Someone once asked Lee Travino, the great golfer, “What’s it like to be standing over a putt for $100,000?”  Today it’s $1,000,000.  But standing over a putt for $100,000 and the pressure of having to make that putt.  He said, “Aww, that’s nothing.”  He said, “Back when I started, I was having to make a putt for $50 and didn’t have any money.”

We’re going out there into this battle, and to many of us it seems so—I don’t want to use the word—dangerous or ominous.  We’re not in that position.  “Greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world” (1 John 4:4); amen?  They’re the ones with the deficit.  I’m talking about the powers of darkness.  Mark is talking here, and he said, “You’re opposing principalities and powers.”  We see throughout the Gospels, much of this sickness was demonically caused.  And here we are, then, the proclaimers of that truth, and with a boldness, and people don’t know how to react to that.  I was talking to someone the other day and he was saying, “You know, we’re part this and part that, and I believe that there are many paths to heaven.”  And I said, “No, you’re wrong.  There’s only one way.  Jesus said, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man can cometh unto the Father, but by me’ (John 14:6).”  And we did this about three times.  He said, “Well, I believe this” and I said, “No, you’re wrong, man.  The Bible says…,” and another time, “The Bible says…”  And he kind of went over by some other guys and he says, “That guy is scary, man!”

People, when you direct the truth in power, with an anointing, with a conviction, the devil stands down.   I won’t go into a lot of the stories about dealing with demons over the years.  They submit.  Oh, they may tear that person and throw them to the ground.  I love the way Jesus handled those things.  He never even stopped His conversation.  “How long has this been going on (Mark 9:21)?”  The kid is flopping around, frothing at the mouth and whatever.  “How long has this…?”  “Oh, since he was a child.”  And then He casts the devil out; amen?  That assurance.  Do we know who we are?  “These signs shall follow them that believe” in My name.  Now there are people that say, “Well, this particular passage isn’t found in all the manuscripts,” etc. etc.  In reality, Irenaeus has records of this and referred to these Scriptures.  Irenaeus was a student of Polycarp, who was a student of John the Apostle.  So, this is not very far removed, and they believed this passage.  So, don’t let scholars today, all these years later, try to inform us as to what the truths were that were being taught and practiced in that day.  If you don’t want to hold to just this one Scripture, just read the Book of Acts and watch what they’re doing; amen?