This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Welcome to Daily Drive Time Devotions, we're continuing our study together in
the book of Mark, chapter 5 this week. I hope that you're experiencing the life
of Jesus in a new and fresh way as we're walking together through this book.
This chapter 5 is a chapter that shows how Jesus heals our hurts.

In this chapter there are three people who are healed. There are three lives
that are changed and we're going to start today by looking at a man who is
suffering from a deep deep confusion in his life. And the truth of the matter is
life gets confusing for all of us at times.

Now maybe not the way this man was confused but there are times when some of us
feel possessed by confusion even in as deep a way as this man was confused. When
you're possessed by confusion you're feeling lost, you're feeling lonely, you're
feeling afraid. We're going to look today at a man who was overwhelmed by
confusion in the deepest of ways.

And we're going to see how he found a new sense of peace and confidence in his
life through a meeting with Jesus Christ. Now as we walk through this as I read
these verses in just a moment you'll see that he was possessed by more than just
mental confusion. He was possessed by a spiritual demon, an evil satanic
personal power outside of himself.

In a moment we're going to talk about what demons really are. But first let's
look at this man. Let's look at Jesus and what Jesus did in his life.

Mark chapter 5 verses 1 to 13. He went across the lake to the region of the
Gerasenes. When Jesus got out of the boat a man with an evil spirit came from
the tombs to meet him.

The man lived in the tombs and no one could bind him anymore, not even with a
chain. For he had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart
and broke the irons on his feet. No one was strong enough to subdue him.

Night and day among the tombs and in the hills he would cry out and cut himself
with stones. When he saw Jesus from a distance he ran and fell on his knees in
front of him. He shouted at the top of his voice, "What do you want with me,
Jesus, son of the Most High God?

Swear to God that you won't torture me. " For Jesus had said to him, "Come out
of this man, you evil spirit. " Then Jesus asked him, "What is your name?

" "My name is Legion," he replied, "for we are many. " And he begged Jesus again
and again not to send him out of the area. A large herd of pigs was feeding on a
nearby hillside.

The Niemans begged Jesus, "Send us among the pigs. Allow us to go into them. "
He gave them permission.

And the evil spirits came out and went into the pigs. The herd, about 2,000 in
number, rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned. Now this is
quite a story.

It's pretty amazing what happened in this story. We're going to talk about the
pigs tomorrow. That probably caught your attention at the end of this.

Let's focus on the man today, this confused man. He was lost. He was afraid.

He was alone. He was scared. And when you're confused like that, you see in this
man's life that you're asking some questions.

You're asking, "Who am I? Why am I doing the things I'm doing? " You're asking,
"Who can I trust?

" He was asking, "Who am I? " Jesus asked him, "What is your name? " And he
said, "Legion," because many demons had gone into him.

This man didn't even know his real name any longer. This idea of a Roman legion,
a thousand soldiers, makes some people think that this man was possessed by many
as a thousand demons. That's not really the point here to me, though.

The point is he didn't know his name. It's the question of identity. When you're
deeply confused, you don't know who you are anymore.

You feel like, "I don't know why I'm here. " Some people call it an identity
crisis. Whatever you call it, it makes life confusing.

Many people live in confusion, whether they're possessed by a demon or not,
because they don't know who they really are. This man not only didn't know who
he was, he didn't know why he was doing the things that he was doing. For a long
time, this man hadn't worn clothes or lived in a house.

He lived amongst the tombs. He was cutting himself with stones. This is about
actions.

Why do you do what you do? If you'd asked this man when he was a boy, "What do
you want to be when you grow up? " He wouldn't have said a destitute man who
runs around graveyards naked.

Of course not. He didn't plan this for his life. He was confused.

So all of a sudden, he found himself in this terrible place that he never
planned to be. This man's picture is so dramatic. Every one of us can look at it
and see, "Well, of course he was in the wrong place.

" But the truth is, for every one of our lives, we find ourselves in the wrong
place at the wrong time, doing things we know we have no business doing. And you
wake up one day and you think, "What am I doing here? Why am I doing this?

" And then there's the third question that results in this deep life confusion.
And that is, "Who can I trust? " When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell at his
feet, shouting, "What do you have to do with me, Jesus?

I beg you, don't torture me. " Jesus didn't come to torture him. Jesus came to
set him free.

But the demons inside of him caused him to see life from such a skewed angle
that he thought Jesus, the one who came to set him free, the one who was going
to die for him on a cross, was somehow going to torture him. Jesus was tortured
for him. He didn't come to torture him.

This man was confused about life because he was confused about Jesus. And in
this man's story, you and I see where confusion ends. It ends when you allow God
to drive out the evil that is driving you.

Now in this man's case, he was being driven by demons. And that raises a lot of
questions for people in these verses. These demons, why didn't they want to be
cast out?

Why were they there in the first place? Why did they cause this man to do the
things that he did? What in the world is this about pigs and them wanting to go
into pigs?

Well, let's just get basic here about demons and what they are. Demons are the
angels that fell from heaven with Satan due to their pride. The Bible says as
much as a third of the angels fell when Satan fell from heaven.

And it was because they wanted to be God. They wanted to call the shots. And a
demon is a spiritual being, like an angel is a spiritual being.

An angel is a good spiritual being. A demon is an evil spiritual being. A demon
is this evil, satanic, personal force from outside of yourself that seeks to
control you, to head you in the wrong direction of life.

Now my personal and deep belief is that people become possessed by demons only
after they've made a life habit of being controlled by themselves. Selfishness,
being controlled by myself, leads to deeper evils in my life, even being
controlled by Satan in his direction in my life. And it's my deep belief that a
demon can't possess a true believer in Christ.

How could the Holy Spirit be in the same heart as a demonic spirit? That just
couldn't happen. People get very goofy about demons.

Since we're talking about it for a few minutes today, let's focus on it. I know
of a book that teaches that all the bad things in our lives as Christians can be
attributed to demons. Disobedient teenagers, it's a demon.

A wave of trials in your life, it's a demon. A broken down appliance. Really,
this is in the book.

Even a broken down appliance, you've got to get the demon out of that appliance,
out of that toaster. It's ridiculous. It's absolutely ridiculous.

The idea of demonic possession is much, much deeper than that. People are
possessed by demons when they open themselves up to deep evil in their life. And
this has happened to that man.

You don't become possessed by accident. I want you to remember something else.
Because I think sometimes we're so impressed by these spiritual beings that we
miss the real point.

People are possessed by other evil things besides demons, and they're just as
evil. Being possessed by money is just as evil as being possessed by a demon. In
fact, Satan's going to try to possess you with anything that will keep you from
God's best in your life.

In these days, we are so scared of spiritual things, I don't think he sends
demons into the lives of many Americans. But he'll send money into your life.
He'll send greed.

We can become possessed by habits, by alcohol, by drugs. You can even become
possessed by bad relationships in your life, possessed to the point that God is
held out of your life. Anything that keeps God's best for your life out of your
life is just as destructive in your life as any demon could be.

And that's why this man's story is a story for all of us to learn from. He had
been driven by his following of evil into solitary places. That's what happens
when you follow Satan's evil.

Greedy people become lonely people in the end. People who are all about evil
become people who have no others in their life in the end. Lonely places.

A habit, a relationship, a hatred, an attitude can become the evil that takes me
down this road. So how do I drive it out of my life? Look at what this man did.

It's very simple. He gave Jesus command, he gave Jesus praise, and he gave Jesus
credit. That's what you do.

You give Jesus command. He had been bound by these chains and driven into
solitary places. Now, would you call him free?

He was able to do what he wanted to do. Would you call him free? No, he was
captive.

It's not a matter in your life. Being free is not a matter of what you empty
your life of. This man emptied his life of every responsibility.

It's a matter of what you fill your life with. And it's only when he filled his
life with Jesus Christ that he became free. You give Jesus command.

And then you give Jesus praise. He sat at Jesus's feet and he praised him for
what he did. And then he gave Jesus credit.

He went away and he told other people how much Jesus had done in his life. If
you want to step away from an evil habit, a confusion in your life that's
keeping you from the kind of life that God has for you, you and I, we do those
same three things. Give Jesus command.

Start asking him for the power to live like he wants you to live. And then give
him praise for what he's doing. And then give him credit vocally.

Let other people know about it. Everyone is possessed by confusion until they
recognize their real owner. And Jesus Christ is our rightful owner.

Here's why. He has the right of creation. He made you.

And he has the right of purchase. He died for you. He purchased forgiveness for
you, redemption for you on the cross.

It's one of the greatest mysteries of life that when I feel out of control in my
life, when I feel confused in my life, and I want to somehow bring life back in
and get control back in, and I try to grip life harder and harder, it slips away
from me more and more. Here's the truth. To regain control, you must release
control.

You must release it to Jesus Christ, realizing he made me. He bought me. He's
got a life for me to live.

Let's talk to him. Jesus, thank you. Thank you for your love for us.

And even though we can't relate to what happened in this man's life, many of us,
we can relate to being confused and alone and afraid. And we thank you that you
walk into those places in our lives to make a difference. And I pray, we pray
together that today you'd help us to give you command, to give you praise, and
to give you credit.

We pray this, Jesus, in your name. Amen. Well, be sure to join us tomorrow
because we're going to talk about What About the Pigs, verses 14 to 20.