Martin Wickens

We live in a time and culture where choice, and not responsibility receives all the attention, and admiration. This post kind of meanders through several points, and I feel like an entire series is needed to fully expound things. But ultimately I want to focus in on our children. I hope you’ll follow my train of thought and we’ll get back to children and choices at the end of this post.

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We rob children of their childhood not only by exposing them to sin, but also by giving them choices long before they are capable of weighing all the options and realizing the consequences.

This clip from the Andy Griffith show from 1961 sums things up well,

The Idol of Choice

A person’s right to do almost whatever they want, whenever they want is the unwritten law that dominates humanity. Some examples of how choice permeates society are small on their own and innocuous in many ways. Yet, when seen as an outworking of a sinful heart and a society increasingly separated from God, they paint a disturbing picture.

With the advent of the internet, and particularly Web 2.0 and with Web 3.0 unfolding, people can get what they want, when they want.

• The iPod and other media players meant you did not have to share the music choices of those around you. Listen to what you want, when you want.

• Capitalism and immigration have mingled the world like never before. You can eat a different style of food every day for a month and never have the same thing twice. You can eat what you want whenever you want. DoorDash means you don’t need to even leave your home. Just eat what you want when you want.

• Hulu, Disney+, Amazon Prime, Netflix, and more all give you the choice to watch what you want when you want. The cheapness of technology means everyone in your family can watch something alone. Whatever they want. Whenever they want.

• Social Media removes the necessity of getting along with the people around you. You don’t like your community? Just find the one online that suits you. Any time of the day or night jump online and choose your friends. Whatever friends you want whenever you want them.

• You don’t like the temperature? Turn it up or down. Make hot days cold and cold days hot. You choose. Whatever you want whenever you want.

The abundance of choices the average person has today would make even the greatest Pharaohs and Emperors jealous.

Marketing and the sinful soul have brought together the perfect storm. If you want to see the measure of a person then start removing some of their choices. You deserve to watch whatever you want, to eat whatever you want, to be friends with whomever you want, to listen to whatever you want, because as L’Oreal began telling people in the 1970’s “You’re Worth It.”. To remove a choice is to remove your worth and to oppress you and that will not be tolerated by the gurus of our age.

The Consequences of Choices

The devastating lie that Satan initiated in Eden is that choices can happen without negative consequences or any consequences at all. It is what so many people believe today and woe to anyone who tries to convince them otherwise or attempts to make them face up to their consequences.

Even when risk is known a part of the lie shields many people from making better choices. The second part of the lie is that bad consequences only happen to other people. Every drunk driver knows the risk, but only other people crash. Every drug user knows the risk, but only other people overdose or get addicted.

Our wealth and technological advances also combine to shield people from a lot of the bad consequences of wrong choices.

Yet, consequences, one way or another, will catch up with everyone one day. Whether in this life or the next. They can be ignored or avoided for a time, but God has put a law of sowing and reaping into this world and it cannot be escaped forever.

Children Making Choices

There’s more than I could unravel in a single post, and probably more to it than I can wrap my head around, but something happens to societies as they near collapse.

As philosophers and historians considered history and recorded their own societies for posterity certain patterns have emerged. From the Akkadian Empire nearly 4000 years ago to the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Huns, Chinese, Mayans, and British this pattern unfolds. The average civilization lasts for 336 years, most are closer to 250. One historian and anthropologist, Sir John Glubb, lists six stages of societal collapse (others see more or at least break those 6 down into further categories).

1. The Age of Pioneers (think of Columbus, Sir Walter Raleigh, David Livingstone etc)
2. The Age of Conquest
3. The Age of Commerce (this is often when the values held so strongly in the first age begin to collapse)
4. The Age of Affluence (Honor, respect, virtue take a nose dive at this stage)
5. The Age of Intellect
6. The Age of Decadence

For the sake of this post I want to quote Glubb on this point,

“Frivolity, aestheticism, hedonism, cynicism, pessimism, narcissism, consumerism, materialism, nihilism, fatalism, fanatics and other negative behaviours and attitudes suffuse the population. Politics is increasingly corrupt, life increasingly unjust. A cabal of insiders accrues wealth and power at the expense of the citizens, fostering a fatal opposition of interests between haves and have nots. The majority lives for bread and circuses (panem et circusem); they worship celebrities instead of divinities…. throw off social and moral restraints — especially sexuality; shirk duties but insist on entitlements.”

Sir John Glubb

Entitlements? A big part of being entitled is the opportunity and perceived divine right to make choices.

As promised, let’s bring it back to the children.

Something God reveals, and perhaps it could be found in historical cases, is that as society collapses the social order that God has built into the world, just as true as the law of gravity, is turned on its head.

And I will give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them.  And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbour: the child shall behave himself proudly against the ancient, and the base against the honourable.

Isaiah 3:4-5

If choice has been made the priority in our lives, our greatest pleasure is from making choices, and our self-worth is found in the right to choose whatever we want then it follows we would want that for our children. Further, as society rejects the mores and culture of an older generation their increasingly place their hope in the children. Have you noticed how the media and populace love young politicians? There’s a race to see who can elect the youngest, most inexperienced politician and give them the keys to the kingdom.

Isaiah speaks of the most inexperienced, and weakest among them, being put in charge. The results are rarely, if ever, positive.

A big part of the problem with children making choices is their inexperience and their physical inability to process information as their bodies and brains are awash with hormones and desires they struggle to comprehend. They are not stupid, though they may do stupid things. They are not any worse than adults, though they are sinners like anyone else. They are not hopeless. They are children. And we should treat them as such.

I believe part of the problem with the age we’re in is that the adults behave little better than children, and with few viable alternatives, many people reason, “Why not give the kids a chance to run the asylum?”

What Can We Do?

I could be entirely wrong. The historians, philosophers, advertising gurus, anthropologists, and theologians could have it wrong. Maybe these cycles don’t exist. Maybe we’re at a different age than it appears even if they do. Maybe we can turn things around.

Here’s what is true. Children cannot be left alone to make serious life choices. You don’t trust them to only choose to eat what they want to eat, why give them life-altering choices? Some children grew up faster than others. But most? Most would choose ice cream for every meal. Vegetables would rarely if ever be seen. Yet, our society wants them to make choices about sexuality, gender, and a thousand more things that should be chosen for them.

Here’s a rabbit trail I won’t chase, but be aware. If a child is allowed to choose their gender and sexuality, then why not let them choose whatever sex partner they want, even if it’s an adult? I hope such a possibility repulses you, but there are pedophiles arguing for this today. Why not, the filth in our society argues, choice is a divine right and why not let our kids act like gods?

So, what can you do?

You may only be able to weld a minimal difference in your nation. But, as the majority rush headlong off the cliff of the age of decadence, you can uphold Biblical morals and virtues.

You can make a difference in your home.

Choose God and His Word and make Christian ethics a priority. Choose to be faithful and first above all else disciples of Jesus Christ.

Choose to make choices for your children. One day they will grow up and make their own choices. When they’re young you prepare them to make choices later on, but don’t put choices on your children too soon.

Choose to reject this world and its ways. Shut it out. Shut it down. Don’t let it in through via the wrong friends. Don’t let it sneak in through social media, movies, and TV. I can’t warn you strongly enough of the dangers of smartphones and social media on our children. Make a choice for yourself and your family to protect yourselves from the predators in the world.

Andy Griffith put it perfectly in the context of our children.

Joshua put it better in Joshua 24:15.

And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.

Joshua