We have a lot of things rolling our way in terms of shutdowns, remasking, vaccination pushes, and things of that nature. And I've been following the news while I was on vacation, which is not a good thing to do because it upsets me so much. But it's hard not to watch. It's like watching an arc welder. It's just hard not to watch it, but your eyes burn. But anyway, just let me tell you what's coming. They're going to do shutdowns again. They're going to do lockdowns again. And we're not playing that game anymore. We already have the evidence. We're not going to shut down the church anymore. So we're going to keep going no matter what. If they want to fine us, whatever, that's their decision. We'll deal with it. The other thing I wanted you to understand is as you prepare for this, you need to prepare personally what's going to come your way. They're going to require vaccinations a lot of times in your place of employment. They're going to require that. They're going to require you to wear a mask, which we've already talked about, that the masks don't work. Fauci's been caught lying about the mask. He said, you wear it, now you don't, then you do. And then it's already been proven that an article came out this last week about the noble lies of Fauci, how he was telling people to wear a mask so they wouldn't panic, and so they wouldn't do a run on the N95 masks, so they could tell them to wear a cloth mask. He knew the cloth masks don't work. He knew the N95 doesn't work. He knew that. He just wanted to give a quote-unquote comfort thing to people, which is, that's a lie. You can't just flat out just lie like that. Now we have the problems with the vaccinations. They said that you get vaccinated, you don't have to wear a mask. Now they tell you you have to wear a mask because the vaccinations are not good. and you've got to get a third booster, or this and that. I mean, it's just, when does this end? Let me tell you what, it doesn't end. It doesn't. That's the point. With the different variants that are coming out, they're going to say, look, we're going to be perpetually like this. You have to get used to this. It's the new norm because they want control. What's coming down the pipe is this. As you can see, the Gavin Newsom is going to put it down in California. They're going to have a very strong, they're going to have a vaccine passport type of thing. And this will be the first issuing of it. And then what comes from that is you're going to have to wear it like you're wearing a, you know, a badge of honor that you've been vaccinated. And if you haven't, you're going to be marked out. So right now they're separating people out. They're marginalizing those who won't be vaccinated. Like Sharam Hadian said, you'll be declared unclean. So you're going to be restricted on certain things and freedoms that you once had based on this whole vaccination thing. And then eventually they're going to go from wearing it to implanting it on your body. That's the next step that they want to go to and the level they want to go to. I'm hoping the rapture happens soon before that and we can escape all of that. But it is coming our way. This is what they want to do. And on top of that, having a vaccine passport, they want to layer that with other platforms like a digital currency platform, a biometrics platform about your health, what you eat and things of that nature. They want your banking, your coming and goings, your GPS tracking, all the other stuff is going to be added to this vaccine passport. At the same time they do that, our borders are wide open and no one's getting tested for COVID coming through our borders. If that doesn't tell you that they're lying, I don't know what does. If they're so concerned about people unvaccinated, how come they don't close the border? And it's just porous. It's just no one's getting tested coming through our border. And so it tells you that this is a game. The jig is up. They're lying. We know it, but they're not going to stop. Thinking through this, You know, I don't know what God has planned for us, but I know He always says through temptation He'll provide a way of escape. And right now it seems that we're up against the Red Sea, and the North and the South are blocked, and Pharaoh's bearing down in on us. And it looks like we have no options. Just remember, at the right time, God will always provide a way of escape, whether it's the Red Sea or some type of way that we can get out of this somehow to survive. And He will, but He hasn't revealed it yet. And so we have to wait on God to show us what He wants us to do. Again, you understand that you're being targeted. You realize what they're saying in the news, right? It's these evangelicals who refuse to get vaccinated. That's what they're saying. And that's who they're going after. So you and I are the target. We're the problem. We're the ones that are causing the problems. And the vitriol that comes from these people, you're killing people. You're doing this, you're doing that. And it's like no one will listen to facts and evidence about the variants and they won't listen to the facts and evidence about the vaccines. You know, guys, it's your body. You have a choice whether you're going to be vaccinated or not. I'm not anti-vax. I'm just saying I don't like to jab myself with an experimental drug that can actually tamper with my DNA. They say that's a lie. It's not. No, it can change the way your cells react. The spike protein is a problem because they don't know how it reacts to people. and there wasn't a control group when they did the testing in. Typical testing for vaccines, five to ten years, and you have to have a control group, and you have to have all kinds of experiments. And even when you're testing a vaccine, when they start having deaths, they will pull the vaccine, because they don't want to get sued. But there have been over 7,000 deaths for one of these vaccines, and they won't pull it. It won't say anything, because you can't sue the companies. They won't pull the vaccine. And so the mRNA is a problem with the DNA, telling the DNA to do certain things. The spike protein is a problem for a lot of people. And here's the deal. You get the vaccine, what's happening? It's the people who got the vaccine that are now getting it. Something ain't working. I mean, that's just common sense. But here's the deal. How is it going to come? It's coming to your front door. What do you mean? The Kern County Health Department is already sending people through neighborhoods to go knock on doors to make sure they've been vaccinated. It's already happening. So I had several people earlier in our services today tell me that they came to their door. Two people showed up at their door. Hey, we want to see if you've been vaccinated. Look, do not give these people any information medically about yourself. Do not volunteer that. That's private. That's none of their business. But they're data collecting. They're mapping the neighborhoods. What house has been vaccinated? What hasn't? They're gathering information. You tell them to scram. Put an egg in your shoe and beat it. I don't want to tell you anything. And at the end of the day, it's not their... You don't give your information to anybody. It's all protected, right? So tell them to scram, get out, get off my property. And if they get forceful with you, just say, I'll call the cops or I'll call the sheriff and have you removed if you don't get off my property. Don't ever get on my property again. This is crazy. They're sending people to our homes. They told us last year they would eventually do it. Guess what? They're doing it. They always will tell you what they're going to do. And so I know it's a crazy world, but again, trust in the Lord to provide a way of escape. He will protect us, and understand that there's a bigger game involved in this. It's for control, it's for the takeover of the United States, and take over the entire world is what they're trying to do. But anyway. This goes into what we're studying in the Ten Commandments because it's a breakdown in society what's happening. And this commandment here is about how Israel is to maintain their society. And it's a fifth commandment and it deals with honoring your father and mother. Now the idea of honoring your father and mother I need to explain it. It's more than just the family unit. It starts at the family unit, and then it expands out into the other commands. And what you have to understand about the Ten Commandments is it's categorical. So the first command will have a category of commands under it, and the second, and the third, and the fourth. And so the fifth one has a category of commands under it. So it's not just thou shall honor your father and mother, it has to do with all commands under the Mosaic system that deal with authority. All the commands about authority fall under the rubric of this passage. So I have to break this sermon up into two because next week I have to get into the societal aspects of this command and what it does. And today I'm going to spend time on the familial aspect of the command and how important it is. So that being the case, what it's trying to say is that this command, the family unit, the authority that God establishes, is sacred. So if you get to, thou shalt not commit adultery, what it's saying is marriage is sacred. When you get to thou shalt not steal, it's saying private property is sacred. You know, things of that, when you get to thou shall not lie, it's about the truth being sacred. So in this aspect of this command, authority is sacred, which means it's established by God. What's happening now in our society is an attack they call on the patriarchy. And this idea that, well, it's just male-dominated society, and it's racist, and this and that. What they're really attacking is the authority structure of the Judeo-Christian system in America. And the authority structure starts with the family unit. The family unit is its own authority structure. And in that authority structure, the male is the spiritual head in that authority structure. And that starts the birthplace of society. If you can't get the family unit figured out, and the structure figured out, your society will end. Your civilization will end. And every time a society won't obey this, that's what happens, and that's what's happening to America. The family unit is under attack, and that's why America's going the way it's going. Satan is clever. He knows how important the family unit is. That's why he attacks it. And so this is why, like, when you saw Black Lives Matter on their website, and they've taken it down, but it says, we're to destroy the nuclear family. This is why the woke culture is trying to destroy the family and get people to look to the government to take care of them rather than their own families. To become a nanny state to these people. And they're doing a very good job about it. And so, with this being said, if Satan can make the family dysfunctional, he can make the society dysfunctional, but the society will still look to a parent figure, and guess who that parent figure will be? The government. And this goes right in line with what's happening in America, even to moving it to a global government, is that people will become dependent on a nanny state. So Kamala Harris and Joe Biden will be their mom and daddies. That's in effect what's happening because they can't look to their parents. Now, let me talk briefly about the attack. The attack in America on the nuclear family has been happening for for decades upon decades. I mean, I can go all the way back to John Dewey, and I will. I'll flush this out a little bit next week, but I want to tell you something, how you're being undermined. You're being undermined by the public school systems and the colleges and universities. Media, Hollywood, all the other stuff. But where were they trained at? They were trained in the public schools, and they were trained in the colleges and universities. How so? John Dewey, is the father of American education, at least in the last hundred years, okay? But do you understand that John Dewey was a humanist, he was a Marxist, socialist, he was a very ungodly man. And what he ended up doing in America is he went to the Soviet Union, or Russia today, and learned how they did their schooling there in the Soviet Union. He learned what the Soviets were doing to the children. And the Soviet way of education was not concerned so much with reading, writing, and arithmetic. It was concerned with getting the kids away from their parents to indoctrinate them into Soviet thinking. So he learned this, and then he brought it back to America. He established it at the Teacher's College at Columbia University, and there was birthed the modern-day public school, which is based on a Soviet-style education. You and I should not be shocked that kids can't read graduating. They can't write a paper. They can't even do basic math. That's not the point. The point is indoctrination. Get the kids away from their parents and the influence of their parents and into our influence so we can train them. So today, in our preschools, all the way up to the colleges and universities, you have a Soviet-style education system. So you and I shouldn't be shocked when our kids don't listen to us. When our kids go to college and they come back full-blown atheists and agnostics or join some crazy cult. We shouldn't be shocked by that because that's what they're trained to think. That mom and dad don't know what they're talking about. See, the way God set it up was the first people you'll come in contact with as a human being is your parents. And the parents are image bearers. Mom and dad are the image bearers. Humans are all made in God's image. Therefore, you will learn about Yahweh through your parents, not from a school system, not from another authority, from your first impression of your home life. That's how you will learn about Yahweh. That's the system God set up, and that's what's been undermined in America. So we shouldn't be shocked to see what we're seeing. That being the case, then let me give you the setting. The setting goes like this. The first four commandments deal with how you relate to God. The second aspect's how you relate to others. So Jesus summed it up. Love God and love your neighbor. That's how he summed up the 613 commands. The word is agape, okay? So I'm gonna explain agape and love because the commandment says honor your father and mother. It doesn't say love your father and mother. And I'll explain that. But agape is a seek the best type of love, self-sacrificing type of love, okay? But the commandment says honor. That being the case, there's no parallel in, sorry, not U.S. history, in world history. of a command like this. In all the ancient religions, all pagan religions, you will not find a command like this. Because in ancient paganism, they don't have an authority structure, per se. The authority structure is actually the reverse in pagan culture. In paganism, it's matriarchy rather than a patriarchy. That is exactly what's happening in America. They're turning America into a matriarchy rather than a patriarchy. That's paganism. God established a patriarchy. That's why this is under attack. So this is unprecedented in the ancient world and even today. They hate it. They ungodly hate this authority structure. That's why they attack it. So let's start with the passage real quick and look at the implications of it. Something so simple but yet profound. Honor, a kavod, your father and your mother. Now like I mentioned before, the way the commandments are structured is important. So that leads to the first implication I want to point out. The first implication is this. The order of the Ten Commandments are on purpose. So the first four deal with God, then five through ten deal with human relationships. So follow me on this. In order to have proper human relationships, you have to have a proper relationship with God. If that's dysfunctional, or you don't have one with God, then your relationships with other human beings will be dysfunctional. You won't relate to them. You won't value human beings as image bearers. That's like when you see Cuomo, that crazy guy in New York, how he didn't care about putting these people in nursing homes and killing all these people with COVID by stacking them in nursing homes, which they knew they shouldn't do. And he allowed them to die, basically, and catch COVID. He doesn't care because he doesn't value human beings. And the reason he doesn't value human beings and see him as image bearers is because he doesn't relate to God. That's the problem. So that's why the structure of the Ten Commandments are structured in such a way. If you don't get the first ones right, you won't get the rest of them right. So then when you get to the Fifth Commandment, this is the first commandment in dealing with human beings. And the issue with this is if you don't get this fundamental relationship right, you won't get any other relationship right. It'll all be dysfunctional. So again, I'm gonna show you a graphic of what I'm trying to say. There's the vertical focus first, and then it moves to the horizontal focus. That's what I was explaining. And then when you look at this commandment specifically, it deals with a concentric circle. So in the middle of that circle is the family unit. As you can see, the circles expand and you go from the family unit to immediate family, to extended family, to neighborhood, community, society, culture, and nation. So, the idea is, if you want to destroy a nation, you destroy the family unit. That's the idea. Because if you can't get that right, you can't get all other relationships right. And that's how this whole commandment system works. It is the foundation for society. So, the parenting-child relationship will indicate how that person will function in society if they will be a productive member of society based on this family nucleus. Now, the point that I want to explain a little bit is this. And not every family, obviously, is perfect, and God doesn't expect that, because he knows we're flawed and we're sinful. But when a family refuses to obey God, whether it's the parents or the child, and they refuse, then it starts rebellion. It starts rebellion in the child, and then that child then becomes an adult, but they have a rebellious spirit in them. And then when they get married, that rebellious spirit comes out in the marriage. When they have kids of their own, that rebellious spirit is passed on. And in their friendships, they will have that rebellious spirit, and they become dysfunctional. That's why our prison systems are filled with this type of person. They will tell you, the liberals, the leftists, will tell you the reason these people are in prison is because they don't have enough money and they don't have enough education. That's baloney. It's because their family unit is all messed up and no one wants to talk about their family unit. They don't want to talk about all the prisoners who do not know their dads. They don't want to talk about that. They don't want to talk about how dysfunctional their moms are, or their dads. No, and it's got to be something else. Because if they had to address it, then they would have to realize what's going on in these communities, or why the family is destroyed. And that would link them all the way back to the education, and it would link them all the way back of why the government perpetrates immorality among people. The government likes people to be immoral because it makes them more dependent on the government. So they've been pushing to the United States immorality. Immorality sets up rebellion, and it sets up rebellion in the child. And so it suits their purpose. That's why they won't address it, because then they would have to say, these people are immoral. And they're not willing to say that. They don't want to come out and say people are immoral. They refuse it. That's not politically correct. We can't tell you that. And so they come up with other ideas that are basically lies. So when you see Antifa, when you see Black Lives Matter riding through the streets, what they're going to tell you is these are disenfranchised people who grew up poor and are uneducated. Stop right there. That's a lie. These people who are in Antifa are college educated and come from well-to-do backgrounds. There's a problem there. And they're white. What's the deal? It comes from their family. That's why they're anarchists. That's why they're fascists. That's why they're Marxists. Look, BLM doesn't care about black life. You gotta understand that. They're a totally Marxist organization. I'm talking about the organization, right? Antifa, all these groups. What you're seeing on the streets in the United States is anarchy or rebellion which stems from the family unit. Well-to-do white kids trashing things, burning things, stealing things. College-educated? It's not because of the lack of education, nor is it a lack of money. It's because they're rebellious. That's it. And they're immoral. That's it. And no one wants to deal with it. Second implication I want to bring out, and this is going to help us understand more of this idea of honor. The second implication is the commandment focuses on giving the due weight to the parent's position of authority. Now let me explain this. The word honor in the Hebrew is kavod. And it can be used for God, it's used for obviously in this passage. But the reason Hebrew is good for us, because Hebrew gives really good illustrations about how the word is used. And I like Hebrew better than I do Greek. And the idea in the ancient world is this, that if you were rich, and they honored wealth, obviously, but the way they saw that you were wealthy is that you were overweight. Okay, I know that sounds crazy, right? But in the ancient world, food was scarce, right? And so when you saw heavy people, and had some weight on them, it meant that they were wealthy. And in the ancient world, they gave honor to wealthy people, okay? That's how it worked in the ancient world. I'm not saying it's right, but that's how they dealt with things, okay? And so the idea of kavod has to do with weight, but weight is connected to honor. if that makes sense. That's how the connection is made. And so the Hebrew is in the peel form and the imperative, which means that you are to give weight to the position. You are commanded to actually do it. You can't refrain from it. You have to give weight to the position of the parents. Whether that's an individual child, or whether that's a society, the society, the culture, and the individual has to give weight to the parents' authority. which is the opposite of what UNESCO does, which is the opposite of what Agenda 21, Agenda 2030, all these things to undermine parents' authority from the UN, all of those things are undermining giving that weight to the parental authority. Now, it's commanded and it's to be protected. But notice the word honor is used instead of the word love. You are to give weight to this position, just like you would give weight to some official that you don't like, like Gavin Newsom. Maybe you don't like Gavin Newsom. A lot of people don't. But he is the governor, so you have to give weight to his position, even though you don't like him. Let that sink in. Let that sink in. I am to honor, give weight to my parents, and I may not like them, yeah. In terms of us growing up, there's two ways you deal with the honor. When you're growing up and under your parents' authority, there's only one way to do this. As you're an adult, the way you honor them is different. As a child, the way you honor your parents is obedience. When you're an adult, you don't have to be obedient to that authority structure because you're the new authority structure of your family unit. So you don't have to obey them, but you still have to honor them and give them the weight of that dignity. But as a child, you must obey. Now I want you to see the several passages from the New Testament and the Old Testament that speak about this. Because this passage, this command is carried over under the law of the Messiah. It is still good for the day, and Paul reiterates it. Colossians 3.20, children obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing to the Lord. So in all things has to do with all things biblical. You are to obey your parents in all things biblical. Not if they ask you to do something unbiblical, but in all things biblical. And for this is pleasing to the Lord. It pleases the Lord when children obey. Why? Because it fits the structure. Okay, next one, Ephesians 6.1. Children, obey your parents in the Lord. Notice the sphere, in the Lord, under the Bible, under the rubric of the Bible. Not obedience to bad things, but obedience to godly things. And he says, for this is right. What Paul means by this is right means that this is the structure that God made and you are to adhere by it. Otherwise, you will collapse your nuclear family, and you will collapse your society. Now, if people want to see how serious God is about this, and how much he thought about this, how important this is, let me show you what the Old Testament penalty was for disobeying your parents. Leviticus 29, everyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death. Bingo! He has cursed his father or his mother. His blood shall be upon him. So that's how serious God took it. If you have a child that's disobedient, then you have the right to capital punishment in the Old Testament under the nation of Israel in a theocracy. That no longer applies, obviously, in the church age, but what is the principle of extrapolation of how you apply it today? That's how serious this is. This is big time. When a capital punishment is put on something in the Old Testament, it means it's a serious sin. Just like the sin of homosexuality, just like adultery, would be punishable by death. There's about 32 or 34 different sins in the Old Testament that were punishable by death. And let me show you how they did this. This is Deuteronomy. If a man has a stubborn or rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and who, when they have chastened him, will not heed them, then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of the city." We're going to make this public. to the gate of his city, and they shall say to the elders of his city, this son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey our voice. He is a glutton and a drunkard. Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death with the stones. "'So you shall put away the evil from among you "'and all Israel shall hear and fear.'" You wanna know how God feels? That's what he said to do. When you have a rebellious kid, you're to take him before the elders, the elders will judge the case, they will then stone him in front of everybody in public. What if the principle of that was just put into the public school system? that that's how serious disobedience is. See, the school systems and the way our culture is, we just give people slaps on the wrist. You can act like a barbarian. You can act like a little heathen. We won't do anything. We don't want to hurt your fragile little ego. And so we'll just let you run rapid through the schools. You know what's happening in the schools? The inmates are running the asylum because they won't put the consequences down for bad behavior. And so the kids go crazy. But look at this. You have a rebellious son, I want him in front of the elders and they're gonna stone him to death. Now why? He tells you why in the passage. Purge or get rid of the evil from among you. Rebellion is pure D evil. And all Israel shall hear in fear." Why? Because it takes one individual to mess up a family. Just one. And then it takes another individual to mess up a city. Then it takes another individual to mess up a town or a county. And then it takes just several individuals to mess up a nation. Do you understand in America that we're being controlled by just a few individuals right now? It's not the politicians. It's the ones that are controlling the politicians. We're being controlled by a few elite people. Do you understand that? It only takes one individual. It only takes one Hitler. It only takes one Mao Zedong. One Pol Pot. One Stalin. It only takes one of them. In fact, one of the greatest examples that we're facing here right now in America is the infusion of Marxism in America. It took one individual to come up with Marxism. And you know what he did? He rebelled against his Jewish parents. Marx was a Jew who rebelled against his father and mother's Judaism and his Jewish parents and created Marxism Just one individual and he's responsible for millions and millions and millions of death that came from his philosophy, because one individual was rebellion. You see what God's trying to say. Israel, you cannot allow rebellion to happen in your nation or in your town, otherwise you will lose your civilization. This happened one time in Israel. One city, one town, went Sodom and Gomorrah. It went crazy. It turned into Sodom and Gomorrah. And the tribe wouldn't deal with it. And so the other tribes had to come in, and they were about ready to pound the people of this city into the ground if they didn't stop it. And it would have annihilated them. And the other tribes knew that if we don't crush this rebellion, it will infect the entire nation of Israel. Well, eventually, the rebellion in Israel got them in trouble. They had so much rebellion on their hands spiritually that God kicked them out of the land for 70 years into Babylon to get the Babylonian, this system, out of them. They came back to the land, but then just a few individuals, a few religious leaders, were in power. And do you know what happened? Messiah comes on the scene, and these few individual, rebellious individuals rejected their own Messiah. It wasn't the country as a whole, it was a few individuals, the leadership of Israel that rejected the Messiah, that caused them to be dispersed for the last 2,000 years because of this rejection of the Messiah. Only a few individuals did it. It's always only a few. That's why this is so egregious. It's like a cancer that spreads. Once it starts, it spreads rapidly, and that's what's happening in our country, in our culture. This being the case, how do you apply this? A few things I want to say about this. The first thing you have to understand is this, is that the parents represent Yahweh, okay? Now, all parents don't know this. They don't know this. Christians should know it, obviously. The Jews know this. But most people don't know this, that the parents are supposed to communicate to the kids who Yahweh is, who Jesus is. Not all do that, obviously. Not all Christians do that very good. But that's the structure that's supposed to be in place. If the structure is not in place, who's gonna teach the kids about Yahweh? Well, then no one does. So if you have parents who abdicate their role of being an image bearer and telling people about God, then what kind of kid do you expect to get? A very rebellious child. which is happening all over America, right? The parents are not doing their jobs. Now, hey, I'm gonna reserve the fact, a category, and we have to all reserve this category, that there are canes in our lives, okay? Adam and Eve, the two boys that they had, grew up in the same environment, same set of parents, no outside influence, no gangs or anything like that, it was just the two boys, Adam and Eve, okay? One serves God, the other one rebels. And there's no reason for his rebellion. It wasn't like Adam and Eve were bad to him or mistreated him. No, because Abel turned out great. What happened to him? He just went rebellious. He used his freedom and rebelled. You have to reserve that category, that people have freedom and a child will rebel. And a lot of people talk to me that, look, my child is still in rebellion as an adult. And I can't reign them in. And you're not going to. There's that category. OK. So keep that category in mind. But the other category, where the majority of the problem is, stems from how the parents raise the child. A lot of parents are sitting there scratching their heads saying, I don't understand why he turned out like this. And it's like, because what you did. You shouldn't be shocked by the results you get. You bred rebellion into the child. How so? Let's just start with a few things. Let's say the parents were unprotective of the child. There were laws they fear in their parenting. They didn't protect the child from the dangers of society. They didn't warn the child about the dangers of society. Just let the child do whatever he wanted to do. That sets up rebellion. How so? If the parent, sorry, if the child sees the parents as not protective, what do they think about God? That God's not protective. And so they rebel against authority because their authority was trash. Their authority let them do anything they wanted to do. And so they don't respect authority. Or how about the overbearing parent? You got the laissez-faire parent that was unprotective, but then you have the overbearing parent, that's what we call the bulldozer parent, or the helicopter parent, that puts their kid into a bubble and believes that ignorance protects them from evil, which it doesn't. Doesn't warn them about what's going on, but puts them in this protective bubble, and I will control every aspect of their life. Guess what'll happen on that child? He will also rebel. Because he wasn't given the proper freedom at their age appropriate. And so when they're 18, they're being treated like a 12 year old. And you can't do that, it will cause rebellion. So how do you think that child sees God in rebellion? That he's a control freak and I don't want anything to do with him. So the issue that you're seeing today in our society has to do with a lot of the parenting. So let me ask you this, how much trauma does a kid have to see before it becomes a stumbling block for him to accept Jesus? A lot. A lot of the churches because of not understanding this dynamic, think that we're gonna attract the youth, attract the millennials, attract Gen Z by having a smoking light show, rock and roll band, we're gonna do all these fancy, a laser light show, I know that'll bring them in, right? They fail to understand you're not gonna overcome the dysfunction that's going on in the home. That's why the kids don't want anything to do with Jesus. He's got too much dysfunction going on in the home. That's a stumbling block. I'm not saying he can't come to Jesus, but he becomes a major stumbling block. For instance, 65% of women in Kern County have been either raped or molested, that's reported. You probably could guess that if it was all reported, that you're somewhere probably between 80 and 85% of the women in Kern County have been either raped or molested growing up. Now let me add something to this. A lot of it goes unreported because family members are covering for the other family members who did the raping and molesting. They're not turning them in. They're not reporting it, okay? And most of the people then also that went through rape and molestation in their family unit, nothing was ever done about it. Nothing. No one went to jail, nothing happened. Guess what those kids grow up to think about authority? Okay, you see where it's going? They will distrust authority. They will not want to do anything with authority because authority let this happen and didn't address it. And so it causes problems. It causes rebellion against authority. So the main issue then comes down to the parents. How did the parents raise the child? And no one's perfect. And I'm sure my kids are gonna say, yeah, dad was crazy. I can't believe he did this and did that when I'm older. Everybody does that. But what we're talking about is we're not talking about perfect parents. We're talking about is the parents heading in the right direction? Are they working on their stuff? Are they growing? Are they trying to get more like Christ? And do they fail? Yes, but Are they modeling the Christian life before them and teaching them that? If they are, then great. But if they're not, what do you expect? So when they say the problem is with our youth, yes, the problem is with the youth, I get it, but you gotta go one step further. The problem is with the parents. The parents today are a bunch of narcissistic individuals, and I'm talking about outside of Christianity. I'm not talking about the Christians, I'm not talking about you. I'm talking about our culture. The kinds of parents that are out there are nothing but kids raising kids. They're extremely immature. They're 35 going on 13. Really, man, you should hear some of these parents. They're out of their minds. And in their minds, they don't find meaning in life through God. They find meaning in life through achievements. This is why they pull their kids out of church and send them to sports programs or whatever's going on. This is the problem. It's cross the board. It's cross the board in Christianity and it's cross the board in Judaism. They all say the same thing. These parents look at achievement as meaning in life. And they've got to give meaning to their life through achievement and through their kids' life through achievement. And you only find meaning in life through Jesus and relating to Him and being on His agenda. And unfortunately, No one's buying in on this now. They've caught wind of the culture and it's sweeping them into a vacuum and destroying the nuclear family. So if people want to say, why aren't kids getting saved anymore? It stems back to the witness of the parents as image bearers of God. That's where it stems to. If you want to get the kids to accept Jesus, you're going to have to fix the parents. That's where you start. The parenting has to change. So many parents are flat-out narcissists. They're just narcissists. They're about themselves. They're self-absorbed. I don't even know why they had kids. When you look at how they behave, they're all about, you know, their hobbies, their aspirations, their this, their that. I mean, all you have to do is look on social media and look at these crazy parents. Why does a parent think that 20 times a day they have to post stuff about what they're doing? Who cares? Why do they do that? What's wrong with them? You had lunch at Arby's, great. Who cares? I don't care. But they make it a big deal. And you're like, you're 37, man. You need to get over it. In fact, the minute you decided to have kids, you were supposed to die to self. And this wasn't about you once you started having kids. You're no longer single and free. You're married and have responsibility. It ain't about you anymore. It's about getting these kids raised and creating adults out of the kids, not children to become adult children and Peter Pans that never grew up, the boy who never grew up. But unfortunately, we have too many narcissists. And why do we have narcissists? Because of what they did to the parents. what the school systems did to undermine that authority. And the school systems told the kids, it's all about you, man. You're great, you're fantastic. Your parents don't know anything, but you're fantastic. And what you end up with that message, the self-esteem movement, is narcissism. And the funny thing is, what they call them today is wounded narcissists. What do you mean? The parents, or sorry, these people were told how wonderful they were or are, but yet they never achieved anything. But they told them how great they were. And then they got a mixed message from the parent because they were told how wonderful they are, but the parents never really wanted to deal with them. The parents were involved in their own life and neglected them, put them in daycare from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. So what kind of message do these kids have? Well, I was told I was great, but how come the parents never want to be around me? That's called a wounded narcissist. And this is what we have parenting children today. And this is the mess that's been created in America on purpose. This was a cleverly devised scheme and it worked. And now we're seeing the fruit of it. If you wanna see, we'll talk more about this command next week, but if you wanna see a good example of how a society survives by obeying this commandment, it's the Jews. You have to go no further than looking at God's people and understanding, yes, God has providentially protected them to be able to exist to this day, no doubt about that. But one of the hallmarks of the Jewish people is their respect for this command. their respect for the elderly, their respect for their parents. In the Holocaust, if you read about the stories in the Holocaust, one of the main themes that kept them going in the concentration camps was that they would be reunited with their families. They looked forward to seeing their mom and dad again and seeing their brothers and sisters again. That's what kept them alive. was this respect for the nuclear family, even though they were being arrested and separated. This is what actually held them together in the camp. You will not read stories of Jews in the Holocaust camp wanting to commit suicide. You will not read that. You will read them wanting to live in order to see their family. That's how important this commandment was to them and it sustained them and has created a society that has sustained for 3,500 years. You can't say that about the Hittites, Canaanites, Jebusites, they don't exist because they didn't practice this. Now I must leave you with this. Remember how I said the command says, honor your father and mother. Why doesn't the command say, love your father and mother? I'm gonna let you chew on that this week. I'm going to explain that next week. But if you think about it, you chew on it, and you come up with something, you text me or email me and see what you come up with. The command is to honor your father and mother. It doesn't say to love your father and mother. I wonder why. Let's pray.