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Well, I'm a newcomer to posting but have lurked for a long time. Hi everyone!
My take on the smoke and mirrors is that I have seen emotional altar calls but no long lasting fruit. It is sort of like the seed that was thrown by the wayside. These types "did not understand" and the wicked one quickly took it away. (MT 13:19)
It appears that it is an emotional response without any understanding of the gospel and it is easily swiped away by the enemy.
As one of my former Pastors used to say, "if your saved by music you can fall away by music". I don't know if that was verbatim but it was something similar.
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Welcome Romans,
Your point is one that is relevent with or without colored lights and smoke machines.
People saved through being scared to death by doom and gloom preachers are "saved" by fear and fall away when the fear subsides.
How many revivals or youth camps with the preacher telling scary stories of either the end time or car wrecks have we seen the altar filled with folks caught up in the moment without a real change of heart and mind?
Colored lights and smoke machines will never be a substitute for prayer, worship, praise ,etc. They are simply tools to set a mood, stimulate the mind, make a presentation more interesting or pleasing.
If the CONTENT at the event with colored lights and smoke machines is good, right, and the word of the Lord it will not return void.
If the CONTENT at the event without colored lights and smoke machines is the vain words of men the fact there were no colored lights or smoke machines there will not give any power to those words.
Lights, smoke, amplification, screens, are all tools just like air conditioing to make the atmosphere more pleasing when a group of people are together.
One of the most powerful things I have seen was at a large church where when the praise and worship was going on they were singing a song about our powerful God, God of heven and earth, how he has made the mountains, oceans, etc they had on the big video screens a video montage of mountains, the ocean, fields, etc. It made you really appreciate the words you were singing and brought to mind just how majestic God's creative ability is.