Mark 1:16-45 || The Book of Mark || Pastor Haron Kaisa

Welcome to the ALC Podcast. Here at ALC, we seek the loss,

teach the found, and send the disciples. We truly hope you're encouraged by

this week's message. And I'm honored that our youth pastor is gonna come and

share from the Word. I have an honor that I've known him for over

fourteen years because me and Pastor Heron went to Bible College together and so we

would study the Book of Mark together in Bible College. And here we are

fourteen years later, doing ministry together. And he is our longest serving youth

pastor. He's been our youth pastor for eight years this year. Most of

the time, youth pastors are like a rotating door. They come in and

out because it's hard work. But Pastor Heron has been diligent into the life

of our youth, even now they're young adults, those that he pastored eight

years ago. So we are blessed to have a youth pastor that's committed for

generations, not just for one season. So I'm gonna pray, and then

Pastor hero is gonna come up and dig into the Book of Mark with us.

Lord, We thank you so much for today, Father God, I

pray as this word is open, Father, may you speak to us.

May your spirit dwell in this place. Lord, we thank you Lord for

your church, that you have brought a hunger into all of our lives.

Lord to want a deeper understanding of the scriptures chapter by chapter. So God,

we thank you. As you move in this place. Lord speak through

Pastor Hair and Father God as he speaks to our hearts, explains the Bibles

and also applies it to our life. Today. Father God, we have

open ears and open hearts today to hear from you. Lord in Jesus name

a man. Let's dig in it all right? All right, how you

guys doing tonight? Everybody good? Well, First of all, thank you

for coming to church on midweek service, to our fresh star service. Secondly,

just want to give a big shout out to Pastor Adam and Pastor Nathan

for just the opportunity to stand behind this pulpit. But we're gonna jump right

into it. If you have your Bibles, turn with me to Mark chapter

one, sixteen through forty five. And if you have your Mark Journal,

Bible's pages eight through twelve, so we're gonna be reading twenty nine verses.

So if you may stand for the reading of God's word. I was telling

Gabe the other week. If you can't stand for twenty nine verses, our

youth is standing for twenty nine verses. We make them stand as well.

So here goes verse sixteen. Passing alongside the Sea of Galilee, he saw

Simon and Andrew, the brother of Simon, casting a net into the sea.

For they were fishermen, and Jesus said to them, follow me,

and I will make you become fishers of men. And immediately they left their

nets and followed him. And going on a little further, he saw James,

the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, who were in their

boat mending the nets. And immediately he called them, and they left their

father, Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants, and followed him verse

twenty one. And they went into Capernaum, and immediately on the Sabbath he

entered the synagogue and was teaching. And they were astonished at this teaching.

He taught them as one who had authority, and not as a scribes.

And immediately there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, and

he cried out, what have you do with us, Jesus of Nazareth,

have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy

One of God. But Jesus rebuked them, saying, be silent and come

out of him. And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying out with

the loud voice, came out of him. And they were all amazed.

So they questioned among themselves, saying, what is this a new teaching with

authority? He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him. And

at once his fame spread everywhere throughout all the surrounding region of Galley versoyan I.

And immediately he left the synagogue and entered the house of Simon, and

Andrew with James and John. Now Simon's mother in law lay ill with the

fever, and immediately they told him about her, and he came, and

he took her by the hand and lifted her up, and the fever left

her, and she began to serve them. That evening at sundown, they

brought to him all who were sick oppressed by demons, and the whole city

was gathered together at the door, and he healed many who were sick with

various diseases, and cast out many demons, and he would not permit the

demons to speak because they knew him. And rising very early in the morning,

while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate

place, and there he prayed, and Simon and those who were with him

search for him, and they found him and said to him, everyone is

looking for you. And he said to them, let us go on the

next towns, that I may preach these also, for that is why I

came. And he went throughout all galley, preaching and their synagogues and casting

out demons. Where was there Verse forty, and the leopard came to him,

imploring him and kneeling to him, if you will, can you make

me clean? Move a pity. He stretched out his hand and touched him

and said to him, I will be clean. And immediately the leopardsy left

him, and he was made clean. And Jesus sternly charged him and sent

him away at once, and said to them, see that you say nothing

to everyone, but go yourself to the priests and offer yourself cleansing what Moses

commanded for a proof to them. But he went out and began to talk

freely about it, and to spread the news, so that Jesus could no

longer openly enter a town, but was out in desolate places and people were

coming to him from every quarter. You may be seated, Thank you guys

for standing up. You know, we live in a information age where you

can access any information at the tip of your finger. You have the web,

you have YouTube, you even have artificial intelligence, and so you can

look up anything you want to find knowledge or information, even to the point

where I believe we live as if we know is the most important thing.

What we know is the most important thing. But Mark here right, Mark

here wants us to wrestle with a different reality. He wants us to wrestle

with the fact that the Kingdom of God is not primarily focused on the what,

but the who. It's not the what, it's the who, and

who here is Jesus Christ Mark one one that he is a son of God.

Mark wants to establish that idea that who is Jesus. And so what

he does is he makes this announcement that the king is coming. And so

Mark wants to get the groundwork down and through that what comes of it is

his authority. So, if you're taking notes, here are four simple points

that you can write down. Point number one is this. There's four ways

that we see his authority. Jesus authority over disciples Verses sixteen through twenty,

Jesus authority over demons Verses twenty one to twenty eight, Jesus authority over disease

Verses twenty nine to thirty four, and Jesus thority through demonstration. And there's

three examples he gave through his prayer, through his preaching, and through his

prescription, in other words, the process of healing the leopard. So we

see that immediately in Mark chapter one, verse sixteen. If you look at

the text, it seems kind of like anticlimactic, right. If you look

at verse fifteen, it says, here the time is fulfilled and the Kingdom

of God is at hand. Repent and believe the gospel. Passing alongside the

sea agality, he saw Simon and Andrew and fishermen right, the brother of

Simon casting in that. So where in the world are we going? Where

in the world is this going? We thought that the Kingdom of God is

at hand. We thought the Kingdom is here. We thought that the Kingdom

was gonna be here. Mark. What he's doing here is that he is

preparing his readers for the gospel that he wants you to know that the Kingdom

of God will be established in a different way. That there's no fanfare here.

There's no audience, there's no red carpet, there's no angels with trumpets.

There's simply just four men who are fishing, four men who are fishing.

And then when we see that, we see that Jesus launches his ministry.

In verse fifteen, he has gone throughout Galilee proclaiming the gospel of Jesus.

Right, is that the Kingdom of God is here, that the Kingdom

is happening. You get from one scene to the next scene, and Mark

is very down to business. As some youth will say, Marcus standing on

business. You know. So here he's standing on business. You get immediately,

you get something that happens. He doesn't waste no words. His focus

is not the narrative context. His focus is the words of Jesus. It's

not the what, it's the who. And you get the gist of it.

And so what Jesus starts doing here is he proclaims the Gospel of God.

And now he's passing through Galilee. If you know where Galilee is if

you go to Israel today, it's the northern side of Israel and it's very

large. And what's interesting about Galilee is that Jesus spends most of his time

in Galilee. Jesus spends most of his time. And now when we read

this passage, I think we kind of get accustomed to this idea that thinking

Jesus is a rabbi and the teacher. Now, if you know first century

rabbi, a rabbi will often have disciples, he will teach them. And

the thing is this is that what makes Jesus so unique in this text is

he does not have something in common with a typical first century rabbi, because

what the rabbi would often do is they would wait for the students to look

for them. Students will go out looking for rabbis, they would study them,

they would interview them, they would see if it's the right fit,

the right method. But here Jesus does something different. We see that Jesus

goes out and takes the initiative. He calls. He's the one that goes

and finds them. And the thing to note that Jesus here is unlike any

other rabbi. He's not the typical rabbi that waits for people to choose him.

He goes and he chooses his followers. He goes and he presents himself

in a way that connects with them. Jesus presents us a different picture.

It's not having behaving like a standard rabbi. He's out behaving like one that

has reputation about knowing information. But he takes the initiative. He steps out,

he goes, and he finds the disciples. And this reminds me in

the bigger picture of the Gospels and even the Old Testament, how does this

fit in the big story? Or if you look at the Old Testament,

we if we begin to see how God behaves in the Old Testament, you'll

notice that God is the one that calls. God is the one that initiates.

God is the one that goes. Look at the call of Abraham in

Genesis twelve, verse one and two. Go from your country verse two,

and I will make you a great nation. Sounds like similar language here Mark

one sixteen to twenty. Leave your net follow me. So here God calls

and people respond. That's exactly what happens with Jesus and the disciples. Consider

the call of Moses. In Exodus three, verse ten, it says,

here God takes the initiative to call Moses to go, and what does Moses

do? He gets up and he goes. Consider the call of the prophets

in Jeremiah one, verse four, similar call, similar initiative. And what

we see here is that God takes the initiative and people respond to him immediately.

So we see Jesus' authority over the disciples. They can't restrain their fear

right, they are terrified. So what we see here is that Jesus does

that. And if we're trying to understand who Jesus is, Mark portrays him

not as a great teacher with lots of information important things to teach, like

the Torah and the law. Yes he is a great teacher, Yes that's

important. But here in the Book of Mark, he's not acting like your

typical rabbi. He's acting one that's different from the standard first century Jewish rabbi.

He calls people with authority and they would follow immediately. So Jesus has

authority over the disciples. Secondly, Jesus has authority over demons. If you

notice in verse twenty one to twenty eight, you see that Jesus gives clear

evidence of who he is. And what's interesting to note here is that the

first half of the Gospel of Mark, the only beings that are sure who

Jesus is demons. That's crazy. The scribes didn't fully recognize him, the

people didn't fully recognize him, and even his followers didn't recognize him. However,

the demons recognize him because they were terrified of what they know who Jesus

is. It's interesting to note the response that took place here. The crowds

were amazed, but the demons were terrified. The crowds were wild, but

the demons penant. And the difference between that is this, the demons knew

they had reason to be afraid that Jesus even has authority over demons. And

the text here unclean in the Greek. Is this a word for a demon?

And he said as us, meaning there's multiple demons. And so if

you look at the text, you'll notice that the demon screams, right,

he shudders. They scream because they're terrified of Jesus. That when Jesus approaches

the scene, they start convulsing, they start screaming, they start shuddering because

they know where they're headed the lake of fire. And Jesus comes, who

is the truth right, the bearer of all truth, and he dissembles that

the demons do not attack Jesus, they attack souls of sinners. They can't

restrain fear because while to us they are invisible, to God, to Jesus

they are invisible and for him, in his presence, they are fully aware

that he recognizes them. They're fully ware that they must therefore scream because of

the terror that grips the wicked soul. And that's what happens here. It's

not an illustration. This is not just a story, because if you read

throughout the Bible, we know that demons are always there. They're there in

the past, they're they're here now. And remember, Satan is an angel

of light. And where where the Satan and demons hide the most? They

hide in religion, and they even go to church. They hide in church

service. Right, The last thing the demon wants to do is reveal himself.

They hide in synagogues, they hide in in different various churches, because

the idea of an angel of light is to cover themselves, to hide themselves

in a religious environment. And every false religion. There are demons. That's

what he's saying here. Demons go to church, they go to every religious

service. They're hidden in false religion. But Jesus exposes them by simply showing

up. He's the truth bearer. Like I said, when they see him,

they know this is the son of God. We need to be afraid.

He has complete authority and power over Satan and demons. And I'm here

to tell you, because he has authority over demons and Satan, you shouldn't

be afraid. God is with you. First John three eight says this,

whoever makes the practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has

been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to

destroy the works of the devil. So we know God's mo is to destroy

Satan. His strategy, his tactics, his demons, and all that stuff.

And so the new king has to demonstrate that power. He has to

demonstrate this power to dethrone Satan. And so what we see here is the

need of the human race. It's kind of twofold. When you look at

the text, you know that we need a sacrifice. We need to sacrifice

for sin. A substitute. And then we also need we need power,

someone who has the power to rescue us from the domain of satan. And

so Jesus left this device intimate relationship with God the Father, God the Son,

and God the Holy Spirit, and he entered this world to be a

sacrifice for you, to be able to give you away, to be able

to give you a chance, to give you a life. And he demonstrated

that on the cross, to show his authority and power not only over satan

sin, but also death. And so I don't know about you, but

I'm thankful that I serve a God like that. When I read the Bible,

I know that God is the deliverer. He is my rock and my

fortress and my deliverer Psalms eighteen two. I'm so thankful that God is also

the Savior. Praise be to God, to God, our Savior who bears

our burdens Psalms sixty eight nineteen. I'm also thankful that he's also known as

the Redeemer. My redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand

upon the earth job nineteen twenty five. I'm thankful that he is the ransom,

and what is the ransom? For even the son of Man did not

come to say to serve, but to God, come to serve, but

to serve and to give a life as a ransom for many. I'm so

thankful that God is the rock, that he alone is the rock for our

life Psalm sixty two to two. And so when we continue this, we

understand the authority of Jesus that he has over demons. But we got to

ask this question right when you read the text, you got to read between

the lines. Why are the demons terrified and panicked? In this text?

If you look at verse twenty one and twenty two, it says this,

And it went into Capernaum, and immediately on the Sabbath, he entered the

synagogue and was teaching. And they were astonished, for he taught them as

one who had what authority. Because of his authority of his word, his

word stands. The demons did not like the truth. The demons don't like

the fact that Jesus arrived and started his ministry by teaching the truth, by

dispelling what the demons were saying. And not only that, but all the

areas that they were in can be now liberated from the domain of darkness and

the domain of Satan by means of the truth. In other words, apart

from the truth, no one can be rescued. You can't be rescued.

I can't be rescued. But when we go to the truth, who is

Jesus, we can be rescued. And that's what we see in this text,

that Jesus came here teaching the truth, the truth of himself. All

Mark wants to tell us is that they went into Compernaum. And if you

study, and if you have a Bible dictionary, you can even look up

Capernaum. Capernaum was in the southeast or northwest edge of the Sea of Galley.

It was a fishing epics center. It was kind of like the crossroad

where people would travel, and even to the point where they put a Roman

garrison there. And Jesus made this his headquarters. And some of us are

like, wait, wasn't Jesus born in Nazareth yet Luke chapter four, it

tells us that when you went the Nazareth, they tried to kill him and

throw them off the cliff. So Jesus goes to Capernaum because it's a sinful,

evil place. He wants to He wants to launch his ministry, and

it's far away from Jerusalem. Notice verse twenty two, it says for he

was teaching them as one having authority, not as a scribe. The word

excua means to rule, to have dominion, jurisdiction, full right, power,

privilege, prerogative. So he speaks with this idea of absolute conviction,

absolute authority, and absolute dominion. And that's what Mark tells us, right,

it's not like the scribes, because he didn't use theology. He didn't

he didn't quote, he didn't quote no books. He was the authority.

He spoke with truth. He didn't get his theology from from from this school,

from that school. He taught with absolute dominion, reason and conviction.

And so why were these demons terrified? Because of the truth. He knew

that the arrival of Jesus in this story was the arrival of truth. Because

if you look at if you look at Satan Zmo, he is here to

still kill and destroy. But the truth destroys Satan lies, The truth destroys

Satan's ideology, the truth destroys Satan's bondages. And so the forces of Satan

fear the truth, they fear the Gospel, they fear Jesus Christ. They

hate the Word of God, they hate that you're in this room learning about

this story. They hate anything that deals with Jesus Christ. This kind of

demon possession has become a reality in our role. Demons have always had their

way in their dominion. But what I love about this story is that Jesus

shows us that he is the authority over the physical realm and now the spiritual

realm, that he has full authority, that he is sovereignly controlled over all

of this. And what's interesting to note here, there's not one demonic possession

recorded in the Old Testament. Were the demons there, Yeah, but they

were probably under wraps, right, They were probably undercover. And so after

the ministry of Jesus Christ, after the Gospels, in Matthew, Mark,

Luke, and John, there are only two accounts of demon possession, one

in Acts sixteen and the other in Acts nineteen. After that there are none

in the epistles. Demon possession has always been around. They roam around earth,

and they've been manifested throughout biblical history with all the different religion, as

if it was during Jesus's earthly ministry. And so this man screams because he

can't help himself. He shudders, he starts convulsing. This demon reveals himself.

And once he reveals himself, what does Jesus do. He silences him,

shut up, come out, because he doesn't want him promoting his true

identity. Because if you read it in verse twenty four, it says,

here, what have you do with us? Jesus and Nazareth? Have you

come to destroy us? Is just the time of our destruction? What is

going on here? The demon knew the plan of God. The demons did

everything to fight against the plane of God. So Jesus what He rebukes them,

and so this demon gets a little taste of this authority, this taste

of this power that Jesus has over them, that he has instant, absolute

authority, because they listen to him immediately. There's no gaps, there's no

taking a break. Jesus commanded them and they left. There was no exorcism,

there was none of that. The demons just left to show his authority.

He spoke them out by the power of his own authority. No one

has that power, only Jesus. Jesus has that power. He has the

power to rescue souls from the domain of darkness. He has power to do

that, and that's divine power. So Jesus is showing that he is the

Messiah, that he is the King of kings, that he is this announcement

in Mark sworn the Son of God in Mark verse one fifteen, that this

kingdom is coming, this kingdom is at hand, this kingdom is here,

and this name is Jesus. Not only do we see Jesus authority over the

disciples, we see Jesus authority over the demons, but we see Jesus authority

over disease. Look at verses twenty nine to thirty four. We see that

Jesus authority and power over the disciples, demons, and now disease. We

come to this portion and this kind of summarizes the first day. And so,

like I said, if you read the book of Mark, things happen

fast. So you go from one scene to the next scene. And so

now we go to the end of just one day. All that took one

day. And now we come to this the proof of his personhood, the

proof of his person that is he who he claims to be. If this

Jesus has authority over disciples, and he calls them and he initiate. If

this Jesus has authority over demons, he speaks and demons listen, then this

Jesus has authority over disease, sickness and all that stuff. Right, So

it was Jesus and his disciples, Andrew, Simon, James, and John.

The disciples knew his power. They were with him in ministry when he

called them. Right, they seen him do miraculous thing. And because they

knew his power, what did the disciples do? They invited them over for

lunch. And so Simon's mother in law laying sick with the fever in verse

twenty nine and thirty four, you'll see that she had a severe infection.

It was a it was it produced a high fever, and it was a

kind of horrendous fever that made her ill to the point that she was laying

on the ground. And so here comes the daughter and the son in law,

Peter, asking Jesus, can you come over our house? We have

someone sick here. And so what does Jesus respond to in verse thirty one,

he says, he came to her and raised her up. And how

did you do it? By the touch of his hand. By the touch

of his hand, he rebuked the fever. Even fever has to come to

subjection to his authority and power, even disease. I hear a lot of

preachers these days saying, ain't no healing today. I'm sorry to tell you,

but there's healing. There's healing in the name of Jesus. We know

that Jesus is the healer, the great physician, the doctor. There's no

doctor's report that has unseen to God. Here is rebuking the fever. He

has total sovereign control, not over not just disciples, the demons, and

now fever and sickness and disease. His authority commands and there's instant compliance.

There's no break there. And what does she do? If you read the

text, and when you read the Gospels, we know that there's accounts that

kind of correlate to them, and you'll see that in the Book of Matthew,

in the Book of Luke. But it says that she got up and

started making them lunch. So what does that tell me? That tell me

that she had no weakness, she had no dizzyness, she was no sweating,

no struggling, no rehab. She was fully healed. And I share

this story every time I come up here because it's a true story. My

dad was diagnosed with stage four cancer in February fourteen, twenty twenty, and

the doctors gave us a report that he would he had two weeks to live.

And so we're in we're we're in a doctor's room and I'm talking to

my mom and then I get you know, I reached out to Pasta Diego

to get some contacts to some other doctors because I wanted to get a second

opinion. And so I call this doctor, this Christian doctor, and he's

like, I'm sorry, bro, there's nothing we can do. I think

your dad may not live. My mom, she's a prayer warrior. My

mom believes in authority, in power of Jesus. He said, naw ah,

I'm gonna believe that if he wakes up tomorrow morning that he will still

be alive. So this is my dad now, and he's still going through

just you know, some things right now. But they gave him the same

report about a month ago, in November, November twenty third, they said

the same exact thing. And guess what, He's still alive today because of

the power of Jesus, that he has authority and power over sickness. I'm

here to encourage you trust in God, because if God can do it for

me, he can do it for you. So Jesus restored her health and

she was immediately able to make them lunch. That's some kind of power there,

right. I don't know about you, but when I feel sick and

I'm drained, I can't do nothing. I'm like I was talking to the

past the day to day. I'm like, man, I was out last

night. I'm like, man, I got to get up for this,

But all symptoms were gone. She was as if she had never been ill

in her life. Jesus had authority over the disciples. He calls, he

initiates, he goes. Jesus has authority over demons, even demons hear his

voice and they comply. And he has power over disease. Even sickness has

to follow his command. And now we go to point number four. Jesus

had authority through his demonstration Verses thirty five through forty five. We'll read here

in verse thirty five three points his prayer, verse thirty five, his preaching

verse thirty six to thirty nine, and his prescription his prayer. We see

here in verse thirty five, it says here and rising very early in the

morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a

desolate place. And what did he do? He prayed. So Jesus demonstrates

his authority and power, and he gives us an example of how to do

that. How do I access this power and authority by communing with God,

by getting into the will of God and hearing his voice. And the reason

why you can't hear his voice is probably because you have a lot of voices

in your life. You have competing voices of self esteem, of all this

stuff of fashion and social media and opinion. And you get to this place

and God is like, hear my voice. Do you daily realize that your

life is being examined by the audience of one person, God himself. When

you get to that place, I promise you life will be much easier.

The power and authority of his action was in web was in prayer. He

prayed. He was subject to the will of the Father and the power of

the Holy Spirit. He couldn't do this on his own, so he had

to daily realize that he has to go into the prayer closet and commune with

God. That he took time out of his busy schedule healing, rebuking,

and he prays before the son comes up. He is up. Why Why?

Because he was fully dependent on the Father's will and the power of the

Holy Spirit. That's why three times in Market tells us that he went into

that kind of secluded prayer solitude. I think we need to do that more

often. Right, tune the noise out, be quiet, be still,

grab a pen, grab a pad, grab grab a bible, and just

be with God. Be with God, Mark one, thirty five, Mark

six, and Mark fourteen. But if you look throughout the gospels, Jesus

prayed all the time. Notice what it says here in Luke three twenty one.

The Gospel tells us that he prayed before his baptism. He also prayed

before the choosing of the twelve Luke six twelve. He also prayed before the

feeding of the multitude Matthew fourteen. He prayed at his transfiguration. He prayed

before he taught the disciples how to pray. He prayed before he raised Lazareth.

He prayed in the upper room the night the last night was the disciples.

He prayed at the night of his betrayal, and he even prayed on

the cross. Why because he was subject to the Father's will and the Holy

Spirit. He always placed himself under the Father's will. I gotta tune in

with God. I gotta tune everything else out. I gotta commune with God.

So why should we pray? Because Jesus expects you to pray. Look

at Matthew six five, and when you pray Matthew sixty six. But when

you pray Matthew six seven, and when you pray Matthew six's nine,

this then is how you should pray. So what is that telling us?

You should pray, pray often, pray a lot, pray more. Here's

what Samuel Chadwick says here. It's one of my favorite quotes. The one

concern of the devil is to keep Christians from praying. He fears nothing from

prayerless study, prayerless work, prayerless religion. He laughs at our toil,

mocks at our wisdom, but trembles when we pray. I challenge y'all to

come out to Saturday morning prayer with Pastor Adam. The team hit it in

with God. Make time for that. So we see that he demonstrated his

authority through his prayer. Now we see preaching. Notice verse thirty eight.

It says here and he said to them, let us go on to the

next towns, that I may preach there also for what for this is why

he came. So the Kingdom of God is at hand. And Jesus gives

us one of the clear answers of why he came. He came to preach.

He's a preacher's son. He came to preach. If you ever wonder

why Jesus came, he came to preach. He came to preach the Word.

He came to preach truth. Under line of this verse, the son

of man has come to seek and save the loss. But here he says,

he came to preach. And so how does one understand the call of

the sinner's repentance? How does one seek and save the loss by preaching the

preaching of the word? How does one hear without someone preaching proclamation? The

miracles only verified the authority and truthfulness of his preaching. That's why he came.

The Demonstration of his authority through prayer. Prayer is essential. But now

the demonstration through his preaching. Jesus had authority through demonstration, his prayer,

his preaching, and his prescription. Notice verse forty through forty five. It

tells us that there's a man who has leopardsy. Prescription is the process of

healing. Here. Leoparsy was common in Israel. Look at Luke four twenty

seven. And there are only two accounts in the Gospels of leopards Mark one

hearing this story in Luke seventeen. And remember what we said earlier about the

purpose of his miracle was to validate what the fact that he is the son

of God, who he is, it's not what, it's what. It's

to who, that he has supernatural power, and what he says is true.

To validate this message Jesus preaching. His authority was seen in this moment

preaching, and now this healing of a leopard. And when you begin to

study this, it's an interesting account. You'll find that there's a lot of

rules and laws and regulations to follow. When you were a leopard. The

leopard was an outcast. They often lived on the outskirts of the city walls.

They couldn't go home, they couldn't go to the synagogue. They had

no friends, they had no hope, they had no worship, They couldn't

do anything. And what this disease often did was that it caused blindness.

And it was a horrendous disease because underneath the muscle was the nerves, and

so the nerves will go numb and they wouldn't have any pain, and most

of them would die from that. And so here the leopard was despised by

men. But what does Jesus do in this text? What's shocking is the

fact that Jesus was there for him, that he came to Jesus loving against

fourteen tells us that he can't do that. There's a law to follow,

there's a way to be cleansed. He wasn't supposed to do that. Why

because they were forbidden and outcast. Rabbis would pride themselves despising leopards. But

Jesus in that moment touched him and gave him instruction. This leopard was willing

to risk shame, embarrassment, and disdain. And what did Jesus do.

Look at verse forty one, he moved with pity. He stretched out his

hand and touched him and said, I will be clean his compassion. He

was moved with compassion and healed this man, he stretched out his hand,

he touched him, and he healed him. His touch was a touch of

kindness. His touch was a touch of connection. His touch was a touch

of tenderness. His touch was a touch of healing. Jesus is linking himself

to the idea that not only does he have authority and power over disciples,

over demons, over disease, but he demonstrates that by the healing of this

leopard. Look at Leviticus fourteen. It tells us the whole ritual. They

had to examine all these birds, and they had to kill one, and

they had to put it over running water, and if that didn't work,

they had to shave their heads, and they had to put hissep on.

And there were a lot of these rules here. But if you look at

the end of forty four, it says here as a testament to them who

the priest, Jesus healed this man to be a testament to show this people,

to show the priest that he has the power and not them. And

I'll close with this final thought. Jesus trades places with you and I just

like Jesus trades places with this leopard. The leopard was what was outcast.

But as soon as he touched Jesus, this leopard is now mingling, hanging

out. Now he can go to the synagogue. Now he can hang out

with friends. And now, Jesus, what does Jesus doing The text in

verse forty five, he said he isolated himself because of fame, the haters,

and all that stuff. So here Jesus trades places with this leopard.

Jesus is now isolated. Jesus is now secluded. Now this leopard is seen.

Jesus trades places with the leopard. It's a metaphor of what he did

on the cross for you and me, that when we were in sin,

that when we were in isolation from God, God will set his son to

touch you, to invite you to his kingdom, to invite you to this

party, this kingdom party. And that's what he did on the cross.

Because Jesus was forsaken, Jesus was treated as an outcast, and we were

accepted and welcome into the family of God. Let's pray, Father God,

we thank you, we honor you, we love you. Thank you for

your clarity, thank you for your truth. Your word says that your truth

will set the captives free and I pray that the truth of God would reside

in our hearts and bringing them. I pray that you would challenge us in

a way to see Mark differently, to see Mark as as this demonstration of

your authority and power that we can trust in you, because you have dominion,

You are sovereign, you are in control all the time. We thank

you for your word in Jesus name. We pray in God's people say,

I don't want you guys to leave tonight without sharing the most important message.

And when you think about eternity, what do you think about forever? Right?

And we think about time on this earth as but a blip. Do

you know that time is the only commodity that is irreplaceable. Time is an

equal opportunity employer. You and I have the same amount of time, hours,

minutes, and seconds a day. You can't buy more time, you

can't save time, you can't invent time. Time is irreplaceable. And the

Bible here says that if we if we ask God to teach to number our

days to have a heart of wisdom, we'll see that. Statistics say this

that the average American dies at about seventy five to eighty years old. They

also say that you spend about one third of your life sleeping in the bent.

So if you were to look at the number seventy five and one third

of seventy five is twenty five, so you spend about twenty five years just

sleeping. Statistics say that you spend about the average American spends about sixty five

hours on social media, whether it's Facebook, x, Tumble, whatever it

is, and that comes out to about thirty two point five days a year

that we spend just on social media. Statistics also say that we spend about

three hours a day on our cell phone, and that comes to about eighty

hours a month, and if you look at the days, that comes out

to about forty five point five days a year. They also say that we

spend about t two point seven hours a day just on watching television, and

that comes out to be about forty days a year. And so if you

were to add all that up, it equals out to the amount of twenty

five years twenty five years of social media, watching TV on our cell phones.

And if you're looking at the statistic of seventy five years, that leaves

you with what twenty five years of life left. The Bible says the Bible

says the Psalms ninety verse twelve, teach us the number our days that we

may have a heart of wisdom. The day of salvation is now repenting and

believe the Gospel is at hand. And that's the challenge for you guys.

If you don't know this Jesus, if you would have died today, where

would you spend eternity? As Jesus said in John fourteen, verse six,

that I am the way, the truth in life. No one comes to

the Father but through me. There's only one way to heaven, but a

million ways to hell. He is the way, but he's also the truth.

Everyone is subjected to the truth. When Christ come back, your ankles

will buckle and bow down to the King of Kings and the Lord of Lord,

because he is the truth, barrier demons, disease disciples, and he

is a life and he's a ransom for our lives. It's two ways to

live Matthew seven, the narrow or the wide. Two gates, the big

and the small, two destinations heaven and hell, two groups of people saved

and unsaved. Where would you want to spend eternity? So that's you tonight.

If you want to get this nose Jesus and wants you to raise your

hand. I also want to give the opportunity for those who maybe you've been

walking with God and you lost your passion, you lost your zeal, and

you lost this fire and this burning ness that you had when you first fell

in love with God, and you want to get that back. You're going

through the motion. That's you tonight. I want you to raise your hand

as well. You want to rededicate your life to Jesus. And last,

if you want to be filled with the Holy Spirit. We are a holy,

holy spirit filled church. We believe in the gifts of the Spirit.

We believe in the fruit of the fruit of the Spirit. So that's you

tonight. If you want to accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior,

if you want to rededicate your life to God, if you want to be

filled with the Holy Spirit. Account three, I want you to raigie a

hand one, two, three, just give it up for every hand right

here we see some hands here, hands here, hands back there, hands

back there, hands back there. Let's pray. Let's all say this together.

Dear God, we come before you in this moment. I'll receive you

as Lord and Savior. I turn away from my sins. Help me to

turn towards you, your way, your life, your truth. I will

follow you for the rest of my life. In Jesus' name, we pray.

We really hope you enjoyed that message, and if you said yes to

Jesus, we just want to say congratulations and give you a free devotional to

help you walk out your faith. Click the link in the description or head

over to grow dot Faith for download your devotional. Oh and be sure to

subscribe and share this podcast with your friends. Thanks for listening to ALSC podcasts,

and we hope you tune in again.