The Church Needs Your : Presence / Time Series

The story at the beginning of this sermon is not mine but it is all over the internet so I don't know who to give credit to.

Key verse Matthew 25:14-30

Today’s Verse Luke 10: 41-42

Satan called a Meeting with his evil angels one day.

This is what 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 a relationship with Christ. If they gain a connection with Jesus, our power over them is gone.

So, let them go to their churches; let them have their conservative lifestyles, but I want you to steal their time, so they can't gain that relationship with Jesus Christ. This is what I want you to do. Distract them from gaining hold of their Savior and maintaining that vital connection throughout their day!"

"How shall we do this?" shouted Satan’s 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 starts to fall apart, 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 CD player whenever they drive. To keep the TV, DVD’s, I-pads, video games, Facebook and all of their computers and electronic devices going constantly in their home, in their cars, and even when they are out together and see to it that every store and restaurant in the world plays non-Christian 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 tear apart 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: Being under Satan’s Yoke

Let’s look at today’s verse Luke 10: 41-42

Jesus said to Martha, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.”

There are many many things that go on in our lives today. We are living in a world where everything is instantaneous; microwaves, e-mail, and the internet have made things so much faster for us. Technology was supposed to save us time due to the speed of things and give us more time at home with our families. What happened?

There doesn’t seem to be enough time on the day, we don’t have time for family much less church or even spending time with Christ, so how much time do we have in a day?

Well we all have the same amount of time, 24 hours. How we use it may differ but we all start with the same amount of time in a day. 24 hours a day = 168hrs a week.

Let’s subtract 8 hours each weeknight for sleep and 10 hrs. Per night for weekends that leaves 108 waking hours.

Then we need to subtract 40 hours for work, let’s go ahead and figure overtime and commuting and round it up to 50 hrs. That leaves us 58 hours a week that we could give to the Lord.