Participants:
Series Code: DID
Program Code: DID210012S
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00:18 Welcome to Digital Disconnect.
00:21 It's such a joy to be with you. I'm your host Scott Ritsema 00:24 for episode #12 of 13. 00:27 Boredom and the Bible is the name of this session. 00:31 You know there is nothing more calculated 00:33 to energize the mind and strengthen the intellect 00:37 than the study of the Word of God. 00:39 No other book is so potent 00:43 to elevate the thoughts, to give vigor to the faculties 00:46 than the broad ennobling truth of the Bible. 00:50 If God's Word were studied as it should be, 00:54 men would have a breadth of mind - men and women - 00:56 a conviction of character, and a stability of purpose 01:01 that is rarely seen in these times. 01:03 I hope we love the Word of God. 01:05 That is really what it's all about 01:07 for the Word of God is that which testifies of Jesus 01:10 in whom we live and move and have our being. 01:13 And I was thinking about our relationship with God 01:16 as it relates to the media inun- dation that we've experienced 01:20 in the digital age, and I wondered: we use media 01:24 as a tool to enhance our Biblical understanding, 01:28 to enhance our knowledge of the truth. 01:31 But is media becoming a greater stumbling block 01:35 in our relationship with Jesus than it is an aid? 01:40 We want to make sure we get this right. 01:42 So let's begin with prayer and ask God 01:44 to guide us as we think about these things. 01:47 Father in heaven, we ask for a real sense of Your presence 01:51 right now with us here, with all those viewing this 01:55 at home or listening in their cars that they would know 01:58 they have the Holy Spirit with them 02:01 speaking to their hearts, drawing them to a deeper 02:03 study and love of Your Word. 02:05 I pray for that now in Jesus' name, Amen. 02:09 My wife and I moved to California at one point 02:13 when we were first married. 02:15 Now I grew up in Michigan, and Michigan does not have 02:18 big mountains. Out West is where you go to see the mountains. 02:21 And I was always yearning for and interested in the mountains. 02:25 Well we got an opportunity after newly married in Michigan 02:28 to go live in California where we stayed for 5 years. 02:30 Now as I mentioned we're living in Michigan. 02:32 But when we moved out there I was very excited 02:36 to see the mountains. In fact, the school that was hiring us 02:39 they were really talking up the mountains. 02:40 "Oh, Southern California is the greatest place in the world 02:43 because you've got the ocean right over there, 02:45 the mountains right over there. " "OK... sign me up! " 02:47 So we're driving in our U-Haul truck. 02:49 We're heading into the inland valley. 02:51 We're about to see the San Gabriel, the San Bernardino 02:54 mountain ranges. And it's June, and we're driving 02:58 looking for these mountains we've heard about 03:01 and I'm like: "Honey, where are the mountains? " 03:03 I'm looking on my paper map. Remember those things? 03:05 The Rand McNally? "The green swath is here. 03:08 We should be able... " Oh, I do see 03:10 a faint outline of the mountains peeking up above what I now 03:15 realize is a bunch of smog and haze and greyish-brown 03:18 nastiness. "Oh, the mountains were supposed to be 03:21 so beautiful to behold. " 03:23 That's what I was so excited about: I wanted to see 03:26 the beauty of the mountain ranges in all their clarity 03:30 and I see a faint outline. 03:32 This is an apt analogy for many people's spiritual experience. 03:36 We know of the existence of God. 03:38 We acknowledge His presence but we don't see Him 03:42 in all of His beauty and goodness. 03:44 We don't experience the closeness. 03:46 Well the most wonderful thing would happen in the climate 03:49 in Southern California... two things actually. 03:51 One would be the rains that would come through. 03:53 When the rain front would come through it would actually 03:55 clean out that air, clear out that air in a magnificent way. 03:58 And another thing was the wind would blow through. 04:01 The Santa Ana winds would come through and clear out the air. 04:03 Well in the Bible both rain and wind represent something. 04:07 They both represent the Holy Spirit 04:10 where Jesus said to Nicodemus: 04:12 "The Holy Spirit will blow where He pleases. " 04:15 And the Former and Latter Rain represents the falling of the 04:19 Holy Spirit in the last days, the Latter Rain. 04:21 So let's think about this for a second: 04:24 what happened to the view of those mountains 04:27 when the wind and the rain came through? 04:29 Oh boy! The next day I'm running to the front window 04:32 and I'm saying: "Honey, come look at this! 04:34 It was raining down here and it's snowing up there! " 04:37 It doesn't do that in Michigan. You get piled on by the snow. 04:41 But we were so excited to see. "Did they move the mountains 04:44 90% closer? I mean, they're that much more clear! " 04:47 So what changed? 04:49 Well something happened in what's between us 04:53 and the mountains, you see. 04:54 Is God distant from us? 04:57 No! The Bible says he is "not far from each one of us. " 05:00 Maybe there's something between us and God. 05:03 Maybe our media; maybe our busy- ness; maybe our own selfishness. 05:07 Whatever it is that is clouding and "smogifying" 05:11 our vision and view of the Most High God. 05:14 You know, the average young person by the age of 21 05:17 will have consumed 10,000 hours of video games. 05:21 There are 5 million gamers in the United States 05:24 playing over 40 hours per week. 05:27 In fact, if you think about Satan 05:30 being the one who wanted to be in the position of the Creator 05:33 but God creates this world in six days, 05:37 rests on the seventh day, 05:39 and you've got all the onlooking universe witnessing: 05:41 "Yes, God is the Creator... God and nobody else 05:45 can do that, can they? " 05:46 You can imagine all of this: 1/3 of the angels - 05:49 the evil angels - looking at Satan and he's wanting to be God 05:53 and he can't do what the Lord just did. 05:55 And he's wringing his hands and he can't create a world. 06:00 Well, fast-forward to the digital age. 06:03 I want to quote for you from a book called Game Addiction 06:06 where the secular writer here says something that to me 06:10 sounds very spiritual as if Satan has created a counterfeit 06:14 reality. He's become a counterfeit creator 06:17 by making a digital immersion, a world in a place 06:21 in which people live. Listen to this: 06:23 "Our minds are set free to explore and exercise 06:27 heightened abilities and senses 06:30 in a space that still looks and feels real. " 06:33 He's talking about in the video game. 06:35 "Games take our senses beyond the confines of reality... " 06:39 Beyond the confines of God's reality... 06:42 "At the same time, those sensations allow the inflation 06:46 and extension of our conscious- ness, unique ways of being. " 06:51 So Satan creates a virtual place where people go 06:54 where they live where they immerse their mind, 06:56 their consciousness, their interests, their time, 06:58 their achievements, their accomplishments, their very 07:00 identity becomes subsumed into that video game world 07:04 in the extreme cases of the massively multi-player 07:07 online roleplaying games particularly 07:10 which is what that book Game Addiction was about. 07:13 It sounded spiritual, didn't it? 07:15 Our minds are taken beyond the confines of reality. 07:19 It almost sounds what you imagine Eve was thinking 07:22 imagining she would be ascending upon a higher state of being 07:26 when she took of that fruit. 07:28 Satan said: "You can be like God. " 07:31 Well, whether it has that spiritual implication or not 07:34 the bottom line is video games are a massive addiction. 07:37 In the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the 07:40 psychiatry community they published a diagnosable 07:43 addiction of video game addiction. 07:45 World Health Organization the same thing. 07:47 And you might say: "How is that possible? 07:49 It's not a drug. We know about drug addiction. 07:52 How is a video game an addiction? It's not alcohol. " 07:55 Well, actually there are seven million more video game addicts 07:59 in American than alcoholics if you ask the AMA. 08:03 But there are 2 different types of addictions 08:05 that have been recognized by the psychiatry practice 08:08 for many years. One is a chemical addiction 08:10 and one is a process addiction. 08:12 Gambling, pornography, and, yes, video gaming. 08:16 There's no chemical being inserted into your brain. 08:18 With a chemical addiction you take the drug or the alcohol 08:21 or the tobacco or the caffeine or whatever 08:23 and it causes a chemical reaction in your brain 08:26 when you take the chemical in. 08:28 But you heard in the previous session 08:29 the process of addiction of pornography 08:31 it elicits the internal natural drugs that mimic the drug from 08:36 a street high when we misuse the brains God gave us 08:39 and become pleasure-seeking hedonists. 08:42 So this is what the video game industry has done: 08:46 it has made millions of process addicts... 08:50 addicts to a process addiction. 08:52 And the reward circuitry in the brain 08:55 gets all messed up when you do that. 08:57 Dopamine receptors start shutting down. 09:00 The brain begins to crave higher quantities of 09:03 input of pleasure in order to get the same hit 09:06 just like drug addicts. 09:08 Except video gaming is maybe a little more insidious 09:11 in the fact that #1 it's socially acceptable 09:14 to play video games. We induct our children into that 09:17 from early ages. You know, 83% of kids have 09:20 a gaming console in their home. 09:21 We don't see 83% of kids being given tobacco 09:24 when they're 8 years old. Another thing about video gaming 09:27 is it's a novelty addiction. 09:29 Pornography is as well. 09:30 Novelty meaning a new experience. 09:33 You're going to level up and it's not the same old same old 09:36 so it's endless new experiences and novelties 09:40 that can captivate the user. 09:42 Another thing about video gaming that is particularly 09:44 dangerous is that there's no satiation point. 09:48 If somebody's addicted to bingeing on 09:51 unhealthy food or alcohol 09:54 there comes a point where there's a maxed-out point, 09:57 a satiation point. Doesn't happen with a video game. 10:00 You can just keep on playing. I've talked to many 10:02 video gamers who have testi- monies of where they've played 10:04 all weekend. And I mean ALL weekend with maybe 2 of the 3 10:07 nights they got a couple of hours of sleep 10:10 and that's it. You just keep on going deeper and deeper 10:13 in the most extreme cases. And you can be addicted to 10:15 a low dose of a drug. You can be addicted to 10:18 you know a low dose of video games as well. 10:20 But you know you think about the media, 10:23 the digital tools that we supposedly call them. 10:26 With video games and with other childhood media addictions 10:30 there's a quotation - a couple of quotations - 10:34 from professional scholars. Even just secular people are 10:38 blowing the whistle on this. I want you to see 10:40 the quotation from Dr. Maryann Wolf who said: 10:42 "No self-respecting internal review board 10:45 at any university would allow a researcher to do 10:48 what our culture has already done 10:50 with no adjudication or previous evidence. " 10:53 And what has our culture done? 10:54 Introduce a complete quasi-addictive set of attention 10:59 compelling devices without know- ing the possible side effects 11:03 and ramifications for the subjects... our kids. 11:06 So in other words, our kids are guinea pigs. 11:09 They're subjects in a vast societal experiment 11:11 on addiction using media. 11:14 That's amazing. Another quotation I want you to see 11:16 as well on the screen from The Big Disconnect 11:18 by Dr. Catherine Steiner-Adair. 11:20 She says: "Talk of addiction... " 11:22 We're talking about childhood media use. 11:24 This is not hyperbole... and event adults, too. 11:27 She says: "This is a clinical reality. 11:28 As adults we may choose to mess with our own mind 11:32 and gamble with our own neurology 11:34 but I have never met a caring parent who would knowingly risk 11:38 his or her child's future in this way... 11:40 and yet we are handing these devices that we use the language 11:44 of addiction to describe over to our children 11:47 who are even more vulnerable to the impact of everyday use 11:50 on their developing brains. " 11:52 And we've discussed the developing brains of a child 11:54 how the limbic system is becoming overactive 11:57 with all of the hyper-stimulating screen time. 11:59 Entertainment television and cartoons and movies 12:02 are already stimulating enough. Video games 12:04 have a four-fold increase of over stimulus 12:07 increasing the sleep deprivation and stress cascade 12:12 more than even entertainment television. 12:14 Then the prefrontal cortex of not just the child developing 12:17 brain but we all have developing brains. 12:19 We've seen in this series that is hampered. 12:22 That is diminished... the prefrontal function. 12:24 And the mental health crisis of a generation 12:27 being upon us largely due to the media. 12:30 Now the question of boredom and the Bible in this session 12:33 takes us to the issue of pleasure. 12:35 I want to show you a graphic that shows the pleasure centers 12:38 of a normal brain. They're nice and lit up 12:41 and orange there, but look at the one next to it. 12:43 That's a drug user's brain. 12:46 Not a lot happening in the pleasure centers. 12:48 In other words, you see in that graphic what we know 12:52 from experience. People who are addicted to something 12:55 find less happiness in the rest of life. 12:59 There is always a quest for the next hit of that 13:03 drug or that plug-in drug or that mobile device. 13:06 And we become pleasure seeking instead of enjoying the joys 13:10 that are already right before us. 13:13 Studies have been done on media use and pleasure. 13:15 The Kaiser Family Foundation published a report 13:19 many years ago that the more media the young people are using 13:23 the less happy they are AND the more bored they are. 13:29 That strikes people as a contradiction. 13:32 You might say: "Well, I go and watch the big game 13:35 on prime time 'cause I'm bored and I'm going to be excited 13:39 to watch it. " Or, "I'm going to flip on the video game console 13:42 'cause I'm bored and I want to cure my boredom. " 13:45 Or, "I'm going to listen to some worldly music 13:47 to take me out of the doldrums of boredom. " 13:50 We think the enter- tainment media cures boredom. 13:53 The research is telling us it increases boredom. 13:57 It is the CAUSE of the boredom 13:59 just like the drug user's drug is the cause of the low 14:03 pleasure receptor function that we saw on the previous graphic. 14:08 A provocative piece was published in the Atlantic Mag. 14:12 called: "Has the Smartphone destroyed a generation? " 14:16 This article Jean Twenge asks the provocative question 14:21 and answers it from the research. There have been 14:24 surveys that have been done going back generations 14:26 asking the same questions of teenagers: 14:29 "How do you spend your time in doing this or doing this 14:32 or doing this? " and ranking their happiness levels. 14:36 I want you to hear the quote and see the quote 14:38 from the magazine... from the article. 14:40 It said: "The results of this survey could not be clearer. 14:44 Teens who spend more time than average on screen activities 14:50 are more likely to be unhappy 14:53 and those who spend more time than average on non-screen 14:57 activities are more likely to be happy. " 15:00 Continuing the quote: "There's not a single exception. 15:04 All screen activities are linked to less happiness 15:10 and all non-screen activities 15:12 are linked to more happiness. " 15:15 So if you were going to give advice 15:17 for a happy adolescence... or frankly, this applies to 15:20 all of us... based on this survey 15:22 the advice would be straightforward. 15:24 Put down the phone; turn off the laptop; 15:28 and so something - ANYTHING - that does not involve a screen. 15:32 Oh, I love that advice from Dr. Jean Twenge at SDSU 15:37 who has studied the adolescent years in this generation Z 15:42 maybe more than any researcher out there. 15:44 She wrote the book I Gen, and a lot of generation Z, 15:47 the teenagers and young college students of today, 15:50 have taken that very advice. 15:52 Put down the phone; turn off the laptop 15:54 and do something - ANYTHING - that does not involve a screen. 15:56 There was a survey that was done of these young people 15:59 asking them: "How many of you have at some point 16:02 in recent years given up a social media platform 16:06 or taken a social media fast? " 16:09 And a full 1/3 of them 16:12 had chosen themselves to get off of a social media platform 16:16 at least for a time. 16:17 I found that to be very inter- esting because you can notice 16:21 your own dynamics or do a little trial and test 16:24 and you can see the annoyance of it 16:26 or the problems - mental health - might be occurring 16:28 with that. But the #1 and #2 reasons 16:32 that the teens gave for why they gave up the social media 16:36 at least for a fast or gave it up completely 16:38 was #1: It was a waste of my time. 16:42 Yeah... we'll talk about that. The average 16:45 user of the Internet today using social media 16:48 is on there for hours a day. 16:51 The second thing: too much negativity. 16:54 I found that interesting. So they're finding more 16:57 happiness, more positivity, more joy away from the media. 17:01 And we've seen that in studies. We saw it at Pennsylvania 17:03 University, Denmark Study. 17:05 Take 'em off of social media or take them down to very limited 17:08 amount and you reduce depression, right? 17:11 So I want to show you a video clip right now 17:14 of a family that actually went on a media fast. 17:19 So these guys were challenged: 30-day media fast. 17:22 And I want you to hear how that goes for them 17:25 and hear from even the young people how they feel about life 17:29 when they've been off the media. Take a listen: 17:33 Three years ago I picked up a copy of Neil Postman's 17:36 Amusing Ourselves to Death. And he was a college professor. 17:38 One of the exercises he'd have his students do 17:40 was to go on a... I believe in the book it was a one month 17:43 media fast. So I decided to do the exact same thing: 17:45 one month let's just shut down all media. 17:49 No more television, no Internet, no blogging 17:52 and anything that was digitally related. 17:54 Our children were not initially enthusiastic 17:58 about the media fast. They were terrified. 18:01 Our first impressions were shocked and a little bit scared. 18:05 But as we got a little closer to the day 18:07 and we were praying about it, we were thinking about it a lot 18:12 we were excited. 18:14 I don't think one of our chil- dren would say: "No, we wish we 18:17 never had to do it" 'cause there is a benefit. 18:20 It just gives you perspective on how much time you're spending 18:23 doing stuff. I couldn't stop thinking about music. 18:26 Just wanted to turn on the radio or just look up something 18:30 just for fun or just watch a quick movie. 18:32 It was pretty shocking how addicted I was 18:35 and I didn't like that at all. 18:37 As these sort of addictions are building up, it kind of 18:40 helps to break those. It is a fast and it takes time 18:44 and it's not just one day and then you're through with your 18:48 pain. No... it keeps going. But then once we get near 18:50 the end it's easier. You enjoy it. 18:53 You really can see the difference. 18:56 It's not just about taking away. 18:58 If all you do is take away from your kids 19:00 something and leave them nothing they're in no better spot. 19:03 They loved the extra time of playing basketball with dad 19:07 or playing cards with me 19:09 or just working on extra things. 19:12 Our lives are so busy and noisy. 19:14 It brings a quietness, and in quietness 19:17 is when you hear God's voice. 19:19 It is so sweet... the silence. Not just the silence 19:23 but the peace! Because if you're doing everything 19:26 and you have this noise go through your head 19:28 you really cannot have peace. 19:30 And you don't know that you're missing it until you have it. 19:33 The most important thing for me: for my kids to have 19:38 is that they would love God with all their heart 19:42 and know Him and live their life in relationship with Him. 19:45 This has been so good in our lives 19:49 and it hasn't been boring at all! 19:53 We're not just saying no media but we're saying 19:56 use it in responsible and God-glorifying ways. 20:02 Amen! Can you agree with that? 20:04 Fantastic documentary that that clip was pulled from 20:08 called Captivated by Media Talk 101. 20:11 And I think everybody - young and old - can 20:13 learn from that very same experience that they had 20:17 in that trial that they did... that test that they did. 20:21 And as you think about some of the comments, 20:24 particularly the young lady at one point 20:26 and she says that she would go outside 20:32 because, you know, you gotta replace the media 20:35 with something. She would go outside with the Bible 20:38 and she would read the Bible for sometimes hours 20:43 and ENJOY it! 20:46 I haven't heard a lot of people talk that way. 20:49 The idea that the Bible is "sweeter than honey: " 20:53 that's what it says in Psalm 119. 20:56 That it's sweeter than honey. 20:58 So what are we doing to our taste buds? 21:01 Our appetites as human beings are trained. What are we doing 21:05 with our media use and the stimulant effect of our 21:08 media use to make it so that so many people universally 21:11 don't care to read? 21:13 Maybe especially read the Bible. 21:15 Well let's back up and zoom out and think about 21:18 pleasure in general. How does pleasure work? 21:21 In God's universe in God's creation of us 21:24 did He want us to have joy? 21:25 Well, it says He created us "for His pleasure and will. " 21:28 God is a God of pleasure. 21:30 He wants us to enjoy His beautiful creation, 21:33 life as He designed it. 21:35 He is the true author of joy, happiness, and pleasure. 21:40 Satan is the enemy of souls 21:42 and is about pleasure seeking and hedonistic violations of 21:47 God's law under the false name of pleasure 21:50 when really it just leads to greater depression. 21:53 What kind of things bring pleasure? 21:55 You ever had an opportunity to sponsor an orphan? 21:59 Sponsor a child in a school overseas in a needy place 22:02 where the child doesn't have parents and you're 22:05 giving them an education. You've got the little picture 22:08 hanging on your fridge and maybe you start collecting those. 22:10 Pleasure follows when you do that, doesn't it? 22:14 Altruistic deeds; deeds of mercy of many kinds. 22:17 How about when you study the Bible with somebody 22:19 and you share the truth with them? 22:21 And they've never seen the picture of Christ 22:24 and the Bible truth that you are revealing... 22:26 that the Spirit of God is revealing to them as you 22:28 take them through the Word of God. 22:30 When you do that pleasure follows, doesn't it? 22:33 How about when you view a beautiful sunset 22:36 or a rainbow or a double rainbow 22:38 or name your favorite captivating scene of nature. 22:42 You view that. You ponder and give gratitude 22:47 to the God of creation at that moment 22:49 and know His presence with you and pleasure follows. 22:52 How about you enjoy some family time? 22:55 You take an afternoon off and you get a meal and you go 22:58 outside and enjoy beside a lake. 23:01 There's actually a quotation, an admonition I read 23:04 one time, and it says: "Parents should take their 23:07 children out on a lovely afternoon 23:10 under a spreading tree and have a meal together 23:12 in a beautiful place. " 23:14 And some people say: "Well when you read counsel 23:17 like that... You know, when you read instruction 23:19 that God has inspired into your life 23:23 well it's some sort of legalistic thing. " 23:25 I said to my children one day: 23:27 "We're going to take very seriously these admonitions 23:30 and I'm going to follow this strictly. " 23:33 And most kids go: "Oh, no, what are they going to take away? " 23:36 "We're going to go... Dad's not working this afternoon, 23:39 we're going to the lake. " 23:41 Pleasure follows. 23:43 How about when you study the Word of God for yourself 23:45 and you pray like the Psalmist prayed? "Open Thou 23:48 mine eyes that I might behold wondrous things 23:51 out of Thy law. " Pleasure follows. 23:53 Invest in a marital relationship. Pleasure follows. 23:58 Attend a joyful wedding celebration. 24:00 Accomplish a difficult task. 24:02 Enjoy a nutritious meal that you didn't cook! 24:05 No... or that you DID cook and put some hard work into. 24:07 Pleasure follows. 24:09 Now why do I keep saying that refrain pleasure follows? 24:13 Because it's the cart and the horse. 24:15 Our culture puts the cart before the horse. 24:18 "I'm going to seek pleasure and that's the end. 24:20 That's out front; that's the goal. 24:21 That's where my sights are set; I'm seeking pleasure. " 24:24 But that's not God's design. 24:26 You seek God. Pleasure follows like the cart follows the horse. 24:30 It's as simple as that. 24:31 And God wants us to maximize our joy. 24:35 You see, Satan has this reputation as being the one who 24:38 is going to deliver pleasure and God is the killjoy. 24:42 THAT IS SO FALSE! 24:43 That is absolutely incorrect. 24:45 God wants to maximize our joy in the present and eternal 24:50 experience that He has to offer us. 24:52 Satan isn't any good at it anyway. 24:54 The analogy is a caffeine addict. 24:57 I was a Mountain Dew addict. 24:59 Hi... I'm Scott and I was a Mountain Dew addict. 25:01 I used to wake up first thing in the morning. I would drink 25:04 the Mountain Dew for breakfast. 25:05 I would have the buzz to be able to take notes 25:08 first period in class. I'm talking 12th grade here. 25:11 I'm 18 years old and I'm not eating breakfast 25:15 and then I crack another "pop" as we call it in Michigan. 25:18 Maybe you refer to it as soda or Coke... although 25:20 I have to take issue with you. It's not Coke it's Mountain Dew. 25:22 Anyway... I was a Mountain Dew addict. 25:26 And the biggest problem wasn't just the crash that followed 25:30 and that I didn't actually have much energy. 25:32 I'll tell you: later on in life when I made some reforms 25:35 in diet and health I found: "Oh, wow! " 25:38 So living without the caffeine sugar high 25:41 actually I have more energy. If you would have told me that 25:44 back then I'd be like: "What are you talking about? 25:46 I'm getting the energy from the rush from the Mountain Dew. " 25:49 No, you can live with a higher energy level 25:52 without that stuff. Really? Well, try it out. 25:55 I did try it out and found: "Wow! It works! " 25:57 But that wasn't just the only problem: 25:59 the high followed by the crash. 26:01 That's the pleasure seeking drug addict experience 26:04 media addict experience analogized by the Mountain Dew 26:08 addiction that I personally experienced. 26:10 But you know, when I was drinking the Mountain Dew 26:13 or take your pick... Your... you know, luxurious 26:16 dessert indulgence addiction. Whatever it is that 26:20 ruins your taste buds. 26:22 I did not want to eat real food. 26:23 After drinking Mountain Dew, you know, give me a pizza. 26:26 Give me, you know, Lucky Charms. 26:28 Give me something exciting to the taste buds. 26:30 Little Caesar's pizza or Dominos or the Pizza Hut 26:33 or whatever. Today I still love pizza by the way. 26:37 People who know me might be like: "Pizza's his favorite 26:40 food. " I try to eat the healthier pizza but anyway... 26:43 I didn't want to eat broccoli. I didn't want to eat vegetables. 26:47 The Mountain Dew spoiled the appetite 26:50 for the real thing. 26:52 You see the analogy Boredom and the Bible? 26:55 The Bible is sweet as honey. 26:57 SWEETER than honey to our taste. 26:59 But many people don't taste the sweetness, do they? 27:02 What's the problem? 27:03 Well, it says in Hebrews... I'm sorry, in Proverbs 27:07 chapter 27 that a sated man - 27:11 a satisfied man, a satiated man, 27:12 the person who's been full - 27:14 loathes the honey. Can we actually come to the point 27:17 where we loathe the Bible if the Bible is represented 27:20 by honey? Oh yes... many people are bored by it 27:22 because we're sated with something else. 27:25 The Mountain Dew addiction made me have a distaste 27:27 for the broccoli. You've eaten your dessert first; 27:30 you don't want the entree. 27:32 I want to show you a brain scan though that brings hope. 27:34 One month off of the addiction 27:38 and the pleasure receptors start coming back. 27:40 Fourteen months off and several months in between 27:43 you're really starting to get more pleasure there, aren't you? 27:46 So the joy and happiness of life really starts to return 27:50 or maybe starts to come for the first time 27:52 and you don't even know the difference. 27:54 Jesus says: "I will satisfy the desire of every living thing. " 27:57 He opens His hand and satisfies our every need. |
Revised 2021-07-13