[AI translation] I know very well that this is one of those stories that makes modern people slowly turn away from the Bible because it is offensive, because it is annoying, because it seems primitive. Who today, in the second half of the 20th century, in the atomic age, still believes in something like devils possessing a man, tormenting him, torturing him, chasing him?! This story comes from a time when mysterious, supernatural powers were attributed to all kinds of phenomena, but today we can analyse things physiologically and psychologically, and this so-called devil, about whom this story is told, if modern medicine were to examine him or dissect his body, it would be able to determine what lesions in the cerebral cortex or nervous system caused this unfortunate man's extraordinary behaviour... But the way it is described in the Bible, it is very old-fashioned, improbable, fabulous!It may indeed be in the language of the old world view, but it is still a very modern problem. A problem that is very useful for us to deal with now, especially on the Sunday before Communion: the power of sin and the deliverance from it!
I know that modern man does not like to talk about sin itself. The word sin itself is slowly being relegated to the church's dustbin, and is being used less and less often, and even then with a sniff, as something that is no longer relevant in a fast-paced world. But, my brethren, even if we do not talk about it, sin remains a reality, a problem. Even if we do not condemn it, sin remains sin, even if we can keep it secret, sin remains sin. Even if modern man calls it something else and talks about heredity, physical endowment, temperament, sin remains sin. And even if physiologically and psychologically it can explain a great many human oddities, it has not yet been able to free itself from the power of sin.
Here is an extreme case of the reality and power of sin, described by God in His Word two thousand years ago: in the land of the Gadarenes, on the other side of the Sea of Galilee, there lived a wretched man, described as being inhabited by a host of unclean spirits, that is, as being possessed by the devil. He behaved like a madman: he tore off his clothes, lurked among decaying corpses, lurked in tombs, attacked anyone who got in his way, and suffered terribly. No words or violence could stop him, no one could help him! This is how the Bible describes it.
Let us now try to translate this symbolic language into modern terms. Look, says God, such a fearsome, mysterious power is the sin that is in you, people! Beware! Sin does not only mean a little kicking out of the harness, a little going beyond what is free, what is fair, what is good, what is pure, what is honest, - but sin is always a certain possession, a certain bondage, a certain helplessness to some downward pull, a certain drifting by some evil current. It is a gateway through which destructive, demonic forces, dark, mysterious underworld powers break out and rule over you and all around you. Of course, it doesn't always appear so starkly. But even if it is not, sin is still such a pernicious thing.
That is why one suddenly realizes with horror that one is no longer doing what one wants to do. Remember? The apostle Paul described this terrified realization: I am not doing the good I want, but the evil I do not want. Man is almost at a loss to understand himself. He is shocked to realize: I am not in control of myself. I am doing what I know is wrong! What I know will be my undoing! I don't want to - but I must! I cannot help it! Some force has got hold of me. A classic example is the case of Judas. He could not have been an evil man, for if he had not longed to be close to God, he would not have joined Jesus. But he had a weakness, we know from the Bible, it is written: he loved money. And through this little gate of sin, the forces of Satan once came upon him so terribly that Judas fell into the most terrible abyss: he betrayed Jesus! I am convinced that if someone had told Judas beforehand what he was going to do, he would have sworn that he would not have been able to do it. But then the money rang out and Judas could no longer resist. Like a man possessed, he obeyed the corrupting force.
Brethren, I have seen many times - and I am sure many others have - a wretched man who knew very well the ruin to which his addiction, for example drink, was leading him: he would weep and beg people to help him, swear cursing that he would never do it again - and the smell from the very first liquor store would make him unable to resist the pull of the abyss any longer, he would fall into it again. He did what he didn't want to do! Once someone who was suffering so much and hated himself so much for not being able to resist the sexual impulses said. I can't help it!" And indeed, the force that pulls him down, that drives him into unfaithfulness, is greater than his own good will and discretion. "The demonic possession of which our Word speaks is precisely that our sin grows over us into a power beyond our human strength, and at one time we are actually doing what we do not want to do. Sometimes the visible signs of such bondage are engraved on people's faces, and at other times it is only the heart that secretly gropes in such a grip of all kinds of sins, in such an obsession with the power of the abyss. For what is your pride, your vanity, your envy, your anger, your nervousness, your lust, but nothing but bondage: the obsession of sin!
Here in the story we read, "Many times they bound him with frogs and chains, but he broke the chains and broke the frogs, and no one could restrain him." I think this is the most sobering realization about the invasive power of sin, that "no one can restrain it"! Laws are good and necessary, but in the end, even the strictest regulations cannot chain and punish the power of sin in the human heart. Even in martial law, burglaries and murders occur. Many people are deterred from gratifying their desires by what people will say to them if they find out - and then the impulse of sin comes upon such a man with such terrible force that he does not care if it becomes a scandal, but goes - as the Word says in one place - like oxen to the slaughter. How many times do we see that established fathers or mothers who have grown old in honour suddenly go almost mad and tear up family, marriage, old friendships, everything that was sacred to them... Or how many times has it happened that a man with a wayward, mischievous, and vicious nature, who has made his home a hellish place for his relatives, who has admitted his mistake, vowed to do otherwise, and suddenly some underworldly wave has overwhelmed him again, and all hell has broken loose again. You see, that's what God warns us about. It is a force that tears the chains of public opinion, throws off the shackles of good will and reason, breaks free from the confines of the criminal law, and once unleashed, no one can restrain it.
Then the story shows us another terrible aspect of sin. That it is always destructive, that sin is a destructive force. The question has often been asked, why did Jesus allow these so-called evil spirits to enter the herd of swine grazing there and drive them over the cliffs into the sea to perish? There are many things that could be said, but one thing is certain: one of them is to illustrate, to show by an ever-memorable example, the destructive power of sin! Behold, a whole herd of swine cannot endure the evil that destroys the heart of one man! 2,000 animals are maddened by the amount of satanic power that one man has in himself. Sin is always corrupting, destroying, ruining, bringing destruction. Let no man think, then, that he will ever attain to happiness by walking in sin. That which is attained by sin is never happy. I shall never forget the painful testimony of a young woman who once longed for a happiness that could only have been attained by an unrighteous path. She got it, she had what she wanted, but she didn't get it the right way. And then, with a sigh of dreadful disappointment, he sighed: "I have attained happiness, but it is no longer happiness." Here is what we read from the story, "The flock ran off the cliffs into the sea and drowned in the sea." This is the tendency of all sin: to be swept from the precipice into the deep, only to be crashed over by the waves of damnation.
But perhaps Jesus allowed these 2,000 pigs to perish so that, against this dark background, it might be all the more evident how precious to him was a single human life! Who once gave his own life as a ransom for man, one miserable man, one madman, one sick man, one insane lunatic, one cast-out man, one anonymous victim of sin is above all. When it is one human life, much less the eternal life of one man, there is no sacrifice that is not worth it! For it was for this one one odious, universally despised and shunned man that Jesus came across the lake to this side! And if there is someone here among us who is suffering in silence, in secret, in the grip of some sin, helplessly floundering and drifting in some evil current, then I dare to say to him that Jesus has come for him, here too! Maybe you are the one! Someone might say: how do I know that I am really the one for whom Jesus came today? Well, it's not a lottery, where there is a very small chance that you are the lucky one among many. But, if you believe and desire it, then it is quite certain that it is you, that it is for you that all this worship is happening today: that is why this church was built, that is why I studied theology once, that is why everything happened here and that is why the Holy Spirit of God wrote this strange old story in the Bible, because in all this Jesus is coming to you, coming for you! God the saviour is coming!
Look, here in this story, with what majestic divine power he commands, "Get the unclean spirit out of this man." And the awesome power that has tormented its wretched victim shrinks like a snowman in the sunshine. It cowers like a beaten dog. As great as sin is, even greater than sin is Jesus! Just as a drunkard, for example, despairs and weeps at the power of his own sin, so this sin and the evil power that rises up through it, shrivels and groans at the power of Jesus. As passion is the unquestioning master over you, so Jesus is the unquestioning master over passion. Just as you obey the evil forces that pull you down against your will, so they obey Jesus!
And do you see? Jesus came first of all for this, not only here, in this temple, but on earth in general: for this he was born, for this he suffered, for this he died, for this he rose again, to deliver you and you and me, to absolve you and to send you out like this former devil, to be the embodied argument of God's love and saving grace among you, before all men! Jesus came so that you, where you live your daily life, where you know what you were, there show what you have become - there tell and show what a great thing the Lord has done for you: that He has had mercy on you!
Amen!
Date: 21 August 1960.