Receive that...

I don't receive that... Faith Fellowship Church PO Box 1586 Broken Arrow, OK 74013 Pastor Terry Dashner I recently had a "father and son" conversation with a young man who was not my son, but he was certainly young enough to be my son. And as typical in a father and son conversation, I--the older man--gave the younger man some fatherly advice. Although I offered him some reasonable and trustworthy advice--tested and proven through time--he rejected the counsel. He retorted, "I don't receive that." It hit me later that this young man's reaction is not atypical for a generation without virtues. This young man believes that he can deny truth or objective facts by innocently stating, "I don't receive that." Peter Kreeft underscores this observation about today's youth when he writes, "Proverbs are the summaries of accumulated practical wisdom of the past, the experience of our ancestors. They are moral truths, half-truths sometimes, but truths. They describe real virtues. But we no longer believe in real values. Therefore we do not believe in proverbs. We believe instead in discussion, in moral ping-pong, in 'values clarification'. "Values clarification is essentially the following. 'Facilitators' (no longer teachers, for there is no longer anything true to teach) encourage students to state and clarify their own personal values by asking questions. This sounds like Socrates so far, but wait. "These questions are never about the roots or grounds of values, about principles. Instead, they are about feelings and reasonings, calculations." G. K. Chesterton once said, "An open mind is like an open mouth: useful only to close down on something solid." Believe me the older I get, the more I need something solid to close down on. I went through my younger years with an open mind, but relative truth could not satisfy my soul. I needed absolutes. And the older I get, the less apologetic I am for adhering to absolute standards. For me, the "Thou shalt not(s)..." are not restrictive rules of behavior but liberating truths for living. I like being told up front the consequences to my actions. That way I can make an educated choice to either "do it" or refrain from "doing it." I learned a long time ago that denying truth did not change the truth. Truth is and remains truth whether or not I retort, "I don't receive that." Keep the faith. Stay the course. Jesus is coming soon. That's the absolute truth! Pastor T