GYC 2010: No Turning Back

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Generation. Youth. Christ. (GYC)

By Beholding: The Mind-Shaping Influences of Media and Entertainment

Brandon Mascareñas

Thom Mayer

Scott Mayer

American Idol

Let's bow our heads for a word of prayer.

Dear gracious heavenly Father, thank you so much for this opportunity to come together and to share and to learn these precious truths about you.

And Lord, as we discuss this topic of idol worship today, may this be to your glory.

And Lord, May you speak through me every single thing that you want everyone here to hear.

So today's message is titled, American Idols.

And it's a little expose on this whole phenomenon that's coming out lately called the superhero movies.

How many of you, and I just want to see a raise of hands, I've seen a lot of superhero movies in my life, so don't feel like you shouldn't raise your hand or anything.

I just want to see how many people have ever seen a Superman or a Batman movie?

Okay, I want you guys to look around the room and see how many hands just went up.

That is why the impact of what we're going to talk about today is necessary.

Today's message is not necessarily for the faint at heart.

I want to give you a sort of a disclaimer.

And what we're going to show you today is not easy to digest.

I remember the first time that that that somebody showed me and I was just whoa Wow so Definitely, you know I Want to I want to leave you with that disclaimer.

If you've never ever seen these images, if you're never ever going to see these images, maybe today's message might not be for you.

But I believe it's necessary as we travel around and speak to a lot of our churches and schools, We notice that almost everybody is seeing these movies.

When Christ was being asked by a lawyer, Which 1 of the commandments is the greatest commandment?

In Matthew 22, 35 through 38 it says, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.

This is the great and foremost commandment.

And then he goes on to say in the second 1 is like unto it that you should love your neighbor as yourself But the greatest commandment that he's saying is love God love God completely In fact when we look at the 10 Commandments, I don't think that we look at this enough.

You look at the first commandment and it says, and God spoke these words, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

Why did God say you should have no other gods before me?

You know, all the cultures around the world that have worshipped many different idols, Baal, you name it, whatever idol they worshipped.

Do you know that each 1 of those idols, such as Baal, what was Baal giving to the people?

But if they needed something else, they had to go to a different god.

So these gods that were worshipped by the world could not be an all-encompassing God.

And here our God is saying, no, no, no, you don't need another God.

I am the only source of everything that you need.

The second commandment, and you shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in the heaven and the earth beneath, or in the waters below.

You should not bow down or worship them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents, to the third and fourth generation of those that hate me.

Punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and to the fourth generation.

If you walked out this door today and you were to murder somebody, is your kids and their kids and their kids going to be punished because of that?

That's a heavy stipulation to put on something.

Because of our sin of following and making other images and worshipping those images, God is very clear that this is definitely 1 of his most, if you will, hated things.

This is a very serious matter, idol worship, and we don't really take it that seriously.

We hear the word idol a lot, and it's just not quite as heavy as I believe God needed us to understand it.

So Isaiah 60, do you know what the Israelites were supposed to be to the world?

They were the people that were kicked down by everybody and God said I'm going to take these people up and I'm going to raise them to the top like in Isaiah 60, so they will arise and shine for the light has come and the glory of the Lord shall be risen upon thee.

For behold, thy darkness shall cover the old earth, gross darkness of thy people, but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and His glory shall be seen in thee." God intended to raise up Israel and show the world who the character of God was through Israel.

How many of you have heard that we are spiritual Israel?

How many of you have read the story of the Israelites coming out of the land of Egypt into the promised land?

We are wandering in the desert, getting up to, we are now standing on the River Jordan, looking over into the Promised Land.

We're so close, brothers and sisters, we are so close.

And just like the Israelites, guess how Satan got them to fall from their position constantly.

Idol worship over and over and over again.

You read those stories in Deuteronomy, you read those stories in Exodus, it is just non-stop the Israelites falling prey to idol worship.

So I believe that we can learn a lot from this experience and in fact 1st Corinthians 10 is a whole chapter about the dangers of idol idolatry.

Moreover brother and I would not either that you should be ignorant how that our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea.

All were baptized unto Moses, and in the cloud and in the sea, and All did eat the same spiritual meat, all did drink the same spiritual drink, for they drink of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ.

But with many of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.

Now these things were for our examples to the intent that we should not lust after these evil things as they also lusted.

So Paul is saying even in his day, look, we can learn from these guys.

What happened to these guys is the same thing that's happening in our day.

And I believe that we can even learn from Paul and from all these other people, what happened back then is still happening today on a grand scale.

So that's a pretty cut straight forward thing.

1 Corinthians 10 20-22 But I say, the things that which the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to devils and not to God.

I would ye that ye have no fellowship with the devils for ye cannot drink of the cup of the Lord and the cup of the devils.

You cannot be partakers of the Lord's table and partakers of the devil's.

Is it possible Like the world follows and worships and is really into some of these idols, is it possible for us to have and sit at the same table?

You see, right here it says they sacrifice to devils.

When they when they sacrifice to idols does the idol really walk and see and talk?

Where do we get this idea of superheroes?

If you look at just the definition of hero in a dictionary, it's a man of distinguished courage or ability, admired by his brave deeds, noble qualities, which is classical mythology, or number 2, a being of godlike prowess and beneficence who often came to be honored as divinity So superheroes in a nutshell are super gods now This next clip that I'm going to show you is of some of the DC comic writers themselves talking about where they came up with these ideas for these superheroes.

♪♪ Superman is as much a Moses figure as he is a Christ figure.

You know, it's coming from another world, you know, having all this power and really saving lives Our redemption is not going to come from here goes the myth instead.

We'll be saved from the outside Batman Dark Knight Detective Gotham's greatest protector.

His parents killed before him at an early age.

Magic Kingdom

This message was presented at the GYC 2010 No Turning Back Conference in Baltimore, Maryland.

For other resources like this, visit us online at GYCweb.org.

Dear Gracious Heavenly Father, I praise your name.

Thank you so much for the GYC conference and each and every person that has come out here.

Lord, may they see a greater picture of who you are.

And Lord, may you speak your words through me.

May they not see anything that I have to say, Lord, but only what you want them to know.

So Lord, be with the technology, be with this presentation, and may it be impactful.

So Magic Kingdom, we were asked a lot to talk on cartoons actually for the last couple of years.

And I always kind of said, oh, you know, cartoons, come on, they're not that bad, right?

And when I finally sat down and I started looking into this phenomenon, I was actually shocked at how deep and how much they even attack spiritual truth or the Bible or Christ, even in the most simplistic cartoons.

So, before I get started, I'd like you guys to think about 1 thing.

I want to talk to you from Hebrews 11, the faith chapter.

All of the people in the Bible that exuded amazing faith in the Bible, such as Noah, it goes through in Hebrews 12, or Hebrews 11, And it starts out by giving you clear examples of what true faith was.

You build this thing for a hundred years or more, not ever knowing what's going to happen.

If you think of Abraham and Isaac, imagine the faith that Abraham had to have to bring his son up there on that mountain knowing that this was the child that God gave him to continue on his lineage.

I also want to bring your mind to Christ, when He was in the garden of Gethsemane.

Christ was on the ground, pleading with God, begging with God, God, I don't want to go through with this.

Every single thing in my life, everything that has come up to this moment, I cannot see past this point.

I don't want to go through with this, is what Christ was saying.

And in fact, in Matthew 26, 38-39, it says, that He was exceedingly sorrowful in His soul even unto death.

How many of you have been sorrowful all the way to the point that you want to die?

But like it says, O Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me, for not as I will, but your will.

You know what this tells me about faith in the Bible?

There's 2 kinds of faith, or there's 2 kinds of roads that you can take, rather.

You can have complete faith, or you can have complete feelings, And they're on opposite ends of the spectrum.

If we were to react in the end times off of our feelings...

We may be in for a rough ride in the time of trouble.

Had Christ reacted at this point off of his feelings, he would not have gone through with the cross.

And most of the people in the Bible, had they not reacted off of their faith rather than their feelings, lots of those Bible stories would have happened differently.

So faith is believing in the Word of God, believing what God says, and then reacting off of that, not your feelings.

In Ecclesiastes 12, 13 it says, Let us hear the conclusion of the matter.

Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.

The Bible, if you read Deuteronomy, is constantly referring to the Law.

The Law, the Law, this is what we need to do.

These are the precepts that God has given us.

This is what life is all about, is this Law.

The law is a description of Jesus Christ.

The law brings you to what heaven is like and a description of Jesus Christ.

So I want to talk about where cartoons first got their start.

Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse and Steamboat Willie here.

Cartoons have been around for quite some time now.

They used to be hand-drawn, and now they're using high-powered computers to make every little fiber of these stories like in Toy Story here.

But there's some things that have always remained the same about cartoons.

Notice the kind of like interesting little violent acts that happen even when cartoons first started happening.

And if you look at like Bugs Bunny, Mickey Mouse, all those guys, they constantly live in a world that is very unrealistic.

There's a lot of violent acts that happen.

Coyote constantly trying to take out the road runner.

These things are not really how we're supposed to live life.

By the nature of just cartoons, they're fighting against the natural law.

Really would the bridge really fall down?

So we have these things that are constantly taking this law, the law of gravity, the law of everything, and flipping it around, and now starting to make these stories about things that break the law.

Why do so many little girls, have you, How many of you have ever been to Disneyland?

How many people have seen little girls like this go to Disneyland just eyeballing every princess and wanting to be them, taking pictures with them?

These are huge, impactful things to children.

In fact, the boys, they even, you know, they're heroes.

They dress up like them, act out like them.

Here's some little boys acting out some scenes in Toy Story.

I'm telling you, I can fly around this room.

I actually typed in Toy Story and reenactments on YouTube and all these videos came up of all these little kids that would dress up like this and reenact these things.

Why do we act like the things that we see?

How many of you adults watch something and go home and get the outfit out and reenact that.

How many of you were here for Tommy's presentation earlier this morning?

So I'm going to actually play a short version of the mirror neurons that we have.

They have found out that we have these neurons inside of your brains that when you stare at somebody or something else, those neurons fire in exactly the same way as if you were doing it yourself, watching someone else do it.

We may have some special circuitry in our brains that helps us whenever we look.

Artificial Atmosphere

Father in heaven, Lord, this morning we come before you and as we are here, we thank you for the opportunity.

Many of us have come near and far and we thank you for safe travels.

Lord, as we take a few minutes, a few moments this morning, and look at the subject of video games, Father, we ask that you will give us open hearts and open minds, and that you impress upon our hearts what you would like us to do for this time as we all believe we are in the last moments of this earth's history, Father.

I pray that you would be with my tongue, that you would calm my mind, and that you'd be with each individual mind here.

So when we put those 2 words together, what do we conclude?

In the Garden of Eden, there was a perfect environment.

It was almost just this sphere of perfection.

And then there was this little problem that entered.

And completely destroyed this perfect environment, this perfect atmosphere.

And since then, I believe Satan has tempted man to recreate some perfect environment.

And man has tried really hard to create an environment that is utopian in nature.

No, because there's that 1 little tiny problem called sin.

And it has prevented us from creating a perfect real environment.

And instead we've created a fake artificial atmosphere, an artificial environment.

You think you are in control, but you're not.

Starting this off, Testimonies for the Church, Volume 3, page 476 states...

This gentleman was asking if it's visual, and I will make a plug now for Little Light Ministries.

Sin is among us, and it is not seen to be exceedingly sinful.

The senses of many are benumbed by the indulgence of appetite and by familiarity with sin.

So the objective of today's meeting, this session, is to show that video games have links to idolatry and fiction, to give counsel regarding these 2 concepts, to show how some of the most popular games counterfeit Christ's character and the biblical narrative, and how should Christians relate to this media format, video games.

So some of this may seem obvious, but we want to look at these issues.

This has been 1 of the biggest staples, household names, in the video game industry and any kind of toy in the last 20, 30 years, Nintendo.

It has been, I would almost, it'd be safe to say, for the most part, the industry standard for gaming and video game consoles and everything dealing with video game entertainment.

Now of course there's other brands, other companies out there, but the most popular 1 in my humble estimation is Nintendo.

Let's learn just a fraction of a time about Nintendo.

So the word Nintendo, some of the definitions, it comes from heaven, or luck comes from heaven, and actually the foundation of Nintendo when it actually organized and came together, was in 1889.

Does any of that date around that time sound familiar to anybody?

In 1888, there was a peculiar message, a very special message.

Christ our righteousness, righteousness by faith.

This message is the message that is to be preached to the whole world and as Seventh-day Adventist believing Christians or Bible believing Christians, this message is going to usher in what?

And so it's interesting how Nintendo arrives allegedly from the heavens 1 year later.

And of course it didn't start as video games then.

It started as playing cards and then they had what is called Love Hotels.

And it's not quite a brothel, but not quite a hotel, if you know what I mean.

So we're not here to completely bag video games.

Hand-eye coordination is increased with video game play.

Useful for training airline pilots and trained professionals like soldiers.

In fact, a lot of the robotics that are used in modern warfare, they actually use, they hardwire an actual Xbox controller or PlayStation because a lot of the soldiers that grow up in this video game era are very familiar with the controllers.

Let's just give them what they're used to.

Used by psychologists to help people overcome phobias.

When we were, as we're putting together this Battlefield Hollywood documentary, Tom Scott and I interviewed a physician down at the Veterans Hospital at UCLA.

They've created this whole virtual reality 3D simulation where they take Vietnam vets and they put them in this simulated atmosphere.

And while they're in this atmosphere, they hear the same sounds they heard back in Vietnam.

They actually give them a gun that has the same weight as an M16 or M60, and they relive this same process.

So they cope with the post-traumatic syndrome.

Well, that's pretty much it for the pros.

Wasted time on average is 13, sometimes upwards of 100 hours per week.

On average, a game takes about 30 to 40 hours to complete if you're good.

Me, I loved video games, but I was not good at them.

So I would probably fall under the 100-hour category.

Average game is around $30 to $50, more on the $50 range.

Modern warfare, the latest 1, earned, gained a billion dollars in just over a month and a half.

Supposedly you can boost your game with vitamins and neurotransmitters if you spend money on this particular gamer grub.

So it's a viable option to be a video gamer.

Anxiety and stress is heightened, Strained relationships, families are broken, husbands and wives are divorced over these issues.

Sex, Lies and Videotapes

Our Father in Heaven, Lord, this afternoon, once again we come humbly before Your throne of grace.

And Father, as I am a sinful, fumbling, mumbling human being, Father, I pray that you would put Brandon's self aside, Father, and that you would speak through me, that you would convey points that only needed to be conveyed, that as we present this topic today, that you would loosen my tongue and that you would open the ears of those here, Father, as we are bombarded by a media that wants to conform and distort your image, we just pray that We can be transformed into your likeness, into your image, the way you originally intended, Father.

Series

By Beholding: The Mind-Shaping Influences of Media and Entertainment

Artificial Atmosphere

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

GYC 2007 Plenary Sessions

A Journey of Faith

1h

Devoted Devotions: A Vibrant Devotional Life for the Last Days

Solitary Time with the Savior

1h

GYC 2011 totalChurch

Total Church: Leadership

2h 16m

Competitive Christianity: Sports & Spirituality

3. Enhancing or Endangering Spirituality?

1h 3m

GYC 2012 Morning Devotional

Resurrecting the Church

52m

Plenary

Counting the Cost

1h 56m

By Beholding: The Mind-Shaping Influences of Media and Entertainment

American Idol

1h 7m

The How and Why of God's Sanctioned Fasts

05 The True Spirit of Fasting

55m

The Everlasting Gospel for These Last Days

03 From Questions on Doctrine to Desmond Ford

56m

Devoted Devotions: A Vibrant Devotional Life for the Last Days

Bound by Devotion

59m

GYC 2013 Seminar: The Most Important Book Outside of the Bible - A Deeper Look at The Great Controversy

03-Adventism’s Prophetic Message in the Great Controversy

1h

GYC 2009 Plenary Sessions

When God’s Passion is My Passion

1h

Sound Doctrine