I am reading from the Gospel
of Luke chapter 8 this morning. Luke chapter 8 is the story of
our Lord healing a man or removing devils from a man. Now, the miracles,
signs and wonders which the Lord Jesus Christ performed are recorded
in Scripture not only to reveal who He is. the Son of God, that
is, with all power over all things. But these stories, these healings
and deliverances were written to reveal how he saves sinners. Behind every physical healing
or miracle, every display of his power, there is a picture
of how Christ heals spiritually. This is what most persons miss
in the Word of God. The healing of this man from
the Gadarenes, casting out devils, is the story of every sinner
saved by the sovereign grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Let's
read verses 26 and 27 of Luke chapter 8. It says, They, or
the Lord and his disciples, 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
a long time." A certain man. Now, the Lord Jesus Christ came
to this earth not to make salvation possible, but to make it certain
for his elect. This man, with this man, salvation
was impossible. This man was possessed. But with
God, with Christ, it was a certainty. The Lord Jesus Christ came to
earth at a certain appointed time with a certain purpose of
saving certain chosen persons, which purpose he most certainly
fulfilled and which persons he most certainly saved. Salvation
is of the Lord. That is certain. And this certain
man, it says, had devils a long time, a devil-possessed man.
Now, you can forget Hollywood and how they depict demons and
devils. It's not like men think. They
do not look and act like men think. On the contrary, devils
may be very appealing. They're subtle and deceptive.
The devil was appealing to the first woman, or that is Eve.
and they're spiritual, they're unseen. They're wolves in sheep's
clothing, the Scripture says also. Now, there's no doubt that
many in this world who are demon-possessed can clearly show it by acts of
perversion and wickedness. But demon possession can take
the form of religion. I believe the Scriptures teach
that's where he does his greatest work. For this man is a picture
of all the sons of Adam. by nature, born captive to sin
and Satan. It says he had a devil a long
time. Man is born in sin, dead and
trespasses in sin. It says he wore no clothes. That's
a spiritual picture of man. Man is naked before God. All
things the Scriptures say are naked and open before the eyes
of Him with whom we have to do. Man is the only creature on earth
that is born without a covering. And that's a picture of man who's
without a righteousness to cover his naked or sinful soul. And it says that he did not abide
in any house, neither abode in any house. Man is a stranger
to God's house, cannot abide there, will not abide there.
And it says he abode in tombs. Man is dead, and he lives among
dead things in this world. The lover of dead things, dead
in trespasses and sin. Well, verse 28 says, When he
saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him, and with a loud
voice said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of
God most high? I beseech thee, torment me not. Now, while this is the devil
in the man speaking, yet it is the man as well. You can't separate
the sinner from his sins. We are what we do. We speak out
of the abundance of the heart. We do what we desire. Some ignorantly
say God hates the sins but loves the sinner. Well, that's like
saying I love water but hate how wet it is. You can't separate
the sinner from his sins. And this is everyone whom God
saves, they will They will honestly admit that when God came to them,
or before God came to them, they didn't want anything to do with
Jesus Christ. They didn't want to attend church
or hear the preacher. It was torment to them. Well,
verse 29 says that he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out
of the man. And oftentimes, this spirit had caught the man, and
he was kept bound with chains and fettered. But he broke these
bands and was driven of the devil into the wilderness. Christ had
commanded this devil to come out of the man. And it says this
man's condition before was oft times the devil caught him, took
hold of him. And this is man by nature, that
when something comes over us, we're captive to it, captive
to lust and hatred and evil thoughts. And it says that he was bound
with chains and in fetters. I believe this is a picture of
man who gets religion. And religion tries to bind him
and puts him under the bondage of religion. Tries to subdue
the old man with rules, regulations, restraints, and so forth. But
it won't do it. And oftentimes that drives a
man into the wilderness, like this fellow. Drives him into
the wilderness. I see many former wild men driven
from religion to the point of absolute hatred for anything
that has to do with God. Anything. And it drives them
away because of the bondage and the rules and regulations which
say, try to bring a man under. Well, verse 30, Christ asked
this man, say, What is thy name? He asked the devil. He asked
the man who wanted to sing. What is thy name? And the man
said, Legion, because many devils were entered into him. Legion
is my name. Many. So what about the indwelling
sin in mankind? The many evils. There are too
many evils to list in human nature. And most of them we're ignorant
of, like rocks in the soil. Most of them are hidden, just
a few surface. Well, what did it take to drive
out the legion from this man, drive out the devil? What will
it take to put away our sin, to create a new creature? Not religion, not rules, not
reformation. but regeneration. Only Christ,
Christ alone must give the command for the devil to come out. You
see, it was Christ who came where this man was. It was Christ who
sovereignly caused this man to come to him. Because he said
in the Gospel of John, All the Father giveth me shall come to
me. You see, Christ will get all
the glory in every one he saves. His choice will be glorified,
not man's. His decision will be glorified
in salvation, not man's. His righteousness will be glorified,
not man's. His works will be glorified,
not man's. He will not share his glory with
another. This man was passive in salvation. He contributed nothing to his
own salvation. You see, salvation is by divine
command, not by human will. It says that in verse 29, Christ
had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. Salvation
is by divine command from Christ, not an act of the human will
or decision of man. That's the way it is with everyone
whom the Lord God truly saved, whom he came to save. You see,
we're lost, and Christ must find us. We're dead. Christ must give
life, like Lazarus, like he gave to Lazarus. We're sinners. Christ
does all the saving. You say, well, a person must
seek, a person must repent, a person must believe. That's right. But
all who seek do so because he sought them first. All who repent
do so by the goodness of God. He led them to repentance. All
who believe do so because he gives them the faith to believe.
That's Ephesians 2.8. Because salvation is 100% of
the Lord and for his glory. He will not share his glory and
salvation with man. He won't do it. All right, verse
31. Verse 31, it says, This legion
besought Christ, that he would not command them to go out into
the deep, or that is, into the ocean. But they asked him to
send them into a A herd of swine, verse 32, a herd of swine feeding
on the mountain. They besought him that he would
suffer them to enter them. And so Christ suffered them. You see, Christ is in charge
of even devil. Read the book of Job for yourself
sometime, the first two chapters of the book of Job, which is
the oldest book in all of Scripture, the oldest recorded. You'll find
that the devils had to ask permission from the Lord of glory before
they could go anywhere or do anything. Now, I'm not going
to attempt to explain that, but that's exactly what the Scripture
said, because He's Lord over everything that writhes or wriggles,
over angels, devils, and men. He's the Lord. That's what His
name means. Well, they entered the swine, it says in verse 32.
It was a herd of swine. They entered into it. The devils,
verse 33, went out of the man and entered into the swine, and
the herd ran violently down a steep place into a lake and were choked. They ran violently. They entered
into a herd of swine. They had a violent reaction,
and they were drowned in the sea. He sent these devils to
occupy a whole herd of swine. They went into a frenzy until
they were finally drowned. This made me think of modern
charismatic religion today, which is in a frenzy, acting like devils. They don't act like this man
did, whom the Lord took the devils out. We'll see that in a moment.
And all eventually were destroyed. Well, let's see the change in
this man from a devil to a Christ worshiper. Verse 34 says, When
they that fed them fed the swine, the feeders of swine, which represent
modern preachers and modern religion today who are merely feeding
swine and not sheep, who are feeding swine with husks and
not Christ the bread. Well, they saw what was done.
They fled. They fled. That's what hirelings do. They
flee. And they fled, and they went and told it in the city
and in the country. Now, verse 35, when they came
out to see what was done, They came to Jesus and found the man
out of whom the devils were departed. It says they found him sitting
at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they
were afraid. They came out and what they saw,
this man, this former devil-possessed man, they saw him sitting at
the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ, listening to him, hearing his
word, clothed and in his right mind. They saw him sitting, not
jumping, shouting, ranting, raving, spouting off, but sitting with
his mouth shut, listening to the Lord. That's the first thing
God does to a sinner. When he saves him, he sits him
down to hear the gospel, shuts him up. You can't hear the gospel
with your mouth open. He shuts him up and God takes
the eye of me and my eye out of him. And if he ever speaks
again, he'll say, him, he, his, he and half, he half. And he
clothes him. He's no longer naked, unadorned,
but clothes him with his own righteousness. And he's got him
in his right mind. If you'd asked this man later
on, what do you think about God? He'd have said, God's sovereign.
What do you think about salvation? The man would say, well, it's
totally up to the Lord. What do you think about man?
He'd have said, man's a devil. He's dead. He's lost. What do
you think about yourself? The man would say, Well, I'm
a nothing, a nobody from nowhere, a former devil filled sinner
saved by grace. That's how God saves sinners. Well, if you want this message,
write to us. We'll send it to you free of
charge until next Sunday. Good day.