Good morning. My name is Matt. I'm one of the pastors here. And the reason that this is awkward right now is I was waiting to see if the mic was going to work. We're going to look at a passage of Scripture that talks about evil and demonic power. And this morning the devil or one of his demons tried to stop that. And they failed miserably because Jesus is king. So we're going to move ahead. Would you open your Bibles with me to Mark chapter five? We're going to look at verses one through twenty if you're using one of our Bibles underneath the chair in front of you. It's on page one thousand sixty eight. Here now God's holy and true word. They came to the other side of the sea to the country of the garrisons. And when Jesus had stepped out of the boat immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit. He lived among the tombs and no one could bind him anymore not even with a chain for he had often been bound with shackles and chains. But he had wrenched the chains apart and he broke the shackles in pieces. No one had the strength to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones. And when he 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 assure you by God do not torment me for he was saying come out of the man you unclean spirit. And Jesus asked him what is your name he replied my name is Legion for we are many. And he begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country. Now a great herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside and they begged him saying send us to the pigs let us enter them. So he gave them permission and the unclean spirits came out and entered the pigs and the herd numbering about 2000 rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the sea. Thirdsmen fled and told it in the city and in the country and people came to see what it was that had happened and they came to Jesus and saw the demon possessed man the one who had the Legion sitting there clothed and in his right mind and they were afraid. And those who had seen it described to them what had happened to the demon possessed man and to the pigs and they began to beg Jesus to depart from the region. As he was getting into the boat the man who had been possessed with the demons begged him that he might be with him and he 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. And he went away and began to proclaim in the decapolis how much Jesus had done for him and everyone marveled you pray with me. Father we do thank you for this your word we thank you for its power we thank you for the way that you protect us and give us opportunities to look into your word and to see the majesty and the glory and the power of Christ. We do thank you for this true story and what it tells us about our powerful and compassionate Savior would you use this time Lord to transform us to make us more like Jesus and for us to love him more to be more awestruck of him. Would you exalt him in our hearts and minds as we look at him today. Would you use this time Lord to equip us to take this good news to our neighbors and to the nations for it is in Jesus name that we pray. Amen. This is one of the most graphic and vivid depictions in the Bible of demonic activity of an exorcism and so I was not surprised this morning when we were going to be speaking about this when things did not work electronically this morning. It's amazing how these things seem to happen when you talk about these things and the reality of demonic activity in the world is something that we do have to acknowledge. There is a sort of an idea that some people have where they will say well I don't really believe in demons I think demonic activity that's just kind of a primitive notion that people used to have before they understood things like mental illness and things like that they needed a category for things they couldn't understand. That might be a decent argument against the existence of evil forces except for the fact that the Bible distinguishes between sickness and demon possession and things like mental illness. In fact if we had more time we could look in depth at Matthew chapter 4 where it says that they were bringing to Jesus people who were sick people who had diseases people who were possessed people who were mentally ill and people who were paralyzed and the way that the ESV translates that word that we can translate as mentally ill is epileptic. It's a nice way of avoiding the fact that it literally means lunatic and that's usually seen as sort of a pejorative way to refer to somebody who struggles with mental illness so the ESV cleans that up a little bit so we understand that it's not something that we're criticizing but it acknowledges the new testament acknowledges the concept of struggles with your mind or mental illness. And so it actually differentiates makes a distinction between demonic activity and mental illness so it is something we have to recognize. Our English word that we translate the Greek word that means demonization we translate it as possessed sometimes that could be a little misleading because it really just means to be possessed or to be demonized. It means to be under the control or under the power of a demon in the Bible the new testament shows us sort of two different ways that that tends to happen there's possession that's that people can be possessed by demons and that would be that they're under a high level of control and then there's another version that's more tame that would be oppression that people can be oppressed by demons as well. The lower level of control more of influence through the lies and the temptations what's different therefore between being possessed and being oppressed would be not in quality but in quantity how much power can a demon actually gain over you and me. And the similarity between the two would be the end result is the same or the end goal of evil is the same and that's to destroy you or to get you to destroy yourself. The good news is that as followers of Christ we have the Holy Spirit dwelling inside of us and therefore a demon cannot possess a follower of Christ but they can influence evil forces in the world do seek to influence us seek to lie to us seek to get us to do things that will ultimately end up in our destruction. This is why the Bible talks about the devil prowling around like a lion seeking people to devour in first Peter or Paul talks about in Ephesians 6 putting on the whole armor of God to resist the schemes of the devil and we know that the primary way that the devil and therefore demons operate would be through temptation. We saw that when the devil tried to tempt Jesus and Mark chapter 1 failed miserably of course because Jesus is 100% impervious to the demonic and satanic activity but that is what we need to recognize as sort of his primary way of seeking to influence us. Last week we might look at this amazing picture of Jesus showing his power over natural dangers and then today we get to look at Jesus exhibiting his power over supernatural things that seek to destroy us and so our gospel fact this morning is this that Jesus is more powerful than the forces of evil in the world. So we must run to him for deliverance and healing and that's what he gives us so let's look at this we're going to look at two things this morning I want to talk about the way evil works and then we'll follow that with the way Jesus works the way evil works and the way Jesus works would you follow along in your scripture with me we're going to start with verses one through five here's what we want to see very very important reality I need to remember this you need to remember this. Evil gradually increases its influence in order to lead us into destructive behavior so that we will be alone and miserable that is the hope of evil forces as they seek to influence us let's look at this in the scripture here. Verse one they came to the other side of the seat to the country of the gear scenes and when Jesus had stepped out of the boat immediately they're met him a man out of the tunes with an unclean spirit so imagine this moment Jesus literally his foot steps down onto the shore and this man is running at him he is surely covered in cuts and infections and scars and blood and he runs up to Jesus and falls down at his feet now. Notice this then what mark does in the next few verses here three through five is he takes a little break from the story and gives us some information that's another one of his sandwiches and so we have to notice this middle part here three through five is very important for us to understand what is being taught here so look at these verses here verse three this man lived among the tombs and no one could bind him anymore not even with a chain for it often been bound with shackles. Talks about him breaking these chains breaking these shackles night and day being among the tombs shrieking out at the top of his lungs and cutting himself with stones and here's the key word in verse three anymore look at that and no one could bind him anymore which means that this man's life was not always like this. This man was not always isolated and miserable and harming himself in profound ways that wasn't the way his life always was in fact in verse 19 Jesus tells this man to go tell his friends what the Lord has done for him so we can tell that this man at one time had much more of a life he had friends maybe he had a job things were profoundly different at one point but over time evil. God it's forces evil forces got their influence into his heart and grew and increased their influence over him to the point where he was under evil's complete control and that's what's so frustrating about how evil works. It kind of sneaks in gets its foot in the door and then it's leg of our hearts and then seeks to influence us more and more in hopes that we will destroy ourselves because Satan wants to see God's image marred and destroyed and so we have to understand that that's why when we're being tempted to sin when we're experienced that desire to do the things that God calls us not to do we have to see that that is evil calling us to do the things that it knows will lead to our destruction. This is a true love for us and author that I like he writes this, sin will take you farther than you want to go keep you longer than you want to stay and cost you more than you are willing to pay. Think about how many marriages that you already know of or have experienced being destroyed because something started small and grew into an affair. Think of all the families that have been ripped apart, think of the careers that have been lost because somebody started sort of dabbling in some unethical stuff and it was working and no he was getting away with it so he continued to and then everything fell crashing down. That's what's so wicked about evil is it starts small increases its influence over time and that's why it's so gracious of God to call us to obedience. It's gracious of God to call us to follow his law to follow his son because in those things as we're pursuing Christ and pursuing holiness not so that we will be saved but because we have been saved. He knows there's safety in that this is why Paul says in Ephesians and Ephesians chapter 4 he's talking about putting off your old self and refusing to do those old things that we once did when we weren't following Christ he's saying don't do those things and then he follows it with verse 27 and says give no opportunity to the devil. Don't give him an opportunity to get in and to begin to influence you more and more because he wants you dead God is saying to us through texts like these don't play with fire I don't want you to be burned by the forces of evil and so one thing that you and I need to realize is that call to holiness is a sweet loving call from a loving father in heaven who knows what is best for us but the other thing. Is that you and I we want to be gentle with those who are really struggling whatever the struggle is that we would choose to be gentle with people when they are struggling with sin. Okay think about this in Galatians 6 Paul says brothers if anyone is caught in transgression you who are spiritual restore him in a spirit of gentleness second Timothy 2 he talks about correcting with gentleness and notice what Jesus does here Jesus attacks the cause of the man's ministry or the cause of the man's misery not the man. And that's what we want to do as well we want to recognize that there are causes to peoples sin to their misery and we want to love the person we want to minister to the person. It's so important that we understand to be a church to be a church that really loves one another and a church where people feel free to acknowledge that we struggle with sin we've got to be a church that will be gentle with one another as we share these things. There are so much more factors in why we struggle with different things than just right and wrong. There are physiological things that we are up against there are psychological things that we are up against and there are evil demonic forces that are seeking to influence us. Let me tell you a story I was at a retreat speaking last week and that's why I wasn't here speaking in a youth retreat and after I spoke I was speaking about evil actually and this young girl came up to me after and she was weeping and she said I have to tell you something I've never told anybody but I've been cutting. And I want to stop and she been harming herself cutting herself she said she had scars all over her legs and so she was crying so you know me I started crying and we you know we just was trying to talk to her I was telling her about the power of Christ and she was wanting to trust him she was wanting to to get past this and so by God's grace her mom was there. And so I went and asked can I tell your mom I went got her mom her mom came over and they started talking about it it was beautiful in the end they hugged the embrace they were crying they're going to fight this thing together by trusting in Christ but in that first moment when the mother first got there and I can't blame her I probably would have done the same thing but just kill me because here's this young girl she's admitting for the first time that she's been a self harming and her mom first words out of her mouth were why would you do that and the girl just broke down completely broke down because she didn't know why she was doing that people don't know why they do that and so thankfully her mother kept kept in the conversation and she began to cry as well and they are like I said they're fighting this thing together but you see like why she had no idea why she was doing that and the reason I would say is there was something evil was forcing her was was talking her telling her to do these things there's evil evil is real and our sin is our own fault but we have to understand we're all victims of the influence of evil and that gives us the ability to choose to be so gentle with one another as we admit to each other that we are struggling with sin and then to point one another to the power of Christ. And so let's we talked about the way evil works it gets in there gets its influence rooted and then it seeks to widen that as much as possible but we have very good news we can talk about the way Jesus works as well look at 6 through 15 and we'll we'll grab a couple verses from 16 to 20 as well and here's what's so amazing Jesus uses his power to deliver us from evil and compassionately heals us from its effects this is what Jesus does this passage shows us how Jesus works he uses his power to deliver us from evil and then compassionately heals us from its effects how does evil affect us I mean if evil can affect the way we think it can affect the way we feel it can affect the things that we do and so to see this text and to see Christ using his power to deliver us and his compassion to heal us is absolutely critical especially and hear me if you are self-harming right now if you are cutting if you're anything like that would you hear me Jesus in this text wants you to see him and hear him saying to you run to me look at verse 6 I love this when he the demon possessed man saw Jesus from afar he ran and fell down before him so right out of the gate what we see is there is no amount of power no no power of evil that can actually stop you from running to Jesus if you want to and I love that and then let's continue here verse 7 and crying out with a loud voice he said what have you to do with me Jesus son of the most high God and then he's he says I endure you by God do not torment me because Jesus was standing there saying come out of the man come out of the man and what's so interesting about this is it is an incredible display of Jesus power how he is more powerful than evil and here's how we see this you have this demon trying to get power over the Jesus by appealing to a higher power the problem is it's an epic because he's appealing to God and Jesus is God we go demon but this is the reality here so he is that's how things work he's appealing to a higher power and then what is Jesus doing simply speaking come out of the man and what's so amazing about that and why that is such a beautiful picture of the power of Jesus is when you look in ancient literature when you look at the way things work back at this time there's nothing about exorcisms without a person appealing to some higher power everybody throughout history is always trying to appeal to some higher power in order to gain power over someone and Jesus appeals to no one because he is the higher power this is a beautiful picture of Jesus and his omnipotence his power and so we can trust in him and so then at verse 9 you see this he asks him his name what is your name he says and he replies my name is Legion for we are many and what's so interesting here is that the in this time period often you would ask somebody there's name you would seek to get someone's name in order to get power over them but that's not what Jesus is doing here either he's not saying what is your name to get power over Legion he already has power over him he's asking his name to show us how powerful he is because if he did not ask him his name we wouldn't have known how powerful this demon actually really is it's actually six thousand demons Legion is a Roman military term for 6,000 men and 120 animals and so in that moment the disciples who are already surely petrified of this man find out that it's 6,000 times worse than they realized I mean can you imagine being there and so you see and not only is it is this an overwhelming amount of power from the devil but also it's it's militarily strategic look at verse 10 they begged Jesus not to send them out of the country why most likely because the devil had strategically put them there they don't want to get in trouble with their boss I mean it just shows you the organized power of the devil how he's really carrying out a war against God against God's people and you think about the Powell doctrine you know what the Powell doctrine it is a doctrine that our military are United States government uses referring to when we can and will go to war former Secretary of State Colin Powell is the kind of major architect of it and it's it's eight questions and asked to do the questions have to do with are the American people on board is the international community on board we have a clear threat to our national security and all these things and so the Powell doctrine states that if there's an affirmative answer to all eight questions then we not only go to war but we go to war with overwhelming force warmer than we think we need that's what the devil was doing here trying to send way more trying to come with overwhelming force and Jesus with a breath shuts them down that's a powerful he is now let's be honest this thing with the pigs what's going on there take a look take a look 11 great herd of pigs Jesus is hearing this demon say can we go into the pigs and he says sure he lets him go into the pigs and I'm going to be honest with you nobody knows why he did that there are lots of different suggestions I'm going to give you several but the fact of the matter is we don't really know why Jesus sent the demons into the pigs but we can learn from it some people think that Jesus chose to send the demons into the pigs and then the demons ran the pigs off into the water to show the goal of demonic activity maybe you and I needed to see that a demons and resolve the demons and goal is the destruction of the being that they are trying to attack maybe that's what it was maybe Jesus sent him into the pigs to show his control that he can do whatever he wants in the same way that he showed his control over the weather in the previous passage now he's showing his control over evil forces maybe that's it maybe he sent him into pigs to show the man that these demons that have destroyed his life have been taken care of because as this man watch those demons as he heard the request of the demons to go into the pigs and as you watch those pigs die maybe that was Jesus saying showing this man I have dealt with the evil I have delivered you from evil maybe it was to show us that the restoration of even one person is worth more than two thousand pigs it's worth more than everything we could possibly ever have maybe that's it we don't know I like the way Tim Keller treats this he says that the issue with the pigs means it tells us that we were not always going to understand how Jesus delivers us from evil but we are guaranteed that he does guarantee that Jesus delivers us from evil the herdsman 14 they run they tell everybody everybody comes out to see what's happening and they see this man imagine this now you know this man to be screeching out cutting himself running around without cause I mean just like absolutely nobody wants to go near this guy nobody wants to even talk to him and now he's they get there and this man is sitting he's not running around he's clothed his scars his cuts his gashes are all covered and he's in his right mind he's no longer completely confused and crying out and this I love this after we see Jesus show us his his power to deliver us now he shows us his his his compassion to heal us this is such a beautiful picture of what it means to be healed by Christ from the effects of evil in our lives he's got right thoughts this man is in his right man he's in his right mind he's got right thoughts what does he think what does he know now he knows that Jesus is his savior Jesus is the Lord and he knows this look at this is so amazing first 19 Jesus tells the man to go and tell his friends what the Lord has done for him and then verse 20 says the man he went and began to proclaim how much Jesus had done for him so this man in that moment knows that Jesus is the Lord he knows that he is God and we also you and me when we trust him and run to him to deliver us and we experience him truly delivering us from these evil things that are trying to attack us we too cry out that Jesus is Lord do we not and so this is beautiful so he's he's got his right mind and that means he is he knows that Jesus is Lord he's also got right feelings he knows that this Jesus cares about him that this Jesus would choose to use his incredible power to set him free and he knows it because not only is he free of the demons but he's wearing clothes where do the clothes come from some of the disciples started taking stuff off in order to cover this man up and that's sweet that's a picture of the church. And so you have Jesus and his church clothing this man and he feels loved he feels the care of Christ upon him because he is free and he is cloth and then lastly he's got right actions. What an amazing picture here right thoughts right feelings right actions how do we see that verse 18 he asks to be with him he begged Jesus to be with him and it's the same exact phrasing same exact words in mark 314 where Jesus calls the first apostles or the first disciples and tells them says that he called them in order that he might be with them and send them out and so you have this picture of this man wanting to follow Jesus wanting to obey Jesus and he does Jesus has a little different plan for this guy he sends him out right away because this man is ready to go be the first missionary to the Gentile region of the decapolis he's go he's ready to go proclaim after what he's been through. Amazing this is the way that Jesus works Jesus works in a way where he is using his incredible power to deliver us from the power of evil and then he compassionately heals us helps us to think right helps us to feel right helps us to have the right actions and the reality is you know you got to admit if you saw that you'd be scared to it says that when they saw this they were afraid and it's scary that amount of power. It's very frightening unless you 100% sure that that power is on your side right there's a full-grown male lion on the stage here with me and you saw chains industrial strength chains around him if he went like this we'd all you know freak out a little bit because that much power is very very scary and so maybe these people who beg Jesus to leave maybe they're mad about the pigs maybe they were just absolutely petrified because they didn't know whether that power that was just displayed is for them or against them and you know what makes you and me different than the people that begged him to leave it's nothing good in you and nothing good in me it's the cross because now we've seen that the lion of Judah we've seen that the Christ the all-powerful Christ is for us that's what we see in the cross Jesus proves to us through the cross. That he is for us by dying for our sins and by giving us his righteousness and literally what we see in this picture here is this Jesus is basically going to he's going to switch places with this man how do we see that this man had cuts all over his body inflicted by himself Jesus is going to choose to be macerated all over his back to have nails in his hands to have a crown of thorns on his back of nails in his feet he's going to choose to let wicked people like you and me do that to him so that we can be forgiven this man was crying out all the time and Jesus on the cross is the one who cried out even later my God my God why have you forsaken me and he did that so that we could be free this man lived among the tombs Jesus went into a tomb dead so that you and I could be alive today not just physically spiritually and we know that's true because he physically rose from the dead the glorious resurrection is the proof that Jesus has indeed delivered you and I who believe from sins penalty we talked about the law this morning all those things were supposed to be keeping and we failed it miserably and the good news is that what Christ has done the Christ paid for that and so we are forgiven we are free from the penalty of sin but we also know that what Christ has done has set us free from the power of sin that we have the Holy Spirit within us giving us power as we strive to obey the Holy Spirit gives us that power and we also need to be reminded that the resurrection proves that Jesus will one day free us from the very presence of sin when he comes back to make all things new. If you are here today and you never run to him you never really trusted in him I want to plead with you to be reconciled to God to put your faith in Christ let him deliver you from the influences of evil you are under and begin to heal you. So you can think right you can feel right you can act as a fully alive person and for those of us who have put our faith in Christ when we look at the cross it's that shining example of what he has done for us and like he says to this man that he's healed now go and tell your friends how much the Lord has done for you how he's had mercy on you he says the same thing to you and me. So let's go and tell our friends how much the Lord has done for us how he has had mercy on us let's pray. Father we thank you we confess that we have listened to the lies of the devil and the demons and we rejoice that you deliver us from evil thank you that in the Lord's prayer we ask you to deliver us from evil. And we thank you for the grace that you've shown to us in Jesus Christ Lord Jesus we praise your holy name for setting us free for using your power to become weak and die on a cross so that we could be free we praise your holy name holy spirit will you fill us empower us send us encourage us excite us in boldness that we would be strengthened to go. To go and to tell our friends and this city and the nations what the Lord has done for us we pray in Jesus name for his sake amen.