Month: July 2005

Evil Communications Part 2

1Cor 15:33 – Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners.

If you think that listening to, reading, or watching evil communcations has no effect on you, then you are deceived.

Now, don’t go and blame television or the media for your behavior. Don’t blame your gossiping friends or your complaining coworkers for your bad attitudes.

Don’t shift blame and responsiblity for your thoughts and behavior to anyone or anything else.

Now that you know that these things will impact you, you now know you need to take action to minimize that impact.

Even if the evil communications provided the seeds you have a choice in how far they develop.

There is a process in which seeds develop into weeds. They get distributed, planted (exposed but not resisted), germinate (concieve the idea), develop roots (impacts thoughts, overrides your resistance and rationalizes), develop leaves (begins impacting speech and behavior), and finally bear fruit (result in sinful behavior).

The earlier you interrupt this process the better.

First, in the vast majority of cases you have the choice in whether you expose yourself to corrupt seeds. If you are never exposed to it, then you are never tempted by it. The things you see or hear the most will dominate you.

Being that we are in the world, we cannot expect to prevent all exposure. We can still interrupt and reverse the process.

To prevent the seeds from developing into weeds, you must first recognize them as counter to God’s Word. To do this, you must actually know what God has to say about the subject by having spent time in the Word. Once you recognize it as wrong, then remind yourself repeatedly of God’s view on the subject.

Additionally, you must starve out the weeds by not feeding and watering them. Repeated exposure, daydreaming wrong things, or idle conversations go to reenforce and grow the weeds.

(Updated 3 Aug)

Part I

You Reap What You Sow

Galatians 6:7 – Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

Did you realize that “what goes around, comes around” was a biblical principle?

If you think you can go around sowing contention and strife and not have it come back to you, then you are deceived.

Additionally, whatever you sow will always come back to you multiplied.

If you sow a kernel of corn, you will get several ears worth of corn and thousands of kernals back in return when it comes time for harvest. Same goes for a grain of wheat, you get a header of wheat that has hundreds and thousands of grains just in that one plant.

Different kinds of seeds give different kinds of harvests. Corn and wheat cycle just for one season. Other kinds of seeds, like apple seeds, can result in trees that give multiple harvests over many seasons for the lifetime of the tree.

Be careful what you sow, it will come back to you. If you want to harvest love, you need to sow it.

Evil Communications

1Cor 15:33 – Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners.

You can turn this around and say it another way:

“If you think you can listen to, read, or watch evil communcations and not be effected, you are deceived.”

Just turn on the television, listen to the radio, or flip through a magazine at the supermarket. Within in 5 minutes you will be exposed to more perversity and obscenity that most folks might have been exposed to in an entire lifetime not 50 years ago.

All around us, every form of media seeks to push the limits and go to another level of extreme in order to get our attention. The reason they have to keep going to extremes to get our attention, is that we get desensitized to what we are repeatedly exposed to. A side effect is that once they sink to a deeper level of depravity or go to another level of extreme, we become desensitized to what once we had an emotional reaction to.

Desensitized simply means that we are no longer sensitive to it, that it no longer provokes the emotional reaction it once did.

Desensitized DOES NOT mean that it no longer has an impact on us. To the contrary, it merely means that our guard is now totally ineffective, and we now let these media messages come pouring into our minds without any check or balance.

Things that were once abhorrent are now the subject of sitcoms that we blithely laugh along with the prerecorded audence to. All the while our minds are being conditioned to accept and even support things that are an abomination before God.

Rom 12:9 Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good.

Isa 5:20 Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

Part II

Train Up a Child

Pro 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

The bible says that a child needs to be trained in the way they should go.

God puts responsibility for training up kids in the hands of parents.

Children don’t come out of the womb knowing right from wrong. Children come out of the womb instinctively self-centered and ruled by thier appetites, needs, feelings, and emotions.

Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

We, as parents, are the ones who have to show them right from wrong. We are responsible for managing their “appetites” until they learn to do so for themselves. We are responsible for helping them learn to manage their emotions and desires.

Prov 29:15 The rod and reproof give wisdom: but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame.

Children have a natural tendency from the flesh to want sweets and junk. Unchecked, they will fill themselves with empty calories that will rob them of health.

We are responsible for training their tastes to appreciate more healty forms of food. Without our intervention, they would never develop a taste for what will build them up.

So it is with what they spend time doing. Without any external guidance, they will have a natural tendency to spend time watching and doing things that feed the flesh instead of their spirit.

Many of the things of God require time and repeated exposure in order to develop a taste for them.

As Godly parents, we must make sure our children are being exposed to the Word of God and things that are pleasing to God.

Otherwise, our children will grow up without ever having developed a taste for those things and learn nothing other than how to gratify the flesh.

Part II

Fear Hath Torment

1Jo 4:18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment, He that feareth is not made perfect in love.

God is not a tormenter. Satan is the tormentor. If you are overlording over someone, or use threats and fear tactics to get your way with someone, you are working the works of satan and tormenting them. You might get temporary compliance, but you are planting seeds of contention and strife that will reap an evil harvest in your home.

What possesses you?

Deuteronomy 11:16 – Take heed to yourselves, that your heart be not deceived, and ye turn aside, and serve other gods, and worship them;

How much time do you spend upset about “things”.

You know how strong a hold “things” have on you by how much time they occupy in your life.

How many idols have possession of you?

We are instructed to “take heed of ourselves”. Otherwise it is up to us to continually keep ourselves in check in order to keep ourselves free from making an idol out of commonplace things. If we are not watchful, then according to this verse we will be deceived.

5 Things Not to be Deceived About

Deuteronomy 11:16 – Take heed to yourselves, that your heart be not deceived, and ye turn aside, and serve other gods, and worship them;

Luke 21:8 – And he said, Take heed that ye be not deceived: for many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and the time draweth near: go ye not therefore after them.

1 Corinthians 6:9-10 – Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.

1 Corinthians 15:33 – Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners.

Galatians 6:7 – Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.