Pop Culture or Prophecy? – There is no Contest

Cultural phenomenon has broad and ever changing definitions quite simply due to its ever changing nature. What is popular today will be forgotten tomorrow. The word of God and its prophetic message will never change because it emanates from the heart of the Living God. Its definition alone indicates its immutability. All prophecy is the forth telling of the will and counsel of God for all time, past, present and future.

This generation, more than any in history has come to believe that a popular movement, notion or practice is given credence and substance by the sheer number of people that have chosen to accept it, adhere to it, or adopt it as their own. The notion that so many people can’t be wrong is exposed by God’s word as the very opposite of what it is denoting. “Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil; neither shalt thou speak in a cause to decline after many to wrest judgment.” (Ex 23: 2) Popular ideas about who Christ is, theology and final judgment will always lead to a perverted and dangerous error that will cost more than a silly, drugged, dopey and sottish world really wants to pay. “There is safety in numbers” doesn’t work when we see that one day, all men will stand alone before the judgment seat of Christ.

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Using the popularity of any matter to give it credence is a mistake that seems to be part and parcel of this generation. What sweeps is for keeps, is an idea that has slipped in or ‘crept in’ on this generation and not many have taken notice. We feed ourselves with, best-selling books, American idols, mega-church pastors and movements, popular celebrities; craze purchasing, nascent explanations of old standards and general nonsense re-packaging. Sadly it works; many get onboard of the latest only because it is - ‘the latest.’ Often it is offering a new found source that is used to dismiss long held beliefs or the revealed Word of God itself. Bill O’Reilly’s ‘Killing Jesus’ is based on the idea that referencing only scholars and historians is a step above trusting the historicity of the Bible alone. Chosen Apostles and eye witnesses are set aside for the historian, the scholar or the debater. This is weakness posing as Charles Atlas and it is the pop-culture’s common wisdom of the day - posing as the wisdom of the ages. John Hagee is embroiled in the debate of who first discovered or introduced the ‘Blood Red Moons’ and while the controversy rages few have noticed that there is only one blood red moon that needs to be taken seriously and it is not an astronomical event at all, but an interventional act of God. When its not a newfound source for truth that sweeps into popularity it is often the discovery that the strictness of the Bible does not allow for modern notions of inclusion or political correctness. Kirsten Powers of Fox News is an example of this pattern. She is not alone; many believers have dismissed the severe warnings against homosexual practices to support its inclusion into Christianity. It is a deadly error that in the end will cost more than can be imagined. When whole churches or denominations change God’s word to fit their ideas on inclusion and popular notions we are entering into the well prophesied ‘apostasy’ (falling away) that the Bible so clearly warns us about. It is one of the last things to happen before the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. The recent vote of the Presbyterian Church USA is, but one example of mass changes in church polity that illustrates the new push to apostasy, but the 1.8 million Presbyterians who voted for accepting “gay marriage’ are now part of the very fulfilment of Christ’s words – itself an all-encompassing prophecy. To wit: “Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat.” (Mt 7: 13)