Lulled to Sleep: Ready to Throw Out My T.V.

Recently, I saw a television commercial about getting cable/dish that stunned me. The spokeswoman was trying to convince her audience that we needed to “take charge of [our] money,” (good thing she is going to empower me to be able to do that!). What she said next was what stopped me dead in my tracks. “Start with something that you use everyday...like your t.v.” Wow. Everyday?  Yes, I use it nearly everyday. That is a sad truth.

Television. I am free in Christ to watch it. Great. I grew up with television and have never been without one. There's a cost that comes with that truth. A cost that is hard to detect without being fully alert.

The Cost

I have noticed in my desire to be passionate about Christ, that the T.V. has become a consistently dousing, cold bucket of water on the fire of my affections for Jesus and the Gospel. As a husband with a responsibility to bring my house under the Lordship of Jesus Christ through prayer and supplication for ourselves and others in need, through meditation and devotion on God's Word, through spending time letting my wife's heart and needs be made known, everything is against me, but nothing more vehemently, however, than the television set. Once that confounded, time-sucking siren of banality is turned on, my passion wanes and I more easily fall into a trap of “I will lead worship and prayer tomorrow night.” Tomorrow comes, and the T.V. is turned on after a long day for either me or my wife, and the cycle of lulling and passion killing resumes. Maybe tomorrow night...

Lulled, Unawares

My haunting suspicion is that not many Christian men are even fighting that battle. I know moms are often more in the battle because their husbands have checked out. Their husbands are already asleep. Dead. Bored. The last thing they want to do after a full day at work is lead the family in the devotions, especially if there is any possibility that their wife will push back in the slightest. With each passing evening of the flickering light of the t.v., the dulling of the senses to the endless levity of sitcoms (complete with audience directing you to what is, in the producers' eyes, funny), the weakening of the battle against sexual desires with more innuendo flung our way than we are often even aware, soon becomes the family's undoing; ripples often go longer distances and have deeper effects than we are aware, or might imagine.

RESIST!

Be serious! Be alert! Your adversary the Devil is prowling around like a roaring lion, looking for anyone he can devour. Resist him and be firm in the faith... (1 Pet 5:8-9a HCSB)

Peter gives us some imperatives or commands while trying to give hope and encouragement to Christians facing trials, trials that aim to wear them down.  

First, be serious (clear-minded), and be alert (watchful)! Those are not options if we are to be victorious in our passion for Christ and passing on the faith to our children. Your enemy, Satan, does not tire of trying to overtake us, throwing everything he will have to in order to take us out. So Peter gives us an imperative he learned the hard away from our Lord. “And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping. And he said to Peter, ‘So, could you not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation’” (Matt 26:40-41). Is Peter's advice not similar to Jesus’? His purpose for the advice is even very similar to Jesus': because you have an enemy working against you.

Second, Peter says “Resist him!” Of course, if our guard is down, temptation is a great tool for the Enemy's arsenal, and how are we to resist if our weakness under the armor is exposed?

Third, “Be firm in the faith.” Part of the key to understanding how to stand firm in the faith is not only to be awake, alert, and resisting the Devil, but it means, I think, what Peter had said in 1 Pet 1:13: “Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” A clear mind, sober in judgment and set like flint against the Enemy, is a mind set on the GRACE that will be brought to us. We lay hold of the promises that leading our family in devotions will bear fruit, and that the trials of this life, although difficult, can be overcome by knowing that grace is coming to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ! 

Concluding Thoughts

Undoubtedly, some Christians are stronger. They can watch some T.V., analyze and separate the good and the useless parts of it, their hearts strong and still able to fight the good fight; but I really think that this is not the case for the majority of us. The television/Netflix streaming is probably the biggest time-waster and killer of our passion for the Gospel [i.e. the Reign and Supremacy of Christ, the salvation of the lost, holiness, social justice, etc.]. We have little zeal for Scripture reading in our homes, we have little time for prayer for the perpetual needs of our home life and for those in our communities, for teaching doctrinal basics of the faith once delivered to all the saints so that our families might be kept from being tattered by worldliness and damning doctrines (Eph 4:14), for being alert against temptations of greener grass syndromes, for walking our sons through the anciently-tread paths of manhood, and our daughters to know that they are always good enough for our attention (always to be loved without condition), etc., etc.

Some may see getting rid of the television as legalistic. Legalism is a motivation of the heart to earn grace. I can no more earn God's grace than I can atone for the sins of mankind. So let's not go there. Wisdom is needed here for every family. Some can handle T.V. responsibly, some cannot. One problem, however, is that too many families believe that they can handle it, when in truth, they cannot. They have not searched themselves to see that their television viewing is killing their passions, it is lulling them to sleep, and it is numbing them to worldliness.

My hope isn't to instill more feelings of condemnation and failure. It is to realize that as those born from above, we have the ability and power to resist worldliness, the Devil, and sin! Because we know that there will be grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ, grace beyond anything that we can comprehend in this life. It is yours. Take it. Fight your unbelief by means of the Spirit. The faith is a victory won by our Sovereign God. Nevertheless, it isn't won sitting idly in front of the boob-tube. It is won by perseverance, “for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Phil 2:13). 

I think it is seriously time for us to think about ditching the T.V. and bringing family worship and doctrine back into the home. Rest is necessary from the daily grind, but sometimes that rest finds more refreshment in time with God as a family. Not necessarily Bible study, but through Scripture reading, catechism, and through family prayer time. Rest and refreshment isn't about idleness, it is actually fighting for and panting at the river of God's delights.