I began to speak to you this morning on the subject of the what, the who, and the how of educating the rising generation. And under the heading of the what of education, I used R.L. Dabney's very succinct but profound definition of education as a starting point. Dabney defined education this way as the nurture and development of the whole person for his or her proper end. And then using that framework, I asserted that a Christian parent with an open Bible pleading with God that he might think biblically concerning this nurture and development of the whole son or daughter for his or her proper end would come up with an educational ambition and goal that would at least approximate this description that I set before you with these words. The Christian parent in educating his child desires that that child come to responsible, independent adulthood, regenerated by the sovereign work of the Holy Spirit, united to the Lord Jesus Christ in faith, love, and obedience, and equipped physically, mentally, socially, and spiritually to take his or her place in Christ's Church and in God's world with a passion to live to God's glory and for the extension of Christ's Kingdom in the full exercise of every God-given gift and capacity. And I spent some time breaking down the major categories of that description of the educational goal, what Dabney called the proper end of the child. And thinking biblically, surely we must have no less a goal for our educational ambitions as they apply to our children. Then I took up, secondly, the matter of the who of the education of the rising generation. That is, to whom has God given the responsibility for the education of the rising generation? And we consider that God has established three institutions of delegated authority, the family, the state, and the church. And I sought to lay out a very brief argument for the assertion that God has committed to the family, to the home, to the parents, the responsibility of the education of the rising generation. He has not given that responsibility to the state, nor to the church directly, but explicitly and primarily to the parents. Now we come tonight to consider the third issue, the how of the education of the rising generation. Having addressed the what and the who, we now take up the how. How should this noble end or goal be pursued? Obviously, I cannot in one message set before you a comprehensive statement of a sound educational philosophy, along with a detailed outline of a comprehensive curriculum and other issues that would make up a thorough treatment of the issue, But what I will attempt to do is to impart a biblically based vision of the essential framework with respect to the how we are to educate the rising generation. Remembering continually, when I use the word education, I'm using it in terms of Dabney's definition, which I believe captures the heart of the biblical theology of education, the nurture and development of the whole person for his or her proper end. And so I would lay before you four principles which, in my present understanding, constitute at least the essentials of a biblical framework with respect to the question, how should the child be educated? So I set before you these four principles. The rising generation must be educated in a context in which the God of the Bible is central to the entire educational enterprise. Now you've heard me say it hundreds of times, I try to choose my words carefully and purposely. So I go back over the heading and I'm asserting that if we are answering the question, how should our children be educated, with the primary responsibility resting upon the parents, I'm answering that the rising generation must be educated in a context in which the God of the Bible is central, not peripheral, but central, not just to the spiritual aspects but to the entire educational enterprise. And I begin to support that principle with the opening words of the Bible. I like to shock people when I say the most important verse in the whole Bible is the first verse. In the beginning, God. He is the great subject of the universe, of all reality. Everything else is predicate. God is the central, foundational, elementary subject. In the beginning, God. And everything else that unfolds in the biblical narrative, from the creation of the world, to the creation of man, to the fall of man, to the institution of sacrifice, to the promise of gospel deliverance, the formation of the nation of Israel, the giving of the law, the ministry of the prophets, all the way through. Everything has its foundation and origin in the opening words of Genesis 1.1, in the beginning, God. And everything else is understood only as it is understood in the context of this pervasive God-centeredness thrust upon us by the very opening words of our Bibles. This is why I am asserting that the rising generation must be educated in a context in which the God of the Bible is central. The God of the Bible is revealed to us most fully in Jesus Christ. John 1.18, No man hath seen God at any time. The only begotten who is in the bosom of the Father, He has literally exegeted Him. He has revealed Him. And we are told in Colossians 2 and verse 3 that in Christ Jesus are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and of knowledge. And so it is not some innocuous supreme being, whoever you may like to think he is, but it is the God of the Bible, who is essentially the three-in-one and the one-in-three, who has always existed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who is the uncaused cause of all causes, in the beginning, God. and all the way through the unfolding of Scripture there is this pervasive God-centeredness so that along the way we find such statements as these in Romans 11 and verse 36, for of Him and through Him and unto Him are all things to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. Of Him, in His own creative power and sovereign decree and purpose, through Him, by His present, imminent, all-encompassing providence, and unto Him, in praise and glory and the accomplishment of His purpose, are all things. Anything external to God is a thing. And everything is of Him, through Him, and unto Him. To Him be the glory forever and ever. And so it is this God of the Bible who is to be central to the entire educational enterprise because God is, in reality, central and foundational to all reality. And therefore, to view any aspect of reality detached from God is to view it inaccurately. It is not to view it as it really is in itself. Therefore, when we open up the book of Proverbs, we find a text that is foundational to almost every effort to set forth a biblical philosophy of education. Proverbs 1 and verse 7. The fear of the Lord is the beginning, or you may have a marginal rendering, the chief part of knowledge. But the foolish despise wisdom and instruction. The fear of the Lord is the chief part of knowledge. In other words, it is the recognition of the being of God. the rights and the claims of God and relating to his being and to his rights and claims as I ought that the writer of Proverbs says is the very chief part of all knowledge. Just as the alphabet is the chief part of reading and of writing and you cannot read or write without an alphabet. And the chief part of mathematics are numbers, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, through 9 and 0. And you cannot do any mathematical equation without numbers. So the chief part of all knowledge is the fear of God. That is, positing God in His proper place in that aspect of knowledge. recognizing his rights, his claims, his interpretation, and how we are to relate to him in that sphere of knowledge. That is the chief part of knowledge. Take that out, and what you have left is something less than true knowledge. And what happens when the God of the Bible is removed from his central place in any educational enterprise? We'll turn to Romans 1 in verse 28, and we have the answer. Romans 1 in verse 28. When men in their arrogance and in their pride pursue knowledge without consideration of him who is to be the chief part of all knowledge, this is the result. Romans chapter 1 and verse 28. The apostle writes, And as they refused to have God in their knowledge, God gave them up to a reprobate mind. The ethics and the morals of the pagan world are the outgrowth of the refusal to have God central to the field of knowledge. And so as we wrestle with this whole issue, of the educational enterprise with respect to our children as Christians. We must be continually and refreshed in our conviction of this reality that the rising generation must be educated in a context in which the God of the Bible is central to the entire educational enterprise. Now remember, as we saw this morning, The educational enterprise begins at the breast of its mother and on the shoulder of its father. God must be central in the climate of our homes. He must not be someone introduced at family worship and reintroduced on Sunday morning. He must be central so that in the dawning of consciousness in our children, God is everywhere. In other words, the dawning of consciousness is an awakening to a God-soaked atmosphere of the home. Because in the home is a God-soaked mother and a God-soaked father. I don't know another term to use. A saturated soul, no matter where you touch it, out drops God. So that the name of God, the consciousness of the eye of God, the consciousness of the word of God and the presence of God, prayers to God, thanksgiving to God, relating all reality in the light of God. This is the very atmosphere in which the child is brought forth and in which the first educational impressions are made by that God-soaked mother and that God-soaked father. Am I making sense? That's the responsibility that we have for the education of our children. Why? Because the fear of God is the chief part of knowledge. And if we would have them begin to absorb true knowledge, it must be a knowledge in which the fear of God is the chief part. And how is that to be imparted? It is to be imparted as they become aware of themselves and reality and the world about them in this God-soaked atmosphere and climate of the home. And when we ask the question, well, how much do those early impressions really make a difference? Turn to your Bible and look at Moses, the man of God who only had the first couple of years at the breast and in the home of his mother and father before he's plunked down into the very atmosphere of Egyptian learning and morals and religion and all of the decadence of that pagan culture. Yet so deeply pervasive was that influence that when he comes to years, he chooses rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. Likewise, think of young Samuel. wrenched loose from his mother's side and his father's direct influence as a little boy. Think of Daniel and his three Hebrew companions who are taken into Babylon into a society where the state takes over the education determined to make proper Babylonians out of these guys. They give them the names associated with Babylonian gods. And they steeped them in Babylonian history and culture and lore and perspectives. Yet when push comes to shove, these men stand. Why? Their early influences were influences of a God-soaked atmosphere in which God blessed it to the formation of character and the impartation of His grace. And so I say to myself, and I say to you, my fellow Christian parents, and I say to you who are teachers in the Trinity Christian School, this must be a central issue as we think of the whole educational enterprise. I quoted from Mr. Dabney several times this morning. You're going to get more Dabney again tonight. Listen to what Dabney says on this point. of the profound influence of the parents long before the teacher and the pastor can exert an influence. It is made both his privilege and his duty, that is the parent, to impose the principles and the creed which he has adopted as the truth for himself upon the spirit of his child. Some men, it is known, vainly pray to the supposed obligation to leave the minds of their children independent and unbiased until they are mature enough to judge and choose for themselves. But a moment's thought shows that this is as unlawful as it is impossible. No man can avoid impressing his own practical principles on his child. If he refrains from words, he does it inevitably by his example. The only way to prevent the quote dictation as it has been stigmatized is to banish his child absolutely from the parent's society and protection and thus to be utterly recreant to every duty of the parent. Again, if he could avoid every impress upon the soul of his child, others would not refrain from doing it. One thing is certain, this young and plastic soul will take impressions from someone, if not from the appointed and heaven-ordained hand of his parent, then from some other irresponsible hand of men or an evil angel. One might as well speak of immersing an open vessel in the ocean and having it remain empty, as of having a youthful soul grow up in society unbiased until it is qualified to elect its own creed most wisely. The only alternative left to the parent is either to bias the child's soul himself for God and the truth, or to see it fatally biased by other influences against both God and truth. Then he goes on to say how mighty the power of opportunity which the parent is thus authorized to employ to propagate his creed on another soul while as yet the pupil is ignorant of the process wrought upon him and incapable of resisting it. You see what he's saying? Long before the child can think, Mommy and Daddy are placing God central. God is just central. And the dawning of his consciousness about reality is a God-soaked consciousness. Why? Because it's been imposed unconsciously, but very really and powerfully by the influence of the parent. When God has clothed you, O parent, with such powers, with results so beneficent and glorious, and has made you so nearly a god to your own children, do you suppose you can neglect or pervert them without being held to a dire account? It were better for a man that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea. That's the responsibility. long before you get that first batch of materials from the homeschool supply depot. Long before you enroll them in preschool or kindergarten, you parent, you parent have the solemn obligation to see their education begin in a context in which the God of the Bible is central to the entire educational enterprise. You think like a God-soaked soul. You speak as a God-soaked soul. You live, you order your home as a God-soaked home. That child begins to absorb an educational perspective in which he has already known long before he can cognitively convey it to another in the beginning God. He is foundational. He is central to all reality. That's biblical, Christian education. Now, secondly, and it's not repetitious. It grows out of it. It's intimately related to it. The second principle is this. Not only must the rising generation be educated in the context in which the God of the Bible is central to the entire educational enterprise, but secondly, The rising generation must be educated in the context in which the truth of the Bible has ultimate authority in every discipline of the educational enterprise. The rising generation must be educated in the context in which the truth of the Bible has ultimate authority over every discipline of the educational enterprise. Now, granted, in all educational enterprises that are biblical, we will be concerned with what the theologians call general revelation. Some call it natural revelation. That is, what does God say to us in the created order above us, around us, and within us? And the scripture addresses all of those aspects of what we call general revelation. Romans 1 is one of the great watershed passages. Paul says that what can be known of God has been clearly revealed to men who've never seen the pages of a Bible. As they look at the creation about them and above them, on it are God's fingerprints. He has smothered his world with his fingerprints. And God says, when they refuse to see His fingerprints and acknowledge them and know something of His everlasting power and Godness, His everlasting power and divinity, that word divinity, His Godness, they are literally sticking their hands over their eyes. It's speaking to them clearly. And then Paul goes on to say there is natural or general revelation within them. Their consciences, accusing them, or excusing them. There is a world within them that ties them to the consciousness of moral accountability to this God. And any sound philosophy of education will take into account the reality of general revelation. Paul can say in 1 Corinthians 11, 14, does not nature itself teach you There are certain things that nature teaches, and we are not to be ignorant of what it teaches us. However, it is in special revelation, the Bible, that God has spoken authoritatively, definitively, and sufficiently with respect to how we are to function in His world. and even our understanding of what we think is being said in general revelation stands under the ultimate authority of special revelation because we are fallen creatures and our sinfulness is affected what we hear in the voice of God in general revelation and what we see in the work of God in general revelation. and therefore it is in scripture in special revelation that God speaks his authoritative definitive and sufficient word to us hence Paul could write 2nd Corinthians 3 16 and 17 all scripture is God breathed and is profitable for teaching for reproof for correction for training in righteousness in order that the man of God may be complete thoroughly furnished unto every good work. Now, if a man of God can be furnished for every work demanded of him in the work of the ministry by Scripture, then surely, by proper deduction, we can say that every parent, every teacher, can be sufficiently equipped for his task by the God-breathed words of Holy Scripture, so that what we commonly call education in the natural sciences, the physical, material world. Whatever is said about that world must be consistent with what God has said in His word, the Bible. And no one can read His Bible with any degree of honesty and in any way come up with any system of macroevolution. that everything has developed from some primal, original life form. That there is microevolution, changes within the species. We see that with our own eyes. Go to the local garden shop and see the flowers that have been genetically manipulated to be like this and like that. We have no argument. But that one life form was the origin of all life forms. We say, no, in the beginning God created and He created. And we read what He did on the first day, and the second, and the third, and the fourth, and the fifth, and the sixth. Then He said, let us make man in our image and after our likeness. And He formed him of the dust of the ground. He took inanimate stuff, dust of the ground. He didn't take the living matter of a previously formed creature. There's no way. Let God be true. And every biologist and paleontologist and every other kind of ologist, let him be a liar. The only one who was there has told us how he did it. God was there. And I get irritated. by this intellectual bullying that no one who knows anything would believe that. Well, does God know a few things? The God who knows all has told us how He brought His world, you and me, into being. Let God be true in every man, a liar. In the humanities, that is the world of thought, and philosophy and psychology, who we are and why we think and why we act and react. In all of those things, it is God's voice in special revelation which has ultimate authority over all of the disciplines in the natural sciences, in the humanities, in the practical disciplines. Now, what's that say to us who are the educators, parents, school teachers, indirectly Sunday school teachers, pastors, Well, it says you better know your Bible if you're going to educate your children. Whatever else you know, know your Bible. Soak your mind and soul as apparent in the book of Proverbs. Read them continually, repeatedly. Think in the categories of the book of Proverbs. Soak your soul and your mind in the biblical categories of human sinfulness. the deviousness of the human heart. In interacting with your children, why do I do what I do? Because you are who you are, son. Because you are who you are, sweetheart. One within, out of the heart, proceed. And then all the sins are listed. The works of the flesh are manifest, which are these. Why do I fight with my sister? The works of the flesh are anger, wrath, You think biblically. You introduce your children, long before the school teacher gets them, into a biblically framed psychology, a biblically framed sociology, a biblically framed perspective on every facet of life, because it is in this book that God has spoken, finally and authoritatively, concerning all that we need to know pertaining to life and to godliness. Then you teachers, I want to talk turkey to you teachers, to whom these parents entrust the children, not a few of you, you got your union card in higher schools of learning where there may have been a smattering of Christian thought and a removal from the curriculum of the grosser forms of humanistic thought concerning the disciplines that you studied. but precious few of you had the privilege of being in an institution of higher learning where the professors from the chairman department head down to the newest teacher were thoroughly soaked in the sound biblical theology and who had had the time and the tools to think through their particular discipline, whether in the natural sciences, the humanities, practical disciplines, in a thoroughly Bible-soaked, theologically sound and balanced way. And I have my concerns that some of you still have some of Nile floating around in your soul, and that you need to cry to God as you prepare your lessons Plead with God, oh Lord, search out my mind where my thinking is still influenced by humanistic, man-centered, man-framed perspectives. Lord, purge them out of me! Be committed to reading your Bible regularly and frequently, not only praying that God will encourage you with the promises and rebuke you with His rebukes, but God would help you to see where your thinking is not thoroughly aligned with the Word of God. When you sit in that classroom, you will recognize you're seeking to do what Paul describes in 2 Corinthians chapter 10. And Paul recognizes that at the end of the day, spiritual warfare is a cosmic warfare with thought and ideas. And he says in 2 Corinthians 10, 3, Though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but mighty before God, to the casting down of strongholds. Well, what are these strongholds? Physical walls made of brick and mortar? No. Casting down imaginations, reasonings, and every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God, and bringing every thought, every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. Every thought aligned with the revelation of the mind of Christ. Why do kids act the way they act? Oh, because when they come into this developmental stage, they just know. My Bible says foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child. I get so sick of people talking about the terrible twos and the this threes and the this fours and all this other nonsense. Now, are we responsible to back off if we're a second grade teacher and seek to know some of the general patterns of the developmental stage of the course? I'm not being stupid. Don't charge me with being stupid. I may overstate things at times, but I don't think I'm stupid. No, I'm not saying that. But what I'm saying is this. Don't allow secular psychology to frame the way you deal with those kids in the classroom where parents are paying big bucks and praying that you will carry on the task of developing in that child a thoroughly Bible-soaked perspective concerning all reality. That's what I'm saying. That's the challenge you teachers have. I'm not scolding you. I'm challenging you. I'm exhorting you. I'm entreating you. Some of you have heard me share the incident. I don't have a new one, so I have to share an old one. At least I'm young enough to know that I shared it before. When I start sharing and I don't know, that is bad. That's what happens to people really getting old between the ears. They share the story with all the excitement like they never told it before. But I know I told this before. It was one of the visits of my daughter, Heidi, a couple of years ago. And we were talking. She was either visiting with us or she was talking on the phone. And she said to me, Dad, one of the things I'm so thankful is the way you worked in training me to bring everything through a biblical grid. We couldn't even watch Little House in the Prairie without you stopping and saying, now kids, what's being said there? Why is that being said? How's that lined up in the Bible? She said, there are times I wanted to say, oh, Dad, just shut up and watch the program. Now, she didn't say that. She'd known better to do that. But she's old enough and secure enough with her daddy to say to him now, at times, Dad, I just wish you'd shut up. But she said, I'm so thankful for it now. I'm so thankful, Dad. You trained me to bring everything to a biblical grid. And though at times it makes life difficult, everybody else is going along with something. I can't go along with it. It gets stuck in my biblical grid. That's what your parents got to start imparting, and that's what your teachers in that Christian school have got to continue to impart. That's your task. That's biblical education. The rising generation must be educated in a context in which the truth of the Bible has ultimate authority over every discipline in the educational enterprise. Principle number three. The rising generation must be educated in a context in which the parents and teachers embody the goal of the educational enterprise. Let me give it to you again. The rising generation must be educated in a context in which the parents and teachers embody the goal of the educational enterprise. There's no more important text in all of the Bible, in my judgment, in establishing a biblical philosophy of education than Luke chapter 6 and verse 40. Luke chapter 6 and verse 40. Could begin with verse 39. And Jesus spoke a parable to them. Can the blind guide the blind? Shall they not both fall into a pit The disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is perfected, that is, every student when he is educated, when he is thoroughly trained by his teacher, shall be as his teacher. Now notice the Lord did not say But everyone, when he is perfected, when the educational process under the influence of his teacher has been brought to its telos, to its end, shall think as his teacher, no, said shall be as his teacher. In other words, our Lord is assuming that the teacher is the embodiment of what he imparts in his teaching to the pupil. Take what I say, and you'll become what I am. You got it? That's what our Lord is saying. Now, if that's true, and I believe this is what our Lord is saying, when the pupil is perfected, when he is educated, when the teaching process has come to its appropriate end, he shall be as his Teacher! That means that the teacher must be what he wants the educational process to make his pupil. So if I want the pupil to become, by the blessing of God, someone obviously attached to Jesus in faith and love and obedience with a well-furnished mind, physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually competent to take his place in Christ's church and in God's world, consume with a passion to glorify God and to advance his kingdom in the exercise of every gift, that's what I must be as his or her teacher. I must be able to say, albeit imperfectly but really, the Apostle Paul in Philippians 4 and verse 9, The things you have both learned and heard and seen in me do. And the God of peace shall be with you. I believe I've quoted the verse correctly. I'll check it. Philippians 4 and verse 9. The things you have both learned and received and heard and saw in me do. Not enough to say the things you have learned and received and heard, irrespective of what you say. No, no. As the capstone, you want to know what these things you've received and heard and learned of me will do when internalized? Here I am. Here I am. I'm the embodiment of my teaching. Now, parents, You want to go home and have a judgment day? Just sit down with that text for a while. You mothers pouring yourself into your children. You want them to become the sweet, submissive, responsible, selfless, caring, understanding, listening, patient, long-suffering wife and mother that you are? or you want them to become the short-tempered, bippy, irascible. I haven't used that word for a long time, but it popped into my brain. I don't know where they come up sometimes. They just sort of come up from the subterranean depths. But that's a good word. It's just like what it sounds. Crotchety, short-tempered. That's what they'll become. No amount of preaching, no amount of teaching, as we'll see in another quote I'm going to give you from Dabney that's more searching, I think, than all the others. You've got to be able to say with all my failures and faults, and that's part of my example, I confess them when they come to my consciousness and when they are displayed before my children, before my classroom. I'm not beyond saying I sinned. Will you forgive me? I was not the example I ought to have been. Daddy, come home. Come home from work tonight. Totally preoccupied with himself. And son, you were sending out all kinds of signals. You need to have your daddies here. And I was so cotton-picking, selfish and self-centered that I didn't listen to you. Forgive me, son. That's teaching him the realism of being an imperfectly sanctified man trying to be a good dad. And your confession of your consciousness of failure and sin and shortcoming. And when they hear you short and sarcastic with your wife, it's not enough you've asked the Lord's forgiveness. You gather them about the table and say, kids, you heard Daddy speak to Mommy that way. Mommy, Daddy's asked him to forgive you, haven't you? Yes, sweetheart, I've forgiven you. They need to see how the dynamics of forgiveness works in the real life. And I fear some of your kids have never seen that. God have mercy on them. I can preach till blue in the face about being real and authentic. But how do they know what I live like when I go home? They probably assume I live like you do when you go home. And that's why they're cynical. That's why they're not thirsting and hungering for the Christ that is preached. They don't see it validated in the walls of your home. the surest way to make hardened, impenitent children under great gospel light is as people who are their teachers fail to embody and become what the teaching ought to produce. It is enough that the pupil be as his teacher. You and I, by the grace of God, must model before our children and before our pupils what we are seeking in the educational process to see them become. We must, we must be able to say the things you have learned and heard and seen in me do and the God of peace shall be with you. Listen to Dabney's words again, searching These considerations prepare us to expect that the parents' influence will be more effectual for good and evil than any or all others that surround the young soul. Hence is drawn another argument for the parents' awesome responsibility. Pastoral experience teaches us that as parents perform or neglect their duties, The children usually end in grace or in piety. The impressions for good or evil made in the families of Christian countries are usually found too deep to be effectually changed after adult years are reached. The parent has the first and all-important opportunity. Those who come after him, the teacher, the pastor, they have but the remnant. And this was a man who was a pastor and a teacher. The forming hand of the parent is armed with a venerable authority, all others with but a small portion of the delegated power, the schoolteacher. His words, the parent, are example and weighted by filial love. He has perpetual familiarity and opportunity. His children are with him at the table. They sleep in their little couch at his feet. They follow him as he comes in and as he goes out, and even when his lips are silent. His example speaks perpetually to them. Then he goes on to say that nothing is more hardened to the gospel than a child who is sat under the influence of people who profess the truth but who don't embody it. He says the pagan child with all his grossness and vice has not yet had his soul poisoned by the lesson of parental hypocrisy. the most deadly of all means for fatally searing the conscience and petrifying the heart of a child. Parental hypocrisy. Extend that into teacher hypocrisy. Now, it's a favorite pastime of kids to criticize their teachers. I know that. I know that. That's part of their sin. However, Children also often have a keen sense of reality, of authenticity, and the lack of the same. And it's amazing what they'll take from someone that they know is real, and that loves them. That's the challenge for all of us in the educational enterprise, that by the grace of God we embody that which the educational enterprise is calculated to produce. Well, I hasten on to the fourth and final principle. Can you take one more? I think I've got enough strength to give one more. It's this. The rising generation must be educated in a context in which the home, the school, and the church form a consistent and unified influence. upon the rising generation. I've used rising generation twice in that. I shouldn't do that. The rising generation must be educated in a context in which the home, the school, and the church form a unified and consistent influence in the educational enterprise. That makes it linguistically parallel. We saw this morning that the parents have a direct responsibility for the education of their children. The school has a voluntarily shared or partially delegated responsibility. Not relinquished, partially delegated. The church has, as we saw, an indirect responsibility. And I named four ways in which that's true. But when all three speak the same thing, manifest the same reality, With the blessing of the Holy Spirit, wonderful fruits accrue to the glory of God. And I want to encourage parents and teachers and church members in Trinity today, because sitting here tonight, and I get the goosebumps when I think about it, are the living proofs of God's blessing upon that coming together of the threefold cord of home, of school, and of church. And there sit among us tonight some who, with the blessing of God and that threefold cord, have developed into independent young adults, sufficiently spiritually alive and furnished academically, socially, physically and in every way, that they have not only taken their place in Christ's church and in God's world, but they have found their present niche teaching in the very classroom that helped to mold them. That to me has been one of my greatest thrills, to live long enough to see little knobby-kneed kids who once were there in the classroom when I pop in periodically to say hi to them and kibitz with them, to go by now and have to call them Miss So-and-so, and to see them teaching another generation. Dear people, we have much to encourage us. Others in the recent couple of years, and even now this summer, some of the young men and women coming into the threshold or to the threshold of independent adulthood They are ready to take their place in Christ's church. And they are further equipping themselves to take their place in God's world. To live with a passion for God's glory and the advancement of His kingdom. To see them interested in other cultures and in needs in other parts of the world. Taking their own money to go and visit other places as even a couple of them are doing right now while this service convenes far away at their own expense. giving themselves to diaconal ministries and exposing themselves to the needs of another culture. Dear people, with all the horrible sluice gates of ungodliness that have been let loose upon our nation, and no little factor of the totally secularized education that has molded so many in our generation, we have much to encourage us. Much to encourage us. that this endeavor of a thorough, biblical, Christian education in the ways I've sought to open it up from the Scriptures, this is not a fool's errand. With the blessing of Almighty God, we may be astounded in days to come to see what God will do to raise up young men and women whose minds have been taught to think biblically, who come out of God's soap home and a God's soap church and to whom God is a living reality and Christ is indeed the great passion of their hearts, who have a sense of holy recklessness for me to live is Christ. They've been delivered from the tyranny of thinking the only thing worth living for is stuff and more stuff and more stuff, and then stuff to have to play with when you retire. No, no, thank God we're seeing that influence. And I, for one, don't want to coast. But I'm calling upon my own soul and calling upon you as a people to cry to God for the blessing of the Holy Spirit upon a biblically framed educational endeavor in the home, in the school, indirectly in the life of the church. where possible, that we might give generously to encourage our families that have that thing that I called this morning. It's a form of extortion, legalized extortion. We've got to give money to support a school system that is antithetical to everything we believe, and for which we'd shed our blood. And our parents are penalized to have to pay for that system, while at the same time seeking to meet their commitments to a modest tuition bill at Trinity Christian School or pay for the materials of their homeschooling curriculum. Let's encourage these parents. Let's pray for them. Let's do what we can, some of us who are in our highest wage-earning capacity, but we have the least domestic expenses. We ought to be the most generous of givers to support this rising generation in that endeavor, while so many of our young couples are at their relatively lower end of wage-earning capacity with their highest outlay to fulfill their God-given duty. Surely we can't be aware of that and be insensitive and indifferent. And it ought to create in us a generosity of heart and of hand and the determination that whatever part we have in that whole educational enterprise, whether as parents, grandparents, church members, friends, a mentor, whatever it is, that God will help us to be real, folks. That even if you have the burden that some of us have of impenitent children, you have the comfort that they can look you in the eye And they can write on your Father's Day cards and on your birthday cards and vindicate your integrity and the consciousness that they know you love them. You can call them on their birthday, like we did this morning, and say we're thankful that God spared you for another year. And we pray that in the coming year, you'll come to know the true joys that can only be had in Christ. At the end of the day, There's no push the buttons and out comes the product. I have no sympathy for these preachers who say if you do the job the way you ought to do it, you're going to get the product you wished you had. If that's so, then I've got to throw out a large segment of the book of Proverbs because the doctrine of the foolish son is the child who's surrounded with a God-soaked home and a God-soaked education chooses to be a fool and to reject it all. And God holds the foolish son accountable for his folly, not his parents. Now, I know my Bible says a child left to himself brings his mother shame. But what about the child who has been diligently disciplined, carefully trained, prayerfully influenced, who says, I want no part of your God and of his ways? He will answer to God. But you and I as parents will be able to pillow our heads. A broken heart mingled with a good conscience is a strange combination, but it's a wonderful combination. If you've got to have a broken heart, you better not add to it a bloody conscience. Now I want to talk to you kids as I close. Can I talk to you kids? What age do you no longer consider yourself a kid? Well, whatever that age is, I'll pick you up there and I'll say, you young men and young women, okay? So I've got you all. If you're a kid, I'm talking to you. If you're a young man or a young lady, if you say mantra instead of mantra, wherever you are, I want to talk to you. I want you to listen to me now. What do you think about all that we've talked about today? Preachers up there trying to stir up your parents and your teachers to confront you everywhere you turn with God, with the Bible. with the truth of God. Are you thankful for that? Or do you resent it? Are you irritated with it? Or do you thank God every day? Now, if you don't thank God every day, you're a miserable ingrate. There are billions, using the word carefully, billions of the six billion people in the world. There are billions of children never once have seen a page of this book brought up in a home soaked with demon worship, soaked with idolatry, soaked with a despairing pagan philosophy of reality and of life and of morals and of family. The open wounds of Bangladesh are rooted in its religion, not just this environment. And here God's put you into a context blazing with Bible light, suffused with the love of Christ. People that want to take you to heaven, who'd die if they could take you there by their death. And you are irritated with it? Oh, dear kids, stop the stupidity. Wake up to reality. God has sovereignly come to you in mercy and surrounded you with a host of influences meant to carry you to heaven and to carry you there in a way that will make life full and meaningful and useful to the glory of God. Stop being irritated And furthermore, for some of you that aren't irritated and fighting, you say, well, pastor, you ask me, I'm a kid, I'm a young lady, I'm a young man, wherever you put yourself, and you say, well, I'm irritated with it, but let me ask you, are you taking full advantage of your opportunity? Or you become so accustomed to it, you kind of coast along. You do your minimum work at school. You do your minimum work at home. You do your minimum listening to dad when he's trying to develop a biblical mindset. You do your minimum listening to mom when she's trying to develop in you a spirit of diligence in what you do. I ask you to read Proverbs 2 and Proverbs 4, where the writer of Proverbs speaks to his son, to his children, and he says, pursue this knowledge. Seek it like silver. Hunt after it like treasure. Listen to me, kids. Stop mucking about with your privileges. Stop being so concerned with the latest rage of the movie that everybody's watching. I get sick when I hear Trinity kids all excited about the latest Star Wars movie. And I don't hear them excited about what they've discovered in their Bibles. Is it wrong for that to bother me? I'm not saying it's sin to get excited about a Star Wars movie. I can't get excited about it, but I'm not going to tell you you're sinning. But dear children, when's the last time you got excited about your Bible? When did you get excited about your Bible? About something you learned in your Bible? You learned about God and about Jesus? When you get excited, when through hard work and diligence you brought that B up to an A, because you wanted to give God your best, not your second best. You didn't say, oh well, B's alright. B's alright, I can beat. Whatever your hand finds to do, do with all your what? Might. As unto the Lord, not as unto men. People are sacrificing to give you kids the education you're getting. God's going to hold you accountable for what you do with it, because the Bible says, to whom much is given, of whom shall much be required. And you kids have got an awful lot to answer for. You think I'm just overkilling it with my words, but I'm telling you the truth. There are times I sit at my desk and I envy what you're getting in this school over here. And I said, if I could just get rid of all my responsibilities for six months, I'd like to go over and sit in on the Latin class and the logic class and in the classes on the history of Western thought. I didn't get that stuff. I had to pick up little dribs and drabs while carrying on the responsibilities of a father and a pastor for 40 years. You're privileged. And with that privilege, some of you ought to outstrip us in usefulness in the days to come. That stirs something in you, kids? Does it strike a little note and you say, hey, that's what I want. I don't want to just muck about being mediocre. I want to excel for the glory of God. I want to excel for the advancement of the kingdom of God. Some of you determined to say I'm not just going to drift through and skip through Latin. I want to get the structure of that language. That very discipline may be the thing God will use to cause things to pop in your brain. that you might show an aptitude someday to go into an area where nobody's had one verse of the Bible in their language and that linguistic aptitude honed in your Latin class will be the very thing God will use that you'd have the privilege of translating the Bible into a language no one else had ever reduced to writing and put the word of God. Imagine living and having the privilege of having one linguistic group that could say, because that man That woman was diligent in his or her Latin class, in his or her Spanish class, because they wouldn't be content with a B when they could get an A. And because they had a passion to use whatever they learned to the glory of God in the advancement of the kingdom, we have the Bible in our language. That gets you excited. It gives me the goosebumps. I got real ones right there. You get excited? Oh, make God, make God lay hold of some of you and put in your hearts such an ambition that you'll blow the charts off this coming year at school. Your teachers will come to your mother and say, I don't know what in the world happened to your kid. I mean, I hope you'll be able to say, the Lord dealt with me. That's Sunday night in July. The Lord got through to me. Is that too much to expect? That's just an old fool's hopes and wishes and dreams. Or can we expect God to do great things as together we give ourselves afresh to this great enterprise of the education of the rising generation? Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word. Thank you that you stretch our hearts. You rattle us from our comfort zone. Thank you for the challenge these things have been to my own soul in preparation and in preaching them. And pray, Father, that your spirit would so work that our time together today would be with your blessing the catalyst springing loose new areas of holy ambition and commitment that there would be homes in which there is deep and thorough confession of inconsistency and hypocrisy and sloppiness in parental example. Lord, don't let us just drift along, business as usual, hardening ourselves to another probing of the Word. God help us. God help us. We want to bequeath to our children in this place authenticity of life and character. God help us. Help us. Have mercy upon the kids and the young men and women. Lord, may they not be content with mediocrity. May they not resent the very privileges with which you have sovereignly and graciously surrounded them. Lord, we cry to you for the blessing of your spirit to be upon these things we've considered today, and to your name be praise and honor and glory. In Jesus' name, amen.