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	Bible Church
	Madison, Tennessee

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Christianity Under Attack!
1 Peter 5:8

Sermon delivered by Thor Carden
June 29, 2003
Love One Another Gospel Church
Madison, Tennessee

Outline:

I. The Nature of the Attack
     1 Peter 5:8

II. Responding to the Attack - the PLAY Plan

     Pray
          Matthew 5:44

     Love
          Luke 6:27-28

     Avoid
          Romans 12:2, 1 Corinthians 10:23

     Yearn
          Colossians 3:2

1 Peter 5:8 "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour."

In my sermon last week I talked about how the concept of God's kind of love was under attack in our culture. Today I want to expand on that theme a little and talk about how Christianity is under attack in these United States and how we can survive this attack.

What brought this on was something that happened to Trisha and I this week. We like to keep children's movies around so we can pop one in the player and keep them entertained when they are at our house -- like the littlest one is taking a nap and the older ones need to sit quietly for awhile. We learned the hard way with our own children that the rating systems are not to be trusted so we have gotten into the habit of previewing them ourselves.

There is a place on the web that claims to rate family films for suitability called The Dove Foundation. It rates them according to how suitable they are as good wholesome family entertainment. We bought a movie that they gave their second highest rating called "Keeping the Promise." It was terrible. The worst part of it was when a little boy was not rescued until he prayed to one of the Indian gods. But that was not by any means the only objectionable part. The movie suggests that evil came on this family because the mother was submissive to the father. The father and the uncle are the only people in the movie who do not keep their word. The father promotes the telling of lies. Even the bad guy has more moral integrity than the father but the mother calls the father "steady." The father is so selfish he risks the life of his son with several very foolish decisions. So we have a movie that suggests it is a waste of time to pray to God Almighty and attacks the leadership of the father in the family. How did this movie earn a rating 4 doves?

The second one they rated highly was not as bad. "Seven Little Australians" does not attack Christianity quite so directly. It portrays the father of the family as a tyrannical fool and glorifies children rebelling against their parents.

We noticed in our youth group meeting this week that the news can not be trusted. They would have you believe that all Iraq's hate Americans and wish we would go home. If our son had not come home from there and told us different it would be difficult for us to know differently. But this is not the first time we have noticed that the news broadcasters either outright lie or slant the news in the direction that suits them. If two people carry signs around the capital talking about how proud they are of their sinful homosexual practices there is a news crew on the scene the whole time. But if a thousand Christians protest the removal of the Ten Commandments from a public building the only way you find out about it is if you were there, that is, unless you can tune in one of the Christian networks.

It is easy to avoid the attacks in the media really. If it is awful, do not watch it, turn it off!

But that does not solve the problem really does it? The people who we work with, shop with, and live near every day watch it. Statistics show that most of them, if they watch news at all, watch one of the three major networks. They watch it and believe it and we can not just avoid other people. So, what do we do?

I thought first it might be good if I took a look at what these folks are watching. We already talked about the anti-Christian slant in the news.

I went out on the internet and found a page that gave me the ratings for last weeks TV shows. Three of the top twenty were on Thursday night so, armed with a blank VHS, tape I watched 2 1/2 hours of the most popular shows in America. I like to watch TV but usually I watch old shows from years ago, news & information shows, weather or Christian shows. I generally change channels when a commercial comes on. Watching 2.5 hours of the most popular shows on TV today was an eye opener for me. So what is it that our friends and neighbors are watching?

First I watched a situation comedy. I managed to pick out six proverbs for modern times according to TV:

(1) If you take someone else's tests for him this act of fraud will win you a friend for life.

(2) If you want to know something about a rival sneak into his house, look through his stuff, and steal his home videos.

(3) Vulgar expressions that start with the word "Holy" are very funny, at least, if you believe the canned laughter.

(4) The best way to get a baby to laugh is with crude jokes and behavior.

(5) The reason you bring home a prospective spouse is to announce your engagement, not to get the blessing of your parents.

(6) The best way for a young lady to win the approval of her future father-in-law is to flirt with him.

Well I found all that pretty funny but not in the way the writers intended, I think.

The other two shows were crime dramas. I was treated to graphic violence in various forms. I'll spare you the gory details. It is the first time I ever heard the term "honest liar." When it was said apparently the characters knew what it meant. Do you? I do not. Perhaps the most interesting part was watching a freaky looking magician do a magic trick where he was nailed to a cross, disappeared, and then was resurrected thru a wall of flames. Later it is claimed that the word Abracadabra comes from the Hebrew for Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. I researched this and found it to be utter nonsense although, in all fairness, there are some people who believe it to be true, so the show writers did not make it up themselves. So the death and resurrection of Christ our Lord are reduced to a trivial magic trick and the names of the three Persons of the Trinity are blasphemed as a satanic incantation all sandwiched between graphic violence. Nice.

The second crime drama was a charming little show about an 11 year old girl killing her mother. Not only did it have the usual graphic violence but it threw in a little partial nudity for good measure. The lesson we were apparently supposed to learn from this show is that the solution to all of life's difficult problems is to make sure you visit your friendly neighborhood psychiatrist in a timely way when you need "counseling." Sinfulness and its solution are ignored.

So, these were the three top rated shows for Thursday night.

During the two and one half hours fully 1/3 or about 50 minutes were advertisements - 90 to 100 advertisements. Some of the same ones were shown over and over again but their were probably 40 or 50 unique ads. The shows started without announcement so that you never really new at first whether the show was starting or if you were watching another advertisement. There were more advertisements, for longer, and more often as the show progressed.

Advertisers present a warped view of reality. Apparently in this brave new world, it is normal for women to find a man attractive based on what kind of car he drives and the only two things that last forever are romantic love and diamonds. It also seems there is something wrong with wrinkles. But not to worry, there is a cream you can try before resorting to plastic surgery. Appeals to vanity were common, but I expected that.

These commercials left me with more questions than answers:

What do martial arts have to do with cleaning your carpet?

What does the slogan, "Get in touch with your senses" have to do with shopping at a particular store?

What do scantily clad women have to do with washing machines? Who was the target audience for that ad anyway?

Some of the ads even had ads within ads. A restaurant ad also advertised a car maker and another restaurant advertised a soft drink brand.

There was a hair care product that ran its ad with someone singing "I believe in miracles" in the background. I believe in miracles, too, but I don't think they have anything to do with hair care products.

It was the ads for other shows that were the worst. There was one with two half dressed women in bed with a half dressed man and another with a bunch of half dressed women dancing provocatively. Considering the kinds of shows I was watching these were not surprising. What bothered me was I knew they would run those ads regardless of what kind of show it was. That is part of the reason that I like to use pre-recorded videos for my grandchildren rather than the so-called children's networks like Nickelodeon and Disney.

Surely, there is not really a woman who is going to marry a man who wins some kind of competition that is broadcast on television? Have we sunk so far? It has to be a gimmick.

The worst of these shows that were advertised were the so called "reality" shows. Not satisfied with seeing actors portray every kind of emotion from anguish and anger to zealousness and jealousy apparently the American public wants to see the real thing. Several times they showed pictures of a woman crying in a way that suggested it was real, not an actress. How sick is that? Making people cry for entertainment.

I'm NOT preaching against TV in general, at least not today. I believe there are some programs worth watching. I'm talking about the attack against Christianity coming from our culture. These were some of the most popular shows on TV and it I think they showed a definite bias against Christians.

But it is not just the movies and books where the Christian world view is attacked. As bad as the visual media is, books, magazines and the internet can be much worse. The rabid attacks of Christian hating atheists, Moslems, etc are strongest in the print media. You can find these attacks in the popular music of today as well. There is no facet of our culture where this attack can be avoided. Look what happens if a politician tries to take a stand against sexual perversion. Look what happened to a president that committed adultery and lied under oath, both right in front of God and everybody. (I wonder if it has occurred to the democrats in the senate that did not vote for his impeachment that if they had impeached Clinton, Al Gore would probably be president right now.) In the public schools they teach the children about Mohamedism and Buddhism and Evolution and many other myths and legends. College is no better.

I know a naïve Christian college student who went to school and was told by her teacher that the flood myth appears in other cultures and therefore the story in the Bible had to be made up. She did not know to point out that of course the flood story occurs in other cultures because it really happened. She was taken advantage of by an educated atheist who had authority over her. And that was twenty years ago. I suspect it is much worse now.

So what is a Christian to do? It's easy. All you have to do is remember to "play" for Jesus.

(Pray) The first thing to do is pray for these poor lost people. If they do not change their ways and give their lives to Jesus their destiny will be much worse than any of the graphic violence I saw on TV the other night.

(Love) The second thing to do is love these poor lost people. Try to accommodate their faults and show them a little kindness. If you had witnessed as many murders in the past month as they have watching what they watch you would probably be in a bad mood, too.

(Avoid) The third thing we need to do is avoid watching, reading, and listening to these evil attacks unless we have a good reason. Preparing for this sermon is an example of this. If someone you know is spouting this stuff you may need to listen to them for awhile in order to know how to witness to them.

(Yearn) The fourth thing to do is yearn for the things of the Lord. If you are studying your Bible, listening to good preaching and teaching, worshiping, fellowshipping with believers, and endeavoring to obey God's voice in your daily life you have strong armor against these attacks. When atheists that are smarter than you assail you remember that for every Ph.D. there is an equal and opposite Ph.D. If you do start to succumb get the help and counsel of a wise Christian.

Invitation:

If you need more play in your life the Holy Spirit is ready to help you with that. If you would like to visit this altar and ask him to give you stronger armor against the attacks of Satan the altar is open. If you would like for me to pray with you I will be happy to do that. If you have other business with God you would like to conduct here the altar is open.

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Additional Items for Consideration

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This is from Joshua Harris at

http://www.sovereigngraceministries.org/sgo/v20no4/media.html

I'd also recommend you regularly apply the "Susanna Wesley Test." While away at college, John Wesley wrote to his mother, Susanna, asking for a list of sins he should avoid. Her response is a model of biblical wisdom applied:

Whatever weakens your reason, whatever impairs the tenderness of your conscience, whatever obscures your sense of God, whatever increases the authority of your body over your mind, whatever takes away from your relish for spiritual things, that to you is sin, no matter how innocent it is in itself.

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Antidotes to Pop-culture poison

http://www.policyreview.org/nov97/homefront.html

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(numerous version of this are found on the internet)

The TV is my shepherd, I shall not want.
It makes me lie down on the sofa.
It leads me away from the faith.
It destroys my soul.
It leads me in the path of sex and violence for the sponsor's sake.
Yea, though I walk in the shadow of Christian responsibilities,
There will be no interruption, for the TV is with me.
Its cable and remote control, they comfort me.
It prepares a commercial for me in the presence of my worldliness.
It anoints my head with humanism and consumerism.
My coveting runneth over.
Surely, laziness and ignorance shall follow me all the days of my life,
And I shall dwell in the house watching TV forever.

-- Author Unknown

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Ten Steps to Control TV in Your Home

Al's AnALysis - April 1999

By Al Menconi

Hosea 7:8 "My people mingle with the heathen, picking up their evil ways, thus they become as good-for-nothing as a half-baked cake!" (Living Translation)

http://www.almenconi.com/topics/tv_movie/4-99.html

Lists solid suggestions for getting the TV under control.

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