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Short Clip
Has it troubled you yet that our modern media has reset the Moral Acceptability Threshold? Here is the test – “Do the things that once offended you now entertain you?” asks media critic Al Menconi. “Are you able to enjoy the company of television programs, videos, and movies that have values diametrically opposed to yours? This moral drift is important to understand, for it continues unabated. Extrapolate ten or twenty years into the future and it is frightening to imagine what media content awaits us.
Has it troubled you yet that our modern media has reset the Shock Threshold In the past, if we saw blood, killing, or tragedies on the evening news, it would disturb us for weeks. Today, however, the rule of the newsroom is, “If it bleeds it leads.” Movies are worse. Beginning about thirty years ago, succeeding waves of movies relied on more and more violence to attract crowds. Audiences became numbed to the repulsiveness of each level of violence, so directors had to enhance the horror to maintain interest. Such common fare no longer elicits anguish. But no shock over the sin.
Has it troubled you yet that God defines spiritual adultery in Ezk 23:21 as the sin when His people spend and invest more time getting our help, counsel, direction, and advice from TV, secular books, unsaved professionals, magazines, commercials, and the internet — than from God and His Word?
Has it troubled you yet that today’s Teens (the 31 Million 12-19-year-olds, some of them may be living in your house) have a world that has been defined for them more by computer games, TV, movies, advertisements for Nike, Sony, Tommy Hilfiger, Nintendo, Addidas, Gap, Old Navy and the web — than by God’s Word? Half of all teens are from a broken home, 63% have both parents working. And all of them down deep need adult guidance. In A Tribe Apart, author Patricia Hersch said in 1998, “Every kid wished they had more adults in their life, especially that their parents would invade their lives”.
Has it troubled you yet that videos, movie’s and television’s effects are so well known to be disastrous to the life of any child or adult? Statistics by secular research has concluded what undisciplined media saturation causes. Let me apply them to our culture as Paul lists the same sins in Colossians 3:
A Shortened attention span. That means a media-saturated person can’t think about God very well.
Reduced linguistic powers. That means a media-saturated person can’t talk about God very well.
Limited capacity for abstraction. That means a media-saturated person can’t dream about heaven very well.
Blur of adulthood and childhood. That means a media-saturated person can’t grow in Christ very well.
Has it troubled you yet that to attract and hold its audience, the entertainment industry feels it has to parade the taboos of culture: adultery, promiscuity, homosexuality, incest, violence, and sadism. As a result, the lowest of activities become commonplace, and even morally cachet.
Has it troubled you yet that what you choose for your mind today will shape your eternal future?
• If you choose to be entertained by godlessness–it will callous you;
• If you choose to be entertained by sensuality–It will defile you;
• If you choose to be entertained by violence–It will desensitize you;
• If you choose to be entertained by evil–It will distance you;
• If you choose to be entertained by worldliness–it will discourage you;
• If you choose to be entertained by Satan’s mind–You will forfeit the blessings of having the mind of Christ.
Let’s be blunt: don’t say you are committed to Christ unless you are disciplining your mind for the active pursuit of godliness!