April 8, 2010
Good evening, dear special people.
That's right. It's evening. 8:28pm. The day was so stuffed with
stuff that I had to stuff this under some other urgencies. So it's
become a better-late-than-never deal.
Good night. Sleep tight. Be blessed.
Love, Dad/Ray
8 April 2010
Passage: Mark 5:1-20
Focus: “When Jesus got out of the boat, a man with an evil spirit came from the tombs to meet him.” Mark 5:2.
There
is obviously a lot of spirit activity going on here beyond what the
account actually describes. What would cause this demon-possessed man
to run to Jesus and both identify Jesus’ deity and plead for His mercy
in His treatment of them? (It’s happened before. See also 1:23-24 and
3:11-12.) Why didn’t the demons run away from Jesus rather than run to
Him? I can only conclude that these demons were simply over-powered by
the sovereign Spirit of God, or by angel-spirits behind the scenes of
visibility, forcing them to identify themselves, to confirm Jesus’
identity, and to vindicate Jesus’ ministry that He came “to proclaim
freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners”
(Is. 61:1).
It also seems clear to me that the demon-possessed man
was not the only one who was demon-influenced. It looks like the whole
community was under a spell of darkness. Why else would they want to
cast Jesus out of their area just because He cast demons out of one of
their accepted community amusements? Remember that the demons pled
with Jesus “again and again not to send them out of the area.” The
demons clearly liked it there. I think there were too many willing
subjects. Maybe it was one of their strongholds. The fact is they did
not “leave the area.”
What is the value of this kind
of exposure and conjecture? For one thing, I think it helps us
understand that there is a good deal more spirit activity mixed into
the affairs of men than is revealed by our physical perception of
things. This limited understanding is sufficient to motivate us in the
direction of being Spirit-filled people of God, capable of seeing “what
is unseen” (II Cor. 4:18) and exercising the authority of Christ over
darkness in the vital ministry of proclaiming “freedom for the
captives.”
"Some denounce the devil openly, but agree with him secretly."