Many years ago I stated that television would bring about the spiritual downfall of mankind. I was wrong. T.V. was merely the appetizer on Satan’s buffet of sin purveyors that would eventually culminate in his latest weapon of mass spiritual destruction–the internet. The original IT took up a three square foot area of the living room; today’s version fits in the palm of the hand. The degree of influence exerted by the two weapons is also different. The t.v. could only drug its victims during the evening after the work and school day had ended. Today the idiot boxes that mesmerize the masses are available for worship as long as the devotee can remain conscious. But not even sleep cannot stop Satan’s relentless attack on the human mind–the monster can store what comes in from the ether while the mind rests. And the devil smiles. I recently heard an internet authority say that they are working on a machine that can feed information into the mind of the owner without the owner being conscious of the process. In other words, he/she will know things he/she did not know he/she had learned. This apparatus, we are told, will be able to assist its owner in decision-making. Having absorbed his/her habits, preferences, etc. it will be able to suggest appropriate actions depending on the situation as perceived by the apparatus. I.e., as the brain functions less, the machine functions more. When one sees masses of students, and now even adults on the street, walking in that familiar stuporous, zombie gait, one can only agree that what I have just described is only a couple of years away. Then there are cars that drive themselves. What’s next, the car telling you where you need to go? As a matter of fact, yes.

There is no larger group activity conducted among mankind than screen-gazing. The average American stares at a screen on average 151 hours per month–over five hours each day. Outside of one’s job, is there anything else in the average American’s life to which he/she dedicates that amount of time? The U.S. has one of the highest rates of screen-watching in the world. Note that stat–ONE OF THE HIGHEST. This means that there are other nations suffering from the same self-inflicted disease. This is frightening. What is equally as troubling is the fact that there are only a handful of entertainment purveyors from which to choose. In other words, billions of stumbling, stuporous zombies are being led like sheep to slaughter by a few power-hungry organizations whose only goal in life is to give the public what it wants–more entertainment–a larger cesspool in which to mentally swim. This inevitably causes the addition to intensify.

As a college professor I have become alarmed at the death-like movements and blank facial expressions of my students as they walk down the hall toward my class, their heads bowed in reverent submission to the god they hold in their hand. The instant I dismiss class their plastic gods suddenly reappear, the head bows and the zombiesque death stroll resumes. We are raising a generation of idiots. A book about them could be titled The Zombie Generation: Life in a Box. I have watched people use them in church. People in the gym cannot go more than a couple of minutes without checking their life-source. I recently watched a clerk check her idiot box between items as she was ringing them up. On elevators zombies troll the web, desperately searching for something, anything that will occupy their minds so that they will not be forced to think or deal with reality. Trying to get them to formulate original thoughts is nearly impossible. It there isn’t an app for it, they can’t handle it. If it isn’t on MTV they are unaware of it. I bring up world-changing events that happened over night and their response is a blank stare. Not only do they not know–they don’t care. The world can blow up; just give me the internet. “Give me liberty or give me death” has been replaced by “Give me the internet.”

Could a brain chip be substituted for the idiot box? Could the False Prophet and the Beast government control people by way of such an apparatus. Impossible? Could the previous generation have predicted GPS? or the driverless car? Both are as real as the machine I am using at this moment. If one wants to see what we are heading into I suggest reading two ahead-of-their-times books: Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and George Orwell’s 1984. When I read these futuristic novels during my college years I thought they were merely works of impossible fiction. I was wrong. The day of their manifestation are upon us. Only true and absolute obedience to God’s Word can save the individual from what is just over the horizon. L.J.