circus

I don’t know what it is, but I don’t want to spend 1.5 hrs. of my time to watch it. Is there a certain part of the video that could help me to voice my opinion sooner? 1.5 hrs I would fall asleep. :-)

It seems the church is hosting the circus as a family holiday event.

I guess I’m neutral about it assuming it’s truly family friendly.

Mr 9:40
For he that is not against us is on our part.
Lu 9:50
And Jesus said unto him, Forbid him not: for he that is not against us is for us.

Thanks for the download, I enjoyed it very much.

A Christmas program with a circus theme. Streamed live on

"""Dec 18, 2016

Celebrate Christmas under the big top with the Robichaux family circus"""

In Christ: Phillip

1 John 2:15-29King James Version (KJV)

15 Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.

17 And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.

18 Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time.

Luke 16:15
And he said unto them, Ye are they which justify yourselves before men; but God knoweth your hearts: for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God.

I guess the apostasy is increasing, the problem is this is trend is increasing. Entertaining Goats whilst the Sheep suffer.

The problem is that the World looks at the large churches and thinks these large Churches are doing so well whilst bible believing churches because they are so small and few are not doing well.

When in reality these churches produce large amount of atheists because they are not taught.

How do you know that church is not preaching the word?

Wow Dominic! All big churches are corrupt, and are producing atheist? You having a bad day?

Ok, excuse me if my optimism is kicking in, it's just a habit.:-) Maybe this was some sort of fundraiser for Christmas, does anyone have any information it's not?

Looks like a gimmicky Christmas thing a big church does annually. Does it bring people to Christ? I have no idea. Are people entertained? Probably. Is this bad? Not necessarily.

Apprarenly the Christmas story is woven into the program.

There is no doubt it is glitzy and doesn’t float my boat but I am not going to judge motives, primarily because Jesus said not to.

I read a fantastic quote by Oswald Chambers the other day: "God never gives us discernment so that we may criticize, but that we may intercede.”

Amen to that quote!!!

I have difficulty personally, with this kind of event.

I realize there maybe nothing wrong with the event, or with the circus or with the Church sponsoring it or with big monies being spent to get host the event.

But then, as I just read a DL Moody article on fresh anointing I wonder?

Is this event because the preacher has no fresh anointing?
Is these event because the congregation needs a Christmas entertainment event?
Is this event symptomatic of a dead/waterless/lifeless/ group of people who have no faith for God to actually empower them to be disciples?
Is this what discipleship in practice looks like?
Is this event because the leaders have no anointing of God to minister the word whereby the unsaved are saved and the saved or discipled and the discipled are disciplers to others?

If Circuses are ok, are giving away cars on raffle to fund raise?
If Circuses are ok is sea cruises, holiday get-aways, first class accommodations for other events ok?

Are there any scriptures on how to gain converts?
Are there any scriptures on what it means to reach your neighbors?
Are there any scriptures to gauge the methods and activities that can be used for Church outreaches?

Is this an imitation of the world because there are no examples in scripture to follow?
Is this the best we can do to follow Jesus in reaching our neighbors?

Personally, I find this sort of thing as a bill-board sized statement to the community and to God "We have nothing to offer but what the world has to offer" and "Please attend here, you will never know the difference between the world you live in now and the added accoutrement of Church-going when attending here"

But alas, I am not big church pastor and I do not have a congregation what could I know?

I love Oswald Chambers...and I say bologna to that statement.

Its not a matter of having a critical or mean spirit when I say..."its because we pretended to pray and didn't say anything to rouse the attention or angst of the ungodly that we are in the situation we are in now".

If we lived godly and spoke as godly men do speak, our needed intercessions would not be the only evidence of our care and concern for the ungodly lost.

Jesus should have just interceded instead of scolding and judging those Pharisees in Matt 23.

The devil loves silence especially when the only voice out there is his.

I think with me personally, if I'm having a hard time with some of the things the Churches do today, it's just because I'm 66 and grew up in a different era, where your never saw anything like this at Church. I could not even begin to judge something like this, because of my age my bias would probably kick in. :-)

"The Distraction of Contempt” by Oswald Chambers

Have mercy on us, O Lord, have mercy on us! For we are exceedingly filled with contempt. ””Psalm 123:3

What we must beware of is not damage to our belief in God but damage to our Christian disposition or state of mind. "Take heed to your spirit, that you do not deal treacherously” (Malachi 2:16). Our state of mind is powerful in its effects. It can be the enemy that penetrates right into our soul and distracts our mind from God. There are certain attitudes we should never dare to indulge. If we do, we will find they have distracted us from faith in God. Until we get back into a quiet mood before Him, our faith is of no value, and our confidence in the flesh and in human ingenuity is what rules our lives.

Beware of "the cares of this world…” (Mark 4:19). They are the very things that produce the wrong attitudes in our soul. It is incredible what enormous power there is in simple things to distract our attention away from God. Refuse to be swamped by "the cares of this world.”

Another thing that distracts us is our passion for vindication. St. Augustine prayed, "O Lord, deliver me from this lust of always vindicating myself.” Such a need for constant vindication destroys our soul’s faith in God. Don’t say, "I must explain myself,” or, "I must get people to understand.” Our Lord never explained anything”” He left the misunderstandings or misconceptions of others to correct themselves.

When we discern that other people are not growing spiritually and allow that discernment to turn to criticism, we block our fellowship with God. God never gives us discernment so that we may criticize, but that we may intercede.

And again....
AMEN:)

It is true I could be motivated to vindicate myself to you all for no other reason than to sound critical of what others do in order that I can draw away disciples unto myself. It may be since I am not known personally that Oswald is right and Marvin is dealing treacherously with his brothers.
Allow me to make matters worse.

This nation is about to exile its Christians, it will persecute them, shut them down and come to their front doors warning them of what can happen if they live their faith outside of their homes.
There is a rebellious band that hates the message of the gospel and they will not be happy until we are rendered inert by compromise or silenced by imprisonment or death.

Believe this or not, I believe this, I believe we are on the threshold of tribulations we have not seen before in this country. I consider circus and the like are nothing more than false prophets telling us all "there's nothing to fear, all will be well". We live in an era of complacency and utter ignorance of the fear of God. We will not pay the slightest heed to monster storms, raging fires, and the repudiation of our constitution by our leaders.

This to me is a sign we are ripe for judgment, it will come to the house of God first and we will loath our circus and our fancy trips on boats, resort retreats where repentance is done that lasts only as long as the emotionalism of the speaker is present. We will loath ourselves for the worldliness in our hearts and we will loath ourselves for the compromises, love of entertainments and big church parties...when in a short time we will realize there was no repentance due to the circus, or from the party atmosphere of laughing prophets. We are ripe for picking, and we will be picked...but like Jeremiah found out, figs that are over ripe are good for nothing. There is an over-ripeness among the people of God, these will be chaff and blown away, rotten figs that are thrown out, cloths that are good for nothing.

I see this as nothing more than a clear sign the people of God are seduced by the world and to use Oswald Chambers as a means to quiet the naysayers who cannot abide anymore childish game playing in the name of Jesus.

Sing your Jesus songs, play on the Ferris wheel and take long rides on the merry go round because the prophets and priests, pastors and teachers that fund these rides with the money given for the kingdom will be required of them on judgment day.

There is no urgency they say, there is no cause for alarm, why pray, why seek God unless it's convenient to our own ends.

Its not that Evangeline was wrong in what she posted, its a reality that is only touched upon in her spirit but has not the boldness to make known the calamity that awaits the people of God. We will be purged, we will be thrown up for the removal of the chaff in all our lives. We will be set on divine balances and we will be found wanting. God is even now moving to end the monstrosity we call Christianity and Evangelicalism here in America, what will be left will be pure and godly, without admixture of impure and inert human methodologies.

This circus is a picture of what is going on in Evangelicalism...party till the power goes out, the darkness falls and the taskmasters pour in to take from that circus all the slaves that bear the mark of their owners.

Understand or not, believe or not, be filled with misconceptions or not because we refused to discern and speak to one another the danger of our impending exile, for certainly it will come. May God have mercy on us for we were not filled with contempt except for those who condemned our falsehoods.

For me personally, living on this earth for 66 years has been a circus, if it were not for my relationship with Christ, I would have probably jumped from the tight rope long ago.

I believe you make a fair assessment of western Christianity and it’s doubtful most on SI would disagree with it generally speaking. However it’s in the response where we differ...

Thank the point, for example, that you used to illustrate your perspective earlier- that Jesus rebuking the Pharisee’s in Matthew- honestly brother, is that a fair assessment? Firstly, that occurred before the cross and resurrection and to people who were under the law. Secondly, He did it to their face in the moment, not a behind the back- retroactive reaction. I could go on but do not want to come off as contentious with you personally:)

Scripture states that as Jesus is presently so should we be on earth,... and doesn’t it also state He ever liveth to make intercession for the saints?
God, our Father, never asked us to be His attorneys,.... just His witness’s;)

Blessings be upon you dear brother ~

Fletcher: Thanks for the gracious response.

I do not believe Jesus would deal any differently today than when he dealt with the Pharisees. I used that example because I consider Jesus attitude toward false and failing religion today the same as yesterday.

I speak boldly here I do agree, please know, I would say the exact same thing the same way if the senior pastor were a regular poster here. I am not a lion in the closet and a mouse in the living room.

No doubt a dozen happy reasons could be given for the circus, it is my contention and my resistance against such mindsets when God has so spoken through many various circumstances, calamities, spiritual falsehoods, and perilous times whereby only the most blinded by the world would not fear God and pay attention to what lay in the future.

These kind of 'big events' are a Churches name-maker in the community. This kind of thing is how a Church introduces itself to the community and the world at large. This is a calling card, a kind of first-impression that is calculated to impress and make Christians an easy-to-accept group where it is safe and good and pleasant to attend this neighboring Church.
I am surely not saying our first impression needs to be a mount shaking and smoking with the presence of God where if you touch it your going to die. But I am saying the message this conveys to a community is at best a bait-and-switch and at worst a blatant lie. Where the former is bringing them in only to change the message and demeanor where they know they were tricked. The later is what happens when the attempt to keep such people is by more and more entertainments and like-kind novelties to ensure "church" is where they ought to be. The lie is they will associate "Christians are cool" with what a genuine Christian biblically should be. This is an utter fabrication designed to remove the stigma of any cross that might be mentioned or the exclusivity of any discipleship that is required and lastly present an antithesis for the repudiation of what they love about themselves, the world and their own self-importance.

Its a wide gate my brother, a bypath, a trip through vanity fair where any and all religions can come and find a place to sell their wares. We are so used to our Churches, pastors and methodologies including a vast usage of Vanity Fair we question the wisdom of leaving that bypath out.

The only thing that is missing is the theme song, "Karn Evil 9" by ELP

Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends
We're so glad you could attend
Come inside! Come inside!
There behind a glass is a real blade of grass
be careful as you pass.
Move along! Move along!

Come inside, the show's about to start
guaranteed to blow your head apart
Rest assured you'll get your money's worth
The greatest show in Heaven, Hell or Earth.
You've got to see the show, it's a dynamo.
You've got to see the show, it's rock and roll ...

Right before your eyes we pull laughter from the skies
And he laughs until he cries then he dies then he dies
Come inside the shows about to start
Guaranteed to blow your head apart
You gotta see the show
It's a dynamo
You gotta see the show
It's rock and roll

Soon the Gypsy Queen in a glaze of Vaseline
Will perform on guillotine
What a scene! What a scene!
Next upon the stand will you please extend a hand
to Alexander's Ragtime Band
Dixie land, Dixie land

Roll up! Roll up! Roll up!
See the show!

Performing on a stool we've a sight to make you drool
Seven virgins and a mule
Keep it cool. Keep it cool.

We would like it to be known the exhibits that were shown
were exclusively our own,
All our own. All our own.

Come and see the show! Come and see the show! Come and see the show!

See the show!

___________________

Apostasy before our very eyes!

But the church-goers call it entertainment!

And all the people said...Amen...!

I think this just may be some of that lukewarm fat offering stuff mentioned in The Revelation that makes Jesus regurgitate.

Now go...and enjoy the show!

Yes again we agree on that and as usual you are very articulate in expressing your perspectives. That in itself is a gifting in my opinion:)
Tho my point might be better put as a question... how does us critiquing their "circus” here on SI help to address the problem that got them there?
How are they, or God for that matter, helped by our critique?
While I have no doubt you are consistent in your faith and would therefore be just as likely to be critical of them in person, what good does it do to do it here?
I want to be clear on a few points tho,...
first I’m not defending their "circus” -
second I’m not taking issue with you personally, rather am questioning the logic of the criticism as it is foreign to me-
third/mainly am defending the much underrated ministry of intercession:)

I believe it was L. Ravenhill who said ,” it’s one thing to go before a dead people on behalf of the living God,...but it’s an entirely different thing to go before the living God on behalf of those dying people "
Honestly dear brother it pains me as well to see our faith made a mockery of,... I get it!!
I guess our response to that pain is different and perhaps so it should be~

Sorry for delayed response but my rear axel broke while driving home and my tire passed me on the road, so it took a while to sort out;)

bearmaster....Are these the guillotines that await us in the death camps?

Blaine

Hi Fletcher: Thanks for the kind word, by the way you are a genuine pleasure to correspond with. I must admit brother I laughed out loud at your tire passing you...though I do not envy the bill to fix it.

Your words are not lost on me, I know that speaking what I do is preaching to the choir ( to some of us) and an annoyance for others. I spoke that way to give voice to my mind on the matter, I have been of late very prayerful about our state of affairs and it is not for lack of prayer that I speak this way.

For me when I intercede or when I wrestle with these issues I do not come out quieter or less convicted of God's intention to purify his people, I am more confident of it and I know what God will perfect his saints.

When I come away from prayer I am more determined to rid myself of anything that defiles me or feeds the carnal mind, in such a state of mind, I am convicted and urged in my spirit to speak boldly and confidently that what I must forsake, others must do as well. I am not above anyone and I am tempted and tried like everyone else because I live in the same culture and world they do. It's not as if the Churches Ive attended in the past have not done similar things. The pastors and leaders of the various Churches I've attended all of them have found the wisdom and pleasantries of Vanity Fair useful in attracting new visitors and helpful in gaining their attention. We employed bait and switch...and when they heard me it was not long before various ones made a mad dash out the door not into it. When the pastor(s) realized their efforts and my preaching were contrary to Church growth I was next on the chopping block.
But all of this I expected and it was not because I was off base, it was because my dear Pastors really thought the visitors and new attenders would make the switch from the world to the Church. The unfortunate truth showed otherwise. Later those same pastors knew I was right ( I was not then nor now seeking vindication) they realized Vanity Fair by its very spirit cannot supply the conviction and impetus to take the Church and its message seriously.
They knew that their reliance upon methods and gimmickry was not born of the Spirit, but it was one of experimentation and hopefulness based upon human nature.

My intention to speak so directly is to encourage a well defined belief in the power of God's word and Spirit.
It is not my intention to denigrate pastors here as though this is my own personal 'inquisition room'. However I make no apologies for hating what has been a deterrent to godly men and women and a false-hope placed upon events such as those like a circus. I am not persuaded by the quoting of godly men who I love and read myself as a remedy for what I see as blatant cowardice to confront and deal with the matter of worldly methods that confuse and confound the hope of God's people.

The congregation I attend now can only take me in small doses, the day will come when I will confront their flesh and I will see whether they love me in word of deed. My prayer is they will believe the truth and love Jesus more and not become offended at some small reproof.

Again Fletcher it is a joy to converse with you and I thank God you are Christ's beloved.

I guess if I had my druthers, I would rather see this kind of Circus going on at 2nd baptist, than the Circus going on at the Benny Hinn crusades. :-)