Wednesday, November 4, 2015
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During the winter it's 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.
On a much more serious level, that's what happens when people are exposed to lethal levels of radiation. Places like Chernobyl and Fukushima. People there were invaded by invisible radiation and I'm sure they didn't feel a thing. In the case of Chernobyl where we've had some years to look back, we know the deadly affect on that population. It's still too early to assess the full effect of the nuclear power plant meltdown in Fukushima, Japan. But we know the survivors of these nuclear incidents 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 "How You End Up Where You Never Thought You'd Go."
Which brings us to our word for today from the Word of God, 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." Now the Lord speaks to us here about the danger of being contaminated in our body and in our spirit, and the answer - the antidote - purify yourself. Really work on the holy things in your life. Don't let that contamination in. The devil is too smart to come up and say, "Hey, 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, who's going to go for that?
No, he would rather slowly wear you down, and maybe he's doing that right now and you don't even feel a thing. It's just slow, steady contamination. The devil believes in getting people more through erosion than explosion. There's moral radiation out there. And because you don't feel anything bad happening when it's hitting you, you'll think nothing is happening.
The enemy's strategy for making people what they never thought they would become, getting them to do what they never thought they would do, to 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 ultimately want it, and then eventually do it and ultimately pay for it. I wonder where you might be in that strategy?
James 1:15 says, "After desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death." The easiest way to radiate you with sinful ideas, I think, is through your entertainment. That's when your guard's down. You know when you're watching T.V. or you're listening to some music, you're not thinking much. You don't want to. It's a time when you are trying to relax; turn off the brain.
God knows that and that's why He says avoid the contamination. So, the devil will wrap sinful values and lifestyles in a package that's popular - everybody's seeing it, it's attractive, it's really entertaining, it's funny, it's catchy. He'll put it in a catchy song. He'll put sin in a very creative, engaging video, in an award-winning movie that everybody's talking about, everybody's seeing, it's getting great reviews - must see. He'll put it into a captivating novel, a popular T.V. program, an amusing T.V. program. The devil's fastest way to wear you down is to enter your heart in an entertaining package. That's when you're not thinking about what's going on, but you are getting radiated by his poison.
That's why it is time to intentionally begin to de-contaminate your life and say, "Where am I letting darkness in? Where are the portals that the enemy is able to exploit? 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, see, he wants to destroy you quietly. So you wake up one day and you say, "How did I end up here?" 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.