November 7, 2010

Seven Gifts of Christ to Believers

Gift 3: Power over Evil Spirits
Luke 10:17-20(NKJV)
Then the seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name.” And He said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.  Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you.  Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven.”
Introduction.  As we continue to discuss and understand the many gifts that the Lord has offered us, we come to a wonderful gift indeed; the power over evil spirits.  Evil has been around since the beginning of man.  It seems that when most people have a choice to make, at the very least, they consider the evil option.  Sometimes we even do evil things to those that we love. 
Illus> "Cash, check or charge?" the cashier asked, after folding items the woman wished to purchase.   As she fumbled for her wallet, the cashier noticed a remote control for a television set in the lady’s purse. 
"So, do you always carry your TV remote?" She asked.   "No," the shopper replied, "but my husband refused to come shopping with me, and I figured this was the most evil thing I could do to him legally."
Being able to triumph over evil is a very empowering feeling.  Luke relates to us that Jesus had sent the disciples out to preach the gospel and to make disciples.  They returned joyfully telling him of their very positive experiences.  Because of their willingness to follow Him, Jesus gave them the gift of authority over evil spirits.  This morning, I would like for us to examine this gift and how we should respond to the gift from our Lord.
The disciples understood that their early success was because of their faith in Jesus Christ.  Many times I have mentioned that we receive at least two calls from our Lord.  The first call is to accept Him intellectually and spiritually as our Lord and Savior.  The second call is to accept the commission that He gives to us to work for Him by serving His people…which will by the power of Holy Spirit make disciples.  When the disciples returned they knew that Jesus had worked through them.  I’m sure that they, like most of us, had dealt with sorrow, pain and sickness all of their lives without the ability to change those things.  But, suddenly, they had a new power within them…a supernatural or divine power…that came from Jesus, the Son of God.
Not only did the disciples realize their new-found powers through their faith; Jesus recognized their faith through the changes in the people to whom they had ministered.  He spoke that He had seen Satan coming down like lightning…meaning that he had seen the people moving from disbelief to a new found faith in the Lord.  The New Commentary on the New Testament states: “Much of the force of this statement depends on the shade of meaning indicated by the imperfect tense in Greek and should therefore be translated, “I was beholding Satan as lightning falling . . . .” Jesus was therefore telling the seventy that he had followed their mission and had observed their triumphs. As they were casting out demons, he was watching the progressive decline of Satan’s power.”
Everything that we do is under the watchful eye of Jesus Christ.  Every opportunity that we have to cast out demons is witnessed by Him.  Those times that we ignore those opportunities have to cause sorrow in Him and they also limit the joy that we have in our own lives.  Our joy comes from doing God’s will and being rewarded by the wonderful feeling that it brings to us.  He rewards our work today just as He rewarded the seventy that returned in that day.
The key issue though is this; what are the demons over which we have authority?  Jesus was a gifted teacher and charismatic leader.  Much of His speaking and teaching used large amounts of metaphor.  Many of His parables or “teaching stories” began: “It is like…,” indicating that the story is metaphorical and not actual as it presents a basic tenet of our faith.  So what are the demons, serpents and scorpions that Jesus is referring to in this story?  These scriptures are not to be taken literally in the sense that some of our Appalachian brothers and sisters have taken Mark 16:18 that we should handle poisonous snakes or other creatures and drink poison to show our faith. 
The demons that Jesus is referring to here are the emotional and spiritual thoughts that we carry with us each day.  From a sermon by Jeff Strite entitled "Dealing With Personal Demons," I read that “Doctors of old times tested the sanity of a mental patient with the following test: The patient was placed in a room with a sink. The faucet was turned on and a stopper was put in the drain until the sink overflowed. The patient was then handed a mop and the door was closed.
If the patient had enough sense to shut off the water, pull the plug, and then mop up the water, he was considered capable of going home. But on the other hand, if the patient mopped like crazy and never bothered to shut off the water and/or pull the plug, he was considered still insane and needed to be detained a little longer in the mental institution.

There are people in this world that are mopping like crazy...and they’re not in mental institutions. They’re people who we’d consider quite sane (pause). BUT they are plagued by their own personal demons, and they haven’t figured out how to stop the flooding in their lives. They know there’s a problem they just haven’t figured out where to go to solve it. Even when they see what Jesus can do in a person’s life - they send Him away.”  Our job is to continue to show and tell them how the Lord changed our own lives and helped us with our own demons.  You see, normal people have demons.  The Jews of Jesus’ day were following the Mosaic Law which was very strict.  For the most part they lived much more religiously than any of us could ever consider; but they still had those emotional and spiritual demons that interfered with their lives.  Like those that keep mopping, sometimes we might not recognize our demons.

Join us Sunday for the rest of the story!!
Pastor Al