Back To School - [2 Peter 3:17-18]

Father in heaven, Lord, we come before you this morning, acknowledging that you are sovereign, that you are almighty, that you are holy,

Father, that you hate sin, and yet you are also compassionate.

You are loving, you are forgiving, and Father, we praise you for those attributes this morning.

Lord, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the grace you have shown us in opening our eyes to the truth of your word.

Lord, we would pray for each one here as we study what it means not to just be a

Christian, but what it means to grow in Christ. Lord, we just pray that you would bless our time this morning. In Jesus' name, amen.

Well, good morning. I have a question. What would you pay? How much would you pay to have somebody lie to you?

Just rough estimate. Anyone? Bueller?

Five bucks. Sold! What's that?

Taxes count. No. How much would you pay to have somebody...

Did you have something, Kathy? Yeah, we do get it for free.

How much would you pay to have somebody lie to your kids? Nothing?

People pay a lot of money for it. I have a few examples this morning. The first one's kind of silly, but then it gets a little more serious.

University of Tennessee at Knoxville drew widespread derision last week for publishing a pronoun range or usage guide that asked students and professors to add the gender -neutral descriptors.

I can't even say these. Zay? I guess it's zee, zeer, zeers, gzee, gzem, and gzeers to their vocabularies.

Well, this is with reference to transgender students because you don't want to offend anyone, so instead of he or she, it's zee.

Instead of her or his, it's zeer or zem.

I honestly can't... You look at these and you think, well, these must be...

What's a... I'll just put it in a country that doesn't have its own language. These must be Swiss because you have ze, zir, and zirs, and then xe, xem, and xyrs.

Those are all supposed to be pronouns, but again, the left here just says that you have a lazy disregard for the feelings of transgender students.

Well, that's foolish, but now there are... Here are some more pertinent examples.

This is from World Magazine. With a big conference of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities coming up next week, one situation discussed in the hallways may be what

Carl Giberson revealed last month at the Daily Beast. He said, quote, most evangelical colleges teach evolution, albeit quietly, carefully, and often tentatively, although there are exceptions.

Giberson, for many years, was a science professor at a member of this organization,

Council for Christian Colleges and Universities. He taught at Eastern Nazarene College in Quincy, Mass.

He described how he insinuated evolution into his classroom with one clear result.

Most of the 50 % of my students who rejected evolution at the beginning of my course accepted it at the end.

My colleagues at other evangelical colleges report similar experiences. Giberson didn't like that his evolutionary or his evolution advocacy, his advocacy for evolution, couldn't be done in the open.

He said, those of us teaching evolution at evangelical colleges are made to feel as if we have this subversive secret we must whisper quietly in our students' ears.

Hey, did you know that Adam and Eve were not the first humans and never even existed?

After Giberson started publicly stating evolutionary beliefs while holding on to his professorial position, tensions escalated.

Administrators complained, now listen to the complaints. Administrators complained that I was too controversial in creating public relations problems.

Youth pastors informed the admissions office at the college that they were discouraging students from attending the college because it promoted evolution.

Affiliated churches withheld financial support. Donors went elsewhere with their money.

Finally, Giberson left, and he now teaches at Stonehill College, a

Catholic institution. He accurately relates a problem.

Parents send their children to, quote, expensive private evangelical colleges with the expectation that this faith will be protected as the children mature into well -educated adults.

But often students are educated out of their childhood faith and even into no faith at all.

That's a fine professor there who's earning his money teaching children that the

Bible's not true. At an evangelical college now at a Catholic college. I have much more comfort now that he's at a college.

But even listen to, or look at, or listen to what he said there about, you know, parents send their children to evangelical colleges thinking that their faith is going to be protected.

Is that what you want when you send your kids to college? For their faith to be protected? Shielded? Any thoughts on that word there, protected?

Is that what should happen, Tom? Yeah, I would want them to grow in their faith.

You know, if I'm going to send my kids to a college, especially an evangelical college,

I would want it to be a place where their faith is encouraged, where they are taught

Scripture along with everything else, and they actually have more confidence in Scripture, not less confidence in Scripture.

What an amazing thought, though. You pay the money, you send your child to an evangelical college, and they come back an atheist, thanks to someone like Professor Giberson.

Now we could say, what about the sovereignty of God? Well, this is all true. But as parents, we have a responsibility to protect our children and to promote faith, not to send them to a place that's going to subvert it.

One more on, yes, Russ. Well, I think that's true. I mean, could there be an adverse reaction to somebody who graduates from a faith -based university?

I mean, certainly not if it was Notre Dame. Of course, Notre Dame, is it faith -based? I don't know.

Yeah, I don't think so either. But they have, you know, the statue of... Yeah, I mean, it could be.

It could be adverse. It depends on the field, I suppose. But I think, typically, people look at the quality of the young person they're looking to hire, and they test them out.

Listen to this. The famous evangelical,

Rachel Held Evans, wrote this in 2010. You know, people have been shocked by some of the things she's said lately.

They just haven't been listening. In 2010, she said this, So my dad just returned from the

International Forum on Higher Education for the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, same group, held in Atlanta, where the hot topic of the week was teaching evolution in Christian colleges.

Francis Collins, scientist, author of The Language of God and founder of the BioLogos Foundation, spoke at the conference, urging professors and administrators to be aware of placing students in the position of having to choose between their intellectual integrity and their faith.

She says, I think it's important for Christian colleges to transition into teaching evolution, both micro and macro, if you make a distinction, for a few reasons.

Here are her four reasons. See what you think of these. Number one, the scientific data in support of evolutionary theory and in Old Earth is overwhelming and sound.

She says, scientists continue to make testable predictions based on the theory, and 99 % of the scientific community embraces it.

That's compelling. I think, you know, when you start talking about numbers of people who believe it, therefore it's true, what comes to your mind?

What's that? Have you seen a survey lately that says 99 % of people think

Elvis is alive? Well, I'll tell you what comes to my mind, is my cover falling off my

Bible, but how about Matthew chapter 7, verse 13, enter by the narrow gate for the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction.

And those who enter it or enter by it are many. Numbers, numbers rule for the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life and those who find it are few.

So if we're going to use the 99 and the one as some kind of illustration, I think we have a problem.

You know, if the majority of people believe something, it isn't necessarily the truth.

As scientists continue to make testable predictions, I laugh at that. For example, how do they, you know, the current cosmological arguments that they make for the creation of everything is the

Big Bang Theory. How do you test that? How's that testable?

Answer is, it's not. And you know, when you have rocks that show up after these volcanoes explode and they test the rocks and the rocks are how many millions of years old, you just go, okay, this rock was just formed.

There are all kinds of problems there. But anyway, number two, number second point she makes, I fear that if Christian institutions continue to teach young earth creationism, they will render themselves irrelevant in the marketplace of ideas.

In other words, people are going to think that Christians are stupid.

One of the things that happened, you know, dating back to 1875, the

Niagara Bible Conference and the beginning of fundamentalism, fundamentalists separated themselves from the world and the academy, you know, the institutes of higher learning.

And eventually they found themselves longing for academic acceptance. And so what they did in the 20s and 30s is they started reengaging with academic institutions.

And the end result of that was not the fact that fundamentalism or, you know, the

Bible is true, that it got accepted by the academies. What happened was that gradually the faith, let's put it this way, the strongly held beliefs of the fundamentalists were eroded.

They became corrupted, not the higher institutions. When they started going back to the higher institutions, they didn't infiltrate and win, they infiltrated and lost.

I fear that if Christian institutions continue to teach young earth creationism, they will render themselves irrelevant in the marketplace of ideas.

That's not the issue. The gospel is irrelevant in the marketplace of ideas. You know, if you want to just say what's popular, what's accepted, what is academically tenable, the gospel isn't any of those things.

But that's irrelevant. That's not the question. Her third point, biblical scholarship relating to the creation account of Genesis in ancient

Near Eastern cosmology continues to become more accessible to the average reader.

So Christian university students are in a great position to learn from Bible professors why a scientific reading of Genesis 1 and 2 need not be a fundamental element of the

Christian faith. In other words, you don't have to take Genesis 1 and 2 literally, you can just take them as a myth or as, what's his name from New York?

I can see him, Tim Keller. You know, you can just see it as poetry. He says it's poetic language.

Well, the problem ultimately is, you know, Genesis 1 and 2, if you don't take them literally, well, when do you start taking the

Bible literally? And here's something more critical. I said it earlier.

I quoted that professor earlier. He said Adam and Eve weren't real people. Well, what's the problem with that?

Where did original sin come from? Okay, Charlie. Jesus believed

Adam and Eve were real people. So if you're going to, you know, eradicate the idea that they actually existed, that they were actually the first people, then you've got another problem, which is you've got a fallible

Jesus. You've got a Jesus that didn't understand the world as it really existed.

Her fourth suggestion, which is just one of the worst ideas I've ever heard in my life. College is just about the best environment in which to wrestle with tough ideas and to learn to critically think about your faith.

What's, I mean, just think about that. You go to, you send your child to the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, and they're welcomed on campus with, hey, don't use he, his, her, you know, pronouns, are, you know, whatever.

You've got to use these gender neutral pronouns. I don't even understand how they apply.

In which case do I use these pronouns? They would have to have a mini class just for that, I think. How do

I know which one to use? I don't know. She says, trying to protect

Christian students by not exposing them to the science of evolution will only cause them harm in the long run.

And you know what, here's what I say, there's nothing wrong with exposing them to the science of evolution, the theory of evolution.

The question is, what do you actually teach? What do you actually believe as a school? And I think that's the, that's the issue.

She says, I can personally testify to the fact that if evolution presented to college students as being incompatible, or if it's presented as being incompatible with the

Christian faith, there's a good chance that many of those students will walk away from their faith later on in life, having been presented with a dangerous false dichotomy.

Well, I think it's pretty clear, a lot of things are clear, but Rachel Held Evans doesn't really understand evolution if she doesn't understand that there is a difference, in fact, between micro and macro evolution.

You know, micro just says that there are transitional changes that take place within a species.

Macro is, species absolutely change, you know, dinosaurs came from birds, or whatever, you know, whatever they want to, whatever the current theory is.

So, all that to say, or I have just another thing here before we actually go to the

Bible. And this is from a more prestigious university,

Duke University. I mean, you think, you know, if you said, my child is at Duke University, the blue devils, you know, that's pretty serious.

You're down in North Carolina in the triangle. Yeah. Now, let's say

I just read this a couple weeks ago, and that's really what, this just blew my mind. Duke University has managed to court controversy before the school year even begins.

Over the summer, the school assigned all incoming freshmen, let me say that again, all incoming freshmen to read this book.

It's called Fun Home, a family tragic comic, a graphic novel. Who knows what a graphic novel is?

If you're younger than I am, you may not know. Oh, you do know. If you're older than me, you probably don't know.

What's a graphic novel? A comic book. It's just usually, a lot of times it's longer, but it's a comic book.

And the writer says, naturally, Fun Home, that's the name of this book, is a lesbian coming of age story.

And I'm like, naturally? And then he says, we say naturally, because when he was an undergraduate student a couple of decades ago, he was required to read a lesbian coming of age tale.

But it wasn't a graphic novel, it was an actual book. He says, in any event, the

Washington Post tracked down, now this again, mainstream liberal media outlet, tracked down an incoming

Christian student who objected to the book and asked him to explain himself. And wouldn't you know it, the student seems pretty reasonable.

His objection is that the book's sex is needlessly graphic, both in the literal and figurative sense.

And he goes on to say he's not opposed to reading memoirs who are written by, you know, whatever,

LBGTQRSTUV people. He says, but viewing pictures of sexual acts, regardless of the genders of all people involved, conflicts with the inherent sacredness of sex.

But again, all incoming freshmen at Duke are required to read this book.

Then he talks a little bit about pornography, et cetera, et cetera. And then he says, the folks at Salon .com, another liberal media outlet, responded about as one would expect them to.

Quote, clinging to Christian moral beliefs can end an education before it even begins.

In other words, you're going to college to be exposed to these kind of things. What is wrong with you?

Stop clinging to your old -fashioned Christian moral beliefs.

And here's my point. My point is, if you think you can just send your kids to school, or if you're in college, and, you know, you think that you are not going to be exposed to these kind of things, or that your belief system is not going to be assaulted, you are naive.

Why is that? It's because the world follows Satan. They're after sin.

I mean, this is, and they want you to join in in their sin. He does say here, he goes, talks about paying $50 ,000 a year for the privilege of fighting white privilege, yada, yada, yada.

But he says this, the academy, institutions of higher learning like Duke, he says, is loathe to admit that secular progressivism is a religion unto itself, eager to attack heretics and brutally enforced doctrine, provided one can keep track of an orthodoxy that seems to change constantly.

What's his point? His point is, you go in there, it is an oppressive, aggressively anti -Christian world.

This is what you are going into. You need to know that ahead of time. So, with that as a prelude, let's turn our

Bibles to 2 Peter chapter 3. 2

Peter, a book really written about, warning about false teachers and false teaching.

And just for the sake of context, I'm going to back up a little bit from where I was going to have, let's read, let's read verses 14 to the end.

Who would read that? 2 Peter chapter 3 verses 14 to the end of the chapter.

Go ahead, Mark. Okay, and really what I want to focus on is verses 17 and 18 this morning.

Kistemacher writes, he says, Peter is at the end of his epistle, obviously. With a dual exhortation, he encourages the believers, first to be on guard against lawless men, and second to grow spiritually in Jesus Christ.

The first exhortation relates to external influences and the second to internal development.

So, what's he saying? He's saying, listen, you need to protect yourself from outside assaults, but you also do that by growing in knowledge and grace.

Protect yourself from outside assaults. And ultimately, what do we, again, let's go back to lawless men, this whole idea there.

This is what we will see. I mean, you could go to a university like Duke, and if you ask the students how many were

Christians, the number wouldn't be as high as it typically would be in the South, but I think you'd find a number of people who would say they were believers.

But if you drill down a little bit, if you talk to them a little bit, you'd quickly find out that they're not. Well, why is that?

Because this lawless men doesn't mean they're horrible people. What does it mean?

What does it mean to be lawless? You're not governed by anything.

And you know what? If you say you're a Christian, and yet you don't submit to the Word of God, then what is true about you?

Well, you're not a believer. You're your own God, and you are, in effect, lawless.

Right? This is antinomianism. This is the idea that, you know what?

I know what the Bible says, but the Bible is 2 ,000 years old. Surely God has evolved.

Surely God has changed His mind. The things that were true 2 ,000 years ago don't necessarily remain true today.

The sexual mores of 2 ,000 years ago, it's not the way we perceive things now. The family structure that existed 2 ,000 years ago, the patriarchy that existed 2 ,000 years ago,

I mean, there's a big word on college campuses. What is patriarchy? What's that?

Father -led. But in modern terminology, what would be a more kind of visceral way of saying that?

Male dominance. Yeah, male dominance. Male dominance. It doesn't matter that there are more women in college than men today.

It doesn't matter that there are more women graduating than men today. This is a male dominated world.

You better believe it. I don't even want to get into some of the greater myths that exist, but suffice it to say this is the world.

When you send your child off to college, this is what you are sending them into.

And you know, a bit of a shameless plug for Master's College, I'm going to say if you can send your child to Master's College, you should.

Because the idea, I mean, well, Mike and I have been talking a lot about one of the professors of the

Master's College who teaches Old Testament. His name is Abner Chow. I saw him at Shepherd's Conference last year, and I was sitting next to Dave Jeffries, and Abner Chow is doing this seminar, and I'm going,

I'm just trying to absorb it. And I said, Dave, I'm going to have to listen to this again, because he gave us like three weeks of seminary in a one hour block, and I couldn't even write that fast.

There was so much information. When I told my kids, when I texted,

I think I texted Kristen, well, I think Megan too, but I said, you know, I'm sitting in a seminar by Abner Chow.

She goes, I loved him. Why? Because he teaches the kids to love the

Old Testament. These are good things to do in college. These are great things to do in college.

Have your faith strengthened rather than, you know, hit with a two by four. Okay, now here is a truth that we can draw from verse 17.

We know that false doctrine is rampant. Look at verse 17. You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people.

What do we know beforehand? What does he mean there that you know beforehand? Well, he's talking about these people who twist the scripture.

These people exist. They twisted Paul's words. They twisted other scriptures to their own destruction.

And we live in a world, we live in a world where people can say, you know what? It really doesn't matter what you think about creation.

Does it? Christians say this. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if you kind of combine creation, the idea of God creating something and then sort of spinning it off and, you know, and him using the process of evolution, that doesn't matter.

Well, it does matter. It speaks to your view of scripture, because if you think that that's acceptable, then what else is acceptable?

It also matters because it reflects your view of God. If God formed

Adam out of the clay and breathed life into him, that's one thing. If, on the other hand,

God, you know, created the universe and then, you know, permitted an explosion to happen and a world to spin off and, you know, eventually some algae to form it up.

I don't even know what it is. You know, one cell animal to form in a little pile of ooze and then grow up into humanity and all that.

In fact, I read something I thought was funny this week. Maybe it was a meme on Facebook.

I don't remember. But the guy said, he said, I believe that God created me.

You believe that, how do you say it? You believe that you are descended from an ape? And he said, frankly, you know, by virtue of the way you've argued,

I'm inclined to believe you. There is a distinct difference between being created in God's image and evolving, you know, from a one cell animal over billions and billions of years.

And it impacts how you view scripture. Yeah. Yes, you may.

That's a great point. You know, so if evolution is true, then death is really the ultimate creator, the cause of us coming into being, as opposed to God causing us to come into being.

And it's also, instead of being, well, back up, instead of being what the

Bible says it is, you know, which is an enemy to be defeated, which death was defeated by Christ on the cross.

So that's an excellent point. Thank you. Peter points to the experience that believers have had with false teachers.

And he tells them that because of the experiences they've had with these heretics, they should shun the company of such people.

Now, there's an interesting thought, right? Instead of shunning heretics, what do we do now?

Often we actually sit under their teaching and we will even send our kids to learn from them.

I think this is a very disturbing trend. You really need to know, in spite of the fact that it says

Christian on the label, what does that really mean? I mean, when you walk into the Christian bookstore, do you think, well,

I can trust whatever's here? You know better. You know better. Let's see.

There's also a danger in letting your guard down. Look at verse 17 again. Carried away with the air of lawless people and lose your own stability.

I call this, you know, getting a case of spiritual wobbles. You don't lose your salvation, but boy, you can wander into all kinds of messes.

And ultimately, what happens when you fall under the sway of that person? Let's say you are saved and you fall under the sway of a false teacher.

What happens? Your assurance of salvation is shot.

You have none until you get out of that. Why? Because everything that they're telling you that's wrong, you believe and you act on it.

And, you know, for example, let's say for whatever reason, a believer falls under the teaching of, you know, let's just go for the gusto, you know,

Benny Hinn. And so you start believing that, you know, the way to gain

God's favor is to give more and more money. And that if you give more and more money, then you will be rich and you won't get sick.

And then you start getting sick and you start thinking, well, doesn't God love me? Doesn't he care about me?

There are all sorts of things that false teachers have that. I mean, there are a variety of them, but each of them will lead you to doubt your own salvation because they're teaching salvation by a different means.

That's why they're false teachers. Kissmacher says, let no one say that only recent converts fall into the clutches of lawless men.

I mean, think about that. We might be sitting here this morning thinking, well, I'm not stupid enough to fall for Benny Hinn. You're right. But don't think you can't get fooled.

Kissmacher goes on, he says, Peter knew from bitter personal experience that Satan attacks those who think they are secure.

Take heed lest you fall. Right. As spokesman of the disciples,

Peter told Jesus, even if all fall away on account of you, I never will. Of course, he did.

But then, of course, God redeemed him, brought him back. Bad doctrine inevitably shows itself in sin.

We've seen this recently with this hyper grace movement. What happens to people who just believe that the law is simply a series of all the commands of Scripture are suggestions.

Do this. Well, you know, that's something that may or may not happen. It reveals itself in sin.

A third point, how do you avoid being led astray? And this is really the key here this morning. How do you avoid being led astray?

Verse 18, but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. When have you arrived?

When do you need to or when can you say, you know what, I'm done learning. There's nothing else for me to do.

I don't need to study. I don't need to read the writings of godly men.

I don't need to listen to the word preached. I've pretty much arrived. When you're in heaven or the

Lord returns and takes you there. Right. I mean, this is the issue. We are not going to finish our work here.

One man wrote this. He says, knowledge of Christ and knowledge about Christ are if they keep pace with one another, both the safeguard against heresy and apostasy, and also the means of growth in grace.

Why is that? Why would learning more about Jesus both keep you from heresy and cause you to grow in grace to be more sanctified?

Mark. Okay. The more you know about the scriptures, the more you know, you know what is not scriptural because you'll compare those things with scripture.

Yes, Larry, because he is the way of the truth of life.

Right. I mean, you, you want to know the genuine article so that when a false article is presented to you, you reject it.

Well, let me just throw this out to you. The more you know about Jesus, the more you think rightly about it, and the more you worship him and the more you worship him, the less you worship something else, namely yourself, because the greater savior you have, the greater you realize your sin is.

The greater you realize your weaknesses are. The more you rely on him and his word, the less you rely on yourself and your own judgments, and you're not going to be led astray.

You grow that way. Tom Schreiner said, believers maintain their secure position, in other words, by heeding warnings, not by ignoring them.

You know, like the pilot who flew his plane into the side of the cliff in spite of the fact that all the warnings are going off and everything like that, the mountain isn't going to move.

We have an internal warning system, and as we train our consciences by reading the word, by studying the word, the more attuned we are to demonic influences and everything like that.

And you know what? When we start getting that danger Will Robinson alerts that we're heading for trouble, that what we're listening to isn't true, if we don't listen to that, we're heading for trouble.

We're heading for the side of the mountain. Schreiner goes on to explain it this way.

He says, experienced mountain climbers ensure their safety by studying their climb, taking necessary precautions, and knowing their climbing partners.

Paying attention to warnings does not quench confidence, but is the means to it.

In other words, the more you know about the danger spots, the better off you are. So also Peter was not putting a damper on the assurance of his readers.

He knew that assurance becomes a reality by heeding warnings. Those who are on their guard will not fall from their secure position, while those who are careless are apt to slip away because they ignored warning signals.

Peter's purpose in a warning was not to, well, was to just protect his readers.

He wanted them to be protected from false teaching. Let me just kind of close here.

But I do want to say this. Well, let's just kind of summarize this all. Here's the situation, and I brought it up because it's the beginning of the school year.

And you know what? If you have a young person at home, junior, senior, maybe they're even in junior college, they're being exposed to this now, but it's going to get worse and worse and worse.

So what do you do? What are some practical things you can do to help young people who are making decisions about where to go to college?

Okay, so educate them, talk to them, ask them questions. What are you trying to accomplish?

I mean, here, what's the worldly picture of college? Party central, right?

It's your chance, you know, you're finally 18, there's no longer mom and dad around, and it's time to just cut loose.

It's so, you know, the general picture, I mean, it's almost like whatever your parents may or may not have taught you for the first 18 years should be jettisoned, because we're going to, we're first going to break you down.

I mean, this is what, it's kind of the anti -army thing, right? Or at least the way the army used to be.

I tell people, listen, for the first maybe like three days I was in the army, I thought they were going to kill me. So after that, the stress level kind of comes down and you sort of realize, okay, if they're not going to kill me and I'm going to survive this, you know, but the idea of that, why would they do that?

Why would they think that you, make you think that you're about to die? They're taking you apart so they can reassemble you the way they want.

So what happens on a college campus? They're taking you apart, they're just using a different, instead of putting the pressure on you and thinking you're going to die, it's like, you know, for a sinner, it's like you've gone to heaven, to paradise.

They're going to recreate your worldview based on pleasure, based on freedom, based on altered conscience, consciousness.

They're going to break you down and then rebuild you into what? A secular humanist.

They're going to, I mean, you are entering into, I'll just say what it is. This is a cult. You might as well go to Scientology.

What do they do? They have you confess everything that you've ever done. They record it all, you know, and they say, oh, now you're clear or whatever.

Well, now they've got the blackmail goods on you. When you go to college, the objective is to take whatever faith you have and to get you to chuck it because you need to come out thinking like a secular humanist.

You need to think there is no God. You need to think that whatever anybody wants to do is fine as long as it, what, isn't biblical, as long as it isn't tied to any kind of old -fashioned norm.

But it's perfectly okay to have sex with whomever you please, for there to be no consequences for anything, for you to, you know, have an abortion, for you to do whatever it is that, you know, get rid of all hindrances to your personal pleasure and happiness.

And it's important that you believe in evolution. It's important that you believe a series of things, but it's all according to a secular humanist dogma.

Get rid of the old ways, learn our new ways. That's why they think you go to school. That's why you're paying your 30, 40, 50 thousand dollars a year, is to get converted from whatever you were to what they want you to be.

The Bible says, steal yourself against that. The Bible says these people are going to come up and you need to be ready for it.

And the Bible says what? Let's look at verse 18 again. He says, you know, these are the things that you need to do, grow in the grace and knowledge of our

Lord Jesus and Savior Jesus Christ. And then what does he do? He closes with a doxology to him, be the glory both now and to the day of eternity.

In other words, heaven. Amen. If you want to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ, what do you do?

You grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. You do that by studying the word.

You do that by listening to the word. You do that by prayer. You do that by reading books from godly men.

And you shun the twisting of scriptures, the false teaching that's so out there.

And certainly you shun secular humanist philosophies that are inherently anti -god and anti -christian.

Okay, soapbox over. Let's pray. Father in heaven, Lord, we would pray for the young ones, even the young people in college or preparing to go to college, even those that are years away.

Lord, save them at a young age, guard them, protect them.

Father, give them parents that will not take their hands off, but will continue to instruct them, to nurture them in the fear and admonition of the

Lord. Father, for any who are even thinking about Joshua, who are preparing to go,

Lord, just let them choose wisely. Look for a good church nearby.

And Father, if it'd be possible, if the majors would be appropriate,

Lord, let them go to a good, solid Christian college. Father, we thank you for the handful that remain, those who will stand against evolution,

Christian mixing of those things of evolution and a biblical worldview, those who will stand against the philosophies of men.

Lord, would you save our young people, teach them to fear and honor you and you alone, we pray in Jesus' name.