Children are a parent’s most precious possession. As our culture collapses in moral destruction, how will we pass the baton to the next generation? Pastor Lutzer examines the relationship between the education system and parental responsibility. God is going to hold us responsible for how we raise our children.
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Transcript: Welcome to "5 Minutes with Pastor Lutzer." I'm so glad that you joined me again as we discuss my book, entitled, "No Reason to Hide: Standing for Christ in a Collapsing Culture." One of the chapters has to do with the education of children in our schools. And I delineate there what is being taught regarding race, regarding what is being taught about sexuality, how destructive it is, but today I want focus only on one narrow issue. And that is the question: To whom do children belong?
Now again, we have to go back to Marxism. Marx taught that children should be separated from their parents for the purpose of education. After all, parents, of course, were seen as oppressors. God was the ultimate oppressor. And, therefore, education was too great a task—it was too important—to be left up to parents. Children should be educated by the state, so that they can be taught all the wonderful things about communism, about atheism, evolution, and all the rest. That was Marx's teaching.
Today what we find is that our public schools have become, oftentimes, government schools. So now it's up to the teachers to teach what they think should be taught and you and I know many instances in which parents were getting involved and were vilified for doing so. So I want to simply ask the question, to whom do children belong?
Here's a remarkable passage. It actually comes to us from the 16th chapter of the book of Ezekiel. Think about this carefully. The evil pagans were taking their babies, and their children, and sacrificing them to pagan gods. You know what God said about that? He said, "You have taken MY children, whom you have borne to me, and you have thrown them in the fire." Even the children of pagans are God's children. That's why, by the way, I believe so deeply that all children who die go to heaven. They belong to God. Of course, God has given parents the responsibilithy of raising their children. Now sometimes the parents can't do that, perhaps because of death, divorce, you know how broken this world really is, and parents have to be willing to loan that child out to someone else for the purposes of education. But if you miss anything I say today, I want you to get this. God is going to hold you, as a parent, responsible for the education of your child. Even if there is someone else who is helping you in the process.
I could talk about legislation that is happening in our state and elsewhere that is intending to teach children to be independent of their parents, even to make decisions regarding abortion, regarding transgenderism, without their parents knowing it. This is destructive. We must stand against it with all that we have. I could go on but in this brief time I want to emphasize what Jesus had to say about children.
We were in Israel recently and we saw a millstone. Now if you've never seen a millstone, you have to understand that it's a huge round rock, weighing probably several tons. And it was used because their grain and rice, and so forth, were threshed. But I need to emphasize this: Jesus said, "For those who cause one of these little ones who believe in me to stumble, it is better if a millstone were about his neck and he were drowned in the depths of the sea." Parents, our children are our most important possession—our most precious possession.
Now, you say, "Well, Pastor Lutzer, what about education?" I want to share my heart with you because we're at a point where public schools oftentimes morally are very very destructive. What are your options? Well, of course, there's homeschooling but not everyone can do that. There are faith-based schools but the cost might be prohibitive. What do you do? If your child is in a public school today. Be sure to, every single day, check on what is being taught. Get to know the teachers. Get involved in your school and insist that your child's education, ultimately, is going to be under your supervision. God is going to give you wisdom. There's no one right answer that fits all but we cannot throw our children to the wolves. Please hear me when I say that we need to think through what our response is going to be as our culture collapses. How are we going to live for Christ and how will we pass the baton to the next generation?
Thank you so much for joining me today. Next time we are going to talk about the Great Global Reset but as for today you just go with God.