Luke 8:26-39
Freedom in Christ
Woodlawn Baptist Church
May 30, 2004
Introduction
As we begin I want you to think back with me to what it must have been like in the Garden of Eden, to the time after God completed His Creation, but before Adam plunged mankind into sin through the Fall. What must it have been like to walk and talk face to face with God? To enjoy every pleasure imaginable, to pursue your heart’s desires, not because you had nothing else to do, but because you took great delight in doing them and great delight in the God who gave you those desires? What must it have been like to live in absolute harmony with all created things, including your spouse? To live in an environment of perfect peace, perfect love and acceptance, with perfect relationships? What must it have been like to be free to give, to share, to be yourself with absolutely no fear of being hurt or rejected? Or to live the life that you were created to live?
When I think back to the Garden, I am instantly reminded that although we talk much about it, we really know very little about what it must be like to be free. I am going to speak on the subject of freedom this morning, particularly Freedom in Christ, because according to the Bible, there is no other kind of freedom. It is only when Christ is present, whether in the life of an individual, a family, a church, or a nation that they experience genuine and lasting freedom, but even that freedom is something most believers will never experience because of three obstacles that we face. Let’s read Luke 8:26-39, then I want to share with you these obstacles that you must overcome if you are to be free in Christ.
“And they arrived at the country of the Gadarenes, which is over against Galilee. And when he went forth to land, there met him out of the city a certain man, which had devils long time, and ware no clothes, neither abode in any house, but in the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he cried out, and fell down before him, and with a loud voice said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God most high? I beseech thee, torment me not. (For he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. For oftentimes it had caught him: and he was kept bound with chains and in fetters; and he brake the bands, and was driven of the devil into the wilderness.) And Jesus asked him, saying, What is thy name? And he said, Legion: because many devils were entered into him. And they besought him that he would not command them to go out into the deep. And there was there an herd of many swine feeding on the mountain: and they besought him that he would suffer them to enter into them. And he suffered them. Then went the devils out of the man, and entered into the swine: and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the lake, and were choked. When they that fed them saw what was done, they fled, and went and told it in the city and in the country. Then they went out to see what was done; and came to Jesus, and found the man, out of whom the devils were departed, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed, and in his right mind: and they were afraid. They also which saw it told them by what means he that was possessed of the devils was healed. Then the whole multitude of the country of the Gadarenes round about besought him to depart from them; for they were taken with great fear: and he went up into the ship, and returned back again. Now the man out of whom the devils were departed besought him that he might be with him: but Jesus sent him away, saying, Return to thine own house, and show how great things God hath done unto thee. And he went his way, and published throughout the whole city how great things Jesus had done unto him.”
Satanic Opposition
I wonder what it must have been like for this man. I imagine a young man growing up in this region of the Sea of Galilee, a fine young man; perhaps at one time a respectable citizen in town. Was he married? Did he have children? I wonder what circumstances led to his running around naked, half-naked at best if someone had pity on him and had tried to dress him. As he roamed through the housing districts, people must have avoided him at all costs, none daring to take the risk to put him up for the night, so he lived out by the water in the tombs among the dead. For fear of their safety and perhaps for his own good, people had tried to chain the poor man up, putting shackles on his hands and wrists, but he kept breaking them, displaying a superhuman strength. Mark’s gospel tells us that he lived a miserable life out here in the mountains, separated from everyone by his madness; and he even hated it himself. Had you walked those hills in that day you would have heard him weeping, crying throughout the day and night. He wailed as he cut himself with the stones that he picked up among the caves.
The Bible plainly tells us that this man was plagued by a mob of demons that went by the name of Legion. In the Roman army, a legion of soldiers numbered 6,000 men. We don’t know if there were 6,000 demons present in this man or not, but there were many. These devils, or demons had been living in this man for a long time, and were slowly destroying his life and even his will to live. It reminds me of John 10:10, where Jesus said,
“The thief comes not but to steal, and to kill, and to destroy…”
Satan and his evil followers are bent on destruction, and every life they inhabit or oppress is chosen for that express purpose – to destroy it and keep it from being able to follow Christ. 2 Corinthians 4:4 says that…
“…the god of this world has blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.”
Now I want you to be clear on this: if a man or woman rejects Christ and goes to hell, they go because they made a conscious choice to reject Christ. No one is going to be able to stand before God in the judgment and blame the devil for their not being saved. I said Satan and satanic forces are an obstacle, but not one that can’t be overcome. Men don’t see the light because they don’t want to see the light, and Satan comes along and feeds the mind excuses for not believing, but it is a mind that has already chosen that course. Consider the words of John 12:40. They say,
“He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see with [their] eyes, nor understand with [their] heart, and be converted, and I should heal them.”
Now that verse says that God blinded their eyes and hardened their heart. But again, no one will be able to say to God that they rejected Christ because God wouldn’t let them believe – it just means that God gave them over to what they had already chosen to do and be.
When Jesus walked into this man’s life, He saw something in him that proved his readiness to be free from the demonic spirits, something that cried out for deliverance, and Jesus delivered him. So many people today who have never received Christ are possessed with evil spirits, and until they come to the place in their life where they choose to come to the One who can set them free, they’ll continue to be plagued by the forces of Satan. Believers cannot be possessed, but they can be oppressed by demons, and again, freedom only comes when you choose to come to Christ for freedom.
Love of Darkness
Jesus said in John 3 that
“this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.”
Now some might argue that this man had it made. He could do what he wanted, when he wanted, where he wanted, the way he wanted. He had no one telling him what to do, what to wear, where to live, how to live, or any thing else. He lived life with no restraints, something that so many people today claim to want, but that’s not a love of freedom, that’s a love of self and a desire to be your own god.
That was the sin of Adam – God was being so restrictive and dominating. The only way he could be free was to cast off that one command and do what he wanted to do, but when he did Adam found out what bondage was really all about. Free? That’s why he hid himself. Free? Was he free from guilt and shame? Was he free from being held accountable? Was he free from death?
You see, one of the greatest obstacles most people will ever face is their own love of the darkness they live in, but if you are ever going to be free, truly free the way you can be is to step out of the darkness into the light of Christ. There was an occasion in Jesus’ ministry when He was speaking with the Pharisees, and He said to them, “If you continue in my word, then are you really my disciples; and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” When the Pharisees heard what Jesus said, they started to get upset with Him and said, “We are descendents of Abraham, and were never in bondage to any man…” Jesus would go on to tell them that they were in fact in bondage, and nothing they could do on their own would set them free. In Paul’s second letter to the Corinthian church, he said, “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” You can take the opposite of that statement and it will still be true, “where the Spirit of the Lord is not, there is bondage.”
Jesus came to be the light of the world. He said “he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” John said, “In him was life; and the life was the light of men.” The most difficult part of coming to Christ is overcoming this obstacle. The Bible calls it repentance, turning from the darkness, from sin and shame and guilt and stepping into the light. There are some demons that are real, but there are others of our own making: those demons that we carry around in our lives like anger, or bitterness, or resentment, or lust. What about drink? Gambling? Fear and worry and doubt? All those things exist in the world of darkness. When you step out of that world into the world of light, then you can find freedom like nothing you’ve ever experienced before. You mark it down: What you think you control will ultimately control you. You can’t flirt around in the dark and expect to shine with the glory of God.
Fear
When Jesus cast the demons into the herd of pigs, they raced off the edge of a cliff, drowning in the Sea of Galilee. You’ll notice that these unclean spirits inhabited animals that were considered unclean to the Jews. They were bent on destroying life, no matter what form it took, and now they destroyed this herd of about 2,000 pigs. When the pig-farmers saw it, they ran into town to tell everyone. Verse 35 is a telling verse.
“Then they went out to see what was done; and came to Jesus, and found the man, out of whom the devils were departed, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed, and in his right mind: and they were afraid.”
You see, all their conditioning, all their chains and shackles couldn’t do for this man what Jesus had done with just the power of His spoken word, and they were afraid of such a great power, so afraid in fact that they demanded He leave. It didn’t matter that this man who had been in such bondage was now set free, or that this Jesus was just as concerned about their eternal souls – they were afraid and unwilling to have any dealings with Him.
Now this is what you ought to realize about this obstacle called fear: the fears are not really based on anything that has to do with God. Our fears are based on our own limitations. We fear what we don’t understand, what we can’t see or hear or touch and feel. We fear what is beyond our experience, and because we fear it, the easiest thing to do is reject it. Again, it’s an obstacle, but not one that you can’t overcome if you genuinely want the freedom Christ offers. He would lead John to say that “perfect love casts out all fear.” Now that’s freedom! What would life be like with no fears? The only people who ever knew were Adam and Eve, living in perfect love and harmony, but when they sinned, they feared and hid themselves from the God who loved them more than they would ever know.
Conclusion
I learned something new this week as I studied this passage. Do you remember that the Bible says in John 4 that Jesus “must needs go through Samaria”? Why did He have to go through Samaria? Because there was one woman there that He wanted to meet at Jacob’s well. Now do you remember last week that Jesus told the disciples to get in the boat so they could go over to the other side of the Sea of Galilee? Why did He go over? Was it to get some rest or to go fishing? Luke’s account says that as soon as this meeting with the demoniac was over they got back in their boats and returned to the other side. Jesus went all the way across that lake just to meet this man and set him free. Sure there was the lesson on faith when they encountered the storm, but now we see that Jesus didn’t just go for a joy-ride to teach them a lesson on faith, it was only a by-product of a greater mission.
He is on mission today in your life as well. He wants to set you free: free from satanic forces, free from a life of sin and shame, free from fears. But He doesn’t just want to set you free from those things; He wants to set you free to some things as well. Some of you today are absolutely unable to express love to other people because you’re in bondage. You are unable to enjoy your relationship with God because of the guilt you carry around – you need to be set free from your addictions and sinful habits. God wants you to be free to trust Him, but you’re in bondage to fear and worry, and you are in torments today, torment called anxiety.
The obstacles are real, and they are difficult to overcome. Most will never find freedom, but for those of you who are ready, Jesus stands today ready. He says to you, “I have come to give you life, and to give it to you in great abundance.” What is holding you back?
