Chapter 6 – Every High Hill and Spreading Tree
The United States first officially declared it’s independence on July 2, 1776. Two days later it was announced publicly. It would take seven long years of war before the Treaty of Paris would be signed giving the United States it’s recognized independence from Great Britain. During that time, however, the United States began to run as though it were an independent nation. They formed a national government, and began to make laws and do business as a national government would do.
It wasn’t long, though, before the leaders of the new country realized that the set of laws called the Articles of Confederation were not going to work. Nothing made this clearer than the summer and fall of 1786. Daniel Shays, a Revolutionary War veteran, faced debtor’s prison when he returned from the War because of the heavy debt he carried. He believed strongly that the large part of the blame for his situation went to the new government due to the heavy taxation to which he had been under. Shays and many other farmers demanded that the courts be closed so they would not lose their farm to creditors. The government refused so in September, 1786, Shay led a small army of 1,200 farmers to close the courts themselves. State officials hurriedly called out the militia. In the skirmish that followed, four of Shays rebels were killed and the rest were scattered. This made it clear, however, that something was wrong. It was time for a stronger national government. In their attempt to prevent abuse, severe limitations had been placed on the national government. It was obvious to most by now, though, that the government was too weak.
In May, 1787 delegates from all of the thirteen states except Rhode Island gathered in Philadelphia to discuss possible changes to the Articles of Confederation. Even though it was technically illegal, they quickly decided to completely scrap the Articles and form a new government. The Articles were cobbled together quickly during a war, now they would take their time, compromise, and come up with a strong yet limited government that would last.
Once this new Constitution was completed, the framers set up a ratification process that called for each state to hold a special convention. Delegates to the convention would be chosen by voters. It was those delegates who would accept or reject the Constitution.
Two sides were quickly formed concerning the Constitution. Those who supported it were called the Federalists. Those who opposed the ratification of the Constitution were called the anti-Federalists. These two sides quickly set out on public relations campaigns to convince voters of their beliefs. The Federalists were led by men such as George Washington, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton. While the leading anti-federalists were well-known national heroes such as Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams, and Richard Henry Lee.
Between October, 1787 and August, 1788, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison wrote a series of essays that appeared in various New York newspapers under the pseudonym “Publius.” These eighty-five essays have come to be known as the Federalist Papers. The Federalist Papers argued the urgent need for an adequate central government and how well a republican form of government could be expanded to govern such a large nation. These essays have been recognized as the most powerful defense of the new Constitution, and have been deemed a classic in constitutional theory. One of the most effective aspects of the Federalist Papers is that they boldly proclaimed the positive aspects of the Constitution and demonstrated why it would be of such great benefit to the citizens of the United States.
The Anti-Federalists produced many works criticizing the Constitution. The most widely read of these critiques was Letters from the Federal Farmer, by Richard Henry Lee. Lee’s primary concern was the freedoms that were not directly protected in the Constitution.
The Constitution was, of course, ratified by the people and became the law of the land. The primary reason was simple. The Federalists had been more convincing in their public relations campaign than were the Anti-Federalists.
In many ways our job with our children comes down to a public relations campaign. It is our job to train our children in the ways of God and to teach them His Word. At the same time, we must convince our children that the ways of Satan and the world are empty when compared to following and obeying God.
The facts are, however, that far too many children of Christians have embraced the world and rejected God’s Word. We have, in effect, lost the public relations campaign in their heart. In order to realize why this is true, we must understand four basic components. The first is to understand why idolatry and turning to things other than God appealed to people in the Bible times and why these things continue to attract. The second is to understand the public relations campaign that the world undertakes constantly. The third is to comprehend the nature of God’s law and His love, and the fourth is to move Christianity beyond being a “stop, no, and don’t” religion.
The Appeal of Idolatry
Throughout the history of Israel, God warned them about the dangers of idolatry and worshiping other Gods. God knows how He created us and He knows what we need. He knows that He made us to need a relationship with Him. If we settle for anything less, we are running at less than optimum and will eventually break. The number one way that tools are broken is if they are used for something other than their intended purpose. God made us to have a walk with Him and to be His representative on earth. When we don’t do that, we cease to be used for our intended purpose. God does not want that for us so He has always warned mankind about the danger of following things other than Him.
Despite His clear expectations, the people of Israel never seemed to be able to overcome the appeal of idolatry. God clearly warns against it in the Ten Commandments, yet even Israel’s kings would not heed God’s loving words. In 2 Samuel 2:8, for instance, we learn that one of King Saul’s sons is named Ish-boseth. That means “son of shame” and was not his son’s real name. The writer of Samuel was so ashamed of Saul’s son’s real name that he could not even bring himself to write it. The boy’s real name was Ish-Ba’al, which means “son of Ba’al,” the pagan god of the Canaanites. The King of God’s people had named his son after a pagan God!
King David was, of course, a man after God’s own heart. He remained a staunch monotheist devoted to God. His own son and successor, Solomon, though, turned back to idolatry as he got older (1 Kings 11:4). Israel’s continued unfaithfulness led God to eventually ask them “What fault did your fathers find in me, that they strayed so far from me? They followed worthless idols and became worthless themselves.”
The question arises, why would the Israelites continually turn away from God to worthless idols? It’s easy to sit back and criticize the Israelites from our perspective and point out how silly they were. A closer examination, however, will show us just how similar we really are to them. Looking at the reasons they were attracted to idolatry will also help give us some insight into why the world appeals to our children. There are nine specific areas in which idolatry appealed to people.
First, idolatry was guaranteed. The Hebrew world Tselem is usually translated as either ‘idol’ or ‘image.’ When Genesis 1:26 says that man was made in God’s image, it is the same word translated as idol in the Ten Commandments. An idol was the image or representative of God. Idolatry was appealing because you could go and be guaranteed that you were in the presence of your god whenever you wanted. They didn’t believe that the idol was their god, only that it was a representative of him or her. It is much the same concept as the telephone. The voice of the other person is not literally in the phone. So, the idol was not the god, but it did guarantee that you could be in the presence of their direct representative. Even though the idol could not really fix any problems, it gave an immediate comfort and made the person feel better, even if only temporarily.
Second, the idolatry of the pagan religions appealed to the selfish nature. In the ancient world it was believed that gods could do everything for themselves except one vital function. They could not feed themselves. There is even an amusing scene in the Epic of Gilgamesh in which the gods are eagerly awaiting the humans to get off the boat to feed them because they are starving. The beauty of this system for the individual was that you fed the gods and appeased them, but then you got to take the food back. Plus, you were guaranteed that whatever you gave to the gods, would be returned to you in fertility and wealth. This was an automatic guarantee according to pagan beliefs. The Israelites, on the other hand, were to tithe out of love and obedience to God.
Third, it was easy. Pagan idolatry was a system of religion without ethics. You could basically live however you wanted as long as the gods were appeased. If you took care of your duties of giving to the gods, you could live however you wanted. The gods puts little, if any, ethical restrictions on your life. In essence, the real god of your life was you. This stands in stark contrast to the Israelites who were under the sovereign commands of Yahweh. They were obligated, as the people of God, to follow His commands and obey God. Following Yahweh took a great deal of faith and self-denial, and could be rather difficult and rigorous.
Fourth, idolatry was convenient. The Bible describes that there were pagan places of worship on every high hill and under every spreading tree (Deuteronomy 12:2, 1 Kings 14:23, etc.). Your pagan god could be worshiped anytime, any day, anywhere. For the Israelites, however, God could only be specifically worshiped three times a year and it required traveling to Jerusalem. Although we can now worship God anytime, anywhere, there are still many elements of being a Christian that are far more inconvenient that doing things our own way.
Fifth, idolatry was normal. Everyone in the pagan world was a polytheist except for Israel. It was considered odd to think that there was only one God. For them it was just the way of life. Worshiping one God meant to be an outcast from the rest of the world. When the Israelites settled in Canaan they were surrounded by Canaanites. It was normal that they would pick up certain normal practices from the normal people around them. For instance, if one were planting a field, it was normal to perform rituals to please the earth god as you were planting the seed. This is just how it was done. If it worked and it was normal, what could be the harm? Plus, worshiping an invisible God seemed highly strange. He had no idol or representative and His presence was not guaranteed. Idolatry was also the way of the economic superpowers of the day. Following Yahweh seemed risky and not nearly as guaranteed as the pagan ways of their neighbors.
Sixth, the pagan system of idolatry was imminently logical. Having more than one god just made good sense. It was illogical to assume that one God could do everything that was necessary in order to keep the world running. The Assyrians, for instance, had 611 gods. They had a god for everything including a god of fresh water, a god of salt water, a god of stony ground, a god of clay ground, etc. The Egyptians worshiped just about everything that moved including the dung beetle. It is also important to understand the pagan concepts of gods. Each person might worship at least three gods on a regular basis while still giving a certain amount of homage to all other necessary gods. First, there was the national god. This was the god of war and protection that would keep the nation safe and prosperous. This god would be called upon only for major events and crises. Second, there was the family or clan god. This was the god that would pay special attention to one’s particular family or clan, and who would protect and prosper them. Finally, there was the personal god. When someone got ill, for example, they would have family members sacrifice to a local god. If they did not get better, they would have them try another god the next day. This was done until they got better. Once they recovered after sacrificing to a particular god it was assumed that this was the god that cared about you, so he or she became your personal god. The Israelites, then, never completely abandoned Yahweh, they just did the normal and logical thing. They relegated him to the status of national God, but began to worship other family and personal gods. Thus, when things got really bad they might call on Him but they failed to obey His call to worship Him alone.
Seventh, idolatry was pleasing to the senses. It was comforting because one could go the idol and touch it, handle it, and kiss it. It provided an immediate comfort that couldn’t be matched in the same way through faith in an invisible God. Worshiping pagan gods was exciting, titillating, and immediate. In addition, one could make a great deal of money by making and selling idols. It was good for the economy.
Eighth, idolatry appealed to the indulgent nature of man. One could only eat meat that had been sacrificed to a god. We see Paul discussing this issue with the Corinthians when they wanted to eat out somewhere. All of this food had been sacrificed to idols. The pagan meals were all about indulgence. They didn’t eat meat all the time so when they did they stuffed themselves. Pagan meals were about gorging on meat and alcohol. This is why Paul had to remind the new Christians at Corinth that the Lord’s Supper was not this kind of meal. It was not about stuffing themselves.
Finally, pagan idolatry appealed to the erotic nature of humans. Sex was a regular part of the process of idolatry. Sexual preferences of all types were accommodated. Nearly all pagan blessing had to do with fertility. They believed that all creation was procreation. Sex stimulated nature so it became part of worship. Sex with gods stimulated them to produce fertility of all kinds. This is why the Old Testament is so adamant about encouraging the Israelites to stay away from mixing seeds and types of cloths. These were all part of the pagan belief system to encourage fertility. They literally believed that this type of mixing actually resulted in their mating, which stimulated the gods, which led to greater fertility.
Spin City
The parallels between the attractions of idolatry in the Old Testament time and the attraction of sin and the world today are striking. The facts are, sin seems attractive because of the PR job that Satan does in selling it to us. Going back to the Garden of Eden, Satan sold Eve on the alleged benefits of disobeying God. He convinced her that she could be like God. What was never mentioned was the terrible downsides of her sin. Satan knew very well what would happen as a result of Eve’s sin. That was his whole purpose. Jesus said that Satan’s purpose is to kill, steal, and destroy (John 10:10).
We need not look very far to see Satan still using this technique in our world today. Sin is all about good public relations. If people were intensely aware of the truth and the harm of sin, we would be far more likely to leave it alone. It is only appealing because it is presented only as appealing. Let’s choose just three areas in which Satan has done this extremely well in our culture: sex and materialism, and pleasure.
Our world is inundated with sex and pornography. It’s like a new verse to the Old MacDonald song: here some porn, there some porn, everywhere some porn, porn. Let’s start with a few facts about pornography in the United States:
Pornography generates approximately $1 billion annually with growth projections to $5-7 billion over the next 5 years, barring unforeseen change (NRC Report 2002)
345% increase in child pornography sites between 2/2001-7/2001 (N2H2, 8/01)
25 million Americans visit cybersex sites between 1-10 hours per week (MSNBC Survey 2000)
The U.S. Customs Service estimates that there are more than 100,000 websites offering child pornography - which is illegal, worldwide (Red Herring Magazine, 1/18/02)
9 in 10 kids 8-16 yrs. have viewed porn online, mostly accidentally while doing homework (UK News Telegraph, NOP Research Group, 1/07/02)
According to the Justice Department, in 1998 there were 28,000 X-rated websites, generating $925 million in revenue. By 2001, there were 280,000 X- rated websites, generating over $10-20 billion in revenue (The Wall Street Journal 26 Nov. 2001). [It is now estimated that the number of X-rated websites numbers over 5,000,000.]
62% of parents of teenagers are unaware that their children have accessed objectionable websites (Yankelovich Partners study, Sept. 30, 1999).
60% of all web-site visits are sexual in nature (MSNBC /Stanford/Duquesne study, Washington Times Jan. 26, 2000).
51% of pastors admit that looking at internet pornography is their biggest temptation. (Christianity Today, December 2002)
According to a U.S. News and World Report article, the porn industry recently took in more than $8 billion in one year. More than all revenues generated by rock and country music, more than America spent on Broadway productions, theater, ballet, jazz and classical music combined.
Americans spend an estimated $8-10 billion annually on pornography. This exceeds the combined gross of ABC, CBS, and NBC, which is $6.2 billion.
The average age at which men first see Playboy or a similar magazine is 11.
Early sexual intercourse among American adolescents represents a major public health problem. According to the most recent data, 61% of all high school seniors have had sexual intercourse, about half are currently sexually active, and 21% have had 4 or more partners. (American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) statement, January 2001)
In one content analysis, 75% of concept videos (videos that tell a story) involved sexual imagery, and more than half involved violence, usually against women. (AAP statement, January 2001) [i]
Sex is big business in America. It is everywhere on the internet, as the previous statistics show. Everywhere we turn in our society we see sex. It is on TV in every imaginable form. It is in the movies. It is in the front display windows of stores in our malls. It is on the radio.
Recently I was on my way to speak to a group of about 130 teenagers. I knew that one of the things I was going to be talking about was this very topic. My drive was about 45-minutes, so I decided to listen to the local popular radio station on the way just to see what they were playing. It was a Saturday morning so they were playing the top 40 songs of the week. Through the course of my drive I listened from number 17 down through number 3 or 4. Every single song made an overt reference to sex or sexual behavior. When I got to the conference I asked the kids at this Christian teen conference how many of them had seen pornography on the internet. Every single hand went up.
What is almost never mentioned in our society is the downside of sex. Our kids never hear about statistics like these below:
Approximately one fourth of sexually active adolescents become infected with an STD each year, accounting for 3 million cases, and people under the age of 25 account for two thirds of all STDs in the United States. (AAP statement, January 2001)
Adolescents have ranked the media second only to school sex education programs as a leading source of information about sex. (AAP statement, January 2001)
The average American adolescent will view nearly 14 000 sexual references per year, yet only 165 of these references deal with birth control, self-control, abstinence, or the risk of pregnancy or STDs. (AAP statement, January 2001)[ii]
Our kids are never told that 40,000,000 children have been aborted in the United States in the last 30 years, due in large part, to teen-agers having sex. They aren’t told of the millions of broken hearts and suicides as a result of pre-marital sex. They aren’t told that study after study shows that married Christian women report (by far) the highest levels of satisfaction with their sex life.
The point is that all kids see in our society is sex. They don’t, however, see both sides of the issue. They see the positive, “fun”, “normal” side of sex. They are never told that Satan’s version of sex is a lie. It steals their innocence, destroys the real purpose of sex, and kills their soul.
The same could be said of materialism. Advertisers spend billions of dollars every year targeting children. They are trained from the time they are two or three years old to be little consumers. They are told that they always need more, bigger, and better. This is all a good thing. They are only shown the positives of materialism. They see how fun it is to have the new toy, the better video game system, or the latest version of the same game they have already purchased five times before. Being materialistic is only a good thing.
Kids are never told the downside. They are never told about satiation; that once they get hooked on materialism they will never be happy. Our society is a debt culture. The person in debt can never be truly free. Kids are taught materialism as a normal part of life and by the time they are adults, many are so far in debt that they must continue to dance to the world’s tune.
It is the same story for pleasure. Most of the time, any aspect of pleasure in our society is presented as a good thing. “If it feels good, do it.” But again, only the illusions of pleasure are presented. The world is never honest about the downsides of so-called pleasure. They are never shown pictures of the ruined lives of people who spent all their time seeking the world’s definition of pleasure.
The problem with all of this is that rather than presenting the destructive aspects of these perversions, we spend most of our time simply telling kids “stop, no, and don’t.” What happens as a result is that we, unwittingly, create an image in the minds of our young people, in which the world and sin are where all the fun is at and the Kingdom of God is what we should do when we have decided we have had enough fun. They begin to see holiness as the absence of fun.
The truth is that evil only exists as a perversion of good. As we have already discussed, God is perfectly good and His creation was good. Every creature and object that God created was good in their original created state. Evil is not an independent force but rather arises from the free will ability to go against God’s will. When that free will is abused, the nature of the being is corrupted by its disobedience. This means that evil does not exist independently but only as a corruption of the good. Every evil act by an intelligible human being is not a new thing, but rather a corruption of some aspect of God’s originally good creation. Evil does not harm or disrupt God’s rule of His universe but it does corrupt His finite and corruptible created beings. Think of it like this. Evil is similar to the rust on a car. If you have a rusty car you still have a car but it would be better without the rust. If you take the rust away you still have a car. If, however, you take the car away, you cannot have just rust. Rust cannot exist without the car and evil cannot exist without good.
Three questions from the previously mentioned survey given to teens demonstrate this belief that the world is fun and God’s way is the absence of fun. In the survey, kids were asked to respond to a set of statements. A response of “1” indicated that they strongly disagreed with the statement. A response of “5” indicated that the strongly agreed with the statement. When responding to the statement that “The non-Christian life seems more fun than the Christian life,” the average score of responses was 3.9. Another statement that the students were asked to respond to said that most of the laws of God are given “to test our obedience and don’t really have a purpose beyond that.” The average response score 4.6. What this means is that these kids are buying into this view that sin is fun and the Christian life is the absence of fun. They believe that God gives us laws for no better reason than to tell us not to do things. This results in a very negative view of Christianity and a positive view of the life of sin. It goes a long way in explaining why so many want to wait many years before they become Christians. Every single respondent to this survey indicated that if they were not currently a Christian they would consider it down the road but not now because they had “more things that they would like to experience first.”
This speaks to the fact that Christian parents have failed in communicating the positive aspects of God’s law and the Bible and we have passed on a “stop, no, and don’t” religion. This is a result of an incorrect view of God’s law and a failure to reveal that the plan of God touches every area of our lives, it is authentic, and it is far better for us than Satan’s counterfeits.
The Christian Presentation
Allow me to ask a question that may already be bothering you. Aren’t I contradicting what I said last chapter by saying that a more positive version of Christianity needs to be presented? Didn’t I just get done saying that kids need to know of God’s law before they can understand His grace? I did, and I still maintain that. The problem is that we often view God’s law incorrectly so Christianity is seen in a negative light. The law is intended to show man where we have fallen short of God’s glory. It does show us our sin, but that is not a bad thing. Being aware of sin is a good thing if it moves us toward humility before God.
There is no biblical justification to argue that grace moves the sinner towards God; that is the work of the law. The law is not grace specifically but it does demonstrate God’s love. God knows that He made us to need Him. Any separation between God and us is detrimental to us both in time and in eternity. God’s law is a concession given to imperfect humans that are prone to sin. It is a wake-up call alerting us to our sin so that we won’t die in our sins. In that respect, the law is like pain in our body. It alerts us to the fact that something is wrong. This is why Hosea 6:6 says, “For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.” Sacrifice, offerings, and the law are only necessary because we fail in love and our knowledge and understanding of God. If we loved God perfectly, the law wouldn’t be necessary, but we don’t, so it is. We must present the law to kids, but make them aware that the law is still a sign of God’s love.
A few years back I was listening to a teaching pastor who explained that the Ten Commandments were very similar to an ancient Jewish marriage custom called the Toshuba. The Toshuba was a list given by the father of the bride to both the bride and groom before they were married. It was not merely a list of rules, although it may have appeared that way to the casual observer. The Toshuba was actually a description of how the couple would live if they wanted complete joy. It was up to them whether they viewed it as an oppressive set of rules or a loving description that would usher them towards their happiest life possible. The Toshuba was a statement of elements necessary for a happy marriage. The law of God is a statement of properties of the universe that can be no more questioned than the law of gravity or the law of electricity. We don’t jump off a ten-story building and not expect to be flattened when we land. Yet for some reason, we break God’s moral law and seem shocked when bad things happen. When we break God’s law, we are like someone who has jumped off that ten-story building and then looked around somewhere around the fourth floor and figured they were fine because nothing bad has happened yet. God’s law is not a divine set of rules for which we will be punished if we break. It is a set of instructions from a loving God of how we were created to live. It is no more oppressive than the law of gravity or an instructional booklet that teaches us how to use our new TV set.
God created us to have a loving relationship with Him. Breaking the law is an attempt to fill our hearts with something other than on what we were designed to run. God understands this and doesn’t want us to “mess up” the engines of our souls, so he warns us. Obeying God’s Law, in fact, prepares us for the ‘age to come’ when things will be put right between God and His creation. It is a glimpse forward in time to what the world will look like after the Resurrection, when all things have been restored to their original glory. Imagine a world where none of the Ten Commandments were ever broken. That is not an oppressive place to think about, but a wonderful place where the entire creation is set to rights.
Teens won’t see this, though, if they understand God’s laws as a set of oppressive rules to keep us from the fun that Satan is trying to offer to us. Satan is not a great humanist that wants us to enjoy ourselves. He hates God, and his work is to steal, kill, and destroy us. It is imperative that we move Christianity beyond a “stop, no, and don’t” proposition for our kids. This is to do injustice to God, to the life He envisions for us, and to our children.
So how does this work? It means that we don’t just tell kids that they shouldn’t have sex, or fall prey to materialism, or seek empty forms of pleasure, or drink, or do drugs, or go to parties. Rather, we should take a two-method approach.
The first part is to teach kids in detail the truth about the sins that the world holds so dear. They must understand that these sins that seem so attractive, normal, and fun are little more than Satan’s flypaper used to attract us in order that he can steal, kill, and destroy us. These things are not fun; they are perversions of the good things that God planned for us.
That leads us into the second aspect which is stressing the positives of God’s plan for His created beings. God created the concept of sex. He wants us to enjoy it, but just like anything else it is bound by laws. Sex was designed for marriage between a man and a woman; end of story. Any expression other than that is not fun. It is poison directly from the cabinet of Satan designed to look like fun. So it is with anything that looks like fun. Don’t try to hide the fact from kids that the things of the world look like fun. Tell them in detail how it will be presented by the world and how it will seem like fun. The reality of the world’s counterfeit endeavors needs to be presented as well. Every sin we can possibly imagine is nothing more than a perversion of the love of God that He wished to share with us. Choosing to act outside of God’s law is to settle for far less than the best from one who wants only to steal, kill, and destroy.
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[i] Porn Facts, http://www.xxxchurch.com/ (August, 2006)
[ii] Ibid.
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