Life in the Fast Lane
Television & Movies: Look Out For That Pothole!
Romans 6:12-20
Woodlawn Baptist Church
November 28, 2004
Introduction
Tonight as we continue on in our series titled Life in the Fast Lane, remember that each of these messages has dealt with some pressure that society or culture places on the believer that encourages you to be conformed to this world. We have talked about parenting, marriage, homosexuality, and living 24/7 among others. In each of these, there is tremendous pressure to forsake or simply ignore scriptural teachings in favor of doing what you and I want to do. Up to this point however, most of us have agreed with the Lord about the subjects. I think most of us agree with God about parenting and marriage and homosexuality. Most of us agree with Him about needing to slow down and yoke up with Christ, but tonight’s subject is somewhat different.
If you don’t believe me, turn to Psalm 101, and let’s read a couple of verses together beginning in verse 2.
“I will behave myself wisely in a perfect way. O when wilt thou come unto me? I will walk within my house with a perfect heart. I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes: I hate the work of them that turn aside; it shall not cleave to me. A froward heart shall depart from me: I will not know a wicked person.”
Is that descriptive of you? Do you behave yourself in a perfect, or innocent way? Can you say with complete honesty that you are a person of integrity when you shut the blinds at home? “I will set no wicked thing before my eyes…” Really? Tonight my subject is Television & Movies, and I know as well as you do that unless you don’t have one, or you are extremely selective about what you watch, you have allowed society to pressure you into it’s mold concerning your television viewing habits. It doesn’t take much of this to agree with Paul when he said, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God!”
You may have heard this before, but did you know that by age 17 the average American child racks up over 15,000 hours of watching TV? How many of you would take a child and set them in front of the TV and make them watch it for two solid years, night and day? That’s the equivalent of those 15,000 hours. Back in 1993, a Florida State University study reported that during a typical prime-time hour of television, the characters talk about sex or display sexual behavior an average of once every four minutes, including intercourse, prostitution, rape, innuendos, kisses, suggestive gestures, and homosexuality. “I will set no wicked thing before my eyes?” Once every four minutes hardly qualifies as “no wicked thing!” and that excludes murder, drugs and alcohol, violence, abortion, adultery, anti-Christian messages, the negative portrayal of the family, and of church.
One man has said that television is an invention that permits you to be entertained in your living room by people you wouldn’t have in your home, and yet more and more I am not so convinced that we don’t want these people in our homes. As I taught at church camp this past summer, I was amazed at how the youth thought Jessica Simpson and her husband Nick were good Christian role models and they loved to watch them on TV. We want these people in our homes! You may be the exception, but across the board, there is little difference in the viewing habits of believers and nonbelievers, either in what they watch, or how much they watch. You may be like Orson Welles. He once said, “I hate television. I hate it as much as peanuts. But I can’t stop eating peanuts.”
It is no secret that television has tremendous power to influence. Many of you can quote lines from movies you haven’t seen in years. Almost all of us have commercials that we can sing or quote.
· How do you spell relief? R-O-L-A-I-D-S
· What fast food chain encourages us to “Think outside the bun?” Taco Bell.
· Which wireless service asks, “Can you hear me now?”
· “Plop, plop, fizz, fizz, Oh…” What a relief it is.
We could keep going. Can anyone still sing the Oscar Myer wiener song? How about “My bologna has a first name…?” “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine…” The dictionary defines influence as the ability to produce effects; exercising indirect power to sway or affect; to exert influence over, or to modify. There is no arguing that television influences its viewers – but what has become arguable is how believers should react to what is being broadcast each day in their living rooms.
In 1 Corinthians 6:12-20, the apostle Paul helps us to understand where we should stand on this issue by giving us the Lord’s opinion about what we should and shouldn’t participate in. Let’s read these verses.
“All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any. Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats: but God shall destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for fornications, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body. And God hath both raised up the Lord, and will also raise up us by his own power. Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot God forbid. What? Know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh. But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit. Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body. What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.”
Now, for the sake of our message tonight as it pertains to television, I am not going to deal with several things brought up in this passage. Instead, I want to point out some how we can apply this to our subject, and then very pointedly I want to urge you to do two things: number one, I want you to consider your television viewing in light of this message, and number two, I want you to make some changes in light of what you find. Now, what should we learn from what we have read?
Making a Distinction
The first obvious point Paul makes is simply this – “All things are lawful unto me…” In other words, anything is permissible; we can do anything we want. It is as though someone came along and told Paul, “God has formed all things for our use, and there can be no evil if we use them.” These things could be anything. Is television evil? That’s like asking if computers are evil, or cell phones, or cakes or sodas. Is the coca plant evil? What about cars, planes or buses? You see, “all things” here could mean any number of things. Paul doesn’t get specific. He could mean all things in general, or something in particular, but the point is that nothing in and of itself is unlawful. The problem is when you try to take the argument farther than that.
For instance, is there anything wrong with nudity? In and of itself no. Man first walked in the Garden in complete nudity. However, pornography is something altogether different. Is it nudity? Sure, but nudity taken to another level. So, if all things are lawful, or permissible, how do we draw the line, particularly when it comes to the television & movies we watch? I want to give you four tests you can give to anything you view, and if what you want to view will pass these four tests, then I would say go for it.
Test #1 – Is what you want to watch good and profitable for you and your family?
Verse 12 says,
“All things are lawful, or permissible unto me, but all things are not expedient…”
The word expedient means to your advantage, for your good, profitable. Listen, just because it comes on TV doesn’t mean it’s good to watch, particularly with the wide variety of shows on today. You have to be completely ignorant and oblivious to Satan’s agenda not to see what is happening on television.
How do you know if something is expedient, or profitable? Again, test it. As you sit down together to watch TV, dads, why not give your shows the test of Ephesians 6:4,
“Fathers…bring [your children] up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.”
You may not have children at home anymore, but we can all give the test of Philippians 4:8,
“Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.”
There are plenty of other Scriptures you could test your favorite shows with, but I would venture to say that we don’t need all that many. In fact, it will be the rare believer that will test his shows by even one verse of Scripture. Will you be that one?
Test #2 – Does what you want to watch have the power to control you or your family?
Verse 12 goes on to say,
“I will not be brought under the power of any.”
What will your kids do all this month when they see great toys on the commercials? What influences men and women and boys and girls to choose the types of clothing they wear? When our family is driving down the highway, where have my daughters learned many of the songs they break out into? At what point in America did we quit building front porches on our homes? About the same time that television became available to the average homeowner.
What about sinful behavior? It is no secret that prolonged exposure to sinful behavior will eventually influence the behavior of the one watching. Murders, violence, foul language, sexuality – does our culture determine what we watch? Or does what we watch determine our culture?
Perhaps one of the most powerful ways television controls you is the way it controls your schedule. How many of you are tired and need sleep, but have to catch the ten-o’clock news first? That’s a changing behavior with the onslaught of the cable news channels, but for all my life I remember adults waiting for the 10:20 weather, then it’s off to bed. I know women that won’t leave their homes during their favorite talk shows or soap operas.
In college I had an instructor that taught me a valuable lesson about the way television controls people. He told us about how he determined his evening activities around what was coming on. At our home, we have to eat and clean the kitchen and make sure everything is done before 8 pm on Thursday nights. How many of you know why? CSI comes on! Followed by Without A Trace. Well that was this guy’s point. So he refused to watch television on television’s terms. He taped every program that he liked, and watched it when he wanted to. What he found out was that he seldom got around to watching many of the shows that used to control his behavior.
Does what you want to watch control you? Do you pout and whine if you don’t get to watch what you want to watch? Again, here’s another test – turn it off. Just turn it off for a week or two and see how much it controls you. You may find out that you are more dependent on the TV than you are on the Lord. Listen to this updated version of Psalm 23.
“The TV set is my shepherd. My spiritual growth shall want. It maketh me to sit down and do nothing for His name’s sake, because it requireth all of my spare time. It keepth me from doing my duty as a Christian, because it presenteth so many good shows that I must see. It restoreth my knowledge of the things of this world and keepeth me from the study of God’s Word. It leadeth me in the paths of failing to attend the evening worship services and doing nothing in the kingdom of God. Yea, though I live to be 100 I shall keep on viewing television so long s it will work, for it is my closest companion. It’s sound and it’s picture, they comfort me. It presenteth entertainment before me and keepeth me from doing important things with my family. It fills my head with ideas which differ from those set forth in the Word of God. Surely, no good thing will come of my life, because my television offereth me no good time to do the will of God; thus I will dwell crownless in the house of the Lord forever.”
Test #3 – If you watched it, would you make Christ participate in something dishonoring?
As Paul talked about fornication, he mentioned that anyone that participated in fornication, which is simply sexual sin, whether it be pornography, adultery, premarital sex, or some other sexual sin, any believer that participated in these things dragged Christ into it. Verse 15 says,
“Don’t you know that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them members of an harlot? God forbid!”
You know as well as I do that Christ is an ever-present reality in each of our lives. He lives within us in the person of the Holy Spirit. If Jesus were to walk into your life as a physical reality, would you ask Him to sit and watch what you want to watch? Could you take that movie or favorite program and honestly say to Him what you say to me or others, “Jesus, you’ve got to see that movie! You’ve got to watch this show!” If it would dishonor the Lord, then it’s not worth sitting through.
Test #4 – Does what you want to watch glorify God?
Verse 20 says,
“For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.”
Remember 1 Corinthians 10:31?
“Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.”
That’s a pretty tough test – but it’s a test we must be willing to give. I don’t know of many shows or programs that would stand up under that test. How do you know if it will glorify God or not? That’s simple: does it put God, His Word, His values, His morals, His people, His churches, His truth in a positive light? Or does it deny and even mock those things? Does the show portray anti-biblical messages? Does it honor the family? Does it honor the marriage? Does it honor traditional biblical values like decency, integrity, honesty, purity, or holiness? I won’t answer for how you answer those questions, but you will.
Conclusion
You see, it really doesn’t matter what Brother Kevin thinks or says, or what this family or that family says about watching TV, but what God says. If you can put what you want to view through those four tests found in Scripture, and have it pass, then go for it, but if it fails even one of them, then it is you, not the show that must pass the most difficult test: will you stand firm?
This is why I told you when we began that of all the subjects I’ve spoken about so far, this one by far will be the most telling in your life. I told you a few minutes ago that in this message I was going to urge you to do two things. First, I wanted you to consider your television viewing in light of this message. Even while I’ve been speaking you’ve been thinking about the shows you watch. You know whether they would pass these four tests. I am confident also that after we have departed the Holy Spirit is going to bring them to your minds again, and I hope He will not let you rest without putting your viewing to the test. But listen, considering what’s been said is only half of the challenge, the easier half.
That’s because the second part of the message has to do with action. God wants you to make some changes in terms of what you allow yourself and your family to watch. “All things are permissible, but not all things are good for you.”
Are you willing to eliminate what is not good? Are you willing to take that step of obedience? Are you willing to take up your cross even in this area of your life? If your answer is no – then you have chosen the easy way – the broad way – the way that will lead to destruction. If your answer is yes, know that it will not be easy, but it will be good and right.
Now something I think that is worth mentioning has to do with a sort of legalism that could easily crop up in this area of our lives. We can be too rigid and too hard when it comes to what we view - so we must keep in mind that God knows your heart, and He knows your motives, so as you are determining what to watch, remember to be a person of grace even in this area.
I am confident though you will have less trouble being legalistic than you will being too loose, looking for loopholes to justify something you want to watch but know you shouldn’t. Let us pray the prayer of Psalm 101 which we read earlier.
“I will behave myself wisely in a perfect way. O when wilt thou come unto me? I will walk within my house with a perfect heart. I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes: I hate the work of them that turn aside; it shall not cleave to me.”
May God help us all.
