June 25, 2023

The following transcript has been electronically transcribed. Any errors in spelling, syntax, or grammar should be attributed to the electronic method of transcription and its inherent limitations.

It seems to me that every biblical truth and every spiritual reality will have a superlative in scripture, meaning that maybe there's a biblical character or maybe there's a story, or maybe there's an episode that particularly teaches some. Truth, some reality, some spiritual principle more profoundly, more clearly than, so when we think about these superlative types of characters or stories, there's so many of them.

We could think of perhaps Solomon as being the superlative example of one who started well but ended badly. We could think of stories such as the story of Saul as one who was given every advantage but yet lacked one thing. And that was the feeling of the spirit. And without the feeling of the spirit, he was not God's man to lead God's people.

We could think of stories such as we're not stories, but passages such as Ephesians Chapter One, as being the Bible's premier place that teaches us of the spiritual blessings that are ours in Christ and so many other things that we could see in the scripture. But when we talk about superlatives, those stories, those episodes, those parables, those passages that will teach a biblical truth or a spiritual reality more clearly than all the others.

There is no passage of scripture like the one that we turned to this morning. It is no exaggeration to say that the superlatives found in this story cannot be overemphasized or exaggerated. There are so many WA ways in which the story to which we turn is the Bible's premier story for so many spiritual truths.

Let me just to name a few. I'll name a few to begin with and we'll see more as we go through here. But this story that we turn to is the Bible's. Grandest Premier episode of Demon e , exorcism. This is the Bible's premier story of the radical transformation of a human being from a lost condition to a regenerate condition.

This is the Bible's premier episode to show us the lengths that God will go to, to save one of his sheep. This is the Bible's premier episode to show us the deepness, the, the depth of human misery and human suffering and human affliction and many others that we could point to. We'll see these as we go along, but this is the story that will show us many of these truths and more, more clearly and more profoundly than any other story in our Bibles.

This is the story of the Demoniac known as the Gerasene Demoniac from Mark chapter five. Now, this story that comes to us in Mark chapter five is found in all three of the synoptic gospels, Matthew, mark, and Luke. But Mark is particularly drawn to this story as I feel all of us will be. If you are not drawn to this story, if this story does not grab you by your heartstrings, then you are a cold-hearted person.

Because this story is, I feel the most compelling, the, the story that shows the greatest pathos, the greatest human anguish, the greatest human connection of any of the stories in our scriptures. And Mark resonates with this story, like I feel that we will this morning because Mark is the one that, although all three of the synoptic gospels tell us this story, Mark's recounting of the story is by far the most detailed, the most compassionate, the most connected.

Mark is relating the eyewitness events of Peter, as Peter is relating them to Mark. So, for example, Matthew will tell the story in six verses, mark takes 20. So he's going to tell the story with, with a great amount of feeling, with a great amount of details, with a great amount of connection. We'll take two Sundays to look at this story.

And this won't be an artificial division at all because we'll see that the story will, will divide itself really into two halves for us today. We'll look at verses one through 13, which will be the story of the demoniac himself and Jesus's casting out of the demons known as legion. And the reaction, , by the town, by, , the townspeople, or, I'm sorry, not the townspeople, but the, the pigs throwing the, the demons into the pigs.

And the pigs swan dive into the, into the Sea of Galilee. We'll cover that this morning, and then next week we'll return to the story to look at the Townspeople's reaction to Jesus, and they're asking Jesus to leave. And then the final, final interchange with the now regenerate converted prior or previous Pneumonia Act will look at that next week in verses 14 through 20.

But we'll begin today by reading the entire story, all 20 verses, beginning from verse one of Matthew chapter five. Let's read together. They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes, 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 and no one could bind him anymore. Not even with the 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.

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 adore you by God do not torment me. For he was saying to him, come out of the man you unclean spirit. And Jesus asked him, what is your name?

He replied, my name is Legion for we are many. And he 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. So he gave them permission and the unclean spirits came out and entered the pigs.

And the herd numbering about 2000, rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the sea. The herdsman fled and to it in the city, in the country, and people came to see what it, what it was that had happened. And they came to Jesus and saw the demon possessed man, the one who had had the legion sitting there.

Clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid. And those who had seen it, described to them what had happened to the demon possessed man and to the pigs. And they began to beg Jesus to depart from their region. And he was getting into the boat. The man who had been possessed with the demons begged him that he might be with 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.

And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him. And everyone marveled. So as we begin to look at this story this morning, the first thing that we should do is just remind ourself of the context because the story didn't just drop out of the sky. The story follows a flow of events, a chain of events, and this chain of events.

God has put together sovereignly with great intention and with great purpose. And so to remind ourself of what just happened the night prior to this, the night previous to this was the end of that long day in which Jesus taught all day long, sitting in the boat in that place, probably known of as the Bay of Parables, that little bay in the, on the western slope of the sea of Galilee with the steep inclines all around, with the land leading right up to the water.

And people were sitting on the bank and looking down at Jesus in the boat and listening to his teaching. And he taught all day long teaching in many, many parables, such as the parable of the soils, the parable of the seeds, the parable of the lamp, and so on. And after that long, exhausting day. Jesus then took those, those who were his called out ones, those whom he desired for himself and called unto himself the Ecclesia, the church, he called them and they got into this boat and a few other boats, and they started out across the sea because Jesus said, let us go to the other side.

Beginning there at the end of the day, and Jesus knowing full well what was ahead of them on the sea, it was his intention to take his people. He's called out once. Into the storm that we read about last week. And so as this little flotilla of boats, which is this picture of all of God's people with their shepherd, Jesus leading them across the waters, the sea, and the scriptures, as we said last week is, is this metaphor for the rule of evil and the chaos of evil in this world.

And so Jesus is leading his called out people across the sea that represents the sea of chaos and evil in this world, and he leads them right into this storm because the theme of Jesus revealing himself to his people continues as chapter four showed us again and again, it is those who are on the inside.

Jesus says to you, has been given the secret of the kingdom. To those on the outside, I speak in parables. And Jesus then teaches them in the parable of the measure, he says, to, to what you use, it will be added unto you and to everyone who has more will be given. And so more is being given because the storm on the sea is all about revealing Jesus to them, to his called-out people.

And so on. The storm, on the waters is where Jesus reveals himself most profoundly to His called-out people because he reveals himself as he. They wake him out of that deep, deep slumber. They wake him and in his grogginess, he wakes up and rebukes the wind and the waves and they immediately, they recognize the voice of their maker and their master, and they immediately obey.

Thereby revealing to the disciples something of Jesus that they never could have seen on the shore, they never could have seen in the safety of the land, and that is this. They had known Jesus as the powerful teacher, the one who taught things that more powerful than theyd ever heard before. The great miracle worker, the great healer, the one who has cast out demons and cleanse lepers.

They knew him as all of that, but they yet did not yet know him as the one who made the wind and the waves and the very boat that they're in and indeed made them. They did not yet know him as Yahweh as the great I am, as the one deserving of their worship. And so they would only see this in the context of that storm on the sea.

So the revealing of Jesus continues and he reveals himself to them in the storm after the storm, the calm that that results from, that the great calm that Mark says. The disciples sat in the boat looking at Jesus in great fear because they had now for the very first time, realized who is in the boat with them.

And the one in the boat with them is the one who has always been the one who has had no beginning and will have no end. The one who made all things from nothing and holds all things in his hand. The one who speaks to wind and the wind obeys. And so as they sit there staring at Jesus in this boat, they are now for the very first time, beginning to see him as maker and creator.

They already believed in him and trusted him in him as something more than the great crowds were something more than just miracle worker and teacher. They knew he was more than that, but they did not until the storm, they did not yet know him as their maker. And now they begin to see that and to realize that.

Now the text doesn't tell us this, but I would be willing to bet that nobody, except for Jesus slept a wink that night on that boat, that all of those men on that boat stayed awake all night long except for Jesus, because they probably spent the night wrestling with what they just saw, wrestling with the reality that they just saw a man awaken out of a deep sleep and speak to the waves.

And the waves stopped. And as they're wrestling with this, the next morning comes and now they come to the far shore. The shore that now puts them outside the land of Israel, outside the land of the Jews, into the land of the of the Gentiles, and that's where we pick up our story in chapter five and verse one from chapter five and verse one, they came to the other side of the sea.

Now looking back up at verse 35 of chapter four, on that day, when evening had come, he said to them, let us cross over to the other side. Chapter five and verse one has them arriving at the other side. That was Jesus's intention. That was his destination. The other side, verse one, they arrive at the other side of the sea in the country to the country of the kerosene.

So just a quick word about Gerasenes and how that might be just a tad bit problematic for us. You may have a. A footnote in your Bibles saying that there are indeed some textual variance on Gerasenes. If you are a particularly astute biblical student, then you might know that, , Matthew refers to this as the country of the GTAs, and Luke refers to this as the country of the Essenes.

And then Mark refers to it, of course, as the country of the Gerasenes. So which is it and why can't we get it straight? Well, of course there is a bit of a textual variant in there, but also in addition to that, there's a little bit of unknown as to exactly where that the cities were located. There were three cities by those three names that I mentioned earlier.

And at different times and different places. This area is referred to in each of those ways. But as far back as the third century, after Jesus, the church recognized that most likely the city near this that was being referred to here was a city that was known in Aramaic as Kersha in the Aramaic Kersha in the Greek ger shot.

And so that is most, almost certainly the place where this is located. Gersha was a city or Kersha, depending on the language. Kersha or Gersha was a city that was located within a mile of the sea of the, the coast of the Sea of Galilee. In addition to that, it was in the same area. And in addition to that, it's an area that also has lots of sharp ravines and cliffs that go right up to the edge of the sea, making a very good place for the later episode of the.

Pigs diving off into the water. In addition to that, there's lots of caves around the area and the cemeteries. The tombs of this day were almost always comprised of caves and so all those things, things come together to make that the, the perfect area for this to have taken place. Ssha, or in the country or the region of the Gerasenes.

The larger area there was known as the region of the Gerasenes. So this region here of the Gerasenes, we could talk more about that, but we'll just keep going because our time is precious. This morning, this country of the Gerasenes is where they arrived to now, this country of the Gerasenes, as we say, it is a Gentile area, but it's not just a Gentile area, it's a gentile area that is particularly steeped in animosity towards the Jewish people.

This is because. That just prior to this, about maybe 90 years before this episode, in the year 63 ad, this land was liberated by the Roman Army, , , , from the rule of the Jews under what's known as the Maccabean regime. The Maccabean, they were the, the Jews, the period of time between the end of the Old Testament in the beginning of the New Testament.

And so 63 BC was when they were liberated from the Jews to then be put under the rule of the Romans. Now, the Romans were much kinder to the Gentiles in this area than were the Jews. The Jews were rather harsh to them, and so there is no lack of bad blood between the Jewish people and the people living in this area, this area known as the region or the country of the Gerasenes.

Later it's going to be called the Decapolis. The Decapolis was a region here. The whole region is about a hundred miles, a hundred square miles, and it's a region as the name alludes to. It's a region of 10 Gentiles cities, Decapolis―Deca 10, like decade, 10 years. And polis meaning city, like metropolis.

So Decapolis, these 10 cities, all Gentile cities, we're going to read about those a little bit later. But all these areas are, are prominently gentile areas. There are Jews living in this area, but not very many and not very faithful ones. And so this is the where, the area where we are now. So they came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes, 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. So unclean spirit, your translation might have evil spirit because that's what an unclean spirit is, is an evil spirit. So this man with this unclean spirit meets them. Meets him is just as he gets out of the boat.

Now, there's no mention made in the text of the other boats that were with Jesus, but the assumption is that they were there as well. They weren't lost at sea during the storm, so the assumption is that they're there as well. But Jesus gets out of the boat and he's met by this man with an unclean spirit or possessed of an unclean spirit or possessed.

Of demons. Now, this would be a great time for us to pause and do a little bit, , give a little bit of thought to a theology, so to speak, of demon possession and to look at what the scriptures have to say about demon possession and how demon possession relates to, but yet is different from things such as mental illness or epileptic seizures, such, things such as that.

Things that our modern age will, will classify in certain ways, but yet appear to be very similar to things that we see in scripture. We could spend some time talking about that. We could also talk about why it is that demon possession seems to be so prevalent in the gospel accounts, yet is virtually absent in all of the Old Testament and is completely abs absent in the epistles.

We could talk about all that, but. That would be ground that we've recently covered because we laid the foundation for that back in the first episode of demonic possession in chapter one. And so I don't want to spend time laying foundation that we've already laid. I would just encourage you that if you did not hear that message, , the name of that message is be silent and come out of him from January 8th of this year from Mark chapter one.

I would encourage you to, to go back and you can watch that or listen to it or read it or get the notes or whatever you want. But in that message, we spend quite a bit of time thinking, thinking well about what the scriptures teach us about demon possession and how demon possession in the gospels is not the same thing as what we often think of as men, perhaps mental illness or other conditions today.

But we related all of that to the lifetime of Jesus and the ministry of Jesus. I would encourage you to go back and review that if you're interested. But now we won't relay, we won't relay that foundation, but instead we will, , keep going from verse two. And when Jesus has stepped out of the boat, immediately there met him out of the tombs.

A man with an unclean spirit. So the revelation of Jesus continues and Jesus will now reveal himself to his disciples in an even more profound way than they just witnessed on the boat. So those that Jesus has called unto himself, these are the ones that are receiving the greatest revelation of who Jesus is and what they're about to receive is a great, great shock because where they've just stepped out on this is, we talked a little bit earlier about superlatives in the scriptures and some of the ways that this story is the superlative example of so many things.

But another way in which this is the Bible's superlative story of a certain truth is this. This is the Bible's greatest story of uncleanliness. There is no story in all of scripture that is as unclean as this story here. Now, what do we mean by unclean? We mean that scriptural premise, that scriptural truth, that God begins teaching.

In the Old Testament about ritual cleanliness or ritual cleanness or some ceremonial cleanness, it was all a method of God's God teaching his people about the reality of sin and the nature of sin. And so as we're probably all familiar, much of the Old Testament has to do with the concept of ritual uncleanliness and being ritually defiled in such ways that prevented one from.

Attending temple worship or tabernacle worship, or giving sacrifices or different things. All those teachings, they consume a large portion of our New Testament. So our new, our, I'm sorry, our Old Testament. Now, our Old Testament teaches us of the, not only the reality of ritual uncleanliness, but the severity, the seriousness of ritual and cleanness.

For the Jew. For the Jew, this was the worst thing of all to be declared ritually unclean. And there was a whole host of things that declared one unclean. However, of all the things that declared or made a person ritually, unclean, thereby necessitating this process of ritually cleansing themself so that they could worship.

The thing that made them the most unclean for the longest period of time was death. Touching a corpse or being in connection with the corpse above all things, that was what rendered a person unclean. And so here we are met by this man that's coming to Jesus. Who not only has been touching corpses, he lives among them.

That's his home. He lives among the most unclean thing that there is to the Jew. And not only does he live among the corpses, we are told that he is possessed of an unclean spirit, making him doubly unclean, not only possessed of unclean and not just an unclean spirit, but as we'll see in the passage, many unclean spirits.

So here they are in first of all, an unclean land. All of the land outside of Israel was known as unclean land, but this land in particular was known as the unclean itst of the unclean, and they step out onto this unclean land. Met by a man filled with unclean demons who lives among corpses. Furthermore, we're going to see that the story's going to tell us about the most unclean animal of all, which is the pig, the swine, and not just one of the most unclean animals, but we're told a herd of some 2000, 2000 pigs is a big group of pigs, even by today's standards.

Not only that, but we're also told that all the townspeople come out. And these townspeople are pig herders. They work with unclean animals. This is by far the most unclean story of all of the scriptures. Here we are in an unclean land, met by a man possessed by many unclean spirits who lives and sleeps among corpses, , and in the vicinity is a herd of 2000 unclean animals.

The people that live in this area are all the people that care for these unclean animals. It's doubly triply, quadruple unclean. Now, if you had been in the boat with Jesus last night, And this man awoke from this deep sleep and spoke to the wind, and spoke to the waves and they obeyed. You would begin just as the disciples I believe began last night.

You would begin a process and your soul and in your mind of coming to believe this man Jesus, to be the great I am the holy of holies. And coming to this understanding, having it dawn upon you, who this man really is, that he is the holy of holies. What would you most expect from this man? You would expect him to be more ritually clean than anyone you knew.

And within hours. Of beginning to show them that he is the Holy of Holies. He takes them into the greatest episode of Uncleanliness in all their lives. He is revealing something to them of the character of the Messiah and of the Father who sent the Messiah as he goes to the most unclean place he could possibly go.

And when Jesus had stepped out of the boat, immediately there met him out of the tombs. So Mark is careful there to make us see that not only is he living among the tombs, he comes to Jesus from the tombs. He is a dead man living among the dead. He is spiritually dead. He's metaphorically dead. For all intents and purposes.

He's physically dead. Yes, he's breathing and still moving, but his life is death. That's what his life is comprised of and out of the tombs. This man with an unclean spirit comes to Jesus. Verse three, he lived among the tombs. Now that word translated lived. Oftentimes we talk about how one Greek word will need four or sometimes five English words to translate it.

You know how that's sometimes that's, that's commonplace. And as we study the scriptures, this is the reverse. That word lived is actually translating three, three Greek words, if I can speak, three Greek words that basically say this, that he had a dwelling, but also the prefix kata is added, which means down.

So what Mark is literally saying is that he had a dwelling down in the tomb. You see the emphasis there. Marcus is describing his abode, this tomb, which would've been some sort of a cave. He's describing it like an abyss. Now we're going to see abyss a little bit later in the passage as the demons are going to be fearful that Jesus is going to throw them.

Into the abyss. Well, this man came from the abyss. He is the one being tormented in the abyss, and he comes out from down among the tombs. He comes out to Jesus because he lived among the tombs and no one could bind him anymore. Not even with the chain. Listen and open your heart, if you will, to the plight of this man, because what I feel strongly about in these next few verses, I feel that this, as we talk about superlatives this in all of scripture, is the Bible's premier description of human misery, of human wretchedness, of human agony.

Who is the. Scriptural example that we think of when we want to think of an example of suffering and affliction. Who do we think of? Job. Job. Let me suggest to you, job's affliction couldn't hold a candle to this man. Job's affliction was temporary job lived a very blessed life. And then he had had had a temporary time of affliction and that affliction was great, but then he was restored back to a blessed life.

Furthermore, job's affliction as we'll see a little bit later. Job's affliction was a contrary type of affliction. Job's Affliction was entirely from without attacking him from without this man's affliction is different. Let me suggest. This is the Scripture's premier illustration of absolute human misery, agony, and wretchedness.

Listen to the description. He lived among the tombs. And no one could bind him anymore. Not even with the chain for, he had often been bound with shackles and chains, but he rich wrenched the chains apart and he broke the shackles in pieces. So what Mark just gave us, there is a little bit of history of the man.

These things are things that we wouldn't know if we just witnessed the events that take place in Mark chapter five. These are things that that pertain to the history of the person, what's been happening to him over the last few years. So as we're seeing in the passage, I believe there's a bit of an amount of time that passes between Jesus casting out of the demon known as legion, and the townspeople arriving in anger and fear.

And in that time, I think that there was some exchange that took place. I think Jesus spent some time teaching him, teaching him of what had just happened to him and some other things we'll talk about a little bit later. But also I think during this time, perhaps he told his story. And Peter's there and Peter's listening, and that's how we know something of the man's history of how he had been this man that nobody could bind anymore.

So in my imagination, there's a lot of gaps to fill in here, but we have to think a little bit about these gaps and, and what made this, what this may have looked like. And so maybe there was a, a period of time here in which the townspeople from where he lived, maybe there's a time in which there's compassion and there was mercy that was shown to him.

He's possessed of these evil spirits. And as we said previously when we talked about the demonic, our understanding, our doctrine of the demonic would lead us to understand that at some point there was some sort of invitation on the part of this man towards at least the first demon. There was some type of a welcoming or some, at some level, an invitation for the demon to come within.

But having done that, Oh, it's exploded now into something completely different, something that he has no control over. But maybe in the first days, in the first years of this experience of his life, maybe the town had compassion on him and in their compassion they, they did what they could to try to help him.

But it quickly became obvious that he was a danger, not only to himself, but to others. Matthew said that he terrorized the whole region, that everybody was afraid to pass by the region because he would attack them. And so maybe there was some compassion that was shown to him, and they tried to restrain him, maybe at first with ropes, and then he breaks the ropes, but then they resort to chains, and then he's breaking the chains.

How did the chains get put on it? Did he cooperate? Was this, , something like, you know how we sort of see from the old movies of, of Dracula or Werewolf or whatever, that there's sort of this period of sanity, but then the monster knows that a change is coming and he asks people to bind him up. Maybe it was something like that.

Maybe he knew that there was this monster living within him, and he knew that this monster would get out of control and he would ask people to bind him, but then he would break free. Or maybe it was completely involuntary. Maybe the townspeople would come up behind him with a club and club him over the head and knock him unconscious and bind him with the shackles and the chains, hand and foot, and then he would awake and scream and wrench and break the chains free.

Maybe that's what was happening. We don't know. But what we do know is that this is a picture of absolute torment of misery, of wretchedness. He had often been bound with shackles and chains, not just a couple times. This was habitually bound with chains and shackles, but he wrenched the chains apart and he broke the shackles in pieces.

So we know that demons and angels, demons are, are fallen angels. We know that angels and demons possess a far greater physical strength than do humans. We know this, for example, from Matthew 28, when the women are going to the tomb and they're saying to themselves, what are we doing? There's, there's a boulder there.

We, we can't move that. And they get there and the angel has rolled the boulder. To the side and then sitting on it. So we know that the, the angels and the demons possess a physical strength far greater than any human strength. And it's these demons within him that are apparently giving him this superhuman type of strength.

So right now, let me plant the thought into your mind of a theme. And you know the theme, cuz we've talked about it many times. It's the theme of the strong man and how Jesus is the strong man. He's the greater strong man that has come to kick the lesser strong man out of his kingdom. Back from chapter three, he tells this story.

No one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods unless he first binds the strong man. Then indeed, he may plunder his house. So right now we're immediately thinking of strong man bound, which is him. He's the strong man that nobody could bind. Yet the greater strong man is here. And the greater strong man is going to bind the lesser strong man, and then the greater strong man will plunder his house, meaning he will harvest a soul from the house of these demons so no one had the strength to subdue him.

That word subdue literally is, is a word that would've been used in regard to animals. It would be more literally translated tame, no one could tame him. You see the subhuman picture that were shown here of one who needs to be tamed and managed and tied up and chained up like an animal that, that he apparently is, no one had the strength to tame him night and day.

Once again, there's evidence there that this is a Jew writing this because that's the Jewish way of thinking of the passing of days, night and day, not day and night like we would think night and day. Among the tombs and on the mountains, he was always crying out. So that word, crying out doesn't mean that he was shouting blasphemous words.

That word crying out means that he was screaming out inarticulate sounds. Shrieks would be a good translation. He was shrieking. So imagine day and night there's this man living down there and, and we're all afraid of him because as Matthew says, I, if you go near him, he'll attack you. So there's this thing living down there at the tombs and just imagine how during the night, maybe the night is just coming on and the family is just sort of being gathered in from that day's work in the fields and the ch the kids are coming in and everybody's sort of coming in and then you hear often the distance you hear that shriek, that inhuman shriek.

And you know what it is, you know it's that thing down there or maybe during the day as you and the other ladies are heading headed to the market. You hear that shriek and you know it makes your blood curl. It makes your goosebumps come up on your back because you know what that is. You've seen it before.

You've been terrorized by it before. You've been almost attacked by it before. Maybe he's killed people. Maybe he's attacked people and taken their life or hurt them very badly. Maybe you know someone who has been attacked by him, and you hear that sound day and night or night and day among the tombs and on the mountains.

He was always crying out and doing something else, cutting himself with stones. So he's immersed in self-harm. The demons that possess him. It is their goal to destroy him because they hate him as demons hate every bearer of the image of God, whether, whether they are a host to a demon or whether they are a follower of Satan or whether they're a follower of God.

It doesn't matter. Demons hate all who bear the image of God, and it's their goal to destroy all, who bear the image of God. And so in their hatred, they make this man to cut himself. But it's more than this. If you've ever perhaps known of someone or heard or perhaps read, , the phenomenon known as cutting.

Anybody ever heard of these? Sometimes people will do this. They will, they will engage in this habit of cutting themself. And as I've read, About people who get trapped in this, this habit of cutting. One of the things that is a common denominator for those who have experienced this, but yet have come out of that, one of the things is, is that people will, you know, there's, that's a hard thing to understand.

And so people will, why, why do you do that? Because typically when a person cuts, they're not cuts that are life-threatening. It's not like they're cutting their wrists or cutting an artery in their neck. They're cutting things that aren't going to take their life, but they're going to scar and they're going to hurt and they're going to bleed.

And so oftentimes people will, will just be un not understanding why, why do you do this? And clearly it's a scream for help. It, it's a cry for help from people who can't ask for help, but they try to ask for help in this way. So that's going on. But then there's something deeper. That's a common denominator that I've often read about people that are survivors of this, and it goes like this.

They will try to articulate something, something like this. I was trying to cut it out of me. What was hurting me. It was like I, in a way that they don't really understand or I can't explain what they're trying to say is I was trying to cut out of me what was hurting me. And that's a picture of this man here.

His tormentor is in him and that's what differentiates him from job job's. Tormentor was without his tormentor is within, and when your tormentor is within, where are you going to go? There's nowhere to go. There's no escaping it because it's in you. Are you starting to get a sense of his wretchedness? No one else in scripture parallels this as far as a picture of the absolute pit of human misery, day and night among the tombs and the mountains.

He was always shrieking out and cutting himself with stones. So if we were to see him, we would see a man that was covered with old scars as well as recent scabs, and probably fresh blood as well, because that's, this was his habit. He was immersed in self-harm and self-destruction, and when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and fell down before him.

That word fell down, has nothing to do with him tripping. That's a word that scripture uses to speak of falling prostrate in worship. We see other examples of this. For example, Matthew two in verse two, they say, , the shepherd say, where is he? I'm sorry, the, the wise men. Where is he who's been born? King of the Jews for We saw his star when it rose and we have come to worship him, same word, or a little bit later, they fell down.

The same wise men or magi fell down and worshiped him. That's the word that Mark uses here. He doesn't trip. He falls down to worship him. So he sees him from afar, but he also is there when he's getting out of the boat. So how do we reconcile verse five with verse two? How do we reconcile that? That he, as Jesus steps out of the boat, he's there, but he also sees him from afar and runs to him.

I think that the way that we put those together, those two together, is this, the man apparently sees Jesus when he's still in the boat. Jesus is a far in the boat. He sees him in the boat and from that point he begins running. And by the time Jesus' boat gets to the land and Jesus steps out, he's there and he falls down before him.

So what made the man come to Jesus? What? What was it? Something about the man in this boat compels this wretched person to run and fall before him. What was it? How did he know to come to Jesus? Furthermore, why would the demons allow him to come to Jesus? The only answer that makes sense to me, of course the text doesn't tell us, but the only answer that makes sense to me is that when the boat is seen, when the man looks out from his cave of tombs and he sees this boat, the demons within him.

Must have lurched with hatred. They must have vomited hatred upon seeing the son of man coming and perhaps something inside this man. Maybe he had still just enough for wherewithal to put together enough thoughts to say, if somebody in that boat is so hated and so feared by these things within me, then maybe they can help me.

They are my only hope. Somehow the ones living in me hate him so much and fear him so much. Maybe he is the only one that can do anything for me because surely he hasn't heard of Jesus Word of Jesus likely hasn't reached this side of the Sea of Galilee. If it has. He doesn't know about it. He doesn't have any contact with anybody.

He doesn't have contact with the town. Even if the townspeople know about him, he doesn't know about him. Furthermore, even if the townspeople have heard about Jesus, there's no pictures of Jesus. There's no images floating around where they can look and know what person to be looking for. And even if there was, Jesus is still way out on the sea.

The only way he could have known that there's somebody in the boat that had relevance for his situation was the demons within him had a reaction to that man that caused him to know this man coming on the boat or there's, there's somebody in that boat. There's something about that boat that spells my possible freedom from this.

And so he runs. Now, why do the demons allow him to go to Jesus? The demons obviously are in control of him. They're making him cut himself and shriek. We know from other stories in scripture of what the demons were able to make people do. They would throw people into a fire or make them foam with the mouth of different things.

Why do the demons let him go to Jesus? We don't know we, but the only thing that I can think is that what else are they going to do? Because you see the demons know some things about Jesus that people often struggle with, and one of the things that the demons know about Jesus is that He's God is spirit, and there's nowhere that they're going to go to run from him.

I think they know that. I think they know very plainly that it would do no good for them to flee from Jesus' presence because fleeing from his presence will do nothing. Think of Psalm 1 39 where the psalmist is praising God and saying, where will I go away from your presence? I can go in the grave, I can go as, as, , Jonah on the ocean.

Where am I going to go away from your presence? Now the psalmist is praising God for that. But the demons also know that where, where are we going to go? Remember the story? Well, actually, you don't remember it, remember it yet, because it hasn't happened in Mark's gospel yet. Mark chapter seven, the story of the Syrophoenician woman who comes to Jesus and pleads that Jesus would cast the demon out of her daughter.

And then Jesus says to her, go for the demon has left. And Jesus is nowhere near her daughter, her daughter's in another country, and she goes and finds that the demon has. And so Jesus didn't need to go to her daughter to cast the demon out. Jesus' power over the demon and her daughter had nothing to do with physical proximity.

And so I think the demons know that what's, what good's it going to do to run away from him. It's not like being away from his presence is going to save us from anything. So the man, I think just overwhelmed with this compulsion. That's that these things within me are revolting so hard against that boat right there.

That's where I need to go. And so he runs. Now, if I could get into the thoughts of anyone in scripture, wouldn't that be fun? If you could sort of get into the thoughts of people as these things are happening. If I could get into the thoughts of people in this episode, the one mind I wouldn't want to get in is the mans, but if I could get into the disciples mind, wouldn't that be interesting?

So here the disciples, they've just spent a sleepless night on the Sea of Galilee in which they saw Jesus speak to water, and the water obeyed. And here they come to the shore and they're still sort of grappling with all this. And, and just as Jesus sets his foot out, they look up and here comes this man.

Luke says he didn't wear CLO clothes anymore, so he's naked all the time. So they look up and they see this creature naked scars, scabs, fresh blood, shrieking, running downhill to them. What would you think? Perfect. I mean, they, they probably are assuming that Jesus protected them from the storm last night.

So he'll protect us from this maniac, but surely they're thinking what in the world is coming down the hill towards us? And so he comes barreling down the hill. When he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and fell down before him and crying out with a loud voice picture in your mind or in your in your mind's ear, if you will, this man's voice.

Because we're told earlier that always night and day he was shrieking. So think of what that does to the voice. Think of how hard. And how strong and how harsh his voice likely sounds. Not to mention what possible effect the demons might have had on his voice. You know, like, like the movies often show, , when they show this sort of thing, they'll, they'll modify the voice and make the voice real spooky.

So even putting that aside, just think of the man's voice now for years, night and day, he's shrieking and his voice is loud and harsh and we don't know, maybe, maybe the demons living within him. Maybe they have distorted his physical appearance. Maybe they've distorted the features of his face. But here he is, naked, bleeding, scarred, barreling, downhill shrieking with a loud voice.

And he said, what have you to do with me Jesus, son of the most high God. So literally what have you to do with me. Literally, that is what business do we have with each other? Or to put it in the words of Paul, what business does light have with darkness? What business do we have? What relations do we have with each other?

What have you to do with me Jesus son of the most, high God. So who's speaking here? Because it, it can get confusing because the way that I understand what's happening in this man now is that the demons in him and he have grown so intertwined that probably it's hard for him to tell who exactly speaking, you know, how you ever seen like a vine that grew up over a fence for a lot of years and how maybe a, a woven wire fence and the vine will just grow all through that.

And it's just like so inter intertangled that it's really hard to separate out one from the other. I think that that's the man and the demons right now, it's almost hard for him. To know who's speaking. It's hard for us to kind of know who's speaking, but I think the one speaking here is not the man. The one that's speaking is the demon.

What have you to do with me? What business do we have with each other? Jesus son of the most, high God. So here this is the third interchange that Jesus has with demons, and all three times the same thing has come out of their mouth. I know who you are. You are the son of God. So those who bear the image of God, we who are created in the image of God, sometimes we have the hardest time recognizing the deity of Jesus Christ.

Demons never did demons, never had one minute of trouble recognizing the deity of Jesus Christ. I know who you are. Jesus son of the most high God. Now, what's beginning to happen here as Jesus is going to wrestle with this demon, Jesus is clearly the strong man. And we'll see in the passage how it plays out that the, the fate, the outcome of this battle was decided long ago.

The outcome of this, of this battle was at least decided back in chapter one, when Jesus exited out of the, the wilderness having been victorious over everything the kingdom of darkness could throw at him, but. For all intents and purposes, even though the battle is decided, this is going to be an interchange between Jesus and these demons, that's going to take a few minutes.

Jesus. In Matthew's account, Jesus says one word, go. But in Mark's account, he describes it to us as like this interchange between these demons known as Legion and Jesus. And the interchange begins with this the same way. It always begins by them saying, I know who you are. You are the son of God. You are the son of the most high.

You are Jesus, the son of the most high God. So one thing that's happening here is this ancient belief. That when you were in a conflict with the demonic or the conflict with the spirit world, you had power over the spirit world by knowing the name of the spirit or the entity with which you were doing battle.

And all that began way back at the beginning of our scriptures. If you remember back in Genesis chapter one, two, and three, you remember one of the principles that comes through in those three chapters. There is the principle that, that God teaches that to know a name or to give a name is to have authority over.

And so remember what happens. God names the man, but then the man names the animals. So the man has authority over the animals. The man names the woman twice. Na, the man names the woman and the man names the animals. But you know what? The man doesn't name? He doesn't name the day. He doesn't name the night.

He doesn't name the stars. He doesn't name the sun. He doesn't name the moon because the man doesn't have authority over the stars or the moon or the sun or the day or the night. He does have authority over the animals. So this idea of giving a name has to do with having authority over. And from that came the understanding that as you're doing battle with these spirit powers, to know the name of the one that you were engaging gave you power over them.

So think with me, it's in your notes here. Think with me from places like, , from Mark, chapter one. This is the first encounter with the demonic. What have you to do with us. Jesus and Nazareth, have you come to destroy us. I know who you are, the holy one of God. Or chapter three, we remember this. You are the son of God.

Or think from Acts chapter 19, this is the occasion in which we find that Paul and the others are God is manifesting so much power through them and demons are being cast out. Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists undertook to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits. So they didn't know Jesus, these Jewish exorcists.

They didn't know anything about Jesus, but they saw that the name of Jesus was powerful and so, so they said, even though we don't know Jesus will use his name, so they invoke the name of Jesus over evil spirit saying, I adjure you by what? By the name of Jesus. Not whom we know, but the name that of Jesus that Paul proclaims.

And then we know how the story works out. The demons don't listen to him at all. So to have the name was to have some sort of power, and that's what the demon is trying to do. I know who you are. I know your name. You are the son of God. You are the son of the most high. You're Jesus. But notice that yields no power whatsoever.

Jesus son of the most high God, I know who you are. I adjure you by God. Do not torment me, so I adjure you. In other words, he's trying to place Jesus under oath. He's calling upon God and calling upon God to say, put yourself under oath. Jesus put yourself under oath, under God. To not torment me. To not torment me.

He's trying to bind Jesus in his word. He's trying to cause Jesus or to, to convince Jesus to give his word or to be bound by this oath, saying that he will not torment him, but Jesus will not be bound. He won't be bound to some oath to this demon. As we saw earlier in chapter three, Jesus will bind himself freely and willingly to his people, but he won't be bound in any other way.

So he says, I abjure you by God. Do not torment me. So we begin to see the fear that the demon has or the demons have of this man Jesus. They're terrified of him. So the picture that now is beginning to unfold in your mind is this picture. Just imagine this. You've seen movies to this effect, this, this vast expanse of a battlefield and over this vast expanse of the battlefield, there is a huge army forming up for battle.

Just think of whatever period of history that you, that you like, and just imagine this huge army forming up for battle. And on the other side is one man, and the other man is Jesus. And the huge army is terrified. They're terrified of this one man, Jesus. Jesus will send them running from the field in fear.

He says, I adjure you by God. Do not torment me. For he was saying to him, we could picture ch , verse eight. You could imagine parentheses being around verse eight, because Mark is giving us sort of this parenthetical statement here for He was saying to them, come out of the man, you unclean spirit. And Jesus asked him, what is your name?

So Jesus is the one who has the real power here. And he replied, my name is Legion for we are many. So we're familiar with legion in the scriptures. It's the, it's a Latin word, and it just means this designation, the, the Roman Army designation for something, basically the equivalent of perhaps a battalion today, five to 6,000 soldiers along with 120 Calvary.

Man, that was a legion. So in this part of the world, they would be very accustomed to seeing a Roman legion and thinking in terms of Roman legions. But we shouldn't think of this literally here. We shouldn't think that literally the demon is saying there are 6,000 of us. Because what legion also means is also a metaphorical sort of an idiom to mean a great many of us, a great number.

He doesn't literally mean 6,000, although it could be in the thousands because later on in the story when the demons will enter into the pigs, we're told it's about 2000 pigs. So it could be a great many of them. But see here in the passage, the passage tells us the meaning. He says your, he says, my name is Legion for we are not 6,000.

We are many. Now we don't know what many means, but it is to say a lot. What is your name? He replied. My name is Legion For We are Many. Now, something in the original here that really doesn't come through, comes through a little bit in the English, but not as clearly as what Mark wrote. Something that's, that's going on here is this constant switching back and forth through the entire passage between the singular and the plural.

You see some of it in the English, but there's even more than what we can see. My singular name is Legion For We Plural are many and Jesus Above that says, what is your name, your singular. He plural, replied. My singular name is Legion For We Plural. It's just it. The whole passage is that way. It's, it's almost eerie.

Spooky, if I might use that word, of how it's back and forth is this one. Or is this plural? Is this many or is this one? And it gives you, it, it really, it, it unsettles the reader as the reader's reading through this, because you can't really grasp what it is that's being communicating or what it is that's communicating here.

Is it one entity or is it many? And so he says, we, my, my singular name is Legion for we plural are many. And he begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country. So here we see the fear of the demons. The demons are afraid of a couple things. The first thing that they're afraid of is Jesus's timing.

In Matthew's account of this, they asked Jesus, they begged Jesus do not torment us before the time. So there is an appointed time in which these demons are well aware that appointed time is the time in which they will be cast into the pit. We are told that God has prepared the lake of fire for Satan and his army.

And so they, they, they know that that time is appointed. And so in Matthew's account, they asked Jesus, don't cast us into the pit before the appointed time. But we also know that there are, even though it's not the time yet that God has in some way, we don't know how, but, or, or we don't know the details of it, but in some way there are already some demons in that pit.

Second to Peter, chapter two, verse four says this, for if God did not spare angels when they sinned. But cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment. So there we see that there's a fearfulness, that these demons will be cast into that same pit ahead of the time of torture.

So they're afraid of that, but they're also afraid of being, if you will, homeless, of being cast out of their abode of this man who is their host. They're afraid of being cast out of that. So in some way we know that the demons prefer to inhabit a person or even an animal as opposed to an inhabit nothing.

We know this from places like Mark chapter 12 and verse 43, when the unclean spirit has gone out of a person. It passes through waterless places seeking rest, but it finds none. So they're afraid of being cast out of the person and having nowhere to go, and they're afraid of being cast into this place of torture before the time.

And so they express this fear. They beg, in fact, the passage has four beggings that take place. The the, the man is begging Jesus. The demons are begging Jesus. The village. People beg Jesus. And then the man begs Jesus to go with him later on in the passage. But there's lots of begging going on. So they beg Jesus earnestly not to send them out of the country.

So where they are, this area where that they are is somehow an area that they like and they want to stay here. Remember, the man lives among the tombs. He lives among the dead. This is o obviously, as we're going to see from the reaction of the villagers. This is obviously a place in which they have very tight spiritual control and they don't want to leave here.

So they say we, , where they beg him not to send them out of the country. Now, verse 11, now a great herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside. And they begged him saying, send us to the pigs and let us enter them. So he gave them permission and the unclean spirits came out and entered the pigs, and the herd numbering about 2000, rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the sea.

So a couple things going on there. One, some people take exception to that because, I mean, 2000 animals appear, appear to lose their life, and this, for some people, cast a very bad shadow onto Jesus. There's the whole, , animals dying thing, and that's problematic for some people. So let's think just, just real quickly, I don't want to spend much time on this, but just real quickly, let's think through that.

Well, number one, the death of the pigs results not from Jesus' command, but from his giving permission. It. Jesus didn't command them to go into the pigs. In fact, it wasn't even Jesus' idea, it was their idea. Jesus just gives permission. So that's one. But then beyond that, and this is the main thing here, we're going to see next week that the townspeople make a great mistake.

And among their great mistakes is the, that they value the life of 2000 pigs over the life of one eternal, never dying soul. And that is a true tragedy to value the life of however many animals make up a number there, there is no number of animals that would outweigh the value of an eternal never dying human soul.

So, , just real quickly, we'll keep moving, but, , be careful not to make the same mistake that the villagers make, which is to value the life of their animals over this even one eternal soul. So, verse , again, verse 12, and they begged him saying, send us to the pigs and let us enter them. Now, verse 13.

So he gave them permission and the unclean spirits came out, entered the pigs, and the herd numbering about 2000, rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned into the sea. So Mark is doing something there. We don't see it in the English, but he makes a very obvious and a very pointed change in verb tenses.

So there's four verbs there, and they sort of come at us. Rapid fire. Number one, he gave permission. Number two, the spirits came out. Number three, they entered the herd, and number four, they rushed down the state bank. Four verbs in what's called the Aris tense, which is just to say, , it just reads quickly as if Mark is making no specific reference to, , the, the, the way that it's playing out.

This is like Mark is passing through that section of the narrative very quickly. He gave permission, then clean spirits came out, enter the pigs, rushed down, and then that word drowned. He changes there to the imperfect. So literally he gave permission. They came out, they rushed in, rushed down the bank, and then he stops and says, literally, and they drowned and kept on drowning.

It's as though picture in your mind. You're watching this on the movie, and you know how oftentimes a movie will, will draw something out by coming to that one moment, and then it goes to slow motion. This is like what happens here. The demons come out, the herd rushes down, they dive over into the water, and boom, there's the slow motion, and then you see.

One pig go under, and then you see the pig struggling. Then you see another pig go under and another pig go under. You see how Mark is just, it's beautiful how he draws this out. They rush down and then they're drowning and they keep on drowning and they keep on going under. Now, verse 14, the herdsman fled, told it now, verse 15, looking quickly at verse 15, I know this isn't part of the passage today, and they came to Jesus and saw the demon possessed man, the one who had had the legion sitting there clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid.

As we conclude this morning, let's just draw out a couple of things to see, and all these things are so plain and so obvious every, every one of us already sees these probably, but let's just draw attention to them. There are really three things that pop out at us, and then one really big thing. Three things that become very apparent for us.

Number one, this is a picture, a very vivid and a very pointed picture of the human condition of lostness. This is a picture of life apart from Christ. This is a picture of those who are separated from Christ. The man's wretchedness and the man's misery are scripture's. Description of life separated from Christ.

Now, you might say, well, wait a minute. I know some people who aren't followers of Jesus. They don't profess faith in Jesus and they, they're pretty happy people. Sometimes they can seem happier than those who do profess faith in Jesus Christ. Here's the really important thing to see. However you may feel doesn't really matter.

What matters is the objective truth that scripture is teaching us and scripture is teaching us the objective truth. This is what separation from Christ is. What is the number one primary characteristic of sin? Anybody know Deceptiveness Scripture teaches us that is what sin does above all else, is it deceives?

And so a great meeting of people are deceived. They're deceived by this carrot that they're chasing or that thing that they're going after or this pleasure that they're indulging in or whatever it may be. But that matters for nothing. How you feel? Scripture teaches us that feelings are important, but not nearly as important as objective reality and objective truth.

And scripture is saying, this is the objective reality. Apart from Christ, you are this man. Now, does that mean all people apart from Christ are possessed by demons? No, but it does mean that all who are apart from Christ are slaves to Satan because we're slaves to one or the other. All of us belong to one or the other.

There's no third option. You don't have the option of being your own God or your own commander or your own chief. You are either one of Satan's or you're one of God's. Those are the only two options. All of humanity is either one or the other. And so apart from Christ, we are slaves to Satan and apart from Christ, this is who we are.

We may be wretched, we may feel wretched, or we may feel happy either way. This is our spiritual condition apart from Christ. But secondly, it shows us the profound reality, the profound transition, the the transformation that takes place because this is a picture of genuine salvation. Notice with me again, verse 15, and they came.

These are the townspeople. They came to Jesus and they saw the demon possessed man, the formerly demon possessed man, the one who had had the legion sitting there clothed and in his right mind. Those three things sitting clothed in his right mind. So first of all, he's sitting. He's no longer roaming. He's no longer wandering.

He's no longer wandering around, shrieking and cutting himself. He's sitting, but he's not just sitting. He's clothed. Where'd he get the clothes? The disciples maybe gave him some clothes, but he's clothed. That's a picture for us of being clothed in the righteousness of Christ. But then mostly we see him in his right mind.

Jesus heals him beginning with his mind. He is now in his right mind. He sees Jesus correctly. He sees himself, he sees what he was, he has been opened to understanding and he sees Jesus recognizes him and he's one of his. Now he is one of his sheep. He recognizes his voice. He's in his right mind. So he's a picture here.

In fact, scripture's most radical picture of the drastic transformation that happens at regeneration. Is there a more stark picture in all of the scriptures of one who was taken from wretched misery and death into life. The storm that was his life is now just as calm as the sea was last night. Jesus calmed the great storm on the sea, resulting in a great calm.

The the equivalent of that is the great storm that met them on the shore now is sitting there. Clothed in his right mind, in a great calm. He is a pitcher of regeneration. He's a pitcher of salvation. The third picture, we'll see this one next week, the third pitcher is the world's reaction to the regener one, the one who forsakes their demons, the one who forsakes their old slave master and receives life in his name will see the world's reaction.

That's next week. But the main picture, and this is the main point of the whole passage, this is the point that you, you just can't miss. If you miss this point, you aren't paying attention at all because the main central point of this passage is the same one as the previous passage. Look at Jesus. Just look.

Just look at him.

He is the one who has power over wind and water. And who he is, the one before whom the most hideous demons from the pit of hell tremble and run.

And yet he is the one so filled with compassion. Did you notice how far Jesus went for one sheep? Next week, we'll see that the townspeople ask him to leave and he does. One sheep, he crossed the sea. He crossed the storm. He faced the legion of demons for one sheep because Jesus is the one. This is all pointing us to something that's coming later in Mark's gospel when Jesus, once again will go to a place of death, a place of the dead.

Here he goes to the cemetery, and in this context, all around them, corpses aren't far away, but Jesus will one day go to another place of death, and when he goes to that place of death, he's not going for a visit. He will go to that place of death as a dead man, and he won't go to that place of death to just leave, spend some time there and leave later that afternoon or the next day, he's going to that place of death to be put into the ground himself, and he's not going there to rescue one sheep.

He's going there to rescue all of his people because he will go to that place of death and he will take upon himself the death that was this man's and mine and yours and all of God's people. He will take that death upon himself and just as he stared into the. Hideous face of Legion and stared that those demons down and caused them to turn, tail and run.

So also, will he stare directly into the face of our enemy death and say, you have no more power. You have no more power over my people. This is the Jesus that the passage is showing us, revealing to us something about the great. I am the Savior who is fully man and fully God.