The Demoniac

When this man found himself delivered, he wanted to go with the Savior. That was gratitude. Christ had saved him and redeemed him. He had redeemed him from the hand of the enemy. And this man cried, "Let me follow you around the world; where You go I will go." But the Lord said, "You go home and tell your friends what good things the Lord has done for you." And he started home. I would like to have been in that house when he came there. I can imagine how the children would look when they saw him, and say, "Father is coming."

"Shut the door," the mother would cry. "Look out! fasten the window; bolt every door in the house." Many times he very likely had come and abused his family, and broken the chairs and tables and turned the mother into the street and alarmed all the neighbors. They see him now coming down the street. Down he comes till he gets to the door, and then gently knocks. You don't hear a sound as he stands there. At last he sees his wife at the window and he says, "Mary!" "Why," she says, "he speaks as he did when I first married him; I wonder if he has got well?"

So she looks out and asks, "John, is that you?" "Yes, Mary," he replies, "it's me; don't be afraid anymore; I'm well now." I see that mother, how she pulls back the bolts of that door, and looks at him. The first look is sufficient, and she springs into his arms and clings about his neck. She takes him in and asks him a hundred questions--how it all happened--all about it. "Well, just take a chair and I'll tell you how I got cured." The children hang back and look amazed. He says, "I was there in the tombs, you know, cutting myself with stones, and running about in my nakedness, when Jesus of Nazareth came that way.

Mary, did you ever hear of Him? He is the most wonderful man; I've never seen a man like Him. He just ran in and told those devils to leave me, and they left me. When He had cured me I wanted to follow Him. But He told me to come home and tell you all about it. The children by-and-by gathered about his knee, and the elder ones ran to tell their playmates what wonderful things Jesus had done for their father. Ah, my friends, we have got a mighty deliverer; I don't care what affliction you have, He will deliver you from it. The Son of God who cast out those devils can deliver you from your besetting sin.