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FBC Travelers Rest sermon from September 11, 2022 by Pastor Rhett Burns.
Our text for this morning is Mark chapter 4 verses 35 through chapter 5 verse 20. And so if you are new with us today, we've just been going through the book of Mark kind of one chunk at a time, and this is the chunk that we landed in this week.
Mark chapter 4 beginning in verse 35 going through chapter 5 verse 20. We have two stories today. The story of Jesus calming the storm at sea and the story of Jesus casting out demons into a herd of pigs.
And so I want us to do two things this morning. First of all, we're just going to work our way through this passage kind of just noticing things and making some connections and some applications as we go through.
And then at the end, I want to tie it all together with an exhortation for us to trust Christ in all of life, to totally trust Christ in all of life, to look to Christ who is our captain and our protector.
And so that's where we're headed today. And as we begin, I want to say that a number of these observations as we go through the text today, I picked up from Alistair Roberts' commentary on this passage, and I say that for two reasons.
One, credit where credit is due. But two, if you're interested in an accessible audio commentary of the entire Bible, I can send you a link to his. It is excellent. But now to the passage at hand. The first thing I want us to notice before we read, I want us to notice that both of these stories feature the sea.
And the sea has significance and carries certain meanings and certain connotations in the Bible. The sea represents chaos. It represents the most powerful natural force on the earth that no man can tame.
It represents the abyss, death, the place of monsters like Leviathan that we read about in Job. There's also associations in Scripture between the sea and the Gentiles who live on the other side of the sea.
And in the ancient mind, not necessarily in the Scriptures, but in the ancient mind, the context of the people who are living at this time, there was a belief that water was a boundary for spirits, meaning they could not cross and survive the water.
So I want us just to kind of file that away, keep that in mind as we read this passage. I think it will help us understand a few things. But now to the passage itself. Let us read beginning in Mark 4, verse 35.
God's Word says this, When evening had come, He said to them, Let us go across to the other side. And leaving the crowd, they took Him with them in the boat, just as He was. And other boats were with Him.
And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. But He was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke Him and said to Him, Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?
And He awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased. And there was a great calm.
He said to them,.
Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith? And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, Who then is this that even the wind and the sea obey Him? We will pick up in chapter 5 here in just a few moments.
But what I want us to see here first out of this story is what we have is, this is a Jonah story. This is a recapitulation of the story of Jonah.
Think about it.
In both stories, we have a main character going to a Gentile realm. We have boats and the sea. We have a great storm. The main character is sleeping. Those on the boat, they're afraid. And then there's this miraculous stilling or calming of the storm by the actions of the main character.
And those on the boat at that point then are marveling. You see the connections between the stories. Now what's the point? Why is this a recapitulation of Jonah? Well, I believe we're supposed to make some connections between what was going on in Jonah's day and what was going on in Jesus' day.
I think this is how God is instructing us. And so what was going on with Jonah? Well, God was fulfilling a promise, or we might say a threat, from Deuteronomy chapter 32, that if Israel became unfaithful, He would provoke Israel to jealousy by going and giving grace to the Gentiles.
Meanwhile, bringing all sorts of destruction on Israel. So this is why Jonah got angry, by the way. He didn't want to go to Nineveh for this reason because he knew that grace to the Gentiles meant judgment for Israel.
And as we've seen thus far in Mark, God is again judging Israel for her unfaithfulness. She had returned to the land after exile and had again been unfaithful. Things were actually worse than they were before.
They had some images and some idols before. Now, what have we seen throughout the book of Mark?
There's demons everywhere.
The situation has gotten worse. There's demons even in the synagogue. And so Jesus was coming to end Israel as they knew it and begin something new. This is the new kingdom that we have been talking about throughout our time in Mark.
We see it back in chapter 1, verse 15. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the Gospel. And so that's the big picture view of how this story functions in Mark. But what else do we notice as we read through this story?
I couldn't help but notice in verse 36, it says, and other boats were with Him. For most of my life when I've heard this story, I've always just pictured one boat. But there it is in verse 36, and other boats were with Him.
And commentators have taken this fleet of boats as a picture of the church set out on the Gentile sea with Christ as her captain and protector. I just love that image. That in the danger, amidst the chaos, Jesus is with us.
Think of Matthew 28. And lo, I am with you to the very end of the age. Jesus is with His people. And He's with His people in the danger. We see the danger in verse 37 when it says, a great storm, a great windstorm arose.
I want you to try to imagine yourself in that boat. And the wind is whipping, and the boat is climbing the wave.
And then being crashed down again.
And the rain is kind of raining sideways and pelting your face. And the lightning cracks in the sky and the thunder roars. And you're in the middle of the sea, the place associated with what? With chaos and death and the abyss.
It's frightening. And in this context, in that boat, in that sea, where is Jesus? He's asleep. He is in the stern of the boat, asleep, verse 38 tells us. One, what a picture of Jesus' humanity this is.
I mean, He's tired and His body needs sleep. He is a man well acquainted with every aspect of what it means to be human. He is well acquainted with every part of human life including exhaustion. And that's good news.
That's comforting news for you today if you're exhausted. If you're worn down by life, that is comforting to you today. And so we see a picture of His humanity. But also, what a picture of His faith. What a picture of His courage that in the middle of this great storm, this danger,.
He slept.
The disciples meanwhile, verse 38 shows us that.
Well, they're afraid.
They're panicking. Teacher, teacher, do you not care that we are perishing? They're shaking Him awake. They do not yet grasp the truth of who is really in charge. So who's in charge? You either have the creation, the forces of nature, or the Creator, the One who made them.
And they haven't gotten that one settled in their minds yet of who is actually in charge. In verse 39,.
They're going to see who's in charge.
For in verse 39, Jesus speaks and He stills the mighty storm, the great storm with but a word. The wind, the waves, the thunder, the lightning, all of a sudden, stillness. All of a sudden, calm. Verse 37 said we had a great storm.
Now in verse 39, we have a great calm. The wind and the waves obey His voice.
Why?
Because they recognized His voice. You see, in the beginning, God made the world by His Word and that Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And when He told the wind and the waves to hush, they dutifully obeyed.
They obeyed the voice that they recognized from the beginning. The voice of their Maker and Master. Then in verse 40, Jesus begins to teach. Jesus begins to instruct His disciples and He does this by asking a few questions.
He says, why are you so afraid?
Have you still no faith?
You see, the goal for the disciples was total trust. What Jesus wanted for His people, what Jesus wanted for His disciples was for them to totally trust Him. But they weren't there yet. When the storm came and the winds came and the lightning came and the rain came.
And the boat was taking on water,.
They didn't trust.
They weren't there yet. I would ask you, are you there? Do you totally trust Jesus amidst the storms of your life?
Could you lie down in the stern of your boat and sleep?
And I don't ask that to chastise you if you're not there yet. Rather, I want to point you to Jesus today. I want to lift up Christ to you today and point to Him and show you that He is utterly and totally trustworthy.
To show you that it is possible to totally trust Jesus in the midst of whatever storm you might be facing or going to face. We've seen a great storm. We've seen a great calm. And now in verse 41, we see a great fear that comes over them as they marvel at who Jesus is and who Jesus must be.
That even the wind and the waves obey Him. He must be the Master. He must be the Maker. And this rightly causes them to tremble. Do you tremble? Do you fear God? Do you tremble at His holiness and His majesty?
That's a question for us to wrestle with. Do we fear God? Picking up in chapter 5, verse 1 now. We'll come back to the fear of the Lord in just a little bit, but picking up in 5 .1, God's Word says, 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. This reminds us of back in chapter 1 when Jesus came across a man in the synagogue with an unclean spirit.
There's going to be lots of unclean things in this story. Spirits, tombs, pigs, Gentiles. And yet, Jesus goes there. And He goes there with a purpose. It goes on in verse 3, 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. I want you to notice the strength of the man possessed by an unclean spirit here.
He was a danger. They had tried to bind Him, yet they couldn't. They had tried to chain Him, yet He broke the chains. He was uncontrollable. He, like the sea when it was storming, untamable. Or was He?
Verse 5 says, Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains He was crying out and cutting Himself with stones. Not only was He a danger to others, He was a danger here to Himself. Notice that the demonic activity led to bodily mutilation.
And why is that? I want you to remember that people are made in God's image. That we, as humans, man and woman, created in the image of God, that we represent God. And so attacks on God's image are attacks on God.
The demons here are attacking God in effigy by attacking the man. Now, I don't want to get too far out in the weeds on this subject of demons or unclean spirits. But I do want to point out that demonic activity exists.
And it's presented here clearly in Scripture for us. We need not be overly fascinated with it. We don't need to inquire too heavily into it, for that can be unhealthy and dangerous. But we ought not to be blind to the reality that evil spirits exist.
We've been trained by the materialism of our day to deny this, but the Bible presents to us a world in which there is an unseen realm. And so we should note in Scripture.
What did they do.
So that we can recognize their activity potentially today. I mean, there's things that you see, things I see online, where the only explanation is,.
Well, that's demonic.
So we need to be able to recognize those things. However, we must not attribute everything to the demonic or the work of Satan. And so I've heard some people say, my car didn't start because of the devil.
And maybe.
It could be that you left the interior light on overnight and the battery's dead.
That happens, right?
Or it could be like the little girl who pulled her brother's hair and kicked him in the shins. And her grandmother took her aside and said, you know, why did the devil make you pull your brother's hair and kick him in the shins?
And she said, well, the devil may have made me pull his hair, but kicking him in the shins was my idea.
In other words,.
Sometimes it's just plain old sin that causes the bad things in life.
Yet,.
Scriptures do present to us that the demonic does exist. And so we just want to have that category for interpreting events. Going on in verse 6. And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and fell down before Him.
Running to Jesus is the right thing to do in times of turmoil, by the way. He ran to Jesus 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 so what we have here is the unclean spirit is attempting to gain control over Jesus.
By naming Him.
We saw this back in chapter 1. So this time there's this belief that if you can name your opponent, you have mastery over Him. And that's what the demon is trying to do here, trying to gain the upper hand, but it doesn't work with Jesus.
In fact, Jesus counters and asks him His name. In verse 9. And Jesus asked him, what is your name? And he replied, my name is Legion, for we are many. And so the man is not possessed by one demon, but by many.
And what we have here, then, is the first of several military connotations or associations in this story. You have legion. That's the largest unit of the Roman military, is the legion. And there's military language used throughout this passage.
Cast, send, permit, rushed headlong. And then you have the pigs. The symbol of the Roman legion stationed in Palestine at this time? The wild boar. And so all of these things, there's these allusions to an army, to the military.
We'll come back to that in a few moments and try to make sense of that. But I want you to notice it just for now. In verse 10. He begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country. Notice here who's in charge.
Jesus is in charge. He's the one with the authority in this situation.
He's the one.
They recognize their power play didn't work and he's going to do something with them and now they're trying to negotiate the details of their surrender. And the demons beg not to go out of the country.
Another translation for the word country here is land. Why might they not want to go out of the land? What's the alternative? The sea. The place that is associated with the abyss. The place associated with the destruction.
Of spirits.
You see, the demons, they had a plan, apparently, to go into the pigs.
And maybe they would be left alone.
Since they're no longer tormenting a man. I mean, they're unclean, the pigs are unclean according to the Mosaic law.
Maybe they'll just be left alone.
Now a great herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, verse 11 says, and they begged him saying, send us to the pigs, let us enter them. And it's interesting, verse 13, so he gave them permission.
Now why would Jesus give in to this request? Why would Jesus acquiesce to what they had asked for? Well, it was the perfect opportunity to visually give evidence, to give visual proof that everybody around could see of their destruction.
You see, Jesus could have cast them into the sea directly, but nobody would have seen that. It's the unseen realm, right? And so he sent them into the pigs instead. And the unclean spirits, verse 13 goes on to say, 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.
Everyone that was around saw this. Everyone saw the pigs, and thus the demons, go into the sea and drown. The demon legion, the demon army, remember the military associations there, cast into the sea.
Now, what Bible story does that remind you of? An army being drowned in the sea. What does that remind you of? The Red Sea crossing. The Exodus. The angel of the Lord led God's people safely through water.
And then in the same water, God cast Pharaoh's hosts.
It's another military word,.
Like legion, meaning a large army. God cast Pharaoh's hosts into the sea and drowned them. And here in our passage, we have Jesus leading the church across the Gentile sea, and He cast a host of demons into the sea to drown them.
It's a replay.
It's a recapitulation again. Jesus is again leading His people out of Egypt and into salvation, out of slavery and into freedom. But this time, His people will include the Gentiles. Verse 14, the herdsmen fled and told it in the city and in the country, and 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.
Notice the change that Jesus affects in this man's life. He's back into His right mind.
He's clothed.
Like the sea the night before, at the word of Jesus, peace. He is at peace. Verse 16 says,. 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.
What we have here in this story is, we have the theme of a scapegoat, or the scapegoat motif, where by scapegoat we just mean where one is taking responsibility or taking the consequences for the many.
One for the whole. One for the many. In order to restore order and peace. And so a modern day example of this is, you have a football team, and they're not doing very well, and they lose a bunch of games, and the fan base and the donors are angry, and so what do they do?
They fire the coach. And everybody calms down. And order and peace is restored, and there's hope for the new season with the new coach, and that's what happens on a football team. And so here, at first we see a reversal of this theme.
Instead of the one for the many, we have the many for the one. First the many, the legion of demons, who are cast out and the one man remains. Usually it's the opposite. Usually it's the one for the many.
Think back to Jonah that we mentioned earlier. He's cast into the sea, right?
And then there's peace.
But here, the many are cast into the sea. But then the townspeople, they come out to cast out Jesus. They again focus on the one. He has, after all, presumably, just really significantly hurt their local pork industry.
Not to mention that they're afraid of him for being so powerful against the demons. And so they're seeing his awesome power, and they just lost 2 ,000 pigs. I would imagine a significant part of their economy.
And they want him gone because they want to restore order and peace. Like it was fine before Jesus showed up and then all this stuff started happening. And so they want to cast him out. And this points to Jesus' future where he, the one man, will take on the sins of the many and he will bear them upon his body on the cross that by the one man's obedience the many shall be made righteous, Romans 5 tells us.
Jesus is the one for the many, the one who will bring everlasting peace. Verse 18,. And as 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. You see, this is different than all of Jesus' instructions up to this point in Mark. Every other time he's performed this miraculous healing or he's performed an exorcism, he's told the person to keep quiet.
But now he sends the man back to his friends, back to his community, back to the town, the Decapolis, and he tells them what happened. Why the change? Well, we notice he's in Gentile territory here.
He's crossed the sea.
And he's among the Gentiles. Like Jonah who went to Nineveh and preached repentance to the Gentiles, Jesus is doing the same. He's sending one out to go do the same. Because he's judging Israel and establishing a new kingdom with those who repent and believe the gospel, both Jew and Gentile.
The kingdom of God is at hand. So we've seen both of these stories. I want to tie them together and end here with an exhortation to you.
To look to Christ.
I don't know what the specific circumstances are of everyone in this room. I know what they are for some of you. Some of you are at sea and the wind is picking up. Some of you may be headed into something like that.
The exhortation for all of us is as you sail the seas of this world, look to Christ, your Captain and Protector. So do you have storms in your life? Do you face danger or uncertainty? Do you have situations that are seemingly untamable?
Are the odds stacked against you?
Look to Christ.
He stills the storms with but a word. He brings peace. He guides His people and He delivers them safely to shore. And upon the rocky seas of this world, the rocky waters of this world, His feet do not slip and He does not stumble.
He is a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul and you can trust Jesus amidst the storms of your life.
He is not fearful.
And He does not falter in the day of adversity. Rather, He is calm enough to take a nap.
In the stern of the boat.
We, however, are sometimes fearful, are we not? We sometimes panic and sometimes our strength fails, but Jesus's never will. Jesus taught His disciples that they needed faith, that they needed to totally trust Him.
And so, cast your cares on Jesus because He cares for you. Totally trust Him, for He is totally trustworthy. He is your Captain and Protector. Do you struggle with fears? I want you to notice that at the beginning of the story about stealing the storm,.
That they're afraid.
And they're afraid because of the storm. But after He calms the storm, verse 41 tells us that a great fear came over them. This is interesting. The solution to fear was fear. The solution to fear is a greater fear.
Their fear of the storm was fear of the Lord. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Proverbs 9 .10. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Proverbs 1 .7. Fear of the Lord is how you fight against other lesser fears.
Being in awe of God and His majesty, being in awe of God and His holiness, of God and His power, His power over the sea, His power over nature, His power over demons, His power over sin. Next week we'll see His power over sickness and death.
Being in awe of God and His power is how you put all other fears into right perspective. And so are you afraid this morning?
See His power, His might, His holiness. Fear God. And let your lesser fears be cast into the heart of the sea to die with the pigs.
Do you have scars?
Do you have a sketchy past?
Do you have current bad habits?
Or maybe it's a family member that has these. Maybe it's a family member or someone you love who's caught up in the snares of sin. I want you to take comfort in the power of Christ to set men free. To put them in their right mind again.
To restore them to health and sanity. To cover the shame of their nakedness. To clothe them in the robes of Jesus' righteousness. My granddaddy Park, who was a long time member of this church, he used to say that people don't change, they get more so.
And that's true if people are left to their own devices. Sin only grows. But by the Word of Jesus Christ, by the power of Jesus Christ, by the grace of Jesus Christ, people do change. Because Jesus changes them.
And so do you feel enslaved by a certain sin? Or do you know someone who is? Maybe it's a lying or gossiping or backbiting tongue. Maybe it's pornography or substance abuse or social media induced laziness and unproductivity or fits of anger or envy or any other number of sins that you might come across in the pages of Scripture.
Maybe someone that you love dearly is caught up in the throes of addiction or in some other self-destructing sin.
Jesus saves.
Jesus delivers.
He leads His people out of slavery in Egypt and He drowns the demons in the depths of the sea. Trust Christ. He defeats enemy armies and delivers His people safely to shore in their right and renewed minds and clothed in the righteousness of Jesus.
Trust Christ. In all of life, look to and totally trust Jesus Christ, your Captain and Protector. Let's pray. Our Father in Heaven, I don't doubt that there are some in this room who are going through storms and trials.
For them, Father, I pray that You give them strength, that You would help them to see what Your Word says. It says, count it all joy, my brothers, when you face trials of various kinds.
James 1.
Well, how can we take joy in trials? Well, we know what Romans 5 teaches, that suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, character produces hope, and hope doesn't put us to shame because the love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.
Lord, You take trials and You take sufferings and You shape us and You conform us into the image of Your Son. You deliver us out of our troubles and You set our feet upon the dry and steadfast ground.
Lord, I pray that You would do that for those who are going through trials and storms today. Lord, we pray that You would still that storm. Maybe it's a family member. We pray that You would still that storm.
We pray that You would set the captive free and Lord, that You would make us to trust You in all things and in all times. That we would totally trust You by looking to Your Son, Jesus Christ,.
In whose name we pray.
Amen.
