Sermon Central
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What Hollywood Wants You To Believe... Series
Contributed by Jason Cole on Mar 12, 2007 (message contributor)
Summary: One of the biggest influences on our society is Hollywood and the messages that they bring us are not always in line with the Word of God. They have an agenda that is clear, how can we distinguish what is right in a world flooded with all sorts of messag
What Hollywood Wants You to Believe
Introduction:
Our culture is greatly influenced by Hollywood. This morning I want to talk about some things that Hollywood wants you to believe. When I say Hollywood, I guess I am referring to our culture as a whole because Hollywood seems almost symbolic to others of what American culture really is. It seems that so much of our society revolves around the philosophies and ideas of Hollywood. Young children and adults alike set their role models after people on that they see on Television. Kids grow up wanting to be just like these Hollywood stars and they want to imitate their lives in every way. It seems that not a day goes by that you do not hear on the news of the moral decline of some of the country’s biggest celebrities. We have learned over the past few years that these stars think that they are above the law and that they can get away with anything. They seem to constantly compromise their morals.
I firmly believe that Hollywood has been a big influence in the moral decline of our nation because society has bitten into many of the lies that these stars would like you to believe.
The bottom line is that Hollywood and our culture want you to bite into their lies and accept their philosophies. They want you to do so because their whole existence and their profits exist by the fact that people are continually buying into the cultural ideas that they want you to believe and the lifestyle which the live by example.
We as people tend to model ourselves after our role models. Today instead of parents caring for their children and teaching them right from wrong and morals Hollywood has become their teacher and primary caregiver. And no wonder Hollywood has such a great influence, American’s own more televisions than they do bathtubs.
Last week I talked about some things that the Devil wants you to believe, and I think that this message is closely linked and hard to separate. I believe that the Devil is closely linked to Hollywood and is in some ways a tool that he uses to manipulate people away from God. Obviously the things that I am going to mention today are generalities that may not describe everyone associated with Hollywood and certainly will not cover ever lie, which Hollywood wants you to believe. The reason I share these messages is so that you will be on your guard and so that you may know the truth.
Text: I John 2:15-17
I. That Faith is Not Intelligent
One of the main lies that comes out of Hollywood is the idea that it is not intelligent to have faith. Many of Hollywood’s biggest stars have ridiculed the church and mocked those who believe in God.
a. God does not exist
One lie in which our culture wants us to believe is that God does not exist at all and that no person with real intelligence can accept a belief in God. I believe the opposite though. I believe that having a belief in God is an intelligent choice. I believe that no matter what our culture tells us God does exist. Paul in Romans chapter one says, that the creation itself proves that there is a God. Belief in God is logical. Our culture wants to in any way, whether through lies, deceit, or mockery cause you to not believe in God. The facts though continue to pour in that there is something more. Some say they cannot believe in God because they cannot see him physically, but that is where faith comes into play. I cannot see air, but I know it is there because we see and feel its effects. We know God is there because we see and feel His effects.
b. God is not the Creator
Your children sit in High School biology classes hearing a teacher teach a theory called evolution as if it was totally provable. The truth is though, that no matter how many textbooks are written, evolution is a theory and nothing more. In fact, it is becoming less and less believable as time wears on. I don’t know about you, but I am not so quick to jump on the bandwagon of the idea that we evolved from some sort of ooze and from monkeys.
Our culture wants you to believe that God is not the creator of life and the creator of the Universe, but it is the best explanation that there could be. Our culture wants you to believe that you evolved from a pile of ooze into a human and that we do not have an intelligent creator. We know though that God spoke the Heaven’s into existence.
