The Authority of The Kingdom (Part 1)

Once upon a time there was a king who sent his only son to live away from the castle in seclusion in order to protect him from his enemies. The king entrusted the young boy to his closest advisor, and the boy departed to grow up never knowing his true identify. Years later the young princes’s father died, and because the boy was hidden from the world, it was believed that the king had no son and consequentially it was believed that there was no heir to the throne

And so needing a king, a challenge was laid out, and a large stone was placed outside the cathedral with a sword inside of it with the inscription that said: “Whoso pulleth out this sword of this stone is the rightwise born king of all England."

And so the challenge began as contenders came from all over attempting to pull the sword from the stone and claim the royal crown as their own. However, unknown to the contenders, the advisor, a man named Merlin who had taken the boy, happened to be a powerful magician who had taken steps to ensure the rightful heir would sit upon the throne. Merlin had put a powerful spell upon the sword, which made so only the one with the authority to sit upon the throne would be capable of pulling the sword from the stone.

And so approaching the stone, after so many had failed, the young boy reached out, grabbed the hilt, and pulled the sword cleanly out from the stone, revealing to all that he alone had the right and authority to sit upon the royal throne as King.

In Matthew chapter 7 Jesus’s sermon on the mount leaves us with an important question: And the question is this: “What gives Jesus the right to speak with such authority?!”

Verses 28 & 29 say:

²⁸ And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, ²⁹ for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes.

Matthew 7:28-29 ESV

Throughout the sermon the mount Jesus has been making some big claims, Some astonishing claims. And you remember these claims. Not only did Jesus take the current understanding of God’s law and radically expose their insufficient understanding of it, BUT HE told them that HE HIMSELF was going to fulfill ALL of God’s law! That’s a REALLY big claim! And going along with this really big claim was another really big claim, which was that only through Jesus could a person enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

See, Jesus wasn’t just telling people good advice, Jesus claimed to be telling people the thoughts of God Himself, which astonished the people, as Matthew tells us: And this actually pretty understandable. Because big claims require some big proofs - right?

If I stood here and said: “Hey everyone, I got news for you - if you give me $5000 of your money today, I’ll give you 5 million dollars back in 5 years.” Would you just believe me just because I'm a pastor? Would just believe me because I seem like a nice-enough-guy? Of course not! Because that’s a big claim - and big claims require big evidences to be believed.

And so the question is, are there evidences that should lead us to believe Jesus’s big claims? Matthew certainly thinks so... which is why he begins laying out the evidence for us in chapters 8 and 9. And the evidence is the miracles of Jesus. And just as pulling the enchanted sword from the stone showed Arthur’s authority, these miracles reveal that Jesus’s authority.

Now, before we jump into what the healing miracles of Jesus reveal, we need to clear something up here. Does Jesus’s healing miracles ALONE proof His authority? No, they absolutely do not! For miracles themselves are not proof of Divinely-given authority! Why do I say that? Well, because the Bible says that.

Now before we look at why that’s the case - we first need to recognize that in the Bible prophesy is to speak God’s thoughts and His revealed Words.

²¹ For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

2 Peter 1:21 ESV

Alright, now how do we know if that prophecy is from God or not? Signs and miracles? Yes, in part, but not solely.

In Deuteronomy 13 we find that the signs of a true prophet.

¹ “If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, ² and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, ‘Let us go after other gods,’ which you have not known, ‘and let us serve them,’ ³ you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. For the Lord your God is testing you, to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. ⁴ You shall walk after the Lord your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice, and you shall serve him and hold fast to him. ⁵ But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has taught rebellion against the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you out of the house of slavery, to make you leave the way in which the Lord your God commanded you to walk. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.

Deuteronomy 13:1-5 ESV

Do you see what the text is saying? Even if someone does remarkable signs and wonders, AND if what they predict to happen HAPPENS, BUT... they lead people to NOT worship the true and living God, they are to be ignored (or back in Old Testament times stoned to death),because this shows they are a false prophet.

Do know another reason we don’t take miracles alone as a sign of Divine authority? When God sent Moses to Pharoah and Moses’s message was validated by signs and wonders, what did Pharaoh's magicians do? The same thing! Was their power from God? No. Their power was from Satan.

Another thing, during the tribulation, 2 Thessalonians 2:9 tells us how the Antichrist will be empowered by Satan to perform all sorts of miraculous signs and wonders that will deceive people.

⁹ The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders,

2 Thessalonians 2:9 ESV

So we can’t trust signs and wonders on their own.

Also, in Matthew 24:24, we read:

²⁴ For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.

Matthew 24:24 ESV

The existence of demonic miracles is the reason we MUST test all the spirits as 1 John 4:1 tells us to. For anytime what is being taught does not line up with God’s written Word, it must be rejected even if it is accompanied by miraculous signs and wonders.

And so bringing this back to Jesus, we see that Jesus’s powerful miracles were only a part what demonstrated His Divine authority! For what Jesus taught fully fit with the Word of God How Jesus lived fully and perfectly followed the Word of God And, finally, the powerful miracles Jesus did demonstrated His Divine authority.

And so with that in mind, the 3 healing miracles we see in our passage this morning reveal 3 things about His authority And here they are:

The healing miracles of Jesus show His authority to:

1. Cleanse
2. Judge
3. Bear

1. Cleanse

Alright, let’s look at that first one. The healing miracles of Jesus show His authority to cleanse.

When it comes to these 3 miracles, the 3 people that Jesus heals are quite unlikely individuals. He heals a leper - someone who was ceremonially unclean. He heals a Gentile - someone who ceremonially unworthy And he heals a woman - someone who was, at that time, considered ceremonially a second-class citizen. And yet the healing of these 3 people tell us something about Jesus.

The first man who comes to Jesus for healing is a leper. And if you know anything about leprosy, you know it’s a nasty disease! For the longest time people thought that leprosy was a flesh eating disease because of how those with it would have their body parts decay, deform, and eventually fall off. But it’s not. In fact, what it really does is it attacks the body’s nerves which prevents the person from feeling pain.

And this is a really bad thing, because those with leprosy can pick up a boiling cup of water without even flinching! Some people would wear the toes off because they didn’t know it was rubbing wrongly when they walked. It’s a truly nasty disease that results in horrible disfigurement, and often eventually death.

And if that wasn’t bad enough - the disease was INCREDIBLY contagious So much so, that if you got leprosy, you might as well as kiss your family goodbye - not literally though of course - because you weren’t going to be living with them anymore! Those who came down with leprosy would have to leave their family, their friends, and go live with other lepers in a leper camp, being isolated from the rest of the world.

Can you imagine coming down with this horrifying disease? A disease with no cure?

Today leprosy is rare, but it’s still around - and we call it Hansen’s disease. And while it’s rare, and treatable, it does require taking antibiotics for upwards of 2 years! But back in Jesus’s time - there was no cure!

And so here comes Jesus, this miracle worker, who all but eradicated sickness and disease in Galilee during His earthly ministry! Can you imagine this? During a time when the average life expectancy was around 35 years old? Which means that Jesus, who started His public ministry around age 30 qualified for the senior’s discount!

Our culture today is a lot different though. Yeah, we have cancer and heart disease, but you don’t see people going deaf all the time because of an ear infection. You don’t see people dying all the time because of bacteria and other now easy-to-treat sicknesses! No - we have antibiotics. But back in Jesus’s day they didn’t, and it was a terrifying thing, especially if you came down with Leprosy. And so here comes this leper to Jesus asking to be healed.

It’s remarkable too, because do you see how the man approaches Jesus in verse 2? With humility! He bows before Him, calls Him Lord, and says: “If you are willing Lord, you can make me clean.” In which Jesus responds by reaching out His hand and doing the unthinkable! HE TOUCHES THE LEPER - which was A BIG NO NO! But He touches Him and says: “Be clean.” And immediately the man is clean.

And if you think this is just about Jesus healing disease, then you’re missing the big picture here! See, in the Bible, leprosy is a graphic illustration of sin’s destructive power, and often served as a Divine object lesson for this! When a person came down with leprosy they had to live alone and if anyone came near them they would have to continually cry out “unclean, unclean!” A leper was considered not only physically unclean, but spiritually unclean as well. And what a powerful picture this is of what our sin does to us!

Sin makes defiles us and makes us unclean before God Sin makes us separates us from God Sin makes us unable to feel it’s destructive effects which go on for a while unnoticed, but eventually results in our deformity. And just as a deformed leper looks abhorrent to us, so too does our spiritual leprosy make us look abhorrent before God! And just like the leper needed to recognize His great physical need for healing, so too do we need to recognize our spiritual need for healing. For once we see actually come to see the deforming effect that our sin has upon us, we too will cry out as the prophet Isaiah did:

⁵ Then I said, “Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I live among a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.”

Isaiah 6:5 NASB95

Similarly, when the apostle Peter recognized who Jesus was he cried out “unclean, unclean” saying: Luke 5:8 (ESV) 8 “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.”

Yet remarkably, Jesus does not depart from us does He? No, for as Matthew records, Jesus is willing, and He reaches out and touches us in our defilement and cleanses and forgives us of our sin! He does not turn us away!

¹² as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.

Psalm 103:12 ESV

And it is because of this we can confidently approach God knowing that He won’t judge us for our sin Which leads us to our second point

The healing miracles of Jesus show His authority to:

2. Judge

The next man we have is the centurion’s servant, and it is the remarkable faith of the centurion that leads to his servant’s healing.

The leper was excluded from Israel because of their physical condition, but the centurion was excludes because of their ethnic condition. This man wasn’t a Jew, he was a gentile. Which meant he was outside of the special blessing of God.

During Jesus’s time, not only were Gentiles considered dogs by most of the Jewish people, but it was considered taboo, or unclean even, for a Jewish person to enter their home. Which is probably why when Jesus agrees to come and heal the servant, the man is like: “Oh no, no, no Jesus - I am not worthy of having you in my home!” Which is an incredible sign of this man’s humility before Jesus.

And if that wasn’t remarkable enough, look at this man’s awareness of who He’s dealing with! Look at verses 8 and 9 which show this man’s understanding of Jesus’s Divine authority!

⁸ But the centurion replied, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant will be healed. ⁹ For I too am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. And I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes, and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”

Matthew 8:8-9 ESV

What marvelous faith! And we know this is marvelous faith, because verse 10 literally says when Jesus heard this He marveled at it!

And then in verse 10, Jesus says: Matthew 8:10 (ESV) “Truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith.

In verses 11 and 12, we find something quite interesting that would have been a major mic-drop moment. And what is that? He says that one day gentiles like this centurion will feast in the kingdom with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, while the sons of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob will not! Instead, they will be thrown into outer darkness, in a that place where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth!

Do you see why this was such a major mic-drop moment in Jesus’s ministry? It’s because the Jews largely believed in Jewish Exclusivism. Which was the belief that Jews would make it into the kingdom of heaven simply because they were a Jew! But as Jesus points out that’s not at all the case! What is the case? Because only the children of FAITH will enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

Faith in Jesus was something the Jewish people hated. They loathed it! Because it indicated that they were as just unclean as the gentile dogs! It said that they could only stand before a Holy God BY GRACE through FAITH in Christ’s shed blood - and this was too much for them It was way too humiliating! And so consequently, they refused the spiritual healing that they so desperately needed.

As Jesus points out, His physical healings were but pointers to the spiritual healing He could provide, and those who rejected it would be met with His divine authority to judge them in their sins.

⁴⁰ Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. ⁴¹ The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, ⁴² and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. ⁴³ Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.

Matthew 13:40-43 ESV

Verse 13 says:

¹³ Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go! Let it be done just as you believed it would.” And his servant was healed at that moment.

Matthew 8:13 NIV

Because of the Centurion’s faith, his servant was healed, but also the centurion’s spiritual leprosy was healed as well! And if you notice in all 3 of these healings they are full and instantaneous unlike the phony healers we see today. The modern-day “FAITH HEALERS” who heal “back pain,” “headaches,” and “ouchy tum tums” are a total joke compared to actual Divinely-empowered healing! Jesus healed lepers Jesus healed the lame Jesus healed the blind Jesus healed amputees! You ever see these clowns heal those kinds of things? No you don’t. Which is why these jokers screen the people out who are truly in need of healing!

Or, they’ll say that the “healing takes time.” Or that “healing takes enough FAITH.” But in the Bible divinely inspired healing is never contingent upon the recipient's faith, it’s based upon God’s faithfulness! “Wait though preacher - doesn’t Mark 6:5 say that Jesus couldn’t heal in Nazareth because of their lack of faith?” No, it doesn’t actually. At least that’s not what it means. We’ll unpack this verse more in our fellowship & focus hour, but for now the short version is: that’s not at all what that verse is saying, because the as the parallel verse in Matthew 13:58 tells us, it’s not a matter of couldn’t heal, but wouldn’t heal.” It’s a translational issue.

Yes, God does heal today; however, compared to divinely-empowered healing miracles we see in the Bible, today’s faith healers are shallow, pathetic versions of it who’s only power is to Manipulate not Mend. And we do well to warn others to stay clear from their lies.

The final healing miracle is Peter’s mother who is healed so powerfully that she gets up and immediately and starts doing what all wonderful mother-in-laws do - She starts cooking! And again, her healing is instant and full. She’s healed so-much-so that even her energy is restored! All from the touch of Jesus’s hand.

And why could Jesus heal? How could Jesus heal? Jesus could heal for a VERY important reason. Ultimately He could heal because HE ALONE was able take our sin and bear our disease! Which leads us to our final point.

The healing miracles of Jesus show His authority to:

3. Bear

Verses 16 and 17 read:

¹⁶ That evening they brought to him many who were oppressed by demons, and he cast out the spirits with a word and healed all who were sick. ¹⁷ This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah: “He took our illnesses and bore our diseases.”

Matthew 8:16-17 ESV

Not only did Jesus heal these 3 individuals, but as verse 16 tells us He healed MANY people of both spiritual sickness and physical sickness! How? As the prophet Isaiah wrote: “By taking our illness and bearing our disease.”

What is does this mean? How did Jesus take our illness? How did Jesus bear our disease?

In Isaiah 53:4 it reads:

⁴ Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.

Isaiah 53:4 ESV

Isaiah 53 is speaking of the atonement. It’s speaking of the cross. For upon the cross Jesus bore our sins! He suffered in our place! Why?

⁵ But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.

Isaiah 53:5 ESV

Jesus suffered and died so that the temporary healing that people but tasted 2,000 years ago could one day soon become a permanent healing as the children of faith feast together in the city of Zion! But this healing is not for those who try to heal themselves through law-keeping. It’s not for those who think they don’t need healing It’s for those who come in humility before the Lord with a simple request: “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.” In which the Jesus responds: “I am willing; be clean!”

Have you come by grace through faith to the great physician for healing and cleansing? Do you know that your sins have been covered from the coming future judgment because Jesus bore them for you on the tree? And is your hope in Him and the future permanent healing He is bringing when we will one day soon feast in His Kingdom at the table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? This is our hope church. Not to be spared from this life’s temporary suffering and pain, but to one day, so very soon, experience the full healing that is promised in the atonement for the children of God!

This is the manuscript the sermon was preached from, so the recording may differ in places.