1. Guarding
the Avenues
to the Soul

2. 5 Senses=Avenues to the Soul
Vision
Hearing
Smell
Touch
Taste
All should guard the senses, lest Satan gain
victory over them, for these are the avenues
of the Soul (AH 401.2)

3. 5 Senses=Avenues to the Soul
Satan cannot enter the mind without our
consent
Close every avenue to the tempter
Avoid reading, seeing or hearing evil.
Impure thoughts lead to Impure actions
Sow lawlessness, reap a harvest of crime
Evil sights and sounds all about us
All need a bulwark against temptation –
JESUS

4. Sense -- Vision
Matthew 6: 22-23
[22] The light of the body is the eye: if
therefore thine eye be single, thy whole
body shall be full of light.
[23] But if thine eye be evil, thy whole
body shall be full of darkness. If
therefore the light that is in thee be
darkness, how great is that darkness!

5. Sense -- Vision
Psalms 101: 3
I will set no wicked thing before
mine eyes: I hate the work of
them that turn aside; it shall not
cleave to me.

6. Sense -- Vision
Genesis 3:6
And when the woman saw that the
tree was good for food, and that it
was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree
to be desired to make one wise, she
took of the fruit thereof, and did eat,
and gave also unto her husband with
her; and he did eat.

7. Sense -- Vision
"By beholding we are to become changed;
and as we meditate upon the perfections of
the divine Model, we shall desire to become
wholly transformed, and renewed in the
image of His purity. It is by faith in the Son of
God that transformation takes place in the
character, and the child of wrath becomes the
child of God..." Volume 1, Selected Messages, 335-338 (ST
December 26, 1892).

8. Sense -- Vision
Violence on television affects children negatively,
according to psychological research.
The three major effects of seeing violence on
television are:
– Children may become less sensitive to the pain and suffering
of others.
– Children may be more fearful of the world around them.
– Children may be more likely to behave in aggressive ways
toward others
FACT: The average American child will have watched
100,000 acts of televised violence, including 8000
depictions of murder, by the time he or she finishes
sixth grade (approximately 13 years old).

9. Sense -- Vision
Children's television shows contain about 20
violent acts each hour.
Children who watched violent shows were more
likely to strike out at playmates, argue, disobey
authority and were less willing to wait for things
than those children who watched non-violent
programs.
Studies by George Gerbner, at the University of Pennsylvania

10. Sense -- Vision
Huesmann's research states that young
girls who often watched shows featuring
aggressive heroines in the 1970s, have
grown up to be more aggressive adults
involved in more confrontations, shoving
matches, choking and knife fights than
women who had watched few or none
of these shows.
Research by Prof. Rowell Huesmann, Psychologist Aggression
Research Group

11. Sense -- Vision
In the early seventies, researchers from the
University of British Columbia compared the
levels of aggression in first and second
graders from two Canadian towns, one with
access to TV and one, due to a mountain
range, with no TV access.
When the mountain town finally received
television, the hitting, biting, and shoving
levels of the children increased by 160
percent.

12. Sense -- Vision
University of Michigan psychologists embarked on a
landmark study of over 800 eight-year-olds. They found
that children who watched many hours of violent television
tended to be more aggressive in the playground and the
classroom.
They checked back with these students 11 and 22 years
later. They found that the aggressive eight-year-olds grew
up to become even more aggressive 19- and 30-year-
olds, with greater troubles-including domestic violence and
more traffic tickets-than their less aggressive counterparts
who did not watch as much television.
They found that watching violence on television is the
single factor most closely associated with aggressive
behavior -- more than poverty, race, or parental behavior.

13. Sense – Vision (Reading)
Oh, that the young would reflect upon the influence
which exciting stories have upon the mind! Can you,
after such reading, open the word of God and read the
words of life with interest? Do you not find the book of
God uninteresting?
The charm of that love story is upon the mind,
destroying its healthy tone and making it impossible for
you to fix your mind upon the important, solemn truths
which concern your eternal interest.
Children, I have a message for you. You are now
deciding your future destiny, and your character building
is of that kind which will exclude you from the Paradise
of God. . . . (Adventist Home, pg 416).

14. Sense -- Hearing
Ecclesiastes 1: 8
All things are full of labour;
man cannot utter it: the eye is
not satisfied with seeing, nor
the ear filled with hearing.

15. Sense -- Hearing
The introduction of music into their homes, instead of inciting to
holiness and spirituality, has been the means of diverting their
minds from the truth. Frivolous songs and the popular sheet
music of the day seem congenial to their taste.
The instruments of music have taken time which should have
been devoted to prayer.
Music, when not abused, is a great blessing; but when put to a
wrong use, it is a terrible curse. It excites, but does not impart
that strength and courage which the Christian can find only at
the throne of grace while humbly making known his wants and,
with strong cries and tears, pleading for heavenly strength to be
fortified against the powerful temptations of the evil one.
Satan is leading the young captive. Oh, what can I say to lead
them to break his power of infatuation! He is a skillful charmer
luring them on to perdition. { AH 407 .4}

16. Sense -- Hearing
A recent study concerned with adolescents‟ taste for
music found that teens who listen to music with
explicitly sexual lyrics have sex earlier than their
counterparts who prefer “demurer” rhythms and
tones.
It does not matter the music genre teenagers listen
to. It may be dance, hip-hop, rap, rock or pop. All that
matters is the message comprised in the song‟s
lyrics. Researchers found that the lyrics influence
teenagers‟ sexual behavior and enhance their desire
for starting their sex life as soon as possible.
Study Done By Alexandra Lupu, Health News Editor 8th of August
2006, 07:22 GMT

17. Sense -- Hearing
Teens who spend more time watching the sex and violence
depicted in the “reel” 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 socio-economic 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.
Ralph J. DiClemente, PhD, of Emory University‟s Rollins School of Public Health

18. Sense – Smell & Taste
Psalms 42: 1-2
[1] As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so
panteth my soul after thee, O God.
[2] My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when
shall I come and appear before God?
Proverbs 23: 1-3
[1] When thou sittest to eat with a ruler, consider
diligently what is before thee:
[2] And put a knife to thy throat, if thou be a man given
to appetite.
[3] Be not desirous of his dainties: for they are deceitful
meat.

19. Sense – Smell & Taste
Genesis 1: 29-30
[29] And God said, Behold, I have given you
every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face
of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is
the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be
for meat.
[30] And to every beast of the earth, and to
every fowl of the air, and to every thing that
creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I
have given every green herb for meat: and it
was so.

20. Sense – Smell & Taste
Genesis 3:6
And when the woman saw that the tree
was good for food, and that it was
pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be
desired to make one wise, she took of the
fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also
unto her husband with her; and he did
eat.

21. Sense – Smell & Taste
Those who eat flesh are but eating grains and vegetables at
second hand; for the animal receives from these things the nutrition
that produces growth. The life that was in the grains and
vegetables passes into the eater. We receive it by eating the flesh
of the animal. How much better to get it direct, by eating the food
that God provided for our use!
Flesh was never the best food; but its use is now doubly
objectionable, since disease in animals is so rapidly increasing.
Those who use flesh foods little know what they are eating. Often if
they could see the animals when living and know the quality of the
meat they eat, they would turn from it with loathing. People are
continually eating flesh that is filled with tuberculosis and
cancerous germs. Tuberculosis, cancer, and other fatal diseases
are thus communicated.
Ministry of Healing, pg. 313

22. Sense – Smell & Taste
The effects of a flesh diet may not be
immediately realized; but this is no evidence
that it is not harmful. Few can be made to
believe that it is the meat they have eaten which
has poisoned their blood and caused their
suffering. Many die of diseases wholly due to
meat eating, while the real cause is not
suspected by themselves or by others.
Ministry of Healing, pg. 315

23. Sense – Smell & Taste
One study in the 1990s was the South Cumbria
Alternative Sentencing Option, which achieved
spectacular results by changing the diets of
troublesome young people.
Its scientific advisor, chemistry professor Derek Bryce-
Smith, was emphatic that defective diets actually altered
the chemistry of the brain and could cause loss of
control. „Contrary to what is taught in medical school,‟
he said, „severe dietary deficiencies exist widely among
the general population, and these factors particularly
influence brain function.‟

24. Sense – Smell & Taste
After 50 years of intensive farming, in which traditional
farming methods have been largely replaced by
monoculture and reliance on chemicals, there has been
a steady decline in the nutrient content of soil and the
food grown in it.
One of the major losses is zinc, which is crucial for good
brain function. Professor Bryce-Smith says the
widespread use of phosphate fertilizers hinders uptake
of zinc from the soil. Zinc deficiency produces
behavioral problems such as moodiness, tantrums, and
learning difficulties.
It also reduces our ability to metabolize sugar properly
and can impair taste, making sugary, salty flavors
preferable to healthy food

25. Sense – Smell & Taste
Sally Bunday‟s five- year-old son, who constantly cried,
screamed, head-banged and had generally unbearable
behavior plus what seemed like perpetual severe
catarrh. A psychiatrist and a mental hospital had
prescribed various drugs, which hadn‟t worked.
Then a friend told her about Dr Ben Feingold, an
American child health specialist who believed that
certain foods could cause bad behavior. (Other
researchers had made similar findings.) Desperate,
Sally threw out every processed food and provided only
whole, fresh, home-cooked food. In four days her son
was better.

26. Sense -- Touch
Genesis 3: 3
But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the
garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither
shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
Job 6: 7
The things that my soul refused to touch are as my
sorrowful meat.

27. Sense -- Touch
Sensuality is the sin of the age. But the religion of Jesus Christ
will hold the lines of control over every species or unlawful liberty:
the moral powers will hold the lines of control over every thought,
word, and action. {LYL 63.4}
Every unholy passion must be kept under the control of
sanctified reason through the grace abundantly bestowed of God in
every emergency. But let no arrangement be made to create an
emergency, let there be no voluntary act to place one where he will
be assailed with temptation, or give the least occasion for others to
think him guilty of indiscretion. {LYL 64.1}
As long as life shall last, there is need of guarding the affections
and the passions with a firm purpose. There is inward corruption,
there are outward temptations, and wherever the work of God shall
be advanced, Satan plans so to arrange circumstances that
temptation shall come with overpowering force upon the soul. Not
one moment can we be secure only as we are relying upon God,
the life hid with Christ in God. {LYL 64.2}

28. What You Let In … Will
Come Out
Speech
– Passionate Words a Species of Swearing.--
Among the members of many families there is
practiced the habit of saying loose, careless
things; and the habit of tantalizing, of speaking
harsh words, becomes stronger and stronger as it
is indulged, and thus many objectionable words
are spoken that are after Satan's order and not
after the order of God. . . . Burning words of
passion should never be spoken, for in the sight of
God and holy angels they are as a species of
swearing. {AH 439.3}

29. What You Let In … Will
Come Out
Speech
– Gossip and Tale-bearing.--We think with horror of the
cannibal who feasts on the still warm and trembling flesh of
his victim; but are the results of even this practice more
terrible than are the agony and ruin caused by
misrepresenting motive, blackening reputation, dissecting
character? Let the children, and the youth as well, learn what
God says about these things: "Death and life are in the
power of the tongue." {AH 440.5}
– The spirit of gossip and tale-bearing is one of Satan's special
agencies to sow discord and strife, to separate friends, and
to undermine the faith of many in the truthfulness of our
positions. {AH 441.1}

30. Guard the Avenues of
the Soul
Romans 12: 1
[1] I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of
God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy,
acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
1 Corinthians 3: 16-17
[16] Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that
the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?
[17] If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God
destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye
are.

31. Guard the Avenues of
the Soul
1 Corinthians 6: 19-20
[19] What? know ye not that your body is the
temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which
ye have of God, and ye are not your own?
[20] For ye are bought with a price: therefore
glorify God in your body, and in your spirit,
which are God's.