How to Outsmart Your TV-part 2
HOW TO OUTSMART YOUR TV
How In The World Will We Live? - Part 2
Matthew 6:22-23; Psalm 101:3 (NIV)
"Your eye is the lamp of your body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your body will be full of darkness." Matthew 6:22-23 (NIV)
I. How television influences us
"Don't be deceived: evil communications corrupt good character." 1 Cor. 15:33 (KJV)
Television can:
- Shape my values
- Cause unrealistic expectations
- Numb my sensitivity to suffering
- Reduce my resistance to sin
- Replace my relationships
- Make me passive
- Waste my time
II. The "S.M.A.R.T." way to watch TV
S ______________________________ what you'll watch before turning it on.
"A wise man is hungry for truth. The fool feeds on trash." Pr. 15:14 (LB)
"Keep me from paying attention to what is worthless." Ps. 119:37 (GN)
"Whatever is true ... noble ... right ... pure ... lovely ... admirable ... if anything is excellent or praiseworthy ‑- think about such things." Phil. 4:8(NIV)
M ______________________________ your TV with a VCR.
"Make the best use of your time, despite the evils of these days." Eph. 5:16 (Ph)
"Test everything. Hold on to the good and avoid every kind of evil." 1 Thess. 5:21-22(NIV)
A ______________________________ evaluate what you see and what you hear.
"A fool will believe anything." Proverbs 14:15 (NIV)
"Test everything. Hold on to the good and avoid every kind of evil." 1 Thessalonians 5:21-22 (NIV)
R ______________________________ how many hours you watch.
"Everything is permissible -- but not everything is beneficial ... or constructive." 1 Cor. 10:23(NIV)
T ______________________________ when offended!
"I want you to be wise concerning that which is good, and innocent concerning that which is evil." Romans 16:19 (NIV)
"Stop listening to teaching that contradicts what you know is right." Pr. 19:27 (LB)
MAKE A VOW:
"I will set before my eyes no vile thing." Ps. 101:3(NIV)
HOW TO OUTSMART YOUR TV
How In The World Will We Live? - Part 2
Matthew 6:22-23; Psalm 101:3 (NIV)
You can't talk about popular culture without talking about television. Television is a cultural institution. It's the most powerful medium. Why is it called a medium? I think it's because it's never rare or well done. It's a medium. But it is powerful.
Facts on television:
- 98% of all North American homes have a tv. In fact, more homes in North America have a tv than have a flush toilet, indoor plumbing.
- Nearly half of all homes in North America have more than one tv.
- 85% of North Americans watch television every day. They don't miss a day.
- In the average home, the television is turned on for seven hours and two minutes a day.
- Next to working and sleeping, North Americans spend more time watching television than they do anything else.
These are facts from The Wall Street Journal. We need to learn how to outsmart the television.
I want to give you the SMART way to watch tv. This is a practical, down to earth message today.
1. S - Select what you watch before turning it on. Don't just turn it on and say, "I'm going to see what's on tv." Select what you watch before turning it on.
2. M - Manage your tv. One of the ways you can do that is with a VCR. You control it rather than it control you.
3. A - Actively evaluate what you see and what you hear. Don't just set there passively.
4. R - Regulate how many hours you watch. Decide in advance how many you're going to watch.
5. T - Turn the channel when you're offended.
That's the SMART way to watch tv. If we don't learn how to control the tv it will control us. It dominates many people's lives if their life is built around television. And I can sympathize with you on this one, because there is very, very little to do in Gibsons.
In Matthew 6:22-23, Jesus said, "Your eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your body will be full of darkness." He's not talking about a lesson in opthomology. He's not talking about the physical. He's talking about a spiritual principle that says, our vision determines our values. What we watch determines what we are. Somehow what we see shapes our spirit. There is a connection between our character and the cornea. In other words, what we watch becomes what we are. If that's true, we're in a lot of trouble. Television influences us a lot.
On New Year's Day I waited at Vancouver airport to catch a flight to Winnipeg. There was a television in the waiting area. However I could not believe I eyes to see the Jerry Springer was playing on tv and there was a crowd around the tv mesmerized by that nonsense. I'm sure that many of their lives were being replicated on that TV screen right in front of them.
1 Corinthians 15:33 "Don't be deceived, evil communications corrupt good character." There are a lot of articles coming out these days like this one on the cover of Newsweek. It says "What TV does to kids". I'm worried about what it does to my kids but I'm also worried about what it does to adults. The Bible says, Don't deceive yourself, evil communication corrupts character.
There are several things that it can do.
1. Television can shape my values. When you're bombarded constantly by culture, by commercials, and they say "You've got to have this Kitchen Magician!" You can't help but see that over and over without it influencing your values. Edwin Newman said people used to get their values from church, school and the home. Now we get them from tv. There was a PBS documentary on that says Russia imparts values through forced education. China imparts values through propaganda. America promotes values through advertising. It shapes our values.
2. It causes unrealistic expectations. It blurs your perception of reality. On television, any problem can be solved in thirty minutes. It doesn't matter if it's suicide, bankruptcy, rebellious kids, World War III... it will be resolved by the end of the show. You get the idea that you can have instant solutions. But the fact is there are very few problems in life that have instant solutions. Television is an unreal world where everything gets solved by the commercial. It's unrealistic.
3. It numbs my sensitivity to suffering. How? By overexposure. In B.T.V. (before television) days most of your problems were simply local problems. Now you get up and you face the whole world's problems everyday and every night you're bombarded with graphic scenes of devastation around the world of hurt, trauma, crime. Studies have shown that people who watch tv have greater fears than those who don't. All these graphic devastations and hurts, after a while your mind clicks off, goes numb. The first time I ever saw one of those "Help the Children" specials with the little bloated tummies, I was moved. But I've seen so many of them now, honestly, I get numb to that. You see so much, you just can't handle it. And we become callous.
4. It can numb my resistance to sin by glamorizing it. It looks so good on tv. We imply that everybody's doing it and fail to show the consequences of it by getting me to laugh at it. It just doesn't seem so bad on tv, because we laugh at it. If you can laugh at something, it's not so bad, right? I think the greatest source of sex mis-education is the television. I don't know why but they always show sex as being fun outside of marriage on television. You never see a healthy couple in love with each other. All sex is either pre marital or extra marital, basically, on television. You never see couples going to bed together. Why? Because it's a different world.
5. It can replace my relationships subtly. I read a statistic this week that said 51% of all women watch at least one soap. One lady said, "I know more about their lives than I do about my own. I know more details about what's going on, on "`As the Stomach Turns'" than I do about my own family. "Search for Tomorrow". Why? Because they messed up today!
It can replace relationships for a lot of kids today. Television is a part of the household now. A lot of kids have three parents: Mommy, Daddy, and TV. And guess which one's doing the most child care? They did a survey of children between 4 and 6 years old. They asked them "Which do you like best? Daddy or television?" 44% of the kids said, "I like tv better."
Can television -- watching tv at night -- keep couples from communicating? Absolutely. It's a good excuse to not talk. It's a phony form of intimacy. With everybody on tv it's first name basis. We watch news with Peter and Dan and Tom. And there's Phil and Oprah. Everybody's on first-name. It's all so chummy. Johnny. All these guys. It's the only thing in the world where a hundred million people can watch something at the same time and all be lonely. It replaces relationships. If you don't watch out it ruins interaction in your family.
6. It can make me passive. Have you noticed how hypnotic television can be? You can kind of veg out. It's very powerful. It can keep a person glued to a chair for hours on end. Nothing can do that to me like television can. There's only one other thing in society that makes people as passive as television. That's drugs. That's the only other thing that creates passivity to that extent. It's not by accident that Marie Winn wrote a book called Television, the Plug In Drug.
A while back Good Housekeeping did a research project. They reported on it. They showed an experiment on addiction that took place in Detroit. It wasn't drug addiction. It wasn't alcohol addiction or food addiction. It was addiction to tv. "A Detroit newspaper offered 120 families $500 each if they would agree to not watch tv for a month." Ninety-three turned it down. They took the tv instead of the $500. The result was all kinds of withdrawal symptoms for those who did sign up. Really bizarre things. One lady started talking to her cat. Withdrawal symptoms because it can be addicting. You say, "I'm not addicted!" Then, starting today, have a three week fast on television. Let's see how long you last. You turn it on the first time you walk in the house. You prefer eating dinner with it. It has a greater affect on us than we think.
7. It wastes my time. Have you ever felt cheated at the end of an evening. You thought, "What in the world did I do that for?"
The bottom line is, we've got to learn to control television or it's going to control us. Let me give you five things -- the SMART way to watch tv. I want to be as practical, as simple, and as brief as possible.
1. SELECT WHAT YOU WATCH BEFORE TURNING IT ON
Don't just turn it on to see what's on. Television seduces you. Once it's on, it usually stays on. Even if there's nothing good on tv. Have you ever played "Flip"? You sit down and for the whole evening, just keep flipping back and forth between shows because nothing is worth watching. At the end of the evening you think, "What in the world did we do that for?" Don't do it!
Proverbs 15:14 "A wise man is hungry for truth. The fool feeds on trash." Don't tell me the Bible isn't contemporary! The fool feeds on trash. He saying, what feeds our minds is just as important as what we feed our bodies. Could you exist on a diet of Twinkies? Rephrased: Would it be healthy to exist on a diet of Twinkies? Absolutely not! Network television is the moral equivalent of Twinkies. And you can't exist just on it.
Psalm 119:37 "Keep me from paying attention to what is worthless." Some of you need to write that on a card and put it on your tv. "Keep me from paying attention to what is worthless." Get a TV Guide and read the summary plots first. Don't ever watch a show that you don't know where it's going. Don't waste your life on a show you're going to invest two hours of your life in and get to the end and say, "Wow! That wasn't worth it!" Find out in advance where it's going. Select what you watch before turning it on.
What should I watch? Philippians 4:8 gives us the filter. "Whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy think about such things." You say, that doesn't leave much left on the tv! You're right. It doesn't. But that's the filter. That's the kind of things we need to listen to and watch. Things that are lovely and pure and honest and excellent.
This was a tough week -- a busy week. By Thursday night I was ready for some serious diversion. So I sat down to watch the boob tube. I just discovered that the web site are used for homepage has got a tv listing on it so I printed off. I'm going to read the title selections for Thursday night. You tell me if they pass Philippians 4:8.
Law and Order: Subway shooting raises the issue of self defense versus provocation. CSI: a woman dies instantly as a result of having her neck snapped in the hands of her assailant. (The lure of the show is how they take you on a graphic guided tour of the cadaver’s innards) WWE: Bra & Panty Brawl. Hi Mom: Porn film maker learns from his master then turns into an urban guerrilla. Poltergeist 3: Destructive demons follow a little girl sent to live with her aunt and uncle in a New York high rise. What beautiful things to fill your mind with!
I said Forget it! I didn't turn tv on and I wrote this sermon!
2. MANAGE YOUR TV WITH A VCR.
Studies tell us that 80% of all the people in the Province of BC have a VCR. I think that's good. It happens to be a machine that you can control the tv with rather than it control you. There are three advantages:
1. You control the schedule. Have you ever known you had a big day the next day and you had to get up early but you wanted to finish a show so you stayed up late anyway and then paid for it all the next day? Who was in control there? You or the tv? The tv. American Demographics says people who have tv's sleep fifteen minutes less per night than people who don't. They get that much less sleep. You control the schedule with a VCR.
2. You can fast forward through all the offensive parts. That's a good thing although you might miss the whole show. You don't have to sit there and watch it. You might like the show but you don't want to see that scene.
3. You can skip the commercials. Is that a blessing?
Ephesians 5;16 "Make the best use of your time, despite the evils of these days." I want to suggest that it's a wise thing and a practical expression of your Christian life to get your TV Guide at the beginning of the week, flip through it real quickly, highlight the things that are worth watching and don't watch anything else. My wife is done this for years. Tape them and watch them on your schedule. And when you tape them, then you don't end up watching the show after it which tv is geared to do. They have these tie ins, before you finish one, they start advertising the next one to pull you in. Have you ever sat down at 6:00 and all of a sudden it's 11:00? Where did the evening go? Manage it! Manage it with a VCR.
3. ACTIVELY EVALUATE WHAT YOU SEE AND WHAT YOU HEAR.
This is what we set last week. Evaluate everything. Don't just sit there passively and automatically accept it. Actively evaluate what you see and hear. Proverbs 14:15 "A fool will believe anything." Television is not your authority. The Bible is your authority for life. There's something, that when it comes out on television, we think it must be true. The camera never lies. Baloney! The camera lies all the time! Anybody who knows anything about photography says by the sheer angle, you can change a scene. You can change the way a story is presented. A big article in Newsweek about the flap in photojournalism how they're recreating things now. You can't believe what you see.
1 Thessalonians 5:21-22 "Test everything. Hold on to the good and avoid every kind of evil." Circle "test". We're supposed to test everything. TV? Absolutely. When you watch a show, you need to watch it with a critical eye, not as a passive goon, like a little kitten lapping up milk. We need to challenge the validity of what we're seeing. Every program has an underlying point of view. It is your job to discern what that underlying point of view is and challenge it: is it true or is it not?
It's scary to think there's 6, 7, 8, 9 men in the nation called network executives that are basically deciding what's going to be the moral agenda for a hundred million Americans who sit down every evening in front of a box. That's scary! I don't want them deciding that for me. So we have to accurately evaluate and say, "What is this program really saying? Why are they saying it? What's really being promoted here? What ideas? What's behind it and why is it being presented this way?" You need to teach your kids how to do that. You can do it with commercials.
Actively evaluate what you see and hear.
4. REGULATE HOW MANY HOURS YOU WATCH.
Most people greatly underestimate how much television they watch. My guess is you do it too. I would challenge you this week to time yourself. Get a notepad, put it by your tv and ask everybody in your family every time they watch tv to write down how much time they spend. You'd be amazed at how much time the television is actually on.
Statistics: In the average American home the television is on 7 hours and 2 minutes a day. We spend more time watching tv than anything else except sleeping and working.
The average child age 2-11 watches 25.5 hours a week. That means that by the time a preschooler begins kindergarten, he has already spent more time in front of the tv than he will in earning a college degree. Before he even starts school, he's spent more time in front of the tv than he will in going to college.
By the time a child finishes high school, he has spent a total of 12,000 hours in the class room. In the same time, that child has spent over 20,000 hours in front of the television. You tell me where they're getting their values.
The average teenager watches 22.5 hours a week. The average adult man watches 24.5 hours a week. The average adult woman averages 30 hours a week.
I didn't make that up. That's A.C. Nielson and U.S. News and World Report. You will amass 9.5 solid years of television viewing. Is that the way you want to spend 9.5 years of your life? Nine and a half solid years an average American will spend in front of the television.
Comparison: If you attended church every Sunday of your life to age 65, from cradle roll to senior citizen that would amount to only 4.5 months of Bible teaching. Would you say there's a tiny imbalance here? Nine and a half years of television versus four and a half months of Bible teaching. You tell me where we're getting our values.
I read this week about a dad who hooked a bicycle up to a twelve volt battery and a car generator and hooked that up to a portable tv. If the kids wanted to watch tv they had to use peddle power. I suppose they got time off for commercials. We need to regulate the amount of time we watch. I don't have a standard for you. But my guess is you're probably wasting more time that you think you are.
1 Corinthians 10:23 "Everything is permissible but not everything is beneficial or constructive." God's given you a free choice in how you spend your time. He'll permit you to watch it 20 hours a day if you want to. He's given you freedom of choice. And nobody's forcing you to watch tv. You can decide how much or how little you want. I don't think television is inherently evil. I think it's a neutral object. I think it can be used for good or for evil. I think the way we use it determines that. But the point I want to make is just because you can do something doesn't mean that you should. I could watch 10-12 hours of tv a day. That doesn't mean I should.
The issue is not always a matter between right and wrong but sometimes between good, better, and best. It says here all things are permissible but not everything is beneficial or constructive. What could you do with an extra 2 or three hours a day? Would that make a difference in your life? A couple extra hours a day? The easiest way to find more time is turn off the tv. What's the hobby you've always wanted to do? That book you've always wanted to read? That skill you've always wanted to develop? Turn off the tv.
I want to make this real practical. If I were to say, "What do you think is a reasonable amount of time for you to watch television this next week?" write that down.
5. TURN THE CHANNEL WHEN OFFENDED.
I read these articles how television is this giant monster that is controlling our families. I say, "Monster? You can kill it with one push of a finger! It kills the whole thing!" Turn the channel when you get offended. You don't have to even get up any more. You can use a remote! The greatest invention since sliced bread! It doesn't take any energy at all.
The point is simply this: You only see what you want to see. So don't blame anybody else. If you're filling your mind with trash it's because you want to fill your mind with that trash! You can't blame anybody else but yourself. Don't blame the advertisers, the sponsors, the network people. Yes, they're doing their part to make it bad, too. But you only watch what you want to watch. It's a free country. You can turn it off or you can turn the channel.
People say, "We need to watch what the world presents so we can know how to relate to them. We need to know how the other side thinks." Baloney! You don't. Romans 16:19 "I want you to be wise concerning that which is good, and innocent concerning that which is evil." God wants you to be innocent concerning evil, not street-wise. Why? Because what we watch is what we become. It inevitably effects our character. Inevitably! It wears down our resistance. And it effects us.
When they teach bank employees how to recognize counterfeit, they don't give them counterfeit bills to study. They give them real bills. They live with those real dollar bills. They feel the texture and they look at the color and the grains and details. They know the real thing so that when a phony comes a long they can say "That's obviously counterfeit." Why? Because they know the real thing.
You don't have to study all kinds of bizarre religions or new age stuff so you can know how to deal with them. You know the real thing so when the phony comes along you can say, "That couldn't be right because...." and you share the real stuff. The truth.
A. W. Tozer said "America has lost its ability to blush." I think that's true. I know most of you would not go to a strip tease show. Most of you would not stand around and passively watch somebody get murdered -- knifed in the back. Most of you would not be a silent witness to a rape and sit there calmly. You just wouldn't. My question is, If that happened in the middle of a tv show, would you turn the channel? Does anything shock you any more? "I can handle it!" Who do you think you're kidding? Psychologists say that absolutely nothing is lost in our mind. It all goes into our subconscious. Does anything shock you? When was the last time you got up out of your chair and said, "I'm not going to listen to this!" When was the last time you used the zapper and said, "We don't need to see this scene" and you flipped it off to another channel until that scene was over and then flipped it back. Why fill your mind with all these graphic excuses or examples of sin? I don't think it's necessary.
Television is a form of fellowship. When you sit down with the television, it's like inviting somebody into your home. I wouldn't invite anybody to my home and sit them in my living room and say, "Tell me in graphic details all of your affairs. Tell me about the gross adultery you've been involved in. This will be my entertainment for the evening." I wouldn't do that. But if a show comes on television and does the same thing in graphic detail, what is the difference? None. None whatsoever. I can't help think one of the reasons so many marriages are falling apart is because there's so much on tv that shows marriages falling apart. And, "Everybody's doing it." No, everybody's not. It's just not true.
I want to challenge you to go a step further in your discipleship as a Christian, to challenge the culture you're in and to make a vow like David made in Psalm 101:3 "I will set before my eyes no vile thing." I want to challenge you to do that. Say, "Lord, from here on out I will set no vile thing before my eyes. I'm not going to violate my soul by allowing things in, by participating in other people's wrong, things that bring me down." One third of all the occupations shown on television are crime related. Those are great models, aren't they? Psychos, weirdos, perverts. Why not think on things that are true, that build you up and don't tear you down. I'm shocked that some people, even Christians, let their kids go see movies that I wouldn't even go see as an adult. They just don't realize what they're doing. Some of you need to re-evaluate, "What am I going to allow in my mind? Am I going to let the world rampage through it -- be a super highway? Or am I going to develop a filter because I want what's best in my life?" "I made a covenant with my eyes that I will set no vile thing before them." That's what it means to challenge your culture.
Prayer:
Father, I've tried to be real practical and real specific this morning. We know that if it is true that we spend more time watching television than any other activity except for working and sleeping that You must have a word for it. And I pray that these verses we've looked at today will cause us to be wise, to watch tv smartly, that we'd recognize and challenge what we see.
As we close this morning, would you pray, "Lord, I want to make a commitment to You that I will set no vile thing before my eyes." Would you say that in your heart to God? "A wise man is hungry for the truth; the fool feeds on trash." Would you say, "Lord, keep me from paying attention to what's worthless. That means there's some things I'm going to have to stop watching and wasting money on. Help me to think on things that are true and noble and right and pure and excellent and admirable. Help me to make the best use of my time." The Bible says "A fool will believe anything." Say, "Lord, help me to test what I see, to actively evaluate it, to challenge it, to look at it and say `Is this really true?' to see the viewpoint that's promoted underneath the show. I know that everything is permissible but not everything is beneficial or constructive." Say, "Lord, help me to stop listening to teaching that contradicts what I know is right as You've said in Proverbs. And if there is a program that is consistently promoting an anti-Christian lifestyle or belief, just stop watching it. Thank You for the freedom of choice that we have in our lives. May we apply Your word in our lives this week. In Jesus' name. Amen.