HomeARC ML 2454
"CHOOSE THE GOOD & ESCHEW THE EVIL!"--Isa.7:15; 1Pet.3:11. DO 2454 7/84
--A Lesson on Video Controls & Monitoring!
1. I want to warn you, many of the educational videos, series & programs for children nowadays are Evolution from start to finish! So you've got to warn your kids about that. I once told Maria, "Well, maybe if they'd turn off the sound & just watch the pictures of the animals, the bugs, the lizards, the fish, the birds & everything else, at least they could still watch God's amazing creatures!" Well, they probably don't always talk about Evolution, but they certainly bring it out a lot.
2. You just have to ignore any remarks like, "Well now, this one lived so many million years & decided it didn't need its tail so it dropped it! And this one over here decided it wanted to crawl out on land, so it grew legs" & blah blah!--Leaving it all up to the decision of the beast & the creature that it decided to adapt itself to a new environment. It got tired of the water & crawled out on the land, or it got tired of the land & crawled back into the water & it dropped its legs again!
3. I've seen programs where they try to show proof of rudimentary legs on snakes & blah blah blah, always trying to prove Evolution! So just laugh at it, make fun of it & make sure that your kids don't get the idea that all these creatures decided to do these things themselves, what they call natural selection, adaptation.
4. Now there is a certain amount of adaptation, even with us. We can get used to a Northern cold climate or a Southern hot climate & that sort of thing. We can go out in too much sun & get a tan. God has given a little bit of leeway, you know, where you can adapt yourself to different climates & different conditions or different schedules & that sort of thing.
5. But I haven't known any human being yet that was able to grow a tail because he wanted to swing from tree limbs! As much as I wanted to swing from those limbs, I never grew a tail!--And I spent a lot of my time in the trees when I was your age, David! I'm glad you don't, Honey, thank God! I broke bones & all kinds of things. And as much as I loved to swim, I never grew any fins, & I don't know any human being that has!
"PAUSE" & "FAST-FORWARD" BUTTONS--WHEN TO USE'M!
6. So you need to be discriminating about what you play for your kids, & some adult should always be supervising the viewing. Whenever you hit something that needs explanation or contradiction or anything like that, all you have to do is press the pause button. The pause button, if you don't leave it on too long, is easier on the machinery than the stop button. When you hit "stop," it goes clickety-clickety-clackety-clack & stops the heads from turning, you have to restart the whole thing to get it to play again, & it goes clickety-clickety-clackety-clack, bhrrrrr & you can hear it winding up. That's much harder on your machine.
7. It's just like I've often warned drivers, if they keep shutting off their engine to save gas just because they stop a couple of minutes in traffic, they're not going to save their battery, & they may not be able to get it started again! It's just like turning electrical utilities off & on: If you're only going to turn it off for a minute or two, it's not worth it, because it'll take more electricity to get it started again than you'll save by the couple of minutes you've got it off for.
8. So if you're only going to pause for just a short time, for maybe a minute or two to explain something to the kids, press the pause button, & then when you want to restart it, on most machines you just press the pause again. But if you use the stop button, it goes rhhhhrrrrr, clickety-clack-clack-clack & comes to a complete stop. Then when it starts again it goes clickety-click-click-snap-bang, rhhhhrrrrrr all over again!
9. Another thing you need to learn about the controls, both on the machine or the remote, is that if you go from stop, then you can use the really fast-forward & the fast-rewind. It goes real fast & you don't see any picture. But if it's on "play," & you're watching something & it comes to something you don't think kids should see or hear or commercials or violence or anything like that, you don't have to hit "stop" & use the regular fast-forward, just press the fast-forward button while it's still on "play," & that way it still goes real fast, so fast you can't hardly hear a thing, & you can't really see what they're doing.--But you still have a picture & you can pretty well tell when it's over & then you can release it. So try to always keep your finger ready for either the fast-forward button or the pause button!
10. I'll give you something to help you remember about the pause button: "The pause that refreshes!"--I think that was a Coca Cola commercial! The pause that refreshes their memories about this or that to stop & explain it. For the pause that refreshes, use the pause button! So remember, when you need to stop & explain, hit "pause." And if it gets too bad, if it's something you don't want them to see, hit the "fast" button. Some responsible adult should hold that remote control & supervise. Children & teens should always be supervised when watching movies, videos, etc. Because it doesn't matter what it is, it can still have something bad on it or something they don't need to hear or see or memorise.
11. Thank God you can hit that fast button, & they won't even see it, you can hardly see what's happening! It goes by so fast that it doesn't really matter much. They don't have to sit there & suffer it & concentrate on it. But in countries where they watch TV, they've got to either turn down the sound or turn down the brilliance to where the picture fades out & they can't see it, or hide their eyes or turn their backs or something!--Because it's not good to keep turning a TV off & on, because then you don't even know when the bad part is over, & then you might miss something.
12. This is a little lesson on video controls & monitoring, & I think it's important! The pause that refreshes, that's when you refresh their memories on this or that, when you want to explain something. What shall I say for the fast button, fast-forward? You let it march forward very rapidly, fast-forward!--So you can go fast & rush through scenes you don't want them to see, violence or screams or whatever it might happen to be. It's surprising some of the junk you hit right in the middle of a good show sometimes that you don't want kids to see!
AVOID RAW TV FOR CHILDREN!
13. Frankly, I don't think it's really good for children, as a rule, to watch raw television! No matter what the program is, you never know what's going to be on the commercials! Even if you know it's a good show & it's going to be something good for the children, if it has commercials, it could be very bad with horrors & violence & killing, & at the least, silly little ditties that'll run through their heads all day! That's one reason I'm recommending to the Family that they make a serious effort to watch recorded programs only, videos that they think are good for the children, or at least not too bad, so that they can avoid all that junk!
HOW TO GET RID OF THE DEVIL'S DITTIES!
14. Do you know what I used to do when those commercials & crazy jingles & songs would pop in my head? Do you know how to cure it right away? If you come into a room & the room is dark, how do you get rid of the darkness? (David: Turn on the light!) Do you just try not to think of the song when it comes into your head? Well, that doesn't really help. You turn on the light! Start singing a Family song, start singing some other song! When those things would come in my mind I'd start singing, "Jesus, Saviour, pilot me," & while you're singing a good song you can't think about the bad song!
15. So when the Devil puts such songs in your head, start singing some other song! Sing it out loud, that's best, it just drowns him out! He cannot be heard over one of the Lord's songs! When any of those crazy commercials or crazy Worldly songs come to you & you don't want to sing'm or you don't even want to be thinking of'm, you don't want'm runnin' through your mind, start singing something else!
16. When you're by yourself is usually when the Devil sticks'm in your head, because when you're with other people & talking or watching some good video or something, those things don't have room to get in. But it's when you're by yourself alone & things are quiet & you're trying to study or read, some of those things will pop in your head.
17. So start singing something positive right away, immediately, don't waste any time! I used to do that ever since I was a kid, I learned that early, especially in school, especially in those boring classes when some worldly song would pop in my head that I didn't like. I remember especially that horrible, diabolical, blasphemous, anti-Christ, anti-God [DELETED] Irving Berlin [DELETED] song, "It Ain't Necessarily So!" "The things that you read in that Bible, they ain't necessarily so!"--A song, imagine, in a popular musical that's now supposedly a classic, "Porgie & Bess"!
18. Now there were lots of good & beautiful songs in that movie too, but I was horrified even as a kid when one night at the movies I heard that thing! I practically put my fingers in my ears! And it became one of the most popular songs on the air & on radio in those early days before TV, they kept playing it.--Talk about insidious, subtle, anti-Christ propaganda, it was horrible! "It ain't necessarily so, the things that you read in that Bible!" And then they take the stories one by one in the song as the verses, & they sing, "But it ain't necessarily so!" Isn't that horrible? You talk about anti-Christ! God damn that guy! I'll bet he's burning in Hell now, & I don't know if he could burn hot enough!
CUTTING THE GARBAGE OUT!--STORY OF THE ROACH IN THE ROLL!
19. Well, so much for junk that you may come across sometime! That's why I really have the burden to tell the Family to go video & not watch TV, to try to protect the children's pure minds from having to suffer that stuff, & to be able to get the benefit of all the good stuff!
20. It's like pulling the good junk out of the garbage or cutting the garbage out of the good food! If you're eating a nice meal & you find a bug in it, I guess some people would throw the whole thing away, but not me, I'm too saving for that! If a bug lands in my coffee, I just take a spoon & fish him out & throw him & that little bit away! I figure, "Well, that little bit that was around him, I got him & that!" But I'm not going to throw my whole coffee away after I spent 10-15 minutes making my breakfast in the morning. I guess some people would think that's awful!
21. --Or like the time Mother found a glazed roach on her delicious pecan nut roll! You probably never had one, David hardly knows what sweets are! A pecan nut roll was a kind of a sweet roll with just the top covered with pecans, then it was glazed with a kind of a pure sugar syrup that you could see through.
22. But this roach had gotten on top, & the baker was apparently in such a hurry, he does hundreds of them, you know, & the roach was just the same size & colour & looks just like a pecan! It's even got a kind of a division down its back like a pecan, so he didn't notice that it was a roach & he'd glazed it! They usually take a paint brush & they paint that stuff over whole rows of'm, & he didn't notice there was a roach on there. So we got it & my Mother nearly screamed! She was horrified & was going to throw the whole pecan nut roll away!
23. In "The Ragman" talk I told you how I was very saving ever since I was a little tiny boy, three or four years old! I wanted to save everything around the house for the ragman. So I wasn't about to throw away that big, delicious pecan nut roll with all those pecans on top because there was one roach on there!
24. I said, "Let me have it! I'll eat it!" I didn't mean I was going to eat the roach. She said, "Oh, no you're not!" I practically fought with her over it. I said, "Don't worry, Mama! I'll take him off & I'll clean off the surface & all around where he was. I'm not going to throw away all the rest of it just for that!" So I finally managed to persuade her, & I think my Dad came to my rescue & fought for me too. She said, "Well, I'm not responsible. I'll not take the blame if anything happens.--You did it!"
25. A lot of times my Dad used to stick up for me or vice versa, it depended on the situation. Has that ever happened to you, David? Everybody around here is so agreeable, we never have any disagreements, do we?--Ha! Sara & Alf never disagree about anything, do they?--Especially when it comes to you, whether you should be spanked or not. Of course, you're such a good boy, you never get spanked any more.
DAD'S CHILDHOOD DISCIPLINE!
26. But I wasn't a good little boy like you, I was a pretty bad boy sometimes, & I frequently needed spankings!--And when it came to that, my Mother always tried to protect me from my Father.--Because he didn't just use a little old twig off a tree, he went into the bathroom & got his razor stropping belt!
27. They used to shave with a long razor, & they used to sharpen it, strop it, on a big leather belt this wide & about this long, &, brother, you could feel that! Of course he didn't use it unless I really deserved it & needed it, & he was never too hard. He didn't injure me or anything, but it hurt! But my Mother, oh, the worst thing about my Mother was she'd sit down & cry! She'd make me go out & pick my own switch off the tree, & of course naturally I'd try to pick the smallest & the lightest one I could find, which my Mother didn't mind because she didn't like to spank me anyhow!
28. Then I'd bring it back in to her & there she was crying, & when I'd hand her the switch then she'd really boo-hoo because she hated to spank me. And that made me feel so bad I'd break down & I'd start crying & boo-hooing too, & here we were crying on each other's shoulders, both boo-hooing! Sometimes by the time we got through with all this boo-hooin', she didn't have the courage or energy to spank me, & I was so sorry, I was so repentant I didn't need a spanking!--Ha!
29. So her tears sometimes were more effective than my father's scoldings or stroppin'.--That's what love will do! If your discipline doesn't have love, it's not going to work, & sometimes I'm sure a cheerful admonition has done lots more good in your case, David. You've seen Sara cry sometimes when you were naughty, haven't you? Well, maybe it's so long ago since you were a naughty boy that you don't remember! But I can remember a few times when she cried over you, & it always made you feel so bad. So anyway, PTL!
BENEFIT FROM THE GOOD!
30. Some Christians are so narrow-minded they throw out the TV & the videos, they wouldn't even have'm in their house!--But they lose the benefit & the advantage of a lot of good, educational things. It's like throwing the baby out with the bath water, you know?--Or throwing out the whole meal with the roach, or the whole drink with the fly! I don't like to throw the baby out with the bath water, & I don't like to throw the TV out just because it's got some things on it that are bad. Things you know are bad you don't have to watch, right?
31. I think our children in the Family should have the best education possible, as well as the most wholesome education possible, & be well-rounded & know about the World & know about some of these things. So even if they hit a few bad things, they need to know about how bad the World is sometimes. Of course, they probably get enough of that from a few bad scenes in movies, so they don't have to have whole movies picked out, especially bad movies, just to learn that the World's bad!
MORE ON BUTTONS!
32. Another tip regarding the video controls: It's not good for the machine to have it on "play," & then hit the fast-forward button so that you're fast-scanning through an entire movie. That's hard on the machine, & there's no use wear & tearin' the machine like that when the regular full-speed fast-forward will go much faster. But to use that, you have to hit stop first.--Which is why it's helpful to know the approximate numbers of the tape on the counter, that way you can estimate about where you should stop. So when you want to bypass an entire show or movie, start from "stop." Then hit the fast-forward button & just let it run until you think it's come near the number where the show you want should start, then you can find it from there.
33. I like buttons! They're very important in this World, & I can make'm go pretty fast sometimes! (Sara: You can really play mine!) Sara's got a real fast-forward button, I'll tell you! She goes fast! Hallelujah! Some of the girls here have really got fast-forward buttons, they really get there in a hurry! Some of'm take a little longer than others. They can be a real hard job, hard work! (Sara: You have to get'm off pause & get'm on play!) Yes, they just need to learn how to play & get themselves out of slow motion into fast-forward! PTL!
"CHOOSE THE GOOD, ESCHEW THE EVIL!"
34. (Prays:) Amen, thank You, Lord, for these video machines that enable us to see anything at all.--At least the good parts if nothing else, so that we can learn, as Thy Word says, "to receive the good & eschew the evil!"--Isa.7:15; 1Pet.3:11. Accept the good & eschew the evil, that's what we're trying to do with these videos. "Choose the good," that's the Scripture, "& eschew the evil!" That'd be a good title for this! It's funny how the Lord often gives me a title right at the end, "Choose the good & eschew the evil!"
35. Now it may sound there like it means shoo the evil like you shoo chickens, you know, "shoo, shoo!" Well, maybe that is the word that it comes from. Eschew is an old English Bible word, eschew--e-s-c-h-e-w! And it means the same, shoo it away, get rid of it!--Like if you're shooing chickens out of a coop or into a coop or you're shooing away flies! Maybe I shouldn't use chickens because most kids don't even hardly know anything about chickens today. When I was a kid we spent a lot of time on farms & that was one of the jobs of the little kids, to shoo the chickens out to shift for themselves in the morning.--Or shoo'm back in the pen at night!
36. But at least you know about shooin' away flies & shooin' away mosquitoes, right? Well, just like you shoo away flies & shoo away mosquitoes, you want to shoo away any violence & shoo away loud screams & ugly things that you don't want to see or hear! And the tremendous advantage of video is that you really can shoo'm away! You don't have to get'm at all, or hardly at all!
37. You can choose what you want to play & what you don't want to see, & you can cut out junk that you don't want. And even if on the original recording they didn't manage to cut out the junk, when you're playing it you can shoo it away with what button? (David: The fast-forward!) Right! And if it's a recorded variety tape where there's some good stuff for adults & some for kids, a long drawn-out movie or something, how do you shoo that away? (Sara: Press the stop button & fast-forward through.) Exactly right!
38. A video machine is a tool, but if you don't know how to use a tool it's not going to do you much good, is it?--Everybody has to be taught or trained how to use a tool. You have to know how to use a pencil to write, or a typewriter to type, or a calculator to calculate, right? You've even got to learn how to use a spoon as a baby to eat, & the Chinese & Japanese have to learn to use chopsticks!--Although I hear some of them are getting out of that habit now.
39. So you've gotta learn the skill of using that tool or that implement to get the best out of it! At first a baby will take the spoon & he figures it's something to throw food with.--I remember Ho even splattered food on the ceiling! He got that spoon & he grinned & he thought that was great. He went, whist!--Ha! He didn't know it was going to go on the ceiling, of course, but he just thought he was to wave it around & he splattered food on the walls & the ceiling. But you've gotta learn how to use a tool or the implement or the knife, fork or spoon or whatever. Right?--Unless you want to just splatter stuff all around. I've even been teaching the boys how to use hammers & saws & pliers & screwdrivers & things like that!
40. --Because no matter what it is, there's always a right way & a wrong way! From the baby's spoon to a sophisticated, complicated video machine, there is a right way & a wrong way to use it. The right way is to...what's the Scripture? What's the motto? What's the title of this talk? (David: Choose the good &...) Choose the good! That's enough! Well, the last part is the right way too, to choose the good & eschew the evil! It wouldn't do much good to choose all the good & to leave all the evil there, would it? So the right way is to choose the good & eschew the evil! PTL!
41. (Prays:) Thank You, Lord, that we can choose the good & eschew the evil!--That You give us a choice in life! We don't have to choose the evil, we don't have to do wrong things, we don't have to look at bad things or hear them, but we can choose! We have that right to choose & we have the ability to choose & we can close our eyes & ears or shut off the switch of things which are bad, not good. But Lord, we also have the responsibility to turn on things or listen to things or watch things that are good & educational & good for us! So we thank Thee for that, Lord!
42. We thank Thee for these occasions on which You've given us important things to tell even small groups of people like this, Lord. We understand now why You gave most of Your sermons to just the 12, just a little handful, because You could look'm in the eye & be sure that they heard You & be sure that they understood & get their reaction & it was so much easier to teach & talk to tiny little knots of people & groups like this, or even 12 disciples as it used to be so often in the old days.
43. So help us in all the things we do all day long & part of the night in watching videos or whatever we may do, in every activity of life & everything we do or say or even think, help us to constantly be on guard, Lord. Help us in all these things to constantly remember to be watchful, to monitor our thoughts, monitor our words, monitor our actions just like we monitor the video!--And in all these things, please help us to always choose the good & eschew the evil, in Jesus' name, amen. PTL!
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family
