Hello and welcome to Keeping It Young podcast, conversations about marriage, family and ministry life. I'm Dave and I'm Bethlehem and we are the youngs. We're so glad you've joined us today. We are continuing in our study in Proverbs. Yes, we are. And we are right in the middle of a very busy summer of ministry and what a great summer it has been. We've had camps this summer, family camps, teen camps, couples conferences, family camp. It's just been a crazy busy summer and a very good summer.
And so we're kicking off here now already going into July. The summer's flying. It always goes so fast and then it's almost time to start thinking about school again. Let's not use that word yet. We're still at least a month and a half away for us. We start later in August. I know some schools start earlier and earlier it seems and so it may already be time for some of you to start that school shopping, school supplies, school clothing, all of that stuff.
But hey, it's still July. Let's do summer. Yes, let's stay in summer. But hope you've been enjoying our series and we have really enjoyed hearing from several of you along the way. We've gotten just basic and a lot of thank you. That was good. But we've also gotten several questions. We had a question recently from a mom who had some questions about her sons and they're fighting with each other. That was a good question. And just others like that.
So obviously you can reach out to us at any time and we always love hearing from you. And if it's just a comment or if it is a question and we do our very best to answer those and I say yet again, if you've sent us a message and you haven't heard from us, chances are we have lost the message or did not get it. And we don't have any way of, you know, knowing if we don't get it. We just don't know.
So please reach out if we can help you in some way or if you're, you know, thinking it through and want more, you know, just want to follow up. We are not offended. Please follow up. Yes. And sometimes we'll have a day where we get, you know, 35 or 40 or, you know, up to a hundred different emails. So it might've been that we saw it, answered a ton of others and somehow it got shuffled way down the line and we just never saw it again. Please, please reach out to us. Does that happen?
Yes, it does. It does. So anyway, we are so happy you've joined us today and we do hope you're enjoying the happy life and happy family series. And of course we started with an intro just to kind of tell you where we were going and then we talked about what do you have to have? What is Solomon teaching us? If I'm going to have a happy life and a happy family, what do I have to emphasize? And we learned that we have to emphasize righteousness. Seems like forever ago that we taught that one.
It does. And we learned that we have to emphasize diligence. We talked about emphasizing the blessings of God and we talked about emphasizing integrity. And then last week we spent just a few minutes on the value of our words. Yes. And really we could have done more with that one. That is one that just, the New Testament gives an entire chapter, James 3 to our tongue, our words.
Ephesians chapter 4, which is addressing Christianity and which shows up almost in every family couples conference we do. That particular passage has a lot to say about our words. So don't underestimate the value of the tongue, the power of words to strengthen the family, to direct the family, to make. Really it's amazing how words can just take normal things in life and make life sweeter and make life happier.
So today we're going to begin a new emphasis here that we found in the book of Proverbs. And this is such an important one we feel for our society and for the family in general that there's no way we can do it in just one recording. So this will be at least two parts, maybe three. So kind of a mini series within a series. So we're going to talk about the word influence. And if we're going to have a happy life and a happy family, we have to emphasize the value of godly and good influences.
And we have to protect our children and ourselves from wicked, wrong, and lousy influences. And Proverbs 13, 20 is a verse that really kind of kicks us off for it. So why don't you find that for us and read Proverbs, actually it's 13, 17, isn't it? Or is it 20? It's 20, I'm right. There we go. I was right the first time, should have stayed with my first thought there. All right, let's read Proverbs 13, verse 20.
It says, he that walketh with wise men shall be wise, but a companion of fools shall be destroyed. Now that's a great verse. And how many times have we quoted that to our children? Oh, so many times. So many, many, many, many times. And it's a truth that shows up in other passages as well. You want to be turning to Proverbs chapter one because you do see in the very first chapter in Proverbs, he does emphasize the idea of influence.
And so Bethany is going to turn over there and read for us verses 11 through 19. It's a little bit longer reading, but take the time to listen to this. This idea of influence shows up immediately in chapter one as Solomon is encouraging, instructing, and directing his son. All right, verses 11 through 19. I think the thought actually begins in verse 10, so if you don't mind, I'll start there. My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not. If they say, come with us, let us lay wait for blood.
Let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause. Let us swallow them up alive as the grave and whole as those that go down into the pit. We shall find all precious substance. We shall fill our houses with spoil, cast in thy lot among us. Let us all have one purse. My son, walk not thou in the way with them. Refrain thy foot from their path, for their feet run to evil and make haste to shed blood. Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird, and they lay wait for their own blood.
They lurk privily for their own lives. So are the ways of everyone that is greedy of gain, which taketh away the life of the owners thereof. Those are some pretty heavy words, aren't they? Yes, they are. Some very heavy words. And he starts here just with a reminder. You were right about verse 10. My son, if sinners entice you, consent not. In other words, don't allow wrong influences to damage you. And he describes why, and he tells you, here's what they'll say to you, and here's their plan.
And then he gives the command, my son, walk not in the way with them. Refrain thy foot from their path. What a very powerful command there. And then he goes back again to explaining why their feet run to evil. They make haste to shed blood. And he gives that little illustration about, you know, they put out a net to catch a little bird. The bird has no idea. So it is possible, moms and dads, that your children will not see.
The point here is that our children often do not see the power of negative influences. Right, they don't even see them as a negative influence. Yeah, they just, they have no idea. And we are called of God. Moms and dads, you are called of God to be very aware of the net of wrong influence. And you're to protect your children from that. So this is such an important truth.
He just kind of closes it out here, just reminding us the wrong influence will do so much damage to your life and to your family. And what a powerful truth. Let me read Proverbs chapter 9 and verse 6, because in this passage here, as many of you remember, if you've been with us through Proverbs, chapter 9 is the chapter about wisdom versus folly. And it's where he describes wisdom as this beautiful mansion and folly as this shack beside of the road. And yet both have the same goal.
Wisdom is saying, you can come after me. You can live with me. You can live in my house. You can eat my food. I'll take care of you. Folly is saying the same thing. No, come after me. And he compares it to a wise woman versus a foolish woman. And so there's obviously all kinds of nuances of truth there. But here's what he says in chapter 9 is wisdom is speaking to his son. Wisdom says, forsake the foolish and live and go in the way of understanding.
And he's just a little reminder right there, just in one verse, what he said in chapter 1. We have to be willing to say, wait, that is a wrong influence in my life. And if I don't get that out, the opposite of live is die. If I have the wrong influence, it's going to kill all kinds of things in my life. It'll kill my relationships. And haven't we seen that? We've seen wrong influences damage marriages and parents and children and especially teenagers.
Yes. Moms and dads, teens, this is especially important message for you that are raising teenagers. And if you are a teenager, wrong influences in your life will ruin all kinds of things in your life. Well, it really doesn't matter what age you are, wrong influences in your life, you should be starting when they're little, being careful of the influences, ramping it up maybe during the teen years. But even us as adults, don't we have to be careful about the wrong influences?
And probably more so than ever before. Because wrong influences now are so subtle because we have the internet and we have social media and we have influencers and just over and over again. And we have, you know, thousands of books you can buy on Amazon. So influences, movies, how many movies are there? How many reels are there?
Someone said that the YouTube videos right now, if you watched every video on YouTube back to back, it would take, if I remember correctly, 14 million years to watch everything on YouTube. And it just, there's a plethora of really good stuff in our society, but there's a plethora of really wrong stuff. Well, and there's also a plethora of just a little bit of truth packed in with a whole lot of lies. So it takes so much wisdom.
Yes. I want to thank God for James chapter one and moms and dads here may be a great, this, this probably among other, you know, out of all of them may be one of the most important areas to say, Lord, I need wisdom. Because if any man lacks wisdom, the Bible says, let him ask of God who gives to all men liberally and upbraideth not. So we need wisdom here. How do we navigate the waters of all the negative influences and the generation we live in? Well, we need wisdom from God.
We have to be very alert. We have to always be thinking and studying and aware more than ever before. Moms and dads have to be aware. So what do you do? Do you just lock all the doors and keep your kids inside all the time and they're never, ever exposed to any media or other people? That's a very good question. We would start by saying that we do have to emphasize the blessings and dangers of influence. That's the whole point we want to make to you.
Psalm one is another passage that talks about this subject and warns us. Remember that one? Right. And do you want to read that to us? Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful, but his delight is in the law of the Lord and in his law, doth he meditate day and night. He's given us just two parallels there are two opposing options there.
I can be influenced by that which is wrong, or I can be influenced by that which is right. And what a wonderful truth. Now let's go back to the Proverbs 1320. He that walketh with wise men shall be wise, but a companion of fools shall be destroyed. And a couple of words here to talk about the word walk. And what does the word walk mean? To walk with means what? It means to go with, to proceed with, to die or live with. I love that. That's pretty powerful. Yes. The word walk.
He that walks with wise men, he that goes with, proceeds with, dies or lives with shall be wise. And on the other hand, he that goes with, proceeds with, dies or lives with that which is foolish, you'll be destroyed. And it brings up the word companion because the idea of a companion is in this passage, he that walketh with wise men shall be wise. The idea of here is that this word companion, it means to pasture with as in a flock. You're all out to pasture companioning together.
You get out there, it's like like a flock and you see, you know, a flock of sheep in a field, hundreds of them in a field or, or a herd of cattle. It's that idea. It also has the idea of to shepherd or to have charge of. When you allow an influence in your life, that influence is shepherding you and has charge of your thinking and eventually of your direction. And this is such a powerful truth. To teach. It has the idea of to teach or to impart knowledge and ideas to.
And someone else said it has the, just simply the idea of to associate with. When I allow myself the, the association of that which is right, then I'm being shepherded to think right. I'm allowing the thing in my life to have charge over my life is actually a positive thing.
But if I allow things in my life that are wrong and they have charge and they're imparting knowledge and they're imparting ideas and they are teaching me and I'm associated with those things, the Bible promises us an outcome on both sides. Right. And don't you think that's where we need to really get a hold of this verse as parents? Because so many times we think of an influence, a companion. We don't think of them in the realm of being an influence.
First of all, we just think they're a companion. They're just a friend. And then we only think of that word companion in the definition of to associate with. We don't think of that companion as someone who is shepherding our child. We don't think of that companion as someone who is teaching our child, but that's where we really need to grasp a hold of this first. Yeah. And we'll come back to this later.
But in an article that I read just recently, and I'll be sharing with you a little bit later, an author said these words, and I'm just going to quote it right here. If our teenager is on social media four to 10 hours a day, that's the average social media use among teenagers. If a teen, if your teen is on social media four to 10 hours a day, that pretty much means somebody else is raising your teenager. And that just, that just shocked me to think of it in that terms, but it's the truth.
That's what Proverbs was saying. What is this? You know, 2,500, 3,000 years ago, Solomon is saying to us, the influences in your life will influence you. And the more the influence, the greater the influence and the more time that you just, it goes very clearly what the Bible is trying to say to here. There's another word in the text we have to, to discuss though, because as he that walketh with wise men shall be wise.
So he talks there about the idea of walking and companioning with, but then he says he that walketh with wise men shall be wise, but a companion of fools shall be destroyed. And that word has an interesting definition too. It really means two things. It means to cry out in distress, literally the idea of to split the ears. The idea of being destroyed here is a person who, who, who screams in agony and pain. It's a very powerful word. It means to mar by breaking.
And this, this one, this one is just so, it really kind of hurts my heart because in our 31 years of ministry, it always hurts to see a young man or a young lady who has allowed a wrong friend, a wrong influence, a wrong idea. It always hurts to see them broken by it. And haven't we seen that so many times we've seen young, young people who were so promising, who had so much opportunity, so much influence, so much, and this is a Christian school word, so much potential.
We use that word all the time in Christian education. These young people have so much potential, but a wrong influence destroys all of that because it leaves them broken. And it just, it's a powerful word. Proverbs 4.23 alludes to this idea of the blessings and dangers where the Bible says, keep your heart with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life. You've got to always be on guard. And so here's a couple of things Beth and I want to say to you as we have the rest of our time today.
Think about this. The best influences are those that impart righteousness and wisdom. The best influences in your life and in my life are those that impart to us righteousness and wisdom, and the best influences in our children's life are those that impart righteousness and wisdom. And I thought of at least four areas, I'd be curious if our audience can think of more, but we have at least four areas. Obviously the point Solomon is making is parents.
Moms and dads are to impart righteousness and wisdom to their children. What does Proverbs 13.1 say? The chapter begins with a wise son heareth his father's instruction, but a scorner heareth not rebuke. Notice it starts with a dad. This chapter that has in it the idea of influence starts with saying to a son, son, if you're wise, you will hear dad's instruction.
And what that tells us dads and by application moms, what it tells us is that parents have phenomenal influence in their children's life. And what we know is that it can be a good influence and it can also be a bad influence. We have seen parents who were horrible influences in their children's life and damaged their children for years to come and sometimes for a lifetime. But the idea of Solomon here is that the best influences is a mom and dad.
The best influence is a mom and dad that impart righteousness and wisdom to their children. And what all is involved in that for crying out loud, there's a whole sermon here. It's training, teaching, talking hours of influence. How do parents influence just without going into huge detail, you know, the, those who are listening, they're raising little ones. How do you, how do you start taking steps to give wise influence to a little one?
Well, don't buy the philosophy of our world that you should allow your child to learn on their own. There are some things that they will learn on their own, but you certainly, you know, I think every parent would be compassionate enough to not want their child to learn on their own in touching a hot stove or a hot iron. And so you would direct your child there. You would teach them, you would train them. You'd say, no, don't touch that. It hurts.
So don't stop there though, with the parenting, with the little ones, we do have to embrace biblical philosophy of you are put in that child's life to train them. You are put in that child's life to direct them. So be the influence right away. We just got a message from some very young parents who were asking for some advice just about training their infant in sleeping.
And there are some practical things that you can, you can do there, but even starting even as an infant in directing that child's heart to the way you want them to go. Do you want that child to lay still while you change their diaper? Well, then you are the parent. You direct that instead of saying, well, they don't really like it. They don't want to lay still and I don't want to, you know, cause them any difficulty or distress and having to lay still. So you just fight with your baby. Why?
Why do that? So direct them right away as a parent, just taking all the practical steps, but then just those spiritual steps as well, right from the very beginning, quoting verses to them, teaching them the Bible stories, taking them to church, making sure that they have biblical influence in their life from you as the parent, not just passing it off to the Christian school or to the grandparents or to the church or to the Sunday school teacher. You as the parent have that influence.
Sure. And there's so many other things that we could say there too, that, you know, have, have a time of reading the Bible to them and teaching them Bible truth and talking through issues. When you're watching TV with your children, there's any number of opportunities to pause it and say, what do you think about what just happened right there?
And the Bible commands us to do that in Deuteronomy chapter six, where to talk about the word of God, when we're sitting in the house, when we are sitting at the table, when we are just, you know, sitting around sharing, you know, sharing or watching TV or laughing at a video, we are to make the influence positive. If we don't, the world will make the influence negative. Well, I think too, I don't know, in our culture, I feel like Christian parents are abdicating in one of two ways.
Either they are accepting a faulty philosophy. And can I just say again, the gentle parenting philosophy of just leave the child to themselves. They will eventually come around. We are already seeing secular sociologists are saying this is not working. A child left to themselves, as the Bible says, brings his mother to shame. So people are either in Christianity adopting worldly philosophies of parenting or they're abdicating because, and I can identify with this one, they're tired.
They are, they have been busy all day long. And so then to come in in the evenings and your children are around you at the table, what do you want to do? You just want to get it done. Okay, everybody eat. Okay, everybody do homework. Okay, everybody get ready for bed. Okay, everybody in bed so mom and dad can just crash. And to have those heartfelt conversations, your teenager coming in and they love to come in late, late at night and talk about heavy things.
You're tired, you don't want to influence them in righteousness. And so many times as a Christian parent, we can say, well, they have a youth pastor. They have a youth pastor's wife. They have Sunday school teachers. They go to Christian school. Or we homeschool. Surely I don't need to put this extra effort in. But we do as parents. We have to put in that extra effort. Yeah, that's so, so good.
And if you've got teenagers, you know moms and dads, teens are often in our culture expected to have friends and girlfriends and boyfriends and teams and coaches. And we always have to be aware when those are good influences, what a blessing. But when they are leading our children's hearts away from God and in the direction of unrighteousness, what a curse they are to the family. So the point we're making is that the best influences are those that impart righteousness and wisdom.
And we think parents can do that. I believe laws can do that when we make proper rules for our children. And you know, I heard a podcast recently in which the author, who is actually a secular psychiatrist, he said the most successful people in our generation are those from very conservative homes. And the question was asked of him, why do you think that is so?
And he said it is because conservative homes have clear expectations for their children and clear limitations and follow through on those. And somehow, and he said, I don't know that we fully understand this, which I kind of chuckled at because I believe the Bible, therefore I feel like I fully understand it. But he said, and he had an earned doctorate in psychiatry.
He said, for some reasons we don't understand when our young people are raised with proper laws and restrictions and clear expectations, they are happier, they are more fulfilled and they tend to be more successful than their friends and peers. And I thought, here's just another reminder of where we are today. It matters that influences in your life and your children's are those that impart righteousness and wisdom.
And Bethany and I, as we close today, can we maybe just zero in on one more truth here? We believe with all of our heart that adults are better influences than peers. This is probably one of the most startling things we would say to some people, because especially in the teenage world of our day, the idea is that teenagers are to be teenagers. Adults are to stay out of their life. Right. And it's such an unpopular opinion to say your teenager needs really godly adult influence.
Yeah. And you can see it in the way even teens respond to adults. I have met so many teenagers that to say hello to them is a bother to them. And it's obvious they look at you like you're speaking French or they look really bothered. Sometimes they just don't hide their emotions. The emotion they're showing is, who do you think you are speaking to me? You're like an old boomer or whatever, you know, you can know all their thinking, obviously.
But Bethany and I have found with our own children that adults were better influences than peers. Now, it's not wrong to have friends. Each of our children had really good friends. And by the way, our children's best friends were their siblings. Our boys' best friends were each other and our boys were best friends with their sisters. Adults are better influences than peers, even though it's okay to have friends that are their age.
Yeah. So we're not saying that your children should not have peer friends. We're just saying, don't swallow the lie that, oh my goodness, if my child, especially my teenager just isn't reveling in all of the teenage friendships and I'm forcing upon them time with their grandparents or time with their youth pastor or time with us, that's just making them miss out on so much. No, it's not. It's not at all. It's not at all. Absolutely.
And by the idea of adults, we mean that literally, literally adults, but we also mean that literally in the idea of wisdom. When your child has hours of TikTok influence from influencers who have no experience, no wisdom, no discernment, no direction, in fact, they're wicked and evil and wrong, then we're damaging our children. So adult influences are better than peer influences.
And just in a practical sense, I think that's true in generations gone by, grandparents had massive influence in the young people's lives, aunts, uncles. In generations gone by, the most powerful influences in any young person's life would have been mom, dad, and grandfather, grandmother on both sides, as well as aunts and uncles. And I know I was just thinking about our children because of our travels and all, we're not as much around my dad.
But is it not true that when you get around our children, you will often hear stories about Papaw said, Papaw said, Memaw said, Papaw said, and even your dad, your dad. We were a little bit closer to your dad because we were based out of his church. So we did see your mom and dad more. But there are things our children will say automatically now because your dad said it. And I'm thinking right off about our children's view of alcohol. Yes. Do you know what I mean? I do.
And Bethany's dad, one time, well, more than one time, every time he would see an alcohol sign or a commercial, he had something he would say to our children that was funny to our children. Dad never laughed. He just said it. Right. And if you want to know, you have to write us. Yes. It was a vivid word picture for them about what alcohol truly is.
So our children to this day will see that and they'll be, well, as Papa said, and they quote that, but what a powerful influence in the hearts of our children. Yes. So if you have godly parents in your life, parents, then let your children be around their grandparents. Let them be influenced by them. If you have godly siblings, then let your children be influenced by them.
And grandparents step in their grandparents, spend time with your little ones, spend time with the teenagers, write them, text them, talk to them, take them places, do things with them. It is important that we help our young people to be influenced by adults. And there was a couple of others that really impacted our children. We travel with a lot of young evangelists who influenced our kids, right? We had youth pastors that we would meet in our meetings.
There are several youth pastors that still stand out to our children because they spent some time with our children and influenced them positively. Yes. And even some pastors. I'm thinking of the one pastor and I wouldn't call any names, John Flanders, but we shall call him John Flanders because that is in fact his name.
But Pastor Flanders, we were in his church in Michigan some years ago and I was teaching geometry and he came in and would sit at the table in the fellowship hall where I was teaching geometry and several times through the week laughed and leaned over and said to our children, I have never used that. I have never used that. So was this a wise, righteous, godly influence in our children's lives? No, that's a good question. But our children remember that. Brother Flanders is a wise, godly man.
Yes. And it was just a humor. So our children took what was a challenging concept and laugh about it. They remembered it in the sense of humor. So there was bosses and work relationships. We think about the Chick-fil-A where our children worked and how a boss would influence our son or our daughter. So moms and dads, I'm just reminding you that adults are better influences than peers. Now we're out of time. This first session has flown, but here's what we're talking about.
We're talking about having a happy life and a happy family. What do we learn from Proverbs? Well, we're learning in this particular session and these next couple of episodes that if we're going to have a happy life, a happy family, we have to emphasize godly influences and we have to protect ourselves and our families from wicked influences. Any final thought? I would say don't let that make you afraid of this culture. Yes, there are a lot of bad influences, but there's a lot of good.
Absolutely. Well, thanks for joining us today and I hope you'll join us next week and we'll continue talking together about influences. Have a great week and in the meantime, remember to serve the Lord with gladness. The Keeping It Young podcast is a Backs Five Media production.