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In the name of Jesus, amen. Dear saints, this is a wild story from Luke chapter 8, where Jesus takes his disciples across the Sea of Galilee to the east side, to the region of the garrisons where the pagans were living. He is encountered when he jumps out of the boat by this naked crazy man who was possessed by the devil and the demons. He comes right up to him and says, “What are you doing? Are you here to destroy me before the time?” That’s how it says it in Matthew.
It’s very interesting, in fact, that the demons seem to know that a judgment is on the way, and they’re worried that Jesus is going to bring it to them right now. They are nervous about the lake of fire that’s on the way, and so they say, “We don’t want to go there yet.” Jesus has a conversation with this man. “What’s your name?” He’s casting out the demons. “What’s your name?” The man answers, “Legion.” Luke tells us this indicates the amount of demons that were troubling him. A legion in the Roman army is 6,000 soldiers. That’s a pretty desperate situation that this man is in, but not for Jesus.
Jesus is going to send these demons away. They ask that he not send them to the abyss. We don’t exactly know what this means, but it seems like the abyss must have been something like a prison in hell that would lock the demons in. Normally, the demons have access to earth and to hell, but there seems to be a kind of holding pen that would lock them in. They say, “Don’t send us there. Send us into the pigs instead.” Amazingly, Jesus grants them their request, and the demons go into the herd of pigs. All the pigs go crazy, run over the cliff, and drown in the sea. The man is normal. They give him some clothes, probably some food, something to drink. Amen. And he’s sitting there.
Now the swine herders run away and tell everybody what happened, and they’re afraid. The whole town comes out, and they’re afraid. One of the amazing things for us to think about is that they were more afraid of Jesus, who healed the man, than they were of this man. It tells us that the demons would make him seize up, and they would try to bind him with ropes or even with shackles, but he would break the ropes and break the shackles. He would run out of town and live out there in the desert or in the graveyard. It’s a frightful thing to think about.
Imagine living in that town in Gerasine, and it’s time for a funeral. Oh, oh. You’ve got to go out there and wonder what this guy’s going to do, this running around naked and tearing at himself, and what’s going to happen. It’s a horrific thing to imagine. But they were more afraid of Jesus than of this man. They say, “Depart from us.”
There’s really two exorcisms in the passage. The first is that Jesus exercises all the demons out of this man, but then the people of the place exercise Jesus. They cast Jesus out. But amazingly, even though Jesus leaves, he leaves his word behind because he says to the man who was freed from the demons, who wants to come with him, seemingly, he knows that these demons might come back. He knows that he wasn’t able to resist them the first time. He’s afraid. But Jesus says, “Don’t worry. You don’t need to come with me. I’ll protect you even from a distance. Stay here and tell everybody in town what I did for you.”
So even though Jesus doesn’t stay with him, he leaves a preacher. He ordains this man on the day of his exorcism. Imagine, his exorcism day is also his ordination day. He leaves this man there to preach the marvelous works of God and help rescue the people that are there. It’s an amazing story, a wonderful story, not only for the history of the church but also for us.
I think those are the two points of application that I’d like to make: how the story applies to the Christian church and how the story applies to us. First, we recognize that Jesus, out of deep love for this man, goes to rescue him. He becomes a picture of all of the pagan world that’s held captive to the devil and to the demons and held in darkness. Jesus comes to set them free. When you read, dear friends, I hope you will, when you read the early church fathers, this is the thing that they talk about all the time—how when the gospel comes into a place, when the light of Christ comes into a place, it breaks the power of darkness. It breaks the devil’s chains; it sets people free from the devil and the demons and all of their influence.
So while the text forces us to recognize the reality of the dark spiritual world, the reality of the devil, and the reality of the demons, it does not therefore bring about any fear or trembling or trepidation, but in fact, the opposite, because the gospel going forth breaks the power of the devil. I was thinking about it this way. If you compare two of the sendings of Jesus, the first from Matthew chapter 10 and the second from Matthew chapter 28, you notice something really interesting.
In Matthew chapter 10, Jesus sends out the disciples and says, “Go only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Don’t go to the Samaritans. Don’t go to the Gentiles. Don’t go to the nations. Stick with Israel.” But then in Matthew 28, remember what Jesus says? “Go unto all nations, make disciples of all peoples, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them everything that I’ve commanded you. Look, I’m with you always, even to the end of the earth.”
Now, what accounts for the difference? Why in Matthew 10 does Jesus just send the disciples to this little region? In Matthew 28, he sends them out to the whole world. It could be practical. If they went out to the whole world already in Matthew chapter 10, they would have never made it back in time for Holy Week. They would have missed Good Friday and Easter, so he wants to keep them close. But I think there’s also a spiritual reason.
In Revelation 20, it talks about the kingdom of God, about the church. It describes the church as a thousand years of God’s grace described in this way. John says, “I saw the angel come down from heaven with a great chain in his hand. He bound Satan, the devil, and cast him into the bottomless pit so that he would no longer deceive the nations for one thousand years.”
The Lord Jesus, and this is a definition of the church: The Lord Jesus has bound the devil so that he can no longer deceive the nations, so that the gospel can go forth into all of the world. Here’s how I picture it in my mind. I don’t know if this is a good picture, but have you seen those pictures of Earth from satellite? It shows where all the cities are because you can see the lights and the brightness and everything. I saw a picture one time, and it was one of those pictures, and it had South Korea and North Korea. South Korea looked like a Christmas tree; North Korea, you could hardly see anything. It just shows the difference in electricity and population.
Now, imagine a map like that, but not of electricity and cities, but if the people who had faith were like little lights. Imagine that map of the world that maybe, let’s say, the year Jesus was born. The whole world would be dark with exceptions of a little light in Jerusalem, maybe a little light in Galilee, a little light in Bethlehem. Maybe here and there, there’s this light of the people who still are trusting and believing in Moses and waiting for the Messiah to come, but there’s this pervasive darkness.
Now, imagine that same map, just 20 years after the resurrection. Now, Jerusalem is radiant, Galilee is radiant, Samaria is glowing. There’s light all the way up to Damascus and spreading out in every direction, even down into the Arabian Peninsula and over into Africa. Now, 200 years down through history, almost the whole world is lit up. In fact, Paul will say, even during his own ministry, that the good news of Christ has gone out into all the world.
What accounts for that difference— the kind of pervasive darkness that existed before the death and resurrection of Jesus and that pervasive light that happens afterward? I think the death and resurrection of Jesus is the binding of the strong man. The death and resurrection of Jesus is the dethroning of the devil. It’s the public spectacle that Jesus makes, triumphing in the cross over the kingdom of darkness, over the devil and the demons, so that now the nations are no longer held in bondage. The gospel goes out into all of the world, even all the way, if you can imagine, to Austin, Texas.
The Lord sets up his kingdom even here, so that the devil has no power to keep the world held captive like he did before. All of that is pictured for us in this rescuing of this garrison man from the power of the demons. He becomes a picture of the pagan world captured by the devil but set free by Christ.
These early church fathers talked about the gospel going forth with power to set people free from demonic captivity. Now, this is also for us. The problem, I think, is that we sometimes disconnect the overcoming of the devil and the purchasing of our forgiveness. We often think of forgiveness as the Lord fixing our debt, our guilt, our shame, which it is. But it’s even more than that. Our forgiveness, the forgiveness of our sins, is the Lord Jesus setting us free from captivity to the devil.
We read in Romans 2 this most marvelous verse. It says that he, Jesus, became flesh and blood so that through his death he might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and set all those who were subject to lifelong bondage of the fear of death that he might set them free. This is a marvelous thing: the Lord Jesus, by his death and resurrection, has not only won forgiveness and redeemed you, but he has also set you free from the fear of death.
That means he has set you free from the devil and the demons and their pervasive power and authority. In fact, we had this a couple of weeks ago in Bible class. We were looking at the prayer that Paul prays in Ephesians chapter 1. It’s this most magnificent prayer, a mind-blowing prayer, where Paul says that he prays that the eyes of your heart would be open so that you would see the hope of your inheritance, the glory of the saints, and the power that is at work within you, which is the same power that raised Jesus from the dead and exalted him to the right hand of the Father, where he rules over all powers and authorities and rulers.
That is, over the demons. Now here’s what Paul is saying. Again, it’s one of these things that you wouldn’t believe unless you read it in the Bible. The same power that exalted Jesus to the heavenly throne, that causes him to rule over the demons and over all the heavenly powers and authorities, that same power is at work in you. You are set free from the fear of the devil.
In fact, this is so important because the devil is still a roaring lion seeking whom he can devour. But the Lord has him on a leash. Not only are you not to be afraid of the devil or the demons, but astonishingly, because you are clothed in Christ’s righteousness, the devil is, in fact, afraid of you.
Now, I don’t know what happens. I was thinking about it this morning. I don’t know what happens in my own life when the Holy Spirit gives me faith to actually believe this promise. I know it’s true. I know it’s true. I think we all know it’s true. But can you think of the implications? James says it this way: When you resist the devil, he will flee from you.
It’s not just that you are not supposed to run from the devil. You, who are clothed in the helmet of salvation and the breastplate of righteousness, who have the shield of faith, the sword of the word, and the shoes of the readiness to speak the gospel, and the belt of truth—you are equipped with this armor of God so that you’re able to stand against him. When you stand and resist the devil, he actually runs away from you.
I wish, well, I don’t wish because I’m going to take that back. The Lord will give the visions that he wants us to have. But I wonder, let me say it this way: What would happen if you got to see it? If you got to see one day, while you were praying and reading the Lord’s word, a devil walk into the room, see what you were doing, yell in fear, and run out of the room?
I wonder what would happen. That would be quite different. But that’s what the Bible says happens. When the devil finds you trusting in the Lord Jesus and rejoicing in his word, he runs away from you. We, the Lord’s people, who have his word in our hearts, in whom Christ himself dwells, and who carry that light of the gospel out into the world, the Lord Jesus is using us to dispel the kingdom of the devil.
At the end of Romans, he says it like this: The Lord will shortly crush Satan under your feet. We normally think about how Jesus himself is the one who crushed the devil, but now the Lord is using your prayers, your suffering, your faith, and your love for him and for your neighbor. The Lord is using these things to destroy the devil’s kingdom, to crush the devil himself, to cast out the demons, to send them flying, to redeem the world, to bring the joy of Christ’s light into every corner of creation.
He’s using you to destroy the devil. This is an amazing truth, and we have to trust it because it seems to us like the kingdom of darkness is prevailing against the church, but we have the promise from Jesus that it simply will not be. That the gates of hell will not prevail against the church so that the Lord’s church is breaking down those bars, rescuing people from the grip of the devil, and setting them free through the word of Christ.
Now, okay, so what does it mean for us? The devil hates you. He hates everything good. He hates everything that God loves, which means he hates you because God loves you and has put his word in your hearts. He’s after you like a prowling roaring lion. But Jesus has you, which means that you, in fact, are safe from the devil, and also the devil is not safe from you.
You can walk in this world with the boldness and confidence of a child of God, knowing that all things are yours—in life and in death, in this world and in the world to come, that Satan has no power over you. The devil is the object of our mockery, like we did in the opening hymn. Did you notice that we were singing to the devil? It’s kind of weird when we start singing to the devil.
Whenever the hymns give us these words to sing to the devil, it’s not very flattering. “Satan, hear this proclamation: I’m baptized into Christ!” That’s a great one. “Satan, now own your master. Jesus has ruled over you. He has come, the mighty Redeemer.” We can rejoice in the freedom that the Lord has given us—from the world, from our flesh, and from the devil and the demons. We are safe and in his hands.
May God grant us this great confidence through Christ our Lord. Amen. And the peace of God which passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.