Jesus and Demons (Part 1)

Thanks for tuning in to No Compromise Radio with pastor and author, Dr. Mike Abendroth. Today on No Compromise Radio, we'll be hearing Pastor Mike open the Word of God in a recent message he preached at Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

Now let's join Pastor Mike in progress as he preaches through the scriptures, verse by verse, with No Compromise.

Satan’s Evil and Christ’s Authority Over Demons

Hear therefore and fear Satan, enemy of the faith, enemy of the human race, source of death, robber of life, twister of justice, root of evil, warp of vices, seducer of men, traitor of nations, insider of jealousy, originator of greed, cause of discord, creator of agony.

But when Jesus Christ talks to a demon-possessed man, he says simply, with authority, because he's the Messiah on earth, the eternal son of God, cloaked with humanity, in Matthew chapter 8, Jesus says one word and one word only, go.

Let's turn our Bibles to Matthew chapter 8 and see our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus, who has not just supremacy over leprosy, not just authority over death, not just the ability to calm a storm on the Sea of Galilee, but he can calm the storm in the life of a man, a demon-possessed man, actually two demon-possessed men.

Jesus here is to be shown by Matthew, and you are to see this through faith in him via the scriptures, that Jesus Christ has the credentials of Messiah. He is the one to be worshipped. Who can have authority over demon-possessed people?

Who rules Satan? Only Jesus. Matthew chapter 8 is further demonstration that Jesus is the Messiah. Now, I don't really like red-letter editions of the Bible where the words in Jesus are in red. I don't like them if you mean that his words are more important, more inspired, more authoritative, more infallible, because we know the Holy Spirit has written from Genesis to Revelation, and they are all breathed out by God.

But I like red-letter editions to help me quickly see what Jesus said, and it is actually beneficial that if you look at verses 28 through 34 in Matthew chapter 8 today and see in your red-letter edition of the Bible how many words are written that come from Jesus' mouth, there's only one right there in the center, go.

Who has authority to just talk to a demon and it flees? How about a legion of demons? Go. That's the only thing Jesus said. No bells, no incantations, no incense, no rites, no rituals, no fumigations, no amulets, no hell-broths.

Go. Who can say to demons, go, and they go? Only Jesus. And today is one more picture from Matthew so that you believe that Jesus is the Almighty God, and you don't just say, well, I think I'll take him as Savior, but you know, Lord maybe later.

Jesus is Creator, He's Savior and Lord, and the only way you can believe in Him is by believing in the revealed scriptures that He is, in fact, Lord and Savior. Maurice Roberts said, the thought of God should be the Christian's cure-all.

So whatever problems you have, the right view of God will solve them. If God be God, Roberts said, then no insoluble problems exist. Problems that can't be solved can be solved when you know God is God.

And if God be my God, Roberts said, then no problem of mine is without its appropriate solution. Your strength, Christian, is by seeing God for who He is in scriptures, the exalted Savior over nature, disease, death, and today, demons.

You know, the disciples are still thinking in their mind, who is this? What kind of man is this? What kind of person stills the waves and turns off the wind? And with that still in their minds, they come across to the other side of the Sea of Galilee and are greeted by this demon-possessed man, or as Matthew says, men.

So what we're going to do this morning is finish off Matthew chapter 8, verses 28 through 34, maybe one of the most vivid, amazing, unboring passages in all the Bible. And you're just going to see Jesus put on display.

I don't have five practical ways for you to live your life today. I have one practical thing. Look at Jesus. He's amazing. He is, in fact, the Son of God. When I was, I think, 13 or 14 years old, I went to my pastor, my Lutheran pastor, and said, Do you think I should go see the movie The Exorcist?

And he gave me some bad advice over the years, but he gave me good advice in this particular case. Don't go see the movie The Exorcist. One reviewer of The Exorcist in 1973 has said, It is for strong stomachs and weak minds.

In other words, you've got a weak mind if you believe in Satan, demons, and a spirit world. 1 John 3 says, The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. And this passage here, you're going to feel like you're there as you watch Jesus destroy the works of the devil on his way to the cross.

The Demoniacs in the Tombs

Verse 28. These are real demon-possessed people. These aren't people who are just having problems mentally, and Jesus accommodates himself to the language of the people. Because, of course, Jesus didn't believe in demons.

So this is accommodation language for superstitious people. I don't think so. Matthew 8, 28. When he came to the other side, to the country of the Gadarenes, two demon-possessed men met him. Coming out of the tomb so fierce that no one could pass that way.

Now, we're watching Jesus go from one side of the Sea of Galilee to the other side, moving from Jewish ministry to Gentile ministry. Of course, Jesus came for the house of Israel. Of course, he's a savior of the Jews to save his people from their sins.

But thankfully, and especially as I look out in the audience today, the congregation, we're glad that he came to save Gentiles too. Aren't we glad, Gentile people? The Abrahamic covenant and the seed of Abraham is going to extend past the Jewish people into Gentile territories.

And they go to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. You're going to see the focus here is not going to be on the disciples. I don't know what they're doing. My guess is they are either white with fear or their stomachs are turned upside down.

We're in this area where it's, first of all, dark. It's late at night, according to Mark chapter 4. There are caves. There are cliffs. There's not a lot of civilization. A perfect time for an encounter with a demon.

And look at the text. Two demon-possessed men. Now, Mark says one, but Mark doesn't say only one. For Mark, he could have focused on the intense one, the one that had more power, the one that talked, the one that had more demons.

But there were two men. And Jesus is going to reclaim this man. And this is the kind of man, these are the kind of men coming out of the tombs. This isn't some simple, I like dark makeup and I'm kind of goth, because that's in.

These are people who are living in tombs. Uncleanness. You think about the Jews and death and ceremonial uncleanness and getting away from that. Besides physical uncleanness, dirty, filthy, smelly, homeless people who are purposely living in these tombs, not because they're deranged mentally, because they're demon-possessed.

They want decay. They want these kind of dens of uncleanness. And if I was teaching young kids, I'd say, this is kind of like Billy Goat Gruff. Nobody's allowed to pass over that bridge. Same thing here.

They could not pass by. And you can imagine, you got a wife and three kids. You're like, okay, we just need to go down to the market. Oh yeah, dad, we don't want to go that way, right? Dad, why don't we want to go that way?

Because the two naked, deranged, fierce, ferocious, demon-possessed men are there. By the way, did I say they're naked and demon-possessed? Yes, we can't go that way, dad. Nobody wanted to go that way.

Dark, it's frightening, there's all kinds of shadows there. They come out of the tombs. Mark says, immediately a man from the tombs with an unclean spirit met him. It's like they get off the boat, and then here comes these people running up to Jesus.

When he came out of the boat, it happened, according to Mark. These morally filthy people run out from their haunt. They lived in tombs. They're strong. Mark says, no one was able to bind him anymore, even with a chain.

Whether it's leather chains or metal chains or shackles. It's not some kind of Houdini slipping out of things. It was strength, supernatural strength from the dark side, not the right side. Luke says they were not living in a house, but in the tombs.

So what happens? You have Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, four Gospels, telling the good news of Jesus. Matthew, Mark, and Luke are called what kind of Gospels? Synoptics. They're similar. They write in similar fashions.

And so I'm going to stay in Matthew, but we're going to hear quotes from me from Luke and from Mark to paint the picture. Luke says they had not put on any clothing for a long time. Just snap handcuffs like nothing.

They're running around so fierce no one would pass by them. Nobody can subdue them. Wild. There was a man who had a cabin next to us on the Missouri River at Gavin's Point Dam growing up. My father was good friends with him.

His name was Gary. He was super nice to us, but he was a drunk. He's also a diabetic. And sometimes he would just drink all day and he wouldn't eat. And I remember in bed hearing some howling going on next door at the cabin on the Missouri River.

I mean real howling, like, ow! And there were no wolves there. There were no coyotes there. It was our friend Gary having a drunken reaction to having no sugar in his body. And my father was 6 '4", 240, strong as an ox.

And it would take my dad's strength and all that he had to subdue Gary, hold him down, and jam Butterfinger bars into his mouth to eat him. So he would calm down. Well, just take that, the lion-that-can't-be-tamed attitude, and just ratchet it up.

This isn't diabetic stuff. This is demon stuff. And the point is, it's so bad, who could do anything? You can't jam a Snickers bar down this guy's mouth and hopefully he's going to be better. Only God could cure that problem.

That's the point. Only the God of the universe cloaked himself with humanity. Could fix this problem. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, verse 14. And then he cloaked himself with humanity to be the one who could not just be powerful over disease, but death, his own death, as he dies on the cross for sinners and was raised from the dead.

Mark says, night and day, constantly among the tombs and in the mountains, this guy was crying out and gashing himself with stones. Now, we usually say we cut up something. The Greeks would say they cut it down.

And this is very pagan, 1 Kings 18. So they cried out with a loud voice and cut themselves, according to their custom, with swords and lances until the blood gushed out on them. Oh, please, demon God, hear me.

You're not seeming to listen, so I'll cut myself so maybe you will listen now. Can I get your attention, please? I'll cut myself. Yelling and screaming with this inarticulate cry. Can you imagine the black, dried blood and the open wounds and the scarring and the pus and the red?

And you can see what's happening. The demons hate God, but they can't have arms long enough to get to Him. So when God creates men and women in His image and likeness, what do demons do? They try to scar it and defame it and to hack it and to cut it.

Let's get rid of anything that reminds us of God, including men and women who are made in His likeness and image. One man said, these verses are the manic stage of a manic depressive psychosis. Really?

No, this is a demon-possessed man and two demon-possessed men. I don't know what would you do. You get out of the boat, kind of a nice, serene trip on the Sea of Galilee. I mean, that's maybe one of my most vivid experiences in my Christian life, on the Sea of Galilee on a boat with some of you in Israel.

And you're just thinking, oh, this is the Sea of Galilee. I mean, really, I was a Pentecostal at the moment, just going across on the boat and just having a charismatic experience, just thinking this is the best.

And then you get out of the boat, and for us, we just kind of went to the snack bar. That's where we would go, over here. You can buy your little trinkets, you know, over there. But how about you get out of the boat, calm, serene.

Remember, the wind has died down, the sea is calm. You get out of the boat, and these demon-possessed, naked people, smelling, unclean in every different way, come running up to you. What would you think with naked, demon-possessed men run up to you?

What would you do? Have you ever had a naked person run up to you like that? Well, they didn't run up to me, but as you know, some of you, North Hollywood, when Kim and I lived there on Carpenter Avenue, one day I was out mowing.

And I would mow this way, towards our neighbors and then back. And all of a sudden, there's a guy standing out in the middle of the street. Well, this is North Hollywood, so that just happens. He started doing kind of a Grateful Dead dance.

And so, I only see half of the action because I'm mowing. This way, I see nothing. This way, I see the action. Next thing you know, his shirt's off. I'm down here, and next time I come around, his clothes are all off, except he did have one sock kind of half hanging off.

And he's doing this naked dance, running around, doing all this stuff. And I thought, you know, something in me tells me, called a spider sense or something, Spider-Man sense, that this guy might be dangerous.

The good news is, he's naked. I have a mower. So I felt safe. But I didn't want to go to the door and say, Kim, don't look outside. There's a naked, demon-possessed man with one sock on doing a Grateful Dead dance because then, you know how the law works, she'd be sure to want to look.

Right? I've got to see this crazy man. What are we doing? So we called the police. I actually said that our neighbors called the police. And the police came, and community policing. They surrounded him.

He actually went over to turn a hose on at the neighbor's house and then got down with the hose in some kind of crouching formation to shoot the police with water. And it was game over, though, when they kinked the hose.

Took him away. I don't know if this happens to you much here. I was at Faneuil Hall yesterday. It just seemed like people were normal. No weird people running around. This even wasn't an everyday occurrence for them back in those days.

Yes, there was a bevy of demon possession and demon work and Satan's strategies. When the Son of Man is on the earth, all hell breaks loose to try to stop him on his mission. Do demons exist today? Yes.

Same number of demons that existed in those days. But on earth, what do they do? I don't know all of what they do on earth, but I do know when Jesus is on earth, it's a full court press. Gotta stop Jesus.

And Trench said, the terribleness of this man's condition will also magnify the glory of his cure. That's the point. If he's just manic, lots of people can help manic people. Of course, Jesus knows exactly what to do.

The Demons’ Confession of Jesus’ Deity and the Abyss

But look at how informed these demons are. Verse 29. And behold, that language of, if your eyes aren't popped open so far, you better hold them open. And behold, they cried out. What have you to do with us, you pretty good teacher?

What do you have to do with us? No, they knew. Rabbi Duncan had a trilemma way before C .S. Lewis did. Jesus either is a deceiver, or he's deceived, or he's the Lord. And these demons knew he's Lord. You're the Son of God.

This is a theme of He's God. The demons knew He was God. Have you come here to torment us before the time? You're going to put us in the abyss before we're supposed to go? We know we'll be judged. We know we'll be in the abyss.

We know you'll put us there. But you are sovereign over everything. Are you going to put us there before the sovereign appointed time when we're supposed to go to the abyss? Is the kingdom already going to come here soon?

Is the kingdom here? Matthew says, they fell down before Him and said with a loud voice, What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? Jesus is calm. They come running up to Him. They get down on the ground and bow not in worship, but in submission to God.

Jesus is calm as they're yelling, as they're screaming, as they smell. They're falling on their knees in front of Him, according to Mark. Again, what are the disciples doing? The text doesn't tell us because I think they're quiet.

I think their knees are probably shaken. And this guy's running up. For all we know, they would run up to people and attack them. And that's why none of the families wanted to go that way anymore. And now this guy comes up full blast.

And Jesus just stands there because Jesus is Lord even over demons. Luke, I beg you, do not torment me before the time. Son of the Most High. The Jews knew it. The Gentiles knew it. There's not just lots of gods.

This is the Son of the Most High God. Don't torture me. Jesus, supreme in His power. Satan and the demons, impotent. Maybe they're protesting. What do you have to do with me? It's kind of a vow of protest.

Maybe it's some kind of threat. People say, mind your own business. I don't think it's that at all. We're at your mercy is what they're saying. Oh, Son of God. You're fully God. You're fully man. They knew Jesus was God.

They're smarter than most liberal theologians. And they knew their fate, didn't they? Did you come here to torment us? What's the text say? Before the, verse 29, time. We know you're superior. We know you're the one true God above all gods.

We know, as Matthew 25 says, then He will also say to those on His left, depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels. They knew their doom.

They knew Jesus was God. Luke says, when Jesus asked them, what is your name? The one guy said, Legion, for many demons has entered Him. Now, Jesus knows His name, but He's just saying that to the person to get all this information out.

And when you hear Legion, here's what you should think of. You shouldn't think so much, well, depending on church history and analysis and the history of the Roman soldiers and brigades and infantry, it could be 3 ,000 to 6 ,400 people in a Legion.

No, here's what you should think of. Ordered, strategic, strong war. That's what you should think of. We don't even know if the demon's telling the truth. I'm sure demons aren't known for truth. What if they're lying?

What if they're trying to impress on Jesus? There's only like seven in here, plus one. But we're going to say Legion, so Jesus is scared. It doesn't matter, but the one is against the many. That's what we do know.

The one Jesus Christ is against the many demons in this guy, for we are many. Don't throw us into the abyss. It doesn't matter how many are in there. Don't throw us in the abyss. Revelation 20, I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand, and he laid hold of the dragon, the serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for 1 ,000 years and threw him into the abyss.

As one man said, there's nothing worse than a nagging demon. Drip, drip, drip. Verse 30, Now a herd of many pigs was feeding at some distance from them, Luke says, on the hillside. And the demons begged him, If you cast us out, send us away into the herd of the pigs.

Why did they want to go into the pigs? Well, maybe anything is better than the abyss. As long as we don't have to go into that final abyss where we're never going to get out of that thing, that might be good.

Maybe they said to themselves, since Deuteronomy 14 says the pig is unclean for the Jew and pigs are unclean, wouldn't it make sense that the unclean spirit wants to inhabit an unclean animal? Yeah. Oh, you know what?

Maybe they're thinking, if Jesus casts us into the pigs, we kill the pigs, then the Gentile owners of these 2 ,000 pigs will kill Jesus. Let's get rid of Jesus that way. Most likely, they're thinking, if we can't inhabit a body of a man, I guess a pig will do.

We want to inhabit a body. No matter what, we know their motives aren't good. Certainly, did they say, please change our hearts, please forgive us, please give us new natures of demons so we could be angels now.

Jesus Casts the Demons into the Pigs

And he said to them, verse 32, I want you to notice how fast this all happened. There's no delay, there's no maybe, no time for an interlude. And he said to them, go. So they came out, went into the pigs, and behold, whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the waters.

As James Fawcett in Brown said, with majestic brevity, go. See, Jesus is powerful, He's sovereign, He's the Messiah, He's the Son of Man. In Daniel 7, He's the Son of God. The demons knew it. What about you?

You think He's just a good person, a good teacher? You've got to believe that He's God, because only God can die for sins, be raised from the dead. Only God could live a perfect life in your place. God requires you to live.

And they can't wait to destroy. And whether it's having the guy cut himself, or now into the pigs, and then with pell-mell running down as fast as they could, one pig after another, the Greek shows. And I didn't know this.

Sheep follow. Pigs are individualistic, and they just go whatever way. And here the demons have them all just herded. If there were 6 ,000 demons, legion, there are 2 ,000 pigs. How many in each one? Three?

And it says they were drowned in the sea. This is an imperfect, choking word. And just imagine, one pig after another, and the gurgles of the pigs drowning, one foot, three foot, underneath the water.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God's Word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 8 .30 and 11 a .m. and Sunday evenings at 6 p .m. We're located on Route 110 in West Boylston, Massachusetts. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.