Here’s a quick quiz for you: The strongest man in the Bible was…Samson. The wisest man in the Bible was…Solomon. The one in the Bible called “a man after God’s own heart”was…David. Here’s the quiz: What did all these men of God have in common? All of them— the strongest man in the Bible, the smartest man in the Bible, and arguably the most godly man in the Bible— struggled with sexual temptation and lost.

I am the father of four boys. Rearing four growing boys has its unique challenges. The house is never short of things like body noises, sports talk, strange smells, their buddies, and other “boy” things. One of the things my wife and I have learned about rearing children is that we must be proactive in teaching them to be different from the world around them. Our goal is simple: to rear godly boys who don’t fall to sexual temptation.

Parenting has never been easy, but in today’s times and in today’s society it can be extra tough. The struggle with parenting today seems to be that we teach our children one thing, and then society, and often their peers, teach them the exact opposite. It’s pretty obvious that we live in a time now where children are bombarded from a young age with an over-sexualized society. Sex sells. Advertisers, movies, magazines, music, websites, and other things dish it out in large amounts.

Here are some shocking examples of how our culture has become obsessed with sex.

• The pornography industry is an annual $57 billion worldwide business.

– That’s larger revenue than all the combined revenues of all the professional football, baseball and basketball franchises.

– The U.S. pornography revenue exceeds the combined revenues of ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC.

• Internet Porn Statistics

– Pornographic websites – 4.2 million (12% of total websites)

– Pornographic pages accessed –372 million daily

– Pornographic search engine requests – 68 million (25% of total search engine

requests)

– Daily pornographic emails – 2.5 billion (8% of total emails) Average daily pornographic emails/user – 4.5 per Internet user

– Monthly pornographic downloads (Peer-to-peer) – 1.5 billion (35% of all downloads) worldwide visitors to pornographic web sites – 72 million annually

• Children’s Exposure to Pornography

– Average age of first Internet exposure to pornography – 11 years old

– Largest consumer of Internet pornography – 12-17 age group

(Source: http://xxxchurch.com, http://www.pureintimacy.org)

As parents we must realize that we cannot sit back on our hands and do nothing.We must be proactive in teaching and training our children what’s right and wrong in our over-sexed society.With so many negative things battling for our children’s lives these days, our job is to rear our children in the world without them becoming part of the world. I’m not against television, the Internet, or video games as long as my children follow the rules that we’ve set for them. There are many things that are going to influence our children, but as parents we should be the number one influence in our children’s lives.

So what can we do as parents to protect them in a time when they are daily bombarded by sexual themes? Here are some ideas…

Communicate. Talk with your children on a regular basis about what’s wrong and right. Explain what you expect from them when something comes on television that’s inappropriate. Let them know there are certain shows, games, music, and movies that are not allowed in the house. As a parent, it’s your job to talk to your children about sex. If you’re waiting until your children are in junior high to talk to them about sex, you’re waiting too late.

Their peers and society are already teaching them things at a younger age. As parents, it’s our job to “set the record straight” on matters of sexuality.We need to teach that God created sex as a beautiful thing between husbands and wives. Sex is God’s gift to married people, but anything outside of that is wrong.

Protect. Take steps to protect your family’s time on the computer. Consider an Internet filter. Use parental controls to limit things that are seen and how often the computer is used. Keep the family computer in an open room where it can be supervised and viewed by all. There is less temptation to view things you shouldn’t when you’re sitting out in the middle of a room instead of behind closed doors. One rule of the computer in our home has always been that no one is allowed to erase the history (a record that’s stored on the computer) that tells what sites have been visited and what has been searched. There has been accountability in knowing that I’m going to regularly check my children’s computer history. I’ve also encouraged my children and wife to check the history on the sites that I’ve viewed.

Control. It’s essential that we control what our children see in our house. Our four boys have grown up in a home where MTV and other channels were blocked so no one could watch them.We started early not allowing these things in our home. To this point, not once have we ever had our children ask us on why. They’ve simply understood the rules when we’ve explained how we can be tempted by things we see. We’ve had rules in our family that we didn’t watch R-rated movies (movies should be reviewed for inappropriate content at Kids in Mind, screenit.com). This wasn’t a rule just for kids but for everyone in the house. Placing rules on your children that you refuse to follow is a double standard and hypocritical.

Model. There is not a greater teacher in your home than your actions. It’s your job to model both your values and your integrity. What your children see you do, they will do also. If you try to teach them about honesty yet tell little white lies yourself, your children will see your inconsistencies and you’ll lose your ability to influence them. It’s not just with reference to honesty, but also with every area of your life. How could King David go talk to his son Amnon about sexual purity when he himself had failed miserably? (2 Samuel 11, 2 Samuel 13). Make sure you practice what you preach.

Train. Growing up, we never left for school without my mom reading us a Bible story. Spiritual training was a deliberate part of my parents’ plan to rear children. Personally, I wish as parents we’d see that spiritual training is not optional but essential. Families today don’t need a small dose of God; they need a large dose of God. Children need spiritual training. Talk about God in your home, read the Bible together, attend church together, and let them see that God is important to you and a part of your life. Come to think of it, the gift of God is not just a gift that lasts a lifetime, but it’s a gift that lasts an eternity!

Let me close with this: Do you remember Noah? There are many who think Noah was a lousy preacher. For over 100 years while he built the ark, he preached to the lost. When he was done preaching and the invitation was given, no one but his family got on the ark with him. When I hear that account, I see Noah as a great success, and I pray I will be as successful a preacher as he was. For when that great day comes and God calls us all home, if the only people I’ve brought with me to Heaven is my family…then I’ve been tremendously successful.

By Trey Morgan

This article first appeared in Think magazine.