July 31 - Psalm 78:4

we will tell the next generation

about the glorious deeds of the Lord

Psalm 78:4

I have a goal for this year. I have a challenge for you. The most important thing all of us can do is teach children -- starting with our own, but ministering to the church and reaching into the community.

I don't care what age you are. I don't care how good you feel you are with kids. There may be nothing more important that you can do than to take personally, passionately, and seriously today's verse -- "we will tell the next generation about the glorious deeds of the Lord.

Let me tell you why ... Our society is eroding.

I am convinced that the last true hurrah of Christendom in America was in the early '60s with the Civil Rights Movement. A Christian Pastor, Martin Luther King, Jr., proclaimed Biblical truth -- that all people were created equally and in God's image -- and the nation changed! That was the early 60s -- the last hurrah.

But the late 60s brought another change. With Woodstock came the opening salvos of the age of secularism. Much of the nation -- still entrenched in the paradigm of Christendom -- was absolutely shocked by the drug culture and the notion of free love.

But think about it ... what was shocking then has become normative now. It took 50 years for a radical fringe to turn into the majority, but in recent months it is clear that we have passed the tipping point. Secular viewpoints clearly top Christian worldviews in America.

That’s culture … except that our kids are the pawns in this corrupt game. Indeed, the fruits of growing secularism are demonstrably tragic. The age of free love has brought about the age of divorce ... and an epidemic of out-of-wedlock moms. This has created a cycle of poverty and too many kids lacking fathers. The heralds of secularism trumpet "freedom," but the kids are the pawns and they are in bondage.

Drugs are also imprisoning too many people too. And it's biggest victims are the kids again. (Yes, the children are the pawns.) At a critical moment in development -- that transition between childhood and adulthood -- too many kids are robbed of motivation, drive, and opportunity. Futures are stunted. Leaving a next generation of kids to pay the price of their parent's immature rebellions.

Free love and the tolerance -- if not legalization and celebration -- of drugs are just two simple examples of the poisonous fruits of secularism. But we must recognize that what secularism touts as liberating is always and ultimately enslaving.

That's always how Satan works. Most proponents of secularism are very nice, very well-meaning people. and the call to "freedom" sounds so nice and noble. Nevertheless, any philosophy that caters to a doctrine of free expression is a doctrine that inevitably makes self the god and God the goat. (Indeed, God is the goat, because he's the only one who has standards to keep the self in check.) Thus, no matter how wise or noble it sounds, hell's big promises inevitably lead to increasing bondage. Indeed, that's always the fruit of every rebellion against God's ways, even if it sounds well meaning. And the children are always the pawns.

And so we return to today's verse. The balance has tipped. We're in a secular society. How do we respond? Don't complain. Act! Say with scripture: "we will tell the next generation about the glorious deeds of the Lord.

In Christ's Love,

a guy who's going to start asking,

"what are you doing to teach the kids?"