I understand why many people have abandoned their telephone landlines. I would guess that 90 percent of the calls I get on our home phone are from telemarketers. Most of these are recorded messages so I don't even get the enjoyment of messing with them. The same is true of the majority of emails I get. Most of them are scams. I used to have most of them go immediately in my deleted folder, but when I had to get a new computer a couple of months ago I've had to start over again marking the junk. Since Apple doesn't care about scam emails and does not give a means to automatically mark them, even the ones I avoid on my computer show up on my I-Pad, and I have to delete them again. When I got a new phone a few months ago that is one reason I didn't get another I-Phone. Most of the junk emails I get do not show up on my Samsung.
Add to this the dishonesty we see in the media. During the last presidential campaign Trump kept pointing out the dishonesty in the press. Few people had the courage to say the things he kept saying, but as people began watching the news they soon could see the way news stories were being spun to reflect the liberal bias many in the news organizations had. The same could be said of conservative news organizations. The American public were not being given the news; we were being given the slant on the stories the news media wanted to present. This is not a recent phenomenon that began in the last presidential election. In 1996 James Fallows, then editor of U.S. News and World Report, wrote a fascinating book titled Breaking The News: How the Media Undermine American Democracy in which he showed how the media doesn't report the news; it makes the news by deciding what's newsworthy and what's not. Doing this controls the information the American public receives and what it never hears about. This is not a book written by some conspiracy buff but one written by a person who has had the inside seat in national news reporting for many years. It's a book I highly recommend.
We all know the dishonesty that exists in advertising. All you have to do is watch an advertisement for any fast food place and compare the sandwiches you see in the ad with the ones you actually get when you eat there!
We are bombarded with dishonesty and untruth every day. It's no wonder why many people wonder if what they hear from the church and its leadership is true or not. We have created a culture of disbelief, and that culture exists even within the church. Many people look at sermons the same way they look at advertisements. They assume we are spinning the message to make our brand look good, and many are not buying it.
As preachers of the Gospel we have to speak with absolute integrity and honesty. It's essential that we begin our messages upon the foundation of the infallibility of the Word of God. In a world that spins every message we cannot begin our message by casting doubt on what the Scripture says. I shudder every time I hear a so-called Christian leader say that we have advanced beyond what was known in biblical times, and our messages need to change to reflect that advanced understanding. These false prophets only THINK they have advanced. The Bible we hold in our hands came to us from God, and no one has advanced beyond Him! His words are eternally true.
When I began as the Transitional Pastor at one church about two years ago I told the congregation in my first message that every sermon they would hear from me would be based on the belief that the Bible was the infallible Word of God. If I don't believe that then I have nothing to preach because my opinions are no more valid than anyone else's. It's only when I stand upon the integrity of God's Word that I have anything of value to say.
In a world of spin, in a world in which we are surrounded by untruth, it is imperative that the preacher boldly proclaim the Word of God as truth. It is only when we do that can the Holy Spirit take those words and begin to change the hearts of people.
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