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  EXPOSITORY THOUGHTS ON LUKE - LUKE 8:37-40
  by J.C. Ryle
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CONTENT
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We see in this passage two requests made to our Lord Jesus Christ. They
were widely different one from the other, and were offered by people of
widely different character. We see, moreover, how these requests were
received by our Lord Jesus Christ. In either case the request received a
most remarkable answer. The whole passage is singularly instructive.

Let us observe, in the first place, that the Gadarenes besought our Lord
to depart from them, and their request was granted. We read these
painfully solemn words--"Then all the people of the region of the
Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them, because they were overcome with
fear. So he got into the boat and left." Now why did these unhappy men
desire the Son of God to leave them? Why, after the amazing miracle of
mercy which had just been wrought among them, did they feel no wish to
know more of Him who wrought it? Why, in a word, did they become their
own enemies, forsake their own mercies, and shut the door against the
Gospel? There is but one answer to these questions. The Gadarenes loved
the world, and the things of the world, and were determined not to give
them up. They felt convinced, in their own consciences, that they could
not receive Christ among them and keep their sins, and their sins they
were resolved to keep. They saw, at a glance, that there was something
about Jesus with which their habits of life would never agree, and
having to choose between the new ways and their own old ones, they
refused the new and chose the old.

And why did our Lord Jesus Christ grant the request of the Gadarenes,
and leave them? He did it in judgment, to testify His sense of the
greatness of their sin. He did it in mercy to His Church in every age,
to show how great is the wickedness of those who wilfully reject the
truth. It seems an eternal law of His government, that those who
obstinately refuse to walk in the light shall have the light taken from
them. Great is Christ\

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Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/jc-ryle/expository-thoughts-on-luke-luke-837-40/
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