YOUR FAMILY MATTERS with PASTOR CHANDA
I keep being moved to the depth of my being when I stumble across some of the things that our young people are watching on television and on the Internet. How we can expect them to live pure and responsible lives after that truly beats me.
Thankfully, that is not the case in all our homes. There are some homes that should be commended for the level of parental control that they have for their television and for the Internet in the home. But that is fast becoming the exception rather than the rule.
Parents will admit that with television that is now 24 hours a day and also the internet that is even on the smart phones that everyone has, parental control is becoming almost impossible. This is made worse when children are on holiday and parents are away at work.
The crime levels on television and on the internet are becoming too graphic. Recently there was a live clip on the Internet of four young African Americans who were torturing a mentally-retarded man. They even skinned him alive while they were laughing.
It is the same with computer games. Many of them make children play with guns on what looks like reality. They shoot “people” and blood graphically sputters from their bodies. The children play like this all day. They get used to violence while their parents are at work.
Another area is that of sex. Children are exposed to X-rated movies while their parents are away. They see bedroom scenes that it would not be lawful to describe even in my diary. Their own sexual appetites are aroused when they have nowhere to satisfy them.
This is a real challenge and the effects of this are seen when the children grow up and have to handle issues of romance, courtship, sex and marriage. They end up using methods that are not taught in the Bible but which they have been exposed to through the television.
Although many young people would hate to admit it, their views of love and romance have been moulded by the soaps that they watch on the television. It is amazing how many of our Christian young people make these dirty and immoral programs their daily diet.
They soak themselves in the mucky sewer waters that gush out of those programmes until their very lives also begin to stink in the same way. They forget that the movie directors are godless men who care nothing about the Ten Commandments.
Apart from the sexual scenes that are portrayed graphically on the screen, there is the story line as well. The very thread on which the soaps move from one episode to another is one adulterous affair after another. Faithfulness and trust are totally thrown away.
It is basic computer language, “Rubbish in; rubbish out.” Your children cannot continue watching sexual movies with an immoral bias without awakening sexual appetites with an immoral bias within them. They will reap what they are sowing.
The Bible says, “Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm” (Proverbs 13:20). By watching those blue movies, evening after evening, children are becoming the companions of fools and will finally suffer harm.
The Bible also warns again and again, saying, “Promise me, O women of Jerusalem, by the gazelles and wild deer, not to awaken love until the time is right” (Song 2:7, New Living Translation). It is crucial to prolong the years of innocence in your children.
When they are watching those blue movies, they are awakening appetites within them when there is no way in which they can righteously satisfy them. The time is not right! Therefore, they end up satisfying those desires outside marriage.
So, as parents we need to ask and answer the question: “What are our children watching?” Are they watching movies that are violent and sexually immoral? Are they imbibing poison into to their souls? Parents must keep an eye on what their children watch.
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