12. Christian Pornography?

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Welcome to the podcast where we prod the sheep and beat the wolf. This is episode 12

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Christian Pornography Well, I need to begin this episode with a dose of good old -fashioned humility

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Acknowledging right away that I'm not an aficionado when it comes to making films I am an artistic person and for that reason

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I enjoy good films But I can't really wax eloquently about what elements need to be involved in a movie in order to make it a classic

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That sort of thing is outside of my pay grade But I will say right up front that I'm gonna front load this episode with a heavy good old -fashioned good hearted dose of Christian sarcasm, which is

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I'm hoping gonna make up for my deficiency as a film critic and As we continue on in the post, you'll see just how serious though this episode really is

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There's something going on in the Christian film industry that is deplorable and we're gonna get there in just a moment now for the sarcastic bits

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Like many even though I am NOT an expert on film I believe that I know a good movie when

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I see it and for most of my life I think it's fair to say that Christian movies and good were not even in the same sentence not even in the same language

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The reason of course is obvious to anyone who grew up in the 80s and 90s Christian movies

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Unfortunately had a lower budget than most small churches They had wholesome but unconvincing actors who clearly lacked the talent of their secular counterparts

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But there was a sort of sacredness to that because they weren't that good which means which meant that they were really sacred They were really spiritual

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They weren't giving themselves over to Hollywood. They were just kind of Acting through the motions, right?

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they had a plotline about as thick as the veneer on most office furniture, which is not that thick and Since we are all

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Christians here We sort of have to find the good in things, right? we have to see the best and in everything and we have to show grace and and mercy and say, you know when they tried their best and We say all the sort of things that an owner of a

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Chinese crested pup would say Oh, they're they're beautiful on the inside. If you know what a

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Chinese crested pup is, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about Yet inside deep in all of our hearts.

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We knew that the Christian movie industry was not all that good and it wasn't

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Entirely their fault, but for a variety of reasons they were drastically behind secular culture now

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I Feel like I need some major qualifications here because that probably was the most controversial thing that I've ever said

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I don't know why it's the most controversial thing I've ever said but I feel like that there's somebody at home who has a monthly subscription to pure flicks who is seething angry with me right now and It's in a saying how dare you talk about our

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Christian movies? Well, I just want to be honest. I think that it's okay to admit that they did not have the budget of Hollywood They didn't have the same level of acting as Hollywood.

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They didn't have the same level of expertise in filmmaking and and Videography and things like that or even in telling stories as Hollywood So it's okay if we label something a b -rated movie if it is an actuality a b -rated movie

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It's not okay to treat a b -rated movie as if it's an epic masterpiece just because it's got the label of Christian.

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I Like b -rated movies. In fact, there's a wholesome charm to b -rated movies, but we have to call them what they are.

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They're b -rated movies. They're not Cinematography masterpieces, right?

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now Assuming that it did not lose you there and that you're not deeply offended at my views on Christian filmography

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Well, I do need to show the upside here something magical happened in the year 2004 when hope was beginning to be lost for a big -budget

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Christian blockbuster that was that was gonna compete with the rest of the world, but then a

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Serial drunk cigar smoking blasphemer named Mel Gibson infused new passion.

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No pun intended into the dying genre By producing the passion of the

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Christ this project in fact for the first time I think ever Showcased that there was a market for biblical movies if they were done

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Well, and they could legitimately compete and dominate even on the big screen grossing hundreds of millions of dollars

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Which is insane if you think about it now this Led to some bizarre follow -ups some truly

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Bizarre and strange follow -ups that fell as flat as the rock monsters head in Russell Crowe's depiction of Noah If you haven't seen it,

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I Can save you the time it's not worth it. It's pretty awful but it also led this

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Passion of the Christ moment it also led to some wonderful Follow -ups some excellent Christian films that that have brought me to tears that have been beautifully well done

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I can think of a couple I can only imagine I thought was an excellent Christian movie

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Another one and I'm sure there's more than this but another one that was sort of based on Christian themes

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But was wholesome that was good family movie very funny. Very entertaining was mom's night out.

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It was an excellent movie and Like I said, it had a lot of Christian themes have a lot of prayer had a lot of things

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They they did the story very excellently and and it paid off. It was a great movie

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But again This newly resurrected genre. There's another pun started to get off the ground after the passion of the

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Christ and it began to sort of sputter and moan and shake and Smoke like a b -52 that had been rusted out after the war and is now finally ready to be started and to take off and Soar that was

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Christian movies in the early 2000s. They were finally getting their wings Now it seemed to be a sort of crucial juncture for the

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Christian movie industry and it became a critical crossroad for evangelicalism in general because evangelicalism if you haven't noticed is very concerned with with appearing relevant to Big Daddy world

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Evangelicalism and it's a fault that I've seen in evangelical culture for a long time Is that we need to reach the world by appearing relevant to the world and we will see

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Today how that sort of attitude has has crept into the

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Christian movie industry in a very sinful and very destructive way But we'll get to that in just a moment

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Christian filmmakers and producers one of the positive things that they learned in this moment Was that Christian movies did not have to wear the sacred badge of low budgets and poor productions in order to be faithful to God They could have bigger budgets.

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We learned that Christian film could use actual nice cameras with really good lighting

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They could tell well -written and compelling stories without necessarily sliding into the slimy cesspools that were that were pretty consistent in Hollywood that they swim in in every movie and while faithful Christians have always drawn a very clear line on what is

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Allowed to come into the worship service and what is permissible in the realm of entertainment It seems like that this sort of early 2000s moment was

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Was a mild win for Christian production Christian video Christian movies that is

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Until redeeming love now there could have been others in in line that I don't know about but I know about this one

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And I'm talking about this one now redeeming love Which is a absolute disgrace and deplorable example of what it means to make a

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Christian movie But again before we go there one more thing. We've got to accomplish for us We've got to build a biblical theology for what

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Christian filmmaking is or what it at least should be what it ought to be because if we don't do that then we're

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Not gonna have anything at all to measure this very deplorable film Against and we're not gonna have anything any standard by which to measure it by so what is the purpose of Christian filmmaking?

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Let's let's start with that as The title suggests Christian filmmaking

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Christian entertainment exists to entertain people Christian Lee That's about as base of a definition as I can provide its purpose is to make movies that people actually want to see without compromising biblical fidelity at the very least a

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Christian movie should resist the temptation of promoting anything that the Bible forbids and Forbid anything that the

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Bible commands that is a tough pill to swallow when it comes to making movies And it's a tough pill to swallow when it comes to Participating in movies and it's a very tough pill to swallow as Christians who consume movies knowing what to scrutinize when we what we watch and While there's obvious real areas of Christian Liberty Where reasonable people can disagree on content and say is that too much violence or as the presence of alcohol in that movie in good?

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Taste there's legitimate things that we can debate. It's safe to say that obvious outright sin immoral debauchery licentiousness

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Perversion it's safe to say that those sorts of things are off -limits for a Christian movie company

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They would be off -limits for a Christian actor to participate in and they would be off -limits for a

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Christian consumer of entertainment to watch Aka we always must be avoiding sin as John Owen said be killing sin or sin be killing you

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So let's contextualize that we have to be killing sin in the way that we make our movies We have to be killing sin in the way that we act in our movies

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We have to be killing sin in the way that we are Staring at the screens and watching other people sin so that we're leading ourselves into sin

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We have to be very careful in what we put our eyes because our eyes are the lamps of our body as Jesus said

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That's where evil comes into us through our eyes now With that let's draw out some very basic Christian theology about Filmmaking from the

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Bible. So just we'll throw a couple verses out there. We're not gonna it's not exhaustive We could probably list hundreds of verses, but just four four will do that.

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We'll do the job So Paul says in Colossians 3 17, whatever you do in word or in deed do all in the name of the

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Lord Jesus Giving thanks through him to God the Father Number two, he says in 1st

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Corinthians 10 31 whether you eat or whether you drink whatever you do do all to the glory of God The psalmist says in Psalm 103 3

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I will set nothing worthless before my eyes. It's a good one number four

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Philippians 4 8 and I'm not gonna quote this verse But I'm gonna talk about this verse where it says Paul is committing himself and he's calling all

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Christians to commit themselves to think about things that are true to think about things that are honorable to think about things that are just and pure and lovely and commendable and superior and excellent and godly and to not think about things that are the opposite of those things to actively put our minds on to things that are beautiful and holy and to take our minds and our eyes and our hearts and our wills away from things that are not so when we consider those four verses just those four we can build a very deep theology of what it means to be a

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Christian filmmaker what it means to be a Christian actor and what it means to be a Christian consumer of content as a

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Christian Whatever I put my hand to do According to Paul.

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I am doing it in the name of Jesus My work is actually saying something about the way that I think about him

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Do I think Jesus is holy or do I think Jesus is? Not. My work will say something about who

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I think Jesus is. My work also according to 1st Corinthians 10 31 is either going to give glory to God or it's gonna rob him of his glory because of my sin

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My work is either attesting to God's biblical vision of the world or it's turning away to the spoiled fruit of the serpent

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I'm either meditating and thinking about and pondering and looking at things that are beautiful or I'm looking at things that are perverted

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Now you can better believe that I do not always get that right and I know that you don't either

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But that's our task That is our shared task together to glorify

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God in Everything that we do as the Westminster Confession says what is our purpose?

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Our purpose is to glorify God and enjoy him forever How do we glorify God and enjoy him?

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Well, we turn our eyes away from perversions and we put our eyes on two things that are holy

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Now Let's build upon that. We don't get the freedom to dishonor Jesus to glorify sin to violate clear biblical

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Teaching in our entertainment and then still call that activity Christian We don't get to think that our

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Participation whether it be from a filmmaking perspective Whether it be from actually doing the acting or whether it be from just consuming the content.

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None of that is morally neutral none of it is all of it has some sort of morality under bedding it and we at a bare minimum are

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Responsible we're culpable to God so for instance if I'm a filmmaker the themes presented in any movie that I write produce start in or or Even just as a person go to the movie theaters and watch or sit at home on Netflix and watch all of those things must

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Not be tainted by obvious and immoral sin and must in some way or another lead me or lead the audience

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Or lead the actors or lead whoever it is that's involved in it in glorifying God Because in everything we do whatever we do we do it to the glory of God That means in our watching movies and our making movies or in our participating in the acting of movies

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That is our purpose to love God with all of our heart soul mind and strength with every fiber of our being even in our pursuits and our vocations and our holiness and To love our neighbor as ourself, that's

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Matthew 22 37 through 39 So let me spell this out even more thoroughly now We're gonna go another layer deeper here.

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If I were a filmmaker, I would need to be deliberate and Careful not to produce not to facilitate or depict any sin in a sinful way

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Which is a funny way to say that but let me explain Every filmmaker even a Christian filmmaker is gonna depict some form of sin with some sort of some form of Savior To provide some sort of redemption.

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That is the story arc for every single tale and narrative and epic poem

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You don't have a story if you don't have a a fall a redemption and a Savior You just don't so in that sense there's no story that doesn't have some element of depicting sin, but to depict sin in sort of benign ways or external ways or Re -enacting ways is one thing but to depict a sin in a sinful way or to Depict a sin in a way that causes me to sin or to depict a sin and that causes someone else to sin

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Well, that's where we get to the problem when we begin depicting things in gratuitous irredeemable crude sexually immoral ways

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Which in fact is itself a sin let's keep going as A filmmaker

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I would also need to be responsible not to lead any of the cast members into participating in sin both individually and acted out upon one another and finally

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I Would need to also ensure that I do not willingly or ignorantly create environments or scenes

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Where the audience are gonna easily fall into sin simply by watching my film so as you can see the filmmaker the actor and the consumer of the product all have a

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Responsibility before God and that's biblical concerning the things that they produce with their hands the things that they participate in with their bodies or the things that they consume with their eyes, whatever you do do it all to the glory of God as Christians we are gonna be held accountable to God for the things that we do in the body 1st

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Corinthians 6 19 through 20 and We will be held accountable for how our actions affect other people

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Luke 17 to where the millstone is tied around their neck For leading astray others and Romans 14 where we have to consider the weaknesses of a younger brother now let's ask some basic questions here and I'm not

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Waxing legalistic here. I'm not sorted. I'm not trying to assert some sort of pomposity here

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I just want to ask very basic questions can or should a Christian movie Dramatize violence or murder that let's answer that question

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Some will say yes that that's perfectly legitimate and fine I don't have a conscience issue for that some will say no that it's never okay to do that and then some will say well

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Context may at times warrant that and while I understand that some are gonna be offended by that and some are gonna have a

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You know morally neutral response to that even though it's not morally neutral That the context actually demands it for instance the passion of the

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Christ. That was an R -rated movie And there were many Christians who did not see the passion of the Christ because it was an

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R -rated movie There are some Christians who didn't see it because it depicts a visible image of Jesus and it violates the second commandment

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But that in fact is an entirely different episode that we're not going to get into right now All I'm trying to say is is that it had a violent rating because of awful violence that it was depicting namely the first century crucifixions by Rome and in that movie the violence

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Not only seemed to be necessary and you can disagree with me on this if you want But it actually in some ways seemed to be muted

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It seemed to me that the actual atrocities of the cross just the pure physical brutality

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I'm not even talking about the spiritual brutality that Jesus underwent and And the father turning his face away from Jesus I'm not even talking about that just the physical brutality seemed to be muted

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I think even Mel Gibson admits that that he could not even do justice to the agony that our

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Lord and Savior went through This is not true in every film every film does not need to have nor should have gratuitous violence

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Wisdom is needed on the part of the filmmaker. Let's do another example

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What about racism and slavery is it ever? Okay to depict early America or colonial

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Europe Could we make a graphic movie depicting the horror of that kind of an event

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I Think you could use wisdom there. I think you could tell the story in particular ways

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I think that there's a level where you where you go from an appropriate expression of violence into gratuitous and wanton

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Violence, it's unnecessary for sure What about human rights abuses like that are perpetrated by Planned Parenthood today or genocides acted out by Hitler Mauer Stalin?

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Can we can we make movies about that? Can we make them? Well, can we make them accurate? Can we can we portray sort of everything that was going on?

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Well in Those cases and this and I'm not speaking Definitively about all situations.

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I really do. Hope you hear that. I say that that every single situation really did it We need wisdom from a filmmaker perspective from an actor perspective and from a consumers perspective.

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We need wisdom to understand Am I doing this right now as a way of glorifying God honoring

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God entertainment is okay The Bible doesn't speak entirely against entertainment

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But our entertainment must glorify God because in everything that we do we do it to the glory of God So we have to be wise there but I also think that in these movies that have violence or in these movies that that that sort of betray things in a very graphic way that there's a

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Sort of separation between the actor and the content for instance the actor who is who is

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Shooting someone in the in the back or in the face. Let's say, you know Nazi era

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They're shooting someone or they're turning on a gas chamber. That's not actually happening in real life The actor who's perpetrating the violence is imitating something that happened in history.

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So it's not actually being perpetrated in real life Sometimes Accidents happen on movie scenes like we saw with Alec Baldwin and I do pray for him because Although he is is not my favorite person in the world.

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I can I can empathize with him as a human I know that that that was purely accidental

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And heartbreaking I would hate to have that on my conscience But in general, there's no real violence being acted out on these movie scenes.

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It's it's imitation. It's It's pretend so there's something different about that.

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There's a cognitive dissonance that comes with that where actors are not Owning and participating in the violence and in the hatred

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They're just reenacting it. So that to me is a little different. I'm not again. I'm not a Master of the psychology of this but what

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I can tell you is that male -female affection. I Think is in a completely different category

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For instance, let's ask the question. Is it a sin for a man and woman? Who are faithfully and covenantally married to another person?

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To kiss another person on set while their spouses wait for them to come home Is that okay?

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And And if you can say yes, then I want you to think about it. Would you appreciate your wife or your husband?

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spending intimate romantic Physical moments locking lips trading saliva you get the picture with another person

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Spending time trying to perfect a scene until they get it. Right. Is that good?

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Would you approve of that? Would you allow your husband to participate in that or your wife to participate in that?

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Mimicking the affection that is reserved for you on to another person and probably an attractive person

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The same question applies for husbands for wives wives for husbands again think about it, would you find that Something that that was good or beautiful or lovely as Paul describes it holy see when we take it away from these are people on my screen who are meant to entertain me and We start to think about them as real human beings who are really participating in the erotic behavior that they're

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Describing in front of us their bodies are actually involved in it. Their minds are actually involved in it.

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They're pretending to have Affections for one another that's reserved for marriage.

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They're attempting to act out Eroticisms that's that's confined to the marriage bed when we take it and we put it in that sort of situation

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We realize that someone's mother someone's daughter someone's wife someone's aunt someone's father uncle brother son is participating in On -screen erotic behavior that's called sin in the

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Bible if You and your girlfriend did the exact same thing that someone on the big screen is doing it would be sin

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But let's zoom out for a second. Let's just let's put that aside for a moment Let's say that that you have absolutely no issue with your husband or wife doing that or with someone else's husband or wife doing that I Personally can't see that but let's zoom out a minute.

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Let's let's talk about from God's perspective We know God from what he reveals about himself in the word

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So let's ask the question and again, the goal is not to be legalistic The goal is just to ask very biblical and common -sense questions

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Because I get that we all value entertainment We live in the most entertainment centric culture in human history.

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We spend more time on entertainment than any Society that has ever lived and we are most committed to our entertainment

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We're most entitled in our entertainment and we feel like that if we have to reduce our entertainment that it's a great evil

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That's been perpetrated against us We are gluttonous when it comes to our entertainment in ways that our forefathers just 50 to 100 years ago would have never dreamed so we have to ask biblical common -sense questions to kind of peel back the layers to see where our hearts are in in relationship to this situation

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Now again, we've all watched movies where some level of affection or intimacy or romance has occurred on screen

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The pornography is such a massive issue in this country many 70 80 percent

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I have no idea what the statistics are, but the vast majority of people have watched or have watched repeatedly pornography and all of us as Christians are going to be accountable before God on the things that we put in front of our eyes

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None of us are perfect Not me not you all of us have fallen short of the glory of God all of us have sinned

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My only goal in this is not to set up a sort of Self -righteous standard where where I'm at the microphone saying, you know, thou shalt not do this or that I'm just inviting us to ask questions and I also challenging each and every one of us to come up with biblical and Rigorous and courageous answers because if our life is offending

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God Then it's not what I'm saying and it's not even what the Bible's saying that that you have a problem with what you have a problem with is you have a love for sin and You have to repent of that love of sin or you will experience separation from God Now, let's ask the question does

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God is God glorified and is he proud of a script? Where a married man spends intimate physical emotional time with a woman who's not his wife

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Do we honestly think that God views that as a win for the kingdom? How do we think

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God approaches to single people who are pretending? To be married arousing each other with their grinding bodies through illicit fantasies

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And then sharing the fruit of their poison labor with millions of people who are paying good money to consume their sin does

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God look down from heaven and beam with joy over that or or Does he look down with anger in The way that we've decided to use our energies to make to play or to consume that kind of content

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Do we imagine that God approves of our secret lust as we sit there across from our spouse and watch

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Things that we ought not to be watching do we think that God approves of for our women? Do we think that God approves of the comparisons that you are making between your body and her body on screen?

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Because your body doesn't look like her body because you've not spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on your body With surgeries and plastic surgeries and everything else do we do we think that God approves of the

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Comparison that you're making or the or I wish that my marriage looked like that marriage or I wish that my husband acted like that or I wish that my wife looked like that all of these things that we sort of naturally and Secretly harbor in our minds as we watch movies

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Showcase that that the event is almost entirely not morally neutral now

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I'm not saying that all movies are bad. Please don't hear that. I am saying that on -screen affection and eroticism is never good and I'm asking us to think about this in biblical ways.

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I'm asking us to think about from God's perspective and as we do that I want to bring up a relevant example that's been happening right now in the world of Christian films an

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Example that I cited earlier, which is a film called redeeming love Which is far from love and it's far from redeemable again,

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I Need to be honest with you here. I have not seen this movie So you may think that I'm being hypocritical for even bringing it up I've not even seen the trailer and I'm not gonna be watching the trailer and I'm not gonna be watching the movie but from the reports that I've been reading and from The articles that I've been reading

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Again, I know that that's secondhand information, but I'm not gonna put that in front of my eyes From what

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I'm reading. It is a modern rendition of the book of Hosea Where the lead female and male actors are participating in on -screen nudity

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Which is a new low for the Christian filmmaking industry to say the least If you remember the story of Hosea, the

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Prophet is called by God to marry a harlot Who keeps leaving him to participate in her whoring and her idolatry and this lived -out parable in the book of Hosea was meant to demonstrate the spiritual

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Condition of Israel who kept leaving God to play the harlot with the nations and to play the whore with the idols

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The point of the book is to show that God's love for Israel has been overwhelmingly faithful Even when

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Israel has not been overwhelmingly faithful, but faithless and given the nature of those themes

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Extreme care and wisdom really would need to go into a movie like this before ever converting it into a visual medium the overwhelming

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God -centric point of the book of Hosea would have to overwhelmingly shine through and all the while the crew and the writers and everyone else would have to be

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Incredibly careful to make sure that that everyone on stage Everyone who's working in the set and the audience members and everyone else are not falling into Lust and devolving into the sexual sins of Gomer.

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We've got to remember that the Bible Does not describe the events that happen in Hosea in glorifying ways to sin

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The Bible doesn't glorify sin the Bible describes sin The Bible doesn't describe sin with the level of grotesque detail that a movie is gonna describe it in But the

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Bible does describe what the sin is. It doesn't glorify sin but it makes sure that the story is told in such a way that totally and Perfectly gives honor and glory to God, which is if you're gonna make a film on the book of Hosea.

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That's your task To show the God -centric love the faithful love of God that redeems even the most faithless people

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And you don't have to have a woman get nude on screen to do that Now that's unfortunately exactly what did not happen in the movie redeeming love

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Which is why I say that it's totally irredeemable It went beyond the pale of reasonableness

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It even went beyond sanity and plasters sanctify soft -core pornography on the screen with a

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Christian Label slapped on it. It's utterly absurd the whole thing is as unbelievable as I could possibly imagine and it's a great example of moral ineptitude and Confusion there's gonna be some are gonna say in order to showcase the the beauty of the godlike

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Love of Hosea the intimate sexual parts of the story were absolutely necessary to be shown, but that's pure foolishness

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That forgets that a real woman and a real man Someone's wife daughter mother someone's husband son father had to disrobe one another on set with cameramen watching

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With Light crews watching with sound crews watching a woman and a man nude in front of countless people

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Just so that they could get this scene and then plaster on it the label of Christian. It is utterly absurd

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The lunacy is that this movie is about Redeeming the redeeming love of God, but told through the lens of an irredeemable setting

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The perfect and purifying love of Yahweh was acted out about by two people who are participating in Impurity the irony could not be thicker

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Others may ask well, how did they actually sin? How did they actually they didn't actually have sex with one another, you know?

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There's ways of making it appear as though something was happening, but it really wasn't but again, that is utter foolishness

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That assumes that sex is the only legitimate or that sex only legitimately occurs with penetration and assumes that convenient camera angles and well -placed tape

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Excuse the two married people are fornicating in the name of Christ and a woman showing her bare breasts

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To a man that's not her husband Paul says it really well in Romans 6 1 are we to continue in sin

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So that grace may abound May it never be how shall we who have died in sin still live to it?

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Paul is being incredibly clear that intentional sinning for the purpose of Expounding God's grace is totally forbidding.

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We do not sin in order to magnify his grace. That is perversion How can we who've been set free from sin go on living in it to try to win the world

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How do we I mean, that's that's what's so astounding about it We want to win the world out of their sexual perversion by being sexually perverted to win them to Christ it makes no sense and the the only reason that I'm doing this is because Thousands of Christians have watched this movie and have said this is amazing.

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What a great picture of the love of God that is Foolishness does

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God sanction two unmarried people having digital

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Videographic sex and in front of watching crowds and does God sanction that and say well done how do we continue as Christians being so blind and still throwing stumbling blocks in front of one another's feet.

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How many men out there? Struggle with lust How many men out there really deeply are fighting for holiness in this area and some thoughtless

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Christian producer made a basic Christian porn and Called it redeeming love

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That's sick How many women out there are struggling with? Pornography even today women are struggling with this.

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What does that do for body image? What does that do for? for Actually trying to reasonably and faithfully approach someone of the opposite sex to to court them and date them and and be

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Intentional in the way that you approach them so that so that you're not Approaching them in these sort of debased and godless ways the

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Bible again describes the sin But it doesn't glorify the sin this movie glorifies the sin now,

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I think Again, there's hundreds of verses we could have went through but I think I've demonstrated from Scripture That the film on that that the film redeeming love is irredeemably flawed and I pray

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That anyone who's listening to this will not watch it. I pray

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I Pray that that if you're offended That you would search the

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Scriptures and that you would see that God cares about what we do in our bodies. I Pray that the director the writer the cast the crew

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Anyone who really was excited to see this and loved it after it was finished I pray that they would repent

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I Pray that everyone who put this together would apologize and take it off the shelves and off of all of the streaming platforms

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I pray that anyone who bought it in DVD format would would destroy it a Little Nevin leavens the entire lump dear

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Christians. What are we doing? when we invite that kind of sexual perversion into Something that we call

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Christian if you've seen it

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I Want to speak very frankly and lovingly to you. This is not time for you to shame yourself

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This is not time for you to explain yourself either You don't report to me

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Each and every single one of us report to God What I would want I Was very strong in my language here because I want to prevent anyone from from stumbling upon this movie

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But I also if you've watched it, I want you to take some time to think about it To think about what was mentioned in Scripture and how

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God's standard of holiness is and how Job says and that he committed made a covenant before God not to not to lust after a woman or That he or that others decided to have pure eyes never look at anything worthless like Psalm 103 says

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It's not a time to live in shame It's a time to live in the fear and trembling of God and to repent where repentance is needed to use this time to pray to read the scriptures to repent and seek the

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Lord and to and to begin living a life of Holiness and there's gonna be if you really really think about it

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There's gonna be some repentance for all of us here I Was thinking about this today.

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I love a Particular movie. It's a rated G or PG movie.

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It's about as innocent as they come and yet I was thinking about a man who is kissing a woman who is not his wife and I thought to myself

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I am celebrating adultery and You may not have the same convictions as me

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You may not look at it that way, but that man used his body To make out with a woman who is not his wife who's married to someone else.

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I don't know what else to call it If you've not seen the movie Then the redeeming love movie then

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I want to just challenge you with two things I Pray that this post does not inflame your sinful curiosity, and then you don't run looking for it

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Just avoid it. It's not worth it It's not worth it. But I also want you to remember that It's not just this movie

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Yeah, this one stings because it's inside the Christian camp, but it's not just this movie

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We're gonna be held accountable for everything that we watch all of us We live in a media saturated culture that's obsessed with sex

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We have to become diligent in what we put in front of our eyes and we have to repent of the ways that we've become lazy and slothful and We've just allowed so much in eyes are the window to your soul and we let a lot pass through the blinds

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We watch men and women participate in adultery and make jokes about it and we laugh We chuckle when wives mock their husbands or children disobey their parents on stage

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Where men act like two -year -old boys instead of men where mobsters kill entire families where monsters eat flesh

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Where a million other things happen that we know violate the scriptures and we watch and we love it

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I'm praying that the Lord would convict us. I'm praying that Christians would stand out

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Not as holier -than -thou, but they would stand out as holy That we would diligently guard the things that we put in front of our eyes because God is good and he loves us and he's

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Holy and I just want to make this last qualification for you We're not diligent in this area to feel smug and how righteous we are

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We revel in how beautiful and how good and how satisfying and how righteous our

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God is We don't want anything else to pleasure us but him

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We obey him because we love him We don't love him in order to get him or we don't obey him in order to get him to love us

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He does love us. He does love you. He loves you with a never -ending love in Jesus Christ if you're a

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Christian He demonstrated that love for you on the cross where he gave up his own life for you while you were his enemy

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His love Changes us it makes us into a new creation and it purifies us his love calls us to live holy lives that mirror and mimic the

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Father who is holy holy holy as You wrestle through this topic and I pray that you do.

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I pray that you would do it with humility I pray that you would do it with grace. I pray that you do with courage and I'll see you next time on the podcast

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God bless If you like this episode and you like what you hear,

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I pray that you would share it that you would like it You would hit the bell on YouTube that you would subscribe to it

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You would do whatever it is that you need to do so we can get this content out to more people the more times that You like the content and share the content the more times that Apple Spotify and YouTube prioritize this content and get it out to more people