When Ideology Meets Spiritual Reality

In this compelling sermon, Fr. Geoff addresses the clash between modern ideologies and spiritual truths, focusing on the dangers of departing from Christian values. He emphasizes the importance of standing firm in faith amidst cultural changes and protecting future generations from harmful influences.

Transcript

Thank you. I know you're all surprised to see me here again. Daniel was supposed to be preaching today, but he called in sick. Unfortunately, he got us a cold. And the cold didn't give him all that much notice. So, I was pedalling to get this organized for this morning, but here we go. During the week, I was invited to go to an Australian Christian lobby meeting entitled "When Ideology Meets Reality," and it's all about gender ideology. I didn't really want to go; I didn't want to give the time up really. I was a bit pressed this week, but I thought this is something that's really important.

It's coming into our schools now. The children are being confronted with this ideology from prep. It's a very, very dangerous thing. A child, a young child, takes a wig off a female doll and puts it on a male doll and thinks, "Yeah, why not? You can change sexes." So they get confused and then they get affirmed and then they get destroyed really for life. So this is very dangerous. I felt that I had to go, and it was a very good presentation. There were two speakers, one has written a book, and the other was a member of parliament who's trying to oppose this going through our parliaments.

We had an opportunity for some questions at the end, and I asked, "This stuff is so dafted. It must be supernatural. Where is it coming from?" And the two speakers didn't really have much of an idea. They just said it was part of the liberal agenda. But where is it coming from? What's behind it all? Believe it or not, Subdeacon Timothy's mother and father were there at the same meeting and made themselves known to me. His mother called out, "Return of the Gods," this book here. She pointed me towards this book by somebody called Jonathan Khan.

I'd never heard of him before, never read the book. We were in North Blackburn, so on the way home, I dropped into Kurong Books at Blackburn and bought a copy. I've got about halfway through it, and I can see where she's coming from. I think he's probably right. Where is it coming from? 2,000 years ago, Jesus of Nazareth was born in Galilee, in Nazareth, in Bethlehem. He had a ministry in that area, and part of his ministry was confronting demonic powers.

We have one of the stories in our gospel this morning. This is what sort of puts these things together. Until that time, the demons had control basically of the whole of the earth. This is what paganism is all about: demonic control. We're moving back into paganism; this is what we have to realize, if we're not there already. So Jesus confronted these demons and drove them out. It took a while, but eventually, they did, and we ended up with what we call western civilization, Christian culture, Judeo-Christian culture.

People today don't really have a lot of experience of demons and probably think these stories are out of date. But what they don't realize is that the demons are coming back. Jesus told a parable of somebody who had their demons cast out, and the demons went off wandering around in the desert. Then they came back and found the house was really clean. They thought this was great, so they got seven other demons and brought them in as well.

The state of the person was worse in the end than it was before they'd left. What Jonathan Khan is saying, and I think there's some truth in this, is that those cultures which were Christian, which reject Christ and turn away from Christ, will end up in a worse place than they were before. He said, for example, in the Old Testament, before Christ, before Christianity had impacted the world very strongly, we had Nero. In a Christian nation that rejected Christ and inverted the cross to make it a swastika, we had Hitler. In Russia, which is a Christian country, turned away from Christ for a while, we got Stalin.

So there's some truth here. We've got to be very careful. I wanted to talk about this this morning. In Victoria right now, there's a Catholic school being taken to court by a man who wants to be called by a different gender, a teacher. They're having to fight this out in the courts. So pray for the Catholic schools. God bless them. It's a difficult thing, but they're working on it. We have to stand up against this. We have to.

The story from the gospel today might at first seem a bit scary when we think about demons and so on. But I want to reassure you that we don't need to be scared. The church fathers found the confession of the demon in the gospel today very significant, noting that the demons acknowledge Jesus to be the Son of God, which was something that the heretics didn't even do. They saw in the demon-possessed man a picture of humanity, especially the Gentiles, that's us, the non-Jews, who were before Christ came, covered in sin, naked to error and open to evil.

This is the picture they see in this man, but they were delivered by God from the power of darkness and clothed in his righteousness. The fathers emphasized that Christ alone has the power to heal and deliver from the evil one—a power that philosophers and religious leaders couldn't match. They also highlighted that Christ does not force his presence on anyone. If individuals choose to follow their own way, he allows it, though this risks falling under Satan's cruel rule.

This is what's happening in our culture. Unfortunately, young people are looking for real experience and going to the wrong places, finding the wrong thing. I found this when I was a chaplain at Canterbury Girls' School. The girls once went off on a camp and decided to do Ouija boards overnight. Interestingly enough, it was a Christian school, but the one girl they chose to be the medium for this séance was a Jew and not a Christian.

Something happened at that event, and they were scared out of their wits. It changed them. This is happening in school camps and things, and we have to warn our children about this because it’s kind of become accepted now. I walked into a health shop the other day, and they're selling tarot cards. Tarot cards are the last thing you need for health. It's demonic stuff. It's everywhere, and we have to warn people about this; otherwise, Christ will allow them to go down that route, and they'll get into terrible trouble.

They interpreted the demons’ plea not to be tormented before the appointed time as evidence of their awareness of Christ's authority and their own impending defeat. They also stressed that the battle against evil is already won through Christ's victory over death, and the church is called to advance against the gates of Hades, which will not prevail against it. We need to hear these positive messages because the culture is going wrong to some extent, and we need to be reassured that the church can cope with all this.

Some interesting thoughts come from the gospel. Let me just share two or three. I went to St. Cyril of Alexandria to get some of his thoughts from one of his sermons he preached. He had some great proof there, some great thoughts. This man who was in a terrible state was evidence of the cruelty of someone oppressed or demonized by the demons. It's a clear demonstration of their impurity. Why are demons allowed to possess people? St. Cyril asks, and he said God's judgments are a vast abyss, and we need to keep this in mind; otherwise, we'll completely miss the mark. In other words, we don't fully understand.

But he does allow some to fall into their power not so much that they suffer—God doesn't want people to suffer—but they've chosen to go that way so that others like us can learn from what they experience because we can see what happens to them. So we make sure that we don't go there, and we make sure that our children don't go there either because it's terrible.

Now, when Jesus asked this man, or he spoke to the demons, "Who are you?" the question is, didn't Jesus know already? Surely He's God. But He did, of course. He knew the situation, but He wanted to show His disciples that many demons could occupy one person. Many demons, not just one. In fact, St. Cyril describes them as a herd. They said their name was Legion. A legion's like a Roman army, 100 soldiers. But St. Cyril said they were like a herd of demons, which is interesting because then they asked to go into a herd of pigs.

Jesus allows them to do that. But the interesting thing here, just listen. They ask permission. They didn’t even have the authority to go into pigs. Demons do not have the authority to go into animals. Never mind having authority to come into us. We need to hear this so we know don't get afraid of these things. They didn’t have authority to go into pigs. They had to ask Jesus for permission.

He gave them permission to go, and they went and destroyed the whole herd of pigs. And we ask ourselves, why did He allow that? It’s cruelty to animals. We get the RSPCA, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Bring them up, tell them Jesus just sent this herd of pigs into the water. Well, why did He allow that to happen? He knew what was going to happen, but He wanted the disciples to see the destructive power of demonic activity.

That's what we're meant to see from this: the destructive power of demonic activity. So, we don’t play with this kind of stuff as Christians. We keep away from it. And we realize who Jesus is. He's the Good Shepherd. It's the icon on the iconostasis over here on the left—Jesus the Good Shepherd. I had an uncle who was a farmer, and he had sheep. He used to take me out back in England many years ago, looking for some of the sheep that got into trouble. We were pulling them out of ditches and untangling them from barbed wires and all that sort of stuff.

That's a real picture for me of what the role of a pastor is—trying to help the sheep, getting them untangled from things they've gone into without realizing. I mean, the sheep just wanted a bit of grass, but it got tangled up in the barbed wire. Young people today just want an experience of something, and they think they're dealing with a friendly spirit or a good spirit, not a bad spirit, a white spirit, not a dark spirit. They get tangled up, and we got to pull them out. We have to rescue them. We have to help them to be free. Jesus is a good shepherd. He is looking for people who get into trouble, and He’s bringing them to the church, and we're helping them to come out of that with His help. We can't do it without His power and authority, of course.

I think those are the main lessons I wanted to draw out from St. Cyril's sermon there. Also remember, when we're frightened or if we do get afraid, remember what Jesus said: "Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? And not one of them falls to the ground without your Father in heaven knowing. Even the hairs of your head are numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are more valuable than many sparrows." God knows everything, and He knows us especially. He's created us as the pinnacle of His creation, human beings. He is the good shepherd. He'll pull us out when we go into the wrong places.

We have, if we're baptized and chrismated, the sign of the cross not just on our foreheads, but all over us. Chrism from the top of our heads to the bottom of our feet. The demons can see that, and it has an effect of keeping them away from us. But when the culture starts removing crosses and so on—around Melbourne, they've removed the crowns from a lot of the Melbourne things. Why have they removed the crown? Is it because they're anti-monarchy? Well, what's on the top of the crown? It's the cross because it's a Christian monarch. When the culture starts to remove Christianity, the cross, we're removing, even though inadvertently, the protection that God has given this nation since it was founded by Christians or discovered by Christians and settled 200 years ago.

Things are going to change out there, and things might get a bit scary with all these laws and so on. There’s one lady at the moment up for possibly a $200,000 fine because she called a man who was playing, pretending to be a girl in a girl's team. She called him a man, and he took it to court because he was offended, and she could be fined $200,000. Things are going to get rough because the law has gone a bit crazy. We go to the epistle and hear what St. Paul says to Timothy. This is probably towards the end of his life before he was beheaded by Nero.

It was a difficult time. There was a lot of persecution going on. Timothy was a young man. He was probably fairly frightened about what was coming, fairly worried about his leader Paul, who was in prison. St. Paul was encouraging him, saying, "Have courage, keep going. Don't give up. Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules. It is the hardworking farmer who ought to have the first share of the crops. Think over what I say. For the Lord will grant you understanding in everything. Remember Jesus Christ risen from the dead."

These are the things we have to remember when we look at our culture and think what on earth's going on, what's going to happen, how's it going to affect us, how can we cope with this? Finally, St. Paul said to Timothy, "Therefore, I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they may also obtain salvation in Christ Jesus with its eternal glory." A lot of us would like to bolt and go somewhere else, go to another state, another country. Some people might be called to do that, but not everybody. Some of us have to stay and face the music, so to speak.

That's what St. Paul was saying to Timothy: Don't run. Keep serving. Keep loving. Keep saving. Because this is what it's all about. We are doing this so that others may obtain salvation in Christ Jesus. It's not just about this world. It's about what's to come. People are lost. They're looking for God. Especially since COVID, young people are looking for God, and we have to be there. We have to be available for when they find us to help them. May God help us. May God give us strength. May God remove from us all fear of demons and help us to realize as we get closer and closer to our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ, we have nothing to fear. Nothing to fear.

Also, make sure that we look after our children. I don't think we have any idea what the children are being confronted with in the state schools. Find out what's going on and join in the other parents who are trying to sort of protect the children. May God help us in this task. Now to God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit be ascribed. Almighty, majesty, dominion, and praise now and forever to the ages of ages. Amen.