If we were to meet on the Bishopton main street and I told you I know a man who can control the wind and sea, can cast our demons, cure any disease and raise people from the dead, you would either think I was completely mad or would ask how you could meet him.
In our Bible studies on a Wednesday evening, we have been reading the Gospel of Mark. If you have never read the Bible before, Mark would be a good introduction for you. He is easy to read and brings the life and service of the Lord Jesus vividly before us.
We live in a day when politicians make extraordinary claims about their abilities. One of them is their collective ability to reduce the temperature of the planet by 2 degrees before 2030! Christians believe that God created heaven and earth and He alone controls the climate. Marks relates how the disciples made this discovery when their ship sailed into a great storm and they feared for their lives. ‘He arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace be still. And the wind ceased and there was a great calm.’ Mark 4:39.
Demon possession is not something commonly discussed but many people in Scotland are possessed and controlled by powers outside of themselves. Mark ch 5 recounts how the Lord cast out demons from a man who was uncontrollable by others. The Lord told him to return to his friends and ‘tell them what great things the Lord hath done for thee.’ Mark 5: 19. You may not like the Christian gospel, you may not agree with it but you cannot take away from a man or a woman the great things that Christ has done in their lives.
Mark then describes the case of a woman who had an issue of blood for twelve years and had spent all her money on doctors who had only made her condition worse. We have lived through a ‘pandemic’ where governments have spent £billions to curtail and prevent disease. To do so, they revoked civil, personal and religious liberties. They mandated vaccines and still Covid levels are high. Clearly man does not have power over disease! Yet the woman touched Christ as He was passing by and immediately she was healed. We cannot literally touch Him today but faith can connect us with Him.
I was recently speaking to a young man about the war in Ukraine. He told me he is horrified by the pictures of dead people lying in the streets. It struck me that he belongs to a generation that has been protected from the thought of death. Modern war reporting sanitises the horror of it all. A wise woman in the Bible once said, ‘we must all needs die…’ Death is a reality that we need to face and prepare for. The apostle Paul once said, ‘for to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.’ The willingness of an entire nation to accept lockdown for two years suggests that very few people have that same assurance!
Jairus discovered the truth that would later be explained in Romans ch 1: 4 that Christ was ‘declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection of the dead.’ The great hope of the gospel is that Christ is able to raise the dead to life again. He alone has power over the deep, demons, disease and death.
‘I am the resurrection and teh life: he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die’ John 11: 25,26