Truth and Our Present Crisis

[0:00] Please turn to the book of Ephesians, and we will be in Ephesians chapter 6.

[0:15] And in Ephesians chapter 6, we will be looking at verses 1 through 4. Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.

[0:37] Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with a promise, so that it may be well with you and that you may live long on the earth.

[0:50] Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

[1:08] Thank you. How many of you, perchance, read this morning's Daily Bread?

[1:20] Can I see your hand? Well, just a few. Okay. A lot of things to crowd in on Sunday morning to get ready to be here. This is something that we as a church have subscribed to for a long time, and it comes from the radio Bible class, and they've been doing this for, I don't know, probably 40, 50 years.

[1:40] They've been putting out our Daily Bread, and they publish these and distribute them throughout the world in huge, huge amounts, and you get new ones every quarter.

[1:53] I want to read you the one for this morning. It's taken from 1 Timothy 6, 17 through 19, which simply says, Be rich in good deeds, be generous and willing to share.

[2:09] And the article for today, June 21, Sunday, really, really struck me. Marie and I read this this morning. It's called The Man in Seat 2D.

[2:25] Kelsey navigated the narrow airplane aisle with her 11-month-old daughter, Lucy, and Lucy's oxygen machine.

[2:39] They were traveling to seek treatment for her baby's chronic lung disease. Shortly after settling into their shared seat, a flight attendant approached Kelsey, saying a passenger in first class wanted to switch seats with her.

[3:00] With tears of gratitude streaming down her face, Kelsey made her way back up the aisle to the more spacious seat, while the benevolent stranger made her way toward hers.

[3:14] Kelsey's benefactor embodied the kind of generosity the Apostle Paul encourages in his letter to Timothy. Paul told Timothy to instruct those in his care with the command to do good, It's tempting, Paul says, to become arrogant and put our hope in the riches of this world.

[3:44] Instead, he suggests that we focus on living a life of generosity and service to others, becoming rich in good deeds, like the man from seat 2D on Kelsey's flight.

[3:59] Whether we find ourselves with plenty or in want, we all can experience the richness of living generously by being willing to share what we have with others.

[4:11] And when we do, Paul says, we will take hold of the life that is truly life. Really touched me when I read that, and I thought, in this day of so much self-centeredness and selfishness, it's really refreshing to see someone respond like that, what a man can do for a woman, especially with a child.

[4:38] So, chivalry may be wounded and bleeding, but it isn't dead yet. And that's really nice. That warmed my heart.

[4:50] And I got something else I want to share with you, too. And it is, in a nutshell, what we at Grace Bible Church have been trying to communicate for the last 50 years of our existence.

[5:10] And I don't know of anybody that has said it better than Cornelius Stamm. And this is in our devotional for today. This is two minutes from the Bible. Many of you already have this copy, and more copies are on order.

[5:25] But it's called Simple As Can Be. Have you ever heard some preacher say, there are many things in the Bible which are hard to understand, but thank God, the plan of salvation is as simple as can be.

[5:41] Well, the plan of salvation is simple if we obey 2 Timothy 2.15, rightly dividing the word of truth.

[5:53] Otherwise, it is far from simple. The Apostle Paul wrote, we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.

[6:06] Romans 3.28. Yet James wrote, by works a man is justified and not by faith only. James 2.24.

[6:18] What are you going to do with that? Again, at Sinai, God said to Israel through Moses, Exodus 19.5. If you will obey my voice indeed and keep my covenant, then you shall be a peculiar treasure to me above all people.

[6:37] Exodus 19.5. But our Lord said, as he sent his disciples to witness for him, that he that believes and is baptized shall be saved.

[6:48] And these signs shall follow them that believe. In my name shall they cast out demons. They shall speak with new tongues. Mark 16.

[7:00] Thus, according to their great commission, water baptism was required for salvation and miraculous signs were the evidences of salvation. Confusing?

[7:13] Contradictory? But not if we rightly divide the word of truth. It was after the law was given by Moses, after our Lord's earthly ministry, after the commission to the twelve, that God raised up another apostle, Paul, and sent him forth with the gospel of the grace of God.

[7:36] Acts 20.24. It was Paul who was sent to declare, but now. But.

[7:48] Now. But is a word that's called a conjunction of contrast. And it gives us a signal, something's changing. Something's different.

[8:00] This is the way it was before. But. Now. Contrast. But now. The righteousness of God.

[8:12] Without the law. Is manifested. Romans 3.21. And listen to this. To him that worketh not.

[8:25] But believes on him that justifies the ungodly. His faith. Is counted for righteousness. And Romans 4.5.

[8:37] Therefore. Being justified by faith. We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Romans 5.1.

[8:47] And you can easily understand how people say, well, you know, the Bible has got these contradictions in it. Well, it does have. The Bible does have contradictions that are not resolvable unless you understand the principle of rightly dividing the word of truth and grasp that the Bible comes to us with the authority of God as a gradual, unfolding, progressive revelation.

[9:17] When you grasp that, it all fits like a hand in a glove. And if you don't grasp that, you've got, boy, do we need to be baptized or not?

[9:27] Do we need to speak in tongues or not? Are we supposed to be healing people? What's going on here? And it is confusing. So we've obtained this little booklet, and it'll take you all of about maybe two to three minutes to read it.

[9:43] It's called Simple As Can Be. And it is an eye-opener for a lot of people. And several hundred of them have been made available, and they're kind of scattered all over out in the hall and the shelf of the bulletin boards and back in the back and the table as you come in.

[9:59] And this is an item that we will be distributing also at the Champaign County Fair. And if you want to pick up one or more or give them out, that would be great.

[10:10] Mr. Stam wrote this. He's with the Lord now. But this is one of the many things that he left behind. And it's just a really neat little booklet with a picture of a daisy on the front called Simple As Can Be.

[10:23] And I hope that you will avail yourself of it because it will enrich your understanding, increase your understanding, and give you more courage and knowledge in being able to communicate this truth to others.

[10:38] Now, would you open your Bible, please, to 1 Samuel. 1 Samuel. We're going to look at an illustration of how not to be a father.

[10:56] Our past few sessions have focused on the subject of truth, and we have pointed out that it is the absence of truth that is the principal thing that our nation is dealing with now and the kind of reports that are coming out and things that you're hearing about and what's taking place in our culture.

[11:20] And so much of the chaos and confusion is simply nothing more than the result of what happens when truth is not available.

[11:31] Because when you're not getting truth, you're getting lies. There isn't anything else. That's all there is. There is the truth and there is the untruth. And what you're getting is one or the other.

[11:43] And the great danger, of course, of people acting on a lie is just that. They tend to act on it. Information produces consequences. Information produces action.

[11:56] Based on what we understand and hear to be true, that's what we base our decisions on. That's what causes us to do the things we do. More often than not, it is because we are committed to what we think is the reality of the situation with which we are dealing.

[12:13] But if it isn't, then the actions are going to be wrong and guess what the consequences are going to be? They're going to be wrong too. This is why the Bible puts such an incredible premium on the subject of truth.

[12:29] And I do not know that there is anything more valuable, more priceless that fathers can communicate to their children than that which is true.

[12:42] And of course, that begins with the truth of the Word of God. One of the most precious commodities that we can extend to our children is truth, living it, expressing it, and demonstrating it in every way for our children.

[12:59] Truth and personal integrity are gifts for children. And a man by the name of Eli was not very consistent at that.

[13:10] And as a result, he had two really spoiled, rotten sons named Hophni and Phinehas. Well, if you've got a name like Hophni and Phinehas, you've already got a bad start right there.

[13:25] Probably not in the Jewish faith back then with the Hebrew, but today it would be a name that most would not be all that happy to have. And this is a consequence of, it's a story that unfolds, and I'm going to just hit and skip through it.

[13:44] But it began with a lady by the name of Hannah, and she was a wife to a man named Elkanah. And Elkanah had another wife, and her name was Peninnah.

[13:57] And every time you turned around, Peninnah was pregnant. She was going to have another baby. And Hannah was childless.

[14:09] And of course, Peninnah could not resist the temptation to rub it in. And she would remind Hannah that she, Peninnah, had given Elkanah all these babies, and you haven't given him one.

[14:27] And you can imagine how depressed that would make her feel, because for some reason that we men do not understand, women who are childless, some of them at least, who have not been able to understand the spiritual implications of it, think that they are under some kind of a curse.

[14:46] Well, that was common in the Jewish situation, because they associated the barrenness of the womb with the distaste of the individual on the part of God.

[15:02] And nothing could have been further from the truth. God has His reasons for withholding children from the womb. Some of them, maybe most of them, you'll not even find out until eternity.

[15:14] But I can promise you this. God's ways are best. What He chooses to give is the best, and what God chooses to withhold is the best. Although in our humanity, it often doesn't appear that way.

[15:27] And it didn't appear that way to Hannah either. She was desperate, and she went into the temple of the Lord, and she cried out to God, and she was moaning and groaning and carrying on. And Eli, the high priest, looked over where this woman was, and the scene that she was making, and she was probably just blubbering away.

[15:45] And he thought she was drunk. And he went over and began to chastise her. How dare you come in here intoxicated like this? What's wrong with you? She explained to him that, no, it wasn't intoxication at all.

[15:57] She was just really wrought up because God had closed her womb. And she made a vow to the Lord. And she said, God, if you will give me a child, I will not redeem him.

[16:14] And in the Jewish parlance, that meant, if you give me a child, I will not offer for him the usual sacrifice that is given because the law of the Lord requires that the first child that comes from the womb belongs to God.

[16:32] That's the first fruits of the womb. Just like the crop of the field, the first crop belongs to God. And the first child out of the womb belongs to the Lord. Remember, we won't go there, but in Luke's gospel, when Jesus was just about six weeks old, that Joseph and Mary took Jesus into the temple.

[16:54] And they did so because he was Mary's firstborn and they needed to redeem him. So the law of Moses prescribed if you were not going to, if you were not going to give that child to the Lord, who is the rightful owner of the first fruits of the womb, then you have to redeem him and you bring this sacrifice to the temple and the priest accepts the sacrifice and so on.

[17:19] And you make the sacrifice and that is called redemption. You redeem your child and then you take your child home and you raise him. But she said, if you give me a son, I will not redeem him.

[17:36] And it had to have been a gut-wrenching decision for Hannah to make because it meant she's going to walk off and leave her baby there at the temple for the priest to raise.

[17:55] And this little child, this baby, newborn baby, is going to grow up and he's going to have two little feet that will go pitter-pattering around the temple and he's going to be a gopher.

[18:07] Now, he's going to run errands for the priest. He's going to do all kinds of menial tasks and everything. He's going to live in the temple, be raised by the priests and his mother, Hannah, will see him once a year.

[18:24] That was an enormous sacrifice that she was making. But the woman was desperate. She wanted a child and God gave her a child and his name was Samuel.

[18:35] And she brought him to the temple and she left him there. And the priests take charge of the baby. They raise him. They feed him. They clothe him.

[18:46] They train him. They do everything. As it turns out, Samuel is arguably the most godly of all of the judges that ever judged Israel.

[18:57] He is going to be a standout. And you think, well, maybe it's because he had such a great start being there in the temple in that religious kind of atmosphere and everything and under the tutelage of the priest.

[19:11] No, you can't say that was responsible for it because this child was growing up in the midst of a pretty corrupt atmosphere.

[19:25] And let's look at this if we may. In 1 Samuel, and we're going to have to skip some of this material, but by the way, I do want you to look at verse 21 on down the pike later on of chapter 2 and verse 21.

[19:44] And the Lord visited Hannah and she conceived and gave birth to three sons and two daughters. They're going to come along after Samuel, the one that she gave back to the Lord.

[19:56] And the boy Samuel grew before the Lord. But here's the kind of atmosphere that he grew up in and it begins with verse 12 of chapter 2 that says, I'm sorry, verse 11, then Elkanah, that's the father of Samuel, went to his home at Ramah, but the boy ministered to the Lord before Eli, the priest.

[20:28] Now he was apparently the high priest of the day and he had two sons who were spoiled rotten brats. And verse 12 says, the sons of Eli were worthless men.

[20:45] They did not know the Lord. Now how could they not know the Lord? They had a priest for a father and they had probably grown up in the atmosphere of the temple, but they did not know the Lord.

[20:56] And the only conclusion we can come to in Old Testament parlay is that they simply did not have a relationship with the God of Israel. I don't know how else to conclude that.

[21:07] And their behavior is going to kind of demonstrate that. And we read, the custom of the priest with the people, when any man was offering a sacrifice, the priest's servant would come while the meat was boiling with a three-pronged fork in his hand and he would thrust it into the pan or kettle or cauldron or pot.

[21:25] All that the fork brought up, the priest would take for himself. Thus they did in Shiloh to all the Israelites who came there. And by the way, all of this business about animal sacrifice and you read about this in the Old Testament and in the New as well.

[21:38] And sometimes, sometimes there would be hundreds or even thousands of animals sacrificed. What was that all about? What did this sacrifice accomplish?

[21:51] I'll tell you what it accomplished. These sacrifices accomplished a feast. I mean, it was a huge feast. These are called the Feasts of Israel. It was the Feast of Passover, the Feast of Firstfruits, the Feast of Pentecost.

[22:05] And it was called a feast because it was a national picnic. And everybody came from all over the country. Thousands, tens of thousands of people would swarm into Jerusalem around the temple and the complex and they would set up all kinds of lean-tos and picnic benches and everything and they would slay all these animals and they ate them.

[22:29] It was a massive barbecue. Keep that in mind. All of these animals that were slain were food for the people. God didn't need them. He didn't need this meat.

[22:41] So when the people came in and the animals were slain, the priest would preside over the whole thing. And when the people were to tithe the firstfruits, like for instance, if you were a Jew and you were an observant Jew, you also tithe you tithe to the Lord the firstborn of your animals.

[23:08] If you had an ox and the female ox gave birth to her first calf, that belonged to the Lord.

[23:22] And thereafter, you were able to keep them but the first one went to the Lord. and they brought all of these animals as well as grain and wine and everything else.

[23:34] The firstfruits of it, the people brought it all into the temple. That was part of the tithe and they gave it to the priest. That's how the priests were sustained because the priests were never given any territory.

[23:48] They were not given any acreage to farm. They had no way of raising crops or anything. So the people who did were supposed to support the priests and they did with animals, with grain, with wine, with everything.

[24:02] So they bring it to the temple and the priests would divide it up and of course there were, by the time we're talking about here, there are hundreds and hundreds of priestly families who served in different capacities and they were all descendants of Levi and that's how they earned their livelihood.

[24:20] They didn't earn it by working, they earned it by serving as a priest. They didn't have jobs like other people and everybody else who did supported the priesthood and all of these animals that were sacrificed were eaten by the priests and by the people.

[24:36] So this is what we're talking about here. In verse verse 14 he would thrust it into the pan, the kettle, the cauldron, the pot and so on and they did to all the Israelites who came there and before they burned the fat which is an interesting expression too because there's a text of scripture I think it's in Leviticus that says that the children of Israel were not to eat the fat.

[25:02] That the fat belonged to the Lord. Now I can assure you God didn't eat the fat but it was something that they were not to eat and who knows it may have hygienic things to do with it we don't understand that but anyway it was forbidden to them.

[25:19] So before they burned the fat the priest's servant would come and say to the man who was sacrificing give the priest meat for roasting as he will not take boiled meat from you only raw and if the man said to him they must surely burn the fat first then take as much as you desire then he would say no but you shall give it to me now and if you won't I'll take it.

[25:43] Well who was that? That was these ornery sons these ne'er do wells read on thus the sin of the young men was very great before the Lord for the men despised the offering of the Lord and that word despise interesting word in the Hebrew when you despise something it means you look down your nose at it in contempt or disgust as though you're coming from a position of superiority and you look down your nose at others in a condescending kind of way.

[26:23] Now what we've got brewing here is real obnoxious brats and they are going to surface later again. Samuel's mother would make him a little robe bring it to him from year to year she'd calculate how much her boy had grown in the last year and she'd bring a little bit bigger one than the one she had the last year and she would come up with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice and then Eli would bless Elkanah and his wife and say may the Lord give you children from this woman in place of the one and we saw that she had more children and look at verse 22 Eli was very old this guy's going to live to be in his 90s and he heard all that his sons were doing to all Israel and how they lay with the women who served at the doorway of the tent of meeting how gross how obnoxious how evil was that carrying on like this right there in the temple in that area what's wrong with these boys well at least for starters the main thing that was wrong with these boys was what was wrong with their father oh he's going to discipline them he's going to he's going to rebuke them but it's going to be too late the point has been made that if a father does not begin at an early age disciplining his children in a consistent godly fashion the time will come when he'll not be able to they will have grown out of his authority and out of his control and it'll be too late and the father can look back on undisciplined sons who engage in a sinful lifestyle and have a whole parcel of regrets and most all of us know some situation like that

[28:42] Eli was very old he heard all that his sons were doing got the word word got back to him and how they lay with the women who served at the doorway of the tent of beating and he said to them why do you do such things the evil things that I hear from all these people no my sons the report is not good which I hear the Lord's people circulating you have any idea what people are saying about you and how this cast reproach upon us and how it makes us look bad and how it makes the whole service of the Lord look bad and the tongues are wagging and this is not an acceptable thing that you were doing but these two boys were strong willed and defiant and they obviously were predisposed to sexual activity to which they had absolutely no right at all one man sins against another

[29:47] God will mediate for him but if a man sins against the Lord who can intercede for him but they would not listen to the voice of their father for the Lord desired to put them to death what does that mean it means that these boys were already under a sentence of death that God had determined he was well aware of what their future was going to be and what their end was going to be and we have a complete contrast of that in verse 26 the boy Samuel was growing in stature and in favor both with the Lord and with men there's only one other person of whom that is said in all of the scripture and that's our Lord in Luke's gospel chapter 2 that Jesus grew in stature and favor with the Lord and with men so we've got this situation regarding these boys and Phineas and

[30:50] Hophni and they are going to be a disgrace to the family a disgrace to the name of the priesthood a disgrace to the whole community you may be sure people were talking about it and Eli is between a rock and a hard place and why do you suppose he didn't discipline these young men I try to look back on this as a father and you know is there any dad anywhere that wouldn't like to have some do-overs I've got my share of them had three kids one of them is with the Lord now and just yesterday Marie and I had a wonderfully enjoyable time with our two adult kids and their mates Tim and Lori and Bill and Lynette we just had a great time solved a number of world problems in our get together the world hasn't discovered it yet but anyway we did and you know this is this is one of the real blessings of parenting and of fatherhood and here's a good question here's a good question every parent ought to ask himself when your kids grow up and move away from home do they want to come home again was the atmosphere that was created when they were growing up in that home such that they look forward to coming back because I know of some sad tales where parents haven't seen their grown children for 10 or 15 years and maybe the most they get is a phone call once in a while or when somebody in the family dies and it all goes back very often to this childhood because there is an atmosphere that is created in the home in which you grew up and some are very positive and warm and loving and some are negative and painful and hurtful and you take that right on into your parent into your childhood into your adulthood and the only panacea that is provided for preventing that kind of thing is right here in the scriptures and the principles that are here we are told in scripture proverbs 22 15

[33:23] I think it is yes that foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child but the rod of correction will drive it from him and do you know it is perfectly normal for foolishness to be bound up in the heart of a child it's saying nothing more than a child is acting like a child well good grief what do you expect them to act like of course they're going to act like a child and foolishness means silliness it means sometimes irrationality but do you know that's part of what being a kid is all about because nobody ought to expect a child to act and conduct themselves with an adult attitude and behavior a child is just being a child and that's perfectly all right and what the child is counting on is one who is not a child to superintend his situation so as to help him grow out of that into maturity and adulthood that's the parent's task and it is a daunting task it is a huge responsibility you are in charge of another human being that's pretty heavy stuff but it is also accompanied with all of the guidance the parent needs if they will simply make themselves aware of it and available to it and that's what's set forth in scripture fathers need to think of their children as being children and you have every reason to expect childish behavior so all they're doing is being normal and we are to bring them out of that so that they can enjoy life to the fullest by becoming more mature too lenient parenting too much lenient parenting produces irresponsible behavior and too rigid parenting produces resentment

[35:37] I remember hearing Josh McDowell make a statement years and years ago and it really stuck with me and I pass it on to a number and it is simply this rules rules without a relationship produce resentment think about that and I don't know that a parent a father particularly because dads you are more responsible for what happens in that family than your wife is because you are the head she's not the head you are the head and I needn't tell you that our whole nation today is suffering severely from a deficiency of responsible fathers in the home kids are dependent on dads showing the way and being the way and kids are dependent upon dads showing a boy what it means to be a man and if he's not getting that role model don't be surprised if he's out on the streets of Chicago shooting at one another and killing one another like it's been going on for who knows how long now and in the vast majority of those cases there is no father in the home and no father figure at all and the nation is suffering terribly for that is there a greater responsibility that a dad has when it comes to being a responsible father and disciplined children to hit that happy medium where you're not too strict and you're not too lenient because either way can put the child in a wrong direction if you're too strict and too rigid and dads tend to be that way more than mothers mothers tend to be more nurturing more sensitive more forgiving more overlooking and I think that's partly due to femininity as opposed to masculinity and God provides one to kind of ameliorate for the other because if it were left up to mom and of course there are always exceptions there are always exceptions but if it were left up to mom she's often too easygoing too overlooking too forgiving too pliable and dad tends to be more stern more demanding more no nonsense and he can be rigid in his discipline and mom comes to the rescue and tends to reduce things and ameliorate it and soften it and she has more sympathy for the kids than what he does and again

[38:35] I say there are exceptions I've known of some marriages where it's just reversed but by and large and it's related to masculinity and femininity dad is the one who is more no nonsense and boy you better get your act together this kind of and mom is more tender more forgiving more patient more caring and sometimes that produces a conflict between mom and dad and she chides him for being too strict and too stern and he accuses her of being too easy going and you let these kids get away with too much you know that kind of thing so how do you hit that happy medium well sometimes you don't because just as your kids are imperfect guess who produced them and you're imperfect too and there have been times when we really blow it and sometimes you know moms have a way of sensing things that just go right over the heads of dead

[39:38] I remember years ago when we were going to take a trip I don't even remember where we were going but our son Tim was 17 at the time and that would have made Lynette 14 and Dawn would have been 11 and we were going to take them with us and Tim said I'm 17 years old and I want to just stay home and just hang out at home here and I've got plans to do this and that and don't you trust me and after all I'm 17 years old and I'm going to be a senior in high school and Barbara and I talked about it and we thought maybe we've been too confined why don't we do that so she said I'm going to lay down some rules and I never even thought of that and I said what do you mean and she said well for one thing he is not to have any of his friends in the home while we're going we don't want any boys and girls and kids from the school in his home while we're going so we told him about that and he agreed okay okay well no

[40:52] I wouldn't do no that's okay and we said and every evening we're going we're going to call home just check and see how things are going he said okay that'd be fine we said we're going to call around nine o'clock in the evening and you can just give us a rundown on the day how things are going and all that and he said okay that'll be fine that'll be fine and we did that for about the first three nights out four nights out I don't know we were going to Seattle or someplace a long ways off so that was working out just fine and then one night before we could call him at nine o'clock he called us at about seven and she said was Tim on the phone I said oh well okay and I was just feeling boy mine is growing up he's just being a little mature here and he's just he's just being thoughtful and he's not waiting for us he's calling us and we chatted a little while how's everything how was your day oh fine thus and so watching television everything's fine so he hung up we hung up everything was fine and

[42:05] I looked at her and I said what what's the matter and she said something fishy about this and I said about what she said about him calling I said well I mean the kid called you're always you're always getting after him about not being communicative and not she said there's something about this so we waited a while and at our usual time nine o'clock she called she called him and when he answered the phone she could tell there was something going on in that house it was noisy and music and a lot of voices and what not and one of the other kids one of the kids answered the phone I don't know who it was and she said and Barb says this is Mrs. Wiseman is Tim there and I could hear somebody going shh shh and everything and he came on the phone and she said what's going on oh you talk about the jig being up the fat was in the fire however you want to put it so anyway he learned

[43:32] I don't recall what it was but there was some grounding that came out of that and whatnot but you know she had a sense and I didn't suspect a thing it just went right over I was giving the kid you know that's my boy and she was thinking that's not my boy and she was right so dads don't be eager to discount the feminine intuition they've got a way of looking at a lot of things that we don't see often discipline should come with a firm hand but not with a heavy hand hard to strike that happy medium sometimes because we have a tendency to come down too hard or to be too soft and not hard enough and that's just part of the flaws that we own as adults and as parents it's part of our fallenness and you know one other thing that dads can really keep in mind that is probably the best gift if not the best gift it's certainly one of the top three that you can give to your child and that is to let them see you consistently honor and love their mother you'd be surprised how many families where that isn't true one of the greatest things you can do for your child is to let them see how devoted you are to their mother and how consistent you are for her care and her needs that will serve them so well because you see mother and the father are the two most important people in their life and when they see the two most important people in their life people who gave them life that they deeply love and care for each other that builds automatically a sense of stability and emotional security in those children it makes them feel loved and warmed and safe and secure because the people they care about the most deeply care about each other

[46:02] I don't think you can give your child a more secure childhood than their realization of that on a consistent basis and again don't we all know of cases where that is not true and there are probably many here who were not reared in that kind of an environment and you know the tendency is to replicate whatever it is that you had as a role model growing up even children even children who grow up in homes where there is no real love for their mother or father and that's a sad thing to say but it is that way sometimes they tend to produce that and create that kind of atmosphere if and would they get married in the family that they are rearing there is that distance and that lack of security and stability and consistency and it is just repeated generation after generation and it's kind of automatic because even if we do not approve of the role model we had we tend to duplicate it because that's the only one we had and that's the way we think it's supposed to be and it becomes indelibly embedded in our minds and we just automatically regurgitate what we were exposed to this is why most wonderful thing that can happen to any family is for the insertion of the truth and the word of God and salvation through Jesus

[47:33] Christ because that sets the stage for changing everything it is out of that relationship that that warmth and respect and love can be engendered and families that don't have that are at an enormous disadvantage and those that do have it you ought to thank God for it every day it's a tendency of kids boys I think as well as girls to think that their mom and dad and here we're talking about Father's Day and I kind of grew up feeling this way that your dad is the strongest the smartest the wisest the neatest guy on the face of the earth now by the time they're about eight or ten years old they start to alter that a little you know but they start maturing themselves but it's a really neat thing for a child to grow up that way boy or girl to look at their father as the epitome of honor integrity trustworthiness truth what a priceless priceless heritage any child has growing up in that kind of an environment and what that dad is doing is simply replicating who and what God is all about because he is their

[49:05] God figure this is why some people some people grow up and they have a grudge against God because they associate God with their father and it was a terrible relationship and they transfer that to the God of heaven and sometimes that's kind of automatic so if you've got a Christian home if you've got a if you've got a if you don't have a Christian home you ought to put everything on hold and do some very serious investigation or counseling to find out whatever in the world it is going to take to produce it and not stop until you get it and if you already have it you need to savor it and enjoy it and pray for it and enjoy it to the hilt what a father's day what a father's day concept God has given us and you know we can thank our powers that be we can thank our congress that years ago they had the wisdom to establish a mother's day and father's day and it saddens me to tell you this but

[50:16] I'm not sure they'd be able to do that today isn't that something I'm not sure that they would be able to do that today with what's going on in our culture and it's a real shame we've got to do something in this country we've got to get back to reality we've got to get back to what we're really all about you know years ago and with this I'll quit just show you how far things have gone years and years ago there was a first grade primer primer primer whatever you want to call it it was a first grade textbook that every kid in the public school was exposed to and it was the textbook and it was called the McGuffey Reader you can still get them they still print them but it's an oddity and you might find one in an antique store something like that and the very first thing they do in the

[51:20] McGuffey Reader is begin to teach the child the alphabet this is for a five or six year old child and as you look at page one first letter in the alphabet a and what it says is a is for Adam that's a violation of church and state a is for Adam and it says in Adam we send all can you imagine seeing that in a public school today a is for Adam a in Adam we send all and B as you go on through the alphabet they are targeting biblical concepts and biblical ideas to express that letter of the alphabet whatever it might be and we have come we haven't come we have gone so far from anything like that or the principles behind it so let me ask you in abandoning all of this how as a nation and the culture how are we doing

[52:51] I rest my case well I got a lot more to say but I'm not going to so if you will stand I will have a word of prayer and close and our father we are so grateful that you've made more than ample provision for your people to be able to with real integrity and honesty care for and rear children that you've given to us in our charge we thank you that you have left nothing lacking and all we need to do is appropriate the truths and the principles that you've built into your word for our blessing we are to do these things we are to follow the dictates of scripture not because we do so out of slavish obedience but we do so because the end result is for the blessing and benefit of everyone so we are to observe those things so that it will be well with us and that we may live long in the land even as even as God revealed to Moses so many years ago for the principles that are here that are timeless we are so grateful that they are not changed by mechanization they are not changed by computers they're not changed by technology because the human heart is not changed and we are still able to zero in on those marvelous principles that you've set forth and put them into practice in our family and enjoy the blessing the fruits and the benefits thereof my oh my what a treasure is ours in this wonderful book when we put into practice its principles and no one benefits more than the precious children you've entrusted to us thank you Lord for every Christian home across this nation may they savor what they have and may they be encouraged to spread it and stimulate it in every way they can in

[55:09] Christ's wonderful name we pray amen thank you my nature you amen we pray there you please okay you here you when you