How Evil Is Defeated

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. So we are in, we keep going in this series. I don't know when we should stop, you know. It's called Simply Jesus. We're in the Gospel of Mark. We're only at Chapter 5. So, now we kind of skipped ahead for Palm Sunday and Easter to the end, you know, to those events in the Gospel of Mark. But we're back at Chapter 5. And last week, we were in Chapter 4, and we heard for the first time any length of teaching that Jesus had. And he spoke to the crowds in parables, and we talked about that, and how Jesus wasn't trying to keep people away, but trying to get behind their defense mechanisms. If he spoke directly and fully, it's amazing in the Gospel of Mark, specifically, what's called the Messianic Secret, the Messiah, that he doesn't let everybody know up front who he is. And the reason is because then they wouldn't listen. They'd reject him immediately. In fact, when he finally does in the Gospel of Mark, specifically for the first time to the most religious person, the one that's probably the best learned, Caiaphas, the high priest, when he speaks bluntly, yes, I am the Messiah, that is exactly when Caiaphas rips his robe, cries out blasphemy, and condemns him to death. And you might go, well, hey, this world, he came to his own, the Gospel of John says, but his own would not receive him. There is something about our human nature in all of us, not just some of us, that just really defies and just kind of has this, you've probably seen it in yourself, haven't you? Yeah, probably, huh? Yeah, I know I have. Just this kind of don't tell me what to do attitude. But I'm going to tell you what to do. That's that sinful wickedness that's in all of us in one form or another. Right, Emma? It's there. You've probably defied your mom and dad once in a while. It'll only get worse through the teenage years. You all. Yeah, she's she's faced it. Yeah. So now this week we come to the longest and most vivid account of an exorcism in the entire Bible. Mark, Chapter five, it's 20 verses long. It's noteworthy for a couple of reasons. One is, did you realize there is not one exorcism recorded in all of the Old Testament, those thirty nine books, not one. Now, the presence of what's termed the Satan, OK, that and it's always got the in front of it. So Satan is not a proper name. It is a word for the accuser, the adversary. OK, the opponent comes up. He is present in the Old Testament, the serpent in the garden. There are words like Leviathan and there's others that talk about the presence of evil and evil spirits in the Old Testament. But there is not one exorcism. And it's when Jesus enters the story. All of a sudden there's this immediate confrontation with evil. OK, so we're going to read this text and see, like I said, the most graphic account, the most detailed account of a demonic possession. They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the garrisons. And when Jesus had stepped out of the boat immediately there, met him out of the tombs, a man with an unclean spirit. He lived among the tombs and no one could bind him anymore. Not even with a chain, for he had often been bound with shackles and chains. But he wrenched the chains apart and broke the shackles in pieces. No one had the strength to subdue him night and day among the tombs and on the mountains. He was always crying out and cutting himself with stones. And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and fell down before him and crying out with a loud voice. He said, what have you to do with me, Jesus, son of the most high God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me. For he was saying to him, come out of the man, you unclean spirit. And Jesus asked him, what is your name? He replied, my name is Legion, for we are many. And he begged him earnestly not to send him out of the country. Now, a great herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside and they begged him, saying, send us to the pigs, let us enter them. So he gave them permission and the unclean spirits came out and entered the pigs. And the herd, numbering about 2000, rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the sea. The herdsmen fled and told it in the city and the country. And people came to see what it was that had happened. And they came to Jesus and saw the demon possessed man, the one who had had the Legion sitting there, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid. And those who had seen it described to them what had happened to the demon possessed man and to the pigs. And they began to beg Jesus to depart from their region. As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed with demons begged him that he might be with him. And he did not permit him, but said to him, go home to your friends. Tell them how much the Lord has done for you and how he has had mercy on you. And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how...