WWUTT 2158 Jesus Casts Out Legion (Mark 5:1-20)

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There was a man who was demon -possessed, and this possessed man had great strength, supernatural strength, but not stronger than Jesus, who demonstrates his power even over the supernatural when we understand the text.

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This is When We Understand The Text, a daily study in the Word of God that we may be conformed to the image of Christ.

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Visit our website at www .utt .com, and don't forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

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Here once again is Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. In our study of the Gospel of Mark, we are up to Chapter 5 today, and where yesterday we saw

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Jesus' command over the natural, today we're going to see his command over the supernatural.

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So let me begin reading here in verse 1 through verse 20 out of the Legacy Standard Bible.

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Then they came to the other side of the sea into the region of the Gerasenes. And when he got out of the boat, immediately a man from the tombs with an unclean spirit met him, who had his dwelling among the tombs.

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And no one was able to bind him anymore, even with a chain, because he had often been bound with shackles and chains, and the chains had been torn apart by him, and the shackles broke in pieces, and no one was strong enough to subdue him.

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And constantly, night and day, among the tombs and in the mountains, he was screaming and gashing himself with stones.

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And seeing Jesus from a distance, he ran up and bowed down before him. And crying out with a loud voice, he said,

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What do I have to do with you, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I implore you by God, do not torment me.

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For he had been saying to him, Come out of the man, you unclean spirit. And he was asking him,

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What is your name? And he said to him, My name is Legion, for we are many. And he began pleading with him earnestly not to send them out of the region.

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Now there was a large herd of swine feeding nearby on the mountain, and the demons pleaded with him, saying,

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Send us into the swine, so that we may enter them. And Jesus gave them permission, and coming out, the unclean spirits entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea, about two thousand of them, and they were drowned in the sea.

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And their herdsmen ran away and reported in the city and in the countryside, and the people came to see what it was that had happened.

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And they came to Jesus and observed the demon -possessed man sitting down, clothed, and in his right mind the very man who had the

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Legion, and they became frightened. And those who had seen it recounted to them how this had happened to the demon -possessed man and about all the swine.

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And they began to plead with him to leave their region. And as he was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon -possessed was pleading with him that he might accompany him.

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And he did not let him, but he said to him, Go home to your people and report to them what great things the

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Lord has done for you and how he had mercy on you. And he went away and began to preach in the

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Decapolis what great things Jesus had done for him, and everyone was marveling."

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We get quite a bit more detail into this story than we've had in the other gospels, although it's another gospel,

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I believe it's Matthew, that mentions that there are two men here rather than just one.

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And it also says there in Matthew, or I guess it doesn't say in Matthew that his name is Legion.

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That's not mentioned. So we get more details into this here. And even though this says one man and Matthew says two men, it doesn't mean that there is some sort of contradiction here.

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The fact that Mark mentions a man and Luke mentions a man is totally in keeping with the fact that Matthew mentions that there's a man,

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Matthew just mentions that there's another man. But again, with regards to the stuff that happens in the events surrounding this story, we get more details in Mark than we did even in Matthew.

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So let's come back to the start of this. They get to the other side of the sea into the region of the

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Gerasenes. Now that means that they're in a Gentile area.

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This is not among the Jews anymore, which is why there are pigs there, because the Jews would not have been raising pigs.

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So they are among Gentiles here on the other side of the sea and verse two. When he got out of the boat, immediately a man from the tombs with an unclean spirit met him who had his dwelling among the tombs and no one was able to bind him anymore, even with a chain.

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So Mark mentions here that the man with an unclean spirit met him, but you'll notice a little bit later, it says that he noticed him from a distance.

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So this is kind of the way that Mark will tell a story. He mentions that the man met Jesus and then we're going to do some flashback here.

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So we're going to do some recap. Here's some information that catches us up with the story.

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The man dwelled among the tombs, which itself was unclean. Another indication that this was not among the

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Jews because the tombs where the Jews buried their dead would have not been in a place where people would have been traveling like this, where Jesus and his disciples were.

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So the man lived among the tombs and no one was able to bind him anymore, it says, even with a chain because he had often been bound with shackles and chains and the chains had been torn apart by him and the shackles broken in pieces and no one was strong enough to subdue him.

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Now we have this indication in other places in the scriptures that apparently demonic possession gives a person a pretty supernatural strength or ability.

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And I think by the way, that's what's behind even the discussion of the Nephilim in Genesis chapter six.

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So it says there beginning in verse four, the Nephilim were on the earth in those days and also afterward when the sons of God came into the daughters of men and they bore children to them.

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Those were the mighty men who were of old men of renown. Then Yahweh saw the evil of man.

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It was great on the earth and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Okay.

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So you have this mention of the Nephilim and you're probably familiar with a lot of the different explanations to this.

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Is this talking about how the sons of God are the descendants of Seth and then the daughters of men are the descendants of Cain.

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And so whereas there was a separation between the two, eventually they started intermarrying with one another.

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And then whereas the line of Seth was righteous and the line of Cain was unrighteous. Now as the two are intermingling with one another, then you can't tell the difference between the two and everybody is evil.

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That's one possible explanation. I don't accept that incidentally. The other possible explanation or the one that's the most popular, the one that you most commonly hear is that the sons of God are angels or demons, fallen angels who actually mate with human women and produce these really, really powerful offspring.

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Not a real fan of that idea either. There's no indication in scripture that angels even have the ability to procreate.

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And though they can certainly look like human beings, how is it therefore that an angel has DNA that the, you know, human like DNA that an angel can pass on to a human being?

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It just seems really unlikely to me, especially because we don't have any further description of this anywhere else in scripture.

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So I do like the explanation that most likely these are demon possessed men.

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Either the men are demon possessed or the demons come into women and would possess the women and would mate with men that have really great strength so that their offspring would turn out to be really, really powerful men.

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We know that this was happening during the North Atlantic slave trade, that the slave traders would breed their slaves to have stronger slaves.

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So it can be done. And perhaps this was the intention of demons to corrupt the human line, that they wanted these strong men who were incredibly violent, that could conquer the earth that God had made and try to destroy his creation for him.

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Especially when you consider that in verse five. So right after we read about the Nephilim, they go into the daughters of men.

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Verse five says, Yahweh saw that the evil of man was great on the earth and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

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It doesn't get blamed on these fallen angels that are creating these corrupt men.

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The blame comes down on the men. So for that reason, I think what we're reading about here is really a very powerful race of people that were more possessed by demons.

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So that the fault doesn't extend to the demons or the fallen angels. The fault extends to mankind, which is the nature of everything that's being said here at the beginning of Genesis.

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How mankind had rebelled against God and all of creation was subjected to futility because of mankind's sinfulness.

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There are other places in scripture we get an indication of a demon having a pretty supernatural strength.

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In Acts chapter 19, we read about the sons of Sceva who were casting out demons.

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And these were men who were very syncretistic, syncretism. So they worshipped all different kinds of things.

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They had Jewish mysticism. They also claimed to be followers of Jesus Christ, which was the gospel that Paul was preaching.

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They probably also dabbled in some of the paganism that was going on in Ephesus. And so these men who were the sons of a

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Jewish priest, they are casting out demons, claiming to be able to cast out demons in the name of the

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Jesus whom Paul preached about until they encountered a man who really had a demon.

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And that man looked at them and said, now Jesus, I know, and Paul, I'm familiar with, but who are you?

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And then he beats the men and they go running from that place naked and bleeding. So this one demon possessed man was able to overpower all of these others.

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And that's another demonstration of the superhuman strength that a demon possessed person can have.

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There's something supernatural going on there. So likely there's going to be some supernatural results.

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And so what we read here in Mark 5 is about this man that is possessed by legion.

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And he has such a supernatural strength that he's not even able to be bound by chains.

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People had put shackles on him. He broke them in pieces. No one was strong enough to subdue him,

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Mark 5, 4. So then the next verse, and constantly night and day among the tombs and in the mountains, he was screaming and gashing himself with stones.

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I saw a video just recently that's been circulating that is believed to be the cry of a

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Bigfoot out in the wilderness or a Sasquatch of some kind. So it's a guy that's taken shelter and he's trying to hide, but he hears this scream coming from somewhere in the woods.

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It must be Bigfoot. Is this the legendary Bigfoot that I am hearing calling out in his native wild?

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Perhaps here's another theory, another presentation, but it could be somebody who's demon possessed.

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Out in the woods and making a ruckus and causing a howl. It could be that as well.

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And that was the case with this man in the garrisons, in the tombs, he's screaming and even abusing himself with stones.

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It probably was a very harrowing sound for a lot of people, especially in that region.

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You've got this man that's living among the tombs. And so perhaps even with open caves around him, you would hear the hollowing echoes of his cries that would go out and probably did sound like it probably did sound like a legion sounded like a lot of men who were screaming and more than just one.

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And so you think about this late at night and people know that there is a demon possessed man that lives over there among the grave sites.

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But then in verse six, it says, seeing Jesus from a distance, he ran up and bowed down before him and crying out with a loud voice.

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He said, what do I have to do with you, Jesus, son of the most high God? I implore you by God, do not torment me.

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For he had been saying to him, come out of the man, you unclean spirit. So here the man comes running to Jesus.

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Jesus is trying to cast him out. And so the man is the demons within the man are appealing to Jesus to leave him alone.

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Verse nine. And he was asking him, what is your name? And he said to him, my name is Legion, for we are many.

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And he began pleading with him earnestly not to send them out of the region.

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Now this is something that I've taught on demonology before. Whenever I've had these chats, conversations about angels and demons, it appears from scripture that demons are very territorial.

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So they seem to inhabit one place. They don't seem to roam around. It doesn't seem like a spirit that's lost and wandering, trying to find a place to settle.

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And so it just roams the earth. These evil spirits always seem to be in a particular location and they never really seem to leave that location.

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Why is that? I don't really know for sure. When Daniel had received a vision and was waiting for an interpretation of the vision, the angel

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Gabriel was supposed to come to him and give him the interpretation. But in Daniel 10, Gabriel says that he was delayed.

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He was not able to get there in time because the prince of the kingdom of Persia, Gabriel said, was standing against me for three weeks.

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And then Michael, one of the chief princes, referring to the archangel, came to help me. And so then

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Gabriel was able to escape being stifled by the prince of the kingdom of Persia and would come to Daniel and then reveal to him the meaning of the vision.

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So that reference to the prince of the kingdom of Persia, that seems to be some sort of demonic entity or presence, a satanic messenger that just dwells there in Persia.

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Another example of demons being territorial. Whenever you hear of hauntings, now hauntings, haunted houses, haunted graveyards, things like that, they aren't the spirits of dead people that are walking around.

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If you ever if you ever get something credible regarding a haunting or there being evil spirits in a place, that's exactly what it is, is evil spirits.

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It's not the disembodied soul of a person that has not yet gone on to the afterlife.

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It's an evil spirit of some kind, and it seems to stay in one place and and roam around.

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When I lived in Kansas, you wouldn't think of this about Kansas, but Kansas was actually kind of notorious for hauntings.

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I don't know why that was, but there would be claims of like when you go to the old forts that you could see ghosts of the old soldiers that would be walking around at some of the old forts sometimes, where there was the legendary

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Stull Cemetery, where supposedly spirits would be walking around among the cemetery late at night.

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And there's the haunted Atchison house in Kansas where you can pay like five hundred dollars a night to sleep in it, to sleep with the ghosts that are in it.

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I guess with that house, it's just one ghost. It was a little girl who who had she died during an appendectomy and her spirit was haunting the place.

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Anyway, that's the legend anyway. But it's not really that a person's disembodied soul haunts a place.

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They're evil spirits. And again, just like we would see with these hauntings, with a house or a graveyard or something like that, these evil spirits do seem to be territorial.

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And so that's the case with this man. He doesn't want to be the evil spirits that possess him, don't want to be sent out of the region.

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And so the demons say, verse 12, send us into the swine so that we may enter them.

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And Jesus gave them permission and coming out, the unclean spirits entered the swine and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea, about 2000 of them, and they were drowned in the sea.

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Now that seems like an odd thing. Why would the demons go into the swine and then just run down the slope into the sea and kill these pigs?

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What would be the purpose of that? Well, this is actually demonstrating the power that Jesus has over these demons.

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They did not just willingly leave the man and then go into the swine and run down into the sea.

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This is even demonstrating that God is going to judge the demons finally when he throws them into the lake of fire that burns with fire and brimstone.

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And so here you have these pigs that rush down into the lake and they die, which again foreshadowing of the destruction that will one day come upon the demons.

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Verse 14, and their herdsmen ran away and reported it in the city and in the countryside. And the people came to see what it was that had happened.

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And they came to Jesus and observed the demon possessed man sitting down clothes and in his right mind, the very man who had the legion, and they became very frightened.

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Of course, they were already scared of the man because of the demons that inhabited him and no one was able to subdue him.

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And here comes somebody else who has even greater power than that demon possessed man.

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I can imagine that would indeed be a little bit frightening. Now, if they only had a reverent fear that they would have worshiped

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Christ right there on the spot, but that's not how they responded to it. Instead, verse 16, those who had seen it recounted to them how this had happened to the demon possessed man and all about the swine.

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And they began to plead with him to leave their region. It didn't know what to do with this man.

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Is it, is he even going to be even more powerful than this other guy? He resulted in all of these pigs being killed the, the 2000 pigs that were drowned in the sea though.

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What, what livelihood we've lost because these pigs have been drowned. And so they just simply ask

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Jesus to leave. Well, as he's getting into the boat, the man who had been demon possessed was pleading with him that he might accompany him.

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And Jesus did not let him, but said to him, go home to your people and report to them what great things the

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Lord has done for you and how he had mercy on you. And that's exactly what the man did. Verse 20, he went away and began to preach in the

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Decapolis, what great things Jesus had done for him. And everyone was marveling.

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So yesterday we read about how Jesus has power over the natural. Today we read about his power even over the supernatural.

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And you know, uh, and we fielded this question many times on the podcast before a Christian cannot be demon possessed, but you could be demon oppressed.

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It could be that there is some sort of demonic force in your life that is causing you much vexation.

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And just like I said yesterday, by trusting in the one who has the power over the wind and the waves. So likewise, in this situation, trust in him who has all the power over all the angelic beings, those in heaven, and even the demonic spirits,

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Jesus has power over and will one day judge. Do not feel that you are so oppressed by these evil spirits that, that it could kill you.

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Turn to God and say to him, please deliver me out of this turmoil, out of this circumstance.

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May I find some relief, take this messenger of Satan away from me, but be prepared that God's answer to you might be like the answer that he gave to the apostle

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Paul in second Corinthians 12, Paul said that he had a messenger of Satan who came and tormented him.

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And three times he pleaded with God to take it away from him. But God's response to him was, my grace is sufficient for you.

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For my power is made perfect in weakness. And so even in those circumstances, it might be given you that you would draw nearer to Christ and understand that no matter what happens,

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God's grace is sufficient. Your sins are forgiven. The accuser, which is what the name

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Satan means, Hasatan, it means adversary, the accuser, he cannot accuse you anymore.

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Your sins are forgiven and you've been made right with God through Jesus Christ. You are a child of God.

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So don't let the lies of Satan, discourage you, rejoice in the truth of Jesus Christ.

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Heavenly father, we thank you for what we have read here. And I pray that indeed our boldness and our courage would be in what scripture says about those who belong to Jesus Christ.

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We know that we've been raised from death to life. We know that we've been made fellow heirs, that we are even seated with Christ in the heavenly places.

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And so as said in Romans eight, if God is for us, what can man do to us? What can even a demon do to us?

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Help us to continue to rely on Jesus, turning to him, fixing our eyes upon him, turning away from every sin and weight, which so easily entangles and fixing our eyes on Jesus.

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It's in Jesus name we pray, amen. You've been listening to When We Understand the

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Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, Gabe will be going through a New Testament study.

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Then on Thursday, we look at an Old Testament book. On Friday, we take questions from the listeners and viewers.