WWUTT 1983 Jesus vs the Natural and Supernatural (Matthew 8:23-24)

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In Matthew chapter 8, we have read about how Jesus has power and authority even over sickness and disease.

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What we're going to read about today is how Jesus has authority over the natural and even over the supernatural when we understand the text.

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This is When We Understand the Text, a daily Bible commentary that we may be equipped for every good work in Jesus Christ our

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Lord. Please tell others about our ministry at www .utt .com.

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Here once again is Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. We're back to our study in Matthew chapter 8, and we're finishing up the chapter today with the story of Jesus calming a storm and then saving men from demons.

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In Matthew 8, verses 23 to 34, which I'm reading from the Legacy Standard Bible, hear the word of the

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Lord. And when he got into the boat, his disciples followed him. And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being covered with the waves.

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But Jesus himself was sleeping. And they came to him and got him up, saying, Save us,

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Lord, we are perishing. And he said to them, Why are you so cowardly, you men of little faith?

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Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the sea, and it became perfectly calm.

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And the men marveled and said, What kind of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?

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And when he came to the other side into the region of the Gadarenes, two men who were demon -possessed met him as they were coming out of the tombs.

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They were so extremely violent that no one could pass by that way.

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And behold, they cried out, saying, What do we have to do with you, son of God?

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Have you come here to torment us before the time? Now there was a herd of many swine feeding at a distance from them.

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And the demons began to plead with him, saying, If you are going to cast us out, send us into that herd of pigs.

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And he said to them, Go. And coming out, they went into the swine, and behold, the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea and perished in the waters.

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Now the herdsmen ran away and went into the city and reported everything, including what had happened to the demoniacs.

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And behold, the whole city came out to meet Jesus, and when they saw him, they pleaded with him to leave their region.

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So here are the last two stories that we read about in Matthew chapter 8. Just to kind of recap what we've read so far, remember there was a statement about Jesus' authority at the very end of the

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Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 7, 29. When Jesus had finished teaching, the crowds were astonished at his words, because he spoke not as their teachers or their scribes, but as one having authority.

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And we're reading about Christ's authority here through chapters 8 and 9, and even up to the beginning of 10 .1,

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where Jesus sends out his disciples and gives them authority because Christ had the authority to do so.

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We've seen Jesus' authority over sickness and disease. That's what we read about in those first three miracles of chapter 8,

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Jesus cleansing a leper. Then there's the centurion's faith, healing the centurion's servant,

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Jesus healing Peter's mother -in -law. And that section ends with a reference to the

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Old Testament. This is fulfillment of what was spoken through the prophet

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Isaiah. He himself took our infirmities and carried away our diseases.

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And Jesus' power over sickness and death shows how Christ has the power even over our sins.

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He has the authority to be able to forgive sins, which only God can do, because of course

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Christ is God. That's what's being demonstrated here by his authority. Now a crowd forms, and Jesus gives orders to cross the

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Sea of Galilee. And there's a couple of disciples that run up to him. We read about this yesterday.

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With one, a scribe, saying, I'll follow you wherever you go, Jesus says, we're basically out here homeless doing this.

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Are you sure you understand what you're committing yourself to? Another of the disciples said to him, Lord, permit me first to go and bury my father.

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And Jesus said to him, follow me and allow the dead to bury their own dead. Now this is in contrast with the way that Jesus called his first disciples, which we read about at the end of chapter four.

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We don't know exactly which disciples are with Jesus in the boat when he crosses, but we know it had to have been at least

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Peter and Andrew and James and John. For those are the four names that are mentioned at the end of Matthew four.

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And when James and John are called, they were with their father Zebedee. And as soon as Jesus calls them, they drop their nets and they leave their father in the boat and they go and they follow

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Jesus. So they were willing to leave everything to follow Christ. But these two disciples here, the scribe and then another man, they were not willing to drop whatever it was that they were doing and follow

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Jesus. They still had some other tasks that they considered to be more important. And so Jesus challenging their hearts that they might recognize you're not as genuine as you say you are.

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And may that be a test for us to examine ourselves and realize the genuineness that is in our own hearts when we've been called to follow

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Jesus. So that's what we finished with last week. And here we are with Jesus calming the storm in verses 23 to 27.

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Jesus got into the boat and his disciples followed him because remember, the order is given back in verse 18 that a crowd is forming.

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So they're going to depart for the other side of the sea. This is from Capernaum to the other side of the

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Sea of Galilee. That journey hasn't happened yet. So he gives orders to cross the sea.

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That's when the two disciples come up and say, hey, we want to follow you. But but Jesus challenges their hearts.

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So when he gets into the boat, the genuine disciples, those that have been willing to drop whatever they were doing and follow

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Jesus, they've gotten into the boat with him. And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea so that the boat was being covered with the waves.

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But Jesus himself was sleeping. Now my dad has a funny little anecdote to go along with this.

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So there's this big storm. It's rocking the boat. The disciples are panicked. They think they're going to die.

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But Jesus is asleep in the boat, even in the midst of this storm. And my dad,

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I've heard him share this before in the in some of the sermons I've listened to my dad do. And he'll tell this story.

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And then he'll in a very serious tone, he'll look at the congregation, he'll go, I just I just want you to realize something from this story.

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That a man's ability to sleep through anything is a Christ like quality.

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I've used that joke a few times myself. And guys, now you've got it. You can show that to your wife.

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If she's ever complaining to you about how you just sleep through anything, you can say, babe, it's a quiet, it's a

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Christ like quality. Look at this right here. I'm just being like Jesus by sleeping through anything, right?

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So anyway, the disciples get to him and they wake him up and they say, save us,

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Lord. We're perishing. And he said to them, why are you so cowardly, you men of little faith?

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Back in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus even called his disciples evil. Remember when he talked about how, you know, what man is there among you who when his son asks for a loaf will give him a stone or if he asks for a fish, you will not give him a snake.

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Will you? If you then being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father who is in heaven, he who is good, give what is good to those who ask of him.

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So there in the Sermon on the Mount, he had called his own disciples evil. You're evil and you know how to give good gifts to your children.

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So how much more does your father in heaven know how to know how to give good gifts to those who ask of him?

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So here he looks at the disciples and calls them cowardly. Do you not know that you've got the son of man with you in the boat?

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Do you really think that God is going to allow anything to happen to you with me right here asleep in the boat?

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Jesus can sleep comfortably because he knows nothing's going to happen to them. But the disciples do not yet know that they don't trust

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Jesus. And so Jesus gets up and he rebukes the winds in the sea and it became perfectly calm.

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So that through this testimony, the men marveled and said, what kind of man is this that even the winds and the sea obey him?

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And so it was through the storm that they might be able to see the authority and the power that Jesus had even over creation itself.

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Jesus is the one who made the wind and the waves. And so he has the power and the authority to call them to be calm and they obey him again.

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Another another demonstration of Christ's authority here in chapter eight.

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Even to this day, God uses storms, these natural disasters to get our attention and humble us to recognize his power and that God is still judge over the face of the earth.

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In Job 37, it talks about how God loads the thick clouds with moisture.

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He scatters his lightnings. He's the one who turns the clouds around and around to do what he sends the storm out to do, whether for correction or for land or for love.

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All of this is by his doing. So you'll see there. Why does God cause these these huge disasters like this?

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The storm that just hit Florida. There was the storm that was threatening Southern California a couple of weeks ago.

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There's the fires that have happened in Maui, all of these natural disasters that we read about.

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Why does God cause these things to happen? And then again, Job 37 tells us for correction.

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Or for his land. Or for love. To correct us that we would recognize our own fragility and those things that we have built and created can easily be taken from us and snuffed out by a storm beyond our ability to stop or control.

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God is the one who controls it. We don't control it. But it draws us to correction, to humble ourselves and recognize we cannot control these things in the earth.

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God causes these things for the land. You know, even a storm is out there to water the land and cause it to produce and flourish.

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Even fires God uses in this way that it would clear a land and then the green vegetation of the land able to grow back up from this again.

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Or God does it for love. Because he loves us, God would cause this immense storm, yes, to humble us and call our attention to him.

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As it says in 2 Corinthians 1 .9, these things happen to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.

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That could very well be God's motivation behind it. That you would trust in God and not in the things of this world.

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Consider Psalm 107 verse 23. Those who go down to the sea in ships, who do business on many waters, they have seen the works of Yahweh and his wondrous deeds in the deep.

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He spoke and set up a stormy wind which raised up the waves of the sea.

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They went up to the heavens. They went down to the depths. Their soul melted away in the calamity.

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They staggered and swayed like drunken men and all of their wisdom was swallowed up.

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Then they cried to Yahweh in their trouble and he brought them out of their distresses.

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He caused the storm to stand still so that its waves were hushed.

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And then they were glad because they were quiet. So he led them to their desired haven.

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Let them give thanks to Yahweh for his loving kindness and for his wondrous deeds to the sons of men.

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Let them exalt him also in the assembly of the people and praise him at the seat of the elders.

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So we see that God will even allow these things or cause these things to happen to get our attention.

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And when we have trusted in God and called upon him for deliverance, he will bring us to our desired haven.

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And may our desired haven be that very place where Christ dwells in heaven above in glory.

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And so we see this demonstration of Christ's power in his calming the storm even before his disciples and they say, what kind of man is this that even the winds and the sea obey him?

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God used this storm to draw them closer to Christ. Let's look at the next demonstration of Christ's authority in this last story of chapter eight.

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We go from reading about Jesus authority over the natural to his authority over the supernatural verses 28 to 34.

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And when he came to the other side into the region of the Gadarenes, okay, this would have been the east side of the sea of Galilee.

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And in this area, the region of the Gadarenes, this is a Gentile area. And we know it was

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Gentile because you have the mention of the herd of pigs. The Jews would not have been herding pigs.

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That's only Gentiles who do that. To a Jew, a pig was an unclean animal. So we know

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Jesus has arrived in an area in which the Gentiles dwelled. So we came to the region of the

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Gadarenes, two men who were demon possessed met him as they were coming out of the tombs.

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They were so extremely violent that no one could pass by that way. Now you've surely heard this story before and Jesus addressing the men with the demons or in the other accounts, the man with the demons, the man responds and says that he is legion, right?

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Or the demons in the man respond by saying we are legion because we are many. That name doesn't come up here, does it?

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We don't see the name legion. That's only in Mark's account and in Luke's. It's interesting that Matthew doesn't include that, but this is that same story.

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And in Matthew's account, there's two men. That doesn't mean that there's a contradiction here. Only Mark and Luke decide to mention one, but Matthew records that there were actually two men who were there possessed with many demons, though they don't identify themselves by name.

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It's many demons that occupy these two men. Jesus sends them into a herd of pigs. So it wasn't just two demons into two pigs.

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It was many demons that went into many swine. So in verse 29, behold, they cried out saying, what do we have to do with you, son of God?

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Have you come here to torment us before the time? So even these demons recognize

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Jesus' authority. And here he is in the land, so he must be there to torment them.

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What do we have to do with you? What have we done to deserve this? We've not offended you in any way. We're not interfering with what you're doing.

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You go on your way. You let us do what we're doing. In verse 30, it says, now there was a herd of many swine feeding at a distance from them, and the demons began to plead with him saying, if you are going to cast us out, send us into the herd of swine.

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Now why they request that, we don't know for sure. But one thing that we can glean about demons from scripture is that they tend to be very territorial.

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So these particular demons probably like that region, and they wanted to remain there.

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They didn't want to go be cast out into some sort of spiritual place where they would be locked in chains, however spiritual those chains would be.

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But that's mentioned in both 1st and 2nd Peter, that God knows how to keep them imprisoned until the judgment that comes at the proper time.

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So these demons are probably saying, hey, we like to inhabit this area, and this is where we want to remain. Don't judge us until the appointed time.

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If you're going to cast us out, then cast us out into these pigs over here, into this herd of swine.

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So Jesus says in verse 32, go. And coming out, they went into the swine, and behold, the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea and perished in the waters.

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Now I recently went through this story with my kids in the Gospel of Mark. And it's in Mark, of course, where it's just one man and the demons that he's possessed with call themselves

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Legion. These stories don't contradict one another, though people like to say that they do. Skeptics will say that these stories are contradictions, but no, they're still the same.

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It's the same story. But with the account that we've got in Mark, my daughter asked me this.

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She said, why would Jesus cast the demons into those pigs who would then go run down into the sea and perish in the waters?

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And I said, well, what is it that revelation tells us about where God is going to cast the demons in the final judgment?

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And even my eight -year -old daughter knows this. She said, well, he's going to cast them into the lake of fire.

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And the Sea of Galilee was a lake. It wasn't really a sea. It's called a Sea of Galilee, but it's a lake.

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I said, that's right. God is going to cast the demons into the lake of fire, along with Satan and all who followed them, and they will go away into eternal punishment.

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It's the way that Jesus puts it at the end of Matthew 25. So knowing that Jesus is going to cast them into the lake of fire, then what does this represent with Jesus casting the demons into pigs that then run down into the lake?

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And she said, well, this is showing us the way that Jesus is going to judge the demons even at the very end.

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And I said, that's exactly right. And this is, again, a demonstration of Christ's authority.

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He has the authority over demons themselves. And so that his disciples would see this, demons being cast into swine, which run down into the lake, and they perish, they're going to see this and know this is the

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Christ who has the authority and will judge the devil and his angels in the very end.

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Now this is really quite a terrifying thing. To see somebody judge demons in this way that will go into pigs that then run into the lake and perish.

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And we know from Mark's account that it was a lot of pigs. It was thousands of pigs that died in this run into the lake.

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And the people see this happen. And this is a pretty terrifying demonstration of power that has just taken place because these men were violent men, so violent no one could pass that way.

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Two men who could overtake any group gathering of people that would travel through that direction.

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So it was so bad they had to go around from that place. These are demon possessed men that live among tombs and no one could go that direction.

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And yet Jesus has the authority and power to heal those men and they become calm and perfectly fine.

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So the herdsmen who were there with the pigs when they saw this happen, it says in verse 33, they ran away and they went into the city and reported everything, including what had happened to the demoniacs.

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So you would think that people would want to run out and say to Jesus, hooray, thank you for rescuing our area and healing those demoniacs so that we can now travel by this way again.

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That's not what they did. Behold, the whole city came out to meet Jesus and when they saw him, they pleaded with him to leave their region.

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The demons were pleading to not have to leave the region. They wanted to stay there until the appointed time, they said.

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But the people wanted Jesus to leave the region and it shows just how dark their hearts really were, that they would rather have the demoniacs than the one who has authority and power over those demoniacs, over those demons.

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The demons were scary enough, but the one that has authority and power even over the demons is scarier still.

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And indeed that's also true and also a foreshadowing of things that will happen in the end times. When destruction is coming upon the world, it says at the end of Revelation chapter six, the kings of the earth will flee to the mountains.

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They will beg for the stones to fall on them and cover them for the great day of wrath. The day of their judgment has come.

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They want to be hidden from the lamb that is on the throne. The lamb, they want to be hidden from the lamb because even this

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God who is gentle to his people is terrifying to those who do not know him and they want to have nothing to do with him.

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Go away from us, hide us, that we do not have to see your holiness and the judgment of God will come upon them and they will be destroyed.

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Only by faith in Jesus Christ can we escape the day of judgment. And pastors have got to be warning people even now, judgment is upon us.

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We see it through natural disasters. We see it in the way that people behave like they are demon possessed.

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We see that right here in our culture. So how are you going to respond to these things like the disciples who marveled at Jesus and said even the winds in the sea obey him, drawing closer to Christ or would you respond like the

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Gentiles across the sea who plead with Jesus to leave their region? May the things that happen, the demonstration of Christ's power that we see even in the world around us cause us to draw all the more near to Christ that he would deliver us from judgment into his eternal kingdom.

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Heavenly Father, we thank you for what we've read here, the demonstration of your authority over the natural and over the supernatural so that we would fear nothing.

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We don't fear even the natural disasters that come in this world, though they may be extremely inconvenient for us and even oppress us for a time.

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It still causes us to draw near to Christ. We don't fear those things that are supernatural.

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The devil is at work in this world. He is prowling around like a roaring lion, as we read in first Peter five.

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But we do not fear him, as said in James four, draw near to God and he will draw near to you.

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Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Teach us to resist temptation and sin and draw near to Christ that we may we may be delivered from this fallen world into your perfect kingdom.

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Teach us to continue to go out with the message of that gospel to this world so that others will hear and be saved.

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It's in Jesus name that we pray. Amen. You can find a complete list of videos, books, devotionals and other resources online at WWUTT .com.