We Like the Pigs Better

This is the last message in our series about skeptics. We could go on and on. The New Testament is full of stories about people who do not believe that Jesus is the Messiah. Even great miracles did not necessarily sway the skeptics.

We have in this story a skepticism that is both puzzling and corrupt. It displays a twisted set of values, a strong preference for a world in which humans are the ultimate power. Even acts of mercy are a threat to these people.

See the Miserable Condition

This man’s condition was terrible. He was living in the cemetery, crying all night and cutting himself with stones.

• His weeping is an indication of the torment of soul that he was experiencing.

• Cutting himself was evidence that he felt worthless, unloved, and unwanted.

The devil hates God. And he hates the image of God in humans. He takes pleasure in reducing humans to animals any way that he can.

• He was at work in this man, created in the image of God, eradicating that image, which he hates.

• This is the work of the devil. It is demonic. It is the personal and spiritual force of evil in the world that is both aggressive and intentional.

• My closest experience to this kind of demonic possession happened some years ago. This man told me that he was demon-possessed. He loved the demons inside of him, it seemed to me, and he did not want to be rid of them. He tried to kill his family, and he tried to kill me. He was vulgar, profane, and absolutely pitiful. He was also inhumanly strong. Although he was not a big man, about my size, it took six police officers and myself about 10 minutes to get him into a jail cell. And when finally had wrestled him into that cell, he looked through the little window at me and said, “When I get out of here, I am going to kill you.”

Believe the Amazing Transformation

Check out the transformation of Legion.

• He was a fearful, uncontrollable man with superhuman strength who could not be contained or restrained even by the chains they used to bind him. He left the houses and shops behind and was banished by his terrible condition, and perhaps the towns’ authorities, and lived in the cemetery.

• Now they find him calm and clothed. He is in his right mind. He is sitting. He is not crying or cutting himself with stones.

The most important miracles happen in people who are rescued from destructive forces that enslave them.

• The townspeople are deeply connected to the man who was healed. They have tried to restrain him. They know who he is and what kind of awful condition he was in.

• Pay attention to the miracles of transformation. Note them when you see them. They are important indicators of the presence and power of God.

We just passed the anniversary date of the execution of Karla Faye Tucker. The district attorney who prosecuted her in Harris County said that when he saw Tucker walk into the courtroom, his blood ran cold. He thought, looking at her, that she could take up a pickax and kill him just as she had killed her previous victims. Tucker was born to a prostitute in Houston. She was sold by her mother into prostitution as a child. She grew up on the streets, fighting for survival. She was addicted at a young age and lived a life of violence, addiction, and crime.

She met Jesus in the Harris County Jail during her trial for murder. A Southern Baptist chaplain named Rebekah reached out to her. She prayed to receive Christ.

After her conviction she was sent to death row in Gatesville, Texas, where I was doing a weekly bible study at the request of my brother, Tim, who was chaplain at the maximum security Mountainview Unit that housed death row for women in Texas.

Miracles of transformation are evidence of powerful spiritual realities beyond our control or comprehension.

• I look back and see that the devil had me trapped in a cage. I was living in my own filth, and he was feeding me through the bars. Then one day I leaned against the door and found that it was open. These are the words of a college professor who found liberation in Christ Jesus. 

Consider the Surprising Reaction:

"When they came to Jesus, they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons, sitting there, dressed and in his right mind; and they were afraid."  - Mark 5:5

There is no rejoicing on the day that Jesus healed the demoniac. The townspeople are afraid for two reasons:

• The townspeople are afraid because they do not understand or control the power that healed this man. I think this is the fundamental reason for their fear.

• They are more content to have this man cutting himself and crying all night than to have him healed by a power beyond their comprehension.
• They may not believe that this transformation will last. Their unbelief is their presupposition. This poor man can’t be healed.
• They had given up on this neighbor of theirs and had resigned themselves to managing his self-destructive behavior through ostracism and intentional distance from him.
• The townspeople are afraid because they have lost 2,000 pigs in the incident.

• This is a huge economic loss for someone. That’s a lot of pigs. In our own day the herd would represent a value somewhere around $250,000. It was a fortune that perished in the sea.
• While they may have wanted the demoniac healed, the townspeople were not comfortable with the price that was paid. People who cry all day and cut themselves with stones and live in the cemetery are not highly valued citizens of any community. Law enforcement officers in our city often deal with people who are not in their right minds. It is difficult and dangerous work. A policeman can die trying to handle Legion or someone like him.
• Many such persons live on our streets. We feed them weekly at the Oz and Elysian Fields. They are persons who have exited normal society, whose minds and emotions are disturbed by medical or spiritual conditions or both. Sometimes these conditions are hard to sort out.

They begged Jesus to leave their land. "Then the people began to plead with Jesus to leave their region." - Mark 5:17

• They did not simply ask—the pled with him. They were desperate for him to leave. They did not feel an authority to order it. But they felt a great need for it.

• Jesus is on the east side of the Sea of Galilee. He got in the boat to depart. The man who was healed wanted to go with him. Instead, Jesus sent the man back to his own people to tell the story of God’s grace and power in his life.

• Go back to your home town.

• Tell the people who know you what God has done.

• They will be amazed.