The Consummate Jailor

The title of today's sermon is The Consummate Jailer. The Consummate Jailer. Would you make a good jailer? Had a friend of mine for many years. Worked as a jailer in a prison for over 20 years. Contacted me at one time because he was tired of being a jailer. And he was tired of, as he said, always having to watch your back.

Keep your head on a swivel as he was taking care of men and putting them in cells and so forth like this. Which made me think I don't know that I'd want to be a jailer for a profession. But maybe you are and you don't know it. And you must ask the question, are you a good jailer? Are you a good jailer? Would you make a good guard?

My grandfather, who died when I was 12 years old, but I was able to spend some time with him. He was a veteran of World War II. His name was Don Watts. My mother's father, and he would tell me the stories of World War II. He was 27 years old when he went in. It was towards the end of the war.

He had two little girls at home. But they were running out of men, so they drafted him. He wasn't served. He went in in 1944 towards the end and was there when it was actually over. But because he was older than most men, he got the job of being an MP when he was in England.

Military police. He told this story. He said, you know, I wasn't a very big man. He was in his 5'6", 5'7". I definitely didn't get my height from that side. He was a quiet man. So he said, I really don't know why they put me as an MP.

But one night he got a call that said, we need you to go down to this bar near the base because some soldiers are causing a ruckus tearing up the place. So he went down and he went in and found one individual causing most of the problems. He recognized the individual not only because he was recognizable, but because when he went up to him, the guy was only like 5'2 with shoes on. That man was Mickey Rooney. I don't know if you many of you older ones will know Mickey Rooney from being a movie star and TV star and being married like 10 times, I guess.

But when he arrested Mickey Rooney, he took him back to the cell where he was going to put him in and he handed his paperwork there. And so his bosses told my grandfather, well, you better go sit with him. You better go look after him because the war is pretty much over. He's a star and something happened to him. Somebody would pick on him. We would hear about it. And everybody would hear about it. To which my grandfather said, you have to worry about him picking on everybody else.

He was the start of all the fights in the bar. So my grandfather then had to stay with him the rest of the evening until somebody came and got him out. My grandfather had to be a jailer. We have experienced the last seven days of Unleavened Bread. And for seven days, we have had experience being jailers, whether you realized it or not. At least that was the attempt to be jailers. So were you a consummate jailer for the last seven days?

Are you prepared to continue that job after Sunset Tonight? Are you prepared to continue to be a consummate jailer next week and the week after? I bring this out because Paul gives us an incredible verse. I'm going to tell you part of the verse. And it's in 2 Corinthians 10, verse 5.

2 Corinthians 10 and verse 5 from the New King James. It says, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. That doesn't sound like an easy job. To me, the good news translation says that we are to take every thought captive and make it obey Christ. Tough job! It's interesting. Paul's word, captivity, comes from the Greek word, the root word of the Greek meaning captive.

And it means to what? To lock up, to imprison, to confine, and to another detain behind bars. He's talking about our thoughts. Bring every thought into captivity. That is a full-time job for most of us. Maybe it's not a problem to you, but I have found during the last seven days, my thoughts went around wild. My thoughts want to go where they want to go.

Maybe it's a bad thought here. Maybe it's like, whoa, rain that in over there. Maybe it's, mmm, feel a little heat.

Almost everything you could think of in the last seven days, I've had to think about and bring these thoughts into captivity. Which, if that is what Paul was talking about to the Corinthians, and we'll look at that just a little bit, but he's also it's preserved for us today. Now, think about it. If he wrote these words 1970 years ago or so, then did they have as much going through their thoughts as we do? More simplified life, but look what we have. Stuff coming at us, and you want more stuff. Look at your phone. Look what can come get you. Look what enticed you. Look at those thoughts, those waves going all through us, aren't they? So, if it was important 1970-odd years ago there, I, wow, I think it's probably important. Just as important for us, or more important for us today. At least I feel that way. Maybe you guys are just such consummate jailers, that you have everything under control, and you have every thought under control. You have it all. I hope you do, but it didn't happen at 554 Natura Avenue in Deerfield Beach. I don't think she's the perfect jailer yet. I know I find that out, but when Paul says that, bring every thought in captivity about locking it up in prison, confine, he came behind my mark, begs the question only you can answer, how good of a jailer were you for the last seven days? Because you had a chance to concentrate, and you had a reminder every day about sin, when you took that bland, flat, sometimes tasteless, unleavened bread. So it was hard to escape if you had it, as we tried to do every single morning, first thing more we got up, remind them.

So, were you a good one?

And I use the word consomant, which means not only proficient, but actually supreme.

Ultimate. It's defined as showing of a high degree of skill or flair. Complete, or as the other definition, perfect. Hmm. My friend who was there as a guard in prison all those years told me that you had to go in every day and realize one mistake, and you are in serious trouble. You let one thing slip through your mind, you let one thing slip past your eyes, and you may not be going home.

Well, that's a pretty dangerous job.

How dangerous is a job that Paul or Christ has given to us here, to bring every thought into captivity? It's a pretty important job for us, or it should be.

Paul also brings to light in Galatians 5.22, right? At the age of 5.22, the fruits of the spirit, love, joy, peace, goodness, kindness, generous, long stuff. But the very last one, the ninth one, may be the hardest of all the fruits to show. Right? The ninth is self-control. Self-control. Anybody master a day yet? I think some of us have in some areas, but overall, I don't know that I have self-control.

It's something that I definitely need to work at.

I need more control. You?

I needed the days of unleavened bread to remind me. You?

I need more control. The self-control is talked about often because it probably needs to be talked about often.

There is a religious writer named Chuck O'Churro Swindoll. He wrote a book. I read the book probably 15 years ago. A very good book. He wrote the book on the life of Joseph. The life of Joseph from the Bible. I would recommend the book. It's extremely well-written and well-researched. You'll find it very, very interesting. The way he puts it, the way he tells a story.

But he writes the book because he had written those about Paul. He had written other books about other people. I found his writing on Paul to be tedious. I found this so very interesting because he so admires Joseph because this young man is 17 years old. He had it all. Paul's mind was incredibly sharp. If you study and see everything about it, he was a mathematical genius. He had good looks. The Bible even says so. He was smarter than all his older brothers. The Bible even says so. He was extremely confident. The Bible says so.

And the one thing that he was was he had a relationship with God that no matter how good or bad the day was, God was still in his life. No matter where he was, God was still front and center.

When no family would ever see him, what he would do if he wanted to do something wrong didn't matter. He knew his God was watching.

He was unique as a young man that even when he was tempted, he turned away. When he was threatened, he followed God. He kept a relationship with God no matter what happened.

There was a song many years ago, I don't know who, I just remember hearing it, House of the Rising Sun. The animals, okay. And it talked about young men headed down to the House of the Rising Sun, House of the Old Repute. I take it.

Ruined a many poor boy, as I said.

But you see, Joseph was not of that caliber. He was a young man, and as he grew older, he still had those standards. But I so remember Swindoll in his book had this classic line that I used time and time again, as he described him. He described this incredible young man who had every physical attribute and spiritual attributes to match. And he said, not many men can carry a full cup.

As he described him, not many men can carry a full cup, but Joseph could. We have seen that through the years. When you are given in this country incredible wealth, prestige, honor, even glory, my people.

Not a lot of young men can carry a full cup. Tiger Woods had it all.

Good-looking guy. Incredible athlete. Beautiful wife.

And what happened? We know the stories of a Michael Jackson, a Whitney Houston, who had it all, but couldn't carry a full cup. I think of Philip Seymour Hoffman, incredible actor, one of the best, one of the greatest actors of my time, nominated for an Oscar many times. He's been in so many movies, you would even forget him. He could disappear and then come back in. He had it all. And he ended up dying of an overdose in a hotel room in New York.

Not just men, but as women. Self-control is a problem.

With men, I think they sometimes are we. Let it get out of control too fast. Because we sometimes have a thing. We can handle it. I can handle it. I've got this.

Do we?

I always remember one of my favorite movies, a classic movie, Casablanca. Casablanca. It was Humphrey Bogard as Rick.

There was Louis as the corrupt police captain.

And the captain was always wanting to find some young girl in a bind he could take advantage of. And in the movie, he comes to this young lady who and her and her husband are trying to escape the Nazis.

And so she knows that there will be death if they don't leave, so she's willing to make a deal to get a pass from Louis the inspector without her husband knowing it. A favor, you might say. And she comes and asks Rick, being she liked him, trust him. She said, well, will Louis keep his word? He said, yes, he's known to keep his word. And then she asked that poignant question that hangs in the air in the movie. She said, what kind of man is he? What kind of man is he? To which Rick says those words, he's like any other man, but more so. Like any other man, but more so. That describes men with no self-control. It should remind us, are we the jailers? Do we have that self-control?

The word self-control in the Greek is the word in kratia. In kratia.

Mentioned quite a few times in Scripture.

But it comes from the root word kratos, which has a meaning of strength or might, often related to the word dominion. And when you put the prefix en on it, it personalizes that word in Greek. So in kratia is the ability to have dominion over one's impulses or desires. The ability to have dominion over our impulses and our desires. Pretty big. Because you see Paul understood, and he's trying to get the church at Corinth to understand, and hopefully for us to understand, when we exercise this discipline called self-control, we prevent desire from becoming our dictator.

Because it will. It can. People get themselves into trouble financially because of what? No self-control. I want it! Oh, it looks so good! Wouldn't I look good in that car? Oh, I gotta have that dress! What about those shoes?

The desire to eat, as Dwight was showing all that food, that salmon, that steak. Why do we have health problems? We eat too much?

Self-control! No self-control. Right? I've been there, done that, and probably will do it again.

Because I need to exercise the self-control.

Do we want desire to be our dictator?

Too many times in the world it is.

Paul wrote this letter to the Corinthians. In 1 Corinthians, he addressed the problems that are there, and they had problems in the church. And he worked with them, and worked with them.

Between the first and second letters, they got the church in pretty good shape. They changed, they repented, they did all this stuff. And he's kind of excited about the church now. But see, he knew what was in Corinth. He knew that it was a struggle, and it was going to be a struggle, because Corinth's brethren lived in a very worldly society. They were affected by the world around them. And by the time he had worked on these problems that they had in the first chapter, first book that he wrote, first letter, he realized then, okay, now we need to address what is problems and issues. How do we keep from going back to where they were? How do we, brethren, keep from going back to where we once were, with no self-control, no real discipline?

He realized that they must, 2 Corinthians 10.5, they must, as a church, bring every thought into captivity, to the obedience of Christ. Well, first they had to know, and if we're going to do it, we need to what? Know how Christ lived. Know what He asked. We need the Bible. We need to dig. We need to read. Every day!

Corinth was a port city at its peak of around 400,000 people. That's a big church. That was a big back then, big area.

This is a drawing of it, as you can see, that had walls, had a big hill, or mountain behind it. And because it was a port city, all these boats would come in. It was a big shipping area. It was a big trade area. It was a very prosperous city.

Only thing was, it was a very pagan city. Yet God had His church in this pagan city. And now they must overcome. And Paul is telling them, unless you have great self-control, unless you bring every thought into captivity, this church is going to have problems. And I can say that today here, as we sit between Fort Lauderdale and Miami.

The writers in the fourth and fifth century described this city of Corinth as a city of commercial love. Commercial love.

To call a girl, well, she's a Corinthian. That's a Corinthian girl, phrase they used, meant she was a prostitute.

On top of this hill, here, was the temple of Aphrodite, the goddess of love.

And this temple, with this road that went up here, this street path, led up to the temple to go and worship for the majority in Corinth. And those who would go to Corinth to Corinthanize, as they would say at the time, sailors would get off their ships after three, four, six months at sea.

What was interesting is this hill is 1800 feet up from sea level from here. 1800 feet.

And it was said there were a thousand steps from right here up to the temple. And they would actually refer to a thousand steps to a thousand prostitutes. That is what the temple of Aphrodite was all about. Had a thousand temple prostitutes. Most women, but there were some men, in case you decided that way.

And they would come up, people would come up and come into the city and make their way up the hill to worship Aphrodite. And the fertility rites that came with that.

Now, I bring this up because that was their type of worship.

And worship could go on all the time because, you see, up here, every time someone came into worship, a bell or a cymbal would be sounded. On a Sabbath like today. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding!

Everybody knew what it meant. Ships would come in, it's a busy day. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Is that why Paul later talked about a clanging cymbal?

He knew. He knew. He knew. That the worry was that the church would not only become affected, it would become infected.

Without bringing every thought into captivity.

It's something we should worry about.

In Corinth, Paul, knew he had a growing church.

And how was he going to bring people in to this church and teach them God's way when this was their way? This was accepted!

That's a tough, tough deal! When the whole city has been built around this and shipping in regular New Orleans or Las Vegas. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. What happens in Corinth. They didn't care whether it stayed in Corinth.

Brother, are we any different? And how is it when somebody decides, and I know because I get a call from people and I talk to them and so forth, when they are coming out of this world? Or we might say even out of Egypt. And they want a different way of life.

And sometimes there's a lot of baggage.

A lot of problems, a lot of issues. What Christ said, with God, all things are possible. That's why this city grew.

The church grew. And brethren, this one needs to grow. Even though we're in a very worldly area down here.

If you live down here all your life, you don't realize just how different it is in other parts of the country.

Are we the worst? No. But I so remember, and I'm not definitely not, I love this area down here, I'm definitely not complaining or comparing it to Nashville, where I was originally from. But I so remember when Nashville tightened, but the football team in, and they had the stadium built. And this big, huge, really nice stadium. And so then they applied for the Super Bowl. So, well, hey, you know, it's not that cold in January. Maybe we could have a Super Bowl, and they applied. So the NFL sent men down to check the city out to see if they could have it. But they said no. One major reason. There were not enough gentlemen's clubs and strip bars in Nashville, Tennessee, to handle all the people coming in. Wow. That's a true fact.

Miami got that problem? No.

I see our people know they're territorial.

Yeah.

Worldly people marry worldly people when you get more worldly people. Converted people marry converted people. You're supposed to get more converted people. Luke-worn people hang around Luke-worn people. You're going to get a lot of Luke-worn people. Godly people hang around godly people, and you should be getting more godly people. It's not a hard combination to put together.

Captivity. Every thought. Every single thought.

It's tough. We have to leave here, don't we? We have to leave here after today. It's a holy day, high day. And pretty soon we'll get back to eating fat bread, thick bread.

Won't think anything about it, but will we have learned how to be a good jailer during this time?

See, it's important. It's very serious.

A few years ago in Canada, a woman and her son, two and a half year old son, she had a job she couldn't afford much, so she got a little apartment, a little small apartment above a pet store. You can kind of see where this is going.

And so what happened? One of the big snakes, Python, got out of its cage, and it decided to, for all those who live in a two or three, four story condo, this will make you think, decided it wanted in to the commode, and it went in the bottom floor commode, and instead of going down, it went up to her commode, in which it worked its way out, and came in and killed her child in the middle of the night while she was sleeping, strangled it to death, and then tried to eat it. And she got up, you can imagine the horror.

Some things that are bad and evil need to be kept in captivity.

And, brethren, our thoughts need to be on that same page. It's pretty big. It's pretty serious, because it can lead to our eternal death if we cannot be a better jailer. Proverbs 25 and verse 28. Proverbs 25 and verse 28. I love this. A man without self-control, I'm not sexist, so a woman without self-control, is like a city broken into and left without walls. Proverbs, pretty smart saying, put in today's terms, when we fail to control our desires, when we allow human nature to control us, we are like a bank vault with a screen door.

Anybody want to put their money, everything they own, in a vault with a screen door? I don't think so. We need to bring every thought into captivity. So, can we be a consummate jailer? Yes, we can.

But, as Paul says, we need to bring every thought into captivity. Try tomorrow. An exercise of thinking about every thought, and then stopping it when you go, where did that come from?

Where did that come from? Where did that come from? You'll find out pretty soon that you may need to beef up your jail.

Are you possessing a minimum security facility or a maximum security facility? What's up there? Minimum or maximum? For our thought.

Every year, every prison has to have an outside audit come through. They call it an audit. It's not the books. It's for, well, so many do. I won't say all of them, but many do. I knew some that did. They hired an outside team of people to come in and find a way to break out of that jail. Experts who had actually escaped before, and then go through and find out just how good of just how secure that prison was. What would they find in ours? Would thoughts just be able to run around, go around, not think anything about it?

Remember there was a TV show, Andy Griffith? Remember Andy Griffith? This is a guy that was regular on there called Otis the Drunk. Otis Campbell. Otis Campbell. He was, well, now they would say politically correct. He was a derelict, or he was a man that struggled with alcohol. But he would be able to go in and out. Just check himself in and out of prison.

How about our thoughts?

Are they like that jail? Do you need a better jail for your thoughts? Let's go to James 1. James 1, verses 14 and 15.

Now I'm going to read this and make it personal. So if you'll join me. James 1, verses 14 and 15. Each one of us is tempted when we are drawn away by our own desires and lust, aren't we? Now maybe you disagree, but it's hard to disagree with what James says here.

When desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and sin, when full grown, brings about our deaths.

Need a better jailer? But I said yes, we can, but how? As I wrap the sermon up today. How?

How can we do that? Well, the writer of Hebrews tells us. The writer of Hebrews in Hebrews 12, verse 2. Hebrews 12, verse 2. NIV. This is New King James, but there's an NIV. This is looking unto Jesus. The NIV actually says fixing our eyes on Jesus. Looking, fixing, fixing our eyes on Jesus. So we have something to look at. We have a model to look at. We have quite a few pages in here to look at. Fixing our eyes. Fix the Greek word there is a forio. A forio. And it means to look exclusively at something and study it without distraction.

We're talking myopic. We're talking tunnel vision. Fixing our eyes on Christ causes all other things to dim in significance in our lives.

Are we ready to fix our eyes on Christ? We have no other example to follow in the Bible except other humans. And none of these in here was perfect except one. No one else can set that example forward. No one else can lead us to eternal life, but one example.

And we must fix our eyes on it. Remember what he says? Bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Abraham?

Paul? Peter? No. To Christ. That is what we must do. Rather than I hope that these last seven days has helped us to realize we do need help. We need examples. We need discipline. We need self-control. And we need to not only be an example, we need to set an example for all others. Because that little piece of bread helped us all. If we used it, and it'll help us remind us, even next week, help us all to be a consummate jailer.