Mark 5:1-20

Jesus Meets a man w/ unclean spirit

MARK 5:1-20

Jesus and His disciples were traveling across the sea of Galilee into the country of the Gerasenes. Here we read the story of a man with unclean spirits. A man that is living in the mountains, with no clothes, filled with uncontrollable emotions and actions. He was constantly running through the mountains screaming and cutting himself with stones. There was no peace, no comfort, nothing, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! This man had been constantly chained with shackles and yet that alone couldn't bind him.

READ THE WHOLE STORY

So the first thing we noticed here is that even the unclean spirits notices Jesus, The Son of the Most High God.....Think about that for a minute......even they will recognize Jesus. satan knows the bible better than we do..........we can read in Matthew 4:5-7 when Jesus was tempted for 40 days and 40 nights that even satan tries to tempt with scripture

New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update Chapter 4

5 Then the devil *took Him into the holy city and had Him stand on the pinnacle of the temple,

6 and *said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down; for it is written,

‘HE WILL COMMAND HIS ANGELS CONCERNING YOU’;

and

‘ON their HANDS THEY WILL BEAR YOU UP,

SO THAT YOU WILL NOT STRIKE YOUR FOOT AGAINST A STONE.’ ”

7 Jesus said to him, “On the other hand, it is written, ‘YOU SHALL NOT PUT THE LORD YOUR GOD TO THE TEST.’ ”

The devil knows who Jesus is, he previously tried to tempt Jesus.

VERSE 8.....This unclean spirit, was commanded by Jesus to come out..... then Jesus asked “What is your name?”

He said Legion for we are many…Legion is an evil supernatural being.

Starting in verse 10 we begin to see the unclean spirits beg Jesus not to send him out of the country.....the unclean spirits were comfortable where they were. They did not want to leave,

They begin to beg Jesus to send them into the swine, herd of pigs........

This is where it gets interesting, its not the pigs, its that they had to have permission from Jesus the Son of the Most High God to go into the herd of pigs, So Jesus grants them permission. Lets read Matthew 28:18

Matthew 28:18 NASB95

And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.

After the unclean spirits enter into the herd of pigs, they rushed down the steep bank into the sea, about 2,000 of them and then drowned.....

Verse 14-15 (Read) --- Then the herdsmen ran back into town to tell the people what they had saw.......They don’t even know what to say…they were frightened, Why? They ain’t ever seen anything like this done. They thought it was normal, completely normal. This man they knew was not the same, he went from being naked to running the mountains screaming cutting himself, just absolutely miserable, confused to a man siting down, clothed and in his right mind. See thats what we do today, we think its normal to have anger, anxiety, fear, depression, to cut ourselves, to get drunk, to have sex, today’s generation 21% identifies as LGBTQ, compared to previous generations its much less than that, we have been taught that its normal. We are seeing TV shows promoting it, we are seeing movies, commercials, you name it. We are born male or female in God’s image

Verse 17.......Then they beg Jesus to leave.......... they don’t know what to think. They don’t know what to do with what they just witnessed. The enemy only comes to seek, kill and destroy, the devil going to fill you with lies, confuse you from what is right and wrong, he is going to stop you from hearing the truth. To experience freedom, love, peace, comfort.

VERSE 18-20

The man who had been set free, wanted to go with Jesus. But Jesus tells him to go home to your people and tell them what had happened. So he goes back to where he is from, and begins preaching all what the Lord had done for him, and how He had mercy on him.

He does exactly that.....when we have faith, and thats the only thing thats required is to have faith, and once we truly believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and that He died on that cross, and 3 days later he rose from the dead, and we confess with our mouth, and we acknowledge that we are sinners and broken then we are saved.........set free. And then with and through Jesus we begin see freedom, peace, comfort, obedience, loving, kindness, all of the fruits........I am not sayin that being a Christian life is easy, but it is Jesus, that through Him all things are possible, it is His blood that covers us, the Holy Spirit guides us, and Its His love that protects us, its His peace that surpasses all understanding.