Cities under siege in America
Summer 2020, the legitimate protests have now devolved into frenzied mobs. Police stations seized. City blocks ceded to the rioters. Churches, flags, and monuments defaced. Police attacked, and businesses looted.
Some city leaders appear unwilling or unable to control the anarchists. One report stated that a local mayor ordered the police to “stand down” and let the rioters have their way.
In prayer, I was reminded of the two wild men of Gadara in Matthew 8. Nobody could restrain them. They lived in the cemetery and ran through the hills naked. Any effort to constrain them failed. Why?
The people buried in the cemetery could not control them, even though some had a good education and wealth. But by being dead, they were powerless.
The townsfolk could not control the wild men because the circumstances were beyond their pay grade. Their modest knowledge of discipline and good manners were no match for the self-mutilation and spiritual vexations that these men exhibited.
And the pigs? They stayed uninvolved. This was not their problem.
Things immediately changed when Jesus arrived. His ultimate power and authority overwhelmed the demons that were possessing the men. When Jesus commanded that the demons leave the wild men, they started negotiations to enter the disinterested pigs.
When the townsfolk arrived, they found the wild men clothed and in their right minds. But they noticed that the herd of swine had gone over the cliff to their destruction. Completely ignoring the miracle of exorcism, they valued the pigs over the wild men, and demanded that Jesus leave! Twisted values, indeed.
Could there be a figurative correlation between what is happening today in some American cities and the story in Matthew 8? The people buried in the cemetery might represent those who are spiritually dead and without God’s power. They have education and wealth, but no Godly wisdom to combat the evidently demon-inspired anarchists.
The townsfolk might represent those who try to control the anarchists through re-imagined policing like peer crisis services and comfort counselors. But Satan is too sly and deceptive to fall prey to human remedial interventions.
And the poor pigs might represent the millions of citizens who think that whatever the anarchists do, it won’t impact them. In fact, the gutters of history are filled with fallen nations who discounted the corrupted radicals and cowered under the dictum, “live and let live.” Actually, that dictum translates to “live and let die."
Friends, the only answer for the wild men and our wayward nation is Jesus Christ! He alone has the power to defeat the enemy that comes to kill, steal, and destroy (John 10:10).
Together, let us cry out to God and pray for a mighty revival of holiness and righteousness (Psalm 85:6), and to cast out the demon-inspired mindsets that threaten our entire society (1 John 4:4).