Don’t Drink The Saltwater!

In our last devotion: Clean The Deck, sailors of the USS Neosho had been attacked by the Japanese. Now I did promise you a rescue in this devotion. But as I studied and prayed, I felt a heavy burden to focus on this subject which was only a brief section in the beginning. Please understand that I share this in love and I pray that you will be strengthened by it’s warning.

The sun rose over the Coral Sea to reveal yet again, no rescue ships or planes. Captain Phillips tried to instill hope among his crew but some now openly scoffed at the thought of a rescue ship. This mood darkened as the desperate need for water grew even more desperate.

Finally, one sailor leaned over the raft, dipped his hand in the saltwater and slurped it down. “Don’t do that!” one of the others shouted. “Salt water will kill you!” The man took another big gulp and replied, “It ain’t so bad and it’s wet.” He then grinned back through glassy bloodshot eyes.

Soon several other men began to drink the saltwater. Within a few hours, rapid dehydration became obvious as they suffered violent seizures and screamed craziness. One man began laughing uncontrollable and shouting to some imaginary person off in the distance. He then jumped out of the life raft and attempted to swim toward this mirage. It was only a short distance before he was pulled under by the sharks.

Drinking saltwater is the perfect picture of deception. It temporarily satisfies parched lips, but it slowly kills you on the inside. I wish that I had all year to cover this topic but let me share two pressing issues that are a tremendous burden to us.

The Digital Life

When we drink from the digital life, it feels great to have Google at our finger tips, endless entertainment and social recognition with a click of the Like button. But as computer scientist, Cal Newport stated: “Humans were not wired to be constantly wired. ”

Contrary to this, Facebook’s founding president described their mission as:
“How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?”

• YouTube reports 144,000 videos are uploaded every day.
• Instagram reports 95 million photos and videos are uploaded every day.
• 79% of adult smartphone users have their phones with them for 22 hours a day

In a recent medical study, people who gave up their smartphones experienced withdrawals which included: increased heart rate and blood pressure. They also felt a sense of loss, or lessening of themselves.

When non-religious people are sounding the alarm, it should be a warning for the unconcerned Christian. The digital lifestyle has produced a generation that cannot remained focused on the important things. Things like praying until we prayed through. Drinking in the Word until it flows freely from our lips. Instead our heads are down, scrolling through endless posts and tweets and texts and….etc. This trend is not only affecting us individually but it’s also infecting our churches.

The “New” Worship

Like the hallucinating sailor, deception will make you “believe” in things that you would have never embraced before. The generational shift brought on by the digital age, has led people to replace Spirit filled worship with choreographed, dark melodies and flashing lights. Where once, people of God, from nine to ninety would worship together, we now have “contemporary worship” for the young people.
One preacher told us: “We need something new because the old is not working anymore.” Now that logic makes as much sense as buying a new car every time your current one runs out of gasoline. If our churches are running low on Holy Ghost power, let’s find the altar of sacrifice and get filled back up! Can’t we understand that a bottle of poison is still poison, even if Christian lyrics are added to the label?

Psalm 96 says: “..sing unto the Lord a new song…” and we celebrate every new anointed song that is written. But if we cannot feel the same timeless Spirit of God that made grandma rejoice in her kitchen, something is wrong. If we’ve heard one phrase that rings from saints across the country, it is this: “Something doesn’t feel right.”

Leaders have expressed fear of losing their congregation unless they drink in this new worship. Please hear me on this: We should grieve when people leave our churches but we should never compromise the truth to get them back.

People everywhere are spiritually dehydrated from the events of life. Never before has there been so much saltwater from which to drink. This devotion only scratches the surface on all of the deception that is plaguing our land. My prayer is that we take a moment and examine the water that we’re drinking in.

God has an appointed time of refreshing and it will come! When it comes, it will taste right, feel right and it will bring life to your thirsty soul. Don’t settle for the saltwater!