Pushing Back Darkness: Why Deliverance Reveals the Mission

Matthew 10:8 says:

“Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give.”

That verse has troubled me for years until today.

Every time I heard it, I thought Jesus must be getting the order wrong.

 1. Heal the sick, that’s fine.

 2. Raise the dead, okay, intense.

 3. Drive out demons, and I’d think, “Surely this should come before raising the dead. Casting out demons feels easier, so why is it last?”

I’ve wrestled with that for a long time, until something clicked: casting out demons is listed last not because it is hardest, but because it is the most revealing. It makes explicit the real point of the mission. The goal is not merely to help people, though helping people is absolutely part of it. The goal is to push back the kingdom of darkness and advance the kingdom of God. Jesus’ headline message was, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

So the command list reads like this: healing, cleansing, even raising the dead, all of it serves the larger agenda. And then the agenda is named plainly: drive out demons. That is kingdom displacement.

Two levels are happening at once

Level 1: Kingdom displacing kingdoms

Level 2: Healing, restoration, and favor to people

I used to wonder why “raise the dead” isn’t last, because it sounds like the greatest miracle in the list. But “drive out demons” is last because it’s the mission statement in action: the kingdom of light overtaking the kingdom of darkness. Healing and cleansing are not random acts of compassion, they are signs that God’s reign is pressing in.

This also lines up with Luke’s account. Jesus sends them on the same kind of mission, and when they return, His response is telling: He says He saw Satan fall like lightning. The emphasis isn’t, “Wow, did you see how much you helped people?” The emphasis is, “Did you see what happened in the unseen realm while you obeyed?” Then He recalibrates them again: don’t rejoice primarily that spirits submit, rejoice that your names are written in heaven. In other words: yes, authority matters, but belonging to the kingdom matters even more.

Mark’s picture: believers as agents, not spectators

In Mark, the focus is not believers as mere recipients of miracles, comfort, and prosperity, as much of modern church culture has drifted toward, but believers as participants in the mission. “Believers will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.” And it doesn’t stop there: new tongues, authority over “serpents” and spiritual opposition, which echoes Jesus’ language in Luke 10:19 and the imagery of Psalm 91:13. The point is not stunt religion. The point is spiritual authority in kingdom advance.

Someone once pointed out something that helps: Jesus often doesn’t separate healing and deliverance, He weaves them together. In Scripture, physical restoration and spiritual liberation frequently travel as a pair. That should correct us when we treat them as competing categories. By the Spirit we have given people breakthroughs but lost Eternity mindset.

The gospel must not be reduced

So the gospel carries these two levels:

 1. Expansion of the kingdom, the replacement of darkness with God’s rule

 2. Healing, deliverance, and salvation, God’s mercy landing on real human need

Level 2 is often the entry point. Level 1 is the objective.

That’s why camping on prosperity, healing, or even deliverance as the end goal is a major miss. Those things are beautiful and real, but when they become the destination, the message shrinks. Tools become trophies. Signs become the center. Crowds become the compass.

Healing, benevolence, favor, and meeting needs is good, but if you stop here, you are just running a spiritual NGO.

The healing and the miracles are tools to reach the ultimate goal: Regime Change.

A preacher is not called primarily to elevate people’s self image. A preacher is called to represent and advance the kingdom. You are not a motivational speaker. You are a kingdom agent.

Yes, people may reward you on earth. But heaven is your true reference point. An ambassador’s primary employer is not the host nation. The mission is defined by the government that sent them.

And many kingdom ambassadors get entangled in the affairs of the host country, popularity, platform, money, applause, image. When that happens, the mission drifts. And if the drift continues, correction comes, sometimes replacement, sometimes recall.

Why Jesus didn’t camp at miracles

Jesus did miracles constantly, but He didn’t build His identity on them. Often, after signs and crowds, He withdrew. Why? Because He carried the bigger picture. When you operate at Level 1, you don’t turn wheelchairs into trophies. You don’t get puffed up when God moves. You’re grateful, but you’re not obsessed, because the prize is not the spectacle. The prize is kingdom expansion.

We’ve made mistakes before, even mistakes that came from genuine blessing. We made miracles, healings, and breakthroughs “the message,” instead of seeing them as instruments to an end.

For the person who receives a miracle, it is right to dwell on it, thank God, testify, and remember His goodness.

But the preacher cannot live there, because for the preacher, the real “miracle” is not merely that something happened to someone. The real miracle is that the reign of God advanced through obedience.

A diagnostic question that recenters everything

Ask yourself:

Where is the kingdom of God in all this activity, and is it actually moving forward?

Because you can “advance” in one area, miracles, crowds, visibility, while diminishing the kingdom through another, character, compromise, private sin, manipulation, pride. If your framework is only Level 2, serving people, then private life can start to feel optional. But at Level 1, it’s not optional at all.

At Level 1, both outcomes and methods matter. Not just what you did, but how you did it, and what spirit it came from.

It’s possible to do spiritual ministry in the flesh. Yes spiritual but in the flesh.

Why deliverance points beyond itself

Finally, deliverance is not merely about removing hindrances to someone’s comfort or prosperity. Demons don’t only harass individuals, they occupy territory. And territory must be reclaimed. That’s why deliverance is not the end, it points forward. In the storyline of the new covenant, the goal is not just an empty house. The goal is occupation by the Spirit.

So yes, casting out demons is last in that list because it makes the mission explicit: kingdom replacement. And after the cross, that replacement goes even further: not only darkness expelled, but the Holy Spirit filling, governing, and establishing God’s presence in people and communities.

Heal the sick. Raise the dead. Cleanse the unclean. Drive out demons.

Freely you received. Freely give.

Not as a show.

Not as an end in itself.

But as an advance of the King and His kingdom