Today’s sermon title is “The Drowning of a Herd of Pigs.”

Sometimes we hear news like, “A large herd of deer suddenly ran down a cliff and died all at once,” or “A pod of whales became stranded on a beach and died!” In the footage shown on the news, we sometimes see hundreds or even thousands of animals lying dead.

A similar mass death occurred near the Sea of Galilee about two thousand years ago. The Sea of Galilee is a lake located in present-day region of Israel, in the area historically known as Palestine. Near that lake, a similar incident happened—and the number of pigs that died was two thousand. Can you picture that? A herd of two thousand pigs raced down the cliff and died. It’s such a regrettable death of all those pigs, isn’t it?

At that time, this was a shocking event. Especially, how do you think the swineherds felt? In that region, the pigs are grazed. When the swineherds saw the herd of pigs rushing into the sea, they were shocked. So they went and reported the incident to the owners of the pigs. The owners, along with people from the city, after hearing the news, all came out to witness what had happened. It was a very shocking incident at that time, and later they found out that something more remarkable had happened.

They realized that those pigs came to such a fatal end not because of some unknown force, but because it had something to do with a person named Jesus. It was Jesus—the One whom we now know, serve, and worship as God—who had done it. For this reason, the people begged Jesus to leave their town. Because none of the pigs in their town would survive if He stayed any longer. You see, the people in that town made a living through pig farming. It was not a town in Israel; it was a place where Gentiles— people from other nations outside Israel—live. Since they maintained their livelihood by grazing pigs, if Jesus stayed, it would cause serious trouble for them. Hence, they pleaded with Him to leave their town, and Jesus had no choice but to leave that region.

Is there any greater pity than this? They drove the Son of God away just to protect their pigs. Even if they had to lose their pigs, they should’ve chosen the Son of God, shouldn’t they? If God’s Son did something so remarkable as that, shouldn’t they have investigated further to find out how it all happened? Who exactly was this man who could do such marvelous things? What was He trying to give them? If He is God, He would be able to give the people what only God can give; this is something they should have considered. But unfortunately, they valued their pigs more and drove Him out of their town. Something similar is occurring in this generation. For the sake of whatever profits them—money, friends, social relationships, reputation—people choose to walk away from Jesus and send Him far away from them.

Now, how does Jesus have something to do with the mass death of this herd of pigs? Jesus originally resided on the other side of the Sea of Galilee. But on that particular day, He crossed over to the other side by boat. The region He arrived at was the Gadarenes. And in that region lived a madman, a mentally ill person which the Bible describes as demon-possessed. Demons had entered the man and completely overpowered him. His mind and his body were all controlled by the demons. When the demon-possessed man saw Jesus, he came before Him and cried out.

What did the demons say? “Jesus, Son of the Most High God!” the demons cried out before Jesus. This was astonishing, because at that time, nobody believed that Jesus was the Son of God. Jesus had come to reveal this to the people, but they ignored it. They believed it was profane for Jesus to call God His Father, and even when Jesus performed all kinds of miracles—opening the eyes of the blind, raising the dead—and said, “It is not I but the Father in Me doing His work!” they still refused to believe. People simply regarded Him as a mere young man from Nazareth, who was a bit eccentric.

However, the words that came from the mouth of the demon-possessed man were, “Jesus, Son of the Most High God!” The demons recognized Him as God. It’s the same situation today. Even if there may be some among you who don’t realize that Jesus is God, the demons certainly know. Because there is a spiritual realm, spiritual beings can recognize Him who is God. Thus, the demon-possessed man cried out, “What have we to do with You, Jesus, You Son of God? Have You come to torment us before the time?” (Matt 8:29). When we look at this, we can see that there must be a set time. In other words, when that time comes, they can’t do anything more, which is why they resisted by saying, “Have You come to torment us when it’s not the appointed time?”

These demons also knew that they didn’t have any other choice but to leave. Jesus had already commanded them to leave. The demons knew that He was God, and when He had told them, “Come out of him!” they had to obey. This demon-possessed man moved about here and there previously. So people had bound him in chains to keep him still. But he was able to break off the chains. He was very strong. He wasn’t always strong but whenever the demons manifested, he was able to break off the heavy chains. This man was not wearing clothes either. Some mentally impaired people take off their clothes when they have a seizure. Similarly, this man didn’t wear clothes, broke off the chains, and wandered about. Furthermore, he didn’t live in a home, but among the tombs, which would be a cemetery. How scary would that be? Imagine having a person like that living in your area, walking among the tombs at night, screaming and roaming around. How terrified would the people have been? If there was someone like that area roaming around the cemetery at night, shouting in the darkness?

Now, what do you think happened when this terrifying figure came before Jesus? They begged Jesus, saying, “Permit us to enter into the herd of swine!” At that time, these demons were inside this man. The demons and the man were originally unrelated, but the demons came inside the man’s body. Once a demon comes inside a person’s body, it hates to leave. It is extremely distressed when they are forced to leave someone’s body. So when there was no other body to enter, they would rather go into a pig’s body. That’s how much demons love the body. To demons, having a body to inhabit is extremely precious.

But even dwelling in a person’s body has its limits. In the Scripture we read earlier, the demons begged Jesus, “Do not send us into the abyss.” What is the abyss? In the original Greek text, the word for “abyss” is abussos, meaning a bottomless pit—a vast, deep place with no end, no matter how far one falls. It is a bottomless pit or chasm. It’s a deep space without end, no matter how deep you go. The demons pleaded with Jesus not to send them to the abyss. Because it is a bottomless pit, many demons, regardless of number, can be thrown into there. The demons, therefore, begged Jesus not to send them into the abyss.

From this, we can see that they were terrified of going into the abyss. They feel distressed to leave a man’s body, but it is even more distressing for them to go into the abyss. For this reason, they asked to be allowed to enter the herd of swine instead. Do pigs have a spirit? No, they don’t. Animals do not have spirits. So they requested to enter the pigs’ bodies. In the same way, when demons enter a person, they don’t enter the spirit of the person but the body. In the end, Jesus granted their request.

Why did Jesus permit the demon’s request? To understand this, we must first know what kind of beings these demons are. Jesus asked, “Who are you? What is your name?” And the demons answered, “We are an army!” Why did they say that? Because an army of demons had entered the man. The Scripture says there were many in number. It’s an army in simple terms, but the word used in Greek—the original language of the New Testament—is “Legion.” They answered, “We are a legion!”

A legion was a military unit of the Roman army, which had power over that region of Palestine at that time. It was a military unit, just as today’s armies are divided into units – Platoon, Company, Battalion, Regiment, Division, and so forth. So when the demons answered, it was as if they were saying, “We are a Regiment!” By saying, “We are a legion,” they were not simply saying, “We are just a bunch of soldiers,” but were speaking of the military unit. A legion comprised about 6,000 to 12,000 soldiers. Now, this unit of 6,000 soldiers had fought and died in battle. 6,000 people had died. And all those men had become demons. They became thousands of demons. And all of them had gone into one man. It’s distressing enough to have one demon inside a person, yet this person had thousands of demons inside him.

Once, I saw something on TV. A person in Japan experienced having multiple personalities. One day, he would act like a baby, then like a gang member, and he would switch between the personality of a man and a woman. This condition in medical terms is called Dissociative Identity Disorder. But from a spiritual perspective, it’s different demons taking turns controlling over the person. The interesting thing was that, when the personality of a gang member manifested in him, a knife scar appeared on his neck. His skin, which was perfectly normal before, suddenly had red knife scars on his arms and around his body. Afterwards, when he switched to being a baby and started crawling, the knife scars also disappeared. It’s amazing, isn’t it? In this way, when a certain demon enters a person, the demon manifests its characteristics in that person. Particularly, the characteristics of the death experienced by the demon will be manifested in the person in the same way.

I once received a letter from overseas seeking advice, and it was about a demon-possessed person. In Jesus’ name, the demon was commanded to leave the person, and the demon manifested. They found out that the demon had been murdered— strangled to death. When the demon manifested, a clear ligature mark appeared on the person’s neck. It’s horrifying. Once such a demon enters that person, there is a high chance that it will try to kill that person through strangulation.

I’ll give you another example. A person who died of cancer became a demon. When that demon enters anybody, it would cause that person to also develop cancer. This kind of thing happens quite often. Let’s say someone’s father died of liver cancer. About 2 years after he died, his son discovers he has liver cancer. Doctors say it is genetic and hereditary. Most people accept that as being normal. But after the son dies, his younger brother also develops liver cancer. This is something I witnessed. I helped the younger brother who was in this situation. Thankfully, he later came to believe in Jesus. From a worldly perspective, people think it’s just genetics. But from a spiritual perspective, the grandfather, after dying, entered the eldest son. Then, after the eldest son died, two spirits—the grandfather and the eldest son—entered the second son, making the condition even worse.

How do we deal with this? If we are unaware of the spiritual reality, we could only blame our fate saying, “Ah, this must be the destiny our family is bound to! We just have to accept it as our fate!” However, if we know Jesus, we can cast out the demons in the name of Jesus. And they will leave. Liver cancer can disappear. This is often experienced by believers in Jesus. Outside of church, people are not interested, and even if we tell them, they often do not believe, which is why such stories are not widely known. But these things are still happening.

Now, let’s return to the story of the herd of pigs. Those demons entered the herd of swine, about 2,000 pigs that were grazing there suddenly rushed toward the sea. It wasn’t only a few of them—every single one of the two thousand pigs ran. In other words, the number of demons exceeded the number of pigs. And once they entered the pigs, they all ran down the bank and were drowned in the water. In a sense, it might look as if they committed suicide. One might ask, “How can pigs commit suicide?” But there was a secret behind what happened.

Then what do demons do when they go into people? It’s obvious when we examine what happened to the pigs. Once they went inside the pigs, the pigs didn’t dance, they didn’t suddenly have a bigger appetite, and they didn’t go for a stroll to the mountains. Instead, they suddenly rushed down the bank and into the sea, where they drowned. What demons do is killing. Whenever we cast out demons, they all will say, “I’m going to kill!” Even if, when they were alive, they were someone close to you, once they become demons, they come in only to kill. They cannot help it. That’s the way it is. Because they are dead, they simply manifest their nature. Even if they hold no personal grudge against you, it doesn’t matter. Once they come in, they will kill. That’s the demon’s characteristic.

However, when demons enter people, because people are educated, have self-will, and sometimes have faith, they may overcome the demon’s influence. However, when they can’t overcome it, they may completely let themselves go into the demon’s control, which may lead to suicide, murder, or sabotage. Yet in most instances, people overcome that by their own willpower. However, the pigs they entered didn’t have any will to resist. Pigs were not educated to. They were not taught to love themselves, nor do they have a spirit, nor can they receive God’s help. Angels don’t help them either. That is why, as soon as the demons entered them, they immediately rushed to their deaths.

Demons also know something. They could’ve gone into something else, yet they chose to go into the pigs. The reason for this is that pigs are apparently very similar to humans in terms of anatomical structure and function of the gastrointestinal tract. In fact, pigs are considered even closer to humans than monkeys. As some people need kidney transplant operations, there’s research being done to transplant pig’s kidney into humans. And a lot of advanced research is being done not only to transplant kidneys but other organs into humans without developing any side effects. Pigs are very similar to human beings. For this reason, when demons can’t go into humans in which they feel most comfortable, the next best thing would be pigs.

Because Jesus was there and there were no other people around, they demons went into the pigs. But if there weren’t any pigs, where do you think the demons would’ve gone? If they go out from someone, where do they go? Into another person. The Scriptures tell us about this. Jesus Himself spoke about this. When a demon goes out of a person, it looks for an adequate place to go. And the kind of place it seeks is a dry (waterless) place. Now, when we hear “dry place,” some might think, “Then we should avoid going near the sea!” But that’s not what it means. What “water” represents in this context is baptism.

What does baptism signify? It does not mean the removal of the filth within us, but, as the Scripture says, it is a pledge of a good conscience toward God. In other words, my heart and desire to draw nearer to God—that is the water. This is the key. So demons look for a place without this water. Therefore, although I might have sinned many times and done things I feel guilty about, as long as my heart is positioned towards God, demons won’t be able to enter easily. On the other hand, even if someone is leading a faith life well, is attending church actively, or even if he is a pastor,  if his heart is not fixated on God but towards the things God hates—pleasures of the world, desires, provocation, and fame— then that heart is like a place without water. That’s where the demons love to go.

Making an effort to know God and giving your heart to draw closer to God are good. However, if instead a person despises God, shows contempt towards the church, or disdains the words of Jesus, thinking, “I don’t believe in such things,” then when demons are roaming about, they will look at that person and think, “Ah, here is a target!” Therefore, for demons not to come into us, we must stay far away from such things.

Not only that, believers in Jesus have signs. At the end of Mark 16, there are words Jesus left like His final will. “Whoever doesn’t believe will be condemned. But if anyone believes and is baptized will be saved. And these signs will accompany those who believe. They will have signs of God with them.” These signs are evidence—marks that show God is with them. And what is the very sign He mentioned? “In My name they will drive out demons…” That was the first sign Jesus mentioned. “Drive out demons.”  This means, that we can prevent demons from coming into us but also drive them out in Jesus’ name. This is a sign that naturally follows believers.

Formerly, I was anxious because of my fear of demons. Furthermore, I was afraid that they would torment my family and come into me. But ever since I have faith in Jesus, I drive out demons in Jesus’ name. We used to be afraid of demons, but now the demons are afraid of us, who believe in Jesus. I myself, even as a fully grown adult, felt my hair stand on my back if I was in a dark place, near a mountain, or near a funeral home, before I came to know Jesus.

But now, that’s probably how the demons react when they see me. That’s how the demons would feel when they see a believer in Jesus. They will be afraid. And they ultimately have to leave. Believers are given authority to drive out demons in Jesus’ name. He has given this authority to all who believe.

The sad thing is that although there are many churches in the world, many ignore this authority that the Lord has given us. Many of them don’t know about it. Because people don’t tend to read the Bible, if we talk about this subject, even those who claim to believe in Jesus and who are in the church often say, “Where in the Bible does it talk about demons?” But you have seen for yourselves. The Bible speaks a lot about demons. We have read the Gospel of Mark, and if you read the book deeply, every chapter has something written about demons. It’s as if the Bible is a book about demons. However, it is hard to notice it if you don’t pay careful attention to it. Many times, people simply treat it as a figure of speech. Yet, in reality, our daily lives are often under the oppression of demons. Isn’t that a pity?

Believers in Jesus can drive out demons. Why? Jesus already shed His blood and died on the cross, and God raised Him to life. In doing so, He has already executed judgment completely upon demons who had legally condiment Him to death, the prince of demons who ruled over them, and all the unclean spirits that have belonged to him, two thousand years ago. To believe in Jesus means to possess the authority to judge the prince of demons as well as the demons that are beneath him. This is what it means to believe in Jesus.

We cannot see that a person becomes good simply because they believe in Jesus. Maybe some of you have that view of Christians. “How can a Christian do that?”—but that is simply a misunderstanding. There is no such rule that believers of Jesus must be good-natured. Believers in Jesus are those who obtained eternal life, not those whose characters have been transformed. Of course, the Church may emphasize the need for our character, saying, “Be good!”, but that is something needed in order to introduce Jesus to a greater number of people. Being good-natured doesn’t equal having faith in Jesus. In the same way, believing in Jesus doesn’t automatically make someone a good person.

The notion of “good” according to God is different to what we think. Thus, it says in the Bible, “Jesus went around doing good, healing those who were oppressed by the devil.” Based on this, we can see that God regards the work of casting out demons as good deeds. That is why believers of Jesus are bold. They don’t do shamanic rituals. They don’t concern themselves with fate. Even though we were bound to live under curses according to our fate, the moment we put our faith in Jesus, all of that became the past, and now we live with the authority to judge the devil.

My mother started experiencing dizziness from the day she believed in Jesus. She thought maybe something was wrong with her brain. So she got checked up at a hospital and the doctor found issues with her cochlea. Her symptom was that she felt like she was spinning while standing still. It’s the spinning sensation you get after you spin around ten times in one spot. But for her, she was spinning in circles all the time. So when she walked, she kept going sideways. You can imagine how distressing that would be. This was not long after she came to have faith in Jesus. So I brought her to church. At that time, the university ministry was holding an evangelism camp, and since I was in university, I took her with me to the camp. At the camp, we cast out the demon from her, and she collapsed on the floor. When she got up, she was able to walk straight again. She entered the camp walking sideways, but she left the camp walking straight. Her dizziness was completely gone.

Then a few years later, my mother was diagnosed with colon cancer. I went to visit her after work and she was just sitting there, staring blankly. I was frustrated to see that and told her firmly. “You should be clinging to God ardently. Why are you sitting like this, staring blankly?” And after we prayed together, I told her to stand up and drove out the demon. When you’re casting out a demon, would it leave if you say, “Please leave”? Demons don’t want to leave the body. That’s why we shout at them. We scold them. I shouted, “Demon! Get out!” and even I was surprised at my own voice. I do say, “Demon! Get out!” when casting out demons from others, but because that demon had come into my mother to kill her, I yelled in a very loud voice, without even realizing, and said, “Demon! Get out!” And my voice was so loud that even I was startled. It was as if the whole apartment was shaking. Immediately, my mother fell backwards. And the demon left her.

In that very moment, my older sister walked in through the door. She was utterly shocked as she stood there. She was an unbeliever at that time. I told her to come over. “You see? Come here and have a seat. God is living! Demons are real. What do you think? Do you think you should believe in Jesus or not?” “I should!” So we prayed together, and on that day, she received the Holy Spirit.

Even if the demons strike us, who believe in Jesus once, but we strike back and break their teeth. Then they will know never to touch us again. We have to teach them that if they strike us once, they’ll get beaten ten times more. However, there are some people who, when the demons strike, worship them by performing shamanic rituals. Then demons will strike again and again. Why? Because they want to be worshipped. Believers in Jesus, therefore, have a different way of living. The days of being intimidated by demons are over. Now, we live a life that prevails over demons.

No matter how much science and civilization advance, there is a limit that man cannot overcome in the end—namely, demons. There is nothing man can do about demons. In these modern times when we have advanced internet and advanced medicine, there are still so many shamans and spiritist, as well as people who perform shamanic rituals. They are all trying to pacify the demons but to no avail. It appears to be effective for a short time, but they become enslaved to the demons in the end. But for us, we can drive out the demons. Even if the demons resist and refuse to leave, they are only saying that; they are bound to leave.

I bless you and pray in Jesus’ name that you will come to know Jesus and experience the full benefits of all that Jesus has done. Furthermore, may you live the life of a victor, conquering over demons through the authority of Jesus that is in you. I’ll pray.

Father God, we give You thanks for revealing Jesus Christ to us, allowing us to be united with Him to live a life of authority, a life that only You can have. Help the saints and every soul here to be released through Jesus Christ from all the demonic oppression and attacks which they formerly accepted as their fate. If there are any families with troubles or anyone with physical illness, God help them to be freed from every oppression of the demons. And for this, let them receive Jesus Christ sincerely into their hearts and deeply understand the works Jesus Christ has accomplished. In Jesus’ name. Amen.