Always Trust Christ - Matthew 8 & 9

MATTHEW 8 AND 9, SEPT. 23, 2007
By: John Vandiver


Use your eyes to see and your imagination to emphasize the absolute truth in the printed title of this lesson as shown above. The font in the word ‘ALWAYS’ forms an arrow that > you toward TRUST and likewise the font in the word Christ that < back to TRUST and I can tell you on the authority of God’s Holy word, your salvation cannot exist without your trust/faith. By grace through faith we are saved. Trust means faith and faith means trust. Here we have before us the words trust and faith; and as always you must be reminded that these are abstract words. That is, you cannot see them with your eyes, feel them with your fingers, or taste them with your taste buds but faith and trust are as real as an oak tree or apple pie. It is the produced results of both that becomes the concrete proof that that trust and faith are present.

The incident that occurs in the first four verses of our lesson today is a perfect example of the results that occurred when a man exhibited his total trust in Jesus. The man with visible decaying flesh that caused sure death in about seven to nine years, kneeled before Christ and said, “Lord you can cleanse me if you are willing.” The Master touched him and said, “I am willing” and immediately the Leprosy was cleansed. This man’s humbleness was shown by his kneeling and his believing faith became audible when he made the exclamatory statement and said “you can heal me.’

The world watched on TV as the rescue workers went about the flooded city of New Orleans gathering people from the roof tops of their flooded homes after Katrina devastated the area. Mothers would carry their babies, and lead their little ones and step into small John boats that carried them to higher ground. Those parents had trust in the rescuers and especially in the safety of the boat, but no one knew for sure until they stepped into the boat. The viewers could not see their faith, but we could see the results of their faith when they yielded their life safety and stepped into the boat.

Leprosy was the most dreaded of all diseases during the time of Christ’s life on earth and it continued to maim and destroy until the birth of modern medicine in the twentieth century. Josephus, the Jewish historian, relates how the leper was considered as though he/she were dead. They were cast out of society and literally buried in colonies where they were left to die; they were completely banished from human society. There has never been a disease that so separated a man from his fellow-men as leprosy did. And this man with leprosy is the one Jesus reach out and touched breaking strict laws that required complete separation. Matthew said, “And Jesus stretched out his hand and touched the leper.” The moral to this story is that it paints the picture of how Jesus treats the sinner who seeks him. This is a picture of a sinner receiving salvation. “He touched me…and made me whole.”

[a] The leper came to Jesus with confidence—complete trust—in that he had no doubt that, if it was Jesus’ will—he would be made clean. The lost sinner must do likewise.
[b] The leper came with humility. He made no demands, just simply said “If you will you can cleanse me.” The lost must approach Jesus with a humble attitude.
[c] The leper came with reverence. The Authorized Version tells us that the leper worshipped Christ. It uses the Greek verb ‘proskumein’ which is a word that always describes a man’s feeling and action when he is in the presence of a divine being. A sinner must know in his heart that he is unclean, sinful, and he must realize that he is in the presence of Christ in order to be saved.

Why did Jesus demand that he go to the priest only and not tell anyone else? Jesus came to seek and save the lost and not to become an earthly king. He did not want the publicity, and he knew that the Jewish leadership would want him to use this kind of power to establish himself as an earthly leader. Jesus wanted to educate his people to understand that his power was his love for people and not force through a government of armed men. Jesus directed him to the priest because that was required by law…it was the only way a leper could lawfully be accepted as clean and become able to re-enter society.

Vs 5-13—records the greatest faith Christ ever observed in anyone. A centurion was the backbone of the Roman army. A legion contained 6,000 men and it was organized into sixty centuries with a centurion in charge of each 100 man century. Centurions were life-time regular soldiers in complete charge and ordinarily would call on no other to execute for them. This man had to bow low, and believe big, in order to call on Christ to heal his servant. When he ask and Christ told him that he would go to his home and heal the servant—the centurion said, “NO, all you have to do is say the word and it will be so.” This is an example where a slave is healed because another man believed and called on Christ. There is no evidence that the sick man ever exhibited any trust. Make note here that if a Christian is concerned about the condition of another man’s soul, he can intercede and Christ will answer him.

Make another note here that Jews were not supposed to enter the home of a Gentile. The strong faith of this Gentile Roman officer made it possible for Christ to do his work here, heal the slave, and not have to break the Jewish law of entering the home of a gentile. Remember that we do not possess faith on our own and only have the faith that the Holy Spirit allows us to obtain. The Spirit led this Roman officer to exhibit his faith strongly and it prevented Christ from having to go into his house.

The position of centurion must represent the life of a Christian. I do not recall one being mentioned in the NT that was without honor. A centurion recognized Jesus on the cross as the Son of God. Cornelius was a centurion and the first gentiles convert to the Christian Church. A centurion recognized Paul as a Roman citizen and rescued him from a mob. A centurion found out that Paul was to be killed by the Jews between Jerusalem and Caesarea and interceded and prevented his death. And finally a centurion served as Paul’s guard on the way to Rome, and treated him with respect and accepted his leadership when the ship was about to be destroyed by a storm. Note: there was something special about this centurion in Matthew in that he showed mercy toward his servant. Servants were slaves and were not respected by most masters. The centurions of the Baptist church are represented by deacons, bible teachers, and church ministers, who are responsible for the flock and indebted to the unsaved.

Vs 14-15—relates healing where no mention is made of anyone’s faith, however, the mother-in-law of Peter lost her fever the moment Christ touched her and was able to immediately get up and start meeting his needs. The story indicates that she knew him and believed in him or she would not have started serving him. No one knew Peter better than Christ, and so just the fact that he knew of Peter’s faith was enough to prompt him to heal the woman. There is more to this story and it probably is revealed here for a different reason than just to show faith. One good reason was to give the example showing that Jesus heals [saves] us so we can serve him as she did.

Matthew tells the story, but Mark tells more of the story. Mark says this incident happened in Capernaum—on a Sabbath day—after Jesus had worshipped in the synagogue. He had already healed another person while in worship among the Jews. It was against Jewish law to do any work on the Sabbath, and Christ wanted to set the stage to explain that “doing good” on the Sabbath is not sin. This is a case where the oxen is in the ditch and should be pulled out even if it is on the Sabbath.

Vs 23-27—the calming of the storm is to be emphasized in this lesson. During the Sabbath and his working on the Sabbath there must have been a large crowd that had gathered around him, he was exhausted and decided to get away from the throng—some may have been vocal by now, causing him to need some privacy. When he saw what was happening he gave orders to his disciples saying they should go across to the other side of the lake. He got in the boat and went to his bunk in the hull and fell asleep; his disciples followed him and manned the boat headed to the other side. A wild storm arose and the disciples were afraid the boat was about to go down, They called Christ.

Always trust Christ is our theme for today. The incidents up to this point have shown examples of people showing their faith in Christ and getting positive results. Now we come to the place where no one is fully trusting Christ and the results are negative. Several of the disciples were fishermen by trade and this boat was probably one of the fleet they had used many times. This is probably not the first time that they had experienced one of these horrible storms on Galilee, however any time Jesus is involved in a matter like this—things are either much worse than ordinary or much more calm than can be imagined because Christ always brings out either the worst or the best in every one of his involvements.

I have had the privilege of reading several stories from different writers that have experienced the weather conditions in the area around the Sea of Galilee. It is difficult to imagine how quickly a storm can arise and how violent it can be. The Sea of Galilee is small in comparison to other seas around the world. It is thirteen miles long, running from north to south and eight miles wide east to west. The Jordon River has used eons of time to cut deep clefts in the surface of the earth and the Sea is part of the cleft. It is not as steep or as deep as the Grand Canyon but it is 680 feet below sea level and it has other similarities. We can believe that the violence of this storm that started in a short matter of time and was calmed in even less time made believers out of any man that may have still been skeptical of God’s power. The disciples had witnessed other miracles but this one impressed on their minds the power God has to calm the storms of this life only if we will call on him to do so.

Jesus must have been pleased to know that his men had faith to believe that they could call on him and he would save them. At the same time Jesus must have been disappointed that they did not simply hold a prayer meeting and pray that he would come to their rescue at his appointed time. They had faith. They lacked faith. This reminds us of another man in the bible that prayed for Jesus to increase his little faith.

Matthew ends the eighth chapter with his story about the two demon processed men that had faith to believe that Christ would drive their demons out of them and into the hogs. There may be other reasons why Matthew chose to tell this story, but the one that is so sad is that the Gadarenes prized the value of their hogs more highly than they did the presence of Jesus in their land. There is another story in the bible where Jesus told a man to go sell all that he had and give it to the poor and then to come back for his salvation. This man went away sad because he prized his hogs or other wealth highly. Man cannot serve two Gods; it has to be either the Lord or his money.