Demons and Prisons

Demons and Prisons

Good Morning Friends,

Today’s sermon at Moorings is going to be about Hope. Hope is after all one of feelings we associate with Christmas. But this season I am connecting the hope of our time in perhaps a different way than you might expect. A few weeks ago I wrote about Nelson Mandela and his death but also his mindset during the 27 years he was in a jail cell. So today I thought we would explore this idea of hope in the most unlikely of places of Demons and Prisons.

Isaiah 61:1 (NIV)

“So Joseph’s master took him and put him into the jail, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined; and he was there in the jail. But The Lord was with Joseph and extended kindness to him, and gave him favor in the sight of the chief jailer.”

Genesis 39:20-21 (NASB)

“She said, The Philistines are upon you, Samson! And he awoke from his sleep and said, I will go out as at other times and shake myself free. But he did not know that The Lord had departed from him. Then the Philistines seized him and gouged out his eyes; and they brought him down to Gaza and bound him with bronze chains, and he was a grinder in the prison. However, the hair of his head began to grow again after it was shaved off.”

Judges 16:20-21 (NASB)

Then the officials were angry at him and beat him, and they put him in jail in the house of Jonathan the scribe, which they had made into the prison. For Jeremiah had come into the dungeon, that is, the vaulted cell; and Jeremiah stayed there many days.

Jeremiah 37:15-16 (NASB)

They laid hands on the apostles and put them in a public jail. But during the night an angel of The Lord opened the gates of the prison, and taking them out he said, Go, stand and speak to the people in the Temple the whole message of this Life.”

Acts 5:19-20 (NASB)

Message: When Jesus started his ministry he announced that he had come to set the prisoners free. I imagine that meant something for the Jews that we might miss. There are a lot of characters in the Bible that spent time in prison. There was Joseph. He was thrown into a pit and that was a prison of sorts. And then in Egypt Joseph was falsely accused and then put in jail after not submitting the lure of Potiphar’s wife. Samson was in prison after Delilah cut his hair and Jeremiah was put into jail as well. And of course in the New Testament, we have John the Baptist and the Apostles and Stephen and Peter and Paul and Silas. Wow there are a lot a stories about being in prison. But there are an equal number of stories about demons and I cannot help but think them connected. The amazing joy of Paul’s spirit of hope while in jail is witness that hope is not lost no matter how much we might mess things up.
Friends, through Jesus, Paul learned that God is not some impersonal power forcing us to behave in prescribed ways, but a personal Savior who set us free from within to live life to its fullest. That is how demons are cast out. That is how prisoners are set free. That is why we should always have hope. Friends, worship God wherever you are and you will always have hope.

Pray when we look in each other’s eyes we do not see the place where demons hide. Pray we do not drink both the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. Pray that in Christ we are indeed set free. Pray we have the hope of a time when people would not masquerade as Christians. Pray we no longer hide the truth. Pray that wherever we are that when we come close to God that our Lord would come close to us. Pray that we have not dug our own pit. Pray that we can worship God wherever we are and in whatever circumstances we face. Pray we are not trapped in the pit of hell but set free to enjoy the hope of heaven. Pray we let Jesus free us for he is not imprisoned.

Blessings,

John Lawson