Video from DTBM
"Today God wants us to live for Heaven and every other day of our earthly lives. But, we have to do so in the midst of an epidemic that has gotten stronger century by century. This flu we face as believers in Christ each day is far more deadly than the H1N1 variety of influenza now loitering and infecting people across the globe. Affluenza or materialism is a deadly disease that robs Christians of their desire for Heaven and replaces it with a desire for the earth. As we open to I Timothy 6 we find Paul warning about this spiritual sickness of materialism. This morning measure your personal resistance level to the nearly irresistible draw of spending life chasing stuff, money, pleasure, and possessions. Over the past few weeks, many major world newspapers continue to examine the larger issue of what is being called the “Super-Flu”. Here is what they are saying: Overdue Global Influenza Attack Some experts have been looking at the genetic structure of the virus which caused the 1918 pandemic, as well as a serious outbreak in Hong Kong in 1997 for clues that may help doctors combat such an outbreak. There were three flu pandemics in the last century, in 1918, 1957, and 1968. Even though the 1957 and 1968 outbreaks were less severe than the Spanish flu, they still accounted for 40,000,000 deaths between them (or 1% of the population). Researchers suggest that an approximately 30-year cycle between pandemics means we are well overdue for another one. (1% of America falling victim to influenza would mean 3,000,000 deaths!) We need to listen here in America also because we have had our share of disasters with the flu or Influenza as it is properly called. In the spring of 1918, as the nation mobilized for war, Private Albert Gitchell reported to an Army hospital in Kansas. He was diagnosed with the flu, a disease doctors knew little about. Before the year was out, America would be ravaged by a flu epidemic that killed 675,000--more than in all the wars of this century combined--before disappearing as mysteriously as it began. Yes, history is on the side of the argument that super influenza coming tragically will strike many people’s physical bodies. Revelation 6 tells us that in God's Word, however as we all know, there is something far worse than a sick and dying body – and that is a sick and dying soul. But more deadly than influenza, is the affluenza or materialism, that Paul warns Timothy and the church at Ephesus about in I Timothy 6:6-21." from video introduction.