002 How Babylon Changes Words to Corrupt Your Kids

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Let me tell you about a movie that likely millions
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of Christian parents sat down and watched with their kids.
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And it was a movie from back in twenty twenty two.
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It was a Disney Pixar film called Turning Red. In fact,
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my wife and I reviewed that movie on our podcast
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Better Together, and it was the most listened to episode
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and YouTube video up to that point that we had
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ever produced. It was a very well received review. The
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movie was very interesting, lots of bright colors, you know,
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cute animation. It was a story about a thirteen year
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old girl named May who starts turning into a giant
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red panda whenever she gets emotionally charged. On the surface,
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it's it's designed as a coming of age story, you know,
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it's about puberty and emotions and growing up. You know,
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it's a totally harmless theme, right. But here's what actually
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happens in the film. May's mother represents traditional views, honor, obedience,
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family legacy, you know, respect for elders. She has expectations
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for her daughters, what we would call for her daughter,
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what we would call standards. You know, she had a
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path that she wanted May to walk, and the entire
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emotional arc of the movie, like the entire movie, is
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about May realizing that her mother's values are oppressive to her,
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and that honoring her mother is really suffocating her true self.
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The only way that May can be authentically happy and
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free is to reject her mother's authority follow her own heart,
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even if it means dishonoring her family in front of everyone.
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So the climax of the film is this May chooses
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to go to a concert over a sacred family ritual,
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and so she picks her desires over her mother's expectations,
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and the movie frames this as her moment of victory.
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This is her liberation. The audience cheers, this is the
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moment that the movie builds up to. And so here's
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my question. Do you see what's actually being taught in
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that movie or when you watched it, or if you
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watched it, did you just see it as a cute
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movie about a girl and a panda. Welcome to the
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Daniel Project. This is a podcast for parents who are
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trying to raise their kids with a biblical worldview in
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the middle of Babylon. My name's Dennis Harry. I've been
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a pastor for ti twenty one years. I'm a Bible teacher,
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by God's grace and by his goodness. I've been a
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husband for twenty nine years. My wife and I have
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raised four kids that are now adults, and every one
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of them, Praise the Lord, is walking with the Lord.
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So when I talk about raising children with a biblical
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worldview in the middle of a culture that's pushing back
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against your family, I'm not speaking just theoretical, like this
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is a journey that we've been on. Today. We're starting
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a series that I hope will open your eyes a
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little bit to this subversive alphabet that Babylon is teaching
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your children. But before your child ever hears a lecture
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on critical theory or gender ideology or moral relativism in
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the classroom or at college, they've already been learning the
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language of those those worldviews through the culture around them.
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And it's a lameguage where words like love and freedom
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and identity, compassion and authenticity, these all means something completely
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different than what the Bible teaches. And it starts a
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lot earlier than you may think, long before the teen years.
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And it's not just happening in the classroom. I know
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you may say, well, you know, we avoid that because
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we homeschool, or we avoid that because we don't do
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this with our family. The reality is it's happening on
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our couch. It's happening through our tablets, through our cell phones,
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it's happening through our computers. The stories they watch, the
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books they read, the influencers they follow. So let's talk
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about how this works. In Isaiah chapter five, verse twenty,
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Isaiah gives a warning to Judah. He says, woe unto
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them that call evil good and good evil, that put
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darkness for light and light for darkness, that put bitter
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for sweet and sweet for bitter. This is a warning
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about people doing evil things and knowing that they're evil.
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This is a warning about society that renames evil. A
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culture that has taken what God calls darkness and rebrands
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it as light. A generation that can take something that
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is bitter and toxic and try to convince you that
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it's the opposite of that, it's sweet and it's life giving.
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This is this is a subversion of language, the corruption
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of language itself. And here's here's the terrifying thing. Because
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when a culture successfully renames evil as good and good
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is evil, it forces people that aren't aware of this
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to kind of stop resisting they start celebrating it. I'm
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I am recording this right now in the first week
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of June, And as you know, June is known in
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America as Pride Month. It's a month that our world,
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our culture celebrates the LGBTQ plus lifestyle and agenda in worldview.
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And they called evil good, and those that would stand
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for good they call evil. I remember a few years
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ago there was a man just north of us in
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the city of Greensboro. I think he was a firefighter,
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and he refused to put in his at his fire station.
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He refused to post the Pride message that was being
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put out by the city of Greensboro. And he was
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fired for that because he refused to call evil good.
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We live in that culture. Paul describes that in Romans
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one twenty five. He says they they changed the truth
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of God into a lie and worshiped and served the
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creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Notice
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the word changed. It's a it's a trade, okay, it's
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a substitution. You don't just our culture hasn't just abandoned
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truth and walked away. It has replaced it with something else.
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Something that's similar, something that uses the same words but
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has a much different meaning to those words. So when
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our culture, love no longer means, you know, sacrificial commitment
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that's rooted in God's design for marriage. It means affirming
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you know, whatever someone feels in the moment, if you
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love them, it means you affirm that. Freedom doesn't mean
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liberation from sin through Christ. It means freedom from moral restraint,
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especially in our culture, from parents, from authority, figures, from
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the church, from religious structures. Authenticity has changed. It doesn't
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mean being who God authentically created you to be. It
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means rejecting anyone who tells you that you're not what
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God created and if they're rejecting what you've decided you
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want to be. See, it's the same words, but it's
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a completely different dictionary. Proverbs fourteen, verse twelve describes it
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this way. It says, there's a way which seemeth right
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unto man, But the end thereof are the ways of death.
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And this is the danger of this changing of language
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or changing of the alphabet. It seems right to the culture,
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it seems right to Babylon, and it feels compassionate, and
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it sounds loving you know, let let your daughter follow
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her heart. Don't parents, don't. I'm not saying this, Okay,
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let me clarify. I'm not telling you to say this.
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I'm saying this is what the world would say. Let
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your daughter follow her heart, don't crush her spirit with
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old fashioned, oppressive rules. And from the world's perspective, that
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seems right until you realize that what you, as a parent,
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have just done in saying that is you've taught her
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that her feelings are more of an authority than God's word.
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She's sixteen years old, her heart is leading her into destruction,
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and you have no foundation left to stand on because
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you've already taught your daughter that following her heart is
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the highest virtue. And one more thing. In two Timothy,
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chapter four, verses three and four, Paul says, for the
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time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine,
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but after their own less shall they heap to themselves
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teachers having itching ears, And they shall turn away their
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ears from truth, and shall be turned unto fables. And
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let me tell you that time has come, and the
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greatest number of teachers in your children's life aren't standing
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from the pulpits and They aren't writing the theology books,
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although there are teachers doing that. The greatest teachers that
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have the impact on our children are often in our culture,
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the screen, the songwriters, the content creators, the influencers. These
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are the voices that your children are listening to or
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hopefully not but could be listening to, you know, six
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to eight hours a day from the time they can
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hold a tablet to the time that they are listening
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to the radio, listening to entertainment, watching movies, going out
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with friends. And these teachers are leading away an entire
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generation away from actual truth. So let's go back to
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the Turning Red movie for just a moment, because this
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is sort of a perfect case study in how the
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subversion of language works, and we need to be able
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to recognize it. The movie never says disobey your parents,
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and it never says reject your family's faith. The writers
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were way too smart for that. Instead, they simply redefined
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the terms. Authenticity was doing whatever made May feel most
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like herself, regardless of her parents, her faith, her community.
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Authenticity is do what makes you feel like yourself love.
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Love is defined as affirming and celebrating choices. There were
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people in May's life. That showed love to her, But
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they showed love to her by affirming her choice. See,
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if you challenge choices, or if you correct them or
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ask someone to deny themselves and take up their cross.
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In the world's view, you're being unloving, You're being controlling.
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The world Now redefines growth is, you know, moral growth
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and emotional growth is rejecting the narrow minded values that
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you were raised under and embracing a more progressive worldview.
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And here's the kicker. When it comes to movies like this,
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By the time the credits roll, your child doesn't consciously think,
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you know, I should rebel against my parents, but they
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have absorbed that entire framework. They've they've absorbed the vocabulary
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that that that makes rebellion feel like the brave, authentic,
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and loving thing to do. And this is why the
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childhood and the teen years are so critical, all of them,
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because this starts in elementary school. It starts when the
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foundation is being laid, When your child is watching these
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stories and absorbing these values, maybe even before they have
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a complex language to question them. They're learning what heroes
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look like. They're learning what families are supposed to feel like.
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They're learning what quote good people do and the and
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that's what from the world's perspective. In the middle school years,
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it even intensifies. The kids begin transitioning from borrowed faith
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to their owned conviction, not their own conviction, their owned conviction,
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like they have to own it. Uh. They're starting to ask,
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do I actually believe what my parents believe? Or am
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I just going to go along with it until I
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have the option to opt out? In high school kind
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of reaches a tipping point because those values are going
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to get tested real world choices, with relationships and identity, sexuality,
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peer pressure, alcohol. The culture around your children are ready
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to fully recruit them and see at every stage, whether
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we're talking elementary, middle school, or high school, Babylon is
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handing them that new dictionary, a new set of definitions,
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a new moral vocabulary that feels really true and compelling
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because it's wrapped in beautiful stories and emotional music, and
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they put heroes in those stories that make it feel real.
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There's a few more examples of how this works even
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beyond entertainment, because this goes beyond just a movie but
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into almost everything that is being put in front of
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our kids. Compassion is redefined, don't make people feel uncomfortable
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about their choices. Identity has been redefined something you can
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create and choose rather than something you receive from your creator.
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Even tolerance. Tolerance has been redefined as celebration. I remember
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when the concept of tolerance first came up, like there
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was a part within, a part of us, within Christianity
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that thought, and I'll be honest with you, like there
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was a hopeful part of me, a naive part of
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me that thought that maybe tolerance was just allowing people
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to do what they're going to do, but we don't
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have to accept it and we don't have to agree
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with it. But we moved beyond that very quickly. I
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remember in twenty fifteen when the US Supreme Court declared
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that same sex marriage must be recognized by every state.
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I live in North Carolina. Within one year, transgender bathrooms
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were the next issue, like you have if marriage, If
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male or female doesn't matter in marriage, then male or
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female doesn't matter at all, and you must accept what
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we choose as our identity. We actually had a governor
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that lost his governor's race because he took a stand
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against transgender bathrooms in the city of Charlotte and the
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NCAA tournament pulled out that year. It was a whole
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fiasco and he lost his governor's race because of that. Listen, tolerance.
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It's no longer enough to just coexist with people you
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disagree with. You have to affirm them, you have to
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applaud them and participate in their beliefs, or you are angrier,
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you're a bigot. So that even that has been changed.
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And listen, and this isn't an accident, this is systematic.
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Babylon is doing what Babylon has always done. It takes
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the image bears of God and renames them, redefines them,
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and rebuilds them. All right, so what do we do,
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let's as we finish out this episode, what do you
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do as a parent? Well, first you have to see it.
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You can't fight which can't see Most Christian parents are
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blind to this because they've been lulled into thinking that
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as long as entertainment is clean, you know, no bad language,
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no sex scenes, no violence, then it's safe. Okay, you know.
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We go on to vid Angel and we take out
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the the F bombs and the damn words and all
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the other four letter expletives. We take all of that
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out and we're like, okay, now this is safe for
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our child to watch. But what has happened is Babylon
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has taken all of those things and says we don't
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need those either. We're going to redefine good. We're going
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to redefine words. So you have to see it. Second,
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you have to name it. Listen, Isaiah fifty, verse twenty.
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The verse we read is very clear, woe to them
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that call evil good and good evil. And as a parent,
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you have to start naming when good is being called
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evil and evil is being called good. When your kid's
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watching something and you see the values being flipped, pause it,
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talk about it, and listen. I remember doing this when
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our kids were younger. We always had the remote with us,
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and if I'm watching a TV show, I would have
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the remote with us, or we're watching a movie and listen.
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If you ask my kids, they couldn't count the number
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of times that we were watching a movie and we
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would stop and I would say, hey, let's talk about that,
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and we would have a discussion on the worldview that
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was being presented. Now, don't be preachy, don't mean obnoxious,
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but you do need to be intentional and Here are
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some questions that you can start asking daring or after
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a movie, show, or even a song that will help
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guide that conversation. So if you need to hit the
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pause button, get out a piece of paper, be ready
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to write these down. Here are five questions that four
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questions that you can ask that will allow you to
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be intentional about that conversation. Right. Here's the first question,
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who's the hero of the story and what makes them
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the hero? And honestly, that question right there is going
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to bring up a lot of worldview evil being called
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good and good being called evil. It's gonna come right
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to the forefront with that question. Who's the hero and
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why is that person the hero? Is the person a
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hero because they have good biblical qualities of honor and
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justice and compassion and mercy. Or is the hero actually
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someone who effectively uses a sinful behavior to accomplish what
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they want to accomplish, and yet the villain actually is
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the hero of the show? What makes them the hero?
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Here's the second question, what did the main character have
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to reject or leave behind to become their true self?
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Often in these movies or TV shows, the main character
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has this moment where they have to you know, all
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is lost and they enter into this cave rhetorically and
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it's like I have to I have to leave everything
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behind in order to go out and to defeat the
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enemy and accomplish what I want to accomplish. It's just this.
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The narrative writing of adventure is like, there's all these these,
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all these beats that are going to happen, and writing
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that always happen, and one of them is the main
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character has to reject or leave behind something to become
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their true self. It was that tradition was that their
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parents was it religion. Often what they let go of
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to become their true self actually ill actually illuminates, allows
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us to see the worldview that's being taught. Number Three,
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what does this story teach is the worst that a
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person could be? Meaning if the if the hero is
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what the hero is the person that stands against the hero.
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That's the the you know, the the protagonist, I'm sorry,
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the antagonist. What What are the qualities of the antagonists?
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And isn't it interesting that in Turning Red, the antagonist
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is a mother who loves her daughter and wants what's
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best for her, who is traditional in values, is religious
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and I realize it's a different It's not Christianity, but
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there's religion that's there. She's the antagonist, the mother is
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and so this story is pushing against that traditional worldview
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of parenting. Fourth question, what does this story say is
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the best thing that a person can be? And usually
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it's independence or self expressive, or they've become what they
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want to become, or tolerant. It's going to be all
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of these things except actual biblical values. Okay, So the
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first thing is you have to see it. The second
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thing is you have to name it. And the third
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thing is you have to then build a counter narrative
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in your home. Build a counter narrative in your home.
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You need to counter what they are hearing with actual
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biblical truth. Now that means it could mean sitting down
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and having a Bible study. Okay, it could mean taking
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the opportunity to actually teach and bring your children up
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in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. What this
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counter narrative looks like is going to be different based
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on the age of your children. The question is what
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is shaping your children if all they're hearing is Babylon's
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narrative of what a worldview looks like, and that's what
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they're going to believe. So you have to intentionally be
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putting biblical narratives in front of them and listen. Narratives
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are powerful stories where sacrifice is heroic and obedience is
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courageous and standing alone for truth is the greatest adventure.
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And can I be honest with you, That's one reason
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why I was so drawn to write on the life
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of Daniel, Han and I A, Michiel, and Azariah, that's
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the Chronicles of Daniel series, because those four boys went
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into Babylon at about the age of fifteen, and they
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could stand in the midst of the cultural pressures of
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the day. When everyone else bowed, they stood. They refused
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to be morphed and changed by Babylon's pressure. And so
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for me, that narrative, like actually writing on Daniel and
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putting Daniel out there narrative form, was important for me
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because it illustrates that the worldview of standing on truth
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and what is right and righteousness and a strong faith
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in God is worth it because God will protect you
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and God will protect your children. So let me bring
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this home as we conclude this, Isaiah fifty twenty is
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not just a warning about ancient Judah. It is a
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warning though, about what happens when a society is morally confused,
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when it can't tell the difference between light and darkness.
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And we are there. We are living in a moment
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right now where the culture is actively and aggressively teaching
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your children from the time they step foot into elementary
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school all the way through high school. Everything that God
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calls good is oppressive. Everything that God calls evil is
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actually liberating and is good. And the world is doing
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it with a smile, with attractive music, with stunning animation,
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with stories that just make you want to melt and cry.
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But underneath it all, they're teaching your children completely different language.
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And if you don't interrupt that, by the time they're
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sixteen or seventeen, they will be fluent in the language
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of Babylon. And that's a language that has no word
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for sin, no category for truth, no room for a
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god who has the right to define reality. So here's
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my challenge for you this week. Okay, here's your homework.
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I want you to watch something with your child, a
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show that they love, a movie that they've seen ten times,
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go to a YouTube channel that they follow, whether they're
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in elementary school or high school. This works for any
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of those ages. Instead of zoning out or scrolling on
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your phone, sit and pay attention and listen for the
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changed words the subversive alphabet. Ask yourself, what is this
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teaching my child? About good and evil? About identity, about authority,
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about truth? And then, and this is the key, talk
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about it. Don't lecture, don't panic, but just ask questions.
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Tell them what you're seeing. Teach them to see it too,
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because the goal isn't to raise kids who are isolated
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from culture. The goal is to raise kids who have
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the perception to be able to stand in culture without
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bowing to it, just like Daniel and just like Esther.
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Thanks so much for listening to The Daniel Project. Hey,
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if this episode open your eyes to something you hadn't
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seen before, share it with another parent who's trying to
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navigate these years. We're just going to keep digging week
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after week into what it looks like to raise a
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generation of Daniels, kids who know who they are, whose
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they are, and what they're willing to stand for even
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when they're standing alone. I'll see you next time on
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The Daniel Project.