An Interview with the Boss - 12/13/00 09:07 PM
By Richard W. O'Ffill
After I read this sermon at Elder O'Fill's website, I was so impressed that I asked for and received his permission to post it here. I also invited him to take a look at the forum, and he said the site "looks good." "Pastor Richard O'Ffill is the Revivalist for the Florida Conference in Orlando, Florida. During his more than 38 years of ministry, he has served in Southern Asia, Latin America, as well as North America. Pastor O'Ffill believes that a Holy God, through the Holy Spirit, is developing a holy people for the soon return of Jesus Christ." This description is from his web page. Because the sermon is quite long, I have divided it into several sections and will post a couple of sections at a time. I believe that others will find it as eye opening as I did. The reason that I am doing this as an imaginary interview is that much of what we consider to be true depends on who we are hearing it from. There is much that we are hearing these days in the area of faith and morals and unfortunately many are accepting at face value what is being said simply because they are hearing it from those in who they have confidence or those who they feel have their best interest at heart. As you listen to this imaginary interview you will hear things that you have heard before but have probably not considered the implications for the reasons that I have just mentioned. When you hear the same concepts in an imaginary way expressed by one who we recognize to be the enemy of our souls it will not sound the same as you have heard it in the past. I recognize that putting words in the mouth of the enemy of our souls that we may be used to hearing from a friendly source may be considered by some to be unfair. It is not my purpose to put anyone down but rather to cause us to think that there is more than one way to look at something and that even the things that we consider to be friendly and even helpful from our perspective can in the hands of the enemy be turned against us. So in our imagination we will listen as an imp whose name is Bad News from the devil's department of Public Information does an interview with the Boss. Wanting to be as professional as possible Bad News begins the interview by saying,"Hello, So you are the Devil?" "No", replies the boss, " I am Lucifer, the son of the morning" Like any good reporter, Bad News presses the point, "But the Bible says that you are the devil, that old serpent" The Boss clears his throat, "The truth is that the ancient people who wrote the Bible were superstitious and had to have someone to personify all the bad things that naturally occur in the world. But the truth is I have been misrepresented. I have never wanted anything but good for anybody." Bad News is not going to let the Boss off that easy, "But look at all that you have done down through the years." "It wasn't me, the Boss shrugs, " As you know there are always the fanatics. God himself has had his share of fanatical followers too." Not wanting to appear to be uninformed, Bad News counters, "But we have read that there is a great controversy going on between Christ and Satan." The Boss scowls, "My name is not Satan. I am Lucifer the son of the morning and besides I never meant for it to come to this. I was thrown out of heaven because I was misunderstood." Bad News has done his homework. He continues his questioning."But look what you did to Jesus. We have read the story of how you tempted Christ in the wilderness." Trying to look kind and compassionate the Boss explains, "I meant Him no harm. He hadn't eaten in forty days. I was only trying to help him to have more faith." Bad News looks puzzled, "This is really confusing to me." "It is confusing to me too" says the boss arching an eyebrow, Then his face takes on a look of genuine caring. "I want nothing but the well being of the people. I don't want people to be lost. I want them to be saved. This is why I am promoting love so much. I even want to be saved myself. I think that I am being unfairly judged. That is why I am telling people to be not only loving but to be caring and compassionate. I am even telling people that they ought to do good on the Sabbath. I even believe that everyone should have a relationship with Jesus. By the way I have a relationship with him myself." Now that was a new idea. Bad News had never thought of it that way. He kind of blurted out," I never had thought about it before but you do have a relationship with Jesus. I have another question for you. How do you feel about the Bible?" The Boss pauses as if searching for words, "How do I feel about the Bible? "I thank God for the Bible. What would we do without the Bible, but I believe , that God wants us to understand that the Bible is a history of what has happened in the past, nevertheless, I think that we can learn a lot from it but we have to understand that things are not the same now as they were back then and that we need to make decisions these days in the light of our contemporary context, after all God himself said that he was not a God of the dead but of the living."
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In 1942 the prolific writer C.S. Lewis wrote the famous "Screwtape Letters". These letters represent an imaginary correspondence from one devil to another. In this sermon I will do what you might call a spin-off on this. But rather than to imagine one devil writing to another we will imagine that the Devil wanting to develop a good image has called in one of his imps from his Department of Public Relations to do an interview.