Unseating 'That Kind of Spirit', by Pastor Ed Evans

Unseating 'That Kind of Spirit'

by Pastor Ed Evans

Scripture: Mark 9:21-29

Mark 9:21 "Jesus asked the boy's father, " How long has he been like this?"  "From childhood," he answered.

Mark 9:22  "It has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him.  But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.

Mark 9:23  "If you can'?" said Jesus.  "Everything is possible for him who believes."

Mark 9:24  Immediately the boy's father exclaimed, "I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!"

Mark 9:25  When Jesus saw that a crowd was running to the scene, He rebuked the evil spirit, "You deaf and mute spirit," He said, "I command you, come out of him and never enter him again."

Mark 9:26  The spirit shrieked, convulsed him violently and came out.  The boy looked so much like a corpse that many said, "He's dead.

Mark 9:27  But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him to his feet, and he stood up.

Mark 9:28  After Jesus had gone indoors, His disciples asked Him privately, "Why couldn't we drive it out?"

Mark 9:29  He replied, "This kind of unclean spirit can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting."

          There is an old story about a politician on the stump for a coming election, speaking to a group of farmers out in middle America.  And as the politician is handing them his best lines about why he is their political savior, he has to keep swatting at a huge fly that keeps trying to land on his face.  Exasperated, he pauses, and an old farmer down in front, allows as how that's one of their local horse flies.

          "Horse fly?" exclaims the politician.

          "Yes siree, that's one of those horse flies that you always find around a horse's rear end."

          The politician sticks his finger in the air to begin his next point, and suddenly stops.  He fixes the old farmer with an angry glare and says, "Wait just a minute.  Are you saying I'm a horse's rear end?"

          "No sir," says the farmer, "not on your life.  But you can't fool them flies."

          Jesus' disciples in our scripture today have seen their Master do many miraculous things, and as His followers they know the look to assume, the words to say, but this time it didn't work.  They could not bring this harmful spirit out of the boy.  Was it because they were just faking it?  Had they not enough commitment and prayer?  Were they standing there acting in the form of Jesus, but not through the spirit of Jesus?

          No sir, I wouldn't say that at all.  But you can't fool them spirits.  "This kind of unclean spirit can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting," Jesus said to His disciples in Mark 9:29.  Praying being communication and closeness with the God of all; a continued concentration on Jesus Christ.  Fasting speaking to discipline and sacrifice.

          There was a very similar case in Acts 19:15, where the seven sons of the Chief Priest Sceva attempted to assume the mantle of Jesus Christ, demanding an angry spirit come out of a man "in the name of Jesus whom Paul preaches, and they got a very dangerous reaction.  The spirit addressed them directly and replied, "Jesus I know, and I know about Paul, but who are you?" It went very bad for them after that and they left hurt and bleeding.  

          Identity, in this world and the next is a very big thing.  If we are not completely identified with Jesus Christ, Jesus said in Matthew 10:32-33 he would disown us before His father in heaven.

          There's a little doggerel from the 1738, from when poet Alexander Pope gifted Frederick, Prince of Wales with a little dog that was kept at one of the four castles at Kew Gardens.  Around the dog's neck Pope placed a collar with this poem: "I am His Majesty's dog at Kew.  Pray tell me sir, whose dog are you?"

          Whose dog, indeed?

          Many of us are working like dogs right now just to get by, much less to have anything extra to spend on amusements, or to lay aside for our children, or for our retirement or even to support the work in this world of Jesus Christ.  Times are tough right now, for everyone.  It used to be  a saying that the business world was dog  eat dog.  It's no longer just an old saying.

          There is a spirit of degradation, a spirit of loss, a spirit of humiliation that lays across this nation of America and beyond.  And it affects everything we do.  For some its merely an excuse to steal from those who have simply because we have not.  It's an excuse for irrational anger to lash out, to hurt, to murder.  An excuse to badly use other people for our own fulfillment, amusement and advancement.

          It's an evil spirit, and it's been growing stronger because we feed it with our ignorance, with our greed, with our feeling that while others have what we don't have, we didn't get ours, and we should.  Yes, that's called greed.  It's not our right, not a denial of our inheritance, not a justified reaction that we've been trodden down.  It's greed.  A spirit of greed.  And it reigns from the highest levels of our government to the lowest panhandler on the street corner, and all of us in between. 

          Why shouldn't we have the best, the newest, the most labor saving?  Haven't we worked hard for it all our lives?  Are we less deserving than the man or woman who lives in a mansion and sleeps on a silk pillow at night, drives that sleek red sports car.  Are we not the children of the King of Kings, and have right to all we can accumulate?

          The story is told of the 1920's when a missionary couple were returning home by ship.  They had served all their lives among a heathen people, among poverty and disease and ignorance, bringing them the good news of Jesus Christ.  Now, elderly, crippled and tired, they were returning home by ship.  As the ship docked in New York City, the aviator Charles Lindberg, who had just flown the first solo air trip from New York to France, was returning home to a hero's welcome.  There were huge crowds, balloons, confetti, the news media with popping flashbulbs, all welcoming this lone man home to a parade down Broadway.

          The old missionary watched from the railing, and bemoaned the facts that for one lone event, this man was being honored in such a way, and for their lifetime of sacrifice ... nothing.

          His sweet wife patted his arm and reminded him, "We're not home yet, dear."  Surely they will have a joyful reception in heaven, but until then, the Bible tells us in Job 5:7 that mankind is meant for trouble just as surely as the sparks fly upward.

          Christians are under attack all around the world.  As you read this, families are mourning the loss of beheaded Christian daughters in India, an Iranian Christian pastor sits in prison, awaiting his death sentence for refusing to deny the Christ he knows; in China a pastor is recovering from being a forced organ donor because he leads a Christian "home church".

          The entire world, not just America, is under the spirit of fear, of anger, of a greedy and voracious hunger that sets all else aside in pursuit of self fulfillment.  It has become so bad that even as we listen to wolves in sheep's clothing declaring that if we just support them God will give us all our material desires, even as our ears are tickled by those having a semblance of the Christ, but not the Christ, even as we lust for the latest electronic toy, new car, bigger house, we cannot ignore that the world has become mired in desire, envy, and greed.  The spirit of evil reigns over the entire world today and sets the stage for prophetic events.

          What can we, the people of God, the bride of Christ, what can we do in the face of such enduring evil?  How can we confront such a destructive force?

          I guarantee you it will not be done with force of arms.  It will not respond to new laws.  And this spirit of evil which pervades our lives, our nation, and our world, will pay no attention to attempts at angry reprisal, shallow platitudes, well-meaning sympathy for the victims.  Such misguided attempts will only reinforce our powerlessness.

          Just like Jesus' disciples in our scripture today, we can remain powerless, attempting to do the work of Jesus Christ without concentrating on him, relying on the methods and answers we draw from our own nature.  Oswald Chambers points out in his classic "My Utmost for His Highest," that "We actually slander and dishonor God by our very eagerness to serve Him without knowing Him."

          How can that possibly happen?  Has anything come between you and Jesus Christ?  Have you left your first love, the Christ who loved you first, and replaced it with the admiration of things?  Do you see yourself still in the mountaintop experience with Christ, glorying in what He has done for you, neglecting to go down into the valley so as to avoid the realities of sin, oppression and humiliation that drew Jesus Christ to the cross?  Are you still gazing at that cross and refusing to pick it up and go with Him to Golgotha?

          As followers of the most real person ever to set foot on this earth, we need to face things the way they really are, and not the way we wish they were.

          Many Christians read Paul's writings in Philippians 4:13 -- "I can do all things through Christ Who strengthens me," and believe Paul was talking only about the power we have to accomplish great things through Christ.  And he was.  But he was also talking as much about getting through the difficulties, the problems, the evils we face, as much as doing anything.  Jesus told His disciples in John 15:18, and Matthew 10:22 that because the world hated Him, the world was going to hate them.  Life is, indeed, full of problems, oppression and humiliations when you stand up for what is right before God, for what is full of unspoiled beauty, for what is just.  For this flies right in the face of that spirit of evil that challenges the people of God.

          But we cannot stay on the mountaintop.  That was an inspirational experience, but we have from Almighty God a precious give of love that finds its greatest fulfillment in sharing, in giving it away.  And the spirit of evil doesn't want that.

          And old favorite song written by J. J. Cale says, "Momma don't allow no guitar playing 'round here, but I don't care what Momma don't allow, going to play my guitar anyhow..."

          We who have a heritage of everlasting life, through the Great I Am, through the God who created us and loves us, we must not give sway to what the spirit of evil don't allow, we are going to fly in the face of all that the spirit of evil lusts after, in the name of God Almighty.  But we are also going to be mindful of Jesus' words, "This kind of unclean spirit can come out by nothing but by prayer and fasting."

          Want to change the world?  Change yourself first, in the name of God.  Then set about unseating that unkind Spirit, in the name of the Living God, under the instructions Jesus gave His disciples, by constant contact with Jesus Christ, living a disciplined and sacrificial life.  Against such the spirits that fear the Christ have no power.

          Amen.