SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/10/2018
7:15 PM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-3 Intro
to Acts 19:8-20
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Acts 19:8-20
Message of the
verses: “8 And he entered the
synagogue and continued speaking out boldly for three months, reasoning and
persuading them about the kingdom of God. 9 But when some were becoming
hardened and disobedient, speaking evil of the Way before the people, he
withdrew from them and took away the disciples, reasoning daily in the school
of Tyrannus. 10 This took place for two years, so that all who lived in Asia
heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks. 11 God was performing
extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, 12 so that handkerchiefs or aprons
were even carried from his body to the sick, and the diseases left them and the
evil spirits went out. 13 But also some of the Jewish exorcists, who went from
place to place, attempted to name over those who had the evil spirits the name
of the Lord Jesus, saying, "I adjure you by Jesus whom Paul
preaches." 14 Seven sons of one Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, were doing
this. 15 And the evil spirit answered and said to them, "I recognize
Jesus, and I know about Paul, but who are you?" 16 And the man, in whom
was the evil spirit, leaped on them and subdued all of them and overpowered
them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded. 17 This became
known to all, both Jews and Greeks, who lived in Ephesus; and fear fell upon
them all and the name of the Lord Jesus was being magnified. 18 Many also of
those who had believed kept coming, confessing and disclosing their practices. 19
And many of those who practiced magic brought their books together and began
burning them in the sight of everyone; and they counted up the price of them
and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver. 20 So the word of the Lord was growing mightily and
prevailing.”
We have been looking at the power that Jesus had over
demons while He was on planet earth, as He had the authority to cast out
demons, and He also had such absolute control over them that He could even
forbid them to speak. Jesus did not want
the demons to talk about Him, and where He came from of why He was here, that
was not in His best interest and that is why He caused them not to speak. In Mark 5:1-13 we read a description of one
of the most terrifying examples of demon possession that is found in the
Scriptures:
“1 They came to the other
side of the sea, into the country of the Gerasenes. 2 When He got out of the
boat, immediately a man from the tombs with an unclean spirit met Him, 3 and he
had his dwelling among the tombs. And no one was able to bind him anymore, even
with a chain; 4 because he had often been bound with shackles and chains, and
the chains had been torn apart by him and the shackles broken in pieces, and no
one was strong enough to subdue him. 5 Constantly, night and day, he was
screaming among the tombs and in the mountains, and gashing himself with
stones. 6 Seeing Jesus from a distance, he ran up and bowed down before Him; 7
and shouting with a loud voice, he said, "What business do we have with
each other, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I implore You by God, do not
torment me!" 8 For He had been saying to him, "Come out of the man,
you unclean spirit!" 9 And He was asking him, "What is your
name?" And he said to Him, "My name is Legion; for we are many."
10 And he began to implore Him earnestly not to send them out of the country. 11
Now there was a large herd of swine feeding nearby on the mountain. 12 The
demons implored Him, saying, "Send us into the swine so that we may enter
them." 13 Jesus gave them permission. And coming out, the unclean spirits
entered the swine; and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea, about
two thousand of them; and they were drowned in the sea.”
MacArthur adds “The cure of
even this individual, infested with numerous demons, posed no difficulty for Jesus. He commanded them to enter the pigs, so that
all watching would have no doubt that they obeyed Him. It was a dramatic display of power over the
spiritual forces of evil.
In Luke 4:33-35 we see that the demons exhibited a terror
that stems from their knowledge of their fate:
“33 In the synagogue there
was a man possessed by the spirit of an unclean demon, and he cried out with a
loud voice, 34 “Let us alone! What business do we have with each other, Jesus
of Nazareth? Have You come to destroy us? I know who You are-the Holy One of
God!" 35 But Jesus rebuked him, saying, "Be quiet and come out of
him!" And when the demon had thrown him down in the midst of the people,
he came out of him without doing him any harm.”
These demons knew their fate would eventually land them
in hell for Jesus stated that hell was made for Satan and his demons, but they
did not want to go there before they had to go, as they still had some evil
things they wanted to do. Now there are
some demons that were so evil that they were chained in a place where they
could not leave. “6 And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned
their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the
judgment of the great day, (Jude 6).”
The angels here means the evil angels.
Matthew 8:29 also speaks of the demons who were aware of their fate
which is eternal destruction in hell, and so the demon fearfully asked Jesus if
this was the time: “And they cried out,
saying, "What business do we have with each other, Son of God? Have You
come here to torment us before the time?"”
This is Matthews account of what we looked at in our verses from Mark
chapter five.
We have had men throughout history debating about who
Jesus is, and yet the demons never had a debate of who He is, and I find this
very interesting. James writes “You
believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder.”
Now Jesus also extended His power over demons as He
delegated it to some of His followers.
Let us look at a couple of examples “5 These twelve Jesus sent out after
instructing them: "Do not go in the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter
any city of the Samaritans; 6 but rather go to the lost sheep of the house of
Israel. 7 “And as you go, preach, saying, ’The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ 8
“Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. Freely you received,
freely give (Matthew 10:5-8).” Now I
want to look at Acts 8:7 “For in the case of many who had unclean spirits, they
were coming out of them shouting with a loud voice; and many who had been
paralyzed and lame were healed.” This was
done by Philip the evangelists. Acts
16:18 “She continued doing this for many days. But Paul was greatly annoyed,
and turned and said to the spirit, "I command you in the name of Jesus
Christ to come out of her!" And it came out at that very moment.”
John MacArthur writes “Such miraculous power over demons
was unique to a few individuals during the apostolic age, being basically one
of the ‘signs and wonders and miracles’ that constituted ‘the sings of a true
apostle’ (2 Cor. 12:12). By the time
Hebrews was written, its author spoke of such miraculous signs in the past
tense:
“3 How will we escape if we
neglect so great a salvation? After it was at the first spoken through the
Lord, it was confirmed to us by those who heard, 4 God also testifying with them, both by signs
and wonders and by various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit according
to His own will.”
I realize that this is said to be seen by some today, and
yet I think that it is perhaps some phony things that people do in order to get
unsuspecting people to send them some of their hard earned money. MacArthur adds “The assumption that a
believer has authority to command demons and Satan, or to bind them, is
fiction. Even Michael the archangel
would not be so bold ‘But Michael the archangel, when he disputed with the
devil and argued about the body of Moses, did not dare pronounce against him a
railing judgment, but said, "The Lord rebuke you!" (Jude 9)” And
reducing the Christian life to a demon hunt obviates believers’ biblically
mandated responsibility to pursue true sanctification by holiness and godly
living.”
We
can’t find it in the Scriptures that after the Apostolic time that NT believers
have the authority to cast out demons, or to bind Satan.
As I normally do I will quote the last paragraph of John
MacArthur’s introduction in order to show where we are headed as we look at
this verses from Acts 19.
“This rich text shows how powerfully the Word of God
dominated the city of Ephesus. Verse 20
summarizes the passages: ‘So the word of
the Lord was growing mightily and prevailing.’
The power of God’s Word is evident through its proclamation,
confirmation, competition, conviction, and domination.” We begin in our next SD by looking at “Proclamation”
from Acts 19:8-10.
Answer to yesterday’s SD: “David” (2 Samuel 9:7).
Today’s Bible
question: “Where was Tatnai governor? (This
is a difficult question, so look for the answer in the book of the OT priest Ezra.)
Answer in our next SD.
6/10/2018 8:01 PM
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