Luke 6:17-19

Luke chapter 6 verses 17 through 19 for our text in the study this morning. And he, meaning Jesus, came down with them and stood in the plane. And the company of his disciples and a great multitude of people out of all Judea and Jerusalem. from the sea coast of Tyre and Sidon, which came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. And they that were vexed with unclean spirits, and they were healed. And the whole multitude sought to touch him, where there went virtue out of him, and healed them all. God blessed to us his sacred and holy word this morning. At one point, God’s message to Jeremiah was to write down the words of his prophecy in a book, or a scroll, if you would. And it was given, sent, if you would, to King Zetekiah. Sedaicaa’s servant Jehudai was given the book and he began to read it to the king. And as he began reading the book, he would read so much of it and then he would take his penknife out and cut off the scroll and throw it into the fireplace there in the room in which they were gathered. Eventually the whole book. or scroll was consumed in the flames. There was no respect for God’s Word. No fear about the threats of divine judgment that it contained. Down through the ages, Bibles have been banned, the proclamation of it banned, even the reading of the scriptures banned. In our day, the Bible is often treated with contempt as if it were some type of dangerous book that spread some hatred. The sincere preaching of the Word of God is often frowned upon, ridiculed, and despised. But as we look at our text this morning, we see the value of sound preaching. preaching. Christ’s ministry was quite fruitful. And we see that people flocked to him to hear the word of God being taught. After he has chosen his 12 apostles, we read that they came down from the mountain and they stood in the plane. And he was showing that he was ready to receive all who came to him and to preach to them. and so we have these people gathering not only his other disciples but also people from Judea, Jerusalem, even as far away as Tyre and Sidon gathered to hear Jesus teach and to be healed of Him. Now let me begin this morning by saying this. You should appreciate sound preaching. In verse 17, we read here and he came down. down with them and stood in the plane in the company of his disciples and a great multitude of people out of all Judea and Jerusalem and from the sea coast of Tyran, Sidon, which came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. They came to hear him. Now you can’t find sound preaching everywhere. There were synagogues all over Judea at this point. and even Galilee, where the law of Balas was certainly read every Lord, every Sabbath day. Jerusalem was the place where the temple of God was found, where it was the main center of worship for the nation. The nation was full of religious leaders, teachers of the law, experts in the law. There was plenty of religious activity, but sadly, there was very little sound preaching of the gospel. The ministry of Christ exposed the spiritual blindness of the religious leadership in Israel of the day. You remember the story of Nicodemus and Jesus’ism. John chapter 3 is a case in point. Here he was a master teacher of the nation. And yet, as Jesus pointed out, he did not understand the doctrine of regeneration. That ye must be born again. Or as the Old Testament talks about having circumcision of heart, that men need new hearts. The Jewish rabbis misconstrued the scriptures to the point where they taught a sort of works righteousness for salvation. As Paul mentions in Romans 10, verses 3 and 4, for they being ignorant of God’s righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves under the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. They are trying to establishes. They are trying to establishes their own righteousness by keeping the law and have not submitted to the righteousness that God grants through his son the Lord Jesus Christ, a perfect righteousness. That is the problem. Nor did the religious leaders understand the spiritual nature of the laws. The sermon on the Mount gives us plenty of evidence that they did not. John the Baptist and Christ were the two who stood out. out as actually preaching the truth of God’s word to that generation. They were the two major witnesses. And we’ve already seen what happened to John. We saw that he got shut up in prison by King Herod in Chapter 3 of Luke. And later the scripture indicates to us he gets beheaded. Put to death. And this left Christ then is the main preacher to declare God’s word to the nation. As he told us in Luke 4, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel. And that’s what he’s doing. And all bear him witness. And wondered at the gracious words, which proceeded out of his mouth, Luke 4.22. So if you wanted to hear what God’s word really said, had to go see Christ. Now you live in a day and age, which in many ways is similar to Israel. Oh, we got a host of assemblies in every city from every denomination under the sun. There are many ministers to be found engaged in religious activities throughout our land. There’s no shortage of ministers per se. However, as God declared through Jeremiah, they that handled the law know me not. They’re unregenerate, many of them. There’s a great danger in men, uncalled by God, unsaved, leading churches, because then we have the blind, leading the blind. And as Malachi 2.6 says, the law of truth was not, found in their mouth. Most people today don’t really want to hear the Word of God. It’s too convicting. It is too condemning. It portrays man as evil. It portrays man as depraved, corrupt, incapable of doing any good, and they don’t want to hear that. They can not endure sound doctrine, and so after their own lusts, they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears, and they turn away their ears from the truth. Now notice they heap to themselves. They attract, they gather a multitude of teachers that will stroke their egos, say the things that are soothing to them. As Jeremiah 724 says, Behold, the word of the Lord is unto them a reproach, and they have no delight in it. It’s not a top priority in many of our religious assemblies to give a place, prominent place, to the preaching of the Word of God. This being the situation in our day, you have to look for a place where sound preaching is taking place. And that’s rare in many cases. We must not just settle for any church to attend out of convenience because our soul will be starved of spiritual nourishment if we do that. You know, many people choose a church because it’s near their home. But it’s close by. I can go to this church. It’s just a short drive away. Or they choose a church because it has a youth group for their kids. Or they choose a church because it has many programs. and activities for the whole family. Or they choose a church, and believe it or not, sometimes people would call me up about our church and one of the first things they would ask me, do you have a gymnasium? That’s their priority. So that their kids could play basketball or soccer, volleyball, or whatever. Or do you have a mature Christian group, you know, for 55 and up for those of us who are getting older? Or, or, Or maybe does it have children in youth church services. Friends, your top priority is to find an assembly where the minister is committed defeating the church of God. That’s the top priority. Years ago, there was a great famine in China. And the people were desperate for food. And they found out that they could make a bread out of a soil. that was edible. So here they are, you know, digging up the earth and making these cakes of bread out of the earth. And they were able in this manner to fill their stomachs and sort of stop the hunger pains that they were having. So they settled for eating this soil. Sadly, because the soil did not have many nutrients in it, they eventually starved to death. Don’t make the same mistake when it comes to the spiritual food because your soul will starve to death. Sadly, so many ministers today have such a low view of scripture that it’s rarely spoken with authority. Rarely do you hear the minister saying, thus saith the Lord, and pointing the word directly at the people, as if this is a message from God to you. Because they don’t have that view of scripture. So you can’t find sound preaching everywhere. The second thing, you should have, you should value sound preaching enough to travel a great distance to hear it. We read here, and a great multitude of people out of all Judea and Jerusalem and from the sea coast of Tyran, Sid, came to hear him. It seems there was a good number of people here that desired to hear what Jesus taught, and they came to hear him, and to listen to his preaching. It was unlike anything they commonly heard. Most of the people came from a considerable distance. You know, Judea and Jerusalem, they go up into Galilee, is quite a distance to go. And then some come from a very great distance from Tyrant-Syden on the coast, the Mediterranean coastline. Distance was not going to deter them. They wanted to hear the word of God. so they traveled a long way. It is surely well worthwhile to go a great way to hear the word of God faithfully expounded. Define nourishment for your soul. It is better to travel far for it than to be without it or to settle for just the popular preaching of the day. If you would, turn with me to the book of Amos Chapter 8. verses 11 and 12. It’s one of the minor prophets have here in the end of the Old Testament. You got Josea Joel, Amos in the minor prophet lists. If you look at chapter 8 and verses 11 and 12, behold, the days come, said the Lord God, and I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor thirst for water. But if He is, hearing the words of the Lord. And they shall wonder from sea to sea. From the north, even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord and shall not find it. When the word of God is despised by the people or any society, and they’re loath to hear it, God is justly provoked. And we find what happens is that God sends a famine, a scarcity, not of bread and water, which would be the normal famine with regard to the body, but he sends a famine of the word, which has to do with the health of the soul. God removes sound preaching from the land so that it disappears. Anyone interested in hearing biblical teaching will have to search far and wide for it. From sea of Galilee to the Mediterranean Sea, from one border of the country to another, from the north to the east, search is made. And in this case, they run to and fro, and they cannot find a God-sent preacher. There’s none found throughout the whole land. What a sad commentary that is. Those who value sound preaching will travel to find it and they’ll keep searching until they do. This is how it should be, but often isn’t in our day. Even among the professing people of God, how few would even miss it? I wonder today. It doesn’t seem to be the top priority. How highly do you value sound preaching and how far will you go to hear it? So you should travel, you should value sound preaching enough to travel a great distance to hear it. The third thing is this, you should realize the need for more sound preaching. After spending the night in prayer, Jesus has chosen 12 of his apostles to be, or 12 of his disciples to be apostles. And these 12 apostles, he’s going to train in order to send them, out to preach the word as he is preaching it. Jesus could not bodily be everywhere and the work was great. So he needed laborers to help him with the harvest. The souls. So our text shows Christ Christ coming down from the mountain with his newly ordained apostles. And he stands on the plane with the apostles and he’s joined by a company of disciples and soon Jesus’ ministry is going to be over in a couple more years. But he’s training people to take his place. He’s training other men to preach the gospel. You can never have too much sound preaching. There’s always a need for more of it. Thus, Paul tells Timothy and 2 Timothy 2. And the things which thou hast heard of me, among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also. We need other people to teach the word. Christ has promised to gift his church with pastor teachers and we should pray to that end that he would. Since it pleases God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that which believe, the question as arises, how shall they hear without a preacher? Thus the need for more preachers of the gospel of Christ. You should appreciate sound preaching. They came to hear him. And these are the things about sound preaching that are important. Now secondly, you should appreciate the healing associated with sound preaching. In verses 17 and 19, that came to hear him and to be healed, the Bible says. Now the scripture speaks of the healing of your whole person, body and soul. We’ve already covered this in the account of the paralytic man. You recall in chapter 5. The first thing Jesus said is man, thy sins be forgiven thee. And then later he says, rise up and walk. Two things. One, he has forgiveness of sins. That’s spiritual. Two, it’s physical. Rise up and walk. I’m healing your body as well as your soul. Jesus was always concerned about both. What good does it do to merely heal a person’s body but leave their soul still diseased? As you watch Christ healings, note how often the souls are saved in accompaniment with the healing of the body. a complete healing. Is there not a strong resemblance between bodily diseases and those maladies which afflict man’s souls? Take this subject of blindness. Now we know what physical blindness is the victim is the victim is unable to see all his darkness. But we also know spiritual blindness occurs where the victim can’t see spiritual things in the eyes of his understanding are darked. We talk about deafness. In physical deafness, you can’t hear with your ears when someone speaks to you. But with spiritual deafness, you cannot hear what God says in his word and understand it. With leprosy. The physical aspect is you are unclean and slowly your body rots away. But with spiritual leprosy, you are unclean in God’s sight and your sin slowly destroys you. In lameness, in physical lameness, there’s no strength in your legs to walk. But in spiritual lameness, there’s no spiritual strength to walk in the ways of God commandments or to come to Christ. You can’t do it. So is there not a close resemblance in between your spiritual situation? And the multitude who thronged round about Christ on the plane, do you not need to hear him and be cured of your diseases? Consider your soul. Don’t merely think about your body. We often pray about the body, and we should. There’s nothing wrong with that. But don’t forget the soul also, because you have a body and a soul. And the soul, of course, is the most important of the two. When you go to the doctor with some ailment that’s troubling you, it used to bother me a lot when I go to the doctor, they would check everything out under the sun. They’re checking your blood pressure and your weight. You may go in and say, well, I’ve got inflammation in my right arm, Doc. You know, I want to, you know, what do you think about this? Oh, he’s going to check your heart. You’re going to check your lungs. You’re going to check your blood pressure. He’s going to look at the whole state of your body. The inflammation of your arm could be caused by a host of other things. And so he sort of looks at your overall health to get an idea of perhaps why your arm is swollen. Information may just be a symptom of something even more serious. Like, you know, a heart problem or cancer, a blood disorder, or something. Can’t you see the same is true with regard to your spiritual state? All sickness is a result of Adam’s fall in our participation in it. While not all sickness is caused by personal sin, there are cases where it is. Sometimes sickness, of course, is just for the purpose of glorifying God. and God gives you the graces to endure it and to honor him as you go through that sickness. That’s part of the reason that some people are sick. But if there is a cause that sin has brought about a sickness, what good does it do to heal the sickness and leave the underlying sin as it is? Remember in James 5 when it talks about calling for the elders of the church and praying, over the man that he might be healed. The prayer of faith shall save the sick and the Lord shall raise him up. That’s great. Get him off that sickbed. And notice this. If he has committed any sins, they shall be forgiven him. James 515. Well, what do you know? Maybe there’s a reason for the sickness besides just the glory of God. Maybe there’s something else here that means. If he is if he’s guilty, not all the cases, but if so, he needs forgiveness of sins too, doesn’t he? So the scripture speaks of the healing of your whole person, we should think about our whole person. Notice that freedom from satanic influence over you is also important. We read here in verse 18, and they that were vexed with unclean spirits came to him also, and they were healed. We go through scripture, you often read in the gospels about people disturbed or troubled by demons who possess them. And there are also, we find in scripture that demons may be the cause of some of the physical ailments that people have. Someone might have a deaf and dumb spirit where they can’t speak or hear because of the demon that is in them. In one case, a woman was bent over and couldn’t straighten up because of demonic influence. Sometimes demons made people, you know, wild men who acted crazily. Maniac of Godira, so forth. So people possessed by demons are often sadly tormented and afflicted by them and vexed by them, and they would want to be delivered from this. And Jesus healed all these people casting out their demons and so forth. Now, many people would read about demon possession and I think, well, you know, that doesn’t apply to me. It may, you know, it may not apply to many people today. I mean, perhaps, you know, we don’t see it as prevalent as it was in the days of Christ in our own day that someone would be demon possessed. As true as that may be, let me say this. It doesn’t mean you’re not vexed by Satan. Just because we don’t have the demon possession, doesn’t mean we don’t, are not vexed. People aren’t vexed today by Satan. Listen to this, Ephesians 2.2. We’re in time past you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air. The spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. My friends, unsaved people are vexed by Satan. If our gospel be hid, it is hidden to them that are lost in whom the God of this world have blinded the minds of them which believe not less the light of the glorious gospel of Christ should shine under them. Ooh. Why is it that they can’t believe? Satan is vexing them, blinding them. We read in 2 Timothy 2.26 about those who need to recover themselves out of the snare of the devil who are taken captive by him at his will. The sad plight of man is he comes into this world vexed, dominated, blinded, and snared by Satan. It’s not often proclaimed by preachers today that that’s the case of man, but it’s what the scriptures clearly teach. Again, I’m not saying that everybody’s demon possessed. I’m just saying Satan is influencing people, vexing people. You go through life thinking you’re in control, but actually you’re under the power of Satan, and he rules over you. And so some man or at least you too are very. by satanic forces and you need a healing by Christ. He can break the power of Satan’s darkness over you. He can grant you light. He can grant you understanding. He can take you, translate you from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of his own making. It can set you free from spiritual bondage. Freedom from satanic influence over you. we see the power of Christ exhibited in your healing. In verse 19 of our text, there’s an interesting statement here, and the whole multitude sought to touch him, for there went virtue out of him and healed them all. The multitude of those sick or possessed discovered if they could just touch Christ or touch his garment, they would be healed. The word translated in the King James here, virtue, is generally rendered power in other places. And it seems best to be rendered that way here. We’re not talking about a moral quality here coming out of him, but power coming out of him. Of the various ways in which the diseased or possessed were cured by Christ, this is one of the most. remarkable ways that people were cured. Now look with me at Luke chapter 8, just a couple pages ahead here. Here’s an interesting case. Begin with verse 43. And a woman having an issue of blood 12 years, which had spent all her living upon physicians, neither could be healed of any, came behind him, and touched the border of his garment, and immediately her issue of blood staunched. And Jesus said, who touched me? When all denied Peter, and they that were with him, said, Master, the multitude thronged thee, impressed thee, and sayest thou, who touched me? Jesus said, somebody hath touched me, for I perceived that virtue. Again, the same word, power is gone out of me. And when the woman saw that she was not hid, she came trembling and falling down before, him, she declared unto him before all the people, for what cause she had touched him, and how she was healed immediately. And he said, unto her daughter, be of good comfort. By faith hath made thee whole, go in peace. Notice that Jesus mentions her faith. She reached out in faith and touched him, believing if I just touch him, I will be. healed. Christ had the power to heal her, and she believed that. Friend, rest not content to remain at a distance from Christ, but reach out by faith and touch him, if you would, that you might be healed. Do you believe that he has the power to cure you, both body and soul? Then appeal to him for relief without hesitation. Approach him as one sick, and sinful as you are and reach out by faith and touch it. Everyone who touches the Savior in this manner by faith can be healed. According to Christ’s will and purpose, he still possesses the power to heal. Not only the soul, but the body. So they should appreciate the healing associated with sound preaching. Well, Jehood, caught up the word of God and he cast it into the fire because he and the king had no respect for the word of God. The Bible was often treated with contempt, even by our own society today. However, this text reveals two important things. You should appreciate sound preaching, and you should appreciate the healing that’s associated with it. Let us close with prayer this morning. Heavenly Father, we bow before you, thankful for your goodness and mercy. Bless your word to us this morning and bless our time of fellowship as we come to your table. Encourage us, Father, in the things of Christ that we may be your people with joy and delight in the things of the Lord. We ask these things in Jesus, precious name with Thanksgiving. Amen. Now is before we come to God. to the table. Let me direct your attention to Song of Solomon Chapter 1, verses 7 and 8. We have been slowly but surely working our way through this song in connection with the Lord’s Supper. Let me read verses 7 and 8 this morning from chapter 1. Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou thou feedest, where thou makeest thy flock to rest at noon. For why should I be as one that turneth aside by the flocks of thy companions? If thou know not, O thou fairest among women, go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock. Fleeed thy kids beside the shepherd tents. Now we’ve talked about the fact that the church having confessed her blackness, her suffering and her sinfulness in verses 5. and six, has offered a prayer to Christ, the great shepherd of the sheep. And basically what she’s asked is, where are you? Where can I have fellowship? I want to have fellowship with you. Verse 7 indicates that desire. Christ answer here is interesting in verse 8. Christ has answered her tenderly mindful of her weakness. Christ has answered her lovingly, for he sees her as his bride. And Christ now gets down to the specific answer in the latter part of verse 8 to how to have fellowship with him. And we looked at last time, you should find Christ’s fellowship the same way the saints of old have found him. Go thy way forth by the footprints of the flock. Follow the example of the holy prophets, the way of the patriarchalphets, the way of the patriarchalry prophets, the way of the patriarchalphs. the way of the apostles and the way of the godly on earth, like we find in Hebrews Chapter 11. Be ye followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises. Hebrews 612. You are the follow the saints of old as long as they are following Christ. As we mentioned, be ye followers of me, Paul says, even as I am of Christ. so we follow in the footsteps of the flock who were following the great shepherd. That’s one way. But the second way is what we want to focus on this morning. You find Christ’s fellowship by instruction from the Word of God. And feed thy kids beside the shepherd’s tents. Now, you need to be under the ministry of God’s word. The shepherds here represent God’s ministers. The under shepherds of Christ, whose duty, is to feed the flock of God. Now, the chief responsibility of the minister is to preach the Word. It’s an ordinance that will be continued throughout all our time here on this earth. The worst thing you can do when you’re out of fellowship with Christ is to absent yourself from the assembly of God’s people and where the Word of God is taught. You remember Asaph in Psalm 73 gets into this spiritual funk, thinking that God favors the wicked over those who live righteously. He’s upset. He thinks his faith is a waste of time. he says there, my feet had almost slipped. He was sinking into apostasy. How did he recover his fellowship with Christ? He says, I thought this way, until I went to the sanctuary of God, and then I understood therein. Until I went to church. I want with the people of God to hear the Word of God. So you need to be under the ministry of God’s Word. The second thing is this. You need to go back to the basics of the Gospel of Christ. Now, he talks about the shepherd’s tents here. That’s where the shepherds dwell, but we also find it’s where the kids, the young lambs, are kept near him to be carefully fed. by him. By the kids, we would understand the young, inexperienced believer, the babes in Christ. Now, these young converts need to be fed with the sincere milk of the word that they may grove there by the ABCs of the gospel. And when you find yourself out of fellowship with Jesus Christ, not only take the kids there, but go there yourself, with them. Because this is a time to return to the most simplest ask, of the gospel of Christ. As Paul once put it, I am determined not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified. Ponder the scriptures with regard to the person and the work of the Savior. Feed beside the shepherd’s tents. Go to where the children gain their food. Looking at this and applying it to the Lord’s supper situation. The Lord’s The Lord’s Supper is about remembering Christ. But when we come to the table, isn’t it about the very basics of the gospel? Isn’t it really about the need for atlment and the need has been fulfilled by Christ? Even a little child who watches his or her parents partake of the Lord’s Supper and says, what is it all about, Mom? Or what is it all about, Dad? What does that mean? What’s that cup about? What’s that grape juice about? What is that bread about? It gives you an opportunity to instruct them in the elementary troughs of the gospel just from the elements themselves in the Lord’s Supper, right? When Christ invite you to fellowship with him of the Lord’s supper, he takes you to the basics. He takes you to the ABCs of the gospel message. Do you desire to fellowship with Christ then meditate upon this. Christ died for our sins according to the scripture. That’s where we go. That’s where we focus upon. The ABCs. So let us learn that from this text of scripture this morning. Let us come to the table.