Mass Media of Communication

Review of the Psalm's Structure and Previous Study

0:00 Let me encourage you to perhaps seek to memorize this psalm at your own family devotions. You'd be surprised how quickly even the littlest and little Beth now can say this right through after just going over it a couple of months every evening at our family time together. Let me encourage you to do that. It would be well that all of us memorize the psalm.

0:26 Therefore, it will no doubt probably be a couple of months of studying in it on these Sunday evenings and will give you ample opportunity to commit it to memory. Those who were here last week will remember that we stated that what Psalm 51 is for the saint who has sinned and is seeking to return to the Lord in the way of repentance, in the way of being restored to favor, in the way of being restored to spiritual reality again. Psalm 1 is to the saint who has been restored and now asks the question, How may I so walk as to please my God? When I displease Him, then I don't need the first psalm, I need the 51st psalm.

1:07 That becomes the directive as to the way back. But having been restored, and by the grace of God renewing my vows to live unto Him, and I ask the question, How shall I live to Him? How shall I go on from the place of the blessedness of forgiveness to the blessedness of obedience? Psalm 1 then becomes that directive to the child of God.

1:29 Last week we sought to introduce the psalm by setting before you in the first place the theme of the psalm, which we might well call the way of blessedness described. For we are introduced in the first words with these thoughts, Blessed is the man that walketh. Or better translated, O the blessedness of the man. So the theme of the psalm is the way of blessedness.

1:55 What is the way of blessedness? Here's the answer God gives us in this portion of his holy word. Now the method by which the way of blessedness is set before us is that of comparison and contrast. You not only hear about the blessed man here, but you hear about the cursed man.

2:13 You not only hear about the man who finds the way of blessedness, but the man who misses it. And so the way of blessedness is set before us by the method of comparison and contrast. And so you have this contrast with the wicked. Basically, the outline of the psalm is very simple.

2:31 In the first three verses, you have a description of the way of blessedness as embodied in the man who experiences it. He is described as to his walk, both negatively in verse 1, positively in verse 2, and then the issue, the fruit of that way in verse 3. Verses 4 and 5 give you, by contrast, the wicked man, the man who misses the way of blessedness, and you have his condition described both in the present and in the future. and then in verse 6 you have the ground and reason for both the way of blessedness and the way of cursing.

3:12 As summarized in the sixth verse, The Lord knoweth the way of the righteous, that the way of the ungodly shall perish. Then as we began our study of the first verse, I tried to present to you the principle that is right on the surface of this psalm that the way of blessedness has both a negative and a positive aspect. For the blessed man is described, first of all, negatively. There are certain things that he does not do, as well, in verse 2, certain things that he does do.

3:45 If you would be a healthy person, you must not only eat good food, you must avoid eating poison. Now, certain people might avoid eating poison, but if they simply drink water all the time, they're not going to be healthy. It's not enough to just avoid things that are positively harmful. you must assimilate that which will be positively good and nourishing in the physical realm.

4:07 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.

4:40 But, be that as it may, here's a man who may be very careful, but he's never going to have anything but grains that have the wheat germ in them, and they came out of soil that was prepared rightly and all the rest. But he'll not be a healthy person if he's sucking down six packs of cigarettes a day. You see, he must not only assimilate that which is good for him, but he must avoid the poisons. Now, some people avoid the poisons, but don't assimilate the good.

5:05 Some people are assimilating the good, but they're not avoiding the poisons. Now, what's true in the physical realm is true in the spiritual. The blessed man is the man who avoids the poisons. He doesn't absorb this, but he assimilates what is good.

5:18 He does absorb this. He walks not, but he meditates in the law of God day and night. So I say, if you and I would be blessed people, we must learn, first of all, how to avoid poisons. The negative comes first.

5:33 In this psalm, and generally in the whole pattern of Scripture, the emphasis is put off, put on. Cease to do evil, learn to do well. Repent, believe. There is that negative-positive relationship, and generally the negative is mentioned first of all.

The Negative-Positive Pattern in Scripture

5:52 Therefore, if we would be blessed people, we must learn the negatives of the way of blessedness. Set it down as an absolute rule. The whole mood of wholesale positiveness in our day is not a scriptural mood, and if you look at what it's producing, you certainly see that God the Holy Ghost is certainly not owning it. Then we went to this first negative.

6:16 The blessed man is described as the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly. And in looking at that phrase, we tried to show you that the ungodly are willing to give their counsel. They're very evangelistic. They're not content to say, you people of God go your way and we'll go our way.

6:35 And if they see someone whom they're not sure is wicked or righteous, well, we'll leave him alone. No, no. The wicked are ever present with their counsel. as Eve did not have to whistle for the tempter and tell him to come and spread his wares, but he was there taking the initiative in the garden, so he continually takes the initiative amongst the sons of men.

6:56 Then we considered in closing last week the basis of this counsel of the ungodly. Why is it necessary to be blessed people that we do not walk in the counsel of the ungodly? Well, because the counsel of the ungodly is simply a reflection of their whole philosophy of life, which is not only indifferent to God, but is absolutely hostile and opposed to God. For the ungodly, those who are not renewed by the Spirit, whose minds are not subject to Holy Scripture, all of the counsel that they give about any area of life is determined by the fact, number one, that they view life without reference to God.

7:38 They seek to interpret life without reference to God, and they act in active and open hostility to God. If you're not convinced of that, please seriously read Romans chapter 1 verses 19 through Romans 3 and verse 20, where in describing the wicked, Paul brings it to that conclusion in the third chapter where he says of wicked men there is no fear of God before their eyes. In other words, no matter what they do, one thing is true in every circumstance. They have no regard to God.

8:15 His rights, His claims, His law, His will, His interpretation of life, His analysis of the situation. They live life, they analyze life, they set their goals in life, they act in life without regard to God. Therefore, the counsel of the ungodly is a deadly thing for the child of God. for by contrast, he seeks to have every last area of life brought under the discipline of the will of God and the word of God so that even as we showed last week, when he's most like his little doggy, when he's eating and drinking, he is to do it with reference to the glory of God.

8:56 He's not even to fulfill his natural animal appetites without reference to his God. See the contrast? Tremendous contrast. because the basis of the advice of the ungodly is that disposition that views life with no reference to God, seeks to interpret it with no reference to God, and acts in open hostility to God.

How Ungodly Counsel Comes: Focus on the Mind

9:18 Now, picking up the thought there tonight, carrying on this phrase, blessed is the man that walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, I want us to consider, having already looked at the basis of the counsel of the ungodly, Secondly, the focus of the advice of the ungodly. As ungodly men and as an ungodly world system seeks to influence the people of God and people in general, how does that influence come? Well, notice the very word counsel, which could be translated advice, gives us a little hint at how it comes. He doesn't say blessed is the man that walks not in the physical coercion of the ungodly.

10:03 You see, ungodliness, whether it's being expressed by an individual in him seeking to get you to think his thoughts, or whether it's expressed by society at large under the power of the devil, it exerts its influence in the form of counsel. Now, what is counsel? Counsel is advice that is addressed where? To the mind.

10:25 Those who were here this morning, remember I sought to labor this point, that sanctification, the work of redemption, comes by means of truth, which enters what? The mind. In the work of grace, there is this primacy of the mind. Truth is addressed to the mind, saving truth, sanctifying truth, strengthening truth.

10:46 What is true in the realm of grace is also true in the realm of the world and the devil and sin and ungodliness in their influence upon men. Their influence comes in the form of counsel, advice, which is in the realm of thought patterns being addressed to the mind. Why? Well, for the same reason that God does it with the creature in the realm of grace.

11:13 For whatever holds and molds the mind will shake and direct the light.

11:21 Whatever holds and molds the mind, the thinking, is that which will shape and direct the life. Look at that in the temptation in Genesis. When the devil came with one purpose in mind, to get Adam and Eve to rebel against God, how did he come? He came communicating words which were designed to get Eve to think wrong thoughts about God, to have doubt in the realm of her thinking about the Word of God, the surety of His threat, ye shall not surely die.

11:58 About his honesty, God says, Eve, don't do it. This is for your good. And the devil says, No, it really wasn't for your good, Eve. I want you to think about the situation a little differently.

12:07 It's because God was trying to keep you under his thumb, you see. He doesn't want you to be like him, knowing good and evil. And so the first attack upon our first parents came in the realm of counsel, advice directed to alter Eve's thinking about God. And so the battle for every human soul in this place, the battle for every soul of every young person, an adult here who is not a child of God, the battle in the life of every child of God is basically a battle in the realm of the mind.

12:38 It's a battle in the realm of the thinking. For what holds and molds your thoughts will shape and direct the life. That's why the blessed man is described as one who refuses and resolutely determines that ungodliness shall not have access to his mind, shall not dictate counsel to his mind, but by contrast, he wants so that every thought be brought captive to Christ that he's described as one who meditates in the law of God day and night. What is meditation?

13:11 That's an activity of the mind. For he knows unless his mind is possessed by the thoughts of God, his wife will not be directed into the will of God. That why Paul said in 2 Corinthians 10 for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds And then he goes on to say bringing every what Thought captain to the obedience of Christ For if the thoughts are right about God and are brought subject to Him, then the life will give expression of this in being subject to the will of God. Well, so much then for the basis of the advice of ungodliness.

13:51 Their advice is a projection of their basic view of life. Looking at life without reference to God. Interpreting life without reference to God's analysis of it. Viewing life in active hostility to God.

14:05 What's the focus of that advice? How is the advice of the ungodly come? It comes to the mind. It comes as counsel.

14:12 It comes thinking to shape the thoughts. Now, in the third place, there are the channels through which ungodly counsel comes to men. Blessed is the man that walketh not in this counsel or advice of the ungodly, but pray tell, how do I know when that advice is coming to me? You see, if the devil can get me so deluded and deceived, that I do not recognize his counsel when it comes to me, as he did with Eve.

14:39 It says Eve was utterly deceived there in 2 Timothy chapter 2, where Paul is giving reasons why the woman should not take the place of teaching leadership in the church. And he says, for the woman was deceived. The Greek word is strong. They're utterly deceived, beguiled.

14:54 And how was she beguiled? Well, this counsel came to her and she didn't recognize it as beguiling counsel. See?

15:04 And I fear, and this is one of the burdens that is intensified in my own heart, that many of us as the people of God are taking in carol modes of the counsel of ungodliness and we don't even know it. We don't even know it. We don't even recognize it.

15:21 And so I'm going to seek to be very contemporary in my application of this principle and in answer to the question, by what channels does the advice of the ungodly come to us in our particular day? And in introducing some of these means, these channels, I want to read again what I read last week from a godly saint who saw something that I hope at the end of this study we shall see and feel deeply. While we are careful to do our utmost to protect great buildings from fire and tempest, yet all the while those buildings are liable to another peril, certainly not less severe, the subtle decay of the very framework of the structure itself. The tissue of the wood silently and mysteriously deteriorates,

16:10 and the calamity dire as a great fire is precipitated. Dry rot. You know what that is. Many people think they are all right because they are not committing gross sins, while the counsels to which they are listening and the associations to which they are lending themselves are undermining all their spiritual strength.

16:32 Now notice the next statement. The fiber of the will and conscience and feeling is being secretly eaten away. And someday they will awake to find they no longer possess the faith, the sensibility, and the resolution of other days. No swift and violent assault of world or flesh or devil has torn or stained them, but it has been like a moth threading a garment, just a thread a day.

17:00 and beloved that's the concern of my heart in the light of what we preached on a few weeks ago because iniquity shall abound what does the scripture say the love of many is going to what wax cold how by this insidious influence of the advice and counsel of ungodliness being absorbed unwittingly by the saints of God and if you're determined that you shall persevere in the midst of an age when the love of many is going to wax cold if you are determined by the grace of God that you shall not go down under, then dear ones, I hope you listen as if your very soul depended upon it. For perhaps for some of you it does. How does the counsel of ungodliness come to us in its more subtle ways? I'm not speaking of the gross ways.

17:47 Those are obvious. You could give a sermon on that. But I want to deal with the subtle ways. And tonight I shall only have time to touch on one of them.

The Channel of Mass Media: Establishing Its Influence

17:55 And it's what I'm calling the channel of the mass media of communication. Media is an alternate plural for medium, and it's easier to go from media to communication than medium, especially when you have a stuffed-up nose like I do. So I'm using the second possibility on the plural of medium.

18:19 Blessed is that man or woman sitting in the Trinity Church who does not walk in the advice of ungodliness that comes through the mass media of communication. Those media by which great segments of society, I'm speaking particularly of our own American society, are continually confronted and subsequently greatly influenced. I'm speaking of the television, of the newspaper, of the moving picture, of the radio, and of popular magazines. Those are the mass media of communication.

18:55 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-minute ad to be shown just one time during that two-and-a-half or three-hour football game?

19:39 Would you like to venture a guess? One-minute advertising. Just once. $150,000.

19:51 That's five times the total budget that this church operated on last year. Total giving was about $30,000. Taking the mean income here to be somewhere between $7,000 and $8,000, that's about 20 wage earners, full year's wages from the Trinity Church. For one minute.

20:12 One lousy million. 60 seconds, $150,000. Why? Well, do you think these companies are just out to squander money?

20:21 No, no. No, no. They know that to have their product paraded before your eye, even though you think you turn yourself off and aren't listening during the commercial, even though you don't go over and flip it off, they know that the influence upon the minds of men is such that their product can afford. That kind of price tag.

20:44 My father told me some 10, 12 years ago to run a full-page ad in Life Magazine, a full-color ad for Schick for one edition, $25,000. Got to sell a lot of shavers and scrape a lot of whiskers to make $25,000.

21:02 Why would they do it? You don't look at those ads. When you're flipping through Life Magazine, you come behind, you go right over them. Don't you?

21:08 Sure you do. But all you need is that little exposure to the aisle, and the seed is dropped. The whole book was produced on the hidden persuaders, on the whole philosophy of American advertisement. The tremendous influence of the mass media, the television, the magazines.

21:26 You look through the average magazine, Time, Newsweek, and you'll see anywhere from 10 to 15 full-page, full-color ads for hard liquor and cigarettes every single edition. Thousands and thousands of dollars. Why? because these people know that this is what sells products.

21:42 This is how they convince Mr. John Doe and the public that he ought to have that product. He can't live successfully and fully without it. You know what it costs?

21:53 Just even a little podunk paper like the Caldwell Progress or the Cedar Grove Times to get a couple of limes to sell an old bed you want to get rid of. Well, you say, what influence can that thing have? Well, you plunk out your three or four dollars to have two, three little limes in there, and you realize this does have an effect. the minds of men are exposed to what is there in black and white and is read all over.

22:16 As the little riddle goes, what is black and white and read all over, it's that newspaper. Now, I don't want to labor the fact that these mass media of communication have tremendous influence upon the minds of men. I've just suggested this, that we might convince you of that. Now, these mass media do have a legitimate function, such as informing the public of news and happenings in the world.

Philosophy 1: Materialism

22:43 I'm not dealing with the legitimate and right use of these mass media. But because these mass media are in the most part controlled almost exclusively by ungodly men who are viewing all of life without any reference to God, who are interpreting life without any reference to God, and whose hearts are basically set in opposition to God, there can only be one conclusion to draw, that the basic bent and drift and motif and flavor of all these mass media will be anti-God. And the person who walks under their influence and absorbs its influence is the person who cannot be a blessed man, for he will in truth be walking in the counsel of the ungodly.

23:31 May I suggest four isms that are the climate and flavor and atmosphere of the generality of the mass media communication? First of all, there is that cursed philosophy of materialism. What does that say? Well, it says that blessed is the man that possesses things.

23:55 What is the way of blessedness? You ask the materialist and he says the way of blessedness is things. things, things, things, things, things, things. So he comes at your little kid.

24:05 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!

24:21 And so he screams and hollers and kicks his mom in the shins until she agrees to buy it for him.

24:30 You know what I'm talking about. I've given sort of a caricature. But there's that continual parading before one's eyes. Whether it's the nude cars that come out, and the mini-skirted Dodge girl is walking out in front of your eyes constantly.

24:45 First of all, you see, to catch the male eye. In order to sell that product, that hunk of tin, make you feel that if you could just get that, you've had the way of blessedness. It brings the stature, brings the comfort, brings the material prestige. You see, the whole philosophy of even the so-called innocent car advertisement is what?

25:03 It's the philosophy of materialism that this will bring blessedness. He never showed a guy who would drive him out with that new car looking sad because he put himself in hock for three years.

25:16 He never showed him happy. This brought happiness. He brings happiness. Whatever the product is, it's going to bring happiness.

25:24 When do you see a sad face of it? When it shows the young girl holding the smooth calvert, you know, that even the woman can drink, it never shows her looking sad. It never shows the woman, one of five million they estimate, American housewives who's a problem chronic drinker, shaking with her glass of calvert. It shows the pretty, young, sophisticated, inset girl telling you that this is the way of blessedness.

25:57 That's the whole philosophy. And I don't want to enlarge upon it. Time will not permit, and it's just too sickening to do it. But the philosophy that generates through and passes through these mass media, whether it's the TV, the newspaper, the radio, is that philosophy that says, blessedness comes in the way of things.

26:15 the hidden persuaders that are seeking to convince us that yesterday's luxuries are today's conveniences and tomorrow's necessities.

26:30 Yesterday's luxuries, today's conveniences. Now, Christians can have conveniences. Tomorrow's necessities. Why?

26:41 Nobody can live without necessities. See? and that's the whole philosophy. In great measure our whole economy is based upon a philosophy of materialism And my friend if you indiscriminately now listen to me if you indiscriminately read your newspaper indiscriminately watch your television ungodly read Time magazine, ungodly expose yourself to the radio without knowing it, without being aware of it, you are walking in the advice of the ungodly.

27:13 for that philosophy has permeated your thinking as a hidden persuader.

27:23 That's why when the issue is up for grabs, shall I do that to get some things which means I have to sacrifice spiritual values, eternal values? Why, the thing's not even debated. You take the course for things that means you must sacrifice that which is eternal.

Philosophy 2: Sensualism

27:43 Second thing that is permeating the mass media in their communications to us is the philosophy of sensualism. And what does that philosophy say? It says that blessedness comes in the path of unrestrained gratification of your sensual physical appetites. The materialist says, do you want to be the blessed man?

28:08 Then walk in my counsel. Accumulate things. and in that pathway of accumulation, blessedness will come. The sensualist says, ah, no, no, no, no, no, no.

28:20 Blessedness does not come in things, but it comes in the pathway of gratifying sensual physical appetite. These people are described in Philippians 3.19 where Paul speaks of them as those whose God is their belly. They worship their physical appetites for food and sex and leisure and enjoyment and the easy life.

28:46 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 the year all of the athletes vote as to what they feel is the best hockey player, all the hockey players do,

29:32 and all the football players. And if ever there was an opportunity for something to be wholesome and above board without any kind of double-meaning innuendos, this was it. I mean, I don't know how many you can get much of a double-meaning talk when you've got some broad-shouldered, thick-headed fullback up there and some hockey player and basketball player, but in those 20 to 25 minutes that I watched, there was enough there to make me sick to my stomach. Of double meaning innuendos.

30:03 And so to pass off the rewards, they can't have a fellow athlete alone come like they did have Jimmy Brown and Red Grange, but they had to have Lana Turner come out.

30:14 Dressed in such a way that it was a disgrace. Why? Because the philosophy of sensualism is what shapes his mass media of communication.

30:27 Look at your paper, you realize our community has been invaded in the past weeks with one of the most filthy pictures that was ever filmed in Hollywood and yet it's being shown in all the drive-ins, all the main theaters, Valley of the Dolls. A story about three prostitutes in all the detail of their life so that even Time Magazine says to look at this picture is to come away sick. so-called innocent comics, the films that are being shown on the TV, even as we mentioned earlier, the so-called innocent advertisements, whether it's a shaving cream or something else, the whole innuendo, the climate, is one that is continually geared toward that which is base and animal and man.

31:12 So even though one is not consciously being inflamed to wrong desires, there are the hidden persuaders eating away like dry rot at the foundations of a person's being. My friend, I say again, if you are indiscriminately watching television, even the ads, indiscriminately reading the newspaper, there's enough hardcore pornography on one page of the movie ads in the Newark Evening News to defile one's mind for a lifetime.

31:49 then I say you're walking in the council of the young God. My friend, if you subject your children to this, don't you be surprised that they turn out regular little hellings. Don't you be surprised that all the teaching, all the instruction of the Sunday school in the church is utterly negated any more than the man who wonders why he's sick. When coming to the table and eating a couple of squares a week, he spends far more hours sucking in cigarettes and drinking black coffee and drinking booze.

32:22 You can't take all that junk into the body and hope to offset it with a couple of good meals a week. And dear parents, this church cannot offset by an hour or two a week. Those 10, 15, 20 hours that your children spend absorbing the philosophy of sensualism, long before it strikes any response in them, long before your child knows what's behind the appeal of the Dodge girl in her miniskirt. And the sultry-voiced girl stroking the face of the athlete as he scrapes off his whiskers.

32:58 But you see, it's putting thoughts and concepts at the roots of their being that is shaping and molding that life. That's what it's doing. Some of you, dear parents, are cooperating with the devil in the damnation of your own children.

33:13 If I had a television in my house, my children would never watch it without me being right there when necessary to even turn off the ads.

33:24 Oh, you say they're sheltering your children. That's right. That's part of your responsibility. God knows there's enough of the devil in their own hearts and in the world without opening your front door and telling them to come in and sit in your living room and sell his wares.

33:41 Oh, but it's so convenient. Sure. I know there are times when my dear wife would love to just be able to turn on the boot tube for an hour and have a little respite from her children. But what a price to pay.

33:54 What a price to pay. What a price to pay.

33:59 That's the second philosophy that permeates the mass media of communication.

34:06 It's true of the radio.

34:09 I try to discipline myself to listen. takes real grace sometimes to about 15 minutes of WABC once a week. As I take Joel to school in the morning before I turn on my tape recorder which has the law of God upon it, the word of God, after listening to the news from 5 till 9 to 9 o'clock over WABC I try to listen to the first song or two at the most. I can't take more than five minutes of that.

34:37 You know what one of the most popular tunes is right now? A real catchy tune? The whole words to the thing. Sensualism at the core.

34:45 Have you got cheating on your mind? A song being loved and learned by Ruth, by our teenagers, by the millions, the very philosophy of which is downright, outright pro-sensualism. It's behind almost all the wording in the modern music.

35:05 Some of you parents allow your children to have transistors and listen to that junk morning, noon, and night. God have mercy on you. to sensualism that attacks in these ways. Well, I must carry on to the third philosophy that is being projected.

Philosophy 3: Moral Relativism

35:21 The counsel of the ungodly that's coming through the mass media is what I would call moral relativism. It's the philosophy that says there are no absolute ground rules for human conduct.

35:35 There are no inflexible thou shalt and thou shalt not.

35:41 Have you ever tried to analyze the innocent Western that you let your kids sit and watch, that you yourself may watch?

35:50 Innocent?

35:52 Oh, you say, you know, my kids know they're not really killing. It's just the thing. Yeah, you know what it's doing?

35:58 Listen, a child brought up and rightly trained in a Christian home and the right kind of Christian influence should be shocked at the thought of violence and death and brutality. It should shock him.

36:15 Any breach of God's holy law should be shocking to us.

36:21 Murder, infidelity, desecration of the Lord's Day, cursing, swearing, violation of the law of God. We should be so sensitive in our understanding and sympathy with God's law that like David we would say, I'm pained when I think of the wicked who keep not by law. Rivers of water don't run down my eyes because they keep not thy law. And yet the whole philosophy, you see, of moral relativism parades before our eyes continually in these mass media.

36:53 Violence, bloodshed, adultery, fornication. The whole theme of the afternoon serials, the general theme, is always some kind of moral aberration. where the frustrated housewife falls in love with the man that she can't have, and thousands of housewives identify with that vicariously day in and day out. Now you say, Pastor, you've got an evil mind.

37:20 No, I don't. I'm telling you things that even ungodly people, some concerned people, have some common grace of concern about.

37:29 Moral relativism. How does Paul talk about these things? You say, well, look, we can't stick our head in the sand. I mean, these things are life.

37:36 Let's be mature. You know what Paul says about them in Ephesians 5, 12? Listen to what he says about them. Rather than adopt the philosophy that since they're there, you might as well acknowledge it and expose yourself to it and just sort of learn to roll with the punch.

37:48 Listen to what Paul says. Verses 11 and 12 of Ephesians 5. Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness. Have no participation with them, but rather reprove them, for it's a shame even to speak of the things that are done of them in secret.

38:07 If it's a shame to even speak of it, what is it to sit down and watch it?

38:12 If it's a shame even to talk of it, what about allowing its influence to be absorbed into your own mind and that of your children? Oh, beloved, how far we've come from a biblical standard of careful guarding of the mind and the heart.

Philosophy 4: Anti-God Intellectualism

38:28 Moral relativism is shot through the mass media of communication. And then the fourth thing that characterizes these mass media that is part of the counsel and advice of the ungodly is this. It's an anti-God intellectualist. This is the philosophy that says, whatever our problems are, we can work out our answers.

38:51 They all can be understood on a horizontal level. Now this is getting into what we call the more refined areas. I'm talking now not about the movie and theater section of Time Magazine, which I try to read so that I know what I'm talking about. I'm not barking up a tree.

39:06 I read the movie reviews and the theater reviews and the book reviews that I might understand what is being said to my generation and materialism and sensualism and moral relativism are coming from every realm, even in the realm of art. But when you read the first part of Time Magazine, that's dealing with the world. It deals with the United States, deals with the Western Hemisphere, than it deals with the different countries and you have different news analysis and different political analysis seeking to understand our problems and give some answers. And you know what the whole philosophy of this section is?

39:42 It's an anti-God intellectualism that never reckons that maybe the answer to our dilemma is vertical. It assumes that whatever our problem is, we can understand it and we can work it out. Or if we can't work it out, it's simply because we don't know the answer by our observations.

40:03 Blessed is the man that walks not in that council of the ungodly that says human problems are to be understood by human answers discovered merely on the basis of human observation and human conclusions Oh beloved would you be the blessed man or woman and mark it down You must not walk in the advice of the ungodly, that advice that comes in great measure through these mass media of communication and comes with this four-pronged philosophy of materialism that says blessedness comes in possessing things. Sensualism, blessedness comes in enjoying yourself. Thirdly, blessedness comes in the way of moral relativism.

Practical Application: Guarding Against the Media

40:51 Breaking out of these time-worn strict guidelines and just being free to do as we please. And then this anti-God intellectualism. Now, what are we going to do then? If we are not to walk in the counsel of the ungodly that comes through these mass media of communication, what are we to do?

41:09 You know me well enough to know I wouldn't leave you hanging here without seeking to give some biblical direction. Our Lord walked as a blessed man, but he was never enmeshed in such counsel. What can we do? Well, someone says, well, we could call the paperman, tell him not to deliver the paper, could cancel all our magazines, throw out our TV, put an axe to the radio, put blinders on our head when we walk down the streets so we don't look at the billboards and be impressed with the materialism and the sensualism.

41:39 Well, you know, don't laugh at that. It'd be far better to do that than destroy your soul.

41:49 I wouldn't laugh at a man who felt such pressure from these mass media that the only way he felt he could keep from being defiled was to utterly cut himself off from all of it. I'd rather he be a little ignorant about current events that land in the presence of God than to be so fastidious about being a man of the hour that he ended up in hell.

42:14 If we have to err on one side or the other, brethren, let's have a generation that errs on this side.

42:22 For some of you, the only way you can insulate yourself by the grace of God from the counsel of the ungodly may be in one of these areas to actually do some amputation. If thy hand defend thee, what did the Lord say? Put a chain on it? No, he said, cut it off.

42:38 In fact, I offend anyone. Put a binder over it. No, pluck it out. In other words, drastic answers are needed for drastic problems.

42:47 Tell you what it's meant for me. It's meant for me taking some books in my library and ripping them and throwing them in the can. Because I found that the advice and influence of ungodliness in them, I was not mature enough, spiritually strong enough to coexist. I had to cut myself off from them.

43:06 That's one possibility, but I don't believe for the most part that's the will of God in all those areas for all of us. What is the other course? I suggest this to you and submit it to you for your prayerful consideration. Number one, recognize the potential danger as you are exposed to these mass media communications.

43:29 recognize that whenever you sit before the TV you can't be neutral for what's coming to you is not neutral it's being shaped and molded by the philosophy of ungodly men therefore you must be watchful wasn't that beautifully embodied in our hymn tonight the Christian was troubled when he slept as we sang tonight so my first suggestion is recognize the potential danger that whenever you enter into a face-to-facing encounter with some mass media of communication, whether it's reading your Time magazine, reading the newspaper, watching the television, listening to the radio. Never be like a dry sponge just ready to absorb everything. Be active. Be active. Be active. Be prayerful. Lord, sharpen my faculties

44:21 of discernment. Give me a sensitivity to whatever comes to me directly or indirectly as an open or hidden persuader, help me to be sensitive to it, that I might not absorb it to my own ruin. That's the first answer I would give to the course of action that I feel to be the will of God for most of His people. Second thing, prayerfully regulate your exposure to all these mass media of communication.

44:50 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.

45:19 He got tired standing in that way. he didn't spend more time in his newspaper than in his Bible. Oh, you say, that's ridiculous. Not for the man that's determined to walk the way of blessedness.

45:30 You see, if your reaction to any of this tonight is, oh, that's extreme. Beloved, a Christian is an extreme person.

45:37 He's got his face set to God and heaven and holiness and there's not a thing in this world to help him in that direction. Everything in this world is hostile to it. He's got his sleeve rolled up and he knows there's a war on it. And he's set his face to fight, to wrestle, to pray.

45:53 As we sing in that hymn, wrestle and fight and pray and win the well-fought day.

46:00 What a difference it would make if you never watched anything on TV before you prayed that God would bless the time you spent there.

46:11 That God would make you sensitive to anything that might be coming over that TV that was grievous to Him, that you'd be quick to turn it off, that turned your head away.

46:20 Is that extreme? Is that extreme? It says whether you eat or drink or whatsoever you do, that's even watch your television, do all to the glory of God. You tell me you're glorifying God watching your television when there's stuff coming over that television that you're letting go into your eyes that would have shocked an old sailor looking at a burlesque show 20 years ago down in Broadway somewhere.

46:46 You mean to tell me you can do that to the glory of God? If so, your God's not my God. He's not the God of the Bible. if you can watch bloodshed and breaking the holy law of God with indifference, then, beloved, you see, you've become calloused in the soul of a child of God where the law of God and the God of the law are enshrined.

47:05 Anything that's in the front of that law causes an immediate emotional as well as an intellectual reaction. I shocked some people the other day when I was talking with some youth workers who got this idea of the buddy-buddy approach to Christ and this young man said to me, well, you know, Christ was a good guy. I put my hand out in his chest. I said, my friend, that hurts me right here.

47:26 It's like you calling my wife some undignified term of the street. Don't talk about my Lord that way.

47:34 That hurts right here. When you see somebody shoot somebody on the TV in cold blood, whether it's a play or a western or anything else, where it's not life being taken for life in keeping with the law of God and in regard to His law, you ought to be paid as a Christian. When you can see women parading in front of your eyes, dressed indecently, with the purpose in advertising or in the program being, obviously, to get the male eye, if you can get hard to that, my friend, God have mercy on you. It ought to shock us, cause a ruthless action of revulsion and disgust and horror and brokenness.

48:17 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

49:04 then try again later get your devotional habits straightened out I'd rather be a little ignorant for a few months of current events than have the smile of God upon me than to be ever so up to date in current events and not have the warm reality of the presence of God in my life How about you?

49:25 You parents that are using your TV as a convenient babysitter, I hope tonight you won't be able to sleep until you're found on your knees confessing to God the terrible sin that you've indulged in by inviting the devil in your living room to instruct your children.

49:45 And if you cannot help but giving in to that weakness, then pull a few tubes on it stick it up in the attic for a while you might just find such a wonderful change comes over your home you get to know your children again get to have some influence with them again you might have a little four dollar rad in the Caldwell Procures now the contrast of course and I can't develop it because that would be preaching the next verse you see the man that's blessed does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly but he meditates in the Lord God day and night. Instead of being influenced by the philosophy of materialism that comes through the mass media, he knows the teaching of Christ who said,

50:30 A man's life, blessedness, consists not in the abundance of things which a man possesses. And the cry of his heart, the more he reads the Scripture, O God, anything you give me, anything I need to exist, help me to hold it loosely. but, O Lord, thou art my portion. Things cannot gratify.

50:52 The man who meditates in the law of God will not be a sensualist. He will thank God for every pure and legitimate physical enjoyment, whether it's a good state going down or the pure delight of looking at a sunset or the enjoyment of the conjugal relationship in the home, in the family. Regardless of what it is, he'll take it as a gift from God, but he will make every physical joy and every physical appetite subject to higher spiritual goals, realizing the time is coming when all these things will pass away. The man who meditates in the law of God day and night will have his conscience honed by the word of God and he'll see things in sharp black and whites and all this fuzzy gray will go and the law of God will become precious and he'll know right from wrong.

51:41 And the man who meditates in the law of God instead of having this anti-God intellectualism, the reflex action of his heart will be in every problem, whether it's personal, domestic, social. It'll be instinctively to say, Oh God, God of wisdom, what have you to say about this problem? Now, what kind of person are you? You see, if you're receiving and being molded by the advice of the ungodly, it's no wonder that you know so little blessedness in your life.

Gospel Appeal

52:09 I'm speaking to some of you who've never repented and fled to Christ. and you're trying to find blessedness, living on the basis of these philosophies that without even knowing it, I hope tonight God has just pulled back the blinds and you say, hey, that's me! That's me! I've been swallowing a lie!

52:26 Oh, dear, when may God do it by His Spirit, the way of blessedness is found in the way of repentance and faith and having the whole of life brought subject to Christ and then beginning to view life from the inside out through the eyes of Scripture. That's the only way of blessedness. If you try to find it any other way, my friend, you're going to be an eternal monument to your folly. The way of the wicked is not so.

52:52 May God grant that you be a monument of grace and child of God who's been praying for greater power, praying for greater usefulness. Could this be the reason why you've not known the usefulness you long to know? You've been too much under the advice of the ungodly. The way of blessedness is the way of holiness.

53:13 The way of holiness is the way of refusing to walk in the counsel of the ungodly. Looking unto Jesus, the great pattern of the blessed man, whose every action was brought under the direction of the Word of God, may we, by His grace and Spirit, walk in His steps to know His blessedness. Let us pray.

53:43 you