Well, it's an honor to be here, and I thank God for the divine providence that brought us safely here. We put a little over 3,000 miles already on the family car, and probably another 3,000 before we get home, and he has kept us safe and brought us safely here, and I just thank our Lord for his protecting hand upon us. Thank you. Thank all of you, members of this church, in labor of love and hosting these conferences, and your pastor and his wife, dear friends of ours, were so thankful for those who love the Gospel, are willing to support the Gospel, and those Gospel preachers are willing to go and preach the Gospel. Oh, I have been fed already. It's been wonderful. I received an email note from a dear pastor friend of mine. He was talking about a preacher who was closing his message And he said, before I invite the song leader to come and lead us in a closing hymn, I'm just going to tell you how I feel about some things. If I owned all the beer in the world, and I knew I could make a fortune selling it, I'd dump it in the river. Same with wine. If I owned all the wine, if I owned all the alcoholic beverages, whiskey and all, I'd just dump it in the river. And then he sat down, Song leader stood up, said to him, turn to hymn 222, let's sing, shall we gather at the river. Bring your own glass. Well, we're gathered here, feasting on the riches of Christ, that living water, isn't it wonderful? It's just so, so wonderful. I draw your attention to Mark chapter 5. Mark chapter 5. In the previous chapter, and it's already been mentioned about our Lord carrying us through the storms of life, but our Lord was crossing over the sea in the boat with His disciples and the storm came up and He was asleep back into the boat. Now all of these things were ordained by God. Our Lord came to do the will of the Father and this was part of that. Not only the storm, our Lord brings the storms, but also where Christ was during that storm. And His disciples were frightened. Woke up the Lord and said, don't you care that we perish? And He stood up and said, peace. Be still. The winds and the waves obeyed His voice. And His disciples in one of the other Gospels said, What manner of man is this that even the waves obey His voice? Well, thank God for divine revelation because we know what manner of man He is. He's the God-man. He's our Creator. He's Jehovah God. He's the one who created everything that we see, just by the word of His mouth. Just spoke it. And the winds and the waves obey His voice, but not just the winds and the waves, everything obeys His voice. Did you know the Word of God? I know you know this, but I get to tell it to you again. The Word of God tells us that we're not even to say that we're going to go into a town and buy and sell unless we say God willing. Now that might not be difficult to believe in a little town called Rescue, because there's not very many of us there. But that's talking about all the cities. Hong Kong, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, People coming and going, doing the will of God Almighty, and not even aware of it. Well, that same boat, on that same sea, was taking our Lord to one of His lost sheep. That's the will of God. Our Lord came to do His will. Of God the Father. We just heard that read from the Scripture. Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God. And He did it perfectly. Everything our Lord Jesus did, from His mother's womb, to where He laid down His life for His sheep, and everything in between, He did it perfectly. Every thought in His mind, every word He spoke, every deed He committed, every miracle He performed, and the motive for doing all of that was absolutely perfect. He's never made a mistake. Our God cannot fail. That brings us to this first verse. Actually, let me read the first three verses of chapter 5 of Mark. It says, They came over unto the other side of the sea, unto the country of the Gadarenes, And when He, our Lord Jesus, was come out of the ship, immediately there met Him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, who had His dwelling among the tombs, and no man could bind Him, no, not with chains, and verse 4 with that, that he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces, neither could any man tame him." So he's in a pretty helpless and hopeless condition. He is absolutely lost. And nothing could help him. No man could tame him. I was witnessing to my foreman, when I was on a construction job out in Montana, telling him what the Lord had done for me, trying to express myself that would glorify my God, and maybe speak to that man, and telling him a little bit about my past and what the Lord had delivered me from, and he said, boy, you did need delivering. As if he didn't. And this is what's wrong with the unregenerate. They think they're alright. They think their good is going to outweigh their bad. There's no good in any of us. The only one that's good is God. And it says no man could tame this man. No man could tame him. Our Lord Jesus, speaking to His disciples, He said it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into glory, into heaven. Well, that just surprised His disciples because of a rich man who has the money to build synagogues and feed the poor and help out in these kinds of situations. If they can't be saved, who then can be saved? And they ask Him that question. Our Lord said, with men it is impossible, but with God all things are possible. Salvation is of the Lord. We come into this world dead in trespasses and sins. Just as dead as Lazarus was when our Lord said, Lazarus, come forth and raise them from that state of physical deadness. Just as dead. I was preaching on this at Brother Donny Bell's church. I mentioned it over at Madisonville also on Wednesday night. Can you imagine? That condition that Lazarus was in, can you imagine how he felt when our Lord gave him life? Now, our Lord had to give him life before he could hear the voice of Jesus Christ. And when our Lord said, Lazarus, come forth, he came forth. He heard the voice of Christ. But before our Lord came to him, and Lazarus could not have come to the Lord, our Lord had to come to him, just like what we're reading here. Lazarus could not have said any Hail Marys. He could not have walked the aisle of some Arminian free-willed preacher, giving an altar call and shaking his hand and speaking to him some words to fill his mind with false hope. He could not have exercised his free will, could not have made a decision for Jesus. He was helpless and he was hopeless. And that's the condition we're in until our Lord comes and gives us life. I can identify with this man. He's cutting himself. He's screaming. He's crying. He's living amongst the dead. You say, what an awful place for anybody to live. That's where we were. That's where we were. Living amongst the dead. Spiritually dead, yes, but just as dead. And I'll tell you something. Those men in that cemetery where he or women all who were buried there, they couldn't hurt him. It's live dead people that hurt you. It's those who are spiritually dead but alive physically do you harm. Those dead people couldn't have done him any harm. And here we were with all of those dead people just loving them and snuggling up to them. enjoying ourselves and thinking we had the world by the tail on a downhill drag, and on our way to hell and didn't even know us. And our Lord Jesus comes to this man, It says in verse 5, it was always night and day. He was in the mountains and in tombs, crying and cutting himself with stones. But when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped Him and cried with a loud voice and said, What have I to do with Thee, Jesus, Thou Son of the Most High God? I adjure Thee by God that Thou torment me not. For our Lord had said unto him, Come out of the man, Thou unclean spirit. Even the unclean spirits, the devil, and all the fallen angels have to obey the voice of our Master, the Lord Jesus Christ. They have to get permission from Him before they can do anything. We see this in the case of Job. He couldn't do anything. Satan couldn't do anything to Job until our Lord gave him permission to do it. The devil is just like a dog on a leash. He can only go so far and our Lord just yanks back to that's far enough. And our Lord has commanded the unclean spirit to come out of this man. And they have to come out, but The spokesman for them, in verse 9, our Lord says, What is thy name? And he answered, saying, My name is Legion, for we are many. He's speaking for all, had to be at least 2,000 evil spirits in that one man. And he, the spokesman for those evil spirits, besought him much that he would not send them away out of the country. Now there was there nigh unto the mountains a great herd of swine feeding, And all the devils besought Him, saying, Send us into the swine, that we may enter into them." They wanted to go into those pigs. They didn't want to be just floating around doing nothing. They're destroyers. They want to destroy something. And our Lord gave them permission. Verse 13, it says, 4th with Jesus. Gave them leave, and the unclean spirits went out and entered into the swine. And the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea. There were about 2,000 and were choked in the sea. I don't know if our Lord has a sense of humor or not, but you know, the Lord gave those evil spirits permission to go to the pigs and then He knew that those pigs were going to just kill themselves. I don't think I'd want to have been in that part of the country, but I was. I was. Evil spirits all around us. Thank God He controls the devil and the evil spirits that fell from heaven. Thank God He's in control of everything. Thank God that He had His eye of love on us before we even knew Him, when we were running from Him, hating Him, drinking iniquity like water, shaking our fist in His face, and I'll not have you to reign over me. Thank God He was reigning even then, and He has always been reigning. He always will reign. So we have a picture of our helpless, hopeless, lost condition until the Lord Jesus comes to us and delivers us. That's His name. The name of our Lord Jesus is the Deliverer. He delivered us from the power of darkness, delivered us from the power of Satan, delivered us from the power of sin, Delivered us from the power of self. Translated us right into a living union with Himself. Right into the eternal kingdom of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. By His sovereign power. By His power. That's the power of Jesus Christ our Lord. All power in heaven and earth has been given to Him. But God has always had all power. But God has not always been a man. There's a glorified man in heaven right now. His name is Jesus Christ the Lord. He's 100% God. He's 100% man. You say that's a mathematical impossibility. You're not familiar with the mathematics of heaven. That's the truth. He's 100% God. He's 100% man. Our Lord Jesus Christ is on His throne. He's ruling over this whole universe and everything in it. And here we are. We heard it already during this conference. Safe in the loving arms of Christ our Savior. Absolutely nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. And I love this scripture. Nothing can be laid to the charge of God's elect. Does that bless you? Does it bless you to know? that all your iniquities were laid on Him, on the Lord Jesus Christ, to know that every sin, past, present, and future were laid on Him. He took care of the sin debt perfectly, fully. Nothing was left out. We are free, free from the wrath to come because Jesus Christ, our Substitute, endured the wrath of God in our room and our stead. God punished His Son for me. for me. And He's a just God. He cannot demand payment twice. It's all taken care of. The ransom price has been paid in full. And look what happens to this man. It says in verse 14, And they that fed the swine fled and told it in a city and in a country And they went out to see what it was that was done. They're interested in these pigs. That's what they're interested in. They're not interested in Christ. They're not interested in what Christ has done. It says in verse 15, they come to Jesus and see Him that was possessed with the devil and had the legion sitting and clothed and in His right mind. And they were afraid. Here's a man who was just living with the dead in a cemetery, cutting himself, screaming without any hope, naked, running around naked. Now he's sitting. That denotes rest. Well, look where he's sitting. At the feet of Jesus Christ, our Lord and our Savior. He's right where I always want to be. Is that true with you? He's right there resting in His Savior. Jesus Christ did it all. We cease from our own works when we enter into His rest and just love the fact that we are at peace with our God through the one and only mediator between God and me and the man Christ Jesus. He is our peace. We rest in Him. Amen? And it says he was clothed, sitting and clothed. He's not naked. He has clothes on him to cover his physical nakedness. But I'll tell you something else. He's clothed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ our Savior. That righteousness is every believer's righteousness. It's the same righteousness that was imputed to Abraham. Abraham believed God and it was imputed to him for righteousness. But it wasn't imputed to him alone, it was for us too. If we believe on Him that raised up Jesus from the dead, who was delivered for our offenses and raised again for our justification, we have a righteousness from Christ Himself that makes us to hang on, makes us as holy as God Himself. I'm telling you folks, that's wonderful. If you don't believe that, there's something wrong. If you can't rejoice in that, there's something wrong. And you can amen that if you want to. I don't mind. It's the truth. We have a righteousness that makes us acceptable in God's sight, No one can really put into words, but thrills the hearts of all of God's children to the point that we just shout for joy, thanking God that we've been made accepted in the Beloved. But He's also in His right mind. Now, I don't want to bust your bubble. Well, maybe I do. You didn't have a right mind until the Lord came until God sent the Spirit of the Son into our heart. We were always out there with the wrong mind. That mind would not allow us to do anything but sin. And I don't care how religious we were. I don't care how often we went to church. I don't care how many hours we read the Bible. Without the Spirit of God dwelling in us, we didn't have a right mind. But when God enlightens our minds, when He sends the Spirit of His Son into our heart and enlightens our minds, we have the mind of Christ. And we believe what the Word of God says about Christ. We believe what the Word of God says about us. Sin from the top of our head to the bottom of our feet. No soundness in us. But Christ Jesus our Lord and our Savior, took by His own supreme sacrifice and made us acceptable in God's sight. He didn't try to redeem us. He redeemed us. He obtained eternal redemption for us. By one offering, He sanctified us forever. One offering. He is our sanctification. By one offering, He perfected forever all of those He sanctified. And so we have this right mind that looks to Christ, the author and the finisher of our faith, believing that Jesus paid it all. All to Him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow. So this man was sitting and clothed, and in his right mind, and they were afraid. It says in verse 16, they that saw it told him how it befell to him that was possessed with the devil, and also concerning the swine, and they began to pray him to depart out of their coasts. Isn't that sad? There's a man that they knew, A man that was a wild man, an old man contained. A man who is completely different. A man that our Lord has changed. A man who is welcomed in the community now, wasn't before. A man who would be an asset to any community. But they loved their pocketbook more than they loved the miracle of God. They loved their bank account more than they loved Jesus Christ. They hated Jesus Christ. It was their pocketbook that bothered them. The money that they lost with the pigs being now gone into the sea and dead. And that's typical of false religionists today. You know, they'll go along with you a little bit, but if you start messing with their pocketbook, they won't go along with you at all. So we have a picture of the world the ungodly people, the power of our Lord, and how those in this world hate Christ. Even if they're religious, they hate Christ and don't want Him in their midst. They don't want Him. They have no use for Him. And our Lord Jesus said, if they hated Me, they'll hate you also. But, we read in verse 18, when He was coming to the ship, When our Lord Jesus was coming to the ship, he that had been possessed with the devil prayed to him that he might be with him. I don't blame him, do you? Lord, I want to go with you. Take me with you. That's the desire of every enlightened child of God, to want to be with our Savior. But it wasn't the Lord's will that he would go with him. We read in verse 19, Howbeit Jesus suffered him not, but saith unto him, Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee. He wanted to go with the Lord, but the Lord sent him back to be a testimony in that community where he lived. Now, give this some thought. I don't know how many were followers of the Lord Jesus Christ later in that area, but I believe he was the only one at that time. I believe there was one man that had the testimony, that had a testimony that would give our Lord Jesus Christ all the glory. And he was sent back into that community to be a lighthouse for the glory of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven. Now, I don't believe that man went back into his community telling them that he was the master of his own destiny and that he, by his own free will, changed his life No, He gave a testimony for the glory of Jesus Christ, how Christ came to Him, how Christ manifested His power in setting Him free. We were just singing that song, Free From the Law, Oh Happy Condition. Jesus has bled and there is remission. Jesus Christ our Savior makes a difference. He changes us. And we're to give Him all the glory. I was preaching to saints over in Madisonville, talking about this very subject. What an honor God has bestowed upon us. The honor of preaching the Gospel. There's no greater honor of all the men in this world. Of all the men in this world, God chose me to be one of His preachers. That just overwhelms me Humility, I was humbled before God. What a terrible testimony it would be if I stood up here before you and started talking about what I've done for Jesus. That's not what that man did. He didn't go back into his community and talk about what he had done for Jesus. Our Lord says, tell them what great things the Lord hath done for thee and hath had compassion on thee. God has mercy on whom he will have mercy. He has compassion on whom he will have compassion. What an honor it is, not only for a man to be called to preach the gospel, but what an honor for a church to be entrusted with the gospel, to support the gospel with your prayers and your monies and your time, your attendance and your gifts. What an honor! As I said over in Madisonville, I don't think there's another church over there that preaches the grace of God but the church that this man is a part of, is a pastor of. And I don't think there's another church here in Danville that preaches the gospel. I don't know that for a fact, but I don't believe that. I know for a fact that Rescue is the only church that preaches the gospel in our area. What an honor God has bestowed upon us. And we have that honor of testifying before others in our community what great things God hath done for us. How our Lord Jesus Christ has had compassion on us. How many in your community have been entrusted with the Gospel? Well, if you're in Christ, and if you know the Gospel, you're one of them. There might not be too many in your area, but thank God there's one or two or four or six or how many. And let us be faithful to our Lord and our Savior, giving a testimony for His glory, telling others What great things our God has done for us. How He has had compassion on us through His darling Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who redeemed us with His own precious blood and has assured us that He will be with us every step of the way. Now, that man could not get in a boat and go with Jesus, But I'll guarantee you our Lord Jesus was with him every step of the way. Thank you. God bless you.