Jesus is Lord (Part 1)

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No Compromise Radio Thanks for tuning in to No Compromise Radio with pastor and author,

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Dr. Mike Abendroth. Today on No Compromise Radio, we'll be hearing Pastor Mike open the

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Word of God in a recent message he preached at Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

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

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I don't know if you've ever asked this question to yourself or maybe of someone else.

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How does a pastor possibly minister to so many different kinds of people experiencing so many different kinds of trouble?

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Some of you have spouses who aren't saved. Some of you have children who are not saved.

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And think about all the other problems that exist in life. How can a man possibly stand up and minister to each and every person?

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Well, no man could ever do it. But I do know someone who can minister to each and every person.

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And even in this sentence, not that the sentence helps, but the person of the sentence helps.

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There is a solution to everyone's problem. And the answer is Jesus Christ is

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Lord. Jesus Christ is Lord. He's the risen King, the returning

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King, and Jesus is sovereign over everything. Jesus is Lord.

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And when you think about the Lordship of Jesus, it solves lots of problems. I love

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Maurice Roberts when he says, the thought of God should be the Christian's cure -all. It should cure all his ills at a stroke.

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And what an infinity there is in the thought of God. There's a difference between things as they are and things as we perceive them.

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It is our folly that we allow ourselves to look at life's problems as if they were somehow isolated from God.

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And if God be God, and if God be my God, then no problem of mine is without its appropriate solution.

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Isn't that good? That is the answer. And so I'd like you to take your Bibles today and open to Luke chapter 8.

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We've been in 1 Corinthians for quite a while. We're going to take a deviation to look at Jesus Christ as Lord.

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Luke chapter 8, it's one of those passages today, if I was going to use pop culture, it's like an

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Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland. It is fast. It is furious. It is exciting. And it will cause you to forget about yourself and think about the

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Lord Jesus Christ. You might be praying for me, although it should be prayers of praise.

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This Thursday coming up, I fly to Greece and I'll be there for quite a while teaching the book of 1

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Corinthians in Corinth. And so if someone had to do it, I know it's one of those things where, all right,

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I guess I have to go. And so I want to leave you, not in the middle of 1 Corinthians 5, but I want to leave you with the words coming from me,

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Jesus Christ is Lord. And you'll see that today, how he's Lord over nature.

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He's Lord over people. He's Lord over demons. He's Lord over sickness and he's Lord over death.

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And so we will look at Christ Jesus today, small detour from 1

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Corinthians. Now coming to chapter 8 in Luke, we're looking at this gospel, the gospel of Jesus Christ according to Luke.

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I kind of hate to even say the gospel of Luke because it's not the good news about Luke. It's the gospel about Jesus Christ.

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Good news about Christ Jesus through God's inspired man, Luke. And so we're going to see this morning, this authority that Jesus has over especially demons.

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And so here's my purpose this morning. If I haven't been clear so far, I want you to see a good new glimpse of Jesus Christ.

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So you say to yourself, that's my Lord. I mean, if you say, well, my problems aren't really huge.

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I just have a hard time living in the daily grind. Same old, same old. Everybody's working for the weekend.

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Tomorrow's Monday. It's just kind of dull and drab. And this is going to be good for you. This is going to be good for you to remember who

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Jesus is, because when you watch him, it puts everything into perspective. If you're going through spiritual doldrums now, doldrums, then you say to yourself, you know, instead of reading through the

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Bible chapter by chapter, which is good, leave your read through the

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Bible in a year, leave numbers eight and skip to the gospels and read. Here's my assignment for you,

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Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And you're going to say, there's nobody like Jesus. Nobody talks like him.

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Nobody acts like him. Nobody does the things that he does. He's God incarnate. He's a king. He's my savior.

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You're going to read this and you're going to go, I can't believe there was a man named Jesus to establish our context.

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Let's start in verse 22. Although the sermon really today is from 26 through 39,

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Luke chapter eight. This is a chapter that talks about Christ's unique authority over nature, the supernatural, the natural and everything else.

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Jesus calms the storm. Luke 822. Let's just read that to get our context and see what he does in this storm of nature.

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Because right after this, it's going to be the storm in human nature. One day he got into a boat with his disciples,

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Luke 822, and he said to them, let us go across to the other side of the lake. So they set out as they sailed.

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He fell asleep and a windstorm came down on the lake. They were filling with water and were in danger.

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He went and woke him saying, master, master, we are perishing. And he awoke and rebuked the wind and the raging waves and they ceased and there was a calm.

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And he said to them, where is your faith? They were afraid and they marveled saying to one another, who then is this that he commands even winds and water and they obey him.

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So they were afraid earlier when the storm was raging. They're now even more afraid because they realize the creator of that sea of the stars of the sky of them is in their boat.

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They realize here's holy God in my boat, in our boat, and therefore we are afraid.

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It's a great miracle too, because it's not like the wind slowly died down. We go from winds and storm and waves and sea to flat.

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And now we move to another storm, a violent storm, a horrible storm, but it's in a man, a storm in a man.

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And we move to Luke chapter eight, verse 26. And we're going to see

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Jesus not only show his lordship over the sea, but over this man, the demon possessed man.

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Jesus has cast out demons before, but the story hasn't been like this yet. This is one of those wild passages.

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One man said of the movie, The Exorcist, which was after William Blatty's novel. They said that for the movie, don't go see it unless you have a strong stomach and a weak mind.

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The reason why the newspaper review said strong stomachs and weak minds, because it was a gross movie.

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And if you believe in that kind of demonic possession, supernatural, if you believe in demons, you've got a weak mind because no rational person is going to believe in demons.

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I wonder what happens in this passage. We're going to see from first John three, eight, the reason the son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.

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And that's exactly what the Lord of these demons is going to do. As we see this with Luke, the doctor's vivid portrait.

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Now, at the end of verse 25, what do we have serenity, calmness, peace, you can even sing an

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Eagle song. I've got that peaceful, easy feeling tranquility. And now we're going to see blood curdling shrieks.

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So what we're going to see, I probably should say this now.

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So I don't forget liberals hate this passage because Jesus wouldn't be so superstitious to believe in some demon now, would he?

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Jesus is really stooping to the level of these Galilean Hicks, these hayseeds from Galilee.

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And it's the language of accommodation. You believe in demons. I'll pretend like I do, too. I think believe in Jesus, believed in demons for sure.

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It's not some mythical story. This is not some kind of Bob Larson story of demons. There was quite a bit of demon casting out in history.

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According to Josephus, Eleazar used to exercise demons using incantations and a ring that was associated with King Solomon.

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This is King Solomon's real ring. If we use that and say the right things, then the person who's got a demon, it'll go out of them.

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That's interesting. You could also try to pull demons out through people's noses back in the first century.

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I don't really know what instrument they would use, but it paints a good picture in your mind. Bintresh Steli contains a

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Persian account of an Egyptian exorcism, where the way you get the demon out is you give them a big feast, a big banquet, and you bribe them out, pretty pleased with sugar and a few pomegranates, and then the thing comes out.

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I don't think the Lord of creation, the Lord of creation, the Lord of nature, the Lord of the supernatural, is going to have to do it like that.

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How does Jesus cast out a demon? What does he do? How does he go about it to show his lordship? Let's see how it's described first, verse 26.

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To set it up, because this part is important, in verse 26, then they sail to the country of the

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Gerizim, which is opposite Galilee. Here's the big point here. This is

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Gentile area. The mission of the Messiah, although with primary focus to the house of Israel, there is a spillover effect, there is going to be salvation for Gentiles.

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Jesus did not come alone to die for Jewish people. He came to die for Jews, yes, his people, but also many others.

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And looking at this congregation, aren't we glad? There's a mission to the Gentiles. And so, all of humanity benefits from this eternal

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God, the eternal son of God, cloaking himself with humanity and working himself towards Calvary.

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They are even going to benefit from Jesus' ministry beyond Israel. This is on the other side of the

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Sea of Galilee. You'll notice in this passage that there's not a lot of talk about the disciples.

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Hardly any. I mean, if we look from 26 through 39, I think about 14 verses. What's going to go on with the disciples?

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I think this is about the only reference to the disciples. Then they sail to the country of the Gerizim. The focus is on Jesus.

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He's on the spotlight. He's the one in the middle of the three rings, as it were, with all focus on Jesus.

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He alone speaks. He alone acts. And so, we're in the general region of the other side of the

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Sea of Galilee. By the way, don't you wish you were going with us in February? You're going to go right over to this area.

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I don't think it's still not too late to go. Well, maybe based on Lenita's look, it's too late.

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Now, just picture this. When Jesus had stepped out on land, there met him a man from the city who had, plural, demons.

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

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And we're going to see in this passage, as the demon tries to dehumanize a person, as the demon tries to scar and damage and obliterate the image -bearing person,

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Jesus is going to make that turn right -side up. And this man didn't have one demon, not two demons.

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It says plural, but we're going to find out there are a lot of demons. And he does what demonic kind of people do, ceremonial uncleanliness, hanging out by the tombs.

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And you can just imagine the smell and the sights and the relationship that he had with other people.

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This is one deranged person. I think I'd say if I was a kid, this guy is gross.

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Mark says an unclean spirit met him. That's exactly what this demon was. He was like an unclean thing.

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Now it's late in the day. Mark 4 says evening had come. So just imagine the shadows could be twilight, could be a little bit darker, kind of the eerie darkness.

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This is not at noon. Actually Mark says the man came running up to him.

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Now if you were one of the disciples, you get out of the boat, you're all like, you know, yes, high -fiving.

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I don't know how they, they must've had some kind of handshake or I don't know what they did, a fist bump or what they did, but some kind of, you know, hugging each other.

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Yes, we made it. We thought we were dead. Jesus is in our boat. Here's what he's done for us. It's kind of calm and serene, getting a little bit of twilight, probably thinking about food who knows what.

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And here comes this guy running up full blast to them, to him, but to them too.

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What would be going through your mind? I don't know if you've ever met a demon possessed person, but if you did, you would not be running up like my long lost uncle.

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This is frightening. It's morally filthy. Now there's more than one demon possessed man, but the focus is here is on one.

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If Luke said there's only one, then that would be not true, but he's focused on one. Why? Maybe he's more prominent.

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Maybe he's got more demons. Maybe he's the leader. Maybe he's a spokesperson. It doesn't matter. And here is this man from the tombs, probably touching where dead bodies touched.

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What did you think about that? This is ceremonially filthy, unclean. He's living in the tombs.

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He's strong. Mark says no one was able to bind him even with chains. He's smelly.

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He's homeless. He's caves over in the limestone rock, hewn in the side of a wall.

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He was just gross and he was without clothes. The writer's trying to show you that this man was in trouble and he was in bad shape.

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Matthew chapter 8 says they were so exceedingly violent, the two demon possessed men, that no one could pass by that road.

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So give them a wide berth. Go way around. This is kind of reminiscent of Billy Gruff, right?

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You have to go around. You can't go over the bridge. And so nobody went close. I bet you you wouldn't go close either.

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Bound with chains and shackles and couldn't be subdued. Mark says no one could tame him.

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Used of a language where someone that's higher ranking in the species dominates and subjugates something lower.

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No one could tame this man. He was fierce. He was frenzied. And Mark 5 says he was crying out and gashing himself with stones.

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The text is day in and day out, loud screaming and then taking probably some kind of little flint rock and then just cutting himself, kind of the original cutter.

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You can tell what's happening. The demons are trying to make this man no longer an image bearer.

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Night and day, the loud screaming, shrieking. The word in Mark 5 is an inarticulate cry.

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He's hacking himself up, slicing. Very satanic.

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In 1 Kings 18 it says, so they cried with a loud voice and cut themselves according to their custom with swords and lances until the blood gushed out on them.

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Imagine the black, dried blood. One man said these verses give a vivid picture of the manic stage of a manic depressive psychosis.

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Whatever you think about manic depressive psychosis, this we'll find out is not because of that.

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It's because of demons. This guy's a maniac, not a manic. I don't know about you, but how would you react with a crazy naked man running around that smelled bad, screaming and shrieking?

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Not really a common everyday occurrence, do you think? I have to just tell you my quick story. I've got a long version and a short version.

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Here is the short version. I'm in North Hollywood. Some people are already yelling.

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Some people are already laughing. They probably know what I'm going to say or maybe that was just a shriek over there. Do we have a demon -possessed person over here somewhere shrieking?

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I remember I needed to mow my lawn. We were having Bible study or something. So I'd go to my neighbor.

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I had no mower, so I had to deal with this 80 -year -old mower. I borrow your mower, I mow your lawn, and I mow my lawn.

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And so it's starting to get dark. I've got to hurry up. The people are coming over for Bible study, and so I'm going across, mowing my lawn back and forth.

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Next thing I know, there's a guy out in the middle of our street, and our yard wasn't big, so the street was close, and he's out there doing a

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Grateful Dead dance. So I can only see him when I'm mowing this way, and so when I mow this way,

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I don't know what he's doing, and so then I turn around this way, and then the next thing I know, his shirt's off. And I'm mowing back and forth, and then the next thing you know, all of his clothes are off except one sock, and he's doing this kind of dance.

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And I'm thinking, this guy's crazy. You know, do I need to go get my gun or what? And then I thought, no,

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I've got a mower, and he's naked, so I'm okay. So I just keep mowing, wondering what's going on, and then he starts going to the neighbor's houses and knocking on the doors and everything.

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I thought, you know, it's just not in my standard operating procedures manual what to do with naked crazy guy in neighborhood, suburban

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North Hollywood. Sometimes I tell a story and don't tell you the end, and then you ask me afterwards, you know, what's that Greek word, pastor, you use?

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No, you say, what's the end of the story? The end of the story is, we called the police, the police came, he ran over to a hose, turned it on, got down in military position, was spraying the police with the hose, and then the hose was kinked by said policeman, and they took him off.

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He only lived two doors down the street, so it's not a big deal. And here

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Jesus knows exactly what to do, he's not afraid, let's find out what happens.

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Verses 28 to 31, Jesus and the demon possessed man. When this man saw

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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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Listen to this, this is fascinating, Jesus, son of the most high God, I beg you, do not torment me.

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And here Jesus is totally calm and the man comes running up, King James I think says he worshiped him, but it's not really worship, it's,

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I'm bowing down, you're the superior, I'm inferior, I recognize who you are and I bow down to you.

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It's almost magnetic. Here's the demon possessed man, here's Jesus, and there's these two magnets coming together and he just runs up and he knows,

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I'm gonna have to bow down before him, I know his name, I know who he is, he's not a dead God, here's this naked, yelling maniac, saying truthful things about God.

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Remember James chapter 2 verse 19, the demons even believe in what? Tremble. They've got great theology, it doesn't mean they're saved, and he's crying out, son of the most high

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God, I beg you, do not torment me. I'm still trying to get a picture of what the twelve must have been doing.

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Judas was probably hiding the money, that's probably what he was doing. They're dumbfounded, we don't know what they're saying, and this demon possessed man, compelled as it were, as he sees the judge of the universe and bows before him in humble, if I could say that word, acknowledgement that he is the son of the most high.

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Very interesting, when he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell at his feet, shouting, now we're using singular, there are lots of demons in him, but he's with one demon maybe, one spokesperson, demons acting in unity, we don't know, but singular, demon speaking.

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Mark 5 says, crying out with a loud voice, he says, what do I have to do with you, Jesus son of the most high,

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I implore you by God, do not torment me. Mark actually says he cried out before he even spoke.

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Why are you interfering with me? Maybe it's mind your own business, but I doubt it, it is

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I know someone is superior, and I bow down. You're not a false God, you're the son of the real God, the most high

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God. Don't torment me before the time, what was going to happen to the demons? Matthew 25, he will also say to those on his left, apart from me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire, which has been prepared for the devil and his, what, angels.

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We know we have to go there, we just don't want to go there yet. Verse 29, look at the passage, for he had commanded the unclean spirit,

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Luke 8, 29, to come out of the man, and what Mark tells us earlier, Luke tells us now parenthetically, for many a time it had seized him, 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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The demon is strong, Luke's point is that, he's powerful, yet he is not as powerful and as strong as Jesus the

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Lord. And Jesus says, come out of the man. What do you see that's lacking here?

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I see no formula, he didn't have some formula, I smell no incense,

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I see no vestments, I see no holy water, I see no crucifixes, no props, no

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Latin spoken, what does Jesus say? Get out, that's all he says.

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Mark 5, come out of the man you unclean spirit. Verse 30,

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Jesus then asked him, what is your name? And he said, legion, for many demons had entered him.

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My name is legion, for we are many, Mark translates it. Now it'd be bad enough to have one demon in you, don't you think?

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How about like Mary Magdalene 7? How about this guy, a legion, now a Roman legion could be as few as 3 ,000 soldiers, or as many as 6 ,000, some say

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A .T. Robertson, the Southern Baptist scholar, 6 ,800 demons, how'd you like to have, well let's just go to the lowest number, 3 ,000, 3 ,000 demons in a man.

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And what Luke is trying to show us, it's 3 ,000 to 1. By the way, one angel killed about how many people on one night in the

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Old Testament? 185 ,000, one angel, here we have a fallen angel times 3 ,000 in a man, and here's

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Jesus. Jesus isn't asking questions because he doesn't know the answer, he's just getting it out in the open.

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6 ,000 infantrymen in a typical legion, legions were known for efficiency, organization, strength, relentlessness, and here is the battle.

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One man said, the war is on, it is one against the many.

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No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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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.

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Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston.

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You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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