It was not a holy evening. No. I really want to discuss Christian politics with the place of Christian education and their application, which may not be understood as God. Shall we pray? A God our Heavenly Father, with thy directness by thy Spirit, We do not want human opinion, but the knowledge of thy word and thy will for us. So we commit ourselves to thee in faith and independence in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Now first of all I want to make claim that this is a very controversial subject and I do not expect you to agree with me. Rather I want you to stimulate you to think, I may try to knock down some of your sacred cows deliberately so that you'll search the Scriptures diligently to see whether these things are so. Sometimes I may state even a thing a little extremely, hoping that you'll sit up and take notice and then Find out, well, is this sorrow, is he completely off base? But I don't want you to believe anything because I say it. I've got your authority. God has your authority through the Word. Now, I'm talking about education. Generally speaking, we are limiting ourselves to tertiary education. In other words, everyone by law has to go to primary school. almost every one has to go to secondary school and normally one will finish secondary school education. And I would have no hesitation in saying that I believe you would have an obligation unless there is some very, very good reason otherwise, regardless of your economic situation, that you should have completed your high school education. And if that has not been completed, you ought to go to night school and have that as the absolute irreducible minimum. Therefore our interest and our subject is mainly with tertiary education, that is education beyond the completion of secondary school. One of the most important factors in all of life is motive and motivation. The difference between a success and failure normally is not the intelligent quotient. Obviously there is a level below which you'll never be particularly successful. But taking up as average or more than average individuals The difference between success and failure is not a very high IQ or an average or even an average low IQ, but motivation. Most of us are like automobiles capable of going a hundred miles an hour and we're out there, I think, along at twenty-five miles an hour. And if the low IQ person had sufficient motivation, he could forge a edge of the high IQ person but being understood that the higher IQ person only had average motivation. So don't please make an excuse, I'm not bright, I'm not a genius. That is not your real problem. Your problem at mind is that we waste too much time, we haven't got a drive, we haven't got a goal, we haven't got an ambition. But more basic even than that is our motives. for what we do as Christians. A friend of mine, a missionary in India, a few months ago, a lady missionary had been out in India for more than eighteen years and she was in a flat. All she had so much to do, she couldn't keep up, she was bored of doing this and doing that and doing this and doing that. And that, perhaps it was rather an embarrassing young woman, said to her, Well, Miss So-and-so, why do you do these things? The woman looked into a startled, sobbing upon. And this girl said, Excuse me, I don't wish to be rude, but why do you do these things? And the lady mission address set up to her full height and said, Now, then I've got this. I've got an official interview of the ATV, the software is not allowed to be why I do anything. That's the reason she was in the flat. She was doing all sorts of things and didn't know why she was doing them. And that's true of lots of us. What is our basic motive in third education, tertiary education? It could be pride. but we want to make a name for ourselves. We want the status that a company is going to college. And wherever there's a certain social something or other that accrues to the person who's gone to college, even if he's never graduated. You see that again very, very clearly in India where you see a man and on his card he'll say, failed BA or failed MA. He's got status, he's at least tried. And while we wouldn't put it quite that way, there is a certain amount of pride attached to going to college or going on to Bible school or something like that. Another motive could be selfish. We want to succeed for ourselves. We want to make a name for ourselves. We want to get a job. We want position. It could be self-righteousness that we want to do something in our own strength. We want to use the mind that God has given us. We want to stand on our own two feet and not depend upon anybody. It could be competitiveness. We want to do better than our parents did. We want to succeed where others have not succeeded. It could be conformity. We are living in a suburban area where everybody, as anybody, goes to college. So we conform to pattern. Or it could be the will of God. I would suggest that in primary and secondary education essentially we have no option. When it comes to tertiary education we've reached or should have reached that level of maturity in which we are facing up to God's will for our lives. And what we do, we should do basically because we become convinced that this is God's will for us. In other words, if you're going into nursing training, nursing training, or you're going to go to college, or you're going to a Bible school, if you're a Christian, you should have thought and traced things through so that you could say it from Sydney, well of course I'm not absolutely certain, but as I thought things through, I believe that this is God's will for me. But more than that, we ought to be going forward in the endeavor to please the Lord. And now, put it still more graphically, we are going into tertiary education for the Lord's sake. Not for our own sake. Not for our own good, but for the sake of the Lord. Now, this is a very, very high ideal, but it's the biblical ideal. And if we're born again, this must be our basic motive in all we do. It is for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ. And happy is the fellow or girl who goes on to college for that reason. On the other hand, I've met dozens and dozens of people who've gone to secular college and university and have lost out spiritually because they themselves are their reason for going. And the things they do in college, and those of whom they associate, it's for selfish reasons. They like to do this. They like to do that. May I say something that's not a mere excuse for doing anything because you like to do it. True it is, I believe, the will of God will lead us in the direction most often of our inclinations to by subject to God's word. But our personal desire is no sufficient reason for doing anything. And therefore, right at the outset, when we consider the world of personal education, we've got a short face-up to God's will for our lives. and our basic motive should be because we believe this is God's will or we want to please the Lord Jesus. And this reduces life to a very, very simple principle and proposition. Life is not complex. Life is simple, just to please the Lord Jesus. Now, I pray we'll have some airy-fairy kind of attitude that we won't study or do anything like that. We'll spend all our time giving our tracks. Not at all. We will believe that if God has sent us to college, we'll want to be our very best for Him. We want to do well academically. We'll want to do well in terms of athletics. We want to do well in terms of things social, but it's for the Lord's sake not to pop up our own oval inflated ego or to satisfy ourselves. And I would like to face up to this basic motivation in your life, for if this matter is insanity, listen to me, you've got to go on the rocks. If you're encouraged to please yourself, to be popular, to satisfy yourself, you're going to lose out spiritually. And don't smile about this matter. It's very, very serious. Your eternal destiny is involved. If you're willing to please yourself, you'll go on the rocks and lose out, and all of life will be tragic. Let's think of the world today. One of the great phenomena of our age and generation is the unbelievable rise in literacy. High schools are being founded around the world daily. Universities are being established almost every month. The young nations of the world are going to achieve their place in the sun in terms of education. Education is the great goal and the great goal of the peoples of the world. This, of course, is presenting a fantastic problem on the mission field. You see, up until the present time, the missionary had a great advantage over everybody else because he was so much the superior in terms of culture, economy, and education. A new situation is rising, particularly, say, in a country such as Japan, which is the most literate country in the world. where the tragedy is that far from the foreign missionary is as a poorer education and poorer equipment than the Japanese. Put yourself in this place, supposing some poor ignorant person from New Guinea dressed in his clothes, came over and started to preach his religion to you and me as being the best way of life. The very fact that his influence and lack of culture and lack of education would be a number of strikes against him in general acceptance. Now, the prophets of God, our missionaries have this advantage. They have less and less have this advantage today. One of the problems is that many missionaries are failing to face up to reality and they want to retreat off into the country villages where they can still function. Well, it's a great movement today toward the city. It is the company's education. And if we know anything about missionary strategy, we should be concentrating on the city. I've got less and less sympathy with all these people who concentrate on the primitive tribes. It's an easy way out, and it's a short side of policy. Incidentally, what was the example of the Apostle Paul? Where did he go? He went to the great metropolitan, dominant cities of his day. He had spread the power of evangelism under the Holy Ghost. He went to the great cities and founded churches there. And from those churches they spread out to the villages in the country. Our strategy has been contrary to the biblical pattern. We've concentrated on the primitive village and the peasant and the indian. And we've bypassed the great cities where they're educated masses. And as a result, And I'm now speaking on a human level that involves both with human and divine. As a result, Christianity is having a diminishing impact upon the world today. Now in today's society with a rising literacy, at its pace with technology, the total strategy must be to concentrate on the cities because the movement is toward the cities, the control is toward the cities. And this is where we should establish a testimony for Christ. Now, if that is the case, if we expect the Scriptures to serve the Lord Jesus, it's an increasing imperative that we have adequate education. Now, I'm only speaking as a man. We know that God can take the things that are not to put to naught the things that are. But we're living in this day and generation. Therefore, education is of increasing importance. This is in terms of the service of the Lord. But it's equally important in terms of ourselves. So we are living in a technological age and only the trained person with acquired skills is going to be able to earn his living satisfactorily. You probably were sufficient already to know that the great sector of the population which is becoming unemployable is the uneducated, untrained, unskilled section. there's going to be less for the ordinary laboring man to do in tomorrow's world of the Lord Tarry. The person who's going to be able to earn his living is the person who's got some acquired skill or some technical training. Therefore, less and less is tertiary education optional. More and more it's becoming a necessity. That is the diminishing role of the uneducated in the world. And this is going forward in terms of a geometric progression, so that it's not too much to say that in one generation people without some form of treasury education or acquired skill will never get anywhere. And we're living in this in-between stage, but it's going to be short-lived. Therefore, I think the problem of education in relation to the Christian, both in terms of Christian service, And every bread and butter is something of very great importance. Therefore we've got to think about these things. Now that would lead us on to something else. What is education? The meaning of the word means to lead out. And of course a great debate has raised in the United States as to whether a person is educated or is given skills and information. And United States has gone overboard, tragically enough, on the education of the person and has failed to teach him reading, writing, and arithmetic facts. The great thing has been adjustment. It is all this nauseous type of education, social studies. Nothing's called arithmetic, history, and so on. They are these kind of euphonious kind of expressions which are just a cover-up for inadequate training. Through the person is important. Very, very important. But if you concentrate on the person without giving him the facts and skills, he'll never really get anywhere. Clear is that the person needs to be educated as a person. He needs to mature. He needs to adjust to society. But in previous generations they didn't have all this kind of training and they seemed to adjust reasonably well. One of the great things we are facing in world competition in terms of education today is that in the Eastern world they are teaching people facts and teaching them in part to think. They are not so much concentrating on the individual. After all, maturation or growing up is essentially a natural process. And if we are basically moral, we will be able to make a fair adjustment. But if our whole education is concentrated upon us, instead of giving us information and skills and learning, will be rather poorly equipped in this world. And this is one of the problems we face today. Another great change in education has been this. Years ago, tertiary education was for the privileged and the wealthy. And education was for education's sake. In other words, knowledge was an end in itself. To be able to play the piano was a good. to no longer in Greek was a good. But now the ship is toward the vocational and the utilitarian. Education is to equip me to earn my living, to train me to occupy a job, to help me to fulfill a function. And this is the whole thrust of education and rather necessarily today. At the same time the person himself ought to develop. One of the great differences between European education and American education still is this, although it's changing. In the United States we take a course in this and a course in this and a course in this and a course in this. And we more or less assimilate certain facts, but we ourselves are not personally involved in them. So a person can go to university and leave university and be essentially the same person he was to start off with. But in European education the individual is involved in the learning process, so he himself becomes essentially different in some respects than he was before. So you'll see the students in France or Germany in their cafes sitting around debating about this subject and arguing and thinking about it. They're not thinking about Joe Poluka or the World Series. They're involved in their subject because they're interested in it. It becomes part of their life. Now this should be absolutely true when it comes to Bible training and theology. And nothing fills me with greater despair and desolation. They'll see this horrible system of taking a course to you and a course to you and a course to you and a course for you and not be involved in it. The greatest subject in the world is the knowledge of God. And that can't understand people going to seminary, going to Bible school, are not being excited about their subject and talking and debating it till four o'clock in the morning. This is the greatest knowledge in the world, the knowledge of God. And true application involves me as an individual being involved with my subject. I come up to these issues. I've made a decision for or against them, and essentially I'm a different person. Now this is all involved in true education. And if we believe that God is leading us in the process of education, how much more should we be involved in it? Personally, I believe education should be both utilitarian and vocational, but also it should affect me. I come face to face with certain concepts, certain ideas, even if it's just in the general context of secularism. And I've got to make a decision. and I've got to make a commitment one way or the other. Now let's talk about secular education for a few minutes. Even though I have got to be involved in a secular world, we've got to face up to the basic philosophy and point of view of secular education. and we've got to make our commitment one way or the other as Christians. Of course our commitment will be to Christ and to a Christian world and like you. But I fear that the escape from the secular world of education oftentimes can be a weakness rather than a strength. Now when you have a world, it starts in high school and becomes intense in college. There's a tremendous impact. There's an impact between Christian thought and secular thought. For instance, essentially our Christian point of view is that God is there. He is autonomous. He is independent. He depends upon nobody. He's under no necessity. He's absolutely free. And we are responsible to Him. We depend upon Him. He gives us air to breathe. He gives us health and strength. He gives us food and clothing. All the blessings of common grace. And then there are also the special blessings that are ours through grace as members of Christ's body. We depend upon God. We look to God. God is the final absolute. God is the final point of reference. All of life refers back to God because God is God. Now that's Christian thinking. Unfortunately, in many of our Christian schools, this kind of thinking is never taught, but we'll come to that in a few minutes. But the essential Christian concept is that God, the living God, is the great and undergrading reality of all life. There's even an absolute in life, and that absolute is God. And when he comes to the end of the kingdom and is still God. God is there. He's the unchangeable one, Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever. Oh, what a glorious thing. It is to be able to cast oneself upon God and thereby in security and his arms undergirding us and sustaining us in the great barrage and emptiness of life and its magnificence apart from God. Now, the other great view is the secular view that man is autonomous. There is no God. If there is a God, there's a deistic conception. He's a great God, somebody, somewhere, the man upstairs, let's forget about him. For all practical purposes, man is not God. Man is autonomous. He doesn't depend upon anyone. He's not responsible to anyone. He's on his own. He can make his own decisions. He can go his own way. And then when man is autonomous or independent in his thinking, then everything else is relative. There is no right or wrong, there is no put nor bad, there is no justice, there's no morality, there's no ethics, there's nothing. Marriage is our God. For in the first time our analysis is nothing wrong with murdering someone. And there's certainly nothing wrong with committing fornication. Now this is the basic point of view in secular education. The problem is not, as it's been misrepresented by some advocates of Christian education, that there are evil, malicious, wicked, abominable professors trying to tear people's faith to pieces and destroy them. That's the exception. It happens very, very seldom. The real problem is that the totality of the impact and influence and force of secular education is that man is self-sufficient. We don't need God. God doesn't matter. If he does exist, who cares? so that for the Christian in the secular world there will be this tension. But girls and fellows, you can't escape that attention by going to a Christian college. That's the tension of life. So the only way to take it down to the street by applying is saying God doesn't matter. I am the only person who matters. That is, the attitude of the sinful man, of sinful society. That man is autonomous. That man is independent. That man isn't responsible to anyone or anything. Of course, in this society, and in a communist society, God becomes the state. In a very good society, God becomes the individual. Take your choice. But basically, this is what is true. in the three-separate system, to all practical purposes, the individual is God. If a propagist or Catholic society, totalitarianism in one form or other, the state is God. The state determines the law. The state determines what is right or wrong. But in either case, God is left out. And this is a great issue of life today that we've got to face. And then, of course, when it comes to the whole principle of faith, which is the basic principle of Christian life, the secular world demands proof. And it demands proof in terms of secular materialistic categories. Now, faith isn't unreason. Faith isn't blind credulity. We're now talking about Christian faith and God. Faith isn't a leader to the dark. Faith isn't the will to believe all others to the contrary. You heard about the old woman who went to the London Zoo. And she saw the giraffe for the first time. And when she saw that long neck of monstrosity, she said, I simply won't believe it. Well, Christianity isn't that in faith. That we want to believe that somewhere there is God and somewhere there is salvation. There's no evidence for these things, but we're willing to believe, but believe with evidence for the contrary. No, no. Our faith is founded upon reality. Our faith is founded upon fact. Having said that, faith is not one hundred percent reason. There is that commitment in one sense to the thing that is unprovable in terms of secular categories, even though there's a vast, massive presumptive evidence bearing witness to the truth of that. You take archaeology. Archaeology can give evidence after the historicity of Scripture. But there's a great element, an area of scripture that archaeology cannot touch. An illustration. As a matter of fact, Christ died. That's the fact. Archaeology and scientific investigation can corroborate that. But the Bible interprets Christ's death. Christ died for our sins. Archaeology can't prove that. That's accepted by faith. Therefore we've got to recognize the limit of reason. Our faith is not unreasonable, but faith must be exercised. And this of course is despised in the secular world of education. Materialism and things spiritual, the unseen world, the world of the Spirit, the tension between time and eternity. I'd like to spend time on this, but there isn't time this morning. But these are some of the tensions in secular education that if you think you've got to face up to. Of course half the students who go to college never think. Maybe only fifteen percent think, I don't know. Maybe it's a little cruel. But the kind of problem that's disrupted to adolescence in college, and the fact that college graduates adolescence who never think is rather tragic. And incidentally, one of the most tragic features of Christian education generally is that they don't want students to think. We'll come to that in a moment. Education, secular or Christian. You've got to make up your own mind. There are arguments both ways. But whatever you do, at least get the facts. Write this down, will you? A mass judgment is no better than his information. A man's judgment is no better than his information. Therefore, if you're faced with a question, shall I go to the Christian school or a secular school and get the information? And I'll bet you'll be able to make a judgment led by God the Holy Spirit. But judgment is not based upon ignorance, emotion or prejudice, but facts. Historically, education has been the hand made of a church. It has been Christians who have been in the vanguard of education. The great missionary movement around the world has been accompanied by reducing language to writing, preaching the Bible, teaching people to read and to write. That they may have the Word of God in their own language. the great university foundations of United States and elsewhere, until we've reached this technological age to the most part were founded by God-fearing Christians who really desired that God should be honored. But listen, we are very aware of our Christian interpretation everywhere around the world if it is decaying and finally becoming an instrument of death. not of life. And I challenge you to prove me otherwise. And if I were a prophet, unless by God's grace something unbelievable takes place, the famous Christian colleges today, in a few generations, will be instruments of unbelief and modernism and radical humanism, as the great universities are today, they are once fabulous Christian colleges. If you want a disillusioning, disillusioning reference, examine Christian education in the mission field, look at the most anti-Christian leaders in the world of the mission field and to have almost everyone were educated in the Christian school. Look at Christchurch. Did you know that he won a prize for asserting the entire New Testament in his parish church when he was a boy? Look at most of the young communist leaders of Africa. Almost everyone got their education in the Mission School. If you want to discover the most flagrant opposition to the Gospel, go to India and see the Christian colleges and schools, the Apollo are happy. But the Gospel. Look at a medical university in Beowut. Founded by the Presbyterian Church. would permit the society for the propagation of Israel, it would not permit a Christian society in the spirit, in case the Mohammedans will offend it. I will give you illustration after illustration after illustration. Peter and I have come to the conviction that missionaries are wasting their time and wasting Christian money to establish schools on the mission field. beyond the level of a sound primary education. Now you can take me to the scaffold and cut off my head later on. This is a personal opinion, but I think we can be backed up with some very impressive facts and arguments. People are not integrated to be Christians. The gospel is preached and proclaimed and God the Holy Ghost comes upon people and they're saved. Education, Christian or secular. Education has been the handmaid of a church. But let's ask ourselves, what is Christian education? In the minds of many people, a Christian school is one in which the boys and girls don't smoke, drink, dance, go to shows, don't hold hands, and go to bed early and put their lights out. In which there is a compulsory chapel service every day and in which every class is opened with prayer. That's another simplification, but tragically that's true. That is not Christian education. If you want to understand what true Christian education is, you've got to go and study the Dutchman. who have done more in terms of true Christian education, although it's not been accompanied by great evidence of spiritual success. At least they had a concept of Christian education. That history, geography, literature, that the totality of learning should be cast into the context of God's and God's revelation, and that all that should be interpreted in the life of God's word. that education doesn't become Christian, merely to open a class in history with prayer and then teach history very much as you'd learn it anywhere else. But that we believe that that of history God is working. And therefore we interpret history and teach history the facts of history, that they're cast in interpretive interpretation in the total context of the teaching of God's Word. That's Christian education. but there's very, very little of it in the world today. Of course, these Dutchmen even carry it further, and they say you can't even teach two plus two makes four, unless it's cast into a Christian mold. Personally, I think that's carrying it a bit too far, but that's a matter of debate. But at least the Dutch have gone a long way in trying to think things through in terms of the Scripture, or in order to examine the results of their Christian education. Again, spiritually, they're not particularly impressive. For a school to be a Christian college, it's got to be essentially Christian and it's got to be collegiate. Now there are very, very few truly Christian colleges in the world today. You find a whole lot of colleges that call themselves colleges, the education is largely worthless. If you're going to go to a Christian college, and you are barely aware of doing any graduate work or having any academic recognition, wanting to buy the booklet that the United States puts out each year in which it classifies all tertiary education in the United States. And it would cost about fifty cents. And then I'll have every college listed and classified in terms of its academic excellence The value of the education from the world's point of view, and it's graded ABCD, no classification. And you'll be horrified to see the mass of so-called Christian colleges that so far as the world is concerned are not recognized in terms of acceptable education. Now, I'm not saying it's wrong to go to a place like that, but get the facts and make up your mind. It may well be you'd say, I'd rather go to an unclassified school. for the sake of what does it mean to be spiritually. Very well, God bless you, go. But please don't go on a map. You're getting what the world calls a third or a second or even a third class education. You're not getting it. Now there are some colleges that have the number one classification, academically. The other more important thing in Christian education is to whether the school is Christian. And again, I would urge you to find out whether the principal is law, or grace, whether they want to graduate babies in adolescence or men and women. I fully agree that when a person comes in as a freshman he's got to be treated as a child and should be under discipline and rule and regulation. But I have no hesitation in saying that if a school, a college, on a tertiary level fails to graduate an adult, it fails. That's an opinion. You're not asked to agree with me. Make up your own mind. And by and about, I mean a man who has met God And he's living his life not on the basis of rules and regulations of a college, but he's got that inner conviction imparted to him by the Holy Spirit and the Word of God that this is the way that God would have him go. And he makes these decisions in the light of God's Word, not in the life of the pressure and status symbols of fundamentalist society. He decides not to go to movies, not because it's frowned on by the fundamentalists, not because it's contrary to the pledge, but because before God he wants to honor and glorify God and is a man who's making a decision before God and going his own way. There are certain colleges that have the spy system and a person is given extra spiritual credit and extra acceptance if he tells child in a sniveling, disgusting way on his friends. that's unworthy of merit, let alone the Lord Jesus Christ. There are other schools that operate on the basis of conscience. I must confess they appeal to me very much more. There are rules and regulations and the students are put on their honour that if they're not living up to the standard they go to one of the advisors and talk it over. I'm not going to name any schools, but these exist. Some of them are very close one to another. And in the schools that have it on the basis of conscience and the Word of God, they have a very, very high standard of spiritual life and conduct. I don't know why we talk so much about salvation by grace and continue wherever possible to live under the law principle. I happen to go to Dallas Theological Seminary. It'll be the one school I'll mention. It made a tremendous impression on me when I arrived there. I was given a latch key and told I was expected to behave as a Christian as a gentleman. There were absolutely no rules or regulations. When the faculty reception was held two days later, four or five students walked down smoking cigars. One happened to be Dr. Vernon McGee, a church of the open door. Nobody said a word. Within two weeks every student had stopped smoking. The faculty made it a matter of great prayer. The students themselves inquired into it and they stopped. There were two or three students dropped the year I was there. They weren't dropped for breaking rules. But the faculty talked it over with them and they came to see that their conduct was such that it was unbecoming a man of God who had served the Lord and they dropped out of school. There was no requirement as to chapel. There was no requirement of lecture attendance. All examinations were on your honor. It was worked under Dr. Chaper and the principle of grace. And I can only say that that made such an impression on the students that the change that took place in the first year in the lives of those students was a very wonderful thing. Children have got to live under law and surely live under the principle of grace. One of the big questions is when does a child become an adult. There's much to be said for Christian education. When students come to me and say, should I go to a Christian school or a secular school, I have to say, I don't know. Seek God's will. I believe it is God's will and infinitely better for many individuals to go to a Christian school. For there they are nurtured and strengthened and built up in God and are matured in Him. On the other hand, for some other people to go to the Christian school, it affects them in the opposite direction and drives them away from things spiritual. I see many other people go to the secular school where they felt it was a case of sink or swim. And by God's grace they may have brought colors to the mast and they grew phenomenally spiritually under opposition. The principle of the hot house, and all of us need a bit of hot house treatment. The principle of being exposed to the weather when we sink our roots deep into the soil and lay hold of Christ. That's both elements that are needed in our training. What is the role in today's educational system? I believe we're going to see some very, very great changes in the near future. And the thing that came out a couple of days ago in the newspaper when the Supreme Court has banned all religious training and praying and reading in Scripture will have an effect, allowing this morning's paper for the Pennsylvania and Jersey are going to continue. Probably there'll be a test case there, eventually. I don't think the present situation in the United States in education is going to continue. For your information, there is a growing feeling on the part of many ministers in parish churches that in today's secular society it is impossible to expect that children can be trained because the parents have advocated the responsibility of training their children. The children can be trained one hour a day, a week in Sunday school. and are adopting or want to adopt the system of the Jews and the system of the Chinese, so that children will be given maybe four days a week in the church, two hours in the afternoon, from the time they're little ones to the time they're through high school, regular Christian training and instruction. And I believe we're going to see a great growth in that kind of a thing. the establishment in terms of these educational buildings that churches have, they're too expensive to be used one day a week, and I believe they're going to be used as supplementary Christian training in a secular world. Personally, in principle, I'm wholeheartedly in agreement with that. I think that is very, very sound thinking. On the other hand, it may well be that if the Catholics succeed in obtaining tax relief will see the rise of a great many Christian schools also enjoying such tax relief. And that may create a new situation. But I believe increasingly Christian leaders and churches are alarmed at the progress of secularism in the world. and they fear that something's got to be done to counteract secularism and to teach God's word. Now if we were to go to a country like Merwea or Great Britain, there they had religious instruction in the schools, and right through high school in Merwea every boy and girl is given a very thorough training in Christian doctrine according to the Lutheran point of view and in the Bible and so on. What has been the result of it? It is not encouraging. Personally, I believe the concept of religious education or Christian education, now I'm using those words in a technical sense and not using them in terms of a Christian college, but that people can be educated and gradually they become Christians is contrary to Scripture. That has normally got to be a definite and clear-cut conversion experience. And even in the case of a person who cannot remember when he put his trust in Christ, I believe God knows when he does, even if he doesn't. I don't think we can drift into Christianity. I don't think we can accept Christ by osmosis or some such process. And I think you must agree that in these countries where there is state-given Christian education, the results are not particularly impressive. This raises another question, can the Bible be taught? And there is a difference, a minority difference of opinion regarding this. So I feel that if the Bible is taught as a secular subject, it is analyzed, learned, studied, and you have examinations, the Bible can become a ministry of death rather than a ministry of life. Because the Bible is God's Word. And every time we face up to God's word, we face up to God's will and a verdict is demanded. That's one of the reasons why some of the early brethren oppose Bible schools. I'm not saying they're right or wrong, but I think they raise a point that is interesting. But if you just study the Bible and treat the Bible in studying as a secular book, and you learn the facts, And in learning the facts, you're not facing up to the divine imperative the fact of God's will, that could do you more harm than it could do you good. To counter that, people will say we agree that many people become hardened and they know the facts of the gospel and the facts of Scripture and do not respond. But years later, God has used that ridicule of knowledge. by the Holy Spirit so that people did turn to the Lord Jesus. Now, the Christian in education, I would urge you in closing to face up to the issue as to whether you should go on to tertiary education or not. I believe that under God, in accordance with His will, tertiary training, whether it's nurses training, specialized vocational technical training, regular college work, or Bible Institute work could be a great help to you. It's no substitute for God's will and the power of the Holy Spirit. In today's society it's becoming more of a necessity. In the service of God it's becoming more of a necessity. Should I go to a Christian college or to a secular college? I don't know. Seat God's will. but make your judgment on the basis of the facts. Find out what you want, what you need. And then may I say this, if you go to the Christian college, don't be a rebel. Conform and fit in. It'll do you far more harm than good to go to the Christian college and kick against things. If you feel that God has led you to a Christian college, for Christ's sake, conform. and obey. I'm sure that is well-pleasing in his sight. Time's up, shall we pray. Well, God, our Heavenly Father, many things have been said today, perhaps some in the energy of the flesh. That which has not been of thyself may it be forgotten. But may we be like those of old, who search the Scriptures diligently to determine what is thy will. So will thou lead us, and guide us, for thy namesake, amen.