The Great Galilean Ministry (1)

We've been looking at the life of Christ and we've been talking about his early ministry, most of which took place in Jerusalem, Judea and the southern part of the country. But now we're going to move into an entirely different phase of the Lord's ministry. And that is what is often called the Great Galilee and ministry. We're going to introduce it tonight and talk about some of the aspects of the early part of that ministry. But this is the longest part of Jesus' ministry. If you break it up into segments, this is the longest segment of Jesus' ministry that is covered in the gospels. It takes place over a period of about 18 months and there's a lot that takes place in this time. Let's get our bearings first of all geographically. Just remember where Galilee is. Here's Jerusalem. Typically that's what we think of when we think of Israel, the capital, the temple and so forth. But in the province of Judea is where Jerusalem is, then you have Samaria and Galilee is up here. This blue shaded area through here is Galilee. The sea of Galilee over here. And when we get into the places where Jesus' ministers in Galilee will show a little bit bigger map, which you can see, the actual towns and so forth. But some of these locations will be familiar to you. Judea, Samaria, Galilee, even Pariah may be familiar or decapillists. That is also mentioned in the Lord's ministry. He spent some time in that area of the 10 cities later on in his ministry. So that gives us kind of a big picture of you. For 18 months now, Jesus is going to be ministering in this area of Galilee with an occasional trip to Jerusalem for a feast or something like that. But pretty much ministering in the area of Galilee. This 18 months is marked with vigorous activity. It is marked with important teachings like the sermon on the mount and other teachings that we will talk about. It is marked with the choice of his followers, his disciples. But it is also marked by increasing opposition. This time period and this ministry begins in great popularity. In fact, we are going to see in some of the passages we talk about tonight. In fact, the one where we will start in just a little while, we will see that there is tremendous popularity that the Lord Jesus enjoys at this beginning part of his ministry. But as we progress through this 18 month time period, there will be an increasing opposition on the part of the Pharisees and increasing disillusionment on the part of the general population when they don't see the political agenda, the social agenda, being pushed that they want. And Jesus is calling people to follow him and to deny themselves and to take up their cross and so forth. And there is this increasing turning away from the Lord. So it starts with great excitement. And as you move through the gospels, it becomes more sad as people begin to turn away from the Lord. And that is what we will see in the great Galilee and ministry. Let's begin with some characteristics of this time period. I want to give you four of them before we actually start looking at the events. Just to summarize this whole time period, one characteristic of the great Galilee and ministry is that it was an extensive ministry. This is an extensive ministry. In fact, there are 12 passages that summarize Jesus ministry in the great Galilee and ministry. Talking about the great multitudes that were following him, the many miracles that he did, the teaching and preaching that he did in a large area, just the amazement of people, the groundswell of opinion and popular opinion about Jesus. There are 12 summary passages that describe that in this 18 month period of time. Let's just look at one to give you an idea of the kind of passage we're talking about in Luke chapter 4. Luke chapter 4. This actually is the very first passage dealing with Jesus ministry in Galilee after he goes through Samaria where we saw him ministering to the Samaritan woman and staying for a couple of days there in Cicare. But this is really the first passage that deals with what happens after he gets back to Galilee. Jesus returned to Galilee, Luke 4.14. In the power of the spirit and news about him spread through the whole countryside, he taught in their synagogues, notice plural, going from place to place, taught in their synagogues, and everyone praised him. You can see this is kind of a summary passage. It describes a lot of activity, a lot of ministry teaching, doing miracles, power the spirit on him, great popular groundswell of support. But just one of those summary passages, there are 12 passages like that, a verse or two or a part of a verse that describe in summary fashion the huge impact, the extensiveness of this ministry. Many of them talk about the miracles that Jesus did. He did many miracles. We don't know how many. But there are occasions where it says they brought everybody in the town to him that was sick and he would heal them. You have to wonder where there are hundreds of healings, thousands of healings. We really don't know how many. But it would almost appear that Jesus eradicated illness in Galilee for a period of time. You almost get that impression from the great Galilee and ministry because there is miracle after miracle taking place. But the extensiveness of this ministry is not just travel, not just popular attraction of people to his ministry or miracles. You know what is emphasized the most in these summary statements about Jesus ministry? It's his preaching and teaching. There are 30 references, 30 in this 18 months to Jesus extensive preaching and teaching ministry, often in synagogues but sometimes out in the countryside as well. I think that is significant and it's something that is often overlooked in the ministry of Christ. When we think of Jesus ministry, a lot of people think of the miracles, a lot of people think of the great works that he did. Jesus was first and foremost a preacher. He really was. The emphasis 30 times. In this time period, the emphasis is on his preaching and teaching ministry. There are times we will see one a little later on in Mark 1 where he healed a bunch of people and the disciples come to him the next morning and say everybody is looking for you. They want more healings and Jesus says, we have got to go to other towns and villages and preach and teach the gospel of the kingdom. Mark 2 talks about the fact he was teaching the word to them in the synagogue. Jesus was a preacher and a teacher of the word. Don't forget that. His preaching and teaching was phenomenal. He taught and preached with authority. We will see that come up several times in this 18 month time period as well where he is spoken of as having preached with great authority. The reason why that was so amazing to people, he was telling people this is what the word of God says. This is what it means. Typically in the synagogue, rabbis would quote each other and they would say, well, rabbis so and so believes this, rabbis so and so takes this position and kind of choose between rabbis. Jesus would say, this is what the Bible says. This is the word of God and he would teach and preach the word of God to them. So he was amazing people with the authority with which he spoke. So an extensive ministry of travel, healings and preaching and teaching through this time period. The second characteristic of this 18 month time period is that it includes three tours of Galilee. There are three separate tours of Galilee that are mentioned and at least one trip to Jerusalem. The first tour of Galilee is, and I just mentioned them briefly, we'll see them as we go through each event. But the first tour was with the first four of his disciples, Peter, Andrew, James and John. It's mentioned in Matthew chapter four. He takes a tour of Galilee just with those four. The second tour of Galilee, there's a visit to Jerusalem in between, but the second tour of Galilee is mentioned in Luke chapter eight and it's with all 12 of his disciples. And there are also mentioned some women who supported their ministry as they traveled and enabled them to do what they were doing. The third tour is probably the most familiar to us. It's in Matthew nine, the end of Matthew nine and really in Matthew 10. You remember where Jesus looked around on the multitudes and he was moved with compassion because they were like sheep, not having a shepherd. He was moved because of the burdens they were under, all the religious teachings of the Pharisees, burdened them down. Jesus said, pray the Lord of the harvest that he would thrust out labors into the harvest and then the very next verse in or the very next passage in Luke in Matthew chapter 10 says Jesus called the twelve to him and sent them out two by two. And they did a preaching tour and ministry tour of Galilee. There are three in this 18 months, three extensive tours of the whole area of Galilee. So it's a very extensive ministry. Third characteristic of this time period is an emphasis on the power of Christ, an emphasis on the power of Christ. This is particularly true in Luke's gospel. Now do you remember the emphasis of Luke? What does Luke emphasize about our Lord's life? Healing? Okay, that is an emphasis. It's a part of what what Luke emphasizes. Remember, and it's been a while since we talk about this, but remember Matthew presents Jesus as King of the Jews, right? Mark presents him as servant. Presents him as a servant. Immediately he went from here to here to here, presents him as a servant. The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom from any theme, verse of Mark. Luke presents him as, do you remember human, son of man, the son of man, the human, presents him mostly in his humanity. And so in Luke, you have an emphasis on, first of all, Jesus' prayer life. There's more mentioned about his prayer life in Luke than in the other gospel. And that emphasizes his dependence upon the Father and his humanity, his dependence upon the Father. There's also a great emphasis on his dependence on the Holy Spirit's power. Jesus, although he was God, and had all power as God, in his humanity, depended upon the power of the Spirit to work through him to perform his miracles. And there's a great emphasis in Luke's gospel on that. One of the most interesting ways this is seen in a few minutes, we will look at Jesus' first sermon in Galilee in his hometown of Nazareth, and he's rejected by his hometown people. And then right after that, Luke gives seven works of power, and he emphasizes the power of Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit after his rejection, what Luke is doing is showing that he was the powerful son of God. And so there's an emphasis in this 18-month time period on the power of Christ. There are lots of miracles during this time period. Now, why would you expect that in the early part of Jesus' ministry? Why would you expect a lot of miracles? Do you remember what the purpose of the miracles is? Draw attention to him. To authenticate his claims, right? He's claiming to be the king. He's saying the kingdom is here. The kingdom of heaven is here. I'm preaching the kingdom of the heaven, and I'm coming as your Messiah, and the miracles were to authenticate, to validate that he was indeed the king, that his message was true because the miracles went back to what the Old Testament said. The Messiah would do what kingdom conditions would be like Isaiah 35. We looked at that a little bit last week. So you would expect a lot of miracles in his early ministry to validate his claims, and as those claims are rejected, and by the end of the great Galilean ministry, the official rejections done, the Pharisees and religious leaders have rejected him and are leading the people to do the same. And then Jesus' ministry changes in the last part of his ministry. What does he focus on? No, no, we're not there yet. But what would you think he focuses on rather than miracles and great crowds of people? What does he focus on toward the end of his ministry? Kingdom? Okay. Teaching the disciples. And he's teaching them about the kingdom, what the kingdom really is, but he focuses more on the training of the twelve than he does the multitudes of people. And the great preaching tours in the synagogues and great crowds of people being healed as he has rejected in the kingdom of heaven. And he moves more toward training, the twelve men who will be responsible for carrying on the work after his death. So there's an interesting shift in the ministry of Christ. But in this great Galilean ministry, we're going to see an emphasis on the power of Christ to do miracles to validate his claims as to who he was. Fourth characteristic of this time period is the growing opposition from the Pharisees. It starts early on, but it grows through this time period. I want to quickly give you seven reasons why the Pharisees hated Jesus. Seven reasons why they opposed him. And all of these come up in this time period of the great Galilean ministry. One was his attitude toward the Sabbath. There were several Sabbath controversies in this time period where Jesus heals people on the Sabbath or he does some miracle on the Sabbath or for instance he defends his disciples for picking grain along the way and eating it on the Sabbath. And in every one of these cases, the Pharisees will try to nail him with a violation of the law. Now, did Jesus ever violate the mosaic law? I know you know the answer to this. Did Jesus ever violate the mosaic law? No, of course not. If he did, he would have been guilty of sin, right? The violate God's word would have been guilty of sin. So he never violated the mosaic law. What was the problem with the Pharisees? Do you remember? Ceremonial? Okay. There you go. Laws that they added to the mosaic law. The Pharisees and the teachers of the law were very good at explaining what the law meant. But as they explained it, they would also say, now this is what this means. This is how it applies in this situation, this situation, this situation. And basically established a whole bunch of traditions to help explain the mosaic law. And the problem was, those traditions became equivalent in their minds to the law itself. And they confused the two. And so the mosaic law said there should not be any work done on the Sabbath. And by the way, there were exceptions to that, even in the Old Testament, as Jesus would point out to the Pharisees from time to time. We'll see that when we get to Mark 2. But the Pharisees would say, okay, this is what that means that there should be no work on the Sabbath. You can't pick up a mat on the Sabbath. You can't harvest on the Sabbath. And they accused his disciples of harvesting grain as they were getting kernels of grain to eat to take care of their hunger as they're traveling down the road. So they had all of these interpretations of the law. And those interpretations became equal to the word of God. That was one of the greatest fallacies of the Pharisees. And it is still a temptation that we face today and a difficulty we face today. When we take our applications, our personal convictions, and we make them equivalent to the Bible still danger. So the Bible is the most important thing to do is to get the disciples to do the same thing. The most important thing to do is to get the disciples to do the same thing. Well, it's not quite as simple as that. And I would say that Jesus didn't change the law. Jesus interpreted the law correctly. And the Pharisees had misinterpreted the law. For instance, in the sermon on the Mount, Jesus would say, you've heard that it has been said, and he would quote the Old Testament law, but I say unto you, and what he was then doing was giving the intent of the law and giving the correct interpretation of the law. Now, when it comes to issues like divorce and remarriage, the mosaic law did allow for divorce, like Deuteronomy 24, it did allow for divorce. Jesus also allowed for divorce in Matthew 19 in the case of adultery, although that's highly debated, depending on how you interpret that passage. But I believe that Jesus allowed for divorce in the case of adultery. What Jesus was doing was stating a strong case against what the Pharisees had done with the mosaic law. Because Moses allowed divorce, the Pharisees took that much further than God intended it in the Old Testament and said, you can divorce your wife for any reason if she burned your dinner right or a bill of divorce. You can't get somebody else that knows how to cook. That's the way they thought about marriage. So they interpreted very loosely the mosaic law. Jesus was pulling back and saying, wait a second, it was never God's intent for there to be any divorce anyway. God intended in the garden, one man, one woman, together for life. That was God's intent. Now, Moses allowed divorce because of the hardness of your hearts, he said, but it was not so in the beginning. So Jesus was pulling back from the Pharisees, loosening of the law, back to what God intended. So there was a lot of that. That wasn't really a changing of the law, but you're right in the sense that he was reinterpreting correctly the law that had been misinterpreted. Jesus did say, and I'm getting a little ahead of myself here, when we get to the sermon on the Mount, we'll see in Matthew 5 that Jesus said, I've not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. He evidently was being accused of abolishing the law, being against the law of Moses. No, I'm not against the law of Moses. I've come to fulfill the law of Moses. So his attitude toward the Sabbath and the Sabbath controversies, though, were one of the seven things the Pharisees hated about him. Second thing was his claim of a unique relationship with God. We'll see examples of that as we go along, but Jesus called God his own father and called the temple his father's house. That was a claim that no Jew would ever think of making unless that person was claiming to be God. So the Pharisees hated him for that. He claimed a special relationship with God, equality with God. Third thing they challenged him on was his teaching with authority. Jesus taught with authority. He said, this is what the Bible means. We don't need to compare rabbis and interpretations. This is what the Bible says. He taught with authority. Toward the end of his life, as he's teaching in the temple the last week of his life, the Pharisees directly challenged him by saying, with what authority do you teach like this? Who gives you this authority? They challenged him on the issue of authority. They hated him for that because he taught with authority. Fourthly, casting out of demons. They hated him for that. They could not deny the reality of what he was doing, but they attributed the casting out of demons to the power of Satan, didn't they? And that was the ultimate blasphemy and denial, the sign that they had really rejected him, was the attempt to redefine the casting out of demons by the power of Satan. Fifth thing they hated about him was his association with sinners. He associated with tax collectors, sinners, not upstanding religious people like them. Three of the most familiar parables that Jesus told, actually one parable in three chapters, in Luke 15, were a direct result of their criticism of Jesus for his love for public and sinners and tax collectors. And Jesus said, okay, I'm going to tell you a story about how much God loves the lost. And so he tells the threefold parable of the lost, sheep the lost, point the lost son. And if you look at Luke 15, one and two, it was exactly the reason the reason he told that was because of they were criticizing him for spending time with eating in the homes of tax collectors and sinners. Sixth reason they hated him was his attitude toward the law. We've already talked about that a little bit. And that comes, talked about the Sabbath earlier, but we kind of spilled over into the rest of the law. That really comes because of the confusion of the Pharisees between their traditions and the law of God. And their confusion of that caused conflict with Jesus. Jesus did break their traditions. Yes. But he never broke the law of God. And they, they didn't see that distinction. And then the seventh reason they hated him was his claim to destroy the temple, which they misinterpreted. Remember we saw on John chapter 2 that Jesus said, tear down this temple. I'll build it back in three days. And they said, wait a second, it's taken 46 years to get the temple to where it is now. You're going to build it back in three days. And remember what happened at Jesus trial. Remember they tried to get witnesses to witness against Jesus false witnesses. And Matthew 21 finally says they found a couple of guys that would say he said he was going to tear down the temple. And they used that against him and his trial. And so they hated him. I mean, they were at that point looking for anything they could to use against him. So this increasing hostility and opposition of the Pharisees and religious leaders against Jesus takes place over this 18th month, 18 month, three out of time. Now it was the job of the religious leaders to test, to verify anybody who claimed to be the Messiah. That was their job. They were supposed to do that. The religious leaders, the people who were supposed to be the shepherds of the nation of Israel were charged with that responsibility. And there were lots of people who claimed to be Messiah. But they missed it. They missed it totally with Jesus. So growing opposition from the Pharisees. Any comment? Question about just in summary fashion what this 18 month time period is all about before we begin to look at the actual events. Look back at Luke chapter 4. This is where we start. We're going to talk about the rejection at Nazareth and a new home. First few events that take place in the Great Galilee and ministry have to do with the rejection at Nazareth and his relocation to a new home. There are a few other events scattered in, but these are major. The Gospel accounts begin with Jesus in Nazareth with this summary statement of his teaching in Galilee versus 14 and 15. We've already seen that. Again, this is a summary statement of Luke that Jesus returns in the power of the spirit news about him spread throughout the whole countryside. See, Jesus has performed numerous miracles in Judea and Jerusalem. Some of them done while people in Galilee were at the feast. And so now that they know he's back in Galilee, the news spreads quickly. And he begins teaching in the synagogues and everyone is praising him at this point. It's very early on. Everyone is amazed at what he's saying and what he's doing. Now, let's take a look at the map of Galilee and this will give you an idea of some of the places we'll talk about. Here's Nazareth, Cana, Copernum. We'll talk about in a few moments. Later on, we'll talk about Korazan and Betheseda. The Sea of Galilee will be very prominent in the Galilee and ministry. But for the time being, in the early part, we'll talk mainly about the Gospel. We'll talk mainly about Nazareth, Cana, and Copernum. After the teaching, just summary statement of his teaching in Galilee, the first thing that actually happens is the healing of the noblemen's son. You'll look at John chapter 4. This miracle is actually the first one Jesus does when he gets back into Galilee. John chapter 4 verse 43 again indicates that after two days of staying in Cicare, he left for Galilee. Verse 45, when he arrived in Galilee, the Galilee is welcomed him. That's what Luke has just said in Luke 4. They had seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the Passover feast where they had also been there. Now, verse 46. Once more, he visited Cana in Galilee where he had turned the water into wine. Let's look at the map again and let's see where Cana is. Cana is right here. Some eight miles or so north of Nazareth. This is the town where he had done his first miracle. He has some friends here, probably. He has some people who have invited him to a wedding feast. He's in Cana at this time. What happens? Well, look at verse 46, middle of the verse. There was a certain royal official, King James called him a nobleman, that probably is someone who was in King Herod's employment, worked for King Herod, an official royal official whose son lays sick at Capernum. Now, Capernum is about, as you can see, about 20 miles east of Cana. There's Cana. Here's Capernum. The nobleman lives in Capernum. That's where his son is sick. Jesus is in Cana. Okay, so look at what happens. Verse 47, when this man heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea, he went to him and begged him to come and heal his son who was close to death. Notice Jesus' response. Verse 48, unless you people see miraculous signs and wonders Jesus told him, you will never believe. Again, Jesus is countering already early in his ministry the idea that we just want you to do a lot of great stuff for us. We just want you to do a bunch of miracles. Now, the miracles were designed to be his credentials, but people were already missing what they were pointing to and just wanting the miracles. You know, we don't care what they say about Jesus. We just want the bread. We just want the healing. We just want the good stuff. And so Jesus is already countering that thinking. Now, in verse 49, notice the response to Royal official though. He says, sir, come down before my child dies. He's not put off by this. He's he's very concerned about his child. In verse 50, Jesus replied, you may go, your son will live. Now, notice what said next. The man took Jesus at his word and departed. Now, what this man is trusting is that Jesus, who is 20 miles away from where his son is and he's asked for Jesus to come down to cappern him the healing son. But when Jesus says your son will live, this man trusts that Jesus word is as good as his presence. In other words, he's trusting. He's believing that Jesus does not have to be physically present to heal his son. That Jesus can just say the word and it will be done. This man believes that. And that's that's incredible faith. Because this is not this is not faith in a magician. This is not faith in someone who has to be there to sprinkle pixie dust or wave a wand or his presence has to be there to touch or whatever. This is someone who believes that his word is as powerful as his presence and always do speak the word and it will be done. You know, we need to learn that same kind of faith. We really do. A lot of times we find ourselves thinking we really want to sense the presence of God. Listen, this is as good as if he were right here. All we have to do is hear his word and he is here. He is with us. This is his authority. So his word is as good as his presence. It is a powerful book. It's a living, powerful book. And so Jesus simply speaks the word. The man takes Jesus at his word verse 51 while he was still on the way. His servants met him with the news that his boy was living. So he is traveling back to Capernaum and servants come to meet him with the news. Verse 52, when he inquired as to the time when his son got better, they said to him, the fever left him yesterday at the seventh hour, which is one o'clock in the afternoon. By the way, John figures time differently than the synoptic gospels. The other three John figures according to Roman configuration, the synoptics according to Jewish time of the day. And so the seventh hour is from six o'clock in the morning, Roman time. So it's one o'clock in the afternoon was the time. And so notice verse 53, the father realized this was the exact time at which Jesus had said to him, your son will live. So he and all his household believed this was the second miraculous sign Jesus performed having come from Judea, Galilee. It's not the second miracle that he performed. He performed a bunch in Judea, but the second in Galilee. First being the turning of water to wine. Now this second miracle in Galilee, the healing of the nobleman son. It's an amazing miracle from 20 miles away. He simply speaks the word. And this man's son is healed. Okay, any questions about the healing of the nobleman son? Okay, the next event is that Jesus goes to Nazareth from from Kena. He goes back down to Nazareth, his hometown. Let's look at Luke's account, Luke chapter four. And I've given you all of the accounts in your notes that are covered in any of the gospels in these events, but the events are arranged chronologically. So he goes back to Nazareth, Luke chapter four. Let's take a look at the map again just to reorient ourselves. He's been here in Kena. He is healed the nobleman son from Kepernum, but he stays in Kena to do that. Then he goes back south to Nazareth. Let's take a look at a couple of pictures of Nazareth. This is a picture of Nazareth today. This is looking north to south through the city. It's quite a large city today. And the next picture is looking west east to west, I believe it is. Looking across the city from the other direction. The city of Nazareth is a city of about 60,000 people today. Mostly Arabs, John, you've been there, haven't you? In Nazareth, mostly Arabs, but some Jews live there as well. There's a Jewish settlement just north of Nazareth. It is a fairly hotly contested area today, but in the time of Jesus, it was just a small little village of about 200 people. It's not near what you see here. 60,000 people today, but in Jesus' time was about 200 people. It's a little deceiving to look at a picture like this when you think of Jesus growing up, Jesus grew up in a little town of about 200 people, probably all of which would know him. He grew up there, everybody would know everybody else. By the time he was 30 years old and then he entered his ministry, he was the carpenter. He was known as the carpenter in Nazareth. Everybody knew him. Keep that in mind when you're thinking of Jesus going back to his hometown. He's going back to a town where everybody knows him as the little boy they saw running up and down the streets and playing with their kids. They watched him grow up as a fine young man. He became an excellent carpenter, did work for most of them in town, no doubt. That's how they know him. I think that's important to remember. Look at verse 16. He went to Nazareth where he had been brought up and on the Sabbath day went into the synagogue as was his custom. Don't skip that as was his custom. Okay, there were a lot of things about the synagogue that were not the best in the world. Some of the teaching that went on, some of the ferriscicle type stuff that went on. But Jesus made it his custom as he grew up even into his adult years to be in the synagogue when it was time for the service. The last part of the verse says, and he stood up to read verse 17, the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him, unrolling it. He found a place where it is written. And he reads from Isaiah 61. Now, a rabbi, a teacher, would stand to read the law. And then would sit to teach the law. And the seat where the teaching rabbi would teach from was called the seat of Moses. You find that occasionally mentioned in the gospels. It was, you actually stood to read, but you sat to teach the law. So he stands to read. He reads from Isaiah 61 verse 1 and part of verse 2. Verse 18 says, the spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind to release the oppressed to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. It's not like I'm finished. He sat down to start teaching. That's what he sat down to do. That was the custom of the day. Now, the interesting thing about this is Jesus is reading from Isaiah 61, 1 and 2. And if you go back to Isaiah 61, you find that Jesus stopped in the middle of a verse. Right in the middle of a verse. Obviously, verses were not numbered and so forth as they are in our Bible, English Bibles today. But Jesus stopped at a very important place. Isaiah 61 reads the spirit of the sovereign Lord is on me because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He sent me to bind up the broken hearted to proclaim a freedom for the captives to release from darkness for the prisoners to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. And that's where Jesus stops. But what the next phrase says is, and the day of vengeance of our God. Now, why do you think Jesus stopped there? Jesus is saying he's going to say this day is this scripture fulfilled in your hearing. In other words, this prophecy of the Messiah is fulfilled in me. And Isaiah is telling what the Messiah is going to come to do. Why does Jesus stop before he gets to proclaiming the day of the vengeance of our God? He hadn't come to announce that yet. He went when will that be announced? Second coming, right? That's at the second coming when Jesus comes in judgment. Battle of Armageddon, slaves of nations, the armies of the nations sets up his kingdom. He will proclaim the day of the vengeance of our God. But the other things that are mentioned, he fulfilled in his first coming. Binding up the broken hearted, healing, the lame, setting the captive free, all of those activities which indicate his miraculous power and his spiritual ministry were fulfilled in his first coming. So Jesus stops at just the right point to summarize his first coming and what he had come to do. And notice what he says next to the people there. Verse 20 says, the eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. You can just imagine, right? I mean, here he is. He's hometown boy. He has come back. They've heard stories about, and maybe some of them even saw what he had done in Jerusalem. They're wondering what he's going to do now that he's back in Nazareth. And whatever is he going to say today, this young man that we have seen grow up. Verse 21, he began by saying to them, today, this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. Whoa. Jesus who grew up in Nazareth and was known to probably everybody in the synagogue service that day is saying, I am the fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy of the Messiah. What amazing words. What incredible words. And verse 22, all spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. Isn't this Joseph's son? They asked, now this amazement and this speaking well of him, they spoke well of him in the sense that, you know, we know who he is. He's a wonderful young man. He's a wonderful boy. We've always thought highly of him. But we're amazed at what he's saying about himself. Isn't this Joseph's son? Again, remember, he is presumed by the majority of people to be Joseph's son, even though we know he wasn't. He's married son, but he's presumed by the majority of people to be Joseph's son. And his father is in most people's minds. And they're grappling with this. Now wait a second. This is Joseph's son. He's making claim to be the Messiah. They can't wrap their minds around that. And so notice what happens next. Verse 23, Jesus said to them, surely you will quote this proverb to me, physician heal yourself. Here in your hometown, what we have heard that you did in Capernaum. He had healed the nobleman's son, right? From Capernaum. That healing took place there, even though Jesus is in Canaan. Do hear what you did there. Do miracles. Here, show us right here who you are. Verse 24, I tell you the truth. He contingent. No prophet is accepted in his hometown. And then he gives two examples of it from the Old Testament. Elijah and Elijah. And in both cases, he says, you know, Elijah, because the Israelites wouldn't accept his message, ended up going to the Gentiles. And Elijah did the same thing because the Gentiles, Jews would not accept his message, ended up going to Gentiles. And when they heard that, I mean, the implication is, I know you're going to reject me. My ministry is going to spread beyond the Jews. The implication is that, seems to be what he's getting at. When he says that, verse 28, all the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up, drove him out of the town, took him to the brow, the hill in which the town was built in order to throw him down the cliff. Do you get a little bit of an idea of why Nathaniel when he met Jesus and Philip told him he's from Nazareth and Phillips or Nathaniel says, can any good thing come out of Nazareth? I mean, you get an idea now of why Nathaniel said that. It's a rough place. I mean, Jesus has grown up among these people. They've watched him from the time he was a child. But when he says something about the Gentiles and God taking things to the Gentiles, there's some mad adding to what he's killing. And they're going to try to do that. But you see what happens? Verse 30, but he walked right through the crowd and went on his way. Now, wouldn't you love to have seen that? What did that look like? Was it miraculous? Were they suddenly paralyzed by the power of God? Or was it just, you know, the magnetism of Jesus' character and maybe, I don't know, I don't know what happened, but he walked right through them and they didn't do what they intended to do. An amazing story, isn't it? About Jesus' first sermon in his hometown in the synagogue where he grew up and he was rejected. So he's rejected in his hometown in Nazareth and our time's up. He's going to have to move, though. He's going to move to another place that he will make his home base for the rest of his Galilee and ministry. And they're going to be some amazing things that happened there. He probably makes his home with Peter. Peter is from Capernaum. We'll find out later that after Jesus' teachings of synagogue, there he goes over for Sabbath lunch for Peter's house. And ends up healing his mother-in-law. A lot of interesting dynamics there. You wonder, well, let's stop. Okay, let's just stop. We'll pick up with him going to Capernaum next time. Let's pray.