Well, you can feel free to turn in the Bible to Mark chapter 7.
We are looking tonight at Mark chapter 7, verses 24 to 37.
So we are doing a series going through the Gospel of Mark this year, and we're almost
halfway through, and we're going to finish it on Easter.
So if you keep coming, then we will get through the rest of Mark, which is the shortest and
probably the first Gospel written in the New Testament about Jesus.
So we're going to look at two stories tonight.
I'm going to focus in especially on the first one, but after what we do in the evening services,
for those of you who haven't been here before, is we have a question and answer time after
the sermon.
And so if you have questions about the second passage or about the first passage, you can
feel free to store those up, and we'll have five or ten minutes at the end where you can
interact and we can try to go a little deeper.
But let me read this text to begin.
Mark chapter 7, starting at verse 24.
And from there he, Jesus, arose and went away to the region of Tyre and Sidon.
And he entered a house and did not want anyone to know, yet he could not be hidden.
But immediately a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit heard of him and came
and fell down at his feet.
Now the woman was a Gentile, a Syrophoenician by birth.
And she begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter.
And Jesus said to her, let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the
children's bread and throw it to the dogs.
But she answered him, yes, Lord, yet even the dogs under the table eat the children's
crumbs.
And he said to her, for this statement, you may go your way.
The demon has left her daughter.
And she went home and found the child lying in bed and the demon gone.
Then he returned from the region of Tyre and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee in
the region of the Decapolis.
And they brought to him a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment.
And they begged him to lay his hand on him.
And taking him aside from the crowd privately, he put his fingers into his ears and after spitting,
touched his tongue.
And looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him,
I wonder if you've ever felt like an outsider.
Maybe you've lived in another country or traveled to another country where you didn't know the
language.
And the weather and the food and the way people act and the way people interact with
each other, it just feels different.
And even if you're staying there for a while, you just don't quite feel at home.
Or maybe you're from another country or even from another part of this country.
And you've come here to New Haven and you feel like, man, I'm still trying to fit in here.
I'm struggling.
I still don't feel like this is home.
Or maybe you've had to start a new job, get used to new co-workers or go to a new school
or move to a new neighborhood or become part of a new extended family.
So the first time I met my wife's extended family was when we had just started dating in
the summer of 2006.
And I went to her mom's house.
This was just a few weeks after we started dating to have lunch with her and her mom and
her sister.
And for an hour and a half, they talked almost without stopping about their dogs.
So my mother-in-law owns a dog kennel and a dog grooming business.
And so they were talking about their customers' dogs.
They were talking about their own dogs, the dogs that they had had over the years when they
had grown up, that had been part of their family.
And of course, they knew them all by name.
And so I'm sitting at the table.
I'm like trying to keep this straight in my mind.
I don't know anything about dog breeds.
And, you know, what's the difference between all these?
And by the end of it, my mother-in-law said, boy, you look exhausted.
Do you want to go?
Do you need to go take a nap or something?
And so just so you know my background, I have never had a dog in my household.
I am allergic to dogs, which is if you have a dog, it's OK.
I can come to your house for dinner, but I probably won't stay with you for a whole week.
And when I was younger, my uncle had two dogs, and one of them tried to bite me once when
I was shoveling snow at his house.
And I wasn't looking.
We had to figure out whether he really bit me.
And I guess maybe that's one of my childhood phobias, whatever.
But I have never had a dog, and I would be very happy never to have one.
Thankfully, so far, my wife and I have agreed and found a middle ground.
Anyway, sometimes I think people can feel in a similar way, sometimes many people feel
like an outsider in the church.
I was talking to somebody who's been coming to this church now for a few years, actually,
and he said, the first time I came to this church, I was trembling as I walked in those
doors.
And I thought the building, I thought that the roof might cave in over me.
And actually, I had been wanting to come for a long time, but I didn't come because of
that.
And, you know, you can even come to church regularly for a long time, but still feel on the outside,
still feel like, I don't belong here.
And, and you don't feel the freedom to be yourself, and you don't, you feel like you
have to put on a mask.
And even if your life is falling apart, you feel like when you come to church, you have
to sort of hold it all in and not fall apart in front of everybody else.
Because you feel like, I don't quite feel comfortable here.
Well, if you feel that way, if you've ever felt that way, if you know people who feel
that way, this passage is good news for you.
So in this passage, Jesus encounters two people who were outsiders in different ways.
We see this, this woman in the first half of the passage, whose daughter is afflicted
with, with an evil spirit.
And then we see a disabled man, a man who's deaf and speech impaired.
So I want to look at these stories and look at them a little bit in parallel.
I'm going to focus mostly on the first one, but a little bit on the second one.
So, so, so, so, and, and ask the question, what do we see about how Jesus relates to these
people who in different ways were outsiders and had every reason to feel excluded in their
culture?
So, so the first thing that we see is that Jesus goes to places where no one would expect
him to go.
Now, we need to remember, Jesus was a Jewish teacher of the Jewish scriptures who had 12
Jewish disciples.
He was raised by Jewish parents and he lived in a Jewish town.
But in this whole section, Jesus is traveling outside of Jewish territories, traveling in
Gentile territory.
So verse 24 says he went to Tyre and Sidon.
That was the region to the north of Israel.
And then verse 31 says he went to the Decapolis, which is a region of 10 cities to the east of
the Sea of Galilee.
Now, Tyre was an important and prosperous trading city, but it also had a history of being hostile
to the Jewish people and the Jewish faith.
It was a center of pagan religion.
And the Jewish historian Josephus said the people of Tyre are notoriously our bitterest enemies.
So when it says Jesus went to Tyre and Sidon, that was the last place most people would have
expected him to go.
You think, why would Jesus go there?
Jesus was a poor Galilean preacher and he's going to the wealthy suburbs and just hanging
out there for a while.
And you think, Jesus, people are going to at least look at you funny and probably discriminate
against you.
Why are you going there?
Now, it says that Jesus needed some time to get alone with his disciples.
So part of the reason he went there is he wanted to go somewhere where he wasn't well
known.
If you look at Mark 6 and 7, he was in Galilee, his home territory, and he was mobbed.
There were crowds coming to him from everywhere.
And so it says his disciples couldn't even find time to eat.
They were just, people were asking for his help.
They would go across the lake to the other side of the lake and somebody else would be
there.
And a whole bunch of crowd of other people would be there asking for him to heal them
or teach them.
And then they'd go to the other side and there'd be another crowd.
And finally, Jesus said, all right, we got to get out of here because I need to spend
some time.
I want to spend some time with you.
I don't want us to be totally mobbed by the crowds all the time.
I want some time alone where I can invest in you guys.
So they, so he says, let's go where nobody knows us.
We'll go on a little vacation, a little retreat together.
And so that's where they go.
But of course, even in this place where nobody would expect him to go, people are looking for
him.
Desperate people are drawn to Jesus.
In the second story, a group of people bring Jesus, this man who's deaf and speech impaired.
Now, just think about it.
Think about what, what would your life be like if you couldn't hear what anyone was saying
to you and you couldn't speak clearly enough to articulate what you want from someone else.
Now, you'd probably figure out sign language.
And there's a lot of ways that I think we've tried to grow in finding ways to accommodate
different people.
But still, that, that would be hard.
Maybe you have a, maybe you've walked alongside someone who has a speech impediment or some
kind of a disability.
And, and, and it's challenging.
And if you're, if you're, if you're living, if you live with them for a time, you realize
a little bit of what it was, what it would be like to be in their shoes.
And the challenges he would face in living day by day.
This disability can be an isolating and painful experience.
And it can make you feel excluded in all kinds of ways.
So, so that's one.
This other, but then in the first story, there's this woman and she's desperate.
And she comes to Jesus begging him to cast the demon out of her daughter, to heal her afflicted
daughter.
And this woman is also an outsider in almost every respect compared to Jesus.
So she's, first of all, she's a woman.
And back then, most Jewish teachers, male teachers would never talk with women.
They, they did not accept women as students to learn the law from them.
And most Jewish rabbis would have even refused to engage them in conversation at that time.
She's a Gentile.
She's a Syrophoenician.
She's descended from the enemies of Jesus' people.
And then her daughter had an unclean spirit.
She's a Syrophoenician.
Which would make many people fearful of associating with her.
They think, man, her kid's sort of messed up.
She must be sort of messed up.
Right?
People, people think that way.
And act that way.
Back then and now.
But there was something about Jesus that even though she had all these reasons that she
might feel excluded, there was something that drew her to him.
And she was drawn to him.
And she even fell at his feet.
And there was something about him that invited her to him.
Right?
In both cases, these people are in desperate need.
They're facing something far bigger than they can handle.
And no one else can solve their problem.
But they see that Jesus has come close enough to them.
And they reach out to him for help.
Now, how does Jesus respond to these requests from people who are outsiders?
Well, in the case of the deaf man, the speech impaired man, Jesus takes him aside and he touches him.
You know, Jesus doesn't, Jesus doesn't remain at a distance.
He doesn't say, oh, I don't want to know about this guy.
No, he comes close to the man.
He actually takes the man away from the crowd because he doesn't want to just do something to, for a spectacle to the crowd.
He doesn't want to just use this guy to show off to people.
He cares about this guy as an individual.
So he takes him aside from the crowd and he puts his fingers in his ears and says, and by doing that, he's saying, I'm going to open up your ears.
And then he spits and touches his tongue.
You think, what's he doing there?
Well, he's, symbolically, he's saying, I'm going to fill your mouth with my life.
In this very physical way, he's saying to this man, I'm not, I'm, I'm going to touch you.
And even when other people might shy away from you and keep their distance from you.
And I'm not just going to zap you from a distance and heal you, but I'm going to come near to you and give you myself and give you my life.
And then he speaks his word.
He says, be opened.
Jesus does a work of recreation through his word and through his touch.
And verse 35 could be translated.
It says his tongue was released.
It could actually be translated, the chain of his tongue was loosed.
It's an act of liberating mercy from Jesus.
It's a beautiful picture.
So that's how Jesus responds to that man.
Now, what about this woman?
Now, with this woman, it's a little confusing, right?
When you first read this story.
Because at first, Jesus seems to resist the woman's request.
And he says, this woman comes and pleads with him.
Help me.
My daughter is tormented.
And he says, let the children be fed first, for it's not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.
And you think, what does that mean?
In Jesus' time, the Jewish people understood themselves to be the children of God.
And they referred to everybody else, the Gentiles.
Sometimes they referred to Gentiles as dogs.
And it was almost always a negative, pejorative term.
Dogs were scavengers who ate garbage and dead things.
They were worthless and unclean.
And you should stay away from them.
So you might say, what in the world does Jesus mean?
By using this pretty loaded term.
Is he dissing this woman?
Is he wanting her to go away?
Is he calling her worthless?
I want to deal with this verse because on the surface of it, I think it's one of the hardest verses in the Gospels to understand.
So first, I want to, but I think it's not, and I think it's one of the verses that is hard for us to understand.
Because we weren't there to see things like the expression on Jesus' face and the tone that he used and the way that the woman understood it.
And lots of other, all those non-verbal cues.
Right?
We don't get those in the text.
And so we have to step back a little bit and try to understand what's going on because the way that we might read this might come across to us in a totally different way than Jesus meant it.
So I want to do a step back and try to understand this, what's going on here.
So first, look at the broader context of the chapter.
Okay?
If you find a verse in the Bible that seems really confusing and even seems offensive, one of the, there's a couple things you can do.
One is step back and look at the broader context around the verse.
And then one is sort of focus in more, more in depth on the, on the verse itself.
So that's what I want to do.
First, look at the broader context.
So this whole chapter in Mark, as we've seen, is about Jesus entering Gentile territory and blessing people who are considered outsiders.
So in the first half of chapter 7, Jesus is debating with some other Jewish religious teachers, the Pharisees.
And he's debating with them about what it means to be clean and acceptable to God and what it means to be unclean and not acceptable to God.
And he's saying to the Pharisee, he says, the main point that he says is it's not what's on the outside that makes you clean or unclean.
Whether you wash your hands in a certain ceremonial way or whether you stay away from certain foods or whether you follow the ceremonial laws in the Old Testament, he says, that's not what it's about.
He says, whether you're clean or unclean, it's a matter of the heart.
What's on the inside?
It's what comes out of your heart that makes you unclean.
And in verse 19, Mark explains, he says, Mark says, Jesus declared all foods to be clean.
Now, back then, that was a radical statement.
We might sort of pass over it.
But back then, and even today, observant Jews distinguished themselves partly by the foods they ate and the foods they didn't eat, by keeping kosher.
Right?
And so, most people in Jesus' day, certainly other Jewish rabbis, would not sit down to a meal at a Gentile's house.
Because that would make them unclean.
And they saw Gentiles as outsiders.
But Jesus' statement was radical because basically he was saying not only the implication is not only are all foods clean, but all people can become clean.
It's not just whether you're Jewish or Gentile.
It's whether it's a matter of the heart and God's work in your heart.
In other words, Jesus came as the Jewish Messiah to fulfill the Jewish scriptures, but he also came to break open the way so that Gentiles could come into God's presence through Jesus and eat at his table.
So that's what's going on.
Jesus is breaking down some of these dividing walls that existed in his society between Jews and Gentiles.
And then, if you go on to chapter 8, Jesus feeds 4,000 people.
Now, if you go back to chapter 6, Jesus already fed 5,000 people.
And you sort of think, wait a minute, what happened?
The same story gets repeated twice.
You know, did Mark sort of forget and just repeat himself?
Well, no.
The first time he fed the 5,000 people, he was in Jewish territory.
And then he goes into Gentile territory and feeds 4,000 people.
And the whole point is, Jesus is doing the same kinds of things among the Gentiles, among the outsiders, that he already did among the Jewish people, among the insiders.
He's healing them.
He's feeding them.
He's casting out evil spirits.
He does the same good and liberating works among the Gentiles that he did among the Jews.
So, that's the broader context of this chapter.
And so, in the broader context, verse 27 can't mean that Jesus is just totally rejecting this woman and trying to push her away.
Because that would be the opposite thing that the whole chapter and this whole section of Mark is about.
So, that's the broader context.
Now, let's look in at this verse a little bit.
Okay, in this verse, Jesus does use the terms children and dogs, which are commonly used to refer to Jews and Gentiles.
But he actually uses a different form of the word for dogs.
He uses a form of the word that means little dogs or pet dogs.
Not sort of stray scavenger dogs that are scary and roam through, you know, try to bite you.
But dogs that are part of the household.
And the woman actually picks up on that cue.
Now, we'll get to her response in just a minute.
But Jesus is using the term in a different way than it was normally used.
Verse 27, he's also saying, he also begins by saying, he says,
Let the children, referring either to Jesus' disciples, Jewish disciples, or to the Jewish people as a whole,
let the children be fed first.
Now, if somebody's fed first, it doesn't mean that nobody else will ever get fed.
It just means Jesus' priority right now is first and foremost with his disciples and his people.
And in the context, part of the reason Jesus is there is that he's just trying to get some quiet time away with his closest followers
to invest in the guys who are going to become the future leaders of the Christian movement.
Eventually.
And he doesn't just want them to be totally drained and pushed aside by all the crowds.
And so he's trying to make some space for him to invest in his closest followers.
So that's a little bit of the context.
He's saying, well, I can't let my disciples go hungry.
And in order for, by just, I can't just leave, I can't just ditch them to go with you to your house.
And then somebody else is going to ask me to go to their house.
And somebody else is going to ask me to go to their house.
And then the whole purpose I came here is thwarted.
Now, by saying all this, Jesus isn't intending to push her aside.
He's actually inviting her to respond.
It's almost like, for lack of a better word, it's almost like Jesus is playing devil's advocate.
You know, have you ever had a teacher, and the teacher has sort of tried to represent a certain position,
but they want you to respond.
They almost want, they're saying, well, you know, such and such and such is true.
But the way they say it, they want you to say, but no, but isn't there something else?
And they're trying to teach you by a conversational style.
They're not trying to shut you down and just have the only word,
but they're trying to engage you in a conversational style to help you get to a certain conclusion.
Another way to put it is that Jesus is telling here a short parable.
And in Mark, Jesus tells parables to reveal the nature of the kingdom of God.
So on the surface, Jesus is doing very well-known images.
And here, children and dogs.
But the parables of Jesus also contain spiritual truths.
And the parables are a little bit like a door.
A little bit like if you're walking through a dark hallway,
and there's a door to somebody's apartment that's cracked open just a bit.
And you can smell the food they're cooking for dinner,
and you can hear some music that they're playing, maybe they have some friends over,
and you can see the light from inside their apartment.
And you can't really see what's going on just by walking past the door.
But it's sort of an invitation.
You think, maybe I should knock.
Huh, why did they leave it open?
It's sort of a crack open.
And so you only can, but you can only get on the inside if you actually knock on the door.
And say, can I come in?
And Jesus' parables are sort of like that.
They don't just sort of lay everything out for you so that you can understand everything all explicitly right away.
But they're sort of like that door that's open to crack.
And it says, if you knock, I'll open the door.
And you can come in and be part of the family.
And that's what Jesus' parables are doing in lots of different places.
And I think that's what this statement is doing here.
It's an invitation for this woman to knock.
And you know what?
This woman totally gets it.
This woman understands what Jesus is doing probably better than we do at first.
She picks up on all Jesus' cues.
She says, yes, Lord.
But even the little dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs.
Now what does she mean by that?
She's basically saying, she says, Jesus, I know.
I know I'm not an Israelite.
I know I'm a Gentile.
I know that people see me as an outsider.
And she says, I'm not coming to you because I deserve help, because I'm better than other people.
I'm just coming to you because I need help.
And I have nowhere else to go.
And I don't need to be the center of attention.
I'm not asking for you to leave your disciples behind and come with me to my house.
I believe that you have enough bread to feed your disciples and feed me at the same time.
You don't need to snatch it away from them.
I can...
You have enough to feed us all.
You have enough to meet my need as well as theirs.
And Jesus says...
Jesus is really impressed with this woman's response.
In fact, Matthew tells the same story.
And Matthew expands a little bit on the story.
But in Matthew, Jesus responds by saying,
Oh woman, great is your faith.
In other words, faith in this context means reaching out to Jesus and not letting anything get in your way.
And Jesus says to that woman,
You have true faith.
Because you had every reason to feel excluded.
And feel like there are all these barriers.
And all these reasons why you couldn't come to me.
But you didn't let...
From your society, from your culture, from other people's expectations,
from things people have called you and said to you.
And you didn't let those get in your way.
Like...
She just came to Jesus.
And said...
Because she said, Jesus, I need you.
I want you.
And...
And I think you have enough to meet my need.
Now the disciples of Jesus must have been thinking,
What's going on here?
You know, the disciples of Jesus would have thought she's the least likely person to have true faith in Jesus.
But in the end, she has more insight into who Jesus is than all of them do.
She hears and understands a parable of Jesus.
She's the first person in the whole Gospel of Mark to hear and rightly understand and rightly respond to a parable of Jesus.
In the next chapter, chapter 8, the disciples don't get it.
And Jesus says, Do you still not understand?
And yet this woman does.
This woman is like Jacob in the Old Testament,
who wrestled with the angel of God
and didn't give up
until at the end of the night
he received the blessing of God.
And the invitation to us is to come to Jesus like this woman did.
Not because we deserve help.
Not because we're better than everybody else.
Not because we're insiders and other people are outsiders.
Not because you have the inside track on anything in the church.
But simply because we need Jesus.
We need his help.
We need his grace.
And Jesus has enough for anyone who comes to him.
You see, all of us by nature,
the Bible says all of us by nature are outsiders.
Spiritual outsiders.
Every one of us was once far off from God.
Ephesians says we were without hope
and without God in the world.
And even in the Old Testament,
the people of Israel,
they were all descended from Abraham.
And who was Abraham before God called him?
Abraham's family were pagan moon worshippers.
They were outsiders too
until God came to Abraham and called him.
You see, if you trace it back long enough,
all of us were on the outside.
And God brought us into his family.
But in Jesus Christ, we've been brought near.
And it says we have access to God the Father
through his Holy Spirit.
So through Jesus' word and through his touch,
Jesus brings outsiders into God's family.
That's what these two passages are about.
The people who felt excluded,
who felt like outsiders,
who other people would have seen as outsiders,
Jesus brings them in
and brings them into his family.
And that's his invitation to us.
Don't let anything get in your way.
Of coming to Jesus.
Don't let other people's expectations
or your feelings about what somebody else thinks about you
or your own insecurities.
Jesus is what you need
more than anything else.
And Jesus has enough to feed you
and to feed everybody else who comes to him.
So don't stop seeking until you find him.
Don't stop knocking
until the door is opened
and you come in.
Jesus has come to bring us in
that we can be part of his family.
He's come to make all things new.
In verse 37, it concludes this section.
And the people say,
he has done all things well.
It's actually very similar
to what is said at the end of Genesis 1.
It says,
God saw everything that he had made
and it was very good.
And the point of this
is that Jesus has come to make all things new.
He's come to break down
all the barriers
that stood between us and God.
And all the barriers that we put up
between us and each other
and us and other people.
And he's come to make a whole new family
based on his grace and mercy alone.
That's the good news.
That's what these stories are about.
Let's pray.
Lord Jesus, thank you.
Thank you that you go
where nobody else would have expected you to go.
Thank you, Lord,
that no one is beyond the reach
of your touch,
your healing touch,
your saving word.
Lord, I pray that
each one of us here,
Lord, that we would reach out to you
and that we would know the assurance
that you speak to us.
that you welcome us
with open arms
into your family.
And Lord, I pray that we would
that we would be a church,
that we would be a people
who aren't putting up barriers
for other people,
but instead who are
bringing them to you.
As these people brought this
deaf and speech impaired man to Jesus.
Lord,
may we
be bringing others to you
that they may know,
Lord,
your saving grace,
your forgiveness,
your hope
that you
and the promise
of eternal life
that you give to everyone
who turns to you.
We pray this in your name.
Amen.
If you have a question,
feel free to raise your hand.
I'll do the best I can to answer.
Or
I'll admit if I can't.
Mary.
Tyre,
a city
or a country?
Yeah, so Tyre,
it was a city,
but it was
sort of like,
it also had a region
around it.
Sidon was a region.
Yeah.
So it's interesting,
actually,
Tyre was south of Sidon.
So in verse 31,
it says he went from Tyre
through Sidon,
which would have been going north,
and then southeast.
Which,
the only reason you would do that
is if you were going
outside of the borders
of Israel.
So Jesus is very deliberate
in this passage
in going through
Gentile territory,
foreign territory
outside his home country.
So he's being very deliberate
in how he does that.
Other questions?
Lindsay?
In verse 36,
why does he charge
him to tell no one?
Ah, yes.
In verse 36,
why does Jesus charge
him to tell no one?
So Jesus does this
a few times
in the Gospel of Mark,
and
so,
and a couple of times
people don't
obey this command.
Instead,
they go around
and proclaim it
all the more zealously.
And usually what happens
as a result
is Jesus gets mobbed
with crowds.
And
so,
sometimes,
so in Mark chapter,
sometimes Jesus does,
Jesus doesn't always say this.
He says it,
I think,
strategically
when he believes
that too much publicity
too quickly
would obscure
the focus of his mission.
And it would end up
with
just a big mob
following him
when he either
wants to have
some more focused
teaching time
with some of his
closer followers
or
for a variety,
or where he wants
to spend some time
in different places,
but he also wants
to move on
and not be totally
contained in one place
forever.
So he strategically,
I think,
decides
when to encourage
people to go and tell
and when to encourage
people,
hold it for the moment,
because you don't,
you,
because the people
don't really understand,
they understand
that Jesus has done
this great miracle
to heal this guy,
but Jesus' purpose
in coming into the world
wasn't just to heal,
you know,
a thousand people
way back then.
If that was Jesus'
only purpose
in coming into the world,
that he healed
a thousand people
way back then,
we never would be here today
because that would have
had no effect on us
except maybe a few
historians.
Right?
I was a history major,
so I can make fun
of historians.
Right?
Who would be interested
in some very obscure
figure back then.
But Jesus' reason
for coming into the world
was ultimately
to die on a cross.
And that's what
the whole Gospel of Mark
ultimately leads up to.
And so,
Jesus is,
by his healings,
he's giving a picture
of what
God's restoring
and healing work
looks like
in people's lives,
and he's showing
compassion to these
people,
but he also knows
his purpose is more
than that.
And so,
he's balancing
those things.
Any others?
You usually have a question.
I don't think.
You're thinking.
All right.
I'll let you think.
All right.
Anyone else?
This is your last chance.
I think your sermon
hit all points.
My sermon answered
all the questions.
Wow.
That's,
thanks, Tyrone.
That's a first.
If that's true,
praise the Lord.
Neil.
Yeah.
Seems like in Jesus' day
there was a lot of
unclean spirits
and demon and whatnot.
Is this,
is that,
was that particular
to his time period
or do you,
is there still that
or not just as much
now?
Yeah.
So the question was,
what about unclean spirits?
There seemed to be a lot
of them in Jesus' time.
Do they still exist?
What does that look like?
Um,
uh,
so briefly I would say,
uh,
yes,
uh,
I think they do still exist.
Um,
I think there's a,
so one related question
that people have
is,
is there a difference
between,
uh,
someone who is oppressed
or afflicted
or,
or possessed by a demon
and,
uh,
mental illness?
And,
and actually,
even in the New Testament,
the answer is very clearly yes.
Uh,
some people think,
well,
uh,
that was just a way
people used back then
to talk about mental illnesses
that they didn't understand.
And now we understand
things better
and we,
uh,
diagnose them with labels
that we also don't really know
what the labels mean.
Um,
but,
uh,
in,
in the,
in the New Testament,
it very clearly distinguishes
people who have,
for example,
a seizure disorder.
There's one word used for that
and there's a different word,
uh,
used for,
uh,
being oppressed by a demon.
Um,
so even in the New Testament,
there's a very careful distinction
between,
uh,
medical problems,
uh,
various kinds of,
of,
uh,
what,
what we would call today
mental illnesses.
They didn't really use that term
back then,
um,
as well as,
uh,
spiritual oppression
from evil forces.
Now,
what does that,
what does,
uh,
what do,
how do unclean spirits
act today?
Um,
I think you'll get different answers
if you ask different Christians
who live in different parts
of the world.
Um,
and if you talk to Christians,
uh,
from some other parts
of the world
and you ask them that question,
do unclean spirits exist today?
They'd be like,
of course,
we just drove one out
last week at church.
Um,
that's just pretty normal.
And,
and people,
and for,
for a variety of reasons.
Um,
if you're here in the United States,
uh,
some,
you know,
there's some,
uh,
there's,
you might or might not
have that experience.
Um,
and,
uh,
so I would say generally,
um,
C.S. Lewis said
there's two errors
we can fall into
in thinking about
the devil
and unclean spirits.
We can either
totally deny that they exist,
which is really
sort of naive.
It's basically just saying
since I haven't ever seen this,
then it must not exist.
Which,
there's all kinds of things
in the world
that you might have
never experienced yet,
but are very real.
Um,
on the other hand,
the error can,
the other side of it
can be to be obsessed
and fascinated with them.
And I think in churches,
uh,
sometimes we can fall
into those errors too.
Uh,
there's some churches
that are obsessed
and fascinated
with the work
of evil spirits
and are talking about them
all the time,
which is not right.
Um,
and then there's some churches
where you never talk about them
or even deny that they exist.
Um,
so I think that they,
uh,
they,
they manifest themselves
in different ways.
Um,
and I,
and I think that's,
that's something
that can,
we can,
uh,
we probably all have
a lot more to learn about.
But,
may not be a full answer
to your question,
but it's a good
discussion starter.
All right.
Um,
let me,
uh,
yes,
usually we make
a few announcements.
Um,
get one of these bulletins
if you didn't.
Uh,
they're on the chair
as you walk out.
Is that right,
Lindsay?
Are they back there somewhere?
Um,
uh,
just,
let's see,
a couple of things
coming up.
Um,
if you're a member,
we have a congregational
meeting coming up
in two weeks.
Please notice that.
And,
um,
there's,
there's other
announcements in here.
There's some,
uh,
snacks and hot drinks
at the back.
Feel free to take
this time.
We're,
uh,
in the evening service
it's a small crowd,
but part of why
that's sort of nice
is that you can
get to know a couple
people and then
if you come again
then you can
sit with them
or just,
uh,
get to,
you know,
develop some
relationships pretty
easily.
So,
um,
use this time
afterwards to
maybe get to know
at least one other
person.
I'd encourage you.
All right,
let me close in a
word of prayer.
Uh,
Lord,
thanks for tonight
and,
uh,
thank you for
inviting us into
your family,
um,
and sending your son
to do that.
Lord,
we pray that we
would,
uh,
be joyful,
um,
that we would
rejoice in,
uh,
the work that you
have done
and,
Lord,
that we have
free access to
you,
um,
through your
Holy Spirit.
And so,
Lord,
we pray that we
would come before
you boldly,
um,
that we'd come
before you
persistently for
the things that we
need and for
others that we
love and care
for,
uh,
Lord,
as this woman
did and as,
uh,
these people did,
uh,
who are the,
who are the
friends of this
man.
Lord,
we,
uh,
pray that you
would send us
out from here
with your grace
and peace
in Jesus'
name.
Amen.