What is it mean?

The church of 1122 is a movement for all people to discover and deepen a relationship with Jesus Christ.

Welcome to our Lent podcast.

Good morning, 1122.

My name is John Berenger, campus pastor at our Arlington campus, and this Lent season, we are working through some of the miracles of Jesus recorded in the Gospels, seeing how each one of them points us to the greatest of all miracles, the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

The miracle of Jesus we're going to read today is found

in Matthew chapter 9, verses 32 to 35. Let's read. As they were going away, behold, a demon-oppressed man

who his mute was brought to him. And when the demon had been cast out, the mute man spoke,

and the crowds marveled, saying never was anything like this

scene in Israel. But the Pharisees said, he cast out demons by the prince of demons.

So backing up just a little bit in the gospel of Matthew, immediately following his famous

sermon on the Mount, Jesus begins to travel around Galilee, and Matthew records a series of nine

miracle stories, almost back to back. This which we just read being the final of those nine.

And the account itself is pretty short and self-explanatory. Jesus had just healed two blind men,

and while he's heading to the next city or village, he heals a mute man. This man was demon

oppressed. He's brought to Jesus. The demons cast out and the mute man speaks. The crowds marvel.

They've never seen anything like this. And the Pharisees, not envious at all, I'm sure, of Jesus and

his power, and not being able to deny the miraculous events that they themselves

and the whole crowd of people just witnessed, attribute Jesus to be in league with the demon.

That's how he was able to do this because he knows the demon. He's on the team of the demons.

But Jesus, he doesn't even seem to have time to rebuttal such a ridiculous claim,

and he just moves on to the next place

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