Love Conquers All

Love will see us through. All we need is love. We can live on love.

               

Sayings, movies, songs, many things in media tell us we can overcome any obstacle if we are just in love. This is about the love between two people. You got me , babe, and I got you. Love conquers all.

There is a song by that title written by Nanci Griffith and Charley Stelf. The lyrics tell about several couples, a "brown-skin girl" and a white soldier, a "wheel-chair bound" senior citizen marrying a divorced man, people from "far and near", different backgrounds, economic situations and race. The song assures us each time that love conquers all.

So far, no problem really, true and lasting love can overcome many difficulties. Still, it takes work to make a marriage last, as well as love, even where two people are as alike as peas in a pod. I have no doubt that for the couples, so far, in the song love could see them through.

It is the last example that raises the far more important spiritual question, not the physical.

It is of a Muslim girl marrying a Catholic boy. Love will conquer all it tells us again.

Before I began dating the woman who became my wife, I went with several others. The last of these girlfriends and I were very much in love. One day, after we had going steady for several months, she told me we couldn't see each other anymore. Why? She was honoring her mother and father's wish to break it off because they saw we were getting serious. The problem?She was Roman Catholic, I was not.

Harsh? Yes. Unfair? Maybe.            Good idea? Yes. 

Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? 2 Corinthians 6:14 

Harsh passage? Yes.  Unfair passage? Maybe by worldly standards.               Good idea? Definitely.

The quote from Corinthians was not specific to marriage, but it applies here as well as to other relationships. But why do I say something seemingly harsh and possibly unfair is good?

Relationships, even between individuals deeply in love with each other, are full of conflicts. For example, one may be an early riser and the other a night owl. One might want to be out on the town at midnight, the other wants to be in bed so to get up with the sun. The other might hit you with the alarm clock if you tried to awake them to see a sunrise. Such a difference calls for compromise if conflict is to be avoided. If one or the other is too insistent on their lifestyle prevailing it can lead to real difficulties in the marriage. Yet this is a difference of no real significance.

There are many such conflicts that must be resolved in a successful marriage. Each gives a little here, gives a bit there and they accommodate each other's particulars. If they can't do this, the marriage will fail.

But if the difference is spiritual belief, how can one give a bit or bend a little to accommodate the other and stay true to their faith?

Oh, you may say, we just won't impose our separate belief on the other. That part of our lives we will keep private to our self. And perhaps you can, perhaps you will, but what do you do when children come?

Let's suppose no children come. Does that Muslim girl go to Mosque and the Catholic boy go to Cathedral and at home never speak of God? Do they argue they are not unequally yoked because they are both believers in God, the same God, the God of Abraham? Yet their view of Christ is quite different. Can they ignore that difference if they are devout to their religions?

To the secular and the nominally religious a difference in faith is no more consequential than the early riser versus the night owl. Asking if love conquers all in this situation is a good test of the depth of your faith. Certainly it is for the Christian.

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son." John 3:16-18

  

To the Christian there is no salvation and no doorway to God except through Christ. Perhaps you could pretend this doesn't matter in your outward approach to the one you love, but how does a Christian endure the agony of knowing the one they love is condemned? How could one as a Christian keep silent and live in peace when so yoked? Your love for your spouse can not conquer this condemnation. Only the love of God and your spouse's love of God in return can conquer all and without that your yoking together with an unbeliever will be a heavy burden upon your heart.

Nominally Christian

We were in a group a few evenings ago having a discussion about marriage. Some one asked if we were Christian when we wed and I answered, "nominally". Why did I say that? After all, we were wed by a Minister in a Methodist Church before a host of witnesses. A beautiful stained-glass window depicting Christ as the Good Shepard shown before us. The vows were the standard Christian ones.

I have told of my early exposure to the church, where I was sprinkled as a baby in the Grove Methodist Church and later attended Sunday School and Methodist Youth Fellowship in Downingtown.

My wife's family were Lutheran and she had a similar background of attendance, although in her case, her parents were regular church goers, in fact her mother played the organ.

In 1956 my parents bought a home in Bucktown and at the end of ninth grade I moved to the new home. I thought I left church behind at that point, but for some reason when my parents settled into their new home, they also settled into a life of church going, to a Methodist Church in Spring City. Immediately the pressure was on me to go to church again. This time I had no out, not being able to point to their lack of church going as a reason why I shouldn't go either.

I was stuck.

But the next year I turned 16. I got my driver's license and I had a car. I soon struck a bargain. I would go to Sunday School, but not church. This was agreed to. What did I see as beneficial in this? Sunday School was shorter for one thing. It began at 9:00 and ended 45 minutes later to allow for preparations for the church service at 10:00. The service itself, although scheduled for an hour, often ran longer, especially on communion Sunday.

The second benefit was it gave me time alone at home while my parents and Grandmother, who was living with us at this time, attended church. I could use this time perusing the magazines hidden under my mattress. Actually, I never hid anything under my mattress. I had a safer cubby hole for hiding that kind of material. (Is there any need to explain further? I think not.)

The first Sunday of this new arrangement, I had just gotten home to the now empty house and changed from my "good" clothes when someone rapped on the door. I knew it was a stranger, because they came to our front door, which no one used who knew us. When I answered, there were two people there, Jehovah Witnesses, and the only way I could get rid of them was to buy a book. I probably should have taken this as an omen, but instead I just made certain I didn't answer any knocks at that door.

This went on for a while, except I found Sunday School deadly dull. This was probably because it was deadly dull. The man teaching it simply was not suited to teaching teenagers. Soon I worked out a new deal with my folks. Instead of Sunday School or church, I would go to the Sunday evening Methodist Youth Fellowship meetings. There were no trips to Dick Thomas's Brick Oven from this church, but the meetings were still more interesting than Sunday School. Sometimes we even had cookouts and hayrides.

The next year, I was elected President of MYF. I decided to shake things up and changed the structure from what it was to one of open discussion of Bible stories. I played Devil's Advocate, asking questions attacking a lot of the passages we read. I was right back to what I was at Downingtown with my "okay, then where'd God come from" challenges. Everybody took it I was just trying to make them think and the discussions were lively, enough so that our membership grew as new teens heard about what we did and came to the meetings. I was praised for my leadership. I was praised as a shining example of Christian youth.

But I was no Christian other than a nominal one. I didn't ask my questions to spark discussion. I meant them. I asked them to challenge the beliefs of those attending, to shake their faith if I could.

When my wife-to-be and I met, we were barely out of high school. When we married, she was 19 and I was 20. I was not that long out of MYF. My parents were still faithful attendees. There was never a doubt we would be wed in that church. Thus we had a proper Christian wedding before a long ordained Methodist minister. Yet, I wasn't a Christian, not really. I had never professed any belief in Christ. I thought I was a good guy, but I wasn't a spiritual one.

If I was only a Christian-in-name at my wedding, I was to go a long way down a different road after the honeymoon. I still thought of myself as a "good" guy, and probably in comparison to some, I was, but after a while I even renounced the nominal tag of being a Christian.

Welcome to the Real World

After getting married, I was free of church. My wife and I didn't attend any church. We were riding high and fine without any help from religion. We both worked for the same big oil company and both made what was considered better than average salaries for our age, our position and our time. We bought a four bedroom Cape Cod house even before the wedding. We had a new car. We had Honeymooned throughout New England and Canada and we went to New York and Virginia the next year. We ate out regularly in fairly expensive restaurants. (Keep in mind that you could buy steak dinners for two with drinks for $12 in those years.) We would rather go off to the shore for the weekend than spend anytime in a church. We started off having it too good, so who needed God.

When things went south, we blamed God.

We were fine with two salaries, but when my wife lost her job it was difficult to meet all the monthly bills so the trips and high end restaurants disappeared from our routine. Then my wife became pregnant.

She was two-thirds through term and home alone. I was at work in Philadelphia, a trip I made every week day by train. We lived halfway between each of our parents, a half hour drive to either one. My wife didn't drive then. She felt she was going into labor and called our doctor.

He told her that was impossible. She asked him to come out, but he refused. He told her he would have the drugstore deliver a prescription to her to ease her pains. It was just as the drug arrived that the baby came. She didn't go to the door and the delivery man left. She delivered a boy, who lived briefly and died.

She placed it in a pan in the bathroom and called me. I left work and caught the next train home. When I got there she was in the bedroom. I asked if she had called the doctor again, but she hadn't. I called him and he came to the house. After he had attended to my wife, I asked what we should do with the baby. "You can toss it in the trashcan for all I care," he answered.

Not exactly great bedside manner.

As my wife recovered from this loss, our financial situation continued to worsen. Her father was giving us about $20 a month to help pay the bills. (Again, $20 was a fair amount back then.) Finally, we decided we need sell the house and engaged a realtor who put the House for Sale sign up by the driveway.

During this period a friend of our's visited with her boyfriend, who was a black man. This visit was observed and it was perceived this couple were house-hunters. Soon we received a warning from the Realtor not to sell to any Negroes, not that she (the Realtor) cared, but some people might make trouble. We told the Realtor we'd sell the house to anyone who wanted to buy it. Next we started getting threats that we better not show it to any niggers if we didn't want all our windows smashed out.

I don't know if anyone would have carried out their threats. The house sold soon after the threats to a white couple. Perhaps the Realtor pushed the sale to get rid of us "nigger-lovers".

We didn't make any money on the sale. It was a down market at the time and we sold for slightly less than we bought. We had no escrow built up. We had no savings. We were naive and didn't think we could rent any where and we moved in with my father-in-law. (My wife's mother died while she was in high school.)

This was not a good arrangement. Things reached a point where we separated. She stayed at her fathers and I moved back with my folks. We both began dating others, although no formal separation was filed or any talk of divorce had happened.

I quit my job at the oil refinery and she got a job at the University of Pennsylvania. I was spending my time writing, although I did take a part time job at a chewing gum maker.

After a few months we went back together, but on the condition we leave her father's. We moved into an apartment in Philadelphia's University City area, a place that had seen better days. It was an interesting place, occupied by college students, drug addicts, prostitutes and radical Black Power groups. The building behind us was a college dorm and all kinds of things were hurled from its windows into the alley behind us. (To the right is a picture of our kitchen there.)

We were living on her wages, which weren't great, and the very few dollars I sometimes got paid for a piece I wrote and sold. Sometimes I would walk along the streets, looking about the trolley stops for dropped change. I usually found a couple dollars each day and that often bought something to eat.

But it was an adventure. We were living the Hippie life. I was actually getting published regularly. In the summer, I got a job with a publisher and we had money now to go to concerts at The Trauma, The Kaleidoscope and the Main Point, even to a Dylan show at Convention Hall. We had the Hippie car, a VW Beetle.

Soon after I got that job my right to vote was challenged and I had to take off from work and go to court. But that is another story.

Our experiences from spoiled newlyweds to Hippie activists was complete. We had "soul", but not The Spirit. One of my campaigns, my cause, was to show up the hypocrisy of ministers and I was back to smugly throwing those challenging questions at pastors again.

Oh, I was so smart when in my twenties. I knew everything then and I knew there was no God.

Here is what I didn't know:

"A man's own folly ruins his life,
yet his heart rages against the LORD." Proverbs 19:3

Become a Christian and be Fat, Happy and Rich.

So when you become a bonified, true blue, born again Christian all your sufferings, problems and troubles will disappear. And if you send some money to those fellows in shiny suits and polyester hair on TV, you'll get rich and prosperous because "you can't out give God" and Jesus came "to give you life more abundantly".

Well, if you think that then you haven't been reading the Bible. 

It's true Jesus said, "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly" (King James Version). But He wasn't talking about owning bigger homes and cars and nicer clothes.  He wasn't promising we'd have money to iron. He was talking about our spiritual life. Here is more of the passage: 

Therefore Jesus said again, "I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. All who ever came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.  John 10:7-10 (New International Version)

(The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. John 10:10 (King James Version)

I cringe at these "prosperity preachers". They do harm to Christians and insult God. They are the thief that comes to steal, kill and destroy. We can certainly see how they steal by distorting the Word of God, but they also kill people's faith and they put up stumbling blocks to people who might be seeking, but seeing these charlatans. Someone who is an outright crook is bad. Someone dressed in faux-righteousness promising false hope is much worse. They steal souls.

Does Jesus's life read like a how to succeed in business biography? What did he say to one man who asked to follow and live like him? "Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head." (Matthew 8:20 and also Luke 9:58 KJV) Yes, it certainly sounds as if following Jesus is living the fat, happy and rich life.

There was another time when an already rich man asked how he could follow Jesus.

As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. "Good teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?"

 "Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good—except God alone. You know the commandments: 'Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, do not defraud, honor your father and mother.’"

"Teacher," he declared, "all these I have kept since I was a boy."

 Jesus looked at him and loved him. "One thing you lack," he said. "Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."

 At this the man's face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.

Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, "How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!"

The disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said again, "Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."  Mark 10:17-24

I came to Christ in September 1975 a few months after we had lost our seventh child. Something changed immediately after I'd prayed. It would be difficult to explain and harder yet for others to understand unless they have also experienced it. It was not a change to my circumstances, it was a change in me, inside.

And then, of course, I became fat, happy and rich.

Well, maybe a bit fatter. Happier, that too, but not in the way people would usually describe happy. Rich, I'm still waiting. In fact, I got poorer.

Next time, I will explain what happened and answer the question whether Christians suffer. 

As a Christian Bees Won't Sting and Colds Won't Catch

I have heard just such nonsense preached. I have heard people told they were suffering because their faith was weak. Who has suffered more than Christ? Was his faith weak?

When you become a Christian the Son shines in you, but the sun shines on you and the rain falls upon you just as it does on the worse terrorists that stalk the earth.  You are just as likely to get your face sunburned and your feet wet as they are. You don't escape earthly suffering by being born again anymore than the criminal who professes sudden Christianity receives a get-out-of-jail-free card. But Christians do receive a get-out-of-Hell card.

If you think Christianity is a hedge against the slings and arrows of this world, then you haven't read your Bible. (You miss a lot of truth if you don't read the Bible.)  Read the stories of all the great names of the Bible, then tell me all those who didn't suffer?

Brothers, as an example of patience in the face of suffering, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. As you know, we consider blessed those who have persevered. You have heard of Job's perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy.   James 5:10-11

In 1975, when I became a Christian, we had lost 7 children in 14 years of marriage. In late 1977 when my wife became pregnant for the eigthth time it came as a surprise to me. She had claimed her tubes were tied after the last time. She lied. 

This wasn't the biggest shock. It was when her obstetrician refused to take her case and others we consulted would not either. No one wanted this case with her history. They told her it was impossible, she could nevert have a baby. But someone in the church knew a Christian Doctor and he took the case and the church prayed. 

But we'll discuss those details another time. Just let me say our first child to live beyond a brief few moments was born on March 1, 1978. We have two other children  and I'll discuss those circumstances another time as well. All I want to illustrate here is in the face of an impossibility the improbable happened.

And we all lived happily ever after in the enchanted forest of the Spirit where the bees won't sting and you don't catch colds. 

Not exactly.

By mid-1978 the company employing me decided to close shop and move to Chicago. I was asked to go, but did not want to move so far. In November 1978 I was proffered a new job elsewhere, which I took and it was not to be a happy choice. With it we had to move from where we were and the church that had prayed and helped us so much. And then not two years later, this new employer decided to give my job to someone else for reasons having nothing to do with my own success or failure. This was quickly followed by a series of difficult events.

We had our second child, who was not expected to live, but did so after nearly a month in intensive care. My father-in-law had a seizure, died, was brought back to life, but left only a shell on machines, which it fell to us to turn off. Our home flooded and was totally destroyed inside.

Being Christians did not protect us from the type of loss and sufferings that befall all members of mankind. We are talking about faith, a belief in Christ as Savior and a striving to understand and grown in a relationship with God, not in magic. Such tribulations can bring a person to despair, as had been the case a few years earlier. We came to salvation from the depths of depression and hopelessness and our burdens were lightened. So it was when this series of setbacks hit us. If we had not come to this faith, I am not certain we would have survived what we went through between 1975 and 1981.

In an earlier posts I asked if you could reconcile these two verses:

Matt 11:29-30-- Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." 

Matt 16:24-25 -- Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 

Comparing the difficult experiences of my life before and after being a Christian have taught me what these verses mean. 

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. Romans 5:1

Through the Lens of Jim

When Christ came as high priest of the good things that are already here, he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not man-made, that is to say, not a part of this creation. He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption. The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!  Hebrews 9:11-14

The ostrich poking his beak into our car is not as graceful perhaps as the swans on Jim's "Journaling for Growth" Blog, but it is certainly taking a bird's eye view of things. Unfortunately, that is the only view some ever take of Scripture for usually we use the expression "taking a Bird's Eye view" as seeing things from a distance. So, I guess in truth this ostrich wasn't taking a bird's eye view at all, but one up close and personal, much to the unease of my wife.

If you take the opportunity to read Jim's Blogs, both  "Journaling for Growth" and "Love One Another", you'll learn how much there is up close and personal in Scripture.  Jim doesn't just give you the bird's eye view, he gets down in the dust and gives the worm's eye view as well. You learn the depth of God's Word .

It reminded me of my childhood when I wanted, and got, for Christmas a microscope.

That's right, as a kid I wanted to be a scientist.  First an herpetologist, then an entomologist, then a chemist, then an anthropologist and when I finally did go to college, I was majoring in sociology, a social science. Oh, I had a lot of interests and I got pretty involved in each for a while, but I missed the most important of all in what I considered excursions into the mysteries and life and a search for truth. I ignored the Scriptures. I considered them as nice little tales mixed with a lot of boring stuff that was hard to pronounce and difficult to read.

Now I see it all differently. I think what I discovered is exactly what Jim knows. Scripture is multi-layered that you could study forever and always find another truth.

That's why my microscope came to mind. It was a very nice microscope. It had several lens on a disc you could turn. Each lens was more powerful than the last. If you put an insect on the slide and peered through the first lens, it appeared bigger, but still similar to what you saw with the naked eye. But each turn of lens reveled more about the structure of the creature until the last lens where you saw the fine veins and delicate colors of its wings, which had appeared as colorless with your bird's eye view.

And that is what you get when you begin to see how all the Bible fits into a story of God's relationship to man, into the story of atonement through Christ's sacrifice and salvation through his future return, and all the colors of our God.

Thank you, Jim, for taking the time and putting in the effort to help us see these things.

Rub-a-dub-dub Three Men in a Tub to When Pigs Fly: Bible as a Whole

Do you think that pig on the left is thinking about flying right into that river and drowning itself?

Huh, what do flying suicidal pigs have to do with the Bible.

I'll get to that later.

I would hope, it's hard enough understanding that book without you confusing people further. I don't know what you see in that anthology of stories, myths, fables and poems. 

That's because it isn't an anthology. It's one continuous history of God's relationship to man from the past creation of this world to the future end of this world.  If we accept that fact, We'll have a better understanding not only of the Bible,  but of world events going on around us today.

Such as?

Such as not being scared by all the Global Warming hype when you understand what the Bible says is ahead. Such as not being fearful of threats from other countries when you see how the Bible says they will line up.  The Thinking Frog in one of his posts said, "The only thing we have to fear is God Himself." He is absolutely right, for we have a Fearsome and Awesome God, who has let us in on His plan in the Bible so we need not fear anything else. 

Also, understanding the Bible as a whole clears up a lot of those little events in the Bible that seem mysterious. 

Oh Yeah, how is all that stuff in the Old Testament relevant to anything. A lot of you people find that mysterious enough to avoid.  All those "begats" and hard to pronounce names like Jebusites, Girgashites,  Arvadites, Zemarites and Hamathites. I bet most wouldn't know a Pathrusite from a Stalagmite. What's with all these ites, huh? 

Well, except for Stalagmite,  they are groups of people named after some body's son, you know, the result of all those begats. Take the Girgashites...

Bless you.

Very funny. Girgashites, in fact, all those "ites" you named, were descendants of Ham. You remember Noah had three sons,  Japheth, Shem and Ham. 

Ah, ha, your Rub-a-dub-dub Three men in a Tub silliness!

Yes.

Where are the flying pigs?

We'll get to them, possibly not until my next post however. Anyway, Shem is the ancestor of the Jews. We get the term Semite from him, a corruption from the Greek or Latin because there is no H in those languages. Japheth's descendants went north after the flood. We of European blood descended from his tribes. Ham had a son whose name you probably know by the country he inhabited. His name was Canaan. 

Canaan begat Sidon, his firstborn, and he begat Hitt,  Jebu,  Amor and so forth. In fact his next begat was Girgash...

And Girgash formed a tribe called Girgashites.

Correct. And the Girgashites and those other tribes all lived in the land of milk and honey God intended for the Hebrews. God drove all those people out of Canaan because they weren't very nice. He took His time, but those peoples were driven out. 

Ha, took his time. Maybe your God isn't so powerful after all. Why didn't he just zap them, like Sodom and Gomorrah? Use up all his power turning Lot's wife into salt did he?

God wasn't too weak to "zap". He did it because the Hebrews weren't strong enough to subdue the country yet. If God had zapped those tribes, then the wild animals would have been left uncontrolled and overrun the place before the Hebrews could get a handle on them. God is pretty sparing with the zapping and the miracles. He likes to work his plan through people, only he knows why. But that's another story, just accept it for now that God always knows what he's doing.

Back to the point. The Girgashites ended up controlling a region southeast of the Sea of Galilee, know later as the Gadarenes or the Gerasenes. This is an area known for the Decapolis, or the ten cities. We have cities such as Gadara and Gerasa in this country. Near Gadara are a lot of tombs and on the east shore of Lake Tiberias (another name of the Sea of Galilee), at el-Kursi, near the Wadi es-Samak is a cliff. We have a story about Jesus involving tombs and a cliff in the region of the Gerasenes. Might not have been those specific tombs or that particular cliff, but these were things in the area so it wasn't unusual they were mentioned.

Okay, nice little history lesson, or is it a geography lesson. All this gobbly-gook about Girgashites, Gerasenes, Gerasa and Gadara and you still haven't said anything about pigs.

I mentioned Ham.

Oh, now who is being cute. 

Fine, old haunt, I'll get to the flying pigs in my next post, but first I want you to contemplate Isaiah 65:1-7

"I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me; I was found by those who did not seek me. To a nation that did not call on my name, I said, 'Here am I, here am I.'

All day long I have held out my hands to an obstinate people, who walk in ways not good, pursuing their own imaginations-a people who continually provoke me to my very face, offering sacrifices in gardens and burning incense on altars of brick; who sit among the graves and spend their nights keeping secret vigil; 
who eat the flesh of pigs, 
and whose pots hold broth of unclean meat; who say, 'Keep away; don't come near me, for I am too sacred for you!' 
Such people are smoke in my nostrils, a fire that keeps burning all day.

"See, it stands written before me: 
I will not keep silent but will pay back in full; I will pay it back into their laps-both your sins and the sins of your fathers," 
says the LORD.

Then the next time you're roaming around, we;ll talk about this story put together from Matthew 8:28-34, Mark 5:1-20 and Luke 8:26-39.

They sailed to the region of the Gerasenes, which is across the lake from Galilee. They went across the lake to the region of the Gerasenes. When he arrived at the other side in the region of the Gadarenes, two demon-possessed men coming from the tombs met him. They were so violent that no one could pass that way. "What do you want with us, Son of God?" they shouted. "Have you come here to torture us before the appointed time?" When Jesus got out of the boat, a man with an evil spirit came from the tombs to meet him. This man lived in the tombs, and no one could bind him any more, not even with a chain. For he had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet. No one was strong enough to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and in the hills he would cry out and cut himself with stones. When Jesus stepped ashore, he was met by a demon-possessed man from the town. For a long time this man had not worn clothes or lived in a house, but had lived in the tombs.

When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and fell on his knees in front of him. He cried out and fell at his feet. He shouted at the top of his voice, "What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? Swear to God that you won't torture me! I beg you, don't torture me!" For Jesus had commanded the evil spirit to come out of the man, had said to him, "Come out of this man, you evil spirit!" Many times it had seized him, and though he was chained hand and foot and kept under guard, he had broken his chains and had been driven by the demon into solitary places.

Then Jesus asked him, "What is your name?"

"My name is Legion," he replied, because many demons had gone into him."for we are many." And he begged Jesus again and again not to send them out of the area. And they begged him repeatedly not to order them to go into the Abyss.

Some distance from them a large herd of pigs was feeding there on the nearby hillside. The demons begged Jesus to let them go into them, "If you drive us out, send us into the herd of pigs. Send us among the pigs; allow us to go into them. " and He gave them permission. He said to them, "Go!" and so when they, the demons, the evil spirits, came out of the man, and they went into the pigs, and the whole herd, about two thousand in number, rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned and died in the water.

When those tending the pigs saw what had happened, they ran off, went into the town and reported all this in the town and countryside, and the people went out to see what had happened including what had happened to the demon-possessed men. Then the whole town went out to meet Jesus. When they came to Jesus, they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons sitting there, they found the man from whom the demons had gone out, dressed and in his right mind; and they were afraid. Those who had seen it told the people what had happened to the demon-possessed man, how the demon-possessed man had been cured. —and told about the pigs as well. And then all the people of the region of the Gerasenes asked Jesus, when they saw him, to leave them, because they were overcome with fear. The people, they began to plead with Jesus to leave their region.

So He got into the boat and left. As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed, whom the demons had gone out, begged to go with him. Jesus did not let him, but Jesus sent him away but said, saying, "Go Return home to your family and tell them how much the Lord God has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you." So the man went away and told all over town and began to tell in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him. And all the people were amazed.

When Pigs Fly and Pigs Die

The LORD said to Moses and Aaron, "Say to the Israelites: 'Of all the animals that live on land, these are the ones you may eat: You may eat any animal that has a split hoof completely divided and that chews the cud.

" 'There are some that only chew the cud or only have a split hoof, but you must not eat them. The camel, though it chews the cud, does not have a split hoof; it is ceremonially unclean for you. The coney, though it chews the cud, does not have a split hoof; it is unclean for you. The rabbit, though it chews the cud, does not have a split hoof; it is unclean for you. And the pig, though it has a split hoof completely divided, does not chew the cud; it is unclean for you. Leviticus 11:1-7 NIV

So we're back on pigs again. What's with the photo, we can eat the cow in the foreground, but not the pig in the far background? We going to discuss Solomon's barbecue recipes today?

Forget the photo. Did you read what I left you with?

Ah, yes. Shocking, absolutely shocking. Poor little piggies, what'd they ever do to anyone? How can you think so highly of someone who'd do a thing like that?

What? Release a couple guys from the possession of Demons?

No, slaughter a bunch of pigs. And the people there didn't like it. He scared them so much they told him to go away. Probably afraid they were next to be sent over a cliff.

You do so have a way to twist things to suit the worldly view, don't you?

That's my job.

Let's go beyond what you say and think about this. Jesus and his disciples had been teaching to a lot of crowds in and around the Jewish side of Galilee. So why did he suddenly, unexpectantly, kind of out of the blue up and say one day, "Let's go over to the other side of the lake." What was on the other side of the lake?

The region of the Gerasenes or Gadarenes. 

And who had settled this region?

Oh, no, are you getting back into that Girgashites gibberish again?

Yes, were the Girgashites Jewish?

No, they were enemies of the Jews, pretty mean ones that your God wanted wiped out.

Right, and so Jesus just on a whim decides to sail over and visit a non-Jewish territory.  It wasn't smooth sailing either, not like they just got to relax on the water awhile. They set off and a fierce storm hit their boat and rocked them badly, scared the Disciples badly. Almost seems as if someone didn't want Him to go.

Hey, don't look at me!

Couldn't have been Jesus felt compelled to go after the Girgasites. They seem to have disappeared from history before this trip. At least Titus Flavius Josephus, the great historian of the Jews couldn't find any trace of Girgashites left in this period.

No, Jesus just suddenly sails off with his disciples for Gentile territory. He's got disciples with Him who don't seem to get it and who show a real lack of faith on the way and when he gets back he is going to be rejected by the people in his hometown. He is also beginning to come under regular attack from the religious leaders among the Jews. Yet, he goes off to a Gentile country and exercises a couple of blokes who may not even have been Jewish and ticks off a whole town of people. Why?

Cause he heard there was a herd (heh heh, little play on words there) of pigs and His Father had it in for pigs?

Forget the pigs right now. There may have been several reasons. He may have wanted to teach his disciples a little more about faith. The Demons knew who he was, maybe he wanted his followers to hear that. And maybe he was pointing to both his purpose and to the future as prophesied in that passage from Isaiah 65:  "I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me; I was found by those who did not seek me. To a nation that did not call on my name, I said, 'Here am I, here am I.'

All day long I have held out my hands to an obstinate people, who walk in ways not good, pursuing their own imaginations-a people who continually provoke me to my very face, offering sacrifices in gardens and burning incense on altars of brick; who sit among the graves and spend their nights keeping secret vigil; 
who eat the flesh of pigs, 
and whose pots hold broth of unclean meat; who say, 'Keep away; don't come near me, for I am too sacred for you!' 
Such people are smoke in my nostrils, a fire that keeps burning all day.

"See, it stands written before me: 
I will not keep silent but will pay back in full; I will pay it back into their laps-both your sins and the sins of your fathers," 
says the LORD.

What was going to happen? Jesus was going to preach His message to the Jews, that He was the Messiah and they were going to reject Him. He would then take his message to the Gentiles, those who didn't call on his name and who didn't seek him. Like the Demon-possessed men the nation of Israel was saying "stay away, don't come near us". The Jews, God's chosen people, the people he loved, were gorging themselves on the unclean things of the world. They were pigs hurtling themselves toward a cliff, possessed by sin, about to be drowned and perish.  The Jews had made themselves unclean by long practicing the ceremonies of the Gentiles. they were in a sense possessed by the world and had become unclean in the sight of God.

I believe this event was partly to point to that and party to demonstrate God's mercy to the gentiles who also needed Him.

So he killed a bunch of pigs and scared a bunch of people.

He didn't kill those pigs, the Demons did, because all Demons know to do is destruction. And did He really so scare those people they wanted him away? Or was there possibly another reason?

What do you mean?

I mean, why were those pig herds there? What was the purpose? Those pigs were doomed anyway, you know. They were going to be somebody's ham and eggs or pork chops and applesauce. Those were valuable animals. That loss of herd cost somebody big bucks. Yet, they came and asked Jesus to leave rather than arrest him and take him to court to make restitution.

Have you considered this was an illegal operation, a black market in pork being sold to the Jews across the Sea? Perhaps those herdsmen were even Jews themselves. Remember the Prodigal Son? He sank so low he was feeding swine. Where would he be feeding pigs in Israel? A Jew was unclean who handled pigs. Perhaps the Lord was picturing the Prodigal Son working over on the other side of the Sea of Galilee in this very field.   Nonetheless, if this was a black market operation, they were similar to a drug supplier in our world. The drug dealer isn't going to the authorities if you somehow destroy his product because he would be in trouble if he did. So it may have been with this town and they just sent Jesus away so as not to make trouble or get their business closed down.

Jesus allowed the Demons to go into the herd, he didn't order them there and the Demons destroyed the illegal product used by people in defiance of God's will. Remember, God's justice is as prevalent in his Word as His mercy.

One other thing I'd like to mention. You'll be especially interested in this.

I will? What?

What were the demons so worried about? Why did they ask to go into the pigs?

Is it hot in here or is it just me?  Think I'll step out for some air right now.

What did the Demons cry out? "Have you come here to torture us before the appointed time? I beg you don't torture me. Swear to God you won't torture me! They begged Him repeatedly not to throw them into the Abyss."  

The Demons knew scripture. They knew they would be locked up and eventually thrown into Hell. They also knew this was to be in some future time. They feared this greatly and they knew very well that Jesus had the power to imprison them until Judgment day. They didn't want to be locked up. So they begged to go from the men into the pigs. Jesus gave them His permission to go into the pigs, he didn't send them into the herd. The Demons then just did what was their nature and destroyed the pigs. Don't know where the demons went after the pigs drowned, perhaps they possessed a school of sharks or something.

I am sure we could dig much more out of this occurrence, but this is enough to ponder for now. But I don't think any thing in scripture happens at random and I believe all of Scripture links together in one way or another. 

I want to give a nod to Dr. R. Brown, professor at Wilmington University, teacher of Pastors as a member of SEND International- World Missions, Sunday School teacher extraordinaire  and author of Preparing for the Realities of Mission in a Changing World (2006) for pointing out the relationship of the Girgashites to the Gerasenes and his discussion of the black marketing of pigs. I have deep respect for Dr. Brown's scholarship and Biblical knowledge, and am grateful for the many times he has challenged my thinking.