Sin and Temptation: Week 2, Day 1

Day 1: Media and You

By 5th grade, you will have spent more hours watching TV than sitting in a classroom from kindergarten through college. By the time you graduate, you will have watched over 18,000 hours of TV. By age 18, you will have watched over 850,000 commercials, and you will know most of them by heart.

Most students have memorized more commercials than scripture because the average student spends over four hours each day in front of the TV and less than five minutes in the Word of God. No wonder most students know more about the world’s values than the values in the Bible. Television, movies, and music shape our values and the way we look at life.

The problem we have here is that TV and movies have virtually no Biblical standards. They are exposing you to stuff that goes against God, His plans, and His purposes for you. TV and the movies glamorize sex before marriage, filthy language, violence, selfishness, etc. TV and movies portray these things as normal, and when a Christian viewpoint is brought up, we are looked upon as shallow and narrow-minded.

I’m not telling you to turn your TVs off and never go to another movie again. I am saying that you should be wise in how you live your life because we both know the days are evil. We need to learn to be selective viewers because it is there for life once it is in our brains.

If you want to stay clean before God and not put any more garbage into your brain, make a vow to:

Put no vile thing in front of your eyes (Psalm 101:3)
Have nothing to do with evil and violence (Psalm 101:4)
Not allow yourself to look lustfully at a person of the opposite sex (Job 31:1)
Put your attention on things that are pure, true, noble, right, lovely, or admirable (Philippians 4:8).

We need to learn that there is an off switch on the remote just like there is an on. We need to learn that the rating system is there to let us know what we are getting ourselves into. You have one mind, and you can make it pure or you can trash it up. So let’s stay clean, and let’s be selective.

Time Out.

Write out the following verses:
Psalms 101:3

Psalms 101:4

Job 31:1

Philippians 4:8

Knowing now what the Bible has to say about this stuff, how will you change your viewing habits?

Putting ungodly stuff into your brain is a sin. Do you need to confess to God some of the things you have been feeding your mind with?

What safeguards will you put up in your life so that 5 weeks from now, you aren’t watching the same old junk?