Five Thousand Against One

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern

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Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

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And now here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg. The Holy Gospel according to St. Luke, the 8th chapter.

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Then they sailed to the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. When Jesus had stepped out on land there met him a man from the city who had demons.

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For a long time he had worn no clothes. He had not lived in a house but among the tombs.

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When he saw Jesus he cried out and fell down before him and said with a loud voice, What have you to do with me

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Jesus son of the Most High God? I beg you do not torment me. For he commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man.

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For many a time it had seized him and he was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles. But he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the desert.

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Then Jesus asked him, What is your name? And he said, Legion, for many demons had entered him. And they begged him not to command them to depart into the abyss.

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Now a large herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside and they begged him to let them enter these. So he gave them permission.

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Then the demons came out of the man, entered the pigs, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and they were drowned.

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When the herdsmen saw what had happened they fled and told it in the city and in the country. Then the people went out to see what had happened and they came to Jesus and found the man whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus clothed and in his right mind.

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And they were afraid. And those who had seen it told them how the demon possessed man had been healed.

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Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked him to depart from them for they were seized with great fear.

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And he got into the boat and he returned. The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him.

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But Jesus sent him away saying, Return to your home and declare how much God has done for you. And he went away proclaiming throughout the whole city how much

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Jesus had done for him. This is the gospel of the Lord. In the name of Jesus.

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All right, a little biography first. It has everything to do with the text. When I was in sixth grade, puberty decided to wait for me.

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It was like waiting for Santa Claus to arrive and checking the mail every day and nothing would ever come.

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As a result of it, my schoolmates, the boys in my class, they all started getting muscles and their voices became deep.

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And of course, I was a nerd. In fact, I was a nerd before it was even popular to be a nerd.

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You know, there was no TV shows extolling nerdness, you know, like, you know, you know what

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I'm saying. So as a result of that, I was bullied. And my solution to being bullied was to avoid my bullies altogether.

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And so oftentimes I would eat my lunch in the men's or the boys' bathroom. When my grandpa found out about this, my grandpa was not happy.

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Now let me give you a little background about my grandpa. My, well, my relatives on my grandfather's side, they're sketchy.

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The best way I could, they're sketchy, okay. Kind of a man's man, but at the same time sketchy.

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Think of it this way. During Prohibition, remember in U .S. history when alcohol was illegal, my grandfather worked as a bouncer at a speakeasy and was arrested and had a record, okay.

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And his grandfather before him was in the Polish Mafia. So I don't come from royalty.

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That's the best way I could put it. So he says, ah, that's what's wrong with him. Yeah. So my grandfather, when he found out that I was being bullied, he had a conversation with me.

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The conversation went something like this. Son, now he always called me son. It had nothing to do with the fact that I was so bright, but it, you know, it was just a kindness that he gave to me.

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But he said to me, son, what's happening at school? Well, and I told him, I said, I'm being, you know,

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I'm being picked on and, and they're beating me up and, you know, and throwing my head into a trash can and things like that.

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And he said, well, how many of them are there? I said, well, there's kind of one ringleader and two or three others, just kind of depending from day to day.

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And he said, all right, here's what I want you to do. He says, next time they come up to you to, you know, to take you on, here's what you do.

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You stand your ground and then you pick the leader and you make a fist and you punch him as hard as you can right in the nose, first punch.

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And as soon as everybody else sees the blood gushing from his face, they'll never pick on you again. Go after the ringleader, right?

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I never did that. Um, my parents had a different idea. So what they did is they took me out of that school and they put me in a private school.

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It was a lot easier there. I was still picked on there, but there weren't as many people. So yeah. And eventually, you know, puberty came.

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So thank God. But anyway, all of that being said, I want you to consider what's going on in our text here.

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In the book of Leviticus, in the Mosaic covenant, God talks about how those who are in covenant with him and are obeying and keeping his commands, that one can put a thousand to flight, that one can put a thousand to flight.

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Keep that in mind. That's kind of a type and shadow pointing us to Jesus. And just by way of mathematics, we'll get the math out of the way quickly because math is evil.

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If you ever wondered how many soldiers are in a legion, how many soldiers are in a legion, the answer is 5 ,000.

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You just needed to know that. All of that being said, let's take a look at our text. And we're going to note that it says that Jesus sailed to the country of the

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Gerasenes. Now, if you're familiar with how ancient Israel was kind of parceled up under the

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Roman Empire, the Jews hung out on one shore, kind of the northwest west quadrant of the

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Sea of Galilee. And then on the other side of the Sea of Galilee, you have a whole pagan

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Roman territory colony there. And it was the cities of the Decapolis. So Jesus is heading into pagan territory, even though he's technically still in Israel.

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And Jesus, you can kind of think of this as a mission, a sortie, if you would.

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And Jesus has a particular thing in mind, and the details of what happens next should,

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I think in the right way, cause us to fear Christ a little bit, in just the right way.

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Let me explain. So it says, they sailed to the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite of Galilee. When Jesus had stepped out on the land, there met him a man from the city who had demons.

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And that's an understatement. The math here is actually quite horrifying when you think about it.

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So if there was ever a fellow who was so far gone, it's kind of this guy.

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Have you ever thought about somebody? They are completely sold out to sin. There is no way, there is no way they're gonna be brought to repentance, faith in Christ, and be forgiven.

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They're gonna go to their grave. And you'll note the thing about sin is that sin always has this thing that it does, is it ensnares you, and then it grows, and it grows, and it has more and more control.

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And we know this from experience. You know, you think of the people that you have known who've imbibed in addictions, you know.

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So you think of the person who, you know, as a kid was sane, and you know, was on the football team, and was doing well in school, and then they hit the skid, something went wrong, and either they're on drugs or alcohol, and things have just taken a horrible turn.

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I mean, have you ever seen somebody who's addicted to crystal meth, and they have meth mouth? I mean, horrifying, horrifying condition to even look at and to smell, and yet these people are so enslaved to sin, and this particular sin, that they don't care even about their own hygiene, that their body is falling apart, the only thing they care about is that next hit that they receive.

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And so, important for us to note this, that when it comes to sin, each and every one of us, according to Scripture, have tested positive for sin.

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We are in the same category as this fellow. We were all born under the dominion of darkness.

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And although sin takes its course at its own pace differently in each person, what we see here is kind of the ultimate consequences of where sin goes.

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Sin, at this point, with this fellow, has reached stage four. Another way to think about it is that the devil is pictured as a dragon.

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This guy is halfway down the dragon's throat. We're just this close before it lights out, and he's going to spend an eternity in the lake of fire.

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That's what we're talking about here. So, note the horrifying consequences of sin, that it seeks to have complete domination over you, and this fellow is completely dominated by the devil, and a way to think about it is guarded by 5 ,000 demons.

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Alright, this is the guy that Jesus is going to take on, and it's very frightening what happens next, and also quite comforting.

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So, for a long time, it says about this fellow, he had worn no clothes. Naked. Nakedness here is not a throwback to the garden prior to the fall, but nakedness here is basically showing this guy is in utter sin, is wearing no clothes, and this is just absolutely frightening.

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Clearly, he is out of his mind. He didn't live in a house. He lived in the tombs. He lived out in the cemeteries.

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I mean, could you imagine having people setting up tents and living out in our cemetery? That's not right.

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I mean, that's how far gone this fellow is, and so when he saw Jesus, and pay attention to this next part, because this is the sobering part, he cried out and fell before him, and he said with a loud voice,

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What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? Clearly, they've met before.

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The demons know exactly who Jesus is, but we, as a result of our fall into sin, when

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God visits us, we don't even know that it's God. That scares me.

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Could you imagine being at Starbucks on Monday morning? You know, go there and you decided that you're going to get yourself one of their wonderful lattes, or, you know, some kind of wonderful drink that they have.

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It's really close to heaven, I'm just saying, but there behind you is Jesus, and you talk to him in line, and he orders his own drink, and while you're waiting for the barista to do their bit, you're engaging in casual conversation, they call your name, you grab your cup, you head out the door.

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If Jesus were there, you wouldn't have even known it was him. The very

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Son of God, that is the blindness of our sin. The demons don't have that blindness.

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They know exactly who Jesus is, and they identify him as the

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Son of the Most High God. And then comes an interesting word. I beg you.

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I've never known the devil to beg before. This is weird. And have you ever had that experience where, like, two people are having a conversation, clearly they've met before, and they have these, like, inside jokes and things that they say, and you're kind of lost.

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You're just watching the conversation going, right? And they're going on and on and on, and after they part, you sit there and go, what was that all about?

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I had no idea what you were talking about. Well, they've met before, right? So here this demon is like, I beg you, don't torment me.

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And Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. For many a time it had seized him, kept him under guard, bound with chains, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the desert.

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So Jesus asked him, what's your name? Now, side note.

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Hollywood movie lore would teach you that in order to cast out a demon, you have to learn its name.

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No. There are plenty examples in the text, in the Bible, of people who cast out demons from other people and never had to ask what its name is.

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You don't need to be introduced to a demon. You don't have to kind of work out the formalities. You don't need to know its name in order to cast it out.

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Jesus here is asking the name because this next part is going to be recorded in Scripture, and it's important for us to see what's going on.

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What's your name? And so the demon said, Legion. For many demons had entered him.

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Remember the math. A legion is 5 ,000. So this guy, out of anybody in this pagan territory, in the darkness of sin and the world, this guy is the most bound, most protected by the devil, least likely to be set free by Jesus.

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Jesus isn't going after some kind middle -class old woman who likes to feed the pigeons.

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You know, this is the guy he's going after. The guy who is most under the dominion of darkness, most under its power, has no ability whatsoever to even lift a finger to save himself.

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Many demons had entered him. So they begged him not to command them to depart into the abyss. And again, this is all this inside information.

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You sit and go, there's an abyss? Where do I find out more about this? Good luck finding it. Here we get, we're privy to information that we wouldn't have gotten any other way, and now we see that there's a large herd of pigs.

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And you'll note, in Israel that's kind of a no -no, but again we're in the pagan part of Israel, and bacon is not on the menu for Jews, but it's on the menu for those who are pagans.

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So there was a large herd of pigs feeding there. Not a small one, but a large one.

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And then they were on the hillside. So the demons, again, here we go again, begged

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Jesus to let them enter these. Now stop for a second, consider what's going on here.

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God tempts no one. Scripture is very clear on this. God tempts no one.

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And we see in this text that an entire legion of demons cannot act on their own authority and create mischief and havoc and wreak destruction.

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They cannot do anything without God, Christ's permission.

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And so here we have an entire legion of demons begging Jesus. They're reduced to kind of schoolgirls, if you would.

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Oh Jesus, can we please go into those pigs? Please, please, please, please. Jesus. This is a disrespecting way for somebody to behave, and yet this is exactly what they're doing.

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And your note, they can't act on their own authority. They must get God's permission.

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You think about Peter. On the night that Jesus was betrayed, Jesus said, the devil has asked to sift you like wheat.

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Notice it doesn't say the devil has decided on his own that he's going to do this.

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And Jesus assures Peter and says, but don't worry, I have prayed that your faith may not falter.

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So important for us to know this. Although the devil is the one who comes up with these schemes, there's nothing that the devil can throw at you that is not approved of by Christ.

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It's a sobering thought. Consider the implications. Who's in charge here?

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Christ is. God is. And so we can see something very interesting, and have you considered then that everything that comes to you, good or suffering, nothing comes to you without it first being approved of by Christ.

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So please let us enter these pigs. And Jesus gave them permission.

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This is an interesting text. So the demons then came out of the man, entered the pigs, and note this is a large herd of pigs.

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It kind of makes the point. Were there any doubts that there were a lot of demons there? Well here we've got a ginormous herd of potential bacon, and each of these pigs then receives a demon.

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They lose their minds, rush down the steep bank into the lake, and drown.

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Now it doesn't say anything about the insurance claim that followed, so we won't talk about that part.

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But consider the implications here. So now we see visually, yep, that was a whole lot of demons.

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A whole lot of demons. And so consider the odds. 5 ,000 to one.

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Was it much of a fight? The entire legion reduced to begging Jesus.

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Begging. Huh. This is starting to mess with my understanding of who

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Christ is and his authority in a good way. It's starting to make me realize he's far more in control of things than I ever had thought.

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And if demons are begging him, why am

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I not? This is messing with my theology of prayer here, in a good way.

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So the herdsmen now saw what had happened. Of course they have, they're gonna have to explain this to the boss.

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So they fled and told it in the city and in the country. So the people went out to see what had happened, quite the commotion.

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And they came to Jesus, and they found the man from whom the demons had gone, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed, and in his right mind.

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And this is a picture of our own salvation. Each and every one of us, when through the mighty proclamation of the gospel, the good news that Jesus our

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Savior, that he was nailed to the tree, suffered, bled, and died for our sins, so that we can be forgiven.

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The Holy Spirit then working in us, and bringing us to repentance and faith, and regenerating us.

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Now we are clothed in the righteousness of Christ. And we, we are saved from the mania of sin itself, the insanity of it.

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And over and again, sanctification is described in Scripture in terms of the renewing of our minds.

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Note the difference between sin and it's crazed and sanctification.

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The fruit of the Spirit is what? Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, self -control.

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Is that not the perfect description of somebody who is in their right mind? And it happens in an instance.

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It happens by the mighty hand of Christ. He is the one who set this fellow free, has clothed him, put him in his right mind.

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And where is he? He's sitting at the feet of Jesus. Sitting at the feet of Jesus.

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Jesus hasn't cast him away. So those who have been told, they now seen, they saw, they told to them how the demon -possessed man had been healed.

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When all the people of the sound and country, the Gerasenes, asked Jesus then to depart from them because they were seized with great fear.

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They knew exactly who that fellow was. And there he is. He's sitting completely sane, sober, and wearing clothes.

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Not in shackles or chains that he broke anyways. Sitting at the foot of Jesus. And they're going, rather than saying,

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God is here among us to rescue us and to save us. Now they're terrified. Whoa, whoa, whoa, what's going on here?

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This is something we don't understand. And you're gonna note that in the darkness of their own sin, they see

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Jesus as a threat. They see him as a threat. And we learned from the cross references, they begged

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Jesus, kind of like the way the demons did, get out of here Jesus. Go away.

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We don't want to have anything to do with you. So Jesus got into the boat and he returned.

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And I remember reading this for many years thinking, well that was a useless trip.

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What did Jesus accomplish? What a foolish way to think, right?

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Jesus had taken on the strongest guy possible. Took a look around, decided this is the guy

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I'm gonna bloody his nose and just gave it to him. Knocked that guy down and now everybody else is terrified.

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Jesus was flexing some serious muscle and it wasn't even a fight.

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It happened so quick, if you blinked you would have missed it. And so here's what happens now.

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You got to get out of here, Jesus says. All right, we're out of here. But now the man who had been saved by Christ, who had been set free from the slavery to the dominion of darkness, who was halfway down the gullet of the dragon, yanked out by his feet at just the last second, he begged

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Jesus. Now he's the one begging and this is an appropriate begging. Oh Lord, please, please let me be with you.

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Can anyone blame him? The one who had so mightily set him free, he did not want to be separated from him.

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He had the privilege of being at the feet of Christ and now he's begging, please Lord let me stay with you.

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But that's not what he was called for. He wasn't a disciple in that way. Those disciples would go on to become the

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Apostles and that was not his calling. So Jesus said to him, I want you to return to your home.

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You go home and I want you to declare, to proclaim how much

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God has done for you. So Jesus commissions this fellow as an evangelist.

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He is now sent by Christ to proclaim how much

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God had done for him. Although they sent Jesus away, they didn't send him away.

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And so he is left now with the message of the good news of the one who breaks the darkness.

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The one who sets free from the dominion of the devil. And who so mightily takes 5 ,000 demons and puts them to flight.

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Sends them over a cliff and destroys them. This is the Jesus whom he proclaimed.

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And the text says, so he went away proclaiming throughout the whole city how much Jesus had done for him.

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Because he recognizes exactly who Jesus is. Jesus said, go proclaim how much and declare how much

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God has done for you. And so the fellow goes, alright let me tell everybody what Jesus has done for me. Because in his mind the two are the same.

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Because they are. And so consider then this. And this is the humbling part that we all have a lot in common with this demoniac.

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At first you may not think so. But we are all described as being dead in trespasses and sins prior to being brought to Christ.

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Prior to Christ setting us free. Salvation by the Apostle Paul is described in Colossians as being set free from the dominion of darkness.

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Because we've all tested positive for sin. This fate is possible for each and every one of us apart from Christ.

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And so Jesus himself has set us free. Has clothed us in his righteousness.

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Set us in a right mind through renewing our minds to the

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Holy Spirit. Taking our heart of stone. Replacing it with a heart of flesh. And now we like this fellow, we don't get to see

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Jesus right now. We don't get to be with him like that. And yet each and every Christian, every one of us here.

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It doesn't matter if you're clergy or layman. That doesn't matter. Each and every one of us has the privilege given to us by Christ to declare to everybody else how much

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God has done for us. To go and tell everybody that Jesus has bled and died for me.

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That he has washed away my sins. That he has taken the mania of my sin and given me a right mind.

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And through his word and sacraments are producing in me the fruit of the

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Spirit. And keeping me. And so I'm here to proclaim to you how much

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God has done for me. At the same time you and I all know it's he's done this for all of us.

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And this is truly good news. And it's not something that we need to be goaded into doing.

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It's something we have the privilege of doing. And I would remind you all here that this fellow, eventually he did die.

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After going and proclaiming and declaring how much God had done for him. You can just imagine the people sitting there going, isn't that the guy that we bound in the chains?

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And who lived in the tombs? And he would break the chains and who ran around the countryside naked? I mean we would avoid that whole territory because that crazed maniac guy out there.

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And yet here he is in his right mind telling us how much God had done for him. How much

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God has done for us. Bleeding, dying, saving us, setting us free.

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And that fellow now, after he's died, he got his wish. The thing he begged for he now has.

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He begged that he might be with Jesus. And today he is. Today he eternally sits at the feet of Christ.

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He has seen his glory. Knows that he's at the right hand of the

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Father. And he will never be separated from Christ, the one who set him free.

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And we like him, believing and trusting in Jesus, we too will be with Jesus.

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And never be separated from him. And we can thank him that he has given us freedom from sin, the devils that harass us, and the sin that makes us crazed.

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He's clothed us and given us honor and forgiveness of our sins. And we will be with him too.

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Forever. In the name of Jesus. Amen.

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470th Avenue Northwest, Oslo, Minnesota 56744.

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