What a Testimony! (Mark 5:1-20) - a podcast by Don Shoemaker, Steve Williams, and Bob Wriedt
from 2023-03-19T15:00
You’ve undoubtedly seen those Before and After pictures where a person’s transformation is awe-inspiring. Someone loses 200 pounds and they’re shown holding up pants that are 10 sizes too big for them. Or, going the other direction, a 98-pound weakling becomes a competition-level body-builder. You see them Before and After and you can hardly believe it’s the same person.
Well, when we consider the Before and After of the demoniac in Mark 5, it’s hard to believe it’s the same person. The screaming, self-mutilating, naked, out-of-his-mind demon-man is pictured sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed, and in his right mind. It’s incredible that this is the same person. And it wasn’t a long, arduous diet and exercise regimen or countless hours pumping iron at the gym that led to this change. It took just one encounter with Jesus for the awe to reach the level of inspiring.
To hear more about this man and his incredible testimony, join us on Sunday.
Blessings,
Pastor Tim
They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes. 2 And when Jesus had stepped out of the boat, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit. 3 He lived among the tombs. And no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain, 4 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. 5 Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones. 6 And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and fell down before him. 7 And crying out with a loud voice, he said, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.” 8 For he was saying to him, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!” 9 And Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” He replied, “My name is Legion, for we are many.” 10 And he begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country. 11 Now a great herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, 12 and they begged him, saying, “Send us to the pigs; let us enter them.” 13 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 drowned in the sea.
14 The herdsmen fled and told it in the city and in the country. And people came to see what it was that had happened. 15 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. 16 And those who had seen it described to them what had happened to the demon-possessed man and to the pigs. 17 And they began to beg Jesus to depart from their region. 18 As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed with demons begged him that he might be with him. 19 And he did not permit him but said to him, “Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.” 20 And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him, and everyone marveled.
- Mark 5:1-20
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