Trending News! Breaking News!

There are certain catchphrases that grab our attention, and “Breaking news!” is one of them. Some new thing that is happening right now…at this very nanosecond…and you need to know about it. Now.

If it isn’t happening now, it’s done. Over. Gone, like yesterday’s news.

Breaking news happens every few minutes, but the media aren’t in danger of dissipating its effectiveness in getting our attention. That’s because our appetite for new things is insatiable. We are gluttons for what’s trending.

Yet, no one in the media really cares about the news. It’s the ratings that bring in the advertisers, and the advertisers bring in the cash. And that’s what the news is really about. Money. So, if there’s no news, they make it news.

But I’m sure it’s not news to you to know that new things are a massive money-making industry. It always has been that way, but it hasn’t always been this competitive. The internet changed things. It wasn’t too long ago that older news was still new news. Something big would happen. Newspapers were quickly printed, distributed, bought, then read, and it was still considered hot news. Nowadays we can read about what happened seconds ago in the United States, through an online New Zealand news site. News is instant and universal.

New things have always been news. When Paul was in Athens, a group of men met to discuss new things. That was all they ever talked about…whatever was trending.

We see the news being spoken of in Luke 13. The principle way back then was also, “If it bleeds, it leads.” If it was worst, it was first. The contemporary headline that day was that a massive tower had collapsed and killed eighteen men. That was the big item. And right behind it was another. Pontius Pilate had slaughtered some godly Galileans during a worship service. But at this time, the actual details of what happened wasn’t the feature. They wanted to know why these things happened. Why did God allow these eighteen to die? Why did He let Pilate do such an evil thing? They wanted to make sense of it.

But Jesus didn’t give the fine print. He just told His hearers that there was something far more important than knowing the inside story. That essentially, was their own personal sin before a holy God. Whether or not those who died were judged by God, wasn’t the most important issue.

When you are sharing your faith, don’t let sinners desire to know something be their stumbling block. Don’t be sidetracked. Warn them that they are in terrible danger (using the moral Law as Jesus did in Mark 10:17) and let the good news of the gospel be the best news they could ever hope to hear. And there’s a way to do that.

If a man has to jump 10,000 feet out of a plane at any moment, putting on the parachute should be his priority. If it’s not, the best way to get him to see its importance is to hang him out of the plane by his ankles for a moment. Such an experience will help him get his priorities straight.

Do that with the ungodly. Watch, listen, or read Hell’s Best Kept Secret freely online to learn how.