Should Christians Watch 'Game of Thrones'?
00:00:00.000 | [Intro Music]
00:00:06.000 | Emily in Eagan, Minnesota writes in, "Pastor John, do you believe there's a difference between film nudity versus pornography?
00:00:13.000 | I know many Christians who are against porn, but they have no issue watching movies or TV shows that show graphic nudity."
00:00:20.000 | And very specifically, Adam writes in to ask this, "What would you say to a Christian who watches the cable TV show Game of Thrones?
00:00:28.000 | This is a television series rated TVMA and has become rather infamous for its explicit nudity and sex scenes
00:00:34.000 | and for graphic scenes of rape and sexual violence against women."
00:00:39.000 | Pastor John, what do you say?
00:00:41.000 | Tony, the closer I get to death and meeting Jesus personally, face to face,
00:00:50.000 | and giving an account for my life and for the careless words that I've spoken, Matthew 12, 36, and how much more for intentional stares,
00:01:03.000 | the more sure I am of my resolve never intentionally to look at a TV show or a movie or a website or a magazine
00:01:16.000 | where I know I will see photos or films of nudity.
00:01:21.000 | Never. That's my resolve.
00:01:24.000 | And the closer I get to death, the better I feel about that and the more committed I become.
00:01:30.000 | And I want to invite, frankly, all Christians to join me in this pursuit of greater purity of heart and mind.
00:01:38.000 | In our day when entertainment media is virtually the lingua franca of the world,
00:01:45.000 | this is an invitation to be an alien.
00:01:49.000 | And I believe with all my heart that what the world needs is radically bold,
00:01:56.000 | sacrificially loving, God-besotted freaks.
00:02:03.000 | Aliens.
00:02:04.000 | In other words, I am inviting you to say no to the world for the sake of the world.
00:02:14.000 | The world does not need more cool, hip, culturally savvy, irrelevant copies of itself.
00:02:23.000 | That's a hoax that thousands of young Christians have been duped by.
00:02:28.000 | They've got to be hip, cool, savvy, culturally aware, watching everything in order not to be freakish.
00:02:36.000 | And that is undoing them morally and I think for their witness.
00:02:44.000 | So here are my reasons. I've got 12.
00:02:47.000 | So this is going to take a few minutes, but people, I need these if nobody else does.
00:02:53.000 | And I think others do, too.
00:02:55.000 | Here are my reasons for why I'm committed to this kind of radical abstention from anything I know is going to present me with nudity.
00:03:04.000 | Jesus died to purify me.
00:03:07.000 | He died to purify his people.
00:03:09.000 | It is an absolute travesty of the cross to treat it as though Jesus died only to forgive us for the sin of watching nudity and not to purify us for the power not to watch it.
00:03:21.000 | He has blood bought power in his cross.
00:03:26.000 | He died to make us pure.
00:03:28.000 | Titus 2 14 He gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession.
00:03:37.000 | If we choose to endorse or embrace or enjoy or pursue impurity, we take a spear and ram it into Jesus side every time we do.
00:03:49.000 | He suffered to set us free from impurity.
00:03:53.000 | Number two, there is in the Bible from beginning to end a radical call for holiness, holiness of mind and heart and life.
00:04:02.000 | He who called you is holy.
00:04:04.000 | You be holy in all your conduct.
00:04:07.000 | First Peter 1 15 or Second Corinthians 7 1.
00:04:11.000 | Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of the Lord.
00:04:23.000 | Nudity in movies and photos is not holy and does not advance our holiness.
00:04:30.000 | It is unholy and impure.
00:04:33.000 | Number three, Jesus said, Everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
00:04:41.000 | If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away.
00:04:44.000 | Seeing naked women causes men and women, women seeing naked men to sin with their minds and their desires and often with their bodies.
00:04:55.000 | If Jesus told us to guard our hearts by gouging out our eyes to prevent lust, how much more
00:05:02.780 | would he say, "Don't watch it"?
00:05:05.960 | 4.
00:05:07.760 | Life in Christ is not mainly the avoidance of evil but mainly the passionate pursuit
00:05:13.920 | of good.
00:05:14.920 | [Philippians 4]
00:05:15.920 | Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely,
00:05:21.100 | whatever is commendable, whatever is excellent, if there's anything worthy of praise, if there's
00:05:25.920 | anything commendable, think on these things.
00:05:30.200 | My father used to say, "Be so busy doing you don't have time to don't," when people accused
00:05:38.420 | us fundamentalists of being people with a bunch of don'ts.
00:05:41.760 | I've never felt that way.
00:05:44.460 | My life is not a constrained life.
00:05:49.400 | It is a free life.
00:05:51.100 | You were called to freedom, brothers.
00:05:53.000 | [Galatians 5:13]
00:05:54.000 | Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one
00:06:00.320 | another.
00:06:01.320 | 5.
00:06:02.320 | I want to see and know God as fully as possible in this life and the next.
00:06:08.320 | Watching nudity is a huge hindrance to that pursuit.
00:06:12.760 | Blessed are the pure in heart, they shall see God.
00:06:15.520 | The defilement of the mind and heart by watching nudity dulls the heart's ability to see and
00:06:22.040 | enjoy God.
00:06:23.040 | I dare anyone to watch nudity and turn straight to God and give him thanks and enjoy him more
00:06:32.720 | because of what you just experienced.
00:06:35.200 | 6.
00:06:36.680 | God calls women to adorn themselves in respectable apparel with modesty and self-control.
00:06:42.560 | [1 Timothy 2:9]
00:06:46.320 | When we pursue or receive or embrace nudity in our entertainment, we are implicitly endorsing
00:06:54.860 | the sin of the women who sell themselves to this way and are therefore uncaring about
00:07:03.240 | their souls.
00:07:04.240 | They are disobeying 1 Timothy 2:9 and we are saying that's okay.
00:07:10.080 | 7.
00:07:11.880 | Most Christians are hypocrites in watching nudity because, on the one hand, they say
00:07:18.120 | by their watching that this is okay and on the other hand, they know deep down they would
00:07:23.240 | not want their daughter or their wife to be playing this role.
00:07:28.000 | That's hypocrisy.
00:07:29.720 | 8.
00:07:31.560 | Nudity is not like murder and violence on the screen.
00:07:36.240 | That's make-believe.
00:07:37.800 | Nobody really gets killed.
00:07:39.920 | But nudity is not make-believe.
00:07:42.280 | These actresses are really naked in front of the camera, telling, doing exactly what
00:07:48.920 | the director says to do with their legs and their hands and their breasts.
00:07:54.040 | They're standing there and they're naked in front of millions of people for the world
00:07:59.720 | to see.
00:08:01.240 | 9.
00:08:02.840 | Sexual relations is a beautiful thing.
00:08:05.480 | God created it and pronounced it good, but it is not, as David Hubbard said when I was
00:08:10.720 | in seminary, it is not a spectator sport.
00:08:14.820 | It is a holy joy that is sacred in its secure place of tender love.
00:08:22.000 | Men and women who want to be watched, mark that word "want," men and women who want
00:08:28.680 | to be watched in their nudity are in the category with exhibitionists who pull down their pants
00:08:35.120 | at the top of escalators.
00:08:37.800 | 10.
00:08:40.320 | There is no great film that needs nudity to add to its greatness.
00:08:45.480 | No, there isn't.
00:08:47.520 | There are creative ways to be true to reality without turning sex into a spectator sport
00:08:53.520 | and without putting actors and actresses in morally compromised situations on the set.
00:09:03.000 | It is not great artistic integrity that is driving this.
00:09:09.360 | Underneath all of it is male sexual appetite driving this business and following from that
00:09:17.760 | is peer pressure in the industry and the desire for ratings that sell.
00:09:24.080 | It's not art that puts nudity in.
00:09:26.840 | It's the appeal of prurience.
00:09:29.400 | It sells.
00:09:31.800 | 11.
00:09:33.640 | Christians do not watch nudity with a view to maximizing holiness.
00:09:40.320 | That's not what keeps them coming back to the shows.
00:09:43.960 | They know deep down that these TV shows or these movies are shot through with the commendation
00:09:51.600 | and exaltation of attitudes and actions that are utterly out of step with the death to
00:09:57.360 | self and with exaltation of Christ.
00:10:00.360 | No, what keeps those Christians coming back is the fear that if they took Christ at his
00:10:08.200 | word and made holiness as serious as I'm saying it is, they would have to stop seeing so many
00:10:15.520 | TV shows and so many movies they would be viewed as freakish.
00:10:21.560 | And that today is the worst evil of all.
00:10:24.480 | To be seen as freakish is a much greater evil than to be unholy.
00:10:30.240 | Next one.
00:10:31.240 | 12.
00:10:32.240 | There is one biblical guideline that makes life very simple.
00:10:36.760 | Romans 14.23 "Whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats, because the eating is not from
00:10:44.440 | faith.
00:10:45.960 | Whatever does not proceed from faith is sin."
00:10:49.160 | My paraphrase, if you doubt, don't.
00:10:53.480 | That would alter the viewing habits of millions and oh how sweetly they would sleep with their
00:11:01.080 | conscience.
00:11:02.360 | So I say it again, join me in the pursuit of the kind of purity that sees God and knows
00:11:10.820 | the fullness of joy in his presence and the everlasting pleasure at his right hand.
00:11:18.080 | There's a lot to think about here.
00:11:19.080 | Thank you, Pastor John.
00:11:20.520 | This episode reminds me of another one.
00:11:22.040 | We recorded a while back.
00:11:23.480 | A wife wrote in and asked, "Is my husband obligated to give up movies with sex scenes
00:11:28.080 | or nudity in it if I don't like it because I'm jealous?"
00:11:31.480 | And Pastor John responded in episode number 149 and you can find it in the podcast archive.
00:11:35.920 | Again, that was episode number 149.
00:11:39.080 | We'll be back on Monday with a new episode.
00:11:41.280 | Until then, be sure to check out the Ask Pastor John app for the iPhone and the Android and
00:11:45.280 | check out our website, DesiringGod.org, where you can find an archive of thousands of books,
00:11:49.920 | articles, sermons, and other resources all free of charge from John Piper and all intended
00:11:54.640 | to help explain why God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.
00:12:00.560 | I'm your host Tony Reinke.
00:12:01.560 | We'll see you next week.
00:12:02.480 | [End]
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