There met Him two possessed with devils.
Christ and the demoniac
I. The immediate connection of the world of darkness with the evil heart.
II. The great power of the inhabitants of darkness over the evil heart.
III. The utter impotency of man to deliver the possessed from the power of the inhabitants of darkness.
IV. The weakness of the powers or darkness in conflict with Christ. Remarks:
1. Beware of tampering with evil.
2. The wish of evil will ever be self-destructive.
3. If Jesus has cured you show it by causing joy where you have caused so much misery-in your home. (F. Wallace.)
Sin and salvation
I. Some aspects of sin.
1. Its contagiousness.
2. Its anti-social tendency-“Neither abode in any house.”
3. Its embrutalization of character.
4. Its dread of righteousness.
II. Some aspects of salvation.
1. It is begun in expulsion, not repression, of evil principles and desires.
2. God accounts as nothing whatever material loss may be incurred in its effectuation. Souls more than swine.
3. Its moral and spiritual results have a counterpart and external evidence in improved material and social condition.
4. The surest proof of the reality of its accomplishment is renunciation of personal preferences in obedience to Christ’s commands. (Pulpit Analyst.)
The accusing conscience of the wicked
(ver. 29):-
1. Bad men must sooner or later acknowledge their deserts.
2. They believe that a “time” for punishment of their sins will come.
3. A guilty conscience dreads the presence of Christ. (American Homiletic Monthly)
Christ sending the demons from the man into the swine
I. The malice of satan.
1. The possession.
2. The dwelling of the man-among the tombs. A melancholy madness.
3. The fierceness of the demoniac-he could not be bound.
II. The grace and justice of the Saviour,
1. The grace displayed in expelling the demons from the man. The devils saw their Master.
2. The justice manifested in the entrance of the demon into the swine.
III. The result of the miracle.
1. The swineherds flee to carry the tidings. Fear gives wings to their feet.
2. The demoniac comes and sits at Jesus’ feet.
3. The Gadarenes entreat Christ to depart, and He goes.
4. The recovered demoniac seeks to be allowed to follow Christ, and is refused.
Learn:-
1. Let us shudder at the malice, power, and misery of fallen spirits.
2. Fly for refuge to the power and grace of Christ, and dread the thought of desiring Christ to depart.
3. See the place and duty of those whom Christ has healed. (J. Bennett, D. D.)
The authority of right over wrong
1. That this was not a work of authority done by our Master in His own country. He had passed from His own country. Truth knows no limitations; a man that has it owes it to mankind.
2. The sad spectacle that met our Lord was a man in ruins.
3. The moment our Saviour came into the presence of this man he brought a distributing force. Two spheres came together that were antagonistic. Evil claims its rights, liberty. This is the keynote of the opposition in modern society to every attempt to make men better.
4. We should oppose these malign influences front self-interest, and in self-defence. It is not going away from our own affairs when we attempt to break down everything that is destroying the industry and virtue of society. We are bound to meddle with the demonized part of society. Men ought to stand on the ground of goodness and assert the dignity of rectitude over immorality. (Beecher.)
A man in ruins
There is nothing sadder; and, sad to say, nothing more common. No one can see great desolation by conflagration without having a kind of commercial sympathy. The consumption of so much property, the waste and ruin of so many costly structures, is painful to behold. No man can learn that a storm has swept the sea, and that fleets and merchantmen have been wrecked or foundered, without a certain sadness. And yet all the ships on the sea might sink, and all the buildings on the globe might be burned, and the united whole would not be as much as to shatter one immortal soul. There is nothing in old dilapidated cities, there is nothing in temples filled with memorials of former glory, that tends to inspire such sadness and melancholy as to look upon a dilapidated soul, whose powers and faculties are shattered and east down. (Beecher)
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Evil to be opposed in self-defence
It is not going away from our own affairs when we attempt to break clown everything that is destroying the industry, and order, and virtue, and the well-being of the young in society, and corrupting society itself. Every man is to a very great extent dependent for his own prosperity upon the average conditions of the community in which he lives. A man is very much like a plant. If you put a plant in a pot of poor earth, there is no inherent force in the plant by which it can grow. The atmosphere, too, which surrounds the leaf has much to do with the health and growth of the plant. But suppose plant should be endowed with momentary intelligence, and should cry out and protest that it was potted in bad earth, and surrounded by poisonous vapours? and suppose the earth should say, “Mind your own business, and I will mind mine,” and the atmosphere should say, “You take care of yourself, and I will take care of myself”? It would be very much like these enemies to society saying to us, when we raise our voices against them, “Mind your own business.” That is just what we are doing. We are minding our own business. Our business is to breathe and to grow, and we must have pure air and good soil. And if we are living in a community where we find our roots starved, and our leaves poisoned, we have a right to take care of ourselves and defend ourselves. A man depends for his prosperity and happiness upon the average condition of the community in which he lives. A man that lives in a virtuous community is like a man that lives on some mountain side, where the air is pure. A man that lives in a corrupt community is like a man that lives where the air is impure. And for the sake of our own well.being,and the well-being of our households, we have a right to resist these men who are destroying society by corrupting it. (Beecher.)
Physical injury not tolerated
Let a man start a mill for grinding arsenic, and let the air be filled with particles of this deadly poison, and let it be noticed that the people in the neighbourhood are beginning to sneeze and grow pale, and let it be discovered that this mill is the cause, and do you suppose he would be allowed to go on grinding? -No man would shut up his establishment at once. And yet men open those more infernal mills of utter destruction-distilleries, and wholesale and retail dens for liquor; and you can mark the streams of damnation that flow out from them; and yet nobody meddles with them. One man is getting carbuncles; another man is becoming red in the eyes; another man is growing irritable, and losing his self-control: another man is being ruined both in body and mind; multitudes of men begin to exhibit the signs of approaching destruction; and the cause of all this terrible devastation may be traced to these places where intoxicating drinks are manufactured and sold. You would not let a man grind arsenic; but you will let a man make and sell liquor, though arsenic is a mercy compared with liquor. (Beecher.)