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NYU DICE Lab 10

You can do that with a high interest story.

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You can do that by focusing on a very applicable practical truth that everybody wants to know about.

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You can do that by focusing on a problem that needs a solution and you're about to give them the solution.

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There are a lot of ways you can capture interest, but there are some portions of Scripture that don't need that.

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The very text itself has so much interest that it becomes compelling when simply read.

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That is very often the case in narrative portions of Scripture.

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By narrative, I mean those portions of Scripture that tell a story, whether it's a true story or whether it's a parable.

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There is enough interest generated in the story itself that it becomes its own compelling motivation to listen.

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This is one of those.

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If this is not the most interesting incident in the life of our Lord, it is certainly one of the most interesting incidents in His entire life.

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And it is so compelling and so riveting and so strange and so bizarre and so fascinating that merely reading it will set your mind in the right place to learn all about it.

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So let's do that.

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Chapter 5 of Mark...Chapter 5 of Mark.

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And I'm going to read you the text which unfolds this amazing and bizarre incident.

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They came to the other side of the sea, that is Jesus and the disciples and Apostles traveling by little boats.

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They came to the other side of the sea into the country of the Gerasenes.

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When He got out of the boat, immediately a man from the tombs with an unclean spirit met Him.

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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.

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Constantly, night and day, he was screaming among the tombs and in the mountains and gashing himself with stones.

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Seeing Jesus from a distance, he ran up and bowed down before Him.

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And shouting with a loud voice, he said, "'What business do we have with each other, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?

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I implore you by God, do not torment me.'

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For he had been saying to Him, "'Come out of the man, you unclean spirit.'

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And he was asking Him, "'What is Your name?'

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and he said to Him, My name is Legion for we are many.

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And He began to implore him earnestly not to send them out of the country.

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Now there was a large herd of swine feeding nearby on the mountain.

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The demons implored Him saying, Send us into the swine so that we may enter them.

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Jesus gave them permission.

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And coming out

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The unclean spirits entered the swine and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea, about two thousand of them and they were drowned in the sea.

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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.

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They came to Jesus and observed the man who had been demon possessed sitting down clothed and in his right mind.

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the very man who had had the legion and they became frightened.

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Those who had seen it described to them how it had happened to the demon-possessed man and all about the swine.

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And they began to implore him to leave their region.

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As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed was imploring him that he might accompany him and he didn't let him.

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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.'

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And he went away and began to proclaim in Decapolis what great things Jesus had done for him and everyone was amazed."

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The final amazement would relate to the fact that why would anybody do any good to such a horrendous monster as this?

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Well, one of the most, as I said, riveting accounts in all of Scripture.

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Nothing like this display of power over demons is recorded in Scripture since God Himself threw Satan and all the evil rebelling angels out of heaven.

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That was a massive upheaval.

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That was a sweeping act by God.

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which He...in which He vacated heaven of Satan and a third of the angels.

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Thousands of thousands and ten thousand times ten thousand innumerable angels were thrown out of heaven in one moment by the power of God.

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There has been no display like that until this.

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And there won't be another display

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like this until the time of the Tribulation comes to an end.

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Christ sets up His kingdom and binds Satan and all the demons for a period of a thousand years and then throws them into the lake of fire.

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This kind of power over the kingdom of darkness is only possible when God is wielding it, whether it's in the

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casting out of heaven or the casting into the lake of fire.

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Or here, casting thousands of demons out of one man.

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This is the power of God on display.

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This is the most extreme encounter with the powers of supernatural wickedness anywhere in Scripture.

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There are no such accounts in the Old Testament.

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And in the New Testament, this is far and away the most extreme and the most extensive.

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Our Lord throughout His ministry vanquished demons.

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He did it regularly.

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He did it repeatedly.

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He did it often.

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But there was no such display as this one.

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This to indicate that He is in fact the Messiah, that He is the Savior, that He is the Son of God, that He is God in human flesh who wields absolute limitless power over the forces of hell, Satan and all his realm.

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Now this is part of Mark's proof.

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If you go back to his purpose, chapter 1, verse 1, the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

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Mark is writing the history of Jesus to prove He is the Son of God.

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John sums up that objective for all four writers, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, when at the end of the fourth gospel, the gospel of John written

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Last of all the four, he says these things are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God and that believing you might have life in His name.

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So the purpose of this is evangelistic.

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But in order to get you to believe in Christ, you must know who He is and here is more powerful evidence that He is in fact God the Son.

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He is deity.

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If He is the true Messiah, if He is the Lord of heaven come down, He must be able to conquer Satan or He cannot bring the everlasting kingdom.

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He must have power over the natural world because the promise of the prophets is that He, the Messiah, is going to come and restore the earth and lion will lie down with lamb and the desert will blossom like a rose, etc., etc.

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There will be a restored, rejuvenated, restructured earth that will approximate the Garden of Eden.

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Does He have the power to do that over nature?

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We just saw in the last incident how He controlled the wind and the waves.

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Yes, He has the power to do that.

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The kingdom to come and the assembly of saints in heaven are those whose lives have been transformed by His power.

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Does He have the power to transform people's lives?

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He has demonstrated that again and again and again.

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He can overcome everything.

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The curse, He can overcome the curse in terms of nature.

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He can overcome the curse in terms of illness and disease.

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He can raise the dead.

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He has all the power required to establish an everlasting kingdom.

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And as part of that, He has demonstrated the power over Satan and all his hosts.

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And here, in a way that has no parallel, His divine power vanquishes by a command.

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thousands of demons.

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Remember now, it was said first of all of the Messiah in Genesis 3.15 that He would crush the serpent's head.

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So whoever this Messiah is has to wield mighty power over Satan and his hosts.

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And here it is on exhibit again.

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Remind yourself of 1 John 3...1 John 3 says, the Son of God appeared for this purpose to destroy the works of the devil.

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That's the New Testament fulfillment statement of Genesis 3...15.

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There will be the seed of the woman who will come and crush the serpent's head, says the Old Testament, Genesis 3...15.

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The New Testament says the Son of Man has come for this purpose to destroy the works of the devil.

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destroy, luo, to undo, to remove, to annihilate, to obliterate, the works, erga, action, effect, impact.

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That's why in John 12 31 He said, the ruler of this world is cast out.

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John 16 11, the ruler of this world is judged.

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Romans 16 20, Satan is under your feet.

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He is a subjected power.

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