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How Christianity Has
by Ken Raggio
While the modern counterpart is highly visible on the issues of politics, abortion, euthanasia, homosexuality, and a few other hot topics, this neo-church fails miserably in keeping the ancient themes. The Gospel of Jesus Christ, with its emphasis on seeking first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness, is a round peg that does not fit the world's square hole of materialism, hedonism, and secularism. Take note of the lifestyles of the prominent Christian figures of our day. They are pop music stars, movie stars, and celebrities of all kinds. "Subvert the world away from Religion" The master plan of the Communist-Socialist thinkers from the beginning of this century (Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao) set out to subvert the world from all its religion. Karl Marx, father of the "Communist Manifesto," was a Lutheran in his childhood, a Satanist in his youth, and an Atheist in adulthood. He and his protégés have spent the past 150 years at war with God and religion. Lenin and Stalin together purged the world of over 50 million people who didn’t agree with them. Hitler in Germany, Mussolini in Italy and Mao in China murdered tens of millions more. Gramsci’s proposal: Create Diversions Finally, a brilliant Socialist named Antonio Gramsci conceived a more effective approach for eliminating the religious component in society. His theory was to abandon the reign of terror for a subtle but diabolical strategy of supplanting all of Christianity and religion with the stuff of its undoing: materialism, secularism, humanism, and so forth. By flooding Christian societies with these worldly agendas, the hearts of believers in God have been turned from God. Through television, radio, the print media, cable, satellite, the Internet, and every conceivable source, an entire generation has been led "Pied Piper"-style right out the church-house doors, into the anti-God corruption and debaucheries of atheism, humanism, materialism, secularism, and hedonism. Today’s "spiritual issues" consist of a different kind of list: environmental or social issues; save the whales (the rain forests, the ozone layer), stop acid rain (pollution, population growth), feed the third world poor, prevent AIDS, grant race and gender rights, etc. The Creature is worshiped instead of the Creator The only sacred things to this generation are those of man and his environment. The Apostle Paul could see it coming, and mentioned it in his letter to the Romans. He declared that men would forget God, and worship the creature instead of the Creator. Today's heroes are those who do everything for man, and for man's dwelling place, the planet earth. Jesus said in I John 2:15, "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him." The trends of our day are in hard opposition to Jesus' admonition. The only hope for the Church, the Country, our morals and principles is for men and women everywhere to be BRUTALLY HONEST with themselves, admit they are being subverted, and cleave turn to Truth. We must all categorically RENOUNCE the hidden works of darkness, and dedicate ourselves to a relentless pursuit of TRUTH and RIGHTEOUSNESS as is only found in the the Word of God and the man Jesus Christ. In the end, each of us will be forced to decide what we believe and what we will stand for. Are you ready to stand ALONE for Him, even if it costs you your life? Addendum: Someone sent this little allegory to me, and I think it is a worthy read; it also illustrates the points I made above. It is somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but it packs a punch. (An Allegory) Author Unknown "So let them go to their churches; let them have their conservative lifestyles, but steal their time, so they can't gain that relationship with Jesus Christ. This is what I want you to do, angels. Distract them from gaining hold of their Savior and maintaining that vital connection throughout their day!" "How shall we do this?" shouted his angels. "Keep them busy in the non-essentials of life and invent innumerable schemes to occupy their minds," he answered. "Tempt them to spend, spend, spend, and borrow, borrow, borrow. Persuade the wives to go to work for long hours and the husbands to work 6-7 days each week, 10-12 hours a day, so they can afford their empty lifestyles." "Keep them from spending time with their children. As their family fragments, soon, their home will offer no escape from the pressures of work! Over-stimulate their minds so that they cannot hear that still, small voice. Entice them to play the radio or music player whenever they drive. To keep the TV, DVDs, CDs and their PCs going constantly in their home and see to it that every store and restaurant in the world plays non-biblical music constantly. This will jam their minds and break that union with Christ." "Fill the coffee tables with magazines and newspapers. Pound their minds with the news 24 hours a day. Invade their driving moments with billboards. Flood their mailboxes with junk mail, mail order catalogs, sweepstakes, and every kind of newsletter and promotional offering free products, services and false hopes. Keep skinny, beautiful models on the magazines so the husbands will believe that external beauty is what's important, and they'll become dissatisfied with their wives. Ha! That will fragment those families quickly!" "Even in their recreation, let them be excessive. Have them return from their recreation exhausted, disquieted and unprepared for the coming week. Don't let them go out in nature to reflect on God's wonders. Send them to amusement parks, sporting events, concerts and movies instead. Keep them busy, busy, busy! And when they meet for spiritual fellowship, involve them in gossip and small talk so that they leave with troubled consciences and unsettled emotions." It was quite a convention. The evil angels went eagerly to their assignments causing Christians everywhere to get more busy and more rushed, going here and there. Personal Note from Ken This is the first generation of Christians that does NOT preach against going to the worldly amusements. EVERY old-fashioned Christian preacher in previous generations preached against going to the worldly amusements - the movie theaters, ball games, dances, and anything that was a gathering place for the world's crowd. Christians were told to stay away from the world's crowd. It was not just good advice - it was BIBLICAL! Already, many of the most "successful" Churchs spend MORE time and energy promoting SPORTS than the GOSPEL of Jesus Christ! There is NO WAY the Church will survive if it continues to blend in with the world. It never worked before, and it will not work now. We have been duped into believing that smoke machines and special lighting effects add something to the Holy Presence of God, but it is a lie. Jesus said, "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life," John 6:63. We need to cancel the biggest part of all the entertainment events. What in the name of God are we doing with COMEDIANS in the pulpit anyway? God did not choose the foolishness of COMEDIANS to save that which is lost! He chose the foolishness of PREACHING! 1 Thessalonians 5:6 - "Let us watch and be sober." 1 Thessalonians 5:8 - "But let us, who are of the day, be sober." 1 Timothy 3:2 - "A bishop then must be ...sober." 1 Timothy 3:11 - "Even so must their wives be ...sober." Titus 2:2 - "That the aged men be sober, grave, temperate." Titus 2:4 - "That [the aged women] may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children." Titus 2:6 - "Young men likewise exhort to be sober minded." 1 Peter 1:13 - "Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober." 1 Peter 4:7 - "But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer." 1 Peter 5:8 - "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour." We have given the largest portion of our time to celebrity musicians whose specialty is looking cool, jet-setting around, entertaining people as if they really had a divine revelation - when they do not. Many do not pray, or read the Bible, or even know what true doctrine is. Many of them do not even go to Church unless they are the performers. On close examination, you find that their lifestyles are completely contrary to those of godliness and holiness. If "Christians" don't go back to living holy, separated lives from the world, the flesh and the devil, then Christianity will finally become little more than another music and movie genre. Hollywood, Las Vegas and Branson will end up owning the Christian entertainment industry, and Churches will turn to them for franchised "ministry," which will be little more than a religious-looking variety show - abominable in the sight of God. There will not be a true man of God anywhere to be found in the midst. Throw the world out of the Church. Put the PULPIT back on the platform, and put a blood-washed, fire-born Pentecostal PREACHER with a suit and tie in the PULPIT, and PREACH THE WORD! This is serious business. Stop "dumbing-it-down"! Bring the individual souls in one-by-one and CONVERT them to something that is NOT like the world they came from! Change them by the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ - the SACRED Gospel for which nearly every early Church believer suffered and died. That should be enough said for now. Think about it. Selah.
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