I'm a Christian, and I never hide that fact. It's the church that I've become discontented with. I stopped attending church on a regular basis several years ago because of the hypocrocies that I found there.
Lately I've been seeking God. Reading the Bible, praying consistently and putting my faith in Him. Today the kids and I went to a new church, the place where a friend of mine is a member. The people were friendly, warm and welcoming. The pastors' prayers were a bit specific, but I'm always specific when I pray, too. The hymns were beautiful, and I truly felt that the Holy Spirit was there.
And then the sermon began. He started off in Ephesians, talking about the armor of God and spiritual warfare. Okay by me, I've studied that passage in the past, even learned about it in Sunday School as a teenager. Then he moved to Acts to a passage that talked about men driving out demons in the name of Jesus and what happened to them. I was struggling to follow along, and then the pastor made his point which was that if you don't know God, if you attempt to speak of Him it will all be empty. Okay, good point that hit home in a sense. It was downhill from there.
The pastor started preaching about the Harry Potter books. From there he went on to talk about the movie Titanic. He touched on George Lucas' films. He touched on our government, our public school systems, movies, music, etc. His point? They are all evil and brainwashing us to go closer to the antichrist. This man said that in our future there will be mental illness, murders and suicides, and they will all point back to the Harry Potter books. He preached against movies, said they are brainwashing us. This man touched on every subject I can think about, with his message being that all these places and things are brainwashing us.
As I was sitting there in disbelief, I had to whisper to my teenage daughter not to believe a word that came out of this man's mouth. I began to pray that God would shelter my daughter and I against the poison this man was spewing. I was so uncomfortable, I wanted to get out of my seat and leave. I wanted to stand up and ask him "why aren't you preaching of God's love and forgiveness, of how to trust the Lord in all that we do?"
I met with the pastor after the service. He seems to be a nice man. I believe he genuinely believed all that he was saying.
The sad thing, in my opinion, is that this man preached that all these things are brainwashing us, yet that's exactly what he was doing.
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Matthew 7:16-20
You can identify them by their fruit, that is, by the way they act. Can you pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? A good tree produces good fruit, and a bad tree produces bad fruit. A good tree can’t produce bad fruit, and a bad tree can’t produce good fruit. So every tree that does not produce good fruit is chopped down and thrown into the fire. Yes, just as you can identify a tree by its fruit, so you can identify people by their actions.
I'm curious what church this was. You don't have to tell me if you don't want to... but it's good to know.
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