It's a picture of how people come to the Saviour. God puts a desire in the heart and he virtually has to drag us to himself. The scripture is putting it very gently when it tells us that for anybody to come to God he has to be drawn? Drawn? It's almost like being dragged here. The man doesn't want to come. He would rather have the tombs. He would rather have this terrible sick life he's leading. It's as though an unseen force has come into him and driven him to the place to seek help and the moment he gets there he protests, and I think this is very characteristic of the spiritual journey which many of us take. Part of us knows we need salvation, and part of us resists. God in his wonderful condescension comes, and he begins to soften us, and to show us our stupidity and our carnality, our need of salvation, of spiritual life; this is the graciousness of God doing this. And yet we spurn him, we kick against it in our arrogance and in our insolence, we rebel, we won't listen, and we almost have to be dragged to the point where we at last are humbled before the Lord and we seek salvation. Oh, the graciousness of God! The Scripture teaches that if God did not force us to come to the point where we broke down and saw our need of a Saviour, there wouldn't be a single person in the kingdom of God. Such is the hardness and rebelliousness of the human heart.
There are people who actually say that to God, they sit through preaching and they say what have I to do with this? You may like to convince yourself that this has nothing to do with you, and you have nothing to do with God, but you have. You happen to have been created by him; you happen to be his property. The life which he has breathed into you belongs to him, and you are accountable to him. One of these days you have got to give an account for it: ‘it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment’ (Hebrews 9:27), and you have got to stand before God and be judged for the sins done in the body. You cannot afford to stand and insult God, and say, ‘What have I to do with you?’ The message of the gospel, it is to warn you against that kind of thinking, not because God is like a taskmaster God, not because God is against you, but we have to warn you because it is only in this life that you can turn to him. It's only in this life you can find his mercy, and you can have pardon and forgiveness and have your sins washed away. When you stand before him in judgement, it will be too late. Like this poor man – or rather the devils within him – people go on to say these words: ‘What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God most high? I beseech thee, torment me not.’ Is God tormenting you? Does the preaching of the gospel torment you? Does the offer of mercy and pardon and forgiveness torment you? The Greek word is actually even stronger it means ‘torture’. Are you being tortured because you have to be warned of your godlessness and your sin? Are you tortured by the news that God is ready to pardon and forgive you? This is the irrationality of unbelief.
The Lord Jesus Christ took the initiative in this poor man's case, he crossed the water just to see him. The poor man came to meet Christ and he began to work. We read here in this record that Christ spoke first. The man said, ‘What have I to do with thee? … torment me not’, but he said it because Jesus had already started to work, Luke tells us. He had already commanded the spirits to come out of him. Jesus steps ashore and he is beginning to work in his heart. We are so foolish and so irrational that we are ready to insult God and reject his goodness. But the mercy of God is this: that when he saves the soul he starts by softening the heart. He starts by bringing us under conviction of sin, and making us feel our need, and that is what he did to this man. He was almost compelled to throw himself at the feet of Christ; his body was saying, ‘Help me’, while the voice said, ‘Go away’, and that's often how it is. When Christ begins to work in a heart and you begin to feel your sinfulness and your need of conversion, there is often part of you that is still fighting, still resisting. But oh the power of Christ! He worked a miracle in that man's life. Within a few verses we find that people are going to see what has happened, and they find the man sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. This poor beast of a man was clothed and in his right mind. Christ had cleansed him from his sin and had changed his heart. Instead of rushing about the tombs, far from his home, injuring himself, he is appreciating what has been done for him and ready to go back to his family and friends. That is what Christ does when he converts. He clothes us, he pardons us and forgives us, and gives us a new standing in the sight of God. He puts us in our right mind, so that instead of running away from God, instead of spurning his blessings, we come and we repent. We ask God to bless us, and we receive this salvation which Christ alone can give. We have a spiritual home, a meaning, a purpose in living. Will you see yourself as someone who has great need, someone running from God as an irrational being? If the Spirit of God is working in your heart will you come and seek him, wholly, sincerely. On the authority of the word of God, every preacher can say that if you do this with all your heart; if you see your need, and realise you are a lost wretch, and you give yourself to the Lord, then by the power of his Spirit he will change you and deal with you.