Cause of Teenage Confusion and Depression

   Tonight a teenage boy about 18 or 19 years old with suicidal 
   tendencies was being questioned on television.  He was crying 
   and saying that the problem was that there was no one he could 
   talk to about his problems.  He was then followed by a girl of 
   about the same age who was also crying and saying about the 
   same thing.  Then Pat Robertson came on and I realized I had 
   switched into The 700 Club.  Teenage suicide is getting a lot 
   of publicity these days.  They say it is increasing 
   dramatically.  What is the reason for it?  I am sure there are 
   many reasons and that they are complicated.  Perhaps part of 
   the problem is often that they feel alone and unloved and that 
   they have no one to talk to.  Yet I feel that the most 
   important cause of all the teenage frustration and unhappiness 
   in our society is the spiritual vacuum in which the teenagers 
   find themselves immersed.  The society gives them no spiritual 
   guidance whatsoever.  They find no guidance from parents, 
   schools, churches or anywhere else.  There are no good voices 
   giving them good, intelligent, prudent, sound advice.  We live 
   in a foolish society and the advice and counsel of the foolish 
   is everywhere.  The Bible says that people are analogous to 
   sheep in that sheep need shepherds and have an instinct to 
   follow.  People also have an instinct to follow.  They find 
   leaders and follow.  If the leaders are foolish they follow 
   them into foolishness.  We live in a society where everyone is 
   following the foolish into foolishness.  All the voices that 
   the teenagers are hearing are pointing in the wrong directions 
   and deep down inside them they know it.  That is what is so 
   confusing and depressing.  The voices are all pointing the way 
   to foolishness and self-destruction and spiritual emptiness.  
   The teenagers are sheep who have lost their way amongst moral 
   uncertainties and confusion.  They are drifting in a sea of 
   foolishness, uncertainty, and confusion.  They are living in a 
   world that glamorizes pleasure, lust and hedonism.  A voice 
   recommending a way of discipline and moral principle is one 
   that is never heard.  If it were it would be laughed down very 
   quickly.  We live in a society in love with foolishness, a 
   society which keeps paying and paying for that foolishness, but 
   which continues stubbornly with the love affair.