Luke 8:26-39 – Jesus Restores Demon Possessed Man – What is thy name? And he said, Legion

Brother Gary: It’s wonderful, wonderful to be here. We want to welcome anybody that is here for the first time, we’ve got some of those here, and if you’ve never been in the Sanctified Church before you are welcome. We love you without knowing you. And we want you to just let the Spirit speak. I ask for all the saints this morning to pray. In any of our meetings, whether it’s at home, whether it’s at feast meeting, whether it’s a camp meeting, generally in almost every service we have a preacher. And with any of our services the Spirit can speak through anybody, but the fruit that comes from the words that are spoken can only be there if there’s a receptive audience.

My mother had a challenge with five boys, and really all of us when we’re kids and your parents were telling you stuff to do, what the kids hear is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, because she’s already told you to clean your room or whatever. And so parents recognize that. My mother had a thing and yours probably did too. She said, “Gary Junior, do you hear me?”

And so let’s all bring our minds in we got a thousand things going outside these walls, all of us do, things we’re gonna do tomorrow, we’ll travel back home this afternoon, we got a lot of things. Let’s just all of us this morning bring our thoughts and our hearts right in this building, for these next few minutes and let God speak His word. I’m gonna start reading for those that wanna read along in the 8th Chapter of the book of Luke, beginning in the 27th Verse, Luke 8:27. And it says,

When Jesus 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 fetters. And he brake the bands and was driven of the devil into the wilderness. And Jesus asked him, ‘What is thy name?'” And he said Legion: because many devils were entered into him. And they besought Jesus 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,” the Devils did they besought Jesus, “that he would allow them to enter into the swine, and He allowed them, 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 had fed them saw what was done, they fled and went and told it in the city 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 and they also which saw it told them by what means he that was possessed of the devil was healed. Luke 8:27-36

Verse 38,

Now the man out of whom the devils were departed besought Jesus that he might be with Him, but Jesus sent him away saying, ‘Return to thine own house and show what great things God hath done unto thee. And he went his way and published throughout the whole city what great things Jesus had done unto him.” Well, that’s a beautiful story, isn’t it? Luke 8:38-39

Together: Amen.

Brother Gary: We’re here on Father’s day and it is a day of memoriam for some of us, some of us our fathers are gone. And it’s so important the role of fathers in the family. Becky and I were talking coming up Friday, and the reason the Bible stresses so often to you parents to discipline your children, it talks about it over and over, is because if your children don’t learn by your teaching to respect authority and to respect their earthly father, when they become of age it’s going to be difficult for them to have respect for their Heavenly Father. Your Heavenly Father as was mentioned, I think Brother Mitch mentioned it last night, someone mentioned it this weekend, that there are certain things that God has said is all right and there are things that God says is not all right.

There are things that God calls out I think you’re the one who mentioned it last night. There are boundaries that God puts. He doesn’t… This false theology that’s prevalent in a lot of what you see on TV preaching and radio preaching and Facebook preaching, and all this stuff, is just claim the blessing, just accept Christ as your Savior and then everything…all these promises in the word they tell us, are designed for your good and for your betterment and for your…for you, you, you. And the Bible is not…and serving God has never been and never will be about you, in fact, it’s about the sacrifice of you so that you can serve Him. That’s correct theology and so it’s vital. It’s important for you fathers to be godly fathers and to teach your children… Don’t let… I had an experience recently with a couple, they had a six-year-old and the six-year-old…I could go into detail but I won’t, because wow, it’ll blow your mind. But the six-year-old was running the house at six years old. I promise you at my house I didn’t get that option, that option was not on the list. It might not have been for you either, and that was a good thing.

So I miss my dad and my mom here today. I thought of brother Harry this morning, he was a father to so many of us, we sang his song this morning, he was my friend, he was my friend. And I thought a lot about my uncle Bob this morning who was a father to me, and I miss him so much. You know what? As these ones leave us they leave us the keys to the old ship of Zion. I’m not really comfortable handling those keys in my part of it, I much rather them be in charge of it. But they’re counting on us. Heaven is counting on us, heaven is calling us and they want us to be faithful. They want us to be faithful to the church, they want us to be faithful to the Gospel.

Together: Amen.

Brother Gary: And so for those that have never been here before and never been in our service, I want you to understand, you’re not in the usual church, you’re in a church that loves you enough to tell you gospel truth. You’re in a church that even though, yes, we have changed in our list of does and don’ts, the list from 40 years ago doesn’t work today or at least it’s not accepted. It probably still does work, by the way, just say that for the record, it probably still does work. Because the Bible still says,

Be not conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Romans 12:2

That has never changed even though, yeah, our standards and things are slippery and sliding, we just frankly we’re way closer to the world than we ought to be. I don’t know if God is pleased with it.

I told Becky the other day, you know, the song of Brother Paul said was, the look on your face tells how you feel, well, now you can kind of put the modern day translation and be, what you put on Facebook shows how you feel. And I see some things on there, sometimes, and I’m like, wow, it seems like there’s a lot of wanting to be like the world and to accept the world’s values. And I tell you what folks, it’s a downward road. The world’s values are never gonna line up with the values of the kingdom, they’re never gonna be in sync, and you will be called weird and you…maybe even by our folks, to reject some things that are accepted by some of our folks. But it’s all right if you cleave and hold to God’s unchanging hand. It will be for your betterment to achieve. to hew the line.

And so we believe and we preach, and this morning this story that I’ve just read is a marvelous story. The God that we serve, the Savior we serve is not just another god. He’s not… A lot of the world that we’re in, people want this acceptance of everything, and if you don’t accept alternate lifestyles and you don’t accept other religions, and you don’t accept really some things they want you to accept, just go against common sense. Just take the Bible out of it, some things just go against common sense, but we’re in this world where if you don’t accept all this alternate stuff, well, then you are a bigot, and you don’t have love in your heart, and all this kind of stuff. Well, our God that we serve, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is not like other religions, let’s just get that out of the way. The Gospel of Jesus… Do you realize we serve…we’re the only religion that the deity that we are serving, the deity that we proclaim fidelity to, we’ve got the only deity that loved us enough to give Himself for us. They don’t have that in the other religions, none of them do. And so right there that sets us apart and puts us on a different track.

God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. John 3:16

Verse right there that one phrase, ‘that should not perish,’ indicates, contrary to what all the funeral preachers say, everybody that dies is not going to heaven. You won’t believe it if all you do is go to funerals if that’s the only church you get in is when you go to your friends funerals, you’re gonna come away thinking that everybody goes to heaven. Because that’s all they talk about at funerals, but you know what? He died not that we should perish, but that we should receive eternal life. And so what Jesus does is He takes us from a place of death, He takes us from a place where we were dead in trespasses and sins and He brings us to life.

Let me go back to the story, and this ties in a little bit with what brother Mitch read last night, this 8th Chapter of Luke. I highly recommend it. It’s got some amazing stories, and in the story right before this, they had been on one side of the lake and Jesus had said in one voice, I think it’s in the book of Mark, He said,

Let’s go to the other side. Mark 4:35

And so they got on the ship and departed, and one of the stories in the book of Luke it doesn’t talk about the storm, and I doubt it was the only time they went across the lake, but there was a storm as brother Mitch preached last night. But when they got to the other side and this is in the 27th verse,

When He went forth to land,” when Jesus went forth to land, “there met Him out of the city a certain man which had devils a long time, and he wore no clothes.” And he did not live in a house. But he lived in the cemetery. Luke 8:26-27

We’ve got a cemetery that we like a lot. If we had somebody living in our cemetery naked what would we do? “Hello, 911,” we’d be making a call and we’d be asking the authorities, seriously, to come remove this man, and we’d probably joke about it and laugh a little bit about it. And we would expect the authorities to take care of this. I doubt…and I’m trying to put this in a way that you can understand a little more about this story. If we really did see that, seriously, on the camp ground, would you go approach that person? You, would you go say, “Come here brother…”

Man: “How you doing?”

Brother Gary: No you probably would not… It does say here that this man came to Jesus, but here’s the thing, he was living in the cemetery. He was not wearing clothes, he was possessed of devils, and he was an uncontrollable man. And you might say, well… Now, I don’t understand, this doesn’t relate to me. Let me tell you something, the Bible likens death, the spiritual death that we are all born with, we are living in a graveyard. We’re living in the cemetery, that’s where dead people live.

Where do dead people get together? In a cemetery. And you that were dead in trespasses and sins you might not think about it like that. But if you are not serving Jesus, if you have not received the gift of the Holy Ghost, you’re dead in your trespasses and sins, and you’re living in the cemetery. Guess what else? You are naked and open in the eyes of Him with whom we have to do, how about that? Living in the cemetery naked before you find Jesus. And the next thing it says here that…let’s see. “He fell down with a loud voice and he said, ‘What have I have to do with thee?'” Jesus now, what a love was that Jesus didn’t call the authorities, He didn’t go call the sergeant at arms to come take care of this man. And this is the thing, wherever you are in your sinfulness, wherever you are in your cemetery: if you’re not sanctified, if you’re not serving God, Jesus is not afraid of you. He will come and meet you right where you are. In fact, He loves you so much He’s going to chase you. You might say, “I don’t wanna be saved, I don’t want nothing to do with this stuff.”

And this week I was thinking about aunt Ellie Jean and uncle Vernon and he answered it for me in his testimony. I was wondering what year that they were at this altar right here, it was 2006, that was a very good year, by the way, in a lot of ways. But let me tell you something, before that, decades away from God, God was chasing ya’ll. He was there, oh, you can come to church, you can act like you’re not paying attention, you can act like the preacher is not getting to you, you can act like the spirit in the songs isn’t penetrating, you can leave here. But I tell you what, if you have been exposed to gospel truth and you have a heart that has just a little piece that’s willing to serve God, God’s gonna chase you into your corner. He’s gonna go with you when you leave the church. He’s gonna bug you when you’re by yourself, when you lay your head on your pillow at night, Jesus is not afraid of going where you are.

He’ll come to you and just He loves you enough to chase you and to come after you, and to call you and just put that little tickle in your heart so when you do come around our folks, oh, you’re acting like, I’m not ready for this yet. And so you’re acting like, “Oh, it’s not bothering me,” and that song…that song is tugging on your heart, there’s something in there and you’re like…especially if you’ve been sanctified before, you remember what it’s like, you remember what it’s like, like you felt that last night, Patrick, you can go live in a foreign country or go visit, and you might be there for a long time, but there’s no place like home. There’s no place like home, everybody here has a home that’s your comfortable spot, it’s your place, you’ve got a bed that’s your bed, you got a pillow that’s your pillow. There’s no other place like that, and no matter where in sin you roam you’ll never be happy until you come home.

Together: Amen.

Gary: And so this man he had commanded, Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of this man, for oftentimes it had caught him. Man, man, man, that talks about so many people right there. You know, a lot of folks they know they’re not saved, they know they’re not living with God, but there they got the pretense up, they got the makeup on, the makeup of, “I’m okay, I’m okay, I’m all right.” “How you doing?” “I’m doing great.” Meanwhile your whole world is collapsing with everything around you…

Man: All falling into the cracks.

Brother Gary: …falling in the cracks and yet you’re on the outside, “I’m great, I’m wonderful, I’m fine.” I got the pretense up, “I’m doing great.” Especially if you come around sanctified folks you sure don’t want to let them know. They’ll know when you’re miserable because they gotta come talk to you. So, “Man, everything’s doing great, I’m doing wonderful, everything…” and so… But this says, but oftentimes had He caught me. So you can pretend for a while but there’s times, well, man, when old sin just rears its ugly head and something’s happening, and you know if you’ve got any inkling of who God is. You know it’s a result of your lifestyle, it’s a result of your choice not to serve God.

Together: Right, Amen.

Brother Gary: Listen this living through life is not coincidences, there’s no coincidences, don’t give me that stuff, either God’s in control or He’s not. Either God’s in control or He’s not. If He’s not, all this is a pretense. I believe that He’s got control over everything, don’t you?

Man: Me too.

Brother Gary: And even when you’re not sanctified He’s coming after you and things that are happening in your life that make you wake up, that make you think, that make you think about home. All those coincidences that you might call it, it’s God working with you, it’s God bringing you to Him. And so this man was kept bound with chains and fetters, and he broke the bands, and was driven of the devil into the wilderness. And so, my goodness, you think about that, we got a lot of songs that we sing about chains and fetters, and they’re what? They’re chains of sin, they’re chains of sin, this guy had physical chains, but this story is talking to us.

Man: Right it is.

Brother Gary: Oh, you might go, “Oh, man I’m good, I’m good, I’m good. I’m making a good living, my family’s doing good, my kids are all right. I’m living in a big house. I got a nice car, got my nice career, got my retirement set up. I got all this going on, we’re in good health.”

But let me tell you something, if you’re not serving God, sin is slowly just wrapping around you, hardening your heart, putting a layer of sin between your heart and Jesus, and it’s building up. It’s like plaque, it’s building up over the years. He wants to get you to where you have a hard heart, where you don’t feel the receptiveness of the Spirit. We sing a song:

If you’ve been bruised by the chains of sin,
And you are searching for peace within,
I know a Savior that’ll make you whole,
And he’ll fill that longing down in your soul.

We, sing a song. I had to write this down because I can’t remember all this:

Are you disappointed, wandering here and there,
Dragging, dragging chains of doubt and loaded down with care,
Do unholy feelings, struggle in your best,
bring your cares to Jesus,
He can give you rest.

Together: Amen:

Brother Gary: You all believe it?

Together: Amen.

Brother Gary: We don’t see those chains sometimes, sometimes we do see them. Another song, it may be the…, this might be the last one and we don’t sing this one at our home but I know that you sing in Raleigh and some other places.

Once I was bound by sin’s galling fetters,
Chained like a slave I struggled in vain;
But I received a glorious freedom,
When Jesus broke my fetters in twain.

Glorious freedom, wonderful freedom,
No more in chains of sin I repine!
Jesus the glorious Emancipator,
Now and forever He shall be mine.

Oh, and then we sing this song:

He has broken every chain.
He strengthened my soul in love,
And He’s helping me to gain,
Life’s eternal crown above.

Oh aren’t you glad. The second part of that song, Glorious Freedom, says, freedom from fear and all of its torments. When brother Marvin Davis was in good health, and gave us the last five good years of his physical health. Man, he gave us so much help and he loved that song:

I’m free from the fear of tomorrow.
And I’m free… Somebody can sing this louder than the others. …from the guilt of the past,
For I’ve traded my shackles for a glorious song,
I’m Free! Praise the Lord! Free at last!

I tell you what? Jesus is in the business of doing miracles. He can come in, like He did with the disciples after the resurrection, with the doors and the windows being shut, some of you might be like that, I don’t want nothing to do with it. I don’t believe there’s just this church, you know, we don’t believe that either, by the way. But, you know, you got doors and your windows shut, and Jesus shows up in the middle and just pops up, and what are you gonna do with it? Because when you confront Jesus, when Jesus comes to you like He came to this man, this naked man that was just out of control, when He did come to him, Patrick, “how are you doing?” You’ve got to deal with it.

Man: That’s right.

Brother Gary: You’ve got to deal with it. What are you gonna do with Jesus?

Together: Amen.

Brother Gary: Are you gonna crucify him afresh? You can do that. There’s a lot of people that do. Well, on down here at the end, and this is the part that just stood out to me when I read this recently, a couple of weeks ago I’ve been just… I love it when God gives you something and it’s just there man, it’s just awesome. It says here, I’ve never noticed this before. I know Jesus had certain of the disciples with Him on that boat when they crossed the lake. But it starts off saying, that when He, Jesus, went forth to land, “There met him,” out of the city, “a certain man.” It did not say, “When they went to land a certain man met them.” That kind of made me feel like that when they got to land, they maybe dispersed for a little bit. Maybe someone had to go pay a bill or they had to go wash clothes, or whatever. I don’t know what, you all understand what I’m saying. They had been away for a while, they hit land, they probably said, well, we’ll be back together tomorrow, or whatever. And all of a sudden Jesus was by Himself, and He dealt with this man by Himself.

Now, God uses us the sanctified people, we are ambassadors for Christ, He’s caring…. He did not sanctify you to sit on a seat and never do anything for God, just so you’ll know.

Man: Amen.

Man: Sure, He’s right.

Brother Gary: He expects you to do a work for Him, your work is different than my work.

Man: That’s right, true.

Brother Gary: We could say that for all of us. Your talents are different than somebody else’s talents. Your gift zone, that’s not a Biblical phrase but I like it. Your gift zone, the zone where you’re comfortable working. The thing that lights your heart when somebody talks to you about doing a certain ministry, or going to Guatemala might be one, or whatever. And there’s some people that go, “Oh, not interested in that.” That’s okay, that’s not where you’re supposed to be. So get out of the way, let the ones that wanna go, go, and support them when they go, by the way, we’re in this thing together. But somewhere you’ve got something, it might be a testimony at work, you all know what I’m trying to say. But then there are times…and so when that happens, “Man, I hear you’re great about getting folks to church. I love you for that.”

And so you got a boldness to go to somebody at work and to share the gospel with them. To help them get after their chains and fetters. And, by the way, just a tip for you young folks, I used to think this when I was young, folks. Your job when you talk to somebody, the end goal I used to think, was to get them to church, no, that’s not the end goal. The end goal is to introduce them to the man that can take their chains and fetters away.

Together: Amen.

Brother Gary: You may introduce somebody to Jesus that goes to another church and that will be all right. As long as they get to heaven that is the end goal. Today is Father’s day, John the writer said,

I have no greater joy than to know that my children walk in truth. 3 John:1-4

Becky and I have been blessed beyond measure with our children.

Man: Praise God.

Brother Gary: I would be very happy if you wanna talk to me after church, and I’ll be able to give you all three of my children’s resume. And I’ll tell you their accomplishments, right Becky?

Becky: That’s right.

Brother Gary: Because we’re proud of them and we’re thankful. And I can tell you…by the way, I’ve got the most amazing grandchildren in the world so as the rest of y’all, mine are the best and yours are too. Okay. And we can give all that resume because…but at the end of the day, at the end of the day, if my son is president of the world and he’s not sanctified, then my hearts gonna be heavy. I don’t care…I’m love their accomplishments, that’s wonderful, you do too, we want that, we want them to succeed in this world. But somebody talked about last night, this world is not our home.

Together: Amen.

Brother Gary: Its just a temporary station, we’re going some other place. And you parents…by the way, all these little children in here, I didn’t know I was gonna say this, this morning. But I’ll tell you something, your job…Katie talked about it last night. God gave her a son and she wants to give her son back to God, that’s scriptural, that’s the story of Hannah and Samuel right there. And if you as a parent don’t prepare the way for your children to have a relationship with God, you are a failure as a parent.

Man: Yes.

Man: That’s true.

Brother Gary: No matter what they go to do the rest of their life. Well, this Jesus, by Himself, dealt with this man and He calls these demons, these devils, plural. Now, this was not the only time that Jesus met somebody that had multiple devils. In fact, in the very previous chapter He had dealt with a woman that had come into Simon’s house where Jesus was, and she bathed His feet with the tears that fell from her face. And He turned to her and said, “Thy sins which are many are forgiven.” And it says in the beginning of this Chapter, that there were certain women which had been healed of evil spirits, plural, and infirmities, Mary called Magdalene out of whom went seven devils. This was Legion that had so many they couldn’t count. A lot of times people have one weakness, maybe that weakness leads to another weakness, usually sins are tied together. They’re usually kinda connected, but whatever it is Jesus can free you from it.

Together: Amen.

Brother Gary: So He calls these devils to go into this herd of swine, they ran off the cliff. Now, uncle Ray said, with a story, that the devils are smarter than to live with the devil…I mean, the pigs were smarter than to live with the devil, they wanted to get rid of it. That’s what uncle Ray used to tell us. Well, I’ll get down to this last part here.

When they went out, they, the disciples, they, the people that owned the swine, “When they went out to see what was done and came to Jesus, they found the man out of whom the Devils were departed sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind.” Now, what I’ve never noticed before, it sounds like this was just a personal testimony, there was just Jesus and Legion. I’ve never noticed this. Jesus, when He got off the boat, the men came to Him, and after the Devils were cast out then everybody else wanted to show up to find out what was going on. So I don’t know what that period of time was that Jesus was dealing with Legion all alone, one-on-one. Do you know that’s where you get your salvation. You might be right here praying and we’re all around you, but at the end of the day, it’s just you and Jesus. Somebody say amen.

Together: Amen.

Brother Gary: And a lot of our problems that we have…and becoming sanctified doesn’t make the problems go away, in the world you’re going to have tribulations, but Jesus said, “Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”

Together: Amen.

Brother Gary: And so my tribulations that I deal with, oh, man, I’m not gonna stand here…you know, they say, oh, a preacher is not supposed to have problems.” Preacher nothing, people… We’re all people, and I got tribulation. But you know what? When I deal with them, I’m not ringing your phone, when I got an impossible situation, who are you gonna call? You’re gonna call your wife, you’re gonna call your husband, you’re gonna call your mother, your dad or you’re gonna call Jesus? I got Jesus on the line, I can call heaven any time. And then I got somebody that can fix the problem.

And so in this interim period between Jesus meeting the man and they all…everybody showing up to see what was happening, what kind of conversation do you think they had? And where in the world did Jesus get the clothes? They were in the wilderness. There wasn’t a Belk department store, there wasn’t some place…Jesus didn’t say, “Come on, let’s go shopping man. Let’s go, let’s go.” No, where did Jesus get them. It was Jesus, He didn’t need an explanation. He makes things appear that never were there. How do you think He created the worlds? He spoke them into existence. Finding a set of clothes wasn’t a problem for Him.

And meanwhile they had this conversation. He cast the devils out of him, He made the man become at peace. The man was able to get over the guilt of his past, and the man was able to have a right mind. Do you realize that when you’re living in the cemetery of sin you’re not in your right mind?

Together: Amen.

Brother Gary: Or you might think you are, because we all like to think we’re smarter than the average bear, everybody likes to think that. You know what? Half of people can’t say that, at least. But I weren’t talking about you. At least half can’t say that. But we like to think that. But in the cemetery of your life, before you meet Jesus, you are not in your right mind.

Together: No, you’re not, that’s right.

Brother Gary: That’s why you keep messing up, that’s why you make mistakes. You’re making all the decisions on your own. And when you’re…before you don’t have Jesus, before you come to Jesus, everything’s about you. You think the world is all about you, you’re a narcissist. How many narcissists does it take to change the light bulb? Only one, because the world revolves around you. Yeah, that’s what you’re thinking before you come to God, but when you get sanctified, when you come and you lay self at the altar and you die out, Jesus becomes your friend. He will put clothes on you, not clothes like this here, but there’s things in your life, before you come to God, that’s naked, you don’t want nobody to know about it. You’ve got the shame when you finally come to yourself and realize what you had done, the horror of your past, and you’re kind of embarrassed, Jesus puts clothes on them. He puts clothes on them. Somebody say amen.

Man: Amen.

Brother Gary: Oh, folks might know about it but you can walk… I’m telling you I know this, I’ve seen it happen. It’s not that it didn’t happen, it’s not that nobody doesn’t know about it, but I will tell you what, you can walk with confidence as a child of God, being clothed with the robes of righteousness. Knowing that it doesn’t matter what you think about me or somebody else thinks about me, my past has been forgiven, my sins have been cleansed. I’m fully clothed with the garments of salvation.

Together: Amen.

Brother Gary: Glory Hallelujah, I’m telling you Jesus can do it. And this morning we want Him to do it for somebody. I wanna tell you this morning, we gotta say the gospel message, the first thing you’ve got to do if you want to get right with Jesus, you have to ask him to forgive you of your past. You have to repent of the things that you made a choice to do that you knew were wrong. You know what the list is. We don’t know, we don’t care, it’s not up to us, it was different for you than it is for me. But you’ve got things if you were an adult that you knew were wrong and you chose to do them anyway, and God requires you to repent. And when you repent, if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us. And then you are like a new baby. And let me tell you something, Jesus gave a warning that when an unclean spirit leaves a man he goes out and finds to himself seven other spirits worse than himself. And he comes back to that house and he knocks on the door, and he sees if there’s somebody in.

Well, let me tell you, if you don’t go on after you get your sins forgiven and get Jesus in the house, when that devil comes back he’s gonna enter back into that house with seven devils worse than himself. And the Bible said the end of that man is worse than the beginning. How many times… No wonder the world around us is struggling in sin, and, whoa, when their preachers tell them we’re all sinners, and the preacher says, “I’m just a sinner like you, I…” there’s no expectation of deliverance. There’s no expectation of a freedom from sin. And when you repent and the devil comes front right back, and he’s got 7 more just like him in him, that is worse, and you repent again, and now you have 7 devils going out and they’re bringing 7 more and now you got 49 coming in. And you see how your life just goes on a decline, down and down into sin, but Jesus can take you out of sin.

Together: Amen.

Man: Hallelujah.

Brother Gary: We believe in a God that brings us completely victorious, Jesus ain’t afraid of the devil He created him, and the things that are created are in subjection to the Creator. And if you will just allow the power of God to come into your life by asking Him to fill your heart with the Holy Spirit, He will make you a new creature in Christ. All things will pass away, and, behold, all things: my relationships, yeah, yeah, my job, yeah, my thoughts, my actions, yeah, and my reactions, yeah, he’ll make all things become new.

Man: That’s true.

Man: Amen.

Brother Gary: Are you willing to give up yourself? Who wants to let their chains go this morning?

Together: Amen.

Brother Gary: Who wants to give it up? Man, what a great swap, we’re gonna go into prayer. We’re gonna ask everybody to stand. If the Spirit of God has convicted you this morning don’t be ashamed, don’t go running back in your tombs, come to Jesus like this man did, and let Him deliver you. Let’s all stand.

Man starts singing: Just as I am…

Summary

Title

Luke 8:26-39 - Jesus Restores Demon Possessed Man - What is thy name? And he said, Legion

Description

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.