August 27: Demons + the kingdom of God

But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you.    (Matthew 12:28 — New American Standard Version)

Jesus did three main things on earth: He preached and taught God’s word; He healed the sick and performed miracles; and He cast out demons. The first two had been done by others before Him, though He brought greater revelations and did larger miracles, but casting out demons had not been done before. There were some Jewish exorcists that dabbled in casting out demons, but nothing so genuine and powerful as what Jesus did. Neither had anyone spoken about Satan and demons as much as Jesus, He opened people’s eyes to the real root of their problems, and when He cast demons out of people those who saw it were amazed at His authority and power. They had never seen anyone speak and act so forcefully.

There’s a verse that expresses this perfectly: “For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.” (1 John 3:8) This is why Jesus came into the world, and this is part of why we are here too — to destroy the works of the devil. If we aren’t, then the opposite of today’s passage would apply, we are not in the kingdom of God. Most problems in people's lives and many problems in the Church itself can be traced back to the presence of evil spirits. If we do not drive out demons like Jesus did, we are allowing the devil to continue his dirty work in the lives of people all around us; and if we are not concerned about stopping the work of demons, it is very likely that we are not completely free. When demons are cast out in Jesus' name — the kingdom of God has come. 

Two of the greatest things we can do as a Church is destroy the works of the devil and accept God’s will as our own. But these are not really two different things. God’s will is for the devil to be shamed and defeated, because the devil’s desires are the opposite of God’s. When we fight the devil and cast out demons we are doing God’s will. When we don’t, we are not doing His will.

Let’s all identify where and how demons are working, and stop them!