Who Can Set Us Free from Evil?

Calming a Different Storm

Good morning! It’s good to see you all here. Today we’re going to continue working through the book of Mark, which lays out key events in the life of Jesus, that give evidence of his identity as the Son of God. Last week, we saw Jesus’s supernatural authority in the way that he controlled and calmed a great windstorm – simply by speaking. This morning, we’ll see something similar – but instead of Jesus bringing peace and order to a storm raging outside and around people – we’ll see Jesus’s power to bring peace and order to a terrible storm of evil within a person.

This morning, we’re going to be looking at Mark, Chapter 5. So if you have a Bible nearby, I’d encourage to turn there with me – to Mark, Chapter 5. I’ll be reading verses 1 through 20. But before I read our text, let’s ask for God’s help as we come to his Word. Let’s pray:

[Pray and Read Text]

If Jesus Can Restore This Evil Man, He Can Restore Anyone

In our neighborhood, for the longest time there was a house, about a block and a half away from ours, that had been in terrible shape. Windows were broken, parts of the roof were caving in, it had broken asbestos siding, it looked filthy inside and out – it seemed pretty obvious that the house was a wreck, and that it needed to be demolished. And last summer it seemed like that was going to happen. Some construction equipment rolled in and started to tear parts of the house off. But after a few weeks, it became clear – the house wasn’t being torn down. Instead, someone was just stripping away the parts of the house that were decayed and unsound, and that person was going to try to restore the house instead.

Honestly, it seemed a little foolish to me. It didn’t seem like there was any part of the house that was worth salvaging. But as the months went on, and the builder made progress – the old eyesore of a crumbling house more and more began to disappear – and a new, clean, rather handsome-looking house began to take its place. It’s been really cool to watch. I’m still not sure who the builder is – but I’m rather convinced that if he’s able to fix up a house like that, then it says a lot about his ability to fix up just about any house.

And the reason I say this, is because in our text today, Jesus displays his ability to fix up people. He gives his attention to a ruined man – overtaken by darkness and demons – someone who we’d think is hopeless. And Jesus powerfully restores him in such a remarkable way, it should leave us convinced that if Jesus can fix up him, Jesus can transform and renew anybody. Jesus isn’t just capable of dealing with disaster and darkness around us, as we saw last week – but he’s capable of resolving the disaster and darkness within us.

As so we work through the text, there are three points I’ll unpack to help us better appreciate Jesus’s abilities, here. First, in verses 1 through 5 we’ll see the strength of evil that Jesus faces. Second, in verses 6 through 13, we’ll see the superiority of Jesus over all evil forces. And then from verse 14 to the end, we’ll see the sending out of the new man – we’ll see the effect that Jesus’s work has. So if you’re taking notes, those will be my three main headings as we work through the text. The strength of evil, the superiority of Jesus, and the sending out of the new man.

The Strength of Evil

Now if you were here last week, when we worked through the account of Jesus calming the windstorm – you may remember that at the end, the sea was stilled, and the disciples in the boat with him were amazed – but we didn’t actually see where Jesus and his disciples were sailing to. We finally see that detail here, in Chapter 5. Verse 1, says, “They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes.” This was a region on the far eastern side of the Sea of Galilee in those days, likely near to a village called Gergesa.

Now, the strange thing about this is that this region would have been a highly undesirable destination for devout Jews – for people like Jesus and his disciples. And that’s because this area was part of the Decapolis (the “10 cities” region), which was almost entirely inhabited by pagan Greeks and Romans. These non-Jewish people – they worshiped a variety of idols in their shrines, they didn’t follow the Jewish dietary restrictions, they didn’t hold to the same standards for cleanliness. And just to put icing on the cake, later in the story, here, we find out that this was a region where people raised pigs, which were considered to be unclean animals. So normally, Jews wanted to stay away from places like this.

But what made this landing place even more disagreeable was the man who lived by it. Notice verse 2! “And when Jesus had stepped out of the boat immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit.” This man who approaches Jesus – nothing about him seems pleasant. Given the context, it’s apparent that he’s an uncircumcised Gentile, a non-Jew. And we’re told that he’s been living around tombs – around dead bodies, which God’s law identified as a source of uncleanness. And even worse – we’re told that he’s possessed by an unclean spirit. He’s demon-possessed.

And so you’d maybe expect, once Jesus has assessed the situation, that he’d say to his followers, “You know what? Let’s get back on the boat.” It’s kind of like if you’ve ever stopped at a gas station in a run-down part of Detroit or Chicago. Maybe you hadn’t been thinking too much about your surroundings before you stopped – but then, after stepping out of the car to go to the pump – you’ve suddenly noticed the half-dozen people who’re milling around in a disturbing way. You’ve seen that rugged-looking man sitting on the curb, giving you a hard stare. You’ve seen the broken glass, and the rusty needles on the concrete. And so you’ve inched your way back into the car, and you’ve thought, “You know what? Let’s stop somewhere else.” This spot where Jesus’s boat landed would have been like that. It would have been viewed as a place that’s dirty and dark and dangerous.

But then we read verses three through five – and it just sounds like things are going from bad to worse.  Because this demon-possessed man who’s coming toward Jesus – he’s described as being terribly strong. There’s something about the evil grip of these demons over him – it seems to give him the superhuman ability to break out of chains, and to rip off iron shackles. People from the nearby town had apparently attempted to bind up this demon-possessed maniac before – but no matter what they used to try to hold this man back, no matter how thick the prison bars were, every human effort was inadequate. The end of verse 4 confirms that human power wasn’t enough to subdue the strength of evil in this man.

You might think that this man would be quite pleased with himself, to have this great physical strength, to be able to snap iron chains and all the rest. But this demon-possessed man clearly wasn’t doing well at all. He was miserable. Because as it turns out, he wasn’t in control of the powerful evil forces within him – but they were controlling him. In fact, there’s a real sense in which he was afflicted by his evil even worse than the people around him. Verse 5 explains: “Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains, he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones.” This isn’t how healthy, happy people act. The strength of evil doesn’t satisfy this man, or truly make him stronger. But instead, it makes this man a slave.

Now, I’m aware that in this specific example, this man has been subjected to evil in a rather extreme way. He’s been overpowered and possessed by a number of evil spirits – and demon possession is something we hardly ever see, let alone something we personally experience. And yet, every human being is still very much affected by the strength of evil. Because even if there isn’t a demon overcoming us from the outside – there’s already evil on the inside of the human heart. It’s been that way ever since the first man and woman turned away from God. Every human being knows the strength of evil – because we’ve been evil. Our opinions, our emotions and even our perception of reality – it all gets distorted by sin. And this internal evil that’s naturally rooted in the human heart – it can’t just be held back with chains and shackles, either. It can’t be controlled or cast out by any amount of effort that’s merely human. Our evil brings bondage and misery, too.

But remember, for this deranged man at the tombs, being demon-possessed makes his situation all the more hopeless. Earlier on in Mark, Jesus encountered people who were possessed by a single demon – and those people had been helpless and unable to escape from the demon’s oppression. But in verse 9, when Jesus demands the unclean spirit to give its name – the man responds by saying, “My name is Legion, for we are many.”

Keep in mind, at this time, these lands were governed under the Roman Empire. And a legion was a special military term – it referred to a cohort of about 5,000 soldiers. And so for this man to say, “My name is Legion, for we are many,” he’s making it clear – this man isn’t just occupied by one demonic spirit. He isn’t even just filled with a hundred of these horrid agents of darkness. But this man is tightly under the grasp of Satan. He’s been overrun by an army of demons – several thousand of them. For the Jews, the idea of trying to cast out a demon from this pagan, Gentile man – it would have seemed utterly pointless. From an earthly perspective, this man was gone. It was obviously impossible that this man would ever be set right with God. That’s what we might think.

The Superiority of Jesus

But when Jesus steps off the boat, the encounter isn’t what you’d expect it to be. As this man possessed with a horde of demons comes running at Jesus and his small band of disciples, you’d probably think – there’s going to be shouting and violence – some sort of terrible fight between the forces of good and evil. But there is no fight. This man isn’t coming to do battle with Jesus – but shockingly, he’s coming to beg.

In this encounter, we see the superiority of Jesus, even over the strongest earthly manifestations of evil. And this is my second main point – dealing with the superiority of Jesus.

Just look at what happens in verses 6 and 7: “… when he (the demon-possessed man) saw Jesus from afar, he ran and fell down before him. And crying out with a loud voice, he said, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.”

Just make sure you notice, here – if Jesus was just a human messenger for God, and nothing more, it wouldn’t make any sense for the demons in this man to be so intimidated here. Even, if Jesus were just some other spiritual being, like an angel or an archangel – which is what the Jehovah’s Witnesses believe – then again, you’d expect that the demons would at least put up a fight. After all, 5,000 demons against one angel would give them pretty good odds. But it turns out that Jesus isn’t just human (although he is truly human). He isn’t just some sort of angel in human form. But rather importantly, Jesus is truly divine. Whatever it is that God the Father has that makes him deity, Jesus has it, too. That’s what it means for him to be the Son of the Most High God.

And that’s why this man, and all the demons inside him, are throwing themselves down at the feet of Jesus to beg. This is why this man is pleading with him – please don’t torment me. It’s because these evil beings know that they’re in the presence of God himself – and that the Divine Son of God, Jesus, has been given all authority to judge the world, including them.

And yet, of course, the other reason why they’re begging here is because Jesus has come out against them. We see this in verse 8. Jesus has been saying, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!” And so the demons – who are utterly helpless before the divine power of Jesus – they plead and beg with Jesus to let them stay in that country. And in verses 11 and 12, they specifically ask for permission to go into a large herd of pigs that’s over in the distance, being driven through the countryside by a few herdsmen.

And in verse 13, there’s a series of events that might seem strange to us. Jesus actually gives the demons what they ask for. He allows them to enter into the herd of pigs. And the pigs – there are about two thousand of them – when the demons enter into them, these pigs immediately go crazy. They all rush down a steep embankment into the sea, and they drown.

So what in the world is Jesus doing here? It almost seems like Jesus is letting the demons off the hook. This weird encounter may not make Jesus look stronger or superior here. But there are actually five ways that this strange exorcism draws attention to Jesus’s greatness over the powers of evil.

For one thing, this event shows how Jesus polices the demons’ activities. Because it’s clear who gets to decide where the demons can’t be and where they can be. It’s Jesus. The demons are aware – if Jesus speaks to send them all away – they won’t just be sent out of the man, but they’ll be sent out of the country. That’s why, in verse 10, the demon-possessed man is pleading with Jesus, to ask that the demons won’t have to leave the region. It’s clear that Jesus has ultimate authority here, and that the demons have almost nothing by comparison. And that’s why these evil spirits have to request special permission from Jesus, even to enter into a group of animals. Jesus’s superior strength is shown in the way he polices the demons’ activities.

But his superiority is also put on display in the way that Jesus proves the magnitude of his power. Because if Jesus had just sent the demons away, as unseen spirits – we perhaps would have wondered – were there really thousands of demons in this man? Or was it just one demon, telling a lie, trying to sound scarier than he really was? Well, when Jesus sends the demons out – and the number of demons is more than enough to invade and occupy two thousand pigs – it makes it visibly, measurably obvious that there really was a legion of evil spirits. And it further proves the magnitude of Jesus’s power.

But there’s another interesting way that this event shows the greatness and superiority of Jesus over evil. Because as soon as the evil spirits enter these pigs – what happens? The pigs are crazed, and they plunge themselves over a cliff to their death in the sea. And it raises the question – if that’s how berserk these pigs went, with just two or three demons per pig – then what kept this man from going crazy and running down the steep bank into the sea? Yes, he cut himself with stones – but what kept from doing something even worse? It wasn’t human power – it’s already been clear, the man couldn’t be held back by any chains or shackles. No, there was only one thing strong enough, that could have possibly prevented him from destroying himself. And that’s the superior power of Jesus. Even before Jesus arrived on this distant shore of the Sea of Galilee, divine power was at work, to restrain the demons in this man, and to preserve him until just the right moment – until the day of deliverance. And Jesus does this all over. By his common kindness to mankind – and especially in his saving kindness – he restrains the evil of humanity – he keeps us from destroying ourselves, so that all his plans to save all his people across the world will end with success.

And this brings us to the fourth way that we see Jesus’s greatness, and his superiority over the demons, here. We see it in the way he prizes this man’s life, and saves him. I think for most of us, the loss of the 2000 pigs would register as being a pretty big deal. Especially, since, in today’s terms, a herd of mature pigs like this would easily be worth $2 million dollars. But the emphasis of this story – the matter that’s handled as being more significant – more newsworthy – is the rescue of this man. It matters more than the money.

It’s already been astonishing to see Jesus’s love for this man – how he got onto a boat, and crossed a raging sea, to get to a land that’s defiled and overtaken with paganism, in order to seek out this deranged, demon-possessed man who lives around dead bodies. That’s already astonishing love. But Jesus’s great love just gets highlighted even more when we see how he’s willing to give up the $2 million dollars-worth of livestock to destruction – but he isn’t willing to give up this man. In fact, he loves that man so much – it won’t just be 2000 pigs that die in this man’s place. But Jesus, himself, will die for this man, to set him free from his evil. That’s how much Jesus prizes this man’s life, to save him.

It’s incredible – this is the worst possible man you can imagine, this dirty, crazy, demon-possessed, pagan Gentile who’s living around the tombstones. And yet, Jesus loves him. And if Jesus can love him, you can be assured – you aren’t too far gone to be reached by the love of Christ. If Jesus’s love can take hold of that man and transform him, it really can save you and set you free from evil – and it can reach every other type of person in our community, too. And as we consider the great value that Jesus placed on the life of this wretched man, it should affect how we value people, as well – all people, even those of lowest status. Because we were once wretches, too. We were once under the power of evil. But we were given freedom, not because we put on a good show, but because God sent us a good Savior. The superiority of Jesus is seen in how he prizes the lives of lowly sinners.

But briefly, there’s one more way – a fifth way – that the death of the pigs here demonstrates Jesus’s superiority over evil. And that’s because we see that Jesus doesn’t actually let the demons off the hook, by sending them into the pigs. Instead, the demons, along with the pigs, are plunged into the dark depths of the sea – they drown in the flood. It’s actually a picture of Jesus purging the land of its uncleanness, and his coming judgment against evil. Though Jesus is still temporarily permitting the demons to occupy a place in the land – their judgment is coming, and it’s coming swiftly. The graphic image of 2000 pigs, floating lifelessly in the water – it’s a compelling picture of Jesus’s future victory over sin, death, and the devil. Jesus’s authority is superior.

The Sending Out of the New Man

But Jesus still hasn’t finished giving evidence of his great power. In the remaining section of the text, here, there’s one more thing that displays Jesus’s superior strength over evil. And we see it in the sending out of the new man. This is my third and final point: the sending out of the new man.

Verse 14 says that as soon as the men who were tending the pigs saw what happened, they ran into town to tell what happened. And pretty soon, a number of the locals came out and saw for themselves – sure enough, the pigs were gone. Their corpses could be seen floating in the sea. And the once-terrifying man, who had been demon-possessed, was now in a clean change of clothes, sitting, in his right mind. And there was Jesus, the great man who made it happen.

We might expect that the people would tell Jesus thank you – that they’d start to worship Jesus, because of how much greater he is than all these other spiritual forces. And yet the people from town – they actually aren’t thrilled with Jesus at all. At the end of verse 15, we’re told that the people were afraid. Jesus made them feel nervous, uncomfortable.

And what I appreciate about this, is that it’s so realistic. This is exactly how people respond today when they’re face to face with Jesus. This is how many people feel when they have a friend or family member who’s life has been changed by Jesus. Many of them aren’t immediately thrilled. For many people, spiritual things like this make them uncomfortable. And so what do people do when they’re around Jesus or Christians, and it makes them uncomfortable? Well, they try to make distance. They try to get Jesus to go away.

And clearly the human heart hasn’t changed much, because this is exactly what the local people do when Jesus makes them uneasy. They ask Jesus to just go away. Verse 17: “And they began to beg Jesus to depart from their region.”

But notice the transformation that’s happened for the man who was once so evil – notice how he responds to Jesus. He sees that Jesus isn’t a danger, but he’s a deliverer. He isn’t an intruder – but he’s the emperor of heaven and earth. He doesn’t want to flee from Jesus. He wants to be with Jesus.

And so as the small crowd of local men urges Jesus to get into his boat, to go away – notice what the newly restored man says to Jesus, in verse 18. “As [Jesus] was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed with demons begged him that he might be with him.”

And do you know why this man longs to be with Jesus? – Why he suddenly loves Jesus so much? It’s because this man has seen how much Jesus loves him. It’s because he’s so overwhelmed with how much Jesus has done for him.

Keep in mind – for hundreds of miles in every direction, there was perhaps no other man who had been so thoroughly and totally corrupted and controlled by evil. This is the sort of person – if Jesus would have killed him, the Munchkins would have streamed out of their houses singing, “Ding Dong, the Witch Is Dead.” Local opinion would have said that this demon-possessed man is a public menace – that he’s worthless. And yet, when Jesus comes, it isn’t to destroy him. Instead, Jesus comes to love him and restore him.

And because of Jesus – this man who was once a captive to evil, now he’s free. He was once a defiled house for demons, but now he’s clean. He was once naked and exposed, but now he’s clothed and all his shame has been covered. His mind was once deranged and darkened by sin – but now, at last, he’s in his right mind. He was once living in the land of death, among the tombs – but Jesus has brought him new life.

And if you haven’t been able to see it yet, you need to see it now – this is a picture of what Jesus has done for us. We were once controlled by evil, we were once living in shame, defiled and as good as dead. But Jesus crossed the great gulf from the Holy land of heaven, and he landed his boat in the defiled regions of the earth – because in mercy, he loved us. And he didn’t just sacrifice $2 million-worth of bacon, but he sacrificed himself, in order to give us a new life.

And at the end of the story, here, we see the new life that this man is called into. Remember, the man asked to be with Jesus. But verse 19 says that “…he (Jesus) did not permit him, but said to him, “Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.” In other words, Jesus doesn’t say: “I saved you – but you’re still too grungy and ungifted to be useful for anything.” Instead, he really says the opposite. Jesus affirms the worth and usefulness of this man by giving him good work to do.

In fact, it’s interesting – even before Jesus sends out his own disciples to spread his teaching to the people of Israel, Jesus sends out this once-broken man to be the first missionary to the Gentiles. Just consider how amazing the transformation is that Jesus works in his life. He goes from being an evil maniac, controlled by demons, to being an effective messenger, commissioned by God. And if Jesus has the power to change a man like this, he’s certainly able to change you. He’s certainly able to change your son or daughter, your boss, your co-worker, your neighbor. He can change the advocates of evil in our community. He can overthrow the power of evil in anyone, and make them new.

After all, if you’re trusting in Jesus – you’ve seen something of his work in you – in your very self. You’ve seen how much Jesus has done for you, to seek you out, and to set you free. And even now, Jesus is sending out his people, as new men, women and children – so that we can declare “how much Jesus has done for us, and how he has had mercy on us.” If this messed-up man from the tombs can do it – if he can be transformed into a useful worker for Jesus – surely you have something to contribute, too. So take time this week – reflect on the details of what Jesus has done for you. And in your thankfulness, in your joy – go tell your friends. Declare how much Jesus has done for you by his divine authority and his deep mercy. Let’s this be a defining feature of our church in Mt Pleasant, MI. Let’s pray: