Are you Helping Your Children Hide from God?

By Pastor Matt Black

07 February 2007
Midweek Service
Romans 2:14-16

Introduction:   Open your Bibles to Romans 2, and let’s read verses 14-16.  The title of this evening’s message is a question: “Are you Helping Your Children Hide from God”. 

Romans 2:14-16, “For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: 15  Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another;) 16  In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel.”

The Bible says that “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Romans 10:13).  That is a promise that we need to preach to every creature.  God will save anyone that calls on Him.  Yet not everyone is calling on the Lord!  Why not?  Because they do not realize they are in trouble!

Tornado Alarm Illustration:  When I was a child, I can remember enjoying a nice Saturday afternoon.  We had a swimming pool in our back yard.  I don’t think I wore my shoes very much during the summer time.  We spent our days in the pool and on the monkey bars.  I can remember though from time to time, our nice quiet summer days would be interrupted for several minutes by the massive wailing sound of what I found out later was a Tornado Alarm!  Now there were no tornadoes in the area during that nice sunny quiet day, so what was the purpose for the alarm? 

The purpose was WARNING.  In case an actual tornado was spotted, everyone could be alerted and awakened to the fact that this awful life threatening storm was coming to our area.

Imagine during a terrible storm you were in your house and heard that Tornado Alarm.  Perhaps Mom is in the kitchen baking, Dad is playing games with the children.  They do have a cellar where they could be safe, but Dad tells everyone—oh, don’t worry about that sound.  It is nothing.  We don’t want to be bothered with having to go down to the cellar.  We’ve got more important things to do!  Mom, pipes up, “Yeah that’s right—don’t you all want to eat some chocolate brownies!?”  The children pipe up, “Hey Dad, let’s play another game!”

That illustration is silly because we would never do that.  Why?  Because we know that tornadoes are SERIOUS business!  That alarm is meant to make you aware that something AWFUL is about to happen, and you need to run for your lives!

God gave us a conscience to let us know that we are in trouble and to lead us to Himself. The Bible says that we have a law or a gigantic “No Trespassing” sign in our hearts.  That sign pops up when we are ready to do something wrong.  And here in verse 15, it says all people have this alarm inborn within our hearts.  Look at verse 15: All people have “the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another”.

I. The Trap of Carnal Security.

God is so good to all men to give them a conscience, and yet because of our sin, we have a carnal security.  Remember the first warning from God?  Genesis 2:17, “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”  We have all disobeyed with Adam and like Adam every day of our lives, and therefore, we, like Adam will also surely die.

We know as the Bible says that our “hearts are deceitful and desperately wicked” (Jeremiah 17:9).  We try to deceive our selves and others that we are as bad as we are.  Mom, Dad, and children are all hiding just like Adam.  We want to deny that there is any alarm going off at all. 

Adam hid from God after his disobedience.  God gave us all a conscience to remind us that we cannot hide from God.  Now God is not coming after us in the same form that He went after Adam, but He is still coming after every man, woman, and child in the world today every second of every day.  He comes to us and appeals to us through our conscience.

Hide and Seek Illustration:  On my days off, I love to play hide and go seek with our children.  Will has no idea how to play.  Katie and Kristen are just getting the idea.  The thing is, they always hide in the same places.   Katie would always hide by a bed.  Kristen would do the same.  The funny thing is, this never got boring to them!  Well eventually, I get involved and tell them where to hide.  Now they have such awesome hiding spots that it makes the game longer, because now they can’t find each other.  That is unless Will is involved.  William will just say, “I’m right here, come find me!”  That makes the games a lot shorter! 

But I love to tell my children great places to hide. 

Application:  You know sadly, we also teach our children to hide and how to run from God, when we do not use the God given opportunities to give them the Gospel.  What do I mean? 

1. Lazy discipline.  We must be consistent in holding our children accountable in the proper way for their disobedience / defiance.  You should do this specifically and generally.

a. Specific (or seen) disobedience.  This is any offense that you witness.  You give them the proper consequence, but in doing that, you tell them of their sin from the Bible and of the grace of God.  You tell them that they need Jesus!

b. General (or unseen) disobedience.  There is much sin in your child’s life that is UNSEEN, and you need to awaken their conscience to it.  You can do this during family devotions by using the 10 commandments. 

If you fail to use these God given alarms for your children, you are teaching them to live in carnal security!  You are just as guilty as continuing a football game when you know there is a bomb in the stadium!!

Ø Perfection. Parents, you need to not simply gloss over your children’s sins and lie to yourself about how perfect they are.  Have you ever heard a parent say, “My child would NEVER do that!”  That parent is teaching their children to hide from God.

Ø Fleshly Correction.   Perhaps you do sound the alarm to your children, but you do it in an ungodly way.  Do you yell at your children?  Do you use intimidation?  Perhaps you hit your children in anger and you let off your steam by hitting them. 

What you are teaching them is not that they should fear God, but that they should fear you!  That is not going to prepare them for judgment day.  What you will get is conformed behaviour without dealing with the heart!

All of this lazy discipline leaves our children without the true Judgment Day alarm going off in their souls. 

Ok, now here’s another way we teach our children carnal security.  We teach them how to hide from God.

2. Winking at certain sins.  When we wink at certain sins, we are telling our children giving our children hiding places from God.  We are teaching them that God excuses certain sins.

Ø Internet, Movies and Television.  In this age of mass entertainment, Christians are being assaulted in the privacy of their own homes.  Parents are selling their consciences to Comcast Cable, Netflix, Dish Network, and Blockbuster Video.  We have this legalistic standard that says we would never go to the movie theatre and see filth, but it’s ok to see filth in our homes! 

I want to awaken the consciences of some parents here tonight.  Turn over to Ephesians 5:3ff, “But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints; 4  Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient: but rather giving of thanks. 5  For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.”

Fornication and uncleanness: this is all over almost every TV show.  You cannot watch the news without seeing it sometime during the broadcast.  The majority of commercials have this.  Now what does it say?  Verse 3, “let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints”. 

Covetousness: This is the root of envy and jealousy.  Almost every commercial is based on this.  We ought not watch things that make us long after things that don’t satisfy.

Foolish Talking, and Jesting: This is empty prideful joking.  Trying to draw attention to oneself.  This is all over the Television!!  We as Christians ought be known as serious minded.  We cannot joke about eternal things.  Yet this is all over the TV and movies.  Again, what does it say?  Verse 3, “let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints”. 

Why must we wink at all of these things just to be entertained?!  Is entertainment that important?! 

Ø Keeping our children busy to keep them out of your hair: Parents are you teaching your children to hide?  Are you giving them to video games so that they will stay out of your hair?  To give a child to empty things to keep them out of your hair is a sin!  You wink at it, but you know it is a sin!  You are not preparing them for judgment day.  You are teaching them to hide from God in those useless endeavors!

Instead of all this, we need to learn to use the conscience of our children to lead them to Christ!

II. The Gracious Gift of Conscience.

During this time of God’s grace, our conscience is a gift.  It tells us that we are guilty.  It is only when our conscience convicts us that we will cry out for a Saviour.

Billy Illustration:  Last Sunday night, I went and saw Brother Billy after church.  Of course he’s hooked up to all those heart monitors getting ready to have a heart procedure the next day.  He said when the Bears scored the first touchdown, he cried out really loud, and within seconds he was surrounded by nurses and doctors! 

Imagine a man is in the hospital hooked up to all the heart monitors.  He gets over excited and the alarms start going off, letting him know that something is wrong.  What

You see before there can be an awakening, there must be an alarm.  By nature we are all sleeping in our cozy warm beds.  We do not like alarms. 

In order to lead our children or anyone to Christ, we must be willing and ready and skilled in the spiritual law of God to probe and prick the consciences of our children.

In order for this to happen, we must first of all have a conscience “void of offense”. 

Before conversion can take place, the Law of God must throw the conscience into a fit of terror of sorts.  Before a person will ever want to feel the warmth and comfort of Christ’s forgiveness, they must be horrified over their guiltiness in sin, and their condemnation, and over God’s wrath.

Application: How can we bring our children to this point?

Consistency in the Word: Psalm 19:7, “The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple.

Psalm 119:11 Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.

Psalm 1, The blessed man’s “delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night. 3  And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.”

Conclusion: Judgment Day is coming!  Don’t teach your children to hide!  Let the alarm sound loud and clear!  Remember Noah was preparing an ark and warning people.  That is a picture of Jesus Christ!  Christ will shield you and your children from sure destruction!  Let the alarm sound and point all to the one who will protect us!  Let us listen to the conscience and run to Jesus!

Closing Hymn: 361 Whiter than Snow