Satan’s Convention

This was sent to me a decade ago. The author is unknown, but the words are still relevant.

Satan’s Convention

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 conservative values. But we can do something else. We can keep them from forming an intimate, abiding experience in Christ.

If they gain that connection with Jesus, our power over them is broken. So let them go to church, 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, angels.  Distract them from gaining hold of their Savior and maintaining that vital connection throughout their day."

"How shall we do this?”  shouted his angels.

"Keep them busy in the non-essentials of life and invent unnumbered schemes to occupy their minds," he answered. "Tempt them to spend, spend, spend, then, borrow, borrow, borrow. Convince the wives to go to work and the husbands to work 6 or 7 days a week, 0-12 hrs. a day, so they can afford their lifestyles.  Keep them from spending time with their children.  As their family fragments, soon their homes will offer no escape from the pressures of work."

"Over-stimulate their minds so that they cannot hear that still small voice.  Entice them to play the radio or cassette player whenever they drive, to keep the TV, the VCR, and their CD's going constantly in their homes.  And see to it that every store and restaurant in the world plays music constantly.  This will jam their minds and break that union with Christ."

"Fill their coffee tables with magazines and newspapers.  Pound their minds with the news 24 hrs. a day. Invade their driving moments with billboards.  Flood their mailboxes with junk mail, sweepstakes, mail order catalogues, and every kind of newsletter and promotional offering, free products, services, and false hopes."

"Even in their recreation, let them be excessive.  Have them return from their recreation exhausted, disquieted and unprepared for the coming week.  Don't let them go out in nature.  Send them to amusement parks, sporting events, concerts and movies instead.

And when they meet for spiritual fellowship, involve them in gossip and small talk so that they leave with troubled consciences and unsettled emotion."

"Let them be involved in soul-winning.  But crowd their lives with so many good causes they have no time to seek power from Christ. Soon they will be working in their own strength, sacrificing their health and family unity for the good of the cause."  It was quite a convention in the end.

And the evil angels went eagerly to their assignments causing Christians everywhere to get busy, busy, busy and rush here and there.

"Be still and know that I am God."  Have you taken time to listen lately?

When a Commode Becomes a Temple

Philip Yancey gave me chills in his book, REACHING FOR THE INVISIBLE GOD. He told of a Cambodian man testifying at an international conference on evangelism. The man had been placed in a concentration camp by the Pol Pot regime.

When asked what he resented most about the camp, he replied, “Even more than deprivation of food, even more than the torture, I resented having no time to meet with God. There were guards yelling at us, forcing us to work, work, work.” Yet, this prisoner was convinced his death was imminent. Thus, he desired to spend time each day with God in preparation, but it was to no avail.

Then, he observed that the camp’s guards could get no one to volunteer to clean the cesspits. Who wanted to root himself in the raw sewage? So, the man volunteered for the horrible job.

At the conference, he enthralled his audience with these words, “No one ever interrupted me and I could do my work at a leisurely pace. Even in those stinking depths, I could look up and see blue sky. I could praise God that I survived another day. I could commune with God undisturbed and pray for my friends and relatives all around me. That became for me a glorious time of meeting with God.”

Here was a man who desired to commune with God so much, a de facto gigantic commode became for him, a temple.