SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/25/2021 9:52 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
“The Reception by the Demons”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
8:28b
Message of the
verse: “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.”
I mentioned when we began to look at
this entire section that the other two gospel writers, Mark, and Luke,
mentioned only one man and went over why Matthew may have mentioned two while
the others only one. Let us look at the
word “demon-possessed” in the Greek as John MacArthur writes about it: “Daimonizomai
simply means to be demonized, to be
under the control of a demonic spirit, without regard to the kind of degree of
control. Although its accounts of
demonized people reflect many different conditions and degrees of control,
Scripture does not clearly distinguish between being possessed, obsessed, or oppressed
by demons.”
He goes on to explains: “Demonization
may be defined as a condition in which one of more demons inhabits and gains
control over a human being. Demons can
attack men spiritually, mentally, and physically. In the spiritual realm they promote false
religions, demon worship, the occult and innumerable kinds of immorality,
including murder (Rev. 9:20-21; 18:23-24).
In the intellectual and psychological realm, they promote such things as
false doctrines; insanity and masochism, as in this ‘demon-possessed’ man, who
gashed himself with stones (Mark 5:5); and inability to speak and suicidal mania
(see Mark 9:17-22).”
During the NT times of when Jesus
was on the earth, all the way up to the early church we can read about people
being possessed by demons. Interestingly
though we never find any person ever in Jerusalem who was possessed by a
demon. Even in today’s world we see
that demon possession is more apt to happen in rural places. I remember a missionary friend of mine who
ministered in the Philippines telling me of a story when he saw stones fall out
of a clear sky on the roof of a house, and the only way that the person living
in that house could stop it was to kill a chicken and pour its blood in the
ocean. In more advanced societies, a person who is seriously deranged by demons
is likely to be considered insane and so what they will do with people like
this is to place them in a mental intuition, and it seems certain that many people
who are diagnosed as mentally ill are actually demon possessed.
Jesus never gave any blame to a
person who was possessed by a demon as He recognized them as victims of powers
beyond their own control.
As we listen to the voice that came
out of this man it was actually the voice of one of the demons that was
possessing him, and not his own voice.
Jesus asked him his name and he responded by saying Legion as there were
many demons in these men.
No one wanted to get around these men
as our verse says as they lived among the tombs. It is possible they were Jews, for whom
touching a dead body was the greatest ceremonial defilement. If, so their being forced by the demons to
live in the cemetery was an additional humiliation and torment.
MacArthur concludes “They were so exceedingly
violent that no one could pass by that road.’
We learn from the other gospel accounts that at least one of the men
word no clothes and that he had such great strength that no chain could keep
him bound. He was often driven into the
desert by the demons and spent much of his time ranting and raving, ‘crying out
and gashing himself with stones’ (Mark 5:4-5; Luke 8:27-29).”
4/25/2021 10:17 AM
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