New Thoughts (7/20/07-7/30/07)
This is one of those passages that folks like to trot out as proof of error and inconsistency in the Gospel record. However, it seems that much of the apparent error arises not from the Scriptures, but from the efforts of those who researched it at a later date. Specifically, it is apparently the work of Origen that has led to some of the confusion. It is his work that has led to the discrepant references that added a third region to the mix. The remaining two, Gadara and Gerasa, are both, as it turns out, reasonable references for the same region. One being the major city of the region, it is legitimately used to name the people of the area. The latter was a lesser city, perhaps closer to the site at which the disciples came to shore. It is suggested that Matthew, writing to a local audience, uses the lesser reference knowing that they would be familiar with it. The others, writing to a broader audience less familiar with the area, use the better known city to designate the region.
This strikes me as little different than how I would answer folks who asked me where I live now, or where I grew up. If it were somebody familiar with the area, I would simply tell them the name of the town itself. If, however, it were somebody less local, I would be more inclined to speak of a larger nearby city that they might be familiar with, so that they would have a recognizable point of reference. In either case, I would be answering just as truly. Why should we suppose that the Apostles were any less sensitive to their intended audiences?
With that, let me turn to what strikes me as the most inexplicable part of this narrative. Not surprisingly, this has to do with how Jesus responds, which so often seems to be in a surprising, almost offensive way. We see this so often in His interaction with people. They ask Him a question and His response, at least at first glance, seems either to ignore the question that was asked or else to insult the listener almost beyond bearing. I think, particularly, of that exchange with the Syrophoenician woman. She comes asking for help, and instead is called an unworthy dog. Yet, she proves above the level of being so easily insulted as we might be, and holds to her faith and her request. Thus, she receives what she seeks.
How does this relate to the story at hand? When the demons make their request of Jesus, that they be allowed to enter the herd of swine, Jesus accedes to that request. Doesn’t He realize that such an act is bound to offend the Gentiles in the region? He’s a local, after all. He must know that relations between the people of the Decapolis and the Jews are strained at best. The very fact that we see a herd of swine in the area is sufficient to tell us that these Gentiles thumbed their nose at Jewish sensibilities. So, why does He do this? How can such offensive behavior serve to expand the kingdom of God?
I suspect that those demons were hoping for just such a disruptive effect when they made their request. They are, after all, a force forever opposing the True King and they serve a master of lies, deception and trickery. Here, it seems they figured that they would outsmart this young Prince. Sure, let Him save these two men, but they would see to it that He lost the region in the process. That way, they could report back with a victory instead of the defeat of being chased out of their current victims.
One thing I can say with certainty is that Jesus was neither duped by these demons nor unaware of how His actions would be received. I am put in mind of the fact that He is the stone of stumbling. Thus it was prophesied of Him. He did not shy away from this. Rather, He looked for those who would recognize the Cornerstone. He was quite aware that destroying this herd of swine was not in itself going to win Him any converts amongst the Gentiles, and there would be few if any Jews about, apart from His disciples, who might appreciate the humor of His actions. So, what did He expect to gain? Why did He do it?
Might I propose that this was a test? Having brought up the Syrophoenician woman, I am reminded that as Jesus saw His mission, it was first and foremost to the Jews. They had, as we might say, the right of first refusal. Yet, that same episode and several others besides make it clear that He did not see this as an exclusive thing. If there were Gentiles ready to seek the kingdom, He was ready to point the way. What I see transpiring here is that Jesus is presenting the people of the region with a test. He is, as it were, confronting them with the question of what they value more highly. He is asking if there are any among them who value their countrymen more highly than their profits.
Here are the things that are in the balance: On the one hand, two lives, two human lives, have been rescued. On the other, a few thousand pigs have been lost. Which, He asks, weigh more heavily in the scales of opinion? The answer ought to be clear. What we have contrasted is a very small number of the highest valued members of earthly creation versus a very large number of the lowest valued. Indeed, the pig was, to the Jewish mind, the epitome of irredeemably worthlessness. From that same vantage point, man stands as the very image of God. So, what was worth more: two men or two thousand pigs? This was the question asked of the locals. They reached the wrong conclusion. Had they answered correctly, the number of lives saved would have far outstripped the number of pigs lost. Perhaps there was still time, but I’ll come back to that later.
The question that was asked of the locals is one that is continually asked of God’s people. What matters more to you? Given the high degree of materialism in our present day, it is a question that is more and more pressing. Are you more concerned with your capitol or with matters of the eternal soul? It is, I suppose, a crisis that every missionary faces at his calling. Are you willing to give it all up in hope of saving just one of these men created in God’s image?
It is a crisis that we all must face at some point. I heard it in the song God gave to me a year or so ago. “What would you do if I said, ‘give it all away?’” “Would you give up all you own just to save one soul?” In the economy of heaven, that would be a very small price to pay. Yet, too often in our own thinking, it is more than we can afford. This truly is the daily crisis of faith. When our kingdom citizenship collides with our livelihood, which shall we choose? We are constantly facing this dilemma, although it seems we often don’t recognize it. We are constantly choosing the wrong answer, although we blind ourselves to the fact.
God forces the issue, forces us to choose on a daily basis. What matters more? Where are our priorities. He forces the issue, but not the choice. Here is our free will in play. He points to the options and says, “Choose you this day which you will serve.” For the Christian, this is the equivalent of the young bird being pushed from the nest. “Will you fly this time?” Thanks be to God that He is merciful. He does not leave us to plummet to the ground in failure, but swoops in to snatch us back up to the nest. There will be another time, another test, and He knows that one of these times we will choose aright and fly strong on the wings of the Spirit. He also knows, wise Father, that if He allows us to avoid the test, carefully preventing us from falling out of the nest under any circumstance, we will never mature, never know our proper strength.
In the economy of earth, everything becomes a matter of profits and losses. We carefully marshal our investments, looking always to the bottom line. What is the return on this investment? Will I gain back more than I put in? We measure it before investing and we monitor it along the way. If the rewards are not sufficiently high, we will pull our money and put it somewhere else, somewhere that will bring us a better return. Ah, but are we measuring the return in the proper denominations? In God’s economy, the matter of profit and loss is really no different. What is different is the value placed on what has been invested, and the units by which return is measured. One life or a year’s savings? There is no comparison. He who gave His Only Son to the cause of salvation – the salvation of a creation He could as easily have simply erased and remade – has not found a price that was too high to pay. The soul is too precious to be lost at any price.
So, He asks us to choose: your self-reliance in earning a living, or God-reliance in saving a life? Which will it be. The choice is ours, to be sure. The choice is ours, and the choice we make will have consequences. Like any child we are given to raise, so with us. He presents the choice. He provides the training by which we are given the means to choose rightly, but He does not force the right decision. To do so would leave no real choice to be made. He gives us the opportunity to manifest maturity. He will not destroy us for failure, but there will be consequences. Without them we will never attain maturity, for it is the consequences of our failures as much as anything else that train us to pursue the right course.
I cannot yet leave this thought. It strikes me as being one of the great questions that every Christian must face: When kingdom and livelihood collide, which shall we choose? Some will face this on the grand scale, others in smaller ways. I really think this is a daily challenge, probably more frequent than that. There are the fairly obvious cases, such as an employer requiring or requesting that we do something that is wholly unethical. Do we play along to preserve the job, or do we stand for our faith and choose righteousness? From the other side, there are the seemingly harmless yet equally obvious matters of office theft. It’s only a marker, after all, or a pen. It couldn’t have cost them much of anything. But, where is the path of the upright in that? The cost of the item is no justification for walking off with it. The fact that everybody does it is no justification. Children of God are not called to be like everybody else. They’re called to be like their Father.
These are relatively obvious and clear cut cases. We really ought not to have difficulty in navigating these sorts of decisions. So, too, ought be matters like the internet in the workplace. There is clearly no righteousness in stealing the employer’s time for cruising the web. That remains true even if you’re out there looking up the Verse of the Day. What you do with your stolen goods does not justify the stealing, and stealing time that has been paid for in good earnest is as bad as stealing the supplies.
What of less obvious cases? Do they exist? I think they do. For example, even by the elders of the church, you will be cautioned about discussing your faith in the workplace. Employers have made this a risky practice. Why would they do that? I can think of two reasons. First, the evangelism effort has a bad habit of being done on the company’s dime. From the corporate perspective, this is going to be nothing more than lost productivity. Further, I would have to say that such methods do little to commend the faith in the eyes of the employer. I grant that this lost productivity may be more appearance than reality. However, if we are truly concerned with promoting the Gospel of the kingdom, then we ought to be as aware of how our actions appear as we are of our motivation. If we choose methods that cause only offense, how are we promoting the King? This is not to say that we must avoid all confrontation, but if we are seeking to convince others of the goodness of God we cannot do it by behaving egregiously.
That more or less segues me into the other aspect of the anti-evangelistic atmosphere of the modern workplace, which is the false peace of multiculturalism. The workplace, at least for most of us, has become a rather international affair. With the global workforce has come all the various belief systems of the globe. We have coworkers who subscribe to Hinduism, Buddhism and certainly Islamism working alongside the Christians and atheists. The employer, faced with such a workforce, has an inherent interest in avoiding any conflict that might arise between such belief systems. Funny how we used to be able to work those things out ourselves, but there it is. We must be careful not to offend lest the offended party hire lawyers to sue us. That is the real corporate concern. They are not allowed to be discriminating in their hiring so as to avoid such conflict in the first place, nor do I suppose they have any particular desire to be discriminating. Their concern is the bottom line. If they can achieve their bottom line results by simply squelching religious talk in the workplace, their goals are achieved.
The question must remain as to whether their workplace productivity is truly improved by indiscriminate hiring and thought policing. Quite possibly, it is. Given the loose attention that the average Christian pays to his daily reflection of the Christ, it is entirely probable that he will wind up looking like the worst worker in the place when by rights, he ought to stand out as the model employee. Paul calls the Christian to excel in whatever calling this life may find him in. If your present labors are as a slave, then be the best slave your master has ever had. If your present labors are as a slave master, then be such a slave master as your slaves will rejoice in laboring under. Now, clearly slave and slave master are gone from our economic landscape, yet the relationships are not that much different between employee and employer. Certainly the rules of engagement are not far different.
The Christian is still called to give his employer the best he can or, if he is an employer, to treat his employees as best he can. Neither is given leave to abuse or take advantage of the other. Even when employer and employee are both Christians, this relationship is not to distort the vocational relationship. Being brothers in Christ does not grant the employee permission to shirk his duties knowing his boss must forgive him as a Christian should. Neither does this grant the employer permission to favor his fellow believer over other workers. Here, too, is one of those collisions of kingdom and livelihood. However, let me return to my original trajectory.
I have been describing the current climate of the workplace, with all of its squashing of liberties in the name of coexistence. The reality is actually worse than the premise. In many places, the employer bends so far in the direction of protecting these foreigners from hearing any rejection of their beliefs that the Christian alone must bear such rejection. As the employer bends farther and farther in the name of protecting against any form of discrimination or confrontation, he invariably bends in such a way that the Christian must either put up or shut up. It is not permissible, of course, for the Christian to defend his beliefs when faced with open displays of homosexuality, idolatry, or other immoralities in the workplace. Co-worker has a Buddha on his desk? Don’t you go complaining about that!
So, here is the great collision of work and faith. Is this a demand to set aside the rule of righteousness or not? Ought I, as a good Christian, to abide by these gag orders for not better reason than that the employer has said so, or ought I to stand up and declare that the Law of God demands my disobedience? It is not really a question of which is more loving in this case. That answer is pretty obvious. To leave a man dead in his deceptions, chained to serving his demons, is not the loving option. To allow a man to continue in blindness when you hold the cure is hardly the loving option. “I could help you. I could pull you out of this death spiral and set you on the path of real life. But, I’m not going to.” There can be no question as to whether that is a kindness or not. Even if the one so entangled is unwilling and uninterested in the cure, it would remain terribly unloving of us not to provide the cure. If the issue were a matter of insanity and we truly held the cure in our hands, would it be right to listen to the madman’s ranting rejection of the cure? That more closely reflects the situation.
Those who cling to their idolatry and to their immorality are truly like madmen. There is a fundamental flaw in their faculties that prevents them from recognizing the situation as it truly is. Therefore, they will insist on continuing as they are. It is destroying them, yet they will insist on it. It can lead only to death, yet they will insist on it. The only way that they can be saved is largely against their will. Now, that offends whole swaths of the Christian community, but in reality, that’s the story of every last one of us. Because of the insanity of sin, the blindness of enslavement to the devil, we were none of us going to choose salvation. We were incapable of the choice because we could not recognize that there was a choice and then, when we heard there was, we didn’t really believe it. Nope, this way of life I’m used to is just fine with me. But, Christ broke through. God’s love was of such a nature that He would do for us what was desperately needed even when we would have none of it. His love is still of that nature. He is unwilling that His children should go through life enslaved to death. He will rip the blinders from their eyes. He will treat them for their addictions to the lusts of the world even though they rave at Him the whole time.
This is love. Love is not just making somebody feel good. That seems to be the psychological approach, yes? It’s that old nonsense of “I’m OK, you’re OK.” The truth is I’m not OK and neither are you. We are both miserably sin-sick and in a most desperate need of the Physician. If he will not heal us, we are already as good as dead. Telling us it’s not our fault, we should just learn to accept ourselves as we are is not going to change the outcome. Telling the terminally ill that everything’s going to be alright may, if they’re particularly far gone already, bring them some measure of comfort, but it won’t change the reality of their situation. They’ll be just as terminal however comfortable they might be. The love of God is such that He doesn’t just tell us it’s going to be OK. He doesn’t tell us to accept ourselves as we are. He doesn’t even ask us if we want to get better. It would be a rather stupid question to ask the coherent and to answer that we did not wish to get better would only manifest our incoherence. So, He simply administers the cure.
That’s the example of God. The Scriptures shout it to us repeatedly. While we were yet His enemies, He saved us. God causes His mercy and His goodness to fall upon the sons of the devil as much as upon the sons of righteousness. He does not block the sun from shining because it has passed over a sinner’s house. No, His mercy is rich, His goodness boundless. Yet, He is not indiscriminate. He chooses, and He chooses wisely. It is not everybody who will be brought into His kingdom. There are qualifications that must be met if we would enjoy His adoption. Ah, but I’ve sidetracked again.
Given God’s example, I really need to reevaluate what my answer ought to be to the dilemma of workplace evangelism. Inasmuch as it is the workplace, then I must agree and abide with the stance that to take company time to evangelize is to rob the company. That is fair and reasonable. Indeed, I should have no issue with that if I am as concerned with my employer’s eternal state as I am with my coworker’s. And, what right have I to discriminate between those two? Are they not of equal value in the sight of God, for both are His image and His workmanship. Yet, there are times in the workday that are not directly on the employer’s time. For that matter, if I’m really that concerned, why am I bounding my efforts by the limits of the workday? There is life outside of work. This ought to be time I avail myself of to reach out to those I work with, to establish relationships that can lead to effective evangelism. This ought to be time that I can turn over to the kingdom with freedom.
That said, I do not think we are generally bound to avoid all manifestations of our faith in the workplace. Indeed, I should think it ought to be impossible to so constrain the man of God. If our faith is real, then our habits and expressions at work really oughtn’t be very different from what one might see in us at church. I hear our pastor declare that if we are of a sort who will jump and shout with excitement at a ballgame or a concert, then we really oughtn’t be any different in our enthusiasm for God. Well, let me turn that around a bit. If we are giving God the glory for everything at church, and if our every sentence in His house is sprinkled with, ‘praise God’ and, ‘God willing’, then there should be nothing to keep us from saying the same things at work. If this is really who we are, then this really should be who we are. That is not being ‘in your face’ and rude, that is being real. If I should be listening to Christian music as I work, who is harmed? Of course, I must be equally willing to listen to my coworker’s Buddhist chants or whatever. Even foul-mouthed heavy metal or such like must, I suppose, be tolerated if I am going to insist on my own tolerance.
It has been said that the best way to expose a lie is to lay it out alongside the truth. Might I suggest that this is probably the strongest model for workplace evangelism? We don’t need to carp on the foulness of foul language. We don’t need to harangue our coworkers on the falseness of their false religions. What we need to do is to live out a real Christian example before them. Let us look to our own language. Never mind whether we may speak as foully as the next. Simply constraining our tongues from official curse words hardly satisfies the call of God. What of our words regarding our coworkers and managers? Are we murdering them by our derision? Are we stealing their livelihood by back-stabbing and conniving against them?
The best way to make the falseness of false religion apparent is to live in the Truth of true religion. The only reason we are failing is because we are unwilling to do this. We are too busy fitting in at the workplace. We are unwilling to set ourselves as examples of righteousness because we want to be accepted. Such an attitude will utterly destroy our effectiveness as the kingdom’s representative. Such an attitude will leave us incapable of serving out the purpose of our vocation. We need not be ‘loud and proud’ about our faith. We don’t really need to boldly come out of our prayer closet. What we need to do is live the Truth that we believe. What we need to do is to walk the walk we have been trained for. What we need to do is stand as men of real integrity in every situation and in the face of every slight. However frustrating the day, our attitude should reflect the patience of the godly. However misguided the management, our efforts should not go towards pointing out their flaws but rather towards helping them overcome those flaws. That’s hard work. But, that’s the effort that will lead the lost to wonder if there isn’t perhaps a better path.
Daily, the kingdom collides with our livelihood. Daily, we willfully ignore the collision and just go on with what we are doing. Daily, we misrepresent the kingdom in most egregious fashion and then lament that we don’t see how this work thing fits in with ministry. It’s time we change our daily routine. It’s time we choose to recognize the collision and stand up in righteousness. The choice will surely have consequences.
There is still, for me, the question of why Jesus opted for the destruction of this herd of pigs. One thought has occurred to me this morning which might serve as an answer. As we have the events unfolded in these pages, it seems to me that we have a very clear example of how God is able to use even the most rebellious and sinful impulses towards His own good purpose. Consider the intent we hear from those demons which possessed the two men. They have called Jesus to an oath taking by the very name of God Whom they hate and yet, must necessarily obey, not to send them out of the country according to Mark. Granted, Luke says they were concerned with not being returned to the Abyss, but I think, in this case, I would hold with Mark. Their purpose was doubtless manifold, not the least of them being to avoid any more torment than must be endured. So, they have this clever plan. Jews hate pigs, and they’re not all that fond of Gentiles either – particularly Gentiles with pigs. Why not call upon this One to send them into the pigs. That way, they can stay in the country, which satisfies their immediate concerns, and Jesus can have His rescue of these men, which is His immediate concern. Everybody wins, right?
Oh! Stop there for a minute. That offer of compromise is exemplary of our greatest danger. That is exactly the kind of deal our enemy tries to foist on us every time we turn around. You can have your reputation for good works and still have this sin in the backroom. Everybody wins, right? You can have your faith in God and I’ll keep my godless ways and everybody wins, right? Do you realize that this is exactly the sort of attitudes our children are being fed on? This is the mindset that is transferred in all these competition free games. What is the point of learning to compete if there’s no reward to be had in victory, no risk to be suffered in loss? That is exactly what they’re teaching: There is no point, so don’t compete. That is the voice of the devil. It can only lead into the mindset that says there’s no point in trying to battle sin. There’s nothing to gain by winning and nothing to lose by failing. That’s the same message that has infiltrated the pulpit in so many churches. Your beliefs are not in question here. Believe what you like. Come to the church of everybody wins!
Here on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, Jesus provides His response to the everybody wins gambit. He as much as tells these demons, “have it your way.” But, He is hardly duped by their duplicity. He is hardly One to allow them their win just so long as He can have His. No. He is in charge of this situation, fully in charge. It is clear from the way these demons address Him. They may offer their suggestions, but they may not act upon their own. They have no choice but to await the word of the Word, and when His word is spoken, they have no choice but to obey.
That is the fundamental point we should recognize here. Jesus allows these demons their way, as it seems, even as He would allow them their way at the cross. However, it is only their way which is allowed, not their aim. Their desire was to remain in the land. Why should Jesus care about that, they reason, for this land is overrun by benighted Gentiles anyway. These are not His people they are harassing. However, in allowing them their request, Jesus makes them instruments of a small cleansing of that poor, benighted people. He was well aware, after all, that all the peoples of the earth are subject to God, and that His kingdom would be built up from peoples of every tribe and nation. As much as it might offend them at this juncture, the removal of these swine would, in some small way, prepare them for the coming of their own salvation.
Lesson number three: A pig can’t be prettied up, however hard one tries. This is what the pig symbolized to the Jew, the irretrievably, hopelessly lost. Clean a pig, and it would just return to its mire. To feed it was only to prolong its offense. Indeed, the great insult that the Psalmist took at Jerusalem’s distress was that even pigs, these lowest of the low who could not even be bothered to put effort into finding food for themselves, were finding their way into the vineyards to steal the fruit of God’s people (Ps 80:12-13). Clearly, it wasn’t literal pigs the writer had in view. He took the symbol for the nature of those who were invading God’s lands. They were the unredeemable, the utterly worthless, the hopelessly lost. They were a people who were not going to accept God’s rule willingly however hard one sought to convince them.
We don’t like to think so, but the fact is that there are those who are beyond redemption, fully and forever. While we are not permitted to class any man in that category ourselves, yet we must recognize that there are those whom God places in that class. It is not His desire that any man should be found as such, but it is yet the case that many are so found. Choices have consequences.
Our sense of things leaves us feeling that there’s something unfair about this. If God is good and merciful and all that, if it is truly His will that no man should be lost, then how is it that He allows men to be lost? He’s all powerful, isn’t He? Why, then, does He not reach out and rescue all the lost? I cannot hope to answer that to anybody’s satisfaction in whom this question arises, but I can say this: God is just at one and the same time as He is good. He is righteous at one and the same time as He is merciful. He is glorified by the administration of His justice every bit as much as He is by the administration of His love. Were He to simply offer blanket pardon to one and all without distinction, that pardon would not be half so glorious. If I might: if every man is a millionaire, what is gained by being a millionaire? We might as well all be poor! Likewise, if every man is saved in the end, as some would have us believe, what is the point of salvation? What was the point of the Son of God sacrificing Himself, if all were to be saved anyway?
This is but another manifestation of the ‘everybody wins’ perspective. This will not leave us feeling any more comfortable with the fact that it’s God’s choice whom He will save and whom He will not. It does not leave us any clearer on how He makes His determinations. It should, however, be clear enough by examination of our own lives that it was nothing about us that earned His kind attentions. For my own case, at least, I can say it was clearly ‘while we were yet enemies,’ or at least very much estranged.
When we come upon the unbelieving, we are likely to find them in one of two camps, as far as their thinking goes. There will be those who are convinced that they are good people, with no great sins that really need God’s attention. They feel no need of God. It’s not that they have anything in particular against Him, they just haven’t yet seen their own needy condition. The other camp is fully aware of their own condition. They know how needy they are, how frightfully corrupted by sin they are. The problem is, in seeing themselves, they cannot see how God could possibly accept them. They can be summed up in the attitude I have heard from some people. “At this point in my life, I’ve done so many things wrong that God must surely have condemned me already. Might as well keep going.”
My point is this: if there are any unbelievers out there who are truly seeking God and God’s forgiveness apart from His having already worked upon their hearts then they are exceedingly rare. They are a species on the brink of extinction, if ever they truly existed. I suspect that those who think they are of this breed have only misapprehended the truth of their salvation. It’s certainly easy enough to fall into such a way of thinking. It is, I suppose, human nature to shout out, “I’ve found Jesus!” But, the reality remains that “Jesus found me!” No, He had never lost me that He needed to find me. He always knew right where I was, just as He knew right where these to Gadarenes were. But, my Shepherd came looking for me because I had walked off. He knew where to find me and that is the only place He had to look. But, He needed to get my attention, to make me aware of what I had walked into. Repeatedly. Practically begging for self-destruction.
Thank You, Lord, for that. Thank You, from a sheep that knows he still has much of that same problem. Thank You that You have never given up, that in spite of myself, You have rescued me. Oh, God! That You consider me a sheep to be saved and not a pig to be given up on is more than I can ever hope to deserve. I am left, like so many before me, in stunned wonder that You should care for me. Even in this week of struggle, frustration, and darkness, still I look and see that by You I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Even as I deal with the constant concerns and pressures of seeing my wife hurting so, even as I deal with the selfish attitudes that rise up in me, resenting that these things must impact my life, yet I know that she, too, has been fearfully and wonderfully made by Your hand.
Lord, I don’t know. So much I don’t know. I don’t know whether to counsel for or against so many of the things that she pursues in Your name. So much that is done in the name of Your Holy Spirit, so much that is attributed to You seems utterly perverse to me. This is God in action? Yet, I really wonder if I haven’t put myself at risk of offending You by doubting it. Frankly, Lord, I’m not convinced that I have. It strikes me as equally probable that You ought to be offended by my allowing the thing to proceed unchallenged. I need Your wisdom in this.
As to matters such as flags and all the other trappings of modern worship, Father; here, too, I need Your wisdom. There is so much that strikes me as vanity and foolishness in it, and yet, there is a certain purity of heart behind it. On the other hand, that purity seems to get lost in a sense of importance beyond all proportion to the event. Oh, but am I not equally guilty in that regard? Is it just the silliness of Your children’s youth that they always seem to view their own role as the most important? Is it just our own need for self-worth that constantly inflates our sense of our own role, our dismay that others don’t recognize the same importance in it? Lord, I don’t know. I do know, that I would not have this be the case with me or with those You have charged me with. Purity and innocence are all well and good, and yet I know You have left us examples to make us aware that they are not enough in themselves. There are protocols to be followed in the presence of Holiness. Let us, in our liberty, my God, remain aware of that, lest we offend You to our detriment. Keep us free, my God, from becoming nothing but prettified pigs.
So, we have this trade off shown to us: two thousand pigs or so lost, two men saved. Of those two, it seems that one in particular was, as some like to say, gloriously saved. I must maintain that any salvation is glorious, but I also recognize that there are those who receive it almost without notice and those who are so altered by the event that their past is seemingly shed in a moment. One of these two, at least, falls into that second category. The visible changes are nothing by comparison. Yes, he’s clean again, clothed again. No, he no longer runs raving through the wilderness. These are all wonderful. They are also just as true of the other man. What sets this one apart is that his heart is so fully and evidently turned towards his Savior. “Let me come with You. Allow me to become Your disciple, as these men have.”
As the disciples saw it, this request was rejected. Mark, who we might suppose to be echoing Peter’s views, writes that Jesus did not let the man join. Luke says He sent the man away. Both of these have such a strong sense of ‘no’ to them that we include it in Jesus’ response, even though it’s not to be found there. We see it as a rejection, even as Peter and others at the scene saw it as a rejection, but is it? Look at what Jesus says. “Go to your people. Report to them what God has done. Tell them of His mercy towards you.” That’s not a rejection, that’s an assignment!
The disciple is, after all, called to do much more than sit at the Master’s feet listening. He is called to emulate his Master, to learn his Master’s ways and make them his own. That is precisely the assignment this one has been given. I would have to say that his application for discipleship has been accepted. It is just that his training and his assignment are of a necessity unique to him.
In this current phase of Jesus’ mission, it would be seriously detrimental to have a Gentile along. He would have enough difficulty getting His message across to His own people without adding this to the challenge. He was enough of a stumbling block all by Himself. He had no need to add unnecessary insult. Yet, He also knows the time of the Gentiles is coming and coming soon. So, He assigns to a mission to this man that is very like His own. “Go to your people. I will go to mine. Tell them what God has done for you, and I will tell them what God has done for them. Tell them of His mercy and I will show them His mercy.” Indeed, the man is given the same task as John the Baptist had amongst the Jews. Go tell them the kingdom is near. Prepare the way! That remains the command to every would-be disciple of Christ today. Go to your own. Tell them. Prepare the way for your King, for He is coming and He is coming soon.
There are three parts to this command to the new disciple. The first, as we have said, and as I shall explore again shortly, is to go to your people, return to your house. That may seem at odds with what we normally view as the church’s mandate: Go make disciples of all nations. However, that mission to the world has to start somewhere, and here, Jesus indicates the starting line. I would also say that this serves as the confirmation and legitimization of the calling. The prophets of God always found it necessary to establish their credentials. The impact of the mission to our own is the same. They, more than any other, are in a position to confirm (or deny) the change in us. They are the most likely not only to recognize this, but also to respond to it. As well as confirm our discipleship, this can also serve to build confidence in us, assuming they respond in positive fashion. See? You can make a difference.
The second part of that command indicates what sort of message we are to present. “Tell them what God has done for you.” Get personal! Don’t speak in grandiose ways. Telling them what He has done for the Jews won’t help the Gentile. Telling them what He has done in Africa does almost nothing to bolster the faith of those in America. Second hand news is already thin enough gruel. Third and fourth hand news is so thin as to provide no sustenance whatsoever. News of past revivals, historical works of God, while they certainly edify and give us better understanding, have not the power of one who can stand up and, in verifiable fashion, say, “Look what He’s done for me!” I was blind. Now, I see. I was lost. Now, I am found. These are the messages that get through. Time enough later for news of the past.
Finally, there is a call to explain. It is not enough to simply point out what He has done. There must be a deeper understanding of how important it is that He has done it. “He healed me,” is great, but it’s only the least part of the whole picture. It’s a pixel on the poster of God’s work in your life. See, the truth is that He healed in spite of who we are, in spite of what we’ve done. While I was yet His enemy, He came to me, He sought me out and He healed me. He healed more than those physical symptoms that you know I have had. I mean, He healed me. He saw my sin and rather than condemn me as my sins deserved, He not only forgave them, but He took pains to help me with the consequences of that sin. I deserved nothing but death, yet He Whom I had so offended by my sins Himself took that punishment, paid off my debt, and cleared me of all charges! He Who by rights could have and should have destroyed me from the face of His creation instead manifested His compassion for my weakness. He did not pity me, for pity is wasted. No! He loved me. He reached out and did all that was necessary to turn me around and set me on the path towards life and hope and peace such as can never be known apart from Him. That is what He has done for me, and that is what He offers to do for you.
You want a missionary message? There it is in spades. Rather than treat with me as my sins deserved, He dealt with the sins themselves, and with their residual effects on me. Rather than kill me, He gave me life. Rather than condemn, He forgave. Rather than His wrath, He has shown His love. No, not everybody will be able to lay hold of these claims for themselves, but it certainly makes for an attractive offer, does it not? If once you can break through to the point that a man recognizes his criminal actions against all-Powerful God, how sweet will that offer of mercy appear!
I note that this plan for testifying is nothing new to Jesus. It has always been the way of God. He calls upon us to tell of what He has done for us. David recognized that. “Come and listen, all you who fear God! Come, and I will tell you what He has done for my soul” (Ps 66:16)! It’s not enough to recite the histories. It’s not enough to hear what God did in ages past. This is what He has done in my lifetime, in your lifetime. This is what He is still doing even today.
That is our calling. Go to your people and tell them what God has done for you. Let me add, though I shouldn’t need to, that we need not embellish our tale. Indeed, we ought not dare to do so! It is the Truth of God’s activity that we are sent to proclaim. To clothe the Truth in fallacies would hardly serve. This one we see in the text would be hard pressed to exaggerate the facts any way. They are already exaggerated in their reality. I notice, also, that there are witnesses to confirm his report, which must, at first blush, sound like an absolute fiction. Oh yes! I had several thousand demons in me. Those who knew me used to chain me to the walls of a cave outside town to keep me from harming myself or anybody else. But, so powerful were these spirits that possessed me that they would simply shatter the chains. Even the shackles on my feet were as nothing to those spirits. They would just snap under the pressure as those demons forced me out to the wilderness again. I mean, that’s already wild enough to make most people today just stop listening. He would be qualified a madman or a drug addict and written off. But, his story continues.
See, it’s not about him. It’s about what happens next. This man comes ashore and those same demons that drove him so often into the wilds now force him prostrate before this stranger. He had no idea Who this was, but they certainly did. Thousands of these spirits that plagued him and yet, when this One lone man comes on the scene, they are cowed. They dare not offer Him any affront, but rather beg that He not make their punishment too great. This is a story written in superlatives. Everything is seemingly larger than life, and yet, everything is corroborated by witnesses. He is not alone in recognizing that it is this Jesus who came ashore that has done for him what has been done. When he is told by Jesus to declare what God has done he has already made the connection. What God has done is what Jesus has done. What Jesus has done is what God has done. Behold! The Father and Son are One. This is now his story, and he is quick to obey the command of his Lord and Savior.
For your part, go to your own people. We have been focusing on missions at church this month. So many are going to this place or that country to reach out in the name of God. This is wonderful. This is the commission in action. Yet, as the pastor has wisely counseled, not all can go out, lest we lose our base for sending. If the whole church rises up, ceases their employments, and goes forth to the mission field, who will be left to cover their expenses? It could be argued, I suppose, that such an attitude manifests a certain lack of faith in God to provide, but it could as easily be argued that this attitude is simply offered in recognition that we are the means by which God provides. When I add to that what we find in this passage, “Go to your own people,” I see that there is a missionary call that we can all answer. This is a field in which every man, woman and child in the church can fulfill the commission of Christ.
There is only this one prerequisite that I can see: When you go, you must go with the knowledge of what God has done for you. If you can not offer that personal evidence of a living, active, involved God, then you have nothing to testify. You have only stories to tell, and those stories, being impersonal will be powerless.
Time for a change of topic. When these demons are confronted with the presence of the Lord of all Creation, their first reaction is very telling. “Have You come to torture us before God’s appointed time?” Wow! There is just so much significance packed into that question! First, there is a tone of accusation there, an attempt to plant doubt in the mind of God’s Servant. It’s not time, yet! You’re ahead of schedule and to be ahead of God’s schedule, even if doing His desire, is to sin, for it is not the appointed time.
We are discussing, of course, a kairos moment, a time that require action whether convenient or not, a time of divine appointment. It is also, as we might say, the moment of crisis. All of these meanings are wrapped up in that concept of time. In a sense, all of these shades of meaning are there in the question these demons pose. By intimating the divinely appointed nature of this time they refer to, they remind the Son of Man that to take these matters into His own hands, do them in His own time, would fall short of what God requires by way of sinless obedience. As I said, they seek to plant doubts in Him.
Where have they come up with this avenue of attack? For it is an attack, however it may be clothed in cringing submission. Well, for one thing, they have been watching this One Whom God has sent. I have no doubt that they had their spying witnesses there at the wedding in Cana, when Jesus and His mother were discussing the wine situation (Jn 2:1-4). On that occasion, when Mary had pointed out to Jesus that the wine had run out, Jesus’ response to her was very similar to what we hear the demons saying here. “What have I to do with you, woman. It is not yet My time.” Now, hear how these demons twist what I suspect they had heard on that occasion, to turn it to their own purpose. “What have we to do with You, Son of God. It is not yet Your time.” See, they have understood from their observations of the Son that He is deeply concerned with properly fulfilling what God has purposed in Him. He is committed to satisfying every least point of the Law and the Prophets. They recognize His concern, and they play on that concern to seed doubts into His thinking.
In His case, I suppose such an attack was rather doomed to failure. However, this is not terribly different from the tactics the enemy uses against us. I recall again one of the major sermons I have been blessed to sit through, in which the preacher declared that the devil has essentially one weapon, one avenue of attack upon us, and that attack is through and against the mind. It is the mind, after all, that echoes and amplifies the urges to sin. It is the mind that leads the way to capitulation, giving up in the face of difficulty. It is the mind that either keeps faith or loses faith. If, then, he can slip his words of doubt and unbelief into our thinking, he sees a path to victory, at least in the short term.
I have heard many teachings on the Temptation of Christ there in the desert which make exactly this point about what was going on. Right from the start, the attack was, “if You are the Son. If You have correctly understood who You are.” It starts in much the same place with us. “If you have really heard God on this. If you are truly following His plan for your life.” Now, how did he try this on Jesus? He turned to the Truth upon which Jesus depended. ‘Isn’t this what Scripture says?’ Oh, he’s a fine one for memorizing the verses, he is. He even delivers them verbatim, not a word misspoken. Only the point is off.
This present situation is just a variation on that same approach. The devil is not, after all, terribly creative. He follows the old corporate adage: why mess with what works? Now, he is attempting to use Jesus’ own thoughts and words to accomplish his ends. This is even more familiar for us. We hear with far less clarity than the Son of God. We are so often riddled with doubts as to whether it is God we have heard or just our own desires. It can be so hard to distinguish. We need to be aware, though, that these doubts may not be ours at all, but only the seeds of this enemy of God’s work. We also need to be aware that this is only a maybe.
I know this is a dilemma we face with great regularity because I face it with great regularity. My wife faces it with great regularity. Even as recently as yesterday we were discussing such matters. “How do you know?” Do we, like Gideon, keep laying out tests before God? Do we play the game of, ‘If you want me to do this, then do that’? Do we keep laying out further tests after the first one, to make sure we got the answer right? How many tests is enough? Well, let me ask this: when does all this testing begin to look more like playing with the Ouija board?
All right, then, if that’s not how you know, how? Do we just seek for that place of peace? That sense of well-being when I go this way, and nervousness when I go the other? I don’t know. That path seems as open to fraud as the original sense of purpose. Yet, I can not really offer you a clear definition of how I know when I’ve heard right, when I’ve chosen the right course.
This has problems of its own, for it leaves the door open for doubts to come in for a visit. I face it even now. There are those things I was so certain of. And yet, just now, in this particular moment, I am nearly paralyzed when it comes to pursuing those things. I have come this far, and I know there have been hurdles and I know my God has seen me through, and yet, that next step just seems so improbable, so impossible. Perhaps I didn’t hear Him right, after all. Perhaps I’ve just been chasing a pipe dream. Perhaps it wasn’t God, it was just vanity and wind.
But, no. It is just the discouraging word. It is just that pursuing God’s path, while it seems it all ought to be level roads and tailwinds, rarely turns out to be so simple. There are constantly obstacles arising, constantly attacks that seek to put us off, keep us from our purpose, detour us into useless activity and dead works. These are not the signs of being off track, but in reality, signs that we were on the right track all along. They are not pointing us back to the way we should go, they are ways provided to give us exercise, to train us, to build us up in our faith. Oh, yes, the enemy sends them against us for harm. Certainly, he would be pleased if we would follow his hints and turn aside. But, what he has intended for harm, God intends for good. He promises the test is not beyond our endurance. It may come right up to the limit, but it will not go beyond. We can stand up to the challenge. We can rise above. We can do all things through Christ Jesus who strengthens us. For, nothing shall be impossible with God.
So, let us look at the words of this legion of demons and hear something that should bolster our confidence. See, if they can make this attack about being ahead of schedule, it does tell us one thing: They know there is a schedule. They may not know exactly when that appointed time is coming, but they know this: it is coming! It cannot be stopped, however hard they try. It cannot even be delayed. The time is already appointed by One they cannot really oppose in any meaningful and effective way. I would note, as well, that they already know what must be the outcome of that time. They will lose. They know it. They will lose, and they will suffer an eternity of torment for their willful rebellion.
I must once again point out, as I know I have done in some other section of this study of the Gospels, that the real kairos moment for these enemies of God has long since passed. If the kairos moment is a moment of crisis, as the word would indicate, that moment is not going to be found in the final judgment, but in the choices that resulted in that final judgment. The only sense in which the judgment is a crisis to the condemned is in that the results are so unavoidable and there can be no further delay of their coming to pass. The crisis, however, lay in that moment when the demons chose to rebel against heaven. In that moment that they decided to follow Satan rather than God, the crisis had already come and gone. From that time forward, the conclusion was already foregone. From that time forward, they have known this. I have little doubt that the consequences of their choice were known to them even before that moment, but somehow, in the moment of choosing, they were blinded to them.
It must seem impossible that any being would knowingly choose a course that must inevitably lead to a permanent, everlasting torment, and yet, we do similar things all the time. In some cases, the passions of the moment lead us to push all thought of consequence from our minds. In some cases, perhaps it’s the delusion of youth, that such things are so far removed from us that they can never happen. I can still remember a time when I sincerely doubted I would live to see the age I’m at now. Given that disbelief, it becomes real hard to worry about consequences that may crop up at such a distant remove. They simply are not real enough to our thinking to provide the needed discouragement. There are a million and one ways in which we manage to blind ourselves, force forgetfulness, delude and deny our own thoughts in favor of the pleasures of a moment. We have learned this from our father, the prince of this current age, the father of lies. Even in rebirth, when the Son of Man has breathed into us new life, it is difficult to set aside the thought habits of our former existence.
This should not surprise us over much. Changes in life rarely if ever leave us completely free of what came before. When they do, it is generally a catastrophic thing. We tend to give such complete disconnects medical definitions. It is simply unnatural for us to become detached from who we have been. A child adopted into a new family does not therefore automatically forget his old family. A child of divorce does not somehow instantaneously drop all memory of the departed parent. Not without it being signs of a psychological disorder of some sort. No, God designs us to retain the past as a guide for the present. Our problem is that we tend to make of it a determination of the future.
Turning my attention to the initial response of these two men possessed, one thing at least must be clear: that response was no more an expression of those men’s volition than was their ravings in the desert. Both of these behaviors – the raving and the prostration – are actions taken by the legion within. This is interesting and edifying. Look at the actions that are taken here as Jesus comes ashore. The men bowed down. In another setting, these same words would suggest that they worshiped Jesus. Indeed, some of the translations use that wording to describe this scene. What is being translated is a word that conjures up the image of a dog licking its masters’ hand. It is describing a behavior in man that is like that; kissing the hand of an acknowledged superior. That action may indicate respect for the one whose hand has been kissed, or it may indicate an act of supplication, near to begging.
That is the wording from Mark. Luke uses a similar, but different term, which would indicate a falling forward. Here, the implication is clearly that prostration that we so often see depicted in images from the east. This, too, may have the flavor of worship or of supplication, depending on the surrounding circumstances. In either case, though, it is an acknowledgement of one’s superior. It is an admission that this One before whom they have thus prostrated themselves holds the power over them: the power of life and death.
What is the lesson I would draw from this? Well, for one thing, this adds to a body of evidence throughout the New Testament that should serve to warn us that not all worship is truly evidence of a love for God. Remember that throughout the ministry of Jesus, particularly near its beginnings, there would be those occasions of demonic announcement of His true office. They spoke truth, and they spoke it truly; and still Jesus silences them. Why is that? I can only suppose it is because that in spite of the truth of their words, there was not truth in their motivations. To speak truly of God, but without a real devotion to Him, without any sense of honoring and adoring Him, is worthless. Many a minister in the pulpit today is in just such a position of utter vanity. They may speak as truly as ever a minister did, but if they are not truly sold out to Christ, bought at the price of His blood and earnest in their worship of the True God, then their words avail them nothing. The philosophers of ancient Greece have done as well as these, and with equal benefit to themselves. It avails Plato nothing that much of his philosophy is of one accord with Truth as we have it revealed in the words of Jesus. If he has not truly accepted the redemptive work of the Son, if his faith is in his own reasoning and not in the God that reasoning ought to have revealed, he is no better off for his wisdom.
Paul dealt with similar issues, as we see it in the book of Acts. There was the occasion of the fortune telling slave girl who followed him about, declaring the clearly true matter that he preached of the Most High God, the True God. She was not lying, and yet those words were prompted by a lying spirit. What can we say of this? Is it not similar to the case of Balaam as he looked upon the camps of Israel? His plan and his purpose was to curse that camp. He was being well paid to achieve this very end. And yet, when the time came to make his pronouncements, he found he was constrained to pronounce blessing. Repeatedly, he sought to fulfill his obligation and repeatedly, his words were at odds with his own purpose. I would suppose that the same sorts demons that filled Balaam are at play in these other cases. It is not their words that condemn them. Indeed, if I am to take Balaam as the example, they are not their words in the first place. Their words, could they but speak them, would be far different. As it is, the words that they pronounce come out in protest.
It is not their will which is at work, but it is God who is at work in them both to will and to work. That is a verse that I have long stood upon, a verse that is comfort to my soul. Yet, when I consider it in this light, when I recognize that this very same truth is applied – at least in such circumstances as these – to the lost, it leads me to rethink things a bit. Do you see that the fact of God’s presence determining the outcome has in no way mollified Him when it comes to the original intent? He has overruled the will of these men or of these demons, but in overruling them He has not dismissed their case. They remain guilty before Him in spite of the good outcome He has worked from their evil beginnings.
Where am I going with this? If nowhere else, then I am led to discover an even greater need for discernment amongst the saints of God. If the attitude of worship that we see here is insufficient to mark the child of God, if the word of Truth upon our lips is insufficient to distinguish friend from foe, we are in greater danger than we have thought. What I see in this is that there is nothing available to our senses upon which we can rely when it comes to matters of the kingdom. It is insufficient. It requires the input of that One who knows the heart of a man, that One who knows our every thought to reveal the true situation to us. We are more dependent upon Him for understanding and for survival than ever we realize.
One other lesson I must surely carry away from all this is that my own words, however true they may be, will not suffice to honor God. Words alone do not honor the Word. Words alone do not establish the relationship as real, do not express the fellowship that is required. Only as my heart is invested in the Truth and my character invested in making His character manifest do I begin to approach acceptable worship.
It is a stunning and fearsome realization to come to, this recognizing that even demons bow down to Him in worship. True, we know that there will come that day when every knee will bow to Him, and every voice will acknowledge Him as Lord of all. But, we also know that not every voice will rejoice in having said so. Every vanquished foe has known the frustration of having to acknowledge the victor’s right over them. It does not declare them pleased with the outcome, only resigned to it.
This, more than anything is what I see on display in the present scene. These demons, numerous as they are, have no option but to admit their defeat by the very presence of the King. He needs no legions of angels behind Him to deal with this legion of demons. He is sufficient in Himself and they know it. He has but to speak the word, and they will have no choice but to obey. Think about that, for a moment. Here we have a force which by its naming would seem to imply a number in the range of six-thousand strong facing one Man. And yet they know themselves beaten and in mortal danger. They may fear their master in the pit. You can hear that fact in their begging not to be sent back. A terrible thing to face such a master with nothing to report but failure. Yet, more terrible still is the idea of facing the wrath of a Holy God. Oh, they have known all along that the time to face that wrath must come, yet that knowledge won’t keep them from trying to put it off as long as they can.
Now, if I see this absolute submission to the command of God in these beings that stand higher in the order of creation, how can we honestly think it is in our power to ignore His command? If their will, even in numbers such as these cannot counter Him, what does it say of us that we think we can? I must grant that there is, in some way, a mystery here, for we clearly do have a volition, and a volitional responsibility, even as do these. Yet, at the same time, we are in the end as powerless to defy the ordinance of God as this legion we see cringing at His feet. We could no more resist His grace in saving us or, God forbid, His condemnation in leaving us to our own devices, than these could resist His command to go, no matter where He directed them to go to.
It has not been that long ago in this study that we considered three men who came seeking to sign on as disciples of this same Jesus. They saw benefit to being with this One, and yet, when it came down to it, they were not prepared to obey Him. If He said, “Go,” they were not ready to go. They wanted time before they complied. How can this be? How can this be tolerated? How magnificent is the mercy of an all powerful God, that He allows such insolence to go unchecked? How great is the patience of this King of all kings that He will continue to give us opportunity to know a change of heart? How great a Father we have in heaven, that He will – over and over and over again – put up with such nonsense from His children and still not kick them out of His house!
Now, recognize the fear that is upon this demonic force. So deeply do they understand their position, so abject is their defeat that the only avenue they have open to them is to try and convince the Victor not to destroy them utterly. So, the come imploring Him. We do not, I think, understand the significance of this word. Other translations would say that they adjured Him, which is, if anything, even more obscure to our understanding. This is, by the way, the same sort of approach that the priests used when the demanded that Jesus answer whether or not He was the Son of God. You see, it is not a begging and pleading sort of, “Oh, please, won’t you tell us?” Not at all. The intent is to really force the other party under oath. It is not asking Him to swear upon God’s name that He will do such and such or that He shall speak thusly. It is informing Him that He is already under such oath. It is what our own legal system attempts to do in swearing people in. The promise is forced, “I swear to tell the truth, whole and complete and unadulterated.” How much a given witness may feel the weight of that oath is questionable. It was not so with Jesus. There was no question as to how He would take the honor of His Father’s office. Nor was there ever really a question of His telling the Truth. He could do no other.
In this case, these demons fence Jesus in, as it were by oath, and more or less demand that they be allowed to go abuse the pigs. OK, so notice this: They could not do this without permission, not even to pigs! Do we understand, even yet, what it means to know that God is truly in charge? Do we get it? He has not lost command even over these rebels in His ranks. Even their master has, at the end of the day, to heed the command of the One who rules. God alone has the authority. God alone has the power to enforce His will. God alone determines the limits and boundaries of every other principality, ruler and authority, right down to the authority I may wield as husband or father in my household.
This should make clear to us that whatever power the demons may hold, and it is considerable, it is no cause for us to fear. When we declare, “Greater is HE that is in me than he that is in the world,” this is what we ought to be recognizing. He is not only greater than that dark force, He has command of them. They may range upon the earth, seeking whom they may devour, but they can only roam within the boundaries of His dictates. As we have demonstrated in Job’s record, this dark enemy of our soul, however vile and despicable he is, can only go so far as God permits. And the same God who issues those permits declares over us that He will never allow these things to go beyond our ability to withstand.
Now, it might seem as though these demons have taken advantage of Jesus by this ploy. Certainly, that is their intent. We, who have had so much ‘training’ in the ways of magic, might be inclined to think of this in terms of some sort of incantation. We have all this cultural informing as to how the Satanists must deal so carefully with the demons, how one must be terribly specific in issuing requests to that genie, lest he twist our words to our detriment. Sure, he must heed the letter of our request, but nothing binds him to the intent. This is but a reflection of our fallen nature. This is, in its way, the legalistic religion of man, and when we come to the Law of God, we treat it like just such an incantation. We must heed the letter, but so long as we do that we can ignore the intent. That simply isn’t the case.
Here, it seems like we are watching Jesus play that same sort of game. The demons, in using this encompassing oath, know that they will have to some extent forced His hand. They know He will honor that oath out of reverence for the Father. So, with oath in place, they more or less demand that He not send them out of the country, not send them back to the abyss, but rather send them into these pigs. Their intention ought to be pretty clear from this. If He sends them to the pigs, they must, of course obey, even as they must obey if He sends them back to the abyss. They will have no choice in the matter. But, what they do after that, He is not commanding. They would still be in the country and could, one supposes, return to their old victims or else choose some new ones to harass. They know, as well, that Jesus, as a good Jew, cannot have any great love for those pigs anyway, so the option ought to at least strike Him as amusing.
What we find is that Jesus accedes to this. What we should understand, even before we read the outcome, is that He was fully aware of their intentions. I could almost take this as an example of our own risk when we insist on His permissive will, when we exercise our own will in opposition to what He would prefer. He is inclined to allow us our lead, that we may learn for ourselves the foolishness with which we tend to lead ourselves. Here, He knows the situation, knows the intent of these foolish demons, and He is perfectly willing to let them have their wish. Did He simply know the way those pigs would react to such an event? Perhaps so. I find it just as likely, though, that what He knew was that His will for those pigs would overrule the will of the demons regardless of their presence, just as it already had. It is rather as though He is saying, “do what you want, because in the end, you’ll do what I want anyway.” You can force a detour, as it were, but you’re still going to reach the same place.
Again, as I have been on the subject of free will and predestination again in other situations, I find I must acknowledge that their situation and ours are not so very different. We, too, can force detours – usually to our detriment – but we, too, will not change our eventual destination however may detours we take. Jesus is still at the helm, and all praise be to His name that this is so! It may offend our sense of self worth to consider that this is true. Yet, as we evaluate ourselves more honestly, it ought to come as great comfort to know that we cannot, by our foolish sidetracking, get so far off course that our Captain cannot or will not bring us safely home. If even enemy forces must bow to Him and obey His command, surely we who serve Him must do likewise!
While this is hardly the only account we have of how Jesus deals with demons, it is one of the more extensive examples. As such, it is hardly surprising that there are so many references to other passages that treat on the subject. Given the standard that Scripture is the best commentary on Scripture, these other passages ought to help provide a better understanding in this regard. Such an understanding is of concern to me, at this juncture, because there is such a focus on demonic activity and how the Christian ought best to combat it within the Charismatic church today.
One thing I find particularly disturbing is the insistence amongst the intercessory types that one must speak certain specific phrases, must make sure to include this thought or that. In some cases, there will even be insistence upon certain specific gestures that must be done. In almost none of these cases have I come across any Biblical foundation for the claimed requirements. Most of them smack far more of things I see in Dungeons and Dragons rule books. Of course, those rule books draw from any number of sources themselves, particularly in dealing with matters of the gods and mythologies. What they don’t draw from much at all is Scripture. There’s a lot that comes from the mythologies of ancient cultures. There’s a lot beyond that which is drawn from fantasy writings. The point is that more of our supposed understanding of demons and how they ought to be dealt with is based on fantasy writings, whether those of modern fiction or those of ancient myth. Underlying all of those writings, when the touch on this subject, we are going to find the art of the magician, the very thing that Scripture tells us God’s people must surely avoid. And here we are bringing those same methodologies into the Church and calling it godly?
OK, so thus far all that I have provided is my own understanding, my own opinion. Let me provide some basis for my own perspective, then. One of the things I hear as a necessity of deliverance is to cast those demons out into the dry places. Now, this is clearly a reference to the discussion we find in Matthew 12:43-45. However, even a quick look at that passage should make it sufficiently clear that Jesus is not laying down a methodology here. If He is addressing matters of deliverance at all, He is addressing the post-operative recovery phase for the patient. Just consider the flow of that narrative. The unclean spirit goes out and passes through those dry places looking for rest. Point one: was there any mention of them being commanded to that place? No! They have gone there looking for a spot to rest. Now, Jesus proceeds to say that they fail to find such a resting place, and this leads them to consideration of returning to their previous victim. Point 2: If the dry places were the direct cause of these demons returning, what ever would possess us to send them hence? Would that not be tantamount to ensuring that they will be back? So, the demon returns and sees that this one whom he had made such a mess of is now all neat and clean. Jesus says that he is now inclined to go round up some coworkers so that they can retake that one and make things even worse. So, let me ask this: do you suppose we are expected to think that demon found the neat, clean soul of that man inviting, and therefore was determined to take up residence again? I think not. I think that what he sees is that not only has he failed to find a place to kick back for awhile, but now, the job he was given in the first place has been made much harder. See, that neat, clean soul is evidence that He Who booted that demon out in the first place is still very much present and working.
Now, the clear thrust of that whole message is a caution to the delivered. It is an amplification of “Go and sin no more.” It is a warning that deliverance is never just a matter of a moment, it is a matter of continuous vigilance. Just as Jesus Himself was not finished with the challenges when the devil left Him alone after tempting Him in the desert, neither is the delivered man finished in the moment of deliverance. The enemy awaits an opportune time to come back and have another try at it. He’s always looking for a rematch, and he’s enough of a conniver to do what he can to boost his chances, to rig the outcome. That is what Jesus is addressing here, not some didactic how-to in what His disciples need to do when dealing with demons.
In fact, if we would counter this notion that somehow dry places are an effectual cure for demons, consider the passage we’re looking at right now. What is the end result for that legion of demons? They are cast into the sea. The sea, particularly in Jewish thought of that time, was a far more dangerous and evil place than any wilderness. The wilderness could be dealt with. One went armed and in force and the worst that might have to be dealt with was bandits. The sea, on the other hand, answered to no man, and was not to be held at bay by any army, however large. We have just seen that as they crossed over. I will also note that there is nothing in this account – nor, for that matter in any of the others we have – that suggests that Jesus was using some scripted formula in dealing with these demons. There is no mention of specific gestures He would use, no evidence that He would scissor His hands in the air around the one He was freeing in pantomime of cutting off the bonds. There is no repeated motif whatsoever in the accounts that we have beyond the fact that He was there and in short order the demons were not. The only common thread I see here is that at His command, they are gone. It does not matter that much where they have gone. They have gone.
I hear, as well, how certain spirits such as the spirit of infirmity are so sneaky, that they will move about from place to place and organ to organ in the course of deliverance, hoping to avoid full expulsion. Again, I would have to ask, on what basis is this claim made? Well, so and so, the intercessor or so and so the televangelist with the huge, huge, mega-healing industrial strength ministry said so. So, it must be true. After all, look at how many have been healed there. OK, well I won’t bother with pursuing how many verifiable, full and complete healings have actually happened, because such questions are never encountered with honesty anyway. I will simply say this: Show me such a case in the Scriptures. Even one. I see cases of spirits that refused to come out when accosted by those who had no authority over them. Then, I see that where the authority was real, they simply fled before it, because they had no choice. Peter, John, Stephen – these men would do nothing more than pass by. They weren’t even concentrating on deliverance at the time, they were simply vessels filled by the Holy Spirit, and these things happened. They didn’t try to build a ministry out of it. They didn’t need to, nor was this ever the point of the ministry. The point was and is and ever shall be that the Kingdom of God is here, that man, the inveterate sinner stands convicted and that here was the One who would save man from himself if we will but confess and repent by His grace and His power. Healing was nothing more than the evidence of His mercy in dealing with the consequences of sin and the fall. Deliverance was but the evidence that He had the authority and the power to accomplish what the Gospel promised.
Some would try to put these forward as ways in which the ministry was attracting people to come and hear, ways in which Jesus sought to make Himself and His ministry relevant to the society around Him, but that is just projection. That is a blatant attempt to make the Gospel confirm what we are doing rather than shaping what we do to the Gospel.
In the case of those who claim that they need to chase these demons about from limb to limb and so on, I would have to say that it’s a very thin cover for their obvious failure. As I said, I cannot find a Scriptural basis for these claims. If somebody can, I’m willing to hear it. I suppose somebody might trot out that case when the disciples, apart from Peter, James and John, were ministering while those three were with Jesus up on the mount. True, they tried and failed to drive the demon from that one who was brought to them, but I don’t see any partial success here. I don’t see any claims of, “oh, well we got it out of his ear, but it moved to his throat.” I don’t see any suggestion that they almost had the job done. No, it was out and out failure. They had tried and nothing happened.
Do you know what I think had happened here? I think they fell into the same trap that these modern day practitioners have fallen into. They had reduced the power and authority of God in which they were supposed to be moving to a set of motions and phrases that they were supposed to pronounce. They were not drawing from the example of their teachers but from the example of the exorcists they had seen. God was not going to be mocked in this way. Neither was He going to allow His chosen to be thrashed by the demons in their failure.
Compare that to the story of those exorcists who had witnessed the power Paul exercised (Ac 19:13-15). Those men tried to fathom what words and gestures were lacking from their own repertoire that made Paul so successful. In other words, they mistook Paul for just another exorcist like themselves. In other words, their whole methodology had no foundation in God in the first place. It was just uttering phrases, gesturing gestures and hoping maybe it would all coincide with what was going to happen anyway. Too many of our claimed miracles today fall into that same category. Oh, look! The cold went away after a few weeks because we prayed. It’s a miracle! No, it’s a cold. This is what colds do. The prayers are, of course, appreciated and they are, of course, heard by God, but to call this a miracle is degrading to the glory of God.
At any rate, here we have these exorcists trying out some new moves as they try to ape Paul. But what happens? Is there any partial success? Do the demons simply out-maneuver them, going into hiding for a moment? No! They rise up and thrash all seven of those foolish men, for there is no authority in them. Worse, they have tried to lay claim to somebody else’s authority. The demons were free to amuse themselves as a result.
Now, here’s another issue to deal with. Those who hold with all these practices, who insist that the whole thing is real and ‘of God’ will point to the manifestations that occur. Look! See how God is being praised here? Look! Something’s obviously happening, so this must be real. This must be God. Again, I would have to say, what does Scripture tell us? I have already considered some of those cases, but let me just provide one of them here. There was this woman (Ac 16:17) who kept following Paul around. She would tell one and all that he and those with him were servants of the Most High God. She would tell everybody that what they were teaching was indeed the path to salvation. Wow! What a ringing endorsement of the ministry. Must be God, right? Surely, Paul should have welcomed this woman and thanked her for the confirmation. But, no. The record shows that he rebuked the demon out of her, for it was the demon that was speaking.
My, how bothersome it is to think that these agents of the Liar are willing to speak Truth in pursuit of their ends. That’s really disturbing. It should be, anyway. Further, this is not an isolated incident. We have several occasions from the ministry of Jesus that follow a similar course. What’s the point of this? Can it be that this is a warning against ministries that draw attention to themselves rather than simply doing what they were called to do? There was nothing wrong in what these demons said. It was absolutely true. Yet, it was an offense to Jesus and to His servants. Why? Because it sought to bolster pride in the workman of God. Because it sought to take the people’s attention off of God – even as they spoke of Him – and shift it to the minister. No servant wroth his salt is going to seek to take his master’s glory for himself. His purpose is to make his master’s glory more evident, not his own.
Let this be a yardstick by which we measure these ministries! Where is our attention being drawn? If the ministry has come to be about the minister, beware! Indeed, if this is really the case, the examples we have seen would say it’s not even enough to walk away. It’s not enough to simply remove ourselves from that influence. No, the place for the man of God, the true co-worker with Christ, is to stand against that so-called ministry, to rebuke the devils that populate it and put an end to the charade. That is the example we are given. Let me just say, though, that this is not a thing to be undertaken lightly. Don’t become one of those seven sons of Sceva, seeking to play with an authority you don’t really have. This is something that must be very clearly declared by God as your mission. If He has not delegated the necessary authority to you, then you don’t have it, and to try and operate in it will leave you worse off than the charlatan you oppose.
Let me also issue a reminder. It is not against the man on the platform that we battle. It is not against flesh and blood. It is against principalities and powers. The battleground is a spiritual battleground. We must recognize that these men are but fallen men. Were their eyes open to the Gospel, they would never choose such a path. Were the Holy Spirit to choose to touch their hearts, they would be as truly saved in that moment as we. Our desire, even as we expose the falsehood, should ever and always be that the soul of that man who has aided the enemy should be rescued and restored to the Father. After all, if He could do it for Paul, who is beyond His power to save?
I think it only fair that I should also point out the opposing danger that we suffer, which is that we are prone to rejecting God’s word because of the spokesman He happens to choose. There are the typical examples we all know from the Bible: Balaam’s donkey, or even Balaam for that matter, being perhaps the most commonly recalled. At first glance, it might not seem as though his case is so very different from that of the woman we just saw following Paul around. After all, his intentions were clearly not pro-Israel. He had come with a purpose of cursing them. That was what he was being paid to do. True, he had made it as clear as he could that he could only speak what he was given to speak, yet the deal he made was clear in its intent.
The distinguishing feature, as far as I can see it, is the matter of who provided the words that were to be spoken. In Balaam’s case, God clearly authored his message. There was a case of, “you intended evil, but I have worked it for good.” With the woman Paul was dealing with, as true as the word was, it was not God who had authored it, and therein lay all the difference.
Now, let me set another case before you, one I don’t recall noticing previously. It comes from the reign of Josiah. At some point, Neco, who was then king of Egypt, approached the land with his armies, and Josiah began preparing to rebel the invasion. Neco sent word to him that he was not coming against Judah, but merely passing through. His message concludes with this, “Stop for your own sake from interfering with God who is with me, lest He destroy you” (2Chr 35:21). Josiah, apparently considering the source of the message, ignored it. Not only did he ignore it, but he decided to disguise himself and come out against Neco at Megiddo. The point of the disguise escapes me, unless it was simply to avoid being recognized as the king. Would Neco not have battled any army that insisted on facing him down? At any rate, this proves the end of Josiah, and why had it come about? Because Josiah would not “listen to the words of Neco from the mouth of God” (2Chr 35:22).
The Word of God is not beholden to the mouth of its herald. Neither is God restricted in any way as to how He chooses to deliver His message. The validity and the value of the message have nothing to do with the means. They have everything to do with the Source. For our part, we have a great problem. We face a culture that is terribly adept at taking fragments of God’s Truth and playing mix master with them. Add a dab of spiritism, a splash of animism, maybe even a pinch or two of humanism. Nobody pays attention to the sources any more, nor do they particularly care about the Truth. It’s a roll-your-own, feel good religion for one. To this, we add those who either through intention or through ignorance twist the message of the Gospel into whatever form suits their fancy, whether it be the prosperity message, the name it claim it game, or healing is a guarantee. It becomes very difficult to discern the Truth even amongst the purported merchants of truth.
Outside the Church it is certainly no better. It only gets worse. Philosophy, that began as a search for Truth, has long since given up the search. Truth is unknowable, as far as they can tell, so why look? There is only the hopelessness of knowing we can’t know. Science, it turns out, could care less about Truth. What they want is explicability. So, they draw their artificial boundary and proclaim that what can’t be explained can’t be True. Historians are quickly developing the art form of manufacturing the story to fit their determination of what should be held up as true. If the real history doesn’t fit their sense of what they would like us to take as history’s lesson, then they will tinker with the history until it does fit. Revisionism is the newest religion on the scene.
Yet, Truth is there to be heard. Even in the midst of their worst nonsense, there may be grains of Truth that we ought to hold to. It just becomes near to impossible to sift them out of all the junk that’s mixed in. In church and out we are faced with this. The only solution is to equip oneself by earnest study of the revealed Word of God. Stay close in fellowship with Him Who was and is and is to come. We cannot do this apart from prayer, but neither can we do it through prayer alone. We cannot do this through feelings, for feelings flow from a deceptive heart. We cannot do this solely through study, for we will quickly find ourselves as far afield as the philosophers, lost in the maze of our own limited understanding.
It will require the way of the disciple, making ourselves thoroughly and intimately familiar with the Master, with all He has taught, with all that He is, that we may likewise shape our words, our thoughts and our actions. We dare not measure any man’s teachings by our feelings and opinions. It is by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God that we live, and it is by that every word that all other words must be measured. Where the word is shown true, we must be wise to accept it no matter where we have found it. If that word is shown false, we must reject it utterly, again no matter where we have found it. The cost is too high and the opportunity for error too great to take this matter lightly.
There are a couple of other things I have seen as I pursued this passage that I just want to comment on briefly. Both of these come from references found to the book of the Revelation. The first concerns Rev 18:2, where we hear a mighty voice cry out that Babylon has fallen. “She has become a dwelling place of demons, a prison of every unclean spirit and of every unclean and hateful bird.” Now, given the nature of that book, it is safe to suppose that the reference is to a symbolic Babylon and not a literal reference to the place we know today. But, it occurs to me to wonder: What if Babylon really does mean Babylon?
Is there any significant reason to think so, other than its being a place that has had our attention in recent years? Babylon, up until this current war, had always seemed to me a place known only to ancient histories. It conjured up images of a dusty past, marauding desert nomads and all those other images Hollywood has supplied us with. Ali Baba comes to mind, and she of the thousand and one nights. It simply hadn’t occurred to me that the place still existed, not that I had any particular cause to wonder whether it did or not at the time. At the same time, I know there have been all manner of efforts made to identify just who it is that these apocalyptic references to Babylon are actually about. Is it Rome and the evils of the Catholic Church? Is it Communism, Capitalism, Islamism? What? I suppose that over the years just about anything that somebody was against has been equated with that city, even as we hear the supporters of as many opposing viewpoints compared to Hitler. Name your evil and Babylon is the place of its promotion, and Hitler its prime supporter.
All of this might lead us off the track in this case. What if God really was fingering Babylon? After all, the people of that city already had a reputation; enough so to make them the obvious choice for the symbol of evil, whether it is used in that sense here or not. Well, why not Rome? Why not Assyria, or Egypt, or any of the other powers that had troubled Israel during its history? After all, if the issue were symbolism, wouldn’t Rome resonate more fully with the readership of the day? Of course, there might be some risk to using the Empire’s name in such a fashion. Well, then, wouldn’t Egypt serve? After all, they had always been the symbol of where Israel shouldn’t go. Assyria, of course, was more local and perhaps more malevolent in its assertions of power. Yet, it is Babylon, a place that had been out of power for quite some time, that is brought before us here. It is brought before us, and it is declared fallen.
So, I ask again, what if it’s to be taken literally? This is the place where American soldiers, along with those of a few other nations still, are being sent. This is the place our President has insisted upon pursuing dreams of a democratic Arab state. Yet, here is God declaring that the place is not to be rescued. It is overthrown, made a dumping ground for everything that has no place in the kingdom. Here shall the demons dwell as they await judgment. Here shall they be imprisoned. Alongside this, there is the call to God’s people to clear the area, to ensure that they do not participate in the sins nor suffer the plagues that shall be upon that place.
We cannot, given the mission of our men, look upon what we are doing as administering the vengeance that God speaks of here, for it is not vengeance we are pursuing, but rescue after a fashion. I suppose that many lose sight of that point, given the militaristic approach to the problem, but that really does remain the purpose of our presence. It can be decried as an occupation, distorted into a matter of profits to the rich, or twisted in any number of other directions, but the real purpose remains unchanged.
Well then, if this passage is a proclamation over that city or that nation, then what have we sent our men into? We have sent them into a prison for demons and devils. If it is a prison, it is a prison established by God’s own word, and if He has established it, then whatever efforts we may make are not likely to bust that prison open. What to make of that? Are the people of that region to be deemed as beyond redemption? No, I cannot make such a statement fit within the scope of the Gospel. Jesus is fully able to save every person who calls upon His name for salvation. The price He paid covered every man who will accept the gift from Him. But, again I look at those words that follow a bit later, “Come out of her, my people.” That is a prison camp, a holding ground. Every demon imaginable has been cast into that place to remain until the time comes for them to be utterly cast down. Though they are imprisoned by the power of God, yet they remain a strong threat to the children of God. To stay in their vicinity is to invite their influence upon oneself, it is to test the Lord God, not to trust Him. The people may be saved, but the place itself is lost, and those who insist on remaining there will be lost as well. It is like Lot and family leaving Sodom and Gomorrah. Had they insisted upon remaining, they would simply have shown themselves to be as evil as the rest, and would have suffered the same vengeance.
Now, clearly I cannot declare this literal view to be the one, true understanding of the passage. I have hardly done enough homework on the matter to even begin to make such a claim. I suppose several years of study in that book would not suffice to lay the issue to bed with any greater certainty. So, let me leave it there, as a supposition and a general warning when it comes to the places God has set aside for destruction. Come out of such places lest you be counted amongst the condemned.
The last passage I am going to comment on at present is Revelation 17:8. Here, we are told that everybody whose names are not found in the book of life will see this beast who was and is not and is to come. That phrase alone is worth commenting on, but let me leave that aside for a moment. First, let me recognize this particular matter of doctrine that comes forth from this verse: The book of life was written and completed ‘from the foundation of the world.’ Never mind being marked for salvation before you were born! You were marked for salvation before you ever even had a single ancestor! Before Adam was created, God had Providentially proclaimed that you would be given into the hands of His Son, that you would be adopted into His family! Now, that’s family planning! That is also about as solid a reason for confidence you could ever ask for. Let it never be twisted into a license to sin with impunity, but let it be your confidence against the doubt-inducing lies of your enemy.
Now, recognize something else in this passage. The reference to the book of life is given as a clarification as to who remains upon the earth at the time. It is a contrasting parallel if you will. If they are yet on the earth, they are not in the book. By corollary, if they are in the book they are not on the earth. This ought to make one thing clear: at whatever point this passage fits within the timeline of judgment and of the Tribulation, the Church is not there at that point. It is, as it were, the last call.
This puts me in mind of another possible understanding for the Babylon reference. Could it be emblematic of the call of the Church out of the world? Could it be that in the end Babylon refers to the entirety of what remains when those from the book of life have been withdrawn? Those who remain will wonder, they will be amazed. They will be amazed because they will be left to witness this one who was and is not. They will witness his being again. Is it the case that they are witnessing this from the midst of the prison camp later identified as Babylon? Is it the case that they witness it from the midst of that holding ground for imprisoned demons? Woe to those who are left in such a state, for their destruction is as certain as is the destruction of those imprisoned around them.
Turning to that phrase used to identify the beast; he was and is not, but he is about to come up out of the abyss. Note, though, that he only comes up to go to destruction. It is a brief walk from the prison to the gallows, as it were, although that brief trip will be a particularly evil time for the lands through which he walks on his way. But, that title he is given seems to clearly allude to the way in which the enemy seeks to mimic the forms of the true Christ. It is exemplary of his chief tactic and of his whole purpose as well. He has always purposed to supplant God. To achieve that end, as things stand, he would have to first supplant Messiah. If he would be God, he must be one who was and is and is to come. If he cannot establish that complete, that eternal, that uninterrupted and uninterruptible in his being, he cannot lay claim to godhood. God alone is declared the One Who was and IS and is to come. He is the I AM, the self-existent One, the prime cause, the font of all existence. His great enemy, this rebel from His own camps, can lay claim to having been. He can lay claim to being again. But, there is that point wherein he cannot lay claim to being presently. He was and is not. The very fact of that moment of non-existence, however brief it might be, discredits his claims to godhood. He may be coming again, as Messiah is coming again, but the fact of that time when he is not stamps all his efforts with failure.
Those who remain will wonder. They know Messiah is to come again or, if they are sufficiently far off course, at least that He is to come. They will wonder to see this one who comes back from death, but that wonder will not save them. It is, I should think, a time of great deception. Those who have a half-understanding of the things of God, who know the words but not the King, may well be led away to their own destruction following this one who at least superficially fits the bill. We have seen it happen on a lesser scale many times now. Somebody comes with their claims, with their cheap imitation signs and wonders and wisdom, and crowds go after them, only to discover that death awaits. We saw it with the Jones incident. We saw it with the Koresh incident. Nor are these isolated cases. There have been plenty of others that we may be less familiar with, yet they have transpired nonetheless. All of these are but dress rehearsals for the final act. I suppose we might even view the whole history of Islam with all its violence and its devotion to evil as no more than a dress rehearsal for the final act.
Let us, however, remember once again that it is not flesh and blood that we are called to oppose, but spiritual principalities and powers. Let us remember that our enemy is not that man or woman who stands in opposition to us, whose beliefs are so utterly antithetical to our own. No, in spite of their error and their sin, they are yet beings created in the image of God. It is just that much like ourselves, they have been corrupted by the fall, and become pawns of those dark spirits of the rebel army. The only difference is that we have been marked out by our Lord and Savior, removed from the control of those spirits and restored to our rightful place as heirs of God. So, do not wish for the destruction of these jihadists and their ilk. Wish instead for their liberation, that they, too, might experience the mercies of God that overcome the abuse of their current tyrant overlord. Oh, that all men might be saved! That all men might know the mercy and forgiveness that has been made available to them!
And with that thought, I think I shall bring this section to an end.
