Beauty And The Beast

Beauty and the Beast

Rom 7:15, Mat 27:26-31, Mat 25:40, Psa 51:5, Isa 53:6, Jer 17:9, Rom 3:10, 23, Heb 12:14

Pro 10:16, Isa 50:6, Gal 3:13,

January 15, 2003

I. I am sure that most you know the story of the beauty and the beast. I know that since my kids got the animated video that I know the story better than I ever did before.

A. But have you ever wondered what would have happened if the beauty had not come to the home of the beast?

B. There was a time when the beast was handsome, and his castle was a pleasant place, but that was before the curse fell on the home and the heart of the prince that would become the beast.

C. The curse came and the prince was made a beast. He had an ugly face and an even uglier attitude.

D. But when the girl came that changed. I wonder what would have happened if the beauty had not come to the beast.

E. Nobody would have blamed her if she hadn’t cared. I mean after all he was a beast!

F. But, she did care, and because she cared the beast became more like her, he became more beautiful.

G. I think this story hits close to home, because there is a beast in all of us. It wasn’t always that way.

H. There was a time when humans were completely beautiful inside and out, and the world was beautiful inside and out, but that was before the curse fell on the home and the heart of Adam.

I. And ever since that day all humans have been different. Since that day we have all had an ugly side, a beastly side, a defiant and angry self-centered side.

J. We do things that we know we shouldn’t do and then wonder why we did them.

K. I know that there is a beastly side of me, and it shows up from time to time.

L. Normally I am a pretty easy going guy, and a caring person. I love people and I want to help people, but there are times.

1. There are times when somebody cuts me off in traffic and the beast rears its ugly head.

2. Or the times when referees and umpires make bad calls and especially when it is obvious that they are intentionally making calls in the direction of one team, and the beast breaks through all my attempts to hold it back.

M. Normally I am a calm guy but for those few minutes I am the beast that lives in us all.

N. I don’t plan it, and I certainly don’t want to do it, but in a flash there it is,

II. There is no way that it can be said to be right, and I don’t know why it is those things that bring it out, and I wish I did, because I don’t want to do those things.

A. It doesn’t make it right in any way but it does make me feel a little better to know that even someone like the apostle Paul struggled with the same things.

(Rom 7:15 NIV) I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.

B. If you have ever felt like saying those words you are in good company.

1. Paul isn’t the only person in the bible that battled the beast.

2. As a matter of fact it is hard to find a place in scripture where the beast is not rearing its ugly head.

3. King Saul tried to stick a spear in Young David.

4. Shechem raped Dinah, and Dinah’s brothers, the sons of Jacob no less, went and murdered Shechem and his friends.

5. Lot sold out to Sodom, his daughters took what they learned there and got there dad drunk and had sex with him.

6. Herod killed all the babies in Bethlehem, and the list goes on and on.

7. But the evil of the same beast that lives in all of us was never seen as much as the day that Jesus died.

C. The disciples slept and then they ran, Herod wanted a show, and Pilate wanted out of it all, and soldiers wanted blood.

D. The bible says that they scourged Jesus. The whip that they used to whip Jesus was made of leather straps with lead balls or pieces of bone.

E. And the goal of it was simple. Beat the victim to within in and inch of death and then stop. Thirty-nine lashes were allowed but were seldom needed. One solider would watch the prisoner to make sure that they were not allowed to die,

F. The whipping was the first thing the soldiers did that day, the crucifixion was the third, and I skipped the second on purpose.