Pitfall #2: Entertainment (2001 Apr 15)

Introduction

Okay, Proverbs chapter 4. I’d like for us to begin in verse 20 and read to the end of the chapter. Solomon says, My son, give attention to my words. Incline your ear to my sayings. Do not let them depart from your sight. Keep them in the midst of your heart. For they are life to those who find them and health to all their whole body. Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life. Put away from you a deceitful mouth, and put devious lips far from you. Let your eyes look directly ahead. Let your gaze be fixed straight in front of you. Watch the path of your feet, and all your ways will be established. Do not turn to the right nor to the left.

Turn your foot from evil. I’m convinced that Americans must surely be the most entertained society of people that have ever existed. You ever thought about that? Have you ever just sat down and contemplated the vast array of entertainment that is accessible to us all of the time? Think about right here in the city of Orlando. On any given day, we can go to a restaurant that will serve just about any kind of food that you could want to eat, and some that I wouldn’t touch. We have amusement parks. We have all kinds of musical and theatrical performances. We’ve got sports, professional, and college. We have all kinds of movie theaters that offer dozens of different movies for us to go and sit, uh, sit and view in nice, comfortable reclining seats now.

We have cars that are equipped with radios. You can hop in your car, you can tune in a station and find just about any kind of music you could possibly want to listen to. And if music is not your thing, flip it over to AM, and you can find somebody that’s going to be talking about something somewhere, and you can join right in if you want to. And if none of that suits your fancy, well, then most cars not only have a radio, but they have a cassette deck or a CD player. You can put your own music in. You can put a tape of sermons in if you want to. Listen to whatever you want to. In fact, I was in one of these audio places the other day, car audio places.

And they had this car sitting on the showroom floor. And it had in it equipped, mounted in the back of the driver and passenger seat, a TV monitor on each side. And one in the front that kind of flipped up from where the ashtray would be. So everyone riding in the car had their own TV screen except the driver, which I thought was a good thing. So you can ride along and watch TV, and I guess that’s the coming technology that we’ll have before too much longer. And if you’re not into that, well, we’ve got libraries and bookstores that are loaded with volumes of every kind of book, and periodically a person could possibly want to read thousands upon thousands. But you know, most of us don’t have to go that far.

Not even to the garage to be entertained. Right in our own homes, 98% of all Americans have television, 84% have VCRs. And if you connect them to cable or to satellite, why it’s incredible what you can get. You know, I can still remember Brother Heinley when there were three TV stations. Listen, when Dad got up and said switch the channel, that wasn’t didn’t take very long. When I was growing up, you had two, eleven, and thirteen, and that was all.

You realize what you can watch at two o’clock in the morning?

I mean, used to be there wasn’t anything on at 2 o’clock in the morning. You could watch a baseball game, a movie, a news show, a political commentary, whatever. We have to be. The most entertained society that is that has ever lived. And if none of that suits you, those of you who are internet active can get on your computer and log onto the internet and travel the world. And investigate and discover all kinds of amazing things. I’ve got a little website that displays some books that I’ve worked on, and I was going through and reviewing some of the people that had visited my sites and where they’d come from. And you know, there was a guy from Saudi Arabia that was looking at my books last week.

And I just thought that was amazing. The options are literally limitless and incredible. Now, folks, I don’t want you to understand me to suggest this morning that I think all that’s bad. I think it’s nice to have choices. And I think one of the outcomes of all of that is we must surely be also one of the most informed cultures that has ever existed. And even some of these technologies, I think, have become wonderful tools for spreading the message about Jesus Christ. People have used radio, and we’ve used television, and folks have used the internet to help others learn the gospel, and those are good things. But I do want to say to you this morning that we need to be careful about the choices we make when it comes to our entertainment.

Because with all of the options that are out there, we need to recognize that our entertainment can corrupt our minds if we’re not careful. And Solomon was trying to warn us about that in Proverbs chapter 4, in the latter part of that chapter. Particularly verse 23. He says to us, watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life. If we could get that committed to memory, not just for the purpose of knowing it, but appreciating its implications, it would enrich our lives and protect our hearts. We’ve been talking on Sunday mornings for over a month now about raising kids that turn out right. And we’ve been talking about that because that’s our desire as parents. We want our kids not just to grow up to be good citizens and stay out of jail.

But we want to raise kids that love the Lord and that want to serve Jesus Christ and follow God’s will in their life more than they want anything else. And we were suggesting a couple of weeks ago that if we’re going to do that as parents, if we’re going to raise kids that turn out right, one of the things that we have to train them to do is we must train them to navigate life’s minefield. We said a couple of weeks ago there’s a lot of pitfalls that are out there into which our kids can fall. A lot of things that threaten to trip them up and to rob them of their joy and to dim their hopes for the future. And most importantly, pitfalls that put at risk their relationship with Jesus Christ.

And it’s our great task as parents to train our children how to navigate around the minds that are buried out there, just waiting to blow up in their face. I want to talk to you this morning about the dangers that we all face, but particularly that our children face from this vast array of entertainment that they are able to experience. Brethren, I think one of the grave and serious tasks that we have as a parent is to train our children how to entertain themselves without at the same time corrupting their minds. And that possibility in a culture like ours with all of these options, is very real and very threatening. So if you would spend a few minutes with me thinking this morning about how we can protect them and train them to choose their entertainment wisely.

1. Entertainment Is More Than Just Entertainment

Let me say to you, first of all, that if we’re going to do that, that as parents, we’ve got to be convicted about some things. It begins with what’s on our heart and where we stand. So let me say to you first of all this morning that there are four things that we as parents have to be convicted about, four things about which we need to make up our minds if we’re going to help our kids to make wise choices about their entertainment. If you have a bulletin this morning, you might want to take it out. We’ve got these four points laid out that you can fill in as you go along this morning. But let me say to you, first of all, that as parents, we need to be convicted that entertainment is more than just entertainment.

And we need to be settled about that and understand that in our hearts. We need to appreciate that when we turn on the television, when we log on to the internet, when we switch on the radio, when we pick up a book or a magazine to read, we need to appreciate that we are doing more than just entertaining ourselves. We need to appreciate that whenever I turn on the television or the radio or log onto the internet, what I’m doing is I’m feeding my mind. We’re learning something. We’re taking in information, information that’s going to influence us, information that will shape our attitudes, information that will even to an extent determine the course and direction of our lives that will determine our behavior. Someone says, David, I think you’re exaggerating.

I don’t think we’re that influenced by our entertainment. Really? If we’re not so influenced, then I do wonder why is it that companies literally spend billions and billions of dollars every year on television and radio and internet advertising? Why do they do that? Why do they pay so much money to put their displays in the magazines and to put their commercials on the television? Why is it that during the Super Bowl, companies will pay millions of dollars for 30 seconds of your attention? Why will they do that? Is it because they just like to throw away their money? No. It’s because they know it works. Even 30 little seconds at the right time with enough people will tremendously increase their profits. They know advertising works. It wins business.

They know that people are influenced by what they see and hear on the television. They know that their attitudes towards products are changed. They know that it affects their buying habits. They do it because it makes them money. And the reason it makes them money is because people are changed and affected and influenced by what they see and hear in their entertainment. Now, there’s other proof that we could sell. You know, for the last 20 or 25 years, study after study after study has established that there is a tragic link between the violence in our entertainment and the violence in our culture, particularly when it comes to children. And amazingly, in recent years, even the Hollywood folks who produce this stuff are admitting that. 80% of Hollywood executives now admit that there is an undeniable connection between violence and popular entertainment and violence that goes on in our culture.

What’s the point? People are affected by what they see and hear in their entertainment. Now, let me stop a second and talk to you about what I mean when I said we’re affected. I’m not trying to suggest that if you were to go home this evening and watch some violent murder movie on television, that you better be careful because you might go out tomorrow and do the same thing. Well, you know, if that were the nature of it, we probably wouldn’t need to preach very much on stuff like that. The problem is that entertainment’s effect on us and its corruption of our minds is a whole lot more subtle and a whole lot more slow in its development. I think one of the great evils of our entertainment is the way that it desensitizes us to evil.

You realize that? If you watch the wrong thing long enough over and over again and hear the wrong message long enough over and over again, you know what eventually happens? Eventually it just doesn’t seem so wrong. I’m not saying maybe we’re going to go out and do it. But it begins to change our minds. Can I give you a simple illustration of that? Have you paid much attention lately to the kind of words that are used on television? I mean, just regular stuff, not cable. I mean, there are words that are being used regularly on our television stations that if they’d been used 25 years ago, there would have been a crisis. I’m going to tell you there are words used today that if someone had said them 25 years ago, heads would have rolled, letters of protest would have been written, people would have come unglued, folks would have been fired, there would have been national news stories about it.

It would have been a controversy. But you know what? It’s not. Because they’re smart about how they do this. You see, what these producers do is they give us just a little bit. They’ll then introduce a new word that hadn’t been used before, a filthy word, and they’ll just put it here or there a little bit. And then they’ll use it a little bit more frequently, and then they’ll introduce another word, and they’ll use it here or there a little bit, and then a little more frequently, and on and on and on it goes until it becomes commonplace and people accept it. Let me ask you a question, folks. When’s the last time you wrote a letter to one of the local stations objecting to the filthy language on television?

You see, we’re like that frog that’s put in the bowl or the pot of cold water and let the sleep until the heat slowly turned up till he’s cooked, and we’ve been cooked. In fact, the truth is a lot of us would have to admit that there’s profanity used on television anymore, and we don’t even hear it. I have young people say that to me. Oh, it doesn’t bother me to go see movies with filthy language. I hear it so much it doesn’t even bother me anymore. Well, is that a good thing? You see, we’re being desensitized to evil. And I think that’s had an effect on our culture morally. Have you noticed over the last decade or so the way that Americans’ attitudes towards homosexuality have been drastically altered.

You know, 10 or 20 years ago, the vast majority of Americans looked on the homosexual lifestyle as immoral and sinful and wicked and found it objectionable. But I don’t know if you’ve seen some of the recent polls, but upwards of 50 or 60% of Americans really don’t have a problem with it anymore. And I wonder why that is. I think media’s had a lot to do with it. Movies like Philadelphia, sitcoms on television like Ellen, have displayed the homosexual lifestyle as normal and acceptable. And those opposed to it have been displayed as closed-minded, narrow-minded, old-fashioned, outdated, hateful bigots. And all of that food for the mind, brethren, has shaped the thinking of American culture so that largely people don’t have a problem with it anymore. So it’s not like we’re going to watch a violent movie and go out and commit an act of violence tomorrow.

That’s not how it works. The process is slow. And gradually we’re being cooked. Which is exactly why we need to be careful about the entertainment we choose. Keeping in mind that we’re feeding our hearts. Go back, if you will, for a moment and listen to what Solomon told us in Proverbs 4 and verse 23. He said, Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life. Solomon says that our words, our deeds, yes, even the very course of our life flows from the mind. The mind is the fountain from which everything else comes. And so Solomon says, guard it and protect it, protect it as the most precious possession that you have. There’s another passage I’d like for you to notice with me.

In Matthew the 12th chapter, in verse 34. Jesus is in the middle of a scathing rebuke of the Pharisees. He had cast out a demon, and they have charged him of doing it by the power of Satan. An absurd charge, really. And in the context here, he’s going about the business of refuting this charge and giving them their rebuke. And in verse 34, he says to them, You brood of vipers. How can you, being evil, speak what is good? For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart. The good man out of his good treasure brings forth what is good, and the evil man out of his evil treasure brings forth what is evil. In this context, Jesus describes the heart or the mind as a storehouse.

And what we place into it, what we fill it up with, determines what comes out of it. Jesus is not a bit surprised to hear this evil come out of the mouth of the Pharisees. Why? Because they filled up their minds with evil. And it would be only natural that that’s what would come out in their conversation. But the opposite works as well. Jesus would say in verse 35, when a good man stores up what is good in his heart, that that’s going to be reflected in his speech and his conduct and in the course of his life. Question that we need to answer. Because what are we putting in the storehouse? What are we storing up in our minds? Paul would help us with that in Philippians chapter 4 and verse 8.

2. There’s Just a Lot of Trash Out There

He would say, Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever’s of good repute, if there is any excellence or anything worthy of praise, here it is. Let your mind dwell on these things. There it is. In fact, that just becomes a pretty good standard of judging our entertainment. If it can’t fit what he describes here, it’s not fit to be stored away. And I need to choose something else. Folks, we need some rigid standards and some strong convictions about selecting our entertainment, and we need that because, number two, there’s just a lot of trash out there. I tried to think of a fancy way to say that, and that’s about the best I could come up with.

I hope that the point is so obvious that we really don’t need to spend a lot of time with it, and I don’t intend to this morning. I hope that all of us recognize that whether we’re talking about TV or movies, whether we’re talking about the internet or magazines or what comes over the radio and popular music, there is in our entertainment today a lot of trash. A lot of things that pulls us and our children in the very opposite direction from the way that we want them to go and the way that God wants all of us to go. I’ve cited a couple of examples up there, Ephesians chapter 4 and verse 29, so as it says, let no unwholesome word proceed out of your mouth, but only that which is good for edifying.

You know, that’s how I want my kids to talk. I want my children to have speech that is pure and clean. But trust me, they’re not going to learn that by listening and watching some of the cable movies that come across, or even listening to what is said on a lot of television today. They’re going to learn about wholesome speech. I want my kids to grow up with the right ideas about sex. I want my children to grow up to be sexually pure. In Hebrews chapter 13 and verse 4, the Hebrew writer said that the marriage bed is to be undefiled. Let marriage be held in honor and the marriage bed undefiled. For fornicators and adulterers, God will judge. But it’s not likely that that’s the lesson they will learn on the internet or by watching late-night cable movies.

And I want my children to grow up to be peaceful and kind to other and not vengeful. Romans chapter 12 and verse 17, we’re told not to take our own vengeance. Verse 21, don’t be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Those are the standards I want my children to live by, but they’re not likely to learn that from the violent filled video games and movies and TV shows that are there for them to partake of. And you know the list could go on. The problem is that entertainment is more than entertainment, it is food for their mind. And there’s a lot of junk food out there that our kids don’t need to be feeding on, and for that matter, we don’t need to be feeding on it either.

3. Entertainment Is Stealing Our Time With Our Children

But there’s another problem here. I want you to understand this morning that sometimes we get too consumed with the trash and we miss something else. And that is our entertainment is stealing our time with our children. Let me let the statistics do the talking for us on this point. Came across some amazing statistics in some of my research over the last week or two. You know that the average young person in this country watches 1,500 hours of television a year. That’s more than four hours a day, more than 28 hours a week. It’s more time than he spends in the classroom. In fact, by the time today’s kids turn 70, they will have spent from seven to ten years of their entire lives feeding on what television has to offer.

If that doesn’t disturb you, you don’t watch enough television, which may be a good thing. The average child between the ages of two and eleven spends 1,200 minutes a week watching television, but only 39 minutes a week in meaningful conversation with their parents.

Another lost opportunity for conversation.

How about this one? 25% of teenagers, only 25% of teenagers could name the city where the Constitution of the United States was written. I won’t take a quiz, but you know what it is. Philadelphia.

You probably don’t watch enough television. But what I also want you to understand is that for the last several years, twice a week, every week, I’ve taught Bible classes with teenagers. And I want you to understand, folks, that twice a week, every week, for the last two or three years that I’ve been doing that, I’ve heard almost every class without fail, at least one teenager say to me, I did not have time to study my Bible this week. I would be frightened to know how our time with the tube compares with our time with the Word. It’s not just about sex and violence and filthy language. Brethren, the television is robbing us of precious golden moments with our children. In Ephesians 5 and verse 15, Paul said, Therefore be careful how you walk.

Not as unwise men, but as wise, making the most of your time. Because the days are evil. If ever there has been a generation when that statement is true, it is ours.

4. We Need to Be Raising Our Standards

We need to be convicted that entertainment is more than entertainment. We need to be convicted that there’s a lot of trash out there, that entertainment is stealing our time. But if I could say one more thing, brethren, that I wish we’d be convicted about, it is that all of us need to be raising our standards about the kind of things we watch and let entertain us. What if I approached you this evening after the service was over and said, you know, Heidi and I would like for you guys to come over to our house tonight after services and watch a movie with us? But I want to tell you beforehand, you might want to know what’s in this movie. You should probably know that over the course of this film we’re going to watch, you’re going to hear 60 different instances where really filthy, trashy languages use.

In fact, some of those instances will be some of the very worst words of profanity that you can imagine. I think you might want to know that going in. And you might also want to know that there will be no less than four very sexually graphic scenes in this movie that we’re going to watch together. In fact, several of them will have rather lengthy scenes of explicit nudity in them. And we’d like for y’all to come over after church tonight and watch that movie with us. That be okay with you. Would you be a bit disturbed that I would invite you over to watch that?

Do you know what movie I’ve just described?

The movie Titanic. That a lot of young Christians would see with the endorsement of their parents. Movie I heard a lot of Christians recommend to other Christians as a great film. You know, there are sources you can go to without having to see the movie that’ll lay it out for you just like that. This is how many cuss words, this is how many scenes of nudity, this is what’s in it. Maybe some of us need to be checking those sources. Oh, what if I said, not that movie, but another movie? And this movie won’t have any sex in it or any nudity. It’s just going to be really, really violent and graphic. And I should probably warn you, there will be almost a hundred instances where the very worst kind of profanity will be used.

In fact, virtually every minute or two in the movie, you’re going to be hearing some filthy word. Would you feel better about coming to my house and watching that? You’re wondering what I’m going to say next, aren’t you? You know what movie that is? It’s another one that a lot of Christians went to see and recommended. It was a movie a while back called Saving Private Ryan. Something’s happened to our standards, folks. And I suspect I know what it is. I think the problem is that we’ve begun to measure ourselves by the wrong standard. We’ve begun to look at the world and say, you know, there are movies out there that are a whole lot worse than Titanic, and you’re right about that. But that’s not the point.

We don’t measure ourselves by the world and say, well, I’m not nearly as bad as they are because they’re pretty bad. What I want to know is how would movies like Titanic and Saving Private Ryan measure up to Philippians 4 and verse 8? Finally, brethren, whatever is true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, of good repute, excellent, worthy of praise. Does it fit that? Brethren, we need to be helping our kids. Protecting them from the corruption that proliferates our entertainment. But some of us need to begin helping our kids by first raising our standards.

5. Things We Need to Do for Our Kids

I’m almost out of time. And when I put another chart up here, don’t have a heart attack on me. But I’ve said at the beginning, I really want these lessons to be practical. And so before we close this morning, I want to say just a few things about how we can take these convictions that are ours and instill them in our children and hold them accountable for their entertainment. So indulge me a minute or two to talk to you about four quick things that we need to do for our kids. Number one, talk to your kids about their heart. And I say that because I want you to understand that this has to be more than just making rules about what we’re going to let our kids watch on television and what’s off limits and what movies they can and can’t go see.

It’s got to be more than just those kind of rules. And the reason is a time is coming when your kids won’t be at home and they’ll go see whatever they want to, regardless of what mom and dad think. And at those moments, our kids need to be equipped, not with the rules that we gave them, but with the convictions to make wise choices. I think about what is said of Timothy in 2 Timothy chapter 3 and verse 14. Paul would tell him to continue and the things that he had learned and become convinced of. And that’s what we want our kids to do. Not just to learn them, but to be convinced for themselves and to have their own convictions so that they’ll make wise choices when they’re making those choices all by themselves.

And so talk to your kids about their heart. Talk about how the heart is a storehouse into which we put either good things or bad things, and explain that what we put in is going to determine what comes out in our speech and our conduct. And teach them to guard their hearts. Help them guard their hearts. Help them guard their hearts, number one, by limiting their time with entertainment. You know, folks, because it eats away at so much of our time and offers so much that threatens to corrupt us, I’m convinced that just in a general way, we need to be encouraging less time with all these different kinds of entertainment. So let me make some specific suggestions. Number one, don’t turn on the radio every time you get in the car with your kids.

Oh, it’s okay to do it sometimes, but not every time. I’ve been driving my kids nuts for two months. Because every time we get in the car, Todd reaches across and says, How about some music, Dad? And I’ve been saying, no, I think I’d just like to talk. About what, Dad? Now you need to be ready to answer that question, or it’ll be a really awkward moment. Number one, don’t always have the radio blaring every time you’re in the car with your kids. Number two, don’t eat in front of the TV. If you’re going to do that, do that at one special time, maybe once a week, Sunday night at our house is the night we eat in front of the TV, and well, we do some other times that we’re going to work on that.

But if you do it, do it just once. I tell you, folks, even if not everyone isn’t there in your family, whatever part of your family you got there, sit down and eat together because that’s just some of the best conversation time. Boy, when our family can get around the table and sit down and have a meal, we have a great time. Now don’t ask my kids how we discovered that you could stick cooked carrots to the ceiling, because that’s not relevant. But you’ll have a great time and some great conversation with your children if you’ll do that. Number three, limit the amount of time your kids can watch television each day and each week. Studies say that if your children are watching ten hours or more of television a week, it is affecting their academic performance.

So that’s a good benchmark. It ought not to be any more than ten, and in fact, we need to be whittling it down from there. In fact, let me give you a great little thing you can do with that. Tie your children’s television time with their reading time. Our kids have to earn the right to watch TV. As much as they read, that’s how much they can watch. And by the way, that includes playing Nintendo too. Tie it to their Bible study time. However much you’re reading and studying from your Bible, you can watch your television. Number four, teach your kids the value of quiet time. Don’t let your kids constantly, every moment of the day, have something blaring in their heads. Because a lot of it isn’t good.

In fact, I want to issue a challenge to all of us here at South Mumbee. I want you to join me starting tomorrow morning in a television fast. I want to challenge every one of us to go home at the end of this evening, unplug it, disconnect the cable or the satellite, remove it from its perch in your house, find a closet, and stick it back there for one week.

Now, folks, if you think I’ve just asked you to cut off your arm, then you really need to do this. Spend that extra time talking as a family about the stuff that we’ve brought up today. Reassess your standards. Work on some rules. Talk about what programs are going to watch and when it’s going to be watched and how much it’s going to be watched. And then do some family stuff together. But take a fast from television for a week, and let me tell you something. If we can’t do that, we’ve got a bigger problem than we think. So will you take the challenge? Try it for one week. All right, I’ve got to get moving here. Number three, know what your kids are seeing and hearing.

When you do watch television, watch the programs your kids watch. Know what their favorite programs are, know what shows they’re watching. And in fact, instead of just letting your kids get the remote and surf through the television stations, work out some kind of general agreement or framework that here’s the shows that they’re going to watch at certain times during the day. And then go back periodically and reexamine those programs. One of the things that Heidi and I have discovered is that programs change over time. And what may have been good a year or two ago may not be so good today. I don’t know if your children watched the show Boy Meets World. My kids used to watch that. We watched it some of them. It was a great show, but I’m going to tell you what, if your kids are watching that show today, it’s trashy.

And you need to change, take another look at that. I know some parents aren’t watching what their kids watch because some of these teenagers tell me that they stay up and watch Saturday Night Live on Saturday night. Well, I’m going to tell you something, folks. If moms and dads were watching that shoe show and knew it was going into their kids’ mind, we’d have some changes. That show’s filthy. And that’s not something our kids need to be feeding their minds. If you doubt that, pay attention to it. Pay attention to their music. When you do occasionally turn on the radio in the car, listen to their stations. My kids are going to get me on this one. Listen to their music and pay attention to the words.

Read the words to the lyrics of the songs that they listen to. Sometimes they’re printed on the inside cover of the CDs that they buy. If your children read teen magazines, read them. I’m going to tell you something. This past summer, Steve Quillian, who worked with us, was doing some research. And he went out as part of his research and bought a couple of magazines marketed to teenage children. And I want you to know, folks, he came into my office and showed me some of the stuff he found in them, and it’s unbelievably disturbing. Almost none of it is anything you’d want your kids to know. So if it’s a magazine geared toward teenagers, you need to read it and find out what’s in it. Know about the movies that your kids go see before you let them go and see it.

6. Take Special Precautions With the Internet

And if you want to know about some resources that’ll help you do that, you see me after the service. But there are some resources available today so that before your kids go, you can know everything right down to the very last cuss word used in the movie. And I’ll be glad to put you in touch with some information that’ll help you with that. And if you’ll indulge me one more minute. There’s one more key point we need to take, and that is, folks, you need to take special precautions with the internet. I am really, really frightened about the internet. And I want to tell you three reasons why. I’m frightened number one, because the internet is a pit of filth. Now, don’t misunderstand. There’s some good stuff on there.

There’s some wonderful ways that that tool can be used. But I think we all need to appreciate as well that there is just unbelievable filth. And I’m not talking about pornography only. I’m talking about material that is filled with hate and violence. Do you know that your children can learn how to make a bomb on the internet? I’m talking about filthy chat rooms where child predators hunt down children today. They don’t need to go to the local park anymore. They can get on the internet and in their clever ways get information out of your children. And we’ve had young people who’ve been abducted and assaulted and murdered, who were sought out by predators on the internet. I hope that scares you to death. It should. It is a pit of depravity.

Secondly, I am fearful because there are way too many kids today who have unfettered access to the internet. That is, they’re logging on when nobody’s home, or logging home when nobody’s home, who cares or pays attention. And the number of children on the internet is growing and growing. In fact, since 1997, the number of children on the internet has tripled. Twenty five million kids surf the net today. Thirdly, I am afraid because there are far too many kids who know way more about the computer than their parents do. You’re nodding your heads, and that doesn’t make me feel any better. There are a lot of kids who know a whole lot more about that computer. Moms and dads don’t even begin to have a clue how to keep track of their kids on the internet and to hold them accountable.

And brethren, I want you to know that is a formula for disaster that is going to destroy this generation, and it’ll destroy our kids if we don’t intervene. So let me give you three quick practical steps. Number one, don’t be in a rush to get your kids on the internet. My oldest son is in the fifth grade, he’s 11 years old, and already all his little buddies at school are logging on and sending emails and jumping in chat rooms and communicating back and forth through the internet and surfing the net, and for the life of me, I cannot figure out why their parents are letting them do that. There is no practical need for my 11-year-old son to be on the internet. If he wants to talk to this friends, we’ve got this strange old timey device called a telephone that he can use to talk to his friends.

That doesn’t run all the risks that the internet has. Now, don’t, I’m not trying to live in another age, folks. I know the time will come when my children will need to learn how to use the internet, and I will need to train them to use it discreetly and carefully. I understand that. But you know what? That day isn’t today. And these young elementary school children are being thrown to the wolves by their parents when they let them get unfettered access out there. Listen, don’t be in a rush to get them on there. Time will come when they’ll need to be. But with these young children, it’s not today. Secondly, for those of you with teenage kids who are on the internet, you need to strictly limit when and where your children use it.

The computer that you’re choosing children use to surf the net needs to be in a prominent place in your home with lots of heavy traffic and no doors to close. Children should not have a computer in their room that is internet active. That’s a formula for disaster. We need to restrict the use of the internet to our children to times when we are at home and able to be attentive to what they’re doing. When your kids are logged on, make sure you are regularly peeking over their shoulder and watching what’s going on. Listen, folks, don’t be naive about this. Don’t see my kids would never do it. Listen, they may not be seeking it. There may be somebody out there that’s seeking them. And that’s exactly how it works on the net.

And let me suggest to you as well that a child, a teenage child should never be able to maintain screen names that you cannot access. There is no privacy for teenage children on the internet. Moms and dads need to have access to everything they do. That’s part of being a good, responsible parent. And number three, parents need to keep track of where their kids are going and what sites they visit when they’re surfing the internet. And I’m not going to explain how that’s done this morning, but I am going to tell you there are ways to do it. And if you don’t know about that, there are four or five guys right here in this church that I guarantee you can tell you everything you want to know about that and more.

Conclusion

And if you’re going to have kids and they’re going to be on the internet, you need a quick tutorial and how to keep track of where they’re going. And if you want to know who some of those fellows are, I’ll be glad to introduce you to them right after the service. I know they’ll want to help you. I’m frightened about this. I hope you will be too. And that we will take some extra special precautions to deal with that threat to our children. I’ve indulged too much of your time this morning. I appreciate your patience. I want to go back just briefly to Proverbs 423. Where the wise men says, watch over your heart with all diligence. For from it flow the springs of life. It’s wonderful to live in a time with so many options.

We just need to make sure that we’re choosing the right stuff. And we need to make sure we’re helping our kids make the right choices. Because from the mind, from the heart flows everything else in life.