In the next case we get a wonderful picture. It discovers to us that it is not an easy path to follow a rejected Christ. “Now when Jesus saw great multitudes about him, he gave commandment to depart unto the other side” (ver. 18). I dare say, as far as the dispensational picture is concerned, it is the Lord leaving the earthly people and revealing that the walk of faith is not an acceptable path to flesh and blood.
“And a certain scribe came and said unto him, Master, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest (ver. 19). Here is a man who elects to follow Him. Many there are who do so. It is a fearful thing to tell an unsaved soul to follow Jesus. For he is dead in sins, and needs life and righteousness. If he has these, then his duty is to follow His steps. The Lord knew the heart of this man, and that he was after present advantage. So He says, “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.” Foxes and birds are His creatures, and mischievous creatures too.
This is the first time the Lord uses this name “Son of man,” in the N.T. When love proffered its welcome, He accepted that which was done for His comfort; for instance, as, when Martha received Him into her house. Where this incident comes out historically, we find it was when He passed through Samaria, and the Samaritans would not receive Him, which made James and John so indignant that they wanted to call fire down from heaven to consume them. Then it was He used these words. Here then the man is exposed, and we hear nothing more of him.
In the next verse, the Lord shows that He will not have a divided heart. It may be this man thought “I have been a dutiful son, and I would like to do all I can for my father till he is gone; then I shall be at liberty.” But the Lord's claims are paramount. When it is a case of the Master's claims and those of nature, the Lord must have the first place. He says, “Follow me.” — A disciple is a follower. “Let the dead,” i.e., those who are “dead in trespasses and sins” “bury their own dead” —those who died naturally. Now here is the connecting link. First of all, it is a mistake to think of personal advantage; secondly, the Lord must have an undivided heart; thirdly, “his disciples followed him.” There is a play here on the word “follow.”
If they had gone on with the multitude they would not have had the storm. Their following Him led them into the storm. “And behold” the Holy Ghost says. Now you mark the result— “there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves; but he was asleep” (ver. 24). We never see in what is recorded of our blessed Lord a single case of fear of any of His creatures. How could it be? He was the dependent Man, always confident in Jehovah; so in the storm we see Him at perfect rest—there was no fear there, and if they had had a right appreciation of His Person, the disciples would have had no fears either, for fears in that case are groundless.
It is sufficiently clear that this storm came as sent by the devil, for the Lord rebuked it. Satan is called “the prince of the power of the air,” and in the book of Job we see how he used this power. Following Jesus involves much tribulation. “His disciples came to him, and awoke him, saying, Lord save us; we perish” (ver. 25). Now, was it a blessing for them to be in this storm? The word in Rom. 5 says, “We boast in hope of the glory of God.” I suppose we all know that the words “boast,” “glory,” and “rejoice,” may be but a translation of one and the same word of the original. “And not only so but we boast in tribulations also"; they are no loss to us. Why? “Knowing that tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience” —experience of what I am, but also experience of what the Lord is for me. They experienced what cowards they were, but they also learned something of what He was. If I am a child of God and self-willed, the Father's chastening comes upon me, and this for my profit. I could not boast in that if the Lord is chastening me. “No chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous but grievous.” But if I am following Jesus, how different! I can “glory in tribulation,” in that which comes upon me for His name's sake. To “suffer for His sake” is a gift (Phil. 1:20). Faith is the gift of God, and so is suffering for Christ. Every true child of God suffers with Christ, but not every one suffers for Him.
First then, He speaks to them, and shows them how unworthy of them to be so perturbed. “Then he arose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm.” Was there ever a king like this, with power to control all the elements? The winds and the sea obey Him. It was a blessed experience for them. In our deep trials we prove what the Lord is for us.
Who would “the men” be of ver. 27? It looks as if there were men there in special charge of the ship. It is quite different in chap. 14:33 there the effect was that “they that were in the ship came and worshipped him, saying, Of a truth thou art the Son of God.”
All that we have been looking at up to now, is connected with His Galilean ministry. It is in chap. 12 that He is rejected by the religious leaders of Jerusalem.
“When He was come to the other side” (ver. 28). They get there, you see, in spite of the tempest. In the other Gospels you get one man possessed with demons. Here you have two. Constantly in Luke you get two, and frequently also in Matthew, but for quite a different reason. Matthew gives us “two or three witnesses” as affording adequate testimony. But in Luke it is always by way of contrast: “two sons,” elder and younger; “two debtors,” they are contrasted; “two men” go into the temple to pray; “two thieves,” and they are contrasted, but only so in Luke's Gospel. I take it that in this case as given in Mark 5, where we have only one mentioned, it is the more striking of the two men, and so more details are there given. In type you have the last condition of Israel here. These demoniacs mercifully delivered, and so in a future day there will be a remnant saved; but in the swine you get the great unclean mass of the nation. God will reserve some to Himself. In Israel you constantly get a remnant. In Elijah's time He had seven thousand which had not bowed the knee to Baal. The mass will receive the antichrist, and there will be worse idolatries than ever before. Here is One Who can not only heal diseases, forgive sins, control elements, but Who casts the demons out. This He will do, and so Satan shall be cast into the prison house for a thousand years, and then for all eternity into “the lake of fire.”
We can see the malignant, as well as the deceptive, power of the devil. We Christians ought to be more on our guard against his deceptions, and not be ignorant of his devices, as so many of us seem to be. There are, individuals in whom you see his malignant power. You get the world pictured as a great hospital in John 5. In another sense it is a scene of tombs, sin and death go together. So here these two have their dwellings in the tombs. Thank God we have not. We have been delivered. God is conducting many sons through the wilderness on to glory.
This malignant power of Satan is beyond the power of man to subdue. One of these had been often bound with fetters and chains, but “neither could any man tame him.” All Acts of Parliament, and all the societies of men will be unsuccessful to tame him. Only One can. “The demons believe and shudder.” Alas, that this is more than we can say of man in his hardness! Man's believing does not make it true, nor does his unbelief make it false. “The demons believe.” “What have we to do with thee, thou Son of God?” “Jesus” ought not to be there, according to the best text. There is no Savior for demons. “He taketh not hold of angels” (Heb. 2:16). A perfect man, and perfectly a man, He passed the angels by. The fallen angels fell without a tempter; man fell by a tempter; and God will judge that tempter. “Art thou come hither to torment us before the time?” The time will come. The devil has access to heaven now, but he will be cast out of heaven and his angels too. The Lord was looking on to Rev. 12, when He said, “I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.” After the church is taken home the devil will be cast out, and then ultimately put in the prison house. For a thousand years man will not have a tempter. Yet after all, though they have seen the contrast between the Lord's reign and Satan's sway, at the close of the millennium the great mass of the human race will fall by Satan's deception of the nations, as easily as Adam fell. It only shows that there is nothing stable but a real work of grace in the soul.
We were seeing that this wonderful King could heal all His people's diseases and forgive their sins. Psa. 103 is a millennial Psalm. People read it and get comfort from it now, but it is the language of those under the new covenant. There is no covenant made with the church, but we have the “blood” of that new covenant by which is given us blessing even more than will be when the new covenant is established with both houses of Israel. But there is something more than sin and disease—there is the one who brought sin into the world. Here is One who can deal with him. “Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness.”
Things will never be right here till the devil is chained. How could you have a millennium with the devil here? He will be put into the prison house then—not the final place of torment, but into “the bottomless pit.” It needs the personal presence of the Son of God to accomplish that. You get Satanic power shown in two ways here. There is his open, manifest, malignant power in some individuals; whilst others may be very polite. Those who asked the Lord to depart out of their coasts were under Satan's power as well as were the demoniacs. We have more to dread his wiles than his malignant persecuting power. But these two “were exceeding fierce, so that no man might pass by that way.” Satan's power is superhuman, and he can use those under his power to do mischief in a variety of ways. Where we get more particulars we are told, “Neither could any man tame him.” No matter what schemes men may make, they cannot alter man's nature. The Lord Jesus is the only One Who can do this.
You never find a demon confessing to Him as Jesus. There is a scripture which says, “No man can say that Jesus is Lord but by the Holy Ghost.” Read with its context it shows that there is the ministry of the Holy Ghost and a ministry of demons. And so then, arises the test—which was which? Anything that would put a spot on Him, take away from His glory or from His work—that is of the devil. The youngest believer is responsible to prove all things, and hold fast that which is good. The First Epistle of John brings out the second test of truth, the written word of God. “He that is of God heareth us,” that is, the apostles. Perhaps all had passed away except John, but it is the company of the apostles and prophets who had given them the Word of God, which now we have complete in written form.
The demons say, “What have we to do with thee, Son of God? Art thou come to torment us before the time?” “The demons also believe and tremble.” They own Him Son of God, for to Him every knee must bow, and every tongue confess. Yet is there no Redeemer of angels. Their case has not been taken up for redemption. The tempter is always worse in God's sight than the tempted. So God interferes in His grace to rescue man, but “of angels He taketh not hold” (Heb. 2:16), i.e., fallen angels. “Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their life time subject to bondage.” He became the Deliverer by becoming man, and then all that He is as a divine Person enters into all that He did, and gives it divine efficacy. The demons believe there is one God—they believe what is revealed in God's word. Satan may quote and pervert it to his purpose. Demons know their doom. The very first gospel announcement declares it, where it is said of the Seed of the woman, “It shall bruise thy head” (Gen. 3:15). Hence you find Satan's animosity in the O.T. against anyone who is even a type of the Lord Jesus. Satan gets man to believe that God does not mean what He says, and that there is no such thing as “eternal judgment.” If man did not discern who the Lord was, the demons could say, “We know thee who thou art.”
The Lord did not annul the devil at the temptation, but He spoiled his goods, and thereafter cast the demons out. He annulled him at the cross. Satan is in the heavenlies now, but he will be cast into the earth, and then, “Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea!” Then later he will be cast into the abyss. When loosed out of his prison, the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth shall be gathered by him to encompass in battle the camp of the saints, and the beloved city Jerusalem; but fire comes down and destroys the nations, and Satan is cast into the lake of fire, to be tormented forever and ever. Not all angels have fallen. There are the holy and elect angels. No creature can stand unless kept. All the human race have fallen in Adam their federal head (Rom. 5:12-19; 1 Cor. 15:22).
We know that demons are in the heavenly places because the word of God says “we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against wicked spirits in heavenly places” (Eph. 6:12). The Lord Jesus said to His disciples when they told Him the demons were subject unto them, “I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.” He was looking forward to the time of Rev. 12:9. Satan is not in paradise, the third heaven. We get light from 2 Cor. 12 as to what paradise is. It is the immediate presence of God, the highest place of blessing, and that is where the poor thief went! Satan has access to accuse the saints. We see his access in Job 1; 2 And he accuses “day and night” (Rev. 12:10). It is after the rapture of the saints to heaven that he is cast out. I take it to be the middle of Daniel's seventieth week, and the last half of that week is the time of “the great tribulation.”
Mary Magdalene was conscious of what the Lord had done for her in casting out seven demons “She ministered unto Him.” In Luke 7 we find a nameless woman, and it is wonderful grace that keeps her name secret. But people jump to conclusions and. so identify Mary with her; but not so. There is nothing to show that Mary's past had been impure.
If we take the whole universe there is not a single thing, however small, left to chance. Nothing can happen without God's commission or permission. He either permits it, or it is according to His will. God permitted man to fall. If you could take all the mystery out of the Bible you might have proof that it was not of divine origin. The wisest amongst us would own that he has but touched the fathomless depths of the word of God.
The only thing the devil can do is to take man downwards. The swine rushed down. Until a man is converted, every step from his birth has been downward and hell-ward. We only begin to go upward when we know Jesus as our Savior and Lord. He gave permission to the demons to enter the swine. When the Lord wanted to show that sin is not only degrading but defiling, he gave a picture of a Jew tending swine. There are many things in Scripture to show that demons have a longing to inhabit something, man or beast. This shows us an object lesson-the devil is a destroyer. While they know indeed that they are fallen, and know there is punishment for them, we must not think they will have any sway at all when that punishment falls. The most abject of all will be the devil himself. Now is his reigning day. But when the day of punishment comes, at which they tremble now, for they know nothing can stop it, the heaviest punishment will be theirs. They are bent on mischief. Many a man is deluded by them to think he puts an end to his existence by committing suicide, and finds it but a lie of Satan, when it is too late.
Ver. 34.-What comes out here shows that man values his temporal possessions more than the presence of the One Who could cast out demons. They would rather have the devil and the demons, and their possessions, than Christ. They begged Him to go, and He took them at their word. But it would appear, from Mark, that the preaching of the man had effect, as there were some prepared to receive Him afterward. He tells what Jesus had done, and how He had had compassion on him.