Impostor - a person who practices deception under an assumed character, identity, or name.
Ferdinand Waldo Demara Jr
was a prison warden, a monk, a lawyer, a sheriff’s deputy, cancer researcher, teacher and a religiously-oriented psychologist, Died a Baptist Minister
Surgeon
- In reality he was actually none of those things.
- Just a great photographic memory
- Known as "The Great Imposter",
- Demara born in MA faked his way through life
- His most famous exploit was to masquerade as surgeon Joseph Cyr (sire) aboard the HMCS Cayuga, a Royal Canadian Navy destroyer, during the Korean War.
During his time as a surgeon on the Cayuga
- Demara performed surgeries
- Infections stopped with lots of penicillin.
- He performed surgery on 16 Korean’s
- Demara would disappear to his room with a textbook on general surgery and proceed to speed-read the type of surgery he was to perform, including major chest surgery.
- Amazingly, none of these patients died as a result of his surgery.
Ironically it was because of his skill as a surgeon that Demara was exposed. According to this article, the removal of a bullet from one wounded soilder made the papers, and when the mother of the real Dr Joseph Cyr read that her son, who operated a civilian practice, was now in the war, she rang him only to be assured by her son that he was indeed still in civilian practice. She then contacted the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and Demara was exposed for the fraud that he was.
His life and exploits would go on to inspire a movie and the name of a band. When asked to describe why he did what he did, Demara is said to have responded "Rascality, pure rascality."
Ferdinand Demara died in 1982.
The Great Impostor Lives On
This master of illusion has turned angels into demons, kings into animals, pastors into predators, and sheep into wolves
It can swagger with self-importance one minute before writhing in self-contempt the next.
He has hats for every occasion
Its closets are stuffed with masks of deception.
What I find troubling is that without realizing it I’ve walked, laughed, and cried with this impostor.
❶ THE IMPOSTOR’S DISGUISE
My exaggerated sense of self importance.
- In one word — PRIDE
- v. 8 - If we say we have no sin
- v.10 - If we say that we have not sinned
Blind Pride I’m OK, You’re OK - 1969 - Self help
– I’m OK I do not need to do anything
Arrogant Pride – I won’t be corrected or humbled
Protective Pride – I don’t think outside of my world, I don’t speak because I might be confronted I don’t act I might get hurt
- Quick to blame others
– I don’t want to be embarrassment or fail..
Vain Pride – How will I look? What do people think of me?
Procrastinating Pride – We can change anytime we want so we never change
Apathetic Pride – Being preoccupied with our own life With it’s problems and selfish delights
- No one else maters.
Moody Pride – Life is based on my feelings. My reaction to uncontrolled events in my life
Spiritual Pride – People see my outside but inside I am prayerless insensitive to the Word and undisciplined with my thought & walk
Pride is self-delusion.- Not seeing how we really are
- That we won’t bend.
- Humility is a bitter pill.
- Pride leads to self-destruction.
- Looking out and living only for me is sin
❷ THE IMPOSTER EXPOSED
What is so bad about sin?
- Sin is blatant rebellion against God
James 4:17KJV
17 Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.
- Sin is enticing it offers temporary rewards and pleasures.
- We are faced with choices.
- We need to consider the consequences of those choices.
- Sin is bad because it hurts.
- It produces suffering and pain.
- It separates friends and destroys relationships.
- It leads to violence, addiction and untimely death.
- It locks us in our own prisons of heartbreak, misery and fear.
- Good never comes from it
- Everyone is infected by it
- Romans 3:10KJV
10 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:
Romans 3:16-17KJV
16 Destruction and misery are in their ways: 17 And the way of peace have they not known:
Isaiah 59:2KJV
2 But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.
❸ THE IMPOSTER TRANSFORMED
v. 9
FIRST — Conviction - To believe
SECOND — Confess - Acknowledge, Admit
- To agree that I am a sinner
- Forgiveness hinges on our action of admitting our sins
THIRD — Obedience demonstrates the confession
1 John 1:7KJV
7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. - Faith needs to be real
- Obedience is the test of faith
Proverbs 28:13KJV
13 He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.
- Our confession brings restoration
Ps 32 — DAVID’S Freedom (Confession)
- Confession brings freedom
Paul Harvey share the following story on his radio program on the Saturday before Easter, March 30, 2002.
here once was a man named George Thomas, a pastor in a small New England town. One Easter Sunday morning he came to the church carrying a rusty, bent, old bird cage, and set it by the pulpit. Several eyebrows were raised and, as if in response, Pastor Thomas began to speak.
“I was walking through town yesterday when I saw a young boy coming toward me, swinging this bird cage. On the bottom of the cage were three little wild birds, shivering with cold and fright. I stopped the boy and asked, “What you got there son?”
“Just some old birds,” came the reply.
“What are you gonna do with them?” I asked.
“Take ‘em home and have fun with ‘em. I’m gonna tease ‘em and pull out their feathers to make ‘em fight. I’m gonna have a real good time.”
“But you’ll get tired of those birds sooner or later. What will you do then?”
“Oh, I got some cats. They like birds. I’ll take ‘em to them.”
The pastor was silent for a moment. “How much do you want for those birds, son?”
“Huh??!!! Why, you don’t want them birds, mister. They’re just plain old field birds. They don’t sing – they ain’t even pretty!”
“How much?” The boy sized up the pastor as if he were crazy and said,
“$10?”
The pastor reached in his pocket and took out a ten dollar bill. He placed it in the boy’s hand. In a flash, the boy was gone. The pastor picked up the cage and gently carried it to the end of the alley where there was a tree and a grassy spot. Setting the cage down, he opened the door, and by softly tapping the bars persuaded the birds out, setting them free.
Well, that explained the empty bird cage on the pulpit, and then the pastor began to tell this story.
One day Satan and Jesus were having a conversation. Satan had just come from the Garden of Eden, and he was gloating and boasting.
“Yes, sir, I just caught the world full of people down there. Set me a trap, used bait I knew they couldn’t resist. Got ‘em all!”
“What are you going to do with them?” Jesus asked.
“Oh, I’m gonna have fun! I’m gonna teach them how to marry and divorce each other. How to hate and abuse each other. How to drink and smoke and curse. How to invent guns and bombs and kill each other. I’m really gonna have fun!”
“And what will you do when you get done with them?” Jesus asked.
“Oh, I’ll kill ‘em.”
“How much do you want for them?”
“Oh, you don’t want those people. They ain’t no good. Why, you’ll take them and they’ll just hate you. They’ll spit on you, curse you and kill you!! You don’t want those people!!”
“How much?”
Satan looked at Jesus and sneered, “Your life.”
Jesus paid the price.
The pastor picked up the cage, opened the door and he walked from the pulpit.
