The MESSAGE for November 5, 2023

God’s Perfect Servant At Work

Mark 1:21-34

Live Broadcast

Greater Concord Missionary Baptist Church

 

The Sabbath found Jesus in His place in the local synagogue. The ruler of the synagogue did not hesitate; he turns the pulpit over to Jesus. We are not told what Jesus taught that day, but we can be sure that the Lord had everyone’s attention. He would teach about the kingdom that was now being offered to Israel. He would emphasize the need for regeneration as the way into that kingdom and for holy living as proof of citizenship in it. The impact was immediate. “They were astonished at his doctrine” (Mark 1:22)

 

Absolute assurance and authority was in His teaching, and it gripped their hearts. Until now, they had fed on dry husks of rabbinical teaching. “And they were astonished at His doctrine: for He taught them as one that had authority, and not as the scribes.” (Mark 1:22) The scribes were the intelligentsia of the nation. They also classified themselves as the guardians of the “Oral Law!”

 

The Lord cut right through this tangled mass of religious red tape, took the people back to the Bible, spoke in everyday terms and drew His illustrations from everywhere. He spoke to the heart and mind, conscience and will. And He spoke with authority, the Holy Spirit bearing witness to the truth of His Word. Even His enemies declared, “Never man spake like this man”, John 7:46. And there was in their synagogues a man with an unclean spirit; and he cried out, Mark 1:23. The devil was in the synagogue that Sabbath waiting for an opportunity to disrupt the service. The devil had little fear from the usual synagogue service. But this new kind of preaching was something else.

 

We don’t know how often this demoniac had been to the synagogue before; quite likely he was a regular attendee. The teachings of the scribes had never touched the awful depths of depravity that reigned in this man’s tormented soul, but the preaching of Jesus did. It provoked a sudden and electrifying response. We can well imagine the thrill of fear and shock that ran through the congregation when the voice of the demoniac rang out. Saying, let us alone; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? Art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God (Mark 1:24). The demons puzzle us. They are evil spirits in the grip of wickedness beyond the ordinary humankind. They have a craving to possess bodies, and they seize human bodies when they can.

 

One suggestion is that demons are the disembodied spirits of a pre-Adamic race of beings of whom now no trace or records remains. We know little or nothing from the Biblical standpoint of what transpired on our planet before the coming of man. We do know that the world was ruined (Genesis 1:2) and that it was not created that way (Isaiah 45:18). The demon inhabiting this wretched man in the synagogue recognized Jesus instantly and confessed Him at once. “Let us alone; what have we to do with thee? The man was possessed by more than one evil spirit, let us alone; what have we to do with thee?

 

He silenced them and ejected them and made them the prisoners of His will. It was His holiness that burned like fire in the soul of the poor man’s tormenting demon. It was like lightning which both burns and sheds dazzling light. Jesus silenced the demon at once. “Hold thy peace and come out of him.” And they were all amazed, insomuch that they questioned among themselves, saying, “what thing is this?” What new doctrine is this? For with authority commandeth He even the unclean spirits, and they obey Him, Mark 1:27.

 

Throughout the gospels, the Lord’s ministry was contested by Satan and unprecedented demon activity. Those hosts of Hell seem to have been mobilized to oppose the Son of God. His response was simply to cast out every demon that crossed His path. They had never seen any of their preachers do anything to compare with what Christ had just done. It was timeless truth, stripped of all traditionalism and error, truth backed by a life in touch, moment by moment, with Heaven.

 

The world today is waiting to see in the church, evidence of Christ in our midst. The world is tired of our legalism, ritualism, rationalism, and hypocrisy. Praise His Holy Name! It is tired of our sterile teaching, psychological preaching, worn-out clichés, “Charismatic” extremism, phony ecumenism, and dead sermons. It is waiting to see doctrine wedded to Holy Spirit power. Then, as when the demons were cast out, the careless, Christ-rejecting world will be all eyes and ears. And, immediately His fame spread abroad throughout all the region round about Galilee, (Mark 1:28). Jesus continues to work, He said “I must work the works of Him that sent me, while it is day, the night cometh, when no man can work” (John 9:4). Jesus saith unto them, my meat is to do the will of Him that sent me, and to finish His work, (John 4:34. John 5:36) “But I have greater witness than that of John: for the works which the Father hath given me to finish, the same works that I do, bear witness of me, that the Father hath sent me.” Jesus is still at work! O’ praise His Holy Name!

 

 

Pastor, Rev. Dr. Cullian W. Hill