‘Lie Down with Dogs, Wake Up with Fleas’

   Obviously, in this life, until Christ returns, everyone, even Christians, are going to undergo difficulties.  Some of these will be of our own making, despite our best efforts.  Thankfully, God’s grace is abundant!
   The nature of difficulties today, however, are quite different than the ones faced by Christians a hundred or a thousand years ago.  The Bible’s core principles apply to all Christians at all times, but how easy or difficult it is to act on this or that principle varies in large part based on things happening in the wider culture.
   One of my grave concerns for our own generation of Christians, especially in the American Church, is the failure to understand that many of our difficulties flow from uncritically absorbing the beliefs and values of our non-Christian neighbors, especially the secular humanists.  
   As the saying goes, “Lie down with dogs, wake up with fleas!” If you raise your children in the same way that the godless are raising their own children, one should not be surprised when our youth leave the Church in droves.  Indeed, nearly every survey done in the last fifteen years has shown precisely this.  Why, then, are we surprised?
   One of the core principles of the Bible that I believe has been compromised in our own day is the duty of parents to raise their children in the faith.  While it isn’t that ...