Joshua 24:15: “But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then
choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve . . . But as for me and my
household, we will serve the Lord.”
This has got to be one of my all-time favorite verses. And one of the
most timely verses for our country today. Our country is getting more and
more polarized when it comes to the Bible, God, morals, etc. Our
entertainment has gotten shockingly ungodly and immoral. Our schools have
become more than just educational centers; they have become battlegrounds for
the minds and souls of children. Laws are being created to weed God out
of everything. Atheism, New Age, “tolerance,” homosexuality, gay
marriage, abortion, and other such issues are causing sharp contrasts and
divisions among people, even among various Christian denominations. It
seems as though today – more so than any other generation – we are being
challenged to “choose whom we will serve.”
A while back, we went to a bowling alley aimed at children. There is an arcade
and Lazer Tag on one side and the bowling alley on the other. The whole
time my four kids were bowling – ages 5 to 14 – a TV was playing music videos
right next to the scoreboard. And these videos were horrible. I
mean horrible. There were numerous videos with highly sexual
themes, tons of skimpy clothes, a fully naked woman wearing only paint,
violence, people being shot, and a full-screen lingering view of two women
passionately kissing. It was eye-popping. And within sight of all
kids, with a TV every other lane.
I couldn’t just leave the bowling alley without saying something. So
after our hour was up, I went up to someone behind the counter.
“I just have to tell you that the videos that you show here are horrible.
They are definitely not appropriate for children. I would never recommend
this place as a “family-friendly” bowling alley because of those videos alone.”
The lady apologized and said that she’d let management know. As we walked
out, the screen suddenly switched to basketball. I tell ya, if I had
known that they would switch it right away, I would have complained an hour
ago. I really thought it would be an “I’ll let management know
eventually” kind of thing. And then management would snicker and say,
“Whatever. Grow up, lady!”
But the thing that got to me the most as I thought about it later was that no
one had complained earlier in the day. It wasn’t until after
dinnertime that someone – me – bothered to stand up and say, “This is
completely inappropriate and unacceptable.” And on top of that, not one
of the people working there had the brains to realize it themselves.
What has our society gotten to that no one bats an eye at the filth that is
shown on TV? And I’m not talking mildly bad stuff. I’m talking
naked people, simulated sex, witchcraft, violence, occultic stuff, terrible
language, etc. No one blushes anymore. No one even notices.
And no one bothers to stand up and complain. It’s crazy to me that
America is becoming a disgusting pile of immoral filth and yet people with high
morals are afraid to make a stink, to stand up for good, clean, and wholesome.
Choose this day whom you will serve . . . and honor and glorify and stand up
for!
If we do not stand up for godly, good, clean, and wholesome then we are
encouraging the slide toward apathy and ungodliness and moral decay. We
have to take stands, people! And I’m not even just talking to Christians
here, but to good, decent people everywhere who still care about what goes into
their child’s minds and about the condition of the country that we will hand
off to the next generation.
It shouldn’t be “Well, we see that kind of stuff everywhere anyway, so I guess
we just have to live with it.” It shouldn’t be “Oh well, what can we do
about it anyway?”
It should be “This is not acceptable! We will not tolerate it.” Or
pay for it. Or smile at it. Or encourage it by our reluctance to
make a fuss.
It’s not that “This is just the way things are.” It’s that “This is the
way we have let things get.”
And unless people stop supporting
this kind of stuff . . . unless we stop buying the music and the movies and
watching the television programs . . . unless we stand up and say, “Turn it
off!” . . . unless we say “Not in my kid’s school” and “Not in my home or my
country” . . . things won’t change.
Don’t be so polite that you let evil
and filth run rampant across America. Don’t buy the trashy movies.
Don’t watch the trashy shows. Don’t support the trashy and anti-godly
music. Don’t let your kids on the internet and cell-phones unsupervised. Don’t
hand this world over the Satan easily. Don’t go down without a
fight!
If serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, choose this day whom you will
serve, as for me and my household we will serve (and honor and glorify and
stand up for) the Lord!
You may think I’m being a little “out there” and overdramatic. But when
the hearts and minds and innocence of my kids are at stake, then you can bet
I’ll go as “out there” as I have to go to make whatever small change I
can. Because for some reason the rest of the country has lost all sense
of decency. Just look at what the girls wear nowadays and the crazy
amount of pornography and outside-of-marriage sex! Look at how many
messages about “Do what feels good” and “It’s all about you” bombard our kids
from every angle. There is no sense of shame or self-respect or morality
anymore. No acknowledgement that there is a “right” and there is a
“wrong.”
Parents and godly people, it’s up to us to stand firm in the rushing, raging
river of moral decay before it sweeps our families downstream with it!
Speaking
of music videos, are you aware of how many singers are subtly and blatantly
honoring Satan in their videos? How many celebrities are wearing occultic
clothing and jewelry that clearly honors Satan?
I wasn’t. Not until I decided to Google “celebrities in the
occult.” And it blew my mind. And now, I am ashamed that I was so
ignorant. But I am doing what I can to be alert now because my eyes have
been opened to the very “un-benign” messages that are being taught and
celebrated. If we are not aware of the ways that Satan is enticing the
next generation – the ways that he is making evil appear fun and hip - then we
will not be able to educate our children or take a stand or prevent the spread
of evil.
There is one website in particular that I would encourage you to visit if you
want to see what I am talking about. It’s beginningandend.com. It
explores a lot of what is going on nowadays from a Christian perspective.
(Not that I agree with it all, but it’s worth checking out.) What are these popular singers singing
about? What messages are their videos promoting? Who is blatantly
honoring the devil, making Satan seem fashionable and exciting and intriguing
to all the young people who admire them? Is this all just good, clean fun?
Really? Are these the kind of role models that we really want for our
kids? Is this what passes for entertainment nowadays? Is it just
“artsy”? Will that excuse fly with God when we stand before Him?
“Gee, God, I knew that the musician performed a Wiccan ceremony in a video and
that she sang about the joys of promiscuous sex while wearing virtually
nothing, but it was just silly entertainment. Watching it wouldn’t affect
me.”
Don’t kid yourself. It will affect you. It will affect the next
generation. It will affect our churches. And it will affect our
country’s view of God. Whatever doesn’t honor Him dishonors Him.
And He doesn’t take it lightly when He is dishonored or mocked or rebelled
against. There are high prices to be paid for an apathy toward and a
rejection of God, for dishonoring His name.
I am afraid for our country, for the
judgment that we will bring down on ourselves. Satan is sneaking up on us
in so many ways. And we are falling asleep, all cozied up in our lounge
chairs with our hands in a bag of chips, zoning out on mindless entertainment.
You think I’m being dramatic? You think Satan is not doing everything he
can to lead the country astray? There was news story a short while ago
about a group of Satanists who are pushing to get a “Satanist Children’s Book”
into schools in a certain state because they don’t like that Bibles are made
available to the kids. Schools are fast becoming the foremost
battleground for our children’s hearts and minds. And it’s going much
further than just academics.
Where are the morals nowadays? Where is the sense of appropriate shame or
decency? Where are the people who still believe in “right” and
“wrong”? We are much more concerned with getting as many toys as we can,
with how far we can push the moral envelope, and with how many of our passions
we can satisfy than we are with the promoting godly values and protecting the
hearts and minds of our kids.
It’s not hard to tell nowadays whom most people have chosen to serve. Whom
they have chosen to follow and honor and promote. Satan is doing all he
can to destroy us from the inside out. Are we Christians doing all we can
to engage in the spiritual battle? To serve the Lord? To stand up
to evil and prevent it from overtaking our country?
Ezekiel 22: 30-31: “I looked for a man among them who would build up
the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not
have to destroy it, but I found none. So I will pour out my wrath on them
and consume them with my fiery anger, bringing down on their own heads all they
have done, declares the Sovereign Lord.”
2 Chronicles 16:9: “For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the
earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him.”
2 Timothy 4: 3-4: “For the time will come when men will not put up
with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather
around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to
hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to
myths.”
Joshua 24:15: “But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you,
then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve . . . But as for me and
my household, we will serve the Lord.”
(reposted from https://myimpressionisticlife.blogspot.com)
