Once again, I invite you, before we turn to our passage in Luke, to turn in the Old Testament to Job 2, 1 through 10, and we'll be, that's found on page 389 in the Bible, is that where you're seated, and we will stand if you're able, and I'm gonna have another word of prayer, and then we'll read this portion of scripture. Let us pray. Lord, I thank you for Steve's prayer. I thank you, Lord, for others that have prayed. And Lord, just one more time, your word is so important to go forth and for me to speak clearly and not misapply. I ask your help toward that. Lord, anything I say that's wrong will be corrected and you'll be exalted. People will be pointed to Christ alone and you'll do your work in my life and in our midst, Lord, through our study, through the proclamation of the word this evening, here and wherever your people are gathered to worship you and hear your word proclaimed. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Job chapter 2, verses 1 through 10. Again, there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord. And Satan also came among them to present himself before the Lord. And the Lord said to Satan, from where have you come? Satan answered the Lord and said, from going to and fro on the earth and from walking up and down on it. And the Lord said to Satan, have you considered, my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil? He still holds fast his integrity. Although you incited me against him to destroy him without reason." Then Satan answered the Lord and said, skin for skin, all that a man has he will give for his life. But stretch out your hand and touch his bone and his flesh and he will curse you to your face. And the Lord said to Satan, Behold, he is in your hand, only spare his life. So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and struck Job with loathsome sores from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. And he took a piece of broken pottery with which to scrape himself while he sat in the ashes. Then his wife said to him, You still hold fast your integrity. Curse God and die." But he said to her, you speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God and shall we not receive evil? Well, that word there means disaster. In all of this, Job did not sin. with his lips. Let's turn now to our text for tonight. Our new covenant reading found on page eight 13 in your, uh, few Bibles, Luke eight versus 26 to 39 that we read this morning. Then they sailed to the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. When Jesus had stepped out on land, they met him a man from the city who had demons. For a long time he had worn no clothes and he had not lived in a house but among the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him and said with a loud voice, What have you to do with me, Jesus, son of the most high God? I beg you, do not torment me. For he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. For many a time it had seized him. He was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the desert. Jesus then asked him, what is your name? And he said, Legion. For many demons had entered him and they begged him not to command them to depart into the abyss. Now a large herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside and they begged him to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. Then the demons came out of the man and entered the pigs and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and drowned. When the herdsmen saw what had happened, they fled and told it in the city and in the country. Then people went out to see what had happened. And they came to Jesus and found the man. from whom the demons had gone, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid. And those who had seen it told them how the demon possessed man had been healed. Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked him to depart from them, for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned. The man from whom the demons had gone bed that he might be within, but Jesus sent him away saying, return to your home and declare how much God has done for you. And he went away proclaiming throughout the whole city, how much Jesus had done for him. Here ends the reading of this portion of God's Word. You may be seated, but I ask you to please keep the Word of God open. As we work through this passage together, we work through part of it this morning, looking mainly at Satan, Satan's knowledge of hell, Satan's knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Tonight, we want to go further into this passage, but as we do so, I want to just ask you, I wonder how many people here in the Kingsport area in Sullivan County, environs around us, are fascinated with Satan, are intrigued by him enough to want to study him. Universities, I got online to check this out, and universities are offering courses now own witchcraft and related subjects. In fact, I found that one university, mid America area has an honors college course in witchcraft. And that's to be understood because God made us religious. As being made in the image of God, God made us to thirst after the true God, our maker, creator, redeemer, but sinful man corrupts that. And in his rebellion against God, he flees to other gods of his own making or flees to the one who is serving. in his unsaved state, even Satan himself. We saw this morning that Satan is a terrible, terrible master. He wants nothing but for people's destruction and we worked through this passage this morning and we saw This demon-possessed man and how he suffered as a result of having demons within him and being possessed by him, by them. And tonight we want to look, as I said this morning, we want to start tonight by looking some of the ways that Satan loves to get a grip on me and you and cause us to take our eyes off Jesus and to act that particular time as if we were a follower of Satan. We saw one of those ways this morning. I mentioned Sinclair Ferguson's insight that for us to examine Our second love and see what that second love is in our own life as Christians. First love is God, but what's your second love and, and how God will use that second, how Satan will use that Satan, that, um, our second love to make you and me take our eyes off Jesus and sin. Against him. And I want to mention just a few other ways from scripture that Satan who can only be in one place at one time, but, but so I'm not saying Satan tempts us individually, personally in this regard, but I'm saying this is a fall. What taking our eyes off Jesus, we're bound to what the Satan's influence and thought. What open doors do we need to watch out for in the midst of life in this world? And the first I would mention, we fail to see God's hands in sad providences. Remember, there's no such thing as a bad providence for the Christian. Because all things work to good, work for good. to those that love God and are the called according to his purposes. So nothing bad will ever happen to the Christian. God will use it for good, for our sanctification, for building us up. But there can be many sad things happen to us. And we just read of one in the Old Testament. God allowed Job to be tested at Satan's hand. to show Satan the fervency in the midst of deep distress that he would cling to Christ alone. And we saw once again what Satan struck Job with. And again, Satan, wherever he goes, he brings destruction. loathsomeness, wickedness, meanness. And his wife, who had already been through so much, saw her dear, suffering husband. Remember, he's bothered so much with these bulls that he takes a piece of broken pottery with which to scrape himself while he sat in the ashes. Wives, can you imagine seeing your husband in that condition? What did she do? She asked Job, do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die. She took her eyes off, you see, what God was doing. Something we didn't understand, something she didn't understand, she'd say, just like in our lives, we don't always understand why God allows sad provinces of this type or that type to come into our family. And she says, curse God and die. Now see, this just reiterates how Satan works, what I said this morning. Job's wife, the one whom he loved, nets to the Lord God Almighty. Once again in scripture, we see that she, tempts him to do that, which would not honor God. Is he going to allow his second love? Is he going to listen to his second love rather than his first love? Well, Job responded quite differently, didn't he, than Adam did in the Garden of Eden. Job responded In verse 10, in the midst of that ash heap, you speak as one of the foolish women would speak, shall we receive good from God and shall we not receive evil? As I said when we were reading it, this evil here means evil in the sense of disaster. In all this, Job did not sin with his lips. So we want to guard ourselves against reacting in an ungodly way, sinful way in the midst of sad promises. And we need to pray for one another in the midst of these times that our responses would be God glorifying and God would protect his people from going down the wrong direction. Or we are tempted to be a coward. for the gospel. Remember what happened with Luke in Luke chapter 22 verse 31 as he records it there in regard to Peter before Christ's betrayal and crucifixion. Breaking into the middle of this very familiar conversation, Jesus tells Peter, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you that he might sift you like wheat. But I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers." Oh, what a comfort it is to have a praying Savior in it, in the midst Temptations to be cowards for the gospel, to be a coward for the one who bled and died for our sins. To think more of what will he or she think of me rather than thinking what will he or she think of Jesus if I lay before them the gospel of the Lord Jesus. I fear Peter was thinking of maybe his own arrest, maybe what people around that fire would think of him if he admitted he was a follower of this one that was on trial for the religious authorities. that very time. Remember, we have a praying Savior. We have a strong Savior, and that Savior will make us strong. And He will take our words of witness and use them as He sees fit in the person's life to whom they are spoken, to whom they are directed. Thirdly, Satan loves to turn our attention away from the simple gospel. That's what Paul warned Corinthians about in 2 Corinthians chapter 11 verse 3. The context there is them dealing with false teachers and some evidently had an itching ear toward what those false teachers were saying. And Paul writes to them. But I'm afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. Are you tempted to say, well, maybe the Bible can be understood in this way that Makes it more comfortable for a Christian to live in this cultural setting that we are in without fear of being talked about, sneered at, put down. Be careful. Be careful. Don't let your thoughts be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Jesus. And then finally, I just want to mention tonight under this heading that we can forego, to get back at our spouse, we can forego for a long period marital intimacy. Paul warns against this, once again, in the church at Corinth. So this is a real problem that can happen among couples in churches. Sex is very powerful, as we know. If we're not married, it's a great temptation to disobey God in that area, disobey the seventh commandment. and misuse that which is left for marriage alone. But it can be abused in any number of ways in a marriage. And one way it can be is to withhold marital intimacy from a spouse to get back at that husband, to get back at that wife. But we read in 1 Corinthians chapter 7 verse 5, Paul writes, Do not deprive one another except perhaps by agreement for a limited time. But you may devote yourselves to prayer. But then come together again so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. Now if you fail, and your self-control and go out and sin against God and commit adultery, that's a sin you have to answer for. God will forgive that. But Paul says, don't let it get there. Come together again so that Satan may not tempt you, may not tempt your spouse in this way. Brothers and sisters, we have to be aware of the wiles of Satan. And as you read the word of God, take note of how Satan operates within his word, within God's word, I mean, as it's recorded there among God's people to see how you can be careful. Be ever watchful against these wiles that you do not fall for them and sin against the Lord God. Satan's powerful. R.J. Rushdune, he said many years ago, somewhere, I can't remember where I read this, but in one of his writings, that the only conspiracy that we need to worry about is Satan's conspiracies against God. To malign his name, to bring his, him down any way that Satan can. And he does that through God's people because he can't get at God. The only way he can get at God is have us make a mockery of God's word in our own sin. Power of Satan is great, but I'm here to tell you tonight about a savior whose power is infinitely greater than Satan. And we wanna see that tonight as we continue through the latter part of this passage. Let's notice his power over the demons. Demons in the plural, we're not talking about one demon. We're talking about many, many demons. We see elsewhere in scripture that in Christ's ministry on earth that he had power to cast out a demon from a person. But here we see that our Lord Jesus, the eternal son of God, had power to, with the very word of his mouth, the word that Satan maligns, when he tempts Christians. That very word was powerful enough to cast out these demons. But first, we just want to note that in verse 30, Jesus asked him, what is your name? And the man, the demons within him, spoke and said through the man's mouth, legion, Now, a legion in Roman army was 3,000 to 6,000 soldiers as I understand it. I'm not saying that there were that many demons in this one man. We don't know. But scripture does say right after that, for many demons had entered him and yet those many demons were not able to stand up and refuse to honor, to answer. Christ question and to answer it immediately. Secondly, these demons, not one, not two, but however many were in there, in the man, were commanded to come out. We read in verse 29, the first part of this verse for he had, for Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. In fact, in a parallel passage in, uh, Mark chapter five, verse eight, Mark records these words where Jesus said, come out of the man, you unclean spirit. Christ makes no bones about it, you see. And all the time, you've got this crowd of people around witnessing this. And what was the destination? Remember the demon said they bade him. In verse 31, don't send us into the abyss. They begged him to send them into this large herd of pigs that were on a hillside feeding within sight. And so Jesus did that very thing. Not that he was controlled by the demons. He's controlling the, he is controlling the demons and he sends him forth. into the pigs. One commentator said that these unholy demons went into ceremoniously unclean pigs. Now this was a pagan land here. There could have been Jews that have settled there. We don't know. We don't know. And we know that ceremonial law ended with Christ's crucifixion, but Christ hadn't been crucified at this point. So we don't know why this took place as it did, but Mark's account tells us that 2,000 pigs went over the cliff. such was the power of the demons that entered them. However many it was, and notice once again the demons, brain destruction, those pigs, run to the edge of the cliff and keep on running to their death in the Sea of Galilee below. Well, you would think this would bring a great revival, wouldn't you? We want to look at What happened among the Gadarenes? We want to notice their contempt because we read here that when the herdsmen in verse 34 saw what had happened, they saw what had happened and they didn't run to worship Jesus. They fled and told it in the country and in the city. Not Christ's power over the demons. No, they spoke, we're speaking against Christ. We've got a dangerous man in our midst. Two thousand of my pigs. are now dead. Christ's work was manifested in monetary terms, you see. Well, should the people believe what they had heard with their ears from these witnesses? They were going to go out and see. And so we read in verse 35, the people went out to see what had happened and they came to Jesus. And what did they find? This man who had been screaming for a long time, as Luke records it, in the mountains and then among the tombs, whom they did not want their children anywhere around. Now found that same man calmly sitting at the feet of Jesus according to verse 35 in our text. And those who had seen it, we read in verse 36, told them that the demon possessed man had been healed. They knew the evidence. They'd heard the evidence. They'd seen it with their own eyes. What would be their response? What would your response be? To fall at the feet of Jesus. Well, God would have to open your heart, such as the hardness of man's heart. And we see here the hardness. of man's heart. They've seen a great miracle, a great work of Christ. What do they ask? Notice verse 37. Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes, all the people, ask him to depart from them for they were seized with great fear. So he got in a boat and he returned. I wonder if his boat went out through a bunch of floating pigs. Signs of his witness. Signs of who he was, of his power over the demons. And yet that made no difference for the Gadarenes. Jesus here was given a foretaste of why he was here on earth, foretaste of his future work that was central to his mission here as incarnate Christ. We read in first John chapter three, verse eight, whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. So as we enter into this Christmas season, once again, let's remember why Christ came to this earth. Yes, he came as a babe. At some time during the year, we don't know, as I said this morning, when he was born. But we do know why. He came to save his people from their sins. He came to destroy the words of the devil. And he did that on the cross of Calvary. But let's look tonight also at the man. We've seen what happened to the demons. We've seen how the Gadarenes responded. Now let's look at the man, how he had changed completely. You remember what we said about him this morning? Notice verse 28. He cried out and fell down before him and said with a loud voice, what have you to do with me, Jesus, son of the most high God. But what do we read here? Later in this text in verse 35, When the Gadarenes came out, they found him sitting at the feet of Jesus. And then we read in verse 38, the man from whom the demons had gone, bade that he might go with Jesus. What a change. Only Jesus could bring about such a change. His activity before was one of cutting himself and crying out and much suffering, but afterwards, it was one of calmness. His desire was basically to challenge Christ. What have I to do with you? Now, it's when I want to know more about you, Jesus. I want to sit at your feet. I want to learn. What a change Christ makes in lives. Is that ongoing? Is that change ongoing in your life? As you look back, this year comes to a close, do you see change? Have you been fighting sin in one area or not? I'm not asking if you're perfect because I'm sure not. You've got a long ways to go. But do you see some growth? It's God's spirit at work. Making it just a little bit easier to stand up against some besetting sins that you've been dealing with. Anger, worry, pride, envy, materialism. Itching ears, oh no, I don't know what your besetting sin is. You do. You know. Do you see some change? That's by the work of God, by God's spirit working in your life. And we strive by God's grace as long as he leaves us here and in the power of the spirit for even more change next year. That's the way the gospel works in our life. You see here the compassion of Christ. I mentioned that just a bit this morning, but I want to, as we close tonight, to look at it just a little bit more. Do you notice there were really three sets of prayers here to Christ? Two of them he answered with a yes. One of them he answered with a no. The demons begged him made a request to Christ, don't send us to hell. And we spoke this morning about how the demons dread going to hell. So no human should ever want to go there. And he answered their request with a yes. He didn't send them to the abyss. He sent them to a bunch of pigs. The Gadarenes come, they witness everything with their eyes are being told and they've seen that what they've been told is true. And their response, surprising, was get out of the country. We want no more to do with you. That's exactly what the Israelites said at the cross of Calvary Christ. We want no more to do with you. I want you to die. And in regard to the Gadarenes, Jesus said, yes, I'll leave. And so Luke tells us he got in the boat and departed. But this man, who had been saved by the grace of God, he asked him, Verse 36, he begged that he might be with Jesus. But Jesus sent him away saying, return to your home and declare how much God has done for you. And he went away proclaiming throughout the whole city. how much God had done for him. Brothers and sisters, do you see the compassion of Christ for the lost? Jesus was leaving because that's what the Gadarenes wanted. but he was not leaving them without a witness. So this young Christian, this man whom the people there knew all about their history, his history, this one who was once homeless, who once had a home and then came down to demon possession and he was homeless. is told in verse 39, return to your home. Return to your home in Gadareah, no longer homeless, and declare how much God has done for you. And we see here instantaneous obedience on this man's part. The only Christian in that whole pagan area, he returned to preach the gospel, to teach the gospel, to tell how much God had done for him. He knew the compassion of Christ in his own life. He was unworthy of salvation. Jesus had come and saved him just like he's come and saved you and me. Brothers and sisters, do you have that compassion to proclaim as God opens doors and as you pray for God to open doors, to go and tell others how much Jesus has done for you. Souls are valuable. Some might say, why in the world were 2,000 pigs destroyed? That's a lot of money. A lot of food. I'll tell you, your soul and my soul is more important than 2,000 pigs. Your soul and my soul is more valuable than 2,000 pigs. The soul of your lost neighbors, of the lost people here in this area, of your lost friends on social media, far more value than 2,000 pigs. How do I know? Well, because Jesus, the eternal son of God, was willing to come to this earth to shed his blood for our sins. Because it was the only way you could be saved and I could be saved or that anyone can be saved. And that's why God would have us to go and tell others what Jesus has done for us. Because the need is that great. Christ had come across the Sea of Galilee, landed on this shore for the whole purpose of saving one lost soul. It's another way to look at how valuable your soul, my soul, is. This man was lost, headed to hell, possessed by demons, but he was one of the elect. Christ came. And he saved him because there's no elect going to go to hell. And we don't know who's elect around us and who isn't. All we know is we've been called to take the gospel to those around us. We do it humbly. We do it prayerfully. But may we do it in the strength of the Holy Spirit. Because this is how important souls are to Jesus. We don't know for all for whom Christ died, who all the elect are. But may we be praying throughout the season, throughout the new year, that God will continue to save people, to bring him praise, and to save them from their sins and to save them for his glory. Thank God we have a Savior so much greater, more powerful than Satan himself. What a comfort that is as we finish out this year and go into a new year. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for such a wonderful, powerful Savior, Savior who means business, who came to this earth to glorify the Father. and accomplish that. Lord, he died for every sin of everyone who would put their trust in him. Lord, I pray if there would be any here tonight that do not know you, covenant child perhaps, or more than an adult does not know you, that you will open their eyes. You'll give them faith and repentance. to the ugliness of their own sin, to the beauty of Christ, to the glory of the gospel, and the message that makes up the gospel. Lord, there'd be more saved sinners come in to join the rants of those that praise you and seek to live for you and give you praise, Lord, for all that you do for them. Send us forth, Father. to serve you and to honor you for your glory. In Jesus' name, amen.