Seek and Save VIII The Gadarene Demoniac

SEEK and SAVE VIII

To the Gadarenes and Back

Turn to Mark 5:1-21

Jesus lived a life of submission to his Father’s will as he went about doing good in fulfillment of the Holy Scriptures, doing works of mercy and necessity and fulfilling all righteousness. He fully obeyed the Law of God. No one before him had done that; nor could any during his time or after him. 

All of JESUS’ works are righteousness and obedience to God’s Law with the work he was given to do are called the active obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ. He actively sought to practice righteousness that His righteousness might become the only hope of man’s justification. His active and passive righteousness in both parts is exactly what men need to be declared right with God.

That is why these seemingly small narratives are important. For those who have been justified by faith alone in God’s heavenly courtroom, these narratives should bring great delight.  These are the recorded events of Jesus fulfilling all righteousness that he might be an unblemished lamb slain for vile sinners. This righteousness is what ultimately saves us as we are not held accountable for our own sin because it has been covered by the righteousness of Christ. It is that righteous sacrifice that also turns away the wrath of the Father from those who believe.

The section of the Life of the Lord Jesus we will be looking at today is on that same day we have been looking at for the last 14 messages. Jesus stilled the storm as they crossed the sea. They arrive in the country of the Gadarenes. Jesus immediately gets back to business.

Turn to Mark 5:1-21

I am not going to read the text and then go back to open it up. It is a long narrative. So, I will read each section in the context of preaching.

Remember this, this narrative is there to teach us about the power and glory of Jesus, It is not there to teach us about how to handle demons. This is another example of how Jesus sought out and saved the lost. Keep listening....

This was a pre-resurrection encounter between Jesus and 2,000 demons or unclean spirits that had infested one particular man. It would scare any of us to death.

Our focus will be upon the glory and power of the Lord Jesus Christ.

A few observations as background.

1. The devil is a real being and he has many fallen angels and spirits under his influence.

2. Jesus is more powerful than all the hosts of the demonic world. Here he deals with 2,000 in one man and has no trouble at all. He is greater than the forces of darkness.

3. There is no dualism where the forces of darkness and the forces of light are locked in an eternal struggle waiting for you and your prayers to come along and give victory. Jesus has conquered his foe at the cross and demonstrated it by rising from the dead.

4. The serpent’s head is already crushed. This narrative is about part of that victory brought about by God’s mighty power working in the son of God incarnate.

Let’s look more closely at the text:

1. Arrival and Engagement

Mark 5:1 Then they came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gadarenes.  2 And when He had come out of the boat, immediately there met Him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit,

We know evening was approaching when they left. They had the run-in with the storm, Jesus stilled the waters. They continued across the sea to the country of the Gadarenes. It appears to have been light at this hour. 

The disciples and Jesus arrive. And, without any delay, a man from the tombs possessed of an unclean spirit came to Jesus.

Remember, this is one of the ways the day started many hours ago. This is the second encounter with unclean spirits that day. It is an amazing narrative. Who but the Son of God could have sorted this out? We have ....

2. A Description of Desperation

3 who had his dwelling among the tombs; and no one could bind him, not even with chains, 4 because he had often been bound with shackles and chains. And the chains had been pulled apart by him, and the shackles broken in pieces; neither could anyone tame him.  5 And always, night and day, he was in the mountains and in the tombs, crying out and cutting himself with stones. 

This man was in a miserable condition. He lived in the place of the buried dead outside of the cities. He had strength so that he could do the amazing. Nothing could hold him, nobody could tame him. He moves about the mountains and tombs screaming unpleasant sounds as he cut himself with stones.

Do you get a sense of his miserable condition? There was nothing others could do for him and nothing he could do for himself. He could not even take his own life to be rid of this desperate condition. Do you know why? Because it was not God’s will for him to do so. It was God’s will that he come to Jesus at the proper time and in the right manner. Jesus was seeking him out.

We have recorded for us.....

3. A Surprise Response

6 When he saw Jesus from afar, he [the man] ran

Had the disciples learned their lesson? There is no record of them scattering as this madman ran towards them. Note the action of the demoniac as he approached Jesus—

he ran and worshiped Him. 

This is the strongest Greek word for worship. It means to bow down in humble awe, reverence, and adoration in order to give service to another. It is a picture of bowing low to kiss the ground before a revered being. This is the response of a madman full of many demons.  In this spirit of worship, we are told…

7 And he cried out with a loud voice

This is the word for cry that denoted his action in the mountains and tombs, this was a cry which grated the ears. A mother’s call for a lost child may be like this—it cuts out all other sounds to get across a point in words or emotions.

and said,  “What have I to do with You, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?

This man knew who Jesus was without any formal introduction. This man was not necessarily a Jew. If he were, he would have been exiled in this place to be away from his community.

Commentators want to make him to be a Samaritan or a Greek. Yet, he knew who Jesus was and calls him by this most informed and interesting title—Son of the Most High God.

This name is instructive as to his background. The most high God is a phrase used of the God Melchizedek served. It is used twice in Psalm 78. The first to express that God was the rock of his people and the Most High God was their redeemer, or rescuer. The second to denote who it was the children of Israel provoked through disobedience. This name of God is used four times in Daniel. Shadrach, Meshack and Abednego were servants of the most high God. Nebuchadnezer’s heart was made like the wild beasts until “till he knew that the Most High God rules in the kingdom of men, and appoints over it whomever He chooses.” Of course it is found in the gospels when this demoniac worships the Lord. But it is also found in Acts where a demon possessed girl cries out that Paul and the others were servants of the Most High God. Jesus was that Most High God in the flesh.

These two incidents of demon-possession and the madness of Nebuchadnezar are most telling. The Demons have a high view of who God is that includes a high view of his Christ, the Messiah sent from God. This is a very Jewish notion of who God is. Demons have a higher and more informed view of who Jesus was than most Americans, than many so-called Evangelicals, and the vast majority of people who live or have lived on our planet. It is unbelievable, but true.

Why is this important? There is a form of belief with minimal content devoid of faith that might maintain a high view of God.  In other words, belief in God and even in the uniqueness of Jesus can be part of what people believe, yet, the one believing is not necessarily following God by faith.  A little religious language does not make a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Listen to what James has to say, James 2:19 You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe — and tremble! The point James is making is this, mere Christianity is not enough. There is more to believing than reciting a few words.

Repentance and faith have tangible effects upon the life of the one believing. Belief never stands alone. It is accompanied by the work of God through the Spirit working in, by and through the Word of God. It goes on throughout this life.

In this narrative of the Garadene demoniac, we have the question of this man’s condition. Is he at this instance a saved man. Has he been rescued from his sin and the desperate situation in which he has lived?

Let’s look further. The man begs Jesus....

I implore You by God that You do not torment me.”

He knew what he deserved... He asked for mercy without using the word. People express their cries for mercy in varying ways. There is no one prayer that sinners ought to pray to seek God’s compassion. Each and every person who sees their sin and the plight of their soul should go to God asking for his mercy in the best way they can. That is when what is really in the heart comes out in prayer.

This man, or even the demons within him, for that matter, know what they deserve, there is a request for mercy from the man.

4. The Command of Jesus

8 For He said to him,  “Come out of the man, unclean spirit!”

Jesus commands the unclean spirit to come out.  What ensues is an interesting bit of interaction.... Can you imagine the scene? Jesus speaks to the man, the demons speak back to have the .....

5. The Conversation with Jesus

9 Then [Jesus] asked him,  “What is your name?” And he answered, saying,  “My name is Legion; for we are many.”  10 Also he begged Him earnestly that He would not send them out of the country. 

The unclean spirits were full of fear. They are not equal in power to anyone divine or anyone who has the Spirit of God. They know that the power of Jesus can control and conquer them. Knowing what they deserve, they prefer another fate. So Mark gives us .....

6. A Word of Explanation

11 Now a large herd of swine was feeding there near the mountains. 

Mark draws our attention to a large army of hogs, unclean animals, wild boars feeding near the mountains, where this man had gone around crying aloud. So all of the demons work together as we find...

7. Demons still Believing and Trembling

12 So all the demons begged Him, saying,  “Send us to the swine, that we may enter them.”  13 And at once Jesus gave them permission. Then the unclean spirits went out and entered the swine (there were about two thousand); and the herd ran violently down the steep place into the sea, and drowned in the sea. 

Let’s not focus so much on the demons, but on the deliverance. About 2,000 demons had been in this man. 2,000 spirits had been empowering this man to do the evil to himself and to act as a madman. The presence of the Lord Jesus Christ excited demonic activity. But, at all times, he had power over them and sought to subdue them especially for the sake of those who followed him.

Jesus was compassionate to the man and to the fallen ones who had inhabited him for so long. He gave the demons what they did not deserve, to be gone, drowned in the sea in the bodies of swine. He gave the man deliverance as he was Lord, the wind, sea, demons and disciples were to obey him.

8. The Response of the People

14 So those who fed the swine fled, and they told it in the city and in the country. And they went out to see what it was that had happened.  15 Then they came to Jesus, and saw the one who had been demon-possessed and had the legion, sitting and clothed and in his right mind.

The locals knew this man. He was sitting calmly and as the Scriptures say, in his right mind, or literally to be of sound mind. Like you and me sitting here today. But the narrative goes on:

And they were afraid. 

Here, they were afraid. Afraid because Jesus had delivered an undeserving man from his difficult existence. Or, were they afraid because they realized something about themselves and what the presence of Jesus meant. If this Christ really has this kind of power, this wonder points beyond itself to the one who was powerful enough to do it. The eyewitnesses could not be contained. They spoke...

16 And those who saw it told them how it happened to him who had been demon-possessed, and about the swine. 

The people from the area did not want Jesus around to upset their lifestyle. They took this tragic turn...

17 Then they began to plead with Him to depart from their region.  

The rejected him by rejecting his work among them. People seek after signs. But, they don’t want to travel the way in which the sign points—to faith in Jesus alone.

People are often confronted with the mercy and compassion of God. What amazes me is how many make the work of God to be something about themselves rather than the glory of God coming among men, or how some wiggle out of the compelling nature of all of this as they consider what the sign points to, following the Lord Jesus Christ.  People want to think the power of God in on their side, but they do not want to be on God’s side when it comes to life’s battles being fought by God-given, biblical, faith.

Such is the reaction of the multitudes. Sometimes they don’t turn away from following Jesus, other times, they turn Jesus away to go to another place. If Jesus pronounced his woes on other cities and regions for not responding to his mighty works, will he withhold his woe of condemnation from the Garadenes and others?

The presence of the Church in Worcester, places the population under peril, even if they don’t know it. They are in eternal danger since they do not come to hear and respond positively by faith.

This narrative is not about the demons, it about the Power of God in Christ to seek and to save the lost. In the most desperate of situations, Jesus can work to save to the uttermost all who come to him by faith. It is about Jesus going to release one man from the powers that bound him.

If he does this in the most desperate of situations, how about those that don’t seem so desperate to the eyes of the World?

This narrative is about the work Jesus had to do to deliver just ONE sinner from bondage. His compassion breaks through, his love for one is made manifest and his glory shines brightly. We saw the response of the many, now hear the response of the ONE.....

9. The Response of the man made whole

18 And when [Jesus] got into the boat, he who had been demon-possessed begged Him that he might be with Him.

What a wonderful report. He wanted to be with Jesus. But, In the divine ordering of things that was not to be....

 19 However, Jesus did not permit him, but said to him,  “Go home to your friends, and tell them what great things the Lord has done for you, and how He has had compassion on you.”

There was something more important to do than being with Jesus. He was delivered and converted to tell the glad tidings of salvation. He was made whole that he would go to tell the great things God had done. Who have you told?

20 And he departed and began to proclaim in Decapolis all that Jesus had done for him; and all marveled.

He obeyed. Faith alone had saved him, but it was not a faith hat remained alone. It was accompanied by obedience in response to the mercies of Christ. He went either to the main city of the region or throughout the ten cities telling what Jesus had done for him.  He used to travel in the dark places crying out; he now went to the cities proclaiming the mercy of Jesus. Jesus sought him out to save him and to make him whole.

All marveled. THEY KNEW HIM. They knew he was a changed man. THEY heard him, they marveled.

You see, this is important to see, the people marveled not because of the exorcism, it was the transformed life—he was a man made new. The grace of Jesus changed him from what he had been to something wonderful. The salvation of a sinner is one of the greatest miracles in all of the world.

Is his work  in you still fresh? Do you delight to tell others of the great things God has done for you? And, that he still does them for others!

Amen!