Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2001 (re-edited August 1, 2005)
Dear Family in Christ:
The Lord has reminded me of something that may be very unpopular in today's modern church....but is still true, and even a matter of life and death.
Brother Harrison from Lincoln City, Oregon reminded us Sunday night that "compromise" has become rampant in the church.
We laugh at how believers from 50 years ago avoided certain activities and places. A hundred years ago believers avoided public sporting events!!
Today we look at that life-style, of believers long past, their separation from the things of the world, and we smile. We find their conservatism a bit too much. We say, "Its okay for a Christian to have fun!"
It is true that God wants us to enjoy the life that HE created. But what about the fun of secularists? Is the fun of the world safe for a person seeking all of God??? Maybe not always...maybe seldom??
On Saturday I attended a minor league ball game. In the fourth inning a disagreement broke out. Suddenly more than 50 players ran out on the field, some holding back others. For 30 minutes they moved about the field, like two schools of colliding fish. They were going at each other and even a bit at the referees.
The game could not go on. The atmosphere became tense. They were like moving gangs as they came within inches of a total breakdown in sportsmanship and fist fights. The announcer in the booth played the Beatles song, "All We Need is Love"...but to little avail. The score board flashed the word "LOVE" over and over...but the players were not watching. Then the police had to be called to stop a disturbance among the spectators. Apparently whatever was happening to the ball players jumped into the third base picnic area.
I could feel evil working in that stadium!!! I felt powers of darkness. I told my family, "We need to leave!" We left during the first 15 minutes of this wicked, hateful, gang-like, near fighting. But our friends who stayed said it went on for 15 more minutes...and the TV news reported how strangely the players acted.
I knew what it was going on by the revelation of the precious Holy Spirit of God. It was the activity of dark powers working on the men. They were like dogs in a pack, moved upon by evil forces. Some were trying to stop the fight and protect...but others were determined to hurt someone.
Perhaps this is why the believers of a hundred years ago said that boxing matches, baseball and football games were not for people of holiness???
But now, to another area of warning. Many believers, today, frequent motion picture theaters. In the distant past, it was a taboo-place, avoided as much as a bar room by Holy men and women of God.
When I was a kid the neighbors invited me to go to the movies with them. Mom and Dad said "no." Then, a few weeks later, they invited me again. "It's the Ten Commandments...surely your folks will let you go...it's a Bible movie??" Well, I thought Mom and Dad were pretty off track because they still said, "No!."
Years later when I finally saw the Ten Commandments and had become a Bible student, I saw how free Hollywood had been with the story. They played with some of the miracles and threw in some fictional allurements...they showed a sick man being carried out in the Exodus...which proved they had never studied the Bible much. The Bible says there wasn't a feeble one among them. [See Psalms 105:37] God healed or raised up the people, during the Passover, or before.
But, some time ago the Lord revealed to me why Christians who are truly wise don't hang around the theater...even to see a Christian Movie.
It IS good that believers are trying to witness to movie audiences. That is good. Movie goers are a vast audience of needy people. Thank the Lord that Billy Graham has often put his movies in a local theater to reach the lost. Even though the main Hollywood distributers wouldn't touch his movies with a ten foot pole, he was able to get certain local theaters to show the Hiding Place and some of his other movies.
But, are believers wise to frequent the theater for entertainment?? Here's why I find it very unwise:
I became the personal friend of a theater owner. I also had theater patrons and even a theater projectionist who attended the church where I pastored. I myself went to visit the theater owner in his office, many times.
The projectionist, the patrons and even the theater owner had to deal with supernatural happenings of darkness while they were in that theater!! The members of my church came and told me the fearful things that happened while in that theater.
One lady ran out of that theater overcome by fear. Another time the projectionist became temporarily disoriented and insane. He ran from the theater, jumped in his car driving on the wrong side of the road all the way home!
Fear and evil happenings would occur in that place. I could feel the evil in that building. Several times, when I went to the owner's basement office to visit him and try and be a witness, a strange thing would happen. All the lights in the building would go out and the owner would use some strong words and wander off in the darkness to find the electric panel. The building was not using much electricity. There was no power overload! But more than once, a few moments after I, a pastor, entered... the lights all went out!! He and I were the only ones in that building. It was like a dark hand, in anger, turned off the electricity to disrupt my visit!!
One day the Lord showed me what was really going on. This is a revelation. You may not be able to receive this revelation because the Holy Spirit is the only one who can give a revelation. I am not The Revealer. The Holy Spirit is. But, if the precious Spirit of God is allowed to touch you, perhaps you may be able to catch what the Lord showed me. But, I do not have the power to reveal it...only to repeat what I was shown.
1. Motion pictures create negative emotions in the viewing audience: anger, hate, lust, bitterness, envy, jealously, fear, murder, violence and confusion. Audiences want to feel strong emotions. The special effects art has become so polished that Hollywood can make it look like something really, truely happened. Our eyes can be convinced we are watching the real thing. Hollywood is better than NASA at making space movies!!
2. The eye-gate is a powerful doorway into the emotions of mankind. Through the eye-gate hate, lust, greed and all other negative emotions can be ignited like an inferno!!
3. Fallen angels, working for Satan, live and thrive and grow in power on negative and hurtful emotions. They therefore congregate in and around any place where human beings have negative emotions in massive amounts. A motion picture theater, because there is a never-ending supply of humanity there having negative emotions, is a choice spot for demons. Dark powers feed on negative emotions. Like blood in the ocean attracts sharks....hate and lust and confusion attract evil spirits! This is what was happening at the minor-league baseball game I happened to attend. As the player's felt anger dark spirits began to gather, to feed and influence. Thankfully a few men kept the others from a total knock-down drag-out fight.
4. These beings of darkness hang around the theater. For them a theater is a feeding station. A theater is like a shark feeding zone. It is a perfect place for an evil being to wait for a meal of lust and a victim to go home with.
Because of all the darkness in today's motion pictures the theater has become a church of darkness filled with angels of darkness that congregate, waiting for a body and/or mind to follow home. They need a person to oppress or to attach to, so that they can more fully feel the dark emotions. They look for a person, be it child or adult who has some kind of spiritual door left unlocked. The strong emotions in a movie unlock spiritual doors. A feeling of hate opens a door. A feeling of wrong desire opens a door. A desire to hurt the villian opens a door.
Why would any parent want to take their little child to see a "G" rated Disney movie in a place filled with congregating princes and principalities leftover from the "R" rated movie shown the night before???? These evil beings are just waiting to torture a child, to invade the life of a teenager. Why would any believer want to go to a church of evil?? That is what the Lord revealed a movie theater is, a house of evil and wrong spirits.
"Well, that was pretty unpopular, Clint!! That was pretty narrow minded, too. What a small thinker you are, Clint...I guess your parents really brain washed you. And here you are trying to rob everyone of a little relaxation and fun watching a good movie, or going to a baseball game!! How narrow and old fashioned can you get?? That kind of thinking went out with all those religious fuddy duddies that used to hang around the church, until they all died. Clint, you need to get some counseling. You're like some superstitous native in Africa who is afraid of the witch doctor. I suppose you hear voices too, Clint. Get real!!!"
Well, I told you this was a revelation and I'm not the Holy Spirit. God showed me this. And when God speaks I try to listen, even if it isn't popular or acceptable to our modern culture.
I can say this: "Thank the Lord for Mom and Dad!!" They WERE very, very correct about keeping me away from a place that might have eternally changed my destiny from life to death. They didn't brain wash me....they saved me from untold difficulties and wrong ideas about the Lord and the Bible. They didn't want Hollywood to be my Sunday School teacher. They didn't want Hollywood's slant on the Ten Commandments invading my being.
My family watched one of these new movies that is being shown in theaters as a "Christian witness." They brought the video home. They were really excited about this end-time movie being shown to sinners.
After they watched it they told me that the movie was way out of wack...way off from the Bible, even inaccurate. They were disappointed. Even believers trying to make movies for the theater are sometimes having great difficulty. In order to get it past the Hollywood distributors you have to sometimes compromise the Word of God!!
Dear believer who loves to take in a movie at the theater, have you ever thought that the theater might me one reason you can't get closer to the Lord?? Could it be that confusion, or doubt or depression, or anxiety, or lust or one of those other bad spirits has walked out of the theater and come home with you for a visit??? Those evil beings love to oppress you...whisper to you...make you desire something out of order, tease you with darkness, hamper your devotions, make you angry. The theater is one of the most successful tools that darkness has, when you think clearly about it.
And remember...the videos you watch at home and on satellite can be just as distructive! Contrary to popular belief, most material that isn't suitable for young children is NOT suitable for we adults as well. God wants us to have the tender, pure heart of a child. We can't have that kind of a heart if we drink in so called "adult videos." Adult videos open people up to the demonic.
Think about it, better yet PRAY ABOUT IT.
clint