Mark's Gospel chapter 5. We stopped there this morning,
basically at verse 1 in the last portion of chapter 4. And let's
read, now let's go on. The Master had brought His disciples
through this storm, and now we see His purpose for coming here
to the other side of the coast. Mark chapter 5 and verse 1. And
they came over unto the other side of the sea, unto the country
of the Gadarenes. And when he was come out of the
ship, 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 that he had often been
bound with fetters, 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 he 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 him, saying, Send us into the swine,
that we may enter unto them. And forthwith Jesus gave them
leave, and the unclean spirit went out and entered into the
swine, and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea.
They were about two thousand, 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
it was that was done. And they came to Jesus, and seeing
him that was possessed with the devil, and had the legions set
him, and 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 him to depart out of their coast. And when
he was coming to the ship, he that had been possessed with
the devil prayed him that he might be with him. Albeit Jesus
suffered him not, but said unto him, Go home to thy friends,
and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee,
and have had compassion on thee. And he departed and began to
publish in Decapolis how great things Jesus had done for him,
and all men did marvel." I want us to see some things.
I don't want to go with this verse by verse or even take the
story as it's given to us, but I just want to see some things
here that appeal to me as I have read this story so many times. I want us to see, first of all,
how far a man, how far a human being can fall into depravity
and awful, awful sin and captivity to the devil. He says here in verse 2, that
when he was come out of the ship, immediately there met him out
of the tombs a man." Amen. I want you to hold that and I
want you to take your Bibles. I want to turn all the way back
over to Genesis chapter 1. Genesis chapter 1. And I want us to look just for
a minute at man's creation. I want us
to get this. This is so important because
if we don't know what man used to be, we won't marvel what he's
become now, and what he has the potential, and how far he has
the potential to fall. There met him a man. You know
the first time we read this identification, the way a person is identified
a man, God is the one who identified him as a man. Look here in Genesis
chapter 1 and look here in verse 26. And God said, let us make man
in our image after our likeness. and let them have dominion over
the fish of the sea, over the fowl of the air, and over the
cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing
that creepeth upon the earth." Man was made in God's image. What all that includes, I don't
know. But he was different from the animals that God had created. God made man in His likeness,
in His image. In verse 27, so God created man
in His own image, in the image of God, created He Him. Male
and female created He them. Then I want you to know the sweet
fellowship. Several times in these two chapters,
chapter 1 and verse 2, the Lord talked with this man. He communed
with him. And here's the first place in
verse 28. And God blessed them and God said unto them. Can you
imagine God talking to one of His creatures? And you know His
creature answered Him. There was this sweet and holy
companionship. The everlasting Creator speaking
and associating with this man. What a wonderful, wonderful place
and time this was. And here is what he said unto
them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and
subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, over
the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth
upon the earth. In verse 29, And God said, Behold,
I have given you every herb, buried seed, which is upon the
face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit
of a tree yielding seed, to you it is given for meat. And to
every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the earth, to
everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life,
I have given every green herb for meat, and so it was. And
God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very
Good. Now look down in chapter 2 and
look in verse 7. God spurred nothing. When it
come to pleasing man, God spurred nothing. Everything that God
knew would be pleasant to this man's eyes and would be sweet
to his taste, He gave it to him. Look in verse 7. And the Lord
God formed man of the dust of the earth, and breathed unto
his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul."
And wouldn't it have been wonderful for the Lord just to have left
him in the earth? And I'm sure that he had access
to anywhere he wanted to go. But he went one step farther.
He made him a garden. Look in verse 8. And the Lord
God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the
man He had farmed. And out of the ground made the
Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and
good for food, and the tree of life also which is in the midst
of the garden. And looking down in verse 16,
And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of
the garden thou mayest freely eat. But of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it. For in the day
that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die." And then in
verse 19, look at this. This man not only had sweet communion
and had everything that God could make to give him that was pleasant
to his eye and sweet to his taste, but look how brilliant he was. And out of the ground the Lord
God formed every beast of the field, every fowl of the air,
and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them. And whatsoever Adam called every
living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names
to all cattle, and all fowl of the air, and to every beast of
the field." Now isn't that amazing? Wasn't he a wise? Intelligent
man? And it seems to me as I look
at some of these creatures today, it's just almost natural. Did
you ever look at a pig and say, that's a pig? Or look at an elephant
and say, yeah, that's an elephant. That's what Adam named them.
There's a giraffe. Why, yeah, that's a giraffe.
Wasn't this man brilliant? What a holy and sweet communion
He had with His Creator. And how holy He was. How healthy
He was. How happy He was here in God's
new creation. Now, I want you to turn back
over to our text. I want you to forget. Just try to forget
4,000 years of history. Stop there in chapter 2 where
you and I just stopped, where this man and then his wife is
living in this holy and sweet communion, living in communion
and in the very likeness of God their Creator. And just stop
right there and forget about the last 4,000 years And let's
pretend that we know nothing between chapter 2 and verse 2
of Mark chapter 5. And let's just look at this.
And when he was come out of the ship, immediately there met him
out of the tombs a man with an unclean, impure, lewd, foul spirit. Isn't that shocking? This is not a man. We just saw
the man, did we not? Back there in sweet communion
with His Creator and fellowship and love. Where is God? Where is His companion? Who is
He with now? He is with this fowl. He is keeping
company with this unclean, vulgar spirit Now, are you amazed with
that? That's amazing, isn't it? And verse 9 tells us here that
it was not only this one Spirit, but He said, we're a legion of
unclean spirits. Maybe 2,000 or more. And look at this, brothers and
sisters. Where's the beautiful garden? Where's all the trees
that were pleasant to the eyes? Where's the sweet smell of the
ripe fruit? Where's he dwelling now? In the
tombs among the dead. Remember the man that was holy
and happy and restful? Well, here we have this man and
he's always running through the mountain. He's restless. He's crying and he's cutting
himself with stones. And the only thing that resembles
this man and that man we read about back in the garden, they
both were naked. They both were naked. But this
man's not clean. He's not holy. He's vulgar, isn't
he? Look at the filth on his body. Look at the human feces. Look,
smell how he stinks. This is man? That's what it said. The Holy Spirit said, He met
a man coming out of the tombs. And Luke says, He wore no clothes,
always not in the day, crying, despairing, and cutting himself. Man has sought out many devices,
Solomon told us. He sought out many devices. God
made man upright and he sought out many devices. And look where
it got him. Look where it got him. But this
may not be the worst what he lost there in the beautiful garden
and his health and his cleanness, but look at this. Here in verses
6-10, this man is so fallen in with these demons, and the demons
so taken up with him, it's difficult to distinguish which one is which. Did you notice that as I read
that to you? Who is this talking? The man come running to him and
he said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus? Is that the man
speaking or is that the demon speaking? It seems to be both,
doesn't it? Isn't that awful? Do you deny
the fall? Is there anybody here that denies
the fall of man? We can't, can we? You can't deny
that we lost. We lost God, didn't we? We lost
our righteousness. We lost our life. We lost that
sweet communion. We didn't stub a toe. We died. I wonder if Adam could have experienced
this when he first left the garden. And wasn't it a mercy that he
gradually got worse? He gradually seen men go downhill. Wouldn't it have been awful if
soon as he left the garden, he was attacked by these devils
and overwhelmed and taken like this man was? If Adam could have
come here and sat down at our tax or been with the Lord Jesus
when he saw this man here in the garden with all these demons,
you know what he would have said? What have I done? What have I
done to my prosperity? Look what I've done to them.
I lost that fellowship. I lost that communion. I lost
my life. I lost my holiness. I lost everything. But it's not just what I lost.
Look what I've gained. A cemetery. Look who possesses
me. Not God, but demons. Isn't it
awful? Is any of us exempt? Brother
Wayne said this morning, some of us aren't as fallen into open
sin as others. But I tell you, we're all fallen,
aren't we? And if we're not living in the cemeteries this morning,
crying and cutting ourselves in despair, it's because God
in His mercy has kept us. There's an old saying, it's just
become a cliché, but it's the truth. There go I, apart from
the grace of God. There go I. The Bible says He has taken men
captive. The devil has taken men captive
by his own will. Oh, man's depraved enough in
himself. He's fallen enough within his
own heart and mind. But add to this, these multitudes
of demons that are among us and they have access to our minds
and our bodies, and they aggravate our sinfulness, and they blind
our deceived heart, and they work in us, tempt in us, to fulfill
the desires of our flesh and mind. And none of us are exempt
from it. Let men boast of a spark of divinity
if they will. There is none there. Let men
boast of the power of their will. I'm telling you, it's corrupt.
It's sinful. It's depraved. And all of us
are subject to become just like this man. He had a home, didn't
he? The Lord said, Go home. He had
a home. You got a home? I've got a home.
He had friends. He had family just like we did. He probably at one time had some
mental stability and physical health. What happened to it?
What happened? How did he wind up here, living
in this cemetery? You could be there tomorrow.
I could be there tomorrow. I tell you, when the Lord gives
men over, when He is not pleased to show mercy and keep them,
we are just pawns in the hand of these demons. We are just
flesh, fallen humanity. And they are these evil spirits.
They are gods, the Bible calls them. We have no power over them,
do we? And you know when they entered?
You know when we became exposed? Back there in the garden. Back
there in the garden. Oh, we ought to thank God every
day that we wake up lost or saved if you have a sound mind and
you are not living in the cemetery. Oh, thank God. Thank God for
mercy. Something else about these demons.
They not only drove this poor man from his home, his family,
running around naked and bloody and cutting himself. But notice
here how they represented the Savior to this man. They represented
the Savior in the worst way possible. I imagine whatever this demon
was saying, that's exactly what this man was thinking. They were
just one and the same almost. And here's the way he represented
the Savior to this poor man as a judge and a tormentor. Luke says it like this, and he
cried out and said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou
Son of the Most High? I beseech thee that thou torment
me not. Now, it's understandable the
reason this unclean spirit is saying this, but that's what
this man is thinking, you see. That's what the devil has made
him think. He saw the Son of God come off
of that boat and he said, Oh, he's going to torment me. He's
going to torment me. I don't want anything to do with
him because he's going to torment me. Isn't that amazing? Here
are these demons that drove him out of his home, away from his
friends, drove him to despair, living in the garden, living
in these tombs, and what's he thinking? I don't want anything
to do with this Jesus. He's going to bring me into bondage.
He's going to torment me for sure. Isn't that amazing? You
think the devil can't twist men's minds up. I remember when he
had my mind twisted up. You remember when he had yours
twisted up. I remember all through my young life, Satan had me thinking
that to be saved, for the Lord to save a man, was the worst
thing that could happen to you. If you wanted a boring life,
boy, you just become a Christian. And you talk about a boring,
burdensome life. My dad used to make me go to
church on Sunday. And I don't know that I ever
did this, but I was sitting there like this. Of course, that probably
wasn't a bad thing where I was going. But that's the way I was
sitting, really. I didn't want to hear a thing
that was said. It was always, I don't want anything to do with
him. Why, that's the most burdensome, boring life I can imagine. I
wanted out of here. I wanted to go ride a horse.
I wanted to go play with my friends. That's the same thing this fellow
said. All I thought of when I thought of Jesus Christ was just a lawgiver.
He's just going to put me under all of these rules. He's going
to put me under all these regulations. And I can't do it. I can't live
it. And I don't want anything to do with that. That's what
I thought. This poor man never knew the storm that Jesus of
Nazareth had endured to get to where He was. He never knew the
love that was in this man's heart as He stood before Him. The love
that He had for His poor soul that was in bondage to the devil.
All He said was, you tormentor, I don't want anything to do with
you. And that's where we're all at.
The devil comes and misrepresents Jesus Christ to our conscience.
Old Luther, when Luther got into those monasteries, he said he
thought the way the Lord would save him, and he didn't deny
the cross, he didn't deny the burial and resurrection, but
he thought the way that the Lord saved you was putting you into
a monastery. Then you slept on the coal brick
floors naked. And you sat on sharp objects
and you punished yourself. And if you did all of these things,
plus all of those things you could do, what Jesus did, and
Luther said, I come to hate Him. He can understand why Paul, Saul
of Tarsus, said, I sought to do many things contrary to the
name of Jesus. He said Satan misrepresented
Christ to his mind that all he thought about Him, you're just
watching over me. You're waiting for me to mess
up so you can pounce on me and punish me. And he said, I hated
Him. He hated the Christ that Satan
represented to him. But oh, when the Savior was revealed
to his heart, and he saw Him in His love and His freedom and
redemption, and how He gives you a heart to know Him and love
Him, and He frees you from the guilt and this dominion of sin,
and He drags Satan from your heart, and He sets upon the throne
of your conscience Himself, then you see the difference, don't
you? You see the difference. These wretched, unclean spirits.
You're in chapter 5 and verses 10 through verse 13. What's this all about? They said,
don't send us out into the deep. Don't send us out of this country.
And then they said, send us into these swine. Why would they do
something like that? And these 2,000 swine ran down
this steep hill, and all of them were choked in the water. Did
you ever wonder why they did that? Well, we have to understand
the way these demons think. They're always plotting evil.
They're destroyers. They're liars. They're deceivers.
They hate God. They hate the Son of God. They
hate us. And they plotted this out. And here's what they plotted.
If we can get Him to let us go into those swine, we'll destroy
all of those swine, and we'll turn these people against Him,
and they'll blame Him for it. Was that what happened? Well,
that's exactly what happened. The owners of these swine come
over there and said, what's happened? And they told them, they said,
would you please get out of our country? Leave our country. That's what Satan is plotting
to do. He don't care about your wallet.
He don't care about Empire State buildings. He don't care about
big cities. He cares about one thing, bringing
all the dishonor to Christ he can and destroying precious souls. That's it, isn't it? That's it. Something else, though, is I
read these two passages, the one I preached on this morning
here in the fifth chapter. And I love this. Jesus Christ
is not afraid of anybody. And He's not afraid of anything.
Isn't that amazing? I love it when I think of that.
He is just fearless. He faces nature, what we call
nature. Something that scares us to death. I mean things that has broken
ships, destroyed cities, floods and winds. And he was sleeping
during this violent storm. He was resting. They had to wake
him up. And it seemed like a mystery.
I don't mean to be irreverent here, but it seemed like to him
it was a mystery. Why are you fearful? What's got
you fellas afraid? I can't understand you. I can't
relate to your fear. Why? Because he wasn't afraid
of anything. And boy, he raised in combat
sea and the winds, and now he comes here to this hostile country.
And here these two men are. Mark concentrates on one. Matthew
tells us there was two of them. And he tells us something else
about them. They were so violent. that nobody passed by that way. You didn't go to visit your dead
loved one in this cemetery. This fellow would jump on you
and beat you. And here comes Jesus. And He
didn't have a stick in His hand. He wasn't packing. He walked
right up to these two fellows and confronted them without any
fear. And He wasn't afraid of this
legion of devils. The first thing he did was speak
to them and said, Come out of him. Come out of him. He ain't afraid of anything,
is he? He's not afraid of anything, and he's not afraid of anybody. Nothing. Nothing. And you know why he's
not? Because he's the Lord over all.
He's the sovereign Lord over all. What manner of man is this? That's what the disciples say.
What kind of fellow is this that can speak to the wind and it
obeys Him? He can rebuke the waves and they
lay down. And now, here He is, facing these
two violent men and all of these legions of devils. And they're
trembling at His Word. What manner of man is this? But
one answer to that, brothers and sisters, He is the Sovereign
Lord over all. That's the only answer that you
can get. He's the Sovereign Lord over all. Next time somebody
asks you, what do you mean by Sovereign Grace Church? Maybe
you can tell them. Tell them what that means. He's
the Sovereign Lord over all. Creation, providence, and salvation,
And he proved that in the days of his flesh. He's sovereign
over the wind and the sea. He's sovereign over fishes. He told a whole bunch of fish
one day to get in Peter's net, didn't he? He told another fish
to find him a little chunk of gold and take it up and give
it to Peter to pay his taxes. He's sovereign over the fish.
He is sovereign over all diseases. He healed those who had need
of being healed. He is sovereign over death. Lazarus
comes forth. He is sovereign over sins. He
forgives it. He is sovereign over food. He
fed 5,000 with 2 little fish and 5 loaves and tucked up 12
baskets. That is sovereignty. He turned
water into the best of wine. He is sovereign over life. He can give it or take it. No
man lives to himself. No man dies to himself. Whether
we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. And to this end,
He died, revived, and rose again that He might be Lord both of
the dead and the living. That's why He's not afraid of
anybody or anything. He's the Lord. He's the Lord. The only time our Lord ever feared
anything was during the Garden of Gethsemane when He said, Father,
let this cup pass from Me. Boy, He feared that, didn't He?
That brought the bloody sweat from His pores. He cried like
a baby that night, didn't He? Yeah, you know what was in that
cup? God's judgment upon our sin. Boy, that brought Him low,
didn't it? That's the only time you ever
see Him draw Him back. And I can understand that, can't
you? But oh, He gathered His blessed soul up and said, Father,
not my will, but Thine be done. And He got up and went to face
it on our behalf. Aren't you glad He did? Two more things right quickly.
Just two more things and we'll close. But I thought this was
very interesting. We see these miracles here that
the Lord Jesus did. Here in the fourth chapter of
the storm and in the fifth chapter, driving the devils from these
two men. And here still in this storm,
we often make the statement that the Lord Jesus defied nature. We've made that statement sometime,
that defied nature. But my question is this, what
nature did he defy? Was it the nature before the
fall? Or the nature after the fall? What nature did he act contrary
to? He didn't act contrary to the
nature before the fall. He just acted contrary to the
nature after the fall. What do I mean by that? I mean
this. He restored nature to its original form. What do you mean,
Bruce? There was no storms before the
fall. The storms and the violence of
nature came in after the fall. This was a twisted nature, wasn't
it? This was a rebellious nature.
This was the result of the curse. And when He said, Peace be still,
He wasn't acting contrary to original nature. He was restoring
it. And throughout His life, we see
these little glimpses of restoration of that which we lost at the
fall. In Acts chapter 3 and verse 21,
Peter was speaking about heaven received in the Lord Jesus. He
said that's where He's going, up into heaven until the times
of restitution or restoration of all things. He's going to restore all things. We get just little tidbits and
little glimpses of that even in these two miracles that He
did in these two chapters. Here in the storm, what was it
like before the fall? There was a calm, wasn't there?
There was no violent winds. There was no waves threatening
anyone. There was a calm. He restored
the calm. He restored nature in its original. And here He comes to this man,
this restless man, keeping company with devils. Ain't that contrary to what we
read over in Genesis 1 and 2? There was fellowship. There was
quietness. There was communion. And what
did Jesus Christ do to this Gadarean? He didn't do anything contrary
to nature. He restored that which he lost
in the garden. What was it like there? Oh, can
you see Adam sitting at the feet of his Creator? And he's quiet
and he's in his right mind? What did the Lord Jesus do to
this man? When they came and saw him, he
was sitting He was clothed and in His right mind, just as it
was back there in the beginning. He said, I came to restore that
which I took not away. There in chapter 1 of this book
of Mark, you remember when the Lord Jesus was led out into the
wilderness to be tempted of Satan? And the Scripture says this,
He spent 40 days there, and He was with the wild beast. Have you ever thought about that?
And we know that they had lions back in these days. They had
bears. And what other kind of wild beast
was He among? And you know in His presence,
they weren't wild. Nothing in His presence. Everything
in his presence was in a great measure like it was originally. I bet you when he spent forty
days among those wild beasts, that if there was a little lamb
that strayed in there, it laid down beside the lion and there
was no problem. You say, Bruce, that would be
contrary to nature. It is contrary to the nature
act of the fall, because lions eat lambs. But not before the
fall. And the Lord Jesus restored. You see the little glimpses of
restoring that which we lost in the beginning. Remember when
He cursed the fig tree? Did you ever wonder why He would
curse that fig tree? The Bible said it wasn't the
time of fruit. It wasn't the season to bear.
Now, that doesn't seem right that the Lord Jesus would curse
a fig tree when it wasn't even seasoned to have figs on it anyway.
But that's what He did, and it all swiveled up. But think of
this. Can you imagine a barren fig
tree back there in the garden? Can you imagine Adam going to
a fig tree and saying, where's the figs? There was no such thing. And it seems to me like the Master
is telling us here, I am going to take away everything that's
contrary to that which is against that nature. And here's this
tree that has no fruit on it, and I've cursed it because it's
contrary to that which I'm going to restore. He just gives us
a glimpse, just a glimpse. There in the garden, brothers
and sisters, there was no season to bear fruit and season for
fruit to die and the leaves to turn brown and fall off the tree. There was no death before the
fall. Nothing died. There was no barren
seasons. And He came to restore that which
He took not away. You look at the creation now,
and we say how beautiful. How marvelous. How wonderful. But if we saw it in its original
form, we may not even recognize it. What did it look like then? What was it like then? Now it's
debased. Now it's twisted. Now it's decayed. Now there's death and barrenness. And when we look out over a beautiful
valley of leaves that's turned brown and we say, how beautiful,
I wonder if creation could speak to us what it would say. You
don't know. You don't know how we used to
be. And you don't know how we're growing now, waiting for the
restoration by the Son of God of all things. The Lord Jesus stands looking
over this graveyard full of tombs and death, and this poor, naked,
filthy, depraved man with demons. And the Lord sees the flood of
tears that have been shed. He feels the pain and the loss
and the misery. And he has to think to himself,
this is not natural. This is not natural. And it will
not stand. Because I am going to restore
it. I am going to restore it. But
when we talk about a restoration, it's going to be better than
it ever was before. Sometimes you see an old dilapidated
house. My wife, she likes to watch those
remodeling shows on TV. She thinks I can do all of that.
They take an old dilapidated house and somebody said, yes,
I remember that house, or I own that house, or I built that house.
That was a beautiful house. But now look at it. And you take
some good carpenter that's wise and he comes in there and boy,
he rebuilds everything and remodels everything and he upgrades and
updates. And you go back in and you say,
oh, it never looked this good. Man, how beautiful. That's just
a little taste. The Lord Jesus said, I come to
restore that. But oh, when He restores it.
He said it like this, I am come that they might have life. Yes,
life! More abundantly. And when He
restores everything, brothers and sisters, it's going to be
so much better than it was before. So much better. And one of the
things that's going to be better about it when He fixes it this
time, and when He looks upon it and says, very good this time,
it will never change again. No subject to decay or loss or
death anymore. One more thing, and this is very
appealing to us, I hope. The fifth chapter of Mark, and
look at this. Verse 18, And when he was come
unto the ship, he that had been possessed with the devil prayed
him that he might be with him. Howbeit Jesus suffered him not,
but said unto him, Look at this. Go home. Go home. Ain't that amazing? Go home. You got a wife? Don't you have a wife? Go home. Go home and love your wife. You've
got children? Go home to your children. Train
your children and raise your children and love your children.
Our Lord is a family man, is He not? He loves the family. Go home. All of this separation
and all this divorce and all this hatred today of the families,
that's not of Him. That's of the old devil, isn't
it? He says, go home. Go home. Go home to your friends. Somebody
said, I don't have any friends. I don't want any friends. Oh,
dear soul, you're not like the master then. Make friends of God's children.
Make friends of your neighbors. Get to know people for this reason. And tell them. how great things
the Lord has done for you. He didn't say, now go out and
get your set of commentaries with John Gill, and you study
them, and you take a bunch of notes so when you visit your
neighbor you can tell him. He didn't say, go off to the
seminar and get yourself a good education and that way you'll
know how to talk to people. My wife and I visited a church
up north in Michigan one time. And the lady wanted to talk to
us. And she sat down and she went on and on and on and on
and on. I didn't think she was ever going to quit. Well, come
to find out, when I looked at her Bible, she had all of her
pastor's notes. And she was preaching this sermon
to us. And I wanted to say, woman, do
you have anything in your own heart? Has the Lord taught you
anything about Himself? Has He had compassion on you?
What's He done for you? I don't care what your pastor
said. I can hear Him anytime. What
think you of Christ? Tell them. Just tell them what
the Lord's done for you. John Bunyan, he got so religious. He said he amazed himself how
he quit committing so many sins and quit cussing and everything. He said he just amazed himself.
And he started going hearing sermons. And boy, he was gobbling
up the sermons. And one day he was going down
the street and behind the wall there was two old ladies talking.
And he thought he would stop and listen to what they were
saying, eavesdropping. And they were talking about the
love of Christ. How Christ loved them and gave
Himself for them. And he said, I began to realize
whatever I had was just in the top of my head. I had nothing
in my heart. I didn't know the Savior. I didn't
know His love. You don't have to ask me to go
visit your neighbors or your lost loved ones or anything.
Tell them yourself. Tell them yourself. Tell them
what great things the Lord has done for you and tell them why
He did it. Because He had compassion on you. Well, it's been a good
day. It's been a good day. And you've
been a good congregation to preach to. Lord bless you. Lord bless
you.