Christ\'s Authority Over Demons

No Compromise Radio

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:12

Welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry. My name is Mike Ebendroth, and it is a Wednesday again here in my office, in my study with Mario, formerly known as Ben.

00:22

Yes. And we are still having the format of Mondays is a rerun of my sermon at Bethlehem Bible Church.

00:31

We're going through the gospel of Jesus according to Luke. Fridays is a rerun. I think we have 4 ,400 shows.

00:38

So it will be like J. Verna McGee or Charles Stanley or Adrian Rogers, long dead.

00:46

I'll be long dead and they could still play No Compromise Radio over the years. But Wednesday's the new show.

00:52

And in the fall, maybe we'll add a few things or change a few things, but it's with a video, audio, and everything else.

00:59

So tell your friends, like, subscribe, whatever, deny, affirm, resolve.

01:07

Today, I want to talk about demons, demon possession. Can Christians be demon possessed?

01:13

Are demons real? Are demons just mental diseases? What in the world is going on when it comes to demons and invisible forces?

01:24

What I'd like to do to start the show is I want to read from Luke chapter eight, where the Lord Jesus deals with a demon possessed man.

01:32

Now, remember, demons are fallen angels. And one good angel in the

01:39

Old Testament kills 185 hundred thousand

01:45

Assyrians. That's one angel. So if you have one demon in you, as an unbeliever, that would be scary to be possessed by one demon.

01:58

But can you imagine Mary Magdalene? She was possessed by seven demons.

02:04

And today we're going to meet a man, and he is possessed by a legion of demons.

02:11

And a Roman legion is about 2 ,000 to 6 ,400 people.

02:19

So a legion was a military unit, and most everyone thinks it's about 6 ,000.

02:25

So let's just say 6 ,000 demons in one man. And of course, the point to this is if there's a demon possessed man with 6 ,000 demons in him, the

02:37

Lord Jesus is going to have to be more powerful. He is more powerful. He is greater, and therefore you can trust him.

02:45

So you see the power of the waves as they're on the Sea of Galilee. Who is this that even the waves and the wind obey him?

02:53

The sea and the winds obey him. Oh, Jesus is more powerful than nature. And here,

02:59

Jesus is more powerful than supernatural beings called demon.

03:04

So today on the show, I'm going to read the passage, and we're going to talk a little bit about demons just so we can think through this properly.

03:11

Luke 8, verse 26 and following. Then they sailed to the country of the

03:18

Gerizim, which is opposite Galilee. Gentiles would be over there. And you can imagine the

03:24

Gentiles, just pagan, weird occult things.

03:31

You just don't get a demon by getting a demon walking down the street or walking by the Sea of Galilee. But if you're doing all kinds of occult things, easy access.

03:40

And when Jesus had stepped out on land, there met a man from the city who had demons. Now, the other accounts say there were two men, but the focus in Luke and the spotlight is on this one.

03:51

For he had for a long time worn no clothes and had not lived in a house, but among the tombs.

03:57

And so you can imagine these demons infesting, possessing this man, and trying to mar the image of God in this man, trying to take away.

04:08

And there's no clothes, tombs, unclean. Everything about this just reeks uncleanness.

04:16

When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him and said with a loud voice, what have you to do with me,

04:21

Jesus, son of the most high? And it's interesting because Luke is wanting you, the reader or the listener, to say to yourself, my belief in Jesus, is it the same as the demons?

04:38

Is it greater than the demons? Do I even believe at all? Hey, the demons even believe in tremble. How much more should we all be trusting in the

04:46

Lord Jesus? And here this demon says, I don't want to be tormented. I'm in submission to you.

04:52

Certainly a demon is not worshiping Jesus like when some people fall at his feet.

04:58

Luke records in chapter five that Peter falls at the feet of Jesus and worships him.

05:04

Same thing in chapter eight a little bit later with Jairus regarding his daughter falling at the feet of Jesus, worshiping.

05:12

Here, this is submission. There's a command structure and the demon knows he is under the

05:18

Lord Jesus. The text says, for he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. And there's a little parenthesis here.

05:25

For many a time it had seized him. He was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles and he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the desert.

05:33

Kind of a flashback of just how crazy this was. And I don't mean crazy like mental illness, but here's a demon possessed man.

05:41

And of course the demon is controlling. Jesus then asked, what is your name?

05:48

Now, what probably you don't know, unless you're a keen Bible student, is if you're a lesser in terms of rank and authority, you're not supposed to ask a greater.

05:59

So a king could say to a prince, what's your name? But the prince shouldn't say to the king, what's your name?

06:04

But of course, Jesus here, the king, what's your name? And he said, legion for many demons had entered him.

06:11

So legion up to 6 ,000. Now remember, those demons are gonna go into the swine, into the pigs, 2 ,000 of those.

06:18

So three per pig, we've got thousands of demons. And why is this man named legion?

06:25

Well, 6 ,000 is the right number, but also it's got military language, military connotation.

06:32

When I preached this, I said, it wasn't like he said, oh, we are a baker's dozen demons, you know, 13.

06:39

No, legion, military, battle array. And they begged him not to command them to depart into the abyss.

06:46

Now a large herd of pigs were feeding on the hillside and they begged him to let them enter these.

06:52

So he gave them permission. Demons wanting to inhabit something, demons not wanting to go to the abyss, not wanting final torment, not wanting a place of holding and off they go.

07:03

Then the demons came out of the man and entered the pigs and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and drowned.

07:09

In the language, especially of Mark, is choking and drowning. When I had little children, and I don't have one of these for my grandchildren yet, but I had this toy.

07:19

It was about like this. And then it's got a little spinner thing on the inside. And it had different animals, pictures around that circle.

07:29

And so if I turned it to a horse and then pulled the string, it would say, a horse says neigh, neigh, right?

07:35

And then you turn it to the dog and you pull the string and the dog says, woof, woof. And so too bad we couldn't have one for Luke chapter eight.

07:43

You spin it to the demon possessed pigs. What do demon possessed pigs say? And you could just make this choking sound as they're drowning.

07:50

What do drowning pigs say that are demon possessed? Mario's laughing. You know, I have to keep you entertained too.

07:58

And so just the idea of the killing and the grossness and the power of Jesus over this situation.

08:10

When the herdsmen saw what happened, they fled and told the city and the country. Then people went out to see what had happened.

08:16

And they came to Jesus and found the man of whom the demons had gone, sitting at the feet of Jesus. No more craziness, no more running around, no more cutting himself, no more dry blood all over everywhere.

08:31

And he's sitting at the feet of Jesus clothed and in his right mind and they were afraid, running.

08:42

Lost our business. Who's this Jesus? And by the way, at the very end, this man had wanted to be with Jesus.

08:49

And he said, return to your home and declare how much God has done for you. And he went away proclaiming throughout the whole city, how much

08:55

Jesus had done for him. So we just see this picture of Jesus' powerful lordship over demons.

09:03

And in the section of Luke, he's powerful over nature. He's powerful here over supernatural things. The next little section, he's powerful over diseases.

09:11

He heals the woman who's got the blood issue for 12 years and he's powerful over death. He raises

09:16

Jairus' daughter. So everything about this section is Jesus is powerful. Which leads me now, and that's the introduction to how should we think about demons?

09:25

What should we think about Satan and demons and could Christians be demon possessed, et cetera.

09:31

And so that's the rest of the show as I want you to just think through this properly.

09:37

So first thing I'd like to say is, while not all men are demon possessed, but by nature, all unbelievers are ruled by Satan.

09:47

Not every unbeliever is demon possessed, but every unbeliever is under the domination of Satan.

09:55

Ephesians chapter two, and you are dead in your trespasses and sins in which you formerly walked, that's lifestyle, according to the course of this world, world's influence, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now in working in the sons of disobedience.

10:14

And then two verses later, but God rich in mercy. Satan commands,

10:19

Satan dominates. Satan, Jesus said is the ruler of this world.

10:26

Satan controls. Second Timothy chapter two talks about unbelievers are captive to do

10:34

Satan's will. And can you imagine unbelievers blind, led around so much for the vaunted, loved free will.

10:45

Satan is controlling. Satan is real. Satan exists.

10:53

Number two, what I'd like to say when we think about demons and we think about this issue is there are many people that want to blame demons for their problems.

11:05

They blame demons for their sin. And what I want you to think through Christian is

11:12

I don't want you to say, you know what? I'm a Christian, but I've got the demon of anxiety.

11:18

I've got the demon of drunkenness. I've got the demon of lust. And I know if you watch the show, if you listen to the show, you think,

11:26

I would never think that way. But a lot of Christians do. They're trying to blame their actions and their attitudes on something.

11:36

James one, each one is tempted when he's carried away and enticed by his own demon.

11:43

No, by his own lust, carried away by our own lust, not demons.

11:50

There's a lot of stuff going on in the old days with a guy named Neil Anderson. And he wrote a book called

11:56

The Bondage Breaker. And he was trying to attribute bad things that Christians do to demons.

12:02

And I just don't want you to do that. You need to run from anyone trying to influence you saying, the devil made me do it.

12:08

The demons made me do it. No, it's your own lust. The deeds of the flesh take care of those issues.

12:15

When I was younger, there was comedians that we would watch. And I remember Bill Cosby as a comedian.

12:21

And I remember a guy named Flip Wilson. Mario's too young for Flip Wilson.

12:27

But he would talk about how the devil making him do things and how

12:34

I think it was his wife that bought a dress. And she said, the devil made me buy the dress. It was this funny thing.

12:42

Well, here's what Neil Armstrong said. Neil, Neil Anderson. Neil Armstrong said, one giant step for mankind.

12:52

Are you one of those Christians who lives in the quiet desperation of bondage to fear, anger, depression, habits you can't break, thoughts or inner voices you can't elude or sinful behavior you can't escape?

13:07

And we're all going, okay, yeah, yeah. It sounds like me. I'm not saying that every spiritual problem is the result of direct demonic activity.

13:17

What do you think the next word is? But you may be in bondage because you've overlooked or denied the reality of demonic powers at work in the world today.

13:31

He goes on to say, anything bad, which you cannot stop doing or anything good, which you cannot make yourself do could be an area of demonic control.

13:43

So now what do I do? This is this deliverance ministry stuff is to use the word that's theologically equivalent to a

13:56

Latin word. It's bogus. What are we doing? The deeds of the flesh are evident, which are immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these.

14:13

That's Galatians five. They're called the deeds of the flesh. Deeds of the flesh, not deeds of demons. You probably love

14:20

R .C. Sproul. Remember, he has that meme and he says, what's wrong with you people? Well, here's an

14:26

R .C. Sproul meme that we could probably try to make. Sproul said, I know of no polite way to respond to this kind of teaching.

14:34

It is unmitigated nonsense, blaming demons for our sins.

14:42

Sproul said, sadly, too much concern with Satan and demons means that we focus less of our attention on Christ.

14:49

Isn't that interesting? All this focus on demons, and then we take our eyes off of the Lord Jesus.

14:55

One of the things that you might not remember or think about that I want to make very clear today is if you say it's a demon that causes anxiety, now we have no personal responsibility.

15:10

And doesn't the Lord want us to just own things? Psalm 51, where David just confesses to the

15:16

Lord of his sin of adultery and murder and everything else. We just own it, right?

15:22

If we are going to confess our sins, he's faithful in what? Faithful and just to what?

15:28

Forgive us our sins. So the Lord already knows what we do when we can just say to him, I did it.

15:33

We don't have to hide. I mean, we want to hide, but we don't have to. And we can just say, yes, I did that.

15:39

Secondly, if you think it's demons that are causing your fear and anxiety and marriage problems and drunkenness and everything else, then there's no power to overcome it.

15:50

Christian, duplex gratia, Christ for pardon, you're justified, free in Christ because Jesus paid it all and you get his righteousness.

15:58

And now the other side of duplex gratia, Christ for power. That is the power to say no, the power to say yes, no to sin and yes to righteousness.

16:11

If you blame a demon, you're just gonna be tossed to and fro and you have no idea of the biblical concept of sanctification.

16:20

And so I don't want you to blame demons for anything. Number three, this is kind of fun so far,

16:27

No Compromise Radio. We should do this every week, Mario. This is kind of fun. We do this once a month.

16:34

We come in and do four shows, power through, and then we play them once a week. Where do demons spend most of their time today?

16:42

That's the next question as we think through some of this and try to encourage you to think about these invisible realities.

16:49

Where do they spend most of their time today? Now, when Jesus was on earth,

16:55

God -man on earth, it should not surprise us that there was an intense concentration of demonic forces and the satanic hordes trying to attack

17:08

Jesus and to prevent Him and to hurt Him and try to upset

17:14

His mission. That shouldn't surprise us. That's the first thing I wanna say. Second thing I wanna say is, there's a fixed number of demons that are still around today, right?

17:26

You have all the angels that God created, they were good. One third of the angels fell and now one third of those angels still exist.

17:35

Now, if you wanna talk about the abyss and temporary holding places, but there's still a lot of demons. So what do they do today?

17:42

Since Jesus isn't on earth, I don't see those concentration of people, or demons rather, around Jesus because Jesus's body is in heaven, right?

17:52

Where is Jesus? He's in heaven. Of course, His divine nature is everywhere, but His human nature is in heaven.

17:58

We should do a show on that sometime. The Calvinisticum Extra is what that's called. So demons exist.

18:06

What do they do? Now, when I talked to my friend, Evan Burns, he would say demons like to infiltrate authority structures.

18:16

That's where they spend their time, in authority structures. And so over in Thailand, over in Tibet, the authority structure is the shaman, is the holy man, is the medicine man.

18:28

And you'll see a lot of demon activity relating to that because authority structures need to be influenced negatively by the demons.

18:38

At least that's how the demons think. In America, we don't have shamans and we don't have holy men.

18:43

We don't have those kinds of things. So what are the authority structures in America? And I think it's safe to say that the authority structures are government, media, politics, those kinds of things.

18:57

And so one of the authority structures that we see in our country,

19:03

America, is religious leaders. Oh, they even say they're

19:08

Christians. Where do demons exist today? What do they do? What do they influence rather?

19:14

Inhabiting people? Oh, I don't think so. Listen to 1 Timothy chapter four. I think they do probably inhabit people, but listen to this.

19:23

1 Timothy four, now the spirit expressly says that in latter times, some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons.

19:36

Not teaching about demons, but demonic teaching. Who's doing the demonic teaching?

19:44

Verse two, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, false teachers, people, men, women, doctrines of demons through men and women.

19:57

That's what Paul's saying. Well, what do they teach though? What are those doctrines of demons that they're teaching?

20:04

Here we go, it's gonna surprise you. Who forbid marriage and require abstinence from food that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.

20:17

For everything created by God is good and nothing is to be rejected if it is to be received with thanksgiving for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.

20:28

Oh, this is fascinating. Paul is writing to Timothy, an elder. Timothy is at Ephesus and Paul says, by the way, in these end times, the spirit is explicitly saying something and that is there are hypocritical, lie -speaking, false teaching people.

20:44

And they're going to say, here's what's true. But what they're really saying is from a demon, a doctrine of demons.

20:53

Wow, and what are they saying? What are two examples at Ephesus? I mean, there are many things that demons wanna teach, but there's two things.

21:00

Don't get married and give up certain foods. Both of those are abstaining from something, abstain from marriage and abstain from foods.

21:11

Did you know it is a doctrine of demons to gauge your holiness based on what you give up?

21:19

That's exactly what the ESV Study Bible just says. To gauge your holiness on what you don't do.

21:26

I mean, I'm here in West Boylston today, right? Over there is a town called Lancaster Mass. It's the

21:31

New England headquarters of the Seventh -day Adventist. And if you talk to a

21:36

Seventh -day Adventist, if I go that direction, I can go to a church called Our Lady of Good Counsel, the

21:42

Roman Catholic Church. And what do we do during Lent? What do we do during Fish Fridays?

21:48

We have a good little place here called West Boylston Seafood and they have good seafood, local, shipped in.

21:57

And sometimes I'll meet people on Fridays and I'll just say, oh, hey, Mario, let's meet, you know, at 1145. I forget it's packed because all the

22:05

New England Roman Catholics are still eating fish on Fridays. Wait, I thought foods are supposed to be received with thanksgiving and God created them and they're good.

22:17

All we have to do is receive them with thanksgiving. Now, today's my second day on carnivore.

22:23

Once in a while, I'll do carnivore just before I have to go on vacation and eat a bunch of gelato or something.

22:28

So today's day two. So I'm not talking about carnivore or keto, gluten -free, peanut allergies, any of that kind of stuff.

22:39

Do as you please. But if you think you're closer to God and you're more holy because you don't eat this and you don't drink that, that's a doctrine of demons.

22:52

I didn't say you were demon possessed. I'm saying don't be influenced by those doctrines because people talk about those.

22:59

How many diets have you heard about, Christian diets over the years? Daniel diet, there was one where she denied the

23:07

Trinity. I'm trying to remember, the Weigh Down or something. Who knows? All these diets, eat

23:12

Ezekiel 4 .7, 4 .9 bread and all these things. Go back to the Old Testament food laws.

23:19

Are we under Old Testament food laws? I thought we're not defiled by what goes into our mouth.

23:25

We're defiled by what comes out because out of the heart proceeds all those things. So be careful.

23:31

If people come to you and say, do you know what? You're holy based on what you don't do.

23:38

Colossians even talks about that. That's a doctrine of demons. It detracts from Jesus's work.

23:45

If Jesus paid everything, if Jesus, the second Adam, the federal head, perfectly obeyed

23:52

God, death couldn't keep him. We get his righteousness. He got our sin.

23:59

He's the God man. Then what I eat gets me closer to Jesus? No, no,

24:04

I already am in Christ. What I don't eat, oh, I don't eat those things.

24:10

I don't drink those things. And I'm not gonna get into the whole alcohol thing or whatever, unless you say to yourself,

24:16

I'm a more holy person because I don't drink. How can you be more holy when you're completely holy in Christ, completely righteous in Christ?

24:25

Well, I do like to drink and therefore I have all these. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the work of Jesus must not be subtracted by you thinking

24:35

I don't have to do these things. And by the way, what's more holy? And I can ask Mario, deny yourself when you get home and love your wife sacrificially, or just say, you know what?

24:44

I won't eat pork today. I mean, it's a lot harder to deny yourself and sacrificially love your family versus what

24:54

I don't eat, what I do eat. This is crazy. Everything's to be enjoyed. You can think about lunch right now.

25:01

I'm trying to think what I'm gonna have for lunch now on this stupid carnivore diet. I have some sardines actually in my drawer over there, but boy, no crackers, no hot sauce.

25:15

What am I gonna do? This is gonna be bad. What else do demons do?

25:21

Cause divisions. Wisdom that's not from above is earthly, natural, and demonic.

25:29

He's talking in James 3 about bitter jealousy and selfish ambition. You can see they're dealing with it.

25:36

Okay, I think number four, we don't have much time, but we're gonna go fast. Number four, what authority do

25:42

Christians have over demons today? IE, if you meet a demon possessed person, what do you do? Well, I don't think you'd know for sure if it was a demon possessed person, a crazy person, organic problems in their brain, who knows what it would be, but it's the same response for all of them.

25:57

You preach the gospel. Talk about sin and the savior. You talk about guilt, grace, gratitude.

26:03

You talk about the resurrected Jesus and conquering sin and trespasses and all these things.

26:08

And so if I meet somebody who I think is demon possessed, where am I gonna go? First Timothy, Second Timothy, and Titus, the pastoral epistles.

26:16

And it doesn't tell me to exercise them, to jam a crucifix down their throat, to put the holy water on their forehead, to chant, to spit, to throw up, to all these things.

26:26

It doesn't tell me anything. I just preach the gospel to them. And that's what you need to do. And lastly, can

26:33

Christians be demon possessed? No. You can't be possessed by a demon if you're indwelt by the

26:41

Holy Spirit. You are from God, little children, and have overcome them because greater is

26:46

He who is in you than he who is in the world, 1 John 4, 4. You've been bought with a price.

26:53

Therefore glorify God with your body. Or do you not know your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you?

27:01

That's 1 Corinthians 6. You're the temple of the living God, 2 Corinthians 6. How about this?

27:08

Ephesians 1, in him you also, after listening to the message of the truth, the gospel of your salvation, having also believed you were sealed in him with the

27:18

Holy Spirit of promise. Sealed, that means ownership. That means protection. That means

27:24

God has you. 1 John 5, 18. We know that no one who is born of God sins, but he who is born of God keeps him and the evil one does not touch him.

27:39

2 Thessalonians 3, but the Lord is faithful and he will strengthen and protect you from the evil one.

27:47

So you don't have to worry. You don't have to think, am I demon possessed? Am I going to be demon oppressed and all these things?

27:55

So today on the show, we talked a little bit about demons. And I don't know where you go to get your theology, but I hope it's not

28:08

YouTube, except my channel. Seriously, one of the things you should do, and this is why

28:18

I brought it up, is you should get a systematic theology like Berkhoff and just start reading through it.

28:24

You should get Bavink dogmatic theology and just start reading through it. You should get

28:29

Turretin and just start reading through it. Calvin and just start reading through it. And you're going to see while Ephesians 6 is true and invisible powers are real, there's going to be a focus.

28:42

There's going to be a place for you to look and that's going to be the object of your faith.

28:49

The object of your faith. Is Satan real? Yes, but Satan's a defeated foe.

28:54

Satan goes and tempts the Lord Jesus. And Jesus says three times in the wilderness, it is written, it is written, it is written.

29:02

And so remember, we don't have Jesus and Satan co -equal in terms of power, symmetrical powers.

29:08

One is a created being and one is the eternal son. And so you don't have to worry. I never say to myself,

29:15

I'm worried tonight. What could Satan do? Could a demon somehow get into me?

29:20

What about my loved ones? What about the people at church? I think you can pray and you should pray the

29:26

Lord's prayer and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one, literally.

29:34

That is a good prayer, but we don't have to worry. We don't have to be afraid. We don't have to say to ourselves, oh,

29:41

I could be possessed. I could be oppressed. So let's run far from occult things and let's run onto the

29:49

Lord Jesus. My name is Mike Abendroth, No Compromise Radio. You can go to the YouTube page or you can go to Twitter or you can go to Facebook, or if you wanna go to Amazon, there are a variety of books.

29:58

I should have a new book out soon called King, How the Sovereignty of God Changes Everything.