There was a reason why Jesus had chosen to cross the Sea of
Galilee with his disciples and the small band of follower’s intent on watching
what happened next. It was not a random
act. It was by intent. For on the other side of the Sea of Galilee
in the country of the Gadarenes was a man who desperately needed help only
Jesus could provide. This poor man was
burdened with a Satanic infestation. As
we sit in our homes today, in the comfort of modern conveniences and advanced
technologies, we do not dream of living in a condition where our decisions and
actions are possessed by powers beyond our control. There are very few actual demonstrations of
supernatural power reflected through mankind today, and this too is by
intent. Atheists are constantly
demanding “proof” of God, if Satan were to be too open in the demonstration of
his own power, offering “proof” of God’s enemy might inadvertently prove the
existence of God Himself. So modern
Christians believe they live beyond the reach of the supernatural, and cannot
identify with someone whose decisions and actions are governed by a power
beyond their own control. The idea, that
“the devil made me do it”, is now only a joke we recite about criminal
defendants we believe have no real reason for their crimes and should suffer
the maximum penalties allowed by law.
But are we yet again self-deceived?
To understand how real an infestation can be, one need only
look at the nature of addiction itself.
An observer who is not burdened by addiction, looks at the actions and
behavior of a drug addict, and simply cannot make logical sense of them. It is clear that drugs have a horrible effect
on our lives. They destroy our health,
evaporate our money, demean our relationships, and will ultimately kill
us. Apart from a momentary chemically
induced “high”, they have no redeeming value.
And in point of fact, the “high” itself is based on the destruction of
brain cells which do not regenerate.
Nothing about doing drugs offers the addict anything more than a rapid
progression to the grave. Yet the addict
will pursue his next fix, with a dedication of singular intent. Why?
This is not a logical course of action.
This is NOT in the self-interest of the addict. This is the most self-destructive action the
addict could possibly take, and yet he does it anyway in full knowledge of
these facts. An addict is not actually
trying to commit suicide, but for all practical purposes, seems to be “unable”
to refuse this course. In point of fact,
brain chemistry is altered over time, making doing this action easier than not
doing it.
Once a person becomes an addict, they are going to need
external help, to find a way out. For
the non-addicted person, this is hard to understand. But before we look away from the plight of a
drug addict, I would ask the non-addicted audience “why” do they still commit
the sins they find pleasure in? Sin, in
every form, has the nature of addiction, in that while we know it is harmful to
us, and destroys everything it touches, we still consciously choose to embrace
it. Sin is also degenerative in nature,
meaning the more we embrace what looks at first like little sins, the more we
find ourselves rationalizing bigger and bigger sins, until at some point we
refuse to see sin as sin at all. Could
it be that we suffer from our own modern versions of Satanic infestations more
than we would like to admit? Could it be
that our ability to “control” our desires and our actions was never in our
control; that we are in fact out of control, as we have quietly ceded it to our
enemy of souls? Is it possible that ALL
human behavior is enslaved to a supernatural influence, whether to Jesus in a
journey of redemption and restoration, or to Satan in an illusion that tells us
we remain in control when we do not?
For those who believe themselves to be fully in control of
their own desires, decisions, and actions, I would pose the question … why have
you not embraced perfection yet, when you clearly know what benefits it offers. The lack of perfection in your life, is a
reflection that how you are trying to achieve it is fundamentally flawed. While you may be able to abstain and refrain
from acting on your darker impulses, the desires for those darker ideas remains
in place. Only external help can break
the chains of slavery that exist within our minds and hearts. Only Jesus Christ can make us free from the
bondage of souls we have ceded to the enemy of God over time. Our apathy, and our greed, lead us into
submission to Satanic influences, and only God can even offer us the clarity to
make a different choice. It is not our
strength to combat these evil influences that is required of us, it is instead
only our willingness to submit to a different power, to the power of the love
of Jesus Christ that will make us whole.
Our societal advancements have lulled us into spiritual
lethargy. We no longer concern ourselves
about behavior that might be governed by powers beyond our control. We no longer believe it is possible to suffer
from a Satanic infestation, particularly without our knowledge and
consent. Yet we remain dumbfounded as to
why we do what we do. And there are
fleeting moments when we seem to be watching ourselves commit actions and deeds
we know to be wrong, don’t even want to do, yet do anyway, as if watching a
movie of ourselves committing these heinous destructive deeds. There are no logical explanations for these
events. There are no psychological
reasons that are anything other than self-destructive for the courses we
pursue, yet we blaze down these paths of destruction attempting to accelerate
our speed within them. Perhaps, our
false sense of security, and disbelief about the power of our enemy, has led us
to this point. Perhaps we, like the man
Jesus was en-route to assist, need to be made free from the influences beyond
our control.
Peter resumes the story of this man’s redemption in the
beginning of John Marks gospel in chapter five and verse 1 saying … “And they
came over unto the other side of the sea, into the country of the Gadarenes. [verse
2] And when he was come out of the ship, immediately there met him out of the
tombs a man with an unclean spirit,” It
is perhaps no small amount of symbolism that a man burdened with a Satanic
infestation chooses to live among the tombs of the dead. For as we are slave to our sins, and our
desire to sin, we too have found ourselves in a life more filled with the dead
than with the living. Our ability to
love is stunted, our ability to do good for others dissipates until it no
longer exists. We become consumed with a
level of selfishness that has no ability to be satiated. Our hunger to please self grows like the
mindless zombies of movie lore, until we stumble from one act of self-pleasure
to the next one, not knowing or caring what will happen next.
The condition of this poor man, was known not only to God,
but to those who lived in the area. He
had become a dangerous threat. Peter
continues to recount his condition before meeting Christ beginning in verse 3
saying … “Who had his dwelling among the tombs; and no man could bind him, no,
not with chains: [verse 4] Because that he had been often bound with fetters
and chains, and the chains had been plucked asunder by him, and the fetters
broken in pieces: neither could any man tame him. [verse 5] And always, night
and day, he was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself
with stones.” This is the level of
depravity to which all sins leads, a level of self-destructive behavior that no
sane person can understand. The local
residents were intent on squelching this threat. Anyone willing to hurt themselves by cutting
their own flesh with stones, obviously would have no problem hurting a passerby. Anyone who ventured near the mountains or the
tombs was sure to encounter this man, and could possibly be killed in the
process.
So from time to time, the local residents would band
together and attack this man in great numbers intent on putting him in iron
chains and bracelets to bind him hand and foot.
This would easily subdue a normal person, it was how the Romans did
it. But not so for this guy. Because of what resided within him, a
supernatural power allowed him to break chains as if they were made of
straw. The iron bracelets seemed to shatter
like glass on the stones around him.
What was fully capable of binding a normal person, was for him only a
minor aggravation. This man did not
sleep like the rest of us. What he ate
and drank were unimportant to him. He
existed in the mountains and near the tombs of the dead perpetually looking for
an opportunity to terrorize others.
Human abilities to contend with this situation had been exhausted. No person could bind him, or tame him. The best that could be done was to avoid
him. You can imagine that both Jewish
Rabbi’s and Roman Authorities, had been employed at one point or another to fix
this man, but neither were up to the level of this challenge, and both sought
to simply avoid further confrontation.
But what man finds impossible, Jesus does not. Satan tried to kill Christ before He could
free this man in the storm that had come upon the lake during the journey. Satan did not want to lose the value of this
man in this region spreading fear. The
demons however, also knew what was coming, they too had fears as hard as that
is to imagine for us as John Mark chronicles beginning in verse 6 writing … “But
when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped him, [verse 7] 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.” What was left of the man inside this hollow
shell sought out Christ to worship Him and fall at His feet. Even in this act, the man could not control
his own speech. And instead of the words
to cry for help that he longed to utter, came only the voice of demons
entrenched in the body of this man.
These demons spoke in front the disciples and of the crowd
of followers who were there as well from the little boats that followed Jesus
across the Sea. They once again
immediately identified Jesus as the “Son of the Most High God”. This public declaration was not meant to
flatter or uplift Jesus, it was designed to cause controversy and a crisis of
faith in His followers who were not ready to accept this reality of truth as to
the identity of Christ. Each time before
Christ had commanded the demons to keep silent, but this time perhaps the crowd
was small enough, and perhaps dedicated enough, to accept that He may indeed be
the Son of God. So this time silence was
not commanded of them.
The second part of what the demons spoke revealed their own
versions of fear. They ask that in the
name of God, for Jesus not to torment them.
The torment they refer to here is not what you and I would immediately
think of … some sort of interdimensional version of hell where a lake of fire
tortures but does not consume its victims.
By that kind of traditional logic and thinking, the devil is supposed to
be “in charge” of that place, and demons are merely his helpers tormenting the
souls of evil men. Hardly a place demons
would wish to avoid. If it were real,
they would love to be there watching and helping men to suffer. But that was not what the demons feared or
did not want to be exposed to. Instead
it was something completely opposite. The
memory of the perfect harmony and fulfillment of love and life in heaven was
what they did not want to have to endure again, in the degenerated state in
which they found themselves. To be
exposed to the pure and intense and infinite love of God, and know by contrast
how horrible it is to be separated from that love is what the demons wished to
avoid. It was too great a punishment for
them to endure to be forced to remember how good was the life and existence
they left, when they sided with Lucifer, and made war in heaven itself.
Now, in the degenerated state they were in, they were living
inside a man, dwelling among the tombs of the dead. Their entire demonic existed consisted in
torturing and causing fear in men. There
was no love among them, or for them. All
love had gone away. They had driven it out
of themselves because of the degenerative nature of sin and self-love. They were now only shadows of their former
angelic state. They were creatures far
diminished from what once was. They
still had power, but had lost all love.
Then came Jesus Christ into their presence, and they were forced to
confront the perfect love they had abandoned.
It was too much for them. They
did not wish to be reminded that redemption was possible. They did not wish to see and feel the lure of
love on their decrepit existence. Better
to be left alone, better to be sent away, they must hide themselves from the
source of infinite love. They must flee
from the light in front of them. Better
to seek the abyss of darkness than stand in the light of love that emanates
from the Son of the Living God. So they
beg for mercy to leave them to their suffering without the memory of how good,
good can really be.
Peter continues to tell the story to John Mark in this
gospel in verse 8 saying … “For he said unto him, Come out of the man, thou
unclean spirit. [verse 9] And he asked him, What is thy name? And he answered,
saying, My name is Legion: for we are many. [verse 10] And he besought him much
that he would not send them away out of the country.” The conversation between Christ and the
demons continues as Christ does what He came specifically to do. They are first commanded to leave the man. There is no argument here about whether they
will be able to stay in him or not, the commands of God cannot be argued
with. They will leave. Jesus asks them their name. The name is revealing as well. For it is not just a single demon living in
this man, but “many”. A legion in the
Roman vernacular referred to a thousand men.
Lest we think this Satanic infestation is limited to only one, it is
not. Lest we think we may only contend
with a single demon in our struggle, we may face considerably more than
that. But it is in Jesus we find, that a
single command has the desired effect to make us free from our slavery to self
and to the enemy of souls.
The demons could not stand to be in the presence of Christ
and His love, but they did not want to leave the country yet either. They wanted to remain to torture men who
refused the freedom Christ offered when He left this region. So they begged to stay nearby. A solution seemed to present itself to them
as John Mark continues in verse 11 saying … “Now there was there nigh unto the
mountains a great herd of swine feeding. [verse 12] And all the devils besought
him, saying, Send us into the swine, that we may enter into them. [verse 13] And
forthwith Jesus gave them leave. And the unclean spirits went out, and entered
into the swine: and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea,
(they were about two thousand;) and were choked in the sea.” Pigs do not have the same capacity for
self-preservation as men do. When Christ
granted the demons request, the demons entered the pigs. This proves that Satanic infestations are not
just limited to mankind, but can impact creatures and animals in nature as
well. But the pigs fear and rage
resulted in a quick stampede off a cliff into the sea. The number of the pigs is also mentioned here
as it turned out there were about two-thousand pigs (a great deal bigger than
just one legion, but instead nearly two).
It is easy to focus on the demons in this story … how many
there were, the conversation they had with Christ, the fears they revealed, and
the end of their reign in the herd of dead pigs drowned in the sea. But this is not a story about demons and
their fate or pain. It is a story about
the redemption of a man beyond all human hope.
It is the story of a man who was infested by Satan with 2,000 demons and
yet with a simple command of Christ was made free from this lifelong bondage. While demons are entering pigs and stampeding
to their doom, the man is completely restored to his own right mind. He is offered clothing, perhaps borrowing
from the disciples and other followers there with Christ. He is calm.
He is aware of what has happened.
His gratitude is beyond measure.
He has a life for the first time in his memory. And there will be witnesses to these events.
John Mark continues the story in verse 14 saying … “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. [verse 15] And they come to Jesus,
and see him that was possessed with the devil, and had the legion, sitting, and
clothed, and in his right mind: and they were afraid. [verse 16] And they that
saw it told them how it befell to him that was possessed with the devil, and
also concerning the swine.” The pig
herders were watching all these events, and when they occurred they ran into
town to spread the news. Local residents
could scarcely believe their ears, and went to investigate for themselves. But upon arriving at the scene, they find the
man perfectly restored, not a demon left in him. The pile of dead pigs 2000 strong reveal the
extent of the damage that had been in him.
Everything the pig herders had reported was true. And the fear of these events continued to
plague them. Rather than embrace Christ
now, they were not ready to do so. So
John Mark records their response in verse 17 saying … “And they began to pray
him to depart out of their coasts.”
The locals no more understood how the demons left this man,
than they did who commanded them to do so.
They feared that Jesus having this much power, might be something worse
than what they had already seen. The
residents did not hear who Jesus was as declared by the demons. All they had heard about Jesus was from the
religious establishment and none of that was very good. Of course, none of this impacted the newly
freed man in any way. He was ready to be
a disciple of Christ and was determined to follow the orders of Jesus to the
end of the earth. There was no doubt in
his mind. He jumped into the boat to
leave when Christ left. But Jesus had a
greater mission for this new disciple.
John Mark continues in verse 18 saying … “And when he was come into the
ship, he that had been possessed with the devil prayed him that he might be
with him. [verse 19] Howbeit Jesus suffered him not, but saith unto him, Go
home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for
thee, and hath had compassion on thee. [verse 20] And he departed, and began to
publish in Decapolis how great things Jesus had done for him: and all men did
marvel.”
The personal testimony of this man worked. ALL men did marvel throughout the entire
region from the edge of the sea to the city of Decapolis. This newly minted missionary was not subject
to having demons re-enter him and take over once more. The command of Christ to free him would last
the entire length of his life. It is
thus with us. When we submit to the
power and authority of Jesus Christ to remake us, He can remove our sins, and
our desire to sin, so that they do not return to us again. This is the power the Lord has to alone break
the cycle of addiction. For it is not
just our actions Jesus can alter, He can alter the underlying desires that fuel
them. It is the desire to sin that must
be ended within us, if we are to know peace.
We are as powerless as this poor man, to change our desires. But our Lord is completely capable. The only caveat, is that Jesus will not force
His will upon us. We must ask for
it. We must allow it. We must “let” Him give us the change and
re-creation we so desperately need.
However, when once you have tasted the freedom the Lord
offers from a sin or slavery you were once bound to, your personal testimony
will begin to have great effect. We will
not become instantly perfect in this process.
We will not be instantly without “any” sin in this life. In point of fact, starting this journey tends
to reveal to us that the count of our demons was way beyond the one or two we
were aware of. And during the journey we
should never look at each other as standards of the faith, but only to
Jesus. There will be those of us who
fail, who slide back, and re-commit sins we thought ourselves rid of. While these painful events may cause delays
in our journey, the source of our freedom remains ever capable to restore us
once again. It is not our past that will
dictate our future, it is our willingness to allow Christ to re-create our
future, and thus alter our present that will dictate it.
Our modern technology is no protection against the powers of
darkness. The same legion of demons that
were once cast out along the Sea of Galilee have only degenerated further over
the last 2 thousand years. The same
Satan who tried to kill Christ before He could free this man, is still actively
looking to kill the followers of Jesus wherever he can. The powers arrayed against us are still as
intent and potent as they ever were. And
should we find ourselves deluded into the idea that they are no longer a
threat, we are all the more likely to be suffering under their influence. But the power of the love of Christ is no
less today than it was then either. His
ability to utter a single command and drive the demons from our lives is no
less potent today than it was on that beach so long ago. We need only look to Jesus, and like the
demoniac, fall and try to worship Him.
Jesus can and will save us. Even if
our speech is not our own, the intent of our hearts is known by our God. He can, and He will restore us. It is His greatest desire, and our sure-fire
way to see a Satanic infestation finally come to an end within us …
.jpg)