Forgiveness

The brazen serpent was a healing thing God sent
into the midst of the Israelites to be a means of
forgiving their idolatry.

I was watching "Jesus of Nazareth", and was struck by the fact that Jesus cast the demon out of the possessed man. He was glad to do it. Nobody else could have, nor was it the usual thing to happen in ordinary life.

Then I was struck by how unusual it was that anyone could address demons with such authority as to cast them headlong to the ground by the mere invocation of their name. No one did that sort of thing; it never happened.

We are in such times ourselves, and yet there is plenty of work for exorcists. Padre Pio is said to have cast out a demon from a woman. The man possessed by the demon was cut off from his fellow human beings by his misfortune the same as the woman whom Padre Pio freed.

Some such cases undoubtedly were cases of mental illness, but not all. There are many throughout history that we could say were possessed. Some led millions down into the pit of hell by their teachings and the political systems they invented. The years that have been wasted by such people, were marked by horrors and unspeakable acts.

Keep your mind and heart occupied; do not let them wander ungratefully and unnocupied or they will be full of insinuations of evil trying to separate you from Jesus.

If your thoughts are not fixed on Jesus they are not fixed on God, and are attracted by evil, and evil never has your best interests at heart.

If a man who loves alcohol gets his way, he will spend his time drinking instead of at least part time on jesus. If evil can arrange it, he will see to it that the man drinks his fill and then some, and falls ill or dies from his excess. The same is true of any other vice you can name.

If your mind wanders around unfocused, you need to focus it on something good. Do some good deed for a person, see that the hungry are fed, strike up a conversation with a loneley person. These things do not lead to sin, neither do they focus the heart and affections on Unruliness.

In all things we are capable of messing up the good deeds we try to do; it is a simple law of humanity that we are weak and ignorant and need the strength of God's love in our life to try to be like Him.

Surely if you try long enough, you will come across a moment you did good and you can be glad that you had something to show for your time on earth.

So if you are pastor, and have spent 12 years studying theology and philosophy and how to minister to your people, why should you hate forgiving their sins? If you at least were int he confessional absolving people of their sins, you have been doing something which pleases God and when you stand before Him as the Judge, you will be able to say :I forgave my people's sins".