Chapter 8, Sinful Entertainment My sons love flashlights. Flashlights are wonderful for exploring dark closets or waging lightsaber battles. From a parent's point of view, it's a pretty good thing. Until the batteries run out. There is just one rule. Don't shine the flashlights in people's eyes. Common sense, right? Then I see my three-year-old walking around the house with his flashlight turned on and pointed directly into his eye. This was no momentary thing. He was actually holding the flashlight flush up against his eye and looking into it. I promptly took the flashlight away and he was put on a long-term flashlight embargo until his mom and I say differently. What really struck me was how sad he was that I was taking away his flashlight. There was no gratitude, like, thank you, Dad, for preventing me from blinding myself. Just sadness at the privilege he had lost. He couldn't even see that what he wanted was actually destroying him. So many Christians don't seem to recognize that the entertainment they love is destroying their souls. In the previous chapter, we considered the disproportionate quantity of our entertainment. Now we must consider more than the quantity, but the quality of our entertainment. Sometimes entertainment is simply sinful. Most Christians agree with that statement. Problem is when we try to define how often sometimes really is. How about that show? How about that website? How are we to tell the difference? Principle, not pragmatics. God is the God of the heart. He is never satisfied with externals. God demands that our hearts belong wholly to Him. He commands His people to, "...keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life." Proverbs 4, 23. The Lord Jesus Christ said, "...blessed are the pure in heart, that they shall see God." Matthew 5, 8. Christians must dive deep into the condition of the heart as we follow after the Lord. As we battle our sin, we cannot be pragmatists, looking to find the amount of sin we can acceptably indulge. The Christians' call to holiness is a far cry from questions like, how far is too far? Pragmatic approaches lose sight of what sin really is, namely rebellion against God and poison for our souls. Pragmatic approaches lose sight of what the Christian life really is. Our goal is not to maximize our intake of sin. Our goal is to flee immorality, Ephesians 5.3, and grow in godliness, 1 Timothy 4.8. So as we consider the sin that is present in our entertainment, let us submit to wherever the Lord wants to lead us. Our Lord is zealous for the hearts of His people. You hear that zeal when He says things like, But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell. Matthew 5, 28 through 30. We hear in the Lord's words, not how far is too far, we hear a zeal for the complete purity of His people's hearts. There is no sin the Lord wants us to accept, no sin that we should pragmatically allow. No, the Lord calls for a no-holds-barred warfare on the sin that dishonors Him and kills us. He commands us to cut off any show or website that undermines His purposes. Let us not minimize the Lord's desire for our holiness. Instead, let us strive for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. Hebrews 12, 14. Don't underestimate the sin present in our entertainment. No one is surprised that bad company ruins good morals. 1 Corinthians 15.33. So likewise, we should not be surprised that sinful entertainment produces a similar effect. But what makes entertainment sinful? It's easy to underestimate sin by thinking it's only in one area. For example, pornography. It's easy to underestimate sin by thinking it's only in one show. For example, whatever scandalous show is happening right now. But the sin in our entertainment is truly everywhere. Sin is like the black mold of the internet, pervading shows and websites, video and audio. There is no limiting principle to our sin. It wants to spread as far as it can go through every opportunity it can seize. In an age of multimedia sin, we face multifaceted threats to our souls. We need robust, biblical discernment to navigate our digital lives. We cannot focus on merely one sin. We cannot focus on merely one medium. We cannot merely blacklist the bad sites or the bad shows. We must instead be a people of active biblical discernment, taking captive the hostile thoughts of this age that run rampant in our entertainment. Start with God's values. In discerning the sin present in entertainment, it is critical to ask what values are being espoused. The scriptures teach us to look for values that are hostile to God and the believer. Paul's list of the works of the flesh in Galatians 5, 19 through 21 serves as a powerful starting point for exposing sin in our entertainment. Rather than starting with a list of sinful shows and sites, a more potent Christian strategy would be to start by looking for sinful principles. Take again the example of sexual sin. Paul identifies a wide sweep of sexual sin in the works of the flesh. He calls out immorality, impurity, and sensuality. Equipped with the principles of God's word, we are now equipped not only to recognize the sin in pornography, but also the immorality of the new show that the culture is talking about. God's word equips us beyond the items on our list. It equips us for the varied threats of the diverse digital world in which we live. Take a different sin from Paul's works of the flesh, such as envy. Envy often escapes attention, which makes its damage all the more severe. Does our entertainment ever fan the flames of envy in our hearts? Most definitely. Whether it's the physique we lack, the home we don't have, or the lifestyle we'll never enjoy, entertainment is often laid in with the question, don't you wish you had this? Envy might not trigger someone's blacklist, but Christian discernment is capable of recognizing what slips through the cracks in our defenses. It would be overwhelming to fully explore the array of sins infused in our entertainment. but a brief survey might suffice for the moment. Consider how often our entertainment espouses values that the Lord opposes. Autonomy. Themes of being in charge of one's life delete God from the picture altogether. I need to be true to me, therefore I do what I want to do, I follow my heart, I express myself, I love who I want, et cetera. Autonomy is just the garden all over again. Who is God to tell me what to do? I'll decide what is right and wrong. Sexuality. We constantly display our sinful and broken sexuality in entertainment. A modest dress titillates and sets a terrible example. Romance and sexuality entice us to lust over what we don't have. Our brokenness is particularly grotesque in pornography. Women are subjugated and trafficked. Men and women alike are enslaved. And God's gift of sexuality is transformed into a perverse curse. Anger and contention. Sometimes we go to our entertainment to get mad. The host mocks the other side and we get the sinful satisfaction of being sure that we are right while also hating our neighbor. worldliness. This is a wide net, but it is critical to remember that a sinful influence need not be taboo. No one should assume that Hallmark or Disney are going to lead us in the way of righteousness. The more attuned you are to the Lord's values, the more you notice the pervasive themes of disrespect, gossip, and harsh language smuggled into even the least offensive forms of entertainment. As we might expect, the world departs from the Word at every possible opportunity. As we steep ourselves in God's values, we grow more able of discerning the ungodly influences surrounding us. But now what do we do? Fighting the battle for the heart. It would be convenient to think that we could solve this problem by dumping every form of worldly entertainment, boycott Hollywood, avoid the theater, and ban all the bad books. But for whatever we could avoid out there, we would still have our hearts to deal with. To be clear, we must not simply accept everything the world puts in front of us. In fact, some people's comfort level with worldly entertainment is dangerously naive. but discernment regarding matters of sin and spiritual health demands that we look inward before we look outward. Instead of asking what forms of entertainment are sinful, we should first ask what we find entertaining. If we enjoy watching sexual scenes, we have a heart problem. If we enjoy envying other people's lives, we have a heart problem. If we enjoy sin, we have a heart problem. We must repent of liking sin. As new creations in Christ, we're meant for the fruit of the Spirit, and instead we settle for the sewage of the world. What wretched people we can be when we love what hung our Savior on that cross. Father, forgive us. In this first and most important front of the battle, this fight is a matter of holiness. We will not live unstained by this world's entertainment if we are indulging unholiness in our lives. A holy walk must flow from a holy heart. If we are not fighting the battle within, the battle without is impossible. Taking captive the world's values. As we fight the battle within by the help of the Holy Spirit, we find that neither the fight within nor the fight without are hopeless. The sword of the Spirit is capable of defeating digital dangers. The Word of God gives us the means to not only identify sinful influence, but to defeat them as well. If we have learned first that we must not indulge the values of the world, let us now consider how we attack the values of the world. If we can recognize a sinful influence, how do we combat it? See sin for what the Word of God says it really is. See sin's fearful judge. If God's law is being broken, let the evil of that transgression be front and center. There should be no wink, wink, nudge, nudge approach to sin that sees sin as secretly pleasant or acceptable. Sin is an affront to a holy God who will bring justice to every sin. Psalm 2, 10 through 12, Ecclesiastes 12, 14. See sin as deadly. Sin's lie is always that there is something desirable about sin. But in reality, sin is stinking sewage we pour into our souls. It is decaying filth in which we wallow. It is poison that we swallow to our demise. Romans 6, 23. See sin in light of the cross. Never forget the love of our Savior. If we recognize a sinful influence in light of the cross, we are seeing what Christ had to die for. 1 Peter 3.18. May his blood be more precious than the temptations of our entertainment. In addition to this broad approach to sin, memorize what God's word says about your particular temptations. The Bible speaks very specifically to our sins. Take advantage of God's help by making use of His Word. God's Word can show you the sinfulness of sin, shed light on dark paths, and give sweet hope for the tempted saint. Be vigilant. There's no other choice. As soon as we take seriously the call to recognize and resist the influence of the world's entertainment, we take on a battle that will last the rest of our lives. There is no show or website in which we are completely safe. And so there is no point in our entertainment when we get to let our guard down. The world's assault on God's values is ceaseless. Recognizing this need for vigilance helps us to answer a concrete question. What entertainment can we partake of? Discernment offers us a flexible yet practical answer. What entertainment we can partake of depends on what level of spiritual warfare we are up for. Every form of entertainment produced by sinful man will have at least the potential, if not outright intent, for sinfully influencing us. Whether we are influenced by that sin depends on whether we have recognized and taken captive that influence. Every exposure to entertainment is at least a potential battle. Are you ready for the battle? If you are not up for the battle that your entertainment represents, it's better not to expose yourself to it. In reality, some forms of entertainment present an incredibly difficult battle for our souls. Some entertainment feels like entering an act of gunfight. Far from giving us a replenishing time of enjoyment, the entertainment endangers our purity and demands an exhausting commitment to avoid and defeat sinful influences. The peril inherent in some forms of entertainment forces us to ask, What possible reason could we have to bother with such dangerous and exhausting entertainment? A Christian who prioritizes holiness will find some entertainment to be simply unacceptable. Moreover, a Christian who knows their own weaknesses will not settle for what works for others. Christians who are aware of their own temptations will not eagerly venture out to test the roaring lion who hopes to devour them. Summary. Principled Christians find that entertainment represents a constant battle. but God has equipped us by his word to recognize and resist the sinful influences present in our entertainment. Although Christians are equipped for the battle, the difficulty represented by entertainment should cause Christians to count the cost of partaking. Entertainment is not inherently safe and good. Rather, it is another front in the spiritual warfare to which Christians are called. Applications. Number one. Are you tempted to take a pragmatic, how far is too far attitude toward entertainment? What would it look like for you to have a more principled attitude toward sinful influences in your entertainment? Number two. Evaluate your sources of entertainment. Do they have any sinful effects on you? For example, anger, lust, envy, et cetera. Number three. Find one or two passages from scripture that really help you with the sinful effects of entertainment. Commit these passages to memory and to your prayer life. Number four. How can seemingly safe entertainment still represent a sinful influence? What kinds of dangers are present? Number five. Being exposed to the world's influences demands vigilance of Christians. How are you doing at being vigilant in your entertainment? How do you need to grow?