Let's turn first to Matthew chapter
11. Matthew chapter 11. I've preached
from this text a couple of times, and as I looked over my notes,
I think the Lord just gave me some more light on it. And as
I've told you before several times, if we only see a good
moral lesson, if we only see some practical instruction in
any passage of Scripture we look at, we've missed the mark. We've
not seen Christ. There's been no good news given
to us. Mankind has a ton. They'll pick
these, so we're looking at the man with unclean spirits today.
Mankind picks some miracle or some instruction and they write
a self-help book. Say it out loud real slow to
yourself three times. Self-help. You help yourself. Man don't need to help himself.
God needs to help man. That's what needs to happen.
Well, you're diving down a rabbit hole you don't want to go down.
I strongly encourage you not to do it. Leave it alone. But
every miracle that Christ performed on this earth, it was a picture
to show us of a spiritual work He performs in the heart of His
people. Those that were given sight, He healed them. He gave
them sight. They were blind. Now they could
see. There was a day, right now, that physical body, those eyes
are closed in the grave, ain't they? Physically, they're not
seeing no more. Those given the ability to walk,
boy, they're still in the grave. Those raised from the dead, they
had to physically die again. They're not still alive. So obviously,
this isn't something physically we need to worry about. This
is a spiritual problem that we have. Here in Matthew 11 and
verse 3, John the Baptist had sent his disciples to ask Christ
if that's who they were looking for. It says in verse 3, and
he said unto them, Are he that should come, or do we look for
another? Jesus answered and said unto them, Go and show John again
those things which you do here, and see which was first. Heard
something. I've heard those things you do
here and see. The blind receive their sight.
That's something you see. The lame walk, I saw that. The
lepers are cleansed. The deaf hear. The dead are raised
up and the poor have the gospel preached to them. And blessed is he whosoever shall
not be offended in me. He's telling those disciples
of John, you go back and tell John to be brought into remembrance. The things concerning Christ,
concerning the Messiah that they were talking to, of what Isaiah
prophesied. He's reminding him of the Scriptures.
Telling him again, what did Isaiah say? He said, I'm going to tell
you exactly what Isaiah said. Let's go see what Isaiah had
to say about that. Isaiah 35. Isaiah 35. Begin in verse 3. Strengthen
ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees. Say to them
that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not. Behold, your God will come with
vengeance, even God with a recompense. He will come and save you. What's going to happen after
He saves us? What happens after God comes to a man, one to His
sheep, determined before time began, and saves them? Verse
five, then, after all that's happened, then the eyes of the
blind shall be opened and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap
as in heart, and the tongue of the dumb sing, for in the wilderness
shall waters break out and streams of the desert. Some children
of God, they so often worry, they don't have insurance, and
they say, am I saved? I know all this stuff. I know
it's doctrine. I know that these are pictures
of Christ. I got it here. Do I have it here? Am I 18 inches
away from being a child of God? Boy, we worry, don't we? I do.
I have. We'll see in a bit, but a man
cannot bind you in comfort. I can't give you comfort. I can't
wrap you up in comfort. Only God can. So Christ pointed
John the Baptist and those disciples back to the Word. I point people
to the Word. What does the Lord say? What's
going to happen after all this? After the Lord saved you, do
you see Christ now? You didn't see Him before. You
was blind. You thought you knew about some man named Jesus. Now
you see Christ. Before you didn't. He saved you.
Then you have eyes to see Him. Do you hear His voice now? Not
audibly, obviously, but His comforting words. You hear the Lord when
He speaks, Fear not, it is I. All before We didn't listen. I couldn't hear it. We still
were afraid, weren't we? We still had something to do.
We didn't hear, it's done. Oh, I've got to get my ducks
in a row. I've got to start living right. I've got to watch this
law. I've got to do something. I've got to read the scriptures and I've
got to pray more. Done. Done. Do we hear that? We didn't hear it before. Do
you rejoice now? The Lord gives you eyes to see after He saved
you. He gives you ears to hear when He saved you. Do you rejoice
in Him? Before, we were heavy laden. We were burdened with
sin. It was always without relief because we bore it. Sin's troubling
you to death. It's in your backpack. You're
carrying it around. You bore it after Christ saved
you, after He revealed Himself in you. Do you see that He bore
your sin? The guilt was placed on Him.
I committed it. He took it. He took it. Is there peace and rest in that?
If you do, you rejoice. If you see that peace and rest,
you rejoice. Look at verse 7. And the parched ground shall
become a pool, and a thirsty land springs of water. Boy, my
driveway was just dry as a bone yesterday. Did you know that?
At 348 this morning, it wasn't dry no more. There was water
all over it. My soul was just as dry as that
driveway. Didn't know any different. Parched.
And now there's just living waters running through it. My cup overflows.
In the habitations of the dragon, where each lay shall be grass
with reeds and rushes. Oh, this world is so scary and
dangerous, isn't it? All these dragons, look at it.
Isn't it horrible? Oh, what are we going to do? That's how we used to run around.
When all we heard was dragons, all we saw was flames coming
out of their mouth. Ooh, look at all this wickedness around
us. What happens afterwards? Well, they're laying right where
they ought to be. All that wickedness all around me. That's evil in
this city. Who did that? Who controls that? Shamefully, I walk around this
place acting like a person that doesn't know that God's sovereign
in all things. How quick I'd be like, oh man, I ain't no good.
Oh, this is bad. Oh, I'm glad they're doing this
over here. My God rules and reigns and everything, don't He? All
those dragons, we're laying down a field of grass right now. Them
lambs and them limes are going to walk together. Verse 8, end
of verse 8. The unclean shall not pass over
it, but it shall be for those, the wayfaring men, The fools
shall not err therein. No lion shall be there, nor ravenous
beast shall go up thereon. It shall not be found there,
but the redeemed shall walk there." The fool ain't going to know
this peace. The fool ain't going to see these things. The fool
ain't going to hear these things. They're going to see themselves.
Like a brother preached this morning, what did them Sadducees come with
Christ in? Everything they knew. They talked
about marriage. We're about to have an anniversary.
I know something about marriage. I've been married a little bit. Some
of y'all been married a long time. You know something about
marriage, don't you? I know the ins and outs of this. I've lived
it. I'm going to trick him. You don't know nothing about
marriage. That's a picture of Christ and His church, isn't it? Why
do we have marriage? Now, that's the scriptures. We
hold them in our hands and people think, well, I know God because
I've got a book in my hand. No, you've got to have that in
your heart. I'm going to show you these things.
Give you eyes, give you ears to hear and rejoice in them.
We're rejoicing. We look for our Lord's return.
When we see Him, we hear Him, and we rejoice in Him. Oh, Lord,
come. Lord, come. You do it as you
see fit, as you're pleased, but your kingdom come. We look forward
to it. Look at verse 10. And the ransom
of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with the songs and
everlasting joy upon their heads. They shall obtain joy and gladness,
and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." Boy, when we see
us, when we hear us, when we don't rejoice in us, I want this
to be gone. I want this pain, I want this
pride, this sin, everything that I am, I want it to be over. And
I want to be with the one who saved me, the one who gave me
sight, the one who loved me with an everlasting love. Everybody wants to cling to this
life. That's why everybody's been so scared to death lately. All this
nonsense. People are just afraid to die.
I don't enjoy the act of death. The means of death ain't my friend.
I've never died. I don't know what that's going
to be like. I'm going to be apprehensive. But the end state I have no fear
of. My God saved me. Whatever He does will be right.
He'll give me the grace to manage until I'm with Him and perfect
forever. He'll give me the faith to look to Him until faith's
obsolete, because the object of my faith will be hand to hand
with Him. I believe Him. And the whole
time, you know what I'll do? I'll be scared to death, won't
I? Because I'm looking at Me. I'm carrying around that backpack,
beating myself up, instead of looking to my Redeemer. Seeing
Him and running to Him. Oh, that's something, isn't it? Now let's turn to Mark 5. I'll
try to be brief through this picture we have here of a sinner
being saved. I want us to see this morning,
I want us to see us and the one thing needful. The
who is what I want us to see. I know a lot about the how. I've
lived it. I've watched it. I've studied
it. That's what I do for a living. I know a lot about the how. I'm
worried about the who. If we see ourselves, who we are,
we'll be concerned about who can save us. If we see who we
are, we'll be concerned about who did save us. We'll appreciate
the how. Oh, it's majestic. It's a person. I don't need a doctrine. I need
a person. That's what I need. Mark 5, verse 1. And they came over
unto the other side of the sea into the country of the Gadarenes. And when he was come out of the
ship, when Christ exited the ship, immediately there met him
out of the tombs, out of the graveyards, a man with an unclean
spirit, who had his dwelling among the tombs. And no man could
bind him, no, not with chains. Because he had often been bound
with fetters and chains, with handcuffs and chains. And the
chains had been plucked asunder by him. He broke every one of
them. And the fetters broken in pieces. Neither could any
man tame him. And always, night and day, he
was in the mountains, trying to get up in them high places,
climb a mountain. And in the tombs, crying and
cutting himself with stones. Was this a man that was living
in a graveyard and was crazy and the Lord did something to
him? Yes. That's what physically happened, wasn't it? But this
is every child that come from Adam's loins. Everyone born of
Adam, this is us. Every one of us. Verse 2 says
there, he had an unclean spirit. A man with an unclean spirit. There couldn't be a better word
to describe man. We are unclean. How dirty is
unclean? It ain't clean. Boy, we like
to, that mud we looked at the other day. You gotta wash it
off of feet, isn't it? A little water and a little dust
on the feet. We're clean everywhere. But we
like to look at one another's mud, don't we? You're more unclean
than I'm unclean. I wouldn't be as unclean as you're
unclean. What's unclean? Not clean. Not clean. Being unclean
does not have so much to do about what it is. Oh boy, we like to
identify and categorize and nomenclate everything. We want to label
it and put a name on it, don't we? Being unclean doesn't have
so much to do about what it is, but what it is not. It is not
clean. Mankind, born of Adam without
Christ, is not clean. If we had a cup of water, I take
that glass right there and I put one drop of poison in it, or
if it's complete poison, it's a whole glass of poison, and
one drop will kill me either way, it doesn't make a difference.
It's not safe. It's dangerous. It's deadly.
It's unclean. I can't have it. Skull and crossbones,
that was an old-timey warning, right? And they'd put that on
a bottle, or they'd put that on a tractor or trailer full,
because what's in there is unclean. The amount don't matter. It ain't
clean. It ain't safe. There's no life
in it. It says there in verse 3 that he was dwelling in the
tombs. Dwelling among the tombs. And he didn't know any different.
That's us. We're dwelling among death. I'm
walking right now in a body of death. And what a hindrance I
have because I breathe and I move. I eat and I sleep and I think
I have life. Because this body physically
walks around. I was born dead in tombs. Dead in trespasses and sins.
Plumb dead. Walk around those tombs. Imagine
the smell. Imagine that. They didn't have formaldehyde
and all these other things. We have nitrates. And they probably
didn't bury them too deep. Imagine the smell that was in
that tomb. You know, you can become nose blind to things.
You don't pay no attention to it. You don't smell as bad to
you as you do to anybody else. Isn't that right? There was a
time, you'd go be with a big old group of men living in a
tent in the desert for a month, and everybody smells bad. And
you tell everybody they smell bad. But you know, after a month
of eating the same food, drinking the same drinks, washing in the
same water, that tent don't smell so bad. I'm serious. You know, it's like on them ships,
Bob. You know what I'm talking about. Everybody starts smelling
like diesel fuel, don't they? It all smells the same. Well, you
don't smell that bad. You can just throw the deodorant
away. You don't need that. We all smell the same because we're
consuming the same thing. We're drinking iniquity-like water.
Every one of us. blind to it. Verse 3, Who had
His dwelling among the tombs, and no man could bind Him. No,
not with chains. They couldn't bind Him, not with
chains. Because that He had been often bound with fetters and
chains, and the chains had been plucked asunder by Him, and the
fetters broken in pieces, neither could any man tame Him. Other
men tried to bind us with the law, didn't they? Chain them
up with the law. You've got to do this. Here's
what you've got to do. You've got to keep the day. You've
got to be baptized. You've got to be circumcised. You've got to think. You've got
to do. You've got to pray. You've got to have a Bible study in
your home. You've got to make disciples. And it was continually
broken, wasn't it? It was laid on us. It was chained
to us. And we broke it. And we broke it. And we broke
it until they gave up. Other men tried to comfort us.
That's just the constraint, isn't it? But what about the comfort?
Oh, I'm going to bind you up in swaddling clothes of your
experience. I have unbelief. I have doubt.
I don't know if I'm the Lord's. I think it's just something I'm
going through the motions because mommy and daddy did it or that's
what my spouse does or my kids do it or something like that.
I don't know. And so, oh, he was baptized. You led Sunday
school. You did something. You accepted
Jesus. Pull that card out. That's what
they do back home. You got a card with a stamp on it. Official
seal of the church of when you got baptized. Right there's my
official seal. It's 2,000 years ago. Look to
that. They try to bind and comfort.
Failed. Every time. Ain't good enough.
Somebody decided to get baptized again. I said, well, if it didn't
work the first three times, what do you think it's going to do
this time? They want to try a different tactic. That ain't working. It
says, neither can any man tame Him. We return to our sin every
time we went wild coming right back to our own righteousness.
Coming back to our own defenses. I'll take care of myself. Our
pride. And horribly, our ability to, and all of our efforts to
fix the situation. I know what to do. I know what
I ought to be doing. We're bound by our sin nature.
That's our will. It's bound to the flesh. We fell
in Adam and we fall continually. And others may tame us for a
little while. They may get them chains on us for a week, get
us to walk straight and narrow for a month or two, for a season.
But the chains and fetters, those are internal. We're bound to
our sin nature. Sin has dominion over us. It
has rule and reign over us. So Paul asks in Romans 7, O wretched
man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? This is the Lord telling us what
we are by nature. And it's true. And when we see
that, who's going to deliver me? I can't deliver myself. Ain't
nobody else can deliver me. The law can't deliver me. Who's
going to do it? Is the preacher going to do it?
Oh, well, if I could sit underneath that man, if I could listen to
that message, oh, then I'd be saved. Nope. What about the doctrine? Five points counting, it might
never save the man ever. Ain't never going to. What about clean
living? What about prayers? Would you
just sit down and read your Bible every morning? You're going to
be fine. That's a change of false comfort, isn't it? What about
ignoring it? Oh, that's more common than anything.
Come hear the gospel preached and be like, yeah, I'll come
back next Easter. Has no effect. That was nice.
I just, like in Sadducees, I don't want to know about that resurrection.
I don't want to know what's to come. I want to play religion.
I don't want to know what comes after here. I'm going to have
to deal with that. So let's just stick our head in the sand and ignore
it. No, that's not what was going to deliver Paul from that body
of death, that wretched man that he was. He says, I thank God
through Jesus Christ our Lord. What didn't deliver him? Who
delivered him? Now here in verse 5, Mark 5, 5. And always night
and day he was in the mountains, climbing up a mountain since
the day that I was born. So long of a journey and I feel
kind of tired and worn. Heard that song my whole life.
That's what man tries to do, tries to ascend to God. And in
the tombs crying and cutting himself with stones, zealous. to try to make a change. Paul
said his brethren, that through the flesh, were zealous. Boy,
they were committed. They didn't miss church service. They donated
to the poor. They took care of everybody.
They had a zeal for God, but they didn't know Him. All those prophets
of Baal we looked at last week, they were zealous, weren't they?
Oh boy, they had a zeal. They cut themselves. Their blood
flowed around, but God wouldn't accept it. Your blood ain't gonna
do. It didn't work. All of our crying,
all of our attempts to remove our uncleanness, Using that stone
law, that law written in stone, trying to cut it off. Trying
to make the blood come out of us to heal ourselves. It doesn't
work. How many times have you seen someone just ruining their
life? And a child could say, that's
wrong. You watch them. Somebody you know, somebody you
care, somebody you love. What you're doing is wrong. You're
ruining your family. You're ruining yourself. You're
hurting your mommy and daddy. Stop doing what you're doing.
Don't you see it's wrong? Surely someone's told this man
to stop it. He's cutting himself. He's running around naked in
the tombs. Hey, knock it off. Look what you're doing. Why don't
those other people we know straighten up? Why didn't this man straighten
up? They have an unclean spirit in
them that no man can tame. That's the problem. Verse 6,
But when he saw Jesus afar off, He ran and worshipped him. Your Bible said he ran and worshipped
him. That's what mine said. I'll get around that next week.
Well, you know, when mom and dad leave and my vacation's over
and kids get back to school. He ran and worshiped. When a
child of God sees Christ, even from afar off, they run to Him
and they worship Him. His children do. Well, I don't
do it that way. Well, you better pray the Lord gives you a heart
to run to Him. I worship some other things.
I find comfort in some other things. You better not. That's
eternal damnation. You better pray He gives you
the ability to see Him and hear Him. And he saw that Sovereign, the
Almighty, the Omnipresent, the Omnipotent, the Omniscient Messiah
of God coming. The very one promised to Adam.
The very one promised to Abraham, Moses. Every one of them. He
saw the Lamb of God. just like John the Baptist did.
He saw who Isaiah said, in the year the king Uzziah died, I
saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up.
His train filled the temple. All them cherubim, seraphim,
and angels, they cried, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.
The whole earth is full of his glory. There's my everything. There he is. He saw the Lord. The Lord. Not some Jesus that
wants to save, not us saved. He saw the Lord, too, he saw.
No wonder he ran and worshipped Him. If we see Him, oh, that
the Lord be pleased to find someone that's unclean today. Oh, if
I could find somebody unclean. If I could find a sinner and
they could see Him today, I'd run to Him and I'd worship Him,
wouldn't I? Why did he see the Lord? He saw the Lord because
the Lord was there. Lord went somewhere else. He
was there. He comes to His sheep. We do
run to Him, but He gives us the power to do so. But make no mistake,
He comes to His children first. You didn't seek Him out, you
didn't sit down and study like Mordecai Ham said, he locked
himself in a basement for six months to come out knowing God.
Didn't happen. God says so. He comes to His sheep. He reveals
Himself, we see Him, and then we run and worship Him. We run
to Him. This man will not see Him where
Christ is not at. Is that simple enough? Am I getting
kindergarten or crayon level? You ain't going to see Christ
where He ain't. It ain't going to be in a false
church, some God that's trying to save. It ain't going to be
in some place where everybody says, no, it's okay, just ignore
it. It's going to be where He is, the only place you're going
to see Him. If we preach this same Jesus, that's who we're
putting up for people to see it. We preach, we get the sermon
audio report, that ain't me, that's every one of us. Lord,
using his local assembly here to further the gospel, that takes
all of us. If we preach Him, if we show
Him, if He is our message, people's going to see Him in His truth,
in His majesty, in His glory, and in His might and His justice
to save sinners. They're going to be shut up to
Him. Romans 10 said, How shall they
call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they
believe on Him of whom they've not heard? Heard. Man ain't going to be saved by
hearing a lie. He's going to be saved by seeing and hearing
Christ. If they hear another Jesus, they
cannot see this one. He said in John 6, And this is
the will of Him that sent me, that everyone which seeth the
Son and believeth on Him may have everlasting life. No one
else could help this man, but he saw the one who could. No
one else could conquer him, but he saw the captain of his salvation,
didn't he? The one who could. And he ran. And who did he run
to? He didn't run to disciples, did he? All of them was with
him. He didn't run to the people on
the boat. He ran to the Lord. No one gave him an invitation
or words to say. Come on up to the Lord. There
He is. You look crazy. Go talk to Him. He saw Him and
he ran to Him. When you get to Him, there's
a little prayer you're going to have to say. Here's what you
say. Here's what you do. No one said
that. He ran naked. to the Lord. He didn't wait to
get clothes on. He didn't wait to get rid of
his demons. Oh, that's a big one, isn't it?
I've got to clean up before I go to church. He came just like
he is because he saw the Lord. He ran to a person. He worshipped
a person, the only person who was able to save to the uttermost.
Now, he ran and worshipped the Lord, but them demons cried out
too, didn't they? Look here in verse 7. and cried
with a loud voice, and said, What have I to do with thee,
Jesus, thou Son of the Most High God? I adjure thee by God, that
thou torment me not." Those are those demons speaking in him.
He ran and worshipped the Lord, but he still had them demons
with him. In religion of man, what seems good to man, what
seems right to himself, demons and spirits, all these evil things,
they can get along just fine. Ain't no problem with that. Satan
don't care if you've got plenty of religion. You're on autopilot,
you ain't got forward. That's good. But when they come
in contact with the true and living God, boy, they rebel.
They fight. I don't know one of the Lord's
preachers in this nation right now that ain't under full-blown
rebellion, ain't under full-blown attack. Every one of them. Now
if they was getting up and it squeaked every time they smiled
because it was so clean and shiny, people would just hug them and
love them just like in Sadducees and Pharisees. They bind together.
They join up to fight the one. These demons did too. Even the
demons believe in one God. Even the demons know of His power
and His sovereign right in all things. They knew He was the
Son of God. But they will not bow. They want
left alone. Don't they? I ain't got time
for it, but sometimes go read Luke 11 about the strong man.
That's demons. That's Satan. Strong man's at
peace in his house with his goods. Ain't nobody fighting him. Nobody's
going against him. That's a proud sinner too. And
then when a stronger one comes, this one that's able to tame
him, able to do something for him, able to give him a right
mind, then all that old stuff gets blown away, don't it? Christ said, He that is not with
me is against me. And he that gathers not scattereth. When you see Christ, when you
see Him lifted up, Him preached, Him exalted, you are either for
Him or against Him. You follow Him or you don't.
You don't straddle the fence for eternity. You come down on
one side or the other. This gathering man, he saw the
One who was not only stronger than him, but was stronger than
the demons within him. that no other man can heal. Satan
can defeat any man, woman, or child. You don't want no business
going up against him. He's been doing it longer than
you've been thought. But not the God-man. Not the God-man. He may bruise his heel, but he'll
crush his head, isn't he? Look here in verse 8. Mark 5a. For he said unto him, Come out
of the man, thou unclean spirit, This man saw Christ, ran to Him,
worshipped Him, but those demons had nothing to do with God, and
they were cast out. We don't need to do something
for God. He needs to do something for us. Now, verses 9-14, I'm
going to leave the pigs alone. Is that okay? I have some light
on this subject. I can see how the Lord saves
sinners, but I haven't got a message on it just yet, so we can come
back later and look at that. That's just the half. I want
you to see the who. I went back and listened to a
message of my pastor growing up, and he said, I don't want
to leave you here knowing something about pigs. I want you to be
walking out of here knowing that God has saved sinners. There's
a man down in Chattanooga years ago who preached a sermon called
2,000 Pigs and No Hot Water. And for any bread-necks, they're
like, well, how are they going to get the hair off a hog if
you don't scald them? They didn't see Christ at that. It was a
problem of butchering hogs. Anyway, I want you to see not
the how, but the who. I want you to see the who. This
man was pleased. He was content. He was calm.
But not everybody was. Not everybody. Look at verse
14. And they that fed the swine fled and told it in the city
and in the country. There was some witnesses to this.
And they went out to see that it was what was done. They didn't
go out to see who did it, but what. Well, what was done? What
did happen? Look at verse 15. And they come
to Jesus and see him that was possessed with the devil. He
used to be possessed with the devil. He ain't now, but he was. Some say, I don't want to be
called a sinner. I'm a saint. I want you to call me a saint.
Don't call me a sinner. Well, 2,000 years ago, there was a
thief on a cross. God saved him. He's in glory
right now. No one disputes that, do they?
But how we refer to him? The thief on the cross. It's the only name we have for
it. This man here is the man with the demons. That's what
he was 3,000 years ago. Rahab is in glory right now.
Who's Rahab? Rahab the harlot. What were you? The Lord came to save sinners,
didn't he? There's a whole lot of people that never was blind
that think they see now. A whole lot of people that think they're
saved, they ain't never seen. They never was made. There weren't
all of them. That's all I am, my fibers. Paul reminds us often,
he's the chief of sinners. Christ came into this world to
save sinners. You call on His name. They shall call His name
Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins. Don't ever run from or deny what
you were. Don't brag on it. But don't run
from it. Don't shun that you're just an
unclean thing. But you give all the glory to
Christ who saved you from yourself. From yourself. That's all it
was. Those looking to see what happened. They came here to look
at what happened. How did they find this man? Look
here in verse 15. They come to Jesus and see him
that was possessed with the devil and had the legion, sitting and
clothed in his right mind, and they were afraid. This man was
sitting. He wasn't running about. He wasn't in vain, physical exercise
religion, waving his arms around, having prayer circles and all
this nonsense. He was resting. He was comfort. Why? Because
he was at peace with God. That never happened before. There's
no condemnation now. Christ must do that for us. This
person is our peace. That man was clothed. In Luke's
account, we know he was naked. There wasn't any clothes laying
around that tomb, was there? Where'd he get clothes from?
Christ gave him his garment. He robed him. He must do that. And it must be His righteousness
that we're robed in. Christ is the Lord our righteousness.
That's the only thing we can wear. And the man was in his
right mind. That prodigal son said he came
to himself. He came to himself. He wasn't
in his right mind. And now he was. Luke says that
he was sitting at the feet of Jesus clothed and in his right
mind. Or sitting at the feet of Jesus. Not to submit to Christ
is foolishness. That's insane. That ain't your
right mind. Try to clothe yourself and make
atonement to the Holy Father we offended. That's insane. That
ain't the right mind. But to bow to the Lord Jesus.
To trust Him for everything. Now that's a pure mind. That's
a right mind, isn't it? It says at the end of verse 15,
and they were afraid. Were they afraid of this man
that kept busting on them chains? Ripping them chains out of the
wall? They wasn't afraid of Him. He was sitting there fine, wasn't
He? They had bound Him before. They had ganged up and dealt
with Him before, hadn't they? They wasn't afraid of Him. They
was afraid of the Lord, just as those demons were, weren't
they? Look here in verse 16. And they that saw it told them
how it befell to him that was possessed with the devil and
also concerning the swine. I told them everything that happened.
He yanked these devils out of him, put them in these swine. They ran
off a cliff, plunged into the water and drowned. And they began
to pray him to depart out of their coasts. Oh, is that a right
mind? Christ leave. That's insane,
isn't it? That's not a right mind. They
saw these things and they were told about and they had proof
right in front of them. They knew this man. They saw
what happened. And they said, why don't you
just leave? Why don't you get out of here? Why would they want
him to leave? The message we just looked at,
will you be made whole? You have to be made whole. You
can't make yourself whole. That righteousness you've got,
what little bit you contribute or anything else, it ain't accepted.
It's got to be Christ or nothing. He's got to do all the work.
You ain't got a part in it. You willing to be made whole?
All your pride's going to be gone. Anything you can write
your name on ain't going to be there. You be willing to be made
whole and be suffering with his sheep? Be chided with them? Not
go along and get along and everything runs pretty smooth? Man, I got
50,000 people I can get along with. Oh, I got thousands of
brothers and sisters. All right here in my hometown,
I ain't got to leave. I don't have to leave this county.
And if I don't like this one, I can go over to that one and
start tending over everything. No, you're going to be stuck
with his sheep. You willing to be made whole? They don't want to do
that. They like to go along and get along, get along with everybody
in town. And they would have to commit all to him. They'd
have to give up all their pigs. 2,000 pigs, that's a whole lot
of hogs. Nowadays, especially back then, they're going to have
to commit all to him, not just associate with him. Not just
visit with him some, but lay down your life. Go sell everything
you got. Not physically go sell it, but
have no stock in anything that you have. In your family, in
your children, in your mommy and daddy, in your house, and
in your status in life, and what you think, and what you know,
and your pride, and everything else. Nothing. Filthy rags. Every bit of it. They wouldn't
hold on to what they had. They could visit with him every
now and then, but there was a power there. When you see the power
of Christ, when you see Him, it's a power and authority that
has to be submitted to. The Lord did just as they wanted.
Oh boy, that's a sad thing. He left. I ain't got time for
this. Lord, you just deal with me next
month. All right. You're going to spend 30 days
without me. Once you get out of here, he left their coast,
didn't he? What a horrible thing. He said,
let him alone. Would you want to live in that city after Christ
lived? Think about that. Everybody you
live with said, get rid of Him. Get out of here. Would you want
to live there? Make your abode with those people that want nothing
to do with Christ? A multitude of people that didn't
want anything to do with Him. Nothing with His gospel, nothing with His
salvation. That's how it is all over this world right now. The
Word of the Lord is precious in our day. But that wasn't what was inside
of this man that the Lord saved, was it? Look at verse 18. And
when he was coming to the ship, he that had been possessed with
the devil prayed him that he might be with him. Lord, let
me go with you. Now I have a right mind. Now I hear, now I see.
I'm clothed now in your righteousness. I want to go with you. What would
Ruth tell Naomi? She said, your God is my God.
Your people, that's my people. Your family, that's my family.
Wherever you live, I'm going to live. Wherever you eat, I'm
going to eat. Wherever you're buried, I'm going to be buried right
next to you. One. Family. Bound together. Squeezed
together. That's what the Lord said, wasn't
it? Verse 19, Howbeit Jesus suffered him not, but saith unto him,
Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord
hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee. You go
tell everybody you know, not what you did for the Lord, what
the Lord did for you. And He had compassion on you.
Because that's going to be, there was a need for mercy, wasn't
there? Mercy is undeserved, but there's a need for it. I need
a mercy. And he departed and began to
publish in the capitalists how great things Jesus had done for
him. He said, tell what the Lord had done. Jesus was his Lord,
wasn't He? And all men did marvel. Why do
people marvel? Why do people marvel about a
gospel that I preach? God loved me. Can you believe that? He was
gracious in coming to me. I didn't go to Him. He come to
me. He had mercy on me. Of all people,
the chief of sinners, He come to me. People are going to marvel
at that. What's he saying? Oh, but if
you could see Christ, run to Him, and you'd worship Him with
Him. I pray we can publish what the Lord has done for us. Amen.