The Deliverance of the Demoniac

Introduction and Review of the Demoniac's Wretched Condition

0:04 This sermon was preached on Sunday morning, April 21st, 1985, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. Now will you turn with me in your Bibles to the fifth chapter of Mark's Gospel,

0:27 and give attention to the reading of the first twenty verses, Mark's Gospel, chapter 5, verses 1 through 20. For those who may be visiting with us, we have been for some time now conducting a verse-by-verse study of the Gospel of Mark, and that study brings us this morning to our second consideration of this lengthy narrative of the mighty work of Christ on behalf of the demoniac of Gerasene. Mark 5, verse 1.

1:02 Speaking of our Lord and his disciples who had just come across the Sea of Galilee, and they came... And they came to the other side of the sea, into the country of the Gerasenes.

1:13 And when he was come out of the boat, straightway there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, who had his dwelling in the tombs, and no man could any more bind him, no, not with a chain. Because he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been rent asunder by him, and the fetters broken. And the fetters were broken in pieces, and no man had strength to tame him. And always, night and day, in the tombs and in the mountains, he was crying out and cutting himself with stones.

1:53 And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and worshipped him, or fell down before him. And crying out with a loud voice, he said, What have I to do with you, Jesus, you Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, torment me not. For he had said unto him, Come forth, you unclean spirit, out of the man.

2:18 And he asked him, What is your name? And he said unto him, My name is Legion, for we are many. And he besought him much, that he would not send them away out of the country. Now there was there on the mountainside a great herd of swine feeding, and they besought him, saying, Send us into the swine, that we may enter into them.

2:43 And he gave them permission. The unclean spirits came out and entered into the swine. And the herd rushed down the steep into the sea, in number about two thousand, and they were drowned in the sea. And they that fed them fled and told it in the city and in the country.

3:04 And they came to see what it was that had come to pass. And they come to Jesus. And behold, it was not him that was possessed with demons, sitting, clothed, and in his right mind, even him that had the Legion. And they were afraid.

3:22 And they that saw it declared unto them how it befell him that was possessed with demons, and concerning the swine. And they began to beseech him to depart from their borders. And as he was entering into the boat, he that had been possessed with demons besought him, that he might be with him. And he permitted him not, but said unto him, Go to your house, unto your friends, and tell them how great things the Lord has done for you, and how he had mercy on you.

3:57 And he went his way, and began to publish in Decapolis how great things Jesus had done for him. And all men marveled. Now let us again seek the face of God in prayer, for the help of the Spirit illuminating our minds, enabling us to understand the message of God in this portion of his own word.

4:26 Our Father, we would acknowledge again that we stand before you, the living God of heaven and earth, and that this, your word, demands our most careful attention, our most reverent attention. For you have said to this man, Will I look even to him, who trembles at my word? And surely, Lord, it demands our most believing attention, for again you have said, The word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it. Oh, may it not be said of us today, the word did not profit us, because we did not believe it, because we would not submit to it, because we would not bow our necks to its authority. Send your Holy Spirit, that we may be taught of you, that we may be obedient to you. Hear us and meet us in the teaching and preaching of the word we plead, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

5:33 Now in our initial study of this passage last Lord's Day, we considered primarily the teaching of verses 1 through 5, in which we are given a description of the wretched condition of the demon-possessed man of Gerasene. In that study, we noted together the ultimate cause of his wretched condition. This man's wretched condition was ultimately to be traced to the fact that his human personality had been invaded and was held captive by a multitude of fallen spirits called, in the word of God, demons. And then we considered what Mark tells us of the specific manifestations of his condition. In terms of the place, his haunt was in the tombs, the place of the dead, his appearance and his activity, the supernatural strength, the vocal frenzy, the irrationality, the nakedness, and the fact that his prospects for any help were nil. He was hopeless.

6:50 No man could tame him. And then we concluded our study by considering the relevant application of this graphic description of the wretched condition of this pitiable man. And in our application we noted from the passage that here we see the true intention of the devil. Here the devil does not appear as a messenger of light or as a messenger of righteousness.

7:18 He appears in all kinds of ways. In all his native self-destructive and cruel ugliness. And if we would know the devil's intention with respect to us, we see it in such passages as these. And then I drew the unmistakable parallel between the condition of that demoniac and the modern rock video scene.

7:41 And anyone who was listening with any rationality knows that I was making a comparison between the condition of the demoniac and the modern rock video scene. And there are at least 450 witnesses who can say it was that comparison and that alone which I made. And yet through the blindness and prejudice and self-justification of some of you, you hid from that application by saying, Pastor Martin's talking about the old rock music of the 60s. That's a lie.

8:17 I made no comparison. I made no reference to Bob Dylan and to the Beatles. None whatsoever. I made reference to the current rock video scene.

8:30 And I didn't go into the explicit sexuality. I didn't go into the drugs. All I did was say, look at the parallels. And this is what has broken and grieved my spirit, that some of you are in such love with that demonic pattern of filth and rottenness, that you wouldn't even objectively hear what I preached.

Warning Against Idle Curiosity and the Purpose of Demonic Details

8:52 You have carried on even this week a process of rationalization. Some of you teenagers and some of you parents have taken your children's side against God and against the Word and against God's servant who stood with tears and pleaded out of love for your precious children. God have mercy on you and bring you to repentance. But now today we turn from that horrible, dark picture of the wretched condition of the demoniac to consider the amazing account of his wonderful deliverance and transformation by the power of Christ. And as we take up the section beginning with verse 6 and concluding with verse 16, I want to give a word of warning at the very introduction of our study. And that word of warning and exhortation is that we mortify all of us, all idle curiosity about demons and their strange activity. We will be reading and I will attempt to expound some unusual and strange facts given to us by Mark through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

10:16 And whenever we come upon such things, there is in us this curiosity to pry into the mysteries of the working of Satan and of demons. We may be tempted to ask such questions. How could the many demons speak through one spokesman? How could the demons possess the bodies of dumb animals such as the swine?

10:41 How could Christ carry on this conversation with the man and yet with the demons? All kinds of questions. What I would do is simply quote the very wise advice of a servant of God of another generation who said this, further curiosity. Curiosity as to the when, the where and the how does not become beings whose main business and greatest wisdom is to fly from and not to pry too close into these terrible secrets of the kingdom of darkness.

11:20 Our task is to fly from and not to pry into the secrets of the kingdom of darkness. Or to quote the words of Spurgeon, faith is reason at rest in God. So that as we go through the passage, I will refuse to address those questions that almost invariably press in upon the mind of any thoughtful reader believing that what is revealed is for our edification and the secret things belong unto God. And finally, by way of introduction let me state this universal principle that whenever the Bible gives us any details about the activity of demons and of the devil, it is only to construct a dark velvet backdrop upon which the brilliant gem of the grace and power of Jesus may be displayed with greater glory. And our preoccupation is not with the dark velvet behind the gem, but with the gem itself who is Christ, the great theme of Mark's gospel. Now then, let us seek to understand together what is revealed about the amazing deliverance and transformation of the demoniac.

The Initial Encounter with Jesus

12:45 And we shall do so by seeking to grasp the four basic categories of the facts of his deliverance and transformation. In verses six through sixteen, the facts of his deliverance and transformation are set forth in very vivid detail by Mark. And those facts fall into at least four categories. The first category is what I am calling the initial encounter with Jesus.

13:18 The initial encounter with Jesus. Verse two of chapter five gives us a general introduction to the entire subject matter, of this section. And when he was come out of the boat straightway there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit. Then Mark goes into this lengthy description of his condition in verses three through five.

13:45 Now in verse six he picks up the theme of this initial encounter. And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and worshipped him, or prostrated himself before him. And, crying out with a loud voice, he said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, torment me not.

14:09 And now verse eight is a parenthesis that inserts a bit of information without which what we are reading does not make complete sense. So regard it as a parenthesis. For he had been saying unto him, Come forth, you unclean spirit. Out of the man.

14:30 So when we put the pieces together, it appears that this is the way the initial encounter with Jesus unfolded. The Lord Jesus has calmed the stormy and the troubled sea. The last paragraph of chapter four. Perhaps as we suggested last Lord's Day morning, some of the shrieks of this poor demon-possessed man may have even made their way out across the sea.

14:58 So that as the boat drew near to the shore, our Lord and the disciples may have even heard something of the frightening dimensions of the demoniac's pathetic and pitiable condition. But then as the boat slips up onto the shore, and our Lord Jesus disembarks with his disciples, the demoniac, apparently seeing Jesus, begins to run toward him. Now one can imagine. How electrified the atmosphere must have become.

15:32 Here is this madman with his body marked with the scars of the many times he had cut himself. Perhaps even now, many gaping flesh wounds. Perhaps coming even shrieking in his madness. But he comes toward the Lord Jesus and to the little band of his disciples who have just embarked from the boat.

15:53 And apparently as he made his approach. Our Lord recognizing the demonic influence. Began to command the demon to come out of him. Verse 8 must be understood in terms of the initial encounter.

16:07 For he had said unto him, or he had been saying unto him, Come forth, you unclean spirit, out of the man. And after that initial command was given, unlike all the other instances in which Jesus cast out demons, the demon does not immediately leave. Not for any want of power in Christ, but because there were some valuable lessons to be taught by this ongoing interaction with Jesus and the demoniac. So there is the initial sight of the demoniac, the demoniac of Jesus.

16:46 He runs toward Jesus. A command is given by Jesus, Come out, you unclean spirit, from the man. And then the man continues toward Jesus. And instead of pouncing upon him.

16:57 In his madness, the text cell tells us that he falls prostrate at his feet, like a subject in the presence of his sovereign. These then are the factors of the initial encounter with Jesus. And what is significant in that initial encounter is this. That everything that follows in the second segment of the narrative, what I'm calling the subsequent interaction.

17:27 With Jesus, is carried out from a posture in which the demon-possessed man is prostrate at the feet of Jesus. An indication that the demonic power recognized the authority of Jesus, and was already by the posture expressed through the body of the demon-possessed man, what the true relationship was between the demons and the Son of God. And may I say, by an aside, that the demon-possessed man is the one who has the power to control the world. By an aside, it's a picture of that hour coming in which every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God.

The Subsequent Interaction: Hostility, Orthodoxy, and Petition

18:11 There is no doubt of the outcome of this encounter. The initial encounter and the posture of the demoniac already symbolically acknowledges the subjugation of the demon powers to the Word and to the person of Jesus. All right, secondly then, notice the subsequent interaction with Jesus, verses 7 and 9 through 12. From his posture of prostration, and with a voice that Mark tells us was a mega voice, a loud voice, a voice that had been strengthened over the months or even years of the loud singing and howling through the mountains and in the tombs. With that very same loud voice, he cries out, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, torment me not. Now in this cry that comes with this voice that probably sounded as piercing as a trumpet, may have been as thunderous as a thunderclap.

19:26 But in this cry that comes with this voice that probably sounded as piercing as a trumpet, may have been as thunderous as a thunderclap. We find first of all an expression of the deepest hostility to Jesus. These words, What have I to do with thee, are an idiom which if translated more freely means, I want nothing to do with you. What concourse is there?

19:51 What agreement is there between you and between me? Say it aloud before me? When you act your reverses, the Bible wishes that you would still be alive and still believe. Like a stronger mind.

20:19 swarm of spirits I speak as representative of the spirits of death, destruction and darkness that inhabited this Man's personality. He was responsible of everything. нат notch vopie What have I to do with thee, Jesus jesus. light and truth and purity.

20:30 And in that cry there was an expression of the deepest hostility to Jesus. Leave me alone! Was the cry of that demon who spoke for the whole horde of demons that inhabited the personality of this pathetic man. But then there was not only an expression of the deepest hostility to Jesus, there was in it a confession of the purest orthodoxy respecting Jesus.

21:00 A confection of the purest orthodoxy respecting Jesus. Look at the language. What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the Most High God? Thou Son of the Most High, long for Peter, as mouthpiece of the disciples said, thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.

21:28 To which Jesus responded saying, flesh and blood is not revealed unto thee, but my Father. Long before there was that spiritual cognition on the part of the disciples as to the true identity of Jesus, he was none other than Son of the Most High. The demon confessed his true identity. For already the prince of the demons had met him on the open field of battle in the temptation of the wilderness, subsequent to his baptism.

21:59 And you'll remember that he left a vanquished foe. He came with his insinuations, if you are the Son of God. And when that encounter was over and the devil left a vanquished foe, there was no more if. He knew him to be God's incarnate Son, nothing less than God the Son.

22:22 And then also involved in that cry was not only this expression of hostility, this confession of the deepest orthodoxy, but also a blasphemous petition of self-preservation. Look at the language. I adjure you taking the name of God in order to bring a charge that blasphemy is native to them. Like the blasphemy of the most immoral who say God bless you and I thank God that he helped me do this and do that.

23:06 Everybody takes the name. Find it fashionable to take God's name in a blasphemy. It's a blasphemous way upon their lips. Here we see it.

23:20 I adjure thee by God, torment me not. Think of the irony. The tormentor ought to torment him.

23:33 I adjure you by God, torment me not. A blasphemous petition for self-preservation. They acknowledge that it's Christ's right to torment them and that he has the power to torment them and that ultimately as the judge of the world, he will indeed send them to the place of eternal torment. All of that is acknowledged in the petition.

23:58 But the petition nonetheless is a blasphemous petition for self-preservation. Then as we proceed to follow the pattern of this interaction, we notice in verse 9 that Jesus forces an identification of the demons. And he asked him, what is your name?

24:18 And he said unto him, my name is Legion, for we are many. And as we indicated last week, the word Legion was the technical word used to describe a horde of Roman soldiers of at least 6,000. So obviously by way of a figure of speech, whenever you wanted to speak of a great multitude, more than just a few or a handful, the word Legion would be synonymous. So we must not press that there were 6,000 demons.

24:48 But here's the acknowledgement that many demons inhabited this man and that the one who spoke spoke as spokesman for the others. So there was the identification of the demons. There were legion of them. And then there's an earnest entreaty of the demons.

25:07 Verse 10. And he besought much. Here was not a casual petition. Here was an earnest, all-repeated entreaty that Jesus would not send them away out of the country.

25:24 If you read the parallel passage in Luke 8.31, their petition was not simply that they would not be sent out of that particular geographical region, but it says that they would not be sent into the abyss, the bottomless pit. In other words, there was an amplification of that original petition. Torment me not, that is, to the place of our old destiny now.

25:53 You see how the whole thing is carried out in the context that Jesus was sent out of the abyss. And that's why we're talking about that Jesus was sent out of the abyss. That Jesus was sent out of the abyss. That Jesus was sent out of the abyss.

25:56 That Jesus was sent out of the abyss. That Jesus was sent out of the abyss. Jesus is in the posture of control. Originally, I had entitled this section the ongoing dialogue with Jesus, and I said no.

26:07 Dialogue is a discussion usually among equals. This is no dialogue. This is interaction between the Lord, the sovereign of the demons, and the subject demons who acknowledge His authority and His power. And I wouldn't give them more credit than they deserve by using the word dialogue.

26:26 I struck it out of my notes and put the word, interaction. Here, there is this expression, this earnest entreaty that they might not now, they might not yet be sent into the abyss. And then there is a specific request of the demons. Verses 11 and 12.

26:47 There was on the mountainside a great herd of swine feeding, and they besought Him. They entreated Him, saying, Send us into the swine that we may enter into them. Strange request. But the text simply tells us that that was the desire of the demons speaking through their appointed spokesman using the vocal cords of the poor demoniac.

The Climactic Permission and Destruction of the Swine

27:16 So in this part we see the identification of the demons, the earnest entreaty of the demons, the specific request of the demons. Now, we move into the third division of thought in the fact, the facts of the narrative. From the initial encounter to the ongoing interaction, now we see in verse 13 the climactic permission of Jesus. The climactic permission of Jesus.

27:43 And He gave them leave. And that word leave simply means He gave them permission. It's used this way throughout the New Testament. Matthew 8, 21.

27:55 Acts 26, 1. To permit or to allow. So the Lord Jesus, the moment He gives a word of permission, suddenly a strange thing happens to the swine who are rooting around for bulbous growth and for anything they can feed upon in that particular area of the mountain. Suddenly, the relatively calm, snorting, grubbing, rooting swine are possessed with a complete agitation of the entire flock.

28:28 And they all begin, to turn as though drawn by a magnet and head toward a steep place running down into the sea. One can only imagine what happened as the disciples looked upon this scene. The herdsmen, recognizing what is happening, run and if they had animals, used any kind of dogs to help them, calling their dogs to cut off the several thousand that are making their way to the sea. But all of the flurry of activity on the part of these herdsmen comes to naught.

28:57 They are utterly unable to turn the flock of swine around until the text says that the herd rushed down the steep into the sea in number about two thousand and they were literally choked in the sea. One after another, they floundered, they drowned, and their lifeless, blubbery carcasses floated upon the waters of the Sea of Galilee. Jesus, in this climactic, climactic permission, says to the demons, yes, you have permission to do what you've requested. And in a moment, the demons leave the poor demoniac and they possess the bodies of the brute beasts and so agitate them as to drive them to their own destruction in the sea. Just by way of an aside, may I quote what one of the old writers said? It is besides worthy of notice, that we, that we read in the scriptures of the powers of darkness entering into only two species of the lower animals. One was the serpent and one was the swine.

30:14 The serpent is in scripture the symbol of intellectual cunning. Be wise as serpents. The serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field. And the swine is the symbol of gross uncleanness.

30:29 It was an unclean animal. The writer goes on, the writer goes on to say, perhaps we shall not go far astray if we infer from this that we should be especially on our guard against sinning in either of these two directions, intellectual pride or moral uncleanness, lest we should give ourselves over to the full dominion of the evil one. And many have slipped into hell by intellectual pride that stumbles before a passage like this. That looks at a passage like this and hears a preacher of mature age speaking on it with reasonable intelligence and smirks and says, ha, ha, the preacher talks like he really believes this. He is expounding this like he really believes there were demons that entered into pigs. Yes, I do believe that. Because the God who wrote it does not lie.

31:30 And he is the God who gave you a mind not to sit in judgment on what is truth and not truth, but to receive what he has received. And when that has opened the eyes of others, you are an international vakany to show how the God who has revealed and protected You has been always living in me by His way of doing what I want, by mastering the mind, by cooked the chicken and fish fill the pot,

32:27 by !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

32:58 .....

32:58 People come to me last Sunday and say, Pastor, why were you so reserved in your treatment of the subject? Why did you not go on and talk about this aspect and this? I said, because I was determined to stick with the text. And they said, Pastor, you didn't overstate it.

33:18 I can mark my entrance into illicit drugs and sex to be a serious listener of rock music. And they said, if you want anyone to testify that you did not overstate it, I could call at least five names right here this morning who would come up into this pulpit and testify. If you five are here, say amen.

33:48 Amen.

33:50 Some are here.

33:56 Listen to that old author. Only swine and only the serpent are ever said to be the haunt of evil spirits among the brute beasts. One, the symbol of intellectual cunning. The other, of uncleanness and filth.

The Final Result: Widespread Report and Personal Observation

34:11 Well, we come then to the final result of this encounter with Jesus. The fourth segment in the narrative. Verses 15 and 16.

34:22 What happened? The final result of this encounter. First of all, there was a widespread report of the demoniac's deliverance and transformation. Look at it in verse 14.

34:35 And they that fed them fled. And well they might. And told. Hold it in the city and literally in the farmlands.

34:44 So the herdsmen fled after they saw their entire flock of two thousand drown in the sea. And they go into the city and into the country places. And they noise abroad what has happened. So there was this widespread report of the demoniac's deliverance.

35:02 And that in turn resulted in what? Well, look at the text. A well-attested personal observation. A well-attested personal observation.

35:12 They came to see what it was that had come to pass. They wanted to verify it with their own eyes. And they come to Jesus and behold him that was possessed with demons, sitting, clothed, and in his right mind, even him that had the legion. And they were afraid.

35:40 Here the widespread report. The widespread report brought out of the countryside and out of the cities a vast group of people who come and there they see him, this notorious character who had been driven out of the city under the power of the demons, who if he ever attempted to return to the city was banished again because of his madness, chained and broke the chains and chained again until they said he's hopeless, left as one who was incurably lost. Hopelessly abandoned to the powers of darkness, they come out and what happens? They see him.

36:20 And here it's beautiful, the shift in the tenses in the original. You find present tenses. They found him sitting. He was in a sitting posture.

36:32 No longer driven in his mad frenzy. No longer agitated and restless night and day. Screaming and leaping about. Screaming and leaping about.

36:42 Screaming and leaping about. Screaming and leaping about. Screaming and leaping about. The madman that he was.

36:44 And then they found him clothed. Having been clothed and remaining in shameful nakedness. But properly covered in modesty and the decorum fitting for that age. With a garment probably provided by one of the disciples.

37:04 And then they found him in his right mind. No longer deranged, demented. No longer a madman. They saw him with their own eyes.

37:13 Even him that had been possessed. With demons. Who was content jumping, cutting. And now they see him sitting.

37:25 The one who in his shameless nakedness cared not. Who gazed upon his naked ugly form. Modesty of self-possessed. Sanity clothed.

37:37 And in his right mind. And then it says that this observation was attended by the detailed explanation of the eyewitnesses. Notice that now in verse 16. And they that saw it.

37:52 Those who were witnesses to the entire happening. Which would be the herdsmen and the disciples. Declared unto them. That is those who came out from the cities and the farm areas.

38:05 How him that was possessed with demons. And concerning the swine. In other words. They gave to those people the account that Mark has given to us.

38:17 They told them about the initial encounter. How that the madman came running down out of the mountains. When Jesus. Came ashore from the boat.

38:25 And how at first they were afraid and wondered as the madman to pounce upon him. But instead of pouncing upon him. He fell prostrate before him. And they told them.

38:35 How there was this interaction between Jesus and the demoniac. And how the demoniac acknowledged he was possessed of a legion of demons. And how the demons pleaded not to be tormented. And how the demons confessed the whole account as I've expounded it.

38:50 It was given by the eyewitnesses.

38:55 Men. The scripture tells us. Beholding and seeing these things. Were filled.

39:02 With fear. The end of verse 15. And. They were afraid.

39:09 The people who had known the man in the period of his madness. When they saw the living monument of the mighty power of Christ. They realized they were in the presence of something far beyond them. They were in the presence of one who had power and authority.

39:26 That was awesome. That bordered on the terrifying. They were filled with fear. Now that's the narrative.

Lesson 1: The Wonder and Glory of Jesus' Omnipotent, Gracious Mercy

39:35 Those are the four basic divisions of it. As I've tried to lay it out simply. The initial encounter. The ongoing interaction.

39:43 The climactic permission of Jesus. And then the final result. Now then. What are the lessons that we are to learn from this graphic narrative.

39:53 Of the amazing deliverance and transformation of the demoniac. Well in a sense the application and lesson is really but one. Though I'm going to draw out several. There is but one.

40:05 Let me ask you a question.

40:08 If you had been one of the disciples. And had witnessed this entire scene. What impression would be upon your spirit. As you stood there seeing this man sitting.

40:22 Clothed. And in his right mind. What thoughts would be filling your mind. Remember.

40:29 Now you've just come across the Sea of Galilee. In the midst of the night. A violent storm had come. And almost sunk the ship.

40:37 And you had come and shaken your Lord. And he had been awakened and said. Peace be still. You had seen the waters calm as glass.

40:46 You had cried out. What manner of man is this. That even wind and waves obey him. Now.

40:53 A short time thereafter. You see this hopeless wretch of a man. Give him. Give him.

40:58 Give him. Give him. Give him. Give him.

40:59 Give him up. As one utterly incurable. Sitting. Clothed.

41:04 And in his right mind. You saw the demon possessed man. Prostrate himself before your Lord. You saw the interaction in which Jesus.

41:13 Was in total and absolute control. The demons are begging him. Beseeching him. Asking permission.

41:21 He gives permission. Absolute Lord of the demonic powers. Tell me. What would fill your mind.

41:27 Had you been one of the disciples. Had you been the demoniac. What would fill your mind. Here for a period of time.

41:37 Months or even years. Half the time you didn't know your own identity. Driven by the evil spirits. You cut yourself.

41:46 And gashed yourself. And screamed and howled. And jumped in a frenzy. And perhaps in times when the demons were less agitating.

41:55 You thought back to your days of your childhood. And your boyhood. And wondered how has all of this come upon me. And the poor man didn't know what his own identity was.

42:06 Now he's sitting there clothed. Enjoying the beauty of the countryside. The calm of the lake. What would fill your mind.

42:16 Suppose you had been those who knew his whole history. From boyhood you had seen him grow up. And then you knew his sad degeneration into that state of demon possession. Until you like all the other town people and the country folk as well.

42:31 Knew about this poor local maniac. What would fill your mind. If you now saw him sitting. Clothed and in his right mind.

42:40 And the eyewitnesses told you how it happened. Just like we've heard it this morning. I ask you what's the one point of the passage. Do you see it?

42:47 The one point of the passage is this. Every mind would be filled with a sense of the wonder and the glory of the power. The authority and the saving mercy of Jesus of Nazareth. You remember at the end of the passage Jesus charges him and says.

43:10 Go forth to your friends and tell them how he had mercy. Mercy is pity joined to action. And when the pity of the Son of God is joined to action. It is omnipotent pity.

43:28 And that's precisely what that poor man needed. No doubt many had pitied him. Pity is an emotion. Some perhaps in the early stages tried to show mercy.

43:41 Only to find that when the demons agitated him. He not only was self-destructive. But if we saw in Matthew's account. He also was a threat to others.

43:51 And so they had given up even trying to express pity or show mercy. Because what he needed was something beyond human pity and beyond human mercy. He needed omnipotent mercy. And that's exactly what he received from Jesus.

44:08 But it needed to be not only omnipotent mercy. But gracious mercy. For this man with us was a sinner. He fell as we did in Adam.

44:20 And no doubt though we cannot prove it from the text. But by the analogy of scripture. He came to this pitiable state. Probably by an advanced process of volitional abandonment to sin.

44:34 As it says. For an ancient king in Israel. He sold himself to do iniquity. And as he did so.

44:42 That process of degeneration went on in his life. Described in Romans chapter 1. He needed not only omnipotent mercy. But gracious omnipotent mercy.

44:56 Grace that would give to the ill deserving something they do not deserve. And the great message of this passage surely is this. That our Lord Jesus Christ. Who according to 1 John 3.9 has been manifested to destroy the works of the devil.

45:15 Comes to us in the gospel. In all the glory and wonder of omnipotent gracious mercy to helpless sinners. But now my friend listen to me. There is no sinner that finds deliverance in Jesus.

45:35 Who does not feel himself. In need of omnipotent and gracious mercy. You see if you're not so bad as to need omnipotence to break your chains. You don't know what you really are.

45:51 A slave of sin and of the devil. Because that's what you are. If you're not so bad in your own eyes. As to need an omnipotent deliverance from pride and lust and self-will.

46:04 If you do not see yourself as one whom no man can tame. In terms of the internal disposition of sin and love of self. My friend Jesus has no salvation for those who can help themselves. Or find help from some other source.

46:22 Have you seen yourself in need of omnipotent mercy? But you see you need more than omnipotent mercy. You need omnipotent gracious mercy. Because by your sins you forfeited all claims to God's favor.

46:36 You've cut yourself off from all claims. To his saving grace and power. And that's why the word grace is precious to every true Christian. I hardly could believe my ears.

46:51 When a pastor called me in brokenness some months ago. Saying that he wondered if he should resign from his church. He said the opposition is increasing to the point where I don't know if I can take it anymore. It's about to drive me to a nervous breakdown.

47:06 And I said well what's the problem? He said a representative group came to my house. Uninvited and sat down and told me pastor we're tired of hearing so much about grace. We're tired of hearing in every sermon about grace, grace, grace.

47:23 Can you imagine it a Christian church and when people became weary of hearing of grace. Undeserved favor from the living God of heaven. To wretched miserable helpless hell deserving sinners. Grace is a charming sound.

47:43 Melodious to the ear. Is it melodious to your ear? If you've seen yourself for what you are it is. Gracious omnipotent mercy funneled through the Lord Jesus.

47:56 Even as it was to this pitiable man. The Jesus who went on from this place of conquest to his ultimate conquest upon the cross and his open tomb. And then by his ascension ascended far above all principalities. In power and now everything is under his feet.

48:17 Waiting the destruction of the final enemy which is death. My sinner friend that's just the kind of Savior you need. And that's the great burden of the passage. That's the great message of the passage.

48:31 That's what some of you young people need. To deliver you from a loyalty to your rock music. That is deeper than your loyalty to Christ. Some of you went home last week.

48:42 Afraid that your parents might destroy your records. You've never left here afraid you might die and go to hell. You see why we weep.

48:59 But you've never been afraid that your ears might hear the sighs and the groans of the damned in hell. Young people you're a slave. Do you see it? Oh precious Tina don't get mad at me.

49:43 To be a teacup into the face of Christ and say Lord Jesus. Lock, stock and barrel, body, soul and spirit I'm yours. And I don't want anything to come into my ears that will do anything to defile me. I don't want anything to come into my ears that would in any way take my heart from you Lord Jesus.

50:05 Lord Jesus I don't want to wear anything that would cause anyone unnecessarily to identify me. With a lifestyle of lawlessness and kinky lifestyles and kookishness and the bazaar and madness and diversity of Jesus. Set you free from all that. I thank God he saved me as a teenager.

50:54 Because I knew what it was to be chained to my sports. Chained to what my friends thought. Chained to having to tell the latest dirty joke. Chained to this and chained to that.

51:05 The Lord Jesus break the chains. As I stood on the threshold of my 18th birthday and set me free. To love him. To serve him.

51:17 To praise him. To obey him. Even though it meant the whole high school turned against me. You silly parents who indulge.

51:24 Parents who indulge your children saying well that's the price of the children. For Jesus said if you love them more than you love him you're not worthy of him. I didn't say it.

52:00 You kids buy a thousand chains. But Christ can set you free. That's the message of the passage. But I want to touch briefly in closing on two other messages in the passage.

Lesson 2: The Practical Fruits of Saving Power

52:14 Two other lines of application. The second is this. It beautifully displays the practical fruits of the saving power of Jesus. It beautifully displays the saving power of the fruits of the saving power of Jesus.

52:31 Think with me for a minute. Suppose the herdsmen had run into the towns and villages and said hey come and see what's happened. Our swine were driven down into the sea. The demoniacs the changed man.

52:43 He's sitting. He's clothed. He's in his right mind. He's a different man.

52:47 And suppose they came out and they found him still leaping around like a madman cutting himself with stones. Screeching and hollering and carrying on as he was before. Would have there been any credibility to the testimony that the demons had left him if he still had the same lifestyle? Yes or no?

53:05 None whatsoever. It's when they saw with their eyes the radical transformation in the discernible patterns of his life. They couldn't see the heart but out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. Out of the heart are the issues of life.

53:23 His posture revealed the change of heart. His clothing revealed the change of heart. His mental operations revealed the change of heart. What a beautiful picture that is of the gospel.

53:36 For my Bible says if any man be in Christ he is what? A new creation. A new creation. The old is past, the new has come.

53:46 We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works. Let me ask you, you who profess to be the Lord's servant. You say, oh yes, Jesus has come in his omnipotent, gracious mercy and has touched my life. My friend, listen.

54:07 Does your overall lifestyle reveal that he's done anything? Or are you like a demoniac who says the demons have gone out of me but you're still yelling and jumping and screaming and cutting yourself and finding your home in the poons and in the mountains? Oh no, your sinful patterns were not as obvious as his. But listen, listen.

54:31 When Jesus touches men by omnipotent, gracious mercy, the proud man becomes a humble man. The tight-fisted and the greedy becomes the generous man. The filthy becomes the clean. The selfish and insensitive becomes the considerate.

54:52 The foul mouth becomes the clean mouth. The rebellious teenager becomes the submissive teenager. The lover of the world's music and fashions and styles and opinions becomes a lover of the music that is pure and holy and just and honorable. And of people that reflect the standards of God's holy law.

55:18 Do not I love them that love thee? Do not I hate them that hate thee? I am a companion of all that fear thee. And my friend, I ask you, I ask you, is your life, as the life of that demoniac, an undeniable monument that when Jesus saves, he does a good job?

55:38 He doesn't just juggle the record books of heaven, blot out the sin, impute the righteousness of his own perfect obedience unto death, but he does something internally in power by the Holy Spirit.

55:54 What about you? Has anyone ever run to tell someone else, hey, look what has happened to so-and-so? Hmm? Come on now, you answer.

56:08 Has anything happened to you that causes anybody to want to run and tell someone, hey, this Craig, this guy's gone nuts, he's gone berserk, look at him. He carries his Bible, goes to church three times a week. Guy's gone crazy. Prayer meetings.

56:27 I mean, he doesn't want to tell dirty jokes. He even says he doesn't enjoy watching Dallas and Dynasty anymore. Because of all the infidelity and the lust and the greed and the filth that pours out of the prime-time television sitcoms.

56:47 Has anybody ever thought you were crazy simply because you came to moral and spiritual sanity? Well, that's what the Bible says conversion is, according to 2 Timothy 2.26. That's right.

Lesson 3: The Deception of Demonic Faith

57:00 It says that it's a recovery of moral and spiritual sanity. And I say this passage beautifully displays the practice, the practical fruits of the saving power of the Lord Jesus. And then finally, it searchingly exposes the deception of the faith of the demons. This passage searchingly exposes the deception of the faith of the demons.

57:28 You see, James probably had this very incident in mind and others like it when he wrote in James 2.19. You believe God is one? Very well.

57:37 He says the demons also believe. And then they shudder. But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead? Listen, the demons have faith.

57:46 The Bible says it. James 2.19. The demons have faith.

57:52 They believe certain things. And in this passage we see they believe that Jesus is the Son of God. An impeccably orthodox opinion of Christ. They believe that he's judge of the world.

58:04 Have you come to torment us before our time? They believe he has all power in heaven and earth. Do not cast us now into the abyss, though you have the right and the power to do so. But you see, they are demons, though they still believe.

58:19 There's been no fundamental change in their relationship to Christ. Their hearts see nothing in him to love. Their wills see nothing in him that makes them desire to obey him. They obey only out of constraint and not willingly and out of love.

58:37 My friend, let me ask you, is that your faith? You say, oh yeah. I'm the Son of God. I believe all that.

58:42 Oh, I believe in heaven. Hell, I believe everything the Bible says. Oh, but my friend, let me ask you, has your faith brought you to a place where Christ is precious? Whereas we shall see, God willing, two weeks from now in the sequel to this amazing deliverance, like that demoniac, there was one thing he wanted.

59:00 He wanted to be attached to the Jesus who had done so much for him. The Lord didn't give him the desire of his heart, but oh, that was his desire, to be found at Jesus. In Jesus' feet and in Jesus' presence and with Jesus' people. And that will be the fruit of real saving faith in you.

59:19 He just won't talk glibly about, oh yeah, I'm saved, made my decision, I'm on the... My friend, if your faith has not brought you in attachment to Christ, to his word, to his people, to his ways, it's the faith of the demons and you'll be damned with the demons.

59:36 These certainly are at least three of the great lessons of the passage. The dominant lesson is this amazing display. Of the gracious, omnipotent mercy of the Son of God. And he is the same yesterday, today and forever.

Concluding Exhortation and Prayer

59:51 A marvelous display of the practical fruits of the saving power of Christ. And then a searching expose of the deceptiveness of the faith of the demons. Oh, may God help us to lay to heart this portion of his word given to us for our edification and salvation. And may I plead again with those of you who resisted the word last week.

60:18 Don't go out and rationalize again. I'm not going to harp on this matter. If you're so perverse as to be determined to damn yourself, there comes a point where God says, Ephraim is joined to his idols, let him alone. And if you're going to be so joined to the idolatry of the modern rock video motif and lifestyle in perspective, then, my friend, there may come a point where God says, Ephraim is joined to his idols, let him alone.

60:51 God have mercy if that day comes.

60:56 Pray that it won't. I left this pulpit to go back there last week and wept in pride. God have mercy on our precious teenagers. Is that cruel to weep for them?

61:17 Some of you parents, you've got some repentance to do before God.

61:23 That you took out every arrow that God sent into the hearts of your kids last week. May God give you grace to go home and put the arrow back in and say, I sinned in taking the arrow out. Take God's side against your children. It may be the first step in their salvation.

61:54 Oh, our Father, we thank you for the record of the mighty, saving, delivering power of our gracious Lord. Thank you that in his presence the demons had to acknowledge their rightful master. Thank you that in examining the passage today, we have not felt unclean, that we have in any way glorified evil spirits. For surely we have seen them for what they are, those spirits subject to King Jesus.

62:25 And oh, we pray that the saving, the omnipotent, saving mercy of Jesus may come to bear upon hearts in this place today. Oh, Lord, may each of us be a living monument as this man was. That Christ has touched us by that mercy and power. Be with those who are deceived, who think that the notions in their heads are the essence of saving faith.

62:51 While rebellion and selfishness and greed and pride still reign in their hearts, Lord, give them no rest or peace until they repent. Have mercy upon those parents that resisted the word last week, upon those teenagers that resisted your word. Lord, have mercy. That they may not destroy themselves through their rebellion against you and against your truth.

63:17 Preserve, we pray, our minds and hearts from every satanic influence that would destroy us or our children or our church. And Lord, we pray, have mercy upon our nation that increasingly sells itself to iniquity. Have mercy, Lord Jesus, come in all the plenitude of your saving might and visit us with grace and with power. Seal your word to our hearts, we pray, for your glory and for our good.

63:51 Amen.