Little Children, Keep Yourselves From Idols

The Super Bowl is upon us. Ah yes, the crowned jewel of American Sport. Several of my loved ones, including my son, will no doubt root for the Pats – their favorite team. I normally root for the Bucs and anyone who plays the Cowboys, so I don’t have a dog in this race. Any of us who watch, though, will do so with an appropriate perspective of its vanity, value as a moment of light entertainment only, and its relative unimportance even within the day that it is broadcast. Next Sunday, over 100 million Americans will tune in live to see the spectacle of what has become the largest money-making event of the year, every year, for American television and radio. Thousands of analysts, pundits and prognosticators have been and still are with severe redundancy filling the airwaves with any and every bit of minutia surrounding the game – making the mundane seem incredible and the banal seem controversial. And americans tune in. They are literally starved for Super Bowl football content, and the media delivers. On what has been dubbed “Super Bowl Sunday,” parties will take place in millions of homes and pubs, creating more spending; the host city can expect as much as 600 million dollars in local revenue generated by the game itself and the activities surrounding it; NBC will bring in roughly 250 million dollars in advertising revenue for commercials that viewers will pay as much attention to as they do the game itself and will be abuzz about at workplace water coolers the following week. Viewers from Seattle, to Foxboro Mass, to Key West, to San Diego and in fact from everywhere around the world will have their eyes glued to the tvs – transfixed, and in most instances, with some level of emotional attachment, to… a game. It’s certainly not a sin for you to watch a game with interest. And it’s certainly not a sin for you to even plan a party, an outing, or a trip around that football game. Seeking light entertainment from time to time is no sin. The question we have for you today is simply this: Do you ever read the word of God with as much interest, enthusiasm and zeal to know the outcome as you do this game? The God who made us (though many of you exhibit a breath-taking level of arrogance in denying this stark fact), put his standard in this earth. The Lord our God has plainly told us what he requires of us, through His blessed Word, and He has clearly stated what the basis for His judgment of every man shall be. Consider the scripture: Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil. That’s Ecclesiastes 12, verses 13 and 14. If God tells you that the whole duty of your life is to keep His commandments (out of a reverent fear of His authority over you), and that He will bring every work into judgment, even every secret work, whether it be good or evil, wouldn’t you think it would be of utmost importance to know what those commandments are, so that you could keep them and not run afoul of them? One would think. Yet nearly everyone who watches that uh, game, next Sunday, will be at that time giving more attention and interest to it than they have ever or will ever give in their lives to the things of God. And the great majority of Americans claim to be Christian. You claim Christ as your Lord and Saviour, you claim God as your sovereign, yet you care more about a game played on one Sunday a year, by teams that most of you normally neither care about nor follow, than you do the words, commandments and judgments of your Maker. Consider the scripture: At Matt 15:8 the Lord Jesus Christ says:  This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. And in the Mark account, at 7:6, Christ adds that these to whom He is preaching are hypocrites. At Lu 6:46, Christ asks the brilliant rhetorical question:  And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say? In a free translation, he is saying – if you’re not going to do what I command, including diligently seeking the scriptures to find out what I command, then why bother even bringing my name up in the first place, in terms of your pretended allegiance to me? Why indeed? And finally, At 1John 2, verses 4 and 5:  He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments (that means as a matter of course, scripture is clear that no man is sin free), is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoso keepeth his word (again as a matter of course in his life), in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him. In other words, if you claim to ‘know’ Christ, or love Christ, or be a follower of Christ, and you don’t strive against sin in keeping His commandments, and further spending time to know what His commandments are that you CAN keep them, then you are a liar even about your own beliefs, your own faith, and the truth is not in you. Think about that for a moment – that’s a big pill to swallow. And please also keep in mind that the NFL, and it’s fag pimp commissioner Roger Goodell, seem more intent on promoting sin than any other – blatantly putting the NFL stamp of approval on sin so filthy that the Lord God himself calls it an abomination AND says that anyone who engages in it is worthy of death.

Exhibit A:  https://vine.co/v/MK1Qlb0p2Bg Huh.

Exhibit B:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nW-_fFdkegs Another Huh.

Lord willing, we will be in Glendale next Sunday, preaching the Gospel to all those going into the Super Bowl and warning them against making football, or any other thing, their idol. And as you are preparing for your Super Bowl party next Sunday, stop for one brief moment and ask yourself the sobering and vital question, How often do you spend that much time and preparation and attention to detail in following the Lord, keeping His commandments – finding out what His commandments are by culling through His Holy Book, in search of them that you can keep them? And as you watch with great anticipation at the game’s kickoff, stop and ask yourself, How often are you ever this excited about reading the Bible, or teaching the words of God to your children, or your wife, or even considering the God who made you during the course of your day? And as you watch each 30 second commercial with delight, comparing each to try to determine which one was ‘best’, stop and consider for a brief moment: How often do you read the Bible for even 30 seconds in a day? Or how often do you even consider the word of God, and your duty of obedience to a sovereign God who can, does and will cast disobedient souls into hell eternally? And as you watch the star-studded halftime show, with Katy Perry’s talented albeit grossly immodest entertaining of the masses, stop and ask yourself for a brief moment, How often do I sing sincere, humble, songs of praise to my God – the God who made me – the God to whom I owe everything that I have and everything that I am? And play by play, as you are intently interested in remembering and being able to recount every so called meaningful play in vivid detail to your water cooler buddies the next day, please stop and ask yourself for a brief moment, How often do I look this intently into the Word of God, that I may obey His voice as I am commanded? In short, during this mother of all American sporting events, stop and ask yourself for one brief moment, what honest, sincere evidence do I have in my life that I care more about my obedience to God than I do…a game? Amen.

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