease known to medical science. Some of the symptoms produced involved seizures, blindness, loss of speech and deafness. Jesus addressed demons as distinct from the person possessed. Has demon possession ceased or is it present in our time, but now unrecognized? The New Testament leaves the possibility wide open. Consider the following which happened after the resurrection of Christ…

Acts 16:16-18, “Once when we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit by which she predicted the future.  She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune-telling. This girl followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved. She kept this up for many days.  Finally Paul became so troubled that he turned around and said to the spirit, In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her! At that moment the spirit left her.”

The Pharisees claimed Jesus and demons were in league with each other. Mark 3:11, Whenever the evil spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, “You are the Son of God.” Mark 3:22. But the teachers of the law who came down from Jerusalem said, “He is obsessed by Beelzebub!  By the prince of demons he is driving out demons. The devil used every possible weapon in his arsenal against Jesus including his demonic angels. The demons are limited! Matthew 8:29, “What do you want with us, Son of God?” they shouted.  “Have you come here to torture us before the appointed time?” James 2:9, You believe that there is one God, Good!  Even the demons believe that- and shudder.

            Jesus commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man and not to speak.  The demon did not say another understandable word. The demon cried aloud, uttered a loud wail, shaking the man, and came out. The synagogue audience was greatly impressed/amazed by what they had seen! They were puzzled by what they had seen. They recognized that Jesus was a teacher of new things. They saw that Jesus had great authority which extended even to the spirit world.. The news of this great revolutionary Teacher quickly spread throughout
Galilee by word, person to person.

New Testament demonology differs from other ideas by its negation of the power of magic rites to deliver people from the possession. Magic which is clearly separable from Christ’s faith at the specific point of exorcism.  Ancient Babylonian incantation texts, forming a surprisingly large proportion of the extant documents, address the supposed activities and powers of demons. These beings, who are not trusted and prayed to in the sense in which deities are, command confidence and call for prayer and are dealt with by magic rites and formulas. Even the Jewish non-canonical writings contain numerous forms of words and ceremonies for the expulsion of demons. But in the New Testament there is no magic. The deliverance from a demon is a spiritual and ethical process of Christ. Are you in Christ? This is why it was important to Jesus for his followers to be in God’s Kingdom, which he and John were proclaiming.

Jesus was rejected by the Jews of his hometown twice, once at the beginning of the Galilean ministry (Luke 4:16-31a) and once at the end of the Galilean Ministry (Matthew 13:54ff). Jesus gave even those who tried to kill him a second chance. It was the custom of Jesus to regularly attend synagogue worship and to participate in a public way in the services. According to Jewish obligatory customs, those reading in synagogue worship from the law and the prophets were required to stand while reading.

v16-20, Jesus unrolled the scroll which was like scrolls in Jewish synagogues today, Reading from Isaiah 61:1ff.  The Messiah would have the Spirit of God upon him, He would…

…be anointed to preach good tidings to the poor,

…proclaim release to the captives, 2 Timothy 2:26, and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.

…proclaim recovery of sight to the blind.  John 9:39, Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will  see and those who see will become blind”,

…set at liberty those who are bruised and proclaim the acceptable year of God.

Jesus rolled up the scroll and returned it to the attendant, sat down to teach as was the custom of that time, and had all the eyes in the synagogue glued on him. This indicated interest in what was read and the loving way in which Jesus had read the passage.

v21-24 Here Jesus declared that he was the fulfillment of this prophecy, the long awaited Messiah. The initial reaction to Jesus’ presentation was favorable. Jesus was a godly orator of scripture.  His speech is here called “words of grace.” They were amazed that a carpenter’s son who had grown up among them could speak in such a confident & educated way. They knew Joseph who may have still been living. Jesus anticipated the objections of the people of his hometown and that his listeners would want a duplication of the miracles performed in Capernaum.  Matthew 11:23, And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted up to the skies?  No, you will go down to the depths.  If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Sodom, it would have remained to this day. Jesus said no prophet has honor in his hometown and that miraculous performances would not change this. The people must have begun to murmur while Jesus was speaking. This same type of objection continued even to the cross.  “Physician, heal thyself…”  “He saved others; himself he cannot save.”  (Matthew 27:42) The Nazarenes may have been jealous that Jesus had performed miracles in Capernaum instead of in his home town, Nazareth.

v25-28, see 1Kings 17-18, Compare  James 5:17,  Elijah prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. A Gentile widow, a Sidonian, was the one to whom Elijah was sent, not to Jewish widows. The Jews of that day were filled with unbelief.  Elijah went to a person with an open mind. So it was with Jesus who worked miracles in Capernaum rather than Nazareth. Many lepers were suffering in the days of Elisha, but he only healed Naaman the Syrian, a Gentile, see 2 Kings 5:1-14. The prophet then as Jesus in his day performed miracles among people of faith, Jew or Gentile. These illustrations aroused prejudice against Jesus from the Jews.

v29-30, These “religious leaders” of Jesus’ hometown attempted to murder him without a trial. Unbridled anger is a terrible thing & seen elsewhere, John 8:59, At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds. John 10:21. But others said, “These are not the sayings of a man possessed by a demon.  Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?”  Accept Jesus & follow Him because  we don’t want to be like those who rejected Him and left. He loves His enemies, do we?

Key Text: Jn. 4:43-54

John the Immersionist has been imprisoned by King Herod Antipas and Jesus reiterates His message about repentance and the nearness of God’s Kingdom. Mk 1:14. He is back in Cana and from 18 miles away in Capernaum a nobleman (a royal courtier) searched for Jesus, desperate for help with his dying son. The mother might have been Joanna (Herod Antipas’ servant Lk. 8:3) if this is true, then the Nobleman’s name is Chuza. This is probably the first indirect connection Herod Antipas has with Jesus. But even with John imprisoned, the nobleman is eager to find Jesus whom John has been preaching about. Remember the last Biblical note of the Herodian Family was at Jerusalem during the slaughter of the innocent baby boys. That was Herod, the Great. The Father of this Herod Antipas which imprisoned John the Immersionist.

Jesus was on the brink of mass popularity now, v45, and the news of his purge of the Temple has spread quickly, far and wide. The Galileans rejoiced in and received Jesus because finally they knew someone with miraculous power had started their leaders in Jerusalem to think about a change! Quite a few Samaritans had already rumored Jesus was the Messiah, now the Galileans are getting excited about the real possibility.

The expression of discontentment from Jesus in v48 is a warning to everyone in a position of power, to never base their faith in Jesus simply because He can wield physical power through miracles. Today, our common power in the world is money. To apply this truth of Jesus to our lifestyle, is to pray for wisdom to use the money we have, not to pray for more of it! See 1st Tim. 6:10 & Jas. 4:3-4. This means God is not an emergency button for relief in a crisis, neither is he a test button to see if he will help and give us  evidence for our faith to exist.  Jesus wants our faith to be in His words and character. There is a big difference between believing in the man and believing in his credentials, Jn. 6:11-29 & 10:37 39.  The credentials point to the  character, God wants our faith to be in Jesus as the God-Man of Forgiveness and God’s Ruling Word & Will, not the Miracle-worker of mere compassion or special favors for people of notoriety. 

Truly the  nobleman’s faith was in what Jesus said, which was an object lesson for all those around, he didn’t have to see anything, v50.  Will we let what Jesus says be true and live like God will keep every promise in His word?  Do we really believe that he is gone to prepare  a place for each of us forever in eternal bliss?  Jn 14:1 3.  Abram believed and at the point of belief, which was expressed by obedience, he was given God’s righteousness, Gen. 15:7, 22:18. The Nobleman’s faith grew from his expression of trust in the mere words of Jesus. The journey back to a sick son, affected his household, see v47-50. In the same way the Samaritan Woman’s expression of trust in the words of Jesus bore faith in the villagers of Sychar. Does our expression of trust in the words of Jesus reproduce faith in our family and friends?

The second sign was that it pointed people to faith in the words of Jesus. His words and nature were limitless and overcame sickness alleviating the fear of our biggest enemy, death! The 1st sign spoke of God’s power in Jesus over creation, speeding up nature’s time in growth of the water into juice. Now this 2nd sign speaks of God’s power over the human problem of illness, speeding up nature’s time in healing. This put the character of Jesus as a man who keeps his word against all odds. Do we live like Jesus means what He says to us? His miracles confirmed His word, will & identity, not vice-versa! Mk. 16:20.