Lord Over Demons

They saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons. He was sitting there fully clothed and perfectly sane.   Mark 5:15

When the disciples crossed the lake, they were immediately confronted by a man who was out of his mind. He lived among the tombs, and night after night he would cry out and cut himself with stones (see Mark 5:5).

No doubt everyone locked their doors at night because of him. Most likely nobody let their children play alone in the park in case he came around. This man cared little for his own life and nothing for the lives of others. He was extremely dangerous.

The local authorities tried chaining him hand and foot and throwing him in jail, but “he snapped the chains from his wrists and smashed the shackles. No one was strong enough to subdue him” (Mark 5:4).

After every breakout, people would say, “We need stronger chains at the jailhouse,” or, “We need tighter gun laws or longer prison sentences.” The community tried everything, but nothing worked. At night the locals heard this man crying out in the hills—it couldn’t have been easy to sleep.

This man had a family (see Mark 5:19), and his wife and children must have gone through a thousand agonies as his outbursts worsened. Eventually, when it was no longer safe to have him at home, their hearts must have broken.

The Bible is clear—there were evil spirits (or demons) behind these outbursts. This is not the case with every violent or self-destructive person, but it was with this man. The devil is a thief who comes “to steal and kill and destroy” (John 10:10), and where this activity is most rampant, his activity can most directly be discerned.

Jesus commanded the spirits to enter a herd of pigs, and when the town came out to see what had happened, the man was “sitting there fully clothed and perfectly sane” (Mark 5:15). If Christ can do this, what about the deranged gunman or the suicide bomber? Imagine if each of them were restored to a right mind.

If Jesus is Lord over demons, then he can deliver us from their destructive power.

For further reading, see Luke 8