I’m taking a break from the Love of Money series for one post because I am so burdened.  This is a little different, a plea from my heart to yours, so please bear with me.

OJ and I don’t watch TV really; we are pretty out of touch.  But last night, OJ was doing his discipleship meeting and I had a ton of folding and dishes to do, so I thought I’d find something.  I looked on a free website that hosts shows and movies and found a show that I’ve heard so many friends celebrate, so I thought I’d check it out.  I read that it was a family show, and the premise sure sounded super fun.

I opened the first one which started with the name “Madonna,” and skipped on to the next one.  The entire plot line surrounded a homosexual high school male who was yearning to draw a (straight) male into his amorous feelings for him.  Within the first five minutes, there had been numerous sexual references, including straightforward propositioning of a married man, an invitation to grab a same-sex partner for a dance, “if that’s the way the good Lord made ya,” and much more.  In FIVE minutes.

FRIENDS, PLEASE, PLEASE PLEASE…this is not an angry letter from a political group or a holier-than-thou sermonette, but please…my heart is breaking…please…what are you doing????  What are you doing???  What are you watching?  Where are you, that you could watch this stuff, and broadcast it as a pleasure, endorsing it publicly???  Do you not know?  Have you not seen?  Are you blind?

When my generation was in high school, the church was battling that we would make it through our teens with our virginity intact.  For most of the church, that battle was lost.  Do you know that for the generation that is now in high school, there is no difference between homo- and heterosexual sex, and it is all available and normal and practiced, often not even in the context of a dating relationship?  Do you understand that the utter destruction of a generation is taking place before our very noses?

The other day a young girl dressed like a man and almost in the j.d. system for violence heard me talking and asked, “What is righteousness?”  PLEASE can you HEAR them???  Asking….”What is righteousness?”  Can there be a greater injustice than to have no concept even that such a thing as righteousness exists?  Can you imagine, not being able to remember having an undefiled mind?  Being innocent?  Can you IMAGINE?  Perhaps you are too numb, because your mind is now so defiled!

Do you not know how such strides of destruction were made against these little ones in such a short amount of time?  The box in your living room!

Friend, please do not mistake my intent!  I am weeping, not superior, in any way!  If you can watch homosexuality among youth celebrated and invited on a screen, if you can welcome it into your home without flinching, if you don’t notice any more when women are half naked and casual sex and adultery and mockery of righteousness are PLOT LINES then I have to tell you, because the world won’t THAT YOU ARE SLEEPING!!!  You may think whatever you like of your spiritual life, but I tell you that the HOLY Spirit is grieved and whether you know it or not, you are hungry, so very, very hungry for His presence, not understanding that you are staving Him off and sending Him away.

Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously”?  Jas. 4:5

I am astonished.  The world doesn’t astonish me, but friends with whom I have prayed, worshipped, and sought God…this astonishes me.  Please take a moment to be honest about whether you enjoy the Lord’s fellowship throughout your day, about whether when you speak, it carries authority, about whether your prayers are heard.  Please…you do not need to beg God to come near.  He already has but you have sent Him away!

Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord, and that he may send the Christ, who has been appointed for you—even Jesus.  Acts 3:19-20

Please, I beg of you, give your Spirit CPR…take a one month fast from media and replace it with Scripture and see if you can go back.  See if you don’t come alive.  See if you can swallow what is now normal to you without vomiting.  I challenge you to this!!  I don’t know who you are, I don’t keep tabs, or remember names…I just BEG OF YOU to WAKE UP!  I beg of you.

This will encourage you:

A few verses on compromise:

Rom 12: 1-2

1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. 2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

Romans 13:12-14 (New King James Version)

12 The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. 13 Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy. 14 But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.

1 Peter 4:1-5

1 Therefore, since Christ suffered for us^[a^] in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind, for he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, 2 that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God. 3 For we have spent enough of our past lifetime^[b^] in doing the will of the Gentiles—when we walked in lewdness, lusts, drunkenness, revelries, drinking parties, and abominable idolatries. 4 In regard to these, they think it strange that you do not run with them in the same flood of dissipation, speaking evil of you. 5 They will give an account to Him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.

Gal 5:19-20

19 Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery,^[c^] fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, 20 idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, 21 envy, murders,^[d^] drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

James 4:4-6

4 Adulterers and^[a^] adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 5 Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously”?
6 But He gives more grace. Therefore He says:

“ God resists the proud,
But gives grace to the humble.”^[b^]

JOhn 7:6-8

Then Jesus said to them, “My time has not yet come, but your time is always ready. 7 The world cannot hate you, but it hates Me because I testify of it that its works are evil. 8 You go up to this feast. I am not yet^[a^] going up to this feast, for My time has not yet fully come.”

Matthew 5:13

“You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.”