The Sinister Side of Secular Christmas in Hallmark Holiday Movies - Purity 1523

Welcome to the MT4Christ 24/7 podcast. I'm M.t. Clark, and this is today's photo. To see today's photo, go to mt4christ.com or follow me, M.t. Clark, on Facebook or Twitter, or watch us on YouTube. Good morning. Today's photo of the sun shining over snow-covered farmlands at the edge of the forest on Waite Road in Easton, New York, comes to us from yours truly as I captured this winter wonderland Overland scene back on the morning of Saturday, November 29th. Well, it's Saturday, and while we may look at today's photo and admire its tranquil beauty, we should also realize that nature's reality sometimes defies the expectations of man, as our calendars would tell us that the first day of winter isn't until December 21st. But the snow on the ground and the freezing or near-freezing temperatures we are experiencing lately in Upstate New tells us that although winter is coming, it is also already here. Similarly, Christmas doesn't arrive until December 25th, but the signs of Christmas, the Christmas decorations on the streets and on people's homes, the Christmas music on the radio and in stores, and the Christm— the Christmas-themed foods and merchandise on display in stores and at restaurants tell us that Christmas is coming and in many ways It is already here. One of the other signs of Christmas that you can actually enjoy year-round, because some people do, is the genre of Hallmark Christmas-themed romances or rom-com movies. As a full-blooded American male, I was only mildly aware of this phenomenon in the past, as I never, I never watched them before, and only became aware of the vastness of this genre Through hearing about my sister-in-law Kat's obsession with watching Hallmark holiday movies, my taste in movies were a lot less wholesome in the past, and I had no, absolutely no interest in watching them. However, as I've continued to follow the Lord and studied spiritual warfare, I increasingly have become convicted over what I put before my eyes for entertainment and recently started to watch Hallmark movies with my wife, Tammy Lynn, who is also a big fan of Hallmark's holiday and non-holiday movies. After watching a few non-Christmas Hallmark romance movies with my wife, I decided that they were a lot more wholesome than the horror, science fiction, and action movies I normally watched, and they provided an easy way to enjoy spending time with my wife. However, as we moved into the Christmas season, Tammy Lynn, uh, naturally started to watch the Christmas Hallmark movies. Last night after enjoying a Hallmark Christmas movie that combined Christmas, time travel, and romance. Uh, second, more contemporary timed, uh, Hallmark Christmas movie— movies opening scenes triggered a chilling realization. From my limited experience, I surmise that Hallmark Christmas movies are not really about Christmas. Um, from my limited experience, I concluded that Hallmark Christmas movies are not necessarily Christian and may be subtly putting forth a false gospel of fulfillment through finding the right relationship or finding the right situation for circumstantial happiness. As much as the Christmas decorations and themes may provide the backdrop for these romance and romantic com— comedies, I realized that there was no mention of the name of Jesus Christ. Suddenly my opinion of holiday— Hallmark holiday movies shifted as I realized that these movies had nothing to do with Jesus, as they were merely celebrating the trappings of secular Christmas, the lights, the gift-giving, winter, sentimentality, and the love of family, friends, and romance. But we're silent on speaking about the love of God, the need of Jesus as a savior, and the desire to live according to God's word. This morning, as I was sharpening up my axe to grind against secular Christmas entertainment for its idol worship of sentimentality, empty traditions, and romance in general, My sense of horror was increased as I discovered that Hallmark, Lifetime, and Netflix and other studios have not only produced tons of secular Christmas romance movies, but since 2020 began to really show signs of demonic influence from which they operate when they began producing LGBTQ+ Christmas romance movies, which quite frankly enters into the areas of blasphemy. As the affirmation and promotion of sinful lifestyles at Christmas is in direct opposition to the truth of Scripture from which the true Christmas story, uh, you know, originates. Story— the true story of Christmas originates. You know, Satan is a subtle beast, and as time has progressed, he's made great advances in his campaigns against God's truth. And as bad as things have gotten in the world's increasing increasing turn towards darkness. I didn't realize that he had made such progress to twist and corrupt the season that should be spent honoring Jesus. I don't mean to ruin, uh, what could be a relatively wholesome entertainment, but Christmas movies that don't say the name of Jesus and encourage us to believe in and to put our faith in him are not Christmas movies. Rather than worrying about making the tough decision of who to date, where to live, and what to do, the characters in these movies should be concerned with whether, uh, with whether they or their potential mates have a relationship with Jesus. Rather than worrying about having the perfect Christmas celebration or finding that special someone, the characters in these films should be seeking to find the peace and joy that go beyond mere circumstances and earthly understanding that God wants them to know. The peace and joy that is found in Christ alone. So be on guard against the deceptions of secular Christmas by choosing Christian, uh, Christmas programming, or by just choosing to turn off the boob tube and to rest and reflect on God's truth in the Bible while spending time in God's presence with prayer. Today's Bible verses come to us from the Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling by John G. Crews. This morning's meditation verses come from the section on Homosexuality. And today's verses are Romans 1:24-32. From the NIV, the word of God says, therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator. Who is forever praised. Amen. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lust. Even their women engaged on— engaged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way, the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with one— with other men and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind so that they do not do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant, and boastful. They invent ways of doing evil. They disobey their parents. They have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. Although they know God's righteous decree that that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them. Today's verses fall under the fifth point of our Counseling Reference Resource section on homosexuality. That fifth point is: God's wrath is revealed against all of the godlessness and wickedness of men, including homosexuality. Today's Bible verses reveal that God's standards of righteousness didn't change with the revelation of Jesus Christ. Here, Romans directly exposes homosexuality as unnatural, shameful, and worthy of punishment, and that all sinful activities lead those who have surrendered to them to actively rebel against God's ways and to promote their ways of evil. In my past, I shamefully contributed to the corruption of others by encouraging their drunkenness and sexual immorality as I wrongly believed that there was nothing, uh, there was nothing wrong with those activities and was actively engaged in doing those activities on a continual basis. So I know that these verses in Romans are true about us. Depraved men set, sets up anything to oppose God, and they promote the sins they do. I know this from God's word and from what I did as someone who was surrendered to a depraved mind. But thankfully, the Lord opened my eyes to the truth of the gospel, welcomed me into his kingdom through Jesus Christ, and mercifully exposed, exposed the truth about my former darkness. Many Christians hesitate to call sin for what it is in other people's lives, generally because they don't want to appear to be unloving, but I think it is also because they haven't repented of their own sins. Because they don't think that freedom from sin is possible, they haven't asked God for help to be set free or have given up in their attempts to be more like Jesus. They remain silent about others' sins of the flesh. But that's not being loving. If someone is sick, you tell them about their disease and you tell them about the cure. Sin in all its forms and death is the disease, and faith in Jesus Christ and repentance through the Holy Spirit is the cure. So Let the word of God and the Holy Spirit convict you of your sin and choose to turn from it. Stand in the truth of who you are in Christ and walk towards the Lord for help and healing. Who the Son sets free is free indeed. But to experience the abundant life that God has for you, you must pick up your cross and follow him. As always, we encourage everyone to go to mtforchrist.com, where we always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist our brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk. Today we continue sharing from Day by Day Along the Way by J.E. Adams. It's a 365-day devotional. We're on day 22, and where Adams shares, uh, Proverbs 5:21, which says, a man's ways are before Yahweh, and he considers— is that right? Yeah, day 22, my bad. He considers all his tracks. Yeah. Should you imagine— J.E. Adams writes, should you imagine that God ever turns his attention from you because he is involved in some more important matter? Proverbs makes it clear that this is not so. Your ways, your tracks are always in view. God is omnipresent, everywhere at the same time, and omniscient, knows all things at every moment. That is why your life is ever within his purview. That there are no limitations upon God's ability to know, apprehend, and evaluate what you are up to at any given time. You should reach two conclusions from these facts. First, you can never get away with anything. God knows all you do, think, or say. Second, er, he knows your attitudes and your complaints. You are utterly transparent to him. So don't fool yourself into thinking otherwise. You are known. As a result, keep on talking to the one who considers all your tracks and confess your sin regularly. Second, knowing all your ways means that God is ever-present to meet your needs. He knows precisely all that is going on in your life, so he is able to help in time of trial, stress, difficulty, confusion, or whatever. Turn to him anytime. About anything. He knows, he listens. There are two sides to every door. Amen. And yeah, God knows what you're doing. He knows when you're sleeping, he knows when you're awake. He's not Santa Claus. It's the Lord God Almighty who sets the standard of righteousness, and he's— and he will judge you. So he wants you to walk in his ways. And the good news is it's not just he's watching you to catch you in sin. He's, he's watching you because he loves you and he cares about you. That means he'll be there with you when you need him, that you can lean on him for strength and guidance and love. So there's the good part. You know, we don't have to— you know, instead of worrying about our sins, we should turn from them and turn to God, to his ways and the help he provides for us. That's why we always ask the question: have you fully surrendered to God? I was desperately wicked. I was a drunk and sexually immoral. And, uh, that was most of my life. And luckily, thankfully, the Lord opened my eyes to the truth of, uh, the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I put my faith in him for the forgiveness of my sins, which were many. And, you know, I thought that was the end of the story, but, um, God led me into repentance as well and turning away from my darkness. And, uh, I never thought it was possible, but through Christ, anything is possible. And he set me free. That's why we do the blog, to encourage other people to know that they can actually be free in Christ and live a Christian life. Um, never thought I could, but we're doing it, and it's only because of Christ that we're able to. Um, he leads— led me out of the darkness and into a life of, uh, you know, increasing righteousness and peace. And, um, you know, he led me into a purpose, and one of those purposes is to lead the Celebrate Freedom support group at Starpoint Church on Wednesday nights at :30 PM. It's for any, anyone, uh, in Upstate New York who can get to Starpoint Church on a Wednesday. We're in the K-3rd grade classroom, and we invite you to join us for a Christian Recovery and Discipleship support group. Beyond that, uh, we're doing an online support group for men Mondays at 6:30 PM Eastern Time, where we're doing, uh, a little study called Grace for the Holidays as we're doing the Grace Course from Freedom in Christ Ministries. Um, 6 lessons on discipleship and God's grace. And, uh, you know, we're halfway through our study, but the registration for that's still open as we recorded the session. So anyone can join at any time, um, basically to be a part of it, as we would give you access to all the recordings that we have, um, even if you can't join our fellowship. So if you're interested, men, sign up, uh, before Christmas, because I think I'll close it after that. Um, doesn't make sense to sell grace for the holidays year-round, even though I guess you can do that. But I'll consider it. Um, maybe we'll leave it on the website anyway. Um, beyond that, we are doing Freedom in Christ, uh, the Freedom in Christ course online, uh, Tuesdays in the new year. But guess what? I'm not sharing the slide on that anymore because the registration is closed. We've reached the, the tipping point of a full class, and so guys, you're out of luck. But you're not out of luck. Um, there's always other, other Freedom in Court— uh, well, there are other courses available through Freedom in Christ Ministries. Go to ficm.org to check those out. Or if you want, you can check out the ones I did on our podcast. Um, on our YouTube channel, we have playlists for The Bondage Breaker, Victory Over the Darkness, Freedom in Christ, and Celebrate Free Our Ohm Celebrate Freedom discipleship course for you to enjoy and hopefully find or increase your freedom in Christ. Um, that's that, and that's the end of the podcast where we always ask, are you empty for Christ too? All that means is, um, that you've decided to follow the Lord, uh, in spirit and truth and to repentance and, uh, further into the person he's made you to be. Um, we hope the answer is yes, and if so, we say keep on walking and talking with God. And if not, we encourage you to pray and ask for God to you, because we know prayer works. That's why we pray every day, like right now. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. Lord, we thank you so much, um, for all you do. We thank you for the truth of the true Christmas story, um, that Jesus came for sinners, died for us, and, um, and we have new eternal life through faith in him. That's the meaning of Christmas, Lord. And we thank you for that. And, uh, we'll try to expose that truth even where secular Christmas is celebrated. We're gonna put forth your name. So we need your help to be bold and courageous and do that. And, uh, Lord, we need you to be with us every day. So we're asking for your help. We're also asking for the, you know, you to help anyone who's reading or listening this message to, uh, to follow you as well, Lord, because we all want to represent you in your kingdom and do what's right, but we need a lot of help with that. So We're asking for that today. Lord, we thank you, we praise you, and we love you. And we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.