Good morning everyone. I pray you had a great weekend. I
must say mine was pretty awesome. Was blessed to see six people yesterday
accept Jesus Christ as their Savior and two re-commit their lives to the Lord
in the second service. Then the Lord showed out again and we had a young man at
youth accept Jesus as his Savior too!!! God is too good. I am still smiling
this morning. I want to share a little bit from last night’s sermon. Let's get
out the backhoes and dig into the good stuff.......
Bible Verse: 2 Corinthians 10:5 ". . . and bringing
into captivity every though to the obedience of Christ."
Here is the deal, if you have a teenager or are a teenager……Listen
close. Satan is waging a battle to control the thought life of America's
teenagers. The typical teenager listens to an average of 10,500 hours of music
from the seventh to the tenth grade. That's only 500 hours shy of all the time
he/she spends in school from first through twelfth grade! Now, it would be
great if the music was clean and uplifting. But, most of it is not even close.
Ok, I know this is a powder keg of explosives of a topic.
So, hang on! I am going to talk about one type today. Rap music. Rap was
started years ago as a poetic type of music. Yes, this can be true, but does
what you hear from rap music sound very poetic to you these days? The influence
that rap currently has on our children all around the world is unfortunately a
very strong one. I wonder if you have really taken the time to listen to some
of these rap songs that your teenager is listening too? I mean really focus on
the words and what they mean. Ok, you’re probably saying "I don't
understand what they are saying." Pull up the lyrics.
Eighty percent of the
rap music that is currently on the top ten lists around the world contains
violence. They glorify the acts of beating up another person, shooting police
officers, or mistreating women. Let's talk about the women in the rap videos. Most
are half naked and not acting like young ladies for sure. I would dare say that
some of you guys are saying "Tony, it's not that big of a deal. It’s only
music." What's the big deal?
Well, I will tell ya.
Girls start thinking this is the way for other boys or men to notice them and
to make themselves more popular in school. Another thing that rap music also
seems to focus on is that what matters most when looking for a good woman is
what her body looks like. This is why there are so many teenagers who have
eating disorders or other emotional problems. They just don't feel that they
fit the mold of what teenage girls should like. I can keep going.....Rap music
also glorifies drinking, and sex. Two things which happen to be a major problem
among many youth today.
Now, I have blasted
rap. So, I must share the other side. There are some rappers however who keep
their lyrics clean and try to rap about positive things. There are even some
awesome Christian rappers. My boy and fellow Youth Pastor Travis Harmon is a Christian
rapper. You have rappers Lacrae, Toby Mac, and KJ-52. They use their gift in a
positive way to reach a lot of youth and adults that like rap. They send a
message of the gospel through rap lyrics.
So the bottom line is that when you are trying to decide
whether or not to allow your child to listen to rap music, it is not so much
rap itself, but the artist which they choose to listen too. Hey, try this talk
to them about the artist. Ask them if they know anything about the artist. Engage
their minds. If we take garbage in. Then that is what comes out. have a great
day and God bless.
No comments:
Post a Comment