The World System pervades everything around us. How are our children supposed to interact with the World without being stained by it? Join AMBrewster as he helps Christians parents better understand how God would have us fend off the World’s attacks.
Check out 5 Ways to Support TLP. Discover the following episodes by clicking the titles or navigating to the episode in your app: “Prepare Your Kids. Don’t Protect Them” (episode 12) “The Best Time to Prepare Your Kids" (episode 335) “Good Picture, Bad Pictures” (episode 339) “The Four Children” series (for TLP Family Members) “Teach Your Children to Obey” series (starts in episode 138) “Four Family Loves” series (starts in episode 128) “Friends” series (starts in episode 164) “Rearing a Servant" (episode 163) Click here for our free Parenting Course! Like us on Facebook. Follow us on Instagram. Follow us on Twitter. Follow AMBrewster on Twitter. Pin us on Pinterest. Subscribe to us on YouTube. Need some help? Write to us at [email protected]. Click "Read More" for today’s Episode Notes and Transcript.
Episode Notes
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TranscriptIntroduction
Welcome back, friends.
Thank you to everyone who has commented and messaged and called to tell us what a blessing this series has been to you. As of today, this Spiritual War in Your Home series is our longest series to date. It has been a life-changing study for me, and I pray it has been and will be for you. Please, if you and your family have been blessed by this study, click on the “5 Ways to Support TLP" link in the description of this episode. Take a moment to understand who we are and what we’re trying to do. Equipping families to parent to the glory of God is a huge task; we can’t do it alone. We need people willing to partner with us by praying and giving and volunteering so that we can create a valuable collection of resources that will benefit families while it glorifies God. Please subscribe to this show and click the “5 Ways to Support TLP” link. Thank you for what you will do. And while you’re at TruthLoveParent.com, you can download today’s free episode notes and read the transcript of this show. Last time we talked about how God wants your family to engage demonic attacks. Today we’re going to talk about how God would have us defend against the Infiltrator Enemy — the World System. Topic
In Episode 375 we introduced the Infiltrator Enemy. We explained how the World System is not made up of the individual people in the world, but is the collective philosophies and worldviews that stand in opposition to God’s revealed will.
We discussed how this enemy infiltrates our homes through our books and music and movies and shows. It surrounds us in our public school classrooms, on YouTube, and in our work conversations. It was the downfall of the Tower of Babel and the kings and rulers in Psalm 2 in the same way that it leads to negative consequences at recess and in the home. We know that we’re surrounded by the World, and we know that Jesus never intended to take us out of the World. If that were the case, He’d take us straight to Heaven the moment we were saved. Instead, He leaves us here to be salt and light. He expects that we will have to interact with unbelievers in the process. Now, this is a fine balance. On one extreme you have people who try to shelter their children in a giant bubble so as not to be influenced by the World System. This has failed over and over again because we know that we take our worst enemy everywhere we go. It’s because of the Flesh that Adam and Eve, Cain, and all unsaved children born during the Millennial kingdom will rebel against God even though the World System was not influencing them at all. On the other side we have people literally throwing their children into the deep end of the pool. I believe the Christ-honoring approach is a biblical mix of the two. Here’s how I like to explain it. Imagine with me a fictitious country where they required all 18 year olds to fight in hand-to-hand combat for 15 minutes with a trained professional. How they fare would not only affect the physical beating they received, but would also have a massive impact on whether or not they would be able to enter into competitive job markets. The people who are beaten senseless would be relegated to menial work while those who hold their own would be given the opportunity to fill key, high-paying positions. If you had to live in that world, I would think that the intelligent parents would do everything they could to prepare their children for their 18th birthday. They would enroll their children in marital arts classes. This reality is seen all throughout the real world. Why do all Israeli youths have to join the army? The government requires it because the assumption is that — if you’re a Jew — you will be attacked and your nation will be at war. That’s the history of the Jewish people, and — biblically speaking — is going to be their lot until Christ returns. If someone wants their child to be a medical professional, they push to enroll them in the best preschools that will allow them to get into the best elementary schools so they can . . . you get the idea. My point is simply this, we know what Satan, the World, and the Flesh are trying to do to our kids, and there’s no way to shelter our kids from Satan and the Flesh. Therefore, the single best thing we can do for them is prepare them. We have a number of episodes that discuss this point. Episode 12 is called “Prepare Your Kids. Don’t Protect Them.” Episode 335 is called “The Best Time to Prepare Your Kids.” And my “Good Picture, Bad Pictures” interview with Kristen Jenson is a great practical example of what this looks like in regard to children and pornography. You will not be able to protect your children from pornography, lust, and unbiblical views of sex. But you can and you must prepare them. And that’s what this episode is all about. How do we prepare our kids to engage the World in such a way that they are victorious and not left ravaged on the spiritual battlefield? 1. The first defense against the World System is salvation. Ephesians 2:1-10 says, “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, 2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. 3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” Your children will never have victory over the seductive siren call of the World if they are not born again and in-dwelt by the Holy Spirit. The World speaks the same lies of Satan. Remember, the World System is Satan’s propaganda machine. He guides it like the ultimate Fake News syndicate. And Satan knows just what lusts of the flesh and lusts of the eyes will appeal to our pride of life. So, if I’m not a follower of Christ, my only recourse is to be a follower of me. And if it makes me happy, that will be what I want. And Satan is going to convince me that only the most damning things will make me happy. This is why — especially if you have young children — your main goal must be Evangelism Parenting. By all means, teach them their colors and body parts and numbers and how to tie their shoes, but as you do that, you must be teaching your children the Truth about God — Who He is, who your child is, the relationship God wants to have with them — and you also need to be helping them understand these Truths in any and every way possible so that — Lord willing — your children will one day believe it and make the first wise choice in their lives . . . to fear the Lord and submit to Him. Until then, the World System is guaranteed to win. “Aaron, just because my child isn’t yet born again, doesn’t mean they don’t appreciate and live under my Christian worldview.” That may be true, but that also may be the most damning thing they can do. If you’ve never heard the Four Children, you really must. That series helps understand the four responses our children will have to Truth. And the scariest one of them all is what the Bible calls the Rocky-Hearted response. This is a child who mentally accepts Truth without truly believing it. This is the child that may believe they’re born again for their entire lives — only to enter into Hell because they never were true followers of Christ. An unsaved child living in a home where dad and mom are doing their best to glorify God with how their house is run may be outwardly obeying the rules. But — like we discussed in our “Teach Your Children to Obey” series — true obedience requires obeying for the right reasons. An unsaved child may submit outwardly to biblical expectations, but can only do so for selfish motivation. Perhaps they’re just trying to stay out of trouble, or perhaps they like the expectations placed on them even though they don’t truly believe in the God Who demands the expectations. There are many reasons. So, yes, the World System is still winning in that situation because your child is believing the lie that they can make God happy while still intrinsically living for self. Therefore . . . 1. The first defense against the World System is salvation. 2. The second defense against the World System is to love God. I John 2:15-17, “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. 17 The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.” The love of the Father does not exist in the life of someone who loves the World System. Just like Jesus said in Matthew 6:24, “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.” Or we could say, “you cannot serve God and the World.” Now, there are two aspects to this. The first of which is that — if we truly love something — we will deeply desire to know it. Psalm 119 is an amazing chapter of the Bible with which your family needs to be intimately familiar. Six times in that chapter David proclaims “I love your ___________.” And what does David love? “I love your testimonies.” “I love your commandments.” “I love your precepts.” And three times he proclaims “I love your law.” My friends, neither you nor your spouse nor your kids love God if you do not love His Word. Yes, there are varying degrees of love. To say that if you don’t commit large portions of the Scripture to memory every year you don’t love God is incorrect. Immature love will enjoy the word less than mature love. But that doesn’t change the fact that to love something is to know something. This is a basic fact of life lived out in every relationship and field of study on the planet. The only people who become experts in the reproductive habits of Alaskan salmon are people who are passionate about it. No one else so going to waste the time to learn about that branch of science unless they love the content or the creature or the benefits of having that knowledge. Please, child of God, understand that you cannot love God without loving His Word. The same goes for your kids. So, the first part of loving God is learning His Truth. The second part is living that love out in our lives. Consider I John 5:1-5, “Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and whoever loves the Father loves the child born of Him. 2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe His commandments. 3 For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome. 4 For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. 5 Who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?.” I love what Jesus said in John 14:31. He so perfectly illustrated this Truth by saying, “So that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father commanded Me.” And that’s our third defense against the World. 3. The third defense against the World System is to use the Spiritual Weapon. “Aaron, that’s the best you have for us? Your super practical wisdom for how my family can stand against the relentless onslaught of the World System is to be saved, love God, and obey Him?” I know this point — coupled with the last point — sounds like a Sunday school answer, but, my friends, one of the greatest Truths I want us all to learn from this series is that God means what He says, and when He calls us to holy, righteous living, all of us who claim to be Christians should be running to take up the challenge. The spiritual war is fought on the decision to believe God and obey Him or to call Him a liar and disobey. That’s it. Satan, the World, and the Flesh want us to call God a liar and do our own thing. The Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, and the Church want us to submit to God and follow Him. To win the spiritual war is to do the right things in the right way for the right reasons in the right power. To lose the spiritual war is to sin in any way, shape, or form. But one of the grandest and most damning lies of Satan via the World system is that you can be a follower of Christ and not take His Word seriously. The world is full of nominal, professing Christians whose lives are no different than the unbelievers around them. They’ve believed the lie that they can live however they want and still claim to love God — even while they are doing things God hates. This is why the armor of God in Ephesians 6 is Truth, righteousness, the Gospel, faith, salvation, the Bible, and prayer. This is why Romans 11:11-14 couples salvation and the armor of light with a lifestyle that rejects sin. "Do this, knowing the time, that it is already the hour for you to awaken from sleep; for now salvation is nearer to us than when we believed. 12 The night is almost gone, and the day is near. Therefore let us lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. 13 Let us behave properly as in the day, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and sensuality, not in strife and jealousy. 14 But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts.” This is why Romans 12:1-2 says “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. 2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” And Titus 2:11-14 says, “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, 12 instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age, 13 looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus, 14 who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds.” You equip your kids to fight off the Failure Philosophies of the world by immersing them in the Truth of the Bible. On May the 4th we rewatched Star Wars Episode IX, the Rise of Skywalker. I wrote the article “10 Ways to Parent Your Kids through: The Rise of Skywalker” because we mustn’t allow the World to dictate how we think. That’s why my kids and I talk through the biblical elements in movies and — to a larger degree — the sinful elements. I’m trying to prepare my kids to respond in a Christ-honoring way. One silly way we do this is any time someone swears during a movie or TV show, my wife and I will shout, “Don’t say that!” First of all, we try our hardest to only watch edited content on VidAngel or manually edit it ourselves, but we miss things, so we got in the habit of saying that. What’s funny is that after doing that for a number of years, our kids will often beat us to it. We’re training their thinking to reject sin. My recent Special Guests Hillary Morgan Ferrer, Natasha Crain, and Kristen Jenson all said the same things. It’s not good enough to wait until the World has its meathooks in our kids before we try to tell them how to respond. Mama Bear Apologetics just finished a series in which they walked through Richard Dawkins’ atheistic kid’s book. One of the comments Hillary made was that our kids need to hear the Truth way before they hear the lie . . . otherwise the lie will seriously confuse them at best or capture them at worst. The spiritual war is a battle of the mind. I’m going to quote this verse as many times I can because we have to accept that we win the spiritual war by aligning our thoughts and beliefs with God’s Truth and destroying every opinion and thought and speculation and philosophy that contradicts God. II Corinthians 10:3-5, "For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, 4 for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. 5 We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.” Now, I want to move into the final part of today’s show by stepping through the entire chapter of I John 3. “See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. 2 Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. 3 And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.” John has pulled us back to God’s love that saves us and changes us. And though we’re not 100% certain what it will be like to be sinless, we know that God expects us to be working in that direction here on earth. This is why John continues by saying: “4 Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness. 5 You know that [Jesus] appeared in order to take away sins; and in Him there is no sin. 6 No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him. 7 Little children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous; 8 the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning.” This is what we’ve been saying over and over. We must reject sinful beliefs that lead to sinful thoughts that form sinful desires that manifest themselves through sinful actions and bring about horrific consequences. And then John unfolds God’s majestic plan for Spiritual Warfare: “The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil. 9 No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. 10 By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother.” And then John gets really specific in his application of what it means to live holy and righteous lives: “11 For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another; 12 not as Cain, who was of the evil one and slew his brother. And for what reason did he slay him? Because his deeds were evil, and his brother’s were righteous.” Is it any surprise that the ultimate and most practical Truth to help us equip our kids to win in this spiritual war is to love God and then love others? But this all leads to our fourth truth today. 4. The fourth defense against the World System is to love others. Verse "13 Do not be surprised, brethren, if the world hates you. 14 We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death. 15 Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer; and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. 16 We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. 17 But whoever has the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him? 18 Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth. 19 We will know by this that we are of the truth, and will assure our heart before Him 20 in whatever our heart condemns us; for God is greater than our heart and knows all things. 21 Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; 22 and whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight.” And here John sums it all up: “23 This is His commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as He commanded us. 24 The one who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. We know by this that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us.” Lead your children to Christ. Make their spiritual education the most important service you can do your children. Model for them how to love God, obey him, and — more specifically — truly love others. We have so many resources to help you do these things. Take your kids through our “Four Family Loves” series. There’s the “Friends” series. We have an episode called “Rearing a Servant," and so many more. In conclusion, there’s another verse I’ve quoted recently. It’s I Corinthians 10:13 which says, “No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.” It doesn’t matter if the attack is directly from Satan or from his World System, God will NEVER allow us to be tempted more than we are able. He will provide us everything we need to escape the temptation. The issue is not that there is no hope, the issue is that we choose not to escape. Are you tempted to yell at your family? Ask God for wisdom, think of the situation through the lens of the Gospel, dwell on Truth, pull the trigger of faith — believing that God’s way is best — and live righteously . . . and the World will hold no sway over you. And teach your kids to do the same. Conclusion
The biggest reasons we fail in this spiritual war are these:
That’s it. And that’s why the Parents 5 jobs encapsulate all three of those. We teach our kids, help them reinterpret their decisions in order to better understand God’s expectations, counsel them in how to turn from sin to righteousness, and train them to continue escaping temptation to the glory of God. If you or any of your family members need help in this process, please email us at [email protected] or give us a call at (828) 423-0894. If we want our children to grow up into Christ — to really be successful in the spiritual war they’re waging right now — we can only ever parent them in truth and love. Please join us next time as we look at how your family is to engage the Flesh.
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