“Go and Tell Them” (Part 2 of 2)

For many of us the simple mention of the word evangelism causes us to become fearful. Let's be honest, sharing the gospel can be intimidating. So how do we do it effectively? Today on Truth for Life, Alistair Begg describes one man's amazing transformation and illustrates a helpful model of evangelism.

He's titled this message, Go and Tell Them. We're in Mark chapter 5. We're looking at these first twenty verses of Mark chapter 5. Here we have a living, walking, vivid, unanswerable demonstration of the transforming power of Jesus Christ. Only Jesus can set such a person free. And when you look at verse 7, it's almost as though this man knew that Christ could set him free, but he was at the same time afraid of what that change would mean. That's not so far removed from experience that I've encountered in thirty years of pastoral ministry. Because we fail to understand the grip that sin has on people, that Satan has on people, when we suggest to them or to ourselves that once confronted with their predicament, it will just be obvious for them.

It'll just be natural for them to surrender to Christ's rule. But experience tells us that it isn't so obvious, and it apparently isn't so natural. If you have dealt with people who have become increasingly enslaved to sexual sin, increasingly trapped in the choices that they've made in relationship to the substances that they put into their bodies, you will have noticed, as have I, the royal battle that takes place in the psyche, in the soul of that man or that woman, where on the one hand they're saying, Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, but I cannot face the tortuous implications of what it will mean for me to be torn away from that upon which I have developed such a dependence for all these years of my life. We'd better not be superficial in the way we deal with our friends and neighbors concerning these things as if somehow or another, oh, come along now, give yourself a shake.

After all, look at this, therefore, come on, let's get this dealt with. No, it's not as easy as that. It's not just as easy as that. Jesus is the one who breaks the power of canceled sin.

He's the one who sets the prisoner free. But as Sinclair Ferguson, our good friend, says, no man yields to Jesus easily by nature. Tragically, like Legion, men often hold on to their bondage in evil rather than yield to the pain of transformation by Christ's power and grace. That's a very important phrase. The pain of transformation by Christ's power and grace. You know, I want to say to people, oh, this is easy.

There's nothing in this. We make light of where people are coming from. We devalue the very work of Jesus when we seek to represent the gospel in such a superficial way. Why else would Jesus say, if anybody wants to become my disciple, they should take up their cross every day and say no to themselves and follow me? Why would he say to the rich young ruler who comes and falls on his knees and say, Good Master, what must I do to have eternal life? And Jesus says, Keep the commandments. And he said, I kept all the commandments ever since I was small. And so Jesus says, Well, why don't you just sell everything you have and give it to the poor and then come and follow me? And the guy goes, I'm not prepared to do that.

The issue wasn't the money. The issue was that he wanted both Jesus and his other little God, and Jesus will allow no other gods before him. The man was unprepared for the painful transformation brought about by the grace and power of Jesus. And some of us remain unconverted today here at Parkside Church—absolutely, routinely unconverted—because you're clever enough to recognize what is involved in bowing your knee to Jesus. Now, it's at this point that we get into the pig situation, and some of you are from a farming background, and others of you are veterinary medicine people, and so I do need to be careful in moving my way around here. Some of you are on the other side of the divide when it comes to the deer in Solon, and so I have to be very careful in the way I handle this. My name is Legion, and he begged Jesus, verse 10, Don't send me out of the area.

Don't send us out of the area. And a large herd of pigs was feeding on the nearby hillside, and the demons begged Jesus, Send us among the pigs, allow us to go into them. And so he gave them permission.

You see where the power lies? And the evil spirits came out and went into the pigs, and the herd about two thousand in number rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned. Let me give you four Ps to help you with the pig situation. Number one, the fate of the pigs demonstrates the ultimate purpose of the demons. The fate of the pigs demonstrates the ultimate purpose of the demons. The demons were set on the destruction of this individual and thwarted in their attempts to destroy the man.

They went ahead and did what they were put together to do—namely, they destroyed the pigs. Secondly, this incident demonstrates the power of Jesus over these demonic forces. They are the ones who are coming and begging and pleading with Jesus. It is not that somehow or another they have a parallel power to Jesus, but Jesus is sovereign even over these demonic activities, and therefore his power is made clear. Finally, the dramatic end to which these pigs come establishes, without any doubt, the permanence of the work of Jesus in this man. If the man was tempted to doubt on the following Tuesday whether he had been radically set free, he could always in his mind's eye go back to that dramatic moment when two thousand pigs came hurtling down the side of the hill and were drowned in the lake. It all is a result of the demonic activity that was represented there. And he would look at that, and in his mind I say, That is the transforming, permanent way in which Jesus sets me free. And fourthly, this little incident also gives us a perspective that the deliverance of one man is certainly worth two thousand pigs. Every culture, incidentally, that puts the value of its animals before the value of its people is a putrefying culture. Well, of course, you'd think that would get a reaction, wouldn't you?

And it did. Especially amongst the pig tenders. Those tending the pigs ran off.

You bet they ran off! You have a job as a pig tender? Two thousand pigs?

So much an hour? Look after the pigs! You'd be concerned if three or four of them did a bunk, but for two thousand of them to run headlong down a cliff and drown themselves is a significant impact on the bottom line. And so, those tending the pigs ran off and reported this in the town and the countryside. You can just imagine them running down the road going, The pigs! The pigs! The pigs! People going, What happened to the pigs?

Well, I don't know. There's something obviously happened to the pigs. Well, what had happened to the pigs was subservient to what had happened to the man. And when the word of the pigs got out and the people came to see what happened to the pigs, they saw something even more dramatic—namely, crazy man was normal. Look!

When they came to Jesus, they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons. Sitting there! Sitting there! They said, We're all sitting here, what's the point?

Well, the point is obvious. He couldn't sit. This man was a roller. He was all over the place. They tried to chain him just to keep him one place. He was here, and he was there, and he was everywhere. If you try to talk with him, if you've gone in situations where people have been held in the grip of these things, you find yourself walking with them.

You've seen that, haven't you? If you've gone in certain tragic situations, you find you have to walk with the person all the time, because they can't stop, they can't sit, they're roaming everywhere. He's sitting! And naked Norman has his clothes on! He's clothed! He'd never been able to keep a set of clothes, this chap.

He was always tearing and ripping at himself, and that was one of the reasons that the grandmother said to their grandchildren, When you come home from school, come straight past that graveyard. Don't you go in there and look at Mr. Legion. If you hear him shouting, you come straight home here. Come straight home.

Maybe they even used him as a threat. If you don't go to sleep, I'll get Legion to you. But here he sits with his clothes on, and furthermore, he's in his right mind. He who had been possessed by an aggregate of uncoordinated impulses and evil forces is now set free. Now, don't allow yourself to go from here to every chemically imbalanced psychiatric circumstance that you've ever heard of in your existence and say, Oh, that must be this.

No, it isn't this. What is being described here is what is being described here. If you know someone stark naked in the Garfield Heights graveyard who screams in the day and the night, maybe there's a reason for us to talk to him about the nature of Mark 5.

But if you don't, then I don't suggest that you begin to use it to anybody who looked at you kind of strange when you were sitting next to them on the railway train, okay? That's just a word of warning, because some people rest the Scriptures to their own destruction. Before you know where you are, you've got a bunch of pseudo-psychiatrists roaming around with Mark chapter 5, trying to cure every ailment that they ever saw.

Just lighten up. That's all parenthetical. Verse 16. Those who had seen it told the people what had happened to the demon-possessed man and told about the pigs as well.

And then the people began to plead with Jesus to leave their region. What? The screaming man in the tombs is clothed, sitting, in his right mind. He's apparently normal. No one's saying thank you. Nobody's even saying to one another, you know, at least we'll be able to sleep at night now without that dreadful wailing going on in the cemetery. Where's the welcome for this man?

Do you see it in the text? Where's the people that go out to him? Where are the people that go out to him and say, We're glad to have you back? You think about the stigma for his family.

His nieces and nephews who heard the people at school saying the things about legion in the tombs. Maybe they're just getting up to it. Maybe they're getting ready to go. I don't know. Where are those who are calling out to others in their need, other people whose lives are messed up and saying, Jesus of Nazareth has done an amazing thing, and if he can deal with legion, I'm sure he can deal with you. They're not here. And where are those who are falling down at the feet of Christ and saying, Could you please make me normal?

No, instead, they're amazed, they're afraid, and they say to Jesus, We'd like you to leave. I don't know why. Maybe it was material. Maybe it was economic. Maybe they said, This is a big hit to the economy of our area.

We lost two thousand pigs here in one afternoon, just with one encounter with one person. If this fellow stays around here much longer, our whole economy's going right down the toilet. So therefore, we don't want you around. We can't risk that kind of thing. The material matters more to us than the spiritual. The advance of our business matters more than whether you're changing men and women's lives. We don't really care about the fact that you're changing men and women's lives. We face that all the time, don't we?

The lesser-spotted owls matter more to us than whether you're making an impact on the teenage population of the community and helping them with their drug addiction and all these other things. No, go away. Leave our region.

Would you please get out of the place? How warped are the minds of men and women? I think one of the reasons that they send them away was because they didn't like to acknowledge the fact that the change that he'd brought about in this man's life was a change that was needed in theirs.

That's why some of you are really upset about your spouse or your son or your dad. That's why you've been unable to respond with alacrity. That's why you've been unable to say, I'm so delighted to see the change that has been brought about in you. It's a change you've longed for. You've hoped and prayed, longed, schemed, dreamed for something to normalize this kid, something to change him, to turn him the right way up, to make him a new person. And he's become a new person, and now you can't rejoice in it. And I'll tell you why. Because you know that what you wanted for him is what you need for yourself, and you can't acknowledge the change in him without recognizing the change that is needed in you. And so you say, That's enough of this stuff.

Am I wrong? Finally, verses 18–20, just in a word or two. They want him to leave, and he accedes to their request. He wants to stay, and Jesus vetoes his request. He doesn't grant the man his request, because he has in mind something far better for him. It's understandable that the man would want the security of Jesus' presence.

His company would be wonderful. No, says Jesus, I want you instead to go home to your family and tell them how much the Lord has done for you and how he has had mercy upon you. That's his message.

Notice his message? That's the message for all of us once our lives have been changed. You don't need a course in evangelism to get started as an evangelist. You don't need a course.

You don't need to read seventeen books. You just have to be turned the right way up. And when you're turned the right way up, having lived your life upside down, people will say, What in the world happened to you? And you will tell them, I met Jesus, he turned me the right way up, and he's had mercy upon me. And they'll say, What do you mean, had mercy upon you? Say, Well, I deserved hell for the state my life was in, and instead of giving me hell, he gave me heaven. That's mercy. And if the person has any interest in heaven, they say, How do you get this mercy? And you'll be able to tell them what happened to you.

That's how it works. Can you imagine a thousand people out of the three thousand that are here this morning taking seriously that challenge in relationship to the communities in which we live? Being convinced that Temple was right in 1936, that the preoccupation of the church is with those outside, not with those inside, and since I know at least this, what he has done for me and that is he had mercy upon me, I can just tell people that. I can't answer all their questions. I don't know about the creation narratives. I haven't worked out the doctrine of the Trinity. I'm not sure about the intermediate state between death and our final resting place and so on. And I do know this—I once was blind, and now I can see. I once was a complete disaster zone, and Jesus has had mercy on me.

That's all you need to do. Because people long for that kind of encounter. They're not looking for a religion. They're not out looking for some system. They're wondering, Has anybody the power in them to conquer the forces that hold me in their grip?

And the way in which that word goes out to the Gentile world is not as a result of Jesus doing large-scale evangelistic preaching events, is it? His plan for the region starts with this little man, turned the right way up. And it's territory that he's given, in the same way that you may send a salesman out. Maybe you're starting a new salesman tomorrow, or a salesgirl—she's gonna sell pharmaceuticals for you. And you say, This is where I want you to start, and when you've covered that, if you could expand to here, and then hopefully I'll give you the whole ten-city region, depending on how you do.

That's what he says. Go first to your family. Luke chapter 8, which is the parallel passage, says that he went also through all over town, and then it says here that he went to the Decapolis, which is the ten-city region. The inroads of the gospel to the Gentile world begin with one transformed life—a transformation that only Christ can bring about.

Only Christ can bring about such a transformation. And if you read all the way to the end of the story, all the way to the end of the gospel, then you find a quite remarkable thing. And that is that you find Jesus, naked, isolated, calling out in the tombs. Calling out in the tombs in phraseology that is incomprehensible to many who are around. Tetelestai! What's he shouting? He's saying, It's finished.

What's finished? Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthini! What is he saying? What's the naked man on the cross screaming about? He's saying, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why is the naked man on the cross? He was so nice, so kind, so good! Who tore all his clothes off and did that to him?

Why is he up there? He screams in those tombs so that he might silence the screams of the man in this tomb. And that is the gospel. That he dies in the place of the screamers, the self-mutilators—those who are alienated from themselves as well as alienated from others.

It'd be a strange company this morning if there were not at least some, and doubtless amongst the teenage population, who have such a warped view of things that they have been known to take and harm themselves. And every attempt to assure them of their validity and of their purpose and of their significance and of the opportunity for redemption and for love has fallen on the ground. Every attempt at isolation and at restraint—well, bring them and let them bow down at the feet of Jesus.

Far by the stripes that he bore, he deals with the cuts that they make. Alistair Begg with a compelling reminder, Jesus Christ transforms lives. This is Truth for Life in a series titled A Light In The Darkness. Alistair returns in just a minute to close with prayer, so please keep listening. The amazing change that Jesus brings about in the lives of individuals should motivate us to share the good news of salvation with others. Each of us knows someone who doesn't know Jesus, but too often we lack the boldness to speak up and share our faith. Later an evangelist, Roger Carswell, has a burden for the lost and a burden for believers to cultivate a passion for reaching people with the gospel. Carswell has written a devotional titled Facing a Task Unfinished, and in this book he lays out 52 weekly readings that will challenge you to become more proactive in sharing your faith with others. We love this book, Facing a Task Unfinished, because it's not a step-by-step instruction book for evangelism.

Instead it points us to God's word and to prayer so that we can gain a heart of compassion for the lost and seek the help of the Holy Spirit to guide and direct our efforts. You're invited to request your copy of the book Facing a Task Unfinished when you give a gift of any amount to support the ministry of Truth for Life. Simply tap the image you see on the mobile app or visit us online at truthforlife.org slash donate or call us at 888-588-7884. And with the year just beginning, maybe you've made it your goal to read through the Bible in 2021, while you're on our website be sure to look for The Bible Reading Calendar by Robert Murray McShane. The scripture plan will take you through the Old Testament once and the New Testament and Psalms twice during the course of the year.

Download your copy free of charge, or if you would prefer a hard copy, you'll find it in our online store for just a dollar. Visit truthforlife.org slash store. Now here's Alistair to close with prayer. Father, it's so easy for us just to become a gigantic marina, bringing our pleasure boats in here Sunday by Sunday. The captain has a few words to say concerning navigational procedures and the height of our flags and the state of our crafts. Remind us that we're actually a lifeboat station. Send us out, we pray, onto the sea of life. Send us out, we pray, to rescue the perishing, to care for the dying, to tell them of Jesus he's mighty to save, to weep o'er the fallen one. I pray, Lord, for people whose lives are so clearly held in the grip of that which they are unable to conquer or control. I pray that you will bring them in childlike trust to the feet of Jesus. I pray for those of us who are smug and self-satisfied and think because we are in our clothes and we are in our right mind that this does not describe us.

It does. We are dead in our trespasses and in our sins. We do follow the ways of this world.

We do follow the devices of those who lead us in disobedience. Show us what we are, and then show us the mercy of Jesus. And then, Lord, send us out in humility and in wisdom to others who wrestle on the troubled sea. And may the grace of the Lord Jesus, the love of God our Father and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, rest and remain with each one of us now and forevermore, amen. I'm Bob Lapine. Tomorrow, Alistair highlights the lesson Jesus taught using a young boy's lunch in a message called You Give Them Something to Eat. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.