Mark chapter 5 and verse 1. And they came over, that is Jesus
and his disciples, 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, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an
unclean spirit. who had his dwelling among the
tombs, and no man could bind him, no, 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. And always night and day he was
in the mountains and in the tombs, crying and cutting himself with
stones. And when he saw Jesus afar off,
he ran and worshipped him, 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. For he said unto him, Come out
of the man, thou unclean spirit. And he asked him, What is thy
name? And he answered, saying, My name is Leachan, for we are
many. And he besought him much that
he would not send them away out of the country. Now there was
there nigh unto the mountains a great herd of swine feeding.
And all the devils besought him, saying, Send us into the swine,
that we may enter into them. And forthwith Jesus gave them
leave. And the unclean spirits went
out and entered into the swine, and the herd ran violently down
a steep place into the sea. There were about two thousand,
and were choked in the sea. And they that fed the swine fled
and told it in the city and in the country, and they went out
to see what it was that was done. And they come to Jesus and see
him that was possessed with the devil, and had the legion sitting
and clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid. And they that saw it told them
how it befell to him that was possessed with the devil, and
also concerning the swine. And they began to pray him to
depart out of their coasts. And when he was come into the
ship, he that had been possessed with the devil prayed him that
he might be with him. 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, that hath had compassion
on thee. And he departed and began to
publish in Decapolis how great things Jesus had done for him,
and all men did marvel. Amen. May God bless to us this
reading from his word. In Mark chapter 1, we were introduced
to the Lord Jesus Christ by Mark. And Mark tells us there that
this is the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son
of God. This Mark who writes of Jesus
Christ, the Son of God, is probably the same as John Mark, the evangelist
and helper to the apostles Paul and Peter. And in the early chapters
of his book, his gospel, Mark shows that Jesus of Nazareth
was the promised Messiah, the one who was appointed by God
to fulfil God's covenant purpose and anointed by God to accomplish
his promise to deliver his people from their sins. And of course,
this is all connected with these earlier portions of scripture
where the patriarchs received promises from God and the Old
Testament saints looked forward in faith to the coming of that
one who was promised, who would deliver believers who would deliver
the covenant people of God from their sins and into his presence. And so we are finding that continuity
between the Old Testament saints and the New Testament saints
even in these early chapters of the book of Mark. But even before Mark turns, as
it were, to the Lord Jesus Christ, he has already given us a three-fold
witness to the true identity of Jesus of Nazareth. It is said that a three-fold
cord is not easily broken. and in the mouth of two or three
witnesses should the truth be known. And here is the truth
being revealed to us that will not be readily broken. Mark gives us this threefold
witness. First of all, he applied the
Old Testament prophecies to the Lord Jesus Christ. And he goes
back to Malachi and he shows how that Malachi anticipated
the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ when he said, Behold,
I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare the
way before thee, the voice of one crying in the wilderness,
prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Then he drew on that contemporary
ministry of John the Baptist, who was well known. And even
at the time of Mark's writing, though John had been dead by
then many years, it seems that there was still a great appreciation
and affection for John and his ministry. And Mark draws upon
that testimony. and the fact that John the Baptist
could say of this one, Jesus of Nazareth, I indeed have baptized
you with water, but he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost. And so Mark calls these signposts,
these witnesses, in order to prove the identity of Christ. And thirdly, he gives us the
testimony of God himself. God, Jehovah, Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit, bearing witness at the baptism of the Lord Jesus
Christ, and the voice from heaven and the dove that descends, thou
art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. So Mark is showing
us emphatically who this person is, of whom he writes, and of
whom he speaks. And then he references the Lord's
own ministry. So this is the summary, as it
were, of these early chapters of Mark. He references the Lord's
own ministry, and he tells us that the Lord Jesus Christ came
preaching the kingdom of God. And this phrase describes Christ's
rule over his kingdom, a called out
and a gathered in people. That's actually a very interesting
little phrase. A called out, called out of the
world, but called in and gathered in to this kingdom of which all
the called out and gathered in are citizens with Christ as their
King. Paul calls that same group of
people the election of grace and elsewhere he calls them the
body of Christ. being the spiritual church and
people of God. So here we see a called out people
and this is the people that the Lord Jesus Christ has come to
address. Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus the
Anointed One, Jesus the Messiah. He is the one appointed by God
to save his people from their sins. And so Mark tells us this
is the gospel. And it is an exclusive gospel
because it is the Lord Jesus Christ, it is this Jesus of Nazareth. He is the one in whom All history
finds its focus. He is the one whom the Old Testament
anticipated and the one who is now being revealed as God's way
of life, God's way of salvation. And the message of Mark is the
same message today. If a man or a woman is to be
saved, if a man or a woman is to find peace with God and forgiveness
of their sins, It is only by grace, through faith, in Jesus
of Nazareth, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God. That's why Peter
could say in Acts chapter four and verse 12, speaking to the
Jews, speaking to the most blessed race upon the face of the earth,
the most religious, the most religiously informed, the most
ritually precise nation upon the face of the earth. Peter
could say to them, neither is there salvation in any other. for there is none other name
under heaven given amongst men whereby we must be saved. And
that tells us the importance of Mark's message and indeed
it gives us Surely it reinvigorates our awareness of the need of
hearing this message today and understanding its significance. Let us never become blinded to
the message of these gospel narratives. Let us not become distracted,
as it were, unable to see the wood for the trees. Because we
read these stories and we think about the characters and the
individuals and the circumstances, but we need to understand the
message that these truths are leading us to. Until a man or
a woman or a boy or a girl is brought to faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ, there is no salvation. There is no everlasting life. And we teach the children the
Bible, and so we should. And we share together in Bible
lessons, and we should. And we learn the scriptures and
the narratives and the verses. But all of these things are pointing
us to Christ. And never let us become so preoccupied
in the detail that we fail to find the person of whom these
details speak. Next Mark draws our attention
to the actual words and works of this Jesus of Nazareth in
evidence as to the true identity of the one that he is presenting
to us, the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Jews amongst whom Jesus ministered
were amazed at his doctrine. We're told in these early verses
of Mark, for he taught as one with authority. And they were
astounded at his works because they were miraculous. Lepers
were cured of their leprosy. Demons were cast out of the possessed. The sick were healed. The Lord
Jesus Christ, when he came into Galilee, when he came into Judea
and Jerusalem, he caused no small stir. But then came a backlash. Though the Lord thrilled and
amazed many by the words that he spoke and by the works that
he performed, It soon became clear that he was not preaching
the same message as the Jews. He was not preaching acceptance
with God by obedience to the law of Moses. In fact, he spoke about a different
righteousness entirely. He spoke about a holiness that
was given, not earned. He spoke about justification,
not of works, but by the free gift of God. And secondly, He spoke about that holiness
being his own to give to whomsoever he would. So that we find in
the second chapter of Mark, already in the second chapter of Mark,
verse seven, the Jews are saying, why does this man thus speak
blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God
only? Now, you can do the math because
what the Lord Jesus Christ is doing here is he is already setting
himself on a collision course with the Jews. In Mark chapter
3 verse 6, again so early in this little gospel of Mark, Mark
is telling us And the Pharisees went forth and straightway took
counsel with the Herodians against him, how they might destroy him. You see that? The Lord Jesus
Christ is astounding people with his doctrine, amazing people
with his works. And what is their reaction? They
want to destroy him. Now I should mention that this
was not unknown to the Lord. Indeed he told them that the
days shall come when the bridegroom, that's he himself, shall be taken
away from them. Now He didn't say that he would
leave them but that he would be taken away and that speaks
about the forcibility or the forcefulness of the way in which
he was taken from them. The Lord knew that the days of
his personal ministry were numbered. His purpose in coming required
that his days be numbered because he came to lay down his life
for the sheep. He came requiring to sacrifice
his own life for the lives of others. He knew that. This was
why he could forgive sins because he would die in the place of
sinners. The Jews didn't understand it
and to a certain extent nobody understood it at that time in
the fullness that they would understand it in time to come. And that's the point that we
are receiving here from Mark. The Lord did something else as
well. He formed a little group. He gathered a small band of followers
to whom he taught the gospel of the kingdom of God. He taught
them the significance of what he was doing upon the cross. These he began to equip and continued
to equip during the three years of his ministry up until his
death so that they might be able to carry forward his gospel message. These were just ordinary men
who would nonetheless, because of what Jesus taught them, turn
the world upside down. So by the time the first three
chapters of Mark is complete, we have a picture of the Lord
Jesus Christ dedicating himself to the training of these disciples
whom he had chosen and called to be the distributors or the
disseminators of gospel truth. the seed of the word as it is
referred to in the parables that the Lord preached. So that the
parables of chapter four are primarily the disciples' lessons. They are prepared for the different
reactions of people to the word that they would be preaching.
Some, they were told, wouldn't care about what it was that you
were saying. And we see that today, even yet. It was true at the time of the
disciples. It was true in the time of the apostles. And it
is true yet today. There are some who just don't
care. Some would get excited. Oh, there's plenty of religion
in the world. There's plenty of people that
are enthusiastic about the religious activities that are part and
parcel of our social structures today. But they have no spiritual
reality, no depth to their understanding, and they simply fade away. But the disciples were taught
some would endure and it was these that the disciples were
being sent to sow good seed to. They were to preach the whole
gospel of a free justification and God's saving purpose by grace. That was to be their message. They didn't go and start teaching
parables. They didn't go and start preaching
about the circumstances of the Old Testament narratives and
stories. They preached Jesus Christ and
Him crucified because they understood, they saw from what the Lord Jesus
Christ was teaching them, that all of these lessons were directed
to the reality, the One who stands behind them all, Jesus Christ
the Saviour. So they were to preach God's
purpose of salvation through the shed blood of the substitute,
the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. They would
be seed sowers and God would be the seed grower. They would
preach, God would increase. and that's the Kingdom Gospel.
It was that Kingdom Gospel that they preached, that God was gathering
in through the preaching of Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit,
the people that had been chosen before time, loved everlastingly,
and whose sins had been forgiven by the shed blood and substitution
of Jesus Christ. That seat these people would
be nourished from above, they would grow, they would develop,
and there would be in the kingdom of God a shadow under which sinners
would be safe. In chapter four, the Lord showed
his divine power by delivering the lives of the disciples and
calming the waves and the winds of a mighty storm. And towards
the end of chapter four, he demonstrated his dominion over the natural
power and all of nature's phenomena. But again, it was more than that.
Let us not simply be distracted by the event, by the miracle. It was personal to these disciples. And this is what I mean. The
Lord Jesus Christ is teaching these men personally. He is leading
them step by step through a process of preparation for the ministry
they will be called to perform. Someday, someday, Peter would
be able to kneel beside the cold corpse of a dead lady and say,
Tabitha, arise. because he knew what it was to
be saved from death personally. He would be able to place an
arm on a man's shoulder and say, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. He is able to save to the uttermost
because he saved me. And in chapter five, the passage
that we've read together today, The Lord Jesus Christ is again
demonstrating that power. This Jesus of Nazareth is being
shown to us as the one who has power over principalities and
the powers of hell. The very demons of hell trembled
at the presence of Jesus of Nazareth. It goes on in chapter five, we
didn't read it, to speak about the Lord curing a woman's long-term
sickness, an issue of blood that she'd had for 12 years. She in
faith, merely touching the hem of his garment. And then he raises
to life a little girl, the daughter of one of the Jewish leaders
in the presence of Peter and James and John. And there's many
lessons in all of these pictures that Mark so carefully sets out
and links together and presents to us. But I'm stressing to you
this point. These were examples and confirmations. These miracles were examples
and confirmations given to the disciples, given to the church,
the kingdom of God, given to you and me. in order to show
us who Christ is and what his power is. Just as the parables
were lessons to teach spiritual hearers about the kingdom of
God, and the same parables perplexed the spiritually deaf, so miracles
enlightened the spiritually wise, but dazzled the spiritually blind. There was a spectacle and then
there was the meaning behind the spectacle. So I want you
to realise what I'm saying here because this is important. When we see a miracle of the
Lord, we don't simply say, wow, that's amazing. Or alternatively,
as indeed many do, prayed it before the world as if to say,
beat that or believe. The miracles are spiritual lessons
just as much as the parables. We look at them to see what the
Lord is teaching, not simply what he's doing. They are telling
us about the kingdom of God as well. If parables are earthly
stories with heavenly meanings, miracles are earthly object lessons
with heavenly meanings. And seen thus, they speak powerfully
of the doctrines of grace and mercy and peace that Jesus Christ
came to preach and that Jesus Christ came to fulfil by his
death. Now, we're going to spend more
time next week, God willing, considering the miracle of this
poor soul saved from demon possession. But just let me say a few things,
a number of things, briefly, quickly, by way of, I trust,
some comfort to your heart from this story about the Gadarene demoniac. First one is this, the Lord Jesus
Christ knew this man's need. This man needed help. Here is
a man literally at the end of his tether. He has been possessed
by powers stronger than himself. He has no knowledge of the Lord
Jesus Christ. but the Lord knows him. Oh, the sovereign mercy that
brings the Lord Jesus Christ to poor sinners. Do you realize
that that is what the gospel is? It's the Lord Jesus Christ
being brought to poor sinners. That is not to say that everyone
who hears the gospel is going to be saved. That's the point
about the sower and the seed. The disciples, the church, preachers,
you and I have been taught that the gospel is going to be rejected
by many, misunderstood by most perhaps. But for those that are
the Lord's, this is the Lord Jesus Christ coming to gather
his people. The Lord Jesus said to his disciples,
let's pass over to the other side of the lake. Why? Why? Why, Lord? Because there's a man there in
the gathering tombs that I need to see. If you are ever delivered
from your sin, it won't be because you went looking for the Lord.
it will be because he came looking for you. It's a sermon for another
day, but this is the lost sheep, and this is the lost coin, and
this is the lost son that is found. People think that they
find the Lord. Oh, I found the Lord when I was
a little boy. I found the Lord when I was at
university. I found the Lord. Nobody finds
the Lord. The Lord finds his people. Grace is nothing to do with either
the will or the ways of man. It is all to do with the Lord
Jesus Christ doing the will of his Father and gathering his
people into the kingdom of God. And here's a second lesson from
this man's life for today. Jesus went to get him. because
he was a chosen child of God. This is one of the earliest Gentile
converts in the New Testament. I assume he was a Gentile living
where he did. The Gadarene was one of those
whom God had chosen in eternity and for whom the Lord Jesus Christ
would die in time. Here was a man that God had chosen. I don't know whether he chose
his family. I don't know whether he chose anyone else from his town.
I don't know whether he chose anyone else from the whole community
there. But he chose this man. This man
who was possessed of demons. This man who cut himself and
cried in the tombs. This man who was an outcast.
This man who could break chains and was wild in his mind and
wild in his heart. was a chosen vessel of grace,
and the Lord Jesus Christ went to get him. In order that God's
outpourings of grace be experienced in the vessels of mercy, the
Saviour himself travelled to meet this poor creature and to
deliver him from the bondage of sin and from the hand and
grip of Satan. a gathering demoniac who was
to be the very next citizen of the kingdom of God upon earth. I wonder who, today, on the 29th
of August, 2021, I wonder who will be the next citizen of the
kingdom of God to be brought into the family of grace. Here's
a third point. Christ supplied this man's need. The Holy Spirit has given Mark
a dreadful and a dismal description of this man's state. We read
it together, we'll read it again. But look beyond the dwelling
place where this man lived, the tombs. Look beyond the chains
and the ropes. Look beyond the untamable spirit
the crying and the cutting and the possession itself by these
demons. These all speak of the bondage
of sin. Dead sinners dwell among dead
sinners. There is no life until Christ
brings it. They're chained. by laws that
they break and yet which bind them ever more grievously. Their natural minds are wild
against God. They are wayward. They are willful
to do what they please. And by every step that they take,
they are self-harming. By every cut that they make,
They are bringing themselves down to their own death. They're
slaves to their father the devil. They're already condemned and
they're awaiting sentence. This demoniac could do nothing
to free himself. Nothing to help himself. Nothing
but to return to the same destructive cycle day after day until one
day the deadness of his soul took him to his own grave in
a lost eternity. And that's the state of every
man and woman outside of Christ. Maybe it's even your state today. Let's not sugarcoat it. There
are millions heading for a lost eternity. Millions who need help. Millions who need to hear the
gospel. You are being privileged to hear
the gospel of Jesus Christ today. What does it mean to you? Jesus
of Nazareth came for this one. And here's the fourth and final
point today. Jesus helped him. Jesus made
the difference. He gave him grace. He gave him
liberty. He gave him peace. Now we're
going to return to this later. But the Lord Jesus Christ rid
him of his demons. He stilled his agitation. He covered his nakedness. He
restored his mind. What a picture that is of a sinner
saved by grace. Of a heart rid of its previous
occupants so that Christ may enter in and dwell there. It's a peace that passes understanding,
a peace of mind, a peace of conscience, a peace with God. It's a righteousness
bestowed, a righteousness given that purifies, that justifies,
that sanctifies, that holifies, that's free. It was neither sought, nor bought,
nor worked for by this possessed man. But such a one is accepted
in the Lord Jesus Christ, cleansed by the blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ, and made perfect in the sight of God by the very righteousness
of God and Jesus Christ himself. If you've still got plans to
help yourself, if you've still got notions that you're going
to get yourself sorted out and make peace with God, forget it. You're still working your way
to heaven and you still know nothing of grace. You are self-harming
to your eternal damnation. But if you see yourself as a
lost, poor, helpless sinner who desperately needs a saviour,
then I pray that the Lord will find you and use his gospel to
bring you to a knowledge of the truth, which is a knowledge of
Christ. May it be so. Amen.