SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/23/2021 12:21 PM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 “Intro to Matt. 8:28-34”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
8:28-34
Message of the verses: “28 When He came to
the other side into the country of the Gadarenes, two men who were
demon-possessed met Him as they were coming out of the tombs. They were
so extremely violent that no one could pass by that way. 29 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?" 30 Now there was a herd of many
swine feeding at a distance from them. 31 The demons began to entreat
Him, saying, "If You are going to cast us out, send us into the
herd of swine." 32 And He said to them, "Go!" And they came out
and went into the swine, and the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the
sea and perished in the waters. 33 The herdsmen ran away, and went to the city
and reported everything, including what had happened to the demoniacs. 34 And
behold, the whole city came out to meet Jesus; and when they saw Him, they
implored Him to leave their region.”
I
first want to report that I listened to the sermon that goes along with this
section by John MacArthur and there were some pretty interesting things in it
as far as talk about the supernatural. I
will mention one thing and perhaps we will look at it in more detail sometime
later on. MacArthur was talking with a
woman who was possessed with 7 demons and when she talked there were seven
different voices coming out of her mouth.
You
may remember when we looked at Matthew chapter four that speaks of Jesus going
out into the wilderness after His baptism and being tempted by Satan, which I
believe happened near the end of His forty day fast where He would have been
physically weakest. Jesus demonstrated
His power to resist Satan during that time, and now He demonstrates His power
to overcome and completely subdue Satan in the section we are looking at today. In this section we can see that Satan was not
allowed to have Jesus bend, but Jesus caused Satan to bend, and He did it with
just one word “go.” 1 John 3:7-8 says “7
Little children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices
righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous; 8 the one who practices sin is of the devil; for
the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the
works of the devil.” The
highlighted part is what I really want you to read, but I hate to break in on
the middle of a verse and that is why I copied both verses here. MacArthur writes “The Lord became a Man and
came into the world in order to destroy the works of Satan. When He comes again to establish His kingdom,
He will incarcerate Satan for a thousand years at the end of which, after a
brief freedom, he and his evil co-workers will be cast into the lake of fire,
where ‘they will be tormented day and night forever and ever’ (Rev. 10:2,
7-10). By casting out demons during His
earthly ministry, Jesus gave dramatic, powerful, and repeated evidence of His
power over Satan. As He explained to a
multitude near Jerusalem, ‘If I cast out demons by the finger of God, then the
kingdom of God has come upon you’ (Luke 11:20).”
There
were times when the disciples cast out demons, but it was difficult for them to
do it. Although Jesus had given them “power
and authority over all the demons” as seen in Luke 9:1, they discovered that
casting out demons was not as easy for them as it was for our Lord to do. Remember when Jesus came down the mountain
after being transfigured He found a demon possessed boy which His disciples
could not cast out. This story is found
in Matthew 17:16-19. Jesus did cast out
the demon from this man’s son and as we look in the KJV when the disciples asked
Jesus whey they could not cast it out He said that this one comes out by
fasting. I like the story that is found
in Acts 19:13-16 “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.”
There are other stories found in the NT, but we won’t go over them at
this time.
MacArthur
concludes this introduction: “In the
account of the two-demon-possessed men, Matthew first describes the possession
by the demons, then the power of Christ over the demons, and finally the
perspective of the people in regard to Jesus.”
That is where we will be heading as we
look through this unique story.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: One thing that I can learn from this section
is that I need to put on my spiritual armor each day.
My Steps of Faith for Today: I trust the
Lord to go before me as I meet with a lady for the first time in over 45 years
tomorrow, that God’s hand will be upon me and that the Lord will bring
salvation to her in a wonderful way.
4/23/2021 12:52 PM
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