05 - Extreme Makeover The Madman Of Gadara 2012

Mark 5:1-5 “Then they came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gadarenes. 2 And when He had come out of the boat, immediately there met Him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, 3 who had his dwelling among the tombs; and no one could bind him, not even with chains, 4 because he had often been bound with shackles and chains. And the chains had been pulled apart by him, and the shackles broken in pieces; neither could anyone tame him. 5 And always, night and day, he was in the mountains and in the tombs, crying out and cutting himself with stones.”

This account of a demon-possessed man is one of the great Blockbuster miracles of the Bible.

It lays out before us the worst of the worst of demon possession cases.

The Gadarene Demoniac is the poster child for what Satan will do to a human being when unrestrained.

This chilling account forbids us from denying the reality of an evil spiritual world that seeks to bind and torment mankind.

C.S. Lewis “There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them.”

Let’s look a bit more closely at THE GADARENE DEMONIAC:

The man who appeared from the tombs to meet Jesus is the ultimate in a tragic figure.

He was the victim of forces beyond his control, driven by evil spirits.

This man was a danger to himself and others, “cutting himself with stones.”

Attempts that had been made to restrain him had failed; He snapped steel chains like they were made of paper Mache.

He was pitifully tormented, crying out in great distress, night and day roaming the tombs with no peace and no hope.

No other person recorded to have had demons in the New Testament was this bad.

The Bible reveals many tell-tale signs of demonic influence in a person’s life:

In some passages, demonic influence causes physical ailments (blasphemy, inability to speak, epileptic symptoms, cursing, blindness, etc. [Matthew 9:32-33, Mark 9:17-18]);

In other cases the demon causes the individual to do evil (Judas is the main example);

“Satan entered Judas,” scripture says, and he went out to betray the Lord.—Luke 22:3

In Acts 16:16-18, an evil spirit apparently gave a slave girl the ability to know things beyond her own learning (a spirit of divination);

We read of King Saul who, after rebelling against the LORD, was troubled by an evil spirit (1 Samuel 16:14-15; 18:10-11; 19:9-10) which produced in him a melancholy mood and an increased desire and readiness to kill David (God’s next anointed king of Israel).

In the case of the demoniac of the Gadarenes, he had superhuman strength, cut himself, roamed around naked, and lived among the tombstones (Mark 5:1-17).

There are 52 references to demon possession in the Gospels, as well as other examples in the book of Acts.

We see that these evil spirits recognized in Jesus, not just a great healer, but a spiritual power and presence of an altogether higher order from themselves.

We find them regularly yelling out Jesus' real identity as if they were acknowledging an old acquaintance.

Mark tells us, "Whenever the evil spirits saw Jesus, they fell down before him and cried out, 'You are the Son of God.'

I believe the arrival of Jesus Christ to our planet brought an outbreak of evil spirits.

They arose in great anger at the One who had come to destroy their kingdom.

They manifested their anger and fear of him in the streets, in the synagogues, and now in our story, a graveyard.

The bible suggests that in the last days there may be another similar outbreak:

"…in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons" (I Tim. 4:1).

Now the miracle of this man’s blockbuster deliverance took place in three important stages.

I want to look at how he got free, because we now live in a day where untold thousands of people are tormented by the devil on one level or another.

One preacher who ministers in New York City writes,

“For years it has been party time around the clock, with no limits. Yet all of this pleasure madness ends in anguished cry. Eventually the highs become lows that cannot be lifted. The alcohol, pot and cocaine become a monkey on the back screaming for more, more, more until it possesses the entire mind, soul and body.”

He goes on to write, “When the man of Gadara cut his flesh, he was being prompted by evil spirits to destroy himself. So it is with this generation. In the deep hours of the morning in New York City, you begin to hear wails coming up from the city streets. These are the cries of tormented souls whom the devil has enslaved and possessed.”

“In any hospital emergency ward on a Friday or Saturday night you can see the result of Satan’s work: horrid sights of self-destruction from drugs and alcohol, attempted suicides gone awry.”

And then he closes, “Yet these cries aren’t just being heard in urban areas like New York. In the past decade a plague has swept Middle America, including rural areas. Satan has now found new devices to possess and torment on a massive scale.”

Why does a message about the mad-man of Gadara matter to us today?

Because multitudes all around us live in tombs of self-destruction, being harassed and tormented by evil spirits.

And we know the One Who alone can set them free—Jesus Christ, the Anointed bruiser of Satan’s head!

I want you to know, church, that as surely as Jesus heard the cries of this possessed man, he hears the cries of Satan’s victims today!

And he still responds to each and every one of those cries.

I tell you, I believe that multitudes in this generation are going to be delivered by His power!

In this powerful account, Jesus was giving us an illustrated sermon on how to respond to the cries that emanate from tombs of torment today.

So, what were the steps taken by this poor soul in order to be set free?

He ran to Jesus

“When Jesus was still some distance away, the man saw him, ran to meet him…”—Mark 5:6

He ran in the right direction, toward the only one Who could set him free!

Jesus said, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.”

And He left no doubt as to what He meant by “the truth.”

Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”

He bowed before Him.

This was a sign of his yielding to Jesus’ Lordship.

“The man saw him, rant to meet him, and bowed low before him.”

The Bible says that submitting to Jesus’ Lordship is the prerequisite to deliverance.

James wrote, “Therefore, submit to God. Resist the devil, and he will run away from you.”—James 4:7

He confessed to Him

Now, we see in the story that Jesus told the demons to leave but they didn’t go.

“With a shriek, he (the demon) screamed, “Why are you interfering with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? In the name of God, I beg you, don’t torture me!” 8 For Jesus had already said to the spirit, “Come out of the man, you evil spirit.”

Rather than immediately depart, the evil spirits resisted.

Something else needed to be done.

Jesus then demanded, “What is your name?”

In asking for their name, this man was being required to tell the truth, to confess that he had opened many terrible doors leading to spiritual bondage in his lifetime.

This hadn’t just happened to him.

No doubt he had greatly sinned, allowing the devil this dreadful grip on his life.

This is why Paul admonished in Eph. 4:27: “Give no foothold to the devil.”

The answer came, “We are legion, for we are many.”

Now, the word “legion” was used in reference to a Roman legion of soldiers in Jesus’ day.

A legion of Roman soldiers was comprised of around 6,000 men.

So this man was enslaved by literally thousands of demon spirits.

But now that the truth was out, there was nothing standing in the way of his freedom.

He had RUN to Jesus, BOWED to Jesus’ lordship, and had CONFESSED the extent of his sin and bondage.

Jesus then commanded the legion of devils to leave him and they did.

They quickly entered a herd of swine, which in turn rushed headlong into the sea and were drowned.

Now the keepers of the swine were by now totally freaked out.

“So those who fed the swine fled, and they told it in the city and in the country. And they went out to see what it was that had happened. 15 Then they came to Jesus, and saw the one who had been demon-possessed and had the legion, sitting and clothed and in his right mind.”—5:14-15

We’ve all seen before and after photographs of people who underwent some kind of drastic change in life.

Let’s do a before and after of the madman of Gadara.

BEFORE, he had had no rest, “…always, night and day, he was in the mountains and in the tombs, crying out…”

AFTER, we find him “sitting calmly” at Jesus’ feet.

BEFORE, he was naked and obscene, “…he had demons for a long time,” writes Luke, “and he wore no clothes.”

AFTER, he is “clothed…”

BEFORE, he was insane, having utterly lost his mind, gone off the deep end.

AFTER, he is found to be “in his right mind.”

BEFORE, his home was the tombs. He was known as the “man of the tombs.”

AFTER, we find Jesus commanding him, “Return to your own house,”

BEFORE he had no purpose, no meaning, no destiny to his life.

AFTER, Jesus gives him a brand new mission, “‘…tell what great things God has done for you.’ And he went his way and proclaimed throughout the whole city what great things Jesus had done for him.’”

What a great God we serve!

This is the Extreme Makeover of all Extreme Makeovers!

PRAY:

Do you need deliverance today?

Have you opened a door that needs to be closed?

Do you know someone tormented by Satan who needs to come to Jesus like this man did?