["In the Hall of the Mountain King"]
1, 6, 2.
We're going to sing, To God be the glory of 162.
All the first.
To God be the glory,
Great things we have done.
So loved be the world,
That He gave us His Son.
Early in His life,
And at home He foreseen,
All up in the life gate,
That all made the way.
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord,
Under clear His voice.
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord,
Let the people rejoice.
Oh, come to the Father,
In Jesus the Son,
What live Him the glory,
Great things He have done.
Oh, perfect redemption,
The purchase of blood,
To every believer,
The promise of God,
That I must amend,
New truth He believes,
That moment of Jesus,
What I have received.
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord,
Under clear His voice.
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord,
Let the people rejoice.
Oh, come to the Father,
Through Jesus the Son,
What live Him the glory,
Great things He have done.
Great things He have taught us,
Great things He have done,
And we are rejoicing,
Through Jesus the Son,
But ever and ever,
And ever and ever,
Our wonder, our chance,
To proclaim Jesus, we sing.
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord,
Let the people rejoice.
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord,
Let the people rejoice.
Oh, come to the Father,
Through Jesus the Son,
What live Him the glory,
Great things He have done.
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord,
Let the people rejoice.
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord,
Let the people rejoice.
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord,
Let the people rejoice.
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord,
Let the people rejoice.
You are with us, of course, for that.
Soul Winning time, Saturday morning, church-wide Soul Winning at 10 a.m.
Then we have our Thursday Soul Winning at 2 p.m. Friday and Sunday at 2 p.m.
So if you'd like to go Soul Winning this afternoon,
we'd love for you to join our group that will be out at 2 p.m.
They'll be meeting here in the auditorium.
If you're a first-time guest, if it's your first time here at Verity Baptist Church,
we're glad you're with us.
We have a gift we'd like to give you as you walk out of the church building this morning
as you go through the foyer, or if you go out our secondary foyer,
you'll see a little table set up, and on that table,
you'll see these little gift bags.
Please grab one on your way out as a gift from us to you for being our guest this morning.
There are several resources in this bag that we'd like you to have.
The one I'd like to highlight is this documentary called Being Baptist.
It's very well made, very interesting. We think you'll like it.
I want to give this to you as a gift, so please make sure you don't leave here this morning
without grabbing one of the gift bags on your way out.
And if you are a guest, we'd ask that you please take a moment
and fill out the communication card which is inserted in your bulletin.
If you need a pen, just raise your hand,
and one of our ushers can bring you by a Verity Baptist Church pen.
You're welcome to keep the pen as a gift from us as well,
and we're not going to do anything odd with your info.
We would just like a record of your attendance.
We actually would like to send you a little gift,
but we need your information to do that, so please take a moment to fill the card out.
When we're done with the announcements, we're going to sing a song.
When we're done singing, we're going to receive the offering.
As the offering plate goes by, you can drop this card in the offering plate,
or you can hand it to me after the service.
I'll be standing at the main door greeting people on the way out,
and I hope you will come by and say hello.
If you look at the announcements there, we, of course, are a family-integrated church.
Children and infants are always welcome in the church service.
We don't separate children from their parents for any reason.
We do have mother-baby rooms and daddy rooms available for your convenience.
All of the rooms have comfortable seating.
They have monitors set up so you can watch the service and listen to it.
So if you have a child that's being distracting during the service,
or if you need some privacy, we would encourage you to use the mother-baby rooms
or daddy rooms as needed.
If you're not sure where those are at, you can look at the back of the bulletin,
and you'll see a layout of our church building.
So please make sure you use those rooms as needed
if you have a child that's being distracting during the service.
If you need to be baptized, please let us know.
We'd love to baptize you. The baptitry is filled. The water is warm.
We have everything you need.
You can let us know on your communication card if you'd like information about baptism.
We'll follow up with you in regards to that.
If you look at the announcements and upcoming events,
we are back in our Journey with Jesus series.
It's a verse-by-verse study through the Gospel of Luke,
and this year is a year with Jesus.
We're spending the year with the Lord Jesus Christ going through the Gospel of Luke,
which is one of the longest, most thorough accounts of his life.
And we are just on our journey with the Lord Jesus Christ, learning about Jesus,
and we're going to continue that, of course, this morning.
Men's Preaching and Pizza Night is coming up for all of you guys Friday, August 5th at 7 p.m.
We'd love for you to come.
All the men are invited to an evening of preaching, pizza, and fellowship.
So this is a night where we have the guys of our church get up,
and they'll preach a 10-minute sermon.
We'll have maybe 8, 10 guys preach, and it's always a fun time.
You don't have to preach to come to Men's Preaching Night, all right?
So if you'd like to come and just listen to the guys preach,
we'll have pizza afterwards, and it'll be a good time.
If you'd like to preach, we've got some rules there for you,
so make sure you're aware of those.
You must have attended all three services in one zoning time the week prior to preaching.
You must use only, of course, the King James Bible.
You must wear a shirt and tie, and you must sign up and submit your sermon topic
on the communication card Sunday prior.
So make sure you follow those and you're aware of that.
And then, of course, we have the VBC Choir and Orchestra.
They were going to start practicing orchestra today for Family Prend Day,
but due to sickness, we're going to postpone that.
So it's not starting today.
It'll start next week, Lord willing.
So make sure you're aware of that during the orchestra.
No practice today at 5 p.m.
Upcoming cleaning crew, you can check for your name there.
We appreciate your faithfulness.
Other things there for you to look at, please don't forget to turn your cell phones off
or place them on silent during the service so that they're not a distraction to anybody.
If you look at the back of the bulletin, birthdays and anniversaries for the month of July.
This week we have Brother Edgar and Ms. Celina De Dios' anniversary, excuse me, on July 27th.
Brother Jose Cruz's birthday on July 28th.
Brother R.J. Marin's birthday on July 28th.
And Brother Mike Augevitz's birthday on July 30th.
Praise Report, Money Matters, all those things are there for you to look at.
Please be in prayer for your church family.
We've got several people that are out sick, several families that are not feeling well.
So just be in prayer that everybody gets better soon.
And whenever these types of things happen, you just kind of have to wait for it to go through.
You know, we're cycling through.
Some people are getting better and coming back.
Other people are not feeling good and going out.
So just help us with a couple of things.
Don't stay too late after the service and don't come too early to the service.
I know our church loves a fellowship.
You come early, you stay late.
I appreciate that.
We love that.
But just while there's sickness going around, try not to stay too late.
Try not to come too early.
We just want to try to minimize as much contact as possible.
Try to keep people healthy.
And of course the buildings will get cleaned after the church service.
After the morning service today, the building will be cleaned.
We'll have the staff go through and use our electrostatic sanitizer and sanitize everything down.
Anything that gets touched and all of that.
So we're doing everything we can to help you with that.
Honestly, you know, this is just part of church life.
And if anybody has, I mean, I'm constantly telling people, you tell me what to do and I'll do it.
If I've got to spray people down with the electrostatic sanitizer as they come in and out,
we can set it up like a mister or something.
I don't know.
You tell me what I can do to help you.
We can insert emergency packs in every bulletin.
You know, I don't know.
Just pray for your church family.
Hope everybody gets better soon.
And of course, if you're not feeling well, stay home.
You know, if you're not feeling well, help us with that.
And we'll try to make sure everybody gets back to normal soon.
I think that's it for all of the announcements.
So let's go ahead and take the chorus of the week.
And we're going to sing My Life is Yours to Control as we prepare to receive the offering this morning.
With my whole heart I humbly seek you.
Let's go ahead and sing it out on the first.
With my whole heart I humbly seek you.
Now use my life, O Lord, I pray.
I yield my stubborn will completely.
May your command inside my way.
My life, Lord, is yours to control.
I give you my heart and my soul.
All seek your will, never mind.
Rich treasures divine.
Give wisdom to choices I make.
Along every path that I take.
So when I complete life's race.
Well done, you will say.
Good, sing it out on the second.
Your word has promised me the big dream.
And all I need to do is claim.
Your strength to soar with wings as he glows.
To the Lord, to God, and not to faint.
My life, Lord, is yours to control.
I give you my heart and my soul.
All seek your will, never mind.
Rich treasures divine.
Give wisdom to choices I make.
Along every path that I take.
So when I complete life's race.
Well done, you will say.
Amen. All right, we'll have the guys come up and help us with the offering at this time.
And let's go ahead and bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Heavenly Father, Lord, we do thank you for allowing us to gather together this morning.
Lord, we pray that you'd bless the offering.
We pray that you'd bless the preaching of your word.
Lord, we do ask for those that are not feeling well that you would help them to get better soon and be back with us, of course.
And Lord, we pray that you would meet with us this morning. In Jesus name we pray.
Amen.
Turn your Bibles to Luke chapter eight.
Luke chapter eight.
If you do not have a Bible, raise your hand.
International will bring you one.
Luke chapter eight.
This morning we'll read verses 26 through 39.
Luke chapter eight.
Just keep your hands up.
International will bring you a Bible.
Luke chapter eight verse 26.
The Bible reads,
For he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man.
For oftentimes it had caught him, and he was kept bound with chains and in fetters.
And he braked the bands and was driven of the devil into the wilderness.
And Jesus asked him, saying, What is thy name?
And he said, Legion, because many devils were entered into him.
And they besought him that he would not command them to go out into the deep.
And there was then heard of many swine feeding on the mountain.
And they besought him that he would suffer them to enter into them.
And he suffered them.
Then went the devils out of the man, and entered into the swine.
And the herd ran violently down a steep place into the lake, and were choked.
When they that fed them saw what was done, they fled, and went and told it in the city and in the country.
Then they went out to see what was done, and came to Jesus,
and found the man, out of whom the devils were departed,
sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid.
They also which saw it told them by what means he that was possessed of the devils was healed.
Then the whole multitude of the country of the Gadarenes round about besought him to depart from them,
for they were taken with great fear.
And he went back into the ship, and returned back again.
Now the man out of whom the devils were departed besought him that he might be with him.
But Jesus sent him away, saying, Return to thine own house, and show how great things God hath done unto thee.
And he went his way, and published throughout the whole city how great things Jesus had done unto him.
Let's pray.
Father God Almighty, thank you for this day. Thank you for this opportunity to come together.
Please bless, Pastor, and the message. Let it bring glory and honor to you.
In the name of Jesus Christ, I pray. Amen.
Amen.
Alright, we're there in Luke, chapter number 8.
And of course we are back in our Journey with Jesus series, a verse by verse study through the Gospel of Luke.
David, could you turn me up just a hair? I'm having trouble hearing myself. I appreciate that.
And in this passage before us, we see the Lord Jesus Christ come into contact,
into communication with a demon possessed man.
And of course throughout the Gospels we have the Lord Jesus Christ dealing with devils and demons,
and this won't be the first time that we see this interaction.
But I will say this, that this passage that we're looking at this morning is probably the most well known
of the interactions that Jesus had with demon possessed people, or devils, that's what the Bible calls them.
And this morning we're going to look at this story and learn some things about what the Bible teaches about devils
and demons and being demon possessed. And of course I'd encourage you to take some notes,
and I've got some things I'd like to highlight for you from this passage.
On the back of your course, at this place we write down some things. Notice there in Luke, chapter 8 and verse 26,
the Bible says, And they, and of course this is Jesus and his disciples, arrived.
Now it's been a little bit of time, it's been a little while since we were in our Luke series,
of course we had our conference and all that, but if you remember the last time we were in Luke,
Jesus and his disciples were on a ship crossing the Sea of Galilee.
If you remember they were on a ship during a storm, Jesus was asleep and we learned about the lessons
from the storm there with them. And here, now they've gone across the Sea of Galilee and they arrived,
the Bible says there in verse 26, at the country of the Gadarenes, which is over against Galilee.
Look at verse 27, And when he, referring of course to Jesus, went forth to land,
there met him out of the city a certain man which had devils long time.
Now this story is found in other gospels, and in other gospels we are told that there were two demon-possessed men
that confronted Jesus, but here in Luke we have this one, this is the main one and the one that he spoke with the most.
And we see this confrontation, in fact if you're taking notes and you'd like to write down some thoughts,
the first thing I'd like you to notice is the confrontation with the demon-possessed man and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Here we're told that Jesus, keep in mind he's on his ministry, he's going around the Sea of Galilee
in what is referred to as his Galilean ministry, he's preaching the Word of God, preaching about the kingdom of God,
he's of course healing and casting out devils, and as he comes to this country of the Gadarenes,
the Bible says there met him out of the city a certain man which had devils long time.
We see this confrontation with a demon-possessed man.
I'd like you to keep your place there in Luke chapter 8, that's obviously our text for this morning,
but go with me if you would to the book of Revelation, the last book in the Bible should be fairly easy to find.
In Revelation chapter 12, and let me just give you just as we get started some thoughts here in regards to the devil.
Of course the devil is Satan, we understand that, but the Bible also tells us that the devil has devils, plural, or what we would call demons.
The King James Bible does not use the word demons, I'm not against the word using the word demons,
but the Bible uses the word devils in regards to what we would call demons.
In Revelation chapter 12, if you look at verse 3, the Bible says,
And there appeared another wonder in heaven, and behold, a great red dragon.
Now that dragon is of course Satan, you're going to see that here in a minute,
having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his head.
Now I want you to notice in verse 4, here in Revelation 12 we're having an allegory of events that take place in heaven.
Verse 4, the Bible says,
And his tail, referring to the dragon, drew the third part of the stars of heaven.
So we've got this red dragon up in heaven, and the stars are surrounding this red dragon,
and then the Bible tells us that his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven,
and it cast them to the earth, and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered,
and to devour her child as soon as it was born.
And of course we know that's referring to the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now I want you to get the commentary of what we read there in verses 3 and 4.
If you skip down to verse 9, Revelation chapter 12 and verse 9, the Bible says,
And the great dragon was cast out.
Who's the red dragon? Notice what the Bible says.
That old serpent, remember the serpent in the Garden of Eden, called the devil and Satan.
The Bible tells us who the red dragon is, the great dragon.
The great red dragon is that old serpent called the devil and Satan,
which deceived the whole world.
He was cast out into the earth. Notice these words.
You say, well, who are the stars that his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven,
and then cast them to the earth?
Here the Bible tells us in verse 9,
He was cast out into the earth, notice the last part of verse 9,
and his angels were cast out with him.
I want you to notice when Satan was cast out, when Satan fell,
the Bible says he drew the third part of the angels, chose to follow Satan,
and these angels were cast out with him down into the earth,
and of course these are what we know today as devils or unclean spirits or demons.
So the devil, and in fact I don't have time to develop Revelation 12.
We'll do that another time when I'm preaching through the book of Revelation.
But what we're reading about here is the fact that the devil is at war with God and with God's people.
And along with that war, he's got helpers.
He's got this third part of the stars of heaven that he did cast down to the earth with himself,
his angels, which are devils or demons.
Go to Ephesians, if you would, Ephesians chapter number 6.
If you kept your place in Luke, which is of course our text for this morning,
and you go from Luke, you can go past John, Acts, Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians.
Luke, John, Acts, Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians.
And here's what you need to understand about this confrontation.
You say, why is it that this demon-possessed man confronted the Lord Jesus Christ?
Here's why. Because the devil has devils, the devil has demons,
and the devil and his demons, his troops of soldiers are engaged in spiritual warfare against God,
against the Lord Jesus Christ, and against God's people.
Ephesians chapter 6 and verse 12, notice what the Bible says.
Ephesians 6, 12. The Bible tells, we often reference this verse in regards to spiritual warfare,
but I want you to notice what the verse is telling us.
The Bible says,
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood.
This is a verse about spiritual warfare.
In this passage we're told to put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day.
And having done all two stands, of course we're told to go to battle with Satan and his devils and his demons.
But here in verse 12 we're told, hey, we wrestle not against flesh and blood.
What does that mean?
Flesh and blood is referring to human beings.
See, the Christian life is a life of war.
We are engaged in spiritual warfare.
But we're not wrestling, we're not fighting, we're not engaging in battle against flesh and blood.
We're not fighting human beings when it comes to spiritual warfare.
Now, don't misunderstand me.
Many human beings are being controlled by the devil and being used by Satan in order to fight against us,
but our war is not against flesh and blood.
So today you've got people who think, well, we've got to get armed and we've got to create a militia
and we have to fight the government in order to fight spiritual battles.
But the Bible says we wrestle not against flesh and blood.
Now, I think it's a good idea for you to have a gun, legally, of course, all those things.
I think it's a good idea for you to defend yourself.
But look, our battle is not a physical battle.
We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but here's who we do wrestle against,
here's who we are fighting against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world.
What is this referring to?
It is referring to the devil and his angels, the devil and his demons.
And, of course, we understand that the demons and the devil are controlling this world.
He is the lowercase g god of this world.
He is the prince of this world.
He controls this world.
He controls the politics of this world.
He controls the influences of this world.
And many people are being controlled by the devil himself.
But we are waging war in spiritual warfare, principalities, powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world.
Against, notice the word, spiritual wickedness in high places.
So, there is a confrontation with this demon-possessed man and the Lord Jesus Christ.
And here's what you need to understand.
There is a confrontation between demons and devils and between God's people.
Because we are engaged in spiritual warfare.
At least we're supposed to be.
Go to Acts, if you would, Acts 19.
If you're there in Ephesians, you go backwards.
You've got Galatians, 2 Corinthians, 1 Corinthians, Romans, Acts.
Acts chapter 19.
We're supposed to be engaged in spiritual warfare.
And look, if you're living for God, and of course, especially the men of God,
pastors and those that are in ministry preaching the word of God.
Men of God who are preaching the word of God have a target on their back by demons, by the devil.
And by the way, if you're living the Christian life, you should have a target on your back.
You know, you might say, well, I've never had an issue.
I've never had a problem where I felt like I was dealing with some sort of spiritual warfare.
I've never had a problem with the devil.
I've never had a problem with demons.
Well look, if you've never came in confrontation with the devil,
if you've never gone head to head with demons, maybe it's because you're running in the same direction they're running.
Maybe it's because they're not worried and concerned about you.
Maybe it's because you're not accomplishing enough for them to even know who you are.
Notice in Acts chapter 19, in verse 13, we have a story.
And I'd like you to keep your place there in Acts 19.
Put a ribbon or a bookmark or something there because we're going to leave it and we're going to come back to it.
But we have a story of devils and demon-possessed people, verse 13.
The Bible says,
So this man, Seva, has seven sons.
And these seven sons, they've seen Paul and different people cast out devils and spirits and they want to do the same.
So they go to this demon-possessed man and they said,
So it doesn't seem like these men necessarily know who Jesus is.
They're just saying, well I heard Paul cast out a devil in the name or in the authority of Jesus.
So they're now standing up to this demon and saying,
Here's what the devil in this man said to these seven sons of Seva.
He said,
And it's interesting to me that these devils, they say,
Well I know who Jesus is. I know who Paul is.
He's causing us a lot of problems.
He's causing us a lot of issues.
He's preaching the Word of God, getting people saved, starting churches, discipling converts.
I know who Jesus is. I know who Paul is.
He says, But who are you?
I'm not worried about you.
I'm not concerned with you.
And look, the reality is when it comes to spiritual warfare,
Hey, you know you're doing something right when the devil's attacking you.
I don't really understand spiritual warfare.
Well look, it's not some, you know, don't think of some horror movie you've watched.
But spiritual warfare is simply the devil using his resources to try to fight against you and stop you
and try to make things difficult for you.
You say, I don't know what spiritual warfare looks like.
Okay, well look at our friend Pastor Shelly and you'll know what spiritual warfare looks like.
When it seems like the whole world has just orchestrated against you to try to destroy your church.
Hey, he's doing something right.
Let me say it this way, the devil knows who he is.
And these churches that just, you know, nothing bad ever happens to them,
everybody loves them, the mayor's praising them, everybody thinks they're great.
You know, the problem with those churches is that they're not engaged in spiritual warfare.
Because if you were engaged in spiritual warfare, there would be a confrontation.
We see the Lord Jesus Christ with this confrontation.
Go back to Luke chapter 8.
So I'd like you to see number one, the confrontation with the demon-possessed man.
Satan has devils, he has demons, and he's engaged in spiritual warfare against God,
against the Lord Jesus Christ, and against God's people.
We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers,
and against the rulers and darknesses of the world.
So we see the confrontation with a demon, but I'd like you to notice secondly this morning
the characteristics of a demon.
And this is what I think is the most interesting part of this story,
is that you get a lot of details in regards to this demon-possessed man.
Now, there are other demon-possessed people throughout the Bible that we read about,
especially in the Gospel of Luke, we'll see other ones.
But here we get a lot of descriptions of what a demon-possessed person looks like,
acts like, the characteristics.
And look, we need to always go to the Bible to allow the Bible to tell us
what a demon-possessed person looks like.
Because people often have the wrong interpretation in regards to what it means to be demon-possessed,
what it means to be possessed of a devil,
and a lot of times they're getting their interpretations from Hollywood horror movies.
And, you know, they think if your head twists around or something, you're demon-possessed.
That's not what the Bible says. The Bible does not say that.
But here we get the characteristics of a demon-possessed person.
I'd like you to notice them.
Number one, notice there in Luke 8.27.
By the way, let me just say this.
The characteristics of this demon-possessed person not only tell us what a demon-possessed person looks like,
but it also shows us what a world that is influenced by the devil looks like.
Because we're going to look at, here's what a devil, here's what a demon,
here's what Satan produces in the life of an individual.
And what you're going to notice is that as we see these characteristics in this demon-possessed man,
we also see these same characteristics in the society and the world in which we live in.
You say, why is that? Here's why.
Because we live in a demonically influenced world.
I'm not saying the people that have these characteristics are demon-possessed.
I mean, if you've got all of them, you are, you know.
But even in your life, you may have allowed some demon influence into your life,
some devilish influence into your life, some characteristics of a devil.
You say, what are they? Well, notice number one, Luke 8.27.
And when he went forth to land, there met him out of the city a certain man, which had devils long time.
Here's the first characteristic.
And wear no clothes.
If you're writing this down, you can write these sub-points down.
Number one, a demon-possessed man, the demon-possessed man was naked.
It's interesting to me that when the Bible gives us the most characteristics in regards to what a demon-possessed man looks like,
the first thing we see is that he was naked, is that he wear no clothes.
This was a naked man who's not wearing clothes.
And of course, you know, if you see a naked man walking down the street, more than likely he's demon-possessed.
But here's the application for you.
You and I today live in a naked society.
We live in a world where people think it's normal to be naked.
You say, really? Look, by biblical standards, we live in a world where people think it's okay to be naked.
And you say, what does that show us?
It shows us that we live in a demonically influenced world, especially right now during summertime.
And look, let me tell you something.
The Bible's very clear about what nakedness is.
The Bible calls your thighs nakedness.
The Bible talks about the fact that we ought to dress modestly, not in a way to bring attention to ourselves.
But the Bible also, just to be clear during the summertime, the Bible does not teach situational ethics.
You say, what's situational ethics?
Situational ethics is this idea where something is wrong in one situation but could be right in a different situation.
The Bible does not teach that.
Now, there are some situational principles taught in scripture. We understand that.
But when it comes to something being right, something being wrong, hey, if it's right, it's always right.
And if it's wrong, it's always wrong.
You say, I don't understand. Give me an example.
Okay.
Well, here during the summertime, if somebody walked into Verity Baptist Church this morning,
some lady walked into Verity Baptist Church this morning in her underwear, excuse me,
we would all, you know, be shocked, right, embarrassed, tell the kids to look away,
throw a bag on her, ask her, you know, to put some clothes on and leave.
But yet, and you, I mean, I'm talking about Verity Baptist, I'm talking about you people,
would be like, embarrassed, can you believe, honey, don't look, that woman walked into church in her underwear.
But yet, the same Christians who would be shocked and embarrassed by that
will go out somewhere, dig a hole in the ground, put water in it, call it a pool,
and now it's acceptable to be in the exact same outfit, underwear?
That's situational ethics.
Let me tell you something. It's naked, if it's naked at the grocery store,
if it's naked at Verity Baptist Church, it's naked at the lake.
It's naked at the pool. It's naked at the, you say, are you against pool? No, I'm against nakedness.
I'm against, you say, are you against water parks?
If you're going to go to water parks with a bunch of naked people, yeah, I'm against it.
So what if I rent the whole water park just me and my family? Well, praise God.
Good for you.
But you're going to take your teenage kids to some water park with a bunch of naked people,
a bunch of other naked teenagers, and you're like, oh, my teenage son, he would never have some sort of a sexual thought.
Is he a queer? Are you serious? I mean, look, if your son can look at a bunch of naked teenage girls
and not have an impure thought, you've got bigger problems. You've got other problems.
You've got other issues. My husband never, your husband would.
So, look, nakedness is nakedness, and it's an influence of demonic activity.
We live in a world today, I mean, literally in Texas, I mean, I'm sorry, Pastor Shelley's on my mind right now.
Pastor Shelley was telling me that these protesters outside of his church, literally women are out there just completely, just no tops.
And the Texas police are just like, well, it's legal, we can't do anything about it.
And this is supposed to be Texas, you know, the great haven of conservatism.
It's a demon-possessed world we live in. It's a demon-influenced world we live in where people think that nakedness is acceptable.
Here we see, we get the clearest characteristics of someone influenced by devils,
and the first thing we're told is he wear no clothes. He wear no clothes.
He was a demon-possessed man, was naked. He said, I've never been around demon-influenced people.
Well, if you've been around a bunch of naked people, you have been.
And again, I'm not saying people that, I'm not saying they're demon-possessed, I'm just telling you these are the characteristics of a devil.
He said, I don't like this sermon. Well, it's not, it's going to get worse, so.
Look at the second characteristic.
Number one, we see the demon-possessed, you might as well just act like, oh yeah, I agree.
I got to get out of here because pastors are not, they stay late.
Number one, demon-possessed, the demon-possessed man was naked. Here's number two.
Notice there in verse 27.
And when he went forth to land, there met him out of the city a certain man which had devils long time and wear no clothes.
Notice verse 27.
Neither abode in any house, but in the tombs.
Here's the second characteristic.
Not only was the demon-possessed man, the demon-possessed man was naked.
Number two, the demon-possessed man was fascinated with death.
Here we're told that this man, he abode, he did not abide, he abode not in any house, he didn't live in a house, but in the tombs.
He lived in the cemeteries where dead people are.
And again, look, today, this is why, you know, the rock and roll music, it's demonic music.
This music that glorifies death and darkness, it's of the devil.
When God chooses to give us, here's what a demon-possessed man looked like.
Number one, he's naked. Number two, he's fascinated with death.
But look, again, it's not, you say, well, I'm not fascinated with death.
Look, our whole culture is fascinated with death.
I mean, look at the most popular movies today, what are they?
A bunch of horror movies, a bunch of death-exalting movies.
That's why we live in this world where this world is fascinated with death.
I mean, you can't go one week without hearing of somebody, some demon-possessed person walking into a school and shooting people up.
And then saying afterwards, oh, well, I don't know what I was doing, I can't believe, blaming the drugs, you know.
Who are they blaming? The devils?
We live in a world that is fascinated with death.
And that is as a result of devilish influence, demonic influence.
It's in the movies, it's in the music, it's on TV, it's on the news.
It's a fascination with death.
And it's demonic.
Notice thirdly, look at verse 28.
Like you'll notice thirdly, not only was the demon-possessed man naked, not only was the demon-possessed man fascinated with death,
not only, but thirdly, the demon-possessed man was aware of spiritual truth.
It's interesting to me that the devil, and this is pretty common throughout the gospels,
these devils often understand the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Here this demon-possessed man, he cries out, what have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God Most High?
Go back to Acts, if you would, Acts 19, remember we were there just a minute ago.
While you turn there, let me read to you from James 2.19.
James 2.19 says this, thou believeth that there is one God, thou doest well.
The devils also believe and tremble.
Let me tell you something, the devils are not only influencing, this demon-possessed man was not only naked,
he was not only fascinated with death, but he was also aware of spiritual truth.
You want to find some of the best theologians in this world today?
Quote-unquote, they're demon-possessed people.
These devils, they look at Jesus and say, they understand who Jesus is.
If you remember there, in Acts 19, we saw it, the demon-possessed, the evil spirit there in verse 15,
Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are ye?
Look, I'm here to tell you something, a lot of these false religions are being controlled by the devil.
And I'm not saying that people, I'm not saying if you're a Catholic you're demon-possessed,
I'm not saying if you're a Pentecostal, I mean if you're a charismatic, tongue-speaking Pentecostal,
you probably, you either are demon-possessed or you're faking it.
Because the Holy Spirit does not take control and make you say things and make you bark like a dog and roll over.
The Holy Spirit doesn't do that.
So you say, what are your thoughts about these Pentecostal, charismatic, tongue-speakers?
Here's my thought, number one, lots of them are faking it.
I had a friend, when I was in the Air Force, I got him saved, he was a tongue-speaking Pentecostal,
and he'd always talk about how he spoke in tongues or whatever.
And one day we were having lunch together, we're on a lunch break and we're having lunch,
and I started just giving him the gospel and he got saved.
He ended up coming to our church and got baptized and praise the Lord for all of that.
But I remember talking to him after he got saved and I said, now, I gotta ask you.
You know, because I was just curious, like, because he told me that he'd spoken in tongues or whatever,
and I kind of thought, like, maybe he was possessed with the devil.
You know, so I said, hey, I gotta ask you, you've told me that you've spoken in tongues before.
You know, but now you're saved, now you have the Holy Spirit, and we'd already kind of talked about some of these things.
And I said, what do you think about that experience?
And he said, be very honest with you, I was faking it the whole time.
He's like, because in my church, because he grew up in this Pentecostal church,
and he's like, in my church is this status thing, where like, if you don't speak in tongues,
then you're like, oh, you don't have the Holy Spirit.
So he's like, I was faking it, all my friends were faking it, it was just.
So I believe that a lot of these Pentecostals are just faking it, but the ones that aren't are demon-possessed.
They're possessed with the devil, period, end of story.
But they seem so religious. All these devils seem religious.
The devils believe God and tremble.
The devils look at Jesus and say, hey, Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are ye?
The devils say, Jesus, thou Son of God.
So these devils are aware of spiritual truth.
And look, mark my words, when you get, and again, I'm not saying everyone in these religions are all reprobates,
and I'm not saying they're demon-possessed.
I'm not saying every person that's demon-possessed is a reprobate, because the Bible does not teach that, necessarily.
Obviously, many of them are.
But I will say this, when you get up to those high offices of the Jehovah's Witnesses,
those high offices of the Mormon Church, those high offices, the Pope with the Catholic Church,
not only are those guys a bunch of reprobates, they're all demon-possessed.
They're all being controlled by the devil.
The devil is very religious.
The Bible says that he transforms himself into a prophet of light, an angel of light.
He's got false prophets.
So this demon-possessed man was aware of spiritual truth.
Number four, keep your finger right there in Acts 19.
We're going to come right back to it.
Go back to Luke chapter 8, verse 29.
For he had commanded, we're seeing the description given to us by Luke of the demon-possessed man that confronts the Lord Jesus Christ.
For he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man.
For oft times it had caught him, and he was kept bound with chains and in fetters,
and he broke the bands and was driven of the devil into the wilderness.
I want you to notice here we have another characteristic that's given to us about this demon-possessed man.
He was kept bound with chains and in fetters, and he broke the bands.
This guy was so out of control.
He was so destructive that they bound him in chains.
They literally just wrapped him in chains and locked him up.
But the Bible says that he broke the bands.
So another demon-possessed man characteristic from this man is not only that he was naked,
it's not only that he was fascinated with death,
it's not only that he was aware of spiritual truth,
but this man also had above normal strength, above average strength.
You might call it supernatural strength.
And this is not the only time we see this in the Bible.
Go back to Acts 19. Remember our story with the seven sons of Siva?
Acts 19, look at verse 15.
Remember these seven sons? They're kind of fakers.
They want to cast out devils, and they saw Paul do it.
I adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth, and the evil spirit, verse 15,
and the evil spirit answered his head, Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are ye?
Notice verse 16, Acts 19, 16.
And the man, singular, this is the demon-possessed man,
the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them.
You see the them there? That's plural because there's seven of them.
So the one man leaped upon seven sons of Siva, notice,
and overcame them and prevailed against them so that they fled out of the house naked and wounded.
So here you've got this demon-possessed man.
You've got seven sons of Siva trying to cast out this devil.
The devil says, Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are you?
And then he jumps on them, one man against seven, and he beats them up.
I mean the Bible says they run out of the house.
I mean don't you think that seven men should be able to take on one guy?
But this demon-possessed man, he had this above normal strength.
The demon-possessed man that Jesus came in contact with,
he was kept bound with chains and in fetters and break the bands.
And look, today people will often tell stories, or I've never seen any of these videos,
but people often tell me that they see these videos of these people on drugs,
and they have this supernatural strength of just getting hit by a car,
just standing up and keep running, just getting hit by bullets.
You say, what is that? I mean obviously a lot of that has to do with drugs,
and by the way, drugs are a gateway to demon possession.
Well you should stay away from drugs and alcohol.
You say alcohol? They're called spirits for a reason.
They call alcohol spirits. You know why?
Because it's a gateway into evil spirits.
But you know, it has to do with drugs, but it has to do with the fact that these people are demon-possessed.
They're possessed with devils.
Demon-possessed people have above normal strength.
This one man prevailed over seven.
This man that Jesus comes in contact with was kept bound with chains and in fetters, and he break bands.
Go back to, go to Mark if you wouldn't. Mark chapter 5.
You're there in Acts, go backwards past John, Luke, into Mark.
And by the way, you know, obviously I can't preach this sermon without telling this story.
Some of you know where I'm going.
You know, we had a demon-possessed man attack our house.
You know, you say, what did you think about that?
It made me feel really good.
Because the demon-possessed man was like, Jesus I know, Pastor Jimenez I know, you know.
And I was like, whoa, we must be doing something right.
But you know, I remember this was maybe a couple of years ago.
On a Thursday afternoon, I was out soul-winning on our Thursday soul-winning time,
and my wife was going to have, you know, this also is a lesson on the providence of God.
Because my wife was going to have a few ladies over at our house,
because they were getting ready for some, I don't remember what event it was, but some event for the ladies.
And she was having a few ladies over at the house, and they were going to be getting all of the,
I don't remember the details, but I think the gifts or some of the stuff they were going to give away at this event.
They were going to have this assembly line and get them all together.
And this was going to happen at our house.
But so many ladies ended up volunteering to help my wife with this,
that at the last minute she decided to do it at the church building,
because there were so many ladies coming to help.
So she decided not to do it at our house, and she did it at our church building.
So during this time, no one was in our house.
I was out soul-winning, and my wife was here with all of our children at the church building with the ladies.
But I remember getting a call, I want to say it was Miss Cricket.
Miss Cricket called my wife, and I got a call,
and it was just like, there's all these cops in front of your house.
And we're just like, what in the world? What happened?
And we ended up driving, and my brother Oliver and I drove to my house.
And we have cameras, of course.
When you get as many death threats as I do, you've got to have cameras all over your house.
So we had cameras, and we got there, and what ended up happening was they arrested this guy
that was trying to break into our house.
But as we heard more about this, and especially as we started looking at the camera footage,
number one, he was completely naked.
And I'm not saying naked by Baptist standards, I'm saying naked by everyone's standards.
Like bare naked, the whole big white albino guy, too.
Completely naked.
And he's trying to get, we watch the footage.
The first thing he does when he walks up to my front door is he tries to just open the door,
just to see if it was open, which is kind of scary.
Always lock your doors.
You live in California, okay? Lock your doors.
And then when that didn't happen, then he starts crawling at the door,
trying to pry the door open, trying to get into our house.
Obviously, people notice there's a big white albino naked guy in front of our house,
so they call the cops.
He goes to the bathroom just right in front of our front doorstep,
which the cops did not clean up, by the way.
And I thought that was part of the deal.
My taxes pays your salaries, but anyway.
And we watch this footage, and look, three big, muscular cops
could not wrestle this skinny white guy down.
I mean, we watched the footage.
There was these three buff, muscular cops, and they're trying to get him down,
and he was overtaking them.
The only reason that they were able to arrest him is because one of them,
a fourth guy, finally walked up and just, you know, tasered him.
And when they tasered him, they locked him up.
But this guy was like, I mean, he's like beating up these cops,
and you say, what was that?
A naked guy, you know, just overtaking these cops,
you know, it's like you're reading Luke Chapter 8.
And then the cops, we talked to the cops afterwards,
and they were like, yeah, he kept saying, this is what he kept saying.
He kept saying that there was a portal in our house.
He needed to get into our house because he was saying,
they were like, yeah, he's on drugs, and you know, he's whatever.
But I just thought this was interesting.
He kept saying that he believed there was a portal in our house
that would give him access to heaven and hell,
and he needed to get into our house in order to access that portal.
Obviously he was demon-possessed, obviously he was on drugs,
obviously he was crazy, but you know what, let me tell you something,
he wasn't that wrong.
Because if there's anybody on that neighborhood that has a portal,
other than Miss Cricket, of course, she lives down the street from us,
my house and Miss Cricket's house has a portal inside
called the King James Bible and a soul winner that can actually get you saved.
I mean, it's interesting to me that he's just like,
and I don't even know that, I don't think he even knew I was a pastor,
he just focused in our house.
This naked, demon-possessed, supernatural man just focuses on our house,
trying to break in, and praise the Lord that my wife and my kids weren't there,
and that God and his providence protected us.
But you know, it's like, I remember just thinking to myself,
it's like this guy just leaped out of the Gospel of Luke, literally.
Naked, supernatural strength, talking about religious things,
and confronting the man of God and his family.
By the way, you've got to pray for your pastor or your pastor's wife,
if you don't believe that there's such a thing as spiritual warfare.
So number one, we see that this demon-possessed man was naked.
Number two, we see that this demon-possessed man was fascinated with death.
Number three, we see that this demon-possessed man was aware of spiritual truth.
Number two, we see that this demon-possessed man had above normal strength.
And then here's another one, number five, go to Mark 5.
Remember I told you the story is found in several Gospels?
Mark 5, 5.
Here's the fifth characteristic.
The demon-possessed man cut himself.
Mark 5, 5, and always, night and day,
he was in the mountains, referring to this demon-possessed man,
in the tombs, crying, notice, and cutting himself with stones.
This demon-possessed man cut himself.
You know that there are people, you know the same people
that listen to the same rock music about death and darkness
and worship of the devil also cut themselves?
It's characteristics of demon influence.
But let me just say this, that demon influence is not,
and look, you can beat up on the rock music,
but the rap music has a bunch of Satanism and death in it as well.
It all does, all of it.
This demon-possessed man cut himself, but here's the influence,
because remember, we live in this demon-influenced culture.
This man cut himself, but you know, here's the takeaway,
the demonic influence of our society is a culture of self-mutilation.
It's a demonic influence.
So you say self-mutilation, what do you mean?
I mean the cutting yourself, I mean the piercing yourself,
I mean the tattooing yourself up.
These are all things, look, you really think a Christian
who's just reading the Bible every day, Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night,
goes to church Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night,
reads the Bible every day, gets on their knees and prays every day,
goes out soul-willing every week.
You think there's just some Christian who's just filled with the Holy Spirit,
I think I'm going to go get a tattoo.
I think I need to get a tattoo.
You didn't get that idea from the world.
If you're here this morning and you've got tattoos,
I'm not preaching at you, obviously everybody has a past whatever,
but I'm trying to keep a bunch of these kids from doing it.
And by the way, I love the fact that our church is filled with people
that have tattoos and it's a testimony to a transformed life.
But you know, this self-mutilation culture we live in,
it's an influence of the devil.
And by the way, let me just let you in on a little secret.
And again, I'm not trying to offend you guys with tattoos.
I love you, I'm for you.
Let me just, you kids that don't have tattoos, you're like,
I turned 18, I'm going to get a tattoo.
Here's the problem with that.
When you're 18, you're an idiot.
And here's what people never think about when they get a tattoo.
They think, this looks awesome when I'm 18.
Let me let you in on a little secret.
Everything looks awesome when you're 18.
When you're 48, it's going to look different.
Many a young lady thought, oh, this is going to look real nice.
I'm going to get this, you know, fairy on my lower back.
And it's like, I'm 18, I'm 20.
Yeah, the problem is when you're 40 years old,
that fairy is going to look like a morbidly obese fairy that's stretched out.
I mean, you should probably think these things through is what I'm saying.
You ought to think, if you're going to get a tattoo, you ought to think,
what kind of tattoo would look good when I'm fat and old and wrinkly?
That's the one I want.
I need a tattoo that's going to age well.
Or better yet, just don't cut yourself.
The Bible says not to mark yourself.
Look, if God wanted you with a hole the size of a baseball in your earlobe,
he would have made you that way.
If God wanted a tramp stamp in your lower back,
he would have given you one.
You are fearfully and wonderfully made.
God made you exactly the way he wants you.
In the self-mutilation culture of today, cutting yourself, piercing yourself,
tattoo, it's demonic.
No Christian right with God just got done reading their kingdom of the Bible and said,
I think I'm going to go cut myself.
I think I'm going to go inject ink, permanent ink, into my body now.
I think I'm going to put a hole in my body now.
It's demonic.
He cut himself.
Go back to Luke chapter 8, verse 30.
Let me give you the sixth characteristic.
Not only do we see that this demon-possessed man was naked,
this demon-possessed man was fascinated with death,
this demon-possessed man was aware of spiritual truth,
this demon-possessed man had above normal strength,
this demon-possessed man cut himself.
And number six, the demon-possessed man, I want you to know,
you know this, you know the story, had multiple demons, many demons.
Look at Luke 8 and verse 30.
And Jesus asked him saying, what is thy name?
And he said, legion.
And legion is not so much a name as it is a title or a description
because in the Roman Empire, which is the time when Jesus was alive,
a legion was a description of a division of Roman soldiers
in the Roman army, a division or a unit of soldiers
that could have anywhere from 3,000 to 6,000 soldiers in it.
So when this guy says, Jesus says, what is thy name?
And he says, legion.
He's saying like, there's a lot of us.
You want all our names?
We're like a legion of devils.
By the way, the fact that he uses a military term to describe himself
should remind you that we're engaged in spiritual warfare,
that they're fighting against us.
He said, legion, notice verse 30, because many devils were entered into him.
And here's the thing, you'll find this consistently throughout the Bible.
When somebody has a demon, they probably have multiple demons.
Look at Luke 8, you're there in chapter 8, look at verse 2.
Remember we saw this earlier in our study, Luke 8, verse 2.
And a certain woman, which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities,
Mary called Magdalene, out of whom went, notice, seven devils.
Jesus later on in Luke gives a parable of a man who gets the devils to go out
and he has multiple devils and then he brings back multiple devils.
So it seems to be this thing in the Bible.
And it emphasizes the fact that when somebody has a devil, they've got multiple devils.
Now let me just say this real quickly and I'll just read this.
And you stay there in Luke 8.
But let me just answer this question. Can a believer be demon possessed?
And the answer is no.
And there's lots of scriptures we can look at. I'll just give you one, 1 John 4.
The Bible says it's in your bulletin.
Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them,
because greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world.
An evil spirit cannot come into my body as a saved person and overtake my body
because I've got the Holy Spirit.
And greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world.
So a believer cannot be demon possessed, but let me just say this.
A believer cannot be demon possessed. You cannot be possessed by a devil.
But a believer can definitely be demon oppressed.
You can definitely have demons attacking you and trying to make your life miserable
and be engaged in spiritual warfare.
But I want you to notice that this man had many demons, is what the Bible says.
So number one, we saw the confrontation with a demon possessed man.
The devil has devils, has demons, and these demons engage in spiritual warfare
against God, against the Lord Jesus Christ, and against God's people.
Then we saw the characteristics of the demon possessed man.
He was naked. He was fascinated with death.
He was aware of spiritual truth. He had above normal strength.
He cut himself. He had multiple demons.
Let me thirdly this morning give you the last point.
We see the conversion of the demon possessed man.
And let me just say this, that somebody can get saved even if they've been demon possessed.
Now there are many reprobates who are demon possessed.
They can't be saved not because they're demon possessed, but because they're reprobates.
And we'll talk about reprobates tonight as we continue in our Luke series.
Let me just say this, someone can be saved who's been demon possessed.
And in fact, we just read about Mary Magdalene who had seven devils and she got saved.
And this man gets saved.
So notice the conversion of the demon possessed man.
The first thing we see in his conversion is the value of a soul.
What price would you put on a soul?
How much money would you spend to get one person saved?
Why don't you notice in the story it's interesting that Jesus is going to cast the devils, the legion, out of this man.
But because there's so many of them, he allows them to kill swine, the Bible says.
Notice there in Luke 8 verse 31.
And they, this is the devils, legion, besought him, Jesus, that he would not command them to go out into the deep.
And there was there a herd of many swine feeding on the mountains and they besought him that he, Jesus, would suffer them.
The word suffer means allow them to enter into them.
So remember, we are in the land of the Gadarenes.
This is a Gentile location, not a location of Judea or of Israel.
So you've got this pig farm. Someone's raising these pigs. There's a herd of many swine.
And these devils, they're asking Jesus, hey, instead of commanding us to go out into the deep, can you just command us to possess this herd of many swine?
And the Bible says there in verse 32, and they besought him that he would suffer them, allow them to enter into them.
Notice the last part of verse 32, and he suffered them. He allowed them.
It's interesting. Look, the devil and the devils are under the authority of Lord Jesus Christ.
He still has to grant them permission.
By the way, when the devil oppresses a Christian, you know, I talked about the fact that Christians cannot be demon possessed, but they can be demon oppressed.
You say, what's an example of that? An example of that is Job, where Satan went to war with Job.
But if you remember, Job had to get God's permission to do that.
Look, understand something. Everything in your life is filtered through God.
Nothing in your life catches God by surprise.
You say, I'm going through a hard time. I'm going through a difficult time. I feel like the devil's attacking me.
Hey, that may be true, but just know this. That was filtered by God.
God knows what you're going through.
And here, they asked permission. And the Bible says he suffered them. Look at verse 33.
Then went the devils out of the man and entered into the swine, and the herd ran violently down the steep place into the lake and were choked.
Now, I want you to go to Mark, if you would. Go back to Mark, chapter 5. You're there in Luke. Go to Mark.
So there's this herd of many swine.
They asked, can we go into these pigs? And the devil went out of the man and entered into the swine.
And then the herd ran violently down a steep place into the lake and were choked.
In Mark, we're told the same story, but we're given how many pigs exactly? How many swine?
Look at Mark 5, verse 11.
Now there was there nigh, the word nigh means near, unto the mountains a great herd of swine feeding.
And all the devils, this is legion, besought him, Jesus saying, send us into the swine that we may enter into them.
And forthwith, Jesus gave them leave. And the unclean spirit went out and entered into the swine, and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea.
They were about 2,000 and were choked in the sea. So the Bible tells us there was 2,000 pigs.
The devil said, when Jesus asked, what's your name? He said, legion, which a legion generally had three to six thousand soldiers.
So we're talking about, you know, we don't know how many devils are, but there's thousands of devils in this one guy.
And Jesus allows them to be cast into these 2,000 pigs, knowing that they're going to run off a cliff and die.
This should teach us a couple of things. First of all, Jesus values human life above animal life.
Obviously, we should not be cruel to animals. The Bible teaches that.
But if you have to make a choice between an animal and a human being, a human being is a higher value.
But not only that, Jesus values the soul of a man more than money.
Because what you're going to see here in a minute, the farmers of these pigs, the herdsmen of these pigs, they're not happy with this.
I mean, 2,000 pigs that they're...look, when you got 2,000 pigs, it's not a hobby. It's not like I've got this hobby farm.
This is a business. 2,000 pigs and these 2,000 pigs just ran off a cliff because you cast this demon.
This is their business. This is money. And look, I don't know. I'm a city slicker.
I don't know anything about pigs. But if you just consider the fact that each one of these pigs cost something...
I mean, let's say a pig costs just on the low end between $50 and $80 to buy a pig, I would imagine.
And you got 2,000 of them, that's $100,000. $100,000, $160,000.
Let's say on a higher end, let's say they're worth $100,000 to $200,000 each. We're talking about $200,000 to $400,000.
Go to Mark chapter 8 real quickly. Mark 8. You're there in Mark 5. Mark 8.
So here we have one man who's possessed by devils. These devils are ruining their lives.
Jesus wants to cast the devils out but they're asking, can we go into those pigs?
Jesus says, sure, go at it. They go into the pigs. 2,000 pigs run off a cliff.
I mean, $200,000 to $400,000 runs off a cliff. And Jesus doesn't care.
You say, why is that? Because of the value of a soul.
Mark 8.36, for what shall it profit a man? For what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?
You know that Jesus would spend any amount of money to save one soul?
You're not the worth of a soul to Jesus. You say, is it worth $100,000, $200,000, $400,000?
It's worth so much, he died. It's worth the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
So we see the value of a soul here. Jesus, I mean, he let $400,000 just run off the cliff just to save one man.
We see the value of the soul but secondly we see the reaction to salvation. Notice there in verse 34.
And when they that fed them, because obviously there's people there working with these 2,000 pigs.
When they that fed them, Luke 8.34, saw what was done, they fled.
And went and told it unto the city, into the country.
Then they went out to see what was done and came to Jesus and found the man out of whom the devil's word departed.
Now we get the contrast. We saw him when he was demon-possessed, naked, fascinated with death, supernatural strength, cutting himself.
Now we see him when he's saved, sitting at Jesus' feet, clothed and in his right mind.
And they were afraid. By the way, that's what a saved person looks like.
That's what a saved person should look like, sitting at Jesus' feet, clothed and in his right mind.
Verse 36, and they also which saw it told them by what means he that was possessed of the devil was healed.
Look at verse 37. This is a really interesting passage but to me, verse 37 is the most interesting or perplexing of this whole passage.
And the whole multitude of the country of the Gadarenes. I mean everybody in this country knew who this guy was.
Nobody misses the albino naked guy beating up three cops. They tied him up and he broke free from the chains.
They know he's living in the tombs. They're telling their children, be careful, don't go out to those tombs.
You know the naked guys out there. You know demon possessed vans out there. There are crazy guys out there.
Now, now they see the same man sitting at Jesus' feet, clothed and in his right mind.
What's their reaction? Verse 37.
Then the whole multitude of the country of the Gadarenes round about besought him, besought Jesus to depart from them.
For they were taken with great fear and he went up into the ship and returned back again.
They see the demon possessed man clothed in his right mind and they look at Jesus, you gotta go. You gotta leave.
You think they say praise the Lord? Hallelujah! Look at the power of God! Look at what God has done!
But no, you know what's interesting and I would imagine that they were probably upset at the fact that they just lost $400,000.
What's interesting is that they liked him better the other way. So it shouldn't surprise you.
When you're like, man I got saved, I was on drugs, I was just destroying my life, I was stealing from my family, I was in and out of prison.
I was just everything, I mean everything was bad. And then I got saved and I began to sit at Jesus' feet and I got clothed into my right mind.
And I began to go to church and I got a job and I got cleaned up. And your friends are like, oh we liked you better when you were a Greg addict.
You gotta leave now. You and Jesus, take him. It's interesting to me that the world would rather see you naked, destroying your life, and demon possessed.
Than they'd like to see you filled with the Holy Spirit of God. They liked him the way he was before and they wanted Jesus to leave.
Quickly, let's finish up. Look at verse 38, verse 38-39. Notice what should be the desire of a transformed life.
Verse 38, now the man out of whom the devils were departed besought him. This is the demon-blessed man that's not demon-blessed anymore.
He's sitting at Jesus' feet, clothed in his right mind. He besought him. He goes to Jesus. He besought him that he might be with him.
Because the God of Eden said, Jesus you gotta go. And the ex demon-blessed man, I don't know what to call him. He's not legion anymore. Maybe he's Larry. I don't know.
And Larry goes to Jesus and says, I want to go with you. That he might be with him. You know, when you got saved that should be your desire to be with Jesus.
We see the desire of a transformed life and then we see the mission of a transformed life. Notice Jesus' response.
But Jesus, last part of verse 38, sent him away saying, verse 39, return to thine own house and show how great things God had done unto thee.
And he went his way and published throughout the whole city how great things Jesus had done unto him.
Pastor, you're always turning every sermon into soul winning. I'm not, look, it's in the text. I mean, I can't get away from it.
I'm just like, soul winning, soul winning, soul winning. This guy gets saved and Jesus says, what do I do now?
He says, go soul winning. Return to thine own house and show how great things God had done unto thee.
And he went his way and published throughout the whole city how great things Jesus had done unto him.
And you know what? Maybe you weren't demon possessed. Maybe you were. But now that you're saved,
my job and your job is to go publish throughout the whole city how great things Jesus has done unto us.
Let's bow our heads in our word of prayer. Heavenly Father, Lord, we love you. We thank you for this passage of scripture.
So much to learn from this story and so much we can learn from the society we live in, the demon influenced society that we live in.
Lord, I pray you to help us to realize that there is a devil. He does have devils and he's engaged in spiritual warfare against us.
Lord, help us to be on the offensive. Help us to be like this man and go and publish to the whole city how great things God has done for us.
Help us to be soul winners. Help us to sit at Jesus' feet, clothed in our right mind.
Help us to not be influenced by demonic ideas, nakedness and self-mutilation and the exalting of death.
Lord, I pray you to help us to live for you. Thank you for this passage. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
We're going to have Brother Matt come up and lead us in a final song. I do want to just give you a couple thoughts.
First of all, don't forget if you are in the orchestra, we had announced our orchestra practice tonight, but there is no orchestra practice at 5 p.m.
We're postponing that, Lord willing, to next week due to sickness. So don't come to that at 5 p.m.
And then for the rest of you, if you're not feeling well, please stay home.
If you are feeling well, be in church of course, but we encourage you to maybe don't come as early as you normally do.
Try not to stay real late. We're just trying to minimize as much sickness as possible.
And of course this building is going to get cleaned. We're going to sanitize it and make sure it's ready to go for tonight.
And if there's anything that we can do for you, please let us know.
And I encourage you to come back tonight at 6 p.m. We're going to continue our journey with Jesus.
We're going to keep walking with the Lord Jesus Christ through the Gospel of Luke.
And we'll see what the Lord has for us tonight. If there's anything we can do for you, please let us know.
We'll have Brother Matt come up and lead us in a final song.
Turn to song 250.
250 on the first.
250 on the second.
250 on the third.
Amen. Good singing. Before we leave here, if anybody has questions about salvation, church membership, or baptism, the pastor will be at the door.
He'd love to talk to you or direct you to someone who's trained to talk to you about that.
Brother Eli, would you close in prayer for us?
Amen.