from Kent’s book, The Best Sex

This Christianity of ours. It has to do with that which is the ultimate issue, the difference between heaven and hell.

Pastor Bob Lewis, under whose ministry I came to Christ, was passionate about reaching out with the Gospel to those who were unsaved. It was all about spreading the core message and I was all in. Then the years of the Jesus People Movement, again direct and all out evangelism. Following that awakening, 1967 to 1975, things changed, sometimes out of necessity since we had to develop congregations and engage in discipleship, but there developed a creeping pursuit of that which is essentially trivial.

Still, with pain, I recall all the meetings called to deal with various problems and as time wore on, there was far less interest in direct personal evangelism. And we see this now, today, all over so-called evangelical Christianity, which is easy to observe by reading the many and varied Christian, books, weekly and monthly magazines, and much more. This came to my attention yesterday, May 27, in a half hour discussion a director of Ligonier Ministries, the great ministry that publishes TableTalk and whose founder is R.C. Sproul. It hit me right in the gut–too much attention given to trivia.

Then this morning I woke up thinking about the situation where Jesus cast demons out of a man. Here now is the account as we find it is Luke 8:26–33.

[26] Then they sailed to the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. [27] When Jesus had stepped out on land, there met him a man from the city who had demons. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he had not lived in a house but among the tombs. [28] When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him and said with a loud voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me.” [29] For he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many a time it had seized him. He was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the desert.) [30] Jesus then asked him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Legion,” for many demons had entered him. [31] And they begged him not to command them to depart into the abyss. [32] Now a large herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, and they begged him to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. [33] Then the demons came out of the man and entered the pigs, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and drowned.

What caught my attention was that the demons, the Legion of them in the man, begged Jesus not to cast them into the abyss, and abyss is a synonym for hell.

For whatever reason, Jesus let them go into a herd of pigs instead of being cast into hell.

Thinking back then over the decades of engaging in the casting out of demons I recalled that this was quite usual. There we would be, casting demons out of people, and how often we would hear the very same thing. Pleas, whimpers, asking us to not cast them into hell. (Note: at the end of the age and the Day of Judgment, Satan and his angels will be cast into hell to remain forever.)

This morning then I once again realized that we dare not be mired down in trivial pursuits, however important these might seem at the time. Satan and his demonic hoard desire that they be allowed to continue their horrid work of trapping people in the bonds of hell.

We must focus on the commission set before us by Jesus Himself.  Here now I site just one admonition, that of Acts 1:8:

[8] But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

Let us go to the work of presenting the Gospel message as widely as we can. This is the reason we do our television work, and the reason for our publishing, and is the reason for our doing direct person to person evangelism right here where we live.

If you have never so engaged, this is a time for you to overcome your reluctance of this direct work. Yes, there is some fear to overcome, but the pleasure of doing what our Lord directs us surpasses it all.