Even the Wind and Waves Obey Him — Luke 8

0:00 Father God, thank you for your love to us. Thank you for the the opportunity of being in your word, and and we thank you for the the wonders... The wonder of the word of God that it reveals, particularly in this portion, Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ and the wonder of what he is as a person. We thank you, Lord Jesus, that you came and loved us, lived for us, and then died for us, Lord Jesus. Going to start with verse 22.

0:42 Luke chapter eight twenty two. I'll just read. Now, it happened on a certain day that he got into a boat with his disciples and said to them, let's cross to the other side of the lake. They launched out and as they sailed, he fell asleep. They And a windstorm came down on the lake and they were filled with water and they were in jeopardy.

1:06 And they came to him and they awoke him saying, Master, master, we are perishing. Then he arose and rebuked the wind and the raging of the waters, and they ceased, and there was a calm. But he said to them, Where is your faith? And they were afraid, saying to one another, Who can this be? For he commands even the wind and the water.

1:36 And they obey him. I've often felt that when we read these stories, we ought to live them. At least that's my personal attempt, to spend enough time trying to picture the story that somehow I get the effect on my soul that those people that were there, God. Lord Jesus, he says, No, we wanna go to the other side. So, he was exhausted.

2:13 Know the kind of hours he kept, remember all the times that it says he's prayed all night? He was exhausted. He... They climb into the boat and and he goes in one of the other gospels that says he went to the stern, the back part. He lays down.

2:30 Now we're gonna see the water coming in. So I in my dawn imagination, I say, well, he must not have been right on the floor because he would have got all wet immediately, he wouldn't still be asleep. That's my take. So so so he lies down on a pillow there and and he falls off to sleep. Oh, and and I suppose as the boat sailed along on the on the sea that the little waves come in, they're just rocking them to sleep and and he he he is sound asleep.

3:05 But when one of the other gospels that was said that it was in the evening, and so so we're saying it's starting to get dark and and suddenly this this squall, this really bad storm comes sweeping down on them. And now I don't know how fast it would come, but I'm gonna guess in five or ten minutes it was it was a raging was a raging sea and and so so are others who are there. Now they were sailing, it says they were sailing, I assume that means they got a sail up. And I don't know if you've ever sailed before, I haven't done a lot of it, but I know this, that that when a storm comes up, they gotta watch it because they gotta get that sail down fast because when that wind hits the sail, it's gonna blow the boat right over on its side. So I imagine there was as as that storm started to come on that that they that they immediately are a lot of activity.

4:16 Remember four of them were professionals, professional fishermen. And so they get sail down and and and then the waves were getting so big and they were coming over the side and they're starting to fill the boat. And and and now remember our four professional fishermen, they know that the danger of this thing, they realize it. And so they leap towards the Lord and shake him awake and and say, master, master, we're perishing. And and he rose and he just, it says he rose, so I'm assuming he stands up.

4:56 In my mind, he grabs hold of the mast. Peace be still, he says. And and now it doesn't say peace be still here, but in one of the other gospels, it does. So so he... So the the the waves just...

5:10 It says that they they they obeyed him. The waves obeyed him. They... In response to what he said, they stopped raging and they... It it does use that word raging.

6:17 The second one is imprisonment. I'm I'm I'm thinking it it immediately brought to my mind Christian Eichele's jail ministry. And then the third one seems to be illness, poor health, and the final one is storms. Storms, I like to equivalent to just any old storms of life that come along, but they're life threatening moments in your life. Okay, so we're gonna turn to Psalm 107 for a minute here and look at it.

6:52 Now, that they cried out, Master, master, we are perishing. They cried out for help, didn't they? So in in Psalm 107, starting with verse four verses four through through nine is the first section and and it says, they wandered in the wilderness in a desolate way. They found no city to dwell in, hungry and thirsty, poverty, need, their soul fainted in them. And then comes the good part.

7:28 Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them out of their distresses and led them forth in the right way. What was the important turning point for them? It's when they cried out to the Lord, wasn't There comes this point where in the circumstances of our life, we become desperate enough to cry out for help. That's probably a pretty accurate way of saying it, even though we should be crying out to ourselves, for ourselves all along the way. But God knows, and we know too, that oftentimes we don't cry out for his help until we feel the need.

8:13 We really feel a great need. And so they cry out and he delivers them out of their distresses. And that's a repeated theme. In every one of these four cases, they cry out to the Lord and he delivers them. And then every time it repeats another verse too, it's verse eight.

8:35 Oh, that men would give thanks to the Lord for his goodness, for his wonderful works to the children of men. He's there for us. He's there for us and we can be thankful for that. Okay, the second, that one, I called that poverty, need, great need. The second one is what I would call perhaps imprisonment.

9:00 Those who sat in darkness, tenth verse through the sixteenth, Those who sat in darkness and the shadow of death, bound in affliction and irons because they rebelled against the words of God. They despised the counsel of the Most High. He brought down their hearts with labor. They fell down and there was none to help. Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and he saved them from their distresses.

9:33 He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death and broke the chains in pieces, that which enslaved them or broken to pieces. We're gonna see a case of that when we get to the next story in this chapter of the Gadarene demoniac, those that are enchained, enslaved by sin and by Satan. But it... But one of the things that Christian Eichele has mentioned about his jail ministry is that that oftentimes these men don't, they just don't realize their need until they're finally thrown in jail, some of them for even twenty years or longer. Suddenly they realize they're facing this hold that's placed upon their life.

10:29 And it says that's when they start thinking. That's when they're ready to receive the Lord, ready to cry out to him. It's true of each of us, I think. We we we seem to wait until the circumstances get so terrible that that that then we cry out to the Lord. And I I'm glad that it repeats too in the fifteenth verse.

11:16 I think it's talking, well, speaks of their distresses. I believe that it's probably, oh yes, the twentieth verse is what I was looking for. He said his word and healed them. Apparently, we're talking about disease, possibly even old age, I know a little bit about that. And that which leads us into what we might call the valley of the shadow of death.

11:47 We're talking about like in Psalm 23. Lo though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you are with me. So, what do they do? Well, they do like in every other case. The nineteenth verse, they cried out to the Lord in their trouble and he saved them out of their distresses.

12:08 And then again, the twenty first verse, oh, that men would give thanks to the Lord for his goodness, for his wonderful works to the children of men. What is the point we're making? We're making the point that that we need to cry out to the Lord, to call out to him, and he's the great deliverer, and that is presented that way in scripture that oftentimes the circumstances of our lives are such that we're led to that point where we're desperate and we finally say, Yes, Lord, come help me. The last one is an interesting one because it seems to match so closely to our story. It says, They, the twenty third verse, we're gonna at least scan down through the thirty second verse.

13:02 Those who go down to the sea in ships, they do business on great waters. They see the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep. Sea is, how should it, it can be very fearful when the waves get up big. He commands and raises the stormy wind, 25, which lifts up the waves of the sea. They mount up to the heavens.

13:31 They go down to the depths. Their soul melts because of trouble. They reel to and fro and stagger like a drunken man. They are at their wits end. The...

13:43 Now I I would like to I would like to maybe broaden this a little wider than just the sea that this would be our life, the circumstances of life that sometimes seem impossible to us. And, and well, let me give you an example, supposing, and I think every one of us has been, well, most of us would have been through this. So you're going along on an road and, and suddenly you lose control. And and you've got a potential terrible accident. Maybe there's a car coming from the other direction or you're going off the road and there's a huge tree there or something, something that is threatening your life, what do you do about it?

14:27 Well, I'll tell you what I do about it. I I I yell out, Lord, save me. Lord, help. And and and wonderfully, up to this point, he's he's kept me from from from anything really terrible. I've had wrecks, but the Lord is is wonderfully preserved.

14:48 I think the point is not that the Lord would never allow us to have a terrible tragedy, because we know that sometimes he does. But the point is, he leads us to the point where we will cry out to him and ask for help. I recall the fear the fearfulness of of the sea. I recall a story that a friend of mine, Earl Ensign, lived in Toledo. He was in the second world war on a PT boat out in the Pacific, and you know they have some pretty terrible storms out there.

15:36 And what is that? And what is the other name? There's another... Okay. Typhoon.

15:40 Typhoon. That's what I really try to think of. Cyclones fine, though. Anyway, he was in a in a... This typhoon, and and he described it to me.

15:53 He said, you know, he said the ways were something like 75 feet high. Imagine. Imagine. 75 feet. He says he says this boat is like a couple 100 feet long, but but those those waves towered above us like mountains that that in a moment you'd think they would come down on top of us.

16:14 And he says, next thing we know, next thing we know, we find ourselves on the top of the wave and we we we look look across the the windswept sea and and and it's just it's just a furious like the raging of the waves here. And and and he says, and then plunging back down to the bottom and the waves tower. He says, talk about being afraid. We were frightened. We...

16:45 And he he said he said, I I didn't see how we could make it through. They did. But but we have to understand that there are fearsome things in life, and what the Lord would have us to do is to come to him in our troubles. Now, the most fearsome thing of all of life is is the fact that when we end life, we need to be prepared for what comes afterwards. And and so so it's no wonder that that which that which threatens our very being, very lives would become such a power to us to turn to God.

17:34 And so, so may, may we, may we listen to the cry. They cry out to the Lord in their trouble. And he brings them out of their distress as he calms the storm so that the waves are still. Then they are glad because they are quiet. Oh, that men would give thanks to the Lord for his goodness, for his wonderful works to the children of men.

18:00 Well, I saw the first point I'd like to make in this story is the point that we need to be prepared to cry out to the Lord. And they did. Well, the next point was that says that Jesus said to them, Where is your faith? And so, we get the issue of faith that's brought before us. Now, one of the things that, in the study of faith, one of the things that we would find out about faith is faith always has to have an object.

18:36 You have faith in something. There's an object to your faith. And while the Lord Jesus may be in part saying, where is your faith? Do you have any faith? But I think that probably just as likely he's saying, what do you have faith in?

18:52 Do you know what you have faith in? And so the question would be, do we have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ? Do you... Do we have the right object before us? Now, I had I had probably struggled a little bit like some others when you read this story.

19:12 Is this... Why would he say that exactly right here when when they did call to to him for help? But I think we get a little bit more detail given to us in the Mark account. And it says that when they came to the Lord Jesus, they said this. They said, master, don't you care that we are perishing?

19:35 In other words, this doesn't quote quite all of it. This says, We are perishing. But in Mark, it says that, at least one person said, Don't you care that we're perishing? And now that's a lot different actual significance. And it brings out this of this idea that that's kind of the classic question.

20:00 Doesn't God really care? Does God really care about me? Does he really... Does God really care about me? So they said, don't you don't you care, master?

20:11 And and so we might ask this question and ask it rightly. Was there any faith in a statement like that? It may have come... It did the right thing to come to him, but but that's not faith to say, don't you care? Had they really entered into the heart of the Lord Jesus, they would not have said that.

20:33 And so the question is, where's your faith? Do you know the one? It's been said before that just just a mustard seed worth of faith is enough to move the mountains if the faith is in the right one. But if your faith is in the wrong thing, you can have a gigantic amount of faith and it won't make any difference. What is the object of your faith?

21:00 Well, of course, we're leading in the direction to say that the Lord Jesus Christ is the object of our faith. He's the one that we're trusting in, and he's the one that is worthy of our trust. And and so all it takes, folks, is a mustard seed worth of faith to be saved. It doesn't take very much if you're trusting the right one. Now, the story continues.

22:10 Now, if if we try in a way to enter into the the wonder of this story and how and how how the the tension of the moment that this boat is gonna sink. We're about to go down and they come and they cry out to the master. When we think about that moment when he rises up and, stills him with a command. In the other gospels, it says that he said, peace be still. So he, he rebukes the wind and the wave, Peace, be still.

22:52 He commands them and they smooth right out. Now, if... Put yourself in those shoes, what would you think? Wouldn't you be somewhat odd? That's what they were.

23:02 They were odd by it. What kind of a person must this be? And no doubt, that's why we're given this kind of of miracle so that we would be brought to ask the same question about the Lord Jesus Christ. What kind of person is this? And and hopefully, we'll be...

23:26 We come to the correct answer that this man is the son of God. I'm going to just plunge. I wanna cover one more story and I'm about halfway done with my time here. So I'm gonna plunge on the twenty sixth verse, And they sailed to the country of the Gadarenes, which is opposite Galilee. And when he stepped out on the land, there met him a certain man from the city who had demons for a long time.

23:55 And he wore no clothes, nor did he live in a house, but in the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him and with a loud voice said, What have I to do with you, Jesus, son of the most high God? I beg you, do not torment me. For he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. For he had often seized him, and he was kept under guard, bound with chains and shackles, and he broke the bonds and was driven by the demon into the wilderness.

24:29 Jesus asked him, saying, What is your name? And he said, Legion, because many demons had entered him. It seems, isn't kind of interesting to see that it was the demons themselves that were speaking through his mouth. We'll talk about that more in a minute. And they begged him that he would not command them to go out into the abyss.

24:55 Now, a herd of many swine was feeding there on the mountain. So, they begged him that he would permit them to enter them, and he permitted them. Then the demons went out of the man and entered into the swine, and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the lake and drowned. When those that fed them saw what was happening, they fled and told it in the city and in the country. Then they went out to see what had happened and came to Jesus and found the man from whom the demons had been departed, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid.

25:38 They also who had seen told them by what means he who had been demons possessed was healed. Then the whole multitude of the surrounding region of the Gadarenes asked him to depart from them, for they were seized with great fear. And he got into the boat and returned. Now, the man from whom the demons had departed begged him that he might be with them. But Jesus sent him away saying, Return to your own house and tell what great things God has done for you.

26:52 He was a totally miserable man, driven by the demons into the wilderness, harassed by them. And in the Gospel of Mark, it says, always day and night, he was in the mountains and in the tombs crying out and cutting himself with stones. I can just kind of picture him. He was a madman. He was a maniac, made so by the demons.

27:21 And and he's out there in the tombs and and and they're harassing him. And he'd pick up these sharp stones and he would just gash his arm. I suppose the blood would have poured out. And then he would scream out in that hollow, vacant, maniacal voice. And and and it was so...

27:42 It it was terrible. He was completely useless to society. He wore no clothes. He did not live in a house, but in the tombs. He was such a menace to society that nobody dared go near him.

27:59 When he came out of the tombs, he was exceeding fear so that no one could pass that way. That's found in Matthew. He was uncontrollable and no one could tame him. They had tried to bind him using chains, but he literally pulled the chains apart and broke the the shackles to pieces. It was it was a miserable, miserable, miserable condition.

28:30 And that was what the Lord Jesus delivered him from. Now, I've tried in my own imagination to try to, or my own thoughts, What in my experience have I ever seen anything like this? And I have to admit that I've never seen anything as bad as this. Perhaps the reason that this story is in here is because the Lord the Lord chose a man who was in such an unspeakable unspeakable condition that that that you just couldn't find a person that was worse off. That's impossible.

29:13 Therefore, if the Lord could could deliver this man, the Lord could deliver anyone. I I puzzled a little bit. I I thought, well, what in my experience have I seen? And I thought, it could be maybe a little bit like the drug addicts, particularly some of the harder drugs and where they're completely taken over by desire through this addiction. And they would kill people to get drugs.

29:46 They would sell their own bodies. Would do unspeakable things in order to obtain that which they desired. I had one experience a number of years ago. Matter of fact, I think it would be about fifty years ago, just to be accurate. It was a little bit before I was married.

30:11 And I was coming back from, I think it was from being up in Toronto in Canada, and I came down through Buffalo. And somewhere along the freeway there, there was a guy that was hitchhiking and I picked him up. I don't recommend that, young people. But I did it, I did it. And I was hoping for an opportunity to give the gospel out, which which I...

30:43 We talked we talked quite a bit for the next forty five minutes or an hour. We're getting down towards Erie, I suppose. And somewhere along the line, started giving him the gospel, and I was speaking to him about the Lord. I hadn't made very many remarks before. He said, oh, I believe there's a higher power.

31:40 That's not a good thing to do because they can take over in your life. Oh, no, no problem. That won't happen to me, you know? So I don't know, it wasn't more than a couple minutes after that, I suddenly had a sense of the presence of evil. I don't know exactly how to describe it or what, but it was not a comfortable feeling.

32:08 And I'm sitting over there, I'm in the driver's seat, sitting over there saying, what is this guy trying to do? You know? And and and, and so I I thought, you know, I only know of one name that has power over evil spirits. I only know of one, and that's the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. So so I don't remember my my exact words, but it was something like this.

32:38 You know, I belong to the Lord Jesus Christ. I I've trusted in him to be my savior. The lord Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins. The blood of the lord Jesus Christ cleanses us from sins. I went on like that for, I would guess, about two minutes.

32:54 And I think during those two minutes, I probably said the name, the Lord Jesus Christ about 30 times. But it... Anyway, I... It it not take long before that sense of evil disappeared. And I think...

33:11 I I personally think that that was the power of the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And suddenly the guy beside me suddenly says, I'm tired. And he and he like purposely showingly bonked his head back on the back of the seat, laid it over and faked to sleep. So I thought, well, I don't have any problem with this. So we drove on and we're talking about like driving from Eurekaure to to Cleveland, hour and a half, two hours, I don't know, something like that.

33:46 And and and he he either faked sleep or actually did fall asleep. But but I'll just I'll just give your minds a little bit of peace. I was able to drop him off and he didn't try to zap me or anything. So so so... But but my point was was simply this, that that the the presence of demons is real and there's only one name that has power over them.

34:17 And and so if you ever run into a similar situation, I recommend that very much. So, so, let's go on to the next to the next thing. So we have this man in his terrible condition. We have the power of the Lord Jesus Christ and his power to command the demons is wonderful. Now, what I want us to do is just take a moment and turn over to Mark five verse 36, Mark five verse 36.

35:03 I'm not sure what I have. I don't have the right number. Luke four verse 36. I knew something was wrong. Luke four verse 36.

35:11 Now in in in verses thirty three and thirty four and thirty five, we find the Lord Jesus is in the synagogue. I think this was in Capernaum. Yes. And a man that's possessed with a demon comes in and the demon begins to shout out and say, us alone, whatever we need to do with you, Jesus of Nazareth. And the Lord Jesus commanded him to be quiet and to come out of the man.

35:45 And as you might expect, the demon got quiet and got out of the man. And so the man standing there in front of them, and 36 is the verse, then they were all amazed and they spoke among themselves saying, what a word is this? For with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits and they come out. And this report of him went out through every place in the surrounding region. Now, in our first miracle story, he commands the winds and the waves.

36:50 Here's somebody that's power is so great that that he can command the evil spirits and they'll and they'll leave leave alone. Well, that's the name of Jesus, isn't it? So so then there's the this matter of the the the herd of swine. I know I'm about out of time, I'll try to go quickly on this. There's the matter of the herd of swine and there were 2,000 of them and so they, the spirits say, let us go into the swine.

37:25 And Jesus says, go. And and and so they go into the swine in this this bizarre situation that they go into the swine and the swine just like wild and they just run run away from their keepers right down the hill. They go right over the... Guess there was a cliff or something, right down the steep place and and drowned, the whole 2,000 of them drowned in the sea. Wow.

37:58 Now, to me that that is sort of bizarre. I mean, I mean, we we think of the Lord Jesus as healing as he did as he did so many times. But here's a case where the demons leave. Now remember, it wasn't the Lord Jesus that made them go there, though he did permit them to. But they went over there and they caused this great damage.

38:26 Just to just... I'm running out of time, so I'll just say, you know, in the scripture, the the the hogs or the sows, they're compared to men who are going on after their own desires and lust and and and they're said, it says in in second Peter two, it says, they they're they're like a sow which returns to its wallowing in the mire. And so so the comparison is to men who who are not being subject to God at all, but they're going on their own willful, lustful ways and this is they're like pigs. They're like swine. And and and so we have a rather drastic picture that sort of plays itself out in this.

39:19 So the demons go in there under the influence of the demons, the entire herd of swine is completely destroyed And it really is a fairly graphic picture of the destruction of humanity under the influence of Satan from the time of the garden and utter destruction. It should at least make us think twice. So then immediately the ones that were keeping the swine, run into the city, they they tell. Now I looked at the map, I was guessing it was three or four miles from from the Sea Of Galilee up to Gadera, which I assume is where they came from. And and they run, they go up to the sea, so probably an hour and a half later, they're they're and they and a whole crowd of them comes down from from the whole area.

40:24 They, more and more people heard about it and they and they come down and here's the man, the thirty fifth verse. Here's the man, they find him there. The demons had departed. The demons had departed. He's delivered.

40:41 He's delivered from this terrible situation. He's sitting at Jesus' feet. Good place to be, isn't it? That shows, I think, trust in the Lord Jesus. And he was clothed and in his right mind, He was fit for society.

40:55 He was clothed. He was clothed and clothed and his madness was gone. He was restored, restored man. Now, their reaction, and I'm out of time here, so I'm just gonna say, their reaction was in the thirty seventh verse that they were seized with great fear and they asked him to depart from them because they were seized with great fear. And he got into the boat and returned.

41:26 But before he returned, he told the man that had been delivered, he told him, You go back to your city and you tell everybody what great things the Lord has done for you. And it says that he did, he went back. So the Lord left them. They didn't want him. He left them, but he left them with a witness, didn't he?

41:46 Now, I'm just gonna say this one thing that there was this unusual, the question we might ask is how effective was this man's witness? And I had noticed, one time tried to research that out and I found in the Gospel of Mark, we find that it extends what it says about this man. It says that he proclaimed throughout Decapolis. Now Decapolis is a whole region of 10 cities and And so he went throughout the whole area there and he told about the great things that the Lord Jesus had done for him. Now, we're told in the seventh chapter of Mark, two chapters later, I made an estimate that was six to eight months later.

42:33 It was after the Lord Jesus went up to Tyre and Sidon, and there he healed another demon possessed one, the the daughter of the Syrophoenician woman's, he healed her. That's the one where where where the the Lord Jesus said to the woman, oh, woman, great is your faith. Be it unto you as you desire. And and her daughter was delivered. Then it says that he came, he left Tyreseid and he came around and that he passed through Decapolis in route to the Sea Of Galilee, would have to be kind of a circular route.

43:13 And it says that when he got there into Decapolis, he was received. Before remember, they told him to leave. He was received and he did at least one notable miracle. That's the miracle where he heals the the deaf and dumb man. So I would say, Sounds pretty effective to me, doesn't it?

43:50 He is the one that can deliver us from the terrible things, circumstance of life. If we'll call upon him, I'll just quote one gospel verse verse. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. Let's pray. Father God, we thank you for these wonderful accounts of these miracles that demonstrate to us that we have such a wonderful savior that's greater than the circumstances of life and greater than the power of the enemy.

44:26 And and he's the one, Lord, that we have trusted in, and we desire for others to trust in him too because we can tell them how great things the Lord has done for us. We thank your holy name. Amen.