The Collision: Jesus and demons: Luke 8:26-39

Demons, Exorcism, and Jesus’ Authority in Luke 8

Exist and people be demon-possessed? How have people tried to deal with demons in the past? Should we be exercising demons? Who should be exercising demons? Who has authority over demons? In the past, even back to the 200s AD, people would exercise demons by calling them out in the name and authority of Jesus and or of some martyrs.

Sometimes people would use torchlights or amulets or hell broths or fumigations to try to get a demon out of a person. In Josephus, a historian, he said they used to use incantations using a ring associated with King Solomon and they would pull out the demon through the nostrils of a possessed man.

I know. Sometimes people thought demons were even in crops or insects and so there's a long line of people who are trying to figure out what are demons and how do you get rid of them. One Roman rite of exorcism says this is how you do it.

Hold a crucifix in the hands and have it placed in front of the demon-possessed person. Whenever available, the relics of the saints can be placed on his chest or on his head. The Holy Eucharist should not be placed on the head or anywhere on the body of the possessed.

There's a danger that it would be treated irreverently. The exorcist should perform and read the exorcism with command, authority, great faith, humility, and fervor. And when he sees that the possessing spirit is being tortured mightily, he should multiply all these efforts at pressuring it.

Whenever he sees some part of the possessed person's body moving or pierced or something like swelling, let him make the sign of the cross and sprinkle holy water. When all this has been done and recited, it can be repeated as often as necessary until the possessed is completely free.

Well, dear friends, this morning we're going to look at someone that can cast out demons and he doesn't need hell broths, he doesn't need crucifix, he doesn't need sign of the cross, he doesn't need amulets, he doesn't need anything because he's the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, Jesus sovereign over, more powerful than demons.

Take your Bibles and turn to Luke chapter 8 this morning. No rings, no relics, just the Lord Jesus, truly man, truly God, His authority, His compassion even. And we'll see this person who is demon-possessed.

How does Jesus deal with such a person? And of course for us, whether it's a demon-possessed person or a person enslaved by sin, the focus and the spotlight is the Lord Jesus. Now as you're turning to Luke chapter 8, the gospel of Jesus according to Luke, there's something I want to make very clear pastorally this morning.

And that is, I want you to understand that problems, your problems, dear Christian, are not disassociated from Jesus. I want you to think about your problems and Jesus together. Sometimes I'm driving home and I get stuck at the train tracks and I just watch the tracks, I mean watch the train one after another after another, and I've often thought, how do you get these train cars to connect?

And one of the ways they connect them is something called a what? Does anybody know who's a train person here? Okay, well then I'm gonna teach you. They're called knuckle couplers. They're called Jenny couplers.

And it's like a hand, a fist in a hand, and of course there are cords and electrical things and air hoses for the brakes, but there's this coupler, this connector. And in the back of your mind, I want, as we go through Luke chapter 8 today, I want you to make sure you realize that your problems are not uncoupled from the Lord Jesus.

I want you to see your problems and I want you to see the Lord at the same time. Listen to what one writer said, the thought of God should be the Christians cure-all. There is a difference between things as they are and things as we perceive them.

It is our folly if we allow ourselves to look at life's problems as if they were isolated from God. If God be my God, then no problem of mine is without its appropriate solution. So I just want you to tuck that under your pillow and let's look at Luke chapter 8 today.

One of these passages that's wild, that is amazing, that shows that Jesus is Lord. We just saw last week that Jesus is Lord over nature. Even the winds and the sea, what? Obey Him. And so we move in chapter 8 from Jesus' lordship over nature to Jesus' lordship over demons and Satan.

We'll see later in the chapter that He has lordship over diseases and even deaths. So this whole section here is about Jesus and His authority and His power so that you say, oh that's my God. That's the one I'm trusting in.

He's the one sovereign over nature, demons, disease and death. And we're moving from a storm in a lake to a storm in a man, many would say. We're going from crazy storms to crazy people. But not just crazy, really in fact demon-possessed.

I was 13 years old and I said to my mom, I love scary movies, and I said, mom I want to go see the Exorcist. And she could have just said no, which would have been fine, but she said, why don't you ask your pastor?

So I went to the Lutheran pastor and said, I love scary movies, can I go see William Blatty's Exorcist? And he said, I don't think it would be a good idea. One newspaper review of that movie said, it's for strong stomachs and weak minds.

Some have said this passage is about weak-minded people because demons don't really exist. This is all a myth, it's not a big deal. We're not talking about maniacs, we're talking about maybe the person has mania.

But in fact we'll see today that demons do exist. We'll ask the question, what do they do and who's in charge of them? Can they be tamed? I don't know if you know this or not, lots of times we think Jesus came to pay for our sins, and yes and amen, He did.

But He did come for other reasons. Listen to 1st John 3. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. That's one of the reasons He appeared. Of course, to live a perfect life, to die for sinners, to be raised from the dead, to forgive, to heal, to teach, to proclaim.

He did all that, but one of the reasons Jesus came is to destroy the works of the devil. And they'll be the ultimate destruction, but here's a little preview of the destroying work of the Lord Jesus. I mean just think, what if we believe that Jesus and Satan were equally powerful?

And a yin and a yang type of thing. You'll see today that there's an order, and that order is just like we've seen last week. Not nature and then Jesus. Jesus over nature and Jesus over demons. This passage is gonna bring you in and you're gonna think you're kind of right there.

It's vivid, it's descriptive, it's kind of wild. I know Pastor Steve would know this, maybe some of you wouldn't. I used to watch pro basketball, and during the timeouts they would have something called, you make the call.

Do you remember? You make the call, and it would show a foul or something, and it would stop the tape, and then it would say, if you were the referee, what would you say? You make the call, you're the referee.

Well you're gonna be sitting and watching this through the lens of Scripture, and you get to make the call. And the call is gonna be, I'm glad for Jesus. The call's gonna be, can you imagine you're a disciple and you get out of a boat and you meet this demon-possessed man without Jesus?

Or you meet him with Jesus. Coupled trial and the passage. The outline in this passage in chapter 8 verses 26 through 39 is basically six chapters to this exciting story. There's one story, there's kind of six chapters, and we're just gonna work through those chapters, and we're gonna sprinkle in maybe some practical things here or there, probably this week and next week.

One exciting story showing Jesus' lordship over everything with six chapters. All right, are you ready? I feel like getting in a three-point stance. Chapter one of this exciting story that Jesus has lordship over everything, the collision.

Chapter one, the collision. By the way, there was a church in Santa Cruz and it was named Collide. I thought, what a dumb church name, you know, Collision, Collide, Confusion, Contusion, you know those churches.

Maybe they got their name from this and then I would actually like it. The collision. Holiness and unholiness. Righteousness and unrighteousness. The pure Son of God and Satan and his hordes. Chapter 8 verse 26.

Then they sail 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 tomb.

Wild sea, Jesus calms it. They get to the other side, about a two hour journey, and now we have a wild man. I wonder if Jesus will calm him. Mark tells us that it's evening, so think shadows, think maybe a little darkness, think something a little more spooky as it were.

If you travel across the Sea of Galilee, you move over to the eastern side, and the eastern side was known for a lot of Gentiles being there. Now this is just kind of a random fact, but I just thought it'd be interesting and keep you awake as well.

If you took the Bible and counted all the chapters and you figured out what the middle chapter of the Bible, what would it be? What's the middle chapter of the Bible? Psalm 117 is the most middle chapter of the Bible.

Praise the Lord all nations, extol him all peoples, for great is his steadfast love toward us, and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever. Praise the Lord. Not just Jews praising God, not just Israelites praising God, but all peoples, Gentiles.

And by the way, there's no kind of secret code because it's the middle of the Bible or anything like that, just a random fact. I'm just trying to keep you on on base. If you want more random facts that mean nothing except Bible trivia, there are 31 ,102 verses in the King James Bible, and so if you try to figure out what the middle of those are, since it's an even number, you can't figure it out, so go ahead.

So they pick Psalm 103 verses 1 and 2 as the middle of the verses. Bless the Lord all my soul, and forget none of his benefits. That's what they think. What's the point? Jesus, of course, is not coming just to save Jewish people, he's coming to save Gentiles, and he's on a mission to save Gentiles.

So he goes over to the Gentile territory, and you can probably imagine the Gentile territory had all kinds of stuff that the Jews weren't like, including pigs. In an allusion to a passage you probably haven't thought about, Isaiah 65, it says of God, I was ready to be sought by those who did not ask me.

I was ready to be found by those who did not seek me. I, God, said here I am, here I am, to a nation that was not called by my name. I spread out my hands all the day to a rebellious people, a people who provoked me to my face continually, sacrificing in gardens, and making offerings on bricks.

Listen, who sit in tombs, and spend the night in secret places, who eat pigs' flesh. And here Jesus wants to go to the other side for ministry to the Gentiles, and that's what's happening here. We don't really know much about the disciples and their reactions.

My guess is they're probably hiding behind Jesus. I don't know what you would do. I would let Jesus kind of go first. And the text back in verse 27 again, he steps out on land, there's this man who meets him.

It's almost like this man can see who Jesus is in the boat, and he's going to go intercept him. You'll see often in the scriptures, there's this almost like a magnetic effect where Jesus is there. The demons just are attracted, not to him in terms of worship, but they just come to him to be humbled.

And demons can use people's voices. Demons can use their sounds that come out of their mouth. And he meets this man. Commentator Hendrickson said this man, quote, had seen better days. I don't need a commentary for that.

Oh, that he'd seen better days. Yeah, he had. You get out of the boat, you get onto the shore, they're shrieking, there's terrifying look, there's the smell, there's no clothes. I mean, I could smell the guy from here.

I can see him. And there's this confrontation, there's this collision. I mean, when you think of demons, and you think of tombs, and you think of things like this, you should probably be thinking words like filthy, morally repulsive, gross, weird, unholy.

And most likely, this is kind of self-induced as well, because righteous virtuous people don't get demon possessed. They play with the magic, they play with the occult, they play with that kind of stuff.

An actual account of a couple hundred years ago in Lebanon reads thus, I found myself in a cemetery where sculptured turbans showed us that the neighboring village was Muslim. The silence of the night was now broken by fierce yells and howlings, which I discovered proceeded from a naked maniac who was fighting with some wild dogs for a bone.

The moment he perceived us, he left his canine companions, and bounding along with rapid stride, seized my bridle, my horse's bridle, and almost forced him backward off the cliff. This is more than just madness, this is demonic madness.

And as much as this person has been dehumanized, the image of God defaced and marred and scarred, we are going to see Jesus reclaim this man, renew this man, restore the image-bearer to his full image-bearing capacities.

Now back in those days, a lot of times you'd have a kind of a cliff area, and you would have holes in the side of the cliff, and those made it easy to put bodies in for tombs. That's probably what's happening here.

Right away Jesus gets out of the boat, and this man comes from the tombs. It's kind of dark. Now I know what you're thinking. Some people say the Bible's full of contradictions because Luke says there's one man, and Matthew says there's two.

I just want you to know that that's pretty dumb thinking. If you're going to be an atheist, then you should probably think of other things, because Luke doesn't say he's the only one. Luke just has his focus on this one man.

Maybe he's the leader of this demon-possessed man. Maybe he's the strongest one. Maybe he's the more vocal one. Maybe he's more violent. It doesn't matter, but the focus in Luke is just on the one man.

And back to the text. No clothes, not lived in a house, but among the tombs. We're gonna learn in a little bit that people couldn't even bind him with chains, and what's the point to all this? Crazy, powerful, filthy, dirty, repulsive.

Who can take care of such a man? Because the flip side is going to be the power of Jesus, the Word of Jesus, the Lordship of Jesus. If this person's super powerful, and Jesus can subdue him, what does that tell you about Jesus?

That's the point. Now I've met some homeless people, and had them in my home as well, and just the way they look, and the way their hair is, and the way they smell. But this is much more eerie. This is much more spooky.

This is much more sad. They used to be able to bind him with a chain, but they can't anymore, Mark says, because he seems to be getting progressively stronger, and stronger, and stronger. I mean, if there's a boogeyman, this is the boogeyman.

And Matthew says, he was so exceedingly violent that no one could pass by that road. You wouldn't want to go by that road either, neither would I. Why go past that road? There's a village called Gruff, Billy Goat Gruff.

It actually was the village called Gruff. And some kind of weird troll that lives underneath, that's gonna kill and attack. I mean, this is times ten of Billy Goat Gruff. So fierce that no one could pass by that way.

Nobody could tame him, Luke says. And in Mark chapter 5, it says he's crying out and gashing himself with stones. You know, back in first Kings, how do you get gods to answer you when they're remote and distant?

Well, maybe if you cut yourself, and file yourself, and make yourself bleed, the gods might look upon you with favor. Here he's cutting himself, he's crying out. I mean, I can just see the the black and dried blood on his skin, and his wounds, and the infection, and the pus.

I mean, just talk about body mutilation, slicings, and all these kind of things. First Kings 18 that I referred to earlier, they cried out with loud voice and cut themselves, according to their custom, with swords and lances until the blood gushed out.

Now how would you react? This guy comes running up to you, and just as a sidebar again, with Jesus, how would you react? That'd be one thing, I'd still probably hide behind him. But without Jesus, I'd be getting back into the boat.

I would not be going toward this man. A crazy, no, demon-possessed man is coming to hurt you, to subdue you, to kill you, this naked man coming against you. Now I don't know how many times somebody who's like that crazy naked man running around occurrence happens, I'm sure, to you every day as you live in Central Mass.

I've said it before, so I'll make it a fast story. That's only happened to me one time, and it was in North Hollywood, California. I'm mowing my neighbor's lawn because I didn't have a mower, and so I would just mow his front yard, and then I'd turn to mow my front yard, and just back and forth, and all of a sudden I see a guy, he's standing out in the middle of the road, and so as I'm mowing this way, I can't see him.

I turn around this way, I see him, and off goes his shirt. Then I go this way, and I go that way. Now off goes his pants, off goes all his clothes, and he starts doing all this Grateful Dead stuff, running around crazy, looking at windows.

And I thought to myself, and of course, you know, the punchline, Steve's probably heard this ten times, the punchline is, I'm not afraid because he's naked and I have a mower. I'm ready. Finally the police come, etc.

I lived, by the way. The guy picked up, turned on the hose at some guy's house across the street, and he got down like in, like a shooting stance, and he was shooting the policeman with the hose. We thought, I could take this guy, but here there's a real Satan with real demons in a real man, multiple demons.

And so what do you do? What would Jesus do? Did Jesus cower? Was he biting his fingernails? Was he afraid? Did he stand behind the disciples? Hey, one of you guys is expendable, I'm not yet. Jesus knew exactly what to do.

The Son of God Recognized by the Demons

And we move in this exciting story from chapter one, the collision, to chapter two, the recognition. The recognition, verse 28. Before I read verse 28, go back to chapter 8, verse 25. He said to them, where is your faith?

And they were afraid. And they marveled, saying to one another, who then is this, that he commands even winds and water, and they obey him? That's the question. Who is it? Your eternal life depends on it.

Your forgiveness of sins depends on it. You're being able to say no to sin today as a Christian depends on it. So now we come to verse 28, the recognition. 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?

And now he answers the question in 825, by the way. Jesus, Son of the Most High God, I beg you do not torment me. Do you see what Luke's doing? Besides showing you the power of Jesus, the authority of Jesus, the command of Jesus, he's showing you that you should be recognizing Jesus as the Son of God.

The disciples in the boat did, and even this demon-possessed man did. The demons even knew. We should all know as well. He sees Jesus, cries out and falls before him. Now sometimes when you fall before Jesus, it's worship, it's reverence, it's Peter in the boat in Luke chapter 5, and he's on his face and he's saying, depart from me a sinful man.

I'm a sinful man. It's sometimes used like with Queen Esther. She spoke again to the king and fell at his feet. It's used in Psalm 95, come let us kneel before the Lord our maker. Sometimes when you're down on your knees, it's worship, it's adoration, it's love, it's respect.

But here it's just submission. This is not a demon worshiping Jesus. This is a demon saying, I know who Jesus is. I'm not the Son of the Most High. I'm not God. I'm not Satan. I'm not any of these things.

Jesus rules over all, and so he goes down on his knees. Down on his knees, falling like only an unclean spirit could. He cries out. The language here, I'm not going to scream it out now, but it's blood curdling.

It's crying like a raven would cry. It's crying with a crowd that says, crucify him, crucify him, crucify him. The crying out. Positively, it's a crying out where the Lord roars from Zion. And you can just imagine this person's voice.

I don't know how to make my voice that way. I'm not even gonna try, but you can imagine how gross this was, how bad this was. And again, notice Jesus, totally calm. Not cowering. Not stepping back. Running up, crying on his knees.

And there's Jesus. This man is not worshiping. This man is bowing in submission. I wonder what the disciples are thinking. We're only left to guess what's going through their mind. The naked yelling maniac on his face.

What's he say to Jesus? What do you have to do with me, Jesus? What do you have to do with me? It's kind of an interesting phrase. There's parts, there's, there's, there's language in the Bible and idioms in the Bible, and this is one of those.

And basically he says, what to me and to you? If you're going to translate it literally, what to me and what to you? What do we have in common? What business do we have together? It's kind of a protest.

Hey, what's going on? Whenever I'm done, why are you doing this to me? Why are you here? What to me and to you? I mean, get away. We have nothing in common. Leave me alone. What common does light have with darkness?

I mean, there's some truth to this. What do we have in common? Holiness and unholiness, righteousness and unrighteousness, purity and defilement, light and darkness. It could even be, mind your own business.

What do we have to do with each other? He recognizes that Jesus is the true God, the only God, the Most High God. Luke, the Spirit of God as well, wants you to keep recognizing that. Who is Jesus? How are we certain that it's Jesus?

Well, who acts like this man? Who talks like this man? Only Jesus, the God-man, could. He is the one true and living God of Israel. And what does the text say? I beg you, do not torment me. First of all, He's not commanding Jesus.

Jesus is the commander. Second of all, I mean, what's this demon doing to this man? Tormenting. Let me do my tormenting, but you don't torment me. Do not torment me. I beg you, please. I know you have authority.

You can tell me whatever you want, but I'm just asking, what do you have to do with me? Just kind of as a sidebar, that's one of the most sad things that I think an unbeliever could ever say to God. What do we have in common?

Why do you bother? What do you have to do with me? One writer said, thousands of persons appear to be far more anxious to escape from salvation than to escape from eternal wrath. Keep me, Lord, from heaven.

Prevent me from ever being saved. Give me the full swing of my sins and let me live so as to ruin my soul. Conduct most strange. Now, demons are smarter than some unbelievers, because demons recognize that Jesus is in fact the Son of God, that He is in fact the true God, and that eventually all demons, along with Satan, will be tormented forever in the abyss.

They know their final place, the final judgment. They know that. And of course, this belief that the demons have is not a saving belief, is it? Demons believe in tremble, right? But they're not going to heaven.

Demons know, demons understand, but they're not trusting, of course, in the Lord. They know their ultimate future, and they know there's a time for that before the time. Remember what Jesus said in Matthew 25, He will also say to those on His left, Depart from me, accursed one, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for devil and his, what, angels.

Legion and the Demons’ Plea to the Abyss

Well, what happens? That's a good question. Chapter 3, the collision, the recognition, and now in verse 29, a quick flashback. It's a short chapter, a flashback. Luke 8 29, For He had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man.

And here's the flashback, and your Bible probably has got parentheses. For many a time it had seized Him. He was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, and He would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the desert.

Jesus again commands, no incantations, no Latin, no anything else. Remember the whole situation? This demon-possessed man, super-powerful, Jesus must be more powerful. Demon has power, Jesus has greater power.

So, dear Christian, remember, never fall for this Satan God, the triune God, both equal, battling things out. I want you to realize it has nothing to do with equal at all. We have a Creator, and we have creature, and we have to make sure we know those.

I don't know if you've ever thought, okay, Jesus is more sovereign than the devil, more powerful than the devil, more powerful, and has more authority than even over demons. Does that comfort you? Does that make you glad?

Does that make you worry? J .C. Rowe said, It should be a cheering thought to all true Christians. Without it, we might despair of salvation. What if somehow God saves us, and now demons can unsave us?

Because demons have as much power as God. Of course, we know that's not true. So, we move to chapter four in this exciting story. So far, by the way, I haven't seen any of you sleeping. That's kind of fun.

By the way, if you can see my eyes, I can see if you're sleeping. And those who are watching on camera, I can see too. I cannot see the people up in the overflow room if they're sleeping. I mean, it's exciting.

I want to study the Bible. I mean, what if you come to church for book reviews, and psychology, and philosophy, and the latest thing that the pastor's thinking about? I want to know who Jesus is, and I want you to know who Jesus is.

So, you open up the Bible and say, Yes, I can see this for my own eyes, that Jesus is a great King, and He's my King. I have a privilege of serving Him. Chapter four, the authority found in verses 30 through 33, the authority.

Chapter four of this thrilling story, exciting story. Verse 30, Jesus then asked him, What is your name? By the way, you remember back in those days, the superior could ask the inferior, What's your name?

But never the other way around. And he said, Legion, for many demons had entered him. Wow. Many. I thought it was bad when Mary Magdalene had how many? Three, four, five, six, or how many? Seven demons.

And remember, demons are fallen angels, and so you have a fixed number of angels, and one-third of them fall. But even a good angel, how many people did one good angel kill one night in Israel? A hundred and eighty what?

Five thousand people. And here, Jesus is not asking because He doesn't know. He's getting it out in the open so His disciples know, and so we know. My name is Legion, for we are many. Not just one demon against Jesus.

Not just seven demons against Jesus. But Roman legions, depends on who you study, 3 ,000 people in a Roman legion. 6 ,000 people, that's the typical number. 6 ,200 in a Roman legion. So let's go with 6 ,000.

6 ,000 demons against Jesus. Who's going to win? And by the way, Legion also confers this military strength. It's not just a lot of demons, 6 ,000, but they know battle array. They know where to line up.

They know how to fight. That's kind of the idea. I mean, it'd be one thing if I, let's say there was 13 demons, and you know, hi, our name is a baker's dozen. That would be bad. But even the name is military, fortress, assault.

6 ,000 against one. The war's on. Now later, there's going to be 2 ,000 pigs that these demons go into. And so even if it's one demon per pig, 2 ,000, that's a lot. If it's 6 ,000, that's three demons per pig.

What is your name? Legion, for many demons had entered him. And you see the battle. You see the cosmic forces. You see what demons and Satan do to people? Have we not seen in Luke what Jesus does to people and for people?

John 10, truly, truly, Jesus said, I'm the door of the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I'm the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved.

We'll go in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and to kill and destroy. Think about that man. I came that they may have life and have what? Abundantly. I'm the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

He was a hired hand and not a shepherd who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming, leaves the sheep and flees. And the wolf snatches them and scatters them and has them live in tombs and cut themselves.

I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father and I lay down my life for the sheep. Verse 31, and they, not just him, not just the man speaking, but now the demons, they, the legion demons, begged him not to command them to depart into the abyss.

It is for Jesus only to command seas and winds and water and demons, so they begged that he would command. They don't command him. Demons know who Jesus is and they're not going to heaven. It's not just a matter of intellectual knowledge.

Faith is we know and we assent and agree and we trust. Please don't send us out of the country. Begging, begging. There's nothing worse than a nagging demon as far as I'm concerned. When you study the book of Revelation, you'll realize there's this place called the abyss and demons go there.

Listen to what Revelation says about the abyss. Revelation 20, and I saw an angel coming down out of heaven, having the key to the abyss and holding in his hand a great chain. He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil or Satan, and bound him for a thousand years.

He threw him into the abyss and locked it and sealed it over him to keep him from deceiving the nations anymore until the thousand years were ended. Revelation 9, the star was given the key to the shaft of the abyss and when he opened the abyss, smoke rose from it like the smoke of a gigantic furnace.

And the sun and the sky were darkened by the smoke of the abyss. And out of the smoke, locusts came down on the earth and were given power like that of scorpions on the earth. And they had a king over them, the angel of the abyss, of Apollyon.

I mean, I told you it was an exciting story. And remember, as you watch this and you frame things and you see what's going on, you should be having things go through your mind. Who is this? You have to answer that question.

So I ask you the question, who is the one who has power over the winds and the waves, sickness, and here even a legion of demons? You should be trusting in the Lord Jesus, the risen Savior. You should also be thinking as we look at this passage, wait a second, while the text doesn't directly say it, it's a good inference.

If I meet this demon-possessed man on my own, what would be come of me? If the disciples met him on their own, what would become of them? I want to make sure whatever problems I have, I'm not decoupling from saying, you know what, Jesus said he would never leave me.

Yes, that Jesus right there, nor forsake me. He's powerful. I wonder if Jesus is so powerful over legion, but he's not powerful over your boss. I mean, legion is one thing, but I mean your boss? Jesus is so powerful that nature and demons obey him, but he's not sovereign over a cancer molecule.

Jesus is so powerful over these things that, you know what, other religions might be true as well. I mean, there's some good things in Hinduism and Confucianism and, you know, Islam. There's some good things in there.

See all the different deductions you can be making from your own mind, in your own mind, saying, you know what, this is true. This is Jesus. Nobody does these things. That's the point. Jesus rescuing the enslaved.

And by the way, we'll talk more about demon possession next week. While most of you have probably never been possessed by a demon, at least to my knowledge, you before you were saved and I before I was saved was enslaved by the power of Satan.

Did you know that? It's just as bad, really. You know the passage Ephesians 2, when you were dead in trespasses and sins, and what you once walked following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air.

Can you imagine? Our own sins were damning enough. We were blinded by Satan and enslaved. Did you know 2nd Timothy chapter 2 says that unbelievers are enslaved and doing Satan's will? They think they're free and they're doing Satan's will.

Did you know every unbeliever has a father and a heavenly father with a small age? What does the Bible say about unbelievers' fathers? Father, it's Satan. So dear Christian, I hope you're watching this saying, wow, that's amazing.

That's my Savior. He didn't just die for sinners. He died for me, a sinner. And if he's so powerful, I can rest in him. I can trust in him. I'm so thankful that if it wasn't for Jesus, I would have never been able to enslave myself, free myself, get myself out of bondage, because it is but God being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together in Christ.