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Reading Luke 8:26-30 where Jesus arrives at the Gerasenes and is immediately approached by a man with many demons identifying themselves as Legion. Visit wwutt.com for all our videos!
Jesus cast out a demon named Legion, multiple demons that were possessing one man. And apparently that demon had great strength as well, but still not as strong as the word of Christ when we understand the text.
Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text is committed to teaching sound doctrine and rebuking those who contradict it. Visit our website at www .wutt .com.
Here once again is Pastor Gabe.
Thank you, Becky. In our study of the gospel according to Luke, we come back to chapter eight. Reading today, Luke's account of where Jesus casts out the demon named Legion. Let's read in Luke 8, verses 26 to 39.
Hear the word of the Lord. Then they sailed to the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. When Jesus had stepped out on land, there met him a man from the city who had demons. For a long time, he had worn no clothes and he had not lived in a house, but among the tombs.
When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him and said with a loud voice, what have you to do with me, Jesus, son of the most high God, I beg you do not torment me. For he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man.
For many a time it had seized him. He was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the desert. Jesus then asked him, what is your name?
And he said, Legion, for many demons had entered him and they begged him not to command them to depart into the abyss. Now a large herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside and they begged him to let them enter these.
So Jesus gave them permission. Then the demons came out of the man and entered the pigs and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned. When the herdsmen saw what had happened, they fled and told it in the city and in the country.
Then people went out to see what had happened. And they came to Jesus and found the man from whom the demons had gone, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid.
And those who had seen it told them how the demon possessed man had been healed. Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked him to depart from them for they were seized with great fear.
So he got into the boat and returned. The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him, but Jesus sent him away saying, return to your home and declare how much God has done for you.
And he went away proclaiming throughout the whole city how much Jesus had done for him. This is the third time now that we've read this particular account. The first time was in Matthew's gospel. And there it was two men who were seized by these demons that could be Matthew's way of saying that because the man had so many demons, it's as if he was two.
Because Matthew does not identify the demon by the name Legion. That's not until Mark's gospel. So in Mark's account in Mark chapter five is where Jesus asks him, what is your name? And the demon replies, Legion for we are many.
And then Luke repeats that name also in his account here in chapter eight. So we've seen some slightly different details in these three accounts of Jesus casting out the demon named Legion, but nonetheless, all the stories still line up the same.
There's no reason to believe that there's any contradiction between any of these details. So we come back up to verse 26 and we read this in the context that Luke sets it. Remember that through chapter eight, we've been reading about the power of God's word.
In the first parable that Jesus gave at the start of chapter eight, the parable of the sower, it was about the seed, which represents the message of the kingdom, message of the gospel that falls on four different soils, the path, the rocks, the thorns, and some of the seed falls in good soil.
And as the message of the gospel comes to the one who receives it, it produces a harvest. And this is a demonstration of the one who is truly saved. We read then about the parable of the lamp under a jar, and it was Jesus warning his disciples, take care how you hear, because to the one who has been given understanding, more will be given to him.
He will have even more understanding. But if he does not have understanding, then even what he has will be taken away. Then we have Jesus' mother and brothers, an account where Jesus' family comes to see him.
But Jesus says, it is they who hear the word of God and do it who are my mother and my brothers. And then the last account that we read here in chapter eight was of Jesus calming the storm. That was this past Wednesday.
And Jesus, by his own word, calms the wind and the waves, and they obey him, and the disciples marveled. And so here in this account, with Jesus casting out this demon, the demon is very much afraid of the word of Christ.
And even after seeing the effects of what Christ's word has accomplished, the people in the region are afraid. And Jesus tells the man to go back into town, go back to his own home, and proclaim all that God has done for you.
And then we hear the word of the man, the power of the word of Christ in this man to now go out and proclaim the goodness of God through Jesus Christ that had been shown to him. So now this man is spreading the word, where previously his words were demonic, Satan-honoring, now they were God-honoring, Christ-honoring to the people who would hear him, who witnessed what it was that happened to him.
So let's come back up to this account here in verse 26. They sailed to the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. So this is on the east side of the Sea of Galilee. And one of the clues that we have as to not being in the region of Galilee anymore, not just because Luke says that they're opposite Galilee, but also because there's pigs.
So in the land of Judah, in the land of Galilee, there would not have been pigs. They were unclean animals. They were not herded. Israelites, Jews were not raising pigs. So Jesus has come to a region that is not occupied by Israelites.
Here you have Gentiles who are witnessing the power of Christ in his word. Verse 27, when Jesus had stepped out on land, there met him a man from the city who had demons. For a long time, he had worn no clothes and he had not lived in a house, but among the tombs.
Now, Luke is the first one to tell us that this man was from the city. The other two accounts that we have in Matthew and in Mark, that's not mentioned. We don't know much about the man's background at all.
In fact, Luke gives us a little bit more in the sense that we understand that he was a citizen of that particular town. He lived in that town. Used to be known among the town apparently, but because of this demon possession, he's been driven out and lived in the tombs, a very unclean place.
And it doesn't matter whether these people would have been Israelites or Gentiles. It was unclean to live among tombs. That's where the dead were. Even Gentiles didn't go and live among the dead. And so it demonstrates the uncleanness that this man was brought to by these demons that occupied his soul, that he was living now among tombs.
Places, and of course, as I said, Gentiles wouldn't even go there, but definitely Jews would not go there because it was an unclean place. They wouldn't even touch tombs because that was considered touching something that was unclean.
They had to go through purification if anybody were to even touch a tomb. Now, again, it says for a long time, he had worn no clothes and he had not lived in a house but among the tombs. So he had worn, this man's naked.
He's stark naked right there, meeting up with Jesus and his disciples. Now in the other accounts as well, it says the man runs up to Jesus. So as Jesus has gotten out of the boat, this man comes to him, probably saw him coming even from a distance.
And the demons know exactly who he is. Nobody else would have looked out at the boat and saw Jesus and the disciples coming and would have immediately known who that was. But the demons do. They know who Jesus is.
So it's significant that Luke captures it this way, that as soon as Jesus is getting out of the boat, the demon is running up to him, falling down before him and says in a loud voice, verse 28, what have you to do with me, Jesus, son of the most high God?
I beg you, do not torment me. Now we have in Matthew's account of this, the demon said, have you come here to torment us before the time? So they know that there's gonna be a day. Apparently the demons are aware there's a day on which God is gonna judge us and we are gonna be thrown into the pit.
We will be thrown into the abyss, which Legion makes mention of here, even in Luke's account. So in Matthew, it's Legion running up to Jesus and saying, are you here to torment me before the time? So it's not time yet.
You're not supposed to be judging me yet, but here is Jesus. And so the demons are begging for mercy. They're asking that Jesus would not judge him yet, judge them yet, I guess, and cast them into the pit.
Verse 29, for he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. For many a time, it had seized him. The demon had seized the man. He was kept under guard, okay? So he's been arrested because this guy's mad.
He's out of his mind. He's a danger to himself and other people. So he's been arrested and kept under guard, it says, and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the desert.
The interesting thing here indicates that under demonic possession, people will sometimes possess superhuman ability, strength beyond what a normal human being would have. Under this demonic possession, this man is able to break bonds.
He's able to break iron chains that he has been bound in and then run away, flee from soldiers and those that would pursue him and go out into the desert and even be able to survive out there in the desert.
Now, the strongest man in the Bible, strongest man as far as strength goes, not talking about spiritual strength, but strength, the strongest man, who is it? You know who I'm talking about, right? The Arnold Schwarzenegger of the Bible.
I don't know that he was the strongest man ever himself, but the strongest man in the Bible, of course, is Samson. Now, Samson, we often picture being a big guy, right? I think I talked about this when we talked through Judges, but that would have been some time ago.
Just about every time you see Samson, whether it's an animated portrayal, whether it's coloring pictures, whether it's a movie or a televised version of the book of Judges, almost always, whoever is playing Samson is a big dude.
Big arms, muscle-bound, broad chest, huge shoulders. This guy could definitely manhandle somebody. Just looking at him, taking away his superhuman ability, that guy's still pretty intimidating in his own right.
Whoever it is that they get, whatever actor they get to portray Samson, or however he's depicted in cartoons and things like that. He's always a big guy. But the Bible doesn't say that. It doesn't say that Samson was a big, strong, tough guy, that he was like six and a half feet tall, muscles on top of muscles.
You know, he's got muscles in places I haven't even got places. That's not the way that it portrays Samson in Scripture. It could be he was just an average-looking guy, like any other Jew. Well, Samson wouldn't have been a Jew.
He was of the tribe of Dan. So like any other Danite, he had this immense physical strength that doesn't mean he had an immense muscular body. Where did his strength come from? It came from the Lord, the Spirit of God that was upon him.
Samson possessing such strength that he could rip city gates right off the hinges, rip the posts right out of the ground, carry them for miles and set them on a hill. He could take the jawbone of a donkey and slaughter hundreds of Philistines.
He could lean on a pillar and bring down a Philistine temple so that the house crushes thousands of them, which is what he did at the very end of his life. He died, but took a bunch of Philistines with him.
Samson had incredible strength, but it was not in his physical ability. Because remember, the last straw disobeying God was to have his hair cut. And as soon as his hair was cut, the Spirit of God left him and he no longer possessed the strength to be able to overthrow his enemies.
The strength he had was superhuman. It was not because he worked out. Now, the same is the case with this guy who is possessed by the demon, Legion. He has superhuman ability. And by the way, it's because of this, Samson's strength and also this man's strength under the possession of Legion, that I don't believe when we read in the book of Genesis about the giants that inhabited the land, or as it gets translated, the Nephilim, although that's not even a proper translation to understand them as being giants in the land.
But when we read that in Genesis 6, 4, the Nephilim were on the earth in those days and also afterward, when the sons of God came into the daughters of man and they bore children to them. Now, that's a hotly contested verse.
As it goes on to say, these were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown. The most popular way that that is translated is that the demons would sleep with human women and they would impregnate them with demon seed.
And then they would have these demon offspring children. And those children would grow up to be huge giants or they would become mighty warriors or whatnot. And I've contested that view. I don't think that that's the way that we understand that.
Because first of all, how is it that angels, fallen angels in this case, possess human DNA so that they can sleep with human women and fertilize a human egg and have a child in that way? The Bible is clear that kind follows kind, especially in the book of Genesis.
So demons can't reproduce. We have nothing in scripture that says anything about angels and demons being able to reproduce even here, you would have to read that into the verse to interpret it that way in Genesis 6, 4.
So the way that I have often taught this passage, a right understanding of this passage would probably be to understand that these people were demon possessed. So it's not that the demons themselves come into the daughters of man, but rather the demons possess human men and then would come into the daughters of man and bore children to them.
Or it could also be that these women become demon possessed and therefore have these children that they themselves become offspring of the demon in a certain way. Their children are spiritually possessed by these wicked evil demons that have come into the world and are trying to mess up the human line.
They're trying to mess up that which God had made in his image. Previous chapter in Genesis 5, this is the book of the generations of Adam. When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God, male and female, he created them and he blessed them and named them man when they were created.
Then when Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness after his image and named him Seth. So the demons are trying to mess up the human line, that which had been made in the image of God.
And it's not that demons come and sleep with women and then have demon seed, but rather through possession, either of men or of women are messing around with breeding and they are attempting to corrupt the human line.
Through a certain kind of breeding, you probably could come up with giant human beings and that's what the demons are attempting to do. And then you do have some giants, which are spoken about in the Old Testament, the most famous of which of course being Goliath, whom David put down with a sling and a stone, the Philistine from Gath.
So what we have demonstrated for us in scripture is that people who are under the possession of these spirits possess superhuman strength. And we see that here with the demon Legion, even he has a superhuman ability to break bonds that he cannot even be bound.
Later on in the book of Acts, when there's the demon that encounters, or rather the sons of Sceva, who have been casting out demons in Ephesus, they encounter a man who is actually possessed by a demon.
They've been claiming to cast out evil spirits, but they're not really encountering evil spirits. When they encounter a man who's actually demon possessed, the seven sons of Sceva are beaten up. They are overpowered by this demon possessed man so that they ran out of their house naked and wounded.
Seven men beaten up by this one guy who easily overmatched and overpowered them. So again, we see various occasions throughout scripture, Old Testament and New, where those who are possessed by these evil spirits appear to have these superhuman abilities.
And this is another one of those occasions here where we read of that with Legion, especially one named Legion, who's possessed by multiple demons. And apparently that gives him an ability even to break bonds and flee from captivity when he's been arrested and even be able to survive in the desert for a time.
It's in verse 30 where Jesus asked him, what is your name? And he said, Legion for many demons had entered him. Now it's interesting to consider that at the beginning of this chapter, one of the women who was with Jesus and the disciples was Mary Magdalene.
And it says that Jesus had healed her of seven demons who had gone out from her. That was in chapter eight, verse two. So this man apparently possessed by more demons. It may not be thousands, because I know that it's in Mark's account where it says that the number of pigs was 2000.
That doesn't mean that there were 2000 demons in this man, but he certainly was under greater demonic possession than Mary Magdalene was. So we kind of have something to compare it with in Luke chapter eight.
Mary Magdalene had seven demons that were cast out of her. This man possessed by Legion apparently has even more demons than that. Now we're gonna stop there and we're gonna pick up at that spot. So after verse 30, where Jesus asked him his name and he says, Legion for many demons had entered him.
And we'll pick up from there, we'll talk about the pit. What is it that the demons don't wanna be cast into? Why are they wanting to avoid the pit? Why are they cast into these pigs? Why do the pigs run down the bank and drown themselves in the river?
And then we see the people's reaction to this as well, which is somewhat like what the disciples felt when they saw Jesus calm the storm. They were afraid of Jesus. And the people there at the garrisons have the same sort of reaction to Jesus.
So we'll get to that part tomorrow. Now we read in the scriptures in Romans chapter eight, I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, that would be the good guys in the spiritual realm and the bad guys in the spiritual realm, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord.
Demons are not to be messed around with, and they do possess great strength, but you know what is stronger than even the ability that demons have? The word of God is even stronger. And we read here that we have been drawn to Christ through the gospel.
We are filled with his Holy Spirit. And so we have nothing to fear of the devil and his schemes. Ask God for the strength to be able to resist the devil, resist temptation, and grow all the more in Christ Jesus, looking forward to that day when we will be with him forever in glory.
Our bodies will get weak and will even die, but our spirits gain strength when we trust in his word. Heavenly Father, we thank you for what we've read here today and I pray indeed we would have strength today to resist temptation, be strengthened to walk in holiness, to honor you with all that we say and do.
And our trust is in God's word, which has saved us and will deliver us from the devil's schemes into your kingdom forever. It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Thank you for listening to When We Understand The Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. If you'd like to support this ministry, visit our website, www .wutt .com, and click on the Give tab in the top right corner of the page.
Join us again tomorrow as we continue our Bible study When We Understand The Text.