While I Pass by Safely

“Lord, I call upon you; hasten to me!

    Give ear to my voice when I call to you!

Let my prayer be counted as incense before you,

    and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice!

Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth;

    keep watch over the door of my lips!

Do not let my heart incline to any evil,

    to busy myself with wicked deeds

in company with men who work iniquity,

    and let me not eat of their delicacies!” (Psalms 141:1-4 ESV)

“But my eyes are toward you, O God, my Lord;

    in you I seek refuge; leave me not defenseless!

Keep me from the trap that they have laid for me

    and from the snares of evildoers!

Let the wicked fall into their own nets,

    while I pass by safely.” (Psalms 141:8-10 ESV)

Lately we have been looking at different ways in which the enemy of our souls comes against us to attack us, in order to take us down. If we are following the Lord in obedience, one of the ways is to attack our walks of faith and to attack us verbally and/or physically when we share the truth of the gospel of Christ and when we are actively refuting the lies of the enemy. The last way discussed was the enemy baiting us to get us into meaningless and fruitless arguments with others who have no intention to change.

And this is yet another way in which the enemy of our souls works to take us down and that is to tempt us and to try to manipulate us and persuade us to sin against the Lord and to do what is evil in his sight. And there are multiple ways in which the enemy may go about trying to tempt us to sin against the Lord. And he likes to choose times in our lives when we are the most vulnerable, usually when we are physically and/or emotionally weak due to difficult circumstances in our lives, which could be a physical illness, too.

And the temptations to sin against the Lord may begin with very subtle suggestions or persuasions to compromise our faith and convictions even one small inch. But as soon as we take that first compromise, no matter how little it may seem at the time, we have opened that door wide for even greater temptations and invitations to make even more moral compromises until we eventually are deep in sin doing things we never thought possible, even in our wildest of dreams.

For example, as human beings we have a natural desire to be entertained and to want to laugh or even to cry as an emotional release or fulfillment of some type, and that is why television and now the internet have been so popular and have sucked so many people into their “claws.” But the entertainment industry is so deceptive, and there are so many subtle lies and subliminal messages inserted into TV shows and movies and commercials and into social media memes and short videos, too.

And before you know it we are talked into one little compromise at a time until we become desensitized to all the evil we are consuming day after day. And I am speaking here mainly from my own past experience, for I was there, and I did make those compromises, and they did lead to bigger compromises until eventually I did the unthinkable and I went where I would never have imagined that I would ever go. But thank the Lord, he delivered me out of that life, and he put a new song in my heart. So I praise him!

But it isn’t just TV and movies and the internet and social media and YouTube and all those various places where we might go where we might be faced with such temptations, but this has to do with the people we are around, some of whom we cannot avoid, and some of whom we can. For other people can wield enormous influence over our lives if we let them, and if we are not guarded, and if we don’t have on our spiritual armor with which to fight off those lies of the enemy and the temptations to compromise.

So, we must be so guarded, and we cannot do that if we are casually spending hours a day watching TV and movies and videos and surfing the internet in order to be entertained. For as the saying goes, “Garbage in, garbage out.” What we take into our minds we also take into our hearts, and it is out of the heart that comes all this evil. So we have to set limits for ourselves. We must set boundaries and then never compromise those boundaries, even if other people think we are going overboard.

But even if we do all of that, it may not work. Why? Because we can do all that we know to do in our flesh to guard our hearts against evil, but if daily we are consuming what is junk, and if daily our lives are not surrendered to the Lord, and if he is not our life, but just someone we visit for a few minutes each day, then we have it all backwards. God/Christ has to be in first place in our lives. Our lives need to be surrendered to him fully, and he should be the one we go to and not to movies and TV shows, etc.

And I am certainly not saying that all entertainment is evil or that all that is on TV or on the internet is evil, although probably most of it is, in one way or another. But our lives must be being led by the Lord and not by our flesh, and not by our emotions, but by our faith, and by our commitments to serve the Lord above all else. For if our eyes are not truly on the Lord, but they are captivated by the world, then we cannot expect our Lord to be our defense and to keep us from all evil. Jesus has to be the one directing our lives.

And then we must be those who are following in his footsteps one step at a time. We must be those who are letting him lead us in what to do and in where to go and in what to say. We must be those who are listening to his voice continuously throughout the day, who are following his lead, and who are doing his will. For it is us who follow Jesus with our lives who will not walk in darkness, and it is us who are being led by the Spirit who will not gratify the sinful cravings of the flesh (John 8:12; Galatians 5:16-21).

I Will Call Upon the Lord

Words and music by Michael O'Shields

I will call upon the Lord

Who is worthy to be praised

So shall I be saved from my enemies

The Lord liveth and blessed be the Rock

And let the God of my salvation be exalted

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZIigMiXfuE 

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