Steubenville Ohio Story: What’s Happening To America’s Youth?

Introduction

I do not have time this evening to say everything I would like to say to express our gratitude for all the kindness that you’ve extended to us the last few days. Heidi and I have enjoyed being here so very much, as I said at the beginning for so many reasons. We’ve appreciated the opportunity to be with some of you in your homes and to visit together. That’s been so enjoyable. You’ve been so hospitable to us. But more than that, we’ve enjoyed this time together. We’ve enjoyed worshiping with you. Your worship is so enthusiastic and passionate. It’s been so very encouraging to us. And I appreciate how so many of you come every single night. And you’ve been so careful to attend to the lessons and you’ve had such encouraging feedback when we’ve been done.

I just can’t tell you how much I appreciate all that. I also want you to know how excited I am about the work here. I remember when Decker Prairie met in the log cabin. Is there anyone in the crowd who remembers that? And I have been here at regular intervals, preached here for a little bit, maybe four, and then have held meetings just about every five years or so. That’s not a hint. And so I’ve been able to watch the progress. And it seems to me that you are doing now better than the group has ever done. Thriving and serving the Lord here. I’m so encouraged by that. And I appreciate the encouragement we will take away from our time together. Well, I could talk all night about that kind of stuff.

And I wouldn’t get to our purpose for coming. So just know I’ve got lots of other things I’d like to say. I’d like to talk about Tony a little bit. He is absolutely wrong in something he said tonight. I am not afraid to fly. I am afraid to crash. And I don’t know how to avoid one without avoiding the other. But we do go way back. In fact, if you want some embarrassing pictures of Tony, I have some that I’ve used on meeting flyers in the past. But I appreciate him and Sherry so much. I know that them becoming part of the equation has contributed in a significant way to the progress y’all have made. What a blessing that you are working together in the Lord.

Will you remember that the devil can’t stand that? He’s going to try to get in the middle of you. Just don’t let him, okay? Let’s get to the Word of God. That’s what we came to talk about tonight. So I want to begin in Psalm chapter 11, and I want to read a couple of verses together at the beginning. And then we’ll read a few more when we get to the end. So I’m in Psalm 11. And I want to begin in verse number one. The psalmist writes, In the Lord I take refuge. How can you say to my soul, flee as a bird to your mountain? For behold, the wicked bend the bow. They make ready their arrow upon the string to shoot in darkness at the upright of heart.

If the foundations are destroyed, what are the righteous to do? I am not the news junkie that I used to be. I used to begin every morning with a cup of coffee and about four news websites so that I could stay up to date on what was happening locally and nationally and even occasionally internationally. There was sometimes, well, material there from which a sermon might be launched or something like that. That’s the way I began my day. I would say I don’t do that anymore. In fact, I have virtually given up on the news. I don’t like watching the news anymore. Maybe it’s a sign that I’m getting old, but it’s just depressing. And I would prefer, I guess, to be uninformed. As a consequence of that, I find myself always sort of behind what’s going on.

You ever find yourself in that position? There are stories that are happening, things that are developing, and I usually pick up on it late. That happened a couple of years ago. I did happen to catch a headline that caught my attention, but the headline was actually reporting the end of a story that evidently had been developing for some time. The headline actually announced the outcome of a salacious trial that had been going on in the little town of Steubenville, Ohio. Not a place that will typically be featured on the evening news. It’s a little place, about 18,000 people along the banks of the Ohio River. If it ever does get media attention, it is not on the courthouse. It is on their 10,000 seat high school football stadium.

Because you see, in other parts of the country, that’s a really big stadium. Most of those folks just hadn’t been to Texas to know what a big football stadium is. But in Ohio, that’s a big deal. And the big Red, as their football team is known, is one of the most storied football programs, not just in the state of Ohio, but in the nation, nine championships over their illustrious history. The story I was reading involved a football team. The headline reported that two of the team’s star players had been convicted of sexually assaulting a teenage girl back in August of the previous year. I care about young people. That’s why the headline caught my attention. And so I read the story. And I have to tell you, as awful as the headline sounds, the story was so much worse.

The teenage victim was so drunk that she was hardly conscious if she was during the assault.

Who watched.

Immediately after the assault, there were celebratory texts that were sent out by the two assailants to share with their friends what they had just done. I read some of the text messages. You don’t want to read them. Their callousness about what they had done and their contempt for the young woman involved was horrific. In the aftermath of the crime, there were rumors circulating about adults who were attempting to cover up the crime to protect the reputation of the big red, the football team. Further investigation in the days that followed led to the firing of some school officials. After the verdict, the teenage girl was the victim again. Death threats were made against her, too, were arrested in that part of the case. It was an appalling crime.

Much less write a sermon about it and come preach that sermon to you tonight.

And the more I thought about what happened in Steubenville, Ohio, the more my mind, the more my mind began to consider some of the really important things that the story was saying about our culture and about young people today. In fact, it seemed to me that the story was exposing what are some very real dangers that godly people, that parents and grandparents and young people need to be thinking about. And so, with a whole lot of disgust, I began forming this lesson in my mind. And decided to preach it. Not because I want to. I don’t like preaching this sermon. But I feel like I need to. And so for a little while tonight, I want to talk to you about what happened in Steubenville, Ohio.

1. A Teenage Girl Got Drunk

I want to take this complicated tale with its twists and its turns and its drama. And I want to try to just bring it down to its basic dimensions. In fact, I just want to say three things about the story. And then tie that together with some principles from Scripture and some lessons that I think God would want us to learn. And we’ll be done for tonight. So my question is what happened in Steubenville, Ohio? Let me begin with this. The first thing I think we need to know about this story is that a teenage girl got drunk. Now I will tell you, as much as I don’t like preaching the sermon, can I be crystal clear with you and say, I don’t like making that point?

Not one bit. In fact, before I even crafted this point, I talked to several of my preaching friends, and I told them, this is what I’m thinking about saying, and here’s where I’m going. Do you even think this ought to be said? And they encouraged me to say it. So if you want to blame somebody, I’ll give you their names and you can email them about that. I don’t want to say anything about the girl being drunk because I’m afraid someone will walk out of here and think that what I’ve suggested is that somehow what happened to her was her fault because she was drunk. Or that some way her circumstances mitigate what the boys did. Can I be unequivocal about that? Can I be crystal clear?

It doesn’t.

But at the same time, it is awfully difficult for me to ignore this key dimension of the story and the great danger that it exposes. Her drunkenness, understand, was at the heart of the legal case. Her intoxication meant that she could not give consent. She could not protest. They don’t even really know if she was conscious during all of this. If anything, I would suggest that it makes the actions of the boys all the more reprehensible. Not justified.

But I see a danger here.

A danger that’s getting a lot of people into trouble. A danger that’s getting a lot of young people into trouble, especially on college campuses, and we need to talk about it. And I want to do that. I want you to know the young lady was drunk because I think it exposes what is the problem with alcohol. You know why God wants us, does not want us to drink alcohol? And it’s not because he’s sitting up in heaven and thinking, well, listen, it would really be great if you could go have fun at the bar with your friends. I don’t want my people to have fun. I think I’m just going to cut that out.

God doesn’t want us drinking alcohol because alcohol mess with the mind. That’s the problem. People who drink don’t think straight, don’t reason well, don’t make sound decisions. And listen, when you begin to let alcohol mess with your mind, you are slowly slipping into very dangerous territory. You like that. Pay attention to the news the last few weeks. I used to live in Central Florida. Home turf for spring break. You know what happens every year in Central Florida over spring break? Kids die. You know how at least two, three, two or three die every year, they get drunk and they fall off the tenth floor balcony. How does that happen? Because the alcohol messed with their mind.

I want to say something else about that.

That the impact of alcohol on the mind begins very early in the drinking process. I do not want you to think that I’m naive about this. I certainly understand that there are a whole realm of factors that have to be considered when you talk about the effects of alcohol on a person. You’ve got to talk about gender, for example, because men and women do not process alcohol in the same way. You’ve got to talk about the size of the person, because that makes a difference. You’ve got to talk about the time gap between each of the drinks. And by the way, what are they drinking? And what is their experience with drinking? I understand that you’ve got to factor all of that stuff into the equation.

But one thing, one thing is crystal clear. That impairment from alcohol will begin with the very first drink you take. I love to say that because I know it makes some people mad. I’m sorry, but I can be just a little bit that way. I know there are people who listen to me say that and think, oh, brother, there go one of those anti-drinking preachers again, making these extreme statements about alcohol. Oh, you’re drunk. If you have one drink. Actually, I didn’t say that. I said impairment begins with the first drink. And actually, when I say that, I didn’t really say that. I’m actually reading a quote. A quote that I pulled from the drinking impairment chart that is distributed by the University of Oklahoma College Police Department.

They have a chart that they give to students, because this is such a problem on college campuses, that gives them guidance about the effect of alcohol on the body. Their chart says impairment begins with the first drink. In fact, I thought it was very interesting that it isn’t just the cops at the University of Oklahoma who say that.

In fact, if you go to their website, you can look up the article at ntsb.gov called Safety Report on Eliminating Impaired Drivers, and what you will find there is this statement.

But the current recommendation from the N test B is if you’ve had anything to drink, you should not drive. Why? Because evidently, if you just have one beer, that is enough impairment to make the guys who were worried about the highways worried about you. So you see, it isn’t just some right-wing radical anti-drinking preacher who’s all hung up about this. The cops protecting the young people at the University of Oklahoma are worried about it. The people trying to keep our highways safe are worried about it. The only people who don’t seem worried about it are our brethren who seem determined to go to the bar with their friends. Let me say a word about what I mean when I talk about impairment. I don’t mean to say that if you’ve had a beer, you’re falling down drunk.

Everybody knows that’s not so.

You understand that’s why people who have one or two inevitably wind out being wind up being passed out drunk somewhere. How does that happen? It is because alcohol messes with your mind.

I know to a lot of people that doesn’t sound like such a big deal.

Until you think about what happened in Steubenville, Ohio. Or let’s make it a little more personal. How about if we’re talking about your granddaughter? Or your daughter. Over day and M at a frat party with a bunch of drunk boys. May I ask you, would you be comfortable with her having lower inhibitions? Losing her shyness a little bit, being less cautious. Could we stop quibbling over whether one could technically prove it is a sin to have a sip of beer since nobody does that anyway? And agree that this stuff is just dangerous? What happened in Stebenville, Ohio? We need to get some text on this. And so I want you to go with me to Titus chapter 2. Y’all just thought I was going to rant all my personal feelings about this tonight.

I have personal feelings about this because of what I read in the Word of God. The text that I talk about when I talk about alcohol, oddly enough, is here in Titus, chapter 2, verse 11, by the way. Tony’s done some great work on it. Have you preached your stuff on this here? Yeah. Tony’s done some great stuff. You’ve got questions, you need to get his material that he’s done. I actually read it while I was driving over here. Actually, that didn’t sound right at all, didn’t I?

My wife read it to me while we were driving over here. This is Titus 2, verse 11. For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires, and to live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Christ Jesus. I just want to stop there. Verse 11 looks at our past.

That’s what’s happened through Jesus. We’ve been rescued from our sins. We’ve been saved. Verse 13 looks to the future, to our future, to the return of Jesus. And so what I want to do is zero in on verse 20, verse 12, rather, because it deals with our present. So what do we do now? Now that we are saved and we’re waiting for Jesus to come, what fills the in-between time? A negative and a positive. We are to deny ungodliness and worldly desire. There’s some things we don’t do. And he says we are to live sensibly, righteously, and godly. Three words that define the present walk. Do you see that? And for our sake tonight, I only want to think about the first one that we are to live sensibly.

Does your translation have a different word there? Maybe with sobriety, be sober, self-disciplined. Some translations read. That’s exactly the idea. What Paul is saying. He said we are not free to just go out and indulge in wherever our desires lead us. No, just the opposite. As servants of Jesus, we rein in all of our passions and we submit them to the will of Christ. That’s why you don’t shoot anybody on the way to work. You may be mad enough to do that, but if you’re a follower of Jesus, you’re supposed to reign in your anger, aren’t you? And submit it to the will of Christ. That’s the point. Here’s the problem, brothers and sisters. Start drinking. And from the very beginning of that process, the alcohol begins to erode your sobriety.

It makes us less and less. The deeper we go, the more it’s a problem. It takes away our ability to manage our desires. If you go back to Proverbs chapter 23, I feel like I’ve read this passage every night. That is precisely the point that the wise man is making in Proverbs 23 and verse 29. Remember from Monday night when we talked about suffering, who has woe, who has sorrow, who has contentions, who has complaining, who has wounds without cause, who has redness of eyes, those who linger long over wine, those who go to taste. Mix wine. Do not look on the wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup, when it goes down smoothly, at last it bites like a serpent and stings like a viper.

Look at verse 33. That’s what I want you to see. Your eyes will see strange things. Your mind will utter perverse things. You will be like one who lies down in the middle of the sea, or one who lies down on the top of a mast. What’s he talking about? The effect of alcohol on the mind. Why doesn’t God want us messing with this stuff? Because it messes with the mind. You see. From the very first drink, it begins to erode this vital quality of sobriety, of sensibility that I need to be the person the Spirit wants me to be. Let me ask you. When is it ever good for someone who is daily being pursued by the devil to be less cautious? Even if it’s just a little.

When is it ever good for a disciple to have lower inhibitions? Don’t quibble with me about how low with how much. Listen, I’m battling the devil every day. I don’t need any of my inhibitions eroded away. And eat them all the time. For the disciple, alcohol works against the very thing we are trying to do and to be sensible. Disciples. Followers of Jesus. Get in your mind’s eye. Your granddaughter over daying them. Invited to a frat party. What do you want the message that she will carry with her to make her judgments in that situation? What do you want to say to your granddaughter or your daughter about alcohol? I’ll tell you what I say to teenage girls and boys and everybody else. Leave this stuff alone.

2. Two Young Men Did an Awful Thing

This path leads nowhere good. Leave it alone. About two years ago on a Friday night in Steubenville, Ohio, a teenage girl got drunk. And her life will never be the same. She is ruined forever. Do you think if she could back up two years and replay that Friday night, she’d made a different choice. Make that choice. What happened in Steubenville, Ohio? A teenage girl got drunk. And then, secondly, the next thing I would add to that list is that two young men did an awful thing. I don’t know very much about the teenage boys who committed their this crime. I know they were teenagers. Growing up in a small Midwest town, I know they were football players. What I’m saying is, I don’t know much about their family life.

Don’t know anything about their parents, don’t know anything about what went on in their home, how they were raised. I’m saying that because I don’t really know what the story is with these boys. Is this a case of parental neglect and indulgence that now is just producing its bitter harvest? Or were these good parents? Who just had some really profoundly rebellious kids? I don’t know that. There are some things that are beyond dispute. The men were criminally immoral. They didn’t care anything about this young lady that they assaulted. They were unashamed of their actions, even boasting about them.

It is a disturbing snapshot of two boys with no moral compass. Those text messages.

I don’t know where that kind of stuff comes from. And I will tell you, I think within that part of the story, there is a call to action for every godly parent. That there is a warning in this part of the story that points up the vital work that we are doing with our kids. Listen, for whatever reason, these young men did not have what Joseph clearly had when he faced his key moment in life. Back in Genesis 39. Remember that story? Where Potiphar’s wife tries to seduce him. In verse 7, she proposes that they commit adultery together. Do you remember how Joseph responded to her? These are two of my favorite passages in the whole Bible, if we’re allowed to have favorites. I like these two.

Verse number eight said, but he refused. And he said to his master’s wife, here’s Joseph’s speech to Potiphar’s wife. Behold, with me here, my master does not concerning himself with anything in the house. And he has put all that he owns in my charge. There is no one greater in this house than I, and he has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. That little that’s little part as though he is saying to her, Duh. You’re married to my master. What do you mean? But it’s the next part I want you to notice. How then could I do this great evil? Do you see it? And sin against God. Listen. If ever somebody grew up in a dysfunctional family, it was this kid.

His family was a mess. But I will tell you that along the way, even in that messed up family, someone had taken young Joseph and laid it up on his heart that to have sex with another man’s wife was not just wrong. What did he call it? This is a great evil. This was a boy with moral convictions. This is a boy with a moral compass, an absolute sense that certain things were right and certain things were wrong, so that when he had his moment with Potiphar’s wife, I’m going to tell you what, there was no doubt about what he was supposed to do. In fact, he was so convicted about that, he was having nothing to do with it, even when she pursued him again and again and again.

We need kids just like that. What do you think of these parents who say, Well, I just kind of hate to impose my values on my children. I kind of want to love, I want them to learn up and learn about, grow up and learn values for themselves. I just want to run screaming into the night when I hear people say that. Are you kidding me? Have you read your Bible? Ephesians 6 and 4 teaches absolutely the opposite of that. Bring them up, the Holy Spirit says, in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. That’s a parent’s responsibility to ingrain on the heart of the child convictions and morality rooted in the word of God. Think about the teaching of Deuteronomy chapter 6. Moses is thinking about future generations.

Have these words of mine on your heart? Verse 6. Teach them diligently to your sons. When you sit in your house and when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up, write them on the doorpost of your house and on your gates. What was Moses saying? I want you to take this covenant between us and God. And I want you to make it the atmosphere that fills your home. I want you to be talking to your kids about this all the time. I want our covenant with God, your covenant with me, God says, to be ingrained on their heart. Kids are not supposed to figure out morality for themselves. They’re to be trained in the Word of God by mom and dad.

There it is. That’s our call. When my sons face their moment with Potiphar’s wife.

3. A Lot of People Thought Little of It

I want them to look at that sinful temptation in front of them, and I want them in their heart to say, This is a great evil. I don’t want anything to do with this. We need that, brothers and sisters. There’s a lot of evil in our world today. We need to raise kids who are able to discern the good from the bad. Parents need to give their children a moral compass. Because on a Friday night two years ago in August, two teenage boys did a horrible thing. They didn’t have the compass. What happened in Steubenville, Ohio? A teenage girl got drunk. Two teenage boys did an awful thing, and finally, a lot of people thought little of it. The reactions from the citizens of Steubenville were different.

Some were as appalled as I was, maybe as you are tonight, if you’re hearing this awful story for the first time. Others thought it was no big deal. The comment of one Steubenville resident, just boys being boys.

But without question, I think the worst reaction of all was from the young people who were there. I would remind you that this crime was not committed on some dark, lonely country road or in some back alley. It happened in the basement of someone’s house at a party. There were other kids present. And yet nobody stepped up to try to stop the crime. Some of the witnesses were football players. They could do something about this. If there was a time to protect the reputation of the football team, that was the moment. Frankly, someone should have leveled those two boys when this started. Did I say that out loud? Y’all need to edit that off the recording. Nobody called the police.

Or spoke up and protested and said, You shouldn’t do this. No, let me tell you of the reaction of the crowd that was on the scene. They watched the assault and they said, We need to take a picture. We need to shoot a video. We need to share this with our friends. A police interrogator got one of those boys in a room, one of the witnesses. And in frustration and disgust, he said to the boy, Why didn’t you do anything?

You do not want to know his answer.

He said, I didn’t know that a crime was being committed. You see, evidently it wasn’t just the two boys that assaulted the girl who lacked any moral sensibilities at all.

Do you know what I would like to do with this story? I would like to write it off as an aberration, an anomaly. One of those wild, bizarre things that just happens sometimes. Sometimes awful, tragic things just happen, and there’s a real explanation. They just rise up on the scene and then they’re gone. That’s what I would like to do with it. I’d like to say that it is an aberration.

Except in those two cases.

And I want you to know that I’m speculating. I fear that the conduct we see from the boys who committed the crime and the young people who witnessed it are demonstrating to us, illustrating the debilitating effects of minds saturated with pornography. I’m admitting to you that I’m speculating because I can’t present any evidence that anybody involved in this had been looking at pornography. But you know, I’ve researched the effects of pornography on young men and young women. And you do the research, and what you find is that what happened at that party with these boys and that crowd, it sure looks like exactly what happens to young men and young women who saturate the minds with that awful stuff.

We have a problem. We live in a culture saturated with sensual images. It’s everywhere. Walk through the mall, it’s on the front posters of the Abercrombie and Fitch store. It’s halftime at the Super Bowl. They’re everywhere. Young people can access the worst filthy the worst filth our society can manufacture. All they gotta do is swipe their finger across the iPad or click the mouse on their computer. They don’t have to go to a theater in the CD side of town to view pornography and go back in their bedroom and close the door, pull it up on their phone. They can walk away from a group of friends, go around the corner and pop it up on their iPad. Privacy is another problem. People think that they can access this material and nobody’s gonna know.

I don’t know what to say about that. There’s a dimension of that’s true. Mom and dad never look at the cell phone, never check the iPad, never look at the laptop.

Maybe nobody will. Well, the other side of that is it’s hard to read the news if you still do that without hearing some story about this congressman or that school teacher or this businessman who’s lost his job, who’s going to jail because they got started down the pornographic path, and it’s got them in a lot of trouble. The truth is, millions and millions have succumbed to this vice, and as that’s happening, the walls are coming down, folks. A couple of years ago, I read about a study that was done at a gathering of the promise keepers. Are y’all familiar with that group? It’s a denominational organization where men come together and encourage each other to be good husbands, be good fathers, to be godly men. And so at a gathering, I believe it was out in Colorado, they surveyed this gathering of thousands of very religious men.

And they said, how many of you have looked at pornography in the last seven days? Want to guess?

More than half said yes.

Wonder what the number would be if we factored in the liars.

And so, as people do it more and more, the moral restrictions, the moral compunctions against it, they’re just disintegrating. The truth is that the average American today, if you look at the statistics, really doesn’t think there’s anything morally wrong with looking at pornography.

Some studies suggest that teenage boys are the largest consumers. That statistic is challenged. I’m disturbed that we have to talk about whether it’s valid or not. Here’s my question. If what happened at Steubenville, Ohio is what we have suggested tonight, a reflection on what happens when young people grow up with minds saturated by pornography during their formative years.

Now let me give you some text. Proverbs 4 and verse 23 warns, what? Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flowed the springs of life. Solomon says that the heart is the fountain from which everything else flows. And so if Satan, and we should have been talking about him long before now, there’s our culprit. There’s the problem. If Satan can corrupt the fountain of our kids in their youth and fill their minds with this garbage so that it permanently alters forever their perception of the opposite sex, of intimacy in marriage, everything. Where are we going? Are you scared? Good. That was my purpose. I’m scared too.

And so let’s do something to protect our kids. Two things. Number one, we need to do what we can to prevent our kids from being corrupted by pornography. We need to try to build a wall in our family to protect our children. So we talk to our kids about the danger. Are you comfortable with that? It really doesn’t matter if you’re not, just pretend you are. They won’t know the difference. Talk to your kids about it. Need to keep computers and iPads and cell phones out of the bedroom. Children should only be accessing the internet at a public place in the house and at times when mom and dad can pay attention. Can I tell you something about your kid’s cell phone? When you go to bed at night, they’re going to hate me for this.

When they go to bed at night, it needs to be turned off. And it needs to be on the dresser in mom and dad’s bedroom. Brothers and sisters, there is nothing good that’s going to happen with your kid and their cell phone and their bedroom after you’ve gone to bed. Couple of years ago I added it up. I was averaging one sexting incident among young people, God’s young people, about every 18 months. Those are the kids that got caught. Okay? Nothing good’s going to happen with your kid and their cell phone and their room after you go to bed. So turn it off, put it on your dresser, and that needs to be the rule at everybody’s house. Hold your kids accountable. Check their devices. Have you done that today?

By the way, I need to point out to you if you get on your kid’s iPad and you notice that the browsing history is blank. That does not mean that your son is very efficient about keeping his computer clean. It means that he’s looking at stuff that he doesn’t want you to see. When I would hold my kids accountable, sometimes they would protest that. Sometimes the kids would tell me they were going to be somewhere, and when they got home, I said, Yeah, I drove past her house. You were there, just like you said. And one of my sons said, You don’t trust me. I said, No, I do. I really believe that you were going to be there. I’m just like, remember the battle with the Soviet Union, our cold war with them.

Trust but verify. That’s me. Hold them accountable. Check up. Be sure. Build the wall to protect kids. That’s the first thing that we need to do. And then the second thing is we need to do Ephesians 6, 4. Bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Need to get God’s book open at our house. And we need to talk to our kids about moral purity and respect for the opposite sex and valuing other people. Dads need to be teaching their boys to behave like gentlemen again. And moms need to be teaching daughters to behave like young ladies. And then dads need to come behind and remind young ladies that boys are bad. Might want to edit that one too.

Conclusion

Our kids need a moral compass, folks. Because on a Friday night, two years ago, a bunch of kids were so corrupt in their hearts that they were unmoved as they watched a terrible crime committed before their very eyes. It is a wake-up call. It is a call to action. We need to protect the purity of our children. That’s the lesson. We’re going to sing that psalm number. Now, do y’all understand why I hate to preach this? I really do. It’s an ugly story that wears us out mentally and emotionally, and you just start feeling like the world around us is falling apart. Psalm 11. Verse 3. If the foundations are destroyed, what are the righteous to do? There’s more to the psalm. And the rest is good news.

So can we end there?

This is verse 4. This is what I want you to know as you think about the foundations of our culture crumbling. This is what this is what the Holy Spirit wants us to know. Verse number four. The Lord is in his holy temple. The Lord’s throne is in heaven. His eyes behold, his eyelids test the sons of men. The Lord tests the righteous and the wicked. And the one who loves violence, his soul hates. Upon the wicked, he rains snares, fire and brimstone, burning wind will be the portion of their cup. For the Lord loves righteousness. The Lord loves righteousness. For the Lord is righteous. He loves righteousness. The upright will behold his face. Let’s walk through it. As the foundations crumble, what do we need to remember?

Verse number four: the Lord is on his throne. If you need a little reinforcement of that, Revelation chapter 4. As Rome is crushing the disciples, God says, my people need to remember that I’m still running the show. Doesn’t matter how it looks on earth, I am still sitting on the throne. Next thing I want you to see is that nothing escapes God’s notice. His eyes behold and his eyelids test the Son of Man. That’s the sad thing about thinking we can keep some of this pornography stuff secret and private. I told you kids Sunday night, it’s not very tough to fool parents. We’re not that bright. I don’t know what to do with that one, brother. I’m going to leave it alone. I’m going to tell you this.

Hebrews 4 says. And we’re open and lay bare before him with whom we have to do. Who cares if you fool your parents? You’re not fooling God. And that’s what the psalmist tells us. The Lord sees. So there’s not anything going on. What happened to Stupid Philip? God saw all that. And in fact, more importantly, when he says this, God is going to deal with that. In fact, most of this latter part is devoted to the fact that God will bring judgment on wicked people. I don’t have to worry about winging all the wrongs. Why? Because God’s going to take care of that.

And in the last verse 7. The upright will behold his face. God’s going to take care of his people. That’s the message of Revelation. Don’t worry about what’s going on with the persecuting Roman Empire. God’s going to get you through this. And he’s going to bring you safely home. That’s what the psalmist wants us to know. So, what do we do as the foundations crumble? We trust in the God who’s still on his throne, who sees what’s going on. He’ll bring his judgment and he’ll bring us safely home if we are his. Are you his? You on his side tonight? As the foundation crumbles, are you standing on his solid foundation? Maybe there’s someone in this crowd that needs to make things right between you and God so you can be with him.

Last thing we’re going to do together is appeal to you to make that choice. We need to respond to him. Make your way to the front right now while we stand and sing together.