OUTLAWS

 
    OUTLAWS            7-18-17

On November 19, 1910 Elmer McCurdy and his friend were arrested for possessing burglary paraphernalia (chisels, hacksaws, funnels for nitroglycerin and gunpowder and money sacks).

The St. Joseph Gazette reported that during their arraignment, McCurdy and his friend told the judge the tools were not intended for burglary purposes but were tools they needed to work on a foot operated machine gun they were inventing.

In January 1911, there story seemed to be believable, because a jury found McCurdy not guilty.

1)     March 1911, McCurdy had moved to Lenapah, Oklahoma. He and three other men decided to rob the Iron Mountain-Missouri Pacific train after McCurdy heard that one of the cars contained a safe with $4,000.

McCurdy used nitroglycerin on the safe's door to open it but used too much. The safe was destroyed in the blast along with most of the money. McCurdy and his partners netted $450 in silver coins, most of which were melted and fused to the safe's frame.

2)     In September 1911, McCurdy not to be deterred he and two other men robbed The Citizens Bank in Chautauqua, Kansas. After spending two hours breaking through the bank wall with a hammer, McCurdy placed a nitroglycerin charge around the door of the bank's outer vault. The blast blew the vault door through the bank destroying the inside, doing no damage to the safe…

McCurdy never to give up his outlaw ways tried again to blow the safe door open with nitroglycerin but the charge failed to ignite. That night after being abandoned he got away with $150.00…

3)     McCurdy's final robbery took place on October 4, 1911 near Okesa, Oklahoma. McCurdy and two accomplices planned to rob a train after hearing that it contained $400,000 in cash that was intended as royalty payment to the Osage Nation.

History says McCurdy and the men mistakenly stopped a passenger train instead. Their haul that night was $46 from the mail clerk, two jugs of whiskey, an automatic revolver, a coat and the train conductor's watch. A newspaper account was "one of the smallest in the history of train robbery."

With the use of bloodhounds, they tracked him down and in the course of a shootout he shouted that he would not be taken alive and this time he was right — he was shot and killed… This in October of 1911…

HE WAS THE OUTLAW THAT WOULDN’T GIVE UP…

The demand for us all is that we must surrender… We must give up… We, whether we want to admit it or not have an outlaw tendency…

·        To do it our own way--- that is outlaw ways…

·        For us to look to take shortcuts to our doing and becoming without including the word of GOD… That is simply outlaw ways…

·        For us to walk close to the line of where the world walks… This is outlaw ways…

·        Just do enough to get by… That is outlaw ways…

·        Live in the question… (Is this a heaven or hell issue or not???) This is simply outlaw ways…

Jesus gave warning about coming up another way… HE called it as, being the same as a thief and a robber…

That is like Elmer McCurdy--- an outlaw that won’t give up… I will do it of my own will…

·        To think that we can build our way to bigger and bigger barns at the exclusion of GOD and HIS truth… That is outlaw ways…

·        To think that we can arrive without submission to GOD…

·        To think that our own ingenuity and means can save us…

Nothing but outlaw ways…

During a filming of the series of Six Million Dollar Man; 1976 universal studios at Nu-Pike amusement park in Long Beach CA

In preparing the set in a corner of the funhouse, a worker moved the “hanging man,” causing one of this prop’s arms to come off exposing a human bone. This wasn’t a prop; this was a dead guy!

In case you didn’t guess, yes, it was Elmer McCurdy… The notorious outlaw that wouldn’t give up…

McCurdy the dead outlaw had a new career as a sideshow attraction right after his embalming. They said he looked so good dressed up in his fancy clothes that the undertaker propped him up in a corner of the funeral home’s back room and charged locals a nickel to see “The Bandit Who Wouldn’t Give Up.” The nickels were dropped into the corpse’s open mouth…

Carnival promoters wanted to buy him, but the undertaker turned them down.  

In 1915, two men showed up and claimed that McCurdy was their brother. They hauled the body away, supposedly to give him a decent burial in the family plot.  In reality, McCurdy’s “brothers” were carnival promoters and this was a ruse to get the bandit away from the undertaker. The crooked promotors started showing McCurdy throughout Texas under the same billing as the undertaker had given him — “The Bandit Who Wouldn’t Give Up.”

After that tour, McCurdy popped up everywhere, including an amusement park near Mount Rushmore, lying in an open casket in a Los Angeles wax museum, and in a few low-budget films… McCurdy made more money dead than alive…

All this before a movie crew who finds him 66 years from the gunshot that took his life… McCurdy now a prop, a side show… After all he was the outlaw that wouldn’t give up…

·        Isn’t this just like hell to display its trophies???

·        His showcase???

·        His way to demean us???

·        His way, not just getting us to fail, but then like a stuffed fish hung on the wall to be displayed???

We all have seen them… Time tells the story of those who like McCurdy never gave up and now only to line the walls of eternity…

Look at the scriptures of those that could have been like the McCurdy of their day…

·        Ask Peter… Peter, satan has come to sift you as wheat…

·        Ask Joseph… He could have messed his dreams up…

·        Ask Abraham… He could have stayed home that day instead of walking up that mountain of Mt Moriah…

·        Ask Paul, after ship wreck… After the stripes… After hatred, rejection, even his thorn that GOD allowed---even gave… Yet, Paul stands even as he faced his death victorious through all of his temptation and adversity…

 It’s a question that we all should come to… Am I going to give up or am I like, old outlaw McCurdy???

What about Judas… He’s hanging out there… Even Jesus calling him HIS friend… Yet, Judas like McCurdy… An outlaw that refused to give up… I wonder like so many did he settle for what the devil told him… “It’s too late for you Judas…

I THINK WHAT MANY OF US HAVE TROUBLE WITH, IS THAT WE CAN’T ADMIT WE’RE ALL OUTLAWS???

·        We’re all flesh, carnal, fallen…  

·        We’re all weak and all of us can be enticed…

·        We can’t admit we all, are in need of an altar…

·        Each born with lust, greed, and seekers of pleasure…

·        Desire and ambitious for power, wealth, reputation…

·        One scripture even gives us this description; haters of GOD…

THIS IS WHO WE ARE WITHOUT GOD…

·        Without the Holy Ghost…

·        Without the covering of HIS robe of righteousness…

·        Without HIS holiness…

·        Without the fruit of the Spirit… Gal. 5:22…

WE WITHOUT HIM… FLESH THAT IS CORRUPTIBLE…

1 Cor 2:14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.   KJV

Like the outlaw McCurdy---we refuse to see ourselves as we really are without Christ… An outlaw that refuses to give up… Or an outlaw that is in hell’s trophy room…

What is the remedy for an outlaw???

Exactly what happened to McCurdy...

In April 1977, the much-traveled Elmer McCurdy was laid to final rest on Boot-hill in Summit View Cemetery in Guthrie, Oklahoma.  MCCURDY WAS A DEAD MAN WITHOUT A BURIAL… 66 YEARS HE WAS WITHOUT HIS GRAVE…

·        Sixty-six years without a burial…

·        When they buried Outlaw McCurdy they didn’t just bury him six foot under... They buried him with two yards of concrete so nobody could dig up Outlaw McCurdy again…

ANYBODY WANT TO GIVE UP??? Here is the remedy… BURY THE OUTLAW…

·        Rom 6:2 God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?

3 Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?

4 Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

5 For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection:    KJV

WE MUST LAY DOWN THE OUTLAW WAYS…  WE MUST GIVE UP… WE MUST RECOGNIZE WE’RE ALL OUTLAWS…

1 Cor 6:9 Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,

10 Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.

11 And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.    KJV

Save the grace of GOD… I’m the outlaw that refused to give up…

·        They were outlaws…

·        They were convicted in their heart…

·        They had just killed the prince of life…

Suddenly they realized, Jesus wasn’t the outlaw… We are… We’re the outlaws…

·        Peter is there any hope for us???

·        What must we do???

·        That is the question the outlaw must ask themselves…

Acts 2:37 … they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do?

38 Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.    KJV

1)     Repent… you got to die… die to self… outlaw ways must go… turn around…

2)     Be baptized… bury the outlaw… be planted with Christ… (IN HIS NAME…)

3)     Resurrection… HIS gift… HIS Spirit… Holy Ghost… This gives power over the outlaw… This is deliverance for and from the outlaw ways… New creature in Christ Jesus…

Below were some outlaws… The remedy was; the outlaws died, the outlaws were buried, the outlaws were resurrected that two yards of concrete couldn’t hold down…