Gold, Compasses, and Brainwashing?!?

So the Olympics in Beijing are now over with, we will not see them again until London in 2012, of course I am proud of all of our great athletes, from Michael Phelps and his amazing achievement in succeeding to obtain 8 gold medals, Nastia Liukin and Shaun Johnson in the Woman's Gymnastics, as well as to both the womans and mens beach volleyball team who both won in their divisions and made phenomenal achievements themselves; lastly to all of our other athletes who may have won gold (or silver and bronze) or may have not won anything at all, every little bit has been appreciated and their country is proud of their efforts in the sport which they competed in. As proud as I may be though, I pray that all of those that do not realize this truth realize it soon, that no matter how many gold medals you win, no matter how many records you break, what does it profit a man/woman if they become the greatest of all time, yet lose their soul. Can you trade it all for life, does it impress God? No, it does not; only the blood of Christ, through repentance and following after Him, can you obtain something more valuable than every medal in the world!

Alright, now onto my main subject; have you (speaking to Christians here) noticed anything odd during the Olympics? Did you get a sense of "I do not know what is up, but I have a funny feeling that all this Fung Shei stuff is not right somehow..." If so congratulations that is the Holy Spirit, because throughout the course of the past two weeks there was an onslaught of hidden meanings and subtle presenting of a worldview that frankly, many pass most of it off as being (in the case of Fung Shei) just a really neat idea to try at home. Here is what Fung Shei is, it is a Chinese religious practice that is believed to incorporate the earth and the heavens to bring you positive Qi (Chi) by following the guides (little compass thingys) you arrange objects so the flow of Qi is positive. Doesn't sound like just another Martha Stewart design tip, does it? During the opening ceremony the were also bringing up (the commentators talking about the philosophy of China, which is a fancy word for religion, even if it is not presented so) environmentalism and using the eastern pantheistic beliefs in the four fold elements, (water, wind, earth, fire) tying it to our western pantheism (environmentalism.) So that in its own right has been a theme as well here is environmentalism; we also have our commercials from Visa and Coca-Cola, where we have Morgan Friedman narrating an a quick little synopsis on an athlete while at the end wrapping it up with the phrase "go world," or the one where he is talking about how "we all come together for a few shining moments," basically presenting the audience with a one world society message, almost every commercial has been littered with this one world message. Even at the closing ceremony on NBC, one of the hosts sat there and said, [paraphrasing a tad] "You know, if it can be like this for two weeks, why not three? Why not a month? Three months? If only the world was like this..." I think the end is a little off on what was originally said, but the sentiment and message was the same even if the wording is not; the longing for a utopia, the longing for peace, and with the way Obama is being regarded the longing for a leader to lead us all into a time of peace and prosperity. People need to start reading their Bibles because we are getting extremely close to the Tribulation, as was prophesied in Revelation and Daniel; Christians need to start getting prepared for the Rapture, we all want our spiritual bags to be packed, and all of our sins and stuff in place before He takes us away. Lastly, as fun as the Olympics, as fun as rooting for you team country is; there are many athletes and citizens of China there that have never repented of their sins and turned to Christ for forgiveness of sins and ever lasting life, and the danger of this all is pride. We all have pride, we all struggle with it, but especially at these type of events when the whole world is praising you, it may be hard for you to look up when all your doing is looking down (not in snobbery, but in an observation of your fans.) Even if they are not filled with pride, there are many other sins and we need them all to be washed away by the blood of Christ, only through Him does salvation come and all we can do (as Christians) is pray for this world, pray that as many as are willing will come to Him, and that many of the false converts will truly be converted and receive salvation and repentance...

That is the only hope for the world, nothing else can deliver it and nothing else can take it's place.