The War On Evil - Mark 1:34 Series

Mark 1:32 That evening after sunset the people brought to Jesus all the sick and demon-possessed. 33 The whole town gathered at the door, 34 and Jesus healed many who had various diseases. He also drove out many demons, but he would not let the demons speak because they knew who he was.

Introduction

Jesus Christ is full of surprises. There are so many times when he says or does things that leave us scratching our heads. And I’m really glad that’s the case. If Jesus spoke and acted like we would expect, it would be hard to believe that he’s really a divine being. Someone who really is eternal God in human flesh, you wouldn’t expect him to think and act like typical, sinful, limited, finite human beings. You would expect him to be full of surprises, which is exactly what we see in this text.

Mark 1:34 and Jesus healed many who had various diseases. He also drove out many demons, but he would not let the demons speak because they knew who he was.

You might expect that he would not let them speak because they were liars. Or he would not let them speak because they were up to no good. Or he would not let them speak because he wanted to show his power over them. I can take a lot of good reasons to not let the demons speak, but the last one I would’ve thought of would be this one. He wouldn’t let them speak because they knew him. That’s kind of strange, isn’t it?

37 and when they found him, they exclaimed: “Everyone is looking for you!”

That’s good news, right? So what does he do?

38 Jesus replied, “Let us go… somewhere else

Strange.

38 …to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.”

What? That’s why you came? You ask any OT expert back then, “What is the Messiah going to come into this world to do?” and none of them would have said, “Be a preacher.” You ask people today – “Why did Jesus Christ come into this world?” Nobody’s first answer is, “Oh, he came to preach.”

Such unexpected responses. And Mark is not only admitting that Jesus spoke and acted in these strange ways, but he makes a point of it. He puts it front and center because he wants to teach us the reasons why Jesus did and said these things. And when we understand that, then we will understand the nature of the war we are in, and how to conduct spiritual warfare so that we defeat the enemy rather than becoming casualties.

I think we can organize what Mark teaches us in this section under to main headings: The Winner and the Weaponry. First, the winner.

The Winner

Letdown of the Ages

We left off last time with Jesus in Capernaum, where he blows everyone away with his authoritative preaching, and then has a showdown with a demon right there in the service. The showdown was a bit of a letdown. You would think this would be quite the conflict – the most powerful evil beings in existence against the Messiah – the heavyweight bout of the ages.

When I was in college I remember the media had a huge buildup promoting the big heavyweight boxing championship match between Mike Tyson and Michael Spinks. Both boxers were undefeated, it was the fight of the decade - some people paid over a thousand dollars for a seat at that fight. The fight lasted 91 seconds. It wasn’t quite the epic battle it was billed as – it lasted 91 seconds. Can you imagine shelling out a couple thousand dollars for tickets, and you’re putting your jacket down and getting settled, and all of a sudden you hear the bell and you’re saying, “Wait, what? The fight’s over? I missed it?”

If the fight of the decade was a letdown, this fight of the ages was really a letdown. Spinks lasted 91 seconds against Tyson – that’s about 90 seconds longer than this demons lasted once Jesus gave him the boot. And Jesus remains undefeated throughout the gospel, and to this day.

There is a philosophy known as dualism that holds that there are two essentially equal forces: good and evil. Like in Star Wars – the good side and the dark side of the force. One thing we learn in the Bible is that reality is nothing like that. You can take all the strongest powers of evil and have every one of them marshal their forces against Jesus Christ at his weakest, and he can annihilate all of them with a single thought. In fact, later in this book we’ll see 2000 of them gang up on Jesus, and he sends every one of them into the abyss with a word.