In this sermon, our guest, Pastor Tom McConnell, examines Luke 8:29-39 and the account of Jesus delivering the man with the legion of demons. Pastor Tom explains two lessons about deliverance that should result in the exaltation of Jesus—even new belief in Jesus and new boldness for Jesus.
1. The Need for Jesus’ Deliverance (vv. 26-33)
2. The Responses to Jesus’ Deliverance (vv. 34-39)
Full Transcript:
Good morning, and it’s a delight to be with you at Calvary Community Church. I want to extend my sincere thanks to Pastor Babij and his wife Jayne for welcoming us to the area last night. Wonderful dinner we had together, and to the elders who have welcomed us and carved time out of your busy schedules to get to know us and visit with us. It’s a delight to be with you. Your church has an excellent reputation among those of us who know and love the Lord Jesus Christ overseas, and particularly those of us who are at Grace Community Church in Los Angeles, where my wife and I are missionaries for nearly 20 years in the United Kingdom. For many of you at the Sunday school hour, you heard about our missions work in the United Kingdom in Rugby, England. But for the rest of you who are just coming into the service this hour, we’d like to invite you at the end of the service to get a missionary prayer card at the back there and to sign up to receive our missionary newsletter so that you can pray intelligently for us. Our biggest need are the faithful prayers of believers who know and love the Lord Jesus Christ and will regularly pray for us, and the best way for you to do that is to receive our newsletter at the back after the service. So please do that. We’d love to talk with you more about our missionary work in the United Kingdom these last 20 years during our fellowship time, even after the breaking of bread, and I understand there’s a meal after the service. So all of you who’ll be staying back, we would love to meet you and tell you more about that ministry.
Well, on behalf of my wife, Kathy, and my children who are with us here today, we want to thank you for having us. I bring you greetings from my fellow elders in Rugby, England, at Grace Bible Church Rugby, who are five hours ahead of us, and they’ve already had their worship service and are into their afternoon. And so I want to make sure that I greet you on their behalf and in the Lord’s name. Our two nations have much on their minds, particularly today. Our two nations, the United Kingdom and America, are in many respects reeling emotionally, in many ways thinking about weighted matters. In the United Kingdom, you know we’ve had not only the change of a national leader and our prime minister, but we’ve had the death of a sovereign, a longstanding sovereign, in the death of our queen, and the nation is mourning the death of their beloved queen. And at the same time, 21 years after 9/11, America has not forgotten and continues to remember what happened 21 years ago here on 9/11.
And I couldn’t help but think that on such a day like this, that what would be a better antidote, what would be a better remedy for us than to draw hope and comfort from our Savior and from the gospel that our Savior came to bring to instill hope for eternal life, as we even celebrated the homegoing of these two believers who are now in the presence of God. And I want us to be able to be filled with hope today. I want us to be able to be comforted by our Savior, whether you’re remembering those lives lost on 9/11 or you’re thinking about a nation like the United Kingdom that is filled with uncertainty at the time of its change in its monarch.
I’d like to invite you to open your Bibles to Luke 8 this morning, to the passage that was read in Luke 8 this morning, as we consider the subject of deliverance. That word deliverance is a synonym for the word salvation. We’re gonna look at this subject deliverance or salvation, which is one of the greatest, if not the greatest theme of all of scripture, dominating the Bible from Genesis 3:15 to the end of the book of Revelation, or from the beginning and the end of the Bible.
This subject of deliverance in Luke’s gospel focuses on the deliverer first, that is Jesus, and secondly focuses on those who need deliverance – all sorts of people as you read through the gospel of Luke. You’re gonna see Jesus as the deliverer and you’re going to see multitudes of different people in varying needs needing to be delivered. Or if I could say it so bluntly, be saved, which is also a synonym for deliverance, so is translated from the Greek to be deliverer or to save. And in Luke’s gospel, the gospel of Luke, Luke wants Theophilus, the young believer to whom he wrote the gospel of Luke, to understand that Jesus is not just a man, but that Jesus is the powerful fulfillment, divine fulfillment of Daniel 7:13-14. He’s the Son of man who’s coming before the ancient of days. And Jesus’s dominion is going to be, as Daniel records in Daniel 7:13-14, an everlasting dominion, which will not pass away. In other words, if he’s a man and only a man, certainly his rule will end at the end of his days. But if He’s more than a man, if Jesus is man and if he’s God, who’s taken on the nature of a man in His incarnation, then His kingdom will have no end. And that’s what Daniel prophesied in the Old Testament. And that’s what Jesus is presented by Luke as being the fulfillment of Daniel’s prophecy in the gospel of Luke.
It is here as you open your Bibles to Luke 8 this morning that we find ourselves in the midst of Luke writing about the life of Jesus. And at this particular occasion in Luke 8, before we even get to our text, the preceding narrative or the preceding text, not even Jesus’s disciples yet understood who Jesus is to this very point. If you look down in verses 22 to 25, there’s that great narrative historical event of Jesus calming the sea. And Jesus and His disciples in those verses get into a boat on the Sea of Galilee and they set sail. And as they set sail, Jesus falls asleep in the boat. Verse 23 tells us that a windstorm came down on the lake and the boat started taking on water to such a degree that the disciples woke Jesus up from His sleep in verse 24 saying, Master, Master, we are perishing. Jesus, disturbed from His sleep, displayed His divinity to His disciples in the most disturbing way, at least to His disciples. According to the parallel passage in Mark 4:39, Jesus gets up, looks up and speaks up, speaking to the winds in the sea. Jesus hushed the winds in the sea saying, Peace, be still. And suddenly the once storm-tossed Sea of Galilee became Lake Placid.
Do you remember how Jesus’s hush of nature impacted the disciples in the boat that day? Well, Matthew 8:27 tells us that His disciples marveled saying, What sort of man is this that even the winds and sea obey Him? Mark 4:41 tells us that His disciples were filled with mega phobia or great fear. Luke 8:25 includes the mingling of fear and marveling as the disciples respond to Jesus’s demonstration of his power over the forces of nature. You see, the disciples who were working closely with Jesus, whom Jesus had called, did not even fully recognize yet that He is not just man, but He is divine God, the son of the living God. But they got to see His power over the forces of nature in those few verses, verses 22 and 25.
But in our text this morning, those verses that succeed those verses, they’re not only gonna see Jesus’s power over the forces of nature, but they’re going to see Jesus’s power as God over the forces of darkness. And in Luke 8:26-39, Jesus demonstrates His power over the forces of darkness by delivering a man who was completely and totally in the grip of demonic darkness. Luke’s account of this man’s deliverance can be divided into two parts, from which I’ll draw two lessons about deliverance. So if you’re taking notes, and I recommend that you do, and I trust many of you already are, two lessons about deliverance that should result in the exaltation of Jesus. This is what I hope we will see.
And what I hope is accomplished in God’s word could be, and my own personal desire would be, number one, so that those of you who have not yet repented of your sins and believed savingly on the Lord Jesus Christ would look to Him and Him alone for your deliverance. You need to be delivered if you don’t know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. And I don’t just mean about facts about Jesus, but I mean resting and trusting entirely in Jesus and Him alone for the forgiveness of your sins.
And secondly, for those of us who know and love Christ, as we look at this gospel narrative, my desire is that you’ll be more bold and more courageous and more filled with zeal to make His name great among the nations, so that from the rising of the sun to the setting of the same, His name will be made great by you and others like us. His name will be made great among the nations. So these two lessons about deliverance deliverance with these two human goals. Obviously, we know Isaiah 55:11 says that the Lord’s word will not return void, but He’ll accomplish His own purposes with it. I’m sure that the Lord will have other dealings other than these two that I’ve just mentioned. But these two lessons about deliverance are easy to remember.
Here are the two heads, as they would say in Britain, or the two main points. Sorry, there’s not three main points today, Pastor, but it’s just the way it’s unfolded in the text, as I can see it. There’s verses 27 through 33. There is a need for Jesus’s deliverance. And verses 34 through 39, I’ve summarized it as being there is a response or there are responses to Jesus’s deliverance. The need and the responses, those are the two heads as this narrative breaks down for us.
The first lesson to learn about Jesus’s deliverance is there’s a need for it. There’s a need for the deliverance that Jesus brings, even as we’ll see here in the narrative. But there’s a need for the deliverance that Jesus brings today. There’s a need for Jesus’s deliverance. And there are two details about this man as we read of him, this man that proved to us that he needs deliverance. These two details could be described this way. First, there’s the man’s description argues that this man needs deliverance.
This man is described in five ways. His local origin in verse 27 is being a man from the city. Secondly, his spiritual condition noted there in the same verse that he was a man who was, as it says in the NAS, who was possessed by demons. Second description, his spiritual condition. Who are these demons that Jesus is facing when we think about this man’s spiritual condition? Well, in Matthew chapter 8:28, this man is described as a demon-possessed man, a man of unclean spirit in Mark. And he is said to be possessed by these. These demons are corrupt spiritual beings. They’re called by various names and descriptions throughout the scripture, like, for example, familiar spirits in Leviticus 20:6, unclean spirits in Acts 5:16. They’re called principalities. They’re called wicked rulers of this present darkness, wicked rulers and authority in Ephesians 6:12 and Colossians 2:15.
And according to scripture, demons are fallen angels who followed Satan in rebellion against God, say, for example, as mentioned in Revelation 11:4. They were cursed by God and cast out of heaven. And many of these wicked, rebellious, unclean spirits, God had committed to be reserved in chains of darkness until the final judgment. We read about that, that those who rebelled with Satan and were kicked out of heaven, 2 Peter 2:4 said that,
For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment;
And Jude 6 says,
And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day—
The point is this, that many of those angels now who have fallen or called demons now that were kicked out of heaven are reserved in chains of gloomy darkness even till now. They are not the ones who are hindering the work of God, are attacking the work of God in the present day or in the time of Christ here. But there are other demons who were not reserved in gloomy chains of darkness who were going about wreaking havoc and seeking to kill the image of God in man, the Imago Dei. And they sought to destroy man and prevent man from coming to know the God, the one and only true God who would save them from their sins. You need to understand that many of these demons were permitted to move on the earth as we clearly see in this passage here in Luke 8. And in other gospel passages throughout the New Testament.
And I must say it this way just before we leave who these demons are. I must remind you many of you know about Adam and Eve and Satan in the garden and the temptation in the fall. And now many of you know about the rebellious angels, some who are reserved in darkness and some who are wreaking havoc and trying to make a living hell for those who are made in the image of God on earth and prevent them from believing the gospel. You need to know that while God provides redemption for sinful humanity, those of us who are human beings, of which we are part, God has sealed the sinful state of these rebel spirits forever. You need to understand this, that when the spiritual realm of darkness comes into contact with fallen sinful humanity, they are both depraved, they are both under God’s judgment, they are both rebels against God, but one of those beings, one of those people has hope for their sins forgiven, but the other has no hope. They are eternally lost. They are eternally separated from God and nothing we read of in the scripture says that there’s any remedy or redemption for those fallen angels. They are sealed for the day of judgment. You need to see how important not man is in general, but the kind of love that God has set on those made in His image, that is human beings, men and women made in the image of God.
Ebenezer Pemberton, not far from here, preached the ordination ministry of David Brainerd, and he goes on to say that this present world that we live in, we once enjoyed the favor of God, but sin defaced the beauty of creation and caused the Lord of this lower world, man, to grieve the most disconsolate circumstances. God looked at our deplorable state. Infinite wisdom touched the heart of the Father of mercies and infinite wisdom laid the plan for our recovery, that is, redemption. And God has not made such a plan for the fallen angels. And I dare say, we would risk a greater judgment because God has provided a way for you to be saved, for humanity to be saved. And if you continue to reject the Lord Jesus Christ, you will have to stand before a God who sent His only Son into the world that whoever believed in Him might not perish, but have eternal life. You are that much more culpable. And you are responsible, as Paul says in Romans, you are without excuse.
Number three, his description, his physical description of being destitute and desperate. It says in the text that this man had not put on any clothing, and for a long time, can you see the scene of this destitute man who is in desperate circumstances? The fourth description of his current residence, not living in a house, notice the negative, but in the tombs, according to NASB. He is described as coming out of the tombs or dwelling among the tombs. This is his place of residency among the dead. And then finally, his fifth description is his length of captivity to darkness. Only Luke’s gospel tells us the length of time in which he was caught by the power of darkness and held by it. But what Luke does record, inspired by the Holy Spirit, tells us that it was for a long time. He had worn no clothes for a long time. He had not lived in a house for a long time. He was under the power of sin and darkness for a long time. And this man’s description, his five-fold description, argues or proves that this man is in desperate need of deliverance that Jesus and Jesus Christ alone can provide.
However, there’s a second detail which proves this man’s need of deliverance, and it’s the man’s recognition of Jesus. We not only know that he needs deliverance because of his description, but we know he needs deliverance because of his recognition of Jesus, and I want to explain what I mean by that from this text. First of all, without an introduction, as the text says in verses 27 and 28, without an introduction, the man knew Jesus’s name. Do you see that?
And when He came out onto the land, He was met by a man from the city who was possessed with demons; and who had not put on any clothing for a long time, and was not living in a house, but in the tombs. Seeing Jesus, he cried out and fell before Him, and said in a loud voice, “What business do we have with each other, Jesus,”
Without any introduction, this man knew Jesus’s name. Let me hasten to add that the meeting took place, this meeting between Jesus and this man, took place too soon for an introduction. The NAS says when he had come out onto land, but the parallel passage in Mark 5:2 uses the word immediately. That’s a helpful adverb in the text. Immediately, as Jesus steps out of the boat, this meeting between this man and Jesus, before any introductions are given, takes place. It was too soon for an introduction.
And notice, secondly, that this meeting was too intense for introduction. Matthew 8:28 talk about two demoniacs at this particular occasion, and Luke’s gospel focuses, most scholars believe, on the ringleader of the two or the leader of the two. So Luke is talking about what has got the lens of the gospel focused on one of those two demoniacs. But Matthew 8:28 tells us that they were so fierce that no one could pass that way. That’s why I say the meeting between Jesus and this man was too sudden or it was too soon and it was too tense. No one could pass by this way.
Acts 19:14-16 tell us what the power of one demon can do in a man. You remember the seven sons of Sceva, the Jewish high priest named Sceva. What they were doing, they were casting out demons using the name of Jesus, although not believing on the name of Jesus, not being followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. But they were casting out evil spirits in the name of Jesus, the powerful name of Jesus. And then that one evil spirit answered them saying, Jesus, I know, and Paul, I recognize, but who are you guys? And the scripture says,
And the man, in whom was the evil spirit, leaped on them and subdued all of them and overpowered them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.
I say to you, this was an intense moment that was happening right before Jesus and His disciples and those who were privy to be there. And despite the intensity of the moment and despite the speed of the confrontation, this man knew Jesus’ name. What business do we have to do with each other, Jesus? Isn’t that interesting? It’s so obvious, we might miss it. You remember what the name Jesus means, right? We talk about it every Christmas, right? And there shall be a son born to you and you shall call His name Jesus for He will what? He will save, He will deliver His people from their sin. And we know that Jesus is the New Testament equivalent of Yahoshua in the Old Testament, which means Yahweh delivers, Yahweh saves. That’s what Jesus’ name means. It means Yahweh delivers.
Do you get the picture here? Here is this man in need of deliverance saying to the one that who is the Creator of the ends of the earth, what have we to do with You, Yahweh delivers? Do you get it? The man recognizes, the man who needs deliverance is not asking Jesus to deliver him. In fact, it’s like he wants Jesus, the deliverer, to go away from him. And you’ll understand why, because it says that he was possessed by these demons. The man who needed deliverance was in the presence of the one and only person who could bring him deliverance, but he was saying, I don’t want anything to do with You, Yahweh saves, Yahweh delivers. No introductions were possible. No introductions were necessary because the man knew Jesus’ name.
So, without an introduction, the man knew Jesus’ name, but secondly, without explanation, the man knew Jesus’ true identity. In verse 28, what have we to do with you, Jesus, listen, son of the most high God? That brings us back to Daniel 7:13-14, doesn’t it? Jesus is not only the Son of man, as you’ll see in Luke’s gospel, but He’s the Son of man not only to speak of His humanity, but of prophecy that speaks about His eternality, His divinity. They know who Jesus is greater than so many of us think we know who Jesus is. They have a better Christology than we have, these demons. They have an accurate understanding of who Jesus is.
I must tell you this for your own good, that having an accurate understanding of who Jesus is alone by itself is not enough to save you. You need to understand that you may have heard about Jesus as a child. You may have been taught the Sunday school data about the gospel as a child. You may assent that the data of the gospel is true, and if that describes you fully and wholeheartedly in only those two things, the data of the gospel and assenting that the gospel is true, you’re still lost and in sin’s grip because without faith, it is impossible to please God. For he that comes to God must first believe that He is and that He’s a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.
You see, without fiducia or fiducia, without that whole soul resting entirely in Christ, and here’s the Reformed word, sola, Christ alone. It’s not Jesus plus Mary or Jesus plus the church or Jesus plus your money or Jesus plus your good works. It’s Christ alone resting in Him, and I’m not just talking about believing in Jesus the same way do you believe in the Queen Mother or you believe in King Charles as a historical figure. Because certainly when we say, have you believed in Jesus? We’re not just talking about just knowing that He is an accurate and actual historical figure who’s alive forevermore. Certainly He’s that.
No, to believe is not just to give assent that He’s historical. To believe is to take all that He said He is and all that He came to do in dying a death you and I could not die and living a life that you and I could not live, being put in a tomb three days later, rising again from the tomb in victory over sin, death, and hell for our justification. To believe on the Lord Jesus Christ is not just to believe that He exists, but it means to rest entirely and only in Him for the forgiveness of your sins. He and He alone. We are not saved by a doctrine. We are saved by a person, the Lord Jesus Christ. I have no hope but Christ. I have no hope of getting into heaven or having my sins forgiven except He said, believe on Him. To as many as received Him, that means by faith to believe on Him, to those people He gave the right to become the children of God, to those who believe in His name.
You may say I believe Jesus is who he says he is, and I believe Jesus is the son of the most high God. James 2:19 tells us even the demons believe that, and they shudder. As one preacher commenting on James 2:19 rightly said, if you think you’re saved only because you believe correct things about Jesus, all that does is qualify you to be a demon. Demons know Jesus, but saved human beings put their entire faith and trust in Christ alone for the forgiveness of their sins.
So, without an introduction, this man knows Jesus’ name, and without an explanation he knows Jesus’ true identity, but thirdly, without hesitation, the man knew Jesus’ power. Do you see in verse 28 what he says? Look at the text. In falling down, he says,
“What business do we have with each other, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg You, do not torment me.”
Now, that’s an incredible, unexpected change in the text. Especially when you are reading Mark’s gospel that no one can pass by because these guys are running and driving everyone off, and here comes meek and gentle Jesus just landing on the shore, and rather than Him being terrified of this man and his partner, they are terrified of Him. Do you see it? I beg you, do not torment me. Firstly, the thought of Jesus tormenting anyone is antithetical to most people’s thinking today about Jesus. Don’t torment me, Jesus.
I mean, what’s the picture of Jesus that you have? The picture of Jesus that many people have is the flannelgraph Jesus. Now, I’ve immediately given away my age by saying that. Most of you younger folks don’t know what a flannelgraph is just like you don’t know what a broken record is, but that’s another story, isn’t it? For those of us 52 years and older, 52 years young and older, you know what a flannelgraph is and you know what a broken record is, so you’ve been enlightened. But the thought of Jesus tormenting anyone, just look at those words that this man says. I mean, have you thought about that? It’s worthy of your meditation this afternoon. I beg you, do not torment me. I mean, what kind of Jesus is this man identifying?
Well, this man without hesitation knew Jesus’s power. You see, he knew Jesus’s divine name. He knew who Jesus is, more than just doctrine. He knew and knows God’s power, Jesus’s power. Gentle and soft flannelgraph picture that most people have of Jesus is not the one that he’s talking to, do not torment me. Have you come to torment me? There’s another striking matter to emphasize, and that is this powerful demon-possessed man who’s driving other people away, as I’ve already said, he is bowing down in the presence of this otherwise meek and gentle Jesus.
You see, here is divine power that’s not flaunting itself. He doesn’t need to brag. He doesn’t need to say, don’t you know who I am? No, when He’s God, because He is God, He knows who He is. He’s not having an identity crisis. He’s not trying to reinvent Himself. He’s not trying to figure out, am I God or am I not God? I know I’m human, but am I God? He’s not having an identity crisis. And those other people who were driven away by this demoniac and his partner, they weren’t God. They were human beings like the rest of us, but there was something different about Jesus because Jesus is not only man, but He’s God. He’s the Son of the Most High. The same deity of God, very God, very God. And this demon is in the presence of the one he knows that created him. And this man in whom the demons were residing.
What’s striking here is that Mark 5:4 says that no one was strong enough to subdue him, but here comes this powerful man cowering before the gentle and lowly, the meek and gentle Jesus. That’s my Savior. The all-powerful. The one who not only exercises His power over the forces of nature, but the one before whom those rebellious spirits called demons come groveling and begging.
Do you see the word begging? Begging Him not to throw them into the abyss. That’s the word begging. It’s the word demai. It’s the word translated used by a man full of leprosy begging Jesus to heal him in Luke 5:12. And it’s used, this word to beg is used by other desperate human beings. Do you see the desperation of this man? It’s not like he wants to follow Jesus. He just doesn’t want to be tormented by Jesus because he knows Jesus, if anyone, has the power to torment this man and those who are residing in him, those evil spirits, it’s Jesus. In Luke 8:31, they begged him, that’s the word parakaleo, to make a strong request, to implore. In verse 32, they begged him. Here they are. They can’t trip over themselves enough saying, please, please, please, please. Their begging indicates they knew the power of Jesus.
Secondly, when they mentioned tormenting, have you come to torment us? Do not torment me. In Matthew 8:29, the demons asked Jesus, have you come here to torment us before the time? Oh, you know what I love about that, is they know, they have an accurate understanding of prophecy. Their eschatology is spot on. That’s how the Brits say it, spot on. And as a British missionary, I’ve got to weave in a few words so we can be bilingual before the end of the sermon. You know their eschatology was right on. They know that there’s coming a day for judgment for the whole fallen gamut of those angels who have rebelled against God. And why is it that the demons know that there is a coming, a final day of judgment, but humanity will say rightly in their own pride, no, God’s going to let me in. There’s no day of judgment coming for me. Stop deceiving yourselves. There’s a day of judgment for all who have rebelled against God, and all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. You need to line up and at least have this recognition that there is appointed unto you a time once to die, and after this, the judgment. You’re not going to escape it, just like these demons know they’re not going to escape it. Have you come to torment us before the time?
Torment is the Greek word that means to subject to severe distress, to subject to punitive judicial procedure. It’s used in Matthew 14:24, this same word, torment, as a boat battered by the winds, that banging of the water sloshing against the wood that consists. He had just come out of the storm. Remember in the previous context, that boat had been battered. That is a picture of the torment that they’re talking about here. There’s going to be a judgment that is felt keenly and personally by these evil spirits and also by all the unredeemed of those who have not bowed the knee to Jesus in this life. Don’t send me to the abyss. That’s the bottomless pit. Revelation 9:1-12 tell us that it’s the abode of evil beings. Revelation 17:8 says it’s the place from which the beast who bears the harlot arises, and it’s the location of Satan’s confinement for a thousand years in Revelation 20:1-3. It’s called the abyss.
One commentator said it’s used in Jewish, pagan, and Christian literature, this term abyss. It has the common idea of an immense and terrifying place, and that is exactly the future for those fallen angels, and that is exactly the future for everyone who enters into eternity without having called on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ in a saving way. There is coming a day of judgment, my friends, and God’s not going to skip over you and say, all right, well, you were going to let in, but we’re going to judge everyone else righteously. God wouldn’t be a righteous God to skip over you. There’s coming a judgment.
And do you see the irony here? We beg you. I beg you. Do not torment me. What’s the irony here? The irony is that the demon man begs Jesus not to do what the demons are doing to this man. Lord Jesus, don’t do to us, the demons inside of him, what we’re doing to this man, and may I add, for a long time. They wanted a mercy and a grace that they weren’t giving to this man. There’s a bit of irony here, isn’t there?
And I must say that this is where we can get pedantic, but this is why we go to seminary, isn’t it, Pastor, where we notice the details in the text. Do you see the switch, the interplay between the singular and the plural? Verse 28, he saw Jesus. What have you to do with me? Verse 28, I beg you, do not torment me, the unclean spirit, it had seized him, driven out by the demons. Seven times the singular is used, but Luke is about to show us something that Jesus knows that Luke hasn’t yet revealed. Do you see the plural in verse 31? They begged him, verse 32, they begged him, verse 33, the demons, the verse 35, the demons. You see the interplay between the singular and the plural is important here. It’s important because here we see that there’s a change between the singular and plural because of the often overlooked fact that we can’t just see in the straightforward reading of Luke. I mean, the way Luke describes the scene is here is Jesus, maybe His disciples are behind Him, and here is this one man falling down at His face saying, have you come to torment me? This man who’s driven off many others.
So when you read the Gospel of Luke up until this point, it’s mano y mano from the straight reading of the Gospel, one on one. And that’s what it looks like until we read the question in verse 30. Jesus asked him, what is your name? And now if Jesus is God and He knows everything, does he lack information? No, He doesn’t. No, you can say it. You can talk to me. You can say it. Does he lack information? No, so He’s asking a question. Is it for His benefit? No, it’s for our benefit. It’s for us to clearly see what Jesus saw before Him. If He didn’t ask the question, it would be harder to see, maybe not impossible. It’s kind of like when He said, what is your name? And the demons inside of this man said, legion, for many demons had entered him.
It’s kind of like you finally get the picture. You remember that great picture in 2 Kings 6:14-17, where the king of Syria comes against Elijah or Elisha and his servant, and they surround him, the prophet and the prophet’s assistant said, hey boss, there’s all these chariots surrounding the city. We’re in trouble here. And the prophet prayed, God, open his eyes that he may clearly see. And God opened the eyes of the prophet’s servant so that he can see all the fiery chariots around. He was able to see for the first time reality. I mean, the world as it really is taking place. We can only see the physical world, but there is a spiritual world that’s coexisting.
And when Jesus asked the question back in Luke 8, what is your name? He’s trying to help Luke and the Holy Spirit are trying to help us see what Jesus was seeing, the world as it really is. It’s Jesus versus thousands. Now, the demon possessed man said legion for we’re many. Now in the time of Caesar Augustus, a legion was a Roman name given to a group of 6,000 soldiers. Legion. Now, I don’t know if in the ranks of the damned, the fallen angels, if a Roman legion of 6,000 is the same as a demonic legion. But even if we cut it in half, even if there’s only 3,000 of them, it’s Jesus versus 3,000. That’s the real picture. That’s the real picture.
Yet understanding all of this, my friends, there was no fair fight. That’s my favorite line in the whole sermon. There was no fair fight. One, 3,000 against one. No, it’s because of the One. It’s the power of the One. You see, 3,000 against the One who created them, those angelic beings who had fallen, they don’t stand a chance, as if there’s any such thing as chance.
So without introduction, the man knew Jesus’s name. Without explanation, the man knew Jesus’s true identity. And without hesitation, the man knew Jesus’s divine power. What happens when a smaller army, they’re vastly outnumbered by a greater army? What does that smaller army do? Well, the Bible says they sue for peace. And that’s exactly what these 3,000 or 6,000 demons were doing, these legion of demons were doing. You see, the goal of this narrative is to demonstrate, as best as I understand it, that Jesus has power over the forces of not only nature, but Jesus has power over the forces of darkness, that He is the Son of Man, He is the Son of Man and the Son of God.
And you might say, I could see that truth, but how might this apply to me? How might this biblical truth that Jesus has power over the forces of darkness affect me and apply to my life? I mean, it would be easy to say Jesus has power over demons and a demon-possessed man, but since I’m not a demon-possessed person, what does this passage have to do with me? Well, let me entertain just a few questions in the final 13 minutes that we have together. My question for you to consider is, how are all unbelievers like this demon-possessed man? Well, Romans 6 says that all unbelievers are enslaved to sin, like this man. Remember, he was bound with chains. 2 Timothy 2:26 says that all unbelievers are held captive by Satan to do his will, and certainly this man was being held by the emissaries of Satan, these demons, to do his will. Colossians 1:13 says that all of us, before we are saved, are held within the domain of darkness, where the Father transfers us from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of His beloved Son when we’re saved. And all unbelievers, that is every one of us who are even saved now, this was our past. This is who we used to be. This was the enslavement that existed before the Lord saved us.
And all unbelievers are Satan’s offspring, are children of the devil before salvation. Genesis 3:15 says Satan has an offspring. John 8:44, Jesus will say to them, you are of your father, the devil. Ephesians 5:8, Paul writes to the church at Ephesus saying, you once were darkness, but now you are children of the light. No family or nearby friends can help this man under the power of darkness. No man, no family member can deliver this man. Acts 4:12 says there’s salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be delivered, the name of Jesus.
Humanity today needs deliverance that only Jesus brings, but you see, most of humanity doesn’t believe that they need a savior, need deliverance. They don’t see the spiritual darkness that we live in. One of the hardest things to do in evangelism is to convince people that they’re actually a sinner and under the wrath of God, and they actually need salvation or need deliverance. Hey, would you consider yourself to be a good person? Well, yes, I am. And then we listen for ad infinitum about how good of a person they are when Jesus said, I didn’t come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Those who are well or healthy spiritually in their own mind, he’s using sarcasm here, do not need a physician. Only those who realize their desperation, their desperate condition, and you can realize that only through the gospel and the work of the Holy Spirit making you aware of that. Salvation is of the Lord.
Let me hasten to add that not only is deliverance that Jesus can bring, but the deliverance that Jesus does bring. Dare I add that He does bring this kind of deliverance in Somerset, New Jersey? Dare I add that He brings deliverance in Mine Hill, New Jersey, and Rockaway, New Jersey, and Roxbury, New Jersey, and Succasunna, and Ledgewood, New Jersey, and Mount Olive, New Jersey, and Randolph, New Jersey, Tom’s River, New Jersey, Ocean County, Ocean City, Morris County? He’s still saving His remnant, His people, His elect people. It’s not just that Jesus can deliver, He is delivering. The day of grace is not over. And my dear friends, how long are you going to turn away from the offer of eternal life that Jesus Christ has came to make to you so that you would understand that you are a sinner in need of His salvation? How long are you going to continually turn away from that offer of hope in life?
We’re not going to add to the number of God’s elect, but I don’t know which one of you are elect this morning. You need to all hear, you need to all believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. And you know, when Paul said, I do all things for the sake of those who are chosen, he was in prison when he wrote those words. And he knew that God had His people He was going to save.
You are more responsible now to know Christ today, because you saw His power over the forces of nature, but now you need to see the second lesson about deliverance, and that’s there’s a response or responses to Jesus’ deliverance. I have a big porch with my sermons. I tend to have a big porch and a small house. So don’t be afraid. This second point is like really short. Steve Lawson would just tear me up, but that’s a big porch you have there, Tom.
The second lesson to learn about deliverance is that there’s responses to deliverance. Do you see the responses of the herdsmen in verse 34? Now, when the herdsmen saw what had happened, they ran away. They had a twofold response. They ran. That meant they sought safety in flight. To become safe from danger by eluding it or avoiding it is the lexicon definition of running away. They were terrified. And they not only ran, but second response of the herdsmen is they told it. This is the word to make known publicly, to proclaim it. They went into the city, verses 27 and 39. This is where the man grew up and his family’s current location, as we’ll find out later. And they went into the country.
Do you notice the second response was found in verse 35 of the response of the people of the city. First of all, they were curious. They wanted to see what happened. Second, in verse 37, they do the unthinkable. They asked Jesus to depart. Here, Yahweh delivers, delivers a man who needed deliverance and no one else could even chain him successfully. But rather than welcoming Jesus with open arms, they’re terrified, the herdsmen are terrified. Maybe it’s because they lost their prophet. No, I think the text is clear. It says that they’re terrified because of what happens when they see the man clothed and sitting, clothed and in his right mind, sitting at the feet of Jesus. They are terrified because they know, they know the power of Jesus. But they ask Jesus to depart.
That’s what so many unbelievers do when you share the gospel with them. Away with this Jesus. He might be able to save other people, but I’m gonna get there my own way. If I have to pick the locks of heaven to get in, I am gonna get in. Oh no, you’re not. Piper puts it this way. When he responds to the people asking Jesus to depart, Piper says, quote, oh my goodness, that’s Piper. The great liberator has come and they tell him to get out. Piper goes on to say, to our utter amazement, they beg Jesus, the life giver, the devil defeater, the hope maker and the hope giver to leave their region, close quote. It’s unthinkable.
But thirdly, do you see the response of the people? Verse 35, it says they were afraid. And my friends, only Luke’s account tells us the reason for their request of telling Jesus to please go away. For it says, for they were seized with great fear. Now that word fear, there are two kinds of fear of the Lord. There’s the fear of terror. That’s the demon’s fear and sinner’s fear of God. And there’s the fear of reverence. And that comes from those of us who know and love Christ. We bring the fear of God, the fear of the Lord. We walk in the fear of God. It’s the beginning of wisdom. We reverence Him. But this is the fear of terror because they’re not the Lord’s. They’re sinners who have not repented.
And do you see the final response? This is my favorite. I said I had a favorite sentence, but this is my favorite sub point in the outline. Do you see the third response? It’s the man who had been delivered. It’s the man who had been delivered. Now, I’m not trying to take this narrative. This narrative is about Jesus’s power over the forces of darkness. It’s not about us. But it applies to us. I’ve tried to show you that in almost every way that the man who was in bondage to those demons, aside from being actually possessed, we can, in spiritual sense, there’s an analogy in which we were in so much bondage. We’re just like him.
I’ve been studying biblical counseling, and that’s really the application of the sufficient word of God. And I read a book that offended me that as you deal with people with addiction, the book was not how to help people in addiction from a better place. The book was arguing that I’m an addict. And when I read that, I said, I’m a minister of the gospel. I’m not an addict. Oh, yes, I am. And oh, yes, you are. We’re all sinners by nature, even though we’re saved. We have that sin that does so easily beset us, Hebrews talks about. So we’re not talking about bringing the gospel to addicts from a superior position. We’re talking about bringing the hope to addicts as a fellow addict of sin. There’s hope in the gospel and power in the gospel.
This man, do you see, until you come to see yourself as believers more like this man who’s been delivered, you’re going to have a higher view of yourself than you probably should. Do you notice this man’s location, verse 35? Where is he located? He’s sitting at the feet of Jesus. That’s a great place for those who’ve been delivered from darkness to sit. Do you see his twofold change in his condition, verse 35? There’s the external change. He’s clothed. Previously, he’s unclothed. And do you see the internal change? He’s in his right mind. You know, the gospel changes our thinking. It changes us from the inside out. The gospel is not behavior modification. It’s heart transformation. Thirdly, do you see his petition in verse 38? The man who was delivered, at one time he begged. At one time he said, Jesus, what have we to do with you? In other words, go away from me. I don’t want anything to do with you. But here in verse 38, he begs that he might be with Jesus. Because people who have been delivered by Jesus want to be with Jesus.
Before I came to know the Lord Jesus Christ in a saving way, my mom is here today, and she can witness this. I hated going to church. They forced me to go to church. Mom, you forced me to go to church. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for forcing me to go to church that preached the gospel. But I have to say, I thought it was the most boring stuff in the world. I didn’t want any of that dribble. I just wanted the sweets that they used to bribe you to memorize memory verses. That’s all I wanted. Maybe to have a little bit of fun. But then when the Lord saved me, I couldn’t get enough of His word. My whole life needed to change. It was no longer about myself. It was about Him. How am I not going to go back that way into darkness from which the Lord had taken me? How am I going to live this life just as a young man without a dad? How am I going to live this life for the glory of God?
Well, do you see? He begs Jesus that he might be with him. Do you see the contrast between the man at the beginning and the end? And do you see the contrast of the unbelieving townspeople and herdsmen? There’s a contrast between all of those who have not believed in Jesus and this man who had been delivered. So if you’ve been delivered, make it your goal and aim to be with Jesus. To be with Christ. You want to be with Him. Some of you feel like you’ve been left behind. You’ve not been left behind.
It’s this last point. Do you see the declaration in verse 39? It’s the deity of Jesus Christ found here. Jesus says to the man, No, don’t come with me, but go into the city and declare how much God has done for you. Do you know how the man interpreted Jesus’ saying? How much God has done for you? So this man went away through the whole city telling how much Jesus had done for him. What did the man understand? Jesus is God. Jesus told him, Tell all that God has done for you. And this man said, Do you see what Jesus, God, Jesus’ God has done for me? Do you see his declaration? This word keruso, it’s where we get the word proclaiming or preaching. How much? That refers to the details of what the Lord has done for him.
And while this narrative is about Jesus’ power over the forces of darkness, humanity is as in bondage to sin as this man was in bondage to those thousands of demons and just as powerless to deliver themselves. There is still a need all over Somerset and this world, the United Kingdom, for the deliverance that only Jesus Christ can bring. I ask you, those of you who’ve been delivered, those of you who have already experienced the Lord Jesus Christ’s salvation, what ought to be your response to His deliverance? I contend in advance to you, you ought to do and follow the instructions that Jesus gave to this man and start by going back to your own family and tell them what all that Jesus has done for you and make Him great among the nations and in your family and in the town and at your jobs all that Jesus has done for you.
Do you see that Jesus didn’t permit the man to go with him on Jesus’ onward journey? Yes, the townspeople and the people of the city begged Jesus to depart and He does, but not without leaving them one delivered man to witness in the city. It sounds like the woman of Samaria. You save one person and it led to a great revival in a place. You’ve not been left behind. You’ve been sent if you’ve been delivered to tell people about Jesus Christ and I implore you to turn to the Lord Jesus Christ and Him alone for your own deliverance if you have never bowed the knee and if you have, make His name known. You’ve been delivered. You’ve been saved. This passage speaks of a deliverance that results in thanksgiving and that is a deliverance that exalts the Lord Jesus Christ.
Let’s pray together. Our Heavenly Father, we want to thank You for Your Son and our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Lord Jesus, we thank You that You were not just concerned about our lost condition, but You left the glories of heaven to come to this sinful world to bring about the atonement that You brought about so that You will save a people for Your own possession, zealous for good deeds from every tongue, tribe, language, and nation. Lord, great is Your faithfulness. Your mercies and Your grace cause us to bow in awe. Lord, we thank You that You delivered this man. We thank You, every one of us, Lord, whom You’ve delivered through the gospel. Who are we that You should save us and shed Your love on us? We are overwhelmed by Your mercy and by Your goodness and grace. And Lord, in a few moments, as we come to remember Your atoning death for us, those who believe, Lord, we pray that You would receive our thanks and our praise and be honored and glorified. In Jesus’ name we pray these things, amen.