GYC Southwest 2016: One Soul Audience

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GYC Southwest

The Family - The Public Enemy No.1

Scott Ritsema

The Family - The Public Enemy No.1- Part 1

Father in heaven, we thank you so much for this opportunity to be together and to take a look at this most important of all institutions that you have instituted in this world, and that is the family.

And we know that this is a precious institution of yours that you have designed to do a great work.

And Father, we know also that there is a great controversy happening.

And as we take a look at the cultural agenda, as we look at the family, public enemy number 1, we just pray that you would give us an understanding of the urgency of the times in which we live, and that we would all the more, with fullness of heart and energy and passion, seek again for your blueprint, your method of how to do family.

What do you think are the 3 biggest events in the history of redemption?

And I want to say the 3 biggest redemptive events in the history of redemption.

So after Adam and Eve in the fall, what are the 3 biggest and most redemptive, massively important epochs or eras or events in the history of the world and that could include now or in the near future.

Yeah, Jesus first coming they said the birth I would Can we count the birth and the crucifixion, the incarnation, the resurrection, and the ascension all as 1?

It cleansed the earth of sin So that God could bring about what?

And then I would add, you wanna add another 1?

Yeah, the Messiah came through the people of Israel, right?

And so when God cleansed the earth of sin and sinners, all but 8, of course, of his redeemed, his faithful.

You then have them leading on to Abram, who brought us to the point of the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the 12 tribes, and then Israel.

Well, that was the time where God gave the law, he brought his people out of Egypt, he made them a people unto himself, brought them into Canaan and started this massive movement which would then lead to the Messiah.

So I would say the whole Exodus and the 10 Commandments and the law and God establishing his people.

That 1, the first coming of Jesus, and how about right now in the second coming?

The judgment and second coming, we'll loop that together as 1 era.

Those I would suggest are the 3 biggest, the formation of his people Israel and the giving of the law, the first coming of Christ, and the judgment and second coming of Christ.

Now why share this at the beginning of a message on the family?

Well, if you notice something interesting about these 3 biggest events in the history of redemption, you start to see a trend.

And the first thing I want to ask you is, do you remember who it was that saved Moses' life when he was a baby in the basket boat, who was hiding right there in the bushes?

Okay, it was his sister Miriam, a little girl, a child.

Who was it that pronounced Hosanna to the Son of David, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord at Jesus' first coming, who is in the temple courts pronouncing these things." The children.

Have you ever read this quote from Testimony 6?

"'As the children sang in the temple courts, Hosanna, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord, so in these last days, so the third 1, here we are, so in these last days, children's voices will be raised to give the last message of warning to a perishing world.

Now, if you think about this also on the flip side, What's the devil gonna do with that information?

He knows that children play a key role in God's kingdom and in God's plan.

What did Pharaoh pronounce at the time of Moses?

Yeah, death upon all the children and all the baby boys in Israel.

Are the children in and around Bethlehem?

You know, this session is entitled The Family, Public Enemy Number 1.

Why is it that the devil would have an attack upon the children?

Well, it happened the first 2 times, we can count on it again the third time.

And usually when I present on this topic, I take it along the lines of the spiritual assault upon the minds of our children.

And we talked about that yesterday in the message called Schooled, the worldly schooling agenda.

And the whole Media on the Brain seminar is about that to a great degree.

About the children, the youth, and really all of us, and how the media is seeking to capture our minds.

Did you know that only 1 in 5 children survive, make it out of the womb in America today.

Yeah, that would be even worse, wouldn't it?

Only 4 in 5 make it out of the womb and survive.

When heavenly intelligences see that men are no longer permitted to present the truth, the Spirit of God will come upon the children, and they will do a work in the proclamation of the truth which the older workers cannot do, because their way will be hedged up.

There's going to be laws, there's going to be restrictions.

The older members of the church will not be able to do the work of God in the way that we normally could.

In the very last days, there will be persecution, there will be limitations.

It says, in the closing scenes of this earth's history, many of these children and youth will astonish people by their witness to the truth, which will be born in simplicity, yet with spirit and power.

In the near future, many children will be endued with the Spirit of God and will do a work in proclaiming the truth to the world that at that time cannot well be done by the older members of the church.

That's why the devil wants to attack the family, capture the minds of the children, and to the extent possible, kill as many of them as he can.

And by the way, when I bring up the topic of abortion, this is not meant as some sort of heaping of guilt and burden upon somebody who has taken this act and engaged in this sin.

The Lord has forgiven all of our sins and cleansed us of our iniquities if we've repented, right?

So there's no sin that he's like, no, sorry, you've gone beyond my grace on that 1.

So let's just keep that in mind as this can be a very sensitive thing.

But the media and the culture is very much pushing this and celebrating this, not just as a right, you know, that became the big rights issue in the 1970s, that somebody ought to have the right to choose these things and it was kind of a political football.

But today, it's being celebrated, it's being pushed.

There was a whole movement after the Planned Parenthood scandal of last year where all these hidden camera videos came out and they were negotiating donations for fetal tissue and all of that.

And then all of a sudden the other side of this said, hey, wait a minute, let's react by promoting it.

And so they started a hashtag, shout your abortion, and they started celebrating and promoting.

When I had this procedure done, it was so liberating and good, and I feel so happy about what I've done.

And it was something that people were then bragging about instead of something that, you know, as it used to be said, it was kind of a, you know, kept quiet thing and it's a personal choice and we don't want to necessarily promote it.

I've never seen the show, but I saw this on a news report last winter and it was absolutely horrifying to read the script of what was going on.

It was in primetime entertainment drama television, an actual enacted scene of an abortion taking place.

And the song that was being played while the scene was being portrayed was Silent Night.

Silent Night, Holy Night, all is calm, all is bright.

And then round yon virgin mother and child, holy infant so tender and mild.

And then The background script is her father's voice going through her head saying, family is a burden, a pressure point, soft tissue, an illness, an antidote to greatness.

You think you're better off with people who rely on you, depend on you, but you're wrong because you will inevitably end up needing them, which makes you weak, pliable.

Family doesn't complete you, it destroys you.

Can you believe the message coming from the culture to the youth of today?

Family is a burden, a soft tissue, an illness.

In fact, you read in sociological textbooks of the academics of our day and they say that the family is a bygone, archaic notion.

It's a social construct from an oppressive patriarchal era and it's something that needs to be done away with completely.

You have on the Black Lives Matter website that 1 of the goals of this movement is to disrupt the nuclear family.

The Family - The Public Enemy No.1- Part 2

Father in heaven, we thank you for your wisdom that you've made known to us through the spirit of prophecy.

Please give us understanding of your blueprint for the family so that we can think through this in our own lives.

For those of us who are in that stage now or yet in the future, please give us conviction and firmness in this age of deception and the onslaught against the family.

Parents, the burden is upon you, whether you are sensible of it or not, to train these children for God, to watch with jealous care the first approach of the wily foe and be prepared to raise a standard against him." I love that quote.

You are not secure a moment against the attacks of Satan.

You have no time to rest from watchful earnest labor.

I think yesterday afternoon's session 1 and this morning's session 3, the last 1, have convinced us that there is an onslaught, right?

I mean, if you've seen media on the brain, you know that there is an attack.

We are not safe a moment against the attacks of Satan on ourselves or our children, so we must watch and pray.

That's the urgency that I want to begin this message with because we saw the 3 biggest events in the history of redemption, right?

And of course there was an attack and it continues to be an attack, not just upon the lives of children in the womb, but upon the children who make it to survive the womb in this age.

They are coming after the children through every means that we've talked about through the media especially which we haven't really talked about much this weekend I'll talk a bit about that tomorrow morning by the way there's a typo in the in the the schedule it says 7 to 7 30 is tomorrow morning's devotional message I'll be tomorrow morning presenting at 7.45 to 8.30.

So it should say 7 to 8.30 is that morning experience.

So be there at 7 for the morning prayer, 7.45 for the message.

I think that'll get announced more also later if you didn't catch that.

745 is tomorrow's message that I'll share.

It says, guarding the home against satanic influences.

We want to guard the home against satanic influences.

It says, other families will mark the results attained by such a home, by a godly home, and will follow the example set.

Have you ever heard the statement that a well-regulated family, an obedient children, a nice family is better than all the sermons ever preached.

Families will mark the results attained by a godly home.

So this statement is saying you can guard your home against satanic influences by looking at godly homes and following their example.

We want to look at the example of Christ.

But interestingly, Christ working through godly homes has actually been studied through George Barna's research.

He took a look at spiritually strong young adults and he said, what kind of families, what kind of parenting produces spiritually strong young adults.

In other words, what do we need to do to give ourselves the best chances?

They found what kind of homes are most likely to produce spiritually strong young adults.

He came up with about 50 findings of what sorts of parenting strategies and it approaches and philosophies are done in those homes.

Those 50 findings as well as all the Spirit of Prophecy quotes to back it up are in the Raising the Remnants series that you can get upstairs.

What you're hearing is bits of that, okay?

There used to be an old 1 that was only 1 disc.

If you've got that, this is the updated version, and it'll be half off for you if you got the old 1 already because there's some repeated material but much expanded.

But anyway, George Barna went out and studied these young adults, and he wanted to know what kind of parenting is most likely to produce spiritual champions as he called them.

Now a quick disclaimer though because you could parent perfectly and still a child could rebel because I know a perfect parent and only 1 and his name is God the Father and he parented all the angels and one-third of them rebelled okay so you could still be perfect and still there's free will right here's the statement parents may do everything in their power to give their children every privilege and instruction in order that they may give their hearts to God, yet the children may refuse to walk in the light." Now this kind of thing isn't stated all over the place in Spirit of Prophecy.

You read all these books and it's all about how we can really have the power of God in our home.

So I don't want us to like hang on to that 1, but I share that for those older members of the church whose children have left and their hearts are aching and they hear a message like this and they're like, oh, it's all my fault if I would have only done these things and then there's just a big burden of guilt and shame and remorse and negative things.

And we all make mistakes and God forgives us for those and so that's in the past.

Now for all of us as we're thinking about the subject at hand, we should ask ourselves, how can we give our children the best chances possible, right?

The research is clear that the more of these things we do, the greater chances we will have at producing spiritually strong young adults.

So really it's the Holy Spirit producing them.

But also another disclaimer, when you're reading through Spirit of Prophecy on any subject, you want to look at the bulk of the evidence.

You want to look at a vast quantity of information before you select 1 thing and go, I'm taking that and I haven't really read very thoroughly but this is gonna be my thing I go with.

Children should not be led to feel that they cannot go out or come in without being watched.

Suspicion demoralizes, Producing the very evils it seeks.

So, in other words, you should just, you should let your kids do whatever you want, whatever they want, right?

That's what somebody might take from that.

They might go, well, yeah, I don't want to produce any demoralization and suspicion, so I'm going to let them go out and come in however they want to do and see you guys at midnight and don't tell me where you went.

Well, if you only took that quote, you might go there.

You might be a total free-range parent, right?

Now then again, you might only read this 1.

Parents generally put too much confidence in their children, for often when the parents are confiding in them, they are in concealed iniquity.

Parents, watch your children with a jealous care.

Now if you only took this 1, you might become like super suspicious parent, like like all over, like you're doing something wrong, aren't you?

If you were only looking at this, you might become imbalanced.

Now that you've got both of these, you realize something, don't you?

You do want to be watching them, but you don't want them to feel like you're suspicious of them, right?

So did you see how we combined the 2 and it became a clear hole?

And it's actually just stated in the clear hole.

It says, be 1 with the children in their exercises and amusements without leaving the impression that you are watching them.

So just as you study spirit of prophecy, as you study through these councils, that's a good little example of how to make sure that you're doing this in a clear and balanced and truthful way.

Now this is the end goal of where we want to go.

This is the end of the quote, and then I'll show you the beginning.

It says, a sanctified love will bind the hearts of parents and children together.

A sanctified love binding the hearts of parents and children together.

And then the youth will grow up established in the faith and rooted and grounded in the love of God.

It says the work of education in the home if it is to accomplish all that God designs it shall Demands that parents be diligent students of the scriptures.

This is where we're starting number 1 square 1 as parents They must be learners of the great teacher day by day the law of love and kindness must be upon their lips.

Their lives must reveal the grace and truth that was seen in the life of their example.

You see, we will only be Christ-like and be an example to our children when we're in the word and we're receiving from Christ.

George Barna actually found that the successful parents were most likely to be theologically conservative.

Maybe the fundamentalist is the term you'd use.

They studied their Bible is an even more important finding there.

They were actually in the word, they loved it.

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Series

The Family - The Public Enemy No.1

The Family - The Public Enemy No.1- Part 2

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

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Recorded

Seminar: Spiritual Enrichment

Raising the Remnant

1h 22m

The True Education Mindset

1h 11m

A Sacred Trust: Character

58m

More Media and the Brain

More Media and the Brain

1h 15m

More Media and the Brain

The Family: Public Enemy #1

59m

Lord Save Our Children

1h

Children's Ministries

Sabbath School and the Home

1h 16m

Raising the Remnant

4. How to Raise a Happy Unspoiled, Confident, Obedient, Thinking Child

53m

From Home to Eternity

02 Capturing the Joy of an Adventist Home

1h

ASI 2012 Seminar: Home & Family

Home: A Little Heaven on Earth - and What To Do If Yours Isn’t

1h 14m

Sound Doctrine