Hello, this is Larry Wessels, director of Christian Answers of Austin, Texas, Christian Debater. Before we begin our program, I'd like to let you know that free newsletters are available from our ministry. Just email us at cdebater at aol.com, and give us your mailing address and we'll mail them out to you for free. You can also call us at 512-833-9000. 218-8022 and leave your address there. You can also access all our newsletters online by going to one of our three websites called biblequery.org. Once on the home page, simply click on the experience box and then scroll down to the newsletter section as shown here. Since our number one most watched video of the over 548 videos we have produced for YouTube at the time of this recording is Unpopular Bible Doctrines number one, The Biblical God No One Wants to Know, with over 433,000 viewings, our latest newsletter is called Unpopular Topic, How Sovereign is God? Our second most viewed YouTube video is 6-year-old wife of Mohammed was okay by the Muslim God Allah but not by the biblical God of Jesus with over 341,000 viewings. We also have three newsletters available on Islam. Our video, Debate, Larry Wessels vs. Two Jehovah's Witnesses at a University Study Center, currently has close to 150,000 views. See our newsletter on the Jehovah's Witnesses, Jehovah's Witnesses, Deceived Deceivers. Our video, Is Jesus God Almighty in the Flesh, meaning the second person of the Trinity, or is He something else, has over 101,000 viewings. See our newsletter, Testimony to the Eternal Godhead, the Trinity. Our video, biography, the famous 19th century Prince of Preachers, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, a man of God, has close to 89,000 views. See two of our newsletters with lead articles from sermons by Spurgeon. I could go on and on, but this should be sufficient for now. Don't forget to check out our main YouTube channel, SeeAnswersTV, which stands for Christian Answers Television, also which has over 19 playlists by topic as you scroll down our channel page. Now, on with our main presentation. This video presentation is meant for sincere Christians who take their Bible seriously. If you are not a born-again Christian, John 3, verses 3-5, Romans 8, verses 1-17, etc., who really believes the Bible is the Word of God, 2 Timothy 3, verses 15-17, 2 Peter 3, verse 16, 1 Corinthians 14, verse 37, etc., then this video is not for you. You'll only be wasting your time, and in the end, you will think this entire presentation is foolishness, as the scripture says of unbelievers, such as yourself, in 1 Corinthians 2, verse 14. But the natural man received not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned also Romans chapter 8 verse 7 says because the carnal mind is enmity against God for it is not subject to the law of God neither indeed can be at the same time there are many people who claim to be Christians but after testing that claim against the biblical standard of what a true Christian is they failed the test miserably and can be considered no more than rank unbelievers who have deluded themselves into believing they're something that they are not. Jesus himself said, few would be saved, and he usually put this in the context of people who were claiming to be his disciples. It is already assumed that those that were not his disciples were already under the wrath of God. Matthew chapter 7 verses 13 through 27. Enter ye in at the straight gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat. Because straight is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. Beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes or thorns or thigs of thistles? Even so, every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire. Wherefore, by their fruits ye shall know them. Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father, which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name have cast out devils, and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you. Depart from me, ye that work iniquity. Therefore, whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man which built his house upon a rock. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house. And it fell not, for it was founded upon a rock. And everyone that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand. and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it." Here's what Jesus said in Luke chapter 13 verses 24 through 30. Strive to enter at the straight gate, for many I say unto you will seek to enter in and shall not be able. When once the master of the house is risen up and has shut to the door, and ye begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us. And he shall answer and say unto you, I know you not whence you are. Then shall ye begin to say, we have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets. But he shall say, I tell you, I know you not, whence you are. Depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out. And they shall come from the east, and from the west, and from the north, and from the south, and shall sit down in the kingdom of God. And behold, there are last which shall be first, and there are first which shall be last. And also in Luke chapter 14 verses 26 and 27. If any man come to me and hate not his father and mother and wife and children and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. and whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple." There are more passages similar to this, but this should demonstrate the point. Damnation in the Lake of Fire, Revelation chapter 20, awaits all those who are not true disciples of Jesus Christ. John 14, 6. For more on this, see our four-hour video series called The Biblical Doctrine of Hell here on YouTube. You can find it on our main YouTube channel, SeeAnswersTV. Once on our SeeAnswersTV channel, just scroll down the channel page until you see our playlist called our Multiple Playlists. then arrow over to the playlist called, Dealing with Hell, Lake of Fire, Unpopular Bible Doctrines, and click on that. 24 videos or more come up. Find out what most preachers won't tell you about what the Bible says. All right, hopefully most of the unbelievers and fake Christians have now exited this video, and we can proceed with this study for those of you who remain. To set the table I want to point out what Paul said in Ephesians chapter 2 verses 1 through 10. and you hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world according to the prince of the power of the air the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ. By grace ye are saved, and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace ye are saved through faith, and not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. Notice the distinction between what a person was like before he became a Christian by the mercy and grace of God. Next Ephesians chapter 4 verses 17 through 32. This I say therefore and testify in the Lord that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind having the understanding darkened being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their heart, who, being past feeling, have given themselves over unto lasciviousness to work all uncleanness with greediness. But ye have not so learned Christ, If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus, that ye put off concerning the former conversation, the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. Wherefore, putting away lying, speak every man truth unto his neighbor. For we are members one of another. Be ye angry, and sin not. Let not the sun go down upon your wrath, neither give place to the devil. Let him that stole, steal no more, but rather let him labor, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice, and be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven you. See how a Christian should act in contrast to what he used to do before he was a Christian. Ephesians 5, 1-19, Be ye therefore followers of God as dear children, and walk in love as Christ also has loved us, and has given himself for us as an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor. but fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness. Let it not be once named among you, as become as saints, neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient, but rather giving of thanks. For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no man deceive you with vain words, for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. Be ye not therefore partakers with them, for ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord. Walk as children of light. For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth, proving what is acceptable unto the Lord. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret. But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light, for whatsoever doeth make manifest in light. Wherefore, he saith, awake thou that sleepeth, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. See that thou walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Wherefore, be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. And be ye not drunk with wine, wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit. speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord. Again, notice the contrast between a spirit-filled Christian and those that do not know the God of the Bible. Finally, Paul really highlights the difference between someone who is a true Christian and someone who is not in Galatians chapter 5 verses 16 through 26. This I say then walk in the spirit and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh for the flesh lusted against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh and these are contrary the one to the other so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are manifest. Which are these? Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such like, of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. Against such there is no law. And they that are Christ have crucified the flesh with the afflictions and lusts. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not be desirous of vain glory. provoking one another, envying one another. See also 1 Corinthians chapter 6 verses 9 and 10 and also Revelation chapter 21 verse 8. The subject of this video is a study of the Christian view of time in relationship to an analytical review of the fantasy role-playing game called Dungeons and Dragons, D&D as it is popularly referred to. Of course, people in this world can waste their time on any number of ungodly activities that pander to their flesh and sin against God at the same time. So Dungeons and Dragons is by no means alone. D&D can, however, prove as a useful example of a game or activity that can violate the biblical mandate for the proper use of time. The known universe is divided into time and space, which came into existence when God created it out of nothing. Genesis chapter 1 verse 1. Time flows by a predetermined plan established by God. For example, study the following biblical passages on your own time. Job 14, verse 5. Psalm 31, verse 15. Ecclesiastes 3, verses 1-17. Daniel 4, verses 34-37. Acts 1, verse 7. Acts 17, verses 26 and 31. Romans 8, verse 28. Also Romans 11, 36. Ephesians 1, verses 9-11 and so forth. The 456 messianic prophecies fulfilled in the Old Testament about Jesus Christ show that God controls time from beginning to end. See our two-part miniseries on YouTube entitled, Supernatural Bible Prophecy Concerning Jesus the Jewish Messiah, Parts 1 and 2 for more on this. Therefore, time has true meaning and significance since man is responsible to God and will be judged by God on Judgment Day for what he does in this life, then he is accountable to God for how he uses the time he has been given during his lifetime. Psalm 31 verse 15, 2 Corinthians chapter 5 verse 10. Thus to waste time on things that are not appropriate is to sin. That's Matthew chapter 20 verse 6 and also Ephesians chapter 5 verse 16. Along these lines, see also our video, Unpopular Bible Doctrines Number 13, subtitled, Lazy People Are Condemned by God. Particularly notice Bible usage of the lazy as sluggards in Proverbs 6, verses 6 through 11. Proverbs 10, verse 26. Proverbs 13, verse 4. Proverbs 20, verse 4. And also Proverbs 26, verse 16. Also, the lazy are referred to as slothfulness in Proverbs 12 verses 24 and 27, chapter 15 in Proverbs verse 19, Proverbs 18 verse 9, Proverbs 19 verses 15 and 24, etc. Laziness is also referred to as idleness. Proverbs chapter 21 verse 20 70 Ecclesiastes chapter 10 verse 18 also Matthew chapter 12 verse 36 Matthew chapter 20 verses 3 and verse 6 also 1st Timothy chapter 5 verse 13 Priorities for Christians and their use of time involved the number one priority of course is God Matthew chapter 6 verse 33 and Your number two priority should be your own soul. 1st Timothy chapter 4 verse 16. Your third priority should be your family. 1st Timothy chapter 5 verse 8. Your fourth priority, your church. Hebrews chapter 10 verse 25. Followed by your job. Ephesians chapter 6 verses 5 through 8. The community. Galatians chapter 6 verse 10. And your nation. 1 Timothy chapter 2 verses 1 through 2 and finally your world Matthew chapter 28 19 verse 20 and we go in this order as just described. With all this biblically established let's begin our journey into the realms of fantasy role-playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons. I will begin this analysis by mentioning the fact that I was what is called a dungeon master in Dungeons and Dragons besides being a player of it for years before that. Most of my discussion of my experience and how the game is played will be reserved for a videotaped interview of myself done by local Austin cable access television producers at their request which will come up later in this presentation. For the moment, I would like to take our viewers on a historical odyssey of how I actually ended up being a dungeon master, which will then be followed by the videotape previously mentioned. Keep in mind as I review my own personal history that I was not a true born-again Christian. See John chapter 3 verse 3 through 8, Romans chapter 8 verse 1 through 17, Ephesians chapter 3 verses 16 through 21 and many other verses until I myself had a supernatural experience of the power of the Holy Spirit back on the evening of May 16, 1981 while reading my mother-in-law's Bible while visiting her with my wife to get more of my supernatural encounter with the God of the Bible. Please see our two videos on YouTube, Supernatural Bible Prophecy Concerning Jesus the Jewish Messiah Part 1 and Evangelism and Apologetics Part 1, Origins of Christian Answers. Jesus is the only way of salvation. Therefore, although I was raised in the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, I was just a nominal Christian because I had never been born again. despite being confirmed and memorizing Martin Luther's small catechism. In other words, I was just a fake Christian. I'll begin this personal history lesson by mentioning the fact that I grew up in Houston, Texas and attended Springwood Senior High School in the northwest part of the city. Here's the cover of our high school yearbook. There's my senior picture when I was 18 years old. I did get stopped by the police one time because they thought I was too young to be driving. I would later grow a mustache because of that. Here's my high school credits. Cadet Band, Marching Band, Concert Band, UIL Ensemble First Division, Fine Arts Club, Ecology Club, AFS, French Club, Science Club, Bowling Club, Chess Club, Houston Chess Association, Chess Tournament Trophies, Senior Men, NHS and I wrote in JETS, which stands for Junior Engineering Technological Society and Academic Bowl. I was on the school trivia team. The NHS stands for the National Honor Society of Secondary Schools. I was also involved in the 1974-1975 edition of Who's Who Among American High School Students. While I was in high school, and actually even before high school, I was involved in something called wargaming. By the time I was a sophomore in high school, I was already writing magazine articles for an international wargaming magazine called the Avalon Hill General. Here you can see the actual article I wrote called, Is Defense Really Necessary?, which covered a defense strategy for the French, Dutch, and Belgian armies. I came up with, in the face of the May 10th, 1940 German invasion of France. The article goes on to illustrate the defensive moves that needed to be made in lieu of the German onslaught. You can see my old address in Houston, Texas at the end of the article. Here's what the cover of the Avalon Hill war game looked like that my article was based on. This particular war game was called France 1940. During my school years, I played many different war games on a regular basis with my friends. Here's one of my favorites called Blitzkrieg. Here's one we played quite often called Borodino, which covers the battle fought by Napoleon against the Russians during 1812. We played the epic World War I naval battle fought in 1916 between the German and British fleets across the entire living room floor of my best friend's house. The December 1944 Battle of the Bulge game between the German and American armies was another popular favorite. This Avalon Hill war game was a simplified version of the June 22, 1941 German invasion of Russia called Stalingrad. However, later, Avalon Hill came out with a highly advanced war game covering the German invasion of Russia called War in the East, which turned out to be my all-time favorite war game. The playing map was huge and it had over 2,000 playing pieces. Here you can see some of my war gaming high school buddies actually playing War in the East on the floor in my room in Houston. Here's an actual view of the map and the masses of unit counters for the War in the East game representing German and Russian military forces in an actual game being played. Each move in the game usually took over an hour to be played and the same game could take weeks to complete. Having played numerous war games for years, I actually invented my own war game. Here's a map board I created myself. Here's a closer view of the map. The game was played by numerous players who possessed tank armies they could create by their various industrial capacities. The goal was to conquer everything on the map and destroy the other players. It was very popular. Here's another map I created for yet another wargaming invention. I often thought about copyrighting these games and marketing them, but I never got around to it. While I was in high school, I was a member of the marching Springwoods Tiger Band. There I am on the back row right on the end with my baritone. My brother Gary is there with his tuba. Many of my band friends played war games with me. Besides all this, there were other war games out there by other manufacturers besides Avalon Hill. Here's one called Diplomacy produced by Games Research Incorporated out of Boston, Massachusetts back in the 1970s. Here we see Diplomacy players pretending to be diplomats of the various countries represented in the game. As you can see, a meek and mild game, it is not. The winner of the diplomacy game is represented here by our actual science teacher at our high school holding the world in his hand while shishkebobbing all the other players with a sword. Another popular war game is seen here called Risk, which I played diligently from my middle school years up into college. Here's the wrist war game being played by seven players with two onlookers in one of the study rooms at a university dormitory during 1976. Many of the players seen here would later be participants in my Dungeons and Dragons game. When you're not a real Christian, you spend most of your time just wasting it on foolish things or things that do not bring honor or glory to God. Here I wasted two days of my spring break from college during 1977 just to be seen as a movie extra in the made-for-tv movie Murder at the World series starring Janet Leigh. It was a fictional murder yarn about the Houston Astros playing the Oakland A's for the title. Here you see me wearing the t-hat being brushed aside by the police detective on his way to get the villain. Wasting time and not worrying about God was one of my strong suits while I attended the University here in Austin, Texas. I was a member of the University of Texas chess team. I played in more chess tournaments than I can count throughout high school and on into college. Here's my tournament chess board, chess clock, favorite chess book on chess traps, and other paraphernalia. When you're successful at something you develop a lot of pride which of course the Bible frowns on if you're the one exalting yourself. Proverbs chapter 16 verses 18 through 19. Here I am in a self-portrait I produced for a photojournalism class assignment. I even came up with the slogan as you see here, play with the best, lose with the rest. I was also on the University of Texas bowling team. I'm the second from the left. This picture was taken at a National Collegiate Bowling Tournament being held in Las Vegas, Nevada with 106 teams competing. Speaking of pride, bowling was not only a major source of pride in my life, but an incredible time waster. Here I won the Presidential Sports Award in bowling from President Jimmy Carter. I racked up all kinds of awards in this sport as you can see here. Here's the one I was most proud of though as I rolled an 800 series in the Austin City Tournament averaging 268 and made it into the International Bowling Museum and Hall of Fame as a result. And I also got a gold ring for it. The one good thing I will say about bowling, though, is I did meet my future wife because of this game. My wife, Diane, was on the University of Texas women's bowling team while I was on the men's team. I really liked the way she bowled. While still students at the University of Texas, we were married at the University of Texas Catholic Student Center directly across the street from the UT Tower, which is shown in this picture collage. A few years later, the two of us actually won the City of Austin Mixed Tournament as individual champions for our classes. My wife for the women's division and myself for the men's. Besides all this other activity while I was attending the University of Texas, I was also in the Longhorn Band. Here's a picture of me in 1976 in my dorm room at Jester Center on campus. My musical instrument of choice was the baritone, also known as a euphonium, which is a brass instrument, the tenor of the tuba family. I first started out with a cornet back in sixth grade. One of my granddaughters shown here, Angelina, now currently plays the very cornet I used to play when I first started out in band back in the 1960s. Basically, my time spent in college was taking required classes, participating in band, bowling, writing for the Daily Texan student newspaper, chess, war gaming, dating my future wife starting in 1979, and something I'd been involved in since high school called Dungeons and Dragons. Spending time on God or studying anything about Him was something I rarely, if ever, did. In fact, throughout most of my college days, I only went to church on Easter and Christmas. And many years, I skipped going to church on Easter. It wasn't until I was engaged to my future wife that I would now and then go with her to the Roman Catholic Church she grew up in in Austin, Texas called St. Mary's Catholic Church to make her happy. Here's a picture of me in this 1981 University of Texas cactus yearbook with my brother Gary right next to me. Our school credits are to the side. Our dad also had graduated from UT in 1956. When you have not been supernaturally changed in your heart by the power of the Holy Spirit as given to His chosen people by the God of the Bible, you waste your time on vain and useless things that bring no glory to God at all, but simply pander to your own sinful lusts and desires. Although I wasted my time on many deceitful lusts and activities, a prime example is found in the game Dungeons & Dragons. Here you can see an assortment of D&D books. Here's the basic Dungeons & Dragons Player Manual, 65 pages. The Fiend Folio, 128 pages. The Advanced D&D Monster Manual, 112 pages. The Advanced D&D Player's Handbook, 128 pages. Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Player Character Record Sheets, 34 pages. And of course, the Advanced D&D Dungeon Master's Guide, 240 pages. Back in the days when I was a Dungeon Master, this book was my real Bible. I studied this more in one day and the other D&D books than I would look at a Christian Bible in an entire year. Here's the only known photo I have of some of us actually playing Dungeons and Dragons. This shot was staged for the camera, but you can see me there with the hat on and my Dungeon Master Guide while several players are gathered around, one holding the Advanced D&D Player's Handbook. You can barely see on the table some of the small figurines we used to represent some of the player characters participating in my dungeon. This picture was taken December 18, 1980. It is interesting to note that God would interrupt this highly successful dungeon five months later on May 16, 1981, when He supernaturally enlightened me by the power of the Holy Spirit through a born-again experience, John 3, verses 3-8. that would change my life for all eternity. The impact of that Christian salvation experience in May 1981 brought a complete transformation. Instead of wasting my time on a vain and useless activity such as Dungeons and Dragons, I was spending my time on God, as you can see by this photo. Here I am on the campus preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ to passing university students while my partner in this Christian Answers of Austin, Texas Christian Debater ministry, Steve Morrison, is standing to my left. Steve, by the way, has a PhD in chemical engineering. And our In Defense of the Faith crew is to my right. See us on our many citywide call-in Bible shows on YouTube. This photo is a true irony of what happened. I spent years at the university wasting my time on temporary and vain things and now suddenly I'm back on campus but now devoting my time to eternal and everlasting truths that really matter. As the old saying goes, one life will soon be passed, only what's done for Christ will last. Psalm chapter 89 verses 47 through 48 Remember how short my time is. Wherefore hast thou made men in vain? What man is he that liveth and shall not see death? Shall he deliver his soul from the hand of the grave? Selah. God's intervention saved my marriage as the D&D game was causing many marital problems at that time since it took up so much of my time. My wife Diane and me have now been happily married for 33 and a half years at the time of this recording. God's intervention in my life changed the course of my oldest daughter Marlena's life. Marlena was born a month before I was born again. Thus, the upbringing she received was completely changed to something other than what it might have been. Like her dad, Marlena participated in a marching band while in high school and as seen here played the clarinet. She was musically gifted and was a featured soloist at some halftime shows at football games. Marlena has since used the musical gift she has received from God and has written and sung multiple Christian songs to glorify Christ. These songs are regularly played on the Christian radio station here in Austin, Texas, and our ministry is in the process of posting them on YouTube. At the time of this recording, we have posted three songs from her music CD, Win This Fight. To find them, just type Marlena Wessels in the YouTube search box. I am now ready to present the main analysis of Dungeons and Dragons, which came by way of a videotaped interview done at our church as our Christian Answers newsletter pointed out in the Volume 3, Number 1 issue. Keep in mind that this newsletter came out over 10 years ago from the time of the presentation you are now watching. Here's what it says. Dungeon Work. Producer Steve Metz directs his cameraman, Wright, Metz interviews Larry Wessels and David Krill on fantasy role games. A few months ago, a college instructor named Steve Metz requested a videotaped interview with me for a video documentary he was producing concerning fantasy role-playing games. Before my conversion to Christ, I had been playing Dungeons and Dragons, much of it based on The Lord of the Rings, throughout the 1970s and into the early 1980s. I had even progressed to becoming a dungeon master of a weekly game involving up to 14 players with sessions lasting past 12 hours. The video interview lasted three hours, which included commentary by David Krill, and a copy of the raw footage was provided to our ministry. When funds allow, we will edit this footage into a video series exposing the anti-biblical and evil nature of this game, as well as other games similar to it. Although the production time for the interview was 3 hours, we have cut it down to less than half of that for our purposes here. Remember also that I am old school. In other words, I am playing these fantasy role-playing games and war games back in its beginnings during the 1970s and into the very early 1980s. This is before the dawn of all the new video technology available through the internet and on computers in today's world. This is before the age of all the very violent video games that are so readily accessible today with all kinds of ratings for the level of death and bloodshed the game can produce. Today's video games make us old timers look like stone age amateurs. There is a similarity though. Both our old school wargaming and Dungeons and Dragons playing and the modern violent video games of today waste tons of time and steer its players into a non-Christian mindset that is completely alien to the biblical commands for the Christian lifestyle. This is the satanic strategy that has captured the hearts and minds of so many today and in the end leads to destruction in the lake of fire when God demands each person to give account for how he spent his life. Revelation chapter 20. Flee these things while you can. One last note before we present this special interview to immediately follow here. The video that was actually produced by Steve Metz and crew had very little of what I said in it. So viewers will now be able to get the rest of the story, so to speak. I'm Larry Wessels. I'm director of Christian Answers. And I used to be a dungeon master for a couple of years back in the early 80s and late 1970s. And I played the game for years before that. OK. My name is David Creel, and I'm a member of the In Defense of the Faith team. We're an apologetic ministry. We've been doing it for about 12 years. We answer questions about the Bible, misconceptions of Christianity. We defend the true gospel that's laid out in scripture, and we do a lot of programs on ACTV where we take live calls from the Austin area. Okay. All right, you guys are ready. It looks like you're kind of prepared to talk. Yeah. All right, this Dungeons and Dragons game is a game that came about in the early to mid-1970s by its creator, Gary Gygax, who started his own company publishing these books such as are before me here on the table. He basically got his inspiration from The Lord of the Rings by Tolkien, his trilogy. And when you, and for me, for instance, I got involved in this when I was still in high school back in the 70s, and I continue to be involved in it all through my college years at the University of Texas. And even beyond it, after I graduated in 1981, and what you find in Dungeons & Dragons and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, there's several levels or tiers to this game, is that if you're familiar at all with the Lord of the Rings, suddenly this game comes to life to you because the creatures, the characters, everything seems to be lifted from that trilogy by Tolkien. You've got orcs, magic users, otherwise known as wizards, sort of like Gandalf in the movie and in the books and things. You've got elves, dwarves, all kinds of monsters. And what Gary Gygax did is he made this game come to life from the books, The Lord of the Ring, to where players could play out Tolkien's trilogy But only creating new chapters in the book, you might say. And what you need, basically, to play this game is just a good imagination and a dungeon master who's got even a better imagination. And the dungeon master is the one who really makes this game come to life. And it's a game that's done without any boards. You don't need the usual accessories that you would think you would need for a normal game, like, say, if you're playing Monopoly. Monopoly, you know, you need the board and you need dice and things now, of course Dungeons and Dragons uses dice as we'll talk about this, but really the key to it all is not so much a board or Having the accessories and things like that. The key to it is your imagination and how far Can your imagination take you? And that's the intrigue of this game, Dungeons & Dragons. And so back in the 70s, I got involved in it, still in high school, with some people that were already familiar with it. The game wasn't that well-known back then. It was just kind of starting out. And in the mid-to-late 70s, the game Dungeons & Dragons was taking in somewhere around $150,000 a year in sales. through various hobby shops. You know, there's these little stores that sell, like, chess sets and games like that. Well, that's where you'd find the game. You couldn't go to, like, a Target or a Sears or something like that and find it at a big department store. But little hobby shops that dealt in certain things, you could find it there. Well, suddenly in 1979, there was a national media interest news case about a Dallas Egbert III who suddenly turned up missing. And so it just became a big media event. What happened to this guy? What was he doing? And you start to find out all the little things about this guy's interests. And one of his interests was he liked to play Dungeons and Dragons. And this suddenly gave all kinds of free advertising to Gary Gygax and his organization that sold these Dungeons and Dragons games. And he goes, in the late 1970s, from $150,000 a year in sales through these little game shops and things to $150 million a year, where now suddenly everybody's picking up on these games from a few thousand players in the mid 70s of which I was one of them. And I still remember playing many games back home in Houston, where I came from in high school, and then in college in the dorms. We'd be playing at the University of Texas campus in the different dormitories with a group of guys, and there'd be a dungeon master there with his dungeon master's manual, and he would set the stage, and then we would play out with our little characters. But suddenly, you went after that media event with this Dallas Egbert III, you end up with millions of people playing it, up to three million. was the figure by, I believe it was 1981. So with that national news media, it turned out to help them beyond all scope to where this game just came on the global scene, you might say. And from there, It has grown to where you have all these offshoot games that have come out. Here's just one example here. This one's called Magic the Gathering. There's been like Wizard Quest and all kinds of offshoots of Dungeons and Dragons that are in a similar vein. You've got the movie Star Wars came out, and Star Wars There was a sci-fi game that was much like Dungeons and Dragons, except it keyed on characters you'd find in Star Wars, and it was called, like, Traveler. And we used to play that a lot, too. So just like Dungeons & Dragons takes characters and monsters and things out of the Tolkien's book, The Lord of the Rings, you would have other fantasy role-playing games known as, you know, Fantasy F, Roll R, playing games, P, it'd be referred to in the short, FRP games, fantasy role-playing games, coming out along other lines, Star Wars or whatever, Lord of the Rings, whatever, and it suddenly became just big business. The next thing you know, Sears, Target, and all these stores are suddenly selling these games, and then a as a result of all the big-time sales and interest, all the accessories started coming out with it. It started out with just simple books, such as, you know, the Player's Handbook I have here, or the Dungeon Master's Guide. And that's really all you would need to play this game. You didn't need a board or things of that nature. You did need, like, a 20-sided die and there's some six-sided die. You needed certain dice, but that's about all you needed just to roll these dice, because these books are filled with charts and probability items that tell you what to do in certain situations. Now, I guess we ought to go back. If you think to the Lord of the Rings, for instance, In that story, you have the little hobbits, he's got the ring, and now he's got to go on this adventure to destroy the ring before the evil forces can use it to conquer Middle Earth. Well, to go along with him in this quest to destroy the ring of power, he takes along a ranger, he takes along a dwarf, he takes along an elf, of course Gandalf, the wizard goes along, and you have other hobbits and so forth going along on this journey, and of course there's seeking to get to this mountain where they can destroy the ring, they encounter all kinds of creatures, you know, orcs and hobgoblins and other kinds of race and things of that nature. And they've got to fight them off and try to survive. And, well, see, this is what Dungeons & Dragons is all about. It's all about taking characters. You've got the dungeon master. He sets the stage. And much like here, I was a dungeon master. And, for instance, This is actually an original dungeon I had done over 22 years ago and still survives. I threw away all my other ones. When I became a Christian, I threw away most of my original accessories and things. I had somewhere on the order of 30 hours of audio tape. that we had recorded where we were recording all our adventures. And I thought it was neat storytelling because we would play on an average Friday night. My Dungeons that I was running back in 1980, 81 started out with two players, my brother and my best friend. And it grew because I hung out at college and stuff. A lot of my college buddies started coming in to where I had 14 players coming over to my apartment every Friday night starting at 6 o'clock in the evening and they would stay between 8 and 14 hours straight. to play this game. And I would have these dungeons, like I just said, and what I'd do is each guy would take a character, and then they wouldn't know this dungeon. It was my dungeon. They didn't know what they were about to encounter. It was all new to them. I was following my map, and I had set in this dungeon all kinds of characters and creatures using my monster manual, my fiend, I think I've got a, yeah, I've got a fiend folio book. The monster manual, different in the player's handbook, it talks about other creatures and things. And I would utilize the characters that Gary Gygax had in his books that I purchased at these hobby shops. And in my dungeon, I would put in certain places in there, okay, there's going to be 300 hobgoblins around this corner. There's going to be 200 orcs over here. Okay, so anyway, we're into this game at the university level. I was married in 1980, and I'm living in a small apartment with my wife, my new wife. And I've got 14 guys coming over to my apartment on Friday night, starting at 6 o'clock. And a lot of times they would stay at least till 6 the next morning, if not 8 the next morning. And of course, needless to say, when you do this months on end without fail, It was almost a religious experience of this group of guys coming over on Friday night to where, obviously, your wife starts to get a little irritated that you've got all these guys over at your apartment playing this fantasy role-playing game. And, of course, that led to a lot of marital problems for me. And, of course, I won't go into all those details, but all I can say is I played this game religiously Up until the point I became what we call in theological circles as a born-again Christian. And suddenly, all I cared about was the Bible and Jesus Christ instead of Dungeons and Dragons and killing orcs and monsters and all that kind of stuff. And of course, that solved my marital problems right there because the next time the 14 guys came over to play Dungeons and Dragons and I was into this Christianity stuff, All I want to talk about was the Bible, so that was the end of my game. So I haven't played Dungeons & Dragons since 1981. But so that may have saved my marriage, because I don't know, Dungeons & Dragons was pretty big until that happened. But anyway, so to get back into how the game is played and so forth, it's pretty fascinating. And now that these movies are out, the big-time hit movies, Lord of the Rings, Anyone watching this video probably has seen the movie or seen trailers or something can now relate to what I'm talking about So what you've got is for instance, I'll take the players handbook to start a game You have different characters that each of the players are going to relate to. And you have different characters such as a cleric, which could be a druid, a fighter, which could be a paladin or a ranger, and also a magic user, which would be a wizard, sort of like Gandalf is in the movie. You also have, like, thieves and assassins, monks. You have, as I mentioned before, dwarves. Gets into all these different types of characters, even by race. Benefits of what each character can do are strengths and characteristics, such as the characters each possess so much strength, so much intelligence, so much wisdom, so much dexterity, so much constitution and charisma. And you have charts, and what the characters do is they're starting their game. I would tell some of my friends, okay, what would you like to be? Would you like to be an evil cleric? You know, if you're an evil cleric, then you can do a lot of magic where you can call on your god, and clerics are religious guys, and so they would be into this religion, and they'd use a certain evil god that could give them these powers where they could, you know, summon demons to attack people that are accosting you or they can do, you know, send a death ray out, you know, with a spell or something like that through the power of their evil God. But now good clerics, they had to settle for a good God that wouldn't do mean and nasty things like that. So they, but they could use defensive spells. that if they're under attack, they can ask their god to give them certain defensive qualities that would shield them from, let's say, a bunch of orcs shooting arrows at you or something like that. You could stop those arrows with some kind of force field or something like that. Or you could have... Before I became a dungeon master myself, I always liked the magic users and the wizards. And I had actually, from the early 70s up through the late 1970s before I became a dungeon master myself, I had built my first level magic user up into a 19th level And, I mean, I could summon fire storms from the heavens to blast enemy armies. I mean, I could wipe out an army of orcs, 10,000 orcs, just summon a, you know, a fire brimstone from the skies and fall on them and wipe them out. But what you do in this game, if you're either a ranger or an elf or whatever character you have, you start at level one and you work your way up through this fantasy role-playing situation in these dungeons that the dungeon master creates. and you go around and you kill and slay and capture things as you adventure and you try to stay alive at the same time you try to survive. It's just like Lord of the Rings where they're going along and they're fighting all this stuff and they're trying to survive it and they can use whatever capabilities they have. Remember in Lord of the Rings, the elf guy, like he's real good with the bow and arrow and he can just nail guys right between the eyes with the arrows and stuff like that. Well, you have characters like that and after you kill, So many orcs and so many monsters, so many hobgoblins and other creatures that are listed throughout these books. Every time you killed enough of them, you get points for how many creatures you killed. And when you get to a certain number of points, which everyone keeps record of how many points they've accumulated, the dungeon master's keeping a record, too. Let's say, for instance, you say, okay, the wizard told you in this village that you and your group, and that's just whatever group you have of players that are with you that night, he says, well, there's this treasure in this cave on the far side of the lake. located in this land of Elgar. You know, you just come up with all this stuff, just like Tolkien did. And you need to go down this road to get over this bridge to get to this cave, which is located near that lake, and go in there and find the treasure, which you'll, you know, obviously, treasure's built into Dungeons & Dragons, where if you capture so much treasure, you can lift your level up. So if you kill so many things, capture so much treasure and so forth, you can go from level one to level two. And you can go from level 2 to level 3, level 3 to level 4. And as you build up in killing things and capturing treasure, you can get more and more power for yourself. In other words, if you're a first-level fighter or ranger, You can't fight as well as you can when you're an eighth-level ranger or fighter. Suddenly, when you're an eighth-level ranger or fighter, you can start to wipe out, you know, a hundred orcs all by yourself, whereas when you're just a first-level ranger, You can't do that. You can just fight a few of them, and you might get killed fairly easily. But as you get higher in level, it's harder for you to get killed, and it's easier for you to wipe out anything that's getting in your way, because you just build up. So the whole idea of the game is to build up your character from first level, second level, and it takes a long time to do this. You've got to do a lot of adventuring, you've got to kill a lot of things, capture a lot of spoils and things of this nature as you move along and try to survive, because you can easily get killed And then have to start all over again with another first level character and it work your way back up so when It's also a source of pride because when I had built up a magic user up to a 19th level that was That took me years to get it up that high. And the Dungeon Master was forced, whenever my character played, he had to come up with some of the meanest, baddest monsters that these books could offer, because I could kill anything else that was lower level. So there's monsters and stuff to go with how high a level you're dealing with to make it more challenging. You get the gist of it. The characters are picked, chosen by the different players, depending on what they like. Some guys pick the evil cleric because they like an evil god to give them a lot of attack powers. I chose a magic user when I was a player. There's one guy I remember, he picked a fighter because he always liked Goliath, and so he wanted a fighter that could be like Goliath. He even named it that, because then you name your characters. And then your characters almost become sort of like your own persona. And then, like I said, if I give, as a dungeon master, I say, OK, here's this cave. What are you going to do? You're going to go after that treasure in that cave next to that lake? And the guys will say, well, yeah, let's do it. Let's see if we can get that treasure. And he said, OK, you're traveling along. And I've got it all mapped out. They don't know it. They don't know what they're running into. But I've got everything set up, because I spend the week before each session plotting my dungeon. So I'd have everything ready to go and then they would travel along and all of a sudden I would say something like, okay, you come up the lake and all of a sudden the water starts to ripple and foam and you're standing there along the side of the lake and all of a sudden the water's starting to splash around violently. And before you know it, this giant frog leaps out of the water at you, intending to devour you. What do you do? And then each player, this is how the game's played, each player then would tell the dungeon master what he intends to do about this giant frog getting ready to have it for lunch. And, you know, like the one, if there's a thief guy, he would usually, he wasn't too good at fighting, but he was good at dexterity. So he was good at running away. So he'd say, well, I'm going to run away. And then you roll the dice and say, okay, you made it. You know, there's these charts in these books that tell you exactly, You know, the dungeon master consults these different things. Next guy says, OK, I'm going to fight that booger. I'm going to get up there with my sword. I've got a two-handed sword. And they'll say the dwarf's got his battle axe. He said, we're going to attack. And what you've got in these charts are melee combat charts that are listed out in these books. And you can, the Dungeon Master goes to those books and it'll tell you, depending on what you roll on the dice, how many hits you can score on, let's say, that giant frog. And the giant frog will have a value of how many points he can take, how many hits he can take before he dies. And so, you know, the dwarf guy would say, I'm going to tag him with my battle axe and he rolls the dice. And the dice show, well, you got five hits on the guy. That doesn't kill him, though. He's still coming at you. And then the fighter says, well, I swing it with my two-handed sword. Roll the dice. You got 10 hits, but that's still not enough to kill him off. And then the magic user, let's say, would be there. He says, well, I cast a freeze spell on him to try to stop him. And you roll the dice. Well, it didn't stop him, but it slowed his movement. So now he doesn't go as fast as he was before. And all this kind of stuff. But see, as I'm describing all this, you can see how the game is played now. I went through all this detail to give our viewers and you a real idea how those games play, which is, it's all in your mind. It's almost better than a book, you might say, in the sense that your imagination. I remember when I saw Jaws, I had just finished reading a book. 1975 and so when I went with my buddies my high school buddies to see the movie Spielberg's movie the Jaws I wanted to see the book on the screen of course it never happens that way the book is what I wanted to see but I knew exactly where he changed the story throughout the movie and I got all hacked off because it didn't go like the book went but because our imagination is always so much better than than what an actual movie producer or director can actually put on a screen. It never really matches up to how good our imaginations are. So what Dungeons & Dragons is, is it leaves it up to the player's imagination to imagine that frog coming out of the water. Imagine your fighter hitting it with the sword or the battle axe and all the other things going on. It's just a pure mind game with these random dice rolls to determine probabilities of what's taking place. And so you can see how in a given night, let's say they slay the frog and then the dungeon master just comes up with one scenario after another. Okay, you've killed a frog. You get so many points for killing that frog added to your characters as you build up to get to the next level. And now you see there's a bridge over there to get across the lake. What do you do next? And so it's just, you're like storytelling, but you're venturing away and it's like you become part of the book. There's this book and suddenly you are in the book and you can create what happens next. Say there's a group of orcs on the other side of the bridge and they're coming across to attack you. What do you do? You just give the characters constantly problem solving to do. But this isn't your normal kind of psychological problem solving in this particular game. It is more like there was an old TV show that used to be real. It used to be a number one TV show back in the late 70s. It was called The A-Team. And it was just a group of guys that go around kicking everybody's tail, you know, as they tried to help people out. Well, see, Dungeons & Dragons is the A-Team approach to problem solving. How many people how many creatures can you kill it all this kind of stuff and of course my game was particularly exciting Not being modest But that's how it grew from 2 to 14 guys coming religiously to my apartment every Friday night Because I threw in all the things that you find in this book plus more and not only did I add more They throw in everything that Gygax did, but I even threw in my own monsters. I could create my own monsters, which he said to do, if you wanted to. So I created giant roaches, finks, pit vipers, and groin grops to add to, well, you know, I can see by looking at that groin grop, you know, that shows you what level you can get into with this, which is a creature I created, which is mushroom. It looked like a mushroom, and if a character stepped on it, I would say, like, you come up across this field of mushrooms. What do you do? Do you eat them? Do you step on them? Do you walk around them? What do you do with these mushrooms? And, of course, they thought they were just mushrooms. But, really, according to this monster chart I created, if they step on it, it immediately leaps up and grabs you by the groin and starts sucking all your blood out. It's a monster and it takes hit charts. I had everything set up just the way that it would. So what this game allows you to do is also add all kinds of creatures of your own out of your own imagination. And I threw in murder and rape, pillage, you know, I threw in a lot of beautiful women because, you know, us being college guys and everything, you know, hey, let's get a little sex going in this thing. So we threw that into the game, or I threw it into the game, and then I asked guys what they would do when they would, you know, subdue a woman and stuff like this, and of course they would tell me. I won't repeat any of that here, but it just shows you the magnitude of what you can do with a mind game like this, which is almost the sky's the limit. And from there, we would just play week after week, month after month, and I had taped all, at the end of the night, we played for let's say eight, ten hours. I would then get all the guys and I'd say, okay, let's get this on tape and just go through everything we went through tonight, just for a record. And so for another hour, we'd sit there and just relate. What we started with, what happened, and then move on and move on through that night. And I think I had like 30 hours of Dungeons and Dragons tapes where we were just giving a synopsis of what we had done. Because to me, I thought, I might make a book out of this someday. This is some really neat stuff here. This is better than what Tolkien's got. But of course, after I became a Christian, I threw all those tapes away except for one. So I got one tape of it left because, like I said, because this game allows for Anything give you a case in point one characters completely proud of his fighter. I mentioned Goliath before he he almost had a and this happens with every player that gets into it for a while you almost become a A thin, fuzzy line starts to happen where reality and fantasy start to kind of merge a little bit, where that thin line gets blurred, where now that character is sort of like you, and you don't want anything to happen to it, and people are talking about their character all through the week. I used to get phone calls all the time through the week before the next Friday. Hey, if I do this, my character can, will I be able in the next melee round with these, with zombies, for instance, would I be able, you know, he gets in all these technical questions and I'm sitting there answering like a professor at a school, you know, with the students. Oh, yeah, you should be able to do that. In fact, what you really ought to do is get this weapon next time you're at one of the villages because if you get that out of the magic shop, it's really going to help you with these creatures. You know, it'll be stuff like that. And so it became like a lifestyle. for all the players and for me as a Dungeon Master because it becomes very addictive. I mean, it's so much fun and like I say, reality and fantasy start to blur. And of course, as a Dungeon Master, I got that sense of power that I got all these guys coming to me with questions and stuff and they're depending on me to make their night fun and to stay 8 to 14 hours every week. It starts to scramble everybody. There's this one player named Andy and he Came in and he started this first level fighter Named Goliath and he built it up to like an eighth or ninth level fighter over time And he was so proud of that character. I'll never forget that he was all excited about Goliath And one night, some of the other guys that were running characters there, they thought to themselves, well, you know, Goliath is worth a lot of experience points for my character. If I were able to kill Goliath, I would get all those experience points and that would jump my character up a level at least. So what happened is we get a scenario where this group, all the guys are venturing together, just like in Lord of the Rings, and I say, what are you going to do now? You've been fighting all day and it's nightfall, it's late. He goes, oh, well, we're going to set up a camp. We're going to camp out for the night. We'll set up a little fire here. We'll all take a nap. We'll set one guy on guard, and we'll camp out for the night. So we have the, you know, everybody settles down, and I check with each character what his individual character's going to do at that camp. Oh, I'm going to go to sleep. Okay, you're going to go to sleep. Well, what happened is, you know, Goliath, the guy said, well, my character's going to go to sleep. Well, then these other two guys that were plotting to get his experience points, said to me, well, our characters get up while Goliath's asleep and everybody else is asleep. And we go over and slit his throat while he's sleeping, you know. But I had to consult my charts and roll the dice and they got the best numbers they could. And I said, man, I can't believe it. You killed him, you know. There was a good chance they wouldn't succeed and he would wake up and then fight with them. But he just got the roll and his character got killed sleeping among his so-called buddies so they could jump up their levels. Well, he was upset beyond belief. He was, I mean, he really took pride in that character, and he had been, you know, all this time, and he started cussing out those other guys. He was mad. I mean, he wanted to fight them right there in my living room, and he was upset for the next two or three weeks, and the only reason he came back is he was plotting revenge against those guys by coming back with another character. Of course, he had to start at the bottom and he had to play it straight. But he said, the minute I get a chance, I'm going to kill those guys. So he took a fantasy role-playing game beyond into reality itself into that. He held a personal grudge in real life against those other guys for having done that to his fantasy character. And so this, you know, I told you that it already led to marital problems for me in real life because of this taking up so much time. And Gary Gygax, the creator of all this, even said the main requirement for this game is time. And time is what this game really chews up. And it's got, you know, it's endless possibilities. And countless hours can be burned up playing this game. And that's exactly one of the major problems with it from a biblical perspective, which is why when I became a Christian, I gave the game up right on the spot because I realized Not only was I addicted to it and the power that I was yielding as a dungeon master, but how it was actually affecting people in real life. And that one example about the guy with Goliath, that wasn't the only time. These guys were cutting each other's throats and doing things to each other all the time. And then they would hold it against each other personally. And revenge and all that kind of stuff was always in the mix. So it led to a lot of actual problems in real life. But for me, I started to realize that The Bible talks about how you're to redeem the time because the days are evil. And from the biblical perspective, we all know the Ten Commandments, thou shalt not have any other gods before me. And of course, in this game, we always had evil clerics and stuff. Deities and demigods that were out there that you worship and I had had guys doing all these kind of prayers to their God You have to say a certain kind of prayer to get this evil God to do what you want So you better give me a good prayer here. You're not getting anything, you know, I tell them stuff like that so you you got all this kind of Fake religion with religious clerics and then you've got murder and rape. All that stuff was stuck in there all the time and played out. And the lust for more power, get your character up, get more treasure so you can build your character up. All these things are not what you would find in the Ten Commandments. the rape and the murder and the lust for power and the covetousness, you know, it's all built into the game and that's exactly what it's all about. So I realized pretty fast knowing what the Bible said that if I'm to redeem the time because the days are evil as it says in Ephesians, What am I doing wasting eight to 14 hours every Friday night playing this game? And then through the week, I'm working on a dungeon to get it ready for the next week. So at that point, I gave the game up as something that really wasn't of God because I know everybody just says it's just a game. But when you really start getting into this thing, It just kind of sucks you in, like any addiction, like smoking a cigarette or, you know, some people get into drugs or sex or whatever it is, rock and roll, whatever it is that they get into, it can kind of just suck you into it. And that's exactly what happened to me and the 14 guys that were Sucked in with me, you know, but like I said when I had that first after I became a Christian I had that first meeting with all 14 guys there and I didn't do anything on Thursday I said, hey, you know what the Bible says about Bible. Do you know there's 2,000 fulfilled Bible prophecy? Okay talking within two hours the last one left. Here they take for up to 14 hours but when I start talking Bible the last one I lost a lot of real fast but suddenly I realized that you know when the Bible says redeem your time because days are evil why be thinking about rape and murder and putting in these good-looking chicks just so the guys could have fun and tell me all their fantasies about it and stuff like that. The scripture talks about putting your mind on heavenly things and on pure things and on, you know, righteousness and holy things. Set your eyes above, not below. And, of course, we all hear it's just a game. But when you put it in actual reality, context, we find that it, after a while, it starts, it's just like in Lord of the Rings. Anybody that had that power, Ring of Power, whoever got hold of it, even Frodo Baggins, when he had that ring to, he actually starts to get dizzy and it's like, You know, the evil lord is going to take him over or something like that, or anyone else that has the ring. It becomes something of an obsession. Well, this is what this game starts to become like over time. It looks innocent enough at first, but anyone that's not really familiar with it, of course, that's all they would say. It's just a game. But once they get into it as deep as we're talking about, playing for hours on end for months at a time or years, Suddenly, it becomes like a way of life, and you can just change your whole perspective. And I've been talking a whole long time, but I want to let Dave say a few more things about what you have to say from a biblical perspective on things like this. Well, just listening to what you said about the characters, about the way the game is played, and about the person who developed the game, one would have to wonder, where did he get this idea for this game? Where did it come to him? Was it just that he had a great imagination? Well, from a Christian perspective, I see that this game is darkness, that it opens up the mind, is the doorway to where lost man is already lost. He has no discernment. between really good and evil. Now, he has a conscience that will convict him of certain things that are wrong or right, but when it comes to spiritual things, spiritual darkness, he's deceived very easily. And coming from a Christian perspective, we see that Satan doesn't make himself appear as evil. He'll make himself appear as just a game. but as he infiltrates this game into the imagination, which is the mind of the person. And as Larry says, these men begin to get so enthralled with the game of sorcery, black magic, and murder. Don't forget rape. Well, it doesn't take, as a Christian, to see they're opening themselves up to the demonic. Now, people say, well, they're demonic, they think of demon possession, or these guys are going to be as wicked as a demon. No, what it does, it hardens them. It hardens them to truth. In their imagination, the mind is used to be sober, to think, to think logically in reality, to understand things. And in spiritual things, the Word of God says you need guidance, you need light. These men have no light, they have no defense, and so they're right in the hands of the wicked one. And so he doesn't have to make them totally evil like they go out and rob and do all the things they do in the game. What he has to do is just pollute their mind, to pollute their imagination, to get them caught up in the demonic realm. They don't think they're practicing sorcery because they're deceived. They don't know they are. They don't know they're opening themselves up to influence. And we don't know how many things that have happened to crush people's lives that would later, the evil one would use because they played that game. And that they open themselves up to demonic forces. And so, anytime we start talking about demonic forces, people that aren't Christians, that are secularists, or they just say, there's nothing out there, this is just a bunch of hogwash you're talking about. Well, why is it so obvious to people that the images they use, all these things they use, people would think of as the demonic realm. Why is that? That people would think of wizards, of sorcery. I mean, just look at the pictures of these things of half-man, half-animal, all these things that for so long were into the witchcraft, into Mother Earth worship, into the pagan religions. I'm coming from a Christian perspective. Now, most relatives say they're all relative. Men worship things all over the place, rocks, trees, whatever it is. But coming from the Christian perspective, it's not hard, because they have revelation of Jesus Christ, to see the pitfalls and the things that could destroy a person's life more and more, and open himself up to demonic influences. And that's the first thing I saw when Larry started talking about it, is how elaborate this person that decided this game, how elaborate he had it. And you think, well, where did he get this idea? He might be a brilliant person, but certainly could have invented a different game. But why of all the pictures of things that if I showed you this picture and said, is this good or evil? And even the secularists would go, well, that looks evil to me. And he has nothing, you know, why would he say that? I mean, why is that harmless? Well, you look at half men, half this, and all the things in this book that I look around that would, even a person would look at that knows they're dealing in the realm of darkness and evil. And a person that's not saved, that doesn't have the light of Christ in them, can be sucked into that. And it takes, I think it would take a certain type of person with a great imagination, maybe an intelligent, more intelligent person, because it is, you look at it, it is complicated, and it is, you'd have to put your effort into it, just looking at all the rules and all the things, how to keep your levels up, it attracts, I think, a certain type of person that could stay with it. But that's what I see. I see that, as for me, is that I see, looking at it from the Word of God, is that it says here in Romans, it talks about, The night is almost gone, the day is near. Therefore, let us lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. And one thing I'd like to ask Larry, maybe he can expound on this, is that you keep mentioning the Lords of the Rings. Now, there's a lot of people that think that was a Christian trilogy. Well, what they do is they take the Lord of the Rings, and now Tolkien was a friend of C.S. Lewis. And C.S. Lewis wrote some fantasy works of his own. being a literary giant, you might say. And C.S. Lewis has written a lot of Christian apologetic works. I think we even have some in our library over here. But what they've done with Tolkien is they've, assume that the symbolism of what he's got there is tied to the great battle between good and evil was what you basically have in the Bible. You have Satan in his realm and then God who is holy. So you've got the unholy versus the holy. And then we've got the return of Christ coming at the end of time, battle of Armageddon and all those things, particularly mentioned in Revelation chapter 19 and 20 and so forth. So allegorically, they, associate Tolkien's work, much like the Narnia Chronicles of C.S. Lewis, where the lion was supposed to be a allegorical symbol of Christ and all this kind of stuff. But the question is, is that necessarily so? Does that really follow? Or does it come down to like Gygax has done here, which it leaves it really up to each individual's imagination. as to what they wanna do with it. All I know is I certainly didn't think of any Christian things before I was a Christian. I was thinking of all this kind of other stuff, and that was including the Lord of the Rings. But my point is, and I think we can bring the listener in here, what you're saying is that Tolkien wrote an allegory for Christians. Could this be an allegory? Well, obviously, it can be taken that way based on the Serpents and Dragons illustration. Because it does exactly what we would see in the Bible that the enemy would do. Darkness, power, self-power. See, the Christian is broken of his sin and he believes on Jesus Christ because he believes he needs to be saved. And he's saved and we have no power. Our power is in loving the Lord Jesus Christ. Here is power to self, power to the man. Man can become more powerful, and it's a lie that happened in the Garden of Eden. Thou shalt be like who? God. These men are practicing being like a wizard to be like God. You just remind me of something. Gygax, the writer, the creator of all these Dungeons and Dragons works, even said the Dungeon Master is like a god. And really it's true, having been one myself, because to have that kind of power all over these individuals who are coming to me to run their characters, it made me feel like a god. It made me feel important in real life. It made me feel important that, hey, all these guys are depending on me to have a fun time on Friday night and they're calling me during the week and everything. That was kind of a good feeling, like, hey, I'm responsible for something and people are depending on me. And Gaiax himself said that the Dungeon Master is like a god of this game. To give you a few more examples, like for instance, we mentioned Lord of the Rings, Tolkien's book, he has lots of works in his movie, or in his books. And then of course, the movies always show the works everywhere, armies of them and so forth. But you can see here, right in his monster manual, page 76, It says here, orcs are cruel and hate living things in general, but they particularly hate elves and will always attack them in preference to other creatures. They take slaves for work, food and entertainment, torture, et cetera, but not elves whom they kill immediately. And it goes on to give other descriptions. As you can see, orcs are accomplished tunnelers and miners. They note new or unusual constructions under ground 35 percent of the time and spot sloping passages 25 percent of the time. The majority of orcs speak goblin, hobgoblin, and ogre in addition to the languages of orcs and lawful evil. And, of course, that goes back to what I was saying. You can have a cleric that's evil or lawful or good. You know, you have different characteristics of the characters. Here's just one other example. Hobgoblins. You can see that just the basic reading about hobgoblins. It says hobgoblins are highly adept at mining, and they can detect new construction, sloping passages, and even shifting walls 40% of the time. Most hobgoblins speak goblin, orcish, and the rudimentary tongue of carnivorous apes in addition to their racial and alignment languages. 20% of hobgoblins can speak the common tongue as well. And of course up here, I skipped this part, but it says, if elves are nearby, hobgoblins will attack them in preference to any other troops because of the great hatred they bear. And there's much I haven't read here. It's just paragraphs about hobgoblins, paragraphs about orcs I didn't read. And this whole book, the monster manual, goes into incredible detail all the different creatures and it has their hit charts and everything that you would go to like for instance here you have a Hippopotamus, it mentions a frequency uncommon, number appearing 2 to 12, armor class 6, movement 9 inches to 12 inches, hit dice 8, percentage and layer nil, treasure type nil, number of attacks 1, damage attack 2 to 12 or 3 to 18, special attack, see below, special defenses nil, magic resistance standard, intelligence animal, alignment neutral, size large, Sonic, ability, nil, and then it goes into all these charts. Only the Dungeon Master would be able to interpret all that for you, but it just shows you the complexity on each individual monster and how you deal with it. And, of course, you're rolling dice, as the Dungeon Master determined, in battles and melees. When we look over here at, I was mentioning before how characters try to build up their experience so they can really get strong and wipe things out better. You look here, for instance, in the movie Lord of the Rings, you have one of the characters there that's, I think his name is Andor, or he's the ranger in the movie. I keep forgetting his name. There it is. If you can edit that on a film. The ranger in the movie, Aragorn, Lord of the Rings, This is where it comes from. I'm hoping by showing you some of this how you see the correlation between Dungeons and Dragons and the Lord of the Rings. For instance, here on page 25 of the player's handbook from Dungeons and Dragons, you see here it says, Rangers, Fighters, Table 1. Eight-sided dice for experience accumulated. Experience points. You'll notice a level one ranger has experience points of zero. That's what players start with. through 2,250 points. Now, up to that point, they're just level one, and accumulated hit points, two. And their title as a level one ranger or fighter is a runner, as you can see on the chart, level title. But as they kill things, capture treasure, whatever, they go up. You can see here it says 2,251 points through 4,500 points. Suddenly, they jump to level two, And now they can take three hits instead of two. And now they're called a strider. Then they move up. Once they get more than 4,500, 4,501 to 10,000. accumulated points, they moved to level 3, now they can take 4 hits instead of 3 and now they're a scout. And as you just go down the list, 10,001 and so forth, you're level 4, you become a cursor, 20,001, you become level 5, now you can take 6 hits, you become a tracker. And you can see from this chart, you can go up to at least as far as it has here, 1,300,000 experience points, you're level 12. You can take 11 plus 4 hits. You're now a Ranger Lord at 12th level. And it says you need an additional 325,000 experience points per level for each additional level above the 12th level. So his chart goes through the 12th level, but that doesn't mean that's the end of it. It's almost like in less. Remember I said before I built my magic user up to 19th level. So I was already off his charts. So this game can just go on and on and on and on and usually does, you know, until the guy gets divorced from his wife or he becomes a Christian like me. But anyway, from the viewers at home can see the chart and that's just one example of all different characters you can go with and how you build up your level of activity. Here on some other interesting stuff that we can look at from the charts. And this is one I still have dog ear to this day. I always liked this page and I used it a lot in my dungeons. Page 83 of the Dungeon Master's Guide. I like to throw this in and a lot of times in combat, there would be evil curses cast on the party that was adventuring by whatever forces I had thrown against them. Sometimes an evil wizard, sometimes a dragon would come up. But dragons are very powerful in Dungeons and Dragons. So you can never throw a dragon against a group of adventurers if they're low level because a dragon would just wipe them out. But if you had higher-level characters, then you could throw a dragon in there. And dragons also had access to magical powers. And one of the things I always got a kick out of was insanity curses. And you can see here on the television, Here on page 83, you've got the types of insanity that can be thrown upon characters when one of these curses is thrown on them. So, dipsomania, kleptomania, schizoid, pathological liar, monomania, demeaning pericox, melancholia, megalomania, delusional insanity, schizophrenia, mania, lunacy, paranoia, manic depressive, hallucinatory insanity, sadomasochism, homicidal mania, and so forth. Suicidal mania, as you can see on the chart at home. So what I like to do as a dungeon master, to add a little pizzazz to our dungeons, sometimes I'd get one of these characters would get hit with one of these insanity curses. But it wouldn't last all the time. It would just come up every now and then, depending on my die-side role. And suddenly, the guy would go insane for a brief moment while they're adventuring. It'd be normal, but when he'd go insane, the dungeon master would take over his character. And so the player had no control on his own character. And I, as the god of the game or the dungeon master, could then use my charts on insanity. And when you look in here, there's just all kinds of charts you reference to. And here's just a page. This is page 210. And you see, they just go on forever on all kinds of things. But I use my charts, and I can make that character. Let's say he gets a homicidal mania as his curse, temporary insanity. And so suddenly, he starts attacking one of the other characters. He just goes berserk. Starts to kill one of the other characters and I asked the other guy. What are you doing? This guy's coming at you with a Double handle battle axe and he's trying to chop your your skull in two. What are you gonna do? He's coming at you fast, you know, I'd always hype it up, you know, I talk a lot like I just did and You know, they would tell me what they're gonna do I use the charts and stuff But you can see that all this kind of stuff like homicidal mania sadomasochism all these things I can throw them into the game at will at my leisure. This is like I said still dog-eared to this day I like to use that because it was particularly fun for me to take control of these guys' characters and make them go nuts. And so you see there's almost no, there's no limit to what you can possibly do in this game because it's just a mind game after all. and to go beyond the normal stuff. I think one player for Dungeons and Dragons once said, I love Dungeons and Dragons because I can go around killing people heedlessly, and I don't have to go to jail for it. Because he can do it in his mind, and he doesn't have to do it in real life. But still, he was enjoying all the things he could do in this fantasy world that he couldn't do in real life. And this takes us back to everything David was saying before. And as I mentioned, I used to write for a Christian magazine, and this is an article I had done for a Christian magazine, The Two-Edged Sword, years and years ago, over 20 years ago, called Dungeons and Dragons. And as I list here in this thing, when we talk, as our viewers now have seen, just some of the things, there's so much more to be said about Dungeons and Dragons, it just doesn't wash. It says, finally, brethren, whatever things 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. So you're supposed to use your mind to think on those things. And of course, Jesus said you should worship God with all your mind, your strength, your heart, your soul. But how do you do it when you're thinking about, OK, I'm going to kill that guard and rape the princess of the castle and take all her money after I rape her. And I'll turn her over to the other guys, let them have their turn. You know, that's the kind of stuff that would happen in these dungeons. Is that doing what the Apostle Paul says to do here in Philippians 4.8? Obviously not, because none of that is pure or holy or lovely or any of those things. So in 1 Corinthians 10, verse 31, it says, so whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. And obviously, I don't see how Dungeons and Dragons in this fantasy role-playing does anything for the glory of God. It's more of a self-serving thing like David was mentioning. And as we look at a key scripture which will be found in Colossians chapter 3 verses 1 through 4, New International Version, it says, Since then you have been raised with Christ. Set your hearts on things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory. So, from a Christian biblical perspective, we set our minds on godly things, set our minds on Christ. And I'd like to have Dave, just for a minute, get the gospel message of what this means and then put it in context, in contrast, I should say, to Dungeons and Dragons. Well, what I was going to say about, as far as a Christian is, towards this, and you had mentioned some things, and then I tried to, during this talk, was showing that A person without Christ is... opening himself up to this is totally defenseless against... especially opening his mind, his imagination to these things. Now, if it is a plot of Satan, he's defenseless, because he doesn't know spiritual things, because he's dead in his trespasses and sins. You're talking about a guy without... Without Christ, without Christ, without the Holy Spirit. And also, for Christians, they can be deceived. into playing these games, open themselves up to all kinds of terrible falls and slips. And in 1 Peter here, chapter 5, it says, be sober of spirit. It means be alert. He says, he goes on, be sober spirit, be on alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. You see what he is? He's using this. He's prowling like a lion. devouring people. And for a lost person who is dead in their trespass and sin with no spiritual light is going to be devoured. And it is not just this now, this thing is spread out to all kinds of games that are offshoots and tangents of this very thing that kind of is the mother of them all. And as a Christian we and especially evangelists is that the cure for this is that God became man. because we're sinners, we're dead in our trespasses and sins, we have no hope. The Bible says actually in Ephesians that the lost man is a child of wrath And he actually is under the influence of the power of the air. It's amazing about the power here that is called. It says, And you were dead in your trespasses and sin, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. That's what is working in here. Sons of disobedience under the power of the prince of the power of the air. We would say that the cure for this is to repent of your sins, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ who died on the cross for our sins. Now He's God. He is God in the flesh. The Bible says that God became man and lived a perfect life, a life that we couldn't live. It's John chapter 1. Yes. And went to a cross and took God's raft in our place. He stood in our place. our punishment and satisfy the wrath of God and was buried and rose again. And now as Christians we declare repent of your sins and believe on the finished work of Jesus Christ and God will save you. And what it does it says in Colossians and this is what we as Christians that we wanted to see the difference between darkness and the light of the gospel. It says in Colossians that that we were in the kingdom of darkness. And when you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, God gives you the righteousness of Jesus Christ, the righteousness you didn't deserve, and translates you out of this kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. And the kingdom of light is the holiness of God is that you're in His kingdom. Light is revelation and you can see now that you're born again, you can see the things that God wants you to see in the Bible. You're not dead anymore, you're alive to God. And the only hope for any person that would be listening to this, whether you're in Dungeons and Dragons or you think you're a moral person, is to repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. And that is what the main thing that we'd ever say about anything, is believe on the Lord Jesus Christ to be saved. Acts 1631, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. In conclusion then, I'd just like to mention the fact that D&D, Dungeons and Dragons, is basic escapism from reality. But the problem is Eventually, there's that blurring that takes place. This is sort of a recap of all our points that we've made in this entire show. It's escapism from reality, but when fantasy starts to creep into the real side of your life, whether it leads to marital problems or This guy's literally mad at that guy for something he did in that game and things of that nature. We find that maybe it's not so much an escapism from reality after all, and actually translates into real actions in real life. And I've mentioned before, Dungeons & Dragons becomes like an addiction. It becomes almost like an obsession, especially with the power and the ability to do all these wicked and evil, lustful type things that you can't get away with generally in real life. So in that sense it becomes very addictive, just like someone that likes to take drugs. It's something they enjoy and want. It may not be right or good for them, but they do it because it satisfies that lust temporarily or whatever it is they have. There's obviously the over-identification with your characters, and that's where the line between fantasy and reality blends and fuzzies up again. where guys just become too enthralled with their characters and it leads to these types of problems I've already mentioned. The role-playing game, over time, it starts to take effect in the sense that you become obsessed with, what is needing more? Okay, we had a, we raped a princess over here in this palace, but that's not good enough. Let's, a month later, let's spice it up. Now they're going to capture a caravan on a highway and there's 50 virgin women. And instead of just one woman over here, let's move it up to 50. And then let's start talking about all the stuff we can do to each one of them and what we're going to do with them afterwards. And so it leads to all these terrible things, including not just rape and murder, per se, but there's also sadomasochistic type of activity that go on or mutilation. Some of the players took particular delight in mutilating either other characters or the enemy, you know, or torture in a way to dispose of them in some kind of sadistic way, which, you know, everybody of course enjoyed at the time, but these are all problems. There's another problem with it is there's a disposition towards the occult, which biblically is called an abomination by God. In Deuteronomy and writing by Moses, Deuteronomy chapter 13 and Deuteronomy particularly chapter 18 where witchcraft, sorcery, necromancy, and of course there's necromancers throughout Dungeons and Dragons and sorcerers and all these types of things. A palm or I should say like fortune tellers and astrologers and all these types of things are condemned specifically in the Scripture themselves, the Bible. Deuteronomy 18, but you find it all being used in Dungeons and Dragons and these other fantasy role-playing games and so obviously you got a real problem there because like the very fact that witchcraft became more popular in America in the 1960s and And why was that? Why did witchcraft become more popular in America in the 1960s rather than the 1950s or 1940s or 1930s? Witchcraft became more popular in America. And then you had like the Wiccan societies starting up, and there are actual witchcraft orders. And there are now thousands of them all over the United States. But it really exploded in popularity in the 1960s. And why was that? It was because of Bewitched, the TV show. It's just a, what we think is just a comedy sitcom on TV back in the 60s. But here you have Samantha and Darren, her husband, and she's twinkling her nose and there's lots of laughs. But people picked up on that and started thinking witchcraft must be fun. And next thing you know, it starts to increase in popularity unlike any time in the past. So Dungeons and Dragons, by correlation. could easily do the same thing, leading into the occult, witchcraft, sorcery, necromancy, all these types of things. So that's another danger I would outline with it. And of course, it leads to situational ethics is another problem with the game. You're presented with a problem-solving situation. How do you solve it? Well, suddenly, morals and ethics don't have to do with anything. It's, what can I get out of this encounter? Stab that guy in the back while he's over there talking to that guy and I get all his points for killing him and I can take all his treasure will give me more points and build my character up to the next level. Well, let me do that because really that's the bottom line of Dungeons and Dragons. Building that character up from level one, level two, level three, level four and up, up, up. So situational ethics become the law of the land. Morality, ethics, what's right and what's wrong have nothing to do with it. And so, obviously, that's another major problem. And if people take that correlation into their real life, into what they do on a normal day-to-day basis at their job, They go to their job and suddenly they see a certain situation that resembles something in one of their Dungeons and Dragons encounters. Yeah, well, let's see, my character got away with it. Maybe I ought to just try stealing that over there just while no one's looking or what, you know, whatever it is. They start, they can start to take something, a situational ethic out of the game and then actually use it in real life. And of course, all these things, of course, are referred to as sins in the scripture. So there's no moral or ethical standard like you get from a biblical perspective, the Ten Commandments, which I've already referenced to. The only standard in Dungeons and Dragons and other role-playing games is How do I get my character up to the next level and just keep moving up all the way through? That's the bottom line. Like any game you play, how do I win in Monopoly? Get the most money and wipe the other guys out by mortgaging them to death. Stuff like that. Well, that's the way you win. Of course, there's no real winners in the sense of Dungeons & Dragons because it's just an endless game. It just doesn't end. I already said I had a 19th-level Magic user. And I could use that game from game to game. The Dungeon Masters I had in high school in Houston were not the same Dungeon Masters I had in college. When I came to Austin to go to University of Texas, those are different guys than the ones I had. But I could use my character built up in another game and bring him into someone else's dungeon and play him there. So this game is not restricted to one dungeon master in his own dungeon. You can take your character to any dungeon you want, whoever's a dungeon master, wherever they are in the United States or around the world and play the game. So basically, with all these things mentioned, we just have to say that in conclusion that Dungeons and Dragons is just not of God. When you think of the theology of the gods mentioned in Dungeons and Dragons, where you have evil clerics and good clerics, and they have different deities, and some deities are higher than other deities, and you've got demigods. So there's a big religious aspect thrown into Dungeons and Dragons. And like I said before, as a Dungeon Master, I made anybody that had a cleric as their character, I made them do prayers. I said, look, if you want to get anything off your god, you're going to have to pray to him. And you better pray to him right now. Because otherwise, that orc could come over and slice your head off before you get the prayer said. So you better say it real fast. And I would get these guys to actually kneel on the floor overhead and say prayers to these imaginary gods that their cleric was supposed to be worshiping, right? So he could get some kind of conjured spell to fight off whatever he's being attacked with or whatever he was attacking. So you have all this stuff going on. And in conclusion, I'd just like to finish with what I basically started with, which is Ephesians chapter five in the Bible, verses 15, 16, and 17. See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time. Dungeons and Dragons will chew up all your time and get your mind into something that's basically a waste of time. Because the days are evil, the scripture says. Wherefore, be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. And the will of the Lord is, of course, that we should live holy before a holy God. live righteously, and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, and repenting of our sins, and believing on Him for our salvation. So many people, they say they're Christians, and I claimed to be a Christian back then when I was doing all this, for all those years. I was raised in the church, but mainly it was when I went to churches on Easter and Christmas. And the rest of the time, it's too boring to go to church. And most of the time, my parents made me go, and I didn't want to go. But I still had this idea, well, you know, I better believe in it just in case, you know, like fire insurance. But I didn't really believe in it. It's just sort of like, well, it's something I was raised with. It's like a tradition. But what you have to understand here is, even if you're in a church right now, but you don't have that true commitment to Christ in your life, Well, you'll end up just like me and all my 14 followers. And I think all of us were at least professing Christians or at least churchgoers of some sort. I mean, we're really more like secular college guys, to tell you the truth. But we all have been raised in some church by our families. And so we had some kind of nominal religious belief. But what I'm talking about here is getting away from that nominal religious belief, because you can have that all day and end up Being a murderer a rapist being a dungeon master What we're talking about here is having a actual commitment to the living God of the scriptures in a trust in the risen Christ Jesus Christ and living your life day to day in in His knowledge and for Him rather than just this wishy-washy type stuff. And that's what Ephesians 5 and these verses I just read are all about. It's living and knowing what the will of God is. And Dungeons and Dragons is not it. Anyway, I thank you for allowing us to be here on the program. It's been a pleasure, Steve. And Dave, thanks for being with us. And if you ever need us for anything else, just let us know. Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth, fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness which is idolatry. For which things sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience? in the which ye also walked sometime when ye lived in them. But now ye also put off all these anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth. Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. 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. Those things which ye have both learned and received, and heard, and seen in me, do. And the God of peace shall be with you. Check out our websites. BibleQuery.org. This site answers 7,700 Bible questions. HistoryCart.com. This site reveals early church history and doctrine, proving Roman Catholicism is not historically or doctrinally viable. MuslimHope.com. This site is a classic refutation of Islam, a counterfeit religion created by Muhammad. Free newsletters are also available. Hello, this is Larry Wessels, director of Christian Answers of Austin, Texas, Christian Debater. My daughter Marlena has come out with a Christian music CD entitled Win This Fight. It has eight songs that she has written and performed herself. Some of the song titles are Win This Fight, Love Song to My Lord, Vessel to You, Waiting to Hear from You, Jesus is and others. YouTube viewers can listen and see Marlena's music video Jesus is right now free. Just type Marlena Wessels M-A-R-L-E-N-A W-E-S-S-E-L-S in the YouTube search box and click on her video on the page that comes next. If you would like more information about getting a copy of her CD, just email us at cdebater at aol.com. That's c-d-e-b-a-t-e-r at aol.com. Or give us a call at 512-218-8022. Thank you, and may the Lord bless you and yours.