Years ago I helped run regional youth camps which attracted over a thousand youth at the time. During the time I spent taking my youth group to those camps I learned some valuable lessons that today you hear little about.

I remember at one such camp when I looked around the room there would not have been more than 10 Bibles but really the camp speakers rarely used them anyway. The music would pump and the kids would party, then someone would stand and say do you feel the presence of God. Immediately the kids would associate the atmosphere of fun and excitement with flashing lights and smoke as being where God was. Of course God is everywhere but their soul or man feelings were being fed not their spirits.

Now because of the pattern laid down in previous meetings of flashing lights etc. The following year would have to be even more entertaining. The music louder the atmosphere had to feed something that the leaders had taught those kids was God and His presence. If it was not bigger and better than previous times the unspoken thought was that the kids would not come. After all they had to have a good time.

One year after such a meeting the leaders were removing kids from each other’s sleeping bags and many ungodly things were occurring in the name of God. Why? I believe because the soul is a hungry animal and when it parties enough is never enough.

So all this leads to a young man who comes and says God told me I am going to marry a particular girl. When you ask how he knows that he says “when I saw her in that short skirt, I felt God say she was the one”. Trouble is the girl can’t stand him and never will. Can we blame that young man as his leaders had taught him that the same level he is attracted to that girl on is the one he feels God on. In fact it is his soul being ignited with passion for short skirts, and a party atmosphere that church leaders taught him is God.

My question of those youth camps was if God is so present then surely the kids would be even more excited to have their spirit touched by God. Could they worship God just the same if there had of been an old lady playing the harmonica there instead of the latest rock musicians? You and I both know the answer is no. They would walk out as they have been taught the soul is how to approach God.

Really they are being fed a powerless gospel of entertainment and humanism. Where does that lead? In my experience it leads to so called Christians who are faithless. The prophet Isaiah spoke of similar attitude in people -

Wherefore the Lord said, For as much as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honor me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men:

A generation is here who has the fear of God taught to them by the precepts of man rather than by an encounter with the living God.