Earlier this month, the Siegfried & Roy show in Las Vegas was brought to a dramatic close when a seven-year-old, white Bengal tiger attacked Roy and drug him off the stage before an audience of 1500 people. It was Roy’s 59th birthday, and shortly after introducing the Tiger, it bit Roy on the arm. When he hit the tiger with his microphone to back him off, the big cat grabbed him by the throat and dragged him off stage. Spectators were shocked and said that Roy looked like a rag doll as the tiger shook him and dragged him away. Roy was rushed to University Medical Center for emergency surgery after he suffered massive blood loss. Siegfried & Roy have been putting on their act in Vegas for 30 years. They should know tigers, but this one obviously surprised them. Siegfried tried to say that the tiger was protecting Roy, but the tiger did not grab him by the scruff of the neck, he grabbed him by the throat — an instinctive move to kill. Siegfried and Roy practically live with these animals. They tame them and train them. They become emotionally attached to them. But as someone pointed out, the older the tiger gets the more its instinctive wildness comes out.
I did a little research on the Internet and found that there have been several tiger attacks in the United States. At the Savage Kingdom in Sumter County, Florida, a Siberian tiger lunged at Vincent Lowe, the trainer as he was fixing a fence. When he tried to use a board to push the tiger back, it turned on him and crushed his neck and killed him.
One man living in a New York apartment raised a tiger from a cub until it got out of control. He eventually moved out of his own apartment and let the tiger take over. He would go once a day and throw in a raw chicken, but authorities learned of the captive tiger when the cat waited by the door and bit his owner.
In another tragic incident, Kerry Quinney had raised his pet tiger from birth. But when he placed his three-year-old step-grandson next to the tiger to take a picture, the tiger drug the child off and he later died in the hospital.
Since 1990, at least six adults and two children have been killed by tigers in the United States. More than 60 others have been seriously injured in tiger maulings. There are now three times as many tigers in captivity, and kept as pets, as there are in the wild.
Most of you are aware that we had tigers being kept in a home near our neighboring community of Gambier. I was talking to a business man in town this week who made a delivery to that home. The people who owned the home told him that they would be away, but told him he could just go in and leave the item they had purchased in their home. When he walked into the house he could see a lion and tiger on the glass enclosed patio. When the tiger saw him, it lunged in an attempt to get at him. The wall bulged and shook until he thought it would collapse. The stark terror he experienced that afternoon is not something he wants to go through again.
I’m saying all this to make a point. There are many people who invite some seemingly small sin into their lives because it looks so cute. It’s nothing all that big. It seems harmless enough until it begins to grow. It begins to roam your house until it becomes the biggest thing in your life. The wildness and ferocity of it finally comes out, until you realize that you are afraid of it. Finally you wake up to the fact that is controlling you, and has the power to bring you irreparable harm or destroy you. It can rip you to shreds. The Bible warns us: “Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8).
I want to begin this morning by making this first point: Never underestimate the power of sin. I think about those people who have taken a cute little tiger cub into their home. I have seen what a common cat is like as far as being in charge of a house, I can hardly imagine what a 500 pound tiger would be like. You would need a special room just for the litter box. If he starts to mark his territory you had better take cover. Imagine living every day with a tiger in your house.
Imagine living with some sin in your life that is roaming around in your life like a tiger. There are real messes because of it. Worse than that, there are dangers. And it is not only you that you have placed in danger, but the people you love. Partying started out as a lot of fun because there were plenty of other people doing it, and you became accepted. But now the addiction to drugs or alcohol have defined your life, and you are no longer in control. Sexual sin has you by the throat and has made you its slave, and perhaps even brought unwelcome disease into your life. You began to nurse a grudge, but now bitterness has taken over your life. You got your way by pouting a few times, but now you can’t stop complaining and trying to control people with your moods. It began as a friendship, progressed to flirting and ended in moral failure. You began being aggressive when you had to stand up for your rights, and now you trample the rights of other people by being abusive and domineering. You have become a rage-aholic. One little white lie led to another, then another, until now there is no way out, and you are not sure you know what the truth is yourself anymore. You never want to invite sin into your life no matter how small it is in the beginning.
The sin of Adam and Eve seemed so innocent and so simple — just going against what God said and tasting the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Such a seemingly simple thing, but an act that has malignantly affected the whole world. It immediately affected their children. Their firstborn was a son they named Cain, and the second son was Abel. Cain presented an offering to God that he knew was not what God had requested. He worked in the garden so he thought vegetables should do as a sacrifice, even though he knew God had asked for an animal sacrifice. When God did not accept his sacrifice he became angry and sullen. But God said to him, “If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it” (Genesis 4:7). But Cain did not master his anger, he welcomed the sin that was waiting to devour him. He killed his brother out of rage and jealousy, because his sacrifice was accepted by God. He did not take sin seriously, as his parents had not, and it sprang on him, grabbed him by the throat and drug him off.
The book of Proverbs talks about a young man who was led astray by a sexually loose woman. Here is how the writer describes the scene: “With persuasive words she led him astray; she seduced him with her smooth talk. All at once he followed her like an ox going to the slaughter, like a deer stepping into a noose till an arrow pierces his liver, like a bird darting into a snare, little knowing it will cost him his life.” (Proverbs 7:21-22).
I wish I could convince everyone here today that sin is nothing to be toyed with. Never open the door to it. It is not harmless. You cannot tame it. You cannot control it, even if you think you can. If you let it in, it will seriously harm you or destroy you. Even Christians sometimes think they can handle sin. They believe they can tame and train the tiger, but it ferociously turns on them. Part of the power of sin is its power to make you think you can handle it. You don’t take it seriously. You don’t think it will be a problem. Other people are stupid, and you only hear the bad things that happen. You think you will be different. And then one day you wake up and its jaws have clamped down around your throat. You are not controlling it; it is controlling you. When you sin against the kingdom, you sin against yourself — because it brings harm to you. You are not hurting God, as much as you are hurting yourself.
One of the surprises in the Star Wars films was that the evil Darth Vader was not always evil. Like Satan he used to be on the good side. He was a part of the light until he surrendered himself to the “dark side,” and followed the path to power through evil. The evil Vader was at one time a Jedi Knight. But now he has sunk so low that he tries to kill Luke, whom we learn is his own son. That is the reality and danger of sin. The good news is that God is able to deliver us, for the Bible says, “The Lord knows how to rescue godly men from trials” (2 Peter 2:9).
The second point is this: Don’t underestimate the power of God. We want to take sin seriously and realize its power and danger, but we do not want to be paranoid about sin. We do not want to begin to think of evil as more powerful than God. God is not only able to help us in the time of temptation, he is able to deliver us from the power and grip of sin.
To revisit Star Wars, when Luke is in a fight to the death with Darth Vader, Vader cuts off his hand. Luke is on the end of a plank high in the air, and is holding on for dear life. But suddenly he releases his grip and surrenders to the power of the “Force.” It is then that he is delivered — when he realizes he cannot win the battle by himself and must rely on the power of the Force alone. There are some people who find themselves in the same position as Luke at the end of the plank. It looks like it is the end for them — and it is, unless the let go and surrender to the power of God. He alone is able to deliver us. The Bible gives us this promise: “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it” (1 Corinthians 10:13).
As Christians, we have confidence in a God who is able to deliver us and give us victory over sin. We do not have to remain in it and wallow in it. The Bible says, “The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and will bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom. To him be glory for ever and ever” (2 Timothy 4:18). The apostle Paul knew what enslavement to sin was at one point in his life. In Romans 7 he lists how he had been taken captive by the wild beast of sin and literally yells out, “Who shall rescue me from this body of death?” The answer to his question is “Jesus Christ, our Lord.” It is Jesus who alone can deliver us from the power and ravages of sin.
In the film The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, we are introduced to a frightening creature named Gollum. He lives in the area known as Middle Earth and goes about with a croaking throat muttering. At one time he possessed the ring of power and it corrupted him with its evil. As the film, and the book, progresses we discover that Gollum is not so frightening as he is pathetic. It turns out that he once was a Hobbit named Smeagol, much like Bilbo Baggins, one of the heros of the story. But the ring corrupted him in mind, spirit and body. Now he is a little, slimy, twisted animal-like creature with haunted eyes and frog-like shape. His greed and sin have done this to him. But through the friendship and grace shown to him by Frodo, whom he now calls “Master,” a change begins to take place. At one point in the film Gollum becomes two persons arguing with himself: the old Gollum telling him that he is worthless and unlovable, and the new Gollum who refutes those arguments and refuses to believe them. It is a struggle, but Gollum finally says, “Go away! We don’t need you!” “What?” asks the old Gollum in disbelief. “Leave, and don’t come back!” the new Gollum says firmly. Suddenly the old Gollum is gone. He is free of his bondage. Gollum begins to jump and dance. “Gone! Gone! We told him to go away, and away he goes! Smeagol is free!” The same thing can happen to you when you say, "Leave and never come back. The Master is taking care of me now." The Bible says, “Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you” (James 4:7-8). (This scene begins at 1:13:44 and ends at 1:16:16.)
Here is the third point: Determine to live in freedom. It is interesting how this culture views the laws of God. They see them as bondage. And they see giving in to their desires as freedom, when actually the opposite is true. The book of Proverbs says, “The evil deeds of a wicked man ensnare him; the cords of his sin hold him fast” (Proverbs 5:22). Paul talked of those who led others into sin when he said, “For they mouth empty, boastful words and, by appealing to the lustful desires of sinful human nature, they entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error. They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity — for a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him” (2 Peter 2:18-19). It was Jesus who said, “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin” (John 8:34).
But it is God who delivers us from that slavery. The apostle Paul wrote: “Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey — whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin. . . . You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness” (Romans 6:16-18).
The Lord says to us, “Come now, let us reason together. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool” (Isaiah 1:18).
Some of you here may have tigers in your life. It does not have to be that way. You can be free by the grace and forgiveness and indwelling power of God. Embrace that freedom. Run to him. Paul talked about those who would, “come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will” (2 Timothy 2:26).
Many years ago, a Persian general had the strange custom of giving condemned criminals a choice between the firing squad and “the big, black door.” Once, when they captured a spy, the moment for execution drew near, and the spy was brought to the general. “What will it be,” asked the general, “the firing squad or ‘the big, black door’?” The spy thought for a long time. He did not know what terrors laid behind the black door. It could be torture of the worst kind. Finally he chose the firing squad. It was not long until shots ring out, and the condemned spy fell to the ground dead. The general turned to his aide and said, “They always prefer the known to the unknown. People fear what they don’t know. Yet, we gave him a choice.” “What lies beyond the big door?” the aide asked. “Freedom,” replied the general. “I’ve known only a few brave enough to take that door.”
God is wanting us to choose freedom and live in it, but many lack the courage to go there. They choose the familiar even though it means death. They know that what they are doing is destroying them, but they are familiar with that world. Freedom is a frightening thing, but don’t let that keep you from opening the door to it. Jesus said, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed” (Luke 4:18). The Bible says, “Do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace” (Romans 6:12-14).
Rodney J. Buchanan
October 26, 2003
Mulberry St. UMC
Mt. Vernon, OH
www.MulberryUMC.org
Rod.Buchanan@MulberryUMC.org
Tigers and Trainers
Questions for October 26, 2003
1. Why do some people treat dangerous animals as though they were Disney characters?
2. Why does this culture treat sin as though it does not matter, or even that it does not exist?
3. What do Christians sometimes think that they can handle a pet sin in their lives? Why is this naive and dangerous?
4. Read James 1:12-15. What is the natural progression of sin according to this verse?
5. Read Romans 6:12-14. How do we do what this scripture is telling us to do?
6. Could you live with a tiger in your home and ignore it? What happens when we invite a sin into our lives and it grows? Is it possible to ignore? Why do some people try?
7. Have you ever thought that you could handle something that you knew was wrong? What happened when that “harmless” sin was invited in?
8. Read 2 Peter 2:9. How does God do this?
9. Read 1 Corinthians 10:13. How do we take advantage of this?
10. Read Romans 6:16-18. Whose slave are you?
