0:00 Isn't it a joy to sing among people who believe what they're singing? Amen. And you believe this word, do you not? Amen. Amen.
0:08 So we come together to Mark chapter five as we continue in our study of this book. Mark five. Let's begin together in verse one. They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Jerusines. And when Jesus had stepped out of the boat, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit.
0:49 He lived among the tombs and no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain, for he had often been bound with shackles and chains, but he wrenched the chains apart and he broke the shackles in pieces. No one had the strength to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains, he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones. Lord, this is your word and we believe your word. This is your voice and in so many places in your word you've told us to to hear.
1:35 Help us hear. Would your holy spirit help us hear? And would your holy spirit help the delivery of this word to be faithful, pure, the way you intended it to be delivered. Free from confusion, free from man's interpretation. Lord, would you be blessed this afternoon by what you see and hear in this place and more importantly what will come about this meeting.
2:02 In Jesus' name, amen. If you've been with us for a while, you know that it is our custom. Fridays and Sundays that when we teach the word, we tend to take smaller portions of scripture and to expand on them rather than digesting larger portions of the word at one time. But occasionally, it is helpful, it is beneficial to look at the entirety of a scene and to communicate a truth from the entirety of a scene without interruption. And that is what we will seek to accomplish today.
2:41 The miracle that we are ready to explore in this chapter is, when you compare it to the rest of the word of God, the most exhaustive and detailed account of Jesus exercising a demon from a man. It is a total of 20 verses as you're going to see, and this account is so important to the Lord that the Holy Spirit had it included by Matthew and by Luke as well. And so we have three witnesses, so to speak, of this one event. Matthew has a little different detail. Matthew tells us that there wasn't just one man who was possessed with the devil, there were two men who were possessed with devils.
3:25 Take heart there's no contradiction here because the spirit obviously led Mark and Luke to focus on Jesus's encounter with one of the two men, and it seems as though that one man was the dominant one out of the two in this confrontation, in this dramatic conflict between holy and evil. Now before getting into the details, I think it's worth asking what value, what message does this miracle provide us? And if there is one thing I can say apart from the fact that it's just another testament of the absolute power of Jesus Christ, we see here that it is safe to say that the Lord in coming to this moment with such dramatic rescue is to demonstrate his great and strong love that he has for people. Humanity is not just one category in creation on the same level of different classes of the universe. Jesus loves people personally.
4:36 The creator of all things, your creator loves you beyond comprehension. And you see so many signs of that throughout the bible, ultimately climaxing at the cross, yes, but just even little instances of God's interaction with us who are created in his image. I mean, I look at the old testament and I see how the Lord at times makes great effort to ensure that certain people were identified with a certain name. And we see how many occasions of this awesome God whom the heavens cannot contain, the earth is his footstool, and yet this God gives us direct access to his throne through prayer, and there there is this reception that he has and we have this direct line with our maker. It was Moses who said in Deuteronomy four seven, what other great nation is there who has a God as near to them as our God is near to us whenever we call upon him.
5:43 Oh, yeah. Many religions expect their people to pray, but our faith, we believe God hears us and that he has answered us and he will answer us when we pray. And this unexplainable affection that almighty God has for us is now presented in a unique fashion here in this record before us in this chapter. We see the Lord Jesus coming to this man's rescue, and I wanna remind you from last week that it was Jesus's idea to go to this side of the lake at the end of a very tiring day. It was Jesus who said to his own, let us go to the other side.
6:30 Why? Why did he propose this campaign? Why did he advocate this voyage? It was because he knew that there was a man waiting on the other side, and oh, Jesus wanted to meet him. Jesus wanted to meet him.
6:47 Jesus wanted to deliver him. And think about it. After teaching, after rebuking, after absorbing the scorn and the slander of his enemies, after healing and delivering, at the evening, what was on the heart of the master? We must not wait. Let us go to the other side.
7:10 I have a divine appointment with someone. And though he did not include that part, he was walking according to the perfect steps of the will of the father. And now he comes here eagerly making his way to this tormented soul in order to bring relief once and for all. That's a glorious truth. That's a glorious truth, and with that glorious truth is another message that this miracle provides.
7:36 And I, here's my prayer. My prayer is not just for us to to study this from a distance and to appreciate clever points therein. It's for you to realize that the same Jesus that we're discussing today is the same Jesus who can perform the same work in your life, in the lives of others. Because what the Lord here is going to do is demonstrate to his disciples and to his disciples today that he alone offers hope to the most hopeless cases you can imagine. There are many reasons why this is the most exhaustive account of a demoniac being saved, and I think for the purpose of the study, the the reason that we must consider is that as you realize the description of the devastation of this man, you would be impressed to sense what a mess, What a hopeless case.
8:40 And yet you would also see, but Christ can solve it. And Christ can rescue and restore the most ruined situation you can possibly imagine. And that is what you and I will do today. This message I pray will impart a faith and a hope in you, Not just for someone else because it's possible that even today you are in bondage. Someone listening to this is an absolute bondage.
9:16 And I tell you right from the beginning of this message as I preach it, that Christ brings hope to the hopeless. And so we will look together at the ruin of the man. We will also look at the rescue of the man. And finally, we will look at the renewal of the man. And so we read the first five verses, which give us three main characteristics of just how miserable this fellow was.
9:42 Let's look at it again. We see here that the first thing Mark tells us that's worth noting, in verse two, and when Jesus had stepped out of the boat, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit. He lived among the tombs. He did not live by the tombs. He did not live around the tombs, but among the tombs.
10:11 This man was led by unclean spirits to make his abiding place among the dead. Now, personally, you couldn't give me anything to just take a stroll through a cemetery at night. Never mind make your bed there. And yet this is what we see of this man. The host of these vile spirits caused this poor soul to be separated from his home, to be disconnected from his friends, to be removed from any human decency for shelter and comfort, and is now resting among corpses.
10:53 His neighbors were skeletons. And there is no doubt that the location of this man's residence is something of an indication of the condition of his own life. This man is a walking dead man. He is a walking dead man, And we see here very clearly that he is living what perhaps you have heard others say or maybe you've even said it. That person is as good as dead.
11:24 That situation is as good as dead. Implying that it is possible to be in a predicament in life with irreversible consequences that will inevitably lead to self destruction at some point. And this man's poor condition was so severe that it really did not make much of a difference whether he was alive or if he had just dropped dead at any moment. His his situation, his future was so bleak, so without hope and light that he might as well have just died anyway. He had nothing to look forward to.
12:03 He would never attend his kids graduations if he had kids. He would never be invited to any dinners. He would never have a job. There were just absolutely nothing for this man to live for. And yes, we can say that this is what demons have done in him, but there are people who are doing it to themselves.
12:22 Who are walking in this life absolutely hollow like a shell. They're there, but they're not there. There's no purpose, there's no sense of meaning, they're just giving themselves over to ruin day after day after day, and at any time, perhaps you know someone like this, you feel like you're gonna get that call and learn he's gone. She's gone. This is what we're dealing with with this man.
12:54 He lived among the tombs. But secondly, we read something here also found in verse three and four. We read here in verse four, for he had often been bound with shackles and chains, but he wrenched the chains apart and he broke the shackles in pieces. When you look at this man's behavior, it is obvious that he was a threat to others. Not only was he tormented, he was a terrorizer.
13:22 He wreaked havoc. He was dangerous. And we don't know exactly what kind of danger he posed, but come with me quickly to Matthew's version in Matthew eight, and look at this important insight about this man's erratic behavior. Matthew eight twenty eight. Matthew says, by the spirit, and when he came to the other side, that being Jesus, to the country of the Gadarenes, two demon possessed men met him coming out of the tombs so fierce that no one could pass that way.
14:05 So fierce that no one could pass that way. This guy, he he lived in a certain region where you would take the longer route home in order to avoid any eye contact with. It's clear here that whatever he did, he made life harder to live for others. And so difficult was this man that there were great attempts to try to restrain him. He was a menace to society.
14:37 He made people very uncomfortable. He made perhaps work and travel unnecessarily difficult. And so these ideas, these schemes, these mechanics, up to the point where they got so desperate that they chained him like a wild animal, but to no avail. Every time they strapped his wrist and his ankles, he would just shake it off like it was nothing. And so you get the impression that these people just gave up and they just avoided them altogether.
15:12 And though this man was inhabited by evil spirits, right, it's obvious that he's able to do this because he has superhuman strength energized by evil spirits, and what I see here is though the failed attempts is due to that, these chains are symbolic of something. They point to figurative chains. They they speak of man made solutions to try to subdue and solve that which only God can answer. And whether it is demonic powers or the passions of the flesh, ultimately, whatever ideas man comes up with, we are incapable in our own strength to bring about true and lasting deliverance. And this man here who's being encouraged to destroy others, yes, it is because of demons, but I wanna tell you that sin is so powerful that you have people destroying themselves without the help of any demons.
16:21 They're doing a fine job themselves. Doing a fine job themselves. How many are being pounded by drugs? How many are choosing alcohol as their spirit of choice? How many who do not need the assistance of vile fallen angels are driving their marriages and their families to the ground because of uncontrolled lusts and sexual immorality.
16:57 This is more than just unable to rescue a man who is being controlled by demons. We're looking out into the world, and yes, demons are still working, but there are people who are destroying others and themselves just because of their submission to the flesh. Now think about all the solutions that secularism tries to provide. To bring some kind of relief, to put some kind of a halt on the erosion in people's homes to themselves, in our schools, in our politics. Think about all the counseling.
17:32 There's a great, great, great need for counselors today, but think about all the counseling without Christ. Think about all the identity politics and all the messages of being your true self, but divorced from the foundational concept of being made in the image of God. Think about all the harmony that we're trying to pursue without the Holy Spirit. Think about all the substances that we are prescribing that have no true saving virtue. And so we want peace without the prince of peace.
18:12 We want salvation without the Lord who alone can save. And it will only continue to get worse and the chains will only pile up more and more as long as Jesus is not in the picture. The apostle Paul highlights one of those figurative chains when he speaks to the Colossian church and he's trying to redirect what true holiness is in their belief system, and I wanna show you one of those things in Colossians two twenty three. These Christians were being intimidated by false teachers of what true spirituality looked like, and what it means to truly be victorious and truly mean to be pleasing to God. And Paul says something with the insight that he received about these false teachers, and he corrects this church.
18:59 In Colossians two twenty three, these have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self made religion and asceticism and severity to the body. Now look at this, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh. What is Paul saying here? Even if you subject yourself to intense and extensive fasting, even if you isolate yourself and bring about intentional discomfort to your body, depriving yourself of social, mental, emotional needs, no matter what you do that seems to be wise and effective is in fact futile. Legalism doesn't work.
19:54 Disconnecting yourself from day to day living and parking your home in some mountain away from civilization ain't gonna cut it. It does not have the power to stop the indulgences of the flesh. Listen, true freedom is not what you or others imposing on you can do. True freedom is submitting and realizing that by faith only Christ can set me free. That's true freedom.
20:25 So solutions apart from the wisdom of the word of God, salvation apart from the gospel, peace apart from the prince of peace, it's all a waste of time. And just like these men who who obviously didn't catch on to it right away, We're running around here using psychological and philosophical ideas to try to bring submission and true transformation to others when all we're really doing is medicating people who might have demons and others who can't overcome what only Christ can overcome, and that is your flesh. There's still one more characteristic to consider about the misery of this lunatic. If you thought that he was messed up thus far, there's still more to consider and this insight we must underscore and it is found in verse five. Mark five five.
21:25 Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains, he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones. This man was filthy. This man was unclothed. I wonder what it was like to live in a nearby town or in a country home in the middle of the night. You would hear the shrieks of this devil filled man who had blood stained rocks around him and scars covering his body from top to bottom.
22:06 You might look at somebody and think, okay, there's something wrong with him if he was able to drive out everybody from his life because of his selfishness or his evil, but how much more hopeless can you get when you harm yourself? What kind of future does someone have when they voluntarily afflict pain to themselves? When they are their own enemy? When their own hands is capable of committing murder to themselves? Mankind has an innate sense of nurturing and protecting their own bodies.
22:53 That's not just true for Christians, that is true for humanity as a whole. Can I prove that to you? Go to Ephesians five quickly in 29. In Ephesians five, we know that passage where Paul gives in a large portion of that chapter instructions to husbands and wives and how they ought to serve one another in Christ likeness. And in Ephesians five twenty nine, he says something that I thought was interesting in light of what we're discovering with this man.
23:19 Ephesians five twenty nine reads, for no one ever hated his own flesh. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it just as Christ does the church. You see his logic here. When he says no one has ever hated his own flesh, he's not implying that no one ever has. What he's saying is that naturally speaking, when a man does have some soundness left in his mind, he takes care of himself.
23:53 Even your own body, the fact that you blink and the fact that you feel adrenaline when you're approaching danger, there is a wiring in you that seeks to protect you when you are in the presence of danger. And what what Paul is saying is in the same way that it is natural for you to take care of yourself, because you are in Christ, there there is a new conviction that you should grow into as a natural principle, and that is take care of your wife. She's she's part of your flesh now. You guys are one flesh. And so you now should protect her and nourish her and shelter her and supervise her.
24:31 But besides the point, we're not speaking about marriage here. Notice here that he says it's natural. No one has ever hated his own flesh. Now, if that is natural, then what do we say of someone who again intentionally afflicts themselves? They've crossed some kind of a line.
24:52 They've crossed some kind of a line. They've gone beyond what is natural and normal to something that is abnormal and very questionable concerning what is going on internally. And I wanna say something, and I hope you hear in compassion. My personality type is when I'm compassionate, I'm very passionate. There's strength in my voice and I flare my arms around.
25:19 But let me say this to anybody who is finding delusional solace, some kind of reprieve, some kind of rest in harming yourself. You'd be amazed to know not just Christians who contemplate suicide, but Christians who actively in secret hurt themselves. To try with that pain erase a greater pain. I say this to you in love. That's demonic.
25:59 That's not normal. That's not natural. And the reason why I present that to you is because your source is supernatural. If the reason for such behavior and thinking is also supernatural, then you can only combat it with that which is supernatural. And I present you the only solution, Christ.
26:24 Christ. To come in and to deliver you because Christ doesn't afflict greater pain to erase what you feel to be greater pain. That's not how that's not how he delivers. He washes you with peace. He assures you of love.
26:45 He gets in here and he does surgery to you and in you, and finally you were able to come off of that table of truth and realize I'm healed. I'm saved. I'm rescued. And so I want you to just step back as we consider the ruin of the man and just just contemplate it for a moment. The Holy Spirit presents us this person who is demented.
27:09 He's disfigured physically. He lacks any ounce of human decency, and virtually everyone who knows him or who knows about him has written him off, has given up on him. And by the design of that description, we are to feel the utter darkness that this man is living in. Until something happens, Christ appears. And that's what we see in verse six.
27:48 And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and fell down before him. And crying out with a loud voice, he said, what have you to do with me, Jesus, son of the most high God? I adjourn you by God, do not torment me, for he was saying to him, come out of the man, you unclean spirit. Here's Jesus with his disciples and they park their boat on the dock, and Christ places his holy feet on the same terrain that this man occupied and dominated. And here's this man filled with evil spirits charging towards Jesus, and I'm under the persuasion that from a distance he thinks now that he can shoo away this man, whoever he is, like he did so many who try to pass that way.
28:46 And yet, whether he knew it before or not, as he comes closer, he realizes that this man is different. More importantly, more specifically, the beings inside of him, they've seen this man before. And we're told here that the man ran and fell down before him. Do you realize how significant that is? That what chains and ropes and cuffs could not do, the appearance of the Son of God did.
29:37 When the Son of God just appeared, it made every single one of those critters crumble. His presence even without a command, without a word, without a touch, his presence alone exudes power. Oh, how we need his presence. Oh, how we need the manifest presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. That as Paul said could even cause the sinner appearing to their local church in their neighborhood and fall to their face and say surely God is among you.
30:16 New testament, that's not old testament. The presence of Christ brought this man to his face, more importantly the the things inside of him. And Jesus begins to exorcise these demons, and a dialogue breaks out. Now we have a confrontation, and there's so many things to learn from this engagement, but let me just draw some thoughts. First, look at verse seven.
30:42 Crying out with a loud voice, he said, what have you to do with me Jesus, son of the most high God? Hey, that's theologically right. I mean, look, I know I know it's a demon, but that's beautifully said. That's eloquent. You have some believers that talk about Jesus like he's just their neighborhood friend.
31:02 Oh, no. No. What do we see here? Look at this. Jesus, son of the most high God.
31:07 Yeah. But they're still devils. They're still destined for wrath. They're still headed toward the abyss, and you know this, we've talked about this before, that it is no indication of one being and belonging to the Lord if they can just express theological descriptions and doctrines, such a person does not have any more hope than the person like this devil who knew that he was headed towards eternal judgment, and yet could define the characteristics and the holiness and the majesty of God still. True salvation is not what you know about him, it's knowing him.
31:55 It's not just agreeing with what is true, it's submitting to the truth and ultimately surrendering to the lordship that he demands. Secondly, and interestingly, Jesus asked the name of the demon. Verse nine, and Jesus asked them, what is your name? Did Jesus not know his name? He knew his name.
32:20 And he replied my name is legion for we are many. Why did Jesus ask the name? It's not because Jesus didn't know, it's because he wanted the disciples to know. In other words, it went something like this, I'm gonna ask this demon's name so that my man and those who are around this whole event would realize the extent of this this soul's torment, the severity of his suffering, the things that he had to undergo night after night and morning after morning and everything in between. There isn't just one devil in here.
33:00 By asking in a name, it exposed that there was a legion, which is a military term that the Romans used to identify a group of soldiers that numbered anything in between 3,000 to 6,000 soldiers. And it is also an indication by the fact that so many pigs would be inhabited by these same demons to convince us that these demons were actually telling the truth. You had a minimum of a few thousand spirits living in this one man's life. Imagine the inward chaos, and just imagine the the confusion and the inability to shake yourself off of such control, and that is precisely what the Lord wants to convey. This isn't some trick, this isn't some like others who propose having conversations with demons for hours before delivering them.
33:59 This is Christ preparing the audience to see the extent of his power and the power of his word. You may be a legion, but I'm about to tell you to leave, And they are all going to listen. And so when he says just that, you can imagine the gasp of the disciples if there was. You can imagine how some might have peddled a little bit towards the boat. And there's Christ, strong.
34:29 What a champion. Fearless. The Lord of all, even the Lord over these legions. He says, come out of him. Come out of the man, you unclean spirit.
34:44 But look at this last point in verse 10. And he, legion, begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country. Now a great herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside and they begged him saying, send us to the pigs. Let us enter them. And I love this phrase in verse 13, so he gave them permission.
35:11 You have my permission. This is not Christ operating with compassion for these devils. You see elsewhere in Luke where they ask and they beg the Lord to not be sent to the abyss, they did not want premature judgment. They knew that they were headed towards eternal torment, But they did not want to meet their fate this early, and so they asked the Lord, send us into the pigs. Now why would the Lord agree with that?
35:41 Why wouldn't he bring immediate judgment, and I give you the answer the way I would give it for the same question you might ask about evil today? Why doesn't the Lord deal with the devil now? Why are we enduring all of this? And here's the same answer for both, because there is a time coming. There is a day coming.
36:00 There is justice that will be served. That time is just not yet, and it wasn't for these evil spirits either. And at the same time, the Lord is also going to compound the truth that he tried to convey earlier by identifying this demon. Now they they would visually see, the disciples would visually see just how horrific and vicious these spirits were, because now they're going to enter these herds of pigs, and these pigs are gonna commit mass suicide. And so here's a very strong illustration, you disciples, of just how much this one person was undergoing day after day.
36:47 And so he tells them and he gives them permission, and I am also under the persuasion that it wasn't just the fact that they don't want to be judged early. These minions of Satan could not fathom also being in a state of inactivity. They could not think and they could not accept being placed in a position where they could not fulfill their destructive desires on the earth. And they knew that they couldn't ask Jesus to to to live in someone else's life. Christ would never permit that.
37:33 And so they try to find the next best thing, and so they ask for the pigs. Isn't it convicting that demons don't wanna be idle? Shouldn't it do something in us that these servants of the kingdom of darkness attempted to make a negotiation so that they would not be in a state of paralysis. They wanted to continue to advance their purposes in one way or another, and here we are. We've been called to a holy calling, a pure calling, a heavenly calling.
38:10 May we never ever be found indifferent. How much more should we, how much more should I beg my Lord, Lord, you send me where you want me to go? If these demons are gonna beg Jesus to bring destruction, then lord, I beg you to use me with my little short life to seek and save whom you would have me seek and save. The lord gives them permission. And through the the identification of the man and through the illustration of the destruction that they brought to these creatures, we have an idea of more of the ruin, but we also see the rescue of this man.
38:54 It says here, the unclean spirits in verse 13 came out and entered the pigs and the herd numbering about 2,000, rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the sea. I mean, just think about what that looked like. And so we looked at the ruin of the man, we looked at the rescue of the man, now we look at the renewal of the man. And in verse 14, we read the herdsmen fled, so it wasn't just the disciples. You had the managers of this one pig business that were all there.
39:27 I mean, talk about a shift to be at. Talk about calling in sick. The herdsmen fled and told it in the city and in the country, they witnessed it. They saw something that they could never unsee. They saw something that was worth telling everybody else about.
39:44 And here's here's what you would think would happen. Right? Here's what you would think would happen after seeing someone that you know, who is as hopeless as hopeless can be, and after seeing Christ's authority of relocating demons, you would think, hey, let's punch out early, let's go back, and let's bring back so and so. They need a touch from this man. Let's bring back so and so.
40:11 They need deliverance as well. Let's grab so and so. Perhaps the Messiah. Perhaps this is the Messiah. Let's let's inquire further.
40:20 You would think that this would break out into revival and instead it inspired rejection. For those who are persuaded that miracles is what is needed to see people get saved, how do you how do you deal with this? The herdsmen fled and told it in the city and in the country, people came to see what it was that had happened, and they came to Jesus and saw the demon possessed man, the one who had the legion. Look at this serene scene. Sitting there, clothed and in his right mind.
41:01 Sitting there clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid. We should be afraid to some extent of what Christ is capable of. There should be this holy reverence that arises in us to believe that we can bring someone who might not even be sound in mind and introduce them to Christ and believe with all of our hearts, Lord, you can do something with this person. You are able to do something with this person, and there should be an expectation and a holy anticipation. Yes, we should have some kind of a fear of what Christ can do, not just in his judgment, but in his goodness.
41:45 Unfortunately, that's not the quality of fear that these people had. They were afraid of Jesus. The authority of Christ astounded them to the point of trembling, but not in a way that would have them worship him, but to drive him away. You would think again that this would cause a move of of the spirit in this region, but no. We instead we read in verse 16, and those who had seen it described it to them what had happened to the demon possessed man, let's get this, and to the pigs.
42:31 And they began to beg Jesus to depart from their region. There's a lot of begging in this text. A lot of begging. You have begging from the demons and you have begging from the people who witnessed this man delivered from demons. I I can't register it in my imagination How they began to beg, not ask, not politely persuade, beg.
42:57 Get out of here. Please leave. We want nothing to do with you. I mean, I don't know what's more stunning, the pigs being possessed and jumping off a cliff or seeing that. I don't know what's more jaw dropping if I was one of the disciples.
43:17 Like, are you serious? They began to beg, and you might think, why would they beg? Well, look back here at verse 15. 16 rather. It says that they were beginning to describe to them what had happened to the demon possessed man, but it doesn't stop there, and to the pigs.
43:39 And to the pigs. When Christ delivered this man, there was some loss to the financial enterprise. Now we have more reason to believe that this is a gentile region because Jewish law would not accept the raising and the herding of pigs. It was an unclean animal, so either gentiles or they are Jews who are disobeying the law, but more likely it is gentiles in this region of Galilee. What do you think would be a more important and more considerable concern for these people?
44:18 The fact that this terrorizer of their city is now a brand new man, or the fact that they lost some profit and their business got hurt. Now you and I look at this and we have to be careful not to lift up our nose too high because the attitude of these herdsmen and these citizens is still alive today, isn't it? Isn't it alive today? Do you not have people today who want nothing to do with Jesus because they understand enough about the lordship that he calls for that might meddle with their affairs? Isn't there enough understanding in the simplicity of the presentation of the gospel that would cause people to understand?
45:10 So you're telling me that this Jesus can enter into my life and there's something of my property, my projects, my pursuits that could be affected. No thank you. Keep him away. Listen to this. And people are willing to do that even if bondage in them or around them still continues.
45:34 They have such an esteem and such a value in the temporal that they're willing to let go of the eternal, even if it means torment with the little toys that you wanna enjoy in this life. Here's the thing. This is the scariest part. So you thought the demons was the scariest part? You thought the shrieking and the cutting was disturbing?
45:57 It is. Here's what I personally believe is the most heart dropping part. When they begged Jesus to leave, he agreed. What happens here? And those who began to beg Jesus to depart from the region, verse 18, and as he was getting into the boat, you want me to go?
46:20 I'll honor it. Turns his back, makes his way towards the same boat that he came in, and we see another kind of begging. We saw a begging with the demons. We saw a begging with these people who needed just as much deliverance as this man did. But look at this kind of begging in verse 18, and as he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed with demons begged him.
46:47 Begged him that he might be with him. I mean, talk about talk about a sight. Begging demons, begging unregenerate men, and now a begging freshly saved soul begged him. He begged him that he might be with him. Do you wanna know one of the strongest, if not the strongest sign that someone has truly undergone a work of God in their hearts.
47:25 They want to, from that moment on, be with Jesus. They don't just want to be delivered from something, they don't wanna be just saved for something, they want to be with the savior himself. That's how you know someone met this man. That's how you know the gospel had its full work in a man. Lord, you save me, you change me, but don't keep me here.
47:52 I wanna be with you. I wanna go where you go. I wanna hear you speak. I wanna obey what you say. Take me with you, Lord.
48:00 Grab my hand and allow me to walk with you throughout this life. I will follow you. I'll let you lead me. I want you. There's this new birth.
48:10 This newly desired implanted pursuit that you never known before, and then it's I wanna be with him. I wanna follow him wherever he tells me to go. And with that, with that desire, being so strong, so truly moved and impregnated, if I can use that word, by the spirit, that you could care less what the crowd says. Remember, this man is the minority in the popular vote. Everybody else said, get out of here, and yet you have this one man that says, I'm coming with you.
48:45 Please take me with you. So everybody else is headed towards back their homes and yet you have this one man on his knees perhaps grabbing a hold of the Lord saying, please don't get in that boat without me. Christ can become so real that the crowd disappears, and their opinions and their ideas and their intimidations and what's popular mean nothing. We have to we have to reclaim and restore that kind of Christianity. We have to.
49:20 How the gospel leads to true saving power and opens the way for true intimate relationship with the master. And so the crowd doesn't mean anything, and here's this man begging and surely Jesus, Jesus will not reject such a request. Surely Jesus will will make space in that boat. Or does he? Because look at the response of Christ.
49:49 Verse 19, and he did not permit him and he did not permit him, but said to him, go home to your friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you and how he has had mercy on you. Isn't it amazing that when the people begged Jesus to leave, he gave them what they wanted, but when this man begged to be with him, Jesus denied it. You would think that Jesus will put up a protest and try to convince the crowd for him to stay, doesn't do anything of the sort. And you would think when this man begged to be with Jesus, that Jesus would praise him for his faith, pick him up, embrace him, and add him to a very close proximity to his ministry. I'm not allowing you to come with me.
50:47 I believe he said that with gentleness, and I believe that as he said those words, the man felt the perfect wisdom of the all knowing Messiah. You're not coming with me, but in fact I need you to go and tell first your home and your friends what has happened to you. And I think what you see here is just one example of the great mystery of God's ways. He knows things that we do not know and his guidance sometimes seems strange to us at the moment, but all we have to do is trust that he knows exactly how to answer and direct the cries of men. Lord, I want to be with you.
51:29 No. It's like, but Lord, what? How do I reconcile with the fact that you want followers and you want us to be close to you? Trust in him. Trust in how he takes your prayers and answers them no matter how pure and promise filled they are with the Bible, just trust that he knows something that you don't know.
51:52 And this man did just that, he obeyed and he makes his way. In verse 20, he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him and everyone marveled. You would think, you know what? You have a very powerful testimony, but you need you know what? Come.
52:15 Come to my seminary, you need three years with these guys, Get some theological training and then maybe I'll send you out. Now right away, go. Not everybody's training and ministry is alike. God doesn't have a cookie cutter way of raising up servants. Some need some training, some have a particular purpose and their testimony is very powerful and the Lord can make use of them very very soon.
52:49 This man gets up and he goes to the capitalist, which is just a name to identify 10 gentile saturated cities. And he goes, and he proclaims, and he shares. I wonder if he showed some scars. I wonder what the reaction of his family was when he knocked on that door in that afternoon. I wonder what his friend said.
53:19 I wonder what the people who try to chain them, try to reconcile in their reasoning when they saw this man completely sane through the word of another man. And this man went out, and the next time that we see mention of Decapolis, would you like to see it? Mark chapter seven. Verse 31. Then he returned from the region of Tyre and went through Sidon to the Sea Of Galilee in the region of the Decapolis.
54:03 And they brought to him a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment, and they begged him to lay his hand on him. And taking him aside from the crowd privately, He put his fingers into his ears and after spitting touched his tongue. Could be very well that this eager crowd of people were stimulated, inspired, and prepared at the capitalist to meet with this Christ because of this testimony that this man shared who was hopeless, but found hope in Jesus. I close with an invitation. People get nervous with invitations.
54:51 Here's my invitation to you. In your heart to believe God afresh, to stand in the gap, to not give up for that person that seems hopeless. Not the one that's like, they have a chance. You know, there are those kind of people, like respectable citizens of society. They work hard.
55:19 They have a nice family. Like everything everything seems very Christian ease, but they just need Jesus. You know those kind of people? I'm not talking about those kind of people. I'm talking about the most unlikely, the most stubborn, destructive, terrorizing, difficult, hell plunging rebellious person you can think of and believe that Christ can change them And reignite your prayer life for them.
55:59 And give up on the change that you try to apply to them and come back to the simplicity of the power of the gospel. And just believe until God calls you home as long as you are here, you have the ability with your faith. Yes. Christ can honor your faith on behalf of someone else's lack of faith that the Lord can do something in them. And so as we close, I'm gonna invite you to bring that person back to mind and to to bring that person before Jesus Christ even now.
56:33 And believe that even now as you pray for that person, Christ can he can appear and do something in them and rescue them, and give them a testimony that can touch others as well. Lord, we thank you that a story like this is more than just to give us a historical account of what you've done. And though your time on earth was unique, you are the same Christ who has assured us that there is power in the name of Jesus. And, Lord, we think about those who are ruined, who maybe even right now are sitting in their rooms with bottles or needles or making decisions to hurt themselves, to disfigure themselves, to challenge the author of life by taking their own life into their own hands. Lord, we confess only you can do something.
57:57 The sessions didn't work. The substances didn't go very far. The family interventions only infuriated things. And so, Lord, we just stand in the gap on behalf of someone that we love and we we think about them in this moment as we receive truth, and we look back to you now and we respond and we say, Lord, would you do something? Would you do something?
58:32 We can't, we give up, we're done, Lord, but you are able. And so set that son free, set that daughter free, set that father free, set that mother free, that uncle, that cousin, that best friend. Even now, Lord, as as they are preparing to sin in this very moment, we pray that you would intervene, that you would show right up, and that you would extend undeserved mercy. And with that mercy would come a power, a power that would make your love and your freeing power undeniable. And so Lord, we sing to you And we also think of those perhaps who are listening that now who are in bondage in one way or another.
59:25 They are subject to slavery and that could be an evil spirit. Could very likely simply be sin. Lord, with a with a mustard seed faith arise in their hearts to believe that you, Lord Jesus, the resurrected Messiah can bring liberation. Salvation, soundness of mind, peace in heart, assurance of divine love. Lord, have your way and we sing to you with thanksgiving that you are this Christ who when we beg to you, you answer.
1:00:07 But even when we beg to you and you don't answer, we trust in your wisdom. And we believe that you know best. And oftentimes your nose is because you have a plan in mind like this man who did not understand what his testimony would do in preparation for a future ministry for Christ. Help us trust you in the nose. No matter how good and holy that request is, help us trust you in the nose.
1:00:36 Receive more glory now as we sing in Jesus' name. Amen. Would you stand with me as we sing?
