If Christ cannot reach you, it is because of you. It is not because of Him. The Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which is lost, and that is without change.
Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever. And so here they were face to face with awesome goodness, original holiness in Christ, divine power and God's love, face to face with it. And they didn't like it. They recoiled at it.
They feared it. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the Book of Mark. Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. The Maniac is the title of Pastor Rick's message today.
He'll be teaching in Mark Chapter 5. Righteous defiance. That is our response to all evil.
Truth and love. We don't move. We have a king. We serve him. Jesus said, you know, if I were of this world, the king of this world, my subjects would fight for me, but I'm big of things.
We have to learn this lesson, especially we here in America who have enjoyed so much freedom. Those who stand for lies refuse the truth of Jesus Christ. We know that. Those are the ones being played by a fiddle. For an example, not only are they doing evil, but the neo-evil, the end time evil, is recruiting people. And you know who they're targeting the most? The young, because they think you're dumb enough to believe it. And sadly, they are sometimes.
Not all the time. Then, I've noticed something. The young become recruited by Satan, and then they recruit their parents.
The parents begin to sympathize. Oh, you know, you got a point there. And in so doing, he takes down a whole family, a whole household, a whole church, a whole city, state, nation. These are real things, and you just look out the window. You see them taking place.
I mean, literally look out the window, you'll see parked cars. But look around society and what's going on in the world. Satan says, you know, Jesus' love, and it's okay to be homosexual. Well, okay, let me ask you then, is it also okay to murder too?
Are we going to downsize that one? Or you just pick the ones you want. So you don't get the pick, because the Bible has made it clear. You should not lie, Leviticus 18, 22.
You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination. It is something that is hated. Yet they're selling it to our kids. They're selling it to our adults. Doesn't mean we hate them. Hate them or not, it's wrong. In the eyes of God, that's what we're interested in.
Is God supposed to say, oh, oh, you like it that much? Okay, let me change it. Okay, this is goals four now. Methamphetamine. Want to be a crackhead and infect your children? Want to be a heroin addict? Infect your children?
Oh, go right ahead, because you want to do it. God doesn't do that. Under Satan's spell, the world will advocate the murder of the unborn.
They're justifying. In fact, they will advocate the murder of the just born to cover themselves in their filth. And we're supposed to come along and say, look, we can't change anybody's mind, but we can be used by the Lord to get in front of those whom God is changing. And He's going to use us to do it. You don't have to like it.
It's going to happen. That's that defiant spirit. That is a father saying, as for me, I'm going to serve the Lord. If the rest of my house doesn't serve the Lord, I'm serving the Lord. That's the mother standing up and saying, as for me, I don't know what the rest of you are going to do. I want you to serve Christ, but if you don't, I'm serving Him. That's the children standing up and saying, look, Mom, Dad, I'm hoping you're serving the Lord, but if you're not, I'm serving the Lord. That's righteous defiance. What's the alternative?
Sniveling? Backing down from the faith? Christ does not back down from any of these people as we go through this story. Wherever I'm at, whatever verse I'm on. Verse 10, let's try that one.
And he begged him earnestly that he would not send him out of the country. What is that? What is going on there? Why? Does he not have a visa? His passport's not up to date.
Well, I hate the picture on it. He must have feared the overlords in the underworld. Their spiritual laws, we're not privy to. We get little hints of them, and here's a big one.
He wants to stay where he is, this legion. We know we've huddled up here. We find that even in our own world, there's chaos and anarchy. In verse 11, now a large herd of swine was feeding near the mountains. So all the demons begged him, saying, send us to the swine that we may enter them.
So to the demons, it seemed like a good idea at the time. And this is helpful to us, verse 13, and at once Jesus gave them permission. Then the unclean spirits went out and entered the swine.
There were about 2,000, and the herd ran violently down the steep place into the sea and drowned in the sea. So here in verse 13, they had said, send us into the pigs. Jesus said, go for it. He's just like, as you wish, knowing what's going to happen. He knows what's going to happen. Now the disciples, they can't see the demons and like ghosts rise up and go into the man. They're just watching this exchange take place. But they can see that stampede of swine rolling down the hill off the cliff.
And they knew that wasn't like, you know, Mars must have lined up with Jupiter, and we didn't even know about it. This was directly related to the word of the Lord. Come out. Can we go into the pigs?
Sure, have at it. And there was the proof. Now only Mark counts how many swine there were. I don't know why, but he is the one that tells us there were 2,000. And so what is the lesson? One human being can hold more demons than 2,000 pigs.
Is that not incredible? That has something to think about, the capacity for evil in humanity, in human beings? There's a big difference between humans and animals. They're not the same. This is confirmation that demons cannot successfully inhabit animals. You have a mean, vicious dog, he's not demonic. He may look like he is or something.
His instincts are what they are. But only the unsaved can be possessed by demons. Now here we're seeing an addition to Christ muzzling the storm.
He is casting out an army of ill spirits. And it is also interesting that the swine seemed to prefer death than possession. Their survival plan backfired. They wanted to be embodied spirits, embodied in some other living creature, and it failed. Now they're disembodied after all. What happens after that?
They roam around looking for someone else. We know that much from another story of Christ. But Mark had already recorded Jesus' words, no one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods unless he first binds a strong man and then he will plunder his house.
And that's what's taking place here. Christ has come in and he's cleaning house because he is stronger than the demons that were in the man. So God says, yeah, in spite of what happened, still the man is more important than the animal. Matthew 12, 12, of how much more value then is a man than a sheep is something we have to accept. It doesn't mean that there's some horrible therefore, you know, therefore all the animals are going to, we can be cruel to them and it doesn't mean anything like that. It just means that man is more valuable to God than animals, according to Jesus Christ. And it does not take brains to be destructive. A person can have brains and be destructive, or they can be dumb and be destructive. Many are home, many are church, many are country, has been ruined by fools.
And we need to recognize that because what is the purpose of the lessons always? Is it I? Is it me, Lord? One of you will betray me tonight. And they all said, is it me? They were concerned.
They did not want to be that person. Well, when we come to the scripture and we have good and evil lined up next to each other, we are supposed to say, is it me? Am I this guy? Am I the fool?
Am I the one being played like a fiddle? Am I the one that the world has recruited using my carnality, my urges, my passions, my emotions? The Spirit is supposed to overrule your emotions. Do you not know that? If you say, but I just feel, what does the Bible say? Because that has to be the deciding factor for the believer. And when you're young, you don't know these things yet. You might think you do.
You may know portions of it. But if you're getting it wrong, you're either defying God to his face or you just don't get it. And that does not mean that Satan's going to show you mercy. The Bible does not say, blessed are the dumb. We are supposed to be enlightened and that takes work.
It's not automatic. And that's why Satan spends so much time trying to dumb down the church and say, you know what? Let's skip the preaching. Let's just keep singing.
Everybody just feel good about everything. But let's not expand our understanding of spiritual things and let's surely not be convicted. If we're doing something wrong, the best way to handle that, says the flesh, is to not hear about it. The Spirit knows better. And you can't only hear the bad things. You just be pummeled.
That's not the idea either. It's striking the balance, which is the definition essentially of grace. The balance given by God. Verse 14, so those who fed the swine fled and they told it in the city and in the country and they went out to see what it was that had happened. Well first off, the interim between they going to the city to tell the story then come back with the whole mob. Christ had time to minister to the man he delivered from the evil spirit. Now are we going to criticize the Lord for destroying someone else's property? Well first off, was it really him?
I mean it was the demons. Just because he said sure. Alright, maybe you don't like that one.
How about this one? He is King of Kings. He is Lord of Lords. Everything is owned by him. It is his prerogative. If he wanted to destroy the people too, that they could have been the way if he wanted it to go that way, which he did not. He has every right to interfere, to exercise lordship at his will or he is not Lord.
But he is. Pause there a second. So we see laws, spiritual laws. We don't understand them all as I mentioned. It is sort of like before men could harness flight, they knew it was possible. They just saw birds and bugs flying.
And they knew it existed. But the laws of gravity kept them on the ground until they learned the laws of aerodynamics. Then they used one law to overcome another law.
The law of aerodynamics coming over the laws of gravity without violating anything. And such it is with Christ. He has rules and laws.
We don't know them all, but he knows how to overcome them without violating the laws that are interlocked together. Verse 15, then they came to Jesus and saw the one who had been demon possessed sitting and clothed in his right mind and they were afraid. Well, they didn't come to Jesus for salvation.
It's profound words. Then they came to Jesus. We use that saying, I came to Jesus. I got saved. But that's not what's happening here.
Matthew tells us the whole city came out. Some go to church. Some read the Bible with this identical attitude. They're not coming for salvation. They're coming for confrontation with Christ. He knew they were not coming to hear or to be healed but to be rid of him. It says here in verse 15, and saw the one who had been demon possessed and had the legion. There he was, a living miracle, another living miracle, sitting and clothed in his right mind. It sums up the mission of God in Christ on humanity. The message and the mission of Christ to come, to seek, to save that which is lost, to put it in its right mind. By one nod of Christ, the unclean spirits fled this man and perished as far as we understand it.
Here the man is now clothed in his right mind. They were afraid. Something very wrong with the soul that is more afraid of goodness than wickedness. They should have been in awe. They should have said, Lord, you saved this man. You delivered him. All we could do was shackle him and we couldn't do a good job at that.
You freed him. They, too, should have bowed the knee and worshiped him right there on the spot. That's what he came there for. The Samaritans got it.
What's their excuse? Here was power beyond their understanding and it filled them with dread. But the believers from the little boats and the big boat, they were in awe. If Christ cannot reach you, it is because of you. It is not because of him. The Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which is lost. And that is without change.
Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever. And so here they were face to face with awesome goodness, original holiness in Christ, divine power and God's love, face to face with it. And they didn't like it. They recoiled at it. They feared it.
And they found it not worth keeping. So verse 16, and those who saw it told them how it happened to him who had been demon possessed and about the swine. And they began to plead with him to depart from their region. They began to plead with him. I mean, it's just knowing what we know, it's crazy.
But knowing what they knew. Who's the maniac? Who's the maniac now? Who is the one that is doing violence to their own soul? A whole city.
A city as we consider it, but a big village. A lot of people. Enough. This is the real madness that men would chase God away from them when they have every reason to hold on to him. The world thinks it's better off without Jesus Christ.
That's what these men did. They felt they were better off without him. If this is what it's going to take to have Jesus around, you know what?
We don't want you. The man was better off without the demons. The swine were better off without the demons. These men, they did not need demons to reject Christ. You don't have to have a demon to tell Christ to leave you alone. You can just be a sinner.
That's all. Self-willed, blind, and not willing to receive him. How many sit and say, I believe the word of God, I believe in Jesus Christ, but I don't believe what the Bible says. Or I need to change what the Bible says. You have whole universities with seminaries of people like that.
Boring. You know, next time you come across somebody who is a liberal theologian, you know what a liberal theologian is? One who doesn't believe in the Bible.
That's what it means. They believe in some parts of the Bible. They get to pick and choose what parts to believe and what parts not to believe. That is a liberal theologian. And you risk some serious damage to yourself and others by lining up with such people.
It is Sola Scriptura. Scripture alone is our authority for life and how we should behave and not really anything else. Well anyway, they did not care about the swine. They cared about the income from the swine. It wasn't that they were, you know, animal lovers and did a horrible thing. The demons, they can stay in the man so long as we're making money.
That's what this amounts to. Do we not find this kind of thinking? Let me just ask you. At the pyramid, the top of Wall Street, do you think they're more interested in salvation or money? Top of the big corporations.
Maybe it's the top of a home. Maybe it's at the top of an individual's mind. What is more important? Money moves men more than mercy and miracles without Christ. This is the seed by the wayside. Christ planted the seed through this action.
And Satan comes and just snatches the seeds up. To them, Jesus was a greater threat than the maniac. They'd rather live with the man in the tombs, howling all night long, cutting himself, than have Jesus with them. There's a serious problem here when men are more afraid of godliness than wickedness. More sorry for the loss of money than the gain of holiness. And so they didn't give him a chance. Who knows? Jesus could have said, you know what?
Yeah, the pigs are dead, but look, here's a herd of sheep. He could have fixed this if he wanted to. It could have gone in all sorts of directions, but they didn't give him a chance. And how many times do we see that? How many times do we see a human being not give Jesus a chance because there's trouble in their life?
And he doesn't heal it or stop it right away. So they depart. They say they were saved, but they go out and they get in trouble or whatever happens, and all of a sudden they're no longer interested. Verse 18. And when he got into the boat, he who had been demon-possessed begged him that he might be with him. Well, Christ is not going to force anyone to have him around. So he's going to go in the boat. He could have stayed, but he goes. The converted man, the man that was emancipated from the demons, he wants to stay with Jesus to become one of his disciples.
The one man from Gadara at this point, this is where they are, full of wonder and gratitude. He just wanted to be with Jesus, and Jesus says no. But he doesn't say, no, you can't be a believer. No, you cannot follow me in other ways. He's just saying you can't roll with me right now.
Why is that? One party asked him to go. This one asked him to stay. Christ got in the boat. His ship was sailing without those people.
Consider it. Christ left them. They are left behind. But what about this guy?
We want to focus on him. Verse 19. However, Jesus did not permit him, but said to him, go home to your friends and tell them what great things the Lord has done for you and how he has had compassion on you. Christ knew what to do with him. Saved him and said, you know what? Your calling is not with me. Your calling is to preach me where I'm not going right now. As I mentioned, Christ is coming back to this region at least twice more, and it will be a different reception next time. And I believe largely because of this man.
He bore in his body the marks of demons. Now he's in his right mind. Nobody can dispute this. We knew you were wacko.
Nobody could chain you up, nor do anything with you. And now here you are telling us how good the Lord is, making breakfast for everybody. What has happened to you? Jesus is what's happened to me. Is this missing from our lives? Are we missing this wherever we go?
Have we lost our impact on our surrounding because we are too preoccupied with something else? When we walk into a room of unbelievers, the presence of Christ is already there. When we walk into that room, there should be a connection. They should at least know that somebody different is here now.
Some of you in the workplace, you experience this. So we have a responsibility to tell how Christ has delivered us. That's what this is saying. Christ is saying, you've been delivered.
I want you to go now and tell everybody, especially those who know you. Since he knew enough to be saved to want to follow Christ, he knew enough to preach Christ. And that is what he did. Verse 20, and he departed and began to proclaim it in Decapolis, all that Jesus had done for him, and all were amazed. We'll get this in chapter 6 and chapter 7 when he does return to this area. Decapolis, two Greek words, Deca and Paulus, ten cities. And so there were these ten cities, this is important to the story.
There are these ten cities with a main drag, a main highway running through it from Damascus to Arabia on the edge of the desert. A lot of people, caravans, came through that region and here is where Christ planted this man to preach the gospel. To prep them, to prep them for when he came back.
Any of you have, you know, maybe like a chainsaw or a gas-powered chainsaw or a leaf blower? You've got to prime it to get it to go. And that's what this man is, he's the primer. When Christ comes back, they would have heard already things about him. And when he comes back, they're going to be bringing their sick to him, they're going to be coming out to him. This is very much, so when Jesus said, let's get in the boat, let's go to the other side, he beats back the storm, he beats back the demons, but he's got more work to do before that happens.
He's got to deal with disease and death after this episode here. So the man with scars, living testimony, 2 Corinthians chapter 3 verse 2. Paul says to the Corinthians, who were largely a pain in the neck, do I ever miss saying something like that when we talk about the Corinthians? Listen, we as a church, we need to get back to the epistles.
I'm not looking forward to it. It's a painful experience for me, but it's necessary. You have to understand why we do what we do as Christians and it's found in the precepts. When we say someone needs to sit under the word before they're used, it's found. Let these first be proven, Paul said.
We have to get these things. When you come across Christians that think it's okay to be crazy in church, Paul stabilizes that in his Corinthian letters. So here he says to them, you are our epistle in our hearts, known and read by all men. That's what this man is. He's an epistle of Christ now, known and read by all men that come in contact with him.
Difference is, he has all of these scars on his body. So I ask you and I ask myself, am I, Lord Jesus, am I your letter of truth and love to other people? Am I your letter or have I lost something? Maybe I never had it.
Maybe I've been confused by it. Confusion weakens us. Getting the essentials right gives us strength and power. Thanks for tuning in to Cross Reference Radio for this study in the book of Mark. Cross Reference Radio is the teaching ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia. To learn more information about this ministry, visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com. Once you're there, you'll find additional teachings from Pastor Rick. We encourage you to subscribe to our podcast. When you subscribe, you'll be notified of each new edition of Cross Reference Radio. You can search for Cross Reference Radio on your favorite podcast app. That's all we have time for today, but we hope you'll join us next time as Pastor Rick continues to teach through the book of Mark right here on Cross Reference Radio.
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