Are we so callous?

So I was eating breakfast this morning (Kashi cereal rules) and looking through a catalog for Family Christian bookstore and when I noticed the banner on the front cover of the catalog, which read; “prepare your heart for the Lord”, which was an advertisement for Bibles(the Scripture quoted below it was from Ephesians 4:12 …prepare God’s people for works of service… Since when did it become OK the use Scripture to sell stuff? Honestly, why is it all of a sudden OK to use scripture to advertise, even if it is a Bible? What happens if the heart isn’t prepared for the Lord? Hell. A heart that isn’t prepared for the Lord is a unregenerate heart, a heart that is still sin-stained and wicked. Where do the wicked go? Hell. How come we take this lightly?!!! Oh its OK, we’ll use this to be cute and advertise stuff, its not irreverent, we won’t think about what we are doing, because then we would have to stop. Maybe I’m taking this too far, but what if I’m not? It scares me to think what will happen to us if our hearts become callous. It scares me because Christ flipped out on the people that were selling merchandise in the Temple, they had become calloused, its a scary place to be. Maybe its OK to advertise like Family Christian did, maybe, but I think we run the risk of numbing ourselves. I think that when Scripture is used outside of teaching, correcting and leading people towards Christ, and instead is used to sell our little “Christian” things we step into extremely dangerous territory. God doesn’t take lightly a callous heart, especially when it is the heart of His children. He will discipline us for our good, the fire will be lit and the dross of sin will be burned away, all so He can become our treasure again. Oh how I pray we will understand our Lord, His love for us, and the lengths that He will go to in order to bring us back to where we ought to be. Read Isaiah 40, His word stands forever, He holds all of creation in His hands. May we have a Holy fear of the One that bought our salvation with his blood, and correctly handle His Word.

I wrote this a while back, but never posted it. In light of recent events I have decided to let my rant go.

Dear Family Christian Stores,

Please remove all of the heresy that lines your shelves. If you would like, I can do it for you, granted you won’t be left with much but at least you won’t make money by leading people astray.

~ by Brent on March 31, 2008.