Book of Luke - Ch. 8, Vs. 16-39 (06/08/2003)

The Light Given in Secret Must Be Taught Publicly

816. No man, when he hath lighted a candle, cover it with a vessel, or put it under a bed, but setteth it on a candlestick, that they which enter in may see the light, 817. That which every man hath received in private he ought to bestow to the use and profit of all men.

818. For nothing is secret that shall not be made manifest, neither any thing hid that shall not be known and come abroad. That which you are taught by the Holy Spirit you shall teach publicly. Nothing is given to us for us alone.

Well, I've got to wait till they come in or quiet down. All right, whatever Jesus through his Holy Spirit teaches you, you shall teach publicly and you shall illustrate and explain every parable now delivered to the people.

That's what we've been doing. 18. Take heed therefore how you hear. How do you go about hearing? Clarence, what state of mind must you be in? All right, take heed therefore how you hear. 19. For whosoever hath to him shall be given, and whosoever hath not from him shall be taken, even that which he seemeth to have.

If you know a little bit of truth, but Charlotte, you want to know more, the Lord will see to it that you do know more. But if you do not want to know any more, he protects that right also. We're held responsible to the degree only that light has been given to us.

What's that mean, David? That's right. To seem to have a thing is only to have it in appearance, if you just seem to have it and not in reality. But what is possessed in appearance only can only be taken away in appearance.

Therefore, on one side we gain and on the other we lose. 19. Then came to him his mother and his brethren, and could not come to him for the press. And it was told him by certain which said, thy mother and thy brethren stand without desiring to see thee.

Up here he would stop everything and go see what was going on. But he answered them like this and said unto them, my mother and my brethren are these which hear the word, hear the word of God and do it.

Well, none are so near to Jesus Christ as those who hear the word of God and do it. Do you? He knows that if he makes more of his mother than this, the church will worship her as the Catholics do. 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 unto the other side of the lake. And they launched forth. It was a simple request. They had a ship that was available. Now if you observe the Lord's orders, you may assume, rightly so, that he'll be with you.

Is that true, Joy? If he sends you, he goes with you. Is that right, David? It is expedient for us sometimes to come into extreme danger. It's as though Christ isn't with us. We come about both to show his power and our weaknesses.

But as they say, oh, he fell asleep. Well, that's unusual. I didn't think Christ ever had to sleep. He fell asleep. He was subject to all things of man. He fell asleep, and there came down a storm of wind on the lake, and they were filled with water and were in jeopardy.

Did Jesus know this storm? Did Christ know this storm was coming? Yes. But he went to sleep. Jesus fell asleep, and it appears that he was very fast asleep. Of course, I had to call him twice before that.

The tossing ship has been accepted in all of history as the perils of the church. And they came to him and awoke him saying, Master, Master, we perish. Then he arose and rebuked the wind and the raging of the water, and they ceased, and there was a calm, because you do not use the grace which I have already given you.

Many are looking for more faith without using that which they have. And he said unto them, Where is your faith? Where is your faith? As though they had misplaced it. Russell, is it possible to misplace faith?

Well, he asked, Where is it? Well, they wondered, amazed then that this man calmed the tossing ship. And they, being afraid, saying one to another, What manner of man is this? For he commandeth even the winds and water, and they obeyed.

Now, Virgil, what state was their boat in exactly? And the storm stopped, but he didn't help them bail the boat out. Now, why didn't he, Virg? He helped them bail out the boat. I guess that's probably a lesson they need to learn on their own.

They could do it. Twenty-six, and they arrived at the country of the Gadarenes. Which is over against Galilee. Do you know anything about the Gadarenes, David? Though it go from a storm at sea to a storm in a man's did not.

And when he went forth to land, there met him out of the city a certain man which had devil's long time, and wear no clothes, neither a boat in any house, in the tombs. Why did he dwell among the tombs, do you suppose?

Do you know there's people today that do not believe in spirits or demons or angels or anything? Well, it's difficult for me to explain what's taking place in our world without believing or the existence of demons.

Some things we find out about demons is that they're always destructive. There's not a record any place of any demon. It's just their nature. This man was degraded, debased, and had no will of his own.

He was in the possession of demons. Russell, how does a man get that way? Yes, beware of the small sins to the heart for a entrance to a whole legion of demons. 28, when he saw Jesus, when he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him and with a loud voice said, what have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou son of God, most high?

I beseech thee, torment me not. Now, who's speaking, the man or the demons? The demons. They had taken over this man. It's almost strange that the insane recognized Jesus immediately. That's right, and they recognize this son of God.

I wonder if it's because they're more spiritual than us, and if we're not walking in the spirit, or is it the spirit speaking through them? Was it the spirit speaking here in this case? Yes, yes, it was the spirit that possessed him.

The man could not even speak for himself. The demons had control for he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man for often times that had caught him, and it was kept bound within chains and in fetters.

He was kept bound in chains and fetters, and he break the bands and was driven of the devil into the wilderness. Virg, why is it that an insane man sometimes has tremendous strength? Well, I would say based on that that we have more strength than we say we do or realize we do or exhibit.

Is sin contagious, David? This question, is salvation contagious?

Here, David. Yeah, you can catch it from the Holy Spirit.

Well, you're putting limits on it. Sin is contagious. We do it because we see why someone else do it and someone else do it, but really in reality, the true us does not sin. Salvation is not contagious.

Sin is on a human level. Jesus asked him saying, what is thy name? Now, Bob, was he asking the man or was he still speaking to the demons? And he said, legion. Didn't give the man time to answer. In fact, I doubt if the man could answer.

Legions, because many devils were entered into him, and they besought him that he would not command them to go into the deep. David, what is the deep here? Into that abyss or bottomless pit was a proper abode of demons.

It's mentioned nine times in scripture. And there was there a herd of many swine, pigs, hogs, feeding on the mountain. And they besought him that he would suffer them to enter into them, and he suffered them.

Then went the devils out of the man and entered into the swine, and the herd ran violently down a steep slope into the lake and were choked to death. Russell, what does that tell you about the man and the hog?

Well, I guess you just feel like you can do nothing at all when you're a man.

Well, we learned from this that the demons evidently did not intend to destroy the swine. That was not on their mind. Their desire to have live bodies to dwell in shows that they did not. But the presence of the demons in their bodies made the hogs go crazy, and they ran whichever way their nose was pointed.

When they that fed them saw what was done, they fled and went and told it to the city and in the country. Who is it that can deliver from Satan away? Is Satan at war with God? Bob? Well, Bob, this is your last visit to your return home.

Satan is not at war with God. He's at war against God. Well, we need to learn to express it correctly. God created Satan, but he has control. He's sovereign. 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.

David, what were they afraid of? They also which saw it told them by what means he that was possessed of the devils was healed. Those who regard the possession and security of property more than the presence in favor of Christ deprive themselves of an estimable blessings and never without a great change can they prepared for or become partakers of the bliss of heaven.

Then the whole multitude of the country of the Gadarenes around about besought him to depart from them for they were taken with great fear, and he went up unto the ship and returned back again. The devil is not able with all of his might and with all his malice to hurt even the hogs without God's permission.

He knew the outcome if he stayed. He knew there would be nothing there. Now the man out of whom the devils were departed besought him that he might be with him, but Jesus sent him away saying now we have the man.

Can't you just imagine this man? He's been possessed for so long, and he's in his right mind. He's got himself back, and he wants to stay with Jesus. Russell, that seemingly would be the normal outcome.

Why do you suppose he was wanting to stay.

With Jesus? When you were a child, any of you, small child old enough to watch television,.

And you go to bed, and you have a very frightening, and you suddenly wake up to your mother or father. Have you ever been down that road? As a child, you cling to that which gives you hope. But that's right.

Well, Jesus tells him return to thine own house and show how great things God has done unto thee, and he went his way and published throughout the whole city how great things Jesus had done unto him. I want to stop there because next Sunday, David, I want to go back over this and look at it in more detail.

Can you have faith without salvation? I think it symbolizes that he was saved, and God had a mission for him. His mission was to go back and proclaim to his people what a wonderful thing God had done, that he wasn't just to sit on the sidelines and borrow actions from Christ, but he was to go back and deliver a message like we did.

This was the first David caught on to the day that you were not here to talk about and what Virgin Mary had to say. I know what you are talking about is the difference. This man was saved in the Old Testament.

James says that you can have faith and not still be saved because it's not a savior's faith. It's even the demons have to believe there is a God. They just don't believe. They don't want to do one thing that's required.

That's not the message I'm talking about, though. I'm talking about back over in the.

Well, I don't want to get into a long discussion, but if under the Old Testament, was Moses saved?

On the Baptist's come, we're not here to talk about the morning. The morning, we're in the interim period. No, he's not saved under the law. He's not saved under Moses, no. Moses was saved, saved and dwelt.

He didn't have the Holy Spirit dwell in him because no one had the Holy Spirit dwell in them.

Until Pentecost. All right. All of the Old Testament saints were saved. Now, so we were saved and it all culminates in the cross. Enter, you said, look at that as separate. So either you are under the old or you are under the new and the time in between.

Well, everybody is saved when Christ dies and resurrects. That's the best I can do.

That's right. They were saved, but not saved. The Holy Spirit had not.

And when they were made aware of it, he came. Now, that doesn't happen today.

But what they were saying, I would guess they were saying that is we're not filled with the Holy Spirit. Yes, they had Pentecost. They were filled with the Holy Spirit. First, the disciples and the 70 that were enrolled.

But also it talks about later the Gentiles who had received Christ, they were saved, but did not receive the Holy Spirit until after Pentecost. But they thought they put their hands on them and they blessed them.

They were filled. Now you have some of the groups like Charismatics even today believe there is a period of salvation and then there's a period of the Holy Spirit. But the Bible teaches that there's only during that transition period of time that up to Pentecost, you were saved and then received the Holy Spirit.

After Pentecost, you're saved in the Holy Spirit or son of Pentecost.

Possessed animal wasn't a document. So it destroyed it. It destroyed them. And then they wouldn't focus on that. They had pigs either.

All right. Let's call it quits. Marriage with Judas. Mrs. Transition period. All is getting ready. He has been for some to go to Jerusalem. Let me ask you, which is the stronger spiritual affection or natural affection?

Paul is having to literally tear himself away from the people. But let's see in today's lesson, chapter 21, verse one. And it came to pass that after we were gotten from them, the elders, and had lost, we came with a straight course to Cusi.

And the day following unto Rhodes and from thence to Petra. Who knows what Rhodes was famous for? We're in Acts 21. Dennis, do you know what Rhodes was famous for? Well, evidently they were not very famous.

The one of the seven wonders of the world was built there. Now, do you have a key? It's obvious you don't know. And I wouldn't have either. It was principally distinguished for the brazen Colossus. Colossus.

Colossus. We're going to find out. Which was built by Charles of Lindus. It stood across the mouth of the harbor and was so high that vessels could pass between its legs. Stood 56 years and was thrown down by an earthquake.

One of the seven wonders of the world. If you can imagine, this was a giant man that stood across the harbor. Two. And finding a ship, sailing over into Phoenicia, we went aboard and set forth. Now when we had discovered Cyprus, we left it on the left hand and sailed into Syria and landed at Tyre.

And there the ship was to unladen her burden. So it was bound for. In what way do clouds resemble a Christian? I've seen several clouds recently. How do they act like a Christian, Dennis?

They're coming down. They're coming down right there. And always on the move. All right. That's one thing. What else?

All right. What else? We go where God sends us. All right. Who said that? All right. The providence of God is demonstrated in governing the motions of the clouds. Suppose you thought they were just blown here and there with no rhyme or reason.

Now we have discovered a few laws that we can predict to a certain degree. But this is just as it is in ordering the spirits and motions of his ministers. All ministers. The motion of the clouds is not spontaneous and from themselves.

But they move as they are moved by the wind. Neither can the ministers of Christ choose their own stations and govern them their own motions. But must go when and wherever the spirit of providence of God directs all.

As evidently appears in Paul's present journey. Though the journey was full of dangers, yet his spirit was fully bent and set upon it. He said, I go bound in the spirit unto Jerusalem. I have no other choice.

In reality, excuse me, none of us have any other choice except that. Now finding disciples, we tarried there seven days who said to Paul through the spirit that he should not go to Jerusalem. Going to get lots of opposition for Paul, Jerusalem.

They foretold through the spirit what dangers were about to befall him. And this they did as prophet, but they misdirected him away from Jerusalem because of fleshly affection. When you have, when you've been instructed, Dennis, by the Holy Spirit to do or to say a certain thing.

Will the spirit instruct you to not do it through someone else? All right. When you have been instructed by the Holy Spirit to do a certain thing or to say a certain thing. Will someone else and say he.