Follow Not a Multitude to Do Evil — Joshua Daniel

We now present the Lord's Challenge, our weekly broadcast bringing God's invitation to people everywhere. This is an international broadcasting ministry which is being used of God to bring blessing to many people.

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Jesus and the Gadarene Demoniac

Saviour. Now we are going to turn to Luke and the 8th chapter, 22nd verse, Luke 8, 22. Now it came to pass on a certain day that he went into a ship with his disciples and he said unto them, let us go over onto the other side of the lake and they launched forth.

So here we see the Lord Jesus making a journey across the lake or the sea of Galilee, 26. And they arrived at the country of the Gadarenes, which is over against Galilee. And when he went forth to land, they met him out of the city, a certain man which had devils, long time, and wear no clothes, neither a board in any house, but in the tombs.

And when he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him and with a loved voice said, what have I to do with you, Jesus? Thou son of God, most high, I beseech you, torment me not. Now friends, let's see the sequel, 35th verse.

Then they went out to see what was done and came to Jesus and found the man out of whom the devils were departed, sitting at the feet of Jesus clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid. They also, which saw it, told him by what means he that was possessed of the devils was healed.

Then the whole multitude of the country of the Gadarenes round about besought him to depart from them for they were taken with great fear. And he went up into the ship and returned back again. Now you see a whole multitude here representing the citizens and the inhabitants of that region, completely unanimous, you see?

And what were they unanimous about? We must get this man out of this place. We must get Jesus out of this place. Now, my dear friends, you must know we are confronting a very similar situation today. We do not want the Ten Commandments.

The Ten Commandments and Public Morality

Very strange that the famous basketball team of New York had a coach and this celebrated coach would tell his team, these are not ten suggestions. These are ten commandments. You had better keep them.

So, the Ten Commandments have been reduced by society today to something far less than ten suggestions. And the consequences of it, you know, where can you hold crime and draw the line and say this is where enough is enough.

There's no truth without the Ten Commandments. You cannot have a system of justice and righteousness. So, the hue and cry for some time now has been we do not want the Ten Commandments. Of course, this matter is contested very strongly in the United States where there is quite a body of people who say, no, we need the Ten Commandments.

We must have the Ten Commandments. See what has happened to our schools after we took away Bible reading and prayer from the schools. See what has happened to teenage pregnancy and a whole slew of very negative factors which have submerged the country.

The Gospel’s Transforming Power

Now, my dear friends, here is a situation which seems like a great anomaly. The Bible tells us in Mark 5 and the third verse, no man could bind him or tame him. Now, here was a man who was beyond the control of law enforcement, society, family could not amend him or change him.

Night and day he was in the tombs and they find the same man sitting at the feet of Jesus clothed whereas he was always naked and in his right mind. Just think of that. And they should have been aghast and said we need more of this.

We are not able to handle some of the problems in the country. We need Jesus. What did he ever do to this man? And here he is a civilized person now sitting at the feet of Jesus clothed and in his right mind.

When did we ever see this fellow in his right mind? Now, we want to see more of this. Now, somehow whilst the Christian testimony has become very feeble till the media steps in and says, hey, much of your miracle working healing stuff is all fraud.

Now, I challenge such people, you know. Okay, examine these people. Let there be a bunch of medical men. Is Jesus the same yesterday, today, forever? Now, this is not for your conjecture. Here it is. The Lord working.

Now, I have never seen a communist, an atheist, a Muslim, a Hindu, a Buddhist debate the matter with me because he could see for himself what was being done. What the Lord was doing and quite evidently, no man could ever do it.

So, when the testimony of the Lord should be strong and incontrovertible, we have made it weak, debatable, suspicious. There could be a lot of fraud in all this and commercialism. What have we done? We have degraded the gospel and we go on with our what we call worship.

Worshiping a second rate and highly suspicious kind of presentation of Christ. You know, we call it worship, but this kind of worship does not seem to affect the moral life of the nation. What good is that?

Christians as Salt and Light in a Secular Culture

People in the professions, what do you stand for? You have a right to your opinion and of course, we do not want thought control like the communists cannot operate without it, but more and more thought control is coming into the scheme of things.

Religion is not the realm of the state, no, and laws that are made to prevent the truth from setting people free are laws that are made to be broken because they do no good to the nation. They are ill-conceived and they besmirch the law books.

All right, we have a very meek and mousy little Christians, you know. They can go very well under the name of church mice, you know. They scoot around, squeak a little, not too noisily and they're supposed to be good Christians.

They are out in strength on Sunday morning when the rest of the traffic is not there and nobody is out on the street and they do their thing and quickly disappear before the traffic appears. Now, that goes for our Christianity today.

My dear friends, what good will that do? It's just deluding ourselves, you know. No strong voice for the truth and anything that is heard for morality and truth is called fanaticism in Britain today and anything that goes along with sleaze is acceptable and front page news and that's Britain today.

What does that indicate? We have not been the salt of the earth, plainly. You know, my dear friends, I was in two minds as to bring my shirt of sackcloth. Somehow, I left it behind. I should have brought it along because at least it indicates that as a Christian, I am grieved.

The Cost of a Distracted and Materialistic Life

You know, we can just do our thing and run our lives and lives are getting very busy today. So busy that you have very little time for God. Even school children today, I see some school children on the streets at seven and eight in the evening with their school bags and I wonder what are these children doing out here at this time.

They're coming back from their special classes. You know, the global economy today has thrown open the whole world for a global competition and the mediocre are nowhere and so everybody is pushing their children.

Push, push, push, push, push and some of them are just literally on the brink of breakdown, mental breakdown. They don't have any time to themselves. All right, and entertainment today has become such a place.

Games and entertainment have become so absorbing that it deprives people of sleep. Sleep starvation is another problem and people are not able to cope. In the workplace, it's go, go, go. The economy says you're not earning enough, you need more.

So there is a drive to get money, more money, to buy this and buy that. You must have the money. In the midst of all this, what is the obvious casualty? God himself. You know, talk about the casualties of today, top of the list, God himself.

No time for God. No time to sit still. You know, this mobile phone or the cell phone doesn't give any fellow a moment's rest. They're just jabbering, chattering like a bunch of monkeys. What they have to chat, I cannot say.

But you know, it's just a flick and you've got the other person. You know, you ignore the traffic, you ignore everybody else. I had to tell a fellow, you know, in the lounge, hey, you can't monopolize the place.

He was talking so loudly on his cell phone. The rest of us could hardly do anything else but listen to his nonsensical talk. So that's modern life today. Do people spend half that time which they spend on the phone talking to God?

No. No, we are the people in the gatherings. We're not talking about a people far away. We've no time for him. It's lip worship. Take you to a retreat, it's the same pattern. If you can grab somebody who will listen to your nonsense, you must pour it, pour the stuff into that ear.

Can't talk to God. Get him out of this place. Get him out of our lives. And they were unanimous. What complete misjudgment of Jesus. And now when we see a whole nation at it, have we the courage to speak up that it is a bunch of nonsense you're doing?

And that's no way to run a country. You know, the royal sleaze cake, not cheesecake, sleaze cake has gotten so big the whole nation can have a bite of it. Is there none to tell them that? You know, my dear friends, the Bible tells us in Exodus chapter 23, thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil.

Refusing to Follow the Multitude

23rd chapter of Exodus. Thou shalt not raise a false report. Put not your hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness. Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil. Neither shall thou speak in a cause to decline after many to rest judgment.

You know, declining after many to rest judgment, to pervert judgment. That's what is happening today. Declining after many. You know, everybody says it, let's do it. Everybody thinks so, so it must be right.

You see, the big people in the land are into it, so it must be okay. Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil. Neither shall thou speak in a cause to decline after many to rest judgment. Well, my dear friends, looking into the old British history now, I think the person who reigned only for four days or five days was Lady Jane Grey.

She was put up to rule the land, to save the country from Mary, who instituted one of the greatest persecutions in the land. And when this poor girl of only 17, you know, when she went up to the scaffold or to the place of execution, the executioner knelt down and asked her pardon.

And she said, do it quickly. And she asked pardon of God. She repented. Of course, once again, England slid back into superstition following her death. But still, truth and righteousness prevailed. Now, is this the time in history when Britain will forever bury truth and justice?

At such a time, we've got a bunch of people who count for nothing. They only count their pounds or their money. They count for little. Now, we don't see that in the Bible. When God raised Joseph, when God raised Daniel, there were men who could stand alone and fancy that the Lord Jesus Christ said to this very person in this tumultuous place, well, if he was a demoniac of the Gadarenes, Gadarenes seemed to be just the kind of nursery for such demoniacs.

Faith, Cultural Influence, and Spiritual Deception

There was no faith there. You see, where there is no faith, you will have demoniacs. You will have people driven by the devil. Their thought, their authorship, you know, these authors who are familiarizing occult things and putting it into the minds of little children, familiarizing them with occult practices.

You know, they're undermining the nation. Whether you like it or not, you're going to fill our mental institutions and psych wards to the breaking point. You will have people who will not be able to even get a decent night's sleep.

Insecure people. And you see, that is the great craze of the world today. But what did the Lord Jesus say to this man? The whole multitude asked him to leave. And 38th verse, Luke 8, 38. Now the man out of whom the devils were departed besought him that he might be with him.

Quite a contrary wish. Either this man was in his right mind or the multitude was in their right mind. You see, folks, completely different mind. And he stuck to his mind. He said, I'm going to be with you no matter what the multitude says.

Standing Firm Through Repentance and a Clean Conscience

You see, today, the mass of the evangelical world has gone after a very weak, watery form of Christianity. And that's the thing that is most popular. You know, fellows won't stand alone. You know, when I followed the Lord Jesus, when it came to college life, I really didn't find myself greatly tested.

Because my foundations were right. Deep repentance, turning away from sin, getting a clean conscience, putting things right with God, confession to whomsoever I needed to confess, humbling myself. These basics helped me to see through this shallow kind of Christian life that was popularly presented.

I said, now, I'm not going to be taken in by this watery, watered down stuff. No matter if I had to stand alone, I'll stand alone. You know, people who are, you know, backbones of butter will only seek a congenial crowd.

Everybody says, hallelujah. Yes, I'll say hallelujah. Everybody says, this is okay. I'll say this is okay. Flirting around all the time is okay. Fine. It's okay. Because Christians do it, you know. Let me tell you, a Christian has no time for flirting about.

He has the will of God to do. He stands alone, no matter what the crowd says. The whole crowd. And you know, they were willing to accept him now, that he had a sane mind. They said, oh, this fellow is okay.

But they did not accept the person who had made him whole. They did not want that. You know, if we go around healing a people, everybody says, fine. Oh, this great man has come. It's so nice to have these big healing meetings and all this.

It's all fine. But the one who is behind it, the Lord Jesus, no, we don't want him. We don't want him in our home. We don't want him in our married life. We don't want him at the altar. We want our own freewheeling kind of life.

Now, that is what goes for Christianity today. But here, the Lord said to this man, 39th verse, return to your own house and show how great things God has done unto you. And did he say, Lord, it's going to be tough.

It's going to be very tough. They don't want you and you want me to go and tell them about you. And while you are here, they don't want you. Did he give any excuses? No. He just went and did what the Lord said.

Go, return to your own house and show how great things God has done unto you. And he went his way and published throughout the whole city how great things Jesus had done unto him. You see, when people fill the land who cannot identify God with Jesus and Jesus with God, and when a nation decides that in the name of democracy, they must accommodate this bunch of people who feel that Jesus is no God, then you're soon going to have the morals of those people.

The Lordship of Christ and the Source of Freedom

And then you will have a vote in parliament that polygamy is right. Why only four people like the others, four wives? We will have 40. That will be more convenient. Oh yes, you don't want Jesus. That is the crux of the problem.

You want all the nice stuff, all the fluffy stuff, all the whitewash, all the civilizing factors. All right, you exercise your democracy, which means going out into the streets and rioting and beating up the police or stoning them.

Unheard of things, you know. Why don't you return to your own lands and try the same trick and see how it works? They won't dare. It is only with the feeble-minded that their strong-arm tactics can work.

Morally and feeble people who cannot say, here is Jesus, the savior of the world. Our freedom of thought and the freedom of expression, our freedoms are derived from Jesus, not from some strange political theory which originated in Marx or some other author.

Folks, a gutless people. Now, if Peter was such a man and if you had a bunch of fishermen around the Lord Jesus Christ, who were like some of us modern Christians, I do not know what future the gospel would have had.

But of course, God would still choose his own people. So, this is another for people who are declared, who are ready to declare the author of their freedom, the author of their salvation, the author of their joy and elation.

Not just a people who will sit in a docile manner and twiddle their tongues. No, I don't see it in the Bible. I don't see it where there is character and love for the truth. So, my dear friends, you know, we are having a problem with some of the television channels.

Broadcasting Truth Without Fear

Some of them are almost, you know, some of them are committed to freedom of speech, as it should be. Others are afraid to carry our broadcast. You know, the ones who are most afraid to carry our broadcast, Christian channels, the secular channels, you give them money, they will carry it.

And some of them have sense enough to say, some of these things need to be spoken. And it is time that Britain heard these things. My dear friends, the Lord Jesus was leaving the place, but leaving a man who knew how to broadcast the truth.

You know, the most indisciplined kind of people can't make the real disciples, you know. And the kind of life today that we have today is discipline in every field except in your personal spiritual life.

Does it make any sense? No, it simply does not make any sense. Your whole life and the product of your life will depend upon your communion with God. How strong is the intake, so powerful will be the output.

And you don't want the input, but you want the output. How can you have it? It makes no sense. The kind of lifestyle that we seem to root for. But friends, this man did it. It can be done and it should be done.

Sitting at the Feet of Jesus

We do not follow a multitude to do evil. The Lord gives a sufficient spiritual muzzle to say, this is black and this is white. I am not going to mix the two. Now, let us see that we are found at the feet of Jesus like this man, where you receive that kind of strength and stamina.

There's no place where you will receive this as at the feet of Jesus. Let us pray. Let us tell God, Lord, my output is very weak. It seems to be just blown away by the winds. It's because my input is not strong.

Lord Jesus, I want to sit at your feet. All my problems stem from this failure. I need to sit at your feet. Here I am. No strength to stand against the multitude. While the unanimous voice is against Jesus, the savior of the world to carry this message against the din of the crowd and carry it effectively.

Lord Jesus, I need to be in touch with you. Save me from the love of popularity and the back-patting crowd. Save me from myself. Gracious Father, we need the cross. We need the cross. We need to be saved from ourselves.

We need the cross this morning to be crucified with Christ, to be rid of our selfishness and self-will, to be saved from ourselves. Lord Jesus, we need you. We thank you for those that stood alone in history.

For Jesus, for the truth, even in this country, against the misinterpreted laws, against untruth, how many stood? But when Britain is awash today with a sea, a tsunami of religious relativism, moral relativism, it's all right because everybody does it.

Father, have mercy upon those who with their din and their rioting want to pervert the truth. O Lord our God, inject some moral tonic into the nation's enfeebled veins. Replace this buttered-down backbone with the sword of truth, the steel of truth.

O Lord our God, have mercy upon us preachers. Our crime is very great. Save us, Lord, from getting adrift with just the formalism, the showmanship, all the external commercialism that has weakened and almost destroyed Christian truth and testimony.

Save us, save us, we pray. Oh, do thou come to the parishes and the parish priests, pastors. How many had the courage to stand alone in the parishes of Britain? O Lord our God, come again to this land and have mercy upon us, we pray.

Some of these might be young people, but they can be a flame for Christ while some of us older people sit on our haunches. Have mercy upon these younger people and visit them. In Jesus' holy name. Amen.

Magazine Christ is Victor at the Layman's Evangelical Fellowship UK, P .O. Box 737, London SW2, 4XT, United Kingdom. View and order books written by Joshua Daniel at www .lef-beautifulbooks .co .uk. For more information about the Layman's Evangelical Fellowship International, visit our website at www .lefi .org.

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