You're listening to the Vice Chancellor's Hour, a ministry of Radio ABC 993 FM on the campus of African Bible University. I'm Jeremiah Pitts, a professor and administrator here at the African Bible University in Uganda. The purpose of Vice Chancellor's Hour is to provide biblical and theological teachings that are an extension of the ministry of the university. Welcome back to another episode of the Vice Chancellor's Hour. We're working our way through the Book of Mark. You know, I'm doing this study because Jesus is so incredibly important, isn't he? That for a very long time, even people who weren't Christians recognized the uniqueness of Jesus Christ. But especially for Christians, you know, we say we're followers of Christ. Isn't it important to understand Him, to understand His life, and how He taught us, how He died, and how He rose again? And the best sources for that are the Gospels. That is, the Holy Spirit gave us, in His Word, an understanding of how we should know Jesus through these Gospels. We're looking especially at the book of Mark, the Gospel of Mark. And we found our way in these episodes, in chapter 5, verses 1 through 20. This is what it says. He lived among the tombs. And no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain, for he had often been bound with shackles and chains. But he wrenched the chains apart, and he broke the shackles in pieces. No one had the strength to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains, he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones. And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran, he fell down before him, and crying out with a loud voice, he said, What have you to do with me, Jesus, son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me. For he was saying to him, Come out of the man, you unclean spirit. And Jesus asked him, What is your name? And he replied, My name is Legion, for we are many. and he begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country. Now a great herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, and they begged him, saying, Send us to the pigs, let us enter them. So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered the pigs, and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the sea. The herdsmen fled and told it in the city and in the country. And people came to see what it was that had happened. And they came to Jesus and saw that demon-possessed man, the one who had the legion, sitting there, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid. And those who had seen it described to them what had happened to the demon-possessed man and to the pigs. And they began to beg Jesus to depart from their region. As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed with demons begged him that he might be with him. He did not permit him. He said to him, Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, how he has had mercy on you. And he went away and he began to proclaim it in the Decapolis, how much Jesus had done for him. And everyone marveled. What an incredible story of the power of Jesus in this life of this particular man. The first thing I think we need to see is that Jesus is sovereign over the spiritual. Jesus is sovereign. That means he rules over the spiritual realm. Now, for my Americans, I might take some time here to remind you that the spiritual world is very real, that it is active, it is present, and it is just as real as all of the things that we can see and taste and touch. The reason that I know that it's real is because the Bible testifies to it so much. You know, some of us have kind of gotten the idea that it's only the physical world that's a real world, and I'm sorry, but the Bible just doesn't agree with that. While there are many things that say they're spiritual that absolutely are nonsense, they're not real, it would be wrong to come to the conclusion that nothing spiritual is real. To believe that is to believe something, I think, that's beyond what can be proven or that helps to explain the world around us. But we see specifically in this passage that there is a spiritual realm. In fact, it's described as a spirit that's inhabiting a physical man. This is not the first time that Jesus has healed someone who has an unclean spirit. You might go back to Mark chapter 1, where you find the demoniac there and Jesus heals him. Or you might find the summary passage in Mark 4, which describes all of the work Jesus did and mentions there that he held people with unclean spirits. Now, there's some things you need to know about this spirit. And the first thing is that he's unclean. A lot of times when we hear unclean spirit in our minds, we just kind of translate that into demon. And certainly that is a good sort of synonym for what it is, but it's described as unclean for a reason. And there are so many associations in the story with unclean things, that it seems to be that the Spirit prefers to be in things that are not clean. Either he was living among unfaithful Jews, Jews who were not keeping the law which was cleansing them, or among Gentiles that they weren't supposed to live among. So they were living among people who were not being faithful to the law of God regarding the rules of cleanliness and uncleanliness. That law, that Old Testament law, was meant to be a picture for us of the holiness of God. And so by living among those who were violating those rules, by extension, was demonstrating his uncleanliness. Not only that, but look where the man lives. He lives among the dead. That is, there were tombs, and that's not where the people of God were supposed to be living. Now, what kind of person wants to live among dead bodies? It's not a clean place, it's an unclean place. Furthermore, when they were driven out of the man, where did these spirits want to go? They begged to be sent into pigs to be among unclean animals. Pigs are notorious the world over for being filthy animals, and that's the desired place for this spirit. This spirit is unclean. Not too long ago, when I first came to Uganda to stay here permanently, I had a Nile River tour. We got onto a small wooden boat, and we were going around the Nile River, close to the source of the Nile. And on that trip, the guys who were driving the boat asked us if we might want to see a local cave. And I didn't know anything about that, and I thought, oh yeah, okay, that would be interesting. But upon entering the cave, I discovered from the guides that this cave was a place of pagan worship, worship to false spirits. And well, you know, I don't know what you want to call them. I think the anthropologists call them local religious practitioners. That's what they told me in grad school. But I think locally we just call them witch doctors. Witch doctors would go there and would make sacrifices, leave gifts to these false guys. And what stood out to me about this cave is that it was disgusting. It was filthy. It was full of gross things. And it's just the kind of place that a spirit like this would want to live. Not in a place that's clean and well-kept. Not in a place that's wholesome and good for you. But the spirit prefers to be among the dead, to be among the filth, to be among things which are not holy. That's where it desires. That's where it desires to be. That spirit is unclean. Not only that, but we learn from this passage that an unclean spirit is powerful. An unclean spirit is powerful. I know some of you are disturbed that I'm saying that, but I'm only telling you what the Bible says. The Bible says that this unclean spirit was powerful. He was, in fact, able to inhabit a man, that is, to take over that man's faculties. The man was made to do things he didn't necessarily want to do. He inhabited him. He entered him. And we see many such examples in the scriptures of people who don't want to have unclean spirits, and yet the unclean spirit has taken over them. When the removal is there, sometimes it's referred to as a healing. Other times it's referred to as a removal or a casting out or throwing out, but sometimes it's referred to as a healing, as though they were sick or broken. And so it's something that's taken over them, like a disease, which is difficult to get rid of. Not only that, because of the unclean spirit, he's able to achieve incredible feats which are humanly impossible. You may remember that in the story, they cannot bind him. These people who know very well how to fashion iron and how to keep things secure as prisoners and regularly did so, they weren't able to stop this man. He could break the chains. He could rend the iron. And as it were, this is great power, there is great strength there, there's no doubt. And I'm saying this and I'm wondering how you're hearing it, but the fact of the matter is that the Bible is saying that this unclean spirit can cause him to do things he otherwise would not be able to do. And not only that, it's not just one of them, but we're told multiple spirits inhabit the man. That is, he's referred to as a legion. A legion is more than one, and it refers to itself as we, as a plural, more than one. It seems there's more than one evil spirit inside of this man. Unclean spirits, they really are powerful. Not only that, but this unclean spirit is defiant and rebellious. You may notice that what he says is, what have you to do with me? I often, when I think about this passage, think about putting those words into the mouth of someone else. Imagine you were in school and you said to your teacher, teacher, what do you have to do with me? I mean, it's almost inconceivable. I said it to a group of schoolchildren one time, and they laughed, but it was a nervous laugh, like, ooh, could we say that? Is that possible? Like, who would say that kind of thing? Because they know very well if they said something that defiant, that rebellious, they would deserve punishment, and they probably also would receive it. This is something you would never say to your boss. You would never say to your boss, what do you have to do with me? If you did that, would you expect that you would continue to work there? I think your boss would find a different place for you to work. Think of your mom and dad for you younger ones. What if you said to your mom and dad, what do you have to do with me? You hear how defiant, how rebellious it is? This unclean spirit knows very well who Jesus is, and yet he answers with a form of defiance, a form of rebellion. Now, this part's a little tricky, so I need you to stick with me. He does call Jesus by his name and title. Now, a lot of people think, well, if he says Jesus' name and title, then he's giving him honor, right? I mean, he calls him Jesus, Son of the Most High God. And at this point in the book of Mark, The demons have done the best job of identifying Jesus correctly. They're the ones who can look through everything and see who Jesus really is. In fact, if you look back in Mark 1, you might see that the demon back there does the same thing, doesn't he? He calls Jesus by name. But you have to understand that they're not doing this because they want to submit to Him or to give Him honor, but they're doing it as a form of defiance. That is, Jesus had already said that there are things about Himself that He did not intend to reveal yet, that it needed to be revealed at the right time. In fact, in Mark 1, He expressly tells that demon to be quiet, to shut up, because the demon's not trying to be helpful. The demon is doing something really devious, and this is what demons do. He's actually saying it in order to be destructive. You know, we have this idea about the truth that the truth of its own is always being helpful, but actually you can see here that's not the case. That there are true things you can say at the wrong time or in the wrong way that are intended to be destructive. It's not because of the nature of truth, it's because of how truth can be weaponized to hurt people. This is why the Bible tells us to speak the truth in love. It's not telling us that if you can't be loving, you should be dishonest. What it's saying is when you bring the truth, you need to bring it for healing, for uplifting, and for helping. And if this demon was being submissive to Jesus in the good and right way, then he never would have revealed something he knew was not meant to be revealed yet. But here you see him call him Jesus, Son of the Most High God, and just as we see in Mark chapter 1, this is meant to be a form of rebellion. He doesn't want to be helpful, he wants to be hurtful. And for you and me, this is a lesson, isn't it? that we shouldn't hide behind the fact that we were just telling the truth if the meaning of the truth, the intent of the truth-telling was to bring harm. But even when we say things, perhaps even things people don't want to hear, the intent of it should always be loving and for good, for the upbuilding and the nourishing and the support of those around us. Now it's true sometimes people just hate the truth, and that doesn't mean we should stop telling it. But we should be very careful about our intentions in using the truth. It's so very easy to use the truth not as a tool to help or to heal, but as a tool to destroy. That's certainly what this defiant spirit is doing. So, the spirit is unclean, the spirit is powerful, the spirit is defiant and rebellious. Finally, that unclean spirit is destructive. It is destructive. What is the result? You might look at this and go, well, if the spirit is powerful and the spirit can be rebellious against Jesus, wouldn't I want something like that in my life? You need to understand that this unclean spirit is incredibly destructive. This man is not able to live around other people. He can't live with family, friends, and neighbors. He can't live in civilization, but he is exiled on his own. He cannot be around other people. It's not even that he chooses to not be around other people. He can't be around other people. It drives him away. It destroys his relationships. It destroys his community. It keeps him separate from everyone else. Isn't that exactly what sin does? Not only that, but it causes him to cry out. Imagine, in the middle of the night, this guy is crying out in the darkness all by himself among the tombs. He's up and down, up and down. He's crying out. It reminds me, when I was much younger in university, some buddies of mine and I would often play soccer, and we would then go out and go hiking in some mountains nearby. One time it was dark by the time we got to the hiking trail, and it was quite late in the evening, and in fact, there was a man not too far from the parking space, and he was yelling. alone. At first we thought something must be wrong with him, but then later we found out that I think he was out of his mind. I think he was out of his mind, crying out. He was just alone in the darkness of the woods, just crying out in pain. And that sound, it really kind of haunts me, even to this day, this idea of someone crying out. That's what the unclean spirit, there's no way is this guy happy. He's not settled in life. Good things are not ahead of him. He's alone and he's crying out. Not only that, he's physically hurting himself. It says he cuts himself with stones. Oh, what a sign of the deep pain that this man was in, that he afflicts his body. Far from helping him. Yeah, the spirit is powerful, but what good does it do this man? Because he's not only alone and crying out, but he's cutting himself with stones. He's damaging his own body as a response to this demon. This is where I say to you, how foolish would it be for you or I to invite an evil spirit in hopes that we might become powerful? Some of you guys that are listening to me, maybe you've played around with some of this stuff Maybe you thought, well, I'll go to this guy and he'll make something special for me and I'll get what I want. I'll cause this person to be harmed or I'll cause this person to fall in love with me or I'll make someone change their mind or I'll get some good luck or I'll cause some bad luck. Brothers and sisters, you don't know what you're playing with. It's real and it's dangerous. I'm not saying it's always real. There's plenty of charlatans out there that are willing to take your money and laugh at you behind your back. But some of these people, you're meddling with them and some of them, are real servants of the devil, and you don't know what you're playing with. You think you'll become more powerful because a spirit is powerful, but instead what you see is it will destroy you. It will cause you to be driven out from everything and everyone that you love, crying out in pain and destroying your body, and you will be the prisoner. It will inhabit you, but you'll be the prisoner. Do I have some hope for you? I do. Christ is infinitely more powerful. Christ is infinitely more powerful even in this spirit. You know, I took the name legion. A legion typically was between 4,000 and 6,000 men. The number did fluctuate a little bit. We might take it from the number of pigs that were there that the number might be smaller, but still in the thousands. And this is where I start to ask you a question. Right? How many people can one man fight? You ever thought about that? You know, if you think about it, one man fights one man and he wins. You go, okay, yeah, he probably can handle himself, right? One guy fights one guy, he wins. Yeah, he can handle himself. One guy fights two guys? One guy fights two guys and he beats them both? I think everybody knows. Okay, that's pretty special. Not crazy, but that's pretty special, isn't it? What about one guy fights three guys? He beats three guys? Wow, okay, this guy's like another level, right? You know, big guys, tough guys, you can't beat three guys. By yourself? That's kind of crazy. 2,000 guys? Where's the one guy who by himself of his own strength is able to beat 2,000 guys? I don't know who that guy is. Never heard of him. You know Jesus, when he's recognized by that demon, what's the demon's response? Look how many spirits it's saying there is in there. Thousands. But what word does it use? It says they beg him. They beg him. Now, some of you, if you're, you know, listening to me from the U.S. or Europe, you may have in your mind, we have people sometimes that call themselves beggars and, you know, they're looking at you in the face and they're saying like, hey, you want to give me some money, man? And I'm here to tell you that that's not a beggar. Okay? If you want to see a beggar, you can come to places like Uganda, where the beggar is broken down, where he doesn't look up, he may not even physically be able to get up, where he's down on his knees, and he's truly begging. Please. Please, that's begging. And so too, this demon was begging Jesus. Please. He knew he was in the presence of someone far more powerful than he was. Jesus is the one who makes the decisions. Jesus is the one who grants permission. No spirit is as powerful as our Christ is. You have no reason to fear them so long as you are His. Your Savior will keep you safe. Some student of ours not too long ago went on a student mission. We do that every year. Students go out and they pick a ministry and a location and they go support that ministry in that location. And our students went to Jinja, just outside Jinja. And while they were there, they were doing something that's a bit unusual here. They were going door to door and they were witnessing. That's not done in Uganda a whole lot in my experience. And while they were there, they went to a compound in this rural location, and the man of the house wasn't there, but they were invited in. And so they go into the compound, these young students, and start witnessing and speaking of Jesus. While they're there, the man of the house returns, and it turns out he's a local witch doctor. And they were concerned what his reaction would be, but instead of being defiant, he ran away in fear, yelling that they were more powerful than he was. This is the picture of our Christ. You may have lost track of that in this world because the devil would love to have you believe that he's more powerful. But the truth of it is, our Christ is more powerful by far. Even the most powerful beings, these demons. So what will your reaction to this story be? Jesus casts out a demon, saves a man. What will your reaction be to these events? Well, I'm going to tell you there's two reactions. You see them in this story. Two different reactions to the same event. Same thing happens, but people react in two different ways. Look at the herdsmen and the townspeople. That's one reaction. We're told that the herdsmen fleed to the city. That is, they ran away. That word flee tells me you think you're in danger. That's what flee means. Like, you know, somebody behind you is going to do you harm. You flee. You run away. The house is on fire. You flee. You run away. Right? It's as though they were in trouble, as though they needed help. They needed someone to come and to help them. So they fetch those townspeople and they come back. This phrase in the whole story is kind of the most mind-blowing of the whole thing. This is what it says their reaction is, okay? Listen to it. Listen to it carefully. It says they found him sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid. Did you hear that? He was sitting there, he's clothed in his right mind, and they were afraid. Now you gotta understand, these guys know who this guy is. They've tried to arrest him and they failed. They put him in chains, he breaks them. This guy's running around screaming all hours of the night, cutting himself, looks like a maniac, lives with the dead people. Everybody knows about this guy. They know who he is, they know how he acts. They see him sitting, clothed and in his right mind, and their reaction is fear. Their reaction is fear. They were more at peace with the demon, with that unclean spirit, than they were with the power of God. They saw the power of God, and they found it unsettling. It says they begged Jesus to leave. They saw that he had done a miracle in this man's life, and they asked him to leave. They acknowledge his power. They know he's powerful. All three reactions, actually, that you see in the story are reactions to Jesus's power. Not one person there sees anything other than Jesus is powerful. But in one case, it causes them to flee and then to beg Jesus to leave. Just like the demon begged, they beg. They beg him to leave. And I think that raises a question for you and me. Is there anything in our lives, is there an evil in our life that we've made peace with? I ask this question with fear and trembling. I'm afraid of the fact that in this life, there may be something that I know is wrong, but I've made peace with it. So much so that when God changes it in my life, I don't want him to. Do you understand how terrifying that is? And so I'm asking you, brothers and sisters, look at your life. Look at your life. Is there something in your life that you've made peace with that's evil? And so you don't want God to change it. Don't make peace with evil, brothers and sisters. Don't make peace with evil. Make peace with God. The herdsmen and the townspeople acted all wrong. They ran away like something bad was going to happen to them. They asked Jesus to leave because they had made peace with evil. Oh, but that's not the only reaction we see, is it? That's not the only reaction we also see. That man who formerly had the demon, he feels differently. You know, just like we saw that word beg when it came to the demon and when it came to the townspeople, we see it with this former demoniac as well. He also begs. But what does he beg for? It says he begs Jesus to come with him. Let me come with you. Let me come with you. He's not saying go away. He's saying let me come. Let me come with you. What a beautiful cry of the heart. His heart's desire having been rescued, having been healed. All he wants to do is go with Jesus. All he wants to do is go with Jesus. It's a surprise to me, maybe a surprise to you. Jesus tells him no. But is Jesus sovereign? Does Jesus get to say? Yes. Other times Jesus says to this guy, hey, you come with me. At other times, he says, go where you will, and the man comes with him, and it's good. But this time, the man says, I want to go with you, Jesus, and Jesus says, no, stay. And that is the right of Jesus. Jesus is sovereign. Jesus is the king of this situation. That he's the one who says, stay or go, it's his call. And a real disciple gets that. I hope you get that too. We have our desires, don't we? We have the things we want. We even have things that we know to be or believe to be good, but God doesn't have them for us. He has something else. And a real follower of Christ, a real disciple, he doesn't do what he wants. He does what God wants him to do. This man's reaction isn't to make Jesus do what he wants, but is to do what Jesus would have him to do. And why does Jesus leave him there? This is especially instructive for you and me. It's to proclaim what Jesus had done. To proclaim what Jesus had done. You're here on earth. You know, the Bible tells us to live as Christ and to die as gain. To die is gain. And I hope you have eyes towards heaven, but don't forget to live is Christ. We flip that around, don't we? Don't we flip that around? We start to say, well, to die is Christ and to live is gain. Let me get what I can get here. And when I'm dead, I'll go to Jesus. But the Bible says the opposite. To live is Christ, to die is gain. If you are saved and you are here, you have been rescued from the powers of darkness, which were so destructive and unholy, and you are still here because God has a purpose for your life, and that is to proclaim what he has done. Proclaim it. He has you here to praise him and make his glory known. He deserves it. Don't let it pass. I'm reminded of a student of mine, and when she came for interviews, we always interviewed them about their confession of faith. What do they believe about how to be saved, and do they really believe it? And this young lady, she knew how to be saved, and she could express it, that she's saved by grace through faith, and she went through those pieces. She knows them, thank the Lord. She knows some of our graduates in her life, and they had some help there. They had helped her in knowing what it meant to be a Christian. But there was a missing piece, and it came up in the interview. She had no assurance. She had no assurance. And I found that to be a fairly common thing, that they know how to be saved, but they struggle with assurance. How can I really know I'll be saved? It was my very, very good pleasure to share with her that you rest in the work of Christ, and that's where your assurance is. It's in His work. Not in the size, not in the strength of your faith, but in the object of your faith. That's where the assurance is. And that in Christ Jesus, as surely as you are His, nothing can wrest you from His hands. He says all of the ones the Father has given Him, He will keep. No one can take them away. I didn't know it at the time. I didn't hear this until later. I could see that this young lady was very excited, but I didn't know why and how much. Later, she shared her testimony, and in her testimony, she mentioned that very day that she had known a lot of people who weren't good people, had been raised up around them and near them, and they often talked about the fact they might end up in hell together. because she had no assurance. When she got done with that conversation, she called her friends. She said, I know I'm going to heaven, and you can know too. She'd had no assurance, but as soon as she had that object of her faith, as soon as she knew what Christ had done, she wanted to proclaim it. She wanted everyone to know. I'm telling you, that's why we're here. That's why we have our chapel. Our chapel at African Bible University is called Kirk of the Hills out of respect for a church that sent us, but also because we're a church that's on a hill. And when I see it, I see it as a fortress on a hill against spiritual oppression. We have a Savior who saves us, and the power isn't in that building, and certainly the power isn't in the people who are in the building. The power is in the Christ who saves them. And our job is to proclaim it. This radio exists to proclaim what Christ has done for us. This university exists to proclaim what Christ has done for us. And whatever else we're doing, and there's a lot of other things we do, all of them come back to us telling people what God has done for us. I hope you're doing the same. Trust Him. Put your assurance in Him. This Christ is stronger than the most powerful spiritual forces. He's able to save to the uttermost. What will your reaction be? Will you make peace with evil? Or will you obey your king and proclaim what he's done? I know what I want to do. Hope you do the same. You're listening to the Vice Chancellor's Hour, a ministry of Radio ABC 993 FM on the campus of African Bible University. I'm Jeremiah Pitts, a professor and administrator here at the African Bible University in Uganda. The purpose of Vice Chancellor's Hour is to provide biblical and theological teachings that are an extension of the ministry of the university.