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Busy and Happy Days at Capernaum
149
The leaders and teachers of Israel were neglecting the only means
by which they could have withstood evil spirits. It was by the Word
of God that Christ overcame the wicked one. By their interpretation
the Jewish leaders made God’s Word express sentiments that God
had never given. They disputed over technicalities, and practically
denied essential truths. Thus God’s Word was robbed of its power,
and evil spirits worked their will.
History is repeating. With the open Bible before them, many
religious leaders of our time are destroying faith in it as the word of
God. They dissect the Word, and set their own opinions above its
plainest statements. This is why infidelity runs riot, and iniquity is
rife.
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Those who turn from the plain teaching of Scripture and the
convicting power of God’s Holy Spirit are inviting the control of
demons. Criticism and speculation have opened the way for spiritism
to gain a foothold even in the professed churches of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Side by side with the preaching of the gospel, agencies are at
work which are lying spirits. Many a man tampers with these merely
from curiosity, but seeing evidence of more than human power, he
is lured on until he is controlled by the mysterious power of a will
stronger than his own. The defenses of the soul are broken down.
Secret sin or master passion may hold him a captive as helpless as
the demoniac of Capernaum. Yet his condition is not hopeless.
He can overcome by the power of the Word. If we desire to
know and to do God’s will, His promises are ours: “You will know
the truth, and the truth will make you free.” “If any man’s will is to
do His will, he shall know whether the teaching is from God.”
John
8:32
;
7:17
, RSV. Through faith in these promises every man may be
delivered from the snares of error and the control of sin.
There Is Hope for Every Lost Person
None have fallen so low, none are so vile, but that they can find
deliverance in Christ. The demoniac could utter only the words of
Satan, yet the heart’s unspoken appeal was heard. No cry from a
soul in need, though it fail of words, will be unheeded. Those who
will consent to enter into covenant relation with the God of heaven
are invited by the Saviour, “Let him take hold of My strength, that