Trust in King Jesus He protects you

Can Jesus be trusted?

Does He love and care for His people?

And I don’t mean like us who have good intentions of loving and caring for people, but there are so many things out of our control that we are not always able to.

Is Jesus willing and able to care for His people all the time?

That is the question we started looking at two weeks ago in Mark’s Gospel.

At the end of Mark 4, Jesus’ disciples didn’t believe that He cared for them. Especially when they found themselves in a little boat being swamped by water in a massive storm with Jesus in the back of the boat fast asleep.

It would have been quite normal for the disciples to have a certain amount of fear, but they went beyond that to being afraid that Jesus didn’t care for them and was going to let them drown.

We saw that there was no need for that kind of fear. He had clearly told them that there was still work for them to do together on earth beyond this boat ride.

And Jesus had already proved to them that they could take Him at His word.

Well, Jesus in His mercy got up, calmed the storm, showing that He was the Lord of nature. Nature does what He wants it to do. It could never stop Him from doing His will.

So, Jesus can be trusted to love and care for His people in the natural world, but is that is also true in the supernatural world?

Do you believe in the supernatural?

The Bible tells us there is a supernatural world that coexists with the natural world.

It speaks of supernatural beings like God, angels, the devil and demons. And so, as Christians we believe that to be true.

Jesus was both natural and supernatural and as we see in Mark’s Gospel He interacted with other supernatural beings.

All Christians have experienced the supernatural in one way or another.

• I have experienced the work of God in my life.
• I am not aware of experiencing the work of angels, but the Bible tells me they will be doing things on my behalf whether I know it or not.
• Unfortunately, I have experienced the work of demonic forces.

My most significant encounter with God was when He saved me and completely transformed my thinking and way of living. There is no way that the way my life was transformed could be attributed to natural processes.

I have had other experiences with God, but personally I am always amazed the most at that one. To me salvation (when you understand what it entails) is the greatest miracle ever.

Two of the encounters I have had with demonic forces were:

• A few days after I was saved (explain / also an experience with God)
• When I was in Bible college and I went on a gospel mission to an Indian community in Durban (explain / also an experience with God)

Now … if you are a Christian, do you need to fear the activity of the devil and demons?

Yes, in the sense that you are designed by God to fear that which is dangerous and harmful to you.

But no if your fear goes beyond that to being afraid that Jesus won’t care for you and protect you against them.

Because as we will see in our passage this morning…

Jesus is Lord of the supernatural world.

Read Mark 5: 1 – 20 (Pray)

Jesus is Lord of the supernatural word with power and authority over demons.

And that we see against the back drop of how utterly powerless we are against demons. 5: 1 – 5.

• People could not control the demon possessed man.
• The demon possessed man could not control the demons. His goose was well and truly cooked.

But Jesus … is infinitely more powerful than demons. 5: 6 – 13.

• Seeing Jesus (knowing who He was and what He could and one day would do to them) has the demons cowering in fear and forcing their host onto his knees in front of King Jesus in a fearful posture of submission (The demons know the truth about who Jesus is. They are not as confused as the disciples at this point).
• The demons do whatever Jesus tells them to do. He is Lord. He is King.
• Jesus, just with words, does what no other person could do even though they had tried with all their might. Jesus commands the “legion” (Legion = many. A Roman legion was 5000 men. No indication of that many but many!).

We may be powerless against them, but Jesus is Lord over even demons.

And if you trust in Jesus as your Saviour and Lord, they are powerless against you because you will come under His care and protection against them.

They never had power over that man again. Which leads me to the next point…

Jesus is Lord of the supernatural word with power and authority to supernaturally save people and change their lives for good.

Before Jesus (as we saw in 5: 2 – 5), this man was out of his mind. Shredding his skin with stones. Running around the tombs like a mad man, a zombie, shouting and screaming.

The physical chains couldn’t hold him, but the demonic chains were digging deep and painfully into his heart and mind. And no one could subdue him and help him.

By the way, just for a moment, imagine the torment this man was in. This legion of demons that caused so much havoc in two thousand pigs … were in one man!

After Jesus? 5: 15 + 18

After Jesus by the awesome power of just His words as Lord saved him, the man was found sitting, dressed and in his right mind.

Some people think that when someone becomes a Christian, they lose their minds (unfortunately some who claim to be Christians behave like that).

But when Jesus saves you, (and this doesn’t only apply to the demon possessed) you come to your senses and right mind.

And being in his right mind, the man wanted to be with Jesus. People in their right minds do.

Respond in the right way to Jesus, the Lord of the supernatural world.

The people from the area where this all happened didn’t 5: 14 – 17

The response of the people to what Jesus did was to ask Him to go away.

They might not be demon possessed, but their hearts and minds were still chained by the kingdom of darkness.

They couldn’t see Jesus for who He was and what He could and needed to do for them.

When the report gets out about what Jesus had done and the people arrive to see the man who had been demon possessed (they obviously knew of him) now sitting there in his right mind … they were afraid (not unlike the unbelieving disciples in the boat after Jesus calmed the storm). Who was this Jesus? No faith so fear. If only they had asked Him to stay and tell them more.

When they also hear about what had happened to the two thousand pigs, well that’s it. They don’t want this kind of power around. It’s frightening, and it might just ruin someone else’s business.

I don’t know what happened with these people in the future. Did they ever receive Jesus as Lord? But if they didn’t, they would (in eternity) rue the day they sent Jesus away.

So, this first mission to the gentiles didn’t go too well. But don’t be so hasty. Remember what we learned at Easter – “It’s not over”.

And in contrast to how the people responded to Jesus, there is the saved man 5: 18 – 20.

Jesus was going to leave, but this man doesn’t want Jesus to leave without him. He begs Jesus to take him with Him.

He has seen the light … how glorious it must have seemed compared to the darkness where he had been.

Amazingly, Jesus says no and appoints him as the first gentile missionary to gentiles. “It’s not over”.

If Jesus’ new disciple was disappointed, there is no record of him arguing with Jesus. He did what Jesus asked him to do.

He spread the good news about Jesus with tons of people and they were amazed. This man’s ministry had a great impact.

Sometimes Jesus says no to what we desperately want. And if we accept that and surrender to what He wants … we are candidates for Him doing really great things through us.

So, what is this passage saying to us here this morning?

Without Jesus, you are on your own in a world where there are evil supernatural beings around, hell bent on ruining people’s lives.

And being on your own, you are on a hiding to nothing if they decide to move on you directly or they to indirectly use people to bring bad things into your life. They are way more powerful than you. And no other human will have the power to help you in any significant way.

But Jesus is Lord of the supernatural. Demons cower in terror and do what He commands.

And if Jesus is your Lord, you come under His powerful care and protection and are completely safe.

Christian, you don’t have to fear things like the tape and Satanists praying against Christian marriages.

So how will you respond to Jesus this morning?

• Will you be like the people who rejected Jesus and asked Him to leave?
• Or will you be like the man who submitted to Jesus?

If you reject Him, you will not only be vulnerable to these evil beings in this life, you will also receive the just punishment that awaits all sinners and that is eternity in hell.

Which by the way you will spend with these very beings who will also one day be cast into hell for eternity. And there you will have absolutely no care and protection from Jesus.

If you ask Jesus for salvation, He will save you. Put you in your right mind. Make you a part of His glorious gospel mission on earth. And you will be under His powerful care and protection against all evil supernatural beings.

And in eternity you will join Him in heaven (and eventually on a new earth) where there will be none of these evil creatures (ever again), nor sin, death or judgement.

Only all the blessings of a God who loves you, and whose presence itself will be the greatest blessing. 

The choice is yours. Please make it today. Please choose Jesus!

Questions:

1. What supernatural experiences have you had in your life? What emotions did you experience from those experiences?
2. Answer the following questions about Jesus from Mark 5: 1 – 20:
   1. What does He do?
   2. What does that tell us about who He is?
   3. What is a proper response to who He is and what He does?
3. Apply the answers to question 2 above to your own life in 2019.
4. How should the answers to questions 2 and 3 change the emotions you experienced in question 1?