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The sermon centers on Jesus’ command to the delivered man in Mark 5:19, applying it as a mandate for converted believers to witness among their own families and communities. Spurgeon presents conversion as Christ’s compassionate deliverance of undeserving sinners and emphasizes that testimony should be personal, truthful, humble, earnest, and preceded by prayer. Family reconciliation and concern for relatives’ salvation are prominent applications. The conclusion looks forward to heaven as the believer’s true home, where the redeemed will worship Christ and celebrate the story of redemption.
Theological center: Jesus Christ saves and restores sinners by undeserved compassion, and those who receive that grace are sent to bear witness to it.
Applications: Tell friends your testimony · Witness for Christ’s honor · Pray before witnessing · Christ restores the broken
Primary texts: Mark 5:19-20 · Luke 15:6
“Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee.” Mark 5:19 THE case of the man here referred to is a very extraordinary one—it occupies a place among the memorabilia of Christ’s life, perhaps as high as anything which is recorded by either of the evangelists. This poor wretch being possessed with a legion of evil spirits had been driven to something worse than madness. He fixed his home among the tombs, where he dwelt by night and day, and was the terror of all those who passed by. The authorities had attempted to curb him. He had been bound with fetters and chains, but in the paroxysms of his madness, he had torn the chains in sunder and broken the fetters in pieces. Attempts had been made to reclaim him, but no man could tame him. He was worse than the wild beasts, for they might be tamed, but his fierce nature would not yield. He was a misery to himself, for he would run upon the mountains by night and day, crying and howling fearfully, cutting himself with the sharp flints, and torturing his poor body in the most frightful manner. Jesus Christ passed by. He said to the devils, “Come out of him.” The man was healed in a moment. He fell down at Jesus’ feet. He became a rational being—an intelligent man. Yea, what is more, a convert to the Savior. Out of gratitude to his deliverer, he said, “Lord, I will follow You whithersoever You go. I will be Your constant companion and Your servant. Permit me to be so.” “No,” said Christ, “I esteem your motive, it is one of gratitude to Me, but if you would show your gratitude, ‘go home to thy friends and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee.’” Now this teaches us a very important fact, namely this—that true religion does not break in sunder the bonds of family relationship. True religion seldom encroaches upon that sacred, I had almost said divine institution called home. It does not separate men from their families and make them aliens to their flesh and blood. Superstition has done that. An awful superstition, which calls itself Christianity, has sundered men from their kind. But true religion has never done so. Why, if I might be allowed to do such a thing, I would seek out the hermit in his lonely cavern and I would go to him and say, “Friend, if you are what you do profess to be, a true servant of the living God and not a hypocrite, as I guess you are—if you are a true believer in Christ and would show forth what He hath done for thee, upset that pitcher, eat the last piece of your bread,…