"CHOOSE THE GOOD & ESCHEW THE EVIL!"--Isa.7:15; 1Pet.3:11.
--A Lesson on Video Controls & Monitoring!                DO 2454          7/84

         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!
         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.

"PAUSE" & "FAST-FORWARD" BUTTONS--WHEN TO USE'M!

         4. 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.
         5. ANOTHER THING YOU NEED TO LEARN ABOUT THE CONTROLS, both on the machine or the remote, is 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 fastforward 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!
         6. 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. 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!

         7. 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!

         8. DO YOU KNOW WHAT I USED TO DO WHEN THOSE COMMERCIALS & CRAZY JINGLES & SONGS WOULD POP INTO 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!
         9. 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!
         10. 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, that some of those things will pop into your head.
         11. 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.

CUTTING THE GARBAGE OUT!-STORY OF THE ROACH IN THE ROLL!

         12. 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!
         13. 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 1015 minutes making my breakfast in the morning. I guess some people would think that's awful!
         14. --OR LIKE THE TIME MOTHER FOUND A GLAZED ROACH ON HER DELICIOUS PECAN NUT ROLL! 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. She was horrified & was going to throw the whole pecan nut roll away!
         15. 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!"

BENEFIT FROM THE GOOD!

         16. 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?
         17. I THINK OUR CHILDREN IN THE FAMILY SHOULD HAVE THE BEST EDUCATION POSSIBLE, AS WELL AS THE MOST WHOLESOME EDUCATION POSSIBLE, & be wellrounded & 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.

MORE ON BUTTONS!

         18. 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.

"CHOOSE THE GOOD, ESCHEW THE EVIL!"

         19. (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!
         20. 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!
         21. 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 fastforward!) 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!
         22. 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.
         23. (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!
         24. 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