'Legion' is military term for armies of the Adversary

“The amount of sound doctrine resident in the populace of a nation determines the direction or the course of that nation."----Richard Jordan

Under the headline "Dystopian State Upon Us?" here is my post from October 26, 2019:

World War III? U.S. Civil War? Mega-catastrophes? "Natural" disasters, including earthquakes, tsunamis?  Europe included? Regular electrical blackouts? Gas-produced fires? Buy batteries, candles, even generators?

Rockets, submarines, helicopters, blimps? Marines, Navy? Total-controlled government, media, corporate world? Trauma for young ones? No income for many? Special persecution of Christians? "Credit scores" like China? Democracy done away with?

Internet down a lot, monitored severely? No "hate speech" allowed whatsoever? Elites rule everyday life, picayune details? Whites maligned at every turn?

This is the kind of stuff being "buzzed" about on the internet. Who knows???!!!

*****

Mark 5: 8-9 says, [8] For he said unto him, Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit.
[9] And he asked him, What is thy name? And he answered, saying, My name is Legion: for we are many.

"Jesus says there's one spirit who is controlling all the other spirits in the man," explains Pastor Richard Jordan. "That term 'Legion,' if you look at the end of verse 13 where the parenthesis is, means there were about two thousand unclean spirits in that guy: [13] And forthwith Jesus gave them leave. And the unclean spirits went out, and entered into the swine: and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea, (they were about two thousand;) and were choked in the sea.

"Legion is a military term that describes the organization of the armies of Rome. It also describes the organization of the armies of the Adversary. God uses exactly the same terminology to describe the world you can see and the invisible spirit world that you can't see. That world is as real as this world. This world is organized in a certain way and that world is organized just like it.

"That guy is there for the purpose of a military conflict, and when Jesus Christ shows up, He comes to repossess His possession. That guy's there to keep Him from doing it; he didn't want to give it up.

"In verse 10, he didn't say, 'Don't throw me out of the man.' He said, 'Don't throw me out of the land.' There's one Israeli with 2,000 unclean spirits in him. That tells you two things. No. 1 there weren't enough Israelis to have it be one on one.

"In other words, Satan's brought all of his demonic forces back in to the land of Israel at that time because Christ is there. If you're going to have a fight, you want your soldiers there. He's got his army gathered together to keep his palace. What Christ has come to do is literally throw the Adversary out of the land."

*****

Here are a few old posts:

When Paul warns Timothy that "perilous times shall come," the term "perilous" means dangerous. Talking about his life, Paul writes in II Corinthians 11:26, "In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren."

“All of those conditions are dangerous conditions that can kill you, can overwhelm you; they're horrendous and can overpower you,” explains Jordan. 

“In Romans 8, Paul uses the term in an interesting way. Verse 35 says, ‘Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?’

“Perilous times can have to do with you just being taken out and slaughtered. They’re dangerous times.

“When he describes them in II Timothy 3, the nature of the age under grace—it’s not going to be getting better.

“I remember in the ’80s, right after I’d come up from Alabama to Chicago, preaching a message at North Shore Church and I quoted a verse in Ecclesiastes. Afterward, I had three people come up to me and ask, ‘Where is that verse?’ I thought everybody knew the verse but I came to find out people don’t read the Book of Ecclesiastes.

“Ecclesiastes 8:11 says, ‘Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.’

“Isn’t that what Peter said about the dispensation of grace? II Peter 3 says, ‘The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.’

“Man doesn’t say, ‘Wow, I’m glad I missed the wrath! Thank you for not destroying me!’ He says, ‘Oh, He doesn’t see. I’ll go out and do some more.’

“Isaiah 26:10 says, [10] Let favour be shewed to the wicked, yet will he not learn righteousness: in the land of uprightness will he deal unjustly, and will not behold the majesty of the LORD.

“You know what the longsuffering of God demonstrates? The complete depravity of humanity. And the longer the dispensation of grace goes on, the longer you’re going to see a more and more mature depravity overtake mankind.

"De-evolution, not evolution, is man’s pattern. That’s why that image in Daniel 2 starts at the head and winds up at the feet. Man doesn’t go from the dust to glory; he goes from glory to the dust."

*****

“Pauls says the reason the times are perilous is ‘for men shall be lovers of themselves’ and all the things he lists in verses 2-5. Those things produce perilous times.

“We got a song in the book that goes, ‘Am I a soldier of the Cross? Are there no foes for me to face?' Paul says I’m to be a soldier so there must be an enemy.

“II Corinthians 11:23 says, [23] Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a fool) I am more; in labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft. [24] Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one.
[25] Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep;

“Does that sound like a peaceful, gentle little life? Verse 26 says, [26] In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren;
[27] In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.

“Notice he uses that one word ‘peril’ eight times in that one verse. That’s what perilous times he’s talking about. He’s not talking about times when your neighbor says something nasty to you. He’s talking about real trouble.

“You can pray all you want to and you’re not going to get out of that. In fact, the more you pray and live godly in Christ Jesus the more of that you’re going to find.

*****

"II Timothy is the last book Paul wrote but it’s not the last book in his epistles. He puts Titus after II Timothy because it deals with, ‘Okay, now that you’re living in complete apostasy, here’s how to function in that age.’

“Philemon is sort of a little capstone that says, ‘Taking everything I’ve taught you about grace at this point, let me show you how to operate in the assembly; the effectual communication of your faith.’

“Anytime God puts in a one-chapter book in the Bible that book is powerful because generally it’s overlooked.

“He writes, [4] I thank my God, making mention of thee always in my prayers,
[5] Hearing of thy love and faith, which thou hast toward the Lord Jesus, and toward all saints;
[6] That the communication of thy faith may become effectual by the acknowledging of every good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus.

“Paul says in I Timothy 1:18-19, [18] This charge I commit unto thee, son Timothy, according to the prophecies which went before on thee, that thou by them mightest war a good warfare;
[19] Holding faith, and a good conscience; which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck:

“That’s how serious it is not to follow Paul’s pattern in the work of the ministry. That’s what happens to you when you don’t. If you’re going to leave grace and go back to the law, you have to leave Paul and go back to Peter and Moses. That’s the only way you can do it.

“So when you’re in I Timothy, this is one of the places people’s prayer life goes wrong and they run back in Israel’s program and try to get God to remove all the problems and send an angel and kill all their enemies and all that stuff.

“That isn’t who we are and if you don’t understand where we are in the dispensation of grace and what God’s doing today, you’re never going to have a quiet and peaceable life. Paul’s talking about your inner-man attitude.

“Whatever the circumstances you’re in, rather than going to pieces and being destroyed by them, you can have a quiet and peaceable life in those circumstances. You can have a quiet, peaceable inner man. You can be at peace and not tossed to and fro when in turmoil. How do you do that? That’s what prayer does.

“Prayer takes the instructions in God’s Word, and you talk to God about how to apply those instructions to your circumstances, and it begins to work and produces the peace of God, a quietness in your inner man.”

(new article tomorrow)