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When I speak on the Christian family, I speak out of a special sense of conviction in my heart. It was my experience to learn of the love of God through believing parents in a Christian family. It was my experience to grow in the love of God in marriage with a believing wife, a gift of God, whom I cherish. And it is my experience to rejoice in the love of God in the gift of children within a Christian family. My experience has been the richest blessings of God to be found within a Christian home.I am not telling you something new when I say that the attacks against the Christian family are legion. Even as the Lord inquired of the name of the devil who possessed the man who cut himself with stones and who lived among the tombs, and the devil responded, "My name is Legion," so also the attack against the Christian family today is legion. Heading the attack is shameless, perverse, and wholesale sexual promiscuity. We read and hear of "safe sex" being advocated, of alternate life styles, of different sexual orientations. We live in a society which is saturated with fornication, with sexual-uncleanness before God, a world which is sold to lust, in which sex is open, accepted, advertised, and worshipped. It is this sexual promiscuity, sexual evil which constitutes a knife at the very throat of the family.
Following hard on the heels of that are marital breakdowns: divorce, remarriage. We live in a society which is also sold to self, to one's own self-pleasing. And that always runs contrary to the demands of the family. We live in a day of day-care centers, where children are brought, rather than being brought up in the home. We live in a day when single-parent homes are common, and when it is thought that a marriage can be comprised of two homosexuals or two lesbians. Our day is a day of abuse, emotional and physical, of children; of neglect of children; of rejection of the traditional roles of a husband and wife; and of the rooting out of the biblical concept that the authority of the home is invested in the parents, the father and mother.
The result of all of these things and more is a nightmare for many in the family. Perhaps, personally, this is also your experience. We know that the family possesses the greatest potential for good in our life. But it also possesses the greatest potential for grief. The family touches our life at its nerve center. Perhaps your experience has been good under the blessing of God. But perhaps that experience has not been so good, so that the mention of the word family or marriage or parent or father puts a knot in your stomach and brings out anger and frustration and hurt.
Standing up against all of these attacks against the family is the Word and gospel of Jesus Christ that the Christian family is one of the greatest blessings purchased by His sufferings on the cross. The Bible reveals to us that God is pleased to care for us by placing us in families. Psalm 68:6 says that He places "the solitary in families." And, again, Ephesians 3:15 tells us that God's church is His family and that it is named after His Son Jesus Christ.
God is pleased to nurture our faith. He is pleased to show us His love within the context of a Christian family. He is pleased to mold our spiritual life, to comfort our sorrows, and to give us true happiness in a home, in a Christian family.
So we need to ask the question: How do I build a Christian family? Or better, in the words of Psalm 127, since we read in that Psalm that unless the LORD build the house, they labor in vain that build it, we need to ask the Lord, "Lord, build my home."
In the building of a Christian family there are two things that are very important. When you go about building a house, you have to know, first of all, about the foundation upon which you build and, secondly, you have to be sure concerning the materials with which you build.
What is the only foundation upon which a home, a family, can stand? What are the foundations upon which you build? Jesus Christ, in Matthew 7, at the end of His wonderful sermon on the mount, said that there are only two possible foundations. One either builds his family-life upon the sand of man, upon the sand of refusing to submit and to subject oneself to the Word of Jesus Christ; or one builds upon the rock of the Word of God. Whosoever heareth and doeth these sayings of mine, Jesus said, I will liken unto a man who built his house upon a rock. The only foundation for family life, for the building of a Christian marriage or home, is the Word of God. Anything else is sand. If you build or base your idea of a family upon rationalism you are building upon sand. That is, if you make up your own mind, or if you consider current popular opinion to be the final bar of judgment, if you are building upon that, you are building upon sand. If you confront your home problems and marital difficulties with the question, "Well, what do I (or you) think?" - if that is the way you go about building a Christian home, it is on sand.
And if that is the truth we might just as well quit, because my opinion is no better than yours, even though a "Rev." is in front of my name. No, it must not be upon our opinion, not what we think.
Nor must family life be built upon pragmatism. That means that we would build our home upon whatever works. We would ask the question, "Well, what works? And if it works, then it must be OK." No, that is sand, too. We do not build upon our own mind; we do not build upon our own experience or upon what simply works.
There is only one rock. And that rock is the Scriptures. Everyone that heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them, I will liken to a man who built his house upon the rock. What has God said? Our conviction must be that whatever God has said is absolute and final because God is absolute and final.
We must go about the building of a Christian home with the conviction that II Timothy 3:16 is true, namely, that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is, therefore, profitable for doctrine, for instruction, for reproof, for correction that the man of God may be thoroughly furnished unto all good works. Why should we get our principles for family living out of the Word of God? Because the Word of God is the inspired, spoken, and written Word of the living God who cannot lie. We must not take our principles for family living from our own heads, not from society, not even from tradition, but from God, from His Scriptures, from the Bible.
We live in a day of experts. There are all kinds of experts for everything conceivable: experts on family, on marriage, on child-rearing, etc. We read in Isaiah 8:20, "To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them." That means that a man may have a degree in psychology; he may have a degree in marital counseling; he may have a degree in child-development, but if he does not speak according to the Word of God, there is no light in Him. That is why it is criminal when the church undercuts the authority of the Bible. Then the church is acting criminally towards her families, her marriages, and her dependent children whom the Lord has entrusted to her care.
Whenever the church calls into question, whenever the church brings suspicion upon the Word of God and begins to say, "Well, yes, the Word of God is very important and, yes, it is God's Word, but you know that not everything it says is to be believed, not everything that it says is actually correct, because through our findings of science or culture or other things we have found out that there are certain mistakes or certain prejudices in the Bible that we have to discard." Whenever the church does that it is not only attacking the honor of God as He has His honor in His Word, but that church is attacking the very foundation upon which a Christian family is to be built. And it is attacking the foundation, which stands under the feet of every child in that church. Instead of building then, the church of Jesus Christ is removing the foundation from the home.
And when the home falls, when marriages fall, when children go forth wandering and wondering where to go and what to do and having no fixed, settled principles from the Word of God in their heart, then that church stands guilty before God. Jesus said in John 12:48, "The word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day."
Everything in the Christian home must be built upon the foundation of God's Word. Why should children obey their parents? Why should husbands love their wives? There is no satisfactory answer other than this: What does God's Word say? Is that what God says? Then that is the sure foundation upon which you must stand.
I was saying that when we build a Christian home we must not only be sure of its foundation, but we must also be sure as to the materials that we use to build upon that foundation. Those materials, which we must use, must be an intelligent, believing grasp of the biblical principles on the family.
The materials, with which we build a Christian home are those biblical principles that we must elicit, draw forth from the Bible in an intelligent manner. That means that we know them in our minds, and out of believing hearts we seek to put those principles into practice in our family life.
I mentioned a moment ago that we live in a society of experts. But we also live in what may be called a "how-to" society. Everything must be made "user friendly." We look for a manual on everything. We even look for a manual on family problems, family difficulties, marriage difficulties, and perhaps communication with teenagers. What we would like is to have this big, thick manual and just page through it and come to page 93 and find the answer to our problem.
That is not the biblical approach. The biblical approach is that we must go to the Word of God to learn those existing principles and then, with a believing heart, put those principles into action in our own home. If we are looking for a thick manual in which we can simply turn to a page to find the answer and not involve our own prayer and our own struggle and our own searching of the Word of God as a family, then we are lazy! Then we would be good Roman Catholics who want simply an authoritative church structure to tell them all that they must believe and not worry about anything else.
No, it must be the biblical principles taught in the Word of God on the family, on marriage, on child rearing, and on authority.
I would like to bring out an example of this from the Bible, in the life of Jesus Himself. Turn in your Bible to Matthew 19. You will see that Jesus drives to the principle to answer the question that is brought to Him about the family, and more specifically, about marriage. The Jews came to Jesus and wanted a detailed answer to their problem. In fact, what they wanted to do was involve Jesus in a controversy that they had among themselves. And, of course, they wanted to find something in Jesus to criticize. The question that the Jews had among themselves was this: What constitutes justifiable cause for divorce? There was a difference among them as to whether it had to be a rather weighty matter, some serious thing, or whether it could be for a husband simply that the wife, for whatever reason, no longer pleased him, whether it was her hair or the way she cooked the food, or whatever it may be. That was the question they put to Him. What did the Lord do? He drove them back to the principles, to the beginning. He says, Have ye not read that in the beginning God made them one, that two became one; that a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined unto his wife? The Lord brought them back to the principle found in Genesis 2:24 that God constituted a marriage of one man and one woman and that He said that these two were to cleave to each other. And, Jesus adds, what therefore God hath joined together let not man put asunder. You have to understand what marriage is before you can answer that question. Marriage is the life-long bond that God makes between one man and one woman.
They did not like that. So they said to Him, as we read in that chapter, "Ah, but didn't Moses say that you could give your wife a writing of divorcement?" And Jesus said, "Yes, but Moses did that out of the hardness of your hearts. And, further, from the beginning it was not so!" The Lord is saying to them that if they understood the nature of marriage they would find it unthinkable to put aside their wife for those petty reasons. The Lord is teaching us that if we are to live in marriage or in the family we must go back to the Scriptures and must understand those principles, specifically here that it is a life-long bond to reflect the bond of God with His church. As God loves His church faithfully and to the end, so must a husband and wife love each other and bring up their children in such a bond. That is the teaching of the Scriptures. That is very plain. That is undeniable from the Scriptures.
Ninety-five percent of our problems, if not more, are solved when the principles of the Word of God exist in a believing, loving, intelligent heart. Marriage problems, problems with children, parent/child relationships - we need to know with a believing heart the living principles, yes, the doctrines of the Word of God.
You say, but I do not feel like doing that. That is a lot of work! But that is the calling of the child of God. Do you wish to build a Christian home? Do you wish to build such a home for the glory of God, for the well-being of your children, for your own joy and happiness? Then go to the Word of God. Learn those solid, biblical, true principles.
In Philippians 3:14 the apostle Paul said, This one thing I do, "I press toward the mark." So also we must press to apply the biblical truths to our life.
Next week we will return to this subject and look a little at what the Bible has to say about the relationship of a husband and wife, as that, too, is very foundational and basic to a Christian home.
Let us pray.
Our Father in heaven, we pray that we may indeed build our homes upon the foundation of Thy Word, and that we may erect our homes with the materials of the principles of that Word. Drive those principles into our hearts that we might believe them that we might understand them and then that we might practice them in our life. In Jesus' name, Amen.
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The Building of a Christian Family (2)
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How do I build a Christian family? Last week we attempted to answer that question by saying that, first of all, one must be sure of the foundation upon which he builds and the materials with which he builds. The foundation can only be the Word of God. The materials can only be the principles taught in that Word concerning marriage and the family.
Today we want to be a bit more specific and look into the husband/wife relationship as that relationship is the very center of any family or home.
We begin with this truth, that marriage must be in the Lord. In the beginning, when God created the man and the woman, and when He created the heaven and the earth, God instituted the family and He instituted marriage. When we read in Genesis 1 and 2 (which is literal history - the record of what God did when He created the world) then we find there of the will of God for man. That will of God would be marriage: that a man and a woman would be married and that that bond would be lifelong.
It is not evolution. Evolution says that, after all, marriage and the relationship of men and women is simply something that has evolved and gone through different patterns and periods and we are free to redefine that relationship according to what we think best suits our culture or our needs. That is not pious but wicked unbelief. The religion of evolution (evolution is not a science, but evolution is a religion) is anti-God, as it talks about the creation evolving, evolving to who knows where, and about the relationship of men and women today evolving and who knows to where or what.
That is not what the Bible says. That is not what the living God says in His Word. In His Word God, in the beginning, clearly defined marriage. He said that marriage would be one man and one woman united in faith in the living God. We read that He made them male and female, and that He gave to them in Genesis 1 the command to be fruitful and multiply. He further clarified that in Genesis 2:24 when He said that a man shall "leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh."
Now that union of one man and one woman must be a union in the living God. God never intended marriage to be anything other than the involvement of three: the man, the woman, and God. Adam and Eve were not made only for each other, but they were made for God. They were made to know God, to love God, and to serve God. And they were made to know, love, and serve God in their marriage. That was the will of God. And the idea is not simply that a little bit of religion will do us good in our marriages, and perhaps we should make sure that the kids get into Sunday School or something like that. But the Scriptures teach that it is the will of God that a man and a woman be united in the living God, revealed in Jesus Christ and in His Word. We read in I Corinthians 7:39, marry in the Lord. The husband/wife relationship with God is the most important factor in the success or failure of a Christian family.
The most important single factor in the success of the family is not, first of all, the compatibility of the man and the woman. The most important single factor in your marriage is not the figure of your wife. But the most important single factor in a marriage, and therefore in a family, is the relationship of the husband and wife to God.
Why is that so? Because, by nature, a man or a woman is a rebel against God. Romans 8:7 teaches that the natural mind is not subject to the will of God, neither, indeed, can be. Until one is made subject to God, he will fight like crazy against the directives, which are given in the Bible. If you are not rightly related to God, your flesh is going to crawl because of the standards of God's Word with respect to marriage and the family. All of those standards are going to cut across the grain of your flesh. The most important single factor is the relationship of the husband and wife unto God, a living relationship unto God.
Listen! If there is no spiritual oneness in your marriage then the deepest hunger that you have will not be met. The deepest capacity for love will not be there. The deepest capacity that a man or woman has to love is only to be found in God. And if there is not spiritual unity in God, the God of the Bible, in your marriage, and if you do not make that primary, the thing upon which you work day after day, then the deepest intimacy in your life can never be cemented.
Now, if I am speaking today to young people, and if I am speaking to those contemplating marriage, this is absolutely crucial! Marry in the Lord. Make your relationship to God as He is revealed in the holy Scriptures in Jesus Christ the fundamental aspect of your union. And do so now. The home is built on the unity of the husband and the wife, whether there are children present or not. And what a beautiful thing it is when, by God's grace, they are united in God.
We might interject here a moment that this truth also brings out the horror of pre-marital sex. God has intended that sexual union be the gift that He gives to the husband and wife (to one man and one woman) in a lifelong bond of marriage. When that is taken out of that bond and is engaged in before marriage, the parties involved are eroding their very future family. The Bible and sex are very simple. The Bible teaches that that sexual union is given exclusively to marriage as a picture of the intimacy of the love of God that is given of the husband and the wife to each other.
The husband and wife must also know how to live with each other. God has created the man and the woman equal, as being creatures, equal in being depraved in their sins, and equal in the redemption of Jesus Christ. You see, it is not the Bible, and it is not God, but it is man that degrades a woman.
But the Bible also teaches that God has given to the man and to the woman their distinct places and responsibilities. The pro-feminist movement, as it is in our country, is not pro-woman but is anti-God, and anti-His-order for marriage. For, as God has created them equal as creatures, and as they are both assumed equal in depravity, and as they are both equal in the redemption of Jesus Christ, so also God has given to the man and to the woman in marriage their own individual responsibilities and calling. To argue against that is not to argue against some culture. It is not to argue against some mind-set that comes to us from the first century, from the apostle Paul perhaps. But it is to challenge and to go to war against God Himself.
We read in Genesis 1:26, "Let us make them (that is, the man and the woman) in our image." And again, in Genesis 2:18, God said concerning Adam, "I will make an help meet for him" - that is, a help answering to him. So the woman was made to complement the man, or the man and the woman were made to complement each other. The woman was made to answer to man's needs emotionally, intellectually, physically, spiritually. The husband is incomplete without his wife, and the wife was not made to exist on or for her own, but to exist with her husband. That is further made plain in Genesis 2:24, where we read that the man and the woman shall cleave to one another and shall be one flesh.
That idea of being one flesh means this: there must be a total commitment to intimacy in every aspect of their life, symbolized in the sexual union of one flesh. To be one flesh is not simply two bodies joined together. It is not simply two people sharing one house. It is not simply splitting the duties or going Dutch or whatever. That is not marriage. But to be one flesh refers to a total commitment to intimacy between the man and the woman in all areas of life, mind, heart, and affection. And that comes to tangible expression in the sexual union.
Out of that one-flesh union comes the birth of children. The child represents what God has done - that He has made the man and the woman one. That is seen in the miracle of birth and the miracle of a child. That child represents the union God has made between a husband and a wife. If that marriage comes to divorce, then the question is asked, What do you do with the child? Can you unmake the child? You cannot do that! That child represents the union that God has made between a man and his wife.
But, as I was saying before, God has also given to the man and woman individual responsibilities. One of the most beautiful and clear passages in the Bible on this is Ephesians 5. If you are not familiar with that passage, I would suggest and recommend to you heartily that you study it, especially beginning at verse 21. And read all the way through to chapter 6:4, where you have some of the most wonderful and profound teaching of the Word of God with respect to marriage and with respect to the parent/child relationship. You will notice, when you read that passage, that the apostle Paul weaves two things into those verses: the creative order and the redemptive pattern. That passage of Scripture teaches that when God created the man and the woman, the husband and wife, there was a certain order that He made: the husband must be the head of his wife, and the wife must submit to her husband.
But the apostle Paul does not speak there only of the created order that God made. He speaks also of the redemptive pattern. That is, you will find in those verses that he continually speaks of Christ and the church, and that he says that that pattern of redemption must also be the pattern reflected in marriage. So we read in Ephesians 5:22: "Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord," and Paul goes on to say, "even as the church is subject to Christ." The duty or responsibility of the wife in the marriage is submission. God made man to be the head of the wife and the woman to follow. That was the created order. But also there was a redemptive pattern, that as Christ is the head of the church, and as the church willingly and lovingly submits to Christ, so ought a wife submit to her husband.
You have there, then, both the creative order and the redemptive pattern: as the church submits to Christ, so must the wife submit to her husband. God made Adam first. He took the woman out of the rib of man, out of that part which was very close to his heart, in fact, out of the portion of his body, which protected his heart. There is the created order: man first, the woman taken out of the man. But also, as the church submits to Christ out of faith and love, so must the wife live under or in submission to her husband. That is her place: subjection, submission to her husband.
Then the apostle Paul in that passage turns to the husband and says, "Husband, love your wife." And he brings the redemptive pattern. How are you to love your wife? As Christ loved the church. That is absolutely awesome. What is the measure to which a man must love his wife? He must love her so that he is reflecting the love of Christ to the church. The apostle goes on in those verses to teach us that that love of Christ to the church was exclusive: He gave Himself for His church. It was a particular love, centered only upon His church - not upon all, but only upon His church, those given Him of His Father. Further, the love of Jesus Christ was not only exclusive, that is, for the church alone, but it was also sacrificial. He gave Himself, even to the death of the cross. And it was a nurturing love. He nurtures and cares for that church. That is the love that a man must have for his wife.
I hope that you see the difference between the love which leads us to the altar on our marriage day, and that love as it deepens and enriches through marriage. How much did you know of love when you got married? How much were you prepared to say "No" to your own likes and to your own objects of joy and to live for your wife, even as Christ lives for the church, with that sacrificial and nurturing love? How much does Christ love the church? That has to be reflected in you.
That means this: to any child who asks me, as a pastor, what it means that the church submits to Christ, I ought to be able to say to that child, "Look at your Christian mother. As your mother submits to your father, that is what it means that the church submits to Christ." Then, when that child comes and asks me, as a pastor, "Pastor, you have taught us in catechism that Christ loves His church. What does that mean?" I ought to be able to look at that child and say to him or her, "You look at your Dad. Do you see the way your Dad loves your Mother? That's what it means that Christ loves His church."
I ought to be able to say that to your children and to mine. It is that relationship, that husband/wife relationship, which is vital to the family. This is the relationship which is constantly giving off a powerful influence in every direction in the home. Even if the husband and wife were dumb, that is, unable to speak, their married life would be giving a most eloquent and powerful instruction to their children of the very fundamentals of the gospel.
Think about it. Conform your marriage relationship to the pattern that God has revealed in His Word. That is how you build a family.
Next week we will break off from our study of the Christian family to commemorate the holiday of Thanksgiving as it is celebrated in this country. But we will return to the subject a week after that and talk about the parent/child relationship. You'll want to be with us for both of those messages.
Let us pray.
Our Father who art in heaven, we pray that Thou wilt apply Thy Word, as we have heard it today, to our hearts, and that our marriages may indeed reflect the union of Christ and His church. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.
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The Building of a Christian Family (3)
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How does one go about building a Christian family?
In the past few weeks we have attempted to answer that question from the Word of God. We saw, first of all, that a Christian family has to be built upon the proper foundation. That foundation can only be the Word of God. We saw, secondly, that a Christian family has to be erected with the proper materials. Those materials are principles drawn from the Word of God, principles held by faith and intelligently practiced in one's family life. And then we turned to the husband/wife relationship and saw that that relationship is the very center of a Christian family; that that relationship must be in God, and must involve a clear understanding, by the husband and the wife, of their particular duties and responsibilities as God sets those forth in His Word. That husband/wife relationship is sending forth a powerful influence in every direction in your home. Already in your husband/wife relationship you are teaching your children concerning authority, concerning their sexual nature, concerning the church. All of that is being extended as an influence in your home simply through the husband/wife relationship.
Now today we want to conclude our brief series on how to build a Christian family by considering the parent/child relationship.
We begin, then, with the question, What is the position of a parent in the home? Can you give an answer to that question?
This is what contributes so much to the mess and the anarchy and the horrible scars of many families. Many do not know what God made them when He made them a father and a mother.
What is a parent? Is a parent simply a glorified "horn of plenty," there to supply whatever the child wants or needs (clothes, food, college tuition)? Is that a parent? One who writes out the checks? No, not at all. The Word of God tells us that a parent is God's appointed mediator in the home. Let me explain that.
Mediator is, of course, a word that is applied to Jesus Christ in the Bible. I Timothy 2:5 tells us that there is one God and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. As a mediator, Jesus Christ is literally the go-between. He is the one through whom we come or go to the Father. Further, the Bible teaches that Jesus functions as the mediator, as the one who brings us to God, in a threefold capacity: as prophet, priest, and king. What I am saying is this: the parent is appointed of God to be the prophet, priest, and king in the family; and that, with reference to his children.
As a parent, you are appointed of God to be a prophet. That means you are responsible to declare the will of God, to teach your child the truth of God. Who is responsible to do that? Parents are responsible to do that. Isaiah 38:19, "The father to the children shall make known thy truth." In every aspect of their life, they are to be taught what God says about that aspect of life. They must grow up to be able to look at everything through the eyeglasses of the Scriptures. Now who is going to teach them that? Who is going to train them and give them that ability? Certainly not the TV, not the neighbors, not the public school, but you as the parent. God constituted you such. You are the prophet unto your child to teach him the way of God. You must not say, Well, I would like to be a prophet. You are a prophet. The question is: are you a faithful prophet or an unfaithful prophet?
I would like to interject here that this is also something that should be aimed at in Christian education. Christian education stands upon this principle: the teacher in the school then stands as the substitute or in the place of the parent and must reflect the parent, that is, share the same convictions as the parent in order to teach the child the convictions and the beliefs that the parent has found in the Word of God. So you are to be the prophet.
But you are also to be the priest. When I say "priest," I do not mean that a parent saves his child. Rather, the idea would be that you bear their weaknesses and bear them before God in prayer. For a full explanation of this, you should read such a chapter as Hebrews 5. There Jesus Christ is explained to us as our High Priest (also the last part of Hebrews 4). It says He is touched with the feelings of our infirmities and He has perfect compassion. As a priest, you must bear with the childhood weaknesses and imperfections of your child. Those imperfections and weaknesses must not bring out of you a yell and a fit of frustration. But you are their priest to bear with those weaknesses and patiently to mold and instruct them and to bring prayer to God in their behalf.
Finally, as a parent, you are a king. As a king, you rule over your household. Joshua expressed this parental and kingly aspect in Joshua 24:15 when he said, "But as for me and for my house, we will serve the LORD." You are there, as a parent, to admonish and to rule in the Word of God over your home. Parents must not be afraid to administer the rule of God in their home. They must not be afraid to administer order and discipline in their home. You must not jump every time your child balks. What would you think of a king who sat upon his throne and issued forth a directive for his kingdom, a directive that he had thought out carefully, which he thought would be for the welfare of his subjects. Then, the moment that directive goes forth, a citizen or two begins to complain and balk, and the king begins to jitter upon the throne and changes his directive. You would say that that king is not fit to rule. You are God's king in the home to bring the rule or order of God to your home.
Very often a child will come in and say to you, "But, Mom and Dad, why do you say we have to do that? The neighbors do this. And the boys and girls over there do this." Then you must say to them, "Oh, but we do not look outside of our home. We look inside of the Bible. We go to the Word of God to determine how we are going to live in this home. We go under the authority of God's Word. Sunday is the Sabbath. That will be the day that this household worships." And we could go on.
The parent is the mediator in the home, the one who is called of God to bring his children up onto God and to do so as a prophet, priest, and king. And you are to train your child. That is what we read in Proverbs 22:6, "Train up a child in the way he shall go; and when he is old, he will not depart from it." The word to "train" means "narrow down," narrow down the child in the way he should go. Train this child in the way he is to go in every aspect of his life. We read a very interesting thing in Luke 2:51 about Jesus Christ. We read that Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man. He increased in wisdom; that is, He was trained in the mental aspect of His manhood. He increased in stature, that is, His physical life. He increased in favor to God; that was His spiritual life. And He increased in favor to man; that was His social life. Your child's mental, physical, spiritual, and social life - all of this you must train in the way that he is to go, that is, in the way marked out for him in the Word of God. Train him in such a way that when he leaves the home he will be able to take up his God-given role that he has learned from you: how to be a good father or mother, a good husband or wife, a good worker, a good member of the church of Jesus Christ.
For a child to go forth into life unprepared, for the home to fail and cause the child to limp through his life because these things have not been impressed in childhood - if that happens, nothing can take up the slack. That is the parental calling. And that is why you must not say, "Well, I'm just a carpenter; I'm just a farmer; I'm just old me; I'm just a housewife." Never, ever say that! You are the servant of God, to prepare that child and to teach him in the way that he should go. You are the instrument in the hand of God for the good of the child.
If you are going to do that, then you must, as a parent, watch over the atmosphere of your home, the things that are in your home - what you keep out and what you keep in. Especially you have to be concerned about the evil and subversive influence of the world, which seeks to infiltrate a Christian family. One way that that is done is through the television. Are you, if you have a television, the master of the TV ... or are you the servant? What would you think of a person who knew that there was something corrosive in his house, so corrosive that it was eating out the pillars of his home, the pillars over which his little girl's bedroom had been built (or, that there was a bacteria or poisonous gas set loose in the living room of the home), and, knowing all this, nevertheless did nothing, but let his children continue to breathe it, or allowed his child to go to sleep in a room where the very foundation was threatening to fall down? What would think? You would say, "That's terrible!"
Well, TV has a greater influence to spread things in your home than does anything else. It has an influence over men which is perhaps greater than any other instrument known to mankind. The television is a most powerful conveyer of thoughts, of attitudes, of outlook on life. According to Psalm 1, as the people of God we are to be those who walk not in the counsel of the ungodly nor stand in the way of sinners, nor sit in the seat of the scornful. Ninety-nine percent of television programming is controlled by non-Christians. It is simply saturated with all that God calls evil. Sex scenes, murder, blasphemy, cursing, anti-God. As we live in a TV-oriented society, and we are told that a child can spend as many as thirty-forty hours a week in front of a TV, do you control that television? Do you know what your child watches?
I have another question. What would you think of a father who takes his son to a tavern and says to his son concerning the men who are at the tavern (drunkards, perhaps wife-beaters), "I want you now to idolize these men, son, as your heroes." Or what would you think of a mother who brought her daughter to have fellowship with harlots, with unchaste women? Would you leave your child with a known child-abuser? Would you leave your child with rats and rabid dogs running through the house? And yet, the TV influence is so great that all of these things, these great sins and evils, can be brought right into your home, right before your child, and can leave such influence with a child that those influences can not be erased on this side of heaven.
The psalmist said, "Turn thou my eyes from beholding vanity." Proverbs said concerning adultery and concerning sexual sins, "Avoid it. Pass not by. Turn away." Do not plop your child down in front of the television, for the television could be the baby-sitter. Do not let your child watch anything which you are not thoroughly familiar with. And do not, for yourself, simply plop down for an hour just to watch the tube and to flip through the channels. How many entire evenings have been wasted in front of that television! Then, concerning some of those things that you yourselves will watch as a husband and a wife, ask yourself this question after you have watched them: "Can you go and pray? Do you feel like praying?" And after viewing some of the things, can you even look your wife in the eye without having shame?
You must place a filter around your house. You must keep out the evil influences of this world. But that is not enough. You must fill your home with that which God gives you to fill it. You must make it a happy and joyful home. You must spend time with your children. You must love them and show genuine interest in them and talk with them and develop communication with them when they are just little children. Bear with their weaknesses. Talk to them about every aspect of their life. And make family devotions an important part of your home. Each day you must bring the Word of God. Have a time when you read the Bible with your family. You do not need to be a minister to do that. Genuinely, from your heart, open your Bible. Perhaps do a little study yourself on the passage before you read it. And then read it. Occasionally stop and ask a question and discuss it with your wife and your children there. Have a set time of family worship, of prayer and Bible reading. And allow nothing to shove it outside of your home.
Today there is the temptation, with our busy schedules, never to find time to sit down together as a family. We are always out - as if we are teaching our children that the real life is outside of the home. You have to get out of the house to have a good time, because you cannot possibly have a good time at home. Especially if the TV is broken, right? No, wrong! Absolutely wrong! Your home ought to be a wonderful and joyful place, and not only in those formal times of devotion when you read and talk about the Bible with your children, but also the times when you are cultivating attitudes, and working hard as a parent for spiritual openness with your children, and just being with them.
It takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of communication between the husband and wife. You talk these things over carefully with each other. You talk about each child, his weaknesses, his strengths. You try to figure out the best way of dealing with various situations and problems that come up in his life. Then you give of yourself, with an intelligent and loving direction, for the good of your home. This is important.
It takes a lot of work. It is whole lot easier to do other things. But this is vitally important. It is important for your child because the family is the place where his spiritual life is nurtured. God is pleased to use that family. He is pleased to give children to us and to give us a family, that that family might be the nursery for faith in Jesus Christ. That is the wonderful truth in the Bible of the covenant of God - that fathers to their children make known the truth of God. Or, as the apostle Paul says of Timothy in II Timothy 1:5, and again in II Timothy 3:15, that Timothy learned the faith and learned the holy Scriptures which made him wise to salvation, when he was a little child, from his mother and from his grandmother.
How do you come into the world? You do not come into the world, as a child, as the finished product, but you come moldable, under the influence of the home. The home is going to fix the influence and mold upon a child. The child is not born with the right attitudes or the right patterns of thought and right actions, contrary to all the teaching of evolution and all the philosophy of men. No, they have to come under the stamp of a Christian home where the molding is undeniable. That means that, as a parent, you do not wake up one day and say, "Well, I want to start molding my child and preparing my child. Perhaps I want to start teaching them about authority or sex education." Oh, no. You have been doing that already from day one. Your life before your children, your entire home, has been molding them from day one.
If you adopt the permissive philosophy that you must simply let the child go its own way and make its own choices, so that, when there is something the child does not like, you allow him to kick and scream and have a tantrum, you do not seek to curb that in the child, then I am going to tell you that that same pattern of behavior which showed itself in the child will later, when he is thirty, cause him to curse his wife when she does something he does not like, slam the door, and go find a divorce lawyer. Why is he going to do that? Because he has always had his own way and he never learned to face obstructions to his own will.
You are molding your child. The child is breathing in the atmosphere of the home, the atmosphere of the parents concerning work, the Sabbath, authority. You are teaching your child in all of these aspects, whether they are important or whether they are not important. How does a boy learn what the role of a wife is? He learns that from you, mother. And a daughter. What does she learn about a good husband? She learns that from you, Dad.
If your child sees you, father, being angry and evil to your wife and barking at her like a dog and never repenting from that sin, you are teaching that child, your son or your daughter. You are teaching him that the Word of God has no authority. That is what you are teaching.
You exert a powerful influence upon your children. This is so important. Be convinced of this. Be convicted of it. Then understand that as a parent you have no abilities of yourself. Of yourself you are only a sinner, and of yourself you can only pass on your sins to your children. You need the grace of God. You need the Word of God. You need daily to walk with God. That is a true parent.
A true parent is one like Enoch, who, in the midst of a busy family, walked with God, also in a world which was filled with evil and ridicule against everything of God. Enoch walked with God as a parent, in front of his wife and in front of his children.
Depend upon God. Even though you see all of your weaknesses and shortcomings and sins, hear His promise: I will be with you.
Let us pray.
Our Father, we pray that Thou wilt make us godly parents and that Thou wilt build Christian homes. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.
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