Who Do You Fear
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Good morning and welcome to Dishman Baptist Church’s online service. Please take your copy of the Bible and turn to , . If you are joining us for the first time we are very thankful that you are here. If you are a regular Dishman member let me say that we miss you so much and we deeply look forward to the day that we will gather again in this worship center to worship our beautiful Lord and Savior together again.
This morning we have a rather unique story before us. Despite the fact that all three synoptic Gospels share this story, Mark provides more details than either Luke or Matthew.
They came to the other side of the sea, to the region of the Gerasenes.
As soon as he got out of the boat, a man with an unclean spirit came out of the tombs and met him.
He lived in the tombs, and no one was able to restrain him anymore—not even with a chain—
because he often had been bound with shackles and chains, but had torn the chains apart and smashed the shackles. No one was strong enough to subdue him.
Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains, he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones.
When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and knelt down before him.
And he cried out with a loud voice, “What do you have to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you before God, don’t torment me!”
For he had told him, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!”
“What is your name?” he asked him. “My name is Legion,” he answered him, “because we are many.”
And he begged him earnestly not to send them out of the region.
A large herd of pigs was there, feeding on the hillside.
The demons begged him, “Send us to the pigs, so that we may enter them.”
So he gave them permission, and the unclean spirits came out and entered the pigs. The herd of about two thousand rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned there.
The men who tended them ran off and reported it in the town and the countryside, and people went to see what had happened.
They came to Jesus and saw the man who had been demon-possessed, sitting there, dressed and in his right mind; and they were afraid.
Those who had seen it described to them what had happened to the demon-possessed man and told about the pigs.
Then they began to beg him to leave their region.
As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed begged him earnestly that he might remain with him.
Jesus did not let him but told him, “Go home to your own people, and report to them how much the Lord has done for you and how he has had mercy on you.”
So he went out and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him, and they were all amazed.
Have you ever stood in a completely dark place? I don’t mean physically dark - such as a closet or a room with no windows. I mean a spiritually dark place. An oppressive place. During our time in the Navy we had the privilege of being stationed in Japan for three years. During that time we took a trip to a city on the southwestern coast called Kyoto. You may have heard of this city as a famous location for the Geisha girls that are a big part of Japan’s history and culture. Kyoto is also the home to the Fushimi Inari Shrine. A signature feature of the Japanese landscape are the torii gates that mark much of the scenery. The picture on your screen is one taken of me one of the times I climbed Mt. Fuji and just over my right shoulder is a torii gate. Most frequently these gates are found at the entrances or on the grounds of shinto shrines throughout Japan. Well the Fushimi Inari Shrine located in Kyoto is an area up in a mountain glade. Those who visit the shrine are escorted up the path by more than 1000 torii gates. Culturally it is a beautiful area - spiritually it is much less so. My wife and I visited with Hayden and Jeremiah and both of us can remember just the spiritually oppressive feeling we both had when we got back up into those glade among so many smaller shrines.
I can only imagine that as the boats touched the shore the morning following the storm that the men may have gotten that same feeling. Look back with me just so we can remember the context - Jesus had been speaking to His disciples in parables and then at the end of the day He told them to get in the boats saying
On that day, when evening had come, he told them, “Let’s cross over to the other side of the sea.”
During the night one of the storms that is common on the Sea of Galilee overtook them and they were in danger of being swamped - and Jesus was asleep in the stern of the boat. The disciples woke him out of fear for their lives saying “Jesus we’re going to die out here - don’t you care?” Jesus had calmly stood up, said to “Silence, be still” and the storm stopped. The waves grew calm. And now they were really terrified. And here they are this morning, tired because even if that storm were in the early hours of their voyage its hard work being in a storm at sea. And they pull in to the shore. From the rest of the context of our passage this morning I would surmise that it was probably a nondescript stretch of shoreline. There aren’t too many docking facilities that are going to set up shop near a graveyard or near tombs. But this is where Jesus had intended to be all along.
Exactly where this story takes place is debated among scholars. Matthew says that the country was called that of the Gadarenes. Gadara was a one of the cities among the Decapolis. The Decapolis was a confederation of 10 cities liberated from Jewish control by Pompey and made up mostly of gentile population that made up the region on the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee. Gadara was located some 5 miles on the southeastern corner of the Sea of Galilee. The challenge to this locale is that the shoreline is a gentle slope rather than the rocky cliffs in our passage.
Mark tells us that this incident happened in the region of the Gerasenes - and it is possible that he was referencing the much more prominent city of Gerasa further to the southeast. Gerasa was located 35 miles from the shores of Galilee making it less likely unless Mark was referring to the region much like we would refer to the Palouse. There is another, smaller city named Gersa that was located about six miles from Capernaum and where the shoreline was dominated by the kind of rocky cliffs that are a prominent part of the story. It would seem like this is the most likely location for this story to take place.
The story is going to happen in three scenes and we’re going to see three separate reactions to Jesus - and three different manifestations of fear. That is really the deep lesson that we have in this passage this morning and it is one that is very applicable to our headlines today. When faced by the unknown, when faced by circumstances you don’t understand or that don’t make sense, when faced by economic hardship and challenges, when faced in some cases by death who are you going to fear? And how will that fear manifest itself in your life. We’re going to see the reaction of the demons in the exorcism, the reaction of the townspeople in the examination and finally the reaction of the man himself in the exit.
The Exorcism
The Exorcism
When the boats hit the shoreline that morning, nerves that had been frayed by the ordeal the night before were about to get stretched a bit further. Mark tells us that as soon as Jesus gets out of the boat He is met by a man with an unclean spirit. Of all the wretched souls described in the Bible you would be hard pressed to find a man more afflicted and pitiable than this man. This man was the very definition of unclean. Not only was he possessed by an unclean spirit but he lived among tombs. In , Jewish law forbid the touching of dead flesh that would make a man unclean for seven days so Jews generally avoided going anywhere near tombs. adds more information to this man’s plight
When he got out on land, a demon-possessed man from the town met him. For a long time he had worn no clothes and did not stay in a house but in the tombs.
A few years ago my father-in-law, Hayden and I were driving around in downtown San Diego when this half naked figure of a woman came running down the middle of the road towards incoming traffic. It was shocking and disturbing but it was also sad and pitiful. It was also Hayden’s first real exposure to the depravity and sad state of some humans. I can only imagine how much more pitiful this poor man must have looked. His skin was shredded and marked with scars from the cutting that he would do - possibly to relieve himself of the indwelling spirits. Verse 5 also tells us that he was crying out night and day - κραζω (krazo) - carries the meaning to shout or cry out with the possible implication fo the unpleasant nature of the sound.
With no disrespect to any cat lovers in the audience - I think of the screeching howl that a cat makes when it has been captured by coyotes. It’s an awful, guttural sound that makes your skin crawl. Coyotes can grab dogs as well but there is something unnatural about the scream a cat can let out that makes your blood run cold.
This is the image that the disciples and Jesus are met with when the pull in to the shoreline and beach their boats. An unholy terror, a nightmare come to life running down the hill towards them. It is little wonder that all of the action in this story from Jesus and the disciples point of view is singular - the text says that the man fell before him, that at the end of the story the townspeople beg Jesus to leave their region, that he was getting into the boat.
Can you blame the disciples for seeing this man and jumping back into the boats and wanting to leave? There were 13 miles of coastline and this is the 100 yard stretch Jesus decides to pull in to? But there was a meeting that had to happen and this man was central to it. And Jesus wasn’t backing down from it no matter how dangerous or how intimidating it might look.
Mark tells us that this man saw Jesus from a distance and ran and knelt down before Him. This is not simply kneeling down like some of us might do before bed or to do work in the garden - this is a full on prostration. This word προσκυνεω (proskuneo) means to express by attitude and possibly position one allegiance to and regard for deity - to prostrate oneself in worship. This is an immediate recognition on the part of the demons Who was being approached. Note well though that even in prostrating the man the demons weren’t doing this out of true worship but out of a futile attempt to control the situation. His address to Christ “Jesus Son of the Most High God” though demonstrates that he knows who he’s dealing with - the Morningstar, the Immortal, Unchanging, All-Powerful Son of God. The One who, prior to his own rebellion, had commanded this demon’s allegiance and Who’s armies had cast him down from Heaven.
This is where one of the unique elements of this particular story enters in. We get to witness a bit of give and take between Jesus and the demon. This is the only story like this that is recounted for us in the Gospels. All the other exorcisms of Jesus involve Him telling the demon to leave and it does. Yes, other passages tell us that the demons were crying out “what do you have to do with us” or identifying Jesus for Who He really was but nothing like the exchange we have here. Here these demons, after a quick meeting and “not me” session, with one as a spokesman speak up and beg Jesus not to send them out of the region or into the abyss that is the already determined destination for all of the demonic host.
Jesus asks this demon its name and is told Legion. We get another glimpse into this poor man’s pitiful condition. A Roman legion, the most familiar example of legion that Mark’s readers would have been familiar with, was made up of no less than 5600 foot soldiers and possible another 150 calvary. This poor man was most seriously afflicted. The demons had a choice as they looked around - to be sent into a herd of pigs or banished to the abyss. So they beg Jesus to send them into the herd of pigs. Maybe they thought that they’d just go hang out there for a little while until they could find a way to capture another poor soul - maybe even the swine-herders. I don’t think they asked to go to the pigs as one last act of demonic mischief by driving the pigs down the cliff to their deaths. I don’t think they expected that the pigs, as non-rational, unthinking animals would simply rush headlong into the sea when they came upon them. But that’s what happened and there was one person on the shore that day who wasn’t surprised - Jesus. He wasn’t surprised by any thing that had taken place from the moment He stepped on to that beach.
The demons demonstrated the first type of fear that we see in this passage. They knew who Jesus was and feared Him but only for what He could do to them. Unlike the other characters in this drama we’re going to look at, they didn’t have the capacity or the desire to repent and truly submit to His Lordship and so they didn’t. They ended up in a herd of swine running headlong down the cliffs and into the sea - an event which precipitates the arrival of our next group of characters and our next view of fear.
The Examination
The Examination
It was probably a completely normal morning in the town of Gersa. Families were making breakfast. Men were getting ready to go to work in their shops or down to the sea to fish. Maybe there was a shift of them about to head out to the herd of swine that was kept not far from the village when the men who had the night shift came running in to town. The story would have been sensational. There they were minding their own business when a couple, 2 or 3 they weren’t sure which, boats had appeared. This guy gets out and that lunatic that lives in the tombs (I imagine a few children ducked behind their mother’s skirts at the reference to him) went running down the beach towards them howling. A man got out and there was some conversation that was too far away for us to hear and then BAM the pigs just started running down the hill and before we knew it they were over the bank and in the sea. All 2000 of them drowned.
Even in this predominantly Gentile region having a heard of 2000 pigs would have been quite an accomplishment and a financial investment. Back before all of this quarantine started the whole crisis touched off with the stock market taking a plunge - we even alluded to it a few weeks ago. Well this herd’s death would have had nearly the same impact on the local economy as the stock market crashing, our restaurants closing and store shelves being bare. Imagine the shock of these people. But they had to see this for themselves and so as one they moved toward the seashore with uncertainty now heavy in their lives. And notice - they didn’t go to Jesus primarily to find out about the man. They went there to find out what had happened - to their herd. It was only after they arrived that they saw the man. And they were afraid.
Why did this scare them so? Look back in the passage with me to verses 3-5
He lived in the tombs, and no one was able to restrain him anymore—not even with a chain—
because he often had been bound with shackles and chains, but had torn the chains apart and smashed the shackles. No one was strong enough to subdue him.
Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains, he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones.
These villagers had been terrorized by this man. They had lain awake at night as his eerie howls pierced their countryside. They’d tried repeatedly to bind him in the tombs - maybe in hopes that he would starve to death - only to have him break the bonds and tear the chains and shackles like string. Their children had been frightened by him. He was the most pitiful and most terrible creature they had ever seen and they could…do…nothing…about…it. And yet here he was sitting mildly at Jesus feet, maybe eating a fish breakfast, clothed and in his right mind for the first time in how long?
All thoughts of financial reparations left in an instant. Baker’s Commentary says this “The greater the strength of the demoniac, and he was indeed very strong, the greater must be the strength and power of Jesus, the demons’ conqueror.” What great power they were faced with and their reaction was fear. They were afraid. Something stronger than their tormenter had arrived and their only reaction is to beg Him to get back into His boat and leave.
There is no Disney ending here - no banquet for the conquering hero. No great songs composed in His honor, regaling His deeds. No one falls on their knees in homage to Him, the way the demons did, and begs Him to be their Lord. The meet Jesus, have no idea who He is but when faced with His power they fear Him and so instead of repenting and submitting to Him - clearly this power had to be divine in order to deal with such a great demonic threat - they fear Him and beg Him to leave.
The greater the strength of the demoniac, and he was indeed very strong, the greater must be the strength and power of Jesus, the demons’ conqueror
What a sad day for them. Yes, they were probably financially ruined. But a man had been restored - and in such a way that could only be explained as supernatural - and their response is fear. And not ordinary fear. The word here is φοβεω (phobeo) from which we get the word phobia. This is a paralyzing fear. An extreme fear. A terror that frightens them even more than the man with the legion of demons used to. The night before the disciples had experienced this same type of fear after Jesus had calmed the wind and the waves. This morning on this beach these townspeople were experiencing the fearful dread of being in the presence of someone they could not explain, who had a power they could not explain.
And so they asked Him to leave. But not all of them. There was one.
The Exit
The Exit
There was the man. The man who had seen and been a part of all of it. The one who had been wracked by internal and external pain that must have been unbearable. The man who now sat in his right mind and operating out of that new capacity for rational thought recognized who Jesus was and demonstrates the proper fear of Him - an awe A-W-E ful respect that desires to be with Him.
The text says that he begged Him earnestly that he might remain with Him. The phrase remain with Him calls us back to the passage in where Jesus calls His disciples to be with Him
Jesus went up the mountain and summoned those he wanted, and they came to him.
He appointed twelve, whom he also named apostles, to be with him, to send them out to preach,
:
This is the desire of one who truly wants to be a disciple of Jesus. To be with Him. μετα αυτος (meta autos) Oh what a pure desire. How many of us share this same desire - to be with Him? Paul sums it up best in
For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.
And yet how often are we delinquent in this very pursuit? Right now we’ve been given a great opportunity to slow down, to reorient our lives and to spend time with Him. Not in some mystical fashion chanting nonsensical lyrics and humming or whatever - but really slowing down to be in His Word. To challenge ourselves with some deep devotional reading or even taking a class or watching something that broadens our spiritual minds not just binge watching the office or whatever the latest tv craze is. To be with Him.
And yet we can’t be completely with Him because we have work to do. The same work given to this man. This is the only instance in the Gospels where Jesus has interaction with the demon He is casting out and it is the only instance where He tells someone to “go home to your own people, and report to them how much the Lord has done for you and how He has had mercy on you.” And this man is a Gentile. The first missionary in the history of the church was a Gentile demoniac. Maybe Jesus left him behind because taking a Gentile with Him back into Judea and Galilee to continue His ministry there would have caused even more trouble than He was already in. Either way Jesus tells him to stay and he does it.
It says that he went out into the Decapolis and began to proclaim - to announce extensively and publicly - what Jesus had done for him. This man demonstrates his fear of Christ - that morning when he woke up in the tombs he had no idea who Christ was but by the end of the day he knew Him to be the Son of God. He had an awe(AWE)ful reverence for Him and he submitted to His authority and commands in his life. And the result was not only his own salvation but that an entire countryside was amazed.
Conclusion
Conclusion
We live in a time where we have been inconvenienced by God. We live in a time where many have and are responding in fear to what is happening around them. Some because they cannot understand it. Some because even if they do understand it, they’re not willing to submit to the authority behind it. The one question we haven’t addressed this morning is why did Jesus destroy the livelihood of an entire village to save one man. Because in the economy of Heaven a soul is more important than any amount of riches. As one commentator writes “In the eyes of Jesus, the rescue and restoration of one person is more important than vast capital assets. Compared to the redemption of a human being, the loss of the swineherds, considerable though it is, does not rate mentioning.”
In the eyes of Jesus, the rescue and restoration of one person is more important than vast capital assets. Compared to the redemption of a human being, the loss of the swineherds, considerable though it is, does not rate mentioning.
Charles Finney said it this way “There are … two kinds of fear. There is that fear of the Lord which is the beginning of wisdom, which is founded in love. There is also a slavish fear, which is a mere dread of evil, and is purely selfish.”
How do you fear the Lord this morning? Charles Spurgeon once said these words
300 Quotations for Preachers from the Modern Church The Two Kinds of Fear
There are … two kinds of fear. There is that fear of the Lord which is the beginning of wisdom, which is founded in love. There is also a slavish fear, which is a mere dread of evil, and is purely selfish.
Edwards, J. R. (2002). The Gospel according to Mark (p. 159). Grand Rapids, MI; Leicester, England: Eerdmans; Apollos.
There are … two kinds of fear. There is that fear of the Lord which is the beginning of wisdom, which is founded in love. There is also a slavish fear, which is a mere dread of evil, and is purely selfish.
483One said to me this week, “I am afraid to come to God, for I believe I am only driven to him by the vile motive of fear.”
“Ah,” I replied, “it was the devil who told you that, because in Hebrews 11 we read that ‘Noah, being moved with fear, built an ark for the saving of his house’ ” (v. 7). Fear is a very proper motive for a guilty man to feel. Where else can such poor sinners as we are begin, except with selfish fear? As to its being vile to fear, it would be viler still to defy your God. You ought not to say “It is too vile a motive.” Why, what but a vile motive can be expected from such a vile wretch as you?