The People’s Response

Theme: The Earthly and the Spiritual

 

 

They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes. And when Jesus had stepped out of the boat, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit. He lived among the tombs. And no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain, for he had often been bound with shackles and chains, but he wrenched the chains apart, and he broke the shackles in pieces. No one had the strength to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones.And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and fell down before him. And crying out with a loud voice, he said, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.” For he was saying to him, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!” And Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” He replied, “My name is Legion, for we are many.” And he begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country. Now a great herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, and they begged him, saying, “Send us to the pigs; let us enter them.” So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered the pigs; and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the sea.

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LESSON

Notice that these were Jews who were nevertheless raising unclean animals, swine, in violation of God’s Law. In acting to heal the man as He had, Jesus was doing two things. He was cleansing a man and showing His power over evil spirits, and He was also rebuking the people of the town for having departed from the Law of God to deal with unclean animals. He had accomplished two cleansings: the man’s was a blessing, but the town’s was a rebuke. Yet the townspeople did not repent; instead, in fear they pleaded with Him to leave their region. There are some people who, if you offered them a deed to property or a spiritual blessing, would choose the material over the spiritual. They are not like Solomon, who was wise enough to realize that to choose the spiritual blessing was to choose everything one would ever need. These townspeople saw only the threat to their livelihood. So the Lord Jesus obeyed their terrible request and left them.

 

See what blindness sin brought to these people! Mark has shown us that Jesus is Lord equally over the wind, the seamen’s sick bodies, the demons of the spiritual world and the sin of men’s souls. Because He is God Almighty, the earthly and the spiritual are all under His rule. But the mind that is darkened by sin and set on earthly things does not see that. It fears spiritual power, for it senses its own estrangement from the source. It sees only the material world as valuable and seeks to remove itself from any connection with the spiritual world. For Jesus, the material world was His servant in spiritual ministry, as in the case of the swine. A sinless Jesus sees that the two spheres are joined together under God, but sinful people seek to banish the spiritual and cling to what is earthly. Certainly, that pattern is repeated in millions of hearts today.

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