| Sent by Rusty Ames (Proctor, Texas) |
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| Satan called a worldwide convention. In his opening address to his evil angels, he said, “We can’t keep the Christians from going to church. We can’t keep them from reading their Bibles and knowing the truth. We can’t even keep them from forming an intimate, abiding relationship experience with Christ. If they make and keep a personal connection with Jesus, our power over them is broken.” “So, let them go to their churches, let them have their conservative lifestyles, but steal their time, so they can’t gain that experience in Jesus Christ.” “This is what I want you to do. Distract them from maintaining a vital connection throughout their day with their Savior! “ “How shall we do this?” shouted his angels. “Keep the people busy with the nonessentials of life and invent innumerable schemes to occupy their minds,” he answered. “Tempt them to spend, spend, spend, and borrow, borrow, borrow.” “Persuade the wives to take a job and to leave their children at daycare. Convince them that school is the place to teach children truth. Allow them to think children don’t need to pray or recite the ten commandments. Let the husbands work 6 or 7 days a week, 10 to 12 hours a day, so they can afford their empty lifestyles. Have them focus on the nice things they can buy their children.” “Let the children get their self-worth from designer jeans and NBA endorsed sneakers, gangs or drugs. Give them many extracurricular events to make life stressful. Keep the parents from spending time with the children. As the family fragments, the home will offer no escape from the pressures of work!” “Entice them to play the radio or cassette player whenever they drive. Pound their minds with world news and commercials 24 hours a day. Over stimulate their minds so that they cannot hear God’s still, small voice.” “Keep their TV, VCR, CDs and their PCs going constantly in their homes. Let them become busy at doing nothing! See to it that every store, restaurant, and business everywhere plays worldly music constantly. This will pre-occupy their minds with messages of the flesh and break that union with Christ. “ “Fill the house with magazines and newspapers portraying fantasy lifestyles. Flood their mailboxes with junk mail, catalogues, sweepstakes, lotteries, and product catalogs and every type of home business newsletter filled with false hopes.” “Make sexuality pervasive. Put sexy, beautiful models on the magazines so husbands will lust after external beauty and they will become dissatisfied with their wives. Give them movies that portray a luxurious, gaudy, lusty lifestyle that does not actually exist. Keep them disgruntled. “ “This will force them to be excessive in pleasure seeking. Make their recreation stressful, ego driven and competitive. Have them return home exhausted, full of self and disquieted. Don’t let them go out in nature to reflect on God’s wonders. Give them thrills at amusement parks, sporting events, concerts, and movies instead. “ “Keep them busy, busy, busy!” “And when they do meet for spiritual fellowship, involve them in gossip, envy, or self-righteousness, so that they leave with troubled consciences. They will then restrict their conversations to shallow, vain, unimportant topics.” “Go ahead, let them be involved in soul winning. But crowd their lives with so many causes they have no time to seek power from Christ. Soon they will be working in their own strength, sacrificing their health and families for the cause. They will lose sight of how important a human soul really is.” “It will work…. I tell you….it will work!” It was quite a convention. And the evil angels went eagerly about their assignment of causing “God’s people” to be busy, busy, busy, busy, and to rush here and there. The evil angels even stole the God-ordained day of rest! Ask yourself… Does this describe my family? Who is glorified by my lifestyle? Does God want my life to be different? Am I willing to do what it takes to change? (This article has been updated and re-printed from “The Church of God Messenger” May/June 2001—Issue No. 3.) |
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