Luke 5:1-26: Jesus Begins To Call Disciples Then Heals A
Leper And A Crippled Man”
By
1.
INTRO:
1.1.
In our last study, we looked
at verse 14 of chapter 4 through the end of the chapter.
1.1.1. We saw that Luke chronicled the beginning of Jesus’ ministry occurring
when Jesus came back to His home town of
1.1.2. After this, Jesus went to
1.1.3. Luke’s strategy in this gospel of Jesus we saw was to demonstrate the
many witnesses of Jesus. We mentioned
then that we have already seen many witnesses such as Gabrielle and the angels,
Mary, Zacharias, Elizabeth, shepherds, Simeon, Anna, John the Baptist,
etc. Then, we observed the witness of
demons. We saw that throughout Jesus’
ministry that demons consistently recognized Jesus as being the Son of God and
Messiah. Jesus would make the demons be
quiet as He cast them out because He did not care for the testimony of demons.
1.1.4. As Jesus began His public ministry we saw that there were a variety of
responses to Him. Some accepted His
ministry and others rejected Him.
1.2.
Today, we are going to look
at the first 26 verses of chapter 5.
1.2.1. We will see how that Jesus now begins to call His first disciples to
Himself.
1.2.2. We will see then that Jesus heals a leper.
1.2.3. Then, we will see Jesus heal a paralytic on his bed who is brought to Him
by some of the man’s friends who lower the man to Jesus down through a roof on
a housetop.
2. VS 5:1-11 - “1 Now it happened that while the crowd was
pressing around Him and listening to the word of God, He was standing by the
lake of Gennesaret; 2 and He saw two boats lying at the edge of the
lake; but the fishermen had gotten out of them and were washing their nets. 3
And He got into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, and asked him to put
out a little way from the land. And He sat down and began teaching the
people from the boat. 4 When He had finished speaking, He said to
Simon, “ Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch .” 5
Simon answered and said, “Master, we worked hard all night and caught
nothing, but I will do as You say and let down the nets.” 6 When
they had done this, they enclosed a great quantity of fish, and their nets began
to break; 7 so they signaled to their partners in the other boat
for them to come and help them. And they came and filled both of the boats, so that
they began to sink. 8 But when Simon Peter saw that, he fell
down at Jesus’ feet, saying, “Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man, O
Lord!” 9 For amazement had seized him and all his companions because
of the catch of fish which they had taken; 10 and so also were James
and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to
Simon, “ Do not fear , from now on you will be catching men .” 11 When
they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed Him.” - Jesus performs a miracle with a catch of fish
and uses this incident to call the first disciples to Himself
2.1.
There were apparently at
least three callings of these first disciples by Jesus, Luke does not include
any prior callings of these disciples by Jesus:
2.1.1. In Matt. 4:18-22 and Mark 1:16-20 these men were busy fishing however
they had not fished all night having caught nothing, as Luke’s account tells
us. In that calling by Jesus of these
men, they were summoned by Jesus to follow Him, however that following was a
following of discipleship only.
2.1.1.1. Here in Luke is recorded Jesus’ vocational calling of these first
disciples. When Jesus calls the men in
Luke’s accounts they leave their vocation of catching fish to walk with and be
with Jesus.
2.1.2. John in his gospel, John 1:35-51, includes a calling of these disciples
that I believe was prior to the calling found in Matt. 4:18-22 and Mark
1:16-20. In John’s account Andrew was a
disciple of John the Baptist and when Jesus came into their
2.2.
These accounts in Luke
indicate that Jesus must have called these disciples before the incidents of
this story, for it is clear that Simon Peter is already a follower of Jesus as
he calls Jesus ‘Master.’
2.3.
Here we see that Jesus was
at the shore of the ‘
2.4.
Jesus was preaching or
teaching God’s Word to the multitude that surrounded Him and thus its says here
that the crowd was ‘listening to the word of God.”
2.5.
These fishermen were washing
their nets. According to Warren Wiersbe
if fishing nets are not washed, stretched, and hung out to dry after using then
they will rot.
2.6.
Jesus chooses to get into
Peter’s boat here, revealing Jesus’ conscious choice of Peter to be a vessel
for Him to use and work through.
2.7.
The fishermen present were
at the very least Simon (Peter) and Andrew and James and John (the sons of Zebedee). Perhaps there were as many as 7 of Jesus’ 12
disciples who were fishermen, and all of these could have been present.
2.8.
Jesus decides that He wants
to teach the multitude who are gathered to Him there on the water’s edge and He
determines that if He got into a boat and put out just a little from the shore
He could sit down there and teach the multitude who were gathered on the
shore. I understand from those who have
visited the
2.9.
Jesus decides on this
occasion to reveal His “omniscience” and “ability to guide” His
people by performing a miracle. He tells
Simon to put the boat out into the deep water and to let down the nets for a
catch. Now, fishermen in
2.10.
Simon Peter tries initially
to tell Jesus that putting out the nets after they had fished all night and
caught nothing would be futile. You can
almost sense that under his breath Simon Peter is thinking, “What does this
carpenter think he knows about fishing?”
Then, Simon Peter determines to obey His teacher’s command and to put
down the nets as Jesus’ described.
2.11.
If Simon Peter hadn’t obeyed
what was to him a seemingly foolish or unimportant command to put out the boat
into deeper water and lower the nets, he would have missed out seeing Jesus
perform this incredible miracle. But
Peter submitted to Jesus’ authority even though he had no clue how things would
turn out or what the Lord was up to. How
this ought to encourage our hearts to simple obedience to the Lord and His
every command, even when we don’t understand what He is doing.
2.12.
Jesus had perfect knowledge
about the location of fish on this day and thus the nets filled up with fish to
the extent that they were being stretched to the point of almost breaking. Simon Peter signals to his other partners,
James and John the sons of Zebedee, to come and help. The men get all of the fish into two boats
and there is such a huge catch that the boats are beginning to sink.
2.13.
This miracle of Jesus’ is
one more piece of evidence to the disciples of who Jesus is, the Son of God
from all eternity, the promised Messiah.
2.13.1.
Simon Peter first falls upon
his knees before Jesus in recognition of being in the presence of the Lord and
also in a display of humble submission to Jesus, God’s instrument.
2.13.2.
Simon Peter realizes that he
is in the presence of One who is more than a man. He is not yet ready to make his great
confession, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God,” for this is still
too far above his understanding.
However, Simon Peter does realize that God is in and with Jesus and that
Jesus is holy and unique above all men.
2.13.3.
Simon Peter senses the grace
of God working on his behalf in giving him this huge catch of fish, especially
as he recognizes his own sinfulness and unworthiness to receive such great
things from the Lord.
2.14.
The miracle by Jesus causes
Simon Peter to be aware of his own sinfulness in the presence of a holy
God. He then asks Jesus to depart from
him for he is a sinful man. Conviction
of sin and a sense of unworthiness is an essential point for every disciple of
Jesus’ to come to. Without this
realization of unworthiness a person can never come to have saving faith in
Jesus.
2.15.
Jesus tells Simon Peter not
to fear for now on he will no longer be fishing for fish but for men. Then, Jesus called these men to leave their
vocation to come and be with Him in full time service, and they left their nets
and evidently even the whole catch of fish and followed Jesus.
2.16.
Before we leave discussion
of this miracle of the catch of fish we ought to consider for a moment the fact
that this story reveals some spiritual principles:
2.16.1.
This story reveals that
Jesus’ calling for His disciples is to be fishers of men. We in the church have been given the Great
Commission to go and preach the gospel to all of the nations making disciples
and teaching them to observe all that is written in God’s word.
2.16.2.
The Lord is the Lord of the
harvest. He is the One who knows where
and how to catch fish for Him. We in the
church need to look to Jesus to guide us as to where we go and how we are
supposed to fish for souls for Him. We
desperately need Jesus’ omniscience and leading in this area of evangelistic
ministry.
2.17.
It is interesting that Jesus
repeats this miracle for Simon Peter after His resurrection and when Simon
Peter is down and dejected. Jesus then
again calls Simon Peter to follow Him, asking Peter to feed His sheep.
3. VS 5:12-14 - “12 While He was in one of the cities, behold, there was a man covered
with leprosy; and when he saw Jesus, he fell on his face and implored Him,
saying, “Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.” 13 And He
stretched out His hand and touched him, saying, “I am willing ; be cleansed .”
And immediately the leprosy left him. 14 And He ordered him to tell
no one, “But go and show yourself to the priest and make an offering for your
cleansing , just as Moses commanded , as a testimony to them.”” - Jesus heals a leper
3.1.
Again in
3.2.
By the descriptions of Leprosy
in the Old Testament Darrell Bock claims that several skin disorders were
categorized as leprosy, including psoriasis, lupus, ringworm, favus, and
Hansen’s Disease (Bacillus leprae- which today is referred to as
leprosy).
3.3.
Hansen’s Disease causes
lesions and swollen areas in the skin and can cause nerve damage. When the nerves have been damaged by this
disease there is a loss of feeling and this leads to careless accidents that
can result in the loss of digits and limbs.
According to Warren Wiersbe there are approximately 10 million people in
the world today with Hansen’s Disease.
3.4.
Lepers in
3.5.
Notice here that this leper
broke the Law of Moses concerning quarantine and came up to Jesus. He came up to Jesus because he felt the Lord
was his only hope, plus he had heard of the incredible healings that Jesus had
been performing.
3.6.
More importantly, notice
that Jesus did not turn this leper away or rebuke him in any way for breaking
the Law and coming up to Him. Jesus
loved men for He always reached out to those in need and never turned any away
who came to Him in a time of need.
3.7.
Jesus could have spoken a
word and healed this man, and in fact could have performed this healing by many
different means. Jesus though was even
willing to contaminate Himself in order to show His personal concern for this
leper by “touching him” to heal him.
3.8.
This leprous man has genuine
faith in Jesus to be able to heal him for he does not question Jesus’ ability
to heal him but rather only Jesus’ willingness to do so.
3.9.
In the gospels we see that
Jesus never turns any away who come to Him for healing. Here he tells this leper that He is ‘willing’
to heal him.
3.10.
It has been said that all of
Jesus’ healings are also parables that teach us about Jesus’ spiritual
restoration of sinful men and women. By
touching this leper, Jesus revealed that He is willing to receive sinful men to
Himself and reach out and touch them by His love, bringing the healing and
restoration of salvation to their lives.
3.10.1.
We in the church need to be
careful that we are willing to reach out to sinners in love as Jesus did. We must not worry about becoming soiled by
getting to know a lost person so that we might be able to share God’s love with
him. We must not be so turned off by a
person’s sinful lifestyle that we are not willing to go to him/her and tell
him/her in love about the love of God for them that sent Jesus to the cross of
Calvary on their behalf to pay the debt of their sins so that they can be
forgiven and have eternal life.
3.11.
Note that God healed even in
Old Testament times and thus made provision for healing in the Law of
Moses. The process of being released from
quarantine if one were healed from leprosy was a week long process. Darrell Bock writes the following about this
process, “The process began with two birds, one of which was sacrificed,
while the other was released after being dipped in the blood of the sacrificed
bird. The person was sprinkled seven
times with the blood of the sacrificed bird.
The entire ritual portrayed the cleansing and removal of sin. On the eighth day, a sacrifice was required,
either two lambs or, if one was poor, a lamb and two doves.”
3.12.
Jesus commands this leper to
tell no one about Jesus’ healing of him but to go according to the Law of Moses
and make an offering to the priest.
There has been much speculation about why Jesus did not want this man to
testify of Jesus’ healing of him, including:
3.12.1.
Jesus wanted the man to
follow the Law at this point which meant for him to go back to quarantine until
the week for his purification was completed.
3.12.2.
With the crowds beginning to
gather so intensely around Jesus He didn’t want to get more publicity at this
point.
3.13.
We see here that Jesus
wanted this man to go to the priest and to testify about his healing
however. We will see later in the book
of Acts that many of the priests had begun to believe in Jesus, and it is
perhaps the case that the testimonies of lepers who had been healed by Jesus
was a big reason for them coming to faith.
4. VS 5:15-16 - “15 But the news about Him was spreading even farther, and large crowds were
gathering to hear Him and to be healed of their sicknesses. 16 But
Jesus Himself would often slip away to the wilderness and pray.” - Large crowds were gathering
to Jesus to hear Him preach and to be healed of sickness, however it was Jesus’
habit to always go off by Himself into the wilderness and pray
4.1.
Jesus popularity at this
point in time was growing in epic proportions.
People all across
4.2.
The healed leper went out
though and instead of obeying Jesus he began testifying far and wide about his
healing, as Mark 1:45 tells us, “45 But he went out
and began to proclaim it freely and to spread the news around, to such an
extent that Jesus could no longer publicly enter a city, but stayed out in
unpopulated areas; and they were coming to Him from everywhere.”
4.3.
Luke makes it a point throughout his gospel to
mention that Jesus was regularly slipping away to spend time with the Lord in
prayer (see also Luke 3:21; 6:12; 9:18, 28-29; 11:1; 23:46). Here it says that Jesus ‘would often slip
away’ to be alone with the Lord and pray.
5. VS 5:17-26 - “17 One day He was teaching; and there were some Pharisees and teachers
of the law sitting there, who had come from every village of Galilee and
Judea and from Jerusalem; and the power of the Lord was present for
Him to perform healing. 18 And some men were carrying
on a bed a man who was paralyzed; and they were trying to bring him in and to
set him down in front of Him. 19 But not finding any way to
bring him in because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and let him down
through the tiles with his stretcher, into the middle of the crowd, in
front of Jesus. 20 Seeing their faith, He said, “ Friend , your sins
are forgiven you.” 21 The scribes and the Pharisees began to reason,
saying, “Who is this man who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins,
but God alone?” 22 But Jesus, aware of their reasonings, answered
and said to them, “ Why are you reasoning in your hearts ? 23 “
Which is easier , to say , ‘Your sins have been forgiven you,’ or to say , ‘
Get up and walk ’? 24 “But, so that you may know that the Son of Man
has authority on earth to forgive sins ,”—He said to the paralytic— “I say to
you, get up, and pick up your stretcher and go home .” 25 Immediately
he got up before them, and picked up what he had been lying on, and went home
glorifying God. 26 They were all struck with astonishment and began
glorifying God; and they were filled with fear, saying, “We have seen
remarkable things today.”” - Jesus heals a paralytic whose
friends lower him down to Jesus on a stretcher through the roof of the building
where Jesus was teaching
5.1.
Mark 2:1 tells us that this
miracle occurred in
5.2.
Jesus’ popularity has now
reached such proportions that the religious authorities from every village in
Galilee and Judea are very interested and concerned about Him, and thus a group
from every village comes to hear Jesus on this day. These men are the “gate keepers” in
5.3.
There were four religious
groups among the Jews in Jesus’ day:
Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, and Zealots.
5.3.1. Pharisees ( a word that means “separate” ) were sort of the
fundamentalist or orthodox branch of the Jews and they focused upon strict
adherence to the Law and separation from anything pagan. However, because they thought that the Law
was vague on many points they added to the Law many other laws that determined
whether or not a person was truly obeying the Law.
5.3.2. The Sadducees were the upper class of society and often were important
civic leaders. They were more secular in
nature than fundamental concerning the scriptures, and, they didn’t believe in
the afterlife.
5.4.
Some Pharisees and teachers
of the Law come to see and hear Jesus on this day. The teachers of the Law of Moses were called
“scribes,” and they were usually of the Pharisaic party. The scribes could rule concerning
interpretation of matters of the Law, however they often disagreed amongst
themselves on their interpretations.
5.5.
It is Jesus’ intention to
reveal to the crowd, including these religious authorities in attendance, that
His ministry has indeed come from God.
Therefore, Jesus attempts through the miracle He now performs to show
that His miracles verify who He is and that He being the Son of God has
authority even to forgive people of their sins, something that the Lord alone
has authority to perform.
5.6.
Luke tells us here that ‘the
power of the Lord was present for Him to perform healing.” Jesus is being led of the Lord and as the
Lord works through Jesus He is able to perform works of healings.
5.7.
This miracle is also a story
about the persevering faith and love of friends who are concerned about this
man. These men believed that Jesus could
heal this paralytic and thus they are diligent to persevere in finding a way to
get the man to Jesus. Because of his
paralysis, this man himself is unable to get to Jesus in order that he might
get healed. However, the man’s friends
carry him on a stretcher hoping to bring him to Jesus. Seeing that the masses are surrounding Jesus,
who is teaching in a house, they come up with a plan of how to get the man to
Jesus and then tenaciously work to see him brought to Jesus.
5.8.
Houses in
5.9.
Other than that they dug a
hole through the roof, we aren’t told exactly how these resourceful and
tenacious men of faith concocted a way to lower the man on his bed down to
Jesus.
5.10.
Notice here that Jesus says
that it is because of the faith of the man’s friends that He forgave this man,
not because of the faith of the man himself.
This ought to be an encouragement to the church to be soul winners. Our faith and perseverance in reaching out to
people in this world with the gospel as the Lord leads us will be rewarded by
our bearing of fruit for God’s kingdom.
5.11.
Sin paralyzes people and on
their own they usually will not come to the Lord. They need good friends who will bring them to
Jesus.
5.12.
Jesus intentionally forgave
the man’s sins first so that He might then heal the man to give confirmation to
the fact that He indeed has the power to forgive people of their sins.
5.13.
Jesus always sees the deeper
needs in our lives. This man not only
needed to be healed physically, he needed a spiritual healing by Jesus. He needed to have his sins forgiven and then
be restored to fellowship with the Lord and receive eternal life.
5.14.
Knowing the reasonings of
the Jewish religious authorities at Jesus’ claim to forgive the sins of men,
Jesus asks the people there which was harder for Him to do, to forgive sins or
to tell the man to get up and walk? The
obvious answer is that anyone can claim to have the ability to forgive
someone’s sins, however to heal a paralytic is a much harder thing to do. Only God to do such a work.
5.15.
In order that the people
might know that He has authority to forgive sins, Jesus tells the man to get up
pick up his bed and go home. The man is
immediately healed and then proceeds to carry out Jesus’ command and carry his
bed home. This is an incredible complete
and instantaneous healing of the man which even reversed the atrophy of his
muscles which had occurred over time.
5.15.1.
I had a friend once who was
in a comma for a year and when she came out of the comma her muscles had
atrophied to the point that she could talk, walk, or even crawl. She had to relearn how to do all of that
stuff.
5.16.
As happened continually when
Jesus healed, Luke tells us here that the people were ‘struck with astonishment.’ Not
only so, the people also ‘began glorifying God.’
5.17.
The people went away knowing
that they had ‘seen remarkable
things’ on this day.
5.18.
The Pharisees and scribes went away believing that Jesus blasphemed the
Lord by claiming to forgive sin since this is something that only the Lord can
do. They were right that only the Lord
can forgive sins, however they were wrong because they didn’t realize that
Jesus was deity in human flesh, the very Son of God from all eternity, the
third person of the Trinity. Jesus will begin soon to have many
confrontations with the Pharisees and scribes and it is the charge of blasphemy
for which Jesus will eventually be crucified.
6. CONCLUSIONS:
6.1.
As we consider the events described
in this study we ought to first of all remember from the miracle catch of fish
and vocational calling of the first disciples that the Lord has called us to be
fishers of men. We are also called to
look to the Lord of the harvest to lead us in the winning of souls to the Lord.
6.2.
As we consider the healing
of the leper we need to remember that Jesus desires to reach out to sinners and
He is even willing to contaminate Himself by touching them, and thus we too
need to show our concern for the lost of this world and reach out to them in
love and with the gospel.
6.3.
As we consider the healing
of the paralytic who was carried and lowered by his friends down from a roof to
Jesus for healing, we need to realize the importance of bringing people to
Jesus. We need to be tenacious,
persevering, and even creative in how we go about bringing lost people to the
Lord.