MANY of us are deceived into believing that the evil forces of Satan are using ineffective and obsolete promotional gimmicks to win souls for Satan. Many of us have been brainwashed since childhood to think that Satan is a harmless fellow dressed in a red or black suit with horns, a forked tail, and carrying a pitchfork with no power whatsoever to influence our lifestyles, our values, and our spiritual lives. Many of us are conditioned into thinking that Satan’s interest to lure people to his headquarters in hell is just a hobby and not an obsession. Nothing is farther from the truth.
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Did the idea ever occur to you that Satan and his evil forces may also be having planning sessions, conventions, and conferences to review, assess, and evaluate their overall marketing plans to win more souls to their side – the same as what we are doing in the corporate business? A preposterous proposition to atheists, but an awesome reality fraught with disastrous consequences to Bible-believing Christians.
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Let me share with you a glimpse of the opening ceremonies of a convention of fallen angels. This story was sent by a Christian friend. Here goes:
"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 forming an intimate, abiding relationship experience in Christ. If they gain that connection with Jesus, our power over them is broken.
"So let us go into their churches; let them have their conservative lifestyles, but steal their time, so they can’t gain that relationship with Jesus Christ. That 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 Satan’s angels. ‘Keep them busy in the non-essentials of life and invent innumerable schemes to occupy minds,’ he answered. ‘Tempt them to spend, spend, spend, and borrow, borrow.
"Persuade the wives to go to work for long hours and the husbands to work six to seven days a 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 work!
"Over-stimulate their minds so that they cannot hear that still, small voice. Entice them to play the radio or cassette player wherever they drive. To keep the TV, VCR, CDs,’ and their PCs going constantly in their homes. 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. Fill 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 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 to 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 emotion.
"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 Christ. 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. And the evil angels went eagerly to their assignments causing Christians everywhere to bet busy, busy, busy, and to rush here and there.
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Let us resist Satan’s ploy. . . before it is too late. Let us be spiritually strengthened by reading the World of God. There is a God who made us for a reason. We can discover that reason only when we make God, our Creator, the focal point in our lives. In the words of the Holy Bible, "I (God) am your Creator. You were in my care even before you were born"
(Isaiah 44:2a).
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This column continues to give out copies of the Holy Bible for free to those who cannot afford to buy their own copies. If interested, please send your letter-request to Ms. Nelly Favis Villafuerte, 5th Floor, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), Roxas Blvd., Manila. Kindly mention if it is the Tagalog, English, Cebuano, or Ilocano version that is preferred.
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This column is also giving out for free a 42-page 3x5 inch booklet that briefly explains the said doctrine of salvation presented in the Holy Bible. To those who are struggling as to what the Holy Bible really says on how souls can be saved from eternal damnation, please do not hesitate to write me and ask for a copy of this booklet. Let us not forget the Biblical verse that says "What profits a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?"
Have a joyful day!
