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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Alison Geslani

From Despair to Deliverance to Disciple

My heart is just bursting with joy to see these students who have changed so much.

You should have seen them the first day of class.

And now here they are giving their testimony.

And that is the power of Christ, of the Holy Spirit, how he comes in and just changes you completely and fully.

That's a little bit of what we'll be talking about today.

For those of you who don't know, my name is Allison.

And many of you know me as the something is happening girl.

It's funny because I'll be in the cafeteria, just this week I was eating in the cafeteria and someone came up to me and was like, something is happening.

And I was like, yes, something is happening.

I'm Allison and it's so fun to meet you out there.

I love having that name, something is happening, but my name is Allison.

So next time you see me, just say, hey Allison.

My message today is entitled, From Despair to Deliverance to disciple.

And let's go ahead and start with a word of prayer.

Dear Heavenly Father, we come here for a special purpose to hear your voice, to hear your message.

Father, I pray now that you hide me behind your cross.

Father, claim your promise in Zechariah 4 6 that it's not by my might or by my power nor by any eloquence of my own words or human wisdom, but it's only by your Spirit, Father.

And so I pray now that you empty me of self, that you fill me and fill us, Father, with your Holy Spirit.

This is our earnest plea, and we pray this in your Son Jesus' name.

Turn with me and your Bibles to Mark, the fifth chapter.

And we know Mark is the shortest of the Gospels, but it's actually the longest account of the story that we'll be looking at today.

This miracle is recorded by 3 of the 4 Gospel writers.

It's found in Matthew 8, Mark 5, and Luke 8.

But we'll just study the story in Mark today and kind of cross-reference a little bit.

The background to the story, Jesus had just crossed the Sea of Galilee.

He had just stilled the stormy seas and put his hand up and said, peace be still.

And they had just landed on the shores of the country of Gadarenes, a town called Gadara, east of the Jordan.

Let's read Mark chapter 5, verses 1 through 5.

And they came over unto the other side of the sea, into the country of the Gadarenes.

And when he was come out of the ship, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, who had his dwelling among the tombs, And no man could bind him, no, not with chains.

Because that he had been often bound with fetters and chains.

And the chains had been plucked asunder by him.

And the fetters broken in pieces, neither could any man tame him.

And always night and day he was in the mountains and in the tombs crying and cutting himself with stones.

A man ravaged with demons, bloody wrists and ankles from the chains that had bound him, maybe to the tombs.

He was roaming around crying out night and day, relentlessly cutting himself with stones.

In verse 4, it says that he could not be tamed.

This man, this ravaged man looked more like the wild beasts of the field than a human being.

What an awful, miserable, horrid state to be in.

Luke adds a little more detail in Luke 8, 27.

And when he went forth to land it's up on the screen there met him out of the city a certain man which had devils long time and wear no clothes neither a boat in any house but in the tomb How long had he been like this?

The Bible doesn't say exactly how many years, but a long time.

He had been living in the tombs naked and without any clothes.

Matthew 8 28 also adds to the story, and when he was come to the other side into the country of the Jurgensians there met him 2 possessed with devils." So Matthew's account actually says that there were 2 devil-possessed men coming out of the tombs exceedingly fierce so that no man might pass by that way.

So we begin to put the piece together from these 3 gospel writers and what a sad picture that it paints of this man possessed by demons.

He always broke through, he was crying out with these incomprehensible sounds.

This man was in utter despair, hopeless and helpless.

This was the result of the devil's working in his life.

I don't know what his background could have been, but I'm sure he never wished for this to be the life that he would end up with.

I wonder as a little boy if he had dreams maybe to become a fisherman or a farmer, to live in the country with a house and have a family and a white picket fence, but how did he suck them to the state, to the state of utterable wretchedness and a horrific picture?

How did he become possessed with so many demons?

Maybe it was a little sorcery here, a little witchcraft there maybe, maybe a little innocent book, a game, a movie.

Don't give the devil any foothold into your life by what you let to enter in through your senses, whether that be by what you see, by what you hear.

Ephesians 5.11 said, and have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness.

We've all seen people like this before, maybe not to this extent as the demon possessed man.

But we've seen those people on the street, the homeless people, their hair matted, dusky looking color on their faces, the pungent smell of odor surrounding them.

How quickly we try to avoid eye contact and walk straight ahead, not wanting to look at them.

What is it about us that makes us do that?

Jesus went directly up to this man And he crossed the Sea of Galilee to meet this demon-possessed man.

When he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and worshipped him.

And he cried out with a loud voice and said, what have I to do with you, Jesus, son of the most high God?

I implore you by God that you do not torment me.

Interesting to note that when the demon possessed man first sees Jesus, what does he do?

Luke 8, 28 says that the man falls down at the feet of Jesus.

This demon possessed man, even though he was possessed of demons, the devils know how to worship the Almighty God.

They know when they're in the presence of the infinite God.

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From Despair to Deliverance to Disciple

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