Deuteronomy chapter 6 verses 4 through 9 reads, Hear, O Israel, Yahweh our God, Yahweh is one. You shall love Yahweh your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. Amen. That ends this reading of God's inspired and In Aaron's word, we rejoice that he has taught us in his word that he blesses also the preaching and the believing, hearing of it. In Deuteronomy was Moses' farewell sermon. As he was about to die on the other side of the Jordan, it was a sermon designed to prepare God's people to live in relationship with him, to live in covenant with him in the land into which The Lord was bringing them, and this part of Deuteronomy in particular sets the Lord before them as the purpose of all things. He is the God who is. I am that I am, and a contraction of that now in his memorial name, his covenant name Yahweh, and therefore all of his creatures are created for his glory, but there is the one creature that is created to enjoy his glory. to know Him and have relation with Him, and that's you. Of all the things that God has made, even the angels who are holy and righteous and powerful are yet just ministering spirits sent to serve those who are inheriting salvation, those who are inheriting the great salvation of God bringing many sons to glory in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so as Moses is preaching this, which we have just heard and we have just read, they're reminded that not only are they ones whom the Lord has created to know him, they're ones whom the Lord has redeemed for himself. He doesn't just say Yahweh God, he says Yahweh your God. the Lord who has delivered you out of Egypt, not so that he could deliver you from Egypt so much, as so that he would gather you to himself, so that you would know him as your own God and know yourselves as his own people. Well, in our heritage, in our spiritual heritage, in the Associate Reform Presbyterian Church, there was a similar season in the life of Scotland. Scotland, which for hundreds of years had been under the spiritual darkness and slavery of Roman Catholicism. And then in that general pouring out of his spirit by which God brought Reformation in the 16th century, he brought it to Scotland through men like Wishart and Knox and others. And then in the 17th century, it seemed that the Lord was bringing it to the entire kingdom. to England, Scotland, and Ireland. And the Parliament had called an assembly for revising the 39 articles and further reforming Anglicanism. And praise God, the Westminster Assembly recognized that the 39 articles were not really something you could revise. It needed something knew altogether something more thoroughly biblical. And that's how we get the Westminster Confession of Faith and the catechisms. And sadly, those documents were not adopted generally by the church in England or in Ireland. But they were by the Scots Presbyterians. and they were looking forward to. They covenanted themselves to the Lord. They saw the Lord as having shown great mercy in delivering them from error and delivering them, not just from theological error, but in purity of worship, having deserved to be destroyed by God as a nation and having deserved to be destroyed by God as a church. Instead, God had sent this word to them. and brought them to a true and right knowledge of himself in Jesus Christ, so that they had come into this season of recognizing God as their God, and themselves as his people, not only in the church, praise God, but even in the state. And so they're not the original Christian nationalists. Christians anywhere where they have had the majority in a nation have seen God's mercy in bringing that nation out of darkness and into the light of Christ. But they desired very much for further reformation of doctrine and worship. And the reason we are starting with covering biblical families It is because that was actually the great hope of those pastors who were gathered at the Westminster Assembly, those who are our spiritual fathers among Reformed Presbyterians. I'd like to read to you a couple of selections from Mr. Matten's Letter to the Reader. There are a couple of letters appended. This was not the official one originally. But it was signed by so many of the Westminster divines and so well attested that if you get a copy of all of the documents from the Westminster Assembly, it's almost always included. If you're a Hopewell member and you've picked up your copy of that light blue cupboard volume, it's in there. But this is one of the, these are a couple of the things that Mr. Manton and the other men who signed this letter said about the reason for, or their desire at least for, the Westminster Confession of Faith and catechisms, etc. They say a family is the seminary of church and state. Using seminary, they mean like nursery. OK, so what you're doing in February, getting your seedlings going. A family is the seminary of church and state. And if children be not well principled there, all miscarrieth. A fault in the first concoction is not mended in the second. And if youth be bred ill in the family, they prove ill in the church and the commonwealth. There is the first making, or marring, and the presage of their future lives to be thence taken. It refers to Proverbs 20, 11. Even a child is known by his deeds. By family discipline, officers are trained up for the church. 1 Timothy 3, verse 4, one that ruleth well his own house, et cetera. So not just for the children, but for the training of husbands and fathers, that they would be prepared to be qualified officers in the church. Oh, how sweetly. This is from a little bit later in the letter. Oh, how sweetly and successfully would the work of God go on if we would but all join together in our several places to promote it. So each father, each mother, each child, each elder, each preacher. Oh, how sweetly and successfully would the work of God go on if we would all join together in our several places to promote it. Men need not then run without sending to be preachers, that they might find that part of the work that belonged to them to be enough for them and to be the best that they can be employed in. Especially women should be careful of this duty, because as they are most about their children, and have early and frequent opportunities to instruct them, so this is the principal service they can do to God in this world, being restrained from more public work. and doubtless many an excellent magistrate have been sent into the commonwealth, and many an excellent pastor into the church, and many a precious saint to heaven through the happy preparations of a holy education, perhaps by a woman that thought herself useless and unserviceable to the church. Would parents but begin betides and labor to affect the hearts of their children with the great matters of everlasting life, and to appoint them with the substance of the doctrine of Christ, and when they find in them the knowledge and love of Christ, would bring them then to the pastors of the church, to be tried, confirmed, and admitted into the further privileges of the church, what happy, well-ordered churches we might have. and so forth. So that's the reason that we're beginning here. It's one of the places that God began with his people, preparing them to be a church and nation at the same time. It's the only church state there has been or will be this side of glory. That's where God began and his giving graciously wisdom to our spiritual forefathers. That's one of the great places that they were beginning following the Westminster Assembly. And so in the next half an hour or so we'll try to consider recovering biblical families, recovering biblical families. We do this under four headings. First, families being God's plan for humanity. Second, families having a schedule to keep. Third, families having a God-given tradition or pastime. And fourth, families having a God-given identity. First of all, families are God's plan for humanity. One of the things that I'm disturbed to hear, not so much in the world, although that's disturbing too, but sometimes from those of us who believe, is something like the question of, well, who's to say what a family is anyway? Well, God is to say what a family as families are. His original plan for humanity. It was he who, having said it was good about everything else, and then he makes the man, and he has not yet made the woman. Yahweh God said it is not good that man should be alone. In other words, he isn't finished yet with the man who is still single. There is, of course, singleness today. Singleness is, or perpetual unfulfilled singleness, is actually a consequence of the fall. That's not to say that God does not, in mercy, use those who remain single all their life, or that one who is widowed or abandoned has lost usefulness in the church. It's actually part of the glory of God that even in our broken state, He himself is husband to the widow and father to the orphan. But that is not the original design. The original design is for marriage. It is not good that the man should be alone. It is not good to join the society in the idea of delaying marriage or deprioritizing marriage. Having a list of things that you want to do and accomplish before you even begin to consider marriage. These things are just inconsistent with the design of God for humanity. It's not good for the man to be alone. Genesis 2 verse 18, a husband and a wife together are God's plan for humanity. And not just a husband and a wife, but a husband and a wife who bear children, the command then. to be fruitful and multiply in Genesis 1 verse 28. And God blessed them and God said to them, be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. But this isn't just be fruitful and multiply like to the other creatures, the other breathing animate creatures. This is be fruitful and multiply to this image bearer. This isn't just numerical. It's theological and spiritual. They were to fill the earth with the image of God. And they were to do this by bearing children, but not just children. children who would grow up and get married and produce other, produce new households. So that when he had given the woman to the man, he says, therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and they shall become one flesh. In other words, just like we shouldn't believe in church bloating, but church planting, if your church is too big for a local session to pastor and know everyone in the congregation and keep up with how they're doing, it's just, it's too big. Because God teaches us in his word that the elders of the church should shepherd the people of the church, and we have to fulfill all of those one another, even as church members. And so church multiplication is God's plan, not church expansion. Well, the same thing with families. sometimes you get run into people who have started to grasp the the focus that God has on the family. And they suddenly want to have these multi-generational, but kind of ultra-patriarchal households, where you've got four generations in the house, and they're still just the one dad. No. No. The son is supposed to lead. God wants multiplied households, multiplied families of image bearers, not bloated or expanded ones. Is there continued honor? Of course. There is remaining connection. That's one of those things that we can't get into. We're already a few minutes over on this point. So families are God's original plan for humanity. Families also have a schedule to keep. Back then to Deuteronomy chapter six. If you don't have a Bible with you, I'm sorry for that. We've got ones that you can borrow. Verse seven, you shall teach them diligently to your children. You shall talk with them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way. So everywhere you go, but there are particular times that he commands. He says, when you lie down and when you rise up. You know, mornings and evenings are not an accident of some unguided cosmic physics. God created mornings and evenings. In fact, God created mornings and evenings before he created sun and moon. The first day that he created was light. And he separated the light from the darkness. Now, why would God create mornings and evenings? That's something we should ask. We've lost that. There are those who come to a passage like Genesis 1, which in the Hebrew is just very plainly narrated. It doesn't bear any of the hallmarks of poetry. And man, having been affected. by those who have attempted to theorize how the world could come into being without God, has decided that what God has said about man that he created somehow can't be true. We'll have men who join our Presbytery, or I guess it was a commission, so they've already joined our Presbytery, men who will meet with us for the first time tomorrow afternoon and evening, who don't believe. in a literal six ordinary day creation. But if we submit ourselves to God and we come to a passage like Genesis 1 and we notice God created mornings and we still have them. The sun just set. It's gonna come up again in the morning. And not only did the sun just set, but you get the cool of the evening and the refreshing in the morning. The winds tend to blow more around the bedtime. And in the morning when you get up, God gave you that. God created and started that before he even created man. Do you think mornings and evenings are here especially for the planet that we're on, or the oceans, or any of the other creatures? God does good to all of those creatures through mornings and evenings. But it is especially for man. Just like man was not created for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath was created for man. God did not rest on the seventh day because he was so tired of how hard it was to create on the other six days. God did not give evenings and mornings because he needs a cool down and a break at the end of the day, or he needs to warm up and get himself going in the morning. He's giving it to us. He gave it to us even in our unfallen state. So even when in our first father, Adam, we're in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness, God created us to be warmed up to him with worship in the morning and worship and to cool down with him at the end of the day with worship in the evening. It was at that point, in the breeze of the day, when man sinned and fell, in chapter 3, that he heard the Lord God in the breeze of the day. I think most of our English translations say the pool of the day. It's the wind of the day, or the breeze of the day, maybe the spirit of the day, or probably the wind of the day. God created morning's meetings. This is one of the reasons why the psalms which he has given us and also he gave to his son, our Lord Jesus, that he who had to grow in wisdom and stature and favor with God and with man would have these psalms and these prayers for shaping and instructing the whole range of how you interact with God. Psalm 5 verse 3, my voice you shall hear in the morning. O Yahweh, in the morning I will direct it to you and I will look up. Psalm 88 verse 13. To you I have cried out, O Yahweh, in the morning my prayer comes before you. Psalm 55 verse 17. Evening and morning and at noon I will pray and cry aloud and you shall hear my voice. One of the things that God gave Israel in their ceremonial law were daily morning and evening sacrifices. So that there would be one lamb, one yearling lamb offered in the morning, one yearling lamb offered in the evening, and the families then who would be worshiping in the morning and in the evening, and the individuals also who would be worshiping the Lord in the morning and in the evening would know that their worship is connected to this corporate sacrifice. that God's provision of the sacrifice, which we know, of course, is ultimately Christ himself, is that by which our families come to him, that by which we, you, individually come to him. This idea of daily devotions, and I hope morning and evening, devotions and prayers, both in secret and in the family. It didn't originate with Methodists, although they, you know, love their Methodists, as you can hear in the name. It originates with God. He invented mornings and evenings. That may be difficult in different contexts. If dad has to run early and the family's not going yet, then it may be a good time just for prayer and devotion with your wife. Or if you've got older children, you can be awakened without harming them. Children need sleep, you understand that. But what a blessing if they can at least gather with Dad as he's on his way out the door and have 30 seconds of prayer with the family. And then winding down the day again in the Word and prayer. This was one of the ways in which that Daniel and his three friends had been so prepared to deal with Babylon and make no mistake. Your children will eventually deal with Babylon. That does not mean send them to Babylon to be educated and trained and reared. But it does mean, so observe family religion, the training of your children, when you lie down, evening, when you rise up, morning, evening and morning, every day of their life. So observe it, that if they were to be taken from you young, And who knows that such bigoted people who believe in the exclusivity of Christ and God as the inventor of families and God as defining what a man is and what a woman is, such bigoted people as we are, we say that sarcastically to children. That's what they say about us. Might be soon deemed by the state unfit to have children. And Babylon will come and take them. But let us aim so to do with them that as Daniel's parents, by God's grace, have done with him. Daniel 9 verse 21, this is his prayer at the time where he, having received the book of Jeremiah, who was his contemporary, as scripture, recognized in the word of God from this fellow prophet that the 70 years were up. And 70 years later, so now Daniel's in his 80s. It's been 70 years since he's been in Jerusalem. It's been at least 50 years since they have the sacrifices. And yet one of the reasons, one of the things that he associated with is evening prayers. Daniel 9 verse 21, I know we're just lifting and we can go back and do it in context. We just don't have time for that. Yes, while I was speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision of the beginning being caused to fly swiftly, reached me about the time of the evening offering. About the time of the evening offering? This man in his 80s, who hasn't seen it in 70 years, and hadn't even done it in 50 years, is still connecting his morning and evening worship His morning and evening meditation upon God's Word and prayer to that which God provides forfeitly in the substitute through whom we come to Him. You want to get the gospel into your children. It's not merely a repetition of lines, although repetition is great and children pick things up and re-believe in catechizing Scripture memory and those things. But you get the gospel of Christ into your children by bringing your children through Christ and his gospel to God evening and morning and evening and morning and evening and morning all their life long. And then what could Babylon possibly do? To try to convince a child to whom the Holy Spirit has blessed that that their God doesn't exist, or that sin isn't wicked, or that Christ has not solved it, and that he is not to be pleased and obeyed, and all those things. Well, we must run on. Families have a schedule to keep. Whatever else is your family's schedule, figure out a way. Figure out a way. to get morning and evening secret and family worship, even if one of those has to be everyone does secret worship. And you know that as a family, everyone is doing secret worship, even if it's not together. And at the other, everyone does family worship. But make sure you get both, and make sure you get mornings and evenings. None of you should start your day other than reading and praying with God. None of you should finish your day other than meditation upon this word and prayer. This is God's schedule. Now I've published a schedule for my family sometimes. It's got 17 things that we do. You don't have to keep any of those except the morning and evening worship. That's why mornings and evenings exist in the first place. That's why God designed a world that cools off in the evening and that has a gradual dawn, sun rising in the morning. It's for you to know him. Well, families don't just have a God-given schedule, they have a God-given pastime and tradition. Family worship shapes or should shape what we have in family worship. And what we have, of course, in family worship is God Himself by means of His Word. It should be shaping the rest of our life. These words which I command you today shall be in your heart. Well, how is that going to happen? It's not just saying, by the way, it's not just saying memorize the Bible. You should memorize scripture. That's good for you. That's one way to honor it. You memorize a lot of other things. God himself has spoken to you. You think you should maybe memorize that. But when he says, it shall be in your heart, saying it should control your thoughts, feelings, and choices, desires, decisions. The heart is the seat of the intellect, the seat of the affections, the seat of the will. And so we'll get to that with the father's word willing in the next talk. We have to leave it. It shall be in your heart, and you shall teach them diligently to your children. You shall be eager and immediate and consistent and zealous. And what does this look like? Well, it means when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way, in other words, there's no part of your life in which you as a family should not be having fellowship in the word of God together. We talk about sometimes Lord's Day conversations Lord's Day conversations actually being forbidden for a day to spend on unnecessary thoughts and words on worldly work or worldly recreation. It actually helps us to do what we're actually supposed to be doing all day every day. Many of us are spending our Lord's Day conversations in ways that wouldn't even stand up to the Deuteronomy 6-7 way of having an ordinary family day on a first day, or a second day, or a third day. The moon doesn't own any day, and the full moon doesn't own any day. Another thing for another time. But what we have in the family worship should shape all of our other interactions as a family. When we grow up in Christ, and that's something You know, children, you're not meant to be children forever. Do not shrink away from maturing, from growing, from understanding God more and interacting with Him more and living a seriously joyful, not a joyless life, but a profoundly, significantly joyful life, a significantly meaningful life because you're, quote-unquote, trying to enjoy your childhood. That's not being childlike, that's being childish. But we are not to be children. So Ephesians 4, one of the reasons for the ministry, and we're actually not going to get into that at all this week, is so that we should no longer be children. tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the trickery of men and the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting. But speaking the truth in love may grow up in all things into him who is the head, Christ. Well, the ordained ministry that's appointed by Christ, then, is to shape all of our other Christian relationships as ministry to one another. One of the indicators that you have started to grow up, that you have started to mature as a believer, is your conversations. That when you're with other people in the church, sitting down in a home, or when you're with other people in the church, walking by the way, your love for one another causes you to speak the truth to one another, and you don't have time. for false speculations and theological error. And this is one of the reasons why God has given you this word by the apostles, prophets, and evangelists through whom Christ has given us the New Testament. And this is one of the reasons why God has given you the ministry of his word through those pastor-teachers. I guess we did get into verse 11, Ephesians chapter four. And so that we would know how to love our brothers and sisters in the church well by speaking the truth to one another. What is better for your brother or sister in the church than to grow up into Christ who is the head? Do you know who the nearest brothers and sisters you have in the church are? It's your family. There is no one to whom the one another's of the New Testament belongs in your life more than your wife, more than your husband, more than your children, more than your parents, more than your siblings. This should be our family's favorite pastimes, whatever other pastimes we add to that. This is the one that should be coloring, shaping, determining what our family interaction is like. In the home, this should be led by the husband and the father, which Lord willing, we'll do in the next session, we'll look at in the next session. But if we do not have spiritual fellowship in our covenant households, If we're not having the Deuteronomy 6-7 sort of life in our family, then why would we think that we would have it in the congregation? One of the things when we get to talking about Lord's day keeping and God sparing us to one another and bringing us back together tomorrow morning, we hope to think about that a little bit from the scripture. One of the things that I hear about it, it's just so hard. It feels so unnatural. You don't know how to do that. Well, how is it going to get to feel natural if you don't start doing it? Ask any athlete or musician how something comes to be natural. Well, we are designed, commanded by God, to have that sort of interaction in our families. Having the way we do things, the family's fellowship is in part having the way we do things in common and having the way that we see things in common. Again, back to our primary text, Deuteronomy chapter 6. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. Now, there have been some very silly and earthly ways that people have applied this passage. And I guess now that we have, like, microfeatures or SD cards or whatever, you might get a whole Bible on there. That would get sillier still, wouldn't it? What's he saying? He's saying, You bind God's words as a sign on your hand. In other words, everything you intend to do, you're meant to do. You do it because God's word has defined for you who you are and why you are. And so you do everything for that reason. And God's word has defined for you how to do everything. with what thoughts and feelings, what desires, according to what values and morality. Now, people who are doing everything in the same way, they're going to have a lot in common, aren't they? If your family is doing everything according to the same principle and then seeing everything the same way, they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. Put your hand between your eyes and try to look at anything without seeing your hand, without viewing it in relation to your hand. The family worship and family interaction is a primary way we come to have that sort of life and we have that sort of fellowship. We learn to have multigenerational fellowship at home in part so that we may have congregationally integrated churches. The scripture does not treat us, teach us that families should be like oil and water, just one family and another family. But it does teach us that we should be congregationally integrated. So we don't use that phrase family integrated, but we certainly don't believe in a family disintegrated church either. If we are not connecting with one another, the problem is worse than demographic. Sometimes I hear recently, I've heard again to my great grief, someone say, well, my children just don't seem to have any friends at church. And I think you're at church. Are you not their friend? And are they not learning to know the God who created them and who has put his name on them and offered Christ to them and whose words should be filling their heart off of your lips morning and evening and all day and everything? God giving us to follow this in a church of 102, your children will have 101 friends in the church. Because that which they have most in common, even with their family, will not just be the blood in their veins, or the roof under which they sleep, or the table at which they eat, but the God who made them, and whom they are knowing through his word. In the last place, families have a God-given identity. Families have a God-given identity. Verse nine, you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. Yeah, this is something that happens in the New Testament in several places. where the scripture refers to the church in so-and-so's house. That's not saying, by the way, so-and-so owns a building and their name is on the title, and the congregation gathers there. That's a more recent misconception. It's saying, The head of that household is a Christian, and so that household is a church. The Lord has applied his sign to households. That's 1615 with Lydia, and 1633 with the Philippian jailer, and 1 Corinthians 116 was to Phanis, and I think there are a couple other places where there are household baptisms. Just forget the question of whether or not there were any babies or children, which it would be remarkable if there weren't. They were household baptisms. The name Father, Son, and Holy Spirit was put on that house, the family. But what if God puts his name on our families, on our households, even calling our children holy, like 1 Corinthians 7 says, with respect to just the one believing parent? Would it not be a blasphemy? If we then could not live as a household that belongs to Christ, we should aim so to fill our family's life with the Bible that if we didn't have last names already, and this has happened before in history, the Dutch get conquered and they all have to write their names down and they're all just making stuff up because they don't have last names. And so, you know, they're Van this and Vander that, from this and from that. And, you know, some of them end up being called from nothing. I once had them minister in a Dutch town. It was a name nightmare. The phone book, don't worry about what that is, children, you'll never know. It went from like A to Van and then Vander to Z. But you should aim so to fill your family's life with the Bible that your family, or if your community or church were to come up with a family name, they would call you the Bibleman. It would be John Bibleman, and Durham Bibleman, and Magnolia Bibleman, and Charlie Bibleman. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house. And you know what you get if you have a town or a city with enough households where God is known and fellowshiped with through his word, morning and evening. And when you sit down and when you walk by the way, you end up with Bible Berg. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. Oh, that we would have such scripture saturated households and such a density of them in this place where we live. God sending his gospel and bringing people to Christ and forming households like this. that one day somebody would be driving through, and whatever replaces Google, don't forget, the Lord is forever. America is not forever, and Google is not forever, and Apple is not forever. They'd be driving through, and the GPS would not say McCain's, say Bibleville. Hopewell is good enough, and sometimes it actually does say Hopewell, praise God. But we could be identified. by being God's people, according to God's word. The hope for the church, the hope for the nation, the hope for your family, God's use of his word in you. And is that not what we are doing right now? Has His Word not been opened? Does His Spirit not use it to give faith and to grow faith and to sanctify and to equip you for every good work? Our hope is in God, but this is the means that He uses. Our hope is that His Spirit would take His Word and apply it to your heart and form your family's schedule. or reform your family's schedule, and reform your family's fellowship, and reform your family's identity. And then that God would continue, by a family who is operating that way, to keep working by His Word every day in your home when you lie down, every day in your home when you rise up, every day in your home in whatever you're doing. and especially every week in the Lord's Day assemblies, which we're willing to think about tomorrow morning. Amen, let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we thank you for giving us the ability to gather and consider your word. Thank you for creating the family. Thank you for the way you come by your gospel and redeem it. We pray, Lord, that you would help us in the rest of the evening, especially as we come to address husbands and fathers, that you would do more work by your word for the glory of your name, for the sake of the men who are or will be husbands and fathers for all of our families, for all of our churches. for our community, for our nation. Grant that we ask in Jesus' name.