The Serpent's Infomercial

[Music] I have a serious subject to speak on today I suppose that every Sabbath it's going to be a serious subject but it's one that I think that we need to take very very seriously we need to consider something that is going to affect aw is affecting all of us at all times do we understand what is happening around us we know the world is changing it's changing rapidly and dramatically now sadly for those who are younger not any fault of their own they don't have enough a long time experience to know just how much the world has changed because in thinking these things I had to change something in my notes I thought 20 years ago but it's more like 30 years ago some dramatic things took place things began to change in our world and when you think of 30 years unless you're 45 or 50 years of age you probably don't even recognize how much it would change it has been although many things are happening even as even as I speak there are so many things happening in our world but do we understand what's happening around us and are we monitoring what we think and how we feel in other words are we monitoring what those changes and what those things happening around us are doing to us personally and how we think about things and especially how we feel about things how it affects our emotions whether they be emotions of anger and hostility or just getting excited about something that maybe we ought not be excited about do you understand how the Prince of the power the air is working in our world and honestly brethren I think that many do not I think many do not really comprehend how the Prince of the power of the air is working to destroy this world and if you can to destroy our lives mr. Herbert Armstrong used to say that I don't think 50% of you understand or get it and sometimes he said I don't think that even 10% of you get it he was right wasn't he he was right he could say the same message week after week or very similar messages and people just didn't get it I struggled with a title for this sermon I normally throw together a title fairly quickly the specific purpose statement is what I go by in terms of what the sermon is going to be about and sometimes I'll come up with what I think is a clever title but it doesn't really tell what the sermon is about it is there to detract some attention for the sermon or more likely an article or something but this is going to be somewhat similar to an article and some of the talk that dr. Meredith had toward the end of his life about Satan's alternative universe now I didn't want to name it that simply because that was his title and that was the way that he was going to describe a particular situation that we have in our world I thought of the title the devil's infomercial or Satan's infomercial but the devil and Satan are words that have been trivialized by the very one that it is describing the devil made me do it is a common expression that people use and so we trivially trivialize him as though he's really not there he's a figment of our imagination or something to blame something on but not real and no doubt he is the master of that he is the one that has designed it that way so I finally settled on title it's not maybe any more effective but I'm titling this sermon the Serpent's infomercial in spite of the shortcomings of that title the Serpent's infomercial that's a subject of today's sermon and you know I want to challenge you to think about how the Prince of the power of the air is working not only in the world but in your life as well how he is trying to work in your life and I hope this sermon causes you to evaluate more carefully the things that you allow into your mind through your eyes and your ears and everything that is around us old-timers are familiar with the doctrine of the spirit in man from what I can tell it's not a major doctrine to most churches it's not even a doctrine in most churches but if you go out in the internet you can find that there are some that the talk about the spirit man but very little outside of the Church of God I cannot find that it's a major doctrine in any church yet many newcomers may be totally unfamiliar with it you've heard us talk about it but you may not really know some of the background of it it was not always a doctrine in the Church of God I first learned of it at a master of college in 1965 and the years that I was there through 69 mr. Herbert Armstrong was coming to understand something that he did not understand before and as was the case with mr. Armstrong he would talk about it and he would talk about it and he would talk about it and every sermon somehow would be somewhat about the spirit man it seemed like it was a little bit more later on but nevertheless he was formulating he was beginning to understand the scriptures to talk about it it's not that the doctrine wasn't always there it's always been there in the Bible but the truth hadn't sunk in again it's not something that you're going to find in most of the major churches and job the 32nd chapter in verse a we read of the spirit and man job 32 and verse 8 this is one of the more prominent passages that speaks of it very directly it says but there is a spirit in man and the breath of the almighty gives him understanding so there's a spirit and man and it says the breath of the gal mighty gives him understanding somehow this spirit man allows man to think and to reason and it gives us a certain understanding the book of Ecclesiastes has a passage that I think is puzzled many of us certainly as puzzled me for a long time I I wish I could go back and ask mr. Armstrong what he thought about this particular passage is found in Ecclesiastes the third chapter and in verse 21 you know you always have questions that you want to ask somebody until you are there with them if you haven't written them down and then you can't think of anything there are always questions I had that I would have loved to ask mr. Armstrong but the times I was in his presence whether it be in his home for a dinner which he had for the seniors as small groups of seniors at a time or on other occasions my mind always came up blank but I'd like to know what he thought about it it says in verse 21 Ecclesiastes 3 verse 21 who knows the spirit of the sons of men the spirit of the sons of men which goes upward and the spirit of the animal which goes down to the earth now for traditional Christians I suppose they look at that as the spirit being the soul and that's part of the problem the idea of the immortal soul had confused the whole issue and mr. Armstrong spent a lot of time as did the church explaining away scriptures or I say explaining way explaining what this the true meaning of scriptures were that had been distorted and twisted by those who believed in a pagan heathen doctrine of the immortal soul but here it says that who knows so it's a question which it doesn't really give us an answer to the spirit of the sons of men which goes upward in the spirit of that the animal which goes down to the earth so that makes the question okay do animals have a spirit an animal spirit well we know that dogs have certain approaches and we know that cats have a very different personality and we look at all the different animals and creatures and it's a question I don't have an answer for I can speculate as you can but as I often say your speculation is just as bad as mine or vice versa we don't know but it does speak of the spirit of the sons of men there so this idea of a spirit in man is definitely in the scriptures it is not the immortal soul because that is the doctrine that frankly kept us from understanding the spirit man because we recognize that man doesn't have this immortal everliving spirit entity in us in the sense that it is the real you and after you die it goes to heaven or goes to hell now if you have any questions about that and I'm not going to go into that subject today other than just mentioning it but coming Thursday on Thanksgiving Day we have the telecast do you have in immortal soul you have an immortal soul that's coming up this Thursday through the following Wednesday so next Sunday you can watch the telecast and your bulletin has a number of stations that you can check out we can get it 5-6 times here in this area and you can always get it on roku or on the website you can watch the telecasts anytime 24/7 now if you'd like to go back a few years and see what mr. Ames looked like in 2004 and how vigorous he was advertising the what was at the the cassette tapes you know he's holding up a cassette tape there in 2004 he had a program on the truth about the immortal soul and if you prefer to read or don't have the internet or television you can always go to the booklet that I wrote on John 3:16 hidden truths of the golden verse in chapter 7 has a section that talks about the the problem of the immortal soul Wyatt is a pagan doctrine and why it is not found in the Bible so what does the Bible tell us about this spirit in or spirit of man what are we to learn from the Bible in Zechariah the twelfth chapter Zechariah 12 and verse 1 it says the burden of the word of the Lord against Israel thus says the eternal who stretches out the heavens lays the foundation of the earth and forms the spirit of man within him so here's another scripture this is a third one that we've read that talked about the spirit of man there is a spirit in man and proverbs 20 and again we're not talking about a soul as Christianity teaches this is something different and this was hard for firm strong to understand and then when he explained it to us it became clear as to what it is at least in a general sense we can understand it but it is not a a soul that is the real you that is a conscious self it is unconscious but it empowers the brain it is a spirit essence it's like maybe we could say today with our computers which well mr. Armstrong used to use the example of a cassette tape and put it in a tape recorder and the tape and powers or bring something out but it is you know it doesn't have the the movements and everything that a recorder does the recorder is more quote alive you might say and the tape is just there to bring something I think a better analogy which he didn't have the opportunity to give is when we have a computer a computer we have hardware and you can have a general program to do some word processing but if your computer is powerful enough you can put into a that will empower it to go to a higher level to do a very complicated program that it might not otherwise do that's perhaps imperfect but nevertheless we try to we struggle with ideas how do we explain these things I've explained this part of the picture before and Isaiah the 55th chapter let me go back to proverbs I didn't read proverbs I don't think proverbs 20 verse 27 it says here the spirit of a man is the lamp of the Lord or the eternal one the spirit of a man is the lamp of the eternal searching all the inner depths of his heart so it is this through the spirit of man that God can look into the inner parts of a human being the the the inner thinking the very depths of our thinking of our motions and so forth now let's go to Isaiah 50 five Isaiah 55 and as I started to say this is something I have covered here in the past but as part of the big picture and I say a 55 and verse 8 it says for my thoughts are not your thoughts nor are your ways my ways says the eternal for as the heavens are higher than the earth so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts now if we were to leave it there we would simply say well God is up here on a certain level of thinking and we are hopelessly lost we can't think like he thinks but when you look at the context of this particular passage you see that he is talking there to people who are unconverted he starts out ho everyone who thirsts verse 1 come to the waters and you who have no money come by and eat yes come buy wine and milk without money and without price why do you spend money for what is not bread and your wages for what does not satisfy listen carefully to me and eat what is good and let your soul delight itself in abundant in abundance incline your ear and come to me hear and your soul shall live and I will make an everlasting covenant with you and then down in verse 6 he says seek the Lord while he may be found call upon him while he is near he is inviting people to come to him to stop chasing after things that never satisfy and he says it's given freely without money without price now when we see here that he says my thoughts are not your thoughts nor are your ways my ways we can stop there and leave it at that and just say well I can't think like God but in first Corinthians a second chapter a passage that we have touched on a number of times first Corinthians 2 and verse 9 it makes a statement very similar in verse 9 says but as it is written eye has not seen nor ear heard nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love him we can't comprehend the things that God has prepared for those who love him but the scripture does not stop there the scripture continues but God has revealed them to us through his spirit yes the deep things for the spirit searches all things yes the deep things of God and then the Apostle Paul makes a statement about the spirit and man it's interesting because I was looking this morning at a commentary that is good at a lot of things but this particular case I thought well I want to know what what they say about this verse and all they had was one sentence and basically just says this analogy Paul use and just kind of slough that off and went on talking about the Spirit the Holy Spirit which of course is what what Paul is talking about in general here but we should not take this as a trivial thing what he says in verse 11 he says for what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him and mr. Armstrong rightfully understood that there's something to the human brain that goes beyond the normal physical brain that we have there are creatures with larger brains than man's brain now it is true that it isn't just the size but the complexity the number of connections and all kinds of things so it's a very complex subject but he recognized that when you look at the size of a man's brain compared to others yes where we have a larger brain everything but our ability to understand is so exponential way beyond anything of the animals what man can know the things of man except the spirit of man which is in him this is a powerful powerful statement when we think about it it imparts understanding it gives man intellect that animals simply do not have man with the spirit can understand calculus well let me say some men can understand calculus trigonometry we can build hospitals we can travel into space we have computers that with as they call it AI or artificial intelligence that can do amazing things we we can build robots that can run like a human being or like a dog they have four-legged robots and two-legged and these are not things that are easy to do for man to be able to to accomplish these things we build hospitals we have medicines we take care of the animals we don't see them operating on us well when they're operating on us they're making us dinner aren't they they don't operate on us to help us I think that when we look at man's ability is so far above anything of the animals and it's really laughable how evolutionists are always trying to show a progression here there's a monkey and he can you know or chimpanzee and he takes a stick and licks it and sticks it down a hole with ants and pulls it out and licks off the ants and he's using a tool a tool well you know we can we can make tools that make tools we have copy machines now 3d copy machines that can make tools that actually work they may not hold up very long but they they actually can work all kinds of things that we can do that animals simply cannot do now animals can do some pretty marvelous things when you look at a bird's nest pretty remarkable pretty amazing but the bird always makes a sign same kind of I say the same kind of nest well sometimes the male I think the Weaver bird makes the nest and the female then a you know checks it out well now I don't like that one I'm going to go over here so there must be some difference but to our eyes we probably don't recognize the difference in them you wonder about the spirit of animals what is it what is it that makes an animal the way it it is I don't have an answer for that but I just wonder it's a question I'd like to ask during the res the resurrection ask somebody about it but man with the spirit can understand things that animals cannot and when the spirit is united with God's Spirit a new man is begotten a new creature has begun let's notice over in Romans the eighth chapter Romans 8 and verse 14 it says here for as many as are led by the Spirit of God now this is a different spirit there's a spirit in man and there's a Spirit of God for as many as are led by the Spirit of God these are the sons of God hold your place here let me go back to Corinthians again because I don't think I finished the the thought there in first corinthians the second chapter again verse 11 for what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of man which is in him even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God so it makes that comparison there we cannot know the things of God without the Spirit of God and so he's saying that you know I have not seen nor ear heard but with the Spirit of God we can begin to understand the things of God through a glass darkly of course but we can begin to understand those things now back here in Romans the eighth chapter as many as are led by the Spirit of God these are the sons of God for you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear but you received the spirit of adoption or sonship by whom we out abba father then verse 16 the Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit this is God's Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God now that's a really an amazing statement there that God's Spirit bearing witness with our spirit makes us the children of God there's a coming together of two different spirits over in first John the 3rd chapter it really completes the picture 1st John 3 and verse 9 whoever has been born or as it should be begotten of God does not sin for his that is God's seed remains in him now the word there as we've pointed out many times is sperma means sperm god's sperm in other words God's DNA has been transferred into us to put it in a human term that's imperfect but nevertheless we have God's sperm God's DNA implanted in us with the Holy Spirit God's Spirit and man's spirit they come together as it says there in Romans the 8th chapter verse 16 as we just read it makes us a new creature we are the children of God God has reproduction in the human sense and the animal sense to teach us something now that the process may be certainly very different but nevertheless it is two spirits coming together now the spirit and man receives this receives spiritual signals from God but and here's the problem it can also receive signals spiritual signals from another source and this is where we run into problems this is where we have the diff call T in Ephesians the second chapter it makes it very clear that there is a spirit out here I'm calling him today the serpent going back to the Garden of Eden but in Ephesians 2 and verse 1 he says you he made alive who were dead in trespasses and sins in which you once walked according to the course of this world the course of this world he says you once walked according to the course this world hangs talking there frankly when you read the whole context he's talking about the Gentiles but specifically all of us he says among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in verse 3 we all once walked according to the course of this world according to the Prince of the power of the air so does the Prince of the power of the air that is directing the course of this world the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience he's able to work in human beings for disobedience so God's Spirit in us makes us a new creature but it doesn't take away the ability for Satan to also transmit thoughts and emotions through the spirit and man this spirit and man receives receives spiritual signals but the Prince of the power of the air directs the course this world and he does so through his spirit right now in this room there are voices their word serves pictures surrounding us they're all over in this room we don't hear them unless we have a receiver somebody bring a radio and actually you can just use your smartphone turn on you can pull up all kinds of pictures all kinds of words all kinds of music all kinds of voices it's all there it's all around us but we don't have the receiver for it but the spirit of man allows us to be able to understand way beyond the animals and Satan is able to broadcast to a human being and work in the sons of disobedience and work sadly even amongst God's people to give his infomercial his message that he wants to get across to each and every one of us this receiver the spirit and man is given to empower your brain and to unite with the Spirit of God so that you can understand spiritual things and be born into the very God family it's a wonderful thing that God is doing in us but we must learn to discern between two spirits and first John four first John four and verse one he says beloved do not believe every spirit don't believe every spirit a lot that's going on out here but test the spirits whether they are of God because many false prophets have gone out into the world now in the context of the Bible and religion in general we have to test the spirits but we also have to test whether the course this world is going God's Way or the Serpent's way so how does a serpent work his magic the Serpent's infomercial works this way he uses the five senses to manipulate our thoughts and emotions he'll use music he'll use pictures he'll use social media you use all the things that come into our eyes and our ears and our thoughts to sell his agenda consider this well animals have emotions can they understand sadness or joy from a movie I know that animals can be sad when another animal that they've lived with dies they can mourn when the owner of an animal dies an anima a dog especially will mourn he'll stay with him there's something there they have emotions we had a dog and there was a cat that would always walk just on the other side of the chain-link fence and walked back and forth very boldly our dog hated cats you could just you could see that he he did not like cats and one time he got a hold of one and all I can say as I was thankful that I was there to grab his tail because when he shook it threw it I wouldn't let him get back to it that's not an easy thing with the German Shepherd who wants to kill a cat and would have done so it was not a full-grown cat but a dog looking at a television screen you know there are some animals cats or dogs look look up at a television screen but are they getting the message the way that you and I are are they feeling the sadness and all the things that may be going on in the movie or they just fascinated by the movie I mean the movement of it man is different because of the spirit and man we can comprehend emotions in a way that animals don't again I'm not saying animals don't have emotions because I I've seen it they do but not the same way that the man does and that they can be manipulated by a lot of outside forces look at how the serpent is seducing and changing our world I'd like to read from dr. Meredith article Satan's alternate universe alternative universe this is from the July August 2016 tomorrow's World magazine and he thought a lot about this toward the end of his life I remember him talking about he wanted to make a booklet on the subject he says very few people understand the significance of the massive changes underway in our society our entire society not since the time of sodom and gomorrah have people generally been as confused in so many ways this is especially so right now because of the massive misuse of technology by gaining almost total control of the media a very real satan the devil is able to manipulate the thinking the attitudes and the actions of billions of human beings especially the younger generation the younger generation just doesn't understand how much the world is changing and in schools you know the Satan is really after our children he's going right down to the lowest levels there and in terms of of age you know when you have as the article that I just wrote for tomorrow's world or that came out about a drag queens story time or drag queens story hour this is geared for little children it's geared to indoctrinate them and I'm going to show you from their own words that this is what's intended not necessarily that particular thing but in general this whole trend that we see there we are now physically older and have had to suffer to learn many lessons those of us who are older many lessons in life should have we should have learned not to jump on the bandwagon and go along with the latest sociological and psychological twists and turns orchestrated by Satan the devil for we have found perhaps over decades that many of these ideas simply do not work when some confused young radio or TV announcer reads the prepared script saying that people's civil rights are being violated if perverted young men cannot declare themselves as women and get to use women's restrooms and showers alongside our young daughters and wives we become upset those who are older because we know and deeply understand that these ideas are totally wrong they simply don't work and they will not bring about the good results or good results at all now that's interesting because this was written three years ago and even now on conservative news sources they just want to put this all aside ok well that's that's a battle it's gone and you know we don't want to talk about that we're you know all for these things it's just amazing it isn't just young people in fact young people might be more upset about it because it's going to be at their school that these things can happen but nevertheless our whole society is accepting these things I say our whole society not all of our society many people are not but too many are but as more billions of young people are brought under the influence of Satan the devil and so many of these modern situations it is obvious that Satan is gaining control of our society more thoroughly than ever because of the pervasive nature of our media for Satan can literally bombard people with these wrong ideas through television through radio through newspapers through the internet and so many other forms of media that many are tuned into many times every day Almighty God knew that this world this would occur so he directly explained to the early Christians how they once walked according to the course of this world according the Prince of the power of the air the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience the Bible makes it clear that Satan the devil is a powerful Carib who rebelled against the creator and is now allowed by God to be the god of this age who has blinded those who do not believe lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God should shine on them 2nd Corinthians 4 verses 3 and 4 let's take a sampling of Satan of the Serpent's infomercial I wrote down nearly twenty years ago and I had do my math again it's hard to keep up with our maths sometimes but nearly 30 years ago homosexual started coming out of every sitcom closet before that you never saw such a thing yeah there was Liberace which was a little bit light in the loafers you knew that there were other individuals but you didn't have them openly coming out of the closet declaring what they were we were introduced to Three's Company that was a sitcom actually I'd looked that up because I couldn't remember I didn't I wasn't a viewer of it but I knew what it was about I had I couldn't remember was two men and one girl or the other way around well it's one guy and two girls living with him all the same apartment why is that done why would they do something like that it's all to normalize deviant behavior as I'll show you husbands and wives became referred to as partners because that allowed someone who was not your wife or your husband and so when Robert dole how many years ago was that after he ran from president for president and didn't win he started advertising was a viagra I think it was your partner will love you for it or whatever your partner your partner you know the the left is so good I say the left the serpent who inspires them is so good at using language to change our thinking I remember watching a beer commercial one time on television where two women kissed pretty disgusting that was last time I ever drank that beer and didn't drink it before but that was that was for sure I never knew who Katy Perry was until I saw her on Canada's CTV morning show singing I kissed a woman and I liked it and she had an audience there which they didn't always have on that to show that morning show but they had an audience this time of tween girls girls that were probably preteen or if they were teens they were barely teens and they were dancing along and singing along with her they knew the words they knew the words and went to bring all these kids in there with her when they had other artists and they didn't bring an audience in even HGTV is in on the act with untraditional couples and various products to sell as I tell my wife HGTV is an infomercial everything on it is trying to sell something is she she likes that and I think a lot of people like that and there are a lot of bicycles good reasons to watch it but you have to understand what it is you really have to understand it and you have to understand what it's doing to you is it making you want to do an addition to your your house do you suddenly want to do something because you saw something there you know being bombarded with a day after day I saw I walked by the television and I saw this box in the background said Wayfarer I don't know what Wayfarer was never heard of it before but I said they're advertising sure enough you find out Wayfarer is what a an online company I don't know what it is but they sell things everything is an infomercial when you see a Ford car in a police chase they're advertising they're advertising all the time David Koepp Elian and I know that many of you familiar with this how many of you have happened to have read this the marketing of evil by David Koepp Elyan looks like about 8% I don't know I'm not sure if you like to read and read something besides our literature which I hope you read our literature first but if you like to read this is eye opener this is an eye opener with a lot of good information in them let me just read a little bit here on page 66 he says everything he's quoting from this McCluskey Robert McChesney who is University of Illinois communications professor he says everything on MTV that's something I didn't know of MTV still out there but I you know was it was all the young people watch that is a commercial that's all that MTV is sometimes it's an explicit advertisement paid for by a company to sell a product sometimes it's going to be a video for a music company there to sell music sometimes it's going to be the set that's filled with trendy clothes and stuff there to sell a look no to sell a look that will include products on that set sometimes it will be a show about an upcoming movie paid for by the studio though you don't know it to hype a movie that's coming out from Hollywood even the news programs you watch the news programs if somebody's written a book they're interviewed they're interviewed on this station this station this station or this network all across it's all an infomercial he says but everything's an infomercial there is no non-commercial part of MTV and then it gives an example of how sprite was not doing very well you know the drink the sparklies drink there it was one struggling second-string soft drink company pulled off a brilliant they pulled off a brilliant marketing coup by underwriting major hip hop music events and positioning itself as the cool soft drink for the vast MTV generation market and what they did is they paid $50 per kid to come in and all these hip-hop stars and they they started advertising that way and they presented it as the cool thing as that which young people would like so what you say what's wrong with that aren't MTV and rappers and companies and others just giving kids what they want that's what they say but it's not what they do in reality the companies are creating new and lower and more shocking and that's the key word shocking marketing campaigns disguised as genuine authentic expressions of youthful searching for identity and belonging for the sole purpose of profiting financially from America's children they hire shields to interact with young people in internet chat rooms these people are hired to interact with young people and others as well Internet chat rooms they engage secret snitches to loudly talk of a band or other products to raise inner interest they bring the entire machinery of modern market research and consumer psychology to bear on studying this goldmine of a market to anticipate the next and always weirder and more shocking incarnation of cool I know that this has been talked about before but we need to understand it that this is there there are people out there who are trying to merchant eyes off you and who are they they are people that this you know the serpent is moving to do things for his purposes to get rich to lower standards there's these are not accidental they're not accidental on the human level and they certainly are not accidental on the spiritual level all of this is a clear attempt to normalize desensitize and convert a naive populace like to read here from a book that is a little bit hard to get these days it's called after the ball how America will conquer its fear and hatred of gays in the 90s now this was the research on this was done in the late 80s and this book came out about 19 I think it was 89 and remember earlier I said that we saw homosexuals coming out of every sitcom coming out of the closet or very sitcom this was no accident this was no accident this was something that had been thought out a well planned campaign this is written by two very highly educated individuals Madison and Kirk they said when you're very different and people hate you for it this is what you do now what what this book is all about is selling homosexuality to the American population which they were these two individuals wrote this he says what do you do well first you get your foot in the door by being as similar as possible then and only then when your one little difference is finally accepted can you start dragging in your other peculiarities one by one you hammer in the wedge narrow end first you get that wedge in and then it opens up more as he hammered in as the saying goes allow the camels nose beneath your tent and his whole body will soon follow now they talk about a propaganda campaign in their book a game of propaganda and I'll explain a little bit of that but they have three stages of things to do here there are a lot of different tactics they have but the three that are mentioned here in this this particular chapter the first one is desensitization desensitization as a general physio psychological rule novelties cease to be novel if they just stick around long enough they also cease to activate alerting mechanisms and lowers if you see something often enough you just get used to it like foul language in movies you used to take it for granted after you just know it's going to be there you pick up a book and it's gonna have a lot of foul language in it and so we we kind of get used to it there was a time when our learning mechanism would kick in there's something wrong here but if it stays around long enough it ceases to activate alerting mechanisms you just you know you're overpowered by them if however skipping down a little bit gays can live alongside straights notice we're gays and that they they even explain the book this is this is designed this is a word that they chose to sell homosexuality to the population and so they use certain words over and over through this book gay is one of them they use homosexuality they use a lot of words but they certainly insert this word if they can live long sight straights visibly but as in offensively as possible they will arouse a low-grade alert only a low-grade alert only which though annoying the straights will eventually diminish for purely physiological reasons we'll just get used to it we can extract the following principles for our campaign to desensitize straights to gays and gayness imitate them in a continuous flood of gay related advertising presented in the least offensive fashion possible well you have your favorite sitcom and now somebody comes out of the closet if you turn off or you just get used to it if straights can't shut off the shower they at meat may at least eventually get used to being wet you know first Timothy the fourth chapter towels of something here first Timothy for first Timothy four and verse two it speaks of breaking into a thought here doctrines of demons he's talking about speaking lies in hypocrisy having their own conscience seared with a hot iron one's conscience seared to our you don't feel the heat anymore it's been scabbed over or seared over also Hebrews the third chapter Hebrews three and verse 13 Hebrews three verse 13 it says but exhort one another daily while it is called today today lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin the longer sin goes on the more we become hardened to it or inured by it we we no longer see it as being bad or as bad as it once was let's read on in from after the ball after desensitizing they call this next step jamming jamming all normal people feel shame when they perceive that they are not thinking thinking feeling or acting like one of the pack we all want to follow the crowd and so they said they feel shame or they feel you know wanting to hide their feelings if it doesn't go along with the pack they they understand these things he says thus propagandistic advertisement can depict homophobic and homo hating bigots so homophobic is a word that they were prefered of had changed to homo homo hating that's the word that they really wanted but it hasn't really caught caught up like home phobic but those are words designed by those people very carefully and the word bigots that's you that's me and they use that over and over again as a pejorative term it says thus propagandistic advertisement can depict homophobic and homo hating bigots as crude loud mouths and I can't read the rest of it there and other shameful epithets who are not Christian in other words this is not Christian behavior to portray people doing things that are not Christian it can show them being criticized hated shunned it can depict gays experiencing horrific suffering as a direct result of the homo hatred suffering of which even most bigots would be ashamed to be the cause and notice he did mention Christian there because they know that that is their greatest enemy it can in short link homo hating bigotry with all sorts of attributes the bigot would be ashamed to possess and with social consequences he would find unpleasant and scary now the third step is conversion conversion it isn't enough that anti-gay bigots should become confused about us or even indifferent to us we are safest in the long run if we can actually make them like us conversion aims at just this we mean conversion of the average Americans emotions mind and will through a planned psychological attack in the form of propaganda fed to the nation via the media point is that these these things don't happen by accident there's somebody out there trying to manipulate your mind every day all day long put briefly if desensitization lets the watch rundown and jamming throw sand in the works conversion reverses so the hands run backward and conversion the bigot is repeatedly exposed to literal pictures labels pairs in magazines and on billboards and TV of gays explicitly labeled as such who not only don't look like his picture of a homosexual but are carefully selected to look either like the bigot and his friends or like any one of his other stereotypes of all right gays the kind of people he already likes and admires this image must of necessity be carefully tailored to be free of absolutely every element of the widely held stereotypes of how look dress and sound these are just their words and he says here but it makes no difference it makes no difference that the ads are lies not to us because we're using them to ethically good effect now I want to read something in just a minute here so remember that they said it makes no difference that the ads our lives the ones that they are trying to promote because they're used for ethically good effect the ad may say something like rather something rather like Beauregard Smith beer drinker good old boy pillar of the community 100% American and gay as a mongoose you may wonder well I'll skip that you know you think about that Brokeback Mountain I never saw it actually I read the review of it for this and I have to say it was far more shocking than I could have ever imagined I knew it about two gay cowboys you see a cowboy a good old boy that was written a a story on it the screenplay in 1997 just a few years after this come out and then of course the television not television but the movie came out afterward the storyline is just absolutely abominable but it is in the National Archives in in the Smithsonian as being a cultural breakthrough and various other things something worthy for us to preserve now the next chapter and this book has a few comments it says first propaganda relies more upon emotional manipulation than upon logic note that it wants to work on emotional manipulation rather than logic since its goal is in fact to bring about a change in the public's feelings the second sinister characteristic of propaganda is as frequent use of outright lies a tactic we neither need nor condone oh really what we just read in the previous chapter just a few pages away oh it doesn't matter this a lie because it's being used for a good effect in February 1988 however a war conference of 175 leading gay activists in 1988 representing organizations from across the land convened in Warrenton Virginia to establish a four-point agenda for the gay movement the conference gave first priority to a nationwide media campaign to remote a positive image of gays and lesbians and its final state in its final statement they concluded we must consider the media and every project we undertake we must in tradition take every advantage we can to include public service announcements and paid advertisements and to cultivate reporters and editors of newspapers radio and television to help facilitate this we need national media workshops to train our leaders our media efforts are fundamental to the full acceptance of us American life you know it isn't just this subject of the LGBT movement it's so many other things that are just like it there are people who are sitting there with a campaign with what they want to promote and I know there's a controversial subject with some people but the whole concept of medical marijuana whether there is any medical use for it or not I don't know although authorities say that there isn't they haven't proven it yet but it was a campaign by people who wanted it for recreational use that push that agenda and people don't get it they just don't get it and yet there's there's plenty of evidence out there I see I heard an advertisement the other day for CBD oil CBD is not cannabis it's not marijuana it's from the cannabis plant it's non hallucinogenic and I'll tell you it will cure whatever ails you in fact they said are you do you have health problems try CBD oil it's a snake oil in reality now are there things that it might be helpful for very possibly maybe yet to all be proven but when something will heal everything that's wrong with you then you ought not jump on the bandwagon right away until a little bit more research is done the serpent has an infomercial out here and he is changing our society in ways that we could never imagine what other infomercials is he broadcasting hair styles immodest dress styles body piercing and tattoos vaping vague anism attitudes of hatred of racism and partisanship and getting all caught up in the politics of this world you'd like us all to go out there and carry guns you know this is just a beginning list when I say carrying guns for reasons that we ought not this is just a beginning list but here's an important question for all of us are you playing a role in the Serpent's infomercial are you part of the cast are you playing a leading role a supporting role or just an extra on the set think about it in these terms are you playing a role as an extra and the what in what you say on social media by walking around and in modest dress you're just in the background he's just part of the big crowd but you going along with the infomercial in fact you're part of the infomercial body piercings tattoos I want to say something about tattoos here because they're so popular today here we see a more and more showing up a church you can't help what you did before you came in the church I mean you could have made a different decision but you made a decision but before you came in to a relationship with God we all did some really foolish things didn't we and even after we've come into the church we're all guilty of many many sins so this is not criticizing what people did before they came into the church but walking around the feast when you see people displaying their tattoos and what do you mean by displaying their tattoos well you know if you've got your whole arm tattooed and your woman or man you would think that maybe I ought to wear a long sleeve rather than being a part of the infomercial out there because everybody's going to see it they're going to get used to it they may not like it but they'll get used to being wet the statement was made or you know on the back of the shoulder and you've got a dress that displays it you know some things you can't hide you see people with you know tattoos on the backs their their knuckles it can't exactly hide those I guess you could wear gloves although we're not asking people to do that but it would seem to me that if you read the 19th chapter of Leviticus and the verse which says you shall not tattoo you know your body or whatever that someone say you know maybe I really don't want to show this off if I can avoid it but instead it seems like there's no shame there's no desire to close it to shut it off again you can't do what you can't do you've got on the back your hand or something or on your cheek or you know your ears tattooed or the back your neck I mean you can't exactly hide all those things and nobody expects you to we love those people that have come in that made mistakes but they come into the church we still love them in fact over in proverbs 10 and in verse 12 there's a passage that's quoted really in 1st Peter 4:8 but let's just notice the where it's quoted from or at least it's believed to be quoted from there proverbs 10 verse 12 it says hatred stirs up strife but love covers all sins you see we can accept people who have made mistakes because we care for them because we love them it covers all sins my hatred just stirs up strife we could argue about it we don't want to go around you know talking to people saying why did you do this why do that but the point is is a point of Education wouldn't it make sense that if we did something that we wouldn't do today that we would not just display it for the whole world to see it's kind of like people are almost proud of some of their their body art even within the church now I realize too that we have people that are not members and and maybe they're just mates of somebody so I don't know who while these people are but I just noticed the feast in it and in other places I see it from time to time so what are we to do well Paul gave essential advice to the church at Ephesus in Ephesians the sixth chapter Ephesians 6 you know brethren I bring these things out because it's not going to get any better it's only gonna get worse and we're just going to be torn down by by his infomercial where everything around us is going astray and we're going to be desensitized we're going to be jammed we're going to be sadly some are converted to the point where they're a part of the infomercial he says here in verse 11 put on the whole armour of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil the wiles of the devil he is a wily character he's clever he's powerful for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood but against principalities against powers against the rulers of the darkness of this age against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places and so he says take the whole armour of God do you may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand stand therefore having girded your waist with truths so truth we have to know what the scriptures say we have to live by them having your waist girded with truth having put on the breastplate of righteousness other words living by the truth and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace your focus being on preaching the good news the gospel as opposed to trying to fit in with the world and above all taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts the wicked one and take the helmet of salvation on the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God praying always with all supplication brethren these are words and I'm out of time but these are words that are powerful and they should not fall on deaf ears you know Eve fell prey to the lust of the flesh it tastes good it feels good the lust of the eyes I gotta have it and the pride of life I know better than mom and dad I know better than you know the church I know better than God when teens hear the music they see the hats turn around backward and notice that all their idols have tattoos there's that inner voice that says without conscious thought I gotta have that I need it and as adults we're not much different these are more than words they have important meaning advertising works so don't be fooled by it what is the current drumbeat around us what is the world promoting what philosophy what cultural change or idea is the world pushing is the world really getting better I don't think that scripturally you can say that what social trend do you see today that wasn't there twenty or thirty years ago if you are old enough to know if you're not can't be blamed for that perhaps it's no coincidence to the same letter that Paul instructed us to put on spiritual armor he also instructed us in the fifth chapter and verse 15 see then that you walk circumspectly not as fool's but as wise [Music] you

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Published: Fri Mar 06 2020