How can we "save" our children and youth "from this perverse generation" (Acts 2:40)? The floodgates of moral filth are open; evil cascades upon them.
One Bible chapter suggests two apparently opposite remedies: "Knowing ... the terror [KJV] of the Lord, we persuade men" (2 Cor. 5:10, 11). The idea seems to be--more fire-and-brimstone preaching/teaching. Does it work? Well, it seems to get them into the baptismal pool, but does "sanctified terrorism" hold these children and youth when temptation shall come in like a flood (Isa. 28:19)? They face terrific peer pressure plus the drives of their own sensual nature; will Jonathan Edwards' preaching hold them when the dams burst?
The same chapter plugs an alternative motivation: "The love [agape] of Christ constraineth us ..." or motivates us, this to total consecration to the One who died for us and rose again (2 Cor. 5:14, 15). In fact, Paul devotes much more time to developing this motivation than to his brief mention of "terror" (KJV). He goes so far as to present a Savior who "was made to be sin for us," in other words, who was forced to be immersed in all the moral filth of the entire human race, who suffered the most awful peer pressure and had to resist the most powerful inner urges as He "resisted unto blood, striving against sin"--all "without sin" (see vss. 16-6:1; Heb. 4:15; 12:4). Read it: it's all "grace much more abounding." Don't despise it!
When we read that it's "the terror of the Lord [that] persuades" us, do we correctly see what Paul said? The word translated "terror" in the KJV is phobos in the Greek; it's not a New Testament word for raw, mind-numbing, Holocaust terror. The honest truth is that God does not want to terrorize children and youth. He is too wise; He knows that terror cauterizes, hardens hearts. That word means a mingled awe and reverence that solemnizes the heart of a child and youth. A wise author once said, "Share with your children the secret of the cross." Will it work? Nothing else will!
Copyright © 2010 by Robert J. Wieland.
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