Has He Run Off Your Pigs?

Whenever God does something it crosses man’s opinions, plans, and will. The Lord causes problems whenever He gets involved in man’s world.

Matthew 2:1-3 Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem,
2 Saying, Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the East and have come to worship Him.
3 When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.

Jesus was just born and already He was a problem. Herod was king and he didn’t want anybody taking his place. But what about Jerusalem? Why was all Jerusalem troubled? For the most part they had not even heard of His birth yet. Why does the Holy Spirit say through Matthew that all Jerusalem is troubled? Jerusalem was the religious capital of Judaism, and it had become as corrupt as Sodom and Egypt. In fact, Revelation 11:8 calls Jerusalem spiritual Sodom and Egypt. The great city which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified. It had become a dwelling place of every foul and unclean spirit (Revelation 18:2). Even though the people had not yet learned of the birth of Christ, the antichrist spirits in Jerusalem were troubled. They knew before the people did that the Son of God had come.

When Jesus approached the demon-possessed men in Matthew chapter eight, the demons cried out, What have we to do with You, Jesus, You Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the time? (Matthew 8:29). They knew who He was, even when the people did not, and they were troubled with all Jerusalem at His birth. When the demons came out of the men, they went into a herd of pigs and the pigs rushed over a steep place and perished in the sea. Then the people that owned the pigs told Jesus to leave their area. Christ was a problem-maker! He was always a problem and still is. People have a problem with the Lord. He just disrupts everything that man has anything to do with. Has He troubled you lately? Has He run off your pigs? Has He disrupted your money-making project? How about your religious views?

The fifth chapter of John says that the Jews persecuted Jesus and sought to kill Him. They hated Him because He healed a man on the Sabbath day. Their religious observance of a day was more important to them than the man receiving his healing and deliverance. Religiosity had taken the place of compassion.

John 5:5-6,8-9,15-16 Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity thirty-eight years.
6 When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, Do you want to be made well?
8 Jesus said to him, Rise, take up your bed and walk.
9 And immediately the man was made well, took up his bed, and walked. And that day was the Sabbath.
15 The man departed and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.
16 For this reason the Jews persecuted Jesus, and sought to kill Him, because He had done these things on the Sabbath.

We’re talking about Jesus Christ the Messiah. The one the Jews were looking for. He was to be their Deliverer and Savior. Now He was here, yet they persecuted Him and sought to kill Him. He didn’t fit the mold they made for Him. He was disrupting their religious system. Their plans for the Messiah were completely different. The ministry of Jesus Christ was so different from what they expected that even John the Baptist wondered if they look for another (Matthew 11:2-3).

All through history it’s been the same way. Whenever the Spirit of the Lord began moving in the earth the masses wanted to kill it. The Jews persecuted Jesus, and they sought to slay Him because He did this awful thing of disrupting their religion. Jesus is a religion disrupter! He will not fit the religious molds of man.

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