Well, good morning again and
welcome to our continuing Bible study in Luke and we're in chapter
8 and today's lesson is going to be from verse 22 through 40
and the last few weeks we've been dealing with the parables
and things that and and this what the last lesson we had was
from verse 19 through through 22 and where the Lord, his disciples,
there was a big mass of people around him and his mother and
brother wanted to come to him and they couldn't. And he said,
they that hear the word of God and do it, that's my mother,
that's my brother. And that was our lesson last
week. And so now they're leaving that. He says in verse 22, came
to pass on a certain day, went into a ship with his disciples,
and he said unto them, let's go over into the other side of
the lake. Now, they had been up in the Capernaum area, which
is on the northwest coast of the Sea of Galilee. And then
they had kind of dropped down. Remember, they went through Nain,
and they interrupted that funeral for that young man in Nain. Well,
that's kind of down on the southwest coast of the Sea of Galilee,
kind of inland a little bit from it toward the Mediterranean.
So they've kind of moved down a little bit. And he says, let's
go over to the other side of the lake, not by accident. So
let's review a few things before we, this is a kind of a long
passage, but I kind of wanted to set the stage here as we look
at these, these two events. Let's go across the lake and
there's this big storm comes up while he's sleeping, we find,
and then they come to Gadara. And that's the, the title of
today's message is appointment in Gadara. And that's the point
of the whole thing. And they're, they're kind of
too seemingly unrelated, but we find out that they're inextricably
related. They have very much one to do
with the other, what happens. And, and so this, this sea of
Galilee, this It's called the Lake Tiberias sometimes. It's
called the Lake Gennesareth sometimes, and Lake Kinnereth. In the Old Testament, it's called
Chinnereth, C-H-I-N-N-E-R-T-H. It's about eight miles wide and
13 miles long. So it's not a huge lake, but
it's big enough. And the Lord himself directs
that they enter a ship and cross over to the other side. It wouldn't
have been too much further to walk around, but he had a purpose
in taking a ship and going across. Nothing he did was by accident. Nothing happens outside the purpose
of God. And you know what we're going
to find out is that you know there is just not very many things
that happened in the New Testament that was not recorded and written
down in the Old Testament. It's just a fact. And you know
it says known unto God are all his works from the beginning
of the world. James said that in the book of
Acts chapter 15. And he was citing some passages from
Amos and Isaiah there when he was quoting it. And it was happening
then. This is happening now and it was written about a long time
ago. And the verses that we just referred to indicate not much
happens in the New Testament that was not written of in the
Old Testament. It's important to keep that in
mind. And so let's read the passage beginning in verse 22. And it's
a long passage, so we'll read through it pretty quickly. And
let's note that it wasn't by any accident or just circumstances
or the Lord was bored and he wanted to go for a boat ride
or whatever crazy thing you might think of. But he directed them
to go over to the other side for a purpose. And on the other
side is the land of Gad. You might remember that land
of Gad when the tribes came up from Egypt and they wanted to
go across the Jordan and go in and inherit the land. Well, the
people of Gads, they were cattle drovers. They said, they were
on the east side of the Jordan and they said, boy, this has
got a lot of good pasture land over here. We like it here. We
don't even want to go over. And they said, well, if you go
over at the head of our army and help us fight off the the
tribes where we're going in, then you can come back and inherit
this land. So they sent 40,000 soldiers, I think, at the head
of the Israelites as they went across Jordan. But they wanted
to keep that land that was over there. And that land, it's stretched
from the southeast corner of the Sea of Galilee down to about
the north end of the Dead Sea and kind of along the east side
of the Jordan River. It bordered all these other heathen
people, if we will say that. It was kind of called the Borderland
there because it was kind of on the outskirts of that place. Joshua chapter 13, verse 27,
28, describes that land. It says, in the valley of Betharom,
Bethnimrah, and Sukkoth, and Zaphon, the rest of the kingdom
of Sihon, king of Heshbon, Jordan and his border, even to the edge
of the Sea of Chinreth. That's that Sea of Galilee that
we're talking about. On the other side of Jordan,
eastward, this is the inheritance of the children of Gad, after
their families, the cities, and their villages. So it describes
pretty in detail where that land was. So with that in mind, let's
read here from verse 22. Now it came to pass on a certain
day that he went into a ship with his disciples, and he said
unto them, let us go over unto the other side of the lake. And
they launched forth. But as they sailed, he fell asleep. And there came down a storm of
wind on the lake. And they were filled with water
and were in jeopardy. And they came to him and awoke
him, saying, Master, Master, we perish. Then he arose and
rebuked the wind and the raging of the water. And they ceased,
and there was a calm. And he said unto them, where
is your faith? And they, being afraid, wondered,
saying one to another, what manner of man is this? For he commandeth
even the winds and the water, and they obey him. Think of all
the things they'd already seen. In Nain, he made that young man
come off of that funeral pyre, and he healed all these people,
and he made the blind to see, and the deaf to hear, and the
lame to walk, all the things they saw. And now they're saying,
wow, he even controls this. And so, and verse 26, they arrived
at the country of the Gadarenes. That is this land of Gad that
we've been describing. 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." Now, if you go
over to Mark and read chapter 5, it says, he saw Jesus far
off and he ran to Him and worshiped Him. Very interesting. And he had devils a long time,
and he wore no clothes. He was naked. What a description. And neither abode in any house,
but in the tombs. And 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, for he, now, it kind of in parentheses
here tells us what had just happened. For he had commanded the unclean
spirit to come out of the man. And that's who was just speaking.
For oft times it had caught him, And he was kept bound with chains
and in fetters and he break the bands and was driven out of the
devil 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. And I read a couple of history
things there, and it said that the Romans used a lot of swine
for their sacrifices in their pagan temples and stuff, and
that probably these herds were kind of designated for that purpose. But I don't know, I think when
the Lord told the people, here's what you shall not do, you shall
not eat swine. And then that bacon smells pretty
good. They said, okay, all that you say, we will do. So anyway,
we always have ham on Easter, it seems like. So anyway, it's really not important
about that part, but just a note. So they sought him that he would
suffer them to enter into the swine and he suffered them. And
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 they that fed them, saw what
was done and they fled and went and told it in the city and the
country and when 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 that he that was possessed of the devils was healed.
They said it was Jesus. Then the whole multitude of the
country of the Gadarenes round about besought him to depart
from them. We don't want you here. You just
killed 2,000 of our pigs. You're an economic disaster,
and plus you're doing a lot of stuff that's scary. So we want
you to go. So they asked him to depart from
them, for they were taken with great fear. And he went out into
the ship again and returned back again. He went back over the
other side of the lake. Now the man out of whom the devils
were departed besought him that he might be with him. He wanted
to stay with Jesus. He was like that woman with the
alabaster box and the tears and the hair. She just wanted to
put her head on his chest and just stay there. That's what
every believer wants. And he says, well, I've got another
purpose for you. It's not the time yet. He says, return to thine own
house. and show how great things God
hath done unto thee. He was to be ready to give answer
to every person of the hope that lieth within him. Tell what the
gospel, what happened to him. And he went his way and published
throughout the whole city how great things Jesus had done unto
him. And it came to pass that when
Jesus was returned, the people gladly received him for they
were all waiting for him. So one thing I want you to note
here, he went all the way over there and Luke and Mark, he just
deals with this one man and I think in Matthew it says there were
two, but this was the primary one, maybe the one that spoke,
but he didn't do anything else over there. He went over there
for one thing. And when he was done with that,
he went back. He went back. So keep that in mind. So when
we want to understand the need that Jesus had to travel there,
I must needs go to Gadara. That's what this is. Let's go
back to Genesis and take a look at Gad. He was the son of Jacob. Now turn back, if you would,
to Genesis chapter 30, and it gives us the story. Remember,
Jacob had some wives, and the one named Leah, when she saw that she had left
bearing in Genesis chapter 30, verse nine, she took Zilpah,
her maid, and gave her to Jacob to wife. And Zilpah, Leah's maid,
bared Jacob a son, and Leah said, a troop cometh, and she called
his name Gad." And that's kind of what his name means basically,
a crowd. We'll look at that a little closer
here in a minute. But then farther along, now his
father Jacob was a prophet and he prophesied about the Lord. And he did it through the blessings
of his son in chapter 49. Now if you go back there to Genesis
chapter 49 and verse 1, it says, Jacob called unto his sons and
said, gather yourselves together that I may tell you that which
shall befall you in the last days. And he's not talking about
just particularly their their short span of life on this earth,
because he goes on to say, and you're probably familiar with
this messianic portion of which it all is, but the one in particular
that always gets the attention is the one upon Judah. Judah
is a lion's wealth. And from the prey, my son, thou
art gone up. He stooped down and couches the
lion as an old lion. Who shall rouse him up? And the
scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between
his feet until Shiloh come. And unto him shall the gathering
of the people be. So keeping in mind that Jacob's
a bit of a prophet here, and he's talking about the coming
of the Lord. He goes on there and he finishes
that up in verse 11 and 12. And then he goes on in order
of all his sons. And we're going to pick up here
in verse 16 of Genesis 49, and I just want to do this to pick
up the context of how this is laid out. Dan. Dan shall judge his people as
one of the tribes of Israel. Dan shall be a serpent, by the
way, and adder in the path, and that biteth the horse's heels, so that his rider shall fall
backward. There's some malware thing come
up on the, Anyway, now there's a pause. There's a very critical pause
here. He's just been listing every one of his sons, and then
he says, he gives a little prophetic utterance about them. But then
he gets to verse 18, and he says, I have waited for thy salvation,
Lord. And then he addresses Gad. Gad. A troop shall overcome him, but
he shall overcome at the last. Isn't that interesting how those
two things are put together there? I have waited for thy salvation,
Lord. A troop shall overcome him, but he shall overcome at
the last. Isn't that just what we just looked at on the other
side of the lake? man, a man that was overcome.
And he says, he saw his salvation. He waited for it. He saw his
salvation and he ran to it. And so he, he addresses Gad in
It's just this one sentence. A troop shall overcome him, but
he shall overcome at the last. And I believe this pause of waiting
for thy salvation, O Lord, and that one sentence about Gad are
linked together, and that's what we're seeing here in Luke chapter
8. So, let's take a minute and look
at the definitions of a couple of these key names and terms
in Genesis. The name of Gad is derived from a Hebrew root word
which indicates to crowd upon, that is to attack, to invade,
to overcome. A troop shall overcome him, but
he shall overcome at the last. The term troop in the Old Testament
as shown in our Strong's Concordance from H1413 in their definition,
a crowd, especially of soldiers, an army, a band, a company, just
means a large bunch of folks in whatever capacity. And this,
the root word for that comes from and is defined as to crowd also to gash. Isn't that interesting? It means
to crowd and to gash. And it's a form of the name Gad,
Godad, I think is how it's said in the Hebrew. And in Luke chapter
8 verse 26, they arrived at the country of the Gadarenes, which
is over against Galilee. And they went forth to land,
and there met him a man of the city, a certain man which had
devils a long time, and he wore no clothes, and neither abode
in any house but in the tombs. And when he saw Jesus, he cried
and out, and fell down before him, and with a loud voice said,
What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God, the Most
High? I beseech thee, torment me not.
For he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man,
for oft times it had caught him. and he was kept bound with chains
and in fetters and he break the bands and was driven of the devil
into the wilderness. And Jesus asked him saying, what
does I name? And he said, Legion, or we could
look at that as a troop because many devils were entered into
him. Now, if we look over in Mark's account of this in chapter
five, go over to Mark chapter five, verse one, it says, they
came over onto 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 tubes, 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 often been 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. Isn't that an interesting
connection to that definition of that word troops, to gash,
a crowd to gash. And he was cutting himself with
stones, it said. And so we have a description
of this man, sometimes called what the maniac
of Gadara and whatnot, but he's just a picture of how we are
and by nature. He's just a picture of every
one of us. A poor man, he's untamable in his natural condition. He's
raging, it says. He's raging and gashing himself. He's naked. Naked of righteousness. Just like Adam was in the garden.
And all those terms are descriptive for a purpose here. So let's
go back to our text now and link this together in verse 22. Let's
look at this as a picture of what he is about to do in Gadara. And then let's see if we can
find that in the Old Testament. Verse 23 says, Jesus fell asleep
on purpose. And while he slept, the sea began
to rage around him. That's in verse 24. And then
the disciples cry out, Master, we perish. After all they'd seen,
after all that they'd watched him do, after knowing that he
was no mere man. And then they wake him up and
he rebukes the wind and the raging sea and there was calm. Isn't
that an interesting connection between that phrasing and what
we saw in this maniac that was raging and untameable and just
like that raging sea, in their physical sense, those men says,
oh man, this is awful. We're going to die. We perish. And that's where we are in our
unregenerate state. And yet even these disciples,
Eleven of them, no doubt, were regenerated. But even their faith
needed to grow. Their total reliance on Christ
was not mature yet, and wouldn't be for quite some time yet. Well,
I really appreciated, if you ever get a chance to listen to
Brother Wayne Boyd in Michigan, he has a sermon that's pretty
recent out called, Trying of Faith. And he says, all these
things are on purpose. And he says, you know, God builds
your growth and grace and faith by these trials, these things
that, you know, if everything was smooth and no problems, why
would we have any need? We'd say, okay, everything's
fine. I don't need to do anything. I don't need to grow. The sea
is calm. We just skittered right across,
no problem. But when we have trials, it just
shows us our need of Christ. And he says, when we get through
with one trial and we grow from that, he just gives us another
one, and another one, and another one, and another one. And life
here on this planet is just a series of those trials. that help us
grow in grace and knowledge of grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
So a very good sermon if you get a chance to listen to it.
I recommend it. So where is your faith? Where's
your total reliance on Christ for salvation for everything?
What all have you seen? What all have you heard? And
he causes them to think on these things. and then shows them that
he is the almighty sovereign God of everything. And he's about
to show them that he's the almighty sovereign God of salvation. And
he's going across for one thing only. Well, let's see if we can
find that in the Old Testament. Well, let's turn back to Psalm
89 verse eight. In Psalm 89 verse 8 and 9, it
says, O Lord of hosts. There's that name that our pastor's
been teaching us on for a long time about what that name means. Who is a strong Lord? And this
is the capital L-O-R-D that he's always talking about. Who's a
strong Lord like unto thee or to thy faithfulness round about
me? Well, when we talk about his
faithfulness, In the covenant of grace, he promised to redeem
all the sheep. He promised to die for every
one of them. He promised to save every single one of them. And
we've seen him go around. I must need to go to Samaria. I must need to stay at your house,
Zacchaeus. I must go here. And he had these
appointments all over with Levi, the publican, and all these ones
that we have records of. And he went on purpose. Chapter 89 verse 9 says, thou
rulest the raging of the sea. When the waves thereof arise,
thou stillest them. Isn't that a perfect picture
of what we just saw here on the lake of the Sea of Galilee? The storm, the raging, the picture
of what was going on in this poor man by nature in Gadara. The one that Jacob said, I'm
waiting for your salvation, waiting on the Lord. He'll be overcome,
but he will overcome at the last. What a picture. He stills the
sea. Then he goes over there and he
stills and calms this raging man that no one could tame. And
when we think about these things that described him, He was calmed, He was saved in
and by Christ. He was sitting at the feet of
Jesus. He was once naked, and now He's
clothed in the robe of righteousness. He was once overcome, but now
He's an overcomer through Christ. Gad, a troop shall overcome Him,
but He shall overcome at the last. You know in Romans chapter
8, we always love chapter 8 of Romans. Because it says, nay,
in all these things, we're more than conquerors through him that
loved us, loved us eternally, that electing eternal love that
wrote our names in the Lamb's book of life from before the
foundation of the world. He says, we're more than conquerors
through all these things. things through him that loved
us, for I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels,
nor principalities, nor powers, nor whatever these things were
that controlled him, and we all have those things in our life
that in our unregenerate state that make us the way we are,
and raging, and enmity with God, nor powers, nor things present,
nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature
shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is
in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8, 37-39. What a picture of what
just happened there in Gadara. The man, like that woman that was a sinner
at the house of the Pharisees, just wanted to stay with him
always. He said, I just want to stay here and
give you thanks and praise for the awful mess that you rescued
me out of. He says, return to your own house
and then show how great things God has done unto thee. That's
all you can do. And he went his way, and he published
throughout the whole city how great things Jesus had done unto
him. Isn't that an interesting set
of scriptures? This crossing this lake, and
stilling the sea, and then going over to this person whom he had
an appointment with from eternity, and stilling the raging turmoil
in him, and then we find him calm. we find him sitting at
the feet of Jesus, clothed. What a remarkable record. So that's it for today, my friends.
Be calmed and freed this week. So thanks for your attention
as always, and we'll talk to you next time.