Senior Pastor, Robert Dennison, preached this message on February 9, 2025. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Audio Transcript
We invite you to take your Bibles and turn to Luke chapter eight. Last week we looked at Jesus power over our external struggles, and today we’re looking at Jesus power over your internal struggles. And we’re going to be talking about demons today as we look at the demoniac that was healed in the garrisons. First, I want to start with some questions. You might say, why do I struggle with evil thoughts and desires? They can come from you, but they also might be coming from demonic oppression in your life. Why do I sometimes struggle to believe that? Does God really exist? Does he really care? That could be coming from you, but it also could be from demonic influence on your life. Why do I have random evil thoughts? And why do they just pop up out of nowhere? It could be that demons are placing those thoughts in your minds. Why do I think about everything else when it’s time to read my Bible and pray? Do any experience that you start to read your Bible and oh, I remember this, remember that. What’s going on in the news? It may just be that Satan is working against you. Satan and his forces are more at work in our lives than we realize. And there’s a problem if we don’t give him enough credit for his attempts to destroy us, to enslave us, to harm us, to discourage us and to to damage us. He is our one eternal active enemy. So today as we talk about the demoniac, we’re going to be talking about demons, where they come from and what they can do. So there’s a lot of scripture verses coming in. You can pray for me. I’m still trying to get my mind around everything today. Let’s begin reading. In Luke, chapter 8, verse 27, it says, Then they sailed to the region of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. And when he got out on land, a demon possessed man from the town met him. For a long time. He had worn no clothes and did not stay in a house but in the tombs. And when he saw Jesus, he cried out, fell down before him and said in a loud voice, what do you have to do with me? Jesus, son of the most High God, I beg you, don’t torment me. For he, being Jesus, had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man many times it had seized him, and though he was guarded, bound by chains and shackled, he would the restraints and be driven by the demon into deserted places. What is your name? Jesus asked him. Legion, he said, because many demons had entered him, and they begged him not to banish them to the abyss. A large Herd of pigs was there, feeding on the hillside, and the demons begged him to permit them to enter the pigs, and he gave them permission. The demons came out of the man and entered. The pigs and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and drowned. When the men who tended them saw what had happened, they ran off and reported it in the town and in the countryside. Then people went out to see what had happened. They came to Jesus and found the man the demons had departed from, sitting at Jesus feet, dressed and in his right mind. And they were afraid. Meanwhile, the eyewitnesses reported to them how the demon possessed man was delivered. And then all the people of the Gerasene region asked him to leave them because they were gripped by great fear. So, getting into the boat, he returned. The man from whom the demons had departed begged him earnestly to be with him. But he sent him away and said, go back to your home. Tell all that God has done for you. And off he went, proclaiming throughout the town how much Jesus had done for him. Let’s pray. Father, we ask that you would give us understanding, give us apprehension of what our enemy is always out to do against us. Help us to realize that we have victory in the power of Jesus Christ, the indwelling of your spirit, Father, and that by faith we can overcome all of his attacks against us. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. PowerPoint has a new thing. Has AI involved? Have you heard about AI? All the fears about it? Well, we’re not quite there yet, because it said, do you want me to make a background for your PowerPoint? So I put in demons, healing of the demonic man and pigs, and it came with a really nice, handsome Jesus standing in front of a man with three arms. He had two out to this side, and pigs flying through the air with wings and grinning. So I decided not to use that background today. I think I’m still a little smarter than AI. Maybe not for long, but at least I knew not to use that. We want to turn to Ephesians chapter 6 as we start talking about demons and spiritual forces today. Ephesians chapter 6. I’m going to be reading verses 10 through 13. Finally, be strengthened by the Lord and by his vast strength. Put on the full armor of God so that you can stand against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this darkness, against evil spiritual forces in the heavens. For this reason, take up the full armor of God so that you may be able to Resist in the evil day. And having prepared everything to take your stand. What we read here is that Satan and demonic forces are real and dangerous. Paul wasn’t writing to unbelievers. He was telling us that we as believers are having to deal with this. And because of that awareness, God has given us a full set of armor to fight against the problem. Now I have marked there the schemes of the devil. The truth is that we only have one real enemy in this world, and that is Satan. And we only have one real struggle. It says in verse 12. For our struggle singular is singular. It’s one continual struggle that we have. And that struggle isn’t against flesh and blood. It’s not against our brothers and sisters. It’s not against our human enemies, but it all goes back to that. Our enemy is Satan, the devil. And underneath him he has this vast array of demonic and spiritual forces. Some of them are called rulers, some of them are called authorities, some of them are called cosmic powers. Some of them are called evil spiritual forces in the heavens. It’s almost as if there are ranks of demons that are serving Satan. We have a similar type of rank with angels that we know. There are angels, there are archangels, there are cherubim, and there are seraphim. And we’re going to see that Satan took some of them to be with him, to follow him. So there seems to be this hierarchy out there. But what we want to recognize specifically here is that they exist. They are a threat, threat to us, and they have a place in our struggles that we don’t always attribute to them. But whenever we’re having any type of internal struggles with our thoughts and our attitudes, we need to recognize that it may be that Satan’s demons are working in our life, but we also have to realize that there are limits there. They can be defeated by us when we use the full armor of God that he has equipped us with. It’s through God’s spiritual provision that we are to fight against the demons and the spiritual forces. Let’s go to Matthew, chapter 25, verse 41. Where did the demons come from? What are they? In Matthew 25:41 we read this. Then he will also say, to those on the left, depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. There’s some different ideas where demons come from, but the most accepted idea is that they were angels in heaven with a free will to serve the Lord. And when Satan turned against the Lord, we’ll read that a third of those angels went With Satan to follow him. We go to Revelation 12, 3, 4. To reinforce this. Another sign appeared in heaven. There was a great fiery red dragon, which refers to Satan having seven heads and ten horns. And on its head were seven crowns. Its tail swept away a third of the stars in heaven and hurled them to the earth. So we have kind of three terms here. We have demons, we have angels, and now we have stars. And they’re all interrelated in Scripture. Let’s go back to Isaiah, chapter 14 and see how the word, the term star is related to angels. Because we find here in Isaiah, chapter 14, verses 12 through 14, that Satan himself is referred to as a star, and he was also an angel. Isaiah wrote to Satan, shining morning star. How you have fallen from the heavens, you destroyer of nations. You have been cut down to the ground. This is in reference to Satan. And why did Jesus, I mean, why did Satan fall? He turned against the Lord. He said to himself, I will ascend to the heavens. I will set up my throne above the stars of God over all the angels. I will sit on the mount of God’s assembly in the remotest parts of the north. I will ascend above the highest clouds. And the final statement was what Satan’s ultimate desire was. I will make myself like the most high demons, angels that have turned against the Lord, stars. All of these terms refer to demons and spiritual forces in this world. Let’s go back now to Luke chapter eight in our text. Jesus got onto the land and he found them there. A man who was possessed by a demon who came out to meet him. And we need to understand that demons can either possess people or demons can oppress people. And as we’re looking at the scriptures today, we want to see that they can’t possess believers, but they can continue to oppress us. And when we think about possession, the word means there, to have and to hold. It’s a continual possession. Someone who is possessed by a demon is being held and controlled by them. It’s something internal, it’s something inside of the person. Whereas somebody who is being oppressed by demons, it’s an external force that’s coming in. The demons aren’t controlling them, but they are influencing them by causing them to think different things and possibly to have different feelings. When somebody is possessed by a demon, it may result in conditions that are similar to physical and mental problems, but not always. But we do find in Scripture that people that the demons were cast out of them. Some of them were blind, some of them were lunatics, some of them were Deaf. Some of them had an inability to speak. They had seizures and they had suicidal tendencies. So sometimes demon possession can bring those things about, but it isn’t always the case. When a person is possessed by a demon, also the demon can speak through that person because they’re inside speaking out. And here we find in the text that the demon is speaking to Jesus through, through the person. But when a person is, instead of being possessed by a demon, they’re being oppressed by a demon or Satan himself. The demon or Satan is speaking outside of the person into them. We find that in the Garden of Eden, when the serpent appeared to Eve, he wasn’t inside of Eve trying to sway her, he was talking to her from outside. And when Satan went to Jesus in the wilderness and was tempting him, he was not tempting Jesus from the inside. He. He was externally trying to oppress him. So we’re looking at the difference between someone being possessed and someone being oppressed. Let’s look at Second Corinthians 3:17. We read, the Lord is the Spirit. And where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And then we read also in John, chapter 14, and I will ask the Father, and he will give you another counselor to be with you forever. He is the Spirit of truth. The world is unable to receive him because it doesn’t see him or know him. But you do know him because he remains with you and will be in you. Jesus promised that when he left that he would send another, meaning, another, like him. He was going to send the counselor, the Holy Spirit. And when that counselor, the Holy Spirit, comes into us, Jesus said that there would be freedom. So you can’t be controlled by a demon from inside. If you have the spirit of Christ living in you there, he is there to give you freedom. Now, you may choose to obey what a demon is suggesting, but they don’t have control over. You have a right to not to listen to them. And the promise here is that Jesus said that the Holy Spirit would be with us forever. He can’t be taken away. He remains with you. And he is not just with you, but he is also inside of you. So when the Holy Spirit indwells you, it does not allow an evil spirit to indwell you. True followers of Jesus have true freedom because the Holy Spirit is within them. They can still be influenced by Satan and have a choice whether to listen to that or not. But they don’t have to, because a person without the Holy Spirit is like a vacant house. And if you have a house that’s vacant and no one’s living there. No telling what’s going to show up and live in it. People, animals, whatever. But if the house is occupied, you know who the occupant is that’s going to be there. Let’s go back to Hebrews chapter six again. Here we’re talking about possession versus oppression. We know that demons still have an effect upon us, but God has equipped us with his armor that we can fight against the wiles of the devil. But there is responsibility there. In the text, verse you have to put on the full armor of God if you’re going to fight the battle against Satan. You have to make a choice to put on the armor and to use it. Then it says that you have to stand against the schemes of the devil. We don’t cower to him, we don’t hide from him, we don’t sit down in a chair. We have to stand up because it is a struggle to fight against what he is doing against us. For this reason, verse 13 says, Take up the full armor of God so that you may be able to resist again. It’s this active participation. We have to choose to resist the oppression of Satan. We have to put on the armor on our chest. We have to hold up the shield of faith. And all of this is because he is aiming arrows at us that again they’re coming from the outside. This oppression upon believers, therefore the helmet, if we put it on it protects our mind from the darts that come. And we have one weapon that we can use and it’s the sword of the spirit, the word of God. In order to fight a battle, people have to be prepared, people have to practice, people have to be willing to exert themselves. We can’t go through this life that facing the oppression of Satan and just let it happen to us or it will overcome us. How do we avoid the oppression of Satan? Well, you have to learn how to use your sword. This means you have to read God’s word, you have to study it. Your ability should increase more and more so that you recognize the fiery darts of Satan when he’s trying to oppress you with evil thoughts and wrong thoughts. But praise the Lord that we have what we need to fight the battle of oppression. We can’t remove it from this world. We’re going to continue to have it throughout our lives. And we know from this that it’s a battle. It’s not easy and it may take years to win. But God has provided what we need. Just kind of overview what we looked at so far about demonic and Satanic oppression, It is real. But God has provided what we need to defend ourselves. We can’t remove it from the world. We can defend ourselves from us. And we have to realize it’s not easy. It’s a battle, and it may take years to overcome. Let’s go Back to Luke 8, 2739. What did this demoniac look like? This man that was possessed? How can we recognize demon possession in people? It says for a long time he had worn no clothes. He did not stay in a house. But in the tombs. I would say that someone who’s possessed by a demon often has antisocial behavior. All of you have on clothes today. Praise the Lord. Okay, that would be an antisocial behavior. And most of you probably spent the night where in the house. This man. This would be like a naked man running around at the graveyard up by the high school. Every day people drive by and see him. You know, just. You wonder every day what is going on on here. You’d be troubled, you would be disturbed by it. The whole community felt this way towards this man because of his antisocial behavior. And the demon was bringing this about because he wanted this man to be isolated. Satan likes to isolate us from our sources of strength. He wants to isolate us from other believers. He wants to isolate us from our families. He wants to isolate us from Jesus Christ and from his word. So that’s something typical that you might see in a demon possessed person. There’s also this affinity with death that he’s living among the tombstones. And if we looked at the same story in Matthew 8, we would see that there is violence involved with his behavior. He was a danger to others because they were putting chains on him, they were putting ropes on him, they were putting shackles on him. And Matthew tells us, but this man was so violent that no one could even pass that way. They had to go way out of the way to the grocery store or whatever to avoid the tombstones where this man was hanging out. All of these are characteristics of demon possession. There’s some other things here in verse 29. Many times it had seized him, and though he was guarded, though he was bound by chains and shackles, he would just snap the restraints and be driven by the demon into deserted places. Demon possession might have lack of self control in a person. We think about the little boy that his father came to Jesus and said, please, can you heal my son who has this demon? Because the boy would fall into the fire, he would fall into the water. He couldn’t control what he was doing and would do things to hurt himself. There’s also supernatural and paranormal abilities that the demon can demonstrate from a person. There’s also driven or forced behavior that they can seemly just continue to do things, but you don’t understand where it’s coming from. And lastly, it’s not written there, but they can’t be helped by human means. It’s only by the power of Jesus Christ that someone can be relieved from the possession of a demon. It tells us in verse 28, when he saw Jesus, he and it’s talking about the demon speaking through the man there. He cried out, he fell down and he said in a loud voice, what do you have to do with me, Jesus, son of the Most High, I beg you, don’t torment me. The main thing about the cure for demon possession is Jesus authority. All the demons, Satan himself, recognize that he is the son of the Most High God and he has the ability to torment demons to cause whatever he wants to happen to them. And demons acknowledge this position of Jesus and they acknowledge the power of Jesus Christ. If you’re ever involved with someone who’s possessed by a demon, you need to rely on the strength and authority of Jesus Christ and not upon your own strength or on anybody else’s. What is your name? Jesus asked him. He said legion. Because there wasn’t just one demon in this man. There were many demons that had entered him. What is the reason here for why he had so many demons in him? Let’s go back to Matthew, chapter 12, verse 43, 45, where Jesus talks about how many demons can come into a person and what it tells here. That is, if a house that is empty is not filled with a new occupant, specifically the Holy Spirit, there’s nothing there to keep demons from coming back to a person. So if someone is relieved of a demonic spirit, if they don’t accept Jesus Christ and have the spirit in them, their life possibly is just going to get worse. When an unclean spirit comes out of a person, it roams through waterless places looking for rest, but doesn’t find any. Then it says, I’ll go back to my house. I’ll go back to the person where I was, that I came from. And when he returns, the spirit finds the house vacant, swept and put in order. He comes back, he’s excited, everything is great here. So I’m going to do what? I’m not just going to move in, but I’m going to go invite my friends to come and party inside this person with me. So Then that spirit goes and it brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and settle down there. And as a result, that person’s last condition is now worse than the first. If you open yourselves up to demons moving into your life through occult practices or witchcraft or astrology or any of these things that the scripture warns us about, you’re dealing with fire and things might be bad, but they have the possibility of getting worse. And Jesus tells us here that’s how it will also be with this evil generation. Talking about the new generation coming up, that we’re going to see more and more of the evil spirits involved in people’s lives. Jesus authority is the first cure for possession. But when Jesus steps in, then the Holy Spirit now indwells us as believers, so there is no longer an empty house inside of us where demons can reside. The demons then begged him not to banish them to the abyss. It tells us in verse 31, because that is the ultimate destiny of demons. They know where they are going to end up. And that’s why they’re out to destroy as much as they can. They’re out to hurt God and the people that he loves, because they know their future eternal destination is in the abyss. We read in Matthew 25:41. Then he will also say to those on the left, depart from me, you who are cursed. These are people unbelieving that he’s talking to. And they’re going to be cast into into the eternal fire that wasn’t prepared for people. But this eternal fire was prepared for devil and his angels or prepared for the demons. Praise God. In the new creation, one day all of Satan’s minions and Satan himself are going to be in this eternal fire. So they can’t trouble us anymore, so they can’t oppress us and certainly will not be able to possess anyone in the new creation. It goes on to say that there was a large herd of pigs there feeding on the hillside, and the demons begged him to permit them to enter the pigs. And here again we see Jesus authority. Jesus had to give them permission. And when that happened, the demons came out of the man. We’re not going to talk much about the pigs today, but obviously the people that were raising the pigs were upset because there wasn’t going to be any more bacon and there wasn’t going to be any more ham to sell. Their financial gain to them was more important than the life of what than one man. And they did not like what they saw. So they tended them who had seen what had happened they ran off and they reported all of this into the town and in the countryside. Jesus authority Jesus controlled the whole situation. Now that he had cast the demons out of this man, the Holy Spirit was going to come and indwell him. But there also is another element when there is a cure for possession. There has to be faith in the power of Jesus Christ. There has to be faith in the Holy Spirit’s indwelling presence. We go back to Matthew chapter 17, and we read about a boy that is demon possessed. And the Father says, my son, because he has seizures and suffers terribly, he often falls into the fire and often into the water. I brought him to your disciples, but they couldn’t heal him. And Jesus said, bring him here to me. Then Jesus rebuked that demon and it came out of him. And from that moment the boy was healed. The disciples approached Jesus privately and said, why couldn’t we drive it out? And he said, because of your faith. He told them, and what did I leave out there? All things are possible. Clip that out somehow for you. All things are possible for you. If we have the authority of Jesus and we have the Holy Spirit by faith, demons can be cast out of people so that they can be cured of being possessed. Jesus authority Holy Spirit indwelling and faith Going back now to our text, what were the results of this man being healed? We could say that someone is demon possessed and they’re healed. Their life still can have great meaning. And so we see the first thing is here that this man was absolutely a visible testimony of how Jesus Christ had changed his life. People went out to see what had happened. They came to Jesus and they found the man the demons had departed from. And he was sitting calmly at Jesus feet. He was now dressed and he was in his right mind. And this caused great fear among the people. What is this power that was able to overcome this man possessed by demons? Meanwhile, the eyewitnesses continued to report to them how the demon possessed man was delivered. And then instead of all the people celebrating, they asked Jesus to leave the region because they were gripped by great fear. So Jesus response was that he got into the boat and he returned. This man had a tangible, visible testimony now to all of his neighbors and everyone of how Jesus Christ’s power had changed his life. But the next thing that we see is that his healing led to a greater desire to be close to Jesus Christ. The man from whom the demons had departed begged him earnestly to be with him. But Jesus sent him away and said, no, go back to your home. Tell all that God has done for you. And off he went, proclaiming throughout the town how much Jesus had done for him. The people didn’t want to accept Jesus. They asked him to go away. But Jesus left a living testimony there. Someone who completely changed. Someone now who loved the Lord and wanted to be close to him now had the special opportunity to share about Jesus with others. Come now to some concluding statements. The first is that Satan and his demons are trying to hurt believers through oppression. You need to recognize that they are out to get you. They want to discourage you. They want to cause you to doubt God. They want to cause you to sin. Because every time you sin, that’s just more that Jesus had to pay for on the cross. So he knows by getting through you to do things that you should not that he’s hurting God and he’s hurting God’s son. The second thing is that God has provided believers with everything they need to fight oppression. We don’t have to say, I can’t do anything about it. It’s just overcoming me. All these thoughts and negative thoughts and doubts and desires to do evil. We can’t give in. God has given us what we need. We have to acknowledge the fight can be difficult and it can be long. It’s a battle that we’re going through. It’s not a tea party. It’s not a game that we’re playing. We can also know that anyone who’s indwelt by the Holy Spirit doesn’t need to fear demon possession. So if you are a follower of Jesus Christ, you don’t need to be concerned about that for your life. And we need to remember that some physical problems may have underlying spiritual, demonic sources. Sometimes when people are sick, sometimes when they do have physical or mental problems, it’s because they’ve been involved in some type of occult activity. Not always. We shouldn’t give credit to Satan for every illness and disease that’s out there. But it is a real thing that could be part of a person’s problem. How does Satan oppress you? He puts subtle thoughts into your mind. He might make you to think, you know, I’m unlovable. Nobody really loves me. Nobody can love me. That’s an oppression of Satan. Putting that in your mind, he might cause you to say, I’m worthless. He might make you have the thought, I have no purpose in life. Or you have a thought that if I can do this one evil thing, I’m going to be happier. You can hear all of this back with Satan in the Garden of Eden. He Told Eve, you know, if you do this, you’re going to be happier. You’re going to be like God. You’re going to gain something wonderful. You might have thought, maybe God isn’t so good. I don’t know why he’s allowing these awful things to happen. You might have the thought, you know, I can make a better decision for myself than what God can. So I’m not even going to ask him. Or look, look at his word. I am capable. Satan might place the thought in your mind, Jesus, he’s not even really the Son of God. Or he might place in your mind there is no heaven or hell. Or he might make you think life is meaningless. We could go through life thinking, oh, all this is just coming up in my head. But I want you to realize that all of these thoughts can possibly be coming from demonic oppression in your life. We need to recognize it. And when we recognize it as demonic oppression, it’s time to pull out the armor of God and it’s time to pull out God’s word. When something that we think goes against the truth and we know that it’s a lie, then we know that it’s of Satan, it’s not of the Lord. Therefore, knowing the truth is what helps us to. To combat the oppression of the devil. I just want to look at two of the statements here and show us how we’re supposed to deal with this. If Satan puts in your mind, I am unlovable, you need to find scripture verses that speak the truth against that. Like John 3:16, God loved the world in this way that he gave his one and only Son. If you were unlovable, then God would not have the capability to love you as he does. And God didn’t send his son into the world because we desired it. Because we were saying, oh, God, I love you, please do this for me. No. It tells us in Romans 5 that God proves his own love for us in this. That while we were sinners, while we were enemies of God, while we were fighting against him, that’s when he sent Jesus Christ into the battle to die for us. If Satan is telling you that you are unlovable, find scripture, find truth to combat that. Just one more statement there. We’re not going through all of them today, but another one is, if Satan tells you that you’re worthless, there’s no purpose in your life, then go to Psalm 139, where the Psalmist said, speaking to God, it was you who created my inward parts. You knit me together in my mother’s womb. We didn’t happen by accident. God put us all together. He created us. And just like with knitting, every single stitch people have to think through, because if you mess up one stitch or you change it, it makes the whole garment look different. God was that involved with every little stitch of your being. He created you. He made you worthwhile. Therefore, the psalmist said, I will praise you because I have been unremarkably made. Is that what it says? No, we are remarkably made. We’re wondrously made. And the reason for that is because all God’s works are wondrous and perfect and good. And the psalmist said, I know this very well. Whatever Satan is attacking you with, however, he’s trying to oppress you with these false ideas, with these lies and these untruths. The way to deal with that is to find scripture that you can read back to Satan, that you can speak to him and say that you know, this isn’t coming from God. It isn’t within me, it’s coming from without. So my challenge to you today is if, however, Satan is oppressing you that you seek in God’s word to find verses that will help you to combat that, write them down. You might stick them on your window, you might put them on your mirror. You might carry them in your pocket. The only weapon that we have is God’s Word. And if you don’t pick it up, if you don’t know how to use it and you don’t practice with it regularly, you’re going to be like a soldier walking out into a battlefield who’s never picked up a gun before in his life. It’s your responsibility. God has given what you need, recognize when you need to use it, and use it for the right purpose. May we pray. Heavenly Father, as we sing our last song today, we just ask that you would show us how much we need to dedicate to spending more time in your word. And we pray for anyone here today, Father, that is being oppressed by Satan and his demons, Father, that they would recognize that this is the enemy fighting against them, that they will look to the power of Jesus Christ, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and by faith. Claim your word, Father, that we don’t have to believe the lies that Satan is giving us to tear us down and inevitably to hurt you and your son. We thank you, Father, for what you have provided us with. And it’s in Jesus name that we pray. Amen. Would you stand as we sing.