Sources of Influence – Protecting Your Spiritual and Mental
Health – Purity 761
Purity 761 06/18/2022 Purity 761 Podcast
Good morning,
Today’s photo of blue skies and clouds over some green
rolling hills comes to us from yours truly as I paused to enjoy a quiet moment to
recognize the beauty of God’s creation while I was travelling through Schodack
Landing NY while at work on June 10th.
Well, we made it to the weekend and it is my prayer that all
of my friends will take some time this weekend to enjoy some quiet moments to
enjoy what the Lord has provided them with and to realize just how wonderful
our lives truly are.
You know when I took today’s photo I thought I was capturing
just a wonderful scene to share and it is but when I looked at it this morning
I thought it was a little darker than I thought it was and I was tempted to
edit it to lighten it up a little to enhance the beauty of the scene. But I
decided against it. I decided to share it for what it was, a simple roadside
view of the sky and hill country in rural Schodack Landing, with no
filter.
On Saturday’s my pace in composing my daily encouragements is
different. As I weekend with my wife in rural Easton NY, the location of my
writing space is different, the available internet speed is slower, my routine
is different , and because I don’t have to rush out to work at five to seven I
am not in as much of a rush to “get er done”.
Because of all these different factors and due to what may be a tendency toward attention deficit disorder, I tend to get
distracted when I sit down to pray, study the Bible, and blog. In truth, what is a systematic process of
chronological steps during the week becomes a blending of all my practices at
once on Saturdays.
When I am at my place down by the River, I waken, exercise,
pray, study the Bible, write the blog. But
at my country side home, the facilities, for and my motivation to exercise, is
different and is abandoned but that loss of activity is somewhat replaced by
walking the dog at lease once, sometimes two and three times a day, down Waite
Road, so I don’t sweat that too much, Oh puns…
While I am at casa de countryside, my prayer and Bible study are
still part of my daily spiritual practice but when I pray at my River House I do
it from a meditation cushion, so prayer is on the cushion, and Bible Study is
at the desk. There is not meditation
cushion at Countryside, nor will there be, there just isn’t enough space for
one in my very literal “prayer closet”. So prayer and Bible study are both done
at the small desk that my wife has provided me with.
So on Saturday’s I pray like I usually do and read the Bible but
the two sometimes are blended together and derailed because I will get
distracted by emails or news items that grab my attention when I go to my phone
to get the photo of the day. This
morning as I shifted from prayer, to Bible study, to getting today’s photo, and
Bible verse, I saw a story on Axios.com that proclaimed “America’s belief in
God Hits New Low” (https://www.axios.com/2022/06/17/belief-god-low-gallup-poll)
and within that short article was a link to another article from April of 2021,
that was titled: “America is losing it’s religion” (https://www.axios.com/2021/04/07/americans-less-religious-gallup-poll).
Both stories were disconcerting because they report statistics that indicate
that our society is increasingly becoming more atheistic as more people today don’t
believe in God and don’t belong to a house of worship than they did in the not
too distant past.
I provide the links if you want to check out the numbers that
reveal this trend but frankly I wouldn’t bother. What?!? Why not? Don’t you care? Don’t you
even care?!?!
Of course I care! But the reason I tell you that you may not
want to bother is not because I think this is “fake news” but because this is
old news. The numbers that these two
articles that were written in 2021, and just “20 hours ago” as I write this,
are reporting data that is from Gallup poles in 2017! That’s 5 years ago guys.
I was upset by those numbers in 2017, or 2018, whenever I first
heard of them and that information hasn’t changed nor has my concerned for our
ever increasingly post Christian society.
Those numbers were bad in 2017 but I can only imagine that the numbers
would be worse today.
The data they draw from is 5 years old. It was before Covid-19. And although I don’t
have a Gallup pole to report from, I can tell you that from my personal observations
at my local church, some people stopped attending church when Covid dropped and
they haven’t come back.
In ages past, Christians would stay and care for the sick. During plagues, plagues guys, where people
were dropping dead left and right and medical technology was not what it was todays,
Christians didn’t abandon the sick and they certainly didn’t abandon the church
because they knew that whether they lived or died they were secure in God’s
hands.
Anyway, that crisis caused a big decrease in church
attendance and I shudder to think what a Gallup pole performed today would have
to tell us about the state of faith in our nation.
One of the articles stated that those who now report
themselves as “none” seem to adopt politics or social justice movements as a
replacement for religion and that the language they use reveals their faith in
a political candidate or a special interest group to affect the changes they
feel they need.
After seeing that and entering into a “news zone” I saw how
the “click bait” of current news stories would inflame the fears or outrage of
people who held certain political or moral stands. There was a story about a victim of incest
dying after they were refused an abortion. There was a story about a police
officer commenting how they would lose their gun again after being involved in
a shooting at a crisis call. There was a story about a political figure declaring
the need to reduce green house gas emissions.
And on and on it went, stories reporting “the facts” – the ones that
interested me were 5 year old facts” – but they all could be seen to inflame a different
segment of our society to outrage or fear.
And so, I decided to write about this – and no I don’t want
to raise your ire about “fake news”, but I wanted to highlight how what we put
before our eyes and what we think about can influence our mental and spiritual
health.
The stories I clicked upon about decreasing faith in America,
regardless of the age of the data, could cause me to react in several
ways. I could be drawn to despair because
people seem to be turning away from God in increasing numbers or I could be inspired
and motivated to go and share the gospel with a society that so desperately
needs the good news.
But I don’t want to just hit the “straw man” that is the
media. As I reported in a previous post,
the media gives people what gets ratings and report on the things that will
shock and cause people to be drawn in and keep watching. That fact, too is “old
news” but may have gotten a little worse by the networks producing news that
caters to certain political leanings. But
that’s A new spin on an old story.
I’m not here to attack the news. I would encourage you to be
discerning, reduce, or abandon the news all together. Today’s photo of rolling hills in the country
side shows no ill effects of our “world falling apart” and if you travel to the
country you can see areas that have been relatively untouched by change. Today’s stories that are so compelling will
fade away. And the stories of national interest, in truth, only actually affect
the people who are dealing with those situations on a local level. I don’t mean to sound uncompassionate but a
lot of the horrors that are reported will not touch your life but they can touch
and disturb your mind and your heart.
The ability to media to influence our thoughts and emotions
also extends to the things we turn to for entertainment. The world system that is anti-Christ is
revealed in more than just the “evil that men do” that is reported on the
news.
Movies, television/streaming dramas, and “reality tv” can
also drive our thoughts and emotions to places that would draw us away from the
righteous living that is prescribed in the Bible.
Lustful, violent, and positive depictions of drug use is
changing hearts and minds to accept things that were taboo in the past and have
always been classified as sin in God’s word.
Programs glorify drug use, adulterous relationships, aberrant sexual
practices, and seeking revenge or “justice” through violent means of :not
getting mad” but getting even. Seeing these
things performed on television turns into seeing these things in our society as
it is a reflection of what is already happening but also encourages these things
to be repeated through their promotion. Seeing
sin will encourage others to let go of their restraint and do it for themselves. Or seeing sin will cause us to hate those
who sin and cause us to live in fear.
All of this stuff that the world dishes out can influence our
behavior, our thoughts, our emotions and our entire worldview. What the world
dishes out doesn’t give us peace.
I grew up in the 80’s for most of my childhood and the threat
of nuclear annihilation was the soup du jour in our media at the time. The
threat of impending doom cause fear and a hopelessness in my life. I wasn’t
sure who I was, or what I wanted to be, and in light of the possibility of
being killed in a nuclear holocaust those concerns seemed utterly
pointless. So I, like many others, sought
to live for today and not worry about tomorrow because it didn’t matter anyway,
right, and sought to get my kicks with sex, drugs, and alcohol before the world
came to an end.
The problem was that it was a lie. The world didn’t end and what I did with my
life did matter. The choices I made
matter not only because they resulted in positive or negative consequences but I
later realized they mattered to God, as scripture speaks of rewards for the
righteous and judgement for those who reject Christ that are based on the
choices we make. Our lives matter to
God.
He sent Christ to save us to prove He exists and wants to
have a relationship with us where we can have peace and live with Him forever. So put your faith in Jesus Christ,
continually, and know the peace that comes from the Lord.
But while we are here on the earth, we also have to seek to
protect ourselves from the media that can influence us and drive us to fear or
despair.
Somewhere along the line in my pre Christ existence,
somewhere after the death of my son in 2002, I watched the television movie “The
Day After” a post nuclear war television film that was made in 1983. Now
granted this was probably during the 2-3 year depression I was mired in in the
traumatic loss of my son but, I remember that after watching that movie how the
old fears of nuclear annihilation came to the forefront of my mind and how it
transformed my perception of a world causing me to see it as a place plagued
with suffering, devoid of meaning, and filled with violence and death. These were some dark days in my mental health
because I had suffered loss and was influenced by the things I decided to
watch. That movie had caused me to
question what point of living was and I viewed the brightest days through a
lense that made everything grey. A
simple film seen at the wrong time change my worldview into utter hopelessness.
Well luckily, those bad times and that trauma of loss, caused
me to seek the truth of life and death and caused me to seek spiritual answers
to these existential questions. And
because I sought the truth, even though I took detours that were dead ends, the
Lord was gracious and revealed it to me. God revealed His love for me and the world though
Christ. He care enough about us to send His only begotten sun to die for us and
His word instructs us to focus on Him.
Philippians 4:8-9 (NKJV) says
8 Finally, brethren, whatever
things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are
just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely,
whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if
there is anything praiseworthy--meditate on these things.
9 The things which you
learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace
will be with you.
God cares about our spiritual and mental health. He wants us
to focus on the good rather than the evil. He wants us to live our lives
according to the things we can learn from His word. And when we turn our attention to the things
that are true, noble, just pure, and lovely and shape our lives to follow the
example of Christ and according to the wisdom contained in God’s word, we will experience
the presence of the God of peace in our lives.
So repent from what you have been allowing to influence your
mind, will, and emotions. Turn yours eyes and thoughts away from the things
that would lead you to sin or cause you to fear and despair. Instead draw close
to God and keep walking and talking with Him.
The more we know Him, who are in Christ, and make the daily decision to
live by the truth of God’s world that more peace we will know.
Seek God and you will find peace. God bless you and have a
great weekend.
______________________________________________________________
Today’s Bible verse does not come to us from “The NLT Bible
Promise Book for Men”, because I left it at my home down by the River. While I
had an idea to just go to the next verse sequentially from yesterday’s verse, I
received an email from a member of my church who pointed in me to Psalm 84 as
an encouragement to me to meditate on God’s word in preparation for serving on
the prayer team at my local church tomorrow. So I decided to share the first
four verse from Psalm 84 as
This morning’s meditation verse:
Psalm 84:1-4 (NLT2)
1
How
lovely is your dwelling place, O LORD
of Heaven’s Armies.
2
I
long, yes, I faint with longing to enter the courts of the LORD. With my whole being, body and
soul, I will shout joyfully to the living God.
3
Even
the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow builds her nest and raises her young
at a place near your altar, O LORD
of Heaven’s Armies, my King and my God!
4
What
joy for those who can live in your house, always singing your praises. Interlude
Today’s
Bible verses reminds us that the house of the Lord is to be a place of joy and
that it is to be a home away from home in our hearts.
If
you didn’t know, going to church is supposed to be a joyful experience. For many of you that may be a surprise. But
unfortunately, the vast majority of “Christians” don’t know who they are in
Christ, nor their freedom in Christ, experientially because they have categorized
“religion” as a separate part of their lives that is relegated to a day of
worship rather than applied to the entirety of their life.
That’s often due to ignorance,( they never knew
how to live the Christian life), choice, (they would rather live like the world-
“not be holier than thou” ), or due to the simple fact that they have never
made Christ their Lord and Savior (they were in a church but not part of the
body of Christ).
Not
for nothing, but the joy of my salvation is an endless resource of joy. The
fact of our salvation, that we are accepted by God, is the single most important
thing about us and the great value of our relationship with God should our
thoughts and cause us to continually give Him thanks and praise.
So
reflect on what the Lord has done, for you, for others, for the world, and know
how good it is to be part of His kingdom and to have the opportunity to gather
with others to worship Him.
We
are commanded to love God with all of our hearts, minds, souls and strength so
if you don’t know what that is like let me encourage you to seek to know the
Lord more and to know who you are in Christ.
Because
when you have a close relationship with the Lord through faith in Jesus Christ
you should know the love of God and be enthusiastic to express the joy of
having been accepted by Him.
When
we know His love and who we are in Christ experientially, there is joy in the
house of the Lord and they joy goes with you everywhere you go.
As
always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.org where I always share insights from
prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist my brothers and
sisters in Christ with their walk.
Today
we continue sharing from Clinton E. Arnold’s “Powers of Darkness”
As always, I share this
information for educational purposes and encourage all to purchase Clinton
Arnold’s books for your own private study and to support his
work. This resource is available on many websites for less than $20.00.
Dionysus: God of Sensual Pleasure
In
contemporary Western society Dionysus might be looked at as the ultimate “party
animal.” Most scholars refer to the three-to-five-day observance of his
mysteries as “ecstatic rites”: loud, frenzied, drunken celebration. One ancient
observer summed up the revelry in this way: “To consider nothing wrong … was
the highest form of religious devotion among them.”20 In another
sense there was a serious spiritual side to the mystery rites of Dionysus; the
mystery of Dionysus held out the promise of a blissful life in the other world
after death.
The Dionysian mysteries (also called
the Bacchanalia) were very popular at the time Christianity began to spread.
Celebrated throughout Greece, Asia Minor, Egypt and even Italy, they were
widespread. The revelry especially appealed to the lower classes, but those
from the higher social classes were also attracted. The celebration of the
mysteries of Dionysus (or Bacchus, his Roman name) provided an opportunity for
all to transcend the drabness and monotony of day-to-day life.
In 186 B.C. the Roman government
condemned this “everything goes” religion, which, however, did not abate its
ongoing popularity. In fact, prior to the time of Christ, some high-level
Romans favored this cult. Writing close to the time of Christ’s birth, the
Roman historian Livy provides us with an incredible description of the nature
of the Bacchanalia:
There
were initiations which at first were imparted only to a few; but they soon
began to be widespread among men and women. The pleasures of drinking and
feasting were added to the religious rites, to attract a larger number of
followers. When wine had inflamed their feelings, and night and the mingling of
the sexes and of different ages had extinguished all power of moral judgment,
all sorts of corruption began to be practiced, since each person had ready to
hand the chance of gratifying the particular desire to which he was naturally
inclined. The corruption was not confined to one kind of evil, the promiscuous
violation of free men and of women; the cult was also a source of supply of
false witnesses, forged documents and wills, and perjured evidence, dealing
also in poisons and in wholesale murders among the devotees, and sometimes
ensuring that not even the bodies were found for burial. Many such outrages
were committed by craft, and even more by violence; and the violence was
concealed because no cries for help could be heard against the shriekings, the
banging of drums and the clashing of cymbals in the scene of debauchery and
bloodshed.
From
the official testimony to the Roman proconsul, which resulted in the
condemnation of the cult in 186 B.C., comes this exposé:
From
the time when the rites were held promiscuously, with men and women mixed
together, and when the license offered by darkness had been added, no sort of
crime, no kind of immorality, was left unattempted. There were more obscenities
practiced between men than between men and women. Anyone refusing to submit to
outrage or reluctant to commit crimes was slaughtered as a sacrificial victim.
To regard nothing as forbidden was among these people the summit of religious
achievement. Men, apparently out of their wits, would utter prophecies with
frenzied bodily convulsions: matrons, attired as Bacchantes, with their hair
disheveled and carrying blazing torches, would run down to the Tiber.
Drunkenness
stamped the revelry of the Bacchants (those celebrating the Dionysian
mysteries). During the Roman period, wine was a key symbol of Dionysus, who was
often represented with clusters of grapes and known as the god of wine and
intoxication. No doubt this contributed significantly to the wild, uncontrolled
frenzy of the celebrations.
Sex and sensual pleasures also played
a vital role in the Bacchanalia. Another important symbol of the cult was a
wicker basket laden with fruit from which a male phallus arose. A
representation of the phallus was carried at the front of all the processions
of those celebrating the Dionysian rites. The culminating point of the mystery
initiation may have been the revelation of the phallus. It was likely a symbol
of life-giving power; and as such, it may have insured the hope of a joyous and
blissful afterlife. It is also possible that the phallus simply symbolized the
mystery and joy of sexuality.24
After the celebration of the
mysteries, a time of feasting, dancing and revelry occurred. Scattered ancient
documents report the sacrifice of live animals, taking place while the
Bacchants are wildly eating the raw, bloody parts of the animal. The reports from
Livy cited earlier give the impression of murder and possible human sacrifices.
During the Roman period, people’s
increasing concern with the afterlife made the cult of Dionysus attractive.
Initiation into the mystery of Dionysus could help the person avoid the dreaded
punishing demons (poinai) after
death. These punishing entities are often depicted as ugly winged female demons
who bring a chill of horror. The initiates did not anticipate a resurrection
after death, but a blissful life in another world filled with continuing
sensual pleasure (anticipated in the mystery celebrations).
Dozens of other gods and goddesses
could be portrayed. During the New Testament period, Isis, Mithras and others
were extremely important. My purpose, however, is not to provide a thorough
overview of Hellenistic religions, but merely to give a brief glimpse at the
practices and beliefs surrounding three deities who rivaled the Lord Jesus
Christ for adherents. The church fathers strongly believed Satan himself
animated those gods and goddesses with his powers of darkness. Their demonic
interpretation of these religions originated, in part, with the apostle Paul.
Gods and Goddesses
in the Book of Acts
While
the Pauline epistles have little explicit information about Paul’s contact with
the worship of pagan gods, Luke records some specific instances in the book of
Acts. The first encounter that Luke chooses to record occurs in south Galatia
in the city of Lystra (Acts 14:8–20). After Paul healed a crippled man, the
crowd concluded that Paul and Barnabas were an incarnation of Hermes and Zeus.
It is interesting that Barnabas is equated with Zeus, the highest god, while
Paul is associated with Hermes. Hermes was regarded as a messenger of the
greater gods, especially Zeus. Paul’s dominant role in the situation probably
garnered him this identification as the herald of Zeus. Not receiving the
response from the crowd they anticipated, Paul and Barnabas immediately
renounced their association with these pagan deities. They did not denounce the
gods as demons, but rather as “worthless things,” a common Jewish way of
referring to pagan gods. Paul pointed them to “the living God,” who is the
creator and who exercises his gracious providence for their well-being.
In Athens Paul found a point of entry
to communicate effectively to his audience based on an altar inscription, which
read: “to an unknown god” (Acts 17:16–34). By calling attention to this
inscription, he affirmed their keen spiritual interest, but redirected their
focus to the God he considered supreme—the God who is the Creator, who is
providentially sovereign, who is not a carved image of human design, who is the
judge of the world—the God who raised the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead. In
this evangelistic context, Paul did not deem it appropriate to associate the
Athenian gods with Satan and his demons, perhaps partly because such an
indictment would assume a familiarity with Jewish demonology that these
Athenians would not have understood. Furthermore, he may not have considered it
evangelistically wise to indict their gods as demonic counterfeits. We know
from his correspondence with established churches (especially Corinth),
however, that he would subsequently teach Christians about the connection
between pagan religion and the demonic.
One of the most dramatic encounters
Paul had with worshipers of a pagan deity occurred at Ephesus, the key port
city of western Asia Minor (Acts 19:23–41). Here Paul incurred the wrath of a
great mob incited by the members of a trade guild who made and sold silver
shrines of the patron deity of the city, Artemis of Ephesus. Because of a large
number of conversions to Christianity, these tradesmen perceived Paul to be a
considerable threat, not only to their business, but also to the worship of their
revered goddess. The tradesmen successfully fomented a mob scene at the
beautiful theater in Ephesus that resulted in an uproar of praise to Artemis
lasting two hours. Everyone shouted in unison: “Great is Artemis of the
Ephesians.” In spite of the mob’s fury, Paul wanted to address the crowd, but
some insistent fellow believers prevented him from doing so. Such was the
danger now present for Paul that he immediately left the city to continue his
ministry elsewhere. Significantly, in describing Paul’s nearly three-year
ministry at Ephesus, Luke chooses to write mainly about Paul’s conflict with
the followers of this pagan deity. As we noted in chapter one, it is also
important to recall the connections of this goddess with magical practices
(manipulation of spirits).
Luke records one other incident
involving pagan gods. In this instance people again had mistaken Paul as a god.
The situation occurred on the island of Malta after he was bit by a poisonous
snake and neither took ill nor died (Acts 28:1–6). When Paul was first bit,
however, the people immediately assumed the goddess Dike (Justice) was
punishing Paul for murder. Luke then says, “[the people] changed their minds
and said he was a god” (Acts 28:6), after seeing that the venom had no effect
on Paul. Luke’s account is so abbreviated at this point that he does not tell
us how Paul responded to their claims. Presumably, Paul responded in a way
similar to the Lystra situation by denying their wrongly directed adulation and
pointing to the one true God.
Finally, Luke mentions by name two
other pagan gods, Castor and Pollux, also known as “the Twin Gods” (Acts
28:11). They were the figureheads on an Alexandrian (Egypt) cargo vessel which
Paul boarded. No indication is given of Paul’s response, but Luke is interested
in mentioning this fact. These gods were popular with navigators in the ancient
world, perhaps because their constellation, Gemini, was regarded as a sign of
good fortune in a storm. This reference serves as one more reminder of the
multiplicity of deities in the New Testament world and their involvement in the
everyday life of people of that time.
The book of Acts is largely taken up
with the geographical spread of the gospel from Palestine and across the
Mediterranean lands to Rome. Luke is concerned with recording the opposition
that the pagan cults posed to the spread of the gospel, but only superficially.
He does not embark on detailed descriptions of any of the pagan cults. Neither
does he seem concerned with describing the difficulty that pagan converts faced
when reconciling their new allegiance to the risen Christ with their former
religious practices. Paul was more reflective on this issue because of his
concern to strengthen his congregations with sound teaching that is
exceptionally relevant to people who had formerly worshiped these various gods
and goddesses. Paul clearly believed these deities and their respective systems
of cultic worship are closely associated with demons.[1]
---------------------------more
tomorrow------------------------
Join
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Encouragement for the Path of Christian Discipleship
[1]
Clinton E. Arnold, Powers of Darkness: Principalities &
Powers in Paul’s Letters (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic: An Imprint
of InterVarsity Press, 1992), 43–47.
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