Scanning The Radio Dial

A while back, I was commuting back and forth to Richmond. When I am driving, especially when I am stuck in traffic, I have this tendency to scan the radio constantly. I listen to something until a commercial and then scan again. I listen to a song I like, then press scan when one comes along that I don't like. As I have gotten older, I prefer talk radio. I can never seem to find a station that consistently plays the songs I like. So I listen to talk radio. And there always seems to be preachers on some station. Some are good. Some are wrong. And most of the time I only get a snippet. But here are three snippets I listened to:

1. The first preacher was discussing the story of Elijah in (1 Kings 19). He discussed the story of Elijah sitting under the tree asking God to take his life. Sitting under a tree feeling sorry for himself, questioning why God had given him so much trouble even though he had been so faithful, even though he carried out all of God's difficult demands. The preacher talked about how we all feel this way some times, but I went out of range before he reached his conclusion.
   
2. And then I scanned to another radio preacher as he said that we have to "Throw away the filth." We get so caught up in the world, the everyday life, that we are trapped by own rebellion against God. As an example, Elijah became so focused on the world, on his everyday life, on filth, that he fell into a paralyzing depression. And to grow he had to throw away the filth. Unfortunately, I lost the signal before I could get to the preacher's final conclusion about how we, in practice, could "Throw Away the Filth."
   
3. Then one older preacher brought it all together for me. He said he always had difficulty fully trusting God, fully giving Him control of his life, fully submitting to God's will. For most of his life, he was afraid of flying, then one time he was flying on a flight from London and he was going through rough turbulence, and he started to pray for God to lead him and to take his control of his life. He prayed for submission, and he fell asleep "in God's love" even with the turbulence.
   

That was what the story of Elijah and "throwing away the filth" was telling us. Most of our daily worldly frustrations are unholy filth that we need to throw away. And the way to throw away the filth is to trust in Jesus, trust in the savior, trust the Bible and trust that He will never give us anything we can't handle. Like with Elijah, God will get us through if we submit.

To throw away the filth in our lives we have to submit. And for this submission we get the comfort of the Lord, we get to pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17), we get the comfort of being away from the filth and depression that the world presents. To submit, we have to hear, believe, repent, be baptized, and live faithfully. At this time, if you have any problems with submission, or if you have any needs before the church, please come forward as we sing.