Arming Our Children

Every Christian fights a battle: The battle for sanctity, for holiness. It's a daily struggle against our three great enemies of the soul (flesh, world, devil).

Likewise, every Christian parent fights a similar battle for their children.

ILLUSTRATION: Hotel room television. QUESTION: Do we shelter our kids? Yes

Voddie Baucham’s Illustration: Dating? Brand New Car, Teenage Boy.

We are in a constant battle for our children; but one day they will be grown.

QUESTION: What tool should we arm them with for the battle?

PROBLEM: The modern logic of many Christians is that we must give up the Scripture to fight life’s battles. We replace it with pop-psychology and secular philosophy.

Illustration: “Engaging the Culture” One of the worst things that people have become convinced of is that you have to give up the Bible to engage the culture.

We say, “People don’t believe the Bible, so I have to use some other method.”

Intelligent Design There is evidence for intricate design in irreducible complexity.

Belief in intelligent design is essential, but it is insufficient.

Illustration: Jesus before Satan: Matthew 4:1-11

The Bible is our only offensive tool (Eph 6), when we give it up we have already lost.

Psalm 119 is the longest chapter of the Bible, and every verse points to the Word of God.

QUESTION: Why is the Bible the right weapon for our children to fight life’s battles?

Our passage today gives us 5 reasons.

NOTE: Regarding the “Word of God” - John Owen said this is Jesus (incarnate), John Calvin said this is Bible (inscripturated), Charles Spurgeon said this is both.

1. It is a Divine Document

The Bible is the “Word of God” (Gr. oJ lo/goß touv qeou)

2 Timothy 3:16-17 “All scripture is God-breathed”

2 Peter 1:20-21 “No prophecy of Scripture come from one’s own”

Many books claim divine origins, but the Bible bears the marks of divinity within.

It was written over 1500 years, by over 40 people, in three languages.

Yet there is a consistency to the message which runs from the beginning all the way to the end (you couldn't get 4 people to agree constantly!)

Likewise, it is the most well-attested work of antiquity; no other comes close.

Homer, Tacitus, Pliny and others come nowhere close in the amount of manuscripts and the proximity of them to when the origin was written.

The myth of the “telephone game” - The Bible has not been translated multiple times and lost and changed portions over time (ill. Fall festival talk to devil girls).

The Bible is both Divinely inspired and miraculously preserved.

No other religious book boasts the marks that the Bible does.

Koran/Mormon written by one man, in one language, in one lifetime.

These books also lack the verification of the prophetic utterance wherein a prophet would say something and generations later it be fulfilled.

2. It is a Living Document

The Word of God is “living” KJV: “quick” (Gr. Zw◊n)

Same root is used for “living God” in Peter’s good confession.

Stephen referred to the Law of Moses as “Living oracles” (Acts 7:38)

There are those who question whether the Bible can be relevant to today.

Illustration: “The Obsolete Map” Herman Melville, “Redburn”. A young man desired to go and visit his family’s hometown of Liverpool; his father gave him a map. When the young man finally arrived in Liverpool he realized the was obsolete.

Melville’s point? It is an allegory of the Bible. He had been raised in a home where the Bible was treasured and biblical truth was taught. But as he aged he became cynical.

Melville was wrong; but he is certainly not alone.

The Bible’s opponents say that it is a dead book by dead men.

On the contrary it is a living book authored by a living God.

Because it is alive, it never becomes irrelevant.

It answers the most important questions we could ever ask: Who am I? What is my reason for existence? What happens when I die?

People spend fortunes on finding gurus and self-help pop-psychologists to make up answers to the questions that only it can answer.

Some Christian leaders say we have to make the Bible relevant: Wrong!

You speak to any issue: parenting, marriage, ethics, economics, justice, etc.

Not only does the Bible speak to these issues, but it reveals the will of the Creator Himself in regard to these issues.

Case in Point: One of the most contested issues which abounds today is that of origins: Where did we come from and what is our purpose?

Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”

Hebrews 11:3 “By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.”