God Laughs – At the Spiritual Posers
God Laughs – At the Spiritual Posers.
“The One who sits enthroned in heaven laughs. The Lord scoffs at them… The wicked plot against the righteous; they snarl at them in defiance. But the Lord laughs, for He sees their day of judgment coming… They come out at night, snarling like vicious dogs as they prowl the streets. Listen to the filth that comes from their mouths, their words cut like swords. ‘After all, who can hear us?’ they sneer. For your part, Lord, you laugh at them.” (Psalm 2:4; Psalm 37:13; Psalm 59:6-8).
It seems to me that our Lord God has an ironic sense of humor. He is reported to have deep belly laughs when He looks at mankind and sees how ridiculous we can be. He seems to laugh whenever we humans do things that are laughably absurd. God sees irony everywhere, He observes behavior that is unexpectedly foolish in light of His greatness. God seems amused when He sees the opposite of what one should expect in a God-filled universe. He chuckles at attitudes that defy logic from His perspective. On the one hand, God isn’t surprised by anything. On the other hand, He seems to be pleasantly scornful at what we humans can do.
People build an immense building and think it will reach God and enable access to Him, and God finds it ridiculous. He sees nations without a conscience conspire against God to cut Him out of their laws and society, and God can only say, ‘Are you serious?’ He sees a man who thinks he can become equal to Him in every respect, a god-player, and God can only shake His head. God observes someone who thinks He is able to flee His presence and live as if He doesn’t exist, and God can only look at him with righteous scorn. He hears many of us utter obscene and hurtful language thinking that no one is within earshot, and God can only say, ‘You’re just kidding me, right?’ He sees so many who think they can do evil and live without restraint, and God can only sigh in sad amusement, knowing there will be a true come-to-Jesus moment waiting in the future. God knows that there will be a Judgment Day coming, and He takes joy in the reality of a moral universe that He created. He knows that all who have rejected Him will someday reap what they sown if they have rejected His grace in life. All this foolishness, all this thoughtlessness… Is it that we don’t have a high enough view of God? Is it that we have too high a view of ourselves? Both? Perhaps what makes God laugh loudest is our futile hubris, our unrighteous chutzpah.
Our downfall is probably attributed to our hubris, which can be defined this way:
HUBRIS: a Greek word that means excessive pride; exaggerated self-conceit; overwhelming self-confidence; sheer arrogance; in ancient Greece, hubris was a character flaw reflecting a defiance of the gods, when someone would foolishly or maliciously act against the divine order; someone with hubris always has a lack of self-awareness and won’t stop to examine his behavior or consider other actions; people with hubris are generally too full of themselves to question their motives or actions; people who are overcome with hubris eventually bring about their own downfall. As Rabbi Jonathon Sacks once wrote, “If Scripture is our guide, what makes God laugh is a person’s delusion of grandeur.”
“A group of Jews was traveling from town to town casting out evil spirits. They took it upon themselves to use the name of the Lord Jesus over those who were demon-possessed, saying, “We adjure you by the name of Jesus whom Paul preaches!” Seven sons of Sceva, a leading priest, were doing this. But one time when they tried it, the evil spirit replied, “I know all about Jesus, of course, and I recognize Paul, but who are you?’ Then the man with the evil spirit leaped on them, overpowered them, and attacked them with such violence that they fled from the house, naked, battered and wounded.” (Acts 19:13-16).
There are passages in Scripture which could easily read as slapstick comedy. The story about the sons of Sceva is such a passage, and I imagine that God is laughing right along with us as we read it. And like all effective comedy, there is a serious point to be made amidst the laughter. We see in Acts 19 a group of brothers who decide they could make some money by dabbling in the spirit world. What is that saying about fools rushing in where angels fear to tread? These seven brothers go from one town to the next masquerading as experts in the demonic. So now here they are in Ephesus, a city saturated with paganism, with the worship of so many gods they couldn’t even be counted. It seems the whole city is drawn into the occult, and so the city is riddled with sorcerers, magicians, and witchcraft. All the demonic materials anyone would ever need is right there accessible in Ephesus.
This itinerant band of brothers noticed that there is a man named Paul who seems especially effective in exorcism. Not only that, but this Paul can heal sicknesses with just a touch of his apron or handkerchief. At the mention of this name of Jesus, Paul casts out demons without the long, drawn-out incantations and rituals of magicians and other exorcists. This man Paul is just the man they were looking for. Think about how much money we could make if we just used this name of Jesus like Paul! That must be his secret. What we are doing doesn’t seem to be working, so let’s do what Paul does. These brothers failed to notice, though, that Paul was not the one who was actually casting out the demons, it was Jesus who was doing the exorcisms and healings through Paul. Apparently, Jesus was the least of their concerns.
So these seven brothers try to imitate Paul and try out this name of Jesus. What have they got to lose? They walked into a house of a known case of demon-possession, and they begin their exorcism. They get off the track right away, right from the start. The first thing they say to this demon-possessed man is, “We adjure you.” The Greek words used here for adjure is “horkizo,” which means they were demanding an oath from the demon that it would submit to them and be cast out of this man. That word for adjure is usually translated “solemnly command,’ and it is used by magicians in their incantations and in other examples of the dark arts. That term was even found in texts of the magic arts, and scholars say when the brothers used this term “horkizo” in particular, it revealed that they were well-versed in magic. In other words, they attempted to use a mixture of magic and anything else that might work in the spirit world.
This band of inept brothers were not even curious about this Jesus person or His name. They lacked any desire to ask Paul about who Jesus was. If they had anything but dollar signs in their yes, they could easily have approached Paul and inquired about the source of the spiritual power he seemed to have. They instead just jumped right into using that name as if it was a magic charm. To them, Jesus’ name was just a word they could use to exercise spiritual power. It was as if they were using Jesus’ name to put a magical hex on the demon. In using the name of Jesus, there wasn’t even a hint of faith in the Person of Jesus.
Needless to say, their attempted exorcism backfired in a big way. The demon indeed heard these brothers as they addressed it. The demon actually engaged in a short conversation with them, and told these brothers that it intimately knew Jesus in the demon world. There is no greater authority in the demonic realm. And the demon told these brothers that they recognized the name of Paul as well. But then the demon literally said, “Who are you?” These make-believe miracle-workers were unknown in the spirit world, they had no power to operate in that sphere. It would have been a different thing altogether if these brothers had been commissioned by Jesus to cast out demons, but these brothers were only commissioned by themselves. They didn’t have the spiritual authority to succeed in the spirit world, because they were complete strangers to Jesus, the ultimate Master of the demonic. As long as they were strangers to Jesus, their so-called commands to the demon were pointless and powerless.
The demon wouldn’t take this incompetent disrespect lying down. It proceeded to give the human host the supernatural power to overcome and assault all seven of these brothers. They were given a thorough beating by the man, and they ran away from the house with their clothes torn off, completely humiliated and seriously wounded. The Greek word for “wounded” here is “traumatizo,” meaning of course, traumatized. This word is used for serious injuries that require a long time to heal. Hopefully these brothers learned from their foolish hubris. One would like to think that running for one’s life out of a house away from man who is demon-possessed would be unforgettable. This ridiculous event in Ephesus is said to be a “reverse exorcism,” in which instead of the demon being kicked out by the exorcists, the exorcists were kicked out by the demon!
This amazing story spread around Ephesus like wildfire. The power of Christ through Paul was there for all to see. And this event led the Ephesians to lose their faith in the magical arts. The people of the city were unimpressed with the occult and their obsession with the spirit world. Their confidence in the magicians and witches were shaken, and this prompted many occultists to take all their materials of the dark arts, all the instructions in magic, the spells, the hexes, the books that talked about how to contact the dead through mediums, all that, and they burned them all in the middle of the street. Acts 19:19 reports that all those books and materials were worth about 50,000 pieces of silver. with each piece of silver worth one day’s wage. Add that up, and there were several million dollars’ worth of occult materials destroyed that day!
Some things to think about in light of this episode of dark comedy:
(1.) Do not dabble in the occult! It can bring you nothing but spiritual harm and eventual disaster. The Lord Yahweh warned us of all this long ago: “When you come into the land which the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominations and detestable acts of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone who engages in child sacrifice, or one who practices witchcraft, or is a fortune-teller, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who casts spells, or a medium, psychic or a spiritist, or one who calls up the spirits of the dead. For all who do these things are an abomination to the Lord.” (Deuteronomy 18:9-12). It’s no wonder that capital punishment awaited anyone in the Israelite’s nation who practiced magic of any kind.
(2.) Don’t seek the power of Christ without first seeking Christ. Don’t expect the gifts of Jesus without faith in Jesus. Make it a priority to deepen your relationship with Christ before you expect anything from Him. The Holy Spirit in His wisdom will provide spiritual gifts and power when He thinks it is best to do so. It shouldn’t matter. Follow the Person of Jesus for who He is, not for what He can give you. Merely using His name like a magic charm is not only fruitless, but it may also cause you harm.
(3.) Are we living our Christian life in such a way that the demons know our name? That demon knew Paul, so will the demons know our name as well? Does our name make the demons nervous? Perhaps we can ask the Lord that He would so fill us with His power and presence that hell itself becomes anxious when they recognize our name, and may they shudder when they realize we are in their neighborhood here on earth.
(4.) A couple of questions which may not have answers: It seems that there were some miracle-workers in Matthew 7:21-23 who were able to cast out demons using His name, but who were not Christ-followers. How does that square with the sons of Sceva? Some people can perform supernatural works and yet not know Jesus? Also, the disciples in Mark 9:38-40 were complaining to Jesus about how some who were not following Him or in their group were nonetheless casting out demons. Perhaps our inability to sufficiently answer these types of questions point to the fact that we are spiritual novices in the spirit realm, and one has to be very careful not to pose as an expert, like these pitiful sons of Sceva.