Jesus vs Demons, pt2 (Mark 3:22-27) | 6/2/19
Mark 3:22-27 | 6/2/19 | Will DuVal
I want to talk even MORE about demons! If you missed church TWO weeks ago, we started part 1 of this 2-part mini-series “Jesus vs Demons” within our OVERARCHING series “Rooted” through the Gospel of Mark. And because many of us said we’d never HEARD a sermon on the subject of demons before - which is UNFORTUNATE, considering they show up on nearly every PAGE of the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) – I want to try and swing the pendulum back a bit this morning, and I’m preaching a whole SECOND sermon on the topic! So we’ll pick up where we left off, but first, let’s quickly recap our main points from part 1. SIX points. Six things to know about demons, to which we’ll add another six this morning.
RECAP
For starters, demons are REAL. Scripture clearly attests to these “powers and principalities”, “spiritual forces of evil”, “cosmic powers of darkness over this present age” that are NOT all ultimately reducible to natural explanations. Attempts to demythologize the Bible are at best fruitless and at worst, heretical, because we serve an inherently SUPER-natural God, who tells us our battle is also NOT against “flesh and blood”, but is in fact, a spiritual battle. Demons are real.
Second – they are RELEVANT... to US... in 21st c. America. Demons aren’t just the stuff of Hollywood horror films and primitive, over-spiritualized peoples. They are HERE. And just because they use a different STRATEGY today, a quite EFFECTIVE strategy, of convincing us we no longer need to be concerned with them, of lulling the church to sleep, of distracting the church itself into irrelevancy, that doesn’t mean that Satan is irrelevant. He may be more relevant than ever. Even if he is more SUBTLE. Remember: “The most common path to hell unsettles the least.” So the apostle Peter exhorts us to “Be alert! Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” He was roaring in Peter’s day, but he’s a silent killer these days. So the Church must stay on guard.
We must, #3 – be READY. We need EQUIPPING – spiritual equipping – to fight this spiritual battle. Paul urges us “Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.” (Eph 6:11) So we go to our ultimate source of equipping – God’s word – which IS our belt of truth, our sword of the Spirit. We turn to SCRIPTURE for answers on how to understand and combat against the demonic. And even if we restrict our study to the Gospel of Mark alone, there are at least nine different takeaways from nine separate passages we can glean.
The first, from Mark ch.1, was the core truth that demons submit to Jesus. THAT is the most important thing of ALL to know – demons submit to JESUS. HE has ultimate authority over them, and us, and over the entire UNIVERSE - Matthew 28:18, Jesus says “ALL authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me,” so then it’s no WONDER we read in Mark 1, that: “He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him?!” (v27) Because “By[f] him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. ” (Col 1:16) – And we examined Job 1-2, where God grants Satan limited permission to inflict pain on Job within God’s sovereign boundaries for Job’s good and for God’s glory. GOD is the ultimate authority. HE holds Satan’s leash. HE is sovereign, and working even Satan’s EVIL together for good for those who love Him and are called according to HIS purpose, Romans 8:28. THAT is the most foundational truth we cling to in this discussion about demons – they submit to Jesus.
#2 – Second, we saw that casting OUT demons... DEFEATING them, was a key part of Jesus’ mission. He came not just to preach the Kingdom of God, but to actually ADVANCE it through his life and actions, PUSHING back the darkness in our world, RECLAIMING territory that Satan once held dominion over, setting FREE the captives who were once enslaved to Satan’s rule, THAT is why Jesus came, Luke 4:18. The worst OPPRESSION in this world is not OF this world – it’s NOT physical oppression (human trafficking, sex slavery) – as AWFUL as these things are, they are manifestations of a much DEEPER, more ETERNAL problem – the enslavement of the human heart to SIN. The oppression of people’s SOULS by Satan. The most fatal EXpression of O-ppression, is SPIRITUAL. So we pray and ask the Lord to give US the SPIRITUAL eyes to see people as HE sees them, not as comfortable West County folk who mostly have it all together, but as ENSLAVED, in spiritual BONDAGE, spiritually imPOVERISHed, eternally DESTITUTE before a holy, perfect God, if they do not know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior and Liberator. And we proclaim Christ crucified, because Evangelism is our spiritual warfare.
And finally, #3 – we noted from Mark 3:11-12 that demons are EXCELLENT theologians. They know all the right doctrine about Jesus. They just don’t FAITH in him. TRUST in Him. SURRENDER to him, confess Him as Lord, Rom. 10:9. And so I warned us against thinking that our good theology will save us. It is JESUS, and our personal RELATIONSHIP of faith WITH Him, that alone can save us. Eph 2:8-9
SO! To those 6 points about demons, let’s add 6 more; ready?!
#4 – Demons are POWERFUL. Look with me at ch.3, vv22-27
22 The scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, “He [Jesus] is possessed by Beelzebul,” and “by the prince of demons he casts out the demons.” 23 And he called them to him and said to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan? 24 If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. 25 And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. 26 And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but is coming to an end. 27 But no one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. Then indeed he may plunder his house.
Now, there are LOTS of insights we could pull out from this passage, like, the main point that Jesus isn’t possessed by Satan, But one of the major implications of this passage is that Satan is actually POWERFUL. The idea that Jesus’ MIRACLES could have even possibly been attributable to Satan’s power... Jesus himself acknowledges that Satan still has a kingdom; that he’s still alive and well in this world for now; that Jesus alludes to Satan as the “strong man” – in ALL of these ways, Satan’s POWER is actually confirmed here in Mark 3. And these scribes, of ALL people, should be familiar with Satan’s power, because they were operating under the direct INFLUENCE of it – John 8:41-44, Jesus calls them CHILDREN of their father, the devil.
And that is perhaps the scariest thing of all for us to consider: not only is there real, supernatural, dangerous power in the demonic, but it’s actually available to US. In the same way that a person can be filled with the HOLY Spirit, so too, a person can be filled with UNCLEAN spirits, even today, and that POWER is undeniable. I could give you examples from Scripture – Ex. 7:22; 1 Sam 28; Acts 19:16 – I could give you stories from lived experience TODAY, but without DISTRACTING from the main point here, we need to see that there is real demonic power, and there ARE doorways INTO that power that God explicitly warns us against, esp. in Deut. 18:9-14 – “divination, fortune-telling, omen- interpreting, sorcery,11 a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead...” And we should add all sorts of other dark practices that have developed in the 3,500 years since then: séances, PSI, ESP, consulting psychics, spell-casting, ouija boards, astrology, horoscopes, the list goes on: God says, “Don’t go NEAR it!” Christians don’t DABBLE with that junk. Not because there isn’t power in it, but because there IS. But it’s power that is NOT from the Lord.
And yet, Jesus ALSO reminds us here, in v27 – “I’m about to “bind” the strong man, Satan” – to disarm him...
Col. 1:13 “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son.”
I had a congregant approach me after the sermon 2 weeks ago and tell me that SHE used to be caught up in ALL this stuff and had to actually be DELIVERED from evil spirits. Friends, this is not an African problem. It’s here; it’s real. And we must wake up.
#5 – We turn to MARK 5, vv1-20:
They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes.[a] 2 And when Jesus[b] had stepped out of the boat, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit. 3 He lived among the tombs. And no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain, 4 for he had often been bound with shackles and chains, but he wrenched the chains apart, and he broke the shackles in pieces. No one had the strength to subdue him. 5 Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones. 6 And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and fell down before him. 7 And crying out with a loud voice, he said, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.”8 For he was saying to him, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!” 9 And Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” He replied, “My name is Legion, for we are many.” 10 And he begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country.11 Now a great herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, 12 and they begged him, saying, “Send us to the pigs; let us enter them.” 13 So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered the pigs; and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the sea.
14 The herdsmen fled and told it in the city and in the country. And people came to see what it was that had happened. 15 And they came to Jesus and saw the demon-possessed[c] man, the one who had had the legion, sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid. 16 And those who had seen it described to them what had happened to the demon-possessed man and to the pigs. 17 And they began to beg Jesus[d] to depart from their region. 18 As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed with demons begged him that he might be with him. 19 And he did not permit him but said to him, “Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.” 20 And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him, and everyone marveled.
Again: there’s SO much there – this is actually the longest story about demons in all of Scripture – but let’s just pull out 2 principles: first of all, demons are enslaving. And they’re also PERSONAL, by the way. They aren’t abstract, nebulous beings out there in the ether – they have names. “Legion”. “Satan”. “Beelzebub”. “Belial”.
Today, we have names for our demons as well. The things that ENSLAVE us. We talk about ADDICTION in those terms - the DEMON of alcoholism. Of drug addiction. Pornography addiction. Screen addiction. Smart phone addiction. And there are SO MANY parallels between the enslavement of addiction, and how Mark describes the Gerasene demoniac here-
“IMMEDIATELY as Jesus steps off the boat, the man meets him” – most addicts want help. As much as they feel the NEED to keep using, deep down they want to be free.
We hear “He lived among the tombs” – we know addiction FEEDS off of isolation. Healing and recovery are found only in community with others. So what does Jesus do for this guy in v19: he sends him back HOME. Jesus RESTORES him to community.
“no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain... he broke the shackles in pieces. No one had the strength to subdue him” – man, if that’s not a perfect description for the POWER of addiction... It’s enslavement. And it’s bigger than your power to overcome it on your own. Please don’t tune me out here just because you’ve never checked into a 12-step program. I’m convinced that we ALL battle addiction to SOMETHING: Materialism. Stuff. Addiction to WORK. Success. Status. FAMILY. Your SELF. Your comfort - You NEED things to be easy for you. Control - You LOVE things to go according to your plan. You NEED them to. We’re ALL addicted to something. And friends, in your OWN power, you are power-LESS against that sin struggle.
As the saying goes, we ALL have our demons. I don’t know what YOUR demons are, I know mine, but here’s what I DO know about yours: Jesus has the power to SET. YOU. FREE. Do you believe that this morning? That whatever “demon” you came here wrestling with this morning, that Jesus KNOWS about it, that he CARES about it, because he cares about YOU, that he has the POWER to overcome it, and that he wants to set you free. Do you believe that?
Maybe he’ll do for you that this morning, in a single moment of supernatural deliverance like Mark 5. Maybe you came in addicted to pornography, and you’ll come forward after the service to pray with one of our elders, and you’ll leave completely delivered – you’ll never even be TEMPTED by that garbage again.
But maybe your experience of deliverance will be more like Paul’s in 2 Cor 12, who said “a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. ” (vv7-9) And perhaps God will allow that thorn to remain in YOUR flesh as well, purposely, benevolently to make you more dependent on Him. On HIS power in your weakness. On HIS grace in your failures.
Regardless of what deliverance looks like for you, you need to know God allows these demons in our lives for HIS glory. He gets glory from demonstrating his all-surpassing power to cast out demons in an instant, and he gets glory, sometimes even MORE glory, from demonstrating his all-sustaining power to ALLOW demons to continue to afflict us, in order to show that HIS strength is sufficient in OUR weakness. Either way, God gets the glory. And THAT’s what it’s all about, right: not our comfort, but HIS glory. Amen?
#6 – Demons also answer to JESUS’ FOLLOWERS. Mark 6:7-13
7 And he called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits... And they cast out many demons and anointed with oil many who were sick and healed them.
John Mehn, our missionary to Japan, is going to guest preach on this passage in July, so I won’t steal his thunder, but I’ll say this: Jesus SHARES his authority over demons with his followers. So if and when you encounter demons in this world, Christian - you need to know that. That the same power that raised Jesus from the dead now lives in you, and it’s more potent than the most powerful force of Hell out there. GOD’S Spirit raises people from the dead. GOD’S Spirit says, “LEAVE” and the demons flee. You don’t need to call an exorcist; the exorcist lives in YOU. If you’ve been spiritually reborn through...
#7 – FAITH. Demon’s hate FAITH. Mark 7:24-30
24 And from there he arose and went away to the region of Tyre and Sidon.[g] And he entered a house and did not want anyone to know, yet he could not be hidden. 25 But immediately a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit heard of him and came and fell down at his feet. 26 Now the woman was a Gentile, a Syrophoenician by birth. And she begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. 27 And he said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.” 28 But she answered him, “Yes, Lord; yet even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs.” 29 And he said to her, “For this statement you may go your way; the demon has left your daughter.” 30 And she went home and found the child lying in bed and the demon gone.
This is another sermon I’m saving for later, but the big picture takeaway is: demons hate faith. And that’s exactly what Jesus is doing here: testing this woman’s FAITH. And she PASSES with flying colors. So much so, that Jesus says “FOR your faith, FOR this statement of TRUST in me – you may go your way, the demon has already left your daughter.”
He DOESN’T say if you have enough faith, bad things will never happen to you. He DOESN’T say if you ARE suffering, it must be because you don’t have enough faith. That the person of faith won’t experience hardship – that’s the prosperity gospel: Jesus came to make me happy, healthy and wealthy. And THAT is no gospel at all; that is a demonic PERVERSION of the true gospel. All we see here is that demons HATE the faith of true believers. They HATE it when in SPITE of suffering, God’s people cling to the hope we have in Christ, like this Syrophoenician woman. And sometimes Jesus looks upon our faith and decides to heal us. But even when he doesn’t, faith says, “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away; blessed be the name of the Lord”. And for THAT kind of faith, the Lord DOES promise to bless us. Not with cars and houses; No - with eternal LIFE. 1 Jn 2:25 “this is the promise that he made to us[e]—eternal life.” This life is SO fleeting, so temporary. It is but a DOT on the radar screen of eternity. So we choose instead to live for the life to COME. Randy Alcorn says we “Live for the line, not the dot”. I love that. THAT is faith. Satan wants to keep us so focused on the stresses and anxieties of the dot – not even the big dot, but the tiny dots WITHIN the dot! Whatever your crisis of the day happens to be, it will be here today and gone tomorrow, but it FEELS like the world hangs in the balance - these relatively insignificant worries of our day-to-day lives that so often cause us to lose sight of the forest for the trees. To live for dot instead of for the line. We’ve got to STOP, and realize that FAITH means living life today in light of ETERNITY – Heb 11:1 - brothers and sisters OUR hope is seated in Heaven with Christ. It is secure. Amen?
# 8 - Demons always oppose the WILL OF GOD. Mark 8:31-33
31 And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32 And he said this plainly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33 But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”
Satan is, by His very nature, diametrically and diabolically opposed to everything that God is for. Even, ESPECIALLY, the cross of Jesus. So when Peter rebukes Jesus for disclosing that he must suffer and die, with the best of intentions, mind you – but we ALL know what the path to Hell is paved with, right? – Peter is not speaking on behalf of GOD, here, but instead, he acts as a mouthpiece for Satan himself. Friends, there is a real spiritual war going on here, and whether we REALIZE it or not, we are actively COOPERATING, day by day, decision by decision, action by action, thought by thought... we are EITHER promoting the Kingdom of God, or the Kingdom of Satan; there’s not a third option. There is no morally neutral ground. We’re either allowing ourselves to be used by God as instruments of His good will and pleasure, and thus, advancing HIS Kingdom, or we’re implicitly and maybe even unconsciously, but certainly not inconsequently, in opposition to God’s will and thus, serving as nothing less than an instrument of Satan. Sin isn’t just “sin”. Whoops. I’ll try harder next time. Sin is carrying out Satan’s will. This is WAR. Sin is friendly fire. It’s setting off a grenade in your own bunker. It is serious. God HATES it. We should hate it.
But hear the good news this morning: you are not left to FIGHT the battle on your own. You have an Intercessor sitting at the right hand of the Father, a Mediator, who ever lives and pleads for you. And if you’ve given your life to HIM, and trusted CHRIST to be your general in this fight, then you have His very Spirit living inside you as well. And it is in HIS power, and in HIS name, then that ...
#9 – we PRAY. Because demons are overcome by PRAYER. Mark 9:17-29
17 And someone from the crowd answered him, “Teacher, I brought my son to you, for he has a spirit that makes him mute. 18 And whenever it seizes him, it throws him down, and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid. So I asked your disciples to cast it out, and they were not able.” 19 And he answered them, “O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him to me.” 20 And they brought the boy to him. And when the spirit saw him, immediately it convulsed the boy, and he fell on the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth. 21 And Jesus asked his father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And he said, “From childhood. 22 And it has often cast him into fire and into water, to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” 23 And Jesus said to him, “‘If you can’! All things are possible for one who believes.” 24 Immediately the father of the child cried out[d] and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!” 25 And when Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.” 26 And after crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out, and the boy was like a corpse, so that most of them said, “He is dead.” 27 But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose. 28 And when he had entered the house, his disciples asked him privately, “Why could we not cast it out?” 29 And he said to them, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.”[e]
Friends, PRAYER IS POWER. Only GOD has power over Satan – not you, not even your FAITH; if it’s up to you and YOUR faith, you’re in trouble. That’s why the father here says, “Jesus – I believe, HELP my unbelief!” He recognizes, “Jesus – if it’s left up to me and my ability to have enough faith, I’m in trouble!” Friends – even your faith is a GIFT from God, did you know that. It is by grace you have been saved through faith, right? Well guess what – the saving FAITH that was required for you to respond to the good news of Christ didn’t even come from you. Your salvation is TOTALLY, ABSOLUTELY, EXCLUSIVELY, SOVEREIGNLY a work of God the Father, through Christ the Son, by the redeeming power of the Holy Spirit. The power necessary to RANSOM, to PURCHASE you back from the Kingdom of Hell that you rightfully deserve, as well as the power to KEEP you from stumbling and unwittingly cooperating in it again, falling BACK once again into sin – that power comes from God alone. So let us PRAY with passion, with purpose, and with whole-hearted PURSUIT of God and HIS Kingdom – “lead us NOT into temptation, but DELIVER us from the evil one”. Because Jesus ALONE is able to deliver us, and keep us from stumbling. So “to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, 25 to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time[h] and now and forever. Amen.” (Jude 24-25)
LET’S PRAY...