Jesus shows that He is the Son of the Most High God who subdues Satan to save sinners.
1 They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes. 2 And when Jesus had stepped out of the boat, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit. 3 He lived among the tombs. And no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain, 4 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. 5 Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones. 6 And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and fell down before him. 7 And crying out with a loud voice, he said, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.” 8 For he was saying to him, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!” 9 And Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” He replied, “My name is Legion, for we are many.” 10 And he begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country. 11 Now a great herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, 12 and they begged him, saying, “Send us to the pigs; let us enter them.” 13 So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered the pigs; and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the sea.
14 The herdsmen fled and told it in the city and in the country. And people came to see what it was that had happened. 15 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. 16 And those who had seen it described to them what had happened to the demon-possessed man and to the pigs. 17 And they began to beg Jesus to depart from their region. 18 As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed with demons begged him that he might be with him. 19 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.” 20 And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him, and everyone marveled.
When you have a sermon-writing class, as I had a few of them in seminary and other times, I'm constantly trying to learn how to preach better and how to be more effective as your pastor here at Delta Oaks. One of the things they teach you very early on in sermon preparation is that you need a good introduction.
You need something that's going to catch people's attention. So often pastors will maybe start with a story or start with a question, something, perhaps a statement that really surprises you or gets you and makes you think, wow, whatever's going to happen, we really have to pay attention to this. But then once in a while you come across a passage in Scripture that is so interesting and frankly so weird that it really needs no lengthy introduction.
I'm referring, of course, to the passage we just read, the casting out of the demons from the Gadarean or Gerasean demoniac. This is a story, perhaps you know it. Perhaps you had a Sunday school lesson on it once upon a time.
And for most, if not all of us here this morning, as we're reading this passage once again, I hope we're asking ourselves, what on earth is going on here? There's a man who seems to have superhuman strength. There's a man there who we're told is filled with a legion of demons, whatever that means. And then thousands of pigs rushing into the sea and then everybody's scared of Jesus.
What's going on in this passage? I think one sense when we read a passage like this, in this particular passage, we should note that this is the most, not one of the most, but the most detailed account of what we would call an exorcism, not just in Mark's gospel, but in the entirety of Scripture. The most detailed account of an exorcism, the casting out of a demon, or in this case many demons. And so it may intrigue us, or perhaps it may make us think, okay, if we have a hardened heart or a skeptical heart, it may make us think, okay, this is a bunch of that supernatural stuff that goes on in the Scriptures every once in a while.
There's a double danger that happens or can occur when we read a passage like this. On the one hand, we may begin to think, okay, the demon stuff, that's not really relevant to me. Either it's not real, it's made up, or perhaps it was real at the time, but I really don't have to deal with it now.
On the other hand, we may fall into the opposite peril, which is we may become overly fixated and fascinated with the demons, and see a demon under every rock and stone. I'm driving down the highway, my car stops working, and I begin to think, oh, it's Satan, right? You start to think that the demons are responsible for everything. But instead we come to a passage like this that confronts us, befuddles us, and yet presses upon us the reality of supernatural evil.
The reality of supernatural evil. But that's not the point of this passage. If all we take away from today is that evil is real and that demons exist, that's actually not what Jesus is telling us here in Mark chapter 5. No, rather, the point of this passage is that Jesus, the Son of the Most High, Jesus, the Son of God, Jesus, the Almighty God, is coming to strike down Satan to save his people.
The picture that we should have from this passage is that this is a picture of a Jesus who's coming to save his people by smiting the hand of the evil one, of the demons, of the devils, to subdue Satan, to bind him up that he may bring out his people into salvation. And so we have, again, no need of lengthy introduction here, but just as we're proceeding in this passage, there's three points this morning, and they all center around, kids, what I was asking you to keep track of here this morning, that word, beg. You see, there are three parties in this passage, three groups of people or entities, we could call them, that beg Jesus, that plead with Jesus.
You could say even pray to Jesus in this passage. There's a lot of praying going on, there's a lot of begging going on. The word in Greek is parakaleo, to call alongside or to call out to, to implore.
So there's three parties, three entities, three groups that are calling out to Jesus in this passage, and we're going to look at each of those three in turn. The first of which may be surprising, but again, it's right there in the passage. The first party, person, group, entity to call out and pray to Jesus is this group called legion, the legion, the demon.
The demons are the first to call out to Jesus, and so we need to first note here what demons are. Demons are supernatural beings. They're supernatural beings.
They don't have a body like us, but they are created beings, in fact. Demons are not some kind of, the devil himself, and demons are not in some kind of category that somehow exists apart from God's sovereign control and creation. No, in fact, they're a rebellious spirit who resists the Lord God and who have been duly punished by him.
Now if we need to take the Bible seriously, we need to understand that there is real and yes, personal evil in this world. That was true in Jesus' day, but it is certainly true today as well. The darkness in our world is certainly the result of human sin, and yet we would be foolish not to acknowledge that there is a demonic element wrapped up in it.
In fact, the scriptures frequently talk about how when we sin, we are actually aligning ourselves and even putting ourselves under the influence of the devil. Demons are real. Spiritual forces, this is what Ephesians chapter 6 calls them, spiritual forces of evil in the heavenlies.
It calls them rulers, in fact, authorities. There's some measure of authority given to demonic forces in our world. Cosmic powers, the book of Ephesians calls them, Paul calls them, these cosmic powers over present darkness.
And so we begin to realize that this is a reality for us. Demons are a real spiritual power force in our present age. And yet, we need to recognize too that they are not simply a free-roaming agent.
Again, they are creatures. Everything and all of creation is under the sovereign power of God, even the demons. Even the demons.
Now, the devil is described as a deceiver and an accuser. That is typically how demons tend to operate, through deception, through lies. It's rare, in fact, even in scripture, it's very rare that you see something so outwardly manifesting as the demonically possessed man in our passage today.
And interestingly in scripture, we don't see hardly anything, if anything, of demon possession outwardly manifest in the Old Testament. And as the New Testament goes on through the apostolic era, we see it begin to die down. What's going on in there? Well, it's not that the demons are suddenly disappearing and they weren't there and they aren't there now, but it seems that particularly in the midst of Jesus' presence and the presence of his apostles, who are the hands and the feet and the mouth of Jesus, the apostles are a foundational era in the church, they are doing Jesus' work, they are continuing his ministry.
In that era, it seems that they're drawing out the opposition in a way unprecedented and perhaps never will be duplicated again. That's not to say that demonic possession does not happen or that demonic influence certainly does still occur. It does occur still in this present age, we're told that.
But frequently in scripture, we're not told to cast out demons when it comes to facing the devil. We're not told to exorcise the devil, no, rather we're told to stand against him. So I just want to say that here at the outset, that what we're seeing here in Mark is both something that is a reality today, but also unique to Jesus' day.
And that for us as we're considering the power of demons today, our goal is not to cast out the demons. Our goal is to stand strong against them, to resist the devil and Jesus says, he will flee from you. He who is in you, Jesus says to the disciples, that is referring to the Holy Spirit, to God himself.
He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. Greater indeed. Demons are not more powerful than God, in fact, they do his will.
That's hard to understand. Demons do his will. They are sinful, they are evil, they actually resist the will of God in many ways and yet God even works their evil actions to his good and holy purposes.
What do demons do? We see a few things about what they do even in this passage. They possess this man. They overtake his faculties, his mind, his heart, his body.
They give him superhuman strength, in fact. Such strength that he's able to break free of chains, he's able to break away from society, he's able to cast off all of his clothing, in fact. He's a free man.
Did you catch this? He's a free man. Society doesn't control him, doesn't constrain him. God, it seems, at least outwardly, religion will say it that way, outwardly does not constrain him.
He has no authority but himself, at least it seems. And yet we see in this, this is what demons always do, regardless of whether it's possession or oppression or simply influence and the lies that they tell and the ways they work their ways into people's heart and demonic doctrine into people's heart. It presents the illusion of power, of freedom.
But how does Mark describe this man? What word would you use to describe this man? Maybe we would use the word, well, demonic. That's easy enough. Monstrous.
He's a monster. That is really true. In the truest sense of the term, this man is a monster morally, spiritually, physically, outwardly.
He is a man that you would not want to meet on the side of the road, let alone you would want to touch him with a 10-foot pole. He's a scary man. He's a frightful man.
He's a terrifying man. But I submit to you, there's one other word we should use to describe him. He's a pitiable man.
See, this is what demons do. This is what the devil does. He presents power.
He presents freedom. He presents what we think are good things, but he destroys us. This man is destroyed.
His soul is destroyed. His body is destroyed. He's cutting himself with rocks and stones, and he's cut himself off from all community, his family, his livelihood, his friendship.
We're told by Jesus he has friends. He has a family. He has people back home who, at least once upon a time, cared about him, and he's lost all of that now.
As one author once put it, the devil loves to break his tools, and that's what he does, beloved. Every time, every way. He doesn't need to be so visible, outwardly visible like this, but don't you understand that the demonic forces in our world, they don't offer anything truly lasting and good.
They present, instead, a substitute to the goodness that God holds out to us, and they destroy us. This is exactly what happened in Genesis chapter 3, when the devil, the serpent, deceives Eve and presents something as if it were good, and it destroys her. It destroys Adam.
It destroys all of the human race. What was the first thing they noticed when they were destroyed? They were naked. They were naked.
That was the first thing they noticed. You understand? Nakedness is a picture of destruction and sinfulness. When we are naked now in a sinful world, it is a sign of shame.
It is a sign of iniquity. The scriptures talk about sin as an uncovering, as a nakedness. This is what Jesus said to the church of Laodicea.
He said, you think that you have it all. You don't understand, Laodicea. You're wretched.
You're pitiable. You're poor. You're blind, and you're naked, he calls.
You're destroying yourself. You're subjecting yourselves to demonic teaching. That's what demons do.
They destroy. They corrupt. And you have this man who's cutting himself with stones, destroying his body, destroying his soul, crying out, crying out, day after night, after day, after night.
But then we find something else about the demons here in this passage. Not only what they do, but also what they dread. Or whom they dread.
Mark again is an expert storyteller as he's telling us the story Jesus steps off the boat. You remember, he just left the storm, stilling the storm last week. He made it go quiet in an instant by the word of his power.
He comes and sets foot on the shore there, presumably. It's morning now, or early, early morning. And as he's walking up, we see, we're told there's a man with an unclean spirit.
And Mark doesn't tell us what happens yet. He only describes the man, this monstrous man, this despicable man. And he describes him then as rushing out to Jesus.
What's going to happen? You can imagine this is where a movie, you'd see it, it's almost like you'd expect the man to come out and instantly attack Jesus. Or to assault Jesus. Or to start hurling insults at Jesus.
But Mark tells us instead, he comes before him, crying out, and falls before him. The word that Mark uses here to describe this actually could also be translated worship. I don't think that would be the right translation, because demons don't worship God in any true and saving way, and yet there is a sense in which the falling down needs to be taken not simply as, oh, he tripped over himself.
The demons know their maker. The demons know who has the power. And these demons come crying out to Jesus, what have you to do with us, Jesus, son of the most high God? I said this is an exorcism account, but it actually is completely different than any exorcism account we have in Near Eastern literature of the time, or before or after.
Exorcism accounts are not unique to Christianity. There's exorcisms in all kinds of religions across the world, but they all follow a very similar pattern. All exorcisms throughout the pagan world and in other contexts, it involves someone calling upon a higher power to make the demons go away, or to make the curse go away.
And yet, I think brilliantly, the Holy Spirit and the way he wrote this, the only one who gives an exorcism formula, the standard what you would expect to be said during an exorcism, the only one who says that, calls upon a higher power, is the demonically possessed man. He's the one who calls upon a higher power. He says, I adjure you by God.
I adjure you. I implore you. I beg you by God.
I call upon God. The demons are calling upon God. Why, kids? Why would demons call upon the name of God? Because they know that God is the one who has the power.
They know that God is the one who has the power. And they know, perhaps, a little bit of redemption history, maybe sometimes more than we ourselves realize. Matthew helpfully records in this account, which, by the way, I hope you go and read parallel accounts, so when you go to Matthew's account, you're going to find there's actually two men in this account.
Mark only focuses on the one, the one who's going to go and become a, well, we're not going to say what he's going to become in a moment, we'll get to there, but Mark focuses on one man. There are two men, at least here, and yet Matthew also records for us that the demons tell Jesus, why are you here before the time? Before the time, what do demons dread? What makes a monster crave for the time? What the demons know is something that, again, we so often fail to remember. The demons know that there is an end to their fun in the sun.
That there is a time set on the calendar when God will come and judge them fully and finally he will cast them. Luke tells us into the abyss, the abyss, which we know in the book of Revelation ultimately is speaking of the lake of everlasting fire, the place reserved for the devil and his demons and for all who die outside of Christ. The demons dread that day and so you can imagine their surprise as they're sitting there amongst the tombs and the rocks, cutting themselves and crying out, just an average working day for a demon.
And yet, there he is. He's not supposed to be here yet. We're not supposed to be cast into the lake yet.
This isn't supposed to happen yet. This is true, as an aside, this is true sometimes in human lives as well. I wasn't supposed to, this wasn't supposed to end yet.
How short our time seems and it comes much sooner than we expect. I wasn't supposed to, I was supposed to have more time. I was supposed to have more fun.
I was supposed to have all of these things were supposed to happen. Jesus, why are you here now? A dreadful thing to meet with Jesus and not be ready. The demons meet with Jesus.
They fall before him. They cry out, what have you to do with us? The same thing the demons were crying out back in chapter one, you'll notice. These demons, they're terrified, Jesus, why are you here now? This isn't the time yet, but of course it is and it isn't.
It is and it isn't. Jesus certainly will come again in glory. There's much more that has to happen in Mark's account, much more that will happen before Jesus gets to the point where he ultimately will return and he will judge the demons fully and finally, and yet here, what we've been reminded all along in Mark's gospel, if he's casting out these demons, what has he described his mission as? As someone coming stronger than the strong man, binding up him and plundering his good.
When we looked at that passage back in chapter three, we noted that the strong man there is Satan. Jesus came to bind him. Jesus is defeating Satan here.
And yes, demons, you're right. It isn't the final time, but it is the foretaste time. It is the already, even if there is a not yet.
Jesus is bringing heaven to earth now, even if there's a final day yet to come. And so Jesus comes to the demons and he's calling to them, come out of the man, you unclean spirit. No incantation.
No calling upon a higher power. He is the higher power. And just as he said to the storm, so also he says to the demons, sit down, shut up and get out of here.
Jesus asks these demons, what's your name? I don't think it was for his own benefit. I don't think he needed any knowledge here, though. Certainly in his humanity, according to his divinity, he knows all things.
According to his humanity, there are things that he learns and grows in. But I think he's asking this question for his disciples' sake. Remember, they're all there with him.
There were boats, multiple boats that came with Jesus. And they're all looking at this. What do you think they're thinking? So he asks the demon, what is your name? And he doesn't give him a name.
He gives him a number, legion, legion. A Roman legion is a fluid thing throughout Roman history. It varied in size.
It's a military unit, a designation. It could be as small as 300 knights. It could be as large as 6,000 troops.
At Jesus' time, roughly we would imagine between 3,000 and 6,000 is the number we're talking about. How terrible this must have been. Just put yourself in the position of this man, 6,000 demons speaking in your mind, controlling your body.
6,000 demons. The Bible is very annoyingly silent about how this is actually possible. How does spiritual possession happen? How can 6,000 demons inhabit a man's body? The Bible doesn't... Jesus isn't interested in giving us an answer to that question.
Instead, we're simply told that this is the reality. This man is filled with demons, absolutely filled. He's begging, begging, begging Jesus, do not send us into the abyss.
There's some evidence. Again, it's hard to say, but there's some evidence in the Scriptures, particularly in 2 Peter and in Jude, that there is a potentiality that demons, though they have a purpose now and though they roam around now, there may be some who are enchained, actually put in a holding cell, you might say, until the final day when they're ultimately cast into the lake of fire. I'm not going to pontificate on views on that for now, but just notice that they don't want to be cast out of the country.
Whatever may happen to them if they're cast out of the country, it's going to be terrible for them, they think. They instead descend to Jesus. They're begging him, just don't do that.
Whatever you do, don't cast us out of the country. Don't cast us into the abyss. Don't cast us into those gloomy chains until the final day when we're cast into the lake of fire.
Then Mark gives us this little, what in the film industry is called a cutaway. Look at verse 11. Now a great herd of pigs were feeding there on the hillside.
This is, if you're watching the movie, it's just this whole dramatic scene is happening and then Mark is telling us about a herd of pigs, a great herd of pigs, a mega herd, he calls them. Why are we talking about pigs? Well, you know where this is going. So they beg him.
Notice the pronoun change there, by the way. We're out of the realm of he and we're into the realm of they because we acknowledge that this is the man doing the speaking, even though he is bound by the demons, it's the demons themselves who are doing this. They beg Jesus, send us into the pigs, let us enter into them.
And Jesus gives them permission. There's a request. That's the first, that's the first full prayer.
The request, send it. Don't send us out of the country. Send us into the pigs.
The demons pray and Jesus says, I'm going to grant your prayer. And he sends them, he permits them to enter into the pigs, a herd numbering 2000 rushes down the steep bank and they were drowned. The Greek there is a, is an ongoing past tense and imperfect tense.
So it's, they were drowning. Like this little piggy drowns, this little piggy drowns. 2000 of these pigs are just drowning, drowning, drowning.
Imagine the sound you've heard pigs squealing. Imagine 2000 of them squealing to their death. And it sounds terrible to us.
Why would, why? Why doesn't Jesus just boom, cast them into the abyss? Why doesn't he just cast them out of the country? Why would Jesus answer their prayer? Well, to tell you in full honesty, ultimately, I'm not entirely sure. I'm not entirely sure why Jesus sends them into the pigs and doesn't just send them out of the country, just make them go away. Except for this, and this is the same answer that you must give ultimately to, to why God permits anything evil to happen in the world, because he has a good design for them.
He has a purpose. There's a purpose in the death of these pigs. And I think that if you're considering this passage and thinking about, oh, the poor pigs, just, you know, how terrible that is for them, just understand this is what demons do.
They were trying to destroy the image of God in a man. And if they can't do that, they're going to destroy whatever they can, whatever they can of God's good creation. Spurgeon, Charles Spurgeon said of this section, he said, Satan would rather vex swine than do no mischief at all.
He's so fond of evil, he would work it upon animals if he cannot work it upon men. But again, the question is why? Why does Jesus permit this to happen? And ultimately, we may not have a satisfactory answer, but there are a couple of things I think we need to keep in mind here. The first is this, this shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that what we're dealing with is a demonic possession that has been answered by the word of Christ.
So the Bible is very clear on mental illness, on epilepsy, on different things that people may say, oh, they thought those were all demons. No, the Bible actually shows very clearly that there is a category of sickness, of mental illness, separate and apart from demonic possession. But by casting the demons out and into the pigs and the pigs going and drowning, it proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that these were demons that they were dealing with, that Jesus was dealing with.
Second thing to consider, second thing to consider here is that it seems very, very clear that Mark would not include a detail like this unless it had actually happened. We saw this last week, remember? These details, this isn't a little detail, this is 2,000 pigs. But remember, Mark is being written, Mark is written within a generation of those who actually saw these things.
2,000 pigs is not just a, oh, you know, like we think of like big agribusiness today, like, oh, a lot of pigs out there. No, that's a huge amount of pigs to lose, a huge economic impact on the Decapolis there, on Gerasa and on Gedera, the big city nearby. So it's a really big event that happens.
There's no way that you could have made that up. Either it happened or it didn't. It would have been contradicted or it would have stood because people knew it had actually happened.
The shepherds, the herdsmen saw what had happened and had testified to it and brought the whole city and towns out to people to talk about. Third thing to consider here, we need to understand that, again, Jesus is, he loves his creation. He loves pigs.
He made them. Even though they were unclean animals, which shows us, again, we're in the Decapolis region. These are not Jews, these are Gentiles.
These are not Jews. This man, very likely, is not a Jewish man. These are Gentiles, pig-raising people.
Jesus loves all his creatures, and yet he loves one man more than 2,000 pigs or 20,000 pigs. The soul of one man, the body of one man is worth more to him, certainly so. Something we need to keep in mind is, again, we may be sympathetic to the pigs or sympathetic to the owners of the pigs who are losing quite a bit of money on this exchange, but Jesus says it's worth it.
Again, just coming back to that first point about understanding that God works all things, we need to recognize what the Confession says, when on the section on Providence, chapter 5, Westminster Confession 5, that God so far manifests his providence in his infinite wisdom and infinite goodness. It extends even to the fall, even to sins of angels and men, so that not by a bare permission, our translation says he permits them, but it's not just a permission, not just by a bare permission, but such as hath joined with a most holy, wise, and powerful bounding that otherwise ordering and governing them in a manifold dispensation to his own holy ends. What was that sentence about? They're saying, God is wiser than you, God is greater than you, and God works all things together to a holy, wise, and good, and even the works of the demons.
They're evil, they're sinful, and they'll pay for what they do, and yet God is working it for good. So why does Jesus not just obliterate them then and there? I don't know, but I do know this, that God had a purpose for those demons. As Martin Luther once said, that even the devil is God's devil, ultimately accomplishing God's holy purposes.
So that is the first plea, and that we spent the most time there because that is the one that was most prominent in the passage. But there's a second plea that occurs, and that's the plea, the prayer, that comes from the people. Remember the herdsmen saw all of this, you couldn't escape this, they went and they ran and they told everyone what had happened, what had happened to the man, what had happened to the pigs.
The people don't just take their word for it, they come out and they see it for themselves. The whole Decapolis apparently is coming out to see what happened. And what do they see? What do they see? Well, it says they saw the man sitting there clothed and in his right mind, and you think, what reaction would you have to such a scene? This man who was a monster, this man who was cutting himself and crying out, we couldn't even chain him down anymore, he was so strong, he was so demonic, he was so overpowering, and now he's clothed in his right mind, he's speaking in complete and calm sentences, clothed.
You might rejoice, praise God. You might ask, how can these things be? You might have some kind of other reaction of joy, of delight, but instead it says they were afraid. Did you notice that in the last section, the disciples were afraid, Jesus calms the storm, and they're even more afraid.
Well the people were afraid of this man, Jesus casts out the demons, and now they're even more afraid. They're even more afraid, and in their fear, as they're looking to Jesus, as they're looking to the man, I think they're also looking to the sea, and thinking, all of those pigs, all of that livelihood, gone now, Jesus, get out of here. That's their prayer.
The demons prayed, Lord, don't send us out, Jesus, don't get rid of us, don't send us into the abyss. These people prayed, Jesus, please, just take your boat and go. Just get out of here.
They're afraid of him, they're afraid of what he might do. If Jesus, in a word, saved one man at the expense of 2,000 pigs, what else might he do for the sake of his ministry? What other financial impact or other impact might this have upon our cities and towns and countryside? Jesus, I want nothing to do with you, get away from me. You cost too much.
And Jesus answers their prayer. Again, he grants their request. He just very nonchalantly gets back into the boat.
Remember, they spent a whole night in a dismal storm to get here, and now they're just getting right back in the boat and going back to ostensibly Capernaum. And so, their prayer is granted. And I just want to say at this point, I don't want to belabor it too much on the people, I don't think they're the focus in the passage, but notice that Jesus does grant this prayer today as well.
When people count the cost of what it would take to follow Jesus, when they look at what following Jesus actually requires on my life, on my livelihood, on my job or my family, on my time, and they don't like that exchange, and they say, Jesus, I just want you to go away, he will actually grant that request many a time. It's a fearful thing to consider that these people had the living God. What might he have done? 2,000 pigs.
Remember, we're going to see in a moment, not in a moment, but in the next chapter, we're going to see Jesus feed 5,000 out of five loaves. Did they not think Jesus, who just cast out 2,000 demons plus, 6,000 demons perhaps, do we not think Jesus could provide all they need? And yet they have blessings staring them in the face and they say, no, thank you. Now in God's providence, again, we can't mess up Jesus' plans for us.
He will have his church, he will shepherd his flock, he will preserve his people. But on the face of things here, we see this happen day after day, and every day, and every age, people reject Jesus and miss just what they might have had in him. And so they beg him, go away.
And he does go away.
He does go away. But then this brings us to this third party, this third entity, this third person in the story.
The man himself. The man with no name. We're never given a name.
We have no name for this man. He's certainly not Legion. That was the designation of the demons.
This man is just a nameless man, a man who once was naked, cut, crying. This man is now clothed and in his right mind. What happened to this man? Seriously, ask yourself that question.
What happened to this man? It wasn't just that he came to his senses. It's that he got his soul back. He had life when he formerly had death.
Do you again notice the way Mark had described him previously? Not only was he bleeding, not only was he breaking shackles, but he was living amongst the tombs. He was living in the place of the dead. You could not have created a better picture of what it meant to be unclean and separated from everlasting life in the Bible than to describe this man, a man who was bleeding, a man who was demonically possessed, actually told he has an unclean spirit, many unclean spirits within him, and now he's clothed.
If nakedness in the Bible is a picture of shame and sin, clothing is a symbol of God's salvation. What is God's response to Adam and Eve's sin? Well, certainly he has to cast them out of the garden, that's true, but he also gives them a promise, and he seals that promise. This is something we often miss in the Genesis account.
God doesn't just make the promise that someone's going to come to defeat Satan. Genesis 3.15, I will send a seed of the woman to crush the serpent's head. He also provides a sign, and the sign is clothing.
He takes animal skin. First animal death, as far as we know, in the history of all of the universe, and it's to clothe sinful humanity. Throughout the Bible, throughout the Old and the New Testament, clothing then becomes the symbol of what God is coming to do.
He says, you're naked, you're bloodied, you're defiled, I am clothing you. I have come to make you clean, I have come to make you decent, I have come to make you holy. It's a beautiful picture in Zechariah's prophecy, the priest Joshua is standing there in the presence of God, and Zechariah says, and I saw Satan there as well, ready to accuse him.
Joshua, the high priest, is covered in filth, might as well be naked before the Lord God, and Satan is ready to throw every accusation he has. Look at this sinner, look at this unholy one, look at this man who cuts himself, who cries out, who lives in the place of the dead. Damn him, Satan will say, but God says, be silent, Satan.
He clothes Joshua, the high priest, he clothes him in white. The book of Revelation describes the saints as those who have been clothed in white, a white robe placed upon them. I don't want to speculate too much in this passage, but I do want to ask the question, where did the clothing come from? Did it come from Jesus himself? Because I think that would have been very appropriate.
Jesus' robe on this naked man, because that's what Jesus came to do. That's what Jesus actually did for this man. You think 2,000 pigs in the depths of the sea is a lot to drown this man's sorrows, but Jesus didn't come just to cast demons into the sea.
He came to cast sin into the sea by the sacrifice of himself. You think 2,000 pigs is worth a lot. What about the Son of God, the Son of the Most High, who actually will exchange places with this man, who will have his clothing taken from him and hang naked on a cross, who will be cut and bloodied, who will actually be placed in the tomb, who will reside among the dead so that this man could be forgiven, so that this man could be clothed, so that this man could be clean, and so that you could be clean and clothed and righteous and right with God.
Clothed in righteousness divine. That's what happened to this man, and it leads to his prayer. His prayer is a very simple one.
We're not told what he says in his own words, but we're just told he begged Jesus that he might be with him. Just picture the scene. Crowds are leaving.
They say, Jesus, be gone. Jesus is getting into the boat, and as the crowds are leaving, one man stands still there clothed in a robe and says, Jesus, just take me with you. And Jesus says, no.
This is the only prayer in this path. Jesus answered demons' prayers. Jesus answered unbelieving people's prayers, and yet Jesus doesn't answer this man's prayer with an affirmative yes.
He says, no. Jesus denies the man's prayer. Wouldn't it have been better for this man to be another disciple, to go in the boat, to learn from Jesus? This man was just demonically possessed.
He has a lot of learning to do. He could have had a lot of those theology seminars, the preaching seminars that Jesus was going to give to his 12 disciples. Wouldn't that man have benefited from all of these things? But instead, Jesus says, no, you're not coming with us because I'm placing you on a mission.
This is an ordination service. You don't know if you caught that. This man becomes a preacher.
He went from demonically possessed to preacher in the span of about 10 minutes. Jesus ordains the man. He says, go home to your friends or to those of you.
It may not be friends. It may even be family. Those who know you, those to whom you belong and who belong to you, go back to them and tell them what, how much the Lord has done for you and how he has had mercy on you.
There's a sense in which this is deeply applicable to all preachers. You should not expect anyone to come into this pulpit who is not serving up what he himself is willing to taste, who has tasted. The only motivation that's worth it for a pastor to get up every Sunday and preach once or even sometimes twice in a Sunday is to tell other people about how he has had mercy, to speak of the things that he himself has experienced, the mercy of God that is testified in Scripture.
I once was lost, but now I'm found. I was blind, but now I see. That was John Newton's testimony, and it was this man's as well.
Notice that he is not given a theology degree. He doesn't have an MDiv. He doesn't have an expansive.
For all we know, he again, he's a Gentile living in a Gentile decapolis on the other side of the Galilean Sea, and yet he does know the love of God. He knows what God has done for him, and he knows how much mercy God has had upon him. Beloved, maybe some of you men and young men in this congregation may be called to be a pastor someday.
I pray that may be true of some of you here, but for the rest of you, this is applicable to you as well. To speak in complete sentences about Jesus is the right and privilege and duty of every Christian. When someone asks you that question, what is this Jesus? What has he done? Let me tell you what he's done for me.
It's not arguing apologetics. It's not having some advanced philosophy or theology degree. It's simply being able to say, I have been clothed.
I have been cleaned. He had mercy on me. He had mercy on me, and that knowledge, to know what God has done for me, gives me the ability to do as we've been following along in our evangelism class with the Men's Bible Study, the Men's Fellowship, the Morning Breakfast Fellowship.
That crossing the pain line, the ability, the willingness to enter into difficult conversation because he had mercy on me. The demons, they're gone. The sin, it's gone.
It's drowned in the depths of the sea because he was willingly bled and died for me. I can't help but speak of his mercy because he had mercy on me. Don't argue people into the kingdom.
Just tell them about Jesus. Tell them about the merciful Lord. Tell them how much the Lord has done for you because that's what motivated this man.
It’s frustrating when Jesus doesn’t answer our prayer the way that we want. No one wants their request to be denied. When Jesus says “No,” it is a painful thing. But it’s also a beautiful, and blessed thing, because it means He has something better in mind.
When Jesus comes back to the Decapolis, there's a church there. There's a group, not a full-fledged church, but there's a group of disciples. There are people there who know Jesus and believe in Jesus now.
Remember, the crowds had rejected him, but now they believe in him. Why? Because of the testimony of a man who once was naked and then was clothed, a man who knew mercy, the mercy of the Lord God who exchanges places with us that he become defiled so that we would be blessed and accepted in the presence of God. This is a passage some commentators speak of, a passage about power, the power of the Lord Jesus Christ demonstrating that he is truly the Son of the Most High who has come to accomplish salvation for us, and that certainly is true, but it's also a passage about a man who knew how much he had been loved, a man who knew how much he had been loved, saved, how mercy had been shown to him, and that, Paul says in Romans chapter 1, is the power of the gospel.
The greatest power of God is not the demonstration of casting out demons. The greatest power of God is in the shape of a cross, for it is in the gospel that we find the power of God and the salvation. It's in the gospel where we find the righteous God clothing us in his righteousness by becoming unrighteous for us.
Amen.
