"Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee." MAR 5:19

The scenario before us in our text reveals a calling that every sinner saved by grace must obey, i.e., "Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee."

By nature we are all under the power and tyranny of sin until we are redeemed from all iniquity by grace. There isn’t anything that makes you hate sin like a faith’s view of the love and compassion of Christ. The poor man referred to in this verse, the Gadarene, was "always, night and day, he was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones. But when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped him," MAR 5:5-6.

This scenario is typical of the tyranny and power of sin; it is only as we look away from those sins which so easily beset us and look to Christ by faith that those sins lose their reigning power. A person outside of Christ is as this poor man, "always, night and day, he was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones."

Think of the pain a single lust such as drunkenness can bring into a person’s life and upon the family, and what a destroying hold it takes upon family life, especially little children! There they are miserable in their own soul, yet the power of their lust drives them on.

Is not the poor Gadarene a clear type of such a case? They cannot be bound with any chains of restraint--even though the havoc wrought in their own soul as well as their family is only too obvious. They have no might against the power of their own lust. "…he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces: neither could any man tame him." MAR 5:3-4.

There is only one way we will ever gain the victory over the power of sin and that is to look away from ourselves and our circumstances unto Christ. . "But when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped him," MAR 5:6.

Our text does not say go back unto your friends and criticize ever everything they say or do. When we learn by God’s grace to understand our the corruption in our own heart we have no stones to throw. Our text says, "Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee [tell them how Christ has plucked you as a brand from the burning], and hath had compassion on thee."

So what would be your most powerful testimony? See where the most powerful and convincing part of this Gadarene’s testimony began. "And they come to Jesus, and see him that was possessed with the devil, and had the legion, sitting, and clothed, and in his right mind: and they were afraid," MAR 5:15.

A right attitude toward God, and the authority of His Word—together with a right attitude toward our fellow man—is one of the most powerful testimonies we can use to reflect on the compassionate love of Christ—any attempt to praise Him when our attitude and actions do not correspond only brings blasphemy on His name.

When we, as the Gadarene, receive a true faith’s view of Christ what is the immediate effect? He "put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness," EPH 4:24. He was clothed with the new man--and in his right mind.

Our text says we are to tell our friends of two very important things –first "and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee," and then how He "…hath had compassion on thee."

These great things, and the compassion of our Saviour are beautifully summed up in 1JO 4:9-11, "In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another." Amen