He Still Can & He Still Will!

Now, first let me tell you that I used to be a very faithful viewer to the original Mickey Mouse Club. I used to watch it every day. I knew all of them by name and I really enjoyed that program. Of course, I was only about 8 years old at the time, too.

Have you ever heard the expression, “Nothing is sacred anymore?” That is how I felt when I heard the following news story a few years ago.

One of the original mouseketeers, Billie Jean, sued Disneyland. Seems that at the age of 52, she took her grandchildren to Disneyland so they could enjoy the day at the amusement park. Everything went well, at least until they started to leave and go home.

If you have ever been there, you know that the parking lot is absolutely huge!

Well, she took her grandchildren and walked all the way out to where her car was, and then it happened. She was robbed – right there in Disneyland’s parking lot.

The security officers came and made sure they were all okay, and then took them all back in to the security office to fill out the appropriate paperwork. Now, up until now, everything was fine. But the reason she is suing them could have only happened in California.

While they were in the security office filling out paperwork, the Disney characters came in and got out of their costumes in sight of the grandchildren. And that is why she is suing her former employer.

In her lawsuit, Ms. Matay said that is how her young grandchildren learned that the characters were not real. And she said that was a cruel and harsh way for her grandchildren to come to grips with the reality that those characters were not real.

Well, it is my expressed feeling that all of us have to come to grips with reality at different points in our lives, and sometimes, it is not nice and easy to deal with! One of the hardest ways for us to come to grips with reality is when we try to understand that God actually is able and willing to help us in our times of need.

MARK 1:40-45 – [read]

In our text, we see several things this morning. First, the man with leprosy comes to Jesus and says,

“If You want to, You can make me well again.”

This man knew in his heart that Jesus could do it. At this point, Jesus’ popularity was soaring and there is no doubt that the leper head heard all kinds of stories about how Jesus healed the sick, calmed the storms, tamed demons and restores sight to the blind.

So, we can see that this man did, in fact, know Jesus had the power to heal him. However, it is also evident that this man did not know if Jesus would want to heal him.

Do people today believe that Jesus is able to do things for them? As sure as the non-believers are about everything to do with Jesus, polls still show that the majority of them confess that Jesus can do things. Of course, those same polls show that the majority of non-believers think Jesus is unwilling to do anything for them.

That is very sad, but there is something even sadder. Supposedly, the same poll taken among those who call themselves Christians, show almost the same percentage points that believe the exact same way. It is like people view Jesus as some kind of a little god who just doesn’t care about us.

In the last 25 years, the world has seen more inventions than all together in history before then. In addition to that, all of us are able to know what is happening all over the world within a few minutes of the occurrence, thanks to CNN and Fox News. I personally think that society in general is on absolute over-load.

We have been desensitized to the natural wonders of God. It seems that today, we try to forget about the Holy aspect of our God, or the ability He has to do whatever he wants – when He wants – and how He wants. To most people, that seems to make them feel too uncomfortable to think about.

So, I don’t think it is because people don’t believe in God anymore, but it’s just that they don’t believe that He’s too much of a God. He might have the ability to help them, but they don’t think He has the desire to help them. The biggest problem with that way of thinking is that we have just stopped depending on Him like we should be.

We have all kinds of new drugs on the market that help us feel better. Of course, if you listen to the commercials, the drug might help your arthritis, but it could also give you a heart attack or could even kill you. But, THANK GOD! It will at least make you ’feel’ better while it does all those things that hurt you! I am not saying medicine is bad, but I do think we should depend on God for the cure rather than these medicines for a ’quick fix’.