A Man in the Tombs (Part 1 of 2)

I don't know what your angry and violent. I'm sure it would look a lot different from the way Jesus responded. Today on Truth for Life, Alistair Begg investigates a dramatic encounter between Jesus and a homeless man who was possessed by a demon. Luke 8 and verse 26, Then they sailed to the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. When Jesus had stepped out on land, there met him a man from the city who had demons. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he had not lived in a house but among the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him and said with a loud voice, What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?

I beg you, do not torment me. For he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. For many a time it had seized him. He was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demons into the desert. Jesus then asked him, What is your name?

And he said, Legion. And they entered him. And they begged him not to command them to depart into the abyss. Now a large herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, and they begged him to let them enter these.

So he gave them permission. Then the demons came out of the man and entered the pigs, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and drowned. When the herdsmen saw what had happened, they fled and told it in the city and in the country. Then people went out to see what had happened, and they came to Jesus and found the man from whom the demons had gone, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid. And those who had seen it told them how the demon-possessed man had been healed.

Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked him to depart from them, for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned. And they begged that he might be with him. But Jesus sent him away, saying, Return to your home and declare how much God has done for you.

And he went away proclaiming throughout the whole city how much Jesus had done for him. Amen. We pray that as a result of this, we might be increasingly conformed to the image of the Lord Jesus, in whose name we pray.

Amen. It's worthwhile, I think, reminding ourselves this morning that the Bible is a book about Jesus, that we go wrong when we attend church and always ask about the sermon, I wonder where I am in this sermon. The real question is, I wonder where Jesus is in this sermon.

Because if the Bible is a book about Jesus, then Jesus ought to be appearing all over the place and all the time. And when we consider these encounters, it's not so much the challenge to see the point of identification necessarily with the individual that is meeting Jesus, as it is to be reminded by the Gospel writers of the power of Jesus in so many different circumstances, thereby encouraging us to expect that Jesus will do these things in the transforming power of the Spirit in our lives and in the lives of others, too. We began where Jesus meets a man in a bed, then Jesus meets a man in the night, and then Jesus yesterday meets a woman at the well, and this morning Jesus meets a man in the tombs. It may seem particularly this morning at first reading that the story of an unhinged tomb dweller is about as far removed from our life and our circumstances as any particular story in the Bible, and yet I think further consideration will allow us to see that each of us has more in common with this central character than we're probably prepared to admit.

So our pattern will be, just as before, we'll try and look into the Bible, see what's there, and learn as we go along. First of all, it's important for us to recognize that Luke is telling us of the location of Jesus here purposefully. When you have these little notes, they sailed to the country of the Gerizines, which is opposite Galilee, they're not without significance.

We don't want to attach more significance to them than it needs to be, but we don't want to miss the point either. And in this case, this is more than simply a geographical note, because it represents Jesus' first foray into Gentile country. Jesus is the one who has come in order that men and women from every tribe and nation and people and language will be gathered into the vast company that is represented in Revelation 7. And so he now, as a Jew, enters into this Gentile region, enters into a region which for the Jew was an unclean environment.

Not only was the general environment unclean, but for him to go specifically into the tomb among the demons and among the pigs just defined the nature of the uncleanness that was there. Luke is actually about to show us how the lesson of the parable, which is also in chapter 8 here, if your Bible is open, you can look up to around verse 5 or so. And when the great crowd had gathered and the people from the town, Jesus told them the parable of the sower went to sow his seed. And Luke is now showing the way in which the parable of the sower is going to be worked out in the Gentile world.

It's a different location, but it's the same good news. We're going to discover that the townsfolk are like the seed that is on the path, and surprisingly, the most unlikely fellow is the good soil. You need to reread the parable and refresh your minds of that, and it will make sense to you.

So that's the location. What then of the man? What about the condition of this man?

Well, we're told that for a long time he was naked, he had no clothes, he hadn't lived in a house, he had been living among the tombs. Naked, homeless, living in the local cemetery. The kind of individual who would be the joke of schoolboys, that strange scary feeling when you ran past the cemetery and you said to one another, don't shout, he may come out and get us. Now the same schoolboys who would be told by their parents, when you come home, make a wide berth around the cemetery.

We don't want naked Norman coming and getting a hold of you. But the man would be regarded as a public nuisance. A public nuisance, extraordinary, he was uncontrollable.

They had obviously made attempts to harness him, to chain him, to shackle him, and without any kind of long-term success. He's really a tragic picture. He has crossed the boundaries of human decency. He has essentially lost any claim to status.

He is not an unusual character in 21st century America, actually. Someone some years ago wrote what they call the poem, I don't know how it qualifies as poetry, but it went like this, do you have any identification? Diner's card? Access? American Express? Bank statement?

Driving license? Then I'm sorry sir, you do not exist. And that would be the condition of this individual.

Nothing at all. Just a naked homeless man crying out in the night. He had been reduced essentially to the level of a wild animal. He was marginalized, he was demonized, and his life was hopeless.

If you'd seen him in the New York subway, you would have definitely tried to change your seat. But here is something that we need to pay careful attention to. He is essentially a tragic picture of what the Bible tells us is the human condition apart from God. This is where a man or woman will eventually end up.

Unrestrained. And in order to reinforce that, and so that we don't miss this, let me turn you just to two passages in the Epistles which will help us understand. First of all in Ephesians chapter 2, and then in Colossians and also in chapter 1. Turn to Ephesians 2 so that you might see again that what I'm telling you is actually there in the Scriptures.

If of course you've already decided you can trust me, then you won't be following along. This is Ephesians 2 after the glorious beginning of chapter 1 in terms of the amazing initiative-taking love of God, the reminder that the Ephesians have also been included in Christ when they heard the gospel of their salvation and when they believed. And then in chapter 2, in order to amplify the magnificence of grace, he reminds these Ephesians of what their lives were without Christ, when they were without God. And you were dead, he says, in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived, in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind.

You can read on for yourselves later on. Now we need to be clear, we are not all possessed by demons, but by nature we are all under the power of dark forces. We are all under the power of evil. That is why we have no need to teach our children to lie.

There is no course that you need to send your children to, to learn how to cheat or to steal. They are only doing what comes naturally. Colossians chapter 1, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and chapter 1, and verse 21, And you who were once alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled. You who were once alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, who are these people?

You and me. It's not a very palatable notion, is it? It's certainly reacted against, but it really makes sense, doesn't it, of the extent of God's mercy. We want to reinforce what we said yesterday morning, that there is no area of our lives that is left intact by sin. Sin affects our emotions, it affects our wills, it affects our minds. And there is an anti-God bias within each of us that is entered at the level of our understanding and at the level of our will. So that even human presuppositions and human thought processes are ultimately hostile to God. Now, if you understand this, if we understand what the Bible is saying here, then it helps us to reckon with those who are so diametrically opposed to what we have come to understand as a result of God's grace and goodness. When we find ourselves saying, how is it that anyone can ever say X?

How is it that anyone can ever believe Y? We say that all the time, don't we? The answer is here in Colossians chapter 1. The answer is here in Ephesians chapter 2. Because apart from the amazing grace of God, we would hold those same presuppositions. We would attach more significance to things that are insignificant than discover significance in the things of God. And so, when we think in terms of hostility towards God, then the demonic dimension of it as expressed in this man is simply a further indication of it.

He is enslaved, and of course, we too are enslaved. The nature of the spiritual world that is going on all around us is absolutely real. Otherwise, what Paul is saying when he talks about our wrestling, not against flesh and blood, but against spiritual wickedness in the heavenly places, really doesn't mean anything at all, does it? No, the reality of the power of God at work spiritually, the reality of the activities of the evil one at work spiritually, are biblical truths and have to be reckoned with.

So, the location is in the Gentile context of the Gerasenes. The condition of the man is that he is alienated, he's alienated from God, he's alienated from others, and he's alienated from himself. Now, if you think about the doctrine of reconciliation, where Paul says, you know, we beseech you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God, receive the reconciliation which God has provided for you in the gospel.

Who needs to be reconciled? Only those who are alienated. And alienation was certainly a great theme of the 60s and 70s in contemporary writing. It runs as a vein, I think, through much of Paul Simon's stuff. Simon I regard as the best writer of lyrics in my lifetime. And when you listen again to some of these old songs, you realize that they're expressing that deep-seated sense of angst for which he has no peculiar explanation.

Whether it is in the sounds of silence and the great crowd of people, 10,000 maybe more, you know, talking without speaking and hearing without listening. Or when he rides on the bus and he says, Kathy, I'm lost. He said, though I knew she was sleeping, I'm empty and aching and I don't know why.

Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike, we've all come to look for America, laughing on the bus, playing games with the faces. She said the man in the gabardine suit was a spy. I said, be careful, his bow tie is really a camera. That sense of who am I and where am I, up a narrow flight of stairs to a narrow little room as I lie upon my bed in the early evening gloom and impaled upon my wall, my eyes can dimly see the riddle of my life and the puzzle that is me. He was a most peculiar man. That's what Mrs. Reardon said and she should know. No, it runs all the way through. You see, the signs of the prophets are written on the subway walls and whispered in the sounds of silence.

They really are. If you listen carefully, you will hear in the sounds of silence the great cries of the demons, the great cries of lostness, the great cries of emptiness. And our response to them is not to shout, be quiet, but is to say, do you know that there is a reconciliation that has been provided in the person of Christ in the amazing nature of his death for sinners? That's, you see, what is going to be the key that unlocks the alienation of this man's mind. It is what Jesus is about to do when finally all of hell is unleashed against him and every dark and demonic force is poured out upon him as if that would be the end of it, rather than as it proves to be the triumph of his might.

So the confrontation is as recorded for us. I just distracted myself there a little bit. I'm sorry, but I think I'm back.

I'm back on track. What you have here is a combination, I think, of attraction and of fearfulness on the part of the man. Jesus, we're told, has commanded the evil spirit to come out of the man. And the response that you see down there in verse 28 makes clear that the forces of evil knew the answer to the question the disciples had been asking in verse 25. I like little things like this.

I hope you do too. If you look at verse 25, Jesus has calmed the sea. He has come through the storm in order that he can meet this man in the tombs.

There is a great calm. They were afraid. Response of his followers to a dramatic display of his power was fearfulness. And they said to one another, who then is this, that he commands even winds and water that they obey him. So what they don't know, the demons understand.

We know who you are. It's a reminder of what James goes on to write in James 2 when he says, even the demons believe and they shudder. So you have this direct confrontation. Don't send us, they say. Please don't send us down into the abyss. But this is a reference simply to the abode of the dead. So the demon world is aware of the fact that one day in the judgment their freedom is gone and their doom is sealed.

There's no question about that. And they understand that. Realizing that they are then, that is the demons, face to face with the judge, they are obviously afraid that he may choose now to cast them down into the abyss. The man's personality has been so destabilized by the demons that they have usurped the place of the self and they speak through him. Again, what a tragic picture of this man. Hopelessness.

Absolutely unable to fix himself or to be fixed by anyone else apart from the intervention of he who is the Lord of all the nations. Well, in response to their request, we have the destruction of the pigs. And it's a story that obviously gets everybody completely churned up in home Bible study groups. And then the demons came out of the man and entered the pigs and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and they drowned. How strange is this?

Well, it is quite strange. It's particularly hard for all pig lovers. And some of you who have your own private personal pigs, I suppose, are completely unsettled by this.

But if you just hold your fire, I think you'll be okay. Calvin actually suggests in his commentary that the demons' purpose may have been to excite the inhabitants of the country to curse God on account of the loss of the pigs. In other words, just to make the confrontation even greater. And when we read a little section like this, as we do now, we have to be content to treat the account at the level it's offered and not try to address questions or answer questions that it doesn't address. This is the great tyranny, again, of those who, in doing home Bible studies, lose control of the thing at a section like this. And somebody asked the question, how can animals be possessed? And the whole Bible study goes completely out of the window at that point. Any notion of the transforming power of Jesus, setting somebody free, has gone completely south now because we're discussing the nature of the demon possession of animals. And someone says, well, you know, we had a German shepherd that I think was demon-possessed.

And you might as well just close the Bible and say, we'll try again next Wednesday, but for now it's over. German shepherds aside, it's good to know that Jesus is indeed all-powerful. He's able to confront and command even a legion of demons. You're listening to Truth for Life with Alistair Begg. We are in a series titled An Extraordinary Encounter. We're learning about some of the people who met Jesus. And to supplement this study, we want to recommend to you a book called Saints and Scoundrels in the Story of Jesus. Just like the title suggests, this is a book that takes a close-up look at a number of people in the Gospels, some of whom became saints, some who are forever known as scoundrels. The author of the book is Nancy Guthrie, and she helps us look beyond the human frailties of key Gospel figures, people like Peter, even the Pharisees or Judas, so that we can better understand them.

In fact, this is a fascinating book because she challenges us to see ourselves in some of their weaknesses. You can ask for your copy of the book when you donate online at truthforlife.org slash donate. And by the way, if you're looking for a topic for your next study group, you can buy extra copies of Saints and Scoundrels at cost in the online store.

The book includes a full set of discussion questions for each chapter. Additional copies can be purchased at truthforlife.org slash store. Your prayers and your support for Truth for Life are what bring this program to a worldwide audience. We get letters and emails from people of all ages.

They come from throughout the United States and around the world. People write to us to express their gratitude for the clear, relevant Bible teaching they rely on from Truth for Life. So if you have partnered with us in the past, thank you. And if you've been listening for a while and have not yet thought to support the ministry of Truth for Life by making a donation, you can do that today at truthforlife.org slash donate, or give us a call at 888-588-7884. I'm Bob Lapine. Thanks for listening. I hope you can join us tomorrow when we'll find out how Jesus can fashion an evangelist out of even the most unlikely person. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where Learning is for Living.