If Horatius Bonhart would be
here, he would say, now that's the way my song should be sung. I love that. We sing that at
church, but it doesn't come out quite that way. It's a beautiful
old hymn. It is a joy to be back. It was
a joy to be with you this morning. I always enjoy coming here. Every
time I've ever come here, either to preach or just to worship
with you folks, I've always enjoyed it. I enjoy you. I enjoy you. I'm thankful for Donnie and Shirley.
The Lord has given you a faithful pastor to preach the gospel to
you. That's a blessing, isn't it? In Mark's Gospel, Chapter
5, I want to look at a very familiar incident that took place in our
Lord's life while He was here. One that's very familiar probably
to all of you who read your Bibles. It's in Mark chapter 5. The Lord
rescued this Gadarene maniac full of demons. Mark chapter
5. It's 20 verses. I want to read
it to you. I want to read the whole story
to you. Mark 5 and verse 1, they just came over this sea, you
remember that. He passed over the Galilean Sea,
faced the storm, still the storm, the raging of the sea, and the
winds, and now he comes over to the other side of the sea,
to 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 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 away out of the country. Now there was
there a nigh unto them, unto the mountains, a great herd of
swine feeding. And all the devils besought him,
saying, Send us unto the swine, that we may enter unto 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 came to Jesus and see
him that was possessed with the devil, and he had the legion,
and he was 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 coast. And when he was coming to 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 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 how great things Jesus had done for him,
and all men did marvel." The saving of this Gadarene. I think
of all of the instances probably that we read of our Lord casting
out demons, probably this is the most remarkable of all of
them because of the sheer numbers of demons that was in this one
man. I don't know how it happened, I don't know why it happened,
but we're told here that this man was possessed with a legion
of demons. We don't know for sure how many
that was. It depends on what time of century that you looked
at the numbers of the Roman legion. Some say it was probably 2,000
for the reason that these swine mentioned 2,000. The devils went
into these 2,000 swine. So that's amazing in itself.
He said were many. So if we consider 2,000 demons
in this one man. And this one man had 2,000 demons. These angels, these demons, they
were one time holy angels. the scripture tells us don't
tell us a great deal about angels but it tells us something about
them one time they were holy angels and they were in heaven
and they sinned against God and God judged them and cast them
out and reserved them until the day of judgment to punish them
Peter said this, God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast
them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness
to be reserved unto judgment. And Jude says it like this, the
angels which kept their first estate but left their own habitation,
he has reserved in everlasting change under darkness and to
the judgment of the great day. So they're reserved, they're
cast down, they're sinful spirits. They're called powers and they're
called rulers. The powers and rulers of this
world. They probably call that because
it lets us know that these are formidable enemies. He never
called them rulers. Never called them powers if they
didn't have some power. If they didn't rule in the kingdom
of darkness. Under God, we know that under
God. One person talked about the sovereignty
of Satan. Isn't that sad? Satan is no doubt
a powerful creature, but he's a creature. And these are called
rulers and powers, but they're creatures. They're fallen creatures.
They're called unclean spirits. They're called foul spirits to
show what kind of character they are. They're not good. They're
wicked. They hate God and they hate God's
humanity. We don't know how many there
are in the earth. We don't know how many elect
angels there are, how many holy, fallen angels there is. We don't
know if they're all confined to this earth at one time or
not. Luke seems to imply here that some of them are in the
bottomless pit, under darkness, suffering the wrath of God. We
don't know if sometime they're allowed to come out. And then,
for some reason or another, they're driven back into this abyss. But these seem to be afraid of
being cast out into the deep. And boy, there's something about
being in that deep place, that abyss, that bottomless pit, as
it's translated in another place. Something about being there that
is tormented. Luke's gospel says, they sought
Him much that He would not command them to go out unto the deep. That's that bottomless pit we
read about in the book of Revelation. There's something about when
God casts them out into that abyss, it's a place of torment. And these demons thought the
Lord Jesus was going to cast them back into the abyss. And
boy, they thought him, please don't cast us into the bottomless
pit. I don't know what it must be
like for them that they plead so not to go back there. I tell you, God knows how to
punish for sin, doesn't He? Just one sin that they committed
and He cast them into the abyss to punish them forever. There's
no repentance offered these foul spirits. There's no atonement
made for these foul spirits. Christ took on Him the nature
of Abraham's seed, not the demons. So they're consigned there. These
were out and they employed the Lord Jesus Christ. Don't send
us out into the deep. Why were they employing Him?
He's the one that's going to punish them. Are you come here
to punish us? You punish us? What did they
mean by that? They knew that He was their judge.
He was their executioner. He was their tormentor. He's
the one that's going to consign them to outer darkness someday. That abyss, that bottomless pit. Seems like some of these demons
here can adapt. The ones that's in this earth
can adapt. These here were open and profane
demons. They have this man doing all
kinds of unnatural things. Not all of them are like that.
This is strange. Some of them can adapt to religion. Some of them go to synagogues.
We read about them being in synagogues, don't we? We read about some
of them being angels of light. Transformed into angels of light. So they can take on different
characters about them. These that we read about here,
boy, they were those foul, wicked demons. Here's the sad and fearful thing
I think about these demons and a fallen humanity. I've often
thought about this. The same end that these wicked
spirits are assigned and ordained to because of sin. You know it's
the same end? that is reserved for everyone
dying in their rebellion against God. Isn't that something? Lost
people, unbelievers, dying away from the Lord Jesus Christ will
suffer the same fate, be punished along with these fallen spirits. Both of them are reserved to
that day. Listen to what the book of Revelations
chapter 20 said. The devil that deceived them
was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast
and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night
forever and ever. But he doesn't stop there. Listen
to this. And whosoever was not found written
in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. Unconverted men, Christless men,
faithless men will be tormented with the same torment that devils
in the same place that devils are tormented. God has reserved
both fallen demons and the non-elect, if you will, to that bottomless
pit. That's frightful, isn't it? That's
the saddest thing one can imagine. We know that these demons exert
a lot of influence in this world, but we see them working and we
read in the Bible how they influence men. They blind men's mind to
the gospel. Those people come right here
and sits under your ministry and they leave and they never
know what you say. They never lay hold upon the
gospel because Satan comes and he blinds the mind one way or
another. We're told also that they fill
men's mind with hate, with enmity. They tempt men to sin. We know
that men are bad enough, but men do some things they would
never do. It's against nature. If Satan
didn't tempt them to do it. I wonder, really and honestly,
if Judas would have betrayed the Master, speaking as humans,
if Satan hadn't put in his heart to do it. He works that way,
doesn't He? Demons work that way. And you
know, every one of us was right in His dark kingdom at one time.
You, Hathic Quicken, who were dead and trespassed in the sense,
in time past, you walked according to the course of this world,
according to the prince of the power of the air, that now works
in the children of disobedience, among whom we all had our conversation. None of us, Donnie, was exempt
from the influence of these demons working in our mind. And boy
they work in the religious realm and they work in the open and
profane realm. They're in all of these realms
of darkness. They're working. Day and night
they're working. And they know they have just
a short time left and they're doing all they can. They're not
concerned about money. They're not concerned about getting
along good in this life. They're concerned about one thing,
the short time that they have left, damning every soul that
they can. Doing everything they can against
God and His humanity. They're foul, wicked spirits. And you know, you and I still
wrestle with them today, don't we? We are in hand-to-hand combat. If you wrestle with somebody,
you can't do that from a distance. You've got to be up close to
wrestle with people. And we wrestle, not against flesh
and blood, but against these principalities, these powers,
these spirits, wicked spirits, in high places. Well, we do it,
don't we? None of us strikes Him from that.
That's a battle of warfare the Lord Jesus put us in when He
converted us. And He'll be here till we leave
this world and enter the next. After a period of some time,
these demons had gotten such a control over this man that
he could not resist them. He could not resist them. The
poor man lived in utter despair, crying out in the mountains and
in the tombs, cutting himself with stones. The unnatural things
they forced him to do. It's not natural to run around
naked. You know, even though we're depraved, there's some
things we're ashamed to do. You see some of these people
running naked through the streets? He's demon possessed. Even the
natural man would not do that. Running in the graveyard, living
among tombs, that's not natural. We're sort of repulsed from that,
aren't we? We don't even want to go there
after dark. Crying and despairing, cutting himself. Nobody could
tame him. Breaking chains and fetters.
I wonder sometimes if these religious people breaking chains for Jesus.
I wonder sometimes if something's not wrong with them. Always night and day, He was
in the tombs, crying and cutting Himself. And we're told here
in verse 2, when the Lord Jesus got out of the ship, now this
is amazing, there met Him a man with, keeping company with, an
unclean spirit. This is absolutely astounding.
A man keeping company with, walking with, associating with an unclean
spirit. And the context would say a host
of them, a bunch of them. Isn't this amazing? What has
man come to? If you and I go back in the garden
and see the first man come from the hand and breath of the Creator? How handsome he was! How strong
he was! How healthy he was! How wise
he was! Walking in the cool of the day,
fellowshipping with his Creator, communion with God, how sweet
it was brother Donnie! And you leave that scene in the
garden 4,000 years before this and just shut your eyes for 4,000
years and wake up upon this scene. And here comes a man with an
unclean spirit. And you'll say, that's not a
man. I saw a man. This is not a man. I saw a man
in a garden. This man's in a tomb. I saw a
living man. This is a dead man. I saw a man
walking with his Creator. This man is walking with demons. This is not a man. Boy, we're falling, aren't we? If
men want to know, if people want to know if we're falling or not,
here we are. Here we are. We didn't bruise
our limbs. We didn't stub our toe. We fell
out of God. Fell out of life. Fell into the
kingdom of darkness. Lost the sweet fellowship with
our Creator. And took up with His cheap enemy.
With demons. Men with demons. How sad. And how fearful. Not healthy anymore, not this
man. He's sick and dying. Not holy anymore, he's full of
devils. Not happy anymore, he's miserable.
Not obeying the voice of his Lord, living under the control
of devils. Not free to worship God, but
a slave to sin and demons. Knowing what we know about ourselves
tonight, knowing our capacity to sin, knowing our constitution,
how weak, utterly weak we are, to resist anything without God's
help. Here tonight, every one of us
could look at this man and say, there I go, apart from the grace
of God. Every one of us could. Some have said that this man
was tempted of demons and he yielded to the temptations and
he continued to yield and continued to yield to suggestions of Satan
until finally he climaxed here in our text. He yielded so much
that finally they took complete control of him. I don't know
if that's so or not, but I know this, brothers and sisters, have
we not all yielded? Have we not all tempted God to
destroy us? To turn us over to devils? Have
we not tempted God to leave us to our own devices? Would God
not have been just as just to turn us over to demons as He
did this man? We'll have to say, there I go,
but for the grace of God. All of us will. What do you and I have, but what
we've graciously received. We can't glory in anything, can
we? We were talking before we come
over here this evening, Brother Donnie was telling us about some
of the things that happened in his unconverted life. And we
were talking about how absolutely necessary it is that the Lord
preserve us until He saves us. Where would you have been if
the Lord hadn't have preserved you? Where would I have been?
Where would you have been? There's no telling where we would
have been, would there? We wouldn't have had anything. We'd have
been in prison probably at best, speaking for myself, if the Lord
had not preserved me until He saved me. We ought to be so conscious
of that and live in His praises that He kept us until He was
pleased to call us. I can look back on my unconverted
life in car wrecks that were total, almost drowned twice,
should have been in prison, and why wasn't I? This poor man here
lived in the mountains, He could have jumped off of some of those
cliffs and killed himself. And don't you know that there
were times when he thought about doing it? He thought about doing
the very same thing these swines did. I'll end it. I'll drown
my miserable self. But every time he come to doing
it, there was this unseen hand that said, hitherto shall you
come and no father. And when you look back upon your
unconverted life, that you were preserved from this state onwards,
you can only contribute to one thing. Brother Gary, it was the
mercies of God. The mercies of a covenant God. That's it, isn't it? That's it. He saved us before He ever saved
us, didn't He? He kept us and preserved us. You may have a child like I have.
I've got children who are lost. And sometimes our children, our
grandchildren, as we get older, just worry us. Oh, sometimes
we get sick. We wake up in the night, grieved
and concerned and burdened. Pray for them. Pray for them. Lord, my child is full of demons. They're leading them around.
They're obeying Him. Would you preserve them? That's
a good way to pray. He preserved this man. Look at
the places the Lord finds His children. And He just didn't
happen to run on the man on the cross, the thief on the cross. He had preserved him and through
his evil, The Lord led him right up to the cross, hung him on
the cross beside him. Lord, if you have to hang my
child on a cross to save him, do it. But until you're pleased
to do it with your will, please preserve him. Boy, that's essential,
isn't it? That's essential. I guess one
of the reasons that the Lord lets us witness so many suicides
from these demons suggesting it to people and all of these
car wrecks and other things where people are killed and unconverted. I guess He does that one thing
just to teach us, look what I saved you from. Look how I kept you. Remember? Remember? Boy, the
judgment's going to bring all of this out in the open, isn't
it? And we're going to praise His name for Him keeping us. This man here, you know he praised
Him. You know he praised Him. Lord,
all the times I was ready to end it, I was crying and in despair,
no hope. Now I see that You kept me. This poor man was so possessed
and controlled by these demons, you couldn't even tell who was
talking here. Him or the demons? Both of them,
I reckon. He says here in verse 10, look
at it, he said, And when he saw Jesus aforeoff, the man saw him,
and the demons saw him. He ran and worshipped him. Who?
Well, the demons were in him, but he did too. 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. And you go on reading, and after
a while you'll see it was the demons, but they were speaking
through this man. He was speaking, but they were
speaking, and his soul united to him. You couldn't tell who
was talking. But I thought it was sort of fascinating here
when he asked the Lord, said, Are you come here to torment
me? You come here to torment me?
I remember the devil telling me this when I was a young teenager.
He kept telling me, if you go to the Lord, if you go to Him
to be saved, He's going to make you miserable. Being a Christian
is the most miserable life you can imagine. And that's what
I thought. That's exactly what I thought.
Boy, being a Christian, there's got to be a miserable lot in
life. And I'm not going to the Lord
because I don't want to be miserable. And I didn't even know it was
the devils telling me that until the Lord saved me. Then I realized,
this is the best life I ever had. I just began to live when
He saved me. I tell you, the devils are the
liar and the father of it all. Boy, they're bold. I tell you, they can be bold.
You better not yield to this man. He's going to make you miserable. Make you miserable? You're happy
now? The very devils that drove him
out of his home, tempted him to pull off his clothes and run
stinking naked through the cemetery, jump on to people, stink him
with his urine and feces all over his body, The same demons
that tempted him to do all of that had the nerve to tell him,
Christ will make you miserable, man. It will torment you. That's what
lost people think sometimes. I tell lost people that. No,
I'm not ready to be a Christian. I'm not ready to settle down.
I was talking to an old man on his deathbed. That's what he
told me. Oh, I ain't ready to settle down.
Next time I saw him, he was playing in his thesis. Next time I saw
him, they put a sheet over his head. Not ready to settle down. No, that's a miserable life,
being a Christian. Ain't that sad? But that's what
the devil tells people. My goodness, when the Lord saves
you, Dawkins, what was his name, the
atheist, Richard Dawkins wrote a book, wrote a book and in the
book he said, he said Christianity is one of the most dangerous
things to society. Christianity is one of the most
dangerous things to society. What kind of citizen was this
man you reckon? He was the finest citizen you've
ever seen. No, when the Lord saves you,
but He changes you for the better, doesn't He? Makes you a new creature. And He puts joy in your heart.
You've got peace with God. And you're clothed. And you've
got rest. You're sitting. And you're in
your right mind. Isn't that wonderful? I wonder why the Holy Spirit
mentioned these three things here in our text. He was clothed,
sitting, and in his right mind. And they took notice of that.
And the reason they took notice of that, they'd never seen this
man like this before. Every time they saw him in town
or in the graveyard, he was naked. And now they said, he's got clothes
on. I wonder where he got those clothes. Do you ever wonder that? My mind goes in these places
sometimes. You wonder where he got clothes
at. I tell you where we got our clothing. It was given to us. The finest
robe heaven could give, He gave to us. And He brought it and
put it on us. I bet you He didn't hand these
robes to this man and say, put these on. The Lord may have put
them on Him Himself. I know He put your robe on you,
Joe. Clothed Him. And He was set in. Why did they notice that? Because
they had never seen this man set down in His life. He was
always running up the mountains through the cemeteries. running
and yelling and screaming. And they said, He's in His right
mind. They'd never seen Him in His
right mind before. He didn't have a proper thought. Cussed
everybody that came by. He was a crazy man. And now when
the Lord saved Him, He put Him in His right mind. That's what
the Lord does when He saves us, isn't it? We're so tempted, we're
tried, we're sometimes broken. But you're always in your right
mind. You know who God is. You know who Christ is. You know
what He's done for you. You know who you are. You know
where your hope is. You are in your right mind. That's what the Lord did for
this fellow. He's going to torment you. He's going to torment you. Oh, what a liar he is. Don't
believe him. Don't believe him. I heard Brother
Todd preaching from this passage one time, and he said, this was
the only man that never got his prayer answered. And that's so,
isn't it? The demons pleaded with him,
don't send us back out in the deep, let us go on those swine.
He said, okay, I'll give you that. The citizens said, would
you depart out of your coast? He said, I'm going. This man
said, Lord, let me be with you. And he said, no, I've got other
things for you to do. I want you to go home to your
friends and tell them what great things the Lord has done for
you. Luke said tell them what great things God has done for
you. You know our Lord's a family
man. He's a family man. You know we had a family in this
earth before we had a church? And our Lord knows if you destroy
the family, you destroy the nation and you have no church. There's
no church without the family, is there? It's impossible. Our
Lord's a family man. He saved this man and the first
thing He said to him, go home. Man, go home. You got a home,
go home. You got a wife? You got a wife
at home, go love her like I've loved you. You got children at
home, you go bring them up in the fear and admonition of the
Lord. You teach them about me. You got brothers and sisters
at home, you got a father and mother at home, go honor them.
Oh, brothers and sisters, our Lord's a family man, isn't he?
I had a young man one time leaving his wife, left his wife, came
there to church. I was preaching on this passage
and I don't know why I did this, but I looked right down at him
and said, go home. Go home. All of this divorce and separation,
that's not of the Lord. This mother's forsaken their
children, their babies, that's not of the Lord. Our Lord's a
family man. Go home. Go on to your friends. Make friends of God's children. We should be making friends,
shouldn't we? Make friends of lost people. We don't take them
as our bosom buddies, but we need to make friends, don't we?
Make friends of lost people so you can be kind to them. This
might be the best life they'll ever know, just knowing you.
And you'll have an opportunity to preach to them about what
great things the Lord has done for you. I don't know how many
people have come up to me and told me, asked me, would you
go visit my uncle? Would you go visit my sister
and talk to them about the Lord? And I said, I will, but why don't
you go? Well, I'm not a preacher. Well,
this man wasn't either. But I tell you, if the Lord has
done something for you, dear soul, don't be so timid. Tell
Him. Brother Henry said, when the
Lord sent this guy, he said, he didn't tell him, go tell people
what great things you've done for God. And don't tell them
what great things God has enabled you to do for Him. And he said,
don't go to the seminar. Don't get you a bunch of commentators
and learn something. commentators. That's what the
brother does. Down in Arkansas, he got upset
with the commentaries and he started to call them commentators.
This don't commentate. Go tell them what great things
the Lord has done for you. That's it. And you can tell that,
can't you? You can tell that. Don't be so timid about it. It
gets easier the more you tell it. Just tell them what the Lord
has done for you. Buddy, I bet he told him. I bet
you he said, you know me. I've run you out of the cemetery
business and you're that relative before. You know me. And let
me tell you what the Lord Jesus Christ did for me. He came across
the sea. He weathered a storm to get to
me. When He came to me, I didn't
go to Him. He came to me. I never moved
a foot to go to Him. He came to me. I never went to
Him until He came to me. And He found me full of devils,
demons that controlled me. And oh, He spoke and I remember
when He spoke and said, Come out of him. He's mine. I've redeemed Him. The Fathers
gave that man to me. You come out of Him. I'm sitting
on the throne. He's clothed me. Look at me.
He's gave me rest. He's put me in my right mind.
He told them what great things Jesus had did for them. And He
said, this Jesus, He's God. He's God. And I can hear somebody
say, you, you, I know you, I've seen you. Why would he do anything
for somebody like you? Well, he would tell them this,
the only reason I can give you is this is what he told me to
tell you, he had compassion on me. That's the only motive that
he said to tell you, he had compassion. Oh, we've got a great Savior,
brothers and sisters. What a great salvation we have. No matter where you turn to it,
what experience you read about in this Bible, He winds up being
a great Savior. He got back in this boat and
I can just imagine He looked over His disciples and He said,
Have you ever seen anybody like Me? You saw me when I spoke to
the winds and the waves and they obeyed me. Now you see me speak
to these legions of demons. You ever seen anybody like me?
Oh Lord, ain't nobody like you. Nobody like you. There's not,
is there? Wouldn't it be wonderful to see
His face tonight? Oh, to do like those women, take
Him by His feet and hold Him. Maybe let us get up and look
in his eyes. Maybe let us lean on his breast
like John did. He may kiss us in the mouth.
Not worried about getting the virus, is he? Viruses die in
his presence. Oh, what a Savior. What a Savior. Oh, Father. Our gracious and
wise and holy and merciful Father. You have indeed sent us a great
one. You have sent us a great Savior, and He's done a good
job. He's done everything You sent
Him to do. He's delivered us at a great cost to Himself. And
Father, we praise You. How You must love us to send
Your only begotten Son to redeem us, to reconcile us. We've fallen
in with devil's unclean spirits, and our end would have been what
theirs will be. if you hadn't have delivered
us. Thank you. We have nothing else to give
you but our thanksgiving. Take our hearts, our minds, our
souls. Take our bodies for your glory,
we pray. Thank you for Donny. Thank you
for Shirley and all these men and women, the brothers and sisters
and children in this congregation. Oh, our great Lord, the head
of your church, bless this place. You've blessed it up to now.
Bless it more, Lord. Surely in a place this big, you've
got people you haven't called yet. Call them here. Join them
with this people that they may live in your praises. For Christ's
sake, we ask. Amen.