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to preach even a part of this classic chapter in the Word of God, but Father so much of it is pertinent to the message this morning and so God I pray that you would use the Word of God in our minds and manifest your word through the preaching this morning God and please help every one of us to have a tender heart to what's preached and not to bristle at the Word of God but to be receptive and to hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. God please bless everyone who comes today Father and it's just a blessing to have people that will come out on a Sunday morning in today's world and come to church because they love you and because they want to learn about the things of God and so bless everyone who's here today and in Jesus' name I pray, amen. I don't want to read something for you before I begin in way of introduction. Let me read this for you, this is called The Stranger and this is actually kind of a poem of sorts but it's also a true story. Let me read this story, it's called The Stranger. A few months before I was born my dad met a stranger who was new to our small Tennessee town. From the beginning dad was fascinated with this enchanting newcomer and soon invited him to live with our family. The stranger was quickly accepted and was around to welcome me into the world a few months later. As I grew up I never questioned his place in our family. In my mind each member had a special place. My brother Bill, five years my senior, was my example. Fran, my younger sister, gave me an opportunity to play big brother and developed the art of teasing. My parents were complimentary instructors. Mom taught me to love the word of God and dad taught me to obey it but the stranger was our storyteller. He could weave the most fascinating tales. Adventures, mysteries and comedies were daily conversations. He could hold our whole family spellbound for hours each evening. If I wanted to know about politics, history or science he knew it all. He knew about the past, understood the present and seemingly could predict the future. The pictures he could draw were so lifelike that I would often laugh or cry as I watched. He was like a friend to the whole family. He took dad Bill and me to our first major league baseball game. He was always encouraging us to see the movies and he even made arrangements to introduce us to several movie stars. My brother and I were deeply impressed by John Wayne in particular. The stranger was an incessant talker. Dad didn't seem to mind but sometimes mom would quietly get up while the rest of us were enthralled with one of his stories of faraway places, go to her room, read her bible and pray. I wonder now if she ever prayed that the stranger would leave. You see my dad ruled our household with certain moral convictions but this stranger never felt obligation to honor them. Profanity for example was not allowed in our house, not from us, from our friends or adults. Our long time visitor however used occasional four letter words that burned my ears and made dad squirm. To my knowledge the stranger was never confronted. My dad was a teacodler who didn't permit alcohol in his home, not even for cooking. But the stranger felt like we needed exposure and enlightened us to other ways of life. He offered us beer and other alcoholic beverages often. He made cigarettes look tasty, cigars manly and pipes distinguished. He talked freely, probably too much too freely, much too freely about sex. His comments were sometimes blatant, sometimes suggestive and generally embarrassing. I know now that my early concepts of the man-woman relationship were influenced by the stranger. As I look back I believe it was the grace of God that the stranger did not influence us more. Time after time he opposed the values of my parents yet he was seldom rebuked and never asked to leave. More than 30 years have passed since the stranger moved in with the young family on Morningside Drive. He's not nearly so intriguing to my dad as he was in those early years but if I were to walk into my parents den today you would still see him sitting over in a corner waiting for someone to listen to him talk and watch him draw his pictures. Oh his name? Well we just always called him The Television. That's pretty good huh? How many of you did not know what it was about until the very end? The first time I heard that I had no clue until just that last phrase and I was just taken aback. But I want to talk to you today about The Television. Now let me read to you from this great chapter. If you would keep your Bibles open to 2 Peter chapter 2 because I can't really show you everything I want to in this chapter because it would take several weeks of preaching literally but there's so much in this great passage and on very many subjects. And the Bible is so vast I love the Bible because it's inexhaustible. You could read this book a million billion times and you wouldn't even scratch the surface because this book is as infinite as God is. And so I believe, I strongly believe that after we've been in heaven for billions of years, billions of years fellowshipping with God, knowing Jesus Christ on a face to face basis, I don't think we'll, I think that he'll pull out the Bible a billion years from now and say, hey Steve let me show you something that you've never seen before. Because that's the way the Bible is, it's vast, it's infinite as God is. But let me show you some things out of this great chapter. If you would look at 2 Peter chapter 2, look at verse number 6. And there's so much here but I just want to show you a few highlights. But the Bible here talks about a man named Lot and the Bible says, and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them with an overflow, this is God that destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, making them an example unto those that after should live ungodly and delivered just Lot. Now that word just, sometimes if you read that you might think it means he only delivered Lot, he delivered just Lot. But actually that word just is talking about a just person, a righteous person, a saved person. And so it's saying he delivered just Lot when he destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. You remember how he sent his two angels into Sodom and Gomorrah and they warned Lot, they warned his family and they brought Lot and his two daughters and his wife out of Sodom and Gomorrah. But look at verse number 8, God puts a little parenthesis, and I'm always fascinated when God does things like this, just the fact that he uses parenthesis here, because it's so rare in the Bible, it draws my attention. And the Bible says in verse number 8, for that righteous man, again we see he's a righteous man, this is a godly man, this is a Christian, dwelling among them in seeing and hearing vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds. It says that this man was a righteous man, he was a godly man, and he lived in Sodom and Gomorrah, the most wickedest city in the world at that time. A city where homosexuality ran rampant, a city where violence was the norm, a city where everything was a big joke if you read the story. It was all about humor, and I'm not against humor of course, but there's time to be serious in life and everything to them was just a big joke, rah rah, eat, drink, be merry, have a good time, wicked place. And the Bible says that he vexed his righteous soul daily just by seeing and hearing the ungodliness of these people that he lived with. Now, what does the word vex mean? Well, I was looking it up in the dictionary and just studying this word and thinking about it, but the word vex means to agitate. It means it disturbed him, it irritated him, it bothered him. Let me ask you something. When you watch that television, do you ever get bothered by some of the things that you see? Do you ever get agitated? I mean, I remember just growing up and as an adult watching the television and something ungodly would come on the television. You know, I thought it was a clean program, I thought it was a good movie, I thought it was rated PG or what have you. And I'm sitting there watching it and something just vile would come on. And I would just ugh, and it would vex my righteous soul, it would agitate me, it would bother me, it would disturb me. And it would really just ugh, vex me. Well, you know what, that's exactly what happened here with Lot. Don't be proud of the fact that it vexes you because you're the one that turned that thing on. The Bible says here, he vexed his righteous soul daily. So who was responsible for the vexing? Was it Sodom and Gomorrah's fault? Was it God's fault? No sir, it was Lot's fault because he turned on that infernal machine and he watched and he heard their unlawful deeds and God's saying here, he vexed his righteous soul. Now you go back and read the story in Genesis, you'll find out how this man Lot's life ended up. You say, well that sounds like me, I'm a righteous person, I come to church, I love God, I don't cuss, I don't drink, I try to live right, I don't take drugs, I don't live promiscuously, I try to dress modestly. You sound like Lot because you're seeing and hearing ungodly deeds and it vexes your righteous soul. You want to know how Lot ended up? Well, his wife ended up being killed because of his ungodliness, then his two daughters ended up becoming perverts. You say, sorry I'm not going to go into it, but you're on the same track if that's where you're at, where you're getting irritated and vexed. And I remember, there came a day in my life when I read this exact verse, 2 Peter chapter 2, verse 8, and I read that verse and I said, that's me, that's the way I feel, I get so irritated when I see the sin and the ungodliness on the television and I said, that's it, I'm never watching the television again. And that's been three or four years ago now. And I haven't had one in my house for about six years. But the one thing, the one thing that I wish I could get everybody that's sitting in this congregation to understand, if there's one thing I could get across to you in this sermon right now, is that I literally have no desire to watch the television. Now, you say, well, what are you, some kind of a holy, you know, you think you're better than everybody else? No. Because once you break that addiction, once you get rid of it, you don't even miss the stupid thing. Because it's something that makes you a slave. It's something that puts you in bondage. It's just like alcohol, it's just like drugs, it's just like anything else. Where you start out, it's fun, it's exciting, and then it just gets old and boring, and then you gotta move up to the next level of drugs, or you gotta move up to the next level of alcohol or get into marijuana, it just gets worse and worse, and pretty soon people take drugs not to get high, just to maintain themselves. And they have to take some other drug in order to actually get high. You know, that's the way it is with the television. It's just some drug, it's some kind of a reality escape that you do not need. What do you need it for? You say, well, man, I just don't understand what I would do all day if I didn't have the television. Well, that, that, there's the problem right there. Should that tell you something, maybe? If you feel like you're dependent on this machine that was just invented in the 1940s, what did people do for the last 6,000 years before they had that thing? I'll tell you what they did. They spent time with their family. I'll tell you what they did. They communicated with their spouse. I'll tell you what they did. They enjoyed fellowship with the family and with their wife and with their kids. What'd they do? They played board games, they read books, they went to the park, they played, they had fun, they played sports, they did things instead of sitting around letting somebody decide, this is what you're going to believe, this is what you're going to think, this is what your opinion's going to be, this is what you're going to know. We will serve it to you. Open your mouth. Here it is. Take it. Now, that's what people did before they had the television. That's what people did for 5,940 years before they had the television, but in the last 65 years, we just can't seem to live without it, can we? Acts 4.20, here's a great verse from the Word of God. I'll just read this for you. For we cannot speak the things which we've seen and heard. You see it and hear it, you're going to speak it. It's going to come out of your mouth, just as sure as I'm standing here. But look, if you're in 2 Peter, look at verse number 14. Again, I'm just hitting the highlights, I have to blow through a lot of this. 2 Peter chapter 2 verse 14, the Bible says here, having eyes full of adultery. What does that mean? How can your eyes be full of adultery? Well, if you remember the words of Jesus Christ in Matthew chapter 5 in the great Sermon on the Mount, he said, I say unto you that if a man looketh on a woman to lust after her, he hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. Did you catch that? It says that a man who looks at a woman and lusts after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. Well, that's wicked, that's vile. And God says here that their eyes are full of adultery. Don't tell me that there's no adultery on the television, because I'm not stupid. I wasn't born yesterday, okay? I didn't fall off the turnip truck this morning. I have seen the television, it is filled with adultery, both literally and in the way that the women dressed are just inviting you, sir, commit adultery with me in your mind. But look what else it says in the same verse, look at verse 14, having eyes full of adultery and that cannot cease from sin. What does that mean? They can't stop. He's saying their eyes are full of adultery and they can't stop. They can't stop. You say, I can stop anytime. Yeah, right, you're a liar. Stop then, for I'll challenge anybody in this room, everybody in this room right now, if you will stop watching television for four weeks, I mean you walk up and you unplug that thing for four weeks solid and don't plug it in, I will take you out to the fanciest restaurant in this whole city and I will buy you a meal at that restaurant if you will unplug it for four weeks solid. I'll do it. Why? Because you can't. I'll keep all my money in my pocket or prove me wrong because these people who God's talking about here, he says their eyes are full of adultery and they just can't stop. They can't cease from sin. You know, don't tell me that the women that are dressed on the television are dressed even within light years of the way women are supposed to dress. I mean, anything wrong, you name it, it's there. And I don't care if you're watching Leave it to Beaver, I don't care if you're watching Family Feud, I don't care if you're watching, you know, whatever you feel like is the most clean game show, as soon as the commercials come on, boom, you're in the strip club, boom, you're watching the underwear ads, boom, you're watching the beer commercial, boom, you're watching everything that's wrong and, oh, you know what I'm talking about, it's the truth. Look at verse number 14 again. They cannot cease from sin. And then, boy, this is the worst part right here. Beguiling unstable souls. What's that talking about? Deceiving unstable souls. That's talking about children. I mean, we're talking about an unstable soul. A kid, they don't know what's right, they don't know what's wrong, and they're being deceived by the television. Did you know that before the age of five, here's a statistic for you, before the age of five, the average child spends more time in front of TV than a liberal arts college student spends in the classroom for his entire four-year degree. Did you know that? The average child, Texas, before they're five years old, spends more time in front of the television as, you know, Brother Jeremy does getting his four-year degree down at ASU. So by the time your kid's five years old, just hand them a diploma that they can put on the wall that says, you have a four-year degree in sin. You have a four-year degree in adultery. You have a four-year degree in bias. Well, you know, what's wrong with all this, what's so bad on the television? Well, let me tell you what's so bad on television. I did a little research on this. By the age of 12, a child will have witnessed 12,000 violent deaths on television, the average child. The Center for Media and Public Affairs recently surveyed a day's TV program and identified 1,846 violent scenes in one day's television programming. The most violent periods were between 6 and 9 a.m., with 497 violent scenes, and between 2 and 5 p.m., with 609 violent scenes. Now, a lot of people misunderstand the word violence, of course. The word violence comes from the word violate, and the word violence is talking about somebody unlawfully, wrongfully hurting someone else, killing someone else, and it's all over the television. What about alcohol? Okay, the statistics are that the average viewer will see 90,000 incidents of drinking on television by age 21. So by the time they're age 21, they see 90,000 times they've watched somebody drink a glass of alcohol, 90,000 times, and on their 21st birthday, they're ready to go for it. They're ready to go get their own, because they've seen it 90,000 times. That'll program anybody. And they've also, in addition to that, they've seen 100,000 beer commercials by age 18. Look at the homosexuality that's promoted on the television. Now, to be honest with you, I probably can't even preach this part effectively because I haven't seen it in so long, but it was moving so fast back when I did watch it, I can only just imagine what it's like right now. But a lot of things people don't even think of. Look at the shows that have always been promoting homosexuality that have just moved us slowly there. Think about a show back in the 60s, The Odd Couple. What's it about? It's about two men who live together. They're totally straight, they're totally normal, they're not homosexuals, but what was it doing? It's just trying to get you in this mindset of an alternative lifestyle. Here's two men that live together. The Odd Couple. Ha ha. I don't think it's funny, because look where we're at now. Think about Sesame Street. Did you know that Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street? Literally, the characters that play Bert and Ernie are two homosexual men that have lived together for years. That's a fact. That's what you have your kids watching. Sesame Street's educational. It's helpful. No, it's perverted. It's programming you to think, Bert and Ernie, yeah, OK. And then Bert and Ernie, now they probably live down the street from me, Bert and Ernie. Because they grew up watching it and now they are Bert and Ernie in the flesh. But The Simpsons, and I've never really watched The Simpsons, but there's a character on there called Smithers. The voice of Smithers is played by a man named Harry Shearer, who's a queer. It's about Will and Grace, a show about a queer man who lives with a straight woman. Ha ha. One of the most popular shows on television is about some faggot. And that's what the kids are watching. And you say, well, my kids don't watch that. Well, how do you know what they're watching? Because they got the television in their room. They got the door shut. You don't even know what they're watching. Tell me that's not what they're watching. How about a couple of these other shows? Party of Five. I don't even know the show. Has lesbianism in the show. Friends, again, same thing. Chicago Hope, ER, Spin City, Suddenly Susan, Mad About You, all feature perverted queer characters in the shows. And I could go on and on with these false religions that are promoted on the television. Like there was a movie that came out recently, Battlefield Earth, John Travolta film. It's written by the man who started the Christian, I'm sorry, the Scientology cult, which is just a full blown cult. Everybody knows it's a cult. It was started by a man named L. Ron Hubbard. He wrote this book, Battlefield Earth. John Travolta, a devout Scientologist, as many of the perverts in Hollywood are devout Scientologists. He worked for 15 years to get this movie, Battlefield Earth, out there to try to promote Scientology. And it has subliminal messages in the video to try to get you into Scientology. I'm thinking of, I think Tom Cruise is another one that's a Scientologist. Nicole Kidman is another one, just to name a few. Turn to Psalm 101, if you would, right in the middle of your Bible. Book of Psalms. Psalm 101. Psalm 101. And I want to show you this great chapter in the Word of God. Psalm 101. Psalm 101. Everybody there pretty much? Okay, Psalm 101. I want to read this for you. I will sing of mercy and judgment unto thee, O Lord, will I sing. I will behave myself wisely in a perfect way. O, when wilt thou come unto me? I will walk within my house with a perfect heart. And then look at verse three. How's he going to do it? How's he going to have a perfect heart within the walls of his own home? I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes. You say, well, I didn't participate in it. You set it before your eyes and it's wicked. And God says, you're not perfect. You don't have a perfect heart. You're living wrong in your own house. I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes. I hate the work of them that turn aside. It shall not cleave to me. He says, I hate this garbage. Why would I watch it on television? Why would I set it before my eyes when I hate it? A forward heart shall depart from me. I will not know a wicked person. I will not know a wicked person. Boy, let's name off the actors and let's see how many of the children. Well, we have a lot of children this morning. I'm glad we have a lot of children in the service. I'd like to go around and quiz them and say, do you know a wicked person? Do you know Kobe Bryant? Do you know Arnold Schwarzenegger? Do you know John Travolta? Do you know Robin Williams? Do you know these people? Because David said, I don't want to know them. I don't want to know all the stars. I don't want to open up the magazine in the grocery store and read about how they're on their fifth marriage. I don't want to know them. I don't want to know a wicked person in my house. Look at verse number six again. Mine eyes, notice this over and over in this chapter, it's his eyes, what he's seeing. Mine eyes shall be upon the faithful of the land. Is that who's on TV? The faithful of the land? Is that who you saw? That they may dwell with me. He that walketh in a perfect way, he shall serve me. He that worketh deceit shall not dwell within my house. He that telleth lies shall not carry in my sight. See that word against sight? I will early destroy all the wicked of the land that I may cut off all wicked doers from the city of the Lord. Now let me read you the 23rd Psalm. This is not in the King James Version, this is the television version. The TV is my shepherd. I shall not want. It maketh me to lie down on the sofa. It leadeth me away from the scriptures. It destroyeth my soul. It leadeth me in the paths of sex and violence for the sponsor's sake. Yea, though I walk through the shadow of Christian responsibilities, there will be no interruption, for the TV is with me. Its cable and remote control, they comfort me. It prepareth the commercial before me in the presence of my worldliness. It anointeth my head with humanism. My covetousness runneth over. Surely laziness and ignorance shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in my house watching TV forever. That's funny, isn't it? You know, you say, well, we don't watch TV. You know, we know the TV's bad. I don't watch that garbage. I don't let them control what I think. I don't let them spoon feed me their philosophy of the world. I don't do that. I just have a VCR and I just put in just only clean videos. Like, we just have every Disney video that's ever been released and it's like piled to the ceiling in like a library and we have to get out one of those little rolling ladders to get all our Disney videos and that's all we watch. Just the clean stuff. Oh, you mean like the Lion King whose soundtrack is by Elton John. So you're listening to a man who's a queer and who's done other filthy things I'm not even going to mention, beastiality and so forth, that he admits to. He's a filthy pervert animal and he sings to kids to sleep at night. Look, God gave you a child. The Bible says children are the heritage of the Lord and when that child comes to you, it's like a blank piece of paper. Nobody has written on that paper. Nobody has taught them anything. Nobody has given them any kind of information. I mean, they're yours and God says, I'm giving you this child because I think that you, sir, and you, ma'am, are the best parents that this child could have and I'm giving this child to you and I want you to raise this child in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. And then what do you do? You take that child because you're too lazy to play with the child. You're too lazy to teach the child. You sit the child in a little boppy or whatever they call it, I don't know. They put him in this little boppy, this little chair in front of the television and you let Bird and Ernie teach your child. I'm going to tell you something. You know why I'm an independent fundamental Baptist today? You know why I'm a hellfire and damnation preacher? You know why I believe in righteous living? You know why I knock doors and go soul winning and win people to Christ every week of my life? I'll tell you why. Because when I was a little kid, there was a little phase when I was about four, five, six years old and we just happened to be in some really good churches during that time, really good preaching, very fundamental, very straight down the line. The whole rest of my life we kind of went to more liberal, loose churches and when I was a teenager we were going to very liberal churches, very liberal Baptist churches. How is it that by the time I was 17, 18 years old, I came to myself, I came full circle and here I am back where I was at when I was four, five, six years old. The same things I believe right now is what I believe as a four, five and six year old boy. How did that happen? Because those are the formative years. That's the vital time of training. That's where you're programming these children. That's where you're training up a child and the way he should go. I remember when I was in Indiana, I was a Sunday school teacher for ages four, five and then all the way up through second grade. And I remember thinking to myself and I'm not exaggerating, I'm not kidding at all, I said to myself, I have the most important job. And I told the pastor, I said, you know, you're preaching to people and half the adults in the crowd, they don't agree with you or they're deciding whether they believe what you're saying or not. And they're sitting there skeptical and whatever. These four, five, six, seven, eight year old, I'm preaching them the word of God. They're just sucking it up like a sponge. They believe everything that's preached to them out of the Bible. They just believe it and they're being programmed for life. I said, this is important. I'm going to take it lightly. I got to prepare this sermon. I got to do this right. I got to make sure that what I'm preaching is right because I have the most important job with young children. But who's the one who's spending the most time in front of the TV? Little Johnny, little Susie are being set in front of the television. That's their mom. That's their babysitter. That's their dad. That's who's training them. And are they being taught the things of God? Are they being taught the King James Bible? Are they being taught how to live a clean life? No. Well, you know, maybe that's why. I wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that one million unmarried teenage girls will become pregnant this year. I wonder if that has something to do with that. I don't think those statistics were like that before the 1940s when the television was invented. I don't think so at all. Maybe that's why there's 43 percent of teenage girls today don't think there's anything wrong with marriage relationship outside of marriage. Maybe that's why 36 percent of teenage girls say they plan to live with a man before they marry him. Maybe that's why 80 percent of women who marry are not pure when they get married. They're not virgins. And maybe that's why 2.5 million men and women in the United States today live together and bypass getting married completely. Huh. I wonder where they learned that. Did they learn it at church? Did they learn it from their mom and dad who were married? Did they learn it from the television? You be the judge. And the other thing about these Disney movies you've got to watch out. Look at look at look at the voices. Who's doing the voice? Robin Williams. There's a stinking pervert. If you know you say well millions. He's always PG rated movies. Why don't you go down to the video store and rent one of his stand up comedy acts and he'll give you just the filthiest stuff. You say well Eddie Murphy is doing the voice. Oh you're talking about Eddie Murphy who is coming out of the closet as a sodomite now just recently. You're talking about Eddie Murphy who if you get his stand up comedy act every other word is going to be the F word and every other word is going to be some vile thing. You say but he plays this little cartoon and this little fish. Yeah but you don't understand these little kids. They're being programmed and they hear that voice. Ha ha ha. And they think it's funny and they like it and they hear that voice and then they grow up and they hear the voice again. Eddie Murphy. Oh I like Eddie Murphy. Oh I like Robin Williams. And then they watch a movie about Robin Williams dressing in drag as Mrs. Doubtfire and they watch the movie. Ha ha ha. It's not funny. It's not funny when you look at the result. Get your head out of the stinking sand and see what's going on. You say well you're a fanatic. You're radical. You're over the top. I'm not I'm not the one that's promoting violence twelve thousand times. I'm not the one who is teaching girls to go destroy their purity and get diseases and ruin their life. You're the one that's the addict. I'm not addicted to anything. I do whatever I want. You say well I you know maybe you're maybe you're the man or whatever and you say well you know I want to get rid of my television. I don't think it's I don't think it's right. I don't think we should be watching it. But you know what I'm at work all day. And my wife and kids you know they're bored and they just watch the thing. And I tried to talk to them about getting rid of it and I said you know maybe we should get rid of this thing. But my wife just wasn't going for it. And you know and the kids they just whined and fussed about it. So I just I just don't know what to do pastor because I just can't. Look I will show you what you need to do. I will show you what you need to do right now. OK. Well you know I forgot to unveil my. This was supposed to be unveiled for the whole sermon but. You know first of all this would be a good place to start right here. You cut the cord on the television. OK. But listen you say well you know I tried to explain it to them. And they just don't get it and then pastor I just don't want to fight this battle in my home. Well I'm going to show you I'm going to demonstrate to you. OK. Exactly how to explain it to them. OK. You know you say well how do I explain it to them. How do I tell how do I how do I break the ice on this subject. Say well OK let me give you like an example. You just got home from work. OK. You roll in the door you get home from work. Everybody's in a good mood. It's a good time you know to break the news. About what you heard in church on Sunday you know and you get home. Let me I'll act it out for you. OK. This is exactly what you say. This is exactly what you do. And that's how you explain it to your family who doesn't seem to understand why they shouldn't be watching that kind of garbage. And I just have a funny feeling that they're going to understand it right away. You say well what if they what if they go buy another one. What if they what if I come home and they bought another one. They're not going to buy another one. OK. You know it's funny but that's that's how I feel about it and that's the truth. And so I want everybody to bow your heads and pray. God I just pray that you know it's kind of maybe an unusual sermon in most churches for a Sunday morning. But Father I just believe that this subject is so important. And God I'm just so tired of seeing the failures in the Christian life. I'm so tired of hearing about preachers whose kids go to the devil. I'm so tired of hearing about all the failures and all the all the negative things. Dear God it just seems like everything is just a downward spiral. And so Father I just pray that you help us all to understand that something's got to be done. If this isn't the answer and I know it's not the whole answer of course there are many other things that are the answer. But Father please just help us to get serious about our kids and get serious about the things of God. And Father just help us to love you enough and let's bow our heads and every eye closed. I want to ask is there anybody here today who's not 100 percent sure that you're saved. Because I'd like to know that I'd like to talk to you after the service if that's you. And then the next question that I'd like to ask is who will say, Father Anderson I'm going to take the four week challenge and I will I'm not saying I'm going to get rid of it. I'm not saying I'm going to get rid of it. I want to see if I really am addicted to it. I want to see if it'll shock me after four weeks. And so Pastor I will unplug my television for four weeks. Put up your hand if that's you right now. All right. God bless every hand. Father I just pray that you'd use this in all of our lives to bring us closer to you. To help us to love you more to help us to live for you more. God we're living in a terrible society. But God you know what it is I just believe that it's still possible to raise kids for the glory of God. And I'm not one of these pessimists and I'm not a doomsayer and I'm not some kind of a defeatist. Because God I just believe that in today's world we can have the victory. We're seeing excitement in this church every week. Baptism, salvation. We're seeing people's lives get on track Father and it's a blessing. And I just believe that we can raise up kids that will make us proud someday. That we won't have to be ashamed of but that we can say that's my son and daughter. They're fine Christians they love the Lord. Boy wouldn't that be great if we could reach a generation of young people. If we could turn out a generation of people that are clean and decent good citizens. They love the Lord. They love the Bible. They have married to one woman. They love their children. They spend time with their family. They don't get a divorce Father. God make it so. And Father I pray that this sermon would help bring that about. And we love you and in Jesus name I pray. Amen.