Let's turn back to our Scripture reading. Mark chapter 5, and we're going to look at verse 18 to verse 20. So just keep your Bible open there. Mark chapter 5, verse 18 to 20, and we're going to unite in prayer, as we seek the Lord. Heavenly Father, we bow before Thee today in Jesus' name. We think that the church is all about mission. May that fill our hearts and fill our minds. May we see our part in the great missionary mandate that the Lord has given to us. and may God stir these hearts of ours again to mission work. We pray for the business to hand today here in Newton Abbey. We pray as we gather around the Word of God that the Spirit of God will take this simple word today. And speak, speak to hearts in the gathering. Speak to lives in the gathering. And from this gathering, send us out to speak to others about the Lord Jesus Christ. Grant us the help of the Holy Ghost in the gathering. And may the words of our mouth and the meditations of our heart find acceptance in thy sight. We pray this in Christ, our great Redeemer's name. Amen. When I am asked to represent the Mission Board at various meetings, people always expect me to say something about the workers and the work that is abroad. And of course, it's always a joy and a blessing to do that, to report of what's happening in God's great harvest field beyond our own shores. And yet, brethren and sisters, there is a mission field on our doorstep that oftentimes we overlook. And that has been impressed upon my heart over these past few years as never before. I thank God for our home workers under the mission board, our brother Robert McConnell, our sister Joyce Walsh, our sister Christina Logan, and the thousands of children that they reach on a yearly basis with the gospel of Christ that do not frequent our normal services and are beyond what we would say are limited confines. I'm thankful for the labors of Chris Killen. And Chris will meet people that you and I know nothing about, and he'll minister to them, and he'll help them in their dire need and in their desperate situation. And I commend him to you. I commend our brother, Johnny Smith, to you. He works part-time with the Mission Board in youth outreach work. Presently in Annalong, we're working with our brother Noel Shields and Colin Maxwell. So during this lockdown, because Colin couldn't go over the border, Noel and him came together and they've been doing street ministry. And I think it's vitally important that we maintain that open air ministry. in the public square, because the public square in Northern Ireland more and more is being squeezed for the gospel, and people get irritated if they hear or see even public preaching in the streets of Northern Ireland, which, when I was a boy growing up, it was the done thing. It was in every town and village. It would open our meetings, but not today. So, we asked Noel and Colin if they would come and conduct a mission in Newcastle. Newcastle, there at the foot of the Morne Mountains is the seaside town in South Down. And people just come into it for an afternoon to get their coffee or a meal and walk up the promenade and back home again. But there are thousands of souls in Newcastle. It's a predominantly nationalist town, and we wondered how we would get an opening in that town. And the Lord, in a most miraculous way, opened up a school. a school for us to go in and to have gospel meetings in. And we're just so encouraged. It starts this afternoon, and I know it's too far for you to come down to Newcastle for a mission, but remember it in your prayers over the next two weeks. Working with these men has emphasized to me again the importance of winning souls, not just abroad, but at home and on our home front. And all of these workers, if we put them together, they're only scratching the surface at home. You and I in Northern Ireland today, we live in a secular society. It's not the society that I, as a boy, was brought up in. It's not the society that you were brought up in or your grandparents were brought up in. It is a different society today, and secularism and the ungodly have taken a hold of it and a stranglehold on it. and we need to be busy at home for the Lord Jesus Christ. I was thinking about this. One of the greatest examples of a home missionary or a home soul winner is given in our text in Matthew 5, verse 18 to verse 20. Spurgeon called this man Christ's curate in Decapolis. And that's exactly what I want you to be. That's what I pray God will make me to be. We'll be his advocate. We'll be his representative. No matter where you are, you'll be Christ's curate here in Newton Abbey. I'll be his curate up in Adderlong. We'll be his servant, ministering the Word of God and serving the Lord and speaking a word and season for him. Mark's Gospel, all these twenty verses provide us with the longest and the most minute exposition of the deliverance of this man who was possessed by a legion of demons. Can you even imagine that? To do the calculation, some six thousand demons of the deep possessing this one man. He was tormented. He was tormented so much that he shut himself away from society, and he personally cut himself and inflicted wounds upon himself. He was in a dire situation. Our Lord's visit to this area, even the periphery of it, because it was a Gentile area, had huge and profound significance, because the Lord was not going to be constrained by the cultural prejudices of his day. He was going amongst the Gentiles. He was going amongst the heathen. And you and I oftentimes, we are pressurized by our own cultural prejudices. And in Northern Ireland, we know exactly what that means. But the Lord Jesus tore down all of those prejudices, and he would not be constrained. And he entered into this region, and his first act in entering into this region was to meet and defeat the power of Satan that was so evident in the life of this man who was possessed with this legion of demons. You and I think demon possession is something of the past. Let's not be so foolish to think that, men and women, because the Bible tells us that even the very ungodly, they are taken captive by Satan at his will. We live in a society in which satanic forces are at work and in which multitudes are under the thralldom of sin and Satan, I think, as never before in our history in this little province in which we live in. The citizens, when this man was delivered and the demons went into the herd of 2,000 pigs, can you imagine that, 2,000 pigs running over a cliff edge and drowning in the sea? Can you imagine the talk of that in the city and in the countryside? It was noise abroad, what was happening? And the citizens came to the Savior. And do you think they said to the Savior, well done, it's good to see this man at peace and at ease? They said to the Savior, it's time you left. They didn't want any more disturbance in their region. They didn't want any more deliverances. They didn't want the order of the day to be upended. They preferred the order of the day, the satanic control of the day, rather than the liberty and the freedom that the gospel of Christ brings. And so they asked the Lord Jesus Christ to leave. But the man who was delivered, he asked to leave with the Lord Jesus Christ. The Savior granted the first request because he did leave the region, but he didn't accept the second request. This man said to him that he wanted now to go with the Lord Jesus. This was the response of the new convert. This was zeal. This was enthusiasm. And we all love that, don't we? We just love to see some new soul coming to Christ, and they're full of zeal, and they're full of enthusiasm, and they want to go out and do a work for the Lord. This was this man here in Mark's Gospel, chapter 5, 18 to 19, and he said, Lord, I want to go with you. What did Jesus say to him? Well, actually, no, you can't go with me. First of all, you go home. Go home to your friends, verse 19, and tell them how great things the Lord has done for they. The home front was not forgotten by the Savior. He sent this man not to the far-off places, but he sent this man back into this region of the Gadarenes, a region that was Gentile-dominated, a region that was controlled by demonic forces, and he sent this one lone man back to that region. He didn't say, you come with me, but he says, you go where I send you. And where did he send him? He sent him home, to the home front. Very often we read these miracles in the Gospels, and we never see the other side of the miracle. We never see the sequel of it. It's just cut off there. But here we see the sequel. The sequel of this miracle is that this man who once was tormented, now who has a calm disposition, a rational mind, the Savior's presence in his heart and life, But what did Jesus say to him? You go back home and tell them the great things that the Lord has done for you. Now, men and women, that was the message God impressed upon my heart and has been impressing upon my heart. Of course, I'm glad to represent the Mission Board, but it's the Mission Board, it's the home and foreign missions that we're all connected with. The church is all about mission. Mission is not just Uganda, Kenya, Nepal, Pakistan, India. Mission is Newton Abbey. Mission is Anaheim. Mission is here in Northern Ireland. Let's bring it a wee bit closer to home. Mission is right at your BT address where you live today. God sent you on a mission. And he's sending you on the mission just as he sent this man here in Mark's Gospel, chapter 5. Let's look at this mission today very quickly. I want you to notice, firstly, that we learn from this incident that the place to start soul winning is at home. The place to start soul winning is in your home. I think it's the most natural reaction in the world that this man had, that he wanted to go away from his home. He had been delivered. Home to him was amongst the stones, amongst the dead. Home to him was a place of misery. Home to him was a place where he was dominated and controlled by those satanic influences that so tormented his mind. And it was the most natural reaction in the world that he wanted to leave that place, to get away from it, but Jesus sent him back to it. You go home, and you may well feel today that the Lord is calling you somewhere else. Maybe You feel God is sending you to some distant part or into some new area, et cetera, but I just want you to take this perhaps as a word from the Lord for your own heart today. Home is the place where we all have to start. And if you can't start at home, don't go to your neighbor. If you can't start where God placed you in the family, don't go to somebody else's family. It's in the family that you have to start. I think this word cuts across every natural desire. Every natural desire. Before you leave with me, Jesus said, you go back home and you tell them there the great things that God has done for your soul. The Savior instructed this new convert because the most natural place for this man to start his service for God was in his family. And where's the most natural place for you and I to start our service for God? It's in the family. It's in the home. It's in the home place. Can you imagine what this man's family must have felt like when they saw him coming back home? Before he had left, he had been in a dreadful and in an unimaginable condition. They probably were afraid of him. And that's why he was outside of the family home. He lived outside. He lived rough. He was living rough. They were afraid of him. You know those people who live rough? I heard one man on the radio the other day, he was describing them in Belfast. And he was describing them, is it even right to mention it? But he was describing them as tramps. And the presenter rightly pulled him back. He said, no, they're people. There are people with lives, with personalities, with problems. But this man, if you'd have looked at him, you'd say, he's a tramp. He's a tramp. He's living out in the rough. But when he came back home, he was a changed man, because Jesus had met with him. He was so changed that he was now in his right mind. He now had clothes. The chains were broken. He was a changed man. He's living proof, isn't he? of the great truths of Scripture. 2 Corinthians 5, 17, If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. The old things are passed away. Behold, the old things become new. Do you know where that's tested the most? Where you live, in your family, and in your home. And if the ones in your home and the ones in your family don't see the new creation, it's not a new creation. It's just the old creation dressed up in the Sunday suit. We want something more than that, men and women. We want the new creation to be living for Christ in the home, because that's where this man made the greatest impact. And you'll never be able to serve God first and foremost in your home until the grace of God that we were singing about in our opening psalm, until that grace of God changes your life and transforms your life and makes you into the likeness of the Lord Jesus Christ, because it's Christ is all the attraction. If you're a new creature, you're formed in the image of Christ, and it's Christ who's the attraction. And when the ones in your family see Christ, they'll be attracted to Christ because they'll see the transformation in your life. Now, if this principle is true within your natural family, and it's true within your spiritual family, I believe in the church. I believe in the institution of the church. I believe that Christ loved the church and gave himself for the church. I believe in the church general. I believe in the church in particular. So here we are in Newton Abbey today meeting in a particular part of the visible professing body of the Lord Jesus Christ. And if your family is the place where the most formative ideas were calculated within your mind, where you learned order, where you learned respect, where you learned manners. If that all happened within your family, your natural family, then spiritually we can say all of those things apply within the church family. And it's in your church family where all of those formative spiritual steps are taken. Now, there are people who want to jettison that order, and they want to run beyond the church family. They want to be sent, and I know today, and sadly it's the case, I know today there are people, they want to go into mission work, they want to go abroad, they want to do all types of things, but they do want to be under a church oversight. And the only connection they want with the church is to come back and get money out of it. But don't let the church tell them to do what, or to live their lives in a particular way, or to order their ministry in a particular way. No, we're independents, and we don't need all that type of instruction. I don't have to tell you in Newton Abbey how destructive such a thinking is. In the church family, people learn to take those first baby steps. And if you cannot bear the spiritual authority of the elders and the ministers of a local church, if you cannot bear the order and the discipline of a local church, then don't you go anywhere until you have learned that. Don't go anywhere until you have learned that, because until you have learned that, you're not fit to go anywhere else. Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you, Acts 1 verse 8, and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem. Why do we get the power? Why did Jesus give us the power that we might witness? There are many people today that say they get the power in order they might speak in tongues or do miracles or all of that there. There's nowhere in the Bible that it says that. You get the power to be the witness. And you need the power to be the witness for Christ in your home and in your church family. And the risen Savior instructed these early disciples, where do you start? You start where? In Jerusalem. And what did Jerusalem mean? That was the home church. And before you reach out to Samaria, to Judea, Samaria, the uttermost parts, be a witness in your home church. be a witness in your home church. I don't care what that entails, but be a witness for Christ in your home church. There are many Christians, and they like the idea of going to Samaria, of going to Judea, of going to the uttermost parts, but they have no vision for Jerusalem, for their home place. It's good and it's commendable to reach every part with the gospel, but We start here. We start here. And it would be hypocritical, wouldn't it, for me to come, for me to go out to Kenya, to Uganda, wherever, and preach the gospel there if I haven't preached it in Antelope. And likewise for you. Start here in your home church. Maybe, like those early disciples, God will call you to a place that's distant from home. And that'd be wonderful, be wonderful one day if there's some young man or woman from Newton Abbey came in front of the mission board and said, I feel called to go wherever. But the first place I would contact is Newton Abbey. And the first thing I would ask, well, what did this young man, this young woman do in the Newton Abbey congregation? And if they didn't do something worthwhile for the Lord in the Newton Abbey congregation, they would never get a second interview in the mission board. Start at home. Secondly, notice, home is the place to start speaking for God. Look at verse 19. Go home to thy friends and tell them. Tell them. You know there's the living. I know that there is the living. We have to live out Christ. We have to live out Christ in our personality, in our demeanor, in our spirit. There's the living for Christ, but there's also the telling. for Christ. This man was told to go home and tell. What an amazing testimony he had. He was given that special designation in verse 18, he that had been possessed with the devil. Imagine somebody coming to give their testimony in Newton Abbey, and that was the designation that was given to him. Come in here, brother so-and-so or sister so-and-so. They had, he or she had been possessed with the devil. This was this man. He was delivered from demonic possession. He was delivered from the thralldom of sin and Satan. And what a story he had to tell. Now you have a story to tell. You have a story to tell. You don't have to have a dramatic headline like that to tell the story. If you're saved as a boy and girl, and the Lord has kept you all of these years, provided for you, and led you on with himself, you know, that's as big a story as the demoniac had the story in Mark chapter 5 and verse 19. Because the grace of God that changed that man is the same grace of God that has kept that child from infancy, and led them on with the Lord, and kept their testimony, and kept them going on with the Lord. What a story to tell. People usually talk about the things that are closest to their heart. There are some people very quiet and reserved, but you get them talking about something that they love, and they'll talk all day about it. Get a proud mom talking about her son, a proud father talking about his daughter. They'll talk all day. That's nothing in comparison to proud grandparents. And they could talk all night. We'll talk about the things that are closest to our hearts. Is Jesus not close to your heart? Do you not count up today all the things, as we sang in Psalm 66 today, that God hath done for your soul? Is that not worth telling? Is that not worth sharing? Of course, it goes without saying, you'll have to pick your moment. Some people just don't know how to pick their moment. But if you pray for wisdom, you'll be given wisdom, and you'll know how to pick your moment. God will give you the opportunity to speak. And I think if you're praying about it and you are yearning for it, God will bring it to you in His time. Reading again this morning, you know, in due season we'll reap. There's just a season. God will give it to you in his time, in his time. I had a wonderful experience this week, in the week that's passed, in speaking to a young man, a young Roman Catholic man. He was a delivery driver, and God just opened up the door in such a wonderful way. I had made an awful mistake. I needn't go into the whole story with that delivery man, but I just thanked the Lord for my mistake, because it gave me about half an hour to speak to this young man about the Savior, about his soul, and actually to give him a Bible. to share the gospel with them. If you're looking for the opportunity, praying about the opportunity, God will give you the opportunity to speak for the Lord Jesus Christ and to give you that opportunity to speak. Those opportunities come in different ways. Maybe it's just a passing acquaintance such as I had in the past week. Maybe it's someone that in the wider family circle you actually need to contact. You do need to contact them. Has God been putting somebody in your heart You haven't phoned them for a long time. You haven't visited them for a long time. COVID has destroyed all of that concept. I think it'll take a long time for that confidence to build up again, and for us to open up our homes again. In Ulster, with all of these lovely homes, and they're like jailhouses, nobody gets into them. We need to open up our homes. in an appropriate fashion, and use the home as a place to tell and to share the glorious message of the Lord Jesus Christ. Whatever way you do it, you do it, but don't sit silent. Don't sit silent in your family and family members going to hell. Maybe you're sitting in this meeting today and you're thinking, well, I have nothing to say, because you're not saved. Rather than wanting to be with Christ, you're just like those citizens of Gadara. You want the Savior to go away so that you can continue in what you're doing. Well, you know, this passage of Scripture, just in reality, it summarizes mankind, doesn't it? Those who are with Christ, those who don't want to be with Christ. Yes, and you can be in a church building. You can be in a church building and you don't really want to be with Christ. But Christ and His providence has brought you here today because He wants to be with you. In providence, He went through that region of the Gadarenes because He knew there was a man there possessed and had to be delivered. And in providence, He has brought you into this church building today because He wants to be with you, and He's speaking to you, and He's knocking at your heart's door once again, and He's saying, I want to be with you. Don't send me away again today. And I say to all of you, don't send the Savior away today. Open the heart's door. Bid him enter while he may. The witness of this man, verse 20 tells us, it spread. He began to publish. He started with his friends and family, and he began to publish it. This is wonderful. He wasn't sitting silent. He started to proclaim it. in Decapolis, how great things Jesus had done for him. And all men did marvel. The Lord had done great things in this man's life. It was the talk of the whole region. And now throughout the region, everybody started to know about it. And they took note of it because they saw the reality of it in this man's life. He wasn't saying one thing and doing another thing. He wasn't saying he was delivered and going back to his sin. The chains were broken. He was a different, he was a changed man. It started with his home. It started with his friends. Go home, and then go home to thy friend, but it spread out to the region. I think that's a wonderful example. If this is a soul winners convention, this is how you win souls. You start in your family. And I can guarantee there's not one household represented in this building today that doesn't have loved ones that are out of Christ without the Savior. Start in the family. Extend to your friends. And when others see the reality of the change of grace in your life, they will take you seriously. And others will be brought to know and love the Lord Jesus as their Savior too. Thirdly, notice with me, that home is the place to start showing compassion. Look at verse 19 again. How compassionate is the Savior? How many of you would stop with a homeless person? Maybe somebody's really, you would look at them in the street and you would say, that man is demented, there's something wrong with him. I've had that experience. and I've walked on, and God has convicted me and I've had to go back. Oh, but how compassionate was the Savior. He didn't walk on. He stopped, and he showed us mercy, and he showed us grace, and he took him, this demented man from the tombs, this man that was so disfigured, this man that was destroyed, and he brought him, and he sat at his feet, and he clothed him. And now this man was calm and in a right mind. He was now thinking straight. You can't think straight if the devil is controlling your life. This was God's compassion. This was grace. Grace reached this man's soul. And I'm glad today that grace is still reaching the demented. It's still reaching the possessed. It's still reaching those that are under the thraldom of sin. That's the wonder and the mercy of God and grace. He's still reaching out. those who have been recipients of God's compassion, we're called to show that same compassion to others. If you have been a recipient of God's grace, of God's compassion, show it to others. Don't hide it. The word which is translated compassion here in Mark 9 and verse 19, it actually means to show kindness by practical action or assistance, by practical action or assistance. There are many, of course, and they take the name of saints abroad, and they're devils at home. And this is a mockery, a mockery of true religion, a mockery of the things of God. I think of some professing, professing Christian families, and they can't stand together in life, and they can't even stand together around the gravesite of their loved ones. Where's the compassion? The world's looking on, men and women. The world's looking at what you and I are doing. Others took note of this man's compassion. They saw the change. This was an angry man. There's lots of angry men, angry women about the country today. But now he was changed. His countenance was changed. His life was changed. Jesus had changed him. And his witness had lasting results. We'll not take time to look at it, but you can go there later on to Mark 7, 31 and Mark 8 and verse 1. And the Savior did come back to Decapolis, even though they told him to leave, and he did leave. But in grace, he came back again. Isn't it wonderful that God doesn't answer us all of our prayers? He didn't answer the prayers of these people in the way they thought. He did leave, but he came back again. Mark 7, Mark 8, and he revisited those coasts of Decapolis where the citizens had asked him to depart. And now the Bible tells us multitudes came to hear him speak. Why? Because they saw the difference. They saw the difference in this man's life. The witness of that one lone voice for Christ on the home front had its impact on that hardened, demoniac region, and multitudes came to hear Christ for themselves. I think of one man in Nepal. You remember years ago, I remember as a young Christian, I had one of those wee badges, and it said, Jesus saves. And he wore it, and he walked up and down just the street of his town, Hindu town. And people asked him, what does it mean, Jesus saves? What does it mean? And he had the joy of leading a little group to the Savior. And that little group became a congregation, and it was constituted into a church. I had the privilege of going to visit there, just through that little, simple witness. Others saw the change. Others saw Christ in that man. The home front. We all need to be home missionaries. As you go back to your home today, may God send you back a missionary to your own home, to your own family, to your own friends, to your own neighborhood. May you not only live it out, but may you tell it out. And as you live it out and as you tell it out, may God bless it to those that will hear it. And may there be many brought to the Savior through your witness.