Super Bowl – Yet Another Idol

“For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”
 [Matthew 6:21]

Just think of it, millions of people gathered attentively and excitedly around an electronic appliance that relays two dimensional images of grown men running around a field with a little ballie, shoving each other and bashing into each other for a chance to carry the little ballie.  The players are grown men, beating each other up for a living, acting like children and getting paid for it by the millions of onlookers who have nothing better to do with “their” time and money. The onlookers are, primarily, grown men, who, like children, gleefully rejoice when their team beats up the opposing team, while the world goes to hell all around them, in their homes and neighborhoods and around the world.

“When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” [1 Corinthians 13:11]

And think of it, each player is getting paid a fortune to entertain the on looking fools who are having their emotions manipulated by an event they really have nothing to do with and whose primary purpose is to coax them into contributing to the “cause” either by purchasing advertised products or by purchasing tickets to the event. It caters to pride with its desire for one team to exercise dominance over another team. It caters to the lust of the eyes with its half-time cheerleader exhibitionists. It caters to the lust of the eyes and of the flesh with its beer commercials that glorify debauchery and drunkenness. 

“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. 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.” [1John 2:15-16]

The players are in it for the money and fame.  The onlookers are in it, because they are followers, not doers. They are caught up in a meaningless, yea, an ungodly activity that has no redeeming value in light of eternity and by their involvement in vain and unprofitable activities they prove they could care less that God commands men to live to His glory. 

“Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.” [1 Corinthians 10:31]

And how many other vain activities are men preoccupied with, both men that have no concern for their own souls, and men, naming the name of Christ who live and act as if this world is all there is, even as if this sin-cursed world is something to be so fond of. Oh, the anguish the Lord must have when His people wallow in the mire and when they revel in the things they should be ashamed of and should be preaching against! Oh, if God’s people would only clamor to get the Gospel out as they rush to do things that only cater to the flesh.  If only God’s people would strive to serve their blessed Master and Redeemer, setting aside anything and everything unprofitable that they might have time to spend alone with their Savior in prayer and in reading God’s word.

The world always knows what day is Super Bowl day.

Do they know anything about Judgment Day?

 

And if you claim to be a Christian, are you as anxious to speak to your unsaved coworkers, relatives, neighbors and friends about the Savior who bled and died for your sins, as they are to talk to you about football?

Are we, as God’s people, to be any less zealous than the lost?  Are we so fired up for the Lord that people can’t help but notice? 

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge” [Proverbs 1:7]. 

Do our lives put the fear of God in those around us? Think about it, if you dare. 

“Son of man, thou dwellest in the midst of a rebellious house, which have eyes to see, and see not; they have ears to hear, and hear not: for they are a rebellious house.” [Ezekiel 12:2]

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