'...Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye?'--ACTS xix. 15.
These exorcists had no personal union with Jesus. To them He was only
'Jesus whom Paul preached.' They spoke His name tentatively, as an
experiment, and imitatively. To command 'in the name of Jesus' was an
appeal to Jesus to glorify His name and exert His power, and so when
the speaker had no real faith in the name or the power, there was no
answer, because there was really no appeal.
I. The only power which can cast out the evil spirits is the name of
Jesus.
That is a commonplace of Christian belief. But it is often held in a
dangerously narrow way and leads to most unwise pitting of the Gospel
against other modes of bettering and elevating men, instead of
recognising them as allies. Earnest Christian workers are tempted to
forget Jesus' own word: 'He that is not against us is for us.' There is
no need to disparage other agencies because we believe that it is the
Gospel which is 'the power of God unto salvation.' Many of the popular
philanthropic movements of the day, many of its curbing and
enlightening forces, many of its revolutionary social ideas, are really
in their essence and historically in their origin, profoundly
Christian, and are the application of the principles inherent in 'the
Name' to the evils of society. No doubt many of their eager apostles
are non-Christian or even anti-Christian, but though some of them have
tried violently to pluck up the plant by the root from the soil in
which it first flowered, much of that soil still adheres to it, and it
will not live long if torn from its native 'habitat.'
It is not narrowness or hostility to non-Christian efforts to cast out
the demons from humanity, but only the declaration of a truth which is
taught by the consideration of what is the difference between all other
such efforts and Christianity, and is confirmed by experience, if we
maintain that, whatever good results may follow from these other
influences, it is the powers lodged in the Name of Jesus, and these
alone which can, radically and completely, conquer and eject the demons
from a single soul, and emancipate society from their tyranny.
For consider that the Gospel which proclaims Jesus as the Saviour is
the only thing which deals with the deepest fact in our natures, the
fact of sin; gives a personal Deliverer from its power; communicates a
new life of which the very essence is righteousness, and which brings
with it new motives, new impulses, and new powers.
Contrast with this the inadequate diagnosis of the disease and the
consequent imperfection of the remedy which other physicians of the
world's sickness present. Most of them only aim at repressing outward
acts. None of them touch more than a part of the whole dreadful
circumference of the dark orb of evil. Law restrains actions. Ethics
proclaims principles which it has no power to realise. It shows men a
shining height, but leaves them lame and grovelling in the mire.
Education casts out the demon of ignorance, and makes the demons whom
it does not cast out more polite and perilous. It brings its own evils
in its train. Every kind of crop has weeds which spring with it. The
social and political changes, which are eagerly preached now, will do
much; but one thing, which is the all-important thing, they will not
do, they will not change the nature of the individuals who make up the
community. And till that nature is changed any form of society will
produce its own growth of evils. A Christless democracy will be as bad
as, if not worse than, a Christless monarchy or aristocracy. If the
bricks remain the same, it does not much matter into what shape you
build them.
These would-be exorcists but irritated the demons by their vain
attempts at ejecting them, and it is sometimes the case that efforts to
cure social diseases only result in exacerbating them. If one hole in a
Dutch dyke is stopped up, more pressure is thrown on another weak point
and a leak will soon appear there. There is but one Name that casts a
spell over all the ills that flesh is heir to. There is but one Saviour
of society--Jesus who saves from sin through His death, and by
participation in His life delivers men from that life of self which is
the parent of all the evils from which society vainly strives to be
delivered by any power but His.
II. That Name must be spoken by believing men if it is to put forth its
full power.
These exorcists had no faith. All that they knew of Jesus was that He
was the one 'whom Paul preached.' Even the name of Jesus is spoiled and
is powerless on the lips of one who repeats it, parrot-like, because he
has seen its power when it came flame-like from the fiery lips of some
man of earnest convictions.
In all regions, and especially in the matter of art or literature,
imitators are poor creatures, and men are quick to detect the
difference between the original and the copy. The copyists generally
imitate the weak points, and seldom get nearer than the imitation of
external and trivial peculiarities. It is more feasible to reproduce
the 'contortions of the Sibyl' than to catch her 'inspiration.'
This absence or feebleness of personal faith is the explanation of much
failure in so-called Christian work. No doubt there may be other causes
for the want of success, but after all allowance is made for these, it
still remains true that the chief reason why the Gospel message is
often proclaimed without casting out demons is that it is proclaimed
with faltering faith, tentatively and without assured confidence in its
power, or imitatively, with but little, if any, inward experience of
the magic of its spell. The demons have ears quick to discriminate
between Paul's fiery accents and the cold repetition of them.
Incomparably the most powerful agency which any man can employ in
producing conviction in others is the utterance of his own intense
conviction. 'If you wish me to weep, your own tears must flow,' said
the Roman poet. Other factors may powerfully aid the exorcising power
of the word spoken by faith, and no wise man will disparage these, but
they are powerless without faith and it is powerful without them.
Consider the effect of that personal faith on the speaker--in bringing
all his force to bear on his words; in endowing him for a time with
many of the subsidiary qualities which make our words winged and
weighty; in lifting to a height of self-oblivion, which itself is
magnetic.
Consider its effect on the hearers--how it bows hearts as trees are
bent before a rushing wind.
Consider its effect in bringing into action God's own power. Of the
man, all aflame with Christian convictions and speaking them with the
confidence and urgency which become them and him, it may truly be said,
'It is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh
in you.'
Here then we have laid bare the secret of success and a cause of
failure, in Christian enterprise. Here we see, as in a concrete
example, the truth exemplified, which all who long for the emancipation
of demon-ridden humanity would be wise to lay to heart, and thereby to
be saved from much eager travelling on a road that leads nowhither, and
much futile expenditure of effort and sympathy, and many
disappointments. It is as true to-day as it was long ago in Ephesus,
that the evil spirits 'feel the Infant's hand from far Judea's land,'
and are forced to confess, 'Jesus we know and Paul we know'; but to
other would-be exorcists their answer is, 'Who are ye?' 'When a strong
man armed keepeth his house, his goods are in peace.' There is but 'One
stronger than he who can come upon him, and having overcome him, can
take from him all his armour wherein he trusted and divide the spoils,'
and that is the Christ, at whose name, faithfully spoken, 'the devils
fear and fly.'