2And when he was come out of the ship, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit,
3Who had his dwelling among the tombs; and no man could bind him, no, not with chains:
4Because that he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces: neither could any man tame him.
5And always, night and day, he was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones.
6But when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped him,
7And cried with a loud voice, and said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the most high God? I adjure thee by God, that thou torment me not.
8For he said unto him, Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit.
9And he asked him, What is thy name? And he answered, saying, My name is Legion: for we are many.
10And he besought him much that he would not send them away out of the country.
11Now there was there nigh unto the mountains a great herd of swine feeding.
12And all the devils besought him, saying, Send us into the swine, that we may enter into them.
13And forthwith Jesus gave them leave. And the unclean spirits went out, and entered into the swine: and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea, (they were about two thousand;) and were choked in the sea.
Recently, I was reading once again in the book of Mark. This chapter is surely an encouragement to all in this very difficult physical environment that we find ourselves in. The chapter before this one, Mark Chapter 4, recounts the story of the storm that frightened the disciples to the point where they had to wake Jesus to rebuke the sea and calm the storm. In chapter five, we find Jesus rebuking the evil spirits that have possessed this man.
A very powerful one-two punch! We see clearly that Jesus not only calms the physical storms around us...but he can also calm the raging storm in a man's soul! Is this not encouraging?
There are a lot of powerful images in this passage. One is that the man with the unclean spirit lived in the tombs. Well, we know that the wages of sin is death! The second part of verse 3 says that "no man can bind him, no not with chains." Wow, these spirits made him incredibly powerful and it was not by physical means that this man could be contained. Sometimes, we need to know when physical action should be taken and when spiritual means (i.e. prayer) are needed. In today's society, we would take this man to Dr. Phil- but in this chapter, it becomes apparent that the power of darkness will ONLY yield to Christ and what He did on the Cross on our behalf. This rules out modern psychology (in these situations).
Verse 6 says that the demon spirit actually worshipped Jesus, correct? Satan and all of his minions were defeated at the Cross (Col. 2:14-15). Finally, and oddly enough, verse 11 talks about the swine that Jesus cast the demons into...anyone note that Jews are forbidden by law to eat pork... are these folks selling 'food' that they do not believe is clean to eat? Isn't that interesting....
I will try to post more passages on here...but I think the overall message for me is that we serve a great God who can do anything. We need to remind ourselves of that. Yes, the problems and cares of the world are a terrific burden...but we know who we need to cast our cares upon.
As we see the example of God's ability to move in the physical and spiritual world- I believe that we must continue doing good in the world...not JUST waiting for the return of Christ...but still spreading the Good News (the Great Commission) and still standing up for what is right in a very wrong, sinful world.
Have a great weekend! Bruce
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VICTORY!
