All right. Mark, chapter one, verse number 21. Thank you, Brother Eric, for inviting us. And thank you for the good message this morning and the good singing. I really appreciate that. Mark, chapter number one. If you look at verse number 21. And they went and straightway on the Sabbath day, he entered to the synagogue and taught. And they were astonished at his doctrine, for he taught them as one that had authority and not as the scribes. And there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit. And he cried out, saying, let us alone. What have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? Art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God. And Jesus rebuked him, saying, hold thy peace and come out of him. And when the unclean spirit had torn him and cried with a loud voice, he came out of him. And they were all amazed in so much that they questioned among themselves, saying, what thing is this? What new doctrine is this? For with authority commanded he, even the unclean spirits, and they do obey him. Immediately. His fame spread abroad throughout all the region roundabout Galilee. Father, thank you for another day. Thank you for a good day. Thank you for this church and their pastor and good friends that I see. And thank you for the message this morning and the singing tonight as well as this morning. Pray now, Lord, that you would just take what is going to be said, Lord, and blessed to your son, the Lord Jesus, for we need you. And we ask it all in Jesus name and for his sake. Amen. In verse number 22, Jesus is speaking. There was two things said about Him. One thing was that his doctrine was astonishing. His doctrine was astonishing, by the way, it still is when you’re reading the word of God, especially when you’re reading the words of Jesus, aren’t you astonished at his wisdom? Aren’t you astonished at his power when you read His Word? There’s no other book written that could do what your Bible can do. And so his doctrine was astonishing, but his teaching was that of authority. In fact, the Pharisees had sent out the chief officers and they said, go get this man. Go arrest him. And when they came back empty, they said, well, where is he? And he said, Never, man spake like this man. Whatever it was he said to them, whatever they heard, they were astonished by it. And he spake as having authority. Now, when you consider what he taught and how he taught, no wonder they said that. I’m interested tonight in verse number 24. Three little words there in verse number 24. It starts out saying, here’s the three words let us alone. Let us alone. I want to dwell a little bit on evil protests. Now, I’m not talking about protest as a verb, but protest as a noun, okay? Evil protest. Evil protest. Evil is evil does protest, by the way, when it’s confronted with righteousness? I mean, you let evil and you let righteousness face off. And every time, evil will cry out, leave us alone. Let us alone. Get out of here. It’s amazing how they don’t mind intruding into our life and intruding into our churches and say, listen to what we have to say. But when you begin to tell them what the Bible has to say, they say, just leave us alone. Let us alone. What have we to do with thee, thou Jesus, thou Jesus of Nazareth? So Jesus himself said that the gates of hell shall not prevail against his church. Let’s keep that in mind when we realized that when Jesus started his church, he did not start it for the purpose of being defensive all the time. He started it for the purpose of us going out to a lost and dying world on the offensive. But this world does not want to have anything to do with Jesus. So they say, Let us alone. Just let us alone. Well, we see evil protests in the heart of a child. I want you to think about this. We see evil protests in the heart of a child. Do you know that? Little tiny babies, little infants, little can I say little children? They protest against authority. They sure do. Our oldest grandson is 13 years old, and when he was just a little tike, they all call Laurie Pete. For some reason, they don’t call her Mama. They call her Pete. Or Laurie. Tried to get the kids to say, now say especially Max to say, now say Mama. And he said, Pete. And so to this day, she’s Pete. Well, when he was a little hummer, she said, max, it’s time to change your diaper. Pete’s got to change your diaper. And he had been taught to be polite, and he said, no, thank you, Pete. And so she said, no, Max, you’ve got to get your diaper change. And he got real ballistic, and he said, no, thank you, Pete. And so evil will always protest against authority, even in the heart of a child. And, you know, the older they grow, the better they get, right? No, they get a little bit older, and they still protest against authority. They protest against the rules. They protest against going to bed early. They protest so evil protest always in the heart of a child. The Bible says that we could go astray as soon as they’re born. But not only that, evil protests in the heart of a child, but evil will protest against the head of the church. And we’re not talking about the pastor. We’re talking about the Lord Jesus Christ. Evil will always protest against the church. Let me show you something here in Matthew, chapter number three. If you’ll turn there, hold your place back here and mark, because we’re coming back matthew, chapter number three. If you’ll look at verse number one very carefully and let’s do a little bit of math really quick. Okay? If you look at well, let me read verse one. In those days came John the Baptist preaching in the wilderness of Judea. When you look at the 7th and 8th word, look at that. Count them over. Look at the 7th and the 8th word. What is it? Let’s read it out. What are the 7th and 8th words? Let’s say it Baptist preaching. All right, so what is Baptist preaching? Well, Baptist preaching, first of all, elements of Baptist preaching, number one, it’s bold preaching in verse number two and saying, here it is. Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Now, do you know that repentance is not being preached very much in churches today? Jesus still said, you got to repent. Paul preached repentance, and we can go on and on. But repentance is something that listen, repentance sometimes and oftentimes is missed out on your average gospel track. When you look at the gospel track, you look down the steps there or the numbers there and they’ll say, do this, do this, do this. And most times you’ll find repentance not even mentioned the ABCs of salvation or something like that. But I’m telling you, Jesus said, accept your repentance, you shall all likewise perish. So it’s bold preaching. What kind of preaching is Baptist preaching? It’s bold preaching. Look at verse number three. Verse number three says, for this is he that was spoken by the prophet Isaiahs, or Isaiah saying, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare you the way of the Lord, make his path straight. Well, bold preacher or Baptist preaching? Not only bold preachers, Bible preaching. By the way, if you preach out of the Bible, you better have a real Bible, good old King James Bible, we all know that. But it’s also blessed preaching in verse number eleven, I indeed baptize you with water under repentance. John says, but he that cometh after me is mightier than I whose shoes I’m not worthy to bear. He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire. So there’s three elements of Baptist preaching. It is bold preaching, it is Bible preaching. It is blessed preaching. But evil protests against that. Not only they protest against Bible preaching, but they protest against Bible principles. Do you know that there ought to be Bible principles in every area of your life, in my life, when it comes to marriage, there ought to be Bible principles that guides that marriage. When it comes to friendships, when it comes to fellowships, when it comes to rearing children, when it comes to all things. But evil will protest and say, let us alone with your Bible and with your doctrine and with your teaching. We don’t want to be disturbed. And then not only Bible preaching is protested and Bible principles are protested but thoroughly bible practices are protested. What are we supposed to be in this world? We’re supposed to be salt and we’re supposed to be like, well, I’m afraid I’ll bother them. Well, we don’t try to give the gospel out to bother people. We try to give the Gospel out in order for them to be saved. That’s what it’s all about. But when confronted with righteousness, evil always protests. Let me give you a second thing. Evil will always protest with its connection with religion. Now I want you to look at verse number 23. Look at verse 23. And there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit. Now where did this take place? In the synagogue, right? In a place of worship. Do you know, you would think of all the wicked and all the evil that’s out there, you would think they would not be in churches. But there are bunches of it in churches. In fact, I believe there’s more in churches. Look, the devil has those people that’s out at the bar tonight or out the ballgame or whatever. But he works on churches, doesn’t he? He works through religion. And if you’re not careful you’ll get caught up in that. But I’m going to show you something here. Religious institutions are really good places to find unclean spirits. Have you ever I know Brother Sam has and I don’t know Brother Eric and all these other preachers here, but sometimes you have preached and you can sense the devil in that congregation somewhere. And I’m not calling names, I don’t think there’s any in here tonight. Brother Sam and Eric and brother McGrath preached them out the door. Amen. But I want you to think about this. Look at verse number 24 very carefully. Verse 24. Now here’s two questions that this unclean spirit brings up. In verse 24 he says saying, let us know. Here’s the question, what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? Art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God. Now look at verse 23 and I want to point something out. Verse number 23. And there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit. He did not say unclean spirits plural, just one, right? Verse number 26. And when the unclean spirit just singular had torn him and cried with a loud voice, he came out of him. So we don’t have legion here, we don’t have several demons here. We just have one unclean spirit in a man in a religious place, in a place of religion. Now the first question that he’s going to ask is found in this verse and what he’s saying is this. Look in verse 24 again. He says what have what’s the word we? Last time I checked, we is more than one. But he does not say, what have I to do with you? He says, what have we to do with you? Now we see us in verse number 24. Look at it saying, Let us alone. What have we to do without Jesus? And art thou come to destroy us? Now, what’s he doing here? This devil, this demon is connecting himself with this man. He is speaking for this man. It does not say, this man answered, this devil answered. And he says, what have we to do with you? The devil, this unclean spirit, argues that if Jesus destroys him, he’s also going to destroy the man. You ever try to witness to a lost person that is religious? And here’s what they say, I have my own religion. I have my own religion. So he is in connection with an unclean spirit here. Now, here’s what the spirit is doing. He is saying, I’m your friend, law center. I’m for you. You don’t have to go to church to be saved. You don’t have to read your Bible to be saved. All you have to do is maybe get a little religion in your life, and I’m your buddy, I’m your friend. I’ll carry you through this thing. And then when confronted with the gospel, they say, Leave me alone. I have my own church, I have my own religion. I have my own way of doing things. I have my own Bible. I don’t need what you’ve got. Amen. Isn’t that the way it works? Yes. Now look at this. Here’s the second question. The second question is this art thou come to destroy us? US. Now, Jesus did not come to destroy. He came to destroy the works of the devil in order to save this religious sinner. And that’s the way he’s always done it. Now, Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil. He did not come to destroy men’s lives, but he came to save men’s lives. Jesus came to destroy this devil in order to save this devilpossessed man. Now, what if the church what if the church what if this church or what if our church back home would decide, well, they got a little religion, we’re just going to leave them alone. They die and go to hell. We’ve got to go after lost religious sinners, even though they blow us off, even though they’ll say, I don’t need you. I got my own church. Don’t give up. Just keep pounding, keep pounding, keep pounding, keep pounding, because they need Christ. And they’re going to always say, I have my own religion. It’s them and the evil spirit within them talking just so you think about that. All right? So evil protests when confronted with righteousness and with the connection of religion. But I want you to look at another thing here in verse number 25, and Jesus rebuked him, saying, hold thy peace and come out of him. Now, evil is always going to protest when there is a complete redemption and complete deliverance. And only Jesus can do that. You see, the devil doesn’t care if you get a little bit of religion or you join the church. It doesn’t even care if you give, just as long as you don’t trust Christ as your Savior. Because the devil knows that if you trust Christ, receive Christ as your Savior, it’s going to bring a change in your life. You’re going to be different, and you’re not going to have anything whatsoever to do with the Devil anymore. So here’s what he says. Look what Jesus says in verse number 25. Two things happen in this deliverance. Number one, in verse 25, jesus rebuked him, saying, hold thy peace and come out of him. Now, you’re going to find out that Jesus does not argue with the devil. Amen. You know what? Here’s what he said when he said hold thy peace. You know what he said? Shut up. That’s exactly what he said, shut up. Because he didn’t tell this man to shut up, did he? He told this demon to shut up. He told this devil to shut up because he asked those two stupid questions. And so he said, shut up. And then watch this. If the Devil was this man’s friend, if the Devil says, I’m your friend, you’ve calmed down a little bit. You can have your religion, you can have your own special Bible, you can have your own special religion and all that. If he said all of that, look what happens when Jesus completely delivers him. Look at verse number. Let’s go in verse number 26. Well, Jesus said, come out of it. And when the unclean spirit had torn him, I thought he was his friend. What’s he doing tearing him? What’s he doing physically hurting this fella? Well, since when he had torn him and he cried with a loud voice, then he came out of him. Now, this is the way that the evil usually operates. He operates with a loud voice and with destruction, right? In the last couple of years, we’ve seen all those demonstrations on the streets of our cities all over America. They were not peaceful. They were evil. They were loud and they were destructive. And evil can get into a man and give him a little bit of religion. And when confronted with the righteousness of Christ, he’s going to get loud, he’s going to get obnoxious. Listen, if he trusts Christ and gets delivered, he’s going to try to wipe that fellow out as fast as he can. You probably never realize the power of the devil until you got saved. Amen. When you got saved, well, you talk about evil, you recognize that how you used to be before you got saved. You recognized it all around you, but you never thought about it until you were completely saved, completely delivered, by the way. So Eve, eve was always going to protest righteousness. Evil always tears up a life, whether it’s religious or otherwise. Evil has no right, evil has no say in a child of God’s. Life and when confronted, evil is going to get very loud and very destructive. Let me give you three things. We’ll close with this. Evil will protest a life in Christ. Man, if you’re saved, evil is not going to be your friend, it’s going to protest a life of Christ. The Apostle Paul says, for to me, to live is Christ and to die is game. Evil number two is always going to protest a life with change. I believe that’s the only kind of life there is when you get saved is a changed life. Evil is going to protect. Well, you know how it is when you got saved, the old guys came around and say, hey, it’s Friday night, let’s go out and party. Let’s go out and do this. And when you said, I don’t do that anymore, boy, they started protesting, didn’t they? They may have made fun of you at first, they may have said some bad things about you, but then when they saw that you were serious, it’s a different story now. You’re saved, you’re changed. But then evil not only protests a life in Christ and a life with change, but evil will protest a life of church. There has been many a lady or a husband that would say, would you pray for my husband? Would you pray for my wife? We’re praying that they get saved. And they get saved and they get on fire for God. And they want to come to church Sunday morning and Sunday night and Wednesday night and the revival meetings, every special meetings. And the other one will say, what is it with you? Why is it that every time it’s church, church, church? Well, isn’t that what she wanted? Did she want him to get saved? I’m telling you, evil will protest a life that is filled with just going to church and worshiping the Lord Jesus. It always will. So when it comes to this, when we say, when we see here in that synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, let us alone, we’re not going to let him alone. Amen. We’re going to keep preaching the gospel, keep having meetings like this. We’re going to keep out passing, keep on passing out gospel tribes. We’re going to keep on telling people that Jesus is alive and well and he loves you and he went to a cross and he died for your sins and he wants to save you and take you to heaven. I don’t care how loud they get, I don’t care how destructive they get. We cannot let them alone. Who else is going to tell them if the church doesn’t? Amen. Father, we ask your God that you’ll help us not to sit back idly and watch this whole world go down the tubes. We’ve got folks in our families, Lord, that protest against what we’re doing tonight. They protest against the gospel. They protest against our faithfulness to church. They protest against our family, being raised in the nurture and admonition of the Lord the Father. We can’t let up. We can’t give up and we can’t give in. And Father, tonight, would you give us just an extra measure of courage to face evil and to say we’re not going to do that? We cannot do that. We cannot let up. We’ve got children coming up behind us. We’ve got grandchildren growing up, and we cannot turn them over to the devil. Father, forgive us now where we have failed Thee in this area. Help us, Lord, remain strong and true. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Let’s stand. And what page do you have?
You need to come. Altar is open, I’m sure. 308, let’s stand. Let’s sing together. Eric, you want to lead it for us, please? 308,
you need to come. You come. Evil will always protest righteousness. It always will. It won’t let up. It doesn’t quit. And we can’t quit either.