Gospel of Mark #3 - PM Service

In Matthew 3:2 we read of John the Baptist started to proclaim that the Kingdom of God is at hand.

The Greek for At Hand means that it is coming, it is near, it is at the threshold.

We see Jesus pick up this message and many times he references His miracles as evidence to the kingdom.

This coming Kingdom of God was something that was expected since the time of David. God promised David in 2 Samuel 7 that one of his descendents would sit on his throne forever.

There would be a Davidic King that would establish His kingdom forever and would bring a just rule to the earth.

Daniel 7 lays out this idea of an everlasting Kingdom that would be established.

Daniel 7: 13-14
13 "I kept looking in the night visions, And behold, with the clouds of heaven One like a Son of Man was coming, And He came up to the Ancient of Days And was presented before Him. 14 "And to Him was given dominion, Glory and a kingdom, That all the peoples, nations and men of every language Might serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion Which will not pass away ; And His kingdom is one Which will not be destroyed.

We notice that the one on the clouds of Heaven that was coming was called the Son of Man. Jesus would take on this title of the Son of Man.

One of the major themes of the Gospels is the coming Davidic Kingdom that Jesus was ushering in His ministry.

Tonight we will look back at the Gospel of Mark as we study through this book and look at the clash of this Kingdom with the kingdom of darkness.

In Scripture there is this conflict between what Paul in Colossians 1:13 called the domain of darkness and the Kingdom of God.

This conflict will come to life in Mark’s Gospel, specifically in the casting our of the Demonic.

Before we get to our main passage tonight in Mark 5, I want to go back and build up some background information found in Mark chapter 3 that tells us a little about this conflict and the nature of Christ’s kingdom that He came to establish.



Matthew 16: 15-19
15 He said to them, "But who do you say that I am ?" 16 Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." 17 And Jesus said to him, "Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. 18 "I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church ; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it. 19 "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven ; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven."

Peter in his foundational confession that will form the bed-rock of this Kingdom movement tells us many things. Jesus’ response to Peter informs us to the type of kingdom that He will establish.

1st of all- He makes this confession at Caesarea of Philippi and this was the place of worship of Pan. Caesarea was named for Caesar and the brother of Herod – Philip. There were two temples in Caesarea on a rocky ledge, one to Caesar and one to Pan. Very evil acts that cannot be mentioned in public occurred at the Temple of Pan.
There was an opening in the rock known as the Gates of Hades. Many scholars believe that Jesus was referring to this place when Peter made his confession.
In other words, Jesus is telling Peter and His followers that the Kingdom that He will establish will never die and it will go right into the heart of paganism and defeat it.
This would not be a place to go retreat to the wilderness but would be a Kingdom that takes the fight to Satan and His minions.

2nd Thing that we can learn from this passage is Jesus is referring back to a passage about the Davidic Kingdom in Isaiah 22.

In Isaiah 22 the Lord issues an oracle to Shebna who is the steward of King Hezekiah. Shebna is the man in charge of the King’s household. Shebna had been unfaithful and God was deposing him from his position and was establishing Eliakim as his replacement.

When this steward received his honor of being over the King’s household he was given the key to the Kingdom of David.

Isaiah 22: 20-22
20 "Then it will come about in that day, That I will summon My servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, 21 And I will clothe him with your tunic And tie your sash securely about him. I will entrust him with your authority, And he will become a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. 22 "Then I will set the key of the house of David on his shoulder, When he opens no one will shut, When he shuts no one will open.


We see the idea of keys and opening and shutting. When Jesus issues this statement to Peter he is letting everyone know that the true Davidic King was here and he was setting up his apostles as His stewards. We will witness Jesus giving this authority of binding and loosing to all of the apostles later. This idea of binding and loosing is a Rabbinic idea that relates to their teaching ministry.

We will see this apostolic authority in Jesus Kingdom many times.

With this we turn to the Gospel of Mark

Mark 3: 13-27
13 And He went up on the mountain and summoned those whom He Himself wanted, and they came to Him. 14 And He appointed twelve, so that they would be with Him and that He could send them out to preach, 15 and to have authority to cast out the demons. 16 And He appointed the twelve : Simon (to whom He gave the name Peter ), 17 and James, the son of Zebedee, and John the brother of James (to them He gave the name Boanerges, which means, "Sons of Thunder "); 18 and Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Zealot ; 19 and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Him. 20 And He came home, and the crowd gathered again, to such an extent that they could not even eat a meal. 21 When His own people heard of this, they went out to take custody of Him; for they were saying, "He has lost His senses." 22 The scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, "He is possessed by Beelzebul," and "He casts out the demons by the ruler of the demons." 23 And He called them to Himself and began speaking to them in parables, "How can Satan cast out Satan ? 24 "If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. 25 "If a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. 26 "If Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but he is finished ! 27 "But no one can enter the strong man's house and plunder his property unless he first binds the strong man, and then he will plunder his house.


In this passage we see some very important points as we unpack this idea of God’s Kingdom.

1st thing:
Jesus appointed 12. Since the Diaspora and loosing of the 10 northern tribes of Israel it had been prophesied that God would one day reestablish the 12 tribes.
This was believed to happen when the Messiah would come.

In verse 14 we read Jesus ‘appoint’ 12 disciples or literally it says that he made 12.
In Matthew 19 Jesus tell his apostles that in the last days He will sit them on 12 thrones judging the 12 tribes of Israel. Any astute observer would notice that Jesus is reconstituting Israel.

2nd thing:
In verse 24 of Mark 3 Jesus makes a reference to the Divided House after being accused of being of Satan. Jesus is making a direct reference to the divided Kingdoms of Judah and Israel. Because of their disobedience, the kingdom was rendered in half after the death of Solomon and Rheboam and Jeroboam ascended to power. Jesus is bringing something new, something that will unite humanity.
The Apostle Paul will speak of this in his epistles and we see this illustrated in Acts 2 when the apostles speak in tongues and everyone could hear them in their own language. The curse of Babel in which humanity was divided by language was symbolically reversed at Pentecost. Man is being united under a true King.
3rd thing:
Jesus is the strong man. John the Baptist predicts that one more powerful than he is coming. Jesus is the strong one.
All of these themes are going to come to bear on the passage I would like zero in on tonight. In Mark 5 we see Jesus take on the Kingdom of Darkness and we see just what this new kingdom of God will look like.


Mark 5: 1-17
1 They came to the other side of the sea, into the country of the Gerasenes. 2 When He got out of the boat, immediately a man from the tombs with an unclean spirit met Him, 3 and he had his dwelling among the tombs. And no one was able to bind him anymore, even with a chain ; 4 because he had often been bound with shackles and chains, and the chains had been torn apart by him and the shackles broken in pieces, and no one was strong enough to subdue him. 5 Constantly, night and day, he was screaming among the tombs and in the mountains, and gashing himself with stones. 6 Seeing Jesus from a distance, he ran up and bowed down before Him; 7 and shouting with a loud voice, he said, "What business do we have with each other, Jesus, Son of the Most High God ? I implore You by God, do not torment me!" 8 For He had been saying to him, "Come out of the man, you unclean spirit !" 9 And He was asking him, "What is your name ?" And he said to Him, "My name is Legion ; for we are many." 10 And he began to implore Him earnestly not to send them out of the country. 11 Now there was a large herd of swine feeding nearby on the mountain. 12 The demons implored Him, saying, "Send us into the swine so that we may enter them." 13 Jesus gave them permission. And coming out, the unclean spirits entered the swine ; and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea, about two thousand of them; and they were drowned in the sea. 14 Their herdsmen ran away and reported it in the city and in the country. And the people came to see what it was that had happened. 15 They came to Jesus and observed the man who had been demon-possessed sitting down, clothed and in his right mind, the very man who had had the "legion "; and they became frightened. 16 Those who had seen it described to them how it had happened to the demon-possessed man, and all about the swine. 17 And they began to implore Him to leave their region.




In this story of the Gerasene demoniac we can see many themes of God’s Kingdom coming to bear.

The background to this entire story is a prophecy found in Isaiah 65.

Isaiah 65: 2-4
2 "I have spread out My hands all day long to a rebellious people, Who walk in the way which is not good, following their own thoughts, 3 A people who continually provoke Me to My face, Offering sacrifices in gardens and burning incense on bricks ; 4 Who sit among graves and spend the night in secret places ; Who eat swine's flesh, And the broth of unclean meat is in their pots.

Isaiah speaks of a time when the Jews would sit among the tombs and eat pig’s flesh. Both of these actions individually would make you ceremonially unclean by themselves but combined it would make one unclean.

This story is illustrating the degradation of this community and how far they had fallen.

As we start to look at this particular story will notice a few points that we need to draw out.

1st of all:
The demoniac was so strong that he had to be bound by chains. We will learn later that this man is possessed by multiple demons. Jesus asks this man His name and in Jesus day and time this was a common theme for an exorcism, you made the possessed say their name to take authority over the situation. What is fascinating, we see that Jesus is the STRONG MAN in this situation. Jesus will be able to clean this man of his unclean spirits. The man bows to Jesus because he knows that Jesus is the stronger.

Many times we paint Jesus as a pasty, weak character but Scripture does not. Jesus is the strong man. Our Savior holds the power, not Satan.

Many times we live in fear and timidity.

2 Timothy 1:7
For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline.

God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power. This kingdom is a powerful thing.

Mark 9:1 Jesus tells His followers that they will witness the Kingdom come with Power.
We have nothing to fear because the True Strong Man is our King.

2nd of all:

God’s kingdom changes the situation and brings light to the darkness.

Jesus heals this man of the demon possession and sends the demons into a herd of swine. This is a highly symbolic action because the swine were unclean animals.

2000 pigs run into the water and are killed. The entire economy of this place is destroyed in a few seconds. I think it is interesting that when Jesus sees evil He does not shrink back and make excuses for the people practicing evil.

The Temple authority got a taste of this when Jesus ran the money changers out of the Temple.

The reaction of the people in this town is telling. They want Jesus to leave the region. They don’t want the change that the kingdom of God brings to them.

They are more concerned with their economic situation than what is right and wrong.

I think as Christians it is important to remember the type of Kingdom that God has called us to:
1) God’s Kingdom will confront the forces of darkness and destroy them.

1 John 3: 8 Jesus came to destroy the works of the Devil
That was his main purpose to come and bring the war to sin.

2) The Kingdom we belong to has a true strong man in charge and that is Christ. There is no spiritual or fleshly force that is greater than Him. He was there when this universe was framed and created.

3) God’s kingdom will unite what was once divided and scattered. There are Christians all over this world of every tongue and nationality and we are all united under on King Jesus. We are truly the first Global movement in the history of the world.

4) God’s kingdom will shake up everything. Even the economy of a region can be changed instantly because of the truth and justice that God’s kingdom will bring.