Demons Disarmed

Luke 8:26-39 - Riley Boggs

One of my favorite podcasts is called “Haunted Cosmos”. I think a few people here have listened to some of the episodes before, but for those who haven’t I’ll give you a short summary of what it is. The slogan of the podcast is “investigating a world that’s not just stuff”, and that’s exactly what they do. These 2 guys look at strange stories and events that have happened in the world, and try to make sense of them as Bible believing Christians. They look at them without these materialistic glasses on and instead try to take into account the spiritual realities of this world. See the world tried to explain away these odd happenings by only what they can see, while these guys look at how the Bible might help us better understand the factors at play that can’t be seen, but are certainly real.

I would guess that if the story we are looking at this morning happened in the United States today, it would be entirely explained away. Instead of hearing about demons being cast out of a man and into a herd of pigs, we might hear about how a man who struggled with mental health issues had startled pigs into a lake. The spiritual realities of the story would be dismissed, leaving only the material world behind. As Christians, we must be the ones who are constantly thinking about the spiritual realities of this world. This world isn’t just what your eyes can see, and your hands can touch. It is so much more than that.

Let me show that to you so that we are all on the same page before diving into this text. If you will, briefly turn with me to Ephesians 6. Starting in verse 10 we read, “10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. 11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. 12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. 13 Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.”

Paul says that we don’t wrestle, or struggle, with flesh and blood. That is, the material world isn’t where the real war is happening, though it often manifest itself in the material world. The real war that is taking place is a spiritual one, but it is no less of a war. Think about what Paul is saying here. He says that we are to wrestle with what? Against the spiritual rulers and authorities. We are to wrestle with the cosmic powers over this present darkness, the evil spiritual forces. That’s the fight that we fight. Paul will go on to tell us to put on spiritual armor for this fight, so that we might be able to stand strong against the enemy.

These spiritual realities are as real as the chair you are sitting in right now. It’s present, it exist, and you are involved. But not just you, every single person is involved in this war, though they may not realize it. There is no escaping it. There is no bystander position. And so, like any wrestling match or fight, we need to be prepared. We need to know what these cosmic powers want and how they seek to bring it about. We need to know what Jesus has done for us and how this affects this fight. We need to know our responsibility, what our role is. We need to be aware and ready, and I think this text will help us in this way.

Our story begins by telling us that Jesus and his disciples sailed to the country of the Gerasenes, which was opposite of Galilee. That detail is important because this means that the people here are not Jews, they are Gentiles. And that matters because we are going to see Jesus interact with these people in a slightly different way than He interacts with the Jews. But regardless, the boat arrives at the shore, Jesus steps onto the land, and immediately a man from the city approached him. This man was a troubled man, a man who had possessed by demons. Luke tells us the many ways that these demons had affected this man. He hadn’t worn clothes in a long time and he didn’t live in a house, but among the tombs. Luke tells us that at times they had bound him with chains and shackles, and he showed incredible strength, broke free, and was driven into the desert by the demons. This man was in a very bad situation.

As Jesus begin to approach this man, he starts to cry out. But not the man actually, rather the demons within the man begin to cry out. You can see it in verse 28. They cry out, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me.” Previously in Luke, when a demon cried out a very similar thing, Jesus had silenced the demon, trying to conceal who He was from the Jewish people. But here, Jesus doesn’t do that, since He is among Gentiles. Instead, Jesus asks, “What is your name?” And in response he said, “Legion.” Now this detail gives us further insight into the terrible reality of this man. See the word “Legion” was a reference to a Roman army of roughly 6,000 men. Luke tells us that the reason that the man called himself this is because many demons had entered him. Now, I don’t know if that means that there were 6,000 demons were in this man, but I do know that by their own admission, there were many.

No matter number of demons in this man, they both know who Jesus is, and they fear Him. Just the presence of Jesus causes these demons to begin to beg like a child who gets caught doing something they shouldn’t be doing by their parents. They beg Jesus to not command them into the abyss. This word “abyss” really means “bottomless pit”, and it’s the same place that is referenced in Revelation 9 and 20. And from those texts, we know that this is the place where evil spirits are confined. The demons don’t want to be sent there, and they know that Jesus certainly could do this if He wanted. So, they offer up an alternative. They say, instead of sending us to the abyss, would you allow us to enter the herd of pigs. Jesus grants this request and gives the demons permission to enter the pigs. The demons rush out of the man and into the pigs, then the pigs rush down the steep bank, into the lake, and drown. I almost titled the sermon “Demon Pigs in the Lake”, but thought that might be too distracting for immature people like Max or Logan or Parker or Wade or Jared or Cameron, basically every man here.

After this, the herdsmen go and tell the people in the city what just happened. And when they hear about this, they want to see it for themselves, and so the people of the city come out to where Jesus and this man was. They get there and they see Jesus and this man. Except now this man was clothed and in his right man, no longer tormented by demons. When they see all of this, they become afraid, and they begin to ask how this man is the way that he is. People who saw it happen tell them the story and their fear grows even greater. In response, they tell Jesus to leave. Jesus listens to them and gets in His boat to leave. And as He is leaving, the man whom he healed begged Jesus to let him be with Him, but Jesus sent him away. He told him, instead of coming with me, go back to your home and tell of what God has done for you. So the man does it. He leaves Jesus, returns to the city, and begins to proclaim how much Jesus had done for him.

Now that’s a story. There’s 3 things that I want to draw out of this passage for us this morning. The first one is this.

1.) The enemy desires that people experience sin, loneliness, and death

If you were to open the devil and his demons playbook, it would say something like, “Make them do shameful things and have no shame about it. Make them feel alone and isolated, a constant loneliness. Make them fear death and want death all at the same time, giving them a constant sense of dread.” That’s the goal of the enemy. That’s what he desires for people. That’s what he desired for this man. We can see very clearly that this the case by the way that this man is afflicted.

Luke tell us that this man hasn’t worn clothes in a long time. He’s acting in a way that isn’t normal and acting as if it is normal. Nakedness, in this way, is a shameful thing. Think about Adam and Eve in the garden. In Genesis 2:25, before the fall, it says that Adam and Eve, man and wife, were both naked and were not ashamed. But what happened after they sinned. Immediately after they sinned against God by eating the fruit it says that their eyes were opened, they realized they are naked, and they made loincloths. Not only that, but when they heard God walking through the garden, they hide from Him. So God calls out to them and Adam responded by saying, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” And God responds to them and asks, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” Then, after telling them the results of their actions, it says that God clothed them with garments of skins. As a result of the fall, to bare our bodies in this way is a shameful thing, sin made it that way. And yet, in the case of the man in our stories, it seems that demons have caused him to act as if that’s not the case. They are causing him to act in a very shameful way and blinding him from his ability to feel the shame of it.

This is what the enemy desires of us. He wants you to sin, to do shameful things. He wants your conscience to be unbothered by things that it most certainly should be bothered by. He wants you to be unashamed of your sin to the point where you would even boast about it. He wants you to walk the streets of Washington DC or New York with a sign that says, “shout your abortion!” while you boast of your murderous act. Yes, that is a thing. The enemy wants people to sin proudly and to normalize it, which is precisely why the demon-filled man has not worn clothes. The enemy wants you to sin because sin separates people from God.

But that’s not the only way that the demons have tormented this man. They are also trying to isolate him and making him feel lonely. This man doesn’t have a house in the town, he lives among tombs by himself. The demons have caused him to be out of his mind, to have unnatural strength, and at times they have seized him. So bad in fact that the people of have to bind him with chains and have someone guard him. They want him to feel stuck, alone, an outcast. And when he breaks free of the shackles, the demons drive him out to the desert so his loneliness might increase even more.

This is what the enemy desires of all people, loneliness. It is not a coincidence that those who turn from the faith often isolate themselves. You all know too many stories like this I’m sure. You have a man who faithfully attends church and professes to follow Jesus. But then something happens, and he starts to attend less and less, and doesn’t spend really any time the people of the church. He isolates himself more and more, and begins to question everything he once believed and lived for, until eventually he renounces the faith entirely. See the enemy does his best work to people who are by themselves. People who have no one to lift them, to remind them of the truth, to comfort them, to encourage them. He wants to pull people away from community, so that he can begin to deceive you and make you feel as if there is no one in the world who can help you, you’re all by yourself. He wants you isolated and lonely.

And lastly, the demons caused this man to be surrounded by death. This man lived among the tombs, where the dead were placed. Why? Because the enemy loves death. God told Adam and Eve that if they were to eat of the fruit, they would die. The enemy knew that and it’s precisely why he deceived Even into eating it. He wanted Adam and Eve to taste death in a way that they would have never tasted it had they not sinned. When the demons were released from the man and into the pigs, what did they do? The pigs immediately drowned. Why? Because that is what the enemy longs for, the death of God’s creation. And I’m sure they desired to kill this man, to keep him from the Lord once and for all. But God, in His grace, spared this man and came to his aid. But not just his aid, He came to save the world. This casting out of demons is just a glimpse of what is to come in this Gospel. Jesus came to this Earth to bring us forgiveness, fellowship, and eternal life. That’s the next point I want us to see this morning.

2.) Jesus has brought forgiveness, fellowship, and eternal life

I love the picture of the people running from the city to where Jesus was to see what was going on. They were just told this seemingly unbelievable story, and they have to see it for themselves. And as they get there, and they see Jesus, but then, they see that there is someone sitting at His feet. They get a little bit closer, and they start to think, “There’s no way that is who I think it is.” And finally, they can’t deny it anymore, it’s the man who had been possessed by demons. And they think, how? No longer naked, for Jesus had clothed him. No longer out of his mind, for Jesus had made his mind right. Jesus had taken hidden this man’s shame and caused him to see in ways that he had never seen before. Jesus healed this man.

It’s the same thing that God did for Adam and Eve in the garden, and it’s the same thing that Jesus has done for you and me. But for us, He didn’t clothe us with material clothes, because that isn’t the kind of clothing we needed. Our problem was not one, is not one of flesh and blood. It is a spiritual problem; we are not righteous and cannot make ourselves righteous. And we need to be righteous if we are going to accepted by a Holy God, we need the shame of our sin to be covered. Isaiah 61:10 says, “I will greatly rejoice in the Lord; my soul shall exult in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness.” At the cross, Jesus not only bore our sin, He covered us with His very own righteousness. He laid on us His obedience to the Father. But even more that covering us, He placed His very righteousness inside of us, making us Holy in the sight of God. Not because of what we have done, but because of what He did for us.

Not only did Jesus clothe this man, but He restored him to a people. When Jesus tells this man to go home, he doesn’t go to the tombs, he goes to the city. He no longer is to live in isolation, no longer to feel the pain of loneliness. There’s a reality TV show that I’ve seen a few season of called “Alone”, and whole premise of it is rather simple. They take 10 people, give them some basic survival gear, give them camera gear to film themselves, and they drop them in the middle of the wilderness, alone. They drop each contestant in a different area, where they cannot interreact with one another, and the game begins. Each of them have a radio that they can use to call for help or say they give up, and whoever doesn’t use that radio the longest, wins. The longest anyone has ever stayed in 100 days. But the reason I bring this is up is because lots of times the surviving part isn’t particular difficult for these people. They are experts at fashioning shelters and hunting food. I mean the stuff they are able to do is truly incredible. But no matter how good they are those things, the one thing they cannot fashion is the fix for loneliness. And so often what happens is they get everything set up and are ready to begin waiting out all the contestants and all of sudden it goes to shot of them sitting by the fire contemplating whether or not they can keep going. It’s not the elements or the food, it’s their family. It’s not being able to even be in the presence of another person, let alone talk to them.

There is something within us as humans that demands community. And just as Jesus restored this man to a community, Jesus brought us true community. First and foremost, He has granted us fellowship with the Father and given us His Spirit inside of us. Now, even we are physically alone, we know that we aren’t alone. We have a Father who hears us and a Spirit who comforts us. We have true and real fellowship with a God who loves us, because Jesus died for our sins and brought us into this wonderful fellowship.

Jesus also has given us fellowship in the church. He knows that we need one another, and so as He saves people, He brings them together. Communities of faith linking arms and walking in faithfulness to the God who brought them together. By the way, this is a good time to simply remind you that if you ever think the Lord is telling you to back away from the church, you are confusing the Lord for the enemy. God never calls people to take a step back from the community of faith, He only calls us to take a step further in. The enemy knows that if you are within this community, he will have a much harder time of deceiving you and making you believe his lies. So he will try and try to pull you away, making you think it is reasonable or even good, but don’t believe that. The enemy wants to isolate you, but Jesus has brought you fellowship.

The last thing I’ll point out here is simply that this man has gone from death to life. He was not literally dead, but he was being tortured by the demons who wanted him to be. They had him living in the tombs, surrounded by the aroma of death. For us, our greatest enemy too was once death. And the reason for that is because after the fall, it was inescapable, and it meant we would be eternally separated from God and caused to suffer for all eternity. That is what death meant for us, and it is what the enemy desires for all people who don’t know Christ. But now, for those who know Christ, death is no longer our greatest enemy. Like Paul, we can say this, “53 For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. 54 When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” 55 “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” 56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

On the cross, Jesus put to death death itself. He died so that we might live, not only now, but for all eternity with Him. He crushed death, defeated it, and for all those who follow Him, they too have triumphed over death. There is no need to fear it anymore, though the enemy will try to convince you otherwise, because death is not the end. It is the beginning of a joy-filled eternity. Jesus said that, “10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” and He meant it. It is clear in this story and in our story, because of His atoning work.

In my study this past week, I was reading R.C. Sproul’s comments on this passage, and he pointed out something that I had missed entirely. When the demons see Jesus, they don’t have to ask Him who He is, they know immediately, and they rightly call Him, “Jesus, Son of the Most High God.” But what Sproul points out is what we see just 3 verses before this, when Jesus and the disciples are on the boat. Jesus calms the storm and the disciples ask, “Who then is this, that he commands even winds and water, and they obey him?” The demons had a better grasp on who Jesus was than the disciples. They understood who He was and the power that He had. And I think that after Jesus casts the demons out of this man, he too understood. The reason that I think that is because the man begs Jesus to let him stay with Him. He doesn’t want to leave Jesus’ side, I think, because he understands the goodness and glory of Jesus. Nevertheless, Jesus tells him to go and tell all that God has done for him, and the man does so. And as a nod to the fact that Jesus is indeed God, when told to go and tell of all that God has done for you, Luke adds that the man went and told all that Jesus had done for him. We need to do the very same thing that this man did, and that’s our final point for this morning.

3.) We must go and tell all that Jesus has done for us

When I was little, I would shoot basketball in my driveway and yell to my parents, “Watch this!” over and over again, as I attempted to impress them. I still do this to Shelby by the way, and she has yet to be impressed. But you all know what I am talking about, we like for others to see us do good things. Whatever that desire is, we need to shift it. We need to shift it from, “Look at me! Look at me!” to “Look at what Jesus has done for me!” If we could capture that little boy’s desire for his parents to see him shoot a basketball into a desire for others to see the grace of Jesus towards us, we would be much better off. He has done so much for us and yet we so often neglect to tell of it to others.

This man had no such issue. As soon as Jesus told him to go and tell, he went and proclaimed it throughout the whole city. Who have you proclaimed it to? Your household? Your neighborhood? Your community? Your city? Who have you told about all that Jesus has done for you. These are good questions to ask ourselves because I think, if we’re honest, we all have room to grow here. We need to be a people who, like this man, have no hesitation at telling people of all that Jesus has done for us. Both the specific things that He has done for each of us and the things that He has done for mankind in general.

Think of what He has done just as it relates this to the story alone. For our middle Scripture reading, I had Colossians 2:6-15 read. And in that passage, starting at verse 13, it says, “13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. 15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.” Jesus made us alive, while we were dead in our sin. Jesus made us to be with God. Jesus forgave all of our sins and cancelled the debt we could not pay. Jesus disarmed the rulers and authorities, put them to shame, and triumphed over them. You might be thinking, what rulers and authorities did He do this to? It was the ones who tormented the man in our story. There’s a reason that the demons cowered at the sight of Jesus. They knew what He was capable of. And on the cross, He disarmed them. What that means is now, for those who are in Christ, they cannot be overtaken by the evil things in this world. Though they may try, they cannot go where Christ resides, and He resides is us. We are His and He is ours, and the enemy cannot do anything about it. He has disarmed them.

The enemy desires that people experience sin, loneliness, and death. But Jesus has brought forgiveness, fellowship, and eternal life. Now, let’s go and tell the world all that Jesus has done for us. Amen.