Ep. 012 What Are you Subscribing 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 Bickford 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 Salmon Arm Potter's House podcast. My name again is

David Bickford and I am the pastor here. Today's sermon is going to be entitled,

What are you subscribing to? The World Wide Web or Wisdom. I like this message. It is

ever important for us to look at what we are subscribing to. The text that we will use

as a jumping off point today will be Psalms 106, 36-39. If you have your Bible, Psalms

106, 36-39, you can turn there while we jump into this. Recently, I was cleaning out my

email and unsubscribing to a number of email lists. To be honest, I have to do that again,

so I will probably do it here in the next week or two. I don't know about you guys,

but I subscribe to all sorts of stuff because I am interested in many different things,

whether it is music, I am learning to play the piano a little bit, or I play bass guitar

as well, so I have all sorts of music stuff. The military, I have subscriptions to all

sorts of Marine Corps and military kind of things. Another hobby of mine is I do long

distance backpacking whenever I can get a chance, which is not very often, but I am

a bit of a gear head, so I have all this crazy camping gear stuff that is coming into my

inbox all the time. Those are just the things that I remember signing up for. Some of these

I remember subscribing for, others I don't. Some stuff that comes in there, I am like,

wow, this is really junk. I don't know where this came from. As I was muddling through

all these emails, it began to dawn on me that the desire of the world is to block out the

things of God. It is to clog our minds and waste our time with the futile things in this

world. This is nothing new, and throughout the history of mankind, we have always strived

for pleasure and entertainment to distract ourselves from the lives that we are living,

and oftentimes to distract ourselves from living a life of purpose. We often will say

to ourselves, we deserve some downtime. Have you ever heard that? The big one for downtime.

I deserve a break, or I need a me day. That is a disgusting phrase. I don't even like

saying it. But some time to relax and chill out, and how often does that downtime become

all the time, and then we find ourselves with no time for the things of God because we are

so busy with the things of man. Last week I preached about the storm and how God is

in the storm, and I believe that in nature, storms are used by God as a way to clean the

environment and to bring attention to the things that are truly important, that is life.

Similarly, the storm we go through in our own lives are meant to clean up our lives

to the point of bringing us back to the Lord, a way of disrupting our endless pursuits of

entertainment and pleasure to shake us and refocus us on him, but on those around us

so that we can show our love for him by serving others. So we are supposed to be focused in

on the things of God and therefore the things that God wants us to do. That makes perfectly

clear sense. Why do there have to be all these calamities in the world? Why do there have

to be wars and rumors of wars? Why do there have to be ebbs and flows in the economy even?

Why are these things having to happen? I believe that God allows a lot of these things to happen

so that he can work through them for his purpose and so that he can help us to redirect and

focus our life back on him. That's his hope. That's his goal, I believe, with the storm.

So an illustration I came up with is entertainment, culture, and addiction, and this is from an

article from Peter Stromberg, and it's about how our way of life promotes addiction. We

have a severe drug abuse problem in our society, and anyone who has struggled with addiction

or watched a loved one do so knows the agony that addiction brings to sufferers and their

families. For the most part, addiction is understood to be a result of biological factors

similar to a disease process. The interaction of a powerful chemical within the human nervous

system can create a situation in which a body becomes dependent upon the chemical and withdraw

from that chemical leads to great suffering. A number of addiction experts dispute the

disease model, however, and they offer some convincing counter arguments. To take a single

obvious example, some people develop addictive relationships to activities that don't involve

ingesting chemicals, activities such as gambling or playing games on the internet. That's a

big one, right? Playing games on the internet? Anybody out there? No? Okay. In fact, we seem

to be a nation of people who fall rather easily into being controlled by our desires. Even

those who have no addictions often struggle to control their spending or their food intake.

Psalms 106, 36-39, we're going to look at our text now, and it says, in verse 36, they

worshiped their idols, which became a snare to them. They sacrificed their sons and 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, by their deeds they prostituted themselves. Now, really quickly

with that, you know, that's a pretty powerful verse of scripture from the Psalms. What's

he talking about here? Well, we do know in ancient times, and even the ancient Israelites,

there were periods where they literally did sacrifice their sons and daughters to the

gods Molech and Baal and different things. So these idols, these pagan worship that occurred,

this is something that did happen in that period of time. They allowed these activities

that they surrounded themselves with to become something more important than the one God,

the God, the Jehovah. So let's look at my first point, which is the world. We cannot

escape the world for we live in it, right? Of course not. And those of us that are called

by Christ are called to something different, though. We're called to be emissaries for

the kingdom of heaven. So even though we're here, we have to remember that we do have

a calling. Every believer has a calling on their life to be an emissary, to be an example

of the heavenly kingdom. So where does that leave us in respect to the call or our place

in this world? The easiest path for many is to fall in love with this world rather than

the call. And first John 2 15, he says, 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 and 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. I don't know about you, but I read that and

that's a challenging portion of scripture. Because it's very clearly telling us that

even though the culture wants us to say you can do these things, you can be these things

and still be spiritual, you can still be a Christian and do all these things, this verse

of scripture should confound you. Because it says, Do not love the world or the things

in the world. And then he continues to go on and say, If anyone does love the world,

the love of the Father is not in him. So that's a challenging thing for believers because

obviously we do, you know, we thank God for the beautiful creation that he's given us

and that to be able to live and abide in him in this world. But what the point of this

scripture clearly is, is that our focus is not meant to be on this fallen world, or the

entertainment that is in this fallen world. We should have our primary focus on the purpose

of the calling of Jesus Christ, the thing that does set us free. So since the fallen

man, when sin entered the world, we have lived in a corrupted creation. So that when I read

the Old Testament, I was always amazed by how quickly humanity had turned against God.

How you can also see, you know, I had turned to consumerism or the pursuit of pleasure,

even in the Old Testament, right? We like to think that it's only in our day and age

that people have become subjugated or addicted to entertainment. It is true that we have

more channels and avenues for entertainment now than they did thousands of years ago,

but it is not a new problem. And Genesis, it only takes us to chapter three for us to

see temptation went out in the first battle of wills, right? Genesis 3, 1 through 7, the

fall.

Now, the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God

had made. He said to the woman, did God actually say, you shall not eat of any tree in the

garden? The woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the tree, the fruit

of the trees in the garden. But God said, you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree

that is in the midst of the garden. Neither shall you touch it lest you die. But the serpent

said to the woman, you will not surely die for God knows that when you eat of it, your

eyes will be open and you will be like God knowing good and evil. So when the woman saw

that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes, that the tree was

to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. And she also gave some

to her husband who was with her and he ate. Then the eyes of both were open and they knew

that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together to make themselves loincloths.

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

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

manner as the serpent, you won't die. For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes

will be opened and you will be like God knowing good and evil. 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

and God judges the earth with the great flood. I only highlight these chapters to show how

early on in human nature we decided that our own way, our own pleasure seeking, our own

knowledge led us away from God in favor of the world. How many times in today do you

hear people say or talk about rather relative truth? Well my truth is this, well your truth

isn't God's truth and you need to be very careful about assuming truth, especially when

it's relative truth because then you open the door for everybody to have their own truth

to live by and then morality in a civilization collapses. It just collapses. Society would

collapse if everybody believed in relative truth and relative morality and that's part

of the reason why we do have wars and rumors of wars and things going on today is because

of all the different you know you know basis for morality that are happening in the world.

This brings me to my second point which is wide. This is a worldwide epidemic and I found

an article titled My Family is Trapped in the Metaverse. This is a pretty interesting

you know article. It's from Adriana So who is a senior associate reviewer or review editor

for the publication Wired which is a tech publication. If you're a techie you probably

have heard of it. The subheading for this article is virtual reality isn't great but

it's a lot better than dealing with everything else out there. That title alone should scare

you. The fact that people are willing to just leave life behind for something fake but that's

what the promise of Satan and the devil are is these fake alternatives to living a righteous

life and following Christ. So in the article she says after lunch my six-year-old daughter

was allowed to spend half an hour in Google's Tilt Brush, a 3D drawing app where she created

a frosty winter scene complete with falling snow and snowmen named Lisa and Tom. My four-year-old

watched enraptured as the headset cast to the screen. After dinner I caught my husband

putting the headset on again. I told him to charge it when he was done because I was going

to try a few new games with my co-worker in an hour. Being the parent of a still unvaccinated

four-year-old in the middle of a rainy organ winter during the still ongoing global pandemic

has sucked. My kids go to school and daycare but to mitigate the risk they have cancelled

swimming, gymnastics, classes, play dates. Virtual reality isn't perfect but it has allowed

us to extend our lockdown indefinitely until my son can be vaccinated and also I kind of

like it. So that article has a lot to be afraid of in my opinion just that first bit of it

but you know during the global pandemic there was this worldwide epidemic but maybe not

in the way that you think. The pandemic locked people away from reality and in the past they

might have turned to their close family or gone outdoors or even the Bible but now we

all look inward towards entertainment. Flashing lights and vibrant colors from tv, movies,

and the internet has enabled us to remain connected like never before but it is also

breaking down our ability to be connected in real life and for many it has become an

addiction. That's why even with this podcast, the goal of the podcast isn't just to have

a podcast. It is to share sermons clearly but it's also to draw people out. So whether

you're in Salmon Armony come to our church and visit with us or you could go to any of

the other 3,000 fellowship churches we have in the world or if we don't have one to find

a church to lock into where you're at. That's the key. Find a Bible believing church where

you can lock into and have fellowship with the brethren with other Christians. That's

the goal. But let's dig back in to this article. The first time I downloaded Tilt Brutch was

the first time I was able to give my 6 year old a truly new experience in a really long

time. Her little mouth dropped open as she turned around and around. I like it too much

I'm not getting out she declared. I cast the headset to the tv and could see her waving

her hands in the dark making flowers and hearts come to glowing life with her hands. It was

amazing. So again in today's world we're not amazed often times by the power of God or

the power of his creation but rather the creations of man. It's actually really funny because

we try to ignore the creative power of God and what he's created for us in this world

and this life but we're all the more willing to dive into and accept the creations of man.

This addition to entertainment is building calluses on people's soul. Fiction has become

reality and this warping of reality permeates our understanding of God and our trust in

his word. So back to the article again the endless month stretched on and on. I don't

know how long it will be until the quest to bores us just as the piano now bores us or

bread making or roller skates or any of the other endless ways we thought we would be

able to make it through what we imagine would be at most a temporary disruption. The sun

goes down and the oasis beckons I just hope by the time we can get out of here we will

still want to. What a scary ending to that article is the fact that you know hopefully

by the time we're you know the pandemic subsides back when that was a thing you know hopefully

we even want to leave the house or maybe we just want to stay plugged in to what they're

feeding us in the metaverse. That's a pretty frightening thing so let's look again at Psalms

106 36 39 they worship their idols which became a snare to them they sacrificed their sons

and their daughters to false gods they shed innocent blood in the blood of their sons

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

blood they defiled themselves by what they did by their deeds they prostituted themselves.

These verses scripture become more and more clear to us you know as something that recurs

in human history over and over again when we look at the parable of the prodigal son

in Luke 15 we're shown a picture of the fleeting nature of sin the desire to seek only entertainment

and pleasure that can have disastrous results on our lives and the lives of those we care

about. So how do we find ourselves so enraptured by the worldwide entertainment it is a web

after all and it's meant to be so addictive that we are trapped in it like spiders like

like being in a spider's web or or the fowler's snare right. What is that that we're talking

about then we're talking about the web right now we're in the web we're stuck in the web

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

in fact 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 the Bible tells us

not to forsake the gathering of the brethren which is the church which I have already kind

of hit on the focus of us as Christians is the gospel and the kingdom of God the problem

within a lot of churches and within a lot of Christians is the lure of the world's entertainment

and the web right the world's entertainment web. So when we do not judge our entertainment

by first washing it with the word of God we can become watered down by the false gospel

of the world. A survey you have done by Josh Shepherd found that only nine percent of self-identified

Christians hold to a biblical biblical worldview. Now I might sound crazy here we are we're

Christians we're supposed to you know have given ourselves you know to Christ and accepted

him as our Lord and Savior but now we're going to discount much of the worldview that he

espoused in favor of a new more enlightened worldview. The CRC study which included two

thousand adults classifies American believers on a spectrum of five subgroups from those

who self-identify as Christians to those who are termed integrated disciples and possess

a biblical worldview. On the surface they may all appear to be Christian but the survey

reveals stark differences in their core beliefs. Now this says American but you could probably

extrapolate that to Canadians because there's probably a lot of similarities. For instance

sixty one percent of those who self-identify as Christians affirm that I believe that God

is all-knowing all-powerful perfect and just creator of the universe who still rules the

universe today. Right there right there sixty one percent what are those other 39 percent

believe is self-identified Christians. However large majorities of self-identified Christians

also report many beliefs that aren't in harmony with biblical teaching according to the survey

these include 72 percent argue that people are basically good. The Bible clearly tells

us that the human heart is wicked. Sixty six percent say that having faith matters more

than which faith you pursue. There's only one way to heaven and that is through Christ

our Lord. We know that from the word of God. Sixty four percent say that all religious

faiths are of equal value same answers before we're told that you know that narrow is the

is the gate to the path right. Fifty eight percent believe that if a person is good enough

or does enough good things they can earn their way into heaven. This is a works argument

but we know that it's by faith you are saved it's grace that saves us and then if you have

grace and you've been saved you will have fruit you will have works that come because

you've been washed by the blood of the lamb and you've come up as a new creation in Christ.

Here's a good one. Fifty seven percent believe in karma that's a Hinduistic belief and it

goes quite contrary it's very close to fatalism to a certain extent too but anyway we're not

going to digress those are clearly not scriptural ideas. By contrast the survey cohorts termed

an integrated disciple a small subset of those claiming to be Christians are noted as being

consistent in their beliefs and integrating those convictions into their behaviors. So

now we're looking at not just you know cultural Christians is what I like to call the first

group but we're looking at a second group which is integrated disciples because as Christians

we're all called to be disciples we're all called to make that leap into not just accepting

Jesus Christ but letting him have his way in us which is discipleship. Ninety nine percent

or and more believe that God is all-knowing all-powerful a just creator of the universe

who still rules the universe today. More than 99 percent believe the Bible is accurate and

reliable word of God. Ninety six percent claim that every moral choice either honors or dishonors

God. However, Barna's survey finds that even some believers classified as this highly disciple

cohort hold to some views that challenge biblical principles. Those shocking beliefs of integrated

disciples include 52 percent still argue that people are basically good which again is very

very you know clearly against the word of God. Thirty nine percent contend that the

Holy Spirit is not a real living being but is merely a symbol of God's power presence

and purity but if you believe in the Holy Trinity we believe that it's it's the Godhead

right and if you want more on that reach out more than happy to talk about that. Thirty

three percent of this group still believe in karma. You know what do you do with that?

There's a remarkable level of self-deception even among born-again Christians said Barna

commenting on this on his recent worldview research it represents a huge educational

challenge for those responsible for biblical worldview development. In Hebrews 10 26 and

11 24 through 25 it says if we deliberately keep on sinning after we receive the knowledge

of truth no sacrifice is left for sin. And then in 24 by faith Moses when he had grown

up refused to be known as the son of the Pharaoh's daughter he chose to be mistreated along with

the people of God rather than enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. So the reality is that if

you're washing yourself in the world wide web then you're at a risk of not only being

trapped but also having your faith stripped away by false teachings of the world. So where

do we turn to 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. So as we come to a close I

want to look at wisdom, salvation, and a new life in Jesus Christ. God's wisdom is always

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

through the Old and New Testament. We know that Jesus is the word from John you know

and one. With that we can infer the Old Testament draws one continuous line towards Jesus. The

purpose of the law was to draw attention to our need for a savior our need for a 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 can shed the light of the word on those traps. We can

avoid them ourselves by washing our lives in the word and we can pull others out of

those webs with the gospel. When the Lord hung on the cross there were two others hanging

with him. One of those men chose to mock Jesus but the other made a different choice. He

chose to repent of his sin and ask Jesus for forgiveness. So unless you're driving if you're

driving keep your hands 10 and 2 in the wheel but if not I want every head bowed every eye

closed wherever you're listening. Both men were trapped by the choices of their lives

both those men that were hanging next to Jesus on the cross. But one man was able to achieve

eternal freedom through Christ Jesus. He made a different decision. He made a decision to

turn away in his heart from all of the wickedness of this world all of the temptations of this

world. You too can turn from the world wide web of entertainment embrace the wisdom the

gospel of Jesus Christ. Then you too will be set free broken out of this world prison

and able to help others and to rescue others. More people just like you and me sinners saved

by grace. If this message is resonated with you if this sounds like you where you're at

wherever you are I want you to signify that with an uplifted hand. Because I can't see

this but God can see this and we always do this invitation at the end of every message

that I preach after every music scene after everything we do. The reality is is we need

Christ and you can have that. It's a simple prayer. You just repeat after me Dear Lord

God I know that I'm a sinner but I know that your son Jesus Christ came and died for my

sins. I repent I turn away from my sins and I accept you Jesus to be my Lord to come into

my heart to be my Savior to be my King. I give you all the praise and glory for your

grace that sets me free and saves me today. In Jesus name I pray. Amen. So thank you very

much for listening again this week. I pray that this message has impacted you. If you

pray that prayer reach out let me know that's the whole purpose of what we're doing here

is to see people saved and then see them locked into churches that are preaching the gospel

so they can be strengthened within the brethren or by the brethren and go out and and see

others set free from the web of the world as well. So again thank you for listening

and I can't wait for you to come back next time. God bless.