Chapter 11. The Bible and TV

Exo 20:1 And God spoke all these words, saying,
Exo 20:2 I am Jehovah your God, who has brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. (MKJV)

Television shows are around 30 minutes. Sometimes they are an hour or more. The freedom from bondage that God promises you can have, will often require a "pressing in" that will take longer than that. Don't expect one half-hearted prayer to change your life. If necessary, think of prayer as a mini-series in which it is imperative we tune in to the next program of the series, and the next, and the next. Jesus said to knock and keep on knocking and it will be answered. Trust this with all your heart. Expect to be made free. This freedom will not always occur in the way you expect it to occur. Rather than an escape out of the environment you are in, God might change your heart so that the environment you are in, becomes new in Christ. God's ways, I've noted, are always higher than our ways (Isaiah 55:9).

Exo 20:3 You shall have no other gods before Me.
Exo 20:4 You shall not make to yourselves any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in the heavens above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
Exo 20:5 You shall not bow yourself down to them, nor serve them. For I Jehovah your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the sons to the third and fourth generation of those that hate me,
Exo 20:6 and showing mercy to thousands of those that love Me and keep My commandments. (MKJV)

Exo 20:7 You shall not take the name of Jehovah your God in vain. For Jehovah will not hold him guiltless that takes His name in vain. (MKJV)

We cannot look down on God and have a proper relationship with Him. We must look up to Him and if we are listening to a whole lot of people taking God's name in vain, we may think we are handling it okay, but the underlying assumptions, the subconscious teaching is that God is not worthy to be exalted and if He isn't worthy to be exalted, then we have no one to pray to and pour our hearts out to. We have become, in a sense, detached from our God. God's name is holy as He is holy. It should only be uttered reverently and in prayer. Let us not become calloused to our most holy God by casually listening to His name being spoken irreverently or by uttering profanities ourselves, thereby demeaning the name of our most holy God.

Exo 20:8 Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Exo 20:9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work.
Exo 20:10 But the seventh day is the Sabbath of Jehovah your God. You shall not do any work, you, nor your son, nor your daughter, your manservant, nor your maidservant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger within your gates.
Exo 20:11 For in six days Jehovah made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore Jehovah blessed the Sabbath day, and sanctified it. (MKJV)

Exo 20:12 Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long upon the land which Jehovah your God gives you. (MKJV)

If God were put first, if prayer was a way of life, then, what naturally follows, is a recognition of the holiness (or potential holiness) of all. We are no longer focusing on appearances and making them real to our hearts, but focusing above the appearances, to God's eternal point of view, and adapting His view for our own. Prayer, with a humble request for God to help us let go of the demeaning attitude, does that. How about a show where the characters build one another up instead of tearing each other down?

I had enjoyed Fawlty Towers with John Cleese. But, as I became more aware of the sarcastic spirit that is being taught on TV, I found my interest waning in that program because of the sarcastic spirit running through it (particularly between Cleese and his TV wife, as well as between Cleese and many others in the show.) There are plenty of shows that denigrate fathers, mothers, and children—making us laugh at them, giving us a spirit of sarcasm as we watch them act foolish or haughty. When we see someone act foolish, why wouldn't our sympathies and love go out to them as we prayed silently for them?

The sarcastic comedy has assumptive teachings that can be devastating to our increasingly pure heart and our walk with the Lord. I doubt that laugh tracks are adjusted according to God's Word. We must watch our hearts and not be tempted to enjoy others being put down. This includes gender bashing, where husbands make fun of wives and wives make fun of husbands. The pollution of television has even snaked its way into the churches and gender-bashing often occurs from the pulpits.

Exo 20:13 You shall not kill.
Exo 20:14 You shall not commit adultery.
Exo 20:15 You shall not steal.
Exo 20:16 You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
Exo 20:17 You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's. (MKJV)

Exo 20:18 And all the people saw the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking. And when the people saw, they trembled, and stood afar off.
Exo 20:19 And they said to Moses, You speak with us, and we will hear. But let not God speak with us, lest we die.
Exo 20:20 And Moses said to the people, Do not fear, for God has come to test you, and so that His fear may be before your faces, so that you may not sin. (MKJV)

We, who have allowed Jesus Christ residence in our hearts must now, get down on our knees and weep before the Lord. When our weeping is finished, we must repent of all the time we spend mindlessly before the mammon-god, television. We must vow to spend time in prayer, getting to know our God, who dwells in the depths of our being, just waiting for us to reach for Him, so that He can reach for us. What fate awaits us, if we neglect so great a salvation?

Christ has obtained the kingdom of God for us and in His wisdom has created a plan for our lives that He wants to give to us—if we will only stop occupying every spare minute of our lives with worldly stuff and quit allowing Satan to deceive us with the lie that despair and death, as well as worldly entertainment, are all that we have to look forward to. So we need not turn the channel for another dose of this worldly dismal dream. Please recognize God's promises found in the Word. It is not necessary to live such a wasteful life.

Amo 3:10 For they do not know to do right, says Jehovah, those who store up violence and robbery in their palaces. (MKJV)

Jer 4:22 For My people are foolish; they have not known Me; they are stupid sons, and they have no understanding. They are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge. (MKJV)

1Jo 2:15 Do not love the world, nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him,
1Jo 2:16 because all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.
1Jo 2:17 And the world passes away, and the lust of it, but he who does the will of God abides forever. (MKJV)

Mat 5:27 You have heard that it was said to the ancients, "You shall not commit adultery."
Mat 5:28 But I say to you that whoever looks on a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. (MKJV)

The heart is what God looks at. To "have already committed adultery with her in one's heart" is considered falling into the carnal, lustful mentality of the world. If what one thought about something really didn't matter, Jesus would never have said Matthew 5:27 and 5:28. From these verses one can surmise that conscientious Christians WILL NOT allow just any old rubbish into their minds. There is a relationship between what we perceive on TV and how we live our lives and how we think.

In 1969, the US Surgeon General was given the task to conduct research to determine if watching violence on TV affected children's behavior by making them more aggressive. The result of that study was inconclusive, however the debate has been going on since then. I would like to simplify the whole issue for you by asking this question: Do we have the capability of learning new things? If you believe you do, I'd like to strongly suggest that we ALL learn from TV. We learn from both the underlying assumptions and outward acts of aggression. For instance, we learn that violent behavior is the way to combat and totally stop opposition to our way of life—which is not in Biblical agreement with Jesus' teachings. This is just a fact. We learn from whatever we are focusing on. As a thinker and strong advocate of Christianity, I do not understand the controversy surrounding this fact. It is a "no-brainer" that negative stimuli which issues forth from the TV does effect our behavior and mental positioning in this world.

In Daniel 5:5, 6, a very strange event happened in the annals of Biblical history. The term, "Don't you see the handwriting on the wall?" was born with this story. King Belshazzar was enjoying a feast (and totally ignoring God's sovereignty even over kings), when he decided to bring the sacred cups absconded from the Temple in Jerusalem and drink from them. About then, the king and many others saw a hand, writing on a wall, and it frightened them. The words written were, "Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin." The king called in all the current astrologers and magicians and offered them a fine reward, but none of them could understand what the handwriting on the wall meant. At the recommendation of the king's mom, Daniel was called in to explain the handwriting on the wall. He refused the riches offered by the king, and simply told them all the meaning as God told him.

The phrase "Mene, Mene" meant "Numbered, numbered" and Daniel told the king, "God has numbered the days of your reign and they are ended." The word "Tekel" meant "weighed" and Daniel pointed out that the king had been weighed (put to the test) and failed. "Peres" (the singular for Upharsin) meant divided which meant that his kingdom would be divided and given to the Persians and the Medes. He gave the reward to Daniel anyway, but, as it turns out, King Belshazzar was killed that night and his kingdom was divided. The writing was immediately prophetic.

Folks, can we see the writing on the wall, with regard to our choice to deliberately ignore Jesus' commands to pray for those who do evil to us, to love our enemies, to be willing to lay down our lives for others, as well as turn the other cheek, when we are either literally or figuratively offended by a slap across the face? If we reject Christ's commands, how can we claim to be His? If we are not His, then captivity by our enemy is our future fate.

We have been feeding our flesh mammon and carnality from the TV by our choice of programming. When we feed our flesh nature, our spirit nature languishes. We have been teaching ourselves how to cope in this world, instead of learning from Jesus, then applying His teachings (by faith), thereby showing others how we draw many into God's kingdom. The mysterious finger of old is positioning itself on our walls. It is not wise for us to continue our behavior in the ways of the world. Our free will was given to us so that we might choose to learn God's ways. Instead, however, we choose to perpetuate the world's ways, where problem after problem is brought to the surface, apparently solved, but then new ones come that are replicas of the old ones we thought we'd solved already. The chains of this world tighten around us, as problems that were never really solved the first time, parade by in a grotesque march of death and sorrow, from which it seems we'll never escape.

"The Christian ideal," as G. K. Chesterton said, "has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried." Jesus really DOES want us to solve our relationship problems with forgiveness and love, not retaliation, resentment and revenge. If the world's way of solving problems worked, problems would not continue to charge into our lives and we'd have relief instead of being in a continual state of dire straits. It seems man's supposedly "highly evolved" wisdom should have fixed the world by now, yet things are worse than ever.

The Bible says that unless we forgive, we will not be forgiven. Most TV dramas do not portray this complete cycle of forgiveness. Our eyes may be open as we watch TV, but our eyes are closed to the truth. We sleep and we dream in this carnal world. We dream we fight and win and then need to fight and win, over and over. But our eyes flicker open when we adopt God's ways (which are higher than our ways⁸) and choose to forgive instead of preserve our dignity and pride.

Because we are not encouraged to have a Christian world view, we strive to evaluate things with incomplete data. In TV (and in life) we can't see God forgiving us when we forgive others, so the whole picture is never portrayed. TV says it is very important that others learn their lessons. Actually, according to God's rule book, we are to only be concerned with our responsibility in following Jesus' commands and learn our own lessons. We must allow God's sovereignty and power to change others. When watching news, every time our anger at the way others appear to be getting away with what they did, rises within us, we must stop and pray for them, giving them over to our Almighty God, just as we must do with those in our own lives. We must ask God to forgive them of their sin (so that we might be forgiven from our hidden sins and hardened hearts). And what about fictional situations where injustice and wrong, causes bitter resentment in our hearts? It is just foolish to subject ourselves to it. Turn it off!

TV's script writers always have man dependent on his own understanding (which generally exalts the wisdom of a particular character in the show) but, in reality, our understanding is very limited and almost always wrong or incomplete, because we lack information about one's heart, soul and situation—information that God alone is privy to.

Pro 3:5 Trust in Jehovah with all your heart, and lean not to your own understanding.
Pro 3:6 In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.
Pro 3:7 Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear Jehovah and depart from evil. (MKJV)

Rom 12:14 Bless those who persecute you; bless, and do not curse.
Rom 12:15 Rejoice with rejoicing ones, and weep with weeping ones;
Rom 12:16 minding the same thing toward one another, not minding high things, but yielding to the lowly. Do not be wise within yourselves.
Rom 12:17 Repay no one evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men.
Rom 12:18 If it is possible, as far as is in you, being in peace with all men.
Rom 12:19 not avenging yourselves, beloved, but giving place to wrath; for it is written, "Vengeance is Mine, I will repay, says the Lord."
Rom 12:20 Therefore if your enemy hungers, feed him. If he thirsts, give him drink…
Rom 12:21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (MKJV)

When we attempt to lay righteous and corrective judgment on someone else, we are asking them to change themselves—which is not even something we should or can do ourselves! The Holy Spirit knows our hearts and He corrects us from the inside out. Our prayers for others (which Jesus says to do instead of laying judgment) will promote activity of the Holy Spirit in others and, if not now, if not tomorrow, if not next week or next year, SOMETIME that person will receive the benefit of your prayers for him and submit to the corrective measures of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit knows exactly when the best time is, to incorporate change in theirs and our hearts, so that it will be accepted and take hold.

If you've tried praying for others and it just never seems to work for you, consider that unless we allow the Lord to take our burdens (our own need to correct and fix everything), we will continue to strive for personal victory, to the exclusion of Christ's victory, through us.

Are you aware that with God, all things are possible? This statement is not meant to further self-sufficiency and personal victories. This statement should fortify us with the truth that whatever God asks us to do, through His Son, we can do it. This means that the impossible task of complying with God's commands to love and forgive, instead of retaliate, or correct others and have personal victory, can be accomplished through submission of our will to God's, as we humbly request God's help. We can do this because of the Biblical truth that, with God, all things are possible.

The writing is on the wall. We must prepare for the coming of Jesus Christ by making sure He really knows us, for we have refused to follow His commands even though we may have cried, "Lord, Lord," countless times. Remember, He will know us as we follow His commands (and not by our strength, but by His strength).

Television teaches us to go with the thinking of the self-proclaimed intellectuals, who have determined God's ways are not worthwhile and should be ignored. Television is what happens when we are left to our own devices. Television presumes the world's ways are true, and God's ways aren't. Television lifts itself up, in its own one-way eye, and mostly refuses to be humbled and be in service to the Lord.

When it comes to violence, anything on TV with a rating that indicates it should not be viewed by children, should not be viewed by adults either. This is not because anyone is forcing you to leave the violence behind. It is because you are now aware that the underlying assumptions that accompany a program teach us things that dull our sense of the divine and leave us feeling bad or, at the very least, armed with the incorrect tools to understand and accomplish God's will.

In the Word, Jesus says:

Mat 6:34 So do not worry or be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will have worries and anxieties of its own. Sufficient for each day is its own trouble. (MKJV)

But Jesus says that we should not be anxious about tomorrow for tomorrow has anxieties of its own. Jesus says we must stay in the now moment and prayerfully deal with each of our own life's events as they occur, with understanding that we will give all our problems as they happen, to Him. If we watch intense dramas on TV, we are burdening ourselves with anxieties, that cause our adrenaline to flow freely through our system—we are making ourselves worry needlessly. This releases free radicals, which are stroke, heart disease and cancer-causing agents, into our system. We do this, more than likely, because we have trained ourselves to morbidly enjoy being anxious, or to love to worry.

Smell-o-Vision

I've got an idea. It is not a unique idea. It is used in shows at some very well known amusement parks. Here it is: Smell-o-Vision. Need I say more? Do the possibilities seem endless to you? They do to me.

The detectives have just come upon the body, partially buried in the woods. A man had confessed he had put the body there after killing him. The camera moves in to a close-up of the body. Poof. Out shoots an odor that knocks everyone gathered around the TV, down. It's that bad. It's putrid!

A war film is being shown. A large bomb goes off in a field, blowing up two soldiers. Poof! The acrid putrid smell of burning bodies inflames the nostrils of the viewers gathered around the tube. That should drive some addicts away from the screen!

Death and all of its mysteries and fascinations fill the television stations from early morning until late at night. All manner of creative writing and teleplays show and tell every conceivable angle of the terror that comes from the murder, the escape of the murderer, the discovery of the body, the examining of the evidence, the mistake of the murderer, the cleverness of the detective in finding the one who committed the act, and finally, the promise that justice shall prevail against the one who committed the act.

Some shows, though, only deal with the crime scene itself, as the scientific investigators thoroughly examine every piece of flesh and bodily fluid, examining even the tiniest fragment for incriminating clues. Clever dialogue prevails over the constant background of death and decay, leading us all on a dreadful path as we grow numb and number to God's word about this. Fellow Christians, we are not supposed to be so fascinated with death. Does this graphic description repulse you? Then why do you watch such stuff?

Gen 6:5 The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination and intention of all human thinking was only evil continually. (MKJV)

Gen 6:11 The earth was depraved and putrid in God's sight, and the land was filled with violence (desecration, infringement, outrage, assault, and lust for power).
Gen 6:12 And God looked upon the world and saw how degenerate, debased, and vicious it was, for all humanity had corrupted their way upon the earth and lost their true direction.
Gen 6:13 God said to Noah, I intend to make an end of all flesh, for through men the land is filled with violence; and behold, I will destroy them and the land. (AMP)

Hab 1:2 GOD, how long do I have to cry out for help before you listen? How many times do I have to yell, "Help! Murder! Police!" before you come to the rescue?
Hab 1:3 Why do you force me to look at evil, stare trouble in the face day after day? Anarchy and violence break out, quarrels and fights all over the place.
Hab 1:4 Law and order fall to pieces. Justice is a joke. The wicked have the righteous hamstrung and stand justice on its head. (Message)

Hab 1:5 "Look around at the godless nations. Look long and hard. Brace yourself for a shock. Something's about to take place and you're going to find it hard to believe.
Hab 1:6 I'm about to raise up Babylonians to punish you, Babylonians, fierce and ferocious-- World-conquering Babylon, grabbing up nations right and left,
Hab 1:7 A dreadful and terrible people, making up its own rules as it goes. (Message)

Hab 2:2 And then GOD answered: "Write this. Write what you see. Write it out in big block letters so that it can be read on the run.
Hab 2:3 This vision-message is a witness pointing to what's coming. It aches for the coming--it can hardly wait! And it doesn't lie. If it seems slow in coming, wait. It's on its way. It will come right on time.
Hab 2:4 "Look at that man, bloated by self-importance-- full of himself but soul-empty. But the person in right standing before God through loyal and steady believing is fully alive, really alive.
Hab 2:5 "Note well: Money deceives. The arrogant rich don't last. They are more hungry for wealth than the grave is for cadavers. Like death, they always want more, but the 'more' they get is dead bodies. They are cemeteries filled with dead nations, graveyards filled with corpses.
Hab 2:6 Don't give people like this a second thought. Soon the whole world will be taunting them: "'Who do you think you are-- getting rich by stealing and extortion? How long do you think you can get away with this?'
Hab 2:7 Indeed, how long before your victims wake up, stand up and make you the victim?
Hab 2:8 You've plundered nation after nation. Now you'll get a taste of your own medicine. All the survivors are out to plunder you, a payback for all your murders and massacres.
Hab 2:9 "Who do you think you are-- recklessly grabbing and looting, Living it up, acting like king of the mountain, acting above it all, above trials and troubles?
Hab 2:10 You've engineered the ruin of your own house. In ruining others you've ruined yourself. You've undermined your foundations, rotted out your own soul.
Hab 2:11 The bricks of your house will speak up and accuse you. The woodwork will step forward with evidence. (Message)

Hab 2:12 "Who do you think you are-- building a town by murder, a city with crime?
Hab 2:13 Don't you know that GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies makes sure nothing comes of that but ashes, Makes sure the harder you work at that kind of thing, the less you are?
Hab 2:14 Meanwhile the earth fills up with awareness of GOD's glory as the waters cover the sea.
Hab 2:15 "Who do you think you are-- inviting your neighbors to your drunken parties, Giving them too much to drink, roping them into your sexual orgies?
Hab 2:16 You thought you were having the time of your life. Wrong! It's a time of disgrace. All the time you were drinking, you were drinking from the cup of God's wrath.
Hab 2:17 You'll wake up holding your throbbing head, hung over-- hung over from Lebanon violence, Hung over from animal massacres, hung over from murder and mayhem, From multiple violations of place and people.
Hab 2:18 "What's the use of a carved god so skillfully carved by its sculptor? What good is a fancy cast god when all it tells is lies? What sense does it make to be a pious god-maker who makes gods that can't even talk? (Message)

Hab 2:19 Who do you think you are-- saying to a stick of wood, 'Wake up,' Or to a dumb stone, 'Get up'? Can they teach you anything about anything? There's nothing to them but surface. There's nothing on the inside.
Hab 2:20 "But oh! GOD is in his holy Temple! Quiet everyone--a holy silence. Listen!" (Message)

8. Isaiah 55:9. Back.

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