Here is John Barnett, pastor of the Tulsa Bible Church, preaching one in a series of messages on Growing Dad's God's Way. This message is entitled, How to Raise Pure Children in a CF Bill. We're going to have a wonderful time this evening looking at the principle of how you raise pure children in an impure world. And I don't know if you've thought much about it lately, but the generation that's alive right now really has nothing to look forward to but oblivion. Now, I'm speaking in context of those who don't know Christ. We know that he has written history. But if you think about the prospects of growing up in this generation and of living your life over the next 30 or 40 years, if you're a worldling and this is all you know, think of the terrifying drugs that are so easily made these days. I remember when I was little that the big thing was they would drink hard cider and the really bad boys would drink beer. Now they can totally destroy their minds, young people, with some easily available chemicals that can be made. There is the AIDS and the mutations that have come this week that are now going around all the known treatments. It's almost like there's a warfare going on and the mutations of the AIDS virus are just staying just a field of the attack of the new therapies and drugs. Suicide. Hopelessness pervades our generation and on both ends. I have a friend who works in the emergency room and he told me about a man who came in in his 80s who had shot himself in the head and he just looked at this doctor and he said, don't stop me from dying. Don't stop me from dying. He wouldn't stop talking. He said, don't stop. Don't do anything to me. He was conscious and talking while he was hemorrhaging in his brain. That's the hopelessness, alcoholism, broken homes, terrorism. When I was born, two nations could destroy the world, the Soviet Union and America. Now, countless terrorist organizations, rogue nations, the Islamic militants are being fed by the Pakistanis. I mean, there's just no... the proliferation of global terror is so amazing. Child pornography is one of the fastest growing realms of crime. revenues from from the Mafia and all normal crime there are a host of other symptoms as we look at our culture that are heartbreaking and What they are is just the result of exploded Values of the past now let me give you a little view of history for my lifetime in the 1950s if we were to generalize American history we would say in the 50s that kids lost their innocence and what I mean by that is they were liberated from their parents and In the 50s, it's when they got well-paying jobs, it was fashionable to have cars, the lyrics and the music gave rise to a new term, the generation gap. If you're old enough to remember that, that was where the music went into more of, you know, the Elvis Presley, just starting era and all that. It just was a freer society. In the 60s, kids lost their authority. This was the decade of protest in the church, toward the state, toward parents, And all things of authority were called into question. The 60s, I remember the riots, I remember Chicago, all that stuff. And everything, as the young people in the 60s called it into question, they found it wanting, and they rejected all authority, and nothing ever replaced that authority. So they lost their innocence, and they lost their authority. In the 70s, kids have lost their love. The 70s were the decade of me-ism, dominated by hyphenated words like self-image, self-esteem, self-assertion. And when you lose true love, the world gets very lonely. Kids learned everything there was to know about sex, but they forgot everything there was to know about love. And no one had the nerve to tell them, in our culture, that there was a difference between the two. Finally, in the 80s, and this is so tragic, kids lost their hope. By the 1980s, the young people, the teens of the 80s, were stripped of their innocence, they were stripped of authority, they were stripped of love, and they were plagued by their growing awareness of a nuclear nightmare of large and growing numbers in this generation stopped believing there even was a future. And so what did they do? They went off into an unreal world, and that was the explosion of the whole fantasy world, and science fiction, and video games, and music videos, MTV generation. What a challenge there is before a godly dad. That's why we have to continue our study on one of the most vital subjects in the Word of God. How a man, how a dad, can be grown to be a godly example. You know, the future of the church is the future of the Christian home, and the future of our nation and of our world is shaped by dads in each. And we can't influence the dads of the world until they come to know Christ, but we can influence the dads of the church. Well, to get started, turn to Proverbs this evening, and I want to do a quick study of the book of Proverbs, and for some of you, maybe highlight what you know, and others, maybe get you started in a little view of this book you might not have had before Proverbs chapter 1 and verse 8 and I want to show you what the book of Proverbs was written for and the the whole the whole interpretation this book is if you understand Solomon's intention as he wrote it then it makes a lot more sense when when you read it and and see if you can catch this we're going to do a word study in Proverbs okay Proverbs 1 8 says my Son, hear the instruction of your father. Now look at verse 10. My son, if sinners entice you, say no or do not consent. Look at chapter 2, verse 1. My son, if you receive my words and treasure my commands within you. Turn over the page to, or wherever, to chapter 3, verse 1. My son, don't Forget my law. And basically, we could go, look at verse 21. My son, of chapter 3, don't let these truths depart from your eyes. Chapter 4, verse 1, hear my children, the instructions of a father. Chapter 4, verse 10, hear my son and receive my sayings. Chapter 4, verse 20, my son, give attention to my words. And we could go on all the way through the book and you get the idea that this is a father talking to his son. And the whole picture of the book of Proverbs is a wise and godly father shepherding his son through life and saying, do you see those ruffians over there, what they're doing? What they're doing is wrong and you shouldn't run with them because even if you run with them when they're not doing wrong, you'll be associated with them when they do do wrong. And then he says, oh, watch this. Do you see that girl? Do you see how she's dressed? Do you see how she talks? Do you see how she looks at the men? Now watch what she's going to do. And it shows the immoral direction. Then he goes a little further. He takes a musketeer to a bar and he says, look at those people. Look at what color their eyes are. Look at how they're laying around and they're totally mixed up and they're sick. That's what alcohol does. He just goes through life like that. He points out the evils of immorality, of materialism. He points out a quarrelsome person. He points out a foolish person. He points out an immoral person. He points out someone that, on the positive side, is godly and righteous and has integrity. And the whole book is a father talking, and in the end he's even showing what the perfect wife and mother would look like. What a wonderful book. You can study that sometime. But what we see in this book is a godly dad who is guiding his children into God's way and showing by his words and by the examples around him how to be godly. Now, back up to Deuteronomy with me because I want to give you the bigger picture of where we're going over these weeks that we're together. Deuteronomy, that's the fifth book of the Bible, So go back toward the front and then flip through to the fifth one, Deuteronomy 6. And the three keys we're looking at to growing a godly dad, last week we looked at the first one, and that is Deuteronomy 6 and verses 7, 8, and 9. And a godly dad emphasizes biblical communication. In other words, a godly dad. Now, you say, wait a minute, I'm not married yet. I'm alone, or my dad is unsaved, or my dad's a workaholic, or an alcoholic. Okay, it doesn't negate the thing that this is God's standard, but if the person that's supposed to do it doesn't do it, then someone else can jump in. But God's standard is that the emphasis of biblical communication should come from the man in the home. The tragedy of the last few decades is that there are few godly men in the church. Sunday school, a young person in the old days, could go all the way through Sunday school without ever seeing a man. It was all women. Nothing wrong with women teaching, but that's why some of those young people never had a godly father, because they did not even have an example in their Sunday school. And men should gravitate toward, at all times, being biblical communicators. Now, that means, if you look, starting in verse 7, that a godly man should lead the families devotion toward God. It doesn't mean he preaches. I remember when I was a youth evangelist, I used to stay in a different home every week. I traveled the summer of 77. That was this century. That was a long time ago, the summer of 77, 22 years ago. But I flew and stayed in a different town every week, and I would stay with a family from the church. I saw about 15 different family patterns. I'll always remember, I call them the Ezekiel family. This man had about, I don't know, three or four children, and he read several chapters of Ezekiel at breakfast every morning. I mean, even I couldn't stand it. I mean, it was just the most boring, and those kids, they were just dying, and the wife was dying, and you know what? I would have read two verses and explained it and said, boy, isn't the Word of God practical and gone on. But he succeeded in boring all of us. Now, I don't mean that this is preaching a sermon. I mean that the father, the husband, the man should lead the family in devotion. Here's what it says. You shall teach them diligently to your children. This is what we studied last week. Talk of them when you sit in the house. I mean, that means that it's not a text. It means that you're saying, wow, wow, look at that. Yeah, two earthquakes in Taiwan. That's really You know, that's really interesting because it says in Matthew, I've already heard the kids say, doesn't this mean something about the Lord's return? They're coming so close. I said, well, the Bible says that that's just the beginning of birth pangs. But I said, it is a good example of what it will be like. I mean, I don't think it's quite bad enough yet. I mean, it says earthquakes in diverse places. All these earthquakes are in normal places. I'm waiting for them to be in diverse places like New York City, Chicago, Portland or, you know what I mean, those would be diverse places. Moscow, I mean, when was the last time you heard of an earthquake in New York City or Moscow? Something like that. But talk about the Word of God. When you sit in your house, when you walk in the way, when you lie down, rise up, bind them as a sign. We went through all that last week. That's an emphasis on biblical communication. Secondly, this week, look at verse 10. And what we're going to in-depth look at tonight is A godly father is committed to raising pure children. And the way he does that, we're going to read through starting in verse 10 in just a minute. He is eliminating the contamination allowed unregulated into his home. That's what a godly dad does. Now, you know, the philosophy of our generation is no parental influence, no parental interference. You know what God says a godly parent does? They interfere. They interfere with contamination getting into the lives of those kids. They are so much in their children's lives that they know what's going on with them. Let's look at that. Verse 10. So it shall be when the Lord your God, this is Deuteronomy 6, brings you into the land which he swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give you large and beautiful cities which you did not build. Boy, doesn't that sound like the kids of the 90s? They're moving into large and beautiful houses, they have no idea how their parents got them, and they're driving large and beautiful cars that no generations ever had anything like this. It's so apropos. Verse 11, houses full of all good things, which you did not fill, hewn out wells you did not dig. Doesn't that sound like our country? Look at the people, the pioneers that came here, the pilgrims that came here, the people that literally gave their lives for this country. Now, we've moved in, we got it all, and no one knows how they got it. I mean, Veteran's Day parades, what is Veteran's Day? I mean, who knows anything about war anymore? I'm talking about the vast majority of our country. Astounding. Same thing in Israel. Verse 11, he goes through all this, and at the end, a great Thanksgiving verse, Verse 12, then beware lest you forget the Lord. He says, remember Him. Remember who gave you these blessings. And then, this is what he starts talking about. He starts talking about how to keep pure. You shall fear, verse 13, the Lord your God and serve him and take oaths in his name. You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are all around you. That is what is happening to the church. Christians used to be totally distinct from unsafe people. You look at the first century. The Christians were thought to be cannibals. They were thought to be haters of humanity. Those were the accusations. When they took them to the arena, you know why they took them? They thought they were cannibals. They'd stand outside. Unbelievers weren't allowed into the church worship time. And so the unbelievers would stand outside of these homes and they'd listen and they'd hear them say, drink my blood. And they'd run out of there. I mean, scare them. Stephen King, you know, they just were in the horror. Then they'd come back and listen. They'd say, eat my body. And they started reporting them as cannibals, all kinds of stuff. The Christians would not participate in the games. You know, these guys coming with pitchforks at each other and hacking at each other, and you'd put your thumb down so he'd hack them to death. They wouldn't go to that stuff. They said, we are of purer eyes than to look on evil. They wouldn't go to the games. They would not get involved in the big athletic contest. Why is that? Well, back in the first century, they had gymnasiums. Gymnas means naked. The people ran, wrestled, and did all their other things with no clothes on. We're getting very close to that nowadays, but we still, you know, there is spandex, but that's very close, you know, to fig leaves. But the Christians were distinct. Now, they loved, they would help anyone, but they would not learn from the gods of the culture? Well, that's the warning right here. He says, don't go after, verse 14, the gods of the people who are all around you. Why? Verse 15, for the Lord your God is a jealous God among you. That's one of the great attributes of God. He is jealous. Remember, God can be angry and righteous. He can be jealous and righteous. He can be wrathful filled and be righteous. He is holy. So he has a holy jealousy. And what he says is, continuing verse 15, lest the anger of the Lord your God be aroused against you and destroy you from the land. Why would he destroy them? Well, He says that if they intermingled, look at verse 23, He brought us from there that He might bring us and give us the land. The Lord command us to observe the statutes, to fear Him. Verse 15, it will be righteous for us if we are careful to observe these commands. What he says is, don't get involved with the gods and all the evils of the nations around you. Well, last week we studied the first key. A godly dad has the critical job of initiating and leading time for his family in the Word of God. That's last lesson. This evening, we're looking at the second key and the second way we grow as godly dads is in this eliminating of contamination. Now, I just want to run through verses 10 through 25 and just point out some of the things that maybe we should ponder how it happens to us in America. In verse 14, as I mentioned, it says that if you go after other gods, you'll make God jealous. I think that the first danger is that if we focus on something that is more captivating to us than the Lord, that makes us incur His jealousy. But what it means is that we are not worshipping Him fully. I don't know if you've ever noticed this, but I remember when it used to be that I would get up and have my Bible there and I'd go out and get the paper because I always had to get it before the sprinklers came on. You know how awful it is to go too late and the sprinklers have made your paper limp. And so I knew that the sprinklers come on at 630. So I had to always get out there because the paper man, I don't know when he throws it at 430 or something. So I'd always get up and I'd have the paper sitting on the table, but I'd have my Bible there. And I used to just so much want to read the headlines. But I thought, wait a minute. Do I have that same, so much want to read the Bible? So I would always push the paper off the side, and I would learn to want to be in the Word, as much as to see what disaster just hit the world, or what the financial markets in Tokyo are doing, or whatever. See, God says there's a danger of lessening our worship of God as our entire focus. Verse 16, look at this. You shall not tempt the Lord your God as you tempted Him at Massa. What is Massa? That's Exodus 17. If you remember, they were grumbling, and they didn't trust in God. And the second danger that Moses points out to these people is, the first one was in their worship, but the second is in their trust. When they lacked water in Exodus 17, they thought they were going to die, and rather than trust God in their trial, they complained against Him, and it says they murmured. I just met someone yesterday, and I didn't talk to them more than five minutes, and they just burst into tears. And they said, you don't know what we're going through. And they said, all of our problems are around us. And they said, you know, my job is terrible, and this, and I'm sick. And you know what they said? All their problems were surrounding them. You know what I told them? I said, actually, your problem's right inside of here. I said, God is trying to make you trust in Him. And that's why you have such an uncertainty with your job. The Lord rocked your boat there, and instead of looking up, you were grasping after security. And then the Lord is is shaking up your health so that when you realize that you don't have anything secure, you'll look up at Him. And I said, you know what? I've talked to you for 10 minutes and I can tell already, you've got blinders on for looking up. And I said, you're just looking down. And I said, you're just going to go downhill from here unless you just start doing this and look up and say, oh, from whence comes my help? My help comes from the Lord, not from my job, diet or whatever. Verse 18, you should do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord, that it may be well with you, and that you may go in and possess the land which the Lord spoke to you, to your fathers. Look at verse 19, to cast out all your enemies from before you as the Lord has spoken. You know what the third danger Moses pointed out to them? He said the first danger is that they would lessen their worship. The second one is they'd lessen the trust. The third one is that they would lessen their grip on God's call on their life. Do you know what it says all the way through the New Testament? We are supposed to be a light. We are supposed to be salt. We are supposed to be a saver. We are supposed to be an example, a living example of Christ. We are supposed to be ambassadors for Jesus Christ. The only reason he left us here was not to move up in our company, not to have high standing in the social circles or the community action, whatever. He left us here to invade wherever we live, wherever we work, whatever we do with living portrait of Jesus Christ and a lot of times we forget that we had all caught up in just eating and sleeping and you know keeping the leaks patched and everything else and we forget as he said they were they forgot and had lessened their grip on what God had called them now he called them to be his people for all the nations to see God and they instead of being his people went chasing after every false god. I mean, who split the Red Sea? Moloch? No. Baal? No. Ashtoreth? No. Jehovah? But who were they chasing? All the false gods. Even though the true God fed them and protected them. He said, you're going to have a danger when you get to your land of loosening your grip on God's calling. Here's the last one. Verse 20, When your son asks you in time to come, saying, What is the meaning of the testimonies and statutes and judgments which the Lord our God has commanded you? Then you shall say to your son, We were slaves in Egypt, and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. And the Lord showed signs and wonders before our eyes, great and severe, against Egypt, Pharaoh and his household. He brought us from there, that he might bring us in and give us this land which he swore. Verse 24, And the Lord commanded us to observe all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, Always that he might preserve us alive as it is this day. Look at this verse 25 Then it will be righteousness for us if we are careful to observe all these commandments, you know what? What Moses warned him about the fourth thing? He says, you know what, if you're not careful, your worship is going to just lessen and lessen and lessen and grow cold. Secondly, your trust of God is going to just lessen and lessen and you're not even going to trust God. He says, thirdly, you are going to lose your grip on why you're even here. And finally, he says, if you're not careful, you will not pass on to the next generation my truth. What he said here is they had a danger of not training their children to go God's way. And guess what? They didn't. that Israelites succeeded in not passing the torch, and it got fewer and fewer that were followers of the true living God, until finally God said, enough of you, get out of my sight. We're very close to that in America. Did you know that God says that the blood shed of innocent people cries to Him from the ground? Did you know this land is crying out to God for judgment? from abortion, to the rampancy of crime, to so many other things. It's coming. Well, what happens when we neglect to cultivate godly choices? Real quickly, let me just show you about a family that didn't do well. Let's look at Genesis 19, and I just want you to mark a couple things. I just actually copied over here, when our family read through this, I wrote in the margins of my Bible, because we read a chapter out loud with the kids about five out of seven nights. And as I'm reading, or as they're reading, great stuff. I mean, you ought to just read the Bible out loud. I have to say, there's things I've seen with my kids that I've never seen in all the times, in every commentary, in all the Greek stuff, in Hebrew stuff. Just reading the Bible out loud is overwhelming. It's powerful. And so I was just writing all this stuff in my margin, and I want to point it out to you, because this is really neat. You know the story. This is about Lot and Sodom and Gomorrah and that whole thing. But look at Genesis 19 and verse 9. It says, and they said, stand back. And then they said, this one came to stay here. These are the Sodomites who are coming to attack Lott's house to get these angels because they were good-looking hunks. These sodomites wanted new flesh to run after, and they saw these angels who were perfect specimens of humanity, and they were not like these sodomites, all worn out and ugly from the ruins of sin. So they were trying to knock down Lott's door, and it's really a gross... How would you like to read this out loud with a 2-year-old, a 4-year-old, a 6-year-old, an 8-year-old, a 10-year-old, and a 12-year-old, and explain it all? I mean, wait, there's a lot of very interesting chapters in the Bible, you know. They'll say, what does that mean? You know, raped her. I said, it's a sin. You know, we just go right on. If they don't ask me what it means, you don't have to explain it. You know what I mean? It's just, as long as you call things what the Bible calls them, you're doing very well, because they should know that's a sin. Rape's a sin. But when they get about 14, you know, they need, or 12 and 10 nowadays, but they need to understand. But I just said, oh, it's bad stuff going on here. And for the little ones, they said, yeah, it's all bad stuff. But look at verse 9. What it says is, this one, they're talking about Lot. He came to stay here in Sodom and he keeps acting like a judge to us. Now we're going to deal worse with you than with them. And they pressed hard against the man Lot and came here to break down the door. And you know what? You know, I told my children, I said, here's what I always, I don't remember who was reading. Oh, I'll just go ahead. Hold on. And they all look up at me. And it's so cute, a lot of them have their pencil out, because they're going to write down what I tell them. I said, you know what? Compromise ruins your testimony. See, Lot had no testimony in Sodom. Do you know why? He was living with them. You know, if he would have lived separate from them, he could have come to them and said, you guys are a wicked bunch. And they would have said, we are. But he was living there. And they said, how can you possibly tell us that we're bad? You're just here with us. See, God always says, don't mingle yourself with the nations. Now, love them, be an example to them, take them two miles if they ask you to go one, give them your coat, but don't learn their ways. And see, Lot was learning their ways. In fact, we're going to see how. Look at verse 23. This is amazing. You know the whole story and the angels jerk him in, slam the door shut, make him all blind, tells him to get his family. He runs out the door with his family and Lot begins to lose for his bad choices. Look at verse 23. It says, The sun had risen on the earth when Lot entered Zoar. He'd run for his life. And the Lord rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah from the Lord out of the heavens. He overthrew the cities. Verse 26, But his wife looked back behind him. You know, God said, that place is so wicked, I'm destroying it. Don't even turn around and look back. And you know what? She longed for Sodom. I don't think she was particularly immoral. It never says that. But she loved that place for some reason. And God destroyed her for her longing. And the first thing I see, and I told the kids, I said, Lot lost his wife, Lot lost his fortune, he lost his married daughters. Did you know it says that his sons-in-law laughed at him? He had two unmarried daughters. He seems to have had other children. And when he went to them and said to leave, they were not living in his home. It appears from the text. And they laughed him to scorn and stayed there and were destroyed. So Lot lost everything. He lost his wife, who he could get her out of Sodom, but he couldn't get Sodom out of her. He lost everything he owned. He only took his clothes on his back. He lost his married daughters, probably. And what I told the kids, I didn't tell them to rattle that down. I said, you know, loving the world is very costly. You ever thought about that? Loving this world will cost you dearly. Because God says, love not the world, nor the things that are in the world. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life, the elegant things, the gutter stuff, all of it's going to pass away. But he that does the will of the Father will last forever. Loving the world always costs a lot. Look at verse 30. Here's another principle from a family that failed. They compromised. They love the world. Look at verse 30. And I told the kids, I said, did you know sin always begets sin? The Lord says if you're unfaithful once a little, you'll be unfaithful in big stuff. Pretty soon, kids grow up and they start sneaking around and stealing someone else's wife, somebody else's car, somebody else's money. And sin begets sin. Look at verse 30. Lot went up to Zoar and dwelt in the mountains. His two daughters were with him, for he was afraid to dwell in Zoar. And his daughters dwelt in the cave. And the firstborn said, Let's make our dad drunk and commit incest. Sin begets sin. He shouldn't have gone there. Do you remember how Lot got to Sodom anyway? He stood up on the mountain with his uncle, Abraham. And Abraham says, I'm not going to squabble with you. He says, The Lord God, Creator of heaven and earth, Possessor of all things, is my God. Take whatever land you want. I don't want to quibble. If you go that way, I'll go this way. If you go that way, I'll go this way. Just take it. Your choice. And it says, Lot looked, and the best land was Sodom, and he says, that's what I want. And Abraham went out and went into the grassless Negev, and God said every time he threw a piece of grain in the ground, he got a hundred. I mean, God's blessing, but sin begets sin. Verse 36, Compromise will always defile our children, It says in verse 36, both the daughters of Lot were with child by their father. Verse 38, here's the ultimate. And the younger, she bore a son called his name Ben-Ammi, the people of Ammon. Verse 37, the firstborn, a son by the name of Moab, the father of the Moabites. You know what? Lot, number one, lost his wife, he lost his fortune, he lost his married daughters to Sodom, his children got defiled, and his descendants became God's enemies. The Moabites and the Ammonites were the enemies of God. Now that's an example of someone that did not get grown God's way. And he was a righteous person. Did you know Peter said, righteous lot's soul was vexed. Righteous people can make unrighteous decisions. And I'll tell you, sin begets sin. Compromise defiles our kids. Compromise will defile our testimony. And our descendants will become God's enemies. if we're not careful. Well, I just distilled down a contrast real quickly for you to think, and then we're going to wrap this up. We only have 12 minutes left, but Lot wanted the best. Abraham trusted God. Remember, I just want to, you think through with me, and by the way, this is in chapter 13 through 19. The whole story starts in chapter 13, ends in 19, but there's a climactic moment in Lot's life. What I just told you about, chapter 13, verse 11 of Genesis, and in that chapter, it says this, 1311, and Lot chose for himself the plain of Jordan. Why did he do that? Verse 10, he lifted up his eyes and saw all the plain of Jordan, but it was well watered. That's called the lust of the eyes. He wanted the most. I mean, it starts out as a child, I know your kids would never do this, But they'll see one cupcake that has more frosting, they'll go, I want that one! And they'll put their finger right into it, so no one else can have it. That's the lust of the eyes and the flesh. They want the biggest, the best, the most for them. He had the lust of the eyes, he took the best, and that was Sodom, and on and on it goes. But the whole story, Lot wanted the best, lust of the eyes, Abraham trusted God. Lot lost his wife, Abraham kept his wife, who became the mother of God's people. I mean, look at the results, that little choices. I mean, this was Lot, in chapter 13, Lot is a young man. He was very young. But the little choices we make as young men and women get really big as the years go by. They just, they grow real big. when I went back to my folks this summer to see them there in their 80s and just graciously withering away. It's kind of nice to see people that love the Lord just kind of wither away. They just get weaker every time I see them, but treasure shows more. But I couldn't believe it. I went out and stood next to a pine tree that I had carried and planted when I was a little boy 37 years ago when I was just six years old. I remember planting that. And that thing is higher than the ceiling here. I mean, it's 30 feet easy, 35 maybe. I looked at that and I thought, I had my hand around that thing. And I remember putting in the shovel, dropping it in, and tamping it in, and watering it. And I kept making it round around it so the weeds wouldn't get in there. I thought, that little skinny thing that I planted as a six-year-old withstands the storms now. And that's a positive and a negative thought. Little skinny habits we tolerate. Little skinny weaknesses and bad choices, they grow real big. Here's another thing. Lot lost his kids. Abraham blessed his children. Lot cursed his descendants. 1938, we saw that. Abraham blessed his descendants. Lot operated, chapter 13, verse 10, according to the lust of the eyes. Abraham operated with the eyes of faith. Lot settled in the gay community. Abraham settled in God's country. Lot had defiled daughters. Abraham had blessed sons. Lot's descendants were God's enemies. Abraham's descendants were God's people. Lot's line ended. He had no male descendants. He had these incestuous enemies of God, but he had no continuation of his line. Abraham's line will never end. Abraham's children and grandchildren are the ones that heaven is named after, all because of a little choice he made in chapters 11, 12, and 13. Lot was a competitor and opportunist. Abraham was a peacemaker trusting God. Lot would take and grab the best, and Abraham trusted. Well, how do we affect our children for righteousness? Let's start now in Psalm 101 with a couple of concluding thoughts. The 101st Psalm, a friend of mine started a business in his business statement the second verse of the psalm shows up and I think it's just wonderful or the third verse shows up every time you check out his business and it says there I will set nothing wicked before my eyes let me share one thing with you in these last few moments what's the best way to deaden your children spiritually think about it in your mind you don't have it's a rhetorical question you think about it okay what do you think is is the best way to to have a diminution, a diminishing, a lessening, a deadening of their spiritual life. Well, I think it's one of the most dangerous addictions in the world. And one of the most deadly viruses your children could ever be exposed to was pointed out by an unbelieving Jewish liberal who, by the name of Neil Postman, who studies at New York University, And he wrote a recent book, which was his almost decade-long study of the decline and fall of America. And this is what he said. He says, between the ages of 6 and 18, the average child spends about 16,000 hours watching television, which is far more than what he will spend in school. He'll only spend, if he goes every day, 13,000 hours in school. So, he spends 3,000 hours more in front of the TV than he does in front of his school teachers. And Postman said during the first... by the way, Postman's not an evangelist. He's not, you know, Gary Bauer. He's not James Dobson. He is an unbelieving, rank, liberal, social agenda person. But what he's saying is, the reason we have the death in our streets is what we're feeding them. The most dangerous addiction in the world. basically what he said he says during the first 20 years in American child's life he will see one million commercials a thousand a week and television this is what he he had four conclusions if you don't want to read the book it's really boring number one he said television will shorten the attention span of children children that watch television regularly have trouble thinking about God because God is a big thought you have to be quiet to think about him and they don't like to be quiet And they can't be still. Secondly, Postman said it will reduce their linguistic power. He says they're observing and they're not interacting, they're not learning their skills in communication. And you know what? A Christian child that watches television all the time won't talk about God. I mean, Postman is just pointing out the social evils. You know what the spiritual evils are? You get too involved in amusement and entertainment, you won't think about God and you won't talk about God. Third thing Postman said is, They will have a limited capacity for abstraction. Let me explain what that means. We've chosen to almost raise our children without television. We're not TV bashers, but we limit it to maybe an hour a day. Well, you know, my buddies, I call them, you know, two, four, and six, they can spend all day long with a tin can in a box. First the box is on their head, and the tin can is the steering wheel. Then the tin can is on their head, and they're on the box. And then they're all standing in the box, and it's a boat, and they're turning like this. And then the tin can becomes a tank, and it goes across. That's called abstraction. That's called imagination. And if you think about it, if you can't dream about heaven, if you can't ponder the big things about God, if you can't Go into the world of the Bible that you're reading and just see the power of the unleashed gospel. What a tragic loss for the church. Last thing Postman said is, there's a blur between adulthood and childhood. He said, kids are watching too much TV. They learn stuff only adults knew a generation back. And they have to deal with it with little minds and little ability. And what I see on the Christian side is that This deadening addiction causes people to stop growing in Christ. To attract and hold its audience, the TV industry feels it has to parade all the taboos of our culture. Adultery, promiscuity, homosexuality, incest, violence, everything else. As a result, the lowest activities become commonplace and almost accepted. What does that mean? It means we are headed away from growing godly families if they are being exposed to constant deadly spiritual viruses on TV. Have you ever met one of those people that's really scared of bugs? I mean, the mother goes, oh, don't, oh, she takes that away. Don't lick, oh, don't touch the doorknob. Oh, here, get some of this germicidal gel, you know, go like this. And they use the, they turn the temperature up on their water heater and they use antibacterial everything. And after they get the kids all cleaned up and eating these vitamins, they sit them down and they put a sewer pipe in front of them and they say, okay, you can watch TV while mom and daddy go. Do you know what I mean? It's deadly. It's boggling. Well, what is God's method for growing us? And let me just show you in three minutes. Colossians 3.16. And this is where we're going to have to wind down here and in Romans. Colossians 3.16. is a powerful verse. I hope it's underlined in your Bible. It says, What is God's method for growing us? And what should be the desire of any godly leader in a home, be it a dad or a mom taking a dad's place or just a single person in their own desire? Let the word of Christ in you richly dwell. In all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms, in hymns, in spiritual songs, singing with grace in your heart to the Lord, it just means a word-filled, spirit-filled Christian. How does that happen? Well, Paul's already said earlier in Romans 12, I beseech you, therefore, Christians, by the mercies of God, that means because he saved you, present yourself back to God as a living sacrifice. This is what I think. If you watch godlessness, it will callous you. If you watch sensuality, it will defile you. If you watch violence, it will desensitize you. If you watch evil, it will distance you from God. If you watch worldliness, it will discourage you from the godly life. And if you watch Satan's mind, you will forfeit Christ. The Bible is very clear. You can't have two masters. Well, how do we raise pure children? To be real blunt, Don't say you're committed to Christ unless you're pursuing the mind of Christ. God has a will for our mind, and that is that it be the Bible, God's Word, that saturates our mind. The goal of parenting is to give children the mind of Christ. We need to pray, we need to seek, we need to plan, we need to know how to promote our children's growth in Christ's mind. How? You're in Colossians 3, verse 1. Since you're raised with Christ, seek things which are above. Look for the things of Christ. Verse 2, set your mind on things above. Look for Christ and set your mind on Christ as a conscious choice. Verse 5, therefore put to death. I wrote in my Bible, avoid and unplug the things that promote in our lives Fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, covetousness, which is idolatry. Verse 5. Do you know why there's so much debt in America? People watch so many ads, they finally are convinced they need that. I remember when I was in Rhode Island, I met with this young couple. They had $40,000, 10 years ago, on their credit cards. I said, man, what did you buy, a couple of cars? Oh, no. I said, like what? Oh, he says, every time we went anywhere, I always bought a $50 sweatshirt. You know, I wanted to have what everybody else had on. He says, and we'd always go out to eat, and they just paid the minimum, and he had a good job. I would never let someone ring out that far, $40,000. But basically, what they had done is, they had never said no to their covetousness and all this, and verse 10, put on the new man, and verse 12, put on the inner life, tender mercies, kindness, Verse 15, you'll have peacefulness with this life and this family. Verse 15 at the end, you'll have thankfulness. Verse 16, the Word of Christ will dwell in you. You'll have insight. You'll be singing at the end of verse 16. You'll be cheerful. In verse 17, everything you do in word or deed will be for God. You'll be very purposeful in life. That's the kind of children we can raise. We can raise children that are peaceful and thankful and full of insight, very, very cheerful and have purpose in their life. How? By eliminating the contamination. And you know what? I say, hey, yeah, we'll watch TV as soon as we have our Bible time, as soon as we talk about it, as soon as we've done our One of Verses and all that stuff. Then we'll go to TV, and Daddy will sit with you. And I sit with him. I say, oh, look at that. That's adultery. You know, that guy's talking to this woman, and they're going off together. That's the occult. I said, did you see? Five minutes. Kids say, I don't want to watch it anymore, Dad. Come on. Nothing's good on there. And they go turn it off. You know, talk about God in your home. And God says, eliminate. the contamination, and he'll let us have a godly family. Let's bow together tonight. Father, I thank you that a godly man should emphasize biblical communication, should be talking about your word when they're up, when they're going to bed, when the young people are sitting at the meals all through the day. But tonight, we've looked at the fact that a godly dad should be purposefully interfering with the worldly contaminants and helping his children to not develop a taste for the gods of the people around, but rather for the true and living God. That's what we want. I pray that you'd bless each of us to that end. For Jesus' sake and for his glory we pray. Amen? God bless you and see you soon.