"POWER OVER ALL DEVILS" - LUKE 9:1

“POWER OVER ALL DEVILS” – LUKE 9:1

I walked into a small phone store, and a man waiting to get served was staring at me. I walked away and stood on the opposite side of the store, also waiting to be served. When I looked over at the man, he was staring at me more intently, and his face changed shape, with his neck jutting out and oddly connected to the bottom of his chin. He looked kind of like a chameleon. I could see the evil in his expression. I looked at the demon directly and told it (in a whisper because the whole store didn’t need to know what was going on), but I told it: “Keep away from me in the name of Jesus Christ, and shut up.” His face changed back to something more normal and non-threatening, and then he got called up to the service desk, and when I looked at him again, I knew he was no longer a threat to me. The authority we have in the name of Jesus Christ is a powerful weapon.

 

Luke 9:1 tells us: “Jesus called his twelve disciples together, and gave them power [dunamis] and authority over all devils.” The word, dynamite, comes from the same root as the Greek word, dunamis. The power in the name of Jesus is like dynamite! Philippians 2:10 explains “that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth.” No devil can cut across the powerful use of name of Jesus Christ.

 

But we can forget to use our weapons if we don’t recognize an attack.

 

That’s why God tells us in Second Corinthians 2:11: “Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices.” In other words, we need to know something about the devil’s ways of doing things. If we don’t know, we can become easier targets for his evil ways. In the spiritual realm, ignorance is NOT bliss!

 

So, I let the Lord reveal to me evidence of the dark side, so I learn. The devil is not happy with that, but too bad; it’s God’s will for me right now, and I know that I belong to Him. Because Jesus paid for me, I am his and have the victory. The authority and the power belong to us, not the devil!

 

Don’t worry about me or anyone else who is researching the enemy, his kingdom, or his devices. We know that magnifying God and keeping our eyes on Him is primary and priority in this kind of study.

 

God can fully deliver us from the evil around us. Jesus gave his original disciples and us a prayer and a promise in Matthew 6:13a: “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” Knowing God delivers us from all evil, we can then look at what He says about it.

 

In Matthew 6:13a, “evil” is the Greek word “poneros.” It means “the active form of evil, in thoughts, speech, and actions. It is used when the Bible talks about the deeds of devil spirits and is used when talking about Satan as being “the malignant one.” We know what a malignant cell is. It is a normal cell that has been perverted into something else, something that grows, migrates, and destroys. “Poneros” are evil actions that are “harmful, lewd, and malicious.” But we pray in the manner Jesus instructed: “Pray to thy Father...deliver us from evil” (Matt. 6: 6,13), and He does it.

 

Another word used in the New Testament for evil is “kakos.”  “Kakos” means that a person or thing is “bad in character, morally, by way of thinking, bad company, bad desires, and all kinds of evil just for the sake of evil itself.”

 

“Kakos” is used in Titus 1:12, talking about when people accept demons into themselves that have the nature of wild, vicious, biting beasts, venomous snakes or reptiles, or other predatory animal spirits.

 

“Kakos” is also used in James 3:8, talking about a person’s tongue being a restless evil wanting to harm and injure. It’s vicious.

 

There are many things to learn about the ways of the devil. The Lord doesn’t want us to be ignorant, and He gives us great insight and wisdom in this field. But best of all, He has given us His dynamite! -  the power and authority in the name of Jesus Christ to win every time!

 

Here are some important verses that point out our authority and power in Christ. Let’s take the time to look some of them up this week.

 

I am a new creature in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17).

I triumph in Christ ((2 Cor. 2:14).

I have boldness and access in Christ (Eph. 3:12).

I have victory through Christ (1 Cor. 15:57).

I reign in life by Christ (Rom. 5:17).

I have the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:16).

Christ is my life (Col. 3:4).

 

Love, Carolyn

 

Read other stories of victories and learning how to live in Christ.

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DEVIL GOT PUT DOWN WHEN CHRIST WENT UP

I heard a story where a brother and his sister were riding in the back seat of the family car when all of a sudden the little girl blurted out, “Shut up devil!” Mom turned around and asked, “Why did you say that?” The little girl answered, “Because the devil told me I should break John's leg.”

We all need to do more of what that little girl did and tell the devil to shut up and go back down where he belongs.

When Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, Matthew tells us Jesus responded with: “Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve” (Matt 4:10). Notice that Jesus didn't pray about it. He didn't ask God to get Satan away from him. He spoke directly to the spirit and “then the devil leaveth him” (vs.11). Throughout Jesus' walk on the earth we see that He speaks directly to that which is destructive and tells it to stop or depart. We can do the same.

I looked up the Greek translation for “get thee hence” from Matthew 4:10. It is hupago which comes from ago, which is to go, and hupo which is under, beneath, below, to an inferior position. So hupago is to go below. Jesus commanded Satan to back down.

Before I came to this revelation of sending evil deeply under and beneath, I would cast out devil spirits, but I only cast them away, not under. Demanding that evil take itself below is a much stronger image and agrees with many other passages we find in the Bible. For example there is the record of when Jesus cast the devil spirits out of the man of the Gadarenes. The evil spirits went into the pigs. And then what did they do? They jumped from a higher position on the cliffs to the water below and drowned:

And all the devils besought him, saying, Send us into the swine, that we may enter into them. And forthwith Jesus gave them leave. And the unclean spirits went out, and entered into the swine: and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea, (they were about two thousand) and were choked in the sea. (Mark 5:12-13 AMP)

When Jesus allowed himself to be crucified, He allowed for every evil that possibly could be inflicted on a man or woman to be inflicted upon himself. That would include any sickness, disease, oppression, worry, guilt, lack, and anything you or I can possibly think of that is destructive to the body, soul, or spirit. Jesus took it all upon Himself. He also was buried with it. And all of that evil and sickness was taken to Hell with Him.

It took tremendous power for God to raise Jesus up out of that filth, every bit of slimy, clawing, insidious evil wanting to pull him back down, or hitch a ride up. The Devil thought he'd destroyed Jesus; he certainly would fight to keep him down there, but he couldn't. When God raised Jesus, all evil was left behind, dropped away, and Jesus was raised as the victorious Christ.

Without oppression, there could be freedom. Without sickness and disease, there could be health. Without the wretchedness of poverty, there could be abundance and generous overflow. Without the claw of addiction there could be the joy of liberty. Without the strain of jealousy, there could be the comfort of love. Jesus took all evil to Hell, left it there and was raised all the way up to Heaven to enjoy the full, unimpaired blessing of God.

The rightful position of believers is above with Christ, and without any of things Jesus took with Him to the grave and to Hell.

Because of “his great love wherewith he loved us,” God “hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph 2:4 and 6), “far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named” (Eph 1: 21).

Romans 6:4 tells us “that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” Truthfully, any of the things that Jesus took to the grave and left deep in Hell, should not be in our lives. If they have deceitfully become a part of our lives, we have the perfect right to send them right back down to where they came from. We can walk in the new freedom we have.

God's given us victory and authority in Christ. If devil spirits try to talk us into things that are not the best for us, we can say, like the little girl in the back seat, “Shut up devil!” Or we can say, like Jesus, “Go back below, where you belong! You don't have any right to be here with me!”

Love, Carolyn

Look for the next free download on Thursday: Sample book E – Bible Studies – more exciting than you might think, it includes chapters such as “The Missing Manual,” “Why the Devil Has No Authority,” and “History told in the Heavenlies.” Also a good one on what we can gain from knowing about the O.T. festivals in the chapter on Father’s Day. Available from Amazon.