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and notice that we customarily
have another special in there and we didn't tonight, so excuse
me for not being prepared. Deuteronomy, let's go to Deuteronomy
chapter number six, Deuteronomy chapter six. And we'll look at verses down
here. Chapter six here. Look, if you will, please, at
verse, go down here to verse number four. Begin in verse number
four. Here, O Israel, the Lord our
God is one Lord, and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all
thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy might. And these
words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart.
Now notice here, this is our text for tonight. Thou shalt
teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them
when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest in by the
way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And
thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall
be as frontlets between thine eyes, and thou shalt write them
upon the posts of thy house and on thy gates. And it shall be
when the Lord thy God shall have brought thee into the land, which
ye swear unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob,
to give thee great and goodly cities, which thou buildest not,
and houses full of all good things, which thou fillest not, and wells
digged, which thou diggest not, and vineyards, and olive trees,
which thou plantest not. When thou shalt have eaten and
be full, then beware, important here, lest thou forget the Lord,
which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt and from
the house of bondage. I shall fear the Lord thy God
and serve him and shall swear by his name. And it goes on,
but let's have a word of prayer. Father, I pray that you please
bless us, Lord, as we get into this, that you might use it in
our church, our family. And Lord, this practical message,
I pray that would be a help in Jesus name. Amen. Well, I mentioned
this morning if you were there, if you weren't there this morning,
and I would recommend that you get a chance to listen to the
message this morning. I have spent the day today, as
we will tonight, on the issue of family worship. What should
happen in your home? And I'm trying to get across
this idea that Christianity is not just something we do on Sundays,
but it's something that is 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
It is all based on a relationship with the Lord. And it used to
be historically that families would, it was just as common,
you might say, to sit down and eat a meal together as it would
be to have family worship. It would be at that point, as
I closed my sermon this morning, where pastors would teach on
how, because I have a record of some of these messages, how
to have effective time with your family in God's Word. It was
almost taken for granted that it was going to happen. And it
was part of our national fabric, you might say. And I thank God
for it. It was an understanding of the
Bible so that even kids that grew up and they didn't know
the Lord, they had a foundation where you could talk to them
quickly about the gospel because the foundation of those things
was certainly very, very evident. Today, we live in a world that's
opposite of that. Our country is void of its understanding
of Scripture. We're scripturally ignorant. I mean, if you listen
and read, if you will, some of the sermons are in our library. Get some of Charles Spurgeon's
sermons and read in there the depth of his language, where
he is oftentimes just making a reference to an entire Old
Testament or New Testament Bible story or narrative in one little
phrase. That is to connect its relationship
to the application of scripture where he is right there. And
many people read those today and because we're ignorant and
don't have a grasp on the stories of God's word, then we miss that
application entirely. We wonder what did he mean by
that? And he was very good at that, he was characterized by
that. And I'm saying that we should
want that for our children, amen, right? We want our children to
have every opportunity to know the Lord. In fact, I've told
my children now that they're of age, they're all adults, that
I say, hey, we want you to be thankful for the things that
we gave you because we gave our all. We literally gave our all
to our family, working hard and serving the Lord together. But
I don't want you to repeat our mistakes. Boy, I don't want my
family, I want them to do better than we did. Amen, right? I mean,
I want our kids to go forward faster, fuller, greater ministry
opportunities, et cetera, than what their parents have done.
And I thank God for what God's done in our lives. I'm very grateful
for that. But I want them to do better.
But here's the deal. We all like what the language
is. In verse number 12, we would say this to our children. Children,
beware. After you have everything, everything
is going well. And there's a message there that
usually there's backsliding going on when everything is going well.
When you sit down and you're full of all these things that
were handed to you and a heritage here in America that was a land
of plenty and a land full of the gospel because your parents
have sacrificed for you, we would tell them, then beware lest thou
forget. the Lord which brought thee forth
out of the land of Egypt, a picture of being saved out of the world,
the Passover redemption having taken place in that story. In
verse 13, we want our children to have this, thou shalt fear
the Lord thy God and serve him and shalt swear by his name.
We're saying, children, listen. We want you to grow up and know
the Lord today and know Him the rest of your life. And we want
you to live the principles of God's word without veering off
to the right into sin or going off into the left into sin. But
if we're gonna have that, it's going to come because we follow
the pattern that the Lord has prescribed in the previous verses
which we read. Beginning back in verse number
six, and these words which I command this day shall be in thine heart. So I would point out here, first
of all, this is not my outline, but it is dissecting the passage
of scripture. That first of all, we need to
teach ourselves. So there is this point like,
I believe that every person here, because you have a copy of the
Bible and because of the resources that are available, you are totally
adequate to teach your children the Bible. By the way, one more
point that makes you adequate is the calling of God. You are
the parent, and you can always do what you should do. You may
feel inadequate, so first of all, teach yourself. Go get something
from God's word to give to your children, amen. He said that
needs to be in your heart, amen. If it's in our heart, then it's
not just in our heads. Maybe we claim the allegiance
to the Lord Jesus Christ. I know we all love him and if
we're saved, we have committed ourselves into, but listen, we
claim allegiance to the Lord. Right? But if it gets into our
hearts, then he'll have our allegiance, not just our claim to allegiance. When the temptation comes, we'll
choose him. So put it, teach thyself, but
then in verse number seven, and thou shalt teach them diligently
unto thy children. I think an important point here
is that we should teach them while they're young. Teach them
while they're young. This is a message not to the
churches or to the spiritual leadership in Israel that would
be the Old Testament application. This is to the parents. Teach
them while they are young. Train up a child in the way he
should go and when he's old he'll not depart from it, Proverbs
22.6. Teach them while they're young. Thirdly, we teach them
diligently. I love that he used that word,
diligently, unto thy children. What does that mean? Diligence
is continued effort. It's not sporadic effort. You
know, you're looking for a product that is going to happen years
down the road, and you're constantly working with them along the way
so that it's not, do it for a little while, then give up and find
something else to do. It's a constant diligence, constant
pressure, constant effort. Just get to it and stick with
it. Really, teach them, and you'll enjoy it, by the way. It's an
enjoyable part of their life. And then teach them continuously
in verse seven and eight. And that's what he means by putting
it, put the effort in, bind it for a sign upon thine hand. And
so by the time the New Testament came around, and even today,
they have made this absurd application. In the New Testament, we find
the word phylacteries. And what they were doing, these
little boxes, and they would take these scripture references
and write them in the scriptures and put them in these little
boxes, leather boxes, and put them on their hand or wrist.
And then they would have these twine leather straps holding
it on. Bind it upon thy forehead. They put them on their foreheads.
And the Lord is, in the New Testament, is criticizing them in Matthew
23, saying, you have made broad your phylacteries. You've made
these things really important, but they're not in your heart.
Right? So there's a case there that's
important. He wasn't talking about being silly and wearing
boxes on your face. He was talking about putting
the Word of God continuously in front of your children. That
this should be the fact. You know why we do this? You're
talking to your child, because the Bible says this. You're out
somewhere else, you know why we do that? Because the Bible
says this. Everywhere and in every circumstance
of life, using the word of God to apply to the actual practical
outworkings of our Christian faith. That you're teaching them
a way of life, but you're teaching them a Christian mindset, a worldview,
you might call it. that is biblical, that is not
just influenced by their education. See, the vacuum of not doing
this ourselves has left the school system to give them a worldview. And I'm saying that even at best,
we have a member of the school board here, and he's read a lot
of the textbooks. And Brother Ray, I appreciate
all your effort. He doesn't get a dime for being involved in
that. And it costs him a lot to go out and to to run for the
school board. It's really a position of sacrifice.
And he has read a number of the textbooks and has concluded that
some of the things we're really concerned about, wokeism, hasn't
gotten into the textbooks of this area. But I'll promise you
that evolution has. I'll promise you that it is not
based on the Bible anymore. I promise you that there are
things in their textbooks that are not pleasing to God. In the
vacuum of parents teaching a way of life and a worldview that's
biblical, you have left it up to others, and they will gather
a worldview from entertainment, from the philosophies of the
world, or really just out from the public school system or wherever
you're teaching them. It is a difficult thing, but
we should continuously put the word of God before our children.
And then in verse number eight, it looks like we should teach
them not only continuously, but repeatedly at every opportunity. every chance we can. And I remember
the stories of things like taking my kids with me out visiting
on the bus route. A bus ministry is a great way
to raise children. And yes, they get exposed to
things that are sinful. You go into these homes and I
was going into places where, I've mentioned this before, that
I would take my kids and I, especially the boys at that time, Sharon
was a little bit too young, and I would go right to the television,
and everybody would be watching it, and I would put my back right
in front of the television, and then I'd put my son next to me
where I could grab the top of his head, you know, because he's
like the movement of the television scene, the screen, which is like
huge, and the movement is catching their eyes, you know, and so
I got my hand on his head, keeping his head facing the people, and
the people have to look at me because I've just blocked their
entertainment. But you go into these places and coming out is
an object lesson that repeats over and over and over again.
Hey, Elijah, why did that family have that problem? What are you
seeing here? What is this? What caused all
that? Well, they don't love Jesus.
I mean, it starts real simple, but then as they get older, you
can explain what causes those things or elements in there.
You say, Pastor, you're talking. Hey, I'm telling them what they
just saw. I'm not trying and I teach them not to talk about
the people in a bad way. But if you're going to avoid
that kind of lifestyle, hey, you're going to find that you're
going to have to fight this in your home. This is what needs
to be your own heart. The Christians, basically, I'm
saying that it's a great way to raise children. It is a great
way to raise children. So the Lord has obviously given
us a command and it goes all the way back to the law and has
never been repealed. The responsibility of parents
has never changed from the Old Testament to the New Testament.
And God has given and commissioned parents the responsibility to
educate your children about spiritual things, about everything. We
need parents who really want the outcome of their children
to be Christians who stand for the Lord for the rest of their
lives. If you really want to know how
to ruin folks, I'll tell you there's three main areas that
cause children to go the wrong direction. Number one is rebellion
in the home, usually with the wife. You say, pastor, what does
that mean? Well, if we want to go on a lesson
on, look at Ephesians chapter five, wives submit yourselves
unto your husbands. Husbands then don't love their
wives like they should, but the problems in the home cause children
to go wayward. Second thing is when there's
a lack of consistency in the discipline. If something is okay
today and not okay tomorrow, and the children don't really
know why, You're teaching them to rebel. What you need is, as
much as possible, is everything that is in you to have a consistent
nature about the discipline. What was wrong yesterday is wrong
today, and it'll be wrong tomorrow. And by God's grace, as a parent,
as a dad, I'm not gonna be lazy in applying and being consistent. That's a lot of work. I made
a promise when my kids were really young. I said, Lord, I'm not
the brightest person in the whole classroom. But I promise you
this, that as God is my witness, I promise God that every time
I saw a problem in my children, I would do something about it.
I'm not gonna overlook it, I'm not gonna let it go, I'm not
gonna just excuse it and say, I'll catch it next time. I said
every single time. But I said, Lord, help me to
see the things I'm missing. Because we're all gonna be blind
in one way or another to the problems of our home. Lord, help
me to see with clarity where that I'm not catching something
or I'm not seeing what is the next step for my children. And
I took it very seriously. I'm very grateful that we did,
but lack of consistency and discipline is, I think, a very second, very
common ailment that causes children to go wayward. Thirdly, I think,
is a living for appearances. Something's wrong here. Something went, testing, testing,
testing. Well, just to solve it, you can
just turn this back on and I'll go with that. Living for appearances is an
evil thing. We have just spent the last month
or so on our Sunday school lessons dealing with Matthew chapter
6 in verses 1 through 18, dealing with the pretentious nature of
Christianity. regarding the almsgiving and
the fasting and prayer? How much more, if the Lord is
very serious about it like that, how much more does he hate the
inconsistency or living for appearances that happens in homes where we
are interested more in looking good to the crowded church and
worried more about the gossip chain of weak Christians, only
weak Christians gossip? Right? If somebody's a gossip,
they're a weak Christian at best. Say amen there, okay? If you
listen, you're weak. Say, what should happen if I
have somebody come and gossip? Take them to the person. Include
the person with whom, or about whom they are speaking. Go and
say, if somebody comes, did you know what Brother Mike did? Wait,
wait, just a minute, just a minute. Hey Mike, come over here and why
don't the three of us get together? I know we can find it. We're
all Christians, let's figure this out. But you know, gossip
is for weak people, and Christians are so worried about, what are
they saying about me down at that church house? What we ought
to be saying. We ought to be saying, hey, if
they have struggles, let's pray. Pray together, talk to the Lord
about the problem, not to each other. Right? Hey, if they have
problems, then we're gonna pray for them and encourage them and
be there for them, because there'll be a time when I need you to
be there for me. Okay? But those three things
are elements that really cause distress in the home. You can
fool a church. You can look good to a church.
You can look good to the appearances of the gossip crowd. You could
look good to the world out there. But in your home, they know what
you're really like. And if you don't live what you
believe, you're going to send your kids down the wrong direction
for sure. One of the keys to accomplishing
what the Bible is speaking here is family worship or family devotions,
whatever you want to call it. I cannot stress too much the
great importance, as I did this morning, giving you reasons why
they should be educated in God's word by their parents. You can't
claim to be raising your children for God if they are not having
God in your family, not just You're actually pushing them
away, saying, hey, I know the pastor talks about this, but
this isn't going to be part of our way. The command is repeated
for us over and over again that it's our responsibility to teach
this to our children. Now, family devotions or worship
is not a guarantee that they'll turn out right. I mentioned those
other three things that cause us to have children that are
wayward. And if you have a pretentious
home, in other words, there are people I know that, well, I keep
my family devotions and we have our Bible time, but they're not
living it here. You're just living for what it
looks like. Your kids aren't gonna make it.
It's not a guarantee, but I'll go as far to say that I haven't
seen a family whose children have really stood for the Lord
Jesus Christ in their adult lives who did not have time of family
worship. It's very, very important. I want to give you some things.
It's a battle. I know it's a battle because it's fighting your schedule. We found the hardest time for
our consistency was when these kids all got to be adults, and
before they got married and they're running off to work in like,
oh, 15 different hours, only three kids, and they go to 15,
I don't know, it just seemed like it was hardest at the end
of this time. Let me give you some things.
As we look at this, notice first of all the people for the devotions. I believe it should be the whole
family. Even if you have to work odd hours, There should be a
consistent time when you meet together as a whole family. I don't believe it should be
just, well, I'm busy today, mom. On occasion, if you're out of
town, dads, your wife should continue to do the Bible devotions.
But it should be the intention that every person in the home
is meeting together. When I mentioned this morning
that when Elijah came along, he was our first born in 1998,
Debbie and I had been married for two years and something. We got married in August of 96.
He was born in November of 98. And we had been reading our Bible
and praying together every weekday morning. And so then he's born
and we get him home from the hospital and you know, he's right
there with us. having our morning Bible and
prayer. I mean, I don't think our kids
have ever known a time, remember a time when they did not have
that kind of responsibility. It's just part of our lives. So that's the people. Number
two is the provision, the provision for your devotions. And that
would be God's word. When the children are younger,
we got a Bible storybook. I remember it just like a smaller
book. It looked like a children's reading
book, but it had like a picture on one side and a brief description
of the story on the other. And we would read it to the kids,
maybe expound a little bit about it, because it was just like
one short page giving us a description. But I'll caution you that there's
a lot of wrong children's ministry books. If you want to know which
one's good, ask questions, find out what's good, bring it to
me and I'll look at it. And I would say that you need
to watch for the publishing companies like Watchtower, Herald, they're
all part of that. They put out all of, and they
make them to look so biblical, but they're producing, it's part
of their cultish teaching. And so the LDS Church has theirs,
and they'll present God as an evolving God, not God that is
an immutable God, and on and on. So get a good Bible story
book for when they're very little. Okay, and teach it to them. I
mentioned also that we had the kids act out some of the stories. And that was always fun for them
as soon as they were able to walk and to teach them about
things. And we were having them act out
some of the stories like Lazarus coming out of the grave. And
somebody would say, Lazarus, come forth. And one of the kids
would be acting like they're all wrapped up. And you can make
it a real exciting time for the children. It doesn't have to
be, it should never be where it's above their heads. Do you
understand that? If you read the Bible to a two-year-old,
it's probably gonna be right over their head. And I think
there's a place to do that. Believe me, they should grow
up hearing the word of God. But then after you've read it,
you can then explain it on a level that they could comprehend at
least something to take with them on that day, on the journey
of life. When they get older, you want
to read the Bible and explain a little bit. And once my kids
were teenagers, we went through Psalms and Proverbs continuously. Proverbs is enormous as an education
about life, principles to follow for life. If you read one a day,
every day of the week, in the course of a month, because there's
31 of them, you can have one that corresponds to the date
of every day of the month. You can read it, simply read
it. What we would do is, once the kids understood how to read,
we would gather together and if we're reading a chapter, each
person would read a verse in succession around the table,
around the living room. And verse one, verse two, verse
three, verse four, verse five. And then we would simply take
time after that. I'd stress some things. I would
talk about what this or that would apply to their lives. And
then I would, I would pray, we'd take prayer
requests. And I'll talk about that in just
a moment. But you know, you don't have to be a Bible scholar to
teach your kids the Bible. For instance, let's just examine
this for a minute. Go on over to one of the chapters.
Go to Proverbs, if you will. Go to Proverbs. And let's go to, I don't know,
let's go to Proverbs. Let's just pick one. Go to the
first chapter of Proverbs. Okay. And here we have the introduction
to the book. He says, The Proverbs of Solomon,
the son of David, king of Israel. And then you see that next word,
it's part of an infinitive, to. And you're going to see it twice
in verse two. And you're going to see it in
verse 3, verse 4. And then in verse 6. So what does that mean? They're
going to answer the question of why. Why do we have the Proverbs? What are the purpose of Proverbs?
To know wisdom and instruction, in verse 2. To perceive the words
of understanding. The Bible is not difficult to
comprehend. To receive instruction of wisdom, justice, and judgment,
and equity. You're not gonna learn that at
the school. Where should somebody come to get all that squared
away in their hearts? To the Bible. The Proverbs are
there for this purpose. To give subtly, now subtly is
sometimes in our language we think of a negative word, but
that is just basically having wisdom, a synonym for wisdom,
to the simple. So a person who's simple is maybe
naive. Are children naive? Hopefully
they're very naive. We want naivety in the home,
but then somewhere they have to be able to put together this
idea that the Bible will teach them how to be prepared for life
because naivety is good as a child, but it's not good as an adult.
We want them to be simple concerning evil, wise unto that which is
good. We want to guide the knowledge that they're gonna give. So here
you are, you've read just maybe a few verses. You tell, hey,
so and so, you read this one. Elijah's got verse one, Ezekiel
verse two, Sharon verse three, mom verse four, and dad verse
five. And you might go around and you might even stop and say,
hey, let's look and apply this. Or you might read the whole chapter
and just apply the first few verses. The Bible is not complicated
to understand in most of its language. You can go on here
in verse six to understand the proverb and the interpretation,
the words of the wise and their dark sayings. So here is an admonition
along with it in verse number five. So if I were given a devotion,
these are the thoughts. I didn't prepare this, I just
said let's turn to one and let's talk about the Bible. We're not
talking about being complicated or being really intelligent or
educated. Verse five, a wise man will hear, do you want to
be wise? When you're reading through Proverbs, you can ask
your kids, do you want to be foolish or do you want to be
wise? Here's what a wise person does and here's what a fool does.
And it's through the whole book of Proverbs. It's an amazing
tool to teach your children once they're past the storybook age.
If you did nothing but that all the rest of their lives until
they were able to go out into their own life, coupled with
the fact that they're reading the Bible for themselves throughout
the Bible on their own, and then they're going to church and they're
being educated at church. Friend, listen, you're accomplishing
what Deuteronomy tells you to do. So you look at wise men will
hear and will increase learning and a man of understanding shall
attain unto wise counsel. And then you can go on. I have
preached through the book of Proverbs when we had the chapel
for our school. And I think we've had the chapel
at least going for five years or something, and I'm only on
chapter 17 still. Because there's so much just
right there, you'll never run out. and so many things about
life. So that's an example. So when
you get to an age, you can go back to Deuteronomy if you held
your place there or just stayed there, I want to talk to you
about. There comes a point in every family when you're going
to be dealing individually with the children on problems. Now
here's what you don't want to do. You don't want to have a
class with your kids. Could you imagine if I did this
here, okay? We could say, let's pick on Adam
tonight, okay? Adam's got this one problem in
his life, right? Could you imagine if I dealt
with, yeah, everybody's saying amen. Adam, that's a good thing,
because the rest of us have 25 problems. He thinks you only
have one. That's good. But, you know, you don't want
to center on, hey, and embarrass one of your children in your
Bible time. Well, you know, the other day,
Riker, you lied. Okay? No, I don't think you did.
I'm just making an example. So we're going to hammer him
in the devotions. Now, wait a minute, wait a minute.
I don't think you should center on those things as far as an
embarrassment for the children. But I will tell you that that's
a perfect place for you to address to all of the family. You don't
have to go into the example of one kid's problems, but you can
say, let's see what the Bible says about telling the truth.
And you could have a whole series of those. And if you are looking
for, say, Pastor, I'm dealing with an issue and I need to know
what the Bible says about one topic. And you say, can you show
me how to find the answers? Well, I want to teach you, first
of all, how to use the Strong's Concordance. and find it for
yourself. What a great tool that is. Now
things are so available digitally that Strongs is available right
on your phone and you can find it and use it and look up words
and match them together. I can show you how to do that
but it's not very complicated. You can just look up verses and
spend the 10 minutes or 20 minutes. I don't think you have to spend
a lot of time in family devotions but it is a perfect place to
deal with what your family is facing. a perfect opportunity
so i get up on a sunday and i preach like this here's a very general
idea and i'm trying to make application that applies to all of us people
like uh... that are single they don't have
a family to raise just yet and uh... couples like the mclaughlin's
who kids and like debbie now whose kids are grown in what
do you do then so i'm in a general application where is in your
family devotions you can get to a razor level of understanding
where you're teaching them specifically about their problem. That's one
of the reasons why I would like teens to have teen activities. Because
we're teaching Sunday school and teen activities preaching
specifically to the needs of teenagers. And you can become
more narrow in your application. What an opportunity to teach
your children this way. And you don't have to be a Bible
scholar to do it. I'd be glad to show you how.
show you in just a short amount of time. And really, any of the
Christians that have been saved for a while can show you how
to find the verses in the scriptures, to look them up in a concordance,
and to present it. And you don't need to complicate
it. You don't need a 45-minute sermon. Now, you all would be
happy if I preached just a 45-minute sermon, wouldn't you? You don't
need this. You need to give to the point
and teaching, and we said you're teaching them repeatedly. So
they're hearing in their Sunday school class, it's wrong to lie. They're hearing in their junior
church class on occasion, God says he hates lies. Here's how
you tell the truth. And then they're hearing from
mom and dad right in their home. Now you're gonna ruin them if
you're out lying. If you make yourself a liar,
you have, so you're teaching yourself first and then teaching
the children. Do you know that one of the greatest
ways to absorb more of the Bible truths is to prepare to teach
somebody else? You know, I've learned so much
by presenting the material to our family, our church family,
where the Bible says, feed the flock of God. In order for me
to feed you, I have to get it first. I have the great advantage
of having prepared the sermons and a lot of times I'm in my
office praying and working on a sermon and I have to stop and
go pray and get on my knees because I have to get right with God.
So I have my altar time before I even come to the pulpit many
times. That's why I encourage some of you men to get a hold
of your Bible and I can help you learn what it is to put a
sermon together and go on to one of these nursing home services
and present Bible truth in a way that could help the people and
it benefits you in a greater way than you comprehend. Teaching
your children will do the same thing. Dealing with these things. So on a general level, I would
say when they're very little, we want to have a Bible storybook
level Bible devotions. Then when they get old enough
to read on their own, the book of Proverbs is a mine of gold
for that age. Just commenting on it, applying
it. And then after you've applied
it time and time and time again, you can ask them, what do you
see in this passage? Before, you know, you get to
a new passage and instead of you just telling them what's
there, what do you see? Get them digging mentally involved
in digging for truths out of God's word. It's important. So we said, first of all, the
people, secondly, the Bible provision, thirdly, the prayer in the devotions,
the devotions. Now, I think it should be your
whole time of family devotions, your worship should be as long
as God wants it to be, but it can be anywhere from 10 minutes
to 20 minutes at the most. We're not talking about, it's
the allegiance to God and his word that is primary. You're
focusing your children and your family that God is first. But
when we come to the prayer, it just needs to be earnest, needs
to be serious. So you've taught your children
from a young age how to sit together in church because you're practicing
this every day in your Bible devotions. And then after they're
older, especially after they get saved, you're asking them
to take turns in the prayer. I always like to have my wife
occasionally pray. You know what you're doing, fathers,
when you do that? You're teaching your boys that
you are totally behind the leadership of your wife. I say boys, girl
too, right? I had a girl. But I'm saying
that the young people want a challenge. Dads, have you ever come home
and your wife looks like, I've been fighting these kids all
day. And then what happens, wives, the guys come in the home and
we say, you, you, okay, fix it, and they just straighten right
up. You say, what happened there? It's the authority issue. God
made a man and a woman that way, okay? But what you're doing by
allowing your wife to pray sometimes in your family Bible devotions
is you're backing her authority. I am behind, we are one in our
parenting. We are not two. You do not come
to me. We always had a rule, by the way, on the side note.
If the kids came to me and asked for something and I said no,
if they went to my wife and asked, just asking, and we found out,
and we did communicate a lot, just asking was a spanking. If
I said no, it's not up for debate. If mom said no, and then you
come to me, and I'm like, in our family, I'm sometimes the
softy. You know, like, Dad, can we get ice cream? You know, I
didn't know you already asked Mom and she said no, she's saving
that ice cream, but Dad's the big softy, so they'll come and
I'll say, yeah, scoop me out some too. Ooh, you'd be in some
big trouble in our home if I find out later, because we will find
out. Be sure your son will find you out, right? We are one, united
in our parenting. Not two people, we're one. And
so in leading in prayer for the family, encourages that you're
behind the decisions. And ladies, listen to me, your
husbands are setting, it is their responsibility to set the tone.
To say, thus saith our home. This is the way our home is gonna
be. You say, well, I don't like the way. It doesn't matter if
you like it or not. You have a voice. Speak to him
by yourself. I'm tempted to get on to parenting
too much, but I'll give you another hint. Your children should never
see you disagree. But you will disagree. And you
go get a loan and fix the disagreement and then come out and then they
never knew you disagreed. Say amen there. A united front
rearing children. But the husband is setting the
tone. What he says is a disciplinary action, is a disciplinary, you
don't have a right to do your own thing. Your home has to follow
the same rules for both authorities, or you're gonna ruin your children.
Has to be, has to be. You're asking me, Pastor, how
you have good kids. I do. The mercy of God, but some
biblical teaching that we applied. The mercy of God, yes, God was
merciful to me. But it was the biblical teaching
that was applied. So the prayer, I think it's important
to pray for the missionaries, pray for the things that we speak
of in church that are sick. These need to be prevalent in
your family worship, your prayer bulletins. They need to be handy,
they need to be there. And then you mention, if I mention
or Elijah mentions, pray for Zachary St. Vincent or Cale Tonks
or Mrs. Grant, whatever the needs are,
they should be mentioned in your Bible devotions. And then you
should rotate through your prayers for the missionaries. That's
why they have those cards. And we could get some more of
them, but when they came and visited the first time, they
had a stack of prayer cards, you're supposed to take them,
and you could keep them by your place in the living room where
you have your Bible devotions. And you could pray. We only have
seven or eight ministries that we're involved with. And you
could pray every day in a rotation through those ministries. Teach
your kids to pray for the missionaries. Pray for the family needs and
for the church needs, and then discuss your answers to prayer.
All of this can be done. And you know, once you get used
to it, you can get it in a short amount of time. I've taken a
lot of time to explain it to you. What this should take is
just a few minutes of your morning, putting God first. And then,
you know, another thing you ought to do, you ought to go over what
was preached today, tomorrow morning. What did you get out
of your Sunday school? What did you learn in your junior
church class? What did you find in the preaching on Sunday night
or on Sunday morning, depending on where they are? You can spend
Monday or whatever rotation, Friday about what goes on in
the master club's class for the children or what was preached
in the pulpit, and you can apply those truths, asking them and
asking them what they're learning in their Sunday school program.
And you discuss these things and then have a word of prayer.
The prayer. And then last point is punctuality
of the devotions. I'm going to speak on time what
you should do. But I think as early in the day
as possible. The optimum way is to to have
it in the morning before you run to work and before the kids
go to school. Now I know that some of you work
in a way that that would be absolutely out of the question. Okay, I
think Brother Mike, what time do you go to work? It's six o'clock
in the morning or something. So I would say, as I mentioned
this morning, that you're gonna have to make yourself available
in the evenings before they go to bed. But the key is, to all
of our devotions, is that we're not praying that God would give
us good dreams. We're praying that God would
give us power to go through the day. And of course, you could
do that the night before for the next day. but it needs to
be a very consistent time. How long should it be? I mentioned
about 10 minutes. I've talked about a lot of things
and I've preached now for more than 35 minutes on this, but
my point is that the whole of the Bible devotions does not
need to be a long amount of time. As I mentioned before, that it
is the message overall in their lives that you're teaching is
God first. Before everything of our day,
we're giving God his time. And again, if you have to do
it in the evening, you apply it that way, but it's still God
in our family. God is real. I think some people do it seven
days a week. They have their family. Now personally,
I have my own devotions and I think every Christian should get up
in the morning and read your Bible and pray. You say, Pastor,
I'm going to church. I don't need to read my Bible.
Well, I think you should read your Bible on Sunday morning.
You have more time, most of the time. Sunday morning, pray. Pray for God to work on your
heart, come into church. Your personal devotions need
to be seven days a week all of your life. However, As a family,
if you put it in your schedule, like I mentioned that our schedule
was every weekday, and then Saturday and Sunday we went off into the
ministry, it's up to a home to decide when you are able to do
this, but whatever it is, you be consistent with it. Whatever
it is, you just stick to it. If you say, hey, my schedule's
so crazy that I have to do it three days a week, fine, do it
three days a week as a family. But don't ever miss, by the grace
of God, if that's all that it can do. But the optimum thing
is that every morning on a weekday morning, you're getting up and
you have a routine. And after they've done this and
this and this, then you're gonna have your Bible devotions as
a family. Those that seek me early, the
Bible says, shall find me. Psalm 88, 13 says, but unto thee
have I cried, O Lord, and in the morning shall my prayer prevent
thee or go before thee. You know, this is, raising children
is a real spiritual battle. It's a very serious battle. But
the Lord has given you everything you need right here. I mean,
the Bible, just in the book of Proverbs is gonna talk about
almost every aspect of life I hesitate to say everything because he
gave you a New Testament, too, and the rest of the Old Testament,
but just the book of Proverbs is gonna deal with how to use
money, how to handle your anger, how to overcome covetousness,
how to deal with your pride. He's gonna talk about being wise
or foolish. He's gonna talk about the words
that you say, the thoughts that you think, the ways you go, the
places you visit. I mean, it's almost like Proverbs
is there as a tool just to teach your children how to think in
this evil world. If all you did was read a proverb
every time you met together, talking about a chapter, or half
a chapter, and explain it as best you can, God will bless
you. Start right there. That's a great
place to start. Be consistent. The devil will
fight you any way that he can. I was talking to somebody recently,
just this week, a family called me and asked me, we're talking,
and he's seeking the will of God, and I said, what you're
facing is normal. And he was encouraged by this,
that normally when the Lord tells me to do something in a serious
change in our life, a move or a ministry, the things that God
has done to move us, the first thing I face is not a bunch of
ease and open doors, But the first thing that happens after
I've declared, this is what we're gonna do, and we start that direction,
what I normally do is have the door slammed in my face. The
first thing I run to is problems, is hindrances, is difficulty. And even sometimes that in great
efforts for God, like church planting, that sometimes I've
said, Lord, was I wrong? And Lord, I don't know if this
is gonna work. And let me tell you something, friend, listen,
if you make a decision to have a family Bible worship, In your
home, the devil will fight you. Your boss will call, I need you
here half an hour early. And on the day, you're trying
to be consistent. Or you're gonna have a problem
that'll happen with the children and it'll, listen, it doesn't
matter if you fail tomorrow, start again the next morning.
If you fail again the next morning, start the next morning. And you
say, but pastor, you said be consistent. Yeah, but be consistent. You'll get there, but the devil's
gonna fight you. Even just getting started, he'll
fight you. He'll fight you with your own inadequacies. You'll
feel like, what do I have? I don't even know the Bible.
What am I gonna teach my kid? I'm trying to give you that information
right here. He'll fight you though. He'll
fight you with other issues in the home or people that are reluctant
because you're starting some new habit that is gonna take
their time. But use the Bible to mold your children or the
devil will use that impressionable time of life to teach and promote
a general state of rebellion which is so widespread today
that it's almost ubiquitous, it's almost everywhere. The choice
is yours. So let me finish by reading this
text. If you go back to verse number six, we'll read it again
and give an invitation. And if you have questions after
this, you're welcome. I'll be around for a little bit,
and you can ask specific questions after the service tonight. But
verse number six, in these words which I command thee, this day
shall be in thine heart. Teach yourself first, and thou
shalt teach them diligently to thy children. So teach your children,
teach them diligently, teach them while they're young. And
shall talk of them when thou sittest in thine house and when
thou walkest by the way, that's applying the Bible to your life.
And when thou liest down and when thou risest up, and thou
shalt bind them for a sign, I mean repeatedly put the word of God
in front of your children. Upon thine hand and they shall
be frontlets between thine eyes. Thou shalt write them upon the
post of thy house and on thy gates. So it's good to have the
Word of God up on your walls, or as some of you do now, on
yard signs in your front yard. Amen. And thou shalt write them
upon the post of thy house, and verse number 10, and it shall
be, when the Lord thy God has given you all of these things,
go down to verse number 12. When you have eaten and you're
full, then beware lest thou forget the Lord. Look, you want the
product of good kids. You're going for a good family,
a good husband and wife relation, any aspect. If you want the product,
you've got to come to it God's way. How's your family devotions? How's your worship? Let's close
in prayer and have a time of invitation. Father, I pray that
you'd help us to yield to you, make the corrections in our families
and in our lives that we need to, so that you might have right
what would be represented here is a group of families who are
earnest, certainly not perfect, but earnest about serving you
and worshiping you at our homes. Please bless this invitation
in Jesus' name, amen.
The Method of Family Worship
| Sermon ID | 1229242351456393 |
| Duration | 49:55 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - PM |
| Bible Text | Deuteronomy 6 |
| Language | English |
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