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  THE MOST STRIKING PRAYER OF THE BIBLE - THE REQUEST OF 3000 DEVILS TO ENTER THE...
  by Ian Paisley
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Summary: The sermon highlights the most striking prayer in the Bible,
the request of 3000 devils to enter the swine, and emphasizes the power
of Christ to save and deliver people from sin and its consequences.

Duration: 35:58 Topics: "Demon Possession", "Divine Redemption"
Scripture References: Matthew 5:1-12, Matthew 6:33, Matthew 8:28-34, Mark 5:1-20, Luke 8:26-39, Luke 11:1-4, Luke 18:9-14

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DESCRIPTION
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The video is a sermon that emphasizes the simplicity and power of the
Gospel of Jesus Christ. It highlights the uniqueness of the Bible
compared to other religious texts, as it presents a concise account of
God's incarnate life on earth. The sermon focuses on a specific event
recorded in the Gospels of Mark, Luke, and Matthew, where Jesus casts
out demons from a possessed man. The transformation of the man from
being possessed and living in tombs to being clothed, in his right mind,
and sitting at the feet of Jesus is highlighted as a powerful testimony
of Christ's compassion and miraculous power.

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CONTENT
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You'll find an authorized version of the Holy Scriptures in front of you
in the pew. If you pick it up and turn with me to the second gospel, the
Gospel of Mark, at the chapter five, we're going to read some verses in
the Gospel of Mark, chapter five. And they came over unto the other side
of the sea, into the country of the Gadarene.

And when he was come out of the ship immediately, there met him out of
the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, who had his dwelling among the
tombs, and no man could bind him, no, not with chains. Because it had
been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been
plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces, neither could
any man tame him. And always night and day he was in the mountains and
in the tombs, crying and cutting himself with stones.

But when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped Him, and 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. For He said unto him, Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit. And
he asked him, What is thy name? And he answered, Saying, My name is
Legion.

And he besought him much, that he would not send him away out of the
country. Now there was near unto the mountains a great herd of swine
feeding, and all the devils besought him, saying, Send us into the
swine, that we may enter into them. And forthwith Jesus gave them leave.

And the unclean spirits went out and entered into the swine, and the
herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea. They were about two
thousand and were choked. And they that fed the swine fled, and told it
in the city and in the country.

And they went out to see what it was that was done. And they come to
Jesus and see him that was possessed with the devil, and had the Legion
sitting and clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid.

And they that saw it told them how it befell to him which was possessed
with the devil, and also concerned. And they began to pray to him to
depart out of their coasts. And when he was come into the ship, he that
had been possessed with the devil prayed him that he might be with him.

Howbeit Jesus suffered him not, but said unto him, Go home to thy
friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and
hath had compassion on thee. And he departed, and began to publish in
Decapolis how great things Jesus had done for him. And all men did
marvel.

Ending our reading at verse 20. And God will stamp his holy word with
the seal of divine blessing and help. Amen and Amen.

The Bible is the most amazing of books. Every verse in it needs to be
carefully parsed. Every word of every sentence should be carefully
noted.

Every letter of every word demands the closest possible scrutiny.
Slipshod reading of the Bible is an insult to the offer of holy
scripture. God the Holy Spirit.

And the condemnation that the Bible speaks of will be unstoppable
punishment for those that do not give careful care to what the Bible
states and its infallible message. The humble and teachable reader of
God's holy word will be amazed at the unending vista the heavenly book
opens up both in contemplation and meditation. It is the finished word,
the completed word of the Most High God.

But it is His unfinished word as far as our studies are concerned.
Because we can never perfect our own understanding of this book of God.
Its ways, after all our studying, are past finding out and finishing.

Now the Bible contains many prayers. Prayers of children. Prayers of
adults.

Prayers of men. Prayers of women. Prayers of angels.

And prayers of devils. Every historic recording of these prayer requests
have a truth to teach and a precept to reveal. They deserve our
individual undivided attention.

The Gospels of the New Testament are the entrance to the whole of the
New Testament sanctuary. And they are inexhaustible. We need to approach
them reverently because the footmarks there are the footmarks of God
incarnate in the flesh, our Lord Jesus Christ.

And if we are going to receive the benefit of His coming and His
atonement, His resurrection, His intercession and His coming again. We
need with calmness of heart and reverence of mind walk the way marked by
the footsteps of the Son of God. Think of it in the Gospel of Matthew
with just twenty chapters.

With the Gospel of Mark with sixteen chapters. With the Gospel of Luke
with its twenty-four chapters. And the Gospel of John with its twenty-
one chapters.

Eighty-nine short chapters in all. We have the biography of God
incarnate in the flesh. The founder and foundation of the only true
religion in this world and forever.

Who could have conceived that in such a short space of writing all we
need to know about the Son of God's incarnate life on earth should be so
briefly set forth. A little child can read it and understand. But those
who claim great wisdom don't seem to understand the simplicity of what
is set forth.

As we read the Scriptures we are amazed and we have a reverent amazement
of the wonders of the book of God. The founders of other world religions
don't work like that. Their textbooks are profuse.

Their rituals are profuse. And some of their writings are beyond
reading. But this is not so of the Christian religion.

The prayers of Scripture are simply amazing. They show up the emptiness
of the prayers of false religion and they blaze a trail for true
intercession and communion with God. They open the avenue to God's
everlasting throne where no supplicant is ever thrust away.

The recording of this great event that I have just read to you tonight
is a recording that deserves careful consideration. In Mark's Gospel
chapter 5 from verse 1 to the verse 20 we have the recording of this
remarkable event, the casting out of the devils from the body of the man
in the tomb. In the 8th chapter of Luke's Gospel the writer of the 3rd
Gospel records the same event.

But in the 8th chapter of Matthew's Gospel verses 28 to 34 there is a
similar record of a similar miracle. But it is not the same miracle as
is recorded in the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of Mark. It is quite
easy to know that because if you read it carefully you will find that
one of these miracles were in a place called Gadara.

But the other miracle that is recorded was in the Gergesen country, a
different country albeit one part of the Holy Land. God does not ask for
any name of the two in the tomb experience that is recorded in Matthew's
Gospel. He does not ask them to join in witnessing to the fact of their
deliverance.

It is a different incident altogether. We read this scripture so
quickly, we come to our decisions about this scripture so quickly that
often times we confuse ourselves by not considering carefully the exact
statements of the Word of God. I want to come tonight to consider with
you what is said in Luke's Gospel and what is said in the Gospel
according to Mark.

If you open your Bible in Luke's Gospel you will find that in that
Gospel of Mark we have some very interesting things said. And you will
discover five striking prayers that were offered in the narrative in
Matthew's Gospel chapter 5. You have first of all the striking prayer of
the man that was possessed by the devils. And then you have secondly the
prayer to Christ of the evil spirits who possessed that man.

Then you have the prayer to Christ of the people of the country after
Christ had done this great miracle. And then last of all you have the
prayer of the man who was delivered when he prayed to Christ that he
might be with him and he might stay and witness his ministry. These are
all striking prayers.

The first one is a miracle because this man who ran to Christ when he
saw Christ afar off should have been running away. But the strange thing
is he ran to Jesus. He covered a vast distance and yet when he arrived
in the presence of Christ he prayed for Christ to go away and leave him
alone.

What a contradiction. But of course we have the fact of the intervention
of God in this man's life. He was not a man that was seen to run to what
was good and right and lawful and pure and clean.

He rather ran to uncleanness and madness and wickedness and tumult and
riot. But now he runs to Christ from a great distance away. Secondly, he
worships Christ.

That of course is a miracle. This man, as the scriptures record, was
possessed by a legion of devils. The legion was the number that was used
in the army of Caesar.

And every army of Caesar had so many legions and the legion was numbered
at 3,000. So there were 3,000 devils tormenting this man. This man had
an experience that very few ever had because of the multitude of the
devil's intent to destroy his soul and damn him forever in the darkness
of total punishment out of the eyes of God and out of the eyes of men.

In the darkness of hell. Here is a man untamable, uncleaned, unclothable
and unstoppable. And yet he runs to worship Jesus.

Here we have the triumph of the power of the blessed Son. But as he
comes and as he worships, he cries out, Do not torment me. Christ does
not come to torment sinners.

Christ comes to save sinners. To transform sinners. To lift them from
the shackles of the darkness of their sin and sinning.

And give them the sweet peace and pardon and liberty of the gospel. But
here is a man and he is crying that Christ should leave him. This was a
prayer that Christ did not.

The second striking prayer was the prayer to Christ of the evil spirits.
And this is worthy of careful study. These evil spirits knew they were
going to be cast out of this.

And they cried to God that they would not be put out into the country.
And if you look at the other reference I have given you in the gospel of
Luke, Out into the deep. What was the deep? The word used in the Greek
text for the deep is translated in other places in the New Testament.

It actually occurs nine times in the Greek text and it means the deep,
bottomless pit. What was that? That was the pit that is mentioned over
in the last book of the Bible, the book of the Revelation. And in
Revelation chapter 20 we read about that pit.

I saw an angel come down from heaven, Revelation 20 and verse 1, having
the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid
hold on the dragon, that old serpent which is the devil and Satan, and
bound him a thousand years and cast him into the bottomless pit and shut
him up. The prison house of Satan.

And these devils prayed that they would not be put by Christ into the
prison house of Satan. Of course, the swine had no right legally under
the rabbinical law to be there and be fed in order to be put. Because
the swine was unclean to the Jewish people in the law of Moses.

So there was a violation already of God's law here. We notice that
Christ gave them leave. And those three thousand demons, devils, left
the man and went into the bellies of the swine.

And the swine ran down that steep place there. I stood there when I
visited Palestine and below, hundreds of feet down, is the waves of the
Galilee Lake. So we see that the second prayer, which Christ accepted
from the demons, brought them to destruction.

For they not only perished in the waves, but they went on to that deep
pit which they wanted to escape from. If you look at verses 14 to 17,
you have the prayer, the striking prayer of the people of the country.
They came, they saw that their business, their illegal business was
finished.

They saw that Christ had destroyed what they should never have been
engaged in legally. And so they decided they would ask Christ to leave.
Here was Christ who had accomplished a tremendous miracle.

Had shown the power of His Word to cast out some three thousand devils
possessing this poor man. And yet, these people wanted rid of Christ.
How dark and sad is the darkness that the devil brings forth in the
heart of men and women against Christ and His.

Look at this man. And what do we read about him? When they came, they
saw him. And what does it say about him in verse 15? He was clothed, he
was in his right mind, and they were afraid.

And the other reference says he was found sitting at the seat of Jesus.
A great miracle had taken place. But they did not like this miracle.

And so they would not consent that Christ should continue His ministry
of emancipation among similar people like this poor man. If you examine
the Scriptures, you will find that this man had six characteristics.
Deadness, uncleanness, lawlessness, nakedness, restlessness, and
madness.

Those are the characteristics of this man. Deadness. Of course, sin is a
deadening thing.

The soul that sinneth, it shall die, and die it will, and die it must.
There is no life where sin rules. Deadness.

Uncleanness. In fact, the first thing that is said about this man, he
had an unclean spirit. There is nothing clean about anti-Christianity
and those who reject the Son of God.

Rejection of the Son of God is departure from Christ who can make clean.
And when Christ departs, there is no hope of cleansing. For He is the
only person that can cleanse the soul from its sin.

Lawlessness. They could not tie this man down. They tried to imprison
him.

He broke from the jail. They tried to put the handcuffs on him. And he
pulled so hard that he broke the irons.

He was a lawless person. Sin is lawlessness. It is rebellion against the
law of God.

And he was naked. He had no cover. He stood exposed in his filth to the
madness that ruled and reigned in his heart.

And he was restless. There is no rest except in Jesus Christ. You can
try the broken cisterns of the world.

You can try all the niceties of the world's temptations and sports. Try
them all. But at the end, there will be restlessness.

Because there is no rest but in God. And if we have not the rest of
Christ, then we will be tormented with an awakened conscience in time,
in death, and in eternity, and in hell forever. There is a day when your
conscience, there is a day when all the past will be resurrected.

There is a day coming when every sin that you have ever committed will
point its finger at you and say you are guilty. How sad the soul when
the conscience awakes. No hope for it.

For the tide has gone out. The time has run out. And there is nothing
but judgment ahead.

After this, the judgment. And then madness. This poor mad man.

But Christ came. And he was changed. He was clothed.

He was in his right mind. He was at the feet of Jesus. And he said,
Lord, I have a prayer to make.

Please let me stay with you. Please let me see you doing these miracles.
I will be a follower every day.

I don't want to leave you. But the Lord said to him, no. You have a job
to be, to do.

How be it Jesus suffered him not, but said unto him, go home. Go home.
The Lord believes in the authority of the home.

And believes that Christianity should be practiced in the home. Go home
and tell your friends. Let them know what has happened to you.

They had the tears. They had the anguish. They had the bitterness.

When you were possessed of devils and left them to live and be a mad
man. But now you are cured. You are in your right mind.

Go home and show yourself. And tell them how great things the Lord had
done for thee. Had compassion on thee.

And he departed. And began to publish how great things the Lord had done
for him. And the whole neighborhood marveled that the man possessed with
three thousand devils was now a new man.

Old things had passed away. And behold all things, it was Christ that
did the miracle. It was Christ that saved his soul.

It was Christ that gave him freedom. It was Christ that gave him peace
and life everlasting. And among the glorified spirits in the heaven of
heaven, there is a bright glowing spirit.

The spirit of this man delivered from the wrath of God and the filth of
the demons. And made a new creature in Christ. No wonder Christ said to
the most religious man in the city of Jerusalem, Nicodemus.

He said, Nicodemus, ye must be born again. Whether you are a religious
or religious. Whether you are an agnostic, an infidel, or profess some
sort of faith in some sort of religion.

It matters not. You need to have a new birth. You need to be born again.

Marvel not, the Lord said, that I say unto you, ye must be born again.
The church will not take you to heaven. The sacraments of the church
will not take you to heaven.

The profession of religious belief will not take you to heaven. Only
Christ can save you. And I would press upon you tonight the necessity of
coming to Christ.

Confessing your sins and seeking Christ for pardon and peace
everlasting. Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be
saved. And all you have to do is call upon Him.

And He will save you. Hallelujah! He will save you now. Let us bow our
heads in prayer.

Father in heaven, we thank Thee for Thy solemn word. And for the
truthfulness of the sacred page, we give Thee thanks. Let us know our
hearts.

Man looks in the outward appearance. Let us look in the heart. May no
man or woman leave this meeting until they are born again.

And are sure that they are saved by simple faith in the blessings of
God. Write Thy word in every heart for Jesus Christ's great name's sake.
And everybody say, Amen.

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Audio: https://sermonindex1.b-cdn.net/15/SID15193.mp3
Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/ian-paisley/the-most-striking-prayer-of-the-bible-the-request-of-3000-devils-to-enter-the/
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