Let's open our Bibles together
for our scripture reading in Luke chapter 8. Luke chapter
8. This story is told twice in the
scriptures, once here in Luke and once in Mark. We'll read
it here and then we'll go to the Mark passage. Verse 26, And they arrived at the country
of the Gadarenes, which is over against Galilee. And when he
went forth to land, there met him out of the city a certain
man, which had devils long time, and wear no clothes, neither
abode in any house, but in the tombs. And when he saw Jesus,
he cried out and fell before him with a loud voice, and said,
What have I to do with thee, Jesus thou Son of God, most high? I beseech thee, torment me not. For he had commanded the unclean
spirit to come out of the man, for oftentimes it had caught
him, and he was kept bound with chains and in fetters, and he
broke the bands and was driven of the devils into the wilderness.
And Jesus asked him, saying, What is thy name? And he said,
Legion, because many devils were entered into him. And they besought
him that he would not command them to go out into the deep. And there was there a herd of
many swine feeding on the mountain. And they besought him that he
would suffer them to enter into them. And he suffered them. Then went the devils out of the
man, and entered into the swine, and the herd ran violently down
a steep place into the lake, and were choked, and drowned. When they that fed them saw what
was done, they fled, and went and told it in the city and the
country. And they went out to see what was done, and came to
Jesus, and found the man, out of whom the devils were departed,
sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind,
and they were afraid. They also which saw it told them
by what means he that was possessed of the devils was healed. Then
the whole multitude of the country of the Gadarenes round about
besought him to depart from them. For they were taken with great
fear, and he went up into the ship, and return back again. Let's pray together. Merciful Heavenly Father, we
so need for you to bless your word to our hearts. We ask that
you would send your sweet and illuminating Holy Spirit in His
power to teach us and to cause us, Lord, to sit at the feet
of Christ. We ask it in His name. parallel passage of that horrifying
story that we just read is found in Mark chapter 5. Mark chapter
5. I want to introduce this message
by saying that the way God sees
things are in truth and in fact the way they really are. Do you agree with that? The way
God sees it is the way it really is. Faith is believing what God
says. So as God says the thing is a
certain way then that's the way it is and believers just believe
it. They may not feel it, they may
not completely understand it, they may not be able to explain
it, they may not be able to defend it, but they believe it because
God said it. God said in me that is in my
flesh dwelleth no good thing. We are tempted to think sometimes
that maybe that's not altogether true. We've got something good,
don't we? No, but believers said no. God
said it. Whether I feel like everything
in me is corrupt or not, God said when he peered down from
the portals of heaven and looked into the hearts of man, he saw
that every imagination of the heart was evil and that continually. Believer says, Amen. So be it. I don't always feel as evil as
I am, but God said it. God said that outside of Christ
we are at enmity with Him. We come into this world as God
haters. Most would say, well I've never
hated God. God says you did. And a believer says, whatever
all that means, I know it's true of me because God said it. God says we are dead in our trespasses
and sins. Apart from the regenerating grace
of God and the power of the Holy Spirit and the person of the
Lord Jesus Christ, we are spiritually dead. dead no life whatsoever and then God says as he is so
are we in this world I don't feel that but God said it that's
the way he sees it So that must be the way it is. God said that
the Lord Jesus Christ is the fullness of the Godhead bodily
and that those in Christ are complete before God in Him. I don't feel complete. I don't
always feel as wicked as I am. But my feelings don't have anything
to do with it. I believe what God said because what God sees
is in fact the way it truly is. God says it's not of him that
willeth. It's not of him that runneth. I feel like I've got a pretty
powerful will. I can will myself into a lot
of things. Not in the Kingdom of God you
can't. God must make us willing. He must breathe life into us. He must cause us to be born from
above. He must give to us the gift of
faith. That's what He said. For by grace
are you saved through faith. And that not of yourself. It's
a gift of God. That's the way God sees it. That's
the way it is. I just believe that. God says, for by one offering
He has perfected forever them that are sanctified. You mean tell me I'm perfect
before God? You mean tell me I'm holy before God? Sinless? Justified before God? In the
person of the Lord, the way God sees it? That's the way it is. That's the way it is. It's not
how I see it. Not what I feel. Not what I can
understand. It's what I believe. And I believe
what God says. God says, Reckon yourselves to
be dead indeed unto sin. Consider it to be so. Why? Because
you are. You are. Sin no longer has dominion
over you. Why? Because you're not under
the law. You're under grace. Well, that's not the way I feel.
That's what God said. That's the way it is. That's
just the way it is. You agreed with me. My opening
statement was the way God sees things is the way it really is. And what believers do is just
believe what God sees and what God has said. Whether they feel
it. Whether they can understand it. I have loved thee with an everlasting
love." Don't always feel loved. Sometimes I feel forsaken. That's
not what God says. The Lord Jesus Christ said, Father,
I love them to the end. I'll never leave them nor forsake
them. The way God sees things are the way they are. And believers, beyond their feelings,
beyond their experiences, beyond their understanding, beyond their
ability to explain it, just believe what God says and what He sees. It just settles all controversies. With that being my introduction,
why Did God perform the miracles that He recorded in His Word? Like the one we just read about.
This horribly deranged, demon-possessed man in the Gadarenes. Why did the Lord travel across
the Sea of Galilee? like he went through Samaria
because there was one that God had chosen before the foundation
of the world and he purposed to save him and deliver him?
Yes, and no question about that. Is that the only reason he went
over there? The disciples asked the Lord
one time, Lord why was this man born blind? Was it because of
his sin or because of the sins of another? The Lord said, no,
this is done that I might be glorified. Was the Lord just impressing
us with His power to heal or deliver an individual from an
extremely desperate situation? No. The miracles that God performed
and recorded in His Word, like this one, illustrate in a physical
sense what God is doing for each one of his children spiritually. Just like the healing of the
lepers, we've only seen Hollywood's rendition of a leper. Most of
us, I don't suppose, I've never seen an actual leper. But I read enough about it to
know that it's a grotesque disease. It's a disease that you can smell
before you get to it. It's a disease that rots away
the flesh. And there are many examples of
lepers being healed in the scriptures. Was God just doing that in order
to show us his power? Or is it that what God sees in each of us spiritually is
worse than what he illustrated in these lepers physically? What God sees, what God sees
of our spiritual poverty, What God sees of our abject spiritual
poverty, our inability to do anything, our inability to know
anything, our inability to offer God anything is worse than poor,
blind Bartimaeus' poverty. What God sees of our attempts
to save ourselves is worse. It's worse than what we read
about in the scriptures about those emaciated Jews that were that were besieged in Jerusalem
by the Assyrians to the point to where they were cannibalizing
their own children. Why would a story like that find
its way in the pages of God's Word? To say to me and you, what I
see, what I see is the way it is. And what I see of your spiritual
condition is worse than that. What God sees of the influence
of Satan on all the sons of Adam are much worse than what we see
in this wild-eyed, demon-possessed man of the Gadarenes. We see
a deranged lunatic who needs to be, for his own safety and
the safety of others, institutionalized. What God sees in all the sons
of Adam is the spiritual insanity that
in fact is much worse than the demented condition of this demon-possessed
man. What I'm saying to you is that
This man represents you and I. You have your Bibles open to
Mark chapter 5, and they came over to 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 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 that 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. But when he saw Jesus afar off,
he ran, and worshipped him, and cried with a loud voice, and
said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the
Most High God? I adjure thee by God, that thou
torment me not. For he said unto him, Come out
of the man, thou unclean spirit. And he asked him, What is thy
name? And he answered, Saying, My name
is Legion, for we are many. And he besought him much. that
he would not send them out of the country. Now there was there
nigh unto the mountain a great herd of swine feeding, and all
the devils besought him, saying, Send us into the swine, that
we may enter into them. And forthwith Jesus gave them
leave, and the unclean spirits went out, and entered into the
swine, and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea,
and they were about two thousand, and were choked in the sea. And
they that fed the swine fled and told it in the city and in
the country. And they went out to see what it was that was done. And they came to Jesus and see
him that was possessed with the devil and had the legion sitting
and clothed and in his right mind and they were afraid. And they that saw it told them
how it befell to him that was possessed of the devil and how
also concerning the swine. and they began to pray him to
depart out of their coast." It's just costing us way too much
to have you around here. When he was coming to the ship,
he that had been possessed with the devil prayed him that he
might be with him. He wanted to go with Christ.
Howbeit Jesus suffered him not, but said unto him, Go home to
thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done
for thee, and have had compassion on thee." You see, the truth is that unbelief,
unbelief, which is where God gets all of his people from,
is demon possession. And it is the lowest form of
insanity. To not believe God, you gotta
be out of your mind. Most folks don't see it that
way. The Pharisees certainly didn't see it that way. When
the Lord said, if you continue in my word and my word continues
in you, then you shall know the truth and the truth shall set
you free. And they said, why sayest thou
that we shall be set free? for we be the Abraham seed and
never have been in bondage to any man. We're not in bondage,
we're free. We can do what we want. Turn with me to Matthew chapter
12. Only the believer will identify
with this demoniac. only the believer will identify
with him. The rest of the world will say, well, you know, that's
just a demonstration of the power of God to cast out the demons.
The believer knows, but for the grace of God, there go I. For in fact, what was happening
to him physically is exactly where I was spiritually. Exactly
where I was. and the way God saw my spiritual
condition was much worse than what I would see in someone like
that physically much worse Matthew chapter 12 verse 43 And when the unclean spirit is
gone out of a man, he walks through dry places seeking rest and finding
none. Now here's a man who had some
bad habits. And he was sick and tired of
being sick and tired, and so he decided to turn over a new
leaf. And he got rid of some of his bad behavior and cleaned
up his life. got the demon out of his life. Verse 44, Then the demon said,
I will return into my house from whence I came out. And when he
came, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished. So the demon comes back, he finds
the house that he had been cast out of, And he finds it empty. There's
no presence of the Spirit of God there. He finds it swept. The man was clean and outwardly
moral. And he finds it garnished. Oh,
he had all the religious trappings. This man had become religious. He got religion. He was respectable
now. Verse 45, Then goeth he, and
taketh with him seven other spirits, more wicked than himself. And
they entered in, and dwelt there. And the last state of that man
is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto
this wicked generation. The demons of moralistic religion
are stronger. than the demons of debauchery or any other kind
of outward, they're just stronger. But they are demons nevertheless.
They're demons nevertheless. This is how God, God sees it. We look at the outward appearance,
God's looking at, things are as God sees them, are they not?
They are as God sees them. This man had a legion of devils. He was bound by Satan. Scripture says outside of Christ
said... Now here's the glorious cause that believers have for
rejoicing. We rejoice because of what God
has delivered us from. Not only to what He's delivered
us to, but what He's delivered us from. Lord, that was me. That was me. I lived among the
tombs. I tried to chain myself with
a law. I cut myself with rocks. I was naked. My spiritual condition
was exactly like this man's. I was blind. The God of this
world has blinded the eyes of the unbelievers so that they
can't see. I couldn't see. Sin had dominion over me. I could
not see the truth of the gospel. I couldn't see what I was. I
couldn't see who Christ was. I couldn't believe the gospel.
I couldn't see the truth of the scriptures. I couldn't see. Why?
Because Satan had me blinded. I was in the very bowels of hell. You ever been there? God gave us this story, recorded
it twice in the scriptures so that we could identify with this
demoniac. So that we could rejoice in what
the Lord has done in delivering us from such a state. And if
you can't identify with Him, then I would say to you that
there's a real good chance you're still in that state and don't
know it. Don't know it. The Lord said He came to set
the captive free. He came to lead captivity captive. He came, well, what did he say?
He said, the gates of hell shall not be able to prevail against
this gospel. Why? Because that's where my
children are. Don't you love the story of Samson going down
to the Philistine city and taking those two big iron gates and
putting them on his back and carrying them off. And children
of Israel went in and routed the city. There's a picture of
our strong man. That's what Christ did. He knocked
down the gates of hell. Why? Because that's what we were.
Why? Because we were enslaved to Satan. Oh, maybe our house was swept
and cleaned and garnished. Maybe there was an appearance
of outward morality. But those demons are stronger
than the ones of bad habits and bad behavior. It's a whole lot
easier to convince some drunkard that he's got a devil than it
is to convince an upstanding religious person that they've
got seven. Isn't it? Where did this man live? Where
did he live? He lived among the tombs, didn't
he? He was dead in his trespasses and sins. The only people he
could identify with were dead people. It's the only people
he could identify with. Until the Lord delivered us from
our dead condition, that's all we could identify with. We were
just like Lazarus. We were just dead. I love what the angel asked Mary
when she came to the tomb. Why seek ye the living among
the dead? That's what we did, isn't it? That's what we did. We thought we were looking for
God, and we were looking for Him in the graveyard, around
a bunch of dead people. Oh, thank God! for crossing the
Sea of Galilee and coming to the Gadarenes and finding a certain
man that was possessed with a legion of demons and living in the tombs. Is that where you were? What
great reason we have to rejoice. Where do we find him now? Sitting
at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ. Being taught of God. rejoicing in what Christ had
done for him. This man was bound with fetters,
wasn't he? He was bound with fetters. What
did we do in religion? What did we do when we were under
the influence of Satan? What did we do when we lived
in the bowels of hell? What did we do when we were spiritually
dead? Oh, our conscience bothered us
because of our sin. But that wasn't the work of the
Spirit of God. That was just the natural conviction of a guilty
conscience that all men experience. So what did we do? We tried to
fetter the flesh with the law. Oh, if we just put enough chains
on this thing, we can control it. We get enough touch-not, taste-not
and handle-nots going on and we'll be able to figure this
out. We'll have accountability groups.
We'll meet with the men every so often. We'll have our prayer
groups and we'll feather in ourselves with chains. And then of course
we'll have the elders and the church leaders monitor our lives
and make sure everything's I don't know if I told you all this story
before, but the church that Reinaldo and Laura came out of in Dominican
Republic, Calvinistic, very Calvinistic. And they had the entire congregation
divided up into elder groups. And the elders would have to
go around to the families that were in their group And they
literally had a notebook and a checklist. And they would come
in your home and sit down with you. Rinaldo, you've been leading
your family in prayer every day this week. How much have you
given? Are you doing this or doing that? I mean, that same group, I went
down there, preached and, well, tried to preach, and they came,
the elders came in and put an end to it. And Reynaldo came
up to me afterwards and said, I want to know what they didn't
want me to hear. Their attempts to try to keep
Reynaldo from hearing the gospel was the very thing that God used
to give an interest to his heart. He knew those fetters they put
on him weren't working. They weren't working. And they
weren't working for you either, were they? That's all religion
is about, is trying to fetter people with the law, rules and
regulations. But in the end, we're like the
woman with the issue of blood, aren't we? She had spent all
that she had on physicians, and she was worse off in the end
than she was in the beginning. Why? Because all they were doing
was taking a poor woman who already had lost blood, and they were
bloodletting her. and she was worse off in the
end than she was in the beginning. That's all religion can do. It's
all religion can do. Religion just makes it worse. You see the truth is that what
I'm describing right now spiritually is worse. As God sees it. As God sees it, it's worse. than
this horrible story of this demon-possessed man physically living in a graveyard
with chains and cutting himself. The way God sees things are the
way things are. I'm glad God saw me. I'm glad He
saw you. The Lord crossed the sea for
that certain man. No man could tame Him. Isn't
that what we read? No man could tame Him. They tried to tame
Him. Oh, we got our checklist. We're going to enforce the law
on you. But no man could tame Him. He
just kept breaking loose. And every time you give Him a
law, well, the next thing you know, He's breaking the law.
The strength of sin is the law. You want somebody to not to do
something, to do something, just tell them they can't do it. Put
a person under the law. You want to cause some problems
in your home, just tell your wife something she can't do.
And you're going to stand with your authority, make sure she
doesn't do it. That's going to go over real
well, isn't it? People don't respond to the law,
do we? We rebel against the law. Fetters
and chains. No man could tame him. You can't tame a person that's
under the law. These fetters and chains might
temporarily adjust outward behavior, but it's like what the Lord said
about the Pharisees. He said, you're whitewashed tombs. Oh, you've gone into the graveyard
and you put the whitewash on the headstones, but full of dead
men's bones. Taking the cup, you washed it
on the outside. If I'm working out in the yard
or something and my hands are dirty, I pick up a cup and I
get dirt all over the outside of the cup, it don't bother me.
I just drink it right away. It don't bother me at all. If
dirt gets in the cup, now that's another story. The Lord said
that you clean the outside of the cup, but the inside is full
of corruption. It's fetters and chains and no
man can control it. Where is He now? Where is He
now? He's in His right mind, isn't
He? He's in His right mind. God has written his law on his
heart and pressed them upon his mind. He knows his inability
is to keep the law and that his salvation is not by his law keeping. He knows that his only salvation
is to be found in the one who kept the law on his behalf. And
so he's in his right mind sitting at the feet of Christ and worshiping
him. It's free. Free. Free from the fetters. Oh, Paul
says in Galatians chapter 5 verse 1, Stand fast in the liberty
wherewith Christ has made you free. Be not entangled again
with the yoke of bondage. It didn't work then, it's not
going to work now. Don't go back to Egypt. The only freedom there
is, is to sit at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ and rejoice
in Him and have no confidence, no confidence in your flesh. That's what the true circumcision
do. This man was naked. Scripture
said he had no clothes. How shameful is that? run around
a graveyard naked. That's exactly the way God saw
me. Living among dead folks, trying to fetter my flesh with
the law, and all along I was stark naked before God. He saw
it all. He saw everything. I fooled myself and fooled other
folks, but God saw it. Until he came, the power of the
gospel took that robe of righteousness. Don't you love the story of Bartimaeus?
He was crying for the Lord to have mercy upon him. Oh, Son
of David, have mercy upon me. Shut up, Bartimaeus. You're embarrassing
yourself. You're embarrassing us. And the
more they tried to shut him up, the louder he got. Oh, Son of
David, have mercy upon me. He knew that was the only chance
he had. Be of good cheer, Bartimaeus,
the Master calleth for thee." And the scripture says, can you
imagine the tattered, dirty, smelly, holy robe that he had
around himself? It's all he had. All he had. The scripture says he dropped
it right there and ran to the Lord naked. Lord, here I am. The Lord clothed him, didn't
he? That's how we come. He sees it all. Turn with me to Isaiah chapter
42. This man was crying, wasn't he? Boy, he was having a fit. I mean, the demons cried out.
He was running around, cutting himself with rocks and crying
and screaming. He was a wild man. You know what he was doing was
not near as bad as what we did. One more stanza. One more stanza,
just as I am. Won't you come? Won't you come
and let Jesus have your life? Won't you let Him into your heart?
Begging and pleading and crying with people to let God have his
way What was worse? What was worse? Isaiah chapter 42 behold my servant
look to Christ I Uphold him He's my elect The one in whom my soul
delighteth I We didn't tell people to look to Christ. We told people
to come out and walk down the aisle and pray a prayer and then
go through a new members class and then we'll monitor you with
the fetters of the law and make sure that you prove yourself
to be a true convert. And if you're not, we're going
to discipline you. See, it was worse, wasn't it?
It was worse. What God sees is the way things
truly are, and this is what God... Most folks would never be able
to identify with this demon-possessed man. I mean, he at least had
3,000, 2,000 demons. The Scripture says there were
2,000 swine, and the demons went into the swine. And most folks
would say, well, that wasn't me. My house is garnished. swept, clean. Don't forget, the demons of religion
are stronger, seven times stronger, than the demons of irreligion. I've put my Spirit upon Him.
He's the Anointed One. He's the Messiah. He's the Christ. I've sent Him in the full power
of the Spirit of God to save His people. And he shall bring forth judgment
to the Gentiles. He's going to accomplish what
I've said to do. He's mine elect. He's come in the power of the
Spirit of God. There's no way he can fail. There's no reason
for him to go around. Look at the next verse. He shall
not cry, nor lift up his voice, nor cause his voice to be heard
in the street. He doesn't have to go around
and beg people to let him have his way. When He's ready to deliver
you, He'll make you willing in the day of His power. He'll loose
the fetters. He'll cast out the demons. Real
demons. He'll cast them out. And you'll find yourself sitting
in your right mind clothed at His feet. And you'll never forget what
He brought you out of. You'll never forget it. where I was living in the tombs. I was a wild man. I thought if
I just cried a little harder, worked a little harder, and made
a little bit better effort, I could somehow get myself free from
these demons. The chains kept breaking. And when you came, you didn't
have to make any noise. The prophet went up on the mountain
after Mount Carmel, you remember, and the scripture says, and the
fire fell, but God was not in it, and the earth shook, but
God was not in it, and a whirlwind came, a tornado came, and God
was not in it, and then what happened? A still, small voice.
That's how God speaks, isn't it? He speaks to the heart, a
still, small voice, and causes us to know ourselves for what
we are. God-hating, dead, demon-possessed, naked men and women in need of
God's grace. So that's not me. I would say
to that person, it still is. Oh, we cut ourselves just like
he did, didn't we? I'll not taste that. I'll not
handle that. I'll not touch that. Somehow the sacrifices that I
make will be pleasing in God's sight. I'll be able to earn favor
with God. Demoniacs is what we were. Demoniacs. Wild-eyed insane, demon-possessed, naked,
dead, unbelievers. Unbelievers. And God does the same thing for
His children as He did for that man. Every one of them. And He
put it in His Word, because that's the way He sees it. And the way
He sees it, is the way it is. Amen? Bert, what are we going to sing? Number 475 and the hardback tenor.
Now let's stand together. 475.