Choosing Eternal Values Over Temporal Distractions

Devotional

Sermon Summary

Bible Study Guide

Sermon Clips


The devil will tempt us to make soft, even destructive choices in this regard. The Christian can make foolish daily decisions, things that will not count for eternity, esteeming things over people, things of the body over the soul. He'll get us to doing good things, which are still not the best thing, puttering around with this, puttering around with that, and we never do get any reading done that will improve our soul. [00:00:00]

It is a battle to read the Bible. It is a battle to read good books, things that will improve our soul, that will change our life. You see, transform our life by the renewing of the Mind. Romans 12:2. Think of Paul in 2 Timothy 4:13. He tells him, when you come, he says, bring my cloak which I left with Christmas and bring the books and especially the parchments, probably the scriptures. [00:00:48]

Here's Paul, a mighty Apostle, and he says bring the books, inspired by God, and he says bring the books, taken up into third heaven, Paradise, saw Things So Glorious that it's not permitted to repeat them, but he says bring the books. No doubt had a wide experience, widely traveled, talking with many men, and yet he says bring the books. [00:01:21]

Are you reading good books? Spurgeon says if you don't pick the brains of other men, you don't have a brain yourself. Are you reading good books, good volume, good books, things that are expositional to the scriptures? Are you? Why not? Paul says bring the books. I'll tell you why. It's because the devil is constantly putting pressure on the believer to distract him to this and that and the other. [00:01:49]

It is important what we look at is important. How we look at things, isn't it? How you look at things, it makes a lot of difference. I've said use this illustration before. If I were to ask my son to go out and stand in the woods for 3 hours, right there, 3 hours, you stand there, torture it would be. [00:03:01]

But if he goes out to stand at a deer stand for 3 hours, great fun. Didn't see anything, that's all right, but great fun. It's a matter of how you look at things, right? Somebody might, you know, back there in the days of the Titanic, before it was launched, come on board, says the captain, I want to show it to you. [00:03:23]

Look at all these chandeliers, look at all this silverware, look at all this stuff, furniture and everything, beautiful. But then a minute you step off, somebody comes up and says, hey, did you know that that's thing is going to only, it's going to go down in one day's time. Are you sure? Absolutely sure it's going down. [00:03:47]

It will go down in one day's time. That puts a whole different perspective on it, doesn't it? I mean, you feel what, all that for one day, it's going down. Absolutely, you're sure. Yeah, why? I look, you know, the glitter and the glory and the glamour, it only mocks the destruction, determination, the temporal, temporal of it all. [00:04:08]

Think of Paul. He was not some Iron Man, right? He felt it. He felt the Affliction. He felt the disrespect. He felt what was going on here at Corinth, and yet we find him saying in other places, yet none of these things move me. They don't move me. They don't stop me. They don't affect me. I keep right on plotting ahead. [00:05:11]

I don't count my life dear to myself that I may finish my course with joy and the ministry that I've received from the Lord Jesus to testify of the grace of God. It doesn't move me. Oh yeah, it's real. I feel it, but it does not move me. I go on realizing it's temporal, realizing it's momentary. [00:05:38]

Think of these Hebrews here. You know they were having trouble, and he tells them, reminds them, he says Hebrews 10:34, you took what joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing that in heaven you have a better and enduring substance. That is a powerful verse, a powerful testimony, those early Hebrews Christians. [00:06:36]

Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. The Gentiles, the non-Christians, they are anxious. They are anxiously seeking the food, the shelter, and all that stuff. That's what they're looking for, all this Temple stuff. They're trying to put it all together, accumulate something. It says in Proverbs, do not weary yourself to make wealth. [00:07:15]

Ask a question about this sermon