DELIVERANCE
A. C. Clapham
The power of God in the glad tidings is equal to any moral situation. That power is vested in the Saviour, Jesus, the Son of God. We read here of an extreme case, a man completely dominated by Satan’s power. I do not think we would find many people possessed by demons in this country, but we would find persons who are under the power of Satan, the power of darkness, unsubdued. This man was unsubdued. No one could tame him, no one could control him, neither law, nor the police, nor society, nor religion. No power seemed to be able to change this man. No power could subdue him. What a case! What a situation! A man wild under the power of Satan!—an extreme case of the gentiles under the power of Satan.
Reformation was no good for this man, latitude was no good. What did he need? He needed power from God; he needed to meet Jesus, the Saviour, the Son of God. If you meet Him, you meet a power superior to all the power of Satan and the power of the world. Did He not come into the world for that purpose—to seek and to save that which was lost? Here is a man who was lost. If you have not come to the Saviour, you are lost. If you have not believed in Jesus, you are lost, you are still in your sins. You must have contact, by faith, with Jesus for yourself, not just through your parents, and it is not sufficient just to come to the meetings.
I believe the Lord deliberately went into this country to meet this man. How gracious of the Lord, the Son of God, to meet a man who had been cast out of society, a man in this condition, full of the devil. Jesus is interested in men.
No matter what your state, what your moral history, what your sins, He is interested in you.
The love of God is towards us. “God commends his love to us, in that, we being still sinners”—(not when we were good, not when we were holy—in fact we never have been holy, but in our sins, as sinners; there is nothing to commend us, or to draw out the love of God, but the love of God is so great that it moves from its own side)—“we being still sinners—(in our filthiness and in our corruption and pride)—“Christ has died for us”, Romans 5: 8. What a wonderful love the love of God is, boundless, its motive being in itself. We usually love what is lovable, something that would draw out our love, but God’s love towards the sinner is towards what is unlovely.
So the Lord Jesus moved. There is going to be a confrontation here. The Lord Jesus meets the devil in this man, in this legion of demons. Who is going to get the victory? If you surrender to Jesus, if you cry to Jesus, we know who will get the victory. The Lord has bound the strong man. He took the sting out of death by dying and going into the domain of death Himself, and coming out triumphant. Blessed Saviour! He is a triumphant Saviour, who has power over death. He will take away from you the fear of death and the consequences of death. What a terrible thing it is to die in your sins and to meet God in your sins! There is no need to do that. The Saviour is seeking you; the Saviour is wanting you. The Saviour’s love is towards us, as it was towards this man.
So what did this man need? What do most men need? What do most christians need? Deliverance! —deliverance from the world, deliverance from the power of sin, deliverance from indwelling sin, deliverance from themselves—that is perhaps the greatest deliverance. What a deliverance that is! I would not say that I was completely delivered from self, but it is a great thing to know the power of God and the power of the Spirit, to be able to say, “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and of death”, Romans 8: 2. That was Paul’s experience, a man who had gone through the seventh chapter of Romans. The Spirit of life in that glorious Man there, flowing into my soul, delivers me from the power and law of sin and death. That is what this man needed, did he not?—deliverance! And he got it. He came into contact with the Saviour, and he surrendered.
To get the gain of the blessing and of salvation, you must surrender. The love of God and the love of Christ would constrain you to surrender your own will. What is our own will anyway?
Contaminated and filthy! The gospel would subdue you and give you to surrender to Christ, to surrender to the Saviour. That is what this man did, and even the demons recognised that here was Jesus the Son of God. The power of God was there in that blessed Man. He was divine, of course; He was God; a blessed Man, and a Saviour too. A Man because He was to die for our sins. Is not that touching? Believers can say that in His holy body He bore our sins on the tree, took them away from the sight of God; so any sinner, of whatever nationality, whatever creed, may be saved.
Oh the value of the work of Christ, the value of the redemption, the value of the blood of Christ—the blood of such a Man! The blood of no other man could be compared with the blood of Jesus, the blood of a holy Man, the Son of God. What virtue is in the blood of Christ; what virtue in His work! He accomplished redemption that this man might have peace. What this man came into was peace, and righteousness, and control, in subjection. What a complete change! The gospel involves that, that if we are truly converted there is a complete, radical change in our ways and outlook and habits and walk. This man did not want to go back to the tombs and to the chains. Thank God for the deliverance! What a deliverance it is to be brought to Christ and delivered from this filthy world and its habits, sins, and pursuits. This man was completely delivered.
So there he is, sitting under control. What the gospel would do, according to Romans, is to bring us into righteousness, bring us into peace with God, bring us into reconciliation, bring us into joy and happiness. Have you had this transaction with the Lord? Have you really had to do with the Lord about your sins and about your will and about your pride? Have you really longed for deliverance and gone through the seventh chapter of Romans? Have you felt, ‘Oh wretched man that I am!’ and been disgusted with yourself? If you long for deliverance, you will get an answer. If you get into the tunnel, the Lord will bring you to the end of the tunnel. There is always a light at the end of a tunnel, even though it is very dark in the middle. There will be a light at the other side. It is a great thing to experience, especially in our young days as believers, something of what is spoken of in the seventh chapter of Romans. I believe that in the days of Mr. Stoney and Mr. Raven deliverance was quite a common theme, but now perhaps it is not so much spoken of. Persons do not seem to be getting into the exercises of the seventh chapter of Romans. But sooner or later, if you are a believer and you go on with God, you will be brought to these exercises. You will be brought to what you are in yourself, what the flesh is, what self is. Turn away from it in disgust, and have your life and power in another Man.
So this man was converted, really changed. He represents what the Lord is wanting for the assembly, for assembly service. He wants men like this. He wants sisters, too, who are like the woman in this chapter, healed from the issue of blood, persons who are not anaemic, but full of vitality. The woman in this chapter represents a believer whose life has been ebbing away. To apply the scripture, she still came to the meetings, but her inward life was ebbing away. Your inward life will keep ebbing away if you do not keep contact and communion with Christ, if you do not keep your living links with that Man up there. Your life will ebb away and you will become merely formal. This woman’s life was ebbing away. What was the remedy? Contact with Jesus!—breaking through the crowd! She was an overcomer. She wanted deliverance, and she got it. She touched the hem of His garment and power went out from the Lord, out from His body.
Our power comes from the Lord, too, our blessed living Head. Power can come from Him into your very soul and quicken even your body—make you feel better in health. Sometimes as you get older you feel weak and too tired to go to the meetings. What do you do? You cry to the Lord, to the Priest, and cry to the Spirit, so that power can come into you. It has been said that piety even affects your health. It is primarily for your spirit and soul, as quickened consciously with Christ, but if you get a quickening touch it can affect your body. It is a great thing to go on with the Lord daily, to go on in communion with the Lord and seek a living touch from Him. Break through like Pherez in Genesis 38: 29; be a breaker through, an overcomer.
That would be my message to you, and to myself particularly, that we might be in the gain of deliverance; that we might be delivered persons, not content with formalities or platitudes, but in life, especially in the assembly and in assembly service. This man is delivered. He is to be a testimony. He is to go home and testify to what the Lord has done, a testimony to the work and power of God. What God has done with this man He can do with me and He can do with you. He could do it with Saul of Tarsus. There is no case impossible to the Lord in the glad tidings. May the Lord bless the word!
Preaching at Bo’ness, Grangemouth
22 April 1979