A notorious liberal once said, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.\u201d He was referring to the fact that while people are focused on and distracted by a crisis, the Government could sneak in their unpopular and harmful agenda.<\/p>\n
So I was wondering what Satan does when most of Christianity is distracted. What did that old serpent accomplish Super Bowl Sunday night?<\/p>\n
Consider the follow eschatological scripture.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into.\u201d \u2013 Matthew 24:43<\/p>\n
To be perfectly honest, I wonder how many Christians truly understand the dangerous period we are in. How many understand about keeping themselves unspotted from the world system (James 1:27)? And how many even care about anything spiritual except whatever makes them feel good?<\/p>\n
I am not in any way\u00a0a legalist. However, I have lived long enough to observe certain activities and distractions that true Christians once avoided that are now beyond acceptable. By \u201cbeyond acceptable\u201d I mean that those activities and distractions are now elevated to the status of \u201cprivileges\u201d.<\/p>\n
It does no good to warn them because they are committed to their world-centered interests, which may very possibly be devices of Satan. Even the hint that they should reject one of those interests causes them to go into a resistance mode so powerful that you may as well be squirting water from a toy water gun at a fully involved house fire.A deep sense of sorrow washes into my spirit when I realize that if the Holy Spirit cannot convict them, I certainly will not succeed in warning them. Warnings are either taken with alarm or scorn, depending on the sense of security in the individual. I can say without fear of exaggeration that one of the greatest accomplishments of Satan is to assist someone with feeling secure and comfortable with sin or compromise. Greater still is the old serpent can foster in them a sense of entitlements based on the popular interests and activities of their compromising peers.<\/p>\n
But there\u2019s no danger\u2014right? We have a president that is going to make America great again. We can still go to church and the shopping mall. There is plenty of food to eat. Our cable bill is paid. We have health insurance (a misnomer). Further, when we burn up our oil by submitting flesh to a veritable feast from the world system, we can go on Social Media and engage in an argument (The resulting adrenalin feels almost like spirituality).\u00a0\u00a0 Or we can \u201cgo to church\u201d next Sunday and the emotionalism will pump us up.<\/p>\n
Yep, we\u2019ve got lots of ways to wash over the sense of self-inflicted, dry, empty, religious banality. Satan doesn\u2019t have to shoot a fiery dart at us. He can just give us a match and we\u2019ll set fire to ourselves.<\/p>\n
However, God is a consuming fire. He wishes to burn out all the chaff and build us into spontaneously responsive servants.\u00a0\u00a0 But we say \u201cwait\u201d more often than we say \u201cyes\u201d. We push the Holy Spirit as far down in our souls as possible lest He expose our thoughts and untoward desires of our hearts. We are not as Joshua who desired to remain in the Tabernacle because of the glory of God. Instead, we bask in the glory of men. Their feeble accomplishments in the temporal realm excite us to the extent our emotional systems become callused to the presence of God.<\/p>\n
The trees of the field clap their hands, the hills skip like lambs, and the mountains like rams, when the God goes passing by. But we punch our remotes without acknowledging\u00a0Him.<\/p>\n
Oh, I know what the response to all that sarcasm might be.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cBut we have to have some entertainment. We cannot put our flesh in a straightjacket.\u201d True, and that is what legalism tries to do, put flesh in a straightjacket. However, the more you dwell in the Holiest of All, the less entertainment you desire. Further, God\u2019s word does not mention a straightjacket for the flesh, but mortification. Someone once said, \u201cDead men rattle no chains.\u201d But the chains are rattling everywhere today in Christendom.<\/p>\n
Finally, please consider this scripture. Decide whether it and other ones like it are still viable for Christians today. The next time you plan to turn control of your emotional system over to manipulation by the world system, consider that modern \u201cDelilah\u201d has but one purpose\u2014to discover and destroy your strength.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone l<\/strong>oves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.\u201d \u2013 1 John 2:15<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A notorious liberal once said, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.\u201d He was referring to the fact that while people are focused on and distracted by a crisis, the Government could sneak in their unpopular and harmful agenda. So I was wondering what Satan does when most of Christianity is distracted. What did […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","post-preview"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paIm2N-n3","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1429"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1429"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1429\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1438,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1429\/revisions\/1438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}