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.
G. We can’t fault the soldiers for these things because they were carrying out orders that they were given. They thing that is hard to understand is what they did in the middle of the other two.
H. Matthew gives us a description.
(Mat 27:26 - 31 NIV) Then he released Barabbas to them. But he had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified. Then the governor’s soldiers took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole company of soldiers around him. They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head. They put a staff in his right hand and knelt in front of him and mocked him. "Hail, king of the Jews!" they said. They spit on him, and took the staff and struck him on the head again and again. After they had mocked him, they took off the robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him away to crucify him.
III. The soldiers orders were simple. They were to take Jesus to the hill and crucify him, but they had another idea to amuse themselves. They wanted to have a little fun first.
A. These strong, rested, armed soldiers gathered around an exhausted, nearly dead man, and beat up on him.
B. The whipping was commanded, and so was the crucifixion, but who would think it was fun or get pleasure from spitting on and beating a half dead man.
C. You know spitting is not intended to hurt the body of someone. It is intended to degrade, to hurt the soul.
D. What the soldiers were doing was making themselves feel big at the expense of someone else that couldn’t defend himself.
E. They felt big by making Jesus look small. Have you ever done that?
F. You might not have spit on someone but have you ever gossiped? Have you ever tried to make someone look bad so you could look good?
G. Children and youth have you ever ganged up with others and made fun of someone at school, and made them feel less than you are?
H. Adults have you ever blasted your bright lights in someone’s rearview mirror who cut you off?
I. If you have, you have in a sense done what the soldiers did to Jesus. You have tried to make someone else feel bad so you could feel good, or tried to make someone else feel small so you could fell bigger, because that is what the soldiers did to Jesus.
J. And, when you do that to someone else you do it to Jesus too!
(Mat 25:40 NIV) "The King will reply, ’I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’
IV. We don’t like hearing that do we?
A. Well I don’t like saying it, because I am just as guilty as you are, but we have to face the fact that it is true, and we have to face the fact that there is something beastly inside all of us.
B. There is something beastly that makes us do things that surprises even us!
C. Have you ever said, "what got into me?"
D. The bible has a three letter answer for that question. SIN!
E. There is something bad, and beast-like that lives in all of us.
F. Its not that we can’t do good, because we do. It’s just at times it seems that we can’t keep from doing evil. But as Steve said last week the possibility is there, but it takes a lot of work and discipline not to do it.
G. The theological words for it are we have a "depraved nature."
H. We were made in God’s image, but we have fallen, and we have inherited the sinful nature of Adam, and somewhere inside us we are selfish and perverse.
I. King David said it well (Psa 51:5 NIV) Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
J. None of us can say anything less, the bible says it plainly.
(Isa 53:6 NIV) We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
(Jer 17:9 NIV) The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?
(Rom 3:10 NIV) As it is written: "There is no one righteous, not even one;
(Rom 3:23 NIV) for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
K. Oh but we try to disagree, we look around and say compared to so and so I’m ok.
L. And our culture tries to say I’m OK, your ok, and we all try to ignore the fact that we are not ok.
M. But you know a pig could look at all the other pigs in the pig pen and say I’m as clean as anyone else here too.
N. But the standard for cleanliness is not found in the pig pen of Earth, but in the throne room of heaven.
O. God is the standard that we have to measure ourselves by, and compared to him we are all dirty.
P. We have a definite problem we are sinners and the wages of sin is death.
Q. We are not holy, and (Heb 12:14 NIV) says, Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.
R. We are evil and evil is paid with punishment (Prov 10:16 NIV) The wages of the righteous bring them life, but the income of the wicked brings them punishment.
V. Before you think we are without hope, lets look at something else. Jesus carried a cross to Calvary, but he carried something else too.
A. Along with the Cross and mixed with his own blood Jesus also carried the spit of the soldiers to Calvary.
B. Through the prophet Isaiah God tells us, (Isa 50:6 NIV) I offered my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard; I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting.
C. Jesus was offered wine for his throat, but he was never offered a towel to wipe the spit from his face, and he carried that spit to the Cross.
D. Simon carried his cross the rest of the way but he didn’t wipe Jesus’ face.
E. The angels were one word from Jesus away, but they didn’t remove the spit of the soldiers.
F. The one who chose to go to the Cross, also chose to take the spit of the soldiers there.
G. The spit, the thing that represented the beast in them also represents the beast in us.
H. The spit on his face represented the beast that lives in the hearts of all humans, and he carried it to die on the Cross with him.
I. Why? Why would Jesus do that? Could it be that like the beauty in the beauty and the beast, he saw the beauty in the beast?
VI. In the story of the beauty and the beast, in the end the beauty kisses the beast and the beauty that was inside was allowed to get out.
A. In the bible the beauty (Jesus) does more. He became the beast so the beast could become the beauty.
B. Jesus changed places with us. Just like Adam we were under a curse of sin, but (Gal 3:13 NIV) Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree."
C. That means two things:
1. First it means that if we will accept the Gift of salvation Through Jesus’ death on the Cross we are relieved of the curse of sin.
2. But, it also means that there is no other way. It is only because Jesus came and became sin for us that we can be right with God, and if you have not humbled yourself to the point that you are willing to accept that gift there is no hope for you become right with God on your own terms. It is His way or no way.
3. And it also means that because we have been given such a great gift that we are to do every thing within our power keep the beast down, and show people the beauty of what Jesus has done in our lives so that they can see that being a Christian does mean something, so that they can realize that there is a way for them to find the beauty that lives in them.
4. I hope that you have accepted Jesus as the only way that you can be right with God, so that Jesus can help you find the beauty in you.
