A Gallup Poll found that most Americans think women should start having children by age 25.  Seems reasonable to me, if not a bit late!  But then again I'm considered "far right" and far too religiously conservative for "most Americans."

I came across this blog, recently, by Monica Bielanko.  You can read the whole thing by following this link, or you can just read a few of the excerpts I will cut and paste below.

http://shine.yahoo.com/parenting/survey-reveals-ideal-age-women-children-8212-total-162400985.html

Monica hates the very thought of any American woman giving birth at age 25.  She writes:

"Do you know what I was doing at 25?

 Dancing on bars after 4 too many shots of Jagermeister. Dating as many men as possible to figure out that guys who kick in your car door probably aren't the marrying kind. Working my way to the top of the journalism food chain, first at FOX in Salt Lake City and later ABC in New York City, both of which involved 10-hour workdays. I was traveling. New York City, Mexico, London, Italy … you get the idea. I was grabbing myself a big ol' handful of life whilst trying very hard not to create it, because that wouldn't have been ideal. For me."

And here we have the prevalent view of feminists in the western world.  Do what makes you happy.  Self-actualize.  Advance yourself.  Promote numeral uno.  Party hardy.  Avoid babies at all costs because they will most definitely cramp your pursuit of your own pleasure.

Monica continues:

"What I'm telling you in a rather round about fashion is that 58% of the more than 5,000 people surveyed -- the ones who say women should have children in their late teens or early 20s -- are just plain wrong. But that's not all. Anyone who says women should have children by any age is wrong.

These kinds of surveys are so annoying, yet they seem to immediately go viral and do such a disservice to women out their living their lives and making choices based on what's right for them - decisions that likely already go against the grain of what society/our parents/religion/TV/movies tell us. Decisions like our careers, delaying motherhood, choosing to be a single mom … but that's exactly what's wrong with any survey related to the ideal kind of parenting: there are no absolutes. You should do what is best for your circumstances; breastfeed/don't breastfeed, let your kid cry it out/pick him up every time he sniffles, feed him gluten/don't fee him gluten … WHATEVER."

Whatever.  That's the motto of America today!  

While I agree with Monica that we shouldn't try to make hard and fast rules about when someone must have a baby, the absolute truth is that God declares it not optional for anyone who is married.  The very first command He issued to humanity was "Be fruitful and mutiply and fill the earth" (Genesis 1:28).  So, excepting the gift of single-hood and/or health issues preventing pregnancy, God has made Himself clear!

Take a look again at the "decisions" Monica affirms: our careers, delaying motherhood.  These are selfishly motivated.  What about the third decision: choosing to be a single mom.  That decision is outright rebellion to the design of Holy God for sex and marriage.  This kind of thinking is precisely what is ruining our culture, leading to rampant fatherlessness and poverty.  This creates a vicious cycle, too, as children raised in those situations typically become the next generation of "do it my way" parents dependent upon the government for nearly all things pertaining to child-rearing.

The inconsistency of Monica's position is glaring.  She says anyone thinking women should have babies in their 20s is "wrong."  But that word - wrong - defies her life philosophy of "WHATEVER."  And she is obviously slanted towards name-calling if you disagree with her, as this excerpt shows:

Furthermore, there's a lot of evidence that the gains in wages over the past few decades have been made by childless women and that the longer women wait to have kids - up to a point - the better it will be for their lifetime earnings and financial security. The fact that less educated young people still think that women should have children young isn't good news for our already yawning class divide. The younger you have kids, the more difficult it is to pursue higher education, and according to a Pew study, "What is irrefutable … is that on average the more education a woman has, the better off her children will be."

See?  If you like the idea of young women having babies you must be uneducated and you are holding back all the progress in the Women's Movement.  You are not playing the game by Feminism's rules, and you should be ashamed.  That's the implication, no?

What is not mentioned at all in this whole article is Dad.  It's all about women and their children.  An education-at-all-costs (because we worship education in America) mentality is what our daughters should pursue.  If they go to college, their children will be "better off."  Do the "baby thing" whenever and however you so choose.  But let us not forget, the "baby thing" requires a man!

Where is Dad in all this philosophizing?  A woman's children will be better off if Dad and Mom stick together for life in a marriage the honors King Jesus.  Children will be better off with moms who invest their days in teaching them the Bible, and how to cook and how to serve the elderly and how to work hard at loving and supporting a godly husband and dad.  Children will be better off when the church rises up and embraces them, regardless of their home circumstances.

Oh dear friends, this blog makes me sad for our future.  But, it also strengthens my resolve to proclaim God's holy design for family, even as I love and minister to broken, hurting single moms and divorcees and children who did not choose any of that for themselves.  May God awaken us adults to see that all our "choices" deeply impact those precious little ones living in the houses with us.  They are our Divine heritage (Psalm 127).  May we be given grace to choose more wisely than this blogger named Monica.  And may God send His gospel to Monica and rescue her from her life of "me-ness," just like He did for me.

A few weeks ago I received a pamphlet advertising Christian Youth Camps and Events across North America.  This particular organization puts on various camps with various emphases, such as a missions camp or an urban camp.  But one of the options really got stuck in my craw sideways and has been lodged there ever since.

The promo for this camp, called "The Original" says:

REMOVE the DISTRACTIONS of HOME to focus teens on JESUS.  

Friends, is this what it has come to in the Church?  Now in order to focus teens on Jesus we must remove them from their homes, and by implication out from under their parents?!  

Well, maybe our homes are so distracted that our young men and women simply cannot fill their eyes with Christ and their hearts with His Word.  Maybe this youth ministry organization is on to something?  Distractions, hmmm, let's see, there's:

• 8 hours per day of public schooling for 90% of Christian families.
• 2 hours per day of extra-curricular activities at school or associated with school.
• TV, movies, Netflix
• Internet, Twitter, Facebook
• I-phones, I-pods, I-pads
• An hour of homework per night or more depending upon the school and teachers and courses taken
• Parents working 60-80 hours per week outside the home

Yep - we're distracted alright!  Our homes are little kingdoms of distraction, instead of being outposts of the kingdom of God and His Christ where the Gospel is front and center.

Has it ever occurred to us that Deuteronomy 6:1-10 demands far more than just a few minutes of Bible reading or family worship each evening?  The standard set forth by God for His people in this text is 24/7, 365 teaching, training and equipping of children in the Law of God.  Our schedules today all but prevent us from obeying God in this matter at all.  We're never home and when we are we are engaging in mindless distractions galore!

God help us rise to the occasion and fight this very uphill battle to recover the heavenly vision of the home.  May our houses be houses of prayer.  May our homes be gospel-saturation zones where kids are prepared to stand against the wiles of the devil in the power of the Spirit and the Word.  This will not happen by accident.  It happens only when Dads and Moms decide to burn hot for Jesus and forsake the trash heap of the world, the flesh and the devil.

I have so far to go in my own home.  God change me.  God help me.  Renew my zeal for pointing my children to Jesus, for turning every conversation towards His Word, and for fanning the flames of a new reformation right there in my living room each night.

God, by Your grace and for Your glory may my teens never feel as if they need to get away from my home in order to focus on Jesus.  Make it so, Lord.  Amen.      

If we were to ask a random sampling of parents of high-schoolers what purpose sports serve, we might get some of the following answers:

• The value of teamwork.
• The value of hard work or practice and preparation.
• Physical exercise and mental toughness.
• The value of winning (some would say winning well).
• The importance of losing well.

Those last two go to the matter of what we call "sportsmanship."  Being a good sport consists not just in winning with some measure of respect and humility towards the opponent, but also losing with respect and dignity towards the opponent.

Sportsmanship is lost in our culture today.

Both college and professional athletes looked up to and idolized by young players all over this country very seldom display true sportsmanship.  How often do you see a football player score a touchdown, and then just toss the ball to a referee while maybe high- fiving a few players on the way back to the sideline?  No dance?  No gang symbols flashed?  No leaping into the arms of drunk, cheering fans?  No jumping into one another in mid-air?  No pomp or circumstance.  Just a man playing the game hard and displaying respect and humility as he does it?

Gone are the days of Barry Sanders.  Now-a-days a player celebrates the simplest of plays (a tackle, a basket made, a goal scored) as if he or she has just won the universe's top prize!  It is ridiculous.  Grown men cry when they lose a GAME.  Yes, folks, sports are still just GAMES.  Remember, they were meant to be enjoyable and not life or death.  Remember, sports were designed to instill the values we listed at first.  Now-a-days parents at little league games totally embarrass their kids by their incessant yelling, cursing umpires, and throwing of fits.  I wonder where they have seen such behavior?

I wonder when our parents and adults and children will finally grow up?  Or are we destined to become a nation of whiny-babies who simply have no ability to play a game with dignity and respect for our fellow man?

Apparently, the utter lack of sportsmanship has finally grown so obvious that the Kentucky High School Athletic Association has banned the "post-game handshake."  Why?  Because too many fights were breaking out!  

I have only one question: Where are the parents?  Where are the adults?  (OK, that was two questions.)

Oh. wait, the adults are too busy fighting in the stands to train their children in common decency and respect.  We could use a heavy dose of the Golden Rule in sports, and in life, don't you think?  The wise King Solomon wrote: "Do not rejoice when your enemy falls."  The same man once said, "Pride comes before the fall."  As Christians, these truths are not optional for us or our children.  This is how our Savior and Lord calls us to live 24/7, 365, on the field or off the field.

Remind me again of why we think it so critical to chaffeur our kids from one sporting event to the next?  Well, if nothing else, maybe the true followers of Jesus who are on the ball fields of America will continue to seek grace to swim upstream and show respect and dignity to every player and coach and parent.  Maybe the children will take the lead and meet for prayer with opposing players in full view of watching adults in the stands.  Maybe a few kids will even speak the Name of Jesus to players in locker rooms and reporters with microphones.  Maybe a coach out there will be given grace to lead his players to bow the heart and knee to King Jesus and to realize life is, after all, not a game.

Maybe.  I can always hope and pray.

I hear it when I go to Wal-mart....when I stand in line at subway...when I do business at the bank....everywhere I go...

Ray Comfort has a new DVD titled "Evolution v. God"  It is typical, solid stuff that we have come to expect from our brother Ray.  I would encourage you to purchase the DVD or watch it on the web Here.  Then share it with others and show it to others.

In the DVD, Ray interviews various college students and professors on campuses in California.  He asks them very simple questions, such as "Can you give me one observable example of one kind of animal becoming another kind of animal?"  Typically the answer is stunned silence.  But a few professors try their hand at it and end up giving examples of animal adaptation (or micro-evolution), not macro-evolution on the scale required for Darwin's hypothesis to be true.  One example is a bacteria acquiring new abilities to do certain things, but of course, as Ray points out, it is still bacteria!

While I found the banter between Ray and these very well-educated believers in evolution informative and amusing, the thing that disturbed me most was when Ray got around to exposing the ethical results of people believing evolution theory to be true.

Ray asks at one point: "If you saw your dog and your next door neighbor both drowning in a pool which would you save first?"

Several students hesitate, which in itself is disturbing.  Some wrestle mightily with it.  One guy asks, "Is anybody looking?"  And some of these smart people are honest enough to say they would definitely rescue their dog before the human being.  Keep in mind these are the future leaders of America.

Well, oddly enough a poll revealed on the CBS Morning Show this very morning reported that 60% of Americans polled said they would save their dog from drowning rather than save a foreigner.  How they would identify that person as a foreigner, who knows?  And does this imply they would save an American before their dog, but not a Canadian or Mexican?

God help us!  Do we really wonder why we still abort several thousand babies a day in this country?  Ideas have consequences, dear friends, and I am not sure how much longer this nation can bear up under the consequences of Darwinian evolution.

In Psalm 115, the Lord tells us that "Those who make them [idols or false gods] will become like them."  We become like our god(s), plain and simple.  And this idea of evolution and Big Bangs and godlessness has done precisely this - it has made us like what we idolize and worship.  Darwin said and most college professors of science still say we are nothing more than an accidental animal. And so we have truly become just like accidental animals in our thinking and living.

So, what to do?

• Seriously read your kids' textbooks if they are in public schools.  There is no such thing as a state-run school where children are not being indoctrinated in the worldview of Darwinian evolution.  Counter every lie with God's Word.  Equip your children to spot the lies, expose the lies, and challenge the inconsistency of the lies.
• Think twice before giving tens of thousands of your dollars to an institution of higher learning where atheistic professors poison the minds of future leaders.  When you pay tuition, you pay their salaries.
• If you have children in public schools, start a campaign to allow Intelligent Design curricula to be taught alongside the evolutionary textbooks.  It is not unscientific, as opponents claim.  It is very good science that follows the actual evidence where it leads - to the Creator.  Expect grand resistance to this campaign.  But is it worth the effort?
• Petition school libraries to include scholarly journals and magazines from Creation Research Institute or Answers in Genesis or Intelligent Design organizations.  Again, expect resistance.  Write letters.  Make calls.  Insist children be given access to all the data so they can make assessments and decisions on their own.  This is educational freedom!
• Send your children to private schools or home school them.  I prefer this option to the others, but do think we desperately need both happening in mass around our nation.

Bottom line - until parents care this will not stop.  And if this does not stop, the final results will be catastrophic.  

"When lust has conceived, it brings forth sin.  And when sin is brought to completion, it brings forth death" (James 1:15).

Time is a funny thing. It moves all the time. It moves quietly so you're not even aware of it leaving. Life happens and things are busy and it just keeps moving while its busy. Today my daughter, my youngest daughter Rebecca, got engaged. What a joyful lovely day for Becca and all those who love her!  And while I sit here on my couch (that my precious beautiful friends bought me) I think about all the time I've had to love Becca. I can see her so clearly down through the years. I see her running around with a basketball in her shirt because she thought it was funny. I see her hiding from her sisters behind the tree while she was yelling I'm here I'm here. I see her crying because she lost Jewel Parkhill whom she loved so dearly .....asking all kinds of questions about God and death and why. I see her face lit up when daddy comes in the door... so excited to see him. I see her wrestling with her sisters in the living room floor laughing hysterically because she could finally take them.  But the thing I'm thinking most right now is the ending of this season. Did I treasure it enough? Did I love it? Sometimes when our kids are little we think things like ....its always going to be this way ...what good am i doing?  It's because we can't see the long-term picture. It's because we get caught up in the small everyday things and we forget we are raising adults who someday will leave. I thank God today that I treasured every minute. I think God that  even the hard days were treasures to me and her dad. While I sit and remember I pray this... I pray that I will love this new season. I pray that I will love this new joy. I pray that I will only mourn for a short time and then I will rejoice in what God is doing with her.. to her.. through her ...and for her. Seasons come and go. Time does not stop. You can choose how to spend your time. You can choose how to enjoy your seasons. You can gripe about the snow... you can gripe about the cold.. you can gripe about the heat...but you cannot change the seasons of your life. They will pass and they cannot be retrieved. I beg you live them with screaming joy....live them with passion...live them unto the glory of God who made them. Live them with tears and laughter. Live them in real genuine truth. Live them so that you wont regret when they are gone.

Praise God for our seasons.  Thank God that He controls time.

This morning I perked up when I heard the anchors on the CBS Morning Show say the upcoming segment would feature "scientific" studies revealing whether monogamy is natural or not.

I immediately began to tell my wife this should be interesting, since I could all but guarantee that whomever they had on the show as their "expert" in this field was sure to have a Darwinian  / evolutionary worldview.  In other words, the expert would assume we were just highly evolved animals, and that worldview would then color his research and interpretations of any findings.

I was so right.  

Wish I was wrong, but Dr. Stephen Snyder, a Sex Therapist, launched into the most unintelligible explanation for why monogamy is not natural that I have ever heard.  He stated that we all know that humans come from a certain type of chimp, to which all the CBS anchors just acquiesced without so much as a hint of dissent.  Why of course we all KNOW that.  And that certain type of chimp, our ancestors, some 4 million years ago just up and decided to give monogamy a try to defend children from cannibalism.  At least I think that was his argument?!  It's convoluted, as you'll see if you watch the 3 minute segment Here.

Nobody asked simple questions like:

• Dr. Snyder, how do you know what happened 4 million years ago?  Were you there?
• Dr. Snyder, what hard, undisputed evidence do we have that humans came from chimps?
• Dr. Snyder, how do you know what chimps "decided" to do 4 million years ago?  How could this possibly be ascertained from some bones buried in dirt?

To be fair, one of the CBS anchors did challenge the notion of studying animals to gain insight into human behavior.  But the challenge was dismissed and not even discussed by the good "Dr."  And of course the conclusion was that monogamy is not natural.  To that I say, "Of course it's not natural!  Our sinful, fallen nature will never want to obey God's design and law."

The point is not what is "natural," however we define that term.  The point is what people ought to do.  What is best for us?  And friends, only our Creator could possibly know those answers with 100% accuracy.  How sad that no mention was made at all in this segment of the numerous studies done over the decades showing that monogamy between a man and women is actually what is best for the human race (Focus on the Family is a good source of these studies).

School's back in parents.  Do you know what your child is being taught?  Are you reading their textbooks?  Watch this segment and realize this so-called expert makes statements as if they are facts, when almost nothing he says actually has any scientific evidence behind it.  The state of education in America has never been worse.  This guy has been in our educational systems for 20+ years, and has obviously not learned anything about basic human logic, reasoning, and following the evidence where it leads.  All he has learned is to assume evolution is true and use that to inform everything else he does and thinks in life.  Makes me so sad.  God help us.

Should we be surprised that teens and adults in our culture are behaving like animals?  After all, they are just doing what comes "naturally."  Who will tell them that what we most need is a new nature that comes only by God's grace through faith in the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus?  Who will tell them?

The July / August issue of Popular Mechanics magazine has an article titled "The Case for Alien Life."  It chronicles the billions of dollars spent by our government scientists and others in search of life on other planets.  Meanwhile on the 3rd Rock from the Sun 20,000 children starved to death today and America and China aggressively supported the termination of the lives of many thousands of unborn children.

Does anyone see a problem here?  And we wonder why our economy is tanking!

While the article claims scientists are more confident than ever that they will one day find another planet like Earth, or some form of life on another planet, the infographic at the very beginning of the article says it all:

• 100 billion planets total
• 50 billion small planets
• 17 billion earth-size planets
• 11 billion earth-size planets in stars' habitable zones
• 1 planet with confirmed life

I've got a newsflash for all these Darwinian scientists who are just licking their chops in hopes of finding a living organism somewhere out there so that they can scream, "See we told you life can spontaneously erupt!"  Even if they ever do find a living thing somewhere in outer space, it will not ever "prove" what they will claim for such a find.  

Rather, it will only prove that the Infinite Creator God who has unlimited power and endless space to work with does indeed continue to make things for His eternal glory!  

"The heavens declare the glory of God" (Psalm 19:1).

"God . . . who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist" (Romans 4:17).

As we celebrate Independence Day in America, I am so conflicted.

On one hand I love this country and appreciate our many freedoms.

On the other hand, I do not want to add my name to the long list of Christians who love America more than Christ and His eternal kingdom.  Nor am I interested in loving America more than the Church (which is where His kingdom is displayed right now).

On the one hand, I am proud of my military service (USMC 1995-2000).

On the other hand, I am not at all sure the military is a profession I would even be interested in if I was 18 years old today.  The moral decay and spineless generals and social experimentation are sure to eventually make our once mighty military a pathetic sham.

On the one hand, I still share so many of the values that the Founders of this Nation held dear - things like the right to life, equality before the law, free enterprise, free exercise of religion, the right to bear arms, innocent until proven guilty, and so many more!

On the other hand, we have seen in the last 40 years every single American ideal under attack FROM WITHIN.  Our own government and elected representatives have failed us miserably.

Un-elected tyrants in black robes have stripped the unborn of their constitutional right to life.

The "free" press has abused that freedom and ensured that many in this nation cannot possibly receive a fair trial and equality before the law.  The press convicts people long before the courts ever do.

Free enterprise?  Ask the Christian owner of a business making T-shirts in Lexington, KY about that.  They were forced out of business simply because they did not want to print shirts for the Gay Pride parade.  Ask Chick-Fil-A about the state of free enterprise in America.  Hobby Lobby anyone?

Free exercise of religion?  Yea, sure, so long as it's not evangelical Christianity!

The right to bear arms?  Well, so far we've still got it, but we could not possibly use it in the way intended by the Founders.  The Founders thought it was important for citizens to be armed because there might come a day when those citizens need to overthrow their own tyrannical government.  That day seems to be coming quickly, but even us well-armed citizens could not possibly defend ourselves against our military or police today.  Did you see that manhunt in Boston?  Since when did police have armored personnel carriers with 50 cal machine guns mounted on them?  We're in deep trouble, America!

Well, I am not sure I am very hopeful for the future of America.  Some years ago, Brannon Howse (founder of Worldview Weekend) wrote in a book that "the culture war is lost."  I thought he was wrong about that back then.  But I am coming to believe he was right.  The culture war does seem to be lost.  This, of course, does not mean believers in Christ should not continue to engage in the political process so long as we still have the freedom and avenues to make our voices heard.

But what it does mean is that we must shift our thinking and see that the more important battle now is for the very heart and soul of the Church.  When the Church loses her salt, which is exactly what has been happening for decades, Jesus asked, "How then can it be made salty again?"

Rhetorical question, I presume.

O Church, arise on wings of God's sovereign grace once more!  Proclaim the whole counsel of God.  Stop playing games and building million dollar rock climbing walls and get back to the raw, sweaty work of making disciples who will turn right around and make more disciples even if they know they will be jailed, tortured and killed.

God help us.  Hear the pleas of Your people!  Save us for Your name's sake.  Even if You judge America and reduce her to shambles, keep building Your church and enabling her to storm the gates of hell, Bibles in hand and Word in hearts.