Sermon Tone Analysis

Two extremes give Satan great satisfaction.

Some fall into the trap of disbelief in his reality.

Kenneth Woodward, for example, regards the Devil as merely a “trivial personification … hardly adequate to symbolize the mystery of evil.”

Some, on the other hand, have an inordinate interest in the Devil and his dark world.

In the preface to his famous Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis wrote:

There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils.

One is to disbelieve in their existence.

The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them.

They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist and magician with the same delight.

There is no doubt that people can go overboard in their fascination with the Devil and demons.

It was not long ago that in the suburbs of one of our major cities a promising renewal took place among a number of professional families—doctors, lawyers, and business executives.

It gave birth to a joyous, thriving Bible study.

More of their friends came to Christ.

Marriages were enriched, families restored, and the Church infused with new life.

But some of the leadership became overly fascinated with the subject of spiritual warfare and took their eyes off Christ to become self-styled experts in demons and exorcism.

Things were clearly getting out of hand when one night they became convinced there were demons in the dining room chandelier and ended the “Bible study” by dissembling the light fixture so each could take a part of it and bury it in a different part of the city.

The crowning embarrassment to the Christian community came later when one morning some of their children were seen by neighbors running down the street shouting, “The Devil is going to get us!

The Devil is going to get us!” Responding, the neighbors found the group’s women in the backyard hacking a rosewood chest to pieces to dispose of supposed demons.

The lesson?

If Satan cannot pull you down, he will just as happily push you overboard.

As we study today’s text we will affirm the biblical reality of Satan and his host but we will refrain from promoting an unhealthy fascination of our enemy.

Our goal is to reveal Satan’s purpose and then demonstrate Jesus’ power over Satan’s evil forces and His ability to heal the harm which they have done.

Verses 1 and 2 reveal that Christ’s encounter with the demoniac took place the morning following his calming of the great night storm on the Sea of Galilee.

They had just survived drowning and now they are hearing the screams of a demoniac.

Jesus came straight from his confrontation with the storm in nature to confront an equally violent storm in human nature.

The region of the Gerasenes was an unsavory place according to Jewish thinking.

JESUS CONFRONTS DEMONIZATION (vv.

3–10)

Mark has given us an elaborate and frank picture of the demoniac.

The story is pathetic and heart-wrenching, for this was a human being.

I picture his eyes black, shifty, darting around like lightening; his face grimaced, distorted, framed with a distressing look; his brow stuck in furrowed position; his hair unkempt, matted & mangled; his teeth brownish/orange from stains; breath that could melt a candlestick; body odor…not a stench to “high heaven”, but an aerosol from hell itself; his body naked with no dignity; nails over grown & curling like claws; arms bloody, scabbed, from self-mutilation; ankles adorning fetter anklets from previous botched attempts of chaining.

His home…a cave w/a continuous smell of decomposing human corpses.

No discipline, no authority, no restraint!

[A] man with an evil spirit came from the tombs to meet him.

This man lived in the tombs, and no one could bind him any more, not even with a chain.

For he had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet.

No one was strong enough to subdue him.

Night and day among the tombs and in the hills he would cry out and cut himself with stones.

(vv.

2b-5)

It is a vivid picture of what we look like without Christ.

Everybody is going to be possessed by something or somebody.

God did not design the human heart to be a vacuum but to be occupied by Jesus.

This man was “demonized.”

Our text regularly speaks of him as being “demon-possessed” (vv.

16, 18), but the literal translation is “demonized”—that is, under the influence of one or more evil spirits.

Demonization can vary in degree of influence.

Here it was extreme.

The “evil spirit” is literally an “unclean spirit.”

Typically, those under the sway of demons descend to filthy living, both physically and morally.

This man lived in the “tombs,” rock-hewn caverns furnished with dead men’s bones and carpeted with filth and vermin.

The local townspeople had attempted to restrain him, but with terrifying herculean strength he had broken the fetters which bound him.

He was uncontrollable and dangerous.

Inside, he was totally wretched.

At intervals during the night and day he would let out a unnatural howl, then gash himself with jagged rocks in an obvious attempt to drive out the evil spirits.

This poor, naked man was a mass of bleeding lacerations, scabs, infections, and scar tissue, living in a delirium of pain and masochistic pleasure.

The man was running wild, naked, unkempt, and ill, and as a result all were against him.

He was repulsive, unloved and, unwelcome.

What misery!

Of course, not all demonization is so blatantly gross.

This teaches us that demonized men and women can appear utterly conventional.

They can even be spiritual leaders in the Christian community.

tells us: “And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.

It is not surprising, then, if his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness.”

Demonized men and women can appear utterly conventional.

They can even be spiritual leaders in the Christian community.

I myself have known some whose bondage to evil was uncovered.

However, we must not foolishly think that human beings must be demonized to descend to the degradation of the Gerasene demoniac.

Sin is native to the human situation:

).

As Turgenev said, “I do not know what the heart of a bad man is like, but I know what the heart of a good man is like … and it is terrible.”

Russian novelist Ivan Turgenev said, “I do not know what the heart of a bad man is like, but I know what the heart of a good man is like … and it is terrible.”

We need the theological wisdom and honesty of the little girl who had a terrific fight with her brother.

When her mother came in and pulled her off, she said to her daughter, “Why did you let the Devil put it into your heart to pull your brother’s hair and kick him in the shins?”

The little girl thought for a moment and said, “Well, maybe the Devil put it into my head to pull my brother’s hair, but kicking his shins was my own idea.”

We are very capable of being evil all by ourselves!

Nevertheless, demons do drive men and women to the depths of depravity.

Why?

Because Satan and his minions hate God.

They will do anything to attack him.

Mankind was created in the image of God

There is nothing that brings God more glory than manifesting His image.

Satan hates this.

Thus, the demonic function is to distort and destroy the image of God in man.

As Werner Foerster says:

and brings glory to him the more we manifest his image.

Satan hates this.

Thus, the demonic function is to distort and destroy the image of God in man.

As Werner Foerster says:

…in most of the stories of possession, what is at issue is not merely sickness but a destruction and distortion of the divine likeness of man according to creation.

The center of personality, the volitional and active ego, is inspired by alien powers which seek to ruin man.

If Tertullian was right that “The glory of God is man fully alive,” then it is true that the slaying of man (the distortion of the divine image through sin) is an attack on the glory of God.

We must do everything we can, through Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit, to enhance the image of God in our lives.

Confrontation was inevitable, and “When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and fell on his knees in front of him” (v. 6).

Jesus and the disciples beached the boat and made it secure, and the next thing they knew they were being charge by a naked, screaming maniac.

Surprisingly, he cast himself on his knees in front of Jesus—animalized, filthy, bleeding.

Then “He shouted at the top of his voice.”

The tense here indicates that he screamed an inarticulate cry before speaking, a preternatural howl.

When the scream subsided, the disciples heard this:

In accordance with ancient belief, the reciting of Jesus’ title was not a confession of his Deity, but a desperate attempt to gain control over him.

Jesus stood firm, addressing the spirit within the man:

It was a chilling admission.