“My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge…” (Hosea 4:6).
There’s a ring in that phrase of Scripture that ought to frighten every parent, pastor and Sunday school teacher. According to The Southern Baptist Council on Family life, as of 2002 statistics show that 88 percent of children raised in evangelical homes leave church at the age of 18, never to return. If you are a parent and love your children, that statistic alone ought to be an alarm clock going off in your head. Wake up. Wake up! WAKE UP!!!
Folks, this means that we are losing the younger generation to the godless philosophies of this world and to an ultimate eternal @#!*% . I can almost hear some parents saying, “That will never be the case with my child” Isn’t it strange how it’s always someone else’s child that is going to become addicted to drugs, or become an alcoholic, or depart from the faith, marry with disregard of Scriptural guidelines, or get pregnant without the protective bonds of marriage, etc. Those 88 percent are someone’s children; – they sat under the teaching, or lack thereof, of some pastor or youth leader or Sunday school teacher.
Based on interviews with 22,000 adults and over 2,000 teenagers in 25 separate surveys, the Barna research group found that religious activity in the teen years does not translate into spiritual commitment as individuals move into their 20s and 30s. In fact, further research by Britt Beemer for Answers in Genesis, revealed that the turning away may begin much earlier than the college years. Of one thousand 20 to 29-year-old evangelicals who attended church regularly but no longer do so:
- 95% of them attended church regularly during their elementary and middle school years
- 55% attended church regularly during high school
- Of the thousand, only 11% were still going to church during their early college years.
What then is the problem? I am convinced these young people are being “destroyed for lack of knowledge.” I am convinced that there is a famine of serious doctrinal teaching from the Word of God in our churches. Young people who have been in church for 18 years ought to have a working knowledge of the major doctrines of Christianity i.e.; the Authority of the Bible, The Holy Trinity, Creation, the Person and work of Christ, the Person and work of The Holy Spirit, the sovereignty of God and human responsibility, death, @#!*% , the judgment, etc. They don’t have to be an accomplished theologian, but they should be able to defend these truths. However, the problem is that they don’t know these truths; and you can’t defend what you don’t know. Don’t raise your children in a theological “wading pool” and think they can defend against the “sharks” in the real world. Teaching young people how to defend the faith, without them knowing what the Faith is, is useless
.“Like the black plagues that nearly wiped out the general population of Europe, a spiritual black plague has almost killed the next generation of European believers. A few churches are surviving. Even fewer are thriving. The vast majority are slowly dying. It’s a spiritual epidemic, really. A wave of spiritual decay and death has almost entirely stripped a continent of its godly heritage, and now the same disease is infecting North America.” (Already Gone, Britt Beemer and Ken Ham)
Without doctrinal knowledge, our young people go into college and sit under godless, God hating, anti-Christian, evolutionary professors who challenge everything these young people think they know about Christianity. In a sense, they are lambs sent into a spiritual slaughterhouse. Their minds are attacked and seized, – and they don’t even know it. Professors mock the Bible and teach our sons and daughters that an intellectual Christian is an oxymoron. In other words, if you are a Christian and believe Scriptural doctrines, you can’t possibly be intellectual. In reality, “higher education” is labeling Christians as dumb, ignorant people who believe in myths, fairy tells, and folklore. Of course every young college student wants to be known as an intellectual, so what do they do? They swallow the godless teachings of these professors and abandon what little they have been taught because they cannot defend their shallow understanding of Christianity.
And, consider another question. The early church was severely mocked and persecuted; so, why did it not only survive but flourished and spread with power? Even today, Christians in many parts of the world are brutally treated, yet, are willing to die rather than deny their Lord. There are accounts of children who were willing to be killed rather than deny Christ. So, what is happening in our churches now? Could it be that a subtle deceptive undermining of the Bible and the Christian faith may have started long before the college years? With those things in mind, look at the findings of the recent studies done by Britt Beemer above.
So, how do you lose a generation? It isn’t hard. The following are fifteen ways parents can prepare children to lose faith in the church and leave it when they get the opportunity:
- Feed your child doctrinal fluff both at home and church.
- Don’t insure that the church you and your children attend is biblically sound.
- Never teach them to memorize Scriptures.
- Let them feed on rock music, – whether Christian or secular.
- Never teach them the theologically sound hymns that have stood the test of time.
- Give them a personal television and computer, and never monitor what they do.
- Give them plenty of freedom so they can develop their own cultural understanding.
- Let them attend all the parties and activities associated with their age group; and, never question the godliness of church youth rallies or retreats.
- Never scrutinize their rooms at home.
- Don’t require meals together with the family and family prayer.
- Don’t require them to attend church.
- Let them have a beer or a joint once in a while – they need the education.
- Never insist that they show respect to their elders.
- Always defend them before you know whether they were right or wrong.
- Never take an interest in what they are being taught at their schools.
Parents and Grandparents, examine yourselves. What do you value in life? Your children easily see what is most important to you .Your life is a “motion picture” that others are watching; what is the message they see? The children and youth learn from the church; what are they learning? Do they see so much of the world in their church that Christ is marginalized? Or, do they see a body of believers seriously dedicated to knowing, serving and honoring Christ and His Word; a church that treasures the things of God; a church that is fighting a spiritual battle so that their children will not be a Generation Lost..
Do YOU know and love Christ and His Word and His church? Then diligently teach the children and pray for them and with them. True knowledge is knowing, by divine enablement, the God of the Bible and what He says in it. So, equip them; teach them to think and live Scripturally; the Lord commands it. You don’t have forever, and eternity is at stake. Then, trust in the power and providence of the God of the Bible for the battle is His to win. “The horse is prepared for the day of battle, But victory belongs to the LORD.” (Proverbs 21:31)
“Scripture compromised in the church Leads to Scripture abandoned in the home.Scripture abandoned in the home Leads to a generation no different than the world.” (from a display in the Creation Museum)
“The end of all learning is to know God, and out of that knowledge to love and imitate him.” – Milton
For more information and in-depth survey analysis done by Britt Beemer, visit the following link to the online book, Already Gone, by Britt Beemer and Ken Ham. https://answersingenesis.org/answers/books/already-gone/