God’s Word for You
Mark 1:25-26 With a shriek
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Saturday, July 31, 2021
25 Jesus rebuked the spirit, saying, “Be quiet! Come out of him!” 26 The unclean spirit threw the man into convulsions, and after crying out with a loud voice, it came out of him.
If we hear Jesus say that he does not accept praise or glory from unbelieving men (John 5:41) it should not surprise us at all that he won’t accept the testimony of a demon. “What fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial (Satan)? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever?” (2 Corinthians 6:14-15). Instead of allowing the demon to say anything at all, no matter what it might be, the Lord drove it out with a simple command. There is no mumbo-jumbo, no incense, no waving of the hands. Jesus is God Almighty, and the power of his word is the power to judge and destroy if he wills it. The demon shrieked, but it could do nothing else but obey. So would a star obey if Christ said, “Go dark and never shine again!” (Revelation 8:12). Or so would a hole in the ground obey if the Lord said, “Be filled!” If there was no man with a shovel or no dog with a paw nearby, the ground would have to convulse and erupt and fill what had been a hole, for so Christ had commanded (Numbers 16:31-33; Isaiah 40:4). And here, the demon had no choice but to stop speaking and come out of the poor man.
This is the power of God over the unseen dangers of his creation. They are every bit as much in his power as anything else that we are able to see. The water in the containers changed to wine (John 2:9). The water of the Sea of Galilee supported him as if it were asphalt (John 6:19). Death gave him up with only a minor convulsion (Matthew 28:2).
In Mark’s Gospel, this is the first recorded miracle of Jesus. He had performed others before this, but this is the one Mark puts forth to illustrate those first words of Jesus: “The time is fulfilled. The kingdom of God has come near!” (Mark 1:15). For those who do not believe the gospel, like this condemned evil spirit, there is only the punishment of hell waiting. But for all who put their trust in Jesus, there is, as we confess in the creed:
“The forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting.”
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. To receive God’s Word for You via e-mail, please visit the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church website.