Ephesians 6:10-17
10Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
We had the meanest parents in the whole world! While other kids ate candy for breakfast, we had to have cereal, eggs, and toast. When others had a Cola and a Twinkie for lunch, we had sardine sandwiches. And you can guess if our mother fixed us a dinner that we did not like, too bad, we had to eat it anyway. Our parents insisted on knowing where we were at all times. They had to know who our friends were, who our friends’ parents were, and what we were doing with them. They insisted that if we said we would be gone for an hour, we would be gone for an hour or less. We were scared to admit it, but they had the unashamedly nerve to break unmitigated Child Labor Laws by making us work. We not only had to wash the dishes, but we also had to clean the entire kitchen, make the beds, and keep our rooms neat and orderly, we had to cook, vacuum the floors, do laundry, and all sorts of cruel jobs. They always insisted on us telling the truth the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. By the time we were teenagers, they could read our minds, and life got really tough. We could play kick ball or hide and go seek in the street because they could see us. Since we didn’t have computers and Ipads, after school we watched Soul Train or American Bandstand on our 12-inch black and white television. If our homework was finished and all chores completed, we could watch some comedy shows like Father Knows Best in the evening or Ed Sullivan on Sunday. Because of our parents we missed out on lots of things other kids experienced. None of us have ever been caught shoplifting, vandalizing other’s property, or arrested for any crime. We never got drunk, stayed out all night, or talked disrespectfully to adults. Sundays were reserved for church, and we never once missed Sunday School, Catechism Class, Vacation Bible School, or Christmas and Easter recitations. Now that we have left home, we are all God-fearing, educated, honest adults. We are doing our best to be mean parents just like our parents were. The world just doesn’t have enough mean parents anymore.
Parents have incredible influence on their children. Our primary task as parents is to prepare our sons and daughters to walk according to God’s plan, God’s will, and God’s purpose for their lives. Parents we have a responsibility to parent our children with specific intentions. Intentional parenting means we raise our kids under a purpose and a plan. Ephesians 6:1-4 says Children are to be brought up in the instruction of the Lord. Parents must teach God’s truth. Failure to do so reaps serious consequences.
Children are to be brought up in Godly discipline and children need Godly admonishment. Pro 22:15 says Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him. We are to call their attention to things that they are doing wrong. What does it take to get their attention? Being brought up in the love of Godly parents.
Deuteronomy 6:6-9 tells us And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.”
It used to be a parent’s responsibility, duty, and role to keep them safe, housed, clothed, fed, and educated. Now days, this role is being shared with day care facilities, community centers, and most importantly, the internet. Too many parents have the attitude of “I won’t force my views on my children. I believe in letting them decide for themselves.” Proverbs 29:15... a child left to himself brings his mother to shame.” Children aren’t necessarily the best judges of what is or isn't the best for them in the long run. If they were allowed to make their own choices, they wouldn’t ever go the dentist, take a bath, eat their veggies, attend school, or go to church. Proverbs 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it."
When they are 21 years old, they have the foresight and capacity of making decisions for themselves, but until then if parents start letting children decide for themselves before that time, the parent loses that important and limited time they had to teach them appropriate boundaries and expectations.
Chilling descriptions of destruction still come to the headlines on the face of the earth. Famine, floods, fire, and violence are ravaging this land. In 20th century alone, we went from horse & buggy to space travel. We have seen mankind harness the atom and developed capabilities to destroy the entire earth in less than 30 minutes. Computers linked together with instant communication have changed the world. More information has been produced in the last thirty years than in the previous five thousand years. Ninety per cent of all the items in supermarkets today did not exist just ten years ago. A Cashless Society is nearly a done deal. It is estimated that 73% of college graduates are going into jobs, which did not exist when they were born. Movies have gone from silent to unspeakable. We used to have 3 networks: NBC, ABC, and CBS; now we now have channels, like ID, 2020, SCYFY, Oxygen, Me TV, etc. showing programs that entice our consciousness into subliminal interests. Many of these changes have turned our world into insatiable violent fighting games. While war used to be in some other country, we now find gang wars within our own cities. In the fifties the major discipline problems in our public schools were fist fighting, skipping class, or running in the halls. Today the major problems are deadly weapons, gangs, drugs, and alcohol.
The video game industry started in 1972 with a game called “Pong”. It started with controlling a paddle that knocked a ping-pong ball backwards and forward on the screen. We have moved onto bigger, more graphically intense, and more aggressive games since then. Let me tell you about a few that I know of that have come from the minds of some warped programmers. Maybe you have played some of these games yourself. Just to name a few, Xbox, PS4, and PlayStation use destructive weapons and mental powers to take on the most feared enemy in the galaxy - Mankind! Just listen to slogans from one such game: It’s more fun than killing your neighbor’s dog; You can kill your friends, guilt free; It’s easy as killing babies with a machete. There are three characteristics of a hypocrite are when he speaks, he lies; when he makes a promise, he reneges; and when he is trusted, he betrays. If you tell me the truth all of the time, I can believe you all of the time, if you tell me the truth part of the time, I can’t believe you any of the time.
One thing that contributes to our attraction to video games is that murder and violence performed by the hero of the game is practically never punished, and often even rewarded. This creates a sense that violence is right, and before long we accept the violent behavior because we don’t see anything wrong with it. The interactive part of the point-and-shoot, video game technology teaches shooting skills and reflexes that have begun to surface with the increase of violence in youth. Even in the public schools some of the shootings are too close to what happens in a video game to be a coincidence.
By being a player in one game you might become a warrior who comes to Earth to clear the way for an alien invasion. Your mission is to arm yourself with a variety of alien weaponry, infiltrate humanity, control them, and harvest their brain stems, to ultimately destroy them. Using weaponry such as the Ion Detonator, to terrorize the people of Earth, make a milkshake of their DNA and bring down the US government. The Quantum Deconstructor launches a thermos nuclear cloud destroying buildings and vehicles, to eradicate all humas within its radius. The Brain-Exploder, the Sonic Boom, and the Zap-O-Matic use an arsenal of alien mental abilities to manipulate humans into submission through hypnotic trances, body snatching, reading minds, levitating them above the ground and then letting them fall, and more! You need to know, there is only one “alien” who wants to destroy mankind. Satan, because man is created in the image of God. Realize what is happening. You might be opening the door, for the devil to enter in and occupy your mind, destroying your prayer life, judgment, and giving you a false sense of being invincible. Why side with the devil and attempt to destroy mankind just for the fun of it. When the reality of demonic spirits being loosed from the bottomless pit comes, it will be no game. Demons will gush forth from the pits of hell, but no weapons of man will stop their power. Only God’s power can limit the power of demonic spirits. Don’t ever forget that weapons of war that you use to fight against real demons are not weapons made by man, but spiritual weapons, coming only from God. Is Satan blinding and entering hearts and minds by invitation every time you turn on a video game? Can we draw closer to God when we are totally immersed in killing people, fighting demons, and doing things in a video that we know are inherently wrong in reality?
When we are content to revel in our past rather than gird up for the future in Christ, we render ourselves useless to God. We must know where we are going and what we are going to do! Modern-day Christians do not take the time to analyze and think about where we are in relation to the world and where we are in relation to our God. If you want to be distressed - look within. If you want to be defeated - look back. If you want to be distracted - look around. If you want to be delivered - look up!
Sometimes we may get a little hard-headed and hard-hearted so that we don’t hear the voice of the Lord when He speaks to us. But thank God, He doesn’t give up easily. God is the only One in control, and He never changes. We have all heard the car insurance commercial that said, “You are in good hands with Allstate.” Well, as Christians, no matter how our world seems to be falling apart, we must remember that WE ARE IN GOOD HANDS WITH GOD. He never loses track of what’s going on. He never gets confused. He always makes the right decision and God has His grip on the reins of the world and His purposes will be carried out.
One such game was shown to “possess” the minds of those that became involved as though it was a reality and not just a game. I believe that some of these so called “games” are actually tools of the devil that he will use to possess the heart and mind of the players, and especially our youth because they are gullible and vulnerable. Satan can’t possess the heart and soul of a truly born-again Christian, but he can torment us, so the thoughts into our minds, makes us ineffective witnesses.
In one video game, you can play in “God Mode” and kill everything and everyone in sight, watch their bodies explode, blood flying everywhere, and then sits there laughing about that was awesome!” How can that be a healthy attitude? How can you stay strong in the Lord and love your neighbor when you sit for hours mowing people down with cars, or some sort of death ray and enjoy killing them? If you become so involved, immersed in an activity where shooting people, shearing down demons, destroying buildings, and, crawling through radioactive mire is so fascinating, (and so addicting) before long it will seem as though something is constantly bringing that incident to mind. Driving, riding, or walking along, imagining how those demons look, and how exciting it would be when you kill one of those creatures because they can’t hurt you if you play in “God Mode”. Is that not the same plan of attack that Satan used against Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, to let them believe that they could be like God?
Some video games have a strong effect on the behavior of those who play them consistently because the games are highly engaging and interactive. Gamers who talk about going “head-to-head” in some sort of death match reward violent behavior, when the same actions are repeated over and over as they play and cause me to wonder how it affects their spirituality?
Repetition of repeating acts over and over again is the most powerful teaching methods that affects our lives. Repetition is how we teach the Bible. Repetition is how you learn worship songs, math, English, science, history, and all the other subjects you study in school. Repetition creates reflexes and teaches you actions that become a part of you and will surface involuntarily. Not only do video games have a powerful impact upon your brain and your heart, they also can cause real physical damage to your body
In other words, you can react with the same nature, and thoughts without you having any control over them. An article in a medical journal suggests that people often complain about pain in their hands, caused by hours of playing videogames each day. Constant repetition of the same moves can cause skin irritation and damage to joints. Repetitious performances can severely damage wrists, knuckles, and the nerves in your hands. Some have seen their vision impaired due to intensive staring into the screen. The rapidly changing pictures and differences in brightness on the screen can trigger epilepsy.
There are literally hundreds of games out there, occupying the minds and time of not only our youth, but many adults too, and they are getting more vicious, more intense, and more controlling all the time. Brutality in computer games desensitizes our attitude toward violence. Not all are bad as these, but few are uplifting and positive, and those that are, are not played very often because they don’t offer the same thrill that violent games offer.
I’m not here to tell you that every video game is bad, or that you should get rid of your game consoles and throw the computer out of the house. All these things are not wrong and can even be good and helpful when they are used correctly. But how are we using them? A better question would be, “How are they using us?” And if it wasn’t for the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit in your heart, who can say that those thoughts and that nature could not translate into committing crimes?
I’m not trying to demoralize video games or computers, nor do I want to tell you that all games are wrong. I’m not here to tell you which games to play or not to play, nor how long to play. I’m here to give you a message, a warning, from the Word of God that many of the games you play will destroy your relationship with Jesus Christ, grieve the Holy Spirit in you, and could very well destroy your soul. We need to rid ourselves of anything, that steal our time from the Lord. If you are going to give God glory then you must give to Him all of the glory, all of the time. Watch what controls your mind! Guard your thoughts! Remember that what you think about will determine what you become!
Our society has abandoned God’s laws and has been writing their own. We have reached a state where common decency is no longer common. All of our doing without God has finally outdone us. With all these changes creating chaos and crises, churches have been trying to just hold on. Research has shown 85% of the churches in America are losing members. Over the last 40 years, the number of Americans who don’t go to church is nearly 96%. Estimates are that if you had every church in America filled to capacity next Sunday morning, that would still be less than 5% of the American population. Our children are receiving no religious training. That means that as time goes by, it will get harder and harder to minister as a church to our society. The church is dealing with issues that no one could have imagined fifty years ago. Am I being too harsh? Okay, I’m having a bad hair day! Amen.
