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Should Christians practice exorcisms today? No, but that doesn't seem to stop anyone from trying.
One group says after calling each demon or group of demons out, take a deep breath and blow out through your mouth.
Demons come out through tears, air passages like your mouth, coughing, yawning, mucus, running noses, through skins, or no visible signs at all.
No one knows all the answers. I know that when you blow out, it helps dislodge demons.
Origen, back in 210, he said you exercise demons by calling on the name of Jesus and martyrs.
Some people would try to pull demons out through the nose of a person with a ring.
Others make them drink hell broths. There's all kinds of smoke for fumigations.
Eleazar, a rabbi, used a ring associated with Solomon to try to get demons out of people.
Others said if you have a big banquet feast for the demon, they might just agree to leave.
One large denomination says you should say this to the demon. Unclean spirit, whoever you are, and by all your companions who possess the servant of God, by the mysteries of the incarnation, the sufferings and death, resurrection and ascension of our
Lord Jesus Christ, by the coming one of our Lord into last judgment, I command you, tell me, demon, with some sign your name, the day and hour of your damnation.
Obey me in everything, although I am an unworthy servant of God. Do no damage to this possessed creature or to my assistants or to any of their goods.
I exercise you, most unclean spirit, invading enemy, all spirits, every one of you, in the name of Jesus, be uprooted and expelled from this creature of God.
He who commands you is He who ordered you to be thrown down from the highest heaven into the depths of hell.
He who commands you is the one who dominated the sea, wind, and storms. Hear therefore and fear
Satan, enemy of the faith, enemy of the human race, source of death, robber of life, twister of justice, root of evil, warp of vices, seducer of men, traitor of nations, inciter of jealousy, originator of greed, cause of discord, creator of agony.
But when Jesus Christ meets a demon -possessed man, because He's fully
God, fully human, the Messiah, He says one word, and that word is,
Go. Please turn your Bibles to Matthew 8 today as we continue to see the credentials of King Jesus the
Messiah. So much power. So much authority. He needs no ambulance, no hell broths, no fumigations.
He says one word in Matthew 8, Go. That's all He has to say to a demon for them to go.
Demons exist. Satan is real. And you can just imagine the amount of satanic attack that was surrounding
Jesus like bees around a hive when He was on earth fixing
His face and setting His face towards Jerusalem for that one day where He would die on the cross and be raised from the dead.
All hell was breaking loose on earth trying to stop the Messiah from doing what the
Father sent Him to do. Now, I'm not really big on red -letter Bibles.
If you mean by red -letter Bibles that the red words of Jesus are more important, more inspired, more infallible, we know that's not the case because the
Spirit of God has written all of the Scriptures. And Genesis is just as inspired as Matthew.
But in one sense, I do like the red -letter Bibles. For instance, today, if you have a red -letter Bible and you focus in on Matthew 8, verses 28 through 34, there's only one word in red because Jesus says only one thing in Matthew and that is go.
And Matthew's point is to authenticate the Messiah that you would have confidence in Him.
You would speak well of Him. Maurice Roberts said, the thought of God should be the
Christian's cure -all. It should cure all his ills at a stroke.
If God be God, then no insoluble problems exist. Did you get that?
If God be God, then no insoluble problems exist. And if God be my
God, Maurice Roberts says, then no problem of mine is without its appropriate solution.
So to see God for who He is and high and lift up is Matthew's purpose. And that's exactly what we need, to have the right view of God before us so we can think through issues.
When issues come our way, to make sure we understand who this Messiah is and this passage today, this is one of those, it's like in Technicolor, it's fast -paced, you probably know what's happening, but it shows in the text that Jesus has no rival.
And the most important thing about you, as Tozer said, is how you think about God. What comes in your mind when you think of God?
And the folks here in Matthew 8 were saying, who are you? What kind of man are you? What kind of person is this?
They're probably asking themselves the question, still mulling it over in their mind. Who is like Jesus?
What kind of man does what He does and then they enter the tomb area and we see not just Jesus who can storm, quell a storm, but He can also take care of a storm in human nature.
Sea is untamable, Jesus tames it. Demon -possessed people are untamable, Jesus tames them.
When I was, I think, 13 or 14, I went to my pastor and I said, do you think it'd be wise or unwise to see
The Exorcist movie? Now, he didn't always say things that were wise, but in this particular case, he gave me good advice.
He said, I don't think it would be wise for you to see The Exorcist movie. Some people said of The Exorcist movie, the movie is for strong stomachs and weak minds.
Because only weak -minded people would believe in demons and we'll see today that in spite of what the liberals say, demons exist and Jesus is king over the demons.
He's powerful over the supernatural world. And Jesus, the Son of God, 1 John 3, came to destroy the works of the devil.
Could Jesus have been so superstitious to believe in demons? Or maybe He just accommodated
Himself to the people because they were superstitious. Not true at all.
Let's get into the passage, Matthew chapter 8. I almost said hogwash, but then that would have been an unintended pun.
Matthew's been showing one illustration after another where Jesus' words are now confirmed that He is in fact the
Messiah. What do you believe about Jesus? It says in Matthew 8, verse 28,
And when He came to the other side, to the country of the Gadarenes, two demon -possessed men met
Him. Coming out of the tombs so fierce that no one could pass that way.
Now think about it. We're moving from Jewish territory now over into Gentile area.
It's a Gentile area of the Sea of Galilee. Jesus' ministry, of course, goes primarily to the house of Israel.
But aren't we all happy here by the looks of us that Jesus saves and ministers to and is king over Gentiles as well.
It's like He's over on a missionary journey to the Gentiles and they're on the other side of the
Sea of Galilee. And when you get in a boat and go across, if there's not a lot of wind and waves, it takes about two hours to get over.
Luke says it's opposite of Galilee. Now this morning, I'm going to reference Matthew because we're there.
Mark and Luke are the other two synoptics that talk about this. And if you weave them all together, we'll see the full picture.
But in every case, Jesus is the focus. And here, Jesus is the one speaking.
It's not going to be the disciples. You want to ask yourself the question, what are the disciples doing? Well, the disciples are kind of doing what we're doing.
Just watching what's happening. This is kind of a seedy place. Caves, Gentiles, cliffs.
And two demon -possessed men met Him. Now these demons are going to destroy or attempt to destroy the image and likeness of God in men to deface and to mar.
Jesus is going to reclaim these men because that's exactly what Jesus does. We know not just physically, but also spiritually through the forgiveness of sins.
And these guys have been living in tombs. See what the text says? Coming out of the tombs. And you can just kind of already say, if you're
Jewish especially, this is ceremonially unclean. Even if you're not Jewish, you go, who lives in tombs?
You do this on purpose to kind of... You're unclean mentally. You're unclean ceremoniously.
You want death. You want decay. This is far from some kind of latest fad with goth people.
And no one can pass. If I were talking to my kids when they were little, I'd say, this is like Billy Goat Gruff.
Not letting people pass by. Molesting them with their fierceness, saying, no, you can't go this way.
Who'd want to go that way? Let's say you've got a wife and kids and you're trying to go a certain way. Now it's probably dark by now.
It's late in the day. Mark says when evening had come. So you can just kind of set the tone.
They're going across the water and they're getting out of the boat. And pretty soon these filthy, unclean, morally gross men come charging at them.
Now Mark says there's only one. Is that a problem? No, because Mark's just probably talking about the prominent one.
Maybe the leader, the spokesperson. Maybe the one who had more demons. Maybe the more violent one. Mark doesn't say there's only one.
And here in Matthew, it says there are two of them, demented, coming out of their tombs, their haunt.
They're strong. And Mark says no one was able to bind them anymore, even with a chain.
Dirty, smelly, homeless. Luke says they had not put on any clothing for a long time and they were not living in a house, but in the tombs.
The power of these men snapping off the bindings.
So fierce that no one could pass by. Mark says they had shackles broken in pieces.
Couldn't be restrained. No one could tame them. Fierce and frenzied.
And day and night, it says in Mark, constantly among the tombs and the mountains, he was crying out and gashing himself with stones.
Just imagine screaming and yelling, inarticulately crying out. We say we cut up something.
We hack it up. The Greek is you cut down and they're just cutting themselves all the time, trying to destroy the image of God.
Body mutilation. You can imagine the black, dried blood, the open wounds, the scarring, the pus.
Reminds me of 1 Kings 18. So they cried with a loud voice and they cut themselves according to their custom with swords and lances until the blood gushed out on them.
Demonically inspired cutting. Now, how would you react?
You get out of the boat and then these two wild people come to you. And these are maniacs.
These aren't like one guy said, they're just manics. These are crazy people. No, they're demon possessed people.
They come running at you. Had you ever had two naked men who were demon possessed come running right up to you?
I don't know, but I immediately... Somebody's shaking their head no. I never had that. I don't think the guy was demon possessed.
But I remember once in North Hollywood, as I've told the story before, I look out of my window and I see a guy dancing this
Grateful Dead dance in the middle of the road there, Carpenter Avenue. And I thought
I got to mow my lawn. So people just do these things in California. It's just standard procedure. I was at Faneuil Hall yesterday.
I didn't see any of these kinds of things happening. And anyway, so I start to mow and I would mow this way and he would be behind me.
And then I would mow this way and then I could see him. And every time I went this way and then came back, he'd have one less article of clothes on.
And then he started dancing, doing all kinds of stuff, jumping up and down, running around, looking around like this.
And I'm thinking, what do I do? It's dark. I got to finish mowing. And how could he hurt me?
He's naked. I have a mower. And so I just kept mowing. And he's running around and finally called the police and the police come.
It's a long story, but anyway, he goes and gets a hose at somebody's house and he gets down in this position to shoot the police with the water gun and they finally grab him.
There's something about it. I didn't want to get too close and I was glad I had the mower. And when you read this account, the eternal
Son of God who adds human nature, who cloaks
Himself with humanity, John 1 .14. There's no backing up.
There's no worry. Jesus isn't scared. And because of this,
Christ's magnificence is magnified because the cure is so great. His person is so wonderful.
That is Jesus's. Look exactly in verse 29. Jesus knows what to do, how to do it, but they know something about Him.
Matthew wants us to see this. And behold, they cried out, what have you to do with us,
O Son of God? You're God in the flesh.
What do you want to do with us? We know you're going to do something one time. Have you come here to torment us before the time, the appointed time, the sovereign time, when we know you're going to throw us into the abyss?
We know we're going to get it one day. We just don't want it right now. With a loud voice,
Son of the Most High God, it says in Luke. Mark says, they ran up to Him and then got down on their knees before Him.
Not worshiping, but recognizing Jesus is superior, that they're submitting to His Lordship, not in a salvific way, but like little shards of metal are just drawn to a magnet, these demon -possessed men come running up to Jesus and then they get down on their faces to receive their punishment, to receive the sentence.
I don't know what the disciples are doing, but if I'm a disciple, I'll tell you I'm doing this. My mouth is just open.
What's going on here? They're crying out, you're the Son of God. Pharisees don't even see this.
The Sadducees don't see it. Herodians don't see it. Scribes don't see it. But the demons know, Jesus is the eternal
God cloaked with humanity, the Son of God, Son of the Most High God.
And these demons might make no one be able to pass by, but they are impotent in front of Jesus.
And they know they're going to be tormented. I implore you by God, Mark, do not, Mark says, do not torment me.
What do I have to do with you? Why are you interfering with me? Maybe it's even a threat by the demons, although I doubt it.
Mind your own business. Son of God. See it there in Matthew 8 again? Oh, Son of God.
Jews use this kind of language. Gentiles use this kind of language. The living God of Israel.
He's not a false God. He's not a dumb God. He is superior. He is the one true God over all gods.
And they recognize His deity. Jesus is God. Don't torment us.
What do we have to do with you, oh Son of God? What do we have in common? We know we're going to be punished one day.
Matthew 25 goes on to say, Then He will say to those on His left, Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels.
It says in Luke, What is your name? And the man said, Legion, for many demons have entered into Him.
What's your name? My name's Legion. What's a Legion? Well, depending on your studies, up to 3 ,000 to 6 ,400 men in a battalion.
Soldier talk. Now the number is not so important. Most people say it's 6 ,000.
That's not the important thing. But what you should think of is efficiency, organization, relentless strength, battle, warriors, soldiers.
Luke says, They begged Him not to command them to depart to the abyss. They kept on begging over and over and over.
What abyss is that? Revelation 20, And I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand.
And he laid hold of the dragon, the serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years and threw him into the abyss.
As one man said, There's nothing worse than a nagging demon. What's Jesus going to do?
Verse 30. Remember Jesus's sovereign authority,
His messianic credentials. That is what Matthew wants you to know, to affirm, to believe.
Now a herd of many pigs, Matthew 8, 30, was feeding at some distance from them.
The demons begged Him saying, If you cast us out, send us away into the herd of pigs.
Some pigs on a hillside there, and they've got this devilish request. Why do they want to go in the pigs?
Well, maybe they know they get the abyss eventually, so any place besides the abyss would be good for now.
Maybe because God has called pigs unclean. Deuteronomy 14,
The pig is unclean for you, and so does it make sense for an unclean spirit to want to go into an unclean animal?
That makes sense. Maybe they're thinking, You know what? We know what's going to happen, and if we get
Jesus to cast us into the pigs, and the pigs die, then the Gentile owners of the pigs aren't going to like Jesus, and it'll speed up His demise.
That is, Jesus's demise. Most likely they're thinking to themselves, We want to inhabit some kind of body.
If it's not this poor guy, then pigs will do. No matter what we know, the motives aren't good.
They didn't say, By the way, Please give us new natures. Please forgive us. We won't do it again.
Grant us repentance and saving faith. Their demon nature is through and through.
And what does Jesus say? In Matthew, it's the only thing He says. It's the one thing He says. He said to them,
Go. No cajoling. No coaxing.
Go. See the sovereign messianic authority. That's what you have to believe. And He said to them,
Now look at how fast it happened. So they came out. They went into the pigs. And behold, the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the waters.
Jameson Fawcett Brown said, With majestic brevity, He says, Go. Down into the water they go.
These demons were hell -bent on destroying, and that's exactly what happened. The Greek is like one pig after another, after another, following each other down over the cliff.
And you know, pigs don't follow each other like sheep do. But they do here. They're stubborn.
But here they've got a herd mentality. And it says they were drowned in the sea. And Mark's got it so it's like a choking, a tense.
Can you imagine the squealing, and the sounds, and the drowning sounds, one after another?
The liberals say this, The wild man was so freaked out, he chased the pigs into the water. It's harder for me to believe.
You say, Was it okay for Jesus to do this? I mean, that's a lot of pigs. First of all,
Jesus is the creator of everything, right? It says in Psalm 115, Our God is in the heavens.
He does whatever he pleases. He owns all things. And so for Bertrand Russell in the book,
Why I'm Not a Christian, you should probably read it sometime because it's so hokey. He says,
One of the reasons I'm not a Christian is because Jesus destroyed the pigs. I wonder what the people for the ethical treatment of animals would say about Jesus here.
Why would Jesus send the demons into the pigs, and then the pigs would soon be destroyed? He knew it was going to happen.
One man said, He wasn't sending them to hog heaven. Okay, I get that. Was he exposing his power that he could control demons?
Was he saying to them, the demons, I know you want to destroy. Certainly, he was showing his power and authority,
Jesus's. But I think if you back up for a moment and watch how
Jesus, not only the eternal Lord does things, but the compassionate Savior, he has given these men an object lesson.
You had these demons in you, and now you can see with your own eyes. The demons, the invisible demons, you can't see, but you can see that if they've inhabited pigs, now they're gone.
Now they're destroyed. Christ's priority is not the property, it's the people. Is one man more important than 2 ,000 pigs?
How often do we kill animals to eat them all? We do it all the time. One man said,
There's a cheap sentimentalism which will languish in grief over the pain of an animal and will never turn a hair at the wretched state of millions of God's men and women.
You totally see that today. People will wig out over a dog in a car on a hot day, which
I wouldn't advise. And then they'll turn a blind eye to thousands upon hundreds of thousands of babies being killed in the womb.
I think Jesus has another agenda. You people who are using unclean pigs for business, this is going to be a wake -up call.
By the way, those pigs would have died of slaughter, starvation, animal attack. They would have had to die sometime.
To put animals above image bearers, it's just like today. Jesus shows with visible proof
He's sovereign and has authority over demons. Now, how do people respond?
Well, look at some of the responses. What would you do? You saw this happen. Verse 33, The herdsmen, praise
God, from whom all blessings flow. The herdsmen fled. Going into the city, they told everything, especially what had happened to the demon -possessed men.
And behold, all the city came out to meet Jesus. When they saw Him, they worshipped Him and fell down at His feet like the demons, but with good hearts.
They begged Him to leave their region. Everybody comes.
Got to check this out. No CNN in those days. News spreads rapidly.
Word of the drowning of the pigs spreads as fast as the pigs drowned. All the city, see verse 34?
They came out. They all came out to say, we want pigs instead of the Savior. We want swine instead of the
Savior. Now, based on the other accounts, the demon -possessed man is seated, clothed in his right mind.
Don't you think they'd say, isn't this wonderful? Look what Jesus did for him. Maybe He can do that for us spiritually.
Mark says, the man who had been demon -possessed was sitting down, clothed in his right mind.
The very man who had the legion, they became frightened.
This guy was a freak. He was demon -possessed. He was naked. He was running around.
He had no control. He's no longer under a frenzy now. He's seated and now they're afraid. The demon -possessed man's healed.
Luke says, all the people, the surrounding country, the Gerizim, ask Him to depart from them for they were seized with great fear.
What do you mean you're afraid? The demon -possessed man's cured. They realized with holy awe of their own sin and they wanted to get rid of Jesus.
One poem says, Rabbi, be gone. Thy powers bring loss to us and ours.
Our ways are not as thine. Thou love us men. We love us swine.
Get out of here, please. Would you just please go? With the same intensity that the demon -possessed man says, are you going to send us to the abyss before the time?
They're saying, please just go. Just got to get out of here, Jesus. Frightened, resentful, no welcome man here.
Don't you think you'd say thank you? You could just stay a while. You're king and Lord of the universe over demons and I have a sin problem.
Would you help me? And then Cole says, the saddest thing in the whole story is that the
Lord listened to their request and He left them. There are times when the worst possible thing for us is that the
Lord grants our prayer and it was to be judgment for them that the
Lord left to return no more. Turn your
Bibles to Luke just for a moment because there's a little bit of info that I want you to pick up in Luke. Luke 8. This is a similar account with just a different emphasis.
Still being Jesus' center stage.
Luke chapter 8 verse 38 and verse 39, the man whom the demons had begged that he might be with them, demons had gone, begged that he might be with them rather, sorry, but Jesus sent him away saying, what's he going to say?
This guy wants to be with Jesus. Isn't this the right response though? I long to be with Jesus above family, above wife, above business, above whatever his home was.
Certainly now it's just a tomb. Isn't this the natural thing? Please Jesus, I just want to be with you.
I want to follow you. I want to worship you. Thank you. I'll serve you. You've emancipated me from slavery to this.
Out of a grateful heart, I just want to be with you. Jesus says though, verse 39, return to your home and declare how much
God has done for you. And this man got the connection. He went away proclaiming throughout the whole city how much
Jesus, that is God, had done for him. He gets it because only
God can do that. Only God can calm the storm on the Sea of Galilee and hear this demon -possessed man is in his right mind and the right thing about the mind is
Jesus is God. I could say that you're insane if you don't believe Jesus is God. And he goes all over the town.
Jesus says return to your home, verse 39 in Luke 8, and declare how much God has done for you.
And he did that, I'm sure. And then he goes all over Decapolis, these 10 Gentile cities, and begins to evangelize.
Proclaiming here throughout the whole city how much Jesus had done for him. The other passage said he went to Decapolis. Okay, you can be with me or I'll save you from the demons and most likely save you from your sin and then
I'm going to cut you loose for missionary work as a nobler calling than just following me around.
I'm going to send you and you tell them how great the Lord's compassion is on you.
Mark 5 that I referred to a moment ago, he went away and began to proclaim in Decapolis the great things
Jesus had done for him. And everyone marveled. Shell -shocked.
Probably even paving the way for Jesus' ministry later when Jesus goes to Tyre and Sidon and these other places in Decapolis.
One writer said it is interesting that Jesus answered the request of the demons and of the citizens, but he did not agree to the request of the man who wanted to be his disciple.
Demons want the pigs. Okay, you get the pigs. The disciple said, oh, I'd sure like to be with you. And he said, no, you go tell other people about who
I am.
So, what's the point? The point is very simple. So I ask you, do you believe that Jesus is the eternal
God cloaked Himself with humanity and is King of kings and Lord of lords?
Do you believe He's the Son of the Most High God? Has power over demons, the sea, leprosy, death, life?
Say, well, you know what? I believe all that, but here's where we have the bad theological punchline in evangelicalism today.
I believe it all intellectually, but I've got my private sins, and so let me now just keep
Jesus as Savior and I don't want Him as Lord. And I'm just going to keep on doing what
I want to do because if I acknowledge His lordship in areas of my life or say, Lord, you know,
You are Lord. I don't even know all what that means, but You're the King and I bow to You in worship.
You're the Son of God. You're Christ, as Peter says, the Son of the living
God. Thinking about demons, then something has to happen. The demons even believe and what?
Shudder. They tremble. The demons have an intellectual faith You're the
Son of God. They have an emotional response down on their faces. James says they shudder.
Literally, that's where we get the word hair goes up on the back of your neck. That's why they called demons hairy ones.
Demons are invisible. Why do you call them hairy ones? Because even the demons believe and they shudder. So you can believe that Jesus is
God. You can sign the Westminster Confession, the 1689 London Baptist Confession, the
Savoy, whatever confession you want. You can know it all. The demons know it all better than you do. And you can even have an emotional response to it and still not be saved.
Why? Because the way our forefathers in the Reformation would frame saving faith is this.
Knowledge, assent and trust. Knowledge, assent and trust.
Jesus is Lord over nature. He is Lord over sickness. He's Lord over death. He's Lord over demons.
He's Lord over the ocean. And He is Lord. And have you bowed your knee to the
Lordship of Jesus? Willing submission. Oh, it's nothing you can do on your own.
I'm not saying it's a man -made work, but it is the God -wrought response in the life of every person who follows
Christ Jesus in light of the gospel and the ministry of the Holy Spirit. You will say,
I will follow you. I believe in you. I assent what you've done and I will trust in you.
I willingly will serve you. What do you want me to do? That is a good response to salvation.
What do you want me to do? Jesus said, Why call me Lord, Lord, and do not do the things that I say?
Lordship requires ownership. Lordship implies ownership. Romans 14,
For to this end Christ died and lived again, that He might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.
Luke 2, For today in the city of David there has been born a Savior who is Christ the
Lord. Acts 2, Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made
Him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified. 2
Corinthians 4, We do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus as what? Lord.
People say, Well, you know what? I know I still live the same way I used to. There's no change in my life, but I'm really holding on to that intellectual hope and I have just a desire to want to go to heaven, but all these other things in my life, there's been no change.
Well, if there's been no change in your life, in your holiness, has there been a change in your justification before God?
Say, God, I want your justification. Count my sins against Jesus, but if you think I'm going to live a holy life in light of that, if you think
I want to be sanctified now in light of my justification that you've done for me, freely, fully, my sins credited to Jesus' account,
His sins credited to my account, confirmed by the resurrection, thanks for doing that, but I want to live in my sins. Then friends, you're not a
Christian. Christians don't talk that way. Christians say, I can't believe I still sin and I let my
Savior down and I'm repenting of my repentance that's so bad and I have sorrow for my sin and shame for my sin and I want to run from my sin.
Lord, please forgive me of my sin. But to say really with your life,
I want justification, but there's no way I want sanctification. I could ask you the question this way, why is it that the
New Testament over and over and over says Jesus as Lord more than it calls
Him Savior? Even in the book of Acts, two times Jesus is Savior. He is a Savior.
He is the Savior. But 92 times, Lord in the book of Acts, 13 times,
Lord Jesus. Six times, the Lord Jesus Christ. That's why it's believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. As the Persians said to seminary students, men, if the professed convert distinctly and deliberately declares that he knows the
Lord's will, but he does not mean to attend to it, you are not to pamper his presumption, but it is your duty to assure him that he's not saved.
No wonder 1 Corinthians 6 says what? Do not be deceived because it's easy to be deceived.
Well, yeah, I still live with my girlfriend and I still get drunk all the time and I still do all the things that I used to do before I was saved.
And I want Jesus as my Savior. I want Him for my justification. I want Him for all that, but I don't want
Him for any holy living. Holy living? No, I don't want that. It sounds like what a demon would say.
That's what a demon would say. There's a judgment coming.
I mean, I'm passionate about this. Why? Because for 29 years of my life, I had
Jesus as my Savior, but I was not born again. In your mind, you can think, you know what?
Demons believe, demons shudder, demons know all this stuff, but I just want to keep Him away because I've got my own life to live.
I don't want any of this other stuff. Matthew Henry said, unless we consent to Jesus as Lord, we cannot expect any benefit by Him as our
Savior. And for you who are
Christians, I want you to know that unbelievers are not demon -possessed.
Not all men are demon -possessed as unbelievers, but they are ruled by Satan. And the only thing that can wrench a
Satan -controlled person away from their own sins and slavery to Satan is the gospel.
How are people made new? How are people born again? How are people justified, forgiven, redeemed?
Not with amulets, not with broths, not with fumigations, but we tell people the most important truth in the
Bible. I deliver to you as of first importance that you can be forgiven for your sins because Christ the
Messiah died on the cross, was raised from the dead. Just a couple of other things as I'm thinking about demons.
Don't spend a lot of time worrying about Satan or demons. Romans 16, the
God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. If you're a
Christian, you can't be possessed by demons. And if you're a Christian, especially don't buy into this.
Well, I've got the demon of drunkenness. It's not really me, it's the demon inside of me that makes me drunk.
Demon of lust, my favorite one by my old pastor. I've got the demon of post -nasal drip.
I mean, whatever problem you have, you say, well, I've got the demon of pornography. R. Kent Hughes says in his story, brother and sister are fighting.
Mom says, why did you let the devil put it into your heart to pull your brother's hair and kick him in the shins?
Girl thought for a second and said, well, maybe the devil put it in my head to pull my brother's hair. But kicking his shins was my own idea.
I could ask you this question. If you do meet a person who's demon -possessed, what would you do? Would you go to the pastoral epistles and say, okay, now it gives me the formula.
This is what I'm to say. This is what I'm supposed to do. Watch out for this. Here's how you do it.
What would you do? If you ever meet a demon -possessed person, I don't know how to recognize a demon -possessed person.
Maybe I've met some, maybe I haven't. But what would you do if you ever met one? Would you just say,
I'm like Jesus and I'm the son of a king and God begets gods and cats beget cats and little dogs beget little dogs and I'm Jesus.
And so I just look at them and I say, go. Well, if you ever meet a demon -possessed person,
I have good news for you. You don't have to know if they're demon -possessed or not. If you meet an unbeliever or if you meet a demon -possessed unbeliever, the response is the same.
You preach the gospel to them because when the spirit of God comes in, guess what goes out.
And I don't care if you've got a legion of demons or just seven. Submit therefore to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
James 4. These are calls to salvation. Colossians chapter 1, he delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of our sins.
I don't run around rebuking Satan, casting Satan to Fitchburg. I don't never do that.
The poor people in Fitchburg are the receiving end of too many problems. I send them over here. I cast them to go over there.
It is the sole prerogative of Jesus Christ to deal with demons. Michael the archangel, when he disputed with the devil and argued about the body of Moses, didn't dare pronounce against him a railing judgment.
I'll tell you who does a lot of demon casting out is false prophets. They do not tremble, 2
Peter, when they revile angelic majesties. They don't know what they're doing. Binding Satan and casting in places.
No, I meet someone. If they're possessed or not, I preach the
Gospel to them. I have no prescription in the New Testament on what to do. Lastly, I watch this man become liberated from his own sin, from the demons.
And his response is our response. It should be your response. I just want to be with you,
Jesus. And whatever you tell me to do, I'll do. I'll go. We have a great commission.
And the great commission is to proclaim this good news that Jesus, the eternal Son, cloaked himself with humanity.
Sinless, spotless, substitute on behalf of sinners. And when people look to Christ Jesus, the risen
Savior, through faith alone, they can be healed from their sins. And our responsibility is to go tell people with eagerness, with zealousness, stemming from gratitude.
We're not our own anymore. We've been bought with a price. Yeah, I'd like to go this direction, and Jesus sends them the other direction.
Friends, I'm a living sacrifice, and so are you if you're a Christian. Romans chapter 12. Well, I have all these other plans though, and I don't know about this, and I don't know about that.
Well, we have a sovereign God, and our responsibility is to follow Him and proclaim the good news.
I have to end, but I'll just ask you the question. When's the last time you said to someone, you're a sinner, but Jesus is a greater
Savior? And unless you're born again, you're going to bust hell wide open, and I don't want that for you.
It reminds me of John MacArthur on Larry King, and the homosexual man sitting next to him, and John was telling
Larry King the gospel, because whatever John says, whatever Larry King asked
John, it doesn't even matter the question. John just goes, oh, that's a great question. Now let me tell you the gospel. And then
John looked over at the guy sitting right next to him, the man who played Jim Elliott in the movie, Beyond the
Spear, Behind the Spear, End of the Spear. I'm not sure what it's called. And he said, you don't want to go to hell now, do you?
You're going to die in your sins and go to hell. You don't want to go to hell now, do you? He tells him the truth.
When's the last time you said to someone, you don't want to go to hell, do you? The Savior Jesus has come,
Christ Jesus the Lord. And you have to look to Him with faith. And here's what
He's done for sinners like you. When's the last time you told someone? It's not unloving to tell.
It's unloving not to tell. This man was saved by Jesus and commissioned.
And if he's got a commission and we've got the great commission, we need the help of God. Let's ask Him. Father in heaven, we'd ask today that You'd grant us strength.
You'd grant us wisdom. You'd grant us courage to open our mouths and tell people, though your sins be as scarlet, they can be as white as snow.
Father, help us to tell people. I pray, not because BBC should grow with all kinds of numbers, like tonight with the three baptisms.
I hope there's three baptisms every Sunday night. Father, I hope three people come every Sunday night, 30 people and say,
I want to follow Christ Jesus. And I heard about the gospel through some people down on Route 110,
Bethlehem Bible Church. Father, unloosen our tongues, decrease our fear of man.
And Father, to whatever degree we can emulate Christ Jesus's love for people on earth, help us to do that by telling them the truth.