|
Author
|
Topic: TV Mocks the Faithful
|
becauseHElives
Advanced Member
Member # 87
|
posted
TV Mocks the Faithful?
No TV Mocks the Hypocrite, the pretender of the Faithful.
The American Church for the most part (95% if I had to put a number to represent the statement “most part” are like Samson after he had laid his head in the lap of Delilah. They are blind and have been made to be something only to make fun of. There is the hope that just as Samson came to his senses and took out more in end than in his beginning. The Church of America will come to her senses and be part of that glorious Bride that Yeshua is returning for, soon I pray.
The Churches have a lot of what they call “Praise” but Praise alone is not sufficient.
First before praise, the Church must have “Purity”. (When Yeshua entered the Temple, He cleansed it. He drove out the moneychanger and purified the Temple). Purification: Nehemiah looks inward to how the Jews are treating each other. After identifying usury, slavery and greed, he persuades the people to commit themselves (before God) to stopping the sinful practices (1-13). We need to identify areas of sin in our lives as we rebuild our walls, commit those areas to God and start resisting the temptations to fall into our old habits.
Many so called preachers and pastors could learn from Nehemiah’s example (Yeshua’s example to the Church is the same)
Fear God and Set the example: Nehemiah was appointed governor over Judah, yet refused to partake of the luxuries of the kingdom that were available to him while his people continued to work under heavy burdens (14). Nehemiah did not lord his governorship over the people because he "feared" God (15). This fear shows that Nehemiah understood exactly who God is and had a healthy respect and grasp of God’s expectations for those who claim to follow Him. We too should examine our hearts and ask ourselves if we know God. He, as the perfect, all-powerful and all loving Creator has instructed us to love Him and keep His commandments.
Second before praise, the Church must be filled with “Prayer”. (After cleansing the Temple, Yeshua said my House shall be called a House of Prayer).
E. M. Bounds said…”ONLY glimpses of the great importance of prayer could the apostles get before Pentecost. But the Spirit coming and filling on Pentecost elevated prayer to its vital and all-commanding position in the gospel of Christ. The call now of prayer to every saint is the Spirit's loudest and most exigent call. Sainthood's piety is made, refined, perfected, by prayer. The gospel moves with slow and timid pace when the saints are not at their prayers early and late and long.”
Nehemiah sat down, wept and mourned for many days, after hearing of the broken down state of Jerusalem (Neh 1:4) He next fasted and prayed before God for many days (Neh 1:4)
He affirms God’s faithfulness to those that love God and observe God’s commandments (1:5)
He asks God to hear his prayer
He confesses he and Israel’s corporate sin (1:6-7)
Identifies the specific sins that were committed (1:7)
Reminds God (respectfully) of his promise to the Israelites (1:8-9) that God has redeemed them by His great power and His Strong Hand (1:10)
Request’s God to grant him the King’s favor
Third before praise, the Church must be filled with “Power”. (When Yeshua left the places of Prayer, Power followed with Him every where He showed up). Yeshua healed the sick, raised the dead, gave sight to the blind because He had spent time in Prayer with His Father, Our Father in Heaven. There is power in a completed wall. When Nehemiah’s enemies heard of the wall completion, they were all "disheartened in their own eyes" because they perceived God had performed the work. (6:16) Satan and his workers of evil will be disheartened when you finish your wall. His attacks will not penetrate to your core like they did in the past and you won’t fall to sin but resist instead, mandating Satan’s retreat.
You will walk in the Spirit. You will be able to fulfill the “Royal Law of Love.”
After Purity, Prayer and Power the Church can Praise and not be the Hypocrite that the world now sees and makes fun of. Celebration and dedication of the wall to God (12:27) – the gathering emphasized praise, using many choirs. This underscores what our natural response to God should be, as our sinful bondage is lifted from our shoulders.
"But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers." John 4:23
Praise that precedes “Purity, Prayer and Power” is a stench in the nostrils of our Holy Father Yahweh.
Give me one hundred preachers who fear nothing but sin and desire nothing but God, and I care not a straw whether they be clergymen or laymen; such alone will shake the gates of hell and set up the kingdom of heaven on earth. God does nothing but in answer to prayer. -- John Wesley
E.M. Bounds said…”THE apostles knew the necessity and worth of prayer to their ministry. They knew that their high commission as apostles, instead of relieving them from the necessity of prayer, committed them to it by a more urgent need; so that they were exceedingly jealous else some other important work should exhaust their time and prevent their praying as they ought; so they appointed laymen to look after the delicate and engrossing duties of ministering to the poor, that they (the apostles) might, unhindered, "give themselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word." Prayer is put first, and their relation to prayer is put most strongly -- "give themselves to it," making a business of it, surrendering themselves to praying, putting fervor, urgency, perseverance, and time in it.
How holy, apostolic men devoted themselves to this divine work of prayer! "Night and day praying exceedingly," says Paul. "We will give ourselves continually to prayer" is the consensus of apostolic devotement. How these New Testament preachers laid themselves out in prayer for God's people! How they put God in full force into their Churches by their praying! These holy apostles did not vainly fancy that they had met their high and solemn duties by delivering faithfully God's word, but their preaching was made to stick and tell by the ardor and insistence of their praying. Apostolic praying was as taxing, toilsome, and imperative as apostolic preaching. They prayed mightily day and night to bring their people to the highest regions of faith and holiness. They prayed mightier still to hold them to this high spiritual altitude. The preacher who has never learned in the school of Christ the high and divine art of intercession for his people will never learn the art of preaching, though homiletics be poured into him by the ton, and though he be the most gifted genius in sermon-making and sermon-delivery.
The prayers of apostolic, saintly leaders do much in making saints of those who are not apostles. If the Church leaders in after years had been as particular and fervent in praying for their people as the apostles were, the sad, dark times of worldliness and apostasy had not marred the history and eclipsed the glory and arrested the advance of the Church. Apostolic praying makes apostolic saints and keeps apostolic times of purity and power in the Church.
What loftiness of soul, what purity and elevation of motive, what unselfishness, what self-sacrifice, what exhaustive toil, what ardor of spirit, what divine tact are requisite to be an intercessor for men!
The preacher is to lay himself out in prayer for his people; not that they might be saved, simply, but that they be mightily saved. The apostles laid themselves out in prayer that their saints might be perfect; not that they should have a little relish for the things of God, but that they "might be filled with all the fullness of God." Paul did not rely on his apostolic preaching to secure this end, but "for this cause he bowed his knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." Paul's praying carried Paul's converts farther along the highway of sainthood than Paul's preaching did. Epaphras did as much or more by prayer for the Colossian saints than by his preaching. He labored fervently always in prayer for them that "they might stand perfect and complete in all the will of God."
Preachers are preeminently God's leaders. They are primarily responsible for the condition of the Church. They shape its character, give tone and direction to its life.
Much every way depends on these leaders. They shape the times and the institutions. The Church is divine, the treasure it incases is heavenly, but it bears the imprint of the human. The treasure is in earthen vessels, and it smacks of the vessel. The Church of God makes, or is made by, its leaders. Whether it makes them or is made by them, it will be what its leaders are; spiritual if they are so, secular if they are, conglomerate if its leaders are. Israel's kings gave character to Israel's piety. A Church rarely revolts against or rises above the religion of its leaders. Strongly spiritual leaders; men of holy might, at the lead, are tokens of God's favor; disaster and weakness follow the wake of feeble or worldly leaders. Israel had fallen low when God gave children to be their princes and babes to rule over them. No happy state is predicted by the prophets when children oppress God's Israel and women rule over them. Times of spiritual leadership are times of great spiritual prosperity to the Church.
Prayer is one of the eminent characteristics of strong spiritual leadership. Men of mighty prayer are men of might and mold things. Their power with God has the conquering tread.
How can a man preach who does not get his message fresh from God in the closet? How can he preach without having his faith quickened, his vision cleared, and his heart warmed by his closeting with God? Alas, for the pulpit lips which are untouched by this closet flame. Dry and unctionless they will ever be, and truths divine will never come with power from such lips. As far as the real interests of religion are concerned, a pulpit without a closet will always be a barren thing.
A preacher may preach in an official, entertaining, or learned way without prayer, but between this kind of preaching and sowing God's precious seed with holy hands and prayerful, weeping hearts there is an immeasurable distance.
A prayerless ministry is the undertaker for all God's truth and for God's Church. He may have the most costly casket and the most beautiful flowers, but it is a funeral, notwithstanding the charmful array. A prayerless Christian will never learn God's truth; a prayerless ministry will never be able to teach God's truth. Ages of millennial glory have been lost by a prayerless Church. The coming of our Lord has been postponed indefinitely by a prayerless Church. Hell has enlarged herself and filled her dire caves in the presence of the dead service of a prayerless Church.
The best, the greatest offering is an offering of prayer. If the preachers of the twentieth century will learn well the lesson of prayer, and use fully the power of prayer, the millennium will come to its noon ere the century closes. "Pray without ceasing" is the trumpet call to the preachers of the twentieth century. If the twentieth century will get their texts, their thoughts, their words, their sermons in their closets, the next century will find a new heaven and a new earth. The old sin-stained and sin-eclipsed heaven and earth will pass away under the power of a praying ministry.”
--------------------
Strive to enter in at the strait gate:for many, I say unto you will seek to enter in, and shall not be able. ( Luke 13:24 )
Posts: 4578 | From: Southeast Texas | Registered: Jun 2002
| IP: Logged | 
|
|
evanoff
Advanced Member
Member # 4176
|
posted
TV Mocks the Faithful
by Keith Peters, Washington, D.C., correspondent
New study finds on-screen depictions of religious men and women are overwhelmingly negative.
Watching television can be a frustrating experience for people of faith—a truth documented in a new study that finds ridicule of religion is increasing on the small screen.
According to the Parents Television Council (PTC) report, titled "Faith in a Box," negativity toward religion grew steadily this year with each passing hour of prime time. During the 7 p.m. hour, religious content was negative 16.9 percent of the time; in the 8 p.m. hour, 20.8 percent of instances were negative; In the 9 p.m. hour, 27.5 percent of instances were negative; and in the 10:00 p.m. hour, 28.2 percent were negative.
The worst offender was NBC, which was found to advance nearly 10 negative portrayals of people of faith for every positive depiction.
Melissa Caldwell, director of research and publications for the PTC, said Hollywood is comfortable with people expressing that they are spiritual beings, but when it comes to how they actually express their beliefs, it's a different story.
"Those depictions of the devout laity or institutions of religion, of doctrine, of Scripture, of the clergy," she said, "tend to be overwhelmingly negative."
Dr. Frank Wright, president of the National Religious Broadcasters, cited two reasons behind the negative treatment: Creative laziness and the fact that the majority of Hollywood executives, writers and producers are unchurched.
Continue story at:
http://www.family.org/cforum/fnif/news/a0034984.cfm
--------------------
Lisa Evanoff
Publisher
Christian Activism News
ChristianActivism-subscribe@topica.com
Posts: 63 | Registered: Dec 2004
| IP: Logged |
|
|
|
Printer-friendly view of this topic
