Mark 5

Mark 5:1-20

—OR PEOPLE WHO ARE DEMON Mark 5:1-20IN presenting this theme, it is necessary to discover a harmony of the Gospel records regarding the Gadarene, and also to convince the skeptical of the reality of demons and their possible dominance. The two or three points of apparent difference in the Gospel records are not impossible of reconciliation. St. Matthew mentions two demoniacs, while Mark and Luke speak of only one. Doubtless the explanation is found in the fact that one of them was so much more fierce and terrible than the other, that it was only natural for two of the evangelists to give their whole attention to him as the principal figure of the Gadara incident. There were two thieves crucified with Jesus Christ, and yet one of these malefactors receives the major part of the attention.

And if a Gospel writer had not so much as mentioned the other, his report would have in no wise militated against those of the men who made mention of the thief on the right hand, as well as the one on the left. It is perfectly evident to every student of the New Testament that men were not inspired to tell all that they saw: and it is almost equally evident that in their complementary testimonies, the picture in hand is always fairly complete, one often adding a feature neglected by others. The prejudice against the idea of demons is deep-seated with many; but no man can doubt that Jesus of Nazareth believed in them. To say that He accommodated Himself to the superstitions of the age for the sake of taking psychological advantage of the subject in hand, or to insure the sympathy of those who stood about Him and watched for the effect of His words, is to make Jesus nothing less than a liar. When men were possessed with diseases that did not demand devils in explanation, He said, “Come out of him, thou dumb spirit”. Such language, if it had no occasion, would not be an accommodation to the superstitions of the age, but a creation which was utterly false. Furthermore, when speaking to His disciples apart, to the very men He corrected at so many points, He declared, with reference to the afflicted child found at the base of the mount, and in answer to their question, “Why could not we cast him out”, “This kind cometh not forth except by fasting and prayer”.If one will go through the New Testament, he will find that Jesus recognized demons, He commanded demons, and He conquered demons; and if he hears what He had to say on the whole subject of demonology, he will be compelled to take either one of two courses, accept demonology as a fact, or separate from the Christ.Having said so much by way of introduction, permit me now to call attention to three things made prominent in this text: The Demonized Man, The Man’s Redeemer, and The Redeemed Man.THE MAN.“And they came to the other side of the sea, into the country of the Gerasenes, And when He was come out of the boat, straightway there met Him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, who had his dwelling in the tombs: and no man could any more bind him; no, not with a chain; because that he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been rent asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces: and no man had strength to tame him. And always, night and day, in the tombs, and in the mountains, he was crying out, and cutting himself with stones” (A.

S. V.).Permit four remarks regarding this demonized man: he was indwelt by an unclean spirit; he was inhabiting an unclean spot; he was possessed with a savage strength; he was terribly tempted to self destruction.He was indwelt by an unclean spirit.“There met Him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit”.The great symbol of sin in the Scriptures is leprosy.

Every man afflicted with it was compelled, by law, to lay his hand upon his mouth and cry, “Unclean! Unclean!” It is little wonder, then, that the devil, whose sole purpose in existence is sin, is regarded by men as the “Unclean one”; nor yet any marvel that the great Master Himself, in addressing His imps, should call them “unclean”, or that the inspired penmen should so regard them. You will remember that in the reading of the Book of the Revelation, when the sixth bowl of Divine wrath is poured out upon the great river Euphrates, so that the water everywhere was dried up, John says,“I saw coming out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet, three unclean spirits, as it were frogs, for they are spirits of demons, working signs which go forth into the kings of the whole earth to gather them together unto the war of the great day of God the Almighty”.“There unclean spirits”—that is the phrase. It is a strange fact that even in heathen countries, such as China, the demon-possessed are regarded as “unclean”, and in my observation, there is something uncanny, slimy, serpentine in the mediums of spiritualism, who, when they are genuine mediums, at all, are undoubtedly demon-possessed. Going back to the first chapter of Mark’s Gospel, we find Jesus entering the synagogue at Capernaum, and on the Sabbath day He taught. They were astonished at His teaching, for“He taught them as one having authority and not as the Scribes”.

And straightway there was in the synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, saying, What have we to do with Thee, Jesus, Thou Nazarene? And Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Hold thy peace and come out of him” (A.

S. V.).And the record is.“The unclean spirit, tearing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him” (A. S. V.).I suppose it is a fact that the devil has never yet forced his way into any human life without defiling it; he is the filthy goat of the centuries.He was inhabiting an unclean spot. “For he had his dwelling in the tombs”.It is well known that in the Orient, the burying grounds are not as in this country; they are caves digged into the side of a hill instead, and they make hiding places for those who prefer to seek these neglected and commonly out of the way spots, and live among the dead. Trench, in his “Notes on the Miracles” reminds us that by their Jewish laws, the touch of the dead defiled. It was written, “He that toucheth the dead body of any man shall be unclean seven days”.“And whosoever in the open field toucheth one that is slain with a sword, or a dead body, or a bone of a man, or a grave, shall be unclean seven days” (Numbers 19:16).But the demon-possessed do not regard Divine laws. That which is offensive to the wholesome and holy man has a strong attraction for the demoniac. Dr. John Nevius, for forty years a missionary to the Chinese, tells us that in China the demon-possessed seek out burial places and establish their dwellings there.

There is a parable of life in all of this! It is a suggestive, and yet a strange fact, that certain forms of sin destroy from the human heart the natural repugnance to death and create even a prurient desire to dwell amid the victims of this last enemy. Do you remember Solomon’s description of the foolish woman, whom he describes as knowing nothing, and as sitting at the door of her house in a seat in the high places of the city, to call to them that pass by? Solomon says,“Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither; and as for him that is void of understanding, she saith to him, Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant. But he knoweth not that the dead are there”. There are some people dwelling among the dead that do not realize it, and if demons be not in absolute possession of them, it is certain that Satan himself has directed their steps to the stain-spots of earth.He was possessed with a savage strength. “No man could any more bind him; no, not with a chain: because that he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been rent asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces; and no man had strength to tame him”.Men sometimes talk of certain forms of lunacy as resulting in an unnatural strength; perhaps supernatural would be a better word; possibly “the strength of evil spirits” would describe it more accurately still. A little bit later in this record, you will hear the demons who dominated this man, called a “Legion”. That is not necessarily a figure of speech. Dr. Nevius rehearses in full that wonderful story of Gottliebin Titus, the German girl who was a member of Pastor Blumhardt’s congregation, and who was unquestionably demon-possessed, but finally delivered, in answer to prayer, from the terrible throes of anguish to which she had been subjected. And Blumhardt says, “On one occasion after prayer had continued longer than usual, the demons suddenly broke forth in the following words, ‘All is lost, our plans are destroyed; you have shattered our power and put everything into confusion.

You, with your everlasting prayers, you scattered us entirely. We were 1067 in number, but there are still multitudes of living men, and you should warn them lest they be like us forever lost and cursed of God’ ”. Blumhardt adds further, that these evil spirits in Gottliebin Titus often cried out, “Oh, if only there were no God in Heaven!’” Quite often men have looked upon one, who for years, has been a drunkard, and finally has fallen into delirium tremens, to see him exercise such might as to amaze, for they know that the man’s whole physical being had been shattered. Who can say that the explanation is not in the fact of demon-possession; and that the exhibition of strength is theirs rather than the man’s.He was tempted to self-destruction. “And always, night and day, in the tombs, and in the mountains, he was crying out, and cutting himself with stones”. We are fully persuaded that the suicides of the world are in many an instance the direct result of demonism. There are more men and women satanized into insanity than come to it by all other influences combined. It seems fairly clear, too, that his victims are not all bad people. He who smote Job with boils from his head to his feet—Job, the most righteous man of his times—can come upon a saint of the twentieth century and invade his path, hanging over him a pall of darkness, super-induce a chronic melancholia, suggest that he has sinned away his day of grace, whisper his lying accusations into the very ear of the soul, and distress him out of mind. And then he can catch the gayest of the ungodly and convert that which they have called pleasure into such a conscious peril as to produce instant despair.Some years since, a company of people in our sister city, St. Paul, filled a saloon.

The blear-eyed and bloated were there; the thoughtless beginner mingled also with the crowd. Into their midst walked a young woman, well dressed, whose short period of dissipation had not yet robbed her cheek of its maiden bloom, and the flaxen hair and those dancing eyes had made hair dyes and belladonna no necessities.

By her very beauty she was a conspicuous presence in the room. She ordered a glass of beer; took out two pills and dropped them into it. Then, looking at William Strange, the saloonkeeper at 112 Jackson Street, lifted the cup to her lips saying, “This is my last drink!” Laughter greeted her remark, but it gave place to consternation when they saw her sink almost instantly to the floor, and later learned that with the beer she had taken also a deadly poison. Some years ago, a man committed suicide in Chicago. He left behind a descriptive poem, relating his experience and expressing his despair. One word would have spelled all he said, SIN! We know its power!THE MAN’S .It is interesting to pass from the demoniac to a study of the Redeemer. “He saw Jesus afar”. His hour was come!

His opportunity was at hand! The sudden appearance of the Son of God can excite at once admiration and fear.His appearance stirred the man’s spirit to worship. “He ran and worshipped Him”. I do not believe that the demon-possessed of the earth are the worst people of the earth. I am fully persuaded that the devil may break down our character at some point and get in one or more of his imps to distress and annoy and despoil us; and yet, that such a man may be an infinitely better one than he who has hardened his heart in his sin, and yet, who, while rejecting God, has never surrendered to the personal mastery of Satan. Occasionally, in the past, I have come into fellowship with people, who, through the study of spiritualism, have been involved in conscious defeat, Satan coming to rule over all, but very few of these consent to that rulership. They loathe the whole character of their new lord and would fain break away from him.

They know that the usurper of the throne of life is the soul’s worst enemy. The girl in Pastor Blumgardt’s congregation piteously begged to have Christian people pray for her relief.

A few times in life, I have talked with men addicted to the liquor habit, who hated the whole traffic, who recognized themselves as captives led against their will, who realized the awful effects of it all, and who gladly would have spoken the word of its obliteration from the earth; and while they were doing wrong, in their own hearts they were condemning the action. I have seen a man sit down with his face between his hands and sob his soul out because he was a slave to drink; and he recognized his right to be free and realized that he had fallen a captive; and demonism is akin to it. It is not an unusual thing to find men and women thus dominated, desiring their liberty, and calling upon friends and loved ones to lend them the help of prayer. For such, there is hope. One reason why the devil himself is never redeemed is that he never feels his need and never asks for assistance. Paradoxical as it may sound, there is often more hope for the worst man than for the better, since the former is willing to be assisted and the latter thinks himself sufficient.“Two went to pray; or rather say, One went to brag, the other pray; One stands up close and treads on high, Where the other does not send his eye. One closer to the altar trod, The other to the altar’s God”. Christ’s presence excited the evil spirit to fear.“He cried with a loud voice and said, What have I to do with Thee, Jesus, Thou Son of the most high God! I adjure thee by God, that thou torment me not”.These are days in which men who believe in the existence of God boast that as a sufficient faith. No man ever believed in the existence of a God more perfectly than every demon does. The difference between unsaved men and nonsalvable demons is in the fact that the first believe in the existence of a God and boast about it; while the second “believe and tremble”. Devils at least know there is a judgment day coming. And when these hear the tread of the Son of Man upon the earth, they fear that the time is on when they shall go into the lake of fire and brimstone to be tormented day and night forever and ever.

It is a singular thing to have sinful men laughing at the very thing that sends a shudder through every satanic spirit in the wide universe. Men make a mock of hell; the devils hear the word and cringe with fright lest they must enter there.His consent accomplished loss to the swine herd.“For when He said, Come forth, thou unclean spirit, out of the man, and asked him, What is thy name? the evil spirit answered My name is Legion, and besought him much that he would not send him away out of the country. He granted them leave to enter into the swine on the mountain side, and the possessed swine rushed down a steep place into the sea, to the number of about two thousand, and were drowned in the sea, and the owners came to Jesus and besought him to depart from their borders”.There are some men who think more of keeping the equivalent of cash than they do in seeing souls converted; yea, there are some men that set the value of swine beyond their own souls, for a few dollars they would be willing to be damned.THE MAN. We pass from the man’s Redeemer to the redeemed man. That is logical. The moment a demonized man comes into touch with the great Redeemer, there is a certainty of his redemption. Think of the three things accomplished for this man: He was calmed; he was clothed; he was commissioned.He was calmed. “And they came to Jesus and saw him that was possessed with the demon sitting”.He had taken a humble position at Jesus feet. The storm in his soul had subsided; the fury of his anger had gone; he was as tractible as a child. It is interesting to go back, in this record of Mark, and see what happened in the previous chapter.“When even was come, he proposed to His disciples to cross to the other side of the sea, and leaving the multitude, He went with them in a boat, and there were other boats with them. And there arose a great storm, insomuch that the waves beat into the ship and He was asleep on a pillow, and they awoke Him, and said, Master, carest Thou not that we perish? And He arose and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm”.It was a parable of His power!

He who could command the storm could still the tempest-tossed soul. Phillips Brooks uses a very beautiful illustration as to the way men and women get into a storm and get out of it.

He says, “Over a broad plain, there blows a strong, steady wind. It never stops; it never changes. All over the plain, there are men and women on their journeys. Hear them cry out! ‘This wind, this dreadful wind!’ cries one, all out of breath and gasping. ‘How bitter it is; how cruel, how it hates me!’ ‘This wind, this blessed wind!’ cries another, within hail of him. ‘How kind it is, how helpful, how it loves me!’ Are there two winds, or has the one fickle wind its favorites? No, the one constant wind is blowing steadily and is no respector of persons; but one man has set his face against it and the other man is walking with it. That is the reason why it seems to hate the one and love the other.

Through this great open world moves God like a strong wind or spirit, finding out all the public and the secret places of the life of man. In the breath of that spirit, we are all journeying; no one can escape for a moment.

But while your brother at your side is full of the sense of God’s love, to you God seems to be the hindrance of your life; His righteousness defeats your plans; His purity rebukes your lust; His nature and being smite you in the face like a blast that blows bitter and cold from a far-off judgment day. Does God hate you and love your brother? No, He loves you both; but you with your disobedience are setting yourself against His love. You must turn around. You must be converted. And then, when your will is, by obedience, confederate with the will of God, every breath of His presence shall be your joy and salvation”. Did you ever think of how Jesus Himself got out of the storm of Gethsemane by surrender to the Divine will? That is your way.He was clothed! “Clothed and in his right mind, even he that had had the Legion”. It is a wonderful phrase. Christianity has clothed its every subject. Heathenism unclothes: Christianity clothes. Sin makes ragged: salvation covers the naked. John B. Farwell illustrated: “In my boyhood, I was the companion of one of my age who was full of life and energy.

Later, as a man in business, I met this man in the Chicago Bridewell, crazy with delirium tremens—a lineal descendant of Adam’s fallen condition. Another man—the son of a nobleman—was in the same prison for a like reason. Both were told of a Saviour. This latter accepted Christ and I gave him employment as a watchman until he went South as an engineer. When the war broke out, he returned and came to my store that he might visit the prison again and make an address to the prisoners. But my youthful companion, in the meantime, had gone to a drunkard’s grave.

Satan reduced the one to increasing rebellion and wrongs, and finally flung him into a dishonored grave; salvation had taken the stripes from the other and clothed him as a gentleman and sent him forth to gain the admiration of his fellows and accomplish a successful profession”. Oh, it is a marvel what God can do for even wrecked men; what redemption meant for even the demoniac. Truly, as Henry Van Dyke says, “He has lifted the hands that hung down and strengthened the feeble knees. He has made the evil, good; the sinful, pure; the selfish, generous; the base, noble. He has made apostles and saints out of men and women that the world would have thrown away as rubbish. Why, the whole New Testament is just a record of that,—Peter—the weak and wayward; Mary Magdalene—the defiled; Zacchæus—the worldly; Thomas—the despondent; Paul—the persecutor and blasphemer.

What God could do in the first century, He can do, He is doing, to-day”.Finally, he was commissioned. “Go to thine house, unto thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and how he had mercy on thee. And he went his way, and began to publish in Decapolis how great things Jesus had done for him; and all men marvelled”.Almost every Sunday morning and night, I meet in the inquiry room, people who tell me that they made a start once, but did not succeed, and when I have asked them what they have done for Christ, they have commonly answered, “Nothing!” “Did you ever publicly confess Him?” “Yes, once!” That is not publishing how great things He hath done for you! Not once, but many times, this man told the story of how great things the Lord had done for him, and had had mercy upon him, and at every recital of it, he gained strength. “Have you ever been baptized in His Name?” Many of them are compelled to answer “No!” Have you ever taken your place in His church, bearing with your brethren every burden for His cause?” They commonly answer, “No!” What possible chance for those who are dispossessed of evil spirits, but are not filled with the Holy Spirit; who are cleansed, but refuse their commission?That question is answered by a New Testament story that combines a miracle and parable in one incident—the man out of whom an evil spirit was cast, but the swept and garnished house of life was left untenanted, and the evil spirit returned with seven others, and the second state of that man was worse than the first.Redemption is not complete until commission is accepted, and Christ’s service is entered upon!