Cast into Fire and Water
The Demonic and Self-Destruction
“And they brought the boy to him. And when the spirit saw him, immediately it convulsed the boy, and he fell on the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth. And Jesus asked his father, ‘How long has this been happening to him?’ And he said, ‘From childhood. And it has often cast him into fire and into water, to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘“If you can”! All things are possible for one who believes.’ Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, ‘I believe; help my unbelief!’ And when Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, ‘You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.’”
This story of Jesus casting out a destructive unclean spirit from a boy has a lot to say to much 21st Century craziness. In my writings and on my podcast, I most often focus on the “this-worldly” movements and ideologies that are driving much of the insanity that is being unleashed on this world. I begin with the presupposition that spiritual realities undergird what happens in the physical world, but don’t often focus on the nature of those spiritual realities.
But I was listening to the Theology Pugcast recently (a podcast that I recommend highly, enthusiastically, and without reservation), and the hosts mentioned this passage, from Mark 9. And it led to me think about some of the self-destructive behaviours in which people are willingly engaging, self-destructive behaviours that are being encouraged and promoted by many leading figures in the public square, all of whom are driven by their own agenda.
It’s important to understand what that agenda is (depopulation, control, destruction of the household, and more generally, opposition to Christ and his kingdom), but we also need to consider what might lead a young person to deliberately engage in irreversible, self-destructive behaviour, and submit to medical procedures that destroy everything they were created to be as the image of God. Specifically, what would lead a girl or a young woman chop of her breasts and submit to a hormonal regimen that will render her permanently infertile, while imagining that this is actually a good thing?
You could say, as many do, that this is the result of a mental illness, formerly known as gender dysphoria. That’s a step in the right direction, which recognizes that this course of action is nowhere near being the outworking of someone’s discovery of “who they really are” and a reasonable action for any normal human being to take. But it doesn’t go far enough.
In all of these things, we must never discount the influence of the demonic on those who destroy their lives by destroying their physical bodies and their mental health, not to mention their entire spiritual lives. They are like that young boy in Mark 9, whose unclean spirit would cast him into the fire and into the water, seeking to destroy him. There are forces at play here that go way beyond the earthly ideologies and power players who promote the horrors of transgenderism. We do well to remember that, and also the Lord Jesus’ words in Mark 9:29 -
“This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.”