No Greater Joy Ministries » Protecting Your Children

Mobile Safe Kids

Mel Cohen, CFP, RFC, RTRP, General Manager — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 13:06:51 +0000

The Problem

For the past year we have been trying to help our teenage daughter deal with her exposure to porn and resulting boy crazy behavior. She has engaged in sexting, self-abuse, sneaking to contact various “boyfriends”, and lying to her father and I about her involvement in these activities. We are honestly at a loss in what to do next. We have taken her phone, she has very limited access to the internet (too late obviously). She is repentant and terribly sorry and embarrassed; she loves the Lord and wants to choose the right way. She is too young to have so many regrets. We have failed her terribly and just do not know what to do. We are willing and ready to do whatever it takes. — A Concerned Mother

A Solution

In the last Magazine, we featured an article about parents providing children with cell phones for safety, yet unknowingly putting children in harm’s way by not understanding risks associated with such communication devices. We introduced a solution to give parents the ability to make children’s communication devices safer while also gaining control and oversight. Starting May 1, 2013, we will be providing this service, leveraging the latest web-based technologies to allow you complete control of everything going into and out of your child’s mobile device(s). The service allows parents to:

Manage up to 10 different Android devices, including phones & tablets.
Locate your child remotely using his/her phone’s GPS.
View calls and texting logs to make sure your kids are not talking to an unknown person.
Restrict Internet surfing to only approved sites.

The service will also be enhanced over time to include features like:

24-hour tracking—view a log showing where your child has been over a specified time frame.
Geo-fencing—set rules based on geography. For example, if a child should be in school between 8 am and 4 pm and he/she leaves the designated location, you will be notified via text message and email.
Content filtering—parents can restrict specific content across the Web in addition to specific sites.
Support for more mobile platforms, including Apple iOS (iPad/iPhone).

In May the service will be made available FREE for 30 days with a simple download. The cost after the trial is $49.95 per year, covering up to 10 phones or tablets per family. You pick the 10 devices you want to protect. For additional information or to get your free trial, contact us via email at: info@mobilesafekids.org

How to Survive the Coming Apocalypse, Part 4: Getting Prepared

Michael Pearl — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 13:04:36 +0000

So we are not going to go through the tribulation, but there have been plenty of times in history when sudden hardship struck a nation and the people were thrown upon their own resources to survive. We could suffer national or local tribulation before the Great Tribulation. It is a small possibility, but very real, that some of us could, in our lifetime, experience a Hurricane Katrina, or Sandy, or devastating tornadoes, earthquakes, or the ravages of war—foreign or civil—or an outbreak of disease that would require us to self-quarantine, maybe something so bad it would be wise to move into the wilderness until it all blew over. Therefore, should I make preparation for such a day? If you are a parent, or are responsible for the safety and security of others, then you have an obligation to be prepared to feed and shelter them in adverse circumstances. “But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel” (1 Timothy 5:8). Have you considered what it might take to secure their safety? Are you prepared? “For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? Or what king, going to make war against another king, sitteth not down first, and consulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand?” (Luke 14:28, 31). Many people have a store of food they expect to last three months or a year. They spend lots of money on freeze-dried staples not to be eaten except in a survival situation. Eventually, when kept for a long time and not needed, they are thrown out or fed to the birds. About every 10 to 15 years there is a popular panic like Y2K or the election of someone named Hussein, and they refresh their stores. I have been around since the end of the Second World War watching the fear cycle repeat itself.

I could not hide in my basement, grinding my wheat by hand and baking bread, knowing they were next door starving.

I, too, have been concerned. I maintain a limited store of basic foods and have made preparation to have plenty of water on hand and some fuel for my vehicles and tractors, a generator, and the ability to defend my family, but my perspective is quite different from the so-called survivalist who prepares a bunker stored with food and ammunition. I feel an obligation to my brother (anyone I have not yet met) as well as to my family. I cannot turn away a person in need. (However, I reserve the right to determine whether a person is truly in need or just in want.) If I had 20 buckets of wheat and I were aware of a hungry family, I could not hide in my basement, grinding my wheat by hand and baking bread, knowing they were next door starving. Living on a farm as I do, if society were to fall apart and there were no more gasoline, food, or electricity, and a family were to come up dragging their meager belongings in a pushcart, children hungry, wife exhausted from carrying a baby, and the husband/father filled with fear and concern for his family, I could not point my gun at them and tell them to move on down the road, saying, “This is my food.” Inconceivable! What would Jesus do? If you live in a city and society were to degenerate into chaos and desperation, do you want your children and you to be the only fat people on the block? The hungry might eat you! Does your Christianity go on hold when there is not enough bread for everybody? “And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloke also. “And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. “Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away. “Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. “But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;” (Matthew 5:40–44).

Knowledge and Skill

Now I am going to share with you the heart of my preparation, and it is my suggestion for you. The best preparation for adversity is not in the stores you maintain but in the knowledge and skills you possess. It is better to be resourceful than to have resources. Knowledge is better than gold and goods. Your ability to assess your surroundings and adapt to them is something you take with you when you are stripped naked and left for dead. A man dependent upon his storehouse of treasures is necessarily a fearful and anxious man. For a Christian, it is a big dilemma. How can you reconcile eating while others starve? How can you refuse shelter and aid to anyone in need? Are you prepared to send rain on the unjust? I know this is radical, not very Southern/Mid-Western macho male, but Jesus said: “And when he had called the people unto him with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it. “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? “Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? “Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels” (Mark 8:34–38). I am not a pacifist. But after being a Christian for 54 years, walking after the Spirit of God, having my own spirit rebuked and checked 10,000 times, I have come to share a little of God’s heart in these matters, and I still have a Bible that overrules my personal feelings and institutional ideas.

Begin Preparation

Prepare your mind by learning and practicing any skill that might be needed in difficult times. Where you live will dictate areas in which you need to be prepared. If you live in New York City, you will need different skill sets than if you live on the bayou in Louisiana. I am going to share with you some of the skills I have learned that leave me comfortable with any eventuality. But the basic principle is that you must address your own personal fears and insecurities by attacking the darkness that leaves you feeling uncertain and insecure. If I lived in New York City, I would want a hot air balloon to launch from the roof of a building and float away. If that were not possible, then I would want an inflatable boat with a 15-hp motor that I could transport to the water and make my exit. If that is out of the question, then I would want a bicycle in good condition—one for every member of the family—and a couple of trailers to pull behind the bicycles, one for each child too young to ride and one for provisions—water and a little food. You would be wasting your time trying to exit the east coast in an automobile. It would take a month and a lot of bulldozer work to clear out New York City. If I lived in NYC and had a bicycle, it would make me feel that I was in control of my own life. Of course, you would need to know that you could ride 150 miles in a day and then camp out in the woods at night, snare wild game for food or make a fish trap, build a shelter, and start a fire. And it would be good to have a destination. Make preparation to move in with a family member or friend who lives away from the big cities. Visit them once or twice a year and store your goods in the back of their garage or in their barn. Develop a partnership survival pact in case it is needed. If you don’t have family or friends in safer areas, buy a run-down, cheap farmhouse on a small piece of land and make it a family project to fix it up as a vacation house and a survival enclave in case it is ever needed. Get to know the locals and learn your way around the community. A three- or four-hundred-mile bicycle ride in one week is easy to do. Traffic jams and fuel shortages won’t be a problem for you. Most of us do not live in the heart of big cities. Yet there remains a sense of insecurity when we imagine a national crisis. No matter where you live, you need to have the skills to live off the land like the pioneers and mountain men did 175 years ago. You may live on a farm right now, but what happens if you are chased off of it by government thugs or overrun by people from the cities? Can you just walk out into open country and survive with some measure of comfort? There are many books and websites on survival skills. It is not enough to view them; you must practice. Make it a family hobby to build a fire and cook on it. Build a fish trap from old chicken wire or from willow branches. Go ahead, catch some fish, and then cook them in the wild. It will do you a world of good. The thing about survival food is that it doesn’t have to be good enough to be sold in supermarkets. A cup full of minnows will add sufficient protein to your wild salad soup to sustain the entire family. Wild game is quite limited and will disappear rather quickly when a number of people begin to depend on it, but ponds, streams and lakes contain an endless supply of protein—turtles, frogs, fish, even snakes and lizards. And it is a lot easier to trap fish than it is to catch a squirrel or rabbit. Because I know I would share what I have with any who needed it, I know I can never store enough food to have any sustaining effect. So I do not have a big store. I have the ability to forage the fields and woods to gather wild things to eat. Saving garden seeds, I am prepared from one year to the next to grow what I need to eat. I save enough corn seed each year to plant and feed several hundred people for an entire year. If hard times come and a family comes to my farm, I will give them a chain saw or ax and show them how to build a log cabin in the woods, and then I will show them how to gather wild stuff to eat—greens, seeds, nuts—and show them how to walk the three miles to the river and use fish traps. I will help them become self-sufficient. They will have to plant and hoe the corn, bend over and pull the weeds, and then harvest it and grind it by hand into meal, and then cook their corn bread to go with the wild greens and acorn cakes they will bake. If they want something sweet, they can follow the wild bees and harvest honey, or in the spring they can tap maple trees and then cut and split the wood that will be used for cooking it down into syrup.

I know many people who laugh at the thought of a time of deprivation…because they know they can weather anything the world throws at them.

It will not be easy, but they will survive if they are willing to work. If they are lazy and will not work, I will not feed them. I will not give them my bedroom, and I will not cut their firewood, I will not gather their wild plants or prepare their meals. “For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat” (2 Thessalonians 3:10). Depending on one’s knowledge and skill instead of a hoarded store is most liberating. I will have nothing to steal, nothing to protect. If a man wants to take my cup of fish or my basket of wild plants, I will let him have it and go gather some more. I can give to any who ask of me and never run out, for God supplies my needs through nature. There are hundreds of books covering all the skill sets you will need, but you must have hands-on experience to gain the confidence that takes away anxiety and fear. Become a practitioner of the wilderness arts. I know many people who laugh at the thought of a time of deprivation, not because they do not believe it could happen, but because they know they can weather anything the world throws at them. They will grin and say, “It sounds like fun.”

Where to Begin?

Start camping out or buy that old farmhouse and make it your “little house on the prairie.” Buy some books or go online and learn to identify edible plants. Half of the plants growing in a field can be eaten. The other half will make you sick. You have to harvest and eat them now if you are going to be ready. Make and use small fish traps in local streams or ponds. Go for the little fish and minnows. Learn to use hand tools as well as power tools. Build something. Construct a temporary shelter out of materials you can forage—old carpet, plastic, cardboard, trees and branches, scraps of wood lying around. The kids will find it more fun than anything they have ever done. Take the family hiking and exploring. Learn the wilderness around you—water supply, caves, building material, abandoned buildings that could be commandeered in hard times. Keep on hand the tools that would be useful—chain saws, cross-cut saws, axes and hand saws, hammers and sharpened knives and machetes. Rope and wire are handy as is plumber’s tape. A small amount of chicken wire to make fish traps would be useful. Outdoor cooking pots and pans, matches and lighters, flashlights, a small solar panel to charge a radio and flashlights. I have a Geiger counter and keep iodine on hand in case the unthinkable happens. Learn how to treat disease and wounds without modern medical help. Learn how to gather and use healing herbs. Right now, begin growing something to eat. You can grow vegetables in a one-gallon pot sitting in a window. You can grow an entire garden on asphalt by using bales of straw. A garden 10 by 16 feet will feed two people all the vegetables they can eat. Most people start their gardening experience with a plot that is too big, and the labor is so intensive, they give up. Become a student and a practitioner of growing your own food.

How to Survive the Coming Apocalypse, Part 3: Worst-Case Scenarios

Michael Pearl — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 13:03:28 +0000

I hear your fears of worst-case scenarios—marauding bands of motorcycle gang members raping and pillaging. Maybe you have watched too many apocalyptic movies. In the early nineties, my son Gabriel went over to Albania to help a missionary defend an orphanage. The government was no more—no utilities, no jobs, no law. The people had broken into the military armories and stolen all the guns, grenades, rocket launchers, explosives, and anything else they wanted. Everyone was heavily armed. The missionary was concerned for the safety of the children, so he mounted a 50-caliber machine gun behind sandbags at the front door of his orphanage. While there, Gabriel purchased an SKS for $65. It was the doomsday scenario everyone fears. Yet Gabriel saw no violence to speak of. The people got dressed in the morning and walked the streets just like they were going to work. They wandered around as in a trance, disbelieving that their world had shut down. The American news reported acts of violence and mayhem, but it was somewhere other than where Gabriel was. Block after block of city dwellers did not pillage their neighbors and did not rape and riot. I lived in Memphis when Martin Luther King, Jr. was murdered. I saw on the news all the violence that ensued, but I did not see any of it personally, and I lived within one mile of the largest black community in the city. Likewise, in the LA riots, you had to tune in to the TV to actually see violence, that is, unless you owned an electronics shop in the district where such things are likely to happen.

Good people in a community will come together for mutual protection and assistance.

There is much recorded history to consider. During the two world wars in France, Germany, Russia, and other countries where for a time people were hungry and without local law, the populace did not go crazy, leaving the country in apocalyptic meltdown. Most people acted civilized and helped their neighbors. They suffered together and shared where they could. I do think there is an unreasonable fear based on Hollywood-induced imagination. Obviously, even right now in the best of times, there are places in every major city where violence is more likely, where you are risking your life to go out at night, where you are likely to be burglarized at least once a year. Certainly, in these crime-prone areas, during a period of economic collapse or a breakdown of law and order, violence will skyrocket. If you live on the edge of such an area, within easy walking distance, you could be in danger if everything goes haywire. But if you live in the suburbs with civilized people all around you, a good number of them armed, according to past history there is no reason to think you are going to be dragged into the streets and your home pillaged. In a worst-case scenario, you may get hungry, not have any utilities, have to build a wood fire and boil sewer water to drink, and be at risk of roving burglars and robbers, but good people in a community will come together for mutual protection and assistance. It has always been the case throughout history. I am not suggesting that you need not prepare for the unthinkable. I am only suggesting that your preparation should be more in line with reasonable possibilities. Don’t be consumed with preparing for something that has only happened in a Hollywood movie. Make sufficient preparations for something like the Great Depression in a calm and reasonable manner, and then get on with living the life God gave you.

Fear can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Live in faith, thanksgiving, and rejoicing.

Some people just seem to need a little fear in their lives. The world loves doomsday scenarios, movies, books, and documentaries, like kids generating tension so they can scream when the other child jumps out and says “boo.” It makes them feel alive. It would serve you much better to fear diabetes, cancer, and heart disease so as to give attention to prevention. You can do something to keep you and your children from being in the 75% that will succumb to one of these diseases. If you want to fear something, fear the 25% chance that one of your children will be molested, or the 50% chance that your spouse will get fed up with your selfishness and leave you. Fear that one of your sons will access pornography and end up being a sodomite. Fear the genetically modified food you are eating or the incurable infections being created by antibiotics. These things are real. They are happening now. One of them is more likely to happen to you than not. For a family to escape all of these is about as rare as winning the lottery. Don’t live as Job did, with fear as your vision. “For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me” (Job 3:25). Fear can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Live in faith, thanksgiving, and rejoicing. It is much better preparation for the day of distress. “Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God? But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows” (Luke 12:6–7).

How to Survive the Coming Apocalypse, Part 2: Pre-Wrath Rapture? Zombies, Earthquakes, & Scorching Heat

Michael Pearl — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 13:02:10 +0000

Dear Mr. Pearl, I know that you believe in the rapture and that Christians will not have to endure the tribulation, but I have come to believe that we will go through the tribulation but not the day of wrath, so the church will be purified as we become overcomers. Have you read the book by Rosenthal, The Pre-Wrath Rapture of the Church?

Michael answers: Yes, I read it when it was first published. As always, when I read something written by a sincere believer that differs with my position, I open my mind and try to see their point of view, making myself willing to change my views if I see that I have been wrong in my interpretation of the Bible. I read the book once, and then I read it again, taking notes and searching his arguments thoroughly. No one could be more open to his point of view than I, but I was greatly disappointed in the strength of his arguments. It seemed to be written by a man who lost his faith in the words of God. The end result of carefully considering his point of view was that it strengthened my belief in the Bible believer’s historical doctrine of the pre-tribulational rapture of all believers.

Dear Michael, I know that we are living in the last times, and I feel an urgency to get my family into a place where we can survive the tribulation that is coming. Have you written anything on how to survive the coming apocalypse?

Michael answers:

The way to survive the coming apocalypse is to reject the mark of the beast when he shows up (Revelation 14:9; 15:2; 20:4), and during the tribulation, hear, repent, believe, and obey the gospel of the kingdom preached by one of the 144,000 Jewish evangelists (Matthew 24:14), and keep the commandments of God (Revelation 12:17; 14:12) as well as the faith of Christ. Avoid drinking the water (Revelation 8:11). Store up enough painkillers to last each member of your family for five months (Revelation 9:6–10). Avoid being killed by the zombies (Revelation 9:6). Build an enclosed structure that is defensible against the starving masses (Revelation 6:8) that cannot be penetrated by flying scorpions, and prepare to stay inside during the five months that they terrorize the earth (Revelation 9:10). Don’t expect your children to repent during the tribulation (Revelation 9:20). Locate in an earthquake resistant zone (Revelation 11:13, 16:18). Prepare your structure with sufficient power supply to air condition it against the scorching heat (Revelation 16:8–9). Be prepared to move above ground when the tectonic shift takes place (Revelation 16:20). But when you do move above ground, make preparations to avoid the 60-pound hailstones (Revelation 16:21). Avoid any area in Italy, especially close to the Vatican (Revelation 18). Know that if you are able to survive the judgments of God, in the end you and all your family will be deceived by the antichrist’s lies and will be damned (2 Thessalonians 2: 8–12).

Why go through judgment when Jesus has already taken your judgment upon himself?

The last thing you will see on this earth are the Christians returning to the earth at the end of their seven-year heavenly cruise of worship and praise to set up the kingdom of heaven upon the earth. Know that if in this present age you had believed on the Lord Jesus Christ and were born again, God would have kept you from the “hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth” (Revelation 3:10). Why go through the time of judgment when Jesus has already taken your judgment upon himself? I am well aware that in the last 30 years there has been a shift from the pre-tribulation rapture to the post-wrath, or mid-trib, or post-trib, or no-trib positions. The shift is a result of two distinctive factors: degeneration in the believer’s confidence in the inspired words of God, and loss of confidence in the supernatural. Those who have made the shift are not even aware of their loss of confidence in the written words of God or of their loss of confidence in a transcended God of imminent miracles. The degree to which one believes in the inspiration of every word of the Bible and in the normal grammatical approach to interpretation is the degree to which he believes in the rapture, second coming, and the millennial (thousand-year) reign of Christ upon the earth. History attests to the fact that as men lose their faith in the words of God, they gravitate toward the allegorical approach to interpretation and move away from belief in an imminent return of Christ for his saints. The carnal mind finds it more comfortable to believe in what he can see—a coming “apocalypse” and man destroying himself—than to believe in the imminent rapture of the church. Anyone who can read English and, according to the rules of grammar, understand what he reads will come to a belief in two distinctive events separated by seven years: the unannounced and unseen rapture of the church, and the very predictable and very visible second coming of Christ with his saints. In this small magazine, it is not possible to address the subject fully. So I have found a very simple, 200-page book online—free—that does a great job of defending the pre-tribulational rapture of the church. Download the entire book and share it with others. The Rapture Solution: Putting the Puzzle Together by Allen Beechick. I have indeed read the books that teach the other positions. Now it is your turn to think for yourself and read something different. There is no reason to live in fear when you can be rejoicing in Christ’s soon appearing.

How to Survive the Coming Apocalypse, Part 1: Fear Not Them Which Destroy the Body

Michael Pearl — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 13:01:51 +0000

Dear Mr. Pearl, We live in the suburbs of a fairly large city. We homeschool our six children and also home church. We are very concerned about the way our country is going. There are so many bad things happening in the world, and the signs point to the coming of antichrist and the tribulation. We talk about moving to a remote place to live so we can protect the children when everything falls apart, but we do not have the slightest idea where to begin. If we could find a place and live around people of like mind who could help us get started, we would probably make the move. Do you have any recommendation? Do you know of a community of believers that has room for one more family?

Mike answers:

Wow! Where do I begin? There is so much in this letter that needs addressing, and it is just one of hundreds that we have received. I have asked my children to respond to some of the issues, so we are dedicating this entire magazine to this one subject. First, I want to share our personal experience with you. I can understand your consternation. Thirty or forty years ago, even before it looked like the country would descend into anarchy or civil war or financial collapse, before it was obvious that social engineering and overregulation would prevent us from living our convictions, I was concerned about keeping my family in a position to survive all the crazy, dire possibilities of doom and destruction. When I was in my teens, I knew several “whacky” adults who followed the John Birch Society. I passed them off as conspiracy nuts. Wikipedia says of the John Birch Society:

The organization identifies with Christian principles, seeks to limit governmental powers, and opposes wealth redistribution and economic interventionism. It opposes practices it terms collectivism, totalitarianism, and communism. It opposes socialism and fascism as well, which it asserts is infiltrating US governmental administration. In a 1983 edition of Crossfire, Congressman Larry McDonald (D-Georgia), then its newly appointed president, characterized the society as belonging to the Old Right rather than the New Right.

In the fifties and sixties, the warning cry was against creeping communism. The USSR was spreading its philosophy around the globe, and our leaders spoke of the “domino effect.” One by one the countries in Asia and Africa, and even our neighbors 90 miles away in Cuba were falling to the “Reds.” At the time there was serious concern about an eventual communist invasion of our homeland, taking away the liberties granted to us by God, as denoted in the Constitution. I must confess, back in the late sixties and early seventies, I saw nothing that indicated our freedoms might be at risk from within. The prophets crying doom seemed to be fringe indeed. Then the USSR dissolved and sought democratic reform. We won! Our republic would survive. No communism for us. With the “fall of communism” and the arrival of the prosperous eighties and nineties, the John Birch Society and other like organizations faded from the public eye, appearing to be discredited prophets now irrelevant. Little did I know that the “communists” would not come to America in landing craft and parachutes; they would come from our universities, be called “progressive,” and be voted into office by the people who wanted government to be the source of their prosperity. Our personal, family awakening came when the progressives (socialists) tried to engineer our family for us. By the late seventies, Deb and I had begun homeschooling, a practice unheard of in Memphis, Tennessee. After three hostile visits from Child Protective Services (CPS) with threats to take away our children, and then our big day appearing before the judge, we were beginning to wonder about a 1984-like scenario and Big Brother. Could the John Birch Society and its kind be right? We were pressed to form plans to escape the hand of those who “knew best what was good for our children.” The kids knew the signal that meant they were to go to the basement, climb up on the washing machine, open the window quietly, and slip through the woods to an old, abandoned barn about one mile away and wait for their grandparents to pick them up and take them out of state to a secret location. After several visits and warnings from CPS, a certified letter delivered by a sheriff notified us to bring our children and appear in the judge’s chamber on Monday morning at ten o’clock. We stowed the children for hasty departure from the state and went to see the judge alone. It was the first volley in a battle we fought and eventually won, but it did not give us any confidence in the goodwill of what I now knew to be our socialist government. We had raised the kids in the country, fifteen miles outside of Memphis, providing them with a pond in which to swim, free access to the woods and bottom lands, hunting and fishing, planting a small garden, and working in my wood shop. They had lots of Christian friends, most of them adults who shared their interests. We were part of a strong ministry of winning the lost to Christ and building them up in the faith. The kids saw God save thousands of people and change their lives. They knew God was the center of it all. But by 1988, with five children and the oldest having gone through puberty and one other not far behind, knowing the time of great temptation for the children was approaching, we had enough of the rat race and of trying to provide artificial community for the kids. Many of the people who shared the ministry with us did not fully embrace our convictions. It was obvious that their children would not grow up to be what we wanted ours to become. Their sons and daughters would not make good spouses. And young people tend to pick the fruit closest to the ground, hanging over the fence in their own backyards. So we sold our four-acre estate and moved to a 100-acre piece of unimproved ground in the hills of Middle Tennessee. It was a wild, crazy adventure. We logged with mules, sawed our lumber on a homemade saw mill, and built our house, barns, shop, and outbuildings. We cleared new ground, plowed, strung fences, milked cows, chased chickens, trying to recover their eggs, grew our vegetables, killed deer for our meat, ground wheat and corn for our bread, and generally lived very poor, plain lives. We loved every minute of it and the kids grew strong and resilient. None of our neighbors went to public schools or public churches. Every kid had to work hard all day long. They met at the swimming hole in the late afternoons and sometimes spent their days exploring the wooded ridges within a five-mile radius. The kids never went to a mall or movie theatre. There wasn’t—and still isn’t—a television in the house. Not one in the barn either. We did get a 15-inch screen and a VCR and on occasion let the kids watch 101 Dalmatians, The Sound of Music, and other like movies until the tapes wore out.

In the final analysis, it is not the community or the church that produces great children and tremendous adults; it is home life rooted in sincere, relaxed love of God and family that bears eternal fruit.

In the evenings we played checkers and “bored” games (spelled correctly). The girls sewed while the boys constructed spear guns or glued fletches on their arrows or practiced their fast draw. We had Bible reading and told Bible stories. Two or three nights a week we had Bible studies with other families with the kids listening attentively, participating as they were able. I took any kind of job I could get where the boys and girls could work with me, building barns and outbuildings, laying stone, or cutting hickory sticks for sale to rustic-furniture makers. The boys got a small percentage of what we made—7% and 5%, based on their age and abilities. In the spring and summer we grew organic vegetables and sold them in Nashville. That is the most difficult way to make a dollar. In the end I think I made about $2 an hour, and the kids got about $2 a day. Everybody was glad to see the end of our truck patch farm. Even in our “Christian community,” there were some families with whom we associated who matured into immaturity. Not all reaped sweet fruit. A form of godliness may conceal, but it will never heal the depravity on the inside. In the final analysis, it is not the community or the church that produces great children and tremendous young adults; it is home life rooted in sincere, relaxed love of God and family that bears eternal fruit. A rotten relationship, or just an empty relationship, between husband and wife and parents and kids is a soul poison without an antidote. Genuine, laughing love immersed in creativity is a miracle cure-all that supercharges the soul and grows up children that are too healthy to come down with soul diseases. My children now range from 29 to 39 years old and they have given us 21 grandkids—so far. I can say without reservation that the fruit of old age is sweet indeed. There is nothing but harmony and goodwill in the family. God has blessed us beyond our deserts. He gives us grace for grace. What God began in a 13-year-old boy (when I was born again) and a 9-year-old girl 54 years ago, he has been faithful to continue in ways that leave us wanting for nothing and without regrets. From personal experience I can highly recommend the Christian life based on the Spirit of grace and mercy. Fear Not Now, it seems like I have gotten away from my subject of preparing for hard times, but I haven’t. I just want to testify that the dark curtain coming down over our nation does not cause us to fear. Hard times on the outside don’t have to translate into hard times on the inside. We do not want to be numbered with those whose “hearts [are] failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth” (Luke 21:26). Jesus said, “And fear not them which kill the body…” (Matthew 10:28). And again he said, “But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows” (Luke 12:7). And again Jesus reassures us, “Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32). As to hoarding for hard times ahead, Jesus said, “Sell that ye have, and give alms; provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth” (Luke 12:33).

Hard times on the outside don’t have to translate into hard times on the inside.

No doubt most Christians need to make some lifestyle changes if they want to be prepared for societal unrest and economic depression. But our starting point must be faith, not fear. “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love” (1 John 4:18). We need to be celebrating life and liberty in the spirit, not complaining and whining about the poor state of the state. We must claim the promise, “Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth” (Revelation 3:10). I have a ticket out of here before the Great Tribulation (Jacob’s troubles/the time of wrath). More on that later in this magazine. Come What May So come what may, if the worst does happen, our generation will not be the first to suffer deprivation or persecution. The writer of Hebrews indicates that the trials that come upon us are to give us the opportunity to become overcomers, to crown us with glory, to build faith. He says of sufferings, “all are partakers” (Hebrews 12:8). The writer of Hebrews dedicates an entire chapter to those in adversity who did not fear but established a testimony of faith. “And what shall I more say? for the time would fail me to tell of Gedeon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthae; of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets: “Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, “Quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. “Women received their dead raised to life again: and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection: “And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: “They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; “(Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. “And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise: “God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect. “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. “For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds” (Hebrews 11:32–12:3). Caring for Our Own

If you are like me, you feel a strong, instinctual need to make provision for your family’s safety and comfort.

But just because we have peace on the inside and can overcome the world, that does not mean I want to be thrown into the fiery furnace, or go hungry, or be vulnerable to a political system hostile to traditional family and Christianity. It would be foolish to sit on my faith and take lightly the possibility of coming hardship and deprivation. We should prepare but not panic. We should plan while we pray. We should get ready but remain steady. While laying up our treasure in heaven, we should lay up a store for the day of famine here on earth. Did not God warn the Egyptians of hard times coming? And did not their preparation see them through the days of dearth? Noah received a warning of coming judgment and “prepared an ark to the saving of his house” (Hebrews 11:7). While believing in God’s care and provision, we can save him a miracle by using the brain he gave us to take care of ourselves. “But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel” (1 Timothy 5:8). If you are like me, you feel a strong, instinctual need to make provision for your family’s safety and comfort. A farmer should have faith, but he must also put his hand to the plow. The Pearl family has made preparation against the days of trial, and we are comfortable with our position in a worst-case scenario. So we dedicate this magazine to some very practical suggestions that, if heeded, can cause you to feel sufficiently prepared come what may. We can say with the apostle Paul: “What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? “He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? “Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth. “Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? “As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. “Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. “For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, “Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:31–39).

Do You Know Where Your Children Are?

Mel Cohen, CFP, RFC, RTRP, General Manager — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 14:10:36 +0000

Parents have unknowingly put their children in harm’s way by not understanding the risks associated with these communication devices.

Can you always answer the familiar question “Do you know where your children are?” The question is no longer easy to answer, even if they are sitting just a few feet away. You can change that with a new NGJ service that will address the problems with kids and their phones. According to a new study from Nielsen, kids have gone mad with texting, data usage, and application downloads on their mobile devices. Nielsen analyzed the mobile data habits and surveyed more than 3,000 teens during April, May, and June of 2012. The numbers are staggering! Teen females sent an incredible 4,050 texts per month, while teen males send an average of 2,539 texts. The primary reason parents provide their children cell phones is for safety! Yet parents have unknowingly put their children in harm’s way by not understanding the risks associated with these communication devices. The immaturity level of children means they do not ascertain threats or have enough discipline to limit usage, and most parents have no idea how dangerous unlimited access is. Jesus said, “The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” (John 10:10). Evil is walking through an open door (your child’s mobile device) and stealing children away with intent to destroy.

What Is the Solution?

Starting May 1, 2013, we will be providing a service that will allow you complete control of everything going into and out of your child’s mobile device. The service will provide parents the ability to:

Manage up to 10 different devices, including phones and tablets.
Locate your child remotely using his/her phone’s GPS.
View calls and texting logs to make sure your kids are not talking to an unknown person.
Restrict Internet surfing to only approved sites. For example, you may say no to specific websites with unsuitable themes, language, or pornography.

The service will also be enhanced over time, including features like:

24 hour tracking, which allows you to view a log showing where your child has been over the time frame of your choosing.
Geo-fencing—setting rules based on geography. For example, if a child should be in school between 8 am and 4 pm and he/she leaves the protected area outside of the geo-fence, you will be notified via text message and email.
Content filtering, allowing parents to restrict specific content across the Web, not just restrict specific sites.
Support for additional mobile platforms.

In May the service will be made available free for 30 days with a simple download. The cost after the trial is $49.95 per year, covering up to 10 phones or tablets per family. You pick the 10 devices you want to protect. For additional information or to get your free trial, contact us via email at info@mobilesafekids.org. It is time to shut the door and lock it and to keep the thief from accessing a door leading directly to our children’s hearts and minds. “My son, let not them depart from thine eyes: keep sound wisdom and discretion” (Proverbs 3:21).

Six Ways Parents Destroy Their Children Without Trying

Michael Pearl — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 14:05:47 +0000

God promises, “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6). Parents, who see one of their children hit the fan, often have a hard time appreciating this verse. In fact, as the homeschool movement ages there are more and more parents claiming the verse does not mean what it says, because it didn’t hold true in their experience. Here are just a few of the reasons a child is lost to the world and how parents caused it to happen without even trying. I say “without trying” because when children turn out poorly, as many do, parents are at a loss as to why. It is always unexpected—certainly unplanned. An eighteen-year-old is unthankful and rebellious, walks around like the family is his enemy and he has been enslaved and abused by them his whole life. Anger is his first response to everything and to nothing. If you view old TV programs made 50 years ago of families relating to one another, they look like today’s ideal Christian homeschool family. Daddy is respected and honored and Mother is cherished. Family problems were always resolved with good cheer and forgiveness. Teenage morality was taken for granted. The future was bright and full of hope, and there was no state of rebellion in the kids. In contrast, modern TV and movies usually represent today’s average family—accurately I might add—as dysfunctional psycho wards of vindictive anger and disrespect. In most movies the family is already divorced or going through the painful process. If a movie were made with a teenager loving his parents as they love their children and each other, and everyone with good cheer and hope for the future, it would be considered corny and unrealistic to the point that the only people who could relate to it would be the ones who stopped watching TV thirty years ago. So I am going to tell you how kids come to a ruinous end without their parents exerting any effort or attention to the process at all. In fact, that is the first step toward sabotaging your children’s future—no effort and no attention.

1. Get so busy providing for them that you don’t have time for them.

Children are like plants growing every day. They need regular attention and direction.

When children turn out poorly, as many do, parents are at a loss as to why.

I plant a garden every year. And about half of the time I wait too long to stake my tomatoes. A small plant doesn’t need staking. and I tell myself I will stake them before it becomes critical. But it may rain for an entire week, or I get busy doing something else and can’t get around to it. The plant gets so big the stems fall on the ground. When the leaves of a tomato plant are exposed to the soil they quickly develop disease. When the fruit touches the ground it will rot about the time it should be getting ripe. This year I had a second late patch that I intended to stake but waited too long. I finally staked them but too late to prevent the disease. It is not what I did; it is what I didn’t do that spoiled the crop. So it is with children, they need constant pruning and fertilizing and training to grow up instead of down—to reach for blue skies instead of crawling along the ground. So the worst thing you can do for your children is just ignore them and allow nature to take its course. Plan on training them but never get around to it. Children need the constant sunshine of their parents’ smile and approval. They need to be pointed in the right direction day after day. They need admonition like a plant needs fertilizer. And as water activates the fertilizer, making it available to the roots, smiles activate our admonition making it available to the soul of the child. Children raised right grow up right, no exceptions. It is God’s certain promise (Proverbs 22:6).

2. Set a bad example.

The second thing parents do that will assure a bitter outcome for the children is to set a bad example. Some people would say fighting in front of the kids has negative consequences. All fighting whether in front of the kids or in private will be destructive, but the most destructive things is not the fighting as much as how you fight and how it is resolved. I have known families that had big fights, but—I hope you can understand this—their fights were not personal. They were resolved as publicly as they were waged, and the public displays of anger did not create deep hurt in anybody. There are some loving souls that express themselves loudly and with emotion. They punctuate their points with explosive words and gestures, but they are equally as effulgent in their make-up and passionate love. Kids come to understand the heart of their parents and are more influenced by their intentions than their rhetoric. A wife of a certain temperament can scream at her husband that she hates him, and the children hear her saying, “I love you so much, you exasperate me to the point I could kick you just before we make love again.” The kids know the outcome is going to be as always, Mom and Pop making up and saying they are sorry and that they didn’t mean it and melting in each other’s arms. Public fights should be resolved in public so the kids can see the process of how it is worked out and how forgiveness and understanding occurs.

So the worst thing you can do for your children is…plan on training them, but never get around to it.

I have seen other families where the parents were careful to never fight in front of the kids, but the children are able to see the tension and ill will building, and they observe it being taken into the bed room where they occasionally hear muffled but raised voices. The parents come out not speaking to each other, followed by hours or days of emotional distance. Now that kind of fighting is indeed harmful to the children. They are able to read the souls of their parents and they feel the bitterness and hate in every moment of silence and self-control. Bad example. Leaf blight. Rotting fruit. The bad example extends to every area of life. Any discipline you want your children to have you must exemplify it yourself. You can set a bad example in criticizing others, in carelessness with money, unthankfulness, unkindness, laziness, irresponsibility, and more. Be what you want your children to be and you will be providing the best training possible.

3. Expressing displeasure regularly.

This is a biggie. It is so subtle that parents don’t even know it is happening. I have observed parents relating to their children in intermittent displeasure and seen the negative effect it is having. When they ask my advice I have pointed out their destructive tendency to always criticize or show displeasure with their child. They are usually shocked and unbelieving. “I love my children,” they exclaim. And I respond, “But?” They fill in the blank, “But, he is so stubborn and willful, always doing the opposite to what I tell him.” And with exasperation, and what I detect as anger, they say, “I have spanked him and it seems to do no good; I just don’t know what to do any more.” I follow up with, “You say he is stubborn most of the time; how do you respond most of the time?” She answers, “Sure, I am displeased; what else could I be; I can’t be happy when he is so stubborn.” It is a vicious cycle. A child’s bad behavior provokes looks of displeasure and looks of displeasure provoke bad attitudes leading to bad behavior. I have said it so many times. If you cannot train your children to do as they ought, it is far better to lower your standards and enjoy them as they are than to allow your looks of displeasure to become the norm. A kid may grow up to be undisciplined and self-willed, but there is no reason to add to it a feeling of being unloved and unable to please.

Any discipline you want your children to have you must exemplify yourself.

I am not suggesting that there is not a remedy that solves the bad behavior. I only emphasize that a vital part of stopping the bad behavior is to cease the cycle of looks of rejection, followed by more bad behavior, followed by more looks of rejection, followed by “I hate you and never want to see you again; why did you have to be my mother/father?” I have spoken of it elsewhere, especially in my DVD, The Joy of Training, and the article, The Flavor of Joy (found in the back of To Train Up A Child), so I will not go into detail here, but suffice to say, child training is causing the child to want to please you and be like you. They will want to please you only when they find pleasure in your presence. You must become the vital source of their joy if they are going to give up their rebellion and choose to exercise self-discipline and self-denial.

4. Not enforcing boundaries.

The next best way to destroy your children without trying is to fail to enforce boundaries. It is easy to do—to not enforce boundaries. Just love your kids and believe they will turn out OK as long as you do not create any self-loathing or feelings of rejection like we talked about above. Smile and believe in the innate goodness of their sweet little hearts, and trust that someday they will grow up and take responsibility for their actions. It is easy to avoid enforcing boundaries because it is the path of least resistance. You don’t have to stir yourself or upset the kids. Let them do as they please—free expression, you know—and they will become your average normal reprobate. But at the least you won’t look like the party pooper. It is a do nothing job that has been left undone by millions of parents. If children all came into the world disciplined and wise and willing to deny their impulses for the greater good, we could just leave them to free expression, but every parent knows better. All children come to us innocent but fallen. They are hedonistic, self-indulging hippies in their natural state. Left to themselves they will bring their mothers to shame (Proverbs 29:15). Adults are supposed to be mature enough to choose the virtuous path and do what they ought to do even if is contrary to their desires. That is character, something that you’re not born with; it has to be developed. And children don’t have character unless they are properly trained. Children do not see the need for self-denial or self-restraint. They feel desire and they do what feels good. So if a parent does nothing, their children will become quite schooled in the dark arts of self-indulgence. Therefore, parents must constrain their children to right behavior. In time their moral understanding will develop and they will begin to choose good, even when it is contrary to their carnal desires. Character is formed, and as training continues his character grows stronger until he matures into an adult.

5. Leaving them to choose their friends.

Many parents have done a good job in training their young children, and have put them on a path of virtue, but in their early teens they are influenced by their peers and yield to temptation while knowing it is not the right path. Even well trained children are flesh and are capable of falling into sin—just as is a moral, disciplined adult. Kids are not wise. They do yet understand the consequences of wrong choices. They need guidance and oversight until they are about twenty years old—sometimes a little older. About the time kids graduate from college they are wise enough to discern good from evil. If you disagree with that assessment, explain spring break at the beach, or fraternity initiations. Woe! It all starts very young. You must choose the social circle for your children and guard it. The quickest way to throw your children away is to enroll them in daycare or preschool or first grade. You lose all control over their friends, and they will become part of the social pool, eventually reduced to the lowest common denominator. If your child shares a pool with kids where just one of them has crapped in the water, your kid is swimming in crap. A few good kids don’t keep the water clean, but one bad kid pollutes it for everybody. I cannot remember the good kids in my third grade, but there were a couple bad ones I will never forget. I can remember their foul words and deeds to this day.

It all starts very young. You must choose your children’s social circle and guard it.

This is probably the hardest thing for a parent to do. It requires great effort and constant vigilance to sift your social circle. There are times your kids will not understand, and there are times that other parents are offended, but a mother hen should guard her chicks against the foxes and coyotes, regardless. It may require an adjustment to your lifestyle to protect your kids. A chicken that has roosted under a chicken hawk nest needs to move even if it is inconvenient. If your church is full of public school kids, you will need to keep your children at your side all the time and not allow them to get personal with a child going to public school. It becomes impossible to limit the social contact of a teenager in such an environment. They shouldn’t have the burden of constantly choosing or eliminating people from their acquaintance. Find a social circle that is righteous and productive where you have nothing to fear from 25 of the teenagers getting together to play soccer or go roller skating together. Remember, they will evolve from you providing their complete social circle to choosing for themselves. You cannot control them past the age when they grow to be autonomous, so you must train them to wisely chose their friends. For the time will come when what you say has little bearing. Train them before they are ten and you can trust them when they are twenty.

6. Finally, you can destroy your children by not giving them any responsibility or holding them accountable.

Remember the key ingredient is “without trying.” Neglect or preoccupation is the culprit. It is operating under the assumption that somehow everything will work out. You are best suited to the task of training your children when you work under the assumption that they are destined to ruin unless you get proactive and do some things much better than the average parent. Responsible action is the duty of all people, and accountability is the inevitable result of being part of a society where the principle of cause and effect is well understood. When there are two people in the room, insofar as they can have an effect on the other, each is responsible for his actions, and the law of love makes us responsible for our neighbor’s well-being. “Let no man seek his own [to advance self], but every man another’s wealth” (1 Corinthians 10:24). Seek to advance the wealth of your neighbor. You should give your children responsibility according to their ability. A child who can walk should be held responsible to pick up his dirty clothes and put them in the laundry basket, clean up spills, and place his toy and books back where they belong. This is the foundation of all future responsible actions. As they get older, they should be responsible to do their share in domestic chores. They should be held responsible to keep up with their boots and shoes if they take them off outdoors. If a kid loses his shoes he should have to work to make the money to buy a used pair at the second hand store. Even a five-year-old can appreciate the value of responsible action when he has to pay the price for irresponsibility. If a teenager throws a ball through the window he should pay to have it repaired. Accountability is what you demand and exact when they are caused to answer for the way they have handled their responsibility. If you fail to hold them accountable, they are in fact not responsible. It is much easier to do it ourselves, but the children must learn, and the burden falls on us to stay involved for their sakes. I have observed a beautiful principle. The children most accountable to act responsibly are the happiest and most secure in love and grounded in good will. You learn to love your neighbor one act of caring at a time. This could have been a list of ten or fifteen ways parents destroy their children without trying, but these six are about all we can stand in one dose. I still believe the Word of God when it says, “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6). I know there has been a movement to disbelieve the passage as the Holy Spirit inspired it, but the fact remains that when they are trained right they stay right without interruption until they are old. I am an example of right training, as is my wife. My five children were trained in the way they should go and I now see all twenty of my grandchildren (more on the way) being trained that way. I expect a continuance of 100% positive results just as God promised. I will not lower the standard, and you should not lower your expectations because of the poor results others are experiencing. It is difficult in our world “to train up a child in the way he should go,” and some very good and sincere people fail, not for want of personal righteousness, and not from want of trying, but from want of training the kids in the way they should go. Those who fail should not deny the standard but humbly admit their failure to have trained properly. They can analyze the reasons for their failure and have added wisdom to contribute to those parents who are still in the game training their kids. Finally, if you have young children still in the process, but your oldest son has been a disappointment, don’t give up. Humbly ask your wayward son where you went wrong. It doesn’t matter what you said, or what you did, or what you intended; the bottom line is what did he believe and feel. If you cannot let go of the anger and resentment toward him or you spouse, and you cannot humble yourself enough to listen to him instead of condemn, then truly there is no hope for the rest of your children. I have seen families lose their first child to the world, but take it as a wakeup call, and revive their hearts and efforts, resulting in saving the other children from the same fate. Even if you failed with your first child, the promise is still true and you can “Train up a child in the way he should go,” knowing of a certainty “he will not depart from it.”

In the News

Debi Pearl — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 21:05:42 +0000

I did something to my man this past month, something I never believed possible: I put makeup on his nose. Yep, you heard me correctly. The news folks said he needed a little lipstick, but that is where he drew the line. You will never know how difficult it has been on the old boy … and he did it for you! This battle with the press reminds me of the days back in the early ‘80s when we were forced to meet the press over the homeschool issue. It was bad in those days; even the conservative Christians felt that anyone who homeschooled was rebellious. After all, a good Christian always obeys the powers that be, and in those days homeschooling was breaking the law. Really, at that point there was no law for or against homeschooling, only the law of truancy from the government-mandated public schools. Do you know that NOW your liberties are being threatened in a much greater way? There is a group of elitists that would like to take away the rights of the parent. They want to get in the home. They don’t believe you know how to raise your children. They lost the homeschooling battle, so they chose a new inroad—spanking, which they call “hitting.” It is a way they can take control of the family, and it is downright scary. Sweden passed laws against all forms of corporeal punishment 33 years ago, so it is the ideal laboratory in which to observe the consequences of abandoning traditional child-training methods. The generation raised on positive affirmation is now in their early thirties, and over 50% of the children are in some kind of therapy. Teen violence, crime, and antisocial behavior have risen 600%. In addition, parental violence against children has risen dramatically. Yet the law remains in place as people police-spy on each other and report any parents who would dare use any form of corporeal discipline upon their children. In accord with a UN mandate, 28 other countries have made it a crime to physically discipline children. Parents are placed in jail (and children are put into the government system) for practicing traditional child training. It is coming to the US. The question is when? Five years from now or twenty-five? I don’t know, but the media has chosen Mike and No Greater Joy as the representatives of traditional parenting, and they are coming at us with lying vengeance. Mike did two TV interviews last week and one on the radio. Tomorrow a crew is flying in from the East Coast to do their best to promote their socialist, progressive, anti-family agenda. So tomorrow, again, I will dot makeup over Mike’s old, spotty nose and he will stand on your behalf and fight the battle for parents to be free to raise their children in the admonition of the Lord. Pray for him. Your children need him to win this battle.

Be Careful Little Feet Where You Go

Debi Pearl — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 13:02:20 +0000

My friend Aaron told me that when he was about four years old his old grandpa offered him a taste of beer. His very conservative parents would have been horrified if they had known about it. Aaron said that one sip of beer made a permanent impression upon him. From that point on he knew that “Beer is yucky.” I had another friend who said that when he was about six years old his teenage cousin offered him a drag off his cigarette. The poor little boy spent the rest of the afternoon puking while his mean cousin laughed. The misery of a sick stomach and the mockery forever destroyed any mysterious appeal of smoking. It is interesting that it takes a lot of practice to learn to appreciate something as repulsive as smoking or the taste of beer, but when it finally takes root it quickly becomes a very compelling habit. In a natural sense, the young child doesn’t like either. It takes an effort to dull and kill the natural sense of taste and smell in order to want to indulge. I saw a classic example of this while on vacation. It was sin at the end of life’s road. While we were on vacation down at the coast we kept seeing an advertisement that read, “Best seafood bar ever for only $21.95.” Now that is a lot of money just to eat, but we only go on vacation occasionally and never get fresh seafood. We decided to try it out. Since we have four children we figured, or at least hoped, that like all good restaurants, this one would offer “free eats” for very young children and maybe half-price meals for the others. Even with a price break for the children it would still be an expensive meal, but a real treat. I guess I was thinking about all this when I read the advertisement because I didn’t notice that the restaurant was in a casino. Since we had already driven across the city to find this place, we decided to go ahead with our plans. Even though it was early in the day, which I thought would be before the normal hours of casino activities, I knew I needed to do a thorough job of explaining the evils of a casino to my children. So before entering I explained in great detail how people go to casinos thinking they are going to win free money but in the end they always lose money. It was really just paying to play some stupid games. I told them the casino business set up the machines so that everyone wins occasionally, which is just to keep them playing, but at the end of the day the machine has most of their money. I explained that wise people never indulge in such foolishness. All these things I had heard, although I had never actually been in a gambling establishment myself. This was going to be a learning event for all of us. What a surprise we had coming! We walked up the steps and entered the magnificent building. As the huge double-doors opened we could hear the clanging of the winner’s bell. The interior was dim, and at first all we could detect was a smoky atmosphere. And then there was the odor. As a rule children have very acute senses, so I knew my four children must be reeling. The odor was old, nasty, and certainly not conducive to paying $21.95 to eat. “But maybe the restaurant is isolated from all this,” I thought. As our eyes adjusted, we were able to see two long lines of slot machines on either side of the long walk we must take to reach the steps leading up to where the sign indicated we would find the restaurant. The sight before us was both horrifying and fascinating. We all stared at the decrepit people sitting hunched over each slot machine. It looked like some kind of a freak show. My first thought was of a Mad Magazine I saw as a kid. Every player had the appearance of having died and fossilized while sitting in front of the machine. Most were old, hard, whorish-looking women dressed in what they must have thought was sexy clothes, their thin orange hair making a fuzzy halo around their heads. I noticed a cigarette hanging from each of their thin, red, painted lips. Yikes! Was I in a nightmare? If I was, please someone wake me up! But it was real. There was little movement only for a brief moment when they pulled the lever down. As I stood watching I identified the odor. It was old flesh, diapers damp with pee, stale smoke, and hacking coughs bringing up cancerous smells. Surely this was just one step from hell. We, as a family, rushed the 100 feet through the row of slot machines. I figured the kids were holding their breaths, because I sure was. We raced up the steps, then stopped, totally dismayed. Before us was another long line of slot machines, each occupied with more dreadful figures, each momentarily coming alive, like they were using their last ounce of life, to yank the arm down. The awful odor was now mixed with the smell of cooking fish. Thankfully, through the smoky gloom we could see the lights of the restaurant. We rushed past the animated corpses as if there was salvation in the restaurant. The waiter looked discomforted to see the children. With his nose in the air he informed us there would be NO discount for children in this eating establishment. His words squeaked like an open gate, releasing us from our misguided intentions. We turned as one and almost ran down the first corridor of hell, down the steps, and then with our eyes focused on the double doors we fled to the light beyond. Once in the clean air and bright sunlight, we exhaled from our lungs the fumes of death and sucked in fresh air. Finally, breathing normally, we stood looking at each other in relief. We had escaped. My 8-year-old daughter spoke for us all: “Man, I would rather eat junk off the sidewalk than eat in that gross dungeon.” The whole visit was an exercise in the degradation of mankind. The people sitting there no longer noticed the foul odor; they had become accustomed to their eyes burning from the thick cloud of smoke, and their souls had long since lost consciousness of the ugliness around them. To the lost souls, sitting at the slot machines was thrilling; the possibility of winning gave them a fix I will never understand. Sin, time, and conditioning had stolen their dignity, had dulled their senses, and would soon take their souls. I will never need to caution my children against gambling or entering places of ill repute. One visit through the doors of hell had steeled their souls to hate that sort of degradation forever. God in his mercy helps me as I seek Him to raise my family to honor Him. We all learned a lesson that day: “Be careful, little feet, where you go.” —Debi Pearl, as told by Nathan Pearl

Organize and Manage

Michael Pearl — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 13:00:57 +0000

Eleven-month-old Suzie was hurrying across the store toward the big, swinging, automatic doors. Her Daddy saw the danger and called, “Suzie, come back here.” But the sound of his command lacked finality and expectancy which was confirmed by his immediate jumping up and racing to intercept the child before the doors swung open again. When Suzie heard his voice, she looked over her shoulder and picked up speed, running away in an almost stumbling, controlled fall, as if there were a wonderful prize at some finish line. I could see that she was thrilled with the chase. Daddy, too, was running and he caught her just before a customer on the outside stepped past the infra-red beam that would cause the 150-pound door to swing open like a giant child-swatter. Suzie just laughed and squirmed to get free. Mother looked a little distressed, and Daddy looked as if he were wishing he was back at work, bossing his employees who not only paid attention to his commands but even to his suggestions—at least the ones he keeps on the payroll. I have observed and engaged a sufficient number of parents, both in action and in conversation, to have made a very good guess about what this frustrated father was thinking. I’m certain he was proud of his patience and tenderness, knowing that he was not being overbearing or insensitive toward this child. His philosophy clearly is, “She’s a handful, but kids will be kids! Just love them, and in time they will turn out all right.” No doubt, he was solaced by the fact that in the best of times she responds to his commands. He has “faith” that such a sweet child will survive and eventually “grow into” obedience. I cautiously mentioned to him that he could actually train her to stop upon command, pointing out how much safer it would be if she obeyed instantly. He brushed it off with, “Oh, she is not being disobedient; we play games like that.” And then he made some comment about how he didn’t like to spank his children except in extreme situations. He didn’t really consider it to be disobedience in a child so young. He was a foolish young father, not yet having seen the final end of the seeds of self-will and rebellion he was sowing. I chose this example because there is nothing extreme about it; it is the kind of thing that happens often, and no one considers it much of a problem. I could speak of children constantly whining, occasionally screaming, kicking, demanding, and eventually striking their parents. Just go to Wal-Mart and you will see plenty of examples of untrained children and countless frustrated parents. There is no doubting that this young father was limited in his thinking. He saw only two options: either let her run and act at her discretion (up to the point of hurting herself or someone else), or do the unpleasant thing and spank her for disobeying. He didn’t understand the need for, or even the concept of and the simplicity of training. He reasoned that if he spanked her for every act of disobedience he would be spanking her excessively. He enjoyed fellowship with his little girl and felt that even if he rebuked her for not responding to voice commands he would be losing the congenial, fun spirit they shared. Like many parents, he has the best of motives, but experience has repeatedly demonstrated that good motives are no more productive in child training than in operating a computer. Many things can go wrong. Trusting that a child will somehow find the right way and do it without being constrained to do so must have been the source of this biblical passage “…a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame” (Proverbs 29:15). Many parents bathe their children in a pool of indulgence and permissiveness, thinking it to be an expression of their deep love, assuming that children should be allowed a time of irresponsibility and unimpeded pleasure. - Michael Pearl