Then they said, "The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Now let us take a three-day journey into the desert to offer sacrifices to the LORD our God, or he may strike us with plagues or with the sword."
But the king of Egypt said, "Moses and Aaron, why are you taking the people away from their labor? Get back to your work!" Then Pharaoh said, "Look, the people of the land are now numerous, and you are stopping them from working."
That same day Pharaoh gave this order to the slave drivers and foremen in charge of the people: "You are no longer to supply the people with straw for making bricks; let them go and gather their own straw. But require them to make the same number of bricks as before; don't reduce the quota. They are lazy; that is why they are crying out, `Let us go and sacrifice to our God.' Make the work harder for the men so that they keep working and pay no attention to lies."
In this passage, we read about Moses' and Aaron's first attempt to get Pharaoh to release the Israelites and to let them leave the land of Egypt. As I read this, it struck me that Pharaoh responded to their demands in exactly the same way that Satan responds to us when we try to go out and fulfill God's callings and commands in our lives and in our churches. He makes the work harder.
I think the main way he does this now is by keeping Christians and churches so busy that they can't be effective at doing what God has called them to do. I noted in an earlier post that I was as busy as I have ever been in my life, between work and church and family issues, and it seems like a lot of others have that problem. We just had a Sunday School committee meeting and the issue came up of why people weren't coming to Sunday School and why we couldn't get teachers to commit. The answer, "People are just too busy. They just have too much going on in their lives." The work gets harder.
Satan doesn't seem to mind if you are busy just doing church stuff, because he knows that you can get so wrapped up in programs and committee meetings and ministries that you neglect the relationships that are of vital importance, your relationship with God, your family, your friends, and those you are witnessing to. I had a friend who got so busy with church a few years ago -- so busy doing God's work -- that his wife told him that she was leaving and taking their children. If Satan can keep us busy, he can keep us from being effective and can destroy churches and marriages and friendships in the process. The work gets harder.
I think a good question to ask ourselves, then, is how are we doing at managing our resource of time to accomplish what God has called us to accomplish. Are we spending all our time being busy without being effective, or are we accomplishing what God has called us to do? Are we too busy to take care of our family and our friends and maintain our relationship with our Father in Heaven? David pointed out in the Psalms that God desires your heart above anything else you can do or offer. Is Satan just keeping us busy, just making the work harder, so that we will forget to go and worship God, so that we will forget to keep our relationships strong?
I want to share with you something that I got off the internet a few years ago. It made its rounds via e-mail and can be found circulating around today. Maybe it will make a difference in the way that you look at your busy life and maybe it will help you stop trying to do everything and start trying to do what is truly important.
Satan Called a Worldwide Convention.
In his opening address to his evil angels, Satan 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 in Christ. If they gain that 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 relationship with Jesus Christ. This is what I want you to do, angels. Distract them from gaining hold of their Saviour 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 innumerable schemes to occupy their minds," he answered. "Tempt them to spend, spend, spend, and borrow, borrow, borrow. Persuade the wives to go to work for long hours and the husbands to work 6-7 days each week, 10-12 hours a day, so they can afford empty lifestyles. Keep them from spending time with their children. As their family fragments, soon, their home 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, VCR, CDs and their PCs going constantly in their home and see to it that every store and restaurant in the world plays non-biblical music constantly. This will jam their minds and break that union with Christ. Fill the coffee tables with magazines and newspapers.
"Pound their minds with the news 24 hours a day. Invade their driving moments with billboards. Flood their mailboxes with junk mail, mail order catalogues, sweepstakes, and every kind of newsletter and promotional offering free products, services and false hopes. Keep skinny, beautiful models on the magazines so the husbands will believe that external beauty is what's important, and they'll become dissatisfied with their wives. Ha! That will fragment those families quickly!
"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 to reflect on God's wonders. Send them to amusement parks, sporting events, concerts and movies instead. Keep them busy, busy, busy! And when they meet for spiritual fellowship, involve them in gossip and small talk so that they leave with troubled consciences and unsettled emotions.
"Go ahead, let them be involved in soul winning; but crowd their lives with so many good causes they have no time to seek power from Jesus. Soon they will be working in their own strength, sacrificing their health and family for the good of the cause. It will work! It will work!"
It was quite a convention. The evil angels went eagerly to their assignments causing Christians everywhere to get more busy and more rushed, going here and there. I guess the question is: Has the devil been successful at his scheme? You be the judge!
Does "busy" mean:
B-eing U-nder S-atan's Y-oke?
B-eing U-nder S-atan's Y-oke?
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