A Demon Speaking in Church

Mark 1:21-28 and Jesus Teaching with Authority in the Synagogue

Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

And now.

Here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg. The Holy Gospel according to Saint Mark chapter 1 verses 21 through 28. They went into Capernaum and immediately on the Sabbath Jesus entered the synagogue and He was teaching.

And they were astonished at His teaching for He taught them as one who had authority and not as the scribes. And immediately there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit. And he cried out, What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?

Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God. But Jesus rebuked him saying, Be silent, come out of him. And the unclean spirit convulsing him and crying out with a loud voice came out of him.

And they were all amazed so that they questioned among themselves saying, What is this? A new teaching with authority. He commands even the unclean spirits and they obey Him. And at once His fame spread everywhere throughout all the surrounding region of Galilee.

This is the gospel of the Lord. In the name of Jesus. Amen. Well, if Christ's strength is made perfect in weakness, this will be a perfect sermon. Did you notice in our Gospel text today that a demon showed up in the middle of a church service?

That's actually what happened. Back in the ancient days, synagogues were the place where the people of Israel would go on Saturday, not Sunday. During the Sabbath, their day of rest, they would go to the synagogue and God had established in the Mosaic Covenant that the priests who were not serving in the temple were given the job of instructing the people of Israel in the Torah and the Prophets.

If you want to impress your friends, the Old Testament is called the Tanakh by Jews even to this day. But that was their job to go and hear the Word of God. And there Jesus is and He's preaching in a synagogue.

He's teaching in a synagogue on a Saturday. And a demon manifests. We are going to be paying close attention to the details as we step through this and then consider what Scripture reveals regarding this idea that there are such things as doctrines of demons.

That's a politically incorrect concept, yet it's important for us as Christians to understand what God and His Word reveals regarding this idea so that we can protect ourselves and our loved ones and not listen to the voice of the devil and his demons, but listen truly to the voice of Christ.

So, returning back to our Gospel text, here's what it says. They went into Capernaum and immediately on the Sabbath he entered the synagogue and Jesus was teaching. I pointed this out before, I'll point it out again as you read through the Gospel of Mark.

It moves. It moves because the operative word is immediately, immediately, immediately. It's like Jesus' ministry on Red Bull. You know, if you read the Gospel of Mark, you come away thinking that Jesus somehow accomplished everything in like a two week period.

That's how quick this thing moves. And so immediately He was teaching in the Sabbath. And they were astonished at His teaching for He taught them as one who had authority, not as the scribes. Now let me help you understand what that means.

The scribes and the Pharisees were heretics. These were men who actually didn't rightly handle God's word. And when they would teach, they would not teach with authority. And we know this because we have a body of their work that exists even to this day.

And you can read it. You can find it online. There's public domain versions of it. It's called the Mishnah. And when you read the Mishnah, the one thing that you become very aware of is that they always seem to answer questions with questions.

They never really quite get around to making assertions unless the assertions have to do with the keeping of the Sabbath and certain things that you were not permitted to do. And so back in the day, you ask a scribe or a Pharisee who's teaching in the synagogue, by the way, they didn't have authority to do so.

They actually jumped the fence. They were not permitted to be doing this, and yet they were. You ask them a direct question from the Bible, what they would end up doing is they would say, well, you know, some would say this, some would say that, and another would say another thing.

Why do you ask? And you'd sit there wondering am I going to get an answer to my question? But Jesus, the Son of God, He comes in and He teaches as one who has authority. Now funny enough, the Levites had authority to teach God's Word.

And you can see an example of this. Have you ever read the book of Nehemiah? The book of Nehemiah, fascinating book, and it's about the story of the return of the Israelites from captivity in Babylon back to Jerusalem and the rebuilding of the wall and kind of the rebuilding of the temple per se, but it didn't quite have the glory that it had when Solomon established it.

And then when you read Nehemiah and Ezra together, you get this picture where the children of Israel once the wall is built, they come together and they hear, no joke, they hear God's Word preached. It's an all day long affair, beginning in Genesis and continuing on to the end before the book of Judges.

They hear God's Word preached and it says that the job of the priests was to help the people of Israel understand the correct sense of the text. That's the idea. And the Levites had that authority. Scribes and Pharisees didn't.

They did not have that authority. And so you get the idea then is that a Levite doing his job in the synagogue, sitting on the Moses seat, his job is to actually speak as one who has authority, to help people understand the proper sense of what the Scriptures say.

Scribes and Pharisees come along and they're blurring everything. And the reason why they're blurring everything is because they're doing the work of the devil. They're not there to create faith and certainty in the promises of God.

Doing the work of the devil, they're there to create, well, fuzzy lines where there were clear ones. They're creating doubt where there once was certainty. And so they immediately notice the difference of what's going on with the way Jesus is teaching.

And if you think for a second that Jesus was some kind of an innovator, like Jesus comes along and everything he's preaching seems totally disconnected from what God had said in the Old Testament, you would be wrong.

Jesus made it very clear that he taught from the Scriptures, he taught their right sense, and he helped people to understand how they pointed to him. And that he would always talk about what the Messiah would do.

And then when you read the Apostles and what they wrote in the Gospels, they were also very clear about what Jesus did and how he fulfilled the Old Testament prophecies. And so these were fellows who also spoke with authority because they had authority from Christ.

So Jesus comes in to the synagogue where the Scribes and Pharisees had taken over and these people are now being blinded. They're being blinded by false doctrine. And so Jesus is teaching as one who has authority.

They recognize this. And it's as if the devil says I can't stand this anymore. We've got to put an end to this because if this is allowed to go on like this, people are going to be believing the truth.

So now out comes the visible manifestation of what was always going on in this synagogue behind the scenes. The part that you couldn't see. And a man manifests an unclean spirit. A demon. And he cried out, what have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?

Notice the plural. This isn't some lone demon working by himself. He's the spokesman for the other demons working in the synagogue. What have you to do with us? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are.

You're the Holy One of God. Well yeah, they get that right. That's the funny thing is that false teachers and even the demons have no problem acknowledging verbally who Jesus is. But do you think for a second they want people believing in Him and trusting in Him?

No way. So have you come to destroy us? As if somehow Jesus is this evil, terrible person. Yeah, the problem here is the evil, wicked Jesus. No, not at all. But Jesus rebuked him and He said, be silent.

Come out of him. And the unclean spirit convulsing Him and crying out with a loud voice came out of Him. And they were all amazed so that they questioned among themselves saying, what is this? A new teaching with authority.

But Jesus didn't teach new doctrine. He embellished and added onto the doctrine that was already revealed in Genesis. Already back in Genesis 3 the promise of the seed of the woman who would crush the head of the serpent.

Jesus wasn't teaching anything new. He's not an innovator. So what's going on here is we see that their eyes are opened and they're hearing a new message which means that they were going to synagogue Saturday after Saturday after Saturday and they weren't hearing the truth.

Now consider this as a cross reference to what we're seeing here in this text. In 1 Timothy chapter 4 verses 1 and 2, 1 Timothy chapter 4 verses 1 and 2, the Apostle Paul gives a very explicit prophecy regarding the days that we find ourselves in.

And listen to this carefully. The Spirit, that's the Holy Spirit, expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons.

If you have an NIV it actually says doctrines of demons which is the right way of understanding this. Through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared. Now this might step on some people's toes but if you really want to get an idea of what this looks like, doctrines of demons through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, turn on your television and flip over to God TV or the Trinity Broadcasting Network and all these people who are telling you that God wants you to be wealthy, God wants you to be healthy and the only thing you have to do is to prove to God that you have faith that He's going to heal you and make you healthy and wealthy by sending them a thousand dollar seed offering.

That's a doctrine of demons. It's a doctrine of demons and unfortunately few within the Christian church have the courage to stand up against it and say that's false. And if you speak out against it there's a good chance you're going to be shouted down or at least get people mad at you.

If you're not convinced about this, come talk to me. I'll show you some of the emails I get. But that's the idea and keep this in mind then. We should not somehow think it a strange thing that the devil wants to operate in the church.

That he wants to hijack the message and to get people to listen to the devil's voice rather than to God's voice. It makes perfect sense and this goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden. If you think about it, the setup in the Garden of Eden was quite interesting as far as there was a sacrament, there was a commandment.

The commandment was you shall not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil because on the day you eat of it you will surely die. One of the minor prophets, I think it's Hosea, tells us that Adam and Eve actually broke a covenant that they had with God.

Their disobedience was a breaking of a covenant. So you had a covenant relationship, you had a commandment, and there was also a sacrament. The sacrament was the tree of life. So you can kind of think of it this way, that the Garden of Eden was the very first cathedral, the very first church ever built.

It was a congregation of two, but where two or more are gathered in his name, Christ is present. And the devil comes into church, I think that's a good way of putting it, and he speaks doctrines of demons because he is a demon, the prince of them.

And he says to the woman, did God really say, casting doubt on God, and then the woman wrongly quotes back what God said and added to it, and then looks inside of her heart when the devil says, yeah listen, listen, you want to eat this because God knows that on the day you eat of this fruit, you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

So she listens to that voice, the first doctrine of demons, you will be like God. She listens to that voice rather than to God's voice. She believes the devil rather than God, and thus plunges us into the misery that we find ourselves in.

The misery that, well, sometimes requires your pastor to lose his voice. But you get the idea, that's church, that's the doctrine of demons. So the devil operates in that exact same way today. Think of it this way, idolatry.

The first commandment says, you will have no other gods before me. Idolatry is the having of another god, then the one true God. And if we look ahead in 1 Corinthians, if you would, turn with me to 1 Corinthians 10.

I want to show you how Paul develops what he was saying in our epistle reading today, where he talked about the fact that a demon or an idol has no real existence. He recognizes that they have no real existence, but there's a very firm warning as he develops his thought, and the firm warning comes in 1 Corinthians 10.

Listen to the conclusion of where he's going with this. Verse 1, I don't want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers, they were all under the cloud, all passed through the sea, all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, all ate the same spiritual food, all drank the same spiritual drink, for they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.

Nevertheless, with most of them, God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now these things took place as examples for us so that we might not desire evil as they did. Do not be idolaters as some of them were, as it is written, the people sat down to eat and to drink and rose up to play.

We all know what that's referring to. The incident that Paul is actually referencing is the story of the golden calf at the foot of Mount Sinai. And if you go back in your Bible, in fact this would be a good homework assignment for you as you consider what was said in the sermon, go back in your Bible, look in the book of Exodus and read the account of the children of Israel on the base of Mount Sinai.

Moses is up receiving the Ten Commandments, he's at the top. They basically say, well we don't know what happened to this fellow, so they call for a feast, a day of worship. And if you read the text, it's a day of worship to Yahweh, to the Lord.

No joke. They then create this golden calf and claim that they are worshiping Yahweh and what are they saying about the calves? Here, O Israel, are the gods who brought you out of Egypt. They were idolaters in the name of the Lord.

Isn't that interesting? I bet you didn't realize that that was taking place there. But don't believe me. Go and see if I'm telling you the truth. But that's the idea. So Paul here is saying don't be idolaters, don't do this because the children of Israel did this and they were overthrown in the wilderness.

And we must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did and 23 ,000 fell in a single day. We must not put Christ to the test as some of them did and they were destroyed by serpents, nor grumble.

Pay attention to that one everybody. There's no grumbling. I'm joking. You get it. And as some of them did and they were destroyed by the destroyer. Now these things happened to them as an example but they were written down for our instruction on whom the end of the ages has come.

So therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. And that's the best part about it is that there is no original sins nowadays.

Everyone's just doing the same things. All of the temptations where we are tempted to sin, there's nothing original about them. Humans are kind of predictable in that way. But he says this, God is faithful and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape that you may be able to endure it.

So therefore my beloved flee idolatry. You're going to note two classes of sins we are instructed to flee from. Sexual immorality, flee. Idolatry, flee. And that's what false teaching is. It's idolatry.

So flee from it. I speak as to sensible people. Judge for yourselves what I say. The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? Of course it is. Yes it is. The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?

Well indeed it is. So because there is one bread, we who are many are one body. For we all partake of the one bread. So consider the people of Israel are not those who eat the sacrifices participants in the altar.

What do I imply then? That food offered to an idol is anything or that an idol is anything? And now it comes. Listen. So is an idol anything? No. I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons, not to God.

Let that one sink in for a second. Consider the implications. If you were to travel to the Orient, and I know some of you haven't actually traveled far from Oslo. And I get that. But if you travel to the Orient, if you were to visit Thailand or China or even Japan what would you see there?

Lots of shrines and statues of Buddha. If you were to travel to India, you would also see lots of idolatry there. You would see statues of Shiva and Vishnu and that elephant deity or that lady with the eight arms.

Have you ever seen her? That one creeps me out. All of those are idols. And what people do is they offer sacrifices to these idols. Food offerings, drink offerings. In Thailand they even have a deity that the offering that you're supposed to bring him is booze and cigarettes.

No joke. Sounds like quite the fun god. But the idea then is this. What they are offering to these idols, they're not offering to the idols. The idols are a pass-through. They're actually offering it to demons.

Demons are the source of our idolatry. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy?

Are we stronger than He? Now, note here that I implied it, so let me explicitly say it. All the other religions of the world, their source is not the one true God. This text makes it clear. Their source are demons.

We don't have a problem as Christians saying yeah, that's probably true regarding Buddhism and some of the deities that are worshipped in India. And if you're really feeling brave, you might even say, I think the same thing about Islam too.

But that's the truth about Islam. I mean, Islam is a religion that is based upon an angelic encounter that Muhammad was supposed to have. And how this angel Gabriel revealed these things to him and took him on these marvelous journeys and did these amazing, miraculous things.

But the reality is that Allah of Islam is not God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. Allah is a false god. And He's a demon. Is it any wonder that His followers behave like them? Keep that in mind.

You know the truth. Scripture says this. But that also applies then to the wolves in sheep's clothing who come into our Christian congregations to take our eyes off of Jesus and His word and what He has authoritatively taught and once spoken in His church and teach us things that nowhere in Scripture are we authorized to teach.

Consider just a couple of verses from our Old Testament text in Deuteronomy 18. The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, the text says, from your brothers. It is to him you shall listen.

Note, God makes it very clear all the way back in the Old Testament from Moses, the first guy to pen any text of Scripture, that God prophesied that the prophet would come and that prophet is Jesus. That the prophet would come and we are to listen to him.

And that those who will not listen to him, God will hold them accountable for it. And He says this later in the text. I will put my words in his mouth, he shall speak to them all that I command him. Listen to Jesus.

Listen to the words that God the Father has commanded him to speak. And those who say different words, you must not listen to them. That's idolatry. So what is exactly that Jesus has said? What does Jesus say to you?

What does he say to me? Even to this day? Are you ready? Is it try harder, do gooder, give more so that you can commend yourself to God and maybe save yourself by cleaning up your own act? No, he doesn't say anything like that.

But how many messages have you heard that sound exactly like that? Does God, does Jesus say, give a seed offering so that I'll make you wealthy and healthy? He doesn't say that either. Does he say, learn how to hear the voice of God as it whispers up in the atmosphere and he's going to reveal to you his unique purpose for which he made you.

And then you must basically X everybody out of your life that isn't supporting you and fulfilling your purpose. Does he say that? No. Listen to what he does say. John 3, verse 14. As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so the son of man must be lifted up so that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only son so that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. You see, God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him.

Whoever believes in him is not condemned. Whoever does not believe is condemned already because he is not believed in the name of the only Son of God. You see, this prophet prophesied by Moses in Deuteronomy 18 has spoken.

And he says he's come to forgive you. He says he's come to reconcile you to the Father. He says that God loves you so much that he even gave his own son to bleed and to die for every one of your dark, sin-stained, pus-filled sins.

That he loves you and has redeemed you and he's calling you to believe. Believe. That belief will lead to action. It always does. Where there's true faith, good works will always follow. But see, the words that Jesus has spoken is, believe.

Trust me. I forgive. I love. I redeem. And he goes to the cross and bleeds and dies for you. And we learn from other passages of scriptures and those whom he gave authority to speak on his behalf. That the reason why he was doing that was to reconcile you to the Father.

You see, the demons want to keep you busy. Always, they want to keep you busy. Chasing your own tail. You ever seen the poor dog, you know, who's chasing his tail? Videos on YouTube are just absolutely hilarious to watch.

Or the cat that does it. It's always fun when you see the cat trying to chase the little laser ball. They never catch it because there's nothing to catch. You see, the devil wants you to do that. Oh, you want salvation?

Let me turn my laser on. There it is. Go get it. And you go and try to get it, and it's gone. He moves it up to the wall. What's over there now? Go get it. The devil's always keeping you busy. But Jesus says, come to me, you who are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

The devil says salvation is something you have to earn. Jesus says, no way. You couldn't even begin to pay the price. I'll pay it for you. Believe. I love you. You see the difference? So it's to him you must listen.

He desires your salvation. He desires your forgiveness. He desires your reconciliation. He desires your repentance. And he knows you're filthy dirty, and he promises to clean you up. He promises to clean you up in the waters of your baptism.

He promises to come to you in his body and blood broken and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins when we take the Lord's supper. He came to you this morning. Not me. He came to you this morning when we began in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Two or more are gathered. He's there among us. And what was his first word to you? I forgive you. It is to him you must listen. Be forgiven. God loves you. Stop chasing your tail. Jesus accomplished it all for you.

Listen to him. Stop listening to the demonic voices in your head or even the demonic voices that invade the church. Jesus wills for them to be silenced. Remember this. The text in Deuteronomy says, whoever will not listen to my words, that he shall speak in my name.

The one who doesn't want to be forgiven, the one who wants to climb the ladder and say, I earned my salvation, listening to the doctrines of the demons, that God himself will require of him. But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, no pastor or prophet was ever commanded by God to preach or to speak words that said you had to earn your salvation.

Not one of them. In fact, all of the prophets pointed to Jesus. False prophets always point to themselves or to you. To the one who speaks in the name of other gods. Gods that promise prosperity. They're like the fertility gods of old.

Or promise all kinds of health and wealth and nonsense like that. That same prophet shall die, Moses wrote. It's important for us to understand something. We have to have a complete view of death. Death is not merely the separating of a human spirit and a human body.

That truly is what scripture calls the first death. The prophet who presumes to speak a word in God's name is not threatened with merely the tearing apart of his body and his soul. That comes to all of us.

He has promised the second death. The real death. The one that Christ came to rescue us from. And the second death is an eternity in the lake of fire. And it is reserved for those who speak lies. It is reserved for those who are cowards and will not stand up for the truth.

It is reserved for those who preach, teach, and listen to the doctrines of demons. They will surely die. So let us take idolatry for the serious thing that it is. It leads to the eternal death of the person preaching it.

And the eternal death of those who hear it and believe it. And understand this. We as Christians are instructed by God's word in Christ himself to learn the Savior's voice and to hear His voice and not the demons.

And in order for that to happen, you must understand His word. Because Jesus speaks to you this morning through His word. He speaks to you tomorrow morning through His word. Hear His voice in His word.

Learn His ways. They are not hard. They are not beyond you. And the temptations that have overcome you He's promised a way out. Even the temptation to idolatry. So repent of your idolatry, your false gods, your false doctrines.

Repent of listening to the soothing lies of the devil. And trust in Jesus. Believe Him because He was sent to save us because of God's great love for us. In the name of Jesus. Amen.

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