Well, Welcome to Trick for Life weekend.

We've been investigating some extraordinary encounters with Jesus.

This weekend will learn how Christ responded to a demon-possessed homeless man.

Alistair Begg points out how we're all more like this man than we realize

until we encounter Jesus.

I invite you to turn this morning

to Luke's gospel

and to chapter 8

and verse 26. Luke chapter 8 and verse 26, then they sailed to the country of

the garrisons, which is opposite Galilee. When Jesus had stepped out on land, there met him a man from the city who had demons.

For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he had not lived in a house but among the tombs.

When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him and said with a loud voice,

What of you to do with me, Jesus, son of the most high

God? I beg you, do not torment me, for he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man.

For many a time it had seized him. He was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles,

but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demons into the desert. Jesus then asked him, what is your name? And he said,

Legion, for many demons had entered him. And he begged him not to command them to depart into the abyss. Now a large herd of pigs was

feeding there on the hillside, and they begged him to let them enter these. So he gave them permission.

Then the demons came out of the man and entered the pigs, and the herd rushed down the steep bank

into the lake and drowned. When the herdsmen saw

what had happened, they fled and told it in the city and in the country. Then people went out

to see what had happened and they came to Jesus and found the man from whom the demons had gone,

...