Dealing with Demons, Part 1

Today Chuck Swindoll since her warning about the spirit world.

Be aware me does not like to be exposed and what is proclaimed. He is especially hostile because he wants you to keep thinking he's not there and that his forces really do not mean all that much in our day. There were constantly in and around this wicked is not uncommon to give little thought cannot see the site out of mind right well when it comes to ignoring the spirit world and the forces of darkness.

The Christian can't afford to look the other way today on Insight for living Chuck Swindoll's teaching from the Gospel of Matthew passage that records a dramatic showdown between Jesus and two men under demonic possession through this study will become equipped with spiritual weapons designed to defeat our invisible enemy, titled today's message dealing with demons. You are part of our ministry. Remember that we have been engaged in a study of the gospel about Matthew we find ourselves at the end of the eighth chapter you have a Bible, please turn to Matthew chapter 8 I'll begin the reading at verse 28 down to the end of the chapter and once you locate that you might want to put the outline that you received over at Mark chapter 5, Mark five, 1 to 20 is a parallel passage more in detail the events that happened in Matthew eight, so will be turning back and forth. You might want to have that handy Mark five and once you locate that turn back to Matthew chapter 8 and I'll begin reading at verse 28 I'm reading from the new living translation. When Jesus arrived on the other side of the lake in the region of the Gadarenes. Two men who were possessed by demons met him. They lived in a cemetery and were so violent that no one could go through that area. They began screaming at him.

Why are you interfering with the son of God, and you come here to torture us before God's appointed time.

There happened to be a large herd of pigs feeding in the distance so the demons they if you cast us out, send us into that herd of P's all right go Jesus commanded them, so the demons came out of the men and entered into the pigs and the whole herd plunged it down the steep down the steep hillside into the lake and drowned in the water. The herdsman fled to the nearby town telling everyone what happened to the demon possessed man then the entire town came out to meet Jesus, but they begged him to go away and leave them alone.

We don't hear much today, even from pulpits about the demonic world. So when we come across a section like this.

Our interest is Pete in the time we have. We want to move into it to come to a little better understanding of what it involves what it does and does not represent as the teaching of Scripture is unfolding. You're listening to Insight for living to study the book of Matthew with Chuck Swindoll. Be sure to download his searching the Scriptures. Studies by going to Insight world.org/studies another message from Chuck about dealing with demons.

Demonism is neither funny nor phony. It is serious and it is real. As a result of we tend to go to one of two extreme when we come to the subject of demons, either total denial, disbelief, thinking in our own minds that none of that is is worth our time and energy is wasted effort to concern ourselves with that unseen world does not exist in the other extreme is treated in a lighthearted way. After all, it may be there but who really is that concerned about.

I think there is 1/3 if I might add this, there are those who are inordinately preoccupied with the subject MAC demons in virtually everything. One writer put it well. If Satan cannot pull you down, he will just as happily push you overboard, so that no matter what it's for the devil. My brother also in ministry.

Details of a man that he had been ministering to believe he had the demon of nailbiting, not really is like the demon of overeating that it it's not the devil, its our desire for more food than we ought to be taking it. It's not about the enemy.

It's about us. There's a whole lot of the wrong that happens, it's powerful. I love the story of the girl that was had been mistreating her little brother and should pull his hair and kicked his shins and fighting the mother stopped her and said why do you let the devil do that through you and she said well the devil million maybe pull his hair but taking his shins was my idea.

A lot of the stuff we do that's wrong is our idea is what we want, but then there is the realm of the demonic, whether you want to believe it or not, whether you want to make light of it or not it exists.

All of you and all of us who take the Bible literally understand the demons appear in the Scripture couple of times mentioned directly in the Old Testament more often in the New Testament seven times in Matthew, specifically four times in Mark once in Luke and once in John and periodically in the letters and from a gathering of information we draw from the Bible, we can make several statements about demon they are actively engaged in evil objectives. They are devious, they are insidious, they are aggressive and they are relentless. Not being humans they neither slumber nor sleep. They are forever at work even when we are asleep.

They are invisible.

They are insidious servants of Satan. Their father, they have supernatural power, but they are not all powerful. They certainly have more strength than we. They operate under this mysterious. We frequently referred to it as the permissive will of God. That means they bow to his authority. They obey his command. They were never to Jesus. A source of great disturbance. They were more a nuisance and it is clear from the way he dealt with them that it did not take a great deal of time or energy for him to dispel them. Martin Luther writes in his great him, and though this world with devils filled, should threaten to undo us.

We will not fear for God has willed his truth to try out through us. The Prince of darkness grim, we tremble not for him.

His rage we can endure for low. His doom is sure of always love this one line one little word shall fell him. We forget that because we are uneasy around invisible forces and because we know enough to know that we are not as strong as they physically it is easy to think that they and all their strength, are able to take control of us not so they may attack in their attack may make us miserable because of the vileness and brutality of their nature, but they need not overwhelm us or overcome us.

I failed to mention earlier, something I should state demons are often the source of suicidal thoughts. The Tetris in weak and despondent moments when we find ourselves feeling hopeless in the interject thoughts of suicide. There are those who play in the realm of demons thinking there's nothing to it and I have determined throughout my ministry to warn all people against that you may see it as a game they don't hear in their field of battle and in that field. They are very much a whole. You are not what I had this tube because of been engaged in preaching against the enemy in the dark forces throughout these more than 50 years, I have rarely seen it feel that when I speak of demons and Satan himself. Almost without exception, attacks, my way not only my way, but in the lives of those who listen and enter into. I've experienced interruptions in worship services.

I have a bit in the midst of situations that cannot be traced to any other source than the demonic realm. I was in a church service where the subject was introduced and we were moving through it and some of the plaster fell off the wall if you could believe so watch out. I doubt that's going to happen but it did in that case, I I've received letters and messages that from the strangest sources and later attacks in my own family so I would add, without trying to be in any way sensationalistic or dramatic, be aware the enemy does not like to be exposed and when the truth is proclaimed. He is especially hostile because he wants you to keep thinking he's not there and that his forces really do not mean all that much in our day. There are multiple millions of them.

They are at work constantly in and around this cosmos. This wicked world. Let me clarify. Also, because there's a faulty thinking about it. The words demon possession are not biblical words, we have demon influence in demon oppression and demon obsession demon possession almost as if there's a gradation of demonic activity. There may be, but the word in the Scriptures is always demonized dynamo and then summarize the word demonized the and it has in mind the idea of the activity of demons in the lives of human being. The word describes the controller demon has over an individual so that he or she could not successfully restrain or control the demon alone. Alex Cognac KO NY Amy is written, fascinating book demons a biblically-based perspective. In it he writes this of dive hundreds of light. It is the invasion of the victim's body by a demon or demons in which the demon exercises living control over the victim which the victim cannot successfully resist. What is the mono it demonized. Would a demon or demons take up residence in that person's body, resulting in degrees of derangement and the inability of the possessed to free himself or herself from the demonic control position, he refers to occurs when the demons go beyond exerting mere influence and actually indwell their victim's.

That's what we find in Matthew a in Mark five and also in Luke eight which is another parallel passage of the same account. Jesus encounters a man who has demons of the setting of this is very clearly arranged in Matthew chapter 8 Jesus is at Capernaum verse of five videos and then Jesus visits the home of Peter, which is in that same village of Capernaum, located on the north northwest corner of the Sea of Galilee in the passing of time. Jesus tells his disciples to get into the boat and be ready to go to the other side of the sea. A little later in the passage, Jesus gets in with them. Verse 23 and they together go through the storm and find their way to the Gadarene area or the kerosene area. There are cliffs there today that might very well represent the place where this occurred as the crow flies about a 6 mile sail from Capernaum to the Gadara area across the northern part of the Sea of Galilee. That's the journey the truck and what their met with is a terrifying site, terrifying. I got my little ribbon for my Bible at Mark five and because it's a little more detail. There I'm going to refer to that more often than I normally would. But Matthew eight states that there were two men who were possessed by demons who met him.

They lived in the cemetery and they were so violent that no one could go through that area. Interesting term.

A rare Greek term translated violent used in Paul's words to Timothy. Toward the end of Paul's life where he refers to the end times as being a time of great violence here and there as well. Is it it has in mind AA a treacherous situation. What about a mentor interested rendering savage time. The situation around the demonic individual is savage like so much so the children and adults alike were not safe being around these individuals. When you get to Mark's gospel.

One of the two is highlighted doesn't mean there was only one just probably means one of the two was more prominent and the spokesman for the two so when we read that Jesus mom and Mark five. Now verse two climbed out of the boat. A man possessed by an evil spirit came out of cemetery to medium. The man lived among the burial caves and could no longer be restrained even with a chain notice a strong the demon makes this individual whenever he was put into chains and shackles as he often was he snap the chains from his wrist and smashed the shackles.

No one was strong enough to subdue it. Chances are good that most of you have never witnessed a demonized individual or if you did you didn't realize the sword. It is obvious in this case that the man is beyond himself and strength, and there is a source of strength within him.

Please observe the relentlessness of the terror day and night. He wandered among the burial caves and in the hills howling and cutting himself with sharp stone should mention that a characteristic of demonism is this masochism that accompanies it.

The tendency to hurt oneself as if to get rid of the evil within, and the man is is literally slicing at himself with the sharp stone we read further in mark of five or six when Jesus was still some distance away my watch closely. The man saw him and ran to meet him and bowed low before. Remember there was one in greatest authority over all existence and that would be the son of God himself. So this demonized individual reaches of the presence of Jesus. Any bowels, and now notice the response.

The demon speaks through the vocal cords of the human being.

Demons have no vocal cords. They are spirit beings without bodies when they are in bodies that are able to use things within that human body. In this case the throat with a shriek. He screamed wire you interfering with me, Jesus, son of the most high God, but interesting.

He knows him. Every demon knows the son of God in every demon knows that his days are numbered. Chuck Swindoll is talking about dealing with demons.

Please keep listening over the next few days as we pull the curtain back and see the hidden world of demonic influence. This is insight for living and learn more about this ministry. Please visit us online@insightworld.org as your daily radio companion.

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