{"id":6780,"date":"2016-01-13T15:20:54","date_gmt":"2016-01-13T15:20:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pjhmail.wordpress.com\/?p=6780"},"modified":"2016-01-13T15:20:54","modified_gmt":"2016-01-13T15:20:54","slug":"mark-124-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/6780\/mark-124-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark 1:24"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pastor John,<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bSince no one knew about Jesus\u200b, how did the demons say they knew him\u200b,\u200b as in Mark 1:24?<\/span><\/p>\n

Margaret<\/span><\/p>\n

=============<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bHi Margaret!<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

In the Father and Son book*, I deal with that issue pretty thoroughly. Here is a section of the book that might help:<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\u200bPastor John\u200b<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Believing and Confessing Ignorantly<\/span><\/p>\n

John 9<\/span><\/p>\n

Jesus said, \u201cFor judgment I came into this world, so that they may see, who do not see, and so that those who do see might be made blind.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Some of the Pharisees who were with him heard these things, and they said to him, \u201cWe are not blind, too, are we?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Jesus said to them, \u201cIf you were blind, you would have no sin, but now you say, \u2018We see\u2019; therefore, your sin remains.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

It is foolhardy to claim to know God, or even to claim to belong to Him, without possessing His kind of life (Rom. 8:9b). Anybody who thinks he knows God without having the life that the Son gives has more in common with Satan than he knows.\u00a0 Satan had nothing but his own cherub-life with which he was created and knew nothing about the Son; still, he was absolutely confident that he knew God.\u00a0 That kind of confidence is the worst kind of blindness.<\/span><\/p>\n

When put on trial, even though the Son of God confessed who he was before the judges of Israel, they did not know him.\u00a0 Seeing only the son of Mary before them, they judged Jesus\u2019 confession that he was a divine person to be blasphemous because it was contrary to what they thought they knew, especially the first of the Ten Commandments.\u00a0 But they were blind to God\u2019s Truth, who was standing right before them, because they claimed to already know the truth.\u00a0 \u201cClaiming to be wise,\u201d Paul would later say, \u201cthey became fools\u201d (Rom. 1:22).\u00a0 Whoever hungers for God\u2019s kind of righteousness is blessed because only those who feel their need of God\u2019s kind of righteousness will ever receive it (Mt. 5:6).\u00a0 On the other hand, whoever thinks he is good and wise enough without God\u2019s life will remain spiritually blind (Jn. 9:41).<\/span><\/p>\n

Men\u2019s ignorance of God led to misunderstanding the Son, and misunderstanding the Son led to hatred of him. That was one reason Jesus commanded demons to keep silent about him:<\/span><\/p>\n

Luke 4<\/span><\/p>\n

[The demon said,] \u201cAgh! What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are \u2013 the holy one of God!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

35a. But Jesus rebuked it, saying, \u201cShut up, and come out of him!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

And later in the same chapter . . .<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

And demons also came out of many, crying aloud, and saying, \u201cYou are the Messiah, the Son of God!\u201d But he rebuked them and did not let them speak because they knew him to be the Messiah.<\/span><\/p>\n

These two scenes seem to suggest that demons knew the Son, but the fact that demons cried out that Jesus was \u201cthe holy one\u201d, \u201cthe Messiah\u201d, or even \u201cthe Son of God\u201d does not in the least mean that they knew the hidden Son. Everyone in heaven knew that God had caused Mary to conceive a child and that her son was to be the Messiah.\u00a0 When Jesus was born in Bethlehem, God\u2019s angel proclaimed to some shepherds that the Messiah had been born (Lk. 2:8\u201311).\u00a0 But the angel did not know the Son; nor did he understand what the word \u201cMessiah\u201d meant in God\u2019s mind.\u00a0 As for demons, whenever Jesus drew near them, the power of God that was in him moved them to declare things beyond their understanding, just as the power of God had moved Balaam\u2019s donkey and Israel\u2019s prophets to speak things beyond theirs.\u00a0 The Son of God said very plainly that no one knew him except the Father (Mt. 11:27), and we should hold on to that truth regardless of how things appear.\u00a0 Otherwise, we may become confused when we see that certain men or demons of that time spoke as if they did know him.\u00a0 Jesus was never confused:<\/span><\/p>\n

John 6<\/span><\/p>\n

Simon Peter answered him, \u201cLord, who will we go to? You have words of eternal life.<\/span><\/p>\n

And we have believed and are sure that you are the living God\u2019s Messiah!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Jesus answered them, \u201cDidn\u2019t I choose you twelve, and one of you is an accuser?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

It also appears that Peter understood what he was saying at Caesarea Philippi when he exclaimed, \u201cYou are the Messiah, the Son of the living God!\u201d (Mt. 16:16). However, moments later, Jesus rebuked Peter sharply, saying, \u201cGet behind me, Satan!\u201d (Mt. 16:23).\u00a0 Peter did not know about the hidden Son of God when he called Jesus the Son of God.\u00a0 He called Jesus the Son of God only because, as Jesus immediately said, God had touched Peter (Mt. 16:17).\u00a0 Peter was giving expression to something he felt, not to something he understood.<\/span><\/p>\n

If we, on this side of Pentecost, impose on the pre-Pentecost disciples or demons a knowledge they did not possess, we miss so much of the story! We know the truth about such terms as \u201cMessiah\u201d and \u201cthe Son of God\u201d, but what did those terms mean to Jesus\u2019 disciples?\u00a0 Even after the resurrection, they were expecting the Messiah to reign as an earthly king and to restore Israel\u2019s former glory (Acts 1:6).\u00a0 Many in Israel believed that Jesus was the Messiah, but when they professed faith in Jesus, \u201che did not trust himself to them because . . . he knew what was in man\u201d (Jn. 2:24\u201325).\u00a0 More to the point, he knew what was not in man \u2013 God\u2019s kind of life.\u00a0 Jesus did not trust even his disciples when they claimed to believe in him:<\/span><\/p>\n

John 16<\/span><\/p>\n

His disciples said to him, \u201cAh! Now you\u2019re talking plainly and using no figure of speech.<\/span><\/p>\n

We know now that you know everything, and you have no need for anyone to question you; by this, we believe that you came from God.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Jesus answered them, \u201cDo you now believe?<\/span><\/p>\n

32a. Behold, an hour is coming, and has now come, when you will be scattered, each to his own house, and you will forsake me.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

While he walked on earth, the Son of God had to deal with people who hated him with human hatred, some of whom even said that he was demon-possessed (Jn. 8:52). He also dealt with people who loved him with human love, some of whom even tried to force him to be their king (Jn. 6:15).\u00a0 He dealt with angels who called him Messiah and ministered to him (Lk. 2:11; Mk. 1:13), and he dealt with demons who called him the \u201cHoly One of God\u201d and trembled at his presence (Lk. 4:34).\u00a0 But neither humans, angels, nor demons knew that, from the beginning, there had been a Son of God in heaven who alone possessed God\u2019s kind of life and who had been God\u2019s agent in the creation of all things.\u00a0 While the Son walked on earth, regardless of what anyone said or thought about him, pro or con, nobody really knew what they were talking about because nobody had God\u2019s kind of life.<\/span><\/p>\n

A perceptive brother in Christ summarized this thought so well that I felt it would be better to quote him than to paraphrase his comments. We must understand, he said, that the universal spiritual ignorance which existed before the day of Pentecost \u201callows the seemingly endless contradictions and impossibilities to be true.\u00a0 Every pre-Pentecost event or story that we read about occurred with zero knowledge of what God was doing.\u00a0 To truly understand those stories, there cannot be an ounce of human pride that allows us the thought, \u2018Well, they understood something.\u2019\u00a0 No, they didn\u2019t.\u00a0 Everybody was profoundly ignorant of God as this all worked out.\u00a0 It is breathtaking.\u201d\u00a0 Yes, it is, brother.<\/span><\/p>\n

When Jesus commanded his disciples not to talk about who he was, he did so because he knew that when they saw him perform miracles, they were likely to say too much in their excitement, especially concerning who they thought he might be (e.g., Mt. 16:15\u201320; 17:1\u20139). The Son of God had come to rescue fallen man, and he did not want anyone, whether disciples or demons, to talk much about him, for nobody really knew what to say.\u00a0 Whether they loved him or hated him, they were only loving or hating who they thought he was.<\/span><\/p>\n

*To read pastor John\u2019s entire Father and Son book please click on the link below:<\/span><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.goingtojesus.com\/text\/books\/fatherandson.pdf<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pastor John, \u200bSince no one knew about Jesus\u200b, how did the demons say they knew him\u200b,\u200b as in Mark 1:24? Margaret ============= \u200bHi Margaret! In the Father and Son book*, I deal with that issue pretty thoroughly. Here is a section of the book that might help: \u200bPastor John\u200b Believing and Confessing Ignorantly John 9 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-qa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6780"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6780\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}