Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:04] Speaker B: Welcome to Hope for Today, a weekly Bible teaching program that will bring you hope for every day.
[00:00:16] Speaker B: It is so good to be with you today.
All of us have a body. Our body is a thing we touch, feel, smell, hear and taste. With our physical body, however, we know we are more than just physical bodies. We can worship and pray.
What happens during these times is more than just a physical act. It is spiritual. In 1 Thessalonians, Paul describes us by saying we are a body, soul and spirit. We may not have a perfect understanding of how this works and fits together, but we acknowledge there is a spiritual realm that is just as real as the physical.
Today in our lesson, Jesus shows us he is the King of Kings.
This includes the spiritual realm. All angels and demons know Jesus is their king, and they treat him as such.
Let's go with Jesus to the Gadarenes and learn together.
J. Mark won't finish all of this lesson today, but next time will be part two of this interesting lesson. Turn now to Mark 5 and follow along as J. Mark reads the story.
[00:01:32] Speaker A: In the first epistle of John, chapter three and verse eight, John wrote, he who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning.
For this purpose, the Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil.
So we learn that the Son of God was revealed to destroy the works of Satan. And in the Gospels we see Jesus doing this.
Before he began his public ministry, he endured the temptation in the wilderness.
It was there that he convincingly demonstrated his power over Satan by using the word of God.
And then earlier in Mark, on the Sabbath and in the synagogue, Jesus delivers a man from a demonic spirit that shows his mastery over the powers of darkness.
Our text for today's study is Mark, chapter 5 and verses 1 through 20 in the biblical record. Not since God cast Satan and his angels out of heaven have so many demons been displaced by one divine command.
But let's consider the larger context here. At the end of chapter four, we find Jesus sleeping in the boat during a wild storm on the Sea of Galilee. He was exhausted from days of nonstop ministry. His disciples are struggling to control their sinking ship, so they awaken him with a cry of despair. Don't you care that we are perishing?
And then Jesus miraculously stills the sea.
That makes the disciples even more terrified.
Who can this be that even the wind and the sea obey him?
You know, that question is left hanging in their understanding. Only God, the creator of earth and sea can control what he has made.
And that brings us to our text Mark 51 20.
Listen to Mark's record of these incredible events.
Then they came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gadarenes.
And when Jesus had come out of the boat, immediately there met him out of the tombs, a man with an unclean spirit, and who had his dwelling among the tombs. And no one could bind him, not even with chains, because he had often been bound with shackles and chains. And he had pulled the chains apart and broken the shackles in pieces.
Neither could anyone tame him.
And always, night and day, he was in the mountains and in the tombs, crying out and cutting himself with stones.
When he saw Jesus from afar, he. He ran and worshiped him and cried out with a loud voice and said, what have I to do with you, Jesus, son of the Most High God? I implore you, by God, that you do not torment me.
For Jesus said to him, come out of the man, unclean spirit.
Then he asked him, what is your name? And he answered, saying, my name is Legion, for we are many also. He begged him earnestly that he would not send them out of the country.
Now a large herd of swine was feeding there near the mountains. So all the demons begged him, saying, send us to the swine that we may enter them.
And at once Jesus permitted them.
Then the unclean spirits went out and entered the swine. There were about 2,000. And the herd ran violently down the steep place into the sea and drowned in the sea.
So those who fed the swine fled, and they told it in the city and in the country.
And they went out to see what had happened.
Then they came to Jesus and saw the one who had been demon possessed and had the Legion sitting and clothed and in his right mind.
And they were afraid.
And those who saw it told them how it happened to him who had been demon possessed and about the swine.
Then they began to plead with Jesus to depart from their region.
And when he got into the boat, the one who had been demon possessed begged him that he might be with him.
However, Jesus did not permit him, but said, go home to your friends and tell them what great things the Lord has done for you and had compassion on you.
And he departed and began to proclaim into capitalists all. All that Jesus had done for him.
And everyone marveled.
[00:06:01] Speaker A: The disciples were terrified during the storm and its immediate aftermath. What we just read must have compounded their uneasiness.
The unpredictability of nature is one thing.
The darkness of the demonic world is quite another.
I titled this teaching going to the dark side.
I will share this with you in two parts. The first part today and the second part the next time we're together.
This incident in the life of Jesus shows us the steps we must be willing to take if we're going to serve him in difficult places.
And so the first step in going to the dark side is crossing barriers.
Jesus teaching about the Kingdom of God in chapter three implied that it wouldn't be restricted to the Jewish people.
But you know, those who lived in Jesus day were convinced that salvation is of the Jews. They were God's chosen people. They were the seed of Abraham. And yet here is Jesus purposely crossing the Sea of Galilee to Gadara, a place inhabited mainly by those who were non Jews.
Gadara was one of the cities of the Decapolis. This area was populated by pagans. It was the eastern shore of the lake, the Sea of Galilee. And it was a place the Jews avoided because it was unclean.
The inhabitants of this area were Greek and they were never on good terms with the Jews.
This herd of pigs may have indicated their contempt for what they saw as Jewish prejudice.
But Jesus had intentionally set sail with his disciples for this place.
[00:07:41] Speaker A: What causes barriers between people in the first place?
Isn't it often fear?
And we fear what we do not understand.
So if people are different in their religion, in their culture or their practices, then we may tend to avoid contact with them.
We know they're in spiritual darkness and need to hear about Jesus, but we're afraid they may misunderstand our motives and they may react negatively to us.
What's on the other side of your Sea of Galilee?
Are there areas in your community that you consider off limits?
Are there people you avoid so you don't become contaminated by sin?
Is Satan putting roadblocks in your way to keep you from reaching out to the people who make you uncomfortable?
You know, these questions are valid and deserve fair consideration.
They. They also make us uncomfortable.
So Jesus took the first step toward the dark side. He crossed to the eastern shore of Galilee, a place inhabited mainly by people who were living in spiritual darkness.
There's another step in going to the dark side.
It is confronting evil.
As the keel of that little boat grates on the shore and Jesus steps out of the boat, he is immediately met by a raging lunatic, a man possessed by many demons. And we can only imagine his frightening appearance.
The text tells us he didn't live in a house like a normal person.
Instead, he lived in the tombs. He must have been a terror in the community because the people who lived There had often bound his hands and feet with shackles and chains, but he pulled the chains apart and broke the shackles.
No one was strong enough to restrain him successfully, and they certainly couldn't tame him.
I'm sure this man was somewhat of a legend. He was known far and wide across this whole area, and so people avoided him as much as they could.
Not only did he live in the tombs, but he practiced self mutilation.
Night and day. He roamed the mountains and the tombs, shrieking hideously and cutting himself with sharp stones.
I imagine his body was covered with open wounds and many scars from previous bouts of demonic frenzy.
You know, biblically, these kinds of behaviors are associated with idol worship and the demonic world.
Even today in Shia Islam, there is a holiday of Ashura where devotees flagellate themselves in demonic frenzy until their blood flows freely.
The widespread practices of tattooing and piercing, cutting, sadomasochism, transgenderism, and more in our day are all evidence of the powers of darkness because they strike at the heart of what and who God created us to be.
The goal of demon possession is to distort and destroy the image of God in mankind.
When Jesus stepped out of that boat, the demoniac saw him and ran toward him.
Was he going to attack Jesus?
Imagine the surprise of the disciples when he falls prostrate before Jesus, crying out in terror, what do you have to do with me, Jesus, son of the Most High God, Swear to God that you will not torture me.
Those demons recognized that they were powerless before him.
And we might ask, why was this man crying out like this?
Verse 8 tells us that it was because Jesus had repeatedly commanded the demons to leave him. So the two actions are simultaneous. Jesus is repeatedly commanding the demons to come out, and that was frightening them and causing their frenzied reactions.
I'm sure this was a scene the disciples would never forget.
And then Jesus asked him, what is your name? And his reply was legion, because many demons possessed him.
At that time, a Roman legion was around 6,000 soldiers. Now, I don't necessarily think this man had 6,000 demons, but there were many of them.
I believe we can safely assume at least 2,000, because that's how many pigs died because of this exchange.
The goal of the Roman legions was to enforce the will of the Emperor.
What he said was law.
You disobeyed at the risk of your own life.
The goal of these evil spirits was to carry out the devil's will of bringing pain and destruction and chaos into the life of this man.
For them to fail in their mission and be sent prematurely to the abyss would incur Satan's great wrath.
Even though demons are spirit beings, they seem uncomfortable with being disembodied.
Why else did they ask Jesus to let them go into the pigs?
Their horror at being sent back to the abyss prematurely caused their frenzied request.
Perhaps they thought they could temporarily inhabit the pigs until Jesus left and then find new hosts in this pagan community.
[00:12:56] Speaker A: This request also tells me that Satan and his demons are not omniscient, I.e. they don't know everything.
Would they have kept begging Jesus to send them into the pigs if they had known the pigs would all drown in the sea?
I don't think so, because they ended up being without a body to host them.
And that's where we'll need to end. Until next time, I hope you can join me.
[00:13:23] Speaker B: Thanks J. Mark, for addressing this topic. The this lesson is not finished. We just covered the first two steps, crossing barriers and confronting evil. Next time we will finish this topic by looking at two more choosing sides and commissioning witnesses. So please join us if you can. If you have any questions about today's lesson, or if you'd like to contact us, you can reach us by email or Internet. Our Email address is hope heraldsofhope.org and our website is heraldsofhope.org Please contact us with the method that is easiest for you.
Today we discuss Jesus going to the dark side. In a way, this is what he did the whole time he was on Earth. John 1 says in him was life and the life was the light of men and the light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not comprehend it. He is the light and life.
Let's be like Him.
