Young people leaving the church

How can we know anything about anything

To try to explain truth to him who loves it not is but to give him more plentiful material for misinterpretation. George Macdonald

Do we have to make a choice between science and the Bible?

NO!

That is NOT where the problem is, but that is what everyone seems to want to talk about.

Take science as an example. How can we know anything about the created material world around us?

How can we know anything from what we can see using natural sciences?

We all see the same things in the material world, but we don't come to the same answers.

Why is that?

How can we know anything about the Bible and what it teaches? Every person believes different things about the Bible and how it should be read.

Why is that?

Same scientific facts. Different answers.

Same Bible. Different answers.

Why is that?

The true question is this: How do we come to our answers that we get from what we can see through science or what we can read in the Bible?

How do we think about what we see using science or what we read in the Bible?

How do we analyze what we have seen and read?

How do we interpret what we have seen and read?

We use logic, but logic always has a foundation. Jesus talked about building on the Rock. That Rock is Jesus Christ. He is the true foundation. There are also the false foundations of the ungodly.

An example might help.

Question: Why do you believe in evolution?

Answer: Because my science teacher told me that evolution is scientific fact.

Question: Why do you believe your science teacher?

Answer: because he agrees with the textbook he assigned us to read.

Now, we have asked, "Why?" twice.

If we continued to ask, "Why?" we would come down to the foundation of this person's thoughts.

When we get down to the foundations, there are no more questions that can be answered. So where to the foundations come from?

There are three possibilities.

things that we make up, pulled from the air
demonic lies
divine revelation

Question: Why do you believe in creation?

Answer: Because God revealed this to me. He spoke to me through the Bible and gave me His faith so that I could believe Him.

See how quickly we got to the foundation. This is a belief that has a foundation that is solid and that cannot be moved.

In reality, the things that we make up, that are pulled from the air, are actually from demons and all the lies of demons spring from the prince of demons, Satan. So these are one and the same.

Divine revelation comes from the Almighty, Creator, God, Jesus Christ. So there are only two choices, but how do we know there are only two choices? Because God has revealed this truth to us.

The question then is how do we tell the difference between the revelation that comes from God and the lies of Satan?

The answer is that everyone who sincerely wants to do the will of God will know.

Jesus said, "If you really want to obey God, you will know if what I teach comes from God or from me"

The rejection of the revelation that comes from God is not an intellectual problem. It is a moral problem.

Jesus said, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you: For everyone who asks receives; and he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks it shall be opened." *

Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to those who ask him? Matthew 7:7-11 *

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. You can set the truth before someone, but you can't make anyone believe those things that they don't want to submit to. They have to want to obey God.

How frequently it is brought to our attention that nothing good can be done if the will is wrong! Reason alone fails to justify itself. Richard M. Weaver

Jesus said, "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:32)

"If we are not prepared to buy the truth at the cost of our own humbling we shall not receive it"

Lies appear to have no price upon them. They seem cheap and they abound everywhere. But for the truth there is always an obvious price to pay.

"[God] has set a day when He will judge all the world's people with fairness. And He has chosen the man Jesus to do the judging for Him. God has given proof of this to all of us by raising Jesus from death" (Acts 17:31).

"There is a judge for the one who rejects Me [Jesus] and does not accept My words; that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day" (John 12:48)

That also stands for every person who speaks the utterances of Jesus. When we hear them, we hear Jesus Christ, and we either accept or reject. Every person who follows Jesus Christ is commanded to only speak His utterances and not their own.

"When we love others, we know that we belong to the truth, and we feel at ease in the presence of God" (1 John 3:19)

Ravi Zacharias did two open forums in a university. On the second night, one man told him that he had brought two Atheists in the night before who said that the arguments presented were so strong that they could not contend with them, but they were going to remain Atheists because that is what they prefer to be true.

In another case of just listening to an unbeliever and drawing out his reasoning, the unbeliever finally came to his foundations.

They turned out to be assumptions that were pulled from the air. When asked why he believed his basic assumption, the unbeliever looked startled and blurted out, "I guess I'm making the whole thing up." It was quite a revelation to him since he hadn't even known that he had any assumptions. However, he decided to remain an Atheist because he didn't want God to rule over him.

Young people leaving the church

Parents don't teach their own children in the home. They pass their responsibility to Sunday schools or "youth pastors." They don't make time to have daily devotions. Parents don't follow Deuteronomy 11:18-20 "Therefore shall you lay up these my words in your heart and in your soul, and bind them for a sign upon your hand, that they may be as frontlets between your eyes. And you shall teach them your children, speaking of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. * And you shall write them upon the door posts of your house, and upon your gates" They sometimes speak to their children and teach them, but not every day and not all day. Mom's are out of the homes and turn their children over to other people to raise them. Dad's are working too many hours so they don't have enough time with their children to meet their responsibility. Some Dad's don't even know that they have a responsibility. Some parents don't realize the quality time happens in the middle of huge amounts of ordinary time. Some waste their opportunities for teaching because they don't realize how quickly the years will go by and how important it is to be a ministry saying God's words and doing God's acts and having God's faith in every moment of every day. Some parents don't realize that their main focus of responsibility in life is to minister to their children and to each other.

Parents don't take time to deal with the complexity of the battle that young people will be faced with: Not taking the time to become aware of the many sources of messages that are contrary to the Gospel. Not taking time to find out what those messages are (for example: distortions of history, distortions of what the Bible teaches, evolution, abortion, environmental fear tactics, anti-flood stories, old-earth myths, sexual myths, myths of relativism). Not taking time to find out the real answers to these clever and sometimes complex lies of Satan. Not taking time to teach these things to the children from a very young age.

Lack of unity between the parents. When one attempts to establish the patterns of Scripture in the home, the other mocks, complains, tries to derail the efforts, or resists. Children see this and learn from it. This also disturbs the order and peace of the home and creates an opportunity for Satan.

Fights or disruptions in the home destroy the haven that ought to be in the home. Peace is one of the most important things that anyone, child or parent, can provide for the home.

Some parents become fixated on getting toys and entertainments for themselves and their children and they spend too much time working to earn enough to pay for these toys and this entertainment. This makes it impossible for the parents to meet their real responsibilities.

The break-up of so many homes is definitely a factor. If the parents were doing the things mentioned in this article to take care of their children, there would be fewer break-ups of homes and less stress in the homes.

Parents live two or three lives. They have a church face and a home face. Sometimes they are one person with their children and a quite different person when they think that no one can see it. The trouble is that this takes away their spiritual authority to govern their home according to the power of God's free gift. In times of stress, the children grow up seeing their parents worry, argue, panic, or trying in their own effort rather than turning to God for the leading and the answers to life's problems.

Parents try to self-generate good works rather than seeking God's will, receiving God's faith, allowing faith to give access to God's grace, and allowing God's grace to flow through them in the form of good works, speech, and thoughts. They discipline their children to keep them in line rather than for the purpose of enhancing their relationship with God. They try to get their children to conform by the child's own self-effort rather than as the out-working of the child's faith and the grace of God. This leads to self-righteousness and a lack or real spiritual power for righteousness, holiness, and redemption (freedom from the sinful nature) in the child. When the child grows to be a young adult, they realize that they are more like the ungodly self-righteous than they are like the members of the Body of Christ.

The Church says we believe the Bible . . . except for certain parts. Some get rid of creation, the flood, and other historical events recorded in the Bible. Some get rid of God's power for righteousness. Some get rid of power for miracles. Some get rid of all the things in Scripture (and experience) that tell us that God communicates His will to us in many ways. Some get rid of God's judgment or over-state/misstate it. Some get rid of the restitution of all things. Some get rid of the pattern of Christ's Body in Scripture that don't enhance money, power, prestige, and entertainment and dispose of submission, order, and God's ways of taking care of such things as revelation, finances, worship, and so forth. Some get rid of the personal nature of God's interaction with us until there is emphasis on making sure everyone is having a good time, entertained and intellectually stimulated, rather than in actually connecting with the Spirit of God.

Parents engage in ungodly activities such as unthankfulness. Parents talk down other members of the Body of Christ when they think no one else is listening, but little ears pick it up. They don't yield to the Holy Spirit in every part of their lives. Children see this as they grow up. When they come to the teen years, there are many attacks by ungodly teachers, entertainments, and friends. The young people begin to question and compare the life they have seen in their homes to the things they have been told in whatever teaching they have received. They see hypocrisy and become judgmental.

Children are not given responsibility for ministry at an early age. They have no place of ministry (service) in the weekly service or in the daily devotion. Parents and church leaders lecture too much and don't listen enough. One of the elements that is most poorly taught is the fact that we are all born into the Body of Christ as particular members and that, as members, it is necessary that we fit into our particular places in that Body and build up the Body of Christ by speaking the truth in love as Ephesians 4 and 1 Corinthians 14 indicate.

When the children become young adults and begin to question, the parents panic rather than patiently listening and exploring the answers to the questions with their children. Some young people become angry before they ever say anything since the home is not a place where anyone would talk about their personal experiences with God. The young people clam up, explode in angry attacks, or alternate between both behaviors. Parents don't know how to handle this and don't know that this is the time to listen and be compassionate. Sometimes, other members of the Body of Christ are also not equipped to really listen to the young people with empathy in their hour of doubt.

Young people leaving the church

How can we know anything about anything

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