Darkness is Available (Acts 26:15-23)
Gary McManus, 08/06/2023Part of the Why Hell? series, preached at a Sunday Morning service
August 6, 2023 Darkness is Still Available
Acts 26:15-23
Disclaimers:
--this was not on Pastor’s” to do“ list
--an article helped put it on “to do” list
--the Lord put it on “to do” list
--Satan, evil and darkness are not pleasant topics
--There is a risk of talking about “bad” topics
more than Jesus or God.
Sermons shouldn’t do that.
Article from Religious News Service RNS:
In America, (2023), faith in the divine and organized
religion have been facing unrelenting decline.
The poll asked about beliefs in five spiritual entities:
God, the devil, angels, hell and heaven.
Belief in all five is at its lowest point since Gallup
began polling about these five topics in 2001.
Everyone present in worship today agree on these
five topics. The congregation might even feel Pastor’s
pain in having to cover this topic of Satan.
Pastor prays that you still find blessing in this message.
Pastor has preached on Satan and Hell several times
before. Pastor says: “if anyone has trouble believing in
Satan or the devil, can you at least believe in the reality
of evil? There is a power greater than ourselves for evil.
One person in the entire Bible talks MORE about Satan
and Hell than any other person in the Bible: Jesus.
Maybe Jesus knows something that we don’t know?
(See John 8:12)
Jesus was talking about spiritual darkness.
Corrie ten Boom and a Nazi officer talked.
Do you know what they were talking about?
Pastor wants you to know what they were talking about.
The concentration camps of Nazi Germany were not a secret.
Since some then and now have denied this evil, it brings us
to the problem of denial.
When the Jewish populations were taken away, the people
were told that they were being resettled. . .that the camps were
transitional housing. And people believed it. Why?
Because believing otherwise was too impossible.
The Nazis murdered members of the Nazi party, June, 1934.
They died not knowing (could they have believed?) their
murders were ordered by Adolf Hitler?
But if we deny these actions, we are denying evil and we
are denying that entire organizations can and will dedicate
themselves to evil deeds, evil purposes, and evil results.
AND. . .that given the machinery for evil, individuals, companies,
and businesses will devote themselves to the success of evil. .
(Germans elected Nazis as the majority party in the Nazi
Congress.)
Oddly, the first step to fighting evil is having to admit that
evil exists AND be able to admit that there is a possibility that
evil exists right where we live.
Example: American college sports.
How? Why? Because evil is always possible. Darkness is
available and we are able to live in it.
Jesus, Matthew 7:4-5:
How can anyone take the log out of their own eye if they
deny that there is a log in their eye? Could people deny
that they have a log in their eye? Yes, they can.
Ever watch “Cops”?
To have a log removed from one’s eye requires recognition
that the log is in that eye. Some Pharisees asked, ”Are we blind?” ( John 9:40; see all of John 9) This is why our government has checks and balances: evil exists.
Christians and church goers have hope. We DO believe that evil
exists. Christians can confess the logs and be forgiven them and
can pray to have it removed (or get help removing it).
(See Matthew 6:22) Isn’t that wonderful? Amen
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