The Gadarene (2) - All The LORD is near Daily Devotionals for 2025

And no one was able to bind him anymore, even with a chain; because he had often been bound with shackles and chains, and the chains had been torn apart by him and the shackles broken in pieces, and no one was strong enough to subdue him. Constantly, night and day, he was screaming among the tombs and in the mountains, and gashing himself with stones.

Mark 5:3-5



The Gadarene (2)

"No one was able to bind him." Measures have been taken everywhere to "bind" the worst effects of sin on man, and there are prisons in many places to keep the worst offenders away from human society. But generally speaking, it doesn't work. As soon as people get out of prison they are still sinners—unless they have met the Savior in prison.



"No one was strong enough to subdue him." Man has tried to subdue or to "cultivate" sin by education, philosophy, theology, religion, and all kinds of other efforts to make human sinfulness look less ugly. Or man has tried to change his value system so that behavior, attitudes, and lifestyles that were considered sinful in the past are no longer considered so, but are now accepted behavior. All this does not change man, nor does it change God's perspective. Nor does it change the effect that sin has on man: he is still in bondage.



"He was screaming." Very often in Scripture, screaming or shouting is mentioned in connection with the activities of Satan. During the Lord's trial on earth we read, "They kept on calling out, saying, ‘Crucify, crucify Him!'" (Lk. 23:21). Or consider Paul's case: "So then, some were shouting one thing and some another, for the assembly was in confusion" (Acts 19:32). Satan is the originator of noise and confusion—past and present. The Lord Jesus, as the servant of God in the Book of the prophet Isaiah, acts just the opposite: "He will not cry out or raise His voice, nor make His voice heard in the street" (Isa. 42:2). What a contrast!



Michael Vogelsang