In this sermon, Pastor Joe Babij looks at several Bible passages to teach the importance of applying the law of God, especially the Ten Commandments, to the raising of children. Pastor Babij explains how God’s commands and our failure to keep them expose the sinful heart and point each of us to our need for the Savior, Jesus Christ. Pastor Babij especially considers how the Tenth Commandment that forbids coveting leaves none of us with any excuse of true righteousness.
Full Transcript:
Good morning, let’s take our Bibles this morning and we look at several passages of Scripture while we are in between books. I like to pick up certain subjects and passages to look at and today I want to look at Acts 7:37-38 along with other passages this morning. Before I read it, I just want to say that Steven is actually preaching this message in Acts 7 and he is giving the history of what God has done with His people. What is apparent in this passage is that it shows his audience all along that the forefathers have completely misunderstood their history and the significance of Moses, the law and the temple.
Because of their misunderstanding, they in turn committed the same sin that their forefathers committed by rejecting God’s messengers and message and as a result they rejected the very Savior who had been prophesied by Moses. So this morning I would like to focus in on a phrase at the end of verse 38 to bring to your attention the meaning and purpose of living oracles given to the children of God. It says in Acts 7:37-38:
This is the Moses who said to the sons of Israel, “God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brethren.” This is the one who was in the congregation in the wilderness together with the angel who was speaking to him on Mount Sinai, and who was with our fathers; and he received living oracles to pass on to you.
We come up with the idea that Moses received life-giving words from the angel that spoke with him on Mount Sinai. These living words were to be passed on from one generation of God’s people to the next. Even the Psalmist says in Psalm 145:4:
One generation shall praise Your works to another, and shall declare Your mighty acts. Men shall speak of the power of Your awesome acts, and I will tell of Your greatness.
So it’s the job of passing on the living oracles of God to the children and next generation. That is the job of the Church and parents to do that. Now the question is, “Are you burdened for the children growing up in your home and in the Church to actually genuinely trust Christ or at least know how to trust Christ as their Lord and Savior?” Also, “Do you wonder if you are doing the right things to lead them to a true saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ by faith?”
Now notice in these verses that these living oracles were heavenly in origin and were received by God. So we must conclude that these living oracles had no human origin at all and therefore were perfect and without corruption or stain. Now we have to ask this question also, “What in particular are these living oracles?” Look where Moses got them from to receive them on Mount Sinai? So what is Scripture referring to when it uses the phrase living oracles? It’s talking about the Ten Commandments and the law of God. It is saying that the law of God is living and alive! If I can jog your memory for a moment concerning Exodus 20, where the Ten Commandments are found, you can remember what they are:
You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the Lord your God gives you. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor.
So all the people needed to do is to listen to the positives and negatives that these commands communicate and then obey them. Do you realize that if people kept the law of God and lived according to them, we would have peace on earth? But the truth of the matter is that we cannot obey them. Have you ever asked yourself the question of why can’t we keep and obey fully the Ten Commandments? Because the law was not given in order that we might save ourselves. The law of God was actually designed to expose us and show us that we cannot keep these living oracles. It shows us that we are lost and condemned in God’s sight. It shows us in our weakness that we cannot do anything to save ourselves or contribute anything to our salvation.
Now I’m saying this for this reason: parents, if you’re going to teach your children anything when they are starting out their lives, it is to teach them the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments are going to cultivate their hearts to not only be sensitive to the voice of God but also to produce in their heart a guilt when they do commit sin. And then they will have a desire to run to the One who can actually take care of that guilt, genuinely forgive them, and give them a relationship with God.
So living oracles are designed to penetrate into the soul to expose the truth about ourselves. It is designed to convict and to cut away the dark layers of the heart and unveil the whole truth about who we really are because we are not ready to admit who we are and what we really goes on in the inner recesses of our hearts. The living Word of God and the living oracles of God are like a spiritual MRI, a magnetic renaissance imaging device.
It is primarily used in medical imaging to visualize the structure and function of the body to provide detailed images of the body in any plane and then it builds up all the information and reconstructs the image of something going on inside your body. It is a powerful tool used today to find out things that cannot be seen or discovered by other tests.
The powerful computers used in the MRI imaging can convert the three dimensional energy maps into topographical images or it slices through the anatomy being evaluated so a doctor can actually see what is going on inside the nooks and crannies of the body in order to set a clear picture of what is going on. It has a lot to do with diagnosing neurological, muscular, cardiovascular, and ecological diseases.
By comparison, the law is especially useful in diagnosing the inner heart of man, slicing through all the layers, and searching the depth of sin to expose all the hidden things of the heart. The New Testament book of Hebrews says in Hebrews 4:12-13:
For the word of God is living and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, even penetrating as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him to whom we must answer.
So let me ask you again, why did God call Moses onto Mount Sinai and give him the living oracles? So that the real problem of humanity may be revealed and made plain so that humans may not be able to get away with it. Consider some other passage of Scriptures that actually reinforce the point of the real purpose of the law, like Galatians 3:19:
Why the Law then? It was added on account of the violations, having been ordered through angels at the hand of a mediator, until the Seed would come to whom the promise had been made.
In other words, the law was given alongside the promise to show people their sins. But the law was designed to last only the coming of the child who was promised whom we know to be Jesus Christ. Then Paul brings it up in Romans 5:20:
The Law came in so that the offense would increase; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.
Again using other words, God’s law was given so that all people could see how sinful they were. But as people sinned more and more, God’s wonderful grace became more and more abundant. The favor of God is seen most clearly in the sending of Jesus Christ as the solution for man’s sin. Now just quickly take your Bibles and turn to Romans 7:13, which puts it quite plainly:
Therefore did that which is good become a cause of death for me? Far from it! Rather it was sin, in order that it might be shown to be sin by bringing about my death through that which is good, so that through the commandment sin would become utterly sinful.
In other words the Bible is saying that there is nothing wrong with the law. So ladies and gentlemen, God gave the law to act like a mirror that He places right in front of every one of us. He shows us who we really are and how we really look to a holy and just God. God tells us that the Word of God is like a mirror where it tells us in James 1:22-25:
But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not just hearers who deceive themselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. But one who has looked intently at the perfect law, the law of freedom, and has continued in it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an active doer, this person will be blessed in what he does.
So if I leave the breakfast table with egg on my face, other people may laugh when they see me. But I will not realize anything wrong until I finally look in the mirror and see egg and am embarrassed that it was there all the time and I didn’t know it. So when we look in the mirror of the Word of God, especially here with the Ten Commandments, we are going to see something about ourselves that we cannot readily diagnose immediately. In fact in Romans 7:13 it says:
Through the commandment sin would become utterly sinful.
Have you ever considered yourself to be utterly sinful? That’s how God sees us. Romans 3:20 says:
Because by the works of the Law none of mankind will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes knowledge of sin.
It actually exposes us as sinners and it exposes the depth of sin. It is deeply rooted in all of our hearts and in the hearts of our children. The law exposes the nature of sin as enslaving and it exposes the power of sin. It is so enslaving that it reveals to us our complete helplessness to satisfy God by our own efforts. But this morning I want to look at the very point in the Ten Commandments which really arrested the Apostle Paul and gives no wiggle room at all to get out of this particular sin. It is the living oracle that exposes hidden sin. That is found in the last commandment in Exodus 20:17. Sin is deeply rooted in all of our hearts and we can see the law does not allow us to say that we have never done something before. It does not allow us to say that we are good enough and don’t need any help.
The law says to examine our hearts, thoughts, desires, imaginations, and what lurks within that no one else can see. That is in your heart for it was Jesus who said in Mark 15:19:
For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, acts of adultery, other immoral sexual acts, thefts, false testimonies, and slanderous statements.
If you say to your conscience that you are a pretty good person and have never really killed anyone or actually committed adultery with anyone. But the law says to examine your imaginations and it finds that you are often angry with people and hold people in contempt and keep secret bitterness in your heart and resentment towards others. Also your thoughts have revealed your musing and inappropriate sexual fantasies and encounters in your mind. People conclude that they are not as good as they ought to be but they also close with they are not as evil as they could be.
These kinds of statements show us how much we need the law to expose us for who we are so that we can see our need for salvation and call out to Jesus for deliverance. So in other words, parents you should use the law as a mirror before your child to show them what sin is and how God sees it. Then show them the things they are hiding from you that God actually sees and knows. That’s what the law will aid you to do. The only place we can find out about the depth of our sin or the hidden sin is in the Word of God. The law of God then defines and reveals sin and shows us how dirty we are. For example in Romans 7:7 says:
What shall we say then? Is the Law sin? Far from it! On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the Law; for I would not have known about coveting if the Law had not said, “You shall not covet.”
So it is this last commandment in the Word of God that everyone has broken and we have broken it many times over. So why did Paul use coveting? Coveting is not really an action but rather an attitude and inward desire to have what is not yours. Before Paul, he was Saul and he thought and convinced himself that he was keeping the commandments. In fact he was! If anyone kept the commandments, Saul did. Until he came to this tenth commandment because it gets down deep into the heart.
People often think they are law keepers because they have never done anything that would send them to jail. They are not criminals so they must be somewhat good people, as compared to other people. But that’s not how God sees it. God sees it as us being utterly sinful with no wiggle room to get out of it. Let’s just look at some Old Testament examples like King Ahab who wanted Naboth’s vineyard. He went to Naboth and said he wanted his vineyard for whatever he wanted to trade. But Naboth said he couldn’t give it because it belonged to the Lord. So the Bible says this in 1 Kings 21:4:
So Ahab entered his house sullen and furious because of the answer that Naboth the Jezreelite had given to him, since he said, “I will not give you the inheritance of my fathers.” And he lay down on his bed and turned his face away, and ate no food. But Jezebel his wife came to him and said to him, “How is it that your spirit is so sullen that you are not eating food?” So he said to her, “It is because I was speaking to Naboth the Jezreelite and saying to him, ‘Give me your vineyard for money; or else, if it pleases you, I will give you a vineyard in place of it.’ But he said, ‘I will not give you my vineyard.’”
Ahab being the weak king he was, his wife says that if he can’t get it, she will get it for him. And Naboth ends up getting killed by her but that sin of covering led to murder. It is a sin of desire. Don’t be too quick to judge and condemn Ahab. All of us have been unhappy because we did not have something we wanted. We have all felt jealous because of what someone else had or accomplished and we wished we accomplished it. Out of all the commandments, this is one that we all have broken. So we would be justly guilty as if we had broken every law there is. That’s why James writes this in James 2:10:
For whoever keeps the whole Law, yet stumbles in one point, has become guilty of all.
I believe that James is talking about the tenth commandment here. So to break this commandment, which we all have done, puts us all under the judgment of God. So if I ask if you have ever stolen something, you can say yes you have or no you haven’t because you know that stealing is wrong. But if you say that you like to illegally download songs from the internet, is that stealing? Yes it is. Now suppose I ask you whether you wanted to downloaded songs from the internet because you wanted the song so badly but did have the means to pay for it, so you did not download it. You would say that’s not sin.
Usually people think that these desires are not sin because there was no action upon them. But see this tenth commandment is actually saying that sin happens in the desire whether you act on it or not. Having something that would be wrong to have is sin in the desire. This is what got the Apostle Paul so riled up in Romans 7, because he could not get out of this one. He examined his own desires and the law examined his own desires and he admits that he has had desires to kill God’s people.
So the law of God would say that the very desire to have what you cannot have is sin even if you never act upon it, because you have committed coveting in your heart. It says that you must not covet or desire in your heart, your neighbor’s house, wife, male or female servant, or possessions. Even if you desire to have it and never act upon it, that is still sin. Who can get away with that and has never done with that? We have all committed this sin at some point or another.
In other words, the tenth commandment shows that the law makes demands upon our thoughts and intents of our hearts. When we stop and think about this commandment not to covet, we realize that even our wrong thoughts are sin. We see how many wrong thoughts we have had and we become ashamed of how sinful we were all along without even knowing it, unless the commandment rose up to kill us as Paul says in the Word of God. And who can rescue us from that? Only Christ can. So this commandment shows us that this sin is not just about how we act on the outside. Wrong thoughts and feelings in our hearts are sinful just as well.
No one can honestly say they have not committed the sin of desire. We also remember the Old Testament example of Joshua 7:21, which says:
When I saw among the spoils a beautiful robe from Shinar, two hundred shekels of silver, and a bar of gold fifty shekels in weight, then I wanted them and took them; and behold, they are hidden in the ground inside my tent, with the silver underneath.
Now if you stop at just the wanting, the coveting, would he have sinned? Yes. See the sin started in the desire. That is the root of sin and that was hidden deep in his heart. This downward spiral of how we are tempted is seen here. We see, desire, and then take. But have you considered that in the desire is where we actually sin? We are under the judgment of God in our desire to have something that is not ours.
So the look of desire is also expressed by the Lord in Matthew 5:28 by Jesus:
But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
So the sin there being exposed by the Lord is the looking of desire and wanting to have something that is not yours. And then again in Matthew 5 it talks about not committing murder and whoever does that shall be liable to the court. But Jesus goes on to say in Matthew 5:22:
But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be answerable to the court.
So how many people have ever been angry with their brother, sister, neighbor, or coworker? We all committed that but didn’t realize that it’s also sin to be angry. When we are training our kids, we have to dig down deep into the heart to expose the hidden things going on. The aggressive child will show these things but the passive-aggressive child will hide them from you. So we must figure those out.
If we just take a simple search of this topic of covetousness in Scripture, we will find that it comes from the heart and engrosses it. It is idolatry, the root of evil, never satisfied, leads to injustice and oppression. It leads to foolishness, hurtful lusts, departure from the truth, lying, murder, theft, poverty, misery, and domestic affliction. In Scripture it is abhorred by God and is forbidden in the commandments. It is the characteristic of the wicked, the slothful, commended by the wicked as they boast in their heart’s desires and coveting. If they want it, they will go get it and take it. Those wicked thoughts come under the judgment of God. It is this sin in Corinthians that excludes someone from the Kingdom of God.
In the last days, the Bible says that people will be lovers of money in place of God. Now again I want you to take your Bibles and turn to Matthew 19 and see the case of the rich young ruler that comes to Jesus. He comes and Jesus applies the law to him in such a way to expose this person’s sin that was not visible by human examination. That’s what the law does. Look at Matthew 19:16-20:
And someone came to Him and said, “Teacher, what good thing shall I do so that I may obtain eternal life?” And He said to him, “Why are you asking Me about what is good? There is only One who is good; but if you want to enter life, keep the commandments.” Then he said to Him, “Which ones?” And Jesus said, “You shall not commit murder; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not steal; you shall not give false witness, honor your father and mother; and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” The young man said to Him, “All these I have kept; what am I still lacking?”
Now Jesus did not say, “Thou shalt not covet” because He wanted him to at least see what he was lacking. Jesus said to him in Matthew 19:21:
Jesus said to him, “If you want to be complete, go and sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.”
In other words, you need to give up what you really desire. Jesus was really not telling him to actually sell everything and follow Him. He was just trying to expose what he really loved. Coveting has to do with what you really love. In Matthew 19:22 it says:
But when the young man heard this statement, he went away grieving; for he was one who owned much property.
The same thing happened to King Ahab. He was vexed and grieved because he owned a lot. How can they give up all this stuff? The demand was too heavy! That’s usually where sin brings us. We’re cornered and there’s no way out to undo it. Look what it says in Matthew 19:23:
And Jesus said to His disciples, “Truly I say to you, it will be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven.”
A rich man has certain loves and desires and that is to keep his wealth and not give it away. So Jesus used the tenth commandment as a practical test by demanding that the youth abandon his riches before God. He had a clear conscience that he was a covetousness sinner that day. He was deficient in his love for God because he loved money and possessions more. So he went away unconverted. We look at this great evangelistic opportunity but he walks away unconverted. Jesus did not go running after him. Until he recognized that coveting is sin and loving your possessions more than God is sin, he could not be saved.
But if he came and repented and said Jesus was right, then of course Jesus would have given him open arms to come. So the young man did not realize his own inward sinfulness. It’s true that he did not commit adultery, rob, give a false witness, or dishonor his parents. But he never faced his set of covetousness within his heart. It was Walter Chantry who said, “God’s pure law makes strict demands upon the motives, desires, feelings and attitudes of the soul.”
Christ wielded the sword of God’s law until it makes deep and painful gashes in the ruler’s consciousness. The law will make deep gashes and will corner us where we cannot get away. It will make us go and enjoy our desire to sin or it will cause us to run to the solution. That’s what the law does! It points us to the solution!
This message is really introductory for parents in order to get them to think for the discipleship of their children. It is not enough for them just to know what the Bible says and teaches. Critical for the fruitful discipleship of the next generation is the opportunity not just to instruct their minds, but also by addressing the law. Children must have Bibles, must read them, come to church with them, learn how to use and interpret the Bible and engage with it. But that’s not enough. You have to go from the mind to the heart so it penetrates deep and engages the heart.
Children with Christian parents can grow up in church, be familiar with the Bible, have all the right answers, and yet be in spiritual danger because they have never loved the Truth and its Author. So parents need to ask questions in order to help their child understand the true condition of their inner hearts. Parents, it is our job to find out which way our children are bent, especially regarding sin. If you have four children in one household, each has a different bent to sin. Parents, if you’re observing their actions and attitudes, you can get down deep into what their motives are.
To get deep in their hearts, you need to be creative and ask questions. It is a difficult task! But parents need to ask questions in order to help the child understand the true condition of their heart! Look at what it says in Romans 3:23:
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
You can ask your child what they think about that passage. The intention to engage the heart is very fundamental both before and after conversion. You can ask if this is also true of the child. Does the child fall under the standard of what God wants for their life? Ask also what they noticed in their own thoughts, feelings, words, and actions that is true of them according to this verse. How would God look at them if He were to ask them these questions? How does the child feel about certain things, like when a sibling has a toy and they want it?
You may ask according to this passage, what is the consequence of personal sin? Now people don’t want to talk about it today, but you have to drive rebellion and disobedience away from a child’s heart by applying a certain knowledge to the back end of their body. You can also ask according to the passage, can the child fix this sin problem and bad attitude? Can they fix the words they just said to their sister or brother? The honest answer should be no. Who alone can help then? They may say that the parent can help them, but that is ultimately the perfect place to bring in the gospel and read what it says in Romans 5:8:
But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
So in other words, we’re getting at the heart. If you’ve been teaching the Ten Commandments, that heart is being cultivated and that soil is getting soft so when you plop in the seed of the Word of God it starts taking root. Yes, they start to develop genuine guilt for their actions and words. But you cannot end there by showing them their sin in their heart. You have to guide the movement of their will to do actually do something about it. When the will is influenced by the Word of God and by the oracles of God, the evidence will show up in a child’s desire to walk in obedience to Christ. It says in John 14:15:
If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.
And it says in John 14:21:
The one who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me.
So this is it! The mind, the heart, and the will and is like a proverbial three-legged stool. If it misses a leg, the stool collapses. So the task before parents is great and life is short so we have no time to sit back on our laurels or be lazy. If parents are going to help their kids develop habits of Christian thought, senses that are based on Biblical truth, and lives that are faithful to all that Christ teaches, then the parents and the Church need to develop the believer’s intellectual capacities, engage the heart, and influence the believer’s will so they can do something about it.
I was reading a story about a young boy in a Sunday School class where the teacher was instructing on Psalm 2 which had to do with not hiding your sin. The teacher asked the questions, brought out the Word, and instructed the mind, and then she asked for anyone who wanted to share about what happened to them. The boy raised his hand to say, “I went fishing one day and entered a fishing contest. I saw this beautiful trophy and had to catch three fish to earn it. I told the judges I caught three fish and proved it although I really only caught two.”
He’s telling this before the class and the kids had their mouths open because he was confessing a sin. The teacher is a little baffled that someone confesses openly in the classroom. And she asked what the result was of him hiding his sin. He said, “Every time I look at that trophy, I feel guilty.” She said that is what he is supposed to feel. God knows about what he hid and did. The reason why you feel guilt when you hide sin is because the truth is causing you to think about what you did and being under God’s judgment. The teacher asks the boy what he is going to do about it and he said according to Scripture, he needs to confess his sin and repent.
This is an example of being convicted in your heart but you can’t just feel the guilt and that’s it. You have to confess it before others and God and ask for forgiveness. That is the only way you can be released from your guilt. After, the boy said he felt free! The law brings us to the place of knowing our sin because the law functions as an instructor. But the law cannot remove the guilt or provide grace. The law causes the curse of death but it cannot provide the cure.
The law does have a certain design to it and it is to point in a certain direction towards a certain Person who can save. So in Galatians 3:24-25, the Apostle Paul explains:
Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.
So a person is made right with God and comes into the family of God only through faith in Christ. It is Christ that can forgive the guilt and the sin and can make us free. God gave us a clear definition of sin in the Ten Commandments. Without this, people can’t recognize their pitiful condition and their need for a Savior. God is giving parents a smoking gun with the conscience. The conscience is developed with the Word of God and the Ten Commandments. The goal is for the kids to have a conviction of sin in their words, thoughts, and deeds, and their minds would lead to a conviction where their hearts are engaged and their will would be moved full out to the One who can save them, forgive them, and make them right with God.
So we as parents are really trying to avoid unfavorable results of our kids. David Michael wrote about the importance of teaching the heart, mind, and will, and warns of three detrimental results. If we just stress instructing the mind but give little attention to how God’s Word is to be responded to, acted upon, and lived out, we are risking giving children that God and His Word are not relevant to their lives.
If we emphasize the heart by neglecting instruction to the mind, we can actually fuel feelings that are not in conformity to God’s nature and will. Then if we concentrate on conforming the will to God’s standard of behavior without paying attention to the heart beneath the behavior, children will tend toward a faithless self-righteousness, or a Pharisaical type of attitude. They will know the right things to say, when to say them, and who to say them to, but in their hearts nothing is going on. We want to avoid that.
We want our kids to depend on Christ’s righteousness like we do as believers. We don’t depend on our right behavior, but Christ’s righteousness for salvation and every day of our lives. We need to pray to God that our children would too. When they get up and leave the home, they know exactly who they are, what Christ has done, what they have been taught and what they are supposed to do when they are gone. One of the greatest things for parents is little inklings of their kids coming back to the Lord. They love to see their kids serving God! We have to admit that 99% of that was God and maybe 1% was you. What a blessing it is when your kids walk with the Lord!
So the living oracles of God are to be passed down to our children to prepare the soil of their hearts for the seed of the gospel to fall into it and then we pray that the Spirit of God would use that to bring them to a real, genuine, saving knowledge of Christ. Parents, you can’t save them but you do have work to do so that Christ will save them.
Let’s pray. Lord, thank You for the Word of God. None of us would know who we really are if it were not for Your Word. I pray that You would give the wisdom to parents and the zeal to be able to take time every day to cultivate and instruct the minds of their children. That they would get into questioning the intents and desires of their hearts and help the children understand how to move their will to do the right thing. Holy Spirit, we know that You are the One who convicts them of sin, righteousness, and judgment. You are the One to bring people to a genuine faith, and I pray that You would really do that.
Lord, raise up another generation of Christians in this world that we live in that know the oracles of God and will go out into the world and tell them about Your mighty deeds and the great things You have done. I pray that You would continually be saving children and bring them to Yourself. Protect them, and put in their hearts all that is needed for them to stand strong in these days. Give to parents all the wisdom needed to do so. I pray this in Christ’s Name, Amen.