I had “come to myself” to find that I had spent valuable time mentally lost in another world, a very popular a world controlled by Satan, a world that caters to the flesh by allowing man to periodically leave the real world and enter into one where the most evil aspects of man’s imagination becomes his momentary reality. Satan’s world is unique in that it allows its citizens to live vicariously through the people on the screen, a world where one can mentally, emotionally and spiritually become the people one is watching, a world where sin is the featured story line. In that world, murder, fornication, adultery, lying, cheating, stealing, foolish talking and acting, demonic activity, etc. are standard fare designed by the devil to draw viewers into his deadly web like metal to a magnet. People drawn into that world become lost in what they are watching and hearing, causing them to identify with the most vile examples of the human species. The more vile the greater the adulation. Gossip columns are filled with vivid descriptions of their depraved private lives which are lived out in opulent splendor which is paid for by those who watch their every move and hang onto their every word. What their heroes say, what they wear, where they live, what they eat are important topics to their subjects who tune them in once a week or anxiously await their next big screen presentation or concert. Sports figures, musicians, actors–all are gods at whose alters mankind periodically kneels. Those who routinely live in that world love it and look forward to reentering it on a set schedule–same time, same channel each week. Awards programs are among the most popular on television. Even news broadcasts feature who won what in their evening coverage. The more X’s a program or movie is rated, the more viewers it pulls in. What I am describing is an addictive world whose carnal offerings appeal to man’s most carnal hungers. Each new social interaction gadget offers ever more sexually oriented, more risqué, more flesh appealing fare to man’s ever-increasing hunger for titilation. Some are more hungry than others.

I once worked with a lady who told me that she and her husband routinely rented a half-dozen or so movies on Friday and spent the week-end watching them. I know people who, before they retired, recorded televised soap operas while they were at work and watched them at night. These people are not alone in their addiction to entertainment. Seats at some professional football games go for as much as $50,000. Think about it: $50,000 to watch men play with a ball for two hours. Some actors are paid multiplied millions to pretend to be someone they are not and speak words someone else wrote for them. Some professional athletes make $25.000,000 dollars per year (actually six months). The fan base for t.v. actors enables them to live in an opulence that their fans can only dream about. No matter what the situation might be, when entertainment addicts utter “It’s time for my program to start,” the world outside of the tube becomes irrelevant. “It’s time for the kick-off” puts everything on hold, including God. Indeed, “the days are evil.” And man has embraced that evil with gusto. Evil is both seductive and addictive, even for an old warrior. Vigilance is required at all times, for “the devil is like a roaring lion, walking about seeking whom he may destroy” (1 Pet. 5:8). Entertainment is today his #1 weapon of mass destruction. L.J.