“And they came over unto the other side of the sea, into 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 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.
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 into them. 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,” Mark 5:1-13.
I was made to think of this portion of God’s inspired Word when I heard of the horrific events in Southport, England, on Monday 29th July. It was widely reported in the press. Here is a BBC report.
Southport stabbing: How the knife attack unfolded
In truth, no news report could ever fully convey the distress and heartbreak that followed this horrendously murderous attack by a teenager, a son of immigrants. The culprit has been arrested. He has been described as being ‘reclusive’!
However, that would not account for his actions and for the actions of the many, many other examples of similar murderous incidents in recent times on the streets and in the homes of the United Kingdom! Hundreds of murders take place each year, the most of them animalistic attacks almost void of any tangible motive.
In these days of apostasy from God and His truth by the mainline churches, the impact of this rebellion upon the nation is the releasing of the floodgates of lawlessness and defiance of all that the Lord has commanded men to obey!
It is that spirit that is epitomised by ‘the man of Gadara’!
I. NOTICE HOW HELPLESS THE NEIGHBOURS WERE TO CURB OR CONTROL THE BEHAVIOUR OF THIS MAN.
1. He was a poor demented creature. “And always, night and day, he was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones,” verse 5. What inward and mental torment the man was in. How bad is a man’s condition when he considers that ‘cutting himself with stones’ might ease his distress!
That which is resorted to today by those seeking relief from the miseries of life is equally grotesque and utterly unequal to the task. Alcohol and drugs do not help. Rather they quickly exacerbate the distress of the victim. Pictures abound of the streets of many cities littered with the comatose bodies of those who have fallen victim to the imagined ‘cures’ for today’s woes!
Today, the number of the likes of the ‘man of Gadara’, grows daily!
2. He was lost in a world of loneliness. “Mountains and tombs” were his habitat, his natural abode, the environment where he felt most at home!
How inexplicable is the behaviour of so many poor souls in today’s society. It is so incomprehensible to many that they turn their backs upon such in helpless despair.
3. His behaviour was such that men had to try to bind him. “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 4. They had to try and do something and this was the best they could do! They obviously took the strongest measures they could to try and ‘tame’ or restrain him.
In like manner today, successive governments, social organisations and psychologists have offered their suggestions as to how the lawlessness and anarchy on the streets may be reduced and banished!
All of their ‘medicines’ have proved useless, indeed, often mere accelerants of the problem!
No man has an answer to his own problems! Man cannot cure man!
II. THERE CAME ONE WITH THE ANSWER!
“But when he saw Jesus,” verse 6.
1. There was a recognising of the Saviour by this devil-possessed man. “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,” verse 7. It was the voice of the man but he was merely expressing the mind of the devils which possessed and dominated him.
The use of the word ‘me’ rather than ‘us’ is a reminder that those possessed and ruled by the devil will, if not delivered by divine grace, share in the torments laid up for the devil! Those ‘torments’ the man links himself with are the torments that would come on the devil.
Please remember that word spoken by the Saviour in Matthew 25:41: “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.” Those who share in the devil’s sin and rebellion will share in his eternal fate!
2. The ‘worship’ which he offered was not a true and genuine honouring of the Saviour such as that which comes forth from a converted heart. No, this was a mere recognising of the authority of the Saviour even over devils. Remember the words of James to those who made much of their ‘belief’ in the existence of God and believed that there was merit in such ‘faith’! “Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble,” James 2:19.
The falling down of this man before the Lord Jesus, doubtless in a fashion similar to that recorded in Mark 3:11: “And unclean spirits, when they saw him, fell down before him, and cried, saying, Thou art the Son of God”, was but an acknowledging of His divine power and authority and not a worshipping of Him from a loving and believing heart.
3. There was a need of a miracle of grace and mercy before this poor man could be delivered from his great distress. What was needed by this man was granted to him by the Word of the Saviour. “Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit,” verse 8.
Deliverance from the devil lies in the hands of the Saviour alone. He used men in apostolic days as instruments of such deliverance but they were BUT instruments and had not that power of themselves. The incident in Acts 19:11-16 shows this to be so.
“And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul: So that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them. Then certain of the vagabond Jews, exorcists, took upon them to call over them which had evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth. And there were seven sons of one Sceva, a Jew, and chief of the priests, which did so. And the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye? And the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, and overcame them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.”
How important it is for us all to note the part the ‘Word’ of the Saviour played in this man’s deliverance. “He said unto him, Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit.”
III. THE MESSAGE OF THE BIBLE IS DESPISED TODAY AND EVEN IN CHRISTIAN PULPITS IS NOT PREACHED WITH THE DILIGENCE AND CARE THAT IT SHOULD BE.
Shallow ill-thought-out studies take the place of prayerful expositions of the Word. The spirit of carelessness altogether too common amongst the flock of God is the result of such ‘sermonettes’!
Christ absent
1. While the Saviour was absent from ‘the country of the Gadarenes’, the devil had a ‘field day’ in the life of this poor man and those whom he tortured by his behaviour.
What changes came about with the arrival of Christ!
I repeat, the apostasy from God, led by the ecumenical and modernistic churches which are dominant in the United Kingdom, has turned a land, which once knew so much of the blessings that the gospel brings to men, into a wilderness of criminality and murder. Common decency is almost totally absent from society. The murder of the unborn and the helpless infant is almost an every day occurrence. Every element of God’s moral law is abandoned so that the embodiment of the ‘Royal Law’, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,” James 2:8, is sadly absent. Everything abominated by God is embraced and glorified by pulpits and parliaments. Moral perversity is celebrated, paraded and publicly owned as the paragon of virtue!
2. The strange granting of the devils’ request by Christ is to be noted and rightly understood. “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 into them. 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.” verses 11-13.
Murderous
In this passage of God’s Word set down above, we have an incident which highlights the murderous spirit of the devil. The drowning of the herd of what was likely wild boars, indicate the truth regarding the devil. He is instinctively a killer, a murderer. The Saviour described him as such in John 8:44, when He classified the Pharisees as having the devil as their father.
“Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.”
3. We here in Ulster have had just such a demonstration of the murderous nature of the devil in the recent campaign of the IRA, which broke out back in 1968, though the spirit of murder was never far from the surface of Irish Republicanism! Thousands were murdered and maimed by the IRA with the support of Sinn Fein, the present dominant party here. It was voted into office by thousands of our Roman Catholic neighbours. There have been utterly hypocritical and specious ‘apologies’ offered by Sinn Fein regarding the murder campaign they supported, even as they continue to applaud and honour those who murdered in their name!
Harvest
The campaign of genocide directed against Protestants here, was the fruit of the abandoning of God’s Word, which has been evident for nigh on 100 years, in the ‘established’ churches. When you abandon God and His Word you forfeit His protection and blessing!
Sadly, that spirit of ‘departing from the ways of God’ overcame those who had withstood it most courageously in the blessed days of the 1960s and 1970s. It resulted in only them aiding the emergence of Sinn Fein/IRA into positions of power through the DUP/Sinn Fein evil agreement to share power back in 2007.
What a departure from past promises on the part of the DUP that was!!
The camel’s nose
Like the allegory of the camel and the Arab and the sand storm, the camel was not content with just its nose in the tent out of the storm but did not stop pushing forward until it was all in the tent and the Arab out in the storm!
Ask any DUP man in Stormont and they will, if they can muster up the honesty, tell what it is like to be out of the tent and sitting in the sand storm!!
The murder of the little girls in Southport, and the serious injury suffered by others there, are an even more dramatic picture of what has resulted from the abandoning of God and His Word.
If only this was understood!
Rev Ivan Foster (Rtd)
1st August 2024