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But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness Gal 5:22 |
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Dear
Friend,
If you do not already have a habit of gathering daily manna the first thing in the morning (we can look at the example given to us in Exodus 16 and find the pattern for make it a habit. Establish your life and your schedule to allow you the necessary time to do your daily collection first thing every morning to give you the strength to make it through the day. And remember that today’s manna will not be sufficient for tomorrow; tomorrow’s manna must be collected tomorrow morning. Thursday, March 17, 2022
Today's Passage : Today's Passage :The Power of Satan and the Power of Christ [1]: Casting Out Demons Bible Verse:Matthew 12:22-28 (ESV) "Then a demon-oppressed man who was blind and mute was brought to him, and he healed him, so that the man spoke and saw. And all the people were amazed, and said, “Can this be the Son of David?” But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, “It is only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this man casts out demons.” Knowing their thoughts, he said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand. And if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand? And if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges. But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. " Message:
We enter a difficult and important line of teaching in Matthew 12:22-37. We want to study this section as a whole, but it will take us three days.
At the start, Christ heals a man profoundly disabled, unable to see or speak; and the man immediately gains both his vision and his speech.
Painting of Christ with sinner in His arms
One can see immediately that such a healing is “good”. It is just normal human nature to want to see such a wonderful thing done; you would have to be a sociopath not to want another human being to be healed of blindness or muteness. And the reaction of the “normal” people in the area is as expected. They are amazed and some of them, naturally, speculate that Jesus is tied to God, perhaps the “Son of David” — a very high praise that might mean Jesus is the rightful king, or possibly the Messiah.
But the Pharisees, rather than rejoicing in this humane miracle, apparently become jealous of their power and position; and so they seek to cast it in a bad light by claiming that Jesus heals in the name of Beelzebul (now usually called “Beelzebub”), which is tantamount to saying “Satan”.
Jesus refutes them with logic. Why would Satan empower someone to go around undoing his work? How could Jesus be using the powers of Satan to cast out demons, when possession by demons is one of Satan’s purposes?
Few people would correctly identify the common phrase, “A house divided against itself cannot stand,” as having originated with Jesus. Fewer still would know that it was originally applied to Satan's minions! But so it was. If Satan divided his kingdom so that part of it was working to undo the evil done by another part, we’d be back in the Garden of Eden, because Satan’s kingdom would destroy itself.
Jesus then points out another error: inconsistency. For the Jews also would cast out demons. (In addition to the inference from this passage, Josephus, the great Judeo-Roman historian (37-100 A.D.), describes in great detail a Jewish exorcism ritual in his work, The Jewish Wars. Also, an account of driving away a demon is central to Tobit, especially Chapters 6-8.) Christ thus told the Pharisees, in effect, “why don't we let the Jews who cast out demons judge by what power they are cast out?” As Hamlet put it, he “hoist them with their own petard.”
If the Pharisees had shown intellectual honesty in the matter, they would have had to admit that it was by God's power that Christ cast out demons. But here, if one needed it, was evidence of the Pharisees' corruption, proof that their opposition to Christ was not in good faith: they made ridiculous and illogical accusations against Him.
And it is still so with those who despise Christianity, for one hears the most absurd and historically incorrect accusations against the religion and the church, especially the Catholic Church prior to the Reformation, with no acknowledgment of earthly good deeds. Anti-Christians, for example, will claim that the Church was responsible for slavery, or at least supportive of it; and they will misquote the phrase from Colossians, “Slaves, obey your masters”, as if it were encouraging slavery.
Jesus slave
Without denying the considerable corruption of the Renaissance Church, it was, nevertheless, the only real anti-slavery force in European politics at the time. As early as the 15th century, several short-lived papal bulls were issued, forbidding the enslavement of colonized natives (first of Christian converts and later of any person), sometimes on pain of excommunication. (E.g. Sublimis Deus. For more information on the topic, see Valladolid Debate.)
But I have strayed off on a tangent. Christ made additional comments about healing the blind and mute man, which we will pick up tomorrow.
Meditation : Prayer : Almighty God, by your Holy Spirit you have made me one with your saints in heaven and on earth. Grant that in my earthly pilgrimage I may always be supported by this fellowship of love and prayer, and know myself to be surrounded by their witness to your power and mercy. I ask this for the sake of Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns for ever and ever.......Amen |
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