August 10, 2015 Distractions

Distraction is not a new method that the enemy employs to keep us from being who we were created to be.  This tactic was used in the garden with Eve.  The enemy twisted truth just enough to draw Adam and Eve from the absolute truth of what God had commanded.   He took Cain’s hurt feelings and turned it into murder.  I could go on and on.  The enemy has been at this for a very long time and is very proficient at it.This is why we see warnings from the leaders like Moses and Joshua.  In the book of Joshua, before Joshua died, he called the people and gave them this warning:

“Be very strong; be careful to obey all that is written in the Book of the Law of Moses, without turning aside to the right or to the left. Do not associate with these nations that remain among you; do not invoke the names of their gods or swear by them. You must not serve them or bow down to them. But you are to hold fast to the Lord your God, as you have until now.”

The deceiver is very smart and even after this warning we see in the book of Judges that the people did not remember the warning:

“After that whole generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation grew up, who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel.  Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and served the Baals. They forsook the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of Egypt. They followed and worshiped various gods of the peoples around them.” (Judges 2:10-12)

This is where we are today.  The enemy has been at work in our country since our ancestors arrived here.  He has systematically pulled the wool over the eyes of the leaders of this country.   He has tricked the country into thinking that there is no such thing as absolute truth.  The history of Israel is our history.The failure has been the failure of Gods people throughout history, and that includes us as well.  Deuteronomy 6 gives us the formula for a strong family, which produces a strong church, which produces a strong community and you get the progression all the way to a strong country.  The deceiver invented this thing called the American Dream to get our eyes off of our mission.  Over the years personal success and getting ahead has taken over our lives.  We need more things, more money, better jobs to get more things and more money.  We claim to be doing it for our families but the whole while the devil has put blinders on us to the truth.  Totally distracted, we have allowed a whole generation to rise up who does not know God or what he has done for us.  We have allowed the enemy to rewrite history and take God out of it.

So what do we do?  Lets go back to Deuteronomy 6:

These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates. 

It’s not too late for the church to begin to act like the people we are, who God made us to be.  Do what God’s word says for us to do.  Be faithful, train up our children to fear God and know what he has done for us.  Elect people who best represent Christian values; which means we have to be informed and vote.  We need to pray together, be evangelists, disciples, and missionaries.  Simply do what we were mandated to do.  Church, it is not too late.