Shake It Off In The Fire

Shake It Off In The Fire

PPT 1 Message Title

In today's message we are going to deal with spiritually unhealthy things/people and ideas that will try to attach themselves to us, poison our spirit and hinder our service to God. We are going to see the way to deal with them, and that is to shake them off in the fire.

Turn to your neighbor and say, "neighbor, shake it off in the fire."

PPT 2-4 text

Acts 28:1 And when they had been brought safely through, then we found out that the island was called Malta.

Acts 28:2 And the natives showed us extraordinary kindness; for because of the rain that had set in and because of the cold, they kindled a fire and received us all.

Acts 28:3 But when Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks and laid them on the fire, a viper came out because of the heat, and fastened on his hand.

Acts 28:4 And when the natives saw the creature hanging from his hand, they began saying to one another, "Undoubtedly this man is a murderer, and though he has been saved from the sea, justice has not allowed him to live."

Acts 28:5 However he shook the creature off into the fire and suffered no harm.

PPT 5 Sermon main points

Here are the top three lessons I want to talk about from this text

A. What motivates snakes to attack.

B. Two Types of Snake attacks

C. The special area of snake attack & how Paul dealt with it.

It is a story that lends itself to taking spiritual lessons, because of the snake - a euphemism throughout scripture for the devil, another is fire. Fire is symbolic of many things but for today's message we will use it as an emblem of the Holy Spirit.

First up what motivates snakes to attack.

PPT 6 text

Acts 28:3 But when Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks and laid them on the fire, a viper came out because of the heat, and fastened on his hand.

What caused the snake to appear and attack? The heat. That is the literal.

This is from an article that was in Nature Magazine online:

Vipers, pythons and boas have holes on their faces called pit organs, which contain a membrane that can detect infrared radiation from warm bodies up to one meter away. At night, the pit organs allow snakes to 'see' an image of their predator or prey — as an infrared camera does — giving them a unique extra sense. In other words they have heat sensing capabilities. These types of snakes only go after prey that are generating heat. What is true in the natural is true in the spiritual.

Here is the spiritual - if you get on fire for God, if you are generating spiritual heat, it will cause spiritual snakes to come after you.

If you are not dealing with snakes it may be because there is no fire in your life.

Paul said, all that live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. Get on fire for God, and snakes will come looking for you.

Before you go getting all nervous, just think about what happened to the snake in this story. He got burnt up, Watch this, the same fire that brought the snake out, also burned it up. The grace that attracted the snake, is also the grace that will give you the strength to destroy it.

So instead of being afraid of an attack by a snake, we should be praying that we so live they are attracted and destroyed by the fire of God in our life.

If the devil comes after you, in the name of the Lord, I declare, you will shake him off in the fire.

Next thing I want to talk about is two types of snakes that attack:

PPT 7 2 types of snakes that attack

A. Opportunistic snakes,

B. Snakes with a specific assignment.

Opportunistic snakes are those that look for a good opportunity to attack. satan in general is an opportunistic snake. He goes about like roaring lion seeking opportunity.

PPT 8 text

Luke 4:13 And when the devil had finished every temptation, he departed from Him until an opportune time. (NASB)

Notice it says satan was looking for an opportune time, he never found one for Jesus. But for us there are times and places where we are more open to attack. I liken the opportunistic snake to the python. Python is a snake that kills its victims by squeezing the life out of them. They don't move very fast. So they look for opportunities for slow moving prey. When a person, man or woman, looks at things on the internet, or tv they shouldn't be looking at, they become a "captive audience," they are a slow moving prey that the python would like to squeeze the life out of.