9. Jesus Breaks Through Satan's Army
Chapter 9 Jesus Breaks Through Satan’s Army “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.” (1 John 3:8) The Gospels Mention Demons Often
It may sound strange, but Satan has an army. His army is not made of human soldiers. They are an army of evil spirits—or demons (fallen angels)—that are under his control. They are like spiritual soldiers which do battle with God and mankind. In much of the Old and parts of the New Testament, demons are not very visible. They mostly just work in the background—active, but hidden from our view. But in Matthew, Mark and Luke, there are many stories about demon activity while Jesus was on the earth. Apparently, God allowed them to be much more active and visible during that time because God wanted to show the amazing power of Jesus and his ability to fight spiritual warfare against Satan’s army. God wanted to show us how much more powerful Jesus was than Satan’s army of demons.
Acts 10:38 says: “…God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and...he went around doing good and healing all who wereunder the power of the devil, because God was with him.”
Matthew 8:16 says: “When evening came, many who were demon-possessed were brought to him, and he drove out the spirits with a word and healed all the sick.”
Jesus Had Authority To Drive Out Demons
Mark 1:22-27 says: “The people there were amazed by his teaching, because he taught them like one who had authority, not like the experts in the law. Just then there was a man in their synagogue with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, "Leave us alone, Jesus the Nazarene! Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!" But Jesus rebuked him: "Silence! Come out of him!" After throwing him into convulsions, the unclean spirit cried out with a loud voice and came out of him. They were all amazed so that they asked each other, "What is this? A new teaching with authority! He even commands the unclean spirits and they obey him."(NET) The Demons Knew Jesus And Respected His Authority Over Them
Why would demons be so afraid of Jesus? Because they recognized who he was and his authority over them. When he got close to them, they proclaimed that he was the Holy One of God and feared what he would do to them. They respected his authority and ability to send them to hell. But Jesus himself wasn’t the least bit afraid of them.
Jesus Told The Demons To Be Quiet
Several times we see the demons proclaiming who Jesus was, but Jesus always told them to be quiet. Why would Jesus do that? Why not just let them give him honor? Jesus allowed the demons to only say enough so that the people listening would realize that the demons recognized who he was and that he has authority over them. Then people could see that the demons were afraid of him. But Jesus didn’t want them to speak too much because Satan is the father of lies and the demons are also liars and deceivers. They can easily deceive people, so Jesus doesn’t want people to listen to them. He just told them to be quiet. The Demons Always Had To Listen To Jesus
We know that demons often influenced people’s minds and thoughts, but some demons also gained control over their bodies. Their power allowed them to control and even harm the person. Demons may be more powerful than people, but they had no power over Jesus. When Jesus talked, they could not resist or talk back or make excuses—they just had to listen to him and leave immediately.
Jesus Drove Out A Large Army Of Demons In previous examples, we saw that Jesus didn’t spend much time talking with demons. He just told them to be quiet, and then drove them out. But in Luke 8:26-39 we read a little different type of story. This time Jesus allowed the demon to speak a little bit more because he wanted to show the disciples (and us) something that is very important. In this story, after the demon-possessed man came and bowed before Jesus, then Jesus asked the evil spirit his name. This was not normal for him to do, but Jesus wanted the disciples to learn something from this name. The spirit said his name was “Legion” because there were many demons in this man, not just one. Legion is the name of an army unit which could have up to 6000 soldiers. Of course, Jesus already knew how many spirits were in this man, but he wanted the disciples to hear for themselves how many demons Jesus was going to remove. Jesus was going to show his power over a WHOLE ARMY of demons. The Spirits Feared Jesus And Requested To Go Into Some Pigs When Jesus talked to this army of demons, they were very afraid of him. They were afraid that Jesus was going to send them to a place called the Abyss. According to verses we see in the Bible, the Abyss is similar to hell. Hell is a fiery place of eternal punishment. But apparently the Abyss is more like temporary prison that God uses to imprison demons for a certain amount of time (Revelation 9:1; Revelation 11:7; Revelation 17:8; Revelation 20:1; Revelation 20:3). This Legion or army of demons was afraid of being locked up in the Abyss and no longer be able to live inside a body. They knew that Jesus wouldn’t allow them to go inside another man or woman, so they asked Jesus to let them go into a group of pigs that were nearby. There were about 2000 pigs in that herd (Mark 5:13) and Jesus gave them permission. So the demons left the man and rushed out into the herd of pigs. This army of demons greatly outnumbered the number of pigs. All the demons were rushing around trying to find a new body (pig) to live in, so the pigs were totally overwhelmed by those demons and they went absolutely crazy. They all rushed down the steep bank and drowned in the lake below. The demons thought they would have a safe hiding place inside the pigs, but it didn’t work out that way at all. Jesus won again!
Jesus Wanted To Show How Many Spirits Were In The Army Was Jesus helping these evil spirits by granting their wish? Not at all. Actually he was using this opportunity to show people just how big this army of spirits was. It was a huge army or legion with much more than 2000 demons, since they far outnumbered the pigs. Jesus showed us that he is all-powerful and can easily defeat a huge army of spirits just by speaking a command. Ponder that for a minute and visualize what that was like in the spiritual world. Jesus was like an army of one man. He faced a whole LEGION of demons—by himself—and it was just like he walked right through them. Unafraid and unharmed, he just broke through Satan’s army. They were so afraid they just ran for the hills.
Jesus Drove Out Many Demons
There are many other examples in the Bible of Jesus driving out many demons while he was on this earth. Every one of these evil spirits had to obey him instantly. There was no hesitation—they could not resist. Here are some more examples:
Matthew 4:24; Matthew 8:16; Matthew 8:28-34; Matthew 9:32-34; Matthew 12:22; Matthew 15:21-28; Matthew 17:14-21
Mark 1:21-28; Mark 1:32-34; Mark 1:39; Mark 3:11; Mark 5:1-20; Mark 7:2-30; Mark 9:14-27; Mark 16:9
Luke 4:33-37; Luke 4:40-41; Luke 6:18-19; Luke 7:21; Luke 8:2; Luke 8:26-39; Luke 9:37-43; Luke 11:14-15; Luke 13:11; Luke 13:32.
When we look at the sheer numbers of all these stories, there is abundant proof—Jesus is God, so he is far superior to Satan and all the spirits everywhere. There is no one as powerful as Jesus!
Jesus Alone Had Power To Authorize The Apostles To Drive Out Demons
Later on, Jesus gave special authority to his apostles so they too could drive out demons, which they also did by the power of Jesus. But there was an occasion when they weren’t able to. So they came to Jesus and Jesus himself had to drive the demon out. This again was a lesson for the apostles that the power is from God and not from man. Jesus didn’t want the apostles to forget that and become proud and think that they themselves had the power to do cast out demons.
There is no one that can be compared with Jesus. He is above all humans and also above all of Satan’s armies. Those evil spirits have no choice but to obey him. Jesus is God and so all of God’s power resides in him (Colossians 1:16). Knowing this can truly strengthen our faith. Christ is watching over us and the demons cannot defeat Christ.