I want you to turn back in your
Bibles to Luke chapter 8 as we continue to look at this marvelous account of what
can be rightly said is a picture of the redemption of our souls. A picture of the redemption of
our souls. Now, every true believer has
a testimony. Every true believer can to some
degree identify With this man that's in our account. I think
I recall the way david put it in the psalms I waited patiently
on the lord And he inclined unto me and he heard my cry He brought
me up also out of an horrible pit Out of the miry clay and
he set my feet upon a rock and he established my ways. Moreover,
the Lord had put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our
God. Many shall see it and fear and
shall trust in the Lord. Now that's the testimony of God's
servant, David. And of course, as I said, that's
the testimony of every true believer. Every believer knows that time
when God brought them out of darkness into his marvelous light. Every believer knows when God
liberated them from the bondage of sin. Salvation is not one
of those mystical things where you know or don't know. It's
precisely the work of God in the salvation of sinners for
which he tells that sinner in whom he has worked to redeem
them to go tell men and women exactly what God has done for
you. This is true for all of God's people because it was first
true for Christ. I don't know if you know this,
but salvation in the experience of God's people is nothing less
than the salvation that Christ himself experienced when he took
your place and came under the wrath of God himself. When we
read Psalms 40 and we think about how God delivered David out of
so many trials and he eloquently set forth how the Lord saved
him. I hope you know that this is messianic. that the spirit
here speaking is the spirit of Jesus Christ. So that when we
talk about salvation on an experiential level, what you have done was
entered into the salvation of God. You have become a partaker
of what Christ went through. And when Christ was saved by
his father through the wrath he had to endure, he was obligated
to tell the world. Only he chose to tell the world
about his salvation through you and through me. What a privilege
then to tell men and women that salvation is of the Lord. What
a privilege it is to tell men and women that God brought me
out of a horrible pit. What a privilege it is to tell
men and women that I was sinking in the miry clay, stuck in a
course that I had no power to overcome and God rescued me. You know what we call that? A
testimony. a testimony. Now to help you
out just a little bit with that concept, it's part of the overall
sort of observation of the philosophers when it comes to life in general.
Do you know most of us acquire our education on the grounds
of what are called testimonials? Virtually everything you learn
is the consequence of someone passing on to you something they
learned from somebody else. Do you believe that everything
is basically there are times when an individual acquires knowledge
empirically firsthand experientially But most of what we learn is
the testimony of what somebody else said concerning what somebody
else said Concerning what somebody else said and you know what the
bible tells us in first john first john 5 says this if we
receive the testimony of men The testimony of god is greater
And the testimony of God is that God sent his son into the world
That whosoever would believe on him would have everlasting
life and would not perish That's the testimony the christian has
because it's a reality that has been made known to their heart
experientially, we all Understand something of the if not the experience
the benefits of isaiah chapter 61 one of the themes of our now
concluded class for our sisters beauty for ashes the spirit of
the Lord God is upon me because the Lord hath anointed me to
preach good tidings unto the meek or the humble and he has
sent me to bind up the brokenhearted to proclaim what liberty to the
captives the opening of the prison to them that are bound and do
you know what Jesus said in Luke chapter 4 This day this scripture
is fulfilled in your eyes And you remember when his cousin
was struggling because he was thrown in prison and probably
bought into a flawed eschatology And he thought jesus was gonna
knock rome out and take over right away. He said hey, is this
the messiah? We're looking for or are we looking
for another and jesus said to his disciples go back to my cousin
and tell him The dead are being raised. The blind are given their
sight. The lame are walking. I am healing
the sick. I'm casting out devils. I am
preaching the gospel to the poor. And what I am actually sharing
with you, which is essential to understanding the subject
we are about to get into, is there was a unique period in
the history of the world, a very unique period in which the old
scholars called the messianic period. It was the period when
God himself walked this earth in the person of Jesus Christ.
And God himself did things of which only God himself could
do. And he left those things that
he did as a testimony for those whom he had given the depository
of truth to tell the world about Jesus. One of which was this
dynamic ministry of binding and cursing and delivering men and
women from the control and power of the devil. One of the unique
aspects of Messiah's ministry would be that he would cast out
devils. I want to continue talking to
you about this subject today because It is an aspect of the
apostles' ministry that they had to come to grips with. It
is an aspect of the ministry of the church as an overall whole
that we have to come to grips with. It is an aspect of biblical
truth that is essential for us to acknowledge and recognize
exists. There are such things as demons. Well, pastor, I've never seen
one. Well, where have you been? What part of the world have you
been in? What part of God's universe have you spanned and covered
every inch of this, this vastly growing galaxy upon galaxies
in the hundreds of billions of galaxies for which you can say,
I've never seen a demon. Are you omniscient? See, we ought
to be very careful not to circumscribe the whole of human experience
based upon our little window of experience, right? And then
again, how old are you? You might not be old enough to
have been able to say, you know, I finally met a demon. Now, on
the other hand, there are some of you folks who've been seeing
demons all your life. I doubt seriously if that's the
truth. And we said last week we need
to keep our feet on the ground when we deal with this matter
because of what we call human proclivities, human bits into
things that sometimes are real and sometimes they are surreal.
And one can go to one extreme or the other. You can take on
a very hyper intellectual mode of thinking and suggest, you
know, when you get to talking about demons and devils and things
of that nature, those were phenomena that were misinterpreted, taking
place long, long time ago. But we're brighter than that
today. But to take that position would be to call the scriptures
fallible. and to call Christ a liar, along
with his disciples and God Almighty. Am I making some sense? You hyper-intellectuals
who do not believe in demons, should you take that position
on a logical level, you are saying that God is a liar. And that's
untenable to us. On the other hand, be careful,
those of us, or those of you, who would think that you can
see a demon behind every human idiosyncrasy. Well, he got a
demon. You don't know that. Be honest
now about this whole issue. What we can say about the world
of demons can only really be understood and spoken to authoritatively
from the scriptures. Now, demonism is not something
that is confined to the Word of God only. The pagan world
acknowledges demons. All around the world, they acknowledge
demons, sometimes overdoing it. But certainly there is a correspondence,
a corroboration on the part of the pagan world of the biblical
testimony of demons. And demons have a real part in
the misery and destruction of the human race. The believer
has three enemies he has to always be careful to deal with, does
he not? The flesh, That's his fallen
nature. Prone to wonder. Lord, I feel
it. Always inclined to evil. Prone
to sinful passions and sinful, selfish acts. That's his fallen
nature. That's a struggle we all deal
with. Then the believer has to deal with Satan. That's what
the Bible says. Your adversary, the devil, goeth
about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may what? So we have
to be watchful. We have to beware of him. We
have to know his methods. We have to know his wiles. We
have to know his techniques. The Bible says we need to be
wise concerning him, not overly wise, but wise. And certainly
if the scriptures tells us that there are devils and demons,
then we need to understand where they play their role in their
opposition to the life of the Christian. And certainly the
disciples are brought to that place here. This man that's before
us was demon possessed, was he not? As our elder rightly said,
the text tells us that Jesus had come to this man and he asked
this man the question, what is your name? What is your name? Now this is God talking, this
is infinite wisdom, this is perfect righteousness talking, and he's
talking to the demons. Now, if Christ is talking to
the demons, the demons, therefore, are not a nebulous force. They're not just some kind of
general gooey spirit out there. They are personalities. They
are entities. They are beings. They have rationale. They have reasoning skills. They
can talk. They can engage in conversation.
They can dialogue. Demons talk back. Did you notice
they talked back when he said something to them? Demons recognize
people they recognize Christ They recognize the Apostle Paul
Demons have the same kind of personalities in a sense that
we as humans do because they are moral agents much like we
are fallen angels with the same capacity to to exercise volition
Only with demons their primary objective is to deceive the masses
and Their primary objective is to control the masses. The goal
of the devil, the goal of our adversary is to control men,
to deceive men, to listen, terrorize men, to get men to do their bidding. To damn men to send them to hell. That's the goal of the devil
and the devil and his demons Objective is to take over that
human vessel That mankind has that is the body and his mind
and to cause mankind to act out according to the whim And capri
and desires of the devil This man in our account has a testimony
of having been delivered by the power of god, doesn't he? He
has a testimony of being delivered by the power of God and in your
outline you can follow this This is his testimony watch this he
could say that he was a captive and slave of sin and then he
could say he was a captive and slave of Satan and Therefore
this man was under the curse of the law, but he was also under
the tyranny of the devil watch this But Christ liberated him
Christ set that man free And he was under the slave control
and tyranny of what we said last week was a legion of devils. Jesus said, what is your name?
And he said, legion, because many devils were entered into
him. Now, when you think about that
type of bondage, what a remarkable condition this man was in. And
what were the demons saying? when they said, our name is what? Legion. They weren't saying that
all 6,000 of them have the same name. They were saying that they
were 6,000 individual demons who had their own independent
name, but they were a legion of them. that had such control
over this man like the legionnaire in the Roman Empire controlling
this man virtually 24 hours a day. What a control over the heart
of a man, the life of a man. You know this man was terrorized,
don't you? We learned as we brought together the three accounts of
the gospel that he cut himself, he dwelt in the caves, he was
tormented by the presence of these demons, was he not? In
other words, he was not wholly complicit with their control
over his life. There are people who are possessed
by demons. And in their possession, they are operating under the
influence and control of demonic powers, listen now, against their
will. They are slaves to these demon
influences, having opened themselves up through various gateways and
means to now be controlled by them. Certainly that's the case
that's going on with this man The text tells us that the demons
had caught him many times Caught him many times and brought him
in to this state of suffering look at verse 29 For he had commanded
the unclean spirit to come out of him. We'll touch on that for
all time it had what caught him that means There were times in
this man's life, whoever this man was, where he was temporarily
relieved from the torment and control of these powers. The
powers would come back and seize that man and take him through
another torment. When we go through the Gospels,
we see occasions where upon the Lord Jesus Christ having come
down off the Mount of Transfiguration with his disciples, there was
a man whose son was woefully controlled by the devil. And
what did he say to the master? All time he takes him and throws
him into the water and throws him into the fire. which means
the boy is seized upon, let go, seized upon, let go. The only
person who could deliver him was the Lord Jesus Christ. What
I am sharing with you as we are looking at this is simply the
fact and reality that there is a spiritual world behind the
physical world in which we live where demons have the ability
to access control over the hearts and minds of people. It's just
fascinating, again, when you go through the historical records
to look and see what does the world have to say about that
without spending any lengthy period of time around that. Here
again is what I say. The world does not deny the reality
of demons. And it does not deny the reality
that demons control lots of people. And those who are most preoccupied
with the realm of demonism in the larger religious sector and
even in your sort of new age religious sector. Those that
are most preoccupied with them, watching them, seeking to control
them, define them, are such who say on a consistent level, the
world presently is more influenced by demons than it ever has been.
Our world presently is more influenced by demons than it ever has been. The only challenge we have with
that assumption or that proposition is that it's hard to see it today. It's hard to see demonism today
on a part like this. Every person that's possessed
by a devil isn't running around naked, cutting himself, terrorizing
his society. Also, every person that's possessed
by demons is not possessed by 6,000 or 5,000. As we learned
with Mary Magdalene, she only had seven. But don't you think
seven is enough? One is enough, right? One is
enough. But here's the test. Here's the
challenge for Christians. Here's the challenge for Christians.
And that is to be able to know the works of the devil by which
you can determine whether or not a situation or an individual
is indeed under the control and influence of dark powers. These
were things that were assignments to the apostles. They were assigned
to this. Do you remember what Jesus said
in Matthew 10 Luke's gospel chapter 11 and what he said to Paul in
Acts chapter 26 around verse 18? He says I have given you
authority to go forth and liberate men from the power of darkness
to turn them from darkness to God That was the role of the
apostles in the first century. He told the disciples I have
given you power over all demons to cast out demons and to heal
every sickness. Do you guys remember that? That
was the commission given to the apostolic band. Now stop, just
park it right there. If he gave his apostles who had
established the New Testament church that kind of commission,
Wasn't it important that Jesus' ministry to preach the gospel
to the world be of such nature that it has the ability to confront
the dark powers that leave men in slavery and bondage? If he
gave in commission to his apostles the power to cast out devils,
the power to heal the sick, the power to raise the dead, don't
those entities exist? And isn't this a testimony when
the power of the gospel works in such a way that men and women
are truly liberated? That liberation from the bondage
of the devil is an ultimate act by which God is glorified. Isn't
that so? His testimony was I was a captive
slave of sin. I was a slave of Satan. I was
under his curse. Christ liberated me. His other
testimony was I was unclean. Remembering that what we learned
in Mark's gospel it corresponded to where we are here in our text.
It said the man was naked Naked Mark said he was unclean and
unclean spirit bound him and we talked about that last week
and we said Every one of us outside of Christ until the grace of
God enters into your life are unclean. I We are all unclean
things. Our works are unclean. Our mind
is unclean. Our mouth is unclean. Our manners
are unclean. Is that true? We are all unclean
things. And what that means when you
use the term unclean, it simply means that the category of people
who are in this unclean state are available for the manipulation
and control of dark powers. It's just true. Available to
us. I think sometimes when I am observing
this secular world, and I see it most prominently in the religious
world, I think sometimes when I'm observing the secular world,
that the things that they do cannot have a cogent or reasonable
answer to them other than demonism. The things that go on in our
world cannot have a rational answer other than a dark power
behind why people do what they do. The other night, Myself and
my wife were watching a news program, MSNBC Late Night Dateline. And we stumbled across a program
that we used to watch years ago, not watching a lot of television,
but watch it years ago. And it was called, I forget the
program, but what it does is it hunts down predators. And
more particularly, individuals who love to prey on young people. Pedophiles and how that in this
program they set men up. It's kind of a form of entrapment
Because of this internet craze and this media craze where people
now can talk one-to-one behind the filter of a screen and as
we were watching the program what we noted was that the word
of the Lord is right that men are slaves of devil and they
will do his bidding and And they will engage in all of the dark
stuff that we talked about fell under the category of uncleanness
last week Remember uncleanness will almost always manifest itself
in fornication adultery in every form of vile Fleshly expression
you can imagine because that's the goal of the devil. He always
takes what's good and perverts it His objective is to destroy
the human race through forbidden pleasures and so in this program
that the individuals who are caught and were mostly men called
upon by this program to come to a certain house where they
could meet a young man or young woman and engage in sexual acts. When they walk through the door,
they are confronted by the TV guy. And as soon as they're confronted
by the TV guy, all of a sudden it seems like they come to their
senses. Now follow this now. We were, it was amusing to us.
They're led to a strange house to meet somebody they never saw
before in their life, of whom they only had a conversation
with. And this is why I said last week, you got to be careful
about how you think. You got to be careful about what
you say, because there are gateways through what you think and what
you say that open you up to be led into dark paths. Tell me
there is not some type of demonic influence that would lead an
individual to go to a house they don't know anything about Open
the door and enter their in if there wasn't at their gateway
some powerful dynamic influence that deceived them and drove
them through their lust like a slave to want to terminate
their Objective their liaison with that person or those people
in a place. They didn't know anything about
and then when they come to the place the lights are cut on and
all of a sudden they are faced with the law and And you know
what's interesting about that program? I thank God for it.
You know why I thank God for it? Because without a program
like that, it still goes on in the dark that they are engaging
in these types of things. And young, silly, naive women,
young, silly, naive girls who think that they can play these
games on the internet get trapped by these predators. And these
predators, I believe, are definitely, in many cases, demonically influenced.
You know, every time they catch these individuals, you know what
they say? I don't know what got into me. I do. I do. I guarantee. You know what else they say?
It was dumb. It was dumb. What I did was dumb.
It was dumb. I'm thinking it's dumb now that
the lights are on. But it wasn't dumb while they
were sitting in front of that computer playing that surreal
world of conversation and dialogue using a method of deconstructionism
by which they can destroy reality, recreate the scenario any way
they want to. They can make themselves to be
out who they want to be. The other person can do the same.
In other words, they have had the tools, listen now, to create
a lie. And they are living and executing
this lie Until they get caught and I'm here to tell you the
whole world lieth in the lap of the wicked one And this is
why God says the whole world is under deception The whole
world is deceived in that same way. The whole world is under
the influence of darkness The whole world is controlled by
demonic floor forces yielding to them according to their fallen
Depraved nature and will do things that they themselves cannot give
a reasonable answer as to why they do it There are so many
men in prison, so many women in prison, but particularly men
in prison sitting there saying, I don't know why I did it. I
do. I do. You did it because you're a slave
of sin. You did it because you were influenced by dark powers.
You did it because there is a devil that has the ability to manipulate
the minds of men and women. and bring them into states of
bondage. That's why this man in front
of us could tell us that God liberated him from such darkness,
didn't he? God liberated him from an unclean
state. He had no right standing with
God. To be unclean means to be unholy. To be unholy means to
be uncivilized, unprotected, able to be seized upon, abused,
tormented, and troubled. The man was naked. We're gonna
see how that whole thing is reversed as we close out our account.
He says, I was naked. I didn't have protection from
God. I was out there all by myself. And I became the subject of the
dark powers of the world. He also had this testimony. God
translated him out of darkness into his marvelous light. We
talked about that last week. And see, listen to me now, when
we talk about translation out of darkness into light, what
we are talking about is the revelation of the glory of God and the knowledge
of biblical truth that opens your understanding up to reality. Without a knowledge of God, we
are walking in what? Darkness. This is really true. Listen, I don't care how smart
you are. You can be the brightest cookie in the room. You can have
all of the earthly accomplishments in terms of degrees all you want
to. But the reality is, is you are in darkness until God causes
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God to penetrate
your heart and illuminate your mind and bring you into a knowledge
of the true and the living God. You're still a slave. You're
still in darkness, darkness. Now watch this. When you are
in the dark, you have no control of what's going on around you.
You have no control. You don't know. You don't know. And this man was marvelously
delivered, marvelously delivered by the grace of God. Thirdly,
I want you to notice the damned destiny of demons. One of the
reasons why our Lord took the disciples on this excursion,
ladies and gentlemen, was to help them understand the supreme
power that he possessed as God over the kind of demonic control
that is unusual in this case. Certainly, we don't see this
case all over the scriptures, do we? Legions of devils operating
in the life of one man. But Christ takes his disciples
to show them he has the power over even the most severe case
of demonic control. Christ has the power over the
severest case of demonic control. Okay, so now, we live in this
intellectual world where we basically don't even confront demons, right? We basically resolve people's
strange behaviors with medicine, don't we? We have essentially
given over the authority of controlling behavior patterns to the psychiatrist,
the psychologist, I'm out of telling the truth. And don't
get me wrong, there's a place for that. But if what we are
saying is people's problem is merely psychological, we are
failing to see the truth. we are failing to see the truth. And what Christ was doing with
his disciples is showing them that the gospel has the power
to heal men and women from demon control. Do you believe that?
The gospel has the power to heal men and women from demonic control. Now watch this. Our Lord confronts
the demon personally by asking what is his name it affirms the
fact that demons are not mere nebulous forces this ethereal
sort of vapor not some some some blob out there, but they are
Personages and they have names Christ had an intelligent conversation
with them and they responded didn't they? And he said legion
because many devils were entered into him verse 31 Watch this
and they besought him that he would not command them to go
into the what? Now watch this saints Devils
are damned Demons are damned and demons have more knowledge
of truth than human beings do Demons know they're going to
hell They know they're going to hell. They know without a
doubt they're going to hell. They're just watching their watches
to see when. And when Jesus showed up, they
thought it was done. The text tells us in Mark's gospel
and in Matthew's, are you come to torment us, torture us before
the time. They know. They know who Christ
is. They believe God, James says.
and they are terrified of God. What noble attributes? We don't
even see that among human beings. They believe God, they are terrified
of God, and not one time did they act insubordinate with Christ,
did they? They yielded to his authority
as Lord. They engaged him in the conversation
at his behest. As soon as he said, what's your
name? They immediately gave him their name. And then they ask,
are we going now? Do we have to go to hell now? And the church is trying to get
the world to understand you going where they're going. And they
don't believe us. But the demons know. They know
where they are going. They know precisely where they
are going. They are doomed creatures. They are damned creatures. Now,
saints, this is the problem with demonism. Listen, they are doomed
creatures. They are damned creatures. And
their doomedness and their damnedness makes them a hazard to the human
race. You know, when you meet somebody
and you hang out with them and you find out that they don't
like the world and nothing about it and that they don't even really
have respect for themselves, that's a dangerous person. Hurry
up and get away from them. Because they'll take you out
right along with them. Because their whole prism and
interpretation of life is so morbid, so negative, so melancholy
that they don't really care about who you are. If they don't care
about themselves, they don't care about you. And demons don't
care because demons know they're going to hell. So their goal
is to make the human race as miserable and deceived and blind
and prepared for hell as themselves. But I want you to mark what takes
place here with this group of demons. They besought Christ,
we are told here in verse 31. In Mark's gospel, they implored
him. The term means to beg. To beg. Do you understand? For demons
to beg, not to go to hell. Hell must be a horrible place. must be a horrible place. They
besought him that he would not command them to go into the world.
You see the word deep? That's our Greek word, abyss.
It is a metaphor, a symbol of perishing in hell. Verse 32 says, and there was
there a herd of many swine feeding on the mountains. You guys see
that? And they begged him that he would suffer them to enter
into them. And he suffered them to enter
into them. Now, how many swine were there? Mark's gospel says 2,000 swine. Now think about that for a moment. I grew up on a farm with pigs.
Some of y'all did too. Have you ever seen 2,000 pigs
on one farm? Anybody? Have you ever seen two? That's a lot of pigs, isn't it?
And the pigs we had got big. I used to be scared of them.
Pigs get big. Now, here's what I'm getting
at. I love the word of God. All you need to do is slow down
and pay attention. 2,000 swine. The devils looked over there
and said, can we go into them? And our Lord permitted them to
go. Now, how many demons? 6,000. How many swine? 2,000. How many demons per swine? Three. You guys got your math
right. Now, I said this at the end of
the message in jest, but I know some of you know your animals
act like they're possessed. And so the question can be taken
very seriously because we are reading scripture. We don't have
to set aside our intellect on this particular implication.
Do demons possess animals? Yes. Yes, they do. Yes, they do. Demons do possess
animals without a doubt. See, the Lord, the word of God
teaches us very clearly if we do precept upon precept assimilate
all the biblical passages we can learn the nature of a thing
in your Bible go with me to Luke's gospel chapter 11 I want to show
you something this is a truth that he also taught us here it
has a larger lesson but this will serve to help us understand the point in Luke's gospel chapter
11 I'm going to read verse 24 and 26 and I want you to mark verse
24. Are you there? When the unclean spirit do you
see it? It's gone out of a man He walketh
through dry places now watch this and Mark's gospel says he
walks in the desert Seeking what? Do you know what that means?
So long as the demons are in their non-corporeal state in
this spirit essence, they are restless. That means they are
traveling here and there looking for something to inhabit. This
is what our Lord is teaching. Therefore, I take away from this
text this fact. Demons don't rest until they
possess animals or humans. I can legitimately defend that
argument based on scripture. Demons don't just hang out floating
around. They're not comfortable just
floating around they have to attach themselves to somebody
and So they didn't say simply send us out Let's send us over
there now watch what the language says When the unclean spirit
goes out of a man, he walk it through dry places. I Seeking
rest and finding none. He said now watch this. I want
you to hear this. This is why I said earlier Demons
are intelligent. They are rational. Isn't he thinking? Isn't he deliberating? Isn't
he making choices? He says I will that's volition
return unto my house boy Whoo. Did you hear what he just said?
you know what that means the person in whom he was is In his
own mind, he considers that's his house. This is what I meant by when
you are unclean, you are unholy, and you are unclaimed by God.
You are therefore free to become the possession of the devil at
his will. 2 Timothy 2.24. The devil, therefore,
is free to come in and out of any human being they want to.
That is unholy. unclean, separated from God,
not claimed, not owned, not possessed by the true and the living God.
Am I making some sense? Not owned, not controlled, not
possessed by the true and the living. I am so thankful for
the Word of God, aren't you? Greater is He that is in me than
he that is of the world. But we are being told that we
stand between two spiritual realities, the reality of God and the reality
of darkness. And in this great theater of
spiritual conflict, human beings become the instruments and vessels
of their behesting. Of their will. Obviously, the
text said he was out there hanging out a while in the desert, naked.
He said, man, it's cold out here. I'm going back to my old house.
Now look what the text says. And when he comes, he finds it
swept and garnished. See verse 25? Do you know what
we call that? Reformation. Religious resolve
to change your life and to turn over a new leaf apart from regeneration
and the new birth and the indwelling of the Spirit of God. It's the
individual who goes to church for a while because he's tired
of a raggedy life. And after what after all church
is one of those alluring places where you can put on the facade
of self-righteousness and people will tell you you're a christian
Am I am I making some sense? And they'll tell you because
you stop smoking drinking and cussing which is a good thing
to do That therefore you are saved. Nothing could be further
from the truth You are not saved because you stop this that or
the other thing the only way a man or woman is saved It's
not because of what they stop But because of what they have
because of what they have. You can get all the furniture
at your house all you want to. That doesn't make you right with
God. It doesn't make you his possession. It doesn't make you
his holy temple. It doesn't make you his vessel.
It just makes you a clean house where a desperately restless
demon can go get a bunch of buddies worse than him and come have
a party. That's what the text said. You
know what the text is now watch this then you know what I learned
from this as I take away from this text I learned that all
demons are not the same What that what that means? What does
that mean? It was just like human beings all human beings are not
the same Some human beings in my own eyes are worse than other
human beings Now you can you can agree with me that it's not
gonna hurt you some people, you know are just worse. They just
just bad You know, bad people, right? And then some a little
less bad, a little less bad, a little less bad. And then we
got the tolerable ones. And then we got the ones we like,
right? We got categories. Well, it's the same thing in
demonism. The text said he went out and got seven demons worse
than himself. Now, our Lord is not using here what they would
call a rhetorical device to actually deal with how human beings in
their minds kind of are fickle and go from bad to worse. No,
he's talking about real demon possession. real demonic possession. And as I told you before, if
we were to own the context of our Lord's parable here, he would
be warning us that national Israel had the blessing of Messiah coming
into that country, casting out every devil that he was confronted
with. Casting out every devil. He was
confronted with in the nation of israel So the nation of israel
for at least 30 some odd years was being cleaned up by the presence
of their messiah Cleaned up by the presence of their messiah
and messiah's powerful work under the ministry of the spirit of
god To open the eyes of the blind to heal the sick to cast out
devils cast out many devils cast out multitudes of devils cast
out all of them But here's the truth that you must understand
to have a devil removed from you is not the same as being
saved Am I making some sense? Because
they came back. They came back. What we are learning
is that they are rational creatures, reasonable creatures. They know
God. They know Christ. They know God's faithful servants.
They know who are authentic Christians and who are not. They know who
they can test and who they can't test. They know empty vessels
versus full vessels. They know people who yield themselves
to gateways by which they have communication with these dark
forces. And let me say this for the record
while I have your attention. They are very, very inconspicuous. You don't know when they are
there. The uniqueness of Messiah's ministry
when he came was this. that the people of God, the children
of Israel, the nation as a whole, was in spiritual darkness. The
people that sat in great darkness, in darkness, Isaiah called it
darkness, darkness, had seen a great light. The presence of
Christ, the light of the world, exposed Israel for all of the
demonism that was there. Are you hearing me? It exposes
nowhere in scripture. Do you read of as massive? manifestation of demonism or
terminology about demons other than the time when Christ comes
to Israel and shortly after in the ministry in the ministry
of the Apostles and even in the ministry of the Apostles you
don't have an Overwhelming preoccupation with demons a demon here a demon
there a demon over there not multitudes But the scriptures
do say they actually did cast out devils. I So the after effect
of Christ's atonement on Calvary Street was that the apostles
who have been given the commission to spread this glorious message
with power to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the outermost parts
of the world did indeed confront demons. But what our prophecy
is saying is by the time Christ was headed to Calvary, those
demons had rushed back in sevenfold. And as a whole, the nation, right
along with the Gentiles, were ready to snuff the light out.
And that light is Christ. You are a horribly deceived nation
when you are ready to kill God. You are a horribly deceived nation
when you are ready to kill God. Now, come on now, let's make
the application. You are smart people. Is our
nation horribly deceived? Is our world horribly deceived?
Are they ready to kill God? Then it follows that we have
a lot of demon possession going on in high places. And the people of God need to
be prudent about that. We wonder why we are having all
of our moral rights stripped away. We wonder why we are losing
all of these historically traditional values that are rooted in scripture
text. We are wondering why we are experiencing
the morphing of our culture into this monstrosity of a hybrid
of just the vain, empty imagination of man. We are wondering, we
talked about this on Friday, How far will man go now that
he has the power to manipulate human genomes in the DNA and
just twist everything? How far will God let him go?
Read your Bible. Read the book. Read the book
and you'll see that pits are opened up. Black smoke comes
out fill in the whole of the air blackening the Sun and all
that symbolic of a complete blindness on the part of humanity to the
glory of God in the person of Christ and the net effect is
that Mankind is under such strong demonic influence That who can
tell what it will manifest itself in go with me in your Bible to
Revelation 18 I want to show you a verse or two Revelation chapter 18 verse 1
and 2 will describe exactly what I'm saying here. The historical prophetic fulfillment
has a very narrow. And pointed application to the
time of our Lord Jesus Christ in the in the days of Israel,
when it rejected Christ and came under the full control of. The
powers of darkness, this is your hour and power of darkness, Jesus
said. when they cried out, we have
no king but Caesar. The greatest blasphemous statement
a nation who have been given the oracles of God could say.
How do you raise up a carnal human being above the true and
the living God and bow to him exclusively as Lord, except the
whole nation be deceived? chapter 18 verse 1 and 2 and
after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven having
great power and the earth was lightened with his glory and
he cried mightily with a strong voice saying Babylon the great
is fallen is fallen watch this and it will become the habitation
of what devils and the whole of every foul spirit and a cage
of every unclean and hateful bird do you see the imagery And
what God is describing is language that comes from the Old Testament,
again, of the nation becoming so contaminated, so unclean,
so demonically influenced that it's fallen. It's a fallen nation. And that's the world we live
in now. A fallen nation where everything is unclean. Everything
is unclean. Everything is unclean all of
our laws all of our legislation the goals and agenda of our particular
our present country Countries objectives are unclean unbiblical
unsound demonically influenced dark and the Christian knows
in the back of his mind There's a day coming when the only thing
we can look for is persecution Because our biblical worldview
stands in total opposition to the way our world is going Our
biblical worldview stands in total opposition to it. And you
on an individual level are testing, are being tested by this every
day on your job, in school, everywhere you go, you are watching people
who are reprobate. I talked about reprobation last
week who have been given over to the dark powers and they are
willing to contemplate and embrace ideologies that you know, don't
even begin to square with scripture. And one of your troubles is,
How do I react to and respond to this person who is willing
to tell me that it's all right for a male person who feels like
they are a female to go and get a sex change because they feel
like they're a woman. And vice versa. See, what happened was
they got unhinged in their mind from sanity and reasoning. I
told you, apart from the grace of God, is no such thing as an
unsaved person having a sound mind. You cannot have a sound
mind unless that mind is rooted in biblical truth. You cannot
think right without God. And it amazes you when you meet
these people, because on certain levels they are extremely bright,
aren't they? They seem so intelligent, and then they get dumb, like
in a second they get dumb. And you go, whoa. Look how dumb
he is. I mean, it's just dumb. I mean,
he just flipped from brilliant to dumb in a half a second. All
of a sudden, he doesn't even entertain the fact that he's
created in God's image and that origin and design and purpose
have to be antecedent thoughts to everything we want to do.
You don't get to just do a thing. You got to ask where that thing
came from. What is its purpose and what is its goal? And if
I do tamper with this thing, what are the consequences? I
told us on Friday. The proverbial Pandora's box
is what we are experiencing now because man chose knowledge over
God. We are tampering with things that we have no ability to control.
We can't control evil. You can't control evil. You can't
define terms. To define terms is to set yourself
up for destruction. Only God can tell us what a thing
means. Am I making some sense? You and
I can't sit around and hypothesize and rearrange history. We don't
get to deconstruct history and reassign definitions to things.
Soon as you start redefining definitions, you are living out
a lie. You are setting yourselves up
for destruction. Now the whole world wants to
do this, right? People want to be what they feel. I'm looking
forward to right now. I'm looking because they're doing
it in other countries where the moral standards are much lower
when it comes to science and technology and the combining
of the two in the area of DNA and human cloning and things
like this. One of these days, somebody going
to say, you know what? In my past life, I was a horse. So you know
what I need you to do? Are you hearing me? These dark, dark, dark days in
which we live have only one answer, ladies and gentlemen. Demonism. Demonism. Go with me to Revelation
chapter 12 before we go back now and look at the blessed implications
of the gospel when it comes to a culture. Revelation chapter
12. In Revelation chapter 12, Here's
the answer, I believe, to the fury and outpouring of darkness
in our present culture, which will only go from bad to worse
with the exception of the Lord Jesus Christ intervening. Revelation
chapter 12 verse 12 says this. Therefore rejoice ye heavens
and you that dwell in them. Do you see that phrase? That
is a call to triumphant thanksgiving before God to all of God's elect. All of God's elect dwell in heavenly
places in Christ Jesus. All of God's elect have their
citizenship in heaven. All of God's elect have already
escaped the damnation of this world because God placed them
in Christ and Christ is in glory and we are in glory with Christ
right now. So that no matter what happens
down here, I'm out of here. And the rejoicing of the believer
is that his citizenship is in heaven. And with that kind of
perspective, while we are concerned about this world, we are not
worried. You know the difference between
being concerned and worried? Can I tell you what the difference
is? The difference between being concerned and worried is having
a ticket to glory. You missed that. See, if you're
on the Titanic and it's sinking, and it is, and God gave you a
special lifeboat to get out of that thing, You might be concerned
because the process can be a little bit challenging. But at the last
moment, you know, I'm I'm safe. I'm good to go. And that's what
the believer has who is in Christ. In God's mind, all of God's elect
are where he is right now. Seated with Christ say. from the wrath of the devil which
is poured out furiously upon this ungodly world seated with
Christ listen to the language therefore rejoice ye heavens
and you that dwell in them whoa unto the earth dwellers that's
my translation and it's legitimate it's not merely that you are
geographically here on this earth it means that you love this world
Woe unto you inhabitants of the earth and of the sea for the
devil is come down unto who you See what I'm saying? He's targeting
everyone who does not have a real vital relationship with Christ
because they're open He can inhabit them. He can control them. He
can manipulate them now watch this I want you to get this before
we go back not just persons cities States and nations. Go back to our text. Watch how
our text unfolds this. The devil not only controls persons,
he controls whole cities, nations, states. He sits in the citadel
of government powers, seeing to it that they do his bidding.
of which they are more than willing to kill millions of people to
accomplish his goals. Luke chapter 8 tells us the response
that comes. Here's my other point. Skipping
down to the implications of the gospel in a culture where the
power of its truth is a threat. Do you see that? So when the
devils asked to leave, they went out, as we find in Luke chapter
8 verse 33, then went the devils out of the man and entered into
the swine and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the lake
and were choked." Do you see that? Choked. Now the animal
rights advocacy group would have a real problem with what Jesus
just did. I know that. I know that. I could care less
though. Christ is the Lord of the swine. Did you get that? That's why I love me some ham
hocks. Because he's the Lord of the
swine. I said last week, though, those
swine, which are also unclean animals, according to the Levitical
code, were more dignified in themselves than human beings,
because they wouldn't even tolerate demons to hang out five minutes.
As soon as they found out they were possessed, they jumped in
the water and killed themselves. That's submissive. The heart
of man is wicked. The heart of man is vile that
he would sit there and let demons control him and turn him into
something lower than an animal. And this herd of unclean swine
said, I'm out of here. And those of you who are more.
Intellectually savvy will ask the question, where did the demons
go after that to hell? That's where they went. They
went to the abyss. Do you guys hear that? They went
to where they were going. And what the episode teaches
us when these demons rushed into the swine and the swine ran over
into the abyss is this, that the goal of the devil is to steal,
kill and destroy. That's his goal. His goal is
to kill you. His goal is to kill the human
race. His goal is to condemn and damn and curse and kill the
human race right along with himself if he could. That's his goal. The implications of the gospel
and culture where the power of its truth is a threat. Watch
this. Verse 34, when they that fed
them saw what was done, they fled and went and told it in
the city and in the country. They did a lot of talking, didn't
they? Didn't they do a lot of talking in the city and in the
country? Hey, we've got to tell you what
just happened. Now watch this. Then they went
out to see what was done You see whenever our lord acts It
serves as a witness and testimony to his glory They in their curiosity
having heard the testimony of these who were there and in our
other account It says they were servants who had taken care of
the pigs These were pig keepers going and telling everybody what
happened. They went and they came to see what was done now
watch this and came to see jesus And found the man out of whom
the devils were departing sitting at the feet of Jesus clothed
in his right mind And you think they would have been happy This is why I love scripture
because scripture is not simple and scripture is not Something
that you can easily anticipate the answer god deals with us
according to the real complexity of human experience He wants
us to pause now and ask the question. Now, why are they afraid? How
come the country and the city weren't afraid when that man
was running around terrorizing everybody? Why are they afraid
now that the man is civilized, reasonable, controlled, contained,
walking in his right mind? Because when men and women become
truly born again, you are a threat to this crazy world. When you become born again, and
God renews you in the spirit of your mind, and He conforms
you to the image of Christ, and He deposits biblical truth into
you, you now are able to talk sanely about God, this life,
and the condition of the human race. And you now threaten the
darkness that you are about. You are a threat to a culture.
This is what shakes you up when you become born again And you
think you can go tell somebody and you hope everybody go rejoice
with you Rejoice with me and they start looking at you crazy.
And the next thing you know, they're whispering and the walls
go up And you're getting set up to lose your job You are a
threat every true believer. I'm not talking about religious
folks. We're religious folk. They're just waiting for them
to fall They're just hypocrites You are not a threat if you are
a religious person if you merely have on the fig leaves of religion
If they don't see reality in you, a conviction of the truth,
a knowledge of God, a commitment to Christ, you're no threat to
them. They already have a list of casualties
among religious folks. They're just waiting for you
to be the next one. Am I making some sense? They
don't care about you whooping and hollering and shouting and
talking, I love Jesus. No, they're waiting for something
much more than your love for Jesus, your knowledge of Christ,
your commitment to Christ, your ability to now quote the scriptures
in a proper context, explaining what the true condition of this
world is. When you become a sound Christian, you are able to speak
into the darkness, the light that the Bible has. that threatens
the darkness. Do you know why? Men love darkness
rather than light. And as soon as we open our mouths
and say the Word of God says, all of a sudden it gets shaken
up. Am I making some sense? But the other problem that comes
with it as a the implications are set forth is that whenever
men and women who are formerly slaves of this dark system experience
the bars of hell breaking open and Christ going in there and
taking the captives and setting them free, the devil and this
world has just lost one of its subjects who makes money for
them, causes them to prosper. See, they weren't really all
that upset about this crazy man. That was upset because Jesus
destroyed 2000 swine. the process what do you mean pastor do you remember the account in
Acts chapter 16 brother say yes what about the one in chapter
18 and then chapter 19 now watch
this in chapter 16 our Lord is Working through the disciples
and Paul is preaching preaching preaching preaching. He's headed
to Athens but he's at Philippi right now and they're preaching
the gospel and many women are listening and then this girl
comes along and This girl is one of those loud-mouthed religious
girls That love to talk and she attached herself to the Apostles
and while the pop the Apostles are preaching. You know what
she said? Hey These the great men of God telling us the way
of truth. I And Paul put up with it for
about 24 hours. And after 24 hours, he knew something
was wrong. You know what he knew? The Spirit
of God does not work that way. The Spirit of God does not take
a child of God, a woman of God, and make them a clamorous bell
clap. Did you get that? I know that
hurt, but it's just true. He doesn't make them a clamorous
bell clap. Sorry. And he began to think. The way
this woman is carrying on. She has a problem. And he looked
upon her. And he discerned that she was
demonically possessed. In fact, in the literal Greek
language, she had what was called a Python spirit. Python is the
term. And she went about actually trying
to discredit the apostles by giving them advertisement that
would become nauseous to the people. Because we don't preach
the gospel with the same type of secular methodology that carnal
men do. And neither do we use devils
to do God's bidding. This is why I say devils and
false prophets can never save people. God never uses the demon
to do his gospel work. Never! He always shuts demons
up. He never uses devils to do what
his saints can do. God's not going to allow his
saints to live, suffer, and die for the glory of Christ and then
turn around and let a devil who is willing to deny his name,
distort his gospel, and merchandise men and women to hell to then
use them to save them too. No, that'd be tearing down what
you build up. Why would I have an army of faithful
people and then have an army of unfaithful people at the same
time? So don't tell me God can use anybody to save anybody.
You just had a mental breakdown Am I telling the truth That's
why our Lord all through his ministry would tell the demons
shut up And don't tell anybody anything about me. You don't
have a right to preach my word Only my faithful people have
a right to preach my word. You don't have a right to declare
who I am. You don't have a right to pretend
that you're on my side. I don't need you to advertise
me. Am I making some sense? And the apostle Paul rebuked
that devil. And in one hour, that woman was
made whole. It tore up the whole city. The
people gathered together and almost tore up the whole city.
over the fact that this one woman who had been the property of
some magician, some false prophet, all of a sudden he realized that
her merchandising men was over with. And now what we got to
do is we got to apprehend Paul. We got to apprehend Silas. We
got to apprehend Timothy. Same thing going on here. What
are you saying, Pastor? Are you ready? Money, the love
of money is the root of all evil, and it is the ultimate idolatry.
And it manifests itself enormously in false religion. Are you guys
with me? This is what the text is teaching follow it now and
when And then when they went out to see what was done how
he was clothed in the right mind, they were afraid they also which
saw it Watch this here. It is told them by what means
He was it was that he that the one that was possessed of the
devil was healed then the whole multitude Now saints watch this
i'm almost done here the whole multitude of the country I asked
everybody coming out of the gatherings roundabout, they begged him to
depart from them for they were taken with great fear. Now I'm
here to tell you there's no way, nothing reasonable about them
being fearful of this man being healed. Nothing reasonable about
them being fearful of this man being healed, but they could
be fearful of a transformation of their culture. If it starts
with this demoniac, it can pass on to other people and so change
the culture that now the legislation has to change. Now the rules
have to change. Now the different doctrines and
the different practices have to change. Now we got to get
morality back in the school. Now we got to get doctrine back
in the school. Now we got to teach creation. Now we got to
get men and women to get married instead of cohabiting because
you see all, listen, all of what we do, good or bad, For politicians,
it's all about money. Will you hear me? All of what
we do, when we live in an unsaved, unclean state, this secular world
makes lots of money out of diseases. The psychological industry and
the psychiatric industry makes a lot of money out of people
who are mentally disturbed. men and women are mentally disturbed
and men and women are physically diseased and men and women are
troubled on a mass sociological level because we're not in the
will of God and the masses make my here listen a lot of institutions
would go broke if people actually got saved do you believe that
what I'm saying are you hearing me you see the implications there
oh no we can't have we can't have Jesus coming into our city
we lose our job we'll get another job. You need to be saying. Alright,
let me close it down right here. This is so glorious. Watch this. Watch this. The text tells us
over in verse thirty-five. Then they went out to see what
was done and came to Jesus and found the man out of whom the
devils were departed sitting at the feet of Jesus. clothed
in his right mind. Do you see what I see? Saints,
do you see what I see? What I see is a glorious savior
standing over an object of grace, declaring to everybody that sees
him, this here is a consequence of my conquest on Calvary. He
is a subject of mercy. He is a vessel of honor. I have
redeemed him out of darkness. This man sits here as a testimony
of the power of the gospel and Christ has no problem standing
there letting everybody see this one is mine. This one is mine. See the goal of the preaching
of the gospel is to bear record to the triumph of Christ, the
glory of Christ, the power of Christ. Now watch this now. And
every saved man and woman has this one duty. to stand near
Christ and let the world know that Christ is yours and you
are Christ. Now watch this. This is so amazing
because he could have let this man go and this man could have
went on about his business. He could have rushed on home.
But listen, when God saves you, more than freedom moves your
heart, it's love. This man is sitting at Christ's
feet because he loves the master. He loves what he did. He's loving
what he experienced. He's loving the idea of being
near Christ. Now watch it. Isn't that what
the text says? He besought him that he would be with him. To
whom much is forgiven, the same loveth much. See, you know what
this man understood? Listen, I don't need to be free.
Let me help some of you free-falling people. Listen, your problem
is you're too free. You need to be bound to Christ. You need to be committed to Christ. You need to be all together up
on Christ. You need to let the world know
your safety is your being bound to Christ. Your security is your
being bound to Christ. Your commitment is your being
bound to Christ. You need to have the safety of
union with Christ. This man would much rather just
sit at Christ's feet, be his servant, doing his master's bidding. He'd have been just as happy
sitting at Christ's feet. Remember Mary Magdalene? At Christ's feet.
Martha and Mary, remember? At Christ's feet. She chose the
good thing. And here's an evidence. This is how you know you've been
born again. You love Christ. You love Him. You love Him passionately. And you don't want to depart
from Him. This is remarkable because when He was clothed in
His right mind, that is, He was renewed, the darkness had been
cast out, the light has now entered in, He sees Jesus for who He
is. He wants to be in the light.
He no longer wants to walk in the darkness. And the light is
a person. The light is a person. He's also
clothed, isn't he? I love the Lord. When he saves
a person, he clothes the person. Isn't that right? Now we know
the gospel of clothing is that this man is clothed in the righteousness
of God, which is in Christ, right? The perfect righteousness of
Christ. But come on now, let's stay honest with the text. Where
did he get these clothes from? Isn't the Lord good? Watch this. Before he said to the disciples
8, 9, 10, 12 verses ago, let's go to the other side. He whispered
to one of the other servants that the 12 disciples said, no,
go over to the store and give me a pair of pants, a shirt,
some socks, and some shoes. I got a child of God that I need
to dignify by dressing him up so he can testify of my goodness
to the world. I'm here to tell you that's how
it happened. That's how it happened. Because what he's doing, listen,
because what he's doing, what he's doing is he's telling you
and I that when God saves you, he saves you to be a testimony
of his recovering grace, his restoring grace, his renewing
grace, regenerating grace. And he clothes us, clothes us
because now we have been restored. We're dignified, civil. Look
at the power of God in this man's life. Then he tells him, go home
and tell everybody, tell everybody what I did for you. Are you hearing
me? I know you love me. I know you
want to stay with me, but you go home and you tell everybody
what I did for you. And one of the evidences that
we've been born again is first and foremost, we love him because
he first loved us. But we are more than willing
to tell people about are we ready to tell people? Are we ready
to tell people about can I tell you about the goodness of the
lord? Can I tell you what he did for me? Can I tell you how
he brought me out of darkness into his marvelous? Can I tell
you how he raised me from the dead and gave me life and faith?
Can I tell you how christ has just redeemed me from all iniquity? Can I tell you and he can do
it for you too? See that and listen, how can
you not tell the world about a glorious savior like this?
Now that crazy man going back to that city that
he tore up and that's what God would have
you to do because authentic Christianity
goes back to where it came in order to let everybody know this
thing is real and the ones who are gonna know it are the ones
who saw you tear it up Are you hearing me? See, you
can go across the country and pretend you saved all you want,
but we're going to find out because we knew you. We knew you and
I am I telling the truth. Do you understand the implications
of that genuine authentic salvation? Therefore goes back home like
Jesus went out Jerusalem Judea Samaria the uttermost parts of
the world and let everybody know this thing is real deep down
inside Israel God has Reconciled me God has restored me God has
renewed me. I'm a new creature in Christ
now watch this what this means is I'm ready to tell you I'm
sorry For how I tore it up I'm ready to restore relationships
with you because God has changed my mind. I'm ready to admit that
I was wrong, that I was dark, that I was demonic, that I was
influenced. I'm ready to tell you Christ
has renewed me and I'm sorry, I'm ready to bring you into the
same reconciling state with myself that I am with God because you
know what? The darkness is past and the
light is on and God's forgiven me of my sin and there is therefore
no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. now I can
share with you I was wrong and God uses that doesn't he use
that God you see what we're see what sinners on the outside are
looking for is authentic sinners real born-again sinners real
sinners that can say yeah I blew it I tore it up I'm so how much
I owe you man can I put put me on payment plan listen cuz I
want to get it right I love him. He has poured the love of God
into my life by the Holy Ghost and I'm ready to get it right
with you. I want you to know him because I've learned. I've
learned we will not make it without Christ. See, that's our job. Tell it everywhere you go. Amen.
Amen.