Follow us on Facebook

Recommend this article to your friends.

• Print
• Email

Abba Father, we seek Your face this morning on our knees…realizing that nothing in our hands we bring, but only to the cross we cling. We have no platitudes to offer, because they are mere words anyway. We bow our HEARTS instead, recognizing our complete and desperate need for You.

 As always, I pray that those who call You Lord that work in media would step out from the shadows, and affirm their beliefs through what they say and do. I pray that You would raise up an army of young people with a desire to bring Your Gospel, Your love, and Your values into the marketplace of ideas. And I pray that the amazing potential of television, the radio, the internet, film, social and print media, would be used to proclaim truth and life, rather than perpetuate a growing, creeping culture of death.

For indeed, the floodgates of filth are open, Father. Things said and done in the name of entertainment that sicken us, and break Your heart. The battle to win the ratings war, sell tickets, or peddle papers is now little more than a race to the bottom of the pit. Programming is created, not to uplift and inspire, but to demean and destroy. Blogs and columns are designed to eviscerate and obliterate reputations and careers. We could—and do--pray for every person involved in producing and marketing the endless pool of sewage we wallow through every day…but there are greater concerns.

So, we pray that—as consumers—Christian hearts and minds would be protected from the harmful swill in our media. May we seek discernment through Your Holy Spirit…and may we learn to run like Joseph from the seductions of this world, as they pursue us through our TV screens, car speakers, and iPhones. May our children’s innocent hearts and minds be protected from a system that carelessly seeks to devour them, from the moment they awake to the time we tuck them into bed. And finally, may we learn to seek the lasting joy of the Lord over the momentary distractions of the flesh, that our God would be glorified forever…in Jesus’ Name…Amen!

Follow us on Facebook

Recommend this article to your friends.

• Print
• Email

It was big news: a major Christian denomination meeting to consider — among other things — whether to divest from companies that do business with Israel, and to end its ban on homosexual marriage. And I only wish I was kidding. You know, there’s an interesting corollary between our current state of affairs as a nation, and our nation’s — even the church’s — growing rejection of Christ, and the Word of God.  My pastor said something interesting to me the other day … he said, “If we cannot be governed from within, we must be governed from without.” He was referring, in this case, to how those who wish to balloon the size of our government and add to our Constitution, can find their justification: we need more laws to control increasingly outrageous behavior, and maintain some semblance of fairness and control.

It was John Adams (among other Founder and Framers) who said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people; it is wholly inadequate to the governance of any other.” Note that Adams did not say, “for a moral OR religious people.” It was widely understood, by everyone from Franklin to de Tocqueville, that religion was a necessary support; that it had an essential moralizing influence on the people. If our standard of right and wrong is not found in God’s Word, then it can only come from another external source, or from each individual conscience. So, if not the Judeo-Christian standard of morality … which other external standard do we choose? Sharia Law? Relativism? Or, perhaps it’s an individual standard of morality — then, whose do we apply? Bill Maher’s? Ted Bundy’s? Or, maybe we each make up our own standard, then leave it to Darwin … if you’re the biggest and toughest, than YOUR morality gets to rule the day! True survival of the fittest, as the morals of the small and meek are trampled into the ground.

That’s why our Constitution is such a spare document, imposing the least amount of rules and regulations upon a moral and religious people, that they might enjoy the fullest potential of freedom. It was just what Jesus was saying when he told disciples that “His yoke was easy, His burden was light.” “Yoke” meant His yoke of Torah, as a rabbi. Instead of adding to the 613 laws already on the books, and the countless thousands of fence laws, Jesus offered a light burden: namely, “Love the Lord Your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength … AND love your neighbor as yourself.” THAT’S why the religious establishment of Jesus’ time was up in arms. And when Jesus sent the Holy Spirit, the external law which had been applied to make Israel aware of sin, was fulfilled by the INTERNAL law; a helper and encourager that would build Godly character from the inside out.

“Love the Lord Your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength … AND love your neighbor as yourself.” It was that great commandment, plus a minimal framework of laws designed to preserve freedom called the U.S. Constitution, that was the intent of our founding fathers for every American. Remove the morality, and to keep the peace, government must grow beyond all comprehension … as man’s corrupted sense of right and wrong overrides the freedom of his neighbor. Limited government is a Biblical concept. May we be careful that it does not fall victim to the convenience — or the tyranny — of the moment.

Follow us on Facebook

Recommend this article to your friends.

• Print
• Email

I remember the first time I read Shirley Jackson’s shocker of a short story, The Lottery. Most American schoolchildren since 1948 have shared the experience of the brutal surprise that accompanies the realization that this annual festival in a small American town is not what it seems to be. Years later, we would encounter The Running Man, an '80s film loosely based on a Stephen King novel where criminals were offered redemption for surviving a murderous gauntlet of “stalkers,” sent into a “game zone” witnessed by millions of nationwide TV viewers. Needless to say, only one “criminal” overcame the impossible odds: “framed” killer cop, Ben Richards.

Well, spoiler alert. The Hunger Games is, essentially, The Lottery meets The Running Man, with a little bit of Red Dawn thrown in. In the end, we have a reality TV broadcast, the promise of redemption through human blood sport, and more than a dozen brutally murdered children. By this point, I’m sure a lot of Suzanne Collins fans are already preparing to make me a “tribute” (and if you’re a fan of the series, you know that’s not a good thing). Since I admittedly haven’t read the books (and won’t), I’ll just have to examine the film (and its message) as a movie, and not as an “adapted screenplay.”

As I watched the carnage unfold, I struggled to make sense of the mixed messages. OK, so the “Capitols” are the “1-percenters” ... right? The evil corporate types, once again using the rest of us as mere disposable entertainment. Or, are they the Washington ruling class, who habitually send our best and brightest young people into war, often for indefensible reasons? We have the prerequisite female protagonist who — in the end — always makes the noble choices (we see her "shaking sense" into her own mother in the film, a favorite teen fantasy). Maybe it’s a story about how love (even when born of convenience) conquers all.

I tried hard to appreciate the excellent visual effects, spot-on casting, and outstanding acting — The Hunger Games is an exceptional film. But a long time before the credits rolled, my father’s heart was already hurting. Pardon my characteristic sappiness, but … shouldn’t our instinct, as adults, always be to protect our children? And I’m not just talking about the adults in the reality TV show control room, concocting new ways to terrorize and — ultimately — kill off the kids in the movie. How about the adults who feel that it’s profitable in any way to portray the murder of children…in entertainment targeted for children? I pray that I may never be counted among them.

“… choose life, that you and your children may live …” Deuteronomy 30:19 NIV

Follow us on Facebook

Recommend this article to your friends.

• Print
• Email

A recent guest on my TV show, Ray Comfort, is drawing a lot of fire for daring to compare the murder of 6 million Jews at the hands of the Nazis during World War 2 to the slaughter of 55 million children in America alone since Roe v. Wade became law back in 1973. Remember: these are REPORTED abortions. IMAGINE the true scope of this horror, on both a national and global scale. At Yad Vashem, the memorial and museum in Jerusalem, there is a place in the garden where the names of Jewish children lost in the Holocaust are quietly spoken, as their photos are projected on the wall. It’s a heart-wrenching experience to walk through that place, but that’s what Yad Vashem is all about. The words come from the prophet Isaiah, who said of those faithful Jews who died without a grave and a memorial, "I will give them in My house and in My walls a 'Yad vaShem' [a place and a name], better than sons and daughters; an everlasting name I will give them, which will not be discontinued." Imagine if every aborted baby had a place and a name. Would we better understand the sheer enormity of the loss we’ve suffered as a nation? Deuteronomy 30 reminds us of God’s challenge to choose life, so that you and your children may live. There is one major political party that has committed to never remove the abortion plank from its platform. So let’s pledge to choose life in every circumstance … including the day we enter the voting booth to choose our leaders.