GYC 2014: At The Cross

Raising the Remnant

Scott Ritsema

Generation. Youth. Christ. (GYC)

6. The Trueprint: A Radical Vision for Training and Educating Your Children

This message was presented at the GYC 2014 conference at the Cross in Phoenix, Arizona.

For other resources like this, visit us online at www.gycweb.org.

Father, we thank you so much for this conference and these short moments that we have together to just scratch the surface on this this infinitely, eternally important topic of educating and training our children.

And we just pray for your spirit to be with us, that you would give us wisdom, understanding, and clarity.

I'm going to tell you the story of education, where it has come from, where it has gone to, and where it's going to be in the very last days.

And I want to begin in the Garden of Eden.

Did you know that the system of education established in Eden centered in the, what does it say?

The family was the school and the parents were the teachers.

11 years of teaching career just ended this past year as I've gone into ministry full time.

And I did not catch this concept the first time through when I read this as a teacher.

Now I'm a parent, I have a three-year-old and a one-year-old, and I read education again in preparation for seminar and parenting.

The opening chapters of education very much bring out this theme.

God's original Garden of Eden plan for education was the family.

You might call it a home school, although I want to use that term carefully because it might put an image in your head of a child at a kitchen table doing worksheets, the exact same curriculum that is happening in the school, he's just at a kitchen chair instead of a desk.

Well God's plan for education is going to be a whole lot more radically divergent from what we think normally.

In early ages, with the people who were under God's direction, life was simple.

Their children shared in the labor of the parents.

And studied the beauties and mysteries of nature's treasure house.

And In the quiet of field and wood, they pondered those mighty truths, handed down as a sacred trust from generation to generation.

It was a home education setting where children entered into the labors of their parents.

Reading on, we see in ordinary life, the family was both a school and a church.

The parents were being the instructors in secular and religious lines.

Have you ever noticed who this is directed toward?

It says, "...and thou shalt write these commandments of God upon thy house and upon thy gates, and thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand as frontlets between thine eyes.

And it shall be when the Lord shall have brought thee into the land which he sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, and so on.

It says, these words which I command to thee this day shall be in thy heart, and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy what?

God's method of education from the very beginning was parental in nature.

In God's plan for Israel, every family had a home on the land with sufficient ground for tilling.

Thus were provided both the means and the incentive for a useful, industrious, and self-supporting life.

And no devising of men has ever improved on that plan.

Every father was required to see that his sons learned some useful trade.

This is God's plan, purpose, design, blueprint for education.

The education centering in the family was that which prevailed in the days of the patriarchs, in early times.

For the schools, or you might call them home schools, thus established, God provided the conditions most favorable for the development of character.

The men who held fast God's principles of life dwelt among the fields and hills.

They were tillers of the soil and keepers of the flocks and herds.

And in this free independent life with its opportunities for labor and study and meditation, they learned of God and taught their children of his works and ways.

This was the method of education that God desired to establish in Israel.

So something happened to move us away from this original plan.

When brought out of Egypt, there were among the Israelites few prepared to be workers together with him in the training of their children.

This is why in very many households the training appointed by heaven and the characters thus developed in these children were alike rare.

Fathers and mothers in Israel became indifferent to their obligation to God, indifferent to their obligation to their children.

To meet this growing evil, God provided other agencies as an aid to parents in the work of education.

Samuel, by the Lord's direction, established the schools of the prophets.

This is the first time in history we see schools.

And it was to meet the growing evil of what?

What was the evil that was happening at the time?

Parents were not doing their duty, that were not following God's plan and design for home-style education, home-schooling, if you will.

In his wisdom, the Lord has decreed that the family shall be the greatest of all educational agencies.

So this is a statement of present truth for us.

This isn't just something back then, that's how they used to do it, but God has a better way for us now.

No, it says that no human devising has ever improved upon that original plan, doesn't it?

Now we also read when we fast forward to Jesus' time, Jesus followed the divine plan of education.

In the schools of his time, with their magnifying of things small and the belittling of things great, he did not seek those schools.

His education was gained directly from the heaven-appointed sources, from useful work, from the study of the scriptures and the study of nature, and from the experiences of life, God's lesson books.

If you will, Jesus was a homeschooled child.

He did not go to the schools of his day with their belittling of things great and their magnifying of things small.

He followed the divine plan that God established in Eden.

Now that might beg the question that I'm guessing and hoping and assuming everybody in the room is wondering, then why did God give us in 1872 a education blueprint for schools?

We as the Adventist people have a very strong foundation in school institutions throughout our history.

Well, same reason Israel received their schools of the prophets.

It says here in Councils to Parents, Teachers, and Students that the necessity of establishing such schools is urged upon me very strongly because of the cruel neglect of many parents to properly educate their children in the home.

These schools should be built upon the same principles as were the schools of the prophets.

So we are modern Israel in a way, aren't we?

God brought this in as a necessity to meet the growing evil, if you will, of parents not doing their heaven-appointed task.

But as we read on, you'll find, by the way, if you ever came into the church, you heard this schools of the prophets thing.

I came into the church 6 years ago, I'm going, what's the schools of the prophets?

I've never read that or heard of that before.

In 2 Kings 2, you read about the sons of the prophets, and then the story of Elisha with the young men, and they chop down the tree, and the ax goes into the river, right?

This is where we get the schools of the prophets concept from in the Bible, and they were called the what of the prophets?

5. Epigenetics, Courtship, Lust, Intimacy, Marriage, Sexuality… and Successful Parenting

Father in heaven, we thank you so much for the presence of your Holy Spirit.

We do ask for the presence of Jesus to be with us, that we might be learners, that we might gain insights and wisdom for our future and our present.

And Lord, as we deal with these sensitive issues, these important issues with regard to how they affect our families, we just ask for your Holy Spirit to do the teaching, that all of our thoughts and opinions would be set aside, and we would hear from you this morning.

They were about to cross the borders of the banks of the Jordan into Canaan.

And Balak tried to get Balaam to curse the Israelites, right?

Balaam did not curse the Israelites, he blessed them, right?

So what was Satan's next strategy and tactic to get the Israelites off their aim and goal of the promised land?

And now you read that just as in the days of ancient Canaan, it will be the same in the last days.

Listen to this statement from Review and Herald.

It says, the very same Satan is now working to weaken and destroy the people who are just on the borders of the what?

He has but little time left now in which to work and he will work with tremendous power to ensnare the people of God upon their weak points of character.

There will be women who will become tempters and who will do their best to attract and win the attention of men to themselves.

And so we have a prediction that in the very last days, right before the close of time, right where we're about to head into the heavenly Canaan, that the lust issue, the sexuality issue, will be coming in and derailing God's people.

Is this being fulfilled before our very eyes, literally, as we are assaulted day in and day out with sexual images, particularly preying upon men as the men of Israel were destroyed by this great temptation of Satan.

Now when you go back to the 10 Commandments, you find a very interesting statement that has actually a lot of skeptics have really made a big deal out of this.

And at a first glance, it's sort of puzzling.

It says that the Lord is a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, to the third and fourth generation.

And when you first read that, you wait, Wait a minute, that doesn't seem to, at first glance, harmonize with the statements in the Torah that say children should not be punished for their father's sins.

Or Ezekiel 18, which teaches the same thing, and you're going, wait a minute, scratching my head.

That the Lord knows what He's talking about, something is going on here, and my sense of justice is going to be ultimately weak compared to God's.

So I take it on faith that this is valid.

We now know from the science how that statement is valid.

Visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation.

Have you heard of the field of epigenetics?

Fascinating field of study, showing that your genetics that you received as an inheritance from your parents are not fixed.

You have a genetic code, but those genes express in different ways depending on various factors.

Choices, thoughts, diet, lifestyle, healthy living, all of these things change gene expression.

They don't actually change the code, but they change which genes turn on and which turn off.

So your genetic code is passed along to your children, but get this, these changes in your gene expression are passed on to your children and then subsequently grandchildren and great grandchildren.

What we've known from the Bible for thousands of years, now finally science is confirming.

And what does this have to do with parenting?

What does this have to do with the issues we're talking about today?

We read in child guidance, parents stamp their faults upon their children.

To the third and fourth generation, stamp their faults upon their children.

By the way, there's a good side to this too.

The flip side of the coin is when I overcome sin, when I gain victories in my life, when I have the joy of the Lord, and I have a healthy lifestyle, I pass those positive gene expression changes also along to my children.

And so as parents, it's not just our modeling that we talked about yesterday by living the life of Christ.

It's not just our parenting strategies that we talked about that will mold our children's character.

And this is why I really want to talk with those who haven't had children yet on this.

Because you guys and those folks who've had children are going, man, I already missed that boat.

The Lord will still do miraculous work in changing your children.

But those who have not had children yet, you guys have the opportunity to say, I'm going to gain those victories in my life now, before I have children.

White also wrote some things regarding this issue of passing along tendencies to our children that have puzzled people.

Back before we knew the field of epigenetics, she talked about the issue of self-abuse and these sorts of things and how they were going to be passed along to children.

And we, a lot of people have really questioned, you know, really all of these 19th century morals about self abuse and it's going to cause all of these ailments and physical deformities and deficiencies.

And people really made fun of her and other 19th century writers who were saying some of the same things.

But really what we now know from the science is that we know addictions run in families, first of all, but we also know that what the science is saying about the issue of masturbation in particular is really confirming everything that people have scoffed at for generations that you find in the spirit of prophecy.

I don't have time to go through them all.

In the full seminar called A Greater Lust, I have a whole session on this topic.

And I go point by point through all of the seemingly obscure things she says will result from this practice.

And point by point, they're all confirmed by modern science.

But how about just this 1 study by Cooper and Carnes, masturbating as little as 2 times per week has been shown to increase depression, memory problems, lack of focus, concentration problems, fatigue, back pain, and pelvic or testicular pain.

So if you're looking at A Solemn Appeal to Mothers by LNG.

White, if you've read that, you've seen many of these things coming up in spirit of prophecy writings that are also being confirmed just in recent research, 2001 and 2004.

You read in the book Wired for Intimacy by Dr.

William Struthers, masturbation is playing with neurochemical fire.

It affects 1 emotionally and neurologically.

So when we talk about the issue of lust, a lot of times we just leave it in the realm of pornography and what you're viewing with your eyes.

What we're reading here is that it's doing things in the brain physiologically regardless of what you're viewing.

We will be talking about pornography, but just the act in itself, we're hearing from, This is not an Adventist scholar.

This is a secular Christian, semi-Christian writer on the topic.

But here we see Satan tells the young that there is time enough yet, that they may indulge in sin and vice this once and never again.

This is the last time I'm gonna eat this.

How many times have we said things like that?

But that 1 indulgence will poison their whole life.

In this perilous day of evil, when allurements to vice and corruption are on every hand, let the earnest heartfelt cry of the young be raised to heaven.

Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way?

And may his ears be open and his heart inclined to obey the instruction given in the answer by taking heed thereunto according to thy word.

If you want victory, if you want to cleanse your way, study Psalm 119.

4. How to Raise a Happy Unspoiled, Confident, Obedient, Thinking Child

Father in heaven, we thank you for your grace and mercy that you've bestowed upon us.

We are not worthy to be your agents, to be your ministers of the gospel to our children.

But Lord, we know that where we are weak, your strength is made perfect.

And so we just ask for your strength to help us to raise the remnant, to raise these healthy, spiritually strong, thinking, obedient, confident, unspoiled children that you want to present to the world is the greatest argument in favor of Christianity that we can present.

We were going through how these parents are balanced.

A fourth way the parents that had success in the research, the parents who raised spiritually strong young adults, the fourth way that they were very balanced in their parenting was that they did not dictate ideas to their children and create their children to be unthinking people.

They very much valued the idea of their children becoming independent, thinking, critically thinking people.

Basing their choices on biblical principles so that they would not be cast this way and that by the winds of doctrine.

And this is exactly what we are called to do, there are many who believe without a reason on which to base their faith, without sufficient evidence as to the truth of the matter.

Well, if an idea is presented that harmonizes with their own preconceived opinions, they are all ready to accept it.

And in the time of trial, they will find that they have built upon the sand.

Let us not be that way with our children, brethren.

We must be giving them the firm foundation for the reasons for our faith, for a thinking generation, as my friend Joshua White calls his ministry.

Let them learn to draw lessons and discern truth for themselves.

So a fifth way these parents are balanced is not just helping the children to discern truth for themselves, but they advance their children at a pace that is natural to them.

So the parents, the teachers, the in-laws, whoever might be looking at that, what, they're that old and they're not potty trained?

Oh, come on, this is what the official schedule says.

Why are they 6 and they're not reading yet or whatever?

No, no, no, these parents let their children enjoy the delights of childhood rather than rushing them.

And this doesn't mean they're lax and they're not interested in their children's development, but they're sensitive to the particular unique dispositions of each child and they advance them at a pace that is natural to them as individuals or if we look to Spirit of Prophecy that is natural to the childhood development because this is really really interesting.

This is the part that was the most eye-opening to me of all as I was studying our parents in councils.

The little ones should be educated in childlike simplicity.

They should be trained to be content with the small helpful duties and the pleasures and experiences natural to their years.

True education is not the forcing of instruction on an unready and unreceptive mind.

The mental powers must be awakened, the interest aroused.

So are you hearing what I'm hearing here?

There is a time where children's minds are unready for certain types of learning.

And there is a natural development, natural to their years, for children.

So let's talk a little bit more about childhood development.

We read in Child Guidance also that mothers, let the little ones play in the open air.

Let them listen to the songs of the birds and learn the love of God as expressed in his beautiful works.

Teach them simple lessons from the book of nature and the things about them.

And as their minds expand, lessons from books may be added and firmly fixed in the memory." So did you notice books are brought in, you might say more academic learning is brought in once their minds have expanded because as we just saw, there are certain experiences natural to their years and there is such thing as an unready mind.

Readiness is something that's talked about in educational circles, not emphasized nearly as much as we ought to.

When is a child ready for academics and when is the natural period for books and academic learning?

Well, in 1998, did you know that only 29% of kindergarten teachers, just a few years ago, only 29% believed in teaching reading to their children.

Now we're saying this is the time for children to learn reading, at age 5, in kindergarten.

But in 1998, 53% only of children were in full-day kindergartens.

By 2010, 12 years later, 81% of children were in full-day kindergarten.

So we're moving academics earlier and earlier and having more and more of it at an earlier age.

Let's look at Desire of Ages 68 says that the powers of Jesus' mind developed gradually in keeping with the, what does it say?

So there are certain laws of childhood development, kind of like the law of gravity, or the physical laws of health.

These are the laws of childhood brain development, and Jesus' mind developed just like all of ours do.

So at certain ages, the mind is ready for certain activities.

And namely, we're talking about academics this morning.

Now, this by the way is just a little graphic here, illustration of a developed neuron.

When a neuron becomes developed, it becomes coated with this myelin sheath.

So the circuit in the brain, the circuitry of a region of the brain, becomes ready to be used at that point.

Once it's myelinated and it's coated with this sheathing, it speeds up the neuron like a hundredfold and it makes that area of the brain, the circuitry of that area of the brain, is organized, myelinated, and primed for use.

If you try to do things with unmyelinated neurons, it's so inefficient at best, and at worst, even just useless and harmful.

So Let's talk about this issue of laws of development as it relates to kittens.

And by the way, a lot of this right now, what I'm taking from the later development of academic things, the Classroom of the Remnant, as my friend Joshua White is the lecturer on this, powerful, powerful seminar material.

I enjoy traveling around, sharing truths, doing the Media on the Brain seminar.

Pretty much every weekend I'm at a different church and I still enjoy doing that.

So feel free to contact us and say, hey, we wanna get you to our church.

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All Teachings

6. The Trueprint: A Radical Vision for Training and Educating Your Children

47m

5. Epigenetics, Courtship, Lust, Intimacy, Marriage, Sexuality… and Successful Parenting

55m

4. How to Raise a Happy Unspoiled, Confident, Obedient, Thinking Child

53m

3. What Successful Parents Do Differently: Spirit of Prophecy and Recent Research Meet Again – Part 2

52m

2. What Successful Parents Do Differently: Spirit of Prophecy and Recent Research Meet Again – Part 1

52m

1. Schooled and Media-Addicted: The Out-Sourcing of Parenting and Its Tragic Results

50m

5. Hiding From Intimacy

41m

4. Emotionally Disconnected

51m

3. Take Away the Show

51m

2. Facing the Pain

1h

1. The Walking Wounded

47m

6. Romans: Power To Face The Final Conflict

54m

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