The sermons of old on this passage often referred to what they called the three pleadings. Really, there are five pleadings, but there are three that are of particular importance. How did it work? Well, first of all in verse 10, ‘He besought him much that he would not send them away out of the country’, and when we first hear the gospel we have the same reaction. We plead to be left in the world: ‘Leave me where I am. Don't send me out of these parts, out of this country. I'm contented and happy the way I am.’ We plead to be left alone. Don't tell me these things. Don't tell me about Christ. Don't tell me about repentance and conversion, and new life and heaven. Leave me where I am in this world in material things. This is where I'm happy, and I can sin my life away and do what I want.
The second pleading is there in verse 12: ‘And all the devils besought him, saying, Send us into the swine that we may enter into them.’ In a strange way that too pictures us. We don't want to become a converted person with spiritual life, praying to God, understanding the purpose of my being, on the pathway to heaven. We don’t want to be living for righteousness, struggling against sin, living for the Lord. We would rather live like animals. We would rather get rid of our minds and our reason, even be under the influence of intoxicants, unable to think properly. We would rather be a lower person than a higher person, not understanding God. We would rather hand ourselves over to the drug of rhythmic music, swaying about, and enjoy trivial, insubstantial, absurd things. Let me just be half a human being, no spiritual aspirations or life at all.
And then the third pleading is in verse 17: ‘And they began to pray him’, they besought him, ‘to depart out of their coasts.’ When they saw what Christ had done for this poor man who had been demon possessed, and out of his mind, they were afraid. ‘I don't want to be changed. I don't want to be made new. I don’t want conversion. Go away! Leave us alone! Get back in that ship and cross the lake,’ and he did; as far as most people were concerned he went away. If you say, ‘Go away’ to Christ Jesus the Saviour and Lord just once too often, he will go away from you, and you’ll never be touched again, and you’ll never be called again, and your fate will be sealed, and you’re on the pathway to eternal judgment and ruin. That's very telling.