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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Scott Mayer

Wholly Hollywood

A lot of people ask us in our ministry, so how do you guys survive?

When I left my job in Hollywood, I knew I would never see that money again.

But I cannot tell you how rewarding this work is.

To just go around and fellowship with my fellow brothers and sisters whom we may spend an eternity with.

And so, we're gonna have the deacons come forward and we decided to do something this last year.

We hope that people stop asking us to come and speak about this topic.

If God said, okay we don't need you to talk anymore, I'd be like, awesome, sweet, I can do something else.

I really want you guys to know, I don't want to be up here talking about what Hollywood is doing.

I would rather tell you about the love of Jesus.

Hollywood is not the issue, it is a tiny issue.

But what's crazy is we are so impacted by what we see, hear, watch, all those things.

And I've seen around the world, our brothers and sisters just caught up in this thing.

So as the deacons come forward, we're gonna collect an offering because what we decided to do this last year is we said, you know what, God, there's many churches that want us to come and they can't afford us.

And we said, you know what, we don't care about the money.

And so we said, you know what, we're going to leave it in your hands, God.

The second thing that we wanted to do is it takes a long time to make documentaries.

I don't know if any of you have seen some of ours.

Some of our documentaries, it's taken us years to produce.

But the problem is, is we produce the information well after it comes out, and everybody goes and watches it.

So that's what we started making these LED projects, which are on current films, they're 5 to 10 minute videos, free, before the movies come out, so you can make a better decision if you want to even put that information in your head in the first place.

So I want you guys to prayerfully consider, there's little envelopes that will be passed around in there with a little card on here.

This is not just a card to collect money as well as if you want to communicate with us, if you have questions, if you want to ask us to come to your church or anything, fill it out, fill out your address, sign up for our newsletter, support this work so that we can get our young people and everyone for that matter to stop messing around with this stuff of the world and get into their Bibles and let's all go home.

I don't know if we want to play some music.

I want to thank you guys so much because we feel like we have so much support in our church.

And you know, when we first started this ministry, we thought, what a weird ministry.

You want us to go and talk about Hollywood in front of tons of people?

And God has just shown us so much compassion that when we've traveled around, it's just amazing.

I mean, it has strengthened my faith in God, just traveling around and interacting with all these churches.

And it's people like you guys that make that possible.

So I want to thank you, and as we move forward, Let's first open with a word of prayer.

Dear gracious Heavenly Father, as we reopen up this topic here tonight, we know that the world is starting to turn their eyes to some of these religious movies and these religious things that are coming out of Hollywood.

Everyone knows the world is falling apart and they're looking for answers.

So Lord, open our eyes, soften our hearts, teach us how to navigate through some of this material.

And more importantly Lord, give us that daily desire to get our information from your word.

You know, if you have seen any of our films, a lot of them go over so many secular movies.

And just like Keith said, it is pretty exhausting.

We could stand up here and show movie after movie after movie until you guys were probably sick to your stomachs, don't need to see this anymore.

But what's amazing to me is this huge bloom of religious movies that are coming out.

And I think there's a bunch of people that are really truly honestly excited about this.

Hey, maybe this is time that we can share the gospel.

I mean if everybody watches movies, wouldn't that be a great way to share some truth about God?

Now, also like Keith said, not everything you see on television is evil.

I would not make them if I thought they were evil.

The television in and of itself is not evil.

I'm standing here today before you because somebody shared with me a DVD.

That's what really, truly woke me up and brought me back into the church.

It can be a wonderful tool to win someone over to the gospel.

So I don't want to discredit people making religious things, But time and time again, I will use this as my ruler.

If it does not speak according to this, there is no light in it.

That's the principle that I hope to teach you tonight.

This is okay to watch and this is not okay to watch.

You'll never hear that come out of any 1 of our mouths.

Does it line up with what God is trying to teach us.

And that should be the rule of thumb, how you see these films.

So I titled this Holy Hollywood and of course I put a whole parentheses around the E like there's a hole in their message.

You see the struggle between God and Satan, but really, where is the focus of a lot of these films?

Before I start that, I wanna read Matthew 7, 21 and 22, because this verse says, "'Not everyone that saith unto me, "'Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father, which is in heaven.

Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name?

And in thy name have we not cast out devils?

And in thy name have we not done wondrous things?

In thy name have we not made all these great movies and things that shared the gospel?

Was it in accordance to the will of the Father is where this is.

In Matthew 7, 23 it says, "'And then I will profess unto them, "'I never knew you, depart from me, "'you workers of iniquity.'" Those are gonna be harsh words.

And they're gonna be said to those who believed with all their heart they were doing the will of God.

And it's very difficult to tell people, like people come up to us all the time and say, hey, I really want to make the great controversy into a movie.

Before you say, I want to make the great controversy into a story, guess what you need to do?

Do you want me to make the great controversy story?

If you do that, and all of a sudden you say, hey, I need 5000000 dollars to make the great controversy story.

If you do that and all of a sudden you say, hey, I need 5000000 dollars to make the great controversy story.

Lord, if you want me to make this great controversy story, give me the 5000000 dollars.

If you get 5000000 dollars in the mail, you have every right to go to God in heaven and say, I gave you the decision and you gave it to me.

Trust me, if you put the answer into God's hands and he doesn't want you to make it, you won't make it.

You will try and try and try and try and try and it will be impossible if you say, God, if you don't want me to do this, I ask you to take it away from me.

So, I always encourage people, hey, if you want to do something like that for God, great.

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Wholly Hollywood

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