Previously on Lessons from the Great Physician:
Lesson One: Establish the will of God
Lesson Two: Accept the authority of God’s Word
Lesson Three: Recognize your family rights
Lesson Four: Have Faith in your own faith
The fifth lesson from the Great Physician is found in the healing of the demonized Gadarene man in Matthew 8:28-34. The same incident is also recorded in Mark 5:1-21 and Luke 8:26-39. “Matthew speaks of ‘two demoniacs’ while Luke mentions only one, the leading one” (Robertson’s Word Pictures). The key to the main point of the fifth lesson is at the close of the incident in Mark 5:19: “[Jesus] said to him, ‘Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you…'” (ESV).
Let’s set the scene. “And when he [Jesus] came to the other side, to the country of the Gadarenes, two demon-possessed men met him, coming out of the tombs, so fierce that no one could pass that way. And behold, they cried out, ‘What have you to do with us, O Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the time?'” (Matthew 8:28-29 ESV). Note that the demons in the man knew who Jesus was, and that they would eventually be destroyed.
We see the same situation with the seven sons of Sceva in Acts 19:13-16. They tried their hand in the religious business but were not followers of Christ. They said to a demon, “We exorcise you by the Jesus whom Paul preaches” (verse 13). “And the evil spirit answered and said, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are you?” (verse 15 NKJV). The demon knew who Jesus was, and knew that Christ was in Paul but not in the sons of Sceva! “Then the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, overpowered them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded” (verse 16).
Mark tells us of the terrible plight of the worst of these men in Gadara. “And when Jesus had stepped out of the boat, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit. He lived among the tombs. And no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain, for he had often been bound with shackles and chains, but he wrenched the chains apart, and he broke the shackles in pieces. No one had the strength to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones” (Mark 5:2-5).
This man desperately needed the Great Physician, but seemed powerless to receive help or even to ask for it. Jesus was more than able to handle this situation. When the demons knew that they would be cast out by the Son of God, they requested to be sent into a herd of pigs nearby, “and he said unto them, ‘Go.'” (Matthew 8:32). “So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out, and entered the pigs, and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea and were drowned in the sea” (Mark 5:13). The three texts give no indication as to why Jesus gave them permission to do what they wanted, so it is useless to surmise.
“The herdsmen fled and told it in the city and in the country. And people came to see what it was that had happened. And they came to Jesus and saw the demon-possessed man, the one who had had the legion, sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid. And those who had seen it described to them what had happened to the demon-possessed man and to the pigs. And they began to beg Jesus to depart from their region” (Mark 5:14-17). Mark attributes their hostility as based in fear, “they were afraid” — afraid of a man with such power and possibly afraid when they saw their source of income vanish in the Sea of Galilee!
Now we come to the heart of the lesson. Only Mark and Luke record the free man begging Jesus that he might stay with him and the disciples. Jesus denied his request and said to him, “Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you…” Speaking and proclaiming your healing or deliverance is the final essential step you must take. There are two reasons for this: first, it is an affirmation for you, to declare to yourself that you are healed regardless of what you see, and second, it is a testimony to encourage those who hear it that God is alive and can work on their behalf as He has on yours. When the lame man was healed in Acts 3, the immediate result after Peter’s teaching was that 5,000 men were saved!
In Hebrews 3:1 the Jesus way is called “our confession,” and in 4:14 we are encouraged to “hold fast our confession.” Yet so many get “hung by the tongue” and find there is “no relief in unbelief.” They say they “can’t feel it yet,” but the Word teaches to speak it forth whether they feel it or not. Say what the Word says, not what your body might be telling you. So talk is not cheap; it is expensive and emotive.
On the basis of many places in the Word, we could say we should first praise God for the blessing we have received. For example, Ephesians 5:20 states that we should be “giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” When we have thanked him, we can then “go and tell how much the Lord has done for you.” Our confession imprisons us or sets us free! — Peter Wade.
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