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"Teaching God's Word to God's World"
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I Was Right All Along
George
L. Faull
This past week when I was on vacation in Florida, after preaching the previous week at the Florida Bible Conference in Lake Wales, I stayed in a motel a few days. When not walking on the beach and enjoying the sunshine, I watched some television. It did not have the Pay-TV and all of the high priced channels that are designed for voyeurism. Seeing TV for a week convinced me of some things:
FIRST – I made a wise decision forty-three years ago not to have TV. I did not want a constant advertisement for the world coming into my home for neither my children nor me.
SECOND – that the most wonderful thing about TV was the off-button.
THIRD – that those who wanted to solicit me to buy their products think I have an IQ of less than 50.
FOURTH – that channel surfing is much more dangerous on a motel TV than surfing in the ocean. The ocean could drown you in water, but the TV will drown you with sex and materialism.
FIFTH – that one-week of TV exposes you accidentally to more pornography than the seven years I’ve had the Internet. I’m convinced that TV, with its advertisements and programming, is much more difficult to control than the Internet when one is diligent in trying to avoid the lure of the world.
SIXTH – the religious shows on TV are nothing but a baptized “rockfest”. It makes me think of Ray Stevens’ song, “Would Jesus Wear a Rolex on His Television Show?”
SEVENTH – that abstinence from television is a lot easier than temperance.
Brothers and Sisters, as an Evangelist, I warn you, if your weekly exposure with TV is the same as my week with a television, I fear for your souls.
Ø Because of Peter’s admonition in I Peter 2:11, “Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul;”
Ø Because of the principle in Ezekiel 9:4-7, 4 And the LORD said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof. 5 And to the others he said in mine hearing, Go ye after him through the city, and smite: let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity: 6 Slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women: but come not near any man upon whom is the mark; and begin at my sanctuary. Then they began at the ancient men which were before the house. 7 And he said unto them, Defile the house, and fill the courts with the slain: go ye forth. And they went forth, and slew in the city.”
Would you have the mark because you grieve sin?
I was a young, idealistic preacher who told his fiancée that if you marry me, there will be no TV in our home. Now, 43 years later, I am an older realistic preacher who hears the “beep, beep, beep” of the Hollywood garbage truck backing up to dump a truckload of worldliness, sex, materialism, witchcraft and religious false teachers of both genders in the living rooms of America. TV today is as different as Walt Disney of yesteryear and Disney today.
If you can control it, you’re indeed a wonder. Some keep pythons in their homes, too, but I don’t want to live there.
Just these words of warning before you write me off. Just make sure your conscience has not been seared or that you’ve not lost your ability to discern good from evil.
My recommendation is to discern carefully what videos you get and watch them on a VCR. That way you have no ads and you can fast forward past the coming attractions and any bad part of the movie.
Remember 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.”