To do that you cannot rely on church to do it. How can one hour on Sunday hope in any kind of - how could you think one hour could possibly in any way override all you did, or didn't do, through the week? The primary responsibility is the parents. Who was responsible for the parent's education? I challenge you to find anywhere in the Bible where it says the government is. Try to find it - but parents, you are responsible for your child's training, and that's every aspect, character, spiritual life, their relational life, their connections, their education, every part of it, you are responsible. You may not do it all, but you are held responsible to bring them up, and not just any education, but you're called to train them and bring them up in how to walk in God's ways. Don't think the kids can do it for you. Don't think the youth group can do it for you. They can only provide an environment where there's a corporate thing happening, where kids get shown some things, but you've got to do it. That's why it said: love the Lord passionately, and then talk to your kids daily on the way, when you get up, every situation in life.
Some good evangelical families have a little family devotion. All very wonderful, but if you don't talk about life with the kids, and show how to connect what they're doing to life, you're missing it. Okay then, so we see there, very good, very, very clear. Now notice this: parents have authority. You're acting on behalf of God. God told you to do it. The government didn't tell you to do it. God said do this. You're acting as God's representative. You have to remember that God has given you instructions what to do; He expects you to represent Him, so if you mess up and the kids get wrong attitudes to you, they get wrong attitudes to God, and you affect the whole eternal destiny. You are the first authority people children see in their life, and if they rebel against you, they're rebelling against God, they have no place in heaven. You have to understand that, and if you do not deal with this issue as they're growing, you are preparing them in ungodliness, because you're training them one way or another. We are training our children either towards godliness, or towards doing their own thing, and they learn, you know, if they fuss enough they get their way. If they throw up a tantrum, you'll fuss over them and hug them and reward them for their tantrum. Listen, what we're doing is preparing them for an eternity without God. All of us, ALL of us, will come before God, and give account of our life. If a child is raised, and they learn to rebel against authority, they will already be in a place of rebellion against God, and walking under influence of demons.
One of the things I've got a couple of messages on, how kids get demonised, and the fact that there are examples in the Bible of children who were demonised, but here's the problem. If I teach about that, the dilemma is people think all their problems are demon. The problem is not the demon. The problem is the demon got in, because parents didn't provide the nurture, admonition, warning and encouragement children needed. So God's mandate is so very, very clear. You're a person under authority, as well as your child. You want them to be under your authority, you must be under authority. We're all under the same one. His name is Jesus Christ, but we have different roles. Oooh, you're getting quiet in there. God has given you responsibility. You don't have to ask the child's permission to exercise it.
But you see the modern movement of kiddie's rights, parents end up negotiating with them. Negotiating - but God gave me a mandate what to do. Have you reduced a mandate to negotiation? See? What you've done is, you've taken and bought into the lie of the world. Parents are parents, children are children. They're all to be under - we're all to be under - the authority of God, but we have different roles, so parent has one role, the children have a different role. The parent's role is to bring them up in the nurture, admonition of the Lord. In Proverbs 22:6, train up a child in the way he should go. Train them up. Now that word 'train' means to narrow the way. Well dear God, what does that do with 'the child should try everything'? See the common philosophy is we'll let them try things, you know? This is not God's philosophy. God speaks clearly, narrow the way. Don't give them lots of options. Narrow the way. You've been around, you know some things that work and some things that don't work. They don't have to find it all out the hard way. If you want to grow some way, you want to learn from someone who already found out, so the Bible tells us: narrow their way. See, narrow their way, confine their way a little bit. It means also to rub the pallow - give them a taste for what's really good and they'll love what's good. Get them a taste for the good thing, so parents, it's an area - it takes faith and responsibility and courage to be a great parent. You don't have to have the kids agreement about it all. See?