Lets turn our attention to the enemies of God’s Kingdom on earth.
In the beginning, God breathed His Spirit into man and gave him dominion or ruler-ship over everything present on earth. These included a person’s self and demons.
Obviously, these demons were already around and so partly necessitated God’s mandate to mankind to subdue or control all elements against His Kingdom on earth – Gen 1:26-28.
What mankind lost in Eden
Now, when man disobeyed God in Eden, he lost three main blessings namely:
1. The Holy Spirit in him i.e. fellowship with God; thus negatively affecting mankind’s spirit-life.
2. Ruler-ship over all the earth including over demons; thus negatively affecting mankind’s soul-life i.e. peoples will, mind and emotions.
3. The physical Garden of Eden; thus negatively affecting mankind’s body-life i.e. the physical wellbeing of humans.
The practical results of the loss
The operationalresult of these losses was therefore mainly three-fold as follows:
1. Demons had access to the rule of a person instead of the Holy Spirit. In other words, man’s spirit, soul and body became vulnerable to demonic influences, instead of the influence or fellowship of the Spirit of God.
You know, man diedspiritually; and because demons try to feed on and control dead things, ‘dead-mankind’ became the target of demons.
2. Demons also obtained the rule of physicalcreation, thus subjecting it to rebellion, bondage and decay against its make-up and will – Rom. 8:18-22.
3. Apart from these influences of demons, mankind in himself, lost part of his humanperforming-power. Thus, people developed weakness of will, sight, knowledge and
had natural baseness etc – Rom. 7: 15, 19, 8:2-3, 23, 26; Gal. 5:16-21.
Our Jesus intervenes
Beloved, it was this wretched condition of humans that provoked our dearest Lord Jesus to come, to basically give the rule, control or Kingdom back to mankind. So, what Jesus intends is for you to (at least) be in charge of yourself, and to be free from the rule and or influences of demons.
The Lord Jesus therefore knew perfectly that, for Him to give man the Kingdom, He should deal with demons who like to share ruler-ship with us.
Yes, He knew that if demons were cast out, then the rule of God would come – Matt. 12:28.
Casting out of demons then was a necessary singular activity that announced that the Kingdom of God was back with mankind – Lk. 11:20 , “But if I with the finger of God cast out devils, no doubt the Kingdom of God iscome upon you”.
The uniqueness of casting out demons
Beloved, it would interest you to know that, since the fall of man in Eden, prophets had performed miracles that foreshadowed the ministry of our dearest Jesus. They had healed the sick, raised the dead, controlled the elements etc.
But, King David was exceptional among these Old Testament prophets. His Kingdom most closely fore-shadowed that of the Lord Jesus Christ. This was because he was after God’s heart or mind for mankind, which was for the Kingdom to come back to humans on earth – 1 Sam. 13:14.
King David therefore, was the only one clearly mentioned among the prophets of old who cast out demons. He did it by playing the harp to King Saul.
Beloved, expelling demons seemed to be ‘reserved’ for the Lord Jesus since the fall of man in Eden. It seemed it was to announce an end of Satan’s Kingdom and a re- introduction of God’s Kingdom on earth.
Therefore, over-powering demons, who like to share rule with mankind, is a unique demonstration of the Kingdom of God among humans.
