I am writing today from the beautiful Tampa Bay area.

Mark does not spend any time on Jesus’ birth of childhood and goes straight to Jesus’ ministry. Makes me wonder if Mark just didn’t like kids or something.

And there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit; and he cried out,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. And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Hold thy peace, and come out of him. And when the unclean spirit had torn him, and cried with a loud voice, he came out of him. And they were all amazed, insomuch that they questioned among themselves, saying, What thing is this? what new doctrine is this? for with authority commandeth he even the unclean spirits, and they do obey him. Mark 1:23-27

Isaiah 59:1 says that our sins separate us from God. God does not separate Himself from sinners. Sinners separate themselves from God. God can dwell with sin, but sin can not dwell with God. God did not run from Adam when Adam sinned. Adam ran from God. In this story we see the demoniac telling Jesus to leave Him alone. Jesus does not tell the demoniac to leave Him alone. God loves sinners, but sinners hate God. This is why God sent His Son to die for them and thus win their love back to Him.

In his sinless state, man held joyful communion with Him “in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” Colossians 2:3. But after his sin, he could no longer find joy in holiness, and he sought to hide from the presence of God. Such is still the condition of the unrenewed heart. It is not in harmony with God, and finds no joy in communion with Him. 

 The sinner could not be happy in God’s presence; he would shrink from the companionship of holy beings. Could he be permitted to enter heaven, it would have no joy for him. The spirit of unselfish love that reigns there—every heart responding to the heart of Infinite Love—would touch no answering chord in his soul. His thoughts, his interests, his motives, would be alien to those that actuate the sinless dwellers there. He would be a discordant note in the melody of heaven. Heaven would be to him a place of torture; he would long to be hidden from Him who is its light, and the center of its joy.  It is no arbitrary decree on the part of God that excludes the wicked from heaven; they are shut out by their own unfitness for its companionship. The glory of God would be to them a consuming fire. They would welcome destruction, that they might be hidden from the face of Him who died to redeem them.—Steps to Christ, p 17.

But he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul: all they that hate me love death.  Proverbs 8:36