Lord of the Spiritual Realm
Notes
Transcript
Lord of the Spiritual Realm - Luke 8:26-39
Lord of the Spiritual Realm - Luke 8:26-39
What on earth? Even if you’ve read or heard this episode before, you have to scratch your head at the overall picture of what takes place. There is a man possessed by not just one demon but by MANY… they call themselves Legion! *** The demons recognize Jesus and converse with him and ask to go into some pigs and then the pigs drown. Instead of being in awe at Jesus’ supernatural power and authority to heal this man that they all know as a demoniac, the townspeople (and those from the region) freak out and send Jesus away. You can’t make this stuff up! If Jesus’ followers were making up stories that they wanted to sound believable, they wouldn’t tell this one!
When I was six years old, I learned a valuable lesson from a couple of ridiculous lies I told. Friends were telling interesting and funny stories, and to try to get in on the conversation, I told them that I had caught a baby urubu (that’s a buzzard in Brazil) with my bare hands. My brother called me out on that lie, in front of everyone. I realized later that they all must have known it was a lie anyways. Another time that same year I lied to some adult missionary coworkers. One of them was being kind and letting me tag along while he made purchases and did chores for other missionaries. Well, when he and others asked one day if I wanted a mid-morning snack of coffee and cookies, I answered, “yes. my mom sometimes doesn’t feed me breakfast”… I said with my big potbelly poking out. - The moral? If you’re gonna lie, better make it believable. [NO! The truth is always better. God knows the truth, and those who love us need the truth to help us.]
So our first reaction to this text in Luke is good grief, this occurrence in Christ’s life is a weird as it gets. Unlike my fat lies (no pun intended), this story is unique but completely true. And then you look closely at the specifics, and those get pretty befuddling too. I’ll be straight with you: For some of the details in this text, I have more questions than answers. Why does Matthew mention two demoniacs but Luke and Mark only this one? (It seems that only one becomes the major player in the storyline, speaking, etc., and ultimately responding rightly to Jesus...) How did this guy get all these demons? (We’re never told in the Bible how demon possession begins.) Why does Jesus grant the desire of the demons (and how is that better for them)? Why does Jesus allow the pigs drown (some 2000 of them, Mark tells us)? What happens to the demons?
But where I at first wondered what would be the meat of this passage for us, this week’s study of God’s truth fed me a 16oz porterhouse steak (or should I say a pork tenderloin? ;-)). So while responses to the details are speculative or might remain unanswered, the answers to some primary questions come into focus:
Why does Luke include this in his narrative? (Because it actually happened yes, but there are many things, John tells us, that happened and could not all be recorded.)
Why do the demons and the townspeople fear God but respond wrongly?
What should we take away from the contrasting response of the liberated demoniac?
So…
Why does Luke include this episode in his narrative?
Why does Luke include this episode in his narrative?
It continues to demonstrate the power and authority of Jesus over forces that are stronger than humanity (that are more than we can control). - The examples we’re seeing in ch. 8: the sudden storm on the lake, the spirit realm and its invasion into our world, disease for which we can’t find a cure... and even the great leveler—death. Jesus’ power overcomes all of these things, demonstrating his authority over them all... and ultimately, his deity. - If he is Lord over demons, surely he is Lord of mankind.
It is yet another example which shows that Jesus came for all mankind—not only for Jews but for Gentiles also. - This region appears to be a largely Gentile area.
And it demonstrates the right response of some, while many still blindly refuse him.
Why do the demons and the townspeople fear God but respond wrongly?
Why do the demons and the townspeople fear God but respond wrongly?
There is a fear of God that does not lead to righteousness.
The demons fear judgment, and they fear that Jesus’ presence will result in undesirable changes for them (being disembodied from the possessed man). - As with previous demons in Luke’s account, they know who Jesus is. In ch. 4 it was “the Holy One of God” (v. 34), and here “Son of the Most High God” (8:28). They recognize his power and authority. But that fear does not lead to righteousness, only a desire for prolonged self-preservation. While Mark and Luke also note the question, have you come to torment us?, Matthew includes in the question... “to torment us before the time” (Mt 8:29). This is almost certainly recognition on their part that God’s promise to carry out their punishment for rebellion against him will certainly come to pass. The “abyss” seems to be reference to the final destination of Satan and his demons, or to a place where some of them are being kept, while others remain free, until the final judgment. - This is a fear of the power and authority of God that is unholy; it does not lead to righteousness.
When the man is released from these demons and the pigs have thrown themselves into the sea, the townspeople all come out to see (bc the herdsmen tell them what happened)… and they are afraid. Rather than responding rightly to the clear evidence of what Jesus has done for this demoniac, from fear they ask Jesus to leave—more than only because of economic impact, but also because they fear his power. - They feared the change that Jesus would bring, even with this evidence of the good he could do. Do they want him to go BECAUSE he is good?
“If we are unconverted, one thing is absolutely certain: we hate God. The Bible is unambiguous about this point. We are God’s enemies. We are inwardly sworn to His ultimate destruction. It is as natural for us to hate God as it is for rain to moisten the earth when it falls.” - Deffinbaugh - God “represents the highest possible threat to our sinful desires.”
You see, when it becomes evident to wicked hearts that Jesus came not to do what we want (but rather what we need), we change our tune quickly from “Hosanna” to “Crucify him, Crucify him!”
Let us not be like these townspeople who posture ourselves as God’s enemies because we have wrongheaded (wrong-hearted) fear of him.
The fear of Legion was of the same type of the fear of his fellow-countrymen, an unholy fear of God and of His power, threatening to change us and to keep us from the evil we desire to continue to do. This kind of fear is not unusual, but is the same kind of fear of God which every unbeliever manifests. It is the evidence of satanic dominion in one’s life. Unfortunately, this same kind of fear can be found in Christians, too, the evidence of Satanic opposition, deception, and influence. - Deffinbaugh
The demoniac shows us the depths to which our depravity can lead, and the townspeople reveal to us our aversion to giving up our sin that we have come to love.
Let us not find ourselves clinging to our sin as if it were good! - It cannot save, it cannot grant us peace, it cannot satisfy. Sin both causes and leads to destruction, and it is the very reason for God’s holy wrath. (Only God himself, through the Lord Jesus, can save.) Sin always ultimately leads to separation and division and broken relationships, from wars in families to wars between nations. (Only God himself, through the Lord Jesus, can grant us peace.) Drinking of sin only increases thirst because it cannot satisfy. Sin only plunges us deeper and deeper into an insatiable well. (Only God himself, through the Lord Jesus, can satisfy our soul’s greatest desire and need—to be as God intended us, responding to him as his beings. To know God’s glory and grace and goodness is to finally be satisfied. We then desire more no longer because our hunger is insatiable, but simply because he is so good. - Therefore, let us not find ourselves clinging to our sin… the very thing that destroys us, the very thing that blinds us, the very thing which caused our separation from God... as if it were good!
What should we take away from the contrasting response of the liberated demoniac?
What should we take away from the contrasting response of the liberated demoniac?
1. This man could not free himself from the powers of evil.
Only Jesus’ intervention could rescue him from their stronghold over him. It gives a vivid microcosm of the reason Jesus came, to do for us what we could not do for ourselves, to rescue us from the dominion of Satan (of sin) and its corresponding separation from God.
All men, even those not “possessed” by demons, are in fact under Satan’s influence as we obey the desires of our flesh, in rebellion against God.
We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.
In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
Jesus told the Pharisees that by their blindness to the truth of who Jesus is, they prove that they are not God’s true children:
You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
And so we all need the truth of Jesus, by the Holy Spirit’s power transforming us, to do the following for us: (even as Jesus tells Saul at this conversion that he has assigned him for the task of carrying this message to the Gentiles, so that God will, by using Paul as an appointed witness…)
to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’
Apart from God’s work in us through Jesus, we are broken humans, under the power of Satan. Only in Jesus can we be set free from Satan’s power, forgiven of our sin, reconciled from this enmity with God, and given a nature that grows in being fully human the way God intended—in worship of, in fellowship with, and in obedience to Him.
Those of us who have been reconciled to God through faith in Jesus, a gift of his own working (and not our own), have been given a new nature that loves and pursues God. But God has seen fit to leave us in this life with the ongoing threat of that former nature which loves self and sin and hates God. - What a perspective! To walk in the Spirit is to do battle against that nature which loves self and sin more than God, which is under the power of Satan and hates God and wants to destroy him (and our souls too, ultimately).
Steve Cole:
To what extent are you experiencing the transforming power of Christ? Has He changed your life through His gracious gift of salvation? Is He continuing to change it as you walk with Him?
2. The man demonstrates faith in Jesus by wanting to follow him, and then too in obeying his instruction.
***
To what extent are you proclaiming the transforming power of Christ? Are you looking for opportunities with those you know to tell them of the great things God has done for you and of the great things He will do for them if they will come to Jesus just as they are?
Let us tell of the news, right here at home, of what God has miraculously done in setting us free (from Satan) and making us new, granting us the privilege to serve him... rather than sin and self and Satan. We have a new Master! We are now indwelt with the very Holy Spirit of God, so let us yield to his leading, keeping in step with him.
When Christ returns (or takes us home), may he find us faithfully loving him in obedience to his command.
May he find us proclaiming the good news of God to mankind in Jesus, with the passion of saved sinners, by the power of his Holy Spirit, from the pages of His word, for the purity of his Church, to the praise of His own Great Name.
*