Ep. 059 Who Are you Listening To?

Welcome to the Potter's House Salmon Arm podcast. We are a Bible-Believing Church located

in beautiful British Columbia, Canada. We are proudly part of the Christian Fellowship

Ministries with 3,000 churches around the world. We are a church focused on world evangelism,

discipleship and church planting. Here we will share recent sermons from P.H.S.A. Church

and other sermons from throughout our fellowship. I am Pastor David Bigford and I will be your

host for this podcast. I thank you for listening today and we hope these messages are a blessing

to you and bring you closer to God.

Hello and welcome back to the Potter's House Salmon Arm podcast or the P.H.S.A. podcast.

My name is David Bigford and I am the pastor here at the Potter's House. And so today,

I apologize that I'm a little late for this podcast. I was a little sick the last couple

days so it slowed me down. And today I wanted to start trying something new. So we're going

to see how this audio works and I might use it or I might not and you might not hear this

at all. But anyway, so today's message is, who are you listening to in the World Wide

Web or wisdom? So this is a rehash of something I've preached in the past, but I think it's

really important, especially given everything that's happened since the last time I talked

to you all. So with everything that's going on in the world, we've had a tremendous election

cycle down in the United States, a lot of changes happening in the world because of

that, a lot of excitement or worry depending on who you're talking to. But I just want

to always make sure I represent myself and our church clearly in saying that Jesus is

our King, Jesus is our Lord, and He is in control of everything. And so that is where

we stand. Obviously, we follow the Word of God, we follow the Bible, and certain groups

align more with the Bible than others. But we are first and foremost Christians in service

to Christ looking to grow in our Christ-likeness in moving closer to God. And that's why I

think it's an important time to talk about who are you listening to and looking at the

World Wide Web for wisdom. And so with that, our text that we're going to be using today

is Ezekiel 33, 33-33.

As for you, son of man, your people walk together about you by the walls at the doors of the

house and say to one another, each to his brother, come and hear that the Word is that

comes from the Lord, or what the Word is that comes from the Lord. And they come to you

as people come and they sit before you as my people and they hear what you say, but

they will not do it. For with lustful talk in their mouths they act, their heart is set

on their game. And behold, you are to them like one who sings lustful songs with a beautiful

voice and plays well on an instrument, for they hear what you say, but they will not

do it. When this comes and come at will, then they will know that a prophet has been among

them.

So oftentimes, you know, in a small church or in a large church, you can look out and

you can think, I'm talking to people, I'm telling people about Jesus Christ. And a lot

of times people will hear me playing on the street with my bass guitar and be like, oh,

that sounds really good. Or maybe they say it doesn't sound good. And they're just like,

who would dare do that? I don't know. But the reality is, is that we're not really out

there to try to entertain. We're not out there trying to, you know, show off. We're only

out there to bring the Word of God to people and to try to get them to feel the conviction

of the Spirit of the Lord so they can make a choice to serve Him. And we run into this

quite a bit where, especially in mega churches, where you'll have tons and tons of people

coming to church because it's entertaining, but they're not taking away from it anything

that they're meant to receive from the service.

So I regularly clean out my emails and unsubscribe. And I just did this again, you know, last

week to several email lists, to several podcasts or Instagram pages. You know, sometimes I

don't remember why I signed up for them in the first place. Other times I just have lost

interest in what they were all about to begin with. Other times I'll feel convicted and

say, you know what, I shouldn't be spending my time listening to this or looking at that.

And nothing flagrantly sinful, just that it's not wise as we grow in our love for the Lord.

Sometimes, like I said, I don't remember why I subscribe to these people. And, you know,

one of the key things like right now is I used to have a lot of tent companies because

I'm into backpacking, I'm into camping, not camping per se. I'm into hiking as far into

the dirt or the bush as I can go so that I'm too far away to get home that day and then

I'll have to sleep outside. So I'm not really into camping as much as hiking to exhaustion.

But I would have all these tent companies that I would be looking at. I'd have all these

tent companies that I'd be following. But really, in the course of my life, I might

buy a handful of tents. Why do I need to follow 20 or 30 tent companies? In fact, in the back

of my head, I know of one tent company that I'll likely buy my next tent from. And that's

it. I probably won't ever need another tent again outside of that because I've already

got three tents right now. Two of them are really good. So why do I follow all of these

things? Why do I allow it to be a distraction? So throughout the history of mankind, we strive

to find pleasure or entertainment in order to distract us from our lives and from living

a life of purpose. So I rarely find myself being distracted by all the new things that

are shining, that are coming across, the shiny little baubles that come out. But even more

often, I'll put up like a sonic wall. I'll put my earbuds in. My wife and my kids will

even pick on me. And I usually tell myself, I'm doing this for you because you don't like

the music I listen to. You don't want to hear the radio that I'm listening to. And you guys

have got all your stuff playing in the background. And I'm just plugged in so that I'm not distracting

you. And that's a bit of a cop-out because the reality is that, yeah, I'm distracting

myself in the form of music or news and not allowing that still quiet voice of the Lord

to really impact my life. So these are all things that I deal with even as a pastor.

And so it's almost like putting this cocoon of noise around us so that we're shutting

out the Word of God. We're shutting out that voice. The simple question then becomes, who

are we listening to? Have we closed ourselves off from hearing God or hearing those around

us? So as I filter through my emails and review my podcasts, it becomes evident that we have

a natural desire to block out the world, to block out the things of God. We strive to

clog our minds and fill our ears with the pleasing things of this world. And this is

nothing new. We often will say to ourselves, this is just music or it's just entertainment.

We'll tell ourselves that we need some time to relax or some time to chill out, some time

to unwind. The problem is that this downtime will usually become all the time. We leave

no time for the things of God because we are so busy with the things of men. We successfully

cut out the quiet times so that when God wants to speak to us, we can't hear him. The quiet

times when we could comfort those in need or listen to those that are closest to us,

we don't have time for it. There's a cacophony of noise that we surround ourselves with.

So in the past, I've preached about the storm and how God is in the storm. And I believe

that in nature, the storms are used by God as a way to clean our environment, to bring

attention to something that's truly important, which is life. Similarly, the storms we go

through in our lives are meant to clean up our surroundings or point us back to our Lord

in our life. A way of disrupting our endless pursuits of entertainment and pleasure to

shake us and refocus us, but to refocus us on those who are around us so that we can

show love and compassion by serving them and serving others. So here's an illustration

I came across, tried and true. A couple had been married for 50 years and a party was

thrown for their golden anniversary. The husband was moved by the occasion and wanted to tell

his wife how much he thought of her. She was hard of hearing, however, and often misunderstood

what he had said. With family and friends gathered around, he toasted her and said,

my dear wife, after 50 years, I found you tried and true. Everyone clapped for them,

but his wife was a little irritated and asked, what did you say? He spoke louder. After 50

years, I have found you tried and true. The wife was now visibly upset and shouted back,

well, after 50 years, I'm tired of you too. So if we don't hear right, there's a danger

of misinterpreting and getting things wrong. Ezekiel 40, verse four, it says, and the man

said to me, son of man, look at your eyes and hear with your ears and set your heart

upon all that I shall show you. For you were brought here in order that I might show it

to you, declare that or declare all that you see to the house of Israel. This brings my

first point, which is the world's decline. We cannot escape the world for we live in

it. And those of us who are called by Christ are called to be emissaries for the kingdom

of heaven. So where does that leave us concerning the call and our place in the world? The easiest

path is to fall in love with this world. In 1 John 2, 15, do not love the world or the

things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For

all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes and pride of

life is not from the Father, but is from the world. And the world is passing away along

with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever. Since the fallen man,

when sin entered the world, we have lived in a corrupted creation. In the Old Testament,

I'm always amazed how quickly humanity has turned to consumerism and to the pursuit of

pleasure. We like to think that it's only in our day and age that people have become

subjugated or addicted to entertainment. We indeed have more channels and avenues for

entertainment than they did thousands of years ago, but it's not a new problem. In Psalm

106, 36-39, they worshiped their idols, which became a snare to them. They sacrificed their

sons and their daughters to false gods. They shed innocent blood, the blood of their sons

and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan, and the land was desecrated

by their blood. They defiled themselves by what they did, and by their deeds, they prostituted

themselves. There was already, in this period of time, an idea of free love expressionism.

There was rampant sex. There was prostitution in the worship of Asherah. Then with that,

there was also the human sacrifice to the idols of Molech and Baal. These things were

already involved in this society at the time. Today, we do similar things. We say that you

can have rampant sex. You can do all these things in the name of pursuit of pleasure

and entertainment. Then when it comes time for the responsibility that naturally occurs

from sexual relations, we say you don't need to have that. You can go and absolve yourself

from that difficulty through the wickedness of abortion.

Those are important things to recognize is that as much as things have changed, they've

stayed the same in our society. We seek entertainment. We also seek exclusion from responsibility.

In Genesis, it only takes until chapter 3 for us to see temptation win out with the

first battle of wills. In Genesis 3, 1-7, we read about the fall. We read about Adam

and Eve in the garden and then how Eve was deceived by the serpent. Subsequently, Adam

was deceived because nothing happened to Eve, and he partook as well. Then immediately,

their eyes were opened because as the headship of that covenant relationship, Adam was responsible

to hold the line.

The original sin is now an everyday occurrence. In the world we live in, we are challenged

to make the same decision over and over again. The world calls us in the same manner as the

serpent does. You will surely not die. In verse 5, for God knows even when you eat of

it, your eyes will be open and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. There's this

contested idea that it doesn't matter if you sin or not, you're just going to be elevated

in your perceptions and your reality. We get that with a lot of the super spiritual mumbo

jumbo that's out there in the day where it's like, oh no, you have a godly spirit and you

will just be elevated in your perceptions, which is a dangerous idea because that's

exactly what the devil would use when causing Eve and Adam to fall.

In the very next chapter, we see Cain kill his brother Abel out of jealousy. Time goes

on and within two chapters we see the story of Noah and the ark and at this point in history

the world is beyond repair. God judges the earth with a great blood. I only highlight

these chapters to show how early on in human nature these types of things occurred. It

was almost immediate. The susceptibility to sin because the choice that God gave us with

free will. We all have a choice, but throughout history oftentimes we're pleasure seeking

and knowledge led us away from God in favor of the world.

This brings me to my next point, which is virtually connected but deaf, dumb and blind.

During the global pandemic, this worldwide pandemic occurred, but maybe not only in the

way that we think. The reality is the pandemic expedited the locking away of people, locked

away from reality, from close family, from the outdoors, from the word of God. Now we

all look inward towards seeking that entertainment. Blashing light and vibrant colors from TV,

movies, internet. They've enabled us to remain connected like never before, but it's also

destroying our ability to connect in real life.

For many it has become a strong addiction. In Psalm 106, 36-39, they worship their idols

which became a snare to them. We read this, they sacrificed their sons and daughters to

false gods. They shed innocent blood, the bloods of their sons and daughters whom they sacrificed

to idols of Canaan. The land was desecrated by their blood. They defiled themselves by

what they did. By their deeds, they prostitute themselves.

This is again highlighting the reality that when you choose this self aggrandizement,

just giving in to entertainment and pleasure seeking only for yourself, you are sacrificing

not only your life, but the life of your children. We are called to be in the world, but not

of the world. This is something I found when putting this together. It's an article, doing

what's right even when it hurts. Eva lives in the rural part of Germany where almost

everyone is a Christian, yet few are serious about following Christ. When Eva was 16, she

decided to really live for God. Immediately, she found herself at odds with the culture.

This was a big decision because the culture in a region revolves around weekend parties

and lots of alcohol. This is from that book I was reading about doing hard things. We'll

go back into Eva's story in a minute. What we have to see here is that we battle with

similar vices in our society today. The question is always, who will you listen to? Are you

going to conform to what society tells you is right? Even then, it is difficult because

society can be very fragmented. At the DNC or the Democrat National Convention earlier

on in the presidential cycle, you had one of the two major US parties. They came together

to announce their presidential candidate. Now, you might think that there would be some

semblance of connectedness or party cohesion. If so, you'd be mistaken. Here is a list

of the groups within the groups of the DNC. You have the Black Caucus, the Hispanic Caucus,

the Labor Council meeting, the Interfaith Council, the Ethnic Council, the Youth Council,

the Women's Caucus, the Rural Caucus, the Seniors' Council, the LGBTQ Caucus, the Muslim

Delegates' Assembly, the Small Business Council, the Disability Council, the Jewish American

Community Meeting, the Native American Caucus, the Council on Environmental and Climate Crisis,

Veterans and Military Families Council, Poverty Council. This cacophony of noise almost perfectly

ensures that no one will be heard and that nothing can be accomplished. They're so fragmented.

They're so disjointed. How are they ever going to come together on a party platform that's

going to win over the masses? And now, as we stand after the election, we know that

they didn't. They weren't able to get a message that was able to penetrate into society because

of all these fragments, this fragmentation within their own party. But it's all a distraction

from what should be our focus, which is Jesus Christ. When we give ourselves to hearing

all that the world wants us to say, we indelibly hear nothing of what God wants us to say.

So we go back to Eva. Eva knew that she had made the right decision, but she still had

to face the consequences of taking a stand. Her friends and classmates immediately wondered

why she wasn't attending parties. Even some of the adults in the village couldn't understand.

At school, Eva was suddenly left out of all the gossip conversations because she quit

going to the weekend parties. Her classmates started to consider her a boring outsider

and a label that was very hard for Eva to take. She says, I have to admit that there

were times when I just wanted to fit back in. She says it was so hard not to be part

of the crowd and not to belong to the cool group, not to have a clique of cool friends.

Taking a stand meant rejection for being misunderstood by her peers, but in other parts of the world,

the consequences are even more severe. In India, two teens were surrounded and beaten

for distributing Bible tracts. In China, a 16-year-old girl was shot in the head for

refusing to spit on the Bible. Christians all over the world are persecuted, tortured,

and killed for their faith.

Fortunately, Eva knew what she was getting into. She had already read the Bible passages

that warn that some might hate us because we do not join the world in the world's ways.

She knew that she was called to follow Jesus not only when she gets patted on the back

for it, she was called to follow Him even when it hurt. In John 17, 14-17, it says,

I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the

world. Just as I am not of the world, I did not ask that you take them out of the world,

but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not from the world, just as I am

not of the world, to sanctify them in truth. Your word is the truth.

So this is a difficult reality for most, and it seems that it would be far easier just

to fall in line with what the world has to offer. In today's world, we're not amazed

by the power of God, but rather the creation of man. This addition to entertainment is

building calluses on people's souls. Fiction has become reality. The warping of reality

permeates our understanding of God and our trust in the world. When we look at the parable

of the prodigal son in Luke 15, we are shown a picture of the fleeting nature of sin. The

desire to seek only entertainment and pleasure can have disastrous results on our lives and

the lives of those whom we care about. In Luke 15, verse 11, it says, and then he said,

Luke 15:11

there is a man who had two sons. And the younger of them said to his father, father, give me

a share of my property that is coming to me. And he divided his property between them.

Not many days later, the young son gathered all he had and took a journey to a far country.

And there he squandered his property and reckless living. And when he had spent everything,

a severe famine arose in that country and he began to be in need. So he went and hired

himself out to the citizen of that country who sent him into the fields to feed pigs.

And when he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, no one gave him anything.

But when he came to himself, he said, how many of my father's hired servants have more

than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger. So how do we find ourselves enraptured

by the worldwide web of entertainment, the noise of this world is a web after all, and

is meant to be so addictive we're trapped in it like a spider's web or in like a fowler's

snare. Here we have a Jewish child who takes his inheritance and runs off into the hedonistic

world. And now he sees at the end of it, he's eating from the pig's food, which is an unclean

animal according to his upbringing. So he is in the most dire of straits possible. And

then his senses come back to him and say, even my father's men are treated better than

this. But this brings me to my final point and closer to our close. The web, entertainment,

pleasure and self. The internet, movies, books and theater are not wicked in and of themselves.

They can be great tools to further the gospel of Jesus Christ. The trouble is not the media,

but rather the fallen nature of man. There's a reason that the Bible tells us not to forsake

the gathering of the brethren or the church. The focus for us as Christians in the gospel

and in the kingdom of God. The problem within a lot of churches and a lot of Christians

is the lure of the world's entertainment and the world's web. When we do not judge

our entertainment by first washing it in the word of God, we can become watered down by

the false gospel of the world. Eva's decision to skip the parties did provide her many benefits.

She grew closer to her family and over time she won the respect of many classmates. Most

importantly, Eva feels that God protected her from a lot of the heartache and pain.

I was kept safe and pure for him, she explains. He gave me strength and wisdom and didn't

let me become lonely. Many of the kids that Eva went to school with had to battle horrible

things. They struggled with the consequences of alcohol and drug addiction, broken relationships,

unwanted pregnancies, and sexually transmitted diseases. Sometimes what we think is the hard

decision is actually the easiest decision. When we zoom out a few years it becomes clear,

but unfortunately we have to trust God for that because we have to choose to live in

obedience. Hebrews 10 26 says if we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the

knowledge of truth, no sacrifice for sin is left. Later on in Hebrews 11 24-25, by faith

Moses when he had grown up refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh's daughter. He chose

to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures

of sin. So the reality is that if you're washing yourself on the world wide web then you are

at risk of being not only being trapped but also having your faith stripped away by the

false teachings of the world. So where do we turn and what hope do we have? Our hope

is always found in Jesus. It was his sacrifice on the cross that has the power to set us

free. And finally we have wisdom, salvation and a new life in Christ. God's wisdom is

always our way out of a life of sin and pain. We can see stories of God's salvation throughout

the Old and New Testament. We know that Jesus is the word from John 1 1 and with that we

can infer that the Old Testament draws one continuous line towards Jesus. The purpose

of the law was to draw attention to our need for a savior and our need for sacrifice. So

as we live in a world that is wide open with sin where there are webs of deceit masquerading

as entertainment and pleasure we could shed light on the world and on the word with those

uh we could shed light the light of the word on those traps right? We can avoid them ourselves

by washing our lives in the word and we could pull others out of the webs with the gospel.

When our Lord hung on the cross two others were hanging with them. One of those men chose

to mock Jesus and the other made a different choice. He chose to repent of his sin and

ask Jesus's forgiveness. Both these men were trapped by their choices but one man was able

to achieve eternal freedom through Jesus Christ. You too can turn from the world wide web of

entertainment and embrace the wisdom of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Then you will be set

free broken out of this world's prison and able to help others and be rescued from the

same fate. Sinners saved by grace. So if I could have every head bowed every eye closed

just real quick as we bring this to an end wherever you are as long as it's safe you

just close your eyes bow your head but I just want to give a quick invitation we do this

every day every time that if your heart is not right and this message has impacted you

I want to give you an opportunity to signify that an uplifted hand if you know that your

heart is not right with God you are not in right relationship with him but you want to

be and if you rose that hand and you did that no matter where you are God can see it and

God knows your heart and I want you to just repeat after me dear Lord I know that I'm

a sinner but I know that you sent your son Jesus Christ and that he died and rose from

the grave for me I repent of my sin which means I turn away from him and I accept Jesus

Christ as my Lord my Savior and my King and Jesus name Amen that simple prayer is what

we colloquially call a sinner's prayer is just a recognition that you're a sinner and

your need for Christ so you leave from that with with it hopefully like you feel the difference

immediately because I know when I gave my life to Christ I felt it immediately but there

are other steps not for salvation but for sanctification for growing in Christ and that

would be to lock into a local church body if you're in salmon arm then we'd love to

have you come and to church with us yeah all of the all of the information is in the show

notes but if you're not you can reach out to me we have 3,700 plus churches globally

I'm sure I can find you a Bible believing church for you to lock into get a Bible download

the you version app get get the Word of God start reading it so that you can wash yourself

in the Word and that you can pray to God because you can do that anytime until the Bible tells

us to pray unceasingly and then I just pray that you know doing those things you will

grow in Christ and you will have the restorative change that you know many of us have enjoyed

as we became Christians and saved by grace so I just want to thank you for listening

to me today and if you could like share and subscribe to this podcast this YouTube channel

that would be a great help for us to get this word and message out and so I give you give

you back you the rest of your week thank you for listening can't wait for you to come back

next time God bless

Thank you for listening to the P.H.S.A. Potter's House Salmon Arm podcast be sure to follow

us on Instagram at pottershouse underscore salmon arm to keep up to date on what we are

doing join the conversation and discover how Jesus Christ can revolutionize your life.