THE DANGER OF HOME-TOWN UNBELIEF

Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on November 20, 2019 under AM Bible Study |

AM Bible Study Group: November 20, 2019 from Luke 4:14-30

Theme: Our Lord’s rejection in His own home town illustrates to us that His ministry is for the humble of heart that will sincerely receive Him by faith.

(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).

Over our past several times together, we read of things that the Holy Spirit wanted us to know about our Lord before we were told about the beginning of His earthly ministry. We were told about His baptism, for example; and of how He was identified by God the Father as His beloved Son. Then, we were told about His genealogy; and of how He was proven to be the Son of David and the rightful heir of David’s throne. And then, most recently, we were shown how He was tested in the wilderness by the devil; and was tempted in all points as we are—yet without sin.

And now, in Luke 4:14-30, we’re told of some crucial things about His earthly ministry. And at the very beginning of that ministry, we’re shown something of its character. But we’re also shown something of how—if we are not careful to welcome the Lord Jesus with the right attitude of humble, receptive faith—we can lose the benefit of that ministry.

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Let’s look at this passage and see first …

1. THE BEGINNING OF HIS MINISTRY (vv. 14-15).

Our Lord had just come out of a time of being tested by the devil—having been led by the Spirit into the wilderness for forty days. And now, Luke tells us in in verses 14-15;

Then Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and news of Him went out through all the surrounding region. And He taught in their synagogues, being glorified by all (Luke 4:14-15).

If we compare Luke’s Gospel with the others, we’d have to say that Luke is compressing a great deal of activity into just a couple of verses. There were several miracles of healing and of the casting out of demons that those other Gospels tell us about what had caused the news about the Lord to spread. Clearly, He demonstrated that the Holy Spirit—who had come upon Him at His baptism—had remained upon Him and was working in His ministry. And what’s more, He also taught in the synagogues throughout the regions of Galilee. Everyone was talking about Him and were wondering at His words. No wonder the word about Him was spreading!

Now; the news about Him must have reached His own hometown. When He was an infant, and when Mary and Joseph had to flee because of the threats of King Herod, they had eventually settled in Mary’s own hometown of Nazareth (see Luke 1:26; also Matthew 2:19-23). And so; Jesus, in His ministry, returned to Nazareth. The town must have been filled with excitement. And it’s there—at the very beginning of the story of His ministry—we discover …

2. THE PROPHETIC NATURE OF HIS MINISTRY (vv. 16-21).

Luke tells us,

So He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read (v. 16).

We should pay careful attention to that; by the way. Many people today—even people who profess to be Jesus’ followers—feel as if going to the house of worship is an optional thing. But our Lord did not feel that way. If ‘church’ would have been ‘optional’ for anyone, it would have been the Son of God in human flesh. But “as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day …” And if we are truly His followers—and if we are at all able to do so—we should be faithful to follow His example.

Perhaps because of His growing fame, it was given to Him to read the Scriptures that day. What a remarkable moment this would be! People search the Scriptures because they hope to find eternal life in them; and as He once said, “These are they which testify of Me” (John 5:38). What would it have been like to hear Him as He read the Scriptures! We’re told;

And He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah (v. 17a).

Now; it may have been that He was asked to read a specific passage. But in any case, it wouldn’t have been just a coincidence that He was handed the scroll of that particular book! It would be hard to find a book in the Old Testament that prophesied more plainly about our Lord’s ministry than the book of Isaiah! As it happened, He read about His own ministry from Isaiah 61:1-2;

And when He had opened the book, He found the place where it was written:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,
Because He has anointed Me
To preach the gospel to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To set at liberty those who are oppressed;
To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord”.

Then He closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on Him. And He began to say to them, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” (vv. 17b-21).

Just think of how right there—in His own hometown—He declared the nature of His ministry. It was a ministry that had been promised some 750 years before. First, He declared that the Spirit was upon Him. This was not only true in the visual sense that people saw during His baptism, but it was especially true in the sense that He was anointed by the Spirit for the ministry that the Father had given Him. Then note what this ministry would involve. It would mean that He would preach ‘tidings of good news’ to the poor—those who desperately needed such good news; and that He would heal those who are brokenhearted because of their sin, and that He would proclaim liberty to those who had been held captive by the devil; and that He would restore sight to those who were spiritually blind; and that He would set at liberty those who were oppressed by the sin of this world; and that He would proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord—that now is the time of grace—that now is the time of God’s favor! When John the Baptist was in prison—and when he had doubts about the Lord Jesus—Jesus reminded him of these very things; saying;

“Go and tell John the things which you hear and see: 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. And blessed is he who is not offended because of Me” (Matthew 11:4-6).

These were the marks of the ministry of the promised Messiah. And Jesus’ ministry was characterized by those very things. But if you’re familiar with the prophecy that Jesus read, you’d know that He stopped mid-sentence in His quotation; and said that only that much was fulfilled in His listeners hearing. The rest of that passage from Isaiah 61 goes on to say;

And the day of vengeance of our God;
To comfort all who mourn,
To console those who mourn in Zion,
To give them beauty for ashes,
The oil of joy for mourning,
The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness;
That they may be called trees of righteousness,
The planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified” (Isaiah 61:2b-3).

That part was not yet being fulfilled. Those words speak of the time of our Lord’s second coming after the time of great tribulation—when He finally returns to this earth, not as the Redeemer, but as the Judge of all the earth to reign for His Jewish people upon the throne of David from Jerusalem. For now, though, He came to fulfill the first part of that prophecy—and to administer God’s grace.

Now; you would expect that everyone in His own hometown would have welcomed Him. And at first, it even seemed that they marveled at Him in a way that would have led to a welcome. We’re told in verse 22,

So all bore witness to Him, and marveled at the gracious words which proceeded out of His mouth. And they said, “Is this not Joseph’s son?” (v. 22).

But Jesus—who the Bible tells us “knew what was in man” (John 2:25)—responded in such a way as to expose …

3. THE REJECTION FROM HIS OWN PEOPLE (vv. 22-30).

Luke tells us;

He said to them, “You will surely say this proverb to Me, ‘Physician, heal yourself! Whatever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in Your country’ ” (v. 23).

It seems that the people of Nazareth had a sense of ‘ownership-rights’ to Jesus—and that the miracles He did in other places ought to be done most of all in His own home town. It’s a very dangerous thing when we think that because of outward associations with the Christian faith—things like having grown up in a Christian home, or having gone to a Christian school, or having been raised in the Sunday School program, or having attended church all our lives, and having tithed, and having served, and so on—that we somehow have earned a right to Jesus that negates the need for repentance, humble dependency and faith upon Him. The way that they had evaluated Jesus as “Joseph’s son” suggests that they were evaluating Jesus, and taking ownership of Him, in merely fleshly terms. Shouldn’t then He do for the people of Nazareth all the miracles He did elsewhere? In fact, shouldn’t He do more of them there than anywhere else? Shouldn’t He put His own hometown on the map?

Then He said, “Assuredly, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own country. But I tell you truly, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a great famine throughout all the land; but to none of them was Elijah sent except to Zarephath, in the region of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. (vv. 24-26).

That’s a story we find in 1 Kings 17. What a blow that would have been to hear! He was comparing them to the Jewish people in Elijah’s day—people who would not hear God’s word or would not believe; and so a Gentile got the blessing that they lost. And He went on further to say to them;

And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian” (v. 27).

That’s another Old Testament story—one that’s found in 2 Kings 5:1-14. Once again, it was a way of saying that the people of Nazareth were behaving like the Jewish people of the Old Testament—people who would not hear the truth and would not believe; and who thus lost the blessing that went instead to a Gentile. He was the true ‘cornerstone’; and they were rejecting Him (Matthew 21:42).

Luke tells us how the people of Jesus’ hometown responded:

So all those in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath, and rose up and thrust Him out of the city; and they led Him to the brow of the hill on which their city was built, that they might throw Him down over the cliff (vv. 28-29).

And it’s important to understand why they were reacting this way. We’re given a clue the Gospel of Mark. Mark tells us about Jesus’ time in Nazareth; and wrote;

Now He could do no mighty work there, except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them. And He marveled because of their unbelief (Mark 6:5-6a).

There are times in the Bible when we’re told that our Lord ‘marveled’. One was at the remarkable faith of a Gentile. Here, it was at the remarkable unbelief of His own people. Think of it! At first, they marveled at Him (v. 22). And now, He marveled at them. Luke went on to tell us;

Then passing through the midst of them, He went His way (v. 30).

They could not throw Him off the cliff; because His time had not yet come. But in a sense, their time ‘came’; and by their pride, and through a lack of humble faith, they lost the opportunity.

* * * * * * * * * *

In a sense, their treatment of the Lord and His ministry was a picture of the way that the Jewish people of His day rejected Him. John 1:11-12a says, “He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God …”

So; as we begin to study the ministry of our Lord, may it be that we learn the lesson of this passage—that we do not commit the ‘home-town’ fallacy and think that we ‘deserve’ the ministry of Jesus for mere outward reasons. Unless we sincerely repent, and believe on Him, and show forth a dependency upon Him through love and humble obedience, we—like the people of Nazareth—will lose the blessings of His ministry in this world.

EA