Sovereign Over the Spiritual Realm

The Kingdom Parables and Mark’s Literary Structure

If you would, take out your Bible tables and turn with me to the Gospel of Mark and go to chapter 5. We are going to be examining tonight one of the most famous accounts of Jesus interacting with a person who was demon possessed.

This is a story which is told in all three of the Synoptic Gospels and it is a sermon message that has been preached many times and it's just a story that people tend to remember because there are so many parts of the story that are just, cause our imaginations to sort of expand with what in the world is happening and looking at it.

But before we read the text, I just want to call your attention to something I said in our last study, I know it's been a couple of weeks now. We are at a portion of the Gospel of Mark where Mark has just given us a series of parables that Jesus gave, the parable of the soil, the parable of the light hidden, the parable of the seed growing, the parable of the mustard seed, and he follows up those four parables with four miracle events and the way that I have said is I have said the parables were kingdom parables and the miracles were kingdom miracles and the parables were meant to point to the kingdom which is that which pertains to the king and then the miracles point to Christ as the king of the kingdom.

And so there is a method to Mark's writing, there is an outline that we see that is happening here, this isn't just put together haphazardly, neither do I believe it's all strictly chronological because again if you read some of the Gospels it comes in different order but at the same time we get this information given to us in a specific way and we have seen Jesus or we are seeing Jesus demonstrating his sovereignty over four main areas.

The first is his sovereignty over nature, the next would be his sovereignty over demons, which is what we are going to look at today, and then next week we will see his sovereignty over disease, and finally his sovereignty over death.

And so if I were more creative I would have figured out a way to say nature with a D, but I didn't. So that's okay, but this is the outline. So you remember the way Jesus demonstrated his sovereignty over nature, was they were in the boat together, the windstorm came on the Sea of Galilee, Jesus is asleep in the back of the boat and the disciples cry out, Lord do you not care that we are perishing?

A very profound question. And Jesus stands up, he rebukes the wind and the waves, they become like glass and then he rebukes them for their lack of faith and we end that narrative immediately on the shore of the story that we are going to read today, which is the shores of the area known as the area of the Gerasenes.

The Gerasenes, Gadarenes, and Gergesenes

So we are going to read now beginning in Mark chapter 5 verse 1. They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes, and when Jesus had stepped out of the boat, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit.

He lived among the tombs and no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain, for he had often been bound with shackles and chains, but he wrenched the chains apart and he broke the shackles in pieces.

No one had the strength to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones. When he saw Jesus from afar he ran and fell down before him and crying out with a loud voice he said, What have you to do with me Jesus, son of the most high God?

I adjure you by God, do not torment me. For he was saying to him, Come out of the man you unclean spirit. And Jesus asked him, What is your name? And he replied, My name is Legion, for we are many. And he begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country.

Now a great herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside and they begged him saying, Send us to the pigs, let us enter them. So he gave them permission and the unclean spirits came out and entered the pigs and the herd numbering about two thousand rushed down to the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the sea.

The herdsmen fled and told it to the city and the country and the people came to see what it was that had happened. They came to Jesus and saw the demon possessed man, the one who had had the Legion sitting there clothed and in his right mind and they were afraid.

And those who had seen it described to them what had happened to the demon possessed man and to the pigs and they began to beg Jesus to depart from their region. And he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed with demons begged him that he might be with him and he did not permit him but said to him, Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you and how he has had mercy on you.

And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him and everyone marveled. May God add his blessing to the reading of his word and let us pray. Father I thank you for your word, may you now keep me from error as I preach and teach your word.

May we have the opportunity to engage with the text, ask questions about the text, seek to learn what your word says about this very famous story and maybe see insights that we have not seen before. May we be taught by your spirit all these things in Jesus' name, Amen.

Demonic Possession, Human Misery, and the Name Legion

Well as I said in my opening this is one of the more famous stories of demon possession in the Bible and even in all of history. This particular story has been told not only in the Bible but it has been told in film, it has been told in writings of other kinds, people trying to embellish the story, explain the story, give commentary on the story, people just find great interest in this.

And there is great interest in our world in the subject of demon possession. Can't tell you how many times I've gone to teach at Set Free and had the men come to me after my lesson and ask me questions about demon possession.

One time I remember a man asking me very specifically if I believed that I had ever met someone who was demon possessed. And the answer is I don't know, I've met some people that were, seemed to me to be out of their minds.

I've met some people that were in very sad situations where they did not seem to have their faculties about them. But I don't know whether or not I would say that person was possessed by a demon. One story that I'm reminded of is when I used to work in security, Aaron Bell, you remember Aaron preached at the conference, Aaron Bell got me a job a few years ago, a little part-time job to do security at a place where his aunt owned, or worked for the owner of a parking lot downtown and it was right adjacent to the Suns Stadium, that's how long ago it was, the Suns, not the Jumbo Shrimp, so it's been a few years.

But I would stand outside the stadium and I would take, as the cars came in I would give them tickets and they would park and take money and it was basically a parking attendant slash security, I used to say security because it sounded cooler than parking attendant, but it was my job to keep an eye on the cars so we'll say it was security.

And there was a lady who was homeless and across from where we would take money she would stand and stare and her clothing was very dirty, her shoes were worn to nothing and her face was unkept and both Aaron and I and other people who worked there had tried to approach her, offer her food and things like that and she would not respond without, there were times when she would shout but there wasn't any seeming faculty there to really deal with what we were trying to engage her on.

And I am not in any way indicating that I believe this woman was demon possessed, I'm just pointing to the fact that I remember this woman specifically being somebody that I looked at and I felt great pity for the condition that she was in and it seemed like even sometimes they would come and pick her up and take her and she'd end up right back there and I saw her dozens and dozens of times over the several years that I did that job.

And the reason why I bring this up is I think sometimes when we read this story part of us almost look at it as this sort of amazing thing, here's a man who's breaking chains and screaming out and everything.

I think we often miss the human element of it though, that this is a man who is in probably the worst condition, one of the worst conditions that we can read about in the Bible of someone who is just completely and utterly overtaken by the demonic realm.

I mean we talk about, Brother Andy is going to start his class in a couple weeks, Job. And Job certainly is a man who we could say none of us would want to be put through the trials of Job. To have our family taken, to have our livelihood destroyed, to have Satan have the opportunity to attack us at every level and in every way and then have our wives say just curse God and die.

You know, there's a lot in the story of Job that is sad to think about. But this story is equally sad at the beginning. Thank God it doesn't end sad. But it begins with a man who is, who has to be in one of the most pitiful states that anybody's ever been in.

He is a man filled, as we'll see in just a moment when we get there, filled with demons. He doesn't just have one, he's got so many that they call themselves by the name legion, which was a reference to the Roman legions, which meant thousands of soldiers.

Now that doesn't mean necessarily there were thousands of demons in him, but it does mean that there were plentiful to the point that they called themselves, what? He says we. Yeah, yeah, there are more than one.

And one's enough, right? One demon possession would be enough and this man has an entire legion. So I just wanted to, for us to consider that as we go into the text, thinking the pitiful nature of this man.

I think that brings even more weight to bear on when we see what Christ does for him and the love that's shown to him by Christ when the deliverance comes. So, let's begin up at the beginning again. It says they came to the other side of the sea.

This of course is after the situation on the boat with the wind and the waves. And they come to the country of the Gerasenes. And I have to stop right away. I hate to do just like read one verse and stop, but I have to stop because right away we find a issue between the various translations.

And this is what is known as a textual variant. There is a textual variant here. I have all of the variant readings in my notes. And what's interesting is it's not just a textual variant, but it's even more than that because it causes to question where this is happening.

Because one says it is in the country of the Gerasenes and the other says it is in the area of the Gadarenes. Now, what's interesting about that is that's not the same thing. The Gerasenes, Gerasa is a place, and I have a map here that shows, I know you can't see it, but Gerasa is further down and south of what would be if you imagine this.

So, you would imagine you have the Sea of Galilee, Gerasa would be down here, and Gadara would be closer, but neither one of them are on the shore. That's the part that's difficult, is this is a place that's obviously on the shore because they just come up off the shore, right?

So, that leads to the question of, is the writer, Matthew, Mark, and Luke all mention it, and they all mention something different, is the writer referring to a specific place or is he referring to a specific area?

And I think it's the area, that's why it says the country of this place, or the area of this place. Later on, it's going to be called the Decapolis. Now, the word Decapolis means the ten cities, and these were ten Gentile cities which all were in this region, and all of these cities were, again, Gentile, and we know that, what's the one herd?

Pigs, right? So, we know this isn't a Jewish place, this is a Gentile place, but this is all on the east side of the Sea of Galilee. So, they've traveled across the Sea of Galilee, they've come to the shore, and the King James Version, again, it says the Gadarenes, Mark 5, 1, the ESV says the Gerasenes.

If you look at the Gospel of Luke, you don't have to turn there right away, we will be looking at the other Gospels, but just for a moment, it's the same thing, Luke's Gospel says Gerasenes, and in the ESV, in the King James, it says Gadarenes, but in Matthew, this is where it's different.

In Matthew's Gospel, in the ESV, it says Gadarenes, which is weird because it says Gerasenes in the others, but in Matthew 28, it says the Gergesenes, which is different completely. Gergesa is an entirely different city, which creates an issue of where is it, and my understanding is it's right here, and this area would have been known as the area of the Gerasenes, and Gergesa would be in that area as well.

So, it's all, in fact, I want to read something about Gergesa. Of the three readings, Gergesa, though it is the minority reading, it's in the King James, but it is the minority reading, is most likely the right location because it is the only region close enough to the sea that had a steep bank, and the story says that the pigs go and jump off the steep bank into the water, so it's probably that is the area, or they had a long run to the sea, but it's interesting when you begin to compare and contrast the different, not only the different translations, but even within a single translation, you have, like I said with the King James, two places it says Gadara, and the other it says Gergesa, which is just, and you would think it's so close, and that could be part of the reason for the text of Ovarian, it is so close in the way that it would be written, but at the end of the day, I don't like to just hit you with trivia knowledge, but this is important because it's not a contradiction, this is speaking of an area.

Just like if I said, a lot of times people ask me, Keith, where do you live? And I'll say, well, I live in Jacksonville. That's actually not true, but Callahan is Jacksonville, but better. Because if I told somebody Callahan, nobody is going to know what that is.

People send me emails, hey, where is your church? Well, the church is in Jacksonville, but they'll say, where do you live? I live in, well, basically Jacksonville, Northwest Jacksonville, also known as Callahan.

And it's an area thing. What's another way that we talk about this area? Northeast Florida, right? Or in reality, South Georgia. Jacksonville is more South Georgia than Northeast. So this is not a contradiction, but this does lead to another issue.

I want you to turn in your Bibles to Matthew's Gospel, and I do want you to see something that has been accused of being a contradiction. Go to Matthew 8, hold your place in Mark, but go to Matthew 8, and notice in Matthew 8, verse 28, it says these words, and when they came to the other side, to the country of the Gadarenes, or the Gergesenes, and that, what's yours says, Gergesenes, right brother?

Gergesenes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There met him two possessed with devils, coming out of the tombs exceedingly fierce, so that no man might pass by that way. Now that's a pretty big distinction, and I would even go as far as to say a big difference.

It is a big difference when you say, in Mark's Gospel and in Luke's Gospel, there was a man who was bound with chains and demonic possessed, but then in Matthew's Gospel it says very clearly there were two demon possessed men, or two men possessed with devils, and so we have to then step back and ask the question, why is it that the stories are different?

Well, it's different for a reason that we are not told, but we can come to certain conclusions. First of all, we can say that difference does not mean contradiction, and I have taught on this before, especially in my class in the academy where I talk about how to harmonize texts, just because two stories tell something differently does not mean that it is a contradictory account.

For instance, again, using my own life as an example, on Monday I took Hope, my daughter, and we went and saw the Mario movie. She had been wanting to see it, so we went and saw the Mario movie together because she was out of school for Easter, so they had Monday off for Easter, so I took her to see the Mario movie.

Now, is that true? Yeah, I mean, it's true as far as it goes, right? But what I didn't tell you is that I also took J .J. and Faith. Now, by telling you the second part does not make the first part untrue.

I did take Hope, and we did go and see the Mario movie, but I also took J .J. and Faith, and it was, pray for me, it was my first time taking all three of them alone, but it worked, it worked good, but they're getting older.

The point that I'm making is because the second story had more information, it doesn't make the first part of the story untrue. And the same way last week we talked about the resurrection story, you read all four resurrection accounts, sometimes it talks about one angel, sometimes it talks about two angels, sometimes angels outside the tomb, sometimes angels inside the tomb, but there is a way to harmonize the whole story, and that's what Brother Mike Ward did with the Sunday School class, because we talked about it the week before, was he walked through and showed how to harmonize the accounts.

And the harmonization here I think is very easy. There are two men, but one is going to take the prominent position, and I'm confident that this man becomes the focal point of what's happening, but it doesn't mean that he was the only one there at the time.

So, just wanted to point that out, that there are three accounts, and one of the accounts says that there were two men, not just one. So, now we can go back to Mark's Gospel and at least get to verse 2.

That was 20 minutes in verse 1, we can move on now to verse 2. It says, When Jesus stepped out of the boat, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, who lived among the tombs.

No one could bind him any more, not even with a chain. For he had been bound with shackles and chains, but he rinsed the chains apart, and he broke the shackles in pieces. No one had strength to subdue him.

Interesting, when you think about this, is that it's saying that the demonic possession provided him with an almost superhuman ability to bring, wreak havoc on people around him, where they would try to bind him and he was unable to be bound.

They would chain him and he would wrench the chains apart, and I don't think that's just because the chains were sloppily made, I think it's the fact that the demon is providing this additional strength.

And night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was crying out and cutting himself with stones. Again, I harken back to what I said earlier, this man is in misery. He's not enjoying this demonic possession.

The demons are using this man's body as a medium to bring havoc on this area and to bring misery on this man. You guys remember there's another passage, and I don't have it called up in my mind where it is, but there's another passage where the father brings the young man to Jesus and said the demon keeps causing him to throw himself in the fire.

And that's just another example of what demonic possession is. Demons take the host for the purpose of wreaking havoc on those around and destroying the host. They're like parasites, the demons are. And so they're encouraging him to self-mutilate, is what we see in verse 5.

Jesus, Son of the Most High God

And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and fell down before him. And crying out with a loud voice he said, What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you, do not torment me.

Now, it doesn't say that Jesus announced who he was. It doesn't say that Jesus made it known that his name was Jesus. So this man sees Jesus from afar, he runs to Jesus, he falls down before him, and he speaks what must be the words of the demons themselves.

Because as he speaks, he speaks things that that man in that condition would not have known. This is not a man who has known Jesus before this that we know of. So he falls before Jesus and he says things about Jesus that are absolutely true.

He says, You are Jesus, Son of the Most High God. I've got to say, there were followers of Jesus who didn't know that, or who did not yet believe that. The demons believed who Jesus was. But you'll be reminded of what James tells us.

You're thinking the same thing. That's right. Yeah, demons believe in Jesus. That's why when people say, Well, I know I'm going to heaven because I believe in Jesus. I say, So do demons. Just bare belief, in the sense of just assenting to who Jesus is, does not make one saved.

It is a changed heart, not just knowledge of who Jesus is. But they indicate knowledge of who Jesus is. Now there is something, again, this does not say everything that they said. And again, we have to look at all three of the accounts to know what I'm talking about.

But if you would turn back to Matthew just for a moment, back to chapter 8, verse 28. And you may just want to stick a piece of paper in there or something, because we may go back and forth a few times.

But in Matthew chapter 8, verse 28, or I'm sorry, verse 29, it says, And behold, they cried out, What have you to do with us, O Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the time? Now, if you notice, again, going back to Mark's gospel, he doesn't say that.

He just simply says, Let me go back, trying to find it here. What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I endure you. Do not torment me. Does it say any more in the King James? So in one, he says, they says, You know, you have come to torment me.

But the Matthean account says, Before the time. Now, what time are they referring to? I can only come to the conclusion, in my mind, that the time they're referring to is the time of final judgment, which they are awaiting.

Demons not only know who Jesus is, but they know what's coming. They know the battle is lost. They know that they are in a battle against an unbeatable foe, and that the end has already been determined from the beginning.

And so, it's just interesting that we don't see this in Mark, but I wanted to point it out in Matthew, that they know that Jesus is early. That's what they're saying. Why are you here to torment us before the time?

Have you come before judgment to judge us? And I think this answers one of my questions. And here's my question. And this actually came up as a result of a Discovery Channel TV show. And I'm not a big Discovery Channel guy.

You've heard me talk about Discovery Channel. It gets kind of loopy. But years and years ago, I got caught up watching a Discovery Channel story about Jesus and exorcism. It just caught my attention, and I don't remember the title, but it was about that subject.

And I remember them talking about this account, and they said, here's a time where Jesus failed in his first attempt, so he had to do it again. And here's where they're getting that from. Again, if you look back at the Mark passage, it says, and crying out in a loud voice, it said, what have you done with us, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?

I adjure you, do not torment me. For he was saying to them, this is talking about Jesus, for he was saying to them, come out of the man, you unclean spirit. And Jesus asked him, what is your name? And he replied, my name is Legion.

So what they're extrapolating from that is Jesus is saying, come out, and they're not coming out. They're not obeying him. So the Discovery Channel idea was that Jesus was just like any other exorcist who would try different incantations until he got it right.

Now, again, I don't agree with that at all, but it does raise the question, why does it seem like when Jesus is talking to them that they don't come out immediately? And I believe the answer lies, again, in this issue of before the time.

I believe they are asking a legitimate question. Not that demons do right, but in this sense they're asking the question, why are you here early? And Jesus is, in one sense, there prior to the time of their final judgment.

So Jesus is interacting with their response. He's not failing. Jesus is not failing to exorcise the demons, but he is interacting with them. He's responding to their question. He's addressing them, and that's why it goes on in chapter or in verse 9 of Mark, and Jesus asked them, what is your name?

Notice that comes after it says he, verse 8, says he was saying, come out of them. He says in verse 8, come out. Then he asked, what is your name? Right? Now, again, we have to ask the question, does Jesus not know who these demons are?

Absolutely. He's the son of God. He is God in the flesh. He knows these things, but there's a reason for all of this. There is something happening here. And so he says, what is your name? And that's the reason for all of this.

He replied, my name is Legion, for we are many. We don't know how many, but this man is filled with demons. And he begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country. Again, the demons are, in one sense, begging for mercy.

Don't judge us like we're going to receive at the end. Now, a herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, and they begged him, send us to the pigs. Let us enter them. Now, right away, as I said earlier, I don't know that I've ever met a person who was demon possessed, but I'm pretty sure I've never met an animal that wasn't either.

I don't know. It seems interesting that animal possession is about to take place. Was this a normal thing? Was this something that happened regularly? We don't know, but in the text, this seemed to the pigs, I'm sorry, this seemed to the demons like a good idea.

This was better. Going into the pigs was better than going into the abyss, at least from their perspective. So Jesus gave them permission. We are not told why. We are not told why Jesus gave them permission, and in a moment, I'm going to talk about something that Jesus is accused of violating animal rights in the most ridiculous thing I've ever read, but we'll get back to that in a moment.

But Jesus sends them into the pigs, and the unclean spirits came out and entered the pigs, and the herd, numbering about 2 ,000, rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the sea. That's the only number we're given in this narrative, is that there were about 2 ,000 pigs, which means there were probably at least that many demons.

The herdsmen fled. Now this would be the pig herdsmen. These would be Gentile swine farmers. The herdsmen fled and told it in the city and in the country, and the people came to see what it was that had happened, and they came to Jesus and saw the demon-possessed man, the one who had had the legion sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid.

I'm just going to mention this very quickly. This word came up the last time we studied, because when the man, a demon, experienced the holiness of God in Christ when he calmed the storm, they were not elated, they were afraid.

Similarly, when these people experienced the holiness of God in Christ as a divine healer who has exercised this demon and made this man well, they did not come with joy or praise, but instead they came with fear.

We're going to see in a moment so much fear that they tell him, get back in your boat and leave. But I want to just, before we go on in the text, I just want to remind you again that this man was in the most pitiful condition that we can imagine.

R .C. Sproul mentioned four things that this guy, four ways that this man's uncleanness was described in the text. He said he had an unclean spirit, that's one. That he lived among the tombs, which meant he was ceremonially unclean because he was among the dead.

He lived in a Gentile area, which means he was unclean because he lived among, he probably was himself a Gentile living among the Gentile people and he was among the pigs, an unclean animal. This man is in the most desperate condition of his life, of anyone's life.

He's unclean, he's separated from God, he's filled with devils, he falls down at the feet of Jesus, Jesus commands the demons to depart, they depart and this man is made whole by the king and these people find no joy in that.

I just think how often that is the case for us. We tend to find a lot of joy in so many things, but do we really get the joy of the heart when we see someone go from being a sinner to being a saint in Christ?

Because what we're seeing in this man's life in a visual sense, very vivid sense, is the same thing that takes place in the life of a person who goes from being dead in sin to being alive in Christ. It's the same miracle working power of the Spirit that takes the dead in sin and gives them new life in Christ.

And the Bible says that there is joy even among the angels over one sinner who does what? Who repents. And do we have such joy? Recently I was really moved by just some folks that have come to me, one particularly, I'm just going to mention her name, but Gail and Jesse.

But Gail particularly because had not been in church and getting to talk to her about the gospel and seeing the lights come on and seeing her wanting to be baptized and asking for it. What joy is there in seeing someone repent and believe who's never had that desire, who's never been in church, who didn't get brought up in it.

And I'm not saying that there's anything less miraculous with someone who's brought up in it. Every salvation is miraculous salvation. But I mean, Andy and I have talked about, because he would be here to hear me talking with him and they were so excited to hear these things because it was like all new.

And I think what joy we should have when we see someone whose life has been brought up and has been changed by Christ. But notice verse 16. And those who had seen it had to have been the herders, the herdsmen from verse 14.

And those who had seen it described to them, that's the people from the city, what had happened to the demon possessed man and to the pigs. And they began to beg Jesus to come and heal people. No. To come be in their city.

No. To come walk through the ten cities of the Decapolis. No. Leave. Leave. Depart their region. And as he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed with the demons begged him that he might be with him.

And you can imagine why. This guy just had his whole life changed. This guy just went from being the most pitiful of sinners to demon possessed, cutting himself, screaming and breaking chains to now having had his chains broken.

And Jesus did not permit him, but said to him, go home to your friends. You have to think just for a moment, did this guy have very many friends at this point? Probably not. But he probably had friends at one time.

Go to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you and how he has had mercy on you. This man is a picture of the mercy of God. And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis, that is where we see the word Decapolis, how much Jesus had done for him and everyone marveled.

So now we have demon possessed man turn missionary for the gospel. This is a beautiful story. I mean, just what is happening. You know, we get so caught up in the exorcism and the demons and the pigs.

And we are going to talk about some of that in just a moment. But the part we can't miss is the life change. Jesus showed us right here to all the PETA people. Jesus showed us that one human life is more than a 2 ,000 pigs or more.