Jesus Heals a Man With a Demon
Download MP3If you would open your bibles to Luke chapter 8. Luke chapter 8. There was a time in college that I felt like my heart had grown a little cold in reaching those who did not know Christ. Now I wanted to care, and I knew I should care, but my actions well, I looked at my actions, and I could just kinda feel my heart. I knew it was otherwise.
Jeffrey Heine:And so I actually went to my pastor, and I confessed this. I said, I don't really care for the lost, and, so he did the typical thing a pastor does. He said, hey, read this. I hate that when you, you know, you go and you ask for advice, and they always you always get a book, you know, and I'm I'm guilty. I do that all the time, you know.
Jeffrey Heine:And, but the Lord actually, you know, he he said you need to read this. And when he when he told me though, he didn't give me a book, he gave me a passage of scripture, and it's the text we're looking at tonight in Luke 8. And he said, I just want you to read that and ask God to give you ears to hear that man's cry. Ask God to give you ears to hear that man's cry. And so I read it, and honestly, it didn't help that much.
Jeffrey Heine:But over and over, the Lord kept bringing it to remembrance, and, and I kept going back to it as the weeks went on. And, finally, it began opening up to me, or I I guess I should say my heart began opening up to the scripture, and it has shaped much of how I view ministry, and the Lord has used it in my life, to give me a heart for the lost. I want to read chapter 8 verse 26. Then they sailed to the country of the Garrisones, which is opposite Galilee. When Jesus had stepped out on land, there met him a man from the city who had demons.
Jeffrey Heine:For a long time, he had worn no clothes and he had not lived in a house, but among the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him and said with a loud voice, what have you to do with me? Jesus, son of the most high god, I beg you, do not torment me. For he commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. For many a time it had seized him.
Jeffrey Heine:He was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the desert. Jesus then asked him, and for many demons had entered him, and they begged him not to command them to depart into the abyss. Now, a large herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, and they begged him to let them enter these, so he gave them permission. Then the demons came out of the man and entered the pigs, and the herd rushed down the steep bank and into the lake and were drowned. When the herdsmen saw what had happened, they fled and told it in the city and in the country, and then people went out to see what had happened, and they came to Jesus and found the man from whom the demons had gone, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind.
Jeffrey Heine:And they were afraid. And those who had seen it told them how the demon possessed man had been healed. Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Garrisonese, they asked him to depart from them, for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned. The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him, But Jesus sent him away saying, return to your home and declare how much God has done for you.
Jeffrey Heine:And he went away proclaiming throughout the whole city, how much Jesus had done for him. Pray with me. Lord God, I ask that you would open our hearts to your word. Give me clarity of mind, clarity of speech as I try to communicate these truths. It is beyond my ability to do so.
Jeffrey Heine:So Lord, I ask that my words would fall to the ground and blow away that they would not be remembered anymore. The Lord, let your words remain and may they change us. We pray this in a strong name of Jesus. Amen. We've been looking at the book of Luke now for the last 21 weeks.
Jeffrey Heine:And over the past few weeks, we have seen the crowds that have been following Jesus grow. Greater and greater crowds begin following him. Earlier in this chapter, Luke tells us that a great crowd was following Jesus, and people from town because there were such enormous crowds. And and when the stories after this, a woman sneaks up to Jesus and touches him, and she's healed. And Jesus stops and says, somebody touched me.
Jeffrey Heine:And the disciples go, well of course, everybody's touching you, everybody's packed in around you Jesus. The disciples probably were more like bodyguards at time times, and they were actually disciples. Just trying to almost protect Jesus from being smothered by the multitudes that were coming to him. You might say that Jesus had reached the pinnacle of his ministry. He's wildly popular.
Jeffrey Heine:He's had enormous success, and so I find it very interesting to see what Jesus does next at this moment in his ministry. So when the crowds are at the greatest, we saw last week he confuses them all with parables. So that seeing they may not see and hearing they may not hear. Interesting. And then he tells his disciples, okay, let's get in a boat and let's leave the masses.
Jeffrey Heine:Let's let's go to the other side of the lake. And you just gotta ask, well, why would why would you leave where you were hugely popular, and you were having incredible success? What what possibly could be drawing Jesus to leave this? And it's not bigger venues. It's not to reach bigger crowds.
Jeffrey Heine:He didn't even go to another Jewish city. He went to a Gentile region that was known for raising pigs. And the disciples had to know that the moment that they reached this region, they would be considered ceremonially defiled and unclean. They went to a very remote region where there's very few people, and these people here, they were Gentiles. They weren't expecting a messiah.
Jeffrey Heine:They didn't know the scriptures. And he did this all in order to find and to heal 1 man. Just one. We've grown up hearing stories about, you know, Jesus is the good shepherd. He the good shepherd leaves the 99 and goes after the 1.
Jeffrey Heine:You see this here. He is leaving the multitudes, the 1,000, and he's going after 1. This means that if Jesus was sitting next to me at the university of Georgia in my speech communications classes, he would have failed. He would have failed mass communication classes, which, you know, talk about, maximizing all of your opportunities. He would have also failed my church leadership classes that I had to take at Beason, because you don't do this.
Jeffrey Heine:No. You're you're taught to strike while the iron is hot, to keep the momentum going, and phrases like you need to maximize your efforts, or the phrases like the best way to reach 1 is to reach the multitude, which is full of ones. That's how the kingdom of God grows apparently, but not according to Jesus. I've met a lot of people who who really want to make a difference in their lives, which is a good thing. I hope people want to make a difference in their lives, with their lives, but usually they have something in mind.
Jeffrey Heine:They're thinking, you know, I wanna do something big for the Lord. You know, I wanna I wanna do something to reach out and to help a lot of people, and there's nothing wrong with with wanting that. That's good. But don't forget about your neighbor who might be hurting. Don't forget about that, you know, really awkward coworker that everybody kind of ignores when they actually walk into the room or they try to avoid any conversation.
Jeffrey Heine:Don't don't ignore that person. Don't forget about the single mom that you might know who is breaking under the strain of trying to raise kids and work, and it's easy to forget and to pass by such individuals when you're trying to make a difference with your life. Don't do it. I find it very interesting that Satan up to this point never tries to prevent Jesus from going to any of the other places he has gone. Doesn't try to prevent Jesus from going to all these places where he has preached and he's performed miracles to the masses.
Jeffrey Heine:You you don't see Satan preventing them from going to Nazareth or to Capernaum or to, you know, the, the town of Nain. But when Jesus tries to go to one little remote region to reach one forgotten man, Satan throws everything at Jesus here. We didn't read the story before this, about Jesus getting in the boat and and going over to this place, and this huge storm coming up. And this wasn't just any storm that happened. These were storm that a storm that seasoned sailors were terrified of.
Jeffrey Heine:They knew they were going to drown, and this was a not a normal storm, this was a supernatural storm, and we know this. Look at verse 24. The disciples went and they woke him saying, master, master, we are perishing. And he awoke and he rebuked the wind and the raging waves and they ceased and there was calm. He rebuked them.
Jeffrey Heine:Rebuking wind and waves is a very unusual term. You don't do this. All throughout scripture, the word rebuke is used for rebooting demons, rebuking evil forces. And Jesus, he sees a storm as something supernatural and he rebukes it and it quits its howling its fury and it's a precursor of what's about to come when he goes to the shore and he finds a man and he rebukes the demon and he calms the storm in that man's life. But evil forces want to stop Jesus from reaching this one man.
Jeffrey Heine:You would think it'd be the opposite way. You you would think that Satan I mean, Jesus, you wanna leave the masses, you wanna leave, you You wanna quit doing all these miracles over here and go to this one little region? Smooth sailing. Here, I'll get some wind, you know, and we'll get you there even quicker. Yeah, absolutely.
Jeffrey Heine:Leave the masses. Waste your life on that one forgotten little individual over there. Go. You would think if anything, Satan would be helping Jesus to this point. But it's the opposite.
Jeffrey Heine:He's doing everything in his power to keep Jesus from going to 1 man. Just one. And Satan is going to do anything and everything. He's gonna throw everything at you when he sees you pursuing 1. I mean, really pursuing somebody.
Jeffrey Heine:He's gonna say, you are way too busy. You don't have the time for this. Oh you're in no position to do this. You're, you're not, you're not good enough to do this. He's gonna try to do things to scare you.
Jeffrey Heine:Don't listen to him. He's going to tell you what a waste of time. That's a hopeless case. Don't listen to him. To be perfectly blunt though, actually Satan doesn't really have to do anything for most of us.
Jeffrey Heine:Just look at, you know, what exactly has he had to throw at you to keep you from reaching your neighbor? To keep you from even walking across the street? What exactly has he had to throw your way to keep you from talking to that 1 person in the office who you know is dying, but they're so awkward? Has he has he had to throw a lot your way? Usually it's just a little distraction that we provide ourselves.
Jeffrey Heine:Too busy, click on some entertainment, do something, and let that guy perish. I'm amazed, at how the Christian community loves to do mission trips, which we do need to love to do mission trips. It's a good thing. But I think what can get mixed up in that sometime is actually the need to do something great. The need to have a big platform to do spectacular things and how we will put all this time and this prayer and that, and yet we will forget our neighbor.
Jeffrey Heine:We will forget the one, not Jesus. Let's take a closer look at this man that Jesus goes to see. Well, first off, he's possessed by a demon. I guess I should say don't don't make the mistake of instantly kind of saying, oh, that's, you know, 1st century superstition. They were they were attributing everything to demons.
Jeffrey Heine:They weren't. If if you go through the gospels, the gospel writers make clear distinction between illnesses and demon possession. No. For instance, there might be times where say, Jesus healed a deaf person. Other times it might be he cast out a demon that was causing the deafness.
Jeffrey Heine:They make a distinction and they don't see demons behind every single illness or sickness. So this is unique here. This man is definitely possessed. He's given up wearing clothes. He lives in the tombs.
Jeffrey Heine:Tombs that would have been carved out in the hillside. They're basically caves here that have been outside of the village. Tombs are for dead people. They're not for living people, but this man he considers himself as having no life whatsoever. He he has more in common with a dead person and someone who is alive.
Jeffrey Heine:He hated himself. Every single day was just another experience of pain and torture. The gospel of Mark tells us that he would actually pick up stones and he would hit himself and he would just start cutting himself because he hated himself, and he would cry out all night. I mean, can you imagine living in in the village and and hearing from the tombs a man screaming out in pain, howling almost every single night for help? You can't do anything?
Jeffrey Heine:Can you imagine the shame that this guy felt? It's probably what made him flee to the hills. He just felt so much shame. He wanted to live in isolation where nobody else would live, and so he he moved away from anybody who might try to help him. You know, likely I'm sure people first tried to help this man, but man, he's a hard case.
Jeffrey Heine:He just keeps getting worse. As he kept getting worse, he would isolate himself himself more and more. Now, I know for a number of us, you know, as we've described this kind of demon possessed man, it's just really weird. And it is weird from a, you you know, I guess I'd say from a Western modern perspective, to see somebody like that. It makes for a good Halloween story.
Jeffrey Heine:That's why I kept thinking, you know, this is a fantastic, you know, a howling man in the, out in the tombs. Next time, you know, somebody comes trick or treating, just read them the story. It's even more graphic in Mark chapter 5. I think your mistake your mistaken though if you don't believe that evil has a supernaturalness to it. If you don't believe in demonic forces, or if you don't believe in Satan, if you don't believe that there's, there's a personality behind evil then, and a supernaturalness to it, then you're how are you gonna deal with evil in this life?
Jeffrey Heine:What what are your solutions going to be? Yeah, you know, for the last 100 years or so, actually about 150 years, the the tendency has been to try to humanize all of evil. All of evil has a very human source. Therefore, its solution, the cure for it is gonna be a very human solution. And so there's been all these different approaches as to how we deal with the evil, and so you have this psychological approach to evil in your life that says, okay, the reason there's this evil in your life is, you know, you maybe you're abused as a child, you had a bad father, or people didn't love you.
Jeffrey Heine:It was a human cause. Therefore, there's a human solution. Counseling. Go to counseling and that's how you're gonna overcome this. There could be a sociological approach to getting rid of evil or trying to to cure evil in which it sees evil as racism or poverty, and that's a very human caused evil.
Jeffrey Heine:And so the solution is very human caused solution. You would do things like education. You would have some kind of legislation that could change things. There's a physiological approach to evil that might say that, you know, we're just programmed to do bad things. It's it's in our chemistry.
Jeffrey Heine:Evolution has led us, you know, to be bigger and badder. Only the violent will survive, and so you come up with chemical solutions to evil. And then, all of these might help to some degree, but they don't actually get rid of evil. When you read the story, especially in Mark's account, he keeps saying, no one can help this man. No one can bind this man.
Jeffrey Heine:No one can do anything. They keep trying human solution after human solution, but but this isn't a human problem. This is a transcendent evil, and so they can't fix it. No one can. And I know that each of you probably felt this some in your lives as well.
Jeffrey Heine:There's something. There there's some demons you have that you need to exercise. Some bad habits that you just can't kick no matter what you do, no matter what you try. Maybe there's some irrational fears that you have, That no matter what you do in your life, you absolutely can't get rid of these irrational fears. They keep coming up, they keep popping up.
Jeffrey Heine:There's these evil impulses and desires that might come up on you that you just can't help but entertain and follow through on. What do you do with those? You know, we could we could go to counseling and and like any good counselor, they're going to listen to you and maybe they'll point out the problem, you know, you have hatred in your life, there's your problem. You know, like, well, it was great. Well, what do I do with it?
Jeffrey Heine:And every good counselor will say, well, what do you think you should do with it? You know, that's that's what good counselors do is they just ask questions. They can identify the problem, but they can't get you out of it. Jesus can get you out of this. Evil has a supernatural quality to it.
Jeffrey Heine:It cannot be explained through just human causes. And when that evil is not dealt with in your life, it is going to grow. These demonic influences in this man's life begin growing and growing and growing. There's this cycle in his life. You know, he occasionally he has moments of clarity.
Jeffrey Heine:You know, maybe he can feel the sunshine and a little warmth and, and some focus thoughts and he's feeling not too bad. And in those moments, people would come and they they bind him. They would bind him. They were probably doing this out of compassion. We don't want him to hurt himself.
Jeffrey Heine:They bind him, but then these demonic presence, they would they would come on him again and he break the they break the chains, and he'd run out into the wilderness again. And Mark says that he was increasingly do this doing this so they can no longer bind him. They once were able to, but now they couldn't bind him anymore. There was no hope for this man. Now, when this man saw Jesus, he's waiting for him at the shore.
Jeffrey Heine:The gospel of Mark says that he actually ran up to Jesus, which is really interesting because he has been running away from people for a long time now. Jesus comes and he runs up to Jesus, and he's waiting for him. He's somehow drawn to him, yet he's also gonna be repulsed by him. It's really interesting. He's drawn to Jesus, yet he's repulsed by Jesus at the same time.
Jeffrey Heine:He runs up and he says, son of the most high God, what do you want to do with me? Don't torment me. Don't torment me. Now this exorcism is unlike any other in scripture. Read it again when you get home.
Jeffrey Heine:Compare it to other ones. It is unlike any other one in scripture, because every other time Jesus goes up, meets a demon, he says go, Boom, gone. Rebuke, gone. There's no dialogue. There's no conversations.
Jeffrey Heine:There's I mean but here Jesus actually slows down this exorcism. He begins talking with this man, and it's really unusual if you sometimes he addresses the man and sometimes he addresses the demons. It switches. Sometimes he says he told him, and sometimes it says they said, and sometimes it says he said. And what you're you're getting here is this very divided heart.
Jeffrey Heine:Sometimes it's this man. Sometimes it's the demonic forces overcoming this man. But his heart is very fractured. His will is very fractured. It's pulling him in thousands of directions.
Jeffrey Heine:Actually, 6,000. Jesus asked him, what is his name? He addresses the man, not the demons here. What is your name? And he says, Legion, which is a military term meaning 6,000.
Jeffrey Heine:Actually, it's like 6,128 or something like that, but about 6,000. I mean, could you imagine having 6,000 different impulses and desires throwing you in all different directions? CS Lewis, I put this quote in your, worship guide in the front page, and writing about his life just before conversion. He said, for the first time, I examined myself with a seriously practical purpose, and there I found what appalled me. A zoo of lust, a bedlam of ambitions, a nursery of fears, a harem of fondled hatreds.
Jeffrey Heine:My name was Legion. You know, perhaps if we examined ourselves with the same practical purpose, we might find the same. And this man, he desperately wanted to be delivered from this yet. He's also scared to death to be delivered from this. He wants to be delivered yet he doesn't.
Jeffrey Heine:He thinks that his deliverance is going to mean judgment. That's what he thinks. This, this deliverance is going to mean being tormented, but Jesus doesn't judge the man. He doesn't torment the man. He just heals.
Jeffrey Heine:And I've seen so many people in the as those who don't know the Lord, but they're so interested, and they're drawn to Jesus, yet they're scared to death of Jesus, because they know, they think they know what it will mean. They think it's gonna mean, you know, if I were if I if I believe in Jesus, that means I'm judged because look at my lifestyle, and it means he's gonna condemn me. He's not gonna love me. He's gonna do all these things. He's gonna torment me.
Jeffrey Heine:He's not. He forgives. He heals. Jesus deals with this man differently than than anyone ever has. He doesn't offer a human solution.
Jeffrey Heine:He doesn't say, okay, come here. You know what? Your problem is, we need some bigger chains. Can y'all help me get some bigger chains and, you know, chains this guy can't break through? You know what I need to do?
Jeffrey Heine:I need to tell you all the things you're doing wrong in your life. Let me let me give you some more law and just kinda heap it on you. It's not what this man needs, and it's not what Jesus gives. He doesn't throw moral rules down this man's throat, he just delivers the man. He delivers him.
Jeffrey Heine:Only Jesus can deal those evil forces in our lives. Only Jesus is the one who could set us free from that. And it's interesting, this this man, he was just he was so scared of being tormented, but instead, Jesus makes him a new person, and he gives him a new mission. I love it. You have going into this, you have all these beggings.
Jeffrey Heine:You have, the, the demons, they beg Jesus, please don't, you know, throw us into the abyss, and Jesus says, okay. Then you have the townspeople begging Jesus, leave us, and he goes, well, okay, I'll leave you. And then you have this man delivered, and he says, Jesus, I beg you, can I go with you? And he goes, absolutely not. Not.
Jeffrey Heine:No way. I'm giving you a new mission, and it's to declare what the lord has done in your life. That's your mission. That's why I gave you life is to declare that and for everybody who has been healed by Jesus, that is our mission to declare how much the Lord has done for us. You know, I love what Jesus asked the disciples to do here.
Jeffrey Heine:Did did you see it and read it, and what Jesus asked the disciples to do? You're not gonna find anything. The only thing that he asked the disciples to do was to get in a boat and take him to the other side of the lake. And he said, I'll I'll take care of the healing this person. I'll take care of getting rid of the demons.
Jeffrey Heine:I'll take care of this. All I want you to do is bring me to him. That's your mission. Take me to lonely, hurting people. Don't be thinking, okay.
Jeffrey Heine:How am I gonna help them? How am I gonna do this? This is a hopeless case. Nobody's been able to fix this person. Jesus says, forget that.
Jeffrey Heine:Take me to that person and let me deal with them. Quit throwing out all of those excuses. Quit trying to say, well I want to be on a bigger venue, a bigger platform. I want to do all these great things. And Jesus is saying, take me to that person.
Jeffrey Heine:That one person, take me to him. Let me heal him. That's our role as disciples. And if you are if you identify in the story with that person, I don't care how much you're you're knee deep or neck deep in sin, how addicted you are, the Lord can heal you. We're gonna celebrate that as we as we look at the table behind us and we are partake of the lord's supper.
Jeffrey Heine:You know, evil had to be dealt with. I mean, why does Jesus have all these this power over evil? How can he exercise demons out of people's lives? Why is it that he could go to this man and not torment him and not judge him? It's because he took on evil.
Jeffrey Heine:That's what we celebrate in this meal. It's because Jesus lived the perfect life, and he went to the cross, and he said, do your worst to me. Do it. Let the evil follow me. And he looked at his father and he said, father, don't judge that man.
Jeffrey Heine:Don't judge that demoniac. Don't judge that person there. Don't judge that addict. Don't judge that, that child abuser. Don't judge that, adulterer.
Jeffrey Heine:Don't judge that person over there who has placed her faith in me. Don't judge them. Judge me. Let your wrath fall on me. That's how Jesus dealt with evil.
Jeffrey Heine:And I know it sounds bizarre. It sounds strange to talk about how the death of Jesus can appease the wrath of God, but that is what he did. That's what we celebrate in this meal. On the night that Jesus was betrayed, he had a meal with his disciples, and he he got bread, and he he said, this is my body, and then he said, this is my body broken for you. And then he got the wine, and he said, this wine is my blood poured out for you.
Jeffrey Heine:And he said, as often as you eat this bread and you drink this wine, remembering me, you proclaim my death till I come again. And that's what we're going to do. We're going to celebrate this meal and being reminded of the time when Jesus triumphed over evil. And this table here, it's not a Baptist table or a Methodist or Presbyterian table. This table is for all those all baptized believers who have placed their faith and trust in Jesus Christ.
Jeffrey Heine:Don't be sitting there thinking, well, I've got to get my life altogether, I've got to do all this before I come. No, no. Jesus has done the work that you couldn't do. You repent of any known sin. You confess that known sin and you trust Jesus and his righteousness.
Jeffrey Heine:So as the Lord leads you, come. Pray with me. Lord, I feel like so often we approach the evils in our lives with with chains and rules, and what we need is deliverance. We need to be forgiven. Thank you for providing that.
Jeffrey Heine:And Lord, I also feel that there's so much in us that wants to be great, wants to do amazing things, and we ignore the cries of the people who are in anguish around us. Either because we think they're a hopeless case, we just don't want to be around them, or we just don't know what we would do, and all you're saying is take me to them, take me to them, and let me heal them. This week, God, I asked that we would hear your call to do that and we would not disobey. Thank you for this table and giving us a way to remember your work on the cross. We pray this in the name of Jesus.
Jeffrey Heine:Amen.
