Greeting
I always enjoy that boom at the end. It’s a very, uh, Nolani, Christopher Nolani. Anyway, um, yeah, my name is Conrad. One of the pastors here. Happy Sunday.
Personal Story: Busy Baseball Season
So despite the rain, it actually has been a very busy baseball season for my kids. They’re both in ball and we’re out every day of the week. Being out every day of the week and being the excellent preparer that I am means that we often have to go out for food or pick up something on the run.
And if you have kids my age, they’re 6 to 9 and you say, kids, what would you like to get out? There’s always one answer. McDonald’s. I don’t know what it is. I don’t know what they put in their sandwiches that make it so irresistible to children, but they’re good at it.
And I recently read that McDonald’s has served almost 400 billion with a B hamburgers. 400 billion. That’s a lot of hamburgers.
Do you guys remember when McDonald’s used to have the signs? They would tell you how many burgers that they had sold, like they were showing it off.
So anyway, back in the late 90s, Jerry Seinfeld also noticed this, and I’m going to let him open up my sermon this morning because I think it’s a good observation.
Seinfeld Clip
Well, I think that Mark’s going to advance the slide for me. And why is McDonald’s still counting? This is really insecure, isn’t it? 40, Jillian, 80 million, zillion, billion, Killian, Tillian? What is this? Does it mean anything to anyone? 89 billion sold. Okay. I’ll have one.
I would love to meet the chairman of the board of McDonald’s, just say to him, Look, we all get it. You’ve sold a lot of hamburgers, whatever the number is. Just put up a sign. McDonald’s, we’re doing very well. I don’t need to hear about every one of them.
What is their ultimate goal? To have cows just surrendering voluntarily or something? Showing up at the door. We like to turn ourselves in, we see the sign. We realize we have very little chance out there.
We’d like to be a happy meal, if that’s at all. It’s good.
So, happy meal cows. We’re actually gonna take the Happy Meal cows. We’re gonna put them in our pocket, ’cause we’re gonna come back to the Happy Meal cows.
Scripture Reading: Mark 5:1–20 (NET)
And my clicker is not working. Mark, can you advance me a slide, buddy?
So we’re going to read from the book of Mark, starting in chapter 5, verses one through 20. And I’m actually going to read the whole thing in one shot because this story is a fascinating story, and I’m excited to dig into it this morning.
So they came to the other side of the lake, to the region of the Gerasenes. Just as Jesus was getting out of the boat, a man with an unclean spirit came from the tombs and met him. He lived among the tombs, and no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain. For his hands and feet had often been bound with chains and shackles, but he had torn the chains apart and broken the shackles in pieces. No one was strong enough to subdue him. Each night and every day among the tombs and in the mountains, he would cry out and cut himself with stones. When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and bowed down before him. Then he cried out with a loud voice, “Leave me alone, Jesus, Son of the Most High God! I implore you by God, do not torment me!” (For Jesus had said to him, “Come out of that man, you unclean spirit!”) Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” He replied, “My name is Legion, for we are many.” And he begged Jesus repeatedly not to send them out of the region. Now there was a large herd of pigs feeding there on the hillside. The demonic spirits begged him, “Send us into the pigs; let us enter them.” Jesus gave them permission. So the unclean spirits came out and went into the pigs. Then the herd rushed down the steep slope into the lake and about two thousand drowned in the lake. Now the herdsmen ran off and spread the news in the town and countryside, and people went out to see what had happened. They came to Jesus and saw the demon-possessed man sitting there, clothed and in his right mind—the one who had the legion—and they were afraid. Those who had seen what happened to the demon-possessed man reported it, and they also told about the pigs. Then they asked Jesus to leave their region. As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed asked if he could go with them. But Jesus did not permit him to do so. Instead he said to him, “Go to your home and to your people and tell them what the Lord has done for you, that he has had mercy on you.” So he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis what Jesus had done for him, and all were amazed.
Opening Prayer
Let’s pray and then we’ll dig into this.
God, thank you for your word. Thank you for what you did in this man’s life these many, many years ago and that we get to share in this story, and we get to hear about it from the writers of your gospel account, God. I pray that you would challenge us with your word this morning and that we would leave here feeling maybe a little admonished and a lot encouraged to make some changes in our lives if they’re necessary. And they probably are in your name. Amen.
Setting the Scene: The Demoniac
So back to verse one and two.
So they came to the other side of the lake, to the region of the Gerasenes. Just as Jesus was getting out of the boat, a man with an unclean spirit came from the tombs and met him.
So this is after the storm, right? That Mark Folich talked about last week, right? The waves are going. Jesus is sleeping, the disciples wake up and say, Jesus, don’t you care that we’re all going to die in this storm? He’s like Storm, shut up. And then it does. And they’re all like, what in the world?
So anyway, they land on the other side of the Sea of Galilee. It’s in a Gentile area, not a Jewish area. That’ll matter later. And in this area where we found the slopes. If you look at the geography, there are no sort of tombs like the one that Jesus was buried in that are carved out of the side of the rock. So it’s more likely a cemetery like we would know here in North America that this guy’s living in.
So he’s, you know, I don’t know what sort of horror movie trope that is, but he’s that one. So that’s the scene. The scene is set.
The question, though, is, why does this guy come to Jesus? Why would this demon-possessed man come to Jesus? That goes in the other pocket? We’ll come back to that a little bit later, too.
The Man’s Condition
All right, moving on to verse three. He lived among the tombs, and no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain. For his hands and feet had often been bound with chains and shackles, and he had torn the chains and shackles, chains apart and broken the shackles in pieces. No one was strong enough to subdue him. Each night and every day, among the tombs and in the mountains, he would cry out and cut himself with stones.
So we got to remember there’s 2 perspectives here, right? There’s a perspective of the townies. There’s the perspective of this person who is possessed by the demons.
So from the town’s perspective, we know that this guy was chained often and broke through chains and shackles. He was well known to these guys. You know, if you’ve ever wandered around the downtown East Side. You’ve probably met people who are seen this way by society, right? Like, oh, I don’t know about that guy. We’ll just go to the other side of the road.
I worked down there for a long time and I’ve seen some very aggressive, aggressive folks down there. And this guy strikes me as a particularly aggressive one.
But on the flip side, is this guy’s perspective. He’s living in a cemetery. He is living nude. He is cutting himself with rocks and stones.
Look at the influence that Satan is having in his life and the destruction that it’s causing. That’s crazy, isn’t it?
And in terms of why he’s cutting himself with stones, You know what, I’ll get to that later. I’ll get to that later. Let’s keep, oh, wait, hold on here. Yeah, next slide.
But Conrad, you studious and intentional biblical truth minor, I hear you say. Could it not be mental illness? Right? These people didn’t really understand mental illness. That’s a lot of what we’re dealing with on the downtown East side that you just talked about. Surely that must be the thing, right?
I’m not so sure. We got a 3rd pocket. going to put that one in there. We’ll come back to that too. Don’t worry, I’m unloading soon. I’m unloading soon.
The Encounter with Jesus
Okay, moving on. Verse six. When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and bowed down before him. Then he cried out with a loud voice, Leave me alone, Jesus, son of the most high God. I implore you, by God, do not torment me. For Jesus had said to him, come out of that man, you unclean spirit.
So my 1st thought upon reading that is, wow, there’s lots going on here. So let’s just confirm the chronological order of these events. Okay?
So 1st the man runs to Jesus from the tombs, come screaming out of the cemetery. I don’t know. I assume that he’s like someone who’s, you know, on cocaine and Red Bull, just.
Jesus tells the demon to come out, and then the demon starts pleading with Jesus. The demons, I guess. This should all be plural.
So that comes to our question of mental illness. Is this mental illness? You say, people might have been ignorant of mental illness at that time. We know that that was true. How do we know that this wasn’t mental illness?
Well, even if we consent and I do, that the people were ignorant of a lot of mental illness. Was Jesus ignorant of mental illness? Was God unaware that mental illness is a thing? Seems unlikely. I don’t know. I’m not sure I buy that.
So Jesus seems to think there’s a demon in this man. What’s more? This man comes up sprinting out of the tombs, bows before Jesus. Now this bowing is not like, you know, like Japanese bowing. This is like on your knees, facing the dirt. That’s what this means.
And he calls Jesus by name and by position. Jesus, son of the most high God. Did he just come up with that out of his mental illness? You know, it’s not like, you know, anyone else was claiming to be Jesus, son of the most high God. It’s pretty clear that that’s not what’s happening in this particular case.
So we can take that back out of the pocket. We can put that over there. We don’t need it. We’re done with that one.
So then the question becomes, why did this man come to Jesus? If we can advance, There’s only one word that is fitting to describe this interaction. Fascinating.
Thank you, Mr Spock. This is an absolutely fascinating interaction. At least I thought so. see if you agree.
The Demons’ Plea
So this demon. They call them the demoniac, if you read it in your Bible, the demoniac. I guess when you have lots of demons, that’s the title you get.
He starts off his plea with Jesus and says, leave me alone. specifically in the original language, it’s an idiom, and the phrase is, what to you and to me? What to you and to me? Basically, like what do we have to do with each other? Why are you here? What is this? It’s like being pulled in to something that has nothing to do with you, right?
Or an unjustified bothering of somebody. That’s what this demon is saying. Leave me alone. Why are you bothering me?
But this demon ran up to Jesus? I know he did because we put it in one of our pockets. Excuse me.
So how is Jesus’ mere existence unjustly bothering you? I don’t understand. You started this confrontation.
So, moving on, he continues. Jesus, son of the most high God. Wow. He recognizes the person and position of Jesus. And when I say he, I mean they, legion, for they are many. Recognizes the person and position of Jesus.
The demon knows who he’s talking to, right? Bows down, facing the dirt, even the demon has to fall face down in the presence of Jesus of Nazareth. That’s power. Right? That’s power.
Because the demons recognize that they have no power and no authority whatsoever in the face of Jesus.
So they continue. I implore you, by God, I implore you by God, the demon is literally invoking the name of God in order to try to rebuke God.
Isn’t that crazy? Like, I know this prayer thing works, I’m going to try it. Jesus, in your own name, go away. I mean, points for effort, I guess.
But it’s like I talked about a couple weeks ago, the stained glass. Remember the stained glass? You sort of see it. You understand what it’s supposed to be when you’re looking at it from the outside, but when you go inside and you see the sun streaming through, that’s when you really get it.
They understand the motions. They understand the things, the trappings of the faith, but they don’t understand the faith. That’s why they’re trying to use God to remove God, which I thought was just so fascinating.
And then he ends with, do not torment me. Torment. That a strong word, but it is strong. It means to interrogate to question, even to torture, something that you might see on the TV show 24. That’s what we’re talking about. That’s what they don’t want. Don’t do this to me.
Okay, so the question becomes if you’re going to come over to Jesus. Tell him to go away, say that you don’t have any business with each other, invoke God’s name to try to get rid of him. Why did you go up to him in the 1st place? What was the point of that?
So I thought about it for a while, and I listened to some other preachers, and I read some commentaries. You know what was interesting? What came out of this was that the demons know what’s going on. They know that they’ve already lost. And they know that Jesus is bringing about their end. But they also know it’s not supposed to be yet. Why is he here now? Why are you here now? This is not the end. We have more time.
And they want to do as much damage as they can, and they don’t want Jesus interrupting them while they’re doing their work. I thought that was so fascinating. They know they’ll lose, but they know that it’s not yet.
Anyway, let’s keep going.
Legion and the Pigs
Verse nine. Jesus asked him, what is your name? And he said, my name is Legion, for we are many. He begged Jesus repeatedly not to send them out of the region. There on the hillside, a great herd of pigs was feeding, and the demonic spirits begged him, begged him, send us into the pigs, let us enter them. Jesus gave them permission, so the unclean spirits came out and went into the pigs.
Then the herd rushed down the steep slope into the lake and about 2000 drowned in the lake.
So 1st of all, this demon, I think, is thrown up a Hail Mary, right? They got 2 seconds left on the clock. They got the snap. They’re on their own 10 yard line, and they’re down 6 points. So he just chucks it up. He’s like, my name is Legion. For we are many.
And Jesus is just not having it. He’s like, okay, sounds good. And then with nothing else left. There’s nothing left in the tank. They say, okay, at least don’t cast us out. Let us go in the pigs. Are the pigs cool?
So they go into the pigs. Jesus says, sure, you can go into the pigs. That’s fine.
So then the question becomes, why? Why would Jesus allow them to go into the pigs? I think there’s 3 reasons.
The 1st one is a show of the strength of the possession that this man was subject to. We see 2000 pigs we’re about to see, 2000 pigs sprint into the lake and drown themselves because of this demonic possession.
And then we’re going to show the depth of destruction. The pigs drown themselves. I don’t think that the demons did it because now they’re disembodied. If your host is dead, then I don’t know what happens to demons. I don’t know if they go into the ether. They go back in the pool and wait for their turn. I’m not sure what happens.
But they’re disembodied now, because the pigs, under this demonic possession, have some control, and they’re like, I don’t, what do I do to deal with this, I don’t want this.
And I think that’s the same thing that the man was doing. When he was cutting himself, self flagellate, trying to beat the demon out. I think he was trying to do anything he could to rid himself of this curse that he was under.
And the 3rd thing related to the 1st 2 is to show the absolute unwavering power of Jesus Christ. You know what I’m saying? The unbelievable power of Jesus. Here we have one man possessed by 2000 demons. And with just a word. He cast them out. Gone.
That’s amazing. That is amazing and I don’t know. The fact that you’re not all not cheering sort of concerns me. But anyway, it’s fine.
The Response of the People
We’re going to move on to verse 14. Now, the herdsmen, these are the sheep herder, or the sheep herders, the swine herders. The herdsman ran off and spread the news in the town and countryside, and the people went to see what happened. They came to Jesus and saw the demon possessed man sitting there, clothed in his right mind, the one who had the legion, and they were afraid.
So again, these herdsmen are the pig caretakers. And we see that everyone came to see. So they ran off and started screaming, Hey, send everybody, you know, Crazy Ed from the tombs is normal. You need to see this.
Something very significant has happened here, right? It’s not every day that you have a naked man breaking chains and casting off shackles living in the tombs who suddenly has an awakening. and is normal again. This is a big deal. This is something that they had never seen before.
And that matters for what we’re just about to get into here in verse 16. Those who had seen what happened to the demon possessed man reported it, and they also told about the pigs. Then they asked Jesus to leave their region.
Why did they want Jesus to leave? Fear? Right? They were terrified. The power that this man Jesus possessed. We see that with the disciples on the ship too, that Mark talked about last week, right? They see him calm nature. They’re like, hey, nature, knock it off. I’m tired of that. And it does. Like that. What? I knew that you were a great teacher. I knew you were sent of God, but this is a whole nother level.
So they were afraid of what they were seeing. And the other thing to consider is that 2000 pigs just drowned. This resulted in massive financial losses for whoever owned those pigs. Right? I don’t know what they would have been worth, but probably a lot, you know? They were in a Gentile area, so they were owned by somebody and they were probably used for meat or I don’t know what they used pigs for, but there must be some reason to have them.
And so the people there are like, we’ve suffered financial losses. I mean, Ed is better. I guess that’s good, but this is not good. I’m scared of what’s happening over there. How about you just leave? We don’t want any more of this disruption that you’re causing Jesus? So if you could just go elsewhere.
They don’t want the disruption. We’re going to put the lack of disruption in that pocket that we emptied a minute ago.
The Healed Man’s Request
They move on to the last part of our passage for this morning, verse 18. As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon possessed, asked if he could go with them. But Jesus did not permit him to do so. Instead he said to him, go to your home and to your people and tell them what the Lord has done for you, that the Lord has had mercy on you.
So he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis what Jesus had done for him, and all were amazed.
My 1st thought after reading this is, wait, what? Jesus tells the man to go tell people, hold on.
Okay, so the man says Jesus, I want to go with you, obviously, of course, right? I was just possessed by 2000 demons, and now I’m thinking, right, for the 1st time in my life. This is kind of amazing. I would like to go with you.
Jesus says, no, but then he says, go tell people what happened. I think I got whiplash.
Jesus spent the 1st 4 chapters of Mark telling people to stop talking about it. What is different about this guy?
Jesus always says silence, but not now. So what’s the explanation for this?
Well, typically, what you’ll hear preachers and teachers say is that he’s in a Gentile region. There’s not Jewish people here. So the whole idea is that the Jews wanted to make Jesus into this great military leader, but Jesus didn’t want that. And so he tried to stay on the download to avoid that military leader mantle.
And I think that that’s true, but I don’t think that’s the whole story. I also made the case that Jesus’ primary goal was to preach the gospel. And the miracle working was getting in the way because people were like, heal me, oh, my leg hurts. My eye hurts. Can’t see, I can’t hear, I need to be healed of these physical things.
And Jesus is like, okay, like, that’s, I don’t mind doing that, but you’re missing the big picture here. Right?
And so I think even if you’re in a Gentile region and people are hearing, this guy is growing legs back and he’s healing the blind and deaf people are seeing and people are walking and it’s amazing, would he not have had the same situation? where everyone was crowding him, looking for these miracles, looking for these physical healing.
So what is actually different?
There might have been some little bit of that, you know, king military king Jesus, but what’s the real difference here?
My theory is bolstered by Jesus’ mission statement, which he read from the book of Isaiah in which Trisha read this morning at the top of the service.
In Luke 4, 18 and 19, we read, The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me too, proclaim the good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives, and the regaining of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
We’re proclaiming good news. releasing captives, regaining sight, and freeing the oppressed.
So one of these things is not like the others. Proclaiming good news, that’s the gospel, releasing captives, people who are in bondage of one thing or another like this man, regaining of sight, physical healing, and freeing the oppressed, once again, captives.
Why is there only one physical miracle here? And why is it only the blind he cares about? Why does Jesus not care about the people who are missing a leg? People who are deaf. Why doesn’t he care about those people?
My theory is that this is not physical blindness. He’s talking about showing people the truth of the gospel. Taking off the blinders of sin and letting them see the reality of what’s happening in this world.
So then we have proclaiming the good news, releasing captives, proclaiming the good news, releasing the oppressed. Do you see what Jesus’ mission statement is here? He’s trying to release people from the hold of Satan and show them the truth of God. That is why he is here. That is what he is doing.
But again, your objection comes. Conrad, you oblivious overlooker of obvious observations. What about Mark? One, 23 to 25. Good observation. Let’s read that together.
Just then there was a man in their synagogue with an unclean spirit, and he cried out. Leave us alone, Jesus the Nazarene. Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the holy one of God. But Jesus rebuked him. Silence come out of him, Jesus says.
So immediately say you, Conrad, you say to me, Conrad, Jesus tells the demon to be quiet, therefore, your exorcism theory is invalid.
Nice try. But if you notice, when does Jesus rebuke the demon? After he identifies him as the holy one of God. That was the trigger word. That was what was going to make the Jews perk up and say, is this our military king that we’ve been waiting for?
Because there is no record in any of the gospels of Jesus telling the man after the demon has been exercised to stay quiet.
So my contention is that Jesus is here to do 2 things. To preach the gospel and chew bubble gum. and he is all out of bubble gum.
Jesus came to set us free. Jesus came for freedom, all right? Jesus came for freedom. I thought about doing like a William Wallace thing, but I don’t know if I could pull it off.
So Freedom, that’s why Jesus is here.
Key Takeaways
And worth noting is that the sort of healing and restoration that Jesus brings leads to a strong response from those who appreciate their forgiveness. Those who are forgiven much, love much. And if you don’t appreciate the depth of your forgiveness. You’re likely to take it for granted. I know I did when I was in my late teens and early 20s. I did not appreciate the depth of my sin, and therefore the amount of grace that God had given to me.
So let’s bring this home. Let’s land this plane. What do we take away from this? What is our takeaway, as Mike likes to say? I don’t have as little bag on the screen, but I thought about it.
I think there’s 4 things we can walk away from today’s message with.
One, Satan and his demons have no dominion, no authority, and no power in the face of Jesus of Nazareth. Amen? No dominion, no authority, and no power in the face of Jesus of Nazareth. That’s number one. Take that to the bank.
Number two, whatever you’re going through is a symptom. Okay, whatever thing is happening in your life is a symptom of something bigger, okay? Curing symptoms will make you better for a while. Let’s say you have an addiction to, I don’t know what it is, pornography. Right? You can set up some sort of mechanical device on your computer that tracks what you do, and that’s good, but that’s not addressing the underlying sin issue that is causing those desires. Right?
So sin is the root cause. It’s the underlying disease. I made a graphic for this. We’re going to put it up now. Yeah. So sin is the disease. He is the cure. Um, we don’t want to treat symptoms. We want to treat the disease. If you have a real illness, and you’re vomiting and you’re nauseous and whatever, Do you just take some pepto or do you go to the doctor and say, what is causing this? Don’t treat the symptoms. Treat the disease.
Okay, the 3rd thing that we’re going to take away from this is knowing about God does not equal knowing God. The demons knew who Jesus was. The demons bowed down before him. The demons even prayed to God. Okay, just doing the stuff is not enough. I didn’t mean to rhyme that, but I’m going to go with it. The stuff is not enough. You need to go deeper with Jesus. You need to submit your life to him.
And that’s where our final point for today comes in. Going deeper. Remember we put in our pocket that these people sent Jesus away because they did not want the disruption. They wanted to preserve the status quo. Do we want that? Do we send Jesus away when he makes us uncomfortable?
Yes, Jesus, I would love for you to bless me with some monetary thing. I love the friends that I get from church. I like all these good things. What’s that? Quit my job. Donate how much? Maybe you should go over there. Not even a nervous laugh that time. Maybe I’m touching a sore spot.
How often do we keep Jesus at arm’s length when he tells us something we don’t want to hear? I don’t want anyone to respond to that. I just want you to really think about that. Are you guilty of that? Am I guilty of that? Do I push him away? Because I don’t want the disruption in my life. I like it the way it is. I want maintain the status quo.
So we need to remember that in order to fully know who God is, to go deeper with him, to make sure that Satan has no dominion in our life, to make sure that we’re addressing the core issue, the disease and not the symptoms, we need to fully submit ourselves to Jesus, even if it means being disrupted. Even if it means being uncomfortable. Amen.
I got 2 amens. I’ll let the rest of you ponder on that for the rest of your life.
Closing Prayer
And we’ll bring up the worship team now as I pray to close.
Thank you, Jesus, for your word. Thank you that sometimes it’s challenging what you call us to do to give up, to offer, I pray that you would give us the ability to, I don’t know, to lay down things when it’s difficult, or to pick up things when it’s difficult.
I pray that you would help us to let you be in charge and not to make room for demons to be permitted or accepted or overlooked while you are shunned.
God, I pray that you would allow us to submit ourselves fully to you and to create an incredible change, to show people like this man who was released from demon possession how good life can be, when we rid ourselves of all of that stuff that’s holding us down, all of those burdens, and fully submit ourselves to you.
Thank you for your goodness and your grace, Jesus, in your name. Amen.