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Please turn with me in your Bibles
to Genesis chapter 3. As we consider a few important issues,
especially with respect to raising our children and thinking about
the future generations, it will be a little different than the
normal exposition that I do. but it will still be, of course,
rooted in the implications of this text in Genesis 3. Let's
read verses 1-6 in Genesis 3. Now the serpent was more cunning
than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he
said to the woman, Has God indeed said, You shall not eat of every
tree of the garden? And the woman said to the serpent,
We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit
of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said,
You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die. Then
the serpent said to the woman, You will not surely die. For
God knows that in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be
opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. So
when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was
pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she
took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband
with her, and he ate." Let's pray. Father, we look to you
now and would ask that you would be pleased to open our understanding
and our hearts to the truths of this text and to the wiles
of our enemy and your enemy. And we pray that You would be
pleased, Lord, to grant us Your Holy Spirit, that we would understand
these truths, that we would apply them, Lord, that we would utilize
these things that You revealed to us in Your Word. We ask that
You would be gracious to us, that You would forgive us for
our sins, Lord, and that as we understand these truths, that
we would live them out, Lord, And we ask that You would be
pleased to save our children, to those who are unsaved among
us. We ask that You would work in
their hearts, even right now. So Father, please hear our prayers,
we pray in Christ's name. Amen. When the cunning serpent
tempted man in the garden, he leveled his attack against the
natural but good appetites of his humanity. He knew that it
was a delight for man to see, to perceive, and to enjoy the
beautifully crafted environment within which God had set him.
And he knew that it was fulfilling and pleasurable for man to eat
and taste of the different fruits of the garden, which would gratify
the inner desires of the body. And he knew that man would find
joy in the exercise of his dominion over the earth, which was given
to him by God. And yet he knew that all of these
things, while good in their proper state of usage and domain, could
be abused if the desire for man to gratify any of these appetites
superseded his desire and commitment to serve and honor his God and
Creator. And so when the devil tempted
Eve, he appealed to her normally good desire to enjoy the taste
of delicious food, when he presented the fruit of the forbidden tree
to her as that which resonated with the other fruits of the
garden, being tasty to the tongue and gratifying to the stomach.
And that which was normally good, because it involved what God
had forbidden, suddenly became a lust of the flesh. And then
while looking at the shape and the color and the design of the
tree and its fruit, Eve's normally blessed ability to perceive and
appreciate beauty became an inordinate craving, a lust of the eyes. And finally, the naturally instilled
gift and ability to lead and to take charge over the creation
transgressed the boundaries of God's good design when Eve pondered
that this fruit could make her wise like God, knowing good and
evil. And once again, that which was
good in its proper God-honoring domain and order became the pride
of life. Having been tempted in these
three ways, Eve of course took the fruit, ate, gave it to her
husband who also ate, and the rest is history as we know it. Mankind was plunged into a state
of sin and misery. But what is very noteworthy,
brethren, about this dark historical event, is that it contains a
blueprint for the three general ways in which man is tempted
to sin against his God. Verse 6 is paramount to our understanding
the vulnerable ways in which our flesh is apt to be tempted. So that when the woman saw that
the tree was good for food, the lust of the flesh, that it was
pleasant to the eyes, the lust of the eyes, and a tree desirable
to make one wise, the pride of life." When you examine every
single temptation in all of Scripture, when you examine the Israelites
who were tempted and who often felled in the wilderness as they
wandered, you will be able to identify all of the sins and
the temptations that are found throughout Scripture, and in
all of life for that matter. within the realm of one of those
or more of those three categories. And that is why John states in
our first Scripture reading that we read earlier, that all that
is in the world, that is the world system, not in the world
as God had designed it, not in the goodness of the world, but
in the system of this life and of this world under the dominion
and deception of Satan. All that is in this world which
is not of God can be summed up in the lust of the flesh, the
lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. Consider even our Lord
Jesus Christ's temptations in the wilderness. Satisfy your
hunger by turning these stones to bread, lust of the flesh.
Bow to me and look out with your eyes and see, as the Adam atop
on that pinnacle, look out at the nations. They will belong
to you, the lust of the eyes. Throw yourself off of this temple
And the angels will not allow you to even dash your foot against
a stone. God will protect you. You will be secure. Be presumptuous
upon your God, the pride of life. But brethren, in saying all this,
we must also remember one critical thing, particularly when comparing
temptations that we face to the temptations of our first parents
in the garden, Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve, when facing their
temptation, had no natural inclination to sin. They lived in a perfect
environment. They lived without a lack of
anything in any way, shape, or form. They had no opposition
from within or without, other than the serpent who tempted
them in the garden. In other words, they had no corrupt
nature to betray them and aid in thrusting them into the temptations
of the enemy. And so, brethren, in a very real
sense, the temptation that they faced was easier to endure than
those who were already fallen, naturally deceived and corrupt.
Now I say this not to criticize our first parents, but rather
to help us appreciate the naturally dreadful condition of fallen
mankind in the present state. The enemy has the world under
his deceptive sway following the sin of Adam and Eve. It's
under his sway now. We don't start off in a good
or even in a neutral state. We are born fallen already. We come from the womb speaking
lies. We have a sin nature. We sin because we are already
sinners in Adam and Eve. Now what am I getting at in all
this? Where am I going here? Well brethren, I could certainly
easily spend an entire sermon or a series of sermons talking
about the challenges that we as believers face when dealing
with temptation. Because after all, while we are
regenerate, while we are redeemed, while we have the blessed help
of the Holy Spirit, we still have a remaining battle against
remaining sin. And in fact, we do consider that
battle quite often in our study of the Scriptures. But brethren,
I want to hone in this morning more specifically on our unregenerate,
unsaved children. Because while they are blessed
with the light that God gives them through us, until God opens
their hearts by the gospel, they are presently ruled by their
sin nature, and therefore they are very susceptible to the attacks
of the enemy. And sometimes, brethren, I think,
and I know I can speak for myself, that we lose sight of that. Indeed,
in many ways you can say that the enemy has a special desire
for our children. If for no other reason than to
hinder and cause us grief. Now certainly the enemy wants
to lead everyone astray, right? Or deceive everyone and continue
to keep people in that state of deception. But he does have
a particular lust, as it were, for the children of believers.
Because he knows that is a means of hindering us as it were, in
our seeking to be faithful to God. Make no mistake about it,
brethren, especially as a child of God, the enemy is after you,
and he will use any means to hinder you from shining the light
of Christ upon this fallen world. And he knows that one of our
greatest weaknesses is our unsaved loved ones, and especially our
children. In fact, one of the most fearful
things I can say, and I thank God for His grace and I have
to trust in the Lord, but in my own soul, that if I can imagine
some kind of a change in our country where we were beaten
in war and taken over as a nation in some way, it's not so much
the fear of what might happen to me, it's what would happen
to my children. That greatly concerns me. Now
brethren, I have no joy at all, especially as a father of seven. in saying what I'm about to say
here. Children, I want you to hear
me out with what I say to your parents and to you. We must understand,
brethren, if we presently have any unconverted children, there
is no guarantee that any or all of them will make it to heaven.
If we have any unconverted children in the present, there is no guarantee
that any or even all of them will make it to heaven. I can't
imagine for a second any one of my children winding up in
hell. I'd rather die than imagine that.
The mere thought of it is a form of hell for me. But I know that
if I am honest, there have been many, many, many children throughout
all of history, in and outside of Scripture, who had godly parents
and yet found their home in hell. It's there. It's clear. There's
no denying it. To be sure, the cries of David
over his unsaved and dead son Absalom have been the cries of
many dear brethren in this world. You'll notice when you go back
and look at the life of David, the child that he lost that was
in the womb of Bathsheba. while it grieved him. And he
pled for the Lord to allow him to live. When the child died,
David put back on his clothes and went and ate. There was a
sense of comfort, even though the child had died in the destination
of that child. But when Absalom died, as wicked
as Absalom was, and as much grief and hardship as he caused the
kingdom of God in turning against David and taking the throne,
David wailed. in only a way that a parent who
understands the kingdom of God could wail in recognizing that
his child was to be judged and condemned to hell. Now why do
I say what I don't like imagining, brethren, let alone saying it
here? Because parents, moms and dads,
I want all of us to be diligent in doing all that we can to lower
our spiritually paralyzed children through the roof of this dark
world and into the presence of Christ. I want you to have a
sense of urgency in your souls this morning. I want us to fight
to bring our children to Christ every chance we get. I want us
to wrestle with God like Jacob until He blesses us in the salvation
of our children. I want us to bang down the door
of heaven with our pleas, and I want us to grab our children
by the collar, as it were, doing all that we can to thrust them
through that door. Yes, brethren, I know that God
is sovereign. But I also have seen the voice
of man reach the ear of God on many occasions. And young people,
listen carefully, young people. Please, with all my soul, I want
you to be aware of every obstacle that you face in this life. And
I want you to see how utterly bankrupt you are in your own
strength. Young people, if I could give
you one thing besides Christ being the priority, it would
be for you to understand how weak and bankrupt you are in
your own strength. How hopelessly helpless you are
in your own strength. so that you might flee naked
and desperate to the feet of Christ, who willingly saves,
delivers, and strengthens all who humbly come to Him in truth
and by faith." You have a very real enemy, young
people, who is hell-bent on destroying your soul. Now, for the remainder
of our time, brethren, I want to hone in on three very serious
obstacles, and there are many we can consider, but three, which
in our present time stand in the way of our children. Brethren,
which stand in the way of your children, and which have robbed
many a soul from ever finding Christ. Now this is not an exhaustive
list, but if in some way I can aid you parents, If in some way
I can get you thinking, young people, then perhaps you can
be spared much eternal grief in the times ahead. And so take
hold of these three cautions concerning the enemy's appeal
to the natural lusts and desires of our children. First, the first
caution is the pride of popularity. The pride of popularity. We ought
not to be surprised that one of the fiercest ways in which
the devil and his minions will go after our children is through
their proneness toward pride. You don't have to teach pride.
You don't have to train someone to be proud. Pride is one of
the most significant weaknesses in the chain-link fence of our
flesh, and it tends to be the bridge which carries us into
virtually every other form of sin. Many sins. Most sins have
their root in pride. And sadly, since the fall, our
proneness toward pride, our very desire, like Eve, to be like
God, or to be God, in many senses, is not protected by a locked
steel door in our hearts. In fact, in many ways, it is
wide open and there is a welcome mat right at the entrance and
the enemy knows it. It's wide open. We love Praise. We love exultation. We crave
attention and acceptance and acknowledgement right from the
time we are born. We exalt people in our society
so that normal average human beings who are created in the
image and likeness of God like us are exalted and worshipped
whether they're superstars on the film or in sports or whatever
it is. We want to be like them. We worship
them and we want that kind of attention. That's the kind of
culture and society we have and has always been since the time
of the fall. We crave attention and acceptance
and acknowledgement right from the time that we're born. And
even as awakened spiritually filled Christians, pride is a
plague which plagues us for the duration of our Christian lives
such that we must always be on alert as it seeks to rear its
ugly head. I've yet to find a Christian,
an honest Christian who can say, Pride is one of the things I
don't struggle with anymore. And the person who says that is probably
one of the most proud people. And even when I'm struggling
with my own pride and saying how much I hate it and preaching
about it, I'm proud that I'm preaching about it. We would be foolish then to think,
brethren, that pride is not powerfully at work in our children. The
desire to be popular and accepted and brought into the in crowd
is something that is not only conveyed through every source
of media that meets our children's eyes, but again, it is naturally
already installed in them. It is an inherited welcome to
the neighborhood of this life gift from our first parents who
fell in the Garden of Eden. And this will be with our children
throughout the whole of our lives. Understand this, brethren, hear
me. It will be with our children whether they are public schooled,
whether they are Christian schooled, whether they are home schooled,
whether they are in college schooled. No matter what the background
of their upbringing, our children will be prone to pride. Until
the gospel penetrates their hearts. they will always be susceptible
to the overwhelming power of pride and they will lose that
battle. And there are so many ways in which this reality can
manifest itself. Anywhere from such seemingly
small matters as having to wear the most fashionable clothing,
having to fit in with the style, to wanting to enjoy the party
life with the rest of the people who are having fun. to drug and
alcohol abuse. You ever wonder how that even
starts? How that even happens? How somebody even takes that
first smoke, that first drink, that first line? There are many
manifestations being driven by the same inner beast of pride.
Now brethren, before we move on to the second major caution,
I just want to highlight one particular fact that is culturally
relevant at this point in time in our history and right here
on Long Island. There is a major, major drug
epidemic that we are facing right here in our own day, right here
on this island, and we don't want to be blind to that. And
if we as parents don't bring this to the forefront of our
consciences, in at least some sense, we might find ourselves
devastated to find someone close to us or even perhaps one of
our very own children swept away in this epidemic, which has its
roots in pride. And today, because of the potency
and toxicity of that which is going around, that swept away
could very well mean into the grave. There are things going
around right now in the drug epidemic that are taking lives.
See, when I was doing drugs before God saved me, it was bad, but
there weren't a lot of people who were overdosing with the
kinds of things that are happening today. Prescription drugs, pill
combinations, laced marijuana, molly, ecstasy, very strong heroin,
fentanyl, and other drugs are not only dominating the younger
generation today, but they're taking their very lives. Drugs
are now the leading cause of deaths in this country. Fatal
overdoses surpassed shooting deaths and fatal traffic accidents
years ago. It took 50 years for heart disease
to double in the early half of the 20th century. 50 years for
heart disease-related deaths. Drug deaths doubled in a fraction
of that time. Heroin-related deaths increased
439% from 1999 to 2014. In 2014, opioids alone were involved
with almost 30,000 deaths. Fentanyl alone has killed 220 people on Long Island last
year. How many of us know somebody,
a relative, a friend, or a loved one? Probably most of us who
has died from an overdose over the past few years. I had a service
right here for a friend of mine who I grew up, same age as me,
who I grew up with, who died from drug overdose last year.
Members of our church have experienced this with friends, loved ones,
children, relatives. Now friends, understand this.
Generally speaking, no one desires to just do drugs from their youth.
No child grows up and is in kindergarten, first grade and says, I can't
wait to get older so that I can shoot heroin. Drug use comes
in the line of fitting in. Coveting the experience and wanting
to have some fun with friends. And so in general, popularity
and the pull of the world, drug abuse, all of these things are
things that we need to address as Christians and as parents.
We have come head to head. We have to come head to head
with biblical means of addressing and dealing with pride in our
children. Secondly, the lust of promiscuity. In many ways, the modern-day
version of the forbidden fruit is sexual relations outside of
marriage. It is so culturally acceptable
to experience sexual relations outside of marriage today that
you are considered totally abnormal if you remain abstinent until
marriage. 3% of the US population will
have had sex for the first time after marriage. 3% will have
had it for the first time after marriage. Highly religious people,
if we can label that in some way, amongst them, 20% will be
faithful until marriage. One in five Christians or professing
Christians in highly religious settings will withstand the temptation
to be involved with promiscuous acts before marriage. Every piece
of media expressly stated and implied pours life into a culture
of promiscuity. And you don't have to do a lot
of convincing to your flesh to go along with that, do you? It's
not like somebody has to really go out of their way to convince
us, because it's already there. Sexual sin is the epitome of
the lust of the flesh in so many regards. I was just talking with
a brother this past week about how far the church has fallen
into a culture of dating that has been taken right out of the
world's playbook. We need to re-evaluate as a church
and to talk as families. What do we do in raising our
children? What should we teach them about courtship and dating?
Are we just taking everything from Sigmund Freud and from the
world's playbook? What has become normal for Christians
was once considered over the top for even unbelievers in more
chaste generations. And how many of our young people
are dabbling with pornography, with the access that we have
from our phones and computers, or loosening the restraints on
biblical courtship, adopting an ungodly view of relating to
the opposite sex? This needs to be a discussion
that we have in this church. Even much of what is considered modest
dress today provokes the silent minds and hearts of many, causing
them to stumble within their imaginations, committing what
the Lord considers adultery in the heart. There's not many of
us that are willing to bring that out. But even within the
church context, sometimes people come in and they have certain
lengths of clothing and tightness and whatever it might be, and
nobody's saying anything, but there's a fight going on in the
inside. And people are committing adultery in the heart because
what's considered modest today was not modest to the world 50,
60, 70 years ago. Parents, these are issues that
we must biblically address with our children. It's no private
matter. And if you allow it to be, your
children will find other means, ungodly means, of instructing
their souls in the world's ways of securing relationships. Who
is going to train your children to know how to secure a relationship
with the opposite sex in a biblical way? Who's going to do that?
Well, that's a private matter. When they get older, we'll deal
with that. They're already learning. And again, their own naturally
fallen inclinations will only serve to welcome and accommodate
such ungodly inspirations. It's not like we can say, well
at least on the inside there's purity already there. We have
that to hope and to work with. It's already defiled on the inside. They're already sold out. If
you take a person and put them in a room and lock them up by
themselves, they will struggle with sexual temptations with
no one to be involved with in that room. It's in them. There's
weeds already there. It will seem right and make sense
to their unconverted hearts. And they will run headlong into
destruction with the far greater majority. Sexual lust is a plague
which the enemy uses to appeal to the lust of the eyes as well
as the lust of the flesh. And so we must take proper precautions. to wrestle against the higher
powers and principalities which lurk behind the scenes seeking
to lure our children astray by the very temptations that still
trouble us, let alone our unconverted children. And then thirdly, and
lastly, and I know there's more that you can think of, but there's
the eradication of any fear of God. So we have the lust of the
flesh and the lust of the eyes, this promiscuity, this pride
of life, this desire to be accepted and popular and to fit in But
then there's also the eradication of any conscience fear of God. Even though, as Romans 1 tells
us, that the reality of God is engraved in the hearts of all
men, His signature is indelibly pressed upon our consciences,
yet we're told that we naturally suppress the truth. We hold it
down in unrighteousness. We've shunned it away from our
consciences. Our desire to embrace our lusts
and feed our pride drives us to hold down and push away the
truth of God. Our only relief in sin is to
deny God, and although this denial is willful, and although we are
guilty in this denial, we run headlong into it. We anesthetize
our consciences so that we can freely enjoy our sins. So we
get an eradication of the fear of God, so that we can do these
things. that we want to enjoy that are sinful. We strive to
eradicate any and every inkling of a fear of God from our imaginations.
And brethren, our culture does so well seeking to aid us in
the process so that we can collectively profit from such a denial and
chase after our lusts together. Culture's not helping us to maintain
a fear of God. It's seeking to eradicate a fear
of God. And one of the greatest means
of entrapping our children is not only through every single
form of media, but by the very crafty use of our education system. And should our children escape
the clutches of the enemy in this regard in their earlier
years because of homeschooling, because of Christian schooling,
it will be there waiting for them in college. And again, If
they are unregenerate, they will be naturally prone, indeed, perhaps,
welcomingly prone to believing the lie, which will allow them
to freely experiment with the world as the lusts of their fallen
nature betray their immortal souls. Enter the subtle deception
of Darwinian evolution. It's not only the direct philosophy
that is taught in the colleges, but it's the undergirding philosophy
that comes out of everything that they teach. It's there even
when it's not directly spoken. And you know, evolution makes
perfect sense to the heart that is running away from God and
the mind that has not been taught to properly examine and think
through the large gaping holes that permeate this theory. Just
use long words. Confuse micro and macro evolution. Mix a gamut of factual truth
with subtle, crucial lies. Begin with the presupposition
that the supernatural cannot be true. Speak in a condescending
fashion. Hijack true science and set it
in opposition to biblical ideas. And it doesn't take too much
to sway the heart and mind, especially when it is already running away
from God and toward the lusts of the flesh. Indeed, we need
to be cautioned, brethren. We need to be awake and conscious
of the enemy's tactics, as he would seek to eradicate any inkling
of a fear of God in our children by such crafty means as this. And young people, know for certain,
young people, that the world does not want you to think. It wants to think for you. the
whole purpose of media. Everything that you see online,
all this media, all these shows, there's principles. It's not
just for you to have fun and to laugh and look at these interesting
ideas and movies. There are teachings coming out
of these things, teaching you not to think. And your schools
do not want you to think. There is enough truth on the
outskirts of evolution to lead you to embrace the core, to swallow
the whole pill. Because they mingle true science
with much connective theory. See, that's what makes evolution
so powerful, because there's truth throughout it, interspersed,
but then it's connected with all kinds of theory, and you
can't tell the difference, because it's melded so nicely together
by people who have spent years putting these things together.
In fact, they even borrow from the wonders and glories of creation
that are meant to affirm and bring praise to the glory of
the true designer. They borrow from what He has
done and apply it to their own alleged scientific principles.
They mix the pure water of good, observable science. Science is
good. They've hijacked it. There's
nothing wrong with science. It's not a dichotomy of science
and religion. It's their version of science,
contaminated by all this theory. And so they mix the pure water
of good, observable science with their godless, speculative assumptions,
and come up with a fountain of poison. And because truth is
mixed with lie, it still looks like science. And they're not
ashamed to call the whole fountain pure water, even though there
is a lot of garbage mixed in. and to the untrained mind, to
those who have not truly studied the issues out well, to those
who are taught to simply parrot talking points and to take whatever
the media feeds them and to believe it is true, to those who are
already morally compromised, the pill is not that hard to
swallow. For the next generation is being
trained more and more to simply embrace and parrot talking points
rather than searching things out for themselves. And so a
word of great caution is needed here as well. And so the question
then brethren, I brought three issues up. There's many more.
Three main issues up. What then do we do? What do we
do? See it's one thing to say in
general terms, brethren take caution. Be aware of these dangers
and pitfalls and recognize that the serpent lusts after your
children. And it's another thing to further offer some guidelines
to help combat these dangers, isn't there? I could just give
you this and say, look, be cautious, but it's another thing to present
you with some tools to fight this battle. You see, we must
be conscious of these things, brethren, but consciousness alone
doesn't protect our children, does it? In closing then, let
me provide you with two summary weapons, which I believe can
greatly aid our children in the battle for their own souls. Two
weapons that I want to leave you with this morning. And this
is not exhaustive, but two things. First, brethren, talk to your
children about these things. This will not necessarily make
them wise unto actually contending with the throes of the enemy.
It's not a guarantee, but it will make them wise unto recognizing
his tactics. Inform them. Speak to them about
the dangers of being consumed with popularity and continually
remind them of the natural disposition of our fallen humanity toward
coveting recognition, attention, and favor from others. Tell them
about what's inside of them. Expose the disease. Identify
with them. Reveal to them the contention
that exists between God and Satan and between God and fallen man,
exposing the conflicts that exist within their own souls to that
end. Exegete their own hearts. for them. Pull back the curtain
of the human heart and expose its fallen desire to usurp the
authority of God. Show them these realities throughout
biblical history, during your daily times of going through
the Scriptures with them. Have devotions with your children. This is one reason why we do
this, why it's important every day. Now, it's discouraging when we
don't see immediate results. But that's the idea of constantly
sowing and sowing and raising them up in the things that they
should adhere to, to God's Word. And show them the consequences
of rebelling against God and the blessings of walking with
God. Exegete Cain and Abel before them. Enoch and Lamech, Jacob
and Esau, and prepare them to line these biblical examples
up with their own present circumstances in their present reality. Bring
them up in the fear of the Lord so that they might have a heart
of wisdom. In this way you will be preemptive in your approach,
training them to think about why they desire what they desire,
why they think how they think, why they do what they do. Open
up the alleged private chamber of sexual realities. Teach them
from the Word of God about the beauty of sexual enjoyment within
the context of a God-honoring marriage. Present to them a biblical
understanding of the wonderful union that God brings about between
one man and one woman. And expose the perversion of
this wonderful blessing that has come about because of the
fall. Don't hide sexual realities from them. Teach them of the
beauty of these things and how they've been perverted by mankind. Show the blessing of God upon
those who remain celibate and chaste and the inevitable consequences
of entertaining the lust of the flesh by awakening sexual passions
before their time. Talk to them. Teach them. Study evolution yourself and
then teach them from the very pages of a public school science
book. the gross errors and distortions
that are found between the lines of evolutionary thinking. Teach
them to look beneath what's being presented, to look between the
lines. Train them to think critically,
and how to unravel true, identical, proven science from godless,
man-made theory, which begins with the presupposition that
the supernatural cannot be, and reasons onward from there. get
to the roots of true science. Indeed, the founders of science
and show how science itself was originally founded and studied
on the premise that a supernatural designer made all of these things,
leaving us logical, identifiable patterns that we can observe
and make sense of so that we could advance in our understanding
of the wonders and marvels of this creation. Proactively inoculate
them with the truth so that they can easily discern the intermingled
poison that will be spewed at them when they sit behind desks
in the presence of atheistic, godless scholars who have mastered
the art of oration and who stand upon the mountain of their PhDs.
Train them to be humble, God-trusting babes who will confound the wise
as they enter adulthood. Help them to understand that
a denial of God is not an issue of a lack of knowledge so much
as it is an issue of immorality. Show them the proneness of the
human heart to suppress the truth. of God and unrighteousness. Exhort
them to identify the battle within their own souls. Teach them to
understand themselves, recognizing the lust of their flesh, the
pride of their lives, the lust of their eyes, which would gladly
accommodate any teaching that could shake their souls away
from a healthy fear of God. Show them that their natural
inclination is to turn away from God and to pursue these lusts.
Don't treat them like they're regenerate, as so many Christian
parents do. Well, God loves you. He has a
wonderful plan for you. Just do right or do wrong. Just
follow the Veggie Tales theology. Get to the nitty-gritty details
of exposing their own hearts so that they'll be naked and
desperate before God. That's one thing. And here's
the second thing, brethren. This is the last thing. The second
tool that I think will be helpful, other than teaching them, because
you could teach them until your eyeballs fall out of your head,
until your tongue turns blue. And that will not solve anything,
ultimately. Brethren, expose all these things.
Expose the reality of the sin nature of your children. Expose
your sin nature. Identify with them, showing them
that we all share the same sin nature. And then, most of all,
thoroughly, continually saturate their ears and eyes and senses
with the truth of the gospel. Most of all. So you can give
them every single legal detail. You can give them all kinds of
things of theology and truth and help them see the truth and
explain it in the clearest of terms. But if God is not operative
in their hearts, they will suppress even the obvious truth. and unrighteousness. You see, ultimately, brethren,
our children need more than anything else the power of God operative
in them. They need a true union with Christ. They need the indwelling of the
Holy Spirit and fellowship with the living God if they're going
to prevail against the wiles of the serpent. We know this
for ourselves, don't we? We know every day we say, I can't
even fathom How I could ever remain faithful as a Christian
if God does not continue to lay hold of my heart? How do you defeat a spiritual
foe who has been here since the beginning, in the context of
a world that is under his power and sway of deception, with a
nature that lusts after all manner of ungodliness consistent with
that context? You've got inside, outside, and
the devil himself with his minions all against you. We're no match. But, if Christ be in them, if
Christ be in them, then greater is He who would be in them than
he who is in the world. If Christ be in them, then justifying
reconciliation and peace would have been obtained with God.
Then sanctifying grace will be at work in them continually. Brethren, it comes down to this. Our children desperately need
the Savior. The serpent lust after our children. But the serpent's head is crushed
under the foot of a crucified and risen Christ. He's not crushed
under how well we can speak truth. He's not crushed on simply informing
them and better educating them. Give your children Christ. Give them Christ. Never get tired
of the old, old story of Jesus and His love, the simple gospel.
Sometimes we get so consumed with deep theology and all kinds
of other things that we lose sight of the very gospel which
is at the heart of all of our theology. Never compromise. Never look for a smoother, faster
way of winning them over. Don't be satisfied, no matter
how many years passed, with educating your children in all kinds of
ways, if they're not receiving the gospel of Christ. Fight tooth
and nail all your days in prayer, in your pleading with your children.
And brethren, listen carefully, in the life that you live and
present before them yourself. Make it your utmost goal and
desire in life to deliver your hands into the hands of the Savior
by what you teach, by what you say, by how you live. Let the end of your days, brethren,
confess some failure in the academic upbringing of your children.
Let the end of your days confess some failure in developing their
natural gifts in the world, how well they can swing a baseball
bat, how well they can throw a football, how well they can
orate, how well they can do all kinds of academic things. Let the end of your days confess
some failure in their talents and natural abilities with sports,
with musical instruments, with whatever it might be. But don't suffer the regret of
having given them so much of everything else while neglecting
to daily give them Christ. Show them in your own sphere
of living that your own personal utmost joy is found in Christ.
And brethren, I think we don't present the greatest theological
picture to our children because we only present it in words,
but they don't see it in our lives. Do your children look
at you and see a person whose heart is not fixed in this world?
Do they see a person who, like Abraham, had his heart fixed
in a house, in a kingdom that is built by God, and not men? Show them that your relationship
with Christ is not merely theological. That it's not merely Sunday mornings. or Sundays, but it is living
and real, that it bears a heartbeat which affects every other area
of your life. Your very worldview is centered
upon Christ. Show them by your words and actions
that Christ is more precious than all of the friends in this
world, that He is more to be valued than everything in the
world combined. and that you would gladly leave
this world and be with Christ right now, were it not temporarily
better for you to be here for the sake of your children and
others. Brethren, when our children look
at our lives, what theology do they see in how we live? Are we simply content to tell
them with our lips the glory of the gospel and the wonders
of Christ, to bring them into the church, to hear that message
while our lives spew out that we are not content with Christ
and we're consumed with everything else in this life. Show them
the reality of a faith that is laid hold of God and is in love
with the Lord Jesus Christ. A man who is in love with a woman,
his wife, talk about her all the time,
and speak about all of the ways in which she is a blessing to
Him, and how He would do anything for her, and He can tell others
of all the glories of her beauty, and whatever it might be. How much more should Christ be
on our lips, and in our hearts, in our daily lives, when we consider
the glory of all that we have, and who we are in union with
Him. Brethren, let me just close with this final statement. One
of the tragedies, I believe, that we as a church are facing,
and that many churches, if not most, in our country are facing,
that is detriment to the spiritual life of our children, is that
we have lost the sanctity of the Lord's day. Sunday is just like any other
day of the week to our children except we step into this building
for a few hours and then go home back to the normal hustle and
bustle of everyday life. Pop the TV on, do this, do that,
get busy with everything else. They don't even see that the
one thing that we could show them in a full day sense of our
delight, our desire in and for God, we throw it out the window. We have no sanctity for the day.
And I think that it's a detriment to us and to our families. And
I think it's one of the reasons that we have so much more trouble
throughout the rest of the week because we don't set the one
day apart unto the Lord. It's a tragedy for the church
and a loss that goes beyond our own spiritual well-being. May
God give us the grace as this church, our church right here,
many in this room right here, do not sanctify the Lord's day.
Treat it like it's any other day other than coming here. Maybe
for the morning, some come back for a second service, most don't. It's a tragedy for us and for
our children. May God give us the grace to show in all of our
ways that we are in love with our God and our Savior. And may
God be pleased to save our children from the lust of the eyes, the
lust of the flesh, and the pride of life. Let's pray. Father,
we do thank you so much for your Amazing grace to us. We thank
you for your wonderful truth and your word. We thank you for
revealing to us even the playbook of the enemy. Lord, you expose
these things to us, and in part, it certainly informs us and gives
us the ability to see and recognize where we are prone and weak.
And in larger part, it helps us to see, Lord, that we are
completely helpless and incapable of fighting this fight on our
own. These kinds of truths, Lord, lead us to fall on our knees
and our faces before you, pleading and begging that you would be
at work in us, that you would be at work in our homes, that
you would make Christ known through, in, and by us. Father, we ask
that you would help us as your people to embrace these truths,
not to be disheartened or discouraged by our failures, but to be encouraged
by your grace. Help us, Lord, even from this
day forward to sanctify the Lord's day. Help us from this day forward
to talk to our children, to inform them. Help us from this day forward
to present in our lives in the midst of this battle a picture
to the world and to our own families and our children of a life that
is consumed with the invisible and yet real Lord Jesus Christ,
so that people can say, as Peter said, that even though we have
not seen Him, it is clear that we love Him. Father, hear our
prayers, and as we grow dull in these areas, remind us of
all that You have done for us in Christ. Forgive us for our
sins and our lethargy, Lord, and we ask that we would see
in this church many more of our younger people saved today. We
pray in Christ's name. Amen.
The Serpent's Lust For Our Children
| Sermon ID | 49171056305 |
| Duration | 53:22 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - AM |
| Bible Text | Genesis 3:1-6 |
| Language | English |
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