(SLIDE 1) Heroes vs. Villains
Pt. 3 - Hulk Help
I. Introduction
Every Friday night I would sit in front of the larger than a couch tv to watch this show. The show was CBS for 5 years from 1978-1982 and had 80 episodes. The show chronicled the life of David Banner, a physician and scientist employed at California's Culver Institute, who is traumatized by the car accident that killed his beloved wife, Laura. Haunted by his inability to save her, Banner and his research partner, Dr. Elaina Marks, study people who were able to summon superhuman strength during moments of extreme stress. Obsessed with discovering why he was unable to exhibit such super-strength under similar conditions, Banner hypothesizes that high levels of gamma radiation from sunspots contributed to the subjects' increase in strength. Banner conducts an unsupervised experiment in the laboratory, bombarding himself with gamma radiation. However, the radiology equipment has recently been recalibrated, and Banner unknowingly receives a massive overdose. He initially thinks that the experiment has failed, but, when he injures himself while changing a flat tire, Banner's anger triggers his transformation into a 7-foot-tall (2.1 m), 330-pound (150 kg), green-skinned, superhumanly strong creature who is driven by rage, and has only a primitive, sub-human intelligence. This hulk, played by the retired body builder Lou Ferrigno, was unleashed when Bruce Banner would experience stress, anxiety, and most of all anger. The unexpected and destructive outbursts cause Banner to become a transient traveling from one town to another hoping to somehow learn to control the hulk inside of him. One of the famous lines that ran as part of the intro of the show was mild mannered, reserved Bruce Banner telling a reporter that constantly hounded him, "Don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry". Bruce Banner knew he needed Hulk help!
I am pretty sure that in this room today there are many of us who need some hulk help too. Did you know that there is a Hulk in the Bible? He doesn't turn green and it is doubtful that he was muscle bound but much like the comic book character this mild-mannered man battled the Hulk inside of him. I think we need to examine his life just to see if we might find the Hulk help we need.
Text: Exodus 1:22, 2:1-15, 3:10-11, 4:10; Numbers 20:2-3, 8-12 (TLB)
Then Pharaoh commanded all of his people to throw the newborn Hebrew boys into the Nile River. But the girls, he said, could live.
There were at this time a Hebrew fellow and girl of the tribe of Levi who married and had a family, and a baby son was born to them. When the baby’s mother saw that he was an unusually beautiful baby, she hid him at home for three months. Then, when she could no longer hide him, she made a little boat from papyrus reeds, waterproofed it with tar, put the baby in it, and laid it among the reeds along the river’s edge. The baby’s sister watched from a distance to see what would happen to him. Well, this is what happened: A princess, one of Pharaoh’s daughters, came down to bathe in the river, and as she and her maids were walking along the riverbank, she spied the little boat among the reeds and sent one of the maids to bring it to her. When she opened it, there was a baby! And he was crying. This touched her heart. “He must be one of the Hebrew children!” she said. Then the baby’s sister approached the princess and asked her, “Shall I go and find one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?” “Yes, do!” the princess replied. So the little girl rushed home and called her mother! “Take this child home and nurse him for me,” the princess instructed the baby’s mother, “and I will pay you well!” So she took him home and nursed him. Later, when he was older, she brought him back to the princess and he became her son. She named him Moses (meaning “to draw out”) because she had drawn him out of the water. One day, many years later when Moses had grown up and become a man, he went out to visit his fellow Hebrews and saw the terrible conditions they were under. During his visit he saw an Egyptian knock a Hebrew to the ground—one of his own Hebrew brothers! Moses looked this way and that to be sure no one was watching, then killed the Egyptian and hid his body in the sand. The next day as he was out visiting among the Hebrews again, he saw two of them fighting. “What are you doing, hitting your own Hebrew brother like that?” he said to the one in the wrong. “And who are you?” the man demanded. “I suppose you think you are our prince and judge! And do you plan to kill me as you did that Egyptian yesterday?” When Moses realized that his deed was known, he was frightened. And sure enough, when Pharaoh heard about it he ordered Moses arrested and executed. But Moses ran away into the land of Midian.
3:10-11 - Now I am going to send you to Pharaoh, to demand that he let you lead my people out of Egypt.” “But I’m not the person for a job like that!” Moses exclaimed.
4:10 - Moses said to the Lord, “Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.”
Numbers 20:2-3 - There was not enough water to drink at that place, so the people again rebelled against Moses and Aaron. A great mob formed, and they held a protest meeting. “Would that we too had died with our dear brothers the Lord killed!” they shouted at Moses.
8-12 - And he said to Moses, “Get Aaron’s rod; then you and Aaron must summon the people. As they watch, speak to that rock over there and tell it to pour out its water! You will give them water from a rock, enough for all the people and all their cattle!”
So Moses did as instructed. He took the rod from the place where it was kept before the Lord; then Moses and Aaron summoned the people to come and gather at the rock; and he said to them, “Listen, you rebels! Must we bring you water from this rock?” Then Moses lifted the rod and struck the rock twice, and water gushed out; and the people and their cattle drank. But the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not believe me and did not sanctify me in the eyes of the people of Israel, you shall not bring them into the land I have promised them!”
That is the story of The Hulk in the text. It is certainly a reminder of what we talked about in week 1. We live with the reality of duality. It is like there are two different people in Moses. Moses is Bruce Banner. He is approached by God and called out as a deliverer and he responds as Bruce Banner. Timid. Unassuming. Soft spoken. Aware of his own shortcomings. I am not the man God. The issue is that inside of him there is also The Hulk. From the moment of his birth and throughout the rest of his life we see glimpses of The Hulk. It probably stems from rejection, not fitting in, I am an Israelite, but I am being raised in the home of Pharaoh the enemy of my people. He sees his brothers being abused and like The Hulk he responds in anger and kills an Egyptian that is beating an Israelite. He buries the body. The only problem is the Israelites see him as an Egyptian and don't trust him and so, now he is being hunted by Pharaoh. He is rejected by the Israelites and by his foster parents. He finally accepts his calling and leads the Israelites to freedom and then once again in a fit of anger The Hulk comes out in response to the complaints and whining of the people. The Hulk Moses strikes the rock rather than speaking to the rock as instructed and he misses out on his promise.
Watch this - Bruce Banner's issue is that he gets triggered. Moses' issue is that he gets triggered. Our issue is that we get triggered. We worship at church like Bruce. But we bow up outside of church when we get triggered. We sing words of adoration in church but get triggered in the parking lot and speak words of accusation and anger. I don't exactly know why, perhaps it is because we feel rejected, attacked, unwanted, underappreciated, or maybe we don't think God has done everything we thought He should do when we thought He should do it, but it seems to me that I am seeing more angry Christians than ever! But we act like this battle with anger doesn't exist. So rather than dealing with it as a little problem we refuse to deal with it, and it becomes The Hulk. The result is that we are humble and then hurtful. Mild manner and maniac when we are angry. Timid and we throw temper tantrums. Compassionate and at times we want to kill them all. In order for us to be a hero rather than a villain we need Hulk help. We need Hulk help because I think there are a lot of us missing out on the promises of God in our life, marriage, ministry, children simply because we don't just have anger, anger has us!
So, quickly here are a couple of things we need to talk about so that we get hulk help.
Hulk Help can only come if we no longer accept discreet as delivered. Moses kills a man and buries the body. He thinks he is delivered but all that has really happened is he became discreet. He just hides his anger but what is in him eventually comes out. God uses the man greatly but inside him there is anger. Moses claimed to have a speech/stuttering problem, but he really had an anger problem that stemmed from his security problem. He was insecure. Didn’t fit and out of his frustration anger overtakes him. He keeps trying to bury it but never gets delivered from it.
Too many of us have just become discreet. We are pros at burying that thing so that no one will know. The only problem is 1 month later, 1 year later and out of nowhere and may even seem unrelated we explode and destroy. We confuse discreet with delivered. Because we think no one knows we are good. But delivered doesn't mean hidden it means uprooted. It means we unbury the thing that we have been hiding and we allow Jesus to deal with it ruthlessly and ultimately. Hidden doesn't mean healed. We can't get Hulk help if we get discreet. Hulk Help requires deliverance!
Hulk Help comes when we get to the root so that we kill the fruit.
The Hulk famously said, “I just get so angry all the time! Hulk always . . . always angry!" That sounds like some of us. My question is . . . what is causing your anger? Anger is not a primary emotion. It is a secondary emotion. Something causes it. What is triggering you? You have to address it or it will control you. Is it pain? Unfulfilled expectations? Unexpected loss? Betrayal? Absence? If you can address the buried things, then it is possible to allow Jesus to deal with the trigger so that you can manage your anger. Anger has to be addressed. Get to the root. You can't stop the fruit unless you deal with the root. Allow Jesus to lay you bare. Allow Him to dig up what you have buried so that He can strike the root and kill the fruit. It isn't enough to just keep cleaning out cobwebs. The only solution is to get to the spider. Why does that anger keep coming up? Get to the root.
