The Charge Of The Church

We Need To talk! I want to chat with you from the subject “The Charge of the Church.” The Scripture upon which I base my argument is penned by John Mark in his Gospel Narrative: Mark 5:17-20.

In that second stanza of Charles Wesley’s hymn “A Charge to Keep I Have,” he wrote: “To serve the present age, My calling to fulfill…” I submit to us that the Calling the Church must fulfill is “To serve the present age.” There is no need of you looking back in nostalgia to yesterday; that age has gone. There is no need of you looking forward in expectancy to tomorrow; that age has not yet arrived. Your Calling is to serve the present age. And Wesley saw the awesomeness of that task and he added: “O may it all my powers engage To do my Master’s will!” And I believe one reason why Wesley pleaded that all his powers would be engaged to do his Master’s will was because he realized that there was a Boogie Man Factor involved in the equation!

Wesley recognized that WE ALL HAVE PHOBIAS, FEARS, APPREHENSIONS: SOMETHING OR SOMEONE OF WHOM WE ARE AFRAID. And if we don’t deal with that Fear, we will be Hindered from Fulfilling Our Calling! And so, I submit to us that WE ALL HAVE A BOOGIE MAN! All of us have something or someone that Spooks Us! That causes the nappy hair on our heads to stand up straight and our bad feet to run! I suggest that ALL OF US HAVE A BOOGIE MAN!

For the most part, all of us at some point shall have to face some fear or phobia. We all have our Boogie Man who would stupefy us into a terrified panic-stricken rage. Something in life will almost scare you to death. It might be just a visit to the doctor’s office and some tests run. And the time you wait for the results to come back can scare you to death, especially if they are looking for something that can be terminal. Or it could be the shut down of corporations in downsizing and your job is at stake, and you got the house note, the car note and children are in college and you need the job badly. And the news comes down that your company has been bought by a mega company, and they are going to lay off employees, and you might be on their hit list; it can scare you to death!

I remember when my older son, Norris II, was younger that he was afraid of the dark. Something had spooked him at night that caused him to want to sleep with the light on. He had seen or heard something outside his window at night which had given him a fear of the dark. Even though sometimes I would stand outside his door until he had fallen asleep and had tried to show him there was nothing to fear, his fear was still not dispelled.

Some of us are dealing with a Boogie Man outside the window of our mind. He spooks us! Now, you might as well come clean up in here and confess that you have a Boogie Man! You might as well own up to the fact that something or someone still scares you! I know what you are thinking. You are saying that God has not given us the spirit of fear. And you would be correct. But, as long as you live in the flesh, it is also true that you are subject to Fear, to some Phobia, to some Boogie Man.

And the reason why I sat that all of us have a Boogie Man is because of what is contained within the context of our Text. There was a man who was dealing with some serious issues: he was demonized. He was battling with over 6,000 demons at one time. And more often than not, he would lose the fight and come under the control of this legion of Boogie Men.

They frightened, even terrified him to the point in which he developed suicidal and homicidal tendencies. For John Mark records in verse 5 that night and day he experienced bouts of depression in which he spent time crying, even cutting himself with stones. He was spooked into trying to commit suicide. And so, in order to keep him from doing harm to others, the town folk chained him.

(And let me add here parenthetically that if the church isn’t careful, it will result to carnal means trying to deal with a spiritual problem. Sometimes, we result to physical force and violence trying to combat and control demonic activity. We lay hands on folk, render blows and “throw down” as a reaction to satanic activity, not realizing that we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against demonic powers and satanic influence. And so, the Charge of the Church is to use Supernatural Means in dealing with our Boogie Man!!) This man was spooked into living in the mountains and hanging out among the tombs of the dead.