Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 792
Delivered on Lord’s-Day Morning, January 26, 1868, by.
“Mary Magdalene, out of whom He had cast seven devils.’” Mark 16:9.
EXPERIMENTAL preaching, when truthful, is almost always profitable. As the spouse of old desired to see the footsteps of the flock, so souls in distress are always happy to observe the proofs that others have trod that same pathway before. It may be, and I trust it shall be, that while we are speaking upon the life of Magdalene and showing how the Lord was pleased to lead her up from the depths of mental distress to the heights of spiritual joy, some who may be in like circumstances may be led to hope that for them, also, there may be deliverance. And others who have already received like favors may have their grateful recollections refreshed, and may be made to bless the Lord who brought them up out of the horrible pit and out of the miry clay, and has now set their feet upon a rock. We shall begin with Mary of Magdalene here. God began with her in a way of effectual Grace.
I. Mary Magdalene furnishes us, in the first place, with A MELANCHOLY INSTANCE OF SATANIC POWER. She does not appear to have been a great sinner. It is scarcely possible, and certainly very improbable., that she could have been a transgressor in the sense in which the term “Magdalene” is generally understood. Custom has attached the title of Magdalene to those who have forfeited their good name by open sins against the Seventh Commandment. Mistaken though it is, let the name always remain as the sole treasure of fallen women, for, if we can give them one honorable designation to act as a shield, pray let them have it, for the world is cold enough and scornful enough towards such offenders.
It is worth while, however, to declare for the honor of Mary Magdalene, that she was no Magdalene in the modern sense. It could scarcely have been so. She was probably a raving demoniac, therefore not at all likely to fall into the sins of the flesh. We are never told of her that she was a great sinner, in fact not a word is said against her personal character. We are simply informed that she was possessed with seven devils, which is an affliction rather than a crime. I do not deny that sin may have prepared her for the Satanic possession and was, no doubt, also occasioned by it, but she is not brought before us in Scripture as a transgressor, nor is she the representative of great offenders, but rather the type of a class of persons who for years are sorely vexed in heart, greatly depressed in spirit, heavily burdened with despondency, bound with chains of melancholy, subject to distracting forebodings, to alarms of coming wrath and to a despair insuperable.
Mary Magdalene represents those who have come under the tormenting and distracting power of Satan, and whose lamp of joy is quenched in tenfold night. They are imprisoned not so much in the dens of sin as in the dungeons of sorrow—not so criminal as they are wretched—nor so depraved as they are desolate. We do not, with any certainty, understand the precise nature of being possessed with the devil. Holy Scripture has not been pleased to acquaint us with the philosophy of possessions, but we know what the outward symptoms were. Persons possessed with devils were unhappy. They found the gloom of the sepulcher to be their most congenial resort. They were unsocial and solitary. If they were permitted, they broke away from all those dear associations of the family circle which give half the charms to life—they delighted to wander in dry places, seeking rest and finding none—they were pictures of misery, images of woe.
Such was the seven times unhappy Magdalene, for into her there had entered a complete band of devils. She was overwhelmed with seven seas of agony, loaded with seven manacles of despair, encircled with seven walls of fire! Neither day nor night afforded her rest. Her brain was on fire and her soul foamed like a boiling caldron. Miserable soul! No dove of hope brought the olive branch of peace to her forlorn spirit. She sat in the darkness and saw no light—her dwelling was in the Valley of the Shadow of Death. Among all the women of Magdala there was none more wretched than she, the unhappy victim of restless and malicious demons.
Those who were possessed with these evil spirits were defiled thereby, as well as made unhappy—for a heart cannot become a kennel for the hounds of Hell without being rendered filthy and polluted. I suppose that in addition to the natural corruptions which would be in Mary as well us in ourselves, there would be more than human nimbleness to evil, a vivacity, an outspokenness about all her sinful propensities which only the indwelling fiend could give. Satan being within would be sure to stir up the coals of impure thoughts and evil desires, so that the fire of sin would burn vehemently. Her inner self may have been sorely troubled with such excess of wickedness, but she was without power to dampen the furnace of her mind. She would be incessantly assaulted by unearthly profanities and hideous suggestions— not as with us, proceeding from the devil without, who is a dreaded antagonist—but from seven devils within who had entrenched themselves upon a dreadful vantage ground.