INFLUENCES;
PLEASURES; ENTERTAINMENT

You can drink poison if you want to, but I am still friend enough to warn you that if you do, you will be carried out in a box. I cannot stop you, but I can warn you. I have not the authority to tell you what you should listen to, but I have a divine commission to tell you that if you love and listen to the wrong kinds of music, your inner life will wither and die.

What about the pleasures you indulge in. If I should start to catalog some of your pastimes, you would probably break in and ask, “What’s wrong with this?” “What’s wrong with that?” There probably is no answer that will completely satisfy you if you are asking the question. But this is my best answer: Give a person ten years in the wrong kind of indulgence and questionable atmosphere, and see what happens to the inward spiritual life.

The pleasures in which we indulge selfishly will shape us and fashion us over the years. Whatever gives us pleasure has the subtle power to change us and enslave us.

Proverbs 4:23; 1 Corinthians 6:12; Ephesians 2:1–3; 1 John 2:15–17

Tragedy in the Church: The Missing Gifts, 134, 135.