In an article by Victoria Shupryt from KOAT Action News comes the headline, “12-year-old Dies of Fentanyl Overdose, Mother and Grandmother Charged in Death.” It would be difficult to imagine anyone being unphased by such a title. There is not much left to wonder about what happened in this incident. The article reports, “the family has a history with drug abuse and neglect and that family members provided drugs and alcohol to the boy” (Shupryt). How could a mother and grandmother do such a terrible thing?
Bringing drugs into the home and providing them to a child is an extreme case. No Christian would condone such a thing. However, many Christian parents today bring all sorts of harmful materials into their home and expose their children to them without a second thought. Their children have nearly unrestricted access to all the evils found on the internet and video streaming services. They put a phone in their pocket and don’t check to see what videos they view on TikTok or what pictures they’re sending or receiving on Snapchat.
Exposure to pornography is devastating to young minds. According to the American College of Pediatricians, children who watch pornographic material experience “…increased rates of depression, anxiety, acting out and violent behavior, younger age of sexual debut, sexual promiscuity, increased risk of teen pregnancy, and a distorted view of relationships between men and women.”
Parents have an obligation to “train up a child in the way he should go…” (Prov. 22:6), but we are welcoming the worst kinds of evil directly through our front doors and into our children’s pockets. We need to rethink what we allow on the screens of our televisions and cellphones.
We must “abstain from all appearance of evil” (1 Thess. 5:22). If we neglect our children, we will face the Lord’s judgment. “But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea” (Matt. 18:6).
If we want to protect our children, then we need to reconsider everything that we have exposed them to. What movies do you allow them to watch? What shows are you allowing them to stream? Does it contain sexual content? Is the content you’ve approved for them more likely to cause them to draw closer to God or to seek out more and more perverse sexual content? Do you check their search history? Does the browser on their phone have firewalls for pornographic websites? Are you bringing evil into the home?