Who is Your Child’s Role Model

Miley Cyrus is 'embarrassed' over some of the pictures taken during a recent Vanity Fair photo shoot. According to FoxNews.com, these pictures included "shots of the teen wrapped in what appears to be a satin bedsheet, looking over her shoulder with her back exposed."

In comments about these photographs, she initially expressed her admiration for the photos by saying, "It wasn't in a skanky way. Annie took, like, a beautiful shot, and I thought that was really cool." It was only after the photographs became public and a few people began to express outrage over this children's role model posing in immodest photographs that she expressed her remorse.

Disney, the company who hosts her television show claims she was manipulated "in order to sell magazines." Let's not forget who appeared in some of the photos with her: her father. You read it right! Her father was there with her for the photo shoot and actually appeared with her in some of the photos! If she was manipulated, it was in full view of her parents and her handlers. So, if she was manipulated, whose fault was it?

So which is it? Is this an innocent young lady who was abused by the big, powerful magazine company or is this an up and coming pop-tart? Let's not forget that just last week, another (as in not the first) set of photographs leaked from her blog. I have not viewed the photographs, but they are described as her and her boyfriend in an embrace where one of the two is pulling her shirt up to reveal her belly while the other is pulling her shirt down to reveal her undergarments. According to news reports, this is only the latest in 'provocative' photographs of 'Hannah Montana' which have escaped from her private blog.

We are living in a society in which parents are offering their children on the altar of sexuality. Children, even the children in our churches, are being allowed to view the likes of Hannah Montana and High School Musical, pick their role models and they are emulating their harlotish ways.

Did you say you wanted proof?

• "In a statement that is a blow to British government's sex education policy, a pregnant 14-year-old says having a baby is now regarded as 'fashionable' among schoolgirls." - www.dailymail.co.uk
  
• Jamie-Lynn Spears, who is sixteen, is proud of the fact that she is pregnant. - 'OK' Magazine
  
• More than 40% of girls become pregnant at least once before the age of twenty.
  
• 52% of teens in the United States are reported to be sexually active - 2007 Charlotte-Mecklenburg Youth Risk Behavior Survey
  
• Recently, a teacher in a local middle school told me that kids are now coming to school dressed so immodestly that the school has to keep clothes on hand to cover the children.
  

Need more proof? Visit your child's blog or your child's friend's blog.

Jer 8:12 Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush...

Who's fault is this?

Cyrius' father was present when the Vanity Fair photographs were taken and actually appeared in some of them.

I remember being at church one day when a teen girl walked in to the youth pastor's office. The girl was dressed in a very provocative way. The youth pastor asked the father, "did you see how your daughter was dressed?" The father replied, "yea, she's hot, isn't she?"

Every parent, everywhere is responsible for raising their children. Wait, they are not our children to raise, they are the Lord's children. We need to remember that these children have been entrusted to us by God and that we are to raise them in the light of the Word of God.

Jer 8:12 Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush...

Where is this leading? In five years, if the Lord should tarry, I believe we will look back on this as the beginning of the downward spiral in this child's life. We may be discussing her premature pregnancy, if she does not kill the baby in an abortion, or we may be comparing her destroyed life to the likes of Brittney Spears.

What is the outcome of your children's life going to be? Are you allowing this in your home? Perhaps the most striking comment I have received in the last few months was from a father who narrowly avoided a tragedy. He said, "Not only did I trust my son, I wanted to be his friend. He has plenty of friends, he needed Godly parents." This man hit the nail on the head. Kids need parents, not friends. Where a friend would encourage this trash in the home, a 'parent' will not!

Are you your child's parent or are you your child's friend?

Prov 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.