Jesus Heals Two Demon-Possessed Men

From Matthew 8:28–34 (NLT):
28 When Jesus arrived on the other side of the lake, in the region of the Gadarenes, two men who were possessed by demons met him. They lived in a cemetery and were so violent that no one could go through that area.
29 They began screaming at him, “Why are you interfering with us, Son of God? Have you come here to torture us before God’s appointed time?”

30 There happened to be a large herd of pigs feeding in the distance. 31 So the demons begged, “If you cast us out, send us into that herd of pigs.”

32 “All right, go!” Jesus commanded them. So the demons came out of the men and entered the pigs, and the whole herd plunged down the steep hillside into the lake and drowned in the water.
33 The herdsmen fled to the nearby town, telling everyone what happened to the demon-possessed men. 34 Then the entire town came out to meet Jesus, but they begged him to go away and leave them alone.

Here we see how Jesus “exorcises” two demon-possessed men and sends the demons into a herd of pigs, which promptly runs off the nearby cliff to drown in the sea. But the people are not happy when they see their pigs have just gone over the edge, so they ask Jesus to leave. Why, one might question, did they herd pigs? Because on the eastern side of the Sea of Galilee lived Gentiles, not Jews. (I’ve seen the location where this happened. The cliff is steep, but now filled with mines from a previous Arab-Israeli war.)

One might ask: Do demons even exist? When God created the heavens and the earth, part of his work was to create spiritual realms. To populate them he created the spiritual beings we call angels. Because they had free will, one of the leaders of these angels became filled with pride, envy, and jealousy. He rebelled against God and took one third of the heavenly populace with him. Today we call him Satan, the Devil, or the Adversary. When God cast him and his rebellious followers out of heaven, those angels became demons. They exist on another spiritual plane.

We’ve now looked at five miracles from the Bible. But what about the miracles of other religions? Next time we’ll look at the miracles of Islam.