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Freeman Cebu Lifestyle

Trivializing Hell Through A Child's Mouth

FAITH LINKS - Ruth Mercado -

Tune in to “Hellivision.” Anyone who trivializes hell is bound for hell. Nothing is more gruesome than trivializing hell through the mouth of a child. Encroaching in the subliminal, television has the power to reprogram your mind and spiritual health.

By its religious sounding title, “100 Days To Heaven,” viewers tend to get the impression this is a spiritual movie. Because Satan is the King of Deception and the Prince of Confusion, it is painful to see so many deceived and confused by Satan’s snares in television. What is most painful is that there are Christians who religiously and avidly follow this teleserye and their souls or conscience are not vexed with the teleserye’s distorted themes on sin and hell. If your spirit is not vexed by how “100 Days to Heaven” is trivializing Hell, this is a sign that you may also be bound for hell.

No second chance, No second prize.

The story “100 Days to Heaven” is about a strict boss, Anna Manalastas (Coney Reyes), who is murdered for her evil ways. Her soul meets St. Peter at the Gates where she is told to live again for 100 days with a mission to correct her wrongdoings among people she hurt. If she is successful, she goes to Heaven and if not, she goes to Hell. Manalastas goes back to Earth in the form of a child (Xyriel Manabat).

For the sake of our spiritual health, we need to be cautious and circumspect with what we feed our eyes. Satan has cunning and subtle ways of distorting and misleading believers and unbelievers on the issues of purgatory or second chance, being born again and repentance. Thanks to advertisers and telecommunication providers for they have glorified Satan and are all guilty of being accomplices in deception and confusion.

Nowhere in the Bible is there any mention of Purgatory. In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, the rich man was tormented in the flames of hell and there was a great gulf between him and Lazarus who was in Heaven. In 1 Corinthians 6:9, it reads that the “unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God” which means that if you are not going to heaven, it leaves only one place – the wicked shall be turned to hell. In Matthew 13:41, the Son of Man shall send forth his angels who will gather those who offend and do iniquity and cast them into a furnace of fire where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Nowhere does the Bible mention that if a person is wicked, he is given a second chance. Hebrews 9:27 specifically says that it is appointed unto men once to die and after this the judgement. A man dies only once and no one can cancel an appointment with death. Death ends all probation for the one who dies. There is no second chance. If a person has accepted Jesus Christ as his savior and is righteous at death, his soul and spirit go to heaven. If he is wicked, his soul goes to hell. There is no reincarnation or transmigration from body to body, no such thing as probation.

The Bible is clear that you cannot earn your way to Heaven, nor can you pay your way through good works. The only way to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven is to be “born again”. Jesus coined the term “born again” when he spoke to Nicodemus in John 3:3-7. To be “born again” is not about becoming a child again and sent back to earth on a mission or on probation. If the object of the teleserye in portraying Manalastas as a child again is to depict being born again is to blaspheme salvation. It tramples and insults God’s love for humanity when He gave His Son to die for the sins of man. Being born again is not about religion.

To be born again means to confess and repent of your sins, then turn away from sin. To be born again is to accept Jesus Christ as your saviour and friend, live a life in the newness of Christ and serve Christ. To be born again is to make 180 degrees turn away from sin. It is complete turning away from the world in lifestyle and demeanor. Once you are born again, the Holy Spirit dwells in you and helps you to turn away from the ways of sin. If you cannot turn away from the ways of the world, while on earth, it is impossible for you to go to Heaven. Jesus’ promise to the penitent thief at the Cross of Calvary is “Today, you shall be with Me in Paradise” that means repentance and a turning away from sin is critical in going to Heaven.

Mutilating Tender Minds.

So fearlessly has the teleserye trivialized the real meaning of repentance and being born again that it has boldly belittled the consequences of hell. By using a child as the mouthpiece, it would appear as though hell is like a child’s playground and committing sin and repentance is child’s play. By making the child star speak objectionable lingo, screaming and scolding at adults, it espouses and tolerates rebellion among children. What a way to mutilate tender minds to hell.

Medieval writers have described hell as a place of punishment for souls of the damned. Doomed souls in hell don’t have physical bodies but feel real pain and experience real terror. Their bodies are repeatedly mutilated, continuously burned, yet the torture goes on forever because the soul never dies. Based on scripture descriptions, writers speculate that punishment in Hell include relentless flogging with barbed whips, immersion in a vat of boiling blood, confinement in a pit of poisonous vipers and repeatedly ripped apart and eaten by demons. Hence the torment is forever.

Television programs are designed with the purpose of reprogramming the mind by breaking defenses so that the lie is accepted as truth. Because Satan controls television, he prettifies sin until it becomes acceptable. He glamorizes hell so people will desire to sin. Adults have lost the fear of mutilating tender minds of young children by trivializing repentance, sin and hell.

In recent decades, it was found that there is rapid deterioration of values and standards in television networks. Disclosures from a study called “What a Difference a Decade Makes” showed significant increase of objectionable broadcast content in primetime television and soap operas. Done by the Parents Television Council in the US, the study compared and reviewed offensive language, sexual and violent content of all prime time programming airing on every network in the US during the first four weeks of 1989 to 1990 and 1999 to 2000 televisions seasons.

Alarmingly, the study concluded that overall level of offensive content in prime time triple in the past decade. As examples, the study revealed that oral sex, never mentioned during the 1989 study period was alluded 20 times during four weeks in 1999. Vulgar language rose 565 percent, rising from an average of less than one use per hour of programming in 1989, to nearly five instances every hour in 1999 and specific references to genitalia during prime time increased to 700 percent and references to homosexuality are 24 times more common now than in 1989.

Television has become the most powerful medium of glorifying sin – sex, violence and scandal – and then trivializing the wages of sin which are death and hell. Anti-Christian and immoral precepts are bellowed unabashedly and unrestrained through the mouthpiece of children.

As the use of foul language become rampant, the words used have become harsher and more explicit. Words never before heard on prime time and spoken by children have now become acceptable. Xyriel’s raunchy punch lines pass as cute, deliberately inserted to add the macabre to the plot.  While all these may increase ratings, what is truly macabre is that even a six-year-old is reared to go to hellfire. In trivializing hell and selling sin, Hellivision has magnified Satan’s army of next generation demons. Unless you are conscious about spiritual health, your child could be one of them.

vuukle comment

BECAUSE SATAN

BORN

CHILD

HEAVEN

HELL

JESUS CHRIST

SIN

TELEVISION

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