Welcome to the Plenteous Redemption podcast, where the cross and the culture are on a collision course for discussion. For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. For the Jews require a sign The Greeks take after wisdom that we preach Christ crucified. Under the Jews, a stumbling block. Under the Greeks, foolishness. But under them which are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. Now, here's your host, Thomas Ervin. Welcome to the Plenteous Redemption podcast. It's been a long time since I've uttered those words. I am going to do my best today to teach through Matthew chapter 8. I'm doing this actually between services here at the Goforth Baptist Church in Lousedale, Mississippi. Somehow the audio from Matthew chapter 8 came up missing. I'm not sure, I don't recall why or how, but I want to make sure that Matthew is complete. We have, as of about two weeks ago, we finished the entire book of Matthew doing a chapter-by-chapter overview in our Sunday school hour, and now we're working our way through the book of Mark. When Mark's done, we'll move on to Luke, and Luke to John, and John to Acts, and we'll just keep pressing right through as the Lord allows. until we teach this entire book of God's Word, which will be a tremendous blessing. Pray for us here as we try and rebuild this church. We've had many ups and downs, mostly ups, I have to say. The Lord really has been good to us, but we do desire to see this church grow, and this area seems to be affected with the disease of The proper word, I think, would be complacency. Everybody's just comfortable. They don't want to move. They don't want God to expect anything of them. Good people, sweet people, kind people, considerate people, it really has been a blessing to be in this area and to raise a family here, but that comes with its own set of difficulties, and I pray that you would, my hope is that you'll pray for us as we build this church, as we try and build this church. All right, let's dive into Matthew chapter eight. See if we can get this information covered so that it is available on the Plenteous Redemption podcast, on Sermon Audio. We're putting up new signs here at the church. We'll have a new website up for the church sometime in the near future. Plenteousredemption.com is still available to you if you're interested. And we just appreciate your prayer and consideration of all those things. All right, Matthew chapter 8, verses 1 through 4. Verse 1. When he was come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him. And behold, there came a leper and worshipped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And Jesus put forth his hand and touched him, saying, I will be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. No fakeness, no TV show faith healing, no your faith isn't strong enough, your seed faith gift wasn't big enough, none of that garbage. The Lord said, it's done. and when the Lord said it was done, it was immediately. His leprosy was cleansed. Verse 4, And Jesus saith unto him, See thou tell no man, but go thy way, show thyself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded for a testimony unto them. Now this seems to be a parallel passage to Mark chapter 4, and one of the things I emphasize One of the things I try and emphasize when teaching the Bible is that, especially in the four gospels, is that the first several chapters from chapter one of each gospel until the death of Jesus Christ, there's a good chance what you're looking at is Old Testament doctrine. This is a good example. The reason for that is the New Testament, the New Covenant, none of that begins until the death of the testator, Jesus Christ being that testator. So what you're gonna get from chapters one until the death of Jesus Christ in the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, is you're gonna get this admixture of New Testament doctrine and also Old Testament doctrine. And it's very important to keep that in mind. Otherwise, you're going to read a passage, and you're going to look at it and say, why is this here? I thought I was in the New Testament. Why does it say this? What is it talking about? And when you relegate it, when you compartmentalize it in your mind to say, oh, this is a remnant of the Old Testament, and so this is Old Testament doctrine, and so I'll put it there, now it makes sense. It fits. The Lord told this leper, go and show yourself in accord with the law of Moses. That is clearly not New Testament doctrine. That is unbelievably, clearly, definitively, unquestionably Old Testament doctrine. And so that's what you have here in this passage. The Lord heals the man and said there are stipulations in the law of Moses that requires you to go show yourself to the priest And then having shown yourself to the priest, there's a process of cleansing and testing and things that the priests are supposed to go through. And the Lord told this man, now you go to the priest and you go through that very process. This leper approached the Lord very respectfully. He knows the Lord can make him clean. He has no question. And by the way, this is the first time in the New Testament Jesus is called Lord, which is very interesting. And when you couple that with the New Testament doctrine, to call upon the name of the Lord, it just has, in principle, of course, it's an Old Testament idea, but in principle, there's a lot there to learn from and a lot there to gain from. The Lord reaches out and touches a man with leprosy. For the average person, this was a death sentence. It would be a big mistake to do something of this sort. But this is Jesus Christ, and He has power over that leprosy. Tell it what to do. And this man was immediately cleansed, and praise the Lord for it. Now notice here again, the Lord is instructing this man to report in accord with the law of Moses. That's Old Testament idea, Old Testament doctrine. I mean, I know you understand that, and I'm sure you get that. But have you thought about it doctrinally? Have you thought about it from a rightly dividing perspective when you're studying your Bible, especially, most notably, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John? I'm telling you, it'll call certain passages to make sense and to come alive if you keep that and keep that idea in your mind. All right, let's look at verses 5 through 13, verse 5. And when Jesus entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion beseeching him, and saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy. grievously tormented. And Jesus saith unto him, I will come and heal him. The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof, but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed. For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me. And I say to this man, go, and he goeth. And to another, come, and he cometh. And to my servant, do this, and he doeth it. When Jesus heard it, He marveled and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. And I say unto you that many shall come from the east and west and sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven." Kingdom of heaven. Very important idea. Very important to note. But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness, there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. And Jesus said unto the centurion, Go thy way, and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. And his servant was healed in the selfsame hour. So here we are. It's important, again, rightly dividing, making sure we properly compartmentalize the ideas and put them in their context. And we're talking about the kingdom of heaven. Jesus immediately responds with a willingness to go and heal this man's servant. What a blessing. How many times have you tried to see a doctor or see a particular type of doctor or just be seen by someone that That person has the answer you need, the direction you need. I mean, you really need that meeting, and they're just busy. Can't do it. The Lord, as we look at the book of Mark, the Lord is constantly crowded. He doesn't get to sleep much at night. Then he gets up a great while before day and goes to pray. He is bombarded by the multitudes, and he tells this man, yeah, I'll come take care of that. Praise the Lord. This injury shows, again, is the second person in this chapter who shows great respect and restraint to the Lord. He recognized the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ and understood it was greater than his own, though he is a man of great authority. Now he said, as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. What if the Lord's treatment of you was on the basis of what you believed? How would that go for you? If the Lord only did for you what you trusted him to do, how would that be? How would that work out? Are you able to trust God? Do you trust God? I know everybody knows the answer to that and everybody knows what to say about that, but do you legitimately trust God? And if you do, how's that worked out for you? You know, this is the thing. We're supposed to trust God in everything we do. Anything that we do that is not according to faith is sin. And I'm certain that if we were to trust God, we, I have to include myself, because I have the same problem. I try and do so much in my own power and my own strength, and then when it starts collapsing, I look back at Jesus like, hey, care you not that we perish? Rather than doing what he said and trusting what he said, I try to make things happen. I'm guilty of it, but how much further could the Lord take us if we would just trust him, if we would just believe him? I would imagine that we could do great things for the Lord if we would trust the Lord and let him be our guide and our help, rather than trying to tell the Lord what we're gonna do. and it just doesn't work out as good that way. Alright, let's move on to verses 14 through 17. Verse 14, And when Jesus was come into Peter's house, he saw his wife's mother laid and sick of a fever. And he touched her hand, and the fever left her, and she arose and ministered unto them. When the evening was come, they brought unto him many, many that were possessed with devils, and he cast out the spirits with his word, amen, and healed all that were sick. Verse 17, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses. Now the Lord came to Peter's house. And then at Peter's house, there was a wife. Imagine that, first pope had a wife. And his wife had a mother. You probably already knew that though. But here's the thing, Peter said, Peter asked the Lord, we have left all for you, what do we get? And yet leaving all, Peter still had a wife, a house, a mother-in-law, a fishing boat. He still had all those things. Here's the key difference though, those things didn't have him. He was willing to leave those things behind to serve Jesus Christ and set those things aside to serve Jesus Christ rather than allowing those things to become an excuse not to serve Jesus Christ. Look, in today's day and age in what we call church, not much is expected of you. If you can just live with halfway decent character, a relatively clean life, show up to church on Sunday and Wednesday, and maybe participate in a ministry here and there, that really isn't much to ask. But you would think somebody asked you to go build a mountain from scratch. And that just isn't the case. People are not willing to alter their lives to serve Jesus Christ. They just want to kind of fit Jesus in here and there when they can. And that is not, that is not, you know, Romans, the Lord said in Romans, it is reasonable for you to give up all your desires, all your wants, all your needs, whatever it is you want to do in life. The Lord said it is just reasonable for you to sacrifice all of that at the altar of Jesus Christ. It's just reasonable service. Peter's counted among the men who left all, and yet he still has everything that he had before. All that stuff doesn't have him. Again, that's the key. You don't destroy your possessions and your relationships so you can claim you're following Jesus. That's not a godly thing to do. You have to maintain those same responsibilities and also pick up your responsibilities to Christ. And that's where people get off track. They think they have to kill the one for the other. And that's not the case. You have to, you know, you've got to crucify the flesh for sure. But the flesh is what's going to direct you into serving mammon and not God. And so you got to work. The Lord said, if man doesn't work, neither should he eat. You still got to do all those things. You still got to maintain them. If you're a husband, if you're a wife, you got to maintain those responsibilities. If you're a father, None of that goes away when you decide to go and serve Jesus. Those things are enhanced by your service to Jesus Christ, and none of those things are allowed to get in your way of your service to Jesus Christ. And so that's the proper way to think about those things. Now, this healing the Lord performed is the fulfillment of prophecy. And they're an example of the Lord taking Israel's infirmities upon himself. Let's look at verses 18 through 22, verse 18. Now when Jesus saw great multitudes about him, he gave commandment to depart unto the other side. And a certain scribe came and said unto him, Master, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest. And Jesus said unto him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head. And another of his disciples said unto him, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. But Jesus said unto him, follow me, and let the dead bury their dead. And when he was entered into a ship, his disciples followed him." And so that's a good example of what the Lord's talking about there. Now, there's a phrase here that summarizes the mentality of these men coming to Jesus and making false promises. Suffer me first. Man, that's America. That's the average Christian today. This is the problem. Me first. Don't you want to follow Jesus? Oh, I would love to follow Jesus. All right, well, let's go. Well, me first. I got to take care of me first. Let me arrange me first. You are not supposed to be entangled by the affairs of this world and having become entangled therein, now you can't serve the Lord the way that you're supposed to, and that's a shame. That's something we should all repent of in any area of our lives where it might exist. Suffer me first. What a thing to say. Many people throughout the ages promise God they are going to serve Him and give Him their life as a living sacrifice for the Lord after they first satisfy themselves in some way. As soon as my flesh is comfortable, we'll be right there, Lord. We should abandon that. The instructions from the Lord are, follow me. The disciples at the beginning of his ministry dropped everything and followed Jesus. These men are instructed to do the same. Everybody's instructed to do that. Everyone can find an excuse to delay service to Christ and often family or some other aspect of the affairs of this world, positive affairs by the way, are used as excuses not to follow Jesus. You know, it's one thing for you to say, I'm an alcoholic, I can't do it. It's another thing for you to say, I'm addicted to my career and will not back off my career in order to serve Jesus. Those are two very different problems, and we should repent of both and serve Jesus. All right, verses 23 through 27. And when he was entered into a ship, his disciples followed him. There they go. And behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves. but he was asleep. And his disciples came to him and awoke him, saying, Lord, save us, we perish. And he saith unto them, why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? Then he arose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. But the men marveled, saying, what manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him? Yeah, what manner of man is this? Well, clearly the Lord is not concerned about the storm and it would help us not to concern ourselves with the things that don't concern the Lord. If He's not worried about it, we shouldn't worry about it. Now, when it comes to the things the Lord's worried about, that's what we should worry about. That's what we should be focused on. We often fret over things that the Lord has no concern for whatsoever. We'll kill ourselves over it. We'll just wear ourselves out over it. Now, look at, well, we don't have time to turn there, we're not gonna turn to it, but I'll tell you in Mark 4, verse 35, God said, we are going to the other side of the sea. Jesus Christ is God, according to the Bible, correct? Now, if you don't believe that, this is not the audio for you, you're in the wrong place, because we fully believe Jesus Christ is God. And God said, we are gonna get in this boat and we're gonna go to the other side of the sea. He didn't say there wouldn't be a massive storm on the way. He didn't say there will not be reason for concern along the way. He said, what I need you to do is trust me that we, who are getting in this boat, are going to go to the other side and we're going to make it safely there and get off this boat and go out on dry land. Now, then they get in the middle of the sea, and this wild storm comes. And look, I'm glad I wasn't on the boat. I'm just being honest with you. I'm thankful I was not on that boat. But it's important to remember that if you are in such a situation, this is a beautiful picture of life. The Lord said, I want you to trust me through this life, and I will teach you how to glory in tribulations. Then tribulation comes, and we lose our minds, and we start looking at God like, where are you? And it's just, you want to be in that boat with the Lord, and you want to trust what he says, that's why he rebukes them. Why do you have no faith? Why do you have little faith? He deals with it quite abruptly. So even with Jesus, there will be storms in life. Those storms are not going away. But you want to run to the Lord for shelter and help and guidance through the storms. He may or may not take them away. The Lord will teach you how to get through these storms and it's very important that you seek Him to get guidance on that. Psalm 65 verses 1-7 says, God who stilleth the noise of the seas. Psalm 89 verses 7-9 says, God rules and stills the seas. So what manner of man is this? He's God. He's God. He can be in the midst of that storm, asleep, while that boat's being tossed to and fro, and he's fully confident that what he said was gonna happen is gonna happen. And then when his disciples lose their minds and wake him up, he said, well, let me appease these fools. Be still. And that storm just dissipates, gone. Just like that leprosy, just immediately, it's gone. He's God, that's who he is. That's what manner of man he is. All right, verses 28 through 34. And when he was come to the other side into the country of the Gergesenes, there met him two possessed with devils coming out of the tombs, exceeding fierce, so that no man might pass by that way. And behold, they cried out, saying, What have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God? hither to torment us before the time. And there was a good way off from them, and herd of many swine feeding. So the devils besought him, saying, If thou cast us out, suffer us to go away into the herd of swine. And he said unto them, Go. And when they were come out, they went into the herd of swine. And behold, the whole herd of swine ran violently down a steep place into the sea. and perished in the waters. And they that kept them fled, and went their ways into the city, and told everything and what was befallen to the possessed of the devils. And behold, the whole city came out to meet Jesus. And when they saw him, they besought him that he would depart out of their coast." They said, please leave. And notice the devils know who Jesus is. Why do so many in the world fail to understand who He is? I would submit that they know who He is, they just don't want to own up to it. They don't want to admit to it. Every time Jesus came face to face with devils, they would openly admit who He was and beg Him not to hurt them. These devils also believe in the coming judgment. They know that an end is coming to this temporary time of sinful existence. And it's a violent end. It's an angry end. The Lord's going to deal with this stuff, with sin, and this world harshly. The devils besought Him. The city besought him." Jesus answered the prayer of the two groups of people who were ungodly or at least sinners. But the man who was in his right mind, he denied his request. Isn't that interesting? The man who was made clean, the Lord said, you know, I'm not giving you what you want. I'm going to give these other people what they want, but I'm not giving you what you want. So be careful what you ask for. in your saved or sinful condition, the Lord may give you what you ask for, including His departing from your life." Now, you might, as a lost person, you might think that's a good thing. It's not. It's a terrible thing. These men realize their financial loss and, you know, with the presence of the Lord, and in response, they ask Him to leave. We'd rather have the money. Could you please go? You messed up our business. Well, Where will your soul be when those things are gone? This passage demonstrates the extent of the corruption of the nation of Israel. Here are men possessed with devils and raising pigs, which obviously was against the law of Moses. Now, I know a lot of people who raise pigs. We're here in Southern Mississippi, seems to be a big thing here. Nothing wrong with that here, that's perfectly fine. The Lord said Israel wasn't supposed to do that, and here Israel is making their money off of swine. That is a testimony to their sinful condition, to their degraded state, and someday the Lord will make that right, but for now they are going to reap what they have sown, and it's unfortunate. So pray for Israel. They sure got a lot going on these days and sure need you to lift them up to the Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you so much for listening. If we can ever be a blessing or a help to you, you please let us know. God bless. We hope you enjoyed this podcast. You can learn more about our ministry by visiting www.plenteusredemption.com. You can hear more Plenteous Redemption podcast audio at www.plenteusredemption.media. Please comment below if this podcast has been a help to you. Also, inform us of future topics that would interest you. Thank you again for listening to the Plenteous Redemption podcast.