The Devil’s Powerful Tools

                                                                                                                                                               Vol. XXIV, No. 1, January 2011

We used to think ofthe liquor store, or the local bar, or the gambling den as the Devil's favorite tools in leading people down the road to hell. But they have been far out distanced now by TV and the Internet. The previous list appealed largely to adults, including teens who thought of themselves as adults. But with these newer tools Satan starts at the pre-school level. He uses them positively and negatively. Negatively, they deprive children of far more valuable information, culture, and values. Positively, they fill youngsters' minds with ideas, concepts, desires that can only lead them away trom what is mentally and spiritually helpful.

Parents who allow their children treedom to watch TV as they will are pushing them into Satan's hands. And even if the programs are carefully selected, so much of the time what the children receive is mere entertainment, with little of real culture and mental challenge.

Children who are permitted to play with the Internet as they will are being deliberately sold into Satan's hands. Pornography on the Internet is a multi-billion dollar business, and much of the business is aimed directly at our youth.

Parents can argue for the educational value of TV, and perhaps the Internet, but the educational and spiritual damage they cause is inestimable. The soul of our nation is being twisted into a demonic form. If the situation is to be changed for the better, then parents will have to take charge oftheir children's habits.

The late media critic Neil Postman wrote, "If parents wish to preserve childhood for their own children, they must conceive of parenting as an act of rebellion against culture." He enlarged on that as he wrote, "But most rebellious of all is the attempt to control the media's access to one's children. There are, in fact, two ways to do this. The first is to limit the amount of exposure children have to media. The second is to monitor carefully what they are exposed to, and to provide them with a continuously running critique of the themes and values of the media's content. Both are very difficult to do and require a level of attention that most parents are not prepared to give to child-rearing."

If there is to be any real change, then parents must change their own habits. We cannot expect the government to do anything about the situation. And it is obvious that the media itself is not going to give up their pot of gold. In fact, the media is deliberately working to condition the public to want what is being offered. Their argument is that they are giving people what they want, but they are also working hard to create a desire for such stuff.

Christians all – parents, grandparents, youth – need to start thinking of all the media in marketing terms: virtually all one sees on TV, in the movies, and in print is actually part of one big campaign designed to separate the American public – adults and youth – from any Christian values.

TV is a fearful power. Children's minds are soft and pliable, and they are at the age when their reception of knowledge is almost daily visible. If TV is watched at length, it becomes their tutor, shaping their mental landscape, and their cognitive world. It is a mind-altering drug.

It is obvious that many people regard TV as an essential. But in reality it becomes a narcotic, with the result that those so affected have little conception of its power over them.

[Reprinted from the April 2007 issue of The Watchman, M. O. Owens, Jr., editor. You can request a free subscription by contacting Owens Ministries, Inc., P.O. Box 2066, Gastonia, NC 28053.]