This is going to be quite familiar
to everyone if you would turn to Mark 5. Mark 5. I'm just going to read the first
verse for now because we read this last week and we had a message
preached from this last week. So Mark chapter 5 verse 1. And they came over unto the other
side of the sea into the country of the Gadarenes. And I think
that name is very important too. But of course, this is a very
premier passage. I mean, Carol Poole preached
on this last week. But if everyone remembers, Joe
preached on this passage back when Gabe Stallmaker was here.
to preach for us. The message was called, The Truth
Shall Make You Free. One of the best gospel messages
I've heard. When Carol was here, I told him
after his message that this was my text for Sunday. And we talked
about a few things concerning this passage, some of which I
will mention in my message. But we have here an account showing,
as we see so many times, that Jesus Christ was always about
doing the Father's will. As Joe just mentioned, the Father's
will is to bring all of His to Himself. He always had and has
a purpose for what He does. We do not always see it. We don't
always know what it is. We don't always know what God's
doing. But we know that Jesus Christ came into the world to
save sinners. We know this is a worthy of all
acceptation that he did this. So we need to know who is a sinner. What does scripture say a sinner
is? And this we will find out from this passage. But all throughout
scripture we see God is the first cause of everything. It is no
different in this passage. Jesus Christ purposed to come
to this place. He purposed to call out one of
his and to set him free from the bondage of sin and death. Freeing one that was always bound
but would break those bindings. But this did not free him because
he could not get away from himself. He himself was full of devils.
But it is what happens when you live among the dead. Jesus Christ
came to set him free. Free to serve Christ, the one
that deserves serving. He is the king of glory, but
this king is a friend of sinners. So let's look at this morning
three things. He comes where we are, where
do we reside? And fear without Christ. So he comes where we are. So
what do we read? In the first verse there it says,
and they came over unto the other side. This they, in this verse,
consists of Jesus Christ and his disciples who were in the
ship. This was after the storm arose when the Lord spoke to
the winds and the seas and they obeyed him. And then there was
a great calm. It then says here they came to
the other side. Jesus Christ came to the place
where one of His was in need. If Jesus Christ does not come
to where you are or where we are, we will never come to Him. But the disciples came also with
him. So this tells me that as Jesus
Christ comes to men and women where they are, so should we
bring the gospel to them where they are. And I don't mean physically
where they are necessarily. Here's what I mean. We do not
bring the gospel where we want men and women to be spiritually,
or where we think they ought to be spiritually, but where
they are. We tell them as scripture says
we are. Christ is our example and what
did he do? He condescended to men of low
estate. The majesty, the glory from on
high came down and was made like unto his brethren. We are told
in scripture that he even ate and drank with publicans and
sinners. As Carol Poole and I was talking,
Carol pointed out that It was these types of people that we
read in scripture that came to hear Him. Others came for other
reasons, but sinners came to hear Him. Luke 15 1, it says,
Then drew near unto Him all the publicans and sinners for to
hear Him. Then what do religious people
do? We see this today when men and women hear the truth. We
know it's so because we not only have done that ourselves, but
even today this old man at times causes us to do this, Luke 15
too. And the Pharisees and scribes
murmured saying, this man receive his sinners and eateth with them. The King of Glory came down,
and He specifically came down, as the Scripture says, to save
sinners. So it is sinners who will hear
Him. Not only will they hear Him,
but they are eager to hear Him. The Scripture tells us, be swift
to hear, slow to speak. Those who are his, he calls us
to be eager. And you can say it like this.
They are waiting with bated breath, as the saying goes, to hear what
God says to his people. But we, by nature, get it backwards. We want to be quick to speak.
That is, we are quick to complain against God and quick to anger. Murmur, that is complaining,
is anger against God, because you are complaining against the
truth of God and that record He gave of His Son, which He,
that is God, tells us to hear and believe. To save someone
from their sin means that the one being saved from their sin
has to be a sinner, right? It is not, is everybody else
a sinner? but am I a sinner? As has been said before, you
ever get past being a sinner, then you have went way too far.
The important thing is that he came. We come to people with
his words as they are, sinners in the hands of an angry God
as Jonathan Edwards has put it. You cannot preach God too high
and you cannot preach man too low. We are not here to build
up men and women's self-esteem. Respect and admiration, that's
what esteem means. What is there in a sinner to
respect and admire? If a man or a woman gets to the
place where they respect and admire themselves before God,
they are in a dangerous place. His word is that he came to save
sinners. So the question to anyone hearing
me today is this. The question to myself today
is this. Am I a sinner? If you are, this
message is for you. So we know that Christ condescended
from on high and we also know from scripture that what He condescended
to do, He has done. He said it is finished. So what
is He doing now? He is letting us know about what
he has done. So he now today comes to us where
we are through the gospel by his spirit. His gospel comes
to those in a certain place. He comes to the tombs where we
reside. So next, where do we reside? Where do we reside by nature
as we are born in Adam, verse three? who had his dwelling among
the tombs and no man could bind him, no, not with chains. Who had his dwelling among the
tombs. What obviously comes to mind
when we hear tombs? Is there self-esteem amongst
the tombs? Death. We reside where death
is, and that is because we are death itself. This is not my
take on it. It is from scripture. God tells
us, and if we are quick to hear, and if we have ears to hear,
we will hear this. We are all dead in trespasses
and in sins. So I am by nature walking around
in this world dead. dead to God and dead to his dear
son who died to save sinners. So he has to come to us where
we are. We are actually dead just like
Lazarus. Jesus Christ comes to us and
says, Lazarus, life. Jesus Christ comes to us
and gives us life and then we begin to hear what he says to
us. come forth. Just as Lazarus did
and just as this man did who resided amongst the tombs, his
people do when he calls. They come to him, verse six.
But when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped him. This man full of demons did this. Does this not tell us that we,
as we are born in Adam, living amongst the tombs are full of
demons that he must clean from us? Just as Carol Poole said,
we do not have any power over Satan and his demons. Jesus Christ
is the only one who can cleanse us from all our uncleanness. This he did by what he did on
that tree. This he did for his people. Maybe for you, this is not of
much concern. But when God Almighty begins
to show me this even today, even after many years of being brought
close to him by himself, even now I am forced to say continually,
am I one of his? I want to be one of his. Am I
a sinner who has had my dwelling amongst the tombs and is full
of demons? Am I one of his? He has taken
care of us by what he has done on that tree, but he left us
there until he returned. If he left us there until he
returned, it would be quite miserable. we would continue to destroy
ourselves, verses four and five. Because that 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 stone. This world will try to bind us
with chains, the chains of that mosaic law, the chains of self-esteem,
with the chains of thinking my will will save me somehow. But
it will not work. We will manifest quickly that
nothing will bind us to keep us from harming ourselves. We
will do it the more and the more and it will be manifested. So
Jesus Christ comes to us where we are and he will do what? Where in this passage do we see
this man doing anything for himself? Where in this passage do we see
anyone in this place doing something, this man, other than binding
him? Where in this passage do we see
any of the disciples doing anything for this man? We may preach the
gospel to a soul, but if God is not in it, it will not do
him any good. Our problem is not being in need
of binding. Our need is to be freed from
binding. We are bound by this old wicked
heart, and it is evil and wicked, and it will continue to deceive
us so that we continue night and day to harm ourselves. being
held captive by Satan at his will. And that's exactly what
scripture tells us. 2 Timothy 2, verse 2 says, chapter
2, verses 24 through 26, we read, and the servant of the Lord must
not strive, but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient. in meekness, instructing those
that oppose themselves, if God, per adventure, will give them
repentance to the acknowledging of the truth, and that they may
recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken
captive by him at his will. We have no power of our own to
free ourselves from the power of Satan. It is only if, per
adventure, God will give us repentance to fall down before Him worshiping
Him, totally free from any binding and free to serve the King from
on high. What happened here to this man
is this is God's work that we see here and the context supports
it. This is what happens when Jesus
Christ comes to us, verse 15. 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. He was sitting. He was not walking
around trying to win souls for Jesus. He was not walking around
sowing for Jesus so that he might clothe others. He was not doing
anything but sitting with Jesus Christ, worshiping him. He was also clothed. Luke tells
us, speaking of this same account, Luke 8 verse 27, and when he
went forth to land, there met him out of the city a certain
man, which had devils a long time, and wear no clothes, neither
abode in any house but in the tombs. It does not say that he had no
clothes to wear. It just says he wear no clothes.
I don't think before all this started with him that he took
his clothes off and folded them up nice and neatly in one of
the tombs. So they might come in handy one
day. I think, and although this is my opinion, that he tore any
clothes that he had. He tore them from himself so
that he had nothing to wear. So how did he end up being clothed? Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ clothed
him, and this is true whether it was true in this case of this
man or not, whether he had clothes or not sitting somewhere. But
we are naked before a thrice holy God, and we must be clothed
with the righteousness of Christ if we are to be clothed at all.
We see something else here that is a result of Jesus Christ doing
his work, though. Fear. When this world sees God
working, it causes men to fear. Read verse 15 again. We didn't read it yet, did we?
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. We are not talking about the
fear of the Lord being the beginning of wisdom. We are talking about
a fear which causes men and women to want Jesus Christ to depart.
We have one who lived amongst the tombs, one that was full
of demons, and he had a fear, but the fear he had brought him
to Christ. He knew that Jesus Christ could
destroy him, both body and soul, and hail. But he also knew that
Jesus Christ was his only hope of salvation. If fear causes
you to want Jesus Christ to depart, then the fear you have is not
the fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom. They
feared. It was a real fear. But I'm sure,
although we are not told this either specifically, but they
feared that their way of life would be destroyed. Some of them
just witnessed the works of their hands destroyed. The herd of
swine, which I'm sure had some kind of monetary value, they
either use these swine in trade or at least use it to feed all
the people there, their family or whoever else. Their food was
an unclean thing. Because they saw that their way
of life was being threatened, they feared. This world's religion
will pray that Jesus Christ depart from them. Although they won't
say that, but that's what they do. They do this through trying
to stamp out the gospel where they are. They do this many different
ways. They will discredit the work
that Christ did by trying to remove his words being proclaimed
from where they are in any way they can. We only read of one
here that was saved by Jesus Christ. If you are not one who
knows that Christ found you amongst the tombs and saved you from
the body of death, then you are just one who just lives on the
coast. What is the conclusion to all
this? Thayer gives the definition of
this word we read in the first verse of where Christ went. This
word is Gadarenes. And Thayer's definition is this.
reward at the end. There are several ways we can
look at this meaning concerning this passage. I want to first
say there is no reward for what we do for him because without
him we can do nothing. We live amongst the tombs and
keep in mind these tombs were like caves where you could go
inside. They are not like graves we see
today in most cemeteries. We live amongst the tombs and
we are full of devils. So it is nothing of what we have
done or do. It is what he has done for us
and what he does to us. First, we can see that where
Christ goes to show mercy, there will be reward in the end. We
can also see that when Christ does the work, there will be
reward at the end. We can also see that if Christ
does something for me, there will be reward at the end. This
reward will not be some gain you get monetarily or socially. Not that he can't or doesn't
bless us this way. There were men here who had a
great herd of swine, and that says about 2,000. That's a lot
of bacon. That's a lot of bacon. Really,
that is a lot of food that is lost to someone to feed themselves
and their families and maybe even make money on it. We can
see in this passage that these men feared, and I want to point
out it does not say they feared the Lord. They might have feared
that their way of life would be ruined, but they did not fear
the Lord. When they saw their herd of swine
commit hogicide, as Carol Poole said, they knew they had lost
a great deal. So there was no gain there for
these men. But the one to whom the Lord
had mercy on in casting out the devils and bringing one of his
close to himself gained his soul. Jesus Christ came to dwell with
this man. He sent this man out to tell
what was done unto him. He said, go home, Joe. Because
as Joe said in his message, he did not tell him to go back to
the tombs. He said, go home. Go and tell your friends what
great things he has done unto him. This man, this one who had
the demons, had not done anything to help them. I'm sure the people
in the area tried to shut him up so that it would not deter
others from coming to this place. I'm talking about when he was
in the tomb screaming and all that. But they could do nothing
to contain him. Even when they put him in chains,
he would break those chains. Man who is born of Adam, men
who are not in the right mind cannot be tamed by men born of
Adam. This world tries to do this.
They try to bind men through the law. It does not work. Men will not be tamed by God's
Sinai law. We are told that all men have
sinned and come short of the glory of God. So all have sinned
and there is no question about that. Those who have been given
this right mind now understand this. Because the scripture says
sin is the transgression of the law. So we have all broken God's
law and we cannot recover ourselves from that place. It takes one
who has the right and the might to produce reward at the end. Jesus Christ will cause his people
to be clothed in his righteousness, sitting with Christ, resting
in him and in their right mind, taking sides with God against
themselves. He does this with love, grace,
and mercy to those he was pleased to die to pay for their sin,
to die for. Christ did not try to bind this
man in any way, did he? Jesus Christ freed this man from
himself. He freed this man to serve Jesus
Christ. And when he did, this man wanted
to serve and be with Jesus Christ. If you remember Joe's message
a long while back when Gabe Stoneacher was here, Joe preached a message
on this passage, as I already said. And Joe's text was this,
John 8, 36. If the Son, therefore, shall
make you free, you shall be free indeed. If the Son, that is most
certainly Jesus Christ, but if he shall make you free, that
is to liberate or to deliver, then you shall be, that is it
is certain that you will be unrestrained at liberty to do what you want.
And this will be indeed or certainly. That same passage in John says,
the truth shall make you free. We can be like Pilate and ask,
What is the truth? But that's not the right question.
The question is, who is the truth? The scripture gives us an answer
to this question. It tells us that Jesus Christ
is the truth, the life, and the way. It is he, as it says in
John 8, 36, it is he that can make you free. And if he does,
it is certain. So what did this man then want
to do? Did He want to go and try to restore those men's swine?
Did He want to do anything to try to make up for all that time
those people had tried to bind Him and could not? He wanted
to be with the Lord. If when what happens to you that
you say Jesus Christ has done for you does not cause you to
want to be with Christ, if what has happened to you does not
cause you to want to broadcast abroad what He has done for you,
then you had another Jesus, which is not another, but is a counterfeit
to do something to you. Because with Him doing something,
there will be reward at the end. That reward will be to be with
Him when He comes. Amen. Dear Lord God, thank you for
allowing us, conducting us here safely, dear Lord, to hear your
words once again. Cause us, dear Lord, to desire,
to desire to be eager to hear your word always, dear Lord.
Cause us to just be in your word, dear Lord, and learn of you. All these things we ask in Christ's
name, amen.