Misery of the Untamed

Where discipline does not exist, the results will ultimately be misery, especially for the untamed.

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Misery of the Untamed

Mark 5:4-5 – Because that 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.  And always, night and day, he was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones.

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I enjoy nature.  I enjoy the wildness of nature.  Some would call it untamed.  But in nature, both plants and animals simply conform to that which is natural.  Each animal, each plant, both flora and fauna, have a nature specific to themselves.  And while that may seem to be so good, take a moment to really consider what it would be like to be an animal in the wild.  If you give truly reasonable thought to it, you will realize that a world, or a society, that is tamed, has laws, and has rules, is far more to be desired that one without laws and rules.  In such a world, fear dominates, and uncertainty is a way of life.

Such was the world of the demoniac of Gadara.  Nothing could hold him.  Chains were “plucked asunder,” fetter were “broken in pieces,” and the possibility of being tamed (civilized) was out of the question.  Imagine a life where rest was non-existent; a world in which you were constantly in a state of emotional torment, and always cutting yourself as you went from day to day in a suicidal existence.  We are talking about an existence of fear, torment, pain, suffering, and complete misery with every breath one takes.  That was the life of the demoniac of Gadara. 

As horrible as that picture was for the demoniac of Gadara, it is just as horrible for anyone who is lost and without Christ.  The life of a person without Christ may be well-disguised in today’s world of comforts, ease, and technology.  But stop and think for a moment.  With every human being, the outward man is perishing day by day.  With the believer, however, the inner man, the spirit-man, is being refreshed daily and has received eternal life with the promise of a glorified body.  But what of the person without Christ.  Once again, the outward man is perishing daily, getting older, wearing out.  But the real tragedy is the hidden man of the heart.  Think of existing with a mind without peace, uncertainty of tomorrow with a promise of torment for eternity.  Such a human spirit is crying out, night and day, for deliverance.  They are living in the land of the dead, and will use anything and everything they can find to either bring some quiet to their mind.  Drugs, alcohol, gambling, sex; they may all feel good and may momentarily take one’s mind off the darkness, but the end is still the same.  And the answer for that person is the same as it was for the demoniac of Gadara.  As a songwriter penned, “Only Jesus can satisfy your soul.”

Manna for Today – Mark 5:1-20; 1 John 4:18; Hosea 4:6; Proverbs 29:18; Psalm 119:165; Isaiah 26:3