Entertainment: Appropriate For Christians
Reading: Psa 119:37
INTRODUCTION
A. I like entertainment. Do you? It helps me fill the time when there is nothing much else to do. It provides activities for being with friends and provides opportunities to make new friends. It can even educate us.
B. Our country has demonstrated in the various media formats that most people enjoy entertainment. In fact many people are caught up in the entertainment culture. There are whole television programs devoted to talking about entertainment and entertainers. At the same time, many forms of entertainment have become increasingly vile, profane, obscene, and explicit. It’s a general indication that in our culture not much is considered sacred. Nearly anything is endorsed, excusable, explainable and encouraged. Such can make it difficult for the spiritually untrained to determine proper spiritual boundaries in entertainment. Those Christians who are not careful, may find themselves partaking in, and even advocating, practices that promote the secular agenda of the worldly minded. We have to remember that every issue is a possible spiritual issue, that everything we do either promotes righteousness - godliness, or it promotes unrighteousness - worldliness. Christians are too only promote righteousness (Col 3:17; Ti 2:11-12).
C. Christians must be on guard with their entertainment, whether it is music, movies, magazines or such like. I am not going to tell you what you can listen to, watch or read whatever you might find entertaining. That is your decision and between you and God. What I hope to do is provide for you a guideline from the scriptures, which will help you make godly decisions about your entertainment.
D. Paul told Timothy that perilous times would characterize the last days. He listed a number of those characteristics. He wrote, “in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: …” (2Ti 3:1-5). Paul exhorted, “from such turn away.”
E. If anything in your entertainment promotes any of those characteristics Paul described to Timothy, you should absolutely, unquestionably reconsider participating in it (Rom 1). With entertainment we need view things from God's vantage point. For that we need a spiritual filter or firewall.
F. The reason we need to take care to our entertainment is because there are at least three things that the entertainment industry promotes generally, in entertainment. As a Christian you need to judge whether or not your entertainment is truly entertainment or entrapment to sin.
G. We need to realize that:
Discussion
I. ENTERTAINMENT CAN POLLUTE OUR MINDS
A. Picture a grocery store in your mind. There are many aisles filled with a variety of products. Fresh fruit, vegetables, canned foods, bread, cereal, meat, dairy products, frozen foods, soap, and much more. Pictures yourself picking up the things you want to purchase. You will need to be aware of certain things. These may include the price, size or weight, brand, quality, and freshness. After analyzing all of that you will need to make a decision about which products to purchase. We should be no less analytical about what we will allow to entertain us.
B. In our minds there is a spiritual battle raging. It is between the devil and God over who will influence us. All that you watch, listen to or read, affects you. The more familiar people become familiar with the improper living styles of our secular society, the more accepting we will become of what once was unacceptable behavior. For example, homosexuality and sexual activity outside of marriage were once rejected practices in our society but now, they have been well woven in as a common part of the American fabric.
C. It is amazing the great lengths we will go to protect ourselves from physical pollutants. We
even have a governmental agency (EPA) given to protecting us from the problem and a
political party (Green party_ organized around the same idea. Yet, many people tend to
ignore the spiritual pollutants which enter their minds through entertainment and which can
destroy them spiritually (consider Php 4:8). What things does the entertainment you give
yourself to cause you to think about in your mind?
Transition: If we allow entertainment to develop our thinking, then it will also affect our morals. What does entertain you give yourself to, cause in you think about in your mind?
II. ENTERTAINMENT CAN WARP OUR MORALS (cp. 1Co 15:33).
A. Entertainment has changed greatly over the years, but the word of God has not changed. God still condemns immorality. Due to influence and greatly from entertainment mediums, many Christians are giving into the support of immorality. You might say, “Well I don’t approve of immorality. However, every time you participate in (watch, read or listen to) entertainment which promotes such obscenity, you are in effect promoting it yourself. When do so with others, you are promoting it in their lives.
B. So vile has many of the media formats become that a challenge is being made in court by the Hollywood crowd to put a stop the sale of a DVD player which is programmed to automatically block out the profanity, nudity and such like from six hundred specifically listed movies. I used to think the reason the entertainment industry had become as it is generally, was over money. It is what the entertainment industry would have us believe but the facts declare differently.
C. “In today’s world of mass media and mas instant communication, movies still have an enormous effect on our culture and an even larger effect on younger Americans. ... ... Since the year 200, Hollywood has turned out more than five times as many R-rated films as it has films rated G ... . Is this preponderance of R-rated films simply - as we hear so often - a response to the market? I would say not, considering that of the top 2-0 moneymaking films of all time, not a single one is rated R, and of the tope 50, only five are rated R - with the remainder being G ... . Don’t these figures make you wonder what’s wrong with Holly wood just form a business point of view? Why, in the face of these statistics, does Hollywood keep putting out so many non-family oriented movies?” [1]
D. It is clear that the entertainment industry generally, has an immoral agenda to train us to go into their direction, the direction of worldliness. The apostle Paul wrote against our allowing the world to mold us (Rom 12:1-2). We are not to be conformed to ways or morals of the world, but we are to be transformed into the ways of God.
Transition: Corrupt morals will lead to impure motives in dealing with people.
III. ENTERTAINMENT CAN DESTROY OUT MOTIVES (2 Ti 2:22; Rom 13:13–14).
A. Our world is filled with people who seek to take advantage of us. The do it by selling us shabby products. They phone us and they send us offers in the mail. It is no less true spiritual. In fact if we allow the worldly minded to dictate our morals we too will be counted among those trying to take advantage of other people.
B. Paul Timothy how to avoid problems in youth and part of it had to do with not giving himself to ungodliness (1Ti 4:12-16).
Conclusion:
There is a place and time for entertainment, but even then, entertainment should meet certain criteria. In what kind of climate am I placed, am I adversely affected, what kind of dress is required, how much time do I spend, how expensive is it, and what kind of impression am I making on others by participating in it are some questions to ask ourselves (Php 4: 8; I Tim. 2: 9; Eph. 5: 16; I Cor. 16: 1, 2; Rom. 14: 16).
As long as the entertainment is not contradictory to the standards of godliness, the entertainment should pose no spiritual problem.
The issue concerning entertainment in general, is, "Does this feed my flesh or my spirit? (Prov. 14:16). Col 3:17
What will you allow your influence be to others (cp. Mat 5:13-16)?
In what kind of environment does the entertainment you have chosen to partake in, placed you?
Are you adversely affected (made spiritually weaker) by that entertainment (cf. Col 1:10, 11, 2Pe 1:5-11).
What kind of impression are you making on others by participating in that entertainment (Rom 14:16, cp. 1Co 10:23-33)?
Sources:
Keith Linkous, Entertainment, Or Entrapment?
[1] Philip F. Anschutz, Whatever Happened to the Family film?, Imprimis, Vol 33, Num 6, June 2004, Hillsdale College, Hillsdale, Michigan 49242
In charity through Christ,
Raymond Wiseman
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