Mission 66 (English podcast)
Mark 1 The Exorcist
The spiritual world of Jesus' time included lots of demonic activity, and it was evident by the fact that people were described as being possessed by demons, and many people today, they're curious about the spiritual world, and as a result, they're getting themselves into some dark places. Jesus Christ showed Himself Lord and Master over every kind of evil or demonic being. This is Mission 66, your ultimate journey through all 66 books of the Bible, brought to you by Bible teacher and pastor Dr. Luis Ciao, in partnership with Transworld Radio. I'm Rob Dempsey. Let me remind you to download your free study guide of the Gospels. You'll be able to go deeper into God's Word and follow along with each day's program. It's a great companion resource of the audio teaching of John Matthews and Esther Susullo. To get your free study guide of the Gospels, visit mission66.org, that's mission66.org. John Matthews is our teacher, and his co-host, Esther Susullo, is here to kick things off. Well, hello once again, and today we'll begin to study a new book in the series of studies in the Four Gospels, now for and prepare yourself for our most fascinating adventure. Our journey begins in the first chapter of the Gospel of Mark where we'll find a lot going on. Now not everything that seems religious is really of God. We all have an enemy in common, you know, we know Him as the evil one, the devil or Satan. He's a great deceiver, he's the father of lies, and through his trickery he seeks to kill, steal and destroy. But as we shall see, Jesus is the only one who can keep us from evil and heal and renew those who are trapped by the evil one. Well, I'm your host, Esther, and our teacher John is here with today's theme, The Exorcist. Oh, Esther, thank you very much, and a very warm welcome to you all so good to be with you again. And we've already been through the entire book of Matthew, and if you've been following us, you might be asking, why are there four Gospel accounts, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John? Why do we need other Gospels if we already have one? And those who read the Bible will know that many of the stories found in the Book of Mark, well, you can also find them in that Book of Matthew. Now the fact here is that the Bible emphasizes different points of view by different authors, and each one of the writers presents the story of Jesus from a different perspective. For example, Matthew, he portrays Jesus as the messianic king, a descendant of David, and one who fulfilled that messianic prophecy, found way back in the Old Testament. And that would have been important to be Jewish audience. But the Book of Mark, well, this book is different. It's shorter, for one thing, it's only got 16 chapters. It's got this fast pace about it. So it's a fast-paced Gospel, more concise, and with a sense of urgency. And then many times, in fact, 45 times, the Gospel of Mark says how Jesus acted immediately, or it says things like soon after he did this or that. So it shows Jesus as a man of action. It also portrays Jesus as a servant rather than an earthly king. And it also reveals the role of the disciples. Here, Jesus shows up interacting more with the Gentiles, that is the Greco-Roman world. But even though the Book of Mark is a Gospel account, it's written from Mark's point of view. And by the way, scholars tell us that Mark was the very first Gospel account to be written in the New Testament, chronologically speaking. Mark was probably written at the end of the 50s decade AD whilst Matthew was written a fair bit later before the year 70 AD. Now this Mark is the same John Mark that we find in the Book of the Acts of the Apostles. And the man we find behind Mark is the Apostle Peter, who is the Apostle, let's say, who guided Mark in the writing of his Gospel. So then, the first chapter begins by telling us that it is the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. It also takes a quote from something we've seen earlier. That is the prophecy from Isaiah chapter 40, which was written hundreds of years before. But this is what it said. I send my messenger before your face who will prepare your way before you. A voice cries in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Who is this messenger? Well here in Mark, that messenger is identified as John the Baptist who is announcing the coming of Christ. And in Mark, different from Matthew, we see it clearly that the Kingdom of God is being announced. Matthew prefers the expression Kingdom of Heaven. John the Baptist then is the great prophet who is described as eating grasshoppers wild honey, the one who wore rough clothing. So he looked and behaved uncommonly. And then we see the description of the baptism and temptation of Jesus. Now Mark tells us this with a much smaller summary using just two verses to describe Jesus' temptation when he was tempted by Satan for 40 days in the desert. And after this, Mark tells us about Jesus gathering his first disciples. Now note here that the description of Jesus' genealogy of his birth was stressed in Matthew because he was writing to the Jews. But genealogies were not as important to Mark because they were not as meaningful to the Gentile world, nor to the world of the Greeks and Romans that he was writing to. And so Jesus gathers his first disciples. And Mark says here, starting at verse 16, "Passing alongside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew, the brother of Simon, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, 'Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men.' And immediately they left their nets and followed him. And going on a little father, he saw James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, who were in their boats mending the nets. And immediately he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants and followed him. But Jesus gathers his first disciples here, and soon after this, Jesus immediately engages in his ministry. Now we must all keep in mind that the region of Israel at this time was the province in Palestine that was ruled by the Romans, and it was divided into Judea, Samaria, and the region of Galilee. Now Galilee was up north, and it was the most despised region by those who lived in Judea. And this is where Jesus begins his ministry. As we continue reading, the Bible tells us, starting at verse 21, and they went into Capernaum, and immediately on the Sabbath he entered the synagogue and was teaching. And they were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, not as the scribes. And immediately there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit. And he cried out, 'What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us, I know who you are, the Holy One of God? Now this account does not show up in the Gospel of Matthew. Mark is letting us know that there was demonic activity here, and we spoke about that a little bit before, didn't we? Yeah, we sure did, John, and just a word of caution to you, friend. When we are dealing with the subject matter from the spiritual world, we must be careful. Isn't that right, John? Absolutely right, Esther. The spiritual world of Jesus' time included lots of demonic activity, and that was evident by the fact that people were being described as possessed by demons. Now many people today are curious about the spiritual world, and as a result are getting into some dark places, yet Jesus Christ showed himself Lord and Master over every kind of evil or demonic being. But here we go, Jesus is in the synagogue, and all of a sudden a man shows up possessed by a demon. The Gospels describe demons as being impure spirits or filthy spirits, this man, not from himself, but because of the entity that controlled him, recognized who Jesus really was. Jesus, in the book of Mark, is being pointed out as the exorcist. Now the truth is, behind the world in which we live, behind this material world, this world that presents itself to our eyes, there is also a spiritual reality that goes beyond our full awareness. Therefore, what we're going to find out here is that these evil spirits recognize Jesus. They know who Jesus really is. They are therefore frightened, and they're forced to let it slip out that they know Jesus is the true Son of God, and that they fear him. After you come to destroy us, I know who you are, the Holy One of God, they say. Just imagine how everyone around would have been stunned by what was unfolding here before the very eyes, and it's just about to get more shocking because in verse 25, Jesus rebukes him saying, "Be silent and come out of him." And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying out with a loud voice, came out of him, and they were all amazed so that they questioned among themselves saying, "Why is this?" A new teaching with authority, he commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him, and at once his fame spread everywhere throughout all the surrounding region of Galilee. Now Galilee was this region with a mixture of different kinds of people. Besides the Jews, there were Gentiles living there, and people from other places and cultures who were influenced by paganism. And this explains the presence of these evil spirits here. The people were all amazed then at what Jesus had just done, because their understanding of religion did not include the casting out of demons. They may well have believed that faith was a matter of reciting the right words, or perhaps knowing a list of spiritual facts, but never, never had they seen a leader who was capable of ordering demons around and have them flee scream in my goodness. This was indeed something new to them. Jesus was in fact the only one true exorcist. And then Mark continued saying in verse 29, "And immediately he left the synagogue and entered the house of Simon and Andrew with James and John." Now Simon's mother-in-law, that's talking about Simon Peter's mother-in-law here, lay ill with a fever, and immediately they told him about her. And he came, took her by the hand, and lifted her up, and the fever left her and she began to serve them. So Jesus has this power over demons, and now here reveals his power over sickness as well by healing Peter's mother-in-law. And Mark continues, "That evening at sundown they brought to him all who were sick or oppressed by demons, and the whole city was gathered together at the door. And he healed many who were sick, with various diseases, and cast out many demons, and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him." Now it's really interesting, isn't it, to observe that Jesus not only proves his extraordinary power over the spiritual world, but it also becomes really clear that there is no other spiritual entity, no other spiritual power that can be compared to Jesus. So people who seek spiritual powers in this world really need to think about what they're looking for, because Mark is pretty clear here, people need to seek the one who truly has the greatest spiritual power of all, the Lord Jesus Christ himself. He is the Emmanuel, God with us, and there's no need to seek spiritual power elsewhere. So Jesus is revealing his spiritual power, revealing his power over infirmities and illnesses, but it's also interesting to see that according to this gospel, Jesus had no interest whatsoever in performing spectacles. He wasn't a circus performer or a crowd pleaser, he didn't do tricks. Jesus did want to show people that he had power and that he had indeed complete exorcist power. But when the evil spirit, as we notice, manifests itself in the synagogue, Jesus says, "Be quiet, come out of him." After this, Jesus did not permit the demons to speak, because Jesus was operating on God's timetable, not Satan's. Jesus did not want to announce the details of his mission before the right time. His mission in the gospel of Mark was God's mission, and it would only be revealed when the time was right. But Jesus also did not want people or even demons to make this huge scene and turn people's attention to himself, not yet anyway. And so as this first chapter of Mark comes to a close, there's this brief reference in the following verses to the fact that Jesus was dedicating himself now to prayer in a deserted place away from everyone else. And then the chapter ends with the story of Jesus healing the leper. And this gives emphasis once again to how Jesus reached out his hand and touched the leper, who wanted to be cured and how the leprosy left the leper completely. Now back in those days, leprosy was a disease that left people unclean and ostracized from society. In fact, it was forbidden for people to even touch your leper. Jesus then heals this man completely, reinforcing once again this secretive element to his ministry. He says to the leper, don't tell anybody what's happened, but go and present yourself to the high priest and offer sacrifices for his cleansing that was required by the law. But this fact, well, it became public anyway. And as a result, Jesus could no longer enter the city. And so he stayed outside in quieter places. And this again shows us that Jesus did not yet want to publicly announce what he was doing. And as we can see dear friends, Jesus is indeed the Lord over diseases, over demons, over everything. In the Gospel of Mark chapter 1, he truly is the Exorcist. Sure, friend, glory to God for that truth. You're listening to Mission 66 and we're at the beginning of another series of studies. And this time, we're in the Gospel of Mark chapter 1 with John. You know, we're curious cats here, John, and I do have a question. Was Mark an apostle? And how is he's gospel different than the others? He was Mark an apostle. And it's a question that sometimes people think, well, he must have been an apostle. But I just remember Mark's gospel as well was written specifically, wasn't it, for non-Jewish readers? And when we observe this gospel, we see that Mark is actually very objective and direct. And as we read the gospel, we're also see that Mark goes straight to the point. He tells us directly what Jesus actually did and said. He's not wasting any time on descriptions about Jesus's birth or his genealogy because they weren't things that were considered particularly important, well, only in the Jewish context. And then really, really good question you asked there was Mark an apostle. The answer is no, but all of the writings in the New Testament and even in the Old Testament had some sort of reference as proof of their apostolic or authoritative divine origin. And what do we mean by that? Well, we mean that in order to be an author of New Testament scripture, the writer either had to be an apostle himself or be under the direct guidance of an apostle. And in this case, the one behind Mark's writings is the apostle Peter and it's he who guarantees the authority of Mark's gospel. And as we said before, Mark was the first of those four gospels chronologically speaking, even though it does come second in that New Testament gospel sequence. That's really interesting. Okay, John, in the very first chapter, Mark has Jesus confronting the enemy, the evil ones, his demons, right? And in verse 27, he talks about unclean spurts. So what exactly does the term impure spurts mean here is there a difference between these spurts and shall we say, regular evil spurts? Yeah, well, evil is evil. And it's also impure and unclean and the Old Testament's religious and ceremonial purity. Well, they were considered really, I mean, really important. God required purity so that he could dwell with his people. And so an impurity was then to be avoided, especially for the priests and ceremonial worship. But of course, not every impurity was considered sin. Obviously not because you think of, let's say, the example of childbirth, bodily discharges whilst not sinful, they were considered their impurities and so needed special treatment and ceremonial washing, which God specified. But when the Bible talks about impure spirits, it means that they are evil. And these are known as demons because of their separation from God and alignment with Satan and his evil purposes. And we ought to have nothing to do with them. Now, the occult is not to be messed with it. It's not innocent fun. It's not a match of curiosity. These evil and deceiving spirits exist. And more than that, they want to destroy people's lives. Yeah. Okay. Well, I have another question. In the first chapter of Mark, we find an entire series of cures and exorcisms right in the very beginning. Is there a specific or perhaps a strong reason why all of this is being presented in the introduction in the very beginning of the gospel? Very beginning, isn't it? Well, I suppose in order to understand that we need to just think a little bit about what the ancient world was like or the pagan world as some would describe it. You know, these people were constantly tormented by problems and illnesses. And back in those days, people thought that these problems were ultimately of a spiritual origin. And, you know, Esther, there was something behind that reality. And so I suppose just to put if we can put ourselves in, in their shoes a little bit, there was so much uncertainty. And so people lived with this sense of fear and so devoted themselves to their pagan rituals, believing that perhaps those rituals somehow were just ease that fearful feeling. And they were, I suppose we could say, controlled by these forces then of the spiritual world. Therefore, what do we conclude here? Well, Jesus shows up not only as the Messiah, but as the Savior of this pagan world as well, because He has the power over these entities. Can you imagine the people thinking they've never seen someone turn up, show up and have power over these evil spiritual entities? And everything as well, He has power over that is a cause of all the diseases that afflict them and the illnesses that are really Esther, a part of their everyday life. Yeah, this is good news. And I'm really excited just hearing you talking about this. Now, another question. Mark gives a very special emphasis in the beginning of his gospel once again to deserts and lonely places. Was this significant? Yeah, that's a really interesting question, isn't it? Because, you know, when he's talking about the idea of a desert place, there's a really positive side to this, you know, or being in a lonely place. You know, let's think about God speaking to Moses in the desert. And indeed, he spoke to many important Old Testament characters in the desert. On the other hand, the desert was also a scary and hostile place, a place considered to be impure and related to negative influences. But the idea here is of a place of retreat, a place that's set apart from others. So a desert here or a deserted place is not necessarily a place that's a full of sand, but the desert is any lonely place. And so there's value. What it's saying is there's value in getting alone with God, real value. Jesus did this often and suggested that his disciples did the same from time to time, put aside some of our day, some of our time in order to dedicate it to just seeking God. And Jesus recharged his battery, so to speak, when he got alone and communed with his father. And so if Jesus needed to do that, oh, my goodness, how much more do we need to do it? Yeah, you know, something else that I find so interesting, I see Jesus calling forth his disciples and forming his own, you know, quote unquote, in a circle of men who would eventually be sent out as apostles. But you know, when you look at these men, they're diverse. They're from all different walks of life. Yeah, they are on it. And I do you know what Esther, I find that this really encouraging because you're so right, just thinking about the men who he called around him, you've got mass you, he's a tax collector, some of them were fishermen, there were Simon the zealot who was like this hot headed rebel type who would have fought against the Roman government, he would have fought against anyone, wouldn't he? And then you've got boisterous men like Peter, but also reserved, introspective men like Nathaniel and significantly, you know, they were not devoted religious types. And I think that shows us that Jesus' message is for regular people. You know, he didn't come to the high and mighty. He didn't come to the rich and powerful, but for normal working class folks with different personalities, for sure. But the common theme amongst them all was that their hearts were open, ready to listen and desire to truthfully serve God. You know, he wasn't just for people who've got all the right religious mannerisms and the one who impress others with their supposed deep spirituality. But look, let's just say the religious types, of course, would be included. Jesus came for all. But the key was if they were willing to listen to him. But here, mainly, you know, he's showing himself to regular people. Incredible, incredible. All right. Thank you so much, John. That was such an incredible explanation of Mark one. So how shall we summarize things today? Yeah, let's do that. Well, look, the theme was the exorcist. And here we see the power of Jesus over illnesses, but also over demons. Many today, we know a curious about the spiritual world and are seeking out these spiritual powers, perhaps because they want the experience, perhaps, because they think that there's some help for them there. But dear listener, it is a serious point to say here. It has to be said, the spiritual world is real, but it's also dangerous. Don't mess with the occult, witchcraft or magic, because when you become involved in that sort of activity, what you're doing is you're giving demons permission to enter into your life. And their intention is to wreck your life. So turn back to Jesus, he is not only the savior, but he is also the one and only powerful exorcist. And with that friend, we conclude today's study of Mark chapter one, and we invite you to join us here next time when John will lead us into Mark chapter two on mission 66. As we wrap up today's program, I want to encourage you to take advantage of a valuable resource. You can enhance your understanding of the Gospels by downloading our free study guide. This guide will deepen your experience with God's Word and complement our daily teachings from John Matthews and Esther Sussulu. To access your free study guide of the Gospels, simply visit mission66.org. Pick up this valuable resource and also support the Ministry of Mission 66. Your gift helps sustain this program locally and globally. Mission 66 is a Ministry of Transworld Radio in partnership with Dr. Louise Seow. I'm Rob Dempsey. [Music] (upbeat music)