PP2010
WHERE ARE OUR CHILDREN?
Proverbs 30:11-14
INTRODUCTION: Do you know where your children are tonight? Do you know what they are doing? Do you know what their plans are for life?
We live in an age when more children are attending Christian schools than ever before. In Florida more than fifty percent of the school children attend Christian schools. More effort is made by secular programs to reach the attention and the heart of the youth of America. Every avenue of advertisement, and manufacture has been fabricated to lure the young person.
Most church rolls are dominated by ages 15 - 30 years of age. There seems to be an effort to persuade the younger generation into every area of society whether it be secular or religious. But the sad thing is that most of the involvement by the young is directed outside of the church house and in the wiles of Satan. We have an entire generation of young people that we can’t find. Oh, they are around, but they are disinterested in the things that they were 30 years ago. They are around, but they are not fitting into the mainstream of the church and Bible teachings. That is pretty much the way it is in every church. I’m not just talking about the youth in our church, but all youth collectively.
Judg 2:10 "And also all that generation were gathered unto their fathers: and there arose another generation after them, which knew not the LORD, nor yet the works which he had done for Israel."
This verse carries a sad message. Who’s to blame for that situation? Who’s fault is it that a generation grows up and doesn’t know the Lord? Is it the kids fault? Is it society’s fault? No, it is the fault of the homes and churches. We must teach them from the time we bring them home from the hospital. We can’t wait until their last year in high school and then in two or three months prepare them for life. That doesn’t work.
I want to ask some questions tonight and as you answer them, apply this message to your own home life.
I. WHERE ARE THEY SPIRITUALLY?
A. “Which Knew Not The Lord.”
That tells me that they are lost without Christ. They are unsaved. Our public schools have turned out a generation of atheistic kids that don’t believe in God or the Bible.
Some Christian schools have produced a bunch of “holier than thou” kids that can quote half of the Bible, but can’t figure out how to live their lives for God.
B. Some Reports Say That The Children Are Returning To The Bible.
I won’t argue with that, but I would like to know where they are, if this be true. I don’t see much change in the last ten years. Actually they are farther away from God than ever before.
C. Prov 30:12 "There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet is not washed from their filthiness."
This is speaking of those who claim to be redeemed, yet they haven’t given any attention to what the Bible says about a sinner. They have ignored the fact that the Bible says there is a hell. They hold the attitude of, “Who needs God?” They will accept the participation of their peers into the devilish vices of the day. They don’t condemn drinking booze nor uncondemned sex. There is no black or white, just gray.
“Yet they are not washed from their filthiness. This means they are unsaved. They have not been to the cross of Calvary and had that cleaning of the Blood of the Lamb.
There is a fountain filled with blood
Drawn from Immanuel’s veins;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood,
Lose all their guilty stains.
They have rejected God’s love and provision.
D. Where Are They Spiritually?
Make sure your children are saved. You may say, “All of mine are saved.” Don’t take it for granted. Talk about it often and openly. About fifty percent of our baptisms are those who have made a prior profession of faith. Don’t let your children go to hell. We must put some spiritual backbone in each of them.
Don’t be satisfied with just what they are taught in the Sunday School.
II. WHERE ARE THEY INTELLECTUALLY?
A. The Public Schools Are Dumbing Down The Children So That Each Are “Intellectually Correct”. They system does not want one child to succeed more than another. Every child in the class room should have the same IQ so the government thinks.
B. Homework Is Not Expected Anymore. Homework will reduce their social time, and therefore they will be mentally and emotional challenged if they have to spend too much time in homework. Most all of the children in the oriental lands and homes are much farther ahead of the kids in the USA because we will not force them to learn. Listen to me parents, you are doing your child a disfavor if you are not forcing them to learn to their capacity. I have wished thousands of times that my parents had made me work harder in high school. The mind of a young person is too great to waste. Make them learn. They should spend at least as much time maybe more in the school books as they do in pleasure, sleep, and TV combined.
Education is not to be in the hands of the government, but the home. Particularly the father. Gal 4:1 "Now I say, That the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all;"
Gal 4:2 "But is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father."
I am glad to see that some states are wising up to some extent. Some are requiring an alternate to be taught to evolution. Kansas has abolished the teaching of evolution. Maybe OK will someday.
The purpose of lower education is to produce a race that is not intelligent enough to care for them, and the government must step in. When that happens the privileges go also.
III. WHERE ARE THEY MORALLY?
A. More Likely Than Not Most Parents Do Not Know How Their Children Feel About Certain Issues Of Morality.
Your children know more about the “birds and bees” at the age of eight and nine as I did when I was twenty years old. They see more immorality on TV than I ever read or even thought about. The things that were off limits to me as a teenage are now accepted as common and ordinary today.
A Christian can’t even name the programs of today because of their evil nature and names. When the program introductory includes warnings such as, “Adult Language, Nudity, Strong Sexual Content,” you can mark it down it is too rotten for you and your children. This may be the 90’s, but sin is still sin.
Television will destroy your children if you do not control what they watch. How do you control the TV? Make all TV viewing family viewing. No one watch unless the whole family is watching, or at least one parent. Now listen, dad, if you, mom, and the children can sit there listening to them cuss, drink, kill, and commit immorality and not be disturbed that your children are being exposed to that garbage, then something is wrong with you as a Bible directed father.
B. If We Take Away The Influence Of A Godly Home And A Strong Fundamental Church Nearly 75 Percent Of All School Girls Have Entered An Active Sex Life.
1. One out of every two eighth grade girls has had at least one sexual experience.
2. One of every four 8th grade girls will become pregnant.
3. One of every seven 8th grade girls will have an abortion.
I wonder where they learned all of this? Surely not from the family devotion time, nor math, nor history books. No, no, no. They learned it from TV and the people they associate with.
C. Who Is Your Child’s Closest Friend? How well do you know that friend? Hey, moms and dads, this is your responsibility.
Where are they morally? Statistically 75% of them are drunk at least one night each week.
VI. WHERE ARE THEY EMOTIONALLY?
Child psychiatry is sky rocketing today.
A. Broken Homes.
1. If parents would let the children decide whether mom and dad should get a divorce or not, most of them would be halted.
2. Children are forced into a situation they don’t understand, or didn’t have any say at all.
B. Broken Hearts.
I’ve heard young children request prayer for mommy and daddy. The say, “Daddy’s gone, and we don’t know where he is. Mommy cries all the time.”
“Mommy and this man she works with go out all the time.”
“Mom and dad fight all the time, and we don’t know what is going to happen.”
C. We Have A Wicked And Adulterous Generation Of Moms And Dads.
Day care centers have taken the place of mom’s lap and loving hands from 8:00 to 5:00. Baby sitters and TV take mom and dad’s place from 7:00 until 11:00 in the evening. Soccer and little league has taken the place of hikes and picnics.
The psychologist has taken the place of “The strap behind the woodshed.” Schools have traded the Bible for contraceptives or students with guns rather than teachers with paddles. Either the teacher will swing a paddle or students will fire guns. So we have developed a generation of emotionally disturbed young people who don’t know enough to pass the college entrance exams in most cases, but I have good news for all parents who are saved.
IV. OUR KIDS CAN BE DELIVERED THROUGH CHRIST
Prov 11:21 "Though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not be unpunished: but the seed of the righteous shall be delivered."
Notice these words: “The seed” - that’s children or young people.
“The Righteous” - That’s the saved parents.
So we can see that children of righteous parents will be delivered. In one of my Bibles I have written the names of our children beside this verse.
A. Our Generation Can Be Saved.
1. They can be saved spiritually.
a. Lead them to Christ.
b. Teach them God’s Word.
c. Live godly lives before them.
2. They can be saved morally.
a. Make sure you as parents are living godly lives before them and also in private.
b. Eliminate any private TV time. Only family watching.
c. Teach and practice good morals in the home.
3. They can be saved emotionally.
a. Restore the glory of the home.
b. Put Christ first in your home.
c. Let you children see you serving God actively.
d. Deal with any and all problems as they arise.
e. Discipline when discipline is due.
f. Give praise when praise is due.
g. Be honest with each child.
h. Don’t expect a child to act like an adult.
INVITATION
BETH HAVEN BAPTIST CHURCH MINISTRIES
PO BOX 891523
OKLAHOMA CITY, OK 73189-1523
405-691-8701
This sermon and thousands of others are available on a CD Disk that may be purchased for $75.
If interested contact the above address.
