How Did I Spend My 75 Years?
Statisticians tell us that the average life span is now around 75 years.
If you are under 30 then you think that is a long time. If you are around my age, you are beginning to realize that is not really very long at all. A few years ago, someone went to the trouble to research what people do with their time. If we live to be 75, most of us will have spent 3 years, 24 hours a day, acquiring an education-grade school, high school, college.
7 years eating, 24 hours a day - some more, some less, obviously.
14 years, day and night, working.
5 years riding in automobiles or airplanes.
5 years talking with each other - again some more and some less.
1 year sick or recovering from sickness.
24 years of our life sleeping!
3 years reading books, magazines, and newspapers.
12 years amusing ourselves - watching TV, going to the movies, fishing, etc.
That totals to 75 years. As I looked at these statistics I began thinking. Let us suppose that you spent every Sunday of your life, for 75 years - through infancy, childhood, adulthood, and old age - worshipping during two church services each Lord's Day. Now if you did, how much time would you have spent worshipping God? Figure it out - the answer is less than 11 months.
Let's double it because you have always attended two Bible classes a week. If you have never missed a Bible class in all your life, that still just totals 11 months.
Think about that - 5 years in an automobile and just 22 months in church! Twelve years amusing ourselves in front of a TV, and just 22 months in church. And that is if you have always attended and never missed! That tells us a little bit about the brevity of time and our priorities in life. - adapted from Melvin Newland, Facing the New Year
“Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth” - Colossians 3:2
PORNOGRAPHY"
Larry Yarber
"I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes: I hate the work of them that turn aside; it shall not cleave to me" (Psalms 101:3). "I made a covenant with mine eyes; why then should I think upon a maid" (Job 31:1)?
Both, David and Job made a covenant with their eyes, not to look upon any wicked thing. Many today, have done just the opposite. In the name of ‘so-called’ art, they have addicted themselves and others to pornography. By disguising their sinful practice with an artificial name, they think they have justified their perverted lifestyle. Isaiah said, "Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter" (Isaiah 5:20)! Sin is still sin, whether we recognize and acknowledge it as such or not.
Pornography is a compound word composed of two Greek words which mean, porne (prostitute), and grapho (I write). Webster defines it as, "Literature or art calculated solely to supply sexual excitement; obscene literature or art" (WEBSTER, p. 741). Brother Brock Hartwigsen quotes Webster as having defined pornography as, "obscene or licentious writing, painting, or the like" (Contending For The Faith, Oct. 2000, Vol. 31 no. 10, "Pornography the Tip of the Iceberg, p. 8). Webster defines licentious above, "Unrestrained by law or morality, esp. in sexual behavior; lascivious, lewd" (WEBSTER, p. 550). Lasciviousness is defined by the American College Dictionary as, "1. Inclined to lust; wanton or lewd. 2. inciting to lust or wantonness" (The Christian and The Dance, Charles Chumley, Haun Pub. Co., p. 5). From all of the above we learn that verbal or written pornography is as sinful and addictive as visual pornography and that it is just as sinful to incite others to lust, as it is for us to lust after something ourselves, "For the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, when we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, ..." etc. etc. (1st Peter 4:3). So, while visual pornography is sinful, so is that which is written and read in cheap novels, or that which is promoted and absorbed through song.
The Bible teaches that nakedness is shameful, "... and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; ..." (Revelation 3:18). That Christians are to be modestly adorned, "In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, ..." (1st Timothy 2:9). That we are to abstain from all forms of fleshly lusts, "Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which wars against the soul" (1st Peter 2:11). We are not to view wicked things (Psalms 101:3 and Job 31:1 - quoted earlier). Nor are we to speak or listen to filthy things, "Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers" (Ephesians 4:29). And, "But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints; Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient; but rather giving of thanks" (Ephesians 5:3-4). And again, "But now ye also put off all of these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth" (Colossians 3:8). And, if these were not enough, Paul concludes Romans chapter one by ending the catalog of sins listed there, with this statement, "Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them" (Romans 1:32).
It is imperative for the one who professes Christianity to refrain from all types of pornography. Let us be on guard as to what type of literature or art we watch, read, or listen to.