The Problem With Young People

Introduction

Just a couple announcements as I begin tonight. Again, a welcome to our visitors. We have a few of those. And we’re glad that you’re here. And some of our number who were not here this morning, some weren’t feeling well, some were out of town, and some have trickled back in tonight. And so we’re glad to see a good dozen of you. And we still had more people here this morning. And I don’t know how that works. But it’s good to see everyone tonight who has come. And one other announcement I feel compelled to make is the loss of, at least from an earthly point of view, the loss of a great soldier and preacher of the cross, Jack Thompson. Jack has preached in the Southeast Texas area for many years.

And while I lived in Baytown, Jack was my golfing buddy. And we get out on Monday morning, Monday mornings a lot of time. We’d walk 18 holes, we’d talk about all the issues that there are, and even some that there weren’t. And he was my good friend for many years. And he passed away today. And I know most of his family. And he was a good soldier of the cross who’s gone on to his reward. Let’s remember the family at this time. Tonight, I want to start with a brief three-person character study from the Old Testament. I can’t give you all of this blow by blow and cover what I need to cover tonight. This is going to be very brief. I’m just going to give you an overview of three characters of the Bible.

All of them are in 2 Chronicles. The difference between 2 Chronicles and Kings, or 2 Chronicles and 2 Kings, though it covers the same historical period. The emphasis in 2 Chronicles is more upon the kings of Judah, the descendants of David, and what they were and what they were not spiritually. There’s far more of a spiritual emphasis in 2 Chronicles versus more of a historical emphasis in 2 Kings. And so that’s why the material reads a little bit differently, and we’re given more insight into the spiritual demeanor of each of the characters. Now, in the list of the kings of Israel, young people, how many good kings were there in the kings of the north? Zero. Zero. Now, we might give a shout out to Jehu is perhaps the best of the lot.

But zero. The kings of the south, the kings of Judah, however, well, they were the descendants of David, and some of them, not a majority, some of them were listed as good kings and had a lot of good spiritual qualities about them, but even some of them had some issues, as we’ll see in the three that I’m going to mention. The first of whom is Asa. The thing I remember about Asa is he reigned 41 years. I don’t know why, that sticks with me. One of the early kings of the divided kingdom, descendant of David and Rehoboam. And part of Asa’s problem, he actually starts very well, and he’s met by the prophet of God Azariah in 2 Chronicles chapter 15. And he tells them what he should be doing spiritually, and he does all of that and reacts very nobly.

But in chapter 16, there’s this problem of the king to the north. Remember I mentioned those bad kings? Basha. And because of evil king Basha, there was concern about the solidity of his kingdom. And so he starts depending on Ben Hadad of Syria to the north. And that, of course, displeased God. He should have been trusting in him, not a foreign king. And so Hanini the seer comes to Asa and tells him about this mistake, and angry. And Asa was angry. It says in 2 Chronicles 16 and verse 10, instead of accepting the instruction, he was angry with the seer and put him in prison. This was God’s spokesman. This was supposed to be a good king. And so he was enraged at him, and he oppressed some of the people at this time.

Then there was Joash, the boy king. Remember his wicked grandmother, Athaliah, daughter of Ahab and Jezebel. Tried to put all of the king’s sons to death. But Joash is preserved by one of my favorite unsung characters of the Old Testament, Jehoshaphat. Jehoshaba saves Joash, the only one of the king’s sons that she could save from Athaliah hides him. She doesn’t know. Ataliah doesn’t know that he hasn’t been killed. Jehoshaphat’s husband is Jehoida the priest. And at the age of seven, they present Joash to the people.

And of course, they had about enough of Athaliah at this time, and they put her to death. And so Joash, the boy king at age seven, and he is faithful to the Lord. He has had this tutelage from Jehoida and Jehoshaphat. And yet, after Jehoidah dies. The story in 2 Chronicles chapter 24, Joash starts to have some problems. And the Spirit of God comes upon Zachariah the priest, who incidentally may be mentioned in the New Testament as the blood from Abel to Zachariah. This may be the Zachariah. Because God says through Zachariah, why do you transgress the commandments of the Lord? You’ve forsaken the Lord. He’s forsaken you. And so the king has him stoned. Joash has instoned. And Joash the king did not remember the kindness which his father Jehoida had shown him, but he murdered his son.

This was the son of Jehoidah. And as he died, he said, May the Lord see. May the Lord see and avenge. Then there was King Isaiah shortly after Joash, who again starts off very nobly, listed as a good king, but then he is lifted up with pride, acts corruptly, and is unfaithful because of his pride, according to verse 16, and starts offering incense that only the priests could do. Remember, he was not of the tribe of Levi, being a king, he was a descendant of David of the tribe of Judah. And so he has to be dealt with as well. And he becomes a leper. God strikes him with leprosy until the day of his death. So man, I just put a big hole in the good king’s chart.

You know, the teachers use the chart, bad kings, good kings, good kings of Judah. I just put a big hole in the good king’s chart. But the point that I want to make about there were still some noble exceptions, Hezekiah and Josiah, for example. But all three, all three of these men were better as youths. As young men, as young kings as they were when they got a little bit older. Now that’s my introduction. I told you I was going to talk about tonight. What’s wrong with young people? You know you’ve heard it, haven’t you? The young people are going to the dogs. It seems like in every generation there’s somebody who’s proclaiming all the woes of our young people, as if there is not anything at all redeemable in them.

Is there a unique trait in young people that is wrong? Well, young people are foolish, someone says. Older people are sometimes foolish. Correct? Is this generation of young people any worse than any other? Does this generation teeter on the edge of destruction any more than any other generation of young people before it? I got the idea of this lesson from Tom Hamilton, and he has three quotes in relation to young people that I want to share with you. Tom and I went to SC together, but he’s much smarter than I am. He’s on the faculty at Florida College, and he’s the guy that knows Greek that I mentioned to you on Wednesday night, and I’m still awaiting that response, by the way, in regard to Phileo and Agapeo.

But here’s what Tom had to say. Three quotes. Quote number one I see no hope for the future of our people. If they are dependent upon the frivolous youth of today. For certainly all young people are reckless beyond words. I like that. When I was young, we were taught to respect our elders. But young people today are nothing but disrespectful and unrestrained. Second quote. Did you like that one? Second quote. Young people think of nothing but themselves. They have no reverence for their parents or their elders. They have no restraint. They talk like they know everything. What we call wisdom, they call foolishness. Even the girls are forward, immodest, and unladylike in their speech, behavior, and dress. Quote number three. Young people think too highly of themselves.

Because they’ve not been humbled by life or learned its necessary limitations. Their optimism deceives them into thinking that they can do anything that they want. They would rather do things to get attention than do anything that’s useful. They act by feeling rather than by reason. All their mistakes have this in common. They do everything excessively.

They love too much, they hate too much, and the same with everything else. Interesting thing about these three quotes. They are, respectively, 800, 2300, and 3,000 years old. I don’t know where he got these quotes. But the age of the quotes, according to Tom, 800 years ago, 2300 years ago, 3,000 years ago, it seems like nothing is new under heaven, like Solomon said in Ecclesiastes chapter 1. Every generation says the same thing. The young people are going to the dogs. There’s not anything redeemable about them. And yet the church is still here. There are still people serving the Lord faithfully in the year 2013. And yet, you would think with all of these bad generations of young people that the thing would have died out by now.

For every, for every old Jacob, there’s a young Joseph. For every old Moses, there’s a young Daniel. For every prodigal son and rich young ruler.

Having seen a couple of generations of young people myself, I know it’s hard for me to say, I don’t have the concept that our young people are worse than they’ve ever been.

Some who worship here and have worshiped here, and some that I have worshipped with in other churches who are now in their 20s and beyond and 30s. I have known a lot of young people who have great respect for God, who are spiritually mature, who put their heart in their worship and in their faith, who display the characteristics of Christ, who have zeal and enthusiasm for the Lord. I see some people, young people who are marvelous. Examples. Maybe the words of James Baldwin are applicable here. Children perhaps have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them. Perhaps if young people have a problem, and more on this in a moment, perhaps it is because of what they have seen modeled in some cases as they tend to imitate those who have gone before them.

Here’s a question: Are young people any more prone to apostasy than older people? Sure, some young people, as they grow up, they do not make their faith their own, and they go their own way and they leave the Lord because that never really happened. It was their parents’ faith or their grandparents’ faith, and they never really made it their own. Certainly that happens, and some go wayward in their youthful years. But I got to tell you, there are people that go wayward in their adult years as well. Do we lose more young people than adults? Somebody needs to do a study on that. We’re we going to be volunteer on that. Somebody needs to do about a 40-year study on that. And we need to volunteer for that.

1. Sin Is the Great Equalizer

I really don’t think I’m going to be able to do that. But how many are we losing? Young people versus older people. Of course, we’re going to have to define what’s younger and what’s older. More on that in a moment. But let me just say something about this problem with young people that you hear about all the time. What’s wrong? The problem with young people. Let me say first that sin is the great equalizer. And that we are all equally on the verge of destruction because of sin. And that’s true whether I make a big splash in it or not. And perhaps young people generally might tend to do that. More so than someone who is older. Sometimes young people can be reckless, but again, sometimes older people can be reckless.

And the fact is, all sin is reckless. All sin is reckless, even if I am adept at keeping it concealed, so that I don’t make as big of a splash in it, even if it is not as outwardly visible as intoxication or considered as heinous as sexual transgressions. Let me tell you something about heart problems. Heart problems like lust and selfishness and pride and hatred and envy on the last day. Those will be as equally condemning as the aforementioned intoxication and sexual immorality. Even though those things may only reside in a person’s heart, and their actions that they prompt may not be observable to everyone, may not be notable to everyone, and people may not make as big a deal over those kinds of things. Let me tell you something specifically about hatred and jealousy.

I’ve seen enough of that in 30 years of preaching. I want to tell you, hatred and jealousy is a silent spiritual killer. Because a lot of times when people have those traits, they don’t even recognize them for what they are and don’t even admit them about themselves. At least the young people who might engage in sexual misconduct or might engage in drinking or the partaking of drugs or perhaps pornography or something like that. At least those things we can show them. The scriptures will acknowledge it’s wrong. I think the worst kind of sin is the one that we do not acknowledge in ourselves. And we do not identify. And these heart problems are often this. Oh, well, I don’t have any problems with this kind of stuff.

And Gary, I really want to fix the zoom on this because the laptop is not matching the screen, and that really bothers me. That it’s it’s cut off. Okay, let’s get back to the important things. We’ll go with it. But people don’t want to acknowledge these things. Hatred, I don’t love everyone. I love people. I love people. Do you love everybody? Even those that are hard to love? And you know, that’s really the question Jesus asked of his disciples in Matthew chapter 5. What do you do more than others? You do good to those who do good to you? You love those who love you. What do you do more than others? Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. I think sometimes we become content with worldly standards.

You know, I’m sort of like other people. You do good to me, I’ll do good to you. You love me, I’ll love you. We’re called to more than that. What do you do more than others? Jesus says in Matthew chapter 5, verses 43 through 48. And then this in 1 Peter chapter 2 and verse 1, I find this to be a very telling verse. 1 Peter 2. Therefore, putting aside all malice and all guile and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. And then you know the next verse, like newborn babes long for the pure milk of the word. Well, why is that verse in there? Because these are the kind of things that older Christians struggle with. All Christians for that matter. These kinds of heart problems.

2. The Devil's Sandwich: Issues of the Heart

And some of those Christians that Peter is writing to are not spending sufficient time in the Word, and these kinds of heart problems have crept in. And he says, look, if these heart problems are yours, malice and guile, hypocrisy and envy and slander, you’ve got to deal with that. And grow in respect to salvation. Now, I want to look at you at what has been called the devil’s sandwich. In Galatians 5, you might recognize this passage as the lusts or deeds of the flesh. We talked about those last week. As we talked about freedom. Do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh. The flesh works against the spirit. The things of the flesh that he’s talking about. Well, verse 19. Some of those big splash sins.

Immorality, impurity, sensuality. Verse 21, drunkenness, carousing, things like these. That’s the sandwich. But look at what’s in the middle.

Enmities. We could have mentioned idolatry and sorcery as the outer cookie. Alright, inner cookie. Enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envy. Issues of the heart. Justice condemning. Those who practice such things shall not inherit the kingdom of heaven. Difficult sometimes to rid ourselves of and to overcome. Let me ask you this. How many congregations that you know of that have been racked by trouble, perhaps even closed their doors? How many of them did that happen because of the behavior of young people? You’re all going, what am I seeing? You’re no young people have destroyed local churches. I’ve never seen it, never heard of it. Oh, we’ve had to deal with problems with young people engaging in sinful behavior, and that had to be dealt with.

But I have never seen young people destroy a local church, but I’ve seen a lot of older people do it. And it’s because of Galatians 5 and verse 20. The sandwich, the middle, or the cookie. The mass, the vast majority of churches that are ruined, are ruined by older people, and their pride. The weapon of mass destruction for Satan is not sexual sin and drunkenness, particularly in young people. It is instead hate and slander and envy and divisiveness and pride in older people. And I’ll just tell you know we had some problems in Auburn. And the problems there were not because we had 70 college, 70 to 80 college students worshiping with us who had occasional spiritual problems. We didn’t have any real big problems with the young people.

3. Flee From Youthful Lusts

Our problem was with the older people. Who should have known better, who should have been more spiritually mature. And I said about that congregation all the way along that the 20s and the young 30s somethings were often more spiritually minded than my peers in that group. Alright. Well, certainly there’s something wrong with young people. 2 Timothy 2 and verse 21 points out. Well, in 2 Timothy 2 and verse 21, it says we’re to be vessels of honor, useful to the master. And then this in verse 22. Now flee from youthful lust. Ah, there we go. We’ve got youthful lusts and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace with those who call on the Lord with a pure heart. And to be sure, lusts are a particular problem for young people.

And sometimes they can seem so overwhelming. Some of our young people says it’s such a compelling problem that they wonder if they’re ever going to get any better in dealing with it. Some have stumbled greatly in regard to this area, and all I can say is learn to practice self-control now. Learn to practice it now. Because I tell you, if you think this problem is going to go away because you get older and your body’s going to get slower and more tired, and you’re just not going to be interested in that kind of thing anymore. I want to tell you, people struggle with youthful lust well up in years. Especially in our culture. The youthful lust thing may go all the way to, I don’t know, 70, 75 or 80.

It’s not just a problem of use in our culture, but it can get better. And it’s going to take some work, and like I said, it’s going to require some self-control. It’s going to require the next few verses in Galatians 5, pursuing the fruit of the Spirit, one of which is self-control, but pursuing the whole package and walking by the Spirit and not after the flesh. That’s going to require some conscious determination and effort on your part. And it’s going to involve learning and growing. Alright. So what then are you telling me is specifically wrong with young people? Let’s get to this. Maybe you figured it out. Again, I’ve known some wonderful young people. I’m looking at some wonderful young people who will listen to the guy like me preach because they care about the word of God and doing the word of God in their lives, who will sing their hearts out to the Lord, who want to be God’s people in their time, who want to serve the purpose of God and their generation, and I appreciate that so much about you.

4. The Problem for Young People Is That They're Young

I know there are struggles. I know there are difficulties. I know there are days of temptation. But thanks be to God, there are solutions for those problems. But we must fight against temptation and strongly resist the devil when he comes our way. We’ve got to do that. We can do that. With God’s help and the help of God’s people, we can do that. So, okay, so what’s what’s really wrong with young people? Let me tell you what it is. Are you ready for this? The problem for young people is that they’re young.

And there’s nothing you can do about that. The major problem with young people is a lack of experience. Now, let me just tell you, experience is not bad or good per se. Some people who get experience don’t get any better. Some prodigal sons never wake up. Not everyone who lives a godless and empty life comes to the conclusion of just how empty and futile it all is. Experience, you see, is a magnifier. And it will exponentially multiply what you are. You may get profoundly better, or you could get profoundly worse, depending on how you respond to the experiences and deeds of life. Depending on your thoughts and your choices. And it all begins with good thinking and good habits. I want you to look at Philippians 4 and verse 8.

Young people, I want to help you in your lack of experience to know how to approach life. Philippians 4 and verse 8, two passages. I don’t have them on the screen. If I did, they’d probably be sticking off the edge. But Philippians 4, verse 8. Finally, brethren, whatever’s true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things. I want to tell you the solution is how you think. The things you allow your mind to pursue. And let me go back to Proverbs 4, the other passage, Proverbs 4, and this key nugget of wisdom, actually spoken to a young man or a young person.

This is wisdom crying out to the young person, but it cries out to all of us when it says, the Father instructs the Son, watch over your heart. Proverbs 4 and verse 23, watch over your heart with all diligence. For from it flows the springs of life. And I want you to see everything that is around that statement in Proverbs chapter 4, starting in verse 20. You’ve got to listen to wisdom. Do not let that depart from your sight. He says, They’re life if you find them and health to all your whole body, these precepts that I’m teaching you. And then he says, after that, you’ve got to put some things away from your life. Deceitful lips is one of them. Watch what you’re looking at in verse 25.

Watch where your feet go, young people. Older people. Do not turn to the right or to the left. Dangers are ever lurking. So, yes, there is no substitute for experience. And there are some things as hard as life is now, you think. There are the pressures of school and relating to other young people. People want to be included. They want friends. And yet sometimes their friends are doing things that they can’t approve of that are not consistent with the life of faith. And that makes that a challenge. And then there’s the pressure of school and having to make the grade. I tell you, when I was a kid, as long as you pass, that’s really all that mattered. It really didn’t affect your life that much.

But nowadays, kids are really pressured to get good grades so that they can get the right kind of education and the right job. After that, there’s all kinds of pressure on kids. Now, perhaps that I didn’t have when I was a kid, just to get good grades. So I know that there are pressures in your life, but I want to tell you there are more things around the corner of a different nature that are very difficult as well. That you’ll have to face. And relationships. And making relationships work is one of those things. And that’s not always easy to do. Even as you’re older. I want to look at a passage in Philippians chapter 4. And let this not escape our notice. I’m getting ahead of myself as we’re going to talk about Euodia.

Don’t let it escape your notice. Philippians 4 and verse 2, I urge Euodia and I urge Sentichi to live in harmony in the Lord. Wow. Paul has to take time out of this epistle because of two sisters who are in conflict. Indeed, true comrade, whoever that is, yoke fellow, I ask you to help these women who have shared my struggle in the cause of the gospel, together with Clement also, and the rest of my fellow workers whose names are in the book of life. Notice as these two, noticea here. Euodia and Sentichi, he’s not writing them off out of the book of life. But they’re not living in harmony presently. And he tells his yoke fellow, help them work it out. But then I want you to notice verse 5.

Let your forbearing spirit be known to all men. The Lord is near. Your forbearing spirit. What is that about? A forbearing spirit. Well, let’s look over at Colossians 3. He says something similar in verses 12 through 13 when he says, As those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, and this applies to young people, put on a heart of compassion and kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Look at this. Bearing with one another and forgiving each other. Whoever has a complaint against anyone, just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. I’ll tell you, some of the hardest parts of being an adult are the need to bear with one another, to forbear with one another, to learn to work out problems in relationships.

5. The Problem With Young People Is Sometimes Parents

Whoever has a complaint against anyone. You’re just now starting to learn how difficult relationships can be. Okay. Problems with young people and experience. Well, there’s yet another, and one of our young people had this figured out. Problem with young people is sometimes parents. Or the lack of parental guidance, the lack of necessary parental guidance. Sometimes the problem with young people is insufficient training. Have you noticed the proliferation of homosexuality among young people in our time? Oh, I know we can chalk some of that up to the TVs and movies. A lot of the new TV shows are advancing homosexuality. They’re going to present a homosexual couple, and that homosexual couple, well, they have a lot of wonderful qualities that you would want to imitate. We’re going to make homosexuality normal.

And young people are coming out and saying, I’s just a genetic predisposition, you know. I’m not buying that.

It’s a social issue, it’s a cultural issue. It is oftentimes young people not realizing what life is all about. They’re still trying to figure it out. Perhaps there have been problems in relationships with girls. And so the guy says, Well, maybe I’m gay. Maybe ought to try. Maybe some guy is showing him interest when girls aren’t showing them. Perhaps I’m gay. And I want to tell you, when kids start coming to that conclusion, my question is, where’s mom and dad? And a lot of times when kids are coming to those kinds of conclusions, guess what they’re not doing? They’re not being exposed to the Bible at all. That’s the culture we live in. People are not being exposed to the only book that brings sanity to an insane world.

No wonder they’re making that choice. And I’ll tell you to a parent, if you really don’t like the kid’s choice, well, I guess I could take into a counselor. Well, how many counselors are there out there that would just say, oh, it’s normal. It’s normal. Don’t discourage the kid. I mean, he’s just finding his true self or whatever. I mean, they’re going to give him even worse advice to further entrench him in the problem. Or her. I’ll tell you why it’s happening. It’s not just the media, it’s a failure of parents. And sometimes young people do what they do. And I’m not talking about just inside the body of Christ, but sometimes young people do what they do because parents have not instructed them, as Samuel talked about, in the good and right way.

Sometimes young people have significant problems because parents have been miserable failures. That’s not always the case. Sometimes young people stubbornly and rebelliously reject what parents have diligently taught them. I know that’s the case. But sometimes young people are what they are. Remember that quote at the very beginning? Because parents have failed to instruct their consciences. You know in Romans chapter 1, somebody, Stephen quoted this recently in class. Where they rejected God and their knowledge. And God gave them over to degrading passions. And he goes on to describe homosexuality in Romans chapter 1. And it’s interesting to me that follows that rejection of God. When you remove God from the picture, then what’s left? Experimentation. What brings you pleasure? What you like. When you remove God from the equation, that’s where people go to every kind of evil that you can possibly imagine, testing every kind of waters that are out there.

And so we shouldn’t be surprised in an increasingly godless culture that more and more people are turning to homosexuality, especially when the media is telling us right and left. Well, that’s just normal. Just normal. And again, once you buy into evolution versus creation, that’s a part of that as well. What’s the purpose of man? Well, there really isn’t one. So make it up as you go. No standards to be concerned with. Just find your way. Let me tell you something about finding your way. He who walks in the darkness doesn’t know where he goes. John 12, 35. Man, I hate I don’t get teached that Wednesday night. Jared does. He who walks in the darkness does not know where he goes. And a lot of times kids go where they go because they don’t know what the darkness is.

Conclusion

And parents, that brings us to an awesome responsibility. As I wrap this up tonight, discover your destiny by making right choices in a world filled with wrong. Choose worship, young people. Choose the spiritual and make it a priority in your life. Think pure thoughts. Consciously choose to place yourself second to others and be like your Savior. That’s a short list of things that you can do, right choices that you can make that will help you to make better choices and to become the mature saint that you will one day become by pursuing these things. I saw a Fox News report with Megan Kelly on Friday afternoon, lamenting the tragic death of 30-year-old Reva Steenkamp. The model girlfriend of Oscar Pistorius, the blade runner. Remember the recent Olympics, the guy that ran on the blades?

He shot his wife four times and killed her.

Oh my stars. How lame is that. Is anybody guilty anymore? Come on, Oscar. Anyway, that’s I’m off that soapbox. But let me tell you what Megan said about Reeb. She was young and she was beautiful. She was talented, and she was articulate, and she gave back to the community. And I don’t doubt that any of those things are true about Reba Steenkamp. But I want to tell you, that’s how our society views. Good people. This is what this is, you had it all. She had it all. That’s what Megan said. She had it all. Young, talented, articulate, beautiful, giving to the community, model citizen. That’s it. And that goes for the one who’s the excellent athlete or the actor. But let me tell you what it’s really all about, young people.

It’s not about those things. And sometimes some of those things are actually a curse and not helpful to us. I want to tell you what it’s really all about. It’s about being a godly person. It doesn’t matter what you look like. It doesn’t matter how talented you are or you aren’t. Okay, the giving to the community thing has something to recommend it, but that’s because you’re godly and you care about others. But I’m telling you, that’s how you measure success in living. It’s not being young and beautiful and talented, it’s being a godly person. And don’t buy into that junk that you’re hearing. This is it. Be a godly person. Be a God-focused person. That’s the person who really has it all. I just for once wish that they would say, you know what was special about that person is that they were godly.

Because that’s what matters. And so I conclude with that famous text: the call to remember. Remember your creator in the days of your youth. And it’s interesting that what follows that is a warning to older people. If you don’t do it when you’re young, there’s all kinds of problems associated with being older. And ultimately the body returns to the dust, but the spirit returns to God who gave it. And that’s all the more reason to be godly in your life, young people. Fear God and keep his commandments because this applies to every person. Well, I hope you got the impression tonight. I don’t think young people are going to the dogs. And sometimes when they are, it’s the older people that are to blame for some of that.

And that the major problem that they deal with is they’re just inexperienced. And they’re trying to figure things out in life. And let’s help them. Because I tell you, we’ve had some jewels raised in this congregation of the Lord’s people. And we’ve had parents who have diligently taught their children, and people that have helped parents diligently teach their children to know the Lord. It doesn’t mean that every child’s going to be a success story. Just like it doesn’t mean that every adult is going to be a success story. But let’s not pick on our young people. Let’s help them. Let’s pray for them. Let’s speak of our confidence in them. And I’ll just tell you, sometimes I have a lot more confidence in the kids than I do an adults.

But let’s pray for each other that we might have immortality in the presence of God one day. If there’s anyone subject to the invitation, come now while we stand and sit.