When the Lord began dealing with me concerning television a question kept coming back to me: “Who are you watching?”  Not what, but WHO was the initial question.  The answer was: ungodly people who lead the nation and the world in sin and degradation and who entice their followers to walk in their vile footsteps.  The WHO? were those who have popularized ungodliness, who ridicule and make fun of all that is holy, who have turned the vilest of words and acts into household expressions of all that God hates, whose pictures hang on teenagers’ walls, whose words and opinions are deemed meaningful on every known media platform.  The Lord convicted me of the fact that these were the people to whom I was dedicating a significant portion of time each day.

The second question concerned WHAT I was watching.  Simply put, I was watching God haters pretend to be someone they were not.  I was listening to them speak words someone else wrote for them to say in situations that were as fake as the characters they were portraying.  For several hours each day I was vicariously living through them, thereby making myself exactly what they were.  The eyes and ears are the doorways of the mind (Biblical “heart”).  I was welcoming the god of this earth (2 Cor. 4:4) into my heart.

Mentally, what we see and hear remains in our minds.  Garbage in–garbage stay.  Only the Almighty can and does remove the garbage upon true conversion.  Baptism symbolically washes away the crud along with the “old man” (Eph. 4:22) who embraced it.  The Spirit-filled “new man” replaces him, making him a “new creation.”  In the eyes of God, the old man, once put to death, never existed.  Any return to his ways means that the old man never actually died.  The idol in question–television–keeps him alive and well in man’s heart.  God does not share space with Satan (2 Cor. 6:14-7:1).  When God commands us to “come out of her” He is referring to the world of the old man which, in many cases, involves what calls itself “the church.”

How we got to where we are t.v. wise is as follows: over time what the Hollywooders only hinted at and alluded to began to be played out on the screen man’s eyes were glued to for several hours each day.  As time went by more and more sinful behavior and verbiage began to appear on the screen.  The vileness my heroes practiced in darkness came to be portrayed more and more on the alluring monster whose siren call I was answering every night between supper and bedtime.

This was what I was doing instead of studying God’s Word.  I eventually came to realize that, though I had been preaching, healing the sick, casting out demons, knowing what people had been doing, etc. for several years, I had never been Biblically converted.  I was, however, church converted.  Though I was super religious and something of a Bible scholar, I had never become a true son of God.  How was this possible? I wondered.  Then one day as I was reading in the 22nd chapter of Luke’s gospel I read–ONCE AGAIN–what Jesus said to Peter.  Because I was earnestly in search of Bible Truth, God revealed to me the real meaning of Christ’s Words.  Bear in mind that for over three years Peter had been preaching the gospel, healing the sick, casting out demons, walking on water, etc.  Jesus was preparing His disciples for His leaving this world.  He knew that they were far from what they would have to be in order to do what He had assigned them to do.  He said to Peter: “WHEN YOU ARE (HAVE BECOME) CONVERTED, help your brethren” (to be converted)–verse 32.  Peter had done it all, yet he had not been converted.  Neither had any of the other 11 miracle-working, gospel-preaching disciples, including Judas, who, by the way, was a thief  who had made a deal with the priests to betray his Leader.  In this world all that glitters is not gold.  This truth also holds true in the spiritual world as Jesus tells us in Matthew 7:22,23.  Jesus was telling Peter that if the disciples did not become truly converted, they would not inherit eternal life upon His Second Advent.  Read Hope and Salvation.  Key word–Hope.  REMINDER: see the section titled NOTICE on the Introduction page to this website for instructions as to how to download a series and to receive a list of series titles.

Idolatry is a major hindrance to church people becoming true sons of God through conversion.  Today’s world has produced many idols–the church itself, money, movie stars, sports stars, fame, self, reputation, houses, cars,  skills, talents, etc.  The father of all of those idols is Satan’s in-house standard-bearer–the television.  Through its seductive siren call his people make evil acceptable, even preferable to all things holy.  The process begins with sin presenting itself as just a naughty peek into Satan’s world.  It’s just a peek–no harm can be done by a mere peek.  Over time the peek evolves into a stare as Satan’s victims become hooked.  This is the ultimate meaning of leaven, with mankind as the loaf.  As Satan’s visual drug plants itself in people’s minds, sin becomes televised business as usual.  The addiction process is completed.  The addict requires ever more of the drug.

Evil coming from television will continue to evolve until one day soon, full nudity, intercourse, gay sex acts, etc. will become normal after dinner fare.  Then what?  Sex with animals?  I say yes.  Thanks to television, all of these things will one day take place in life-sized presentations on wall-sized screens in the world’s living rooms and will be accepted as readily as the news.

King David said: “We will walk within our homes with a perfect heart.  We will set no wicked thing before our eyes ….  It (the wicked thing) will not get hold of us” (Ps. 102:2,3).  A serious problem lies in the fact that in some cases, actually most cases, the spouse and children of a true son of God refuse to hear God’s voice of warning.  For that reason a separate room in which to spend the evening hours might serve as a marriage saver.

This message is not for all church people.  This message is only for those who tremble at God’s Word and are open to the voice of His Holy Spirit from within.  Those who obey that voice are God’s true sons (Rom. 8:14), His Very Elect saints, His peculiar people, His nation of priests.  Billions of church people are unwittingly committing spiritual adultery with a technical idol as a Bible lays on a coffee table nearby.

Satan has taken full possession of both secular and religious television.  It has become a powerful stronghold for him.  Demonic principalities–“powers of the air”–are now in full control of t.v. programming, including commercials.

Just before he died Moses warned ancient Israel and, through his writing, “the church, the Israel of God” (Gal. 6:16): “You must not bring an abomination into your house, LEST YOU BECOME A CURSED THING LIKE IT.   You must utterly detest it and utterly abhor it for it is a cursed thing” (Deut. 7:26).  Scripture tells us that we become what we allow into our minds.  Physically, we are what we eat.  Spiritually, we are what we see and hear.  “As a man thinks (about) in his heart, so he is” (Prov. 23:6,7).  We think about what we see and hear.  Note that the psalmist emphasized the eyes.

After Achan had taken an accursed thing during the battle for Jericho, God told Joshua that there was “folly in Israel ….  Up,” He said, “sanctify yourselves.  There is an accursed thing in the midst of you ….  You cannot stand before your enemies until you take away that cursed thing from among you” (Josh. 7:13).  The prophets defined an idol as anything “which does not profit” (Jer. 16:19).  If that does not describe a television, I don’t know what does.  For this reason I watch very little television.  God has graciously removed all desire for entertainment from my heart.  He will do the same for anyone who earnestly desires it.  L.J.