Luke 4:31-37 What is This Word?
Good morning! We are continuing our study of the Gospel of Luke, so please turn with me in your Bibles to Luke 4:31-37, page 860 in the pew Bibles.
You’ll remember from last week Jesus visited the town of Nazareth where He had been brought up and preached in their synagogue. He preached a message so powerful that it nearly got Him thrown off a cliff as all good sermons should.
Jesus walked through the midst of the murderous crowd and left town and that is where we find Him in our text for this morning in the city of Capernaum on the shore of the sea of Galilee.
So let’s pray and ask the Lord’s blessing on our study.
Capernaum was a small but important town in the region, it was situated on the road that connected the region to Damascus, it was a center of commerce for fishing and trade. It was also a Roman tax polling station.
The disciples Peter, Andrew, James, John, and Matthew were all called from Capernaum. And it would later become known as Jesus’ hometown as the Gospels reference it 16 different times in connection to Jesus’ public ministry.
Let’s look at the text.
31 And he went down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee. And he was teaching them on the Sabbath, 32 and they were astonished at his teaching, for his word possessed authority. 33 And in the synagogue there was a man who had the spirit of an unclean demon, and he cried out with a loud voice, 34 “Ha! What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God.” 35 But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent and come out of him!” And when the demon had thrown him down in their midst, he came out of him, having done him no harm. 36 And they were all amazed and said to one another, “What is this word? For with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits, and they come out!” 37 And reports about him went out into every place in the surrounding region.
Just like last week’s text Jesus was teaching the people on the Sabbath in the synagogue.
The synagogue was a central part of the life of the Jews for centuries but strangely is not mentioned in the Old Testament at all. The Tent of Meeting and the Temple in Jerusalem are designed by God and laid out very specifically in the Old Testament but directions for the synagogue is nowhere to be found.
The synagogue was invented by the Jews after they returned from the Babylonian captivity which you can read about in 2 Kings 24. The synagogue began as a group of people with no less than ten Jewish men and their families and later became known as the buildings that were built specifically for the synagogue to meet in. They were simple structures with benches for seating and very little ornamentation and every one of them had a chest for storing the scrolls of the Law and the Prophets, what we now call the Old Testament.
The design of the church is very much based on this very practical model for community and fellowship, worship and teaching as we can see throughout the New Testament.
The Scribes were the primary teachers in the synagogues but their teaching was lifeless and dry, pure legalism and empty religion. People attended out of a sense of obligation not life, they were to keep out of trouble not to keep in touch with God’s Word or His people.
Then along comes Jesus.
For many of us who grew up in the church or grew up being dragged to church by our parents this picture can sound very familiar.
Everything was boring and dry and lifeless, an endless tirade of legalism and empty religious practices and, “You better go to church or you’re going to go to hell…”
Then along came Jesus.
So here in our text we have a brief glimpse into a meeting of the synagogue at Capernaum where Jesus performed two miracles. The first and most noticeable one is the healing of a man with an unclean demon.
33 And in the synagogue there was a man who had the spirit of an unclean demon, and he cried out with a loud voice, 34 “Ha! What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God.” 35 But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent and come out of him!” And when the demon had thrown him down in their midst, he came out of him, having done him no harm.
There is a lot to learn here in these brief verses, so here is a quick list.
First, the devil and his demons are unclean spirits. Their nature and aim are directly opposed to the purposes of God. Our culture has sought to minimize the devil and his agents, to make them into cartoons or to make them cool and not dangerous at all, or at least dangerous in the ways that people want them to be dangerous.
The truth is, the devil wants us dead, not just physically dead but spiritually dead, dead apart from trusting in Christ for salvation.
Secondly, this unclean spirit, as well as many others in Scripture, works in the lives of people. 234 times in Scripture the words, “demon,” “unclean spirit,” or, “evil spirit,” appear. They are very real and work in the souls and sometimes bodies of people.
The third thing to learn, and one that is the most troubling to me, is that these unclean spirits can and do operate on people who are among the worshippers of God. They know and believe that Jesus is the Holy One of God, they believe that He is Messiah. James 2:19 says that “even the demons believe, and shudder.” And yet they are at work among those who agree with the facts about who Jesus is, as they do, but do not trust in Him for the forgiveness of their sins.
Agreeing with the facts about Jesus is not saving faith, trusting in Jesus personally is how we are saved.
The final thing to learn, at least on my short list this morning, is that Jesus has power over the devil and his demons.
33 And in the synagogue there was a man who had the spirit of an unclean demon, and he cried out with a loud voice, 34 “Ha! What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God.” 35 But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent [that literally means to put a muzzle on] and come out of him!” And when the demon had thrown him down in their midst, he came out of him, having done him no harm.
The demon had to be silent, it had to leave the man, and it had to leave him unharmed because Jesus said so. And that kind of leads me to the second miracle that Jesus performs.
Jesus has power over the devil and his demons, we’ve seen it right here in the text, perhaps you’ve experienced it personally in your own life.
But when Jesus cast the demon out of the man, how did He do it? He didn’t grab him and shake him out, He didn’t shoot laser beams form His eyes, no ninja moves, nothing like that. He simply said the words, “Phimotheti kai exelthe.” Be silent and come out of him.
Jesus’ power is in His words.
31 And he went down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee. And he was teaching them on the Sabbath, 32 and they were astonished at his teaching, for his word possessed authority.
In Mark’s account of this event in Mark 1:22 he wrote, And they were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes.
The people were used to the lifeless, legalistic, empty teaching of the Scribes, and along comes Jesus.
And when the demon had thrown him down in their midst, he came out of him, having done him no harm. 36 And they were all amazed and said to one another, “What is this word? For with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits, and they come out!” 37 And reports about him went out into every place in the surrounding region.
“What is this word?” That’s the other miracle, the people started to listen to Jesus. “For with authority and power He commands the unclean spirits, and they come out!”
He commands the demons and they come out, He says the word and they obey. Jesus’ power is in His words, he is the Word!
Like the people of Nazareth, we still want spectacle, we still want Jesus to do the miraculous for us, we want Him to do for us, to provide peace and comfort and trouble free living.
What we want is spectacle, what we get is the Word of the Lord. Luke would record the words of the Father about the Son when He was transfigured before His Disciples in Luke chapter 9, “This is my Son, my Chosen One, listen to Him!”
The real miracle is when people do, when people listen to Him.
Would you commit to listen to the Word of the Lord every day this coming week? Would you commit to reading Matthew 5-7, Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and listen to the Word of the Lord?
We can’t lose sight of what Jesus did and is doing, and neither should we lose sight of what He said and continues to say in His Word. Amen.
