21 -Word & Deed of Jesus Ministry
Matthew 4:23-25
Matthew 4:23-25, And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people. 24 Then His fame went throughout all Syria; and they brought to Him all sick people who were afflicted with various diseases and torments, and those who were demon-possessed, epileptics, and paralytics; and He healed them. 25 Great multitudes followed Him—from Galilee, and from Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and beyond the Jordan.
The New Testament, particularly the gospels, and the book of Acts, one of the key ways in which He manifested His deity, was in healing. Healing was a very vital part of Jesus'demonstration of His power. The entire thrust of the gospel of John is based upon this primary element.
John particularly focuses on two things
1. His words. 2. His works. What Matthew is introducing to us here is really expanded in great breadth and depth in the gospel of John. As we have concluded our series of message on the Gospel of John in Sunday mornings.
John 1:1, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. A great statement of the deity of Jesus Christ. John goes further to prove His deity because He is the Creator!
John 1:14, And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
John 1:18, No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.
This Jesus is God in human flesh, God in full glory, God in full declaration.
John sets out to prove this by His miracle power.
John 2:11, This beginning of signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory; and His disciples believed in Him.
John 5:36, But I have a greater witness than John’s; for the works which the Father has given Me to finish—the very works that I do—bear witness of Me, that the Father has sent Me. Jesus says the works that He did, the miraculous things that He did, were testimony to His deity.
John 7:31, And many of the people believed in Him, and said, “When the Christ comes, will He do more signs than these which this Man has done?”
They were saying that Jesus has given us the messianic credentials, miracles. Could someone else come and do more miracles than this man has done?
John 10:37-38, If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me; 38 but if I do, though you do not believe Me, believe the works, that you may know and believe that the Father is in Me, and I in Him.”
The works are the testimony!
John 14:11, Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the sake of the works themselves.
John 20:30-31, And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book; 31 but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name. John also included the tremendous claims of Christ! I am the bread of life.” (John 6:35, 41, 48, 51) I am the light of the world.” (John 8:12) I am the door of the sheep.” (John 10:7,9) I am the resurrection and the life.” (John 11:25) I am the good shepherd.” (John 10:11, 14) I am the way, the truth, and the life.” (John 14:6) I am the true vine.” (John 15:1, 5) In Acts chapter 2, Peter preached his first sermon on the Day of Pentecost.
Acts 2:22, “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a Man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves also know— Jesus gave His messianic credentials in His mighty works. To deny these works is to deny His deity. To deny His deity is to deny His works.
The whole purpose for which Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were written was to conclude that He was God, not just another man.
John 12:47-48, And if anyone hears My words and does not believe, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. 48 He who rejects Me, and does not receive My words, has that which judges him—the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day. You deny the deity of Christ and deny His words and deny His works, and you pass sentence on yourself. The very words themself, if held in unbelief, become their own judge, their own sentencer. John's purpose is to present the words of Jesus and the works of Jesus!
The ministry of Jesus Christ, when He came to earth, was a ministry of words and works. What He said and what He did was messianic credentials. It was to prove to the world that He was not just another man, but He was God.
V 23, And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people. "teaching and preaching,"that is His words, healing,"that is His works.
That makes up the ministry of Jesus Christ! Think of the story of the blind man in John 9.
John 9:2, And His disciples asked Him, saying, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
They had wrong theology. They thought that everybody who was sick, or everybody who was diseased, was so because of sin. That's not true. Sometimes you can get sick from sin. Ananias and Sapphira got so sick they died. 1 Corinthians 11, people got sick, weak and some slept.
The Lord can allow disease to be a chastening and a punishment for sin. But not everybody who got sick is sinful.
What about Job?
Was Job sick because of sin? No. There was not such a righteous man on earth as Job.
What was Jesus response?
John 9:3, Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him.
God allowed some people to be sick so Jesus could heal them, and in such a healing manifest His deity. The blind man was healed and the Jewish leaders questioning him and his parents.
John 9:30, The man answered and said to them, “Why, this is a marvellous thing, that you do not know where He is from; yet He has opened my eyes!
The blind man got the credentials of the Messiah! Matthew chapter 4 is the beginning of the official ministry of Christ. Matthew having presented the birth, the genealogy, the homage of Christ. Now begins to talk about the beginning of the King's ministry.
Jesus started the ministry at the right time, place, message, right people. Jesus had a clear, explicit plan. By His words and works He would establish His deity. By the things that He did and the things that He said, He would make manifest who He really was.
The people were struck by these two things.
John 7:46, The officers answered, “No man ever spoke like this Man!”
They were shocked by His words. There was a division among the Jews.
John 10:19-21, Therefore there was a division again among the Jews because of these sayings. 20 And many of them said, “He has a demon and is mad. Why do you listen to Him?” 21 Others said, “These are not the words of one who has a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?”
His words and His works that overpowered them. These were the marks of His messiahship. Jesus began on the right plan. V 23, And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people.
This one-verse is the summary of the whole Galilean ministry of Jesus Christ. Matthew will take this one-verse summary and expand it in chapters 5 to 9. His words are the subject of chapter 5 to 7. His works are the subject of chapter 8 and 9.
So Matthew simply introduces those two elements here and then he begins to expand them in
Matthew 5:1 to 9:38. Matthew Chapters 5 to 7 - His words - the great truth of the Sermon on the Mount. His mighty works and miracles, chapters 8 and 9. So He went all over the place incessantly and constantly. He was moving all the time. Now “all Galilee” is a strong expression. Galilee is not a large area. It is about 40 miles wide and about 70 miles long. It had about 204 villages and towns, according to Josephus. Josephus know about Galilee because in 66 A.D. he was the commanding general of all Galilee. He was not just a historian but he was a general. Josephus says there were 204 towns with people over 15,000 and all crowded into an area 70 miles long, 40 miles wide. Josephus says that one generation after our Lord, when he was writing, there were three million people in Galilee. Now we don't know how many there were at the time of the Lord, but not many less than that. To cover 204 villages and to move around through all of that mass of humanity required much time and constant travel and Jesus was busy. Somebody figured out just to touch every town, moving at a rate of one town a day, is going take a half a year, and that would be only if you stayed one day in each place. Jesus moved and was going to touch as many as He could.
They were Jew and Gentile mixed, and even the Jewish ones had been exposed to Gentile culture. He was announcing Himself as the Saviour of the world at the very beginning. So Jesus moved among these people - teaching, preaching, and healing.
His Words
V 23, "Teaching in their synagogues." Within Galilee Jesus chose synagogues as the centre His ministry. The synagogue was the most important institution in the life of any Jew. It is very like the church is to us for Christians.
Their family was there. Their kids were there, friendships, and that was their life. The whole of Jewish life centred around the synagogue. In some cases it would be even more intense because even the politics and the economics of life. It was everything to the Jewish people.
In fact, the worst thing that could ever happen to a Jew was to be unsynagogued. That is what happened when a Jew became a Christian. He was removed from the synagogue. It was vital. That's why the whole book of Hebrews is written. It was written to Christians, but also there are warnings throughout that book to certain Jewish people who were so afraid of being unsynagogued that even though they believed the gospel, they wouldn't receive Christ. This synagogue was the key to their life.
Generally, the synagogue was built on a hill, using the most prominent hump in the city of the little town. It would be the highest place in the city and usually would be distinguished by a tall pole shooting up in the sky so that everybody could focus on that.
Familiar a sight for us when we go into a small English towns. Sometimes, if there were no hills, they would build along the bank of the river. Very often they built synagogues without a roof. They just let their worship go up to God. The synagogue they have uncovered in Capernaum and have reconstructed really doesn't have any roof.
Divine worship was held in the synagogue every Sabbath, every Saturday. Sabbath ran from Friday at sundown to Saturday at sundown. On the second and fifth day of every week they had special services, every Sabbath they had special services.
Of course, they had special services every festival days, and all the special days.
Sabbath regular service format
Ø There was the reading of the Law. Ø The reading of the Prophets by certain people who were called upon. Ø Prayers offered by the leader. Ø Responses by the people, such as Amen and Praises to God. Ø An exposition of some text of the Scripture.
Ø If there was a visiting dignitary or a rabbi, they would be given the right to speak the exposition very often. Exactly this is the time where Paul moved right into the synagogue and used some Old Testament text. The affairs of the synagogue were administered by ten men.
Ten elders of whom three were called the rulers of the synagogue. They acted as judges. They would admit proselytes or not admit them. They settled issues. There was a fourth ruler called the angel of the church who was sort of the chairman of the board.
There were others who were called servers who carried out the direction of the three and the one. There was an eighth one, according to Jewish tradition, that was the Hebrew interpreter who took the ancient Hebrew and translated it into the vernacular.
There was a ninth one who headed up the theological school. Every synagogue had a theological school in it. There was a tenth one who interpreted the theological school instructor because it was usually over the heads of the people. So they had this whole organization, this incredible structure.
The synagogue became the court of law, and any disputes or court problems or civil things. Their judgment was made and execution was even pronounced. The Roman government only took away from the Jews the right of execution at the time of Jesus.
They could do everything else. They could run their own affairs. The only thing they couldn't do was take somebody's life. That's why they had to take Jesus to the Romans to have Him crucified. The synagogue wasn't the main issue in those days, the temple was. But the same mentality prevailed. They ruled their own affairs.
The small villages and towns in the time of Jesus, they would have their own court of law. The synagogue was a public school for boys, and the little boys would go there, in their childhood, and learn the Talmud. The synagogue was a theological school for the men. So this was the centre of the whole concentration of Jewish life. And when Jesus went there to that place, He would be stepping right into the midst of Israel.
There's a vast difference between the synagogue and the temple. There's only one temple, and that is at Jerusalem. There isn't one there now, as you know, not since 70 A.D. when Titus came in and wiped it out. Wherever there was a small colony of Jews, if they have 10 men then they could start a synagogue.
They were the platform for Jesus, and they were the platform for the apostle Paul. The temple was not a place for teaching, and preaching, unless like Jesus you happened to stand up in there and did. The temple was a place for offering sacrifice and making offerings. But the synagogue was a place of teaching and preaching.
In fact, the church today pretty well has modelled its patterns after the synagogue. Now we still have Jewish synagogues with us. Jesus took advantage of the opportunity for any dignitary, any visiting rabbi or teacher, to have the opportunity to speak. This would reach the heart of Israel. The most zealous people for God were in the synagogue.
That's where the remnant would be! So Jesus went where they would listen to Him, where they would hear Him in the synagogue. Jesus would teach the Scripture. Open the Scripture, to give exposition. Even when He was in Nazareth He broke open His whole ministry by doing an exposition on an Old Testament scripture that referred to Him.
Even in the Sermon on the Mount He kept referring, "You have heard it said, and the Scripture says, and I say,"and He'd take off from there, either from a scripture of God's authorship or from some ancient tradition that they had held to. Jesus would move off from there to do the exposition and turn the whole thing to Himself.
So Jesus was teaching in the synagogues. By the way, the word didask has to do with didactic, instructive relating of truth. The word concentrates on the passing of information. The word emphasizes the content, the passing on of information. That's what Jesus did.
Jesus method of preaching was expository, taking the text and out of it teaching the principles. I really believe this is the greatest way to preach and teach the Word of God. V 23, “Not only was He teaching in their synagogue, but He was also preaching the gospel of the kingdom."
The Greek word kruss it means “to proclaim,” “He heralded it out,” “He cried out.” Teaching is where there is the careful, instructive relating of content. It's kind of from the mind to the mind. Preaching is the crying out, the impassioned cry of Jesus Christ to the people. It wasn't so much in the synagogues, although He did both there as well, and the two are mixed up in His ministry so you can't separate them. There was never teaching without preaching, and there was never preaching without teaching, but the preaching is the crying out.
Some have said preaching is the heralding of the gospel and teaching is the explaining of the gospel. Between preaching and teaching there is a difference. Though it is true that good preaching is also teaching, the emphasis is nevertheless not the same.
Ø Preaching means proclamation. Ø Teaching is imparting more detailed information regarding the proclamation that was made. Jesus did both preaching and teaching. V 23, “Not only was He teaching in their synagogue, but He was also preaching the gospel of the kingdom."
The gospel of the kingdom, the good news of the kingdom. Jesus was preaching about the gospel of the kingdom, always! After Jesus had risen from the dead, until He ascended, He had 40 days with His disciples.
Acts 1:2-3, until the day in which He was taken up, after He through the Holy Spirit had given commandments to the apostles whom He had chosen, 3 to whom He also presented Himself alive after His suffering by many infallible proofs, being seen by them during forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. From the time He began His ministry in Matthew right here, to the time that He was silenced in His ascension, He never spoke of anything other than the kingdom of God. Jesus never got dragged into social issues that were unrelated. He never got dragged into politics, into revolutions, into economics but He spoke of the kingdom of God. A great pattern for us to follow.
What is the gospel of the kingdom? The word “gospel” means simply, good news! The world is filled with full of bad news. This is the only good news! The teaching and preaching of Jesus Christ was filled with good news. John the Baptist's preaching is never called good news!
John the Baptist in his preaching the emphasis of judgment is so strong. The axe is laid at the root, The winnowing fan is moving, The fire is consuming. John's is never called good news is because there never really was good news until Jesus arrived.
There never really was any good news until Jesus came. John was saying, "repent, get ready, and avoid judgment." Jesus came and gave the other side of it giving the invitation to come to Him and He will take you to heaven. That was the good news.
After the Messiah had encountered more of the hypocrisy and more of the hostility of the hierarchy of Israel, His preaching became even more stern than John's. But at the very beginning there was no strong word of condemnation.
What is the good news? The kingdom. God is going to establish His rule. That we can be a part of God's dominion, that as Paul said we can be translated out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of His dear Son, that our sins can be forgiven. The gospel of the kingdom is the same gospel preached today.
The good news is this
God has a kingdom. He wants you to be a citizen.
How? That's the good news. There is the element of the kingdom now in us in the Holy Spirit. There is the element of the millennial kingdom for a thousand years on earth. There is the element of the eternal kingdom and glory in the new heaven and the new earth forever with God.
The people of Israel had long weariness of being in the kingdom of Rome, before that the kingdom of the Greeks, before that the kingdom of the Medes and the Persians, before that the Babylonians. Even when they tried to do it on their own with their own kings, it was nothing but debauchery and evil.
They have been longing for a very long period of time for the kingdom of God. Jesus was saying, there's a way to escape. There is good news, there's a kingdom, and the good news is you can be a part of that kingdom. What is that good news that gets you into the kingdom?
1 Corinthians 15:3-5, For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, Jesus died for you. He rose for you. Your sin is paid for. Your eternal life is purchased. You can be in God's kingdom. That's good news!
The plan of salvation is the good news. If they had accepted Jesus as their Messiah, and they had have been saved there, and the nation Israel had repented, and come to Christ, their kingdom would have been right then and there. It's a physical, millennial fulfilment. But they rejected it, and so the kingdom millennially was postponed, but not internally because when anybody ever comes to Jesus Christ, they are translated out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of His dear Son.
So when Jesus was teaching and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, He was announcing that He was the King! Jesus was saying, "I'm the King and I have got a kingdom."
His Works
V 23, And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people. Not just His words, but those proofs of His majesty were also seen in His works. It simply says here that He healed everybody. To all that came to Him there was healing.
His words would have drawn people without the healing. Many followed Him who didn't need a healing, either for themselves or for their friends or for their relatives. The preaching and the teaching came first, and then the healing. He began to teach, even His disciples, and they obeyed, and they followed, and they believed. Before the first miracle in Cana of Galilee they were already with Him. They didn't just come for the miracles alone.
John the Baptist had drawn multitudes to himself, and he preached repentance. John the Baptist never did a miracle.
John 10:41, Then many came to Him and said, “John performed no sign, but all the things that John spoke about this Man were true.”
The healing ministry of Jesus, then, was a powerful addition to His words. It may be doubted whether we have an adequate notion of the immense number of Christ's miracles. Those recorded are but a small portion of those done. Those early ones were illustrations of the nature of His kingdom. They were His first gifts to His kingdom’s subjects.
Hebrews 6:4, For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, You have seen the signs and wonders and diverse gifts of the Holy Spirit that confirmed unto you the preaching of the gospel. Hebrews chapters 1to 4. That's why Jesus condemned in Matthew 13 those unbelieving Pharisees because they had seen the power of the kingdom, and they should have known this was the King. "And he healed every kind of illness and every kind of disease." Jesus healed every kind of illness and every kind of disease. The universal character of the healings is brought out by the fact that it says that Jesus was going through all Galilee healing. V 24, Then His fame went throughout all Syria; and they brought to Him all sick people who were afflicted with various diseases and torments, and those who were demon-possessed, epileptics, and paralytics; and He healed them.
Now these healings did three things. 1. The message is Divine.
2. Prophecy confirmed that He is the Messiah
3. Kingdom is coming
1. The message is Divine. The healings confirmed that His message as divine. They proved that He was divine because no human being could do these things. These were evidences clearly of His deity.
John 14:11, "Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me, or else believe me for the very works’ sake."
They were proof that God was in Him and He was in God, deity.
2. Prophecy confirmed that He is the Messiah
The Old Testament had predicted a messiah of miracle power.
Matthew 11:2-5, And when John had heard in prison about the works of Christ, he sent two of his disciples 3 and said to Him, “Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?” 4 Jesus answered and said to them, “Go and tell John the things which you hear and see: 5 The blind see and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear; the dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them.
These are the things the prophet said the Messiah would do. Those are the things the prophet said the kingdom would bring. So, one, it confirmed that He was divine.
3. Kingdom is coming
It also proved that the kingdom was coming. These were like the first gifts of the king to His subjects. It was just a little taste of what was going to be in the future.
Matthew 9:35, Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people.
Matthew 10:7-8, And as you go, preach, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ 8 Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. Freely you have received, freely give.
These were tastes of the kingdom and always connected with kingdom preaching and kingdom teaching.
Matthew 12:28, But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you.
The kingdom is here. The King is arrived if indeed you are seeing the casting out of demons, the healing of the lame, the blind, and the deaf.
Luke 9:1-2, Then He called His twelve disciples together and gave them power and authority over all demons, and to cure diseases. 2 He sent them to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. Actually Syria was a Roman province that included Galilee and Palestine. It was the massive, the whole area. At Capernaum, where Jesus was headquartered was right on the road to Damascus. The news went like wildfire, and they started coming from Syria. You can imagine that in those days medicine wasn't what it is today. A disease was rampant, plagues were a problem, and death was all over. People heard that there was healing, and they started to bring the sick people.
Matthew mentions three things
“divers diseases and torments.” The difference between the disease and its symptom. The diverse disease caused torment. They were tormented people. The root and the symptom are both mentioned, and then he gives three samples.
First there were from demons. They are demonized, daimonizomai, deigmastimas. They are people who are demonized. Much of sickness is caused by demons. We see that in Scripture. Demons were the cause of many illnesses. They are all over the gospel of Matthew.
Jesus was able to handle that.
What gift it was that dealt with that? The gift of miracles. The word “miracle” is dunamis, “the gift of powers,” and whenever that term is used Jesus is using power to cast out demons. The gift of miracles in the apostolic era was not the ability to make pudding or to create a new car or to walk on water. Those kinds of natural miracles the apostles never did. Only Jesus did those. The gift of miracles was the ability to cast out demons. It was power against the kingdom of darkness. Jesus had that power. He could cast out demons, thus He could end demon-caused disease.
Secondly, “lunatick.” It's translated “epileptic.”
“Lunatick” is a word with a Latin root, and the first part, luna, comes from the moon because the people in those days thought that people were nuts because they got affected by the moon - lunar sickness. They used to call them moonstruck. That's where you get the idea of a “lunatic”. But the best etymological connection for this word for us today is epileptic.
The reason we say that is because in
Matthew 17:15, “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is [c]an epileptic and suffers severely; for he often falls into the fire and often into the water. So our Lord could deal with disease that is caused by demons, all of it. Our Lord could deal with disease that is some kind of disorder in the brain or the nervous system, or whatever malfunction creates seizures. Our Lord could even handle those who had palsy, who would have what we would call some kind of a physical disorder. As we go through Matthew we are going to see Him cast out demons and heal.
We see Him take care of people with seizures. We see Him take care of all those people with physical illnesses and disorders. Beautiful photograph of the kingdom. There won’t be any demons. Satan himself is going to be bound! All the demons cast into the lake of fire along with the beast and the false prophet.
There will be healing.
Malachi 4:2, But to you who fear My name The Sun of Righteousness shall arise With healing in His wings; And you shall go out And grow fat like stall-fed calves.
Isaiah 35:4-7, Say to those who are fearful-hearted, “Be strong, do not fear! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, With the recompense of God; He will come and save you.” 5 Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, And the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. 6 Then the lame shall leap like a deer, And the tongue of the dumb sing. For waters shall burst forth in the wilderness, And streams in the desert. 7 The parched ground shall become a pool, And the thirsty land springs of water; In the habitation of jackals, where each lay, There shall be grass with reeds and rushes.
Does God still heal today? Yes! Of Course! By the way, as you study the book of Acts the healings get less and less until at the end they disappear altogether. As Paul writes his epistles, and he says to Timothy, for example, he doesn't say “heal yourself fella, you know how to do it.” He says, "Take a little wine for your stomach's sake."
He says, "I had to leave Trophimus sick.” He says “Epaphras is nigh unto death for your sake.” Apparently he couldn't do a thing about it, because once Israel turned their back on the King there was no reason any more for the features announcing the kingdom to be still taking place, so they faded.
When Jesus healed there were six features of His healing that have never been duplicated, except by the apostles to whom He gave the same power. 1. Jesus healed with a word and a touch. Touch or a word. Remember, a man came and said, "Just say the word and he'll be healed."He knew; a word or a touch. He could heal whether He was there or not there, present or absent.
2. He healed instantaneously. When He healed the blind man, the blind man saw. When He healed the dumb man, the dumb man talked. Healed the deaf man, the deaf man heard. It wasn't any stumbling or mumbling around that it’s going to get better. There is never a stage healing.
3. He healed totally. There's no partial healing. He healed totally. 4. He healed everybody.
Luke 4:40, When the sun was setting, all those who had any that were sick with various diseases brought them to Him; and He laid His hands on every one of them and healed them. Everybody without discrimination, without concern, all manner of illness, all manner of disease, all manner of symptoms. 5. Jesus healed organic disease. He healed organic diseases, real diseases, like people with shrivelled up arms got whole arms. People crippled took off running.
When Peter and John, the man got up and jumped and hopped and hollered all over the temple, and not low back pain. 6. Jesus raised dead people. Any and all that He wanted to, and so could the apostles. These were the King’s credentials, and He passed it on to His apostles.
He came along and He began to minister at the right point, in the right place, by the right proclamation, with the right partners, on the right plan, and lastly, to the right results, or the right product. V 25, Great multitudes followed Him—from Galilee, and from Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and beyond the Jordan.
That word “great multitude,” ochlos, is not simply a crowd, but it means a huge, heterogeneous, mixed multitude. That is what He wanted. “From Decapolis,” the region northeast of Galilee with the ten federated cities, “and from Jerusalem...Judea,” to the south, and from the east, pera, “beyond the Jordan,”
and there were massive crowds coming, the foretaste of the kingdom. You know what it's going to be like in the kingdom? The whole world gathers at Jesus'feet. This is just a little picture of the kingdom. All the healings, all the casting out of demons, all the wonderful message of salvation, and all the world coming to Jesus. That's the picture of the kingdom.