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You Are What You Watch!       Maria #429       CM/FM 3182       4/98

Dear ones,
       1. I love you very much, and keep you always in my prayers! This GN addresses a subject which might be a bit sensitive for some of you--in fact, I venture to say most of you! I know it's a sensitive one even in our Home at times. I'm sorry that the message I'm about to deliver to you has to be a little hard-hitting, but my job is to give the Lord's Words, and this is something that has been on my heart for some time now.
       2. We have received reports of some extremes of this problem--with some of our folks watching some very unedifying and downright devilish movies, taking in the spiritual poison of the Enemy, and letting it contaminate others in their Home through their words and actions. When we brought this problem before the Lord, Dad gave a pretty strong message in which he laid out the facts and gave some solutions.
       3. We're not going to suggest you stop watching movies altogether, as I know they are an enjoyable form of relaxation and can be a blessing, if kept in their place and not abused. However, I think you would all do well to take this warning to heart, as I wouldn't put it past the Lord to ask us to forsake this liberty if we don't start handling it more wisely. At the moment it's tearing down our spiritual line of defense and letting the Enemy into our lives and Homes, Lord help us!
       4. I'm also praying that as you address this subject in your Home, it can be a time of uniting against the Enemy, not pointing the finger at each other. One thing which I'm very aware of is the difference between people's personal tastes in movies, and this is often particularly true between the younger and the older generation. I know the Enemy would love to use this "call to arms" in this area as a means to divide you. But I'm really praying that as you prayerfully and lovingly counsel and unite together, you can defeat the Enemy in this and come up with some good solutions from Dad's counsel which will benefit all of you. Okay, without getting into the subject any further, I'll turn the floor over to Dad.
       5. {\b \i (Mama prays:)} Help our folks to take this to heart, Lord. You do so much for us, You give us so many of Your wonderful Words, and You try so hard to protect us and keep us strong in the spirit. It's really a shame when we open the door to this unchecked assimilation and acceptance of the Enemy's lies and propaganda through movies! Help our dear Family to take this message to heart, and to not only be convicted for the moment, but really be "doers of the Word!" In Your precious Name we ask. Amen.

       6. {\b \i (Dad:)} I know you kids have heard all of your lives that you've gotta watch out for movies, that you've gotta watch out what you feed your spirit, you've gotta watch out what you feed your soul. I've been telling you that for a long time. I explained a lot of that in "You Are What You Read" (MLs #775 and 776, Vol.6). There have been messages I've given recently in regards to particular movies, and some of those messages have been published in the Grapevine. The Lord's also said some interesting stuff about certain movies that have been put in the Grapevine, and I've said a little bit here and there about the dangers of movies. Maybe some of you folks just don't realize the magnitude of the problem, or perhaps you don't even realize what a big effect movies have on you.
       7. I've told you before that movies have a place in our lives because they're relaxing. They help you let your hair down and relax and have a good time, and in that way they have their place and they can be useful. All of you guys work so hard for the Lord on your mission fields, or in your Homes--taking care of kids, witnessing, being a blessing to your sheep, holding follow-up meetings, working in the kitchen, or whatever the case may be.
       8. You all work real hard for the Lord, and He wants to give you some blessings and some rewards. He likes for you to relax and have free time after all of the work is done, and so movies do have their place and they are beneficial in that way.
       9. But maybe you don't realize what a big influence movies have in your life--and not just in your life, but in everyone's life. Movies have a huge impact on the whole world. Movies and TV change people's minds, and I would even venture to say they brainwash the multitudes. I mean, people accuse us of brainwashing, but I'd say that movies are brainwashing at its highest possible state!
       10. Movies basically hammer into you ideals, morals, standards and conclusions that are, sad to say, in most cases totally contrary to the way the Lord wants you to think, to be, to act and to live. If you really think about it, I think you'd see that many movies actually put down, minimize, degrade, and even make fun of most of the things in life that are good and Godly--even the simple yet enjoyable things of life.
       11. I guess the easiest way to explain the influence of movies would be to go point by point and share how they can affect you in different areas of your life, or influence you in how you think about different morals or standards or ideas of the world.

       Sodomy Portrayed as Just Another Lifestyle
       12. Let's take sodomy, for example. So many movies that come out nowadays have at least one sodomite in them. Many movies portray this ungodly sin. The Bible talks about sodomy, and the Lord says very clearly that He hates it. In fact, He destroyed the entire cities of Sodom and Gomorrah for their wickedness and their turning their backs on Him and His natural gifts and God-given attitudes towards sex.
       13. God hates sodomy! He loves the sodomites just like He loves any other sinner, but He hates the sin! It disgusts Him and it makes Him hot with righteous anger! Now, in the worldly movies, how many times do they portray it as a sin? Rarely, if ever! Most of the time it's portrayed as an attribute, as a good thing, as a part of life, as just somebody's choice to live their life that way. Well, I'll tell you what, God hates it and I hate it too!
       14. Movies breed this sort of wishy-washy attitude which eats away at your convictions, to where you don't get so angry about sodomy anymore. You don't feel that Godly anger well up within you anymore. You start to kind of accept sodomy as a way of life. Or you say, "Oh, that's just the way things are out there in the world. That's just somebody's choice. That's the way they want to live."
       15. So that's part of the influence that movies have on you. They continually portray sodomy as okay, that it's good, that it's just a different lifestyle, that it's just an individual's choice. They add sodomites here and there in the movies in little parts; they're portrayed as good people, as kind souls. You look at their personality and you see that they're good people. You start to actually like the people and think that the sin is not so bad, when really you should be getting steaming mad about it and rebuking the Enemy and praying for those poor people who are oppressed by this vice of the Evil One!
       16. One reason the movies are so sympathetic to sodomites is because the movie people check their scripts with them, if you can imagine such a thing! They have an association of sodomites called the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force in Los Angeles, and if some Hollywood studio is gonna make a movie with a sodomite character in it, they let them look over the script beforehand. This association says what is or isn't acceptable, and anything that would encourage homophobia, as they call it, just isn't acceptable today. It's too discriminatory. It's getting to the point where it's almost illegal to criticize them!
       17. Now I'm not saying you should never watch movies with sodomites in them. It's hard to avoid them in the movies these days! What you have to watch out for is when they portray them as the heroes or the good, gentle, kind souls that everyone wants to be like. Or when they're nice folks being persecuted just because they're homosexuals. That's when kids and weaker folks can begin to identify with them, and when even stronger folks start getting their convictions chipped away little by little. Sodomy is a sin, folks, and although sinners can be nice people, it's dangerous to identify with such a blatant sin! You should love them, witness to them and win them if you can, of course. The Lord loves them just like He does you. You just need to keep your convictions strong about what's right and wrong!
       18. When they portray sodomites in a comic or funny role, that's not as bad. Well, the sin is still as bad, but its effect upon you as the viewer isn't as serious. Of course, if you don't have to watch such movies with sodomites in them, then you shouldn't, just as you shouldn't watch movies filled with violence, cursing, evil, the occult, or any other System slop that's going to have a bad effect on you. They're all bad! You just have to judge them prayerfully and weigh them in the balances, to see whether the good outweighs the bad in each case.

       Foul Language and Unloving Speech
       19. In movies, there's also foul language. You know foul language is bad. You know that I've talked about it in the Letters. You know that the Lord wants the words that come out of your mouth to be pure. You know that the Lord wants you to speak of the good things. You know that the Lord wants you to choose the good and eschew the evil. Still, with this constant input from movies, through the constant replaying of these words, this unloving speech starts to become a part of you.
       20. If you hear foul words long enough, over and over again, they start coming out of your mouth before you even realize it. It starts to become a habit for you, too. At the very least, if they don't start coming out of your mouth, you start to lose your conviction for standing up for Godly ways of speech.
       21. This foul language is garbage that defiles both you and those that hear it! And if you take it in continually on screen, you'll find yourself spewing it out in person, like that saying: "Garbage in, garbage out!" So avoid such language, and for God's sake don't use it yourself and spread garbage to others!

       Violence Without Consequences
       22. Then, of course, there's violence in the movies. I mean, just the other day in the U.S. an 11-year-old and a 13-year-old went to their school and gunned down five people, and many others were wounded! And there've been all sorts of cases of young people in Japan knifing their teachers, classmates and even police officers. Where do you think the kids get those kinds of ideas? It's no wonder they have twisted ideas, largely because of all of the violence and killing and shootings and wars on television and in the movies. Movies are very unrealistic, and they never show things the way they really are.
       23. They show you the gunfights, the wrestling, the buildings blowing up, the cars getting demolished, but they rarely if ever show you the long-term results of such violence. They almost never show you the pain the people suffer. They never show you the guys who are then confined to a wheelchair for the rest of their lives. They never show you the ones who grieve and mourn over the loss of their loved ones. In the movies they don't show what life is really like and what violence really does--how it's ruining the world that we live in and making society a hell on Earth.
       24. Most movies not only fail to show the victims of violence and what effect violence has on them, but they also fail to show you the consequences for the perpetrators. In real life you can't kill, assault, rob, cheat and lie without paying the price, even if it's for a so-called good cause! Yet movie heroes as well as villains do this all the time. If you don't get caught by the law and go through man's justice system, you'll face the Lord one of these days, and God's law is sure: You reap what you sow!

       Selfish and Unloving Sex
       25. Then there's the way they portray sex in the movies. Often people are ruled by lust and by their own selfish desires, and there's not much real lasting love. There's also violent sex, ungodly sex, unnatural sex, and this has sadly crept into some of our people's lives. Mama and Peter and I are very sad about that, and so is the Lord, because He intended for sex to be a loving, natural, Godly, beautiful experience!
       26. The Enemy, through the movies, seeks to destroy everything that is Godly, good, wholesome and enjoyable. He wants to take credit for that which God has made. He wants to screw up the world's morals and turn sex into something that is ugly, even hurtful, and most certainly selfish.

       Good Is Bad and Bad Is Good
       27. Movies also portray certain sins as good and desirable qualities, which you should strive to attain. Take jealousy, for example. Jealousy tears down love, jealousy is selfishness, and jealousy is an evil root and weakness of the Enemy. We, as the Lord's children, have to fight against this deadly sin of jealousy. As we overcome it, we find the Lord's love and peace that overlooks and overshadows and overcomes our natural selfish feelings.
       28. Yet in the movies, they portray jealousy as an attribute. They say, "Hey, it's good to be jealous. It's good to jealously covet the one that you love. Don't worry about ever having to share him or her. Holding back and being selfish is the way to go! You keep yourself from hurt, and you'll usually get what you want." That's an example of something that they portray in the movies which is totally opposite from the way that the Lord wants us to be and what the Lord knows will keep us happy, loving and giving.

       Law of Love Not Allowed
       29. Movies also eat away at your desire to live the Law of Love. In movies there is rarely any leeway for giving love to another besides the one who is your boyfriend or girlfriend, or your husband or wife. Of course, people out there often cheat on their lovers, but then they either lose the one they love or they're never forgiven for what they did.
       30. In the Family we have the liberty to live the Law of Love and to give love to others, even outside of our marriages and our private relationships, but the movies tear down this sort of sharing. They give the subliminal messages: "You can't give like that. You can't love another, because it will just ruin your relationship for good. You can't love more than one person. You can't give love to others, or if you do, you have to do it on the sly without permission, without honesty and without open heart-sharing communication."
       31. This is totally contrary to the Lord's Law of Love. And when you watch movies, instead of having more of a desire to give to and love those around you, you have less, because they keep eating away at your mind patterns and the love the Lord has placed in your heart. You can unconsciously start withholding and not reaching out to others as much as you know the Lord wants you to, and as much as you should.
       32. Movies just generally have that effect! These constant scenes and images of people saving themselves for one person and then living happily ever after, or of sharing outside their marriage and winding up miserable and ruining their lives and the lives of others, what do you think they do to people? You talk about social indoctrination and brainwashing, or coercive tactics, the System has got it, I wanna tell you!
       33. You older folks watch that, but you've read and lived enough of my Letters to know that it's just a fantasy, as unrealistic as most other things they show on film--although it still affects you to some extent. But young people have less exposure to life, and seeing these unrealistic portrayals can cause them to grow up thinking these things are the way life and love are. Then they start treating the Lord's Letters and our teachings on the Law of Love sort of like System Christians treat the Bible--nice words and the ideal, but something from another age that's not really possible to live today. Oh, they pay it lip respect, but their obedience is limited because they've been so conditioned that you just can't do it, can't live it, can't practice it today. And they see their parents not living it either, being sort of settled down and not wanting to get involved with others, so they wonder why they should either!

       Fantasy on Film--Life Is Unrealistic
       34. Then there's the fact that movies are so unrealistic; they often have fairy-tale endings and unrealistic scenarios. They can make you start wondering why life doesn't flow as smoothly as it does in the movies. The more you watch movies, the more they rub in this message. "Why don't relationships work out like they do in the movies? Why don't bad situations work out like they do in the movies? Why doesn't everybody always live happily ever after?" It's this fantasy world of unrealism that totally screws up your perspective on life!
       35. It can have a lot of bad effects on you. You start getting dissatisfied with the way you were made, with the trials and battles that the Lord brings into your life. You start measuring the way you think things should be by the way that movies turn out, by the happy endings, by the unrealistic relationships. You start living in a fantasy world to where your feet aren't even firmly on the ground anymore.
       36. How can you fight and give your life to the Lord if you're living in a world that's unreal, continually wishing that things were different or that life was more "perfect"? This is a real inroad of the Enemy to get you to be dissatisfied and unthankful for the blessings the Lord's given you and the beautiful gift of life that He's bestowed upon you to live for Him, and to love and enjoy Him with.

       Further Fantasy: The Perfect Body
       37. Movies can not only make you dissatisfied with life but also with yourself and your body. You women see that gorgeous gal with the beautiful body on screen, and you want to be like her. So you start starving yourself to achieve that same sort of figure, which is unnatural and unnecessary! You get discontent with the body the Lord gave you and you want to be like some Hollywood starlet who's gone under the knife of plastic surgery to get that way, or who barely eats and suffers all sorts of health problems as a result. This not only affects you but it affects your service for the Lord and your ministry to millions of others, as well as the children God wants to give you or has already given you!
       38. You men aren't immune to this sort of thing either, so don't get self-righteous towards the women! You see these well-muscled hulks in the movies and you start wanting to be like them. Before you know it, you're off doing push-ups and lifting weights every day in your own quest for the perfect look. It's reverse anorexia--the women want to slim down and you men want to build yourself up! Your muscles are bulging, even though you might be weak in the Word or in spirit and your Word time is fading fast!
       39. For Heaven's sakes, folks, what's wrong with the bodies the Lord gave you! If you eat right, sleep right, exercise right and live right, and don't abuse your body by overdoing somehow or other, you'll have the figure the Lord intended you to have. Why go the System route in spending so much time, energy and health in being so overly concerned about how you look? Don't you realize it's the inner you that's most important--the spirit of love for the Lord and others shining from your eyes that makes you beautiful?

       Cool Bad Habits
       40. Then in movies, they do all kinds of things that are bad for your health. They eat junk food, they smoke like a house afire, they overdo on alcohol and drugs, and these things have a terrible effect on people--but most of the time the effects aren't portrayed realistically. A large number of people in the movies smoke constantly, and that really wears away at your convictions. You young people start wanting to try it out, because movies give smoking a very "cool" image. It seems to be the "in thing."

       Getting a System Education to Get Ahead
       41. Then there's the constant hammering into you that you have to have a good System education. You have to go to high school, you have to get good grades, you have to go to college. You have to really study hard and get good grades in order to be anything or do anything in life.
       42. No wonder so many of our kids these days have it ingrained in them that they have to go to school, that they have to get a higher education. It's no wonder that they think this way, because it's been hammered into them through the movies. It's there all over the place. It's a standard that never changes in the System.
       43. They say you can't be anything, you can't do anything, you can't even live a decent life unless you go the distance with your education. Sadly, a lot of our young people have taken on this attitude because they've heard it so many times. What the Lord's said and what's been put out in the Letters has been overruled.
       44. Our missionary kids don't need a bunch of head-stuffing in a System high school, and they certainly don't need a college education! They'd be surrounded by the ungodly while the Enemy slowly snuffs out whatever fire or fervor they had, while they learn how to drink, do drugs, date and raise hell. Our kids just need whatever education is necessary to serve the Lord and be a useful missionary and soul-winner! Yet now many of them want to do it. Some of them leave the Family for that very reason--to get a "good education." They see through the movies that it's looked down upon to not receive a "full, adequate System education."
       45. Although they have sufficient knowledge for the job that the Lord has given them, they feel inferior and think they have to go out there and top up their knowledge in order to be anything or do anything or be of good use to anybody. It's a total lie of the Enemy and something that's passed on through the movies! The Enemy uses this to get our young people to waste their time on studying and accumulating System knowledge, becoming intellectual and educated, when they could be serving the Lord and winning souls for His glory.

       Money Madness
       46. Movies also portray those "get-rich-quick" schemes and ways to make money. In most movies everything seems to come so easy, so smooth, and the people always seem to be successful. They don't show the reality of the world out there and how the big money boys use you and abuse you, how big companies use the little people as pawns in their hands, how the System will swallow you up if you're not careful, and how making money is just plain hard work, unless you're singin' the right tunes and playin' ball with the big money boys who rule the world!
       47. Movies also really encourage materialism! You see people with the latest craze in clothes, electronics, computers, cars or whatever, and you start to want them too. There's the constant subliminal message of "You need this! You've gotta have it!" So you can start to become dissatisfied with what you have, with all the good things the Lord has provided for you.
       48. Materialism is how the Enemy keeps folks in check and from doing much or anything for the Lord. After all, if you want to buy those things you need money, and lots of it. That means you either have to slave away at a System job or go into debt up to your eyeballs, or both. System slavery is a high price to pay for material goodies! Watch out for the spirit of mammon!

       War Between the Generations
       49. And the way a lot of movies portray family relationships--relationships between children or adolescents and their parents--is the opposite of the way that the Lord has designed for us, His Family, to live. The Lord's commandment was for children to obey their parents, yet in the movies children very frequently talk back, being disrespectful and ungrateful towards their parents.
       50. Some movies portray huge generation gaps between teenagers and their parents. In the movies, it's just the "in thing" to not like your parents and to not get along with them, to speak badly about them behind their backs. If you get along with your parents, you're looked on as "corny" or "square," or they consider you a sissy, a goody-goody or a mama's boy.
       51. Yet in the Family, the Lord's showed us how it's possible for both generations to work side by side, to live in unity with each other and to love each other and be close, even though there are physical differences, and even though the younger generation and the older generation have different likes and dislikes and different ideas of what is fun and enjoyable.
       52. The influence of movies can contribute to the generation gap that we experience in the Family, because the movies say that it's just natural for kids and their parents not to get along. Therefore, the adults and young people in the Family accept that as a way of life instead of striving to bridge the gap and create unity between the generations.

       Attacking Christianity
       53. Overall, movies just tear down Christianity! They tear down the morals that are good and right. Every once in a while, a movie will come out that doesn't portray Christians or Christianity in a bad way, but it usually has some other twisted slant to it that's a more subtle attack. The AC always has to get in his propaganda some way or another.
       54. Often when Christians are portrayed in movies they're the bad guys, and this gives the world a bad perspective on those who love the Lord and those who serve Him. They'll show murderers or people in prison as professing Christians while they continue their murder and villainy. Sometimes even the child abusers or the sodomites in movies claim to believe in God, and this is yet another ploy of the Enemy to eat away at people's faith in God, their faith in the spirit world, and their faith in Christianity.

       Constant Garbage Can Wear Down Godliness
       55. Well, folks, these are just some of the many ways that movies can influence you! A lot of times you don't see the effects in your own life for a long time. Maybe it will be a few years before you actually see the effect that the movies have on you. Maybe for a while you'll be doing fine, coasting along, not being real prayerful about the movies that you watch. But this constant input, this constant portrayal of morals that are contrary to the Lord and the way that He wants us to think and act and be, really does have an effect on you, whether you like it or not.
       56. And it's not just the actions and the attitudes of these movies that can affect you, the words can as well. So don't go mulling over some of the foolish and ungodly things they say and go around repeating them or mimicking them; that just multiplies the foolishness and ungodliness! Beware of these things that eat away at your mind, heart and spirit. It's the little foxes that eat the vine, the little ungodly scenes and sounds that wear down your spirit.
       57. Somewhere down the line, these little seeds that have been planted in your heart and replayed in your mind will spring up out of nowhere. Then you'll realize that you have actually lost so much of your faith and your conviction. So much of the input and training that you've received goes to waste, because these ungodly influences eat away so slowly.
       58. If you want to preserve your life for the Lord, if you want to stay full of conviction and filled with Godly anger against the atrocities of the world today, the world that's walking down the pathway to destruction, then you'd better be real prayerful about what you watch. Even most so-called good movies can still influence you adversely in some way, whether you like it or not, so you'd better really pray. You'd better really pray that you can choose the good things and eschew the evil. And if you've developed an appetite for the wrong kinds of movies, you should ask for prayer from others or from your Home.
       59. Most importantly, make sure that you're getting filled up with the Word to counteract any bad influences that the movies may have on you. I know that movies are a very sensitive topic for a lot of you, and I'm sorry if I sound pretty hard-hitting, but I think you'd do well to take note and listen and take heed to what I'm saying. If you don't, you're endangering your life for the Lord; you're leaving yourself open to these subtle inroads of the Enemy.
       60. He's gonna have a heyday in your life if you don't take a stand and lift up a standard against him when he comes in like a flood! These movies can be like a flood--they're a flood of input--and if you don't choose what input you're going to receive and cast away the input that is of this world and that will eat away at your foundation of faith, then you're gonna be sorry.
       61. What will you say to the Lord when you come before Him at the end of this life? Will you say, "Well, Lord, I know You gave me all these talents. I know You gave me a lot of training. I know You poured a lot of Word into me. I know You gave me the truth, but I just let those talents get eaten away by the constant flood of movies and their input. I let the ungodliness eat away at my convictions until there were none left"?
       62. Or will you say, "Well, Lord, You gave me all these talents. I resisted the things of this world, and I invested Your talents wisely. They multiplied in my life and the lives of others many times over"? If you can say that to Him on that day, then He'll say to you, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant. Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord!"
       63. Lord, please help us all to realize what a serious inroad of the Enemy movies are. Open our eyes to the spirit world. Help us realize that if we want to stay on board for You, if we want to be useful members of this Family, if we want to invest what You've given to us wisely, then we're going to have to guard our souls with all diligence. We're going to have to make sure that we're taking in only those things which are good and wholesome, only those things that are going to strengthen us and sustain us in the days to come.
       64. And if we're working hard for You and watch movies for relaxation, please help us to choose the ones that are good and the ones that are going to benefit us. Even when we watch these, please help us to be bathed in prayer and choose the good things and cast away those things that are evil and not of You.
       65. Jesus, this is something that we're going to need Your help with. We pray that You'll help us to wake up! Help folks to wake up and take this little talk to heart, 'cause it can salvage their usefulness to You.
       66. Okay, God bless you, folks! I'm prayin' for you, that as you take this counsel and apply it wisely, you'll grow and become stronger and be even mightier witnessers for the Lord. I know you can do it! You're my Endtime army and I know that you want to press on to all that is in store for you ahead, without being squelched or hindered by the things of this world! I'm proud of you as you take the stand for good movies and against the bad ones, being counted as men and women of guts and conviction! Don't give any place to the Enemy in your movie-watching! You're not ignorant of his devices now. I love you! (End of message from Dad.)

       Summary of Movie Influences
       67. {\b \i (Mama:)} Dad's message warns of the following bad influences of movies:

       1) Movies portray sodomy as just another way of life, and promote an accepting attitude toward it.
       2) There is often an abundance of foul language, which can easily become a part of you. Even if it doesn't become part of your vocabulary, it can tear down your convictions about upholding Godly speech.
       3) The violence portrayed in movies is twisted and unrealistic in that you don't see the pain and suffering, the grieving families, the lifelong handicaps which follow. It numbs you to the thought of committing violence, and is making it easier and easier for people to commit these atrocious crimes, because they've seen them so often on television and in movies.
       4) Often people are ruled by lust and by their own selfish desires, and there's not much real lasting love. There's also violent or ungodly, unnatural sex, through which the Devil tries to take credit for sex, rather than the beautiful, pure, natural experience which God intended for it to be.
       5) Movies also portray certain sins as good and desirable qualities which you should strive to attain--the direct opposite of the way the Lord sees them--jealousy and selfishness, for example. Movies desensitize your conscience--literally "searing it with a hot iron" (1Tim.4:2b).
       6) Movies eat away at your desire to live the Law of Love. They give subliminal messages that it can't be done, so why even try.
       7) Movies are often very unrealistic, having fairy-tale endings and unrealistic scenarios, which can make you wonder or question why your life seems so difficult in comparison, and cause dissatisfaction and discontent.
       8) Movies can also lead to dissatisfaction with your body and physical appearance, affecting both men and women.
       9) Many bad health habits and vices are portrayed as "cool" in the movies--smoking, drinking, eating junk food, etc.
       10) The point is often stressed that you have to get a full System education in order to be successful in life.
       11) Movies also portray unrealistic "get-rich-quick" schemes and ways to make money, and don't show the reality of the big money boys behind things, and how they use and abuse and control you.
       12) The way family relationships are portrayed is the opposite of the way the Lord wants us to live. The generation gap is viewed as normal and acceptable. In fact, young people are often looked down upon by their peers if they do get along with their parents or adults.
       13) Movies tear down Christianity.
       14) Even so-called good movies often affect you adversely--so pray! Pray and counsel with others about the movies you watch or let your kids watch, and "choose the good and eschew the evil!" You are what you watch! What are you watching?
       Love, Mama

              68. P.S. You can save yourself a lot of problems with bad movies by sticking to those which are rated in the {\b \i Grapevine} and other WS pubs, and carefully considering your audience and age group. Or, if you watch something else, then pray over it and be sure to preview it.
       69. Of course, as Dad said above, even so-called good movies can still affect you adversely, although we try to select those with the least amount of bad and the most amount of good. So read the movie blurb beforehand to be aware of any possible warnings, and pray for the Lord's protection for both yourselves and your young people! I love you!

       
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family