In a compelling narrative, the episode uncovers Jesus’ endeavors to transcend cultural and religious barriers, making his ministry inclusive to everyone, including those deemed outsiders. Learn about the significant healings that took place in Jesus’ time, showing his unwavering compassion and support, and how his actions and miracles underscore his divine authority to forgive sins. Hear Jesus’ message and actions through fresh perspectives, revealing the dynamic and pivotal role of faith in everyday life.
The CEM Network is pleased to present Ronald L. Dart and Born to Win.
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Over the years, a common objection people raise to religion is that it’s, well, it’s pie in the sky. Religion, they think, has some vague promises of benefits in the next life, but it doesn’t do much for a person in this life. That’s really a pity that those of us who call ourselves Christians have allowed people to think of us that way. For if a person comes to understand the words of Jesus, they’ll come away with a totally different perspective. Take, for example, one day when Jesus came to the synagogue in Nazareth where he’d been brought up. As his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. Now, Jesus was a Sabbath keeper. He did not work at his job on the Sabbath, and he was in regular attendance at synagogue. Adult men were allowed to read aloud from the scriptures in synagogue, and it was very important in a time when hardly anyone had even a piece of the Bible of their own, and a lot of them couldn’t have read it if they had it. So anyway, Jesus stood up to read, and there was delivered to him the book of the prophet Isaiah. When he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written. Quote, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, he read, because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, the recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the book and he handed it back to the minister and he sat down. And the eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. It’s an interesting way of putting this. Something about the way he read it, something about the way he communicated this ancient prophecy struck people. And he said to them, this day is the scripture fulfilled in your ears. Not tomorrow, not in the next life, right now. Now, these people had heard a great deal of all that Jesus had done prior to that time. And so when he said that God had anointed him to preach the gospel to the poor, he had already done that. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted. He had already done that. To preach deliverance to the captives, the recovering of the sight to the blind, he’d done that. And to free people who were bruised and bound and held down, he’d done all that. A great deal of what Jesus did, and this is the remarkable thing as you read through the gospel accounts, is that he is a man of relatively few words. Jesus is the strong, silent type. But his presence and his power was such that he could reach out and touch a man and say, Be healed, and the man would be healed. He could encourage the downhearted. He could lift up people who were hurting. And he did it all the time. He did it every day. And so he says, I’m not talking about something off in the future. I’m talking about what God has sent me here to do right now. This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. Jesus touched the lives of real people, and he made their lives better right now. And everybody that heard him there bore witness, and they really wondered at the gracious words that proceeded out of his mouth. And they said, well, isn’t this Joseph’s son? Jesus was very troubling to the men of Nazareth. They had heard of his works in other cities, and the words he spoke were gracious and persuasive. But you know, it was hard for them to give credence to a boy who had grown up in their town. And he said to them, I know you’re going to say to me this proverb, physician, heal yourself. Whatever you have heard in Capernaum, let’s see you do it here in your own country. And he said, Verily I say unto you, no prophet is accepted in his own country. It’s funny, isn’t it, how many of the sayings that have passed into our language originated with the Bible, a prophet is without honor in his own country. But he went on to say, I tell you of a truth. There were a lot of widows in the land of Israel in the days of Elijah when the heaven was shut up for three years and six months and when great famine was all through the land. But God didn’t send any prophet to any of these people, except he did send Elijah to Sarepta, a city of Sidon, to a woman that was a widow. No one in Israel got any relief, but a Sidonian woman did. And there were a lot of lepers in the land of Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet. And none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian. And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath and rose up and threw him out of the city and led him to the brow of a hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong. Now reading this today, it’s hard to understand what made them so angry. All Jesus had done was to cite two examples from their own history, and both examples were not only true, they were well known to these people. The story of Elijah and the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel, of Elijah calling down fire from heaven was a part of their personal knowledge of the Bible and of God’s will and what God had done. And he said during that three and a half year famine that led up to that, there were a lot of starving widows in Israel. But God didn’t send Elijah to a single one of them. He sent them to a woman who was a Gentile. And there were a lot of lepers in Israel in the days of Elisha the prophet. And God didn’t have Elisha heal any of them. Who did he heal? A man named Naaman, who was a Gentile. What Jesus had done was to underline their lack of faith. You know, there is a saying that familiarity breeds contempt. And just as Jesus was familiar to the men of his own town, so Elijah and Elisha were familiar to the people of Israel in their day. And a lot of people knew about them but paid little attention to them. And people who knew about God paid little attention to God. God was familiar. It was our God. It was something they took for granted. And their faith led to no miracle. Over the generations, the Jews had developed an exclusive approach to religion, not unlike the approach of a lot of Christian churches. The idea is we have a lock on God. He is our God. He is not your God. And unfortunately, the Jews in latter years lost complete contact with what God had said to the Israelites of old, that he put them in the world to be an example to the Gentiles, to be an example to the world. They were to be a blessing to the world and to all peoples everywhere. They were actually to be the conduit through which God’s knowledge would flow into the world. But they didn’t do that. They themselves would not even obey God’s law, so how could they possibly take it to the world? Their own example of obedience was so poor that they could not be a shining light in the middle of all these people. In the days of the apostles, the Pharisees were still very careful not to associate with Gentiles. Their old ideas died hard, and even in the early church, there were apostles that had a hard time getting their mind around the fact that Gentiles could come to God. Paul, in his letter to the Galatians, speaks of Peter. He said, When Peter came to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed. For before a certain came up from James, he ate with the Gentiles. But when the others came up from Jerusalem, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them that were of the circumcision. And the other Jews dissembled likewise with him, insomuch that Barnabas was carried away. Barnabas even fell into it and did the same thing the rest of these people did. Now, this was wrong, Paul said, but it was the custom of the Jews. It was the way things were, and so it tells us that an awful lot of Christians in Jerusalem at that time still observed the old customs of not being willing to associate in any way with a Gentile. Well, Paul said, when I saw that they did not walk uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter in front of everybody, If you, being a Jew, live after the manner of Gentiles, and not like the Jews, why are you going to compel the Gentiles to live as do the Jews? A whole generation later, and leaders in the church were still affected by this old idea. So the Jews in the synagogue where Jesus was speaking were very likely angered by the emphasis on God’s answering prayers for Gentiles. We don’t want God to answer prayers for Gentiles. They’re not God’s people. God belongs to us. He doesn’t belong to them. It’s the strangest thing how people think they can have a proprietary lock on God. They can put God in a box, and God can belong to them, and they can keep him away from other people. God never intended to be a one-nation God. Other gods were gods of nations. God was the God of Israel, but that wasn’t where he intended to stop. Israel was to be a blessing to the world, to introduce God to the world, to be an example of God’s work in the world, and they failed. So along comes the Son of God to set things right. And Jesus begins very early to make his point that we’re breaking out of the old mode of religion. God is not going to be satisfied being the God of the Jews. He intends to be the God of every man and every woman on the face of this earth. Scripture will later say that at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow in heaven above and in earth beneath. Think about that. I’ll be back right after these words.
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Just how great is God? Really? How much power is controlled by the creator of the universe? And what does he plan to do with it? To find out, request your free CD titled, How Great Thou Art. Write to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas 75791. Or call toll free 1-888-BIBLE-44.
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Jesus left Nazareth and came down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee, and he taught them on the Sabbath days. And they were astonished at his doctrine, for his word was with power. And this is in Luke 4, verse 32. I have a bone to pick with Luke. His word was with power, and they were astonished at his doctrine. But just like Mark, Luke doesn’t tell us what he said. He passes on from that and says, In the synagogue there was a man that had a spirit of an unclean devil, and he cried out with a loud voice, saying, Let us alone. What have we to do with you, Jesus of Nazareth? Are you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God. The demons recognized him right off. And Jesus rebuked him and saying, shut up and come out of him. And the devil had thrown him down in the midst and came out of him and didn’t hurt him. And everybody was amazed and spoke among themselves saying, what word is this? With authority he commands the unclean spirits and they come out. And with authority indeed. And one really wonders, you know, how after having seen again and again what this man did, how anyone could have doubted him. Well, when the sun was setting, all they that had any sick with diverse diseases brought them to him, and he laid his hands on every one of them and healed them. Just a little interesting aside here is notice Jesus was teaching on the Sabbath days every week, and everybody listened to him, and he actually healed this man who had the unclean spirit on the Sabbath day. But it was a continual argument with Jesus, with the Pharisees, that they didn’t feel that you should heal on the Sabbath day. And so consequently, all they that had sick and various diseases came to him when the sun was setting. Once the Sabbath was over, they felt free, finally, to bring these people to Jesus. And of course, Jesus would have healed them on the Sabbath day just as quickly as he would afterward. Well, devils came out of many, crying out and saying, You are Christ, the Son of God. And he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak because they knew who he was. And when it was day, he departed and went away into a desert place. And people went looking for him and stopped him and said, Oh, please don’t leave here. And he said to them, I’m sorry, I must preach the kingdom of God to other cities also, for therefore am I sent. And he preached in all the synagogues of Galilee. Yeah, but what did he say? What was his doctrine? What was this message that he carried around all through the cities of Galilee? Well, that’s what we’re searching for in this series of program. We’re talking about the words of Jesus. And it’s fascinating, as we get into the gospel accounts, how hard they are to find, how frequently that Luke or Matthew or Mark will tell us that Jesus preached, and they’ll tell us he proclaimed the good word of the kingdom of God, and they’ll tell us about all this, but they will not tell us what he said, at least not in those places. We’re left to pull the words of Jesus together wherever we can find them. Well, Mark tells us in chapter 1, verse 39, he preached in all their synagogues all around Galilee and cast out devils. And there came a leper to him, begging him and kneeling down before him, saying, If you will, you can make me clean. And Jesus moved with compassion, put forth his hand, and touched him. Now, suppose you know that that’s something you didn’t normally do. I mean, people today worry about hugging somebody with AIDS, and you don’t really need to worry about that. And people in those days were far more fearful of touching someone that had leprosy, and with some justification, because there were certain contagious things about the disease of leprosy. But Jesus was so moved by this man who came to him and said, I know you can. What I’m not sure is, is if you will. And so Jesus, very moved, touched him and said, I will. Be thou clean. And as soon as he had spoken, immediately the leprosy departed from him and he was clean. And he strictly charged him and sent him away and said to him, I don’t want you to say anything to any man about this. You go your way, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing those things Moses commanded for a testimony unto them. Now this is rather interesting here because Jesus is telling this man to follow through on the things that were commanded in Moses’ law. And I don’t think that this is as well understood as it might be. What many people I don’t think know is that the priesthood in ancient Israel actually served in many different functions, and one of them was they were the Department of Health. If there was a plague of leprosy in a house, for example, they had to go inspect the house. And they had certain guidelines they went by to decide whether or not this was a spreading leprosy, whether it was contagious and likely to cause a problem, a human health problem, or whether it was not. And they would make the decision, and they would try to do certain things to cleanse the house. If that didn’t work, they tore it down. And so a man who had leprosy, who was quarantined from the people, they were very strictly quarantined from the rest of the people, if his leprosy went away, if the disease, in fact, progressed to a certain place where he was no longer contagious, he could go show himself to the priest. And the priest had to verify this, and there was a sort of a formality, a ceremony, if you will, that actually restored this man to the community. Now, in this case, the man didn’t have to wait for the disease to run its course. Jesus healed him on the spot. But he told him, in order to be officially restored to the community, go show yourself to the priest, let him examine you, offer your offerings, go through the formalities to be restored to the people. But the man went out and began to publish it all over the place and to blaze abroad the matter, insomuch that Jesus could no more openly enter into the city and but had to stay out in the wilderness, the desert places, where people came to him from every quarter. It’s easy to see why Jesus told him, keep your mouth shut. And it’s just as easy to understand why the poor guy didn’t. You’ve been leprous. You’ve been away. You’ve been isolated from human contact for so long. And now you can be among your friends, among your family. You can love and be loved and touched and be touched. I would have had a hard time keeping my mouth shut too.
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I’ll be right back with more words of Jesus after this break. Or call toll-free 1-888-BIBLE-44. And tell us the call letters of this radio station.
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Well, it came to pass on a certain day, as Jesus was teaching, there were Pharisees and doctors of the law sitting by. And they had come out of every town in Galilee and Judea and Jerusalem, and the power of the Lord was present to heal them. Now, that’s a remarkable statement. It suggests that there were times when the power of the Lord wasn’t present, but it was on this occasion. And behold, men brought in a bed a man who had been taken with palsy. And they sought a means to bring him in and to lay him before Jesus. He was on a pallet, a stretcher, if you will. And they couldn’t find any way to get him in because of the crowds that were around the house. So they went up on the roof, actually began to take tiles off the roof and opened it up and let him down through the tiling with his couch into the midst before Jesus. Imagine this. They’re sitting here and all of a sudden dust starts falling from the ceiling. Pieces of tiles start falling down. Everybody stops. The words stop. Everything stops. And after a moment, here comes this poor guy being let down through a tiling, lying on his stretcher in front of Jesus. And he saw that faith and he said, man, your sins are forgiven you. Now, this is an interesting little byplay because the scribes and the Pharisees, when they heard him say that, said, now, wait a minute. Who is this that speaks blasphemies? No one can forgive sins but God alone. Now, when Jesus perceived their thoughts, he said, why are you thinking this way? Which is easier to say, your sins are forgiven you, or to say, rise up and walk? The only reason for the difference is, so you can know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins. And then he looked at the man who was sick of palsy, and he said, I say to you, get up, take up your bed, and go to your house. And he sat up and stood up off the pallet, took his stretcher in his arm, and left to his own house, glorifying God with every step that he took. And they were all amazed. And they glorified God. And they were filled with fear, saying, We have seen strange things today. And indeed they had. But let’s stop for a moment and think about the words of Jesus. He said, first of all, man, your sins are forgiven you. And then he explains, it doesn’t make much difference whether I say your sins are forgiven you or rise up and walk. The only reason I have done this is so you can understand that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins. But how did they know that? How could they actually know from what happened here that he had the power to forgive sins? Well, they could know it when the poor devil sat up on his stretcher, stood up, tucked it under his arm, and walked out. What’s the connection between the forgiveness of sins and healing of a man like this? I think it’s pretty apparent that God never really willed for any human being to be sick. It’s not God’s will for people to be maimed and blind and halt. Sicknesses, diseases, blind people, these are all in the world because of sin. Not necessarily the sin of the man who’s sick. Not necessarily the sin of his parents. Just because of the presence of sin. And so Jesus makes a connection here. between the forgiveness of sin and the removal of the penalties, the consequences, the pain and the suffering that sin brings into the world. And his healings demonstrated day in and day out his power over sin. You know, Jesus’ healing performed an enormous amount of his ministry. So strong is his healing and the message in his healing that all four of the gospel accounts spend great amounts of time telling us about his healing, much more, in fact, than they spend, it seems, telling us about what he actually had to say, which suggests that Matthew and Mark and Luke thought that his healings were a very important part of what he had to say. For you see, there are more ways to communicate than words. Modern 20th century people, we’re very much involved with words. Words are the most important things. And words and ideas and rationales and arguments, these are all the important things. But a lot of that stuff dissolves. It just goes away in the face of a man who was born blind and now can see. in the face of a man who had never been able to walk a step in his life and now can run and leap and jump. You know, when you understand that Jesus’ power over sickness and disease was a massive demonstration of his power to forgive sin, to remove the consequences, to deliver people who are in bondage, you begin to understand much more about what Jesus is actually on about. Shifting to John’s Gospel, after this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep market a pool called in Hebrew Bethesda, having five porches. And in these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool and troubled the water. And whoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatever disease he had. This is really a remarkable thing. It’s hard to fathom why God did this this way. For it was not going to be the most deserving person who made it into the water first. It was going to be the most able person. If you’re there, let’s say, to heal someone who deserved it, you go pick out the most deserving person. If you’re there to heal the most crippled, you go heal the most crippled. But when you move the water and only the first person who touches the water is healed, well, it’s a random healing, and it’s really the benefit of the people who are really able to move. So one wonders, what in the world is God doing here? Well, there was a certain man there who had an infirmity for 38 years. And Jesus, who came down there, saw him lying there and knew that he’d been a long time in that case. He went over to him and took a knee and said, Would you be made whole? And the impotent man answered, Sir, I have no man when the water is troubled to put me in the pool. But when I’m on my way, somebody gets down there before me. And Jesus said, Rise, get up, pick up your bed, walk. And immediately the man was made whole and took up his bed and walked. And the same day was the Sabbath. You know, it’s almost as though Jesus is looking for an occasion to provoke the scribes and the Pharisees on this issue of Sabbath healing. There is no question that Jesus kept the Sabbath in the sense of the fourth commandment, that he’d work six days and he didn’t work at his job on the seventh day. That was not the problem. The question really has to be asked is, why in the world is it perceived work by these people to heal a sick person? Why would that be perceived a violation of the commandment? Well, it was. Well, Jesus told him to get up, and he did. He got up and carried his bed. And the Jews that saw him said, hey, it’s the Sabbath day. It’s not lawful for you to carry your bed. He said, look, he that made me whole said, take up your bed and walk. I really don’t care. And they ask him, who told you that? Who said take up your bed and walk? And he was healed, did not know who it was. It wasn’t a question of a faith on his part. God Almighty in heaven at random picked a man to heal as a massive demonstration of what he could do and that the Sabbath was his day, not their day. Afterward, Jesus found the poor fellow in the temple and said, Look, you’re made whole. Don’t sin anymore, lest a worse thing come to you. Oh, here once more is the connection between sin and disease. Now, that’s not to say that just because you’re sick means you are a sinner. We already know you’re a sinner. We just now know that maybe your sickness has come from it. Well, a man departed and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him whole. And therefore the Jews persecuted Jesus and sought to kill him, because he had done these things on the Sabbath day. And Jesus answered, My father works hitherto, and I work. So the Jews sought all the more to kill him. You know, I will be an old man, lying on my deathbed, feeble and enfeebled, before I understand why Anyone would want to kill a man who could heal a man so dramatically. It’s a testimony, you know, to the stupidity of men who will elevate the trappings of religion above the real human needs of man. They’re a bunch of losers. Until next time, this is Ronald Dart, and don’t forget…
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You were born to win. The Born to Win radio program with Ronald L. Dart is sponsored by Christian Educational Ministries and made possible by donations from listeners like you. If you can help, please send your donation to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas 75791. You may call us at 1-888-BIBLE44 and visit us online at borntowin.net.
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Stay in touch with the new Born to Win with Ronald L. Dart app. This app has all of your favorite Ronald L. Dart radio messages, sermons, articles, and it even has a digital Bible. Simply search on the iOS or Android App Store to download it for free today.
