Ken Ham (in a facebook post) writes:

What do these stones mean?

Millions of people, including those in Christian families, visit the Grand Canyon in America each year. As they stand on the edge of this stunning canyon, children and young people will ask their parents, “How did this happen? What formed all those rock layers and the canyon?”

Now, the signs and the park rangers will tell them that the layers of sedimentary strata (some with lots of fossils) were laid down slowly over millions of years. They will then tell the story that the Colorado River eroded the canyon over millions of years.

In essence, the question asked was, “What do these stones mean?” Sadly, most hear a story based on the belief in (religion of) evolutionary geology.

But how many fathers answer the question by saying, “This canyon is a relic of a past catastrophic event—the event of the Noah’s flood. The layers were laid down during the flood, and then at the end of the flood, God raised up the land surface forming mountains (Psalm 104), and in this area a dam formed that held back leftover waters from the flood. Then the dam was broken, and the water gouged out the canyon to allow the river (called the Colorado River today) to flow through it. The sediment was washed downstream into massive deposits called surge deposits.

“It’s all a reminder of the judgment God brought on the earth because of the wickedness of man. It should remind us that God’s Word is true, God judges wickedness because of our sin, and we all need to receive the free gift of salvation as all humans are sinners.”

Over and over again children have not been given the correct answers by their fathers, even Christian fathers, when they have asked questions about the origin of the universe and life, as so many of all ages have been indoctrinated by the world’s pagan evolutionary views.

One of my favorite passages in the Bible is in Joshua chapter 4, where we read the account of the Israelites miraculously crossing the Jordan River. God told Joshua to get the people to have 12 men gather 12 stones from the river and build a memorial so that:

“When your children ask their fathers in times to come, ‘What do these stones mean?’ then you shall let your children know, ‘Israel passed over this Jordan on dry ground.” For the Lord your God dried up the waters of the Jordan for you until you passed over, as the Lord your God did to the Red Sea, which he dried up for us until we passed over, so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty, that you may fear the Lord your God forever” (Joshua 4:21–24).

What a reminder! Make sure you tell this younger generation about the Lord and his Word so they will know who the true God is. And let this also be a witness to the world concerning the only one true God.

When we opened the Ark Encounter attraction in 2016, the board members laid 12 stones next to the massive ship. I explained to the 8,000 in attendance that this life-size Ark is our modern version of the 12 stones—to remind coming generations that God’s Word is true and that the saving gospel in that Word is true. We built the Ark and the Creation Museum as our 12 stones, so to speak, to help parents pass on the truth of God’s Word and the saving gospel to the coming generations.

We read one of the saddest passages in the Bible in Judges about when Joshua died, and then all that generation with Joshua died:

“And there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel. And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals” (Judges 2:10–11).

The children who were to ask about the meaning of these 12 stones rebelled and they worshipped false gods! What happened? When we read Scripture, we find the fathers did not pass on the spiritual legacy to the next generation

This should be a warning to us today.

Psalm 78 instructs fathers to train their children to know the true God:

“He commanded our fathers

to teach to their children,

that the next generation might know them,

the children yet unborn,

and arise and tell them to their children,

so that they should set their hope in God

and not forget the works of God,

but keep his commandments” (Psalms 78:5–7).

And then we read

“And that they should not be like their fathers,

a stubborn and rebellious generation,

a generation whose heart was not steadfast,

whose spirit was not faithful to God” (Psalms 78:8).

It’s obvious these fathers of old did not obey the Lord and did not train up their children to fear the Lord as they should have. As a result, they lost the next generation after Joshua.

In essence, this is happening in the church today. Statistics back in the early 2000s made it clear that 2/3 of young people in the United States were leaving the church by college age (with very few returning).

Pew Research in 2010 clearly showed churched attendance for millennials was down to 18%, and by 2021, Generation Z church attendance was down to less than 9%!

Research we have done at Answers in Genesis over the years shows clearly that parents and the church have failed to raise generations who know what they believe, why they believe what they do, and how to defend the Christian faith.

Sadly, we have not raised up generations to hold a truly Christian worldview. In many ways, fathers have abdicated their God-given responsibility to be the spiritual head of their house and to make sure the correct spiritual legacy is passed on to coming generations. Personally, I believe many fathers need to repent of not investing the time to train their children. They’ve largely handed them over to the world (e.g., public schools, worldly media), and the church (which by and large has not taught apologetics but has compromised God’s Word in Genesis) as the primary sources for education.

Thus, when children ask the questions about the evolutionary views they have been indoctrinated in at school and are not given the correct answers by their parents or church leaders, to point them to the literal truth of the Genesis history, many walk away from the church. If they can’t trust the history in the Bible at the beginning, how can they trust any of it?

Just like in the days after Joshua, we are now seeing the consequences of this lack of training as the secularization of generations has increased and an anti-Christian sentiment has grown in the culture. Yes, when we contemplate this reality, every day should be a sad Father’s Day.

As fathers contemplate Father’s Day each year, I challenge them to commit to doing what God has commanded us to do in the spiritual training of our children. After all, each child is a human being who will live forever and ever, in heaven or hell, which should convict each one of us concerning the time and resources we invest into each child.

Fathers need to be teaching their children to defend the Christian faith and giving them answers to the evolutionary attacks of our day! They need to be teaching Genesis chapters 1–11 as literal history, as it is the foundation of the rest of the Bible, of all doctrine, of the Christian worldview, and of everything. They need to be teaching against compromising God’s Word in Genesis as is happening in much of the church.

“The father makes known to the children your faithfulness” (Isaiah 38:19).

“Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4).

On Father’s Day (regardless of when it is celebrated in different countries), as well as every day of the year, let’s remember what God commands concerning our responsibilities to our children. (Father’s Day in the USA is this coming Sunday.)