Mark 5a (9-17-25)

Hey everybody, this is Pastor James. Welcome back once again to our midweek

Bible study. We're going to start chapter 5 and reading this amazing account of

Jesus healing a demon-possessed man. So read with me verses 1 through 20 as we

start. So they arrived at the other side of the lake in the region of the

garrisings. When Jesus climbed out of the boat, a man possessed by an evil spirit

came out from the tombs to meet him. This man lived in the burial caves and

could no longer be restrained, even with a chain. Whenever he was putting the

chains in shackles, as he often was, he snapped the chains from his wrists

and smashed the shackles. No one was strong enough to subdue him. Day and night

he wandered among the burial caves and in the hills howling and cutting

himself with sharp stones. When Jesus was still some distance away, the man saw

him, ran to meet him, and bowed low before him. With a shriek he screamed,

Why are you interfering with me, Jesus, son of the Most High God? In the name of

God, I beg you, don't torture me. For Jesus had already said to the spirit,

Come out of the man, you evil spirit. Then Jesus demanded, What is your name?

And he replied, My name is Legion because there are many of us inside this man.

Then the spirits begged him again and again not to send them to some distant

place. There happened to be a large herd of pigs feeding on the hillside

nearby. Send us into those pigs, the spirits begged. Let us enter into them.

So Jesus gave them permission. The evil spirits came out of the man and

entered the pigs and the entire herd of about 2,000 pigs plunged down the

steep hillside into the lake and drowned in the water. The herdsmen fled to the

nearby town and the surrounding countryside spreading the news as they

ran. People rushed out to see what had happened. A crowd soon gathered around

Jesus and they saw the man who had been possessed by the Legion of Demons. He

was sitting there fully clothed and perfectly sane and they were all

afraid. Then those who had seen what happened told the others about the

demon-possessed man and the pigs and the crowd began pleading with Jesus to

go away and leave them alone. As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who

had been demon-possessed begged to go with him. But Jesus said, No, go home to

your family and tell them everything the Lord has done for you and how

merciful he has been. So the man started off to visit the ten towns of

that region and began to proclaim the great things Jesus had done for him.

And everyone was amazed at what he told them. Alright, let's talk about this

really fascinating story because there is a lot of information to cover. Now,

first we see that Jesus goes to the other side of the lake known as the

region of the Gerasenes and this region or city was just one of ten and

in this area known as the Decapolis. So it's really just kind of according to

the translation that you're reading as to whether or not it identifies these

towns as the ten towns or the Decapolis. And a lot of times you'll see a footnote

beside those to kind of give you a further explanation as to what this is.

But it's known as the Decapolis and you're gonna see a lot more of the

Decapolis involved in Scripture from this point on. Now, Matthew identifies the

region as the Gerasenes and says that there are two men who were possessed by

demons. Luke gives this account with just one man like Mark does and some

explanations for this are that there were always two men present but Mark and

Luke wanted to just kind of simplify the story as only one of the men

possessed, communicated with Christ and eventually followed him even from the

book of Matthew. Another explanation is that Matthew was writing to a Jewish

audience and as a result needed two witnesses to be present for the miracle

in order to give it validity. Either way, the account of the story is spot-on

with the exception of whether or not there was one man or two men. And so

basically it's just it's very it's a very trivial difference in Scripture

because it's basically word-for-word exactly the same with just the

exception of is it one or is it two men. So since we're in Mark, we'll refer to

just the one man. So let's talk about him living in the burial caves or the

tombs if you will. So this was a place of the dead which would have been

unclean to Jewish people but these are Roman readers and so you're not gonna

read much about that being unclean but Romans had many different views of

the dead but one common thing was is that there was generally a fear or

superstition about death and dead people that went with it. So the idea that

someone would live among the dead would be about as accepted in Rome as it

would be in America today. You know if there was a local person who lived in a

graveyard that would be kind of weird. Someone would have to be just a little

crazy or a little off in order to be willing to live with dead people and

that would have been how they had felt reading this story. So the man would

have been unclean. He was possessed and living among the dead. He was violating

all kinds of Jewish laws but he was doing many things that were not

accepted by the Romans as well. So the man had supernatural strength. He's

described to never sleep as he roamed the caves day and night. He howled like

an animal. He even cut himself which isn't as weird as the other stuff as

many occult rituals require the letting of blood. So that would have been

somewhat common for certain people or certain spiritual pursuits in the demonic

world or the idolatry or the world of idolatry but you know you remember the

priest of Bell in the contest on Mount Carmel they cut themselves all day as they

were trying to get their guide to answer them. So this man is completely

uncontrollable. Others could not control him. He had no self-control over himself.

The demons within him had taken full control over him and full control over

the environment which he dwelt because as you can imagine the people of the

area would have just avoided the place all together to make sure that they

they didn't have an encounter with this man. So when these demons had physical

sight of Jesus they caused this man to run to Jesus and bow down before him.

So think about the very forces that opposed God in these instances like

our story today. They run and they bow down and submit themselves to the power

and authority of Christ and that should be a wake-up call to all of us. Even if

the demons are running to Christ and bowing down to him how much more should

we be running to Christ and bowing down before him? So they immediately identify

him as Jesus son of the Most High God and it's not that they want to serve

him but they have no choice but to acknowledge him for who he is. They were

created originally to give glory and honor to God so they know that their

eternity is in his hands and they begged him not to torture them. So they know

that eventually Jesus is going to torture them. They know that their

punishment is coming but they don't want it to come yet. So Jesus has the

power to give life or the power to destroy and we should never forget that

as we follow him and as these demonic forces are identified as being many it is

a harsh reminder that there's a sense of infinite falling away from God. You know

think about this really hard. Being possessed by one demon would be a

terrible thing for our souls. It would be I mean when you think about all the

other accounts of people who says my child, my son, my daughter, they're

possessed by a demon. It's terrible because they have no control over what's

going on but this man is not just possessed by one. He's possessed by a

legion of demons and so a legion would be thousands, thousands of demons that

would be dwelling within this man. And so for us to kind of understand

that as terrible as it would be for to be possessed by one demon there is the

possibility for us to be possessed by thousands of demons. There's almost

this infinite level of being consumed by evil. That there's no limit to how much

evil can dwell within us, can inhabit us, can overtake us. And so it is so

terrifying to think that we could possibly make ourselves available not to

just one demonic force but for an infinite number of demons to come inside

of us and to control us and to take away our ability to honor God and much less

have a decent normal life. And so and you look at this and all these demons

they begged Jesus not to send them to a distant place and it's crazy at how much

power and authority they had where they were. They had already established this

man. They had already established the tombs in this area as their place of

dwelling and the people in that region just accepted what was. At that time the

presence of God had been absent from that place until Jesus came and

disrupted their efforts to control the people in this region. So Satan had been

allowed to basically just roam free. So the demons asked to be cast into a herd

of pigs which is very interesting. Their desire to be in humans was great but

even if they can't be in humans they will choose to have a living host of some

kind. So take note that they asked permission. This is also another

indication that Jesus has full authority over spiritual things as well as

physical things. These demons had to ask permission for where they were wanted to

go and who or what they wanted to inhabit. They cannot do anything without

God allowing them to do it. And you also have to notice that immediately when

they inhabit these pigs, 2,000 pigs so that we know there was at least 2,000

demons because 2,000 pigs were inhabited by demonic spirits. They plunged into the

lake and they drowned and a demon's sole purpose is to destroy. The pigs did not

have the spiritual protection of the Lord to sustain them through this

demonic possession but the Lord loves us as humans so much that he afforded

this man to be possessed by potentially thousands of demons and survived their

destructive intent for the sole purpose of rescuing him at the right time. So

the man became normal and this is so sad because what was normal had all of

normal. So he's sitting there fully clothed. He's fully sane and when the

people come to see what had happened and they saw this man, instead of being

joyful, they were afraid and they begged Jesus to leave them because of what

happened. They were so accustomed to a crazy uncontrollable man and they had

accepted it as normal. Now that someone had displayed authority over what they

had deemed normal that they couldn't control, it didn't give them hope, it gave

them fear. This is what happens when people are accustomed to evil and sin.

Righteousness and holiness is terrifying to them. It's intimidating. They don't know

what to do with it and many times people are not willing to make the

changes in order for that to be a part of their life and so they reject it

altogether. And you also have to take note that Jesus left. He didn't stay where

he wasn't wanted. He got into the boat to leave because the people had asked him

to leave. So he left and the man that he had rescued was ready to follow him

anywhere that Jesus was going to go but Jesus commanded him to go home until

everyone what the Lord has done for him. This is one of the only times Jesus

commands this. We see in the Gospel of Mark many times when he does something

for people he tells them don't tell anyone, be quiet, and go about your life but

they never do. This is one of the only times he tells someone go tell

everyone what the Lord has done for you. And so the man immediately leaves and

goes to the 10 towns or the Decapolis to tell everyone about Jesus and all the

people were amazed. And this man's testimony is going to set the stage for

the future ministry of Jesus to come back to this side of the lake and

call the people in the coming days. So remember this because this man is

important. His faithfulness to Christ and telling what he has done for him is

going to set the stage for Jesus to come back and do finally be welcomed among

these people. All right well let's pray. I'll let you go today. Father God thank you

so much for the opportunity to once again read your word and to follow you

and to serve you and live for you. And I pray Lord that many of us would be

like this man. God that you would rescue us and save us and cleanse us

from all of our righteousness. And Lord that we would realize how amazingly

indebted we are to you because you were able to do something that we could not

do for ourselves. And Lord help us to be faithful. Help us to be willing to go and

proclaim it to the world around us wherever it is you want us to go. He

would have loved to have followed you. But Lord you had a different plan for him

to stay where he was and to tell those people. And Lord we may have different

ideas or different thoughts as to what we think ministry should be and how we we

would like to do it. But Lord I pray that you would help us to be obedient to

you and your calling in your ways. Lord we love you today and we thank you we

ask all this in Jesus name. Amen. All right guys thanks for tuning in for

another week and thank you for being a part of the Grand Chapel family. As

always we would love to see you in person but if you can't see us in

person catch us on Facebook, YouTube, and the podcast. We love you. We're praying

for you. Hope you have a great week.