Why are so many young people falling away from the faith

[Victorium]

I was reading this today and thought it might be helpful/insightful for Christian parents out there and Church Youth Groups to better prepare themselves when bringing up or teaching young people. There is a great need for support for youths today as they are bombarded with so much garbage that they are losing themselves. It is titled: "Why are so many young people falling away from the faith".

Read here: Why are so many young people falling away from the faith?

 

[Christsfreeservant]

However, it also found that most church youth programs tended to focus their energies on providing entertainment and pizza rather focusing on building up the young people in their faith. As a result, our teens are ill-equipped to face the challenges they will encounter in the world upon leaving home.

I think this says it all. At home, at school, at church, in youth group, etc., the emphasis is more and more upon entertainment and less and less upon solid biblical teaching and practice, and I emphasize practice because many may be preaching the right things from the pulpit but the practice tells a different story. I will attach another article here that is old yet so relevant to today's culture and church setting and I believe answers why so many are falling away from true faith in Jesus Christ.

The Old Cross and the New by A. W. Tozer - The Old Cross and the New by A. W. Tozer

 

[1watchman]

The short answer to this Q. is that many came looking for fun and some belief to accomodate their own interests. They did not like what the Bible said (or didn't read it) and so they turned away. A serious seeker will study the Word of God and seek God (see Jer. 29: 13).

- 1 Watchman

 

[miamited]

Hi Guys,

I believe that most youth are not forsaking their faith. You can't forsake what you don't have.

God bless.
In Christ, Ted

 

[gideons300]

I was reading this today and thought it might be helpful/insightful for Christian parents out there and Church Youth Groups to better prepare themselves when bringing up or teaching young people. There is a great need for support for youths today as they are bombarded with so much garbage that they are losing themselves. It is titled: "Why are so many young people falling away from the faith".

Read here: Why are so many young people falling away from the faith?

Sadly, it is true that many young people are discarding Christianity as the path they want to follow. Certainly there are some who never really knew Him, but I suspect it also involves those who genuinely did meet Him and were His children.

The young today are exposed to more temptation from puberty to age 21 then you and I have been for our entire lives. Where is the blame to be laid?.

We need to dig deep and whether we like the answer or not, we as the body need to own up to the answer.

The fault is ours. There is a scripture that hits the nail on the head for us:

"Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have, give I thee."

The law of nature says like produces like. Lions do not begat gazelles. Elephants do not begat hummingbirds. And Christians not walking in the power of the Holy Ghost to overcomes all temptation do not begat new young Christians who do.

We as Christ's body have been promised by our Father that our shield of faith will quench ALL the fiery darts of the enemy.

We have been promised that no matter the temptation, God WILL provide a way of escape that we might be able to bear up under it, not fall, and count it all joy as we do it.

God has promised us that sin shall NOT have dominion over us.

Are these amazing promises given to us by God Himself not exactly what our children need? How can they be expected to stand up in the face of satan's enticements if we ourselves do not expect it to work in our own walks?

Most of modern Christianity limit grace to forgiveness, and then it is cast back upon our shoulders to "do the hard work" and become good Christians in the midst of a wicked and increasingly perverse world. Do we really expect this to work with our teens and young adults, when we openly deny that we can do it ourselves?

Our only safety is found in the grace of God that not only rescues us from the guilt of our sins, but makes us victorious over the power of them as well.

It is God who must keep us from falling, not our best efforts and resolve. How much more our children.

We are fulfilling the verry words of God, having a a form of godliness but denying the power of it. God spoke in Ezekiel 36, when he promised us the new covenant, that He would put a new heart within us and cause us (Ezekiel 36:27) to obey. Cause us. Obedience, the cornerstone of the old covenant, the law, was to become a promise to us under the new. Praise God!

But until we hunger after it, until we fall at the feet of our God for the power to overcome the world, the flesh and the devil, just as He promised, our children will continue to, one by one, walk away from a religion that cannot stand up to temptation and even in the midst of it, count it all joy as we have been instructed.

It is not to late for them, nor us. But it involves the deepest digging we have ever done in our spiritual lives. We must admit that our way, self effort, has failed them and us miserably, and that we have refused to believe in the promises of God. We must admit that we have missed what God wants to make us- overcomers.

We must find our "inner Abraham" and meet with God alone. We must open up His word and plead for Him to empower us with a walk that triumphs. Abraham counted that "what God had promised, He was able also to perform". Shall we do any less, for ourselves, for our dear children?

At the end of that most amazing prophetic chapter, God says:

"I shall yet be enquired of by the House of israel to do it for them. I shall increase them like a flock."

Ezekiel 36:37

It is time, church. It is past time.

Blessings,

Bruce

 

[Christsfreeservant]

Amen to what Bruce just said. This is absolutely true. When our young people do not see in practice in the lives of those who are supposed to be leading them to a walk of faith the very things we say we believe, then how should we expect that they should follow Christ with their lives when mainly all they see is an empty religion that is self-fulfilling, self-indulgent, self-gratifying and does not give glory, honor and praise to Almighty God? When they see that the church is no different from the world, then what is there to draw them to faith in Jesus Christ?

 

[Philosopher61]

Young people are certainly falling away from the Church however that does not necessarily translate to them falling away from God. Religion in America has become a very divisive and and selfish exercise and young people see that in politics and the pulpit. I believe that young people are still very much interested in God however the messenger (our church networks) are presently souring the message by poor example.

 

[chrstfllwr]

I think that young Christians today for the most part don't understand the times in which we live. That comes more than anything from biblical illiteracy. Often they get their teaching from from their favorite Christian musicians or whoever their peers tell them is cool. Bob Fraley has written on this extensively, and its worth checking out what he has said about America in Prophecy.

 

[Breaking Babylon]

The children don't come to God, because the television and computer monitors are their gospel, and the powers behind them are their prophets.

 

[Nurbz]

As someone who's grown up in a religious school and among religious issues both personal and political I can say from my own experience it is the incredible hypocrisy from adults, as well as spiritual and political leaders.

My parents never pushed religious views nor politics onto me, I developed them while in school, and during that time, I saw adults behave the exact opposite of what they taught; nasty judgemental attitudes over current events, making political party doctrine and their faith one in the same, picking and choosing what standards of the bible they want to follow then attacking people who don't follow those standards, allowing politicans to preach what the faithful should do, the treatment of a student who said he was bisexual, and other countless things. By the end I nearly graduated an atheist in that sort of environment and I refuse to attend church to this day, limiting my fellowship to sites like this.

So like I saw in my younger years, today they probably see the visible religious (or religious-political) folks as judgemental, nasty people who hate anyone and any religion that doesn't fall in line with their dogma and constantly voice their desire to put the government under christian control so they can force everyone to behave as they say. More recently we've seen christians vocally oppossed to homosexuals to the point they've made fools of themselves because of their own repression and the hypocrisy of focusing only on one form of sexual immorality while the majority of christians practice divorce, adultery, pre-marital sex and use of birth control. The way christians act and talk over the subject of gay marriage or DADT, it's only made them look like victims of bigotry (and in a lot of cases that's all it is).

Add to this the fact young people tend to be more idealistic, liberal and more willing to work with and accepting of others, the faithful have given them plenty of excuses to turn their backs on it, which from my own experience is very justified.

We've no one to blame but ourselves and our behavior in the public eye. TV, music and all manner of things are just an easy scapegoat to divert responsibility

 

[HeritageFarm]

My opinion of what the cause is differs significantly from the other replies... I lay the blame on society. The society of industrialization, of advertising, of self-pleasure. In todays world, it's so easy to just sit... eat some cheap, industrialized food from Walmart and play on the computer all day long. Every day we are bombarded by advertisements, of selfish people trying to get you to be selfish and buy their product. Self-pleasure is easier to do today then it has ever been in history. I also lay some blame on evolution... but that's a different topic.

 

[His_disciple3]

the reason could be all the different translations now, we can't read the bible for we are too busy asking and listening to why we should use this translation or that translation, and then we spend countless hours in christian book stores , trying to decide which translation we should use, 100 years ago when someone would say read your Bible. you knew which one to read, now when someone says go read your bible, we got to say which one?? and 100 years ago christians would defend the Word of God as the true word of God, now most christains will say they( all translations) has errors in them, so hardly one believes that we have a Holy Bible anymore, how can we preach the Word of God to our youths. if we don't even believe that we have the true Word of God anymore??

 

[Nurbz]

I've noticed a lot of the discussion has stemmed from the idea that christians don't have the control over people and society it once did. Things seemed "better" in previous years because a majority imposed shame and strict social standards on people who didn't agree, and there came the backlash against it.

Conversion and ministry isn't about imposing doctrine on others as some people think they need to do to get everyone "back on track"

 

[HeritageFarm]

the reason could be all the different translations now, we can't read the bible for we are too busy asking and listening to why we should use this translation or that translation, and then we spend countless hours in christian book stores , trying to decide which translation we should use, 100 years ago when someone would say read your Bible. you knew which one to read, now when someone says go read your bible, we got to say which one?? and 100 years ago christians would defend the Word of God as the true word of God, now most christains will say they( all translations) has errors in them, so hardly one believes that we have a Holy Bible anymore, how can we preach the Word of God to our youths. if we don't even believe that we have the true Word of God anymore??

Solution: learn Hebrew. However I don't think that's a problem. Here is an excellent site that compares all versions of the bible:
biblos .com

 

[HeritageFarm]

the reason could be all the different translations now, we can't read the bible for we are too busy asking and listening to why we should use this translation or that translation, and then we spend countless hours in christian book stores , trying to decide which translation we should use, 100 years ago when someone would say read your Bible. you knew which one to read, now when someone says go read your bible, we got to say which one?? and 100 years ago christians would defend the Word of God as the true word of God, now most christains will say they( all translations) has errors in them, so hardly one believes that we have a Holy Bible anymore, how can we preach the Word of God to our youths. if we don't even believe that we have the true Word of God anymore??

Solution: learn Hebrew and read the original Hebrew bible.
Also, the Bible itself is a conglamorate of many differed books, compiled. They will have their own phraseology, contexts, etc.

 

[Sealight]

I believe that the reason that children are falling away is actually explained in 1 Timothy 4:1 & 2, "Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron."

How do we fall from the faith? By giving heed to seducing spirits and the doctrine of devils. If you look at giving heed part there, what does it mean? The dictionary says that to give or to pay particular notice to or to draw your attention to.

So in this verse, it says that fall from the faith, they giving heed or paying attention to seducing spirits. The word seduce means to entice or to draw you away. So spirits, which you must note that it is capitalized, it is not of God. If it was the Holy Spirit, 1st the name would be capitalized and it would not be labeled as leading us astray.

But so we look at this verse, "In the latter times, some will depart from the faith." A lot of opinions are going around that says that "if they were of the faith, they would not depart from it. And if they depart from it, they never had it in the first place." While in that sense, yes, in a lot of cases, that is correct. I have seen a lot of "professing" Christians that has no outward signs of being separated from the World and no fruits of the Spirit that I could see flowing out of their lives.

I know that we only look on the outward while God looks in them. I am not judging them, nor do I know where they stand at before God. They may once had a true conversion and fall away over time, or they may not have a true conversion and only says that they are a Christian.

But the one thing I want to point out in this passage is "Some shall depart from the faith." If you depart from something, you must to have it before you decide to let it go. If I were to travel to New York from my house, I must leave my house to go to New York. The word "from" means that they were there, but now they are not.

But getting to the topic question about why so many people fall away from the faith. I believe the answer is about giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrine of devils. Young people are simple. According to Proverbs, it means "Untaught." Younger people, especially youth, are attracted to more modern things, like cars, sports, TV, Internet, and so forth more than most adults. And with those addictions, these spirits will come. And if they do not keep on the whole armor of God, they might get wounded with one of the devil's darts that can lead you astray.

 

[His_disciple3]

Solution: learn Hebrew. However I don't think that's a problem. Here is an excellent site that compares all versions of the bible:
biblos .com

oh yeah great ideal dude, NOT!!!!.You can't even get people to read the Bible in English so I know we will be able to get everyone to earn greek and hebrew, so that they can read the Bible, I didn't say I had fallen away, so why would I need to learn hebrew, I have my KJB in english.

 

[HeritageFarm]

Well, if you really REALLY wanted to know what it said, you could learn Hebrew.

 

[His_disciple3]

Well, if you really REALLY wanted to know what it said, you could learn Hebrew.

I know what it says I was addressing the topic in the op not saying I had a problem

 

[SeraphimsCherub]

There is really only one "true" reason that anyone could fall away from the "Faith";and that is only that they were never "Regenerated" and born of GOD'S Spirit to begin with! Namely that their "belief" is "self-generated",and not the SuperNatural Faith & Belief the is Generated within a person by the Almighty Power of The Holy Spirit of The Living Christ & GOD The Father!! Now there are many Spirit born Believer's who after they are Saved GOD allows them to drift away for a season for His Own Soveriegn Purposes for His Own Chosing and Perfectly Taylored path of Faith for them through His Journey with each "person" - "Personally" through this "life", His Life!! And GOD Will always Draw the True Believer who has drifted away back to His Self!! I know this because it happened to me!! After i was radically Holy Spirit Baptized SAVED, i drifted away from GOD back into my own world of sin and misery! But i "already knew in my heart that i was SAVED and that GOD would eventually draw me back unto Him! And i still had a "relationship" with GOD even in those most "sinful" times with GOD,although i knew that He already knew that my heart was not right before Him at that time!! But that's what true Living Faith IS within a person!! It (((NEVER-DIES))) & (((ALWAYS-PERSEVERS))), (((IT IS NOT "SELF-RIGHTEOUS"))), (((NOR IS IT "SELF-WILLED"))),(((IT IS SUPERNATURAL IN IT'S ORIGEN FROM IT'S BEGINNING WITHIN A PERSON, UNTO IT'S CONSUMATION))),(((BECAUSE GOD IS "THE AND FINISHER OF OUR FAITH))) & (((HE IS ALSO THE ALPHA & OMEGA OF ALL THING'S))) (((AND WHO SOEVER THE LORD GOD ALMIGHTY TAKES UPON HIMSELF TO SAVE SHALL NEVER BE CONQUERED BY SATAN AND THE SIN'S OF THAT PERSON WHO HE HAS SAVED THROUGH THE ALMIGHTY POWER OF HIS LOVE,WORD,BLOOD,& SPIRIT)))..........................{{{AMEN}}}