Quiet Conversations ~ 5

The Bound Man’s Dilemma

 We all know that the world is full of people that are truly in trouble. Our world is in trouble. But Jesus said that it would be this way. Before He returned it would get worse and worse, but His light would get brighter and brighter to a dark world.

As a result of the problems that people face in their families and in their own personal lives, people are struggling with sin. Sin – turning from God’s law by committing immoral acts. This is called sin. Sin is against God.

People of all ages suffer from a lot of hurt and pain due to many thing. Some of them being abuses of all kinds, trauma of all kinds, abandonment, fear, anger, and the list goes on and on. Because of these things the Lord’s heart breaks for us, His people. But, with these abuses comes the result of them, bondage.

When you commit sin you become bound to that sin. You become entangled.

I am writing this blog to help some of you, not all of you, but some of you see that the person(s) in your life that are in a lifestyle of sin and hurting and causing great damage to you and your family are bound. I want the description that I am going to give to you, that Holy Spirit gave to me, help you come out from the religious jargon that we hear all the time about the lost and those that are bound getting free. I want you to begin to think differently about the lost and how we as the church are dealing with them. I want you to think differently about how the lost come to the altars that you see every Sunday. I want you to see how the lost are truly set free or can be set free and what that means. I want you to think differently about the phrase “if a person wants help they will get help, or if they want to be free they will be free”. I want you to think differently about how you personally go after that bound person. I want you to think differently about how the bound are really bound.

A lost person, a person that does not know Jesus cannot even come to Jesus until the Father draws him to Jesus as in John 6:44.

There are many ways that Jesus healed people in the bible, set them free, touched them. There are different avenues that the Holy Spirit will use, even today. There is no one set way.

In my quiet conversation time a few years ago, the Holy Spirit showed me a picture of my own husband at the time and how bound he was. This scenario may not fit your situation but it should cause you to think.

I was deeply troubled by the sin that my husband was committing and why he was engaged in such a lifestyle that was totally against God’s word and he knew this. What was wrong? Now God didn’t give me all the answers but He gave me enough. This is what I give to you.

Holy Spirit said….

“If you were tied up with handcuffs, rope, chains, wire, and string to let’s say a chair, how would get free?”

I had to think about it. I really didn’t know at first. He said….

“You couldn’t on your own. You would have to cry out for someone to come and help you. There would be no way to get free of all that had you bound to the chair. Someone will have to come and help you.” then… “Does the person in the chair,  if they are crying out want to be free? Yes. Do they want the freedoms of being out of that chair? Yes. But if they stay in that chair they will become adapted to it and live life as best they can from a bound place (in the chair). They will get accustomed to the boundness of the chair and just settle and live there and think they can never be free. They will give up and not try. They will think this bound place is normal.”

I could see the picture. Then our discussion went on. He remind me of the scripture of when Jesus set the demoniac free in Luke 8:26…

²⁶ Then they sailed to the country of the Gadarenes, which is opposite Galilee. ²⁷ And when He stepped out on the land, there met Him a certain man from the city who had demons for a long time. And he wore no clothes, nor did he live in a house but in the tombs. ²⁸ When he saw Jesus, he cried out, fell down before Him, and with a loud voice said, “What have I to do with You, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg You, do not torment me!” ²⁹ For He had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. For it had often seized him, and he was kept under guard, bound with chains and shackles; and he broke the bonds and was driven by the demon into the wilderness. ³⁰ Jesus asked him, saying, “What is your name?”And he said, “Legion,” because many demons had entered him. ³¹ And they begged Him that He would not command them to go out into the abyss. ³² Now a herd of many swine was feeding there on the mountain. So they begged Him that He would permit them to enter them. And He permitted them. ³³ Then the demons went out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd ran violently down the steep place into the lake and drowned. ³⁴ When those who fed them saw what had happened, they fled and told it in the city and in the country. ³⁵ Then they went out to see what had happened, and came to Jesus, and found the man from whom the demons had departed, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid. ³⁶ They also who had seen it told them by what means he who had been demon-possessed was healed. ³⁷ Then the whole multitude of the surrounding region of the Gadarenes asked Him to depart from them, for they were seized with great fear. And He got into the boat and returned.

He told me that at no point did this demon possessed man ask to be set free. Jesus came along and helped him to get free. Delivered him actually from his chains. Holy Spirit asked me if I understood what we the Body of Christ are supposed to do for bound people. I understood. Bound people of all kinds, are driven into the wilderness life of sin and destruction. That is where they live. So when we expect them to act differently, they can’t. They won’t. But, we in the church, keep thinking they will if we get them in church enough, or talk enough, or counsel enough, or this or that. No. They are bound. They cannot get out of their “boundness” without help. Help can be counseling, church, etc but it usually is much more.

Another example.

Then he showed me a man in the ICU in the hospital. He asked me…

“What is the man doing in the bed in ICU?”

Now you and I know that people in ICU are gravely ill and doing nothing. So I spoke up, ‘nothing’.

Holy Spirit said…

“Do you go into the ICU and tell this person to get up. Why don’t you eat? Come on let’s go walking? Can’t you speak.  I see you have lips and can talk. You have arms and legs move them. The person in ICU may not even being showing visible signs of deformity that you can see and look normal but they cannot function normally. But this is how some of the church looks when they go to the person in an ICU condition spiritually. They go in and they want them to function normally. They can’t. Not in the condition they are in.”

Then He said…

“What is happening? The machines, the doctors, the nurses and the staff are doing everything for this person. They are breathing for them, feeding them, healing then, taking fluid off their body, getting rid of disease and bacteria, they are keeping this person alive until they can do it for themselves. The machines are doing everything for them. But my church is supposed to deliver these people. Not cast them aside and demand they live a standard they can’t live at the time. You are carriers of deliverance to bound men.  But some of my church, casts the broken out and aside if they are not functioning the way they think the person should be. They won’t bear with them long enough for them to get to the recovery stage and do it on their own.”

My point here dear reader, is the person in ICU or bound to the chair cannot set themselves free.  For me, the Holy Spirit was telling me that there was a part of my loved one, my husband that was so bound, he really couldn’t help doing the sin he was doing. I know that really goes against some of your beliefs. We really believe that the people that hurt us know better and they are doing it on purpose. I say in a lot of cases no. Some yes.  I know for some of you that makes your head go tilt and your sacred cows are falling over. But it is true.

This gave me more compassion for a lost person I hope it does for you also.

Think about the bound people in the bible, demon possessed in the bible. Did Jesus ever go to them and say do it yourself, act right, live right without first setting them free or giving some instruction or healing them. They had to have some encounter with Jesus, word spoken, touch from his hand or through another person before some change happened in them.

The dilemma of the bound person in your life or your marriage is they are caught bound and they are waiting on us the Church to help. Either another human or Jesus will have to help get them free by His mighty power. Either way our outlook should change from these examples.

The bound are waiting for the church to be the Church.

 

 

 

*putting a disclaimer on this writing as my own. Words contained here is what the Holy Spirit told me. I am not trying to argue on theological points or how one is set free or delivered from their darkness.  This is simply a word  I got from God and what He showed me