The passage you just read is from one of the Gospels, that is, the books that record what Jesus did. The man who wrote this Gospel book is Mark. He wrote especially about the gospel of Jesus Christ. And the passage we look at is near the end of the Gospel of Mark. There is written what Jesus said, and He said, “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved.” This tells is then that, on the contrary, for whoever doesn’t believe, it is inevitable that they perish.

So what are you to believe when it says, “Whoever believes and is baptized”? One must believe the gospel.

The gospel is the joyful news. To explain the gospel simply, first of all, God is almighty. There are many gods in this world, and there are gods which are not all powerful. In addition, the God whom we believe in abounds in love. There are many gods in the world. But you mustn’t get close to just any god. There are also evil gods too. Fortunately, the god whom you are trying to meet by coming to church is the god full of love. How much love does he have? He is the one who gave up everything for us sinners. He even gave up His beloved Son to be cursed and die on the cross in order to save us. He is  not the kind of god that will abandon us after using us; He loves us. And very thankfully, that god  is not powerless. Rather, he is all-powerful. He is able to do anything. Even this world is his creation. And we call that God our Father.

Secondly, the gospel tells us that ‘Jesus is the Son of God’. Jesus is a man who grew up in a town called Nazareth. He was a young Jewish man. But we acknowledge Him as God’s Son. To say He is God’s Son doesn’t mean He is lesser than God. It actually means He is equal to God. The Son is the One to whom God will inherit everything He has. To say He is God’s Son means He is equally God. He is almighty. Jesus is full of love. And this is what we believe.

Thirdly, Jesus is Christ. What does Christ mean? It means God’s servant (messenger). The word Christ originated from Greek. The word comes from the meaning of ‘the anointed’. When God appoints someone to do His work, He sends him by anointing him. So it means God’s servant. But we just said that Jesus is equal to God. In other words, He is God. Yet now we are saying He is God’s servant. Although He is lofty as God, He became a servant. He became the lowest of them all. The highest One came to the lowest place and carried out the most accursed work.

The One who is to be glorified with God died on the cross. Doesn’t that seem strange? But that’s the gospel. Why did the One who is equally God be cursed? Why did He come to this earth, carry the cross, and suffer to be cursed and mocked by men? What is the reason? He did that for us. Originally, we were the objects of the curse. But God commanded His Son to bear it: “You take the curse!” This is like a mother’s heart. “My son, let the curse come to me. Only you be blessed!” This is a mother’s heart. That is what our God is like.

Don’t you want to be close to this God? You will suffer tremendously if you become close with an evil god. How much do people who are demon-possessed curse their own selves? In the Bible is a story of a demon-possessed man who harmed himself with a stone. However, God is very different. He is full of love. And to believe this truth is the gospel. God sent His Son to pay the price of all our sins and saved us. Whoever believes that and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe already stands condemned. He stands judged for ‘a sinner will be condemned’. Formerly, we were sinners deserving of condemnation and judgment. But if anyone believes that all of our sins and thus our curses have been taken away by Jesus Christ, they will no longer have to pay the price of his sin.

Recently I went to a restaurant, and when I finished eating, the owner said to me, “You don’t need to pay for your meal. Someone else already paid for it!” “Who was it?” “They said they are a church member and want to pay for the pastor’s food.” So what would I do? Do I pay for my meal anyway? I don’t need to pay. But if I didn’t believe what the owner said, I would still pay for it, wouldn’t I? I didn’t see them for me. I didn’t even see that person eating in the restaurant. But since I believed what the owner said, I didn’t have to pay for the cost. If I refused to believe it, I would’ve had to pay for it myself.

It’s the same as that. God paid the price of our sins. If you don’t believe that, then you will have to pay for it again. You will perish. So you must believe. If you believe, you don’t have to pay the price and can step out boldly. This is gospel.

Jesus also said, “These signs will accompany those who believe in the gospel,” meaning that they will have testimonies. What kind of testimonies? Jesus said, “In My name, they will drive out demons.” You heard from the previous testimony shared, didn’t you? All who believe in Jesus can do that. “You will lay hands on the sick, and they will get well.” If God is not living, then nothing will happen, though we put our hands on the sick. But since God is living, He keeps that promise.

When I first came to our church, I was in my 3rd year of university. At that time, the overseer Pastor Ki-Dong Kim preached about the power of the believers of Jesus Christ. He especially talked about this:  Lay your hands on the sick and they will be well. Three months after listening to that sermon, I went to the army. The sermon that left the most powerful impression for me during those three months was about the power given to the believers of Jesus. In the army, if I saw anyone unwell, I’d ask, “Do you want me to pray for you?” If they consented, I laid my hand on them and prayed for them. When a person complained of a headache, I laid my hand on his head and prayed; if someone was suffering from back pain, I laid my hand on their back and prayed. And so naturally, on many occasions, their reaction was, “Wow, it doesn’t hurt anymore!”

It had only been three months since I started to believe in Jesus that I saw these results. Because I put the word into practice from the moment I started to believe and thus saw the results immediately, I thought it was a matter of course. I never thought it was such a remarkable thing. I just thought it was natural. So while I was in the army, I evangelized a lot. Later on, I evangelized almost ten people a day. It was really joyful to do that within the small army base.

As I continued fervently, despite being a new believer myself, news about me spread. In the army is something called a chaplain roll call. Usually roll call is done before bedtime, where each person’s name is called out, go over a few guidelines, and then we sleep. But with a religion roll call, they call out, “All Christians, into the barracks room 1!” And they have a worship service. They might call, “Buddhists, into barracks room 2!” They read their Buddhist scriptures. And they call the Catholics into room 3. But there were a lot of people in room 1 because there were many Christians.

One day, all of a sudden, I was told to lead the service that day. I myself was a new believer and not even a sergeant. It had only been a year since I came to the army, and I was only a private first class, so there were many senior officers above me. But I was told on the spot, “You lead this service!” which did make me nervous, but I stood up thinking it was an opportunity given by God. And the scary senior officers were staring at me. I wondered what I should speak about. I felt like I needed to leave an impactful impression. So out of all the many things I could’ve spoken about, I spoke of how one can drive out demons if he believes in Jesus. It was to leave an impact.

I remembered from the church camp that when the overseer Ki-Dong Kim spoke about demons, people started to feel nervous and tremble, and when they were asked to come forward, the demons manifested. So while they are coming forward, the demons flee.

Thus, I thought, ‘Since I need to make the demons manifest, I’m sure if I keep talking about demons, somebody will get scared!’ and I spoke about demons for a long time. Then I said, “If any of you are nervous or feeling anxious, please come forward. I will drive out the demon!” But there was a moment of silence. “Please come forward!” Silence again. Nobody even budged, and it was dead silent. That short moment felt as long as 30 minutes. After around 3 minutes had passed, my face was already red, and I was thinking, ‘What should I do? What do I do about this?’ But then one senior officer came forward, saying, “I want to!”

Until then, I had never driven out a demon. I just mimicked what Pastor Ki-Dong Kim did, and as soon as he came forward, I looked into his eyes and called, “Hey demon~ demon~.” For about 3 minutes I was saying, “Hey demon~” but the person didn’t even budge. I asked, “You don’t feel anxious?” “No.” At that time the rest of the people were yawning and saying, “Oh, we need to go to sleep…” As I was standing there sweating, I think he was the first sergeant, he came and said, “Hey, why don’t we stop here?” So we just finished the service like that. We had prayer and wrapped it up. My face was burning hot, and I felt awful. ‘How can I face them tomorrow!’ I wanted to display God’s glory only to realize, ‘Oh I must lack in power greatly!’

Then the next morning arrived. Someone came to see me even before breakfast time. He came to me privately but couldn’t speak very well. A senior officer came and asked, “Hey, pray for me! My throat’s been hurting for days. Pray for my throat. I heard you talking about driving out demons yesterday. Drive out the demon from me!” It seemed that what I said had touched at least one person’s heart.

So I needed to take him somewhere to drive out the demon, but where? It was around 6:30 in the morning. After searching for a suitable place, we went to the toilet since it was a bit isolated. The toilets were located outside, but they weren’t flushing toilets. They just had holes in the ground. There were about 10 cubicles inside, and we went into one of them. I asked him to take his cap off and his glasses, and we faced each other. We could easily fall into the hole if we weren’t careful. I looked at him and cursed the demon, “Hey demon!” As I got a bit carried away with driving out the demon, I became confident and shouted, “You! Get out! Hey you! Get out!” Then suddenly the door opened and a voice said, “What are you two doing? I caught you! I just witnessed beating!” One of the generals took us to the security department, saying he had seen a beating.

If the matter goes over to the military police, it would become very serious. That was a time when there was a strong call for no beating in the military. And I, the lower ranked officer, was caught grabbing a senior officer by his collar, having taken off his hat and glasses already, appearing as though I was about to beat him. So I was caught red-handed. No matter how much I explained, who would believe that it was to drive out a demon? I said, “Any Christian would know what I’m talking about. It’s written about in the Bible.” “Can anyone testify to that?” “The military chaplain would know!”

However, that chaplain was someone who hated the Berea and demonology. He often told me not to come to dawn prayer. Yet I had no choice but to call for him. The general asked him, “Is there such thing as driving out demons in the Bible or not?” This chaplain had always said, “Driving out demons is wrong!” But when the sergeant asked, “Is there the casting out of demons in the Bible or not?”, what do you think was his answer? He could only answer that there is. Although he himself was against it, it is still found in the Bible. So he answered, “Yes, it is in the Bible.” “So these guys are saying they were driving out demons. Is that in line with the Bible?” “Yes, it is.” It was really unexpected. This person, who usually criticized it harshly, said with his own lips that it is in the Bible and that what we were doing was in line with the Bible. It was truly remarkable.

So we were let go. We were allowed to go back but we didn’t remain in the barracks room. Instead, we said, “Let’s look for another location!” And we headed to the boiler room in the basement. Nobody was there. And it is very soundproof. When I called out, “Hey demon!” and cursed it a few times, the demon in him did manifest. He convulsed and then fell backwards. That was my first experience of driving out a demon. I had driven out a demon for the first time ever since I believed in Jesus. And it felt so satisfying because the demon finally left after we went through those ordeals.

Then he got up, so I said, “Let’s give thanks in prayer!” But he thought I was telling him to pray. Suddenly he started praying, and this person who could hardly talk a moment ago had his voice back to normal. He prayed, “Father God!” Not only was the demon driven out but, after it left, the abnormality in his throat was brought back to normal.

Since that was the first time I cast out a demon, it gave me great encouragement so that for my remaining time in the army, I got to drive out demons often. As a result, I had more and more experience. Later on, I came to face sicknesses that I had not even thought of healing. After I finished my term in the army, I drove out a demon from a blind person, and the eyes of the blind were opened after prayer. A crippled person started walking as well. While I was in China as a missionary, there were many people in such conditions in every village. Thus, I got to have many opportunities to experience healing such people.

All of these things are written in the Bible. It is not only for me, but anyone who believes in Jesus is given this promise. If it doesn’t happen by praying once, then pray twice. If it still doesn’t work, pray three times. If still nothing happens, continuously pray to be given more power.

We who believe in Jesus possess a new power. Not only has our identity changed, but now we also have new power. In the family and in our everyday life, how many sicknesses arise? How many accidents occur? People are worried that they might die. They are also worried that they will have to pay a fortune if they go to the hospital. But we can live without such worries. Of course, there are occasions when it may not go as well, no matter how hard you try. But in numerous instances, we experience many times the problem being taken care of by prayer.

When my son was in preschool, he was walking when suddenly he collapsed and couldn’t get up. I thought he was going to be crippled. I was worried for a moment then came to my senses, “In Jesus’ name I command! Get up!” And he immediately got up. I said, “Run!” And he began to run. We don’t know if he could’ve become crippled that day. But in such a simple way, he got up.

You have already been given that power. Just take much of it and use it. The way to do that is prayer. In Jesus’ name, I bless you to be filled with God-given power. Let’s pray.

Father God, thank you for pouring upon us the spiritual power of heaven. Help us to live a powerful life through which testify of Your living existence and bring glory to You. In Jesus’ name. Amen!