The Lutheran Hour

"A Man’s Declaration"

#77-41
Presented on The Lutheran Hour on June 20, 2010
Speaker: Rev. Ken Klaus
Copyright 2025 Lutheran Hour Ministries

Text: Luke 8:38-39

Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed! Today we give thanks for fathers and especially for Christian fathers. Even more we rejoice that our heavenly Father has sent His Son to give His life to ransom ours. Now, by Jesus’ suffering and death, through His glorious resurrection all who have faith in the Redeemer are forgiven and saved. Grant such a faith Lord, to us all. Amen.

Father’s Day. The first time I preached a Father’s Day sermon on The Lutheran Hour I received a fair number of letters protesting the message. You see, our family had always celebrated Father’s Day… we were glad to do so… we had been blessed with a wonderful father, a father who was a blessing. This past spring he has been gone 20 years, but all of his children still respect, honor, and love his memory and the profound, positive influence he was in our lives. It never occurred to me that it might not be the same for everyone. I received one letter which read something like, “Son, you’re a loser, you’re always going to be a loser”, that’s what my father said to me. “You’re always going to be a loser.”

The heartfelt letter continued for pages. It shared, in poignant detail, how the father seemed to take delight in making negative prophecies about his son. Today the father is dead, and the boy has grown into a man, a driven man. He works 24/7; his temper is short when anyone questions his judgment; he knows he is making unreasonable demands on his children. He knows all these things, but he seems unable to escape the prediction of his father that he will always be a loser. That man was just one of the people who wrote to me saying, “Let’s not speak about fathers when Father’s Day rolls around.” You should know there were others who disapprovingly told me about their dads. One lady wrote, “I and my sister were sexually abused by our father from the time we were about ten. I don’t like Father’s Day… and I still have a difficult time praying, ‘Our Father Who art in heaven.'”

It’s Father’s Day. In truth, even though those letters were incredibly painful and touching, it would be both wrong and terribly unfair to think that everybody feels the same way about their father. Many of us have been shaped by solid, sensible, steadfast, and sacrificial fathers like Dr. Phil Littleford. Dr. Littleford went on an Alaskan fishing trip with two other men… and his son, Mark. Landing their seaplane in a remote location they experienced a fishing event which can only be described as ‘angler heaven.’ The fish didn’t line up saying, “Take me next, take me next”; and they didn’t clean and scale themselves, but they did everything else making sure they were caught.

At the end of the day the men and boy returned to their plane and found the receding tide had left it 23 feet from the water. They had no choice but to eat some of their fish and sleep in the plane. The night went without difficulty and when they awoke in the morning, the plane was floating freely. They fired up the engine and set off across the inlet. Unknown to any of them, one of the ship’s pontoons had been punctured and had slowly been filling with water. The plane barely got airborne before the extra weight brought it down with a crash. Everyone escaped the wreckage intact, but they were not out of danger. Without safety equipment they had to use their waders to keep themselves afloat in the freezing water.

The two men who had come with Dr. Littleford struggled and eventually managed to make it to shore. Dr. Littleford’s son had a rougher time of it. The current proved to be too strong for the 12-year-old boy. That left the doctor with a difficult choice, a choice no person should ever have to make. The doctor could make it to shore and save himself, or he could stay with his son and struggle against the water, struggle to fend off death.

Those who knew the good doctor said there really never was a decision, a question as to what he might do. The friends on shore report the last they saw of Dr. Littleford and his boy they were being swept out to sea, arm-in-arm. Later, the authorities in the Coast Guard would estimate father and son would have survived no more than an hour in the frigid sea. Hypothermia would have taken the boy first. Smaller in body size, Mark would have fallen asleep and died in his father’s arms. It is my belief that such men, men like Dr. Littleford, need to be honored on such a day as this… as do all men who are, in the Name of Jesus, caring, compassionate, and consistent as they help their children to grow into servants of the Savior.

Today is Father’s Day… but this is also The Lord’s Day. No Christian minister worthy of the name would substitute praise of earthly fathers for the devotion and worship which is due the heavenly Father. No Christian broadcast of integrity would allow God’s Son to be shoved to the side by earthly sons and daughters as they offer words of appreciation to their wonderful, albeit still sinful, fathers. Indeed, we would do a great disservice to the Holy Spirit if we would point people exclusively to our earthly homes and not the heavenly home which has been won for us at the cost of Jesus’ innocent suffering and death.

So, today is Father’s Day. What shall we do? In truth, there is only one thing to do, and that is to turn to the Scriptures and let them speak to us. In the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod, the church body in which I am a pastor, there are suggested readings for every Sunday. This Sunday’s lesson comes from the eighth chapter of the Gospel according to St. Luke.

Jesus’ ministry was going full swing. He was preaching and great crowds of people were listening. He was healing those who were sick in body and soul and when He got done healing, there always seemed to be more to do. He was exhausted and He with His disciples decided to go over to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. As they made their way, Jesus fell asleep in the back of the boat. It is a mark of His exhaustion that He didn’t waken when a sudden and severe squall started ripping at the boat and whipping up the waves. Even experienced sailors, like the disciples, were afraid and felt compelled to ask Jesus to do something. He did. He told the storm to put a muzzle on it. Those are His words, not mine. He muzzled the storm and they safely made landfall in the land of the Gadarenes.

If this trip had been designed to give Jesus some rest and relaxation, it was a failure. Immediately, Jesus was confronted by a man who was a demoniac. Now a lot of people today believe that when the Bible says somebody was ‘possessed by a demon’, it uses those words because the Bible was written by ignorant men who lived a long time ago. “These ignorant men”, many think, “really didn’t understand mental illness or psychological and sociological imbalances.” You know, folks, that’s just not so. The ancient world understood many of these distinctions. While they may not have had all of our modern technology for diagnosing a problem, they did know the difference between physical illness, mental sickness, and someone who had been taken over by a devil. And if you were to ask me if demonic possession happens today, I will merely say “Yes”, and I would also paraphrase C.S. Lewis who said Satan likes people to believe two things about him: he loves it when people think he doesn’t exist… and he is just as glad when they think he’s everywhere and in control of everything. But, yes, people can be possessed by demons.

That was certainly the case for this unnamed man. What had brought about his spiritual difficulty I cannot say? I can tell you how it manifested itself. First, the man was no longer living at home. His violent nature no longer made him fit to be with other humans, friend or family. He was too dangerous, too unpredictable, too frightening.

As I said, the man was no longer living at home; he had taken up residence in the cemetery. That’s right, he lived in a graveyard. There, surrounded by the dead, comfortable in the darkness, he spent his days in isolation. True, there had been a time when others had tried to capture him, tame him, imprison him. No doubt they were moved by a desire to make the community safe and perhaps to keep him safe from any damage he might try to do to himself. They chained him, he broke the chains; they got bigger chains, stronger chains, he broke those chains as well. They handcuffed him, he shattered the shackles. Was he a bad boy? Oh, he was; he was bad inside and out.

Freed from any restraints he wandered naked, violent, self-destructive.

That is the way it was … the way it stayed until Jesus’ boat landed and He, with His
disciples, disembarked. If anyone has wondered if opposites attract, they need only
watch what happened next. When Jesus was still at a distance, the demoniac came
running, almost flying toward him. It must have been a most frightening picture to those
who were there. But Jesus did not run, He did not hide, He did not order the disciples to
take out their swords and provide a protective barrier between Him and the possible
assailant. No, Jesus stood His ground. Amazingly, rather than attacking the Savior, the
demoniac called out, he shouted out a plea for mercy. At the top of his voice, he cried,
“What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? Swear to God that you
won’t torture me!”

It has always amazed me that when Jesus was going about His earthly ministry the forces of evil and darkness recognized Him far more easily and more accurately than did His own people. After Jesus’ crucifixion, after He had given His life as the price to redeem and ransom all the sinners of the world, the disciples went and locked themselves away. As far as they were concerned, Jesus’ story had been written and the last chapter concluded. On the other hand, the Sanhedrin, the Jewish Supreme Court, remembered Jesus had promised He would rise from the dead. To keep Jesus in His grave is why they had a guard watching His tomb; it is why they had a seal put on His sepulcher. Three days later, when Jesus did rise, when He did show to all the world His sacrifice had been accepted and death had been defeated, the Jewish rulers didn’t blink an eye. It was Jesus’ disciples who had a terribly tough time believing Jesus was alive. They had to see Him, talk to Him; watch Him eat and have Him offer the opportunity to touch His hands and put their fingers into the wound in His side left by the Roman spear.

No, I’m not surprised the demoniac recognized Jesus as God’s Son, the world’s Savior. I’m not surprised it happened back then; I’m not surprised when it happens now. Christianity preaches a message of peace and salvation through the sacrifice of the Savior. There is no violence in that message. Then why do so many of the great religions of the world continue to persecute Christians? There is no other reason than this: they recognize Jesus can do for people what they cannot. Jesus gave His life as payment to buy us back from sin, death, and devil. Now, if someone believes in Jesus as their Redeemer, they are forgiven and saved. What other religion of the world can offer that powerful truth? None can; none do. All they can do is spew hatred and venom and persecute Jesus’ disciples. All they can try to do is pass laws which prohibit us from preaching Christ crucified and risen; and stopping their people from coming to Jesus and saying, “Lord, be merciful to me a sinner.”

“Lord, be merciful to me a sinner.” That is not what the demon inside this man said to Jesus. As a fallen angel, as one who followed Satan in his ill-advised rebellion against the Creator; as one who knew there was no hope for him, no destiny other than the eternal fires of hell, he could only pray for a postponement of the sentence … that he be
left right here to torment a man who could no longer go home to his family. What Jesus did do was cast those foul spirits into a herd of hogs who promptly ended up drowning themselves.

Now that should have been the end of the story. It wasn’t. The folks who watched the pigs told the folks in town about what had happened. Realizing that it could be expensive to have Jesus around, the leaders of the community said, “Good job, Jesus. Really. We want to thank You for all You’ve done. May You be blessed in all Your future work. When are you leaving? YOLI are leaving, aren’t you?” Jesus said He was headed out right now.

When the Savior got to the boat, He was joined by the ex-demoniac who asked that he might accompany the Savior. You see, men want to be with Jesus. When men, and in that group I most certainly include husbands and fathers, when men take a real look at the real Jesus, they’re going to see Someone very special and quite different than the Redeemer of 21st-century popular opinion. All too often people, and especially men, think of the Savior as ‘gentle Jesus, meek and mild.’ Now Jesus could be mild, but He could also look a chain-breaking demoniac in the face. He could pick up little children in His arms and bless them, but He could also use those arms to swing a whip and clear
the temple of thieves. He could speak kind words of peace, but He could also shout at a
storm and tell it to calm down.

That was the Jesus the ex-demoniac saw and that was the kind of Savior he was ready to follow. He was ready to follow a Savior Who would give His life, not a victim who had it taken from him. He wanted a Savior Whose perfect sacrifice could conquer death, not a hallucination of a troubled mind. A Jesus of courage and commitment, of authority and ability, of dedication and determinauon. Thafs the kind of Savior Christian fathers are ready to emulate. It is the kind of Christian father for whom we give thanks today. It is the kind of Christian husband that is in demand. Many years ago a teenage girl by the name of Ruth had to go away to school. At that young age she had no great ambition to be married. Even so, she, like many young ladies, gave some thought as to the kind of man who might foot the bill. She wrote down what she was looking for, and this is what she said:

“If I marry: He must be so tall that when he is on his knees, as one has said, he reaches all the way to Heaven. His shoulders must be broad enough to bear the burden of a family. His lips must be strong enough to smile, firm enough to say no, and tender enough to kiss. Love must be so deep that it takes its stand in Christ and so wide that it takes the whole lost world in. He must be active enough to save souls. He must be big enough to be gentle and great enough to be thoughtful. His.arms must be strong enough to carry a little child.” That is what she said, and she did OK. Ruth Bell married Billy Graham and Billy, by God’s grace, has touched lives. That is what Christian fathers do. When Jesus replaces the world’s demons in their hearts, Christian fathers touch lives for the Savior.

Touching lives for the Savior. That is what The Lutheran Hour wishes to do too. If the
Holy Spirit has used us to touch you today; if you wish to know more about the Lord of
life, please, let us help. Please, calf us at The Lutheran Hour. Amen.

LUTHERAN HOUR MAILBOX (Questions & Answers)
June 20, 2010
Topic: Loving God -Loving Father -Punishing People

Announcer: And now, Pastor Ken Klaus revisits questions previously discussed. I’m
Mark Eischer.

Klaus: There are times when we reply to a question which has been given to us … but, quite frankly, we don’t always do as complete a job as we should or could have.

Announcer: Well, today we’re revisiting the question, “If God is a loving God, how come
He is ready to send people to hell? Considering that hell is-eternal, conscious torment and separation from God–you wouldn’t even want your worst enemy there. So why would God send people to hell?”

Klaus: The problem with any answer that I, or anybody, might give is this: the question itself is wrong. By that, I mean the question is unfair and it starts from the wrong location.

Announcer: And, I already don’t understand.

Klaus: OK, let’s take it one step at a time. When God first made Adam and Eve, what was their world like?

Announcer: It was a perfect world, no sin; therefore, no sadness or sorrow or death.

Klaus: And, at that point, were perfect Adam and perfect Eve going to go to hell?

Announcer: No. the threat of hell only came about because they sinned.

Klaus: Yeah, sin is something God didn’t want… that He warned them about. It was their choice not to listen to the Lord. Through their willful disobedience, Adam and Eve brought sin into the world and God, being a just God, had to keep His word and punish them. Hence, hell.

Announcer: So you’re saying God didn’t want hell to be filled with people that He had created … and He did what He could to warn people against committing the sins that would send them there.

Klaus: Correct. God had said the soul that sins will die. (Ez. 18:4) He didn’t want that, but our disobedience and God’s justice made it so hell would be the last stop for everybody. That’s because we are all sinners by nature.

But… and this is the important part, makes Christianity unique, but… God said, “You
sinners have too many sins. You can’t ever fix things up, straighten things out. On your
own, you’re toast.” That’s when God -Who still loved us-did that unique thing. He
promised to send His Son to take our place … to live a perfect life as a Substitute for our
sinful lives; to say “no” to Satan’s temptations where we had often said an enthusiastic,
“Yes.” It fell to Jesus to defeat death which would do all of us in.

Announcer: And, in Jesus, we find not just an escape from hell…but the only escape
from damnation.

Klaus: Yes, Jesus is the perfect Escape for everybody who believes on Him.

That’s incredibly important to this discussion about God sending people to hell. It is our disobedience, our sin, our rebellion which sends us to hell. Look, if you’re driving your car 65 MPH in an area which is posted at 20 MPH … a policeman pulls you over and writes you a ticket… you can blame the policeman for writing you that ticket… or you can put the blame where it belongs … you broke the law and you deserved to get a ticket.

Similarly, when people are punished for their sins, they can blame God … indeed, they
often do that. Far better to put the blame where it belongs … on the sinful creature … not
on the Creator.

Announcer: But, isn’t God still the One sending people to hell?

Klaus: Once again, sin is that which puts souls in hell. The Triune God is the Deity Who
delivers believers from hell.

Announcer: So, that’s really a totally different way of looking at things. Sin, which breaks God’s laws, sends people to hell. God doesn’t want anybody to go there, but that’s why He sent His Son to seek and to save the lost.

Klaus: Yes, Jesus is the “Medicine” which always cures sinners oftheir transgressions.

Announcer: Which is what we read in 1 John 1: 7b -“the blood of Jesus his (God’s) Son
cleanses us from all sin.”

Klaus: It says the same thing in Acts 4: 12 -“there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”

Announcer: And, of course, John 3: 16-17 -“For God so loved the world, that he gave
his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.”

Klaus: So, just a very quick summary: Our violation of God’s law; that’s what sends us to hell but Jesus forgives and saves souls from hell, which is why we encourage people to put their trust in Him!

Announcer: Thank you, Pastor Klaus. This has been a presentation of Lutheran Hour Ministries.

Music selection for this program:

“A Mighty Fortress” arranged by John Leavitt. Concordia Publishing House/SESAC

“Our Father, By Whose Name” arr. Henry Gerike. Used by permission.

“Rise Up, O Men of God” arr. Kenneth Jennings. From Rise Up, 0 Men of God by the Lutheran Choralaires (© 2008 Lutheran Choralaires) Augsburg/Fortress

“Oh, That I Had a Thousand Voices” arr. John Behnke. From For All Seasons, vol. 2 by John Behnke (© 2001 John Behnke) Augsburg/Fortress

“Praise to the Lord” arr. John Leavitt. Concordia Publishing House.