Dealing with Demons

Click here for the audio message of – Mark 5:6-13

For the past few weeks we have been looking at one of God’s most unique creatures. That is angels. We have seen that they worship God like we do. They can appear to us like normal people even though they are not people and people are not angels.

They also have special supernatural abilities like power, strength, and speed. We also compared the angels to Jesus and have proved that Jesus is not an angel, but better than the angels. He is the Son of God, the Sovereign Lord of all.

This morning though, we are going to look at yet another aspect of the angelic realm. See not all angels help us out. Not all are on God’s side. When Satan fell from heaven, he took some angels with him. And those angels, what we call demons are now working for Satan. Their goal is to try and stop us from being close to God.

No doubt many of you have heard the excuse, the devil made me do it. People use this excuse to justify why they did bad things. Many psychologists and other people have completely dismissed the idea of demons and demon possession and other supernatural things.

However, it is real. Demons are real. Have I ever seen it? No, not that I am aware of. So, how do I know its real? Because it is in the bible. That is where our scripture picks up this morning.

Jesus arrives at the country of the Gadarenes. As soon as He got out of the boat there was a man that approached Him. This is the first thing that we need to make a note of in our passage. This was a person, just like any of us.

This guy is in bad shape. He lived in the tombs where there would be dead people. It was not only a ceremonially unclean place, but it would have been a physically unclean probably smelly place.

This man was possessed with unclean spirits. Demons we would call them. We are told that this man possesses superhuman strength. The people could not bind him. He would break the chains. He was a wild man and he lived a miserable life. He suffered physically because of these demons. He suffered emotionally and mentally because of these demons.

But when this man saw Jesus. He ran up to him and bowed down and worshipped him. Here is this man, tormented by demons, yet while in the presence of Jesus has the strength to run up to Him and worship Him. That right there shows you the power of God over Satan.

Right after this, the demons regain control of the man and finish the conversation with Jesus. Today, a professional would probably say this man was a schizophrenic or something. He would seem to have split personalities. That is what the demons would do to him.

The many demons inside this man knew who Jesus was and they knew of His power over them. So they request that they not be sent out of this land, rather they request to be sent into a herd of pigs nearby.

Jesus grants their request. Why? I don’t know. Maybe just to give the man and the other people around the area a graphic depiction of His power over Satan. The demons leave the man and enter the pigs. The pigs then all run off the cliff and drown in the water below.

The herdsmen are mad and afraid so they run off and tell the townspeople. The townspeople come out and tell Jesus to leave, they don’t want Him around. Before He leaves though He tells the man who was demon possessed and is now demon free to go home to his people and tell them how God had mercy upon him.

What an interesting situation we have here. Imagine if you were one of those townspeople and had to live near this demon possessed man. It probably wouldn’t be a real safe thing. You wouldn’t want your kids out playing too far from home. Anytime someone died and needed buried in the tombs you could be risking your life going near this man.

Yet, when Jesus comes and removes the demons from this man. The townspeople become afraid and ask Him to leave the area. They don’t care who He is. They know how bad and powerful those demons were, so if this guy Jesus is stronger than those demons, then they don’t want Him around either.

Not only that, but He destroyed their livelihood when all the pigs ran off the cliff into the sea. What would you do? What do you do when you see the power of God triumph over the power of evil?

Scripture doesn’t tell us how this man became possessed by demons. Some people today worship Satan and try to become possessed with evil spirits. They think it will give them power and freedom to do what they want.

But notice in our text that these demons knew who Jesus was. Demons believe in God, but they do not have the saving faith in Him. They knew He had power over them. They knew they were going to be judged for the things they did to this man, so they pleaded with Jesus. They begged Jesus for mercy and Jesus showed them mercy.

In our society today, we probably would not expect to see people possessed by demons acting like this. We are too “advanced” so to speak to believe in or see that type of thing. We would give this type of demon possession a medical term or something.

But we still do have people that are controlled by demons today. Satan is definitely using the people here in America carry out his plan. It is much more subtle and sophisticated today than it was in our Scripture reading this morning. Satan uses the highly educated people to propagate his lies.

You know why we don’t have prayer in school today? Not because somebody complained and they passed a law and the courts have upheld that law, but because Satan used those people to further his plan.

So we see this morning, that bad angels, called demons, exist as well. For some reason these demons have the power to possess people. I have found no evidence in Scripture of good angels possessing people. Only the Holy Spirit will indwell a believer.

There are a lot of demons out there and they are under the control of Satan. They are working for Satan to accomplish his goal. Thankful, as our Scripture demonstrates this morning, Jesus has power over Satan and his demons.

That is a great lesson for us to remember. We do not need to be afraid of Satan or his demons. Sure, we may allow evil to encroach on our life sometimes when we give into certain temptations, but we know we have the power of God on our side.

When we feel evil encroaching in our life or we see someone else being controlled by evil, remember to ask God for deliverance. Talk to that person and explain to them the power, the love, and the mercy of God.

Closing Prayer
Thank you Lord for defeating Satan for us. Thank you for your protection over the forces of evil in this world. Deliver us from the evil one and enable us to carry out your will.

AMEN.