Storms Creek Church 12-17-2023

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Episode Transcript

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Good morning, and welcome to StormStreet Missionary Baptist Church this Sunday morning radio
program. This morning, we'll bejoining Pastor Kenny Hurst because we once again
opened the scriptures and study God's work. Hey, this morning, we're going
to be in the Gospel of Luke. We're going to be in chapter four,

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and we're going to be looking atthe end of chapter four, and
that's verses thirty eight down through verseforty four. And he arose out of
the synagogue and entered into Simon's house. And Simon's wife's mother was taken with
a great fever, and they besoughthim for her, and he stood over
her and rebuked the fever, andit left her, and immediately and ministered

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unto them. Now, when thesun was setting, all they that had
any sick with divers diseases brought themunto him, and he laid his hands
on every one of them, andhealed them. And devils also came out
of many, crying out and saying, thou art Christ, the Son of
God. And he, rebuking them, suffered them not to speak, for

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they knew that he was Christ.And when it was day, he departed
and went into a desert place,and the people sought him and came unto
him and stayed him that he shouldnot depart from them. And he said,
unto them, I must preach theKingdom of God to other cities also,
for therefore and my scent, Andhe preached in the synagogues of Galilee.

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I'm going to continue this morning talkingabout the great physician. You know,
we're reminded each and every day ina lot of different ways that we
do live in a fallen world,a world full of sin and disease and
death. But it wasn't always thisway. In fact, in the book

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of Genesis, in Genesis chapter one, after God had finished creating all things,
says that God saw everything that hehad made, and behold, it
was very good. Not just good, it was very good. So you
asked what happened? Well, Genesischapter three is what happened. That tells

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us about man's sin. That mandisobeyed God, that man fell, and
the result of his fault, theresult of his sin was creation. All
of creation was placed under a curse. Death invaded God's perfect world. Disease
and pain and sickness became part oflife in this present world. But there

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is good news because in the samechapter that described to us the fall of
man also well also tells us abouthow God is going to renew man.
We have a promise, there's aremedy to our sin, to us being
under a curse. You see,friends, God who is holy injustin who
must punish sin, is also aGod who is loving and merciful and gracious,

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and in his mercy and his grace. There he promised. He promised
our first parents that sometime in thefuture, and he tells exactly when that
would be, but he said ina future time, a redeemer will come,
a deliverer, a messiah will come, and he will make all things
right again. He will regain hewill reclaim what man had lost. Who

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is this one that Genesis chapter threespeaks of, Well, we know who
that is. We know that itis the Lord Jesus Christ, the son
of God God, the one whohas all authority, all authority over heaven
and earth, all authority over physicaland spiritual things. He has all authority

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over all of creation, over diseaseand demonic activities, and even over authority
over death itself. And we knowthis one was in the world for about
thirty three years. The last threeof those years he was involved in a
public ministry. He traveled throughout Israel. He went from city to city to

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do his father's will, to dothat which his father sent him into this
world to do. Now, indoing the things that he did, especially
what we've seen so far in chapterfour, what we see here is really
a preview of what he will doone day when he returns to this world,

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and when he comes a second time. What he will do is he
will eradicate all pain and suffering.Sin and death will flee sin and death
will be no more. This,my friends, is the day that the
child of God yearns for. That'sthe day that we're looking for. See,
this didn't happen during his first coming, but it will happen during his

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second coming. But in his firstcoming, the things he did at least
gives us a preview of what heis going to do in a greater way
in a future time. So herein Luke chapter four, in the verses
that I just read to you,verses thirty eight through forty four, we
see Jesus as the great physician,not just the physician of the body.

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But more importantly, we're going tosee that he's the physician of the soul,
and he is the one who hasauthority. He has all authority.
In fact, we've already seen himdemonstrate his authority in a variety of ways.
First of all in the way thathe taught in his teaching. My
Will says he taught as one whohad authority, not as this Christ and

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the Pharisees. And the difference beingdescribes in the Pharisees, they were always
quoting someone else. They were givensecondhand information. Nothing originated with them.
They were just telling and always talkingabout the other's viewpoints and so forth.
Well, with Jesus, it wasn'tthat way. Jesus got his information,

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not secondhand, but directly from hisfather in Heaven. So that's why he
talked with authority, not as describesand the Pharisees. We also see his
authority over demonic spirits. There inCapernaum, he was able to set one
free who had been in bondage toSatan, who was deemon possessed, and

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that happened right in the very synagoguewhere the Word of God was being read
and taught. And then we seeat the beginning of this passage and verse
thirty eight, we see him healingdisease. He has authority overall disease.
He heals Peter's mother in law.And then that evening, on that Sabbath
evening, we closed last time lookingat him healing all of those in Capernaum,

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everyone who came there to Peter's house, with whatever sickness or illness they
had, he was able to healthem. And so why did he do
all of this? Well, hedid it to prove that he is truly
divine, that he is the sonof God, that he is the true
King, the King of all theearth. But the main reason why Jesus

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came and why he did these things, was in order to give him the
opportunity to preach the priest the gospel, to do what he told the congregation
there in Nazareth on a previous Sabbathday. Back in chapter four. Look
at verse eighteen and nineteen. Hetold the synagogue congregation, as he's quoting

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from Isaiah sixty one, the spiritof the Lord is upon me, because
he hath anointed me to preach thegospel to the poor, sent me to
heal the broken hearted, to preachdeliverance to the captives, and recovery of
sight to the blind, to setat liberty them that are bruised, to
preach the acceptable year of the Lord. So Jesus came to preach, and

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as he says there in Luke chapterfour, verse eighteen and nineteen, he
came to preach the gospel to setthe captives free. So here in verses
thirty eight through forty four, thenwe see Jesus exercising his authority. First
of all, he did so inorder to prove that he was the son
of God. Now this is whatwe looked at last time. So just

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a quick review here. Now,when we looked at verses thirty eight through
forty one, I didn't have youturn and look at Matthew chapter eight.
But I want to do that rightnow. I want to look at Matthew
eight and see how that ties inwith what happened there when Jesus healed these
people. And here is a quotefrom Isaiah chapter fifty three and verse four,

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where he says, when the eveningwas come, they brought into him
many that were possessed with devils,and he cast out the spirits with his
word and healed all who were sick. Now, listen to these words that
it might be fulfilled, which wasspoken by Isaiah the prophet saying himself took

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our infirmities and bare our sickness.Is that part of that verse? He
says, according to Isaiah fifty three, He's going to take our infirmities and
bear our sickness. And that iswhat we see Jesus doing here in Capernaum.
John MacArthur says that Jesus fulfilled thispassage in at least three ways.

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At least three ways. First ofall, this shows that he sympathized with
those who were in pain and suffering. Jesus was a man who showed compassion.
He was full of compassion. TheBible sometimes say that he says that
he was moved with compassion. Sohe looked upon others and saw them in

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their pain and suffering, and itaffected him. It touched his heart.
He was moved with compassion. Hesympathized with them. Secondly, not only
that, but he was grieved overthe destructive power that caused all of this
suffering. And what was it thatcaused people to suffer? What causes people

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to have illness and disease and evento die, Well, it's sin sin,
and so Jesus was grieved over thefact of what sin had done in
God's perfect world. Now, lateron where you in John chapter eleven,
you'll read the account of Jesus ashe stands at the tomb of his friend

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Lazarus, who has died. Infact, he's been dead for four days.
And we're told there that Jesus weptas he stood at the grave of
his friend. He began to weep. Now we're not to take that the
means simply that he is weeping becausehis friend has died, because that really
wouldn't make a lot of sense.Jesus in just a minute is going to

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bring him back from the dead,so it would be unusual for him to
sit and stand there and weep,knowing that he's going to call him back
to life and he's going to liveagain. Now, the weeping there is
more than that. The weeping thereis just showing the reality of sin's presence
in this world. Jesus wept becauseof again, what sin has done to

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God's perfect world. Death is theultimate example of that. To see someone
died, to see people in painand suffering, it's all brought about because
of sin and sin destruction on thisworld. The great enemy that has dared
enter into God's perfect world is sin. But then, most importantly, the

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third thing that we can learn fromthis is that Jesus took our infirmities and
carried away our diseases by conquering sincompletely. See, he sympathized with people,
he grieved over the presence of sin. But he is going to conquer
sin completely. Now that didn't happenduring his first coming, but it will

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when he returns one day. Alldeath, all sickness, all suffering is
going to one day be completely eradicatedand eliminated. We know this is going
to happen because here, on thiscertain Sabbath day in the town of Capernaum,

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what we see is we see Jesusgiving proof showing that one day he's
going to do this. Satan willnot be able to stop him. He
will exercise his authority over all things. And what you have is you will
you will have a perfect world onceagain, just like you did had back

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in the beginning of the Book ofGenesis, only this world will be much
greater than the original was. Andso what I want to do then,
and that was really kind of justa review of last time is well.
I want to look at a secondtruth in regard to Jesus' authority, and

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that is he exercised his authority byfulfilling his purpose for coming into this world.
See, we saw him proving thathe's the son of God. And
so what we're going to see nowis the purpose for why he came to
this why it was necessary that heproved that he was the son of God.
Look at verse forty two. Andwhen it was day, he departed

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and went into a desert place,and the people sought him and came into
him and stated him that he shouldnot depart from them. Soon the night
before all the city had gathered outsidePeter's home. There was not a sick
person left in the town of Capernaum. They were healed of whatever sickness,

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whatever disease they had, they wereall healed. Now, certainly this healing
that Jesus brought upon the people lastedwell into the evening because Jesus personally dealt
with everyone who came to him,so he probably didn't get to sleep till
late in the evening. And whatwe see here is early in the morning

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for anybody else's up Jesus wakes up, slips out of the house, walks
out of town, and goes toa remote place. And the reason he
goes there Luke doesn't tell us,but Murray tells us that he goes to
pray. And we know that Jesusoften did this. He loved to go
to a remote place where he couldbe alone with his Father and pray.

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This was more important to him thangetting a little bit more sleep. Well,
if Jesus needed to do this,how much more do you and I
need to get alone and be withour heavenly Father and pray to him.
We have to keep in mind thatJesus, well Jesus, as we know,
was fully man and full of God. God this attributes his divine power.

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He chose not to use that,but as one who was fully man,
he relied on the power of theHoly Spirit to do the things that
he did. You know, themiracles that he did that we've talked about
so far were all done through thepower of the Holy Spirit. Now Jesus
had the fullness of the Spirit,but he did these things because the power

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of the Holy Spirit was at workin him. Just like the apostles,
they will do these same types ofmiracles, and he will have the same
power, the power of the HolySpirit. So Jesus prays as one who's
fully man, who didn't rely uponhis divine attributes. He prayed, and
he prayed for the Father to blesshim. Now we know that as he

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prayed. We're not told what heprayed, but we know that one thing
he certainly didn't pray, and thatis that he would be forgiven of his
sins. Jesus had no sins tobe forgiven of. Now he taught his
disciples in Matthew chapter six to prayforgive us our debts. As we forgive
our debtors. We pray that wepray every day for forgiveness of sin.

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Jesus didn't have to do that,but he did, I'm sure, prayed
that the Father would bless his work, blessed him as he would go to
other towns and preach, and ifhad the power to bring healing. He
prayed, I'm certain for the disciples, for those who were following him most
certainly. But you know what,he also just simply just spends some time

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just enjoying being in the presence ofhis father. You know, as the
children of God it's important that westrive to each and every day to read
our Bible. We need to befaithful to tend God's house each and every
week. We need a witness tothose who are lost when we have the
opportunity to do so. We needto give our time and money to the
Lord's work. All of these thingsare important, and all of these things

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are dependent upon prayer. And justlike Jesus, we need to pray.
We need to spend time with ourFather in heaven. We need help for
that work that He has given usto do. But like Jesus also we
just need to spend a lot oftime just enjoying being in his presence.
In Matthew six, when he taughthis disciples to pray, you remember before

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he taught them what kind of petitionsto pray for, he first of all
told them just to spend time justpraising their Father in heaven. How it
would be your name like kingdom company. Your will be done just spending time
just praising God, just spending timeand joining fellowship with him. And so
we're told here in verse forty two, as Jesus goes to this remote place

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in order to pray, we're toldthat the people sought him. You see,
Jesus was very popular, and youcan understand why. I mean,
just again, go back to theday before, the night before, as
he healed all the sick in town. Everybody who had a disease and the
illness came and was made well byJesus. Now, I don't know if

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they had anything like a hospital therein Capernaum in that day in time,
but if they did, guess what, there would have been no patience there.
It would have been empty. Couldyou imagine going to King's Daughter Hospital
over in Ashland and walking up anddown the halls and looking in the rooms
and finding out there's not one singlepatient in the whole hospital. Every room

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is empty, every bed is empty. You go to the waiting room and
there's not one person there in thewaiting room, not one single person in
the emergency room. He'd say,well, that would be a miracle.
Well, something like that happened inCapernaum. There was not a sick person
in town because Jesus healed all.But the crowd returns from the night before,

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and we wonder why, I mean, if Jesus has healed everyone,
everybody's sick, there's nobody needs that. So why did they come back.
Well, I'm certain it's probably alot of it was out of curiosity.
I mean, they saw some amazingthings the night before. This man,
he's like no one we've ever seenbefore, so they're going back to see

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what else he's going to do.It says they sought him. That word
literally means that they were in hotpursuit of him. They were going to
look until they found him. Now, you notice the reception that he receives
here in Capernaum is completely different thanhe received the Nazareth, his hometown.
There After he preached in the synagogue, the people ran him out of town.

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In fact, they tried to throwhim off the cliff. He wasn't
welcome there. They wanted him toleave. But herein Capernaum it's the opposite.
They want him to say they're lookingfor him, they want him to
come back to town. They don'twant him to go. You know,
in John chapter six, in thefirst fifteen verses of that chapter, we

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have the account of Jesus feeding agreat multitude, in fact, five thousand
men, and that's not including womenand children. Well after Jesus, before
this miracle, were told in versefourteen. Then those men, when they
had seen the miracle that Jesus did, said, this is of a truth,
that prophet that should come into theworld. When Jesus therefore perceived that

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they would come and take him byforce to make him a king, he
departed again into a mountain himself alone. So here we have an occasion where
Jesus has just fed a great multitudeof people, and the result is is
that people, well, they wantto make him king, they want him
to stay. I think it's kindof the same reception that he had back

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in comparnaim. Now it doesn't saythey wanted to make him king, but
I'm sure those thoughts were in theirmind. I mean, he's healed every
person who's sick. Here in Johnsix, he feeds a multitude of people.
I mean, here's a guy whocan meet her every need. He
can feed us, he can clotheus, he can heal us. We

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need this man. You know,today a lot of people follow Jesus not
for the spiritual benefits they receive,but for the physical benefits. They want
to be healthy and prosperous, andthey want to enjoy all the things of
this life that the Lord. Theythink can provide them. Even the disciples
I think got caught up, gotcaught up in all the excitement. You

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know, Jesus, you need totake advantage of your popularity. You need
to get a larger following. Youneed to keep doing these miracles that you're
doing. And then once you gaina large enough following, you can form
an army and we'll go through andwe'll defeat the Romans, and you set
up your kingdom just like you promised. So they didn't realize why Jesus came.

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And when you get to verse fortythree, here we see, well,
we see the real reason why hecame. And he said, unto
them, I must preach the Kingdomof God to other cities also for therefore
and by sin, see Jesus's mainreason. Here's the main part of the

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sermon. Is Jesus came to preachthe gospel. Jesus came to call citizens
to become to be a part ofhis kingdom. And see, he can't
remain in Campernaum and do that.He's got other people to reach, and
not just sick people to heal,or to have people that are possessed by

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demons who need to be delivered.Jesus didn't come for that reason. Jesus
didn't come as a faith healer.He didn't go around and have crusades and
heal people. He didn't travel theworld as a healing man. No,
realize, all those that he healedeventually got sick again. Even Lazarus,

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who he raised from the dead,eventually died again. So even the healings
that he performed were those who hebrought back from the dead. It wasn't
permanent, it was only temporary.And again it was for a specific purpose,
that is to open the door sothat he could do what to Father

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sent him to do, and thatis to preach the Gospel of rich And
says the Kingdom of God is therule of God, the extension of His
divine authority and power. All ofus who are all who are saved,
whether here on the earth to dayor in heaven. If we're saved,
we're all part of His kingdom,all citizens of His kingdom. That's why

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Matthew six were to pray thy Kingdomcome. We pray for the kingdom to
come. We pray for Jesus toreturn. We pray that he will come
and establish a visual kingdom. Nowhe reigns in the hearts of people because
he's not physically here. But oneday he's going to come back, and
when he does, he will dowhat he didn't do the first time,

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and that is he will rule andreign over his kingdom. And a question
I ask you this morning is simplythis. Are you a part of that
kingdom? Have you put your faithin trust in Christ? Are you a
citizen of Heaven? You see,Jesus' mission wasn't just for the people there
in Capernaum. He says, Ihave to go to other cities. But

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his mission wasn't just to go tothe cities of Israel, because his mission,
really we know ultimately was to gointo all the world. Now he
didn't do this, but he callshis churches to do so because he has
people scattered around the world. InRevelations, chapter five and verse nine says
and they sang a new song,saying, thou art worthy to take the

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book and to open the seals thereoffor thou wast slain and hast redeemed us
to God by their blood out ofevery kindred and tongue and people and nation.
See, we see that the Lordhas a people scattered throughout all the
nations of the world, not justthe nation of Israel. As I mentioned

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last time, most of the peoplethat Jesus healed didn't ultimately believe in him.
Many of the people who witness hismiracles were not actually saved. He
had to go back to John sixthere where the people wanted to make him
king were told at the end ofthat chapter that many of his disciples went

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away and walked no more with him. It didn't mean that they continue to
serve him, they just didn't come. No, that means that they were
only disciple in word only. Theyweren't actual disciples. So most of those
people that he fed eventually walked awayand had no relationship with him. It's
the same today. You know,apart from the Holy Spirit moving upon the

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person who hears the gospel, thereis no salvation, regardless of what amazing
things that you might witness. No, those things don't save any more of
the miracles that the people witnessed inJesus's time saved them. No, the
Holy Spirit has to work upon theheart, and the Word of God has
to be preached for someone to besaved. Then he closes out the chapter

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verse forty four, and he preachedin the synagogues of Galilee. The reason
Jesus came he didn't go back toCapernaum. He had other towns to go
to. He had other synagogues topreach in, He had other sheep to
bring in to the fold. Hewas a physician not just of the body,

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but of the soul. The samemessage that Jesus preached is the same
message that you and I are toalso preach today. So it's clear that
his purpose was not to feed thepoor, to provide clothing to the needy,
not to give advice on marriage andfinances, not to support certain political
candidates or whatever. No, itwas simply to preach the gospel. Now,

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the result of this is that whenthe Gospel is preached, people will
be saved in society will improve.That's just not my opinion. History backs
that up because you look in ournation. Look at any nation where the
Gospel is able to come come inand be preached and people are being saved.

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When that happens, society improves.In our nation, when people were
being saved, what happened is isChristians built schools and universities. They built
hospitals. They organized different groups tofeed and clothe people who were in need.

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You see, whenever the gospel comes, people's lives are changed and society
improves. But again we realize thatfirst and foremost we preach the gospel,
then the result of the gospel beingreceived is people go out and do these
things to improve society. May wefaithfully preach the gospel. May we yearn

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to see people saved and delivered fromtheir bondage to sin. So I ask
you this morning, have you beenset free? Have you put your faith
in your trust in the Lord JesusChrist. If not, I pray that
you can do so. We'd liketo thank you for listening to our program

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this morning. We pray that Godhas used this message to draw you closer
to Him. Storms Creek Missionary BaptistChurch would like to take this opportunity to
invite you to any of his services. We have a Sunday School which starts
at nine thirty am, Sunday Morningworship ten fifteen, and our Sunday Evening
service starts at six pm. Wealso have a Wednesday night Bible study that

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starts at seven thirty pm. StormsCreek Missionary Baptist Church is also on the
internet under sermonaudio dot com. Youcan go to www dot com sermon Audio,
look for Storm Street Missionary Baptist Church, and listen to any of our
sermons in full length audio at thesite. Again, we'd like to thank

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you for listening this morning, andmay God bless you throughout the week.