If you are UNstroked, what will you do with your voice? S31e122 Matt9:32

I hope you are "unstroked" today. I hope you have your faculties and your voice. 

Let’s use our voice now.  Hurry.

Don’t know how many days I have left.

Don’t know how many WORDS I have left.

Listen. Subscribe. and then get speaking...

https://youtu.be/MSwKBidS_3U

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

My brothers and sisters, if you are unstroked, what will you do with your voice? So today we're gonna just look back yesterday just for a second, and a couple of guys, blind men, got sighted by Jesus and then began to spread his fame, likely by their voice. So they were spoken of as a unit of people that couldn't see, and then they used their experience and their voice to spread the news of Jesus. I sort of got a big kick out of their disobedience because they spread his fame. Similarly, today, we are unstroked. We get to use our voice. We can speak right now. So hurry. How many more days do you have left? And how many more words do you have left? We don't know. All right, so we're gonna we're gonna talk about the voice a lot today and giving praise to God and maybe giving encouragement to our fellow mankind people. But today the story starts with someone who is unable to speak. So this person is demon-oppressed, manifested as a mute person. Now, we would all say, someone that can't speak, wow, that's a real handicap. It's abnormal. And if it's imposed upon you by some sort of a demon, it's it's cruel and evil. So imagine not being able to speak. It's a great uh it's a great problem just in and of itself. And then if you add to not being able to speak the layer of by the way, you're also demon occupied and demon-oppressed. It's it's a terrible thing. Well, the mute person gets undemonized by Jesus, and then he speaks, and then the crowds marvel at this whole thing. And they say that never was anything like this scene. Uh they marvel at it, but they don't say they believe, so it's to end up a little bit short of this. And then some knuckle-headed people make some wrong assumptions about how why this all happened. Listen in here, this is uh from Matthew chapter 9. I'm gonna start in verse 32. Jesus heals a man unable to speak. Verse 32 As they were going away, behold, a demon, oppressed man who was mute, was brought to him. And when the demon had been cast out, they don't say how, the mute man spoke. And the crowds marveled, saying, Never was anything like this seen in Israel. But the Pharisee says, He casts out demons by the prince of demons. So let's just talk about demons for a second. They're present, which is uh bad enough. They're kind of hanging around, which is bad enough. But here's the worst part is they don't leave people alone. They don't leave well enough alone. So how did it get inside of him, and how is he oppressed, and maybe another person not oppressed? It doesn't say perhaps he opened his life to it and maybe gave some invitation or perhaps inclination to it, had some sort of cheek chink in his armor. Obviously, if just word of advice, don't fool around with this. Now, we find out that at the end of the story, the demons are not ultimately in charge. Jesus has power over them, as in previous accounts in this in this story as well. So, what is the disposition of those who of those demons he dispossessed? Um the last time we heard about this, the the demon was demons were sent into a herd of of pigs. So here we have a guy who was demon-possessed and at the end of the story becomes demon-dispossessed. So there are demons, the who are they? They're spiritual forces of evil against mankind and against Jesus and his kingdom. And the power of Jesus is over a whole bunch of things. And the last time Jesus cast out a demon in a demon-possessed uh person, he did it with a single word, go. So Jesus has absolute authority over the forces of evil. So we've been in the section of the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus exerts his moral authority in teaching and telling us about what to do with divorce and lust and oath and anger and beautiful living in the Beatitudes and generosity and prayer, something some sort of those uh soft arts of living. And then we find out that Jesus in very difficult things, in leprosy and healing, um, who gets to be in his kingdom, uh, storm, wind, and waves, we find out these things are also under his authority. And so Jesus is exerting authority over these over the spirit realm here, demonstrated by this single demon. Now let me just address the stupid thing that the the Pharisees say at the end. They say that Satan is casting out demons. Well, in Matthew 12, a very similar thing happens. He heals someone who is mute and uh blind, and they accuse him of uh that he is Satan, and he says, Every kingdom divided itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand. If Satan casts out Satan, he's divided against himself, so how will his kingdom stand? So he just smashes that absurd logic. So how does the Pharisee response make a little bit of sense? Well, either you have this spiritual thing, either you have to uh uh uh attribute it to Jesus and his goodness, but if I can't see or I don't want to see Jesus' kingdom, the only other choice on the market is their attribution towards uh demonic. So it makes a just a little bit of sense. All right, so demonic influence manifests itself in different forms. Like here, it's not speaking. In Matthew 12, coming up, it's not speaking and not seeing. And earlier, uh a chapter ago, two demons-possessed men met him coming out of the tombs, and they were so fierce that no one could control them. So they could speak and they could cry out, but they were just wild. So what recommends Jesus? Well, his moral character, he lives a life perfectly, his sacrificial death, and then his compassionate coming down, healing leprosy, healing regular things, welcoming the Gentiles into his kingdom, and then this power that he demonstrates. That's the that's the other thing, is he's demonstrating power over life and death. He did that with the the 12-year-old girl yesterday in our story. Um, and and now over demons. A couple weeks ago we we we saw him have power over wind and waves and natural elements. Um, so let's just talk about speaking here for a second. We have power, you have a miracle in your mouth, you have speech to do what you will. So go and speak kindness, go and speak blessing, go and speak encouragement. You know, don't if you lose your voice to stroke, it's it's it's a horrible thing. It's this great loss of identity. But we are unstroked today. So let's go use our voice now. I don't know how many days I have left, and I don't know how many words I have left. So let's give praise to God with our mouth and encouragement to mankind. Thanks for listening.