The Call to Evangelize

I want to speak with you about something very significant, and that is the call to evangelize, the call to be evangelists. And I am going to base my remarks on Luke, chapter 8, verses 26 through 39. With this sermon I want to begin what, with the Lord’s help, will be a series making us, as a congregation, aware of the imperative, the call, the commission, the obligation to be evangelists, to be witnesses of Jesus Christ, and also, as a church, as an institution, to be an evangelistically oriented church. Let me read the passage; it is long, and I feel that I must read it.

“…The disciples and Jesus arrived in the land of the Gadarenes, which is on the shore opposite Galilee, and when he stepped onto land, a man from the city came to meet him—interestingly, he was from a city, perhaps like Boston, smaller, but comparatively speaking, a metropolis at that time—who had been demon-possessed for a long time…”

How many believe that demons are real? How many believe that hell is real? How many believe that Satan’s work in the world is real? At least the Bible believes it is. And Jesus had many encounters with the power of the devil, specifically with Satan and his spirits. This is not fiction; it certainly is not a creation of ignorant Pentecostals. The Bible clearly says that demons exist, that demons are real, and all the cultures of humanity—from Buddhists to Islamists, Hindus, the Native American cultures here in the United States, Africa, and the indigenous cultures of Latin America—everywhere in the world throughout all the centuries, the world’s different religions that specialize in the spiritual realm have believed and still believe in the existence of spiritual beings called demons: Satan and his spirits, which affect the course of nations and people, of individuals, in a very powerful and sometimes decisive way. And in this text, this man exemplified, and still exemplifies, a person under Satan’s power.

“…demon-possessed for a long time—and look at the effect of this contamination—he wore no clothes and did not live in a house, but among the tombs…” where there is death, where there is human decay, where there is everything that calls to mind the eternal and the dark—that was where he lived.

“…And when he saw Jesus, he let out a great cry and, falling at his feet, exclaimed in a loud voice, ‘What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?’

Notice something: this man is confessing—this demon, these spirits are confessing—the lordship of Jesus Christ, his spiritual nature: Jesus, Son of the Most High God. Sometimes one thinks that demons do not recognize him. The Bible says that demons believe and tremble. They know who Jesus Christ is. They know that God is Lord; they know that they are condemned to eternal damnation. And this man approaches and says:

“…‘What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?’—not the man, but the spirits inside him—‘I beg you, do not torment me…’—because he was commanding the unclean spirit to come out of the man, for it had taken possession of him a long time before. And they would bind him with chains and shackles, but breaking the chains, he was driven—that is, he was pushed, he was compelled by the demon—into the deserts—another place of death, of barrenness.

Spirits seek places that are akin to what they are, to their nature: desert, tombs, darkness, gloom.

“…And Jesus asked him, saying, ‘What is your name?’ And he said, ‘Legion,’ because many demons had entered him, and they begged Jesus not to command them to go into the abyss…”

What is that abyss? That is hell; it is the place of darkness. People think that Jesus Christ is too good to send anyone to hell. He does not send people to hell; people condemn themselves to hell. He did not make that place—God did not make that place for man; he made it for the demons, the Bible says so. But unfortunately, we have to go somewhere when we die. Our spirit is eternal, and God does not simply turn it into scrap, dispose of it, and pulverize it. The spirit within us is eternal, and something must be done with it, and there are two places: either we go to heaven or we go to hell, to the abyss, where the demons will be, where they properly belong. They did not want to go prematurely to that place of imprisonment and terrible darkness and gloom.

“…not to command them to go into the abyss. Now there was a herd of many pigs feeding on the hillside, and they begged him to let them enter them…”—Another place with an affinity for demons: tombs, deserts, pigs that like mud and filth. You know that pigs were unclean to the Hebrews, and there is something in that connection.—“…and he gave them permission…”

One wonders why the Lord showed such condescension toward these spirits. Those are the mysteries of the relationship between God and the powers of hell. I believe there is a great deal to explore there, but the fact is that the Lord granted their request—not to enter another person, but to enter a herd of pigs.

“…And after coming out of the man, they entered the pigs, and the herd rushed down a steep bank into the lake and drowned…”

I would like to see a movie with that scene. I would not like it, but it would be striking: this herd of pigs possessed by these demons hurling itself over a precipice. It is a terrible image.

“…And when those tending the pigs saw what had happened, they fled and went and reported it in the city and throughout the countryside. And people went out to see what had happened, and they came to Jesus and found the man from whom the demons had gone out sitting at Jesus’ feet, clothed and in his right mind…” Glory to the Lord.

They were afraid. Ask yourself why they were afraid when they saw this man clothed and in his right mind.

“…And those who had seen it told them how the demon-possessed man had been saved. Then the entire multitude from the surrounding region of the Gadarenes begged him to leave them, for they were greatly afraid…”—I would have invited him to stay in the city; with a gunslinger like that, the city would have been safer. But no, they felt fear, terror at experiencing such a strange situation: a confrontation with demons, what that stirred up in their souls, the sense of mystery, of not being in control, powers that complicate people’s minds. Now their world had become a little more complicated and more mysterious, and their reaction was, “We don’t want this. We do not want that, so get out of here. We want to continue with our simple life, our simplistic life, so go somewhere else.”

“…And Jesus got into the boat and returned, and the man from whom the demons had gone out begged him—notice how interesting this is—to let him stay with him. But Jesus sent him away, saying, ‘Return to your home and tell what great things God has done for you.’ And he went away, proclaiming throughout the whole city what great things Jesus had done for him.”

Glory to the Lord. Those last two verses could be the foundation of our meditation this morning. The Lord calls us to tell of the great things he has done in our lives and to proclaim everywhere the things the Lord has done for us.

As I was saying, we are preparing to begin our… It is not an evangelistic campaign, and I have called it an evangelistic strategy, but this morning I meant our life, our evangelistic existence as a church. Why? Because we have sensed from the Lord—I have sensed from the Lord—a burning zeal, as the Bible says, to commit ourselves before the Lord as a church to an existence as evangelists. May our church have an evangelistic orientation, and we are taking steps in that direction because this is not something we are going to do for one month; it is not as though we are going to conduct an evangelism campaign. No. Brothers and sisters, I want this to define our life as a congregation from now on: an evangelistic way of life, an existence as a church that places evangelism at the very center of our life as an institution and as a body.

As I have told you, we have spent twenty-some years constructing buildings, and God has given us a very beautiful physical facility in which many things can be done. We have rooms of every conceivable size; it is a very beautiful, highly functional place in the middle of the city, with many spaces in which to do many things, in a strategic location in the city. It has cost us a great deal of work and a great deal of money, and you have been part of that wonderful miracle through your generosity toward God and toward the Kingdom.

But it cannot all be merely about preparing physical spaces. Physical spaces are simply a platform; they are a space in which something can be done, and we want to use these things that God has allowed us to develop to proclaim the Gospel. And now the platform is in place, and we have to use it. We now want to reinvest the energies we had to devote to physical construction in carrying out the evangelistic calling. Those energies have been diverted—not diverted, but rather invested—in the physical work of construction.

But I feel that now we have to find another motivation, the true one, which is the reason churches and the Church of Jesus Christ exist: to proclaim the lordship of Christ among the nations. Say amen. It is to declare that Christ is Lord, that he has the solution to man’s problems, that he is and always will be the Son of God, the Savior of humanity. And that is our reason for being. And I want us to spend the coming years of our lives exploring how to do that, and because it is something of such magnitude, we have to take time to establish the platform gradually. And that is why we are in a process of reflection; I have been announcing these purposes from time to time, and we have begun to preach.

But today I feel that, for me, this is the beginning of yet another step in that direction. We have already held a consultation with leaders of the congregation about some ideas and possibilities. I have been reflecting a great deal and taking notes. We are taking steps that you may not be aware of, but know that all this machinery is beginning to move in order to give birth to a truly evangelistic church. And these talents, gifts, and energies that God has allowed us to use to construct these buildings, we now want to invest in a much more concentrated way in the salvation of souls. And you are necessary for that.

And this morning I am declaring that more intentionally, and I am beginning this series of sermons because I want to awaken in us—in you and in me as well—that commitment to be evangelists and witnesses of Jesus Christ. Because people think, well, the pastor will take care of that; he will simply preach evangelistic sermons and give an invitation every Sunday, and people will be converted, and that is all. No, in reality you are the evangelists. I also have to do my part. The Bible says—I believe it was to Timothy—do the work of an evangelist. We pastors must also be evangelists. I have my part, but I am actually very limited in what I can do. You, however, are the leaven in this city. You are in the workplaces, the schools, the neighborhoods, the trains; among your friends and your relatives, you are the salt of the earth. You are grains of salt throughout the community; you are leaven inserted into the dough of the city, called to declare the lordship of Jesus Christ. Amen.

In your conversations, in your homes, in your neighborhood, with your neighbor, with your friends, you are to be a witness of Jesus Christ. And that is why God placed… I had another sermon in mind concerning this subject, but this morning my life became more complicated, as sometimes happens, because instead of using something I already had, the Lord, for some reason, placed the image of the Gadarene very clearly before me as the starting point for this meditation, because it illustrates many of the things the Lord has told me should characterize our evangelistic life and strategy, some of the elements that should form part of our evangelistic identity. And we are going to look at some of them in order to understand this calling better.

The first thing I see here is Jesus Christ and his disciples actively engaged in evangelism. We see them traveling from Galilee, crossing that great Lake of Gennesaret to go to the other side, to a city called Gadara—hence the demon-possessed Gadarene. It was a city. There was a group of cities there in that area, ten cities under Greek influence, and the Lord goes to Gadara. Why does he go there? Because he is going to evangelize. The ministry of Jesus Christ is an itinerant ministry; it was not an office. He did not have an office where people came for a consultation and from there send people out to do… No, he lived moving from one place to another. It was an itinerant ministry, and he went from city to city preaching the Word and announcing the coming of the Kingdom of God and himself as the Son of God, the promised Messiah.

And they are moving from one place to another, carrying the Word, and in that effort to carry the Word, they find this man—or rather, he finds them. Because when you move, when you are diligent in evangelism, God will bring opportunities into your life. God will put you in a position to preach the Gospel, but you have to want to be an evangelist; you have to desire opportunities; you have to pray for opportunities; you have to seek those opportunities. And when you do your part, God does his.

Every day God places opportunities in our path. On the train, someone comes over, sits down, and starts a conversation with us, and we know that we have four, five, or six minutes. It is important that we ask the Lord, “Lord, give me the opportunity.” Even if all you do is invite them to church, a conversation about Jesus Christ can begin there. At your workplace, there are people who have all kinds of problems and difficulties, and you drink tea with them and sometimes eat with them. As we speak with that person, we are secretly asking the Lord, “Lord, open their heart, open their mind, so that they will give me an opening into their life.”

Because we must also be wise; we must be prudent; we must be responsible. By the way, let me tell you: if you are being paid to work, do not use your work time to preach the Gospel. Do not undress one saint to clothe another. We must be responsible in our work. We also live in an environment hostile to the Gospel, and we do not want to create unnecessary animosity either. Take advantage of legitimate opportunities to speak to others about Jesus Christ. And in your heart, ask the Lord, “Father, awaken in me a hunger and a need to share Your Word with others, and make me a person with evangelistic energy and anointing. Make it easier for me; I am not good with words,” tell the Lord. “I do not have the ease that others have. The idea of preaching to others about the Lord Jesus Christ intimidates me, but give me courage; give me the anointing; give me opportunities.” Pray at home that God would… That is what I am doing, brothers and sisters, for our congregation, and I am asking for wisdom for myself to lead you and for our whole being to be seized by a sense of calling.

And if you ask the Lord, and if you make evangelism central to your life, God will provide you with opportunities for that to happen. But you have to get moving; you have to be attentive. The Lord—His life was evangelism—and He trained the disciples. Wherever we see Him, He is speaking with them, giving them ideas, giving them feedback after their experiences, and sending them on evangelistic training missions. But the Lord kept moving; He knew that this was His purpose for being here. He needed others to come to Him.

The Bible says that the Son of Man must be lifted up before the eyes of men, so that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. As Moses said, he lifted up the bronze serpent in the wilderness when the people were dying from snakebites, and God told Moses about this serpent: “Make a bronze serpent and place it in a high place so that everyone who looks at the serpent will be healed instead of dying from the poison.” And Moses did so, and the Lord recalled that image and said, “In the same way, I must be lifted up before the eyes of men, because men are being bitten by serpents, so that when they look at Me, they may be saved.”

Christ’s call upon our lives is this: to lift up Jesus at all times and in every place, in wise ways, in intelligent ways, including through our own lives, which is more important than anything else. That is why we must strive to live lives that validate the preaching of the Gospel. That is why we must be consistent in the way we live, so that the world will say, “Wow, I want what that person has. And that person has the authority to speak to me because I see the fruit of the Holy Spirit in their life.”

But we see that the call is very important. In Matthew 28:19, we see the Lord giving His Great Commission. Before leaving this earth, the Lord calls them, gathers them together, and says to them, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth; therefore… build large, beautiful churches, stay there on Sundays, and worship Me. No. …therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, commanding them to keep all the things that I have taught you. Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the world.”

Do you know whom Jesus Christ is with? Those who evangelize. That is why He says, “Behold, consequently, I am with you. Do not worry; I will be helping you.” When you embrace a call to evangelize, the Lord says, “I am with you.” Do you know why God does not bless more churches, anoint them with His Spirit, and pour out His gifts? What for, if they are not doing anything? Why give them the gifts? The gifts are for evangelizing. The gifts are for doing the work of God. God blesses churches that act, that work, that minister to people.

Do you want to understand the power of the Gospel? Begin putting the word evangelism into action in your life. Speak, invite people to come into the Kingdom of God, share your testimony, and share the Word. With the Lord’s help, we will also be teaching and giving instruction on how to share a testimony and how to evangelize others. All of this is part of the process that we want to follow.

In Acts, chapter 1, verse 8, we also see the Lord, before His departure, saying to His disciples, “And you shall be My witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Samaria, in Judea, and to the ends of the earth.”

You will be My witness in Hyde Park, in Jamaica Plain, in Boston, in Massachusetts, in New England, in the United States, throughout the whole earth, in your country—wherever you go, even to the uttermost part of the earth. I will make you an evangelist, a witness. That is what the Lord wants us to be above all: witnesses of His resurrection and witnesses of His power and His lordship.

The first disciples were chosen to be witnesses of what they had seen and heard. Peter says, “What we have seen and heard, that we proclaim to you.” The disciples were witnesses above all; we are witnesses above all. We are supposed to testify everywhere about what we have experienced as believers in Jesus Christ and to bring others to the knowledge of Jesus.

Are you a teacher? Are you a social worker? Are you a homemaker? Do you work in a Boston factory? Do you drive a taxi, drive a bus, sell something somewhere, or drive a truck? All of those things represent opportunities to preach the Gospel, to be a witness. God continually places you in different settings, and the Lord is looking for people who will testify about Jesus Christ. You do not have to be a theologian; you do not have to be a seminary-trained preacher. Talk about your testimony; talk about what God has done in your life, how God has transformed you, and how God has changed you. We can all say something about what God has done in our lives. Yes or no?

God has healed some of us; He has delivered others from depression; He has literally delivered others from the power of demons and darkness; He has transformed others emotionally; He has healed the marriages of some; He has brought others out of misery and poverty; He has delivered others from death at some point; or He has healed us from some severe illness. God has done something in your life. Use that as a weapon; use that as an instrument. People may argue with many things you tell them, but they cannot argue with what God has done in your life. If you proclaim it in a humble, simple, natural way—“This is what God did in my life. I invite you to try the Lord. Try Jesus. Give Him a chance so that you can see how He will change your life.”

So we see that the Lord and His disciples were continually on the move. And one of the things we as a church must ask the Lord is that He make each one of us people with evangelistic urgency, an evangelistic identity, evangelistic activity, and an evangelistic life. There is nothing more beautiful than being a worker for the Lord. Whatever else you may be, you are also a worker for the Lord.

My sister Fany—I am putting her on the spot for a moment because I am in contact with her and have known her quite well for many years—is a teacher in the Boston Public Schools, and she is a woman who takes advantage of many opportunities in her work to be the salt of the earth, to minister to her students and their parents, and to speak to them about… because she has contact with many people. I know that many of us also have opportunities to show the goodness of Jesus Christ. So let us be active and alert, asking the Lord for anointing for evangelism.

Another thing we see here in this passage is the condition of those whom we must evangelize. This man is demonized; he is completely possessed by the powers of darkness. His condition is terribly distressing. And perhaps the people we encounter every day are not in such a terrible condition; they are not foaming at the mouth or rolling their eyes back in their sockets, but they are equally subject to Satan’s authority and dominion.

A person does not have to be completely demon-possessed to be legally, judicially under the power of darkness. In fact, the spirits are not particularly interested in that; they are far too intelligent to have people wandering around like in those zombie movies, with streets full of zombies everywhere, everyone filled with demons. No, he is much subtler than that. In the great seats of authority in the world, in the great universities, in the great corporations, in the realms of law and business, academia, the media, Hollywood, and different parts of this world, there are people who are under Satan’s power even though they do not express it in the same way the demon-possessed man did.

The only thing Satan cares about is that you go to hell, and if he can send you to hell aboard an ocean liner on a sightseeing cruise, he does not care. The important thing is that in the end he has your soul, and how he gets you there does not matter—whether with a revolver, killing people or stealing, or by giving money to philanthropy. He does not care. What matters to him is that your soul be lost and that you do not receive Christ as your Lord and Savior.

In this world, there are many high-class people who dress in very expensive suits every day, but they are under Satan’s power. They will go to hell because they do not have Jesus Christ, because the only thing that saves a human being is the work Jesus accomplished on the cross of Calvary, where He paid for the sins of us all. Therefore, the person who signs on to that work Christ accomplished on the cross can partake of the benefit of what He did; otherwise, that person is simply left to their own resources to enter heaven. And no one can enter heaven by their own resources because no one is perfect enough to do so. It must be the perfection of another, who is Jesus.

So all of humanity that is not under Christ Jesus is under the power of hell; that is what the Word says. It was simply that, for some reason, this man was possessed in such an obvious way that his life manifested it: his clothes were rags, he lived among the tombs, he had supernatural strength, his mind was completely possessed, and he howled like a wild animal. It is like a graphic illustration of what life under Satan’s power is, but that is all—it is one extreme. Yet between that extreme and everything else, there are thousands of variations of being and living under the enemy’s power.

Our cities are under the enemy’s power. There are people in their homes who are depressed and anxious; their lives are a disaster, and they are under Satan’s lordship without knowing it. They need someone with the power and anointing of Jesus Christ to show them the way, pray for them, declare Christ’s lordship over their lives, and break their spiritual chains. That is the church.

God has designed a very simple system: there are people in need; there is one person, Christ Jesus, who has the power; and there are intermediaries, you and I, who tell them to go to Christ and obtain what they need to receive healing in their lives. And we must do our part.

But the world, the Bible says, is under Satan’s lordship. Ever since Adam and Eve sinned, humanity has been undergoing a process of continual degeneration. Today, in the twenty-first century, societies have turned away as never before from the protection that only Jesus Christ can offer. A world without Christ is what we saw when Christ came to earth 2,000 years ago: a world in darkness, a world of paganism, a world of idols, a world of slavery, a world of all-out wars everywhere. Today, humanity has turned so far away from Christ and from God—just as the humanity Christ encountered around the year zero, more than 2,000 years ago, had turned away—that humanity is now worse than it was back then.

We have vaccines, we have computers, and we have rockets that go to the moon, but the human condition is worse than it was then. There are wars and rumors of wars; there is terrorism everywhere; there are neuroses; there is family division; there is drug addiction; there is unbridled sensuality; there is discontent among the nations; the family is deteriorating; parents do not know what to do with their children.

Do you think that is civilization? It is a civilization in appearance, but the Gadarene is just as demon-possessed as he was when Jesus encountered him 2,000 years ago. The human condition… Go into our cities. Someone told me that they recently visited part of the city here in Boston and were surprised that at every little four-cornered intersection where two streets crossed, there was a cross and an offering for someone who had been killed in that neighborhood. They said that the neighborhood was filled with flowers and floral tributes for young people who had been murdered in this city.

Why does that happen in one of the most civilized cities on earth, a city like Boston? Because the demon-possessed man has no one to tell him, “Go,” or, if he does, what happens is that they too are rejecting him. But we have to proclaim. There are many people in this city who are in need, who only need someone to tell them that Christ is the solution.

And we also want to be… one of the things I am asking the Lord is to make us the kind of congregation and community where people feel welcome when they come here. And we have to be part of that process. One of the things we have to do is be a hospitable church. If someone comes and asks you to move over in your seat so they can pass, make sure you do it with a big smile on your face, not as though, “Now I have to get up,” as if you were in a movie theater and they were bothering you. This is the house of the Lord.

And likewise, if you have to pass by someone, you do not know whom you are asking to let you through, so do it with a smile. When the service ends, greet someone and say, “God bless you,” instead of turning toward the person you know best. If a mother is having some difficulty with her little child, let us do everything possible to help; perhaps an usher can come and say to her, “Look, we can take you,” but do not roll your eyes at her, give her a dirty look, and begin criticizing her. I have heard of people who have said to young mothers, “You had better stay home.” We have to be much more careful about that; we have to be very careful because we want to be a church.

If someone comes with a situation involving homosexuality, alcoholism, drugs, poorly dressed, smelling bad, or whatever it may be, hold your nose, put on a pleasant expression, and welcome that person in the Lord. Let us be a generous church. Let us not look at people’s sins; let us first look at our own sins and forget about passing judgment. Simply present Christ to them and let Christ take care of them, because if we are going to bring people… God is not going to send people to be harmed by a Pharisaical, hateful church full of gossip, conflict, and people who have not had a genuine encounter with Jesus Christ. People say, “If that is what it is like, I am better off staying home.”

If we are going to be an evangelistic and effective church, we have to be a church that exemplifies the finest values of the Kingdom of God. And that begins with you and me. We have to ask Him, “Lord, sanctify me, deal with me, help us to be a generous church, a church where harmony can be felt in the air when people enter, where the presence of the Lord can dwell in complete comfort.” We have to be that kind of congregation.

The world is demonized. Evangelistic preaching is spiritual warfare. That is something the Lord has also spoken to me about. One of the things I feel is that our evangelistic message must have a theme, a central theme, and it is precisely this: Christ breaks Satan’s chains. Christ breaks the enemy’s dominion. Christ drives away the darkness; Christ sets people free.

Christ said, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” Do you know that evangelism is spiritual warfare? Christ is the only one who can stand against the powers of the devil. That is why God sent Him; that is why nations without Jesus Christ can never hope to succeed in their struggle against war, violence, poverty, hunger, crime, and human dysfunction, because all those things come from the powers of Satan, and only Jesus can stand against the powers of darkness. That is why the Lord sent Christ into the world to defeat the power of the devil.

He came to destroy the works of the devil, the Word says. And the Gospel must be presented as the solution to Satan’s hegemony in the world and in societies, in cultures, in families, in the lives of individuals, in homes, in neighborhoods, and in the streets. We have to present Christ as the solution to these problems.

That is why this passage captivated me when God placed it in my mind, because it coincided with that idea God has given me that we must preach the Gospel in terms of spiritual warfare. It is not that we are going to be talking about demons everywhere we go. No, we have to do it intelligently, but we have to know that this is the underlying reality.

The Bible says that our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the forces of darkness in the heavenly realms that govern the culture and the economy of this world, and Jesus Christ is the solution both collectively and individually.

It is interesting, first of all, that here we see evangelism taking place in terms of first freeing the person from the power of the devil—freeing him, breaking his chains, and making a normal and abundant life possible for him through the power of Jesus. What power Jesus has! These demons are compelled to come before Jesus; it is not even that the Lord calls them, but rather that, by His power, He forces them to come before Him in chains. “What do You have to do with us, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?” They are compelled to reveal their condition and their activity because there is so much power in Jesus Christ.

And look at how they acknowledge Christ’s lordship. They know they have no alternative. They have to come out. And then they say to Him, “Look, at least do not send us into the abyss; send us into this herd.” There is mystery there; I do not have the answer to all that mystery. Why does He send them into a… and what happened afterward to those pigs, and what happened to the demons when the pigs died? The Bible does not give us the answer to everything. I have my conjecture, but that does not matter right now.

What matters is that Satan is real. Over the course of 30 years of pastoral ministry, I have had so many experiences with people in this very congregation who manifested the presence of demonic powers in their lives and were set free by the power of Jesus Christ. I believe I can say without being mistaken that there has never been a confrontation with a demon in my pastoral life in which the person was not set free, because Christ has the power. I have always believed that.

I will never resign myself when a person says, “You know what? We have tried…” There have sometimes been periods of three days when I have been involved in confrontations—not 24 hours a day, but in different sessions—and eventually those powers have had to leave. The devil is real. Satan is real, brothers and sisters. This is being said to you by a very logical, very coherent, very thoughtful person. I do not believe every single thing I see out there, or all the myths and all that. I have seen a great deal in this world, and I can tell you that the presence of the devil and hell is something very real and true, and the church needs to understand this.

The risks are serious, hell is real, and we have to buy ourselves an insurance policy—not even buy it, but obtain it—and that is the insurance Christ provides: His blood, His work. What will become of us in eternity? Where do we go after we die? That is the most important question a man or woman can ask. What will your eternal destiny be? When your body is separated from your soul, when you have taken your last breath and your course here in life has ended, where will you go for all eternity? That is the most important question of all, and the devil spends a great deal of time trying to keep people from asking themselves that question, entertaining them with all kinds of activities and pleasures so that they will not one day find themselves confronted by it.

Think about what eternity is and what your life is here now—70 or 80 years compared with eternity, something that never ends. Your life here on earth is not even the blink of an eye compared with eternity, and millions of souls will go into eternity without Christ, without salvation, because no one spoke to them; and just as they were under Satan’s power here, they will also be under Satan’s power in eternity. That is a terrible thing to contemplate, and every person has to make peace with God through Jesus Christ, while we have to proclaim that message with great urgency.

There is nothing more important in this world. In fact, if I truly grasped the magnitude of what I am saying, brothers and sisters, I do not think I would even stop to eat as I proclaimed the Gospel. It is because, in His mercy, God somehow tempers the sense of urgency a little. What could be more important in this world than helping a soul be saved from hell? What could possibly be more important than that? There is nothing.

I ask the Lord to overwhelm me with a sense of desperation to do His work here on earth during the years we have left, whether as a congregation or personally. I have told you that the Gospel is spiritual warfare, and I told you this morning that I do not believe in every… I do not see the devil even in my soup, as some people out there do, but I know—I have had experience with the powers of the devil, and I know that it is real.

And this morning, when we came in here and faced this whole matter with the sound and all these sound problems, it was because… I have come to understand this: when Satan is spoken about, the demons wake up and try to do harm. They cannot, but they try. And they try to create obstacles and complications, make life difficult, and take away our peace. That is their effect. We have seldom had as many problems with the sound system as we had this morning.

It is interesting that before the Lord encounters this demon-possessed man, if you read the passage preceding it, there is a storm. As they are going toward Gadara, a storm arises on the sea. There it is in the preceding verses; it says that “…as they sailed, He fell asleep. And a windstorm came down on the lake, and they were being swamped and were in danger…”

Why? I believe there is a connection, because the powers of the devil know when someone is going somewhere; and let me tell you that those victories over the demon-possessed man of Gadara have given people a great deal of material over the centuries for reflecting on Christ’s lordship and power over the darkness. I believe hell knew what was going to happen in Gadara and, angered by them, did everything possible and unleashed a storm to see whether it could prevent them from reaching Gadara, but it did not remember that the Lord was in the boat. And when the frightened disciples come to Him, saying, “Master, Master, we are perishing,” the Lord is perfectly calm, asleep in the boat, and it says that “…He awoke and rebuked the wind and the waves; and they ceased, and there was a calm…” Hallelujah!

You know that we also have to prepare ourselves. When a church is carrying out effective evangelistic work, bringing souls to the knowledge of Jesus Christ, and denouncing and exposing the work of the devil in society, in cultures, and in individuals, there will be reprisals and there will be a counterattack from the enemy, and he will try to do everything possible. So, if we are going to do this, we have to ask the Lord, “Lord, cover us with the blood of Your Son; cover us with a spirit of holiness and integrity so that he will have nothing he can exploit.” And we have to pray, we have to cry out to the Lord, we have to protect our church, we have to pray for our leaders, and we have to pray for understanding so that the Lord will keep us.

Because this is just a distraction; that is all it is—harassment. This is simply a minor distraction with no ultimate consequences, but this is what happens. When a sermon is going to be preached that exposes the enemy and brings to light what he truly does and what he is like, and I rebuke him in the name of Jesus, he tries to do harm. Cover me with the blood of Christ, brothers and sisters; pray for me as the senior leader of this congregation, brothers and sisters. I plead with you in the name of Jesus to take seriously your prayers for me, my wife, my family, and my home, and I ask it of you as a favor. And let us also cover the rest of the leaders and our congregation, because if God allows us to be effective in what we are about to undertake, there will be counterattacks; and in the name of the Lord, we place it all under the blood and covering of Christ.

We must not be afraid, but neither should we become careless. The Bible says, “Be sober and watchful, because your adversary the devil walks around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” If you are doing the work of God, the enemy will want to do harm in your life, and there will be confrontation, because evangelism is spiritual warfare; it is confrontation with the powers of Satan, it is plundering the enemy’s forces, it is snatching away souls, and he is not happy when that is done.

And so we have to ask the Lord to give us strength, give us boldness, give us wisdom, purify us, and defend us from every attack of the enemy. We have to show society and the people out there that your marital problems, your emotional problems, your family problems, and often—though not always—your health problems and material problems sometimes have a demonic element. The devil does not want you to enter into the abundance of life that Christ has made possible.

And while you are without protection, he helps himself lavishly to your family, your children, your health, your spiritual life, your marriage, and society as well. I ask the Lord that the day might come when entire nations recognize that they need Christ and that their rulers, their presidents, their prime ministers, gather the nation together and say through the media, “This nation is hereby submitted to the claims of Christ Jesus as Lord, and we ask him to come in and transform our culture, our economy, our society, and our children.” Listen to me, I believe there would be changes in those nations if there were men and women who truly feared God, who understood what spiritual warfare is and what it means to summon the power of God and of heaven so that it may favor and bless a nation and bring progress to a nation, to a society, and bring enlightenment and wisdom to its leaders so that there may be true progress among the nations.

We have to ask the Lord to give us the wisdom to do this, because it is spiritual warfare; it means disconnecting nations, societies, and cities from the power of the devil and connecting them to the transforming power of Christ Jesus. That is evangelistic, brothers and sisters. That is spiritual warfare. And Christ is the only one who has the power and authority to wrest souls away from the devil, just as he wrested this Gadarene man away from him.

The last thing I leave with you—two little points—is the condition of this man after Christ intervenes. It says that this man, who before had been… screaming among the tombs, living among the tombs, completely insane, neurotic, utterly deranged, a human wreck—it says that now they saw him clothed and in his right mind. The change in this man was so great that the people were afraid; they were not even amazed, they were frightened. This man had spent years like that, and no one… You know something? What was the only thing they could do? Bind this man with chains, and not even that worked.

One of the things I see in this city right now, in Boston—and I see it throughout the United States—in the case of the demon-possessed man, is this: the twenty-first century has a greater capacity to influence people’s behavior than any society has ever had, and yet it is completely powerless to improve the condition of its people.

When Meche and I were on our way here to church this morning, as we are every Sunday, there was a crowd of people—not merely people wandering about, homeless, because that would be somewhat less serious—but you can see the corruption in their hearts and minds. Many of them are bound by vice, and by alcohol, sex, drugs, neurosis, rebellion, and violence. That is what one sees in the shelters, in the city’s shelters. The city has no power to change the condition of these people; those people are too far advanced in their deterioration. What is more, the church needs a special anointing from Jesus Christ to set those people free, brothers and sisters, because they are already so far gone. I am not saying all of them are, but as for those in the most advanced conditions, only divine intervention can change the destiny of those people.

Society cannot, brothers and sisters, change the young people who are in gangs killing one another. They do not have the power. All they have are prisons to put them in; that is all. You know that incarceration is this nation’s great scandal. The United States incarcerates far more people than any other nation in the world. The only thing they can do is chain them up and put them in prison; they cannot do anything else. The Department of Social Services and the Department of Public Health throw millions of dollars at the problem. The only things the Department of Public Health teaches are lesbianism and homosexuality. They do good to a certain extent, but they are places controlled by gay culture. Many of the people who are there—and I am even afraid to say this in public, but it is the reality, brothers and sisters—the Boston Department of Public Health is greatly affected and influenced by homosexual culture because they know that it is a strategic place. And I know there are many good people there and that much good is done, but the system will never be able to deal with the conditions and needs of this society.

The Children and Family departments are the same: they cannot keep up, and nothing is changing in this society. Why? Because with the demon-possessed person, the only thing they can do is put him in prison, control him, give him a drug so that he wastes away and walks around completely dazed so that he will not hurt anyone, so that he will not have the strength to do harm, as happens with so many people; or give him another drug that replaces the drug he uses so that he does not have to kill to get it, but he is still drugged. Because only a change from within can change the condition of the Gadarene demoniac, and only Christ has that answer, brothers and sisters. The only answer is a change of heart, a change of mind.

And society—the church—has to provide it. When this man has an encounter with Jesus Christ and the doors of his prison open from within, he becomes clear-minded enough to recognize the claims of Jesus Christ, and that is what we have to do. Father, teach us how to bring our culture to Christ Jesus so that it may be clothed and in its right mind at Jesus’ feet.

And the last thing I will tell you is that here lies the key to this entire sermon. When this man experiences, perhaps for the first time in decades, the well-being that comes when Christ is at the center and all his emotions and all his faculties are revolving in an orderly way like planets around their sun, and for the first time he can feel peace in his heart and think like a normal, healthy man, what does he want to do? He wants to remain with Jesus Christ: “Lord, let me remain before you and with you every day of my life. I want to go with you.” But the Lord tells him, “No, there is something even more important. Go and tell your relatives, your friends, and your neighbors what great things God has done for you.”

That is what we have to do, brothers and sisters. The Sunday service is very nice: there is good music, a warm place, fairly comfortable chairs, fairly decent people, and a so-so sermon; but this is not our resting place. If all we do is come to church and check in from Sunday to Sunday, taking a dose of spiritual methadone that lasts us through the week and then returning the following Sunday, we have missed the true purpose. You come to church to be strengthened. You come to church to be prepared. You come to church to be educated. You come to church to be healed. You come to church to obtain weapons and resources so that you may proclaim the truths of the one who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

We come here to be equipped, to be healed of our wounds, yes, but so that the demon-possessed may be set free and so that we may then have more resources to proclaim what great things God has done for us. That is our reason for being. “Lord, how wonderful! Elijah is here, Moses is here, and you are here. Let us make three shelters and remain here on the Mount of Transfiguration.” And the Lord tells him, “No, we have to go down because down there is a father with a demon-possessed son, and he must be healed; he must be set free.”

God did not make us to be forever luxuriating in his presence and celebrating how good he is to us. He made us to share the truth with others and bring others to the knowledge of Jesus Christ.

I want to leave you with that challenge this morning; I want to encourage you in the name of Jesus. Stand up and receive a call from God right now. And if there is anyone here this morning who feels the desire to receive Jesus as Lord and Savior and to place your life, your family, your body, and your finances under the covering and protection of Jesus Christ, I invite you to raise your hand because I want to pray for you this morning.

Is there anyone who will invite Jesus to enter their heart? Let us bow our heads for a moment, think about my appeal, and pray for someone so that God may enable that person to receive Christ. If you want to receive Jesus and invite him to control your life and rule over your family, your body, and your emotions—if you know that you need the only one who can provide a solution to your needs—I invite you to raise your hand now in the name of Jesus. If you have not done so before—there is one sister in the back, and another sister here as well—this is spiritual warfare; it requires courage.

We complain and complain, and we want solutions, but a price must be paid. If you do not do your part, God will not do his. The Lord Jesus Christ says, “If you confess me before men, I will confess you before my Father.” That means that if you do not confess him before men, he does not confess you. There is power in that process of confessing Christ, of saying, “No, I am a follower of Jesus, and before demons and before men I acknowledge that Christ Jesus is my Lord and my Savior.” That has power; that breaks chains; that brings about changes in a person’s life.

You have to humble yourself; you have to take that step. And if you say no, it is no. If you remain silent, if you do not do what you have to do, you are saying no—understand that clearly. You are refusing to do something God is calling you to do. In fact, those hands—please stand up.

I would like to pray for you right where you are. If anyone who raised a hand wants to come forward, I invite you to do so; otherwise, simply keep your hand raised this morning and believe. In the name of Jesus, I release every person to do what God is calling them to do right now. If there is resistance from the devil, Satan, I bind you in the name of Jesus, and I declare freedom in this holy place. Lord, may Christ’s purposes be fulfilled. May souls come to the knowledge of Jesus. Break chains, Father; break the obstacles in their minds and set them free so that they may receive.

Father, we declare that your word will flow like a river through this city. Many will come to the feet of Jesus Christ: entire families, decent people, noble people, well-behaved people, prosperous people will come because they will recognize that no matter how well things may be going for them, without Christ they are lost. And those who are in need, the humble and simple people, will also have their lives lifted up; they will be equipped, they will prosper, they will be enlightened, and they will see the glory of God in their families. And Father, we ask you to make us effective witnesses of the transforming and regenerating work of Jesus of Nazareth. Make us efficient witnesses, Lord. May the transformation that took place on the day of Pentecost, when those frightened men and women became evangelistic lions, also take place in our church, Lion of Judah, Father. May your lion here in Boston roar with the same effectiveness with which you roared against the demons that imprisoned this man, Lord.

We embrace the evangelistic call; we embrace your invitation to be witnesses wherever we go. Set our mouths free, set our feet free, release our resources, release our spiritual anointing. Give us courage and effectiveness and passion and authority to preach the Gospel, to live lives that support our position as evangelists.

Lord, open your heaven and pour out rain, pour out power, pour out authority, pour out understanding. Holy Spirit, reach those who are here and those who are far away this morning. Lord, we unleash evangelistic power. Father, we declare that souls are set free, that young people are released so they may consider the claims of Jesus. Single mothers, married couples, professionals, homeless people, and workers are set free; their minds are made clear. We unleash the power of God over those lives, and we bind the powers of Satan.

Devil, we rebuke you in the name of Jesus. We proclaim that Christ came to destroy your works. Christ came to rescue souls. You have no power over the souls whom God sent his Son to redeem. I bless my sister here in front.