Jesus Confronts Supernatural Evil Mark 5:1-20
INTRO.: Many wonder how the events of Sept. 11th could have happened. We often hear the question, “How could they hate us so much?” “What did they hope to gain?” Some were duped into believing they would get a place in paradise in return for dying for their God. But, those who duped them do not believe it or they would come out of the caves they are hiding in and die like heroes. Maybe today’s sermon will give us a little insight into those questions. That atrocity and some others of which we hear seem to defy human nature. There is no profit for those who commit the horrors.
We can’t think of any human reason for a mother drowning her five children or a man boarding an airplane with a bomb in his shoe so he can kill hundreds of people, including himself. That’s because these things don’t come out of the human mind. There is a supernatural evil force at work in our world today and we are in a cosmic conflict for the lives of men and women.
The story of Jesus casting demons out of a man is one of the most mysterious stories in the Bible. Our scientific mindset has led us to believe everything can be explained on the basis of natural causes. This simply isn’t so. There are things in this world that can’t be explained and must be accepted on faith. One is the existence of invisible, supernatural personalities and forces that inhabit the air around us and influence our lives and destinies. There is good and evil. There is God and Satan. There are angels and demons.
Let’s see what we can learn from this story of Jesus’ encounter with the supernatural forces of evil:
I. Let’s take a closer look at the story.
A. Consider the setting. Use your imagination for a moment to picture the scene before us:
1. Jesus put in a tiresome day the day before teaching the crowds in parables and painstakingly explaining them to His disciples when they managed to be alone.
2. Night came and Jesus, exhausted, decides they should cross the Sea of Galilee to hopefully find some rest. During the night, a fearsome storm arises. One that surpasses the experience of the mariners with whom He travels. They fear for their lives. He calms the storm and they arrive on the other side in the night.
3. They land in a desolate area where there are caves used for burying the dead. Debris and mud from the storm is everywhere. There is screaming from the tombs. Thousands of hogs on a hillside nearby squealing and snorting in the night.
B. Jesus steps ashore and is met by a man completely out of control:
1. He lived in the tombs naked. His companions were corpses.
2. He could not be restrained. No matter what was used, he quickly overcame those trying to subdue him and broke all fetters.
3. He was self-destructive but seemed unable to kill himself. Day and night he cut himself and screamed from the tombs. He was so violent no one wanted to even pass nearby.
C. The man saw Jesus and immediately knew he was powerless against the Servant of God. He ran and knelt before Jesus.
1. He identified Jesus immediately and loudly. All around could hear. Men may not always recognize Him, but the demons know and fear Him.
2. Even though “many,” the demons feared Jesus, knowing His power.
3. See how the pronouns are mixed; “My name is Legion, for we are many” “he begged Jesus not to send them out of the area.” The many demons were speaking thru the one man, using his voice.
4. It is almost as if their greatest fear is being disembodied. Sharing the body of one man or even living in pigs is preferable to being “sent out of the area.” Evil needs a physical body to function. It dwells in the flesh.
D. The reaction of the witnesses is very strange, it seems to me: 14-17
1. They didn’t share the Jewish contempt for pigs and saw a threat to their livelihood, perhaps. “Hog futures” were getting a little shaky
2. May have feared reprisals from the Evil One. They had learned to tolerate and accommodate the evil among them and now they must readjust their thinking. They have no compassion for the possessed man, nor do they share his joy in being freed. They know not what to expect next.
3. The freed man wanted to go with Jesus, but instead was sent on an evangelistic mission. Verse 19 describes a powerful evangelistic technique.
II. There are some very important lessons we can learn from this story. The Lord included it in the Gospel record to teach us something:
A. There is more to life than meets the eye. We are engaged in all-out war with supernatural forces that seek to destroy us.
1. If you want to know why Muslims want to destroy us, it is because they are under the influence of demonic forces. Allah is an idol and the worship of idols is the worship of demons. “Do I mean then that a sacrifice offered to an idol is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, but the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to be participants with demons.” I Cor. 10:19, 20
2. These demonic forces are very powerful and God has equipped His people for the conflict. Eph. 6:11-13
3. These demons are real and are the motivators of senseless murder and mayhem. How else can they be explained?
B. The Christian needn’t fear these demonic forces. Our Savior is able to give us the victory over Satan and his hordes:
1. The Son of God came to destroy the works of Satan. I John. 3:8
2. Greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world. I John 4:4
3. Resist the Devil and draw near to God. James 4:7
4. Be careful! You belong to the one to whom you surrender yourself. Rom. 6:16
C. The power of a simple testimony is seen in verse 19:
1. The man who had been possessed by demons was now possessed by the Spirit of the Living God and his desire was to follow Jesus as a disciple.
2. Jesus wanted this man as an evangelist. He had a first hand story to tell about how he had experienced the love of God. They refused to allow the Lord to stay in their presence, but they would hear this compelling witness.
3. This is evangelism anyone can do. If we get excited about what Jesus has done for us, we will evangelize our family and neighbors like this man. If it were not an effective method for spreading Good News, our Lord would not have commanded it.
CONC.: Poem: “Is There a Devil Now?”
The devil and his demons are real. We must never lose sight of the fact we are engaged in a cosmic conflict for the souls of men.
Is There a Devil Now?
Men don’t believe in a devil now as their fathers used to do;
They’ve forced the door of the narrowest creed to let his majesty through.
There isn’t a print of his cloven foot or a fiery dart from his bow
To be found in earth or air today, for the world has voted so.
Who dogs the steps of the toiling saint or digs the pits for his feet?
Who sows the tares in the field of time wherever God sows His wheat?
The Devil is voted not to be, and, of course the thing is true;
But who is doing the kind of work that the devil alone can do?
We are told that he does not go about as a roaring lion now;
But whom shall we hold responsible for the everlasting row
To be heard in home, in church, in state to the earth’s remotest bounds?
If the Devil by a unanimous vote is nowhere to be found?
Won’t someone step to the front forthwith and make his bow and show,
How the frauds and crimes of a single day spring up? We want to know.
The Devil is fairly voted out and of course the Devil is gone;
But simple people would like to know who carries his business on.
