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Uchee Pines SDA Church

Eric Walsh

Perfecting the Mind

I don't hear scripture songs in churches very often, so that was very nice.

I don't know other places, so that was awesome.

I'll get right into it, because I know I think we're a little behind schedule so I'll jump right into our message for today.

Our scripture reading will be taken from Revelation chapter 3 and verse 12.

The Bible says, him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God.

And he shall go no more out, and I will write upon him the name of my God." So our message This Sabbath morning is entitled Perfecting the Mind.

Father God, we ask now for your Holy Spirit.

Once again, Lord, I just ask that you make me a nail on the wall.

Upon that nail, Lord, I ask that you hang a portrait of Jesus Christ.

Let us see your character today, Lord, in contrast to the character of this world.

And Father God, as we look into your face, we would become more like you.

So we're gonna come from the book of Mark, the book of Mark, the fifth chapter.

The Bible says, and they came over onto the other side of the sea into the country of the Gadarenes.

If you would remember just before this, they were on the sea and there was a great storm.

Jesus was in the back of the ship fast asleep.

And the winds and the waves began to beat, and they began to panic that they were going to die.

And they imagine Peter may have had a part in this.

Jesus stands up in the middle of the storm and just says, peace be still.

They marveled, the disciples, after all they had seen Jesus do, they marveled and they said, what manner of man is this, that even the winds and the waves obey him?

There's a great lesson of course in that story of what happens when you have Christ in the ship.

If you come at 03:00 when I give my testimony, you'll see how really important it is to have Christ in the ship, especially when you're going through a storm.

But The Bible gives the stories not as one-offs, but you have to kind of read them all together because the stories actually, when put up against each other, the contrast of the stories also send a message.

First, Jesus is able to calm nature itself.

And then in this story he comes across the sea, they get off the boat, they get to the country of the Gadarenes, and in verse 2 a new storm is seen.

Except this time it is not a storm of rain, lightning, thunder, and waves.

When Jesus came out of the ship, immediately there met him out of the tombs, a man with an unclean spirit.

As Jesus gets out of the boat, coming down in the way that it is described as a sharp kind of precipice that came down and the tombs are up in the high ground, a man comes running down as he sees Jesus coming.

I would imagine this man may have, would have obviously had to have been a part of the storm, witnessed the storm, saw how suddenly the storm came to an end and knew in his derangement that someone special was on that ship.

He comes running down and immediately meets Jesus and verse 3 says, this man who came running down had his dwelling among the tombs And no man could bind him, no, not with chains.

He was someone who wreaked havoc on the community.

Because that he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces, neither could any man tame him.

This man was like a wild man he was he was dangerous and and and folk were afraid of him so afraid that they tried to bind him they tried to lock him up they tried to put him in the equivalent of handcuffs and shackles on his feet.

But no matter what he did, like some kind of superhuman, he was able to pop the chains and break free.

No matter what they did, he remained a nuisance and a threat.

They wouldn't even walk where they thought he might be.

I can imagine that those in the community who might have witnessed this meeting between Christ and this man probably watched with bated breath.

Here now, a man is standing and accepts this man who acts as if he is a brute beast at times, he comes running down.

We're told in the spirit of prophecy that when the disciples see the man coming, they take off running.

The disciples must have had some good track shoes because they always knew when to run, didn't they?

Verse 5, and always night and day he was in the mountains and in the tombs crying and cutting himself with stones.

This plugs right into the Sabbath school lesson this morning.

There is something that happens to people.

I'll never forget in our practice up in Connecticut, I'm the medical director of a whole lot of urgent cares, And in 1 of our offices, there was a woman who would come in, a young lady actually, who would come in and she would cut herself to the point where it could take you an hour and a half, 2 hours to sew up all of the lacerations.

After a while, a provider who was anchored at that site called me 1 day as this woman came in, both arms completely cut up.

She cut over the scars of the previous cuts.

And the provider called me 1 day and said, Dr.

We've got to find another way to take care of this person.

I started to look into it And I realized, and I actually asked a patient who had this, actually this is when I was in Loma Linda, why do you do this?

They said they cut themselves so that they can feel something.

They're so empty that cutting themselves allows them to know they are alive.

Church, we live in a time when people will harm themselves to convince themselves they're alive.

In fact, there are a lot of different way that men's minds are chained today.

You see, that man couldn't be chained with shackles, but he was chained in his mind.

He was controlled by dark and evil spirits and they wanted him to destroy himself.

Let me tell you something, the devil's purpose for you is simple.

You see, the devil knows he's a defeated foe.

At the cross, when Satan, and it didn't really just happen at the cross, it was that whole weekend.

When Jesus dies on that cross and is laid in that tomb, the devil tries to hold him there.

Can you imagine all the hosts of Satan, along with all of those Roman guards are stationed outside of the tomb Trying to keep Jesus in because if Jesus remains dead the devil always had hope When I was at Oakwood It was a way that they would say it in their holy imaginations that when, as Jesus was that great getting up morning, when Jesus had to rise up out of the tomb and he gets up and he says, "'I am the resurrection and the life, ' the devil begins to panic.

The Roman soldiers fall out like dead men, and Satan had the key to death and the grave.

When Jesus comes out of the tomb, Satan starts looking all over the ground.

He feels he dropped it, and he's searching on his hands and knees, looking for the keys to death and the grave, and standing over him is Jesus dangling the keys, crying out, I am the resurrection and the life.

Church, when Jesus got out of the tomb, Satan's fate was sealed.

And the only way now he can get back at God is our destruction.

Because of how much God loves each 1 of us individually.

1 of the greatest failures and why people have so much difficulty with religion on the 1 hand and why I believe there is so much mental health disease is because people do not understand God's character.

It isn't God that wants man to be in pain and destroyed, that's Satan.

Yet God is often blamed for what the devil does.

And so God is constantly working and unless you know his character, see I mentioned him last night, but the 3 Hebrew boys were okay going into the fiery furnace because they knew God's character.

If you don't know God's character, You will never stand up to persecution.

And let me just say it up front, you'll never have peace.

It says, and after these things, I saw 4 angels "'standing on the 4 corners of the earth, "'holding the 4 winds of the earth, "'that the wind should not blow on the earth, "'nor on the sea, nor on any tree.'" The Bible gives you in Revelation 7, 1, this amazing picture of angels holding back the winds of strife.

In other words, holding back the full weight of the consequences of sin.

I want to submit to you that if God was not being merciful now, none of us would be alive.

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Perfecting the Mind

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