Introduction to Luke 8
This morning, I invite you to turn in your Bible to Luke chapter 8. Luke chapter 8. And we're going to continue in this chapter as we see Jesus ministering not only his preaching, but also his miracles.
Last week, in the first 21 verses, we saw Jesus teaching through parables where he was challenging the disciples and all who were listening with the authority of his word. And he was saying that his word is like a seed that is cast along the soil and where it finds different reception. There's the hard soil, the rocky soil, the thorny soil, and the fertile soil. And God's word bears an abundant harvest in the lives of those who receive his word like the fertile soil.
But Jesus also said that his word was like a light that could not be hidden, that it exposed everything and brought it out into the open so that it could be worked into our lives in a way that we find the relief of the gospel. And then finally, Jesus said that when we believe the word of God, we are introduced into a new family, that we are genuinely brothers and sisters, that we have new God-given parents where the church is reparenting us to become more like Christ.
Well, Jesus was not content simply preaching. As I said when we covered the Sermon on the Mount, he declared his truth and the principles of the kingdom of God, but then he went and illustrated them through the lives of people that he touched. And we see the same pattern as Luke records the accounts of Jesus' life here in Luke chapter eight.
That first Jesus preached and he taught through parables, confusing people that did not understand and did not believe and giving hope and help to those who accepted him. But now beginning in verse number 22 and really through the end of the chapter, we're going to see Jesus interacting with people that are different kinds of soil. People that are responding to Jesus differently based on their life circumstances, based on what's really in their heart. And Jesus is going to peel back the motives of their heart and his word is going to expose them like he talked about with the light of his word.
Facing Moments of Fear
And he's going to show them that he has come to restore them and to heal their hearts. I don't know if you've ever been in a situation where you feared for your life, but those moments, hopefully, are rare. And when they come, they're very sobering. It could have been a moment of panic that perhaps you wondered if you were now at the end, if God was about to take your life. Maybe it was a medical emergency, such as a heart attack, where you were feeling the pain and not knowing if you would survive that moment. Or maybe it was suffering a dangerous car accident that, as the car came to a halt and what seemed like a slow-motion unfolding of horrible events, you wondered if you were going to survive. Maybe it was a harrowing flight on a plane.
Over the years, I've flown a lot. I've been to multiple countries around the world, and I've experienced some surprising, if not unsettling, turbulence from time to time. I'm not like Beau, who is a retired pilot who has probably been through all kinds of things that would scare me to death. But once I was on a transatlantic flight, I was coming from Scotland back to Atlanta, and my plane, as we were in cruising altitude, took a sudden, unexpected dive. The cabin lights were all off. Most people were asleep. And suddenly, without any warning, the plane dove and dropped thousands of feet, and the engines were shrieking.
There was a prim and proper British lady sitting next to me, and she grabbed my arm for dear life. Just a natural reaction. Other passengers screamed, and some may have even feared the worst. After what seemed like a long drop on a roller coaster that was not stopping, the plane finally settled out, and then we slowly resumed our cruising altitude. Even more surprisingly to me, the pilots did not make an announcement. They didn't come over the speaker and explain what had just happened. We were just left having had that experience.
It didn't bother me that much because I've had that happen on multiple flights. But the lady sitting next to me that had clung to my arm, it was her first flight. She had just retired and she was making an international trip to the United States. And she told me she was terrified. She had wondered if we might crash when that was happening.
Well, you've probably been in your own difficult set of circumstances where you've come face to face with the reality that life is short and that we don't get to pick when we die. And we also are not choosing—we don't pick when we're born, but we also don't choose when we die. As we come to the middle section of chapter eight, we see some encounters where the disciples are wondering whether or not they're going to live through a boat ride across the Sea of Galilee. We also see a demonic man who wonders how he's going to survive when the control of his body is something that he doesn't have a grip on. And in both cases, God is going to bring these people face to face with their mortality so that he can calm their hearts with his certain gospel.
Personal Principles of Jesus
As Jesus is ministering here, he cares about individuals. He's not simply throwing out principles, hoping they'll land in somebody's lives, but instead he's teaching principles that are very personal.
So begin reading with me in verse 22, where we pick up the narrative. One day Jesus said to his disciples, "Let us go over to the other side of the lake." So they got into the boat and they set out. As they sailed, Jesus fell asleep. A squall came down on the lake so that the boat was being swamped and they were in great danger. The disciples went and woke Jesus, saying, "Master, Master, we're going to drown." He got up and rebuked the wind and the raging waters, and the storm subsided and all was calm. "Where is your faith?" he asked his disciples. In fear and amazement, they asked one another, "Who is this? He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him."
They sailed to the region of the Gerasines, which is across the lake from Galilee. When Jesus stepped ashore, he was met by a demon-possessed man from the town. And for a long time, this man had not worn clothes or lived in a house, but he lived in the tombs. And when he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell at his feet, shouting at the top of his voice, "What do you want with me, Jesus, son of the most high God? I beg of you, do not torture me." For Jesus had commanded the impure spirit to come out of this man. Many times it had seized him, and though he was chained hand and foot and kept under guard, he had broken his chains, and he had been driven by the demon into solitary places.
Jesus asked this man, "What is your name?" "Legion," he replied, because many demons had gone into him. And they begged Jesus repeatedly not to order them to go into the abyss. A large herd of pigs was feeding on the hillside, and the demons begged Jesus to let them go into the pigs, and he gave them permission. When the demons came out of the man, they went into the pigs, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned. When those tending the pigs saw what had happened, they ran off and reported this to the town and countryside. And the people went out to see what had happened.
And when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone out sitting at Jesus' feet, dressed and in his right mind. And they were afraid. Those who had seen it told the people how the demon-possessed man had been cured. Then all the people of the region of the Gerasines asked Jesus to leave because they were overcome with fear. So he got into the boat and left. The man from whom the demons had gone out begged to go with him. But Jesus sent him away, saying, "Return home and tell how much God has done for you." So the man went away and told all over town how much Jesus had done for him.
As we see this passage, perhaps it's familiar to you that you've heard sermons from this or you've read it and you've thought and reflected on the scene of Jesus with his disciples in the boat and the storm and Jesus asleep and Jesus standing and speaking, "Be still," and everything calm down. Maybe you've even read through this passage or heard sermons about the demon-possessed man and wondered, "What is demon-possession? How does that overtake someone and what is the remedy? How does that work?"
All of those questions may come to our minds, but what I want us to see this morning from these two vignettes into people's lives as Jesus was ministering is that Jesus commands our circumstances and he calms our hearts. He commands our circumstances and he calms our hearts.
In the first vignette, where we have the disciples with Jesus on the boat, we see Jesus using circumstances to address our worst fears. Jesus uses circumstances to address our worst fears. Just as on the airplane, people were panicked and screaming because they didn't know how far our plane was going to drop. Jesus put his disciples on a boat in the middle of a storm and saw what came out of their hearts.
As Jesus went, they had been ministering and they were busy. There was always a throng around Jesus and the crowds were growing. People wanted to touch Jesus, just to hear his word, to be in his presence, hoping for a miracle that might benefit them or their family. And as Jesus stepped away from the crowd and got onto the boat, all was well. The Sea of Galilee seemed to be calm and nothing was going on more than simply setting sail and passing across the sea. It was a rather small body of water that was about five miles wide and 13 miles long, but it was surrounded by mountains and sheer cliffs.
It was set below sea level so that the cool air coming down from the mountains, when it would meet the warm air on the surface of the water, could sometimes erupt into a dangerous storm. But no one was thinking of that when they first got on the boat.
I mean, Jesus excused himself, and it says in verse number 23 that he went to sleep. All was calm and all was well. It was just another day, and they were transitioning from one group of people to another as Jesus went preaching and teaching and offering miracles and signs to all that he encountered.
Yet, in the midst of this circumstance, it says a squall came down on the lake, so much so that the boat was being swamped and they were in great danger.
The Storm and Faith
Think of this: Andrew, Peter, James, and John were fishermen. They had worked on this lake. They knew the possibilities. Perhaps they had experienced other storms. But in this particular storm, they were terrified. When it says they were in great danger, the idea is that they were in peril. This was not just a matter of the storm will pass. It was very possible that their boat would sink.
So what do they do? They react. They go to Jesus and they say to him, "Master, Master, we're going to drown." Notice that they identify Jesus as their Lord, as the one who is in charge of their lives. And they go to him as one holding authority and asking for help.
Jesus, for his part, is asleep. While the boat is pitching and rolling, it's probably rising and slamming back down. All these things are happening and Jesus is at rest because Jesus had come to fulfill his father's will. And until he had fulfilled it, he was safe and he was at rest. His human body was weary from the work that he had been doing. His conscience was clear from the fact that he had never sinned. And he was now in a position where he was showing his authority as God.
And the disciples came to him in total panic. When it says they were scared that they might drown, what they were really saying is, "Jesus, we're about to die. Our boat is about to go down. Help us."
So Jesus responded to them. He got up, it says, matter-of-factly. He stood up and saw the wind and the raging waters. And Mark's gospel says he spoke, "Be still." And as soon as he spoke, everything settled down. It wasn't a matter of the after effects of a storm. It wasn't like the eye of a hurricane that brought the backside of the hurricane. There was no churn in the water. Everything settled back into
The Question of Faith
Place. And then he asked them a pointed question. Jesus said to the men who had just called him, "Master, where is your faith?"
The disciples' desperate panic revealed their desperate hearts—that their greatest problem was not the stormy sea, but their hearts of unbelief. Even though they had witnessed Jesus perform miracles and they had sensed that he was the promised Messiah, perhaps even rehearsing the Old Testament scriptures that he quoted them, in this moment of sheer panic where they were worried for their very lives, facing the possibility that they might die, the cares of this world undermined their faith.
Jesus' question penetrated their hearts. He asked them why their faith did not match the faith of the Roman centurion who had said, "Jesus, you don't even have to go to my house to heal my child or my son. Just say the word and he'll be healed." Their faith did not match that of the named, unnamed woman in Simon's house who was a sinner who was crying over Jesus' feet, to whom Jesus said, "Your sins have been forgiven you."
No, the power and the chaos of this unexpected storm was choking off the faith that these men possessed. They were like the seed that had been thrown on the thorny ground. The thorns of the care and concern for protecting their lives had made them doubt Jesus. So they asked each other, verse 25, "Who is this? Who are we dealing with? Who is this man on our boat that even the seas and the waves respond to him?"
Now they were realizing that Jesus was more than a persuasive teacher and a miracle worker; he was none other than God in flesh. They remembered the Old Testament passages like we read this morning in Psalms and Isaiah, where we see God as the creator and God as the master of his creation. Now Jesus spoke and demonstrated beyond any doubt that he was God because he could tell creation what to do.
Their question, I take it as being rhetorical when they said, "Who is this?" because they realized they were in the presence of God himself. It is in the difficulties and the trials and the suffering that we experience in this life that God creates the ideal conditions for us to grow in our dependence on him. In fact, God most often uses adversity to develop us in significant spiritual growth. Without any kind of difficulties or trials or suffering, even though we say that's what we want, we would not learn to depend on God. Instead, we would simply rely on our own strength. We would become self-sufficient and even arrogant. We would be like the disciples taking the calm before the storm for granted.
Too often, that's what we do. We presume upon God. We expect our lives to go well according to the script that we imagine for them. But God allows adversity. He brings difficulty and he does it to reveal what's really going on in our hearts. He often uses external adversity to expose our internal turmoil. And he uses our circumstances to bring out our worst fears so that he can address them.
Jesus is not trying to humiliate the disciples and say, "Are you guys not paying attention? What's wrong with you?" Instead, he's drawing out what's in their heart so they can see that they lack faith in him. And then he's giving them the opportunity to trust him even more.
It's easy to trust God when life feels calm and under our control. And we live in a world that is desperate for control. We want to manage our time down to the minute. We want to have control over other people, telling them what to do. We don't like being told what to do, but we know better, we think. We even say as Christians that we trust God as long as everything seems to be going well. But the moment things don't go well, and when something happens to us, we question everything. We wonder, "Why is God allowing this in my life? Why has this person died? I prayed for their healing. Why am I sick? Why did I lose my job? Why does this person not like me any longer?" Why, why, why?
And though those questions are personal, they're deep, and they reveal what's going on in our heart, we really learn the most in that kind of difficulty. We are exposed to see who we're really relying on. And Jesus wants us to rely on him. He wants us to see that our need and the turmoil of our soul can be satisfied with him.
Jesus not only calmed the storm of the seas, but he also calmed the clutter of their minds. He brought everything into crystal clear focus about who was in control. It wasn't the experienced fishermen who were trimming the sails and guiding the ship. It was the Lord of the seas who was controlling the environment in which they operated. The calm that Jesus provided after the storm shows us he's absolutely trustworthy. We can believe what God says. We can hang on every word. We can trust his promises. Because every word is true.
And we can put our confidence, our faith, and belief in Jesus Christ and trust him with our very lives unto eternal life. God takes the tumult and the uncertainty of our external circumstances to reveal the inner turmoil of our souls so he can give us peace that surpasses our understanding.
Think about, I asked the question in my introduction, have you ever been afraid for your life? What did that do? During World War I, which was fought in terrible conditions of foxholes in Europe, there was something called foxhole Christianity. It was in the midst of bullets flinging above their heads as they tramped through the mud and the sewage that collected in the trenches that many a soldier came face to face with their mortality. And some of them confessed Christ because they realized their life was inches from being taken from them.
It's not unlike a friend of mine who was on a ferry boat in Scotland. He was traveling from Lerwick in Shetland down to Aberdeen, which by boat, that's a 12-hour ride, even in a modern boat. And the sea can sometimes be horrible in the wintertime. And my friend, who grew up on Shetland and had been there his whole life and ridden that ferry many times over the years, once showed up at my house in Stonehaven, which is south of Aberdeen, for a surprise visit. He said, "I've just come down to Aberdeen to do some shopping and I've got some extra time and I wanted to spend the afternoon with you." And he said, "But I've got to tell you, I just had the most harrowing boat ride of my life. We were on the sea and I had a private cabin with a full-size bed. And never in my life before have I been so scared." He said the boat was going up and down and dropping. And he said, "I just laid on the bed and grabbed four corners and held on for dear life."
And he shared that he began reflecting on his life, thinking about what had happened so far, grateful for his faith in God, but wondering, "God, is this it? Is this how it's going to end?" God in his mercy brought him through that, but it was a clarifying moment. I'm not suggesting that you should go looking for a life and death experience, but I am saying that when we consider the state of our souls, we must trust Christ because God uses our circumstances to bring out our worst fears so that we can submit them to him.
For some of you, you don't know what those are yet, but when you're faced with a health crisis, or an income crisis, or you're faced with an accident or something that happens, God will bring out what's in the heart. And the question is, are you prepared to give it to him? The disciples learned in that moment that Jesus loved them even when they were unlovable. Jesus preserved them even when they doubted his ability to do so. And Jesus continued with them when he could have abandoned them. And he does all the same things for us.
The question is, do we trust God with what's going on in our hearts? Or are we trying to suppress it and saying, "I just don't want God to know that about me. I don't want him to know this doubt or that fear or that question." God already knows it. Be honest with yourself. Give it over to him and watch him work in your life. Jesus uses the external circumstances to reveal the inner turmoil so he can heal us with his gospel.
Think back to the woman who was probably a prostitute. There she is in Simon's house amid all the people, and she humbles herself going to Jesus, weeping tears over his feet, washing them with her hair, and then being forgiven of her sins. This woman's worst fears had already been realized, and now Jesus had healed her with the balm of the gospel. Jesus wants us to humble ourselves before him so that we can find healing for our sins.
The disciples' hearts at this moment were not exactly like the woman who had exercised fertile faith and demonstrated a fertile soil for the word of God to take root. But the disciples were very much a thorny soil that was allowing other things to crowd them out. And God in that moment used a storm to pull the weeds out of their heart and to make the soil fertile again. Well, if this were not enough, Jesus is going to take these same men from the boat back to the land.
Confronting the Forces of Evil
And as he does that, they're going to have an encounter with absolute evil. So they've not only experienced the forces of nature, now they're going to come face to face with the forces of evil. And Jesus is going to do something more.
First, we see in this passage that he uses circumstances to address our worst fears. But secondly, Jesus rebukes evil to restore our right minds.
After Jesus calmed the violent storm on the Sea of Galilee, he and the disciples continued their journey and crossed the sea to safety. They made it to the Gerasenes. This is a region of Palestine on the east side of the Sea of Galilee, and it provided another setting for Jesus to reveal his identity and his authority. And this time, in the context of mostly Gentiles.
I've been drawing attention to the passages where Jesus is interacting with Jews and Gentiles to try to show us that Jesus is a savior for all people. He was the promised Messiah of Israel, but he came to save men and women from every tribe, every tongue, and every nation.
So as Jesus and the disciples make it ashore here in the Gerasenes, they come out of the boat. And as they start making their way toward the people, they were met by a demon-possessed man, it says in verse number 27. Luke has already documented Jesus' ability to cast out demons, as he's done this repeatedly so far. But this is the first time he gives us a detailed account of a specific individual who's being tormented. But ironically, we only receive the name of the demons that are affecting the man and not the name of the man himself.
This man had been tormented for years. He was an extreme case. He lived alone, separated from his family, separated from his home, and separated from civil society. He was unclothed, without shelter, living in a graveyard. All things that were considered odd and that made him someone who was unapproachable.
Under the demonic influence, this man now confronts Jesus and the disciples. Apparently, in spite of their best efforts, the local authorities were not able to bind this man and control him. It seemed whether they used ropes or whether they used chains, he broke free from them many times. The guards that they placed around him probably quit in fear. But this man finally found a home in the town's cemetery where no one would bother him and where the demons would torment him. His state of undress and his superhuman strength kept him isolated from other people. He was living alone and no one knew what to do with him.
So now, as he approached Jesus, I'm sure people were wondering. This would not have been an isolated event; others had to have seen. And we gather that later in the chapter when it says they ran back to the town to tell people what was happening.
But when Jesus encountered this man who was being given over to demons, it says the man cried out and fell at his feet, verse 28, shouting at the top of his voice, "What do you want with me, Jesus, son of the most high God?"
The demons have not even identified themselves yet. The man has barely said a word of his own, and they're identifying Jesus for who he really is. The demons were speaking through the man and calling Jesus by his name, "son of the most high God," a title that we saw earlier in chapter number five that demonstrated Jesus was not simply an itinerant teacher and worker, but that he was deity. The disciples had just asked themselves, "Who is this?" And now the demons were declaring exactly who he was: God in flesh.
But notice Jesus does not answer the demons' question. Instead, he asked them a question, "What is your name?" Before I tell you about myself, identify yourself. And the demons simply said, "Legion," because many demons had gone into the man, verse 30. Legion referred to a company of thousands of Roman soldiers. It seems that this one man had been overtaken by a litany of demons.
And Jesus was now confronted by this large cohort of demonic activity through this possessed man who was opposing him, who was not there as a part of the welcome committee, but as one because of the demons was trying to silence Jesus. Jesus was outnumbered in terms of one to thousands, but he was not overmatched because he was the son of God. They rightly identified him. And desperate in his presence, they pleaded with Jesus because they knew as demons that they were destined for destruction. So they asked Jesus not to torment them.
Think of the irony here. This legion of demons are tormenting a man. They've ruined his life, taken it over. And they're saying, "But Jesus, don't do anything like that to us. Don't torture us. Don't throw us into the abyss," they say in verse number 31. The abyss would be the place of final judgment where they would be sent for eternity without recovery. These tormenting demons recognized Jesus' authority over them and his ability to absolutely destroy them.
So they pleaded and said, "Please leave us alone." And Jesus was not going to leave them alone. So they saw that there were a herd of pigs nearby, and they asked if they could be cast into the pigs that were on the hillside. And it says in verse 32 that Jesus gave them permission.
The demons did not operate independently on their own. They still operated under the authority of God. Even the demon-possessed man, as awful as that oppression was, was at the mercy of God. So as he came under the control of the demons, there was still hope for the man that perhaps this great man, this son of the most high, would be the one who could finally deliver him from his captivity.
We see in this passage that the demons believed in God. James says as much in his letter, James the half-brother of Jesus. But the demons, though they believe in God, refused to obey him. They recognize Jesus has authority here to command them. They believe that Jesus has the power to judge them and that Jesus can send them to a place of eternal torment. But they begged Jesus not to do any of this. They asked instead to be sent into the pigs, and Jesus granted their request.
What's ironic is that no sooner than they went into the pigs, it says the whole herd of them rushed down the steep bank into the lake and they were drowned. The demons, who did not want to be tortured, were torturing a man, and now they tortured the pigs, and they went off the cliff into the depths of the water. They went into a physical abyss, representing that they were going to their own destruction.
What's interesting in this is that in the Gentile territory where Jesus was, pigs were valuable livestock. But for the Jews, such as the disciples who were traveling with Jesus, pigs were considered unclean. They were even worthless animals. But desperate to escape God's wrath and judgment, the demons went into the pigs and they went to their destruction.
So what happens in the aftermath of this? Well, beginning in verse number 34, it says that the men who were watching the pigs ran off and told people in the town what was happening in the countryside. And more people came out to observe this, verse 34 and 35. But what's even more significant than the pigs is see what they observed when they came out. They couldn't see the pigs other than that they were gone and that there may have been evidence that they went off the hill and into the water.
But they saw the man. It says, when they came to him, verse number 35, came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone out sitting at Jesus' feet, dressed and in his right mind, and they were afraid. That this man who had once caused fear in the heart of anyone who would see him, a man who is literally unclothed, breaking chains and could not be controlled, is now sitting calmly, clothed and in his right mind, and the people are terrified. They recognized that something supernatural must have happened here.
They had tried everything in their power to heal the man. Perhaps some tried to cast out the demon. Perhaps others tried to help him medically. Others just tried through brute force to restrain him and stop him, and nothing worked. But now the man was sitting with Jesus, the great teacher and healer, and he was in his right mind, and it caused them to be afraid.
Their reaction to this is interesting. Rather than giving thanks and rejoicing and saying, "Who is this man?" like the disciples, they said, "Get him out of here. We don't want this man to be around us anymore." The disciples had been afraid during the storm on the Sea of Galilee, but they found comfort in Jesus once he calmed the seas. Now the Gentiles on the east side of the sea were afraid because Jesus cast out the demons. And this once possessed, out of control man was now in his right mind. The people recognized only someone with divine authority could make this transformation.
And these people were now upset by the transformation. They didn't know what to make of it. Most people who witnessed one of Jesus' miracles wanted him to help them or do a miracle for someone they knew. We see Luke reporting that earlier where it says Jesus stayed all night as people continued to come to him. But after this amazing miracle, the people in the garrisons had the audacity to expel Jesus from their territory.
Perhaps they worried Jesus might destroy more of their valuable livestock. Whatever the case, they cared more about their animals than the dignity of human life. They were willing to let this man suffer alone in the graveyard. But when it intersected with their livelihoods, that became far more important than this man's life. So they sent the son of the most high God away without asking him for further help, healing, or explanation. They feared that Jesus' authority might expose their own weaknesses, and they perhaps feared that people would have rebelled against their authority.
So Jesus got in the boat and left. The people responding to this situation were like the soil on the hard ground. The word of God had been cast their way and they simply trampled on it and ignored it, and it bore no fruit. But the man who had been healed and the demons removed was fertile ground.
The Mission of the Healed
We see this man from whom the demons have gone out, verse number 38. He wants to go with Jesus. He says, "I want to follow you now. I want to leave this tomb and this town to follow the teacher." And yet Jesus gives him another mission, verse 39. He says, "Return home and tell how much God has done for you."
So the man went away and told all over town how much Jesus had done for him. This man who could once not speak for himself was now outspoken for the Messiah. He went and told everyone that would listen what God had done for him. He had been completely transformed by the word of God. It had taken root in his heart, and he wanted to share this with everyone that would listen.
Jesus possesses the authority that is so great he can reverse the effects of evil. Some people transformed by God's power, such as this man, bear witness to it. They turn from the path of evil and sin. They turn from destruction and death to truth and life.
But there are other people, like the Gerasenes in general, who are afraid of God. They want to distance themselves from his presence, and they fear that God's power will change their lives and require too much of them. On a few occasions, I've invited people to church, even before I was a pastor and since I've been a pastor, and said, "I'd love for you to come to our church and be a part of what we're doing. I'd love to introduce you to some of my friends at church."
And on a few occasions, I've had someone say to me, "I don't want to go there. I know what happens there. I don't want anything to do with that." And of course, I probe and I ask, "What are you talking about? What do you think happens there?" Like, "We're not a secret society. We're not doing weird rituals." And I've had at least one person say to me, "God's there. And I don't want anything to do with that."
That's sad, but it's similar to what the Gerasenes were doing. In the very presence of God, they rejected him and cast him out. And there are people who will do the same in our own society, in our own time. Demonic presence and influence is throughout the New Testament, and it's into our own times.
Some people take a passage like this and become demon hunters, looking for demons everywhere. In fact, some teach that demons are simply the influence of certain prevalent sins. Maybe someone has the demon of alcohol, and this is why they're given over to being an alcoholic. Maybe another person has the demon of lust, and this is why they cannot break the chains of pornography. Or maybe someone has a demon of murder, and this is why they're on death row because they've taken other people's lives.
That is not what this passage is saying, though it is indicating that demonic influence is real, and demonic influence leads us away from God because it devalues life. They not only tormented a man, they destroyed animals. This legion of demons had been slowly torturing the man, taking his life from him moment by moment. Then they suddenly killed these pigs, but Jesus had the power. To vanquish them, he was able to heal the man and send the demons away.
In our own life, we don't live in a mystical culture, and I don't want to take us to a mystical culture, but we are impacted by demonic influence. Perhaps some people who reject the gospel are not simply rejecting our message or our ability to communicate, but they're rejecting the authority of Jesus because demons have blinded their eyes. The greatest thing we can offer them is the hope of the gospel, that they would have ears to hear and eyes to see, as Jesus said earlier. And that can only come from the hand of God. We must be faithful to carry the message to all that need to hear it and trust God to break the chains of demonic activity or other things.
Jesus instructed this man not to start a healing ministry casting out demons around Palestine. He told the man, "Tell how much God has done for you." The idea was that he was to testify of Jesus and that this was the Son of the most high God, the promised Messiah who would deliver people from their sins. This man had fertile soil that would cast more seed to others as they would listen.
The presence of Almighty God terrifies sinners. But the Son of God took on human form not to torment us, but to save us. The arrival of God in our presence is good news. With great joy, Luke said in Luke 2:10, not terror, because it is evident that God is for us, not against us. The disciples turned their fear into amazement, verse number 25, that they revered Jesus as God, while the Gerasenes turned their fear into rejection and sent him away.
I started my sermon by asking if you've ever been afraid, if you've ever feared for your life, if you've ever been in a vulnerable set of circumstances where you've had to think, "What's about to happen? What is next?" I shared my story of a transatlantic flight and my friend on the ferry boat in northeast Scotland because in all of those moments, people gasped in fear and yelped in panic.
God brings us face to face with our worst fears and he uses our life circumstances to expose evil, and he wants us to see what's in our hearts so that we can receive the healing balm of the gospel. Jesus came to forgive sinners. The point of his ministry was not to shame people, but to liberate them. Just as he healed the centurion's son, he brought the widow's son back to life. As he assured John, as he worked to comfort the woman who was at Simon's house, and he restored his disciples, Jesus wants to help us.
He wants to find out what you really believe. He wants to know where your faith is really anchored. Is it simply in tradition? Is it merely your family? Or is it in the Son of God himself? This passage is a call to trust Jesus, our Master, with our circumstances and to let him calm our hearts through whatever may be. And as we do that, we will come to see that Jesus is trustworthy, that he is indeed who he claims to be, the Savior of sinners.
Let's pray. God, I ask that you would help us this morning to come to grips with this passage. Father, as there are different things happening in our lives, help us to see that you are using those to draw us closer to you. Help us to have open hearts like the disciples, that though we may genuinely be afraid, we may genuinely have questions and concerns, that in that moment of clarity, we would come to you and say, "Who is this?" This is God working to reveal himself to me.
And Father, help us to be like the disciples, turning our fear into wonder and amazement, trusting you for who you say you are. Father, if there are any here that similarly are going through difficulty or watching you do amazing things, but rejecting you, I pray that you would help open their eyes and their ears that they would see you for who you really are and help them not to push you away.
If you've brought anybody to church this morning that it's taken some effort to get them here, I pray that they would hear this message as a call to repentance and faith. And Father, that they would submit their life to you and say, "God is in this place and He wants to save me." So, Father, demonstrate your power and authority over the seas and the spirits, and may they obey you again today. In Christ's name, Amen.