Originally published in "The Lord's Coming Herald & Wesleyan Bible Prophecy Advocate," Winter Edition 2000
On Watching Videos For Entertainment And The Christian Worldview
It is a growing fad among conservative
holiness people to watch video's for entertainment, particularly for the
family's children and young people. Friends, this trend is a grave mistake that
is calculated to yield dire consequences for the spiritual tone of the movement
down the road.
God never intended for his children to need to be
entertained—I don't know where we ever got that crazy idea. The world
Christianizing mission requires total commitment, and should absorb the time,
energies, and resources of everyone, including the young people. It is to be
feared that video watching has replaced prayer and Bible study, and enervated
Christian witnessing concerns among many moderns swept off their spiritual feet
in the mad craze to be entertained.
Friends, if we are being what God wants us to be, doing what
God wants us to do, and thinking what God wants us to think, we simply don't
have time to be entertained. To feel intently the need to waste precious time in
the passive entertainment of video watching is to reveal the melt-down and
demise of the Christian world-view among us.
We should not approach the video issue "legalistically," as
some do, of course, but pragmatically and dynamically. Friends, there is a
Christian Reformation to promote! If we have so much time on our hands to waste,
why don't we consider helping out in this great cause?
John Wesley and early Methodism would condemn us for being
too easy on the flesh--for being too "pampered," for being too soft in
cross-bearing, for being "at ease in Zion." Of course this principle
of self-denial applies not only to the entertainment issue, but too many other
things as well, including too many professed holiness people's involvement in
the sin of gluttony.
To just say "no" to the path of ease and least resistance is
the only thing that will stay the course in the contemporary conservative
Holiness movement's downward slide toward worldly apostasy. Even deeper than
that, the discipline of the church to keep focused on Christ's world-redeeming
cause is the only thing that, in the long run, will prevent Armageddon.
We are not intending to throw stones in
this article. We are only intending to make a point. Discipline is a part of the
Christian life. It comes form the same root concept as that of "disciple." How
can we be a true disciple of Jesus Christ and live undisciplined lifestyles that
crave worldly entertainment, fashion, or the inordinate gratifying of any of the
desires of the flesh?
Perhaps the honest truth is because we are too close to being what we don't preach about anymore, and that is
worldlings--"Antinomians"--not cross bearers.
Think about it.
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