WHAT a striking picture is here before us of the awful power of Satan over man! Satan never gives happiness but misery, never contentment but starvation. Yet men will delude themselves with the thought that what is exciting must be happiness. There can be no true happiness for man in his sins. But there is real happiness for the sinner who comes to the Saviour that came to deliver from Satan’s power and thralldom. Here was a man—and he was not alone, he had a companion in his misery (Matt. 8:2828And when he was come to the other side into the country of the Gergesenes, there met him two possessed with devils, coming out of the tombs, exceeding fierce, so that no man might pass by that way. (Matthew 8:28)) —who had been a long time possessed with demons, who wore no clothes, who had no home save in the tombs—an exceeding danger to every passer-by, and harmful to himself.
Think of it—a long time, no improvement! a miserable, pitiable object indeed. Beyond the reach of any earthly power to tame! avoided by all. Is there nothing that can meet his case? Yes, the Deliverer has come—the Son of God Most High! However many the demons that had taken possession of this man (his name is Legion, “for we are many”) they know they must obey the command of Jesus to come out of the man, as they also know they are to be tormented by and bye. “The demons believe and shudder.”
They ask to be allowed to enter into the two thousand swine that were feeding on the mountain, and this is granted. We are given to see thus the issue of their possession of the swine. The swine are driven to destruction; and this is a picture of the inevitable future of every one who remains the prey of Satan. The end is not life, but the lake of fire which is the second death. But here the blessed Lord intervenes in His pity and grace, and the wretched demoniac is delivered. Nearly destroyed, but delivered!
And what is now seen? The man, no longer restless and enslaved, but freed from Satan’s power, is “sitting”! Oh, what a change! What a calm is here! Peace, quietness and contentment! But sitting, where? At the feet of Jesus. How blessed! And if there, we see him “clothed, and in his right mind.”
How comely is all this! And what a new experience! Clothed—no longer naked. In his right mind—no longer deranged. So it was with the prodigal son of Luke 15. “He came to himself.” Then he arose, and came to his father.
And now, my reader, how is it with you? Are you not under the power of Satan, still in your sins, away from God? Are you not alienated from the life of God? Do come to the Saviour. He is waiting to deliver you. He came to destroy the works of the devil. And by and bye there will be a new heaven and a new earth in the place of the heavens and the earth that are now—once in perfection as they came from the hands of God, but now defiled. But every trace of the serpent will be banished when he himself and his hosts and victims shall be cast into the eternal, never-ending, lake of fire prepared for him and his angels—not for man. God is waiting to give you the inestimable blessing of “eternal life,” and the forgiveness of all your sins, if you will but now believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Trust no longer yourself, but the Saviour. All hangs on the object of your faith, not on the strength of it. He is worthy of all trust, and the believing thief on the cross proved its blessedness, and was received to paradise. Such is the grace of God our Saviour.
The Saviour is yours, and heaven is yours, if you rest your soul on Christ and His redemption. Despise it not, I pray you. For to despise this great mercy is to perish in your sins. Then—then, an infinite ransom even will be powerless to avail you!
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Now desirous of being with his Deliverer, the “once-possessed” is told to go home and tell how great things Jesus had done to him. For Jesus is God.