The scripts are reading this morning, maybe found in your order of worship, or in your Bibles to the book of Mark, chapter 5, verses 1 through 20. Mark, chapter 5, verses 1 through 20. They went across the lake to the region of the garrisons. When Jesus got out of the boat, a man with an evil spirit came from the tombs to meet him. This man lived in the tombs and no one combined him anymore, even with the chain, for he had been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons from his feet, knowing was strong enough to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and in the hills he would cry out and cut himself with stones. When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and fell on his knees in front of him. He shouted at the top of his voice, what do you want with me, Jesus, son of the most high god? It's where the God that you won't torture me. For Jesus had said to him, come out of this man, you evil spirit. Then Jesus asked him, what is your name? My name is Legion, he replied, for we are many. And he begged Jesus again and again not to send him out of the area. A large herd of pigs were feeding on the nearby hillside. The demons begged Jesus. Since among the pigs, allow us to go into them. He gave them permission and the evil spirits came out and went into the pigs. The herd, about 2000 number, rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned. Then stinging the pigs ran off and reported this in the town and countryside. And the people went out to see what had happened. When they came to Jesus, they saw the man who had been possessed by the Legion of demons, sitting there dressed in his right mind and they were afraid. Those who had seen it told the people what had happened to the demon possessed man and told about the pigs as well. Then the people began to plead with Jesus to leave their region. As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon possessed begged to go with him. Jesus did not let him but said, go home to your family and tell them how much the Lord has done for you and how he has had mercy on you. So the man went away and began to tell the decopolis how much Jesus had done for him and all the people were amazed. The word of the Lord. Please be seated. Would you join me in prayer? Father, we come before you now to be taught by you, to be transformed by you, and to be redirected for your purposes in this world and for your glory. We pray this strongly in the name of Jesus. Amen. Well, it has been an extraordinary week, hasn't it? It's a week like none other. Certainly that feeling that we're living in the midst of history and the making. And I don't know about you but I've been something of a junkie the last week tied to the television and different news outlets on the Internet. In terms of TV, I think I can break a world record in terms of flipping between the different news networks when I need to, but I sense that there is a growing sense of easiness and hostility in our land over this. I am not going to do those of you that know me know that I'm opposed to politicizing the pulpit. So I'm not going that direction in this. But my concern is an increasing division in our country. We are supposed to be one nation under God indivisible. And I do think that we need to be praying deeply that the Lord would care for our country during this critical time. But there's a sense in which there is this division in a growing, growing armies on both ends wanting to have their side declared the victor. Well, take some of those emotions. Now, close your thoughts on that. Close your thoughts on that. But take some of the emotions that I know many of you have on this issue. And I want you to employ them in terms of the spiritual realm. Because what we find in the Gospel of Mark over and over and over again is this sense that there are two worlds at odds against them. That there is a sense in which there is a great energy, great emotion, great hostility. And the key to understanding life, Mark would say, the key to understanding why things may be are not going in your life the way that you think they ought to be going. Why relationship, sour, why your career seems to be at a dead end, why you seem to be lonely or drifting or obsessed with something or someone. Because if you want to understand these things and get underneath it then you have got to understand that there is a great deal of energy at work. There is a war taking place seeking to divide you and me. There's two worlds really at odds vying for our soul. That's what much that you've got to understand about life. And that's really one of the main things in the Gospel of Mark. Now, what we have before us this morning is a rather extreme story. If not just an exorcism, this is driving out multiple. We don't know how many but many demons from an individual. It's an extreme situation of where one world is colliding with another world. A man whose life is absolutely at its worst because of the kingdom of darkness having possessed him in a most extreme way. Now, coming face to face or rather need to face with the ruler of the kingdom of light and peace and joy. And what I want you to see in this as it pertains to your own life is that the kingdom of darkness is there forcefully. It may not come as a band of demons to you. It may be more like some circus animals in your soul. But that kingdom of evil, that kingdom of darkness is there. It is real. It is a world vying for your soul and mind in all sorts of ways, subtle and some less subtle. It's there and it seeks to produce recklessness in our life and ruin us. But there's also another kingdom there. The kingdom of light, the kingdom that Jesus is bringing to bear in this world and will one day fully bring to bear in a way that extinguishes the other kingdom and banishes it from the presence of his people. The kingdom of the glorious reign of Jesus Christ. We want to distinguish between these two and then react to them. Because that's really what happened in this passage. One kingdom is presented against the other kingdom and then it shows all the different reactions that people have to this exchange. So let's analyze this a little bit, explore it together briefly as you either hold open your Bibles or keep the order of worship out on Mark chapter 5. First of all, the recklessness of the one world. The recklessness of the one world and then we'll look at the reign of the other world and then the reactions that various people had to the challenges posed by the one world against the other. So first of all, the recklessness of the one world. Now this man, his name is Legion. And when you think of Legion, you probably think of military. It's a military term. And back in the Imperial period, a Legion consisted of 6,000 infantry and 120 horsemen and in some technical personnel as well. The picture here is that this person isn't just slightly being influenced by the kingdom of evil. This is an extreme situation. The army of the evil one has found its way into this man's life or not hold his name because he speaks basically completely consumed and possessed by this army of evil who identifies itself as Legion. It's an extreme example, but it shows to us that evil is real. It's all around us. There's no denying it. All you have to do to see the way in which people are thinking about this at a very common level is to look at Hollywood right now. Best I can count, there are three movies right now in the theaters where the explicit purpose of the movie is to show the devil and his works. Maybe it's in the form of a comedy or maybe it's the form of terror. But it's something that people realize and Hollywood obviously out to make money is making movies to that end. You see this as well in books. You see it all over the place and articles on the newspaper last week an article about the world famous astrologer that was coming to Houston. It's all over the place. The kingdom of darkness and evil is real and we must not be naive to pretend that it doesn't exist. But it's not just this mentality like old flip Wilson used to say you know the devil made me do it remember flip Wilson takes you back a while. Some of you were not around for them but the Bible says it's not just that there is an evil force an evil angel and his army that is the devil and his army of demons. But there's also this whole world this not the physical world but this system of evil that you and I are inculturated in. There's also simply our own souls that because we live post fall post the rebellion of our ultimate parents Adam and Eve because we live in that world as their children. We are detached from our God it's a broken and fractured world in which you and I are fallen and what the Bible calls the flesh is that part of us that is hostile to the things of God. We live the apostle James put it is that each one of us is tempted not when the devil comes in and zaps us but when by our own evil desires we are dragged away in time. All these elements of evil are present and while you may not be possessed by a legion of demons there are no doubt significant evil influences that are seeking to shape the way you and I live in life. And we've got to recognize that. What is it that evil leads to? I don't care whether it's this extreme situation in legion or a very seemingly subtle and simple way in your life. How is it that sin influences will look at how it influenced legion the course of evil in him. First of all get led to a reckless life of bondage. He was held in bondage so much so that he was completely uncontrollable and the people tried to chain him down because he obviously was a threat to their well-being but he was so strong that he would break those fetters and would be loose. The point being that evil though it may entice a person to toward liberty always leads to bondage. It always leads to slavery. Legion was a slave. He knew no freedom and yet he was extraordinarily powerful. He was the pawn of evil forces completely dominated by them. And it also evil along the lines of this bondage. Our minds are affected. Our minds are actually shaped by evil in subtle ways because notice what Legion cries out to Jesus when he comes to him. Don't torture me. See what evil does? It makes wrong right and right wrong. It turns everything on its head. Because Jesus does just the opposite of torturing. Jesus takes us from our bent toward a world that leads to torture and liberates us and brings us into peace and enjoyment. Also notice what it did to Legion. It dehumanized him. He was doing things like running around naked like a wild animal in the middle of the night running through the graveyard and all across the countryside in the hilltop, acting more like an animal so that there is, I think, a subtle irony that Jesus would allow Legion the demons to lead him and go into a herd of wild pigs because they were more like him than you or I. He was being human. He had become animalized and dehumanized. And ultimately it leads to death. When you see what the demons wanted to do to Legion, Jesus stops it short, then they move into the pigs and immediately they drive the pigs down a steep embankment into the lake and they die. That is the course of evil. No matter how subtle, no matter how seemingly harmless it is, its ultimate purpose is to lead to death. Basically it contaminates our soul, turns it into a toxic waste dump and leaves us in a perilous situation. And the result for Legion was that he was left completely alone. Did you notice that? Legion is alone. He has no family around him, no friends. He was ostracized by the community. And that is what evil does to us. Evil contorts and distorts the image of God in human beings in such a way that people don't want to be around us. You can see it sometimes in little children where you work in the children's ministry and there is just a child that is a wreck. They are a good picture for Legion. They are just all over the place. Well, the other children don't want to be around, do they? They distance themselves from that obnoxious individual and that is what Legion had become. That is the course of evil in human beings. Now how does this display itself as well? It is a continuum from the extreme to the very subtle. But I want you to hold in your mind the picture of Legion and think and ask God where are the influences of the kingdom of darkness, evident in my life? Where in my relationships and my thought life? In my vocation? Where does evil begin to come in and hold you captive to its power? Where is it producing not freedom but bondage? And where is it dehumanizing you and polluting your soul and leaving you in essence in a position where people begin to distance themselves from you? The second thing that I think is very important in terms of the recklessness and ruin of evil in our lives is this. You and I never use evil. Evil always uses us. We never use evil, we never use sin, sin always uses us. That is what it happened with Legion. Again, we don't know his name why because evil had so possessed him was now speaking through him where he was just a nothing. He was being used for reckless and useless purposes. And that's what sin never liberates us. I mean, think of a person who has a drinking problem. And they might say, you know, I'm just terribly insecure. A few drinks really loosens me up and makes me more myself. But then you see them after a few more drinks and they're useless. They're being used by that substance and that I think carries over into virtually any area. If you think in terms of the military language of Legion, what this man had become was an outpost for evil. He had become a military outpost for evil. And that's really the goal, isn't it, of the influences of evil in our lives, to become an outpost for darkness, for ruin, for decay, for whatever is opposed to the Lord God. And then thirdly, it destroys your identity. It destroys your identity. Now, this is evident in the fact that the man doesn't even have a name. We don't know what his name is because his identity has been redefined. God made him to be useful for his purposes that now he is reshaped for other purposes. And this is what sinned us, sinned brands of persons. Sin redefines who a person is in bad ways. And I know that for many of you, there are things in your life. Maybe they happened years ago, decades ago, but those influences of evil have shaped your identity in a very profound way and not in a liberating way. And maybe you think what all I need is to be free. I just need to be liberated from this and be independent from whatever influence has begun to, or has continued to shape your life. And Jesus comes along and says, look, you will always be mastered by something. You'll always be mastered by something. The question is, who is your master? You will only be, Jesus says, when I am your master, that you will enjoy and experience true peace, true life, true liberty, true sense of self-identity and word and usefulness rather than being used. And so that's what we begin to see. This is now second major point of the reign of the other world colliding with the ruin and destruction of this first world, the world of darkness. That's what happens. You can see Legion, Legion spots Jesus from a distance and he has drawn to him and then throws himself down in his knees and starts crying out in great shrieks of panic and pain. Now, how did Jesus exercise authority over Legion? How did he show his reign over him? Well, by commanding him. It was his word simply that he commanded just as God commanded things to come into being in terms of creation. God created by the power of his word also by the same power he commanded evil forces to come out of the man and for the purpose of recreating him. How does he exercise this power? He does so by ruling over us and taking supremacy over anything in our life. And this is very critical for a follower of Jesus Christ to contemplate that whatever is in your life that seems to be an overwhelming power influence, there is one who is light years more powerful in Christ. Legion intuitively knew that he had to bow down and submit before Jesus even uttered a word. And then when Jesus did command, Legion had filled by instantly and instinctively. And therefore, it's by the power of Jesus's word today that he reigns in rules over us. There is again, there are multitudes of influences on our life where you and I need the command of Jesus Christ. We need him to command things in our life to go away. And this happens not by someone doing sort of extraces of voodoo over you. That's not all I think where this passage is leading us. The main focus of the Bible in terms of how the Lord begins to reign over us is that the commands of God, the word of God, becomes personalized to your need, to your areas. So that you really begin someone to send it to me this week talking about what is meditation meditation really is you preaching a sermon to yourself every day. That's what's necessary for you to identify where the kingdom of darkness is having influence in your life and then having God show you passages of scripture that are pertinent to that particular need and you preach a sermon to yourself. It doesn't have to be three points or thirty minutes, but you nevertheless personalize it in a way so that that word which is living and active and sharper than any sword would cut to the need of your heart. Legions need, I mean, Legion had all these words coming out of him. Shriek, but what he needed was a word to come into him to be planted in him that would change him and transform him. And the result of this in verse 15 is dramatic. I mean look at the different man you see in verse 15 from the one who's running wildly around the countryside. This is when they came to Jesus they saw the man not called Legion anymore who had been possessed by the Legion of demons sitting there dressed in his right mind and they were afraid. He was reckless and now he is absolutely at peace and quiet. His mind is sound. I mean they probably thought of him as a crazy man. He didn't probably think in terms of him being possessed by a bunch of demons. They probably thought he's just a lunatic. Poor Legion, but now he is sane and sound in his mind and peaceful and restored. His loss of identity is now restored with a sense of worth which we'll look at in just a second. Whereas before he was removed from people, people are now coming to him and Jesus is about to send him back out to his family and to his friends. You see, evil and sin uses us and it removes us from people, but Jesus does just the opposite. He controls us. Yes, he masters us but makes us useful rather than uses us and then reunites us to people, breaks down those walls that have become barriers. All right, now that's how this one ruinous world collides with the reigning world of Christ. What are the reactions that we see here? Very quickly. Well, there's three that I want to point out. First of all, Legion. How did Legion react when Jesus restored him? The first thing that he wanted to do was to follow Jesus. Look at verse 18. Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon possessed begged to go with him. See, that is the way of one who has been changed by Christ. The natural instinct of one who has had Christ come into their life is that they want to follow him. They want to be with him. They want to be possessed by him rather than the things of this world. And though before, it's very interesting, his line at the beginning in verse 7 when he first meets Jesus, the NIV translate translates it, what do you want with me, Jesus? It could be better translated. Why do you want to interfere with me, Jesus? And I realize that some of you are there today. Some of you are here and you're saying, you know, I'm okay with religion in general. But the sense of this personal real Jesus interfering with my life, I'm not too comfortable with that. Why? Because we want to be in control of our own lives. Whereas before Legion was saying, why are you interfering with me? Don't torture me. He's saying, now, let me follow you. Let me go with you. The first thing you need to ask relative to this is, are you going to follow Jesus? Are you going to follow Him? Or are you going to be like the people around who react and how do they react? Well, think about it for just a second. They had been around Legion for years, no doubt. He'd been one that they feared, maybe joked about. Maybe he became sort of the great threat that parents issued to their children. Okay, I've had just about enough of you, Johnny. One more disruption, and I'm going to send you out to Legion and let him take care of you. And now, Legion, completely different. I mean, you'd think, boy, they would be, they would be extraordinary celebration and joy. But Legion is greeted with stone silence. And Jesus, Jesus, they're scared of. Get out of here, Jesus. Why? Well, I think a couple of reasons. I think they want to get rid of Jesus. One, because Jesus interferes. Jesus disrupts. Jesus comes in and takes our life that we think is all neat and makes for the mess. But in reality, he's taking a mess and cleaning it up. Nevertheless, we don't want change. And Jesus interferes. We think he's coming to torture us. And they had grown used to that sort of backwards way of thinking that evil develops in us. That I'm okay. You're okay. Legion. Well, he's kind of crazy. But that's okay because he's separate. And that's just the way things are. And Jesus says, no, I'm going to come in and make all things right. You better fast in your seatbelt. I think there's a second reason why they told Jesus to get lost. Jesus caused them a great financial burden as an economic crisis. It's the economy, right? Jesus sent those demons into 2000 pigs that were wasted in their eyes. How reckless. In fact, the famous philosopher Bertrand Russell cite this story in the Bible as one of the primary reasons in his famous essay, why I am not a Christian. That's why he's not a Christian because of the destructiveness of Christianity. And yet I think there are two good reasons why Jesus wasted the pigs. One is to show the end result of the world of evil. There's no neutrality. If you and I allow the world of evil to influence us, it will lead to recklessness and ruin and bondage and decay, but ultimately it will lead to death. And some of you need to hear that this morning as painful as it is. Jesus is a cosmic interferer. But for love purposes, otherwise you will perish just like the swine. But a second reason why I think he did that to the pigs was to show Legion and others who would follow him that only through a great cost of life could Legion and others enjoy new life with Christ could enjoy the freedom and liberty that comes from following him. It was a faint foreshadow. But some time later, Jesus would have not a Legion unleashed upon him but a Legion of Legion. All of the forces of evil that the universe could bring to bear would be unleashed upon the Lord of glory, not upon a pig, but upon the lion of the tribe of Judah. And his life would be swallowed up and drowned as his father poured out his wrath upon him. You see, if Jesus hadn't come and delivered the demons out of Legion, Legion would not have lived. He would have drowned. And same with you and I today, unless Jesus erupts into your life and interferes with you. And you cry out that you are powerless, just as powerless as that man was to rid himself of the forces of evil in his life. You're powerless and you need the Lord of glory, the lion of Judah's tribe, who has had all the forces of evil unleashed upon him to be drowned for you, that you might buy new life and peace and liberty and joy. I hope and pray that each and every one of you today knows that at a personal level that you might one day bow the knee to Jesus, even as Legion did in his fear and tear but ultimately to his joy and peace. That Jesus might take you and use you as he did Legion to reach others with a life changing message of the gospel. We'll just stand together and pray with me. Our Lord of glory, what peace there is in Christ, what amazing love there is in the one who has been drowned for us, our Lord Jesus Christ. We praise you and marvel that we could know such love that loosens our chains and lead this joyfully to follow you this day and forever. Amen.