041: Mike Livermore - Classic Lessons for Modern Challenges

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

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   Welcome to the good Christian talks podcast. I’m Levi and I’m Chris. Thank you so much for joining us this week on this podcast. We select one taco week to help each one of us get the Bible in our daily news feed. We post at the start of each week for you to listen.

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   With a short intro before hand to kind of set the stage for the talk. You’re about to hear and now let’s hear more about this week’s talk.

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   Hello, and thank you for joining me on the good christadelphians talks podcast. My name is Sam Taylor. You might know me as the host of pause to consider a christadelphians devotions podcast. I’ll be filling in once again this week for Levi and Chris. For this week. We’re going to consider the first in a series by brother Mike Livermore given at the Livonia study day in 2019 and titled classic lessons for modern challenges. When brother Mike presented these series The Livonia Collegiate had a bit of a struggle because he provided no subject title and no titles for the classes. They were just entitled numerically 1 through 5, but brother Mike did is for great reason because he wanted everybody attending to go in with open minds and Open Hearts and open ears to hear what he’s going to teach them and what followed was a fantastic look at the things that we endure the things that we go through in our daily lives that if you were to look at them through his ritual lens we might look at a lot more uncomfortably and that was exactly the intent of it because if you told you what it was going to be about you’d probably either not attend the class arrays shut your mind towards it but it offered a very candid very open look with well sourced material both biblical and scientific about how the human attention span is decreasing about how we’re becoming less dependent upon our own intellect and our own thinking and we’re just going through autopilot throughout our lives and when we’re dealing with Having to live as disciples in this age where we always have to be with

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   our spirit. We have to be living with our spiritual Minds living an active at all times be able to combat things which might enter our mind and pollute our thinking it’s a really fantastic study to take a look at one other facet of this series, which I greatly appreciated was that instead of having one 45-minute a one-hour series when our class rather.

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   You would just give two classes in that timeframe and offer about a five-minute discussion window in between them this gave people a chance to breathe chance have some dialogue a chance to process their thoughts is something that could really be helpful in other classes and other material that the christadelphians community gives because as we will get decreasing attention spans and society and within our own Community, it might be helpful to do what we can to be more engaging and more direct with those who are listening so that the word of God might be able to sink in their minds more fully.

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   So without further Ado, let’s take a listen to this first class and next week. You’ll be back to your regularly scheduled programming with Levi and Chris leading the charge. So it was a pleasure being with you and enjoy this series. God bless. Well, good morning everyone and it’s really good to be here with you all.

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   I’ll just say at the outset that having done this study and preparation for the classes. It really caused me to re-examine some of the practices and things that I do in my life, and hopefully it has the same effect for all of you. Around 760 BC in the reign of King Uzziah also called Azariah the nation of Judah lived prosperously Uzziah did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and he listened to the prophets the people love to God at that point in time and they fought against his enemies the Philistines, for example, they built many things the nation thrived and was pin prospered.

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   Despite the oncoming threats in the distance of the Assyrians the nation of Judah increased. But to these people the prophet Amos wrote. Woe to you who are at ease in Zion and Trust in bounce Samaria notable persons in the chief Nation to whom the house of Israel comes woe to you who put a far-off the day of Doom who caused the seat of violence to come near who lie on beds of ivory stretch out.

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   Your couches eat lamb from the flock and calves from the stall who sing idly to the sound of string instruments and invent for yourselves musical instruments like David, Who drink wine from bulls and anoint yourselves with the best ointments? But are not grieve for the Affliction of Joseph. A prosperous happy people did not see or did not care about the oncoming threats because they were too busy living lives of luxury.

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    They were to content to enjoy how good things were to see that there were problems headed their way a hundred fifty years later The Returned Exiles having succeeded in their move from captivity to Jerusalem under Joshua and zerubbabel fell victim to Encouragement from the Nations around them and complacency set in and so when the time before Nehemiah arrived for 12 years the nation of Israel did nothing in there Ecclesia. They did not build on the foundation. They had previously laid apathy took over and the Ecclesia was neglected.

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    They stopped concerning themselves with the Ecclesia and just live their lives and to this people the message of the Prophet. Haggai arrived saying is it time for you to dwell on your paneled houses while this Temple lie in Ruins and the overall message of the Prophet was to consider your ways that people did not consider the state of the Ecclesia. They cared for their homes their possessions their personal goals and meanwhile the Ecclesia decayed. 600 years later and Ecclesia New Testament times existed in a prosperous town with lovely hillsides and their Rich history. They thought things were going just fine. The Ecclesia had been founded by the Apostle Paul himself and they were cruising along just fine without a need in the world and to these people Christ said Then because you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot.

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    I will vomit you out of my mouth because you say I am rich F become wealthy and have need of nothing and do not know that you are wretched miserable poor blind and naked I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire that you may be rich and white maybe a rich it with white garments you baby clothes at the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed and anoint your eyes with eye Salve that you may see. This Ecclesia had everything they wanted but despite this apparent success.

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    They couldn’t see the problems that were so blatantly right in front of them. All three of these occlusal scenarios were Ecclesia is that didn’t seem to have any excessive wickedness or overall, gross immorality. They weren’t stooped and very clearly evil Wicked practices. But yet they all were stuck in spiritual apathy and could not see or chose not to see the problems that their lifestyle had brought upon them. All three Ecclesia as well lay it out here on our slides. They were at ease enjoys enjoyed luxuries, but put off the coming warning signs.

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    They focused on their homes, you look at the Ecclesia and did not consider where they were going. They were wealth with need of nothing but could not see their problems and didn’t see the challenges had Arisen and their Lifestyles all three if I boiled down to this they put off did not consider or could not see and these Please just stand to us as a testament that is a classic scriptural lesson that we all should always be watching and looking out for problems that arise in our in our society around us and in our Ecclesia, we should never just assume that we’re cruising that we’re doing okay because we’re living prosperously and things are good at that means our spiritual health is also good. These Ecclesia stand as a testament to us of the words written for us in 1st Corinthians chapter 10. Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. And so now let’s come to the year 2019 to our society and we also live prosperously and we’re cruising along and you could say of our Ecclesia and of the christadelphians body worldwide that were not necessarily steeped in Gross immorality. We’re not cut off an excessive wickedness. We could say what’s the harm we’re doing. Okay, but do we see that there really are challenges arising from how we live in 2019 and all the luxuries? And great things of this life bring challenges that perhaps we just choose not to see or have ignored or not given the proper time to consider their harm or threat to our spiritual health and in the challenges, we’ll look at today. They all really stem from

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    Samantha’s that’s developed uniquely in our time. Now, you probably can’t really see this graphic all that. Well, it’s a little chart of the growth and adaption and changes and Web Internet computer technology. How since the 80s this charts were to map for us how things have grown and changed and I’ve broken it down into this somewhat intimidating little breakdown of the evolution of computer science, and I actually bring this up because there is going to be a Connecting Point to scripture in this chart.

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    And so we have here what’s often sort of considered by computer scientists the four eras of the web web 1.0 being like going back to the 90s when we all had a little piece. See you in the corner. Had our dial-up connections the dominant trait was then which I said website just head information. You went out and you log into aol.com went to Altavista and you could go to a various dot-coms to get information and the internet began to replace libraries and this saved companies lots of time and it was a really sort of a very new and kind of fresh change that was very valued by a lot of us and the only spiritual threat at that time that we could see was. Well, you know what it’s kind of a waste of time you go on your computer and you cannot lose track of time the spiritual threat at that time was minimal, but then you come to the 2000s and Web 2.0 began where now websites online are not just there for our information there now interactive and you have things like Facebook and Myspace and Twitter where now people gather together for the Social Power of the internet and things like Facebook and Twitter really changed our social structure and began to replace meeting people in person because you couldn’t be Shop with people online and it became addictive and this is where the research is really not begin to see there is a danger. There is a problem that can arise from where the internet is taking us because that interaction online is very powerful and addictive and it can begin to suck Us in it can also to expose us to a lot of

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    things you didn’t necessarily would have chosen to see if we adjust live our lives regularly without the internet. But now in today’s day and age in the year 2019. We’re now entering what’s called Web 3.0 where now the machines the computers are beginning to run things for us and now artificial intelligence is taking over and technology is just grabbed a hold of us and now refuses to let go now things are being curated for you. And all you have to do is just open up youtube.com and YouTube has an algorithm.

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    We’re at knows your search history get Knows What You Do online and it presents to you recommendations of videos that knows you would want to see so now technology has the hook inside of us and you often would see if the maybe you’re having a you send a message an email to a friend saying a are there any good strollers for my kids? The very next ads you’ll see online are ads for strollers. So the computers the machines know us as well as we know ourselves.

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    And web technology now is designed to capture us and to steal us into their market share and not let us go and the danger now in the intelligent web is that this level of immersion online is consuming and it will not refuses to let us go. There’s the social component now at notice better than those ourselves and it refuses to let us go and they can really change how our society functions and the way this is going is that in web 4.0 the predictions are it will be the symbiotic.

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    Where humans and computers will have an inextricable relationship to each other and the machines will just decide things for us. Your car will just drive itself and take you where you need to go ahead even asking you where you need to go. It just knows I get in my car in the morning. It takes me to work machines will adjust make decisions for us and how can Faith survive in that environment? If we’re not even going to be using our brains 20 years in the future.

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    This is where technology is going. Now the point of this little chart here was not just as a little bit of edge. Education on how the web has grown but I found this history of the internet to connect with the classic scriptural lesson for us that I think is going to be the overall theme for our study today, which is that each of those iterations of web history matches the progression of lots back in Genesis. Do you recall when Abraham and lots herds and their group were too big and they had to split up and Abraham chose the less fertile area and lat Shows the area by Sodom how at that point in time.

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    He didn’t just say, you know what I’m going to go live inside them, but he slowly progressively gradually inch that way and he eventually wound himself trapped in extinct oubli tied to the city. And so we have in Genesis chapter 13 verse 10 going to try using my Like yet their Genesis chapter 13 verse 10 lot first. Saw Sodom.

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    He saw the plane east of the Jordan how it was fertile. And he said, you know what that’s it. Looks like it could be kind of cool the spiritual threat at that time was minimal. He just saw the fertility and the options available to him much like us with web 1.0 sarlat, then was sort of hooked. He then chose to go live there in the next verse and he began to move in that direction.

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    Sharon and at that point his course was set he wasn’t fully trapped there. But that’s the direction. He was heading and that was us in the previous decade and Web 2.0. We were headed to this point in our lives where technology would be a part of every single thing. We do every single day and that’s where we are right now as web 3.0 begins we are now lot who was dwelling in Sodom and chapter 13 verse 12, he and his family now lived in that City.

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    They Were a part of its culture and the conflict the Conformity the shaping of his family was now beginning and that’s us right now with technology. Is it not how children that grow up today all they know as a World online where everyone has their gadgets? It’s not going to change and of course the Doom of web 4.0 if you will, is that a few chapters later when Abraham comes to rescue him a lot was sitting in the gate in Genesis chapter 19. He had become an elder a wise man who was amongst Leaders, he was now involved in the leadership. He had fully Now put on the mantle of the city of Sodom. He was now one of them.

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    He was absolutely a part of the city. There was no difference between him and the sodomites and that’s the future. We’re headed to ours with technology where the online world and online communities are now going to be just a part of our lives and will be nothing that we nothing different about us than other people that are functioning online and that’s the danger is that That we’re in the case of Sodom heat shows of his own accord to proactively move towards Sodom in defense of us.

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    We’ve been stationary and technology has progressively moved into our lives. So we have a necessarily gone out of our way to go chase after it like lat but we’ve nonetheless accepted it in our lives and embraced it and we’ve accepted this Progressive gradual invasion of technology and the spiritual threats that This is already beginning.

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    Here’s one quick headline that Gmail will do even more thinking for you with these six new features. So already the computers are thinking for us and conforming our minds to Modern sort of technologically advanced thinking to conform us with how the rest of the world thinks and I found this screenshot sort of really interesting because look at the ads that popped up for me this Oracle database adhere see Sit back relax and let Oracle do the driving for you.

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    We got you covered. The computers will run your life for you. Just conform to how we think and even this adhere IBM data takes you where you need to go faster all of these a wonderful Services which are great in some respects and the less I think I’ll have spiritual downside for us and there’s more here’s a really interesting article Google a I create its own Child AI That’s more advanced than system. Built by humans.

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    So already computers are better at developing their own AI then we are and making the AI that made them so they’re already ahead of us. Google is Alpha 0 alien chest shows the power and the peculiarity of AI that this is an article about how Google uses its Alpha 0 artificial intelligence and it programmed it to get good at chess and it got so good that the best Chess Masters in the world can’t even compete in any way and they described it as a different game played by aliens computers are so good at doing things that we do that it’s like a it’s like a whole different type of person doing it. It’s not even a human playing.

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    It’s a Only in playing chess and lastly Google’s AI created its own universal language. So again Google had its Ai and it said try to create for us an algorithm that will be a universal translator to help translate English to French to Spanish. And so forth that Google would use for its translation functions.

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    And what the a I did was create its own inter lingua, its own universal language that ties all languages of the earth together. Now we’re obviously remember what happened the last time the planet Earth had a universal language it didn’t end so well and only eight people were saved and this is the path that our world is now back on. And now it’s a part of our Lives as well and Google and other companies like this impact us on a daily basis. And in many ways.

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    It’s wonderful and Technology really does make our lives better in so many ways. I work in it. I work for hours at a time every day on a computer and I fully admit. I love technology. I embrace it and it’s brought a lot of wonderful things into our lives, but it also has side effects.

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    And dangers that we should consider and really I would make a comparison to driving that driving your car is a great thing driving a vehicle has opened up travel and ways for us to meet people and go places driving enables us to do so many things in life and we wouldn’t have it any other way but driving comes with dangers there can be setbacks and accidents.

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    There are real threats to driving a car on the highway. And so what we do is we put our young people people that haven’t. Driven through driver’s training and we prepare them and they have to get a permit and spend many hours with an adult supervising their initial driving before as adults. We unleash them as Independent Drivers on the road, so too, it should be with us with technology. It’s so wonderful and great thing. We’re not going to go back.

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    It’s absolutely a part of our lives but are we preparing ourselves and our young people for all the hazards and potential setbacks and dangers that technology brings. Are we? League training ourselves and our young people to deal with those threats so for our classes today, what I’d like for us to do is in each session will address a different Potential Threat and the advice or lessons from the Bible to help us and prepare us to face those threats and to be able to integrate technology in our lives while managing these harmful spiritual possibilities.

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    And in each class we’re hoping to do is actually have two sessions or sort of too. Jurors, if you will address then each class with the short little I’m not going to use the word break, but maybe it sort of like chat meditation session a brief pause. If you will between classes, you know, both due to our shortening attention span in today’s society and my own inability to talk for an hour straight.

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    We’re going to actually kind of briefly pause for five minutes in the middle of each class and let everyone in the audience chat and discuss about questions that I’ll pose after Each potential topic we discuss and so we’re hoping to now begin as we come to the end of our first first session of our first class with these quote two questions. Do you agree that the influx of technology and the web are inevitable or is there more that we could do as an Ecclesia, especially like Abraham to avoid it to get away from Sodom or is it too late as Sodom is some just around us and I know nothing you can do to avoid it is to do our best to deal with it or is there more we could do to avoid it and lastly If Abraham could see the threat of Sodom but lot could not why why was a lot not able to perceive what Abraham did and why is it all so hard for us to see the problems in the things that we love today?

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    So take five minutes. I’m really hoping it’s a new thing. I’m hoping this won’t be five minutes of awkward silence. I’m hoping there will be Some chatting and you can just sit and think and meditate if you like, but we’ll see how it goes. And so everyone please take five minutes and I’ll see you then. So I hope that went well, and hopefully you find it beneficial and we can shrink or adjust that time in future classes. If need be coming to session to now the second half of our first class if you will we often Marvel looking back at the Bible.

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    At how almost pathetic it was the nation of Israel. Thanks, Uncle Joe. Perfect. Yeah, but all right there dangerous new we often Marvel at how I wouldn’t use the word pathetic. It was the nation of Israel for Century after Century could not remove itself from idolatry. You look back at there were some good Kings, but they were just so many more bad kings.

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    How did the people not see After Prophet how they had to get rid of this. You also Marvel at things like, you know, how come the disciples couldn’t see that that Christ had to be crucified. It’s easy for us in hindsight to look back and say why couldn’t they just fix it? Why couldn’t they just get over it?

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    And that’s the power of hindsight. But in that time for whatever reason the people of Israel despite many faithful individuals coming through they could not fix this problem the failures that they had for so many generations of their history. They couldn’t shake it. And this is the danger of idolatry for the people of Israel that for 700 years from the golden calf to King zedekiah.

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    They just couldn’t get over it and it’s baffling even the king that was the rebels rate of the times of Amos six are opening passage in the first-class how the people were doing prosperously and the nation was okay. It said of King Uzziah and second Kings chapter 15 verses 2 through for me. I just read verse 3 it can use the ayat says that he did. I was right in the sight of the Lord according to all that his father.

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    Amaziah had done. He was one of those rare good Kings, but in verse 4 except that the high places were not removed the people sacrificed and burned incense on the high places. And it’s this sort of classic dilemma. We see in the Bible of a good faithful person one of the rare good Kings and yet he likes so many could not Shake idols, and he wasn’t the only He won King ASA really one of the best Kings Judah ever had it said of ASA when he heard the words of the Prophet o bad.

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    He took courage and remove the Abominable Idols from the land of Judah and Benjamin and from the cities, which he had taken from Mount Ephraim. He was a really really good King and he removed idols. What’s the high places were not removed from Israel? Nevertheless? The heart of Asa was good loyal all his days even King ASA couldn’t completely shake the idols out of his life.

46. 26:25

    He couldn’t fully remove this thing from his life. And here’s really I would say what’s wrong with idolatry and why it’s wrong and why it’s so powerful and hard to remove the real reason the primary reason God condemns idolatry is that it’s a threat to him that Idols for believers back then for the Israelites. They took the place of God.

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    The Ten Commandments. God said you shall have no other gods before me and that’s what Idols represented to the people. They were worshipping and following and praying to other fake Gods. It was really an affront to God’s presence in existence But what was a secondary problem with Idols that Idols themselves were associated with practices from the Nations around them the other nations that were idolatrous their sinful ways would creep in Via idolatry to the nation. And so here’s a verse from 2nd Kings chapter 17. They followed Idols.

48. 27:23

    This is the people of Israel by the way became idolaters. And when after the nation’s who were all around them concerning whom the Lord had charged them that they should not do like that. God wanted his people Israel to be special and set apart and to not practice the same things as the Nations around them and that really sort of began with Idols first. It was the idols and then with it all of the practices and lifestyle and things that idolatry brought along with it. And why was it so hard?

49. 27:54

    Why even when the idols were taken away and you got rid of the overwhelming majority of Idols, why couldn’t they just get rid of it for good? Because these things were everywhere there were Idols all over the place and it was so difficult to extract something that has constantly around you and so Ezekiel chapter 6 verse 13.

50. 28:16

    It says their Idols all around their altars on every high hill on all the mountaintops under every Green Tree in under every thick Oak wherever they offered sweet incense to all their Idols these things were on the highest peaks the highest mountains and Hills they were buried The Earth under trees Idols were inescapable. And even if you got rid of most of them, your neighbor might still have one, you know down the street there were some Idols there.

51. 28:44

    There was always this constant Temptation. The people of Israel couldn’t just get up and leave they couldn’t move somewhere else. They were stuck where they were in the land and if Idols were there somewhere in the land that Temptation and influence was always going to be there. And of course even after the Captivity and the nation of Israel finally stopped with the physical Idols, finally quit with the actual images to calves or whatever the the statues were finally put away. There’s still was in the New Testament idolatry in a different form and Colossians chapter 3 verse 5 says therefore put to death your members which are on the earth fornication uncleanness passion evil desire and covetousness, which is idolatry.

52. 29:29

    And so even in the New Testament the Believers the people of God in the New Testament times, they still had idolatry in a more sort of abstract sense that if there was something you really wanted in life. If there was a possession a person a lifestyle something a career that you wanted and you coveted it it began to take the place of God in the lives of Believers back then and those things that they wanted so much now began to replace God as a a focus in the goal and the passion of their life and they began to also be exposed to other people in their society who also loved these things and the ways of the world if you will like the fornication uncleanness and evil desires would also creep in Via sort of spiritual more absurd idolatry and even in New Testament times, they could not Shake how they were things through covetousness that were their idols and took the place of God.

53. 30:28

    They couldn’t get rid of them and brought them into bad places So now it’s 2019 for us and a lot of you may be kind of seeing where this is going and in today’s society we of course don’t have you know statues and things built out of bronze that are calves or goats or whatever. We don’t have these silly Idols, but nonetheless do we have man-made objects create out of precious metals. That can sometimes take the place of God in our lives that are everywhere and very difficult to fully remove and are a gateway to worldliness now just to be clear. I’m not going to say that by Nature your cell phone is an idol or that your computer by definition is an idol. It’s really how we use it.

54. 31:23

    And if our phones take over our lives and if technology rules Over us the way that Idols who ruled over the Israelites back in those days only then is it an idol? So come to today’s society and a survey done by the Pew research Group, which actually has a lot of really good data.

55. 31:44

    They took a survey of teenagers and found that 39 percent of teenagers every day spent time talking in person to another human, but right below it was text messaging and right below. That was to cellphone and their social networking sites. And so there’s these alternative methods that are beginning to take over and really dominate how we and especially our young people communicate. Now, if you’re saying, you know, what like that data doesn’t seem that bad like the dominant trait is that people are still talking in person most of the time that isn’t the worst thing in the world, but maybe you were clever and saw this at this survey was done in 2007.

56. 32:27

    And now it’s 2019 and it’s a game over and ninety-five percent of teenagers now have smartphones and I’ll wager that every single adult in this room has a cellphone either on them or they they possess it in some form and the same group The Pew Research Center found that now 45 percent of teenagers are almost constantly online via the device or tablet cell phone, whatever it is that they have. So we absolutely are living in a time where something that everyone has and is so difficult to remove and take out of our Lives now can easily dominate us and become an idol. If we let it I’m not saying that a cell phone is an idol of itself.

57. 33:13

    But if we choose to live that way it can be so these three aspects the first being does it take the place of God in our life ask yourself these questions. What is the first thing we do in the morning? What is the last thing we do at night? Is it a prayer meditation of some sort or is it checking the phone? What is it that we check the most throughout the day what grabs our attention the most as we do things from morning till evening?

58. 33:47

    What is the first place that we go when we’re bored or distressed or upset sad Restless? Is it prayer or seek out a friend or we open a verse or do we go to our phone? And where do we go when we’re unsure when we have a question and we’re not sure what choice to make do we Google it or do we pray about it?

59. 34:12

    Maybe these phones are taking the place of God in our life. The second area. These phones are absolutely a gateway to worldliness. And of course, I’m on Instagram. I’m on Facebook. It isn’t all bad. It isn’t necessarily evil to enjoy social media with your friends. But those same things which can be good are also a potential gateway to things that are very bad and we’re not going to go through examples of that.

60. 34:43

    But as a fact the the CEO of Twitter on an interview I listened to he described Product Twitter as a Public Square a Gateway for the world to come together and for the world to talk together. This is his goal for the product and isn’t that what Idols were for the nation of Israel and it can be for us if we abuse it and misuse it.

61. 35:08

    And third as we all know it’s so difficult to quit the addiction of electronics, isn’t it? So in an article published in Psychology today, dr. Victoria dunkley. This was her conclusion. She said screen time particularly the interactive kind acts like a stimulant. I don’t like caffeine and feta means our cocaine and that dopamine release by the stimulation of electronics hits children, especially virally because there’s People cortex is simply aren’t developed enough for them to feel satisfied with small doses or to self-regulate and so children are most susceptible to electronic addiction and me as an adult.

62. 35:51

    I absolutely am as well. I’ve been in this situation playing civilization at 2 a.m. And you wake up and realize what am I doing? Where have I been and we’ve all been sort of addicts like this to do electronics in some form or another and it really begs the question. Why should this be? So and should we be doing something about this? So on the subject of how it affects our younger children, and I’m certainly there’s a lot of experts here on young childhood education and there’s there’s doctors and nurses your so you probably better know the exact details and science of this but here was a study done a joint study at Florida State and San Diego State don’t want or published in 2018. They surveyed half a million teenagers and they found this sort of really sort of visited.

63. 36:39

    We probably would know anyways, we’ve see it but the more hours Day spent with electronic device by a teenager led to a really exponential growth in the percentage that teenager has at least one suicide risk factor, which doesn’t mean that they attempted suicide necessarily they develop a risk factor for it such as depression or addiction or other mental illness and there is an absolute correlation between those risk factors and the hours spent with electronic device amongst teenagers. So this is really just confirmation of what we probably already would guess or know and the world around us is getting wise to the fact that even in a purely secular sense. This addiction to electronics is bad for us and it’s especially bad for young people.

64. 37:31

    But isn’t this really the wisdom of God already given to us so long ago. We’re in Deuteronomy chapter 4 God said when you beget children and grandchildren and have grown old in the land and act corruptly and make a carved image and the form of anything and do evil in the sight of the Lord your God to provoke him to anger.

65. 37:54

    I call Heaven and Earth to witness against you this day that you will soon utterly perish from the land which you cross over the Jordan to Yes, and you will not prolong your days in it, but will be utterly destroyed idolatry is bad for us obviously in a spiritual sense for our faith.

66. 38:12

    But even now in this life idolatry is bad for our lives now and the counter in Deuteronomy chapter 4 was that if we keep his statutes and obey his Commandments, which I command you today that it may go well with you and with your children after you that you may prolong your days in the land.

67. 38:31

    Land which the Lord your God is giving you for all time. Our lives are better off when we put away. Our devices will be minimize the grip and addiction that Electronics have over us. It can improve our lives. There has to be a healthy balance that on one hand technology is great and it has benefits and it helps us but after a certain quotient or threshold of hours on a daily basis is spent With these things that can be harmful and bad and we can’t let them rule over us. And so while this seems to really be a problem that hits children the hardest and the classic sort of note in today’s society is we just we can’t get our teenagers off our phones. We as adults have to set an example. And so the people here who are aged 25 and up. Let’s say the teenagers and children they look up to us and if they see us also a ticket to our phones and constantly having our phones out in Tween times and when we should be discussing and talking you have our phone out. They see that and they’ll take note of it and how can we ask our teenagers to put their phones away if we as adults are stuck in the same pattern of Behavior now don’t raise your hands, but think to yourself how many of you in our five minute chat session check your phone.

68. 40:07

    I myself probably would have if I had been in the audience during during this time, if we did maybe it’s an indication that we should try our best to minimize the impact that this phone has in our lives. Once again, I’ll say our devices are not necessarily Idols. They can be very useful and Powerful for good. But if we look at ourselves and this is where the lesson of the first session needs to apply if we stop and try to See if we consider our lives and choose not to be willfully ignorant and take a look at our lives if we can honestly say that our phone is overwhelming us and we’re addicted to these electronics and tablets and computers than what we should do is call it what it is.

69. 40:56

    We should call it idolatry. And that’s the beginning of how we can begin to deal with it. We can then apply the message of scripture. If we first admit that there is a problem. Adults need to set the example. And so now as we are going to end our class our first class here, but I think I’d like to do is again leave like 5 minutes for discussion before we hand it back to TJ to actually dismiss and close the class. But here are some questions for us to take into our break as we discuss this topic what has worked for you to minimize or reduce or balance, whatever word you want to use the addictive power of Technology.

70. 41:40

    And how do we help our young people? Avoid idolatry via technology in a world, which is absolutely unavoidably heading in that direction. The online world is taking over. How do we show young people to avoid it and manage it? Thank you for listening to the good Christian talks podcast, Please Subscribe for new episodes and leave a review and apple podcast or whatever service you are listening from to help people find the show when they search for it. If you enjoyed this talk share it on social media. So other people can find it to for show notes and links to the talk that you just listen to visit our show page at anchor dot f m / G CT We want to encourage everyone to share their thoughts from the talk this week on Facebook or Instagram where we are at good christadelphians talks or on Twitter where we are at GCT underscore podcast. If you know of a great talk, we want to know about it to send a suggestion to good christadelphians talks at gmail.com or message us on any of our social media platforms. Thank you for listening.

71. 43:11

    God bless and talk to you next week.