Matthew 8

Popes today don't marry.

Matthew 8 and verse 14 refers to Peter's mother-in-law.

Now, the counter to that is when people say, well, Peter's wife had died, so when he was involved in ministry, he was no longer married.

But the Bible doesn't mention that.

So let's look at the terms first.

The outer darkness passages, as I mentioned, there are only three where that phrase is used, and they're all in Matthew, and we're going to take them one by one, but they're in Matthew 8 when Jesus heals the centurion's servant, Matthew 22 and 25, both of which take place in that final week of Christ's life, Passion Week, when he's in Jerusalem for the Passover and ultimately becomes the Passover lamb as he's crucified, laid in a tomb, and resurrected the third day.

So one of those is in the parable of the wedding feast, Matthew 22, and then one is in the parable of the talents in Matthew 25.

So before we get to the actual text, what do these passages have in common? Well, they all three use the phrase outer darkness.

So darkness, outer darkness.

We'll get to the context here in a minute, but before, let's look at the other phrase that's a key phrase, weeping and gnashing of teeth.

um so the king james by the way calls this uh wailing so individually the words weeping and gnashing of course can have various meanings but uh and but you put them together and this phrase is used four additional times besides matthew 8 matthew 22 and matthew 25 in those outer darkness passages that we're looking at today um so uh and and that those are found by the way in Matthew 13, the parables of the kingdom, Matthew 24, the Olivet Discourse, and in Luke 13, Luke's account, or no, that's not Luke's account of the Olivet Discourse, Luke 13.

So, but you put them together, weeping and gnashing of teeth, and the phrase became in Greek this concept of regret, regret.

When you want to change something, have you ever noticed that people's philosophy or their theology and even people in the church is, you know, you've just got to learn to live with it.

Do you do what I do when I read commentaries and they always try to work at how you cannot believe the verse and what it's saying? I mean, they try to erase what the verse is saying.

And the main doctrines or the main points that you'll get out of a commentary is, well, you've got to learn to live with it.

You've got to learn to accept it.

You've got to learn to deal with it.

You've got to have the grace to keep it.

And that's the mentality that we go into most verses or most things that happen to us in our life.

But in Mark 11, 23, I want you to totally bury this theology on this particular verse.

Which is really, then, this is that beautiful thing about the missionary work that you were talking about of the focus missionaries gets us right into what Jesus does.

Jesus, in Matthew 8 and 9, he performs, you mentioned in your book, 10 miracles, where he kind of... shows what it's going to mean when he conquers human illnesses and frailties and often brings people back into worship, right? The leper can't worship, so he heals them of leprosy so he can come back to worship.

The person possessed by a demon can't worship.

So he heals them.

So he's healing for the sake of worshiping.

And then, if that's Matthew 8 and 9, then in Matthews 10, 11, and 12, he shares that authority with the apostles, and he sends them out.

So talk to us about Jesus' authority and how he shares it with the apostles.

Well, let me back up and even say, the way Matthew, and Matthew is so structured.

Now, one of the things that I didn't know was here as I was taking this apart, this same word...

Chepos is also used referring to two demon-possessed men in Matthew 8, verse 28.

When it talked about how that they were fierce, it's the same Greek word.

So the manifestation of these men and how fierce they were that was demonically empowered is the same word that Paul uses, how that's how difficult those times are going to be.