Will You Pray?
by Gary MacDonald
Introduction
Many people from parents to the so-called experts have tried to understand what motivated the two young boys, Jon Venables and Robert Thompson to go on to plan to kidnap a young baby, then fail but later on that fateful day, spot another young baby boy, called James Bulger. They went on to torture him then beat him to death. The answers are many and diverse, from parental neglect and lack of self-esteem, to personal flaws and the harsh treatment they received from classmates in school.
None of these seem to explain how such a thing could happen. In the end, no matter what hypothesis you believe explains it, the responsibility for the tragedy rests upon the two young men, as they are now, who chose to do it.
But why did they make such a choice? People make choices based upon what they have learned. Let me share with you, my reasoning about the teaching our children are receiving:
KIDS LEARN FROM ADULTS THAT IT’S OK TO KILL
You can ask the same question and come up with different answers.
Q: What made those murderous boys in Liverpool do it?
A: Where shall I start?
Fatal shootings and stabbing in schools are becoming distressingly common, as are the responses from various experts to explain this. Pointing fingers in many directions, they resemble Shiva, the four-armed Hindu deity. Violence on TV. Violence in the movies. Violence on rap CDs. Violence in computer games. Violence in the home. These arguments have some merit, then again, Mars Bars have some nutritional value. But for substance, we have to look elsewhere.
I ask again:
Q: What made those murderous boys in Liverpool do it?
A: They killed the wrong type of person.
Numerous targets to choose from:
Killing humans is hunky-dory, as long as the dead fall into the right categories.
Three popular targets:
1. The unborn child.
Last August, The Alan Guttmacher Institute -- perhaps the most respected source on matters reproductive -- reported that abortions in the United Kingdom were at a 20-year low. Still, they claim there were more than 1 million fetuses destroyed. This is probably a low estimate. "
Another target
2. The terminally ill.
OK, Dr. Jack Kevorkian was convicted for his videotaped killing of a man suffering from Lou Gehrig’s disease. But doctor-assisted suicide has twice won voter approval for statesmen in Oregon in the States, and the issue is headed for other states’ ballots. How long the United Kingdom?
For those people in great pain, but not necesseraly dying, why not grant them the right to die?
Where do you draw the line?
There are nagging questions about who actually pulls the plug. In Holland, where euthanasia is legal, by the way, government pollsters asked doctors if they had ever ended patients lives without their approval. 23 percent said Yes!!!.
3. The disabled.
The latest star of Princeton University’s philosophy department, Peter Singer, argues in favour of killing infants born with disabilities such as spina bifida, hemophilia and Down syndrome. After disposing of their unsatisfactory offspring, Singer adds, parents should acquire a "normal" replacement.
I strongly object to this, to kill either a fetus or a newborn infant is wrong because it suggests to disabled people that are living today that their lives are less worth living than the lives of people who are not disabled.
We are all equal
"I am not a philosopher or an ethicist, but I know what is right and what is wrong.
Marca Bristo, a quadriplegic who chairs the National Council on Disability, told an anti-Singer rally only last week. "Condoning the murder of infants is wrong. Devaluing the life of a human because of her disability is discriminatory, hateful and bigoted."
Do you think children are desensitized by the violence inherent in today’s teen culture?
Perhaps. Or it’s more likely that they’ve seen their elders steadily expand the list of people who don’t deserve to live.
Q: What made those murderous boys in Liverpool do it?
A: They were ahead of their time.
My friends, this sermon is a wake-up call. Can things be even worse than they are now? Absolutely. What can we do about it you might be thinking.
There are several things you can do.
You can spend more time with your own children and teach them more about God.
You can pressure your MP’s to do something about abortion and violence in the media. And, something everyone can do. No matter who you are. No matter what your schedule is like.
You can pray. This evening, I am asking if you will make a difference and pray for the young people of our church and our country.
Will you do it? What should you pray for? Let’s find the answer in scripture:
Please could you open your Bibles to Colossians Chapter 1:v9-14
What was Paul’s reason for praying for these people?
They were a brand new church that became the target of heretical attacks. Paul wrote this letter and offered up his many prayers to protect them against the false teachers that were corrupting the church.
Will you pray? Will you pray for the young people of our church who are surrounded on all sides by false teachers. In their schools and from their televisions they learn that homosexuality is just fine. They are taught by our government that killing unborn children is perfectly acceptable. Will you pray for them? Will you?
This month our children are heading to Old Buckenham for their annual camp. They will be needing your prayers.
No matter how spiritual a young person may seem. At their age, they continually struggle to follow God and not the world. They need you bathing them in prayer.
Will you pray for their knowledge of God to increase? (v. 9-10)
v9 - Paul says that he heard about their problems and has not stopped praying for them. He was praying specifically for "knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding."
He knew that the best way to protect these young Christians was for them to grow in their understanding of things spiritual.
In v10, he lays out the reasons for praying this prayer. He wanted them to grow in knowledge, but more than just knowing about God. He wanted their knowledge about God to lead them to do good deeds for the Lord. He wanted them know God better, so they would live in a way that was more pleasing to God.
Application
Will you pray for our children? Will you pray for their knowledge of God to increase? I would like to think that my parents would have greatly wished for my life, during my teenage years, to be more pleasing to God. How does knowing more about God help people to live better?
This knowledge brings more understanding of what God expects.
The closer you get to God and the more you know about him, the more he expects from you. Also, the closer you get, the more your life will be pleasing to God, because you will have a greater understanding of what he wants from you.
Friends, pray for our children. Pray that they will know God better than they did the day before.
Wouldn’t it be great if this generation of children here became strong Christians and changed the moral apathy of our country because their lives were pleasing to God?
Things don’t have to get worse, it is possible that they could get better.
You can help in this if you pray.
Will you, will you pray?
My prayer.
I’ve got a prayer that comes from my heart and it is based on the values that the Elders of this church have taught me. It is a stirring prayer, passionately calling our country to repentance and righteousness.
Do you want to hear my prayer?
Let us pray.
Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask Your forgiveness and to seek Your direction and guidance. We know Your Word says,
"Woe on those who call evil good", but that Lord is exactly what we have done.
We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and reversed our values.
We confess that:
We have ridiculed the absolute truth of Your Word and called it pluralism.
We have worshipped other gods and called it multi-culturalism.
We have endorsed perversion and called it an alternative lifestyle.
We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery.
We have neglected the needy and called it self-preservation.
We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare.
We have killed our unborn children and called it a choice.
We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable.
We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self-esteem.
We have abused power and called it political savvy.
We have coveted our neighbour’s possessions and called it ambition.
We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression.
We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment.
Search us, O God, and know our hearts today; cleanse us from sin and set us free.
Guide and bless these men and women who have been sent, to direct us to the center of Your will. I ask it in the name of Your Son, the living Savior, Jesus Christ.
Amen.
Will you pray for our children?
Will you pray that our children be spiritually strengthened?
(v. 11)
Paul prayed that not only would the Colossians have greater knowledge about God, but that they would also increase spiritually. The kind of growth that only comes from the power of God. He asked God to speed their spiritual maturity. Why? He did this so that they would not succumb to the false teachings hurled at them. Once again, Paul shares what he believes his prayers will accomplish, v11 he expects "that they would have great endurance and patience." He believed that through God’s power they could endure and withstand the false teachers.
Application
Will you pray that our children will be spiritually strengthened? Will you? They desperately need it. They need endurance in our sinful world. They need the strength that can only come from God to withstand the temptations and teachings that so many others have already partaken. If our children would have endurance and the patience to wait upon God to solve their problems, I promise you our world would be better than it is today. Some Christians I know have little endurance and little patience when things go wrong, they get mad at and blame God. These are the normally faithful ones.
For the not so strong Christians, they often turn to God to see if he can help, but then get upset because he has done nothing for them about a problem they have usually have brought upon themselves in the first place. Can you possibly imagine how the unsaved person, the child who has not met God, handles a terrible problem? Can you imagine what an unsaved young person might do who has no clue about a Loving Creator when their life falls apart?
Paul’s prayer will not only make a difference for Christian young people, but also for the unsaved, who need an increase in knowledge about God and also a spiritual strengthening to place their faith, hope, and love in God. Will you pray for them? There is no question that you could if you wanted to do so. Will you pray?
- Mary had a little Lamb,
His fleece was white as snow.
And everywhere that Mary went,
The Lamb was sure to go.
He followed her to school each day,
When it wasn’t against the rules.
He made the children laugh and play,
To have a Lamb at school.
Then the rules were changed one day,
Against the law it became.
To bring the Lamb of God to school,
Or even speak His Name.
Every day got worse and worse,
And days turned into years.
’Stead of hearing children laugh and play,
You heard them crying tears.
What must we do to stop the crime,
That’s in our schools today?
Let the Lamb come back to school,
And teach our kids to pray.
I believe for prayer to return to our schools, it must first return to our homes.
Conclusion
Will you pray? I’m talking about much more than a mumbled prayer as your are falling off to sleep. I am talking about prayer where your heart, your mind, and your soul is focused like a razor, with the intent of meeting God. Do you really pray like that?
No matter who you are, you can always pray. Will you? Will you pray for children to know more about God and for God to spiritually strengthen them?
They need it. They desperately need your prayers.
As we continue to sit back and let our country be taken over by the ungodly teachings of a few, morality will grow much more insubstantial than it is today. I bet none of you alive 60-70 years ago ever thought our nation would be like it is today, tolerating and even supporting blatant sin.
What will it be like in another 60-70 years if this trend of lazy, apathy continues?
If our children really understood and could foresee the difficulties and complications that our grim world will hurl toward them, they would beg you to pray for them. They would be screaming at you to Pray for me! Pray for me! Pray for me!
