“7 Jesus departed with His disciples to the sea, and a large crowd followed from Galilee, Judea, 8 Jerusalem, Idumea, beyond the Jordan, and around Tyre and Sidon. The large crowd came to Him because they heard about everything He was doing. 9 Then He told His disciples to have a small boat ready for Him, so the crowd would not crush Him. 10 Since He had healed many, all who had diseases were pressing toward Him to touch Him. 11 Whenever the unclean spirits saw Him, those possessed fell down before Him and cried out, “You are the Son of God!” 12 And He would strongly warn them not to make Him known.”
Mark 3:7-12
—
Throughout the course of His ministry, Jesus had occasions like this where He didn’t want His identity confirmed or a piece of information revealed. At the Transfiguration, for example, He told Peter, James & John not to speak about what they saw until after His resurrection. Here, in Mark 3, there are demons trying to say who He is, testifying to His identity. And these two situations are very different when it comes to sharing revelations and witnesses.

About two weeks ago, I saw an article about the Boko Haram terror group, and there was a picture of two of the jihadists standing in front of a Toyota truck. Now, the truck looked like it had been put through its paces, it was dirty and you could tell they had been driving through some really tough spots. The harsh driving conditions make for a good ad for Toyota. The terrorists basically saying, “This is my car of choice.” is a bad advertisement for Toyota. If anyone from the Toyota corporation saw the ad, they were probably thinking something along the lines of, “Why couldn’t it have been a Range Rover, or any of the other make, rather than our truck and emblem right there under their flag?”

And who could blame them? Nobody wants an endorsement from the wrong kind of sponsor. And that’s what’s going on here in Mark 3. It’s not that Jesus doesn’t want people knowing He’s the Son of God, it’s that he doesn’t need the endorsement from a demon to help bring people to the understanding. It’s the wrong witness, the wrong kind of confirmation. No one needs to have the pivotal moment in their faith confirmed by the words of a devil. It’s a bad foundation that sows seeds of doubt rather the reinforce and encourage.

The witness that you and I bear for Christ as we GoLove others in His Name matters. Our consistent, daily living for Him needs to be something that provides an accurate witness. So many people apart from Christ have done so many things ‘supposedly’ under the banner and auspices of Christ that have -nothing- to do with Him that people get a bad taste in their mouth when it comes to Him and His church. From that person in the office who claims to be a Christian, but holds the most bitterness in their heart or winds up being the office gossip, to the people who bombed abortion clinics or shot the ‘doctors’ there, to the infamous Crusades, there have been so many poor representations of Christ that they are painful to hear about and so often used in arguments about what evils the Church has committed by those who do not know the difference. But those are bad witnesses, witnesses that we wouldn’t accept as legitimate and that we don’t want people to think about or to include in their understanding when they are thinking about Jesus and His bride, the Church.

Peter, James and John’s witness to His Transfiguration needed to come later, at a time when people could use the encouragement and direction. Their witness was simply a matter of timing. But the witness that comes from a wrong source is the type of witness that Jesus simply didn’t want or need.
We should all pray that people can see the difference, and do our best to separate Christ’s Church from these poor examples when we share our witness with others.