Tearing Down Hollywood’s Demonic Strongholds from the Courts of Heaven
There is much that God wants to release into the earth through arts and entertainment.
But for this to happen, the church that stewards the presence of the Lord must allow that same presence to unlock creativity in people and allow it to flow without putting the labels of secular or spiritual on it. If we can ever get past these barriers in our thinking, we might see God do something through the creativity of His people that will astound the world. All the creative springs of God are in His presence.
In Exodus 31:1-6, we see God choosing Bezalel, Aholiab, and those with them to take the plans Moses received on the mountain. Through their gifted abilities as artisans, they actually built the tabernacle as a place for God to live among His people:
Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: “See, I have called by name Bezalel the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah. And I have filled him with the Spirit of God, in wisdom, in understanding, in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship, to design artistic works, to work in gold, in silver, in bronze, in cutting jewels for setting, in carving wood, and to work in all manner of workmanship. And I, indeed I, have appointed with him Aholiab the son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan; and I have put wisdom in the hearts of all the gifted artisans, that they may make all that I have commanded you.”
One of the purposes that God will use the arts and entertainment mountain for is to build a place for His Presence to live. The Lord doesn’t want to just dwell in what we call the church. He wants to manifest Himself in society as a whole. This can be accomplished through the creative release in the arts and entertainment mountain. God uses creativity as a means of expressing Himself in the earth. Creativity is at the heart of the arts and entertainment mountain.
In a reformed state, God will use this mountain to express and reveal Himself into the earth. This does not mean that everything will have to be religious or flow out of the church. Remember, we are to be a kingdom people, not just Christian. If we can grasp this in regard to the arts and entertainment mountain, we can see God’s agenda pushed forward. I am referring to the beauty and splendor of the Lord being unveiled through many different dimensions of His creative nature. Hermann Cohen said, “Creativity is the basic attribute of God, identical with his uniqueness.” If this is true, then wherever God-inspired creativity is, God can be seen and known. My passion is to see a greater platform from which God can be known other than just within what we call the church. Even Solomon said that the house he had built for God could not contain God. First Kings 8:27 shows that even the splendor and greatness of the temple that Solomon built for God could not contain and house Him:
But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You. How much less this temple which I have built!
Solomon declared that not only the temple that had been erected, but the expanse of heaven was too small as well.
We must get God into society in every capacity. One of the chief ways is through the creativity that flows from the arts and entertainment mountain.
Hermann Cohen said that God’s creativity helps establish His uniqueness. Our creativity helps establish our uniqueness and individuality as well. When the creativity of God is flowing through us, it separates us from others and helps set our own identity and even self-worth. Dorothy May Day expressed this idea even further when she said, “God is our Creator. God made us in his image and likeness. Therefore we are creators…The joy of creativeness should be ours.”
Creativity is that which causes life not to be mundane and lifeless. Without creativity, life becomes boring and fruitless. When we are being creative, we are being like God and experiencing His life flowing in us. This is the basic driving force of the arts and entertainment mountain.
The problem is that we have allowed this mountain to be hijacked. The church has either directly taught or allowed to be believed that all of this arts and entertainment stuff was of the world—and we were supposed to be separate from the world. As a result of this basic philosophy, we developed a hands-off mentality, and the devil came rushing into the vacuum created and took this mountain over. How ignorant and unlearned of us to think that the Creator of all the earth would not want us involved in creativity in the world He made. Just like all the other mountains, our neglect gave the devil opportunity to take over what God always desired and demanded for Himself. While we were making plans to fly away to heaven in a supposed rapture, the devil was entrenching himself in what is really the Lord’s. We have some real repenting to do and then some real reestablishing to do as we seek to take back what the devil really didn’t take but instead we gave away.
As we get ready to take back the arts and entertainment mountain, we should know at least partially what it involves. We are referring to theatre and fine arts, dance, television, music, artisans, film, and sports. These venues and perhaps others make up the arts and entertainment mountain that greatly impact and touch society. We must develop a new mindset in the church about arts and entertainment and not think of it as inherently evil or wicked. It is designed of God to influence on a grand scale when it is in a reformed state. Therefore, we should first see the church develop a new attitude about the creativity of God in its midst and then let it flow out into society. A kingdom mindset must be embraced.
As I was teaching on the arts and entertainment mountain, a young man came to me afterward. I had spoken that everything didn’t have to be Christian but should instead be kingdom. This meant that we didn’t have to make Christian movies or just sing Christian songs. We could and should instead make movies, songs, and other expressions that espoused a kingdom philosophy. Remember, these are the morals, ethics, values, and virtues of our King. As I completed my teaching, this young man came up to me. He began to declare that he had come to great liberty during this session. He was in fact a movie-maker and had been struggling with what kind of movies he should make. Should he make Christian movies or secular movies? Now he understood this was a wrong question. He knew now he was to make kingdom movies to prophesy to a culture and society of the King’s heart.
As we completed our conversation, this young man turned to leave. I said to him as he walked away, “Thanks so much for sharing with me. You made my day.”
He turned in response to me and said, “You made my life.” Wow! I was stunned. This young man was now free from religious constraints to have a kingdom impact in culture. This is what the Lord desires.
We must see our young people turned loose with what God has placed in them without putting religious restraints on them. They are called of God to speak to a society through this tremendously important mountain. As the people of God are freed to function in the creativity of the Lord that is within them, society will be touched and changed.
There is much that God wants to release into the earth through arts and entertainment. But for this to happen, the church that stewards the presence of the Lord must allow that same presence to unlock creativity in people and allow it to flow without putting the labels of secular or spiritual on it. If we can ever get past these barriers in our thinking, we might see God do something through the creativity of His people that will astound the world. All the creative springs of God are in His presence.
Let me give some ideas of how we may invade this sphere and see the creativity of God impact it and prophesy through it. If we are to impact this arena, we must get people free from captivity that is squelching creativity. Psalm 137:1-4 shows us how captivity of the soul stops creativity from flowing:
By the rivers of Babylon,
There we sat down, yea, we wept
When we remembered Zion.
We hung our harps
Upon the willows in the midst of it.
For there those who carried us away captive asked of us a song,
And those who plundered us requested mirth,
Saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”
How shall we sing the Lord’s song
In a foreign land?
When Israel was taken captive into the land of Babylon, those who were there asked them to sing one of the songs of Zion. Their answer was that they were unable to sing one of these creative and life-giving songs as long as they were held in captivity. This is still true today. Many folks do not experience the creative power of God that is within them because their spirits and souls are bound in some captivity. Either from wounds, hurts, bitterness, sin, unwillingness to forgive, and other issues of the heart, they find the creative flow of God stopped and halted. There is an even greater hindrance and captivity, though, that is hampering the creativeness of God’s people—the spirit of religion and the legalisms associated with it. The oppressive spirit of religion and legalism saps and destroys the creative juices of God. We must break the spirit of legalism that is holding the people of God captive and putting limitations on what is allowed.
We mustn’t be so afraid of sin that we paralyze ourselves and others. I don’t what to go into it all here, but the Holy Spirit must be granted the liberty to bring us into liberty so that we aren’t living by rules and regulations but out of relationship with Him. When this occurs, God will dismantle many of the religious concepts that hold us and bring us into liberty to enjoy life. We see this in the life of Jonathan, the son of Saul, the first king of Israel. In I Samuel 14:27-29, we see Jonathan eating some honey from the ground while a battle was raging against the Philistines. Saul had commanded the army not to eat anything before the setting of the sun so that God would supposedly honor them with victory. The problem was that Jonathan did not hear the command so he was free to eat:
But Jonathan had not heard his father charge the people with the oath; therefore he stretched out the end of the rod that was in his hand and dipped it in a honeycomb, and put his hand to his mouth; and his countenance brightened. Then one of the people said, “Your father strictly charged the people with an oath, saying, ‘Cursed is the man who eats food this day.’” And the people were faint.
But Jonathan said, “My father has troubled the land. Look now, how my countenance has brightened because I tasted a little of this honey.”
Jonathan was not under the oath that had been demanded or the legalistic requirement of his father, so he ate the honey and the honeycomb and his eyes and countenance brightened. This is what happens when we get free from the domination leveled at us by men. Our countenance and eyes brighten and the creative life of God begins to move in and through us. We must get the church free from this spirit of domination and legalism so that creativity may return.
In the process of invading the mountain of arts and entertainment, we will uncover and discover the gifts of God in us and among us. There are many gifts in the people of God that have not been allowed to function or at least have not been appreciated. If we can create an atmosphere where people and what they carry are honored and esteemed, we can see a prophetic impact enter the earth through this sphere.
