Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2966
“What have I to do with You, Jesus, You Son of the Most High God?” Mark 5:7.
WHEREVER Jesus comes, there is a commotion. No sooner does He set His foot on the shore at Gadara than He is at once assailed by the powers of darkness! And it is not long before the whole population of the district is affected by His Presence. However uninfluential other people may be, Jesus is never so. He is always either, “the savor of death unto death” or, “the savor of life unto life.” He is never a savorless Christ! Virtue is always going out of Him and that virtue stirs up the opposition of evildoers so that, straightaway, they come forth to fight against Him.
You remember that when Paul and Silas preached at Thessalonica, the unbelieving Jews cried out, “These that have turned the world upside down are come here also!” Was that an amazing thing? No, rather was it not exactly what the Lord Jesus Christ had prophesied when He said, “I came not to send peace, but a sword”? He said that because of Him, there would be division even in families, so that a man would be at variance against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a man’s foes would be those of his own household! Christ must make a stir wherever He comes and His Gospel must cause a commotion wherever it is preached. Stagnation is inconsistent with life. Death-like slumber is the condition of those who are dead in sin, but to be awakened to action is the sure consequence of the Gospel coming with power to anyone!
Yet Jesus Christ’s actions were, as a rule, very quiet and, on this occasion, He merely landed at Gadara. He had no trumpeters to herald His arrival and no squadron of cavalry to escort Him. In fulfillment of the ancient prophecy, He did not strive, nor cry, nor cause His voice to be heard in the street. He was so gentle that a bruised reed He did not break, and the smoking flax He did not quench. Yet, wherever He went, there was always a stir. Well, we might have expected that it would be so—the analogies of Nature would teach us to look for that. When the morning sun arises, without sound of drum, or tramp of armed men, straightway it causes confusion among the doers of darkness! With a roar the lion goes back to his den and the wolf and the hyena flee before the eyes of light. I daresay, too, that the owl and the bat have a very strong aversion to the rising of the sun. If they could speak their minds, they would hoot or hiss out their opinions which would probably be found to be very much opposed to anything like daylight and noontide glory! “Oh, if all the passing hours could be one long night,” says the owl, “then I could continually seek my prey. But these long summer days are obnoxious to me.” And the bat would gladly pursue his tireless flight, but the light of the sun is too much for him, so he must get back to his hiding place till again the evening shades prevail. But the sunlight is only objectionable to creatures that delight in darkness—and so it happened that Christ’s landing at Gadara was like the sun rising upon the thick darkness in which that poor tortured demoniac was dwelling—and like the sun rising upon the dense darkness of ignorance and sin in which the swine-keeping Gadarenes were dwelling! So there was quite certain to be a stir, and a commotion, and an opposition!
I trust that the Lord Jesus Christ will be with us here in the preaching of His Gospel. And if so, there will be a stir here! And if some opposition should be awakened, we shall not wonder at it. And if others should find their opposition to the Truth of God disarmed by the power and Grace of the Holy Spirit, we shall not marvel at that, for it is God’s habit thus to overcome His adversaries!
I. The first point that I shall speak upon in connection with the demoniac’s question is this—THE DEVIL
DREADS ALL CONTACT WITH CHRIST, for he moved the poor man to cry out, with a loud voice, “What have I to
do with You, Jesus, You Son of the Most High God?”
The devil dreads all contact with Christ and he does so because, first, Christ’s Nature is so contrary to his own. “Can two walk together, except they are agreed?” And these two, so far from being agreed, are absolutely opposed to each other in every respect. There is a very ancient warfare between them—a warfare which, as far as this world is concerned, was proclaimed in the Garden of Eden when God said to the serpent, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; it shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.” Christ loves light, Satan loves darkness. Christ works life, Satan works death. Christ is Love, Satan is hate. Christ is Goodness, Satan is evil. Christ is Truth, Satan is falsehood. Christ is God and Satan labors to supplant God—to set himself up for an antichrist, exalting himself above all that is called God. It is not possible that those two should dwell together in the same universe without continually coming to hand-to-hand conflicts. They are as much opposed to each other as water is to fire and, therefore, Satan cannot endure the Presence of the Lord Jesus Christ!