I want to thank Jeff and Marcus and Becca and Chad, Shane and Chris and Brendan, all the praise team. A lot of hard work goes into preparing for that music ministry, and it's every Thursday at 7 o'clock. So if you're someone that likes to sing, play an instrument, we would love to have you come out. I know that all the guys and gals would be overjoyed to have more people join in. So if that's a ministry that God has blessed you with, come out on Thursdays at 7. There's a place for you. So thank you for that. Today, in just a few moments, we will be celebrating communion, and so I had been kind of going through this series on Mark the last few weeks in the evening, but today it really fit in with the topic of examining ourselves and preparing ourselves. Certainly, if we look hard enough, we're going to find enough sin in our lives. In Christ, we are certainly forgiven, and yet The remnant of the flesh continually pulls at us. The habitual sin, the indwelling sin that we carry around with us every day is a battle. And so if you look hard enough, you would never in 10 million years ever, ever consider yourself worthy to take the supper to preach, to serve in church. It's Christ's righteousness that makes us worthy, not ourselves. But it is a time for us to come today and examine ourselves, because that's not an excuse to just live and continue in sin. When God reveals that to us, we're called to repent, and we're called to turn from that and turn to Him. And so we examine ourselves, hopefully every day, but especially as we Get prepared to partake in the supper. We want to examine ourselves and be clean before God in our walk so that we can participate. So I want to invite you to turn to chapter 5 of Mark. If you're new here with us, we have been going in a series through the gospel of Mark. It's been going on for several months now, and we'll continue to do so. But today we get into Mark chapter 5, and the title of the message is The Danger of Evil. The danger of evil, and as you're finding your spot, maybe some of you when you were in school or in other places have heard of some of these programs that they'll put on from time to time called the, there's one called the DARE program, D-A-R-E, the Drug Abuse Resistance Education. Another one probably a lot more familiar to you is MAD, Mothers Against Drunk Driving. And there's a lot of other programs that are similar to that. And the point of those things is to educate the public on the dangers and the consequences of drug abuse, drunk driving and alcohol and different things like that. And one of the methods that those programs use, and maybe you've seen this before, is they will show pictures and even video footage of accidents that have happened as a result of Drunk driving they'll even bring in some of the cars sometimes for you to visually look at the mad program does that I know and so does there they will show you sometimes pictures of people that are going through detox programs and just the horrible experience of that and the point of those things is to make you stop and think and try to grab a hold of you and shake you before you end up as one of the people on those films, or worse yet, one of the people that have lost their lives in one of those car accidents. And so it's a warning when they see those films to the people watching, that if you continue down the path that you're on, or if you start on that path, it's very likely going to end bad for you. And today, as we look at Mark chapter 5, we're going to get a picture, just like those programs do, of what exactly evil can do in our life. And I'm going to be real blunt and to the point with you this morning. The reason why all of us need a warning sometimes about evil is because we all have a tendency to look at sin, particularly the sin that is in our own life, and downplay it. will downplay sin, will look at evil and justify it as not being really as bad as it is. Jeff, it's amazing you stood up here and repeated part of my sermon this morning and I hadn't talked to you at all about what it was. The language that we use. Sin is not a subject that's talked about much. Many churches have removed that language. If you're looking for a church that doesn't use that language, you're in the wrong place. We still believe that sin is sin, and the Bible is God's inspired word, and we'll stand on that. But we use language in our own lives sometimes when we sin and say, well, we'll justify it and say, no one's perfect. No one's perfect. How about this? Have you said this? I'm only human. I'm only a human. How about this one? It's wrong, but really it's the only bad thing I do. You don't have to answer if you say those things, but we all do. I know we all do. We downplay it. And as a result of our thinking and the way that we express ourselves in that, we have gotten, at least if not verbally, mentally and maybe in our lives, that sin and evil is no longer a destructive force, but it's more of a bad habit. It's just more of a bad habit. It's not so much that we view it as something that cost God His only Son. It's just an area of your life that you need to do better at and try to improve. Something you need to just work on. It no longer becomes a battle every day where we get up and, as the Bible talks about, mortifying the flesh, and dying daily, and putting on the whole armor of God, and being a good soldier of Christ, and all these terms that speak of a warfare, a spiritual warfare. When we downplay sin, and it's not destructive, but it's just a bad habit, We don't battle it anymore. We try to manage it. We try to manage it. You talk to somebody. I've talked to people that have told me in confidence of certain things they're struggling with, and I'll go to them later on and say, how are you doing with such and such a problem? And you'll say, I think I've got it under control. I'm managing it pretty well. No. No. What it is, it's dormant for a season. But it's just like we've talked about with the weeds. You can chop those things down, but if you don't get at the root and get them out, they're going to come right back. So you can't manage sin. You can't control sin. You've got to put it to death. through the Holy Spirit's power as you follow Him and follow the Word of God and be very intentional about it every day. And it starts with stop making excuses for what's in your life. It's more than a bad habit. It's the evil and wickedness of your heart. And it's the sinful tendency that we all still carry around as believer or non-believer. We still have the flesh to deal with. And culture today doesn't help us because they don't want to call anything bad anymore. They don't want to call anything sinful anymore. But I hope that as born-again believers, if you are one this morning, that you live your life on a higher plane, that you feel called to a higher level of living. God has called us to be holy because He is holy. And so we can no longer be satisfied to just blend in with the world. We're to be separate. We're to be a light that shines into the darkness. And too often we're hidden so that the world can't distinguish us from themselves. Isaiah 520 says, Woe, W-O-E, woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. Woe is a very, very descriptive term in the Bible. It can have two meanings. It can be one of a deep grief, if someone is mourning something. But in this case, it means more of a certain coming of calamity. Specifically, a judgment from God that would be coming. If these people continued to turn from the Word of God, the laws of God, and called bad good and good bad, there was going to come a day of reckoning. And there still will. There still is going to come. I want to read to you a quote from a guy that I've quoted before, a pastor named Paul Tripp. He says this. He says, The highest moral standard in our culture is actually a standard of what is and should be tolerable and accepted. Think about how much you hear the word tolerance anymore and how twisted that word has become. He goes on and says, you must never call anything wrong and you must tolerate whatever the person next to you chooses to do. So I want to give you real quick this morning a warning, a picture that God has left us in his word, a warning sign in chapter 5. I want you to see there as we go into this account that Jesus, if you were with us the last time we preached through Mark, we had seen him out on the Sea of Galilee sailing across. The storm comes up, the disciples are afraid, and he calms the storm for them. And so now we continue on, as that story continues now, they've made it across the Sea of Galilee, and they land in a place called the Gerasenes. and they land in this town, some translations use the specific name Gadara, where they land at. And they get there, and we immediately encounter, as they step off the boat, this man who is demon-possessed. Matthew's account tells us that there are two demon-possessed men. But in Mark's account, he focuses specifically on this one gentleman who seems to have a very, very, very serious issue with demon possession. And I want you to look with me at chapter 5. I want you to see three forces, we'll say, at work in this account. You're going to see Satan, you're going to see society, and you're going to see the Savior. You're going to see those three forces working. And you're going to see a picture. A picture of what happens. A warning to us. But a picture of what happens when evil consumes a human heart and a soul. What happens when that takes place? Number one, evil is unable to be restrained. Evil cannot be restrained. Look at verses 3 and 4. After they arrived, here comes this man with the unclean spirit. Verse 3 says, He lived among the tombs, and no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain. For he had been bound with shackles and chains, but he wrenched the chains, or he broke the chains apart, and he broke the shackles to pieces, and no one had the strength to subdue him. The townspeople had done everything that they could to try to isolate this man, to try to subdue him, to try to control the problem that he was facing. And they stuck him up here with the dead people, with the dead bodies, chained and shackled in hopes that they could just control him. And as I said before, evil is so much more powerful and destructive than we give it credit to be. And we'll never, ever, ever conquer or subdue sin and evil in our lives by natural means. You will never, ever fight a spiritual warfare on a carnal front. And there are so many ways that we try to do that. We try to go back to the law. We try to live a righteous life. We try to involve ourselves in more activities. And while all of those disciplines are beneficial in one way or another, they are not going to be able to control the sinful nature and the sinful problem that dwells in your heart. To fix the heart problem requires, first of all, a new heart, a new birth, a falling down and a surrender of your life to Christ, and a calling out to Him as Lord and Savior. And He will change your life. You will be born again, regenerated, saved, whatever language you want to use. You'll become a new creature in Christ. And then you'll begin a journey from that point forward of becoming more like Christ. You'll be conformed to the image of Jesus, who you are now born again after. And so that's the process that begins. But society has come up with many ways to try to control evil. We have jails to isolate it. We have medicine to mask it. And then dying, obviously, in your sin will permanently seal that fate. But none of those things can cure The issue of sin. 2 Corinthians chapter 10 verse 4 tells us that the weapons of our warfare are not carnal or not of the flesh, but have divine power to destroy or to tear down strongholds. We've got to get away from this language that says that we're just struggling with some habits. You are battling, battling spiritually sin and the forces of evil. Ephesians 6, 12, we wrestle not with flesh and blood, but against what? Principalities and powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness, in the high places. Paul's language is saying, you've got to get off this natural plane and realize where the battle is taking place. The reason you keep falling into sin is not because you're not trying hard enough. The reason that you keep falling into sin is you've not recognized where your help comes from. The psalmist said, I lift my eyes unto the hills, where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, and that's where our source of strength will always abide. Without Him, He said, you can do nothing, nothing at all, including be victorious in your sinful life. I want to read to this, this is a side note but I felt as I was studying this week I found this quote again from Paul Tripp and it was so good and I hope that it will help you today if you're a parent. This really doesn't have anything to do with the message on a parenting level but this point is very good that he made and I want you to see it. He said, parents, there is an important lesson here. Parenting must be more than external restraint and simply controlling the behavior of your child. Now think about that. Think about what he said. Because we consider it a pretty successful day as parents if the kid doesn't throw a fit in the store and we keep them relatively calm and at bay until bedtime. We check that off as a win. At least I do. Right? But it goes deeper than that. He says the problem is deeper than your child's behavior. The problem is the evil in the heart of that child that shapes his or her behavior. And unless that is dealt with, the behavior will never change in a lasting way. There's a benefit to controlling behavior, and children should be made to obey and behave, absolutely. But if you want to see real, lasting change, you've got to understand that the behavior, the bad behavior, is just an outworking of what's going on inside. And just as you need that transformation from Christ, so do those little ones. So do those little ones. Listen to what he says. This is why that's so important, the point that he made, and this is what I want you to take with you. He says there are thousands, I would say even tens of thousands, of supposedly Christian young people who go off to college every year and forsake the faith. But I would say that they're not forsaking the faith. It never was theirs to begin with. It was the faith of their parents. And once the restraint is lifted, what's actually revealed is simply the true heart of that child. Think about that today. He's saying that to be a gospel centered parent is to do more than raise just morally upright kids. Because I talk to a lot of kids, and I'm sure Marcus does too, even kids that have been in church all their lives, that think the Christian life basically boils down to being a good person. To be a Christian means that you're a good person, or you have to be a good person. That is basically what they have boiled it down to. And it has to go deeper than that. It has to show that we are unable, even our righteousness is as filthy rags. And you can do all the good works in the world and be a... There are many, many good people, in my estimation, that are good people. But in God's eyes, they've all fallen short of His standard and His glory. And without Christ, they'll die lost. Good people, bad people, Democrat, Republican, Baptist, it doesn't matter. You can put it out there. Unless you're washed in the blood and cleansed and forgiven, you have no hope. And that's the bottom line, because we cannot restrain evil with natural means. Number two, evil is by nature destructive. Look at verse five. He says, Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones. Sin is always, always, always destructive. It's always destructive. People come sometimes and they say, well, why are you so worried about me? Who's it hurting? I'm not hurting anybody. It's hurting you. I'm trying to get you to see it's hurting you. And people will say, well, why does it matter? Why does it matter to you? Because I know that God is real. And because there's a day of judgment that's coming. And because hell is real. And it's eternal. And your soul is on the line. And so when people come to me and say, why do you care? The question I fire back at them is, why don't you care? Why don't you care? I care because I love you and I know the path that you're taking is the broad road that leads to destruction. And I'm trying to get you to see the warning signs before you fall headlong into hell for eternity. That's why I care. That's why it's important. David and Solomon and Ahab and Judas and on and on and on through the Bible, we see that when you decide to take the wrong way, the sinful way, it's always going to lead to something destructive in your life. Think about how we justify it. A small lie to get ahead. Maybe we cheat on our taxes. Maybe we try to manipulate the system. Or maybe we don't turn something in. You take something, you steal something small that isn't yours, and you justify, well, they've got plenty, they wouldn't notice, or we're friends, they wouldn't care. They would let me have it if I asked. Then ask. You have some drinks, you go down to the bar after a tough day to have some drinks to relieve the stress of that. You turn to something other than God for the answers to your problems. You click on pornographic websites while your wife's gone to find fulfillment and pleasure. And then you come to church and talk about how God's blessed you. And I want you to understand something, that you can dabble in sin for a while, And maybe things in your life will still go just fine, because the Bible teaches that God causes it to rain on the just and the unjust. And good things and blessings may come. They come to unbelievers. They come to believers. They come to those that are obedient, and they come to those that are not obedient. But listen, after a while, you're going to find out that those really aren't blessings. They're just the long-suffering impatience of God. He is giving you time to turn from your sin and repent. And one day, he's going to say, okay, if you're not going to turn to me, if you're a believer, he says in Hebrews, that whom the Lord loves, he chastises. And so as a believer, you're not going to persist in sin without having God come after you to get your attention. He's going to get your attention, not as judge, but as a father drawing his child back to where he needs to be. As parents, we discipline our kids, not because we enjoy punishing them, but because we want them to be better, to see better, to know better. We know things that they don't, just as God knows things that we don't. and he will discipline his children. So don't mistake the fact that you think because you're living in sin and God has still not poured out judgment or condemnation or some kind of chastisement upon you that you've gotten away with it or that he has overlooked that or he is pleased with your life. That's far from biblically true. It just means that he is being patient with you and he's giving you an opportunity to wake up and see before he has to take action, to take action to get your attention. We have that sinful tendency in our lives to let the flesh pull at us. And it will always lead to destruction if we don't turn around, if we don't repent. Number three, evil is always, it's always against God. We continue in verse six, it says, And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and fell down before him, and crying out with a loud voice, he said, What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? Satan's goal has always been to thwart and conquer God. That has always been His plan. He is a defeated enemy, and yet He persistently, every day, every second, is working to somehow trip up God, to trip up believers, to thwart the Kingdom work in any way that He can. In verse 7, it uses some language, even in newer translations, that are not so familiar to us. I adjure you. We don't use that word a whole lot anymore in today's language. But basically, what He is saying there is, I charge you, Jesus. I command you. These demons were going to the Son of God and saying, you need to listen to us. You see, Satan still believes that he can control and dictate the way that things ought to go, and he is a defeated enemy whom God has complete control, rule and reign over. But we need to understand that our victory over the devil and over evil and over sin comes because of Christ in us. And so you hear a lot of confused teaching today that says, you know, I bind Satan by my word and this and that. And it takes on this tendency where we feel like we have ourselves the power to be able to tell Satan what to do and what not to do. And the only reason that there is any binding at all of Satan is because the blood of Christ has bound him. And Christ as creator, even of Satan, will command him and allow him to only go so far. And that strength in our own lives comes from the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, not because you spoke some words out loud verbally and told him what to do. Don't think for a moment that you have more strength than you do. Any strength that you have at all comes from Christ. And any hope of overcoming evil and to have power to restrain those forces against us has to come from the Lord Jesus. It has to. And number four, finally, evil will rob you of your humanity. This man comes, and he talks with Jesus, and he begins this dialogue, and the demons are speaking through this man, and they call themselves Legion, which in Roman times could be anywhere from 2,000 to 6,000 soldiers. We know there's 2,000 swine there. There could have been 2,000. There could have been more than that. It could have been up to 6,000 demons. Regardless, the fact is that this man was demon-possessed like probably no one else had ever been. It led him to a place I'm sure he never expected to be. It caused him to do things that were unthinkable. And when we turn on the TV and the news today, it's no different. Think about what humanity and society is capable of. I mean, sometimes you turn on the news, And some of the stuff that you hear is almost unthinkable, unbelievable. I mean, to kill a child is bad enough. But some of the methods and ways in which people do things, the torment and torture and things, is just unimaginable. And we have no idea just the depths of depravity of the human heart, how evil it is. It robs you of your humanity. It'll take you farther than you ever thought you'd go or ever wanted to go. And it will leave you ultimately for dead unless God intervenes, unless Christ comes in and changes you. And that's what happened to this man. Evil will take you as far as you want to go, but it'll never take you farther than the grace of God can reach you. And that's good news, because if you've come in here today and you're lost or your life is a mess and you feel like you've got a whole legion of sin in your life, a whole legion of mess, Jesus healed this man, and He can heal you. Look at what He says in verse 15. Verse 15, And they came to Jesus and saw the demon-possessed man, the one who had the legion, sitting there clothed, and in his right mind. And they were afraid. Man, what a sight. That must have been that morning. This guy, everybody knew him. He'd been out there for who knows how long, wild and tattered and, you know, cutting himself to screaming. And now he's sitting there clothed and in his right mind. The change that had taken place was evident. And when you meet Jesus, you won't have to wear a T-shirt and slap on a bumper sticker on your car. That's okay if you do. But the change ought to be evident. You shouldn't have to run around and brag that you're a Christian. They ought to just see it. They ought to see it in your life. They saw it. And this man, verse 18 says that, you know, the change was so evident, Jesus was getting in the boat and the man who had been possessed with the demons begged him that he could go with him. All this guy wanted to do now that he was a believer in Christ was follow Jesus. What's interesting to me is, in this account, the man went to Jesus and begged Jesus to let him go along. And you know what happens today far too often in too many churches and with too many Christians? We have to beg them to do something for Jesus. We have to beg them to get involved. This man went to Jesus and said, I want to go with you wherever you go. We have to go to people every week and say, will you please come to church? Will you please come to this Bible study? Will you please get involved in missions? Will you please get involved in discipleship? Why? Why? Because we don't call laziness sin anymore. And it is. It absolutely is. And I'm not going to harp on you. I'm just going to be honest with you. And you can just read through Proverbs alone and see what it talks about about the sluggard that is too lazy to get up and do anything for God. I'm not going to browbeat you and I'm not going to guilt you because I don't think guilt is a good motivator. But I'm just going to ask you to be honest with your heart. Don't call it, well, I'm just tired and I'm just not able to be there. You're lazy and you've chosen to do what you're going to do rather than serve God. That's what you need to call it this morning. Now whether that changes, that's between you and God. But it's got to start by you recognizing what the problem is. It's not that you're tired. It's not that you're too busy. Maybe in rare instances, yes, I'll give you a little escape clause there. But nine times out of 10, you're lazy. I'm lazy. I'm so I know. Okay, but we got to call it what it is. And here's the saddest part of the story and what I'm going to close with. Saddest part of the story to me is not is not the way it started and certainly not the way it ended. But it's 1st 17. The people who had watched the pigs, they tended them. The pigs ran into the sea and drowned. And in verse 17, they began to beg Jesus to depart from their region. The townspeople had seen the evil every day in front of them. Every day as they looked up in that hillside and saw that man cutting himself and wailing and breaking chains, they got a picture of just how awful sin and evil is. And my friends, every day all you've got to do is open up your eyes a little bit and just look at how destructive evil is all around you. And then they got a chance to see the Son of God step out of that boat and interact with this man, and talk to this man, and save this man, and change this man. And they saw that while sin seemed to have a hold on this guy that they couldn't tame, here came Jesus and did something that no one else could do. He saved him and He changed him. And they looked at it and they said, This is where he was, and this is what Jesus did for him. Imagine what Jesus could do for us. And rather than falling down on their knees and worshiping God and crying out for mercy for themselves, they said, depart. They said, leave. You've destroyed our business. Those pigs was what made our money. And they ran into the ocean. Get out of here before you cause any more trouble. And it scares me to know how many people come into churches to this church and others and sit under the preaching of the word of God every week and no in their own lives, the power of sin and how destructive it is in your life and to hear about the saving grace of God and the freedom that he offers and the hope that he gives and the peace that can be yours. And you look him in the face during the invitation and say, depart. Leave me alone. Not now. That's the saddest, saddest thing that can happen in this story. And it could happen today, but it doesn't have to. Jeff, I'm going to have you come, and we're going to give an invitation. And if you don't know Christ as your Lord and Savior, you've got a choice. If sin in your life has taken you as far as you want to go, why don't you slam on the brakes and turn around and say, I've had enough of this life. I'm coming to Christ in my faith. I'm going to follow him. I'm going to call on Him as Lord and Savior, and I'm going to ask Him into my life to change me, and He'll do that. And maybe you're a believer, but this morning you're sure not following Him. You're sure not where you need to be. Maybe you need to come and get around the altar and pray and ask Christ to forgive you and work in your life. You know your need. So as we stand and as we sing, will you come this morning? Come every soul by sin oppressed. There's mercy with the Lord. You need to come this morning. And He'll surely give you rest. That's a spiritual rest. That's a rest where you can lay down your head tonight and know where you're going. Do you have that peace? Do you have that assurance? Only trust. Only believe. Surrender your life to it. You'll save it. One more verse and we'll close. You need to come. Only trust Him Only trust Him now He will save you He will save you He will save you Yes, Jesus is the truth, the way that leads you into rest. Believe in Him without today and you are fully blessed. Come quick. He'll save you if you'll come. I think you can be seated this morning. We'll begin the part of the service for the communion. We do invite any and everyone to partake. As long as you are born again, baptized believer in Christ, you do not have to be a member of Freedom Baptist Church. We allow you the freedom of conscience. If you feel that your heart's in the right place and you are a believer, then you can partake in that supper. We allow that here. But I want to read to you, beginning in Luke's Gospel this morning, Luke chapter 22, verses 7 through 13. It says, Then came the day of unleavened bread, on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed. So Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, Go and prepare the Passover for us, that we may eat it. They said to him, Where will you have us prepare it? And he said to them, Behold, when you have entered the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him. into the house that he enters and tell the master of the house, the teacher says to you, where is the guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples? And he will show you a large upper room furnished. Prepare it there. And they went and found it just as he had told them, and they prepared the Passover. And I ask at this time if you would come and remove the cloth. The Apostle Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians chapter 11, verse 23 and 24, he says there, Do this in remembrance of me. Do this in remembrance of me. Will you come at this time, and we'll have the prayer over the bread. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we come before you today, Father, to remember what this bread symbolizes. Your broken body on the cross, Father, that you would die for such worthless people as us, Father. But you loved us so much that you gave your only son. So today, as we partake in this communion, your supper, Father, may we remember why we're here. We're sending your precious son, Jesus, in the name we pray. Amen. Amen. so so you you you Jesus. Bless you, Jeremiah. Bless you, Ramah. Bless you, God. Matthew tells us in his gospel, now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it, he broke it and gave it to the disciples and said, take, eat, this is my body, shall we eat together? The Apostle Paul continued in 1 Corinthians chapter 11 verse 25 by saying, In the same way, also he took the cup after supper, saying, This is the cup and the new covenant of my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. Again, at this time, would you come and we'll have the prayer for the Jews, please. Thank you for this day, for your love, for your sacrifice, for your son. Lord, let us remember this day as we partake and what the significance is for the cup as we drink. This asks in Jesus' precious name. Amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you, Chef. so you Bye. But.