Fear No Fear

(All scripture from the NET, netbible.org, all rights reserved)

Those who had seen it told them how the man who had been demon-possessed had been healed.
Luke 8:36 (emphasis added)

Jesus came here across the Sea of Gennesaret (or Sea of Galilee) to heal a man (in Luke 8:27-39 and Mark 5:1-10, but two men in Matthew 8:28-34). The man (or men, but I’ll refer as singular here) were demon possessed. He had such ferocity that everyone around avoided him. They chained him, but he broke them. He lived in the tombs. He was naked and filthy. He was totally lost. Like so many of us. It shows a great picture of how salvation works. Jesus could have ignored him, but didn’t. Jesus went out of His way and went through a terrible storm to get to this man and get him deliverance from his problem. THAT is salvation.

Jesus healed that man. Cleansed him inside and out. The verse right before today’s verse says “So the people went out to see what had happened, and they came to Jesus. They found the man from whom the demons had gone out, sitting at Jesus’ feet, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid” (Luke 8:35). Until Jesus, no one had any authority over the demons and unclean spirits. This was a NEW thing that was being done. They didn’t know what to make of it. Like many new things, they feared it. We humans have fallen from our place and so we fear what we don’t know. It is an interesting maxim. Because we fell trying to gain knowledge we felt was being kept from us (Genesis 3:4-5). On the other side of that decision, we’re desperate to hoard our knowledge. We’re so sure of our knowledge. We take pride in our knowledge. And we instinctively fear everything that is outside that knowledge – ESPECIALLY things we don’t ‘understand’.

“Now this is the basis for judging: that the light has come into the world and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil deeds hates the light and does not come to the light, so that their deeds will not be exposed” (John 3:19-20). These Gadarene Jews were still Jews. They weren’t supposed to be touching the corpses of pigs. Yet here they were (verse 32) raising pigs. Of course there is some debate about this among scholars, so we can’t do anything but go with the Word. We know there were pigs there. We know there were people there. We know that Jesus didn’t seek out non-Jews. He ministered to those with great faith who sought Him out (Luke 7:1-10; Matthew 15:22–28; John 4:5-30), but I don’t know of Jesus ever going out of His way to find a non-Jew. Thus, I assume the demoniac in these caves was Jewish. I assume the men who knew him were Jewish, but they could have been Gentiles. They were not saved men (not Jews and Jesus had not yet died for us), so they were lost like ANY sinner. Their sinfulness responded to Jesus’ miracle with fear.

Whatever way you look at it, this man’s story spread. “Then all the people of the Gerasenes and the surrounding region asked Jesus to leave them alone, for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and left” (Luke 8:37). The town came – or at least the movers and shakers – and when they saw what was happening, they feared it. They begged Jesus to take His new thing and go. Jesus left, but he left the healed man behind. “The man from whom the demons had gone out begged to go with him, but Jesus sent him away, saying, “Return to your home, and declare what God has done for you.” So he went away, proclaiming throughout the whole town what Jesus had done for him” (Luke 8:38-39). The man stayed behind and spread the word of his healing.

This is what healing is for. To point the way to Jesus. To point light on Jesus. To give Jesus the credit and say ‘Look what He did! Imagine what He could do for you!’ It is the Good News spread across this world of ours. THAT is what healing is. It is a vital and visible testimony to who Jesus is, what Jesus can do, and an inkling about who YOU can be in HIM (2 Corinthians 5:21). It is an effective strategy that Yahweh has set up. It worked for Jesus. It worked for Elisha. It worked for Moses. It worked for the Twelve, the apostles, and the laymen and laywomen of the church. It also works today.

If you doubt the effectiveness of this strategy, go to Matthew 14:34-36: “After they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret. When the people there recognized him, they sent word into all the surrounding area, and they brought all their sick to him. They begged him if they could only touch the edge of his cloak, and all who touched it were healed.” Or turn to Mark 6:53-56: “After they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret and anchored there. As they got out of the boat, people immediately recognized Jesus. They ran through that whole region and began to bring the sick on mats to wherever he was rumored to be. And wherever he would go—into villages, towns, or countryside—they would place the sick in the marketplaces, and would ask him if they could just touch the edge of his cloak, and all who touched it were healed.“

The description in Mark is especially potent because it was the stories of THESE people touching Jesus and getting healing that enabled the woman with the issue of blood (Mark 5:25-34) to believe it was possible, put faith into the idea, walk it out, and collect her healing from Jesus. And these people heard about Jesus NOT from His ministry on the other side of the Lake, but from this man here. Healed from demons, he proclaimed his story and Jesus’ glory from one city to the next and probably back again. He was an evangelist for Jesus who didn’t stop. Healing started it all.

Jesus followed a very simple pattern in His ministry. “Then Jesus went throughout all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and sickness” (Matthew 9:35). The Word came first. He TAUGHT it. He PROCLAIMED it. He SPOKE it. And THAT was what people clamoured for the most. “Now Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, and the crowd was pressing around him to hear the word of God” (Luke 5:1). The Word DREW people. But only those who could hear His voice. How did He get people from other areas interested? How did He prove that what He was saying was worth hearing? Healings. He used healings. They weren’t proof He was God’s Son. They were proof that what Jesus taught was real. They were the type and shadow of the spiritual salvation that Jesus was preaching.

If you can visibly be healed and walk off living proof that the Word is truth, then you can invisibly be healed of sin and can speak authoritatively to those with no faith to see the spiritual about your condition as a believer, washed by the blood, and saved. It is a signpost for those to follow who have dead spirits. The lost. The lambs that Jesus came for (Luke 15:4-7). The more of the miraculous Jesus did in this area, the larger the crowds got. We don’t hear about a lot of HUGE miracles. There were several, yes. But they weren’t every day occurrences. Healings happened EVERYWHERE Jesus went. That is how serious He was about showing people the Father wanted them CLEANSED. Whole. Complete. Restored. Healing pointed to that and Jesus was NEVER stingy.

Why have we accepted a mindset that says differently? Why aren’t people being healed at each and every service we hold? Why isn’t it very rare for us to gather to preach the Word and have nothing happen? The Spirit moves EVERY time the Word is preached in truth. The problem is we don’t believe. We don’t accept the healing. We don’t listen to what our ears are hearing. Healing is part of our heritage as disciples of Jesus. It is inherent in the Word. It is for then, for now, and for always.

It is the visible witness of the invisible truth of the redemption of the cross and the reality of the empty tomb. Don’t accept anything else. Don’t settle for anything less. Healing is for always and healing is for you and for me.

Daily Affirmation Jesus IS Messiah: Psalm 22:18

“They are dividing up my clothes among themselves; they are rolling dice for my garments.” It wasn’t enough to take the clothes off of Jesus. They cared too much about quality. Jesus wore quality clothes. But then, Jesus was far from poor. They knew it. They liked it. So they decided to cast lots for it. Winner take all. You don’t do that for rags. And it was prophesied that they would do that with Messiah’s clothes. “Now when the soldiers crucified Jesus, they took his clothes and made four shares, one for each soldier, and the tunic remained. (Now the tunic was seamless, woven from top to bottom as a single piece.) So the soldiers said to one another, “Let’s not tear it, but throw dice to see who will get it.” This took place to fulfill the scripture that says, “They divided my garments among them, and for my clothing they threw dice.” So the soldiers did these things” (John 19:23-24). Jesus fulfilled the prophesy. Jesus IS the Messiah!

Your Daily Confession of Jesus/Yeshua’s Identity:

Yeshua is the Christ, the Son of the living God.

Matthew 16:16b