THE KING’.S BUSINESS
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demoniac in our notes on Mark 5 :l-20 and we will not go into details here. We have just seen how the wind and sea were sub ject to our Lord’s word, now we see thé demons subject to His word. They recog nized Him and His power and authority and their complete subjection to Him. They did not even dare to enter a hog without his permission (v. 33). There are many who are deeply concerned because Jesus did not exercise His divine authority by refus ing to permit them to enter into the hogs, and thus save the hogs. They entirely lose sight of the fact, or perhaps are utterly in different to it, that He did exercise His divine authority to save the man. Men are more than hogs in our Lord’s sight, but men are not as important as hogs in the sight of some of our packers today, and in the sight o f a good many others, too. The business which our Lord did not think it was necessary to protect by the exercise of. a supernatural power, was itself an illicit business. Some are so occupied with grief and consternation over the choked and drowned hogs that they miss entirely the beautiful picture of the once demonized man “Sitting at the feet of Jesus clothed and in his right mind.” Tuesday, November 23. Luke 8:37-40. ! What a heart-breaking sight. The “whole multitude of the country” that had seen such a manifestation of our Lord’s saving power, so concerned about the loss of the' hogs that they beseech Him to depart, in stead of imploring Him to stay. But how many a community there is today, where when they find the religion of Christ inter fering with unlawful trade, are anxious to get Him out of the community as quickly as possible. But it was not merely con sternation over the loss of the swine that caused the Gadarenes to beseech our Lord to go, they were taken with a “great fear.” They had been brought face to face with God and they .were sinners and were not ready to forsake their sins, and therefore wished to get out of their midst the one who brought them face to face with a holy
God. When they ¡besought the Lord to go, “He went.” Our Lord never tarries in an unwilling heart or an unwilling community. If we say “come in,” come in He will and stay and bless, but. if we say “depart,” He will depart, but alas for us when He hears, o.ur prayer and leaves us. But there was one who did not wish Him to depart, one who, if He did depart, wished to go with Him, the man whom He had delivered, who “besought Him that he might be with Him.” When Jesus saves a man there is no other longing of his heart so deep and so intense as to be with the One who saved him, no other companionship so sweet to the saved soul as the companionship of Jesus. But our Lord did not suffer the man to go with Him, for there was work to do in the coun try which our Lord was leaving behind. He bade him to return to his own house and tell how great things God had done for Him. The first place for every saved man to go to tell how great things God has done for him is “to his own home,” and his own family. The man obeyed, but he not merely went to his own family, but “published throughout the whole city how great, things Jesus had done for him.” We need witnesses like that today, witnesses who go to their own home and then go everywhere declaring what Jesus has done for them, While Jesus was not wanted in Gadara, he was wanted on the other side of the lake. “The people gladly welcomed Him: for they were all waiting for Him.” : Wednesday, November 24. Luke 8 :41-48. - Jesus is hurrying to the house of Jairus in response to the latter’s prayer to come and lay His hands upon his little daughter, his only one. The multitude are following Him and crowding about in vulgar curios ity, but there was in Him, to whom the Father had “given to have life in Himself,” such a fullness of lifegiving power that as He goes to perform one miracle of mercy He accomplishes another almost without an effort of His will, by the way. Quickening, power is streaming forth from Him as life- giving waters from an overflowing foun-
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