Tinsel Town and Cartoon Christians

SCRIPTURE:  “Nevertheless the solid foundation of God stands, having this seal:  “The Lord knows those who are His,” and, “Let everyone who names the name of Christ depart from iniquity.”  2 Tim. 2:19 NKJV

The world is full of distortions and caricatures—bizarre cartoonish drawings of people, usually.  These distorted likenesses give a warped picture of the person’s nose, ears, or forehead, or maybe their chin, if these are unusually sizable on that person.  Not surprisingly, the unsightly list of things wrong within the Christ-professing visible church are not off-limits to the Hollywood screenwriters.  Inasmuch as the world is indeed “under the sway of the wicked one,” we should never be unsettled about how diabolically the enemy fights against God’s divine truth,  or even mere objectivity; he never presents the full or complete picture—only a distorted one. (shocker!)

The devil  is the father of all lies, says John 8:44; he accuses us who believe on Christ Jesus to the Father Day and night. (Rev. 12:9, 10) He has deceived the masses of humanity from the days of Adam and Eve until now.  Believers in Christ, who regularly read, study, and know what God’s Word plainly teaches, are no strangers to the distortions, publicized or simply verbalized, of God’s Word and God’s people—the church.  We should therefore fret not over these caricatures of the church, which have  escalated over the past few decades in dramatic television series, movies, etc.  

What should we make of these gross misrepresentations of the Christian church?  I would hope that the true members of the body of Christ would see these Hollywood-generated depictions as divinely permitted motivations for repentance!  We cannot, nor should we expect “goats,” as referenced in Matthew 25:32, 33, and false prophets to repent; but we can certainly use those caricatures as “mirrors” of what we should recoil from being!  There is coming a day when we will all stand before the true and living holy God of all to give an account of how we ourselves lived in these last and evil days.  Remember, the Spirit says in Proverbs 16:4 [Amplified version] that “The Lord has made everything [to accommodate itself and contribute] to its own end and  His own purpose—even the wicked [are fitted for their role] for the day of calamity and evil.””  

PRAYER:  Precious Savior God, You indeed know those who are Yours. (2 Tim. 2:19; Nahum 1:7)  As we purpose to make our calling and election sure, help us to resolve for ourselves that we will in no wise resemble or practice the behaviors and speech of those who are merely “caricaturized Christians.”

(By Sis. Denise Diggs)