Matthew 8:5-13

[0:00] Good evening. Be in the New Testament tonight.! Leading up to the 8th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, we have all kinds of things.

[0:34] We have, of course, the lineage of promise in chapter 1. And we have the birth of Jesus, the birth of Emmanuel. We've got all kinds of stuff that goes on.

[0:46] We've got the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist that's recorded in the Gospel of Matthew. We have the temptation of Christ in the wilderness. We have Christ preaching the Sermon on the Mount, which is Matthew 5 through Matthew 7, which brings us to Matthew 8.

[1:05] And the very first few verses of Matthew 8 is Christ actually descending from the Mount and touching a leper and healing him. And that's what brings us to the passage we'll be in tonight.

[1:18] We'll pick up in verse 5 here in just a moment. But all kinds of things have happened as far as Matthew's account goes. And I emphasize that it's Matthew's account because what we're going to read tonight is also recorded in the Gospel of Luke in chapter 7.

[1:37] And his account is slightly different than Matthew's. Neither one of them are liars. Neither one of them is fibbing. Nothing along those lines. As you all have heard me say before, it's accounts from different men as to what happened.

[1:52] And I've used the scenario many times, probably used it here, that if there's a car crash, you might say that a black truck hit a green car.

[2:06] And somebody else might say the green car hit the black truck. But either way, there was a green car, there was a black truck, and there was a collision. So it's different accounts, but it's all of the same instance.

[2:20] And that's what we have in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Really, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. John is a Gospel account, but he is not part of the synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

[2:33] But anyway, as I said, much has gone on here. Jesus' ministry is well underway at this point, although it's still in the infancy stages.

[2:45] Here, he is involved in his earthly ministry. We find in Matthew 4 that Jesus enters Capernaum there. And we're actually going to read that again here in a moment.

[2:57] But Capernaum was basically the headquarters, the Galilean headquarters, of Jesus' earthly ministry. So, between Matthew 8 and verse 4 and Matthew 8 and verse 5, I'm not positive how much time elapsed there.

[3:14] Scripture does not tell us. But we can rightfully assume it was a fairly short amount of time, more than likely the same day. We don't know that for sure. Again, Scripture doesn't tell us.

[3:25] But there's commentators on Scripture that will go back and forth as far as, you know, was it a day? Was it a week? Was it hours?

[3:37] I mean, honestly, who cares? It doesn't matter. The accounts are the same. You know, there's Roman centurion that besought Jesus for healing for a servant.

[3:50] And that's the gist of the story or the account that's given here. And it's also the gist of the account that's given in the 7th chapter of Luke. So, we'll begin reading this account. Matthew 8, beginning at verse 5.

[4:03] It says, And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came unto Him a centurion, beseeching Him, and saying, Lord, My servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented.

[4:16] And Jesus saith unto him, I will come and heal him. 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.

[4:29] 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.

[4:42] When Jesus heard it, He marveled and said unto them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, No, not in Israel.

[4:53] And I say unto you, That many shall come forth from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness.

[5:07] There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. And Jesus said unto the centurion, Go thy way, and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee.

[5:18] And his servant was healed in the same hour. So back to verse 5. It says, And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion beseeching Him.

[5:30] So here, just in and of this verse, in and of itself, is quite an amazing statement that we have here in Scripture. Jesus entered into Capernaum.

[5:42] There was a Roman centurion soldier that came to Him. This was a man that, he wasn't just a private in the military. He wasn't a nobody. He wasn't a gopher.

[5:53] He was a centurion. He was actually the captain over a hundred other men in the Roman army. And he comes here beseeching Jesus, beseeching this Jewish rabbi that he obviously had heard about.

[6:09] We don't know when he heard about Him. But again, in Matthew chapter 4, we see Jesus first entering into Capernaum there as far as Matthew's account goes. So the word about Jesus Christ, word about His healings, word about His ministry, word about Him in general had somehow gotten to this centurion soldier.

[6:31] And we must remember though what this centurion, what he represented. He represented imperial power. He represented military might.

[6:42] And He also represented power and a yoke that had been placed upon Israel. This was a Roman soldier. And we all know that Roman was occupying all of Israel, all of Jerusalem at this point.

[6:57] Rome was the world power at this point. And this soldier of this same army with this same might and with this same authority beseeches Jesus Christ.

[7:09] He comes to Jesus Christ. Folks, that is quite amazing in and of itself that this man with his stature, this man with his rank, this man with everything that he had going on for him comes to a Jewish man, a Jewish rabbi, a Jewish healer and asks for his help.

[7:27] This was unheard of in this day. This was something that was taboo, something that was considered against the rules. The Jews did not go to the Gentiles for anything. And the Gentiles sure didn't go to the Jews for anything, especially Gentiles that had any type of authority or any type of power.

[7:45] They did not seek out Jews for their needs. But we have this Roman soldier here. He had heard somehow, some way, he had heard of the man Jesus.

[7:56] He had heard of his works. He had heard of everything that had been going on in his ministry. And he beseeches Jesus here. Verse 6, it says, And saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented.

[8:10] Folks, this is something else that was also basically unheard of in this day. Not completely, but almost unheard of in this day. Folks, servants were seen as very expendable.

[8:22] You could get another servant if one passed away, if one got sick. You had a number of other people that you could go to. A number of other servants to pick from.

[8:33] Or whatever the case was, you could go out and buy another servant as far as that goes. But he comes to Jesus and he says, My servant is sick. My servant is suffering.

[8:44] He's suffering with the palsy. He's grievously vexed. He's grievously in torment. Come help him, was the cry and the petition of this centurion soldier.

[8:59] In Luke chapter 7, it says that the servant was dear to the centurion. And again, I've read commentaries, I've read in study Bibles and everything else.

[9:10] People wondering what was so dear about this servant. Folks, it doesn't matter. Don't let yourself get caught up in the stuff that just does not matter. It doesn't matter why the servant was dear to this centurion.

[9:21] The thing is, this centurion, a man of stature, a man with power as we've already established, a man that was hardened in the army of Rome, he had compassion.

[9:35] He had compassion. Not on himself. He's not beseeching Jesus on himself. He's not saying, I am grievously vexed. I am grievously sore. I am grievously sick.

[9:46] He's not beseeching Jesus for himself at all. He's beseeching Christ on behalf of another. What scripture is that? And what scriptures do we have that backs that up that other people do?

[10:01] The same thing. We've got the friends that lowered the paralytic down into the house from the rooftop where Jesus was. And folks, this is something that we need to learn from.

[10:14] That we beseech Christ on behalf of others. On behalf of others. This is what I've talked about before. This is intercessory. And that's exactly what this centurion here was doing.

[10:27] But folks, this was a Roman. This was a Gentile. This was somebody who wasn't even part of the covenant that recognized whom Jesus was. Maybe not the Son of God.

[10:40] Maybe not the Maker of the universe. Maybe not to that extent. But he recognized something deep about Jesus Christ that I'm afraid that most churchgoers don't even recognize about Jesus Christ nowadays.

[10:52] He recognized there was something about Christ that he needed. We don't have an account like we do with the woman with the issue of blood where this centurion had gone to every doctor and asked them to help his servant.

[11:06] We don't have anything like that here in the scriptures. We just know that his servant was sick. He was sick unto death. He was at the very door of death. And this centurion, this Roman, this Gentile, seeks out Christ.

[11:20] Sought him out to help his servant. To heal his servant. And saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented. This man was in bad shape.

[11:31] And the centurion wanted him well. Again, in Luke's Gospel it says this servant was dear to the centurion. Verse 7, And Jesus saith unto him, I will come and heal him.

[11:43] No lines to read between there. This is a very simple answer that Jesus Christ gives. I will come and heal him. Jesus did not throw up anything about the barrier between the Gentiles and the Jews.

[11:57] He didn't say anything about not being able to cross over the threshold into a Gentile's house. He brought up nothing of the matter. And folks, I am glad that salvation is that way.

[12:07] My salvation, your salvation, salvation in general does not depend upon ethnicity. It does not depend on locality. It does not depend upon any of those things.

[12:19] It depends on the faith that we have in the Son of God, Jesus Christ. It depends upon the faith that we have in the Father that He sent the Son on behalf of sinners to die on their behalf and to raise them to new life.

[12:33] That's what salvation depends on. We're saved by grace through faith and nothing else. This centurion here was showing a great amount of faith in Jesus Christ.

[12:44] Remember folks, the Romans were polytheistic. They believed in many gods. They believed in thousands of gods. There was a God for everything in Roman religion.

[12:56] Don't take my word for it. Go look into Roman mythology sometime. Look into Greek mythology sometime. They had a God for everything. But this centurion saw something different in Christ.

[13:08] And he was beseeching Jesus and Jesus said, I will come and I will heal him. There's no hesitation with Jesus. He doesn't consider it.

[13:19] He doesn't ask for payment. He doesn't say what's in it for me. He simply tells the centurion soldier, I will come and heal him. Verse 8, the centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest cometh under my roof.

[13:36] Folks, this is the heartbeat of the entire passage. This is the heartbeat. The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy. And you are not worthy.

[13:48] And I am not worthy. I am not worthy to even hear the gospel, let alone be saved by the power of the gospel. You are not worthy to hear the gospel, let alone be saved by its glorious power.

[14:02] But God, in His mercy, and God, in His grace, and God, in His long-suffering, and His patience, and God, in His kindness, and God, in His love, allowed us to hear the gospel.

[14:14] He allowed us to hear it. He allowed it to penetrate our hearts. He allowed us to be convinced of our sin, convicted of our sin, and saved by the blood of Jesus Christ.

[14:25] regardless of whether we were worthy or not. Folks, none of us are worthy. None of us are worthy to sit in these four walls tonight. None of us are worthy to be here.

[14:35] We are worthy of nothing more than the flames of hell for all of eternity. That's what we are worthy of. But God, God in His graciousness sees differently.

[14:48] The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy. I'm not worthy that you should come to my house, that you should even come under my roof. I'm not worthy that you should come anywhere near my dwelling.

[15:03] I'm not worthy of it. He says, but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed. Folks, He is showing so much faith in saying this.

[15:16] Speak the word only. Your word can go across this span of land. I don't know precisely where they were at in Capernaum, and I don't know precisely where this centurion's house was in Capernaum.

[15:30] But He is saying your word can cross this span, this gap. Just your word. You don't have to show up and touch Him. You don't have to show up and lay hands upon Him.

[15:41] You don't even have to be near the house. Speak the word and heal my servant. He's relying on the word of Christ. What can we learn from that?

[15:54] To rely on the word of the living God. To rely upon the word of Christ. Do we rely upon that? Do we rely upon these promises?

[16:05] We just sung tonight, did we not? Standing on the promises. Are we standing on those? Are we standing upon those promises? Or do we do like Brother Mike was preaching about this morning?

[16:16] Do we lack faith? Do we lose our faith? Things that happen in our lives, we get down, we get sick, whatever the case is, and we pray and we beg and we beseech and we petition God to deliver us from that or to deliver someone else from it, and we see that miracle work, and we're on cloud nine for about a half a minute.

[16:38] And then something else comes our way, and we forget all about what God has done. Folks, if we know that we are saved, if we can go back to a place in our mind and a place in our heart where God saved us from our sin, saved us from a devil's hell, saved us from His very wrath, if we can go back to that place in our mind, folks, everything else in this life should be a cakewalk for us because this life is very temporal.

[17:08] James says it's like a vapor. It's here for a little while then it vanisheth away. This life pleads by, like Brother Mike said this morning, six days left in January.

[17:21] Six days left in January. And I thought, you know, just a couple nights ago we were celebrating the new year. Six days left in it. I remember my mama just on a side note, I remember my mama saying the older you get, the quicker time goes.

[17:37] And I also remember thinking, you're just a crazy old woman. You don't know what you're talking about. That's impossible. Folks, it's not impossible because it happens. It happens.

[17:48] My oldest boy was talking about my grandson and he said, you know, I figure by the time he's 18, Connor's five now, but he said, I figure by the time he's 18, this will happen, that will happen.

[17:59] I was like, well son, he'll be 18 next week. You think I'm lying, but I'm serious. Folks, it flies. But, when we consider things in light of eternity, when we consider things in light of God, and we consider the promises of God, we consider the Word of God speaking all throughout eternity.

[18:22] Like I said, this centurion here, he was just asking Christ to speak a word and he was depending upon that word to cross whatever span of land that it was and heal his servant.

[18:33] And now, right now in 2026, God speaks forgiveness and God speaks mercy not just across a span of land, but across all of eternity, across all of the universe for everyone that will repent of their sin, repent of their unbelief, and believe on His Son, Jesus Christ.

[18:52] Hallelujah. Hallelujah. He said, I'm not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof, but speak the Word only. Speak the Word only. This is all you've got to do, Jesus.

[19:06] And my servant shall be healed. There's no doubt in this centurion's voice, there's no doubt in the monologue that he's given here and the conversation that he's having.

[19:16] He says, And my servant shall be, not might be, not could be, he shall be healed. And folks, that is what's so hard to get through a lost person's mind.

[19:28] All you've got to do is repent of your ways and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Confess Him as Lord. And believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, and thou shalt be saved.

[19:43] Folks, there's nothing else there. There's nothing else there. If we confess Jesus Christ and we believe that God raised Him from the dead, we shall be saved.

[19:54] Hallelujah. And that is so hard to get through people's minds. Why? Because they've been groomed and they've been conditioned. You've got to do something else. There has got to be something that you do, that you have done.

[20:06] Folks, salvation is of the Lord and the Lord is salvation. There is nothing we do to merit it. There is nothing we do to earn it. It is freely given to all those that believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

[20:20] And I thank God that it's that way. Because if it depended on me and my works, I'd still be hell bound. And you would too. Ain't none of us good enough for it. None are good. No, not one.

[20:31] Verse 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.

[20:42] Why is he saying this? Why do we have this little bit here in the Scripture? Folks, this is another amazing part of this Scripture. Another amazing verse. He understands the authority of command.

[20:57] What did he just say in the previous verse? But speak the Word only, and my servant shall be healed. And here he says, I am a man under authority.

[21:08] He has an understanding of command. He has an understanding of authority because he lives within authority. And he understands that physical presence is not as necessary as rightful command.

[21:26] And Jesus had every right to command anything that he wanted to command. And he has in the past. He does in the present. And he will continue to do so into the future.

[21:37] This is the same Jesus that said, Let there be light. And there was light. This is the same Jesus that said, Let there be a firmament. And there was a firmament. This is the same Jesus that said, Let this happen.

[21:49] And let that happen. And it did. Amen. And here the centurion is just saying, Just speak the Word. Just speak the Word. I understand how command works.

[22:00] I understand how authority works. And he is telling Jesus and what he is saying here. And I also understand that you have authority. This man, this centurion, he had authority.

[22:13] But it was earthly authority. It was man given. Authority. But he is telling Jesus here, I believe your authority comes from the heaven above. And it did.

[22:24] That's exactly where it comes from. At the very end of this Gospel, Jesus says Himself, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. All power. And all means all in that context.

[22:36] Praise God. All power is Christ. And that's why we have verse 9 here. This man understood something about authority. He understood something about how commands work. And he understood that Jesus Christ could command what He wanted to.

[22:50] And it would come to pass. Verse 10. When Jesus heard it, He marveled and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith.

[23:01] No, not in Israel. My goodness. What a rebuke. What a rebuke. This wasn't a sharp rebuke. It was a soft rebuke. But if you notice, it says He turned to those that followed.

[23:14] He turned to those that were coming after Him in masses, in droves. He wasn't speaking to the centurion. He was speaking to those that followed. When Jesus heard it, He marveled.

[23:24] Folks, this is one of two times in Scripture that you will see Christ marveled at something. The other time is in Mark 6. In the first few verses of Mark 6, you see that Jesus went back into Nazareth.

[23:38] And He went there and He went there preaching. He went there teaching. He went into the synagogues teaching. And nobody there respected Him. Nobody there listened to Him. That's the Scripture where He says a prophet is not without honor except in his own town.

[23:53] Except in his own country. And it says that He marveled at their unbelief. That's Mark 6. Here, He marvels at belief. So we know that Christ and another amazing part about this, He who knows all, He who is omniscient was astonished by something.

[24:19] It says that He marveled at the faith, not of a scribe, not of a Pharisee, not of a priest, not of one of the covenant people, not even of a Jew, but of a pagan, Gentile, centurion soldier that was part of an army that had kept Christ's people, the Jews, down.

[24:48] He marveled at the faith of that man. And in Mark 6, He marveled at the unbelief of His own people. It says, When Jesus heard it, He marveled and said unto them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith.

[25:05] No, not in Israel. But He found it in the Gentiles. He found that faith in a Gentile here. And folks, this isn't the only time that we see things like this.

[25:17] That's why we come to the next verse. Verse 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. Folks, this was a foreign thought to the Jewish people.

[25:29] And He was still turned around in this verse speaking to those that followed, which would have been mainly Jews. He says, Many will come from the east, not from Jerusalem and the area around Jerusalem, but from east of Jerusalem.

[25:45] And many will come from the west. Again, not Jerusalem and the area around, but from the west of Jerusalem. He says, Many will come from everywhere. And they will partake in the kingdom.

[25:56] It says, They shall come from the east and west and shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. Folks, it tickles me pink to tell you that the Lord's table, the seats around it are going to be full of outsiders.

[26:13] It's going to be full of Gentiles. There will be Jews there too. Don't you get me wrong. It says they're going to sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Not that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are not going to be present.

[26:26] But there will be outsiders. There will be sinners that were redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ. There's going to be people that repented of murder. There's going to be people that repented of adultery.

[26:36] There's going to be people that repented of any number of sins that you can think of. And we're saved by the blood of Jesus Christ. And we are going to be seated with those people around God's table in the kingdom of Almighty God.

[26:52] Think of that. Hallelujah. These are the people that Christ came to save. He said, I came to seek and to save that which was lost. He came to seek sinners.

[27:03] He came to save sinners. Which is all of us, Jew and Gentile alive. But this was a foreign thought to them. Because these people thought, well, I'm Jewish. I've got the lineage.

[27:15] I've got the pedigree. I'm a descendant of Abraham. In this very same Gospel, John the Baptist had already addressed that situation when he told the Pharisees and the scribes, he said, hey, God is able of these stones to raise up children unto him.

[27:32] Or of Abraham unto him. Amen. He'd already addressed that. Folks, you think about the people in Scripture that fit straight into this category. You think of Naaman in 2 Kings 5.

[27:45] A man that was a captain of the host of the Syrian army. He was a Gentile. But he was a leper. He was a man of great power. He was a man of great prestige. You read about all of that.

[27:57] And the very end of that verse says, he was a leper. But something drove him. Something drove him. A need drove him. He wanted to be cleansed of that leprosy.

[28:11] And when he came to Elisha, Elisha sent our messengers and said, just go down to Jordan. Dip yourself seven times and you'll be clean. And the Bible says, this is in a nutshell, the Bible says Naaman went away in a rage.

[28:26] He said, are not the rivers in Damascus? And he names those two rivers there. He says, are not the rivers in Damascus? Aren't they good enough to cleanse me? Aren't they good enough to wash in?

[28:37] And his servants, Naaman's servants, came to him. This is where the humbling took place. His servants come to him and they said, you know, if Elisha had told you to do some great thing, you would have done it.

[28:52] What the more? What the more? If he simply tells you, wash and be clean. And Naaman went down to Jordan, dipped himself seven times, and the Bible says his skin was like a baby's.

[29:07] It says he came up clean. Amen. But a need drove him to that. Folks, that's what drove us to Christ. We had to be convinced of our sin by the Holy Spirit of Almighty God.

[29:20] He had to convince us. He had to convict us. And he had to do it through the preached Word of God. He had to do it the way that God prescribes within His Bible, within His Word, and show us who we are so that He could show us who God was and what God is capable of.

[29:37] And that need drove us to Christ. But folks, even as saved individuals, we still have needs that drive us to Christ. Just as this centurion here had a need not of his own, but it was a need on his servant's behalf.

[29:52] This is what brought him to Christ. What brings you to Christ? Sometimes we need to just go to Christ and praise Him. Praise Him. Not for any particular thing that He's done, but just because He is who He is.

[30:06] Because He is who this book says that He is. He is the Savior. He is the one that sought me. He's the one that came and bled and died on my behalf.

[30:19] Is that not enough to praise Him for? But needs, more often than not, is what drives us to Christ. Verse 12, now He just talked about in verse 11, He just gave them a foreign thought and said that people were going to come from the east and the west, from all over, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

[30:44] In verse 12, He says, but the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. My goodness, how sobering is that?

[30:58] And notice how Christ phrased it. He says, the children of the kingdom, the children whom the covenant belonged to, the children who had the Old Testament prophets, they had the history books, they're the ones that knew and believed about God delivering Israel from Egypt through the Red Sea.

[31:20] They're the ones that knew and believed that God fed Israel in the wilderness with manna. They're the ones that knew and believed that God gave them drink from a rock in the middle of the desert.

[31:32] But the children of the kingdom, the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness. Why was that? Again, it's because they were depending on their lineage.

[31:45] Folks, our lineage cannot and does not save us. Y'all have heard it many times. I've heard it and said it many times. Ain't nobody going to go to heaven on anybody else's cocktail.

[31:57] And there's a lot of people out there that think that. They'll think, I'll go on daddy's. I'll go on mama's. I'll go on grandpa's. They were great people of God. And they had enough religion for all of us.

[32:10] No, folks. They had enough faith for themselves. For themselves. Amen. My faith can't save anyone else. My faith in almighty God can drive me to God to beseech and petition God that he can lay conviction on someone else.

[32:26] But my faith cannot save them. We are saved individually by the grace of God through faith in the Son, Jesus Christ.

[32:37] But each individual person has to have their faith in Christ to be saved. We cannot do it for them. But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness.

[32:49] Folks, I don't even know what outer darkness is. And praise God, because of Jesus Christ, I'll never know. I'll never know what it is. But I guarantee you, it's a dark place.

[33:02] It's an empty place. It's a place of solitude. It's a place of sadness. It's a place where there's no opportunity for repentance.

[33:15] There's no opportunity to scream to God, I'm sorry. Forgive me of my sin. Forgive me of my unbelief. That's what outer darkness is.

[33:27] Y'all have heard me say before, hell is described as many different things in many different ways in the Scripture. And outer darkness is one of the scariest descriptions of hell in all the Scripture.

[33:42] Mainly because we don't know exactly what it is. But God knows. God knows. They'll be cast into outer darkness. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

[33:54] It's a place of sadness. That's where the weeping comes in. And a place of gnashing of teeth. That's where anger comes in. That's where resentment comes in.

[34:04] That's the people that will spend all of eternity screaming and cursing God for being there. But, they would have had opportunity to repent and believe.

[34:18] That's the gnashing of teeth. It's anger. It's resentment toward God. And they gnash on one another just to try and get some relief. It's another description of hell.

[34:31] Here, it's not just a place of flames. In fact, the lake of fire and hell in the book of Revelation is described as two different things.

[34:43] The book of Revelation says hell was cast into the lake of fire. So, it's a horrible place. That's the best I can put it. It's a horrible place and the worst part is nobody has to go there.

[34:56] Nobody has to go there. That's the worst part. People choose to go because they will not repent and they will not believe. Verse 13 will be done.

[35:10] And Jesus said unto the centurion, Go thy way and as thou hast believed, that's the key to this verse, as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee.

[35:21] And his servant was healed in the selfsame hour. So Jesus said to the centurion, this centurion, this Roman, this Gentile that had no business as far as the human aspect goes, had no business approaching Jesus Christ.

[35:37] Christ tells him, He says, Go your way. Now, listen, the centurion said just a few verses ago, Speak the Word.

[35:48] Speak the Word and it will be done. I don't read anywhere in this passage where Christ spoke the Word until here. Until here in verse 13. Go thy way and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee.

[36:01] That's the closest to speaking the Word. I never read the words that Jesus Christ spoke. Servant be healed. Or, your servant is healed. But He tells the centurion, He says, as you have believed, as thou hast believed, you, and we know from the centurion's account here, from everything that He has said, that He believed that Christ could heal His servant.

[36:26] And Christ here says, Jesus said unto the centurion, Go thy way and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. Not unto your servant, but unto thee, unto you.

[36:40] So be it done unto you, centurion, soldier. I'm sure Christ could have called him by name if he had wanted to. Right. Because Christ knows all. He says, so be it done unto thee.

[36:52] And again, folks, this shows the compassion. And this was true blue compassion that this centurion soldier would have had for his servant.

[37:03] He had sought Jesus on behalf of another, on behalf of his servant. And Christ says, as you have believed, so be it done unto you. This was just as much for the centurion as it was for his servant.

[37:19] Why? This was a confirmation of faith, folks. This was a confirmation of what faith can do. He says, as you have believed, let it be done.

[37:30] Folks, when we came to Christ, when I came to Christ, I came knowing because God Himself had convinced me. I came knowing that I was a lost, broken sinner on my way to hell.

[37:43] And I needed someone to rescue me from that. I had that knowledge. And I had that need. And I believe that Jesus Christ was and is the Son of God.

[37:57] I believe that He could cleanse me of my sin. I believe He could make me whole. He could make me spotless. He could make me blameless. Just as Jude says in his epistle, to Him who is able to present me faultless and blameless, He was speaking to believers when He said that.

[38:16] And I can be presented just as faultless and just as blameless as Christ one of these days. Not because of me and not because of what I have done, but because I will stand before God in the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

[38:31] I cannot stand there in my own righteousness because Isaiah says our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. There is no righteousness of mine that can make me pure, but the righteousness of Christ God is well pleased with and God will accept that.

[38:48] If I stand before Him in that righteousness, all will be well. Go thy way. And as thou hast believed, folks, when you came to God, when you came to God as you believed that you were a sinner and that God was the Savior, as you believed, so it was done unto you.

[39:07] So it was done unto you. Too many people and God helped. God helped too many people come to an altar. They'll walk an aisle. They'll be convinced of some other way of salvation.

[39:20] They'll be convinced of some other way of being in right standing with Almighty God. And as they believe that it's done that way unto them, but folks, it's a false gospel.

[39:31] It's a false doctrine. It's a false salvation. God helped us to get the truth in their ears. This centurion at some point had heard of Christ.

[39:43] He had heard of the miracles that Christ had worked. You flip over to Matthew 4, he was already healing the sick there. He was already doing mighty works. Then you have the sermon on the mount that he preached.

[39:55] Matthew 5 through Matthew 7. And without doubt, maybe that had gotten to this centurion soldier. He had just come down off the mountain the first few verses of this same chapter and healed a leper.

[40:07] I don't know if that centurion soldier knew that or not. But either way, he had heard of Christ. And he had heard what he was capable of. Folks, I heard of Christ and I heard what he was capable of.

[40:21] And I heard that he could wash sinners clean. And as I believed it, so it was done unto me. And I believed it as the Word says it, as the Word states it.

[40:32] That's the key. That's the key to true salvation is believing it as the Bible states it. Not as we want it on our own. Too many people, I preached this this past Wednesday night.

[40:45] There's too many people that burn incense to an image of themselves every day. They burn incense to an image of themselves. I'm not saying they stand in front of a mirror and they light incense.

[40:55] I'm saying they worship themselves. And they serve themselves. God, help us to serve You, God. Help us to serve Him.

[41:06] Help us to do it that way the way Scripture prescribes. And His servant was healed in the self-same hour. Boy, this puts to shame all these false prophets that we see on TV and that we see on YouTube.

[41:20] They'll swear up and down, come up here and we'll heal you and they'll lay hands upon them. And they'll say, now go home and you'll be healed. Folks, Christ never healed like that. When Christ healed, it was immediate.

[41:34] It was immediate. There is one exception to that in all of Scripture. But there's a whole other sermon in that and there was a reason for that. We won't get into that sermon tonight. But, there was a reason for that happening.

[41:47] But, every other time in Scripture you read of someone being healed, whether it was of a sickness, whether it was of the palsy, whether it was of being lame on their feet, whether it was the blind, regardless of who it was, whether it was this leper in verses 1-4.

[42:02] It was immediate. Jesus never once touched anyone and said, okay, go home and wait a little while and it'll go away. No, that didn't happen. The woman with the issue of blood, her issue was immediately dried up.

[42:16] Every demon that Jesus cast out, it was immediately cast out. But how many of us have acted like this centurion?

[42:27] Folks, we have right to because we belong to God. We belong to God and we have believed God. We believe the Word of God. We have been saved by God.

[42:39] Let us have the faith that this centurion did. Christ has already spoken. He's already said, thy sins be forgiven thee. He's already said, come unto me.

[42:51] He's already said, it is finished. Hallelujah. Let us go to Him and beseech on others' behalf. Let us beseech on the behalf of the lost, on behalf of the sick, on the behalf of afflicted, on behalf of the oppressed, on behalf of the church worldwide.

[43:11] Let us do as this centurion has done. God bless y'all. That's the message for this evening. I appreciate y'all's attention. Amen.