The Warrior King, Pt. 1

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Our culture loves stories about warriors and champions. We expect them to rescue the weak, stop disasters, and ultimately save the world! But what if our heroes don’t do what we expect or what we want? Pastor Nick Gatzke reveals the remarkable power of Jesus and what He chose to do with His unlimited power.

I want to ask you to grab a Bible with me and open to the Gospel of Mark chapter 5. And as you turn, the greatest warriors in the world have incredible strength. The greatest warriors in the world have precise tactics. They have the abilities in the field of battle that set them apart from all of those around them. But the greatest warriors in the world also have a very serious and difficult question that is ever before them. And the question is this, who will they give mercy to and who will they not? Jesus was on the move again, announcing the kingdom of God. This was the message that he preached when he came from place to place, from people to people. But this move that we see in Mark chapter five was different. Up to this point in Jesus’s ministry, he had been focused among the Jews.

He taught in Jewish synagogues. He addressed Jewish expectations. He engaged the Jewish religious leaders, and he called Jewish followers to be Jewish disciples. But all of this was about to change. The kingdom of God was expanding. Jesus is now displaying himself as a warrior. He’s about to go to battle. And the question will be before him. Who will I give mercy to? And who will I not? And we see that in Mark chapter five, starting at verse one. Follow with me as we read. It says that “they came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes. And when Jesus had stepped out of the boat, immediately there met him out. He lived among the tombs, and no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain. 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.

Night and day. Among the tombs and on the mountain, he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones. And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and fell down before him 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.’ For he was saying to him, come out of the man, you unclean spirit. And Jesus asked him, ‘What is your name?’ He replied, ‘My name is Legion, for we are many.’ And he begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country. Now a great herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside and they begged him saying, ‘Let us, or send us into the pigs, let us enter into them.’ And so he gave them permission.

And the unclean spirits came out and entered the pigs. And the herd, numbering about 2,000, rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the sea. The herdsmen fled and told it in the city and in the country and the people came to see what had happened. And they came to Jesus and they saw the demon-possessed man, the one who had the legion sitting there, clothed in his right mind, and they were afraid. And those who had seen it described to them what had happened, and the demon-possessed man, and to the pigs. And they began to beg Jesus to depart from the region. As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed with the demons begged him that he might be with him, 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, mercy on you.’ And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him, and everyone marveled.” Jesus was in the boat. He was headed to the east side of the Sea of Galilee, to the region of the Gerasenes. This was a Decapolis of about 10 cities that contained a mixture of Gentiles, Jews, Romans, and half-blooded Jews. And this region and who lives there is not an insignificant detail to the events that would follow because now the Jewish Messiah was going to the Gentiles and to the Roman occupiers and to the non-practicing Jews and to the half-breeds. The Jewish Messiah was going to the unclean ones.

Let’s be clear. When we say the unclean ones, we mean that these were the ones who were indifferent toward God and some of them were God haters. The Gentiles didn’t value the worship of God or following the Old Testament law. The Romans worshiped Caesar as their God, and they conquered Jerusalem and stood against the people of God, the non-practicing Jews ignored their spiritual heritage and all of the promises of God in exchange for self-interest, and those who were half-Jewish in their birth. were the product of an unclean union and thus considered to be outcasts or second-class citizens among the purebred Jews. And the Jewish Messiah just crossed the lake to go to the unclean ones. And as he arrives, he is shortly thereafter met by a demon-possessed man. And the words here are very specific. In verse two, he is said to have an unclean spirit.

In verses 14 and 15, he’s described as being demonized. This one is unclean and evil. And we’ll come back to that in just a minute. The picture that’s given of the man’s life is absolutely heartbreaking. And you can almost fill in the blanks of the history and the spaces of his regression. And imagine what it must have been like. Somewhere along the way, the man allowed sin to take a hold in his life. He didn’t fight it. He embraced it.

And as he embraced it, the grip of this sin tightened upon him. Perhaps he was just dabbling in things of spiritual nature, maybe the occult. Maybe he was engaging in illicit sexual activities. Perhaps it was something seemingly mundane to him, but self-serving. that he had control, but he opened the door to Satan through his activities. He welcomed the spiritual servants of the evil one in, and he lost control, and they took control, and his life continued to spiral downward. It went from a filthy secret type of living on the inside that probably not a lot of others saw, to a filthy living on the outside that everyone saw. Soon his relationships were strained.

After a while, his family became afraid of him. His sin and the evil forces now terminated any healthy relationship the man had. And they were just taking over his desires. They were taking over his body as well, uncontrollable outbursts, shrieking and screaming, in agony and terror, and eventually the man was banished to the tombs. They tried to chain him or attach him to a rock or a tree or a pillar. Many men would come upon him to subdue him, but to no avail. He had supernatural strength that would come upon him in bursts of rage, and he would break the chains that bound him. His odor was strong. His body was covered with infected wounds, and he regularly cut himself in outbursts that attempted to drive the demons away from him. Children would steer clear of the place that they thought him to be. Adults would keep their distance unless they were in a large group. He was sick. He was smelly.

He was unpredictable. He was naked. And the local townspeople could hear his screams in the quiet of the night. And now he is approaching Jesus. And we see in verses six through eight that the warrior goes to war. It says, “When he saw Jesus from afar, He ran and he fell down before him, crying out with a loud voice, ‘What have you to do with me, Jesus, the son of the most high? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.’” For he was saying, come out of the man, you unclean spirit. The man and the demons knew that Jesus was capable in the battle that would ensue. This battle was a spiritual battle. But the battleground happened in the realm of a person’s body. Don’t torment me, cried the man after identifying the authority that Jesus had as the son of God. Jesus was calling the unclean spirit out of the man. His endeavor was to make the unclean one clean. And upon asking the demon’s name, you see just how significant this demonization really is.

As he says, “My name is Legion, for we are many.” The battle lines are now drawn. Using the language of the Roman occupiers, those hated by the Jews, the unclean soldiers of the land, the demon points to his strength in numbers because a Roman legion had… a soldier group of 6,000 foot soldiers and about 120 horsemen, along with other technical support and personnel. The legion of Rome or the legions of Rome were well-organized, massive killing machines. They conquered the known world. It was the legions of Rome that never relented. It was the legions that turned independent nations into slaves under the banner of the empire. And now a legion of demons who had just made this man their slave was lining up against Jesus.

6,000 to one. But it didn’t matter. They knew that they were beat in the battle before it ever began. It’s striking to think about. Just try to get your mind around the reality. 6,000 wicked, strong, united spiritual beings showing supernatural strength lining up against Jesus.

One would expect this battle to be over in just a few minutes. One would expect the legion to close in. on the one man, to mess with him a little bit, to mock him, to make him suffer, and then to eventually end his life. 6,000 to one. But this is no ordinary warrior. This is the warrior king. And the shocking thing is that before the battle even begins, the 6,000 begin to negotiate their surrender, whole interaction that’s developing has a meaning underneath it. The clues are all there. This is not just a battle about spiritual power, though it is. This is a battle about what spirituality produces or doesn’t.

This is a battle about clean versus unclean. The Jewish Messiah, Going to the unclean people, he meets the most unclean of the unclean people. He’s in a town with people who are unclean. He’s there intentionally. He went to them. He’s now in a graveyard, which would quite obviously be considered unclean, according to Jewish custom. And he comes to a man who is physically unclean, ceremonially unclean, and he has an unclean spirit, but not just one unclean spirit, 6,000 of them. And Jesus went to him. He went to the one who is the most filthy physically and the most filthy spiritually among the most filthy people. And he is going to wage a spiritual war on the uncleanliness against God. But not wage war on those who are unclean.

He’s waging the war on uncleanliness itself, on impurity itself, on the one who makes people unclean, Satan himself. Being clean before God is not just the desire of every person. It’s actually the requirement of every person because God will not tolerate those who are unclean in his presence. Some time ago, a survey of Japanese and American parents revealed much about the values that people in various cultures hold dear. The question was submitted to these parents, what do you wish the most for your children? And the leading response among the Japanese parents at the time was that they wanted their children to be successful. And this was a reflection, of course, of the high value that the Japanese place on marketplace success. The most frequent wish among American parents for their children was happiness, a reflection of a feel-good culture. And it’s interesting, that God states repeatedly through his scripture that his desire for his children is neither success nor happiness, but instead his desire is that we be like him.

His desire for his children is that they be holy. And one of the fascinating progressions of the internal nature of this story is the movement from being unclean to being The spirit is referred to as an unclean spirit and then referred to as a legion of demons, unclean to demonic, unclean to evil. The place that Jesus is in goes from an unclean people, at large to an evil person in the cemetery, unclean to evil. Our cleanliness, uncleanliness, my uncleanliness, your uncleanliness is not just slightly dirty. It’s not just a unpleasant position to hold.

It’s actually completely opposed to God. Uncleanliness before God results, is a result of evil. And Jesus comes and he achieves victory over both uncleanliness and evil.

So listen, at the peak of their interaction, the legion negotiates their surrender. Says, please don’t send us out of the country. Send us into this herd of pigs, they cried. Pigs, consequently, pork, as you know, were considered to be unclean in the Jewish law. So the unclean spirits are now allowed to go into unclean beasts and immediately they run off the edge of the cliff and they die. It’s unclear why Jesus allowed them to do it. I mean, some scholars think that perhaps it’s because those who were the swine herders were unfaithful Jews, and this big loss of business was judgment upon them. Others postulate that the swine were a food source for the Roman legion, and others detached in Jerusalem, and that was judgment upon them. Still others believe that Knowing the swine would plunge to their death, that is actually a judgment on the demons themselves as they would become disembodied and therefore go into the place of judgment. Still others think that the word for sea that they plunged into the sea is the same word as abyss. The only other time that word is used in the Bible is to refer to hell. Maybe Jesus was casting the demons. into hell. Could be one of those last two options, but regardless, that’s not the real point.

The point is this, Jesus is victorious over the spiritual realm and he is able to rescue those who are unclean. The warrior king has come to rescue those who are unclean, even the most unclean, even the most evil.

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** This transcript was generated using AI transcription technology and reviewed for accuracy, but may contain errors. Please refer to the original audio for precise wording.