{"id":41212,"date":"2021-12-28T14:29:36","date_gmt":"2021-12-28T20:29:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/?p=41212"},"modified":"2021-12-29T09:32:58","modified_gmt":"2021-12-29T15:32:58","slug":"the-devils-inoculation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/the-devils-inoculation\/","title":{"rendered":"The Devil\u2019s Inoculation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\t

by Dee Bowman<\/p>\n

I was watching a ball game the other night. Between innings, a commercial came on in which a man was asked by his wife, “Do I look fat in this dress?” He replied, “Yes, you do.” The answer had a catastrophic effect. She bawled – and I don’t men she cried – she bawled, everywhere they went. Then they reversed the idea, having him answer when she asked if she looked fat in the dress, ‘Honey, you look fantastic.”<\/p>\n

The “wise” conclusion he reached contained a fine line that graphically depicts how far we have descended in our moral judgments. The tag line on the commercial said, and I quote it verbatim, “A man knows peace is more important than the truth.”<\/p>\n

How sad. How utterly sad!<\/p>\n

The world sneaks up on you. It never invites you into the slime pits of sin, it merely gives you little shots of carnality so that you are soon inoculated against spiritual things and give little notice to them. And it all happens almost without your knowing it. It would be interesting to know just how many people were actually horrified by the tagline on that commercial. Far too few, I suspect.<\/p>\n

And I know what you’re thinking – “It can’t happen to me. I won’t be influenced by such thinking.” That’s another tool of the devil. “Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall<\/em>” (I Corinthians 10:12). He knows how to make slight deviations from the truth attractive, or in this case, so unnoticeable that after a time you come to tolerate them almost without thinking, he builds up a kind of carnal immunity.<\/p>\n

Television and the internet are wonderful when they are used with discretion. But when they become the main entity in our lives, they can have a devastating effect. We need some moderation, people. How long since you actually turned the television off because you were turned off by the television? We can’t afford to let these media conveniences dominate our thinking, we are apt to be led away – almost without knowing it.<\/p>\n

Truth is not elastic. You can’t just move it around to fit whatever you want it to fit. You have to manage your thinking in strict adherence to what is right and make your decisions accordingly.<\/p>\n

“Buy the truth and sell it not<\/em>” (Proverbs 23:23). There is no simpler way to put it. Truth has high value. It’s worth the keeping. In fact, without it, there can be no real peace. The peace that really matters comes from using truth to make wise choices, no matter how difficult, not choosing as the commercial says, “peace is more important than truth.” That is not so!<\/p>\n

Paul speaks of the devil’s deceit, bound in “and with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. And for this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they might believe what is false, in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness<\/em>” (II Thessalonians 2:10-12).<\/p>\n

That, my friends, is an apt description of the television commercial we just described. And do you know what’s really sad? It works. Far too often, it works.<\/p>\n

\"\"Sadly, there are dozens of other commercials like the one we just described. And our fragmented thinking, produced by our taking in only little sketches of worldliness and carnality at a time, can cause us to eventually find the truth to be little more than a mere suggestion, certainly not any sort of restriction.<\/p>\n

What bothers me most is how this kind of “smallism thinking’ is affecting our young people. If we are not careful, we will allow them to believe that what they see on television and what they see on Facebook, and what they text (sometimes without the least bit of moral restraint) is normal, just the way life is and that we needn’t worry about it. And it may be the way life is today – but we don’t have to let them be vaccinated with small shots of it so they can either ignore it or just look the other way.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Dee Bowman I was watching a ball game the other night. Between innings, a commercial came on in which a man was asked by his wife, “Do I look fat in this dress?” He replied, “Yes, you do.” The answer had a catastrophic effect. She bawled – and I don’t men she cried –…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[353,609],"class_list":["post-41212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-influence","tag-worldliness"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":42508,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/my-seven-year-old-who-is-tall-and-skinny-thinks-she-is-too-fat-what-do-i-do\/","url_meta":{"origin":41212,"position":0},"title":"My seven-year-old, who is tall and skinny, thinks she is too fat. What do I do?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 7, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Thank you for such a helpful website! I've read the article on\u00a0Five to Nine-Year-Olds\u00a0this morning. I'm concerned about my seven-year-old girl who attends public school. She's naturally a tall, thin girl but she asked me if I think she's fat and lately has been obsessed about this -- showing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Adolescence"","block_context":{"text":"Adolescence","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/parenting\/adolescence\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5055,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/should-the-man-always-make-the-first-move-in-a-relationship\/","url_meta":{"origin":41212,"position":1},"title":"Should the man always make the first move in a relationship?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 30, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I am now in a community where most men at my age are married; only one is single. I think he is a very good person, I don\u2019t dress immodestly like I used to. I think physical attraction would not be important for a man seeing a good woman,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":50214,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/how-far-do-we-help-with-the-wedding-of-a-young-man-who-got-a-girl-pregnant\/","url_meta":{"origin":41212,"position":2},"title":"How far do we help with the wedding of a young man who got a girl pregnant?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 19, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hello brother, how are you? I have a question for you, but first, let me give you some context.\u00a0I am a Spanish-speaking minister who works with an English-speaking church that meets in the same building. There is a sister in the church who has always come to church. She\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":31634,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-it-wrong-for-a-husband-to-ask-his-wife-to-dress-up-every-day-so-he-can-feel-sexually-attracted-to-her\/","url_meta":{"origin":41212,"position":3},"title":"Is it wrong for a husband to ask his wife to dress up every day so he can feel sexually attracted to her?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 6, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hello, First off thank you\u00a0for all the knowledge from this wonderful site. Okay, my question is it biblically wrong\u00a0for a husband to say he\u00a0wants his wife to dress up and wear makeup every day\u00a0so he can feel sexually attracted\u00a0to her, even if they are not going out of the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9343,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/why-did-ruth-uncover-boazs-feet\/","url_meta":{"origin":41212,"position":4},"title":"Why did Ruth uncover Boaz’s feet?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 7, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Why did Ruth uncover Boaz's feet? Answer: In the story of Ruth, Ruth worked in the fields as a charity case to supply food for her mother-in-law and herself. Ruth didn't realize it, but the field she selected was owned by a relative of her deceased father-in-law. Boaz spoke\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":14211,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/how-can-i-help-break-an-impasse-between-two-young-people\/","url_meta":{"origin":41212,"position":5},"title":"How can I help break an impasse between two young people?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 18, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I\u00a0would, please,\u00a0like\u00a0to\u00a0know your\u00a0thoughts about a particular courting problem with which I am involved. The problem\u00a0is concerning two young friends of mine, a young lady and a young man. They're both serious disciples of Jesus, as are their respective families. They and their\u00a0respective families each\u00a0attend a different congregation.\u00a0Up to the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41212\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}