Sermon Central
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Everybody's Doing ...
Contributed by Sermon Central on Oct 9, 2008 (message contributor)
“Everybody’s doing it.”
This is a common phrase used today to excuse our behavior, but it is no excuse. We were shocked a decade ago when youth ministries guru Josh McDowell did an extensive survey of Bible-believing church teens that showed that more than half of them were sexually active, even as they attended their youth groups.
Today that number has only increased. Among teen boys something inconceivable has happened by polling standards. You’ve heard of the ‘margin of error," i.e. plus or minus a certain percentage. When asked anonymously if they looked at porn, teen boys answered yes at the rate of 98 percent w/ a margin of error of two percent...meaning that 100 percent is a possibility. It used to be that they would see this in a magazine or on TV, but they answered that it is on their cell phone...and on the Internet! So, if you have 100 teens, somewhere between 0 and 4 of them AREN’T looking at porn...and still some parents will say, "Well, my Johnny is one of those 0-4...I’m just sure of it!"
“Everybody’s doing it” is the phrase we hear so often, and it’s pretty close to true, but that does not make it right. Today’s surveys have had to go to the next level. I’ve recently seen anonymous surveys of pastors...with over 50 percent of them admitting they look at porn. And that’s the ones who will admit it!
You don’t have to be a very negative person to bow your head and say, "Yeah, everybody’s doing it..." and just give in.
Well, what we need is some to rise up and say, “Well, I’m not gonna do it!”
Indeed, not everyone is living together before marriage. We’ve seen that. And some who are are getting saved and fixing that problem, and they are to be commended for that! Not every kid is allowed an unsupervised TV or PC in their room...many parents are wising up! Many are learning that they can easily monitor this as well as cell phones, and many are realizing the importance of accountability, not only of their kids, but of one another. I’m accountable to my wife for where I go and what I do, where I surf online and what I watch on TV. Is this because she doesn’t trust me? No! It’s because I don’t trust myself, and neither should you trust yourself, nor put yourself in a position of no accountability. I have someone in the church w/ the password to my office PC, and they can see what I have been looking at. Forget privacy, there’s a wonderful freedom in accountability!
We’re supposed to be accountable to God, but today we blow Him off easily, and for some reason we fear what our family knows about us more than what God knows!
From a sermon by Jerry Shirley, "Consenting Adultery" 8/1/2008
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