A Missionary

I love Sunday School, for it is a time in God’s precious Word with others seeking to know our God better with a desire to be more faithful to Him and thus pleasing to Him.

This summer I am enjoying the men’s class led by Steve Brace as they move through the Gospel of Luke.  This past Sunday was the story of a “crazy” man indwelt by a legion of demons and the response of the town’s people to his “healing.”  As with any encounter with Scripture, there are any number of impacts each time. A few take-away’s from this story:

1. Jesus had been severally inundated with people around Capernaum over the previous days and when He returned a few days later, the masses reconstituted.  8:19, Then His mother and brothers came to Him, and could not approach Him because of the crowd.  8:40, So it was, when Jesus returned, that the multitude welcomed Him, for they were all waiting for Him. WHEW!
2. Jesus went across the Sea of Galilee to deal with one man – one only! (Matt. 8:28 notes two men which might indicate the place served as some sort of insane asylum.  We don’t see the second man in the rest of the story.)  How special that one, just one, person totally unworthy and unexpecting got Jesus’ full attention!  WOW!
3. The trip to the one man was not without incident however, for a horrific storm engulfed them filling the boat and threatening to send them to Davy Jones’ locker.  AND Jesus was asleep!  Back to point #1 – WHEW!  Every day, every encounter, and every problem was a revelation and teaching time.  Jesus was awakened (how is it He was not getting water in his face while sleeping?) and He made two statements:  “Stop it!” (and a calm immediately ensued) and “Where is your faith?”  YIKES!  I’m one of the 12 – frightened!  How do I have such faith?  I mean, “Who is this that even the wind and the waves obey Him?”
4. The region of the Gadarenes was part of the land given to the Israelites under Moses and in which they had settled centuries before.  Yet, they were raising unclean animals – pigs!  While Jewish, they were very much economically, and likely culturally, Gentile.  They were NOT good Jews!  And into that “hostile” region Jesus invaded.  To “fake” Jews, rebellious people, and a pagan place came Jesus – Humm!
5. Then demons within the man moved the man to Jesus – “When he saw Jesus, he cried out, fell down before Him,” (28).  Curious, isn’t it?  This man, overpowered by demons, found himself at the feet of Jesus.  So much for Satan running the show!
6. The brief discourse with the demons is surely for the benefit of 12 men standing by.  Legions of demons fear the abyss and desire a “home.”  (The abyss seems to be a bottomless pit of Hell for the holding of demons, Revelation 9:1, 20:1).  So Jesus tells them to depart into the pigs and they immediately comply.  Go, God!
7. The pigs immediately ran into the sea and perished -2,000 of them!  This was a Wall Street crash, a market meltdown, and a disaster for the town and region.  No!!  Jesus caused this, thus He had to go!  Money, culture and reputation were more important than one person’s well-being – or even any number of people.  Money over people – sounds familiar!
8. And the one now clothed and in his right mind wanted to go with Jesus, and why wouldn’t he!  But Jesus said, “NO!”  Why?  Why would Jesus leave this man behind to talk about Him to people very upset who wanted nothing to do with Jesus?   Why does He leave us behind?
9. Jesus crossed the sea to call and to empower a missionary!  And us? For Jesus would return to the region about a year later and have a large crowd gather to listen to Him which He fed – the 4,000 of Mark 8:1.  It would seem that the work and message of the man healed and charged by Jesus to stay home and tell what happened, now had people interested in Jesus.
10. The man is also a type of front man – a campaign manager – he now had people interested in Jesus.

What a great story with any number of applications for us today.