Our passion is training Christian parents, teachers, & grandparents to educate future generations for Christ by following God's plan to perpetuate their faith through Kingdom Education.
"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding." (Proverb 9:10) This is our foundational Scripture from Part 1.
In his book, The Fear of the Lord, John Bevere states: “Holy fear is the key to God’s sure foundation, unlocking the treasures of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge.” This truth comes right out of Isaiah 33:6, “And HE shall be the sure foundation [stability] of your times, a wealth of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge; the fear of the Lord is his treasure.”
Consequently, if we desire to live securely in these troubled times and teach our children and students how to do this, we must seek the Lord and ask Him to etch in our hearts and in their hearts - the holy fear of the Lord. We can only expect to receive this impartation and discernment that fears God if we are earnestly seeking God’s face (Jeremiah 29:11-14; 32:40) and spending time with Him in His Word. Then the Holy Spirit can reveal to us the fear of the Lord, for it truly is one of the manifestations of the Spirit of God (Isaiah 11:1-2).
There is an interlocking relationship between fearing God and loving God. In other words, we cannot truly love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength until we first learn to reverentially fear Him, and we cannot properly fear Him as we should until we first love Him. To fear God properly leads us to love Him wholeheartedly and appropriately. If fearing God is the beginning of wisdom and knowing God as He truly is, then loving God as He really is leads us to the fulfilling purpose of wisdom, which is to know Him intimately and is eternal life. In short, the love of God must be complemented with the fear of God.
God’s Word teaches us that we need to “Behold then the kindness and severity of God” (Rom 11:22). We are in danger of error and judgment when the doctrine of the love of God is not balanced properly with the doctrine of the fear of the Lord. As it says in Isaiah 66:2 and Jeremiah 5:22, a person who truly fears God will tremble at His Word and in His presence. Obviously, we cannot expect to be admitted into the presence of our glorious King with an attitude of disrespect. We learn to give God the reverence He deserves by pursuing the knowledge of the greatness of His glorious character. The greater our beholding of His glory is and the comprehension of His greatness, the greater our capacity for properly fearing Him and reverencing Him according to His divine order.
“Toward Your holy temple I will bow down in fear of You [in reverence for You].” Psalm 5:7
Finally,we must learn to approach God and serve Him acceptably, in reverence and godly fear (Heb 12:28). This is the KEY to acquiring wisdom and understanding, which will lead us to an intimate relationship with God. The holy and reverential FEAR OF THE LORD is absolutely required as the foundation for all true education.
All education that is not built on the fear of the Lord is built on the shifting sands of humanistic philosophies, and as such, will provide its students with a faulty foundation that will not stand the tests and trials of life. As an example, take a close look at the foundation of the modern American public school system: secular humanism. There is no way for a student to receive a truly godly education in the public school system because that system does not teach the fear of the Lord or the knowledge of the Holy One. In fact, state education exalts man above God and seeks to replace God with man. In such a corrupt system, God is ignored as totally insignificant, or worse, He is denounced as non-existent. Can such a system truly educate children? No, it is simply impossible, for the school system has destroyed the very foundation of all sound wisdom and understanding - the fear of the Lord and Jesus Christ. I pray that Christian parents who have their kids in public schools will wake up to this fact and see that they must in all good conscience remove their children from such an ungodly system that can never truly educate their children.
The final posting in this series, Part 3, will follow soon...
When I talk with Christian parents about providing their children with a thoroughly Christ-centered education, one of their main objections is that they believe they should send their children to public school to be "salt and light" in the darkness. In other words, one of the most frequently heard arguments for sending Christian children into the darkness of government schools is that we should try to save the lost in those schools by sending our precious young children there as little evangelists. Does this argument sound familiar?
Here is my reply after an in-depth study of the issue using the Biblical, theological, historical, and educational evidence that is available to anyone who has ears to hear.
The "salt & light" command (and the "Great Commission") were given by Jesus to His trained and adult disciples, not to young children. This is a common misunderstanding in the church today. As an example of the fallacy of this kind of thinking, you'll never find a Christian family sending their 8-year-old son off to Africa to be a missionary to evangelize the lost. Missionaries who are sent to foreign lands are mature disciples and adults, who have been trained theologically in ministering the Gospel and fighting spiritual warfare, who have been trained in the foundations of the faith and in apologetics, etc.
Another problem is that when Christian parents send their young children into the humanist religion government schools, what actually happens is that most of them (85%) have their salt removed by the world (via teachers & peers & curriculum indoctrination) and most of them have their light extinguished. This has been documented by the Southern Baptist Convention's Council on Family Life, by Ken Ham and Answers in Genesis, by George Barna's Research Group, and by many others. When the church tries to apply the "salt and light" argument to putting their children in government schools, the world ends up converting the Christian children and conforming them to the world, not the other way around. And yet God's Word says, "Do not be conformed to this world..." It simply does not work and is not only counter-productive but actually destructive to Christian children and their families. Sure, there's the admirable exception here and there, but the vast majority of these kids actually lose their faith because they are not adequately trained and grounded in their faith before being sent out into the darkness to be light.
I, for one, am not calling for anyone to pull up stakes and head for the hills. I am all for engaging the culture, challenging the culture, and transforming it through Christ & the Gospel of the Kingdom. We are truly called to be a city set on a hill and a light in the darkness, but the city is not a small untrained and unprepared child - it is the "called out ones" of the church who are gathered together as mature disciples of Jesus and who know how to give an answer for the hope that is within them. It is the collection of Christian families that make up the local church.
As parents, our primary purpose is to train up our children in the fear and admonition of the Lord, to teach them the commandments of God (see Deut 6), to teach them our spiritual history and the great wonders of God, to disciple them and educate them for God, AND to protect them from the wiles of the enemy and the world that would seek to destroy them and turn them away from God. We protect them while we disciple them and while they mature in their faith and in holy character. Eventually, we they are grown up and mature, we release them as arrows that shoot into the future and God goes with them and makes them His salt and light. However, it is unwise and unBiblical and contrary to the teaching of Jesus and the apostles to send these precious little ones out into the hostile world prematurely, untrained, immature, and not prepared to overcome it by the blood of Jesus and the word of their testimony and by laying their lives down for their King.
I'm in no way "condemning" a lost world or saying that we shouldn't seek to save the lost. As grown disciples of Jesus, yes, of course we should and I do. This is one of our primary purposes. As we raise our kids "in the Lord," we can model this to our children in the safety of our family and home and church as we reach out to the lost. However, this does not mean we are to send them out into the enemy's camp as young children by putting them in government schools where their faith will be assaulted for 13 years and where they will be indoctrinated by and into a new religion - the religion of secular humanism. No, that is not God's purpose or plan for our children.
Nowhere in Scripture does he command parents to do anything so unwise. Instead, everywhere in Scripture He commands parents to teach their own children and train and raise them in the fear of the Lord, at home in the safety of their own families, with assistance from the church. Institutionalizing our children in state education is the most dangerous, unwise, and destructive thing any Christian parent can do, and it plays right into the hands of the humanists and their goal of destroying our children's faith and their parent's authority in their lives and replacing it with the new religion of secular humanism, post-modernism, moral relativism, and evolutionary Darwinism, so that they will become good submissive "dumbed down" socialized citizens who will worship the State as their "god" and look to the State to parent them and to provide them with everything they need. This leads to idolatry, Statism, and socialism, and the complete loss of freedom, independence, and educational freedom.
I pray that you would consider the points I have raised as you think through your philosophy on these things. These are not just my thoughts on the subject. I am sharing what I have learned over the past 3 years of intense research into Christian education and the history of modern education in America. There are many other Christians, including some well-known Christian pastors and leaders, who have done their own research and have come to the same convictions and conclusions. These include: Samuel Blumenfeld, Voddie Baucham, Erwin Lutzer, E. Ray Moore, R.C. Sproul, Jr., Doug Phillips, Herb Titus, Geoff Botkin, Gary North, Kevin Swanson, Stephen McDowell, Bruce Shortt, David d'Escoto, Israel Wayne, Bradley Heath, T.C. Pinkney, R.J. Rushdoony, If you are interested in the titles of a few excellent books on the subject, I would be happy to send them to you. For those who have "ears to hear," there is a vast amount of Biblical, theological, historical, and educational evidence that supports what I have shared.
This is the season of the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. I celebrated the Feast of Passover yesterday with my family and friends in order to remember and teach my children the truth of the great deliverance of the nation of Israel out of Egypt, the "house of bondage." Of course, inherent in the memorial celebration is the symbolism regarding the Lamb of God, Yahshua, who would one day come and lay his life down to set all mankind free from their bondage to sin, to the devil, and to the ungodly world system. With the coming of the Feast or "Appointed Time" of the Passover, the head of the house must cleanse his house of all leaven, which marks the beginning of the seven days of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Everyone in the house must eat only unleavened bread for seven days, and anyone found with leavened food in his house was to be cut off from the congregation of Israel.
Every family was required to put away all leaven, which meant that it was (and is today) a time of great cleansing, of separation from leavening influences in the lives of the family. Before we look at the spiritual symbolism, let's review the natural significance of leaven. Leaven, known today as yeast, is a small bit of sour dough, that when placed in a batch of dough, has the action of fermentation and puffing up with air (gas). Leaven works secretly, silently, and gradually, until it leavens the whole loaf, which is affected by its mysterious operation and fermentation. It causes the dough to rise. It's influence permeates the whole until all is leavened and becomes like itself. Thus, a "little leaven leavens the whole lump."
The New Testament clearly interprets the symbolism of leaven and explains why it must be put away. There are five references to different kinds of leaven found in the New Testament, each of which symbolizes something evil that has to be "put away." First, there's the leaven of Herod, which speaks of the spirit of worldliness. Jesus warned his disciples to beware of the leaven of Herod because he was controlled by the spirit of the world. Second, there's theleaven of the Sadducees, which was their unbiblical doctrine that did not believe in angels, spirits, the supernatural, or the resurrection. Modernism, with its doctrine of atheistic evolution, and post-moderism, with its rejection of all absolute truth and values, are today's counterpart of the leaven of the Sadducees. Third, Jesus warned his disciples of the leaven of the Pharisees, which He explained to be hypocrisy. They did not practice what they preached and they were "puffed up" with knowledge and tradition. Hypocrisy works like leaven in a person's life unless it is purged out and put away. Fourth, there's the leaven of Corinth, which was sensuality and fornication. There were other forms of leaven at work in the Corinthian church, all of which "puffed up" some of the people with pride. Paul also referred to the leaven of "malice and wickedness," which was old leaven that needed purging. And finally, there was the leaven of Galatia, which was clearly identified as religious legalism. There were some Judaizing teachers going around to all of the churches Paul had planted who were sowing the "leaven of legality," which was undermining the doctrine of grace Paul preached.
Paul interprets the New Testament teaching regarding leaven when he says, "Therefore, let us keep the Feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth." I Corinthians 5:8 The Feast must be kept in "sincerity," which is in purity (the opposite to the corrupting influences of impurity and hypocrisy), and in "truth," which is the opposite of deceit and lying. For Israel, keeping this Feast meant a complete separation from Egypt's gods, religion, bondage, food, works, slavery, wisdom, and might. For the believer today and in the New Testament times, keeping this Feast meant putting away all evil doctrine, all evil practices, all hypocrisy, all sensuality, all malice, and all wickedness. The "unleavened" life is the sanctified life, the separated to God life, which would not allow any secret or silent unseen influences (spiritual leaven) to corrupt the believer or his relationship to Jesus (Yahshua), the Passover Lamb of God, or to puff him up with pride. Remember, the key is that all leaven must be put away from our lives in order to be truly consecrated and set apart to the Lord who is our Passover.
This morning my wife pointed out that today one very significant application of this key relates to our children and their future. In America today, there is a leaven at work every day in the secret and hidden lives of our children. It works silently, practically unnoticed, and permeates every aspect of their lives with such a powerful influence that it will negatively affect, and in fact, eventually completely destroy, their lives, their future, and their children's lives and futures. Can you guess what it is?
Historically, the "principle of leaven" has been used politically, socially, educationally, and religiously in various forms of propaganda in all nations, permeating and influencing societies, cultures, and concepts either for good or for evil. We need to realize that all education is religious because all education conveys a specific worldview that influences and determines the student's life and future. "For as he thinks in his heart, so is he." Proverbs 23:7 This is why Christian parents are commanded to "Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it." Proverbs 22:6
So, what is this leaven in American society that influences and forms the worldview of our precious children so that when they graduate from high school, the vast majority will walk away from God, their faith, and the church? What leaven could be that powerful, that permeating, that influential, that detrimental, that destructive, that corrupting, and that unchallenged by parents and the church? By now you've probably guessed it. If not, let me suggest to you that the most powerful and destructive "leaven" in the lives of our children is "the leaven of state education," or you could call it, "the leaven of the public school system." It is actually a combination of the leaven of Herod (a spirit of worldliness, wickedness), the leaven of the Sadducees (modernism, evolution, secular humanism, and post-modernism), the leaven of the Pharisees (hypocritical Christianity, greed, envy, and the love of money), and the leaven of Corinth (sensuality, fornication, sexual immorality, homosexuality, hedonism, lust, and the love of pleasure).
"Second Corinthians 6:14-18 states that Christians are not to be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. How can we fail to recognize that placing children under the control of a pagan institution for 35 to 40 hours a week is yoking our children unequally with unbelievers? Indeed, can there be a worse example of unequal yoking than the deliberate yoking of a child with a pagan educational institution?" - Dr. Bruce Shortt
In the words of humanist, John D. Dunphy, is a description of this modern leaven: "I am convinced that the battle for human kind's future must be waged and won in the public school classroom by teachers that correctly perceive their role as proselytizers of a new faith....The classroom must and will become an arena of conflict between the old and the new - the rotting corpse of Christianity...and the new faith of humanism." (from the Humanist magazine) And Joe R. Burnett, an editor for the Humanist magazine, stated: "Public education is the parochial education for scientific humanism."
"Ideas have consequences. What we believe determines how we live....The harsh truth is that public schooling is anti-Christ, literally, against Christ. Public schools substitute man for God in their explanations of all things....The secularism taught in public schools is diametrically opposed to Christianity. They are as different as night and day, and inflicting these lies on Christian children is a foolish thing....All schools are religious schools. All schools teach worldview....All schools are enculturation centers and none is neutral...All education is inescapably religious. The existence of non-Christian schools is not the problem; Christians using them to train their children is the issue. Christian children need Christian education" - Bradley Heath
In conclusion, let us remember that the end result of all education is a worldview and that worldview will be either man-centered (self-centered, eccentric = off centered) or God-centered (Christ-centric). As we remember, reflect, and memorialize the great Exodus and deliverance of the children of Israel from bondage in Egypt through the Feast of the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread, let us also remember that this is a time for us to remove and put away all leaven from our lives, which means it is a time to separate ourselves from all the ungodly leavening influences of this world such as sin, worldliness, wickedness, malice, sensuality, sexual immorality, greed, the love of money, the love of pleasure, hypocrisy, and external legalistic religion.
At the same time, I believe God is calling all Christian parents to remove the leaven of state education from the lives of their children and all that comes with that leaven such as ungodliness, secular humanism, socialism, statism, self-centeredness, post-modernism, eastern mysticism, new age philosophy, sexual permissiveness and homosexuality, and a host of other anti-Christian and ungodly behaviors and beliefs. Many Christian parents think that they can send their kids off to the public school during the day, and then at night try to remove the leaven of the world that was put in them. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way and is impossible to do. Remember, leaven is something that works silently, secretly, hidden, gradually, and thoroughly until it leavens the whole lump. All the dough is affected by its mysterious operation and fermentation. Its influence permeates the whole until all is leavened and becomes like itself. Jesus explained this in relation to education when He stated: "A disciple is not above his teacher...Every disciple will become like his teacher, and the slave as his master." Matthew 10:24-25 If you don't believe me and you don't believe Jesus, then I challenge you to make a large bowl of dough, put in a small bit of sour dough (leaven), and then try to separate out the leaven the next day if you can. In the same way that it is foolish to try to separate out leaven from a lump after it has begun working, it is equally foolish to send your child to an irreligious humanist government school or teacher and then try to "un-indoctrinate" your child at the end of every day. It just won't work, and you'll lose your child in the process.
"In essence, we have abdicated our responsibility to educate our children. As a consequence, we have simultaneously put our children in harm's way and have failed to notice that the 'little red schoolhouse' has effectively become a pagan seminary nurturing our children in alien creeds and infusing them with false values. This, in turn, is transforming our families, our churches, our culture, and our society....The fact is that government schools are killing our children spiritually, morally, and intellectually." - Dr. Bruce Shortt "See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ." Colossians 2:8
Listen to the words of Jesus regarding this leaven: "This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far away from Me. But in vain do they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men. Every plant which My heavenly Father did not plant shall be uprooted. Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if a blind man guides a blind man, both will fall into a pit." Matthew 15:8-9, 13-14 "Enter by the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter by it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and few are those who find it. Beware of the false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits....A good tree cannot produce bad fruit; nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire." Matthew 7:13-19
It is time to cut down that bad tree called "public school" or government indoctrination that has been producing bad fruit for 170 years and destroying the lives of generation after generation of Christian children. Public schools have taken millions of Christian children (and their parents) captive through philosophy and empty deception (i.e. spiritual leaven), according to the tradition of men and the elementary human principles of the world, and these government school classroom teachers who function in the role as "proselytizers of a new faith" of humanism, have become blind guides to the blind. Forsake them, let them alone, because if a blind humanist teacher is allowed to guide your child, both will fall into a pit and your child will be led astray to destruction. It's time to choose the narrow gate of Christ-centered homeschooling or possibly partnering with a high-quality Christ-centered private school, because the broad way of public schooling leads to destruction and many are those who enter by it. Beware of those false prophets of the new faith of humanism who are disguised as benign public school teachers, but under their sheep's clothing they are ravenous wolves who will devour your child's faith in God, chew them up, spit them out, and conform them to themselves by turning them into cookie cutter secular humanists and socialists who will reject their parents, their church, their faith, and their God for the world. Now is the time to cut that deadly tree of bad fruit down and uproot it forever.
Too often I find myself projecting a negative message because of taking a stand against unrighteousness, foolishness, social evils, immorality, godlessness, etc. I'd like to counter this by declaring a very positive message of what I am "for" and what I'm willing to take a stand "for."
In today's world, I believe it is of utmost importance for Christians, for the true disciples and followers of Jesus, to take a stand for righteousness, to take a stand for godliness, to take a stand for truth and holiness. Yes, we will be attacked and persecuted for taking a stand for righteousness, but that has always been true, all the way back to the days of Abel, Enoch, and Noah. God encourages us that all who desire to live godly lives in this world will be persecuted. Jesus said that we are blessed when we are persecuted for the sake of righteousness. We must all take a stand for truth and righteousness, regardless of the cost.
On the other hand, there are millions of Christians (even pastors) who take no stand at all on many issues related to righteousness. The reason for this is either they are fearful of the backlash and persecution they will suffer for standing up and speaking the truth in love, or they are self-deceived and have already compromised with the world and they really do not stand for righteousness in their hearts or lives.
Let me also warn you that there are certain hot topics which will quickly bring on a fiery attack and persecution if you dare to speak out against them or for the righteousness that they seek to overthrow. These moral "hot buttons" include:
standing for the sanctity of marriage and against homosexuality, standing for homeschooling and educating your children God's way versus the godless public school system of humanistic indoctrination and the all-powerful socialist teachers unions that have destroyed education in America, standing for moral absolutes such as are revealed in the Ten Commandments versus the moral relativism of today, standing for the right to life for the unborn versus the murder of the unborn known as abortion, standing for sexual purity in a world obsessed with sexual immorality, standing for the freedom of religious expression and exercise in the public sector, standing for Constitutionally limited government versus a government out of control spending us into terrible debt and encroaching on every aspect of our lives and on the sovereignty of each state to govern its own affairs without interference from the feds, taking a stand for personal property that is not subject to being taxed by the government and for personal income that is not subject to being forcibly redistributed to those who refuse to work & live off of socialist entitlements, standing for the preservation, protection, and priority of our providential history and purpose that is based on our Judeo-Christian values, worldview, principles, and beliefs versus being overrun by Muslim fundamentalism and Sharia law, etc.
Therefore, I declare here and now, publically, what I stand for:
I am for God, for His glory, for His Kingdom, for His Son, and for His righteousness.
I am for God’s Law, higher law, natural law, the rule of law. I am for the Ten Commandments and the commandments of Jesus Christ.
I am for the Bible and Judeo-Christian beliefs, values, and kingdom principles.
I am for personal responsibility and accountability to God.
I am for homeschooling and Biblical Christ-centered education and discipleship.
I am for the separation of school and state (for government to get out of education).
I am for parents taking responsibility to educate their children God’s way for Him.
I am for parental freedom to educate our children as we choose.
I am for self-government and moral virtue in private and in public.
I am for the sanctity of marriage as God designed it between a man and a woman.
I am for the sanctity of life, including the right to life for the unborn and for the elderly.
I am for honoring our fathers and mothers and I am for honoring the elderly.
I am for constitutionally limited small government as set up by the Founding Fathers.
I am for freedom and the protecting of our God-given rights and liberties.
I am for self-reliance, independence, initiative, industry, and free enterprise.
I am for the right for citizens to keep and bear arms according to the 2nd amendment.
I am for the right to life, liberty, and personal property.
I am for voluntary charity (not socialist redistribution of wealth & state welfare).
I am for a republican form of true representative government (not a democracy).
I am for re-affirming and re-establishing America’s godly Christian heritage.
I am for the free exercise of religion in private and public sectors.
I am for accountability in all levels of government; accountability to the people.
I am for eliminating all income taxes on citizens and for eliminating property taxes.
I am for requiring all government to balance the budget, avoid debt, & limit spending.
A word of warning: of all the hot button issues I've mentioned above, the three that will react with the most hostility and viciously attack you with everything in their arsenal (media, politicians, unions, ACLU lawsuits, political laws, slander) are these:
1. The Gay & Lesbian Homosexual Agenda 2. Islam, Sharia Law, Muslim Fundamentalism, and Islamic Terrorism 3. The Public School system in America & the Socialist Teachers Unions that Control It
