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.