Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

When the people saw him, they praised their god, saying,
“Our god has delivered our enemy
    into our hands,
the one who laid waste our land
    and multiplied our slain.”
While they were in high spirits, they shouted, “Bring out Samson to entertain us.” So they called Samson out of the prison, and he performed for them.

• Judges 16:24-25a

So the king gave the order, and they brought Daniel and threw him into the lions’ den. The king said to Daniel, “May your God, whom you serve continually, rescue you!”
A stone was brought and placed over the mouth of the den, and the king sealed it with his own signet ring and with the rings of his nobles, so that Daniel’s situation might not be changed. Then the king returned to his palace and spent the night without eating and without any entertainment being brought to him. And he could not sleep.

• Daniel 6:16-18

Knowing their thoughts, Jesus said, “Why do you entertain evil thoughts in your hearts?”

• Matthew 9:4

Entertainment can be good or bad.  Entertainment is a diversion which might clear the improper thoughts and make us relaxed, but what we do at that point is where the rub comes most of the time.

I went to a social event at church recently and one woman was overly effusive about the “Moses” movies that were out and on a streaming service.  But the more she bubbled over about how the movies were made, the woman she was talking to kept saying that she rarely watched television.  I wanted to chime in that there were three days of the week that I never turn on the television.  But then, that afternoon I did turn on the television.  I watched the sports and weather on the news for that channel and then turned the television onto a music only channel.

My wife, for the last five years of her life, watched old television shows that she had already seen many times over.  Note: If I did that, I would have the dialogue memorized.  The sad thing is that with her memory loss issues, she could watch a mystery show and only remember who the bad guy was a minute or two before the detectives (or agents) figured it out.

I am saying here that many people watch a lot of television, but I am finding so much Woke agenda things creeping into shows that do not need them.  The media is blasting us with same sex relationships being the norm when they are a minority.  Thus, less than half the shows on television should have such things.  A good true Christian home is offended by something being portrayed as normal when God considers it a sin.  We know that killing people is bad and stealing from them (unless you are really hungry) is bad.  I added this parenthetical comment in that I have heard church elders excuse theft because the thief might have been hungry, and it still disturbs me years later.  But, the rest of those sins are applauded.  Oops.  They think “sin” is a four-letter word.

I read something recently about how to find a good church, and one of the key factors is that they have no problem saying the word “sin” and defining clearly what a sin was.  Of course, the key factor is to preach a message of Grace by faith.

But let’s look at the three quoted references to “entertain” in the NIV. (There was a fourth in a letter to Timothy along the same vein as the Matthew quote.)  Samson is mocked and used as a sideshow in the Philistine temple, but God gave him the strength to destroy the temple after Samson humbly prayed.  Most people miss the story of Samson.  The strength was not in his hair; it was in him with God’s strength, but Samson had mocked God by telling his secret to Delilah.  He did not need his hair to destroy the temple.

The next mention of “entertain” is when king Darius had to throw Daniel into the lion’s den.  He did not want to do that since he trusted Daniel.  But the guilt of making a command that got his friend thrown into the lion’s den meant that Darius could not be consoled that night by frivolous entertainment.  His entire focus was on Daniel and hoping that Daniel’s God would protect him.

And then Jesus makes what seems like an offhand remark, but it digs deep into our psyche.  When we take our eyes off Jesus, we see something that interests us.  With our eyes diverted from Jesus, it is mostly going to be something frivolous, thus wasting time, or sinful, something evil.  Why do we entertain evil or, to flip that, why do we watch evil entertainment?

Some shows I quit watching because they went overboard in showing how rotten the police were and how we should fear them.  Other shows pushed other things that I felt offensive.  I quit watching a singing competition because the audience that voted obviously did not know that to sing you had to be able to carry a tune and hold a note.  That show offended my ears.

So, I have one show that I watch other than several on the Christian television channel in our area.  That show started the new season after their extended strikes, the week after the Super Bowl.  After three weeks of new shows, the following two weeks were reruns of the first two shows of the three.

Really?!

Obviously, Hollywood has not taken a poll of the majority of the nation or they would back off from the Woke agenda.  And when the audience has waited patiently, or impatiently as the case may be, you do not run three new shows and immediately go back to reruns.

It tells me that Hollywood does not care about the consumer.

Okay, after writing this, it was all to set up a special documentary, behind-the-scenes extra show, but I want to see the shows, not the behind-the-scenes stuff. They seem to not care about that.

But I care.  And thus, I only have the television on a few hours each week unless I want to watch a sporting event – translated… The sporting event is on while I play solitaire on the phone, but at least I keep track of the score, unless I go downstairs to write something and catch up on the score when I walk past the TV to use the restroom. 

And I rarely watch the commercials.  But during the NCAA Basketball tournaments (Men’s or Women’s), the NCAA promotional spots used the same voice that MS Edge and MS Word use for their female voice for reviewing or reading aloud.  Since I use those tools to make sure what I have written sounds right when read by someone else, I recognize the voice.  Maybe I am wrong, but I do not think so.

Now we will have the voice actors who might go on strike because Artificial Intelligence (AI) is taking away their jobs.  I wonder.  When the automobile was invented, did buggy whip manufacturers go on strike or did they simply shift to making leather covers for steering wheels?

If we think of God more often and avoid things that might offend God, we might make wiser decisions in other areas of our lives also.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.