It was ALWAYS the Theater
When the Bible first entered Europe it entered a continent of barbaric tribes steeped in heathenism. Once it took root it drove out the darkness of heathenism and replaced it with the biblical worship of God, the Creator. Morality replaced immorality. Order replaced chaos. Peace replaced violence. And…GOD replaced the devil in the hearts of men.
Anyone with even a slight knowledge of the Bible knows that Satan’s goal is to be worshipped in place of God. Suddenly he had had an entire continent snatched out of his grasp. Worse yet, these new Christians had taken Christianity across the sea and planted a new nation in the name of the Creator. God was winning on all fronts. How was Satan ever going to get the worship of humanity back?
A moral people is difficult to corrupt. Thus the morality of the Bible inoculated the people from corruption. But, in every generation, in every society, there are always a small number of degenerates, weak in character, low in morals and unashamed of their lewd manners. These people tended to be exhibitionists. They were immoral and bold about it. They tended to gravitate to the theater. There, their morals were accepted by people of equally low standards. They were praised and rewarded for their outlandish acts.
But they knew they would be ruined if anyone knew who they were. Thus was born the tradition of actors and actresses taking “stage names” to protect their identity. This was done so they would not shame their families and so they would not be recognized whenever they registered in hotels. (To this day, although most entertainers use their real names on stage, they use false names when registering at hotels.)
This worked out well for the actors but honorable people avoided the theater. Thus, the corrupting value of the theater was being diminished by the morals instilled in the citizenry through Bible preaching. Something had to be done about this!
Actually, the problem was attacked from several directions. On one front the devil unleashed the hellish doctrine of Modernism on churches which he used to water-down Bible preaching. The mission of the church was redirected from edifying the saints (Eph.4:11, 12) to social issues of war, hunger, nd poverty.
He then used his ever-loyal News Media to begin to exalt “people of the flesh.” Thus, suddenly Americans were bombarded with how “interesting” artists, athletes and entertainers were. We were informed of their every move and made to desire the wealth they flaunted. Soon, everybody in America either openly or covertly, coveted being a movie star or a famous sports star. We all wanted the wealth, the notoriety the attractiveness of some form of stardom. We were being trained to desire the fruits of a life ruled by the flesh.
The third step was what has gone down in history as “The New Morality.” As we know, the “New Morality” was nothing more than the “Old Immorality.” But it was heralded by the Powers-That-Be. But the “Old Immorality” was the morality of the theater so it had to be made acceptable to the American public. Soon, TV shows that hadn’t ever shown married couples in bed were routinely showing “lovers” together.
Over time the general public quit fighting it and accepted this new level of public immorality.
In order to separate young Americans from the biblical influence of their churches, it was necessary for the devil to drive a wedge between children and their parents. Thus, another special television manufactured group was born, “the rebellious teenager.” Teenagers were trained by TV programs to always see their parents as “square” and old fashioned and someone you would never want to be like. All the devil needed was for American children to reject their parents’ morals and they would naturally accept any substitute. That substitute was the “New Morality.”
Soon, Americans were no longer shocked by reports of the immoral activities of Hollywood’s elite. In fact, Americans were trained by their televisions and college professors to desire the same things.
Churches countered by preaching against movies and the immorality of the entertainment world. The devil countered by mocking the morality of Christianity and stereotyping all preachers as “money-grubbing- womanizers.”
Gradually, the reverence the American had for ministers was eroded and redirected to far less worthy individuals, athletes, entertainers and news journalists.
Many preachers preached against the theater until movies came into being. Those who persisted preached against movies until they bought televisions. The advent of VCRs and DVDs put the fruits of Hollywood in ministers’ living rooms and ended the last whimper of protest against the entertainment world.
Mind you, this wasn’t the work of a week or two. Not a month or even a few years. It was a slow process of decades. The old, “turn the temperature up one degree at a time and the you can boil a frog to death without him trying to jump out of the water,” theory.
After about forty years of this gradual weakening of our nation’s resolve, the devil launched his greatest assault on the remaining faithful churches of America. By this time the vast majority of churches had already been diverted from preaching the truth. They were instead preaching the false gospel of “feed the hungry and stop all war.” There were only a few groups who still resisted the satanic onslaught, Independent Baptist, Pentecostals and some Holiness groups. These few remaining bastions had to go. The devil anointed his chosen servant, Rick Warren, to lead the remaining straight churches into apostasy.
Warren unleashed the hellish “Purpose driven” drivel and sucked scores of worldly pastors into apostasy. These men were already upset with having to refuse themselves any worldly pleasures. Warren gave them a way to justify their carnality and argue that they were “worshipping” the Lord. Warren’s disciples forsook the Bible as their guide and embraced his book instead. They preach man-centric messages which say nothing about holy living or how to have a relationship with God. To keep the pews full they turned to drama (theater) and carnal music, designed to entertain, not convict. Warren not only drew good churches into apostasy but infused “life” into some churches that were rightfully dying due to their abandonment of biblical truth.
So, today, our nation is covered with apostate contemporary churches which are nothing more than theaters. The churches have become the very thing they preached against fifty years ago! Led by carnal pastors they are every bit dedicated to entertainment as any theater is. God has been left out of the equation and Christians are starving spiritually due to the unfaithfulness of Warren’s disciples.
Amos 8:11 Behold, the days come, saith the Lord GOD, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD: