It is like this at conversion. It is as if there is a demon in us; there is a last flurry of sin. I must have my old sins. I won’t come to Christ, I won’t repent, then at last I do. Christ breaks temptation’s power over me. I have been holding back and there is a wrench to leave sin behind; there is a last convulsion as we let go of the world. I ask for forgiveness and I trust in Calvary for forgiveness and I hand over my life. The very next day some of the old temptations come back: ‘Go and meet this one; meet that one, go and do the old things again.’ But you can’t; you have come to Christ and he will pull you away from them, as the world tries to cling onto you and keep you in rebellion against God.
For this man all the terrible effects of possession were gone. He was clean in his thoughts; he was in control of himself; he was speaking normally. Conversion is a crisis experience, and at conversion we are completely changed. When I truly come to Christ and I am sincere, I am not quarter or half converted, but at once entirely saved; it is not a lifelong process. I am immediately brought into permanent communion with Christ. It is irreversible and it is by grace. The mean is made generous, the violent made gentle; the inveterate liar gets a new integrity. This miracle pictures it all. He was instantly healed, and he wasn’t harmed after that, which means that all the terrible effects that the demonisation had had upon him were reversed. He was clean in his thoughts and his words and his actions. He did not go back to his previous state after six months, and nor do those who are truly converted; they are permanently changed.
People ask why, if Christ had the power to cast it out, the demon wasn’t prevented from doing any further damage. Luke tells us it did not hurt the man. But there was a crowd, and it had to be evident that the demonic power was real and it had really been cast out. If the demon had gone silently, without a movement or a flicker, nobody would have known. It would only have been supposed, that the demon had been cast out. So, of course, the Lord allowed this final convulsion.