Nothing Shall Hurt You Series

Theme: NOTHING SHALL HURT YOU

Text: Luke 10:17-24

Luke 10:19. “BEHOLD I GIVE UNTO YOU POWER TO TREAD ON SERPENTS AND SCORPIONS AND OVER ALL THE POWER OF THE ENEMY; NOTHING SHALL BY ANY MEANS HURT YOU”.

This verse has three important words: Serpents, Scorpions and Enemy; Power and No Hurt. Let me leave with you three themes with you.

1. ADVERSARY

Who is an adversary or enemy? In a given battlefield, identifying an enemy is crucial. Failing to identify an enemy in full can cause to fall victim of an ambush because not able to see them coming. Misidentifying the enemy could also cause a tragic friendly-fire incident, where we may mistake an innocent person, or even a member of our own team, as an adversary.

Can we say all those who do not profess our faith? Are Jews, Muslims, Hindus or Jains or Buddhists or atheist or scientist or ...? Are all those who do not worship with Methodist church?

Illustration: The Secret to Having No Enemies

A pastor preached on "Forgive Your Enemies". After a long sermon, he asked how many were willing to forgive your enemies. About half held up their hands. He was not satisfied so he continued for another twenty minutes and asked how are willing to forgive. The response was 80%. Still unsatisfied, he lectured for another 15 minutes and repeated the question. All responded except an elderly woman of 87 yrs old. Pastor asked the "Why are you not willing to forgive your enemies?". She said "I don't have any" Said the old lady. Pastor said ‘its very unusual. Please come and tell the congregation how a person can live long even without an enemy in the world." She said: "It's easy, go away from them".

Jesus Christ clearly established SATAN as our Enemy. We have enemies within and outside, enemies are invisible and visible. Jesus also affirmed that the enemy has powers. The word all the power of the enemy is very strong and powerful word expressed by Jesus Christ.

Powers of the enemy:

Our invisible and inner enemies are Lusts of the eyes, Lust of the flesh and Pride of the Life (1 John 2:16). They are our enemies within. Attraction towards riches, wealth is unavoidable but beware of covetousness, for man’s life consists not in the abundance of things which he possesses (Luke 12:14). The world teaches to ease, eat, drink and be merry, which are foolish acts according to Jesus’ teaching (Luke 12:19-20). Power of the enemy is to make you worldly and make you to forget the kingdom of God (Luke 12:36,40).

The invisible outer enemy is Satan: Satan bounds anybody with his power in the form of sickness (Luke. 13:16). Satan steals the salvation, steals the word of God, steals holiness, and steals relationship enjoyed with God. He shows illusions and creates confusions in the heart of the believers. Satan was author of first lie and a murderer from the beginning (John 8:44). Satan shoots relentless, fiery darts at Christians and wants to chew them up like a hungry Lion (1 Peter 5:8).

Apart from the above invisible internal and external enemies, Jesus Christ taught his disciples about the visible enemies to the Gospel work.

Snakes-Scorpions and Powers:

Snakes have poisons on head mostly. The Scorpions have venom on their stings. Scorpions have eight feet, eight eyes and a powerful sting at the tail. Jesus refers the snakes with Pharisees and Scribes in Mathew 233:31,33 and John the Baptist in Mathew 3:7 calls them as Children of the Vipers. These reptiles refers to the crafty men with malicious mind but moving with you as innocent.

The Snakes and Scorpions are symbolic expressions of our day today struggles and problems; it may refer to the frontal and posterior attacks of the enemies. Some attacks may cause greater damages and some attacks may give lesser effects. Powers of the snakes and scorpions means authority, order, and majority, claims of seniority, popularity and familiarity. Don’t worry about all those things. God is greater than all those things. God can overturn everything in a twinkle of an eye.

The snakes can be interpreted as equivalent to our cruel bosses and people who are above us in our profession. Our team leaders, our section officers, our supervisors, etc, The Scorpions can be interpreted as equivalent to our office assistants, our subordinates, and people at lower cadres. Often we struggle either with snakes or scorpions.

Jews and Christians faced powerful people in the History. Where are those powerful pharaohs of Egypt, Brutal Roman Emperors, heartless Adolf Hitler? What happened to the enemies of Mordecai and Daniel? Just in an overnight things have changed, their powers had gone they are dead and lie on the graves.

Illustration: I had a scorpion sting when I was 11 years old. The poison lasted for few days. Then I had to consume the bitter leaves to remove the poison from my blood.