Teenagers imagine they’re independent thinkers. But all of their decisions are influenced by the group. Once we get them on the river of peer influence, the current does the rest. The adults aren’t any better. They live their lives enslaved to others’ opinions and oblivious to the Enemy’s (God).
I favor anything that makes them ignore the Enemy’s fundamental teaching: one life on earth, followed by one death, followed by one judgment and one eternal sentence.
“Put on the whole armor of God” the Enemy commands them. He provides it, but the good news is, they have to put it on. And most of them don’t. They don’t act like they’re on a battleship. They act like they’re on a cruise ship.
Some of the Christian vermin look the other way when non-Christian friends make disastrous choices. They fail to warn them about sin. Your job is to convince them that would be “pushing” their religion. (Never let them think of it as throwing a life preserver to the drowning.)
I cannot overestimate the importance of the vermin’s first year out of high school. This is the time more than any other when either we or the Enemy can establish a life-determining beachhead on them. These young moldable minds leave the structure and values of home and family and church and are immersed in a radically foreign atmosphere, with far less structure and decisively different values.
If someone travels far enough away from Christianity, he may be able to look back and see it in perspective. But if he drifts from the core creed while surrounded with nominal Christianity, he’ll remain blind to the true faith he no longer embraces. Infect them with a small dose of counterfeit Christianity, and it’ll immunize them to the real disease.
Why attack the Enemy when you can simply displace Him? There’s only so much room in their hearts and minds. Get them to focus on money, clothes, sports, status, popularity, sex, ambition, grievances.
The safest road to hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.
All that we work for comes down to this: get them to focus on this life and they’ll never think about preparing for the next one. Don’t let it dawn on them that their life on earth is but a dot. Or what they do while living in that dot determines the direction of their eternal line. Your job is to trick them into living not for the line, but the dot.
It’s their worldview we want. Control how they see the world and we control them.
I’d rather have them apathetic about everything than passionate about anything. It’s the apathetic who serve us best. We love inertia. Those who do nothing do our will.
When the forbidden fellowship minimize truth, people see no need for salvation. When they minimize grace, people see no hope for salvation. Either serves us well.
There’s no parent I fear more than one who’ll admit he’s wrong and come to his children and ask their forgiveness. Many barriers that appeared impenetrable have been broken through a parent’s acts of humble contrition.
As a fish doesn’t notice water, they don’t notice their cultural context. They’re immersed in their society’s way of thinking. It manifests itself in every conversation, news, report, billboard, class lecture, and office policy.