Getting use to the Darkness!

I Timothy 4:2b ... having their conscience seared with a hot iron;

We recently went to hear one of our favorite evangelist by the name of Lou Rossi preach at one of our friends church and the name of his sermon was " Getting use to the Darkness". He used the scripture listed above and let me tell you it was a very eye opening sermon. He told of how an experiment was done where the lights were gradually dimmed in a room so slowing and only a tiny bit at a time until the people were in total darkness and they did not even realize what had happened. The process was so slow that their eyes adjusted and they did not know that they were being put in the dark!

The spiritual application was so real and the Lord really dealt with my heart. My family has been going through a process of trying to seek revival in our home and in our individual lives. The Lord used this sermon in a very real way to wake us up to how the devil can slip even into a Christian's life and before we know it we are sitting in the darkness of the world and sin.

I began to think about some areas just in our world that the devil has gradually darkened. Do you remember some years back that it was unheard of to see a woman in public in shorts or even pants. This has been such a slow turning down of the lights that women look any old way in public now. As a young girl when we went into town we had to wear dresses, have our hair fixed and be clean as a whistle. Now women look unkempt, dirty, everything is hanging out, if you know what I mean. The first time I remember seeing a woman in curlers in town my mama about had a hissie fit! Now this look would me an improvement! I see them in slippers, bunny tails, pajama bottoms and see through t-shirts. But this did not happen over night, it was a slow, creeping process.

You may also remember or have heart about T.V. when it originated, actually it started with the radio.....people would sit and stare at the radio so they could hear it better. Nothing but the slow move to television. Then the shows were pretty wholesome, Mayberry, Lassie, Leave it to Beaver, Donna Reed show and more. Never a profane word was spoken, never suggested anything off color at all but gradually a curse word was introduced and people were shocked but as time rolled on it was overlooked. Sexual innuendo was added and now my goodness look at what we have evolved into!! But again we were just getting use to the darkness.

Our music has done the same thing. I use to think that Elvis was pretty good and as a matter of fact I was madly in love with him as a child but I believe even if he did it innocently that he helped usher in darkness. Even back then there were preachers that saw the light being dimmed and would preach against it but little by little they silenced their outcry and now worse music is heard in our churches and our young people, excuse me even our older people, are rocking and swaying to the beat of a rock tune with a few christian words thrown in now and then, while sitting in a place that once we thought was a place to be reverent! It is like the strange music at the foot of Mount Sinai.

Do you see what I am saying? Even as Christians we have been tricked by the greatest trickster there is and ever so slowly, every so easy until our conscience has become dulled and callused. I have gone back and reviewed my life and am trying my best to eliminate some of those things that maybe are okay but I feel are just leading to the darkness. No I am not telling you what to do. I am not going to tell you what I have changed because some of you might would say that I am being legalistic, which by the way I am not because I am not adding to my salvation and I am not doing things to be saved. I just want to please the Lord! I do not want to live in the darkness! I want to live in light and walk in light! Just take a few minutes and exam your heart.....Are you becoming use to the darkness?