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Empowering multimedia ministry for bold Christian living: Weekend Messages, Deep End Podcast, Deep Dive Bible Study. Tim Hatch, Lead Pastor, Waters Church, 26 years of pastoral ministry, book author.
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The Battle for the Next Generation 0:00 You are listening to Waters Church podcast. Waters Church is a multisite, multigeneration community of faith on the East Coast of America. Now for a message from our pastor.0:13 I get acquired, why the devil wants your kids. And this message might ruffle some feathers today, and I don't have this bow loaded. And and I did some recording for the other locations. It was0:25 loaded. That's because nobody was in the audience. And so I didn't want a lawsuit for our church. So I didn't load it. But imagine if you will, there's an arrow. This is the image that the scripture gives us of children,0:37 arrows in the hands of a warrior. And some of you gotta get a hold of this concept when it comes to your child raising and teaching and concept when it comes to your child raising and teaching and elevating them into0:48 responsible and godly adults is we've got an opportunity to pierce the darkness of the next generation with the children in our care today.1:01 Amen? And so take out your notes. We gave them to you on the way in. Target acquired part 1. Why the devil wants you? Because I want you to I want you to fill the blanks and follow along with us.1:13 I want you first in all locations. Some of you, you can't do this, and I understand that, but I want you to I want you to look at my children. And and the reason why I want you to look at my children is because my1:25 children are the test of whether or not I belong here. And I mean, not in the church, but here. Teaching you God's word. Because there are scriptural requirements1:37 for pastors in first Timothy 3, in Titus chapter 1, in first Peter chapter 5. And particularly in Titus and in first Timothy 3, 1 of the requirements for a man to1:49 teach and feed God's people is that his children are submissive, that they don't have the reputation of being disobedient or rebellious, and that he manages the pastor2:01 manages his house well. Because it's not it says, if he can't manage his house well, how can he manage the house of God? That's 1 of the requirements. That's how you get to2:12 test if I am able to do this job. My children, by God's grace, thus far, serve the Lord. My daughter who was working for Chick fil A, serving the Lord's chicken, gave it up2:24 and came to work for the church. I'm thankful for that. My my son works for the church down here at Apollo Beach. My daughter's up in North Attleboro working with kids and all kinds of volunteer ministries up there. And2:36 my third child is seeking the lord and serving him and too young to get involved right now, but we're thanking god for the grace that is upon us. I don't say that to brag, but I do say that to say this. I'm2:48 qualified to teach you about this. And if you listen to me, I believe that God will empower you to raise your children to fear the Lord well into their adult ages. Amen, somebody? Amen.3:00 And so we gotta understand something about this this deal, this kid's deal. Here here here's the deal. We are at war. We are at war for the minds and hearts of children,3:12 especially in this modern age in which we live. There's a passage of scripture that talks about the believers warfare. It's found in Ephesians chapter 6. It's on your notes. It's also on the screen. This might be3:23 familiar to you. It says, we wrestle not against flesh and blood. We wrestle against what? We wrestle against rulers, authorities, what? Cosmic powers over what? The present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil3:35 in the heavenly realm. If you believe that there is a spiritual warfare, not just a physical reality of the faith, come on, say amen. Amen. We're fighting spiritual forces. Demons are real. Spiritual forces in in the3:47 evil realm. These are real things. Now what's ironic about Ephesians chapter 6 verse 12 is that it comes on the heels of Paul the apostle teaching that church about the law the3:59 codes of conduct for households. If you've got a Bible, you can go there and you can look at it. Just back up to Ephesians chapter 5, and it gives us codes of conduct for the Christian home.4:11 It talks about wives submitting to their husbands, husbands being the head of the wife. That's from first Corinthians chapter 11. There is an authority in the home, and it4:23 is on the man's shoulders to bear that responsibility of authority for the sake of his children and his wife. And so men, you can't just sit idly4:35 back. You can't just watch your wife go to church. You can't just get into football and all these things and build yourself a wonderful career. You've gotta lead your family in the things of4:47 god, and your wife comes under that purpose, and she supports you, and she submits to you, and you take ownership of your home. And then it says the man should4:58 love his wife and lay down his life as Christ did and and sanctify his wife and purify his wife. Why? By living an example for her so she can see his godliness and follow suit. And let me just tell5:10 you, every woman wants a godly man to set that example for her home. That is a fact. And I'm telling you, men, if you are a godly man, you will have a submissive wife. And then the5:22 children, chapter 1 chapter 6 verse 1, must obey their parents, and the fathers must instruct their children. So all these codes of conduct, Ephesians 5, Ephesians 6. And then on the heels of that, Paul says, and5:34 by the way, we're at war. We're at war. The enemy is gonna do everything in his power. Some of you gotta get a hold of this. He's gonna do everything in his power to subvert, to disorient, to distort the5:46 codes of conduct for the Christian home. He's coming for your marriage. He's coming for your children because he knows if he can get your marriage and your children, he can have a destructive influence of5:56 intergenerational causation for decades to come. And I say all that to say this, we are at war. So write this down in your notes. The home is the primary6:07 target of the devil. Our school systems fill children with a sense of confusion like never before have I seen this. I was raised in public school. I would never put my kids in public6:19 school right now. Never. They confuse children. Unfortunately, some people can't afford it, so this is why we're doing this series before back to school season so that you are armed and you are ready to take ownership of6:30 your children. But today's kids are going to schools, and they are flooded with misinformation and disinformation and malinformation and the devil's lies about gender, about sexuality, about pride, about6:42 all these all these ideologies that are destructive to the human condition. And then our politicians fill our children with a sense of entitlement. That is the government's job to take care of you from the cradle to the6:54 grave. And so kids want free stuff, and they want someone to take care of them. They're not told to take responsibility for their lives. You can't have rights without responsibility.7:06 Amen. I mean, I I I you hear the calls. This is my right. I want my rights, women's rights, children's rights, men's right. Nobody's calling about men's rights, but you get the idea. Everybody wants their rights.7:17 Nobody's crying about responsibility. You can't have rights without responsibility. And so politicians, they flood their minds with a sense of entitlement. And then TikTok, if you allow TikTok to raise your kids, and I7:28 pray that you don't, will fill their minds with a confusion, We fill, young men with attention deficit disorder. We'll fill young women with depression, anxiety, and frustration about their body7:39 image. And so the devil is doing all that he can in every facet of our society to destroy the next generation. And in case you think the sexual identity of madness is over, think again. In7:51 the state of North Carolina this past week, by God's grace, the legislature of that state overrode the veto of the governor. The governor in that state is a democrat, and he vetoed a8:03 law that there's that the legislator tried to pass. The law defined 2 sexes as the only genders in the state, but it went further than that. It protected8:15 girls from competing with boys in sports, but it went further than that. It protected young girls from being coerced to participate in the pornographic industry. It also protected minors8:26 from surgical procedures, of gender transition and protected state funds from being used to pay for the gender transition of incarcerated prisoners.8:38 And the governor of North Carolina vetoed that law. He didn't want it on the books. My friends, we are at war.8:50 And if you wanna be ignorant, be my guest, but you gotta fight for your children, and I intend on doing it for you. And I intend on calling all the husbands and wives and all the educators and all the people of this9:01 church. We are gonna fight for the next generation, and we're gonna tell the devil to get back because we've got authority in the name of Jesus. We're at war. This is serious, and it's on my9:13 heart. Maybe you've never heard the name Michelle t, but I wanna tell you who she is today. You might not have heard of her, but you might have heard of the organization she started in 2015. The organization she9:25 started is called Drag Queen Story Hour. Drag Queen Story Hour spread across the country, spread around the world like a wildfire. But let's back up to the story. She was raised,9:37 believe it or not, in Chelsea, Massachusetts, North Attleboro, you know it. And, she left home when she was 20. She moved in with her then girlfriend. She identified as lesbian. She found out that her girlfriend, live in9:47 girlfriend, was making a lot of money in sex work, so she got involved as sex work herself. She was a prostitute until they broke up in 2004. And she moved across the country to San Francisco. She got into a pride and,9:59 queer oriented spoken word group, and she toured America and Canada for many years. Long story short, her eventually, she wrote a memoir. The memoir became a book. The book became a movie. She went around the10:11 country for a little while, doing a show called City Witches, and she even identified as a witch, and she decided to find, witches throughout the cities of America. By the way, it's amazing10:23 how oftentimes the sexual deviancy and occult practices go together. It's amazing to see that. In 2015, she struggled to conceive a child through IVF because she was10:35 married, quote, unquote, to a woman. Finally, she gave birth to her son, and at the age of 1, she brought him to the library, and she felt that the library that she brought up to was 2, in her words, heteronormative.10:48 She came up with the idea of having men dressed as ugly women to read stories about gender transition and homosexuality to children ages 3 to10:59 11. That's a thing that happens in public libraries across this country to this day with the exception of 1 state, Tennessee. Come on, Tennessee. Hallelujah. They outlawed the practice a couple of years ago.11:11 But you know what? I think about this. I read her story. I read about her life. And I think that we never would have heard about Michelle t or drag queen11:23 story hour if she had had a godly father. You know what the catalyst of her life was? The catalyst that she talks about? She found out when she was a teenager that her stepfather, who she was living with with her11:35 mother, had drilled a hole in the wall of her bedroom to spy on her while she was growing up. She confronted him and he denied it for years. And when he finally admitted it, her11:46 mother amazingly stayed with him and she was done with them. And the rest is history. I wonder what kind of world we would have today. Just think about it.11:58 If that Michelle t, that precious young girl had had a father who wasn't a pervert but was a godly man who raised her in the fear and the admonition of the Lord.12:10 We are at war. Maybe you've never heard of the name doctor Spock. Maybe you have. I'm not talking about the guy with the funny ears on Star Trek. I'm talking about doctor12:22 Benjamin Spock. He was a pediatrician and then a psychoanalyst of children back in the 19 sixties. He wrote a best selling book on raising children. And in that book, that book sold hundreds of millions of copies and12:33 went around the world. And in that book, he told parents, stop spanking. Stop punishing. Stop saying no. Your children know what's good. It's your job not to correct them, but to cultivate that12:45 in them. Absolute nonsense. And it spread around this country. Parents stopped taking authority over their children. They decided to befriend their children. They became12:57 permissive parents. They stepped out of their God given role, and children ran wild. By the way, doctor Spock's first wife went clinically insane. He then married a woman13:08 43 years younger than he. She took control of his life, basically. He once ran for president on a socialist ticket, promising free abortions and gay marriage across the country.13:20 And he himself admitted later in life that he probably made a mistake emphasizing that parents shouldn't say no too much to the point that he created a culture of permissive parenting that13:32 is probably destructive. And I would say that is the least of his problems. But I think I think about his story too. He was raised by a domineering, probably a13:45 a woman who went too far in disciplining her children. His mother's practice of disciplining her children was to lock them in a darkened closet. And amazingly astonishing enough, 1 time she13:56 locked 1 of his siblings in that closet and forgot he was there and left for New York. I wonder what would have happened. Are you hearing this? If doctor Spock14:08 had had a God fearing, God honoring mother in his life. My point is to show you that we are talking about intergenerational consequences from parents14:20 who don't live in their god given orientation, their god given destiny, their divine right to take authority in the home, to love and raise their children in the fear and the instruction of the14:32 lord Jesus Christ. And we have the capacity in our church to change the culture by raising godly kids. If you believe it, say amen. Amen. But we're gonna have14:44 to get some deconstruction into your mind before we get into construction. Again, this is gonna be a series of messages come to every single 1. I want you to write this down, at the top of your notes. Permissive14:53 parenting creates long term problems. Creates long term problems. We've been told that we need to listen to children. We need to get in touch with their feelings. We need to understand their truth. All these nonsensical15:04 things that are disabling parents, that are taking authority out of the hands of parents when the Bible says the exact opposite. The Bible says we do not leave children to their own. Proverbs15:15 29 verse 15 says, a child left to himself brings shame to his mother. You can't let a child determine their own future. This is the insanity of15:27 transgenderism. A child comes to their mother and says, I'm a boy. I'm a girl. And the parents are now instructed to follow that. You know, we have 1 of our staff members. I won't tell you who it is, but he works for us.15:38 And he showed me a picture of his, you know, 3 year old son the other day. And he had a cardboard box on his head, and he said, here's what he did. He came to us with a cardboard box in his head, and he said, daddy, I'm15:48 a mailbox. Now what our staff member did not do was affirm his delusion because the child is16:00 3 years old. Amen? You have to understand these you can't lead children to determine their identity. That is your job, parents. Proverbs 17 25 says, a foolish16:11 son is a grief to his father and bitterness to him to her who bore him. And then this idea that children naturally are good is also anathema to holy scripture.16:24 Children are not naturally good, friends. They are not good people that you need to protect in their goodness. They are evil16:35 people. They are destructive peep they are selfish people. It's not a precious baby. That is a viper in a diaper. Come on, somebody. You need to correct.16:47 You need to train. You need to oppose. You need to fight out the devil from that child. Proverbs 22 15 says, folly is bound up where? In the heart of a16:59 child. Every child born is filled with folly, including this guy. I was foolish when I was a child. By God's grace, I had a parent who wasn't afraid to spank me.17:11 I had a father whose hand I lived in great fear of. My father worked late. My mom was old school. She bare bottomed me, friends. Bare bottomed me, I knew17:23 I was in trouble by the way, I knew I was in real trouble when my mom would say the dreaded words, wait till your father gets home. Then I knew I better straighten up. Man, I became17:35 a holy priest right in that moment, but I could not undo the punishment that was coming my way. This is the responsibility of parents, and I wanna give parents their birthright back. I wanna give you your17:47 authority back. I want you to hear what scripture, not culture, has to say about who you are. Because parents, listen to me. You are worthy of honor, respect, and obedience.17:59 In the top 10 commandments, the first 4 the first 4 are about our relationship with God. No other gods, no graven images, don't take his name in vain, honor the Sabbath. And then the second18:11 5 are about our relationship to each other. Don't murder. Don't steal. Don't lie. Don't commit adultery. Don't bear false witness. Don't covet. But the 1 right in the middle does anybody know the 1 right in the middle of18:22 those 2 those 2 tables? Honor your father and mother. It's as if god's saying this, you get your relationship with me right, and you get your relationship with others right, but the thing that ties it together, the thing18:33 that holds those 2 axes together in culture is that you honor parents. You create an a a coach. It's about a culture of honor and respect. And18:44 Ephesians chapter 6 says, children, obey your parents in the Lord. And parents, you have to teach your children to obey you. If you refuse to18:56 discipline, you will lose them. And think about David who refused to discipline Absalom, and Absalom created a cultural rebellion against his father. I think of Eli, the19:08 priest who refused to correct his children, who were sleeping with women in the temple and taking the best offerings for themselves. And the Bible says, Eli and his 2 sons all died on the same19:19 day. I think about Isaac and Rebecca who played favorites with Jacob and Esau, and they created a civil war between those 2 sons and the nations that came from them that lives until this day.19:32 Permissive parenting creates long term problems in our society. Now we come here to Psalm 1 27. Psalm 1 27 is an ascension psalm.19:44 It's at the back half of your book of Psalms. The book the Psalms, by the way, if anybody is interested in this, the Psalms were the hymn book of Israel. These were the songbooks of the ancient nation, and they would19:55 sing the ascension psalms on the way to worship at the temple 3 times a year as a nation. And what's interesting about Psalm 1 27 is that it's on the it's it comes after Psalm 1 26. If you've got your20:07 Bibles open, you can look with me at Psalm 1 26 where it says this. This is that when the lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dreamed, Our mouth was filled with laughter. Our tongues with shouts of20:17 joy. What they're talking about in in Psalm 1 26 is that they were coming back out of exile in Babylon back to the land of Israel. They had been cast off into the20:29 land of Babylon because of rebellion to the Lord. Now a case could be made that the reason why Israel lost its land, lost its freedom was because, listen to me,20:42 parents failed to discipline their children, to teach them what was right. By the way, Ephesians chapter 6 verse 4 says, fathers don't provoke your children, but train them in the discipline and the fear of the20:54 Lord. And and you've gotta teach your children about the law you've gotta teach your children about Jesus. Look what it says in Judges chapter 2 about the generation after Joshua says this. There is there was a21:05 generation that was gathered to their fathers, and there arose another generation after them, Look at this line. Who did not know what? Did not know the Lord. And they and he did and they did not know21:16 what the Lord had done for Israel. Okay. Parents, listen to me very carefully. If God, if the Lord is important to you,21:29 I am begging you to talk to your children about it. Amen? Amen. What whatever he's done, whatever you've learned,21:41 whatever trial he's brought you through, whatever obstacle he's brought down in your life, and especially if you're baptized and you're born again and you love him, you've gotta tell your21:53 children these things. You can't just tell them about sports. You can't just tell them about industry. You can't just tell them about beauty. You gotta tell them about what has the Lord done for you. And22:05 Israel failed, and the generation grew up without knowing what God could do. And when our children don't know what God can do, they will run after what the world offers them. So Psalm 1 27, they're coming22:17 back, Ascension Psalm. They're coming back to worship. And here's the theme I want you to fill in the blanks here. The theme of Psalm 1 27 is this, if God is not at the center of the family, it doesn't matter what22:26 society builds. That's the theme of this Psalm. If God is not involved, if God's not in the center of your home, your home is waiting for disaster to22:38 happen. If God is not at the center of your industry, your industry will not survive intergenerationally. So here's how this psalm tells us this.22:50 Verse 1. Unless the Lord builds the what? Circle the word house. And it says those who build and labor in what? Vein. Circle the word vain. And then it says unless the lord watch the city, the watchman watches in23:02 vain. 3 times in the first 2 verses of this text, the word vanity shows up. Vain is the word for emptiness, worthlessness. There's a whole book about it called Ecclesiastes. Solomon wrote it later in life, and he said,23:13 look. I built all these towers. I wrote all these poems. I had all these wisdom wisdom. I chased all these pleasures, and it's all vanity without the Lord. Life without the Lord23:25 is empty. This is what Psalm 1 27 is saying. Now now the question is, is it talking about the physical structure house, or is it talking about the internal home in which the structure that dwells in the structure? And23:37 the answer to that question is both. We need the lord to build our homes physically. We need the lord to build our homes spiritually. Amen? But I pray that you all have a beautiful23:48 home, but a beautiful home with an infighting family is hell on earth. A family that is at odds with each other, a family that can't get along with each other, a family that attacks each other and vilifies each other.24:00 It doesn't matter how beautiful your home is. If if your home is not filled with the faith and the purpose and the plan and the peace of God, no beautiful home can undo the hate and animosity of interrelational24:11 interrelational challenges. So point number 1 in your notes, write this down. The home without the Lord will be hollow. The home without the Lord will be hollow.24:24 What I'm trying to tell you is it's not going to bring joy to your life. Now you gotta fill your home with the Lord. Let me say that again so I know not so I know you're getting it, so that I know you're awake. And if24:35 you agree, say amen. You've got to fill your home with the Lord. Parents, this is on you. You can't just fill your home with sports.24:47 You can't just fill your home with Netflix. You gotta fill your home with Jesus. Put things on the wall that talk about Jesus. Put things on magnets on the refrigerator24:59 that focus your minds and your attention on the lord and his word. Have a bible somewhere on the coffee table. Let's get back to old school religion, somebody. Come have a Bible out so that the kids can see it, and it's25:11 sitting there. And it's not dusty on some bin somewhere in a room that you never enter. Have the Bible as a centerpiece of your home so that your children know this is important to my parents. And by the way,25:23 bring them to church. Oh, no. You don't do that thing. Please don't tell me you're 1 of those parents that asked permission to bring your kids to church. And some parents will say to25:35 me, and I'll still get an email. Every time I say this stuff, I'll still get an email. I've had people leave the church over this. I've had a Google review, a nasty 1 star Google review because I said this. You25:44 absolutely have the right to expect the children who live with you in your home to go to church with you without excuse. Now some parents will tell me, well, I don't want them to25:56 resent the church, so I don't force them. You don't do that with anything else that's important to your children. Do you do that with school? The school bus is coming down the street. Well, I don't26:08 want them to resent the school, so I give them a choice as to whether or not they wanna be delinquents or they wanna know stuff. Do do you do that with homework? Do you do that with cleaning up26:20 their room? You don't give children a choice. You make the choice for them. Come on. That's right. That's children don't know what choice to make. They never know what choice to make.26:32 If they ever do know what choice to make, raise your hand and shout hallelujah. You've just witnessed a miracle. I kid you not. Even today, my child, my26:44 youngest, and I love him to death, but let me just tell you something. I have to beg him to do fun stuff. Fun. The other day, I I said, let's go do this. I don't want to. He wanted to be on his video game. He26:56 wanted to play with his thumbs for hours. I said, no. You're coming. No no choice. Everybody say that after me. No choice. No choice. Get get good at saying it. No choice. By27:08 the way, next week, I have 7 statements every child needs to hear from their parents. Come next week. 7 statements. 1 of them is no choice. No. It's not. But then you you you got no choice. And they27:20 drag them kicking and screaming to go have fun with dad. That's because these video games are so addictive, scientifically designed to be addictive. And I brought him home. By the way, on the way home, I realized that he27:31 had fun with dad, and I pointed out to him that I was right, that it was gonna be fun. Parents, you gotta you gotta learn how to do that. When you when you're right and you're proven right, you gotta rub it in their face27:42 as much as you can. I told you. Listen to me. I know what I'm doing. This is why Joshua says that Joshua 24 verse 15, as for me and my house,27:54 we. Yeah. Circle we, though, because because Joshua is speaking for his house. Hello? I'm speaking for my house.28:06 We will serve the Lord. Now if you don't wanna go to church, if you don't wanna go with us to church, kids, you got you got a choice. Find yourself a roommate and move in with them. Find yourself an28:18 apartment and find yourself alternative accommodations. It's a free country. Go wherever you please. But in this house, we go to church and it's nonnegotiable. And28:30 I'm telling you something, that will pay dividends. You might have to you might have to drag them kicking and screaming to church, but I guarantee you, they will thank you28:42 eventually. You know, the hard part about parenting is that is that waiting game. That really is the hard part of parenting. The waiting game from making them do what you know they should do to getting28:54 a thank you for making them do what you knew that they just they should do. Sometimes that takes 30 years. Come on, somebody. Some of you are like, I still haven't seen a thank you. Just wait for it. But you gotta you29:05 gotta speak for your home. Number 2, write this down. The city without godly homes will be helpless. The city without godly homes will be helpless. Now I want you to think29:17 about this. What is a city? The city is not tall buildings. Here's the simple definition of a city. A city is a group of homes. That's29:29 all city is. A group of families, a group of, you know, dociles. And the godliness of those homes in that city will determine the values29:42 of that city. That that that's why we have blue states and red states. That's why we have blue areas and red areas even in those states because the value systems of those homes, the29:53 majority determine the value systems of those areas. So you gotta understand, this is how God shapes society through the home.30:06 And what we do in this church is we preach the gospel, we bring people to Jesus so that Jesus, not us, Jesus and the Holy Spirit can change them. And if they're changed, by God's30:18 grace, their home gets changed, and then their neighborhood gets impacted, and then their town gets impacted, their state gets impacted, and we change a nation. How? By changing the home.30:30 The scripture's clear. If you got a city without godliness godly homes, you got a city that's just waiting for destruction. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. Now let's30:42 take a look at verse 2. It says, in vain you rise early and go to late rest to go late to rest, giving eating the bread of anxious toil. God wants you to sleep. God wants you to rest. What he's30:54 talking about here is the anxious ambition of secular parenting. The anxious ambition of secular parenting is that I really hope and pray that my kids get good31:06 grades, so that they can go to a good college, so they can get into a good company, so that they can make a good salary, and they could be well off and31:18 do better than me in life. That's the secular ambition. Let me just tell you something. There's nothing wrong with any of those things, except if you put31:29 that on the throne of your home and God has nothing to do with it. So that you chase listen. Look look what he said. You get up early, you go to bed late.31:41 You're tired all the time. Why? Because you're working, working, working for the secular dream, the the societal dream, the American dream. And it's all in vain without the31:53 lord. Friends, listen to me very carefully. The reason why god brings you to church, the reason why god wants you in the house is that you are equipped to raise your children faithfully and strongly in god's32:05 word, and you could shape culture through those children that god has put in your hands. So I just to summarize verse 1 and verse 2. And, again, this is deconstruction. But to summarize verse32:17 1 and verse 2, I want you to look at this, put this on your notes. The secular blueprint for society is families without faith, cities without safety, and workers without rest. Families without faith,32:30 cities without safety, and workers without rest. And by the way, we've got those things right now because America wants to play a dangerous game.32:41 America wants safety but that is but America doesn't want the Lord. Friends, you can't have both ways. You don't get safety without the Lord. And in 19 63,32:53 our country decided it was smarter than God. And the Supreme Court of the United States decided that prayer and scripture should be taken out of public schools. Believe it or not, these were institutions in our33:05 educational process. I'll back up even further to the 16 hundreds when public education was started in Rehoboth, Massachusetts under a law that the legislature of Massachusetts passed33:17 called that old the Luther Satan Act. It was in it was a law passed to publicly educate children in the Bible because the pilgrims and the Puritans knew that children needed33:29 guidance. What I'm trying to tell you is the reason we even have public education is because Christians wanted to teach their children about Jesus. So you fast forward the church, the Bible,33:41 the scriptures, prayer has always had always been a part of our society in public schools, and an evil wicked atheist named Madeline Murray O'Hare in Baltimore33:52 decided to take her school's district to court because she didn't want her son praying in public schools. And she won. She went all the way to the Supreme Court. She won. The bible was removed. Prayer34:04 was removed. And what did we get in in exchange? What's filling our schools today? Violence? Do you know that there were 234 school shootings last year alone?34:16 39 kids died. 234. That's so many school shooting. They don't even talk about it on the news anymore. It's just part of the culture. What else is in our schools? Sexual34:28 deviancy. We've replaced the Christian faith with the LGBTQIA faith. That's all that we've done. What else is in schools? Anxiety, depression, and here's another thing, over34:40 medication. We we we can't discipline. We can't tell kids no, so we just drug them up. We anesthetize them. We put we put downers in them, and then we put uppers in them when they're depressed, and they're34:52 on more drugs now than ever before. So we exchange God for medication, violence, and sexual deviancy. And every Christian should be demanding their money back. That was a terrible exchange.35:04 We need to we need to raise kids to understand the battle is real, and the enemy is trying with every power in his arsenal to undermine parental authority and godly homes, and we35:16 can fight back in Jesus' name. So this brings me to point number 3. Society will change. Society will survive through godly35:28 children. Now the interesting thing about Psalm 1 27 is that most commentators Psalms that were squished together by some later, you know, biblical editor. That's not true. The reason why35:40 they think it's 2 Psalms squished into 1 is because the first 3 the first 2 verses seem to have nothing to do with the last 3 verses, but that's not true. He's talking about the home, he's talking about the city, and35:51 then he talks about children. Because here's how you help the home and you empower the city, by raising godly kids. We have WaterSearches, listen to me, every36:03 location, we have the future of our communities in our buildings being taught about Jesus right now. It's36:15 not babysitting. Waters kids is not babysitting. Waters kids is teaching and raising the next generation to fear the Lord Jesus Christ.36:27 So 3 points under this. Letter a, children are God's long term plan to save society. Long term plan. I I want you to back up with me again back to36:39 verse 3. The children are a heritage from the Lord and then this word, the fruit of the womb. Now, any botanist will tell you this. It takes a36:51 long time to go from planting the seed of a tree to harvesting the fruit of that tree. Takes a long time. If you wanna do it with an apple seed, it takes about 5 years. If you wanna do it with an avocado37:03 seed, it takes up to 15 years from planting to get a peep an avocado off that tree. Takes a long time. Right? This this is the view that the scripture is giving us about37:14 children. You can't change society with a law. You can't change society with a president. You can't change the society with a congressman. You change society through how you raise the children and investing37:26 in them relentlessly for years and decades to shape them so that they can shape society. Now there's 1 there's 1 problem with37:38 this, and I know this from ex from experience. It's exhausting. Yeah. You know, when when when you bring back the little37:50 pregnancy test and you both get so excited? Yeah. You should live that up because that's the last bit of energy that you're gonna have for the next 35 years of your life.38:02 Alright? It they drain you. And I remember and I'm I'm talking to parents, and I know all occasions. We have young parent we have young parents all over this church. I'm so glad. I'm so thankful for the young people that38:13 are getting married, that are having babies. I'm thankful for the people with 2 babies that are having a third baby, for the people with 3 babies that are having a fourth baby. We gotta outbreathe the pagans in Jesus'38:24 name. Yeah. But I understand because I talked to you in the hallways. I understand. You all look exhausted. You got bags under your eyes. You're frustrated. You don't know38:36 where you are half the time. I get it. I've been there. I remember when my 2 oldest were tiny children, and me and my wife were feeling, like, so exhausted. I remember the days when a trip to38:47 CVS was the highlight of my week to pick up my wife's stuff. I literally I'll go. I'll go. Anything to get out of this house.38:59 Come on, somebody. And you go through that for year after year after year after and it feels like it'll never end. And I wanna tell you something. I'm about to see the light at the end of this tunnel.Show more In this video 0:00 The Battle for the Next Generation
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