Life of Christ 44
Today’s story in the
life of Christ (Mark 1.23-34) finds us traveling with Jesus on His first
preaching tour of Galilee. For some time now He has been moving from town to
town, preaching in the local synagogues, and presenting His claim to be the
Messiah. Along the way, He has recently picked up three additional disciples,
Peter, James, and John.
The reaction is one of
incredulous amazement. They were already astonished at His authoritative method
of preaching, and now here He is exercising authority over unclean spirits.
‘And there were all amazed, and spake among themselves, saying, What a word is
this! For with authority and power he commandeth the unclean spirits, and they
come out’ (Luke 4.36). The result of this public deliverance was another wave
of fame, flowing out from Capernaum throughout Galilee.
Leaving the synagogue,
Jesus then takes the short walk to Peter’s house, and finds Peter’s mother in
law sick. Out of sheer compassion, He performs a private miracle, healing her
of her fever. Meanwhile, word has gotten around the area that He stayed in town
that night, and once the Sabbath ended at sundown on Saturday, and people were
free to travel, entire groups of them began showing up at Peter’s house. They
brought with them their sick loved ones, and those they knew that were
demonically afflicted or possessed. Jesus healed them all, including the
demonically possessed, whom He continued to command to hush about Him. This
persisted, hour after hour, late into the night.
I freely confess that
one aspect of this story used to trouble me greatly as a boy. If Jesus wanted
to publicize His claim to be the Messiah why in the world would He instruct
demons to be quiet when they brought it up? Wouldn’t allowing their testimony
be a further, and very convincing proof, of His claims?
The short answer is no.
Looking forward, while the Pharisees could not deny the validity of His
miracles, they could and did accuse Him of doing them in the devil’s power
rather than the Holy Spirit’s power. A wise Jesus saw this line of attack
coming. Allowing the demons to continue to testify of the accuracy of Jesus’
claims would have only established the Pharisees’ future attacks as accurate.
No, Jesus would not have wanted Israel to accept Him on the word of unclean
spirits; He wanted to be accepted on the basis of His own words and works and
life.
Mark Twain once famously said that the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was to convince the world that he didn’t exist. After all, how can you win a war that you insist isn’t actually being fought? The psychiatrists of our day insist the demonic world doesn’t exist. At the very same time they are vigorously writing prescriptions to deaden the symptoms of demon possession in the minds and bodies of their patients. The medical professionals of our day insist the demonic world doesn’t exist. At the same time they are physically restraining their insane patients behind locked doors in the padded rooms of mental wards. The Chicago Police Department of our day insists the demonic world doesn’t exist. At the same they are striving to defend our citizens from crazed people, hopped up on drugs, who cut heads off and then sit down in the front yard to play an Ipad until the police arrive.
Mark Twain once famously said that the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was to convince the world that he didn’t exist. After all, how can you win a war that you insist isn’t actually being fought? The psychiatrists of our day insist the demonic world doesn’t exist. At the very same time they are vigorously writing prescriptions to deaden the symptoms of demon possession in the minds and bodies of their patients. The medical professionals of our day insist the demonic world doesn’t exist. At the same time they are physically restraining their insane patients behind locked doors in the padded rooms of mental wards. The Chicago Police Department of our day insists the demonic world doesn’t exist. At the same they are striving to defend our citizens from crazed people, hopped up on drugs, who cut heads off and then sit down in the front yard to play an Ipad until the police arrive.
I’m convinced that much
of what happens in the natural world is simply an outgrowth of what happens in
the spiritual world, and my study of the life of Christ has only intensified
that belief. There are only two choices: either all this talk of demons and
devils and unclean spirits was only limited to Jesus’ time, or they are still
around today, afflicting, oppressing, and possessing people. I strongly believe
the latter, not the former.
How did these Jews to
whom Jesus ministered become demonically possessed? Were they born that way?
No, somehow that unclean spirit was invited into the life of that individual.
Just behind my garage are five large trash cans lined up along the alley. They
hold all the garbage that is produced in our church and in our home. Hundreds
of other large trash cans line this same alley. We also have a plague of rats.
Curiously enough, those two things often go together, garbage and rats, and
where you have garbage piled up, and left uncared for, you always find more
rats. As the Jewish society of Jesus’ day became increasingly filled with
spiritual garbage it shouldn’t shock us at all that it drew more and more rats,
so to speak.
The same thing is true
in our time. In my experience, there are numbers of people who not only allow
heaps of unconfessed known sin in their life, thus drawing rats, but they also
often open doors in their heart and mind to these unclean spirits. They do not,
like the palm reader one block away from my church building, do so consciously,
but even unconsciously those windows to the soul still open. Unclean music, for
example, pours into your mind and an unclean spirit comes with it. Many other
examples could be given.
These things, these open
doors and windows to the world of unclean spirits, have no place in the life of
God’s people. ‘Moreover the workers with familiar spirits, and the wizards, and
the images, and the idols, and all the abominations that were spied in the land
of Judah and in Jerusalem, did Josiah put away, that he might perform the words
of the law which were written in the book that Hilkiah the priest found in the
house of the Lord’ (II Kings 23.24). Besides frequent proscriptions in the Old
Testament we find even in the New Testament stories, such as the one in Acts
19, of God’s people eliminating such things from their lives.
The solution, however,
is not just to clean up the garbage and close the windows and doors of access
to our mind. The solution now is the same as the solution then – Jesus. Unclean
spirits are beings to fear, creatures from humanities darkest nightmares of the
soul, but Jesus has more power than they do (Luke 4.36). This is the same Jesus
in Whom we are, and Whom is in us when we are saved (I John 4.4). As we draw
close to Him we will find the cure for the physical, mental, and emotional
problems caused by demonic oppression. Medicine, psychiatry, and
hospitalization cannot cure what are, at their roots, spiritual problems. Only
Jesus can.
What a word is this! For
with authority and power he commandeth the unclean spirits, and they come out.
If you would like to listen to the audio version of this blog you can find it here on our church website. Just press 'launch media player' and choose We Preach Christ 19, 'Even the Unclean Spirits Do Obey Him.'
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