Hey, welcome to Generations. This is Kevin Swanson, Executive Director for Christian Home Educators out here in Colorado, but also a pastor to a father. And that's why we broadcast on this program. We're just trying to develop a biblical worldview and a life view for our children that they would not just mindlessly accept whatever socialist, left-wing, humanist, materialistic worldview they get coming down the pike. But actually, we think about worldviews. We think about the basic presuppositions that underlie things that happen and things that are taught in the world around us. So anyway, folks, looking at the world through the eyes of a biblical worldview on this program today, we're finding some crazy things happening down in Texas. Dave, you remember Waco some 15 years ago? Yeah, Janet Reno loved the children, didn't she? Yep. Right at the moment she burned them down. It was all for the children. Remember, it's for the children, ladies and gentlemen. It's for the children. And it sure was back at Waco. And the same thing happening right now. They've confiscated 416 children out in Texas. I don't have the city here, but it's down in Texas somewhere, right around Austin somewhere. And there you've got some, yeah, some pretty wacky, weirdo, eccentric folks. And typically these are the people that take it first in the gut. And they're taking it right now, folks. The Fundamentalist LDS Church. Oh, you're talking about them as the wacky ones. Yeah, because I sat there for a minute, and you're talking about Austin. No, no, no, no, no. I'm sorry. Austin, where the bumper sticker says, keep it weird. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I'm talking about the other weirdos. The LDSs, folks, the Fundamentalists, they never got the message straight. Back in, what was it, 1895, when they were supposed to get the message straight, that the whole polygamy thing got changed. So, I don't know. I don't have the whole history down straight on the Mormon Church. But nevertheless, there were some that did not get the message in 1895. And they've set up these compounds in various states out here in the West. And Dave, there's one in Colorado. I didn't realize this. There's one in Colorado, not very far from us. I think it's in Mancos, Colorado. So anyway, I don't know what's going on down there. But this whole thing was headed up by that guy Jeffs, who's right now in the clanker. And he's doing time. He's doing time? Yeah. What for? I can't remember. I can't remember. Probably having too many wives or the wife was too young or something. Anyway, folks, here's what happened. Texas takes legal custody over 416 children without a court trial. So there was no court trial. It's just all the kids yanked. And it was on the basis of a phone call. Not necessarily substantiated by two to three witnesses, as far as I can tell. But this kind of thing, Dave, happens all the time. I just heard another story of this in my own county here in Elbert County, Colorado. Some family with five, six, seven kids. I don't know how many kids it was, but the social services came in and yanked them all on the basis of one phone call. No substantiated stuff. As far as I know, as far as I know, no substantiated, just a phone call. Now, in this case, it was not an anonymous tip, but it was most definitely a disgruntled neighbor, acquaintance, friend, family member, something like that. So it was disgruntled somebody. Made a disgruntled phone call about a family and based upon that one Input they wound up confiscating for four to five six kids Well, at least they didn't burn them. Yeah, that's what they did down in Waco. Yeah. Yeah for the children remember folks It's for the children. Okay, it's for the children. It's all for the children because children belong to the state and really it's for the state that's the thing that that doesn't get out of it date it's really for the state it's really for the state it's it's for the state because as that judge donna pueblo said when we were down there at the capitol on the compulsory tennis law he was fighting for everything you could get to get a wider compulsory tennis law in colorado make sure those kids were under the grip of the state for as long as possible this is the whole idea he says all of colorado's children belong to us And he said it was such a passion, Dave. It was just beautiful to see the passion in the man. I mean, he really believed that the Colorado kids belong to himself, which means the state is God, which means the state is God. And that's what he's saying, because really the children belong to God who made them. But that's not really what he was thinking. But that was his socialist worldview that he had picked up over the years, perhaps the university or wherever. But here's the here's the strategy, as I see it, Dave. The strategy is very simple. Create a hysteria. based upon every rumor that there's abuse going on somewhere. Okay, so create as much hysteria as possible. hysteria within the social services department so i can carry a public schools well yeah uh... not in the public schools only and date date that's the otherworldly please you you're you're you're flipping and all i just i thought it was a lot of use i was trying to find where it took place yeah i i i understand takes place in the socialist schools but let's put that aside that's not part of the product in a campaign that's right let's let's assume that it's happening in homes everywhere create hysteria huge hysteria there's abuse going on all these homes You can't trust parents these days. What are they going to do? What are they going to do? So create the hysteria. Make sure you've got a disgruntled person who places a phone call or two. That always helps. But whatever you do, don't go on two to three witnesses. And whatever you do, don't use a warrant if at all possible. Don't use the warrant. And don't use a court trial. We don't want to hear witnesses here. We don't want to hear corroboration. We don't want to know any of that. Just create the hysteria. And number two, remove the kids. Remove the kids. Put the kids in foster care where the situation will probably be even worse. than they were originally. Get them into public schools as soon as possible so they can get used to living as products of the state rather than children in organic relationships and sort of real families. And voila, you've abolished the family as the basic unit for social life. And while you're at it, legalize every form of pornography and don't teach God's law in the public schools and legitimize every form of sexual perversion you can think of. And then you'll have every reason in the world to suspect that sexual perversion is actually going on between family members. So there you go. So there you have it Dave. That's the worldview. That's the agenda. So create as much sexual perversion as possible. Encourage pornography. You might even bring them into the public schools if at all possible. Certainly bring in your sex ed and sex here, sex there. Do homosexuality. Do whatever you want. Every sexual perversion you can think of. So make sure you've trained them well there. And then once they've created little families, you suspect them, and you may have reason to suspect some of them because they may have gotten into pornography, but certainly try to confiscate the children and process them through a foster care system and get millions upon millions of children into that foster care system and make sure you have created as dysfunctional a society as possible because that's the whole idea. And then once you've got that level of anarchy and you've destroyed the family, now you can establish socialism, which means government controls every part of someone's life because family doesn't. And you have eroded as much family government as you possibly can. So that's pretty much the agenda. And I think they're accomplishing it. You can't hardly blame them. After all, the ends justify the means here. Aren't kids happier, healthier, more productive in foster care than they are in loving families? Don't we all know that? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's the platonic worldview, folks. What did Plato say in the Republic? What did he say? Have you read your Plato? no man should know his father and no father should know his son that's what it says in plato's republic and rousseau agreed with that rousseau thought that was a great idea and so did marx when he said abolish the family in the communist manifesto all right well that's the agenda that's the direction we're headed and uh... we're doing everything we can on a just about every level society to undermine the family and to create the dysfunctional situation we see today now let's go back to waco or whatever this place is where 416 children confiscated from their parents. Okay, so let's go back here. And Dave, you know what people are going to come back with? Yeah, but you don't understand. Kevin Swanson. These people are weird. They're eccentric. Certainly you're not in favor of polygamy, are you? Folks, how many times have I come in front of this microphone and given all the biblical reasons why polygamy is immoral, sinful, wrong, and was ever since Lamech the murderer came up with the idea in Genesis chapter 5 or 4. How many times have I explained that this was not God's idea, but Lamech's idea. And it's a stupid idea, and it's a bad idea, and it's immoral, and it doesn't really work. Okay, I've already established, I've established that many times on this microphone. Okay, it's immoral. Kevin, you have a reason to call it immoral though. Well, I sure do. You're using God's law. Those who would refuse God's law, why do they call it immoral? They have no reason to call it immoral, Dave. And all they're saying, I think they're doing it, is they're calling it weird. They're calling it weird. Now, there are other things that I actually perceive to be just as immoral, even more immoral, than polygamy. And I'm just going to throw out a few, for example. Fornication, adultery. Now, I would much rather the cops in texas raid every single home in texas and arrest every fornicating shacking up individual in the state of texas and every flaming adulterer in austin okay and that would include a few legislators i would guess i would much rather they had today arrest the adulterers and the fornicators than they should the polygamists Well, the polygamous is just doing it with a license. I mean, that's the difference, right? It's paperwork. What we have here is a guy who has the paperwork to do serial adultery or parallel adultery, as it were. But in Texas, you can have as much adultery, much fornication as you want, as long as you don't file the paperwork. Exactly. That's the that's the difference, my friends. And so I don't know who's who's in the right, who's in the wrong here. Ladies and gentlemen, we're just looking into the zoo and we're watching the animals and we're thinking to ourselves, Wow! I wonder why people just don't want to live their lives according to the laws of God and the gods of the copybook headings. Limp up to explain it once more. And we'll be back in just a moment. And we're back on Generations. Today a couple dads in studio looking at what happened down in Texas. Is this Waco 2, 416 kids confiscated by the social services department there in the state of Texas. And granted, we've already granted it folks, they're whacked. These He's polygamous. We're talking about the polygamous again, not Austin. Yes. Yes, Dave. Get it right. Get it right. We're talking about the polygamous. Austin's pretty whack, too. Yeah. But folks, here's the deal. Here's the deal. We want to we want to look at what precipitates these sorts of things. And Dave, as you know, there is a lot of dysfunctionality in this world. There's going to be a dysfunctionality in a world where a quarter of teenage girls have a sexually transmitted disease, where half of marriages end in divorce, where where half of the marriages of pastors end in divorce. where 37% of kids are born without fathers, where, yeah, things have come apart at the seams. and sometimes you got a family out there trying to do the right thing maybe they're trying to homeschool their kids or whatever and and andy eight-year disgruntled child or disgruntled friend or family member of the family makes a call to the social services and gets the whole family into and he put rubble that of course is what precipitated the uh... california case just a couple weeks ago that uh... came close to outlawing homeschooling in the state of California and Dave, of course, that was a disgruntled child that made that phone call. And I believe the same thing has happened in this Colorado case that I've become familiar with in the last couple of days. And so I think it's something to do with what happened down in Texas with these 416 children. I think there was somebody who was disgruntled in one particular family who made the phone call. And so again, in just about every one of these cases, you have children who make the phone call. But a lot of times they're making the phone call because there really is a situation that is out of control and sometimes the kids don't know what to do. because it is out of control. And there are a tremendous amount of families out there, including homeschooling families, private schooling families, public schooling families. It doesn't matter what kind of family we're talking about. There are a lot of families that make up these statistics, where you have a dysfunctional family, and they don't know how to raise children. They don't know how to discipline children. They don't know how to love children. They have been trained by the system today, and they don't have a clue how to raise children. admonition of the Lord and shepherd those children in a loving way. They just don't know how to do it. Now, you know, I look at my own family, Dave, and, you know, my children love this this home. My children love to be here. They're very, very happy to be here. Emily's in studio right now, and she's, you know, she's all smiles. And, you know, I don't think my my children would ever be interested in calling anybody. Now, if let's say if there was a problem in the home, OK, they need to talk to somebody. Right. Well, we've told them before, if there's a problem in the home, you talk to the pastors in our particular church. You go to the pastors and you can talk to them. And the pastors in our church do talk to our children to find out how things are going. So there is an accountability here. So we're not off by ourselves somewhere. And that would be the first thing I tell families who are floating in the arena of dysfunctionality. The first thing I tell them would be, make sure you're part of a godly church. Not a whacked out cultic church either. A church that connects itself to the historical church that goes all the way back to Christ. the Apostles Chrysostom and Augustine, and Justin Martyr, and Martin Luther, and John Calvin, and you know, it's a church that sees itself as part of a godly heritage that goes all the way back to the beginning. They need to see themselves, that church needs to see itself in historical context. Let's make sure it's not some kind of a whacked out polygamous cult of some sort. Make sure you're part of a godly church, as part of the historical church over time. That's not weird. That's not whacked out. That preaches the Word of God. And that disciples and really connects and knows who you are and holds you accountable to the Word of God. And that would be consistent with what Jesus teaches. When somebody sins against you, even if it's your parents, you go to them and you tell them their sin. And if they repent, you've won that relationship. It's something that's dear and sweet. But if they don't repent, you might bring two or three. And then you go to the church. You don't call social services. That wasn't part of Jesus' program there. You go to the church, and the church will hear the case. And if necessary, the church can have a trial. I know that this isn't done much in evangelical churches, but there is a justice system including trials and evidence and witnesses that churches historically have performed when sin is unrepentant. And now let's draw the distinction here, Dave, between sin and crime. There is a civil crime that ought to be dealt with by the civil magistrate. Now, if there's sin, if there's anger in the home or bitterness in the home, yeah, the pastors need to be there and shepherding those families through those things and using discipline or trials or what have you. But at the same time, if the church becomes aware of the fact that there is a criminal issue going on here, yeah, they need to get the civil magistrate involved. And of course, there are laws related to this sort of thing as well, so we don't need to get into all of that. But, certainly, if there's a civil law being broken in the family, that the family needs to be turned into the civil magistrate and and i'm the first to say that's gotta happen now of course we got to be careful that it's it's done properly and that tyranny is allowed to prevail that is every time there's a little uh... problem in the home we go to the civil magistrate and have the civil magistrate take care of it the bible actually has laws laid out carefully that dictates what the civil magistrate should and should not do the lex talionis is the the classic law that establishes the purview of the civil magistrate in the area of abuse So, certainly, everybody ought to know the Lex Talionis Day. That law has existed since the beginning of time. It's an effective common law since the beginning of time. And certainly, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth and life for life is basic. If there's permanent lasting harm that's been worked into the body of somebody, then the civil magistrate does get involved. And that's very clear there, that abuse has got to be stopped by the civil magistrate when it comes to that particular Point and that that's partly because the remedy available to the church and the remedy available to the civil magistrate are clearly laid out in scripture It is the state the civil magistrate that holds the remedy of the sword And it is the church that can help with the sin portion of that, not the crime so much. And let's also be very careful with evidence, Dave. I think you mentioned that witnesses are important. The Bible says, let every matter be established with two or three witnesses. That is, one witness is not enough. And that applies to civil courts as well as ecclesiastical courts. We have got to be very, very careful that we do not act based upon one particular disgruntled person. We've got to have substantiating evidence. very, very basic to a biblical concept of justice and morality. You've got to have substantiation. One witness is not enough to establish any kind of a matter. And Dave, I think this is one thing that tyrants don't understand. Tyrants, you know, want to act whenever they want to act. And if they can get one person and force one person to say one particular thing against somebody else, then they're happy with that evidence. And it can't be merely a preponderance of evidence. That counts as one witness. Preponderance of evidence is one witness. You know, the crime could have occurred. It looks like the crime may have occurred. That person was available to commit the crime. OK, that may not even count as one witness. Do we have any witnesses? Do we have anyone who witnessed the thing? So let's make sure that we do our justice according to Scripture and not overstep that. Let's not become laws unto ourselves. Alright folks, talking a little bit about how to keep everything under control in a family situation where, you know, a lot of people live in dysfunctional situations where the family is getting into fights and there's a lot of anger in the home. And Dave, I think that's one thing we've got to address is if there is anger in the home, you can debt. That those kids are going to pick up on the anger manifested by mom or dad and they're probably just going to repeat whatever mom and dad does. So here folks, if there's anger, if there's bitterness, if there are issues between mother and father, between father and son, between mother and children, you've got to repent of those issues. You've got to confess those things. People have written in to me and said, I've come from a dysfunctional situation. I have a lot of pain and hurt myself. I have all of these sinful habits that I've picked up over the years. What do I do and how do I raise my children rightly? I just say it's very simple. Just every single day when you sin, confess your sin. Humbly confess your sin. And cry out to God for mercy. Confess your children. Send your children. Say to your kids, I sinned again. I apologize for this. I beg your forgiveness today. And I'm asking God to forgive me for what I have done. And say, God have mercy on me, a sinner. Now, if you do that, my guess is you're going to go home justified. So again, folks, if you have blown it in raising your children for the last five, six, eight years and your house is out of control, you start with humble confession of your sin and repentance before God and before others. And then you just start reading the word of God to your children every day. You open the Psalms and read the Psalms. Read the Proverbs. Read the Gospels. Read it every day. Spend 10, 15, 20, 30 minutes in the Word, reading the Word, and praying with your children. Do it every single day. Don't miss a single day. And you know what? You're going to see your household start to come back under control. You're going to have to correct your children from time to time too. Hey, if you're confessing your sins and you're repenting, you're going to expect that of your children too. So if they're sinning, then you go to them and say, you sinned. You disobeyed mommy. You disobeyed daddy. You exhibited some anger in front of your little brother there. And that's not appropriate. And you can discipline them in the biblical sense, but don't do it with anger. And you just start discipling your children as you sit in your house, as you walk by the way, as you rise up and as you lie down. Dave, this isn't rocket science. I think a lot of people who have dysfunctional homes think that somehow it's impossible for them. No, this is very, very doable. Anybody can do it. Well, it seems impossible, but we serve a God who loves the impossible. We serve a God who says, all things are possible with me. We serve a God who can take a bunch of guys with torches and pots and chase out a multitude of people, a whole nation. We serve a God who parts waters so that people can cross on dry land. Don't ever forget the power of God to affect your life and your children's life. Is it magic? No, it's the power of God. And that power of God can change impossibilities into causes for great rejoicing. Ladies and gentlemen, how to make some sense out of the chaos? How to bring some peace to a home that is filled with arguments and fights and anger and bitterness? The way you do it is you start by reading the Word of God and walking in God's ways and confessing your sins before Him. and before each other. It's just that simple. This is not difficult. But you know what, Dave? It does require a heart of humility. You need to humble yourself before God and before others if you're going to see your own home living before God in the right sort of way. Well, ladies and gentlemen, I talked about the importance of bringing out the Word of God to your family. And I bring this out in my book on the Psalms, where for the first 25 or 30 pages of the book, I talk about how important it is to have that time of what we call family worship with your family. I'd encourage you to get a copy of that book. It's called The Heart of the Word, a family Bible study series. You can get a hold of this first book on the Psalms by just going to my website kevinswanson.com and click on resources. You need to get a copy of my devotional book for your family by just going to my website kevinswanson.com and you can click on resources and pick up the book there. Or call 877-842-CHECK for your family worship book called The Heart of the Word. Again, that's 877-842-CHECK. Now, you have been listening to the Generations radio broadcast. We look at things through the eyes of a Biblical worldview on this program, and we hope this has been helpful for you. You can interact with the program by emailing me at host at kevinswanson.com, and you can hear the program anytime, anywhere in the world at kevinswanson.com. This is Kevin Swanson inviting you back again next time as we cast a vision for the next generation.