The Satanic approach to children’s education…as embraced by most professing Christians in America.

 

What if Satan was not only real, but had a particular perspective on the pursuit of knowledge (aka “education”)?

What if his approach to education – particularly children’s education – after purposefully slithering its way into the Christian sub-culture, was able to grow and grow in influence to the point that, many generations after its initial infection, it actually became the assumed, comfortable, and even cherished norm in the vast majority of professing Christian families and churches?

What if, along the way, (and after having been programmed by this satanic system themselves) most pastors were compromised to the point that they not only tolerated and enabled the satanic approach to this subject, but actively defended it? What if they actually became far more inclined to dismiss or openly oppose the biblical perspective on children’s education in defense of the satanic alternative?

What would this mean for the children under the care of these families and these pastors?

These are very serious questions.

In last week’s Why do most professing Christians dismiss God’s Word on children’s education? , I shared the first of what will be a three-part series taken from a sermon I presented on this subject earlier this year. This post is “Part Two”. Not so surprisingly, it picks up where Part One left off, so it is strongly recommended that you read that first installment before diving into this one if you haven’t already. Context is everything, and there was a lot covered in that first post that will be very helpful in providing the basis for many of the ideas expressed here.

Lord willing, I will share the third and final part here soon.

That said, here is Part Two: The Satanic approach to children’s education…as embraced by most professing Christians in America:

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In response to the dismissal and distortion of the beautiful truths of Deuteronomy 6 on the subject of children’s education, we, and all others with whom we interact, are well served to imitate our Lord in the following ways:

• We must respond with grace. The more solidly we grasp the truth that everything that we know or think that is true and good is itself a gift given to us by the grace of God, the more will stand firmly on the truth and beauty of His nature as revealed in His Word, and the less we will act based upon motives formed by pride, ego, and a warped sense of self-righteousness.
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• We must respond with gentleness and patience. There but by the grace of God go we…really!
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• We must respond with clarity. We must call sin “sin” as our Lord did time and again, so that our call to repentance and constant personal reformation might be clear and coherent.
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• We must acknowledge, proclaim and apply Jesus’ numerous vivid citations of the details contained in Deuteronomy 6…  

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The Scribe’s Question to Jesus

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And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’” ~ Mark 12:28-30

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Here we see Jesus respond to what one might rightly describe as a very big question. One of the biggest of Big Questions, really: Which commandment is the most important of all?Jesus’ answer was to go directly to the words found in Deuteronomy 6:4.

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The Devil’s Propositions to Jesus

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Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” But he answered, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’”

Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’”

Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him. ~ Matthew 4:1-11

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The Devil’s First Proposition:

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.”

Jesus’ response: But he answered, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

Here we see that the Lord responds to the distortions of the enemy by making direct, corrective use of Deuteronomy 8:3, which reads:

And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. ~ Deuteronomy 8:3

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The Devil’s Second Proposition:

Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’”

Jesus’ response: Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

Here we see that the Lord responds to the temptation of the enemy by making a corrective appeal to Deuteronomy 6:16, which reads: You shall not put the LORD your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah. ~ Deuteronomy 6:16

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The Devil’s Third Proposition:

Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.”

Jesus’ response: Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’”

Here we see that the Lord responds to the final attempt at temptation by the enemy with an authoritative, conversation-ending exaltation of Deuteronomy 6:13, which reads: It is the LORD your God you shall fear. Him you shall serve and by his name you shall swear. ~ Deuteronomy 6:13

The “Fear of the LORD” as proclaimed in Deuteronomy 6:13 is one of the most pervasive themes of Scripture. The notion of a good and proper “fear of the LORD“ is proclaimed again and again, with each proclamation couched in clarifying context as to what such “fear” means and inspires. (At this point we will quickly touch on 20 examples from Scripture, including: Proverbs 1:7; Proverbs 9:10; Psalm 111:10; Psalm 19:9; Psalm 34:9; Psalm 34:11; Psalm 86:11; Psalm 103:11; Psalm 128:1; Exodus 20:20; Leviticus 19:14; Leviticus 19:32; Leviticus 25:17; Leviticus 25:39, 43; Joshua 4:23-24; Joshua 24:14; 1 Samuel 12:14; Job 28:28; Luke 1:50; and Luke 12:4-5. We will spend more time on this subject, schedule permitting, in Romans 3:9-23.)The Christian worldview is, has always been, and will forever be centered in loving application of “the fear of the Lord” in every realm of creation.

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The Satanic Alternative to the Christ-Centered Pursuit of Knowledge

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In response to this all-encompassing “Fear of the Lord”-defined Christian worldview, the enemy has offered an alternative…

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made.

He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. ~ Genesis 3:1-7

In the history-shaping, humanity-transforming events chronicled in this passage, the serpent introduces a completely new worldview to Adam and Eve. His every approach and angle is aimed at displacing the centrality and authority of God as the source of truth, life, and the pursuit of knowledge. He makes his pitch for this “shiny, new”, man-centered (and therefore man-pleasing) worldview in the following ways:

• He begins his presentation of the satanic worldview by questioning the clarity of God’s Word. (“Did God actually say…?”)
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• Then, where the clarity of God’s Word is acknowledged, that clear Word is rejected. (But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die”.)
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• Finally, after questioning the clarity of some of God’s Word and rejecting the rest, the serpent introduces an entirely new approach to the pursuit of knowledge. (“For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”)
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• In response, Eve “saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened. . .”The tree that God had forbidden “was desired to make one wise”. The “wisdom” offered by the serpent centered on treating the Word of God in practice as unclear, unreliable, and therefore anything but authoritative. In agreeing with the serpent’s sentiments and embracing his approach to life, Adam and Eve inaugurated humanity’s rebellion against God – a rebellion centered on the serpent’s “shiny, new” and attractive approach to the pursuit of knowledge…also known as…education.
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So it is that we see with some clarity that one of the foundational lies sold by the serpent to Adam and Eve in Eden was the notion that the pursuit of knowledge (education) could be rightly and profitably pursued apart from focus on and submission to the Word and nature of God.

The Scripture’s presentation of Christ as the center of all true understanding pertaining to anything anywhere at any time in His creation is anything but vague. The biblical presentation of this essential core truth is incontrovertibly clear….which is why the serpent desires to enslave humanity under the weight of a “new approach” to the pursuit of knowledge – an approach that dismisses the necessity and authority of God’s nature and Word.

He was “a liar from the beginning” (John 8:44), and this great lie as to how one’s life, dreams, interests, and passions are to be pursued is the cornerstone of the satanic worldview under which all of unrepentant humanity is presently enslaved.

This satanic worldview is built upon the notion that man can, should, and even must pursue knowledge apart from God.

This is what the enemy would have us “educated” to believe…and many evangelicals would now agree…

This is the end of Part Two of a presentation on children’s education that I made earlier this year. (Part One – Why do most professing Christians dismiss the Word of God on children’s education? – can be read by clicking here.) Part Three, The Consequences of Feeding Our Children to the Beast, can be read by clicking here.

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© 2015 Scott Alan Buss – All Rights Reserved.
Soli Deo Gloria!