The Former Demoniac Was Returned To His Home To Witness To The Power Of God In His Life! Do You Witness To His Power? A Point To Ponder . . .

Jesus casting out the Demons of the Gadarene Demoniac.

A Devotional for Monday June 30, 2025

From the pen of John Bunyan, author of Pilgrim's Progress

A Demon and a Debt

“But . . . [Jesus] said to him, ‘Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had merch on you’”

Mark 5: 19.

A demon: “And when he came into the ship, he that had been possessed with the devil prayed him that he might be with him. Jesus . . . [allowed] him not, but saith unto him, Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things God hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee” (Mark 5: 18-19).

The present state of this man [:]

1. He was possessed with a devil; with devils, with many; with a whole legion, which some say is six thousand, or thereabouts (Matthew 8).

2. These devils had so the mastery of him as to drive him from place to place into the wilderness among the mountains, and so to dwell in the tombs among the dead (Luke 8).

3. He was out of his wits; he would cut his flesh break his chains. Nay, “no man could tame him” [!] (Mark 5: 4-5).

4. When he saw Jesus, the devil in him, as being lord and governor there, cried out against the Lord Jesus (v. 7).

What qualification shows itself as precedent to justification? None but such as devils work, or as rank bedlams have. Yet this poor man was dispossessed, taken into God’s compassion, and was bid to show it to the world.

A debt: “And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both” (Luke 7:42).

The occasion of these words was, for that the Pharisee murmured against the woman that washed Jesus’ feet, because “she was a sinner.” So said the Pharisee, and so saith the Holy Ghost (v. 37). But saith Christ, Simon, I will ask thee a question, “A certain man had two debtors: the one owed him five hundred pence, and the other fifty. And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both” (v. 38). [Which debtor loved more?]