Oprah and her "Belief" series; nothing but noise...!

Written by David DiCrescenzo on . Posted in FAITH

In case you haven’t heard, Oprah Winfrey is at it again; last month she produced and aired a new series called “Belief.”  Essentially, the premise of the series is that all belief systems and faiths are equally valid, spiritually fulfilling; pleasing and acceptable to God.

Many people rely upon the “do unto others” thinking, which BTW is straight out of the Bible, (Luke 6:21) or that they are somehow “living a good life,” or even the old cliché of “…I’m not religious, I’m spiritual.”  All of these things and thousands more sound good and make the individual feel better about themselves; the problem is that they are simply not true.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about this for quite a while and on Sunday my pastor delivered a sermon which really nailed it down for me.  He was discussing the basic elements of communication and how it applies to God, Heaven, and Spiritual Fulfillment.

Everyone can agree that there are three main parts to any communication; the person, entity, or in this case God with the message; the actual subject or message of the communication; and finally the intended recipient(s) of that message.  In a perfect world, any message should be easy to hear and receive, and be understood. However, we don’t live in a perfect world and the message from God to mankind, like pretty much all messages has become clouded and masked with a lot of “noise” or distractions and deceptions.

That noise comes in a lot of forms; worries about that job or raise, the significant other in your face, feeding the kids, that new car or vacation, the daily news, the latest video game, is Jenner Bruce or Caitlin this week; fill in the blank.  The noise either keeps us awake at night or lulls us to sleep; either way, the enemy uses it to block the biggest message of all; and that is the message of Salvation from our Creator.

That original message was and is simple.  Way back when, right after creation, mankind, (Adam and the generations to follow) fell via deceit from our enemy.  In a nutshell, God’s message to mankind, gave free rein to do pretty much anything he and his wife chose with one exception; eating the forbidden fruit.  Mind you, the real crime was not so much the forbidden fruit as it was in simplest terms a breach of God’s rule, I.E., sin; and the price or wages of sin was and is death.  

Was there ‘noise’ in the beginning…?  You bet; not anything near what we experience today, however Adam and Eve, who were very aware of the rules, were also very busy finding and naming the things put here for their use and enjoyment, and I’m sure working on the “go forth and multiply part.”  

Along came some serious noise in the form of the enemy of mankind, (Lucifer) who fed them a ‘little’ lie; he convinced them that eating the forbidden fruit would not really cause their deaths and would instead allow them to be like God.  Well, they did eat it, and the rest as they say, is history.

Mind you, the original message is still there, albeit broken by mankind.  Over the course of history, God has been reminding us through His prophets who He had write His Word which contains that message and the additional message of how we can overcome that death sentence by the redeeming sacrifice of His one and only son Jesus.  The biggest difference since then and now really is the noise level, which the enemy has been employing and increasing in an attempt to completely drown out the message; because he knows how the story ultimately ends.

Getting back to Oprah for a minute; I really don’t know what her motive is in attempting to influence her millions of followers with such false information, however whether she and her minions like it or not, there is in fact only one very exclusive and inclusive, (that is to say, all are welcome) way to find favor in God’s sight.  As you will see, I am only discussing that one true path; not because there aren’t many other false ones, but simply because there isn’t enough room in a library full of books to delve into them all.  More importantly, just as how they only teach bank tellers about real money, I am discussing historical Biblical truth; counterfeits can be spotted a mile away once the real deal is known.

With the historically traceable and provable exception of the Bible; the inspired Word of God, Yahweh by name; aka I Am, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and other names; all world belief systems have been man made and bear the easily detected, concealed mark of the great deceiver; the same deceiver who continues to do everything within his limited scope to attempt the destruction of mankind.

While many have tried, no one has or can ever successfully dis-prove a word of it. The Bible has been around and unchanged, save for meticulous translations by countless scholars into modern languages since the days of Moses when he scribed the first five books of the Old Testament known as the Torah and the Pentateuch. Additionally, much to the chagrin of detractors, archeologists are constantly finding corroborating evidence to support it.

I know what you’re going to say; “that may be true for you, but not for me…;” that and a lot of that sort of nonsense is just exactly what the enemy of mankind wants you to believe; believe anything and everything, just not the truth.

There is a lot more on this subject and I will be discussing it over the coming months; however, one major point of exclusivity which destroys what Oprah has to say is what Jesus said in John 14:6, “Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

Let me repeat that critical last part; “No one comes to the Father except through me.”  

And that is where the rubber meets the road on this.  Regardless of your faith or lack thereof; would you at very least consider that Jesus knows a whole lot more than Oprah and her yes men…?

The same Jesus that fulfilled every prophecy about His life; the same Jesus that was born, performed miracles, was crucified, and rose three days later; the same Jesus that ascended into Heaven forty days after He rose from the dead.  The same Jesus whose tomb remains empty to this very day…..that Jesus.  No one else in all of history can make any of the claims or perform any of the miracles of Jesus.  All the false testimonies of all the Oprahs and liars of the world can’t change those facts.

The point is this; I don’t know if this is the first time, the hundredth time, or somewhere in between that you’ve heard this simple message, however, by whatever means this very temporary earthbound existence ends, as long as you are of decision making maturity and/or sound mental capacity, what your experience will be when you breathe your last and step into eternity is entirely up to you.  You absolutely have a choice.   

As I stated above, death was imposed on mankind as the wages of sin; which we are all subject to.  We’re all in the same boat; all of your sins; all of the bad stuff that you may be ashamed of or think you could never be forgiven for or loved because of, or whatever you’ve come to believe about yourself….you can change all of that, be forgiven, and avoid an unspeakable eternity.  You are very much loved by a Heavenly Father who desperately wants for you to open your eyes and heart to Him and trust Him.

He wants you to know Him as He knows you; however He needs you to meet Him in the middle and make the choice to invite Him into your life.  There are no magic words, there is no special formality, you don’t even need to enter a ‘church’ building.  All that is required to accept the grace of His free gift of forgiveness and salvation, is to sincerely humble yourself and in your own words, admit that you have sinned, and ask for His forgiveness.  You can do it anytime and anywhere, however, since none of us knows what the very next moment will bring, NOW, even as you are reading this, is the time; because you only have until the unknown moment of death to repent.  From that moment on, your place in Eternity with Him is sealed; He’ll do the rest, but He wants you to come to Him through His Son Jesus.

Don’t buy into Oprah’s feel good, “there are many paths” lie.  That is exactly the sort of thing the great deceiver wants you to do.  At the end of the day, he knows that he loses.

Sadly, with the help of people like Oprah, he’s going to have a lot of company, don’t be among them.