Advice for B’lore church
July 22, 2007(GB Message)
Venomous schemes of Satan against members of the church
Thirty years ago, I witnessed a scene that is vivid to me even today. I was in Calcutta, and the institute where I was employed (IIM) was at that time situated on the Barackpore Trunk Road. Being a highway in the city of Calcutta, it was a road with very heavy but fast-moving traffic at speeds up to 80 kmph. I did not usually need to cross this road because I used the institute bus. Once I happened to cross that road myself. It was a double road. I crossed the first road, stood on the traffic median till the traffic from the opposite direction thinned and then ran across to the opposite pavement. There was no problem except that I had to wait for a long time on the traffic median between very fast-moving vehicles on both sides.
As I was returning to the institute by the same process, I saw a good-looking dog with four or five puppies trying to cross that road.
My attention was focused on this scene. If it was so difficult for human beings to cross this road, I wondered what it would be like for an animal. I was inwardly very worried about the safety of those creatures. The dog was intelligent enough to wait till the traffic grew thinner and attempted to cross. While the mother dog managed to cross over to the median safely, two of her puppies were run over and died. It was a sad sight. The dog continued its exodus to cross to the pavement across the road from the central median. Again she managed but lost the rest of her litter. It was too much for the puppies to cross the Barackpore Trunk Road but the mother dog could not visualize this.
The scene portrayed to me the situation of careless believers before the wisest being we know about, the devil, whose wisdom pertains to evil schemes. I was consoled by the fact that at least the adult dog managed to escape. The Lord has warned believers time and time again about the wiles of Satan. How many of the believers have paid heed to this warning and taken adequate precautions in spiritual life is a matter for conjecture by believers in the church. Even in the Lord’s prayer we are reminded of it “lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.” But it is terrible to state that even a few take a casual attitude towards this vital warning.
Citizens of heaven
God has offered us the citizenship of Heaven in advance. I exhorted you to realize this priceless privilege and be careful not to treat it cheaply. A casual attitude leads one to the lake of fire. The acid test of our spiritual attitude is how we conduct ourselves in this earth. As dual citizens, citizens of this earth and citizens of heaven, do we treat this world and the next equally or do we live as strangers and sojourners in this earth as commanded in the Bible? This is a good time to introspect rather than at a later time when it may be too late.
The present world has become worse than Sodom and Gomorrah. We are like an island, living precariously. This is a time we need a church like ours as a place of safety. It is to be examined as to how many of you take things that seriously and respect the church to that extent.
Raise children carefully
I advise you strongly to take care of children under your care. When things are going from bad to worse, unless children are brought up carefully and biblically, God may hold us responsible for losing them.
Television
If you are wasting your time watching TV shows even in these days, how are you going to control the conduct and character of the children as they grow in this difficult world? Rather than forcibly shutting off the TV you should talk to them and convince them of its evil effect setting up an example yourselves. In my younger days scholars nicknamed the TVs as the Idiot Box since it made young children idiots. Today I call it Devil’s Box because it makes children go to hell. To keep abreast of the news, both national and international, I advice you all to read a standard newspaper for a few minutes everyday.
