AT 8{In the miracles of the Lord Jesus, we have a testimony that God, full of goodness which can meet man's need, has visited the world. The power of God is manifested in goodness and grace. Where the need is felt, there the blessing is realized.
Matt. 8:1-4. The first one brought before us is a leper, a Jew who knows that the Lord has the power, but does not know His willingness to cleanse him. He put forth His hand and touched him, saying, "I will; be thou clean." And lo, the leprosy fled. Any other man would be defiled, but Jehovah-Jesus cleansed him by His touch. None but He could say, "I will"; His word declares it done. And the man is sent to Israel's priest (see Lev. 14), to offer an offering seldom used; for none but God could heal leprosy, and this to the priest bore witness that Emmanuel was come.
Matt. 8:5-13. Here we have the Gentile centurion's servant healed. It is God's purpose to bless Gentiles also. Luke tells us the centurion sent the elders of the Jews to Jesus. This was to show the Gentile's place as getting blessing through them. The centurion's faith was beyond Israel's; for owning his utter unworthiness, he owns the Lord as omnipotent, with all principalities and powers at His command. His faith gets its full answer.
Matt. 8:14, 15. Peter's wife's mother is raised out of a fever by the touch of His hand, and she arose and served Him. What a rest to her spirit to serve Him.
Matt. 8:16, 17. In the evening many were delivered from the power of demons, and healed of their sicknesses by His word, and Isa. 53:4, is fulfilled: "Himself took our infirmities, and bore our sicknesses." God was there delivering from the effects of sin and Satan's power; as another has said, "Jesus put Himself in heart under the weight of all the sorrows that oppressed Israel, in order to relieve and heal them.”
Matt. 8:18-22. He does not seek popularity, but to do the Father's will, so He gave commandment to depart to the other side. A scribe proposes to follow Him whithersoever He goeth. Then the truth comes out that He is a homeless stranger, with nowhere to lay His head, and those who follow Him, must be prepared for this. Another of His disciples said, "Suffer me first to go and bury my father," but the Lord's claims are above everything else. If we follow the Lord, we will lose our character as well as our comforts, but we are gainers in the end. (Matt. 19:29.)
Matt. 8:23-27. Then His disciples follow Him, but it leads into a storm where He does not seem to regard their danger. He is testing their faith. How doubting we are. They could not perish with Him in the ship. Can we? The Lord of glory cannot fail; there are no accidents with Him. It was a deep lesson of their unbelief, and His faithfulness, who can raise a storm and calm the winds and waves. What manner of Man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey Him?
Matt. 8:28-9:1. Here we have the power of Satan holding its victims, and how this poor world would rather be permitted to go on in its own way, living in sin, under the power of Satan and without God. (The gospel turns the world up-side down. Acts 17:6.) Jesus delivers this remnant who own Him as the Son of God, and the demons enter into the swine; a picture of apostate Israel, they rush on to their destruction. They that saw it, who kept the swine, fled and told it in the city, and the whole city came out, not to welcome Him, but besought Him to depart out of their coasts. And entering into a ship, He passed over and came to His own city.
To this day the world does not want the One they put out.