Mark 16:9-12 Every Step Is Joy: Christ Has Defeated Satan, Demons, Sin, Hell, And Death For Us

The Text

Mark 16:9–12 (CSB)
⁹ [Early on the first day of the week, after he had risen, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had driven seven demons.

¹⁰ She went and reported to those who had been with him, as they were mourning and weeping.

¹¹ Yet, when they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they did not believe it.

¹² After this, he appeared in a different form to two of them walking on their way into the country.

The Devotion

Colossians 2:14–15 (CSB) He erased the certificate of debt, with its obligations, that was against us and opposed to us, and has taken it away by nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and disgraced them publicly; he triumphed over them in him.

Revelation 1:17-18 (CSB) When I saw him, I fell at his feet like a dead man. He laid his right hand on me and said, “Don’t be afraid. I am the First and the Last, and the Living One. I was dead, but look — I am alive forever and ever, and I hold the keys of death and Hades.

It is only with the death of our Christ that Christ perfectly, definitely, completely our real enemies: sin, Satan, demons, hell, and death.

We read the Old Testament and especially David in the Psalms with enemies coming in like ravage dogs all around him.

But those were not his real enemies.

Circumstances? Your ex-husband or wife? Your boss at work? That guy who cut you off in traffic? Your abuser? Authority.

None of them could send you to hell into the wrath of the Almighty God.

We don't know that. But God, who sees all and knows all, knew that. He knew if he did nothing, we would have perished. But that is why he sent his Son to die in order to defeat our real enemies.

Ephesians 6:10–12 (CSB) Finally, be strengthened by the Lord and by his vast strength. Put on the full armor of God so that you can stand against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this darkness, against evil, spiritual forces in the heavens.

If our enemies are defeated and retreated because Christ has conquered them, what does that make us?

Romans 8:37 (CSB) No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

Read this sermon excerpt from one of my favorite preachers, Octavius Winslow, a contemporary of Spurgeon:

"Through him that loved us." Here is the great secret of our victory, the source of our triumph. Behold the mystery explained, how a weak, timid believer, often running from his own shadow, is yet "more than a conqueror" over his many and mighty foes. To Christ who loved him, who gave himself for him, who died in his stead, and lives to intercede on his behalf, the glory of the triumph is ascribed. And this is the song he chants, "Thanks be to God which gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." Through the conquest which he himself obtained, through the grace which he imparts, through the strength which he inspires, through the intercession which he presents, in all our "tribulation, and distress, and persecution, and famine, and nakedness, and peril, and sword " we are "more than conquerors." Accounted though we are as "sheep for the slaughter," yet our Great Shepherd, Himself slain for the sheep, guides his flock, and has declared that no one shall pluck them out of his hand. We are more than conquerors through his grace who loved us in the very circumstances that threaten to overwhelm. Fear not, then, the darkest cloud, nor the proudest waves, nor the deepest needs- in these very things you shall, through Christ, prove triumphant. Nor shrink from the battle with the "last enemy." Death received a death-wound when Christ died. You face a conquered foe. He stands at your side a crownless king, and waving a broken scepter. Your death shall be another victory over the believer's last foe. Planting your foot of faith upon his prostrate neck, you shall spring into glory, more than a conqueror, through him that loved you. Thus passing to glory in triumph, you shall go to swell the ranks of the "noble army of martyrs"- those Christian heroes of whom it is recorded, "THEY OVERCAME HIM BY THE BLOOD Of THE LAMB."

Octavius Winslow. No Condemnation in Christ Jesus. 229.

I tell you these things so that your joy may be full!

Every step that Christ took towards the cross was in complete joy and satisfaction because every step he took was one step closer to completely, satisfactorily, perfectly, definitely, absolutely, forever "save his people from their sins."