Dear Brethren whom I love,
My heart has been heavy because I long to see Christ exalted more and more among us, and that all weight that hinders us would be stripped away. In our small groups on Wednesday, Pastor Tim exhorted us on Ephesians 4, explaining to us that the building up of the body is not the pastors and teachers job, but is actually done by the body being connected and speaking truth to one another in love. The preaching is meant to equip us with what we need in order for us to uplift the body. Ephesians 4:11-16 explains this. And in order for us to build one another up there is the obvious implication that we must truly know one another deeply. We cannot exhort one another if we don’t know the struggles of our brethren in order to encourage and strengthen them. We cannot observe one another and instantly recognize what’s going on in that persons soul, whether it be discouragement or sin that we can address or strength in that person that if we ask about we might be encouraged by. When you truly know someone you can usually tell the state of their soul and if they are doing well or not. What a blessing it would be to the body if we could know each other that well in order to recognize how we might minister to each other and strengthen and build up the body to serve the Lord more! We cannot be a strong body if the parts are not connected and working together, if we do not talk, if we do not speak, if we are not vulnerable and transparent.
I’ve observed something in our church and because it seems to be a part of many Christians lives I desired to write this essay for the building up of the body. This weighs so heavy on my heart because I believe it hinders the very deep desires of our hearts as disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ. I’ve seen how carelessly some Christians, even Christians in our church, and I won’t name any names but they have argued that because it is not a sin to watch movies or listen to secular music that they have liberty to do it and that it is okay. Now whether or not that argument is even true or holds up, whether or not it’s a matter of conviction or not, I’m not even going to go there, because I believe the problem lies much deeper and I want to appeal to your hearts with reason, wisdom, the Word of God, and the calling we have been given by Christ.
Little children, what do we live for? If we have truly been born again what is the desire of our hearts? What is this new heart that the Lord has given us? And how do we walk with wisdom and discernment in this present evil age? Think about this when it comes to the area of movies and music.
I have a number of arguments I would like to put before you.
My first argument is this. We are at war. We are ambassadors of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are commanded to put on the armor of God and to fight. We have the mind of Christ. Brethren, we meet and pray and ask that the Lord would fill us with His Spirit, that we would be so filled with Him that we would have power! We pray this (or at least I hope you are) in secret as well, asking for the Spirit and power to live this life fully to be used of Him for His glory and seek it earnestly for the time is short. Brethren, it is quite silly honestly, that we pray and ask for these things, wanting to be filled, and then go about doing things that make this almost impossible. Fill me Lord! Use me Lord! We pray and then go to the movie theaters and sit and watch a movie and fill our minds with worthless garbage, with something so contrary with what is truth. Or we put on the headphones and listen to something that has a worldview that is contrary to the Christian worldview. In all honesty, whether or not these things have cursing, crudeness, sexuality, gruesome violence or NOT, the ideas underlying, the motives of the characters, the message being sent, the sin committed in the stories being portrayed as normal or okay, the gossip, the worldly lusts that people go after, the mindset, the idolatry, its all Anti-Christ. And we wonder why after filling ourselves with this things and letting it all seep into our mind, putting worthless things before our eyes (like scripture tells us not to do) we feel weak and vulnerable and we aren’t filled with the Spirit as much, and most likely have done more to grieve it than anything else. We do more to hurt ourselves then help ourselves to run this race. And for what? Why? For what gain? Why is it that we are so quick to defend our liberties, freedoms or lack of conviction about something, and yet we cannot even say anything good about it or anything truly beneficial about it? But we will defend it because “its not sin”.
This brings me to my second argument. Are we as Christians concerned with just not sinning? Or do we want more than to just not sin? Do we want to know how far we can go to please ourselves without sinning or do our hearts ache to be as holy and godly as we can possibly be? Are we concerned with living a life of sacrifice, living for Christ, and taking up our cross and dying? Are we more concerned about debating over what is sin or not sin, or wouldn’t we rather devote ourselves to what we know pleases God and brings Him glory? Why don’t we stop trying to figure that out and just LOVE HIM?! Brethren! The greatest commandment in all of scripture is to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. I hope that in no area of our lives have we lost sight of that. Have we lost sight of that when it comes to entertainment? What are we seeking brethren? What are we seeking? It ought to be to love our God.
My third argument is that in doing so we make ourselves the companion of fools when we choose to place ourselves in the midst of such entertainment. We know it is unwise to be friends with unbelievers, that we even must be careful around weaker Christians, not to be influenced by them and become like them. If we believe we can watch such things and not be influenced we foolishly deny the wisdom of scripture which tells us not to be a companion of a fool lest we become like him and that bad company corrupts good morals. We ought to run fast in the opposite direction lest we do ourselves harm.
My fourth argument is that we become partakers in their wickedness when we delight in their folly and give them our money. Have you ever watched something you knew was wrong or heard a joke you knew was wrong but you laughed? Or maybe they make light of a serious sin and we can make light along with them because it’s comical. Not only that but we became partakers in their sin because we willingly give our money to them which is only used to make more movies and music that blasphemes our God and fills peoples minds, ears, and eyes with lies. And they will suffer an eternity of hell for it because they believed the lies.
We can say amen to truth we hear. When we hear that everything we do counts for eternity, that we are always sowing seed either to the flesh or to the Spirit we can say amen, but is it real to us? If you truly believe that brethren I seriously doubt that in your right mind you can say that exposing yourself and giving your time, money, and enjoyment to what is anti-Christ and worldly is sowing seed to the Spirit. My final argument is that you are sowing seed to the flesh. You may be able to point out truth in it, you may be able to use it to expose the lies of the world, but honestly if we are listening and watching for the sake of our own enjoyment we may very well be doing ourselves a disservice and dishonoring our Savior who bled and died for us in the process.
This is no small matter. I appeal to you brethren in the view of God’s mercy to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice holy and pleasing to the Lord. Worship Him.
I am writing this specifically concerning movies and music. There are other areas where this may be applicable. I am not trying to be legalistic or rule out all forms of entertainment, because I believe in many ways we can glorify God in enjoying this life He has given us. But you see, the ideas of the world are the exact opposite of what we believe. We cannot rejoice in the lies, in fact we are to hate the lies and rejoice in the truth. So if you are sitting there soaking in and opening your mind to a story filled with lies and godlessness, what good is that for your soul? For this battle? We must be strengthened for war, not hindered, not lulled to sleep as we open ourselves to lies.
Personally, I have a conviction not to go to the movies at all and haven’t been for almost 4 years. Why? Because I believe in everything I stated above, and also I see the movie theater as a place where the world goes to worship. If we have in America a temple with its gods and goddesses, I believe it is the movie theater. I have no interest in going there but to go and wage war. I believe it is a place where demons love to be and whisper into the ears of those whose minds are being opened and exposed to great wickedness. Yes, Christians don’t want to go to those kinds of movies. We say that the ones we go see aren’t really that bad. But let us not make the mistake of saying they are good because we are comparing them to movies of great wickedness. That’s no different than a sinner comparing himself to a worse sinner and saying that they are good. I’ve heard so many times people tell me that the movie they went to go see was “good” because there was no sex or cussing. I’m sure if we compared a secular movie to Gods standard of goodness we probably wouldn’t say it was “good” but desperately wicked.
I wrote this because I desire for the body to run faster and harder for Christ, and I believe this is a weight that hinders us and keeps us from the victory in Christ, the joy that is to be had, and keeps us from what we ought to be pursuing- our treasure in heaven where it will be kept forever, and a closer relationship with Christ. That we might have a life that is emptied of the world and self so that the Spirit has room to come in and is pleased to dwell with us. So that revival might come and affect the whole city and that the Spirit might be pleased to fall when we forsake all our sin and live righteously and in integrity before Him.
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