Good morning everyone. If you
would open your Bibles with me to Mark chapter 5. Mark the 5th
chapter. Before we begin, let's bow before
our Lord, seek his blessing. Our Father, we bow before your
throne and your awesome Holy Presence this morning. Daring
only come before your throne, pleading the person of our Lord
Jesus Christ, pleading his obedience as our only righteousness, pleading
his blood as the only cleansing that we have from our sin, pleading
his person as our only acceptance in your sight. We dare not bring
any of our works or thoughts or anything about us, but Father,
pleading Christ and Christ alone. It is our heartfelt desire this
morning, Father, to be enabled by thy spirit to worship you.
Father, I beg of you that you would enable us to lift up the
name of our Lord Jesus Christ and that you give us faith to
see a heart that loves him, a spirit that hungers and thirsts after
him. Father, cause us to be taken up with Christ, him and him alone. And what we pray for ourselves,
we pray for your people, wherever they meet together today. Father, in this dark, dark day
in which we live, a day that is the fulfillment of your promise
of a famine of spiritual bread, Father, cause your word to go
forth in power. Reveal your glory to us, we pray. Father, we pray for our children's
classes also in this hour that you bless in a very special way. How we thank you for our young
people. And father, we beg mercy for
their souls. And ask that you would keep us faithful to always
teach them and point them to our Lord Jesus Christ. And father,
we pray for our country at this time. The time. Father, that we would I ask you
that you not give us what we deserve. But by your mercy and
grace, you would protect this country, that you'd protect the
freedoms that we enjoy, that you provided for us. Enable this
to continue to be a place where your people can meet together
in freedom and without fear of any repercussions. Father, give
our leaders wisdom that they do not have by nature. Turn their
heart to lead us right, we pray. All these things we ask in that
name, which is above every name for his sake and his glory, we
pray. Amen. Titled our lesson this morning,
our story of grace. This is the story of the demoniac
who's living amongst the tombs in the gatherings. And I'm confident every believer
can read this account of the Lord coming to this poor man.
and be able to see, that's me. You know, we sit here this morning
in our Sunday best, but let's not ever be deceived into thinking
that spiritually and mentally, we're not just as much lost case
as this man was. Every believer will say, this
is my story of grace. So here's the first thing that
I see in our story of grace. The Lord came to save us on purpose.
Verse one, Mark chapter five. Then they came over under the
other side of the sea into the country of the Gadarenes. Now
our Lord had been on the other side of the sea. And while he
was there, he was teaching a great multitude. And don't you just
think the disciples were real happy about that. They thought,
boy, we're with the cool kids now. You know, we're with our
masters that's got this big crowd following me, teaching all these
big crowds. But the Lord took his disciples
and he left that multitude and he got into a little ship with
his disciples and crossed the sea where the Lord brought a
great storm to come upon them. It was so bad that the disciples
thought the ship was going down. Now the Lord did that. He put
himself on that ship to go through the storm. He put his disciples
on that ship to go through this great storm. And he went through
all of that to leave the multitude and go to one. one on the other
side of the sea. Let me ask you, was it worth
it? Was it worth it? Boy, that poor
demoniac it was. I sat in my study yesterday and
thought about how this work begins. And I asked myself, was it worth
it? You betcha. It sure was. The Lord is gonna
do whatever it takes, whatever it takes to bring grace and salvation
to the people that the father gave him to save. You can count
on it. Whatever it is that happens in
the events of Providence is happening so that the Lord can bring mercy
and grace to His people. I bet the disciples, that was
the furthest thing from their mind while they were in that
storm. Don't you reckon? But that's why they were going
through it. And after the Son came to earth to establish righteousness
for His people, to purchase their eternal salvation, He went back
to the Father from whence he came. That's what the Lord did
here, too. Look back over across the page
there, the next page of verse 21. And when Jesus was passed
over again by ship unto the other side, the Lord came for that
one man living in the cemetery, and then he went back over the
other side from where he came from. Isn't that what the Lord
did? He came, the Son of God came to earth as a man to establish
righteousness for his people, to bring mercy and salvation
to his people. And then he sent him back where
he came from. And he did that on purpose to save the specific
people that the father gave him to save. Then here's the second thing
in our story of grace. Every one of us has to confess
this. We were demon possessed and the Lord cast them out. Verse
two says, and when he was come out of the ship immediately,
There met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit. Now being possessed of one unclean
spirit would be bad enough. It's just more horrible than
I even want to try to imagine. But this man was possessed with
many unclean spirits. Look at verse nine. And he asked
him, the Lord talking to this demon, asking, what is thy name?
And he answered saying, my name is Legion, for we're many. This man was possessed with many
unclean spirits. And these demons controlled every
action of this man. They just tormented him constantly. 24-7, they tormented him. And when this man spoke, you
couldn't tell. Is it this man speaking or is
it the demons? You know, this poor man just
had to do whatever these demons, you know, whatever they had him,
wanted him to do, whatever they wanted him to say, he had to
do it because he was possessed of them. And every child of God
will say spiritually, that describes me. I was under the control of
the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh
in the children of disobedience. That same spirit used to work
in me, used to control me. I was taken captive at Satan's
will. That's the way Paul described
the unbeliever, this unbelieving world of Timothy. He said they're
taken captive at Satan's will. Everything I did, was controlled
by sin, by an old nature that all they could do is sin. Everything
I did, everything I thought, everything I said was controlled
by that. Now physically, I may have heard
the gospel, but I couldn't believe it. I could not believe Christ,
because I was under the control of sin. I was under control of
Satan, and I had a multitude of captors, a multitude. I have
a multitude of sin. I can't handle even one of them,
much less a multitude. And the Lord came and he drowned
all of my sin in his precious blood. He shed his precious blood
to cover my sin and to put it away. Just like he did with these
demons when he sent them into the swine in the sea. Look at
verse 10. And he besought him much that he would not send them
away out of the country. And there was there, nigh into
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 the inn. 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.
There were about 2,000, and they were choked in the sea. Isn't
that exactly what our Lord did with the sin of his people? He
put it under his blood and drowned them. Put them away forever. Now that just shows you how the
Savior is Lord of all. Those demons, they could not
do anything without His permission. He had to give them permission
to enter into the swine. And they entered into the swine,
the swine just ran down and killed themselves, you know, in the
sea. Why didn't this man do that? Because our Lord is Lord over
all. He didn't know it, but the Lord was keeping him from drowning
himself in the sea. Till the Lord came and showed
mercy to him. And every believer will say this,
Satan used to have a hold on me. He was the strong man arm,
I could not get rid of him. I could not set myself free.
And Christ came as a strong man arm, and he cast him out. He had no more control on me.
God's justice had a claim on me and Christ came and he set
me free. He set me free by taking my place
and satisfying justice for me, something I could never do for
myself. He suffered everything my sin deserves so that God's
justice is not hunting me anymore. I'm free, free from God's justice. Christ the Savior has the power
to set his people free and he's going to do it. If the sun shall
make you free, you're free indeed. You know, those slaves set free
after the American Civil War. People found a way. Now, they
were free. Legally, weren't they? They were
free. People sure found a way to make them not really free.
They invented sharecropping and all these other things. So, you
know, technically they were free, but they weren't really free.
That's not the freedom I'm talking about. If the Son should make
you free, you're free indeed. No more chains, no more ropes
binding you, no more nothing. You're free. And that's what
God has done for every last one of his elect. And they all have
to say that. Now I'm free. I'm free because Christ came
in his power and set me free. The third thing in our story
of grace is this. We were spiritually dead. and the Lord gave us life. Verse three, it says, this man
had his dwelling among the tombs and no man could bind him. No,
not with chains. This man was living among the
tombs. He was alive, but he was dead, wasn't he? And everyone
of God's elect will say, that's me. That describes me. I was
born dead in sin. And I had physical life, but
I was spiritually dead and I couldn't do anything to give myself life
because I was dead. But Christ came where I was and
he said, live. He looked at me, polluted in
my own blood, cast out into the open field to the loathing of
my person and he said, live. He came to me where I was in
those tombs and just like he did for Lazarus of old, he cried,
Lazarus, come forth. Christ came to me in the preaching
of the gospel. He commanded me to come forth. And just like Lazarus, he which
was dead came forth alive. And the Lord said, loose him
and let him go. Let's get those grave clothes
off of him. Loose him and let him go. He's free. And now, it's not just that I
have life. Now I have Christ who is my life. who is my life. He came to me
and gave me his life. All right, here's the fourth
thing. In our story of grace, religion couldn't tame me. Religion
could not tame us, couldn't control us. Only Christ can tame us. In verse three, he says, no man
could bind him, no knot 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. This man could not be tamed,
even when they bound him with chains. You know, people tried
to wrap chains around him and put him in handcuffs and whatever
all, you know, that they did. So he wouldn't be a danger to
himself anymore. So he wouldn't be a danger to
other people anymore. People were scared to death to pass
by this cemetery. This man would jump out and hurt
them or, you know, they're scared to death of him. So they thought,
well, let's just chain him up so he can't hurt himself or hurt
us anymore. And this man just broke those
chains off of him. I mean, the power, the power
to break those chains off of him. And that's a picture of
bondage to the law. You know, false preachers, here's
what they do. They deal with the outside. They can't deal
with the heart. All they can do is deal with
the outside. They try to make people look
better on the outside by restricting what they can and cannot do.
They use the demands of the law to try to hedge them in so their
sin can't bust out. They can't hurt themselves or
hurt other people anymore. They're just trying to control
the outward manifestation of sin. And it might work for a
time. It might work. You might get
somebody to clean up their act a little bit, you know. For a
short time, it might work. But I'm telling you, sin will
eventually break out of that bondage. The law cannot restrain
sin. It can't do it. As a matter of
fact, you know what the law does? It just incites sin to riot.
I mean, just tell me I can't do something. Just tell me. I
may not even want to do it, but once you tell me I can't do it,
that's all I'm going to want to do. The law, that's what the
Apostle Paul said, you know, he said, I thought I kept the
law until I saw what the law really said. It just incited
sin in me because sin is not in the outward. Sin is inward. Sin is in the
heart. It's a nature of sin and no chaining the outside is going
to control that nature of seeing just like a prisoner in the prison. You know, he's a serial killer. Well, he may not be killing folks
while he's there in prison because he's in prison. Somebody's keeping
him in a small cell. You know, he can't get out. He
can't get to people. He can't hurt him. But just parole him
and see what happens. Just set him free. That nature
is going to come out again. That's us. Even an outward show of true
religion cannot tame us, cannot get rid of the sin that's in
us. I can tell you that by experience, and many of you can say the same
thing. Even sitting under the sound of the gospel, even hearing
of Christ and Him crucified, even hearing the truth of the
scriptures that cannot control the sin that's in you. Look at
verse six here in our text. And when he saw Jesus afar off,
he ran and worshiped 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. Now this is an outward show of
religion. This man came and bowed before
the Lord. And if you didn't really know
what was going on, you just saw this man bowing before the Lord
Jesus, you'd think this is worship, wouldn't you? He's bowing before
the Lord, just like the leper. came and bowed before the Lord.
It looks like an outward show of worship. And I'll tell you,
an outward show of religion is one of the worst enemies of the
soul that there is. Because it gives us a false refuge.
A false refuge. This legion of demons made this
man act religious. Act religious. He came and bowed
But here's the difference between him and that leper. There was
no worship there. He didn't come ask the Lord for
mercy, did he? No, these demons, what they made this man say,
they came to the Lord of glory and said, leave us alone. Leave us alone. that ought not surprise us because
that's man's reaction to hearing the gospel. Left our own nature
now, left our own selves. This is the reaction of the natural
man when we hear the gospel. Don't tell me any more about
that. Now I hate that. Just leave me alone in the religion
I already got. I got my shelter all built. I've
got my refuge all built. I've got all my doctrinal ducks
in a row. Don't be messing it up by telling
me I can't do something to please God. Don't be messing up my refuge
by telling me I'm totally depraved and I need Christ to do all the
saving for me. No, I already made the decision to accept Jesus
as my personal savior. I've already let him into my
heart. Don't tell me I can't do that. Don't tell me that I'm
in God's hand to do with as he pleases. Don't tell me that I
deserve for God to cast me into hell. I'm a pretty good fella.
Leave me alone in the religion that I've already got. And that
is the way our fallen nature will respond to the gospel every
time. Unless God crosses our will, that's what we'll say.
You see, salvation requires God giving a new heart. We've got
to be given a new nature. And until we're given a new nature,
we can't believe Christ. We can't love Christ. We cannot
come to Him. And as long as we're trying to
earn a righteousness by our works of the flesh, you know what we're
doing? All we're doing is hurting our own selves. Look at verse
five. And always, night and day, he
was in the mountains and in the tombs, crying and cutting himself
with stones. This man was cutting himself
with stones, just trying to feel something different than the
torment of this legion that was possessing him. That's heartbreaking,
isn't it? That's so heartbreaking. This
really happened to this man. But what that is a picture of
is what you and I did to ourselves before the Lord intervened. We
were hurting ourselves trying to establish a righteousness
by our own works. And all we were doing was damning
ourselves. All right, here's the fifth thing
in our story of grace. Boy, so far, all hope seems lost,
doesn't it? I mean, that's a pretty dark
story. But the fifth thing in our story of grace is this. Christ
came to us, and he also made us run to him. Verse two says,
when he was come out of the ship, immediately there met him a man
out of the tombs with an unclean spirit. Immediately this man
ran to Christ. Verse six says, when he saw Jesus
afar off, he ran and worshiped him. Now, I know the demons made
this man run to Christ, but the man did run to Christ. You know,
we need to remember this. The Lord is still the first cause
of everything. You know, those demons were possessing
that man and tormenting him and doing everything that they could
to keep this man from Christ. And our Lord is so sovereign,
He used those demons to make that poor man run to Him and
bow to Him. See, there's nothing. There's
nothing our Savior's not in control of. There's nothing he can't
use to bring his people to himself. This man ran to Christ. Now, this is something I say
frequently. I cannot stress this strongly
enough. Run. Don't walk. Run to Christ. Run to him. Flee to him. because He is everything
that you need. As fast as you possibly can,
get in the dust at His feet and beg for mercy. Here's what I know, and we preach
this unashamedly and as clearly and strongly as we can. Almighty
God has an elect people. A people that He chose to save
by name, specifically on purpose. Christ came to save those people.
And he saved them. He got the job done. His blood
put their sin away. His obedience as their representative
made them righteous. And the Lord's gonna save those
people. He's gonna call them to himself. They're gonna come
to Christ. They're going to. The Holy Spirit's
gonna draw them. They're gonna come to Christ. But the Lord's gonna make those
people see themselves for who and what they are. And they're
gonna beg God for mercy. God's gonna make them beg Him
for mercy. And he's going to make them beg before the Lord
ever saves them. Before the Lord has mercy on
them, they're going to beg him for mercy. Now I'm telling you,
run to Christ. Run to him because you're a sinner
who needs a Savior. And he is the only Savior of
sinners. No one ever yet came to Christ
because they knew that they were one of the elect. I tried. for years and years and years
and years to figure out if I was one of God's elect or not. If
I could figure that out, then I figure I could come to Christ
with some confidence. But nobody yet ever came to Christ
because they knew they were one of the elect. Everyone who ever
came to Christ came to Christ because they're a sinner and
they're seeking forgiveness. They're seeking mercy. You know
what gives you confidence to come to Christ? He said come. That's your confidence. Your
confidence to come to Christ is this, you're a sinner and
He's the Savior of sinners. That's your confidence in coming
to Christ. You come to Christ and you know
what you'll find out later on? Oh, I was one of God's elect
all along. I just didn't know it. Oh. Now I see, now I see I came to
Christ because he was drawing me because of his everlasting
love for me. But I didn't know that then.
All I knew was I was a sinner and I needed a savior. I needed
mercy and I came begging for mercy. I first came to Christ
because I knew this, I need him. I need him. He's everything that
I need. I need him to do something for
me that I cannot do for myself and he had mercy on me. So I
say again, Run. Don't walk. Run to Christ. Run to Him. Run to Him because
you urgently need Him. Run to Him. And here's another
thing. Don't let fear of judgment keep
you from coming to Christ. You know, these demons made this
man think, the Lord's come to punish me. He's going to get
me now. But really, why was the Lord
there? Why did the Lord come to this man? because the Lord
was coming to show mercy on him. The Lord was coming to give him
life, not kill him. And do you know it very well
could be that the Lord intends to show mercy to you? Could be. He brought you here to hear the
means of grace, to hear the gospel preached. Could be the Lord intends
to show mercy to you too. Well, Brent is one way to find
out, isn't there? Begging for it. Begging for it. All right, here's the sixth thing.
The Lord, in our story of grace, made us to be born again. Verse
15 says, and they came to, or verse 14, 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. Now this man had been cutting
himself to try to take his mind off all this mental anguish that
he was suffering. He'd been a wild man. I mean a wild man. Chains couldn't
control him. People were scared to death of
this man. His body was covered with scars and probably with
fresh cuts too. But the Lord came to that man
and saved him. The Lord cast that demon out
and made him sit still. The Lord soothed his conscience
with His blood. He's got nothing left to fear.
He's got no reason to have a guilty conscience anymore. He's got
no reason to have pain of conscience anymore. Christ put his sin away. Christ had made peace for him
by the blood of His cross. He's at peace with God. Now think
about that man sitting there. There were still scars all over
his body, weren't there? The effect of sin, the effect
of what he'd been through was still in his body. But now he
sat quietly, worshiping the Savior, hearing him speak, hearing him
teach. And that's what happens for all
of God's elect. We're born again by the power
of the Holy Spirit. The scars and the effect of sin
that's in our body. Those scars are still there.
The effect of sin is still in our body. but the Savior has
given us a new nature, a nature that's sinless, a nature that
loves Christ, a nature that worships God, that rests in Christ, that
enables us to be still, still, trusting Him. Now that's a story
of grace. If God saved you, that's your
story of grace. And when the Lord first saves
us, you know what we think? We think everybody wants to know
this. Everybody needs to know this. Everybody needs to hear
this. Everybody needs to believe this, but we think everybody
would want to, and we're shocked to find out that they hate it.
We used to be that wild man. You couldn't control us. You're
just wild, you know? And they say, I like you better
the way you used to be. Look at verse 16. And when they
saw it told, how that befell to him that was possessed with
the devil, and also concerning the swine, They began to pray
him to depart out of their coast. These town folk had been scared
to death of this man, but now they're more scared of him. The
Lord made him calm, made him peaceful, made him sit still
and worship Christ, put him in his right mind. And they didn't
know how to deal with that. They knew how to deal with a
wild man. Well, you know, we'll just avoid him. We'll try to
get bigger chains and chain him up. You know, they knew how to
try to deal with that crazy man. But they didn't know how to deal
with this man who was in his right mind. They didn't know
how to deal with grace. Isn't that the natural man? We
don't know how to deal with grace. And they said, Lord, leave us
alone. Just leave, leave us, leave this
place. And the worst thing that I could
think of happened. The Lord gave them what they
wanted. and he left them alone. He went back to the other side.
But here's the last thing in our story of grace. The Lord's
gonna use us in his service as he pleases. In verse 18, when
he was coming to the ship, he that had been possessed with
the devil prayed him that he might be with him. Albeit Jesus
suffered him not, but saith 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. You know, this man wanted to
go with Christ. And of course he wanted to go with Christ.
Now he's a disciple of Christ, right? Of course he wanted to
go with him and follow him. He said, Lord, you're leaving? Let me go with you. Don't leave
me here. These people are crazy. Don't
leave me here. But the Lord said, no, you stay here. And you go
tell your family, you go tell your friends, you go tell everybody
that listens to you what great things the Lord has done for
you. And that's what he did. And people
marveled. God would be that gracious to
somebody like you? They marveled, they marveled. And you think, Well, maybe that
didn't do much good. Hold on a minute. Do you know
the next time the Lord came back there, many people came to Him. If they had a problem, they knew
somebody, many people came to Him. Now, I don't know why all
they came to Him, but I sure would like to think they came
to Christ because they remember that old demoniac. He told me
about this man. He told me about this savior.
He's here, I'm gonna go to him. The Lord used him in his service
as he saw fit. He didn't make him an apostle
Paul. He didn't make him an apostle Peter. He just went home and
told people, this is what God's done for me. In his words, in
his language, just as he went about living his life, he could
tell folks, this is what God's done for me. God's merciful. Could be the Lord will use us
the same way. Could be. If he is, it's just
as big a miracle, isn't it? I hope he does, don't you? I
pray so. All right, the Lord bless you.