SermonIndex Audio Sermons
SermonIndex - Promoting Revival to this Generation
Give To SermonIndex
Discussion Forum : General Topics : The Digital Kingdom of Hell

Print Thread (PDF)

Goto page ( 1 | 2 Next Page )
PosterThread
Areadymind
Member



Joined: 2009/5/15
Posts: 1042
Pacific Ocean

 The Digital Kingdom of Hell

(This is not addressed particularly to the SI Crowd, but may be a help to those whom you know that may have problems with this. I wrote it more like a tract/testimony)

Situational ethics, modernism, and pluralism have infiltrated the mindsets of many who call themselves believers in Jesus Christ. These mentalities are massive roadblocks to true biblical discernment. If we approach the word of God predetermined to these mentalities, we will never pass through the gates of truth. Ever they will elude us, and ever we will meander down dank pathways.

One of these pathways is paved with the word, “Massive Multiplayer Online Gaming (MMOG.)” For years I had an addiction to this false reality, and for two years I have been praying about why it is that I am supposed to take a stand against it, and expose this darkness to the light of God’s word.

I was kept in darkness for years about this issue because I did not come to God’s word with an honest heart about it. I placed my hands over my ears and eyes by claiming that since the Bible does not explicitly talk about entertainment like MMOG’s that I was vindicated from biblical accountability. (As a word to the wise, you will never find any light or truth in the word of God about yourself and your circumstances if you have a prideful heart like I did.)

After fellowshipping with a dear brother in Christ today I knew it was time I finally get this off my chest and onto my hard drive. MMOG’s operate on probably the single most cunning principle, which keeps young men (and even increasingly young women) by the droves, coming back day after day, week after week, ad infinitum to an unreal world.

This singular principle governs probably every single MMOG on the market. I am sure I would be challenged to find even one that does not, whether it is Eve Online, World of Warcraft, or Guild Wars…or any number of others has, in the kernel of their design, a central hub of operation known as covetousness.

How is this so? Every single decision you make within these false realities is dictated by how it will benefit you or your “avatar,” or your brood/collective of avatar friends. Each one of these people shed whom they are in the flesh to take upon themselves a digital alter-ego, and run a nearly galactic rat race to get ahead of all competition through gaining 1.) unreal money which allows for the purchase of character modifications, and 2.) unreal character attribute upgrades. Both of these principles of covetousness are governed by two other principles, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. Each upgrade or modification (mod) is more attractive to the eyes than the last was, and every attribute upgrade which applies to the avatar itself appeals to the pride of life, as the false character becomes increasingly more powerful.

So covetousness works through the lust of the eyes and the pride of life; however, these are just foundational concepts, not necessarily the fruit reaped. Rather, it is with raging frequency that one will find endless enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, (believe it or not you can actually get your avatar drunk in many games) sexual immorality, impurity and sensuality, and if it were possible, orgies, (often imitated through raucous gesticulating) and certainly last but particularly most common…sorceries. These happen to be listed in Galatians 5:20 as the “works of the flesh,” which Paul warns that those who do such things will not inherit the Kingdom of God. So the game itself subjects you to the principalities of the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life…and those two principles manifest themselves through each person’s avatar toward every other avatar as the lust of the flesh.

James 4:6 says that “He (God) giveth more grace, wherefore he saith, God resists the proud, but gives grace unto the humble.” Pride is the one element which grace cannot penetrate. One must become humble to see the application of this truth from the word of God. On bended knee admit your digital sin; confess that Christ Jesus the son came to deliver you from your sin, to set you free from your unreal captivity (Luke 4:18.) If we do not repent of this we may just find ourselves gaining an unreal world, yet losing a very real soul. Do not let the principality of pluralism tell you that these things are OK because it is a gray area in scripture, or that you have the “liberty.” Though on the outset MMOG’s may seem innocuous, I would remind you that the whole of creation was subjected to its current tyranny and slavery to sin through the fear of death, (Hebrews 2:15) by one simple bite of a seemingly innocuous piece of fruit…fruit that tasted like godhood!


_________________
Jeremiah Dusenberry

 2010/6/2 18:10Profile
twayneb
Member



Joined: 2009/4/5
Posts: 2256
Joplin, Missouri

 Re: The Digital Kingdom of Hell

Brother: I have never been involved in MMOG, but have counseled with a young married man who was. It was his entire life. He estimated about two to four hours daily, every day of the week was spent in this false world. It damaged his marriage, his relationship with his child, and most importantly his spiritual life. He has always been musical and one day he heard the Holy Spirit move mightily through another person at our fellowship as we sang a song the Lord had given her. The Holy Spirit spoke to him and said, "You desire to write music for me. If you spent time with Me rather than that game, you could write that music." It sobered him and woke him up. He went online one last time and deleted every character he had built up systematically so he could never go back and pick up where he left off. I have yet to see this sort of thing yield any good fruit. I would advise anyone to stay away from this fake online world.

My wife and I were even careful about our sons playing video games of any type growing up. I know that a part of the more traditional console games are not sin in and of themselves, but even these things can eat your time and energies to the point of being socially, physically, and most importantly spiritually debilitating. I recall one time getting together with a couple of guys and playing some silly game where characters in carts run around trying to hit each other with hammers and blow each other up with rockets. It was silly, and loads of fun. We had some really good fellowship that evening. But that was it, we did this one time in a year. The danger comes when these or any other pursuits begin to eat your time and energy.


_________________
Travis

 2010/6/2 19:00Profile
sojourner7
Member



Joined: 2007/6/27
Posts: 1573
Omaha, NE

 Re:

I recently read a news article concerning
a couple who starved their own child to
death while they were playing an internet
fantasy game of taking care of an imaginary
child!! SO SAD, SO STRANGE, BUT TRUE!!


_________________
Martin G. Smith

 2010/6/2 21:13Profile
Jeremy221
Member



Joined: 2009/11/7
Posts: 1532


 Re: The Digital Kingdom of Hell

Just because a game is not an MMOG does not mean the very same things are not at work. Pride and covetousness run deep and it takes much work by the Holy Spirit to be set free. Ultimately, it boils down to whether we are doing things in the flesh or the Spirit. Only if we walk in the Spirit can we be sure our motives are right.

 2010/6/3 0:29Profile
Areadymind
Member



Joined: 2009/5/15
Posts: 1042
Pacific Ocean

 Re:

My intention is not to make sweeping generalizations about gaming. As Jeremy said, walk in the Spirit. I only felt led to discuss MMOG's as they are somewhat akin to imagination heroin in my deeply professional opinion. I am not making a sweeping generalization when I say that, but rather a very calculated and intentioned testimony.

I did not even talk about the "Real" issues as Travis brought up. I rather thought it more compelling to lay the axe to the root of the tree so to speak. The craftiness of sin actually allowed me, for a long time, to come up with counter-arguments against the external problems. It was not until a long time of praying about it that I felt the true reality of this problem hit me for what it really was.

I would also say, praise God for a praying and patient wife.


_________________
Jeremiah Dusenberry

 2010/6/3 0:54Profile
Areadymind
Member



Joined: 2009/5/15
Posts: 1042
Pacific Ocean

 Re: Sojourner

I had read that article as well Sojourner. I thought that was a wake up call.


_________________
Jeremiah Dusenberry

 2010/6/3 0:55Profile









 Re:

UGGHHHH..... The MMORPG. If I said I detested these things, it would honestly be a severe understatement. I was able to observe first hand how these games completely destroyed and stole years of my friends' lives. When Jeremiah said that he likened the comparison to a heroin addiction, he did not miss the mark, even by a little.

One of the pure poisons of these games is that in order to get your avatar or character to the height of their potential, more so than the rest of the gaming community in the world, you must devote all of your time to it. Skill and natural aptitude are non factors in these games. You're going to be bested every time by the player who has put in more hours than you. So many competitive males become enslaved by this and continue, and continue to pour all of their time into these games, hoping to gain an advantage.

My close friends who played these games became 100% obsessed. That's all they wanted to do. That's all they wanted to talk about. No matter what the rest of us tried, for the most part we could not get them to separate from the game. They would schedule their lives around their in game schedule, and the schedule of their guild (group of other internet friends playing from around the country or world). And on the rare occasion that we could pull them away, to go out for dinner or whatever, (assuming that their guild didn't have a direct task at hand) the only thing they would all talk about when we were out was the game and how they couldn't wait to get back to it, etc etc. EXCLUSIVELY. And to be quite honest, the description I'm giving is actually quite is a brighter picture than the reality of what it was. They way they were behaving and the way they wished to shun almost the entire outside world besides their gaming friends was just sickening.

A few friends of mine who also refused to join in and myself, made a standing rule that when we ever go out or meet, no matter who's with us, these games were not allowed to be talked about. If there were even two players together in the same vicinity, and the game was to be mentioned, that was it. It would just begin to dominate their conversation, and there's nothing that could be done to divert their subject. So we had finally had our fill. We just made the rule and we had means of enforcing it as well. (It was kind of a funny way to enforce the rule, but effective enough to make it so they wouldn't want to talk about it) But that's honestly how bad this game had completely taken over the majority of our friends' lives. I even watched it lend a helping hand to the near destruction of a younger friends' marriage. (I think he was only like 19 or 20) There even was this guy we knew, who would go to the local internet cafe that a friend of mine owned, and he would bring his girlfriend there with him, and he would play ALL day. And his girlfriend would watch him play. ALL day. Not only was he paying to play the game, he was also paying my friend the hourly charge to rent the computer and internet to play the game on, with money that he didn't have. He was racking up enormous debt. It got to the point where his girlfriend began to play the game too, because it had come down to the fact that it was the only way she could relate to him anymore. Just sad.

I could go on and on, but honestly, my words would fail me. I've watched Satan use these games for years now to completely enslave young men, and sometimes young women, and I view these games and the havoc they're wreaking with nothing but the most sincere contempt.

 2010/6/3 2:07
ginnyrose
Member



Joined: 2004/7/7
Posts: 7534
Mississippi

 Re:

Eaverest, I am so ignorant. I never heard of this type of gaming although I do believe everything you are saying. (You see we are empty nesters, have no children at home and most of our children and grandchildren live out of state.)

But I do have one question: where does this game "Farmville" as played on FB come in? Is this what you are talking about?

One more comment.

You expressed exasperation with this gaming and its detrimental effect on social life. Ever consider how the Blackberry and its cousins are doing likewise? I have a sister-in-law whose life is dominated by her Blackberry. Whenever she is with people, she is texting or receiving texts. I cannot for the life of me understand how one can have that much to say unless it involves a lot of foolishness. It works like an addiction. (It is her daughter that I posted about on another thread about the Mojo Spirit.) Can't leave it alone! We had a PT employee quit because my husband talked to her about her excessive texting/talking on her cell phone while on the job - took her three times as long to do her job and she charged us for that! Oh, and she claims to be a fine Christian!

ginnyrose


_________________
Sandra Miller

 2010/6/3 6:26Profile









 Re: Ginnyrose

To be quite honest, I know very little of the game Farmville. I don't use any social networking sites, (facebook, myspace, twitter, etc.) so I really couldn't comment on games of this sort. I would imagine though, like anything, if it becomes an addiction then it's unhealthy.

The real dangerous thing though about these MMORPG's, (for those of you who might not be familiar with them) is that they're actually DESIGNED to addict people. Because many of my friends became addicted, whether I liked it or not I soon became privy to a fair amount of information about how the game economy and design operates.

What the game creators do is make these sort of "rewards" for players to ascend to, and many times privileges are given to players for attaining them, in turn giving them the competitive advantage over other players. However, like I stated before, these rewards are not obtained by a natural knack at being good at the game. They are obtained purely by time spent playing the game. It's like this giant carrot on a string. These games are a big business. The creators NEED to find a way to keep people playing. The players are paying a monthly fee for these games, so in order to make sure they keep paying, they make sure the game never ends, with powerful rewards just outside of most players' reach, to ensure that they're given something to waste their time grasping at in vain.

Here's a statistic of how this works. In the game there is an objective for players to complete, in order to increase the strength of their in game character. The game designers being clever businessmen however, have made these challenges 100% impossible for any single player to accomplish by himself. On average, originally it would take about 40 different players cooperating together to complete the objective. So this is why guilds (like I mentioned in my previous post) are formed. Now, on average, these objectives take anywhere from maybe, 4-10 hours to complete with forty people. (I've actually heard of some games that take the players a full day) Now, here's where the real kicker comes in. These rewards that players get for completing these missions are not a guarantee. Many of the rewards that players are after have something like a 10% chance or less of being rewarded upon completion, and that's being generous. Then we come to the next difficulty, we have 40 people all playing, and many of them want the same reward. However, what I failed to mention is that only ONE of the rewards has a chance of being won. It's not a 10% chance for each player, it's a 10% chance or less for the entire group of 40. So now we have one prize that the group wants, but only one person is going to walk away with. So these groups have figured out ways to choose who gets first claim on the prize, and if you haven't guessed it yet, the system they use is more or less a time table as to who plays with the group the most, or who has put in enough time to earn it. So the player that puts in the most hours is rewarded. Now this scenario is the optimistic one where the reward is actually obtainable, many times the reward the group is looking for lands in the 90-99% of not being offered upon completion. And what happens is you're not allowed to attempt to try again as a group for a weeks time.
It gets worse though. These rewards are numerous, and each one only gives the player the most minimal advantage, so in order to get a heavy advantage they're going to need to get MANY of said rewards, so as you've I'm sure already assumed, that means it's going to be more time playing the game.

I say this with no exaggeration, that a few of my friends probably played this game maybe 300+ days of the year from sunup to sundown, for the better part of 3 years or so.
These games are TAILORED to keep people playing, in what has probably been the most clever and destructive marketing strategy I've ever witnessed. 100% poison, nothing less. And from what I've heard, there are people who have been more severely addicted than any of my friends. I guess my friends were actually the norm.

But like you asked, I agree with you about the blackberry, the iphone, and even the cell phone. I am in no way against these things and I own a cell phone. But I've seen what you have seen. People just spending all their time on completely foolish text messages, and just prideful social interactions. Honestly, I can't stand when someone is in a group or even with anyone and they've decided that whatever is on the cell phone is the priority above the people that they're actually spending time with. It's arrogant, it's disrespectful, and it's enslaving. But I guess it convicts me at the same time. Though none of these issues are my struggles, these people's obsessions force me to ask myself, "Is there any obsession in my life that I've put over the lordship of Christ? Or is Christ my obsession?" To my souls disgrace, many times I cannot answer "Yes," to the latter.

 2010/6/3 9:55
mguldner
Member



Joined: 2009/12/4
Posts: 1862
Kansas

 Re: The Digital Kingdom of Hell

SOOOO GLAD YOU POSTED THIS! :) I have pasted addiction to Video Games and now have an older brother who is crippled now spends every waking hour playing WoW. I have been praying for him to have his eyes opened up to the dangers of this game or any MMOG along with any video game in general. At the peak of my addiction I would be playing just regular video game consoles approximately 8 hours a day just enough to eat and sleep. When I got married my wife hated my gaming and found the same facts to be true that the only way to relate with me was to play the games with me however she already developed a quite healthy hatred for video games thankfully. We had our first son Caeden Noah and my wife would work in the mornings and I would work in the evenings, during the day I would spend time playing the with my son sitting on my lap drinking his bottle and eventually going to sleep. My wife would get home with none of the house work done and me sitting on the video game and my son. She would get furious to say the least. I eventually had my eyes divinely opened to my addiction as I was down stairs and decided to delete stuff off my memory card and was sickened by the amount of time placed on those games. God spoke to my heart and said look at the time wasted when you have a son and a wife to enjoy that I gave you. After that God started getting me to be rid of all of my video games and movies that were unpleasing to Him. I made the choice to destroy the games rather than sell them because I didn't want to cause anyone else to stumble with these games anymore. It was like pulling teeth to destroy some of my favorite games and know that this was a new start for me.

I have noticed that with these games there comes an along another sin that some may not even realise but I know for myself and for my brother and yet another guy I knew to be true and that is pornography addictions, I luckily never got interested with the MMOG epidemic because I hated the fact that I couldn't beat them because they never ended. But the fact that you are logged on the internet going on to a site that is secular and has very compromising ads it seems to me that there are quite a few that fall into pornography addictions or at least maximize their chances since the availiblity is there.

I have never looked at these games as if having a spirit of covetness but the more I see it and think about it that is the real danger and addictive aspect of these games. I had a weird dream last night and it made my sick and weep and cry out to God for help all at the same time and I am sure the dream is from the many years of gaming I had done, I ending up killing five people in cold blood for no apparent reason in the dream. I believe that when I have such dreams it is God revealing what is deeply rooted in my heart and I pray against such things but to think about this there are many games I played that required killing men but while doing it on a game didn't make me flinch because it "wasn't real" however the games men were made in the image of Man and Man was made in the image of God so now I look at it on a quite literal sense of killing another person.

Yet another aspect of these games is the dangers of emotions, God wants ALL of us and this includes our emotions. When you play if you don't win you react in frustration and anger and when you do win you highly praise your accomplishments yet are never satisfied.

I have through the years have recieved deliverance from these things but find that if I am not careful can turn even the simpliest things like logging onto SI into an addiction but have been working and making Christ Jesus my addiction and my one and only desire. Great article

God Bless,
Matthew


_________________
Matthew Guldner

 2010/6/3 10:12Profile





©2002-2024 SermonIndex.net
Promoting Revival to this Generation.
Privacy Policy