The Fields of the Fatherless | Student Pastor Zach Hammond
by Zach Hammond
First Apostolic Church of Maryville (Maryville, TN)
Kind: sermon
Scripture: Proverbs 22:6, Proverbs 22:28, Proverbs 23:10-12, Numbers 2:1, Numbers 2:34

Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/zach-hammond--the-fields-of-the-fatherless
Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page.
Free to copy and share with attribution.

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you're turning your bibles tonight to the book of proverbs go to the book of proverbs chapter number 22. i give honor to you great people tonight i know that you've heard a word from the lord this morning from brother nolan we have dominion amen we have dominion i'm thankful for victory i'm thankful for what the lord has done already in this place in sevierville and what he is going to do tonight give honor to pastor and sister carpenter and pastor sister erickson and my wife and my kids who i have drugged all over the place this weekend and the lord moved in a great way this morning and brother batson's and i'll just be honest with you as i made my way to church this morning i knew what i was going to preach this morning but i couldn't get my heart off what i was going to preach tonight and even in ministering what i ministered this morning and i believe the lord did a great work i could feel the emotion and the heaviness of what i'll bring you tonight i may not get much louder than i am right now but i want to bring to you what i feel like that the lord has had me on for quite some time and confirmed a few times over the past week of what i am to preach you and again i know that it will cover a majority of the crowds some of you you may be past the season but i hope that we can bind together as a church tonight to accomplish what god is going to challenge us with proverbs chapter 22 and verse number 6. says train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it i believe many times that scripture is stated and we expect a kid that's been raised in the church that if he leaves the church or she leaves the church to come back to the church if you read that its original context that's not necessarily what it says but what it does state for every prodigal parent that's standing in this place tonight that for every moment that you trained them they'll never escape that they may have left the church house but what you instilled in them of worship and prayer and bible reading every sunday school lesson everything that ever happened in their life every impactful moment maybe they got in the water of baptism maybe they spoke in another tongue that will never leave them so we train them and that's simply all that we can do but if you skip down to verse number 28 of proverbs 22 where he continues giving principles and little ounces of wisdom on the next generation he says remove not the ancient landmark which thy fathers have said which the parents have said proverbs 23 and 10 the just turn the page maybe you don't even have to turn the page 23 and 10. he says i think that is worth saying again remove not the old landmark and enter into the fields of the fatherless for their redeemer is mighty he shall plead their calls with thee apply thine heart unto instruction and thine ears unto the words of knowledge withhold not correction from the child for thou beatest him with a rod he shall not die i'm not going to go there but there is a concept there thou shalt beat him with a rod this is pretty straightforward and shout deliver his soul from hell that's just as much bible as acts 2 and 38 is and it's not popular but it may be why the road is wider than ever leading to destruction and that hell has enlarged itself i want to preach to you for just a few minutes and i promise you that if i had anything to do with what the lord would with my own personal desires i would have preached something totally different to you tonight all right i had a message prepared that was going to be much funner that's a word to preach but i want to preach this to you fields of the fatherless fields of the fatherless i ask you to lay your bibles down and lift your hands to heaven i'd ask you to pray over the word tonight lord we love you i thank you so much for your word i thank you for your goodness i thank you for what i feel in this room tonight god i believe that there's going to be a divine move of the holy ghost in this place tonight god that proves that your word forever stands that your word is forever settled god and if we will follow after your word god that it's the best instructions that we can have to live down here on this earth god we love you we give you praise we give you glory and we give you honor it's not by our powers not by our might but it's by your spirit we do all things in jesus name we pray and everyone said amen you can be seated we understand tonight that something is going on in the book of proverbs that is rather interesting we see that this is something that we get up at youth conference and we preach many times to students it says remove not the ancient landmarks do not touch the things that your fathers your pastors have said we understand that there's something that has been preached many times do not remove the old landmarks that your fathers have set notice it does say father's parents not necessarily pastors we preach to young people we push to the next generation not to move them but i'm here tonight to speak to both generations as difficult as that may be i know tonight that the devil will whisper in your ear and i want to help silence it from the get-go that you said you're up here as a 33-32 i don't remember how old i am pers young man you've got two young kids you don't have any teenagers you don't know what i'm going through i will tell you this and this is not anything about me but i have i don't have any teenagers but i have yours every day but we preach to young people about this concept but i want to preach to both the parents and to the students because both generations have to understand they play a part in them because one generation's got to set them before another generation can move them fathers have got to set the landmark before we preach to the other generation they don't need to move them i'm here to declare to you tonight as a voice from god that we're living in a new land that needs some new lines we're not going to remove the old ones but i understand that there is new territory that needs some new landmarks let me explain to you tonight where i'm at if the landmarks that were set up if we date this church back to its origination of bishop mccool that said we're not going to go certain places and we're not going to do certain things because things happen at the movie theater that we don't want to be associated with things happen at the skating rink that we don't want to be associated with things happen so we're going to put up some landmarks we're going to put up some things that this generation if we're going to do our best to keep them from what's on the other side of this we're going to put up some landmarks what i'm addressing tonight is i believe we've done a very good job as parents and as a generation to make sure that these brother carl have not gone anywhere our pastor our pastoral team our parents all the generation that sits in this room has done a great job making sure that we are the same we are consistent we are consecrated and we believe the same message and live by the same standards that we have for decades however i as as much as i i applaud us keeping these polished and firm and grounded i believe that i'm not looking to go into the world's way but i am looking that in a world where sin has become much more greater that i think we're living in a land that's requiring us to get closer to god and we need to put up some new lines because we're in a new land i'm here to break the news to you that some of these aren't even applicable kids don't necessarily go to these places anymore we still live by them but they're easy to live by because we've inherited new land we've inherited new territory we've taken new we've had victory we've walked into a new capacity we're not on mckinley street anymore we're not dealing with the same generation i'm here to introduce you to a generation they call generation z that if all coaches teachers parents religious leaders came together and agreed that they have been ambushed by studies show that generation z wants to solve problems and serve people but they need to know how and when we cannot limit this generation to the knowledge that we learned the world our kids are entering into is much different than the ones we graduated into so how do we prepare for what we do not know how to predict schools are no longer a storehouse of knowledge where information resides but secular education is teaching a model to cultivate curiosity to find new solutions for new problems and we must understand that we must cultivate convictions as the church as parents who are commissioned by god to train them to solve the problem not only in their own life but to save a sin sick world i bring you a challenge tonight parents and students to anyone who wants to see the church stronger than ever before that we must go to war for the next generation they not only need us to go to war for them they want us to fight for them they need us to stand in the gap for them they need us to stop pointing out their problems and start helping them and bringing accountability into their life they need us to draw a line they need us to declare war on this new land they need us to train them to trust them and to track them today's studies show that parents are overwhelmed and over functioning and students can feel it our state students need us to be intentional about equipping and training them on how to navigate social media and smartphones in the same way we let them explore new things skin their knees fail at projects so that they are not gripped by fear and anxiety as they enter adulthood we need to develop habits in their life i know this is a little bit different but we need to give them the right attitude toward difficult things discipline leadership toughness give them a purpose let them try and let them fail i would rather them fail at things as a child than never truly become an adult because they lack experience and responsibility we've got immature adults because they weren't challenged as kids we must give them a problem to solve and people to serve reed hastings created netflix a few days after being charged a late fee from losing the blockbuster movie apollo 13 from a date night with his wife his why his mind was motivated by a problem to better serve people he said my gym charges me the same amount whether i go in and i run on the treadmill or lift a dumbbell why can't we do the same thing with movies he proposed this idea to blockbuster who didn't like the idea and said they had a handle on the future of film and media blockbusters shut down their last store in alaska and closed their company after entering the record books a few decades earlier they went straight from the record books of 9 000 stores to the history books because they weren't willing to stretch their system i fear that we have a blockbuster generation trying to train a netflix world screen time according to diane sawyer of abc family says it's not just an issue for generation z but the reason it's such an issue for generation c is the parents of generation z don't know where to draw the line themselves much less for their kids i'm here to tell you tonight that the internet if we're not careful is what the wise men solomon refers to as the fields of the fatherless in the same house but two different worlds students today are influenced more about so by social media than they are by their parents fear is coming from social media it's a it's bad happening is it truly happening all the time it's always popping up and parents are seeing it like never before and they feel the need to err on the side of safety please hear me tonight parents thousands of fears that you can't control in society the rumors of wars the rumors of things going on this virus these things that are happening and we we can't control certain things so we want to control our home and parents are running their home in fear but it's destroying this generation the emotion of parents of generation z is the concern of recent statistics parents today they say are doubtful and afraid worried their kids are not even safe at school they're bullied on social media school shootings could take place at any moment drug and alcohol sexual abuse is at an all-time high they even fear them playing outside parents are going to extreme measures to take the bumps out of life for their children this hyper concern is however making the most fragile generation we have ever seen so many students have lost the ability ability to tolerate stress and uncertainty due to paranoid parenting kids are naturally anti-fragile we make them fragile they bump their head their elbows their knees they get up with another desire to explore how much do kids actually fear or should it be asked how much we make them fear my two-year-old will hit his head and his first response is to look at the adult in the room you've seen it if i overreact he's going to lose his mind but if i slow that it's going to be okay everything's all right you'll see that his reaction is a mirror of our emotions they do what they see study shows the story you tell yourself is just important as the drug that you take if you believe it'll work it's much more likely to work in fact in world war ii henry beecher the doctor ran out of morphine so the tent full of wounded seven soldiers that he had no more morphine to perform the surgeries that were needed he went outside and instead of a morphine drip he gave them a saltwater drip the patient reacted just as if he was given morphine because belief is persuasive most adults are parenting based on the story they are telling themselves whether it's fact or feeling matters not we believe that our kids are receiving it is your kid dealing with anxiety or is it that the story you're telling them is your child dealing with insecurity or is that the story you have them tol you've told them by being on your phone and not giving them security is your child sick or have you passed on the spirit of infirmity don't ignore the power of your personal narrative while i'm not standing here tonight and saying that problems that students are facing today are minor or all in their heads we are simply saying that how we as parents we as the church respond to their problems will will determine how those real problems affect them for their future recent school teacher was asked everybody okay tonight recent school teachers were asked if their daughter could be put in a different classroom because her ex-boyfriend was in that class and it was causing a distraction she could not handle the anxiety it's the story she's being told human resource manager explains she has six times in the last month made a job offer to a young professional who had recently graduated from college not high school who after they replied thank you for the job but now my parents need to interview you to make sure that you're a suitable boss for me recent college professor tells the story of a student that approaches him after making a poor grade on the test and let him know my parents pray full price tuition therefore i deserve an a on the exam the student had bought the narrative from his parents that if i paid the money i was entitled to the grade the spot the team it's not the great i get it's the great i feel like i deserved what's the narrative about kids today if honest kids are anxious more than ever before because parents are john walsh made everyone aware of child abduction so strongly in the 1980s but faces on the front of a milk carton books he established the first ever show of america's most wanted and that now we've created this fear in attempt to keep this generation safe and you know who's raising generation z the kids of that generation the kids that were coddled in safety because they feared abduction they feared something happening to them because we used social media and television and the news that's now at our fingertips to over expose us and to err on the side of caution and safety instead of stretching kids are more super supervised now more than any point in modern history however due to social media and the internet supervision does not mean structure and more time doesn't necessarily necessarily mean more training because you can be in the same room but be in two different worlds we've become controlling and kids feel the control of their future kids like the safety at first if they fall or fair fail some adults going to come swoop in and save the day our kids are out of control today in a new way because you're in control of all of it when kids get to the age where the to the to the movement where they really need your help they actually resent it they push it away natural tendency is to want to rebel my parents have controlled almost every outcome now i'm 16. now i'm 17 now i'm 18. and i want to rebel against that because i want control they haven't owned their problems they haven't owned their pain they haven't owned their feelings you have managed it all for them you've managed ultimately their life when you are capable of accomplishing something yet you are completely reliant on someone else for the task it creates a sense of uncertainty or anxiety we must release this generation of students to take ownership but to take action according to recent studies adolescence used to be from the ages of 14 to 18 but now because of social media and the exposure of the cell phone the iphone specifically created in 2007 adolescence begins at the age of 10 which is lower than ever and ends at the age of 24 which is higher than ever what used to be a few short years of a trying time of a student's life to figure out who they were and what they were going to do is now over a decade and a half what used to be a doorway is now a 15-year period while they're being exposed through media of things at much younger age they are as an adult avoiding responsibility and staying with mom and dad as long as possible alcohol usage smoking and drugs sexual statistics have dropped drastically over the past 40 years however they avoid adult responsibility and are launching later than ever the age they begin driving working a job leaving the house are rising to a new level each year because they lack responsibility only 73 percent of 12th graders have their driver's license dating without their parents has gone down to 63 percent they take mom and dad on a date with them some of you are like that sounds great that's kind of the problem studies show that 18 year olds now are acting more like 15 year old 15 year olds a decade ago we wonder why we can't get through a whole missions department and get a 22 year old to go start a church because they act like a 15 year old two decades ago we've coddled them and we've made them have to rely so much in the arms of safety that we look to do life virtually for better or for worse life online beliefs and are individual according to statistic and not corporate they may this generation they may be spiritual but they're much much less likely to agree to come to a social gathering of worship because they'd rather do it online parents teachers employers and coaches are reacting in either fear or frustration trying to lead this generation expectation impact and outcome just we can't seemingly get the results that we want belief and expectation are the largest factors in seeing the success of generation z so i ask every parent in this place tonight every grandparent perhaps you don't have any kids you would fall into the church support category because there's students in this room who we will pray for here in just a little bit who have don't have a mother or father in this room are you hopeful or are you fearful do you see parenting as an opportunity to change the world or are you just fearful for the future of this generation a few things that we must understand is taking place why is this generation so entitled it's easy to say it's easy to talk about it's easy to point out but ultimately ultimately it's because we give them too much privilege without enough responsibility why is this generation suffering from a lack of wisdom because of lack of first-hand experiences because parents are not helicopters anymore they're not they're not even snow plowing anymore they're just mowing you down like a lawnmower you can't do it fast enough you can't do it efficient enough i'm just going to do it for you i'll hire somebody to do it it's it's less hassle it's cheaper for me to just pay a long guy than to take you out and teach you how to mow the grass you stay on the internet you sit here on the phone i can do it faster i can do it more efficient we'll hire that done why is there such a blurred view in this generation of values and ethics they have too much accessibility without enough accountability why do they trouble why do they have trouble being critical thinkers too much consumption without enough reflection they digest but they don't process or absorb anything why is there this extreme rise in mental health issues studies say they have they have boundaries of safety from a real world but they have free reign in the virtual world it was june of 2019 that a school shooting took place in florida where officer scott peterson was facing charges officer peterson was hired to protect the students on the campus from such such a terrible day that took place there in the month of june at that high school peterson was charged however for seven accounts of neglect to act because when he was supposed to be defending and being aggressive to do his job he ran when he should have fought i fear fathers and mothers that were playing too much defense and not enough offense when god gave you that child no matter if you felt like you were prepared or not god trusted you with them god put them in your home god put them in your hands and i'm telling a parent tonight that please don't lead them with fear please don't leave them with frustration they need us more than ever before i truly believe that this generation of strong tower students that are sitting in this room tonight are not looking to move any landmarks but rather they are in a place that's become a field of the fatherless because it's a new land with no lines statistics say that we want help that's the cry of this generation parents they need us church they need us they want us to fight for them they need us to be intentional about their development they need us to be an example scripture says the older must teach the younger they need us to be an example they need to see us worship they need to see us monitor our screen time they need to see us be intentional not only about our relationship with god but our relationship with them be available for them make your day count rather than counting down the days for them to leave the house because you're just frustrated with their rebellion be positive about them they know they messed up they know they failed they know they may have done wrong but the goal here as the church is not to suppress evil as much as it is to elevate good what are we doing to motivate this generation we can't just throw our hands up and say hey fend for yourself cause i don't know what's going on on social media and i don't know this is a land we've never lived in before and i don't know what to do i'm just frustrated and i'm fearful for what's going to take place when you reach the age of accountability i'm here to tell somebody tonight that god has put this generation here for such a time as this and this generation can change the world i don't believe i know it's coined by our culture but i don't believe they're called generations z for a reason i believe god has put them on the scene that they're here to not only change the world and edify the church but i think they're here to see the coming of the lord i think that they are the team that god chose to put on the scene at the last days and god forbid that we as parents say that it was good enough for bishop mccool to settle the lines for generation and generation to come no you don't get to skip your part because we can preach at nyc and win our youth retreats all day long for them not to move them but they're not moving them but we're in a new land that needs some parents to stand up so i know everybody in the world is not doing this i know maybe your classmates aren't doing this your friends aren't doing this but we've got to draw a line and say there's some things that we're just not going to do there's some applications we're just not going to have there's a time at night where you're not going to have your phone there's a time where you're not going to have internet access there may be a time right now young person where your parent pulls your phone and the greatest thing they could ever do for you is if you're struggling and having issues is you better embrace your parents you better cry on their shoulder and you better thank them if they choose to draw a line and say hey i know you're a 14 year old boy and you've had that phone but you don't need this until you're of the age where you can understand what it's doing what it's capable of and it can send you to a devil's hell we've got to get this under control because we're we're we're so we've still got these lines and we say i don't want to let them play outside i i'm fearful of what could happen in their world lord help me out unbroke the landmark i don't know how you work these things you get it there we won't let them play outside but we'll let them play on the internet all day long i'd rather take my chances of abduction than let them be watching pornography on youtube at 14. because i'll tell you this right here lying and cheating and sinning they're gonna fail they're gonna mess up but he says this this this whole thing right here you know what it's filled with sexual perversion and what i told your students wednesday night is sexual perversion crosses a line of a law in the word of god that says you're not just sinning you're sinning against yourself the reason they're depressed the reason they're anxious the reason they're fearful is they have entrapped themselves on a land that has no lines they need us to walk up and take this out of their hands they need us to remove some things now i'm telling you i'm going to do my best to hold my composure but i i watched and i've read and i've studied and wednesday night we begin a series and i encourage you to have your students here on wednesday nights for what we're covering not because i'm doing it or our team's doing it but because it's it's training them up it's giving them a sword in a world where they need to know how to fight but this wednesday night i took an anonymous survey and the survey question was simply this you finished the sentence and students i know there's no names on this or anything the question or the statement was this i wish my parents or pastor knew blank i've asked for the dale to help me and i'm going to read you a few of these and i'm going to just read you a few of them because i don't personally think that you could handle reading all of them over a hundred pieces of paper that i set in the closet wednesday night after service and read through as the one thing that i had been trying to tell myself with weeks and weeks of reading this these two series of books and trying to educate myself on what this generation needs and how to lead them as i read these statistics i said surely to god they're not in the church that's secular statistics it's not real of course it's that way across town at the county school or of course that's why they're pulling in some of the most some of the most liberal and immoral parts of the country and those statistics are so high but this is what happened when i gave this poll take this this took this anonymous thing wednesday night the first one i wish my parents or pastors knew my struggle with anxiety and depression you know how many students had this on their paper the same amount of students statistically that i read in the book i'm not talking about the kids at william blood i'm not talking about the kids over in california i'm talking about the kids that attend first apostolic church 70 of them had those words on it i know it's heavy second one said i wish my parents or pastor knew i was addicted to pornography i hate to say it the statistic was a little better but it shocked me out of my mind when a little over 20 of the papers turned in had that on it kids that have the holy ghost kids that are called that are chosen the third one said i wish my parents or pastor knew how i feel i feel towards myself the harm i've done to myself and the harm i'm doing to myself i wish my parents or pastor knew the loneliness loneliness that plagues my heart that everything i look at on my phone makes me hate myself that every rejection makes me feel like i'll never be good enough my heart is broken the next one said i wish my parents a pastor knew that i'm not a virgin i wish my parents and pastor knew how much their view of life and issues they have affect me i wish my parents knew the lies i've told them to cover up my sin i wish my parents knew that i need them to listen to me wish my parents knew i struggle mentally i want to hurt myself i want to cause myself pain i have thoughts of suicide this last one was a common thread said i wish my parents knew how much i needed them to hold me accountable how much i love and appreciate them how much i need them to tell me no sometimes i'm here tonight not to allow the enemy to beat us up because that was a hard thing for me as a student pastor to read through but they need us to draw a line if they don't need us to wait social media the internet is a new land that needs a new life and we have had a field for far too long that proverbs would call it a field of the fatherless i have reports coming in from college students who on their own have done away with social media and they've said they may not get back on it because of how they feel even the secular world is having complaints of how much grief and mental issues are coming from apps like snapchat and tick tock is causing physical and mental issues all over the world issues in schools with law enforcement places of business are associated with this issues of the internet age and we must if anybody must we as the church must take a stand students that want to make it to heaven parents that want their family to go to heaven we can't have these apps on our phone if the world's forbidden it what are we doing with it in our access we need to get and i i know i've said it before but i'll declare it again and i'm going to work on a list of apps to give out to every parent in fact to discuss brother jacob sister erickson next year you'll see it in the aca handbook there's going to be a list of apps that if you're an attendant of apostolic christian academy we're going to draw a line in the sand you're not going to have these things because we can't call ourselves a christian school and have access to a field with no accountability we're going to draw a line in the sand i don't care who has them i don't care what other youth groups are doing i don't care what other schools are doing we must decide that we are going to fight for this generation we must make our mind up that they need us and they need us more than ever before  as we are adding some of these to our student handbook and we're trying to stand up they need us to fight for them studies do show parents and i know i'm being heavy on you tonight that parents don't need excessive stream screen time either no matter how accessible you have to be at work or how accessible you have to be for that job there's got to be a moment where you put that thing down and look your kids in the eye and tell them hey how was your day what are you going through are you dealing with something i'm not here to beat you up i'm not here to punish you i'm here to help you i'm here to guide you i'm here to do anything i can i want to fight for you i want to help you not have to carry around the weight don't go about this relationship with your kids and fear or frustration statistics say that facebook needs to go for some moms as much as instagram needs to go for some young ladies because we can't handle the comparison trap i'm here to tell you tonight that we all must draw a line how dare we draw a line for the students that we won't abide by because father if you're going to draw this line with us tonight if church if we're going to stand together on this we can't expect the students to live in a land that we're not going to inhabit pastor erickson mentioned it last week in his message we had children of israel the tribes that chose not to cross over into the promised land they cared more about where their cattle were going to graze than where their children were going to be raised and we've got to understand tonight that if i'm going my kids are going if i'm what good would it be to make it to heaven and not take this section with us what are we doing as a church thinking that we're just going to let this generation go to hell we're going to let them fend for themselves we're going to let them just figure it out on their own  there's not anything in my life that i look back and i embrace more than my father my mother saying we're not going to do this there's not one thing that i look back over my life and say if they would have let me do that i would be a better person every time they drew a line i was a better person for it and i stand here today knowing and understanding that they loved me because they were willing to draw a line when you don't hold them accountable the number one thing that you're screaming is saying i don't care and that lack of care makes them feel a lack of love which brings that feeling of insecurity which the devil turns into all the mental issues that we have to not dare paint the issue in their mind that anything coming from this pulpit is negative don't you dare paint the issue in their mind that a teacher is wrong or a coach is wrong or a boss is wrong see the issue out don't paint out because it is so real to them they're going to live in that negativity the rest of their life  i close with this and i don't know brother chase you could come play but i don't know if we'll need any music i don't know what we'll need we're going to have a special time of prayer with our families here in just a moment but numbers chapter 2 and verse number one it says in the lord spake unto moses and unto aaron saying every man of the children of israel israel shall pitch by his own standard with the inside of their father's house far off about the tabernacle can the congregation shall they pitch so the tribes set up their tents on the east then on the south and on the center on the west and the north and we end the second chapter of the notebook of numbers with verse number 34. and the children of israel did according to all that the lord commanded moses so they pitched by their standards and so they set forth every everyone after their families according to their house according to the house of their fathers in other words moses said i want every family to go set up your tent go get your house in order and i want you to raise the standard i want you to draw the line i want you to stand for your family because the reason proverbs says that it's not the fields of the church-less the field of the pastorless the field of the fatherless is because we can draw lines in this room all night long but ultimately you know what your kid i hope you do anyways after tonight after you have a conversation you may need to draw your own line for your own family that says hey you know the church had some standards that we abided by in my house but then there were some standards where we went a little bit further because i knew little johnny was struggling with some things i knew that there had been such a culture that had been cast within my home that i was gonna have to get over here and draw some lines and say hey we're just gonna do without some things my sister would be 100 behind me and i wouldn't say this to embarrass her tonight but she couldn't handle television from just a kid even now you start playing a disney movie she could sing every word every lyric every song every line she could quote it if it was on she did nothing else she was glued to it locked in my parents recognized it very early and we didn't have tv in our home not because it was a church standard not because it was an organizational thing if we were going to watch tv my parents would have they had a vcr they would rent something we would sit down as a family and watch it as family time i say that to say this there's just some things in your home where you know maybe the maybe the word for you moses maybe the word for you father tonight mothers is to say i know the church has these standards i know that aca is going to say this but we're going to even cut it out to where maybe you don't need any applications at all young man until you're old enough to prove that you're responsible enough to have these maybe we need to limit your contacts maybe we need to limit who you communicate with just stand to your feet tonight i want to do something and i don't want to make anybody uncomfortable but if i could have my wife come sister carpenter if y'all would help me and come up here on the front stand right here brother nolan sister flannery to represent the church tonight because there was a handful of papers that had some remarks but they marked out that word parents they just circled the word pastor because their parents don't serve god they live in the field of the fatherless where the church has to step in and be what the church is so here in a moment i'm going to ask every father and mother if your kids are here to find them and we're going to pray together i want you to commit to them that you're going to keep them accountable and i want every strong tower student to embrace that and say i'm going to submit to you i want every student in this place tonight that doesn't have a parent here if you'll make your way around this center and maybe you're a trendsetter tonight you can make your way now and it's not to embarrass you this to empower you that you've got a church and our pastoral team is going to pray with you and anybody if you're in this place and you don't have a student you want to come help us pray we invite you to do that but if you're a student tonight you don't have a parent here i want you to make your way and it's nothing to be ashamed of and i want right now parents kids we can find your way around this altar we can turn this whole place into an altar but i want you to find your kids maybe you have a prodigal son why don't you come pray for one of these kids like they're your own and say i'm believing that they're coming home but i want you to look them i know this might be a little bit awkward but i want you to look at it i don't know tell them i'm going to fight for you students parents i wish you'd go find your kid right now there's going to be a great embrace that god's going to get in the middle of and he's going to fall in this place like we maybe not experienced in quite some time but i want some parents tell your kid i'm gonna fight for you   i know come on we're gonna grab ahold of what brother nolan preached this morning take dominion over your house right now come on get victory over your house right now come on we must protect this place come on we got to draw some lines sand tonight oh god so  so  so  so  emily corbett upon the profession of your faith and obedience to the word of god i now indeed baptize you in the name of the lord jesus christ for the remission of your sins and i'm thankful just a few moments ago you received the baptism of the holy ghost in jesus name church we've got one more to be baptized in jesus name i want to affirm tonight that it's twofold parents students generation to generation one party that doesn't agree to fight we're all just fighting as if we're just punching the air generation and generation coming together in agreeance to say we are in this world but we are not of this world we have to look at life we have to look at everything we're doing the way god looks at it i'll say this we'll have the last baptism and you can be dismissed if you want to continue to pray whatever you want to do when noah built a bow for the saving of his family god gave him the dimensions he gave him everything he wanted to do down to every single measurement but he said i'm going to ask you to build a door he didn't give him any dimensions just one door and he said one window  because if you're gonna save your family you're gonna have to look at life through one window you can't have a bunch of windows open and have multiple perspectives and you can't pull your perspective of how you view the saving of your family but through one window and that applies to the internet you get a bunch of windows open you got to look at it right here how does this affect my family you've got to look at life and say i don't care who has it i don't care how necessary you feel like it is i say it once i've said it wednesday night and i'll say it again tonight if god and his infallible word says it'd be better for you to enter into heaven without a hand without a limb without an eye surely he'd want us to lay this thing down we don't have to have it you don't have to have it there's there's all kinds of solutions that are popping up today for you to be able to be connected and you're able to be able to communicate without being overly exposed to the things that are unhealthy the world the world's waking up to it question is will the church we ought to be a step ahead because we are given wisdom from god we've got to look through that window i pray over every parent tonight that god would give you wisdom for your house that god will let you see the dust cloud coming before you can even identify what it is that you can see in your kid's life that things are different and communicate with them and there be a working relationship that we're at war to make sure that we as a family hear well done thou good and faithful servant