I’ve been watching/listening to some easter services from many churches this last week.

I’ve seen all sorts of messages.

Some reduce the concept of sin to a small annoyance or when you get irritable with others or your children. They seemingly teach that your greatest sin is getting upset when Starbucks gets your low-fat, cream-based, sugar-free, soy milk, no-whip, dessert in a cup you call your coffee order wrong with a paper straw because you know, the environment is important.

Others did a Beauty and the Beast version of the Easter message and crucified Belle while Cocksworth and Lumiere are upset because “they killed an innocent”. Belle loved the entire world, including the beast, we should all learn from her as a moral example.

And finally, this morning I watched parts of what was titled “The most insane easter performance on Earth” from Transformation Church produced by Michael Todd. Because when I think of what Jesus did for us, the first word I think of is “insane”? Yes, Jesus was insane I guess. This easter service was full of pyrotechnics, smoke machines, lasers, erotic dancers, 3 women comparing the sizes of their butts, and a whole lot of twisted scripture.

This is all a symptom that the church is not well-educated in their Bibles. Basically, stupid Christians. Yes, I said it. If these were well-educated Christians well taught in their Bibles, those places would be full of empty seats. And yet, it appeared they had a sold-out show.

I’m unsure what is more dramatic than Jesus Christ upsetting the Roman Empire and Pharisees so much that they tortured and humiliated this man more than any man in history. Not only did they crucify Him, but they also made Him carry his own cross to the place He would be crucified while torturing Him. But yeah, we need to spice this story up a bit.

I can go on and on. describing in great detail what happened that day and the days after. His death, burial, and resurrection is the most powerful story in history. And most of His disciples followed Him down the same path of torture till death and they continued to share His message.

But somehow, we need to crucify female Disney Characters instead of Jesus Christ in order that the easter service would be memorable and attract more people.

Again, symptoms that we have a stupid Christianity.

You see, the ways of the world are to get you to feel something emotional so that we can get your attention and then teach you something. The problem is you’re at an emotional high, and your absorption of what you learned is very low. You’re body is just focused on how it’s feeling right now versus sound teaching. Because this is how the world works, many, if not most Christians operate on this level of emotional manipulation. And once again, I claim no innocence in this. Not only did I crave this, I helped create it. I helped emotionally manipulate people into feeling a false connection to God through the soundboard. It’s amazing how much you can change the emotional response of a room with the right sound frequency.

The Church is supposed to operate opposite of the world.

It starts with sound teaching. Teach you something, something so profound, so intense, so real, so internal to your heart that you cannot help but have an emotional response because you fully understand what Jesus Christ did for you.

You can only do that by making sure people fully understand their sin and the real impact it has on them and in the world, and then understand how loving and graceful Jesus Christ is by not running away from His fate, but knowing that there was no other way to express His love and save humanity than to suffer the symptoms of a world that is lead by the manipulation of their emotions.

And He said, “What comes out of a man, that defiles a man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a man.”
Mark 7:20-23

“The heart is deceitful above all things,,And desperately wicked;,Who can know it?
Jeremiah 17:9

Charm is deceitful and beauty is passing,,But a woman who fears the Lord , she shall be praised.
Proverbs 31:30

Wisdom rests in the heart of him who has understanding,,But what is in the heart of fools is made known.
Proverbs 14:33

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
John 3:16-17

You can’t read the bible and not understand that at its core: while our emotions and desires are God-given and are meant for our enjoyment, they’re also the very things that enslave us in our sin. The message is not to avoid all emotions but to understand that they’re used against us by the devil. Evil thrives in an emotional response. People cheered, spit on, and took pleasure in Jesus Christ being tortured and crucified. That is the result of emotional manipulation, not of people of a sound mind and heart that are well educated in their scripture.

If you’ve watched some great, biblically correct, scripturally sound easter messages, please leave them in the comments. I’d love to see them. Below are videos of the performances I talking about.