August 3, 2003 - Lesson: Matthew 8.28-9.1

Sermon Title: Why would Jesus Do That?

(Back to Study Home Page)    (Back to Sermons for 2002-2003)
(Back to Sermons Home Page)     (Back to Shultz Home Page)

INTRODUCTION:

  1. Where are the weapons of mass destruction?

    1. Where are the nuclear weapons?

    2. Where are the chemical and biological weapons?

  2. This is not a criticism.

    1. I am not here to critique or criticize the government.

    2. Nor am I here to question the veracity of our President.

  3. The United States has one of the largest if not the largest stockpile of WMD

    1. Report: Bush Stunned by U.S. Nuclear Arsenal Size (1)

WASHINGTON - President Bush was stunned last month when told of the extent of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, Newsweek magazine reported in its June 25 edition, released on Sunday.

"I had no idea we had so many weapons," Bush was quoted as saying by an unidentified "White House insider."

"What do we need them for?" the president was said to have asked at a briefing, according to the Newsweek report.

But that was not a dumb question, the magazine noted in detailing the vast U.S. nuclear arsenal, which includes 5,400 warheads on intercontinental ballistic missiles, 1,750 nuclear bombs and cruise missiles ready to be launched from B-2 and B-52 bombers, 1,670 "tactical" nuclear weapons and another 10,000 warheads in bunkers around the United States.

That potential for nuclear overkill may be reined in, however, as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld prepares at the Pentagon to implement Bush's stated goal of streamlining and downsizing the arsenal.

Rumsfeld has brought back retired Gen. George (Lee) Butler and former Reagan administration national security guru Richard Perle to spearhead an effort to reduce the arsenal to safer, more manageable and more cost efficient levels, Newsweek said.

"I see no reason why we can't go well below 1,000 warheads," Perle told the magazine. "I want the lowest number possible under the tightest control possible."

"The truth is we are never going to use them," Perle added. "The Russians aren't going to use theirs either."

    1. UNITED STATES (2)

      1. NUCLEAR WEAPONS: 10,640. Missile range: 8,100 miles

      2. CHEMICAL WEAPONS: 30,000 metric tonnes.

        1. AGENTS: Believed to be Sarin, VX nerve gas, mustard gas.

        2. STATUS: To be destroyed by 2007 in accordance with Chemical Weapons Convention of 1996.

      3. BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS: None but past production focused on anthrax, plague, cholera, as well as herbicides to destroy food crops and defoliate trees, e.g. agent orange.

      4. This is confirmed by the Federation of American Scientists

    MISSION: The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) was founded in 1945 as the Federation of Atomic Scientists. FAS combines the scholarly resources of its member scientists and informed citizens with knowledge of practical politics. Endorsed by the nearly 60 Nobel Laureates in biology, chemistry, economics, medicine, and physics as sponsors, FAS is uniquely qualified to bring the scientific perspective to public policy. FAS' strategies include advocacy, briefings with policy makers and the press, public education and outreach, collaboration with civil rights, human rights, and arms control groups, and grassroots organizing.

    1. What is more important than Iraq's WMD is the WMD that is more subtle and more dangerous to one's health and life than anything this world can produce.

      1. This is evident in the lives of the WMD who confronted Christ in Gadara.

      2. What spoke was not the men, it was what was inhabiting them.

      3. What is depressing is that these two men were possessed by evil spirits.

      4. They had totally lost control of their lives.

      5. The greatest WMD that we have to face are the weapons of the enemy of souls.

      6. The source of hope is in Christ for he is more powerful than evil in any form.

      7. He freed them and the demons were allowed to go into the swine.

        1. Why would he do that?

        2. They requested it.

        3. It was the safest place for them to go.

        4. Even if it led to Jesus' rejection by the people of Gadara.

        5. They would come around later.

    (Top)    (Back to Study Home Page)    (Back to Sermons for 2002-2003)
    (Back to Sermons Home Page)     (Back to Shultz Home Page)

    MAIN BODY:

    1. In the mean time we can ask ourselves, "What is evil?" and listen to what Scott Peck, had to say in his book "People of the Lie."

      1. "To understand evil we need at least a working definition.

      2. It is a reflection of the enormous mystery of the subject that we do not have a generally accepted definition of evil.

      3. For the moment I can do no better than to heed my son, who, with characteristic vision of an eight-year-old who explained simply,

        1. 'Why, Daddy, evil is "live" spelled backward.'

      4. Peck went on to say that:

    "Evil is in opposition to life. It is that which opposes the life force. It has, in short, to do with killing. Specifically, it has to do with murder-namely, unnecessary killing, killing that is not required for biological survival..."When I say that evil has to do with killing, I do not mean to restrict myself to corporeal murder. Evil is also that which kills the spirit. There are various essential attributes of life-particularly human life-such as sentience, mobility, awareness, growth, autonomy, will. It is possible to kill or attempt to kill one of these attributes without actually destroying the body. Thus we may 'break' a horse or even a child (or even an adult) without harming a hair on its head..."Evil, then, for the moment, is that force, residing either inside or outside of human beings, that seeks to kill life or liveliness. And goodness is its opposite. Goodness is that which promotes life and liveliness." (3)

    1. A force that resides inside.

      1. We would balk at being called evil.

        1. We would call Hitler evil.

        2. We would name Saddam Huissen as evil.

        3. Our government has been called evil by those opposed to its policies,

      2. Evil is a condition as well as an action.

        1. (Jeremiah 13:23 NIV) Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard its spots? Neither can you do good who are accustomed to doing evil.

        2. (Matthew 7:11 NRSV) If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

      3. Evil well describes the nature of the human condition.

      4. Especially if we take Peck's understanding that evil is something which not only kills, but often, either inadvertently or deliberately seeks to kill the spirit of a person.

        1. There are various essential attributes of life-particularly human life-such as

          1. sentience,

            1. Consciousness

            2. Feeling as distinguished from perception or thought.

          2. mobility,

            1. not necessarily the ability to move,

            2. but socially mobile, ability to move up the social ladder, or down as the case might be.

          3. awareness,

            1. Knowing something either by perception or by means of information.

            2. The ability to acquire more knowledge about a particular speciality or part of self.

          4. growth,

            1. Capacity to develop

            2. To reach maturity.

          5. autonomy,

            1. Having full direction of one's life.

            2. To be your own person.

          6. will.

            1. To be able to decide

            2. To make decisions for yourself.

            3. To be able to determine what it is that one is going to attempt to do.

        2. It is possible to kill or attempt to kill one of these attributes without actually destroying the body

    2. We cannot be so deep into denial that we do not recognize the ways in which human beings have sought to kill.

      1. To kill the body.

        1. We have too many examples of the harshest kind of killing.

          1. There are too many holocausts.

          2. Too many sensational murders.

        2. We are saturated with murder.

      2. We have many examples of those who would attempt to control the mind and the person of others.

        1. Paul warns us about allegience and its impact on us.

        2. (Romans 6:16-18 NRSV) Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? [17] But thanks be to God that you, having once been slaves of sin, have become obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which you were entrusted, [18] and that you, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.

    ILL> Voyage of the Fox Rider, by Dennis L. McKiernan.

    Jinnarin asks: "Alamar, it seems to me that if a God never answers, then he just doesn't care."

    Responded Alamar: "Think, child, perhaps a God who doesn't answer is a God who cares most of all."

    Jinnarin questions: "How can that be? I mean, you have yet to explain why it would be evil for gods to answer those who spoke to them."

    Alamar says: "Child, I did not say that it would be evil; what I said was that perhaps it would lead to the ultimate evil.

    "Heed me, if in every instance you were in distress or doubt you called upon your God to aid you, and if that God answered and resolved your woe, then I ask you, what would happen to your initiative? Why struggle when there is no need? You God will see to it all. Yet, would not that lead to your God controlling every aspect of your life? And if that happened, then what would be the challenge of living?

    "Let me ask you this as well: If you God was not benevolent but instead were a selfish , jealous God, then would you have him control every aspect of your life? And heed, even were he a beneficent, loving God, still, would you give up your free will for the generous life he would afford you? Would you surrender your very being in order to live in the comfort of a golden prison? And if you did surrender your very being, then what would be left of you? What would you have become."

      1. What would you have become?

        1. Dependent

        2. Indecisive

        3. Weak

        4. Prey to that which is stronger and more powerful than you are.

        5. Easily led astray because evil can disguise itself as good.

      2. God wants us to be free

    1. God provides deliverance

      1. Rescue and deliver come from the same word.

        1. It means to save as in salvation (sozo)

        2. Saved from ourselves as well as the opposition.

        3. Saved from the evil that resides inside ourselves

      2. Jesus is the deliverer

        1. Romans 11:26

    'And so all Israel will be saved; as it is written, "Out of Zion will come the Deliverer; he will banish ungodliness from Jacob."'

      1. 1 Thessalonians 1:10

    "and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead--Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath that is coming."

    1. The questions becomes how does Jesus deliver.

      1. Jesus delivers in several ways.

        1. Evil is held in check so that it cannot totally destroy life and the ability to sustain life on this planet.

        2. We are provided information so that we may, emphasis on may, develop the understanding of evil and the skills to reduce, not eliminate it, in our lives.

Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. [12] For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. [13] Therefore take up the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to withstand on that evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. [14] Stand therefore, and fasten the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteousness. [15] As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace. [16] With all of these, take the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one. [17] Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. [18] Pray in the Spirit at all times in every prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert and always persevere in supplication for all the saints. (Ephesians 6:11-18 NRSV) 

    (Top)    (Back to Study Home Page)    (Back to Sermons for 2002-2003)
    (Back to Sermons Home Page)     (Back to Shultz Home Page)

    CONCLUSION:

    1. There was a time in my life when I saw the face of evil and was attacked by its intent to kill life.

    His name was Sherwood. He was a homosexual. He was not gay but grim.

    We were having revival meetings in a small church in a small town in southern Ohio. The members were very upset because Sherwood came to the meetings with his active partner. They demanded that I do something about it. I went to Sherwood's home to talk with him and the partner was present.

    I tried to talk with Sherwood which made his partner angry and violent. He began to shout, "Beat him!" "Kill him!" "Get him out of here."

    Sherwood ran into the kitchen and collapsed on the floor. All this time his partner kept shouting for him to "kill me."

    Sherwood suddenly jumped to his feet. On the table was a large carving knife. Sherwood grabbed it and then looked at me. All I could see were his eyes. They were a brilliant, blood red. These were not the eyes of a human, but a demon.

    Sherwood lunged at me with is arm outstretched the knife headed for my stomach. I thought I was going to die. His lunge carried him far enough, but there was a barrier between the point of that knife and my body. He struggled and stopped. The knife would go no farther.

    The action stopped for an instant and then I turned and walked out of the house to my car. I started the car and drove for a short distance and then stopped. I was overwhelmed with emotion and th tears flowed unbidden.

I had looked into the face of the enemy and survived. It was not of my doing, but of the doing of Jesus Christ. He saved my life.

    1. Jesus Christ has the power over the evil that demons seek to do.

      1. As Jesus healed the Gadarene demoniacs, he has the power to heal our lives.

      2. Remember the nature and purpose of evil.

      3. It is live spelled backwards.

      4. Learn to live, avoid the evil.

      5. Continue to learn to live in and for Christ.

1. Published on Sunday, June 17, 2001 by Reuters. Copyright © 2001 Reuters Limited

2. http://www.home-on.demon.co.uk/weapons/usa.html

3. Peck, M. Scott, The People of the Lie: The hope for healing human evil, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983) pp. 42-43.

(Top)    (Back to Study Home Page)    (Back to Sermons for 2002-2003)
(Back to Sermons Home Page)     (Back to Shultz Home Page)