Good evening. Let's open tonight's
service with hymn number 19 in the Spiral Gospel Hymns hymn
book, and let's all stand together. Number 19. ? Covenant ruler, Lord of all ?
Prostrate at your feet I fall ? You are holy, wise and just
? I'm a creature of the dust ? All things move at your command
? Governed by your mighty hand ? Heaven, earth, and hell I see
? ? Fulfill all your wise decree ? ? Dares a man resist his Lord
? ? Stand against the sovereign God ? ? I will bow before your
throne ? ? Seeking grace in Christ your Son ? ? Through His blood
and righteousness ? ? Lord, I plead with you for grace ? ? If you
will, you can I know ? ? Grace and mercy to me show ? ? Will
you, Lord, my soul forgive ? ? Grant this sinner grace to live ? I've
no other hope but this, Jesus' blood and righteousness. Now I'm conquered by your grace. In the dust I hide my face. Give me Christ or else I die. I upon your grace rely. ? Oh for mercy now I plead ?
Grant me Lord the grace I need ? Turn oh turn to me and say
? All your sins are washed away ? In my son your debt is paid
? He for you the ransom made Please be seated. Let's turn in our Bibles together
to Psalm 46. Psalm 46, one of my favorite
passages of scripture. God is our refuge and strength,
a very present help in trouble. Therefore, will not we fear,
though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried
into the midst of the sea, though the waters thereof roar and be
troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof?
Selah. There is a river, the streams
whereof shall make glad the city of God. the holy place of the
tabernacles of the Most High. God is in the midst of her. She
shall not be moved. God shall help her. And that
right early. The heathen raged. The kingdoms
were moved. He uttered his voice. The earth
melted. The Lord of Hosts is with us.
The God of Jacob is our refuge, Selah. Come, behold the works
of the Lord. What desolations he has made
in the earth. He maketh wars to cease unto
the ends of the earth. He breaketh the bow and cutteth
the spear asunder. He burneth the chariot in the
fire. Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the heathen.
I will be exalted in the earth. The Lord of hosts is with us.
The God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, Thank you for the desolations
that Christ brought in the earth when he put away our sins by
the sacrifice of himself. Cast them like those mountains
into the depths of the sea where you could remember them no more. Lord, what a glorious, and perfect work of redemption
that he accomplished. Lord, what grace you give to
make the wars to cease. Lord, we would by nature raise
our fist to heaven. We would by nature say, no God. And yet in your mercy, you cause
us to put down the weapons of our conflict and to bow in worship
before thee. Lord, we pray for this hour of
worship that you would enable us to come into thy presence,
to behold thy glory, to worship thee in the power of your spirit
and according to the truth revealed in thy word. We ask it in Christ's
name. Amen. Number 488 from the hardback
teminal, 488, let's all stand together again, 488. I will sing of my Redeemer and
His wondrous love to me. On the cruel cross He suffered,
From the curse to set me free. Sing, oh, sing of my Redeemer. With His blood He purges me. On the cross He sealed my pardon. They paid the debt and made me
free. I will tell the wondrous story,
How my lost estate to save. In His boundless love and mercy,
He the ransom freely gave. Sing, O sing of my Redeemer,
With His blood, He purchased me. On the cross, He sealed my
pardon, paid the debt, and made me free. I will praise my dear Redeemer,
His triumphant power I'll tell, How the victory He giveth over
sin and death and hell. Sing, O sing of my Redeemer,
With His blood, He purchased me. On the cross, He sealed my
pardon, paid the debt, and made me free. ? I will sing of my Redeemer ?
And His heavenly love to me ? He from death to life hath brought
me ? Son of God with Him to be ? Sing, oh sing of my Redeemer Please be seated. We're going to be in Mark chapter
5 tonight. Mark chapter 5. First 20 verses of that chapter,
Mark goes into great detail telling us of what the Lord did in casting
that legion of demons out of the man in the gatherings. And by way of introduction, if
you'll mark your Bibles there in Mark 5, I'd like for you to
turn with me also to Colossians chapter 2. Colossians chapter 2. This passage
in Mark chapter 5 has been the subject of much speculation
among the religious. who find themselves sort of like
in time prophecies, very intrigued or even enthralled with angels
and demons and spirits and all of those sorts of things. And
so as a caution from God's word that we go not in that direction. I want us to read Colossians
chapter two, verse 18. Let no man beguile you of your
reward in a voluntary humility and worshiping of angels intruding
into those things which he hath not seen vainly puffed up by
his fleshly mind." Most of what I hear from religious folks concerning
demonic depression and oppression and possession is just fleshly minds being puffed up
and delving into things that they've not seen. I looked up
our text on Sermon Audio and it's interesting, I was interested
to see that a very, very famous preacher in America preached
a whole series of sermons from this passage in Mark chapter
five concerning demonic powers and dealing with demons and the
such. And then I looked up this word
in Colossians chapter two, verse 18, the word worshiping. And
it's not the same word that we find for worship in the rest
of scripture. In most of the places where we
find the word worship, it is the Greek word from which we
get our word prostrate, is to bow down. I think we use that
word in the first hymn that we sang tonight. It is to bow down
before the Lord. This word worship translated
means external religious activity or religious ceremony. And so
it is giving a religious interest to things that men don't really
know anything about. And the last thing I want us
to do is to be guilty of that. I'm
sure that the reason why the religious are so intrigued with
angels and the such is the same reason why you hear so many religious
men preach against societal sins because it's a subject that they
can point to someone else has a problem with. And there's so
much self-righteousness in it and so much relief from, well,
at least we're not demon-possessed. And The story is not given to us
in Mark chapter 5 of the demoniac in the gatherings to fancy our
curiosity concerning spiritual things that we don't know much
about. Let us not intrude into those
things which we've not seen or puff up our fleshly minds with
things that we think we understand that are beyond our comprehension. The scriptures do speak much
about demons and we know that they are real and that Satan
has a legion of demons at his disposal. We also know that Satan
himself is a liar and that he is the father of lies. And all
men, all men, including me and you left to ourselves are held
captive by his subtlety. We will believe the lie. Scripture tells us in second
Thessalonians chapter two that the Lord turned men over to themselves
because they had no love of the truth. and he sent them a strong
delusion and that strong delusion was sent to them by none other
than the father of lies, Satan himself to believe the lie. So that's really what we need
to know that Satan is a deceiver and Paul wrote to the church
and said, I fear, I fear lest by any means as the serpent beguiled
Eve in the garden so that your mind should be corrupted from
the simplicity that is in Christ. You see, whether Whether a person
is possessed with a legion of demons or whether they are outwardly
moral and religious, if they have been drawn away from the
simplicity of Christ, if they've been beguiled by Satan, then
they are, they are, well, they are the subject of
this miracle. The other point that I want to
make about the devil and about these demons is that though they
have power over us if we are left to ourselves, Satan is completely
powerless and cowering, terrified and trembling before the Lord
Jesus Christ. The devil is God's devil on God's
chain doing God's bidding and we see in this story his terrifying
fear of the Lord Jesus. And so this teaches us the importance
of us fleeing to Christ when that roaring lion seeketh whom
he may devour that we That we not try to figure out all the
subtleties of demonic influences, but rather that we flee to Christ.
That we not be drawn away from the simplicity that is in Christ,
or that we not be caught up in our fleshly minds and our false
humility in worshiping angels that we know nothing really about. May the Lord give us eyes to
see the glory of Christ in this miracle, and may he give us eyes
to see ourselves in this story. This is not about a rare occasion of a wild-eyed
demoniac. This is about the Lord saving
sinners who have been deceived and been and been led astray
by the lies of the evil one. There are sins more evil than what we typically
think about when it comes to a person who's demon possessed. And the best example we have
of that is the story that the Lord told about the man who had
an evil spirit in his house and he cast that evil spirit out. And the scripture says that he
swept the house clean and he garnished the house. He put up
all sorts of decorations. And the evil spirit came back
and found that the house was still empty. And so the Lord
Jesus said, he brought with him seven other spirits more evil than he was himself. Now, that story is a picture
of a person who is caught up in some sort of self-destructive
addiction perhaps and they get to the place in their lives where
they decide, you know, I've got to get rid of that and they do
whatever is required in order to overcome that temptation and
they become very religious and they garnish their house with
all sorts of religious activity and all sorts of man-made attempts
to live a better life. And when the demon comes back,
he comes back with seven more demons, more evil than himself.
You see, the demonic influence of self-righteous man-made religion is a lot more difficult to break
the chains from than from something that someone might be doing that's
hurting them. You know that by your experience,
don't you? you can talk to a person who's irreligious and they will
listen to every word you have to say about the gospel. And
they will find interest in it. And I've had irreligious people
who are caught up in self-destructive patterns of sin that, you know,
they're very hopeful that maybe this message would be the thing
for them. Whereas with a religious person,
You don't even get to first base. You start talking to them about
the sovereignty of God and God's election and God's choosing and
they just cut you off right there, don't they? So let's don't define... Demons are subject to Christ. Even when the disciples, you
remember when the Lord sent the disciples out two by two and
they came back, the scripture says, rejoicing because they
said, even the demons are subject unto us. So when Christ was being
preached, these demons were put in their place. I hope and pray the Lord will
enable you and me to see ourselves in this story and to see the
glory of Christ in this story and not to think about it as
if it were just related to some sort of wild demonic person. Satan has many, there are many,
many roads that go to hell. There's only one road to heaven.
And Satan doesn't care what road you get on. He doesn't care if
you're a member of a cult involved in some sort of satanic worship
or whether you are an outwardly moral person involved in some
sort of Christian religion. It doesn't matter to him. There
are many, many roads that go to hell. The only one that goes
to heaven. So let's don't read this story
and portray this road as if it was just the one road that seems
so strange here to our experience. Mark chapter 5, you have your
Bibles open with me? Verse one, and they came over
onto the other side of the sea onto the country of the Gadarenes. Why did the Lord Jesus go to
the Gadarenes? He goes, converse this one man
and leaves. Well, he went for obvious reasons.
He went for the same reason that he went to Samaria. When the
disciples wanted to go around Samaria, the Lord said, I must
needs go through Samaria. I've got some lost sheep there.
The Lord knew that man that was over there. He knew him Barry.
Perfectly. And he went over there for one
purpose. He went over there for the same
reason that the Holy Spirit sent Philip down to Gaza to meet that
Ethiopian eunuch. God had put his heart to seeking
after him and giving him the scriptures and And he needed
a man to explain to him what these things meant. And the Lord
knew exactly where that eunuch was on that pathway down through
the desert of Gaza. That's the reason the Lord goes
over to the Gadarenes. He knows every one of his sheep.
He knows exactly where they are. He will leave the ninety and
nine. He will go out into the wilderness and fetch the one.
And he's not going to lose a single one. He's either going to go
to where they are or he's going to do like Ziba did. David sent
Ziba to fetch Mephibosheth and bring him to the king. So the
Lord is either going to take the gospel to where his lost
sheep are or he's going to bring the lost sheep onto the hill
of the gospel, one way or the other. He's not going to lose
one. That's the only reason why he
went over to the Gadarenes. He went over. did what he purposed
to do and he left. I am so comforted by that to
know that our Lord is not going to lose a single one, a single
one that his father chose in the covenant of grace that not
a single one that he shed his precious blood for. Every one
of them are going to be called and every one of them are going
to be are gonna be regenerated and every one of them are gonna
be glorified. Look at verse two. And when he
was come out of the ship, immediately there met him out of the tombs,
a man with an unclean spirit. Now turn with me to Isaiah chapter
64. This, is where we need to see ourselves
in this story. Isaiah chapter 64. Look at the last part of verse
five. For we have sinned and in those
is continuance and we shall be saved. but we are all as an unclean
thing. We're all as an unclean thing,
and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags, and we all do
fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us
away. Now look over in chapter 65 at verse three. A people that
provoketh me to anger continually to my face, that sacrificeth
in the gardens, and burneth incense upon the altars of bricks which
remain among the graves and lodge and the monuments which eat swine's
flesh and broth of abominable things is in their vessels. There's
none that doeth good, no not one. The Lord goes into the tomb
and finds a man with an unclean spirit. Is that not exactly what
he's done? in bringing us to himself. Say, well, few can maybe see themselves
in the outward appearance and condition of this man and yet
Spiritually speaking, that's where we are. Spiritually speaking,
we're dead, undone, living among tombs. Don't have to be. in the condition this man's in.
Satan's called an angel of light, is he not? Is he not called a
minister of righteousness? Is he not called a wolf in sheep's
clothing? Has he not lured more into hell
with religion and morality than he has with this kind of behavior? Look at verse 3. This man with an unclean spirit
living in the tombs, he was in a graveyard. What an apt picture
of our spiritual condition, living in a graveyard. A graveyard of our own imagination,
the graveyard of man-made religion, the graveyard of no interest
in the things of God. In verse three, he had his dwelling
among the tombs and no man could bind him, no, not with chains. The scripture in John chapter
one tells us that in him, the Lord Jesus was life. In him was
life. And the life was the light of
men. You see, the truth is everything
outside of Christ is dead. Everything in him is life. There's no life outside of him.
Everything else is dead in the tombs, living in a graveyard,
separated from God, everything outside of Christ. We are dead
in our trespasses and sins left to ourselves. are the walking dead. And you know, the problem with
zombies is they don't know they're dead. And that's the condition
that we are all in, left to ourselves. We're dead and we don't know
it. The Lord has to make himself known as life to us in order
to cause us to see our spiritual condition. Death can't perceive death. A dead man can't see death in
another man. He can't see death in himself.
Death can't perceive anything. Only life can expose death for
what it is. Only those who are alive can
discern something that's dead. Something that's dead can't discern
anything. He had his dwelling among the
tombs and no man could bind him. No man could tame him. What a description
of man-made religion here. Wandering aimlessly among the
dead without hope, without God. without even a spark of life,
unable to hear, unable to believe, unable to see. The change of
the law could not restrain his sin. Oh, maybe it would for a
little while. That's the thing about the law.
The law will restrain sin temporarily. As long as, you know, someone's
watching. and exercising the law and you
feel the restraint of the law being placed on you in religion.
But the law only keeps people from doing things that they really
want to do or makes people do what they really don't want to
do. And there's what we have a picture of here with this man
in the tombs, spiritually dead, under the law, And no one could
tame him. All the teachings of religion
could not help him. He's like the woman with the
issue of blood. She had spent all that she had on physicians.
She had been to this religious expert and that religious expert
and listened to the opinion of this man and that man. And she
was worse off now than she was before. The words and ideas of man can
give no real comfort. Self-discipline and sacrifice
can give no real peace. Notice in our text in verse four,
because that he had been often bound with fetters and chains. That's why in religion you have
to always have rededications and revivals and recommitments
and, you know, we got to gin people up and, you know, try
to get them excited once again because the chains have broken
loose. Let's get them back. And so you have groups like the
promise keepers who don't keep their promises. But as long as
they're in a big rally with one another and they're cheering
each other on and singing their songs and clapping their hands,
they all feel a sense of, you know, I'm going to be faithful
to my promise. I'm going to recommit. And as
soon as they get off by themselves, they're right back to where they
were. Why? Because the heart hasn't been
changed. Man-made religion and the law only changes outward
appearances. It doesn't go to the heart of
the issue. That's what this is a picture
of. This man was living in chains, he was bound, the opinions of
others couldn't help him. He broke his chains and fetters,
he plucked them asunder, the fetters were broken in pieces,
neither could any man tame him. Most people in religion are really
quite miserable except when they are around one
another and trying to bolster each other in their own misery. Misery loves
company, doesn't it? Look at verse five. And always,
night and day, he was in the mountains and in the tombs, crying
and cutting himself with stones. He was afflicting pain on himself. He was trying to discipline himself,
make himself better, do what he could to try to get a handle
on these These impulses that he had. But
none of it helped. None of it helped. It didn't matter if it was daytime
or nighttime, it was always the same. In the same condition,
day in and day out. But, you see verse six? But. But God. Oh, aren't you thankful? You
know, when man says but to God, he always has an objection to
something that God's already said, rather than just saying
amen, Lord, truth, Lord. But when God says but, let's
listen carefully, because he's about to change the whole scene.
He's about to change the condition of our hearts. And so it is here,
but when he saw Jesus afar off, he came and worshiped him. Now
that word worship is to prostrate and to bow and to confess and
to submit and that's what he did. He saw Jesus. Now plenty saw the Lord Jesus
Christ, didn't know who he was. Who is this? This is the son
of Joseph. We know his brothers, he's a
carpenter. This man, what made the difference? Well, who made the difference?
Who maketh thee to differ? How is it that when we heard
the gospel, we bowed to it, we prostrated ourselves before the
Lord, we worshiped him, we believed him. We saw that our condition
was a condition of the heart and that all of these attempts
that we've been making to try to fix our problem wasn't working. Well, he has to reveal himself. That's what he obviously had
done here. He went to meet this man and the man saw him from
afar off. Now that just simply means that
he only saw him vaguely. You see something from a long
distance, you're looking, is that, could that be? Could that
be? And he ran and the little bit
that he saw, he knew he wanted to see more. And there it is,
how do I know the Lord's revealed himself to me as a person who's
in this spiritual condition? Because when I see a little bit
of Him, I want to see more of Him. And I'm not running from
Him, I'm running to Him. Adam is a perfect example of
sinful fear when Adam tried to hide from God and ran from God. And we see that all the time.
You tell them the gospel, they object and they butt and they
run and they hide. But when the Lord reveals to
us who he is and who we are, what do we do? Though we see
him but vaguely. We run to him that we might see
him better and know more of his glory. Is this not what godly fear is? If sinful fear is running and
hiding from God, godly fear is running to him. In verse seven, and he cried
with a loud voice and said, what have I to do with thee? And that's
the title of this message. What have I to do with thee? Lord, why would you have mercy
on a dead dog like me? Now, when Mephibosheth said to
David, Lord, why would you, why would you sow any interest in
me? Look at me. And look at you, you're the king, you're reigning
sovereign over the greatest kingdom of the world. And here I am a
cripple boy and I'm a threat to your throne and you ought
to kill me. You ought to kill me. I'm worthy
of your judgment and I'm worthy of death. Those are the words
of Mephibosheth. What are our words when we come
before? the king of all kings and the
Lord of all lords, Lord, what would you have to do with me? Depart from me, Lord, I'm a sinful
man. Isn't that what Peter said when
he saw the glory of Christ? Isn't that what Job said? Job said, I had heard of thee
by the hearing of mine ears, but now mine eyes have seen thee
and I repent in dust and ashes. Behold, I am vile. Daniel, when he saw the Lord,
what did he say? My comeliness, my strength, my
beauty, those things that I thought were going to save me have been
turned into corruption. That which I thought was gain,
Paul said, I now realize was loss. All my righteousnesses
are as filthy rags. I'm undone, I'm unclean. That's
how we know we've seen him. Lord, I have no righteousness.
I have no grounds to stand before thee. I have no claim on you.
And I have nothing in common with you. And I'm deserving of
hell. And if you gave me what I deserved,
Lord, you'd send me straight there right now. You know, this demoniac worshiped
the Lord. And all of the feigned religious
activity that's take place in religion, and I'm not talking
about just Christianity, all the religions of the world. You only worship a sovereign. You only worship one who is in
absolute control of all things and who holds your soul in his
hands and can do with it whatsoever he wills. That's the one you'll
worship. If you have any control over
him or if you have some contribution to make to him, you're not gonna
worship him. You can't see Christ for who
he is without seeing yourself for who you are. Two sides of
the same coin. Donnie and I were talking about this just the other
day. I believe Christ is a great Savior. I believe I'm a great sinner.
Only sinner needs the Savior. And by great, I mean not that
we comprehend the greatness of our sin, we don't understand
the greatness of The one sin that we feel most guilty of or
we feel most ashamed of or we don't want anybody else to know
about, we don't comprehend that sin
for anything what it really is. So when we say we're a great
sinner, we're not talking about, well, yeah, wallowing in the
shame and guilt of our sin. We don't see our sin. We're so
accustomed to sinning and we're so anesthetized to it. It doesn't
bother us much. But we know this, when we've
seen Christ, we know that everything about us is sinful. We know that,
we say with this demoniac, what have I to do with thee? What
is there in my life that has any grounds of commonality with
you? Nothing. Nothing, everything
about me falls short of your glory. All have sinned and come
short of the glory of God. And when the Lord reveals himself,
you say with Daniel, my comeliness has been turned into corruption. Everything about me in his sight. Why would he have anything to
do with someone like me? There's only one answer to that
question. Grace based on love. That's the only reason. He had to love me with an everlasting
love. He had to choose me ever before
I ever knew him because had he waited until he looked at me
now, I would have no hope. He had to choose me. And the
whole hope of Him having anything to do with me is free and sovereign
grace grounded and founded in an everlasting love that God has purposed in His
own heart. That's the only answer to that
question. Lord, what do you have to do
with me? Look at verse seven. He cried
with a loud voice and said, what have I to do with thee, Jesus,
thou son of the most high God? This man knew more about who
the Lord Jesus was than the most religious people today. He worshiped him, he bowed before
him, he confessed his sinfulness before the Lord. Lord, there's
nothing in me that you should have anything to do with. And
he calls in the son of the most high God, the sovereign, the
omnipotent one, the immutable one, the one who's holy. What's he saying? Lord, you're
holy and I'm sinful. Lord, you're right, I'm wrong.
You're good, I'm evil. I adjure thee by God that thou
torment me not. I beg you not to torment me. Now, notice in verse 10, and he besought
him much that he would not send them out of the country. And when Luke tells us this story,
the demons say, we adjure thee, we plead with thee that thou
send us not into the abyss or into the deep. Don't send us
back to hell. Now that tells me a whole lot
about hell, that the demons don't want to go there. These evil fiends that you would
think might be glorying in a place like hell, they are enjoying
the time that they have and they know that there is an appointed
time that the Lord will chain them and throw them, cast them
into that lake of fire and they don't want to go there. And he said unto him, verse eight,
come out of the man, thou unclean spirit. And he asked him, what
is thy name? And he answered saying, my name
is Legion, for we are many. Remember when the Lord was wrestling
with Jacob? at the River Jabbok when Jacob
divided his family and Jacob was wrestling with the Lord.
Jacob was wrestling with the Lord. The Lord wasn't wrestling
with him. And he was struggling in prayer
over the, and he asked the Lord his name. The Lord said, why
are you asking my name? What is your name? Oh, my name's
Jacob. I'm the deceiver. I'm the supplanter. Yes, you are. And you shall now
be called Israel, a prince. And God changed his name. The Lord wasn't asking these
demons their name in order to know who they were. He knew them
perfectly. He was exposing them. He was
exposing this man for who he was. He was controlled by a legion
of demons. A legion was over 6,000. Sometimes, depending on the time
in history, sometimes the Romans counted a legion as 6,000, sometimes
all the way up to 7,000, but it was never less than 6,000.
So a legion of demons, 6,000. And we just read in Isaiah chapter
64, we have sinned and in these is continuance and we have been
saved. Lord, my pride is legion. My unbelief is legion. My lost
is legion. My fears, sinful fears are legion. Lord, my sin is continual. You see, this isn't a story about
a wild-eyed demoniac that we might encounter in a rare form. It's a story about me and you,
isn't it? And he said, come out and besought
him much that he would not send them away out of the country.
Or as I said, as Luke tells us, don't cast us into the abyss. Now that was there nigh into
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. These demons are pleading with
the Lord Jesus. They know that he has the power
to do with them whatever he wills. He can cast them back into the
lake of fire. He can bring torment and judgment
upon them. And they're pleading with him. Put us into the herd of swine,
a great herd of swine, I think one of the gospel accounts tells
us there were 2,000 in this herd. And forthwith, in verse 13, Jesus
gave them leave. He permitted them. He said, OK,
I'm not. He 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. right here that were about 2,000
and were choked in the sea, they drowned in the sea. Now the swine was an unclean
animal and we've already seen from scriptures that we're unclean. Why? Because we've violated God's
law, we haven't kept his law and now these These demons are
cast into the swine and they go into the sea and they drown
in the sea. And what is the Lord, what is
this a picture of? It's a picture of the law. The purpose of the law is to
make sin utterly sinful. The law has never been given
to us to save us. The law can't curb our passions,
it can't curb our behavior, it can't make us any better. It's
holy, just, and good, but it can't make us holy, it can't
justify us, and it can't add anything to our goodness. So
we see here a picture of God's holy law and our violation of
it. We see a picture of the Lord
Jesus and what he came to do, not to put away the law, or to
destroy the law, but to fulfill it. He is the end of the law
for righteousness. And he took our demonic passions
and put them into the swine and buried them in the depths of
the sea and remembers them no more. Oh, what a Savior. What glory, what grace, what
power. You know, there's so much left
in this story about the condition of the demoniac, sitting, clothed,
and in his right mind. And about what the Lord does
with him and telling him to go to his friends and be witnesses. I think we should save that for
another time, what do you think? Let's do, I wanna spend some
time on those verses. What a great Savior, brethren.
I'm the demoniac. If the Lord had not crossed the
sea, if he had not crossed that great gulf that does separate
us from God, had he not come down into this world, and bore
our sins and put them away by himself and had he not sent his
spirit now in the power of the gospel and revealed himself to
us and caused us to see him afar off and run to him and worship
him and cast those sins into the sea we'd still be living among tombs,
we'd still be in the graveyard We'd still be cutting ourselves.
We'd still be, we'd still be chaining our passions with the
law. We'd still be breaking our fetters.
We'd still be doing what we could do to try to save ourselves to
no avail. Tom, let's close the service.
What? 199 in the heart back to him.
Now let's stand together. ? Sinners Jesus will receive ?
Sound this word of grace to all To the heavenly pathway lead
all who linger, all who fall. Sing it o'er and o'er again,
Christ, receive His sinful man. Make the message clear and plain,
Christ receiveth sinful men.