Mass Media of Communication

A healthy person must both eat good food and refuse poisons. He also must refuse to suck down six packs of cigarettes a day even if his grains are organically grown. The negative and positive work together in physical and spiritual health.

Conversely, there might be some people who eat the most wonderful kind of food. They may have tremendous understanding of dietary laws, and they may be careful to have all of the soil organically fixed up, despite all of the blackmailing that's done of some people who want to have healthy soil by some of the so-called health authorities. I don't want to get into that. I'm not a health food faddist, but I don't like the dishonesty that's used in the name of some of the blackmailing that's done in blackballing and all the rest.

4:07 - 4:40 Read in full sermon

Martin uses contemporary ad economics to show the influence of mass media: a single 60-second ad during the Super Bowl costs five times the annual budget of the Trinity Church. Sponsors know exposure shapes minds.

Now, first of all, I want to establish the fact that you are greatly influenced by these media, whether you think you are or not. I was reading in Time Magazine several weeks ago about the Super Bowl that was played a few weeks ago, desecrating the Sabbath as professional football does week after week. and they estimated that the listening audience for the Super Bowl would be 70 million people, about one-third of the total American population. Now, in the light of that projected listening audience and the tremendous market this was for advertising, do you know what the cost was for a one-minut...

18:55 - 19:38 Read in full sermon

The child watching TV commercials becomes convinced that blessedness is a $35 doll that talks, spits at mother, and kicks poppy in the shins. He screams until mother buys it. Martin caricatures the materialism drip-fed to children.

And as he sits down in front of the television set, especially as Christmas time comes, and they show the $35 doll that'll talk, spit at its mother, kick its poppy in the shins, and the little kid just knows, if I can just get that, I've found the word of blessedness!

24:05 - 24:19 Read in full sermon

In twenty minutes of Johnny Carson giving out athlete awards, Pastor Martin counted enough sexual innuendo to make him sick — even when the show had the easiest possible pretext for being wholesome. Sensualism permeates the media.

They're spoken of in Romans chapter 1 as those who worship and serve the creature. And it's in the context of physical passion. They worship and serve the creature more than the Creator who is blessed forever. so in the advertisements I don't care if they're advertising a nut in a boat for a machine there's got to be some sexual innuendo I was invited into a home the other night and without being the only way I could keep from being unkind was to sit down with the host unsaved people for about 20 minutes and watch the Johnny Carson show that night they were giving the awards to the athletes of...

28:46 - 29:32 Read in full sermon

The point: Before you sit in front of any mass medium, sharpen yourself with prayer — never absorb like a dry sponge, always watch actively for hidden persuaders.

A man whose downfall was the newspaper made a vow to read it only standing. His feet soon tired and the problem of spending more time in it than in the Bible was cured. Pastor Martin defends such 'extreme' measures against the advice of the ungodly.

Prayerfully regulate your exposure to them. I heard of one man who, because his downfall was his newspaper, and he found himself spending more time reading his newspaper than his Bible, and being influenced by the thought patterns of the newspaper than by the Word of God, he made a vow with God that he'd read his newspaper standing. He'd never sit down to read it. He found that cured his problem.

44:50 - 45:19 Read in full sermon

The point: Be willing to mortify the media that is detrimental to your spiritual life — pull tubes, cancel subscriptions, even put an axe to the set if necessary.

For the Christian who cannot help giving in to the babysitter-TV temptation, Martin counsels pulling a few tubes and sticking it in the attic. 'You might just find such a wonderful change comes over your home — you get to know your children again.'

And prayerful regulating of all these media will help us. thirdly my suggestion is that recognizing the potential danger first place secondly prayerfully regulating these media in our exposure to them let us determine to brutally mortify anything that's detrimental to spiritual life I know one man couldn't get deliverance from his TV tried to prayerfully regulate it and couldn't he put an axe to it go thou and do likewise if thy case is the same if the newspaper keeps you from the word of God cancel the subscription for a while

48:17 - 49:04 Read in full sermon