WHAT’S ON YOUR MIND?
Youth Rally – February 4, 2005
By Pastor Jim May
I’m going to speak about a very popular subject today, and in so doing, I know that I may well make myself one of the most unpopular people in the church with our youth. The subject matter is on the mind of every youth in the church, and it is affecting each of you at least to some degree. I want to talk to you about “What’s on your mind”?
What is on your mind is what you think about all the time. What things in your life control your thoughts, your interests, and your have an impact upon every part of your life? What you think about has an impact not only on what you do, but has a great bearing on how you choose your friends and the people you hang out with. What occupies your time and your mind is a very important thing because it effects every aspect of your life, either for good or for evil.
With that thought in mind, I want us to look something that youth are involved in every day and occupies so much of their free time. I want us to look at video games.
X box, X box 360, Play station 2 & 3, Play station Portable, Game Cube, Nintendo, Game Boy and Atari consoles disappear from the shelves as fast as they can be produced and stocked. Personal Computers are designed with lots of memory, 3 dimensional graphic ability and surround sound capabilities, not for use in business, but for the specific purpose of playing the latest games on the market; and it’s all aimed straight at the heart of our youth.
Video games have been around for about 34 years. I remember the day that I saw a video game for the first time. I was in a hotel in New York, attending a school for IBM typewriter repair when I saw the game that the whole video game industry started with back in 1972. It was a game called “Pong”. It all started so innocently. What can be wrong with controlling a paddle that knocks a ping-pong ball back and forth? That game is still around in many forms, but no one plays it much anymore. We have moved on to bigger, more violent and more graphically intense games since then.
Let me tell you about a few of the latest that have come from the minds of some warped programmers. Maybe you have played some of these games yourself.
“Destroy All Humans” – Xbox & PS2
Use destructive weapons and mental powers to take on the most feared enemy in the galaxy - Mankind!
By being the player in this game you become “Crypto”, an alien warrior who comes to Earth to clear the way for the alien invasion force. Your mission is to infiltrate humanity, control them, harvest their brain stems and ultimately destroy them. Arm yourself with a variety of alien weaponry on land or in the air. Use the Ion Detonator, the Brain-Exploder, the Zap-O-Matic, the Sonic Boom, or even the Quantum Deconstructor to eradicate those pesky, feeble humans. Strike fear into mankind with your mere presence, or use your 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! It’s more fun than an alien can stand.
There’s only one “alien” who wants to destroy mankind – Satan – because man is created in the image of God. Why side with the devil and attempt to destroy mankind just for the fun of it?
“Grand Theft Auto” – PS2 and others
Let me tell you a little of the storyline of this game. Five years ago Carl Johnson escaped from the pressures of life in Los Santos, San Andreas -- a city tearing itself apart with gang trouble, drugs, and corruption. Now, it’s the early 1990s and Carl’s got to go home: his mother has been killed and his family has been torn apart, and now he becomes a vigilante to get even, taking the law into his own hands. It doesn’t matter how many people he has to kill, or how many people he puts into danger on the highways with his high-speed chases and races with police. He has to get the job done at all costs. What lesson does it teach? The end justifies the means. It’s okay to break every law, kill everyone in sight, steal cars and create death and destruction, just so you can get even and have revenge.
What happened to Romans 12:19, "Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord."
“Doom 3” - Xbox & PS2
I will tell you a little bit about my experience with Doom 1 & 2 later on.
This game has all the makings of a real invitation for demonic activity in your life. Here’s the storyline. “Hell has opened up, demons have gushed forth to invade the corporate world on a newly established colony of Mars. Now you get to fight your way through demons to hell and back to rescue those who are trapped. Satanic symbols everywhere. Demons, more hideous than you’ve ever seen before, will be attacking you from every direction; and you get to kill them with your mighty weapons.
There are shadows of Revelation chapter 9 in this game, but when the reality of the demonic spirits being loosed from the bottomless pit comes, it will be no game. Demons will gush forth from the pit, 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 the weapons of the war that you fight against demons are not weapons made by man, but spiritual weapons, coming only from God.
“ Carmageddon” – PS2, Xbox & PC
Now here’s a real winner. I know that you will be blessed when you play this game.
Carmageddon is more than just your average driving game. Innocent Pedestrians are the main target as you drive towards them and then over and through them at speeds of over 100 mph. Nothing is safe on the streets, not even farm animals as you slam on your brake and spin your wheels into a cow that lies dead on the ground after you run into them. You can go into a craze; a frenzy; as you floor the accelerator and spin your wheels in the middle of the cow parts spraying blood, guts and udders all over the streets. Sounds fun doesn’t it? I just have to do that!
Just listen to these positive and uplifting slogans from this popular game:
You can kill your friends, guilt free.
It’s more fun than shooting your neighbor’s cat.
It’s as easy as killing babies with axes.
Those are just few of the latest games. There are literally hundreds of games out there, occupying the minds and time of our youth, and they are getting more violent, more intense and more controlling all the time.
Not all are bad as these, but very few are uplifting and positive, and those that are, are not played very often because they just don’t offer the thrill that violent games offer.
I’m not here to tell you that every computer game is bad, or that you should get rid of your game consoles and throw the computer out of the house. All of these things are not wrong and can even be good and helpful if they are used correctly. But how are we using them? A better question would be, “How are they using us?”
So many youth today, and I have heard some of you even in this church, talk about playing your “online games” or going “head-to-head” in some sort of death match for a video game, and I wonder how much it is affecting your spirituality? I wonder if Satan isn’t blinding you and entering your heart and mind by invitation every time you turn on a video game?
Can we draw closer to God when we are totally immersed in a game where we are killing people, fighting demons, running over people, and doing things in a video game that we know are wrong in reality?
Let’s talk about the influence of Video games and the increase youth violence. Some of them are so bad that they can have an immediate effect, as though something in that game jumps out of the screen and “possesses” the one who is playing the game. From that moment on, he or she is thinking about that game. What’s should I do next time? Who is lurking around the corner and how can escape the ambush? How can I defeat the other guy or beat the computer? They are consumed with playing the game.
Years ago there was a game that was produced called “Dungeons & Dragons”. This game still exists for some of the game consoles and many still play it. It was shown to “possess” the minds of those 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 our youth. It is sad to say that even Christian young people can become possessed with this need for playing the game. Satan can’t possess the heart and soul of a truly born again Christian, but he can come in and torment us, and put the thoughts into our minds, and in doing so, he makes us ineffective witnesses and we become consumed with the game. When that happens we are in dangerous territory because it’s only a short step to backsliding.
One article in a medical journal suggests that violence in computer games helps desensitize our attitude toward violence. In a video game, you can pull out the “big gun”, play in “God Mode” and kill everything and everyone in sight, watching their bodies explode and blood flies everywhere, and then sit there and laugh about it, saying “Wow! Did you see that guy disintegrate? That was cool!” Can that be a healthy attitude?
How can you stay strong in the Lord and love your neighbor when you sit for hours on end just mowing them down with cars, or some sort of death ray and enjoying killing them?
TV is bad enough with the violence and it has been proved to alter the behavior of many people, creating copycat murderers and serial killers who learned what to do by watching some movie on TV. The difference is that they are actually involved in doing anything to make the movie happen. It’s already a completed work. They aren’t pulling the trigger or planning the attack; they are just sitting and watching. How much more then can video games have an impact, a control over us, when we are the ones causing the death and destruction?
I want to tell you that I know firsthand what I’m talking about here.
Several years ago, before I became the pastor of this church, I got involved in playing a game called “Doom”. I should have recognized by the name of the game that this wasn’t a very good game to play, at least not for a Christian. But I played it a little while and it didn’t seem to have an effect on me at all. I could take it or leave it. Then I became more involved, spending more time than I should immersed in a game where I was shooting people, and mowing down demons, destroying buildings and, crawling through a radioactive mire. It was all so very fascinating, and so addicting. Before long I began to realize that it was as though something was constantly bringing that game to my mind. I would sit in church and think of Doom. I would be driving along, thinking of how those demons looked, and how it would sometimes shock me and send cold chills down my spine when one of those ugly creatures would surprise me from behind. Then I’d remember how I killed that rascal, and how that he couldn’t hurt me because I was playing in “God Mode”. (I hate getting killed. Somehow dying in a computer game just doesn’t appeal to me. I want to win and I hate starting over.)
Just playing Doom wasn’t enough. Doom 2 came out and it showed worst demons, stronger monsters and bigger guns. It was fun for a while but it soon had me in that same grip where I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
Finally, after months of being almost “possessed” by this game, I began to hear the Holy Spirit speak to me. I believe He had been speaking for a long time, but I just wasn’t listening. Now He began to speak louder and with more of an impact upon my heart and mind. Sometimes we 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. I finally began to realize what was happening. I was opening the door, every day for the devil to enter in and occupy my mind, destroying my prayer life, destroying my judgment, and bringing me ever closer to a point of no return.
Thank God, I fell on my face in repentance and asked God to forgive me. I gave that game up and never played it again, because I know that it is laced with demonic symbolism and the reality that it glorifies death, bloodshed, evil and the power of Satan. The only mention of God in the whole thing is to let you know that you can play in “God Mode”, giving you a false sense of being invincible.
Could that possibly affect the way you think in life? 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 as God?
Studies agree that violent video games have a strong effect on the behavior of those who play them consistently because the games are highly engaging and interactive, they reward violent behavior, and the same actions are repeated over and over as they play. The repetition of doing violent acts over and again in video games is one of the most powerful teaching methods that affects our lives.
Repetition is how we teach the Bible. Repetition is how you learn worship songs. Repetition is how you learn math, English and all the subjects you study in school. Repetition in video games creates reflexes and teaches you actions that become a part of you and will surface involuntarily in moments of stress. In other words, you will react with the same violent nature, and those thoughts will pop into your mind without you having any control over them at all. And if it wasn’t for the grace of God and the limiting power of the Holy Spirit in your heart, who can say that those thoughts and that nature would not translate into committing a crime?
One thing that contributes to our addiction to video games is that murder and violence performed by the hero of the game are practically never punished, and often even rewarded. This creates a feeling that violence is right, and before long we can adopt violent behavior because we don’t see anything wrong with it. That interactive part of the point-and-shoot, first person shooter, video games teaches us shooting skills and reflexes that have already begun to surface with the increase of violence in youth, even in the public schools where some of the shootings are too close to what happens in a video game to be a coincidence.
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.
1 Corinthians 6:19-20 says, "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." We should never do anything that we know will bring harm to our body, or at least we should do all we can to minimize the damage.
People often complain about the pain in their hands, caused by hours of playing video-games each day. Constant repetition of same moves can cause damage to joints, and cause skin irritation.
One young man recently ended up in hospital because he used his force-feedback controller, on average, seven hours a day, which severely damaged his wrists, knuckles and the nerves in his hands. Some have been admitted because the video game triggered epilepsy. Many have seen their vision impaired due to intensive staring into the screen in darkened rooms. The rapidly changing pictures and differences in brightness on the screen can ruin your sight, and if your vision is bad,, it can only make the situation worse.
I’m not here to demonize video games or computers, nor do I want to teach 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 can play will destroy your relationship with Jesus Christ, grieve the Holy Spirit in you, and could very well destroy your soul.
Watch what controls your mind! Guard your thoughts! Remember that what you think about will determine what you become!
The Apostle Paul tells us what Christians should be thinking about and I don’t think that violent computer games can be found anywhere in Paul’s list.
Philippians 4:8-9, "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. Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you."
Proverbs 23:7 also tells us that, "… as he [a man] thinketh in his heart, so is he…”
Do you think that God is pleased with a young man or young lady who will spend countless hours in front of a computer or TV screen for countless hours on end, filling the mind with blood, guts, gore, murder, mayhem, fighting, shooting and killing innocent people?
How much time do we spend reading and studying the Bible? How much time do we spend at church.
In an average week, that young person who is faithful to come to church three times a week, and then spends less than 30 minutes total at home, praying or studying is only getting, at best, about 3 ½ hours per week of those things that the Bible says we should think about, while the average youth spends at least 13 hours during that same time frame playing computer games. Which one do you think will have the most influence in that youth’s life?
We need to rid ourselves of anything, including any video games that steal our time with the Lord. How can we say we love Jesus and our fellowman when we sit for hours glorifying and participating in murder and death?
Think of what’s on your mind! What occupies your time? Are your video games just entertainment; or do they possess your heart and mind?
If they control your thoughts, it’s time to get rid of them. If your heart, soul, mind and body are going to give God glory then you have to give Him all of them, all of the time.
What games do you have? Do they glorify God or evil? Do they build you up in thinking upon good things, or are they another source of satanic influence in your life?
Think about it – WHAT’S ON YOUR MIND?
