Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Evening Sermon Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/ev/ev19960331.htm

MATTHEW: JESUS AS ISRAEL'S MESSIAH AND HIS MESSIANIC KINGDOM
Part VIII: The Proof Of Jesus As Israel's Messiah
A. Christ's Authenticating Comprehensive Power Over Disease
(Matthew 8:1-4,5-13, 14-15,16-17)
  1. Introduction
    1. Isaiah 53:4 is quoted by Matthew in Matthew 8:17 to show that Jesus was the Messiah. That passage teaches that Jesus bore our infirmities, or the bearing of our sins with all of their effects on the body.
    2. If Jesus bore our sins causing all of our diseases, He could demonstrate His power over diseases in a variety of ways to show that He was the Messiah.
    3. Matthew 8:1-15 is a glimpse of the comprehensive power of Christ over disease as the Jewish Messiah.
  2. Christ's Authenticating Comprehensive Power Over Disease, Matthew 8:1-15.
    1. Jesus healed leprosy totally and immediately, Matthew 8:1-4:
      1. Leprosy attacks the whole body through means of a bacteria. It dissolves tissue between bones, can numb the feeling of nerve endings, and eat away at the body appendages, Z.P.E.B., vol. Two, p. 138.
      2. A leper who followed Jesus asked for healing in Matthew 8:1-2.
      3. Jesus expressed His will for the man to be cured, and immediately healed him and all of the negative affects of the disease on his body were immediately removed, Matthew 8:3.
      4. As a testimony to the priests, Jesus asked the man to use the stipulations in the Mosaic Law given for those who had been cured of leprosy. This involved going and being thoroughly examined and certified as so cured that the former le per could be received back into society, Matthew 8:4 with Lev. 14:4-32.
    2. Jesus demonstrated His Messiahship by healing paralysis from a distance, fully and immediately, 8:5-13:
      1. Paralysis affects the nervous system primarily with its resulting atrophy of the muscular system. It can be caused by inherited genes, injury at birth, injury to a major nerve or the spinal chord or even by excessive emotional hysteri a, Ibid., v. Four, p. 587.
      2. A centurion besought Jesus to heal his dying, suffering servant of the malady of paralysis, Mtt. 8:5-6.
      3. When Jesus agreed to go to the house where the servant lay, the centurion realized that it would be asking a lot of Jesus to enter a Gentile's home; accordingly, full of faith, he asked Jesus merely to say the word from His present location and His authority would heal the servant from a distance, 8:8-9.
      4. Seeing the man's faith and commenting positively on it, Jesus told the man to return to his house as his servant would be healed according to his faith in Jesus, Mtt. 8:10-13a.
      5. When the man returned, they discovered that this servant had been healed the very moment Jesus had declared it to be so, and that from a distance!
    3. Jesus healed Peter's mother-in-law from an emaciating fever, fully and immediately, Matthew 8:14-15:
      1. High fevers come from an enormous battle fought throughout the body. When a virus invades the body, millions of cells go to battle to ward it off. In so doing, the battle can wage so intense t hat the body's metabolism speeds up, using up large amounts of energy to the point where the hypothalamus in the core of the brain ceases to be able to control the body's temperature. The body's cells must conquer the disease or one dies, Ibid., vol. Two, p. 135. Since a woman is biologically superior to a man, a woman whose body is wracke d with a fever is experiencing as strong a dose of a virus as is humanly possible.
      2. When Jesus saw Peter's mother-in-law sick with a high fever, He touched her hand, and she was so quickly and totally cured and strengthened that she was immediately able to minister as a homemaker to Jesus and his disciples in spite of the postponed housework due to her former condition, Mtt. 8:15!
    4. Jesus healed many diseases caused by demonic influence, Matthew 8:16-17!
Lesson: If Jesus could heal leprosy with its disastrous effects, doing so immediately and completely to have the cured man examined by the priests for social restoration, if He could heal a man dying of paralysis both immediately and from a great d istance, if He could heal and strengthen a woman lying with a high fever so quickly and completely that she could minister in spite of postponed housework from her former condition, and if he could heal those afflicted in body in a variety of ways due to de monic problems behind those conditions (implied), then He is the Messiah, Is. 53:4!