Jesus and Demons #1 - Mark 1 & 3 - How Jesus starts His ministry
Most people like Jesus. They may not know much about Him but what they do know is usually good. He was a kind man who did good things. I think He was, is, much, much, more than that but I do agree that He is good.
If you read about Jesus in the bible you will find that he has regular confrontations with people who are not good and with demons who are evil. And He always wins. What can we learn from Jesus therefore about evil and about demons?
Although you might be mocked if you talk about demons we have all seen books and films and TV series that, seriously or not, have demons and evil as constant themes. The Exorcist is a famous film, Angels & Demons was a big selling book, Buffy the Vampire slayer seemed to be on TV all the time a few years ago.
Sometimes we caricature the devil as a red creature with little horns, a pointy beard and tail. Sometimes we think of him as a malevolent voice speaking over our shoulder. There is the familiar image of the serpent in the garden tempting eve.
Philip Pullmans’ Trilogy “His Dark Materials”, depicts evil in a very different way. In an almost beneficent way.
Here is Lyra, the heroine, and Will her friend, quizzing Mary, the ex-Nun, then Physicist, then Atheist, then the Tempter about why she left the faith of the nuns:
“When I first saw you in Oxford,” said Lyra,” you said one of the reasons you became a scientist was that wouldn’t have to think about good and evil. Did you think about them when you were a nun?”
“H’mmm. No. But I knew what I should think: it was whatever the church taught me to think. And when I did science I had to think about other things altogether. So I never had to think about them for myself at all.”
“But do you now?” “I think I have to.”
“When you stopped believing in God, did you stop believing in good and evil?”
“No. But I stopped believing there was a power of good and a power of evil that were outside us. And I came to believe that good and evil are names for what people do, not for what they are. All we can say is that this is a good deed, because it helps someone, or that’s an evil one because it hurts them.”
Fascinating material for a children’s book!
That is far too simplistic an explanation for good and evil of course – especially for a scientist. The complexity, depth and pervasiveness of evil can’t be
dismissed so easily.
Nevertheless, it raises a very important question – is there evil in the world? And if so, what is it?
As an aside, in this church we don’t tell people what to think. I will tell you what I think, and I will encourage you to think for yourselves.
What do we think of when we come across bible accounts of Jesus (and others) dealing with demons? There are 100 mentions of demons in the New Testament and our songs and stories tell us about how our faith in Jesus overcomes an evil spiritual realm. But we are reluctant to name something or someone as evil. The judge who passed sentence last week on the care workers who were caught abusing their patients described their deeds as “monstrous”. Was what they did evil? Are they evil?
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You may be firmly committed to a belief in Satan and demons; you may be familiar with ministry to people who are influenced by demons. I aim to help you understand the bigger picture in which Jesus operated.
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You may be firmly committed to an exclusively scientific world view with no room for the spiritual realms. I would like to give you some things to test and check out.
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You may be somewhere in the middle – living with a scientific and materialistic world view but also fully aware of the role for the Spirit of God in your life and therefore suspecting there may be a some sort of evil spiritual influence out there too. I hope this brings some clarity to your thinking and challenge to the way you live – mainly next week.
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Or you may think of yourself as rather ignorant of the whole thing, somewhat fearful and would prefer to avoid the issue. I will re-assure you that this is a safe subject because of the proven power and presence of a person, Jesus, who loves you completely and who has done what is necessary to rescue you from fear.
For many other societies today, the concept of good and evil forces is not at all difficult to understand. And as I read the bible it is clear that the bible itself and the people it writes about have no quarrel with the assumption that there are spiritual powers. It provides a framework for them to understand their life experience.
The way Jesus deals with this is very helpful indeed.
Mark 1:9-15, 21-28, 33-34, 39 and 3:13-15, 20-27
What is Jesus doing?
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Jesus doesn’t start his ministry until he has disarmed Satan;
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Jesus preaches the good news and in so doing defeats Satan in people’s lives;
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Jesus commissions His disciples to do the same;
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Jesus explains what He has done.
1:9-13
A quick summary of what Matthew & Luke describe in more detail. Jesus goes into a battle with Satan:
It follows a powerful commissioning
Jesus is weak and vulnerable, hungry and alone
He is subject to extreme temptation and accusation
Jesus knows the truth (he quotes the bible) and denying the temptation holds onto his higher calling
1:14-15, 21-22
Jesus goes into action with a great message, “The kingdom of God has come, repent and believe the good news”.
1:23-27
1:32-34, 39
The presentation of truth by Jesus immediately brings a reaction from the evil spirits, but walking in the strength of His victory over Satan, having tied up the strong man, Jesus despatches them quickly and with little fuss.
3:13-15
Jesus gathers his disciples and commissions them to do the same – preach the gospel. Knowing that will cause a reaction He also gives them authority to deal with the demons they will meet.
3:20-22
3:23-27
When quizzed about what he is doing – he explains, I have tied up the strong man and now I can plunder his house. I am preaching the good news of the kingdom, the demons now have no authority and no power - so I cast them out.
The enemy can’t defeat him, has no power over him. Jesus has disarmed Satan. He has tied up the strong man – so now he can plunder his house. In chapter 3 Jesus explains what He has done in chapter 1 and we now understand why the demons start appearing – they recognise a greater power.
Jesus doesn’t start his ministry until he has dealt with Satan; Jesus preaches the good news and so doing defeats Satan in people’s lives; Jesus commissions His disciples to do the same; Jesus explains what He has done. Jesus seems to accept the presence of an evil power that is acting in opposition to Him. So Jesus’ strategy is to restrict and contain the enemy.
The existence of evil
Let’s think about this from the perspective of a people who live in a post-enlightenment, rational, scientific culture. That’s us.
So, if I get a headache, I think, dehydration and drink some water. If that doesn’t work I take an aspirin. There is a problem, there must be a scientific explanation, let’s work it out and then we have a solution.
I work in finance and we have what we called, evidence-based investment. We test certain theories against statistical & quantitive evidence in order to formulate a conclusion to guide our investment decision-making.
It’s all good and makes me more amazed than ever at that creation that God designed and in which He placed us. I love the way science opens up the wonders of our world.
But science can only partially explain things - until new information comes to light and the explanation is upgraded.
Pluto: Originally classified as the ninth planet from the Sun, Pluto was recategorized in 2006 as a dwarf planet and plutoid owing to the discovery that it is only one of several large bodies within theKuiper belt.
Periodic Table: I was taught there are 109 Elements in the Period Table. Since then, another 9 elements have been discovered – and there will be more.
Universe: Scientists have embraced the notion that the universe was created as the result of the Big Bang and that it is perpetually expanding. But Albert Einstein believed that the size of the universe was an unchanging constant—it had always been the size it was, and always would be.
And there are things which I don’t think science can explain. And I believe that one of these is the existence of evil.
We, western scientific materialists, find ourselves out-numbered by the vast majority of the world. In most cultures and societies there is no difficulty in understanding an interaction between a material and a spiritual world, between the natural and the super-natural.
In many parts of the world, when bad thing happen the explanation is at least partly found in the existence of an active spiritual realm. When we face someone who is behaving in a really bad, an evil, way, how do we explain it -evil?
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Sociological explanations – it is the result of your environment.
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Psychological – damaged by poor parenting.
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Biological – something wrong with a chemical imbalance.
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Psychiatric – he didn’t know what he was doing.
All these things can have an impact. If you accept that there is something fundamentally wrong with the world it is of course likely that these factors will make it worse. But are they the cause of the evil?
In the book upon which the Silence of the Lambs was based, officer Starling first visits Lecter’s cell. She unwisely expresses her interest saying "what happened to him?"
Lecter retorts, “Nothing happened to me, Officer Starling. I happened. You can't reduce me to a set of influences. You've given up good and evil for behaviourism, Officer Starling. You've got everybody in moral dignity pants - nothing is ever anybody's fault.”
We want to say, he is evil – but then it seems an extreme thing to say because it implies that there may be a malevolent force behind what we see. Why is that difficult to accept?
Because if we accept there is an evil being influencing us to do bad things then you are led to accept the premise of good and evil and an ultimate right and an ultimate wrong. That is a big challenge to the scientific atheist or behaviourist.
But if we think that education or development can make people behave better we are faced with the extensive evidence to the contrary. Highly scientific and educated societies give us wonderful things like life-saving drugs and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But they also bequeath us the holocaust, the final solution and ethnic cleansing. It is a constant puzzle for atheists as to why religious behaviours persist in rational societies.
I am a rationalist and I am comfortable with science, but I also believe in God.
Here is a biblical explanation for evil and demons – in summary
1. A spiritual realm characterised by good and evil
God is good and loving – that which opposes God and the good is evil. I believe in a spiritual realm in which both good and evil operate.
2. Created personal beings
God created at least two races of personal beings with intelligence and a moral understanding: angels without earthly bodies and humans with earthly bodies.
3. Rebelled and banished
Some angels, through pride, over-reached themselves and were separated from God’s presence – the leader is known as Satan and he has many angels banished along with him – the demons. They are on a mission against God, and that mission is the source of evil.
4. Humans sin
Our world’s brokenness can be traced back to man’s decision to succumb to the voice of the enemy and rebel against God (unlike Jesus in the desert). Something that is described in beginning of Genesis but is a daily choice we make in our life today.
5. God’s mission of restoration
Despite that, God is on a mission to restore us to Himself, to give us a way of choosing to repent and turn and re-establish a relationship with our creator God. He has accomplished that through Jesus’ victory over the enemy.
The Old Testament – the bible that Jesus read – is framed by this understanding of evil. It describes the spiritual climate up until the time of Jesus.
The creation story has Satan turning up in the third chapter as a serpent to tempt Adam and Eve.
Thereafter we see activity in the world which is against God’s mission - described in terms of bad people and nations, influenced by Satan, fighting against God’s plans and people. Think of the plagues in Egypt, the temptation of Job, King’ Saul’s behaviour against David and through the post-exilic apocalyptic and prophetic literature.
Demons often seem to have a free run of the world. The power of an evil force in the world is assumed and rarely overcome – common in other societies then and now.
Jesus turns up on a scene where evil spirits are thought of as having the run of things. As He ushers in the Kingdom He does so as the first person with authority to defeat the schemes of the enemy. Bound the strong man. He comes to destroy the enemy’s work. He comes with a message of grace and forgiveness.
The demons don’t like that but they can’t hide and they can’t fight – they just can’t deal with Him and have to run.
And a couple of years later he doesn’t just “tie up the strong man” but defeats him comprehensively by dying for our sins and then rising from the dead.
A greater power is let loose in the world – the power of Jesus, the Son of God.
Jesus commissioned the disciples and the church, which includes us, to do the same things as he did. We live in the aftermath of Jesus’ stunning victory over Satan and are compelled to share the good news of Jesus and continue to dispatch demons when they react to His truth.
Two dangers – equal and opposite errors
C.S.Lewis, Screwtape Letters
There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.
Summary – what is Jesus doing?
Jesus knows the enemy has power and influence and so His strategy is to tie him up first and then set about God’s mission – plunder his house.
Jesus preached the good news of the kingdom, calling people to repent. And as He did so He dealt with the demons that manifested themselves.
Jesus commissions us to do the same; restrict the enemy’s power by living obedient Godly lives, tell people the good news and deal with any demons that dare show themselves as a result.
And I am not afraid because Jesus has defeated the enemy both in the time of testing in the desert and then by His death and resurrection.
Here are some scriptures which remind us of the power of God to overcome the enemy.
David Flowers, 28/10/2012