Mike Riddle Spiritual Warfare

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October 3, 2021

Mike Riddle of Creation Training Initiative did a presentation on Spiritual Warfare and combating it. Churches you need to start teaching the word.

00:00: the time that we're going to go ahead and get things going where we're recording.
00:05: And we're also working on getting things streamed to Facebook. So I'm going to go ahead and give our disclaimer, especially for any new people that we have here tonight, is that during Mike's presentation, we ask that you keep yourself muted, keep your microphone off, keep your camera off.
00:21: And then that way there's no distractions on that end. And then if you have any questions, whether you're watching along on Facebook or you're here in Zoom with us, if you have any questions for Mike during his presentation, you can post them into the comments or chat.
00:36: And then we'll ask them at the end of his presentation during the live Q &A time. So with that,
00:42: I'm going to go ahead and get things started. I am Terri Cammerzell here with Creation Fellowship Santee.
00:48: We're a group of friends bound by our common agreement that the creation account as told in Genesis is a true depiction of how
00:56: God created the universe and all life from nothing in just six days. We've been meeting most
01:02: Thursday nights here on Zoom since June of 2020. We've been blessed with presentations by pastors, teachers, doctors, cartoonists, scientists, apologists, prophecy speakers, and all around smarty pants people who love the
01:17: Lord and have a message to share. You can find most of our past videos by searching Creation Fellowship Santee.
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01:36: Facebook page, Creation Fellowship Santee, and sign up for our email list by emailing creationfellowshipsantee at gmail .com
01:45: so you don't miss any of our upcoming speakers. Most of our topics are creation themed naturally, but sometimes we're blessed to have some off topic presentations.
01:58: And tonight is one of those nights. One of our members requested not only that we invite Mike Riddle back, but also that we ask him to speak on the topic of spiritual warfare.
02:08: And I can tell you for sure that in my own family in the last few years, Mike knows too that we've faced a lot of spiritual warfare.
02:15: And I'm sure a lot of people in our country, in our world are dealing with that as well. So we're glad to have a military man here with some strategies.
02:24: He knows the enemy and he knows how to teach us to be prepared. Mike has a bachelor's in mathematics and a master's in education.
02:33: He's the founder and president of Creation Training Initiative. He is an international speaker and teacher on biblical creation, apologetics, and Christian education.
02:43: And with that, we're happy to turn it over to you, Mike. Well, thank you, Gary. You forgot the most important thing.
02:49: I have six very cute grandchildren. That is important. Don't forget about your wife too,
02:54: Leslie. Yes, yes, 48 and a half years. But anyway,
03:00: Terry, you mentioned my military. I was a proud member of the
03:06: United States Marine Corps where we're trained how to fight physical wars. And we're trained to uphold the constitution of the
03:12: United States. But there's another war going on in America, an even more important war, and that's our spiritual battle.
03:19: And that's the one we're losing today is our spiritual battle. So I want to talk about that and what we can do to help fight this war.
03:28: So I'm going to start with something we learned in the United States Marine Corps. It's called a briefing. And before we send our troops to the battlefield, we sit down with them.
03:36: And we go through this briefing. And we do this briefing to help save their lives. So I'm going to do something very similar here.
03:43: Because we talk about lives. We're talking about spiritual lives. We're talking about eternity. And many are perishing today.
03:51: And we need to go out there and learn how to fight this battle. So we're going to talk about what's our current situation, what our mission is.
03:58: I find out most churches are unaware of our mission or do not know how to carry it out. Then we're going to talk about execution, how to carry this mission out for nothing less than victory.
04:09: We know in the end we do have victory. But in the meantime, we need to get on the battlefield and stop going back to our houses and going to our churches and putting barbed wire fences around them.
04:21: We need to get out into the public, onto the battlefield, and start witnessing and defending our faith.
04:27: So we want to start with our situation. What is our current situation? Well, we're being bombarded.
04:34: The church is being bombarded by the public school system, universities, news media, and even many church leaders.
04:40: Get this. Many church leaders are telling us the Bible or parts of the Bible are not relevant.
04:46: And they're trying to reinvent God's Word. This coming out of many church leaders today. But the
04:52: Bible, especially the first chapter, is not relevant. Even the last chapter, they say, is not relevant. Well, without those two books, folks, the beginning book and the ending book, we don't have much of a
05:02: Bible or things to look forward to. So we need to get on the battlefield. So Jim Wilson, I've liked his quote.
05:08: From the Naval Academy, he wrote a book called Principles of War, a handbook on strategic evangelism.
05:15: And he kind of puts this in perspective. In the study of warfare, great men have concluded that there are some overriding principles that have followed will always tend towards success in battle.
05:28: And if neglected or ignored, will tend toward defeat or even destruction. Well, we have one of the principles that's been ignored in our church today.
05:38: It's called education. We're playing education. We're not doing real education in the church. Especially in this thing called
05:45: Sunday school. We meet for a week. We meet for about an hour a week, if that. And then we have somebody stand up there and talk a little bit, maybe a little interaction.
05:56: And then we leave. At the end of 12 weeks, 15 weeks, 20 weeks, what can the people that attended that Sunday school class do?
06:03: With the information? Mostly nothing. We forgot how to do good education.
06:09: And that's one of the principles we need to get back to. So we cannot ignore education anymore.
06:15: We need to learn how to make disciples. We need to learn how to make a good apologist. You go out there and defend the faith and be able to evangelize and bring down those strongholds.
06:25: That's where we're losing the battle on the spiritual field. So we look at the churches today, where many churches stand.
06:31: They avoid controversial topics such as creation, sin, hell, and marriage. It's called soft teaching.
06:38: That's not what the Bible tells us to do. But we're not on the spiritual battlefield. We're not training our people in the church how to get into the spiritual battlefield.
06:47: Many churches let the culture influence their teaching rather than influencing the culture with the gospel. Many churches
06:53: I found out, find out, don't even know the full content of the gospel. And so we have many people in our churches being susceptible to false gospels, false teaching.
07:03: They're not discerning anymore. Then we have many churches with music with no gospel or doctrine in it whatsoever.
07:12: So why are we even singing in those churches if they don't have the gospel or doctrine in them? Then many churches make church growth their main goal rather than the great commission.
07:24: And then we don't have many teachers who can equip their people to share and defend their faith.
07:30: That's another standpoint. Many churches, even Christian schools, do not have people in their school or churches who can equip their people to defend their faith.
07:41: No wonder we're losing the spiritual battle. We haven't even got trained to get on the battlefield yet.
07:47: So that's where many churches are today. So the question, what happens when the church stops teaching parts of the
07:54: Bible? The answer is easy. The world will supply the answers. And that is what's happening to our youth.
08:02: We're sending our youth to the battlefield, the public school system, and even some Christian schools unable to defend their faith and they're easy prey by the world.
08:13: And that's why so many of our youth have doubts about the Bible today. It's because the church and the homes and the
08:21: Christian schools have stopped teaching. We're just doing what we've always done and we've gotten so comfortable.
08:28: We're afraid to take a step and do something about it. And as a result, over 60 % of our youth are leaving the church today.
08:36: And now we're finding out they're not coming back later. This came 60 % from six different studies.
08:43: Six completely different studies all came to the same conclusion. Over 60 % of our youth are leaving the church.
08:50: That is disaster right there. That means that's why our country's in the trouble it's in.
08:55: One of the main reasons for trouble, we keep losing one generation after another because the church has become so apathetic.
09:03: They're unwilling to understand how to educate, how to make disciples. Here are some of the reasons out of these six different studies why our youth are leaving.
09:15: These are no particular order. One of them is Christianity is shallow and too exclusive. Why? Now exclusive, yes we are.
09:23: There's only one way to get to heaven. That makes us exclusive and that's through Jesus Christ. Shallow, yes try going to different churches and see what's being preached.
09:32: It's shallow, not in depth, a lot of stories. That's one of the reasons.
09:39: And our youth see that. They don't see any reason, compelling reason to go to church anymore. Because they're not learning anything.
09:46: They're not getting answers. And the church appears to be anti -science. Why in the world is that?
09:52: God is the creator of all the science. He's not in a battle with himself. All the science agrees with God's word.
10:00: So why are we appearing to be anti -science? Because the church stopped teaching. And our Christian schools don't have people qualified to teach on apologetics and how to defend the faith.
10:10: And many of our Christian schools have science classes that have Bible classes and they don't seem to mix. So that sets up the dichotomy of science against the
10:18: Bible. That's wrong way to do the schools. We need to integrate the Bible in every class we teach in school.
10:25: It should be in our science classes, our math classes, our history classes. It needs to be openly integrated.
10:31: And that doesn't mean you just gotta start by saying a prayer. It's more than that. It has to be integrated into every subject.
10:38: And it's not being integrated. And that causes that separation between science and the Bible. And it's the
10:44: Christian schools causing this a lot of times. We're learning about evolution in college.
10:49: Our students aren't ready for this. They're getting beat up because nobody prepared them. And I understand a parent is the number one teacher, but they're not being trained either.
10:59: So where are they going to get their training? We have a problem in Christian education. We're not on the spiritual battlefield.
11:08: Lack of specific or scientific evidence for a creator. It's everywhere, folks.
11:14: Everywhere you look, there's scientific evidence for a creator. So why aren't we being trained to use it?
11:21: Number five, college is a hostile environment towards Christianity. Yes, in high school, you might get your grades sacrificed a little bit.
11:28: You might get a little ridiculed. But in college, you're going to be openly ridiculed. You'll lose your grade and you might even not.
11:35: And it's a war there in the colleges. So we're sending our children to the battlefield unprepared.
11:44: That'd be like going to a battle where you've got guns and tanks and cannons and machine guns and all you have is a slingshot.
11:54: You're not going to go very far because your name is not David. And then the teaching of moral relativism.
12:01: Our students can't handle this, such as there are no absolutes. That's true for you, but not for me. And finally, what we're finding in these youth groups, many are not even sane.
12:12: What does that tell you about our leadership in our youth groups? Many are not sane. And yet those are the ones that go on these big trips to other countries and other states to go do so -called witnessing.
12:26: Many are not sane. The leaders in our youth groups, that's their number one priority to make sure everyone in there fully knows and agrees with the gospel of Jesus Christ and accepts that as their
12:38: Lord and Savior. That is their number one mission right there.
12:44: And that's not happening. So those are some of the main reasons our youth are leaving the church.
12:50: So since so many youth are leaving the church, we must understand why. We gave you some of those reasons, but here's what
12:57: I call wrong answer and right answer. The wrong answer is this, and this is what's happening in many churches.
13:03: Reinvent the church to be more like the culture. That is the wrong answer.
13:09: The right answer, we need to understand how the culture is challenging God's word and train our people how to respond to these challenges.
13:18: That is not happening in our churches today. We go to church, we hear mostly a lukewarm sermon, sometimes a good sermon.
13:28: Then we go home and there's no training. What about Sunday school, Mike? Well, most churches could do without it.
13:35: Yes, we learn a few things, but we're not able to use it because we don't know how to do good education like the
13:41: Bible teaches. Learn how Jesus taught his disciples. Wonderful training there.
13:47: The greatest teacher of all time. Learn how he taught and how he trained his 12. And you'll find out what we're doing in church is not how he did his training.
13:57: We're in a spiritual war. We have many false teachings and many false gospels out there, including in our mainline churches, false gospels being taught.
14:08: Now, here's a survey done through Answers in Genesis, an American research group. It's in the book, already gone.
14:16: And they did a survey. When did you first have doubts about the Bible? And here's some of the results.
14:24: Don't know, about one and a half percent of people, youth said they don't know. Elementary school, four and a half percent said they had doubts about the
14:32: Bible. Let's look at college. Only about 10 and a half percent said they had doubts.
14:37: That's when they first had doubts. Why? Why is that so low? We'd already lost them before then.
14:43: Look at these next two. Middle school, almost 40 percent of our middle school students,
14:48: Christians, have doubts about the Bible. And high school, over 43 percent.
14:55: Between middle and high school, that's over 80 percent of our Christian students have doubts about the
15:00: Bible. What does that tell us about our Christian education there? It's not working.
15:07: We're not doing the right thing. What we're doing has got to change. We can't keep the status quo there.
15:15: We're going to continue to lose one generation after another. We're not, I'd look at these courses that youth pastors have to take in college.
15:22: You can do away with a lot of them because they're not training what needs to be done and get our students spiritually ready for what's going to attack them.
15:31: So, let's take a look at the state of Christian education. Many seminary graduates are unable to defend their faith.
15:37: Isn't that sad? Seminary graduates cannot defend their faith. Churches seldom bring up topics like creation, evolution, moral relativism, or even the new ones like social justice and critical race theory.
15:50: They don't know how to teach about it. And our Christian universities simply are not helping us. I look at the courses that they give in many of our
15:58: Christian universities. Especially the ones that have apologetics. And here's what
16:04: I see happening a lot in our Christian universities when they have apologetics. They're training our students about the history of apologetics.
16:11: You know, all the times I've debated, all the times I've talked to people, I've never had to resort to the history of apologetics.
16:17: That's not going to help them get on the battlefield. Or they teach about a lot of philosophy. I've not run into philosophy either.
16:25: Why don't we get started and teach biblical apologetics? Because that's not the way they've always done it.
16:32: They've got to be academic. We've got to talk about the history of philosophy. We need to change our Christian universities.
16:38: They need to get on the battlefield. And first of all, they need to understand there is a war going on and learn how to fight this battle, but they're not doing that.
16:47: Youth leaders are unable to train their students to defend their faith because they haven't been trained. Are you certain we have a major breakdown in the
16:54: Christian education system? No wonder we're losing the spiritual battle. And most Christian leaders are not prepared to carry out the
17:02: Great Commission against the strongholds of evolution and moral religions. Folks, the Great Commission is a command.
17:08: That should be the mission of every single church in this country. But it's not. And those that do have it on their mission statement don't know how to carry it out.
17:18: They don't know how to make real disciples and get them prepared for the spiritual battlefield. So understanding the opposition.
17:26: If we're going to go to war, in physical war, we need to prepare ourselves. Who is the enemy? What's the enemy like?
17:33: Spiritual warfare, we need to understand the opposition. What are we fighting against?
17:39: Well, we know our ultimate enemy is Satan himself. What we need to understand is his tactics. We understand how he recruits people into his kingdom and how he uses people in his kingdom.
17:51: So let's start with this one here. This is our opposition. In 2007, atheists come up with something called the
17:57: Atheist Indoctrination Project. Now, what was that about? Well, here's a quote from that project.
18:05: It seems atheists have developed a comprehensive strategy to win the minds of the next generation.
18:11: Notice that. They're out to win the minds of the next generation. Wouldn't that be nice if the church would do that?
18:17: But here's their strategy. The strategy can be described simply, let the religious people breed them.
18:24: And we will educate them to despise their parents' beliefs. In fact, it is to a large degree orchestrated by teachers and professors to promote anti -religious agendas.
18:35: You see what they're saying there? We have all our Christians out there, but they're doing the education, not the church.
18:42: And that's why we're losing over 60%. They are serious about education. They control most of the education in this country, including many
18:51: Christian churches, so -called Christian churches. Here's another one, the Northern Arizona University.
18:58: They're required to take freshman honors class. It's the book they had to read, written by Chris Hedges.
19:05: He's a graduate of Harvard Divinity School. And I'll let you know Harvard Divinity School has really nothing to do with the
19:10: Bible, nothing to do it. It's a pagan degree you get.
19:16: So let me show you something about what was in that book. It's called this,
19:23: The American Fascists, The Christian Right, and The War in America. That's the subtype. And here's a quote from that book.
19:29: Followers, evangelical Christians in the movement are locked within closed systems of information and indoctrination that cater to their hates and prejudices.
19:40: This is what they're learning at that school as freshmen. Then it goes on to say this, most of America's fundamentalist and evangelical churches are led by pastors who peddle this non -reality belief system.
19:54: One that embraces magic and fiction of a Christian nation. This is what they're learning in the secular universities today.
20:05: This is not an isolated case. Are your parents aware of this?
20:11: Churches, are you even understanding this is going on? And we're not combating it.
20:19: Here's a comment from a student who attended that class. I didn't know
20:26: Christians were so bad. We'd already lost them. Now here's a comment from a mother whose student was in that class.
20:36: Don't Christian realize what their children will be up against? If they do, why aren't they preparing their children for these battles?
20:45: What a wonderful question. Why aren't the churches and Christian schools preparing our youth for the spiritual battlefield?
20:53: We've gotten lazy and we've gotten comfortable. We've always done it this way. No need to change.
20:59: That is sad. Here's another one. It's called the clergy letter project.
21:09: As of March, 2021, 17 ,311 clergy of different denominations signed the clergy letter project.
21:18: What is this project? What did they sign? Here's what they had to sign. We the undersigned,
21:25: Christian clergy from many different traditions believe that the theory of evolution is a foundational scientific truth.
21:32: One that has stood up to rigorous scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and achievement rests.
21:39: Over 17 ,000 clergy and church leaders signed that letter.
21:48: 17 ,311 church leaders on Charles Darwin's birthday week in February preached
21:55: Charles Darwin and evolution. They elevate Charles Darwin to be equal to or greater than God's word on that Sunday.
22:03: You can actually go out to the website, their websites and get ready -made sermons, how to teach evolution from the pulp.
22:11: 17 ,000 do that. What are we doing in the church? Business as usual.
22:18: Let's be comfortable. Let's not rock the boat. Let's make it easy for everybody.
22:24: Don't preach the hard subjects in there. They're too controversial. Creation is much too controversial.
22:31: Yes, so is the cross. So why are you teaching that? They're influencing our youth not to believe the
22:38: Bible right from the pulp. Any church that's afraid to teach that God created everything in six days, it's influencing our youth not to believe the
22:46: Bible. Here's another project. Life Sciences Education, American Society for Cell Biology came up with a plan called
22:55: Thinking Evolutionary Initiative. Came out in October, 2011. The Thinking Evolutionary Initiative.
23:03: And here's what they do. They develop, implement models of successful professional development for teaching evolution.
23:10: By the way, they are helping their teachers teach evolution. Is the church helping anybody teach creation?
23:19: They identify sources of funding for K -12 for teachers to attend professional society meetings.
23:25: In other words, they help pay the teachers ways to come to these courses how to teach evolution.
23:32: What are we doing here? We've got a lot of creation ministers around the country. Are we holding courses?
23:38: Our ministry holds courses for doing this. We're not getting paid a whole lot to do that.
23:45: It takes money to do good education. Christians need to stop complaining and start putting up in their pocketbook and helping fund some of these creation organizations to help our youth and stop that 60%.
23:57: They find effective ways to train teachers to teach evolutionary thinking. There is a need to create teacher leaders.
24:06: In other words, train master teachers. So they can go out and train other side of teaching.
24:15: This is what our ministry is doing. We're just a small ministry, folks. But we need the opportunity to train many, many teachers to get on the spiritual battlefield.
24:25: They develop clear messages about the importance of thinking evolutionary. Our church is just to avoid the whole topic. They're more serious than we are.
24:32: And they interact with communities, engage them as partners in education and they utilize social networking.
24:40: The world is far ahead of the church. That's why this country is falling apart. The world is out educating the church.
24:49: We're losing the spiritual battle. Here's Randy Douglas, PhD and professor of ministry made this statement.
24:59: College is a war zone for young believers. We are not prepared for the battle of their faith.
25:05: They're simply not prepared for the battle of their faith. They're not prepared to go to the battlefield. Why are we so willing to sacrifice our youth?
25:13: It starts in the home. We need to be serious in the home about training our youth.
25:20: No matter where you send your children, whether it's private school, Christian school, public school, you need to make sure you know what they're being taught so that can be common.
25:29: If you don't have the background, you need to go to your church and say, we need courses here. There is spiritual battle going on.
25:38: We're in a spiritual war and the church needs to wake up. Parents need to know that our
25:44: Christian schools need to start preparing our youth for this battle. Here's Ben Shapiro, graduate of Harvard Law School, got his undergraduate at UCLA.
25:56: College students are attacked with bias from the moment they step on campus till the time they leave it.
26:03: The effect is devastating. The burgeoning problem of brainwashing by the universities must be combated.
26:10: Folks, he's not even a Christian as far as I know. He's not even a Christian. He sees the problem in the church.
26:17: We're not doing our job. So I want to show you something about the trend.
26:25: The percentage of people with a biblical worldview is declining with each new generation.
26:32: Let's look at this chart. Starting way back with my generation, the baby boomers, all the way to today, the
26:37: Gen Z. Notice the percentage with a biblical worldview is going down with each generation.
26:43: And those are pretty liberal. It's much less than 4 % today that have a biblical worldview.
26:51: That downward chart there, what it's showing, the downward trend, says this clearly.
26:57: It's screaming this, that what we're doing is not working.
27:02: We need to start something called education in the churches. We need to learn how to educate our youth so they're ready for the battlefield.
27:13: Stop doing what you're doing and let's stop being lazy and apathetic and get on the spiritual battlefield.
27:19: Now, I know I'm talking hard here, but somebody has to do it. We need to get out of our slumber, our comfortableness, and learn how to educate and prepare our youth for the battle they're going to be in.
27:32: We cannot afford to lose another generation. And unfortunately, we've almost lost this next generation.
27:40: So the question, who should we blame? Should we blame the pro -abortionists? How about we blame the evolutionists or the gay rights activists, the relativists, or the teachers and professors who want to teach all of these things?
27:52: The answer is no, folks. They're not to blame. They're a problem, yes, but they're not to blame.
27:58: The blame goes on the church. Ladies and gentlemen, we've had decades to prepare ourselves for these and we decided we did not want to do it.
28:09: We just decided we'll keep the status quo. We'll keep on doing what we've always done. We had decades to prepare ourselves for the attacks by the abortion industry.
28:19: We've had decades to prepare ourself against the downfall of marriage, biblical marriage. But we decided we don't need to do that.
28:26: We're comfortable. Let's keep preaching our sermons every week and we'll have our Sunday school and everybody can get up and have a good time.
28:35: We need to learn that there's spiritual battle going on. It's run by Satan and he's recruiting people into his kingdom.
28:42: We have to stop letting him recruit this next generation. Let me go to the next slide here.
28:54: We just had a crash there. See if we can, there we go.
29:06: We're on again. It's nice when computers fix themselves real quick. Here's another quote from Vodibach and Guttis Diemen.
29:14: It's cited in a wonderful book called Indoctrination. It says this, the correlation is clear.
29:21: If we continue to send our children to Caesar for their education, we need to stop being surprised when they come home as Romans.
29:30: We're losing over 60 % of our youth because we failed to train them and equip them.
29:39: So that's our situation. Now let's get down to our mission. What is our mission? Well, that's easy.
29:45: I don't have to invent a single thing here. Our mission, every church has this same mission.
29:53: Well, they should have, but they don't. Our mission is this, go there and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the
30:02: Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you.
30:08: And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Amen. That should be the mission of every church.
30:14: Folks, that should be the mission of every Sunday school program, but it is not.
30:21: Folks, the pastor's job is to preach God's word from the pulpit. The Sunday school program should be making disciples, but it is not doing that.
30:31: That's why we're losing so many youth. Matthew 28, 19, and 20. Let's take that mission apart.
30:38: We have the word go, but in the Greek there, it means going. It's a participle. I mean, this is not just going on a mission trip and you're done with your mission there.
30:47: No, this is a lifelong thing. It's a participle. It means going, continue doing this.
30:54: Then we have another part of some, those of you who love English, usually end in I -G. We're gonna be out there baptizing and get this next part, teaching, continue to teach this next generation.
31:08: So three participles in there, going, baptizing, teaching, and there's one imperative verb in there.
31:16: We are to make disciples. That's a breakdown in our churches today.
31:22: It's a breakdown in our Christian schools today, making disciples. Yes, our schools are doing a good job of being academic, but they're not preparing the youth for the battlefield.
31:36: Mission, let's take a look at the children. Proverbs 22, six, train up a child in the way he should go.
31:41: And when he's old, he will not part for it. What does that tell us? We need to be training our children. No guarantee they won't fall away, but the
31:49: Bible tells us we should be training our children, starting in the home. Parents, this is your responsibility above any church or other school.
32:00: Deuteronomy chapter six, verses six and seven, our mission. And these words, which I noticed this word,
32:06: I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down and you rise up.
32:20: Folks, our mission is to teach our children, make disciples, and that's not happening.
32:29: So let's get to the last part, execution. We know we have a problem. We're in a serious situation.
32:35: We're losing over 60 % of our youth. The churches don't understand education or don't want to do it because they're too comfortable.
32:43: So what can we do to solve this problem? Well, the plan of action is right out of the Bible, folks.
32:49: Second Timothy 2 .2, one of the greatest verses in the Bible on discipleship.
32:55: And it teaches this, and the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.
33:05: What does this mean? Well, Paul is talking to Timothy and Paul tells Timothy this,
33:10: Timothy, now that I've trained you, you go out and do what
33:15: I did. You train others how to teach also.
33:21: What a model right there out of the Bible where to be training others how to teach.
33:26: So they in turn can train this next generation. It is called discipleship.
33:32: It's not easy all the time, but the Bible is telling us this is what we have to do.
33:40: So the plan of action preparing the next generation, what do you need to know to be able to defend their faith and become better evangelists in a world that is hostile to the
33:51: Bible? Wow, that question should be asked by every youth pastor, every pastor in the church, every parent should be asking that question.
34:00: What do we need to know to help our youth be able to defend their faith? What do they need? They're on the battlefield already.
34:06: We send them to public schools. In fact, about 90 % of our Christian youth go to public schools. They are in the middle of the battlefield.
34:13: What do they need? And that's what I wanna address you, preparing youth for the battlefield, the spiritual battlefield.
34:23: I'm gonna call this the big nine. I'm gonna go through it right here. Then we're gonna take each one piece at a time.
34:29: We'll give you all nine of these. What our youth need to know when we send them out there to the battlefield?
34:35: Number one, they need to know, share, defend the gospel of Jesus Christ. I ask youth pastors a question.
34:42: I used to ask them several questions. Now I only asked them one question. If you have your students for one year, at the end of that one year, what would you want your students to be able to know or do?
34:53: And I get very few with the correct answer. Very few have the correct answer. And here's your answer.
34:58: It's right there. They should be able to know, share, and defend the gospel of Jesus Christ. And put on there, also believe it.
35:06: Know, share, defend the gospel of Jesus Christ. That should be the foremost thing we teach every one of our youth.
35:11: To be able to do that and do it comfortably. We need to train them how to think and live biblically.
35:20: It's called a biblical worldview. Many of our youth, you saw less than 4 % of our
35:25: Christian youth have a biblical worldview. Matter of fact, it's come out recently that less than 50 % of evangelical pastors in this country have a biblical worldview.
35:37: The wonder of our children. How to respond to biblical challenges.
35:43: We need to train them how to do that. How to think critically and analyze statements and challenges. Remember, we're just going through a quick list of the nine here.
35:51: Then we're going to go through each one. How to refute evolutionism. Number six, presuppositional or how to use biblical apologetics.
36:00: Number seven, how to respond to the claims of moral relativeness. Number eight, how to recognize and respond to biblical compromise.
36:07: And number nine, a new one, how to respond to the social justice movement and critical race theory.
36:14: Our churches got blindsided. We had decades to prepare for this and we never saw it coming and the church is completely blindsided again.
36:21: So let's go through these. Number one, the gospel. I find many churches either don't know or don't believe the full context of the gospel.
36:31: There's number one problem. They don't understand or don't believe the full context of the gospel. Know the gospel, share the gospel, defend the gospel.
36:40: There are many false gospels in our church today. There's the gospel of social justice, which is a completely false gospel.
36:48: The soft gospel, the prosperity gospel, health and wealth.
36:54: Just send your money and we'll pray for you and you'll be prosperous. The cheap grace gospel.
37:00: I say I'm saved, then I can go out and do anything I want because I'm saved. That Jesus loves you, folks, that's not the gospel.
37:07: He loves you, we know that, but that's not the gospel. Or a good God would never send anyone to hell.
37:14: Folks, that's not the gospel. The sinner's prayer. Nowhere in the Bible say, save this prayer and you're going to be saved.
37:20: It's not to say that anywhere in the Bible, but that's where a lot of churches are today. Then there's the
37:26: God used evolution, which is a false gospel. All those are being used in churches across this country.
37:35: So let's start here. This is the most foundational piece. We need to understand our churches. Every church needs to start training their people to understand the full context of the gospel.
37:45: And folks, it does not start Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, but this is where I'm going to start here to show you how to build this case.
37:52: Most people are familiar with John 3, 16. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.
38:01: Most churches know that. But what about John 3, 17? That's also a very important verse that tells us this.
38:10: For God sent not his son into the world to condemn the world, but the world through him might be saved. Notice I bolded that word saved.
38:18: Two questions about that. Why do we need to be saved? And what do we need to be saved from?
38:23: If you can't answer those questions, folks, you don't know the gospel. So the question I have now, what book of the
38:29: Bible do we have to go to to answer both those questions? It just so happens to be the book of Genesis.
38:36: And the problem here is that a lot of our pastors don't believe the first chapters of Genesis, so they do not understand the full context of the gospel.
38:44: And the gospel starts, understanding the full context, starts in Genesis 1, 1. Because right there, we understand who our
38:50: God is. Those words, in the beginning, God, those first four words, in the beginning, God, tells us something very important, that God exists and the
39:00: Bible never sets out to prove his existence. It starts from the beginning, that he must exist. So in the beginning,
39:06: God, what did he do? He created the heavens and the earth. A lot of our church leaders have a problem with that.
39:12: What does that mean, that very first verse? First chapter, what does it mean? It means God is the creator of all things.
39:19: It means he, since he is the creator, he owns everything. He is the sovereign ruler and he can set the rules.
39:27: That's what it means. Then we go to Genesis 1, 31, part of the full context of the gospel.
39:33: His creation was perfect. Genesis 1, 31, called his creation very good, which means perfect.
39:39: That means there was no death, no struggling, no diseases before then.
39:45: But yet many of our church leaders say, oh, there had to be millions, billions of years in there. Folks, that's not the same gospel.
39:53: People say, oh, Mike, you're getting all this creation stuff. It's not a salvation issue. Well, it's not directly a salvation issue, folks, but it's a gospel issue.
40:00: That makes it very, very important and the churches need to wake up stop following the world and start following God's word.
40:07: And then in Genesis 2, 16, 17, God gives the first people, Adam and Eve one warning, just one warning.
40:13: You can do anything you want, but just don't eat of the fruit of this tree. And then he tells them, there's going to be a penalty if you disobey me.
40:20: And that penalty will be death. Then we come to the bad news.
40:27: Folks, if you don't understand the bad news, if you're not preaching the bad news, it becomes very hard to understand or appreciate the good news.
40:35: So I'd like to go through the bad news. The bad news is this. Adam and Eve disobeyed
40:40: God. They rebelled. It's called the sin. And because of that rebellion,
40:46: God kept his promise and death entered into creation. And all of creation is now under the curse, all of it.
40:54: So it was more than just death, was all creation, more than just the death of human beings. It was all creation got him under the curse.
41:05: Then the New Testament. See the New Testament and the Old Testament go together when we're trying to learn the full context of the gospel.
41:12: What does it tell us in Genesis? Everyone's under the curse. Then we read in Romans 6, 23, the wages of sin is death.
41:19: We all die because of what? Sin. See the Old and New Testament go together on this.
41:25: Then in Matthew 5, verse 48, God tells us he demands perfection. But folks, no one is perfect.
41:33: Well, wait a minute. I have a question about this. What gives God the right to demand perfection? Let's go back to Genesis chapter one.
41:40: He's the creator of all things. He can set the rules, not us folks. So God demands perfection.
41:46: And Romans 3, 23 tells us no one is perfect. All have sin and fall short of the glory of God.
41:53: So you see how the Old and New Testament go together here. And then Isaiah 59, verse two says, we are now separated from a perfect and holy
42:01: God. And at this point in the gospel presentation, folks, we have no hope.
42:07: We are all doomed to eternal punishment in hell at this point. This is the bad news.
42:14: And I wanna point out just how bad that news is because we need to be preaching the bad news.
42:20: And the bad news is you're gonna spend eternity in hell.
42:26: And this is not a comfortable place in hell. You're under torment day and night forever and ever.
42:32: That is the bad news. The good news is this now. Now, let's show we can appreciate the good news.
42:38: And the question I asked here is, where did the good news start? Not Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
42:45: So the good news starts in Genesis 3, 15 where we had the first promise of victory and the first promise of a saving.
42:52: If you throw out the first three chapters of Genesis, folks, you throw this first promise of good news out. First promise of a savior right there.
43:00: So that's where the good news starts. And that good news is fulfilled in John 3, 16. So see how this all comes around where God provides us a savior.
43:10: For God so loved the world that he gave us only begotten son. There's the fulfillment of that promise.
43:16: God gave us a savior. He suffered and died on that cross. He rose from the grave. That's the promise of victory.
43:24: Then we have 1 Corinthians 15, three and four. The very core of the gospel. This is the core of the gospel, right?
43:31: That Christ died for our sins according to scripture. And he rose again on the third day according to the scripture. What scriptures?
43:37: The Old Testament. And then we're told in 2 Corinthians 7, verse 10, over and over we're told to repent.
43:44: Why? Because Jesus told us to repent. God told us to repent of our sin.
43:50: It's not that repentance is salvation but it leads us to that direction. It's not by works.
43:58: Then this is where the gospel gets exciting, folks. We see that we're up against this default of hell.
44:05: That is the default for all his sins that falls short of the gospel. We all deserve eternity and terrible agony and punishment.
44:13: But God tells us, I have a free gift for you. What a God we have.
44:20: What other religion talks about this? And this free gift is what I call salvation.
44:25: This free gift. And guess what? You can't work for it. You don't have to work for it, folks.
44:32: These two verses in Ephesians 2, verses 8 and 9 are what separate Christianity from every other religion in the world.
44:39: It is called do and done. Every other religion in the world requires you to do something for your salvation.
44:48: Christianity says, no, it's already been done. Your way to heaven has already been paid.
44:56: Wow. This is great news, folks. You've got to be excited when you talk about this.
45:02: It's a free gift and you don't have to work for it. Your way has already been paid. And oh, by the way,
45:10: I'm running across people who will tell me, oh, Mike, Mike, God can never forgive me for what
45:15: I've done. I was in the military and I did some things God could never forgive me for. Well, I've done something here.
45:20: I've done something there. God could never forgive me. When I hear them say that, what I know about them is this.
45:27: They don't know who our God is. They don't know the God of the universe, the true
45:32: God, the living God. Because our God has said, his grace, his mercy is big enough to cover anything we have done except his free gift of Jesus Christ, who suffered and died on that cross and paid your penalty.
45:54: And here's another great thing in our gospel presentation. God did not wait for us to come to him.
46:01: While we were still dead in our sins, on our way to eternity in hell, he came to us and he loved us.
46:10: He demonstrates this love for us in Romans 5a. Then he says this, folks.
46:16: There's only one way to do this. That's through my son, Jesus Christ. There's no other name under all of heaven by which we can be saved.
46:23: It's only through Jesus Christ. And again, it's a free gift and you cannot work for it.
46:31: It's already been paid. Then in Romans 1, 19 and 20, our God tells us this.
46:37: No one has an excuse. No one has an excuse for not accepting
46:42: Jesus Christ or knowing there's a creator. He tells us right there. He's given us all the evidence we need.
46:49: No excuses. Then finally says that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is
46:56: Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
47:03: When we take a look at that, if you confess with your mouth, it's not saying you have to verbally do that. That's not the context of this.
47:09: You just, you can mentally, through your heart saying, you confess Jesus Christ is
47:14: Lord. What does that mean, folks? That's a great statement. That's a powerful statement. You're telling
47:19: God, you're accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, heart, soul, and mind.
47:27: You're giving everything over to Jesus. He is now the Lord of your life. That's what that verse means.
47:34: It's not a trivial force. It is a powerful verse there. Everything you give over to Jesus Christ and then believe that God raised him from the dead and you will be saved.
47:45: That, folks, is the gospel, the bad news and the good news. This is what we need to be teaching in our churches.
47:52: The problem is many of our churches don't believe it because they don't believe the first three chapters of Genesis. Let me show you what this means here.
48:02: I'm going to take a literal interpretation of the Bible here, the first chapters of the
48:07: Bible. I'm not going to change a thing. I'm going to do the exact order the Bible reads. It starts off with Genesis 1 -1.
48:15: In the beginning, God created. Then it goes and talks about the six days of creation. Then in Genesis 1 -31, he calls his creation perfect or very good.
48:23: Then comes the fall. Then comes death. Folks, that is the exact order the Bible reads.
48:28: I did not change a thing there. But now, let me show you what happens if you want to add these millions of years.
48:34: If you want to incorporate the world into what you're believing. We have creation going on for millions and millions of years.
48:41: Millions and billions of years. We have creation going on. Finally, along come Adam and Eve at all these millions of years.
48:48: Then finally comes the fall. The question is, what was going on for those millions of years before Adam and Eve's fall?
48:54: The answer is death, disease, and struggle. There's the problem, folks.
49:00: We have many people teaching a false foundation for the gospel of Jesus Christ. They have let the world influence them.
49:06: They're using their own wisdom rather than God's plain word. Millions of years distorts the entire foundation of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
49:16: So is creation important? Yes, it is. It ties in to the gospel.
49:24: So number two, we need to make sure we train our youth to have a biblical worldview.
49:30: Here's the very foundation for a biblical worldview. God exists and his word is true. That's the very foundation of a biblical worldview.
49:37: Matthew 22, 37, our heart, soul, and mind, we need to give to God. Genesis one through three, do you really believe the foundation?
49:45: See, the first three chapters are the reason the entire rest of the Bible had to take place. So if you don't accept the first three chapters, what are you gonna do with the rest of the
49:52: Bible? The resurrection of Jesus Christ, if you don't believe that, we know you're not a Christian, folks, because that is the core principle.
49:59: Paul said, if Christ is not raised, we're silly people. John 17, 17, we're to be set apart by his word, not change it to agree with the world.
50:09: Second Timothy 3, 16 and 17 tells us all scripture is God -breathed. That includes the first three chapters of Genesis and let's stop trying to change it.
50:19: John 14, 6, there's only one way to get to heaven. John 10, 30, Jesus Christ was both man and God.
50:28: So we learn those things. Ephesians 2, 8, 9, salvation is by grace alone. So we need to be teaching a biblical worldview and our ministry, along with other pastors and other people around the country got together and said, let's come up with a clear definition of what a biblical worldview is.
50:43: Folks, I hear these things like, oh, here's a definition. We look through our biblical glasses to get a biblical worldview.
50:50: Folks, that doesn't define anything. Definitions have to be clear and precise. And we've come up with 17 articles that you must believe in order to have a biblical worldview.
51:01: If you wanna get this, you can go to that website. creationtraining .org slash biblical -worldview.
51:08: And that will take you right to this paper that gives you all 17 articles that we're using now as the test.
51:14: Do you have a biblical worldview? See, a biblical worldview, to determine you have a biblical worldview is not how you're gonna act in different social instances.
51:22: A biblical worldview comes from the Bible, not how I'm gonna react if I'm told this or that.
51:28: It comes from the Bible. What must we believe that are critical to have a biblical worldview? Of course, every one of these affects other doctrines.
51:36: Every one of these is a primary part of the Bible. So if you wanna download them, and churches, if we wanna start having some good education before anybody teaches in your church, we're recommending that they must believe all 17 of these articles that they should not be teaching in your church.
51:52: Yes, that's a bold statement. But you read these, there's only one God. We need to believe in the
51:57: Trinity. We need to believe the sovereignty of God, the holiness of God, the wisdom of God. God's word is true, the virgin birth, that Jesus was both man, fully man, and fully
52:06: God. Jesus led a perfect life without sin, the physical death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, that everyone has sinned and falls short of the glory of God.
52:14: There's only one way to heaven, that's through Jesus Christ. Salvation is by grace alone and not by anything we can do.
52:20: We need to believe in the second coming of Jesus Christ. Why? Because there's over a hundred prophecies of that. You don't believe that, you just throw out a hundred prophecies.
52:27: We need to believe in the literal heaven and hell. We believe that there was a really worldwide flood out there, and that explains what we see in the world today.
52:34: And we needed to believe in a natural, historical, literal interpretation of the first three chapters of Genesis, that God did create in six fillable days, and he did not use millions and millions of years.
52:44: And he spoke the universe into existence by his great power. He did not need a big bang. Those are the things we need to be putting out there.
52:52: If you're gonna teach in a church, if you're gonna teach in a Christian schools, we need to make sure you believe the Bible and not be influenced by the world and start teaching false information.
53:02: This is why we're in trouble, because we don't adhere to the Bible. How in the world can we fight a spiritual battle when we don't believe
53:08: God's word? That's why we're in trouble. Number three, responding to biblical challenges.
53:14: These are things our youth need to know how to do. Who did Cain marry? We got Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel, so who did
53:20: Cain marry? Bible helps us understand that first chapter there. Was it really a worldwide flood?
53:25: How do you fit dinosaurs into the Bible? This is one of the big tools evolutionists used to capture our children. How could all the creatures fit on the earth?
53:33: How did the first three days of creation be literal days that the sun was not created for day four? How could Adam name all the animals in one day?
53:40: What about aliens and UFOs? And what were the days of creation? Were they long ages or literal days?
53:46: We need to train our youth to believe and stand on the authority of God's word. And it's not being done.
53:53: Every youth leader needs to train the youth how to answer questions like this because this is where they're getting beat up in the secular schools and universities.
54:03: We need to teach critical thinking skills. We need to train our youth how to not just always give information but learn tactics and the skills how to ask good questions such as has it ever been observed?
54:15: Are you making any assumptions? And how do you know it's true? We need to train them how to ask clarification questions such as what do you mean by this?
54:26: To clarify the issue. So critical thinking skills. We need to train them on their science foundation.
54:32: We don't need to turn them into scientists. One of the things I tell people to be an apologist, folks if you want to be a really good apologist you do not have to have a degree in science.
54:41: You do not have to have a degree in philosophy and you don't have any degrees in the Bible. You start with the
54:47: Bible, believe the Bible and we can turn you into a very effective apologist. You don't have to have all that higher education.
54:56: We can train you to do that. So we need to learn how to refute evolutionism. The origin of the universe.
55:02: We need, we win that every time. You know, one of the questions I, statements I tell everybody you want to win this statement, just win this argument where the universe come from.
55:10: Here's your opening statement. Without a creator God, nothing could exist. Therefore God must exist.
55:16: There's no other explanation through any scientific evidence, empirical evidence where the universe came from.
55:23: We need to train them how to answer questions like that. Or how did life start? Dinosaurs, where did they come from?
55:29: Carbon 14 day. I can teach carbon 14 to sixth graders and they can understand it. So you don't have to get in all the dating methods.
55:36: We only need to teach what do they need to know about carbon 14 dating to show that it does not work the way it's supposed to.
55:44: Assumptions and accuracy of dating methods. Don't have to get in all the dating methods. But let's talk about the assumptions that they're founded on.
55:51: The origin of humans. We need to talk to them. They are indeed created in the image and likeness of God. They did not fall from some ape -like creature.
55:58: The fossil record. We should never lose the fossil record, folks. We should train our youth how to handle the fossil record.
56:04: And you don't have to go into every single little fossil. You don't have to get to that level. There are certain arguments you can use that will help you win the fossil record.
56:13: The distant starlight problem. I love that question when it comes up. We should never lose that argument. And I can show a lay person who doesn't know anything about science how to win this argument.
56:23: And then number six, presuppositional politics, right? This is called biblical training. This is what
56:29: Paul used throughout his teachings. Who made God? We can answer that one. Show me any evidence for the existence of God.
56:36: How can you call God good when he allows so much evil to continue? Asking clarification and specific questions.
56:43: It's a woman's right to have an abortion. We need to know how to answer questions like that. And then how to respond, number seven, to moral relativism.
56:50: Why are Christians so intolerant? Easy one for that one. Why are you so intolerant of my alleged intolerance?
56:57: We need to train our youth how to answer these questions. That's true for you, but not for me. How did you answer that one?
57:03: It's all a matter of perspective. That's just your opinion. Who are you to impose your morality on others?
57:09: Or all religions are basically the same. Or it doesn't matter what you believe as long as you're sincere. Sixth graders can be taught this information, folks.
57:18: So certainly junior high and high schoolers can. We need to stop playing games with education.
57:24: Number eight, refuting biblical complements. Second period three, the days like a thousand years, thousand years like the day of the
57:31: Lord. Many people use this to try and force millions of views in the Bible, folks. They are clearly taking God's word out of context.
57:37: They are guilty of misusing God's word when they do that. The day age theory, that's not hard to refute at all, folks.
57:43: The gap theory, the gap theories consistently misuse their language to support their gap theory.
57:50: And I want to point out one thing. Every one of these methods I'm putting up, the second period three, days theory, the gap theory, every one of them condones death and disease before sin.
58:00: The creation account is not real history. It's just poetry, folks. Genesis one is not poetry, folks. It's easy to understand.
58:06: Modern science proves the earth is old, folks. Modern science doesn't prove anything, folks. It's all based on assumptions.
58:12: And the word day doesn't mean a little day. We know that. It doesn't always mean a little day. But folks, it's context that determines its meaning.
58:20: They forget about this. Just because it doesn't have to always mean a day doesn't mean a day in Genesis one.
58:25: Folks, context matters. And then we need to teach about social justice and critical race theory. See, social justice and critical race theory are founded in something called
58:34: Marxism. Marx was an atheist, folks. He was adamant against religion.
58:40: And this is where social justice comes out of. Critical race theory promotes racism.
58:46: It is the most racist philosophy we've ever upheld in this country, critical race theory.
58:51: Critical race theory is anti -Bible and promotes a false gospel. So if you're supporting critical race theory, folks, you are anti -gospel right there.
59:00: Social justice is opposed to God's justice. Folks, here's the picture now. We're surrounded.
59:08: We're outnumbered. We're outfinanced. And we're outeducated. We've just shown you a portion of where our church is today.
59:18: And there's also a compromise and surrender within the church ranks. This is not a time to go out there and say, woe is me.
59:26: This is not a time to look for pity. This is not a time to sit back and say, what can we do?
59:34: Folks, the United States Marine Corps, we are trained that when you're surrounded, you have the advantage.
59:40: There's two things you know for sure. When you're surrounded, you know where the enemy is and you can attack in any direction.
59:47: This is where we in the church, folks. The question is, are you willing to go to the spiritual battlefield and go on the offensive and train our youth how to defend their faith and train ourselves how to defend their faith?
59:59: We need leaders who are going to be bold. We need some bold leaders. We need some Second Timothy 2 leaders.
01:00:06: We need people who can train others how to speak and teach also. So a final note, as we're closing this up, it's time to acknowledge that this is our war for us.
01:00:15: It's not somebody else's war. This is our war. It is for the heart and soul of today's teens and the future of America.
01:00:22: The time is now for us to get involved, not only as supporters, but as warriors. The question is, are you willing to do something about this?
01:00:31: Spiritual warfare, a solution. First solution, biblical education.
01:00:37: We need to talk about biblical worldview, apologetics, leadership, discernment, creation, evangelism, teaching, and critical thinking skills.
01:00:43: These are just some. We need people who are willing to go to the battlefield. We need people out on the battlefield and we need people who are behind and doing the prayer, prayer warriors, folks.
01:00:55: We need great prayer warriors. So what we have instituted, what we're getting ready to put out there is called the
01:01:01: Second Timothy 2 .2 Education Project. We're going to put Second Timothy 2 .2 to work.
01:01:06: We want to equip educators to be leaders, apologists, and evangelists all over this country.
01:01:12: That's what we're looking to do. This year, we held our first Christian Educators Conference at the
01:01:17: Institute of Creation Research, four days, folks. And Christian school teachers got continuing education for coming to this.
01:01:24: We're going to hold another one next June at the Institute of Creation Research Center in Dallas, Texas.
01:01:30: We're going to hold a second one. We're going to, we only have enough room for 100 people to attend that.
01:01:36: We want teachers to come. That includes Christian school teachers, Bible study teachers, parents. We need to have you there.
01:01:42: And we're going to start ball rolling and start training you how to do apologetics, how to be leaders, how to be evangelists, how to refute social justice and critical race theory, how to refute evolutionists.
01:01:54: And we're going to train you on how to teach your youth to be doers of the word and not just hearers.
01:02:01: How to not just answer questions on a test, but how to become doers of the word. Our goal doing this project is in five years is to fully equip 15 ,000 youth to be able to defend their faith verbally, not just on written paper, but to be doers of the word, be able to share and defend the gospel of Jesus Christ, be able to refute evolutionists and moral relativists.
01:02:28: That's our goal. To do this, our ministry can help provide the education courses and the training.
01:02:36: What we need is partners. We need partners out there, prayer warriors, and the people who can do the financing.
01:02:43: This is not cheap folks. We're not talking millions of dollars folks. We're just talking hundreds of thousands of dollars.
01:02:49: In five years, we can equip 15 ,000 youth. We're going to go after training
01:02:55: Christian school educators and we want to help go alongside and partner with youth pastors all over this country.
01:03:02: Folks, they have an extremely important job, very important job. Unfortunately, the
01:03:07: Christian universities don't take it that seriously, but they have an important job. We want to partner with them and help them get the apologetics so they can train their youth to do this and be loud in their spiritual battlefield and be evangelists and be apologists.
01:03:23: That's what we want to do. So that's what we're looking for, is to be able to do that.
01:03:29: So supply the education, we can do that. We need the partners to supply the financing and we can get 15 ,000 youth in five years.
01:03:36: That does sound like a lot, but it's 15 ,000 more than what we have today folks, trained to be evangelists and defenders of the faith.
01:03:45: And also, if you're interested, we're bringing back our five -day creation apologetics training college.
01:03:53: We had to stop there because of the virus going around the country, but we're ready to go again. Five -day creation apologetics training college.
01:04:01: This is a rigorous course. When? It will be August 1st through the 6th, 2022 at Ridgecrest Conference Center near Asheville, North Carolina.
01:04:11: We only take 50 students, college age and up. We've had scientists come, medical doctors, college students, parents come.
01:04:18: This is a dynamic course. You don't come to play around. You're in class all day long and you do some presentations.
01:04:25: We help you with those. We train you how to be good speakers. When you're done, you're ready to go back to your church and you're ready to put together a good program in your church to teach apologetics and biblical creation.
01:04:37: So churches, you need to invest and send people, pay their way to come to this course. We had to raise the price a little bit this year, but we're counting on the churches to ante up and pay the way of some people to come.
01:04:49: And then what you get for it is you get somebody in your church who's trained to start doing education. So you provide the finances to somebody, we'll provide a well -trained person when they go back to your church.
01:05:01: That to me is a good trade -off. So if you want to contact us, there's our email, there's our website.
01:05:07: We're out to build an army of Christian educators. So now Terri, I'll give it back to you.
01:05:14: And we need to get on the spiritual battlefield and train this next generation before we lose them again. That is great.
01:05:23: And we've heard you come before and we really appreciate your ministry and your focus on targeting the youth and also the teachers of youth.
01:05:34: And so just a couple of questions. So what kind of a word of wisdom or insight or encouragement would you have for people who are watching along who are past that?
01:05:46: Like parents like me, somebody who is in a situation like myself where we look back and either maybe we didn't do it the way that you had suggested or else we did, but it didn't work.
01:05:59: And we watch our kids and we watch the fact that the world is having so much spiritual warfare and we see that sometimes it just wasn't enough.
01:06:11: So what kind of words of encouragement or advice do you have for people like that? Number one, you know where the spiritual war starts is on our knees.
01:06:20: Yes, we may lose some of our children but never ever stop praying for them daily. Pray for your children.
01:06:26: And yes, there's no guarantee the world's not going to get your children for a while. There's no guarantee because what?
01:06:33: They own the education system. They own the media. They own the political system. They own the legal system pretty much.
01:06:39: Yes, we're outnumbered. We're out surrounded. But that doesn't mean we have to sit back. Every person counts and we need to start our children very young.
01:06:49: We don't give our children enough credit from being able to understand this. Some you have grown. You've got high school students and they're already losing them.
01:06:58: That's when you're on your knees and that's when you still, they're still at home. We can still give them this information.
01:07:05: See, one of the things they don't get many places is the Bible does have answers. They're not aware the
01:07:10: Bible has answers to a lot of questions. So start simple. You don't grab it all at once.
01:07:16: We're here to help the best we can. We've got a small ministry. We've got people trained already from different parts of the country to start doing our one -day courses.
01:07:24: We have a new one -day course coming up early next year called the Dynamics of Christian Education.
01:07:31: One -day course. I've piloted a couple of times and both churches have changed how they're going to do education from now on.
01:07:38: They're into building doers of the word and not just hearers. So we're building people who are bold, not afraid to go out anymore because they can actually verbalize it.
01:07:48: In this course, we do some practice here and there but we practice verbalizing it and that's what makes it a powerful course.
01:07:58: So yes, there's no guarantee because the world owns most of the system but we keep training them and praying that one day they'll come back if we lose them.
01:08:09: But let's get them before we lose them. Train them early in their career. Elementary students can understand this stuff.
01:08:17: We just need to learn how to talk their language. Bring it down to their level. Apologetics is not about winning arguments.
01:08:25: It's not about showing off how much you know. It's about helping others have faith in God's word.
01:08:34: Okay, well, thank you for that. And do you have any one -day courses in California coming up or other places?
01:08:42: How can people see your schedule? You can go to our website and see our schedule.
01:08:49: Coming up for the rest of this year, we have a couple of trips left. I'll be in Abilene, Texas this
01:08:55: Saturday teaching a one -day basic course and then preaching on Sunday. Then we're home for a week. Then we're going to Florida to teach in churches there.
01:09:03: Then we come home for a little bit and our last trip is to South Carolina. We're going to do a one -day basic class and then do some preaching on Sunday.
01:09:10: So we come by - Where in Florida? It's going to be, I'm trying to remember the name of the place.
01:09:18: It's on our website. Okay, I'll look. Newport Ritchie. Newport Ritchie.
01:09:24: Had to get my synapses and neurons going there. Newport Ritchie is going to be there. Yeah, I know several people that live there.
01:09:31: I'll be there speaking on Saturday and Sunday. And if a church wanted to host you for a one -day class, what would they need to do?
01:09:43: What's required for that? Number one, contact us. That's what we need. First, we need contact from the church.
01:09:48: Then we look at getting a date for when they want us to come. And then we get the ball rolling.
01:09:56: One of the things we don't do is we don't charge the churches directly for this. We end up losing a lot of money on some of these things.
01:10:04: And we count on donors to help us because we're trying to keep our prices way down. So nobody is excluded.
01:10:10: That's why we need donors. If we need Christians to be partners with us with the donations.
01:10:16: But yes, if they contact us, they were serious about it. Then we start setting up a date.
01:10:22: And we talk about the kind of things they're going to get. And we help them advertise.
01:10:28: What we ask them to do is provide a classroom. We need tables and chairs because students take a lot of writing.
01:10:33: We have over 100 page manual every student gets. Provide us a classroom and at least promote it within their church.
01:10:39: And if possible, to other churches in the community. We like to get classes about 30, 40, or 50.
01:10:45: We've done smaller than that. The smaller, the more money we lose on these things. But yes, all we need is the invitation to come out.
01:10:53: Then we will do it. And we have several people now that can start and are able to teach these courses for us. We've been working for several years to get the infrastructure in place.
01:11:01: We're still working on that. So people can go out and teach the courses. So it's not just me anymore. It's others who can teach these courses and they're well -qualified.
01:11:12: Okay. And oh, here's another question. What would I start with in teaching children in a backyard
01:11:18: Bible school? You know, a good one to capture them right away. Either one or two.
01:11:23: You can give them a lot of the gospel. Make sure they hear the gospel. That's first and foremost. Make sure they hear the gospel. But you know, another one that captures their attention.
01:11:31: Dinosaurs. Children love dinosaurs. You know, in our five -day course, and you were there, the section we do on dinosaurs is not for adults.
01:11:39: I teach a whole section on how to teach children about dinosaurs. And we have a lot of fun with the animation and all the graphics in there.
01:11:46: And all these graphics people can have. We give all our PowerPoints away for free. So dinosaurs is a good way to capture them in.
01:11:53: Make sure you get the gospel in there at some point so they fully understand what it is, what their responsibility is.
01:12:00: So, and then you can go from there. There's all kinds of topics, such as God's amazing creation.
01:12:07: I did this. I went down to, this year
01:12:13: I went down south there where they have all the hurricanes and everything. And five days
01:12:19: I taught first through third grade and fourth through A3. Five days. And one of the ones topics
01:12:25: I did was God's amazing creation. I went through the six days of creation. But you gear it for the children.
01:12:31: Gear it for the children. And use things such as on day three, God created the yummy things like the strawberries and the blueberries and Christmas trees and the cookie tree.
01:12:43: And he has some fun with this. And I have a picture of a tree with chocolate chip cookies hanging off it. And they love that all week long.
01:12:51: They were talking about God's amazing creation, the cookie tree. And they knew it wasn't real, but it was something fun that God created all these things.
01:12:58: And we call them the yummy things. And we also include the vegetables in there too. So you bring it down to their level of understanding.
01:13:07: Don't be a scientist when you go in there. Don't use big words. We talked all about that.
01:13:14: We talked about the greatest high jumper in all of history. I kept that the very last day.
01:13:20: They kept their anticipation there. Five days. I said, day five, we're going to talk about the greatest high jumper in all history.
01:13:27: And finally day five comes. And see, we're talking children. And they wonder who this is.
01:13:33: And I show them how high eight feet is, because that happens to be the world record in the high jump, eight feet. I say, here's what most people see the world record is.
01:13:41: And I show them eight feet. They're just like, yeah, somebody could jump over eight feet. I said, this person went much higher.
01:13:46: Matter of fact, he went so high, he hasn't come back down yet. His name is Jesus Christ.
01:13:53: That's how you get these in there. We need to be creative. Don't turn it into a classroom situation.
01:14:02: Turn it into a learning situation at their level. It takes special people who can teach children.
01:14:08: Not many people out there in the creation field can really teach children. It's a whole art to do that.
01:14:14: So yes, we need to start with early. And that's some of the things we train people on, how to teach children. And even a marine like me can get that.
01:14:24: So these are good questions. So yes, call us up, contact us. There's my email.
01:14:32: And we're looking forward to it. I'm looking at your website, at the store of your website.
01:14:38: And I'm seeing some of the, like you have some of the answers books for kids on there.
01:14:44: Are there other resources that you recommend for kids, a kids program?
01:14:50: Yes, for the most books, the group that has the most books for children would be Answers in Genesis. And those books come from it.
01:14:57: Those are wonderful books. I find adults can't answer most of the questions. And the way they're lined up, and you can get it from Answers in Genesis.
01:15:03: So you don't have to go through us. But one page, a question, and how children, and how to answer it so a child can understand it.
01:15:12: They did a really good job on those. Some of our favorite children. Then they have dinosaur books for children. And a lot of those children love to see pictures.
01:15:20: Instrumentation Research has a couple for children. But most of the Answers in Genesis has a lot of good ones for children there.
01:15:27: So go there and peruse their bookstore. I'm having some fond memories of the session of the five -day, of your five -day class when you did the children's one.
01:15:37: Because normally, you're a very, we can tell that you're a Marine. And it comes through in your command of the classroom.
01:15:45: But that one, I was cracking up. Because your tone changed so much.
01:15:53: I know. You weren't laughing with me. You were laughing at me. That's OK. Somewhere in the middle.
01:16:00: It was just amusing. It just struck me. I think it struck all of us. It was just a nice change of pace after having sat there for several weeks.
01:16:09: After being threatened with push -ups for a week. Exactly. So by the way,
01:16:14: I want to, as a testimony, say I can't recommend that five -day class highly enough.
01:16:22: People, it's a great investment of time and resources if you're able to attend
01:16:27: Mike's five -day training. And we do recommend, have your church sponsor you.
01:16:33: Because we did have to raise the prices. Because we couldn't, we have to raise a lot of money every year. We still have to raise money with high prices.
01:16:40: We're still subsidizing by several hundred dollars for each person that comes. But get your church to sponsor you.
01:16:45: Because they're getting something valuable back. Yeah, definitely. Well, we're up against the clock.
01:16:52: So I think that's going to be all for tonight. So here's what we'll do. If you can just remind people how to find you.
01:16:59: And then I'll do the same thing for our Creation Fellowship. And then we'll sign off the Facebook and the recording.
01:17:05: And then we'll just close up in -house here and with some final comments and prayer. Okay. If you want to go host, we have a website called creationtraining .org.
01:17:15: All one word, creationtraining .org. Or go to our email. It's info, I -N -F -O at creationtraining .org.
01:17:23: And we look forward to hearing from people. Yeah. And we are Creation Fellowship, C -N -T -E -S -A -N -T -E -E.
01:17:30: You can find us on Facebook. You can email us creationfellowshipsantee at gmail .com.
01:17:36: And find most of our videos on YouTube, Rumble, and BitChute. So with that, thank you again,
01:17:43: Mike, for coming. It's been good to have you. Thank you, Keri. Okay. So I'm going to go ahead and turn off the live stream for Facebook.