TLP 24: How the World Trains Your Kids to Fail

If you don't want your children to fail, you need to be on the lookout for these five failure philosophies. They're everywhere because Satan and his world system desperately want your kids to believe these lies.

Welcome to Truth. Love.

Parents.

Where we use God's Word to become intentional, premeditated parents. Here's your host, AM Brewster.

Failure Philosophies in Modern Entertainment

Off and on for the past month, we've discussed what I like to call failure philosophies. In episode 14, we talked about the tsunami of errant philosophy that pervades our modern entertainment. In episode 21, we discussed a unique failure philosophy obsessed with things that, quote unquote, you're not supposed to say to fill in the blank, parents, children, bosses, and every other conceivable human on the planet.

Then as we looked at what God thinks about your children's music in episode 23, we found once again that errant philosophy, this failure philosophy, is one of the sneakiest and most dangerous issues with modern music.

And along the way, I admonished us, the parents, to be informed, to watch the movies, listen to the music, read the articles, and not only be able to spot the failure philosophies being preached, but more importantly, be able to answer them with God's truth.

So today we're going to take one song, just one, and work our way through it. And I want to show you how I like to spot failure philosophies and then what God has to say about it. But more on that in a minute.

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A vital part of my podcast diet, the content presented helps to direct my efforts to teach my kids to not only survive, but thrive in a dark and sinful world. Thank you, John, for those words, for that beautiful review.

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And when you rate and review us as John did, you're making it easier for more parents like you to find the help they need for their families. So thank you in advance. Alright, now I'd like to share a song with you.

Miley Cyrus and the Song That Reveals Her Worldview

What makes this particular song choice interesting is not the quality of the song. We're not talking about a high caliber musician whose music has rocked the charts. What makes this song interesting is that it was written by an artist who formerly professed to be a Christian.

The song was written during a transition period in her life, and when you look carefully at her music and life choices, it's pretty clear no Bible-believing Christian would be surprised to hear that now she's slipped so far off the deep end that even the world says she's gone too far.

The artist I'm referring to is Miley Cyrus. Once hailed as a role model for young girls with her Disney Channel show Hannah Montana and her family-friendly music, Miley went through a distinct transition around the time she recorded a song called Party in the USA.

From there on, she quickly descended into lifestyles that made Hollywood cringe and eventually took a wrecking ball to Christianity in numerous online rants. So how does a sweet Christian girl from a quote-unquote good family pull what I like to call an Anakin Skywalker, where you go from this cute little kid to this terrible adult?

Well, the answers were always there. In episode 5, we discussed four ways to better understand your child. The most important concept was understanding that everything your child says and does, doesn't say and doesn't do, speaks to the state of their relationship with God.

It's what the Bible calls fruit. Well, Miley's bad fruit has been peeking out for quite some time, but I fear that those closest to her didn't notice it until it was too late. For years, Miley was slowly teaching us how to fail God, and I want to take a few minutes to look at one of the chapters from her quote-unquote book that I've entitled How to Fail God.

Party in the USA came out on Miley's The Time of Our Lives album back in 2009. Though people were mostly concerned by her potentially risque pole dance she did as she performed it live, the real dangers of the song were entrenched in nearly every lyric.

Also, keep in mind that this song contains absolutely no profanity and doesn't talk about drugs or sex or drinking or any of the other quote-unquote bad things. Yet despite all of that, there are five failure philosophies just in this one song alone that every parent needs to be able to identify and address with their children.

So I'm either going to pull out little snippets from the song, or I'm going to quote them to you so that we can hear what she's saying, and then we can take a look at what it means.

I hopped off the plane at LAX with a dream my cardigan.

Well, that was pretty simple, and whether you like the music or not, for the most part it is a catchy opening and she has a pleasant voice. But here we go at the very beginning of the song to see the very first thing that we need to be careful of because it is a huge failure philosophy being shoved down our kid's throat at every opportunity.

I hopped off the plane at LAX with a dream my cardigan. I'm not here to stomp on anyone's dreams or say that a dream that includes singing in California is wicked, but I do want to make two observations.

Number one, considering that most people can't name even three professional secular performers who started as children and whose careers glorified God from beginning to end, it amazes me that everyone's always surprised when a sweet impressionable child in Hollywood gets perverted by the world's pre-pagan culture.

Well, duh, it happens nearly every time. So probably not the greatest dream to go be famous in California. Number two, here's one simple grid through which to push all your dreams. Will God be pleased by every facet of my dream?

Are the things I'll have to do, the places I'll have to go, or the things I'll have to say, are they going to ask me to sin against God? Will my dream put me in a place where I'll forget him? You see, Miley wanted to be famous.

She wanted to be popular in the world's eyes, but you can't be that and glorify God, ever. Ecclesiastes 11 .9 says, Rejoice, young man, during your childhood, and let your heart be pleasant during the days of young manhood, and follow the impulses of your heart and the desires of your eyes.

Here comes the admonishment. Yet know that God will bring you to judgment for all these things. The danger with any quote unquote, follow your heart philosophy is that we're chasing after our dreams instead of God's dreams.

Psalm 37 .4 tells us that only when we delight in the Lord that he will give us the desires of our hearts. If our children are encouraged to chase a dream that isn't centered on God's perfect will for their lives, they will fail.

Fearing People Instead of God

Now the second failure philosophy Miley taught us is this, care too much about what people.

Think.

Welcome to the land of fame. Excess, am I going to fit in? Get to the club in my taxi cab, everybody's looking at me now. Like who's that chick that's rocking out of town?

So the first way to fail God is to idolize my own dreams above his, but the second way is to care more about what other people think than what he thinks. This is of course ironic because if my dreams are more important than the God of the universe's dreams, why do I care so much about what puny mortals think?

Thankfully, no one ever said failing God had to make sense, but when we fear men over God, we invite destruction into our lives. Proverbs 29 .2 says, the fear of man brings a snare, but he who trusts in the Lord will be exalted.

Matthew 10 .28 goes further when it says, and fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul, but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. You see, God's opinion of our children needs to matter to them infinitely more than their.

Peers.

Now, it's at this point in a counseling session that a parent who's all but lost their child to the world tries to scold me for such an incredibly narrow application. I hear things like, it's normal for children to be self-conscious, and are you saying it's wrong for kids to care what their friends think, or my favorite, well, maybe that's how life works in your world, but not in the real world.

It's not that easy. First, I never said that combating the failure philosophy is the world shoving down your children's throats was going to be easy. Second, this doesn't really have anything to do with me.

It was God who in His infinite wisdom said, the fear of man brings a snare. To be honest, we need to help our children not care what the world thinks when it comes to their fidelity to God. Yes, we need to care very much when people point out pride and disobedience and impatience and foolishness and a lack of love, but when people want to tear us down for doing right, we really don't need to care.

In fact, Jesus tells us in the Sermon on the Mount that we are blessed when that happens. In John chapter 15, during some of Christ's final admonitions to His disciples, He used the words hate, hates, and hated eight times as He describes how the world is going to treat us, and He starts that section off by saying, if the world hates you, you know that it has hated me before it hated you.

But if our kids are taught to care too much what people think, they will fail. All right, so our child has gone off to fulfill their dream of getting to California, and man, things are just rougher than they thought.

It's hard to fit in with a bunch of new people, and you didn't quite dress right for the party, and you're starting to worry about, you know, will you have friends and all this kind of stuff. Oh, I just, I wish I had my girls around me, my friends from back home.

But this is just part of the third failure philosophy that says value your friends over your parents. Now this might sound a little bit like number two, but it is very different. Number two dealt with being more concerned about the criticism of the world when we're doing right, or when, you know, what we're doing is neither right nor wrong.

It's just, hey, I happen to be wearing these shoes. But number three deals with the counsel and comfort from friends. Having friends is great, but when my friends mean more to me than my parents, I'm likely surrounding myself with the wrong advisors.

Too many young people have terrible relationships with mom and dad, but your kids need to accept that if there were a set of parents better for them than the ones they have, God would have given your kids to them.

Children spend too much time running away from their God-given authority. But if a set of parents loves God and loves their children, that child would be a fool to seek counsel and guidance from their friends before running to mom and dad.

In that particular situation where you're in another state, and man, things are rough, I would hope that a Christ-honoring family, the daughter or the son, would pick up the phone and call mom and dad first before calling anybody else.

In 1 Kings 12, 6 -8, we learn about a young king who took bad advice from his friends. It says, King Rehoboam consulted with the elders who had served his father Solomon while he was still alive, saying, How do you counsel me to answer the people?

But he forsook the counsel of the elders which they had given him and consulted with the young men who grew up with him and served him. Then King Rehoboam sent Adoram, who was over the forced labor, and all Israel stoned him to death.

And King Rehoboam made haste to mount his chariot to flee to Jerusalem. So Israel has been in rebellion against the house of David to this day. God has us here for a reason, and one of the reasons, one of the lessons that we need to learn is this.

If your children buy into the failure philosophy that the world system and their friends have more to offer them than God and his mouthpieces on this earth, they will fail. Now, as a recap, this one song has modeled for us how to chase our godless dreams, care too much what people think of us, and care too much for our friends' counsel.

Handling Anxiety with God’s Peace Instead of Emotion-Soaked Entertainment

The fourth way Miley demonstrates how to fail God is this, you need to handle anxiety the wrong way. This section starts at the song's bridge and then goes into the chorus. The chorus is repeated, obviously, multiple times throughout the song, and I want you to hear the whole thing.

I know right now you're, you've turned on your speakers and you're looking around wondering if your kids are thinking, what on earth are they listening to? And I'm sorry about that, but it's important to hear it.

Honestly, I want you to hear it. I want you to feel it because it's a really snappy, upbeat song. And we're emotional beings. Emotions are a gift from God when we understand and respond to them in a Christ-honoring way.

In fact, we're going to discuss our kids' emotions in great detail in February. But for now, we need to understand that when we idolize our feelings by putting their importance over God-ordained sources of peace and encouragement, we're destined to failure.

See, she's having this issue and she's uncomfortable and she wants to go home, but what stops her every time? A song. And she's putting her hands up and they're playing her song and the butterflies go away and she knows it's going to be okay.

In fact, three different times throughout the song, the one thing that helped Miley get control of her fears was music. That sounds an awful lot like what we talked about on Tuesday in episode 23. When we idolize our emotions, it's easy to turn to those mediums that will give us a superficial jolt of fun feeling.

It's easy to drown our sadness in adrenaline, our guilt in sensuality, and our fear in fun. But those are not God's way of responding to life's difficulties. Philippians 4, 6 -7 is an amazing passage concerning fear because it says, Be anxious for nothing.

And when we are anxious, what are we supposed to do? Listen to a song?

No.

In everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And then the peace of God which surpasses all comprehension will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

This whole passage gives us multiple ways to beat fear into submission. But instead, Miley wants your kids to think that their favorite song is the best way to escape fear. And if our kids do that, they're going to fail.

Now again, I know I'm stepping on toes because who listening to this podcast now at some point or another hasn't done this, where we're just having a bad mood, we're in a bad mood so we turn on the song, so you had a bad day or whatever, and it helps to lift our moods.

But really, when we do that, we're not turning to the right source of comfort. Now, the final way Miley teaches us to fail God is this. Idolize the wrong people. I'm not going to make you listen to this part, but throughout the song, you know, she's about ready to give up and the taxi cab or the DJ, they turn on this music and there's a song and it's her song, but what is her song?

Well, it's either in one part of the song, a song by Jay-Z, or in another part, it's a song by Britney, Britney Spears. So Miley's chasing a dream that doesn't glorify God, cares too much what people think about her, seemingly ignores mom and dad and handles her anxiety by turning to emotion-drenched placebos, orchestrated by Jay-Z and Britney Spears.

Do we see the problem here? Let's discuss Jay-Z and Britney here for a second. These individuals have bad credit at the bank of good advice, and yet Miss Cyrus turns to them before eternal truth. Both of these performers have practically ruined their personal and professional lives, and yet Miley wants to follow their guidance?

Proverbs 13, 20 says, He who walks with wise men will be wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm. And the sad thing is, Miley's made the same shockingly bad choices that rocked the world when Jay-Z and Britney did them.

Again, this is where I have parents tell me, you're making a big deal out of a little thing, or they say, it's just a song, but I want to draw you to one more very important verse. Matthew 12, 34 instructs us that, The mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart.

This concept has been a foundation stone of my ministry to families. The words of our mouths reveal and betray our deepest beliefs. There are no slips or accidents when it comes to speech. Miley likely didn't write all of these words herself, but she did sing them and communicated them to millions of people as a worldview worth living by.

Through this song and others, she told the world what she thought about life and God. And somehow we were all surprised when she failed the God she claimed to love. If you don't want your children to fail, you need to be on the lookout for these five failure philosophies.

They're everywhere. Satan and his world system want us to believe, number one, that there's nothing better to live for than our own happiness. Number two, therefore, we need to be afraid of people who aren't tolerant of our passions.

Three, we need to surround ourselves with those who will tell us our path to happiness is okay. And four, drown out the things that might point us back to truth with emotion-soaked entertainment. And five, idolize the celebrities in this life who have supposedly been successful in the first four areas.

I hope you join us next Tuesday when we discuss five things about the internet that I've learned from counseling teens addicted to sexual sins. We'll also talk about the five spiritual solutions to those tectations.

And then I'll offer two simple bonus helps as you do your best to prepare your children to handle the world's never-ending onslaught of failure philosophies. And speaking of the interweb, if you'd like daily access to biblical truths for your life and parenting, please like and follow TLP on Facebook and at AM Brewster, that's me, on Twitter.

And be sure, please, to rate and review. If you haven't reviewed or rated us yet, please take a handful of seconds because when we get high ratings and solid reviews, it enables more people to find us and hear how God's word applies to their parenting.

Also, be sure to share and comment every opportunity you get in order to spread the word. And lastly, if you've hit a wall with your children, please do not hesitate to reach out to us at counselor at evermindministries .com.

May God's perfect philosophy for life and godliness drown out the failure philosophies trying to hijack your home today.

Truth.

Love. Parent.

Is part of the Evermind Ministries family and is dedicated to helping you become an intentional premeditated parent. Join us next time as we search God's word for the truth your family needs today.