Jesus expels demons & shows God’s mercy

0:00Thanks for tuning in to Manna, a short daily meditation to feed hungry souls with God's Word. These episodes were prepared by our Dane Ministers for a radio broadcast called Voice of the Church and are now republished by the Reform Perspective Foundation, a Canadian charity that applies biblical truth to the issues of our time, here's today serving. Good day listeners, welcome to today's broadcast. The Lord Jesus has just shown His power and mic over the wind and the waves. He simply spoke the Word and the waves and the winds stopped and the stormy lake became completely calm. The Lord Jesus had said that they were going to go to the other side of the lake. He had a specific purpose in mind for going there and he knew that they would arrive. The Lord Jesus ended the disciples went across the lake and arrived in the region of the Gerazines. Now, this region is east of the Sea of Galilee and was inhabited by Greeks speaking people.

1:01Jesus is barely out of the boat when a man comes to meet him. He is a man who is possessed by an evil spirit, it says in verse 2. This man lives in the tombs away from the towns and cities of the region. No one wants anything to do with a man. He is considered to be a threat and a danger, especially to himself. Before he is constantly busy cutting himself with stones, he had often been chained hand and foot, but these chains could not hold him. He simply broke the chains in the irons and there was no one who could subdue him and hold him in place to secure him. Both night and day he lived among the tombs, among the places of the dead. Clearly this man was in need and was living a terrible existence. Many evil spirits live in the man, a whole legion of them. But what really is demon possession? When someone is possessed by a demon or demons, servants of Satan, then such a person is

2:04controlled by evil spirits. When the man speaks in verses 7-9, then it is actually the evil spirits who are speaking. They are using the voice of man to communicate to the Lord Jesus. The man is completely taken over by the evil forces of darkness. He is living in torment and dread all day and all night long. He is showing in his life what hell will be like. He lives without hope in the world. He lives in order that he might seek death, but he does not find it. The demons work a feeling of complete hopelessness and despair in him so that the only thing he really wants to do is scream and hit himself with rocks so that the injuries hurt himself. The aim of Satan is to destroy people's lives and work despair and torment that is inconsolable. And here we see the end result of the fallen to sin, the ultimate result of his initial tempting in paradise.

3:06When the devil takes over the life of someone in a very direct and obvious way, it is clear misery that takes on terrible and frightening forms. Thankfully, not everyone is directly possessed by demons, yet as sinners, we can experience the same struggles as this man who comes out to Jesus from the tombs. For our sin can also drive us to despair in a feeling of hopelessness. We may be burdened by guilty conscience because of a sin that we have committed which we have not confessed. Then we can be weighed down by the guilt of that sin and then the devil tries to convince us that there is no forgiveness possible for such a sin. He is our accuser and he tries to undermine the confidence that we have in Jesus Christ. He tries to exploit our grief and say that now we have really done it and now we cannot be forgiven. We can be overcome with despair and anguish of soul. There can be no peace as long as we do not find our peace in the Lord.

4:12The world around us and the devil himself try to distract us with this reality and often they succeed to do this by the glitter and glamour which surround us, but ultimately this cannot satisfy and will disappoint. In the end all these worldly things will only increase our bondage and despair. When the man meets Jesus, we read in verse 7 that he shouts to the top of his voice, what do you want with me Jesus, son of the most high God? It is clear that it is the demons who are speaking through the man. They are the ones who are aware of who Jesus is. They confess Jesus as the son of God. They know who he is. As James writes in his letter, the demons believe in the existence of God in shudder as a result. This man falls on his knees in front of Jesus in a position of service and worship, but it is not the worship of adoration and praise, but rather of fear and dread.

5:13Because the demons in the man ask Jesus to swear that he will not torture the man, which really means here, hurt the demons. These demons know that the Lord Jesus has complete power over them and can do with them what he wants. They must listen to him because he is God himself, the son of God. He has created them and must obey him as a result. They know that Jesus comes as their chief enemy, the one who will eventually destroy them and cast them into the lake of fire. But it is not yet that time in redemptive history. The time is not yet come when all the power of the devil and his demons will be completely broken. The demons know that they are beaten because they are face to face with God's son and therefore they plead with him and beg him to save them and send them elsewhere. But they do not want to go out of this area of the decapolis. They insist on this again and again and we read in verse 10, it seems that they feel at

6:15home here in non-Israelite territory. They ask to be sent into the pigs which are grazing nearby. Jesus gives them permission to go into the pigs and the evil spirits are expelled from the man and go into the large herd of some 2,000 pigs. See the futility and misery of the demonic forces, they want to have a home, they need to have a home but the best they can come off with is a herd of pigs. And when they go into these pigs, they immediately cause the destruction of those pigs. The true nature of the demons comes out so clearly in this account, they are only able to destroy and cause misery and after these pigs are destroyed, they are homeless again right away. They thought they had found a solution but they were sorely mistaken. Actually, this shows that there is no solution for their plight. They are on the losing team. They stand no chance before the king of kings.

7:17Their mission is a losing battle. The might of the demonic forces is limited and only ruin and failure can be the end of their activities. Through the destruction of the pigs, the Lord Jesus shows His judgment over these demons and shows that He is in complete control of their destiny. With the casting out of the demons, the Lord Jesus shows that He is winning the battle against the evil oneness forces. They cannot stand before Him. Step by step, the devil has to admit defeat. The evil one tried to prevent the coming of Christ through the Old Testament era as we can read in Revelation 12, and He attempted to make Christ fall when He met Him in the wilderness and set Him before His three temptations. But Jesus did not succumb to His wicked schemes, but He stood firm. With the sword of the word in His hand, He said, no to the devil, and therefore showed Himself to be the faithful second Adam, the one who would carry out the mission of God

8:17the Father to redeem the new mankind. And now Christ meets the onslaughts of the devil head on and diminishes His power by casting out His demons and decreasing their influence. It is Jesus Christ who brings the message of freedom from sin and misery and guilt and shame. He is the one who brings hope and salvation. He conquers the forces of evil and establishes God's kingdom in this world. He shows the mercy of God toward lost sinners and brings about peace with God. The man who had been living among the tombs and seeking death was now completely restored to his right mind. The demons had left him, and the Lord Jesus had saved him from his terrible anguish and despair. What a radical change had occurred in the life of this man. He now went out into that region telling people how much Jesus had done for him. The man who was living in the tombs paints a stark picture of the reality of the fallen

9:18to sin. He shows graphically the effect of sin in our lives as well. But that terrible anguish and torment of sin has been dealt with perfectly by our Lord Jesus Christ, believe in Him alone. There is no sin which is too big for Him to deal with. There is no one who is beyond hope. Do not believe the lies of the devil who seeks to drive you into despair because of the sin in your life, but rather look up to Christ. Reach outside of yourself to Him and He will deliver you. Have faith in His power to save and bring about reconciliation and peace with God. He only needed to speak the word to the demons and they left Him. He is all powerful. In the same way He only needs to speak to our Father in heaven and He will forgive our sins. For He is always present at God's right hand to intercede for those who believe in Him. He is at God's right hand because God accepted His sacrifice.

10:22He rose from the dead to justify sinners and is now seated in heaven as the great high priest who daily pleased before God for those who believe in Him. In the one sacrifice which Jesus Christ accomplished on the cross, in that act, the Lord showed His justice and mercy at the same time. Christ took upon Himself the sins of the whole world so that we might have peace with God on that cross. He satisfied God's justice and carried out the compassion of God for lost sinners like you and me. Live out the reality of Christ's work in your life and confess His name all your days. Live as joyful servants of the Lord proclaiming His work of mercy to all so that God may be glorified and His kingdom may be established and His children gathered from all nations.

11:23Thank you for listening. Till next time.