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Rev. Keith can be reached at
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Reading: Mark 4:35 - 5:20
(Amplified)
On
that same day when evening had come, Jesus said to them, "Let us go over to the
other side of the lake." And leaving the throng, they took Him with them, just
as He was, in the boat in which He was sitting. And other boats were with Him.
And a furious storm of wind of hurricane proportions arose, and the waves kept
beating into the boat, so that it was already becoming filled. But He Himself
was in the stern of the boat, asleep on the leather cushion; and they awoke Him
and said to Him, "Master, do You not care that we are perishing?"
And He arose and rebuked the wind and said to the
sea, "Hush now! Be still!" And the wind ceased and there was immediately a
great calm, a perfect peacefulness. He said to them, "Why are you so timid and
fearful? How is it that you have no firmly relying trust?"
And they were filled with great awe and feared exceedingly and
said one to another, "Who then is this, that even wind and sea obey Him?" They
came to the other side of the sea to the region of the Gerasenes. And as soon
as He got out of the boat, there met Him out of the tombs a man under the power
of an unclean spirit. This man continually lived among the tombs, and no one
could subdue him any more, even with a chain; for he had been bound often with
shackles for the feet and handcuffs, but the handcuffs of chains he wrenched
apart, and the shackles he rubbed and ground together and broke in pieces; and
no one had strength enough to restrain or tame him. Night and day among the
tombs and on the mountains he was always shrieking and screaming and beating
and bruising and cutting himself with stones.
And when from a distance he saw Jesus, he ran and fell on his
knees before Him in homage, and crying out with a loud voice, he said, "What
have You to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I solemnly implore you
by God, do not begin to torment me!"
For Jesus
was commanding, "Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!" And He asked him,
"What is your name?" He replied, "My name is Legion, for we are many." And he
kept begging Him urgently not to send them [himself and the other demons] away
out of that region. Now a great herd of hogs was grazing there on the hillside.
And the demons begged Him, saying, "Send us to the hogs, that we may go into
them!" So He gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out of the man
and entered into the hogs; and the herd, numbering about 2,000, rushed headlong
down the steep slope into the sea and were drowned in the sea. The hog feeders
ran away, and told it in the town and in the country. And the people came to
see what it was that had taken place. And they came to Jesus and looked
intently and searchingly at the man who had been a demoniac, sitting there,
clothed and in his right mind, the same man who had had the legion of demons;
and they were seized with alarm and struck with fear.
And those who had seen it related in full what had happened to
the man possessed by demons and to the hogs. And they began to beg Jesus to
leave their neighborhood. And when He had stepped into the boat, the man who
had been controlled by the unclean spirits kept begging Him that he might be
with Him.
But Jesus
refused to permit him, but said to him, "Go home to your own family and
relatives and friends and bring back word to them of how much the Lord has done
for you, and how He has had sympathy for you and mercy on you." And he departed
and began to publicly proclaim in Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him,
and all the people were astonished and marveled.
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