Can God-Fearers Drop F-oul Bombs?

Use of “fear of the Lord” has dropped dramatically, while use of the F-word has increased 20× since the 1980s, with even political leaders normalizing it. Kevin and Danny ask why even Christians are dropping F-oul bombs today. Is it authentic, rejecting a fake veneer of “polite society”? Is it just “food offered to idols,” where there is a way to eat without sin? Or is it actually a sign of another different religion with a Christian skin?

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New kids and family podcast from Generations - TeachMeTheFaith.com 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

And welcome friends to Generations. Kevin Swanson with you as well, Danny Craig, our director here at Generations with us in studio. Welcome, Danny. And we're going to come back to the beginning. The beginning of wisdom. Okay. The beginning of all knowledge. Very good place to start. Well, you know, we want to present this to our children. And uh I think we're going to start with what I would say would be an exemplification of what is not the beginning of wisdom. And then get into the foundation of wisdom and knowledge, and that is the fear of God. But first of all, you know, I mentioned a name of a prominent Christian political leader as a potential for speaking at our big homeschool conference here in Denver. And one of the board members that was at the meeting last week, you may remember this because you were there as well. He said, Okay, as long as you're all right with the guy using expletives during his talk. Ouch. And I went, ooh, does that guy do that too? You know, so because the expletives are back in vogue uh for Christians, well-known Christians, as well as those who do not profess faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. So uh so profanity is on the rise. And I think this is applicable to everything. It's it's supposed to be cool. And it's applicable to our listening audience because much of our audience are moms and dads raising their children, hopefully in the nurture and the admonition of the fear of the Lord. Okay. And uh but how many of our listeners do you think would like to see their kids running around the house using the F-word? My guess is somewhere near zero percent. Would you agree? I would agree with that. I'm guessing somewhere near zero percent. And yet, and yet, the leaders in in sometimes churches and and political state, et cetera, and cultural state. We're gonna get to some of our culture uh Christian cultural leaders, seem to feel a great deal of freedom to use these expletives, more so than I I remember any other time in my lifetime. So this is a significant issue. Fox News, Jonathan Turley comes out with this article just last week, profanity in public. And again, this is Fox News, and he's he's going after the Democrats here. He's going after uh Governor Gavin Newsom in California. But uh it applies to Republicans as much as Democrats. I I don't I think this is equal opportunity, but he's not taking the equal opportunity as much as he might. He's it's Fox News, of course. So Democrats appear to in a competition of the profane, where voters are now subject to a virtual carpet bombing of F-bombs and other indecent language. Okay, so that's how he puts the article at the front. He's actually written a book on this as well. This is uh this is uh Jonathan Turley, if I recall right, he is a legal analyst and I think also at one point a judge. Uh so he's a fairly well-known conservative, possibly a Christian, not sure, but he's concerned about this. He says Governor Newsom unleashed a profane attack on Sean Hannity, Fox News, who gave the California governor a chance to respond to his critics. There was a time, he says, when political leaders maintained basic standards of civility and avoided profanity in public. Presidents like Lyndon B. Johnson could be quite salty in private, but drew a line in public. Notably, one of Richard Nixon's objections to his tapes being made public was the inclusion of foul language used in the Oval Office. Umted in his book in the arena that since neither I nor most other presidents had ever used profanity in public, millions of Americans were shocked by what they heard. Okay, so he admitted that himself. Um profanity sometimes added to the mystique of military leaders who sought to convey that they were unconcerned with social norms as warriors. They're tough guys, right? Tough guys use tough language. And in the article written by Jonathan Turtle, uh, he refers to George Patton, famous for his uh for his foul language. Okay, and he goes on. There's a belief that profanity is a way to connect to younger voters who trash talk and seem to like what was once called potty mouths. However, there is also a clear use of profanity as a way to establish your bona fides with the mob, trashing conventions of civility and decency as a way to convey that you are part of a radical chic. Okay, profanity conveys yourself authenticating anger to the mob. You may be an establishment politician, but you're still, you know, associating as one of them, a member of the mob, so to speak. He also says this uh this popularity of using the potty mouth rarely lasts. Revolutions tend to devour their own, swearing up a storm will not satisfy the mob very long. Democrats hope to ride the rage wave back into power and assume that once they have that power, the mob will simply disappear in gratitude. Okay. But I would also say the same thing applies to those Republican conservative uh candidates that are running on the populist, right? They're going to the populist crowd and they're trying to attract the populist vote by potty mouth, as much as the Democrats are going for their constituents, which I guess is another form of populism. Sure. I think it kind of comes down to two forms of populism in which apparently you are going for the lowest common denominator among the mob, among those in the population that would prefer to hear these sort of expletives. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 5:26

Well, it's actually a a means of stirring up the angst and maybe getting angry. That actually will lead to some amount of revolution.

SPEAKER_00 5:34

Right, right. So what do you think it is that motivates people to use these this language? Not just the politicians that are kowtowing for the votes, but what do you think, Danny, is the thing that motivates people, Christians included, to use this language? Is it the cool? Is it just to be the cool? Is it to be authentic? What is it?

SPEAKER_01 5:56

Well, there's a couple other things uh th that this that he mentions, and one of them is this Mark Twain quote, um, which you know is really interesting. Under certain circumstances, urgent circumstances, desperate circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer. There's a certain faithlessness about profanity. It is this venting. And if I can just vent, I can make myself feel better and hopefully express what I really couldn't express otherwise in a way that will hopefully affect some change.

SPEAKER_00 6:28

Well, and anger expresses itself in a form of control, right? I mean, that's one reason why people are angry. Uh if you run around the house shouting and yelling profanities, I think what you're trying to do is accomplish something. Yeah. You're trying to force, change something, right? And uh so it's effectively the individual displacing God, because that's what anger is. Anger is me displacing God. It's if I yell loud enough, if I shout loud enough and angry enough, I can control the circumstances and be sovereign over my reality. And so, yeah, so there would be that. There's also the sense of authenticity, and and you've you referred to this in the past, that somehow if we begin to use this, you know, these language and and just F-bomb after F-bomb, uh I'm expressing myself as being authentic to, I guess, my constituents.

SPEAKER_01 7:18

Yeah, there's this uh societal veneer of decency that we kind of want to get past so we can get down to brass tacks and just relate to each other with who we really are. Um, but the Bible actually doesn't call us to authenticity, it calls the Bible calls us to godly sincerity, which is to be true and honest to who God calls us to be, not to who we are in our old man.

SPEAKER_00 7:42

And in our flesh. In other words, to be authentic to our flesh or to be authentic to other people's flesh, we're not called to that as Christians. We are called to a higher standard, is what you're saying.

SPEAKER_01 7:51

Yeah, in some ways, I think that this authenticity push is a is a reaction to hypocrisy. It's just not the biblical reaction.

SPEAKER_00 7:58

Right, right. Well, before we get on to what I believe is a substantive issue, and that is the fear of God. Uh, the most popular word today is is the F word, and that's not the fear of God. I mean, that is one F word, but that's not the right F word we're talking about here. Different four-letters. It's a different four-letter word, yes, exactly. It has become, I think, the highest form of contempt available to anybody who wants to employ the English language. It's a contemptible word towards others. Uh, it's a pejorative, it's a word that wishes a rape upon somebody else or something else. Now, generally it's used as a verb or an action word.

SPEAKER_01 8:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:34

That's the first thing. And sometimes an adjective that describes one who is taking a certain action. So, um, and again, I'm trying not to define this very much, um, except for the fact that the word is sexual with a negative connotation. Um, a contemptible connotation that includes a sexual element. And now I I have checked out every dictionary uh online, and the first six or eight dictionaries will tell you that it is a sexual word that implies some form of rape. Okay. Um, or something similar to that. Okay, some kind of sexual sin or sexual activity that is not in the context of a a loving marriage. Let me just say that. Okay. So um now people have said, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, but it doesn't mean that to everybody who uses it. And yet, and yet, and yet, it does appear that the dictionary definition and the connotation that is still in the head of the majority of people, at least who are reading dictionaries and writing dictionaries, it carries a very strong sexual connotation. Now, now my argument to not using this word has a lot to do with food offered idols. What in the world do swear words have to do with food offered idols? Well, it's because the food offered idols is a symbol of the idolatry itself that's happening within the heathen temple. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 10:04

So if you walk into the heathen temple and you eat the food, you're participating in the idolatry itself.

SPEAKER_00 10:12

That's right. You're you're implicitly, explicitly in the minds of others and to some extent in your own mind, participating in the idolatry itself. Now, if that food moves into the shambles, into the marketplace, and you're just picking it up for a dollar twenty a pound, and it has no connection in the mind of the seller and has no connection in the mind of the buyer to the temple itself, then Paul says, go ahead, buy it for a buck twenty and enjoy the meat. It has nothing to do with the idolatry of it.

SPEAKER_01 10:40

So, in that sense, the the quality or the uh uh ethical quality of the meat itself is context developed.

SPEAKER_00 10:47

Sure, sure, sure, sure. It's context developed. But the problem, of course, with the F-word is that the context is still very much connected uh to the heathen temple. And I don't I don't believe this is a sliding scale. I think that the in the mind of the majority, they're still recognizing a sexual connotation to it. It's impossible to separate that. And certainly the use of the middle finger has a sexual connotation to the average person who sees these sorts of things. Um, they understand it to be an insult, yes. They understand it to be contemptuous, yes. But the verb form, the verb form, the action that takes place uh with the use of the F word is certainly bearing a sexual connotation. And you can't get around that. The connotation is strong. You're in the heathen temple, you're not in the shambles with that word.

SPEAKER_01 11:36

So the argument, the counterargument is no word is bad intrinsically. This is actually a quote from a defense of using expletives. Seriously, a word's badness or goodness is dependent on how it's used, on its place in the story. Or if you prefer to look at it this way, every word is bad if used in a way God wouldn't. So the question is I think, logically, can you just context switch automatically and willy-nilly imbue a word with a new context that makes it usable?

SPEAKER_00 12:10

You can't. You're either in the temple or you're in the shambles, you're in the market. You can't be halfway in between. And uh and I think this is obvious. I think the Bible assumes a discreetness, not a continuousness, to the use of words and to the use of symbols in our society. Uh words are symbols, and we all know that. If you've studied, you know, the philosophy of language, you know, anybody who's gone to uh, you know, undergraduate or even graduate studies in the philosophy of words and language understands this sort of thing. That language or language and words are symbols, they're symbolic. They they work like food offered to idols. They're either in the shambles, they're either in the market, and we use it in the marketplace, or it's in the context of the heathen temple itself. And so in this case, most definitely, most definitely, this particular word uh symbolizes something that uh Christians has have nothing to do with.

SPEAKER_01 13:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:04

Should have nothing to do with whatsoever. It's used as a pejorative. The word wishes a rape upon somebody else, it's a curse, it wishes that somebody would break a commandment of God to bring about some negative consequence upon somebody else, and it's not to be used by Christians. Uh, I think that's just as plain as day. Now, the other aspect about this is that this word is extremely socially destructive. It is antisocial, it is dehumanizing. It adds uh to the removal of common grace and common manners in human society in the modern age, big time. And this is why Christians do not join the troops of those who are doing everything they can to create a social suicide. We don't participate in social suicides. We are supposed to be salt and light. We are supposed to preserve the society, not destroy the society. That's why I am I'm just utterly insulted and offended by anybody who would want to destroy the image of God and undermine uh human society and destroy all human uh common grace left in human society by the use of this kind of word. We don't join the zeitgeist with this. Um, Ephesians 4.29, let no corrupting, rotting, putrid, stinking bad talk come out of your mouth, but only such as is good for building up as it fits the occasion that it may give grace to those who hear, neither filthiness nor foolish talking nor coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather we should be giving of thanks. That's Ephesians 4.29. Now it's interesting that the rate of the use of this socially destructive word has really increased in the last 30 years. Big time. Oh, you did the N-gram off the charts. I haven't seen the N-gram. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:24

It it's like it's like pooch. Yeah. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 15:27

It's like a rocket. The rate of the use of the socially destructive word was tenfold of that in the 1980s by 2000. So by 2000, tenfold what it was in the 1980s. And by 1925, the rate of using the word in popular culture was twentyfold, twentyfold of that uh where it was used in the 1980s. Uh so now uh a question I want to address just for a moment. Why do professing Christians often participate in these strange sorts of things? Now, let me say the context for this, and I I I've been working on this as of the last couple of hours because my wife and I were reviewing a little bit of the branch dividians. Okay, we we we you know worked through some documentaries sometimes, and and I I I had some interest in the development of the Branch Davidians and uh the tyranny and the anarchy that was functioning simultaneously in the 1990s. I think it was 1993, 1994, uh when the ATF and the FBI effectively assaulted this building and burned down the Branch Davidians. It was uh just one of the most horrible tragedies in American history, where tyranny was playing off on anarchy. And uh the anarchy itself was interesting uh to take a look at because uh David Koresh, who was the stated leader of the Branch Davidians at the time, uh, was very much involved in um in secular rock and roll, in in secular lyrics that was just lurid and awful lyrics that so represented the rock and roll generation. And so he was just doing that. He was doing that for part of the day, and the rest of the time he was teaching the Bible. And uh he was committing adultery with everybody's wife, and he was, you know, violating the seventh commandment over and over. And my wife is of course very shocked to discover uh this cult and and how horrible the cult was. But it reminds me very much of what's going on uh in the mainstream today, in mainstream Christianity today. And somebody else uh wrote into the worldview because we had referred to Kid Rock in one of our Worldview presentations, uh, that Kid Rock had given some acknowledgement of Jesus, okay, which he does off and on and has for the last roughly 20 years. And uh so he's been acknowledging Jesus and God in his concerts in uh the 2000s up into 2017 and more recently as well. And he sings with his big cross around his neck, but then he throws in the F-word and sings about having sex with underage girls. And so, you know, it all happens in the same context. It's just like almost the very next sentence. You know, he'll testify to his love for Jesus or whatever it is, his faith in Christ, and then he runs off into the F words. Okay, so it's almost within the same sentence that this happens. This is a shock uh to Christians. This is like a weird religion. It's a way off false religion that seems to be very popular today. Kanye West has done the same thing. Uh Donald Trump is somewhat right in there with the rest of them. And so, as Christians, I think we're we're wondering how does this happen? How does Jesus and this Christian content get used in the same sentence with this foul language? It's a phenomena that's really confusing Christians. And so I thought it would be helpful to talk through this just uh a little bit. Um, this is what we would call a dualism, an extreme dualism or Gnosticism, and it's nothing new. They maintain a piety of sorts, but then use the Bible to justify extreme evil and extreme violations of the laws of God. The carpacrations of the first centuries did this kind of thing. They taught that bodily acts are spiritually irrelevant. Uh, so you can do whatever you want with your body. Um, this was a radical form of Gnosticism, as long as your soul was cleansed. So, again, it's this you know dualism that happens in people's minds. And it really is a form of religion. It's a religious perspective. Uh the Nicolaitans also um mentioned the revelation, and some believe that this was a group that associated with sexual immorality and eating food offered to idols, much like what we've been talking about. They were participating in the food offered to idols, they would use the crazy language, they would involve in all this sexual immorality and stuff, and uh. Manichaeans were those that uh Augustine was playing around with in his early career before he became a Christian. So Manichaeanism, Nicolaitans, the Gnostic libertinism, et cetera, et cetera, very popular in the first three to four centuries of the church. Well, now it's back again. And so what you have is some of the worst examples of moral behavior and bad language coming from people associated with Christian sex. So what is this? Well, it's a form of Gnosticism, but sometimes also, let me throw this one out for you. I think there's a theological twist on justification by faith alone. And the assumption is that, hey, we're all justified uh by faith alone, and we're justified to do whatever we want to do. So we're justified in whatever we're doing. We're justified to do whatever evil, whatever horrendous thing uh comes to mind. Uh we can violate the seventh commandment at every single point. Um it's interesting also that the uh the branch Davidians were involved in um in killing one another. I mean, there were a number of murders going on. You know, they're killing off their their now uh there are perhaps reasons and they have they they were able to justify themselves in the court of law and some of these things, but but uh there were some that were actually there's murders going on as well as adults' reason, all the rest. But see, this is all part and parcel of what happens in a form of theology that's not based in a Christian theology. It's a separation of the body and soul, it's a separation of justification and sanctification, uh where you know you can be justified but not sanctified. You're justified, but you get no new life. There's no regeneration, uh, you're just justified. You know, you're just justified to do whatever bad thing you want to do, and there is absolutely no life, no spiritual life involved in that whatsoever, to keep the commandments of God. There's also, I think, a generate general hatred for the law of God among those who pretend to be Christians. And there is also an extremely thin veneer of Christianity with many Christians today, but inside there's a tremendous love for the world's literature, the world's academics, the world's media, the world's priorities, the world's values, the world of lust and pride. Yeah. And so those are some of the theological uh, I think, contributions to what we're seeing. So again, I don't think Christians should be confused by this. I would simply say, Danny, that this constitutes the wrong religion. It's just the wrong religion. When you've got a wrong view of reality, you know, related to body-soul, a wrong view of the relationship of justification and sanctification in the gospel message, in in terms of what the gospel is all about, what the what what God is doing in our lives as we becoming Christians, um, I think what develops is a different religion.

SPEAKER_01 22:16

I think part of that religion, Kevin, uh has to do with a significant amount of cultural compromise in the last, you know, four or five, six decades in Christian circles, in which we don't actually believe that the law of God applies to cultural forms. And good point. And so, in other words, uh the problem with the rock and roll music. Of the sexual revolution is just the lyrics. It's not the has nothing to do with the art form itself. And and I think, I think frankly, 80, 90, maybe 95% of professing evangelicals would say the music itself is amoral. Um, but we don't, we don't agree with that. We believe that the art forms, the cultural forms themselves, are religion externalized. And so what I think has happened is because we've so compromised on our need to reform the art forms, the cultural forms themselves, we've convinced ourselves that the music is amoral and is just, you know, context-dependent. Uh the lyrics themselves, too, uh have have now taken on some of that essential amoral character.

SPEAKER_00 23:28

So Katie Perry and Taylor Swift get a free pass. Exactly. And any movie gets a free pass. Uh you know, you I I would say people might be a little upset if there was somebody from let's say Princeton Law School that's excusing bis bestiality or something like that, right? But if it's presented in Star Trek, you know, if if some form of cross-species mating is is presented in Star Trek, then that's gonna give you a free pass. Why? Because it's pop culture. I mean, come on, pop culture can do whatever they want in an evolutionary construct in which you're presenting some sort of cross-species mating uh thing going on. And so, you know, it's it's rare to find somebody besides me that's critiqued Star Trek. I don't I'm being honest with you. I I don't think there's, you know, if you go online and say what kind of pastors have critiqued Star Trek for cross-species mating, it's going to be Kevin Swanson, you know. Because pop culture gets the free pass.

SPEAKER_01 24:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:29

Almost every time. But why is that? Is there some kind of a spell that everybody's come under?

SPEAKER_01 24:37

Yeah, I I think maybe it's because we have forgotten Ephesians 5, verse 11, which says, and have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. And so the line of thinking is, well, as long as I'm not committing the act myself, I'm not sinning. That's that's not the biblical line. Right. And we've also lost the the fundamental belief that these cultural forms do have religious and moral implications. And the other thing, Kevin, I would say is because of this, Christians can be easily bought now. So I I don't know, you know, when when Kid Rock throws out Jesus in a rock concert, I don't know if it's his duplicitous religion as much as it is his realization that he can buy how many million evangelical viewers by sprinkling a little Jesus pixie dust on his concert.

SPEAKER_00 25:28

You know, and I or other or other and I have to say, from a personal perspective, you're watching a movie or a show of some sort. Somebody takes God's name in vain. Now, at that point, you have a decision to make. I'm talking about every mom and dad that's listening to this program right now, you have you will either have communion and fellowship with the unfreeful works of darkness. You will either approve it or you will disapprove of it. And honestly, if if you just accept it, and I'm telling you, this is a test for all of us, because I I don't think there's a a person out there who hasn't visited a YouTube or listened to some of our politicians speak. Have you ever listened to Trump on one of his politician things? I mean, you you listen to him, he's got you know anywhere from 20 to 25 expletives in any given uh speech he's given on the campaign trail. Not maybe so much today on the on some of his speeches, but still, are there points at which you are willing to say, you know what, I'm not gonna accept that, and I'm gonna correct that, not just for my kids who are listening to this right now, for myself. Yeah. So I I honestly I think there is this tendency to want to just accept it and just you know, a detente. Develop a detente with this uh this violation of the third commandment, violation of God's name, or uh some other violation of God's law that's going on. Either we're gonna accept it or we're gonna say, you know what, that's wrong right there. What what he did right now is a sin against God. We tend not to want to interrupt the speech or interrupt the movie to say that.

SPEAKER_01 27:07

Right. Kevin, I think one of the other interesting things here is, you know, there's some folks that are purporting the use of expletives as a form of contempt against idolatry. And um, so this is very interesting because they're basically saying, well, yeah, you don't you don't want to, you know, f off, you know, good things, but you can do that to bad things, to idols. Um one of the lines is Christians can crucify idols, but they're not allowed to give them the middle finger, to which I would say, well, actually the Bible doesn't actually says to mortify your flesh, not crucify it or rape it. So just that that aside. But I think what they're trying to bring back is some, well, the phrase was used machismo, um, which I take to be, in their sense, uh, some masculine aggressiveness for the kingdom of God. Don't you agree? That's part of the thing. So I think so.

SPEAKER_00 28:01

And I think that's one reason why these these tough guys are using the language, right? It's it just presents you as, I guess, uh a big strong guy. You know, that's cool, that's impressive, and maybe you're big and strong against what is evil. Maybe that's what you're supposed to be.

SPEAKER_01 28:18

So I think the question is so what actually produces godly masculinity? Is it irreverence, an increased level of irreverence that gets you back to some godly form of masculinity, or is it actually an increase in godly reverence in sobriety that gets you back to a godly form of masculinity? I think I answered the question.

SPEAKER_00 28:39

Well, you answered the question, and I think uh ultimately it comes down to uh what the Word of God has for us as men, and that is to be strong in the Lord in the power of his might, not to use these other you know worldly techniques. Um we don't cast down imaginations, every high thing uh exalts itself above God in Christ by using these uh uh the these these ungodly and fleshly weapons, you know. We're to put those weapons aside. And uh and yes, the fear of God as the beginning of wisdom and knowledge is what really what should constitute the strength of the man of God, as well as faith in God. Love for God, faith in God, fear of God, those are the things that absolutely must make the man of God. And I'm not seeing that very much.

SPEAKER_01 29:27

And and a little bit of a little bit of uh uh gassing off of your own rage isn't gonna get you and propel you very far.

SPEAKER_00 29:34

Yeah. Well the wrath of man doesn't really accomplish the holiness to righteousness of God. But let's talk about the fear of God because I want to end here. Um, the fear of God as the beginning of wisdom and knowledge. I did an engram on this and I showed it to you earlier. To engram, engram effectively means the use of a particular word throughout history. And actually, the engram, the Google engram goes back to 1500, which is really interesting. So it turns out the fear of God has dropped off dramatically uh since the 1820s. And uh, and if you go way back, you find that the fear of God had a major increase around the time of the Reformation.

SPEAKER_01 30:13

The time of the Puritans, yeah. Around the time of the Reformation. 1650 is it when it took it.

SPEAKER_00 30:17

It peaked off, you know, 1650 up into the 1700s, and and then you get about a 95% drop down into the 1920s. You have a little bit of a bump during the uh Great Awakening. In fact, it's it's like a one-to-one. It is.

SPEAKER_01 30:32

Yeah. 1750 takes off and tapers back down at 1800, and then get into the second great awakening in the 1800s, you have a little bump, and then you hit 1900, and it's basically done. It's just gone.

SPEAKER_00 30:46

Yeah, it's gone by 1920, effectively. Yep. The fear of God has been eliminated from American culture by the 1920s and on into 2020. There was a little bit of a bump coming out of the Jesus movement of the 1980s. Somebody asked me, what about the bump there? I think it has something to do with the Reagan Revolution. I think it's something to do with the uh the reverence that came about by the Jesus movement and the taking off of Christian media with guys like John MacArthur, R. C. Sproul. And uh, you have something of a respect for God, a respect for the holiness of God, R. C. Sproul. You have something of a respect for uh for for the Word of God that comes through the uh solid teachers that are coming through the 1980s, 1990s, on into the 2000s. Well, now of course it's it's since the year 2020, it's uh it's it's dipped back down again a tick or two. So, same thing, by the way, with repentance. Repentance dropped off 96% between 1820 and the 1930s, 40s, and 1950s, and then back up a tick after 1980. So it's interesting that repentance and the fear of God are following almost exactly the same trajectory. What does this tell you?

SPEAKER_01 31:58

Well, I think the correlation between the fear of the Lord and our speech is very clear.

SPEAKER_00 32:04

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 32:04

And uh Psalm 19, 9 says, the fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. Uh and then Psalm 34, 11 through 13 says, Come, you children, listen to me. I will teach you the fear of the Lord. Who is the man who desires life and loves many days that he may see good? Just go F off all your enemies and it'll No. Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit. Right.

SPEAKER_00 32:29

So, in other words, the fear of God directly to uh keeping your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit. So so the the speech, our speech is a direct derivative of the kind of fear of God, the reverence for God that we're commanded in Scripture in Hebrews chapter 12, as you know, ends with uh that we continue to worship God, to serve God with reverence and godly fear. That is what defines the Christian in these last days. And where there is very little fear of God, where there is very little recognition of the weightiness of God, the weightiness of God's power and justice and judgments, his holiness, his righteousness, his mercy and grace all come together at the cross of Jesus Christ, where there's not a sense of the weightiness and a sense of the awesomeness and the the the praiseworthiness and the worshipworthiness of God where that's lacking, where there's a lack of the fear of God, there is no beginning for wisdom, for knowledge. And Danny, I'm gonna add, there is no gospel. There is no reception of gospel, there is there is no coming to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. There is nothing, nothing positive coming out of a lack of the fear of God. So the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom and knowledge is so fundamental. We need to be examining the foundations, don't we?

SPEAKER_01 33:54

Yeah, Kevin, I I pulled uh a list of all of the scriptures in the Bible that speak of the fear of God or the fear of the Lord. And I ran an analysis on them. Um here's the impact of a fear of God in a person's life if they have it. Wisdom and understanding, moral integrity, protection and confidence, spiritual and physical well-being, humility and submission, reverence and worship. When a person does not have the fear of God, there's moral decline because there's no fear of God before their eyes. They're left to rebellion and foolishness, they're vulnerable to God's judgment, and they will have an unstable life.

SPEAKER_00 34:31

And that's what we're seeing today. Yeah. That's exactly what we're seeing today. Well, may God bring back the fear of God as the foundation in our homes. And Danny, what's the application for us as we consider this? I mean, I I I mean, I think we need to consider whether we're fearing God in the conversations we're having on a Monday morning. Are we fearing God in our church services? Are we fearing God in our work life? You know, is the fear of God, the reverence for God, recognition of the presence of God, the awesomeness of God, that we are operating in the right before the eyes of Almighty God. He's watching every move we make, every breath we take. Are we are we recognizing this and are responding in that holy reverence and worship throughout the day?

SPEAKER_01 35:17

One of my favorite quotes on the fear of God is Charles Bridges from his Proverbs commentary. But what is this fear of the Lord? It is that affectionate reverence by which the child of God bends himself humbly and carefully to his father's law. His wrath is so bitter and his love so sweet that hence springs an earnest desire to please him, and because of the danger of coming short from his own weakness and temptations, a holy watchfulness and fear that he might not sin against him.

SPEAKER_00 35:47

Yeah. Amen. Well, we'll end on that. We'll end on that because this is the thing to focus on more than anything else. We're building back strong foundations. And I we've wanted to do this in our science, our history, our recognition of God's awesomeness, his justice, his power, his wisdom, his goodness in creation and history. Uh, we're trying to work that through our curriculum, Danny. And uh I'd also recommend our Proverbs Bible study guides, which uh obviously I'm getting into the beginning of wisdom and knowledge as the fear of God throughout this series. And I would recommend that as the core, the core of the core of the curriculum you want to give your children as you raise them in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord.

SPEAKER_01 36:24

This is the thing that will last. When our children are gone out of our homes and they are free from the norms of what's expected in home, this fear of the Lord is what is going to keep them from evil speech, from evil actions. And may God give this to us and our children. What's the vision for our young men?

SPEAKER_00 36:41

What's the vision? Is it this in sobriety? Is it this lack of the fear of God? Is it this tough kind of manosphere, crazy, bad language, tough guy image? I don't think so. Oh no. Oh no. It's sobriety. It's the fear of God. It's the beginning of wisdom and knowledge. It's raising our sons to be sacrificial lovers, to follow Jesus, yes, and speaking the truth in love, standing up for truth, absolutely, uh betraying or pulling the the facades away from all the hypocrisies of the day, et cetera, et cetera. But certainly humility themselves, acknowledging their own sins, confessing their own sins first, and then walking in the fear of God day by day. And of course, loving God with heart, soul, mind, and strength. That's the vision. That's the vision, Danny, for our sons and for our daughters. Friends, you've been listening to Generations. Recommend to you the Proverbs Bible Study Guide series at Generations.org. And this is Kevin Swanson and Danny Craig inviting you back again next time as we continue to lay down a vision for the next generation. This has been a production of the Generations Media Network. For more information, go to generations.org slash media.