(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Amen, just keep your place there in 1 Corinthians chapter 13, we're going to be looking at a very specific verse in a few minutes in 1 Corinthians chapter number 13. But this morning, let me just tell you what the title of the sermon is this morning before we get started. The title of this morning's sermon is video games. So that's what I'm going to be preaching about this morning and what we're going to do is we're just going to go to every verse in the Bible this morning where you know the Holy Spirit and God talks about video games, which is zero verses in the Bible. So what we actually have to do in this Bible study this morning and talking about video games is we actually have to look at biblical concepts and apply them to this subject that we're going to be talking about this morning. Turn to Proverbs chapter 18, Proverbs chapter 18. So video games is something where you could say that when it comes to video games, if you're for video games or against video games, it's not really something where it is an absolutist position that you can take. You could call it standards in many cases where it falls into the Romans 14 category of one person thinks this and another person thinks this. Really you'll find amongst Bible-believing Christians, I'm sure you will find a varied spectrum of opinions on video games and the allowance of video games into a household. But I just want to give you some concepts this morning, some things to think about. We'll look at some biblical concepts, we'll look at some dangers of video games this morning. Obviously there's many different types of video games. We'll talk about that as well. Is there a difference between these types? Is one over the other good or bad? And where should we set this standard? Because basically standards is just the application of doctrine. So you look at doctrine in the Bible and then you apply that doctrine to your life, to your family, to your household. Men, I hope you understand this idea. You would take doctrines in the Bible that you fundamentally believe and you apply those to your household. You apply those to your wife and your children, what you allow into your home, where you go, what you separate from, what you don't separate from, and that's how you get your standards. Hopefully you don't just get your standards by random feelings. Hopefully all of your standards are based by concepts in the Bible. So that's what I want to give you this morning. I want to give you some concepts and some dangers that the Bible points out. Video games are a really big deal today and they just keep getting more and more elaborate. And they're not just things that, and as video games get more elaborate, more complex, more detailed, the graphics get better and better, it gets more and more like reality. As far as looking at it on a screen, this is something that a lot of adults or a lot of children have carried into adulthood and you see a lot of adults who are now gamers. You see adult people in their 30s, 40s, and 50s and probably even later still playing video games, playing these games. So let me just give you some concepts this morning and then I'll kind of give you some concepts. I'll tell you kind of where I'm at in my household on this subject. And then you can apply those standards to your life. But there are real dangers and there are real sinful things that are involved in this world of video games and that's why I'm preaching on it this morning. Look at Proverbs chapter 18 and look at verse number 9. I'm going to give you four things to think about this morning on the subject of video games. Four biblical concepts to apply to this subject. Look at Proverbs chapter 18 and verse number 9. Proverbs chapter 18 verse number 9, this is a great verse in the Bible, you know, correlating two things here that I think a lot of people miss in this world. But look at verse number 9, it says, He also that is slothful in his work is brother to him that is a great waster. So the first point I want to get you to understand this morning is that video games are a time waster. They are a big waste of time, all right? And the Bible here is saying in Proverbs chapter 18, you say, okay, so what's the big deal? I've got time. Can I waste it? What's the big deal? Well, the big deal here is the Bible here is connecting someone who is wasteful to something that is very evil. So you may think that, okay, I just, you know, I'm just a person that wastes a lot of time. You know, and look, it's just talking about being wasteful is, you know, connected to being slothful. And I'm not talking about just wasting time, it's saying people that are wasteful, people that waste money, people that waste resources, people that waste things are slothful people. The very, you know, the probably the number one example in our society you could think of when it comes to wasteful and slothful, the proof of this, is like the welfare state. Someone who is just has everything provided for them. People that have things provided for them tend to be very wasteful people. And people that are having everything provided for them also tend to be what? Very slothful people. Because what? Are you going to go to work? Somebody just gives you everything? What incentive do you have to go out and work hard if everything is just provided for you? All right? So these two things, it's very easy to see that wasters and laziness goes together. And that's what the Bible is pointing out here. I mean, the Bible is brilliant making this connection. Wasters are brother, meaning they are connected. These two things come with each other. And look, being slothful is a wicked thing, the Bible says. I mean, Jesus himself said, thou wicked and slothful servant. I mean, it is a wicked thing to be slothful. So the first danger of video games is it's a huge time waster. You say, what's the problem with wasting time? Well, here's the problem. Applying Proverbs 18 and verse number 9 to wasting time, the danger is that it makes you lazy. That's how you apply the Bible. The danger is, I just like to waste a lot of time, maybe I waste all my time. Maybe I go to work and then the rest of my time I just waste. Well, the Bible says that that is something that is going to tend to make you slothful. It's going to make you lazy. Just flip right over to Proverbs chapter 19, just one chapter over. Laziness is a terrible disease. And I say disease as tongue in cheek, but laziness is a terrible thing to have as part of your character. All right? Look at Proverbs 19 and verse number 15. I could go off on laziness just using Bible verses on slothfulness and just sluggards for a sermon in itself, but the Bible says in Proverbs 19, since we're close to there, look at verse 15, it says slothfulness casteth into a deep sleep and an idle soul shall suffer hunger, meaning an idle person, an idle soul, an idle person. So the Bible is saying here is that slothfulness will mean you go hungry. What is it? What's the Bible saying in this verse? It's saying that laziness equals failure, basically, is what it is saying. So we need to do everything, we should do everything possible to stay away from anything that could make us be more lazy. Because laziness is a spectrum as well. There's definitely people that work super hard and people that maybe still work hard but maybe not as hard as that person. Slothfulness and hardworking, you know, good work ethic is a spectrum, right? And we should stay away from anything that pushes us towards the slothful or lazy spectrum. And that is what video games and spending time playing video games does, is it pushes you towards wasting time, which introduces laziness into your life. Look, I mean, men are competing out there, I'm sorry, but you're competing for skills and you're competing for jobs and you're competing, you know, for all these things. And even women, even from the perspective of women, women are raising children that need to go out in the world and compete or raise other children that need to go out in the world and work hard and be able to make a living for their families. We should keep ourselves and our children far away from anything that would lead to failure of that goal. And laziness, wasting time, is definitely something that is along those lines. And the second part of the time wasting is, so you say, okay, I'm going to waste time. Well, it could make you lazy. That's one subpoint underneath wasting time. But the second point is, it's just, it's not productive. It's just not, it's not productive. Turn to Genesis chapter five. Actually, I'll just read for you. Genesis 5-5. And I think a lot of people don't think about this, but Genesis 5-5, it says, all the, the Bible says all the days of Adam, all the days that Adam lived were 930 years and he died. So Adam died when he was 930 years old. So before the flood, men lived for hundreds and hundreds of years. The Bible is very clear about that. So playing video games, wasting time, it's not productive time. But guess what? We don't have hundreds of years. We don't have hundreds of years in this life. Our productive life is not measured in centuries like Adam's productive life was. Our productive life is measured in decades. Very short, divided by, basically divided by 10. I mean, our productive life, I mean, the last thing we need and the last thing our children need is more screen time, is more wasted time. We don't have that much time here. Whenever you see time in the Bible, you know, God is trying to use time to motivate us. Our lives are like a vapor. Our lives are like water spilt on the ground that can't be gathered up again. God is trying to motivate us saying we don't have that much time. Don't waste your time. I mean, seven hours a day are some of the stats as far as what people look at on a screen. That's insanity. That's insanity. Think about, and then I think about, you say, well, you know, what do you mean it's not productive? You're not learning anything. You're not doing anything. And as I look at the society today that we're, the generations that are coming up, I talk to some of the guys about this frequently about all the things that, you know, we think we're so smart with all our technology and all our graphics and all our new electronic devices and all these things, but we're actually getting dumber. We actually, I'm just thinking about, you know, why do we need to be productive? Why do we need to have productive lives? I just wrote down a list of things that, you know, nobody knows, well, not nobody, things that people don't know how to do anymore in general. I just made a short list, but I could have made a list of 100 things if I really would have spent time on it. Let me just give you a list. So you're like, well, why can't I waste time? You know, why do I need to be more productive? Because there's so many things that you could be learning to do. That's why. There's so many productive things that you could be doing. Why would you waste all your time doing things that are not productive? I mean, who in their life? It's kind of like when you get somebody saved out soul winning and then you ask them, you know, I always ask them, I always ask them this question, well, how many lives do you have? And they always say one, because they're not a cat, and then I say, would you like to waste your life? And no one in all my years of soul winning has ever said, yes, I would like to waste my life. But that's what people do. They literally waste their life. They're wasting all their time, all the people that are like, oh, no, I can't take 20 minutes to hear the gospel. They're in there wasting their time. They're watching YouTube or just surfing the internet, you know, looking at trash or whatever. They're wasting their life. But nobody wants to waste their life. Yet that's exactly what they're doing. So people are just wasting their life. They're not being productive. But they should be out there learning things, doing productive things. You only get one shot at this thing. You only get one shot at gaining wisdom in your life. You only get one shot at learning things and then teaching those things to your kids and your grandkids. You only get one shot at this life. And if you just waste all your time, you're going to miss all that opportunity. Here's some things. I just made a list. I made a list of simple things that people are losing the ability to do. Because why? Because they're wasting their lives. They're wasting their lives watching YouTube, sticking their face in the screen for seven hours a day, four hours a day, five hours a day, whatever it is. Here's simple things. Starting and building a fire, or building and starting a fire. I bet you most people, even if you gave them a lighter, couldn't do that. Just knowing how to put a fire together, what to put where, how to kind of, you know, organize the logs, what do you use to start it with. All these different things. I bet you most people today couldn't do that in these younger generations. How about this one? Swim. Look up the stats on how many people don't know how to swim. Last time I looked, it was like almost one in four people could not swim. Like you say, why is that productive? Because it could literally save your life one day. Like it could save your life, your children's life, or someone that you're with's life. So many people, there's a massive section of this population that does not know how to swim. But guess what? You'll never, how you'll never learn how to swim. By watching a YouTube video. Or by playing a video game. You actually have to go out and practice swimming. Here's another one. Change a tire. Man, that's complicated. I know so many people, I know adult men that don't know how to change a tire. But it's a common thing. How does that kit in my car work? Have you pulled out that kit in your car and just made sure you knew how everything fit together and where to, where do you put the jack on the car? Every car's a little bit different. They're not all that different. But every car's a little bit different on where you put the jack. Does the jack even work on my car? Or do I need to get, I have a couple cars where I actually have another jack because the jack that came with the car is made of tinfoil or something. It's just so weak, it would never work or it would fail probably. You know, and then a lot of, you know, if you're thinking listen to this sermon, like what kit exactly? Changing a tire is not building a space shuttle, yet many people do not know how to do this today. It could literally get you killed. If you're out on the side of the road, I mean how many people, like if you're going to change a tire, by the way, wreck the tire, get off the freeway. Get off the freeway. Wreck the tire, wreck the rim. Who cares? This is what I tell my kids, my wife, everybody in my family, get off the freeway. Don't be one of these people that's on the white line trying to take the, you know, when there's cars going by you at 80 miles an hour. Here's another one, jump start a car. People don't know how to do this. I mean, I was talking to brother Trevor the other day on the hike, we were just talking about cars in general. We were just talking about cars in general, we were talking about how, you know, many people today, I bet you people from, you know, Gen X, I bet you Gen X is really the last generation where, you know, we really know what a carburetor is. Because after my generation, like, you know, in the late 80s, everything became fuel injected. So, you know, I was just thinking about what a tragedy it is that these kids today aren't going to know what a carburetor is, but brother Trevor and I were talking the other day, like, now with all the electric cars coming into the marketplace, is it possible that maybe in 10, 15 years, these kids growing up might not even know what an internal combustion engine is? Much less what parts of it are, you know, be able to work on it or anything like that. But look, we're getting much simpler today, we are not getting more complicated. We are losing all of these things. Here's one, exercise. How many people don't know how to exercise? How many people don't? Look, especially homeschool kids, they need to be taught how to exercise. So you know, you don't have time, these are productive things that we can be doing and teaching our children. Homeschool kids don't have the public education phi ed class, thank goodness. But they do need to learn how to exercise, keep themselves in shape, maintain some semblance of health in their life, that needs to be taught. These are productive things that are being lost today. You know, how to lift weights or run on a treadmill or jog or whatever it is, you know, any kind of activity that would help you maintain your health. I mean, lifestyles are so sedentary today that just all this stuff, a lot of this stuff is being lost. How about this one, kind of in the same lines as that, defend yourself. Understand how about this one, understand firearms. Every boy should know how to shoot a rifle. Understand firearm safety. This is kind of like the opposite of video games. We'll get to that in just a few minutes. But understand just how these things, you know, work, how to use a rifle, how to shoot a rifle well is a skill that's being lost today. And how to understand how to safely shoot a rifle well. How about this one, here's another one, manage your finances. That's a skill. If you look at consumer debt in the United States, it's apparently a skill that's being lost. It's apparently a skill that people should be studying and trying to figure out versus wasting all their time playing video games. How about this one, and this is going away, and this is going away because of video games, because of the internet, because of social media, because of all these things, and this is one of the things that this June Challenge will help you with. But how about this one, have manners. Be able to act in social situations. Look, this is going away. It used to be called common courtesy, but it's not common anymore because people simply do not know how to act amongst other people because they spend so much time in these virtual worlds on the internet, social media, video games, whatever it is. People don't know what is appropriate and what is not. People don't know how to be nice. People don't know how to make conversation with other people. They don't know how to make people feel welcome. They don't know how to be polite. Look, these are all things that are learned. These are all skills that are learned, and it's being lost today. So don't tell me that there's nothing productive that you can be doing with your time. How about this one? We're all so smart because we have smartphones. We're all so smart because we've got our GPS. How about this one, use a compass. I imagine nobody could functionally use a compass in the 20 years old and under. Show me somebody that can put a compass on a map and tell me where to go and tell me where we are. It's a learned skill. Here's another one, cook, cook, cook meals, canning, pickling, baking, jerky, whatever. How about processing? We toured an old 1700, 18th century plantation about a week ago. The most interesting part of the tour to me was the kitchen, because in the kitchen there was all these tools and machines. I made a comment to the tour guide, you pretty much had to be a mechanical engineer to work in this kitchen. But what did they know? They had the skills to be able to take something from the ground and turn it into any kind of food that they had these devices to make. But today we've lost all of that. Everything's automatic, which means we're dumber, which means that we don't know how to actually do it. We've lost the concepts of how to process something from the farm to the table, basically. Sowing, that's another one. What do you need to sow for? We have Amazon. What do you need to know how to fix anything? In a society where it's just a throwaway society, we don't fix anything, we just buy everything new, even carburetors. You could buy a new carburetor from any of these small engines for cheaper than you could ever buy a rebuild kit. There's no need to fix anything in a society, we just throw everything away. The skills are being completely lost. How about this one? Search the internet. You're like, what? That's a skill. That is completely, as I predicted, it is being taken over by AI. Now you just type in something on a search and the answer is just given to you. You don't have the option of finding a reliable source, looking for websites that maybe you know and trust or you know who publishes the website, you know that, okay, these are good papers, they're from a good publication, the answer is just given to you. So the ability to find a service manual on the internet is just going to completely go away. You're like, what's a service manual? Exactly. The ability to search things on the internet, I've told my kids since growing up, when they asked me questions, you need to learn how to find that answer on the internet. You need to learn how to Google search things, how to duck, duck, go search things if you don't like Google, you need to learn how to find things on the internet. Because look, I'm telling you, the AI answer is not going to be reliable. It's not going to be reliable in many cases. There's so many more things, but the point I'm trying to get you to see this morning is that you need all the time that you have. You should try to make your time productive. You should not take your time, the little time that you have, and just waste it on things that have no value at all. It's a huge problem. Frame a wall, build a building, all these things, how about this, tear one down. How to tear down a building without getting everyone killed. We learned this yesterday. But all these things are things that you can use with your time. These are productive things. I mean, look, everybody, I think every young man should work construction at some point in his life as just another one, you know, that I just thought of right now. I mean, I could go on and on, but the point is you don't have time to waste. So don't waste it on things that have no value. You have a short 40 to 50 year productive life. Don't waste the A game. Don't waste all that time. Learn things, teach your kid things. You know, I mean, you're like, well, pastor, what about relaxation? Can't I ever relax? Well, of course you can. Of course you can. You can have hobbies, but you know what? Here's another one. I don't think that a man's hobbies, a man that has children, a man that's married and has children should not have hobbies where he's just off by himself. This is just my personal opinion. A man's hobbies should be things that he does with his children, with his family. A man's hobbies should involve his children. That's why, you know, fishing is such a great one, a little plug for fishing there. But, I mean, video games many times are just for you. It's just something that you do by yourself. You're like, well, I play video games with my kids. Okay, well then listen to the rest of the sermon, if that's you. But the point is, if you're just off, especially if you're a married man with children and you're off just doing something that's a complete waste of time just for yourself, there's a problem there. There's ways to relax with your wife. There's ways to relax with your family, with your children. All right? So the first point is a simple point, is that it's a huge waste of time. And we simply don't have much time to waste in this life. The second one is this. Turn to Romans chapter 7. The second one is this. It's a little bit more serious, a little bit more serious, and you can't really apply it to every single video game, but it's a very serious point in the Bible. Look at Romans chapter 7. Look at verse number 9. Look at Romans chapter 7, verse number 9. I've kind of got a hurry up here. I've got a little long on that. I wasted a lot of time on the time-wasting point. All right. No, I didn't waste time. All right. Romans 7, verse number 9. Look what the Bible says. The Bible says, for I was alive without the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. He was talking about when he was a child. This is the verse talking about how children are not condemned. Children that don't understand the law, they're not condemned. Because Paul says, he was alive without the law once. When was that? It was when he didn't understand the law. It's when he was two, three years old, and he didn't understand what the Bible was. He didn't understand what was right, what was wrong. But when the commandment came, then I understood the law. Sin revived, and I died. And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death. So he's saying that the commandment, which was ordained to life. So the Bible, the law, the commandments, God telling you, do this, don't do that, is ordained to life, but it's found unto death. What does that mean? It means that you violate it unto death. You know, the wages of sin is death. So when you violate the law, that is death unto you, is what he's saying. But the commandment was ordained to life. Breaking it is ordained to death, all right? For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me. So it's not the law that's the problem, it's the breaking of it that is the problem. It is the sin that is the problem. It's you that is the problem. Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good. Look at verse 13. Was then that which is good made death unto me? So now he's connecting the two. He's connecting the law, which is good, and the end result, which is death for him. So you got the law, he broke the law, death, right? This is why we need salvation. But he's saying, so is the law death unto me? This is no God forbid, but sin that it might appear sin. Working death in me by that which is good, that sin by the commandment might become exceedingly sinful. So what he's saying is that that law, number one, for the unsaved, that law, it condemns us to death and it should drive us to salvation. But even for the saved, he is saying that what the law does for the saved is it shines a flashlight on sin. It makes sin pop out to us. It makes sin literally exceedingly sinful. So somebody who's in the law, knows the law, studies the Bible, listens to the Bible being preached, is gonna see sin as sin. They're gonna see sin and right away they're gonna be like, whoa. I don't want any part of that. But what video games, the second point that I want to make to you this morning on video games, is that video games glorify sin, which is the opposite of making sin exceedingly sinful. Video games, many video games, especially today, they desensitize people from sin. Very serious sins, by the way. This has been identified even by secular psychologists and experts to be one of the reasons the main common denominators amongst school shooters and mass murderers is what? Well, they're all into these violent video games. Books have been written on this. Soldiers are trained with video simulations and video games. Why? So they will have no problem committing violence. They will have no problem killing. So the last thing that we want in our homes is something that is gonna cartoonize sin to our children. Violence, murder, I mean look, turn to Deuteronomy chapter 18. Serious sin, murder, rape, assault. Fornication, it's basically, it's the same as what the movies are doing, except you're part of the movie. You're able to actually commit the sins. You're like, what, there's video games where you can do all those things, yes. There are video games where you can actively participate in those wicked things that I just mentioned. Look at Deuteronomy chapter 18. Look, one of the reasons that I liked, as far as violence and guns and all those things, one of the reasons that I liked hunting with my children is because it showed them the reality of what guns can do. You know, when you see, when you go out hunting and you shoot a deer, whether it be with a bow or a rifle or whatever, look, you see the blood. You see the real damage, it's real. These are not toys, this is real damage, this is real death, this really killed this animal. And it shows children, it shows young adults the dangers of these things, that this is real. This is not something that is fake. Video games do the opposite. They take something that is real that will really harm someone or something and they make it seem fake or fun or entertaining. Look at Deuteronomy chapter 18. Here's another one that, another sin that these video games today, many video games today cartoonize and make light of is witchcraft. Look at Deuteronomy chapter 18 in verse number 10. The Bible says, there shall not be found among you anyone that maketh his son or daughter to pass through the fire or that use a divination or an observer of times or an enchanter or a witch or a charmer or a consultor with familiar spirits or a wizard or a necromancer. For all do these things, all that do these things are an abomination to the Lord and because of these abominations the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee. Look, witchcraft and everything associated with magic and spells and supernatural powers and all these things that these video games promote is an abomination to the Lord. And it's making light of these things. I mean, this could be its own sermon as well. Just witchcraft and all these different things. It is not something that should be made light of. You say, why? Because look, evil, demons, Satan, these are real things. Witchcraft, it's real. It's not fake. So pretending that there's like, oh, you can have a good wizard and a bad wizard. No, like the Bible says, all wizards are bad. They're all using the power of Satan. And oh, it's just a fake video game. Yes, but it's making light of something that is real and that is serious and that God literally hates. The Bible is telling us here. It is a real thing. All this magic and wizardry and just it's making light of something that God literally sees as an abomination. We should stay far away from these things. Turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 13. If you kept your place there, look at 1 Corinthians chapter 13. Let's look at number three. Look at number three. 1 Corinthians chapter number 13. 1 Corinthians chapter number 13. Look at verse number 11 of 1 Corinthians 13. The Bible says this. So we see, first of all, it's a huge waste of time and we see second of all, that it desensitizes people to sin. Now let me just say one last thing on the second point here. Not every kid that plays some first shooter video game is going to become a serial killer. That's not what I'm saying. But why in the world would you want to feed your kids some sort of media or some sort of game that makes them think less of murder, that makes them think less of blood and violence and wizardry and witchcraft? Why in the world would you expose them to that danger? You see, but look, then you have these kids who they've gone through some other kind of trauma in their life and they've turned on God and then all of a sudden they get that added and it's like this explosive mix and that's how you get these psychopathic reprobate killers that go in and do these horrible things. I mean, yes, they obviously had other problems where they had turned on the Lord and they hated God but then you add basically, you train them. You train them on how to be violent with these tools. We should keep these things away from our kids. We want everything that is in our homes, we want everything that our kids learn and study to make sin exceedingly sinful to them, not the other way around. Again, it's a spectrum. Why in the world would you want to give your children or yourself something that makes you more lazy or makes you less sensitive to sin? Stay away from those things. Stay away from those things. Protect your family, protect your Christian life. Here's the third one and I guess I had three points. I think I said four. I counted wrong, it's only three. Look at 1 Corinthians chapter 13, number 11. When I was a child, I spake as a child. I understood as a child, I thought as a child but when I became a man, I put away childish things. One thing that I have found when I've looked into the subject of video games on the internet is there is a huge, I'm gonna beat up on the guys a little bit here but there's a huge community out there, forums, all sorts of chat groups of women who are like, what do I do with this guy that just does nothing but plays video games constantly? And it's just all these women just talking like, I don't know, have you tried this, have you tried this? And they're just like, he's just gaming constantly. I can't even get his attention. He's just in this game and it's wrecking our marriage. Look, my husband is constantly gaming and it's just all these women trying to solve this problem and look, it seems to be a problem with men and that's why I'm picking on the men here but look, in Ephesians chapter five, you'll see guys reference Ephesians chapter five all the time. Oh, my wife, she has to reference me because it says in the Bible but the third point is this you shouldn't be demanding respect, you should command respect. If you're in your marriage and you were just constantly demanding of your wife, you need to respect me, you need to respect me, you need to respect me and yes, she should respect you. She should reference you but why don't you be someone that doesn't have to demand it but instead commands it? Why don't you strive to be a man that people just, they see you, you say something and they just respect what you say because you are the type of man that commands respect. Why don't you be the type of husband that your wife looks at and is just like, I don't even know everything he's doing but he's got everything under control. She knows for sure that you're taking care of everything. Look, all marriages are gonna have problems, folks. Every single marriage is gonna have problems. Look, financial or otherwise, I mean, marriages are just going to have problems and when those problem times come, if you have some husband who's just spending exorbitant amounts of time playing video games, how in the world is that gonna give his wife a comforting feeling that he's got things under control? You show me a stressed out wife and I will show you a husband that's not taking care of things. I'll show you a husband that is doing something wrong. You show me a man that commands respect, he's got his house in order and I'll show you a joyful wife. It's the same as sitting around drinking. It's the same thing as some husband that just gets home from work, just goes out in the garage and just sits there and drinks and his finances are in shambles, his family's not taken care of, he doesn't know where his kids are. It's the exact same thing. I've known people that I have worked with, I knew this group of guys that I worked with, like look, these fantasy games especially, grown men get so involved in some of these fantasy and role playing games. It was crazy 20 years ago, I can't even imagine what it's like now. Where they are literally playing, they're literally living a different character, they have relationships with people, people are playing with them all over the world, real people have their own fake characters, they're avatars or whatever, and they're literally living in this different world. You say, oh, that's not really true, I worked with guys that would stay up all night long, would come to work without getting an hour of sleep because they were all sitting up playing some game together with all these different people all around the country and all around the world, some role playing game, these guys would go out and to get their characters more powerful, they would spend hundreds of dollars on eBay buying a hat for their character or something that gave them some magical power over other characters. You laugh, but you know it's real. Oh my God, he went out and he bought this $600 cane and now he's beating everybody in battles or something like this, it's crazy. Some of those guys are divorced now. And I'm not saying they got divorced simply because of that game, but let me tell you something, it was a contributing factor for sure. For sure. So look, aside from just like the witchcraft and the time wasting and all this, I mean, they're just living in this fake world which means they're not taking care of the real one. I mean, people that live in those worlds, they literally forget how to live in this one. They forget about the people that are actually around them, the people that are in their house, they get so involved in these things that they literally forget about their real responsibilities. I mean, or they never master how to deal with the people around them. They never learn how to socialize with real people. I mean, live here. Learn here, that's the whole point. Teach your children to learn here. We should stay away from these things that push us towards these sides of the spectrum. Let me just wrap it up here in the next few minutes. This is not an absolute sermon. This is not a you should never play a video game ever. You know, look, I don't have a video game console. I don't even have a TV. But look, I don't hate you if you have a TV or even if you have a video game console. My big claim to fame on video game consoles was I got to design a chip on the very first Xbox in 2002. Like if you open that Xbox and you could pull the die off that chip, my name is on there somewhere because I would always write my name on all the chips that I was part of. But that's my claim, I've never played Xbox ever. How ironic is that? As a matter of fact, I do have one video game device in my house and I brought it for you this morning. All right, so this is not an absolute sermon because I have a video game console. This is a shout out to Gen X right here. This is my video game console in my house. And I do play this. And if you're a Gen X, you know what this is. This is Galaga, probably the best video game ever designed in the history of mankind. All right, I want to turn it on so you can hear the sound. This is like one of the best video game sounds that's ever been designed as well. Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah. Nobody under the age of 45 understands what I'm talking about. But I play this, I timed it last night. I probably play this two or three times a week. Jacob timed how long it took me to play one of the games on this thing. I got it for like 30 bucks at a Walgreens, it was an impulse buy. But it was the game that they had in the pizza place where we'd go out for pizza when I was a kid and you'd put a quarter in. You could play for 20 minutes on two quarters. Now you go to a video game place and you spend 40 bucks in seven minutes or whatever it is. But the point is that's a version of that game that I used to play when I was a kid, so I picked it up at a Walgreens. But this is not an absolute sermon that you should never have video games. But I want you to think about these three things that I talked about. I want you to think about the time wasting. I want you to think about the desensitization to sin. Then I want you to think about the responsibilities that you have to your family in this life here, in this world here. And even in my family growing up, when my kids were growing up, we had, we did have, the kids had game consoles. They had these Nintendo DS's or whatever and we played Mario Kart. We would play Mario Kart every now and then as a family. We'd all play against each other and I would always lose. I mean there's nothing more frustrating than losing to a seven year old at Mario Kart or whatever. But there was nothing bad about it. We didn't spend an exorbitant amount of time on it. Mario Kart, you're like, that's harmless. You're driving around throwing turtle shells at each other or whatever. How could that be a bad thing? Well, if you just hold up in your room and doing nothing but that, it can be a bad thing. Because it's stopping you from being productive in other places. So it was not a lot of time. It was limited time and it was things that we did together. But I just want you to think about places in your life this morning where it's best to just not go there. I know that if I would have gotten a huge TV and a gaming console, I know personally that I would have enjoyed playing a lot of these games that they have out there. They've had over the decades, the last 20 years or whatever, I'm sure they're great. I'm sure they're a lot of fun. But I just chose in my life to just not go there. Because I don't want to be less productive. I want to be more productive in my life. I want to spend more time with my kids, not less time with my kids. And then I don't want to pass off these silly habits and these things that really could turn into bad things. I don't want to pass those off to my kids. Turn to First Corinthians chapter number nine. We need to train our body to not want bad things. That's what addiction is. Everyone's like, oh, addiction is a disease. No, addiction is you've simply trained your body to want something bad. That's all addiction is, solved. I mean, you can literally train your body to crave alcohol. You can train your body to crave drugs. You can train your body to want these things. You can train your body to want some of these drugs where your body will literally die if you just stop taking them. You can train yourself to want bad things where your body will literally desire that bad things. But the Bible says that we should not, we should stay away from those things. We should train ourselves to want good things. Look at first number 27 of First Corinthians chapter number nine. Paul says, but I keep under my body and bring it into subjection. You know what he's saying? He doesn't have this body where he's trained to want all these bad things. His body doesn't say, I need a drink. His body doesn't say, I need drugs. His body doesn't say, I wanna go play this game again and again and again. His body does not say those things to him, lest that by any means, when I preach to others, I myself should be a castaway. Look, if you get an addiction to something where your body is controlling you, you're a castaway. It's gonna cast you away from your Christian life. You go out and get addicted to something bad, it's gonna pull you out of church, it's gonna pull you out of soul winning, it's not, you're not gonna get unsaved, but it's, you know, that's, people will use that, oh, see, he's a castaway. I mean, no, you're gonna leave the Christian life. You're gonna be not productive anymore. So we should stay away from these things. I wanna be productive in my Christian life. I wanna succeed at the things that I do. If that's what we want, we need to have successful relationships with the people here. We need to lead our families in meaningful, in a meaningful, spiritual way and stay away from these things or limit to these things that could pull us in the wrong direction. We just have to control, folks, what we expose ourselves to and what we expose men, what we expose our households to. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.