Gooding, David: What is Your Name?

I would like to read to you now from the Gospel by Luke in chapter eight. Chapter eight of the Gospel by Luke. We begin to read there in verse 26, Luke 8:26. And they arrived at the country of the Gerasenes, which is over against Galilee. And when he was come forth upon the land, there met him a certain man out of the city who had devils. And for a long time he had worn no clothes and abode not in any house but in the tombs. And when he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him and with a loud voice said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beseech thee, torment me not. For he commanded the unclean spirits to come out from the man. For oftentimes it had seized him, and he was kept under guard and bound with chains and fetters. And breaking the bands asunder, he was driven of the devil into the deserts. And Jesus asked him, what is thy name? And he said, Legion, for many devils were entered into him. They entreated him that he would not command them to depart into the abyss. Now there was there a herd of many swine f- feeding on the mountain. They entreated him that he would give them leave to enter into them. And he gave them leave. The devils came out from the man and entered into the swine. And the herd rushed down the steep into the lake and were choked. When they that fed them saw what had come to pass, they fled and told it in the city and in the country. They went out to see what had come to pass, and they came to Jesus and found the man from whom the devils were gone out, sitting, clothed, and in his right mind at the feet of Jesus. And they were afraid. And they that saw it told them how that he that was possessed with the devils was made whole. And all the people of the country of the Gerasenes round about asked him to depart from them, for they were holding with a great fear. And he entered into a boat and returned. The man from whom the devils were gone out prayed him that he might be with him. But he sent him away, saying, return to thy house and declare how great things God hath done for me. And he went his way, publishing throughout the whole city how great things Jesus had done for him. May God grant that we too receive a blessing and a salvation such as this man received. There are, so we are told, somewhat over three thousand languages on the earth, and in each one of those languages there are literally thousands upon thousands of thousands of words, so that all told there are millions of words spoken on earth. And yet, out of all those millions of intelligent sounds, there is one sound that is specially dear to each one of us. It will call our attention, suppose we are absorbed in a book. We shall catch its sound above the roar of the traffic in a busy street. It's a sound that throughout all life is especially dear, and that sound, of course, is our individual name. It may not be a very wonderful name. It may not be altogether unusual. We may share that name with hundreds of people. Nevertheless, that sound is particularly dear. Whether that name is im- is unusual, a Maximilian or an Emmalina, or whether that name is common, a mere John or a Betty. Far more important than the tag that is the name is the thing that name stands for. You may share your name with a multitude of people, but there's only one you. I wonder if you have ever sat and pondered how unusual, how important, how unique you are. That wonderful thing that your name stands for, the you behind the name. I am not flattering you, nor would wish to do so. I am merely pointing out what is the truth, that you, the thing we call Tom or Betty, you are absolutely unique. There has never been another you, there will never again be another you. You are a mysterious thing, a human personality. Who can trace all the long hereditary that's gone into making you, you? Or even starting from the time when you were in the cradle, thousands of things, experiences, common and uncommon. Most of them now you have forgotten, but have gone into making you, you. There's never been another like you. For the great creator who makes endless blades of grass and no two the same, and scatters his snowflakes and no two are the same, when he made us, made each one, though outwardly very similar in certain things, yet inwardly unique. Whoever tried to think what you are, the medics will count for you by so many bones and veins and organs, and the psychologists will go deeper and talk about your conscious and your subconscious mind. Way beyond that all is that mysterious something, you. And says God, that you is going to last somewhere forever. You are almost a frightening thing. I don't mean your looks. I mean the fact that you as a personality, unique, standing by yourself, are going to last forever somewhere. Oh, how important you are. And what a tremendous lot that name of yours sums up. Judge then how far this poor man had gone and fallen, of whom we have read together in this story. But when our Lord came and stood in front of him and said to him, what's your name? He answered Legion. That wasn't his name. That wasn't the real him. That wasn't the man even as he had been born. But many demons, we read, had entered into him. Demons from Satan himself had entered into that man and were in process of tearing his personality apart. He was a freak of a thing. Oh, what a tragedy. So far gone that he no longer recognized himself for himself. And when he was asked, what is thy name? Pathetically replied, Legion. You say he was an extreme case, he was indeed. You say the man surely had had a mental breakdown, perhaps he had. But the Bible makes it clear that behind all his suffering was the fact that Satan himself had got hold of that life and was in process of tearing it in part. You say, why quote such a man, so far gone a case to people like us? Surely you don't think that any of us are in that plight? Of course I don't. But can we not see here a vivid warning? Here on us, this side of the grave is a man upon whom Satan has gone almost to the limit. Here is a man in whom we may begin to see what it will mean to be lost. A human soul made in the image of God, made for happy fellowship with God, made in all its mysterious, wonderful joy and gladness, but in the grip of Satan now, and almost lost. On Earth. A sad example of what it will mean to perish. To perish in body, to perish in mind, to land up on the scrap heap of eternity. Many a modern person has ceased to believe in the devil. They think he belongs to the crude times, when religious people talked in crude terms and were frightened with awful visions of hobgoblins and fiends. They say, you know, it's not, it's not appropriate. It doesn't fit the gospel of our blessed Lord Jesus. It doesn't fit the idea of a kind heavenly father that he should allow a real personal devil anywhere. They say it isn't kind to tell people that they are under the grip of the devil. But surely, surely it is kind. Christ didn't blame that man altogether for the state he was in. And God doesn't blame humankind as a whole for the state they are in, merely by themselves. Would you take all the sin that there is in us, all the strife, all the wickedness and vice? Would you take all the heartbreak, the untruthfulness, and all the uncleanness, and would you make men and women solely responsible for the whole lot, would you? You would be cruel, wouldn't you? To lay the blame altogether on humankind, and to say it was humanity that started the whole business, you would be cruel indeed. If you said it was humanity's fault alone, God is kinder than you, if you say that. God says that isn't true. Oh, admittedly, man fell and man sinned and man disobeyed God, but behind man's fall, says God, there was a personal devil who tempted, and with cunning wisdom and super intelligence, tempted innocent mankind away from God and spun him the yarn that he would be happier without God, happier to go his own way. Spun the yarn early to the human race that God was keeping them down, and it would be a miserable thing to live with God and obey God. Tempted them by telling them all how much freer they would be if they went their own way. And man fell, fell to that slander of God, and the human race came under the heel of that mighty, powerful intelligence, his satanic medicine. You don't believe in it? You would if you preached. How else would you account for it that when God in his book, in as plain words as God can possibly put it, offers the likes of you and me eternal life? How else would you account for it that men and women pass it by and don't want it. Unless it were that they were being deceived by someone. How will you account for it that when the Bible says as clearly as the Bible can say that God loves people and he has a salvation to give them, and he will give them this salvation without works? That people can sit and listen to it and go out and say, well, I'm doing my best, I'm trying my hardest. And you say, no, it's not by works at all, you know, it's a free gift, salvation. And still they say, no, well, I wouldn't dare say I've got it, but I'm doing my best to earn it. How comes it that men and women ordinarily intelligent cannot see the thing? If it were not this, as the Bible puts it, that the god of this world hath blinded their mind. The Bible everywhere says it so. It talks about a prince of this world who is, uh, the satanic majesty. It says that men and women in general are walking according to his power. He sets the fashion. He makes it the thing that's not done to talk about God. He makes it a thing that's looked down upon to talk about being saved. He sets the fashion, he sets the atmosphere. And men and women, rather than be the odd ones out, well, they keep off the subject of being saved. Crafty, isn't it? Says God, men and women in general are walking according to the course of this world, according to its prince, and he's getting them along through life, shepherding them nicely, till he gets them beyond the point where they can be saved, and they'll be lost forever. And if so be they are religiously inclined, well then, says the Bible, there is a God of this world who will blind their eyes with all sorts and kinds of religion, and they look so good. To one man, it's a great effort of good deeds and self-sacrifice, and to another, it's asceticism and hair shirts and whips and fastings and prayers, and it all seems so good. And the trick of it is that there isn't anything of it in the Bible, that the salvation that God have doesn't depend on any of those things, is a free gift. But the God of this world that is not the God and Father of our Lord Jesus, but his satanic majesty, playing the religious, blinds people's eyes, says God, even with religion. So be it, he can stop them getting saved. We don't have to be in the state of that poor man. One and all are born, says the Bible, in the power of darkness. Shall we not be warned by that loving, kind heart that is the heart of our Savior himself? Shall we not be warned by this very man whom our Lord came to save this day? Shall we not be warned of what the end is? The lake of fire was never designed for humanity at large. It was designed for the devil and his angels. But if, but if a human soul remains in the power of darkness and is never saved, they will go out to perish, to perish in the lake of fire with that same dead and all his angels. You say that's grim? That is exceedingly grim. And for that reason, our Lord came to save, to seek and to save that which is lost, that we may not perish. He came to deliver us. And I ask you this evening, if you would not, for a moment or two, think again with me over this vivid example, far worse than you, I admit, but vivid, extreme example that we might learn the more easily, how all can be delivered out of the power of darkness and brought into God's most wonderful light and salvation. Tell me more, you say, about that man. How did he get into that state? I don't know. Born like any other child, I suppose. You may picture his parents fondly leaning over the cradle. They were going to name their child. Oh, what a great moment this. They carefully gave him his name, as Hebrews would do, thinking out some special name that would sum up the good qualities they hoped the child would have. Choosing his name, was it a John, the grace of God, or Solomon, peaceful? Anyhow, they gave him his name. And he grew up. There came the day when he discovered in his life for the first time that there were powers within him that he couldn't control. Oh, it had been fun as a child to kick over the traces, as we all did. But he reached adult life at last and found that now he was standing on his own two feet as an individual responsible for himself, there were powers in him that he could not control. And he began to struggle. He determined to be decent. For the powers grew bigger, and the battles were lost one after another. He struggled hard to be decent, but it was no use. His friends tried to help. They chained him up. They recloved him. They bound the chains tighter. He tried all sorts of recipes for being decent and good, but they all failed. He was a victim of powers he could not control. I wonder about you. It was fun when we were children, wasn't it, to do as we pleased and kick over the traces whenever we were allowed. It isn't quite such fun when you're grown up and you stand on your own two feet, is it? When we wake up to the fact that we've got within us powers that we cannot control, we are sinners, as God would put it. And do our best as we try, we determine we're not going to do that particular thing again. Ah, but it gets the mastery. Maybe it's an envious tongue that we've determined time and time again that we'll never let it rip anymore, but we find it does rip. Or maybe it's thoughts that we cannot control, that we hate but we cannot control. Or a temper that we cannot subdue. Or a selfishness and an envy and a spirit of jealousy that turns us green, and we find we're victims to it. We're not the men and women that we would like to be. Why so? Says God, we are sinners. Not nice to think, is it? In the quietness of the moments. Ah, the gene I wanted to be, I know right well in my s- quieter moments I'm not, you know. I imagine myself being special, but I'm not. And in my quieter moments I see how far I've come short of my own ideal. I'm not the Tom, I'm not the David that I would really like to be. God says we have sinned. We all have sinned and do constantly come short of his required standard. And at last, the Savior came that way. And coming to the man, he began to speak when the man cried out, oh, let me alone, said he, let me alone. Had enough of it. And you can understand his exasperation, can you not? Oh, they had been friends of law, and they'd said, try this and try that, sign that pledge, try this treatment. And he tried all the treatments, and he was no better, and he was getting utterly fed up with the whole business. It was no use his trying. He had abandoned himself. He felt he never would be any different. Oh, pathetic man. What is thy name, said Christ? Legion, said he. He'd given up the struggle. He decided it would be never possible for him to be saved and get rid of it. Oh, I wonder if I talk to somebody here this evening and you say to me, young preacher, I've heard the gospel a thousand times and I'm tired of the whole business. It never did me any good. I've been told if I said prayers, but if I read my Bible or if I went regularly to church, or perhaps if I engaged in works of charity, and I've done all these things and I know better and I'm tired of the business. Oh, leave me alone. Leave me alone. I'll go my own way, and if I'm lost, I shall be lost, that's all. Let us alone, he said. But he didn't understand who this was that had come, nor how our Lord proposed to save him. He was used to the chains, and sure enough, though we don't use iron chains these days, except for the most outrageously criminal, yet mankind has its chains to try and chain in the evil, haven't they? Chains of social custom and convention. Let me not say a word against it, thank God for it. Chains of decent moral behavior, yes, very good indeed. Chains of psychiatry, and thank God for all the psychologists and psychiatrists and the good work they do. But God says that the real cause of the trouble lies deeper. We were made for God. He made us in his image. And if you would know what a real man and a real woman is, a real man, a real woman is a man and woman that lives daily in happy fellowship with God and has talks with God, has friendship with God, knows God and loves him. That's a man, that's a woman, people that don't know God, people that don't live with him, people that do not have the Savior within them are but freaks of humanity. They're things gone wrong. They are only half alive. The trouble is we have all sinned, and the friendship with God's been broken. We are, as God says, dead in trespasses and in sins. How shall we get free? How shall we break the chain of sin and guilt? How shall we once more restore ourselves into favor with God? That cannot be done by human. The best, the most honest, the best intentioned struggles will not do the thing. There is only one way of being saved, and that way is through our Lord Jesus. I wonder if you would listen a moment carefully and watch precisely what happened when our Lord came that day to this desperate man. Yeah, even though you yourself feel that you, you've tried so many times and it's never happened, and you've almost given yourself up to go on now as you've always gone, you think nothing will happen. Will you not listen? Watch and see how this man got saved when the Savior met him that day. What is thy name? He said. What is thy name? Legion, the man said. No, no, no, no, that's not your name. That's not the real you. Who are you? Man. The real you. Where do you stand? What will you choose? Far gone as that man was, thank God he still had the power personally to choose. Powerless to break the power of Satan, powerless to break the bands, yet still the power to choose. Man, said Christ, stand forth. What's your name, man? There followed a tremendous battle as the powers of evil on the one side raged to keep their hold on that man's soul, and Christ on the other bid fair to come in and save him. A battlefield indeed, as one human soul stood face to face with Christ, and Christ come to save him, and had to decide whether he would open his personality to Christ and let Christ in, let Christ in to do the work, let Christ in to break the chains, or whether he would keep Christ out and remain himself a prisoner in the home of his own soul. Man, what is thy name? Where do you stand? Oh, thank God, there's never been a man and woman so far gone on earth. That had not the power at the very brink of hell to choose. And salvation goes on these terms, that the Savior has come, come right where we are, come where we are in all our struggle. He asks us not for the tiniest effort of self-struggle or self-improvement. He has come to save us. He came to die on the cross that the guilt of our sin before God might be put away. Came to die that the guilt being put away, God might be free to bless us with salvation and give us his Holy Spirit. And the last lock gate that holds up the tide of God's salvation as it comes streaming to us is our own personal will. Thank God there's no man or woman outside of hell, but what can decide for himself, if she will, if he will, what they will do with this Jesus. Far gone or not far gone, the truth is that even now, as I preach to you, there is another battle going on, perhaps in many a heart here. As Christ comes right where you are, right where you are. The Christ of God who died for your sin that its guilt might be put away. The Christ of God that has obtained eternal salvation, and he stands right outside your personality. And the only lock gate that will stop that salvation coming into you is your own personal will. The God that made you, that unique personality that you are, will never force it. Satan might come in with all his eagle ho- eagle hosts and snatch away your dearest treasure of personality and rend it to shreds. God never will. God gave you a will, God gave you a personality. He meant you to stand on your own feet, and God's own son will honor it. He stands outside, and he knocks, and he asks, and he pleads, but he'll never come in unless you ask him in. And you can decide. Oh, can we get this clear? He's not asking you to reform. He's not asking you to promise him anything at all, save only this, that you're willing to let him come in and save you from sin, save you from its guilt, and save you from its power, and he waits. Will you let him in? Where do you stand? Behold, I stand at the door and knock, said our Lord on another occasion, if any man hear my voice and open that door, I will come in. But there's the rub of it all. Our personalities are so precious, aren't they? So I, I, I want to run my life my own way. I don't want to be dictated to, not even by Christ himself. I want to go my own way, and I want to decide for myself. I want to be free. Oh, how precious a thing our personality is, isn't it? We wouldn't give up dominion of it to anybody, and quite rightly we shouldn't. I would say, are you free? Are you free? You say you want to be free. Are you free? You say you want to decide your own destiny. Well, come now, have you decided it, and do you know where you're going? Well, I could uh face you with it point blank. You want to decide your life and your eternity, but have you, listen, have you decided it? Are you sure where you're going? Are you sure what matters? You say I'm not sure. Well, then you haven't decided it, have you? When are you going to be sure and decide it? You say, I don't think I can decide it. Oh, so you just drift, do you? You are not master of yourself, and you are just drifting to eternity under the pre that you want to settle things for yourself, and you're not going to let Christ in, so you're just drifting, are you? And drifting, drifting, drifting down the weeks. But that's not being free. You're a slave to anything that may happen, and you're drifting uncertainly through life with that precious cargo of a human personality, drifting. Let me tell you, you're not free at all. It's that same old story. Why, if you were free and you chose yourself, would you not choose God, heaven, life eternal? The very fact that you sit here, if so you do, unsure of heaven, uncertain of eternal life. When common sense would say that if you loved yourself, you would grasp both with both hands, is evidence enough that you're not free. It's an idle day doing that. You're being shepherded along by a bigger power than you know, without Christ and without hope, and slipping through life into eternity. Or would you allow me to become very personal just here and to plead with you? I can't help if you think I am emotional. Your one soul, God counted it so valuable that his own son suffered the death of the cross, that he might save one. Can you doubt that savior as he stands outside your life tonight and says, what's your name? Jack? Gertrude? The real you. Where do you stand? Faced with Christ himself who died for you. Tom and Joan, what is your name really, the real you? Have you heard his knock and let in the Savior? Is the real you, you plus Christ. Are you a Christian? Hesitate not to let him in. Think not that he will make your life a prison house. Oh, the wickedness of our arch enemy Satan, who has so slandered God before men that they are afraid to let in the very Son of God, lest he make them unhappy. I will remember in the house next door to where I was born, there was a young man, older than myself by far, but I still remember it. In difficult days when employment was difficult, answered what seemed to be a bona fide advertisement in London. And went up, young man in his middle teens, to take this job. Strangely enough, his parents heard no more, no letter, no card, no nothing. Weeks went by, and the parents began to get worried. They wrote and wrote and wrote and said, John, do, do, do write and tell us how you're getting on, but no answer came. At last, the father determined that he would go up and seek out this place, and to his horror, he found the address was in some disreputable quarter. He went to the police, and they said, sir, I'm very sorry, but that is such a disreputable quarter. We don't go down alone, we go in pairs, and that's saying something for England at any rate. He said, but you go down, and we will be standing in plain clothes the other side of the road. The father went down and knocked on the door, and a wizened old woman came to the door. They were, in fact, as he found out later, members of a thieving gang. They had got this young lad and taken him with them to the great London termini, and there on the platforms they had said, pick up that, that, that, that, that, that, and put him in the van. And they got the lad doped. The father knocked on the door, I say, and this wizened old woman came. He said, look, I've come to ca- take my son. You haven't got your son, sir. He said, look here, Jack Wade is in here, and I demand my son. No, no, no, sir, he said. No, we have no Jack Wade. We don't know what you talk about. Oh, get out of the way, he said. He called at the top of his voice, he called into the old house, Jack, Jack, it's your father come. Jack, it's your father come to take you. Come down, Jack. Presently, the lad came down the stairs, all confused. No, no, he says, Dad, go home. I want to stay. I want to stay. Go home, Dad. Come on, my boy, he said, put his arm around him and pulled him out. So doped. But when he saw his father, he didn't want to come. Ah, but my dear soul, it's a savior that stands outside your heart tonight. The savior with wounded hands and feet and came all the way down from heaven. He wasn't playing, I assure you. If you don't believe in sin, if you don't believe in Satan, he at least did. And it's the savior that died for you on the cross that you might be delivered, and with wounded hands and feet and torn face and back, he stands in front of your personality. What's your name, says he? Jack, Tom, Gertrude. Where do you stand? What will you choose? It's your savior come. Come out. Do you not believe that? Do you not believe that when Christ died on that cross, whether you understand much of what he was doing or not, that he died there for you? He stands outside your personality saying, look, let me in. Let me in while you still have the power to choose. Let me in. And if you let him in now, I'm not saying to you that your troubles will be immediately over. But the war will be won. When they came back, they found this demon-possessed man, and he was sitting now clothed and in his right mind. It doesn't mean to say that the man never sinned again. The Bible tells us bluntly that if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. But the battle was won. He was sitting at the feet of the Lord. The Lord, so to speak, had conquered him. His whole heart and life was given over to the Lord, and the Lord for him was supreme. The Lord was his guarantee of safety. And as the years went by, the Lord would take hold of that man's life ever and ever and ever more, until the last bit of darkness had gone. If you let Christ into your heart tonight, I say the war will be over. Many a battle you'll have with sin afterwards, but the war is won. The Savior is within. You will have peace with God because of his sacrifice at the cross. The guilt will be gone. You'll know yourself what you've never known before, that you are a child of God. And the real you, ah, what a difference. The real you will be able to say, yes, once a sinner, once a fallen human creature, but now by God's grace, the real me, why a Christian, surely, a child of God, because I've received him and he's given me power to become a child of God. He was saved. I think the saddest thing about all that story is not the man with whom we began, bad as his case was, but he got saved. The saddest thing about the story was the very polite and refined neighbors that came out to see what the fuss was. They were extraordinary people. When that poor fellow had been in the grip of these evil powers, they had shown him all that human kindness could show him. They had doctored him. They had helped to restrain him. They had kindly reclothed him. They had tried to stop him gashing himself and hurting himself. They had shown him every kindness. And now when the Savior came and saved him, they grew afraid. They didn't understand this business of being saved. I'm not quite sure whether it was the right thing to do, be saved. Okay, they said to Christ, you get going. We don't want any of that. We'd have rather had the man as he was than all this business being said. There were reasons. For causes that I cannot now say, it was forbidden for those people, though not for us. It was forbidden in those days for those people to eat pork. It was a temporary regulation that God had laid down for the health of his people in those ancient days. Part of the reason why they didn't want the savior, one, because they really didn't understand this business of being saved, and two, the demons had gone out into the pigs, and the pigs had been drowned in the lake, and that was their pigs gone. It was forbidden food, really. Ah, but it was nice. There's many a man that he would do his level best to help the insane, and do his very best to help the poor socially, and do his very best for the oppressed countries to deliver them if need be, but, ah, but this business of being saved he doesn't like. For if it comes to there are some sins that he likes to roll under his tongue, he enjoys them. But if he knows that if he came to Christ, then sin would be contraband and illegal. George, Mary, in face of it all, what is your name? Thank God if in these moments you can say as never before, Lord Jesus, I do trust you. I do receive you. As best I know how, come in, and I will be thine, and I will trust you for salvation now and eternally. He promises that he that opens, he says he will come in. But I wonder, I wonder how many of us, if any, will go out with the Savior still standing outside, just our fallen selves, without a Savior, to pass through life alone and into eternal perdition alone, without a savior, to perish on the scrap heap of eternity.