“That’s Entertaining!” – FBC Morning Light (9/5/2024)

Faith Baptist Church

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Well, good Thursday morning to you. Today we're jumping to the book of Ezekiel. We've been all over the place this week, haven't we, in our

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Bible reading? But today we're in Ezekiel chapters 32 through 34, and I want to zero in on the end of chapter 33 with an interesting observation,

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I think. You know, at Newsflash, we're living in an entertainment age.

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Did you know that? How could you not know that? Our whole culture is geared toward entertainment.

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We just love to be entertained. We'll spend all kinds of money to be entertained. In that regard,

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I saw recently where one of the latest fashions is destination concerts.

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I never knew such things existed, but people are paying thousands of dollars to get in an airplane, book hotel reservations, purchase concert tickets to fly somewhere where their favorite music artist is performing, and it just blows my mind, the kind of money that people spend on such things.

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We live in an entertainment age, and the Church has unfortunately been affected by that.

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Now, some churches have gravitated to the culture to the point where they create an atmosphere of entertainment.

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You can go to some churches, and I want to be careful here, I don't want to be bashing, but you can go to some churches and they've got the smoke filling the stage, and you know, they've got a band and the lights and all that kind of stuff that looks very much like a concert venue.

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There are preachers who seem to gravitate to an entertainment sort of a message, tell a lot of stories, tell a lot of jokes, and maybe have a punchline at the end.

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I'm not really thinking about that, that's bad enough. When the Church on the institutions side, the leadership side, chooses to create an atmosphere of entertainment in the

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Church, that's horrific and that's awful. I'm thinking more about the attitude of those who come to Church.

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Living in a culture that is so entertainment oriented, we can have the same mindset when we come to Church, where we want to be entertained, or we choose a church because of how well we like what we hear, not in terms of the depth of the teaching and preaching, but in terms of the style in which it occurs.

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People make decisions about Church attendance based on the style of the music, whether or not they like the style of music that they're hearing, and good or bad.

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But what's the ultimate priority there?

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But people also do it regarding the preaching that they hear. I'm talking about an entertainment mindset, not a spiritually discerning mindset, to discern the theological accuracy, the absence of worldliness, and that kind of thing.

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I'm not talking about that, I'm talking about an entertainment mindset that simply makes the choice on the basis of, do

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I like, does it appeal to me in what I'm hearing? And people do that with preachers.

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And you see this in Ezekiel chapter 30, Ezekiel 33, as the

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Lord says to Ezekiel, he says, As for you, son of man, the children of your people are talking about you beside the walls and in the doors of their houses, and they speak to one another, everyone saying to his brother,

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Please come and hear what the word is that comes from the Lord. But it's not because they want to hear what the word is.

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They want to hear the preacher. So, he says in verse 31, the

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Lord says, So they come to you as people do, and they sit before you as my people, and they hear your words, but they do not do them.

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For with their mouth they show much love, but their hearts pursue their own gain. Indeed, you are to them as a very lovely song of one who has a pleasant voice and can play well on an instrument, for they hear your words.

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You see the entertainment mindset there? They hear your words, they smile with the pleasantness of the style, but they don't obey the message of the words.

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They do not do them. They do not do them. And I'm concerned about the church in our entertainment culture, where if people come to church simply because they like the sound of the preacher, they like his style, they like his mannerisms, they like his vocal quality, and things of that nature, and they can sit there and listen and be pleased with what they hear because of the way it's communicated.

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But when it comes to the content of the preaching, it goes in one ear and out the other.

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The Lord is not pleased with that. The Lord is not pleased with that. He wants us to hear what he has to say, regardless of the pleasantness of the messenger.

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He wants us to hear what he has to say and then obey. So I want to encourage us today to not give ourselves to the entertainment mindset of the world all around us, but instead to be focused, when we go to church, we gather with God's people, to be focused on an attitude that says,

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I want to worship the Lord, and I want to hear from the Lord. I want to hear what the Lord would have me to do and to be, how he would have me to live.

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I want to hear it in the songs that we sing, I want to hear it in the prayers that we offer, I want to hear it in the word that is read,

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I want to hear it in the message that is preached, so that I might be changed, so I might obey, and I might grow.

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All right. Father in heaven, I pray that you would deliver us from being entertained, so that we might be changed.

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We pray in Jesus' name, amen. All right, listen, have a good rest of your Thursday. May the