Rock Bottom (Mark 5:1-20)

We're going to be in Mark chapter 5, and we're going to be reading verses 1 through 20.

Mark 5 · chapter mention

So if you're able, would you please stand with me for that?

Says they came to the other side of the sea, to the region of the garrisons.

As soon as he got out of the boat, a man with an unclean spirit came out of the tombs and met him.

He lived in the tombs, and no one was able to restrain him any more, not even with a chain, because he often had been bound with shackles and chains, but he had torn the chains apart and smashed the chap the shackles.

No one was strong enough to subdue him.

Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains, he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones.

When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and knelt down before him, and he cried out with a loud voice, What do you have to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?

I beg you before God, don't torment me.

For he had told him, Come out of the man, you unclean spirit.

What is your name?

He asked him.

My name is Legion, he answered him, because we are many.

And he begged him earnestly not to send them out of the region.

A large herd of pigs was there, feeding in the hillside.

The demons begged him, Send us to the pigs so that we may enter him.

Enter them.

So he gave them permission, and the unclean spirits came out and entered the pigs.

The herd of about two thousand rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned there.

The men who tended them ran off and reported it in the town and the countryside, and people went to see what had happened.

They came to Jesus and saw the man who had been demon-possessed sitting there, dressed and in his right mind, and they were afraid.

Those who had seen it described to them what had happened to the demon-possessed man, and told them about the pigs.

Then they began to beg him to leave their region.

As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon possessed begged him earnestly that he might remain with him.

Jesus did not let him, but told him, Go home to your own people and report to them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.

So he went out and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him, and they were all amazed.

Lord, I thank you so much for your word.

That your words and the things that you want to communicate to us, we can hold in our hands.

So Lord, we come with all reverence and humility before you, asking that you would change us, that you would make us more and more like you.

As we dig into this verse here today, these verses, I pray, God, that you would show yourselves to us, and that we would not leave here unchanged, but we would gather all the things that you desire to change in us, to encourage us with, to convict us of, and that all of those things would happen here today, we pray.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

You may be seated.

So, Mark 5, this whole chapter, it has three people that we're gonna see that all encounter Jesus in three different ways.

And today we're gonna look at the first of those three people.

But the common thread that we're gonna see through these three is that they are all in desperate need of Jesus.

And Jesus proves to each one of them that he is exactly what they need.

And today I hope we all leave here with this, with the hope that we find in 1 John chapter 4, verse 4, where it says that he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.

1 John 4:4

And as we're gonna see today, it's not even close.

Jesus, God, the Holy Spirit, is so much stronger and so much greater than anything that we're ever going to face.

So let's jump right in to verse 1.

Please follow along with me.

It says, They came to the other side of the sea, to the region of the garrisons.

As soon as he got out of the boat, a man with an unclean spirit came out of the tombs and met him.

So, geographically speaking, Ben, do you want to throw up the map?

Nice, we actually have a TV we can use for stuff like this now.

But geographically, I don't know how hard it is to see, but in the yellow here, this is the region of Galilee, and then we have Samaria here, and then we have Jerusalem here, and this is all what's considered Israel at the time of Jesus.

And then over here we have the Decapolis.

So this is the Sea of Galilee.

Jesus and his disciples, you know, last week we went through the storm that happened on the sea.

That was while they were uh traveling from the west coast to the east coast of the Sea of Galilee.

And it's a roughly about an eight-mile trip that they took uh right there.

So they just took this trip, they just had this storm that they went through.

They arrive on the shore right there, and then bam, there's this crazy wild animal-like guy with no clothes on there to greet them.

And he said, you know, welcome to the Decapolis.

We're so glad that you're here.

You know, let me know if you need anything during your stay.

Not quite.

We're gonna we're gonna be looking at the description of this guy and what he actually did, and it was quite the opposite.

So verse 3 says, He lived in the tombs, and no one was able to restrain him anymore, not even with a chain, because he often had been bound with shackles and chains, but had torn the chains apart and smashed the shackles.

No one was strong enough to subdue.

Um, some of your translations will say, tame him.

Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains, he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones.

So we have once again a demon-possessed man.

And we've seen Jesus dealing with people that are demon-possessed.

But in this story, we get a lot of detail that we don't get in other places.

Things like shackles and chains couldn't hold him.

Things like he was living among the dead in tombs.

Things like nobody could subdue or tame him yet.

Until he meets Jesus, of course.

But we also see that he's cutting himself with stones.

And when you think of that, don't think of it as some nice sharp flint knife.

When you look at the Greek for cutting here, it actually means that he's gouging out chunks of flesh and that he's beating and bruising himself with rocks.

So this guy is just completely out of his mind, and as we can see, he's suicidal.

And then it says that he's crying out night and day in agony and in torment wherever he is.

So our passage here in Mark, it hints towards the fact that he probably didn't have any clothes on.

But when you look at Luke 8, 27, it straight out says he was not clothed.

So he runs up to them completely naked.

And we also learn from the account in Luke that this guy has been this way for a really long time.

This isn't some new thing that just happened.

This guy's been like this for a while.

And this man's living like an animal.

He's acting with superhuman strength, he's completely out of his mind, and he's suicidal.

You know, for people that think following the devil or rejecting God is gonna be more fun.

For the people that think that the wide path is gonna be a lot more fun and a better option than the straight and narrow, the ones that think that hell's gonna be a big party with all their friends, that's exactly what the enemy wants all of us to believe.

But the truth is, the state that this guy is in, that is exactly where Satan would love to see each and every one of us.

Just in the same exact state that this guy's in right here.

Living a subhuman, animal-like existence that is not able to function in society.

So he wants to turn us into people that are tormented night and day.

That's filled with suicidal thoughts.

And the reason I give you such a description with all the gory details is because I want you to keep that in mind as you see the results of what happens to this guy under the influence of the devil, and then compare that to what happens to the guy under the influence of Jesus Christ.

So I want us to think of that and compare and contrast it this morning as we continue on.

We're gonna see a very clear picture of where Satan's heart is, and a very clear picture of where God's heart is.

Let's jump back in to verse six.

It says, When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and knelt down before him, and he cried out with a loud voice, What do you have to do with me, Jesus?

Son of the most high God.

I beg you before God, don't torment me.

So once again, we see demons absolutely terrified of Jesus.

Jesus is continuing to plunder the kingdom of Satan and shows his authority over Satan and his demons.

And it's important to note that this is not the man that's speaking at this time in the story.

This is a demon that's speaking through, if you want to call it, a host body, if you will.

And what we see as we look at demon possession through a scriptural lens is that sometimes it's the person that's speaking, and sometimes it's the person that's acting, but sometimes it's the demon that is speaking and is acting.

And one example, uh, we're gonna get a little ahead here, but in Mark chapter 9, we're gonna see in a couple weeks, and it's the story of when the father brings his possessed son to the disciples, and they're unable to drive out the evil spirit, and then they bring him to Jesus.

Mark 9 · chapter mention

But in the Father's description, as he's talking about what happens with his son, he says, whenever it seizes him, it throws him down, and he foams at the mouth, grinds his teeth, and becomes rigid.

So it seems that demonic possession isn't a constant overtaking of a person's body and will, and then the person has nothing left.

The spirit doesn't have constant control at all time.

But rather what we see in scripture is that the demons will have momentary control for a period of time.

And right now in our passage, uh the demon has control, and he's the one that's speaking to Jesus.

Verse 8.

For he, meaning Jesus, had told him, Come out of the man, you unclean spirit.

What is your name?

He asked him.

My name is Legion, he answered him, because we are many.

So at this time, in Jesus' time, the in the Roman army, a legion consisted of over 6,000 people.

It was 6,100 foot soldiers and 726 horsemen.

So the question is, were there really over 6,000 demons in the sky?

Most likely, probably not.

But really, probably the intent of this guy, this demon saying this to Jesus is saying, there's a lot of us.

We're organized and we're working together to destroy this guy's life.

You know, some commentators will say that maybe the demons responded in this way because they were trying to intimidate Jesus, but I just don't see that.

I see them begging Jesus, shuddering before him.

And we're going to see that right here in verse 10.

It says, And he begged him earnestly not to send them out of the region.

A large herd of pigs was there, feeding in the hillside.

The demons begged him, send us to the pigs, so that we may enter them.

It says here, like we're mentioning, they begged him earnestly.

You know, for a force that was wreaking so much havoc on this man's life, these spirits sure shape up quickly when they're faced with the authority of Jesus Christ.

James 2 19 tells us, you believe that God is one.

Good.

Even the demons believe and they shudder.

And we're seeing that example right now.

Demons believing that Jesus is God and they're shuddering before his authority and before his presence.

Now, I understand that as we talk about demon possession and spiritual warfare, you know, it can always get a little weird, and you know, people have a lot of questions and stuff like that.

But, you know, we start to talk about host bodies, we start to talk about what demons are allowed to do, you know, to non-believers and what they're allowed to do to believers and all that kind of stuff.

And he usually raises up a lot of questions.

But I really liked in David Guzick's commentary how he summarized it.

So instead of trying to just describe it myself, I want to read you a passage from his commentary.

He says, The demons considered it torment to be put out of this man's body.

Demons want to inhabit human bodies for the same reasons a vandal wants a spray can or a violent man wants a gun.

A human body is a weapon that a demon can use in attacking God.

Demons also attack men because they hate the image of God in man.

They attack that image by debasing man and making him grotesque, just as they did to this man in the country of the Garrison.

Demons have the same goal in Christians to wreck the image of God.

But their tactics are restricted toward Christians because demonic spirits were disarmed by Jesus' work on the cross.

Yet demonic spirits certainly can both deceive and intimidate Christians, binding them with fear and unbelief.

And I like this summary because it addresses the fact that Christians can't be possessed by Satan or by his demons.

But they sure can be harassed by them.

You know, Guzick goes on to warn in his commentary about ignoring demonic activity, but also over-emphasizing demonic activity as well.

We as Christians, we need to know that spiritual warfare is real and the enemy wants to debase the image of God in each one of us.

Because he hates God and he especially hates God in us.

But at the same time, we can't give the enemy too much credit either.

As Christians, we need to make sure that we don't turn into those people that attribute everything to spiritual warfare.

You know, the become a Christian that over-emphasizes everything, giving the enemy credit for everything.

Every little thing that doesn't go as planned, you know, we call spiritual warfare.

Or, you know, we act like a fool and we make bad decisions and try to give the enemy credit for that.

We just need to make sure that we're recognizing spiritual warfare for what it is, but at the same time not over-emphasizing it and giving the enemy too much credit.

So we shouldn't fear the enemy or his power because it's under the authority of Jesus Christ.

And Jesus is quickly going to prove that he has the authority to do whatever he wants with these spirits that he finds in this man.

And as we saw a few weeks ago in chapter 3, Jesus cast out the demon, and then he told the parable of plundering the house of the strong man.

Do you remember that parable that we talked about?

Jesus was basically telling the crowd that he had come to plunder the kingdom of Satan, to bind up the strong man and to clean the house, just like we're seeing Jesus do here today.

And right after that story in Luke's gospel, Jesus goes on a little bit further than we saw in Mark.

So in Luke 11, 24, Jesus says, When an unclean spirit comes out of a person, it roams through the waterless places looking for rest and not finding rest.

And then says, I'll go back to my house that I came from.

Returning, it finds the house swept and put in order.

Then it goes and brings seven other spirits, more evil than itself, and they enter and settle down there.

As a result, that person's last condition is worse than the first.

So this gives us some insight into why they beg Jesus not to be just cast out, out of the region, or some of your translations will say out of the abyss.

Demons hate not having a home or not having a host.

They don't like being disembodied.

It says they can't find rest if they're not in a house or in a home, in a host.

And my question is why?

You know, my guess is that they love to work against the kingdom of God so much that they become less effective when they're disembodied.

So they really want to stay within a person.

But I'm also comfortable saying, I don't know exactly.

We look at scripture and it's kind of hard to tell, but what we do know is they hate being disembodied, and we see that in multiple places.

But what we will see is they are willing to enter into anything, as we're gonna see in verse 13.

The herd of about 2,000 rushed down the steep banks into the sea and drowned there.

So what do we see?

Death and destruction.

That's the devil's goal.

We're told the goal of the devil is to steal, kill, and destroy anything that he possibly can.

And we see all three of those things taking place here.

He steals the herd of pigs, he drove them to their death, so there he's killing, and he destroyed the owner's food, property, and livelihood.

If the demons could no longer do it to a human, they'll do it to anything that they can get their hands on.

And they show that their ultimate hope was for this man, their ultimate hope was to do to this man the same thing that they did to these pigs.

They wanted the same fate of this man.

They just hadn't gotten there yet.

Verse 14.

They came to Jesus and saw the man who had been demon-possessed sitting there, dressed and in his right mind, and they were afraid.

So they run back to town, they tell everyone about these crazy events, and a big crowd comes out to witness what's going on.

They're hearing about these pigs and this man getting out of a boat and the demon-possessed man being healed, so these big crowds start to come out.

And what they find actually brings them fear.

Because they find the unexplainable.

They find what every human effort had failed to tame and subdue, sitting at the feet of Jesus Christ.

And he's fully clothed, perfectly normal, and he's in his right mind.

Could we all agree that this guy was at rock bottom?

Could we agree that this is about as bad of a human condition that you can possibly be found in?

Living among tunes, running around naked, screaming out and yelling, who knows what, cutting and abusing himself, living like an animal, and possessed by a legion of demons.

And how does the crowd find him?

How do they find him after he encountered Jesus?

Just completely sitting there in his right mind, dressed, sitting at the feet of Jesus.

Years and years of damage, completely undone in a moment with Jesus.

And if Jesus can do this in a moment with this man, think of what he can do with each one of us.

If Jesus can do this in a moment with this man, think of what he could do with a couple days with us.

Or a couple weeks.

Or a couple years.

You know, some of you may be sitting here right now thinking, it's only because of Jesus that I'm sitting here today in my right mind.

Considering what state you would be in if Jesus hadn't rescued you.

Or maybe right now you're thinking that you're too far gone, or that you're too far damaged, or that you're too messed up, that your past has too many shameful things in it for Jesus to save you.

But look at this guy.

His community had given up hope, had banished him as an outcast.

And who knows what evil and harm that this man committed against his community?

Nobody believed in this guy except for Jesus.

And a part of the story, I think, that we tend to often overlook is that Jesus crossed over the Sea of Galilee.

He went through that horrible storm for this one guy.

Jesus encounters him right as he arrives, he casts out the evil spirits, and then Jesus immediately goes back across the sea.

He left a huge crowd of people on the west coast of the Sea of Galilee that he was ministering to to go after the one.

The one that everyone else had left to die alone, who was considered by his community to be a lost cause.

And Jesus sees him and he cares enough about him to not leave him as he was.

So Jesus casts out the evil spirits, and in so doing, he casts out his past.

He casts out his sins, and he gives him a new birth.

He gives him a fresh start, an invitation into the family of God.

And behold, for this man, all things were made new.

And if he'll do it for this guy, you better believe that he's going to do it for each one of us as well.

And what does it say regarding the crowd?

And they were afraid.

And they should have been afraid.

Because when we encounter the power and authority of Jesus on display, fear should grip us because of that power.

But their response, as we'll see, was wrong.

The fear of God should lead us to worship.

It should lead us to repentance.

It should lead us to stand in awe and wonder of his power and his authority.

But let's look at their response here in verse 16.

It says, Those who had seen it described to them what had happened to the demon-possessed man and told about the pigs.

Then they began to beg him to leave their region.

They were afraid of the unknown.

They were afraid of the power and authority of God.

So instead of submitting to it, they begged for it to leave.

These people had hard hearts.

They looked at their food and they looked at their prophets destroyed.

And I mean, you know, I love bacon just as much as the next guy.

But they were choosing bacon over Jesus.

They looked at the unknown, they looked at the miraculous and said, I want nothing to do with that.

I was comfortable before.

And then I was introduced to Jesus, and instead of seeing what this guy's all about, I just want to stay in my little comfort zone where I know that I'm going to be safe and there's no surprises.

And in fact, you know, I just want this guy to leave.

I'm confronted with this man and all of this unknown and the loss of some of my personal effects, and I just want him out.

I want him to leave.

So, verse 18.

As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed begged him earnestly that he might remain with him.

So Jesus, we see is heading out of town.

He doesn't stick around when confronted with these hard hearts.

And as we saw in the parable of the sower, Jesus isn't going to cast his seeds of truth and life into hard paths and into rocky soil.

We also see in Matthew 10, 14, Jesus tells his disciples, if anyone does not welcome you or listen to your words, shake the dust off your feet when you leave that house or town.

And what we can learn from this is that Jesus doesn't force himself on anyone.

In the parable of the soils, we see that Jesus is casting out seeds of truth, and he doesn't want seeds to germinate on hard hearts or on the rocky hearts.

He actually says it's better for those people to not hear the truth until their hearts are ready, until they're prepared and they're cultivated and they're prepared for a good home to keep the truth of Jesus Christ.

So these people here, they ask Jesus to leave, and what does he do?

He does.

Now, in contrast to the crowd that we see in verse 18, now we see the reaction of the man that was demon-possessed.

And he asked to go with Jesus.

It says actually that he begged to go with Jesus.

And I think this man just realized who Jesus is and all that Jesus had done for him, and he just wanted to be near.

He wanted to be close.

He wanted to follow Jesus and just stay as close as he possibly could.

But we'll see Jesus' response here in verse 19.

Jesus did not let him, but he told him, Go home to your own people and report to them how much the Lord has done for you and how he has had mercy on you.

You know, I don't know if you realize it, but this is the first time that we've seen in Mark, as we're going through this book, of Jesus not saying, Don't tell anyone.

You know, we keep saying that over.

Don't tell anybody that's, you know, what's happened.

You know, just keep this to yourself.

But instead, here Jesus says, go and spread the word for the first time.

So why all of a sudden does Jesus change his tune?

Because next week we're going to see Jesus after healing the child, he's going to say, Don't say a word.

Don't tell anybody.

So why with this guy would he change his tune?

I believe it's because they're not in Israel anymore.

They're in the Greek province called the Decapolis on the east side of the sea.

And Jesus wasn't concerned with this side of the sea knowing who he is.

It's the Jewish leaders that he knows will kill him.

And it's in Israel that he tells people to keep a lid on things, as we'll see.

So he tells them, go and spread the word about everything that has happened to you, to all of the Tecapolis.

And that's the ten cities, the ten Greek influence cities on the east side on the map.

This guy has a personal testimony.

He has personally witnessed the power and authority of Jesus Christ in his life.

He's experienced it firsthand.

And Jesus says, use it.

And if you're a follower of Christ, so should we.

Our testimony of where we were and where God has brought us since then, is something that nobody can argue with.

You know, we can try evangelism through debate and through apologetics, you know, through fire and brimstone, but none of those have the power of our personal testimony of what Jesus Christ has done in each one of us.

The power of your testimony, both through being seen by other people that knew you before, and they could actually see the difference and the change, the change that's in you, but also seeing the uh the testimony of you just telling somebody, this is where I was, and this is where Jesus has brought me.

It's extremely powerful as we witness to people because they can't look at you and say, No, it didn't.

No, you weren't, no, you aren't.

They can't argue with it.

They can argue with apologetics and all that kind of stuff, but it's your personal testimony that has so much power as we're telling people about Jesus Christ and the His power and his authority that he desires inside of each one of us.

Let's look at verse 20.

It says, So he went out and began to proclaim in the decapitalis how much Jesus had done for him, and they were all amazed.

So, what better witness than someone that was beyond helping?

This was someone that everybody, I'm sure, was familiar with in this area.

Familiar with them as a lost cause.

Familiar with them because everybody had given up on him.

Oh, that's that crazy guy.

Don't go too close to the coast, you know.

And kids, don't play over there because the crazy guy lives over there.

And it says that as this guy gave his testimony, all were amazed.

And as we leave here today, this is what I hope we leave here with.

First, you are not a lost cause.

Jesus crossed the sea for this one soul, and he's willing to do the same for each one of us.

He did it for someone that was at the bottom and couldn't go any further down, and he saved this man.

Now, the second thing I hope we leave here thinking about is that you will never come across a lost cause.

You may look at someone and think that they are too far gone, that they're unhelpable, that they're too far, that sharing the good news wouldn't even make a difference.

Or that they don't deserve the good news because of who they are or what they've done in their past, or maybe what they've done to you.

A lost cause does not exist in the eyes of Jesus.

If Jesus can save this guy, he can save anyone regardless of their current condition or their past.

As we say earlier, we always have hope in Jesus.

He is our living hope.

And as we come across people in our daily lives, in our work, in our families, we do not come across lost causes.

We come across people that Jesus wants to save, that he wants to help, that he wants to heal.

So I just want to encourage all of us to start using our testimony.

This is where I was, this is where I am, and it's because of the power and authority of Jesus Christ.

It is such a powerful tool for us to use.

So start praying about maybe who the Lord wants you to give your testimony to.

And as I look out, I know there's some people here with some amazing testimonies.

I've heard them before, and they're powerful.

Let's start using them.

Just as Jesus encouraged this man to go out into the Decapolis and tell them of everything that God has done for you.

Let's pray.

Jesus, I thank you for your love.

It is so incredible to think about how much you love us.

To think about where you've brought us.

Lord, we were helpless and hopeless in every way before we found you.

Lord, I pray that we'd never celebrate where we came from.

Lord, but we would realize that you you pulled us out of the pit of darkness and despair.

That we were heading down a road that would have led us who knows where.

But God, because of you and because of the love of Jesus and the power and authority of Jesus Christ in our lives, you have saved us.

You have made us new and whole again.

Lord, and you have you have things for us to do now.

You have a testimony for us to share.

You want us to start sharing that love that you have for us and telling other people how much you love them as well, and all that you want to do in and through and for those people.

Use us mightily, we pray, for your kingdom.

We pray these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.