Podcast

Jesus’ Relentless Pursuit and Rescuing Power. Shadia Hrichi

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Unshakable Hope Podcast, where real life intersects redeeming love. I’m Kelly Hall, and this is where we wrestle through faith questions, such as how do I trust God’s heart when His ways and delays are breaking mine? We’ll hear from people just like you and me, who have experienced God’s faithfulness when life didn’t unfold as they expected.

My prayer is that God would renew our hope in His Word and His love through these conversations.

Kelly: Hey friends, before we dive in, I just wanted to ask for a quick favor. If you haven’t already, would you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts? It simply makes it easier for others to discover this message.

Thanks so much for taking a moment to do that. Today, we’re enjoying another conversation with Shadia Hrichi. She is going to offer some faith building insight as [00:01:00] we seek to understand One of Jesus most powerful and strange rescue stories in the entire Bible. In last week’s episode, Shadia blew me away with the stunning ways God saved her life, rescued and healed her from trauma, and then led her to seminary where she developed a passion for writing Bible studies that bring messy stories in the Bible to life.

Shadi is such a passionate Bible teacher, and we move so quickly through this story, I wanted to give you a quick summary of what happens just before, so you don’t miss the connections and the applications. So we’re talking about her Bible study, Legion. We’re looking at Jesus intentional pursuit and powerful rescue of the man who was possessed by literally Thousands of demons.

It’s such a strange story, and we may have a lot of misconceptions about what’s going on here. God makes some purposeful connections in what happened on [00:02:00] their way to rescue this man. The disciples have no idea why they’re crossing the Sea of Galilee or what awaits them on the other side.

Jesus is asleep in the boat. When a huge storm kicks up, waves are crashing into the boat. The wind is intense. It’s absolutely hopeless. The disciples are scared to death and they’re used to being on the Sea of Galilee. So, you know that this is a huge life threatening storm and they wake up Jesus and they say, Lord, don’t you care?

We’re going to drown so this is one of the questions we’re answering today. If you’re in a situation where you are wondering, cause you look at your desperate circumstances, maybe you have asked that same question, Lord, don’t you care? Why are you allowing this? Why does it seem like you’re asleep?

I think we’ve all had moments in our lives where we’ve asked this kind of a question. Maybe we’ve not said it in words, but we’ve wondered, Lord, don’t you care? And we’re going to [00:03:00] discover that God absolutely does care. Jesus responds, why are you so afraid?

You have so little faith. He gets up and he says, silence, be still. And immediately there was this great calm. That settles over the sea and the disciples are like, who is this man? Like they totally do not get the fact that Jesus has all authority in heaven and earth in every situation. He is sovereign.

Even the winds and the waves obey him. Well, God’s about to blow them away by the fact that even the demons obey him. So if you listened to the last episode, Shadia talks about there’s this one phrase in the Bible. The Bible says God found Hagar in the wilderness. And Shadia explained that the Hebrew word for found is actually an active word. God never loses us, of course. He always sees us. But we [00:04:00] discover that this is such a hopeful word Because we’re able to wrap our hearts around the truth that God is always actively pursuing our hearts with his relentless love.

He sees, he knows, he pursues, he rescues. It’s a love that never gives up and never backs down. He is all powerful. Nothing, absolutely nothing, not storms, not demons, can separate us from his love. We don’t have to be afraid. So, , thanks for being patient through my little introduction and now I’m going to drop you in to the continuation of my conversation with Shadia.

 

Kelly: Well, Shadia. I’m so glad to have you again on the podcast and we mentioned we might talk about Legion and this is your favorite Bible study. I’m very curious to hear some of the things you pulled out of it. So why don’t you first of all, just give us some background

Shadia: okay. Yeah. So before I do that if I [00:05:00] could so I joke sometimes like having a favorite Bible study as an author is sort of like having a favorite child, like you’re not allowed to do that. Right. Yeah. But I love each one for their, for its own things, but just my personal life background experiences, I think is why I’ve chosen to I particularly, just particularly love legions.

One of my favorite ones to teach on at retreats and so forth because it is such a powerful reminder. So to, so, to give a little bit of a background the major themes in this Bible study are rescue. So because of the actual story itself, which we’ll talk about but also reign, Christ’s reign as king, because there’s this aspect of , here’s this man possessed with an army of demons.

So we’ve got this whole spiritual realm and sometimes people think oh, this is just too scary and dark. I don’t want to talk about it. It’s like, no. You do because that’s not where we’re landing. That’s not where it ends. That’s just a, that’s just sort of a segue to get to talk [00:06:00] about the sovereign creator, all powerful ruler of the universe

Kelly: who rescued this man,

Shadia: who rescues this man who it’s like, Satan is nothing to God.

One of the things I, draw out in this Bible study that I think is so important and maybe that’s why I like it so much, is that we sometimes have this concept in our heads as Christians, or maybe even non Christians, have this idea that, God is good, he’s on the one side, Satan’s bad, he’s on the other side, and there’s this cosmic battle going on, and, we know who wins, but, it’s still a battle, and it’s Ah, like this even, I don’t know if people can’t see the video, but my hands are facing one another as an equal, you know, as if God and Satan are equal opposites and nothing could be further than the truth.

Kelly: Right, right.

Shadia: And we forget that Satan, he’s a creature, God’s creator. He’s in a category all by himself. All of creation is one category with subcategories. We’ve got spiritual creatures, we’ve got physical creatures, we got human beings, we got animals, blah, blah, blah. [00:07:00] You know, but God is creator. He is so far above, and we have nothing to be afraid of, especially as believers when it comes to Satan.

So that’s one of the reasons why I think I love. sharing this story because we have an opportunity to talk about that and to teach on that and to really inspire just this bubbling up, like excitement for

who God is.

Kelly: Right, right. And I’m so glad you bring that up because so many people do have like, Almost a defeatist attitude towards Satan.

Like, oh, well, you’ve heard the old phrase, Satan made me do it. Well, that there’s something very untrue about that, but they are afraid when you start talking about Satan, you’re afraid, but we have the spirit and the power of the almighty God within us everywhere. We set our foot, the kingdom of God comes to bear.

We do not have to be afraid. We are not at the mercy of our enemy. Our God is King and our God is one and we are the victorious ones through Christ.

Shadia: [00:08:00] Amen. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I love what you said earlier. Like sometimes people say like, well, the devil made me do it.

I have this blog post on my website. I wrote, it says. Don’t give the devil so much credit. Yeah. Sometimes you just did it, you know, you know, so anyway,

that’s a side note.

Kelly: Sure. Sure. Well, I just want you to set up the story.

Shadia: Yeah, so so this guy is he’s in a gentile region across the sea of galilee from where jesus and his disciples have been ministering and preaching and teaching and healing and doing all these wonderful things and this man is over on the other side the Garasamos area is what it’s called and he is scripture says that he is possessed not just with a demon as if that weren’t bad enough it says he’s possessed with an Army or legion of demons and a legion in the roman army because that was the word they would have understood as an army consisted of anywhere between two thousand to six thousand men.

Wow. [00:09:00] So this man, an army of demons, you know, are possessing him or what appear, what is like an army of demons. Right. And the scripture tells us that the people of the village are, they don’t know what to do with him. He’s crazy. He cuts himself another, tragic theme.

He’s naked. He rips his clothes off. He runs, he’s screaming. They try chaining him up. But he breaks the chains. That’s how powerful the demons within him are, enabled him to break these chains and shackles. And pretty soon they just let him loose, , like just, he lives in the graveyard, like, stay over there, and the people, they have learned to just live with it.

Which is a in one sense a sad commentary to demonic forces and the evil in the world today, that sometimes we just like, ah, I know, I’m just not going to look at it, I’m kind of, I know it’s over there, but I just won’t go over there, you know, but, you kind of have to deal with it at some point.

And so here he is he’s hopeless, he’s helpless he’s, insane with this possession. And then [00:10:00] meanwhile, Jesus says to his disciples, you know, let’s cross to the other side of the lake. And they never ask him why. But we know enough to know that as Jewish good boys, they’d be thinking like, why are we going over there, like what on earth, but you know, it’s Jesus.

So, he’s up to something, and so, And they start across this lake, the Sea of Galilee, which is massive. It actually has storms and surges and so forth. It’s big enough for that. And this massive storm comes. And it’s so powerful, it nearly drowns the disciples. So I spend a lot of time in the Bible study going through every single verse and all those parts of the story, which we just can’t cover in this time, but just briefly the disciples, they think they’re going to drown, and so, and it’s really a picture.

Of the demonic forces they’re going to be facing it’s a, it’s kind of a physical, you know, picture of what’s to come this storm, and it’s in that story where we might be [00:11:00] familiar of where Jesus says, you know, peace, be still. And the waves just. Instantly, you know, are gone in the season.

Kelly: Mic drop moment. Boom. Exactly.

Shadia: Exactly. And that’s kind of a preview of what he’s going to do for this man.

Kelly: I love that parallel. That is really powerful.

Shadia: Yeah. Yeah. Because they don’t know the storm they’re heading to the side of the lake, you know? And so they get to the other side and this, you know, the man comes charging towards them and he’s, you know, the demons are.

So to speak in charge and control of him and the Lord asks them what their name is and it says legion So that’s where we get this whole idea of like getting a better picture And the whole point of that is to give us a picture. Jesus doesn’t need to ask his name He does it to provide his disciples and later us as through god’s word as a picture of what?

Level of force he’s we’re dealing with. We’re talking about the an [00:12:00] army of demons. So it’s intended for us to have a picture of what he’s up against.

Kelly: Yeah,

Shadia: again, to give him glory, it’s like, okay, maybe you got used to the fact that I can cast out one demons and now I’m going to cast out Army, you know, like we just need to know because the army of demons ultimately have no choice but to bow to him, right?

They have no choice but to bow and it says that the man falls on his face and I go into the Bible study like Well, was it the man was it the demons that we talked about that? There’s a lot of part, you know detail in that. But there, but in a way it’s both, you know, but the demons, they know who Jesus is.

They say they, you know, they know who he is. I mean, all the demons, they recognize in the spiritual realm, who he is. That’s why Jesus is always going around telling them, be quiet, because it’s not yet time for the Messiah to be revealed to everyone. That’s why he’s always telling them to be quiet.

Kelly: Right.

I had somebody ask me one time. So how is it that demons can know who he is, but not, [00:13:00] be saved? okay they are rejecting God, but yet they know who he is. And I said, there’s that one verse That says, if you call him Lord, and it’s this picture of submission, if you bow before him and say, I want you to be my Lord, I want you to be the ultimate authority in my life, then that’s our faith step where we come to know Jesus as our savior, but the demons response to Jesus is quite different.

Shadia: Right. And, you know, in Philippians chapter two, it talks about that, every knee will bow heaven and earth and under the earth to the Lord of glory. And so they’re going to, so these demons are basically being forced to bow because they know who he is. He has authority over them and they know it.

They don’t have an option. They might bow in hate. In rage, but they’re gonna bow

Kelly: right?

Shadia: And and so that’s what’s going on in that picture and and then so jesus, you know casts out the demons then you have the whole [00:14:00] story about you know the pigs and I talk about that in a lot of detail because there’s a lot going on with The drowning and the lake, the parallels to the disciples thinking that they’re going to drown the parallels to Pharaoh’s army drowning in the lake back in Exodus.

I mean, all the Bibles connected. So we talk about all of those amazing, cool things in the Bible. But so, so that happens, so we’re just going to kind of skip, I gave you just a little bit of taste of that. So the demons are, cast out, but then you have this man. , and at this point the townspeople have all come, if you’re familiar with the story, that the, because the herdsmen that the lost all the pigs, now they’re angry or upset, or at least in, you know, amazed.

And they come and get all the townspeople and they all come and they find this crazy man that they had changed for years, like in his right mind. And scripture says something very interesting. It says they were afraid. Yeah. They were afraid. And then not only that, they actually begged Jesus to leave.

Kelly: It’s so crazy. It is. Why in the world?

Shadia: [00:15:00] Yes. And so we talk a lot about this whole concept of begging, because there’s actually a lot of begging in this story. We talk about the demons are begging, the townspeople are begging, and because the demons beg Jesus, you know, to do not torment us before the time, because they know there is a timeline, it’s not yet time.

That’s why they actually challenge him. Why are you here before the time again, more details in the study. But but there’s just another little thread of this begging going on because everybody’s begging something from Jesus and the man who’s healed, it says again, the same word begs that he could go with him because Jesus is going to leave the area and the man wants to go with them naturally, you know, it’s like, yeah, savior, you know, I want to go with you.

And yet. What’s curious is, Jesus actually grants the demons request when they beg Jesus to send them into the pigs, he says yes. When the townspeople beg Jesus to leave, he says yes. Because they don’t want him. When this man, who owes his life and [00:16:00] wants to follow Jesus and love him and worship him, begs him to go with him, Jesus says no.

Kelly: So curious.

Shadia: Because, yes, it is, and that’s so, it’s so important to draw those parallels out, just to see these pieces together, they fit together, because Jesus wants to do something through this one man. He’s not going to work through the demons, he’s not going to, the townspeople, they’re not, it’s not like he’s casting them off, you know, hopefully some will hear the truth and come back, like there’s hope for them, of course, but what Jesus wants to do is he wants this man to tell his story.

Kelly: Yeah,

Shadia: and so this man becomes the first Gentile evangelist in the Bible.

Kelly: It’s so amazing.

Shadia: It is amazing It’s like his story doesn’t end there because after Jesus leaves the area very shortly after a few months later Well, first of all, we’re told that this man then goes around the Decapolis. Decapolis is a Greek word It means ten cities.

So there’s a cluster of cities kind of all [00:17:00] in that, you know in a roughly around a I’m trying to remember now, it would have taken months on on foot or on donkey to walk around. So he goes around all these cities. He’s telling his story. Well, lo and behold coincidence, quote, not not that long later, Jesus comes to the Decapolis and feeds the 4, 000, the Gentile.

Kelly: That’s where the 4, 000 are fed. Oh, that’s fascinating.

Shadia: So this man was planting seeds because Jesus knew what he was going to do. It’s an incredible story. But you know what? After everything I just shared, that’s basically just the story. Yeah. The sovereignty of God over Satan is another element of the study that we talk a lot on, which I mentioned earlier briefly, but there’s one last part, or one more just one more piece of it.

That I just kind of want the listeners to to ponder is before this story happens, Jesus is, you know, throughout the gospels, he’s going through these towns and in Galilee, and he’s healing people and people are [00:18:00] coming to him to be healed. And he’s healing them.

Friends are bringing their friends that can’t. Get to him and he’s healing them. The woman with the blood, she reaches out. She’s trying not to face him, but she wants healed. He even heals, allows that healing to happen. All these beautiful stories. And then you have this guy, nobody’s coming to Jesus for, on his behalf.

This man can’t go to Jesus on his own. Has no even con, he’s not even, it’s not even going to happen. It’s not like he’s trying to get to Jesus. He’s trapped.

Yeah. And Jesus comes for him.

Kelly: Oh, gosh, that is so powerful. It just gives me chills. No one is outside of the reach of God.

Shadia: Absolutely.

Absolutely. And I think that’s why it’s the most beautiful story.

The New Testament, personally, just personally, I think that’s why, what makes it so beautiful. At least one of the most beautiful stories in the New Testament.

Kelly: Yeah. I mean, it’s a comfort for people who might have prodigal children. It’s a comfort [00:19:00] for people who have loved ones who do not know the Lord or who are very opposed to God in every way, but to know that no one is beyond his reach and that every knee will bow and every tongue will confess

Shadia: amen.

Amen. It doesn’t matter what. A person could be trapped in. it’s, you know, in the video series, so the Bible studies have videos that go with them. I share sometimes some more stories that I just can’t fit all in this study. And there’s this one story I share of a true story where a man was in a like a, not a parade, but like one of those public on the streets.

They had like a gathering of basically Satan worshipers. Like, in other words, like it was a club kind of a thing, right? They weren’t disturbing the peace or anything, but they just, you know, these people came, they dressed in all their satanic type clothes and, they shared their stories and resources, whatever they were doing.

And there was an evangelist, a street evangelist who [00:20:00] knew about this. And was not afraid to go and see if there was some open doors somewhere. Because again, these people were not causing disturbances or anything. They were just doing what they wanted their thing. Right. I mean, weird for us that are not believers but this evangelist, you know, God gave him like, I want you to go talk to this guy.

So this was one guy like standing alone, had the. You know, black cape and the, like cross bones and skulls and tats, you know, everything that looked what you would think of, well, if you’re going to worship Satan, that’s probably what you might look like, you know, this guy starts sharing the gospel with this man.

And the man listened, and the man’s face begins to change, and his heart begins to soften, and he ends up listening and allowing this man to give him a pocket Bible. He prays with him and, so I wasn’t part of that. This was a video I saw on YouTube of a of an evangelist, well known and well respected, long ago, so I don’t even remember the name.

[00:21:00] He, but it was just a beautiful picture of what you were just saying. There is no one outside of God’s reach. Even what somebody that would seem to be, because if you think about this quote club, they’re just looking for community. God built us for community and Satan has lured them. The wrong direction, but that doesn’t mean there’s still breath in them.

There’s still hope.

Kelly: Yes, that is so beautiful. We had somebody at our church one night in Colorado came up to the pastor afterwards and said, I don’t know if God’s love is for me because I used to worship Satan and our pastor told her about the story of Paul who was instrumental in torturing and killing Christians.

And yet God saved him and made him this evangelist. For the Bible. He wrote so much of the new Testament. It was complete redemption and tears are just running down this dear woman’s face as she hears that God’s love is even for her. And she is worthy to receive [00:22:00] God’s love, even though her past is so awful.

It did not disqualify her from coming to know Jesus.

Shadia: Absolutely.

Absolutely. I think that’s, it’s why I just, The characters that I love writing about, they all have these incredible messy stories where you would think like, this one’s beyond hope, that one’s, well, surely that one can’t be saved.

You know, it’s like, look what Tamar did with her father in law, you know, like, there’s just one story after the other, but every single one of them has redemption because God is so much bigger. And scripture teaches that when we become a believer. He makes us new.

Do we believe those words or not? Yeah. I mean, he, in God’s eyes, yes, we’re still in sinful bodies, we’re in a broken world, we’re going to make mistakes, you know, we sometimes feel like, yeah, we’re being made new, which is true, but in God’s eyes, it’s completed. He’s outside of time. It is done, sealed, delivered.

We are new. We are pure, holy, spotless bride in His eyes, and nothing can change that.

Kelly: Right, right. Nothing [00:23:00] can ever separate us from God’s love. That’s at the end of Romans eight. So encouraging. Well, I have just, I know you need to go, but I’ve got just a couple of really quick questions. I know you cannot answer these fully.

Okay. I’m going to get the Bible study, but I have always been so curious about two things in that particular story and give us the reference. Where do we find this? Do you remember just off the

top of your head?

Okay.

Shadia: Yeah, it’s well there’s reference to it in Mark and in Matthew. So it’s Mark chapter five, Matthew chapter eight.

Kelly: Okay, perfect.

All right.

And so I always wanted to know, why were the people so afraid of Jesus and they just wanted him to leave? And the other thing is why the pigs? Yeah. Why did Jesus send those demons into the pigs?

Shadia: Yeah. So, So for the first question Why do the people want him to leave? I mean, it doesn’t say exactly.

So we always, you know, so we’re just going to be kind of speculating here, but there are some reasonable assumptions we can make. I mean, first of all, [00:24:00] they’re not ready to receive him as Lord. Right. These Gentiles, they’re not familiar with, maybe they’re familiar with Yahweh and the Jewish religion, but they’re not interested, you know, just like people today, you know, like, I’m not interested.

They also, it says they were afraid. So he heals this man. But they don’t yet know, like, I mean, I actually say in the Bible study, to be honest, I find it hard that there wasn’t one person that said, wait, right here, please. I’m going to go get my, Son, you know, he needs you, you know, I’m going to break.

No one does that. So it’s like, wow. And so they are entrenched in you know, the fact that there are pigs. I’m actually going to connect your two questions because they’re connected. The pigs is, it says there’s 2000 pigs. And again, that gives us, first of all, a picture of this legion, because the legion ends up entering the pigs, this number of two, in other words, a lot of demons, right?

Wow. If they’re going one in each pig, we don’t know, but We don’t know. At least 2, 000. And the the pigs were, so this, so that means that there was a, an industry. [00:25:00] You know, so there was an industry around pigs, and the only kind of industry in the pagan religion around pigs would involve pagan sacrifices.

They sacrificed pigs. And so, so there’s an industry going on there’s pagan religion going on this is a gentile region that God has not moved in, yet. You know, obviously he’s flipping scenes with this guy now. But they’re just not, Ready, not interested, , too scared

you have to remember, you know, God is, it’s either all or none. To come to God, you’re gonna have to at least be willing to allow him to make changes. Even if you don’t, if you feel like I can’t make these changes like an addiction, I can’t free myself, but God, you can help me.

Right. Or you can lead me to resource, however you want to do it. It can be an instant thing. It could be a gradual thing. How he’s going to do it. He has the power to do it. And so, but we have to be willing, you know, to want to receive what the new life that God has for us. And remember I said, we’re doing, this is part two in the, in part one of our podcast, I talked about this story very briefly.

And I had said that the [00:26:00] people in that region had become. almost comfortable with this man. In other words, they stopped chaining him after a while. They’re like, Oh, this is just, you know, just let him go. Let him loose. He yells at night, , just turn, I’m always gonna say turn the radio up, but you know, sing a little louder, whatever, , they’ve just gotten used to this demonic influence in their area.

And so this man would not, it’s not like there, I mean, there was an army in him. There’s got to be other ones around like this was a an area ripe for demonic activity fertile ground

Yeah,

and so Jesus is coming to disrupt Everything and they don’t

want it.

Kelly: Yes. Okay, that makes a lot of sense. And then the pigs I didn’t know the pigs are being sacrificed So that’s interesting.

Shadia: Yeah, so that’s part of it is the pigs are being

sacrificed. So, you know to idols To demons, right? Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Because Corinthians tells us that all idols are ultimately demons. There are no other gods. They are just demons [00:27:00] with different names, you know, but and I talk about that more in the Bible study as well.

By the way, if you want the Bible study, go to legionbiblestudy. com. I always try to give them an easy way to remember it. That’s an easy way to find it on my website. So for the pigs, I mean, as I mentioned earlier, there’s these parallels between the drownings. So the disciples are afraid of, the disciples are willing to believe that Jesus could let them drown because they actually challenge him.

Like, are you going to let us drown? I mean, there’s this element of like, they’re not yet fully trusting him yet. and of course he would never do that, and then you have this so those are the disciples God’s people god’s the ones god’s chosen the god’s called and then you have the enemy And so there’s this concept of drowning with the it goes all the way back to exodus the army Drowns and there are parallel there’s parallel wording.

I bring it out in the text You can look at it more detail if you do the study and then if you go all the way to revelation, so from the beginning to the end You know, what is the ultimate fate of Satan? It’s the lake of fire. It’s a drowning. It’s a [00:28:00] destruction from this lake.

And so, so all of those pieces are tied together to to demonstrate God’s authority over all of it. And that there will be, you know, destruction. And it also points to the demon’s ultimate fate. Because sometimes I’m asked, like, well, what happened to the demons? They didn’t really drown. I mean, the pigs drowned, but like they’re spiritual.

So, so correct. They very likely went off to do more havoc somewhere else. They were not yet because remember, again, we haven’t, those who are listening, you haven’t done the study yet, or but there’s part of it where In the story where they challenged Jesus, you know, have you come to torment us before the time?

You see, they know their time is coming, but they also know that it’s not yet. So they still have this temporary freedom on the earth to, to wreak havoc. And I go into that, like, why does God allow that? We talk about that. We talk about those kinds of questions. Why did God allow sin in the first place?

That’s one of the first questions we talk about in the Bible study. You know, but any, but yeah. So there’s this, these pieces of the puzzle come together [00:29:00] in this man’s story. And even the pigs play a part. That is so good.

Kelly: Okay. Thanks for answering those questions. I really appreciate your time, Shadia.

And in the show notes, I will link to your website and also to the previous podcast that we did. So thank you so much for joining me today.

Shadia: It was a joy. Thank you

for having me. I appreciate it. I pray this has been a blessing to your listeners.

Kelly: Oh, I know it has been.

If you were encouraged in your faith today, it’d be great if you’d help get the word out by subscribing, sharing with a friend or leaving a review. I’d love to hear from you. You can reach out through my website, kellyhall. org and pick up some free resources while you’re there. Thanks for listening to the Unshakable Hope Podcast.