Dangers to Our Families #4

Dangers To Our Families #4: Godless Messages

Introduction: Through out this series of lessons we have tried to look at problems we face as families. When we speak of families we mean husbands/wives, fathers/mothers, and children; for when one part of the family is hurting the whole family is hurting. Our children are growing up in a different world than most of us grew up in. It may be described in Judges 21.25.

I) What’s Going On In American Culture?

A) Symptoms of the disease

1. One of every 2 marriages is headed for divorce.

2. Tonight enough teens to fill the Rose Bowl, Cotton Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Orange Bowl, Fiesta Bowl and the average Super Bowl will practice prostitution to support their drug addictions.

3. One million teenage girls will get pregnant out of wedlock this year.

4. Half a million will abort their babies.

5. Forty three percent of girls age 15 today will get pregnant before they are out of high school.

6. One in 7 teens, and 1 in 3, 24 year olds have at least one STD.

7. Thirty five percent of children under 14 show stress symptoms.

8. On the internet you can gamble, purchase drugs, buy weapons, have an affair, or be stalked.

9. Pornographic web sites now total 4.2 million with new ones added each day.

10. Porn web sites generated $8 billion in 1999 (More than all the revenue generated by rock, country, jazz, and classical music together.)

11. Every 78 seconds a teenager in America attempts suicide.

B) We can treat the symptoms but to solve the problem we must diagnosis and treat the problem.

1. The problem is we are reaping what we have sown.

2. We have become more and more a sectarian society with no room for God, Romans 1.20ff.

II) The Messages We Are Receiving

A) From the Media, Prov. 23.7

1. Advertising

a. The Sexualizing of our children – Calvin Klein commercial showing young teenagers in sexually provocative poses.

2. From Music

a. Song writers and "artist" have used freedom of speech as a reason to be offensive.

b. Ray Parker Jr. "You can say things in songs that you would never get away with otherwise."

c. Many songs advocate violence, sex outside of marriage, drugs, rape, cop killing, bestiality, and homosexuality. One of the most note able is Emimem.

d. "Offensive lyrics are the price you pay for freedom of expression"

e. "The issue here is creative rights. We have to retain the rights to make creative choices."

f. MTV and VH1 have given us visual images to go along with the lyrics.

3. Television and Hollywood, Galatians 5.17,19

a. What has television brought us?

Homosexuals and prostitutes as victims, Recreation sex, Adultery, Prostitution and Pornography, It preaches to us about the dangers of imposing our restrictive morality on others; puritans, prudes, Businessmen are all villains; Police officers are shown as corrupt and as likely to commit crimes as anyone else; Criminals are portrayed as sympathetic, Prov. 10.9

b. TV companies are getting more and more into the XXX movie business

c. Disney has used its "family appeal" and owns many cable systems and networks (ABC, ESPN, A & E, The History Channel, Lifetime, etc) Proverbs 23.7

d. Problem is a lot of the shows and movies are extremely sexual in nature "Are You Hot"; anti-religious or blasphemous "The Last Temptation" "Bruce???"

e. Hollywood has an agenda but it is not being forced on us

f. Young girls are seeing images of Paris Hilton, Lindsay Loham, and Britney Spears in the magazines.

B) . Schools

1. Sex education has not been morally based but immorally based

2. Massachusetts School System is an example:

a. Several years ago a dancer was brought in to lecture on sex to high school students without parents permission or the choice to opt out.

b. 180 Mass. Schools received $1.5 million annually for gay/lesbian clubs

c. March 2000 the Dept. of Education sponsored a workshop on homosexuality for children as young as 12.

3. It was inevitable that sex education would eventually become porn education, for sex education is not about education it is about sex.

4. The theology of humanism is preached in classrooms, Proverbs 1.7; Romans 1.21-22; Prov. 22.28

C) False religion: the prophets of Baal taught Israel to commit sin.

1. Many religions are responsible for the moral corruption, CALVINISM and materialism

2. "The fear of religion in the public arena is all too typical of American’s and particularly the intellectual class, today" – Robert Bork

3 "For over a century liberal Protestantism has steadily surrendered Christian positions deemed incredible by a particular historic age" – James Hitchock

4. "Religion is declining because those identified with it do not actually believe in it."

4. Protestant groups now accept homosexuality, divorce and remarriages for any cause, lying for a good cause, the role of women as those in authority in the church. Etc. Jeremiah 18.15

5. Churches have abandoned the great commission, Luke 19.10

a. Turned to karate, country music, and line dancing

b. Undie Sunday at First United Methodist Church

c. Church of God Grill in Atlanta, GA

d. Shrine of the Divine Tortilla in New Mexico, Judges 21.25

Conclusion: Joshua 23.14; 24.15 What is our hope? A fearless generation faithful to God, Luke 1.17. Our homes must be built upon the rock of God’s word, Matthew 7.24-25. Urban warfare is fought one block, one home, one person at a time, so is the battle against Satan. Acts 2.39

D.T. @ Westside Church of Christ 01.28.07

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