Fat Man’s Misery

A Series on Living in the Wilderness
Rich young ruler
(Click on the link below to read the verses.)
Mark 10:17-31 

[In this series we’ll be looking at people who lived in the wilderness of life. In fact, there are times when we all feel like we are living in the wilderness. During those times, it’s important to remember that the Lord is faithful, that He loves you and is always with you.]

 

In one of the tours at Mammoth Cave National Park, there’s a passageway that is officially named “Fat Man’s Misery”. 

It’s called this because at one point you have to bend over and turn sideways in order to get through it. For some, it might appear impossible to navigate.

 

Towards the end of Jesus’ ministry, he was heading to Jerusalem. Crowds of people were following him, so he was teaching and healing as he went along. Normally, when people approached Jesus, they wanted something from him. There was some pain in their life. But not so much with the rich young ruler.

 

He ran up to Jesus, fell on his knees and asked, “Good teacher. What must I do to inherit eternal life”? On the one hand it appeared that he was eager and sincere. However, he didn’t understand who Jesus really was. Nor did he understand that faith was essential for eternal life.

 

Like the Pharisees, he believed that eternal life was something that he could earn. 

After all, he was a rich young ruler and had everything that the world had to offer - wealth, the confidence of youth and power. He was a person of means and status. Someone who had become self-sufficient.

 

As Jesus did with others, he interacted with the young man at his level of spiritual understanding. It needed to be something that he could relate to and comprehend. Therefore, Jesus answered him by quoting some of the commandments.

 

When the man told Jesus that he had followed the law since he was a boy, Jesus lovingly responded that he needed to sell everything he had, give it to the poor and follow him. In other words, make Jesus the most important thing in his life.

 

But he couldn’t do it. The man’s face fell, and he walked away in despair. As it turned out, his riches were more important to him than eternal life.

 

Seeing a teachable moment, Jesus turned to his disciples and told them how hard it was for the rich to enter the kingdom of God.

 

²⁵ It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”           NIV

 

Like those on the tour at Mammoth Cave when they encounter “Fat Man’s Misery”, the disciples thought this was impossible. They couldn’t believe what Jesus had told them and wondered out loud if anyone could be saved.

 

²⁷ Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.”                  NIV

 

Follow by faith, not rules or riches.

 

Copyright 2024 Joseph B Williams

www.lifelinebasketball.blogspot.com

 

 

Taxes

A Series on Living in the Wilderness
Zacchaeus the tax collector
 (Click on the link below to read the verses.)
Lk 19:1-10 

[In this series we’ll be looking at people who lived in the wilderness of life. In fact, there are times when we all feel like we are living in the wilderness. During those times, it’s important to remember that the Lord is faithful, that He loves you and is always with you.]

 

Complaining is as American as apple pie. Typical topics include the weather, the cost of gas or groceries, other drivers and how your favorite sports team is doing. However, the topic of taxes can result in bitter complaining.

 

As high as taxes are today, it doesn’t come anywhere near first century taxes for the Jews in Judea and Galilee. According to the ESV Archeological Study Bible, the Roman tax could reach between 50-80 percent of an individual’s personal income!

 

Compounding this was who benefited from the taxes. They were mostly used to fund Rome’s World Empire or lining a politician’s pockets or, the most hated… tax collectors. These were fellow Jews who were considered both traitors and thieves.

 

It was standard operating procedure for a tax collector to pocket anything extra that he charged with no limits. They even extorted taxpayers by threatening to file a false report if the person didn’t pay what they demanded. They were also known to take bribes or grant special favors. Basically, they were unethical!

 

Jews considered tax collectors the worst kind of sinner. They were outcasts, not welcome at the synagogue. They consorted with the enemy – Rome. They lived materialistic and self-absorbed lives. They lived in a wilderness.

 

Such was the case for Zacchaeus. However, the passage tells us that Zacchaeus “wanted to see who Jesus was”. This would seem to indicate that either he had seen and heard Jesus before or heard stories about him.

 

Possibly, he heard Jesus’ parable about the Pharisee and the tax collector praying at the temple. In the parable, the Pharisee thanked God that he wasn’t a sinner like the tax collector. While the tax collector begged God for mercy as a sinner.

 

Following the parable, Jesus said something extraordinary: the tax collector would go home justified before God, but not the Pharisee.

 

Whatever Zacchaeus may have witnessed or heard about Jesus, on that day by the sycamore tree, he promised Jesus that he would give half of his possessions to the poor and would pay back anybody that he had cheated four times the amount.

 

When Jesus heard Zacchaeus, he said this.

 

⁹ “Salvation has come to this home today, for this man has shown himself to be a true son of Abraham. ¹⁰ For the Son of Man came to seek and save those who are lost.”   NLT

 

In verse 10, Jesus was making a direct reference to Ezekiel 34 where the Sovereign Lord, speaking through Ezekiel, condemned the religious leaders of the day for not shepherding the people of Israel. And then promised them this.

 

¹² I will be like a shepherd looking for his scattered flock. I will find my sheep and rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on that dark and cloudy day.         NLT

 

Like Zacchaeus, this promise is true today for you and me. Jesus will seek us out and rescue us wherever we’re scattered. Even when we’re living in a wilderness.

 

Copyright 2024 Joseph B Williams

www.lifelinebasketball.blogspot.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Scene from a Horror Movie

A Series on Living in the Wilderness
The demon possessed man.
 (Click on the link below to read the verses.)
Mark 5:1-20 

[In this series we’ll be looking at people who lived in the wilderness of life. In fact, there are times when we all feel like we are living in the wilderness. During those times, it’s important to remember that the Lord is faithful, that He loves you and is always with you.]

  

When I was a kid, I loved watching horror movies. One of the scariest was Psycho. I can still hear the screeching sound just before the shower scene where a deranged Anthony Perkins viciously kills Janet Leigh.

 

But nothing rivals the scary scene that Jesus faced. Larger and larger crowds of people had been following him. In an effort for some peace and quiet, he and his disciples sailed at night across the Sea of Galilee when a sudden storm threatened their lives. Jesus calmed the waters and the disciples fear.

 

But fear would come again!

 

It was still dark when they reached the shore. Imagine how frightening it must have been when Jesus was immediately confronted by a naked man who was possessed by an evil spirit. When he saw Jesus, he ran up to him, fell on his knees and screamed in an unearthly voice.

 

This man had supernatural strength. In the past, he had been chained hand and foot and kept under guard. However, he always managed to break the chains. Nobody was strong enough to subdue him. He was out of control crazy.

 

⁵ Day and night he wandered among the burial caves and in the hills, howling and cutting himself with sharp stones.                      NLT

 

Following this, something even more bizarre happened. The demon begged Jesus not to torture him but to send him into a herd of nearby pigs. When Jesus complied and exorcised the evil spirit, the entire herd of almost two thousand pigs plunged down a steep bank into the lake and drowned.

 

The final scene of this story is Jesus sitting with the man who had been possessed but now was fully dressed and in his right mind. He was no longer driven by the demons. He was no longer living in the wilderness. He was at peace.

 

In our culture, people commonly don’t believe in demons or evil spirits. But we can understand and agree that there is something within us that keeps us from doing the good that we desire to do. Something within us that we struggle with.

 

Paul wrote at length about this struggle in Romans. He described how he wanted to do the right thing but kept doing evil. Then he came to this conclusion.

 

²¹ So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me.   NIV

 

Most likely, your struggles haven’t been like a scene from a horror movie. But we all struggle with sin. Thankfully, Paul didn’t end by just describing this struggle. He went on to give these words of hope, not only for him, but also for us.

 

²⁴ What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? ²⁵ Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!       NIV

 

Copyright 2024 Joseph B Williams

www.lifelinebasketball.blogspot.com

 

 

 

 

A Cloud of Dust

A Series on Living in the Wilderness
The sinful woman
 (Click on the link below to read the verses.)
Luke 7:36-50 

[In this series we’ll be looking at people who lived in the wilderness of life. In fact, there are times when we all feel like we are living in the wilderness. During those times, it’s important to remember that the Lord is faithful, that He loves you and is always with you.]

  

One of the most popular characters in the cartoon strip Peanuts is Pig-Pen. A cloud of dust surrounds him everywhere he goes and he’s always dirty. Referred to as a “human dustbowl”, he could turn a white snowman into a dirty snowman.

 

Pig-Pen accepted the fact that he was dirty. Even when he tried, he couldn’t stay clean. Once, after bathing and dressing in clean clothes, he stepped outside and instantaneously became dirty. He then declared to Charlie Brown, "You know what I am? I'm a dust magnet!" 

 

In the story today, there are three main characters. A Pharisee who, following synagogue, invited the rising star rabbi for a banquet at his home. Jesus, who is the up and coming rabbi. And an uninvited guest… the sinful woman.

 

In this culture, women were expected to be married. And if you were married, it was expected that you wore a head covering to show not only that you weren’t available, but also that you were virtuous. If you didn’t wear a head covering, you were subject to speculation, gossip and likely considered promiscuous.

 

In the case of the sinful woman, who didn’t wear a head covering, she already had a well-known reputation for being immoral. When she knelt at Jesus’ feet, weeping and then drying his feet with her hair and anointing them with expensive perfume, the Pharisee judged them both.

 

³⁹ When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know what kind of woman is touching him. She’s a sinner!”           NLT

 

Like Pig-Pen, she was an outcast whose dirty reputation both preceded and followed her. Both of them lived in a wilderness of dust.

 

But the sinful woman had heard Jesus speak. She had heard his words of love and healing. His words of forgiveness and cleansing. His words of defiance against the religious establishment.

 

Because of this, she found the courage to break social norms. To not only walk into a banquet that she wasn’t invited to, nor wanted, but also to kneel at Jesus’ feet with unbridled emotion and touch him.

 

She looked in the mirror and saw her dust and wanted to change. She probably had wanted to change before, but now she believed it was possible because of the rabbi. By faith, she acted on her newfound hope in Jesus. The result was life changing.

 

⁴⁸ Then Jesus said to the woman, “Your sins are forgiven.”  ^50b “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” NLT

 

Notice that Jesus never referred to her as the sinful woman. With his words of freedom, you can visualize the cloud of dust falling to her feet and disappearing. He has taken her out of the wilderness and into the Promised Land.

 

Copyright 2024 Joseph B Williams

www.lifelinebasketball.blogspot.com