this, but Matthew uses the word seismos for tempest. Everywhere else in the N.T. it

means an earthquake, and it could mean that there was an earthquake under the lake.

Severe though the effects were from all this, yet they were safe under the control of the

Creator, and the Lord gives a demonstration in each of these three miracles, different

though they were, that His power was supreme.

Why should He address inanimate things like winds and waves? The possibility is

that He was dealing with more than these, namely the devil and the powers of darkness

behind the storm, whose constant aim was to murder the Lord. More than once His life

was in danger through the activity of the powers of evil.

Matthew now gives us the second miracle of his second group of three, which deals

with the Lord's authority over the unseen spirit world and the forces of darkness. The

Evangelist links it with the region of the Gadarenes, whereas in  Mark 5: 1  and

Luke.viii.26 it is the country of the Gerasenes (N.I.V.). Dr. A. T. Robertson refers to a

village by the lake called Khersa or Gerasa. He then says "this village is in the district of

the city of Gadara some miles southeastward so that it can be called after Gerasa or

Gadara". Matthew speaks of two demoniacs, while Mark and Luke mention only one,

the leading one. There is no need to make difficulty here. The tombs were caves cut into

the mountainside and people shunned the region because of the madmen.

These men were demon-possessed and the whole subject of demonology is difficult

because we know so little of the evil spirit forces under the control of Satan. But to

explain this merely as disease will not do, for Christ treats the demons as having real

existence apart from the human personality. The Gospels describe them as unclean

spirits, yet they immediately recognize Christ and acknowledge His power. One thing

that is mystifying about these evil spirits is that they apparently long for embodiment.

Consequently, on realizing the Lord's intention to drive them out of the men, they plead

with Him to allow them to enter a herd of pigs that were nearby. He then gives them His

permission with the consequence that the pigs rushed down a steep slope into the lake

and were drowned. The word abussos, abyss, is used in Revelation (9: 1-11; 11: 7;

17: 8; 20: 1, 3) as somewhere where evil spirits are confined. It is used of the deep sea

in Gen. 1: 2, and appears to be linked somehow with deep water. In Luke 8: 31 and

Matt. 8: 32 it cannot refer to the sea, but could be the depths of the lake into which the

pigs rushed, but Scripture does not reveal everything about it. Of course, the demons

didn't know what the pigs were going to do--i.e. rush into the lake after they had entered

them. Yet the people of the vicinity begged the Lord to leave the district. It was not only

the loss of the pigs that disturbed them, for Luke tells us that they were filled with great

fear (Luke 8: 37). But they forgot the healing of the demon-possessed men and what it

must have meant to them. They cared more for pigs than the deliverance of enslaved

human beings and this attitude so often happens today.

The third miracle of the second group of three is the healing of the paralytic man.

This was at "His own city" (9: 1), namely Capernaum (Matt. 4: 13; Mark 2: 1-4). The