To most people, the sadistic massacre of innocent children at the Sandy Hook school is still probably the most recent unsettling example of unequivocal evil. There has been a lot of bad news since then, including a shooting at a Texas college, rioting in Egypt (again), several death sentences were given for Christians for converting from Islam, the first graduating class of three-thousand jihad-bound Hamas students in the Gaza strip are commemorated by the crowds, the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade sparked a renewed emotional debate on both sides, and quite a few other things that reflect a dark and disturbing life here on earth. But the shootings of children and protective teachers still haunt our dreams and make us wary of letting our kids out of our sight. Everywhere we look, live and breathe — death by murder and choice is prevalent, leaving a wake of victims and their families in heartache. Death has become popular and even celebrated and enjoyed.
The Death of Innocence
A few years ago, a study in picture recognition was done on children with startling results in a pop-culture movie merely to show the popularity of a fast-food chain, but it uncovered a much deeper problem in the process. The face of the iconic Ronald McDonald was easily recognized by every child who saw it: but when the conductor of the experiment held up a flash card with the most famously portrayed face of Jesus Christ, most of the children didn’t know who the Savior is. Why? Because most never heard of Him: but they hear and see plenty of every trademark figure on every other commercial or show.
It starts at home. Sad thing is, most parents these days neither know nor say anything about the Lord Jesus to their children, much less a message about the saving grace of Jesus Christ. These children grow-up without any knowledge of grace, accountability to a Higher Power, eternal peace, or a higher sense of self-respect or respect of others, purity, generosity, contentment, etc., or even salvation. Unfortunately, we see the results of this everywhere. Most children of this upcoming generation grow up not knowing or enjoying anything else but a culture of death by how they are entertained and by how their beliefs are honed.
I once read a wise man’s observation that one can visit a different country and learn about their culture and family life by what is sold in toy stores or by what they read or view. Are they good team builders, like games: sports equipment; nurturing encouragement: dolls; mechanical and technical provoking: toy trucks or computers? Or do they learn to use toy weapons to stalk, threaten, fight, shoot, rape, bully, humiliate, gore, burn or kill each other with swords, knives, guns bombs, promises of justice by death or the after-life rewards of jihad?
Regardless of the instruments sold, HOW are we teaching our kids to play? That could entail a whole book written on that topic, but we’ll only touch on a few things listed here how we have become so desensitized to things dark and dead.
Remember the days of riding your bike on a nice day and seeing many more kids your age also playing outside? Where are the kids of this generation? They are playing video games and watching television, usually. In general, there’s nothing wrong with that — in moderation. Some families still gather around the television to watch a good family show or movie, but far and few between.
But turn on the television any night of the week and try to find some family entertainment that doesn’t have cursing, slutty women fighting, dysfunctional families, messy divorce wars, swapping spouses, homosexual “families,” drama-filled soap operas, movie stars joining weird cults, cut-throat competitive reality shows, gangs and their initiation crimes, and the dangerous life inside the prisons or mental wards that they go to.
Next, are the “true” crime documentaries about psychotic moms killing their children, or spouses killing each other and news coverage of true crimes blares from our flat screens 24/7. Then there’s the ever-popular gore, vampires, wolves, zombies, and paranormal reality shows. And the latest shameful example of selfishness and greed would be the mobs of people fighting each other (sometimes fatally) over sales items during Black Friday shopping.
The rest of us have to tune into reruns of old shows that don’t have these bloody or shocking things listed above, and only if we are fortunate enough to have cable channels that run those old shows, or we have to buy the shows on expensive DVD sets.
The music people listen to is another area of assault to the extent that many bands have warning labels on their CDs as well as movies, and graphic song lyrics outright worshipping the Devil, their own bodies or their sex lives for our kids to envy and want.
Many video games that allow the player to have a role in these same kinds of situations that they watch on your TV. Delving even deeper are the not-so-new games of ouija boards, tarot cards to conjure up and communicate with the spirits of dead people, real witchcraft books and paraphernalia for casting spells with help from spirits, and role playing games with dark characters. And there are classes popping up everywhere for transcending meditation, channeling, spiritual wellness, Reiki, etc. The best way to teach someone the powers of darkness would be to help them become it or use it.
With all of that and some more dangerous ideals listed below, the end result is a big helping of chaotic, confusing and a false view of how life can be. We’ve forgotten how it all had been at some point, how God had intended it to be. Most families don’t know anything but dysfunction. They have no rest, peace or natural affections. As a whole, the death of holy, godly families has poisoned our nation.
SUPERSIZE MY POPCORN
One of the ways we’ve become so excitable while viewing movies are the super-sized helpings of gore, blood and death in entertainment. You can spend a sizeable fortune at the movie theatre or home to watch Hollywood studios compete to see who can make the most realistic graphic diaries of many people dying painfully by some incurable disease, being shot in the head, CIA or mafia power struggles and their victims, vengeful cops seeking body parts being sliced off in battle or blown to pieces for paybacks, bizarre radiation and pandemics turning people into zombies, the victims being eaten by these zombies, bizarre suicide plots, turning into a vampire or werewolf or having sex with them (all made very cool), or fighting the power hungry aliens.
The latest favorites are phenomenal special affects mega-hits illustrating the demise of our planet and everybody on it by means of natural disasters, asteroids, aliens, and pandemics. Anything dead is considered cool, and Hollywood knows it, by their ticket and merchandise sales.
The main theme of death and fear today isn’t getting your neck bit by Edward or Billy, nor even stabbed to death by Michael Myers, or shot, raped and robbed by a gang member. The entertainment industry and the ones who pull those strings had to take it further. It’s more profitable now to have films of people turning into dark creatures, and how cool it appears to be part of the rampaging bullies, a dead thing wanting to mate with human females, and the popularity gained by being part of a recognized gang of “creatures.” And the crowds anticipate and pay for─more!
If I want to see death and gore, I can just put on the daily news or take a walk through a really rough neighborhood and experience it myself. Why do I have to pay for it if it’s all, free on my TV screen or right outside my own door, scenes from around the world showing absolute hatred in someone’s eyes, or the dead body of their victims. And why is it “entertaining” to see a dead body and hear the details of how the person died?
Or is it funny to think of your daughter or wife trading her soul to be hell-bound and half dead or your grandchild as some half-creature who only comes out after dark? Of course this is all supposed to be make-believe, but there are growing cults of wannabes sprouting up all over the world.
Everything above always leads to brainwashing the viewers to view death or incarceration by way of revenge, greed, having the last word, power, calling up the other-world, dead things wooing the ladies, or the world falling apart as normal or maybe even, cool. From the idea: the making of, the money spent making, and bought by the consumers, all of these feed on the seven deadly sins. And most of us are adrenalized enough to laugh at it, laugh with it, and definitely enjoy it enough to tune in again for the next episode or movie sequel. Many of us actually buy the series or movie on DVD to watch and enjoy the same violence, repetitiously.
Our Own Little Vampires, Werewolves and Zombies
Remember the song, “The Monster Mash,” that cute little jingle that would play at costume parties and sometimes on the radio with gyrating little Draculas and witches laughing around the punch bowls? It is a seasonal fun-time song that can elicit a slight smile from even a staunch anti-Halloween petitioner.
We love these dead characters so much that many even want to look like them. Halloween or (All Hallow’s Eve) has become a multi-billion dollar industry, beating out all other holidays except Christmas, and it’s quickly catching up to that as well. There are seasonal retail stores opening in late summer that focus on just this particular day, with regular department stores and even super-pharmacy retailers competing in the game. Gone are the days of digging up old clothes and sheets to make a costume, and using mom’s makeup, just to have some fun with friends to get some candy or go to a dance.
“But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars – their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death” (Revelation 21:8).
Halloween is a celebration of death. Witches believe the dead can come back to communicate with the living with much more ease on this night. Satanists believe it is a night to do unmentionable things to appease their angry gods. I don’t need to nor have the room to list all the beliefs that seven billion people have about this night. That list also includes the regular everyday folks with kids who just want candy and have a party, and take pictures of their kids in costumes, who don’t even participate in the dark side.
The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: Sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, and envy; drunkenness, orgies and the like. I warn you as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God” (Galatians 5:19-21)
Call it whatever you like. But keep in mind – what you take into your mind and heart in a consistent frequency, you become like it. It stays in your mind a lot longer than what you keep away from. Members of aboriginal tribes who have visited our country and experienced Halloween have attested to the fact that many of our costumes look just like the tormenting spirits that they were haunted by and trying to escape from, or fight an on-going and no-win battle against. While their experiences are utterly frightening, we think it’s all cute and fun.
Marked for Death
Tattoos – now I’m not saying this is the most disgusting thing as far as a simple nice design, but there are many out there who tote dark and spooky permanent pictures on their own skin and flaunt it proudly what they believe in, like rubbing their noses at God, using their own bodies. Even young kids are catching onto the phenomena.
Others take it further with cutting, gauging, piercing, stretching, scarring and branding, using their bodies as experimental labs and billboards of what they want to be known for (their own god), and distorting the natural bodies that God made in His likeness – to purposely be anything but like Him.
They also expose themselves to diseases from filthy ink needles.
God specifically said “Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am the LORD” (Leviticus 19:27-29). In Revelation, God says those who take the mark of the beast will not be able to buy or sell (Revelation 13:16-17). Of course not all tattoos are “the mark” but because of lack of discernment or from even reading the Word at all, society does this anyway; this will make it very easy for the coming evil world leader to accept his mark, too.
Vogue and Vulgar
Promiscuity – The above topics tie into this in a heavy way. Try and find any popular media promoting virtue anywhere – I dare you! Even some labels in the Christian industry have sold out. The blockbuster book, Fifty Shades of Gray is replacing the Holy Bible in some hotel chains around the world. It’s already to the point that a girl who dresses modestly is weird and different in the world, instead of the girls who were once outcastes for dressing sleazy and using heavy make-up. No one can go to the grocery store or pharmacy, doctor’s office or buy a newspaper without a flashy magazine displayed at eye level with scantly clad women in sexy poses, beckoning the weak to read and follow the instructions inside on how to be the perfect gold-digging, manipulating, mouthy, tough, spoiled slut. And many young women develop self-esteem issues and serious eating disorders (like anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa), sometimes to their deaths because they don’t look like the super bony, photo-shopped, finished versions of the women displayed in these magazines. The consequences of regular viewing and reading these filthy magazines are lifelong and too oftentimes life threatening.
Pornography doesn’t help matters either, representing every female as an object of pleasure instead of a functioning intelligent human being that God made her to be. Viewing these photographs promotes a distorted and cheapened viewpoint about sex, and feeds on desires, leading many to lose self-control and often times get pregnant or contract a horrible deadly disease (the STD rates around the world are staggering even for teens). All these girls and women itemized as useless victims─and many times become corpses─are still someone’s wife, daughter, or sister. And many would have been daughters to the King. All those involved in making this filth─men and woman, are destined for judgment and damnation (1Corinthians 6:9-10).
Respectful protection, manners toward and even self-respect of women (and men too!) are a thing of the past. The sad slow death of chivalry, and it’s unfortunate that many women have helped to let it happen to them.
Addictions
Despite our economy and frightening number of DUI (of anything, not just liquor) deaths every year, the money spent on opium, heroin, cocaine, meth, pot, lavish expensive liquors, cigarettes and cigars, forced slavery of several kinds, pornography and prostitution bring in billions of import/export dollars for many countries, including our own, yet we are ready to go over a financial cliff. Where’s all that money? Most of us don’t see it.
These dangerous substances make the body rot as fast as a time machine, only with quick, painful and certain ramifications, including financial, but touches on every realm of our lives. Many times one of these addictions can feed another, leading to more heartache, stress, bondage to them, eventual commitment of crimes to support the habit, and a trail of victims. They all lead to physical, emotional, financial and spiritual death.
Wars and Rumors of War
The world’s people reflect unrest, hopelessness, hatred, greed, selfishness and anger in the manner of gang wars, raping, rioting, looting, genocidal mass murder, starving the masses, beatings, men yearning for and boasting about jihad and honor killings, jailing sentences of martyrs, animal fighting for profit, and torture and sacrifice to the god of power and money every single day now. What we human beings do to each other (even our unborn, vegetation, and the animal kingdom) all made by One in likeness of Him surely grieves and angers God. This is shown on our televisions constantly, and we see movies made out of these horrors to entertain and reprogram us how we should think.
The most insidious and unfortunately effective war going on right now is for the death of our souls, stripping away our natural moral code, our natural affections, and our love and compassion towards each other in the spiritual realm. The end of everything pure and holy is the strategy and we are the pawns.
The Most Unsafe Place
The sacredness of life itself has become an inconvenience to many – another mouth to feed, educate, care for, respect or even love. In the US alone, 55 million people have been killed before birth since the late 70’s, and now it’s estimated that one murder in the womb happens every 94 seconds (and people vote for and march for that right to do this). That’s two generations of young, strong, energetic and maybe even brilliant individuals that were terminated. Natural affections are dead in many as well, as we see the number of abused children and women rise yearly.
Aborting our young before birth, having same-sex marriages destroying procreation, euthanizing our elderly or stashing them away in nursing homes doesn’t help to generate a next generation to take over the tasks of working, paying taxes, creating jobs and companies, broadening our defenses, manufacturing goods, exploration, finding cures or taking leadership of all these things. This leads to entire civilizations dying off with no replacements.
Profits of the Death Industry
Our country alone has a growing debt that even our great grandkids won’t be able to pay back. Yet we continue to spend gobs of our hard-earned cash (or plastic loans with interest) to buy cheap junk to look like the dead things we allow to entertain us. But we celebrate it by flaunting the most realistic gory, scary and immoral costumes that games and DVDs money can buy. And we spend a lot!
All the above are extremely profitable industries, especially the drug and entertainment industries. By viewing, voting for and paying for all the above, some executives and movie stars get nice mansions, vacation homes, collections of vehicles and hefty fat bank accounts from the courtesy of our souls.
The tax payers support all these industries, whether abortion, leftist organizations, gaming, drug dealers and cartels, cigarette/cigar companies, liquor stores and brewers, publishing houses, cable companies, box office and their movie producers, stunt staff, artists, writers, and the manufacturers who make it (mostly abroad at the expense of our US jobs), shipping it all back, to the retail stores that make it all readily available for all ages. The more we buy or view, the more they make, and the more we are hooked.
And as bad as that sounds, the money is the least important issue.
The viewers get a good constant distraction and noise, separating them from God and things that are so much better and eternal than an anemic wallet with bad credit. What the very enemy of God gets from this is a short lived laugh, a fiery future, and the lost souls trapped in the invisible chains of enticement along with him.
Don’t be one of them.
Shades of Darkness
“And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved” (John 3:19-20).
Obviously, most people choose the dark to hide their sins, if they even bother to recognize what their sins are, whether by addictions, enjoyment of violent entertainment, sex or pure delight in someone else’s suffering, way too many enjoy the industry of death. Don’t believe me? Watch what will happen if you take any of their addictions away, stop the shows, or take the gore and lust out of the movies. Or just by choosing to deny that there is a God or introduce their children to God, they are choosing the world and walking the same wide path to the same destruction as everybody else. Misery loves company and there’s no lack of it.
By the descriptions listed above, I’d say we are at midnight, and the moon is new, and it’s almost as dark as it gets. The world is fighting against everything that is good, turning it upside down and trying to bury it all by buying into everything the wind blows to us. Things will get worse as we draw closer to the time of Tribulation, the roots having been planted deep, and they rapidly grow. This is just the practice phase.
But as children of the King─ the Light─we can choose not to be part of the debauchery. It will get tough for us (and the Jews) as that Light is often too bright, blaring, and unaccepted by the sinful bunches, but we were already warned about it and told to overcome in His peace. Those of us with the indwelling Holy Spirit know this and yearn to be with our Lord.
God’s Perfect Plan in His Light and Love
Even those who don’t jump in and enjoy whatever is spooky, bloody, and chaotic, many of the innocents become victims of those who do. Today, people are spoon-fed a violent lifestyle idealism right from birth and often to an early grave. God didn’t promise an easy life for anyone, including Christians. What we see now is just the beginning of sorrows, chosen by the world’s people who push aside a forgiving and loving God. Death is opposite of life, and the life that God gives freely through His Son, Jesus the Christ, the only One who EVER overcame death, and will give the same to those who are adopted sons and daughters of God.
If you feel overwhelmed by the darkness around you, if you see the crumbling pacts of peace prevailing into war-zones after weekly riots, nature’s mayhem with death in the wake, the mass unexplainable deaths of our animals and marine life, genetically modified food, waterways drying up and becoming undrinkable, or see your family turning into a typical reality show right under your roof, you can turn to Christ and repent now before it’s too late. Reading God’s Word regularly will help you sort out the trash from the eternal blessings and gifts of the Holy Spirit; most of these things cannot be changed by you, but you can rest in Him and have His peace as our time to go home draws closer.
Be steady, and get ready.
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