The Street, page 7
For a third time, a desperate pounding on the door echoed through the building. I heard someone crying out on the porch. What was he saying: sanctuary? I shook my head as I started down the steps for the door.
“Coming!” I cried out.
As I cautiously opened the door a crack, it was ripped from my hands and a big man forced his way into the foyer. He was growling and barking like a frightened and cornered dog. “Sanctuary,” he cried. “I need sanctuary!”
“You are kidding, right?” I sounded so much braver than I felt. The man was at least four inches taller than me and had, at least, a 100 pound advantage on me.
“It’s the demons,” he muttered, his voice choked with fear. “I can’t outrun the demons.”
I pulled the door shut and bolted it. The stranger nodded his approval. I, on the other hand, was confused. I hadn’t bolted the door against demons, as if a door would stop them anyway. I was more concerned about vampires.
“As if the vampires weren’t bad enough,” my new friend sighed. “I felt coldness on my spine spooked by the thought of a mind reader standing with me just inside the door.
“What is this all about?” I continued to sound brave and in charge, despite growing concern.
“Demons,” he hissed. “It’s about demons.”
“Maybe we should go up to my office,” I suggested and started toward the steps. He followed me in silence to the top of the steps and into my office. He kept looking around the room, his head swiveling on his neck while his eyes darted like two pinballs in an arcade game.
“Would you like to take a seat?” I offered with a wave of my arm as I crossed behind the desk and sat down in my chair.
He sat quietly to the right of my desk as he continued to scan the room for invisible horrors.
“What is your name?” I ventured.
“Kevin,” he said, breathed a shaky breath, and continued, “Kevin Brown.” I gave him a moment to continue but he did not. So I tried again.
“Why are you here Kevin?” I asked softly.
“Sanctuary,” he whispered. “I need sanctuary.”
“From demons?” I guessed. He nodded his head. “Do you know why demons are after you?” I asked. “Do you know what they want from you?”
“I don’t,” he said quickly. Then he paused and allowed his eyes to roll up toward his forehead as if he were thinking. “Maybe to make me sin?” he guessed.
“Have you been sinning?” the question seemed foolish as soon as it left my lips.
“I’m a Christian,” he protested sternly. Then more quietly, “but I can’t stop sinning.”
He finally turned to look at me. The confused look on my faced must have convinced him to explain in more detail. “Each night after work, I am determined to read a chapter of the Bible before I have dinner.”
I was nodding my head, agreeing that it was a good and noble plan.
“Instead I end up in front of the computer looking at pornography,” he confessed with a tear rolling down his cheek. “I don’t want to do it, but I do it anyway. I want to read the Bible but I never end up doing that. No, I find myself staring at pornography totally against my will.” We were both silent for a long moment. “Demons,” he hissed.
“That could be,” I agreed reluctantly. “Or it might be you.”
“Not me!” he insisted. “I am a Christian; it can’t be me. I don’t want to do it! I refuse to do it! I want to read the word; that’s what I want to do! So how can it be me?” He was daring me to answer him.
“Not so much you,” I held up my hands to calm him down. “But maybe it is the other side of you.” I smiled a little hoping it might help.
“What other side of me?”
I swallowed hard before I opened my mouth. “Maybe the dead side of you?” I suggested.
“What?” he looked at me like I was a leprechaun that showed up on Valentine’s Day.
“You know,” I continued, “the old man, the flesh, the man of sin.”
“He’s dead,” Kevin insisted. “He is crucified. I did it myself.”
“I know,” I sighed, “but we dig him up again sometimes, don’t we?”
He looked at me dumbfounded. He opened his mouth to speak but then slammed it shut, closed his eyes tightly, and shook his head vigorously to the negative.
“We get up out of our spiritual bed and creep out into the carnal night.”
“No!”
“We take a shovel with us.”
“No!”
“We creep in to the graveyard.”
“No.”
“We find out tombstone.”
“No,” he sobbed softly.
“We dig up the corpse of our sin nature.”
He was sobbing quietly, his shoulders barely moving.
“We put our lips on his in unholy CPR.”
“Stop!” he pleaded.
“It’s a dead thing that we drag around.”
“It’s not me…” he insisted weekly.
“I understand,” I confessed. “It’s sin. Dead sin. Mummified zombie of who we used to be.”
“Used to be,” he agreed. “Used to be.”
“Kevin?”
He looked up from the floor into my eyes. His eyes were red and wet with tears.
“You and me Kevin,” I began.
“Yes,” he nodded with just a hint of a smile.
“We got to crucify him again.”
“Again,” he agreed with enthusiasm.
“Every single morning.”
“Crucify him every single morning,” he agreed. “It’s not demons,” he declared.
“It’s us the vampire, it’s us that we resurrect,” I explained.
“We are our own worst enemies,” he said with an awful understanding. “Pray for me pastor. Pray for me every day please and I will do the same for you.”
We both stood up together and firmly shook each other’s hands.
“You have my word,” I promised.
B
We Are Crucified
I have three favorite novels:
Frankenstein
A Christmas Carol
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
If you are not saved, if you are a vampire, there is only one you. Your conscience will gnaw at you sometimes, but that is the Holy Spirit trying to wake you up and rescue you from the waterfall at the end of the river you are floating down without oars or a life jacket.
If you are a Christian, you are dealing with two yous: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. For many of us, Satan just tempts us with the old stuff, greed, lust, and gluttony, you know, the usual suspects.
Some of us though really get into this church thing. The Devil can’t drag us out of church with a team of wild horses. Satan is many things but he is not a quitter. If he can’t drag you out into sin, then he will just ignore that you are in church. He’ll let you keep working for the Lord on Sunday and drag you back into slavery the other six days.
Part of the problem is that we are proud to have left the Old Testament law behind only to replace it with man-made laws, laws that we made up ourselves, like I must read a chapter of scripture every day or maybe something we read in a book like I must read a chapter of scripture every day, or something the preacher said from the pulpit like I must read a chapter of scripture every day.
The problem is that on our own, we can do nothing, especially keep a list of laws. Then when we fail, we feel like crap. The devil always exploits the week ones. I am not suggesting that you not read scripture every day. I do it because it makes me strong.
You don’t have to force yourself to eat dinner every day. You do it because you enjoy it and you don’t want to starve to death. Do not concentrate on a goal. I know that flies in the face of worldly wisdom, but I mean it.
I do things for my wife because I love her. Love the Lord with all your mind, heart, soul, and strength. Do not concentrate on a goal. Concentrate on Jesus. Do not concentrate on the law; set you heart on Jesus
The law is good. By the law we mean the Old Testament that is best represented by the Ten Commandments. Paul explains that the law exists so that we will know and recognize sin. Adam and Eve only had one law. Their smashing of Pandora’s box unleashed evil and things were no longer simple. It is the law that pronounces that the wages of sin is death. The law is justice and must be satisfied, but no one can satisfy the law.
That is, no one could except Jesus the Christ. He came and paid our debt and with Him He brought the gift of grace. When we accept Him as our Lord, we are freed from the law and brought under grace.
The law no longer applies in its point-by-point impossible to obey form. Jesus fulfilled all of the requirements of the law, and He did it for you and for me and for everyone who chooses to accept the gift. It is this fact that Christ fulfilled the law that allows us to live under grace.
We are no longer required to keep the law of sin and death because we are now held to higher standard, the law of grace.
That is where the novel comes in. Dr. Jekyll is the man under grace. He loves the Lord his God with all of his heart, soul, mind, and strength, and he loves his neighbor as himself. Because that is true, he will not commit adultery, theft, or murder. Sounds great but we all know that isn’t true. Sin is alive and well in the church whether it is regular old street sin like adultery and greed or if it is church sin where Christians devour each other over man-made doctrines.
So who is to blame? Paul tells us in chapter seven. It is Mr. Hyde. Dr. Jekyll wills himself to live a righteous life but he finds that Mr. Hyde (who is living in him) does the things that Dr. Jekyll has purposed and promised that he will no longer do.
Mr. Hyde must die! In fact, he is already dead. He was crucified with Christ if you are a believer. It is the devil who tempts us with the corpse of our old sinful nature.
Why can’t we smell the rotten flesh? Why can’t we smell the stench of decay? Sometimes it is because Satan dresses the dead body in a Christian’s clothes right after the Sunday morning service ends. This premise may have been funny in Weekend at Bernie’s, but it is sad and ugly in the church.
CHAPTER EIGHT
A
The Street of Pain
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. (Romans 8:18)
The sun was in the process of setting. Brightness of day was fading to gray and, in fact, was well on its way to black. I was only aware of this when glancing at the edges of the drawn shades of the windows in my office. The lights were on and the office well lit.
Spread out on the desk in front of me were well worn copies of a MacArthur Study Bible, a Scofield Study Bible, a Strong’s Concordance, and volume 6 of Clarke’s Commentary. Some of you will make assumptions from the list but you really shouldn’t.
My sermon on Sunday would be from the book of Romans, but I really hadn’t gotten far as the daylight slipped away. I read my text one more time as I heard the old wooden front door creek open.
“Anyone here?” a man’s voice boomed up the staircase.
“I am in the office at the top of the stairs,” I replied with equal gusto.
“I’m going to need some help I’m afraid,” some of the boom to his voice softened by his apologetic tone.
I sighed silently as I took a last glance at the few notes sprawled out on my desk like the victim of a hit-and-run driver. I stood up deliberately and moved around my desk to the top of the stairs. There were two men in the landing at the bottom of the steps. The one standing was familiar to me as the pastor of another church in the neighborhood. The thin man in the wheelchair was a stranger to me.
The church had been handicap accessible years ago, but the antique chair lift was long dead and buried.
“Between the two of us, we should be able to get him upstairs,” the standing man boomed in his Sunday morning voice.
“You’re Pastor Lancaster from Holy Ghost and Fire Tabernacle, aren’t you?” I asked as I started down the stairs.
“Call me Danny,” he insisted as he reached for my hand.
He had a firm handshake. He turned to the wheelchair-bound stranger and offered him my hand. “I am Pastor Dave. Happy to meet you.”
His handshake was not so firm and his voice was like a whisper. “My name is Jake.”
Danny was a man of action and in no time we had Jake at the top of the stairs. Not that it was a hard task. Even with the weight of the chair, Jake was not a heavy man.
Danny followed me into my office pushing Jake’s chair ahead of him. As Danny settled into one of the chairs in my office, I quickly straightened up the clutter of books and notes on my desk.
“How can I help you gentlemen?” I asked as I focused my attention on the stranger in the wheelchair.
“Do you have anointing oil here?” I was not surprised that the preacher responded.
“Yes, of course,” I turned to face the speaker. “But surely you didn’t come to see me for anointing oil?”
“Pastor Lancaster believes our congregation is under demonic attack,” Jake whispered.
“They’re stealing anointing oil?” I didn’t understand.
“Of course not,” the preacher sounded perturbed. “Jake has not received his healing.”
He said this as if it should have instantly enlightened me. It did not. “I don’t understand.”
“Pastor prays for me to get out of this chair at every single service,” Jake explained. “But I am still not healed.”
I nodded my head as I began to understand. I was still confused about their decision to come to me, but I understood Jake’s confusion, at least.
“Don’t worry,” I assured him. “You will be healed one day. Of that there is no doubt.”
“Amen!” the preacher shouted. “You just need to keep working on increasing your faith!”
“But,” the word fell off my lower lip.
The preacher kept on preaching. “We walk by faith—not by sight,” he insisted. “The key word there is walk!” he paused as if waiting for an amen.
“The key word is faith,” I corrected the man of God.
“Amen!” He shouted. “And you need more faith so that you can walk! Hallelujah!”
I wanted to speak but the preacher was on a roll, and he left no room for my words, not even edgewise.
“That’s why we’re here,” he explained but it still sounded like a sermon. “Something is blocking your faith boy. Jesus put the doubters out of the room before He could raise Jairus’ daughter. So we are going away from any doubters or demons who have found their way into the Holy Spirit and Fire Tabernacle, to untainted Holy Ground where we can pray this lame spirit off of you.”
He had leaped from the chair while speaking, pointing the whole time at Jake. Suddenly he spun around to point at me. “Is this Holy Ground and are you a spirit-filled man of God?”
I think my mouth was open. But I had no words.
“Pastor Lancaster can be intense,” Jake whispered.
“That’s alright,” I said as I regained my voice. “Like you, I received the indwelling of the Holy Spirit as a seal of my promised inheritance when I accepted Christ as my Lord and Savior.”
“Huh?” said the man of God. “Oh, yes, of course.” He turned to Jake for just a second. Then he turned back to me. “Could we pray in your sanctuary?”
“Of course,” I assured him. “But I thought we might talk first”
The pastor shrugged his shoulders but I ignored him and turned to Jake. “Jake,” I began, “you know there is a lot more to a man than just his legs?”
Both men nodded understanding. “The eternal state of your spirit is more important than the temporary state of your body, namely, your legs.”
Again they both nodded. “When some friends brought a lame man to Jesus to be healed, first, Jesus made sure that his sins had been forgiven. Jake, have your sins been forgiven?”
“They have,” he assured me. “Pastor Lancaster led me to the Lord going on six months ago.”
I thought I detected the glint of a tear in his eye.
“What happened to your legs, son?” I asked boldly.
“Drive by shooting,” he announced without hesitation. “I was in the right place at the wrong time. Some kid needed to pass initiation and there I was with my back to the passing car. He shot me in the back and broke a vertebra.”
“But God can fix even that, hallelujah!” the preacher exploded again. “He will take what the devil meant for evil and make it good!”
“God will heal you,” I declared but at a lower volume. “In His perfect time, you will be healed.”
“You seem so sure,” Jake marveled in a whisper.
“Just like your pastor,” I assured him.
“No!” his voice was still quiet but very, very firm. “I love you Pastor Lancaster, but if anyone doubts, it is you.”
“But Jake…”
Jake would not be stopped now. “It shakes you, pastor; I can see it in your eyes. Every time you pray for me and I don’t stand up, it shakes you inside. It is like you have set in your mind just exactly what is supposed to happen, and if it doesn’t happen exactly that way, then you need an instant explanation or some resolution right that instant.” He wasn’t angry; in fact, he seemed calm. His tone wasn’t certain, it was more questioning, except that he knew that his pastor was groping for an answer.
Jake continued, “It’s my fault because I lack faith or it’s your fault because you didn’t call out the right demon. Maybe it is the congregation’s fault because there is doubt in the room. Of course it could always be the devil or one of his demons.”
“Jake,” the preacher tried to explain, “you’re just a baby Christian; you can’t possibly understand God’s ways.” He turned to me, “Tell him preacher.”
I am not a theologian. I have no degrees hanging on my walls. I do not have all of the answers, but I am a spirit-filled man of God. “God has never lost a battle, a skirmish, or a spat,” I began with determination. “One dark day the devil for a moment thought he was winning when they laid the body of Jesus in a borrowed tomb. But then Sunday dawned. Everything was still going according to plan.”
