Project Living Room: RENOVATING THE AMERICAN FAMILY
EPHESIANS 4:17-19, 23-24
Opening
As a nation, we are ignoring God’s ways. And this nation is already experiencing the judgment of God!
God will not abandon His people, but life as we know it will disintegrate to a cultural blow up!
To a firefighter, that’s one of the most terrible words in the English language. A blow up is a very lethal occurrence in forest fires. We know little about blow ups because few fire fighters trapped in them have ever lived to tell the story. One rare survivor described a blow up as a terrific draft of super-heated air with tremendous velocity that swept up the hill exploding all inflammable material causing a wall of flames 600 feet high! This wall covered 3000 acres in less than 10 minutes.
To me, a blow up is an accurate analogy of what is happening to American society. At some point, in the last decade, elements combined into a lethal fire ball of destruction that now engulfs all of our institutions including the most essential one of them all, the Family.
In fact, many fireballs have been aimed directly at the institution of the family & marriage.
Here’s an index of 6 Leading Spiritual Warning Signs that we have ignored and that answer the question,
“What has happened to the American Family?”
ÿ Spiritual Warning Sign #1: We’ve lost our reverence of God.
Prov 1:7 Says the Fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and instruction.
Prov. 14:27 says “Respect for the Lord gives life. It is like a fountain that can save people…”
As a people, we’ve ignored the rules because we have lost our respect for the Ruler.
In our culture much of the time, God is ridiculed & not even recognized.
Examples:
Prayer in Schools
God off the dollar bill
Ten commandments in public places
We have taken several steps backward.
When this country was founded, honor & respect for God was the cornerstone of this nation.
ÿ Spiritual Warning Sign # 2: We’ve Abandoned Absolute Truth (Moral Absolutes).
John 8:31-32, Jesus says, If you abide in my word you are truly my disciples and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.
Romans 1:25 says “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie…”
A little girl was observed by her pastor standing outside the preschool Sunday School classroom between Sunday School and worship, waiting for her parents to come and pick her up for "big church." The pastor noticed that she clutched a big storybook under her arms with the obvious title, "Jonah and the Whale."
Feeling a little playful, he knelt down beside the little girl and began a conversation. "What’s that you have in your hand?", he asked.
"This is my storybook about Jonah and the Whale," she answered.
"Tell me something, little girl," he continued, "do you believe that story about Jonah and that whale to be the truth?"
The little girl implored, "Why of course I believe this story to be the truth!"
He inquired further, "you really believe that a man can be swallowed up by a big whale, stay inside him all that time, and come out of there still alive and OK? You really believe all that can be true?"
She declared, "Absolutely, this story is in the Bible and we studied about it in Sunday School today!" If it is in the Bible it is TRUE
Then the pastor asked, "Well, little girl, can you prove to me that this story is the truth?"
She thought for a moment and then said, "Well, when I get to Heaven, I’ll ask Jonah."
The pastor then asked, "Well, what if Jonah’s not in Heaven?"
She then put her hands on her little hips and sternly declared, "Then YOU can ask him!"
The little girl wasn’t willing to bend in her belief that the Bible is absolute truth,
But today, tolerance is today’s national truth. According to this philosophy, everyone has the right to decide what is moral & true.
For example, in the last decade we’ve seen a steady disintegration of standards on network TV.
As Steven Bochcoo, co-creator of NYPD Blues & Hill Street Blues, says, there is no such thing as broadcast standards today. It’s really what you can get away with. That becomes the standard.
ÿ Spiritual Warning Sign # 3: We’ve Accepted Divorce as the Norm
In Malachi 3, the Lord says, “I hate divorce, says the Lord God…”
And for good reason. Divorce destroys families and cultures. A Chinese proverbs says, “In the broken nest there are no whole eggs.”
What a profound summary of the negative impact of divorce.
I’m thankful that some of the voices in todays culture are beginning to agree.
Like the Council of the American Family made up of some of our country’s most prestigious citizens from a variety of disciplines issued a land-mark report in 1995 called, Marriage in America. The opening lines of the report’s executive summary read,
“The divorce revolution, the steady dis-placement of a marriage culture by a culture of divorce & unwed parenthood has failed. It has created terrible hardships for children, incurred insupportable, social costs & has failed to deliver on its promise of greater adult happiness.”
We have become a culture of divorce and Christians are not exempt.
ÿ Spiritual Warning Sign # 4: We’ve blurred the lines of masculinity and femininity.
Gen. 1:27 describes the creation story saying, And God created man in His own image. In the image of God, He created him, male and female, He created them.
Romans 1:26-27 says “…women exchanged natural relations for the unnatural ones…men also abandoned natural relations with women…”
Headlines today:
MASSACHUSETTS TO ALLOW GAY MARRIAGES
CALIFORNIA FIRST TO WED GAY COUPLES
SEATTLE MAYOR RECOGNIZES EMPLOYEES GAY MARRIAGE
It is estimated that between 6 and 12 million children live in openly gay homes in the United States
ÿ Spiritual Warning Sign # 5: We’ve Abandoned our Children.
Psalm 127:3 says “The Fruit of the womb is a gift of the Lord.”
We have allowed abortion to become an everyday normal occurance in our society.
44 million children have died at the hands of abortionists
1.3 million per year die in the united states alone
In 2000, more children died from abortion than Americans died in the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, World Wars I and II, the Korean, Vietnam and Gulf Wars combined.
There were over 3,600 abortions per day in 2000, 151 per hour, one every 24 seconds.
In that same year, for every 3 live births there was 1 abortion.
And what about the children that are born in America?
No other parents in the industrialized world spend less time with their children than American parents. According to Wall Street Journal, American parents spend on average, less than 15 minutes a week in serious discussion with their children.
The average child spends 3 hours per day watching television alone
ÿ Spiritual Warning Sign # 6: We’ve Felt Powerless to Affect Change.
Romans 1:32 says “although they know God’s righteous decree. They not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.”
We have given up.
Christians shouldn’t be involved in politics we say.
Christians should be quiet and sit back and let God handle everything we say.
Many have resolved that redeeming our nation’s families is impossible.
This pessimism is tragic for Christians for it reveals a lack of faith in the power of God.
Christians who are controlled by unbelief will never see God work in & through their lives.
Unbelief caused nearly an entire generation of Israelites to perish in the wilderness.
These indicators can seem overwhelming and could make one just want to demolish the entire family but…an extreme makeover is possible.
In reflective moments you may be asking, Is there really any hope for my family…my kids’ family?
Can I do anything to escape the blow up & save others in the process?
Is there a solution?
I believe there is a solution. And it lies within us.
If you & I will submit ourselves to the Holy Scriptures and the Lord Jesus Christ, then we can take the first step in beginning God’s Extreme Makeover, Home Edition!
May I remind you that the Gospel, the Good News of Jesus Christ is still the most effective solution to remedy humankind’s ills?
If you feel threatened by the blaze consuming today’s culture, it’s time to start a fire of your own!
On August 5, 1949, an actual fire ignited in a remote forest in the Montana wilderness. A crew of 15 young firefighters had parachuted into the area, ready to extinguish what looked like a manageable fire. No one anticipated a blow up! In panic the men broke for the ridge above them. But the 76 degree angle of the slope made it all but impossible to escape. Howling & spitting & convulsing behind them, the fire beast lapped at their heel. The intense heat begin to consume their lungs. One by one, the beast consumed its victims. Only 3 of the 15 men lived. Two of them miraculously beat the fire to the top of the ridge. What’s more amazing is how Wag Dodge survived. Unlike the others, Wag realized the escape on foot was impossible. So as the fire dragon roaring toward him, Wag did the unthinkable. He bent down on one knee, struck a match & ignited a fire that burned quickly up the hill. Wag, the foreman, then stopped into the hot ashes of his own fire & found refuge. He waved for his crew to join him. But no one did. Quickly passing over Wag, the fire storm blazed up the hill. The 2 other survivors testified that the whole crew probably would have survived if they had understood & followed Wag Dodge’s instructions.
There’s a great lesson for us here. To escape the fire, you & I must ignite a fire. A fire for Christ!
You & I can’t outrun a blow up. Like Wag Dodge, you & I must kneel in humility, strike a match & burn a piece of ground. We must ignite the fire of biblical truth, in our hearts, our marriages, our homes, & yes in our neighborhoods!
This act of courage will nullify, the cultural blow-up by denying a fuel source. We will create a place of refuge amidst the destructive fires of life!
In the early 1970’s the Iraqi government arrested a group of American students on trumped up espionage charges. The wicked regime of Saddam Hussein wanted confessions. In order to get them, these desired admissions of guilt the captors tortured the students. The prisoners were told that if they confessed, they could go free. The promise of freedom became irresistible. One by one as the pressures & the pain mounted, the prisoners confessed to crimes, they hadn’t committed. Ever prisoner except one. The torture intensified for this student. The loneliness of isolation became unbearable. He came very close to breaking. But he didn’t. Recounting his friend’s story in the Wall Street Journal, Mark Helprin wrote, Then they announced that they were finished with his case & he could simply confess or die. A confession lay before him as they raised a pistol to his head. They cocked the hammer & started a count down. He had hear executions outside his cell. “Sign your name & you will live,” he was told, but he refused. He closed his eyes, grimaced & prepared to die. They pulled the trigger. When he heard the click, he thought he was dead. The gun, however, had not been loaded. Helprin’s friend was eventually released. He soon discovered, that every other prisoner who had falsely confessed, was later hanged in the public square. Only he survived.
The moral of this story is clear. Compromise represents a far greater risk than courage.
As difficult as it is to build your home on God’s truth, it’s much harder to live with the consequences of a moral failure!
When every voice is calling for compromise, stand for truth, stand for Christ, stand for your family!
OVER THE NEXT 4 WEEKS WE ARE GOING TO LOOK AT EACH OF THESE WARNING SIGNS CLOSER AND WE ARE GOING TO SEE HOW A MAKEOVER IN OUR HOMES IS OUR ONLY OPTION IF WE ARE GOING TO SEE OUR WORLD WON TO CHRIST.
You have 2 choices. You can flee for the ridge or light a fire. The question is, what will you do?
