The proliferation of television sets in America has become widespread. Now one could pass by even the poorest of welfare recipients any night of the 
week, and see the flickering of the TV through the window. He would be undoubtedly watching his favorite filth in living color in the same way as the wealthy. One may do without a telephone or an automobile, but to be without a television would be unthinkable! Many homes have several sets to have more convenient access to their favorite sin.
In looking back on my childhood, I recognize that one reason why the Word of God had little or no effect upon me, even though I was in a Baptist church at least three times a week, was that my mind was always filled with worldly entertainment. There is no doubt that television and movies fed my carnal imagination in a way that nothing else could have done and, together with rock & roll, inflamed me with a passion for the things of the world.
(Ronald E. Williams of Hephzibah House)
▫ They’re everywhere: living room, bedrooms, cars, stores, restaurants….often they are on from breakfast to bedtime, even all through the night; some can’t seem to function without a TV on.
▫ Be careful, TV is “creepy” : it creeps into ones life and eventually is an almost unbreakable addiction.
▫ What variety! : over 130 channels of ‘who knows what’ pouring into your family’s eyes, ears, and heart day after day.
▫ Not many good shows anymore; and of those so-called good shows, they are sneaking in wickedness.
▫ Even if the show is perfect, there is the every 10 minute commercial segment that often ruins it all.
▫ It doesn’t affect me: ok, so watching for hours a day, day after day, year after year a steady stream of profanity,
blasphemy, obscenity, violence, nudity, perversion, liberalism, humanism, atheism, satanism, etc. won’t affect you?!
▫ I’ve got control over it: that’s exactly what every drug addict and drunk says too. Even if you try to, it is designed to flash images of nastiness faster than you can hit the remote.
▫ Who’s your heroes: those “stars” (sports, music, or hollywood) are who most of you admire and try to emulate.
▫ Desynthesizer: little by little the former years’ “R” rateds become PGs. What was daring in the 60s is boring in the 2010s. You don’t even see how far you’ve slid into the slimepit.
There is an axiom that what parents allow in moderation, the children follow to excess. If parents are even a little careless about watching Hollywood movies, tv, internet, etc., the children will most likely move much farther into areas of moral temptation.
• The average U.S. household has at least one TV set turned on for about
seven hours a day.
• The average school-aged child spends 27 hours per week watching TV
(some preschoolers watch much more).
• Over the course of a year, children spend more time watching TV than
they spend in school or participating in any other activity except sleep.
• Children’s TV shows contain about 20 violent acts per hour.
• A high percentage of a child’s viewing time is spent watching shows intended for adults: 40 percent of a 6-year-old’s viewing time, and about 80 percent of a 12-year-old’s viewing time.
• The average American child will have watched 100,000 acts of televised violence, including 8,000 murders, by the time he or she finishes the sixth grade.
Television programs in the United States contain double the number of sexual scenes compared to seven years ago. This was the finding of a Kaiser Family Foundation survey of programs (2005). The study found that 70 per cent of all shows included some sexual content, averaging about five scenes with sexual content per hour. That’s up from about three scenes per hour in 1998.
“Foul language, including curses, offensive epithets, scatological language, sexually suggestive or indecent language, and censored language increased by 94.8 percent during the Family Hour between 1998 and 2002” (Calvary Contender, Dec. 2003).
Consider just a few of the wicked things that you or your children will see and hear:
- The breaking of all of God’s commandments
- Open and flaunted immorality
- Casual drinking and drug usage
- Drunkenness portrayed as something funny and innocent
- Almost a never ending funneling of the world’s music through the speakers
- Immodest and sexually alluring attire
- Sexually enticing dancing
- Sexually suggestive ‘inuendos’
- Immorality of every imaginable sort
- Profanity; profanity replacements
- Anger, violence and mayhem
- Casual dating; living together as norm; divorce ok
- Homosexuality as acceptable
- Mockery of the things of God
- Liberal ideology as the norm
- Occultism, paganism, and New Age mysticism portrayed as true.
How does routine watching of television line up with what the Bible says?…. Bible Christianity has distinctives Bible Christians are commanded by Scripture to not love the world, or the things in the world (1 John 2:15), to be uncontaminated by the world around us (2 Peter 3:14),to live holy lives (1 Peter 1:15). to abstain from fleshly lusts
(1 Peter 2:11), to abstain from even the appearance of evil (1 Thessalonians 5:22). Believers are to jealously guard their thought life to ensure it is approved of God (Philippians 4:8), bringing captive every thought into obedience to Christ
(2 Corinthians 10:5). (Ronald E. Williams)
The TV is my shepherd, I shall not want anything else. It maketh me to lie down on the sofa. It leadeth me away from the Scripture. It destroys my soul. It leadeth me in the paths of sex and violence for the sponsor’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will enjoy the evil, for blood and sex they excite me. The cable and remote they comfort me. It prepares a commercial before me in the presence of my children. It anoints my head with humanism, My coveting runneth over. Surely laziness and ignorance shall follow my family all the days of our lives, and we shall dwell in the house watching TV forever.
These actors, producers, directors and sponsors are regularly spewing out filthy productions that are wholly consistent with their evil hearts. They aren’t trying to produce shows, movies, or internet sites that are godly and wholesome. Wholesomeness doesn’t sell. You will not get clean, decent, moral, character-building television programming from bad people…Two reasons: 1) they aren’t capable of it 2) it doesn’t make them money.
List of shows that we might be able to recommend as ok for general viewing:
Little House on the Prairie; Leave it to Beaver; My Friend Flicka; Lassie; Flipper; Bonanza; Father Knows Best; Andy Griffith Show (old ones); Marcus Welby M.D.;
List of channels / networks that might be ok for general viewing a majority of the time (but not all the time):
Weather; History; Discovery; C-Span; Fox News; CBN (not the preaching or music though)…
A PhD. candidate typically concentrates about 2,000 hours to earn his doctorate in a particular field of study. Count up your family’s average viewing time to see how long it took you to obtain your PhD. in filth. If you watch only 1 hour of TV a day, you will have a PhD in Television quicker than if you started college and earned one normally (6 yrs vs. 8yrs)!
It’s important to have a solid conviction from God and implement a firm policy in dealing with TV watching for you and your family.
Helpful ideas for your TV policy:
Pledge to only watch “good” programs
Pray before you go to watch the
Analyze what you are watching, don’t be mindless about it
If kids shouldn’t watch it, then neither should an adult
Will not look/listen at/to anything on TV that involves the following (choose any or all): sexual immorality, drug use
(including tobacco and alcohol), profanity, violence (how graphic?), sexual inuendos, immodesty, vulgar comedy,
liberal ideologies, rebellion, dancing, portraying sin as ok, worldly music, mean-spiritedness, fantasy, occultism,
promotion of another belief, pro-evolution, horror.
Only watch shows on the “approved” list (list specific approved shows)
Spend equal time in the Bible as you do with TV
No more than one show per day
Never watch it alone
Mute all commercials (and avoid watching)
Don’t channel surf: only allow punching in the desired channel number on the remote.
Put the Bible in front of the TV to remind you
Limit total time per day: 1 hour? 2 hours? etc.
No more than one show per day
No viewing on the Lord’s day
No viewing until all work is completed for the day
No viewing after a certain hour: 7pm? 9pm? midnight?
Go without TV for 1 week
TV located in family room / den (not living room or bedroom)
Maybe even get all TV’s out of the home.
Discontinue cable service: only will watch programs on free networks
V-Chip (doesn’t allow certain rated shows to be viewed)
TV Guardian (mutes bad words)
How are you behaving concerning what you are setting before your eyes?
Ps 101:2-3 I will behave myself wisely in a perfect way. O when wilt thou come unto me? I will walk within my house with a perfect heart. I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes: I hate the work of them that turn aside; it shall not cleave to me.
Is that tv that you’ve set before you a ‘wicked thing’? Does it produce wicked words and images? Does it do that on a regular basis? Is most of what comes across it on any given channel, wicked?… Yes
Does watching TV make you think on these things?:
Phil 4:8 Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.
It’s time to ‘change channels’. Whatever comes across that ‘video screen’ needs to line up with this passage. Are there any ‘shows’ that would do this?…. Most will agree that they should ‘think on these things’, but when it comes to their tv watching…they will compromise all over the place. Over the decades they have developed certain habits and likes in regards to tv programming. They are so use to ‘watching on these things’ that it really doesn’t seem that bad to them…
Are you saying that that show you watch is ‘ok’…no problem with it…it’s a good show??… really?!
Isa 5:20 Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil;…
What’s your reference for what is ‘good’? Are you comparing it to God, or are you contrasting it from what’s really bad?
Do you enjoy watching tv more than reading your Bible or hearing the preaching of God’s word?…
Ps 52:3 Thou lovest evil more than good; and lying rather than to speak righteousness. Selah.
And you wonder why your life seems so spiritually dead….
Do you look away every time something vain, immoral, or otherwise wicked comes on the TV screen?
Ps 119:37 Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity; and quicken thou me in thy way.
How good are you at looking away? Do you forget sometimes? Is it just too late sometimes? Are your kids looking away also? Do they know to look away? Why keep putting things before your eyes that you have to keep looking away from? How foolish are you?…
Is there any appearance of evil on the show you watch?
1 Thess 5:22 Abstain from all appearance of evil.
If your pastor saw you watching that scene would he be concerned-ashamed-appalled?!
Do you have any doubts about whether you should be watching some of those programs you watch each week?
Rom 14:23 And he that doubteth is damned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith: for whatsoever is not of faith is sin. This verse warns the child of God not to participate in anything that is questionable. If you cannot say for sure that something is God’s perfect will…if it creates nagging doubts… you should avoid it.
If I was to come into your house and grab your tv and take it away, would you grab hold of it and cry ‘No!’ ?
Rom 12:9 …Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good.
Do you abhor it…or do you cleave to it? Is there a show that you just can’t miss each week? When something wicked is shown or said, do you get all disgusted and convicted about it?
Are you causing your kids to stumble into a life of wickedness?
Rom 14:21 It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor any thing whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak.
Is having a tv in your house possibly going to make one of your kids weak? Could it cause your 14 year old son to start lusting after women? Could it cause your 7 year old daughter to want to dress like a prostitute? Might your kids pick up some bad language from it? Might they deep within their hearts make some of these hollywood stars, or sports stars, their heroes?
Some of us may need to throw the TV set out the window!
2 Cor 10:5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
Make a TV covenant
Job 31:1 I made a covenant with mine eyes; why then should I …..?
(The following is by Ronald E. Williams of Hephzibah House)
Honestly now, after having watched your favorite TV show, did you rise, stretch and remark ‘this has made me a better Christian’, or ‘I am closer to 
God after having watched that’? Have you noticed your children developing more of an interest in the Bible… witnessing and standing alone for Christ after the steady diet of television you have permitted them to watch? What would Christ say if He were to watch TV over your shoulder as you enjoy your favorite broadcasts? What’s your son thinking as he watches naked [or half-naked] women? What are you thinking? What Bible values and moral character are being taught and reinforced in your family as you watch? Has it stimulated you to [become more involved with] your church? Honest answers to these questions ought to convince you of the utter failure on your part of controlling and censoring your pet sin!
You are introducing confusion in the hearts and minds of your children by having TV in your home. TV does not agree with the authority and truth to which a child ought to be exposed in a Bible-believing home. In fact, the basic message of TV is hostile to the truths conveyed by faithful Bible preachers, Sunday School teachers, Christian School teachers, and which ought to be conveyed by believing parents.
Every teaching model your child has, ought to be in basic moral agreement on values. To have the home, school and church proclaiming one set of values to the child while your TV set vigorously and effectively teaches another is to cause confusion of the first order. This is not only unwise, it is foolhardy. Ask yourself, do your children emulate and venerate the stars on TV, or their preacher and Sunday School teacher? Are they accepting and learning the barnyard morality of TV or the morality of Scripture? Are they praising a longhaired sports hero who desecrates the Lord’s Day every Sunday he plays, or are they avidly sharing the details of a 19th century missionary about whom they have just read? Who is winning the battle for your child’s heart? Why should you even allow this battle for their soul and confusion in their minds by using a TV set?
Anyone owning and watching TV is not seriously interested in personal revival. Such an individual, though he be called a Christian, is not actively seeking holiness of life. The facts are, he is a dirty compromiser like Lot: wanting to be called a Pilgrim, trying to act like one, yet pitching his tent toward Sodom, and then actually moving into town. He has a pet sin and is not willing to give it up!