In Georgia, a baby was shot and killed in its stroller; its mother is in critical condition from trying to protect the child… Two Marines were killed at Quantico, and a third Marine thought to be the shooter is dead from a self-inflicted wound… A man in New York who faked his own death is being charged… Scientists say that salt is a silent killer; it’s hidden in many processed foods and is hard to avoid… Pepsi is rolling out a new bottle with indentations for the consumer’s fingers… This is ABC News.
The preceeding paragraph is a transcript of an actual ESPNRadio newsbreak, during the month of March 2013. (Slightly paraphrased from memory.) That was the entire package. A string of death notices and a dire warning, capped with a soda promotion clumsily disguised as news. Are we supposed to walk around informed from this garbage?
Most of us would respond with, “Of course not”, claiming to be aware and conscious… but then we are quick to repeat these type of “news” stories to other people, filling in the gaps with our own opinions. This reveals the media for what it is: gossip that reduces consumers to know-it-all eye-rollers, to lovers of trivia.
I am saddened when I hear bretheren in Christ talk as if knowing every world event is important. One brother, every time I see him, spends our entire conversation trying to impress, asking me “Did you hear about (item he saw or heard somewhere in the media)?” I can’t throw a stone at him, as I used to be the same way–I believed being “informed” was extremely crucial. It can be useful, but when the river of information is poisoned from upstream, what is the point of drinking so much of it? I pray he (and the rest of us) will come to the same conclusion. Everything we need to know is in the Bible; worldly knowledge must be counterbalanced with, and finally superceded by, the Lord’s wisdom.
The various forms of the words death and kill in the example above, all in the space of sixty seconds, are too numerous to be a coincidence. That water is filthy, bretheren. The enemy wants us thinking about these distractions in a state of discouragement. He works through media, and through those of us who are spiritually slumbering, to accomplish that. He desires anything to be on our minds except our Good Sheperd.
Turn on your local newscast, wrote one blogger. You have a few minutes of blue-collar crime, hardly any white collar crime, a few minutes of sports, misc. chit chat, random political jibber-jabber, and a look at the weather that no one is forecasting correctly. Is that what happened in your town?…The focus is to keep us in a state of fear, that way the elitists can attack any group they want to without fear of consequence. This is why the media is continuing to craft the timeless art of dehumanization.
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The following is lifted from a piece by Alex Ansary:
Experiments conducted by researcher Herbert Krugman reveal that when a person watches television, brain activity switches from the left to the right hemisphere. The left hemisphere is the seat of logical thought. Here, information is broken down into its component parts and critically analyzed.
The right brain, however, treats incoming data uncritically, processing information in wholes, leading to emotional, rather than logical responses. The shift from left to right brain activity also causes the release of endorphins, the body’s own natural opiates–thus, it is possible to become physically addicted to watching television [and the Internet], a hypothesis borne out by numerous studies which have shown that very few people are able to kick the television habit.
It’s no longer an overstatement to note that the youth today that are raised and taught through network television are intellectually dead by their early teens.
We are sheep, according to the Bible. Sheep are, well, kinda dumb. Radio talk show celebrity Rush Limbaugh is famous for using the term “sheeple,” a combination of sheep and people. This is an accurate moniker for the collective, but unfortunately gives him and his listeners the impression that they are above the fray and in the know. They are not.
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People generally don’t want Biblical truth. This is because it shows us we’re not only more ignorant than we think, we are wrong at the most basic level: born off-center from our Lord and bound for hell without His grace and mercy. All of the preceding sentence goes against, and angers, the beliefs of worldly folk. Why does it make Christ rejecters angry? Because self-righteousness and the false assurance of mankind’s intelligence and abilities has blinded them. Pray that they realize before it’s too late: Without the knowledge of sin there can be no healing of the soul, for to get right with God, one must first acknowledge their debt of sin before God.
Deep in our spirits, we all know this; that’s why most people will say all day that they believe in God, even in Jesus, and use the Bible’s wisdom in a casual manner. But most will not give any real credence to this “sin” talk. It’s because they know that to fully accept the reality of sin (and the fact that we are helpless to resolve that issue on our own) would mean not only a huge spiritual shift, but would bear fruit in the form of a real-world change as well. And they are in love with the things of the world.
Change of any kind is difficult. Believing on Jesus as Savior, in the face of unbelievable pressure from the world to deny Him, might be the most difficult decision that the unsaved will ever make. What is for sure is: it is the best decision, too.
Listen to people in the world talk, and notice that most of us claim to be experts on almost every subject–including the Holy Scriptures which they don’t even read, unless they see a verse quoted at the start of the latest movie. Usually most of the information that we crow about is from the very media we say we aren’t affected by.
Humility in even small portions is out of fashion. Our children have picked up this mindset, bound to take the undeserved cockiness to the next level. Generation X (which I am a part of) was the first to grow up entirely without prayer or the Bible in schools and other public places, except as a curiosity and/or historical touchpoint.
The subsequent group of children is the first which doesn’t seem to fear God at all. There are studies which show that about 90% of Americans still claim some order of Christian faith, but the world filters it into an ecumenical, “everyone gets to heaven” unbiblical faith.
Easter and Christmas are obvious bookend celebrations of Christ. But the Bunny and Santa have captured most of the children’s hearts.
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Gore Vidal wrote the following in his post-9/11 book, Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace. “Things just happen out there in the American media, and we consumers don’t need to be told the why of anything. Certainly those of us who are in the why-business have a difficult time getting through the corporate-sponsored American media.” (preface, page X). Unfortunately, the consumer has happily (or sleepily) accepted this state of affairs. Are you not entertained?
Vidal poked at George W. Bush’s address to a joint session of Congress, not too long after the still-unexamined truth behind September 11, 2001. Bush: “They (Muslim extremists) hate what they see right here in this Chamber… They hate our freedeoms, our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.” [5]
Vidal wrote, “I suspect a million Americans nodded sadly in front of their TV sets.”
We keep on nodding sadly–when mass shootings at a school happen, for example. We keep kicking God and the Bible out of society. Then when bad things happen we tug on His hem, asking Why did You let this happen?? when He was treated like an uninvited guest in the first place. Why should He always intervene to help a nation that continually mocks and scoffs at Him?
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The world system has us snookered. We define the universe/reality and God by the the world’s (i.e. the enemy’s) definitions and standards. So it gives us a skewed view from jump. Ask any competent outdoorsman: if he misreads his compass by a single degree, he could end up miles away from the destination. He is bound to get lost from the first step of his journey.
All popular media, and the average people who are spiritually squeezed dry by that media, are infautated with ideas about how to “fix” society’s problems. More prisons, preschool programs, laws that ostensibly are made to protect us, and forced government oversights are constantly being rolled out. Yet the solution they won’t seriously consider is accepting the resurrection and saving blood of Lord Jesus–something that would, in a generation, transform the United States of America from the inside out.
The one thing they won’t admit is that we are all brothers and sisters in sin. The psychiatrists took that term “sin” out of play decades ago; this secular priesthood no longer recognizes the concept at all.
The salvation that only Jesus brings is the solution that Christ rejecters can’t see. It’s not intelligence or lack thereof that causes this blindness. It’s “They will not come to the light” not “they cannot.” We have a sad issue of avoiding our sin… of denying our “wrong-ness” and error… of never being humble in the face of our status as creatures, not creators… of refusing to give up the be-all, know-all attitude. But our true nature is as continually off-center, inevitably flawed beings.
The answer is not rehabilitation, nor education, nor reformation, nor legislation but rather, regeneration by the Gospel power of Jesus Christ. Ye must be born again (John 3:5).
Workman is Worthy Ministry 