Jesus casts out an unclean spirit

23 And there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit; and he cried out,

24 Saying, Let us alone; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God.

25 And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Hold thy peace, and come out of him.

26 And when the unclean spirit had torn him, and cried with a loud voice, he came out of him. (Mark 1:23-26)

One observation frequently made about this story is that the unclean spirits recognize Jesus, not having a veil over their memory. But if you notice, that knowledge doesn’t do any good.  The effect they have on the man they have possessed is to torment him, making him think he can have nothing to do with Jesus, as if Jesus is some different kind of person and that He has come to destroy all the wicked.  The man seems to have had an over-consciousness of his sins combined with despair, a view that he could expect no help from Jesus.

But once Jesus cast the unclean spirit out, the man knew Jesus could help him. Unclean spirits want to paralyze people with a sense of their unworthiness to keep them from getting the spiritual help they need.

Now, here’s a question – if the text had not labeled this man as having an unclean spirit, would we have been able to tell that was his problem? (Read through it, covering up the label, and see.) Could we have known from his words and behavior what his problem was?   I suspect this story is in the scriptures exactly so that we can learn to recognize and diagnose this problem.

Here’s another question—If we ever recognize this kind of spirit in ourselves, can we discern that and cast it out?  Because it must be cast out in order to exert the faith for salvation.

I think this story should help us learn discernment so we can recognize when we are under the influence of this kind of unclean spirit so we can escape. It is hard to escape that sort of thing if you think it is you instead of realizing it is a spiritual influence. Remember, it is not you.  Cast it out. Tell Satan where to get off.

Gadianton robbers dyed in blood

Sometimes I find clues about the Book of Mormon in the oddest places.

I found a Nanowrimo forum thread in which the first poster asked if it was possible for things to be dyed in blood.  At first I thought, yes because I remembered there was a verse in the Book of Mormon about how the Gadianton robbers attacking the Nephites in 3 Nephi were dyed in blood.

But, there are some science things to consider-- assuming the blood was left in for long periods of time, the blood would eventually coagulate and get sticky, turn dark brown. 

In order for the Gadianton robbers to retain their alarming appearance, they would have to constantly wash or splash themselves in new blood.

Or it might just look like blood.

So, how did the Gadianton’s acquire their appearance at the beginning of the battle of being dyed in blood?

Here was a comment from a Nanowrimo participant:

“If you are interested in dye from corpuses, your character could have made a dye from pau brasil tree. Its [sic] the plant that named Brasil and its [sic] sap is bright red - if you hack the tree it looks like its bleeding. The sap is such a powerful dye that the tree nearly went extinct because portuguese colonizers would cut it down to make dye for Europe.. Not as powerful as blood dye, but it could work. “  (Flavia Denise, http://nanowrimo.org/forums/reference-desk/threads/193281)

Let's get a visual here. We like pictures..

https://www.flickr.com/photos/visicou/4477155858

https://www.flickr.com/photos/gttexas/3405206553

This suggests that the Gadianto robbers had access to the Pau-Brasil/Brazilwood tree and dyed their garments in it so as to achieve the effect of fearsomeness that made them so intimidating.