Censorship of Praise is the Thief of Joy

Have you ever noticed that any public statement of joy that glorifies the Lord God is painstakingly edited out of live feeds?

Of course, we know this is because the expression of true joy is deeply irritating in the eyes of the evil minions and emissaries lurking in mass media and elsewhere.

This came to my attention when I saw the recent news about an EF1 tornado that hit a Nazarene church in central Ohio. Miraculously, no one was hurt, and the church edifice only suffered cosmetic damages. Given this respite, wouldn’t you expect these Nazarenes to be hopping with joy and singing Hallelujah! like Pentecostals?

Now take a look at this news clip. (The beginning has coverage of the tornado’s damage. The report on the church begins at 0:35.)

When the news media hones in on the story, they don’t interview the pastor or the deacons of the church. Instead, they interview the sophisticated architect of the church (McKnight), who also happens to be a member. I wonder, how many more hours of labor did they spend searching for the architect and arranging an interview, rather than just calling the pastor’s front page number? And why the architect? (Meaning no disrespect to the man himself, but it’s remiscient of GAOTU.) Why not the electrician, or the mason, or the groundskeepers? Why not someone who was actually in the building at the moment the tornado struck?

“The Lord is my strength and shield. I trust him with all my heart. He helps me, and my heart is filled with joy. I burst out in songs of thanksgiving.” ~ Psalm 28:7

In the interview, you can feel the intense joy that McKnight experiences, but the only verbal statement of joy retained by the news network is when he says, “Wow! I’m really proud of this building!” I expected him to finish that statement with an acknowledgment of the Lord’s grace, and I was disappointed and angry when it didn’t come.

Hey Mr. Newscaster, kudos to McKnight for a job well done, but it wasn’t merely his architectural skills that kept that building in place.

Based on McKnight’s gushing testimony, I truly believe that he did express genuine joy and thanksgiving for this miracle. But you won’t see much of it in the video. Sadly, there is no thanksgiving, no praise, no mention of God’s merciful hand, or Jesus. All credit to God has been carefully edited out. If you go back and watch the clip carefully, you can see how they cut and spliced together the video in order to remove all his references to the Lord.

When men neglect glorifying the Lord, and withhold from Him the sacrifice of praise, the spirit of hypermodern humanism soon settles in, followed by notions of fate, then hopelessness, and finally, idolatry. It’s a just reward for those who are ashamed of Christ.

“For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, of him the Son of Man will be ashamed when He comes in His own glory, and in His Father’s, and of the holy angels.” ~ Luke 9:26 (NKJV)

The Nazarene Communications Network (NCN) News, a publication of the Nazarene Church, doesn’t give any credit to God either, for this event. Their article, Ohio church helps with recovery efforts after tornado (April 6, 2018) only parrots the news flash from WCMH-TV, and the interview with the architect.

I wept when I saw this. How long will you disrespect the Lord by withholding your praise?

³⁹ “Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, rebuke your disciples!’ ⁴⁰ ‘I tell you,’ he replied, ‘if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.'” ~ Luke 19:39-40

The recent mass proliferation of homegrown news media and blogs, are all proof that ‘the stones are crying out’ for us, as humans (specifically, the News media) to give God His dues of recognition, credit, praise and gratitude.

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