I have some neighbors who are commercial fishermen. They process thousands of pounds of catfish each week. There are three families involved. There is always one of them fighting infection. Not once but several times one or another of them has been hospitalized with this for days or weeks at a time. It comes from just getting a nick from a knife or a catfish barb and sometimes for no apparent reason at all.
I have hinted to them about catfish being unclean but they say this is what they have done all their lives.
I got to thinking about handling the unclean things and how it causes infection that spreads all through the body. I see a type of this in individual believers and it can happen in the body of believers as well.
It's when we hold on to those things of an unclean world. It's when we love the things that the Father says are an abomination. We always justify it somehow or just squash the spirit that is speaking to us by saying "it's just entertainment" or "surely there's nothing wrong with that".
Take TV for example. Some say there is still "some clean entertainment" produced. But let me ask you this. IF and it's a big IF, there is clean entertainment, are you seeing the commercials that flash into your eyes that try to lure you into buying things by using half naked women or sexual overtones or simple pride of ownership?
Let's see what the book has to say about this.
1 John 2:15-17
15 Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. 17 The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.
Psalms 26:4-5
4 I have not sat with idolatrous mortals,
Nor will I go in with hypocrites.
5 I have hated the assembly of evildoers,
And will not sit with the wicked.
Psalms 101:3
I will set nothing wicked before my eyes;
I hate the work of those who fall away;
It shall not cling to me.
(Take note here of yesterdays post about "wicked")
And what did the early believers think about entertainment?
"We renounce all your spectacles......Among us nothing is ever said, seen, or heard that has anything in common with the madness of the circus (chariot races), the immodesty of the theater, the atrocities of the arena, or the useless exercise of the wrestling ground. Why do you take offence at us because we differ from you in regard to your pleasures? Tertullian (c.197,W) 3.46
Theater was the television of that time.
"Seated where there is nothing of God, will one be thinking of his Maker?" Tertullian (c.197,W) 3.89
There are many statements on this subject made by early believers in letters and writings.
The things of the world are like an infection. They can very subtly spread to the entire body and we fall sick before we realize what has happened.
I will go into music as entertainment at a later date. Please leave a comment here and tell what you think on this subject.
I totally agree I grew up on tv and movies. I used to always always have the tv on and read true crime. Oh the stuff I used to fill my head with. Now people see cable as a necessity, I don't think so. We are to be away from the world and all it's stuff. I had a cable man come to my house to share with me their new "deal" on cable. I told him I don't watch tv at all, he said not at all. I said nope not at all. Funny thing is he never asked why I don't, I would have gladly shared why! We need to pull ourselves out of the world and its yuck as much as possible.
ReplyDeleteDoes not Yahweh say come out of her my people? If we continue to hold on to idols then how will He bless us, can He bless us. David stated that thy word have I hide in my heart that I may not sin before thee. How can a righteous God grant to us anything when we condone sin? You say I do no such thing! When you let these images come into through the eye gate and do not speak out against such things. Is it that you paid the price of a ticket that you feel you can not say anything? Or is is shame that you may not speak out for inwardly you desire to do such things but for fear of being caught you do not rather you allow others to do so and you live through them and ignore Torah.
ReplyDelete