Tombs and tattoos

(new article this evening for sure)

“I have been to Egypt about ten times, and I never stop being amazed and falling in love with it all over again,” Marcia Gordon, award-winning tour operator, is quoted telling Architectural Digest in an article published yesterday on Yahoo News.

“I love the fact that this is the only place in the world I know of where you can you see the physical evidence of the development of a culture over a period of more than 3,000 years: the development of pyramids, the transition to tombs, the development of hieroglyphics, of tomb drawings, of a sophisticated religion with a panoply of gods, and goddesses each with their own stories and personalities, the dramas of the royal families and shifts in power. And all this takes place in hauntingly beautiful edifices, many of them built to honor a spiritual connection, and I feel that connection even today."

*****

The 'maniac of Gadara' had abandoned his home and gone to dwell among the places that made him feel comfortable; the tombs.

Luke 8:27 says that when Jesus Christ “went forth to land, there met him out of the city a certain man, which had devils long time, and ware no clothes, neither abode in any house, but in the tombs.”

“Just so you understand why he does what he does—that he didn’t just make up all this stuff out of nowhere--God says in Isaiah 65, [2] I have spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people, which walketh in a way that was not good, after their own thoughts;

[3] A people that provoketh me to anger continually to my face; that sacrificeth in gardens, and burneth incense upon altars of brick;
[4] Which remain among the graves, and lodge in the monuments, which eat swine's flesh, and broth of abominable things is in their vessels;
[5] Which say, Stand by thyself, come not near to me; for I am holier than thou. These are a smoke in my nose, a fire that burneth all the day.

“You know what that is? That’s Baal worship. What’s this guy doing? He’s the picture of Israel captured by the Baal worship. 

“Mark 5:5 says of the maniac: [5] And always, night and day, he was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones.

"Write down by that verse II Kings 15:4: [4] ‘Save that the high places were not removed: the people sacrificed and burnt incense still on the high places.’

“That’s what Baal worship worships. In Genesis 11, they’re going to build a tower. They go up and worship on the high mountains and the high places. Why? They’re worshipping ‘the host of heaven.’ 

“That’s why God told Israel, ‘Don’t have the groves; don’t worship on the high places.’ Go around town today and see all the churches with steeples on them. That’s just another form of the Tower of Babel.

“The man was in the mountains because that’s where the Baal worshippers were worshipping. Jeremiah 13:16: [16] Give glory to the LORD your God, before he cause darkness, and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains, and, while ye look for light, he turn it into the shadow of death, and make it gross darkness.’

“There’s truth and then there’s the darkness worshipping the captivity that produces death. So the guy’s up there on the dark mountain worshipping and he’s in the tomb, cutting himself with stones.

“ ‘Cutting himself’—boy, we could spend a whole study on that. Bloodletting is the marks and tattoos of Baal worship.

“All through your Bible you find Baal worship is associated with marking your body, painting on your body and cutting it. Listen to me, tattoos--you ought to write down Leviticus 19:28 when God told Israel, 'Don’t be cutting on your body; don’t be printing things on your body!'

“You go back to Elijah in Carmel in I Kings 18 and the prophets of Baal were cutting themselves; flagellation. You see that in religion today. People beating themselves. You see the Opus Dei with the apparatus they put on their leg to cut themselves and the masochism with that. The life of the flesh is where? In the blood.

“There’s an epidemic today of young people cutting themselves. What is that? That’s what this is. It’s trying to control your own redemption and atone for your own sin and make it up for yourself.

"It’s trying to inoculate yourself from your sin. It’s trying to have an artificial identity where you’re able to tolerate the pain and you can show your strength. It’s trying to gain on your own all the things that you could have in Christ as a free gift.

“That bloodletting, marking your body; this guy from Gadara’s doing every bit of that.  He was a demonstration of the captivity that the nation; the horror of great darkness that the world resides in, that now had taken over Israel. My point to you is that’s a description of the horror that comes into your life and into your culture when darkness takes over, and it engulfed Israel.

*****

“Mark 5:6: [6] But when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped him.’ I love that! What?! That’s ecumenicalism. They’ll put Jesus in the crowd with everybody else; just leave everybody else there. Syncretism. Israel did that. In II Kings 17, they worshipped Baal and served the Lord.

“This guy thinks he can do that. Verse 7: ‘And cried with a loud voice, and said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the most high God? I adjure thee by God, that thou torment me not.’

“He knows who Jesus is but it’s just, ‘What have I got to do with you?!’ He’s saying, ‘Hey dude, you’re in the wrong neighborhood! You don’t belong here!’

“He’s saying, ‘Leave me alone!’ This dude’s not looking for deliverance. He’s saying, ‘You showed up—I don’t want what you’re offering!’

“Verse 8: ‘For he said unto him, Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit.’ So Jesus throws the demon out. Now notice what happens verse 15: ‘And they come to Jesus, and see him that was possessed with the devil, and had the legion, sitting, and clothed, and in his right mind: and they were afraid.’

“You know what you look like when you don’t have the horror of great darkness controlling you? Sitting; you’ve got peace, inner tranquility and order in life. The inability to think rationally is gone, replaced by truth.

“Notice it says in verse 17, ‘And they began to pray him to depart out of their coasts.’ They didn’t like to have Jesus Christ around.

“The man (formerly the maniac of Gadara), on the other hand, wants to go with Jesus. In verse 18, it says, ‘And when he was come into the ship, he that had been possessed with the devil prayed him that he might be with him.’

“You know what happens when you get into the light? You want to be in the light. You can do a lot of things with that verse. When you’re in the light you don’t have to be talked into coming to Bible study, or being in the Book, or having an appetite for God’s Word and to want to pray and talk to God about the details of your life, getting involved in the ministry.

“Verse 19: ‘Howbeit Jesus suffered him not, but saith unto him, Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee.’

“I love that. Here’s a guy who’d made his home living among the tombs and Jesus says, ‘Go home to thy friends and tell them.’ He’s saying, ‘Go get with the program now. Go home and tell and show what great things the Lord’s done.’

"I read that and say, ‘Boy, that’s a great conclusion! Living in the horror of great darkness is not the necessary end of our life. It wasn’t the necessary end of Israel. They had the opportunity to choose life.’ ”