The time the media spends on professional sports implies such games are highly significant. The truth is, there is nothing of genuine significance about an adult striking with a stick a cotton ball covered with cowhide and knocking it over a fence.

The players need to understand they are court jesters, nothing more. Whether they win or lose is of little universal importance. The object is to give their audience a respite from the concerns and dreads of the day. I think the athletes take themselves, and their winning and losing, altogether too seriously.

Recreation is an important aspect of wholesome living. The lie occurs when we attach significance to a game, making an idol of it.

This year outstanding athletic events will be played on Sundays. What do you think most Christians will be thinking about on these Sundays? God? Christ? the work of the Kingdom? No, they will sit in church with their minds on what team is winning. In fact numerous Christians will be at the game rather than assembled with the believers.

We suppose such idolatry is harmless. It is not. It is Satan's way of keeping us weak so when the axe of Divine judgment falls in America we will be unable to stand. This is precisely what is taking place today.

Grace, grace, grace, rapture, rapture, rapture, Heaven, Heaven, Heaven, Superbowl, Superbowl, Superbowl. This brew keeps American Christians in a state of eternal babyhood. How Satan must laugh with glee!

We have been commanded to think about what is true. The above is a massive lie in that it pretends to be significant truth. We are to think about taking up our cross and following Jesus, about fellowshiping with fervent saints, with a consistent time each day spent seeking the Presence of Christ and meditating in His Word, with finding our ministry and gifts and exercising them diligently.

These are truth and we are to be thinking about them at all times, not being conformed to the thinking of the world but being transformed by the renewing of our mind. As we do this we will have peace. When we love Christ's commandments and keep them we will have great peace and absolutely nothing will offend us. Our heart will not be afraid of evil tidings; it will be fixed, trusting in the Lord.

We are to think about whatever is noble, whatever is honorable. Truth, honor, faithfulness, nobility of character, combine in what we of today term integrity. Nobility has in it the idea of the old landmarks, that is, the honesty of people who are what they appear to be, who do what they say they will do, in whom is no twisting and turning of deviousness.

How sadly lacking in our nation is the virtue of nobility. We have become a people steeped in the slick lies of the con artist. An individual talks too much because he or she is attempting to prove the righteousness of his way, or to deceive others in order to gain advantage over them.

To be continued.