A man, after the transfiguration brought his son, who had a devil within, to Jesus to cast a devil out of him.
Stop reading right there… many of
you do not believe in the ‘Devil,’ Satan, nor that personal devils that can
enter unto you. The Devil is no more than Lucifer using cunningness to deceive
you. Foremost is that if you follow Jesus, it is you who should have the power
to do the things of God. That makes you the ‘god’ in your own eyes.
Sinners never have devils in them
because they have the Devil in their genome, or flesh. Devils usually attack
the faithful to penetrate their armor of safety, as in the case of Job and his
encounters with the other kind.
‘Devil’ in the Greek is ‘daimonion,’
meaning ‘daemonic beings’ (demons)
Contrast that to the ‘Devil’
himself — ‘Diabolos’ (John 8:44). Therefore ‘devils’ are ‘diabolical’
beings like the Devil itself. Like the Devil — the so-called ‘Serpent’ —
devils are diabolical and have the same characteristics as the Devil. They are
cunning and deceptive; so cunning that no man, save Jesus, has ever overcame
the devils in the world.
The first act of Jesus was
overcoming the Devil itself. Because Jesus had the fortitude to do so, that it seems
that the apostles who followed Him would have the faith to do as Jesus did. Not
so, their faith was not that strong.
The father asked Jesus, “Lord,
have mercy on my son: for he is lunatic, and sore vexed” (Mat 17:15). The son
had abnormalities. He is ‘moon struck’ and under much stress; so much that he
endeavors to drown himself or set himself on fire (Mat 17:15).
The son was suicidal and the reason he was is that he had a devil within him in the manner that Judas had Satan enter him before he committed suicide. No, the son did not have epilepsy but an invisible power was going on within, wherein devils were battling for his soul. Then Jesus became impatient with them and chastised them all:
“O faithless and
perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer you?
Bring him here to Me. And Jesus rebuked the devil; and he departed out of him:
and the child was cured from that very hour. (Mat
17:17-18)
What Jesus said was the truth and
as the truth it was meant to denigrate them.
Imagine, if you will, a band of
faith healers whose faith was so shallow that they could not heal anyone even
spiritually sick, let alone physically. Jesus called them out for what they
were. They were not any better than those with devils at this time in His
ministry.
Jesus called them a “perverse
generation,” or in the Greek, “diastrepho genea.” They were born severely
twisted (ibid). They were perverted from birth because it was in the genes.
In other words, their faith was controlled by their own ‘father,’ the Diablo
(John 8:44).
Their faith was limited because
each one of them, at that time, were in the flesh, meaning that their genetics controlled
their faith. They were not able to cast the devil from the father’s son because
at that time, before Jesus redeemed them, their faith was limited. They were
too much in the flesh and dependent on themselves.
They were still somewhat under
control of their own genome which, over the years, was inherited from Eve who
was the mother of all the living (Gen 3:20). Their own power was limited
because the Holy Ghost of Jesus was not in them because Jesus had yet to be
glorified (John 7:39).
Before they could have the Power
of Jesus, Jesus had to die to give up His Holy Ghost (Mark 15:37). Only the Spirit
of Jesus could displace the demons in people, but first the disciples must be
rid of their won demons. (Of course, God was standing before them, but was He
to them?)
Note that the son had the spirit
of demons in him, not the spirit of John nor the Holy Spirit of Jesus. What did
Jesus have that the others did not? Virtue given to Him at His own baptism when
the Holy Ghost entered and remained on Him. That did not happen with the
others. They were washed with water outwardly and the Spirit washed their soul
but it never remained on them as scripture implies (John 1:33).
Soon after He arose, the Holy
Ghost of Jesus replaced His physical Presence (Acts 2). The Holy Ghost is the
Substance of God as well. It is as much God as Jesus who is the visible
Presence of God that anyone could see. The Holy Ghost is the same Presence that
only true Christians can sense. Whereas Jesus could be detected by all the five
senses, it would require a greater sense to know the Holy Ghost.
At that time, the disciples somewhat
trusted Jesus but they would need to learn to trust the Holy Ghost. They did
not understand that they would be in Christ after Jesus was gone. Not that they
would literally be in Christ, but no longer a perverse generation, albeit ‘born
again’ (John 3:7) a newly engendered generation from God above (ibid). With
Jesus no longer with them physically, He would remain on them… finally even
though they had been baptized with water, they would later be baptized by the
Holy Ghost and be as protected as Jesus from demons.
With that said, Christians ‘wear’
the Spirit of God in the sense that it is the same garment that God put onto
Adam for him to remain safe in the world (Gen 3:21).
The ‘coats’ of Adam and Eve were
of the flesh of God for He provided it. Now, the garments of the apostles would
be the Holy Ghost of Jesus that they would wear for power, vigilance, and
preservation; it was the Whole Armor of God that they would wear, as it is
written, “Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against
the wiles of the devil” (Ephes 6:11).
They had failed to cast out the
devil from the man’s young son because they had no armor to provide power and
safety to themselves. They were standing before the devil with no armor!
The armor of God is not any more of
steel or leather than old King Saul’s. David rejected Saul’s armor and defeated
the man Goliath in battle because David had put on the whole armor of God, noting
that David did not need the shoes of God because He was brave enough not to run
from the devil in Goliath.
Once the apostles and disciples
had the whole armor of God to prevail the wiles of the Devil, the glorification
of Jesus would make them a righteous generation that would not even fear
the Devil in Nero, who was one of the many ‘Antichrists’ to come.
To be honest, there are not
enough devils to go around for every sinner, so they go after believers.
Demonic angels are of a limited number but humans generate at will and
profusely.
Without enough demons to go
around for all the perverse people generated, what was the Devil to do? He
imbued Eve with daemonic genetics, and she would pass them down to all her
kind. As such, “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23).
Jesus was already somewhat glorious
because He was without sin. The transfiguration gave Him the Power of God, and
His death, the Glory of God. He would be made in the entire Image of Yahweh
and even His flesh would be like the first Adam’s — the man that was the very Image
of God, His flesh was imbued with the phantom of God and that ‘phantom’ is now
called the ‘Holy Ghost’ in that it is the Spirit of the dead man, Jesus.
The Holy Ghost is the Power of
God in the world. It is Jesus here with Christ in us in another form. With that
Power, and that Power alone, can devils be cast out.
Jesus explained to them why they
were so powerless:
Then came the disciples to Jesus
apart, and said, “Why could not we cast him out?” And Jesus said unto them, “Because
of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, ‘If you have faith as a grain of
mustard seed, you shall say unto this mountain, ‘Remove hence to yonder place;’
and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.’” (Mat 17:19-20)
They simply believed after failing so many
times one after the other, that they would fail again. They were the ‘lunatics,’
not the demon possessed boy.
Albert Einstein revealed some truth, “The
definition of ‘insanity’ is doing the same thing over and over again, but
expecting different results.” They were the ‘insane’ ones as Jesus bravely
pointed out to them.
They had all tried casting the devil
out, but did so without prayer and fasting (Mat 17:21). They would need to be
made weak in the flesh, so that they would be strong in the Spirit. Why is that?
“The Spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” as Jesus said it (Mat 26:41).
By eating food, the flesh is kept strong.
Ironically, the flesh is weak to sin, one of which is overindulgence in food. As
it is strong by the consumption of food, it becomes weak to sin.
Prayer is asking for divine blessings
and the glorification of God. Prayer is the willingness of the Soul of man to
please God. Prayer builds up because it is communicating with God. It is an
invisible strength that few use. Prayer makes Christians supra-men.
The power in the armor of God is prayer,
“Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit” (Ephes 6:18). “Supplication
is “a seeking, asking, entreating,” of God (ibid), so that it is not you
with the Power, but you using the Power of God.
Going unnoticed was that the
Power of God was right in their faces. Their unbelief was still that Jesus may
not truly be God in the flesh. They had depended on their own works to cast out
the devil rather than just asking Jesus (supplicating) to do what only He was
able to do. With the Power of God right there, they turned to their own devices
even though all they had to do was ask and it would be done!
Jesus believed both in His own
Power and devils. Many who consider themselves ‘Christians’ believe in their
own power, fail to believe in demons, and as such undermine Jesus! Even demons
believe in Jesus, yet so many Christians do not believe in demons! Just who are
the perverse ones?
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