That’s the translation I’m reading. But what the Greek says is they were thoroughly saved. It’s the word sozo with a preposition in front which means to do something thoroughly. So, every person who was miraculously healed, according to the text, was thoroughly saved. You understand? In other words, healing is not an addition to salvation, it’s one part of salvation. It’s salvation applied to the physical body.

Then in Luke 8:35 and following we have the record of what is known as the Gadarene demoniac, this man who was totally possessed of demons. He wouldn’t wear any clothes, he was always in the tombs naked, cutting himself, shouting out day and night. When Jesus came he did one tremendously significant thing, he came and worshiped Jesus. Now, my experience in deliverance in helping people get delivered from evil spirits is that they have to be willing to submit to Jesus. Otherwise they don’t qualify. He did all he could, that was absolutely all he could do. After that the demons took over. But he had come to Jesus and Jesus saw that in that man’s heart was a desire for himself. And so, Jesus began to speak to the demons and they said, “We are Legion, because many of us have entered in.” Do you remember that? And then they pled with Jesus, “Don’t send us into the abyss, let us go out into this herd of swine here.” And Jesus permitted it. There have been a lot of interesting speculations as to why He did.

Let me give you my opinion because we don’t have to dwell on it. I think it would have been terribly hard for the man if the demons had gone out unwillingly. So Jesus gave them an option that they were prepared to accept, to go into the swine. You remember what happened to the swine? They immediately ran down a steep slope and plunged into the sea and were drowned. It’s interesting that one man could contain enough demon power and keep it under control, the same demon power that could destroy a herd of 2,000 pigs. That gives you some idea the power of human personality. Many times in deliverance when I’ve heard a person’s story I’ve been overwhelmed by the fact that a person could live with what they had to fight inside them.

Anyhow, the man came, Jesus cast out the spirits and we read this—well, the people who kept the swine went and told it in the city so everybody came out to see what had happened. And this is what it says in verse 35:

“Then they went out to see what had happened and came to Jesus, and found the man from whom the demons had departed sitting at the feet of Jesus clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid. They also who had seen it told them by what means he who had been demon possessed was healed.”

Here’s what the word is, saved. So, deliverance from demons is not an addition to salvation, it’s a part of salvation.

And then this 8th chapter of Luke contains a wonderful example. Going on a little further Jesus returned to the other side of the Sea of Galilee and He was in the crowd and the little woman with chronic bleeding, or an issue of blood, came up behind Him and touched Him. And Jesus knew somebody had touched Him and He said, “Who touched me?” She was afraid, she didn’t want to admit it. Do you know why? Because according to the law of Moses, a woman with an issue of blood was ceremonial unclean and she was not permitted to touch anybody. But she was so desperate she went against the law. So then it says when she realized Jesus knew what had happened she came trembling and fell down before Him and confessed what she’d done. And in verse 48, J

Complete Salvation and How to Receive It

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