Jesus IS Power Over All
I. Introduction
Miami, Florida (AP)—A form of exorcism is a daily occurrence at a Miami hospital treating several hundred patients a month who ask to have evil spirits driven from their bodies.
“Usually, we treat 600 to 700 a month,” says Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo, director of Jackson Memorial Hospital’s Crisis Intervention Center. “But last month we had 900 people come for help … we worked our tails off—maybe there was a strong pull from the moon or something.”
The belief that demons can infiltrate a person’s body is old hat to the Jamaicans, Haitians, Bahamians, Cubans and Puerto Ricans who live in the Miami area, he said.
The patients are given strong tranquilizers to calm them; then staff members try to soothe away their fears.
A. Are these Doctors right?
B. Are they the answer to What is ailing this World?
C. This is what the world believes is the answer to our problems.
D. Our true power lies In Jesus Christ.
E. Mark 5:1–20
1.Does our location Matter
2. Does what we face matter?
3. Does our reaction matter?
II.Location Does Not Matter
A.Mark 5:1
1.Problems with place now
a. Gerasenes is used in Mark and Luke
b.Matthew 8:28
2. How bad the place was for Jesus at his time.
a. place was not kosher
b. tombs
c. Gentile nation
d.Pigs
3. Jesus first demons cast out in the church
a. Mark 1:23–26
b. In His home town.
B. Why does the place hold us back from receiving his power?
III. What He is Faced With Does Not Matter?
A. Mark 5:2–13
1. Legion of Demons
2. Every Unclean thing Imaginable.
B. Wilderness
1. Power to fight Satan
2. Power comes from the Holy Spirit?
C. What Are we faced with?
1. Our depression
2. Our Fears
3. Our inability to get ourselves out?
IV. Our Reaction To The Change is What Matters.
A. Mark 5:14–20
1.People of the Region Rejected what Jesus Had done.
2. The demon possessed Man reaction to what Had been done.
B.John 12:12–13
1. Reaction of ones who know what Christ has done.
2. Truthful reaction to Jesus Christ.
C.Luke 23:21–23
1. Our reaction when We allow our place and what we face to rule.
2. Not understanding truly what Jesus has done.
V. Conclusion
The story has been told of a mental hospital that many years ago devised an unusual test to determine when their patients were ready to go back into the world. They brought a candidate for release to a room where a water faucet was left on so that the sink overflowed and was pouring water all over the floor. Then they handed the patient a mop and told him to mop up the water. If the patient had enough sense to turn off the faucet before mopping up the water, he was ready to be released. But if, as in the case of many, the patient started mopping while the water was still flowing, they kept the patient for more treatment.
As Christians, all of us face the world in which we live and are confronted with the need to do battle with the evil that dominates it. But, like the patients in the mental hospital, until we realize where the source of that evil is, we will make no real contribution. To see less evil in the world means that we must conquer the evil that is pouring forth from our own heart. That is conversion. Then, to deal with the evil around us, we need a “mop and bucket,” the spiritual armor that God has provided for us.