Overcoming Empty Obsessions

A few years ago, a woman called me to say she was having some very horrific thoughts. Specifically, even though she loved her baby, she would have these obsessions that would want her to think about killing him. It was to the point where she even did not want to be home alone, fearing that she could not trust herself.

My topic today is empty obsessions, and you know there may be obsessions that have to do with something like killing somebody. There are also obsessions that may be related to sexuality, sexual obsessions. Perhaps also there are other obsessions people have such as food and eating disorders, all kinds of obsessions we might like to even call addictions.

Perhaps we can simply define an obsession as unwanted thoughts and behavior. Something happens to people where it seems as if their reason and their will is actually overridden, and because of that they end up doing things they would never normally want to do. Perhaps obsessions are nothing more than the Apostle Paul and his experience in the seventh chapter of Romans where he said, “The things that I want to do I don’t have the power to do, and the things that I don’t want to do, those are the very things that I end up doing. Oh, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”

Well, today we’re going to paint a picture. It’s a picture of someone who is obsessed, a picture of someone who was possessed, even a picture of someone who had all the traits of schizophrenia. It’s a bad picture. It’s not a very nice kind of a picture, but I want you to paint it in the gallery of your mind. 

Mark Taylor, who is our youth pastor, continually tells us the way to communicate is to tell a story, so this morning I’m going to tell a story. But in your mind, I want you to bring that paintbrush, I want you to bring that canvas; because I want you to imagine you are painting the picture of the story I’m going to tell you. But because what I’m going to say this morning may be upsetting, and in some sense difficult to understand and new to perhaps a lot of people, I’m going to ask we bow one more time and invite the Lord to guide us.

Join with me as we pray.

Now Father, you know despite all of the struggles of the human heart, we do really love you. We wish we were better than we are, and we also know we have often met people whom we have not been able to help, and we confess our need. That’s why, in this moment, we acknowledge the total sovereignty of Jesus Christ, the ability of Christ to take people whose lives are messed up, to touch them, to give them hope.

There are those that are going to be listening to this service who have all kinds of obsessions. Some who go from one obsession to another trying to fill the vacuum and the emptiness of a life that seems to have no purpose. There are those, Lord, who if their private lives would become known would be horrified and shameful. The people we meet are not really the people whom they really are, and so, Lord Jesus, we pray for the blessed Holy Spirit to guide us, to lead us. We depend upon the Spirit, and we pray that Satan, in all of his power, may be bound as today we expose his attempt to ruin human beings. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

The story is found in the Gospel of Mark, chapter 5, in the New Testament. Mark 5. It’s a story you perhaps have read many times but have not had enough time to think about. It’s a story that has many questions connected with it. One thing we are absolutely convinced about is it is a true story.

Mark 5:1, “And they (That is Jesus and the disciples) came to the other side of the sea into the country of the Gerasenes. And when he (that is Christ) had come out of the boat, immediately a man from the tombs with an unclean spirit met him, and he had his dwelling among the tombs.” Keep your Bible open but I shall stop reading right there.

I told you today I wanted you to paint a story. The first thing I would like you to paint in your mind is the place where this man lived. Visualize tombs that are hewn out of hills and rocks, desolate. Visualize a place where there are caves where demented people would sometimes hide out, but also places where the dead would be buried. Visualize that place and you will understand where this man was when he met Jesus Christ.

One of the things we can say about the picture that is in your mind is it is a place of isolation because people who are going through compulsions, people who are going through agony of spirit, people who have within themselves an evil presence they cannot understand and sometimes find hard to identify, people like that don’t necessarily like to be with others, and they become loners. They would prefer to be alone. They don’t want to speak. They don’t want to talk because when we communicate with human beings, we are actually sharing ourselves and there is a certain mood that is created, and people who are going through struggles sometimes don’t want to socialize. That’s why there are some people who do sit in the back of the church, not that you should turn around and see who is there this morning. I’ve known people who have come in, listened to the message, and then left. May I say that’s okay because there are some people who are in the process of getting healed and they can only take so much. But here’s a man among the tombs, isolated, and why does he choose the tombs? Maybe because there is no other place to go. That may be it but there could be another reason too. Somebody who feels unclean within is going to try to find surroundings that match the mood of his inner spirit. 

I don’t know if you’ve ever had any contact with people who are mentally disturbed, but if you go into their homes very often not only do you find an incredible mess and dirt and smells, it just seems as if the whole atmosphere is one of uncleanness and impurity because uncleanness wants to be in an environment where it feels at home. And so, this man is among the tombs. Sketch the picture in your mind.

But now I want you to take your paintbrush and dip into some new colors because not only do you have to sketch where he lived, but also how he acted. For that we pick up the story in the middle of verse 3, “And no one was able to bind him anymore, even with a chain, because he had often been bound with shackles and chains, and the chains had been torn apart by him, and the shackles broken in pieces, and no one was strong enough to subdue him.” 

How did he act? You have to paint the picture of a man who is out of control. Out of control. He’s a man with tremendous physical strength. In fact, it seems as if his body is but the shell for the spirit that inhabits him. And when his friends try to help him and do whatever they could, they suddenly discover they were up against a power that was supernatural. It was above and beyond what one would ever think one man would be capable of doing. And so, they noticed, his friends did, that this man’s actions were unpredictable and disordered. He’s not the kind of person you would want to trust with your home when you were away on a weekend because you would have no idea as to what he might do because of his behavior.

But I want you to notice also there were people who tried to shackle him with chains, and they couldn’t do it. I would like to think at least, and I think it is a reasonable suspicion, these people tried to help him. They thought to themselves, “This man is going to kill himself out there.” So what they wanted to do was to subdue him, to tie him, maybe to bring him to a place where they could take care of him. But of course, they couldn’t because he simply took the chains and he broke the chains, and he refused to be helped.

Now, one of the things you need to know about people who are struggling with all of these disorders we hear about in society is that there is a part of them that is screaming for help. They are saying, “Help me, help me,” but then there is another part of them that does not want the help because they fear the confrontation that help might involve. They also fear what it might be like suddenly to be free from that obsession, that addiction, that desire that somehow makes life tolerable despite all the struggles that are within the human heart. I’ve told you many times people who feel rejected, though they cry out for help will also do things that will force other people to reject them. They will make it impossible for other people to love them so they can be confirmed in their isolation and in their rejection. It is that ambivalence that causes sometimes great difficulties in the helping process.

Well, you’ve dipped your paintbrush in some paint. You have sketched before you now a man that is in the desolate tombs, and you have painted a picture of someone who is out of control. He is in a frenzy, and no one seems to be able to help. Thirdly, we also have to paint in our mind’s eye what he felt. Here we pick it up in Mark 5:5, “And constantly, night and day, among the tombs and in the mountains he was crying out and gnashing himself with stones.”

What’s going on there in the text in verse 5? One the one hand he is crying out. We don’t exactly what he was crying out. Maybe for help, but I have a suspicion there was something else also that was coming out of his mouth. That was not merely a cry to be helped, but also there was the cry of self-condemnation. He was condemning himself. He was filled with self-hatred. Why do I know that? Because he was cutting himself, the text says, with stones, and his whole body was being lacerated because of the agony he was in. He didn’t know how to get away from his hurt and his pain, and maybe he even thought of suicide but didn’t have the nerve to pull it off and so he was cutting himself, hoping he would die. Self-hatred.

Let me say something to you that this is probably Satan’s strongest weapon. You see, there is so much being said today in the secular world about self-image. People are taught to love themselves. To accept themselves. Some of us feel very uncomfortable with that because oftentimes what is being said is, “You can live in immorality or live however you like and still accept yourself because that’s just the way you are.” We all know that is contrary to the Bible. But there’s another sense in which self-image is biblical and very important.

I don’t ever speak about self-love. I think that is a misconstrued application of a passage of Scripture that Jesus once quoted. But I do think self-dignity is very important to who you are as a person, and your ability to trust and to believe in God. So, what Satan does is he undercuts this by a feeling of self-condemnation. A feeling that there is no hope for us. A feeling of shame and guilt, and the weight of all that becomes so unbearable that people say to themselves, “I need to escape through alcoholism, through drugs, through sexual addiction, and even through suicide.” What is it that these people are really saying? They’re saying, “I can’t stand myself. I hate the way I look. I hate what I’ve done.” Which might be okay but also, they hate themselves for having done it. They know nothing about the cleansing of Christ. They believe they have been abandoned by God, and if you have been abandoned by God, what hope is there on Planet Earth? The answer is there is none but despair and trying to fill the void of an empty, aimless life. 

And so, you have this man filled with self-hatred. Sketch that hatred on his face as you paint the picture in your mind. Parenthetically you say, “Well, what is the devil doing with us anyway? Why all these demons?” Let me give you a little parenthesis.

You know, when Satan was up in heaven before the fall, Lucifer, it was his responsibility to make sure all the worship that took place on Planet Earth would be given to God. He was to make sure any worship, any adoration, would all get to God. And the Bible tells us he began to steal a little of the praise for himself, and he kept it and said, “I would like to be like the Most High.”

So, what God did is He took Lucifer who was a creature of incredible beauty and glory and caused him to fall into a pit of shame and everlasting eternal destruction. But for reasons we will not go into this morning, He also allowed him still to roam this planet, trying to continue to do damage to God’s program.

You say, “Well, why does he hate us so much? Why all of this struggle with a human being? What did this man do?” Well, hang on, hang on. Remember this, Satan hates you like you’ve never been hated by any person on Planet Earth. Do you know why? Because when man fell in the garden Satan thought, “Now that I got Adam to sin all the human beings that have ever been born are going to be on my side, and we are going to be able to together finally unite in our opposition to God.” What he didn’t know is that God had a secret plan whereby a portion of the human race would be redeemed by Christ and then—get this—exalted way above the position Lucifer ever had, and he can’t stand that.

You say, “Human beings above the position of angels?” Absolutely. Even Lucifer in all of his glory, and all of the wonder and the splendor he had when he was next to God in the heavens, is never spoken of in the Bible as being an heir of God, and a joint heir with Jesus Christ, God’s special son. No way. That’s why the Bible says God made for a time, for a little while, man lower than the angels. But the day is going to come when the angels will see our redemption, and they will marvel at the awesome wonder and incredibility and the generosity and the mercy of God. Taking sinners, if you please, and exalting them at the right hand of God the Father, considered to be a brother of Jesus, God the Son, and Satan hates it. He wants to use us to get back at God.

So here you have a man who is trying to kill himself, a man filled with remorse and self-hate and saying, “I can’t stand life, but I don’t know what to do.”

Well, there’s another picture you have to paint. Dip your brush, and this is a better picture. You have to paint the person whom this man encountered, namely the Lord Jesus Christ, and we pick up the text in verse 6, “And seeing Jesus from a distance he—” You’re going to see an interplay here of personalities, by the way. Sometimes we don’t know whether the “he” is the person or the “he” is the demon. In this case it’s really both because he, that is the person, runs and bows before Jesus, but also it is the demonic spirit that is doing the speaking in verse 7, “Crying out with a loud voice the spirit is saying, ‘What do I have to do with you, Jesus, Son of the most-high God. I abhor you by God, do not torment me.’”

Another parenthesis. People who struggle with demonic oppression feel incredibly agitated when they are in the presence of holiness and worship of Christ. That’s why some people don’t want to go to church. They are incredibly uncomfortable. They don’t like music that exalts God, it makes them feel very very uptight inside. Here’s an evil spirit that had pretty well a clear run on this man until he meets Jesus, and suddenly this spirit begins to convulse with torment and says, “Son of the Most High, I implore you, don’t torment me.” Because he’s in the presence of the King of kings, Lord of lords, God of all gods, Savior, Holy God.

Notice the continuation of the story. “For he (verse 8, that is Christ.) had been saying to him, ‘Come out of the man, you unclean spirit.’ (Jesus apparently was calling to this man in the tombs and saying those words.) And he (Christ) was asking him ‘What is your name?’ and he said, ‘My name is Legion.’” A legion was about 6,000 soldiers. It may simply refer to a large number. In other words, he says, “There are hundreds of us here.”

Notice Mark 5:10. “And he (that is the lead spirit that is doing the speaking) began to entreat Christ earnestly not to send them (plural—referring to all the other spirits) out into the country (or out of the region.)” We don’t know exactly why except perhaps they were assigned to that area, and they feared if they were not doing their duty, they would be tormented by Satan under whose authority they served. Remember the whole rank of evil is all very organized according to armies with commanders and sub-commanders over territories. Also fearing the possibility of being disembodied or being sent directly to the pit before the final judgment.

“And they entreated him saying, ‘Send us into the swine so that we may enter them.’” (Mark 5:12). A desperate attempt, and Jesus actually gave them permission to enter the swine, and what happened? Two thousand of them—verse 13—went to the bank, to the sea, and they were drowned in the sea.

What an amazing story, you say, “Animals demon-possessed?” Yes, yes, I’ve known instances of that also in this generation, by the way, because spirits like to inhabit bodies whenever they can.

But now, you do have your paint brush, and you’ve painted a picture of Jesus, haven’t you? In your mind coming to that place of such desolation and hopelessness, overwhelmed with the thought of death, despair, and depression. You’ve painted Jesus. But there’s another picture yet to paint, and that is you have to paint a picture of the man how he ended. You must paint the picture of how the story ends so really you need a whole clean canvas to do this. It says in Mark 5:15, “And they came to Jesus and observed the man who had been demon-possessed, sitting down, notice clothed, (probably even clean clothes,) and in his right mind.” You could communicate with him. He was the kind of person you could leave in your house for the weekend. The very man who had been the Legion, “and they were terrified.” Verse 16, “Those who had seen it described to them how it happened to the demon-possessed man and all about the swine, and they began entreat Christ to depart from their region.” They said, “Get out of here because number one, because of you we’ve lost 2,000 pigs and we are confronted with a situation we do not understand, and we would prefer to stay in our old ways.” And so far as we know Jesus never returned to this region.

Oh I know, you say, “Well, Pastor Lutzer, this morning you are scaring up more rabbits than you can shoot. Are you saying everybody who is oppressed, everybody who is filled with obsessions, everybody who is schizophrenic, who has these strange voices within them, are you saying all of them are demon-possessed?” Let me remind you all the things that I have mentioned that huge list of struggles and others like them. Would probably exist, even if there were no demons because we as human beings are very, very complicated and it’s amazing how much sin we can commit just on our own. And I’m not saying those who struggle with different personalities are sometimes created as ways to cope. “And are all those personalities, (you ask me) demonic”? 

Here’s what I want to say to you today. No matter what struggle we have— And I want you to understand my message today applies to you even if you can’t identify with some of the behavior we’ve talked about. No matter what struggles we have, Satan always comes alongside every single human weakness to strengthen it, to tighten it, to magnify it, to cause it to be stronger because what he wants to do is to exploit. That’s why we would have people who would be hooked on pornography even if there were no devil. But because there is a Satan and because there are demons, the vice of addiction to pornography is so much stronger. That’s why there are people who would be immoral. Yes, even if there was no Satan. But once again, the cycle of immorality in their lives is so excruciatingly strong there appears to be no way out because Satan takes the natural sins we commit and he tries to make them stronger so the addiction simply will not go away. So, he’s involved.

Also, of course, therefore it follows there are different levels of control. There are different levels of control because not everybody has spirits inhabiting them, as this man did. But there are people who are oppressed and afflicted and cast down and harassed because there’s an enemy out there. Peter says, “He walks about as a roaring lion,” and what is he doing? He is watching, seeking whom he may devour. He’s saying, “This person has a weakness here, and when he falls into that weakness, I’m going to be there to make sure that the hole in the dyke becomes a raging torrent.”

Let me summarize what I have to say to you today about Jesus. First of all, how does Jesus help us? He confronts us. He finds us in our need. I don’t see anything in the text that would suggest this man is looking for Jesus. Not at all. In fact, maybe he heard about Jesus, maybe he didn’t hear about Jesus. The demons, of course, knew about Jesus. I mean, that’s a given, but the man himself wasn’t necessarily looking for Jesus, but Jesus steps out of the boat, and goes looking for a man among the tombs.

I want you to know today Jesus finds you where you are. Some of you have tombs, graves in your mind that are still opened because of things that have happened in your past. Some of you know what it is to have this tomb and that tomb and that cave, and you’ve taken a lot of things and you’ve hid a lot of the garbage in those tombs. Oh, how you fear someday somebody is going to stumble across them. Jesus finds you right there.

And let me encourage you. Don’t go into all the tombs and lift up every board and turn over every rock without Jesus going with you. In fact, even better, let Jesus be your guide. If you need to confront your past, and there are people who do, what you do is don’t do it alone because those tombs are lonely and terrifying. But you walk in with Jesus who confronts you right where you are. He finds us.

You know, when people get saved, they always say, “I found Christ.” I always smile and say, “Well, give them a little theology. Hopefully let them attend Moody Church for three months and then they’ll know they never found Christ. Christ found them.” Just looked like they found Christ. He finds us.

Secondly, what does He do? He cleanses us. Notice the man’s problem is an unclean spirit, an unclean spirt. Well, if you want to get away from that sense of self-hate, that condemnation that causes people to commit suicide that drives them to drugs and to alcoholism and to despair. You can’t do that unless you’ve been cleansed. That’s exactly why the blood of Christ was shed, by the way. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from every single, individual, unrighteousness.” Jesus died to cleanse us and there are some of you here who say, “Yes, but you do not know who I am.”

Remember Ted Bundy who killed—what was it—27 young girls? He claimed before he died he received Christ as Savior and had been forgiven. We don’t know if that’s true because only God knows the human heart, but this much I do know. It’s possible that happened. It’s possible. And if God can forgive such a man, who are you to say that His grace stops short of your need? 

He cleanses us, but the cleansing has two aspects. First of all, He cleanses us, and then He says, “I forgive you and I wash you clean. I take the water and wash away the garbage in the gutter. Now I’ll tell you what I expect of you. As you have been forgiven, you must forgive. You must be willing to say, ‘God, I can’t take care of all the injustices that have been done against me. I need to release those bitter feelings to You, and I need to choose to forgive even as I have been forgiven because I want to be clean. Not just clean of the sins that I have committed but also clean because of the bitterness that holds me in that tomb of darkness.”

And then what did Jesus do? Well, He restores us. He gives us dignity. Here’s a man clothed and in his right mind. He’s a man who we would be glad to meet, and he gets integrated again into society, and he becomes a part of the community and people say, “I can’t believe this is the same guy, but maybe we can be his friend again.” Dignity. That’s what Jesus gives us.

Now, I want you to know when Jesus died on the cross, and then when He went up into heaven, He triumphed. He triumphed over Satan. If you have believed in Christ personally, if you are born again, and there are many of you who are listening to this message who can say yes to that. There are also many of you who either don’t know or are sure you are not. But the fact is if you are born again, you actually have come under new management, so Satan need not harass you and always come to you with those high-paying demands.

Let’s suppose you lived in an apartment, and you had a landlord who always came and knocked on your door and asked for much more rent than you really were supposed to give. He harassed you, he kept you up at night, and pounded on the walls. It was just terrible, and then one day your whole apartment complex gets sold to a loving landlord. And lo and behold, your old landlord comes back, still demanding the same payment, still bribing you, still cajoling you, still intimidating you, still throwing bricks through your window, and you just are absolutely helpless because why? Because you didn’t know you had the authority to look that man in the eye and tell him to beat it because you are no longer under his jurisdiction and authority.

That’s the way we are. We give in. We do it. We say, “I can’t help myself. It’s just the way I am. The devil made me do it.” And maybe he helped. But what God wants to do is to raise up a whole army of believers who know who they are and march with the strength and the power of the victorious Christ to whom we give our allegiance. And because of our faith in Him, we do not have to keep paying debts to the devil.

Some of you need the touch of Christ today because you need to be cleansed. Some of you know it’s time you took authority over situations in your life that you’ve allowed to go on. All of us need to know that no matter what we struggle with, part of the struggle is a confrontation with beings that absolutely hate us and want to do us in. But Christ comes— “Ye shall know the truth. The truth shall set you free. And if the Son shall make you free,” said Jesus, [chuckles] “you shall be free indeed.”

Let’s pray.

Our Father, we thank you today for a story of deliverance. Thank you, Father, for the Holy Spirit who has been given to your people. Thank you for the triumph of Jesus.

I’m going to ask right now that you talk to Christ. Some of you need to be cleansed from sin. Some of you need to be born again of the Holy Spirit, and you can receive Christ even where you are seated. Others of you need to talk to God about uncleanness that has polluted you. Talk to Him. He’s there.

Father, thank you today for the grace and the power of Jesus. Help us now in our need as we come to you believing and trusting you. In Jesus’ name, Amen.