Avoiding Evil

This was in answer to a question posed by a 16 or 17 year old girl about media, evil and her responsibility as a Christian in dealing with fear…..

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Several years ago, I was driving along listening to the Thru The Bible program on TRW (Trans World Radio).  Now I have to admit, I have always found this program perhaps a little naïve at times.  This day he was speaking on - how what goes into a person can cause a person to behave in ways he might not otherwise.

How could listening to Blue Oyster Cult or Alice Cooper change my world view or my behavior?  How could words that glorify the world, cause me, as a Christian, to somehow behave as the world does?  How could watching MTV make me less sensitive to sin?  And, my all time favorite TV show - was somehow separating me from God?  This sounded like utter nonsense. Well, I am a solid Christian and not much is going to change how I am going to act or respond to situations after all.  Still, I thought on it over a weekend.

Now certainly there are enough writings in Proverbs and in Corinthians to make one come up with a Christian opinion to support what this program was saying, but I just did not understand this was any form of truth.  So, I decided I would test this teaching and stop listening to my rock music, stop watching MTV and concentrate on listening to Christian radio while in the car for one month.  Instead of watching TV shows whose viewpoint I already knew was questionable – I had the cable removed and switched to only watching old movies.

At the end of one month, I found I knew a whole lot more about the Bible than the previous month and that radio program had been right.  What goes into our bodies – be that by our eyes or ears – does indeed affect our outlook on life and behavior.  I have since found this is true for whatever we concentrate on or make the object of our attention – good or bad.

After six months, I found I could not even watch TV without being extremely critical of the sin and anti-God attitude displayed.  I tried to watch Christian TV but honestly, they worship a god I do not know.  As for rock music, well, I guess a lot of the words are really embarrassing from a God-viewpoint.  So, I guess when worship of the drug culture and sex is all you have to sing about or make a joke of on TV, I do not really need to listen or watch.

Movies are certainly a weakness of mine.  As I have grown in my relationship with Christ, I have come to understand that many of the 1,600+ movies in my collection were not very uplifting to God and most are now gone.  There are lots of movies I can watch now without burying myself in those which glorify murder or sexual situations (which seems to be the basis of so many films).  And, I could probably lose a few more..…sigh…..

Yes, my friends now consider me ‘conservative’ or a ‘prude’.  I am actually not either, I am just careful, trying to guard my heart and my mind because I know all too well what I used to be like – even as a Christian.  Maybe when I am in a car I am apt to ask friends to turn their radios off when it is blaring 1960’s drug culture, and I have been known to walk out of a movie and wait for my friends outside.  But, I am answerable to God for what I willingly expose myself to – because that does become the basis for how I live my life and does affect the council I give others.

As for your question about Buffy, horror, vampires, slasher movies and their ilk, are all meant to instill fear.  Movies have a very limited range of emotions they can play upon and fear has always been a strong draw.  Why do people ride a roller coaster or visit a house of horror?  Fear is a rush!  But, on the negative side, fear is not from God.  It is not an emotion that He wishes for us – fear comes from the realm of Satan. 

Now, watching Buffy certainly is not going to condemn you to Hell, nor will it separate you from God.  But, it definitely does not reflect any part of God and can condition your mind to think in ways you might not otherwise – ways that separate you from finding God when you need Him or being able to hear His quiet voice when he tries to lead you.  It can train you to fear the unknown.  And, with fear, you become an easy target for evil to play upon your mind and emotions.  I have many friends whom are now adults and completely wrapped up in the Goth lifestyle.  I can show you where it leads, in flesh and blood - straight to drugs and an immorality.  None of them woke up one day and said, “Gosh, I’d like to spend this weekend watching slasher movies, getting total stoned and then wonder what it was I did with whom later!”  Remember, the goal of evil – once you are a Christian – is to neutralize your testimony.  Plain and simple.  It comes in easy to follow steps – each step leading you further away from Christ.  And you never see it coming!  Nor will you be the exception…..

Fear, mental anguish, physical pain, even violence are not beyond the other side in their attempt to neutralize your Christian witness.  Add to that drugs, sex, computer games, TV and sports – anything and everything to keep you busy and as far from being an active witness as possible.  As you get older, there are a ton more distractions out there waiting to lure you away from being any kind of a witness for Christ.  All you have to do is be willingly molded by the world around you, and failure will find you.

God’s desire for us is to live a life pleasing to Him and yes, some of the things we do in ‘innocence’ can cause us to have problems we might not have had otherwise.  Begin by asking God for forgiveness for what you may have done which was unknown to you as having been wrong.  Ask Him to show you things in your life which you need to correct – and then be willing to correct those things, be that attitudes with parents, what you see or listen to, and how you spend your free time.  Pray for your room, ask God to protect your room from evil, to protect you while you sleep, to protect your dreams, to keep evil from having any influence over you.  Then trust in God to answer your prayers and push this from your mind (do not worry about it!).  You may have to pray this way nightly for years until you find yourself free from fear, or maybe only once.  You only have to ask once– God will respond, He promises to.  So, when those fears crop up, know they are just fears – God has already protected you as you asked, it is just your mind playing tricks on you.  Have the faith to say, “Thank you God for protecting me” – then go to sleep.

No evil has anymore power over you than you allow it.  But exposure to evil does make you less sensitive to it, until you can not see it even if it hits you in the face (remember my friends?).  Do not go looking for evil or trouble, but do not be bashful about praying for your own protection when you think you are in difficulty.  Prayer should always be our first response!

In the end, only you can decide what it is you will expose yourself to.  Only you can control what will go into your mind and therefore become the basis for how you will live your life in the future and how you will make your decisions.  Yes, sometimes that means we have to choose the less fun path, less fun activities, less fun movies-tv-music; but, in the end, it is how we face God that is the point of our entire existence.

As one last thought, I do not know where you stand in your beliefs nor what your gifts are.  But, I would caution you that should you have the gift of discernment (the ability to know good and evil, when no one else around you seems to understand the difference) you must be extremely careful in what you expose yourself to.  We can chat on this another time but if you just ‘know’ things about people or situations, you probably have it for now.  It is a fragile gift and there is a responsibility that goes with it.

Take care, I will add you to my prayers.  Remember that Satan was defeated long ago and has no power over believers.  Let me know if this brought up anymore questions.