18 And when he was come into the ship, he that had been possessed with the devil prayed him that he might be with him.

Ver. 18. Prayed him that he might be with him ] This poor man had tasted how good the Lord is, and desired therefore to abide with him; when his countrymen of Gadara had only seen his power, and were therefore glad to be rid of him.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

18. ] Euthym [16] and Theophyl. suppose that he feared a fresh incursion of the evil spirits.

[16] Euthymius Zigabenus, 1116

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Mar 5:18 . , embarking, the same day? Jesus had probably intended to stay some days on the eastern shore as on the hill (Mar 3:13 ), to let the crowd disperse. : an object clause after verb of exhorting with , and subjunctive instead of infinitive as often in N. T., that he might be with Him (recalling Mar 3:14 ). The man desired to become a regular disciple. Victor of Ant., Theophy., Grotius, and partly Schanz think his motive was fear lest the demons might return.

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

Mark

THE LORD OF DEMONS

A REFUSED REQUEST

Mar 5:18 – Mar 5:19 .

There are three requests, singularly contrasted with each other, made to Christ in the course of this miracle of healing the Gadarene demoniac. The evil spirits ask to be permitted to go into the swine; the men of the country, caring more for their swine than their Saviour, beg Him to take Himself away, and relieve them of His unwelcome presence; the demoniac beseeches Him to be allowed to stop beside Him. Two of the requests are granted; one is refused. The one that was refused is the one that we might have expected to be granted.

Christ forces Himself upon no man, and so, when they besought Him to go, He went, and took salvation with Him in the boat. Christ withdraws Himself from no man who desires Him. ‘Howbeit Jesus suffered him not, and said, Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee.’

Now, do you not think that if we put these three petitions and their diverse answers together, and look especially at this last one, where the natural wish was refused, we ought to be able to learn some lessons? The first thing I would notice is, the clinging of the healed man to his Healer.

Think of him half an hour before, a raging maniac; now all at once conscious of a strange new sanity and calmness; instead of lashing himself about, and cutting himself with stones, and rending his chains and fetters, ‘sitting clothed, and in his right mind,’ at the feet of Jesus. No wonder that he feared that when the Healer went the demons would come back-no wonder that he besought Him that he might still keep within that quiet sacred circle of light which streamed from His presence, across the border of which no evil thing could pass. Love bound him to his Benefactor; dread made him shudder at the thought of losing his sole Protector, and being again left, in that partly heathen land, solitary, to battle with the strong foes that had so long rioted in his house of life. And so ‘he begged that he might be with Him.’

That poor heathen man-for you must remember that this miracle was not wrought on the sacred soil of Palestine-that poor heathen man, just having caught a glimpse of how calm and blessed life might be, is the type of us all. And there is something wrong with us if our love does not, like his, desire above all things the presence of Jesus Christ; and if our consciousness of impotence does not, in like manner, drive us to long that our sole Deliverer shall not be far away from us. Merchant-ships in time of war, like a flock of timid birds, keep as near as they can to the armed convoy, for the only safety from the guns of the enemy’s cruisers is in keeping close to their strong protector. The traveller upon some rough, unknown road, in the dark, holds on by his guide’s skirts or hand, and feels that if he loses touch he loses the possibility of safety. A child clings to his parent when dangers are round him. The convalescent patient does not like to part with his doctor. And if we rightly learned who it is that has cured us, and what is the condition of our continuing whole and sound, like this man we shall pray that He may suffer us to be with Him. Fill the heart with Christ, and there is no room for the many evil spirits that make up the legion that torments it The empty heart invites the devils, and they come back, Even if it is ‘swept and garnished,’ and brought into respectability, propriety, and morality, they come back, There is only one way to keep them out; when the ark is in the Temple, Dagon will be lying, like the brute form that he is, a stump upon the threshold. The condition of our security is close contact with Jesus Christ. If we know the facts of life, the temptations that ring us round, the weakness of these wayward wills of ours, and the strength of this intrusive and masterful flesh and sense that we have to rule, we shall know and feel that our only safety is our Master’s presence.

Further, note the strange refusal.

Jesus Christ went through the world, or at least the little corner of it which His earthly career occupied, seeking for men that desired to have Him, and it is impossible that He should have put away any soul that desired to be present with Him. Yet, though His one aim was to draw men to Him, and the prospect that He should be able to exercise a stronger attraction over a wider area reconciled Him to the prospect of the Cross, so that He said in triumph, ‘I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me,’ he meets this heathen man, feeble in his crude and recent sanity, with a flat refusal. ‘He suffered him not.’ Most probably the reason for the strange and apparently anomalous dealing with such a desire was to be found in the man’s temperament. Most likely it was the best thing for him that he should stop quietly in his own house, and have no continuance of the excitement and perpetual change which would have necessarily been his lot if he had been allowed to go with Jesus Christ. We may be quite sure that when the Lord with one hand seemed to put him away, He was really, with a stronger attraction, drawing him to Himself; and that the peculiarity of the method of treatment was determined with exclusive reference to the real necessities of the person who was subject to it.

But yet, underlying the special case, and capable of being stated in the most general terms, lies this thought, that Jesus Christ’s presence, the substance of the demoniac’s desire, may be as completely, and, in some cases, will be more completely, realised amongst the secularities of ordinary life than amidst the sanctities of outward communion and companionship with Him. Jesus was beginning here to wean the man from his sensuous dependence upon His localised and material presence. It was good for him, and it is good for us all, to ‘feel our feet,’ so to speak. Responsibility laid, and felt to be laid, upon us is a steadying and ennobling influence. And it was better that the demoniac should learn to stand calmly, when apparently alone, than that he should childishly be relying on the mere external presence of his Deliverer.

Be sure of this, that when the Lord went away across the lake, He left His heart and His thoughts, and His care and His power over there, on the heathen side of the sea; and that when ‘the people thronged Him’ on the other side, and the poor woman pressed through the crowd, that virtue might come to her by her touch, virtue was at the same time raying out across the water to the solitary newly healed demoniac, to sustain him too.

And so we may all learn that we may have, and it depends upon ourselves whether we do or do not have, all protection all companionship, and all the sweetness of Christ’s companionship and the security of Christ’s protection just as completely when we are at home amongst our friends-that is to say, when we are about our daily work, and in the secularities of our calling or profession-as when we are in the ‘secret place of the Most High’ and holding fellowship with a present Christ. Oh, to carry Him with us into every duty, to realise Him in all circumstances, to see the light of His face shine amidst the darkness of calamity, and the pointing of His directing finger showing us our road amidst all perplexities of life! Brethren, that is possible. When Jesus Christ ‘suffered him not to go with Him,’ Jesus Christ stayed behind with the man.

Lastly, we have here the duty enjoined.

‘Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee.’ The man went home and translated the injunction into word and deed. As I said, the reason for the peculiarity of his treatment, in his request being refused, was probably his peculiar temperament. So again I would say the reason for the commandment laid upon him, which is also anomalous, was probably the peculiarity of his disposition. Usually our Lord was careful to enjoin silence upon those whom He benefited by His miraculous cures. That injunction of silence was largely owing to His desire not to create or fan the flame of popular excitement. But that risk was chiefly to be guarded against in the land of Israel, and here, where we have a miracle upon Gentile soil, there was not the same occasion for avoiding talk and notoriety.

But probably the main reason for the exceptional commandment to go and publish abroad what the Lord had done was to be found in the simple fact that this man’s malady and his disposition were such that external work of some sort was the best thing to prevent him from relapsing into his former condition. His declaration to everybody of his cure would help to confirm his cure; and whilst he was speaking about being healed, he would more and more realise to himself that he was healed. Having work to do would take him out of himself, which no doubt was a great security against the recurrence of the evil from which he had been delivered. But however that may be, look at the plain lesson that lies here. Every healed man should be a witness to his Healer; and there is no better way of witnessing than by our lives, by the elevation manifested in our aims, by our aversion from all low, earthly, gross things, by the conspicuous-not made conspicuous by us, conspicuous because it cannot be hid-concentration and devotion, and unselfishness and Christlikeness of our daily lives to show that we are really healed. If we manifest these things in our conduct, then, when we say ‘it was Jesus Christ that healed me,’ people will be apt to believe us. But if this man had gone away into the mountains and amongst the tombs as he used to do, and had continued all the former characteristics of his devil-ridden life, who would have believed him when he talked about being healed? And who ought to believe you when you say, ‘Christ is my Saviour,’ if your lives are, to all outward seeming, exactly what they were before? The sphere in which the healed man’s witness was to be borne tested the reality of his healing. ‘Go home to thy friends, and tell them .’ I wonder how many Christian professors there are who would be least easily believed by those who live in the same house with them, if they said that Jesus had cast their devils out of them. It is a great mistake to take recent converts, especially if they have been very profligate beforehand, and to hawk them about the country as trophies of God’s converting power. Let them stop at home, and bethink themselves, and get sober and confirmed, and let their changed lives prove the reality of Christ’s healing power. They can speak to some purpose after that.

Further, remember that there is no better way for keeping out devils than working for Jesus Christ. Many a man finds that the true cure-say, for instance, of doubts that buzz about him and disturb him, is to go away and talk to some one about his Saviour. Work for Jesus amongst people that do not know Him is a wonderful sieve for sifting out the fundamental articles of the Christian faith. And when we go to other people, and tell them of that Lord, and see how the message is sometimes received, and what it sometimes does, we come away with confirmed faith.

But, in any case, it is better to work for Him than to sit alone, thinking about Him. The two things have to go together; and I know very well that there is a great danger, in the present day, of exaggeration, and insisting too exclusively upon the duty of Christian work whilst neglecting to insist upon the duty of Christian meditation. But, on the other hand, it blows the cobwebs out of a man’s brain; it puts vigour into him, it releases him from himself, and gives him something better to think about, when he listens to the Master’s voice, ‘Go home to thy friends, and tell them what great things the Lord hath done for thee.’

‘Master! it is good for us to be here. Let us make three tabernacles. Stay here; let us enjoy ourselves up in the clouds, with Moses and Elias; and never mind about what goes on below.’ But there was a demoniac boy down there that needed to be healed; and the father was at his wits’ end, and the disciples were at theirs because they could not heal him. And so Jesus Christ turned His back upon the Mount of Transfiguration, and the company of the blessed two, and the Voice that said, ‘This is My beloved Son,’ and hurried down where human woes called Him, and found that He was as near God, and so did Peter and James and John, as when up there amid the glory.

‘Go home to thy friends, and tell them’; and you will find that to do that is the best way to realise the desire which seemed to be put aside, the desire for the presence of Christ. For be sure that wherever He may not be, He always is where a man, in obedience to Him, is doing His commandments. So when He said, ‘Go home to thy friends,’ He was answering the request that He seamed to reject, and when the Gadarene obeyed, he would find, to his astonishment and his grateful wonder, that the Lord had not gone away in the boat, but was with him still. ‘Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel. Lo! I am with you always.’

Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren

when He was come = while He was in [the act of] embarking.

with. Greek meta. App-104.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

18.] Euthym[16] and Theophyl. suppose that he feared a fresh incursion of the evil spirits.

[16] Euthymius Zigabenus, 1116

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Mar 5:18. , with Him) The cross had allured the man by its sweetness from his own relatives. The powerful influence of Jesus had possession of him. [And so now on that account he had it in his power to be of the greater use to his relatives.-V. g.]

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

Desire and Duty

And as he was entering into the boat, he that had been possessed with devils besought him that he might be with him. And he suffered him not, but saith unto him, Go to thy house unto thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and how he had mercy on thee. And he went his way, and began to publish in Decapolis how great things Jesus had done for him: and all men did marvel.Mar 5:18-20.

The story of the healing of this man, usually called the Gadarene demoniac, is told in the previous verses of the chapter.

1. There is some uncertainty regarding the locality. The place is given in the manuscripts in three different formscountry of the Gadarenes, of the Gergesenes, and of the Gerasenes. Gadara was six miles from the Sea of Galilee, and therefore impossible. Gerasa was thirty miles away, and out of the question. Still, the probability is that we should accept the reading Gerasenes, and refer it, not to the city of Gerasa, but to an obscure place of the same name, close to the lake, which had been lost sight of. Gergesa may be a corrupted form of this name.

2. Before passing to the subject, notice that three requests, singularly contrasted with each other, are made to Christ in the course of this miracle of healing the Gadarene demoniac(1) the evil spirits ask to be permitted to go into the swine; (2) the men of the country, caring more for their swine than their Saviour, beg Him to take Himself away, and relieve them of His unwelcome presence; (3) the demoniac beseeches Him to be allowed to stay beside Him. Two of the requests are granted; one is refused. The one that was refused is the one that we might have expected to be granted.

For, ah! who can express

How full of bonds and simpleness

Is God;

How narrow is He,

And how the wide, waste field of possibility

Is only trod

Straight to His homestead in the human heart;

Whose thoughts but live and move

Round Man; who woos his will

To wedlock with His own, and does distil

To that drops span

The attar of all rose-fields of all love!1 [Note: Coventry Patmore.]

I

The Variety of Christs Instructions

Three distinct instructions given by Christ to His followers are found in the Gospels.

1. Sometimes He charged them to say nothing whatever about what He had done. In the end of this very chapter we find the injunction laid emphatically upon those who knew that He had raised Jairus daughter from the dead: He charged them much that no man should know this.

There are four special cases of this injunction to silence, and they occur after the healing of four of the greatest of human illsdumbness (Mar 7:36), blindness (Mat 9:30), leprosy (Mar 1:44), and death (Mar 5:43); to which must be added the command laid on the unclean spirits (Mar 3:12). And in two cases (Mar 1:44; Mat 9:30) a particularly strong word is used to express a stern, urgent, even impassioned request or command.

2. He charged this man to go home and tell his friends. The explanation of the difference between the one command and the other is to be found in the circumstances. In the previous cases silence was necessary for Christs sake. In this case speech was necessary for the sake of the man himself. Moreover, the danger to the work of Christ in Decapolis was not as the danger would have been in Galilee.

3. He commanded His disciples after the Resurrection to go into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature (Mat 28:19). In the early part of His ministry silence is enjoined that the work may not be hampered. But the work is saving souls, and the consideration for one soul makes an exception in the case of the demoniac. At the end, when the work is accomplished, the demand for silence is revoked. The order now is that the good news should be made known in all the world, and it is laid as a charge on every one of His disciples.

II

The Conflict between Duty and Desire

The great lesson of the text is here. And it is that (1) desire is not always duty, but that (2) duty must come before desire, and that then (3) desire and duty will agree together. The demoniac, no longer a demoniac, but clothed and in his right mind, desired to be with Jesus; but Jesus bade him go home and tell the story of his healing. He went, and found his great pleasure in telling the news, at which all men marvelled.

i. Desire

The request of the man commands sympathy. Had I been such as he, each man seems to say, it is the very boon I should have craved. The brief period of time between the healing and the departure seemed far too short to utter the gratitude welling up in his heart. It may be that he was not free from the fear that if the Great Healer departed, the old evil, which man had tried in vain to master, would anew take possession of him. He must live among the Gadarenes, an object of their dull curiosity, and of their unslumbering suspicion. He must live among those who would always remember him as the man at whose healing their herds of swine were destroyed, and who would bear him a grudge they could not forget. And most of all, his life would be lonely, his unique experience would shut him out from the intimate sympathy of any other. Present with Christ, listening to the voice that spoke his freedom and still thrills his soul, he has no further need. And yet he shrankwho would not?from so speedy a separation from Him whose coming had been the cause of his salvation, whose presence was the source of his stability, whose departing, he perhaps feared, would prove the occasion of a new and direr bondage to evil.1 [Note: J. T. L. Maggs.]

ii. Duty

Howbeit, Jesus suffered him not. There were arrears of duty owing to the neglected home-life, from which he had been a stranger for a long time (Luk 8:27). Besides, there were virtues which would find their most congenial soil in the very life from which he so naturally shrank. And, finally, there was some risk that in daily dependence upon Christ the man would miss the discipline which he needed.

There is a story of a poor but devout man who once came to a bishop of Paris, and said with a sorrowing heart, Father, I am a sinner; I feel that it is so, but it is against my will. Every hour I ask for light, and humbly pray for faith, but still I am overwhelmed with doubts and temptations. Surely if I were not despised of God, He would not leave me to struggle thus. The bishop answered him with much kindness: The king of France has two castles in different situations and sends a commander to each of them. The castle of Mantleberry stands in a place remote from danger, far inland; but the castle of La Rochelle is on the coast, where it is liable to continual sieges. Now, which of the two commanders, think you, stands highest in the estimation of the king? Doubtless, said the poor man, the king values him the most who has the hardest task and braves the greatest danger. Thou art right, replied the bishop. And now apply this matter to thy case and mine; for my heart is like the castle of Mantleberry, and thine like that of La Rochelle.

There is no better way of keeping out devils than working for Jesus Christ. Many a man finds that the true curesay, for instance, of doubts that buzz about him and disturb him, is to go away and talk to some one about his Saviour. Work for Jesus amongst people that do not know Him is a wonderful sieve for sifting out the fundamental articles of the Christian faith. And when we go to other people, and tell them of that Lord, and see how the message is sometimes received, and what it sometimes does, we come away with confirmed faith.

But, in any case, it is better to work for Him than to sit alone thinking about Him. The two things have to go together; and I know very well that there is a great danger, in the present day, of exaggeration, and insisting too exclusively upon the duty of Christian work whilst neglecting to insist upon the duty of Christian meditation. But, on the other hand, it blows the cobwebs out of a mans brain; it puts vigour into him, it releases him from himself, and gives him something better to think about, when he listens to the Masters voice, Go home to thy friends, and tell them what great things the Lord hath done for thee.1 [Note: A. Maclaren.]

Master! it is good for us to be here. Let us make three tabernacles. Stay here; let us enjoy ourselves up in the clouds, with Moses and Elias; and never mind about what goes on below. But there was a demoniac boy down there that needed to be healed; and the father was at his wits end, and the disciples were at theirs because they could not heal him. And so Jesus Christ turned His back upon the Mount of Transfiguration, and the company of the blessed two, and the Voice that said, This is my beloved Son, and hurried down where human woes called Him, and found that He was as near God, and so did Peter and James and John, as when up there amid the glory.2 [Note: Ibid.]

Not on some lone and lofty hill apart

Did Christ the Saviour render up His heart

For man upon the cross of love and woe;

But by the common road where to and fro

The passers went upon their daily ways

And, pausing, pierced Him with indifferent gaze.

And still the crosses by lifes highway rise

Beneath the blinding glare of noonday skies;

Still with the wrestling spirits anguished cry

Blends the light mockery of the passer-by,

While scorners, gathered at the martyrs feet,

With railing tongues the olden taunts repeat.

We may not go apart to give our life

For men in some supernal, mystic strife,

Beside the common paths of earth doth love

Look from its cross to the still heavens above.

The refusal had a threefold message to the mana message to his will, a message to his thought, and a message to his heart.

1. A Message to his Will.For by the refusal of his request the man is to be educated to a necessary independence. It was not gratitude alone that prompted his wish to be near Christ. It was a haunting sense of insecurity. Those who have had experience of some of the aspects of nervous disorder know the terrible character of the fears which haunt the minds of those who are its victims. They lose self-reliance; they dread isolation. This man has been cured of his disease, but he fears the return of it if left alone. But Christ in His wisdom knows that it is best that he should be thrown on his own resources. He must resume the prerogative of his manhood, as a self-directing, self-controlling being. It is the method of all education, human and Divine. It is the method of the mother with her child; it is Gods method with man when He places him on the earth; it is the way Christ dealt with His Church.

2. A Message to his Thought.The mans thoughts were concentrated on his visible Healer. He must be taught to pass in thought beyond that which is seen and realise those spiritual powers of which outward things convey but a passing expression. He must walk by faith and not by sight. He must pass from the material to the spiritual. This step also has its analogy in all human education. We begin our education with the concrete. We learn to count by the use of coloured beads upon a wire; from these we pass to figures; from figures we go forward to algebraical signs and symbols. By the same method man has been taught to know God. St. Paul appealed to the Athenians to give over the worship of idols made with hands, and to worship Him in whom we live and move and have our being. Even the visible Christ must go away. It is expedient for us. Touch me not, He says to the eager Magdalene still; to Thomas, Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.

3. A Message to his Heart.Our Lord points out to the man that life is not for self but for others. Instead of the joy of being near Himself He gives him a dutyGo home to thy friends. Were the friends unworthy? Had they been more kin than kind? It may be so. But this man had met with a wonderful experience. He had gained knowledge of a love that did not look for return. He can now think with sympathy of those to whom this wonderful revelation is unknown. So every new power, and every fresh experience, carries with it responsibility. Love is contagious; nay, it is more, it is infectious. Freely we have received, freely we fain would give. Moreover, it is by self-forgetful effort among others that the man is to win his own independence. And again it is the method of all true education. The child is not merely told to try to walk. Some object to be reached is put before him. The pupil is not simply bidden to think. Some definite problem is submitted to his thoughts. Mans powers of independence and self-reliance are drawn out by the necessity of work. And that the disciples might become assured of power, Christ set them to discharge their duty. Their task was to teach all nations.

It has been written, An endless significance lies in work; a man perfects himself by working. Foul jungles are cleared away, fair seedfields rise instead, and stately cities; and withal the man himself first ceases to be a jungle and foul unwholesome desert thereby. Consider how, even in the meanest sorts of Labour, the whole soul of a man is composed into a kind of real harmony, the instant he sets himself to work! Doubt, Desire, Sorrow, Remorse, Indignation, Despair itself, all these, like hell-dogs, lie beleaguering the soul of the poor dayworker, as of every man: but he bends himself with free valour against his task, and all these are stilled, all these shrink murmuring far off into their caves. The man is now a man. The blessed glow of Labour in him, is it not as purifying fire, wherein all poison is burnt up, and of sour smoke itself there is made bright blessed flame!1 [Note: Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present, chap. xi.]

iii. Duty and Desire One

Go home to thy friends, and tell them; and you will find that to do that is the best way to realise the desire which seemed to be put aside, the desire for the presence of Christ. For be sure that wherever He may not be, He always is where a man, in obedience to Him, is doing His commandments. So when He said, Go home to thy friends, He was answering the request that He seemed to reject, and when the Gadarene obeyed, he would find, to his astonishment and his grateful wonder, that the Lord had not gone away in the boat, but was with him still. Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel. Lo! I am with you alway.

I said, Let us walk in the field.

He said, Nay, walk in the town.

I said, There are no flowers there.

He said, No flowers but a crown.

I said, But the skies are black,

There is nothing but noise and din.

And He wept as He sent me back,

There is more, He said, there is sin.

I said, But the air is thick,

And fogs are veiling the sun.

He answered, Yet souls are sick,

And souls in the dark undone.

I said, I shall miss the light,

And friends will miss me, they say.

He answered, Choose to-night,

If I am to miss you, or they.

I pleaded for time to be given.

He said, Is it hard to decide?

It will not seem hard in heaven

To have followed the steps of your Guide.

I cast one look at the field,

Then set my face to the town.

He said, My child, do you yield?

Will you leave the flowers for the crown?

Then into His hand went mine

And into my heart came He,

And I walked in a light divine,

The path I had feared to see.1 [Note: George Macdonald.]

III

The Home Missionary

1. The mans first duty was to his own house. His tale was to be told first in his own circle. Go home to thy friends and tell them. It is a great mistake to take recent converts, especially if they have been very profligate beforehand, and to hawk them about the country as trophies of Gods converting power. Let them stop at home, and bethink themselves, and get sober and confirmed, and let their changed lives prove the reality of Christs healing power. They can speak to some purpose after that.

Many years ago, a friend of mine was taking an evangelistic tour through the Highlands of Scotland in company with a young friend, recently converted. When they came to the young converts native village, my friend said, Samuel, you must speak to-night. I cant, was the reply, I never said half a dozen words in public in my life. But you must; God tells me you are to speak to-night. Accordingly, at the right moment, Samuel rose in the meeting and, in trembling awkward fashion, said, Every one here knows me. Parents used to point their children to me, and tell them to be like me. They called me a model boy: but if I had died three months ago, I should have gone straight to hell. My friend told me afterwards he could never forget how the power of God came down upon that meeting. But this was only Samuels first word for Christ. He has spoken many since. For a long period he has been a member of Parliament, and when a word needs to be said on behalf of the cause of God and truth in the House of Commons, Samuel is the man to say it. And, somehow, he makes people listen. But to-day he would trace the beginning of all that is useful in his public career to those few trembling words, falteringly spoken, in his native village.1 [Note: W. C. Sage.]

The fear was on the cattle, for the gale was on the sea,

An the pens broke up on the lower deck an let the creatures free

An the lights went out on the lower deck, an no one near but me.

It is the story of a strong, regardless, ungodly man helpless among the cattle aboard ship in a fearful storm. He sees that he will certainly be horned or trod upon. And more pens broke at every rollso he made his Contract with God.

An by the terms of the Contract, as I have read the same,

If He got me to port alive I would exalt His Name

An praise His Holy Majesty till further orders came.

So Mulholland was saved from the cattle and the sea, although sorely damaged by a stanchion, so that he lay seven weeks in hospital. Then when he was convalescing he spoke to God of the Contract, and this was the reply

I never puts on My ministers no more than they can bear.

So back you go to the cattle-boats an preach My Gospel there.

They must quit drinkin and swearin, they mustnt knife on a blow,

They must quit gamblin their wages, and you must preach it so;

For now those boats are more like Hell than anything else I know.

I didnt want to do it, for I knew what I should get,

An I wanted to preach Religion, handsome an out of the wet,

But the Word of the Lord were lain upon me an I done what I was set.

So the brave lad went on with his duty, turning his cheek to the smiter.

But following that, I knocked him down an led him up to Grace

The skippers say Im crazy, but I can prove em wrong,

For I am in charge of the lower deck with all that doth belong

Which they would not give to a lunatic, and the competition so strong.1 [Note: Kipling, Seven Seas: Mulhollands Contract.]

2. This recovered demoniac was one of the first home missionaries. And in regarding him as a home missionary, let us consider first his mission, next his message, and then his motive.

(1) The Mission.It was a modest commission that he received. He was not required like Moses to guide the nation; he was not called with David to declare Gods faithfulness in the great congregation; he was not selected with Paul to confess Christ before kings. The Master set before him the open door of his own house. But we must not regard this domestic commission as less honourable than the wider vocation of evangelists and missionaries. Niagara makes a great noise; it is clothed with rainbows; it is celebrated by painter and poet: yet the fruitfulness of a country does not depend upon a cataract; the landscapes are kept green by ten thousand hidden streams which go softly.

(2) The Message.Tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee. Little good is done by way of disputation and controversy; but to declare what God has done for our soul is a fruitful ministry anywhere. In the narrative of the demoniac as given by St. Luke, we read Shew how great things God hath done for thee. Character is to sustain testimony; those about us are to take knowledge that grace has cured our faults and infirmities, and enabled us to walk purely and graciously.

(3) The Motive.The first motive is love to the Saviour. The next motive is love to the home and friends. A few years ago, in the British House of Peers, a certain speech was delivered on a question concerning the extreme limits of our Indian Empire. That speech just thrilled England from end to end. It was delivered by a plain man of action, who had done his duty in days gone by, and came to the gilded chamber to speak out his convictions. Some say he broke down, and lost the thread of his argument. Certainly, an average local preacher might display better command of language, and a board school pupil teacher might have corrected his faults of style. But just because he could say, I love India, the wisest and greatest of our land crowded to hear him. Perhaps some of us will consider that the speech was on the wrong side; that the India which the noble speaker loved was not that which most demands our affection; it was Indias governing classes rather than her starving millions. But we may learn from the effect produced, the kind of testimony that Jesus wants to-day. There are people in this world who respect you for what you are and what you have done. If you tell them in a few blundering sentences, I love Christ; He loved me, and gave Himself for me, no one can tell the effect of your poor stammering words. The great revival we pray for is waiting for just such testimony as this.

The Rev. J. B. Ely relates that an oculist just from college commenced business in the city of London, without friends, without money, and without patrons. He became discouraged, until one day, going down one of the streets, he saw a blind man. Looking into his eyes, he said, Why dont you have your eyesight restored? The usual story was told of having tried many physicians and spent all his money without avail. Come to my office in the morning, said the oculist. The blind man went. When an operation was performed and proved successful, the patient said: I havent got a penny in the world. I cant pay you. Oh yes, said the oculist, you can pay me, and I shall expect you to do so. There is just one thing I want you to do, and it is very easy. Tell it; tell everybody you see that you were blind, and tell them who it was that healed you.

Desire and Duty

Literature

Bacon (L. W.), The Simplicity that is in Christ, 154.

Burrell (D. J.), Christ and Men, 118.

Carpenter (W. B.), The Son of Man among the Sons of Men, 287.

Hutton (W. R.), Low Spirits, 140.

Maclaren (A.), Expositions. Mark i.viii., 186.

Maggs (J. T. L.), The Spiritual Experience of St. Paul, 185.

Matheson (G.), Rests by the River, 151.

Oosterzee (J. J. van), The Year of Salvation, i. 167.

Sage (W. C.), Sermons Preached in the Villages, 85.

Sinclair (W. M.), Christ and our Times, 261.

Spurgeon (C. H.), New Park Street Pulpit, iii. No. 109.

Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xxxviii. No. 2262.

Watkinson (W. L.), Studies in Christian Character, ii. 127.

Welldon (J. E. C.), The School of Faith, 187.

Wilberforce (S.), Sermons, 1st Ser., 203.

Christian Age, xxxv. 354 (Meredith).

Christian World Pulpit, xxv. 163 (Beecher).

Clergymans Magazine, New Ser., iv. 303 (Chavasse).

Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible

prayed: Mar 5:7, Mar 5:17, Psa 116:12, Luk 8:38, Luk 8:39, Luk 17:15-17, Luk 23:42, Luk 23:43, Phi 1:23, Phi 1:24

Reciprocal: Exo 14:12 – Let us alone Mat 8:34 – they besought Mat 16:4 – And he

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

8. It was natural for the man to make such a request as this verse states.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

THE after-conduct of those whom our Lord Jesus Christ healed and cured when upon earth, is a thing which is not often related in the Gospels. The story often describes the miraculous cure, and then leaves the after history of the person cured in obscurity, and passes on to other things.

But there are some deeply interesting cases, in which the after-conduct of persons cured is described; and the man from whom the devil was cast out in the country of the Gadarenes is one. The verses before us tell the story. Few as they are, they are full of precious instruction.

We learn from these verses that the Lord Jesus knows better than His people what is the right position for them to be in. We are told that when our Lord was on the point of leaving the country of the Gadarenes, the man “that had been possessed with the devil, prayed Him that he might be with Him.” We can well understand that request. He felt grateful for the blessed change that had taken place in himself. He felt full of love towards his Deliverer. He thought he could not do better than follow our Lord, and go with Him as his companion and disciple. He was ready to give up home and country, and go after Christ. And yet, strange as it appears at first sight, the request was refused. “Jesus suffered him not.” Our Lord had other work for him to do. Our Lord saw better than he did in what way he could glorify God most. “Go home to thy friends,” He says, “and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee.”

There are lessons of profound wisdom in these words. The place that Christians wish to be in, is not always the place which is best for their souls. The position that they would choose, if they could have their own way, is not always that which Jesus would have them occupy.

There are none who need this lesson so much as believers newly converted to God. Such persons are often very poor judges of what is really for their good. Full of the new views which they have been graciously taught, excited with the novelty of their present position, seeing everything around them in a new light, knowing little yet of the depths of Satan and the weakness of their own hearts-knowing only that a little time ago they were blind, and now, through mercy, they see-of all people they are in the greatest danger of making mistakes. With the best intentions, they are apt to fall into mistakes about their plans in life, their choices, their moves, their professions. They forget that what we like best is not always best for our souls, and that the seed of grace needs winter as well as summer, cold as well as heat, to ripen it for glory.

Let us pray that God would guide us in all our ways after conversion, and not allow us to err in our choices, or to make hasty decisions. That place and position is most healthful for us in which we are kept most humble-most taught our own sinfulness-drawn most to the Bible and prayer-led most to live by faith and not by sight. It may not be quite what we like. But if Christ by His providence has placed us in it, let us not be in a hurry to leave it. Let us therein abide with God. The great thing is to have no will of our own, and to be where Jesus would have us be. [Footnote: I cannot help remarking, in connection with our Lord’s words in this passage, that it admits of question, whether men do not sometimes act unadvisedly in giving up a secular calling, in order to enter the ministry of the Gospel. In plain words, I doubt whether men, who have been suddenly converted to God in the army, the navy, the law, or the merchant’s office, do not sometimes forsake their professions with undue precipitation, in order to become clergymen.

It seems to be forgotten that conversion alone is no proof that we are called and qualified to become teachers of others. God may be glorified as really and truly in the secular calling as in the pulpit. Converted men can be eminently useful as landlords, magistrates, soldiers, sailors, barristers or merchants. We want witnesses for Christ in all these professions. Colonel Gardiner and Captain Vicars have probably done more for the cause of Christ as military men, than they would ever have done if they had left the army and become clergymen.

In steering our course through life, we should carefully look for the call of providence as well as the call of inclination. The position that we choose for ourselves is often that which is the worst for our souls. When two conflicting paths of duty lie before a believer, the path which has least of the cross, and is most agreeable to his own taste, is seldom the right one.

I write all this with a due recollection of many eminent Christians who began in a secular profession, and left it for the office of the minister. John Newton and Edward Bickersteth are instances. But I apprehend such cases are exceptions. I apprehend moreover that in every such case there will be found to have been a remarkable call of providence as well as an inward call of the Holy Ghost. As a general rule, I believe that the rule of Paul ought to be carefully observed: “Let every man, wherein he is called, therein abide with God.” (1Co 7:24.)]

We learn, for another thing, from these verses, that a believer’s own home has the first claims on his attention. We are taught that in the striking words which our Lord addresses to the man who had been possessed with the devil. “Go home,” He says, “to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee.” The friends of this man had probably not seen him for some years, excepting under the influence of Satan. Most likely he had been as one dead to them, or worse than dead, and a constant cause of trouble, anxiety, and sorrow. Here then was the path of duty. Here was the way by which he could most glorify God. Let him go home and tell his friends what Jesus had done for him. Let him be a living witness before their eyes of the compassion of Christ. Let him deny himself the pleasure of being in Christ’s bodily presence, in order to do the higher work of being useful to others.

How much there is in these simple words of our Lord! What thoughts they ought to stir up in the hearts of all true Christians!-“Go home and tell thy friends.”-Home is the place above all others where the child of God ought to make his first endeavors to do good. Home is the place where he is most continually seen, and where the reality of his grace ought most truly to appear. Home is the place where his best affections ought to be concentrated. Home is the place where he should strive daily to witness for Christ. Home is the place where he was daily doing harm by his example, so long as he served the world. Home is the place where he is specially bound to be a living epistle of Christ, so soon as he has been mercifully taught to serve God. May we all remember these things daily! May it never be said of us, that we are saints abroad, but wicked by our own fireside-talkers about religion abroad, but worldly and ungodly at home!

But after all, have we anything to tell others? Can we testify to any work of grace in our hearts? Have we experienced any deliverance from the power of the world, the flesh, and the devil? Have we ever tasted the graciousness of Christ? These are indeed serious questions. If we have never yet been born again, and made new creatures, we can of course have nothing to “tell.”

If we have anything to tell others about Christ, let us resolve to tell it. Let us not be silent, if we have found peace and rest in the Gospel. Let us speak to our relations, and friends, and families, and neighbors, according as we have opportunity, and tell them what the Lord has done for our souls. All are not called to be ministers. All are not intended to preach. But all can walk in the steps of the man of whom we have been reading, and in the steps of Andrew, and Philip, and the Samaritan woman. (Joh 1:41, Joh 1:45, Joh 4:29.) Happy is he who is not ashamed to say to others, “Come and hear what the Lord hath done for my soul.” (Psa 66:16.)

Fuente: Ryle’s Expository Thoughts on the Gospels

Mar 5:18. As he was entering into the boat. The correct reading shows that he had not yet entered.

Besought him. The same word used in the last verse. The reason of this request was probably personal gratitude to our Lord. He would thus separate himself from those who rejected his Deliverer. Possibly he feared a relapse.

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

Mar 5:18-20. He that had been possessed, prayed that he might be with him To enjoy the further benefit of his instructions. Perhaps he feared lest, if Jesus left him, he should relapse into his former condition, the terrors of which he dreaded. Howbeit, Jesus suffered him not Judging it proper to leave him in that country as a witness of the power and goodness of his deliverer, and of the folly and wickedness of these Gadarenes, who rejected such a Saviour. Go home to thy friends To thy relations and neighbours; and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee This was peculiarly needful there, where Christ did not go in person. He began to publish in Decapolis, &c. Not only at home, but in all that country where Jesus himself did not come.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

18 And when he was come into the ship, he that had been possessed with the devil prayed him that he might be with him. 19 Howbeit Jesus suffered him not, but saith unto him, Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee. 20 And he departed, and began to publish in Decapolis how great things Jesus had done for him: and all men did marvel.

What a wonderful testimony this man must have given of the Savior as he passed through thearea telling people of what Christ had done for him. The natural response was to want to follow the Lord, but the Lord had other plans for the man – “GO” is the word.

We also might want to join the Lord in heaven as soon as we can but He says GO rather than come home to be with Him. He has plans for every one of us. Those plans may not be the super saint preacher or evangelist, nor the missionary that goes to unknown tribes, but we are all to go telling of what Christ has done for us. To the workplace, to the play place, to any place where we meet other people who might be interested in what the Lord has done for you.

“Go” and “tell” are both imperatives – commands. Not a request, not a suggestion but a command to go and tell the message of the Lord. Nothing plainer need be said, we are to go and tell. Easy enough to follow those instructions, yet, many do not.

This does not require great personal evangelism skills, nor does it require great courage, just the telling of what Christ has done for you.

We should note that there is a two-fold message Christ wanted him to give. Tell of what “the Lord hath done for thee” which we have covered, but also “and hath had compassion on thee.”

Now, I am sure that there is a general sense in what is required – that of the Lord stopping and caring for the needs of the man, but there may be a hint of the undeserved mercy that we all as believers have enjoyed. The man did not inherently deserve to be freed from the demons, but Christ took compassion or took mercy upon him to deliver him.

This sets the proper tone for our testimony to the world. God in HIS mercy gave us that which was needed to be saved; not because of anything that we have done or will do, but because of HIS mercy.

So as you tell of His work in your life, keep yourself out of it except as being on the receiving end of things. We did not draw God’s interest. He was interested in us and acted upon that interest to our benefit. Don’t take too much of what I have just said in the context of Calvinism it is a matter or record that God acts as He wills, not as we will but that does not give credit to all that Calvin nor his adherents have taught and do teach.

We will split the next section into two parts. There is one account interrupted by another. We do not want to miss the fact that while on His way to raise one from the dead, Jesus took time to deal with a woman who had been having problems for twelve years nor do we want to miss the fact that the father with the sick daughter did not take issue with the interruption, but seemingly knew the Lord knew what He was doing by stopping and dealing with another.

We will take the account of the sick girl first then deal with the woman who touched His garment later.

Fuente: Mr. D’s Notes on Selected New Testament Books by Stanley Derickson

Why did Jesus instruct the man to tell others about what the Lord had done for him when He had told the cleansed leper not to tell anyone (Mar 1:44; cf. Mar 5:43; Mar 7:36)? Apparently there was little danger in this Gentile region that the people would create problems for Jesus’ mission as they did in Jewish territory. We need not understand Jesus’ command as a permanent prohibition against following Him. Perhaps this man did return and become a disciple after he bore witness locally. The synonymous use of the names "Lord" and "Jesus" shows that the man regarded Jesus as God (cf. Mar 5:7; Luk 8:39).

Jesus’ instructions to this man in a Gentile region would have helped Mark’s original Gentile readers know what an appropriate response to His deliverance of them was.

"Though we are not tortured by the devil, yet he holds us as his slaves, till the Son of God delivers us from his tyranny. Naked, torn, and disfigured, we wander about, till he restores us to soundness of mind." [Note: John Calvin, Commentary on a Harmony of the Evangelists, 2:436.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)