I'll just make one announcement
in case you came in since the beginning of the first hour.
Brian Belarus is back in Fish Memorial in Orange City right
off of Saxon. If you take I-4 East, get off
at Orange City, and Saxon Boulevard's right there, and the hospital's
right there on Saxon, just a mile or so off the interstate. In
case you want to go see him. I don't know how long he'll be
there. Pam put him in last night. We visited with him this morning,
and I was very encouraged to have him tell me. He was just
sitting there thinking about what it was going to be like
not to be a center anymore. that the Lord had given him great
assurance of his salvation. So pray for them. Let's stand together. Brother
Tom, you're going to lead us in the hymn on the back of your
bulletin. Let's stand. O Lord, where'er Thy people meet,
There we behold Thy mercy seat, Where'er we seek Thee, Thou art
found, And every place is hallowed ground. Dear Shepherd of Thy
chosen one, Thy sovereign mercies here make known, Here to our
waiting hearts proclaim, The glory of Thy saving name. Here may we prove the power of
prayer to strengthen faith and sweeten care. To teach our weak desires to
rise And bring Thy love before our eyes Then filled with grateful
holy love Our souls in praise will soar above, and with delightful
joy record the wondrous goodness of our Lord. Please be seated. Turn with me, please, in the
Word of God to Romans chapter 7. Romans chapter 7. Every time
I was thinking of Brian a lot, I was thinking of Thomas Jackson,
Thomas John. On his deathbed, they weeped,
and he said, don't weep for me. He said, weep for yourselves.
He said, I'm crossing over the river to be planted with the
trees of God. He said, that's where I want
to be. We pray that Brian have the grace to continue that. Let
us start at verse 15. Pray that God would give us the
ability, the faith to believe both the living and the written
word. Verse 15 saying, that which I
do allow not for what I would, that do I not. But what I hate,
That do I. Paul said, that which I know
to be good, I do not do. And that which I know to be evil,
that's what I do. If then I do that which I would
not, I consent the law that it is good. We love God's law. We know we can't keep it, but
we love it. It tells us who God is and His
holiness. The problem's not the law, the
problem's me. But we love His law. Now then,
it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. And here it is, 18. For I know,
I know, that in me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing. Even as believers, we have a
hard time believing that sometimes, don't we? I have to ask God,
give me the faith to believe what you said about me. It didn't
say there's not much. It said there's no, none, nada,
no good thing. For to will is present with me,
but how to perform that which is good, I find not. There's
my free will. It's not, I can't do it. Lord,
I can't keep your law. For the good that I do not, but
the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would
not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in
me. It's that old flesh. Then I find
then a law that when I would do good, evil is present with
me. For I delight in the law of God
after the inward man. The spiritual man delights in
God's law. But I see another law in my members
warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity
to the law of sin, which is in my members. I was thinking, I
think Brother Greg told us one time, it stuck with me so, was
that one of the punishments when you committed murder was that
they would take the person you murdered and strap them on your
back. I think you, someone told us that one time. So you carried
that dead carcass with you wherever you go. Well, I carry this old
dead carcass. Spiritual man's in there, but
that old dead carcass, I carry it with me and it never, never
changes and it never gets any better. Oh, wretched man that
I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? That's
the old man. I thank God through Jesus Christ
our Lord. So then with the mind I myself
serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin." Someone asked me one time, what
does it mean to grow in grace? And these words came to mind
and all I could tell them is with every morning that the Lord
allows me to get out of this bed I am more and more convinced
of my inability to do anything for myself. And I'm also more and more convinced
with each day He gives me of my need for His ability to save
me. That's what it means to me to
grow in grace. And we pray for Brian and we look forward to
that day too when the old man is no more. and that we become
who we are right now as believers. We are perfect, perfect in the
Lord Jesus Christ. Let us pray. Lord, we are so dependent totally
on your spirit. Come unto us and give us the
ability to worship you. We pray this morning for the
servant that you have sent us in brother Greg and wherever
your people gather to preach your gospel of God's grace in
Christ. We pray that you will touch his
heart, his mind, and his mouth with your words. And you would
bless him and give him the ability to declare Christ unto us. And oh Lord, we pray that you
would send your spirit to give us the faith to believe it. If you do not, Lord, it will
be in vain. Oh, show us again today our inability to do anything
to save ourselves, Lord, and your ability to save to the uttermost.
We pray for Brian, Pam, and Charlie. Lord, that you would speak to
their hearts. They might find their only comfort
in you. And that we see that you've used
all things to cause them to look, to rest, and to believe on and
in you. And that our lips and our hearts would glorify you,
no matter what the circumstances may be. We ask this for your
glory. Number 17, come down the aisle.
Let's all stand together. Number 17. Come Thou Fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace. Streams of mercy never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise. Teach me some melodious sonnet,
sung by flaming tongues above. Praise the mount I'm fixed upon
it, mount of thy redeeming love. Here I raise mine Ebenezer, hither
by thy help I'm come, and I hope by thy good pleasure safely to
arrive at home. Jesus sought me when a stranger,
wandering from the fold of God, he to rescue me from danger interposed
his precious blood. O to grace, how great a debtor
daily I'm constrained to be! Let thy mirth, dislike a fetter,
bind my wandering heart to thee. Prone to wander, Lord, I feel
it. Prone to leave the God I love. Here's my heart, oh, take and
seal it. Seal it for thy courts above. Please be seated. Open your Bibles with me to Mark
chapter five, Mark chapter five. Those of you that are familiar
with this story know that it's about a man who was out of his
mind. He was possessed with a legion
of demons. And the Lord met him in a place
called the Gadarenes and cast the demons out into a herd of
swine, 2,000 of them, and put him in his right mind, clothed
and a witness for Christ of the grace of God upon his life. My heart goes out to anyone that's
had to deal with mental illness, whether it be in their own life
or in members of their family. It's a dark, desperate, difficult
place to be. I would remind you and me that
the mind is a very delicate thing. That each of us have experienced
enough feelings of despair, discouragement, and depression to know that if
the Lord allowed us, we could very easily have very, very serious
mental problems. I pray that he will keep us.
And I could say to those who have experienced this, that the
Lord's grace is sufficient for you. It is. I wanted to say that by way of
introduction, to say that the story of this demoniac is not
about that. This demoniac doesn't represent
someone that, like I just described, a person who has serious mental
illness or a person who is out of their rational mind. This is a story about you. This is a story about me. And unless we are able, by the
grace of God, to identify with this demoniac, we will miss everything
that God has to say to you and me from this story. It has to do with the insanity
of unbelief. You were born into this world
as an unbeliever. If you're able to say, as I've
heard folks say, I believed in God all my life, I would say
to you, that's way too long. You haven't believed in God all
your life. You came into this world as an unbeliever. You came
into this world at enmity with God. And unless God is pleased
to intervene and to give you faith, you will remain in the
insanity of unbelief. What an insane thing it is to
not believe God. You can have all of your natural
faculties of a, quote, normal mind and be more insane than
the person who has lost all rational ability. I hope that the Lord will cause
us to see that in this story. First Mark chapter 5, beginning
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, This story follows the calming of the sea that the disciples
had just experienced in chapter four. What a glorious picture
of our Lord's sovereign grace in being able to get us safely
over to the other side. That's what that story's about.
And the fear that gripped the hearts of these disciples in
thinking that they were going to die, and then when they saw
the Lord's miraculous power, his omnipotence. They said, what
manner of man is this that even the winds and the seas obey his
voice? And they feared God. And that's
where I hope the Lord will bring us, to fear Christ. Not in a slavish fear, in a spirit
of worship. bowing before Him, Michael, as
you just said, expressing our complete dependence upon Him
for everything. All our righteousness, all our
sanctification, all our wisdom, oh God, make Him to be life unto
me. And when He was come out of the
ship, immediately they 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." Have you ever been there? You ever been there? I have. I've been in the insanity of
unbelief. I've moved from the mountaintops
of religious emotionalism down into the tombs of despair and
the study of dead theologians until I cut myself and cried
for grace and could find no help. As I said, this is not a story
about a demon-possessed man in the sense that he's out of his
mind. This is a story about those who are possessed by the demon
of unbelief, and that's where we all are. Turn with me to 2 Corinthians chapter 4. If the gospel be hid from you, if the Lord Jesus Christ has
not put you in your right mind, Scripture says that God did not
give us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a
sound mind, a saved mind, a right mind, thinking right about who
God is, thinking right about who we are, thinking right about
how it is that God puts away sin. The natural man can't think
right. He's insane. Verse 3 of 2 Corinthians
chapter 4, but if our gospel be hid, it is hid from them that
are lost, in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds
of them that believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel
of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. The Lord says if you don't believe
the gospel, it's because the God of this world He's talking
about the prince of the power of the air. He's talking about
these demons. Have blinded your eyes so that you cannot see the
light of the glorious gospel of the grace of God in the person
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And like this man, you just keep
moving from mountaintop to tomb. looking for some relief, looking
for some hope, looking for some help, trying to figure out how
you can be saved. Until the Lord comes and gives
faith, there'll be no salvation, there'll be no deliverance. Turn to me to Matthew chapter
12, Matthew chapter 12. What our story describes is the
desperate attempt that all men make to save themselves. And that attempt is inspired
by no one other than Satan himself. Those Pharisees said, Abraham
be our father, we be the children of Abraham. And what'd the Lord
say? If you were children of Abraham,
you'd believe me. Abraham saw my day and he rejoiced in it.
Your father, the Lord Jesus Christ said, to people who were outwardly
very sane, outwardly very religious, very moral, very ethical people,
he said to them, your father is the devil. You ever been demon-possessed?
You ever been demon-possessed? If you were ever an unbeliever,
that's what you were. That's what you were. Demon-possessed. I don't make the mistake of thinking,
well, you know, there was a time when I was just, I was in bondage
to some really bad behavioral problems and I couldn't get out
of them and I, and I, and I, I made the decision to to come
to God. And now I'm not there anymore. Yeah, I was in a bad place. I was in a bad place. And now
I've cleaned up my life. Let me read you a story that
illustrates that. I'm speaking from experience.
Everything I'm telling you, I've been through. If the Lord enables you to see
what the natural man can't see, oh, I hope you can identify with
this man. You have your Bibles open to
Matthew chapter 12. Look at verse 43. When the unclean spirit is gone
out of a man, he walketh through dry places seeking rest and finding
none. So here's a man who had an unclean
spirit. Interpreted, that means he had
a problem with whatever. Maybe he had a problem with drugs,
alcohol, maybe he had a problem with, you know, some sort of
debilitating lifestyle that was destroying him. And he was able. He was able through some 12-step
program or through some religious commitment or he was able to
clean himself up. People do that. People do that. You know, you just get sick and
tired of being sick and tired. You don't have to be a child
of God to stop doing bad things. You shouldn't have been doing
them anyway. And you know, people clean up their lives. And that's
exactly what happens to this man. Did he clean up his life? Well,
look at verse 44. Then the demon said, I will return
into my house from whence I came out. And when he was come, he
findeth it empty, swept, and garnished. So now the demon says,
you know, I've been wandering around for somebody else to possess
and I can't, I'll just go back to the guy I came out of. And
he goes back and he finds his house all cleaned up. Boy, he's
got religious symbols hanging around the house, and he's got
the whole house cleaned up, and the guy's living a straight and
narrow life. He's got it all together now.
Everybody's impressed with him. Then goeth he, and taketh with
him, with himself, seven other spirits, more wicked than himself,
and they entered in, and dwelt there, and the state of that
man is worse than the first, even so shall it also be unto
this wicked generation." So now he's religious, and God says
his latter state is worse than his first state. When he only
had one demon, he knew he had a problem. Now he's got seven
demons of religion, and he thinks he's got it all worked out. He's
worse off now than he was before. Go back with me, please, to our
text. 2 Corinthians. I'm so sorry. I'm looking all
over 2 Corinthians and I can't. Mark chapter 5. We were in 2
Corinthians the first hour, weren't we? Okay. Mark chapter 5, verse 3. I'm sorry. Verse five, and always night
and day, he was in the mountains and in the tombs crying and cutting
himself with stones. Verse six, but when he saw Jesus
afar off, he ran and worshiped 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
torments me not. Now this is a legion of demons.
The Lord's going to ask the demon his name, and he says, my name
is Legion, for we are many. And it doesn't take a whole lot
of study to figure out that a legion of Roman soldiers was over 6,000
soldiers and over 600 horsemen. Now that was an imposing army
that no one could stand up against. And so this legion of demons
has complete control over this individual. He knows who the
Lord Jesus Christ is. He even is forced to bow down
before him. James puts it like this, you
believe that there is one God? You believe that there is one
God? You do well. But the demons in hell believe
that and they tremble. That's what's happening here.
These demons are trembling in the presence of the Lord Jesus
Christ. But they're still possessing
this man. Verse 8, For he saith unto him,
Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit. And he asked him, What
is thy name? And he answered and said, My
name is Legion, for we are many. And he besought him much that
he would not send them out of the country. And 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." Now, you can read a lot of speculation
about what's going on here, but just know this, that these swine
were clearly unclean animals, just like your sin. And the scripture
makes it clear in Micah chapter 7 that God has cast our sins
into the depths of the sea and he remembers them no more. So
what we have a picture of here is the sovereign God of glory
taking this demonic influence, this insanity of unbelief that's
in this individual, casting that and his sin into the depths of
the sea to remember them no more, setting him free. That's what
you and I need. Have you ever seen yourself as an insane person? Spiritually
insane. How insane it is to not believe
God and yet we don't. We can't. You will not come to
me that you might have life. It is not of him that willeth,
nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. Oh,
Lord! The devils besought him, saying,
Send us into the swine that we may enter therein. And forthwith
Jesus gave them leave." Jesus gave them leave. Now that's what
He has to do for you and me. He has to give these unclean
spirits leave to depart from us. and the unclean spirit went out
and entered into the swine, and the herd ran violently down a
steep place into the sea, and there were about 2,000, and they
were choked in the sea." Oh, that's what I need. I've tried
garnishing my house with religion. I've tried getting over bad habits
and I've stopped doing some things through the power of discipline
and the power of religion and the power of the law. You can
stop a lot of things. But you cannot recover yourself
from the insanity of unbelief until God gives you a new heart. and you are possessed with a
legion of demons by nature. By nature. Now you may be a very
outwardly respectable person who has a position in society
and no one sees you as being in any way mentally unstable. But if you don't believe God, if you're not trusting Christ,
You are spiritually insane and I'm here to tell you that end
will be worse. It'll be worse than the person
who's lost their natural mind. And they that fed the swine fled
and told it in the city that were in the country and in the
country and they went out to see what it was that was done. That's what I need. I need the
Lord to do something for me. I know you've heard me say this
before, but we've got some folks maybe that haven't heard it before.
I want to just express the simplicity of the gospel with two letters. They're right there in that last
word of verse 14. You see it? D-O-N-E. Now here's
the difference between the gospel of God's free grace and the gospel
of man's works. N-E. Every other religious opinion
of the world will tell you about a gospel that leaves you something
to do. The gospel of God's free grace
says to you and I, it is done. It's done. It's finished. It's accomplished. There's no
contribution for you to make. Oh, what does this inspire in
the hearts of God's people? It inspires worship. It inspires
prayer. It inspires love. He's done this
for me. Yep. Yep. And they came to Jesus and see
him that was oppressed with the devil and had a legion sitting,
and clothed, and in his right mind, and they were afraid."
Now that's what you didn't do before the Lord saved you. Before
the Lord did a work, you weren't sitting. You were running around. You were working. You can't sit
until you know Christ. He is seated at the right hand
of God, right now, having finished His work, and those who believe
Him sit down with Him. This man was cutting himself,
he was running from the tombs to the mountain, he was crying,
he was praying, he was doing everything he could to try to
fix his problem, and it was only getting worse. until the Lord
came, cast his sins, his unclean sins, and all those demons into
the sea, and now where do we find him? Sitting. He's resting. He's resting. Are you resting
in Christ? Resting. And where do, what do we, not
only is he resting, he's clothed now. He was naked before. He
was naked, shamefully exposed before all men, shamefully exposed
before God. That's where you were. Can you
identify with this man? Can you see yourself in him?
Have you ever been spiritually insane? Are you sitting now? Are you
clothed in the righteousness of Christ? the robe of his righteousness,
covering your nakedness. You say, what is that? Well,
just go back to the garden. What did Adam do? Adam wasn't
sitting. Adam was hiding and running around and making fig
leaf skirts and doing everything he could to cover up his nakedness,
wasn't he? And God came and slew a lamb
right there in the garden, shed its blood, and took the fleece
of that lamb to clothe Adam. And that's exactly what you and
I need. We need for the Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus Christ,
who is without spot and blemish, to clothe our nakedness before
God and give us a righteousness that's outside of ourselves.
And we need for Him to give us a right mind, to think right,
to think truthfully. about ourselves. What are we,
Lord? We're sinners. We have no righteousness. Lord,
who is Christ? He's the Son of God, and what
has He done? He's accomplished the salvation of all of His people.
He was sent by God the Father in the full power of the Holy
Spirit as the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed One, to accomplish
the salvation of His people. That's who He is. We couldn't
think right about Him. Who is God? He's holy. Holy,
holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts. Isaiah tells us that the
seraphim could not look upon Him. With two hands, with two
of their wings, they covered their eyes. And with two, they
did fly. They covered their feet, their
creatureness before God. He's holy. How are you and I
going to stand before a holy God? Only if we're clothed in His
righteousness. Only if we're put in our right mind. What I'm saying to you is that
every single person in this world outside of Christ is insane. They are. They're spiritually
insane. And I know that by experience.
I know that by experience. Have you ever felt like the only
sane person in an insane asylum? You ever felt that way? You feel
that way on your job? People don't think right. They
don't know. They don't know the truth. They
don't know God. They don't know themselves. They
don't know how it is God saves sinners. This is the world we
live in. Verse 16, and they that saw it
told them how it befell to him that was possessed with the devil,
and also concerning the swine, and they began to pray him to
depart out of their coast. Now that's the world's response
to the gospel. I don't want to hear it. Get away
from it. I think I told you all this.
Tricia was sharing the gospel with a lady she worked with one
time, and this lady actually stuck her fingers in her ear
and went, ah la la la la la la. She did. That's how she responded
to the gospel. I don't want to hear it. Now that's insane. But that's man's response. Get
out of here. Get out of our coast. The cost
of having you here is way too high for us. Look, we just lost
2,000 pigs. And yeah, we had a crazy man
living in the tombs, but you know, we could deal with him.
We can't deal with you. That's the world's response to
our Christ. But here's his response to them.
I find so much comfort in this. Look, the Lord could have said,
you know what? I'm gonna shake the dust from
off my feet and forget about these folks once and for all.
But look what happens. And when he was coming to the
ship, verse 18, he that had been possessed with the devil prayed
him that he might be with him. He wanted to go with him. Oh
Lord, let me just go with you. Howbeit Jesus suffered him not,
but saith unto him, Go home to thy friends, and tell them how
great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion
on thee. And he departed, and began to
publish in Decapolis what great things Jesus had done for him.
And all men did marvel. The Lord left behind a witness.
He could have written off that whole The Gadarenes were in the
Decapolis. He could have written off that
whole area and said, forget it. You've asked me to leave. I'm
leaving you alone. Once and for all, he left behind a witness. The Lord could consume all of
Central Florida with the fire of His wrath right now if He
wanted to. He's left a witness to tell men what great things
He has done in delivering us from the insanity of demon possession
not being able to believe God. I couldn't believe God. I tried
religion and I was worse off in the end. I garnished my house Can you believe God? Has he put
you in your right mind? Has he? Oh, Lord, I want to be in my
right mind. I want to think right about who you are, who I am. Let's pray together. Our Heavenly
Father, we're thankful for your word. We ask, Lord, that you
would minister your grace to our hearts and enable us to to
believe you or left ourselves. We would we would be completely
out of our minds. We pray, Lord, that you would
take out the heart of stone and put in a heart of flesh, cause
us to bow, cause us to sit, to be clothed and to be in our right
mind. And give us, Lord, the grace
to be a witness of the great things that Thou hast done. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. Stand together, Brother Tom.
Number 268 in the hardback tendril. How firm a foundation, ye Saints
of the Lord, is laid for your faith in His excellent Word. What more can he say than to
you he hath said, To you who for refuge to Jesus hath fled? Fear not, I am with thee, O be
not dismayed, For I am thy God, I will still give thee aid. I'll strengthen thee, help thee,
and cause thee to stand, Upheld by my gracious, omnipotent hand. When through the deep waters
I call thee to go, the rivers of woe shall not thee overflow,
for I will be with thee, thy troubles to bless, and sanctify
to thee thy deepest distress. When through fiery trials thy
pathway shall lie, My grace all-sufficient shall be thy supply. The flame shall not hurt thee,
I only design thy draws to consume and thy gold to refine. The soul that on Jesus hath for
repose. I will not, I will not desert
to his foes. That soul, though all hell should
endeavor to shake, I'll never, no never, no never ever forsake