Author: Jay Lehman

A story of a distraught father, his demon-possessed child, confused disciples, and a miracle of Jesus, points us to our first weapon in our counterattack against the evil one.

When Jesus returned from the mountain of His transfiguration in Mark chapter 9, he found a crowd gathered.  While He was away, His disciples had failed in their attempt to drive a demon out of a child and the desperate father turned to Jesus.

After describing the child’s pain, the father pleads, ” ‘But if you [Jesus] can do anything, take pity on us and help us!’  And Jesus said to him, ‘ “If you can?”  All things are possible to him who believes.’  Immediately the boy’s father cried out, ‘I do believe; help my unbelief.’  When Jesus saw that a crowd was rapidly gathering, He rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, ‘You deaf and mute spirit, I command you, come out of him and do not enter him again.’  After crying out and throwing him into terrible convulsions, it came out; and the boy became so much like a corpse that most of them said, ‘He is dead!’  But Jesus took him by the hand and raised him; and he got up.  When He came into the house, His disciples began questioning Him privately, ‘Why could we not drive it out?’  And He said to them, ‘This kind cannot come out by anything but prayer‘ ” (Mk 9:22-29).

The first weapon in our defense against the evil schemes of Satan is prayer.  The boy in the story was possessed by a demon, a clear expression of a satanic attack.  Jesus defeated the demon, conquered Satan, and restored the child to safety when He cast out the unclean spirit.  And in an incredible revelation, Jesus even tells us how He did it.

The disciples, who had failed at the same task, quizzed Jesus, “Why could we not drive the demon out?”  Jesus replied, “This kind can only come out by prayer.”  Our prayers are a crucial and necessary weapon in our struggle with evil.  Prayer is our number one line of attack.  Let’s look at another story about prayer.

“Now Jesus was telling them a parable to show that at all times they ought to pray and not to lose heart, saying, ‘In a certain city there was a judge who did not fear God and did not respect man.  There was a widow in that city, and she kept coming to him, saying, “Give me legal protection from my opponent.”  For a while he was unwilling; but afterward he said to himself, “Even though I do not fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow bothers me, I will give her legal protection, otherwise by continually coming she will wear me out.” ‘  And the Lord said, ‘Hear what the unrighteous judge said; how much more, will not God bring about justice for His elect who cry to Him day and night, and will He delay long over them?  I tell you that He will bring about justice for them quickly.  However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?’ ” (Lk 18:1-8).

Jesus lays out the point of this story in the first verse.  Jesus is teaching His followers to pray at all times and to not lose heart; to not give up.  The widow in this parable is honored for her persistence.  And Jesus connects her persistence to our own persistence in prayer with His promise that “how much more” God will bring justice to His children who call upon Him.

If we see God as represented by the unrighteous judge, we may conclude that our prayers “bother” God to the point of forcing an answer out of Him.  But that is not the point at all.  Jesus is not comparing God to the judge.  He is contrasting God with the judge.  And the key to understanding this is the “how much more” comparison is verse 7.  God is not like the judge – answering our requests out of an attitude of annoyance – but is much more in favor of answering our prayers out of our relationship; we being His children, His chosen ones.

Our prayers do not “bother” God; they “honor” God.  He has given us prayer as a way to connect deeply with Him as we implore God’s intervention in our struggle with the schemes of the evil one.  And this parable teaches us, as my fried Dave Gibson said many times, that when it comes to prayer, “it is never too late to start … and it is always too soon to quit.”

Now there is a second, and I think a little less known, weapon in our arsenal.  Both of these stories hinted at it.  In the first story of miraculous healing, Jesus told the boy’s father, “All things are possible to him who believes” (Mk 9:23).  In the second story, Jesus asks aloud, related to the widow’s persistence, “What kind of faith will the Son of Man find on the earth when He comes?” (Lk 18:8).  Somehow prayer mixed with faith launches us with possibility.  We will explore that connection next time.

When the world hit an iceberg, it seems that more came pouring out of the gaping hole in the boat than just the Coronavirus.  It is as if Satan has ramped up the havoc he spreads across our world.  Almost immediately our circle of family and friends was under attack.

A nine-year-old boy that we know here in Franklin suffered a cardiac arrest just as the lockdowns were beginning.  His life was spared by Jesus and the quick work of the first responders, but he faces an uncertain neuro-future.  My niece went to a hospital complaining of muscle weakness and flu-like symptoms that would not go away.  She was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis and had to process all this news without her parents who were excluded from the hospital due to COVID-19 safety procedures.

I could list more psychosis, cancer, illness situations that have sprung forth just in our circle.  Add to this the financial setback, especially for those who were already living on the margins.  Add the barbaric pictures of policemen in India beating folks with sticks to prevent them from boarding the trains back to their hometowns during the country’s lockdown.  Add the tremendously sad cases of COVID-19 patients dying alone.  Add, add, add and it can become overwhelming.

My spirit is in turmoil as I process and pray in these times.  And as I do, it just seems to me that Satan has gone into some kind of a frenzy.  I can’t think of a better way to express it.  It is as if Satan is unleashing a new attack of darkness and pain upon our fallen planet.  Does Satan have some sense that his time is coming to an end?

I believe there is a glorious light at the end of this dark tunnel.  What we do not have any way of knowing is how long the tunnel is.  And we cannot be sure exactly what light we will be emerging into.

I can’t help but think that maybe it will be the light of the rapture; a start of the clock to Jesus’ final victory.  Or will it be a light of revival as God’s supernatural power literally falls upon the earth and Satan’s influence will suddenly diminish?  Will it be the light of a great awakening as our fellow citizens call upon the name of the Lord.

The Bible teaches us that Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil (I Jn 3:8).  I believe pandemics, grave sickness, a cultural morality that is off the rails, hate, and sin are all works of the devil.  Jesus’ victory over these has at least three prongs of attack.  First, Jesus defeated Satan and sin at the cross.  Sin is no longer our master for those who have placed their faith in Jesus.

Second, once we have been redeemed, we become part of Jesus’ army in this world, taking any path He reveals to us to help defeat these works of Satan.  That is why believers are called to confront illness, hate, and immorality with love, prayer, compassion, forgiveness, and truth.

Third, Jesus will ultimately defeat Satan in the finality of Revelation chapter 19 at His second coming.  Satan’s influence will be ended permanently.

But back to the current frenzy.  If your spirit is in turmoil as mine is, what are we to do?  What weapons are at our disposal to walk in God’s peace even as we seek to push this furor back?  Along with what we have already considered in this post, God has armed us with at least two specific weapons to fend off the attacks of Satan.  We will talk about them next time.

On the evening of April 15, 1912, Henry Sleeper Harper and his wife survived the sinking of the great ship Titanic in a way that was “so casual that it almost seemed miraculous.”  It was a survival aided by Mr. Harper’s keen perception and sticking to his convictions.

Henry was fast asleep in his stateroom on that fateful night.  Since boarding the ship in England, he had been kept in his room by a bout of tonsillitis.  Around 11:40 pm ship’s time, Henry was awakened by a grinding sound far below deck.  It wasn’t a loud crash.  It was felt as much as it was heard.  And to Henry, it brought back a stirring memory.

Henry was familiar with the sea from his youth.  And several years earlier, he was aboard a ship that ran over a reef and sunk.  The sound and feel of that experience had just repeated itself to Henry.  When he awoke to the sound, he looked out the nearest port and saw, only a few feet away, an iceberg racing past his window.  He knew the Titanic was going down.

Henry instructed his reluctant wife to get dressed.  “Make sure you have your shoes and winter coat” he called.  The couple made their way to the upper deck.  Due to Henry’s sickness, they had to stop and rest at times.  Along the way, there were many assurances from the crew and other passengers that all was well.  The ship was in good shape.  There was talk of maybe a two-hour delay getting to New York at the worst.  Passengers were told to go back to bed.

But Henry and his wife did not go back to bed.  They ignored the wishful assurances and continued on to where the lifeboats were stowed.  There, they and a few dozen passengers waited patiently.  Finally, a few crew members arrived and instructed the group into one of the boats.  Despite many challenges brought on by the incompetence of the lifeboat crew, Mr. Harper survived the night and he and his wife and their boatload of passengers were rescued in the morning.  (You can read more of Mr. Harper’s fascinating story of survival in Harper’s Weekly magazine, April 27, 1912 and reprinted in the book, Men at Sea, by Brandt Aymar, Crown Publishers Inc, New York, 1988.)

A few weeks ago, the world hit an iceberg.  When I was awakened by the grinding sound, I looked out my “port” window.  I did not see the cause of the sound, but I did see a gaping hole that not only engulfed China and northern Italy and New York City and the UK.  But I saw India and Niger and Quito, Ecuador where bodies were lining the sidewalk outside the hospital with nowhere to take the dead.  These places that lack sufficient healthcare resources are where the berg has cut the deepest.

I can’t think of another time in my life when the entire world has been under attack from the same enemy.  The world really has hit an iceberg.

And none of us know what comes next.  Will the world continue to “sink” under the weight of the coronavirus pandemic and economic meltdown?  Or will the world bob right back up like a beach ball in a backyard swimming pool?  Or will it come back as something other than the world as we knew it?

No matter what future route our world takes, there is still a rescue waiting for each of us.  There is still a captain of the sea reaching out a hand of salvation; a hand that is more secure than any Titanic lifeboat.  As I wrote last time, life in a pandemic – and after a pandemic – is found in Jesus.

We look with compassion over this broken world that seems to be falling apart by even more than just the coronavirus pandemic.  But we do not look with fear.  Whether in life or death, abundance or scarcity, sickness or in health, employed or unemployed; real resurrection life is found in Jesus.  “Jesus said, ‘I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me shall live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me shall never die’ ” (Jn 11:25-26).

Wow, how life has turned upside down!  This pandemic outbreak has led to a life-as-we-know-it disruption that is the most dramatic that I can remember in my lifetime.  Many of us have already been impacted by job losses, isolation, and life event celebrations cancelled; not to mention the fear of sickness and death.

Where do we find “life” in the midst of this whirlwind?  We find life in the place it has always been waiting for us; real life is found in Jesus Christ.  In the gospel of John alone, Jesus says …

• True Life is found in Me (Jn 1:4).
• He who believes in Me has eternal life (Jn 3:15, 3:16, 3:36, 4:14, 5:24, 6:27, 6:40, 6:47, 6:54, 10:28, 12:50, 17:3).
• I am the water of life and he who drinks from Me will never thirst (Jn 4:14).
• I raise the dead and give them life (Jn 5:21).
• I am the bread of life come down from heaven (Jn 6:33, 6:35, 6:38, 6:51).
• I speak the words of life (Jn 6:68).
• I am the light of the world and the light of life (Jn 8:12).
• I came to bring to you abundant life (Jn 10:10).
• I lay down my life for my sheep (Jn 10:11, 10:15, 10:17, 15:13).
• I am the resurrection and the life (Jn 11:25).
• I am the way, the truth, and the life (Jn 14:6).

And finally, we have John’s final word.  “This gospel has been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name” (Jn 20:31).

True life is found in the name of Jesus.  True life is found in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.  True life is found in the gospel message of Jesus.  True life is found in the grace of Jesus.

And this true life, this abundant life, is not only for our future eternal state.  It is not only for life here on earth when things are running smoothly.  No, life in Jesus transcends time, and history, and culture, and geography, and yes even pandemics.

In this present circumstance, don’t just “lean in” to Jesus.  Dive deeply, launch fully, and feel the surrounding love and life of Jesus.  “Your life is hidden in Christ Jesus” (Col 3:3).  Hidden is such a powerful word picture.  You are safe in His arms.

No matter what lies ahead in this upended world of ours, your life is hidden in Jesus Himself; hidden in the sovereign universe-creating God Himself.  Let’s share that hope with our families and friends and all who God places in our path during this crisis.  Let’s create an unstoppable viral spread of the good news; true life is found in Jesus.