Romans 119

Communication

May 31, 2003

Brian Kocourek

 

KJV Romans 14:7  For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. 8 For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord's.

 

In this day of high tech communications, it is quite interesting that with all the different sorts of communications devices we have at our disposal, like phones, faxes, email, cell phones pagers, etc, etc, etc. that you would think people would be over-saturated with communications, and would long for peace and quiet. But people today are lonelier than at any time, or in any other age. That seems to be a paradox to me, when we have such easy access to each other via our modern equipment. But it no less is true.

 

Not just 40 years ago the average family throughout America had less than one phone per household, and in fact it was not uncommon back then to see neighbors sharing a telephone and the cost of having a phone line to a home. In many neighborhoods, there were no phones, and you would have to go to a grocery store or the local pharmacy to make a call.  The same holds true in many of the third world countries I have visited. In the Philippines, especially in the remote towns, they have a call center in the town where the phones are lined up as booths that you make your calls in. Email and internet communications is also made available through these phone centers and people have access to others around the world in a matter of minutes instead of months.

 

But with the onslaught of technology and all that has all changed and Although a few households seems to have 1 phone in every room, most households (30%) have just 1 phone, 27% have 2 phones, and 23% have 3 phones. The remaining 20% have 4-9 phones.

 

The cost of communications has reduced so substantially, that you no longer must be a person of means to have access to it. I remember paying anywhere from $0.25—$0.35 cents per minute to call long distance, and that was back when $100 per week was considered a good income.  Today, the average household income is about 9 times higher and yet the cost to make a long distance phone call falls between 3-1/2 cents to 5 cents per minute. I do not know what the call rate is but I would imagine the number of minutes the average person spends in some sort of communications is exponentially higher than in any other age, and yet why are the people so isolated and lonely?

 

I believe it has to do with the way our society has developed into such a fast paced frenzy that people are speeding down the high way just to arrive and have to wait. Everything seems to be now, have to have it now, until we get irritated at the drive through when the person taking your order makes you wait perhaps 30 seconds longer than we think they should.

 

DANIEL 12:4 But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, [even] to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.

 

SUPER SIGN  62-0708  66    Why, these cars that we got today, couldn't run over these highways we used to have. My first trip west, it taken me sixteen days to go from Jeffersonville to Phoenix, Arizona, eighteen hundred miles. But, my, the most of--it was 1926, they had nothing but just old rock roads. I was a little boy setting there, holding this spool-top Ford; I thought I was making good time. Would took a horse two or three months to do it, if my daddy would've come.

But you see now, what happened all at once? Six thousand years has been the same man. But right here in the last fifty years, he's come from a horse and buggy to a jet or a rocket. Why? The Bible said they would run to and fro in these last days, and knowledge shall increase. It's a sign of the end time.  Super, everything must be super; it won't work.

 

And today we have gone past the jet age and entered the age of communications. And yet what has it produced. The world is increased with knowledge and what has it done for people out there?  A bunch of neurotics, that’s what.

 

I believe all this communications technology was created because people have a thirst for fellowship and yet they are so busy that they don’t have time to even sit and talk to one another. It used to be that everyone had a porch on the front of their home and they would pass the time sitting and watching the neighbors come and go, and everyone had time to talk to one another. But today, we have all the communication devises imaginable, and we constantly use them, and yet people are more lonely now than when they didn’t have them years ago.

 

And what is causing all this to happen?  I believe it is because man was created by God to have a thirst for Him. And yet we try to quench our thirst in every other way conceivable and we leave Him out of the picture all together.

 

Paul, said, For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. 8 For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord's.

 

And if this is so, then we have a stewardship to God for our very lives. None of us liveth to ourselves, and surely none of us will die without affecting anyone else. Therefore, whether we live or whether we die, our complete focus should be on Christ.

 

Let’s just take this first thought here, “None of us live to himself”.  In the Book of Acts we read,  ACTS 17:28  For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring. And in the Book of Colossians Paul said,  COLOSSIANS 3:4 When Christ, [who is] our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.

 

Therefore, when we  seek to communicate, we should begin by looking to the Lord First for He is our very Life.

 

I JOHN 1:5  This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. 6 If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: 7 But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.

 

HEBREWS 10:19  Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, 20 By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh; 21 And [having] an high priest over the house of God; 22    Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us hold fast the profession of [our] faith without wavering; (for he [is] faithful that promised;) 24 And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: 25 Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some [is]; but exhorting [one another]: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching. 26 For if we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins,

CHURCH DEDICATION  59-0708M  E-19    No wonder the church natural today can't believe in miracles. They've never come into the miracle working place where they're at rest with God. There's where Aaron's rod budded, something that was dead. An old dry stick off the desert in that holiest of holies took new life, and bloomed blooms, and sprouted out, and brought leaves. How? It was laying in the holiest of holies.

           You can take a dead sinner, rotten, carnal in his mind and in his thinking a criticizer of the power of God, and bring him into the Presence of the Holy Ghost, there'll be something happen to him. Sure. Entering into that lonely place with God... "He dwells," says Moses in the next chapter, "in the thickness of the darkness." That's where God dwells. That's where life stays. Is in the midst of the rotten corruption. Where does the life stay? In the seed after it's rotten. When it dies to itself it brings forth a new life.

              Where does God stay? He will stay with you if you're ready to die out to yourself and give Him a chance: service: body. intellectual: spirit, thoughts; and soul, your faith in God: three room house.

 

THY LOVING KINDNESS  58-0228  E-56    The American people want to be entertained. They don't want the Gospel no more; they want entertainment. And the devil's given them all that he can, just led them in all around everything. And they don't thirst for God no more.

          All the kids in this country... Ninety-five percent of the kids in Chattanooga could tell you more about Davy Crockett than they could tell you about Jesus Christ. Ninety-five percent of the women can tell you more about Arthur Godfrey or Elvis Presley than they could about Jesus Christ. Think of it. Think of it. Can't you see it's gone?

       Flee, Christian. There's a fountain open. Water is near. Life is near. Flee to it quickly. Drink, drink, drink till you can't drink no more. God will satisfy that thirst. God bless you. Now I'm going to pray for you.