In this sermon, the speaker addresses the issue of relying on schools and youth ministries to disciple children instead of parents taking responsibility. He emphasizes that sending children to secular schools for 14,000 seat hours will result in them being influenced by worldly values. The speaker suggests that instead of relying on youth ministries, the church should focus on men and women discipling their own children, with occasional fellowship gatherings for young people. He concludes that this approach is more effective in retaining kids and changing their lives for generations.

Another thing to think about that's so important is when you start reading some of these guys, if you're going to read the Puritans, I always recommend Thomas Watson's Body of Divinity first, because he's concise for a Puritan, very clear, beautifully. But let me give you an example. You're going to start reading some of these guys, and you're going to think, this is so, I mean, what's this have to do with me? This is just, I don't understand this, man, writes like a fool. You start all your talk, you know? You know what you are? You're just like a person who would rather watch SpongeBob than look at Monet's Water Lilies. You see, there's an, you've probably, some of you've taken art appreciation. You have to refine your taste to appreciate art. It's the same way. You have to, my wife, is a cook. I mean, I have to fast just to stay, I mean, the woman can flat out put the food on the table, and I mean, everywhere from Italy to Peru, you name it, she can do it. And in some ways, she said, you know, Paul, when I married you, you were nothing but a pitiful hillbilly, and I've had to refine you, you know? And she, there's a sense in which I can appreciate foods that I would have never appreciated before because of what she's put in my life. And and so you have to learn to appreciate this. Also, sometimes people ask me, man, you quoted that Puritan, you must read all the time. No, I'm just, I'm just pretty crafty. There's a book that I want to highly recommend, especially you guys in the ministry or want to go in the ministry and you want to think about Puritans. And it's a guide to the Puritans by Martin, because I can take that book. And if I say, man, I want to know something they wrote about propitiation, I look up propitiation across the Christ and I can find all the best stuff the Puritans ever did, the page number and everything go right to it. There's also a thing called Encyclopedia. I don't know how it is in English. Encyclopedia. Puritanica, I guess, yeah, where you can do you can go to any verse, click on it and it'll give just maybe 50, 60 different authors at times that wrote on that passage. So the electronics, like someone said, you know, all this is of the devil, you know, the antichrist. And I said, well, I'm going to use it until he gets here because there's a lot of it. It's really, really can really be helpful. You know, another one that I've found that gotten recently that was helpful is what Luther said. I've got that. Yeah, that's an incredible resource as well. And the reason, you know, a lot of people here and this is somebody said something about this earlier. You talk about all these books because you're the generation that has learned to value the contemporary and newer is always better. And when we talk about books that are 100 years old or 150 years old, let me ask you a question. Which books are going to last and still be in print and still be valuable 100 or 150 years from now? The most trivial. Or the best. So when we talk about this stuff that is lasted and withstood the test of time, 100, 200, 300 years old, we're talking about the cream of the crop through the ages. That's why these books are so important. You know, when you because nobody's done better. It's 300 years old and still nobody's done better. You know, it amazing that that my favorite books, most of them were recommended to me by Charles Spurgeon. He has a book list. And in amazing, the greatest books that he considered to be the greatest books are still alive today, and they're the ones I consider to be the greatest books. They last. Yes. All right. Last night, you spoke about the mystery and mysticism that people have when talking about God and his will. What are your thoughts on that? As far as the Catholic Church goes and how would you handle? Like people believing in an ecumenical type of mindset when it comes to Catholicism and the different belief systems in the world. Mysticism, ecumenism to, you know, I think you touched on ecumenism earlier today. Um, the idea of mysticism really is an anti-scriptural perspective or persuasion. Um, so regardless of whether a person comes from, you know, the background of Catholicism and the mysticism of Catholicism, or they come from, you know, a more charismatic bent or whatever, whatever bent somebody's coming from, even if they're coming from reform and just have been influenced by some of these things. The idea is that somehow in order to know what God desires for me to know, I've got to go outside of the scriptures. The scriptures are not sufficient for me to be able to know what God intends for me to know. Or beyond that, there are things that carry more authority and more weight than what's found in the scripture. And that's one of the issues there with Catholicism in general, you know, is that there are things that carry more weight than the Bible itself. Um, and so again, that's the second problem when you start talking about this, this idea of mysticism. Um, so whenever you do that, when there is something that you, you know, you have to go outside of scripture to find God and to find God's will or whatever. And if you have something else, something subjective that actually carries more weight than the scriptures, I've had men on three occasions, three occasions, this has happened to where a man has said this same phrase, God told me to leave my wife on three occasions. Um, brother, you know how much Bible would have to be rewritten for God to have been the one who told you that? No, no, no, no. They don't care. They don't care what's written. They have this internal something that carries more weight than what's in the text. So those are the major problems with mysticism, regardless of what stream that mysticism comes from. There's a thing, very popular day bridge building, which you have to realize when you build a bridge, it's a two way street. Um, I know a great deal about Catholicism having lived in my family. My mother's Croatian. The Croatians are about the most Catholic people on the face of the earth, and I lived in Peru for 10 years in Catholicism. I will not build bridges. At all, with the Catholic Church, there's nothing to build, we are diametrically opposed in every shape, form and fashion. I will love Catholics, I will pray for them, I will witness to them and I will die for my enemies if I have to. But I will build no bridge whatsoever. The big thing that evangelicals did several years ago, some of them got together, even some of the respected and signed an alliance, a pact with the Catholic Church and stuff. I remember a young girl coming up to me in Peru right after that happened. And she said she's weeping. And she said, Brother Paul, I'm so glad you didn't sign that. And I wanted to tell her, listen, darling, I'm a little missionary out in the middle of nowhere. No one asked me. But she said, thank you that you didn't sign that. And I said, well, why? She says, because if you had assigned that, I would still be in hell. I would still be going to hell. But you didn't sign it and you believe that you should have preached the gospel to me. And when you preached it, it was the first time I've heard it, even though I was raised in the Catholic Church. And so it's an attempt. We're always afraid that we're going to that for some reason, we're afraid that if every human being that that we're going to lose everybody if we don't do something. You know, if if we don't adapt this to the culture, then we're going to lose and not be relevant to the culture. If we don't reach out to this group and bend a little bit, we're going to lose them and never have a dialogue with them. That is all the most foolish speech in the world. First of all, Tozer said, if every man on the earth were to go blind, it would not diminish the glory of the sun, the moon and the stars. And in the same way, if every man became an atheist, it would not diminish the glory of God. So we don't have to bend the gospel. We don't have if every man on the face of the earth goes to hell because we won't compromise the truth, then so be it. We only have one option, and that is to preach what God's got in his word and that that is all. And the only way to save people is to stand your ground and preach what's true. Preach what's true. It's got to be that Lutheran Martin Luther idea of here I stand on the word of God, so help me, God. I have a question for. Well, in your opinion, what do you think about a young Christian woman who wants to be an attorney because she feels like it's her passion to help others? It's not about the money or anything. It's just about her passion to help others. But at the same time, she wants a family and she will not place the being attorney over being a mother and a wife. What do you think about that? Um. I guess all things are possible with God, but I can't see how those two things can work together. Not not in the context of the biblical requirements of being a wife and a mother. I just I don't get that. I know people, by the way, there are people in the homeschool community, you know, women who were attorneys and God gave them a husband and God gave them children. And now they're pouring their life into that husband, into those children. And some of them will still, you know, write briefs, you know, on the side from their home or they'll do whatever and use whatever it is that they that they've had. But again, for me, the principle is the same. The principle is if God has called you to be a wife and a mother, that's where the commitment lies. And this mythical idea that somehow we can go, you know, give the man 60, 70 hours a week and still do all that is required of a mother and a wife. That that that that's a that's a bill of goods. That's a bill of goods. I think very important here that we have to look at reality for a second. That's the first thing. The reality is, you know, as I was, the law feels very competitive. You're not going to even be considered for a firm unless you don't think of a 40 hour week. If you're going to be a lawyer, that's like a doctor thinking of a 40 hour week. It's not going to happen. You're looking at a 60 hour week minimum and you're looking at bringing your work home. All right. Now, if you're called to be a lawyer and I don't want to. I would have some issue there, but I wouldn't fight on that issue. But I can tell you this. You have to make a choice. You can't have your cake and eat it, too. You have to be a lawyer and say, while I'm a lawyer, I'm not going to be married and have children or I'm going to have children and be married, not be a lawyer. But to put the two together, if you just look at it statistically. How much time does it take to be a good lawyer? And don't say, well, I can do it in 20. You can't. You've got you've got that. So that's 60 hours. Now, most people who work 50, 60 hours a day or almost, I mean, a week are almost dead by the time they get home. And the question is, what time are they going to get home? So so you can't take your child to the office with you. That's not allowed in firms. And so they're going to have to go into child care immediately. That's where they're going to go. So they're going to be there at least eight eight hours until the husband picks them up, because unless unless he's a lawyer, he's going to be able to get to the children before you will. And so, man, if you're passionate about being a lawyer, go for it. But just realize in my own life, in my own life, I have had people come to me and say, man, if you do this, this, your ministry will really explode. And man, you could have this and that and all these different things. And I have to tell them, I'm sorry, I can't. I would like to. I can't. Why? Because I have a wife and I have children. I can't do it. I already work 50 hours. I can't. And this is for ministry. This is like national national preaching opportunities. I'm sorry, I'm a husband, I'm a father. Can't do it. So you have to make choices and they're big ones. I have a question concerning, I guess, kind of youth ministry for children who aren't brought up in the home and they only have like a mother and they didn't get that discipleship. Someone who has a passion to reach the youth, like they have a passion to reach college students, like this person, I have a passion to reach each. Then how would you go about like reaching the youth if like the youth group is not like, does that make sense? Yeah. Let me, let me explain it a couple of ways. A lot of times when people ask those questions about the youth group, that it comes from a faulty assumption. And the faulty assumption is that right now we're doing something that's working marvelously to reach those kids. And if we're not doing it, then they won't be reached like they are now marvelously. Nothing could be further from the truth. Since the advent of youth ministry in the 1960s and 1970s, the number of trained youth professionals has grown exponentially, but the number of youth baptisms and our level of youth retention has declined steadily over the same period. So the more youth ministry to do that we do, the less teens get saved and the fewer of them actually stay in the faith. Okay. So I only have three problems with youth ministry. Number one, it's not scriptural. You cannot go to the Bible and come away with an age graded, segregated youth ministry. You can't do it. Secondly, it actually works against the biblical model of family discipleship and actually cripples families so that they don't do what God's called them to do, which is the most effective way to do it. And thirdly, it hasn't worked. So we're not talking about going in and replacing something that is gloriously successful. Okay. Here's the other thing. Somewhere between 70 and 88% of young people who grow up in our churches through our youth ministries are leaving, leaving the church by the end of the freshman year in college. Okay. These are the ones who have grown up going through our wonderful, marvelous youth ministries. That's our failure rate. Okay. It's absolutely pathetic. It's miserable. But the top indicator of whether or not young people stay in the faith, where, how, and by whom they're educated, homeschoolers stay in the faith at a rate all the way through college at a rate of 94%. We're losing 70 to 88% of the young people growing up in our churches by the end of their freshman year in college. Homeschoolers stay in the faith at a rate of 94%. You do not have to be a statistics major to figure out what's most effective at retaining kids. So to me, the most effective youth ministry in the world is reaching and discipling men. If I reach and disciple a man, I've changed that child's life for generations. I reach that kid, first of all, I don't have the means to disciple that kid. And in fact, as one of the architects of the modern American education system has said, what can the theistic Sunday school meeting for an hour a week with only a fraction of the children do to stem the tide of a five-day-a-week program of secular human indoctrination? The answer? Nothing. Ask the average youth minister, and not just the youth minister who just started. Ask a guy who's been doing it 15, 20 years. You know, first of all, do you see this? Are these kids—yes, absolutely. What we're doing is not working. They're leaving in droves. And then ask him another question. Which kids are the ones who stay? And he'll give you two groups of kids. One, he'll say, if he's been doing this 15, 20 years, the kids who stay in the faith are, number one, the kids who don't need me. Their parents are their disciplers. They just come here for gravy. Or secondly, the kid whose life is so bad that I've actually adopted him, and he spends more time with me than he does with his family. Which means the ones who stay, stay for the same reason, because it's the home or a home that is giving them the discipleship, not an hour-a-week youth program. So again, leave this myth that somehow we have this wonderfully effective program that's doing a beautiful job. It is not. It is broken from the word go. It has never worked. It is not biblical, and it is not designed to do what it's claiming is its goal. So that's problem number one. Problem number two, there is something far more effective, and that is, we reach into the lives of these men, and if we need to, we start schools for these people out there who are getting horrible educations anyway. So rather than an hour-a-week, we get that lion's share that schools are currently getting. Because here's why the schools are discipling our kids instead of us. You send your child to the government for his education. K-12, they spend 14,000 seat hours in school. 14,000 seat hours. How are you going to overcome that? 14,000 hours. We keep sending our kids to Caesar for their education. They'll keep coming home as Romans, whether we have youth ministry or not. That's right. Another thing that's very important. Let's just think about youth ministry. It is because always it's this kid out there who doesn't have any Christian influence in his family, and he comes to youth group. We got to have a youth group for him. Let's think about it. When he comes to that youth group, what is he seeing? The exact same thing he sees in his own home. There's no mother. There's no father. There's no involvement. There's a generation gap. It's just it's a little bit moral. And it talks some about a guy named Jesus. But what if the church caught on to men? And women discipling their children, and then let's say that that group of young people came together every once in a while for a fellowship together, and then these kids from outside, they go into this group and they go, oh, my goodness, his dad is his best friend is is the guy look, and she's with her. So this is what a Christian family looks like. That's not what they're saying. They're seeing the exact same thing that they see in their own families. Dad's nowhere around. Don't you see that all of this has just been we've bought into the world. We've bought in to exactly what the world does. Education, absolutely everything. And it just it doesn't work. This question is for Vodi and for Paul. When it comes to raising a family based on God's foundation, like how should a single woman prepare for that now?