Dominating Powers, Part 1

The assembly of saints in heaven are those whose lives have been transformed by His power. Does He have the power to transform people's lives?

He has demonstrated that again and again and again. He can overcome everything. The curse, He can overcome the curse in terms of nature. He can overcome the curse in terms of illness and disease. He can raise the dead. He has all the power required to establish an everlasting kingdom. Welcome to Grace To You with John MacArthur.

I'm your host, Phil Johnson. His humble birth, His perfect obedience to the Father, His perfect sacrifice for sinners, Scripture is clear that Jesus Christ is our ultimate example of humility. But as John MacArthur is going to show you today, Christ also has ultimate power and glory and authority, particularly His authority over demonic forces.

So how do those things relate? How could Christ be supremely humble and supremely powerful at the same time? Find out as John MacArthur takes you to Mark chapter 5 and shows you why Christ deserves your worship and obedience and why you can trust Him in every situation if you're a Christian.

The title of John's study, Jesus Over All. And now here's John MacArthur with today's lesson. JOHN MACARTHUR When we train young men how to preach, one of the things we work on is the introduction to the sermon because it's important to get people's attention. And there are a lot of ways to do that and we get a little bit creative from time to time as to how we develop an introduction.

There are a lot of ways to do it, but the goal of an introduction is to grab the attention of the people and get them interested in what you're about to say. You can do that a lot of ways. You can do that by surprising them a little bit. You can do that with a high interest story. You can do that by focusing on a very applicable practical truth that everybody wants to know about.

You can do that by focusing on a problem that needs a solution and you're about to give them the solution. There are a lot of ways you can capture interest, but there are some portions of Scripture that don't need that. The very text itself has so much interest that it becomes compelling when simply read. That is very often the case in narrative portions of Scripture. By narrative I mean those portions of Scripture that tell a story, whether it's a true story or whether it's a parable. There is enough interest generated in the story itself that it becomes its own compelling motivation to listen.

This is one of those. If this is not the most interesting incident in the life of our Lord, it is certainly one of the most interesting incidents in His entire life. And it is so compelling and so riveting and so strange and so bizarre and so fascinating that merely reading it will set your mind in the right place to learn all about it.

So let's do that. Chapter 5 of Mark, chapter 5 of Mark, I'm going to read you the text which unfolds this amazing and bizarre incident. They came to the other side of the sea, that is Jesus and the disciples and Apostles traveling by little boats.

They came to the other side of the sea into the country of the Gerasenes. When He got out of the boat, immediately a man from the tombs with an unclean spirit met Him and He had His dwelling among the tombs and no one was able to bind Him anymore even with a chain because He had often been bound with shackles and chains and the chains had been torn apart by Him and the shackles broken in pieces and no one was strong enough to subdue Him. Finally night and day, He was screaming among the tombs and in the mountains and gashing Himself with stones. Seeing Jesus from a distance, He ran up and bowed down before Him. And shouting with a loud voice, He said, what business do we have with each other, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?

I implore you by God, do not torment Me. For He had been saying to Him, come out of the man, you unclean spirit. And He was asking Him, what is Your name? And He said to Him, My name is Legion for we are many.

And He began to implore Him earnestly not to send them out of the country. Now there was a large herd of swine feeding nearby on the mountain. The demons implored Him saying, send us into the swine so that we may enter them.

Jesus gave them permission. And coming out, the unclean spirits entered the swine and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea, about two thousand of them and they were drowned in the sea. Their herdsmen ran away and reported it in the city and in the country and the people came to see what it was that had happened. They came to Jesus and observed the man who had been demon-possessed sitting down, clothed and in his right mind, the very man who had had the legion and they became frightened. Those who had seen it described to them how it had happened to the demon-possessed man and all about the swine. And they began to implore Him to leave their region.

As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed was imploring Him that He might accompany him and He didn't let him. But He said to him, 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. And he went away and began to proclaim in Decapolis what great things Jesus had done for him and everyone was amazed.

The final amazement would relate to the fact that why would anybody do any good to such a horrendous monster as this? Well one of the most, as I said, riveting accounts in all of Scripture, nothing like this display of power over demons is recorded in Scripture since God Himself threw Satan and all the evil rebelling angels out of heaven. That was a massive upheaval. That was a sweeping act by God in which He vacated heaven of Satan and a third of the angels. Thousands of thousands and ten thousand times ten thousand innumerable angels were thrown out of heaven in one moment by the power of God.

There has been no display like that until this. And there won't be another display like this until the time of the Tribulation comes to an end, Christ sets up His Kingdom and binds Satan and all the demons for a period of a thousand years and then throws them into the Lake of Fire. This kind of power over the Kingdom of Darkness is only possible when God is wielding it, whether it's in the casting out of heaven, or the casting into the Lake of Fire, or here, casting thousands of demons out of one man. This is the power of God on display. This is the most extreme encounter with the powers of supernatural wickedness anywhere in Scripture. There are no such accounts in the Old Testament. And in the New Testament, this is far and away the most extreme and the most extensive.

Our Lord throughout His ministry vanquished demons. He did it regularly, did it repeatedly, did it often, but there was no such display as this one. This to indicate that He is, in fact, the Messiah, that He is the Savior, that He is the Son of God, that He is God in human flesh who wields absolute limitless power over the forces of hell, Satan in all his realm. Now this is part of Mark's proof. If you go back to his purpose, chapter 1 verse 1, the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Mark is writing the history of Jesus to prove He is the Son of God. John sums up that objective for all four writers, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, when at the end of the fourth gospel, the gospel of John written last of all the four, he says these things are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you might have life in His name. So the purpose of this is evangelistic.

But in order to get you to believe in Christ, you must know who He is and here is more powerful evidence that He is, in fact, God the Son, He is deity. If He is the true Messiah, if He is the Lord of heaven come down, He must be able to conquer Satan or He cannot bring the everlasting Kingdom. He must have power over the natural world because the promise of the prophets is that He, the Messiah, is going to come and restore the earth and the lion will lie down with lamb and the desert will blossom like a rose, etc., etc.

There will be a restored, rejuvenated, restructured earth that will approximate the Garden of Eden. Does He have the power to do that over nature? we just saw in the last incident how He controlled the wind and the waves. Yes He has the power to do that. The Kingdom to come and the assembly of saints in heaven are those whose lives have been transformed by His power. Does He have the power to transform people's lives?

He has demonstrated that again and again and again. He can overcome everything, the curse, He can overcome the curse in terms of nature, He can overcome the curse in terms of illness and disease, He can raise the dead, He has all the power required to establish an everlasting Kingdom. And as part of that, He has demonstrated the power over Satan and all his hosts and here in a way that has no parallel. His divine power vanquishes by a command, thousands of demons. Remember now, it was said first of all of the Messiah in Genesis 3.15 that He would crush the serpent's head. So whoever this Messiah is has to wield mighty power over Satan and his hosts.

And here it is on exhibit again. Remind yourself of 1 John 3.8...1 John 3.8 says, the Son of God appeared for this purpose to destroy the works of the devil. That's the New Testament fulfillment statement of Genesis 3.15. There will be the seed of the woman who will come and crush the serpent's head, says the Old Testament, Genesis 3.15. The New Testament says the Son of Man has come for this purpose to destroy the works of the devil.

Destroy luo, to undo, to remove, to annihilate, to obliterate the works, erga, action, effect, impact. That's why in John 12 31 He said, the ruler of this world is cast out. John 16 11, the ruler of this world is judged, Romans 16 20, Satan is under your feet.

He is a subjected power. So our Lord is displaying His ability to fulfill His purpose of bringing to naught, obliterating the works of the devil. He has total power over them and He will be able to do what He says He will do in the end when it tells us in Matthew 25 41 that He prepared the lake of fire for the devil and his angels.

He has the power to place them there. Scripture makes it clear and believe me, the demons know it...the demons know it. This then is a validation of His Messiahship.

Our Lord's own words make that clear in Luke chapter 11, unmistakably so in verse 20. If I cast out demons by the finger of God, or by the power of God, then the Kingdom of God has come upon you. If I cast out demons with a word, with the power of God, then you know the Kingdom of God has arrived.

When a strong man fully armed guards his own house, his possessions are undisturbed. But when someone stronger than he attacks him, overpowers him, takes away from him all his armor on which he has relied and distributes his plunder, that's Christ. Satan is the strong man who is doing fine until Christ appears, devastates him, plunders his house.

And when that happens, you know the Kingdom of God has arrived. Now with that as a background, we understand why this is an important incident because there's nothing of the vastness and the volume of this action against Satan recorded in any other place in the New Testament. But as we unfold the story, running down through the twenty verses, there are three displays of power that I want you to see here.

There's not just one, there are three displays of power. The first one I want you to see is the devastating destructive power of demons...the devastating destructive power of demons. We've already seen Jesus display His power in the previous paragraph at the end of chapter 4 verses 35 to 41, power over wind, power over water, power to subdue the natural world, the natural elements.

And here He shows His power to subdue the supernatural world, the supernatural elements. The experience the disciples had in the storm on the water frightened them and this experience, that we just read about, is also a very frightening experience. The disciples, you remember, were frightened of the storm and then they were frightened of the power of Jesus. And we see the same thing here, the people are frightened by this maniac and then they are even more frightened by the presence of Jesus.

So those are parallel elements. You remember how Jesus got to this shore? They left the northwest shore by Capernaum, got in their little boats, started across the sea intending to sail to the eastern shore, more unpopulated area, probably the disciples and Apostles thought He was wanting some rest and maybe they were glad to get some rest from the massive crushing crowds. They got in their little boats, started out, a storm came up, He stilled the storm. They were thrown off course by the storm, eventually got back on course, sailed the rest of the night on a placid lake and ended up in the dawn on the eastern shore at precisely the place they had intended to go, about six miles around the curve from the city of Capernaum. When they arrived, the first thing we see is the devastating destructive power of demons.

Let's pick up the story. They came to the other side of the sea into the country of the Gerasenes. Just a comment about that, Luke adds, which is opposite Galilee.

It is on the opposite side from the Galilee which runs down the western side of the Sea of Galilee. Luke and Mark say it is the country of the Gerasenes. Matthew says it's the country of the Gadarenes.

That's not difficult to understand, it is both...it is both. Gerasenes because there was a little town right there called Gerasa, or sometimes pronounced Gergasa, but it is the town, the small, small town of Gerasa that they came near. As I said, it's about six miles around the curve of the lake right there on the shore. So it is the land of the Gerasenes. However, a little further south and inland is a bigger and more important town and maybe the county seat called Gadara.

So while it was the village of Gerasa, it was the region that associated itself with Gadara, so it was the land of the Gerasenes, if you look at the village, and the Gadarenes if you look at the larger town that sort of gave its name to the region. In any case, here's the key, it was Gentile country...it was Gentile country. And here He is in this Gentile area with His disciples and Apostles, all of whom have gotten out of the little boats that had come across the sea and they're expecting a little bit of rest. They're away from the Jews.

It's pretty...it's pretty open country there, pretty rural. This would be a time for them to get a little rest, only that's not what was planned and the Lord knew it. Verse 2 says, when He got out of the boat, immediately a man from the tombs with an unclean spirit met Him. This is not the local Chamber of Commerce representative. This is not the welcome wagon.

This is your worst nightmare. This is a man from the tombs who comes racing down the slope to the edge of the lake to meet them. He is defined as having an unclean spirit. It's probably just barely dawn.

They have just tied up their boats, maybe a little dock was available there. And immediately at the water's edge, a man from the tombs with an unclean spirit met them. Matthew 8.28 says He has a companion. There are actually two men in this same condition. But as the story goes on, that second man is left behind and all the focus of both Matthew, Mark and Luke who all record this story is on the one man.

But there were two that came racing down. Now it says he came from the tombs. That would be a little unusual. Jews wouldn't go near a tomb for fear of being contaminated by a dead body. But this is a Gentile area.

This is obviously a Gentile man. What's he doing in the tombs? Well he lives there, verse 3. He had his dwelling among the tombs. He's a tomb dweller. In ancient times, this would be the common hunt of a deranged, insane, demon-possessed person. Burial chambers in that time and that place, as in many places in the world in ancient times, were carved out of the hillside. You can see them in various places in the world even today.

And you can see them right there where the town of Gerasa is, there's a modern village called Carusi and that village is located near some of the hillsides and some of the cliffs where you can still see these open tombs where they put dead bodies. Here is a man who is more comfortable with the dead than he is with the living. And by the way, the dead are more comfortable with him than the living would be as well.

So it's a mutually agreed upon condition. He is defined as having an unclean spirit. That's simply a term for a demon that's more descriptive. A fallen angel called a demon clearly refers to demons because the man is designated as a demon-possessed man, down in verse 18. So this unclean spirit is synonymous with a demon, a fallen angel. They are spirit beings and they occupy the bodies of human beings.

They are unclean, all of them are unclean...all of them. So unclean spirit is simply a term that applies to all fallen angels and all demons. When we went through the gospel of Luke, we went through this story in Luke chapter 8 and I digressed, as I want to do, and gave you a very expanded insight into the whole world of demons.

I'm not going to do that again, you can find that information there available for you in the Luke series. Then verse 3, he had his dwelling among the tombs, indicates to us that he wasn't just visiting a tomb to see a dead friend, or placing flowers outside a tomb, or meditating about the loss of a past relative. He would be classified as a man who lived in the tombs as a madman, he is a maniac, he is deranged, he is irrational, he is dangerous, he is subhuman, antisocial, sociopathic and intensely evil. He's a monster...he's a monster. Luke adds, just to make matters worse, that he hadn't put on any clothes for a long time, which leads us to conclude he was not only exposed to the elements of hot and cold and there was hot sun and very cold nights, especially in the winter time, which would be this time, but that he was perverted. Nakedness for him was related to his sexual perversion. He is as wicked as wicked gets. He is a man that fits into a category that we're somewhat familiar with when we're exposed to sociopathic people who have deviant sexual attitudes who are dangerous to themselves and dangerous to people all around them.

This is that kind of man who, although far worse, fits into the ilk of a Charles Manson or some other kind of mass murderer of some freakish nature. Which by the way, I'm convinced, is if properly diagnosed, the result of demon possession and cannot be explained because when he was a little kid, his mother locked him in the closet with no lunch. Nakedness, by the way, is a perversion and that's why Luke adds it. It is a perversion. You remember that when Adam and Eve sinned, the first thing they did was...what?...make something to cover themselves. And then God helped by replacing their temporary covering with a permanent covering made out of hide. The New Testament commands us not only to be clothed, but to be clothed modestly, does it not...modestly. Nakedness is a sign of great evil, it is a sign of perversion, sexual perversion. In fact, in Levitical law, uncovering a person's nakedness was a euphemism for sexual sin. In Revelation 3.18 it says, the shame of your nakedness. The more naked a person becomes, the more shameful it is.

You start with a modest dress and you keep moving toward further and further shame. Well this is a very, very bizarre, wretched human being. This is Grace to You with John MacArthur. He's Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary and the title of his current study, Jesus Over All. Well John, I know you've said many times that no one compares to Jesus Christ. He's the most fascinating, insightful, powerful, creative, and compelling person who ever walked among humanity. And if you're driven by anything, it's a desire to bring people face to face with what the Bible teaches us about Christ. I've heard you say multiple times that your favorite subject to preach on is Christ. Yeah, and He is the theme of Scripture all the way through. In fact, you remember on the road to Emmaus in Luke 24, He went into the Old Testament with His disciples and talked to them about His being revealed in the Old Testament, all the things the Old Testament said about Him. Yeah, He is the theme of the Word of God. And of course, you have the revelation of God, the eternal, glorious, triune God in the Old Testament.

But you see God most gloriously manifest in the person of Jesus Christ. And so His life is the theme of Scripture. And thinking about that a number of years ago, I got an idea that it would be wonderful to take everything Scripture says about Christ and blend it all together into one story, starting with the Old Testament and particularly looking at the gospels, taking the four gospels and blending them into one story.

And I did that, and it came out as a book called One Perfect Life. It is really a harmony of Scripture, looking at Christ, a harmony of the four gospels coming together, looking at everything the gospels say about Him, all the details blended together. And you see this incredible, singular story of Christ.

I would say that it's rarely a day in my life that goes by that I don't look at one perfect life because everything about Christ is there. It's laid out from the text of Scripture. It's all Scripture blended together to tell the full story. So Scripture reveals the truth concerning Christ and does so with perfect harmony. That's what comes out in this. You hear people say, well, the gospels contradict.

Not at all. And occasionally along the way, we put in some notes from the MacArthur Study Bible that helps you with some of the challenging aspects of his story. But there's nothing like reading the story of Jesus in this seamless way. The title again of the book, One Perfect Life, hardcover, nearly 500 pages available from Grace to You, Life Changing Truth.

Thanks, Jon. And friend, you will be amazed how the familiar stories of Jesus take on a richer meaning as this book blends the gospel accounts into a single narrative. So pick up One Perfect Life when you contact us today. Our order number is 800-55-GRACE. Our web address is gty.org. Use One Perfect Life as a daily devotional or surprise someone with a copy as a gift.

The cost is $17 and shipping is free. Again, to order One Perfect Life, call 800-55-GRACE or go to gty.org. Also online, be sure you take advantage of all of the free resources that are available at our website. You can download the five messages from Jon's current study, Jesus Over All, free in MP3 and transcript format. In fact, there are more than 3,600 sermons by Jon, all available to download for free at gty.org. And as a supplement to Jon's current radio study, search our blog for the series of articles titled Who Do You Say That I Am? You'll find the blog at our website, the address one more time, gty.org. Now for Jon MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson. Remember to watch Grace to You television Sundays on DirecTV channel 378, or you can watch anytime at gty.org. And be here tomorrow as Jon shows you the true significance of Jesus' miracles. It's another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time, on Grace to You.