"RETURN FROM A FAR COUNTRY"

Luke 20:9-16  Then began he to speak to the people this parable; A certain man planted a vineyard, and let it forth to husbandmen, and went into a far country for a long time. And at the season he sent a servant to the husbandmen, that they should give him of the fruit of the vineyard: but the husbandmen beat him, and sent [him] away empty. And again he sent another servant: and they beat him also, and entreated [him] shamefully, and sent [him] away empty. And again he sent a third: and they wounded him also, and cast [him] out. Then said the lord of the vineyard, What shall I do? I will send my beloved son: it may be they will reverence [him] when they see him. But when the husbandmen saw him, they reasoned among themselves, saying, This is the heir: come, let us kill him, that the inheritance may be ours. So they cast him out of the vineyard, and killed [him]. What therefore shall the lord of the vineyard do unto them? He shall come and destroy these husbandmen, and shall give the vineyard to others. And when they heard [it], they said, God forbid.

Luke 8:22-24  Now it came to pass on a certain day, that he went into a ship with his disciples: and he said unto them, Let us go over unto the other side of the lake. And they launched forth. But as they sailed he fell asleep: and there came down a storm of wind on the lake; and they were filled [with water], and were in jeopardy. And they came to him, and awoke him, saying, Master, master, we perish. Then he arose, and rebuked the wind and the raging of the water: and they ceased, and there was a calm.

Luke 8:26-40  And they arrived at the country of the Gadarenes, which is over against Galilee. And when he went forth to land, there met him out of the city a certain man, which had devils long time, and ware no clothes, neither abode in [any] house, but in the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he cried out, and fell down before him, and with a loud voice said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, [thou] Son of God most high? I beseech thee, torment me not. (For he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. For oftentimes it had caught him: and he was kept bound with chains and in fetters; and he brake the bands, and was driven of the devil into the wilderness.) And Jesus asked him, saying, What is thy name? And he said, Legion: because many devils were entered into him. And they besought him that he would not command them to go out into the deep. And there was there an herd of many swine feeding on the mountain: and they besought him that he would suffer them to enter into them. And he suffered them. Then went the devils out of the man, and entered into the swine: and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the lake, and were choked. When they that fed [them] saw what was done, they fled, and went and told [it] in the city and in the country. Then they went out to see what was done; and came to Jesus, and found the man, out of whom the devils were departed, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed, and in his right mind: and they were afraid. They also which saw [it] told them by what means he that was possessed of the devils was healed. Then the whole multitude of the country of the Gadarenes round about besought him to depart from them; for they were taken with great fear: and he went up into the ship, and returned back again. Now the man out of whom the devils were departed besought him that he might be with him: but Jesus sent him away, saying, Return to thine own house, and shew how great things God hath done unto thee. And he went his way, and published throughout the whole city how great things Jesus had done unto him. And it came to pass, that, when Jesus was returned, the people [gladly] received him: for they were all waiting for him.

• Heaven at one time was close to mankind and the earth.
• It was touching earth in union at the point of the Garden of Eden.
• But since man fell, Eden was removed from the world and Heaven became worlds... dimensions... apart.
• Heaven became a FAR country.
• What once was so close then became so very far.
• That country depicts Heaven.

• So you cannot travel physically to this Heaven.
• When I say Heaven is "far" away, I mean that it is far in relation to how easily we can reach it.
• We do not reach it by traveling since it is not physical.
• But we can reach it.
• It is just not as easy as it once was to reach it.

• Jesus said the Kingdom of Heaven is something that can be in you.
• It can be so far away that no amount of travel can get you there.
• But it can be so close that it is INSIDE YOU.

Jesus explained it is not a place you can physically see.

• And you can stand waiting to see it come, and you will never see it.
• But it is something spiritual and is something that can be inside you.

• God and men became separated by a monstrous breach and gap.
• God had planted a vineyard and a Garden in Eden.
• And though now removed, God decided to one day return from a far country.

• He crossed a body of water.And he met a man possessed with demons LONG TIME.

• The same terms are used in describing the duration of time the man of Gadara was possessed by demons.

• When God left the world after Mankind was cast from Eden, and the Garden was removed from earth so that the tree of life was later found in Heaven, He left FOR A LONG TIME.
• The master of the vineyard is God.
• The vineyard is earth.
• And man's sin caused God to leave, and Heaven became a far country.

• He returned from a far country.
• He found mankind in an awful state.

• The demon possessed man of Gadara met him as a man naked and unclothed.
• As God and man separated due to man's sin, and man was naked an ashamed, Jesus came back to this demon possessed man who represents mankind and his state in general.
• And you could say, Jesus found mankind naked and destitute.

• Naked of God's righteousness.
• Overridden with devils and sin and filth of this world.
• Man was made from dust found outside the Garden.
• After God made man from dust, he put man in the Garden, telling us that this dust was outside the Garden.
• And He told man that he must return to the region from whence he was made, to die there.
• He was sent there to die there and return to the dust.

• We are outside the Garden and inside the world of tombs.
• We are in a world of graveyards.
• Adam would never have returned to the outside origin of his creation, and would never have died there to return to the dust there, had not he sinned.
• God told Adam that the dust from outside the Garden, from which God made man, would man return to and finally be buried in once again.
• Adam wandered in the land of tombs.

• The demoniac had devils "long time."

• On his way there, trouble stirred up in the lake and the wind and waves buffeted the boat He was in.
• Jesus rebuked it and continued on.

• He is not in Heaven any longer.
• He has been cast out.
• But he is in the closest thing resembling Heaven, -- the AIR.

He was cast into the air, and became the prince over its power.

• But he who ruled the air's power, now has come even closer to mankind to WORK IN THE CHILDREN OF DISOBEDIENCE.
• And when Jesus crossed what was between Him and the land of Gadara, trouble stirred in the lake.

• He crossed the breach that separated Heaven and earth.
• And the devil stirred.
• He tried to have Jesus killed in His infantile age of tenderness.
• But Jesus kept on coming!
• The men exclaimed, "Even the wind and the sea obey Him!"
• The WIND.
• The realm of the prince of  darkness

• Just as sin gripped man's soul and man became a puppet of the devil.
• No man could bind the man with chains.
• Nothing can tame the flesh with sin in itself.
• Man cannot make himself do good.
• You cannot make yourself live good.
• It might last for a small, small amount of time, but you will lose sooner or later.
• Something in man drives him to sin.

• The devils in him requested to be sent into the swine herded nearby.
• He cast them out and into the swine, and they couldn't stay there, because the swine ran violently and drowned themselves in the lake.

• There is no home for that which Jesus casts out!

• People who reject the word of God are compared to swain in the Bible.
• God's word instructs us to not cast out pearls before swine, for the swine will tread on them, not appreciating their value, and turn on you and rend you.
• When you bring the precious truths of God to those who reject truths, your precious treasure is spit upon and driven into mud.  And you, the precious messenger of the truth, is turned upon and beaten with words and hatred.
• The demons went into the swine and destroyed the swine.

• And only those who reject the truth are affected by sin, and will be destroyed afterwards.

• For long time, man was without the cross of salvation.

• But man's nakedness, though it did not shame him before he sinned since man was created naked to progress and be clothed upon with God's glory, became a cause for shame when he sinned.
• Really, something inside man was naked after sinning.
• And man only knew to cover his outward to try and solve the problem that was inward.
• You cannot solve an inward problem by an outward cure.
• Drugs and booze are outward attempts at covering over the inward loneliness and unhappiness that only God's Spirit can enter INWARD and fill.

• He told them to buy of Him white raiment that they not be found naked at the judgment.

• And we read this about him as he fled..

Mark 14:50-52  And they all forsook him, and fled. And there followed him a certain young man, having a linen cloth cast about [his] naked [body]; and the young men laid hold on him: And he left the linen cloth, and fled from them naked.

When you abandon Jesus, after serving Him and following Him, when people begin to mock Christ and you back down and pretend you know Him not, like the young man, you leave behind your linen robe and run naked from Jesus.

• You had a covering that covered you so long as you stood with Jesus.
• The Bible says that the saints are robed in white linen robes which represent the righteousness of the saints.
• And since we get our righteousness from Jesus, when we leave Jesus we also leave the only robes of linen that will keep us clothed and fit to stand before God on judgment day.

Reve 19:7-8  Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready. And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints.

And this bride is clothed with white linen... His righteousness.

• We are told to seek first the kingdom of God and HIS righteousness.
• If it is HIS righteousness that he gives to us, then when we leave HIM, we leave behind HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS.
• As the young men left Jesus, He left behind his LINEN ROBE.
• The righteousness of God is distinctly called FINE LINEN, CLEAN AND WHITE.

• Revelation says the wedding garment is FINE LINEN.
• This young man who ran and left behind his LINEN ROBE when serving Jesus was not popular, represents the backslider who leaves Jesus and leaves him naked of what we need to go to the wedding with!

Reve 3:18  I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and [that] the shame of thy nakedness do not appear;

Do not let the shame of nakedness appear!
We need to be clothed upon!

2Cor 5:1-3  For we know that if our earthly house of [this] tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven: If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked.

God's people desire to be clothed upon, and not naked and lost like the Laodiceans.

Reve 16:15  Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed [is] he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame.

The young man LOST HIS GARMENTS.

• He did not KEEP HIS GARMENTS.
• In other words, He abandoned Jesus and lost his righteousness.
• The only way you are going to be ready to enter Heaven, get into Eden again, the country made so far away, is to make sure you are clothed -- make sure you live for Jesus and daily act like the Christian you should be.
• Stick with Jesus and you have a robe of righteousness.
• Leave him and you abandon the robe that takes you into glory.

When Israel forsook God and said Moses will never return, let us live in sinful delight, they rendered themselves naked.

• And when Moses returned, he commanded that the people be slain.
• And they were destroyed.
• Jesus is going to return.

• And by the time He comes again, everyone will have had the chance to be clothed and live for Jesus.
• So those who are not clothed, but naked, living in sin, will be those who rejected Jesus.
• Like the swine, they shall be destroyed.
• Like the naked people who rejected Moses, those who rejected the Gospel will be destroyed.

Psal 25:3  Yea, let none that wait on thee be ashamed: let them be ashamed which transgress without cause.

Jesus set the man free of the bondage, and represented what He came to do on the cross by dying for us.

• He set us free, if we accept it and choose to obey His word and live for Him.
• And when the people of the land came to see what happened.. we read...

Luke 8:35  Then they went out to see what was done; and came to Jesus, and found the man, out of whom the devils were departed, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed, and in his right mind: and they were afraid.

He was clothed and in his right mind.

• That is symbolic of what happens when you accept Jesus.
• (If you do not accept Jesus, you're crazy!  :-)  )
• The prodigal son came to himself, or to his senses, when he realized, in the swine den, where the rejecters of Jesus are, that he needed to return to his father and get back in the house!
• He did not belong in the pigpen because he was a child of the Father.

• It was too much for them to grasp that He really set this man free.
• Many sinners see a changed believer, and they cannot accept it, and since they do not understand they try not to even think of it, and send Jesus out of their minds.
• But the man went and proved to all around that Jesus freed him.
• And the next time Jesus came, there were a lot of people ready to receive him.

He is coming again!

• Soon He shall come.
• Since He left, someone went and told it until the whole world knows about it.
• And when he deems it proper time for the message to have adequately reached all over the world, then shall the end come, and all have had sufficient time to have decided to live for him or not, He will return.
• By that time, those who truly want to be saved will have chosen, and those who reject Him will have made up their minds to live their own ways.
• (After so long of holding back on God, people pretty well have made up their minds to simply not serve Him.)
• But there are a lot of people who are waiting for Him.
• Are you ready for Him to return?