The Vision
by R.C. Sproul Jr.

You know you have crossed a serious line in the long march toward being old when you grow a beard not to make you look older, but to make you look younger. I've crossed that line. I have another age induced reason for the beard. I want to have some hair on my head, even if it's upside down. Youth is the great and elusive prize of our day, as are youths. That is to say, everyone wants to be young at heart, and everyone wants the hearts of the young. Though we're all getting older (and at the same rate) none of us have forgotten yet the ancient wisdom: he that rocks the cradle rules the world.

First, why the lust for youth? Why do we cling so desperately to what must escape us? A few years ago I faced some depression over approaching one of those decade marks. Then, thanks to the wisdom that comes with age, I asked myself this question, 'Where does Scripture hold up youth as something worth holding onto?" Don't bother to look. It isn't in there. I'm not so old that I'm completely sanctified; that is, I'm not dead yet, so I still have the struggle. But now I remember the struggle comes from the devil. Youth in scripture is marked by folly. It is something we are to grow out of. We are to seek maturity.

And that is what the church is to help families do for their young. While youth is not a prize, the youth are. They are something to be captured, for Scripture tells us, "Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it." The devil, of course, has read the Bible and knows this as well. Government schools, from their inception, and as they clamor for more time with children, whether it be in government schools, or in the solution offered up by Hillary Clinton for the crisis de jour, child care, operate from this premise. The more we have them, the more we can shape them. Hollywood, another stronghold of the devil, thinks the same way. Win the hearts of the children, and you have won the culture war for another generation.

We don't take seriously our God given obligation to our children. It seems that most Christians believe that if they m just keep their daughters from getting pregnant, and their sons out of jail, they have achieved parental success. We expect a period of rebellion, and only worry when it doesn't happen. If we're Promise Keepers we are even encouraged to celebrate sinful 'rites of passage' with our sons. We expect our children to embrace the youth culture. The church at large has even been kind enough to create one just for our kids, complete with Christian pop stars with poster boy or girl good looks, and for the introverted egg-head Christian teen, a 'Christian' version of Dungeons and Dragons.

Raising children, however, should be an oxymoron. Our goal is to raise adults, adults who not only share our convictions, but have the tools to pass on those convictions to their children. When we raise children often we are tempted to 'meet our children where they are", to build or maintain a relationship by trying to squeeze into their subculture. Few things make me cringe more than to hear a child describe his or her parents as "cool."

We are to bring our children into our world (which is, of course, really His world), not build a glittering play world for them and try to join them in it. I would rather Darby learn to sing Amazing Grace than to sing Jesus Loves The Little Children with her. (By the way, Darby does know a similar but more accurate song, Jesus Loves the Covenant Children.)

At the Highlands Study Center we try to look at youth, both that of our children and that which is slipping from us, in a deliberate way. We want children and adults alike to mature, to put away the childish things of the world. We want not to cater to youth as another demographic group, but as heirs of the covenant.

In this issue we will look at youth for our focus. But we do so mindful that the youth are not just another demographic. While they are the hope of the future, our only hope is if we lead them into maturity. While children are cute and charming, and while I heed my elders who warn me about my own children, that I must enjoy it while it lasts, the only real and lasting joy I can hope for is that I will instill in them that which only increases with age: wisdom.