O almighty and everlasting God, mercifully look upon our infirmities, and in all dangers and necessities stretch forth Thy mighty hand, to defend us against our enemies; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, one true God, world without end. Amen.
The Power of Faith
KJV Matthew 8:1 When he was come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him.
Lenski points out these miracles followed the Sermon on the Mount, so when we see the citation, we should remember the multitudes around Jesus, hearing His power teaching and believing in Him. Some may have come purely out of curiosity. Others already believed and wanted to hear more.
We realize that the Gospel has an unusual drawing power. Jesus is the manifestation of the grace of the Father. God the Father sent His Son at a particular time, to fulfill the Promises of the Old Testament, to accomplish great miracles, and to teach the Word of God.
We could say that the Old Testament is like a half-finished puzzle, where all the jagged pieces show us that something more goes there, above them, to fill out the picture, which we can already see forming.
1. Two examples of faith and love are taught in this Gospel: one by the leper, the other by the centurion. Let us first consider the leper. This leper would not have been so bold as to go to the Lord and ask to be cleansed, if he had not trusted and expected with his whole heart, that Christ would be kind and gracious and would cleanse him. For because he was a leper, he had reason to be timid. Moreover the law forbids lepers to mingle with the people. Nevertheless he approaches, regardless of law and people, and of how pure and holy Christ is.
We know some things about lepes. First of all, they were ritually unclean, so they were forbidden to be among others, since that would make others unclean. Since it was a dread disease at that time, people avoided them and they lived in sad, lonely leper colonies. So any leper was poor, shunned, unclean, and had nothing to offer.
2 And, behold, there came a leper and worshipped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.
The leper should not have been there among the people, brushing by them to reach Jesus. And yet this leper had so much faith that he ignored the angry stares and people withdrawing from his presence so he could reach Jesus. He believed in the divine power of Jesus. That could have been from the miracles already performed or from the divine teaching of the Sermon on the Mount. Has anyone seen a more beautiful message than the Beatitudes? - even though it ends in persecution and slander?
The leper worshiped Him - worshiped Jesus as God. His inward faith in Jesus displayed itself in his outward devotion to Jesus, not just as a Teacher, but as the One Sent from God.
Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.
The leper's statement is not limiting Jesus, as if Jesus might not want to, but allowing for Jesus to do anything, complete faith in Him. The leper is nothing and has nothing, but in his faith he is willing to receive all that the Christ has to offer.
When we say "the power of faith," it is not attributing anything to man but everything to God. The power of faith is in receiving from God all He has to offer. The leper is a good example because he has no good works, no offering, and comes to Jesus unclean in the Law.
People may think of some miracles as ancient and not fitting today, but that is not so. We are reliving the days of the dying Roman Empire and we have many of the same attitudes. People imagine, "I must make myself worthy of forgiveness before I can be forgiven." But that is just adding sin to sin, to imagine we have a way of qualifying for forgiveness.
As one mistaken man said, "I cannot join a church until I am good enough. I am still not good enough. I am weak and fall into the same sins."
The cleansing Gospel Word is something we need every day, because God wills that we be absolved of sin through faith. That forgiveness, received through faith in Christ, is healing and gives us power. The leper's initial and growing faith led him to approach Jesus when he should not have. He was not only unclean but physically weak, with a weak voice. Yet faith in Jesus energized him and strengthened him to make this open-ended request. To paraphrase his address to Jesus - You can perform anything. You can even heal leprosy.
If you will...
Unlike today, the leper had the modesty not to boss God around. The false teachers from Pentecostalism, the occult religions, Fuller Seminary, and Paul (David) Cho, all say, "God cannot give this abundance to you unless you name it specifically." That alone tells us how weak and feeble they imagine God is - no faith in Him at all. Secondly, if we demand from God in such a way, He will make sure our demands are not met. Satan will often oblige, but the devil's wages are very poor when we work for him - the wages of sin is death.
As I wrote before, one Episcopalian church had this on their bulletin board, "We are praying for an increase in attendance of 10% for the next three years." It looked like the goal of a business, grabbing market share, not the prayers of believers.
Jesus too, prayed, "If it is Your will, take this cup from Me." He did not shun the cross He knew was in His immediate future.
3 And Jesus put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will; be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed.
Some might see a contradiction, because Jesus does not even visit the centurion's home. Here He needs to touch the leper. But this is not an operator's manual. This miracle is for the surging, milling crowd that just heard the Sermon on the Mount. First they saw the leper, and who would not talk about him? Then the leper approached Jesus. Against the Law of Moses! When Jesus touched the leper, the leper was immediately healed.
Jesus repeatedly taught that the miracles were to confirm His divine power (Gospel of John), which means God graciously sought to break through man's resistance to the truth. If someone left the Sermon on the Mount ready to believe completely, the following miracles confirmed it.
If it be your will - that also means that when we cast all our cares upon Him, we also understand that His positive answers include ways in which God wills the best for us. Would it be best to be the editor-in-chief of a large Lutheran publishing house? No, because that person is employing dozens of people who have to be paid and is the servant of many different power groups. Editors never write anything at all, never begetting books but always the midwife who is there for the labor pains, the cries and anguish of upset authors, wounded translators, and anxious professors.
God lets afflictions remain, but he takes our heart away from the afflictions, so we can say, "What affliction? It is a blessing is disguise. Very well disguised, but still a blessing."
We know the blessings of the Gospel swept across America and gave us a country where people prospered and children were safe to play on their own all day long. But we as a country despised the blessings and supported a business model that shamed the Gospel. We let men be worshiped as gods so that the One True God could be ignored, His Word despised.
And yet faith has the power to restore all the blessings, not because man's faith is the power itself, but God is that power. He is so powerful that His Word always converts or hardens, enlightens or blinds.
So this effect shows up in small numbers, which should never be despised or belittled in any way. Only 10 at the Lenten service? That is 10 more than Rev. Lazybones who will not trouble himself to serve so few people with the Gospel.
The Gospels emphasize the few while mentioning the hordes. One leper and one centurion - two miracles. And yet both miracles were life and death to those who were blessed by them. And so Luther rightly teaches that faith is a power that sets God's work and Word in motion.
When we doubt that God cares or that God can accomplish a given request, we are limiting the power, like the seeds left in jars in the church basement, so abandoned and moldy that the wild animals would not touch them. As people fall away from the Means of Grace, they no longer pray with faith but become double-minded, doubting, hair-splitting, rationalizing. Who are we to deny what God can do? When He answers we can see it clearly came from Him and not from our work, our will, our crafty decisions.
4. And Jesus saith unto him, See thou tell no man; but go thy way, shew thyself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them.
Here we see Jesus having the Gospel taken to the priest. "Who are you?" Leper now cleansed, "I was a leper, but Jesus cleansed me. He commanded me to give the gift according to the Law of Moses." Priest - "Who is this? Are you sure? Are you lying? Tell me more."
And thus the Gospel came to a Jewish priest who was doing his normal work and suddenly found out the Messianic Promises were being fulfilled a short distance away. We never know where the Word is going to go when we take it a short distance away - or even to a new continent. We are not to judge, because we know the Word is effective according to God's wisdom and power.
5 And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion, beseeching him, 6 And saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented.
As Luther taught in his sermon, this text displays faith and love. The leper had faith in Jesus and the Lord manifested His love in healing the man. The centurion showed his love for his servant in coming to Jesus, having faith in Him to heal his servant.
7 And Jesus saith unto him, I will come and heal him.
In love, Jesus offered to visit the servant and to heal him.
8 The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed. 9 For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it.
The centurion was in a position of great power. He could issue a decimation order, which meant that 10% of his group would be killed for their lax discipline. Therefore, his speech is based upon the discipline of the Roman Legions and gives us a picture of how God's Word also works. As we can see the Scriptures give us examples of God's love and power linked with pictures or events that teach us how true and faithful these Promises are.
Jesus does not need to be at the home of the centurion, only to speak the Word, and the servant will be healed. How many today would believe if only they saw and heard Jesus? This refutes their feeble offer of potential faith. That is why Jesus responded with great praise for the centurion's faith.
10 When Jesus heard it, he marvelled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.
Luther softened this a bit, saying that it did not include Mary and the disciples, but I see no exception here. The centurion had greater faith than anyone among the People of God, the Jewish people.
Those clergy and professors who spend their lives teaching against faith should pay attention to this miracle, which not only shows the Word accomplishing God's will but the praiseworthiness of the centurion's faith. Believers are the saints in the Bible. Believers are the righteous. Many blessings flow to those who trust in Christ, and that includes the blessing of increasing spiritual growth.
Some in the audience like to work out and get sore muscles. In fact, there is no greater achievement than finding an exercise that causes muscular pain in the fittest athlete. That was a great workout. Howso? I can barely move today. In the same way God gives us a workout as we live the Christian life and study His Word.
The Gospel is our soul food that keeps us nourished. Without the Promises and the daily exercise of the Faith, we grow cold, lazy, a listless about the Savior.
11 And I say unto you, That many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven. 12 But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 13 And Jesus said unto the centurion, Go thy way; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. And his servant was healed in the selfsame hour.
Unbelief does not receive forgiveness of sin or salvation. Faith in Christ does. Those who were born in Lutheran parsonages and raised in the shadow of the seminary will not sit down with the Patriarchs if they continue to deny the Gospel and pervert it to match ELCA's bizarre dogma.
CHAPTER
VIII
VI
Christ
Works
Many
Miracles,
Chapters
8
and
9
In
accord
with
4:23
Matthew
presents
the
teach
ing
of
Jesus,
using
for
this
the
great
Sermon
on
the
Mount,
and
then
the
miracles
of
Jesus,
choosing
the
ones
that
followed
the
sermon.
As
the
sermon
is
not
a
compilation
of
utterances
made
at
various
times
but
a
discourse
spoken
at
one
time,
so
the
miracles
recorded
in
chapters
8
and
9
are
not
a
collection
taken
from
various
periods
of
the
Lord's
ministry
but
a
series
of
mighty
acts
that
followed
each
other
in
the
order
given
after
the
Sermon
on
the
Mount
had
been
delivered.
The
fi
rst
group,
8:1-17,
fi
lls
out
the
remainder
of
the
Sabbath
on
which
the
sermon
was
preached
(see
be
low
on
V.
14).
CHAPTER
VIII
VI
Christ
Works
Many
Miracles,
Chapters
8
and
9
In
accord
with
4:23
Matthew
presents
the
teach
ing
of
Jesus,
using
for
this
the
great
Sermon
on
the
Mount,
and
then
the
miracles
of
Jesus,
choosing
the
ones
that
followed
the
sermon.
As
the
sermon
is
not
a
compilation
of
utterances
made
at
various
times
but
a
discourse
spoken
at
one
time,
so
the
miracles
recorded
in
chapters
8
and
9
are
not
a
collection
taken
from
various
periods
of
the
Lord's
ministry
but
a
series
of
mighty
acts
that
followed
each
other
in
the
order
given
after
the
Sermon
on
the
Mount
had
been
delivered.
The
fi
rst
group,
8:1-17,
fi
lls
out
the
remainder
of
the
Sabbath
on
which
the
sermon
was
preached
(see
be
low
on
V.
14).
CHAPTER
VIII
VI
Christ
Works
Many
Miracles,
Chapters
8
and
9
In
accord
with
4:23
Matthew
presents
the
teach
ing
of
Jesus,
using
for
this
the
great
Sermon
on
the
Mount,
and
then
the
miracles
of
Jesus,
choosing
the
ones
that
followed
the
sermon.
As
the
sermon
is
not
a
compilation
of
utterances
made
at
various
times
but
a
discourse
spoken
at
one
time,
so
the
miracles
recorded
in
chapters
8
and
9
are
not
a
collection
taken
from
various
periods
of
the
Lord's
ministry
but
a
series
of
mighty
acts
that
followed
each
other
in
the
order
given
after
the
Sermon
on
the
Mount
had
been
delivered.
The
fi
rst
group,
8:1-17,
fi
lls
out
the
remainder
of
the
Sabbath
on
which
the
sermon
was
preached
(see
be
low
on
V.
14).
