Beware the Devil’s Normal Schemes; YouTube and the Yearning for God; Sermon: Matthew 5:31-37
His schemes in your life might look normal too. “Just wait to think about Christ. You can do that tomorrow. You’re just too busy right now.” Or maybe, “Kill that sin for sure, but just not now. It won’t do you any harm so long as you don’t visit it too often.” Or maybe it’s the Hebrews 2:1 “drift”: the slow but steady motion away from Christ that takes you farther than you ever imagined. It could be those little distractions and annoyances that cause you to live your life for yourself, that pull towards the love of money, or that pride that makes it difficult to reconcile with a brother or sister. These are all his schemes! Those schemes might seem insignificant now, but remember, it was fruit that plunged the whole world into sin and death. Image
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Hence, indulgence in social media platforms evinces misplaced eschatology: The algorithmic conveyer belt mirrors misplaced hope’s meandering from one object to another, always “hoping” that the next object will be better than the previous. We have become creatures who pathologically click “next.”
More alarmingly, though, such indulgence exacerbates misplaced eschatology: It shuns the transcendent by numbing man’s deeper yearnings. The algorithm behind the conveyer belt is today’s Lorelei, distracting not fishermen from their course, but distracting men and women from thinking deeply, from feeling the depth of being for but a single moment. First Things
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The T. B. Joshua Story Points to a Problem in Many Churches The recent expose by the BBC on the late prophet T. B. Joshua is heart rending. The reports and eyewitness accounts point to what is without a doubt a massive tragedy on many levels. To witness someone in authority in a church be able to perpetuate so much abuse for so long with complete impunity makes your blood boil. To see the lives of so many people scarred, perhaps for the rest of their lives, cuts to the heart. It puts on full display the ugliness of sin or evil and its power to hide and grow. It should make us all long ever more eagerly for the day of our Lord’s return to judge every lawbreaker and to make all things new.
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Pastor Rob Burns
January 14, 2024
Sunday Message: Matthew 5:31-37
posted by Pat Dague @ 5:20 PM
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