The book of Hebrews declares that Jesus was the exact image of God.⁽³⁾

Except for the time He made a whip of cords and drove the money changer from the temple, He never raised His hand in anger against anyone and certainly not for sport. There is a new type of "Christian" music called "Brutal Christian Music" that should go very well with the image of God as a violent manipulator of sport contests.

If God really did back the Rams, I can envision fire and brimstone raining down on the opposing team while the football field split down the middle to swallow them alive. All this while the victors stand on the rim of the resulting chasm cheering as the Tennessee Titans descended into hell to be eternally tormented for opposing God. The crowd might then break into a course of, "What a Mighty God we serve!!" and someone could take up an offering. This would in fact ruin football for several reasons.

First, the ole beer-drinking sport fans don't attend these events because God is present, but because He is not. Therefore, they would lose interest in football and convert to some other sport that has managed to remain godless, if there are any left in this "Everything is Christian" culture. They might all flock to the WWF or one of the knock-off's of that sordid waste of humanity since I'm sure that, with the exception of professing "Christian," Hulk Hogan, most of the participants seem to be claiming help from Satan.

Secondly, no one would play football anymore. It takes two teams to tango, and no one is going to chance being brutally beaten and then be cast alive into hell for opposing God's team. Finally, I can see Christians getting bored with the event because the sinners don't like it anymore. Professing Christians are seem to be attracted only to those activities sinners are attracted to. Once they Christianize it, sinners lose interest and it just isn't fun anymore to be tempted and give in.

The question begging to be asked is as follows, "Does God really intervene in sports events?" Not to the extent that He insures one team wins and another loses. He most likely doesn't even show up at the various churches that insert the Super Bowl for preaching of His word on Sunday night. How did professing Christians who are suppose to be one of the most knowledgeable of all generations in Church history come to believe that God intervenes in sports contests? I believe it is a direct result of churches setting up large screen televisions in the sanctuary on Super Bowl Sunday night and abandoning themselves to an emotional orgy. As they sit in the sanctuary gorging on football, they have made a direct connection to the World System and their emotional system is being manipulated and overcharged by the spirits of darkness. How the god of this world must laugh at the conversion of a church sanctuary into a temple of idolatry.

One has to ask themselves how this phenomenon so foreign to the Scripture come into vogue anyway? From personal experience as an evangelist traveling about the country I can tell you truthfully that many pastors spend their Sunday evenings in front of the television watching football. I know a pastor, a leader in his denomination, that sat in front of the television watching football every Sunday evening as he concocted his Sunday night sermon. In his opinion, it wasn't a waste of time and certainly not a sin since he was able to get his sermon while rooting for God's team, which happened to be the Dallas Cowboys at the time. In my opinion, Super Bowl Sunday in the sanctuary is the result of decades of Sunday evening football consumption by the male leadership of the church. Evidently, they finally consumed enough of the sport followed by a Sunday night sermon that a merger of the two came about. When this happens, one will become dead to the Word of God and alive to the sensual craving of the flesh. Thus, there was no conviction to simply move God out of His sanctuary and allowing His enemy to run amuck. Then it was a small step to attributing various highlights of the game to godly intervention. Serving God and idols is nothing new. It happened before in the history of Israel and it is re-surfacing again under Christianity.⁽⁴⁾   The next step is to abandon God altogether in favor of idolatry and in my estimation the professing church is about there. This final state of wickedness is call apostasy.

Surely, it will not be long before we will see churches advertising Masters Sunday. No, it will not be Master Jesus, but the Masters Golf Tournament held every year in Augusta, Georgia. Then British Open Sunday, NBA Finals Sunday, NASCAR Sunday, and the list goes on. Hey, why not just suspend every Sunday service in favor of a sporting event? That wouldn't work, as we all know, because most people already do it, only at home sitting in their recliners. Some churches have early morning services each Sunday during the summer so that people can get to the golf course on time or hit the lake for a day of water fun and games. Other churches suspend Sunday night services during the summer. I once saw a large billboard in Texas advertising a local church that read, "Closed for the Summer." Churches like that should fire their pastor each Spring, then they could save three months of having to pay a pastor's salary. They could probably buy a nice large screen television or even a video projector with the savings. I know of churches that have a bar in their facilities where they serve alcoholic beverages to their constituency. I suppose the idea there is to save them from having to attend a bar to get drunk, for that would surely be a sin.

I saved a clipping out of a newspaper that reported a pastor hired a stripper to serve communion in the main sanctuary one Sunday. He rationalized that this would get people to attend the otherwise poorly attended event. I can imagine quite a lot of men showed up, but I don't know about their wives. I think the pastor himself probably wanted the show as much as anyone, and that is probably why few people took the communion service seriously in the first place. Proponents of Super Bowl Sunday in the Sanctuary (SBSS) say that the idea is to get people to attend a church building to watch the Big Game instead of watching it at home. They believe that somehow or another to watch it inside of the church building makes it a sanctified event and eliminates the sin of missing a Sunday night church attendance. These folks might be surprised to know that simply coming to a church building does not necessarily enhance one's spiritual life. Neither does a church building make sport events holy exercises. I know a lot of people who attend church services and are as carnal as can be. Some are carnal to the point of being wicked. I might go so far as to state that I'd rather people not attend any of our church service's who would rather be somewhere else or who would make a mockery of God's Word..

One obvious thing that many professing Christians seem to have missed during this transition from spirituality to sportuality is the fact that Christianity has and still is suffering a serious credibility crisis. This fact is evidenced by the lack of fruit and godliness. Seldom is the sinfulness of people challenged and precious little remain of the effort of past generations of godly individuals. For the most part, the professing Christian culture has morphed into a genre that scarcely resembles the Biblical pattern. The popular heroes of the mutant church are people who play games for huge incomes, Hollywood actors and actresses, musicians and singers, but little or no people of godly character. A church building will fill up if a popular sports figure or entertainer is scheduled to speak and no one complains when he or she goes overtime.

I believe it would be safe to state that the founders of most Christian organizations would not be welcome to speak in their respective pulpits today. I certainly do not believe John the Baptist, any of the disciples, or even Christ Jesus himself would be tolerated to speak. However, I'm sure not many churches would pass up the opportunity to have a popular sports figure speak in a church service. One thing I am sure of is that it will be a cold day in Satan's future abode before I will charge God with the folly man created to gratify his sin-starved flesh.

2. (John 14:9 NKJV) "Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, 'Show us the Father'?"

3. (Heb 1:3 NKJV) "who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,"