Morals matter. That’s the message today, and, may I say, this topic is an unpopular one in today’s climate. The New Testament is full of admonitions along the line of right living. The fact that this message lacks the pizzazz that the world desires doesn’t matter. It’s still the right message for this hour. On typical nights, television networks run show after show of police activities, social problems, sexual problems, and perversion. For example, on Christmas Eve, a married couple separates after a fight; there’s a drunk in a bar menacing people with a broken bottle; a priest is killed viciously in a church; a drunken driver is there; there’s a stripper; a Peeping Tom; six other killings; and more than a half-dozen woundings. Researchers have found that by the time an American child reaches the age of eighteen, he has spent more than 20,000 hours before the television set, much more than he does in any of the classrooms. Last season, television showed the rape of a housewife, the story of a prostitute’s life and emotions, and a homosexual couple living together—topics that were unmentionable on the air not long ago. The morning and afternoon “soap operas” of the ’70s continue to mirror a version of the “typical” American life that includes abortion, premarital sex, extramarital relationships, blackmail, murder, drugs, wiretapping, and embezzlement. Violence is so much a part of television’s simulated “real life,” that studies have shown that it may occur five to nine times in one hour in “prime-time” television, as often as thirty times an hour during Saturday morning and after-school cartoons. In studying the responses of 120 boys from the ages of five to fourteen, researchers found clear evidence that “heavy TV watchers” were no longer shocked or horrified by violence.… It will be difficult for the children who are raised in this era when they reach adult life to be decision-makers about right and wrong because they have been without guidelines. They will have no idea what moral concepts are all about.¹ Now, this report is dated from 1974 — that’s 48 years ago, — five decades later! If all of this was going on then, you know it’s that much worse now. So, how do we live in a world that has gone bankrupt? ‘How to Live Victorious in a Morally Bankrupt World, that’s our focus on this week’s Light on Life.

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