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The universe
can be a frightening place. There are things outside
and inside of us that can make us afraid. People
try to deal with their fears in various ways,
some less successfully, and some more so. Let’s
see how this section from the Word of God encourages
us to deal with our fears, whether the source
of the fear comes from without and or from within.
We continue with Yeshua and His disciples on one
very long day.
Yeshua
Stills Storms and the Fears From Without
4:35
and on that day – this is the same long
day that Yeshua had been in the boat, teaching
the huge crowds on the shore of the western side
of the Galilee by means of parables. Teaching,
even for a couple of hours, can be a tiring activity.
I know that I usually feel tired after I have
been teaching for a while, and it seems that Rabbi
Yeshua was tired too. When evening came, He
said to them, "Let us go over to the other side."
The Lord wanted to go to the eastern side of the
Kinneret, maybe 5 or 6 miles away. Leaving
the crowd, they took Him along with them in the
boat, just as He was; and other boats were with
Him.
But on
the way across the waters of the lake, there
arose a fierce gale of wind, and the waves were
breaking over the boat so much that the boat was
already filling up. The strong wind created
waves large enough to come over the side of the
boat, and they started filling up the little boat.
The disciples were afraid that the boat was going
to sink, and they were going to drown in that
raging storm! And, if you were in that boat, you
probably would have been afraid too.
Meanwhile,
while the disciples were contemplating their death,
Yeshua Himself was in the stern, asleep on
the cushion. He must have been very tired
to sleep through this storm, with the sound of
the wind and the waves and the men no doubt yelling
to one another.
and
they woke Him and said to Him, "Rabbi, do You
not care that we are perishing?" Of course
Yeshua cared about the welfare of the disciples,
but He also knew that their lives were not in
danger. Nevertheless, He immediately did something
about the situation that would calm their fears.
And He got up and rebuked the wind and said
to the sea, "Hush, be still." and the wind died
down and it became perfectly calm. Wow! A
man speaks to the elements and the forces of nature,
and they instantly respond and obey. That’s powerful!
and
He said to them, "Why are you afraid?"I can
almost hear them thinking to themselves, “Why
are we afraid? Even though some of us are experienced
sailors, and are very familiar with this lake,
we knew we were in big trouble! This storm almost
caused our boat to sink. We came close to drowning.
Why are we afraid? We had good reasons to be afraid!"
But, Yeshua
didn’t think that they had good reasons to be
afraid. We know that because He asked them another
question: “Do you still have no faith?" Faith
is a kind of knowledge. It is knowing something
that is true without seeing the full evidence
of it. Faith helps us overcome fear.
Yeshua
had faith, and that is why He was not afraid.
He knew He was the Messiah, and that God had a
great plan for His life. He knew that He would
die in Jerusalem, and not drown in the Kinneret.
He knew that God had a plan for the lives of these
specially chosen disciples, and they couldn’t
die a moment too soon, or in the wrong place,
or the wrong time, or in the wrong way – and neither
will we. And, there is no force outside of us
that can overcome the providential power of God
that is working on our behalf. Yeshua knew that,
and He expected the disciples to know that, and
He expects us to know that. And, if they knew
and believed that and had faith, they would not
be afraid, and neither will we.
Does that
mean we won’t drown at sea, or die in an earthquake,
or be inundated by a tsunami, or experience a
terrorist incident, or die from criminal behavior
or of some disease? No, it doesn’t mean that.
Yeshua died in His thirties. The other apostles
with the exception of John were murdered – but
all of them after finished the course. But, they
died without fear – confident that they had fulfilled
God’s plan for their life, confident in the resurrection
of the righteous and the life everlasting.
After
Yeshua calmed their fear of death, the disciples
experience another fear – Yirat Yeshua – the fear
of Yeshua. They became very much afraid and
said to one another, "Who then is this, that even
the wind and the sea obey Him?" Now they were
perhaps even more afraid – but afraid of their
Rabbi, because this incident enabled them to glimpse
something special about Him. These Jewish men,
raised under the influence of the Holy Scriptures,
understood that God is the One who controls and
stills the storms and the winds and the waves.
It was the Lord God of Israel who hurled a great
wind on the sea, and there was a great storm,
so that the ship on which the disobedient prophet
Jonah was on, was about to break up. When the
rebellious prophet was thrown into the sea, then
the Lord immediately stopped the raging of the
sea. In Psalm 89:9 the Psalmist declares: You
rule the swelling of the sea; when its waves rise,
You still them.
"Who
then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey
Him?" The disciples sensed that somehow their
Rabbi was very closely connected to the Lord of
the Universe, and they were afraid because they
were in His presence.
There
are various kinds of fears. There are bad fears,
and there are good fears. The fear of the Lord
is the beginning of wisdom. This is a good fear,
a healthy fear. This is a better fear than the
fear of wind and waves and the fear of death.
It’s better to fear God, more than the elements
that are subject to Him; better to fear the One
who can destroy body and soul in Hell, rather
than fear death. And if we fear God, how can we
fear death in the same way as those who have no
hope? O death, where is your victory? O death,
where is your sting?
Yeshua
Stills the Storms and Fears That Arise From Within
Now we
come to the terrors that originate from within.
These may be more terrifying than the fears that
come from without.
5:1
They came to the other side of the sea, into
the country of the Gerasenes. This area probably
had a mixture of Jews and Gentiles living there.
It is part of the region of Decapolis – the Ten
Cities. When He got out of the boat, immediately
a man from the tombs with an unclean spirit met
Him, and he had his dwelling among the tombs.
And no one was able to bind him anymore, even
with a chain; because he had often been bound
with shackles and chains, and the chains had been
torn apart by him and the shackles broken in pieces,
and no one was strong enough to subdue him. Constantly,
night and day, he was screaming among the tombs
and in the mountains, and gashing himself with
stones.
This man
had fallen into a horrendous condition because
he had an unclean spirit and was demon-possessed.
Unclean spirits are fallen angels. Demons are
unclean because they oppose the Holy Spirit. Through
their activity, they attempt to influence human
beings to move in the direction of moral and spiritual
impurity. They affect human beings to various
degrees. The most extreme is this kind of situation
– demon-possession, almost total control of a
human being.
The demon-possessed
man lived among tombs. Like the lord of the flies,
demons like human death.
The demonic
influence resulted in isolation from other human
beings. He couldn’t get along with other human
beings. He lived among the tombs and the mountains
in isolated places.
He was
naked. He engaged in socially inappropriate behavior;
rebellious, anti-social behavior.
The unclean
spirits enabled this man to have a supernatural
power – in this case physical strength, demonstrated
by the chains and shales broken in pieces, and
the inability of other human beings to restrain
him.
The demons
encouraged irrational and self-destructive behavior.
He was gashing himself with stones. Possibly he
had thoughts of suicide.
The demons
filled his life with continual torment. He was
never at peace. While at first they might have
tempted him with pleasures, the final result was
self-loathing, misery and torment.
This wretched
man is an example of a human being fallen to almost
its lowest level. Can Yeshua help a man like this,
with these horrible storms and fears raging within?
Seeing Yeshua from a distance, he ran up and
bowed down before Him. The man wanted to avoid
other human beings, but he was attracted to Rabbi
Yeshua. Somehow he knew something was different
about Yeshua. He sensed enough to know that the
Rabbi from the other side of the Lake might be
able to help him. Somehow he knew Yeshua was greater
than he was, and so he bowed down before Him.
But, the
demons didn’t want this man to be rescued from
their control, and didn’t like what was taking
place between the man and Yeshua, and so they
took over. They spoke, using the man’s voice,
but reflecting their personalities and wills.
And shouting with a loud voice, he said, "What
business do we (notice the plural – we. There
is more than one demon inside this poor man) have
with each other, Yeshua, Son of the Most High
God? As we have seen before, the demons knew
Yeshua best of all. They understood that He was
the eternal Son of the Most High God, with greater
authority than their Satanic Leader and all of
his demonic associates.
Then the
spokesdemon asked Yeshua a favor: I implore
You by God (it’s interesting that the demons
would invoke God), do not torment me!"For He
had been saying to him, "Come out of the man,
you unclean spirit!" The demons knew that
there was not another human being who was sufficiently
prepared and available to be their host. Perhaps
they were afraid that Yeshua would send them to
dark pits where they would remain bound until
their time of judgment, and they didn’t want that.
and
Yeshua was asking him, "What is your name?"
Many people who claim to be knowledgeable about
deliverance from demons and exorcism and "spiritual
warfare" misunderstand what is going on here,
and get themselves involved with dangerous practices.
They think that Yeshua is talking to the demon
here. And so, because they don’t understand what
is going on here, one of the techniques used by
those involved in so-called deliverance ministries
is supposedly ascertaining the demon's name. They
assume that if a demon's name is known, then they
can have more authority over it. They also generally
teach that each demon has a name which is indicative
of its area of temptation, like Lust, Anger, Hatred,
Rebellion, etc. So the key, say those experienced
in the art of "spiritual warfare," is to find
out the name of the demon in order to facilitate
a successful exorcism.
They base
this on what happens here. But they misunderstand
what is taking place. They don't understand that
Yeshua was not interested in knowing the demon's
name. He was talking to the man, wanting to know
the man's name, when suddenly the demons took
over and their spokesdemon answered, "My name
is Legion," he answered, "there are so many of
us."
How do
we know that Yeshua wasn't asking the demons their
names? Because His normal practice when confronting
a person who had an evil spirit was to command
it to be quiet, and come out of the person. He
didn't have a nice friendly chat with demons,
and asked a question and expected an answer from
them.
Yeshua
knew that you can't trust anything that a demon
says, and that you don't fraternize with the enemy.
Demons are liars and deceivers, masters of confusion
and manipulation. If you ask a demon its name,
and its says, "Lumiel" or "George" or "Lust" or
“the Spirit of Nicotine" or "the territorial spirit
over Detroit," how do you know it is telling the
truth? and even if it was true, do you get added
power over the demon because you know its name?
No.
And
he said to Him, "My name is Legion; for we are
many." In the time of Messiah, a legion of
Roman soldiers had 6,000 men. So, there was a
huge number of demonic entities present in this
one human host. And he began to implore Him
earnestly not to send them out of the country.
The spokesdemon requested permission from Yeshua
for all the demons to remain close by. Now
there was a large herd of swine feeding nearby
on the mountain. The demons implored Him, saying,
"Send us into the swine so that we may enter them."
The demons wanted to live in some sort of
living host, and if a human host wasn’t available
for them to enter, then lower creatures like pigs
would do. So they asked Yeshua, whose was in the
place of authority, for permission to enter the
nearby herd of pigs, and Yeshua gave them permission.
He felt their request was appropriate – maybe
because unclean spirits deserve to be in unclean
animals, like pigs, especially within the God-given
borders of the Holy Land.
And
coming out, the unclean spirits entered the swine;
pigs are intelligent creatures, but the sudden
entry of thousands of evil spirits freaked them
out, and caused them to engage in irrational,
self-destructive behavior. And the herd rushed
down the steep bank into the sea, about two thousand
of them; and they were drowned in the sea. Their
herdsmen ran away and reported it in the city
and in the country. And the people came to see
what it was that had happened. They came to Yeshua
and observed the man who had been demon-possessed
sitting down, clothed and in his right mind, the
very man who had had the "legion."
Awesome!
Wonderful! Because the Most High God was working
with Yeshua, this utterly wretched man was instantly
and fully restored to his right mind, and was
in control of himself, and could think rationally,
and was calm, and clothed, and had returned to
human society and the Lord’s society. These most
violent storms, fears, terrors, agonies raging
from within had totally ceased, and again there
was a great calm. The man was at peace. If Yeshua
can bring peace to this man, with the most violent
storms raging within, can’t He bring peace to
you?
Even though
the man had been marvelously and miraculously
and instantly restored, the people of Decapolis
were not all that happy. And they became frightened.
Again we see that humans have many fears.
This is also Yirat-Yeshua – the fear of Yeshua,
but this is not a good fear of Yeshua. This is
a fear that rejects Him. In the boat, after Yeshua
miraculously stilled the raging storm, the disciples
sensed the holiness and power of Yeshua, and His
closeness to God, and they were afraid of Yeshua,
but they stayed close to Him, and wanted to know
more about Him, and were willing to repent, and
change themselves if necessary. The people from
Decapolis also sensed the holy power and authority
of Yeshua, and were afraid, but they rejected
Him and were unwilling to change. They had the
same kind of fear that Adam and Eve showed when
they hid themselves from the presence of God in
the garden of Eden. There are two kinds of fear
of God. There is the fear of God that is good,
that leads to wisdom and life. It respects God
and wants to line up the life and will of the
creature to reflect the life and will of this
holy God. Then, there is kind of fear of God that
wants to avoid God, the kind of fear that is uncomfortable
with too much holiness, too much talk about righteousness
and God and the Bible and Hell and Heaven.
Not only
were they afraid of Yeshua, I think that they
may have been afraid of incurring further financial
losses. Those who had seen it described to
them how it had happened to the demon-possessed
man, and all about the swine. And they began to
implore Him to leave their region. They had
lost 2,000 pigs, which was a huge financial loss.
They probably thought that if the holy Rabbi from
the other side of the lake continued with His
activities, they might incur even greater losses,
and if it is a question of the well-being of a
few human beings who will be helped by Him, and
a big economic loss for the entire area, what
are a few human beings? Someone observed that
they were more concerned with their pocketbook
than with people, with pigs than with peace, with
ham than HaMashiach (the Messiah).
Someone
made the following observation: “Yeshua could
have prevented this financial loss from taking
place, but He didn’t. Perhaps He allowed this
financial disaster to take place was so that the
real values of the people in this area were fully
exposed. One of the things that God will do in
our lives is expose our true motives. He knows
that if we are to be healed, it's important for
us to have our true values exposed for what they
really are. We can lull ourselves into a salvation-threatening
stupor if we cling to the wrong values. If we
prefer things more than people, money more than
God, wealth more than righteousness, God will
work to bring our wrong attitudes and priorities
to the light, until they are exposed, so that
there can be healing and salvation. This exposure
can be painful, but it is God's love, God's mercy,
God's care that is at work."
Yeshua
is a gentlemen. If He is asked to leave a city
or town, or human heart, Messiah will not force
Himself to stay. But in His wisdom, grace and
mercy, He did leave that area a witness. As
He was getting into the boat, the man who had
been demon-possessed was imploring Him that he
might accompany Him. And He did not let him, but
He said to him, "Go home to your people and report
to them what great things the Lord has done for
you, and how He had mercy on you." and he went
away and began to proclaim in Decapolis what great
things Yeshua had done for him; and everyone was
amazed.
Yeshua
might leave, but he sends another messenger to
take His place. “This man was sent to be a witness
to this whole region, to tell people what had
happened to him. And what a story he had to tell
– of how he had lived in anguish and torment,
how he had been against all of humanity, a menace
to anyone who came by, angry and hostile and rebellious;
and yet Yeshua had freed him, given him peace
and joy! No wonder that as he went about in all
these cities, people were amazed at what they
heard" (Ray Stedman).
The significance
of these two incidents for our lives is the reality
that Yeshua is Lord – whether the enemy that threatens
us and frightens us is some circumstance or event
outside us, as the storm was for the disciples,
or whether that which betrays and subverts us
and sabotages everything we try to do is something
arising from within – some habit, some attitude,
some long-standing hostility or resentment we
bear, or even some demonic influence which is
tormenting us, making us restless and discontent.
Whatever it is, Yeshua is Lord over of the storms
without and the storms within. Therefore His question
to us remains the same: "Why are you afraid? Do
you still have no faith?" (Ray Stedman).
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