When Jesus Christ goes into the country of the Gadarenes, He goes into a territory Scripture uses the term "darkness" to define. It's a stronghold of spiritual darkness up in the northern regions of the nation Israel, up north of the Sea of Galilee and stretching across to the Mediterranean.
"There's an encampment there that goes all the way back to the time of the Book of Judges of Baal worship and the satanic programs associated with it in order to corrupt the nation Israel," explains Jordan. "When you study prophecy you find out the Antichrist comes from north of there and literally what he's doing is building a barrier there to protect his forces, which are north, from the assault coming from the south.
"Mark 5 says, [1] And they came over unto the other side of the sea, into the country of the Gadarenes.
[2] And when he was come out of the ship, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit,
[3] Who had his dwelling among the tombs; and no man could bind him, no, not with chains:
"If you compare that with Luke 8:27, it says it this way: [27] And when he went forth to land, there met him out of the city a certain man, which had devils long time, and ware no clothes, neither abode in any house, but in the tombs.
"Devils and unclean spirit are two different ways of describing the same thing. Here it's plural. When Christ addresses the man, He finds out there are about 2,000 unclean spirits in him. You notice the man came out of the city but he didn't live there. Obviously people knew him and he was somebody people would have had an identity to, but now he's dwelling outdoors in the tombs in the mountains, completely engulfed with the unclean spirit.
"An unclean spirit is described that way because it's designed to contaminate things and corrupt. Mark 5:3 says, 'Who had his dwelling among the tombs; and no man could bind him, no, not with chains.' He's dwelling in the caves of the graveyard. No man could bind him. He's just wild.
"He's living among the monuments to the power of the devils he's operating under. One of the ways your Bible describes what happens with the Baal worship, Isaiah 65 says, [2] I have spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people, which walketh in a way that was not good, after their own thoughts;
[3] A people that provoketh me to anger continually to my face; that sacrificeth in gardens, and burneth incense upon altars of brick;
[4] Which remain among the graves, and lodge in the monuments, which eat swine's flesh, and broth of abominable things is in their vessels.
"The guy in Mark 5, when the devils want to come out of him, where do they want to go? Into the swine. He's in the monument, he's among the graves. He's doing exactly what Baal worship leads itself to: the groves, the high places.
"It talks about him cutting himself and crying in the tombs. Mark 5:5: [5] And always, night and day, he was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones.
"That's the self-flagellation. It's masochism. That's the absolute depths of sin. It's one thing to try and cause other people pain (sadism), but when you try and inflict that pain, not just on them but yourself, that's what you can honestly call the depths of Satan.
"Mark 5:3 is saying there's no human way to deliver him. There was no man-made system going to counteract what he was in and all human efforts to try and do that were to no avail and that's exactly what Satan tells Israel.
"When Jesus talks about the strong man and how, if you're going to take his stuff you've got to bind him, this man was bound and nobody could go in and take him.
"Jeremiah 31 gives God's promise to Israel, but they've got a problem. God's telling Israel, 'I'm going to redeem you and bring you back into the land even though you're being held by somebody stronger than you are from whose grip you can't get loose but I can loose it.' Of course, the way He's going to do that is through the Messiah. That's what the new covenant is about.
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"In Baal worship they worshipped in the high elevated places and mountains. You remember where Satan says, 'I will ascend up above the clouds.' The idea is of going up to a high place. In Luke 4, he takes Christ up on a high mountain so He can see all the kingdoms of the earth.
"By the way, when you read about having the kids pass through the fire of Molech, what they were doing is what people today call 'baby dedication.' In evangelistic protestant churches, baby dedication is sort of the limp-wristed, weak-kneed form of Romanism with the baptism of the baby, and all of that is really just part of that paganism. They bring it over and and assimilate it and make it palatable for you to use and when you don't do those things, people think you're nuts.
"I keep telling you, when you see religion, you're looking at some kind of a plagiarized, corrupted form on this stuff in Scripture.
Jeremiah 13:16 says, [16] Give glory to the LORD your God, before he cause darkness, and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains, and, while ye look for light, he turn it into the shadow of death, and make it gross darkness.
"That's not physical darkness; that's the spiritual darkness of rejecting God's Word and introducing devil worship. II Kings 15 is what they're doing. Verses 3-4: [3] And he did that which was right in the sight of the LORD, according to all that his father Amaziah had done;
[4] Save that the high places were not removed: the people sacrificed and burnt incense still on the high places.
"All of this is religion. The guy in Mark 5 is not in his condition because he's got a loose screw mentally, or he has an emotional problem, or he's a drunkard or drug addict. This guy has been caught in a vain, religious system. The Bible calls it Baal worship; it's a satanic system that has a worship system and a worship order with it. It has places where they operate and he's bound in it.
"Again, he's a picture of the nation Israel and he's cutting himself with stones. In I Kings 18, when Elijah takes the prophets of Baal up on Mt. Carmel and has the contest, what do they do when Baal doesn't answer? They begin to cut themselves.
"Listen, Satan hates the nation Israel; he hates humanity. If he can get Israel, or anybody, to destroy themselves, he'll do it and this just demonstrates the attitude the Adversary has for the nation Israel and mankind, as it were. He wants to torture and destroy if he can."
(to be continued tomorrow)
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