Good morning. As some of you already know by
way of email, our brother Wayne Neal was called home to be with
the Lord this last Wednesday and I've been asked to announce
that the funeral will be this Saturday the 12th here and that
would mean the viewing is at 10 and the service is at 11.
So be praying for Anne and the family there if you would. I'm
sure the Lord will give grace. faithful brother to the gospel. As I begin to study. And pray and seek the Lord's
face and asking him for a message for you, I begin to plead for
simplicity of the gospel. The gospel is not a complicated
message, even though it's hated by many men. The gospel is simple
and this is the believers. Hope is the simplicity of the
gospel. It's clear and it's plain. It
is singular in its purpose and exceedingly too wonderful at
the same time. It is glorious in its simplicity,
but infinitely mysterious at the same time. It is clearer
than crystal in its design, yet only can be seen with the eyes
of faith he bestows. It is unsearchable and past finding
out, but this is my hope, he only reveals it unto babes. He
said in Matthew chapter 11, 25, I think the old father, Lord
of heaven and earth, because thou has hid these things from
the wise and prudent and has revealed them unto babes. My
hope this morning is that he would send his spirit to this
place and meet with us in the absence of our pastor. We've
already heard the gospel from brother RG and we're so thankful
for his words. Our pastor was asked to preach
a conference in Coral West, Virginia. and asked me and RG to stand.
So you pray for me this morning that the Lord would help me and
remind me of all the things that he has shown me to share with
you as I try to open up my heart to you this morning. If you'd
like to turn and follow along, it's John chapter five. I'm sorry,
Mark chapter five. Mark chapter five. I've titled
this message The Master and the Maniac. This simple, beautiful gospel
message is found in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. They give different
accounts. And Matthew 8 and Mark chapter
4 go hand in hand to let us know that at this time they had just
departed Capernaum, where the multitude was enthroned around
the Lord. He had to get into a ship in
order to preach to them. There were so many at that time.
As he finished the message they departed from capernaum and that's
when the lord sent a storm upon the sea now the lord had Went
to the hinder part of that ship and laid down on a pillow and
went to sleep He was on the sea of galilee at this time and they
began to worry and fret because of this storm that had Had came
to pass and they went up to hit up to the lord and woke him up
and they said lord Do you not care that we perish? And the
Lord rose up, didn't respond to him at all, but went to the
front of the ship and said, Peace, be still, and turned around and
looked at them as soon as everything was calm and said, O ye of little
faith, wherefore did thou doubt? Now, I love the fact that our
Lord's inquiries are never an absence of his knowledge because
he knows everything. His inquiries are because of
his infinite wisdom in causing us to look to his son. He don't
ask the world questions to try to to try to baffle them or to
tickle their intellect. He asks his people questions
that causes us to look to him. It's been said even by our pastor
recently that if we had the power of God, we would change everything.
But if we had the wisdom of God, we would change nothing. So this
is a perfect picture, these men in the ship, a perfect picture
of the Lord's people. We're full of unbelief. In 2nd
Corinthians chapter 4 verse 8, it says, we are troubled on every
side. These men were in trouble. They felt that they was in trouble,
even though the king of glory was in the ship with them and
he was going to bring them safely to the other side. They felt
that they was in trouble, but the scripture says, yet we're
not distressed. We are perplexed, but not in despair. Now despair
means without hope. These men may have felt like
they was without hope, but their hope was who was in the ship
with them. And this morning my hope is that the Lord is in this
ship this morning. Most of the time our wounds,
just because of our unbelief, are self-inflicted. Most of the
things that we do are brought upon ourself. We already know,
as I've said, the elect are safely in the ship with him. The storm,
now understand that the winds and waves that come and go in
our lives are not the storm. The storm is the wrath of God
to come. That's what the storm is. That's already been assuaged.
We have the Lord's promise that all those who were in the ark,
all those who were in the ship are going to be safely brought
into the bosom of the Lord. And as soon as you get there,
and this is my hope, as soon as we get there, we've always
been there. There's never been a time where
we was absent from the Lord. We know that death and hell and
the grave have been steeled and we know the very end of the story. We have the very beginning of
the story. We have the very end of the story. We already know
how everything's going to turn out yet. We are still unstable in
all of our ways. We are unable to just stop and
wait on the Lord. Is that your experience? That's
my experience. My hope is that the Lord will
cause us to just be still and wait on the Lord. Remember this. Sometimes he calms the storms
of our life, but most of the time the storm that needs to
be calm is the storm that's going on inside of here of unbelief.
That's what needs to be calm. Everything comes. In that calming
through the preaching of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Matthew Chapter 6 verse 33 says,
but seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness
and all these things were always going after things, aren't we?
Always trying to something shiny is what I was talking to my girls
the other day. We as you look at when you go to a store, the
first thing that catches their eyes, something shiny. We're
the same. All of us by nature. seeking after things. But whenever
you seek the kingdom of God first, you don't worry about the shiny
things anymore. You have one need and that is to be found
in Christ. Seek you first the kingdom of God and his righteousness
and all these things shall be added unto you. All of your unbelief,
he'll tell it to go away. He'll say, peace, be still, and
he'll give you the faith to believe. Well, how do we do that? If it's
that easy, Well, in Psalm 27 verse 80 says, when thou said,
seek ye my face, my heart said unto thee, thy face, Lord, will
I seek. So the Lord gets all the glory
in everything that we do. Everything good about us, he
gets all the glory, and everything bad about us, we're to blame.
Amen? So they left Capernaum and arrived
at the shores of Gadara. Now, geographically, Capernaum
is at the very top of the Sea of Galilee, and Gadara is at
the very bottom of the Sea of Galilee. It is the farthest distance
on the Sea of Galilee that you could possibly travel from north
to south. East to west is not that far. Jesus Christ came from
direct north. He condescended and left his
throne in heaven, his throne in glory, to redeem his elected
people. Traveling from the highest splendor
of his father, he became flesh. God became a man. The Prince
of Peace left his throne to make peace on the elect's behalf.
He knew what he had to become to do it. He knew how it was
going to come to pass, and he knew when he was going to be
put to death. The truth is that you and I really
don't understand the sin or the magnitude of what our Lord had
to bear. I was teaching the Bible study for the teenage girls.
Well, that's who's in there at the presence, just girls and
but young men are welcome to don't misunderstand me. And we
was talking about the plagues of Egypt and me and Adam was
talking about this on the beach the other day. And I was trying
to understand the significance of each plague. Now I've heard
preachers preach that that was Each plague was a mockery of
each Egyptian god that they had. And I was trying to understand
that in light of the gospel. And the Lord showed me something
in that. And maybe one day I'll preach a message on it. I don't
know, but I want to share this with you. The Lord told Aaron whenever
they went to Moses, one of the plagues was was lice. And the
Lord told Aaron, I want you to take your rod and smite the dust
of Egypt so that everything that's dust in Egypt becomes lice. Now,
If you think about dust, dust is everywhere, it's on everything,
and you can't get rid of it. You ladies, and I'm sure some
of you men too, clean often because of the dust that just keeps congregating
along your house, and you just can't get rid of it. But I was
thinking about the sand that's in Egypt, and any of you that's
been to the beach realize that some of that sand can be picked
up because it's as fine as dust. So Egypt's in a desert place,
and all the dust became lice at that time. That's a lot of
lice. And I thought, that's my sin. That doesn't even compare
to the magnitude of how sinful I really am. That if every granule
of sand on the sea became my sin, that still doesn't compare
in contrast with what the Lord Jesus Christ had to endure on
the cross on my account alone. Not even saying the entire elect. And He hath made Him to be sin
for us. that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. That is our hope this morning.
So Mark chapter 5, if you have your place there, and we're going
to begin reading at verse 1. And they came over unto the other
side of the sea, unto the country of the Gadarenes. And when he
was come out of the ship, immediately there met him a man 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. But when he saw Jesus afar off,
he ran and worshiped him. Upon the arrival of the ship
to Gadara, our Lord was immediately met by the maniac. Now a maniac,
in case you didn't know, I looked up the definition. I didn't know
exactly, I knew it was out of his mind, but I didn't know what
it means. Now get this, a person exhibiting extreme symptoms of
wild behavior, especially when violent and dangerous. Now there is nothing more dangerous
than a man trying to put himself upon the throne of God. How does men do this in this
day and time which we live? How does men try to put themselves
upon the throne of God? R.G. already mentioned to you
by saying that Christ made a way of salvation. Christ did not
make a way of salvation. He is the way. This is maniacal
and demonic thinking. Unless you say he is the way,
Men believe that Christ's blood was not effective. If you have
to do anything in order to make Christ's blood effective, that
means it wasn't effective. If you have to do anything to
make it effectual, it wasn't effectual or efficient. That
means God is dependent upon man. Your devotion, your prayer, or
your work is what determines your salvation. This is maniacal
thinking. This is demonic thinking. The
believer believes that everything that Christ came to do, he accomplished. And as R.G. said, everything
that the Father required for the salvation of his elect, the
Lord Jesus Christ accomplished it and performed it. You and
I both know, though, that we still contend with this old man,
even after we've been shown all that. And how often do we try
to take matters into our own hands, trying to fix something
that normally we broke anyways? As soon as we lay hands to it,
we defile it. As soon as we attempt to make
it right, we make it worse. Our futile efforts always end
the same, just like the men that was on the ship on the way here.
They said, Lord, care us not that we perish. Well, the Lord
had everything purposed, not for himself, but the question
was asked for them. And it's just like he said, Peter,
the Lord said, Peter, you can come to me. And Peter stepped
out. And as he began to walk, we know the story. Peter began
to sink. Peter didn't say, well, Lord, I need a little nudge.
If you could just help me, I'm doing pretty good here. I'm going
to be alright. I've taken the first step. Now you take the
rest. He said, save me. That was a cry of desperation. That's the heart of the believer
is a cry of desperation. As a babe, we don't come to the
Lord and say, Lord, this is what I know. I'm bringing this of
my hands or my thoughts or anything that I've learned. It's just
Christ is all Christ alone. Lord save me. It's a desperate
cry. We see when the dust settles,
so to speak, when we try to fix things, that we ourselves are
just like this maniac. All we've been doing is cutting
ourselves the whole time and crying loudly trying to fix it.
And if you remember the story of Elijah on Mount Carmel, whenever
they, it wasn't a showdown, the Lord had already purposed it
to happen. Nothing happened with the prophets of Baal, so it wasn't
any kind of confrontation at all, was it? But the Lord says, that these prophets of Baal were
to build an altar, and they were to call upon their God, and whichever
God answered by fire, whenever Elijah called upon his God, whichever
God answered by fire, that was gonna be who was determined as
God. Prophets of Baal begin to do
what? Well, they cried loudly, and as nothing happened with
their cries, what'd they do after that? They begin to cut themselves.
Does that sound familiar? That's what man does to try to
obtain God's favor. That's all that we do is we cry
loudly and we cut ourself. And that's what our righteousness
is. It's just filthy rags. The Lord
answered by fire for Elijah, though, didn't he? He told him,
but you can't hew out the rocks. You just put them in order. You
don't take your hand to them. As soon as you do, you'll defile
it. And the Lord answered by fire. Don't think too highly
of Elijah though and think that it was because of something that
Elijah would have done or he was a great believer because the
very next chapter he ran from his life from a woman. He was
scared to death that Jezebel was gonna kill him. And the scripture
says he was hiding out in a cave and the Lord came by and he put
his cloak on and went out and there was an earthquake that
passed and the Lord wasn't in the earthquake and there was
a fire that passed, the Lord wasn't in the fire but the Lord
finally came by and it was in a still small voice. The Lord
don't speak with loud voices that that men do. The Lord don't. The Lord don't cause men to dance
across pews and things like that. I've seen that in my in my lifetime
at churches. The Lord speaks in a still, small
voice through his spirit, through the preaching of the gospel.
Well, look in verse four, what else this man was doing? Because
that he had been often bound with fetters and chains. The
chains had been plucked asunder by him and the fetters broken
in many pieces. These chains were his sincerest promises that
he had made to God. He just kept breaking them over
and over and over. He would get right on the front pew the next
Sunday and make the same promise to God all over again that he
made the Sunday before, and he couldn't keep it no matter what
he did. Every time he would try to present himself to the Lord,
every time he would hear of a new chain that he had to be bound
with, he couldn't keep it. We can't keep a single dot or
tittle of God's law, can we? Not one. God demands perfection.
If you've broken one law at any time, you've broken the entire
law. This man was out of his mind
thinking that he could make promises unto the Lord and keep him. So
he offered himself unto the Lord as penance and the Lord would
not accept that. Now, the only difference between
the believer and the nonbeliever is that the believer believes. And how often as believers do
we find ourselves accusing the Lord of wrongdoing based upon
our circumstances, by our unbelief? Just like Job, we judge ourselves
based upon our intentions and base others based upon their
actions. We look at our circumstances and we say, I deserve better
than this. I have merited favor of man. I should have more than this
than I have in my life. Job got so bold as he he said,
if the Lord was here, I would tell him I would tell him exactly
how he got a chance to tell him. And the Lord appeared to him
and said, Job, gird up your loins as a man does, because I'm going
to let you, I'm going to answer your questions that you've been
asking. That's what he said. He said, where was you when I
hung the stars in the heavens on nothing? Where was you when
I laid the foundations of the earth? The Lord didn't even get
into salvation, talking about salvation with Job till later
on. He just blew his mind by talking about natural things.
Job couldn't answer. He said, I'm going to put my hand over
my mouth. I'm a vile man. I'm never going to speak again.
That's a good idea, Joe. See, I'm Joe. That's a good idea
for me just to not speak, just to put my hand over my mouth,
wait on the Lord and listen. Lord will speak in his time and
he can cause us to do that. Kenny, how does he do that? How
does he cause us to seek his face by the preaching of his
gospel? I want you to notice something
about our we can call him brother because the Lord saves him. The
Lord, the Lord came all the way down here for one man. This was
the, from where they went from Capernaum all the way to Gadara.
He came for one man. You'll see as soon as this man
was made well, as soon as this man was saved, they said, you
get out of our coast. We don't want nothing to do with you.
He saved this one man. That's the whole church, isn't
it? See, every one of us are born with that maniacal mind.
I'm telling you, every one of us are born with, we're just
out of our mind when it comes to the Lord, the Lord has to
do the work. So notice that he was four times unclean. He was
possessed by a legion of unclean spirits. A legion is 2,000. He
lived in the graves and in the tombs. Now, according to the
Levitical law, when a man died in his tent, everything was unclean
that was in the tent. If you touched anything that
was in that tent, there was a ceremony that took place for seven days
of purification process of blood and rituals in order for you
to be pure or purified of that that you touched. So he was living,
literally living in unclean filth under the Levitical law being
around all this. He was among the Gentiles. Gadara is found
in Decapolis and it touched what was Israel at that time, but
it was full of Gentiles. This was not a Israel based establishment
at all. This was not a Jewish place.
He was among the Gentiles. Yet there was some Jews that
were present. And the last thing was, is he
was among the pigs. And you know that the Lord's
called pigs, hogs, unclean. They wasn't to have anything
to do with pigs. And that was one reason. And we heard Wednesday
night from pastor Greg that it was the Samaritans. They didn't
like the Samaritans being part because the Samaritans didn't
believe the same thing they did about the pigs. So they would bring,
and they felt like they was just contaminating everything. And
they wasn't wrong according to the law, but this man was living
beside the pigs. Now to fix these problems that
he had, we've already told you that he cut himself. So he had
open wounds and sores. Just told us here that he was
completely naked. He had no covering whatsoever.
He was crying loudly. And I just mentioned a second
ago about the prophets of Baal crying loudly and cutting themselves. So he had sin all around him.
He had sin in him. He was living in sin. He was
completely a sinner from the top of his head to the bottom
of his feet. But he didn't know that. He thought he had everything
going okay. If he'd known he was out of his
mind, he would have been trying to seek help, wouldn't he? But no man
could tame him. Now this is our story. Don't misunderstand this
morning. This is our story. We can talk
about the religious people all you want to, but only the Lord
saves maniacs. And he does it by making them
sinners. That's how he does it. We have the new man and the old
man contending within ourselves. Two thousand spirits are constantly
talking in our old man. The spirits of fear, the spirits
of hate, lust, power, pleasure, popularity are constantly in
our minds by nature. Our old man loves sin and the
devil himself is beautiful to the flesh. The difference between
the old man and the new man is the new man serves one spirit,
one, the Holy Spirit. The new man just looks to Christ
and his spirit. Just like this maniac, we live
in a world full of dead men and we are dying men. Paul said we
wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities,
against powers, against rulers of the darkness of this world,
against spiritual wickedness in high places. He says, wherefore
taken to you the armor of God? And how do we take the armor
of God? Well, it's bestowed, isn't it? The shield of faith,
that's bestowed upon you. That's not something that you
get. The helmet of salvation, that's the crown that the Lord
puts upon His people. That's not something we get. We do it
by sitting and hearing the gospel being preached and the Lord does
the work. Hearing has nothing to do with you and I. Hearing,
when the Lord says hear, that's a declaration. That's a command.
That's not a request. It's a command. It's not an offering.
He says, hear and you hear. He says, live and you and I live.
He does all the work and gets all the glory, doesn't he? It
is a gift. Not of works, lest any man should
boast. Now, these demons have but this
one purpose, one purpose. To distract man from looking
to Christ, to oppose God, to falsely accuse the elect of God
and to attempt to estrange man from God. Now I like the word
attempt there. I want to make that very clear. Our Lord conquered
everything on the cross of Calvary. So I'm not giving any praise
or glory to these demons or cause you to feel that you need to
be inferior to them. If you're in Christ, the Lord's going to
get, uh, Lord, Lord got you and he's going to keep you. Now,
how did these demons do what I just described? Well, when
the Lord calls something good, they say it's evil. When the
Lord says it's evil, they say it's good. When God says this
is true, they say that's a lie. And when God says that's false,
they say, no, that's the truth. Everything that God says, they
contradict. False prophets have preached
the same lie since the very first lie in the Garden of Eden. And
what was the lie? Eve was asked, what did the Lord
say? And she said, well, the day that
we eat of this tree, we shall surely die. And what was the
lie? One word changed the whole meaning, didn't it? Ye shall
not surely die. And rather than believe in God,
she believed the lie. And men are still believing the
lie today. How close can you be to the truth?
One word, not. That's the word. You shall not
surely die. This is the spirit of Antichrist.
Changing anything, adding to or taking away anything from
the blessed book of the Lord is the spirit of Antichrist. The scripture says in Revelation
chapter 22, towards the very end, he wanted to seal it with
this. He said, if any man add to or take away the words of
the book of this prophecy, I'll take his part out of the Lamb's
book of life. He's very serious about his word. That means don't
add anything to Christ's finished work and don't take away anything
from Christ's finished work. If you have any hope, it better
be in Christ alone. Now, why do men hear these lies? Well,
our answer comes in verse five, if you'll look there. And always,
now always means continually. Always, night and day, he was
in the mountains and in the tombs, crying and cutting himself with
stones. Men love darkness rather than
light because their deeds are evil. That's why men hear these
lies. Most of the time, What men hear is what they want to
hear most of the time. The Lord's the only one that
ever said anything to you and I that we didn't want to hear and it became
the best thing we ever heard. Is that right? Men love darkness
rather than light because their deeds are evil and we will remain
in that darkness unless the Lord shines the light of his glorious
gospel into our hearts. The other day my wife and I was
walking on the beach And my wife is fair-skinned, as some of you
may know. And she had a sunburn from a
previous day. I'm not sure what we were doing
exactly. And it's irrelevant. She had a sunburn is the relevance
here, the most important part. She began to tell me. And I enjoy
walking on the beach. And I wasn't quite finished. But she told
me, I have a sunburn. I'm hurting. And I said, OK, well, we can
go. And I said, well, how is this? And I put my arm up around
her. And I brought her in close. I like doing that anyways. But
I said, how is that? And she said, well, it's not
burning like it was. And so we continued to walk and
we finished and we left. Men love darkness rather than
light. They're wandering around in this
darkness and they're trying to establish a righteousness of
their own. And what they're doing is, is they know they have a
God to which they have to do. And we're going to get to that
in just a minute. They know by nature, the Lord, most people
are religious in one shape or form because they know that there's
a God by nature. What they're doing is they know
that the light is going to be shined upon them. And so they're
going about trying to make their own righteousness, which is not
a righteousness at all. And they're literally trying
to make a covering for themselves. So when the light shows up, they're
taking something very small and they think that it's going to
keep them safe. And what it is, is their own covenant and their
own works that they've made and it's not going to work. I find it interesting
because The name Lucifer, which was Satan's name in glory, means
light bearer. Do you find that interesting?
He was the light bearer. Well, that's not true. He didn't
bring any light, did he? But he speaks exactly what men
want to hear and they think that they're good whenever this light's
gonna be shown in the darkness. When judgment comes, they think
they're okay because they've made a covenant with death. And
with hail, they are in agreement and everything is going to be
all right. And as soon as the Lord shines and less, they are hiding under
the shadow of the Almighty's wing, there will be no refuge
from that wrath. That is our hope is that the
Lord would hide us. That's what David said. Lord,
hide me under the shadow of thy wing. The good news is that the Lord
died for a few maniacs. A few men we had that thought
in ourself before this was not a new thought. This was the very
thought from the beginning. Lucifer said I'm going to send
above heaven. I don't need crisis. Anything I can be as the most
high that was the. That's what he desired was to
be on the throne of God, and that's exactly what men are doing
today, isn't it? The Lord. One hope that we have
is the Lord is was friends of sinners while he was upon this
Earth. Now, I was talking to somebody recently and they was
talking about, he said, well, these men wasn't going about
doing all these things, telling the Lord the kind of sin that
they was in and, and, uh, making a mockery. And I said, no, you
don't understand. They wasn't sinners because of what they
was doing. They were sinners because the Lord made them to be sinners
and showed them that they were sinners. And as soon as he did
that, they loathed, loathed, not loved, loathed themselves.
They no longer wanted to do that sin. That's what he does for
his people. He makes us sinners, doesn't
he? The Lord gets all the glory in Second Timothy chapter one
in verse nine. He says, who has saved us and
called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but
according to his own purpose. Somebody said, I don't understand
why God would save me. Well, he's not looking at anything
you've done or anything you're doing, anything about you. He
saved you according to his own purpose and grace, which was
given us in Christ Jesus. When? Before the world began. It is Christ that maketh us to
differ. Now, the first thing he does
to a sinner is makes him totally depraved. That's the very first
thing he does. And I want to be clear on this,
what I'm about to say. There is not one Calvinist or one Armenian
that has ever died and went to heaven because of what they believed
in. There is not one Calvinist or
Armenian that has ever died and went to heaven because of what
they believed in. The Lord looked at the religious
and said, search the scriptures for in them you think you have
eternal life. Even the demons believe in God and tremble, don't
they? The Lord has never saved a man
under an Arminian preacher and the Lord has never saved a man
under a man just preaching Calvinism. The Lord only saves a man through
the preaching of a God called gospel preacher. How does he
do this? Well, you can preach the five
points of Calvinism and not preach Christ. You can. You can preach
doctrine and not preach Christ. But you cannot preach the gospel
without preaching that a man is totally depraved, elected
only according to the will of God. Christ only died for those
who was elected. Whosoever he died for, he saved
and is going to let them know about it in time. And whoever
he saved is saved from everlasting to everlasting. A man can speak
a lot of truth without ever preaching the gospel. I heard a lot of
truth as a boy being raised up as a pastor's son. There's a
lot of truth in what I was being told. There's a lot of lies too.
But it wasn't so much as what was being said as what was not
being said. There was something that was
hidden. The gospel was not preached where I was raised. That's why
the scripture is very clear that we are to try the spirits to
see if they be of the Lord. That's the preachers that stand,
try the spirits, see if it lines up with what thus saith the Lord.
It's not what a man believes in, it's who a man believes in.
It's not what you know, it's who you know. It's not what we
preach, it's who we preach. Paul said, I know whom I have
believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which
I've committed unto him against that day. If our hope is in what
we know, we are maniacs. I said all that to say that.
If our hope is in what we know, we're maniacs. There's two types
of people, sane and insane, maniacs and right-minded, goats and sheep. Christ is the one that maketh
us to differ. Paul said, I preach Christ and
him crucified. That's who we're here to worship
this morning is Jesus Christ. Not to get an intellectual sermon
based upon theology to Tickle our minds entertain our thoughts
if we do that we've come nothing but tinkling brasses and sounding
Sounding brasses and tinkling cymbals is what the scripture
says we're here to hear about a man the Lord Jesus Christ and
his work Turn with me to first Corinthians chapter 2 if you
would please Paul said I preach Christ and him crucified First Corinthians chapter 2 Verse 1, and I, brethren, when
I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom,
declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I determined not
to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And I was with you in weakness
and in fear and in much trembling, and my speech was my preaching
And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of
man's wisdom. Now see, that's what the demons
do, isn't it? That's what the false prophets,
the false spirits, that's what they do. They come with enticing
words of man's wisdom. They say exactly what a man wants
to hear, and they stroke each other's ego, and everybody leaves
feeling good about themselves, don't they? Whenever I feel my
best, it's whenever I've been told that I'm a flower fading
fast, that I'm nothing but grass, that life is a vapor and I need
a substitute. That's when I feel my best. I
don't want to be told how good I am. There's no good in us,
not one good thing. I came not with enticing words
of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and of power that
your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the
power of God. It's not what a man understands,
it's that Christ, who is our wisdom, hath been revealed through
his gospel. It's faith given by God to whomsoever
he hath died for, to whomsoever he wills. It's not about you
and me in any way. It's all about the Lord Jesus
Christ and whatsoever he hath ordained, whatsoever he hath
purposed, and whatsoever he hath done. If a man is preaching,
And he declares that he's preaching the gospel. He must preach how
Christ died according to the scriptures. In first Corinthians
chapter one in verse 23, he said, but we preach Christ crucified
under the Jews. That's the religious. That represents
everybody that's religious. That's what Paul was saying,
a stumbling block. And then to the Greeks, which
is the irreligious foolishness. But unto them which are called,
now I like this, because he said both Jews and Greeks, so it doesn't
matter whether you're religious or whether you're irreligious,
you're still a maniac unless God has shown you who he is.
But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greek, Christ,
the power of God, and the wisdom of God. Paul said in Galatians
1-9, if an angel came down and preached another gospel beside
the one that I'm preaching unto you, let him be accursed. The
Lord is very serious about his gospel. He said, if another man
preach a different gospel, he's to be cut off. Paul said, it's
late. Necessity is laid upon me for
woe is me if I preach not the gospel. The gospel is the person
of the Lord Jesus Christ and everything that he's done from
Genesis to Revelation in the finished covenant of grace that
he made with the father. It is his gospel to be declared
plainly and simply. All that you and I can do in
and of ourself is just get more and more knowledge. This can
be a book. If it's not revealed, it's just another book. And I
had many stories growing up as a child. The stories that RG
was talking about this morning, all of those, they were just
stories. We had books, some of y'all may have too, for your kids when
religion, they're all colorful and different things. Just stories
without the gospel. It's the Lord that makes the
difference. Whenever you see Christ through
all them stories, you see the beauty and how simple it's displayed.
You was talking about David and Goliath. I was gonna get up here
this morning and yesterday I was feeling quite nervous and this
morning I was nervous too. I don't care to tell you. It's
a serious matter. It's a serious matter. And who
is sufficient for these things? But I thought, boy, if I could
just have faith like David did, he had to face a giant. And this
little boy came up to a giant and took him down. And I remembered,
well, David didn't just get faith all of a sudden and decide to
go face the giant. He had to go down, first of all, he had
to face a lion and a bear before he ever faced the giant. Did
you know that? And we know this is the story of Jesus Christ
conquering death, hell, and the grave, plain and simple. It has
nothing to do really with David. It was just the Lord did this
for an illustration. But he had to go down by the
brook, didn't he? And he had to get five smooth stones. Now, why did he
have to get five? Why didn't he just get one? I
wondered that. I said, well, number one, five
is the number of grace, right? I said, well, why didn't he get
six? Well, that's the number of man that he'd been taking it to his own
hands. The Lord told him to get five, didn't he? That's why he
got five. But he needed the rock, the Lord Jesus Christ. And he
needed the water, which is the word. The faith came through
the gospel that the Lord revealed to David before he faced the
giant. And the giant is our sin. And only the Lord Jesus Christ
conquered that. So if you want faith, it's going to come through
and by the hearing of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Sitting
here doesn't determine your faith, but this is the place the Lord
gives it. We're mercy beggars and we're constantly crying out,
Lord, increase my faith. Lord, help my unbelief. I believe,
help thou my unbelief. If you're gonna get it, it's
gonna come through here. Now, look with me back in our text
at Mark chapter five. Now notice in verse seven. He cried with a loud voice and
said, what about to do with the Jesus, thou son of the most high,
I adjure thee by God that thou torment me not. The question
he asked the Lord is what did I have to do with thee? All men
must face Christ on his terms. Most men believe and you've probably
heard the country song. I guess it was a country song.
It said me and God have a good thing going. He thought he was
okay until he saw the Lord Jesus Christ, didn't he? He thought
everything was all right. And as soon as he saw the Lord,
he said, what do I have to do with thee? We're all good here. We don't need you. That's what
he was saying. But if you'll notice his description is singular
of his person. So he says to him, what have
I to do with thee? Now, later on in verse 8, he
actually confesses that there's 2,000 within him by saying his
name is Legion. When the Lord comes to a man,
he causes a man to confess what he is. If you notice, this man believed that he was
still better than Christ. Just the same mentality that
Satan had from the very beginning. He acknowledged that he didn't
want to be tormented. He said, torment me not, which
is acknowledging of his guilt. But the demons recognized who
the Lord Jesus Christ was. Now look in verse eight real
quick. For he said unto me, he said to him, 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. Now look at verse 10 very carefully. This is what I was
just speaking of. I got ahead of myself there a
little bit. But he says, And he besought him much that he
would not send them away out of the country. So there's
three people at this present moment. He, the maniac, besought
him Jesus Christ that he would not send them legion out of the
country. Now, to me, this represents this
could represent many different things. But to me, this is a
man that has learned he's went to church his whole life. He's
learned a lot of Sunday school lessons. He's clinging to something
as his righteousness, something. And he's saying, well, this surely
has to be something that I can still hold on to within myself,
that I've learned, that I know, that I've gathered, that I've
collected, that I've been taught, that I don't have to let go to
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Don't send everything that I've
ever learned away. What the Lord does when he saves
a man is he strips him completely naked. You don't get to hang
on to anything. I didn't get to hang on to anything
other than the Lord Jesus Christ. In my hand, no price I bring.
And the song says simply to the cross I cling. I don't cling
to the cross. I pray the Lord calls us to cling to him. Moreover,
I pray that he clings to me. Amen. The Lord speaks. And says. After he asked his name, he told
him he's Legion in verse 10. He besought him much that he
would not send him away out of the country. Now there was 9
to the mountains. A great herd of swine feeding
and all the devils besought him saying send us into the swine
and we know exactly what the swine is, don't we? That's the
nonbelievers. That's the ones that are unclean
that was not elect before the foundation of the world. That's
the ones that. The Lord did not save by his
righteousness. And the Lord said one word unto
this man to correct everything that he had ever learned, everything
that he thought was right, everything that he believed in, and the
word was go. That's what he said in the book of Matthew. Go. One
word. And all that departed from him
and went into the swine. Now, I know that there's many
of you that's the same as me in this regard. You have loved
ones and family members that do not believe the gospel, but
they attend church. And my hope is that the Lord
will bring them to the knowledge of the gospel. That's my hope.
My hope is the Lord will bring my children to the knowledge
of the gospel. Let us not take for granted that just because
we're sitting here, that means we're one of the Lord's elect. Cry
out for mercy to him. Our only hope is that the Lord
does the work. It's nothing that we do or nothing that we've learned.
It's a man, the Lord Jesus Christ. But our friends and family that
are clinging, if they're not under the sound of the gospel, if they
don't have a need, the master has never said unto them, go.
He's never said it. If man's sitting underneath a
false prophet that does not preach the gospel, there is no way he
can be saved by that false prophet. He has to hear the preaching
of the gospel through a God-called gospel preacher. It's that simple. God ordained that men would be
saved through the foolishness of preaching, the foolishness
of preaching of his gospel. Now, look with me quickly here
in verse 15. These swine, the demons have
went into these swine, they've ran down the hill, they've drowned
themselves, and then the farmers hear about it and they come running
to see what's going on. And they see the man in verse
15, they come to Jesus and see him that was possessed with devils
and had the legion sitting clothed and in his right mind, and they
were afraid. What was he clothed with? The
Lord's righteousness. That's what he gives to all of
his people, his righteousness. All that that man used to believe
in, all that that man used to cling to, he counted nothing
but dung at that point because he was clothed in the Lord's
righteousness. He was right minded. As soon as he saw the master,
he was made the sinner and he saw himself as the maniac. He
was only interested in sitting at the feet of Jesus Christ after
that and just hearing what he had to say. The Lord spoke to
him after that. or spoke to those men after that
for some time. They said, get out of our coast. We don't want
nothing to do with you. So the Lord got on a ship and that man said, well, let
me come with you. And he said, no, you can't come with me. And
that's us right now. We can't go with him yet. But
he said, I will descend from heaven. The Lord shall descend
from heaven with a shout voice of the archangel. The Trump of
God shall sound the dead in Christ shall rise first. And we, which
are alive and remain shall be called up together to meet him
in the air. And so shall we ever be with the Lord. That's our
comfort, isn't it? He says, comfort one another,
comfort one another with these words. Now I want to. I want to talk
about the Lord on the cross of Calvary just for a moment and
times got away from me and my notes were a little jumbled and
I do apologize, but. In the book of Ezekiel chapter
16, the Lord speaks and he says in verse 6 when I passed by the
I saw the polluted in their own blood. You were naked. You were
naked and there was no man. That would have compassion upon
thee, but when I saw the polluted in their own blood. I said, live. Yea, I said unto thee, when thou
wast in thy blood, live. When he did this, it was upon
the cross of Calvary. On that day, the Lord had ordained
by his determinate counsel in Fornal, as the Lord told his
son to go, and God became a man. This was the day, you probably
heard the verse, this is the day the Lord hath made. We were
rejoiced and be glad in it. It wasn't talking about June
the 6th. He was talking about that day, the day that the Lord
Jesus Christ was suspended between heaven and earth and the Lord
poured out his eternal wrath upon his son that day. This is the
day the Lord hath made. We were rejoiced and be glad
in it. That was the day redemption was to be raw and accomplished
by the Lamb himself. When all the sins of God's elect
was laid upon him on this day, the day that Christ died. Legion
was present. that day. You remember the scourge
that surrounded the Lord whenever they was asking him questions,
they was falsely accusing him and all the say in all manner
of evil things against him and he opened not his mouth. They
cried, we will not have this man reign over us. That's exactly
what men are saying today. The same exact words. That's
demonic thinking. They said, kill Jesus, let his
blood be upon us and upon our Children. They won't have this
gospel. They don't want this gospel.
They want a gospel that tickles their ears. All the armies of
hell conversed upon that location, screaming at the Lord, you're
guilty. And the Lord did not open His mouth. They said, you
call yourself the Son of God, why don't you call for the angels
of heaven? Now, all the host of glory was standing by, waiting,
and all he had to do was say the word. But no call for aid
came from the Lord that day. Others would say, he saved himself.
Others, he saved, he can't save himself. Nothing sure has ever
been ever been spoken. The father was dealing with sin.
The father had willed him to be there so he could not save
himself and save us. He was punishing his precious
son for the elect. As they pierced his hands and
his feet and his brow, they said, you're the king. They took his
garments off of him and stripped him naked before the world and
mocked him parted his remnants, the scripture says. They call
him a blasphemer. They call him everything that
you can think of. But he did not open up his mouth. Why did
he not defend himself? Because he had became sin and
everything that they were saying was true about me and true about
you. And that is our only hope is
in that substitution of the Lord Jesus Christ. He became our surety. Every demonic whisper, and I
want you to get this this morning, every demonic whisper that we've
ever thought, every doubt that we've ever had about the Lord
Jesus Christ, every time something happens in our life and we doubt
our circumstances, everything that we've ever feared, the Lord
heard it that day because he was bearing my sin in his body.
He was bearing my unbelief in his body. He felt it. He experienced it. When He was
made sin, every fear that we ever have was made His reality. Most of our fear will never become
reality. Why? Because we fear not being found
in the Lord Jesus Christ when we die. We fear not being under
the shadow of His wing when His light shines that day of judgment.
That's our greatest fear. You talk to any believer, that's
what they're afraid of the most, is that I'm not one of His. If
I'm not His, I have no hope. Every terror of the Lord's justice
that David described as his bowels melting in him, his bones being
pulled out of socket, the sorrows of hell can passing him about.
That's what we're afraid of. But there's good news. There
is good news, the Lord purposed all of these things to happen
to him, so it would not happen to us. Even with all of this that was
happening, nothing was In comparison to the agony of the separation
that he was experiencing from his father, the weight of sin
of God's elect, the stench of all of our iniquity laid upon
him. Everything that he everything that you and I are was laid upon
the Lord Jesus Christ. And the father would not hear
his voice as he cried out in the darkness. Why would he not
hear his son's voice? Well, number one, he was bearing
our sin, but he did that so that he could hear you and I, a couple
of maniacs. That's why he was doing that. He knows his son's voice and
he knows our voice, and the scripture says his sheep hear his voice
and they follow him. Justice demanded eternal separation
and executed an execution on the Lord Jesus Christ until the
payment was made in full. We know that the Lord cried about
the ninth hour and he said, my God, my God, why has thou forsaken
me? He was trodden like a wine press. All of that sin that was
pressed into him. The Lord pressed him in the wine
press and he shed his precious blood every drop for his elected
bride. We cannot imagine what our sin really caused upon the
Lord. Our sin, transgression and iniquity all met upon the
Lord and it pleased the Lord to Bruce him. God blacked out
the universe. This is wrath descended upon
his Dear only begotten son. In our last place, we're going
to turn, if you will, Psalm chapter 55 in closing. Psalm 55 verse one. This is the words of the Lord
when he was on the cross. Give ear to my prayer, O God, and
hide not thyself from my supplication. Attend unto me and hear me. I
mourn in my complaint and make a noise because of the voice
of the enemy, because of the oppression of the wicked. For
they cast iniquity upon me, and in wrath they hate me. My heart
is sore pained within me, and terrors of death are falling
upon me. Fearfulness and trembling are
come upon me, and horror hath overwhelmed me. The Lord Jesus
Christ did something we cannot do. He had perfect obedience
and faith to the Father during this entire time. Not one word
that he uttered from the cross was in unbelief. He was saying
the things that he said for you and I. My God, my God, why hast
thou forsaken me? That's for you and I to know
that God had forsaken him. That's what that was for. God was dealing
with the sin of all of his elected people and the Lord kept his
mouth shut no matter the accusation that was befalling him around
him. Through the darkness, the Lord Jesus cried, it is finished.
God saw his son as guilty and executed him. And justice was
eternally satisfied. And how do we know that the Lord
was satisfied with his son? Because he rose him from the
dead. The resurrection is our assurance that all those who
were in Christ when he died was resurrected with him when he
rose. The elect have a justified record. Never sinned one time. Who shall outlay anything To
the charge of God's elect, it is God that justifieth. We don't
think like a maniac anymore because the Lord met us. The Master came
to us. Paul said in Romans 8, verse
18, For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not
worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed
in us. Because we are bought and purchased of the Lord. Because
the Lord hath put away our sin. You know the story of Job. The
very first thing you read about is the devil had to go up to
the Lord and ask permission to do anything to Job. That's the
same thing he has to do to the elect of God. Job was the elect
of God. We know neither suffering. We know nothing of suffering
compared to the Lord Jesus Christ. But yet the Lord hears our cries
whenever we feel that we are suffering. The Lord is touched
with the feeling of our infirmities. We have a faithful high priest. Only the Lord can take a maniac
and make him clothed perfectly righteous and in his right mind.
And he does this by introducing him to the master through the
preaching of the gospel. Well, what shall we say to these
things then? If God before us who can be against us? We say
with his bride is elect those that are robed in white. The
same thing we're going to be saying throughout the ceaseless
ages. Amen. Hallelujah. For the Lord God
omnipotent reigneth. Worthy is the lamb that was slain.
He hath prevailed. He is worthy to open the book
and loose the seals thereof. To him be all glory. To him be
all honor. To him be all majesty forever
and ever. Amen. Number 10 in the Spiral Hymnal. We're going to sing this a cappella,
number 10.