The Trojan Horse Of Heaven

THE TROJAN HORSE OF HEAVEN

INTRODUCTION

A. HUMOR

1. WELL WISHERS. For 98 percent of the students at the school where John Hyde’s wife teaches, English is a second language. But that didn't stop them from giving her Christmas cards. Still, their enthusiasm for the occasion sometimes exceeded their grasp of English. Among the many cards that flooded her desk were: "Happy Birthday, Grandma," "Get Well Soon," and "Congratulations on Passing Your Driving Test!" John Hyde

2. PUSHED THE WRONG BUTTON. Flying through the Midwest in the summertime means one thing: turbulence. I was working as a flight attendant on one particular flight when we hit a patch of very rough air just after a young teenager, obviously on her first flight, had entered the bathroom. After the bumps had subsided, she exited the bathroom, a look of sheer terror etched on her face.

"Are you all right?" I asked as I helped her to her seat. "That turbulence was as bad as it gets."

"So that's what it was," she said. "I thought I'd pushed the wrong button."

B. STORY OF THE TROJAN WAR

Around 1250 B.C., Paris, the Trojan prince, wrongly convinced the Greek Queen of Sparta, Helen, to leave her husband Menelaus, and sail with him back to Troy. The Greek city-states united to send a war party of 1,000 ships holding 50,000 Greeks to Troy. For 10 long years the Greeks battled the Trojans, but could not breach the walls of Troy. Finally, sensing they would never be able to enter Troy by force of arms, they decided to attempt to enter it by subterfuge. They built a large replica of a horse, the symbol of Troy. During the night all their ships withdrew, leaving behind only the great monument to Troy’s invincibility on the beach. The Trojans, elated at finally winning the 10 year conflict, triumphantly ushered the great statue into the city and celebrated. But late that night, Greek soldiers emerged from the horse and opened the city gates to the Greek army which had returned at sundown. They burned the city and killed its inhabitants and took Helen back to Menelaus. [Source: Homer's "The Iliad."]

C. THESIS

This story parallels what happened in redemptive history.

I. THE DREADFUL VICTORY OF THE PRINCE OF DARKNESS

A. CRUEL TRIUMPH IN THE GARDEN

1. Satan – a fallen angel who led an unsuccessful rebellion against God – tricked Adam & Eve into following him into disobedience and sin. They ended up trapped in the fortress of Death. This fortress was impregnable, like Troy, because "the sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law" (1 Corinthians 15:56). Sin passed to all men and death by sin.

2. By God's own law there was no escape from death for mankind. No amount of works could free us; no sacrifices could avail to atone for our transgressions. No angelic intervention could affect a change. It looked as if the Prince of Darkness had won a victory against God that could never be reversed. But God wasn’t done yet!

B. THE ONLY POSSIBLE SOLUTION

1. The only possible way to free us: Someone must get inside the fortress of Death and overthrow its power from within and then lead its prisoners out. But the only way to enter was by death!

2. And whoever was going to pull this off had to be someone far more powerful and perfect than humans; but God couldn’t do it, nor Angels, because they could not die. Paul outlined the resulting strategy; “For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man” 1 Cor. 15:21.

3. The writer of Hebrews tells us that God’s Son, Jesus, volunteered to take on a human body. Scripture says; “When Christ came into the world, he said: "Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me…” Heb. 10:5; “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us” John 1:14; “God was manifest in the flesh” 1 Tim. 3:16.

C. THE MOTIVE BEHIND GOD’S RESCUE

1. The most wonderful aspect of this story is God’s motive for deciding to do this: LOVE! “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” Rom. 5:6-8.

2. Since Jesus was God, He could live a sinless life and become the sin-bearer for an almost infinite amount of sins; as man, Christ could die and be able to infiltrate the stronghold of death for us. The Book of Hebrews says that Jesus “shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death” Heb. 2:14-15.