"Jesus, Invading Occupied Territory" - Pastor to 60+ Dave Skorupa - December 1, 2024

Ministering to the heart of Western Arkansas's River Valley for over 165 years, welcome to Chapter and First, the Bible Teaching Ministry of Fort Smith's First Baptist Church.

You'll find sermons and teachings from Pastor Greg, our ministry staff, and guest speakers.

Thank you for listening.

Well, good morning.

I will be transparent with you and let you know that despite all of the lights and the garland and all of that, I wasn't really into Christmas just yet.

Might be because I had two Thanksgivings and I'm still sort of recovering a little bit from what that means.

But uh, after hearing our choir and our worship team, I think I'm getting there, getting a little closer to Christmas.

And I hope that you are too, because, you know, we call this the most wonderful time of the year.

And there is a reason for that, and it goes beyond trees and lights and presents and food and all the rest of it.

We are celebrating the birth of the Savior.

And I've got a verse on the screen right now.

It is the only Christmas type verse we're going to look at this morning because in a few minutes we're going to go in a somewhat different direction.

But before we go into our time in God's Word, let's once again go to the Lord in prayer.

Bow with me.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day, for this time of fellowship that you have given us with one another.

Lord, we thank you for the gift of being able to come and praise you and worship you through prayer and song.

And now, Lord, as we go into a time where we are with your word, we remind ourselves that you have inspired your word, that you have preserved your word down through the ages where people have wanted to destroy it.

And Lord, your word is just as powerful and just as impactful today as it was when you first had the men put pen to paper.

And so, Lord, we pray that the Holy Spirit in our lives would respond to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in your word in a way that draws us closer to your Son and our Savior, Jesus Christ the Lord.

And God's people said, Amen.

The verse that I have on the screen is a verse from the Gospel of Luke.

And you know, when we look at all of the different verses related to the Christmas story, this is one that it's probably the only time in the world that something like a census brings a smile to our lips.

I don't know about you, but every time I fill out the census, I always am asking myself the question, why do they want to know that?

What's up with that?

Why are they trying to give me, get me to give them that information?

But here in Luke chapter 2 and verse 1, we see that in the days of the birth of Jesus, in those days, a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that the whole inhabited world should be registered.

Luke 2 · chapter mention

Now, some of your Bibles might say that the whole empire should be registered.

What was going on here?

This is, Luke says this it was at this time that events began to come into place for the birth of Jesus.

And he points to this census that was taken.

Well, in the ancient Roman world, when they took a census, they did it for one of two reasons, sometimes both reasons.

First, they wanted to get a name and an address for everyone so that they could make sure that the taxes were being paid properly.

The other reason that they wanted names and addresses or names and locations for people was because Rome, in this particular case, history tells us, Rome went from just being satisfied in collecting money from the Jews.

That wasn't enough anymore.

Now what they were going to do was they were going to implement a more strict Roman rule of law upon the people there in Judea.

As a matter of fact, this act of taking the census caused a revolt in the area of Judea.

Not just a revolt, but a violent uprising.

People saw that this census was being implemented, and they said, no, we're not going to have even more Roman rule around here in Judea.

And so an uprising took place.

And this gets lost a little bit in history, but the events surrounding the birth of Jesus take place not in an atmosphere of silent night, holy night necessarily, but they take place at a time where there is upheaval, there are protests, there are people killing soldiers and being killed by soldiers.

You see, the birth of Jesus is in many ways more than just a baby being born in a stable and being put into a manger.

When I think of the birth of Jesus, the more I study, the more I've learned, the more time that I've spent in God's Word, what I have come to the conclusion of is that in many ways what God is doing is He is invading enemy occupied territory.

And so the name of our message this morning, the title of our message this morning is Jesus Invading Occupied Territory.

If that title doesn't please you, a backup title would be Jesus and Pretenders to the Throne.

What we're going to do today is we're going to take a look at some things in Scripture, and we'll look at an illustration, a historical occurrence in Scripture that shows us this idea of Jesus invading occupied territory or Jesus confronting pretenders to the throne.

So at his birth, we see Jesus is coming into a territory that's been occupied by the Roman Empire.

And yet we see throughout Jesus' ministry more events of him invading spaces where the wrong people are in charge.

Or he's invading spaces where the wrong circumstances are there in place.

How many times in the Gospels do we see Jesus confronting the scribes and the lawyers and the Pharisees?

Quite a few, right?

Why is he confronting these people?

Well, these people are seen as the religious rulers of the Jewish people.

And yet Jesus reveals that their hearts are not with God, but rather their hearts are on their position, they're on their prestige, they are on their place in society.

And so what happens when Jesus confronts these people?

Well, again and again and again, he shows them the error of their teaching, the errors of their customs.

That's not all, though.

Jesus invades occupied territory in other ways.

Jesus, throughout the Gospels, is working with people who are suffering from a variety of physical illnesses.

The blind, the lame, the paralyzed, people who are struck with leprosy.

And what do we see Jesus doing in those situations?

We see him reversing the circumstances.

People that were le that were suffering with leprosy are cleansed and made whole.

People who were lame not only get up and walk, but they pick up their mat, and some of them even jump for joy over what Jesus has done.

The blind are able to see some for the first time.

Some who were born blind are able to see for the first time.

I can't imagine what that must be like to just suddenly go from a life of darkness to having your mind and your eyes filled with the visions of light and life that you've been missing out on all those years.

But Jesus invades even more than that.

Jesus goes into places where people are already considered spiritual outcasts beyond any connection with Almighty God, the tax collectors, and the prostitutes.

Jesus goes to them and shares who he is with them.

And they have the opportunity to embrace him, to receive him as Savior and Lord, and turn away from those things and be part of the family of God.

Jesus invades the social norms of the place where he is ministering.

Jesus even invades wrong teaching about the rules of God.

To this day, I still don't completely understand why the Pharisees and the scribes and the different religious rulers always got so upset when Jesus would heal somebody on the Sabbath.

It just almost seems counterintuitive.

You see, a miracle occurs, a miracle that could only happen because of the power of God, and they're standing around going, well, you know, that may be nice and everything, but he did it on the Sabbath, so there must be something wrong there.

I imagine these people would get upset if they were critically ill and they went to the hospital, and the hospital decided to treat them.

They would say, Well, wait a minute.

This is Sunday.

Hospital ought to be closed.

I planned on going in the waiting room and waiting until Monday.

But that's how these people were with Jesus.

They didn't like this fact that he was coming and changing and invading.

Finally, we even see that Jesus invades the realm of death itself.

He raises Lazarus from the dead.

He raises the daughter of Jairus, the synagogue leader, from the dead.

And if that wasn't enough, we know that after his death on the cross, he was raised from the dead.

Jesus even invades the realm of death.

How is it that Jesus can do all of these things?

How is it that Jesus can invade occupied territory?

How is it that he can confront these pretenders to the throne?

We're going to get to that in just a minute.

But first, first, I want to take a little detour with you.

It is Christmas time, and I want to share with you guys something.

It's a little bit on the personal side.

Don't worry, I'm not going to cry or anything.

At least I don't think so.

But uh I want to share with you something from my childhood.

When I was around eight or nine years old, it was Christmas day, so of course I was awake at like 4:30 or 5 a.m.

And I snuck into the room where the Christmas tree was, and it was still pretty dark.

The lights from the Christmas tree weren't putting out that much illumination.

I couldn't see all of the things that were there under the tree.

But there was one thing there.

It was a book.

It was a book.

And it was a book, it was a greenish book, and on the front of it it had Robin Hood.

We've got a picture of that book.

Let's bring up that slide real quick.

That's the book right there.

That was under the Christmas tree when I was about eight or nine years old.

That's from the Educator Classics Library.

Kids, a book is a thing with pages that you read.

And this was a book.

Now, what made this book kind of extraordinary was this book was about this tall.

And it was a good inch and a half thick.

And when you're eight or nine years old and you get a big book like that, and it didn't have a whole lot of pictures.

Most of it was words.

And I thought, wow, I have everything I will ever need to know about the Robin Hood story in that book.

The book was written by a man by the name of Howard Pyle.

He wrote it in the 1880s.

First Baptist Church was up and running and still, and we were already in existence in the 1880s when Howard Pyle wrote this book.

And it had the Robin Hood story in there.

Now, some of you remember the Robin Hood story.

I'll give you a quick summary.

You've probably heard a version of the Robin Hood story because between the book and the movies and the video games and the plays and the remakes and all that, the story is a little bit convoluted.

But Robin Hood basically is living during a time where there is great unrest in England.

And he and his men are out living in Sherwood Forest, running away from the evil sheriff of Nottingham, who is collecting taxes from everybody.

The tax burden is so high, in fact, that Robin Hood's men, those numbers are growing every day.

And you've got great characters in there.

You've got Robin Hood and Little John and Will Scarlet.

You've got the Sheriff of Nottingham.

You've got Maid Marion.

Is my daughter Marion up there today?

There she is.

Okay.

Maid Marion.

Yes, Maid Marion is in the Robin Hood stories, and my daughter is named Marion.

That ought to tell you something right there.

Okay?

So they're out there living in the woods.

They're constantly on the run from the Sheriff of Nottingham, who works for an evil prince.

An evil prince, Prince John, who has taken over the throne of England because the rightful king, King Richard, has been off fighting in the Crusades, and he's been kidnapped, and he's being held for ransom by those lousy Germans.

If you're German, I'm sorry, but you kidnap King Richard.

That's just not good.

All right?

So Robin Hood and his merry men are living out in Sherwood Forest, trying to survive, doing a lot of bushcraft.

They're doing all sorts of things to survive there.

And yet, despite the fact that times are hard, despite the fact that there's an evil man pretending to be the king, despite the fact that taxes are ridiculously high, Robin Hood and his men have joy.

They are the merry men.

They're not the somber men, they're not the overly serious men, they are the merry men.

They have joy in the fellowship that they have with one another.

Let's go to the next slide.

Now, the thing is the Robin Hood story is legend and myth and fiction.

But the time in which it's set is real history.

Real history.

In the 12th and 13th centuries, the man to your left on the screen there, Prince John, was not the king of England.

His older brother, Richard, who has a much nicer portrait, I think, there, on the right, he was the king of England.

Richard went off to fight in the Crusades.

He was more interested in warfare than he was in statecraft.

He goes off in fights, and on his way home, as I mentioned, he is kidnapped by the Germans and held for ransom.

John decides this is a great time for me to become the king.

And so John hops on the throne.

He then says to all of England, I have to raise a whole bunch of money to free Richard from the Germans.

So we're going to collect taxes to pay this ransom.

And it was amazing.

They would collect money, and yet only so much of it was available for the ransom.

I've never heard of a political system where money is collected and then it disappears.

I don't know what that's about.

You guys are listening today.

This is good.

So this was a very real event.

This happened in England.

And for all of our friends over there in England who probably watch us because we send missionaries to England, if I messed any of that history up, you contact me privately, okay?

But uh but this was the story.

And so this was one of my favorite stories growing up.

When I went to college, I had to take two physical education courses.

I took archery and fencing because I wanted to be on the Robin Hood Scholarship program, even though that such a thing did not exist.

I mean, this story stuck with me over time.

This idea of people living in a time of a pretender to the throne, living in a time of occupied territory.

So what we're gonna do here in a few minutes is we're gonna get back to our scripture.

But one of the things that I want to emphasize here on this is that we see even today, in the geopolitical nature of the world, we see warfare, we see people who should not be leaders taking the throne.

This is something that has continued to go on throughout history, from our opening review there in the Gospel of Luke, through the fun fiction of Robin Hood, even to the days of 2024 in which we live.

And when we think about occupied territory, and we think about the fact that Jesus comes in and invades occupied territory, and that he does this beyond just his birth, that we saw this throughout his ministry, that he would attack these areas where the wrong people were in charge or the wrong ideas had taken place.

When we see this, it should cause us to think, well, what is it that makes Jesus the king over everything?

Why is it that Jesus is supposed to be in charge of everything?

I'm so glad you asked.

Let's bring up that Matthew 28, verse 17 slide.

Matthew 28:17

Matthew chapter 28, verse 17, it's it's toward the end of Jesus' time in the Gospels.

Matthew 28:17

He's got his apostles and his closest disciples there.

And he says to them, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.

Now you'll notice he doesn't say some authority.

He doesn't say, I've got a little bit of authority as a result of my work here.

No, no, all authority.

If this had been my version of the Bible, that would have been all capital letters, all capital letters, bold, underline, italic, glowing for those of you that would be reading on the screen.

It would just be all.

Because we live our lives all too often thinking that, well, you know, God is in heaven, but Satan really is the one who's in charge of everything on earth.

I've even heard that taught in places.

Maybe some of you have too.

Now it is true that Satan has an inordinate amount of influence and power and leadership here on this earth, but what he lacks is authority.

Authority.

All authority has been given to Jesus.

All authority in heaven, that's easy for us to accept.

But Jesus says, all authority on earth.

And so when we think about the influence of Satan, the influence of worldly governments that reject the word of God, when we think about the influence of businesses that have turned their back on the leadership of Jesus and instead want to embrace the world because they think there's more money to be made that way, all of that is not authority, because all authority comes from Jesus.

Now, when we understand this, when we understand this, we also understand, and Brother Roger, I heard you teach this when I was walking by your classroom earlier today.

If I quote this wrong, you come correct me later.

The idea is your life doesn't belong to you.

Your life belongs to Jesus.

Now, someone in here might be thinking, well, I'm not a believer.

I don't believe in Jesus.

So does Jesus have authority over my life?

Yes, he does, because all authority in heaven and on earth belongs to Jesus.

Every single bit of authority.

Jesus does not need your permission to have authority over you.

He's already got it.

He had authority over you before you were born.

These words were spoken some 2,000 years ago.

He has all authority.

Which means.

That he is on the throne, if you will, of your life.

Now, what happens, what happens is that even though Jesus has all the authority, people have in their own mindset the idea that they are going to replace that, or if they don't know who Jesus is, they're going to put something else on that throne as a substitute for him.

And boy, we're good at that as people.

We put all sorts of things on the throne of our lives.

Maybe we put fame on the throne of our lives.

Today it's easier to become famous than ever before.

Just hook up your camera to the internet and do something stupid and then share it with the world.

You will become famous very quickly.

Maybe it's a case of people want to put position.

They want to reach a certain level in some type of activity, some arena of business, some place of politics.

They want to reach some level of position, and that will be the thing that is on the throne of their lives.

Some people could care less about positions, they could care less about fame.

What they're after is power.

And if they can get just enough power, then they'll spend their whole lives chasing power, and they'll put that on the throne of their lives.

How many people put money on the throne of their lives?

So many people.

You know, I love capitalism, I love America, but boy, sometimes we really get this whole money thing kind of sideways, don't we?

Money is a tool.

Money isn't the end all.

Money is something to be used, it's not something to be worshipped, it's not something to be placed on the throne of your life.

And if it's not money, sometimes it's possessions.

Have to have the certain type of thing.

Put that on the throne of life.

Other people fill their lives with a variety of entertainments and amusements.

How many channels are there in the world right now?

Whether it's streaming channels, cable channels, how many are there?

You know, whatever number you come up with, they're making some right now.

It's gonna make the number higher.

It's ridiculous how much we fill our lives with entertainments and amusements.

And sports.

Oh, sports.

I'm a Bears fan.

Can you imagine the Thursday I had?

Sports.

So many people put sports on the throne of their lives.

Life is good if their team is doing well.

Life is bad if their team isn't doing well.

Putting sports on the throne of their lives.

Information.

Oh my word, information.

We have access to more information than any generation that has come before us.

You might have lived right next door to the ancient library of Alexandria.

That pales in comparison to someone who's got a phone with an internet connection.

We have so much information that's coming into our lives.

And social engagements.

I watch the social media storm that happens.

And don't get me wrong, we have social media platforms here at the church.

And for those of you that click like and all that, we are grateful for you.

But there are some people that spend more time looking at their profiles on social media than they do in any other activity of their lives.

They have more time is spent feeding ego than actually eating food and feeding the body.

Let alone going to God's word and feeding the spirit with the inspired words of God.

Politics, oh boy.

Politics.

How many people are living their lives happy or sad based upon what does or doesn't happen in the political arena?

We'll just let that one go right there.

Okay.

Relationships.

Some people they determine whether or not their life is going in the right direction based upon whether or not the relationship with a loved one or a family member or a friend is where it's supposed to be.

And then probably finally, and this one really summarizes a lot, a lot of people don't have Jesus on the throne because they have pride in the fact that they are the ones on the throne of their lives, calling their own shots about what they're going to do and what they're not going to do.

And so anytime Jesus is not on the throne, Jesus who has all authority in heaven and all authority on earth and all authority over all our lives, anytime he is not on the throne, anytime anything else is there, your life is occupied territory.

Your life has a pretender to the throne in place.

So now what we're going to do is we're going to look at an extreme example of this.

Because what I wanted to do was, I wanted to focus on a story of a person whose life is completely upside down, as upside down as it can possibly be.

And I want to show you Jesus invading that space and putting himself on the throne of that person's life.

We're going to be in the Gospel of Mark.

Mark chapter 5.

Mark 5 · chapter mention

We're going to take a look at the first 20 verses there in Mark chapter 5.

Mark 5 · chapter mention

I'm just going to read from the screens here.

Now, some of your Bibles might have some subtle differences in the wording.

Don't let that bother you.

They all say basically the same thing.

Mark chapter 5, verse 1.

Mark 5:1

They went across the lake to the region of the Garacenes.

When Jesus got out of the boat, a man with an impure spirit came from the tombs to meet him.

This man lived in the tombs, and no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain.

For he had often been chained, hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet.

No one was strong enough to subdue him.

Night and day among the tombs and in the hills, he would cry out and cut himself with stones.

Let's stop there for just a minute.

Let's stop there for Okay, let's go ahead and bring the slide up.

These first five verses, this passage, many of you are familiar with this passage.

In the first five verses, we see something about this occupied territory.

This man has an impure spirit.

That's a polite way of saying he's got demonic possession.

Man's possessed by a demon.

Actually, in this case, many.

Life in occupied territory, when Jesus isn't on the throne and something else is, don't be surprised if your life is often terrifying or frightening.

This man was living amongst the tombs.

He's living in a graveyard, folks.

Living in a graveyard.

And the picture that we see is an overwhelming picture.

It's an overwhelming picture because they're trying to bind him.

They're even trying to bind him with chains.

And like something out of a Superman cartoon, he is breaking those chains.

Can you imagine how terrifying that would be if you were there watching this man do this?

And the people are overwhelmed.

They don't know what else to do.

Nothing stronger than a chain in their world.

And this man breaks chains apart.

It's overwhelming.

So what happens?

Well, we will see here and as we continue in the story, the people of that area just started giving up.

We can't do anything with him.

No matter what we do to bind him, he breaks the bonds.

No matter what it is that we do, he is just overwhelming.

There's nothing we can do, so you know what's gonna happen?

We're gonna stop trying.

We're gonna stop trying.

Nothing we can do.

And so what happens in that tomb situation?

How many people do you think went and visited the tombs to talk to the remains of their loved ones back in that situation?

No.

No.

If you had a loved one over there in those tombs, in many ways you were distraught because you thought, well, there's the remains of my loved one, and the remains of my loved one are there with that wild, crazy man that no one can bind, no one can stop.

I cannot even go over there to pay my respects because of this wild, uncontrollable, chaotic man that is there.

So life in occupied territory is unstable, ladies and gentlemen.

Even a person who thinks they've got it all together with whatever it is that they've put on the throne of their life, the reality is you talk to that person long enough and you will get to the truth that their life is not as altogether as they make it out to be.

Their life is unstable.

We have people in this auditorium right here, right now, who have lived life with something other than Jesus on the throne, and if they were to be gut level honest with us, they would tell us that before finding Jesus, their life wasn't all roses and rainbows.

They would tell us that there were things about their lives that were chaotic and unstable and frightening and at times overwhelming.

Let's go to the next verses.

Because in verse 6 we see that when this man, when this man saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and fell on his knees in front of him.

And he shouted at the top of his voice, What do you want with me, Jesus, son of the Most High?

In God's name, don't torture me.

Let's go to the next verse.

Jesus had said to him, Come out of this man, you impure spirit.

Jesus asked him, What is your name?

My name is Legion, he replied, for we are many.

And he begged Jesus again and again not to send them out of the area.

Hold there for just a moment.

The man says, the demons in the man say, My name is, our name is Legion.

In Jesus' day, a Roman legion was an armed force with as many as 4,000 to 6,000 soldiers in it.

Now, if that name is an accurate name, and you always have to be careful because demons lie, you know, but if that name is accurate, this man had so many demons in him that they could not be counted in an easy fashion.

We are many, the answer says.

And in verse 10, we see that he begged Jesus again and again not to send them out of the area.

You know what's happening here?

Even though there might be four to six thousand demons present in this possessed man, he knows that they are standing, or rather, on their knees before the one who has authority in heaven and on earth.

These demons, in any other situation, we would expect these demons to come out of the man and overwhelm Jesus.

But Jesus has all authority in heaven and on earth.

And so they are powerless before him.

They are begging, your Bible might say that they are pleading with him again and again not to send them out of the area.

Let's go to the next verse, verse 11.

A large herd of pigs was feeding on the nearby hillside.

The demons begged Jesus, send us among the pigs.

Allow us to go into the pigs.

Let's go to verse 13.

He gave them permission.

The impure spirits came out, went into the pigs.

The herd, about 2,000 in number, rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned.

Stop here for a minute.

Let's stop.

Let's back it up to verse 13.

Verse 13 tells us that there were 2,000 pigs.

Think about that for a minute.

That's a whole lot of hogs, isn't it?

You gotta go, you gotta go over there and watch a game to see that many hogs.

2,000 in number.

They rush down the steep bank into the lake, and they're drowned.

If each pig just had one demon, that would be a lot.

But we see that.

Can you imagine how terrifying that scene must have been for the people that were watching this happen?

I don't know.

Some of you have seen a wild hog in the wild before, I guess.

Don't raise your hands.

Everything that I've heard about running into a hog in the wild since I got here, it's amazing what people will tell you when you move here.

If you ever run into a hog in the wild, don't try to pet the hog, run the other way.

Two thousand, two thousand in the herd rush down the steep bank into the lake and are drowned.

Let's go to verse 14 now.

Those tending the pigs ran off and reported this in the town and in the countryside, and the people went out to see what had happened.

Let's go forward.

When they came to Jesus, they saw the man who had been possessed by the Legion of Dons sitting there, dressed in his right mind, and they were afraid.

We'll stop here.

Hold right there for a bit.

What happens to this man?

Well, once Jesus in his authority drives the demons from this man, this man becomes a completely different person, at least visually.

We see that he is, instead of running around to and fro, cutting himself, screaming, instead he's sitting calmly.

And he's dressed.

And he's in his right mind.

He's in his right mind.

Now, in a few verses, we're going to see that this man, what's happened is he has trusted Jesus.

It's not evident in these verses, but we're going to see that that's the case.

And trusting Jesus, he now has Jesus on the throne of his life.

And he has gone from being completely upside down to right side up.

And that has caused him to have something that's called a right mind.

Ladies and gentlemen, if Jesus is not on the throne of your life, it is my opinion, and the opinion of many in this building, I would imagine, that you are not in your right mind.

There is something wrong with you.

I'm not supposed to say that because as a minister, I'm supposed to make everyone feel good regardless of where they are in their lives.

That's hogwash.

That's hogwash.

There is only one way, there is only one way to be in your right mind, and that is to have the right person on the throne of your life.

You may say, Well, Pastor Dave, I don't have a legion of demons in me.

I don't even think I have one demon in me.

Doesn't matter if Jesus is not on the throne of your life, you either put yourself there or you've put something else there.

You have put a pretender to the throne on your life, and you are a walking example of occupied territory.

Let's go to the next verses here.

Those who had seen it, those who had seen Jesus drive those demons into those pigs, those who had seen it told the people what happened to the demon-possessed man.

And told about the pigs as well.

Then the people began to plead with Jesus to leave the region.

Let's move on to verse 18.

Oh, I'm sorry, we're going to stop here for a minute.

Thank you.

Sometimes I get ahead of myself.

Occupied territory, ladies and gentlemen.

Even though a territory is occupied, that doesn't mean that it's not subject to a more powerful authority.

You'll notice that when Jesus drove those demons out of that man, that his command to leave was instantly obeyed.

That's because he had the authority.

We also see that once that happened, the news about Jesus began to spread to others.

Not only there were people talking about Jesus delivering the man from the demons, they were even talking about the pigs going down the hill.

Okay?

And what happened?

Well, people got curious.

People wanted to hear more.

People wanted to see for themselves whether this man Jesus was as powerful as the stories portrayed.

And so what happened with that?

Well, we're going to see here in a minute that people began to accept the fact that Jesus had the power to do what he was doing, and that caused many of them to fear him.

Fear him so much, we're told that they were afraid, and they asked him to leave the region.

Have any of you who have been saved as adults ever found that once you start talking to your lost friends about the salvation that you've received in Jesus Christ, that those people become fearful of you, that they don't treat you the same way that they treated you before.

That perhaps they don't want to spend as much time with you as they did before.

You know, one of the things that often gets said when a person goes from living a life away from Jesus and living a life serving Jesus, some of their unsaved friends will say, Well, you know, those people over there at First Baptist, they're kind of a cult.

They're kind of nuts over there.

They're kind of crazy over there.

They believe that Jesus is the end all, be all, and that you need to change your life to follow him instead of just living your life to get along with the rest of the world.

And I always say, oh, thank you for that compliment.

We appreciate that.

All of that is very true.

We are little nuts.

Oh, come on.

We are little nuts in the eyes of the lost world.

We are a little crazy in their sight.

You know what?

Every day I wake up believing that a man rose from the dead after being nailed to a cross.

Okay?

That in the eyes of the lost world is a pretty crazy thing.

Every day I wake up believing that a man named Jesus is coming again, even though the last words that he spoke on earth in his earthly body were uttered some 2,000 years ago.

But I believe he's coming again.

You know?

That's a little crazy in the eyes of the lost world.

I believe that this man Jesus, who said that he is the Son of God and claimed equality of God as not something that he had to aspire to, but rather was just a matter-of-fact statement of truth, I believe that with all my heart.

That's a little crazy in the eyes of the lost world.

We should not be surprised when the lost world hears what Jesus has done with us and it causes them to be a little confused and maybe even a little fearful.

Because when occupied territory is overthrown by a more powerful authority, we see that people are going to have to either accept the truth of that or they're going to be a little bit scared of all of that.

Let's go forward to the next slide.

Returning to the scripture, as Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who was demon-possessed begged to go with him.

That doesn't take much imagination, does it?

The man had been filled with a large host of demons.

Jesus had driven them out.

I'm sure that he was worried that if Jesus left, they might come back.

But what the man didn't understand was that once he Accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior, he would never have to worry about being demon-possessed ever again.

You know, sometimes as a teacher or a preacher, I'll have people come up to me and they'll say, Well, Pastor Dave, I feel like demons are trying to get inside of me.

They'll say, Well, are you saved?

Are you saved?

They say, Well, yes, I'm saved, and they'll tell me the story of their salvation.

And I'll say, you don't have to worry about being demon-possessed if you're a Christian.

Because the Holy Spirit has come and taken up residence in your heart.

A demon would have to be able to defeat the Holy Spirit to take up residence in a place where he has already established a home.

If you're saved, you will never be demon-possessed.

You might be demon-oppressed, you might be demon-inconvenienced.

Your external body might get hurt perhaps by some sort of demonic attack, but you never ever have to worry about being demon-possessed if you're saved by the power of Jesus Christ.

You just don't.

So don't come at me with that stuff, okay?

I don't have that much time.

Well, maybe I do.

I'm not kidding about what I'm saying, but maybe I'm kidding about the way I'm saying it.

What we have here is this man begs to go with Jesus.

And we see in verse 19 that Jesus did not let him.

Oh, that's a little interesting.

Jesus tells us to follow him.

Jesus wants us to follow him throughout this life.

But in this particular case, Jesus said, No, I don't want you to follow me.

In verse 19, he said, Go home to your own people.

Tell them how much the Lord has done for you and how he has had mercy on you.

Let's go to verse 20, which wraps up the passage.

The man went away and began to tell in the decopolis how much Jesus had done for him.

And all the people were amazed.

Let's park here on the verse here for a minute.

The man goes away and tells in the Decopolis.

The Decopolis was a collection of ten cities.

And so what we see is this man, he does go home and he does tell the people that are a part of his life about what's happened, but he doesn't stop there.

He begins a nine-city tour telling people about Jesus and the power of Jesus.

What accomplished more good for the spread of the gospel?

That man sticking around Jesus when Jesus already has 12 others hanging around him regularly, or this man going on a nine-city tour telling people about the gospel?

Well, I think we know the answer.

What did more here was this man being obedient to Jesus and telling others about him.

Let's go to the next slide.

Because what we see here, what we see here is that it's a reflection of us in many ways.

If we are redeemed, if we're saved by the power of Jesus Christ, living here in occupied territory isn't always what we want to do.

But ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, it's important.

It's very important.

I am always pleased when I hear people say, I can't wait till Jesus comes again and takes me home.

Believe me, ladies and gentlemen, I am right there with you.

I am right there with you.

That is going to be a fantastic day.

But what if, in the meantime, God has it in his mind for me to go and tell someone about Jesus so that they won't be left behind, so that they'll be coming with Jesus as well.

Because that's how the gospel is spread, ladies and gentlemen, is people talking to people about what God has done in their lives.

We do need to be able to give a gospel narrative rundown as to how people are saved.

Never doubt that.

But what we also need to be able to do is we've got to be able to tell people what God has done in our lives.

That's easier for some of us that were saved a little bit later in life.

It can be a little difficult if you were saved, oh, I don't know, at the age of eight, nine, or ten.

It can be very, very challenging.

But you know, if you were saved at eight, nine, or ten, first off, praise God.

But if you were saved at eight, nine, or ten, you've seen enough from the terrible entertainments of this world to know what you were spared.

And so as you talk to people about being saved at eight, nine, or ten, you can share the things that you were spared.

Not because you're trying to say, look at me and how great I've been, but instead you're saying, look at God and how wonderful he's been.

Look at all of the things that I could have gotten involved in, but for the love of God, he spared me that.

And he wants to spare you that too.

God has a plan for this man.

This man who was living in extreme occupied territory.

A legion of demons had come into his life.

Not only was he in occupied territory, his life had become a military stronghold for demons.

So much so that they described themselves in military terms, saying that they are a legion.

But Jesus invaded that space.

Jesus overcame that occupied territory.

Jesus took that man's life that was upside down and put it right side up again.

And what did this man do?

Well, first off, he obeyed what Jesus told him.

He placed Jesus' will ahead of his own.

That man's will was to go and follow Jesus everywhere he went.

Jesus said, No, I want you to go and tell the people that you know.

I want you to tell the people in your town.

And that man went and he told people in nine other towns.

I suspect if he had a long life, he probably told many, many thousands of people about what it was that Jesus had done for him.

He shared his own story with his own people.

And he shared his own story with people beyond his own people.

What happened as a result of that?

Other people got introduced to the power of the gospel.

Praise God.

There were a lot of people in the Docopolis who probably didn't leave their own homes to go see the ministry of Jesus.

But they heard about it because that man was obedient to what God had told him to do.

What happens as a result of that?

The kingdom of God was expanded.

It was expanded.

Not for the glory of that man who had been demon-possessed, but for the glory of God.

We're coming into the Christmas season.

People are somewhat pre-programmed to think about the birth of Jesus at Christmas time.

They can continue to churn out entertainments that put the focus on Christmas on all these other things.

But the story of Christmas is the story of the birth of Jesus.

It is a great time to talk to lost people about the gospel.

People have no trouble listening to the story of Mary and Joseph and the stable and the manger and the animals, whether they talked or not, who knows?

They have no trouble at all talking about those things.

What they have trouble talking about is what happened 30 years later, when that baby, as a full-grown man, went preaching, teaching, healing, and proclaiming that he is the way, the truth, and the life, and that no one comes to the Father but through him.

You know what?

If you're gonna start with the baby, don't end there.

Don't end there.

Go to the cross, go to the resurrection, go to the fact that he's coming again.

In the ancient church, when they talked about Christmas, they talked just as much about the return of Jesus as they did the birth of Jesus.

We don't do that much anymore.

Maybe we need to get back to that.

But Jesus is coming again.

You know, I told you that Robin Hood story early on.

The Robin Hood story is a gospel story in a lot of ways, in that Robin Hood and his men had to put up with living in occupied territory until King Richard finally came back and set everything straight.

That's the way it goes in the legends, anyway.

King Richard did come back.

He eventually was released by the Germans.

And when he came back, he wanted to go ahead and kill his brother John.

He was a man of warfare, after all.

But what he did instead was he asked his mom what to do.

And mom said, no, don't kill your brother.

I heard that a lot when I was growing up.

Don't kill your brother.

And my brother heard that about me as well.

Don't kill your brother.

He might be listening right now.

I'm sorry, Tim, you deserve better than that.

But what happened was uh John just got exiled for a while.

A few years later, Richard died.

And John took the throne.

And you would think that John would have learned his lesson, and the second time being king, he would have been a lot better than the first time being king.

History tells us that he was even worse the second time.

He was so bad, in fact, that the noblemans and the lords of England rebelled against him and created a document for him to sign called the Magna Carta.

Some of you know what the Magna Carta is.

Some of you who don't, that's your homework for tonight.

Check out what the Magna Carta is.

Basically, what it did is it severely limited the power of the king.

Well, Richard was a flawed king, but Jesus isn't.

Richard came back and set things straight.

When Jesus comes back, everything's going to be set straight.

I have news for you, though, when Jesus comes back, if you're not already part of his kingdom, it's too late.

It's too late.

You cannot wait to see Jesus coming down from heaven and then say, Oh, Jesus, I heard from Pastor Dave, I was supposed to put you on the throne of my life, so I'm going to do that right now.

Too late, ladies and gentlemen.

Too late.

If I have one prayer, and I those of you that are prayer warriors, I hope you'll listen to what I'm saying and just start praying this prayer.

With a group this large, it is likely that one or more people here today do not have Jesus on the throne of their lives.

It could be that they are starting to wake up a little bit with a message like this, and the messages that we hear from Pastor Greg week in and week out, they're starting to realize I've been playing the game coming to church and doing a few things, but when push comes to shove, I'm still calling my own shots.

When push comes to shove, I care more about this thing, that thing, and the other thing than I do about salvation in Jesus Christ.

Maybe you don't have an army of demons inside of you, but you're every bit as lost as that man if you have something else on the throne of your life.

I'm gonna say that again.

Maybe you don't have an army of demons inside of you, but if you've got something else or someone else on the throne of your life, you're every bit as lost as that man was.

Jesus can invade your life.

Jesus can overthrow your occupied territory.

Jesus can revolt against that pretender to the throne that you've put as being more important.

And a few moments, I'm gonna ask some of our men to come forward and stand here at these aisles.

Brother Gary, Brother Matt will be here at these aisles.

And what we're gonna do is we're going to engage in a time that historically we call the invitation.

Those of you that are involved with our praise team for this time, also please come up.

There is, I don't know whether I've gone beyond my time or not.

And if I have and you're late for lunch, well, I somewhat apologize.

Not really all that much heart into it, but I'll just go ahead and apologize.

But ladies and gentlemen, if there's one person here who doesn't know Jesus, and as a result of this message and the other messages and work of this church, they're coming forward to receive Jesus, you can wait a few minutes.

All right?

Because we're talking about matters of eternity here, not matters of minutes and seconds.

If you don't know the Lord Jesus Christ, we have a time here that we do here at this church.

Traditionally we call it the invitation time.

And it's a time for you to respond to what you've heard.

Maybe you don't have certainty about your salvation.

Maybe you know for certain that you're not saved.

Maybe you know that you've been putting other things on your life instead of Jesus Christ on the throne of your life.

And today you say, I'm done with that.

I want Jesus to invade.

I want him to take over.

I want him to overthrow this occupied territory that I've been living in.

All this fear, all this uncertainty, all this chaos.

I want Jesus to come in and set my mind right.

Well, as we begin to sing, you come from down these aisles.

Brother Gary, Brother Matt will be here to talk to you.

They'll pray with you.

We'll begin that process of making sure that you can know that you know, that you know that Jesus is on the throne of your life.

And that if he were to come again today, you would be with him in heaven for all eternity.

Overthrow that occupied territory of your life, kick off that pretender of the throne, put Jesus where he belongs.

He already has the authority.

It's time for you to acknowledge it.

Let's all stand.

We pray this message has been a blessing to you and helped to strengthen your walk with Jesus.

Please know we want to minister to you and pray for you.

Send an email to contact us at fsfbc.org and let us pray for you and help you in any way we can.

Thank you for listening to Chapter and First, the Bible Teaching Ministry of Fort Smith's First Baptist Church.