Mark chapter 5. We're going to look at verses 1-19,
and I know you're familiar with the story of the Gadarene demoniac. Mark chapter 5. verses 1 through 19. And they, that is the Christ
and the disciples, came over onto the other side of the sea
into the country of the Gadarenes. And when he was come out of the
ship, that is Christ, 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 off-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 Christ 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 nigh unto the mountains a great herd of swine feeding,
and all the devils besought Christ, saying, Send us into the swine
that we may enter into 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,
There was about 2,000 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 was that was done. And they came
to Jesus and they see him that was possessed with the devil
that had the legion sitting 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 to Christ
to depart out of their coasts. And when he was coming to the
ship, he that had been possessed with the devil prayed to Christ
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 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." Now
this is just a wonderful picture of salvation wrought in a sinner. by our lovely Redeemer. Let's
just look at this. We won't necessarily go verse
by verse. But then after we get done with this section here,
I've got one verse. I kind of call it the litmus
test. And we're going to look at that one verse and see whether
this is true. And we know it's true. It's from
the Scriptures. And whether this sheds some light on the passage
that we're going to look at later. But let's look at this here first
in Mark. Seven verses that the this is
us by nature. This is us by nature Yes, demon-possessed
and perhaps literally demon-possessed, but yet truly we're without God
without hope We're born in sin trespasses and sins There's no
way out this this this man could not be bound change could not
bound them And you say, well, I'm not possessed by a devil. Well, you're not on God's side.
So what difference does it make whether you're possessed or not?
But He can turn us however He wishes. There's no way out for
us. There's no way to defeat our
foe. We're said we're dead in trespasses
and sins. And I don't care how often you
looked it up or whether you know the Greek or the Hebrew, dead
is dead. Dead is dead. You cannot take one step towards
righteousness. You cannot take one step towards
right. You cannot take one step towards God. This is us. We are true enmity. That word
is war. We are war with God. And just
because we don't always show hatred or war towards God doesn't
mean that we are on His side. And I will say this, and this
is my own personal situation, my own personal The Lord started
dealing with me, and I know this is a hard thing to admit, that
we hate, or that we hated God. I remember reading a book, and
he said, you killed Christ, and you hate God. And I took that
book and threw it. I flung it. I tossed it. I'm like, how dare he? Well,
I've got this Bible that's got my mom's or my aunt's, and they
gave it to me. And I'm going to hold it next to my heart.
I'm something. I'm religious. I'm the good son.
You know, whatever. All these things. It's a hard
thing to admit. It takes the grace of God. It
takes the Holy Spirit to us to admit that we hated God. Like
Bruce said, we may not have been drinkers or ravelers or rebellious
to civil authorities. We may not have been that. But
that doesn't matter. That's not the mark. If God should
mark iniquity, who's going to stand? So that's us by nature. This is the picture of us. Cutting. No man's going to take us. This
is how we are. We hate God. And as I say, it's
a hard thing to admit. Well, let's look at the second
thought. The blessed interaction. Verses 8-13. The blessed interaction. Christ comes to him. He says,
come out of the man, you unclean spirit. And he asked him his
name, and he said, my name is Legion, which means many. In
this situation, maybe 2,000. Some writers say six was a legion
of Roman soldiers, but 2,000 swine killed themselves. Now,
I just want to say this. First off, Satan is too powerful
of a foal for us to turn the tide in any way, shape, or form.
We cannot, we cannot do it. And this man's possession, it
shows how violent and wicked Satan and his legion are. And
they went into swine, and they killed those swine. So, no way,
shape or form are we any match for Satan. But now, when Christ
comes to us, He came to this man, And indeed, Christ must
first come to us. I like how that says. And he
said, when he addressed him, come out of the man. Come out
of the man. We're not preaching the cart
before the horse in this place. We're not saying if you'll step
A, God will meet you halfway. We don't preach a cart pulling a horse in this
place. No, not so ever. We don't do such lessons and
neither does the Scriptures in any lessons of the grace of God.
Christ comes in the manner in which He comes here But He's
not here. He's not physically here. He's
going to come back. He's coming again. But what He
most often does, He comes in the manner of the preached Word,
the pure truth of the living God. Let's just look at a few
places. Romans chapter 10. How important is preaching? How
important is hearing the truth, I should say? Because if you're
a believer, if you know the truth, when you go to your neighbor's
house or your friend's house, just because you're a woman or
maybe a teenager or whatever, but if God has shown you the
truth, if you know the truth, He uses the truth. I'm not saying
He uses an ordained person behind the pulpit. I'm not gonna put
God in a box. He uses the truth. Okay, Romans
chapter 10. Romans chapter 10. And we'll
start reading in verse 11. For the Scripture saith, Whosoever
believeth on Him, Christ shall not be ashamed. For there is
no difference between the Jew and the Greek, for the same Lord
over all is rich unto all that call upon Him. For whosoever
shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Okay, then
that reason is to suspect, how then shall they call on Him in
whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in
Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without
a preacher? And how shall they preach except
they be sent? As it is written, how beautiful
are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring
glad tidings of good things." Ephesians chapter 1. Ephesians
chapter 1. Ephesians chapter 1. Let's look
at verses 1-4. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ,
by the will of God, to the saints, which were at Ephesus, to the
faithful in Christ Jesus, grace be unto you and peace from God
our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with
all spiritual blessings in heavenly places, in Christ according as
He had chosen us in Christ before the conception or foundation
of the world that we should be holy and without blame before
Him in love. Verse 7, In whom? Christ. We have redemption through His
blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His
grace. Verse 11, In whom? Christ. Also we have obtained an inheritance
being predestined, be predestinated according to the purpose of Him
who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will."
And look at verse 12, "...that we should be to the praise of
His glory who first trusted in Christ," verse 13, "...in whom
you also trusted after you heard the Word of Truth, which is the
Gospel of your salvation, in whom also, after you believed,
you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise." After you
heard the Word of Truth. After you heard the Word of Truth.
Galatians chapter 1, Galatians chapter 1 verse 13
through 16, For you have heard of my conversion in times past
in the Jews' religion, how that beyond measure, Paul says, I
persecuted the church of God and wasted it, and it profited
in the Jews' religion above many mine equals of mine own nation,
being more exceeding zealous of the traditions of my fathers. But when it pleased God, who
separated me from my mother's womb and called me by His grace
to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the
heathen, immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood. He
called him to preach the gospel. So, the Lord uses the foolishness
of preaching to save them that believe. And He does so. Turn to 1 John. 1 John chapter 1. Let's just read
the whole thing. that which was from the beginning,
which we have heard, hearing, which we have seen with our eyes,
this is the Apostle John, which we have looked upon and our hands
have handled the Word of life. He's talking about himself and
the other apostles. For the life was manifested and
we've seen it and bear witness and show unto you that eternal
life which was with the Father and was manifested unto us, that
which we have seen, and heard, we preach, or declare, or speak. Declare we unto you, why, that
you also may have fellowship with us, and truly our fellowship
is with the Father, and with His Son, Jesus Christ. And these
things write we unto you, that your joy may be full. This then
is the message which we have heard of Christ, and declare
unto you that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.
And we could finish the rest of the chapter. And so, he takes
the foolishness of the gospel because Christ is not walking
among us now, and it has been handed down by faithful believers. Psalm, Chloe, men, women, the
elect. He's handed it down, and thereby
we declare it to you. We declare it to you. The power
of God, the power of Christ, the power of the Holy Spirit
is too powerful for demons, it's too powerful for the world, it's
too powerful for the flesh, ourselves, and this is why the elect are
so secure, so kept, and so unmovable in Christ. We preach Christ,
not ourselves. He has done all the work necessary
for our salvation. He cannot miss, He cannot fail,
and therefore His seed is going to obtain life eternal. There
is elect sheep out in this world, and hopefully there's more in
this community. Hopefully there's more in this town. They're gonna
hear. They're gonna hear of Christ.
He is the perfect, pure sacrifice. And He has done what He has done
on behalf of all His bride. He's a complete substitute. There's
no incompletion with our Savior. He is a complete substitute,
the just for the unjust. He brings us to God fully and
successfully, without fault and without error. People say the
Bible's, you know, it's written by man and, you know, it's got
error. It's got error. And we're, of all men, most miserable. We, I was thinking about this
last week or during this week, you know, when you talk to people
about portfolios and 401ks and these different kind of people
who know, they say, you want to diversify. You don't want,
but not the believer. We have all our eggs in one basket. We have all, we put all of our
trust, all of our hope, all of our everything. in the hands
of him who cannot fail. Or as it's put in another place,
Christ said, I will be thou clean. Or as it's in another place,
take up thy bed and walk. Or perhaps in another place,
Lazarus, arise, come forth. In all these things, the man
was clean, the man rose up and took his bed, and Lazarus came
out from the grave. Just Lazarus. I heard it said,
and I totally agree, salvation is of the Lord. If He would have
said, come forth, everybody in that tomb would have came forth.
But His call is effectual, it's particular, it's discriminatory,
it's sovereign grace. Otherwise, there's nobody saved.
Nobody whatsoever. So, now, to the third point,
what are some of the results that we see from salvation accomplished?
Well, verse 15, back to our text in Mark. And these folks from
the city came to see him that was possessed of the devil. And
there he sat. He's sitting. He's not up running
around cutting himself anymore. He's not scaring people. He's
not hating God. He's sitting. And he's clothed. And we could say
he's clothed in the righteousness of Christ. And he's in his right
mind. Now I love that. Because remember
Felix or one of the, when they were trying Paul, they said,
have you gone mad? Have you gone mad? No? And Maurice Montgomery reminded
me of this, so I remember it, I do remember it now. Maurice
said, everyone who does not trust Christ, does not believe His
gospel, has not submitted to the righteousness of Christ,
they're the ones out of their mind. They're the ones out of
their mind. Indeed. He's sitting, he's clothed,
and he's in his right mind. But there's some other things
going on here. The believer is seated, reposed in the garments
provided by our Lord, and he's in his right mind, but those
who do not believe are, verse 15, the last part, afraid. The
enemies of grace, of God and His gospel, are afraid And verse
17, they ask Christ to leave them. Your way is too tough. There's
too much morality involved with this thing called Christianity.
There's too much, they say, to do. We kind of like this guy
by running around acting all crazy. Because then it makes
us look like we're better than him. But now, he's seated He's
wrapped in the robes of Christ's righteousness. He's not trusting
in himself anymore, and he's in his right mind. Now, we look
bad. So we will not have this man
to reign over us. That is another result of religion. It's just for show. It's just
for show. But the children of the king,
look at verses 18 through 19, And when Christ was coming to
the ship, the man that was possessed of the devil prayed him that
he might be with him. He prayed. He never prayed before. You don't ever hear that in a
conversation. He prays. This is a result of saving grace.
It's never before now. Now there's prayer. And I love
this way it's phrased in verse 17. And that he, that Christ,
might be with him. You know, we would love to talk
about Christ all the time. And He doesn't ever leave or
forsake us. But oh, where's that coming from?
He wants to be near Christ constantly. And so does every child of God.
And thirdly, He talks with them. There's communion. He's praying
with them. He's talking with them. He might
be with them. Howbeit Christ suffered them saying, not now. You'll be with me soon enough.
Go home to your friends. your family, your neighbors,
and tell how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and
had compassion on thee." So he talks of Christ for only in Christ,
not in the weather, not in things of personal interest, only in
Christ's life. And I know we talk about things,
we talk about work, we talk about play, we talk about our recreational
activities, but all that, we're missing opportunities. And Christ
didn't say to do that. We've got to be human. We're
human. We pay taxes. We rent under Caesar Caesar. But there's
a point at which, when are you going to let the unbeliever control
the conversation and just say, you know what, It's going to be cold. It's going
to rain. My phone says the same thing as yours. It's going to
rain the next five days, etc., etc. This and that, all these different
things. You know, the Lord had compassion
on me. What? The Lord had compassion on me.
Why do we always talk about... and we rub shoulders with the
world. Sometimes we rub way too much shoulders. And we're not
much of a testimony. We speak of Christ, because only
speaking of Christ is life. You may have a tip that helps
somebody in raising their children, or school work, or I've done
this and I can do math better, and that's great, do that, but
there's no life in that. There never is life in that.
There's only life in Christ. And this is the last thing I
think is beautiful. He sees Christ as Lord. Because He says, go
in there and tell the folks what the Lord has done. And in the
last verse, He goes in there and tells what Jesus has done.
He sees that the Lord Jesus Christ is God-man in the flesh. And
those people who say, what do you mean? Christ is not God?
Yes, He is. They don't understand the Gospel.
He is the God-man. and tell Him what He has done
for us, grace, full and free and undeserved. Now that's this
lesson here. Now let's go to one verse and
let's do a litmus test. Let's see if this is true. We know it. But let's just take
this and I'll tell you, this is on anything. And I didn't
see this until this week and it just literally blew me away. James chapter 3. Let's look at
James chapter 3. Here's your litmus test. Is Mark
going to prove James 3? Is James 3 going to prove Mark
5? Let me read you the Amplified
version of James chapter 3 and verse 17. James chapter 3 and
verse 17. But the wisdom from above is
first of all pure. This means undefiled. than is
peace-loving, courteous, considerate, gentle. It is willing to yield
to reason, full of compassion and good fruits. It is wholehearted
and straightforward, impartial and unfeigned, free from doubts,
wavering, and insincerity." Now, let's look at this a little closer. Let us see if our text here in
James, it complements Mark 5, it complements the believer's
life. James chapter 3 verse 17. Now didn't we preach, not only
was it last Sunday, the Sunday before last, didn't we preach
about wisdom? And whose wisdom? Christ. And what is wisdom? It's the
gospel. Okay, let's look at this again. for the Christ, the wisdom,
the gospel that is from above. And I was talking to a pastor
yesterday, and we always say, how do you know if the gospel
is being preached? Well, does it glorify God or does it glorify man? Here's
another place. Here's another place. Okay. But
the wisdom, the gospel, that concerning Christ, that which
we preach here at Sovereign Grace Church in Jackson by His grace,
it's first pure. We preach the undiluted, Sovereign
grace of God. Now, I don't preach it purely,
because that's impossible. But we preach Him who is pure. And it's got to be this first. It's in this Scripture. It's
in this order for a reason. If you hear a false God, none
of this is going to work. If that man had met a false Christ,
None of that would have happened in Mark 5. See what I'm saying?
So if you have to use your free will, if you have to make a decision,
that is not pure, that is not the wisdom or the gospel of God's
grace. And we just said it's been handed down and handed down.
We've seen it, we've heard it, we have it recorded here. That's
why This book is completed. The author has written it and
we just tell it, we don't make up anything. And I mean even
creeds and doctrinal statements and statements of faith. We go
to the Scriptures. So it's that reason for, it's
this reason for, the order is this way for a reason. The wisdom
from above, Christ, His truth must be preached. It's like I
was talking about with the men back there. We preach a one-man
ministry here, the God-man. One-man ministry. We preach the
gospel, His truth, as it is told to perishing sinners. We must
tell His story, His truth, about His grace, His sovereign mercy,
His undying love for all His elect. And notice the first point,
we don't start with us. We don't start with man, because
the gospel never starts with man. Man is a recipient of it,
and man is the sinner, and he needs the salvation, but we start
with God. One man asked, years, a long
time ago, I was talking to Henry, and he had a new convert, and
he said, well, Henry, where do I start reading in the book,
in the Bible? And a lot of people say, you
know, the New Testament. Henry said, start where God started
in Genesis, in the beginning, God. Well, that's too complicated. It is, but he's been given faith
to see what the Bible means. So start at where God starts,
in Genesis. Indeed. Notice, we're not even
the main topic, we're just recipients of His healing works. We are
not pure in any manner, but we speak of the pure God-man. We
must have the undiluted Word of the truth concerning this
great martyr Lamb. Second thing. Let's look at a
text, but the wisdom of God is from above, is pure, then peaceable. We're no longer at war. He's
made, by the blood of his cross, he's made peace between us and
God and us and men. You know, there's some folks
that I've worked with and managed and co-workers, I call them instigators. They were always trying to stir
people up, always trying to stir the weak-minded against all the
time. I pulled one guy aside, I said,
you're just an instigator. I don't like that name. I said, well, that's
what you are. You're an instigator. Stop it. But once we hear the
gospel, once we hear the truth, peaceable, Grace, almost every
epistle, grace, and I guess that's what I'm saying, almost every
epistle that Paul writes, grace and peace. You've got to understand
grace, and that grace is pure, not from my lips, but every word
of God is pure, is what the scripture says. Grace and peace. Then comes peace. We're at peace,
we're no war, no more rebellion with God, no more ringing of
the nose, says Proverbs 30. If you ring the nose, you're
going to get blood. That's a consequence. We're not out for a fight. David
says, I'm for peace, they're for war. And that's the believer
in a nutshell. Third thing, from the wisdom,
the grace of God, the Gospel, Christ is first above, is pure,
then impeacable, gentle, like a child. Self is no longer of
main interest. We're like a defeated, conquered
person. We're not spineless, but we're,
as the Scripture says, wise as serpents, harmless as doves.
The third thing, easy to be entreated. We're like hot clay, said one
old writer. You can form it, mold it, We have a teachable
spirit, a desire to listen and to receive and to accept His
truth. Like Luther said, here I stand,
I can do no other. Fifthly, easy to be entreated,
full of mercy. We receive great mercy at God's
hands and now we show, like Bruce said this morning, he read it
in passage in Matthew. We show compassion, the word
is, to others. We're not a hard man, woman,
or people anymore. God has softened us. He's made
us more like Christ. And then he says, sixthly, full
of mercy, good fruits. That is, I say we desire to act,
to think, and to react like our Savior. Like our Savior? Well, how do I know how He acts? Seventhly, without partiality. We don't make distinctions between
who or to whom we tell His Gospel to. We don't do that. We don't act like He says actually
in James chapter 2, And verses 2-4, if you have respect to him
that weareth the gay clothing, or stand to him, sit down here
in a good place, and say unto the poor, stand here or sit there,
aren't you not being partial in yourselves and have become
judges of evil thoughts? No. Black, white, Indian, native,
Asian, it doesn't matter. We don't pick and choose whom
we share the gospel with is what I'm saying. Everybody who is born again are
truly our brothers and sisters. They truly are. And sixthly,
without hypocrisy. Without hypocrisy. That means
being insincere. Saying one thing but secretly
meaning the opposite. Your word is your word. So I
ask you, does James 3 fit into our text in Mark and vice versa? Absolutely. This demoniac saw,
heard, and experienced the pure grace of God in Christ. And then he showed forth those
characteristics. He was sitting, clothed in his
right mind, prayed, wanted constant fellowship, and he talked about
Christ to his friends and neighbors. So when I say that everyone who
names the name of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, will be
enabled by the Holy Spirit to find ourselves in James 3.17,
or in Mark, or in the widow in Kings, or in the woman with the
issue of blood, It doesn't matter. It all fits
in this one verse. I say that we will be the same.
In all differing degrees, we have different growth rates,
different fruit, 60, 30, 100, whatever. Some of us are new
in grace. Some of us are old in grace.
Some of us are middle-aged in grace. But these things will
be among us. To God be the glory. Brandon,
would you close this?