Yuba-Sutter Grace Church would
like to invite you to listen to a sermon by our pastor, Rick
Warda. We currently meet at the Yuba
County Library, located at 303 2nd Street in downtown Marysville,
California, on the corner of 2nd and C Street. Weekly services
are held on Sunday at 11 a.m. at the library. For more information,
visit our website at ysgracechurch.com. Now, here's our pastor, Rick
Warda. The scripture for our sermon today is in Mark chapter
5. and they came over unto the other side of the sea into the
country of the Gadarenes. And when he was come out of the
ship, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an
unclean spirit, who had his dwelling among the tombs, and no man could
bind him, no, not with chains, because 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. 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 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. And he besought him much that
he would not send them away out of the country. Now there was
there, nigh unto the mountains, a great herd of swine feeding.
And all the devils besought him, saying, Send us into the swine,
that we may enter into them. And forthwith Jesus gave them
leave. And the unclean spirits went
out, and entered into the swine. And the herd ran violently down
a steep place into the sea, 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 come to Jesus, and see
him that was possessed with the devil, and had the legion sitting,
and clothed, and in his right mind, and they were afraid. And
they that saw it told them how it befell to him that was possessed
with the devil, and also concerning the swine. And they began to
pray him to depart out of their coasts. And when Jesus was come
into the ship, he that had been possessed with the devil prayed
him that he might be with him. Howbeit, Jesus suffered him not,
but said, Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things
the Lord hath done for thee, and have had compassion on thee.
And he departed and began to publish in Decapolis how great
things Jesus had done for him, and all men did marvel. I've
entitled this message, Misery, Mercy, and Madness. By this man, by Christ casting
Satan out of him, and by the reaction of the people of that
country, we see these three things. First, a man in his misery. Second, the Lord Jesus Christ
in his mercy. And third, a world in its madness. Consider these three points with
me. First, a man in his misery. He could not control himself.
He was a slave to the devil. No man could control him. No
man could tame him. A legion of devils had taken
him captive. Thousands of demons controlled
his thoughts and words and actions. The devils set him on a path
of self-destruction. He spent his days doing harm
to himself by self-inflicted injury and pain. He was in misery
night and day, crying and cutting himself with stones. He was among
the tombs with the dead. Death was his only prospect.
He could not escape his inner captor. He could not deliver
himself from the devils inside of him. No man could help him. All attempts by men to control
him only made his captivity and helplessness more apparent and
hopeless. He was on track to end his own
life, bent on destroying himself, and he would have done so, but
for the preserving mercy and grace of God. He was in the misery
of despair because of his own helplessness against the enemy
of his soul, in hopelessness because the devil was too strong
for him. This man is a picture of every
sinner without Christ. Nothing gives us greater misery
than to know that what we are and what we do is opposed to
all that we should be. How many times I have felt this
misery in myself. Sinners cannot think right about
God. Sinners cannot make themselves
right. Sinners do not know how to be free from the great enemy
of their souls. And sinners are in misery because
they oppose God and their own life. We are helpless to free
ourselves. We are helpless to improve. No
man can help. All of man's restraints are only
external. They provide no help on the inside. Man tries to help by self-improvement,
by self-denial, by religious rules, and by the terror of God's
law. Men promise rewards of God's
favor and blessing and even eternal life if we can only do what is
right. But really bad sinners pluck
off all these restraints as if they were nothing. Religion and
God's law have no power to help sinners. Religion and God's law
have no power to deliver sinners from Satan's power because God's
law and human religion are all dependent upon men. We cannot
satisfy God for our sins. We cannot fulfill his righteousness
by all that we do. God's law threatens sinners with
eternal damnation. God's law promises life to the
righteous. In our madness, we think we can
do what is required to earn God's favor and obtain eternal life. But a truly uncontrollable sinner
quickly comes to the end of himself. Men who do not know God in Christ
try to control and improve sinners by God's law and by their religion. But a truly wicked sinner finds
no hope in all of the restraints of religion, because religion
is nothing more than man doing something to please God. Like
an elastic squishy toy that pops out when you squeeze it, our
sin only grows worse under the legal compression of God's holy
law. God's law outside of us makes
the evil inside of us break out in our thoughts, and our words,
and in our works. We are therefore in great misery.
Our only expectation is that we will remain lost and suffer
eternally. We will suffer eternal misery
because we will destroy ourselves by the evil of our nature and
the sin that we constantly commit. There is no greater misery than
to know that I do what I do because I am what I am and I cannot help
myself or change what I am. I cannot make myself right. I
cannot do what God requires. No man can help me. I am in misery
and despair because my case seems hopeless. Scripture finds everyone
to be like this man. As this man, God says of every
one of us, destruction and misery are in their ways, and the way
of peace they have not known. Romans 3, verse 16 through 17.
Our attempts to control ourselves, to set ourselves in the right
way, to do God's will, and all the restraints of man's religion
leave us in the broad way that leads to destruction. question. Why does God allow Satan to take
men captive and control them on the inside, to cause men to
harm themselves and set them on the road to self-destruction?
Can I free myself from his power? Can I free myself from his deception?
If I cannot free myself from captivity to Satan, can some
man set me free by gradual steps, by processes, by religious works,
by doing something to make what Christ did work for me? Why does
God allow Satan to deceive men, to bring them into bondage and
hold them there? Why does God allow Satan to keep
men in the bondage of unbelief, in bondage to their hatred of
God and in terror of his just wrath? The answer is, because
of our sin. Satan works through deception
and temptation, but he can only deceive the spiritually blind.
Satan can only tempt sinners. Therefore, Satan has power over
us because of our sin. Satan had no power over Jesus
because Jesus had no sin. Jesus said this in John 14 verse
30, The prince of this world cometh and hath nothing in me. The devil had nothing in Christ
because Christ is without sin. Why does God allow Satan, the
enemy of our soul, to have power over us by deception and temptation? Scripture says in Romans 6 verse
16, To whom you yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants
you are to whom you obey, whether of sin unto death or of obedience
unto righteousness. Jesus said, whoever commits sin
is the servant of sin. In His justice, God puts us under
the master we obey. Though the devil is the enemy
of our soul, God brings our enemy against us because we yield allegiance
to him in disobedience to God. Satan has power over us because
we are sinners. We have yielded ourselves to
sin. We have obeyed Satan in our mind and by our good works. By his justice God has put us
under the dominion of our enemy. Our enemy is stronger than we
are. We cannot deliver ourselves from his power and no man can
help us. But how does this help? How does
it help me to know that the devil has power over me because I am
a sinner? How does it help me to know that
Satan is my master because I have yielded myself to sin? How does
it help me to know Jesus had no sin and therefore Satan could
have no power over him? I cannot deliver myself, neither
can any man deliver me. I cannot undeceive myself. I
am held captive to Satan by God's judicial judgment for my sin. I cannot free myself from the
deceiver and the tempter of my soul because I willingly yield
to his rule. The consequences of our sin and
unbelief is that we are servants to sin and Satan. Just like this
man and his misery, we cannot reverse the process. We cannot
reverse our course to get ourselves out of the pit we fell into by
sinning. We became slaves to sin and Satan
by our disobedience. We cannot get out of that slavery
by our obedience. We cannot set ourselves free
from sin because sin is the prison of our own making. Neither remorse,
nor resolve, nor our will, nor our works can free us from our
bondage to sin and Satan. But how does it help to know
that I am helplessly held captive to my own sin and Satan's deception,
and that my path is the path of self-destruction? How does
it help me to know that neither religion nor God's law can help
me? It helps because it leaves our pride shipwrecked on the
island of God's mercy and grace. When we are guilty and enslaved
to sin, Christ becomes our only hope. I cannot do one thing to
deliver myself. God must save me in spite of
me. We cannot save ourselves. No
man can save us from our sin, from death, from the devil, and
from the wrath of God. There is only one who can deliver
from Satan's power. Only Jesus Christ, the Lord,
the God-man, has authority over devils and commands them to do
his will. The Lord Jesus alone has power
over the devil, because by his death he destroyed the works
of the devil. He took away the guilt and condemnation
of our sins, and therefore took away all accusers and the sting
of death. When this man was in his misery,
when none could help, when man had given up all hope for him,
God's mercy to helpless sinners appeared. And this is the second
point taught here. The Savior in His mercy. God's only mercy to sinners is
in Jesus Christ the Lord. Sin is the root cause of our
bondage. Sin is the reason why God in
His justice has allowed the devil to take us captive by deception
and temptation. Our sin is the reason we serve
sin and Satan. But the Lord Jesus Christ is
our great God and Savior. He came to save His people from
their sins, and He accomplished what He came to do. He came to
deliver His captive people from Satan, their captor. Isaiah 49
verse 24 says, Shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or
the lawful captive delivered? Thus saith the Lord, even the
captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of
the terrible shall be delivered. Though we got ourselves into
this pit, and though by all attempts we cannot reverse our course
to make ourselves acceptable to God, and though Satan is far
stronger than we, yet the Lord Jesus Christ came to deal with
the root cause of our captivity. He came to deal with our sins. Christ has power to deliver from
Satan, because by himself he alone purged our sins. He laid
the axe of his sin-atoning death to the root cause of our misery,
our sins against God. The psalmist said, Iniquities
prevail against me. As for our transgressions, thou
shalt purge them away. Psalm 65, verse 3. Our sins are
our enemies. They prevail against us. Satan
has power to deceive and tempt us, and there seems no hope.
But Christ delivered us. He purged away our transgressions
before God. God will not release a lawfully
imprisoned sinner unless full payment for his sins has been
made to God. God must have his due. Sin must
be punished. Compensation must be made to
God's justice. Honor must be given to God's
law. Christ Jesus the Lord came to
do that for His people. He was made sin. He bore our
sins before God and died in obedience and full satisfaction to God
in the place of His people. By His sin-atoning death, Christ
forever put away the sins of His people before God. 1 Peter
2, verse 24 says, Who his own self bore our sins in his own
body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto
righteousness, by whose stripes you were healed. Jesus Christ
obtained victory for us by his death. In his death, Christ answered
God's law in the court of heaven. Heaven's court therefore judged
Satan. John 12, verse 31. The Lord Jesus
therefore takes his people from Satan's kingdom. He takes from
Satan all those God chose to eternal life who were purchased
and justified by Christ's own blood. Therefore, because Christ
presented himself in the court of heaven as the Lamb of God
slain for this man, and because heaven's court received all from
Christ that was required for his people, Christ's people were
justified. Judgment was passed upon Satan,
and Christ therefore came to cast Satan out of this man. We are set free from our captor
because Christ shed his blood, because Satan the accuser was
cast out of heaven, and because Christ commands his gospel to
be preached to us with power. When the gospel of Christ's accomplishments
in the court of heaven by His death for His people is preached,
and Christ is exalted as Lord of all, with all power in heaven
and earth, then by that gospel Christ comes to take possession
of His purchased people, setting them free from their captor.
The Lord Jesus enters His blood-bought people by His Spirit. He lives
in us. We therefore live by Him and
live to Him. We live by faith upon Him who
saved us from our sins and from Satan, by His sin-subduing, death-conquering,
Satan-destroying death on the cross. We live by the faith of
the Son of God. When the man possessed by devil
saw Jesus, he ran to Him. This was the invisible hand of
Christ that did what neither chains nor fetters could do.
When he saw Jesus, he ran to him and worshipped him. If Christ
works in us to cry for deliverance, he will finish the work he started.
He will save us and he will deliver us. Philippians 1 verse 6. Because
Christ's Spirit is in us, we are in our right mind. We know
Christ and we live upon Him by faith. Christ won the war against
Satan by His death on the cross. His Spirit has shown Christ to
us in the victory of His death and in His sovereign rule in
heaven as Lord of all. Like this man, when we see Christ
in the Gospel, by the faith He gives us by His Spirit, we are
called by Him and we are compelled by grace to run to Him and worship
Him for who He is as our God and Savior. The point of this
passage is to bring Christ near to sinners, and by a sight of
Christ given to them in the Gospel, to cause sinners to run to Him,
bow to Him, and worship Him. Christ is brought near to us
and we see Him in the preaching of the gospel of His grace that
tells us how He saved His people from their sins by His own blood. Christ casts out Satan and puts
sinners in their right mind because He put away our sins and is set
down on the right hand of God in sovereign power over all things
as the Lord of heaven and earth to save His people and to give
them eternal life. When there was no hope from within,
and when there was no hope from man, when we were in the misery
of our destruction and despair, then Christ came. He made atonement
for our sins to God. He spoke his gospel in command
to set us free. And He comes by His Spirit, who
takes Christ's sin-atoning death and justifying righteousness,
and shows to us all that Christ did as our great Savior. Then
we are put in our right mind. Then we sit at the feet of the
Son of God, in peace, in quiet rest, because He saved us by
His grace, by His work alone. God has justified us for what
Christ did, for Christ's sake. The third point we see in this
account is a world in its madness. All those whom Christ saves sit
at His feet in quiet submission and rest. Christ has come to
them. He has made Himself known to
them in the bright light of His saving grace. He lives in them
by His Spirit. For the first time in their life
they are put in their right mind. They see that they were helplessly
bent on self-destruction by the pride and lust and ignorance
that was in them. But God has given and offered
his Son as the Lamb of God for them. God accepted Christ crucified
for them. God thinks of them as he thinks
of his son. All who have been saved by Christ
see this. They have therefore abandoned
their foolish pride and their rebellion against God. They have
abandoned and hate all of their former thinking that they could
be more acceptable to God or in some way better than others
by something they do or something found in them. hearing of Christ
as all of their salvation, hearing that He is Lord of all and able
to save to the uttermost by His power apart from my worth and
works, but by His sin-atoning death of satisfaction and honor
to God in all of His perfection, they want to be with Him. They
are at rest because He has accepted them by His grace and provided
all for them in Christ. But those who in their pride
in opposition to God's sovereign salvation see no need of Christ,
no need to be saved by grace alone, all these are afraid of
the Son of God. They love darkness rather than
light. They cannot bear the thought of being exposed naked in their
sin, laid bare in the shame of their lust and pride before the
eyes of Him with whom we have to do. When the men of that place
saw what Jesus had done to deliver this man from Satan, they were
afraid and asked him to leave. though they knew about the man
possessed by devils, though they knew the devils were strong,
fierce, and that there were many of them, though they knew Jesus
alone had power to command devils to depart, and he had power to
save men from the devil, yet they did not appeal to him to
save them from that enemy of their souls, but rather They
were afraid, because Jesus saw the evil in them. They begged
Jesus to leave them, that He might not execute against them
the judgment of God's wrath. They were afraid they would lose
their fortune in this world. They feared they would lose much
if they had only Christ. And they were afraid of their
Judge. They could not sit at peace in
the presence of the Son of God, because they did not find Him
to be their Savior. In their pride they did not come
to Him to be delivered from their sin and from Satan. And this
proved them false. More than the man who was out
of his mind when he was possessed with devils, these men were under
the complete dominion of sin and Satan. Because unlike Him
who ran to Christ and worshipped Him and found Him to be the only
Savior, they begged the Savior to depart from them. They were
blind to Christ's saving grace to needy, helpless, and hopeless
sinners. This is madness. It is madness
to see what the legions of hell do to a man and think I can escape
them by keeping God's law or following man's religion. It
is madness to see Christ's power over the legions of hell, His
power to save a helpless captive of Satan because of his sin,
and yet not beg Christ to save me, but rather to beg Him to
leave me. This is the madness of this world.
They want to be free of Christ rather than to be free of sin
and Satan, that they might be with Christ. When the devil controlled
the man, they were in peace. But when the devil was cast out
of the man and Christ controlled him, when the man sat at Jesus'
feet clothed and in his right mind, they were afraid and begged
Jesus to leave them. These men raised pigs. They were
pig farmers, pig overseers, taking care of unclean pigs as shepherds
take care of clean sheep. Pigs wallow in the filth of their
own excrement. They are happiest in the filth
of their own mess. Pigs can live on what men and
sheep cannot eat. Therefore these men correspond
to all who make their living feeding spiritually unclean food
to spiritually unclean men. Pig overseers are preachers and
teachers of free will works religion. They feed men the lie that they
can go to heaven by their response to Jesus, by something they do,
by their will and by their works. No believer can live on such
teaching. Believers are sheep. Sheep can
only eat one food. God's testimony of Christ and
Him crucified, how by His sin-atoning death He saved sinners by grace
alone and rules over heaven and earth as the Lord of all. Sheep
can only live if they hear and know that Christ is their only
Savior and the Lord of glory. But pigs will eat anything, and
they do. Pig farmers therefore correspond
to the preachers of spiritually proud unbelievers who love to
hear what they can do to make themselves better before God
and men. False teachers hate Christ and
are afraid of Him. They are afraid they will lose
the praise of men and the profit that comes from teaching false
gospels. They are afraid because Christ
knows their hypocrisy and He is their judge. They are afraid
of the truth because it puts Christ on the throne in sovereign
control and puts man in the dust. Jesus allowed the devils to enter
the pigs. Jesus saves men by casting devils
out of them. He does so by His Spirit. The
preaching of the gospel of His almighty saving grace is His
command for the light to shine into our darkness. Jesus Christ
is the Savior and the Judge. He saves His people, but He judges
the unclean, those who live on free will, works, religion, the
food of pigs. Devils are subject to Christ.
He cast them out of the man, but he sent them into pigs. He
gives devils permission to enter those who love to wallow in the
filth of their good works. Are you helpless before your
sin and Satan and death? Do you see that God has provided
and accepted his son for sinners? Do you see that Jesus Christ
is the Son of God, able to save to the uttermost all who come
to God by him? If you love Christ because He
saved you from your sins by His sin-atoning death without any
help from you, if you love God because He received Christ and
looks to His Son and finds in Him all that He requires of sinners,
and if you rest in quiet submission to the Lord Jesus as Lord of
all, then you are Christ's sheep. But if you prefer free will works
religion to salvation by Christ alone, and if you prefer your
own proud heart to the glory of Christ who saves sinners from
the devil and death by saving them from their sins, If you
are afraid of Christ as judge and do not appeal to Him to be
all of your salvation, then you are unclean and filthy before
God. Run to Christ. Call upon Him. See that you have
nothing in yourself to answer God or free yourself from your
sin and the horrible consequences of it. Look to Christ alone. Ask Him to save you, to show
you His saving work and His sovereign rule that salvation is of the
Lord. You've just heard a sermon by
our pastor, Rick Warda. You may contact us by email or
by phone, or download a copy of this sermon by visiting our
website at ysgracechurch.com.