Let's take our Bibles now and
turn to Matthew chapter 8. Matthew chapter 8. This morning's
lesson will conclude our studies in this chapter. Let me read with you these final
verses here in Matthew chapter 8 beginning with verse 28. When he was come to the other
side into the country of the Gergesenes, there met him two
possessed with devils coming out of the tombs exceeding fierce,
so that no man might pass by that way. And behold, they cried
out, saying, What have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son
of God? Art thou come hither to torment
us before the time? And there was a great way off
from them, an herd of many swine feeding. So the devils besought
him, saying, If thou canst cast us out, suffer us to go away
into the herd of swine. And he said unto them, Go. And
when they were come out, they went into the herd of swine.
And behold, the whole herd of swine ran violently down a steep
place into the sea, and perished in the waters. And they that
kept them fled, and went their ways into the city, and told
everything, and what was befallen to the possessed of the devil.
And behold, the whole city came out to meet Jesus. And when they
saw Him, they besought Him that He would depart out of their
coasts." Now, I don't know what a false
prophet or a pretender of religion or a philosopher might gather
from a text like this one. I suppose they might make some
application to the insane. I suppose they make some kind
of an application to the violent criminal, the psychopaths and
so on, those whose behavior they cannot otherwise explain. They might take this text and
try to make something out of it, or some may just take what's
said here at face value. Why not just do that? Here was
a man possessed of devils. The Lord Jesus Christ comes along
and casts them out. And he did a good deed to this
man. He did good to him, and he went his way. But I personally believe when
we go through these miracles, and I've mentioned this to you
all along as we study these things, I personally believe that these
miraculous things, such as this casting out of these demons,
serve a threefold purpose as they were accomplished by the
Son of God, by the Lord Jesus Christ. First of all, I believe
that these things were a fulfillment of the Old Testament scriptures.
That's the first reason he did these things. He said, not one
jot, not one tittle of all that the prophets have said, of all
that the law has commanded is going to change. Nothing's going
to change. He said, I didn't come to change anything. I came
to fulfill it. And his life was a constant fulfillment
of Scripture. If you go through the four Gospels,
you'll see in there, he did this, therefore it was written, or
therefore it was written and he did this, and so on, all the
way through that. His life, though, prophesied
of thousands of years before he came here, and not just in
a few things. You might take Notre Dame or
one of these so-called prophets, and you might take the things
that he talked about and try to make something spectacular
out of it, but everything he did didn't come to pass. It didn't
come to pass. To be the servant of God or the
prophet of God or the son of God, everything has to come to
pass. If it didn't, they were commanded
to kill him. And so I see these things personally, and first
of all, as a fulfillment of the Old Testament Scriptures. You
remember John the Baptist sent his disciples. I don't think
he did this for his own information. I think he sent these disciples
for their own good. Because he's the one who proclaimed,
this is the Lamb. He didn't send them out there
to find out if this was the Christ. He sent them out there for their
own good to find out if this is the Christ. And when they
asked the Lord about it, what did he tell them? He said, you
go tell John what you've seen and what you've heard. You go tell John what you've
seen. The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers
are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the
poor have the gospel preached to them. And certainly to proclaim
liberty. That's what Isaiah said of him.
When he's come, he's going to come and proclaim liberty to
the captive and open the prison to them that are bound. Certainly
that'll have its application. in those that are possessed by
the devil. And then secondly, these miracles
were unchallenged evidence of His being sent of God, of His
being the very Christ. Peter told his hearers at Pentecost
that Jesus of Nazareth was a man approved of God among them by
miracles and wonders and signs which God did by Him in their
midst. And you can find the same thing
in Hebrews chapter 2, not only concerning Christ, but those
whom Christ sent, His apostles. and the writers of the New Testament.
So these miracles were fulfilled and were a fulfillment of the
Old Testament scriptures. And they were undeniable evidence
that he was the Christ. And then thirdly, these miracles
taken all together serve as a picture of how sinners come to Christ
or how Christ comes to sinners. Taken all together or taken individually. The Scripture says, whatsoever
things were written aforetime were written for our learning
that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might
have hope. That's why they're written. And
that's the direction I want to go with these things this morning.
Now the first thing I want you to learn from this story is that
it is the lot of all men to be tormented by devils. It's the
lot of every man. Every man in this story was tormented
of these devils. And it's the lot of all men.
Not all to the same degree. Perhaps not even all in the same
way. But all men suffer the torment
of devils. Now there's three accounts given
of this miracle. This one here in Matthew chapter
8. You can find Mark's account in Mark chapter 5 and Luke's
account in Luke chapter 8. In Mark and Luke's account, there's
only one man mentioned whom they call Legion. Now this is not
a discrepancy in the scripture. It simply means that Legion was
the principal one of these two. There's no discrepancy between
the writings of these men. It's just that Legion was the
principal, the most fierce and reputable one of the two. And
so Luke and Mark don't even mention the other man. And it's obvious to me that some
demon possessions were worse than others. We're going to talk
a little bit this morning, candidly, about these demon possessions.
And there was some that were worse than others. They weren't
all the same. And here's two men, I think,
separated in Scripture to show you that. Matthew mentions both
of them. Mark and Luke only mention one.
And you can't find any other reason for them not mentioning
the other one except the fierceness and the reputation of Legion. He had so many demons. His demon
possession was so fierce that he just dwarfed the other one.
I remember on one occasion, a demon went out of a man. Our Lord talked
about that, said this demon went out of him and said, He swept
and cleaned his house. The demon was gone. The torment
was gone temporarily. He moved out for whatever reason. And so the man cleaned up. He
cleaned up his life. He made some decisions. He made
some commitments. Whatever it is that he did, he
did these things while the demon was out. But then the demon came
back and saw the house swept and cleaned and took with him
seven more. And it says the final end of
that man was worse than the first. So not all demon possessions
are the same. And then you'll recall this in
Matthew chapter 17, that his disciples could not cast out
this demon. You remember that? They tried
to cast him out and they couldn't do it. They couldn't do it. And the Lord condemned their
unbelief And he told them this. He said, this kind goeth not
out but by prayer and fasting. This was a more difficult demon
to get rid of than the ones that they were used to dealing with.
So some demon possessions are all not the same. They don't
all go around babbling like madmen. They don't all go around breaking
chains and fears and causing harm to people. That's not all. demon possessions are not the
same. But it's still the lot of all men to be tormented by.
And Legion and his fellow demoniac were not the only ones being
tormented here. You see, by their possession,
everybody in that whole community was tormented. They were all
tormented. Matthew says in verse 28 here
of chapter 8, that being exceeding fierce, so that no man might
pass that way. Nobody could go out there where
they needed to go. No man. No man could pass that
way. Mark says that he could not be
bound. They couldn't bind him. Not with
chains and not with fetters of any kind. Nor could he be tamed. There was no taming this man.
There was no talking to this man. There was no settling him
down. And then Luke says that he was naked. So that whole community,
if you can just imagine such a man living between here and
where I live, and every day I'd have to go clear down to Spring
Hill because I couldn't go that way. There was no binding him. You couldn't do anything with
him. He tormented everybody. All around him, everyone suffered
torment because of his torment. Now let me tell you something
this morning as it relates to the sinner coming to Christ about
this demon possession. Satan and his angels have been
loosed in the earth for a little season. For a little season in
this gospel age, they've been loosed in the earth. He doesn't
restrain them like he did in days past. They've been loosed. They've been loosed. While he
may still possess men as he did Legion, these demons and so on,
they can possess men exactly in the same way. If you go down
to the insane asylums, you can go down there and you can see
them. You can see them in prisons and jails sometimes where they've
been picked up for this, that, or the other. I remember my uncle,
my cousin was going through a horrible divorce and her husband beat
her and was mean to her and she came home and they were going
down to get a restraining warrant from the sheriff. And this man,
he came in in the middle of the night, sneaked up and hid in
the back seat of the car. And when my two cousins got in
the car to go get the warrant, he raised up and shot both of
them. I forget how many times, killed both of them. And then
when my uncle came out of the door, he jumped out of the car
and killed him. And the two kids that was left,
he hunted for them, called them, trying to call them out and he
was going to kill them too. And it was their testimony that
really put him away. But we had back then a jail ministry. And I went down to the jail one
Sunday morning and they brought this man up for for judgment,
they brought him up to give him his sentence and so on. And we walked back where he was.
I just wanted to see him. And when I went back there, there's
Bibles in all these jail cells. And this Bible, he just dunked
it down in the commode, and he ripped the pages out of it, and
they were stuck all over the walls and all over the bars and
on the floor and everywhere. And he had them in his hands,
holding them, and his eyes just looked wild. There's still demon
possessions like that in the world. There still is. But I
think for the most part, it takes a little different, a little
different way. They've been loosed in the earth
for a little while. But this possession sometimes
takes on a little different form. In 2 Corinthians 11, verse 14,
he tells the disciples there, he says, or the apostle tells
the church there, he said, don't marvel at these false prophets. Don't marvel at them. These false
apostles, these deceitful workers of religion who transform themselves
into the apostles of Christ. Now listen to what he said. For
Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light, a minister
of light. Therefore it is no great thing
if his ministers also be transformed as ministers of righteousness
whose end shall be according to the works. Sometimes this
possession takes strong hold on men, and they're used of men
in religion, in false religion, in a big way. There is no other
way that you can explain the testimonies of men who are just
totally contrary to the Scriptures. In rank ways, I mean just totally
contrary to it and yet commands thousands of followers. There
is just no other way you can explain that. In Ephesians chapter
2 verse 2, Paul declares that the former condition of all those
who were now raised to walk in newness of life as walking in
times past according to the prince of the power of the air, the
spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. And to the Pharisees he said,
ye are of your father the devil, and the works of your father
you will do. Now it's the lot of all men to
be tormented by these possessed with devils, Some by personal
indwelling of these principalities, and others by those who are possessed
of the devils. You see what I'm saying? False
religion has its roots in the garden. If you want to know what
this demon possession is and this false religion is, all you
have to do is go back, just eliminate the millions and the multitudes
and the days and the generations and all that stuff. Just get
it out of your head. Let's go back to the garden. Here's two
people. Two people. What happened in the garden?
Huh? Satan whispered in the ear of
our mother and said, has God truly said? Huh? And began to possess her mind
with his lies. And that's exactly how it works.
That's exactly how it works. False religion is, according
to the Word of God, the working of Satan in this world, and is
even to this day a source of torment for our children and
for ourselves. And even though these spirits
can work in other ways, it's false religion that I fear the
most. That's what I fear the most.
It wasn't the madman who brought down mankind. It was the whispering
devil. That's what it was. So many. There's so many out there, and
they're so varied, and they're so near to us that their contact
cannot be avoided. And in these various accounts,
the Lord tells us three things about these demon-possessed men,
and I'll let you make your own application to those who believe
not. First of all, they preferred
to live with the dead. They preferred the dead over
the living. They lived in the tombs. The
only ones they could get along with was the dead men. Years
ago I lived down in Ball, Louisiana in a parsonage there and we built
a parsonage right in front of the cemetery. And we had a young
fellow there who visited during one of the conferences and he
came down to the house and the cemetery was just probably from
here to the front of the church away from the back of the parsonage.
And he said, don't it make you uneasy living down here? I said,
no, it don't make me at all uneasy down here. I'm not afraid of
the dead ones. It's the living ones that give
me the problem. But these guys, they preferred
the company of the dead. They wanted to live in the tombs. They wanted to live there with
them. They wanted to be right in the tombs with them. They preferred to live with the
dead. That's where they rested. That's where they slept. That
was their hiding place. That was their lair in the tombs. And then secondly, they walked
naked without a covering. That's what self-righteousness
is. It puts on a fig leaf apron. An apron only covers half of
your nakedness. They walk around naked. Self-righteousness
hides nothing, but rather it exposes our shames. And then
thirdly, they block the way of others. No man could come, no
man could pass that way. A demon-possessed man, if he's
possessed with a demon of religion, and I'll just tell you, you just
need to read your Bible if you think I'm blowing smoke this
morning. You need to read your Bible and
find out what it says. He talks about this over and
over and over. They blocked the way for others
because of their intimidation and no man could pass that way.
Our Lord said, Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. Now
listen to what He said. For you shut up the kingdom of
heaven against men, for you neither go in yourselves, neither suffer
ye them that are entering to go in. They blocked the way. They blocked the way. So it's
the lot of all men to be tormented by devils. Some more than others,
some by worldly lust and unbridled passions, but most of all, it's
false religion. That's where I see the true demon
possession of our day. Paul said, if our gospel be hid,
it's hid to the lost in whom the God of this world, talking
about Satan, hath blinded the minds of them that believe not,
lest the glorious gospel of Christ should shine unto them. That's
what these demon possessions are all about. And then secondly,
I see this. It's by the free and sovereign
grace of God that some have been relieved from the torment. By the free and sovereign grace
of God. You think about that. There was
nothing over there to see. The people didn't like him when
he came there, when he did this. He took away the one who was
tormenting them. And when they came to see him,
what did they say? What did they want him to do?
Build a church? Oh, no. They wanted him to leave. They
wanted him to get out of there. Get out of there. It is by the free and sovereign
grace of God that some be relieved from the torment I have for nearly
four years showed you patterns and types and figures and plain
declarations from the Word of God, the Gospel of God's free
grace. I've showed it to you in every
possible way that I know. I've showed it to you in the
Old Testament and the New Testament. I've showed it to you in plain
declaration. I've showed it to you in pictures
and figures and types and all these things. I've showed it
to you in the ceremonial law and in the Old Testament allegories.
and in the miracles of Christ. And I challenge you to do this.
I challenge you to go through the scriptures and see if you
can make this modern, satanic, freewill, works religion fit
any type in it anywhere. You can't do it. It's just not
there. It's just not there. I assure
you, if you tried to do that, it would be like trying to put
a square peg in a round hole. It's just not there. All men
suffer the torment of Satan's ministers, and they'll continue
to be tormented until the Spirit of the living God intervenes
in their lives and shows them the truth, reveals to them the
truth. And it's only by the sovereign
grace of God that some are relieved from the torment. He doesn't
leave them in it. Some he does. Some he does. There was nothing in these two
men to draw the Lord of glory to them. Rather, every reason
for him to leave them alone. But God set these men apart before
the world began by an act of His eternal love and grace, and
made provision for them, and appointed for them a Savior and
a King, Christ the Lord. And when the fullness of time
was come, He come into this world. And He sought them out. And He
cast out the strong man. It's the free and sovereign grace
of God that made the difference between these two demon-possessed
men and all the others possessed by demons in that land. These
two weren't the only two possessed. They were just the only two possessed
with this type of demon that that manifested itself in this
outward way. That whole town was possessed
with the demons of religion and self-righteousness, and that's
why they didn't want him to stay. They didn't want him to stay. They wanted him to leave. And
then thirdly, it's by the command of Him who has authority over
all things that these demonic spirits are cast out of God's
elect. This One who now addresses these
demons had just a short time before, John, sat up in the boat
and commanded the winds and the waves to be still. And they settled
calm at his feet. This man who is about to spoil
the strongman's house is he alone who can defeat him and put him
out. I tell you it's a sad commentary
on man, but the ones there that day who knew our Lord the best
were the demons. Read that account again. They
recognized Him as soon as He set foot on the land, didn't
they? Called Him the Son of God. They knew so much more than those
demon-possessed men. They looked at Him and they said,
have you come to torment us before our time, before the time? They
knew there was a time coming, set before the world was. They knew Him as the Son of God.
They knew their doom was fixed because of Him. They knew their
destiny was everlasting torment. And they knew there was a day
coming in which He judged this world and put them away forever. And then briefly let me make
a comment about this. The swine. The swine. Swine are animals that at that
time were under the law considered as unclean beasts. So our Lord
cast these unclean spirits into these unclean beasts. That's
where He let them dwell. And the end was their destruction.
Our Lord gave permission for these unclean spirits to enter
into these unclean beasts, knowing that by this possession they'd
surely be destroyed. In II Thessalonians 2, 9 through
12, it tells a very similar story about men and women who would
not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved, but
love darkness rather than light. And for this cause, he said,
God sent them strong delusion to believe a lie, and that they
all might be damned who believe not the truth. These unclean spirits are given
permission of the Lord to enter into men who live as unclean
beasts, knowing that their end is near and now fixed. Does the Bible teach reprobation? Beyond question it teaches reprobation. By the glorious resurrection
of Christ, God hath raised us up with Him and made us to sit
together with Him, clothed in His spotless righteousness and
with the mind of Christ. And when they come to find these
two that they feared so much, they found them sitting with
the Lord in their right mind, clothed." That's where he brings
the sentence. And that's what these demon possessions
here that he cast out, that's what they teach. That's exactly
what they teach. May the Lord give us all the
revelation of that this morning.