There is no
knowledge of Yahweh in the land, none with ears to hear. They have no shame and all are greedy for
unjust gain. Sounds incredibly familiar
doesn't it? We live in exactly such an
age and we do hear voices healing the wound of the people lightly, not dealing
honestly with sin. The nation had lost
its way because it had lost touch with their God. There was no longer restraint on sin and they
were under judgment. We don't like to
hear that there comes a time when sin has so taken over that the Lord will no
longer stay His hand against a nation but if it is true of Israel, it is true
of any nation. We have failed to
disciple and failed to discipline. We no
longer talk much of righteousness. In
the end, empires don't last when they fail to exercise restraint and lapse into
senescence. The Lord here says this
judgment will fall on everyone and will leave nothing untouched.
The Decapolis was a
place most Jewish people avoided. It was
a place of sin and vice, a place some said was one of the places where the
"gates of hell" were located.
Jesus goes there as a witness and chooses the worst of the worst cases
in which to display His power and His mercy.
He went there to set one man free from a horrible demonic oppression and
left the man behind to tell others what Jesus had done for him. I wonder if there is someone in Asheville
right now the Lord could do this for who would be a sign to the city? Sometimes when a city has been overcome by
darkness and false worship the only thing God can do to shake things us is to
display His power over those pretender gods.
We should be praying for His mercy and His power to be shown in order
that these gods may quake and not command us to leave but beg us to leave.
"I will not be
dominated by anything." What a
motto for life! If we have been
conquered by God's love and mercy then we should be willing to say that very
thing. Is His conquest of your life
complete? Sexual immorality comes in
many forms and it is perhaps the number one besetting sin of our day. Sex dominates our culture and we struggle
with defining immorality at all. What
once was agreed upon as immoral is now passé and accepted as the new
normal. Does the church have anything to
say to a society completely obsessed with sex?
The abortion culture exists completely because of sexual immorality and
promiscuity, it is the result of a cultural obsession with sex. Is the culture too far gone for redemption?
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