Luke 4:25-32

We’re speaking this morning from the book of Luke, chapter 4, verses 25 to 32. But I tell you of a truth. Many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land, but under none of them was Elias sent save unto Sarepta. a citizen of Sidon unto a woman that was a widow. And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Elyseus, the prophet, and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman, the Syrian. And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath, and rose up and thrust him out of the city, and led him. under the brow of the hill where on their city was built that they might cast him down headlong. But he, passing through the midst of them, went his way. And came to Copernium, a city of Galilee, and taught them on the Sabbath days, and they were astonished at his doctrine, for his word was with power. May God bless to us his sacred. in holy word this morning. Many times physicians prescribe medicines which are quite bitter to the taste, especially if they’re in liquid form. I remember when we were younger, and our family was my, when I was growing up in my family, that evidently we were always getting colds in the wintertime, and my dad must have talked to the doctor, and we were given cod liver oil. And four of us are lined up, and we all got a big teaspoonful of cod liver oil, as opposed to fortify your immune system or something. That stuff tastes terrible. It was, no, when you grow up, now, you can get them a pill. They have kind of horse pills, but they’re big pills you can take it, which you don’t have to taste them at least going down. I had to take nice stat in one time, and it was in liquid form. And it was, it was a, it was, it was, it was, it was, a powder you had to add water to and you drank it. It tasted terrible. So sometimes medications are very bitter that the doctor prescribes for us, but most of the time they’re useful and beneficial to you and help you over the problem that you have, but they taste awful. Our Lord never sought popularity. He would faithfully tell people what they needed to hear. His own townspeople were amazed at his gracious words, which he spake when he opened up scripture there at the synagogue of Nazareth, when he expounded on Isaiah chapter 61, verses 1 and 2. And he added, though, in verse 21, these words, this day, is this scripture fulfilled in your ears? Now the Nazarites questioned his claim to be the Messiah. It’s not this Joseph’s son? And they suppose that Christ should make his hometown, the chief place where his miracles and healings would take place. At this point, Jesus Christ, the spiritual physician, decided it was necessary to give them some bitter medicine. And the bitter medicine that he gave them is in the form of God’s sovereignty and dispensing his grace. They needed to be cured of their wrong thinking. The divine grace is owed to anyone. So Christ preached to these people, God’s sovereignty and salvation. Boy, the medicine was so bitter they wanted to kill Christ. And they attempted to do so, as our text indicates. By the way, if you want to get people angry, all you have to do is talk about God’s sovereignty and salvation. You’ll see that this is a very common response. Let me begin by saying this. You learn God has the sovereign right to bestow his favors according to his own good pleasure. Versus 25 to 27. There are two examples that are given to us here. Now, you find the people. people, and it’s not just the Nazarites here, but people often think that they are worthy of divine favor. The Nazarites didn’t feel that it would be very gracious on Christ’s part to heal their sick. Their thinking is, he’s a Nazarite man. He was born and raised in Nazareth. Of course he owes it to us to cure our sick. This seems to be the implication of verse 23, a physician heal thyself, or heal those of your own family, or heal those of your own city or something of this nature. As if they could give the command to Christ to heal, and he would have to use his powers at their own discretion. Just as a physician surely would heal himself and his family and his neighbors and his friends first, he owes it to, he owes it to us to heal and do miracles. Now, there are many today, sadly, who think that grace is something that is owed to everybody by God. As if divine favors were not sovereignly dispensed. You remember what he’s told Moses in the Old Testament. It’s quoted in Romans chapter 9 in verse 15. God says, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy. I will have compassion. on whom I will have compassion. While the Nazarite seemed focused upon physical healings, remember Jesus elevated his message to include soul healings that the Messiah would do. We saw that in verse 18, deliverance from spiritual captives, providing for a sight of the spiritually blind, the setting at liberty, those bruised by sin, and so forth. Do you have a right to demand divine favors or grace? There are people who say, well, I’m a religious person. I grew up in church. I read your attendant services all my life. I deserve a divine favor. There are those who may claim they’ve done many good deeds, making themselves worthy of God’s grace. Or they might say, my family line as many eminent saints in it so God, must work in this generation to save family members. Or the Armenians would tell us that God owes it to every sinner to make it possible for them to be saved, what they call preparing grace. Can you demand divine grace be given to you? is this the teaching of Scripture that God owes it to everyone to be gracious to them? There was a great Frenchman, who once visited French galley slaves, but he had the authority to set one of them free. The first man to whom he spoke was sentenced for 10 years. And when he asked about his crime, the slave complained that he had been treated very unfairly. Yes, he had yielded to a strong temptation and stole something once, but he had done so much good in his life. that being a galley slave was an awfully harsh punishment for it. He thought he had a right to be pardoned, but the gentleman passed him over. When he talked to another slave who claimed he was perfectly innocent as a newborn babe of every accusation that would have been made against him, he thought he had a right to be pardon above everybody else, he too was passed by. And on and on, what the claim was, of the various slaves on the galley ship of being innocent, being railroaded by lying witnesses, oh, those vindictive police. It’s a matter of mistaken identity, I tell you. Finally, there was one gentleman that, or the gentleman talked to one slave, who admitted, who had a long sentence to serve, that he deserved every bit of it, that he was guilty. And he says, I’m surprised I didn’t get to the same. the death penalty. This is all I got is to be made a slave. The gentleman said, I pardon you. For according to your own confession, you appear to be the only man in this place who is really receiving justice. Therefore, I’ll show you mercy, and you may go your way as a free man. Divine favor or grace is undeserving. It’s always based on the good, pleasure of God alone and nothing else. So you find people often think they’re worthy of divine favor. But secondly, you should realize the scriptures teach that God sovereignly dispenses his grace. And we have the two examples here. First, the widow of Sarepta, or as the Old Testament speaks of Xerfath. This is a well-known story in the life of Elijah, the prophet, I don’t need to, I don’t think, give extensive explanation. You’ll recall the circumstances that God had sent a drought, which led to a famine. There was three and a half years of crop failure and finding drinking water was difficult and so forth. And there were many widows in Israel who could have benefited had the prophet stayed among them and provided for them. How Elijah is sent 75 miles away, all the way to the Mediterranean coast, to a suburb of this large city of Cydin named Zerfath. And you’ll recall how Elijah performed a miracle so that her barrel of meal did not diminish and our crews of oil never ran out so that they had food to eat the whole time. Now you recall that Siden was the place where Queen Jezebel came from. She was the one who led to people of God to bail worship. So you can imagine what kind of area this was around Sighton. This was a big bail worshipping area. And yet it’s to one of their widows. This widow was this widow was. woman that the prophet is sent. When the widow’s son died, Elijah restored him the life again. However, the blessing of this widow was not just about miracles, providing, you know, meal and oil, nor was it all about healing the body with Elijah healing the son here and restoring him the life. But Elijah’s presence had a great, spiritual effect upon the widow because we see she’s brought to salvation. Here’s what she said in chapter 17 of first kings. Now by this I know that thou art a man of God and that the word of the Lord in thy mouth is truth. Salvation came to her house. She believed the message of the prophet. And therefore God’s choice of the widow on the salvation was the reason, the primary reason that Elijah was sent to Zerfath. The widow of Zerapheth, or Serepta. The second example we see here in verse 27 is the account of Naman. Verse 27, and many lepers were in Israel in the time of Elysses, or Elysses, Elisha, the prophet, and none of them was clans saving name in the Syrian. Here’s the second example. Lest you think that Jesus is just cherry-picking one example, he gives us two, by the mouth of two witnesses shall everything be established. He says, I’ll give you two examples of God sovereignly dispensing his grace. Here’s another one. It’s not an isolated case with the first. example. Now this is another well-known story that we are familiar with. Out of all the lepers that were in Israel in the days of Elisha the prophet, none will healed except one foreigner. His name was Naman. He was a Syrian. It wasn’t just any Syrian. He was the army commander. He was a bitter enemy of the Israelites. And yet he’s cured of his leprosy by dipping seven times in the Jordan River according to the commandment of the prophet Elisha. He was a heathen, a worshipper of the idol god, Ramon. And yet, he alone gets cleansed of his leprosy. In addition to being healed in body, Namon received the salvation of his soul. For we read, In 2 Kings 5, verse 15, Behold, now I know that there is no God in all the earth, but in Israel. Jehovah is the true God. And then in 2nd Kings 517, Shall there not then, I pray thee be given to thy servant to Mules’Ulls’ Burden of Earth, for thy servant will henceforth offer neither burn offering nor sacrifice unto other gods but unto the Lord. He came to believe. the trust in the true and the living God. Naiman lived far away from Elisha. The difficulty of traveling in those days was great. But the grace of God sovereignly passed over the lepers in Israel and reached out and plucked up an Assyrian leper and saved him by his grace. His grace went far afield to find this man. and seek him out, an enemy soldier, a heathen, a worshipper of a false God, and yet his soul is saved. Why did this occur? What accounts for it? There’s really only one thing, divine election, election. God chose to save Naiman, listed his name in the Lamb’s book of life before the foundation of the world, and then he brings him to the prophet and brings him to salvation. God may exercise his gifts of healing and salvation any way he pleases. Man needs to fully understand this truth. So you should realize the scriptures teach God sovereignly dispenses his favors. We see it with the widow of Zeraphath, and we see it with Naiman. But there be no mistake about it, Jesus says. Now the practical observation, we should know. grain from this is that Christ teaches here the importance of sovereign grace in his election and choosing of people to salvation. Jesus didn’t hesitate to teach unconditional election. Didn’t bother him to present the truth. He dispenses his grace as he pleases God does. Some in joyous favor and some do not. He uses scripture here to prove the doctrine. He expects people to believe what the scripture say. He says, you have this in the scripture. You know this is true. In my first year at seminary, I took a Bible doctrine class by Dr. Alvarez. When it came to the subject of election, he didn’t actually teach on it. He gave us 15 verses of scripture dealing with the subject. and I want you to go and I want you to go home tonight and I want you to wait one paragraph on each of these scriptures. That was the assignment. Being Armenian at the time, it was very sobering to study these verses of scripture and then have to write a parable, a paragraph on what I thought that scripture taught. And I quickly realized that the Bible teaches divine election. I couldn’t get, you know, it was, it was there. I couldn’t hide that. It was there, obviously. It was there. very prevalent. And I had honestly met that scriptures seemed to teach that God’s grace was sovereignly given too. And writing a paragraph on that was quite effective in driving home to me the truth of what God’s word says. He didn’t have to say a word about it. Read these scriptures, write a paragraph. If every way to go to the scriptures and take 15 passages on election, sit down and say, write a paragraph, what do you think this means? It’s going to have the same effect on you. Because you’re going to see that is what the scripture teaches. Jesus is saying, here it is. Here’s what the scripture teaches on this object. In Acts 1348, Paul says this. Or scripture tells us this. Paul was preaching at the time. But as many as were ordained to eternal life believed. That’s the conclusion that when Paul says if the Jews won’t accept us, we’ll go to the Gentiles. This phrase is used in Acts 1348. Let me read it again. As many as were ordained to eternal life believed. Now, people have tried to hack this verse of scripture apart. They tried to change the wording in it. Violently attempted. Great efforts have been. made to eliminate the doctrine of election from this verse of scripture. Some have changed the word order. Some have put it this way. As many as believed were ordained to eternal life. As if God would say, oh, I see they’re going to believe, therefore I will now ordain them the eternal life. That’s not what the scripture says. Others try to substitute the word disposed for ordained. As many as were disposed to eternal life. life believed. That was man’s decision is put paramount. You know, man makes the decision. The Greek word there, Tassau, however, means to appoint, to ordain, to purpose. Every ounce of human ingenuity is placed against this verse. Try to change what it means, because it’s obvious what it means. You’re believing the gospel is the consequence, not the cause. of God’s ordained purpose. God ordained you to believe, and therefore you believe. A limited number only are ordained to eternal life else as many as would be meaningless. Only some are ordained to eternal life. This ordination of God is not merely to external privileges or to service. Some would like to say, well, every time election it has to do a service, has nothing to do with service. salvation. It’s to eternal life. It’s to salvation. As many as, not one less, who were ordained to eternal life will believe. In other words, every single one that God has elected under salvation, ordained, purposed would be saved, will be saved. Kelvin comments. We shall never be clearly convinced, as we ought to be, that our salvation flows from the fountain of God’s free grace to we are acquainted with his eternal election, which illustrates the grace of God by this comparison that he adopts not all promiscuously to the hope of salvation, but he gives to some what he refuses to others. Ignorance of this principle evidently detracts from the divine glory and diminishes real humility. If then, We need to be recalled to the origin of election to prove that we obtain salvation from no other source than the mere good pleasure of God than they who desire to extinguish this principle do all they can to obscure what ought to be magnificently and loudly celebrated. Do you believe in the doctrine of election by God’s sovereign grace as taught in scripture? Jesus did. So you learn. that God has the sovereign right to bestow his favors according to his good pleasure. Now, the second thing we learn here is you learn how much the doctrine of God’s free grace is despised and hated. You see the teaching of God’s sovereign grace stirs people to wrath here in verses 28 to 30. We read here, and when they are in the sin of God’s sovereign grace, and all they that were in the synagogue when they heard these things were filled with wrath and rose up and thrust him out of the city and led him under the brow of the hill where on their city was built that they might cast him down headlong but he passed through the midst of them and went his way. Whoa, a sudden change come over these people, these nice church-going people, these religious people, the very people who wondered at the great people, gracious words that were spoken by our Lord and spoke how marvelous it was to hear the word of God expounded like this. Not only expelled him from the synagogue, not only cast him out of the city, they tried to kill him. And it wasn’t just a few quick-tempered men that did this. Not a few hotheads. All they in the same. the synagogue. Boy, that means the whole mob, the whole mass of people were upset. Worse yet, they tried to hurl them down from the brow of the hill on which the city was built. They wanted to kill them. Murder was in their heart. Murder. This respectable assembly of synagogue worshippers turned awfully hostile, didn’t they, toward Christ? Who would have thought they would have murder in their hearts for one of their own. However, Jesus escaped out of their hands. Perhaps he used his divine power to free himself. I don’t know. But it wasn’t his time to be put to death, and so he escapes and gets away from them. Now, what would prompt such a violent reaction as this? Verse 28, when they heard these. things. When God sovereignly grants his salvation, when that’s taught an unconditional election, and that he’s the Messiah, and that grace is not something you can demand, all of a sudden they are furious, and they try to kill them. And no doubt it really upset them when he talked about grace being given the Gentiles and not Jews, because these are both Gentiles. They did the two examples. Gentiles and the Jews were excluded. The lepers and the widows of Israel were passed over when he healed these other people and saved their souls. Now, do you think anything has changed? Election under salvation is one of the most hated doctrines you’ll ever find people responding to. It infuriates people. Tell a person. you are completely unworthy of divine blessing, that God sovereignly bestows salvation according to his good pleasure alone, and unless you are ordained to eternal life, you cannot believe. And see how that goes. See what kind of response you get. I told you, when I was in seminary, I had a fellow student, we were talking about this doctrine, and when I showed him these verses of scripture, and I tried to press him on the issue. This is what the, the scripture says, he just got so upset. He said, I don’t care what the Bible says. I still don’t believe it. People are upset. Isn’t that what they’re saying here? We don’t care what the Old Testament says about God’s sovereignly giving grace. We’re not going to hear it, and we’re going to throw you over the hill and kill you. Shut you up. Friends, beware of having such a hostile attitude toward the teaching of God’s sovereign grace. Because then you’d be no better in these Nazarites. We have to humbly submit to the teaching of Scripture even when it chafes against the flesh. And it chafed against their flesh here. So the teaching of God’s sovereign grace stirs people to wrath and notice something else. If the message of God’s sovereign grace is rejected in one place, it’ll be sent to another. It’ll be sent elsewhere. You know this verse is 31 and 32 and came down. to Copernium a city of Galilee and taught them on the Sabbath days. They were astonished at his doctrine for his word was with power. Jesus left Nazareth, and here’s the sad thing we never read that he ever went back. Never went back. Think about that amount. He permanently excluded the city from any further exposure to the gospel. Copernium was a city of a city of considerable. importance on the coast of the Sea of Galilee. Jesus taught in their synagogues. Evidently, he confirmed the word that he spoke with power, it says here, so he definitely did miracles to confirm the message. They too were astonished at his doctrine. But you don’t read of any threats made on his life. And he stays there for quite a while, preaching in their synagogues. They were highly. privileged. Ultimately, oh, they failed to repent, as Matthew 11 indicates to us. As highly exalted as they were, as privileged as they were, as much healing as Jesus did, as much preaching as he did, they were really culpable because they did not repent at the preaching of Christ, as Matthew 11, 20 to 24, indicates. Here’s the thing. If people are hostile, they are hostile. style toward the gospel of God’s sovereign grace, God withdraws it. God takes it away from them. Let me put this on a personal level for you. Jesus talks about this in Matthew 7, verse 6. Give not that which is holy unto dogs. Those that are vicious, those who will turn against you and try to bite you. Don’t give it to them. Neither cast you your pearls before swine, who eagerly do not value the message that you’ve given, lest they trample them under their feet and turn against you again and rends you. There are some people to whom it’s not wise to open your mind on spiritual matters. When they have shown a hostile attitude toward the things of God, they speak evil of it when they try to harm the people of God, there are some point where you just say, that’s it. I can’t go any further with this message. Some are like Nabol, whom it said, he’s such a son of a liar, nobody can speak to him. Well, some people are like that when it comes to the gospel. Some treat it with such indifference. It’s like your pearls of wisdom are being just trampled underfoot. And so we have to withdraw our efforts and seek others. It’s interesting. Esop has a fable about the cock and the pearl, which is drawn from Matthew 7, 6. A rooster scratching the ground for something to eat turned up a pearl, which happened to have been accidentally dropped there. And the rooster looking down at his fine, he says this, oh, a fine thing you are, no doubt, no doubt, and had your owner found you, he would have greatly rejoiced. But for me, you are worthless. Give me a single grain of corn before all the pearls in the world. And so the rooster tramples it over foot under his foot and went on his way scratching for grain. That’s the way people are. They’re more concerned about the things of this world than the pearls of wisdom that are found in the Word of God and the spiritual blessing that’s found with them. Some people treat the gospel of God’s sovereign grace in that way. While physicians sometimes prescribed to us bitter medicine, The great physician here in response to dealing with the people of his own city gives them some bitter medicine. They didn’t like it. You may feel it bitter in medicine to find that God has the sovereign right to bestow his divine favors according to his good pleasure, but take the medicine. Because that’s what the scripture teaches. It gives you a proper attitude of what. divine things. It’s a humbling doctrine. It’s a humbling doctrine. If you act hostile to God’s message, you may find him simply withdrawing it from you. The preaching of his truth is not something he’s going to allow to be maligned and attacked, the people that are doing attacked forever. He often just says, I’ll send you somewhere else and sends the message somewhere else. And then you are in serious struggle. You’ll perish in your sins if the message is no longer there for you to hear. So here is what we find in our text this morning. Let us close with a word of prayer.