#Culture: Gen-Z | Part One

It is unbelievable what is happening in the world regarding Generation Z.

A six-year-old is exposed to more pornography than the entire generation before them.  Research has shown that six-year-olds are getting fed pornography because parents are not monitoring their devices. 

Can you imagine a six-year-old seeing defiling images that are illegal to you and me as adults, seeing stuff take place on the screen that they cannot define?  Can you imagine adding fifteen years to that little six-year-old mind and how callous that mind will be to depravity? We are approaching that 15-year mark, and the news is not good.   

The Millennial Generation is responsible for this online addiction, which has increased by 600% since the generation before them – generation X. However, the X-generation is responsible for igniting the Sexual Revolution, which set the stage for the Millennials and their pornographic online obsessions.

Millennials live in a culture where nakedness has no impact on their conscience. What is the condition of their Z children as a result of their digitally obsessed parents? Have no doubts; the sins we commit today will be handed down to our children and grandchildren.   

Until recently, when parents claimed to love their children, they provided discipline and structure.

Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? (Hebrews 12:9)

Love and discipline have always been partners of proper growth for the generation following. That is until the Sexual Revolution was ignited. In our present culture, either love does not equal discipline, or God’s Word is timeless in confirming it.  

In God’s reality, you don’t say you love your child and do not provide discipline.  Discipline isn’t only spanking a child; discipline is discipleship. It is where the word discipline derives. Furthermore, discipline forms endurance in the child’s soul. Since disciplining generation Z for their choices of misbeliefs and sins is uncommon, the suicide rate increases among the youth.

If Millennial parents neglect to discipline their children, the child cannot accept the discipline of the Lord.

It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? (Hebrews 12:7)

Spoiled child syndrome is the most common consequence of a lack of parental discipline. A fancy way of saying illegitimate.

But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. (Hebrews 12:8)

We have an illegal (illegitimate) society because of this TRUTH.

It’s true. Most Gen-Zers function like illegitimate children. The term illegitimate derives from illegal. In Greek, it means a child without a father. It doesn’t take a sociologist to realize that Generation Z is a product of a fatherless society, which equals a society without Biblical discipline.  

As a well-studied cultural historian, I can tell you that most men today are clueless about the “how-to” in raising Godly children. Statistics reveal that most men are absent in the home – off doing their own thing while emphasizing making money. Also, generally speaking, most Gen-Zers are raised in a home without the father, which forces the mother into the workforce – leaving the children to parent themselves. In this, we find our greatest degeneration of society as we see it.    

While men struggle with being a father to their children, God promises to be Generation Z’s father.

A father of the fatherless and a judge for the widows, Is God in His holy habitation. (Psalms 68:5)

The “Christian” world must be prepared for a fatherless culture and society. If you are a parent without a Biblical conscience, isolated from the reality your Gen-Zers are facing, and act like a cultural hermit, then you might be proving you do not authentically love your children. On the other hand, if you are a parent who does care about the culture your children are facing but doesn’t know what to do, this series might be able to assist you.

LOVE REQUIRES DISCIPLINE

“FOR THOSE WHOM THE LORD LOVES HE DISCIPLINES, AND HE SCOURGES EVERY SON WHOM HE RECEIVES." (Hebrews 12:6)

Seriously, what child enjoys being disciplined? There are a few, but not many. What parent enjoys disciplining their child? Again, not many. In the long haul, those that do discipline their children, find a child that grows into an adult that respects authority, discipline, and disciplined life.

We have an out-of-control culture filled with authority issues, a lack of discipline, and a generation of freelancers because parents fail when disciplining their children. Let’s face it. Due to the threat of discipline being associated with child abuse, most parents refrain from being directive in their discipline.

Cultural violence is a perverted form of discipline. Out-of-control youth become violent because of the lack of discipline in their childhood. They become adults and strike out to discipline others with their outbursts of anger. Behavioral specialist notes a child without a history of being disciplined become angry adults. It can also be said that a society without discipline can become angry. Does this describe our world today? Need I answer that?

All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. (Hebrews 12:11)

Those trained by discipline yield the fruit of righteousness when they become adults. Those are the facts. Since the world is obsessed with self-joy, or sins that produce pleasure, discipline is the last objective on the daily to-do lists of parents AND children.  

The Gen-Z culture lacks peace, particularly Biblical peace. Authentic peace is birthed in the discipline we parents enforce upon the children we love. For what parent says they love their children and do not discipline them? According to the Word of God, a parent who does not discipline their child does not truly love them.

Parents need to pick up their first brick – the brick of disciplining their children for choices of sinful beliefs and actions.  Parents are the eyes, ears, and voice of God for their children until the moment the child receives the indwelling Life OF Jesus.

Agreed. We are in a worldly system & culture that is dumbing us down to the point of being complacent.  That’s the culture we live in. Parents. It would help if you started by living a disciplined life. Keep your word. Be willing to be disciplined by God through the Scriptures and the authorities that rule over you. If that is too difficult for you, honestly, attempting to provide discipline for your children is irony at its best. In that case, you must continue being the bandaid to your irresponsible parental choices.

Therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble, and make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed. (Hebrews 12:12-13)

I have hope for all parents and their children. If we fulfill the mandates of the Lord in training up our children in the ways of the Lord, we will be strengthening the parents that are weak, the children that are weaker still, and in the end, will straighten out the depraved paths of our youth, which ultimately heals them.

Folks, we need some authentic parental peace.