During the winter it's really nice to think about a beach and all that sun. Of course the easiest way to cook yourself on the beach is to be there on a cloudy day. You say, "I don't feel a thing." But let me tell you by experience, the rays are still burning you. That's actually what happened in the tragic aftermath of that meltdown of a nuclear facility in Chernobyl in Russia a few years ago. Remember, thousands of children were invaded by invisible radiation and they didn't feel a thing. But after awhile they began to lose hair and their skin began to change. They got increasingly deadly symptoms, and finally many of them died. They were gradually destroyed by something they couldn't even feel.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Invisible Death."
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from 2 Corinthians 7:1, where God says, "Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God."
The Lord speaks to us here about the danger of being contaminated in our body and spirit, and the answer is to purify yourself and to really work on the holy things in your life - not to let the contamination in. The devil is too smart to come up and say, "Listen, I really want to poison your life and take you into some really dark stuff. Follow me and I'll take you to hell." No, he would rather slowly wear you down through slow, steady contamination. The devil believes in getting people more through erosion than through explosion. There's moral radiation out there. And because you don't feel anything bad happening when its hitting you, you'll think nothing is happening.
The devil's strategy for making people what they never thought they would become, getting them to do what they never thought they would do, think what they never thought they would think, goes like this: He just tries to plant a thought. He doesn't try to get you to do anything. It's like think it, then begin to want it, and then eventually do it, and then ultimately pay for it. James 1:15 says, "Desire, when it is conceived gives birth to sin and sin when it is full grown gives birth to death."
You see, the easiest way to radiate you with sinful ideas is through your entertainment. That's when your guard's down. When you're watching TV or you're listening to some music, you're not thinking. You don't want to. It's a time when you are trying to relax. God knows that and that is why He says avoid the contamination. The devil will wrap sinful values and lifestyles in a package that's popular, that's attractive, that's really entertaining, that's catchy. He'll put in a catchy song. He'll put sin in a creative video, in an award-winning movie that everybody's talking about, everybody's seeing, gets great reviews. He'll put it into a captivating novel, maybe a popular TV program, an amusing TV program. The devil's fastest way to wear you down is to enter your heart in an entertaining package. That's when you are not thinking about what's going in and you get radiated by his poison. That's why it is time to de-contaminate your life. The good rule of thumb is simply "Don't see what you don't want to be."
The devil is pumping out moral radiation all the time through the media and we don't feel a thing. But he would like to destroy you quietly. So you wake up one day and you say, "How did I end up like this?" The Bible says, "Guard your heart, it is the well spring of life." Don't find yourself slowly radiated by the invisible death of Satan's propaganda.