We all fall short of the glory of God and are in need of grace. In this talk, Dr. Shin will use the story of the demoniacs of the Gerasenes to illustrate the life-changing power of God’s grace and how it offers all of us hope in a world that is dying for the lack of it.

AMEN Conference 2025: Touched By Grace

<p>We all fall short of the glory of God and are in need of grace. In this talk, Dr. Shin will use the story of the demoniacs of the Gerasenes to illustrate the life-changing power of God’s grace and how it offers all of us hope in a world that is dying for the lack of it.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Adventist Medical Evangelism Network (AMEN)

General Sessions

Josianne Bailey-Abesamis

From Breakdown to Breakthrough: A Journey of Grace

Roger Seheult

Grace at Work: How Faith Transforms Physicians, Patients, and Practice

Christine Han

The Blessing of Brokenness and Grace

Brent Sherwin

Laura Sherwin

Instruments of Healing, Witnesses of Grace

Anthony Baca

Mark Finley

Touched by Grace: Heaven’s Revelation of Jesus - Sabbath School Discussion

Daniel Jiao

Touched by Grace

John Shin

Amazing Grace

Heavenly Father, what an amazing privilege it is to be able to work for You and to dedicate our lives to You.

Lord, reflecting on the theme of Your incredible grace, Heavenly Father, we realize that our issue is not that there's not enough grace there, but that we've become unable to comprehend and experience Your grace.

So Lord, as I share my message tonight, I pray that your grace will envelop this room and that you will help people to know that there is always hope in you.

So I work in medical oncology and I specialize actually in genitourinary cancers and the largest tumor type within that category is prostate cancer.

So I have 1 patient whom I'll call Robert.

He's a very kind and gentle soul, kind of looks like a grizzled biker Santa Claus.

He has shock white hair and a white beard and likes to wear denim.

And so this man came into my clinic and I remember the first day I met with him, I didn't really know how to size him up because he looks like a burly, tough, rumble, biker, older guy, but he had a very gentle, quiet demeanor which didn't match the way he looked.

And for some reason, what I remember most about Robert is that from the day I met him, he seemed a little sad to me.

As I got to know him, I found out that he came from a Christian background but was no longer practicing.

However, he wanted his children, his family, to stay in the church, which I thought was curious because he felt that that would be good for them.

And the interesting thing was that although he no longer considered himself really a Christian, he didn't want his children to end up like him.

He wanted them to have a real relationship with God.

So when he mentioned this during 1 of our visits, I asked him, Robert, do you feel like your relationship with God isn't real?

Because he said that he still believed in God, even though he didn't consider himself really to be a Christian.

He was thinking more of like a higher power kind of a thing.

So I said, do you feel like your relationship with God isn't real?

Shen, I believe that God is real, but I've never really obeyed him.

So it hasn't been much of a relationship You see he was an alcoholic and He refused to give up his drinking he knew it was wrong He knew he should cut down but he didn't want to stop He blamed it on his chronic back pain because he had this terrible back pain for a long time.

He had a motor vehicle accident in the past, and he said his opioid pain medications didn't touch his pain, so the only thing that can keep him sane is his drinking.

And at least that's the excuse he used for why he needed to drink.

Over the course of years, his family, his friends, his doctors, All have begged him to stop drinking, but he kept on drinking and it actually resulted in a divorce and Now he's remarried and his current wife was starting to complain about his drinking as well But he told me that the problem was that his drinking no longer bothered him.

In the past, he used to feel really guilty about his drinking.

That's kind of how he set it out for me and He said when I told when I was gently suggesting that hey, there's always a possibility that people can change don't write yourself off And he knew that I was a Christian, and so he says, you know, God helps those who help themselves.

I haven't really helped myself, so God can't really help me.

And I said, Robert, It's never too late to start with God." And he looked at me and he said, Oh, Dr.

I was really struck by that, the way he said it.

I can't remember talking to someone who had pure, certain hopelessness in his eyes, like Robert.

It made me wonder, was it really too late for this man?

He didn't really fit my image of someone who's irreparably lost, right?

He's a decent person with good moral principles who felt like he was lost because he clung to a cherished sin and seared his conscience over and over and over again and Now he was spiritually numb And he felt like he had no hope.

And my question is, can you relate to Robert?

Do you attend church, come to these conferences, and you look left and right, and you see all these people being moved, but maybe you feel numb or dead inside?

Have you lived so long with an unsurrendered heart that your sins don't even bother you anymore?

We talked all this weekend about God's grace, but even grace has a limit, doesn't it?

My patient, Robert, he felt certain that he had reached that limit.

And maybe you wonder if you've met that limit too.

Because I want to tell you about the most hopeless case in the Bible.

I'm going to stay in Mark chapter 5 and this is a story we all know very well, the story of the demoniacs.

Then they came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gadarenes, and when he had come out of the boat, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit who had his dwelling among the tombs, and no 1 could bind him, not even with chains, because he had often been bound with shackles and chains, and the chains had been pulled apart by him, and the shackles broken in pieces.

Neither could anyone tame him, and always night and day he was in the mountains and in the tombs, crying out and cutting himself with stones.

So it's interesting, although Mark and Luke mention only 1 demoniac, Matthew mentions 2, perhaps 1 was more outspoken, we don't know.

But for the purposes of this talk, I'm going to just focus on the 1 and act as if there is a 1.

And when we read this description of the demoniac, it really shocks our sensibilities, right?

If you can picture in your mind what this demoniac must have looked like to Jesus and the disciples stepping out of the boat, Imagine what you would have thought if you're 1 of those disciples, this wild, crazy man emerging from the tombs, right?

However, I want to make the case that this demoniac represents you and me.

And in this story, we actually have more in common with the demoniac than 1 of the disciples.

So let's examine the demoniac more closely.

First, Luke gives us an additional detail that's not found in Mark.

And in Luke 8, 27, it says, And when he'd, Jesus, stepped out on the land, there met him a certain man from the city who had demons for a long time, and he wore no clothes, nor did he live in a house, but in the tombs.

Do you know what clothing represents or symbolizes in the Bible?

Do you know what the first mention of clothing or lack thereof is in the Bible?

The moment they sinned, they realized they were naked, and they immediately tried to sew fig leaves together to cover their nakedness.

From the very beginning, clothing is intimately associated with our loss of righteousness.

But then we look to the future and we see clothing symbolized in the regaining of righteousness.

In Revelation 7 verses 13 and 14 it says, And 1 of the elders answered, saying to me, These who are clothed in the white robes, who are they and from where have they come?

And he said to me, These are the ones who have come out of the great tribulation, and they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

So we, like this demoniac, have lost our righteousness.

The world may praise us for being healthcare professionals, our patients may put us on a pedestal, but at the end of the day, all of our righteousness is like filthy rags before a righteous God.

We stand naked before Him as we attempt to cover ourselves up with fig leaves of our own making.

So we are spiritually naked, just like this demoniac.

There's another detail about this demoniac, and that he was cutting himself with stones.

Do you remember or do you recall any other story in the Bible that depicts people cutting themselves?

Prophets of Baal, okay, and I hear Mount Carmel.

The 450 prophets of Baal in 1 Kings 18.28, it says, "'So they cried aloud and cut themselves "'as was their custom with knives and lances "'until the blood gushed out on them.'" So it's interesting that In this pagan religion, self-mutilation was their custom.

It wasn't saying, hey, for this special occasion, they brought the lances out.

They said, as was their custom, this is what they do.

It's interesting to me that when we look at occult and pagan religions throughout history, this element of self-mutilation is very frequently encountered.

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Series

General Sessions

Amazing Grace

Transcript

Description

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Pathfinder Parade

21m

Revelation Today Crusade

11. Antichrist Exposed- Part 2

59m

The School with No Graduation

39m

Hope in the Future

Hope in the Future- Part 4

58m

Kingdom of Gentleness

59m

The Unveiling

Vision of Christ & the Seven Churches

47m

Plenary

Giving Up All

44m

Accessing the Supernatural: From New Age to Scripture Memory

58m

Gerard Damsteegt: Spring 2013 Week of Prayer

Revival and the Present Truth

37m

Living Faith

1h 6m

That Woman: Resurrecting the Three Angels

50m

Sound Doctrine