*** w50 2/15 p. 56 How to Stick to It ***
You have a limited amount of time to give to the training of your mind. If you consume all of that time with worldly reading, radio entertainment, television, etc., and thinking on earthly things, you are wasting time that can be used to build up a protective barrier against the darts of the enemy.
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w51 1/1 p. 22 "Put Off Every Weight" ***Sometimes consecrated servants of God lose sight of this important counsel by Jesus. They fail to practice the admonition to seek first the Kingdom. First in their lives comes a new home, new car, radio, television set, and procuring the wherewithal to keep up the payments on these "necessities". So to the daily treadmill they go.
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w51 3/15 p. 164 Time Better than Money ***To illustrate, consider television. It is a marvel of human ingenuity in putting to work invisible forces of the universe, and if used to best advantage could be a real boon to mankind. But many low-quality programs and much immoderate use combine to undermine its value. Nevertheless, even now its moderate use in viewing the better programs may offer a measure of relaxing diversion. Used with wise limitation, it can provide relaxation for Christians right in their homes, without their having to seek diversion in worldly audiences that may in these tense times rise up against the Christians in their midst that maintain integrity.
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w51 3/15 p. 164 Time Better than Money ***But instead of a moderate use of television by people generally, what do we frequently find? The evening meal over, the family rush for their seats before the television screen, there to sit for hours, till bedtime. No time for family conversation. No time for study. No time to serve God. Only time for television. Just time to sit before the screen and soak up propaganda and entertainment. So absorbed are they that they may refuse to leave their seats before the television for an hour a week, to share in a home Bible study.
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w51 3/15 p. 164 Time Better than Money ***But will television deliver them at Armageddon? Will their little god of the living room shelter them from Jehovah?s wrath? Time consumed on it might have been used to study, to transform their mind, to make it over, to gain godly wisdom, which is not to be compared to rubies, silver, gold, money or television; but instead they will be "destroyed for lack of knowledge". (Hos. 4:6) The marvelous invention has been misused by them till it has become a satanic snare to capture their mind, to keep their eye glued to a television screen, not allowing them time to see the sign of the second presence of Christ or to mentally discern the import of such sign and learn what they should do to successfully meet the crisis.
*** w52 1/15 p. 42 Training Children for Life in the New World ***
Furthermore, modern theocratic parents have to combat a rising tide of old world propaganda calculated to capture and twist the minds of the young. The radio, the television, the cinema, the comics and the press in general are all full of untheocratic, unwholesome instruction. The prudent parent must minimize these sources of demon-inspired utterances and shield the minds of their young from their evil influence.
*** w52 3/15 p. 175 Choosing Now to Live Then ***
But how much time do those persons spend reading newspapers? listening to the radio? looking at television? reading novels? seeing movies? or pursuing pleasures in other ways? They have a poor sense of values. A man will study seven or eight years to learn how to become a surgeon, but balks at spending seven or eight minutes studying to be Jehovah?s servant. He is all eyes for the dollar signs of a high-salaried profession, but blind to the Bible road signs that point to eternal life.
*** w53 8/1 pp. 456-457 Study to Be Fruitful ***
Roots can send up only so much sap. If it all goes into twigs and leaves there will be no fruit. So we must prune out the unfruitful branches so that the sap can work at making fruit. We have only so much time and energy. If we use it on nonessentials there is no time left for Kingdom fruitfulness. If we branch off into excessive viewing of television or movies or too many week-end jaunts or other pleasure pursuits that rob us of our time and energy, these branches that bear no fruit should be pruned off, cut out of our lives, so that in this time of opportunity we will not waste time in unfruitfulness.
*** w54 4/1 pp. 205-206 New World Society Advances in Peru ***
For example, recently the pope warned the Italian people of television?s dangers. The newspapers reported that the priests in Italy were warned against letting "the wicked and devastating power of motion pictures" enter the homes through television. One wonders why the pope does not take an interest in the millions of people who live in Central and South America and get his priests there to straighten out the lives of those indulging in immoral living, for in Latin America one finds the height of adultery and fornication, plus lying and stealing. There is no publicity given to these matters in the newspapers in South America, because it is all accepted as a common practice and it does not seem to be looked upon as wrong by the majority of the people
*** w54 8/15 p. 508 Endurance Through Hope ***
The desire for "fine" things and entertainment interests (television, radio, cinema, etc.) may, if care is not exercised, subvert our hope; for of a certainty they do not build it up. We need to fortify our hope so that it will become our very "joy," as it did for Jesus. Many other nontheocratic interests abound in the world, such as the so-called "hobbies." These may furnish pleasure and recreation, even profit in worldly goods. But hobbies, like commercial pursuits, may very easily entangle one and undermine one?s hope.
*** w55 1/15 p. 42 Is Your Best Good Enough? ***
Satan is sending out his propaganda to shape men?s minds to his purposes. It pours forth from newspapers and magazines, blares out of radios, flashes from television screens, and even saturates the comic books.
*** w56 8/1 p. 463 Jehovah?s Message Against Gog of Magog ***
News agencies and propaganda organs of this world, by the skill of their writers and orators and through the medium of public press, radio, cinema and television, continually praise and extol the virtues of this present system of things, this "present evil world," and thus they too serve well as tools of Satan. Mention can also be made of the many ethical and cultural associations, as well as social, educational and judicial bodies, who, wittingly or unwittingly, give active aid and support to Gog?s world organization.
*** w57 2/1 p. 67 What Will You Give for Your Life? ***
Do you want riches, wealth, position, comforts? Maybe you gain everything, all that this world has to offer in the way of material benefits and fleshly pleasures. Yet what will it benefit you if in gaining these things you lose your life, because you neglected Jehovah?s service? How can you continue to enjoy what you have acquired, if your life slips from you? Your fine home will not fit in your coffin, your shiny car will not follow you to your grave, you cannot watch television there.
*** w57 8/1 p. 469 Will You Get to Live on Earth Forever? ***
They fear being alone with their own thoughts. If other people are not around, they fill the void with television, movies, light reading matter, or if they go to the beach or park the portable radio goes too so they will not have to be with their own thoughts. Their thinking must be channeled for them, ready-made by propagandists. This suits Satan?s purpose. He deluges the mass mind with anything and everything but God?s truth. To keep minds from doing godly thinking Satan keeps them busy with thoughts that are either trivial or ungodly. It is tailor-made thinking, and the tailor of it is the Devil. Minds work, but in the way that a horse is led. Independent thinking is difficult, unpopular and even suspect. Thought conformity is the order of our day. To seek solitude for meditation is frowned upon as antisocial and neurotic.?Rev. 16:13, 14.