1. Breeding Life or Death: You are What You Listen To
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Presented by: Sis. LaTonya Y. Pettigrew
This presentation is designed to trigger your thoughts, transform your hearts and make you more cognizant of the messages you feed your body, your soul, your mind and your actions.
This presentation is not to condemn or judge anyone, including rappers, but to identify the death, destruction, decay and disrespect that plagues this genre of music and how this continues to have negative effects on today’s youth and young adults.
This presentation is designed to reintroduce all of our need for God and his wondrous word. It is designed to help you to see the value of being obedient to God and knowing his Word. It’s purpose is to prove that the things we regularly listen to, including, but not limited to music have direct effects on our thinking, self-esteem and actions.
Be blessed with your hearts and minds open to the voice of God for his church.

2. Marinating… What is the definition of hearing?
Why is what we listen to important?
Does what you listen to define your character, your morals?
Why should we be more cognizant of our music choices?
What is the impact on our lives, our salvation, our futures?

3. What is hearing?
Hearing depends on the ability of sound waves to travel through the various parts of the ear. As sound waves travel through the ear, they are converted into electrochemical messages that are sent along more than 30,000 nerve connections to the brain. The brain then interprets these messages as words and other sounds.

4. WATCH OUT NOW?!?!?!?!?!
Ecclesiastes 7:5 “It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise, than for a man to hear the SONG OF FOOLS.”
Romans 10:14-17 “ 14How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things! But not everyone welcomes the Good News…“Lord, who has believed our message?” So faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.
You need to understand that what you listen to on a regular basis begins to mold and transform your way of thinking. This is why the Bible has over 1200 scriptures that deal with you hearing or feeding yourself the Word of God. Ultimately what you listen to transforms your mind. Understand that if you are ever to truly be an overcomer, your life must mirror a life that God can be proud of.
If I am walking in my calling in ministry on Sunday, but on Monday-Friday, I am jamming Superman that _____ or listening to Beyonce to be “Bootylicious” or R.Kelly’s Trapped in the Closet, then I am doing myself or my spirit any good. Sunday’s activities must resound with you all through the week.
Many of you will argue that it does not affect the way you think. Answer me this. Do all women, regardless of how they act deserve respect? Even if they don’t respect themselves?
Why are we more apt to listen to the “Song of Fools” rather than the true Word of God?
For those of you who don’t believe that music molds your actions, allow me to submit to you the songs that tell you what to do and how to do it. You hear it, think about it and at some point you imagine yourself doing it. And if you can see it, then you begin to believe it. If you believe it, you can achieve it. It works both ways.
Remember that “we don’t wrestle against flesh, meaning you don’t wrestle with a person, but it is spiritual wickedness in high places.” If I want a whole nation of young people to think a certain way, all I have to do is put a hot beat to my instructions and throw in the right people and just like the Superman song, it will become a hit without you even realizing that you have been BRAINWASHED.
In the same way, the enemy comes but to steal, kill and destroy.

5. Is It Really That Serious?
After studying 522 black girls between the ages of 14 and 18 from non-urban, lower socioeconomic neighborhoods, researchers found that compared to those who never or rarely watched these videos, the girls who viewed these gangsta videos for at least 14 hours per week were far more likely to practice numerous destructive behaviors. Over the course of the one-year study, they were:
Three times more likely to hit a teacher
Over 2.5 times more likely to get arrested
Twice as likely to have multiple sexual partners
1.5 times more likely to get a sexually transmitted disease, use drugs, or drink alcohol.
Does Rap Put Teens at Risk?
Study: Association Found Between Video Viewing Time and Risky Behaviors
By Sid Kirchheimer WebMD Medical News
March 3, Teens who spend more time watching the sex and violence depicted in the "real" life of "gangsta" rap music videos are more likely to practice these behaviors in real life, suggests one of the first studies to specifically explore how rap videos influence emotional and physical health.
After studying 522 black girls between the ages of 14 and 18 from non-urban, lower socioeconomic neighborhoods, researchers found that compared to those who never or rarely watched these videos, the girls who viewed these gangsta videos for at least 14 hours per week were far more likely to practice numerous destructive behaviors. Over the course of the one-year study, they were:
Three times more likely to hit a teacher
Over 2.5 times more likely to get arrested
Twice as likely to have multiple sexual partners
1.5 times more likely to get a sexually transmitted disease, use drugs, or drink alcohol.
"What is particularly alarming about our findings is that we didn't find an association with just violence or one or two risky behaviors," says researcher Ralph J. DiClemente, PhD, of Emory University's Rollins School of Public Health. "We found an association with a string of these behaviors."
His study, published in the March issue of the American Journal of Public Health, only involved black girls living in Birmingham, Ala. -- all of whom were already sexually active. While the researchers surveyed viewing habits for various types of rap videos, gangsta rap was by far the most popular among the girls practicing these destructive behaviors.
"We wanted to focus on young, African American women, a population that is very vulnerable," DiClemente tells WebMD. "In these videos, men hold the power and women don't and as a result, are subservient. I'm not sure that the girls in our study were lashing out because of this, but more likely role-modeling the behaviors they see. The women in these videos are doing OK, they're hanging around with a man who is powerful, affluent, going to nice clubs and wearing nice clothes. For these girls, they may not be a bad thing."
His team is currently expanding its research to investigate how these and other rap videos may influence behaviors across other racial, gender and socioeconomic lines. Although gangsta rap videos depict tough inner-city "street" life, their largest viewing audience is white suburban youth, who have better access to cable television channels such as MTV and BET (Black Entertainment Television).
Of course, this isn't the first time that rebellious music has been blamed for society's ills. From Elvis to Columbine, the songs of music-obsessed youth have often been blamed for anti-social behavior. But rap -- and in particular, the especially violent and sexually-explicit gangsta variety -- has raised special concern.
Most children between ages 2 and 18 spend upwards of seven hours a day ingesting some sort of media," says Susan Buttross, MD, FAAP, chief of child development and behavioral pediatrics at the University of Mississippi Medical Center and spokeswoman for the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). "We know that with any type of repeated media exposure, a desensitization can occur that makes these behaviors seem normal. So this finding doesn't surprise me at all."
Buttross, who was not involved in DiClemente's study, is a member of the AAP's committee on public education, which has written several policies warning about the effects the media has on children's' behavior. Her committee is currently updating its 2001 policy statement that found 75% of music videos involved sexual imagery, and more than half involved violence -- usually against women. In 1996, the AAP issued another policy statement that was critical of rap music.
But others feel that rap is getting a bad rap. "Yes, there are rap videos that are particularly violent or sexual, but let's look at what is more important in whether or not these kids act out of behaviors -- their family structure and the type of parenting they get," says Cheryl Keyes, PhD, associate professor of ethnomusicology at UCLA and author of Rap Music and Street Consciousness. "Parents need to get more involved in what their children are watching."
No argument from DiClemente or Buttross.
"You cannot stick your head in the sand and expect your child will only look at good stuff," says Buttross. "Parents need to know what their children are being exposed to. Certainly, rap is not the only music that portrays negative stereotypes or can negatively impact behaviors, and not all rap music should be implicated. But there have been nearly 1,000 studies that have looked at the effects that the media has on children's behavior. And nearly all of them find there is a strong effect."

6. Is It Really That Serious?
LET’S EXAMINE:
Superman; When you are mad at your girl for not having sex with you. So when she falls asleep you masturbate on her back. After that, stick the bed sheet on to her back and when she wakes up it's stuck to the sperm and she has a cape like Superman!!! (Soulja Boy)
Like This: Dancing and Gyrating so hard that it is the only way to keep a guy’s attention. (Kelly Rowland)
“You wanna keep that boy then make it jump like this.”
Coffee shop: hard song by yung joc bout cocaine being sold at a trap house
“first i take they order at the coffee then i cook it up and serve it at the coffee shop”
Candy shop: thanks to 50 Cent, a "candy shop" is basically a place where girls like me are painted up like streetwalking whores, make out with other girls, and degrade ourselves all the while girating our body parts in 50 Cent's face and happily licking on his "lollypop".
50 Cent: "I'll take you to the candy shop. I'll let you lick the lollypop. Go 'head girl don’t you stop. Keep goin' 'till you hit the spot WOAHHHHH"

7. You Are What You Listen To…
People who listen to "reflective and complex" music, for example, score highly on openness to new experiences, verbal ability, self-perceived intelligence and political liberalism, while people who listen to "upbeat and conventional" music score highly on extraversion, self-perceived physical attractiveness, athleticism and political conservatism.
"People who enjoy spending time with others, people who enjoy talking and socializing, tend to enjoy music that is also extraverted--in some ways, party music," says Rentfrow.
People also use music to inform others about themselves. "Adolescents, in particular, use music as a way to fit into groups, as a way to manage people's impressions of them," says Rentfrow. "It's a badge, if you will, of their identity."
You are what you listen to Print version: page 33
Most people's music preferences fall into one of four broad categories, according to a new study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (Vol. 84, No. 6).
What's more, preferences for those categories correlate with traits such as personality, political orientation, verbal ability and athleticism.
"We can learn a lot about personality by looking at everyday life, and music preference is just one facet of everyday life," says Jason Rentfrow, a graduate student at The University of Texas at Austin who co-authored the study with his adviser, psychologist Samuel Gosling, PhD.
Rentfrow and Gosling collected data on the music preferences of several thousand undergraduates at The University of Texas using a new scale--the Short Test of Music Preferences (STOMP). They also analyzed the music collections of people who use Internet file-sharing services.
In both samples, music preferences tended to clump into one of four categories, which Rentfrow and Gosling dubbed "reflective and complex," "intense and rebellious," "upbeat and conventional" and "energetic and rhythmic." Each category included several kinds of music. "Reflective and complex," for example, covered classical, jazz, blues and folk, while "upbeat and conventional" covered country, religious, soundtrack and pop.
Those categories turn out to be significantly correlated with a variety of personal traits, including "Big Five" personality measures.
People who listen to "reflective and complex" music, for example, score highly on openness to new experiences, verbal ability, self-perceived intelligence and political liberalism, while people who listen to "upbeat and conventional" music score highly on extraversion, self-perceived physical attractiveness, athleticism and political conservatism.
Two factors appear to drive the connection between music preferences and personal characteristics, say Rentfrow and Gosling. First, people choose to listen to music that suits their moods and activities. "People who enjoy spending time with others, people who enjoy talking and socializing, tend to enjoy music that is also extraverted--in some ways, party music," says Rentfrow.
People also use music to inform others about themselves. "Adolescents, in particular, use music as a way to fit into groups, as a way to manage people's impressions of them," says Rentfrow. "It's a badge, if you will, of their identity."
This study is part of a broader effort to understand the relationship between personality and everyday life--an area overly neglected by psychologists, says Gosling.
"If we try to partition up our day, we listen to music, we pray, we tend to our gardens, we cook, we eat food," he says. "It's amazing how little many of these things that really occupy our days are studied by psychologists."

8. Does the Bible Really Prohibit Us From Singing or Hearing These Lyrics
Ephesians 4:29 “Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying that IT MAY MINISTER GRACE UNTO THE HEARERS.
WHAT DOES YOUR MUSIC MINISTER TO YOU?

9. Marinating…II
If faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God, then what comes to us as we hear rap music?
Understand the difference between rap music and hip hop.
Hip Hop defines a beautiful culture; it tells a history; promotes our communities, our futures and empowers our people.
Rap music is degrading, disrespectful, selfish, disgusting, desensitizing, demoralizing, and only promotes the rapper while demoting females and the logic of the African-American mind altogether.
Rap's conscious response to the poverty and oppression of U.S. blacks is like some hideous parody of sixties black pride. David Foster Wallace
Music is the movement of sound to reach the soul for the education of its virtue. Plato
Rap records don't make you feel good no more. Six months after release, it can't come back as a classic. Wyclef Jean
Rap is a gimmick, but I'm for the hip-hop, the culture. Method Man
When you do rap albums, you got to train yourself. You got to constantly be in character. Tupac Shakur

10. Breeding Life: Hearing the Word Of God
Ezekiel 12:2 Son of man, thou dwellest in the midst of a rebellious house, which have eyes to see, and see not; they have ears to hear, and hear not: for they are a rebellious house.
Proverbs 8:32-34 (King James Version)
 32Now therefore hearken unto me, O ye children: for blessed are they that keep my ways.  33Hear instruction, and be wise, and refuse it not.
Luke 11:28 But he said, Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it. Listening and Doing James 1:19-26
 19 Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. 20 Human anger[a] does not produce the righteousness[b] God desires. 21 So get rid of all the filth and evil in your lives, and humbly accept the word God has planted in your hearts, for it has the power to save your souls.
 22 But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves. 23 For if you listen to the word and don’t obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror. 24 You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like. 25 But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it.
 26 If you claim to be religious but don’t control your tongue, you are fooling yourself, and your religion is worthless.

11. But to Steal, Kill and Destroy
Understand your enemy.
He comes to steal your destiny, your dominion, your power and your identity in God.
He comes to kill your potential, your promise…he comes to slaughter your dreams, to massacre your value and to annihilate your goals
He comes to destroy your mind, destroy your body and your soul
By ANY MEANS NECESSARY!!!?!?!?!?!
Think about the destruction in these songs, robbing, killing, stealing, selling drugs, this is not God’s way. If you do it God’s way, you are guaranteed to be victorious and to have great success. These songs do not promote love; they promote selfishness; there is no respect for life or for the beauty that is in all women. Answer this: If God is love, why do you have to disobey love (which is God) to prove yourself to be in love by the means of having sex before marriage?
What if someone tried to “Superman” your mother, your sister, your grandmother?

12. LIFE OR DEATH: YOU DECIDE
Kirk Franklin- life or death?
Young Joc-life or death?
J Moss-life or death?
50 Cent-life or death?
Mary J. Blige-life or death?
Alicia Keyes-life or death?
How do you determine what is life?
John 8:12 Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.
If the people above promote the life and message of Jesus, they walk in the light and are worth listening to; if they don’t, their message is death. There is no middle ground. Agree or disagree, why not?
John 15:4-5 “4 Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me.
 5 “Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing.
6 Anyone who does not remain in me is thrown away like a useless branch and withers. Such branches are gathered into a pile to be burned.
John 8:12 Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.
John 15
 1I AM the True Vine, and My Father is the Vinedresser.     2Any branch in Me that does not bear fruit [that stops bearing] He cuts away (trims off, takes away); and He cleanses and repeatedly prunes every branch that continues to bear fruit, to make it bear more and richer and more excellent fruit.
    3You are cleansed and pruned already, because of the word which I have given you [the teachings I have discussed with you].

13. LIFE OR DEATH…PART II

14. The Debate
The rapper Cee-Lo argued that “success in rap music is about selling [the] soul. Selling music has become secondary for a long time.”
Do you agree or disagree? Why or why not?
How does this statement support or argue against the fact that some music today is sending us deadly information?
Quote taken from article on Talib Kweli by the Chicago Sun-Times.

15. FOR EVERY ACTION THERE IS A SEPARATE REACTION: The Promise
Deuteronomy 28
Blessings for Obedience
   “If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully keep all his commands that I am giving you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the world. 2 You will experience all these blessings if you obey the Lord your God:  3 Your towns and your fields       will be blessed.  4 Your children and your crops       will be blessed.    The offspring of your herds and flocks       will be blessed.  5 Your fruit baskets and breadboards       will be blessed.  6 Wherever you go and whatever you do,       you will be blessed.
 7 “The Lord will conquer your enemies when they attack you. They will attack you from one direction, but they will scatter from you in seven!
 8 “The Lord will guarantee a blessing on everything you do and will fill your storehouses with grain. The Lord your God will bless you in the land he is giving you.
 9 “If you obey the commands of the Lord your God and walk in his ways, the Lord will establish you as his holy people as he swore he would do. 10 Then all the nations of the world will see that you are a people claimed by the Lord, and they will stand in awe of you.
 11 “The Lord will give you prosperity in the land he swore to your ancestors to give you, blessing you with many children, numerous livestock, and abundant crops. 12 The Lord will send rain at the proper time from his rich treasury in the heavens and will bless all the work you do. You will lend to many nations, but you will never need to borrow from them. 13 If you listen to these commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you today, and if you carefully obey them, the Lord will make you the head and not the tail, and you will always be on top and never at the bottom. 14 You must not turn away from any of the commands I am giving you today, nor follow after other gods and worship them.

16. FOR EVERY ACTION THERE IS A SEPARATE REACTION: The Consequences
Curses for Disobedience
 15 “But if you refuse to listen to the Lord your God and do not obey all the commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come and overwhelm you:  16 Your towns and your fields       will be cursed.  17 Your fruit baskets and breadboards       will be cursed.  18 Your children and your crops       will be cursed.    The offspring of your herds and flocks       will be cursed.  19 Wherever you go and whatever you do,       you will be cursed.
 20 “The Lord himself will send on you curses, confusion, and frustration in everything you do, until at last you are completely destroyed for doing evil and abandoning me. 21 The Lord will afflict you with diseases until none of you are left in the land you are about to enter and occupy. 22 The Lord will strike you with wasting diseases, fever, and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, and with blight and mildew. These disasters will pursue you until you die. 23 The skies above will be as unyielding as bronze, and the earth beneath will be as hard as iron. 24 The Lord will change the rain that falls on your land into powder, and dust will pour down from the sky until you are destroyed.
 25 “The Lord will cause you to be defeated by your enemies. You will attack your enemies from one direction, but you will scatter from them in seven! You will be an object of horror to all the kingdoms of the earth… 28 The Lord will strike you with madness, blindness, and panic. 29 You will grope around in broad daylight like a blind person groping in the darkness, but you will not find your way. You will be oppressed and robbed continually, and no one will come to save you.
 30 “You will be engaged to a woman, but another man will sleep with her. You will build a house, but someone else will live in it. You will plant a vineyard, but you will never enjoy its fruit… 32 You will watch as your sons and daughters are taken away as slaves. Your heart will break for them, but you won’t be able to help them…You will suffer under constant oppression and harsh treatment. 34 You will go mad because of all the tragedy you see around you… 37 You will become an object of horror, ridicule, and mockery among all the nations to which the Lord sends you.
 38 “You will plant much but harvest little, for locusts will eat your crops… 41 You will have sons and daughters, but you will lose them, for they will be led away into captivity…
 43 “The foreigners living among you will become stronger and stronger, while you become weaker and weaker. 44 They will lend money to you, but you will not lend to them. They will be the head, and you will be the tail!
 45 “If you refuse to listen to the Lord your God and to obey the commands and decrees he has given you, all these curses will pursue and overtake you until you are destroyed. 46 These horrors will serve as a sign and warning among you and your descendants forever.
Deuteronomy 28
Blessings for Obedience
   “If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully keep all his commands that I am giving you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the world. 2 You will experience all these blessings if you obey the Lord your God:  3 Your towns and your fields       will be blessed.  4 Your children and your crops       will be blessed.    The offspring of your herds and flocks       will be blessed.  5 Your fruit baskets and breadboards       will be blessed.  6 Wherever you go and whatever you do,       you will be blessed.
 7 “The Lord will conquer your enemies when they attack you. They will attack you from one direction, but they will scatter from you in seven!
 8 “The Lord will guarantee a blessing on everything you do and will fill your storehouses with grain. The Lord your God will bless you in the land he is giving you.
 9 “If you obey the commands of the Lord your God and walk in his ways, the Lord will establish you as his holy people as he swore he would do. 10 Then all the nations of the world will see that you are a people claimed by the Lord, and they will stand in awe of you.
 11 “The Lord will give you prosperity in the land he swore to your ancestors to give you, blessing you with many children, numerous livestock, and abundant crops. 12 The Lord will send rain at the proper time from his rich treasury in the heavens and will bless all the work you do. You will lend to many nations, but you will never need to borrow from them. 13 If you listen to these commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you today, and if you carefully obey them, the Lord will make you the head and not the tail, and you will always be on top and never at the bottom. 14 You must not turn away from any of the commands I am giving you today, nor follow after other gods and worship them.
Curses for Disobedience
 15 “But if you refuse to listen to the Lord your God and do not obey all the commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come and overwhelm you:  16 Your towns and your fields       will be cursed.  17 Your fruit baskets and breadboards       will be cursed.  18 Your children and your crops       will be cursed.    The offspring of your herds and flocks       will be cursed.  19 Wherever you go and whatever you do,       you will be cursed.
 20 “The Lord himself will send on you curses, confusion, and frustration in everything you do, until at last you are completely destroyed for doing evil and abandoning me. 21 The Lord will afflict you with diseases until none of you are left in the land you are about to enter and occupy. 22 The Lord will strike you with wasting diseases, fever, and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, and with blight and mildew. These disasters will pursue you until you die. 23 The skies above will be as unyielding as bronze, and the earth beneath will be as hard as iron. 24 The Lord will change the rain that falls on your land into powder, and dust will pour down from the sky until you are destroyed.
 25 “The Lord will cause you to be defeated by your enemies. You will attack your enemies from one direction, but you will scatter from them in seven! You will be an object of horror to all the kingdoms of the earth. 26 Your corpses will be food for all the scavenging birds and wild animals, and no one will be there to chase them away.
 27 “The Lord will afflict you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors, scurvy, and the itch, from which you cannot be cured. 28 The Lord will strike you with madness, blindness, and panic. 29 You will grope around in broad daylight like a blind person groping in the darkness, but you will not find your way. You will be oppressed and robbed continually, and no one will come to save you.
 30 “You will be engaged to a woman, but another man will sleep with her. You will build a house, but someone else will live in it. You will plant a vineyard, but you will never enjoy its fruit. 31 Your ox will be butchered before your eyes, but you will not eat a single bite of the meat. Your donkey will be taken from you, never to be returned. Your sheep and goats will be given to your enemies, and no one will be there to help you. 32 You will watch as your sons and daughters are taken away as slaves. Your heart will break for them, but you won’t be able to help them. 33 A foreign nation you have never heard about will eat the crops you worked so hard to grow. You will suffer under constant oppression and harsh treatment. 34 You will go mad because of all the tragedy you see around you. 35 The Lord will cover your knees and legs with incurable boils. In fact, you will be covered from head to foot.
 36 “The Lord will exile you and your king to a nation unknown to you and your ancestors. There in exile you will worship gods of wood and stone! 37 You will become an object of horror, ridicule, and mockery among all the nations to which the Lord sends you.
 38 “You will plant much but harvest little, for locusts will eat your crops. 39 You will plant vineyards and care for them, but you will not drink the wine or eat the grapes, for worms will destroy the vines. 40 You will grow olive trees throughout your land, but you will never use the olive oil, for the fruit will drop before it ripens. 41 You will have sons and daughters, but you will lose them, for they will be led away into captivity. 42 Swarms of insects will destroy your trees and crops.
 43 “The foreigners living among you will become stronger and stronger, while you become weaker and weaker. 44 They will lend money to you, but you will not lend to them. They will be the head, and you will be the tail!
 45 “If you refuse to listen to the Lord your God and to obey the commands and decrees he has given you, all these curses will pursue and overtake you until you are destroyed. 46 These horrors will serve as a sign and warning among you and your descendants forever. 47 If you do not serve the Lord your God with joy and enthusiasm for the abundant benefits you have received, 48 you will serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you. You will be left hungry, thirsty, naked, and lacking in everything. The Lord will put an iron yoke on your neck, oppressing you harshly until he has destroyed you.
 49 “The Lord will bring a distant nation against you from the end of the earth, and it will swoop down on you like a vulture. It is a nation whose language you do not understand, 50 a fierce and heartless nation that shows no respect for the old and no pity for the young. 51 Its armies will devour your livestock and crops, and you will be destroyed. They will leave you no grain, new wine, olive oil, calves, or lambs, and you will starve to death. 52 They will attack your cities until all the fortified walls in your land—the walls you trusted to protect you—are knocked down. They will attack all the towns in the land the Lord your God has given you.
 53 “The siege and terrible distress of the enemy’s attack will be so severe that you will eat the flesh of your own sons and daughters, whom the Lord your God has given you. 54 The most tenderhearted man among you will have no compassion for his own brother, his beloved wife, and his surviving children. 55 He will refuse to share with them the flesh he is devouring—the flesh of one of his own children—because he has nothing else to eat during the siege and terrible distress that your enemy will inflict on all your towns. 56 The most tender and delicate woman among you—so delicate she would not so much as touch the ground with her foot—will be selfish toward the husband she loves and toward her own son or daughter. 57 She will hide from them the afterbirth and the new baby she has borne, so that she herself can secretly eat them. She will have nothing else to eat during the siege and terrible distress that your enemy will inflict on all your towns.
 58 “If you refuse to obey all the words of instruction that are written in this book, and if you do not fear the glorious and awesome name of the Lord your God, 59 then the Lord will overwhelm you and your children with indescribable plagues. These plagues will be intense and without relief, making you miserable and unbearably sick. 60 He will afflict you with all the diseases of Egypt that you feared so much, and you will have no relief. 61 The Lord will afflict you with every sickness and plague there is, even those not mentioned in this Book of Instruction, until you are destroyed. 62 Though you become as numerous as the stars in the sky, few of you will be left because you would not listen to the Lord your God.
 63 “Just as the Lord has found great pleasure in causing you to prosper and multiply, the Lord will find pleasure in destroying you. You will be torn from the land you are about to enter and occupy. 64 For the Lord will scatter you among all the nations from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship foreign gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known, gods made of wood and stone! 65 There among those nations you will find no peace or place to rest. And the Lord will cause your heart to tremble, your eyesight to fail, and your soul to despair. 66 Your life will constantly hang in the balance. You will live night and day in fear, unsure if you will survive. 67 In the morning you will say, ‘If only it were night!’ And in the evening you will say, ‘If only it were morning!’ For you will be terrified by the awful horrors you see around you. 68 Then the Lord will send you back to Egypt in ships, to a destination I promised you would never see again. There you will offer to sell yourselves to your enemies as slaves, but no one will buy you.”

17. Extra, Extra, Hear All About It!
II Timothy 2:22 Run from anything that stimulates youthful lust.
REMEMBER: The enemy is trying to seduce you into disobedience.
Fill your ears with the Word of God. Love music; but find music that edifies your inner spirit which is of God AND your natural man.
Remember that the enemy has no power; he can only make suggestions. Listen to the music; it suggests how you should do certain things.
How many of you feel like you are connected to God? Could it be that your thoughts have materialized into actions of disobedience. You know in your heart that God has not been pleased with you. Therefore you fail to be connected to God because you’ve allowed what you heard-abstinence is outdated, everybody’s does it, try this meth, it’s fun, it’s cool, let’s lie about where we’ve been, let’s burn this music even though we haven’t paid for it; let’s get this movie on bootleg and our justification is “it costs too much to go to the movies.” We are a generation of sinful justification, when do we stand up and be accountable to God. When do we stand up and run to God understanding that we have fallen short and we’ve filled our ears with destruction and decay?
The enemy uses vices like music to dangle suggestive behaviors in front of us. He tries to persuade us to do certain things that will ultimately lead us out of the will of God. This happens so that in essence, you ultimately sell your own soul, salvation, and even self-esteem, running after an illusion, a pipe dream and a sinful desire.
The problem is that God has already promised you that in Matthew 6:33 “If you seek the kingdom of God first and all his righteousness then ALL THINGS SHALL BE ADDED UNTO THEE.

18. Extra, Extra, Hear All About It!
Understand the Importance of the Word.
If Jesus is the Word and through the Jesus [who is the Word According to John 1:1-14,] we receive salvation, then you must recognize that you cannot fully call yourself a Christian or a disciple of Jesus who is the Word if you don’t know it.
I come back to the Word-faith comes by hearing the Word of God. And it is through faith that we receive salvation. So if the Word of God is not present in your life, how can you have faith? It is more of empty hope without promise.

19. What the Point, Again?
To move you out of zeal for God that you might understand that the blessings, abundance, and purpose of God are attached to the requirement- “Be holy as I am holy”- of God.
This means that your life, in its entirety must resemble the glory of God; without feeding your ears the Word of God, you cannot have true faith. For faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.
This also means that you have to be aware of the enemy’s messages; what could seem to be harmless or has a nice beat, could degrade you, deform your soul and cut you off from God.
Who you listen to decides who you serve. If you serve God, why do you listen to music that is contrary to his Word. “You shall not have sex before marriage.” And yet we cloud our thoughts, ears and souls with messages that promote such behaviors. We listen to people who promote killing, stealing, running street pharmacies, and yet we fail to recognize that as long as these messages take precedence over the message of the Good News (the death, burial and resurrection of Christ for your sins and transformed life), we will never truly enter into our purpose, God’s plan for our lives, or the blessings he has for us.