understand what a Christian home is like by seeing one much better than by being told what it is supposed to be. And there is thirdly a witness to those families down the street and across the backyard fence where Christ’s salvation is un known. Many families in affluent America are in deep trouble and their members are looking for other families who have succeeded at the task of living together harmoniously. When Christian fam ilies recognize this kind of responsibility toward their neighbors, they will thereby educate their children to see God-given opportunities for evan gelism in contrast to the somewhat artificial prac tice of putting a tract in the hand of a complete stranger. The newspaper article is right. A child does receive most of his Christian education at home. Consequently, we must make sure that our church es’ teacher-education programs include, at a level of the highest priority, provision for preparing for intelligent, effective guidance of spiritual growth the most influential teacher our children can ever have — the Christian parent. H b
ful lusts and let everyone that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity,” but Paul also said in I Timothy 4:12, “Let no man despise thy youth hut he thou an example of the believer, in word, in conversation, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity.” I should like to ask young people a question. Do you know what you are worth? In many circles, the world today is selling you young people off pretty cheap. Scientists say, according to Dr. Charles H. Mayo, that, all you are worth in a test tube is 84 cents. Dr. Mayo says there is enough potassium in a human being to make one little shot of a toy pistol enough fat for 7 bars of soap, iron enough for a few 8-penny nails, sulphur enough to keep fleas off a dog for a short while, lime enough to white-wash a small chicken coop, magnesium enough to treat one case of sour stomach, and phos phorus enough to make 22 hundred match heads. Well, if we’re only worth 84 cents, that means that in one meal a man puts more into his stomach than his entire body is worth. In the commercial world, you young people are worth a lot of money. In fact, last year teenagers spent over $12 billion of which $7 billion went to Hollywood in records and movies. Salesmen are being told today all over the land, “Go after the teenager market. They’re loaded.” To some churches, you are worth a lot, and more and more pastors, elders and deacons are trying to figure ways to help their teenagers. On the other hand, I know there are many churches that ignore you or discount your value. In fact, one pastor friend of mine told me that recently he suggested his church put $3,000 a year into their budget to send young people to Word o f Life Island. This so shocked his deacons that he wondered if he was going to have a church fight on his hands. He let the deacons toss this around for a while and just as they were about to decide against put ting this $3,000 in their budget to send young peo ple to camp, he asked them the embarrassing ques tion of how much they had spent on the new rugs they had just put down in their church. It was well over the $3,000 mark. Then the pastor said, “God help us when we spend more money on rugs to walk on than we spend to help our young people get rooted and grounded in the Faith.” Well, I’m happy to say that all of those teenagers are coming to camp this summer. But how much are you teenagers worth to God ? I’ll tell you how much you are worth. You are worth so much that Jesus said your soul is more important to you — and to God — than the wealth of the entire world. In fact, you are worth so much to God that He was willing to send His Son who was the delight, the joy of Heaven, all the way down out of the Ivory Palaces into this sinful, wicked, perverse, adulterous world.
by Jack W yrtzen
R e c e n t l y , I r e a d about one missionary who was traveling in a Moslem country. The Moslem to whom he was witnessing tried to entertain him with tales of immorality on board ships. The missionary had to cut him short by saying that he was not amused by things contrary to God’s Word. He told the Moslem that he needed Christ to free his heart from the enjoyment o f it. As this missionary continued his travel, he met a Chinese who tried to show him some sensu ous pictures on the center page of a movie maga zine. The missionary was so disgusted that he struck his fist clean through the page. Later on, somebody else gave this missionary a book by Ernest Hemingway and told him that he ought to read it. The missionary said, “ As I read Heming way’s description o f a foul act of adultery, I flung the book into the ocean.” You know, as I read of this missionary, I thought of the Apostle Paul who not only said in II Timothy 2 :22, “Flee youth•
26
THE KING'S BUSINESS
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online