Dominating Powers, Part 2 B

What does it take to be able to witness for the power of Christ?

The fact that He's worked in your life, right? From the moment you were converted, from the moment you were transformed, you inherited immediately the responsibility to proclaim the name of Christ. Go to your people and report to them what great things the Lord has done for you and how He had mercy on you. Welcome to Grace To You with John MacArthur.

I'm your host, Phil Johnson. In the 1980s, a group of religious scholars formed what was known as the Jesus Seminar, and they literally voted on the authenticity of Jesus' words and actions. The verdict? Some of Jesus' words were accepted, and all His miracles were rejected. Well, I suppose we shouldn't be too surprised by those conclusions. After all, even in Jesus' day, people rejected His miracles right after seeing them. Why all the disbelief? How can people deny such obvious power? To see Jesus' power on full display and to better understand why people then and now deny His miracles, stay here as John MacArthur continues his current study, Jesus Over All, with a trustworthy account of one of Christ's amazing displays of authority.

Turn to Mark chapter 5 and here is John MacArthur with today's lesson. You know, there are some people who call themselves Christians, some preachers who think that God is in some kind of struggle with the powers of hell and that sometimes Satan wins, sometimes he wins. That is absolutely absurd. In any fell swoop, in any moment, God could take all demons that exist, myriad, murion times murion, ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands, the innumerable, no doubt, millions of demons that exist and He could put them in chains instantaneously.

You say, how do you know that? Revelation 20 says in the future, in the Millennium, that's exactly what He's going to do. He's going to change Satan and all his forces for a thousand years.

He could do it any time he wanted. The fact that He doesn't do it now indicates that He doesn't want to do it now because they serve a purpose which is what makes it so silly for people to run around thinking they can tell demons what to do, binding demons here, binding Satan here, binding demons here. First of all, you have no authority, they're laughing at you like they laughed at the sons of Sceva and say, Jesus we know and Paul we know, but who's that guy? But secondly, they fit into the divine purpose. Satan came to God and said, I want to go after Job. God said, go after him because it serves My purpose. Paul in 2 Corinthians chapter 12 says there was given to him by God, allowed by God, a messenger from Satan. The messenger is Angelos, a satanic angel, that's a demon who created a thorn in his flesh. And he prayed three times to have it removed and God said, I'm not going to remove it because My strength is perfected in your...what?...your weakness and you're going to learn to be humble through this. And it was Peter, Luke 22, Jesus says to Peter, Satan desires to have you that he might sift you like wheat. Well, what did you tell him?

No? No, I told him yes. Jesus said yes to Satan, go at him, sift him because when he's converted, he'll be able to strengthen other brothers. When he's come through this thing triumphantly, his faith is intact, he's going to be a better Apostle and a more effective servant. God has His purposes. He could stop the whole satanic operation instantaneously, bind them all, or throw them all into the pit immediately, even into the Lake of Fire. But He has His purposes. He lets evil run its full course because it brings Him glory. It brings out...it brings out the wonder of His grace and it also brings out the wonder of His wrath. He'll shut it down when He gets ready to shut it down.

But He's not ready yet. Their diabolical desire is to work in the physical world and for now He allows it, if not through humans, through animals. And like their King who is called Abaddon in Scripture which means the destroyer, they are destructive. They were destructive to that man, they destroyed his personality and they made him suicidal as he cuts and hacks at himself with sharp stones. And now it becomes obvious just how destructive they are. Verse 13 says, Jesus gave them permission.

Epitrepo means to yield. If He didn't let them do it, they couldn't do it. He's in total control of all demonic powers. There's not...let me say it this way...there's not one rogue renegade demon in existence in the supernatural world who does anything that God doesn't want Him to do, or doesn't allow Him to do. As always, they do what is destructive. So Jesus gave them permission.

Why? Well, number one, because when they hit the pigs, it would be proof that they had left the man and they don't want to leave the man. So Jesus is visibly making a demonstration of His ability to free a person from thousands of demons.

Secondly, this proves the massive supernatural power that He has. And thirdly, to do this puts on display the destructive purposes of demons because it doesn't take long for them to destroy the whole herd. Verse 13, and coming out, the unclean spirits entered the swine and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea...by the way, about two miles south of the old village of Gerasa, the town of Kersey today, there's this kind of slope. And the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea, about two thousand of them and they were drowned in the sea. Now the theological term for this is suicide.

Or maybe we can call it a swine dive, I don't know. But let's not get too theological here. The destruction came fast, really fast. There's no comment by Matthew, there's no comment by Mark, there's no comment by Luke into why this happened. But it does reveal, as I said, the man's deliverance. It does demonstrate the power of Jesus to deliver the man and it certainly manifests the deadly intent of demons. They are chaotic, the pigs become violent, chaotic, mad, self-destructive like the possessed man. They've become what he was. And the socialists and the liberals who write about this say, oh, this is a horrible thing, this is an indication that Jesus was anything but God because He just destroyed the economy of the village.

Not really. By the way, in the whole story, Matthew, Mark, Luke, the owners of the pigs never say anything about their dead pigs. And if it was a village enterprise, which well could have been, they never complain about that either. It really didn't destroy the whole herd. They just had a premature pork sale. They had been planning maybe for those pigs to go on a little bit longer.

Some of you who work with animals, I mean, how long do you have a pig before you're ready to make bacon and pork chops and all that? What happened was, they probably developed a kind of an export business. They had so much pork and they started moving in all directions, making it available. Believe me, they were down at the water getting them out of there. It didn't destroy their meat.

In fact, they probably preserved it for a little while, you know, being in water and it was cool. Nobody complained. They just didn't have that kind of plan for slaughter and marketing. But it's probably a more genteel way to take the life of a pig than to take his life another way, I won't describe for you.

Anyway, those things aside, those are not the point. Nobody seemed to complain about that. Everybody understood what was happening. This man was different and the pigs were acting like that man. Who is the man that did this? They don't know Jesus. This is a Gentile area.

Who's doing this? Well, the instant response in verse 14, the herdsmen ran away and reported it in the city and in the country. And Luke says the same thing, reported it in the city and in the country, which means that they just went all over every place. The people living in the city, the people living out in the rural areas and they moved as rapidly as they could to spread it around.

This leads me to think that it's probably a village enterprise, maybe it wouldn't be one person or a couple of people that owned this vast a herd, but rather the whole village and everybody was in on it, people in the area. Nonetheless, the people all came to see what it was that had happened. In fact, Matthew says in Matthew 8.34, the whole city came out, the whole city came out, everybody, all drawn by the bizarre testimony.

What happened? The violent man that everybody would have known what? He's bowing down and the pigs all dove into the sea. This is beyond comprehension for them. They come to find out what happens. Nobody demonstrates anger over the pigs being drowned and nobody sadly demonstrates joy over the maniac being subdued. And they had gone to great efforts to try that, chaining him up repeatedly and he always broke the chains. And that's not the issue. The issue of the maniac being subdued and the issue of the pigs being drowned isn't the issue. Verse 15, they came to Jesus and they observed the man who had been demon-possessed sitting down clothed and in his right mind, sophroneo is the Greek verb, means to be sane, sensible, in control.

There he is, clothed and in his right mind, the very man who had had the legion. And look at their response. They became frightened.

Strange. They used to be frightened, they wouldn't come near this guy without being frightened, right? He was so violent, he scared them all. He scared them to death.

Now he's clothed and not naked, the transformation is total. He's seated, not rambling aimlessly, restlessly. He's harmless, not dangerous. He's quiet, not screaming.

He's among the living, not the dead. He's peaceful, not tormented. And now they're frightened? Who's frightened them? They're frightened of Jesus.

They're scared out of their minds, phobeo, phobia means to be terrified. They're in a continual condition of terror cause they now know spiritual supernatural powers greater than anything they have ever experienced is present. It's the same trauma of holiness that you have throughout Scripture. When people come into the presence of God, believers or non-believers and are terrified. You see it with Manoah when he comes home and tells his wife we're going to die.

She says, why? Because I saw the Lord. And if I saw Him, He saw me. I saw holiness, He saw sin, we're dead. It's the same experience that Ezekiel had when he had a vision of God and went into a coma.

Isaiah had pronounced a curse upon himself, woe is me, I'm cursed, I'm a man with a dirty mouth. It's the same experience John has in Revelation when he has his first vision of the glorified Christ moving in his church and he falls over like a dead man. Terrifying.

It's not been a long time since we saw this kind of reaction. If you go back to chapter 4 verse 40, just across the page there, when Jesus was on the boat with the disciples, they were afraid. They say in verse 38, teacher, don't you care that we're perishing? They were very afraid. And then in verse 40 when He stilled the storm, He said to them, why are you afraid? Because in another one of the accounts it says they were afraid when the storm came and they were exceedingly afraid when the storm stopped. It's more frightening to have the God of the universe in your boat than the storm outside your boat. Terrifying to be in the presence of divine power. The disciples were frightened after the storm was stilled, frightened of the presence of Christ because they knew they were exposed.

And so it is with these Gentile pagans. They know they're in the presence of one who is supernatural, who is divine and they are, and rightly so, frightened. Now that brings us to the final power that's manifest here.

It will just take me a couple of minutes to express this to you. We saw the destructive power of demons and the delivering power of deity. How about the damning power of depravity?

Most of us would like to believe that that kind of miracle would cause a revival, right? We'd like to read that the whole town, oh my, said, sir, we don't know who you are, by the way, what's your name? And could you please tell us who you are and where you come from and tell us, can you deliver us from the powers of Satan? Can you deliver us from the powers of darkness? Can you change us? Can you transform us? What is your message?

What kind of person are you? Where have you come from? Tell us, please tell us. We've seen your power. We want to know your power in the way this man has experienced your power. We want to know what this transforming power is.

We would like to think that a miracle on this scale, so massive, so manifest would be convincing. That's not how they respond. Here verse 17 says, and they began to implore them to leave their region. Go away, sir.

By the way, Luke says all the people said it. It is a universal cry, go away. Shocking. Instead of wanting to hear more, their depraved sin-hardened souls, not only the terror of holiness, the terror of divine presence which they see as far more dangerous to them than this perverted lunatic and all the demons in him. They're more afraid that God may be in their presence than they are that Satan is in their presence.

They're comfortable to a degree with Satan. There's not a word of thanks from anybody for the deliverance, from the terror of this violent man. There's not a word of thanks. There's not an expression of joy.

There's not a query about who he is and where his power comes from. They would rather be terrified by Satan, frankly, than by God because Satan doesn't impinge on their sinful behavior. They're more comfortable with Satan than God. They're more comfortable with sin than holiness. Such is the nature of depravity, that's how all sinners are. It is more comfortable to be in the presence of evil than to be in the presence of righteousness. It's one of the reasons that the world hates Christians. The massive forces of evil are more welcome than the mighty power of God. A son of Satan far more welcome than the Son of God. Such is the deadly power of depravity to damn the sinner. And you can do a miracle that is beyond all contradiction and that miracle with all of its power cannot overcome unbelief, cannot change the heart. Witness the response not only of these Gentiles, witness the response of the whole nation of Israel.

What did they say? We will not have this man to reign over us, crucify Him. John 3, 19, men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil. There's none righteous, no not one.

There's none that does good. They're all gone out of the way. The preaching of the cross to them is foolishness. They're of their father, the devil. They're dead in trespasses and sins.

They walk according to the course of this world. They are under the power of the prince of the air, driven by the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. As powerful as that miracle is, the power of depravity is stronger. That miracle will not break the hard heart, as the whole life and ministry of Jesus proves.

There has to be another miracle wrought and that's the regenerating power of God, has to come into the heart and break the hard heart and replace it with a heart of flesh. They didn't want any more of Jesus. They didn't want any more of His holy presence. So He responded to their request, verse 18, as He was getting into the boat.

That's so sad. Got in the boat to leave. Never came back there again, I told you that. But He did go into Gentile territory later on, we'll see that in chapter 7 in a minute. But He left. Got in the boat and left. Just so sad.

What an opportunity. What a demonstration of the wretchedness, the blindness and the deadness of the human heart. On the other hand, verse 18, the man who had been demon-possessed was imploring Him that He might accompany him. This man doesn't want to live another day without Jesus. I'm convinced that there was more conversation with that man and that he is not only delivered from demons but he is now a disciple of Jesus Christ. I think he's committed to following Christ with all that he knows, with all that is in his heart. He's begging Jesus. He doesn't want to go another day and take another step unless it's in the presence of Christ.

This tormented soul has been reborn into a fresh new sanity, sociability, purity for the first time. He has desires to be with one who is holy. He wants to be with the living and not just the living but the one who has in himself the life.

He would never want to be anywhere but beside his eternal benefactor. That's what a disciple is, isn't it? This is another surprise here because in verse 19 Jesus responds to him in a way that we might think is a little bit odd. Verse 19, and he didn't let him...he didn't let him. It wasn't appropriate for him to go with Jesus but he said to him, verse 19, go home to your people and report to them what great things the Lord has done for you and how He had mercy on you. You mean you're going to send this guy to be a missionary? Absolutely. You say he has no training.

This is a good reminder, isn't it? How much do you have to know to be a missionary? How much do you have to know to be the only missionary in the country? This, by the way, is the first preacher Jesus ever sent out. He hasn't yet sent out the Apostles.

He hasn't yet sent out the Seventy. This is the first person Jesus ever sent out to preach His name and He is a Gentile who had a really messed up past. And when He gave a testimony, it was like, I don't know how to tell you this, but I used to be a naked maniac.

Oh, okay. Living in tombs and...go home, He says, go home to your people and report to them what great things the Lord has done for you. Here He identifies Himself as the Lord and how He had mercy on you.

Oh, this is so wonderful. What does it take to be able to witness for the power of Christ, the fact that He's worked in your life, right? From the moment you were converted, from the moment you were transformed, you inherited immediately the responsibility to proclaim the name of Christ. Go to your people and report to them what great things the Lord has done for you and how He had mercy on you. True faith shows itself in what?

Obedience. And He went away, verse 20, and He began to proclaim in Decapolis...Decapolis. Luke says the whole city.

Well that would be the first point. Mark adds Decapolis. Decapolis is a region of ten cities, hence Deca, a league of ten Greek-influenced towns east of the Jordan and He worked His way through ten cities. This man who knew nothing but a testimony that would be absolutely only possible to explain by the power of God in Christ. Did His ministry have an effect?

Look at chapter 7 for a minute. A little while later, Jesus goes back into Gentile region of Tyre through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee in the region of Decapolis. Jesus makes a visit to Decapolis region and they brought to Him one who was deaf and...wait a minute, why would they bring somebody to Him who was deaf?

He didn't minister in that area. He had only been there one time in the encounter with this maniac. Listen, the witness and testimony of that man had been going on in the months before Jesus came and they were bringing people to Him, people who needed to be healed.

That's the wonderful story. And, of course, Jesus responded, touched the tongue and the ears of this deaf and mute person and healing came. Verse 1 of chapter 8, in those days when there was again a large crowd, the man's witness about Jesus Christ had let that whole region know who He was and when He came back, the crowds were there to receive Him. What a faithful man. What was the response to His testimony? Back to chapter 5 verse 20, the end of the verse, everybody was amazed, thaumazo, to admire with wonder. Here's the first missionary Jesus ever sent out.

Let's tell you a little bit about grace. Remember Isaiah, he said, don't send me, I'm a man of unclean lips. Well this man could have said, don't send me. Whoa, I've got a terrible reputation.

If I get anywhere near people, they're going to run. This is grace upon grace, is it not? Transformation changes everything. And he was obedient. What did he know? You say, well, maybe I'd be more obedient if I knew more. Huh, what did he know? He knew he'd been transformed. If you're a Christian, you know that, don't you?

Then you're responsible to be as faithful as he was. It's John MacArthur, Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary. John's current study here on grace to you is titled Jesus Over All. Today's lesson described two groups of people, those with a heart of stone and those to whom God has given a heart of flesh. So John, I imagine a lot of listeners are wondering, how can someone know if he has a heart of flesh? What would you say to that? Well, I think your heart is manifest in your life.

How you think, how you speak, how you act, how you connect with other people. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. So whatever's on the inside is going to show up on the outside. If you love the Lord, you love his word, you love his church, you love his people, you desire to be obedient, you humble yourself before him, then you have been given a new heart.

And that's the evidence of it. It comes down, as the Puritans used to say, to your affections. What do your affections desire? I know many people struggle with this because they see both desires for the things that are right and desires for the things that are wrong. And so they are shaken, I think, by the reality of a battle. And sometimes they wonder if they're really a Christian, if the battle is as difficult as it is. And my quick reminder about that is the apostle Paul, strongest Christian perhaps ever, said, I don't do what I want to do. I do what I don't want to do. A wretched man that is in me who will deliver me from the body of this death.

So it isn't that you're going to have the affections that you ought to have all the time. You're going to struggle with the flesh. But the struggle is evidence of the transformation.

That's why the battle is going on. And you can land on the right side of that by having assurance of your salvation, even in the face of those challenges. And to help you with that, I want to offer a free copy of a booklet titled Unshakable Assurance.

That's the title. Unshakable Assurance will offer a free copy to anyone who asks. And it answers the question, is my salvation the real thing?

And that is a question I know everyone wants answered. The heart of the booklet, 11 test questions to help you evaluate where you are spiritually. Again, Unshakable Assurance is yours free. Just let us know you want a copy. Request your free booklet today.

Thanks, Jon. And friend, this booklet includes practical questions that will help you understand where you are spiritually and also eliminate any doubts you may have about your salvation. Again, we'll send you Unshakable Assurance free of charge. All you have to do is let us know you want one when you contact us today. You can email your name, address, and request for Unshakable Assurance to letters at gty.org.

That's our email address, letters at gty.org. You can also let us know you'd like a free copy of Unshakable Assurance when you call us at 800-55-grace, or when you visit our website, gty.org. And keep in mind that at our website, gty.org, there are thousands of free Bible study tools available for you free of charge. I encourage you to check out the sermon archive. With over 3600 sermons covering more than 55 years of John MacArthur's pulpit ministry, you can listen to the audio from those messages, and you can also read the transcripts for free. And be sure to look for the Grace To You blog and find the series of articles there titled, The Superiority of Christ. It's a great supplement to Jon's current radio study.

Our website one more time, gty.org. Now for John MacArthur and the entire Grace To You staff, I'm Phil Johnson. Thanks for starting your week with Grace To You. Join us again tomorrow as John helps you see how the miracles of Jesus relate to your spiritual condition. It's another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time, on Grace To You.