The Merciful Son of God to the Demoniac - Matthew 8:28-34

Amen. All right, welcome to Redemption

Church in North Ogden. Thank you for being here with

us. We are going to be in the Gospel

of Matthew, chapter 8. We're at the end of chapter 8

Matthew 8 · chapter mention

where we've walked through and and looked at all these

different miracles of Jesus. And we're in a story that I have

titled The Merciful Son of God to the Demoniacs.

That's going to be in Matthew 828 through 34.

Now what's a demoniac? Well, these are demon possessed

men that Jesus and the disciples encounter as they've just

crossed the stormy sea and Jesus calmed the wind in the waves.

And now right when they get to shore, they encounter these

demon possessed maniacs. So that's why I've titled it The

Merciful Son of God to the Demoniacs.

Now this story is also in Mark chapter 5 and Luke chapter 8.

Mark 5 · chapter mention Luke 8 · chapter mention

A little bit about the synoptic gospels.

Matthew, Mark, and Luke in the New Testament are called the

Synoptic Gospels because they share a lot of the same content,

the same stories, the same narrative.

Now, not everything's exactly the same and not everything's

written exactly the same. Some of the chronology is a

little bit different. Some of the groupings of of

stories are different based on the person writing it.

Now, we must understand that all of scripture is breathed out by

God and he used human authors to write it down.

But we do believe that it was. It is without error that it is

infallible and it can be trusted.

But it's beautiful that God uses the man.

He doesn't take away all his mental faculties or his

personality, and he uses each one's different, different area

of influence. You can say each one of these

guys had a different audience that they were writing to.

And so that changes the way in which the gospels are laid out.

For Matthew, he's a he's, he's trying to reach a Jewish

audience and trying to teach the Jewish Christians how to reach

Gentiles. And so I bring all that up to

say, as we start this passage, there are some differences in

the, the different gospels. And I want to teach you this.

I didn't, I didn't want to just brush past this.

I want, I want to teach you when dealing with a difference in one

gospel story to another, how do we handle that?

Because there are no errors in Scripture.

So as we look at this, this first verse, Matthew 828 a the

first part of it, it starts out and it says when he came to the

other side, to the country of the Gadarenes, 2 demon possessed

men met him. Now in Mark and Luke, it says

the area that he went to was the garrisons.

So did somebody spell it wrong? No, that's not the case.

Actually, if we go back to our map, I showed you a map last

week. If you weren't here, that's OK,

I'll explain it. The context where we're at.

We're at the Sea of Galilee. Jesus recently got done with the

Sermon on the Mount, and so he came and started doing miracles

in Capernaum. He tells the disciples, let's

get in the boat and cross the sea.

There's the storm on the sea, and then they come over to this

area here, which is where we see the drowning of the swine.

That's our story today. Mark says the Gadarenes, the

country of the Gadarenes, which is a little bit more down at the

bottom of the Sea of Galilee. But this area here is the is

what they say the Garosines or the Girgasines.

This area is the specific area where where the thing happens,

but it's in the region of Gadera.

So, so to help you help that make sense, we are Redemption

Church North Ogden. We're meeting in Pleasant View

city. We have people that live in far

West and and all of that area. If you didn't know, some of your

mail, I bet says Ogden on it because this isn't the Ogden

area like Ogden proper, although they have different city names.

That's kind of like what's going on in this story is it's it's

Ghijera proper, but but the specific area is the garrisons

now. And another thing that's

interesting, it says 2 demon possessed men.

Now the other, the other gospels only focus on one guy, 1

demoniac. And there's a simple explanation

to that. None of them say it was only one

man. And so one must have to conclude

that one of the men was more prominent.

One of the men was the one that was doing the talking,

confronting Jesus. But there was another man who

was going through the same things that he was going

through. Could have been even more than

that, right? So that's just a little bit of a

teaching to help you understand when you have differences in

gospel stories, how they don't contradict one another at all.

And it's a necessary distraction from today's message because

when we're walking through Scripture, we've got to handle

this, right? We're, we're, we're not only

preaching, but we're teaching. So now that I've got that out of

the way, I've got 3 points in this passage I want to get to.

And the first one is that the army of darkness takes its toll.

Now I want to ask you this question, Is supernatural

activity real? I mean, I think in our world,

there's a lot of confusion and and maybe we think it's some

kind of just stories or kind of fiction made-up, you know, fake

believe. We all like to be entertained by

by certain things like horror stories.

Now, now, if you're Christian, I don't think you should be

watching rated R horror stories and movies like that.

But generally we like to be scared and entertained and, and

some, some people think this is a a figment of our imagination,

supernatural activity and maybe that some stuff that goes on out

in the world is made-up. It is fake.

But the question is, are demons real if the Bible talks about

them, and angels for that matter, Is there a spiritual

realm that we don't even think about?

Because all we're focused on is what we can see, what we can

feel, what we can touch, what we can hear with.

Everything that we can grasp with our senses is real to us.

But what about the things that we can't see, feel, touch and

smell? Well, if the Bible says that

they're, they're real and it's true and you're a Christian, you

believe what the Bible says, then we automatically have to

say then yes, that they are real.

Now there are examples of, of supernatural activity that

happens out there in the world and it happens all the time with

possibly there's sightings of, you know, angels or, or demons

said to attack people. Now, do we have to have

discernment to realize what's true and what's not true out

there in the world? Yes, that's a a spiritual gift,

by the way. But the Bible says in Ephesians

2 that this world is in control of the evil. 1 The, the, the

spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.

There's a Satan himself who you've heard of is a fallen

Angel. Now let me talk about who the

demons are then. If Satan exists and he's the

enemy of God, then demons are the ones who follow Satan.

And the story goes in Scripture is that before humans were at

least before the fall, before the the narrative where Adam and

Eve are in the garden, sometime in heaven.

We don't know the exact time. Sometime in heaven there was a

great spiritual war and what took place was Satan, who was an

Archangel at the time. He was an Angel, a powerful

Angel, decided I want to be like God, I want to have power.

I think very highly of myself. So I'm going to take God's

position, take God's role. And God cast him out of heaven

because of that, because of his pride.

And a third of the angels were swept with him and he was cast

out of heaven. The Bible says down to the earth

now the earth now. So we see in the beginning of

Adam and Eve. And then Satan is able to

deceive Eve and Adam and, and sin enters the world.

And So what, since then, you know what's going on then in

the, the spiritual realm with these evil forces and, and the

heavenly hosts together in this spiritual war over God's people

and over God's creation. Well, again in Ephesians 6, it

tells us that there are, there is authorities, powers,

principalities that we, we, we fight not against flesh and

blood, but against, but against the, the spiritual forces in

heavenly places. There are, there is a spiritual

battle going on and Satan and the demons do want to thwart

God's work on earth. Now, how do they do it?

They do it through twisting of scripture and false religions

and false teachings. And they do it through fear and

attacks. And so that's why I've labeled

this first point, the army of darkness takes its toll.

Why do I call it army? Well, there's a in scripture, it

tells us that they're organized. It's not just some kind of some

happenstance random way that they do this, but in fact, each

of these demonic presences have spiritual territories that

they're assigned to and they have ranks even they're they're

very militaristic. If you want to kind of get a

sense of this a little bit more, in the book of Daniel, it talks

about how angels and demons are fighting over a territory.

But there's a book by CS Lewis called the Screw Tape Letters.

And in it, although it's kind of fictional, it's based off of

truth about, from scripture about how he thinks that demons

work against God's people. And it'll bring up the hairs on

your arms and the back of your neck like it's, it's kind of

freaky, but it makes you think like maybe some of the things

that we're going through in this world and in this life aren't

all just physical, aren't all just because of logical things

that we can explain, but it could be because of

supernatural. That's what the Bible says that

the the world is in under the control of the evil 1.

Now I had to do all of that to get us to this point to talk

about what's going on. So let's look at the verses in

the text today. It says 2 demon possessed men

met him coming out of the tomb so fierce that no one could pass

that way. And behold, they cried out.

What have you to do with us? O Son of God?

Have you come here to torment us before the time?

Now I'm going to have to go back to the the Mark passage in Mark

Mark 5 · chapter mention

chapter 5 because it tells us a little bit more detail about how

bad these guys had it. Like because I want to look at

what does demon possession look like?

What is demon possession? Well, the word possession is

demon ozai, which really just means to be demonized.

But that word possessed means to be fully controlled, fully

controlled by the demon. Now, there are different types

of of, of demonic activity in the world.

You can be attacked by a demon. You can be maybe like oppressed

by demonic activity. But then there's this third one

that's more of a controlling, which is demon possession.

That's what these guys are going through in the area that they're

at. They're not Jewish, they're

actually in a gentile area. And so let's look at the toll

that it's taking on these guys. And in Mark chapter 5, I don't

Mark 5 · chapter mention

have it up here, but it says he lived among the tombs and no one

could bind him anymore, not even with a chain.

For he had often bound, 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. Now, in our verse, it says that

they were so fierce that no one could pass that way.

So they had, they're living in basically a cemetery in the

tombs. No one in their right mind wants

to live in a cemetery, right? I don't even think you see a lot

of homeless people living in cemeteries.

Why? Because they're kind of freaky,

right? You don't really hang out there

much unless you're going to visit in the daytime.

But these people are sleeping there.

They, they live there. They're banished from society

because they're so maniacal. They're so crazy.

They're, they're so unable to tame it.

They have a supernatural strength, it says.

They're so fierce, nobody would even, nobody even wanted to go

that way anymore. They were isolated, often times

demonic possession or even, you know, evil oppression.

The goal is to try to isolate a person so that they can't have

any truth spoken to them, the gospel spoken to them, any power

of God's word coming around them.

And they they'll quick come into church.

They'll, you know, quit being around people there, there

there's a, there's a spirit of isolation that happens with

demonic activity. They try to get people alone and

to change their minds and twist the way that they think.

And there's also again, some evidence that they're there's

angels are strong. They're not.

Humans have their own strength, but angels are not humans.

They have supernatural strength and we can see that this isn't

just human strength. They're able to break chains and

shackles in pieces easily. Nobody could subdue these guys.

Maybe it took many people to try to subdue them.

Now, I used to be a a huge fan of this Christian group and I

can't remember what their name was, but there were these big

guys that would go around and do evangelism and then they would

like tear phone books in half and they would they would break

handcuffs and they'd break blocks of ice.

I mean, I don't know if you guys remember that.

That was so cool. That was why I think I first

started wanting to get into lifting weights because I was

like, I want to do that. Like, I can lift heavy things

and break things for Jesus, you know?

But even they, as big and as strong as they are, were no

match. Human strength still is no match

for demonic strength. And we see that and then it goes

on and it says night and day among the tombs and on the

mountains. He was always crying out and

cutting himself with stones. There's a certain amount of

depression and sadness and darkness and and loominess that

that goes with demonic activity. This, these beings are making

this man and these men so downcast, so sad, so depressed.

They're basically hopeless. They're outcasts of society.

Mark 59 says Jesus asked him what's your name?

And he replied, my name is legion for we are many legion.

The word legion in in Greek or used in in in the Roman army

meant 6000 soldiers. So this guy or these guys could

have been possessed with at least 6000 spirits maybe, or

maybe just thousands. There was these guys were so far

from God, they are so lost, so isolated from society that

they're, this is a story of basically no hope.

We think about our situations and and we go through a little

bit of darkness here and there and probably demonic attack and

things like that. But these guys are so lost.

The question is, how did they get that far?

Well, how does a person get possessed?

It's not exactly clear. There are some signs in

Scripture about how a person becomes possessed.

Now, first I'll tell you that Christians cannot be possessed

by demons. We have the Spirit of God in us,

therefore evil spirits cannot come up and take possession and

residence. If we are God's own possession,

He will not share us with evil demonic beings.

But I will say that we can, as Christians, give over control to

demons. Now the unbelievers, people who

aren't possessed by God, who aren't children of God, that

don't have the Holy Spirit, they are open to attack.

And they can also make it even easier, inviting opening doors

by things like Pagan worship practices, sorcery and

witchcraft. Now, I think we, we like to

watch our, we have entertainment in Hollywood and we like to, you

know, read our novels and our stories about these types of

things, these Pagan magical incantations and things like

that. But it's a big deal to God.

He says that stuff is an abomination to him.

Any sort of supernatural activity outside of the out of

scripture that humans are trying to seek out.

That's not just some lie made-up or, you know, some kind of

innocent, innocent fun story. This is real stuff made-up by

demons in Ephesus and in these certain churches.

Paul in his sin lists, he'll list off these things like

sorcery and witchcraft, and then he goes on to talk about orgies

and different sexual immorality and things like that.

Drunkenness in Ephesians 5, it says don't be filled with wine,

but be filled with the spirit. Have you ever wondered why

that's there? The reason why he says that is

because in Pagan worship to these false gods, they used to

do all of this ritualistic dark magic.

Pagan in their worship practices like orgies, like getting drunk,

like getting high, like doing seances and things so that they

could reach their God or some kind of spirit and try to to get

some kind of a an experience or something like that.

And this was detestable to God. We then, as Christians should

not be doing these same things. We should be apart from this

right? We shouldn't, we shouldn't delve

into the same practices thinking it's it's fun or it's a hobby.

But also Even so, that's even unrepentant sin, though constant

unrepentant sin opens the door to more demonic activity in our

lives. False teaching sitting under

false teaching. Did you know that the Bible says

that demons are at the head of every false church?

That not these again, aren't just made-up things by men as as

as we're supposed to call out the men for what they are false

teachers who've made-up doctrines other than what's in

scripture or twisted scripture. But who, who is really behind

the twisting of of scripture and the making up of doctrines?

The Bible says there are doctrines of demons.

Behind every false church is a demon.

It's not just a man's made-up ideology, it's a demon.

This is spiritual. Satan has been doing this from

the beginning, twisting scripture in in the garden

saying God did not say but surely you can do this or that.

Satan probably twist scripture more than he tries to get people

to deny that God is actually real.

First Corinthians 10/20, Paul says this to them.

He says no, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to

demons and not to God. I do not want you to be

participants with demons. See, every false church has been

started by a demon. We need to be aware of that.

This is demonic activity. This is how they work now.

That's called demonology, by the way, the study of demons.

I know, I know we probably don't talk about it a lot in church,

but since we're walking through Scripture, we have to handle

this. Now, going back to our text, it

said, what have you to do with us?

O Son of God? Have you come to torment us

before the time? What time?

Well, Satan and the demons know that their time is short.

Did you know that they know the Bible?

They probably know the Bible better than you and me, word for

word. They've been around for

thousands of years, by the way, because these beings are

spiritual. They don't die.

They're roaming the earth, watching us, listening to our

sermons. They, by the way, when Jesus

comes on the scene, they know exactly who he is.

What have you to do with this, O Son of God?

Have you come to torment us before the time?

And if they know the whole Bible, then they know how it

ends in the Book of Revelation. They're going to be cast into

the lake of fire and be tormented forever and ever.

And so that's why they're saying, have you come to do that

before the time? And so they are mad and they're

in denial. They think somehow they can turn

this around, but they're also mad that they're rejected and

they'll never get forgiveness for the sin.

Only God has forgiveness for humans, not for angels, which is

amazing in and of itself. Luke 831 says.

And they begged him not to command them to depart into the

abyss. Now, what's the abyss?

That's the bottomless pit in the Book of Revelation, as I've

talked about, where Satan, the beast, demons will all be bound

and chained as Second Peter tells us.

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 or Jude and the angels who did not stay

with their within their own position of authority, but left

their proper dwelling, He has kept in eternal chains under

gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day.

This is already happening. There are already angels in the

pit. Now that that or fallen angels.

That brings up a whole crazy, you know, question of, well, why

are there some demons that are roaming the earth and some that

are locked up in hell getting tormented already?

And that's going to be a really fun small group discussion.

I could bring up a lot of stuff. I mean, there's all kinds of

different scenarios that people believe, you know, the Nephilim

are involved with that. And so that's a fun one for you

to talk about or to go study into research.

But because I don't exactly know for sure the question, I'm not

going to teach a doctrine to you on that.

What we know though, is that Scripture says that there are

some locked up and there are some that roam the earth and we

need to be aware, and that it seems like demonic activity is

more noticeable in the unreached areas of the gospel.

Like if you look at when Jesus pops up on the seam, there's not

a lot to talk about demons in the Old Testament, although that

they were there, there was few and far between.

And then Jesus comes and he brings the Kingdom and they're

like, we don't like this. This is our world, this is our

earth. And Jesus was like, Nope, we're

spreading the Kingdom. We're coming to take ground.

And that's what we are doing. You might not see it, but

spiritually we are taking ground back from the darkness, from the

evil forces. When we get up here and preach,

when we gather together, when we send out church plants, when we

send out missionaries, when we when we're praying, we are

taking ground for the gospel so that that's it.

The army of darkness does take its toll and we need to be aware

of it. But I wouldn't want to leave you

there. We need to talk about the power

of Jesus over these unclean spirits.

I don't want to leave you in fear.

I don't want you to be worried about it because you don't need

to be as a Christian, it says. And behold, they cried out, What

have you to do with us, O Son of God, have you come here to

torment us before the time? Now a herd of many pigs was

feeding at some distance from them.

And the demons begged him, saying, If you cast us out, send

us away into the herd of pigs. And he said to them, Go.

So they came out and went into the pigs.

And behold, the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into

the sea and drowned in the waters.

All right, let's handle this. First.

We have to handle the fact as I said before the Jesus, the the

demons know exactly who Jesus was and is Mark 57 it says

crying out with a loud voice. He said, what have you do to do

with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?

I adjure you by God, do not torment me.

For he was saying to them, come out of the man, you unclean

spirit. They know that he's the Son of

the Most High God. Why did they know this?

Because they were angels with him in heaven before they were

cast out of heaven. They knew exactly who he was.

Think about this last week, our story.

The disciples were going across the lake and Jesus calms the

wind and the waves and they ask this question, what sort of man

is this that can calm the wind and the waves?

But these guys as soon as he comes out onto the shore, said

Son of God most high, remember they know who he is.

That should help us or challenge us to want to know who he is

better than the demons. And this also proves that Jesus

is who he says he is. They are witnessing to the fact

of who he is. The disciples probably were

like, oh man, they passed the test a lot quicker than we did.

Second, he cast them out with one word.

He just says, go. In our passage.

He's not doing a bunch of moaning and wailing and fasting

and wordy chants, but he simply just says go and 3rd.

The bigger question maybe that's puzzling to us is why the pigs?

Why send them in the pigs? It's interesting today I went

back in the kitchen and I was like, man, I smell bacon and

it's actually ham. You know, we're eating pig

today. If you're interested for

fellowship at the end after this.

But why the pigs? Is there a correlation between

unclean spirits and unclean animals Maybe?

Do demons have to inhabit flesh of some kind?

We know that angels, you know, can make donkeys talk and things

like that. We know.

Do they have to be in some kind of flesh?

And then why did the pigs go over the Cliff into the water?

Was it to antagonize the herdsmen toward Jesus?

I'll tell you this. I don't actually know all the

answers to that question. Isn't this a great sermon?

You just say, hey, this says this.

I don't really know what it means, but there are things in

Scripture we just have to be honest about.

But here's what I will say. Here's some interesting thing.

When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, this is in

Matthew 12. We'll get to this in some

months. Talking about when a demon is

cast out of someone, it says this is Jesus.

When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes

through waterless places seeking rest, but finds none.

And then it goes on to say, and when it doesn't find its home,

it comes back to the house swept clean and brings more demons

back than when it first started. And the state of the person is

worse than the first. There's something interesting to

that statement. Waterless places.

Which brings up again the idea of the flood and and God judging

the earth and and why? Why do demons need to be in in

some kind of flesh? Can't they just roam the earth

as spirits? Again, I don't fully know but

it's just something to think of. I've I've heard stories of

exorcists, Catholic exorcists so you don't have to fully trust

it. But I've heard that they would,

before an exorcism, use a bowl of water and put it next to the

person that they were casting a demon out of.

And in order to make sure they knew the demon was cast out

there would waves would ripple across the water in the bowl.

Does that freak you out a little bit?

Let's think about it this way in the context of this story where

it's placed at going back a couple of verses.

And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea so that the

boat was being swamped by the waves.

Remember this storm, the storm that they went through?

Jesus was teaching them a lesson.

Now we know God is sovereign, but many theologians would say

it wasn't just that God caused the storm, but it was in fact

possibly demonic activity that was bringing about the waves on

the disciples to bring about fear.

And God was using that as a teaching moment to strengthen

their faith because what do they meet on the other side?

But these demon possessed men, something demonic activity that

that stirred the waters possibly.

But again, remember this God is sovereign that he still is the

one allowing this. He's still the one allowing the

the demonic possession in these men.

Knowing that this story was going to be written in

scripture. Do you remember these demons

have to get permission. We see that in this story.

They're asking for permission to go into these pigs.

They couldn't just go on their own.

The sovereignty of God and his authority had to allow them to

go into the pigs in Job. In the 1st chapter or two of

Job, it has a story of Satan coming before God asking if he

can test Job and God says yes. So I bring all of that up just

to say don't think that you're not going to come up against

demonic activity in your life as a Christian, because it's most

likely going to happen. If it happened to the disciples

and it happened to Jesus, it's going to happen to you.

But don't be afraid because Jesus has power over the unclean

spirits. They cannot inhabit you.

Please don't open the door to them by unrepentant sin or false

teaching or Pagan practices or even worldly ideology, But just

know that Jesus has the power over all of the darkness in the

world, and that power now resides in us with the Holy

Spirit. Though disciples didn't have the

Holy Spirit at the time, we have the Holy Spirit now.

And in first John 44, John reminds us, he says little

children, you are from God. You have overcome them.

For he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.

Don't cower back in fear when you come up against demonic

activity in your life. I was doing a marriage class.

We're doing a marriage class in Sunday school.

We recorded it. If you weren't here, we'll put

it up on on Spotify and Apple podcast this week.

But I talked about how Satan, if he wants to get at Christians,

one of the greatest ways he does it is through our marriages and

through our families. If he wants to isolate us, make

us lonely and miserable and fight against one another and,

and instead of love, we have hate, he's going to be working

against us. We need to know that they exist

and we need to know the power that we and Jesus has over them

because it is going to come up in our lives.

And I think when we run into scriptures like this, we have to

handle it this way. We have to talk about it like,

oh, you don't have to worry about that.

No, you don't need to worry about that, but you need to be

mindful and prepared. There are other scriptures that

talk about spiritual warfare that we must No, Jesus has the

power over these unclean spirits.

And it's like he's saying to the disciples, as he said, let's get

in the boat, let's cross the water.

And some scary time pops up and he says you need to have some

faith. So I'm stealing the water.

Now here we are. And now I need to show you the

enemy. I need to show you the enemy

personally and they, the disciples are actually doing

nothing in this entire story. It's all Jesus, by the way.

So don't worry about having to do weird incantations or chants

or, you know, saying all these kind of long things and, and

prayers and stuff like that. Just allow this to strengthen

your faith to know God is sovereign over all that happens.

You just need to be prepared and to react with faith, just like

last. And I tell you, this was a mercy

of Jesus to cast the demons into the pigs.

Not for the demons necessarily, He did give them permission, but

this was the mercy for the herdsmen, the disciples, the

others in the area and the men themselves most importantly.

But nobody really got what happened, only these men, which

we'll see how they reacted. But first we need to see how the

people reacted. And they rejected Jesus for

their possessions. The herdsmen fled going into the

city. They told everything, especially

what had happened to the demon possessed men.

And behold, all the city came out to me, Jesus.

And when they saw him, they begged him to leave their

region. They don't notice the merciful

character of Jesus. They don't know that he's the

Son of God. They might understand that he

has power over evil, but they would rather have their evil

than have Jesus. They're more comfortable with

the evil presence in their lives and the way that they're living

and their possessions, rather than have to face the reality

that God, it's real and he's come down to start a war in this

world with its ruler. Mark tells us that there were

2000 pigs. By the way, that's a lot of

money. They didn't fear the Lord,

rather they feared the loss of income and change of lifestyle.

Now how about you? What if Jesus coming into your

life meant that some evil and darkness was going to be

exposed, dealt with, and it might change the way that you

live forever? I think that's the reason why

people reject Jesus because they're too in love with the

lifestyle that they have right now, knowing full well there's a

lot of evil and sin going on. They're comfortable with that

rather than having to deal with that head on, rather than their

their sin being exposed and them being confessing at first, being

forgiven, repenting. Repenting is so hard for people.

What the word repent is, is to change your mind, to turn from

sin. And it's so hard, it's

impossible. It has to be a miracle of God in

you because we are so stubborn and we're so idolatrous.

We love our lifestyles and our comfort, the way that we've

designed it, the way that we've made it.

And we don't like it when when Jesus comes in and he says, I

want you to change this, this and this, and oh, by the way,

I'm going to make it known about your sin here and your sin

there. Did you know that's a grace of

God when he does that? Some of you probably have been

accused that you only tell the truth because he got caught.

You ever heard that before? I've heard that before.

But thank God I got caught. And that's the mercy of God

because we're too stubborn to allow the light of Jesus to come

in and just expose it all. They're rejecting that.

Brother and sister, if you get caught in a sin, count it a

grace and a mercy of God that He's coming to change you from

the inside out. You need accountability.

Don't live in shame and guilt because of that.

You know that Christ went and died on the cross for that sin

specifically. Don't hold on to it in

unrepentance because that's your comfort, because you're scared

of living a different life in a different way.

Except Jesus, while he comes to expose the evil in your midst,

the evil around you. We go back two weeks when Jesus

taught before they crossed the lake, he said to count the cost

of following me too. Not just the sin, but but even

the way of your your life. You know, you might have other

things in higher priority than than Jesus that we had the

teacher who said I'll go wherever you go and Jesus like,

no, you won't. I don't even have a place to lay

my head. You think you're going to come

follow me? You're going to leave the

comfort of your life to come do the hard work that I'm doing.

No, you won't. The other just the disciples

said, oh, I got I got family things going on.

My father died. I've got to go bury him.

We got some things going on, then I'll come follow you Jesus.

And Jesus was like the kingdom's more important than that.

Now I know we talked about how it's, it's, I'm not, we're not

saying that you can't go to a funeral and have closure with

loved ones. But if anything comes in the way

of, of you having Jesus as your Lord and really excuses to not

worship, excuses to not follow him, then you're not ready to be

a disciple. They weren't ready for Jesus to

turn their world upside down. Well, let's end the story by

looking at how the demon possessed man or men respond to

Jesus. And we'll have to go back to to

Mark's story for that. Mark's, Mark's version, it says.

And they came to Jesus and saw the demon possessed man, the one

that 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 men and to the pigs.

And they began to beg Jesus to depart from the region.

And as he was getting into the boat, the man who had been

possessed with 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 Dicopoulos how much Jesus had done for him.

And everyone marvelled. A couple things I just want to

close with as we look at that he what he was clothed in, in his

right mind, it was physically evident to the people around

that this guy's life had changed.

It said that he used to be naked in the tombs.

Now he's clothed. He's not acting all wild and

crazy anymore, but he's more calm and civil that it it was

physically evident that he wasn't under control of the

demons any longer. What would that look like to us

happened to give up some of maybe even what sin has done in

our lives, the way it's made us act, look, think and talk?

Is is evil or is holiness represented in your life as a

believer? Are you sitting?

He's sitting at his feet. Are you in the the humble

position to learn to sit at his feet and learn as this man is?

Are you willing, do you desire to hear the teaching of Jesus?

And then it says that he begged him that he might be with him.

As I said, do you desire to be with Jesus?

Do you want to follow him and forsake all else?

And then Jesus tells him to go tell his testimony to his

friends. And what does this guy do?

He not only goes to tell his friends and his family about

what Jesus has done, but he goes and tells all of the decopolis.

That's 10 cities. That's what that word means.

Decopolis, 10 cities. He goes into 10 cities and

proclaims the mercy of the Lord Jesus on the worst cases of sin,

that he is merciful and powerful and he wants to help people in

their hopeless spiritual state. And he's powerful enough to do

it. He's powerful enough to change

people from the inside out. Would that be us?

Have we experienced the mercy of Jesus?

So much so that we want to go tell others.

Let it not be the only truth that it's only those who are so

far gone that see the mercy of Jesus and that they become

radical. Let all of us not have to be

demon possessed so that we would go to the Decapolis, that we

would go to the 10 cities, that we would go tell of the mercy

and grace. Because the reality is the

picture of this demon possessed man or man is just like you and

me. We were born and and and acted

in a way that made us further from God than there was no one

further from God than you and me.

Why? Because we're all at equal

footing or on equal level and ground at the foot of the cross.

We we have nothing to bring Him and we are there's nothing that

makes us worthy for him to accept us and love us.

He is so far gone and Jesus could change this man.

And you and I were these men. Maybe our sin didn't get that

far, but just know that this is talking about the helpless state

of depravity that all human beings are in.

And by the way, this is all grace.

The man did absolutely nothing. Did you see any part in this

narrative or any of the narratives where the man spoke

up and said, please help me, Jesus, please save me.

I'll be a better person. I'll do this, I'll do that.

Did you hear him pray a prayer? Did you hear that he went to

church? He didn't do a single thing.

It was all Jesus. Jesus comes and says I'm going

to set this guy free because I have chosen him and I'm going to

use him as a banner and billboard to go tell people of

my mercy and my grace and we are the representatives of Jesus as

well. Would we go do that?

Jesus left this town although they all rejected him.

Jesus even has mercy on this town.

Why? Because they left them, not

these maniacs any longer to where that nobody could pass by.

But he left them a radical missionary that was going to be

bold enough to tell them time and time again for the rest of

his life that Jesus was merciful.

Would we do that? Are you a missionary to your

home? To your workplace, to your

neighborhood. Let us be representative of

Jesus like this guy was. Let's pray, Father.

Thank you, Lord, for sharing with us.

Just a wonderful story, a picture of Your grace, Your

mercy, your love over even the worst cases of sin and evil.

You've come to cleanse and cast out evil from this earth.

And I thank you, God for all those who are are saved.

Father, you have done that in US.

You've made us holy. You've washed us clean and

you've put your spirit in US. Help us to have discernment for

the evil out there in the world, to have faith, to trust you

through it. And I pray, Lord, help us, help

us God, to do your will to go share what you've already done

in our lives, how you've changed us from the Kingdom of darkness

and transferred us into the Kingdom of your son.

I pray in Jesus name, Amen.