I heard one of those progressive evangelical preachers preaching a message to parents, saying to them in effect,

if you persist on believing the Old Testament and all the stories of Nowas Flood and Jonah in the belly of the whale,

you will lose your next generation.

The advice he's giving them is you need to get unhitched from the Old Testament.

I thought for a moment, that only that this is an extremely faulty premise,

extremely faulty premise on the part of this pastor, but it is contrary to the evidence.

It is contrary to the evidence. A few years ago, a major study was conducted among college

students who have turned their back on Christianity. All of the questions that were asked of the

students centered around one core issue. What turned you off Christianity? And the answer

they've received over and over and over again, is that they were turned off because of the churches

they went to as high school students began to try to ingrotiate themselves instead of challenging

the students. As high school students attended these churches where the mission and the vision

of the church was vague, these churches were offering them superficial answers to life's difficult

questions. And yet, they saw that the ministers, that they respected the most,

they said they took the Bible seriously. They were turned off by those who wanted to entertain them and be their buddies. The student concluded

that the common theme among them, the students who have turned away from the Christian faith

when they went to college, is this. They respect people with

conviction providing they know what they're talking about. But there's more. There's more.

Playing down the truth or watering down the truth, they said, is far more of a turn-off and a hindrance for them believing the truth.

Now, beloved, I cannot think of a greater indictment upon so-called progressive or liberal evangelicals

or seeker-friendly or professing churches.

We began in the last message about embracing your mission for life, namely the commitment

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