As far as which Banner book has
had the greatest influence on my life, that's hard to say because
I'm a Banner junkie, just like you are. I'm a recovering Banner
alcoholic, I guess, or addiction, and I just love Banner books.
And I would have to say the one that
really was first used in my life was A Body of Divinity by Thomas
Watson. At the time I picked it up, I
was a card-carrying Armenian And by the time I put it down,
God used that book to transform my entire worldview and understanding
of theology to be a God-centered theology. It is written in such
a pastoral way and easy to take in, as it was a series of sermons
preached by Thomas Watson through the Westminster Confession. The preface by Spurgeon at the
beginning of the book is worth the price of the book itself
just for Spurgeon's preface as he reminds us that Watson died
in his prayer closet and went from glory to glory and may not
have even known that he had died as he It just went from the presence
of God to the presence of God. I can't think of a better way
to die than to die in your prayer closet calling upon the name
of the Lord. So a body of divinity has always
been a precious treasure to me because it was essentially the
key that unlocked a door that I originally thought was a closet
and turned out to be a theological Aladdin's cave, just opening
up really something of the height and depth and breadth and length
of who God is and how God works with sinners. In fact, I'll never
forget after I came to embrace what Watson was teaching, which
was what the Scripture was teaching on the doctrine of election,
I thought that was it. And I remember reading his chapter
on providence and saying that God is sovereign in everything. And I remember just almost putting
my hand over my mouth like Job and realizing I just need to
be quiet for a while and take this in because God is just getting
bigger and bigger and bigger with each chapter that I'm reading. So I'm sure it's a book with
which you are very familiar, but I would commend it to you
again My other two favorites are the Arnold Dallimore two
volume on George Whitefield. It just makes me want to get
on the back of a horse and ride. And to go into public squares
and say, I've come here today to talk to you about your soul.
It puts the octane into the fuel tank to preach, just to read
of Whitefield's passion and his piety and his drive. And also
Love, Forgotten Spurgeon by Ian Murray, which has helped me realize
that to be a Calvinist and to be an evangelist fit perfectly
together. The only preacher, in my estimation,
who plays with a full deck is a Calvinistic evangelist. He's
the only one who holds all the cards and has the full counsel
of God at his disposal. And that little book I read at
a time in my life when I needed that message so in my own pastoral
ministry. So I would commend those to you.
Well, it's a joy now to be able to minister the Word of God to
you, and I consider it a great privilege to be here with you. If you would, take your Bibles
and turn with me to the book of Ephesians, to Ephesians chapter
5. I've been asked to speak on this
subject, family life in a post-Christian world. And the New Testament
has very little to say about the family. Surprisingly, we
have Colossians 3, we have 1 Peter 3, we have Ephesians 5 and 6,
we have Jesus receiving the little children, we have 1 Corinthians
7 on divorce and remarriage, but our selections are somewhat
limited, and so this seems to me to be an obvious place for
us to focus upon, so family life in a post-Christian world. I want to begin by reading just
some selected verses and we will see how our time will go. I want to first read Ephesians
5 verse 18, and do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation,
but be filled with the Spirit. speaking to one another in psalms
and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with
your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks for all things
in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father,
and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ. Verse 25, husbands, love your
wives just as Christ also loved the church. gave Himself up for
her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the
washing of water with the Word, that He might present to Himself
the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or
any such thing, but that she would be holy and blameless. Husbands ought also to love their
own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves
himself. For no one ever hated his own
flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does
the church, because we are members of his body. For this reason,
a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined
to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." In chapter
6, verse 1, children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this
is right. 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, fathers,
Do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in
the discipline and instruction of the Lord." That we are living in a post-Christian
world should be a blatantly obvious fact to every one of us who have
any level of spiritual discernment. And just to document this point,
as I left the house this morning, I picked up the current issue
of World Magazine that is dated May 31st, 2014. As I flipped through the first
pages, there is clear documentation just from the current issue of
World Magazine that we are living in such a post-Christian world. First issue that I saw, the first
article, Gene Robinson, the first openly gay Episcopal bishop,
announced that he is divorcing his husband, Mark Andrew. Robinson wrote that it comforted
him to know that gay and lesbian couples are subject to the same
hardships that afflict marriages between heterosexual The next article, City of Pasadena,
California, the official for the city council issued this. He suspended Eric Walsh when
reports emerged that he called homosexuality a sin. They lost his job. And he said,
we don't tolerate this type of behavior, this type of thought. So this physician in Pasadena,
California has lost his job with the city for saying this. And one of the cable news stations
here in our country, HGTV, decided to have a new television series
that's supposed to air this October in which twin brothers will flip
houses. They'll buy a house, fix it up,
and then sell it and flip it. And they are already five weeks
into filming the show that will air this fall. when it was suddenly
discovered that they actually support traditional marriage
and that their father is pro-life. And so they have already cancelled
the show before it even started because he's simply pro-life. Another article, same-sex couples
rushed to Arkansas to apply for marriage license after an Arkansas
judge struck down the state's 2004 same-sex marriage ban. And so now their homosexuals
are flooding into Arkansas in order to quickly be married. And the judge, Chris Piazza,
compared the case to the Supreme Court's decision to strike down
interracial marriage bans in the 1960s. Arkansas Attorney
General Dustin McDaniel plans to appeal the decision even though
he personally supports same-sex marriage. Right across the page
is the case of U.S. Representative Daryl Issa, who
just simply asked the question, when one of the workers in the
EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency, is spending hours, someone
working in the EPA, watching hardcore pornography, Issa simply
asked the question, how much pornography would it take for
an EPA employee to lose their job? Then there was an article on
Monica Lewinsky. She's re-entered the news. And
then an abortionist who was arrested, not because he committed abortions,
but because he has raped a woman. And so it goes on and on. I've
withheld others just because it is such poor taste to even
begin the message. We would literally have to be
an ostrich with our head in the sand to think that we are living
in Mayberry anymore. The fact is, we have long passed
the exit for post-Christian society here in the United States, and
the same is true in Scotland and in England and all around
the world, quite frankly. What I have just read is little
different than the secular culture of the first century. in which
the early church found itself. Human nature has not changed.
In the first century, it was a day in which sexual promiscuity
ran rampant, and the major cities boasted their pagan temples that
were populated and filled with temple prostitutes, and the businessmen
would reroute their travel to go through these major cities
and to go into these temples. Eunuchs served as priests so
as not to harm the women who worked there. Homosexuality was
prevalent, just as the church at Corinth. Immorality and adultery
flourished. Divorce was easy to obtain and
common, and husbands were demanding and demeaning. Women were degraded.
Children were often abandoned or sold into slavery. Some men
lived in polygamy and sired multiple children from multiple wives. And it was in such a godless
culture that the church of the Lord Jesus Christ found itself,
and church life in that secular culture was strong, because the
grace of God was strong. And as we now find ourselves
in such a polluted cesspool of iniquity that is all around us,
I want to remind us and to encourage us that our families can stand
strong because of the grace of God and the power of the Holy
Spirit and the power of the Word of God in our lives. If it played in Ephesus, it will
play in your hometown. We find ourselves today in just
such an hour. And I want us to look at this
text and remind ourselves of what Paul said. It was so counter-cultural. It was so antithetical to the
times. Nothing could have been more
out of sync or more out of step. If Paul had gone door to door
and surveyed the people of Ephesus and asked them, what do you want
in a church, this is the last thing they would have said. John
MacArthur once told me, he said, here's what you do, you go door-to-door,
survey your neighborhood, find out what they want in a church,
and give them the total opposite. Because that would be what God
would want. The carnal mind will never want the things of the
Lord. And so what we see here is really
the total opposite of the world in which we live. I think we
have an extraordinary opportunities for our families to stand out
like lights in a dark night, that we're different. from those
who live on both sides of us, those in our church go to work
with. We have a distinctly different standard and a distinctly different
set of values. And we truly believe that unless
the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it. Well, I want us to look at this
passage, and I want to set before you three truths. And I want
to show you, I think, something of what Paul is saying. He obviously
is speaking of the family unit in chapter 6, verses 1 through
4, and we'll arrive there. But to trace the stream, to trace
the river upstream, really before we can come to parenting, We
actually have to address the marriage between a husband and
a wife. And that, what we'll look at,
is in 22 to 33. But there must be something more. And that is found in verses 18
through 21. I want you to note first the
necessity of being Spirit-filled in verses 18 through 21. And
then we will look at the priority of loving our spouse. And then
finally, the ministry of leading our children. But it all begins
here in chapter 5 and in verse 18, because no husband can love
his wife, verse 25, as he is called upon to do, unless he
is filled with the Holy Spirit of God. And no father, in chapter
6, verse 4, can be this kind of a father to his children unless
the reality of chapter 5, in verse 18, be true in his life. It's not hard to be a Christian
husband and a Christian father. It's impossible. apart from the ministry of God
the Holy Spirit within our lives. And so let's begin with, first,
the necessity of being Spirit-filled. Everything in family life begins
here, at this point. He begins by saying, do not get
drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with
the Spirit. In order to be a spiritual leader
in the home, men, we must first be a spiritually minded man. We must be filled by the Holy
Spirit of God. This word filled, plurao, means
to be controlled by, to be dominated by, to be under the influence
of. And the concept here is not of
an empty glass being filled with water as though we receive more
of the Holy Spirit. The idea, to the contrary, is
more like a hand in a glove in which the hand in the glove totally
controls the glove. The issue is not for us to have
more of the Holy Spirit. The issue is for the Holy Spirit
to have more of us. It's not as if we have lived
up to the infinite power and genius of the Holy Spirit and
we've maxed out at the level that we have received. We need
some more. No, the reality is we need to submit and surrender
our lives to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and to be saturated
with the Word of God and to be pursuing holiness and to be dominated
and to be controlled by the Holy Spirit. There is an intentional
contrast here in verse 18 between the first part of the verse and
the second part of the verse. It begins with the negative,
do not get drunk with wine, then he gives the positive, but be
filled with the Spirit. Why would he make this comparison? And the reason is, to be drunk
with wine is much like being filled by the Spirit. In that, in both instances, the
one who is either drunk or the one who is filled with the Spirit
is under the influence. He is under an external power
that is now internal. And in both cases, that person
begins to talk in a way he does not normally talk. And he begins
to act in a way he does not normally act. I've been in places where
people have been drunk and the tiniest little scrumpiest man
in the room wants to fight the whole hotel. And he suddenly
is bold, and he suddenly is speaking up, and he suddenly now is acting
in a totally different way while he is under the influence. And
so it is with the man of God, the woman of God, when the indwelling
Holy Spirit fills us, dominates us, controls us. That's how Luke uses the word
in Luke chapter 6 and 5. Those who were filled with rage. They were dominated. They were
overtaken with rage. And so, in order to be the spiritual
leader in our homes, we must be under the influence of the
Holy Spirit of God. Now, when he says, be filled
with the Spirit, that is a command. Either we are filled with the
Spirit or we are disobedient to God. It is in the present
tense. Every moment of every day as
we live our Christian lives, we are either walking according
to the flesh or we are walking according to the Spirit. That's
what Galatians 5, verses 16 through 18 tells us. And we are commanded by God to
be filled, not with, but by the Holy Spirit of God. So this is
not an option. This is not a suggestion. We are to be always being filled
with the Holy Spirit of God. And this is a responsibility
that is laid at every man's feet here tonight. He goes on to talk
about the evidences of being filled with the Spirit, being
dominated with the Spirit. He says in verse 19, speaking
to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing
and making melody with your heart to the Lord. Verse 19 is a verse
about worship. There is a horizontal aspect
and there is a vertical aspect. There is first a horizontal aspect
of speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual
songs. And there is also a vertical
aspect of singing with your heart to the Lord. Both dynamics are
taking place. As we sang earlier here tonight,
we were singing to the Lord. but it was also stimulating those
who are around us and urging our own hearts to call upon the
name of the Lord as we were speaking to one another in psalms and
hymns and spiritual songs. A Spirit-filled father and a
Spirit-filled husband will be a worshiping man. He will be
a man who is God-focused, God-exalting. He will be living soli deo gloria,
for the glory of God alone, and it will just come flowing out
of him. His very vocabulary will be scriptural
and biblical and the truth of God as he worships God vertically
and as he is urging others horizontally. He goes on to say, also, in verse
20, that a Spirit-filled man, verse 20, will be always giving
thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ
to God, even the Father. His, not only his actions, but
his reactions to the situations and unfolding circumstances of
life around him. He will be continually giving
thanks to God. This presupposes and necessitates
a belief in the sovereignty of God over the affairs of life.
It presupposes that one would have a firm understanding of
the doctrine of providence. Romans 8.28 tells us, and we
know, that God causes all things to work together for our good,
which is to conform us into the very image of Jesus Christ. A spirit-filled husband and a
spirit-filled father will be giving thanks to God before his
family, in the presence of his family, as the issues of life
are unfolding before him. And that is a mark of a man who
is under the dominance and under the control of the Holy Spirit
of God. He is not grumbling. He is not
complaining. He is not whining. an angry old man. He is continually
giving thanks to God because the person of the Holy Spirit
of God is so at work in his life. Read the book of Philippians.
Read a man in prison. Read a man who is chained to
Roman soldiers. Read of a man who is contained
for two years in that house arrest. And listen to a man say, Rejoice
in the Lord always, again I say rejoice. He is a man who is filled
with the Spirit. Read about him in Acts chapter
16, as he is in prison, and it is midnight, and he has just
been beaten and whipped, and what is he doing? He is singing
praises to God. When that earthquake finally
hit, that was Paul. He was a man who was filled with
the Holy Spirit of God. He was walking on the sunny side
of Hallelujah Avenue as he lived his Christian life. And if you
asked him, how are things going, you would receive a vibrant,
dynamic, testimony of what God is doing in his life, even in
the presence of obstacles and challenges and difficulties and
prison cells and stocks and whippings. He was a man not under the circumstances,
he was a man on top of the circumstances, because he is filled with the
Spirit of God. And then, verse 21, He will be
subject to one another in the fear of Christ. A Spirit-filled husband and a
Spirit-filled father will be a very humble man. He will not be running roughshod
over the kids. He will not be overbearing. He
will not be provoking them to anger, as chapter 6, verse 4
warns against. But there will be a gentle side
to him in the midst of his firm discipline. There will be a submitting
to the wife and the children in this sense. He is the leader
and she is hupotasso. She is to be in submission under
him. but he will be considering their
interests more important than his own. He will be giving his
life away to them. This is really where family life
has to begin. Not with a formula, but with
a filling. Not with how-to techniques to
be a better dad or to be a better husband, but a man who is dominated
by God, a man of whom the indwelling Holy Spirit has filled him and
has dripped him and is controlling him and is governing him and
is empowering him and is energizing him and there is no explanation
for this man who is the point man in the house other than the
reality of God in his life. And the longer we grow in the
Lord and mature in the grace and knowledge of God, the more
this reality and progressive sanctification becomes more and
more evident in our lives. I can give testimony of my own
father, who led me to Christ when I was a young boy in my
bedroom, sitting on my bed and reading Bible stories to me,
and as a young man, he led me to Christ. He was a very stern,
strong disciplinarian, and I needed a lot of that. But as he grew
in the Lord, and as he grew in his Christian walk, and in the
latter years of his life, as he became more and more reformed
and under the shadow of the sovereignty and the holiness of God, my father
became sweeter, and more humble and more giving and more gracious. And he lived out for me the reality
all the way to his dying breath of what it is to be submitted
and surrendered to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and to be filled
by the Spirit. I want to ask you tonight Do
you sense this moment, that you are under the domination of the
Holy Spirit of God who indwells you? As you've come to this conference,
and we have left so many different competing circumstances behind
in our churches and in our homes, and as we have fought the traffic
and as we have been serving the Lord, Are you filled by the Holy
Spirit of God? I'm not asking this in a mystical
type of experience, but are you saturated with a high view of
God? Are you dominated with a passion
to love God with all of your heart and soul in mind? And are
you yielded to the Lord? Are you pursuing holiness? And
these are the evidences of the one who is filled by the Spirit. But let's continue. Not only
the necessity of being Spirit-filled, and that's really where it begins.
That's the beginning, I think, in this section of the flow. But second, I want you to note
the priority of loving your wife. Only because of time, I'm going
to fast forward to verse 25. Husbands. Every husband. All husbands.
No exemption to any Christian husband. Love your wives. I want to say again, this is
not hard. This is impossible to carry this out in the manner
that Paul prescribes that we would love her just as Christ
also loved the church. We can only do this in the supernatural
enablement of the grace of God by the Holy Spirit You well know
this word for love, agapeo, is the highest form of love, a God-like
love. Like John 3, 16, for God so loved
the world that He gave His only begotten Son. And you're well
aware of Eris. which means lust, a physical,
and phileo means I like, but agapeo, I love, unconditionally,
a full commitment to seek the highest good of another person
and to sacrificially give of yourself. Husbands, love your
wives. It is the Lord who brought her
into our lives. An excellent wife, who can find?"
Proverbs 31, verse 10. An excellent wife, who can find?
It's a rhetorical question, the answer of which is, no one. She is such a rare gem and jewel. An excellent wife, who can find?
Her worth is far greater than precious stones. The heart of
her husband trusts in her, for she does him good and not evil
all the days of her life. Proverbs 17 says, wealth and
inheritance are from fathers, but an excellent wife is from
the Lord. It is God, by His providential
wisdom and arrangement of circumstances, who has brought her into our
lives. When I met my wife, I could have
never found her in a million trillion years. You could have
given me a credit card with American Airlines and I could have flown
for the next decade looking. I could have never found her.
And there she was, showing up in the Bible study that I was
teaching, as the Lord moved her across the continent of North
America and just brought her to me. She is God's gift to us
men, a helpmate suitable, meaning she is tailor-made for us. She's
not a suit off the rack that will have to be adjusted to fit
us. No, God has taken our measurements, He has sized us up, and He has
designed a woman who fits us perfectly. She's not perfect,
but she's perfect for us. And this says we are to love
her and to receive her as God's gift. just as Christ also loved
the church. And this looks back to the cross,
to the supreme exercise of love. Greater love has no man than
this, that one lay down his life for a friend. John 15, 13. And
so God calls upon us to go to the nth degree to demonstrate
our love for her to do whatever is necessary within the will
of God to provide for her and to protect her. This calls for,
on our part, sacrificial love, selfless love, unreserved love,
And please note, this says in verse 25, Jesus gave himself
up for the church. His life was not taken. He gave
it. In John 10, 17 and 18, he says,
I have authority to lay down my life. No man has taken it
from me. His blood was not spilt. It was
poured out intentionally. upon that cross. It was a volitional
choice by our Lord to lay down His life for us, to give Himself
up, and so now this is how we are to love our wives, with forethought,
with intention, with purpose. We are to volitionally choose
to give ourselves to this precious gift whom God has brought into
our lives. And verse 26, so that, here is
Jesus' purpose in giving Himself up for us, and the parallel would
be us to our wives, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed
her by the washing of water with the Word. Jesus gave Himself
up that He might purge us and purify us and sanctify us and
cleanse us. And so it is that we are to provide
this kind of spiritual leadership for our wives, to be a true spiritual
leader, to have her under the influence and the sound of the
preaching of the Word of God, to be in a Bible-teaching, Bible-preaching
church that exalts of the Lord Jesus Christ to lead her in worship
and in prayer in the home and to be continually applying the
Word of God to her that she might be sanctified and cleansed and
pure. Verse 27, he continues this parallel,
that he might present to himself the church in all her glory,
having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she
should be holy and blameless. The point is, verse 28, "...so
husbands," it continues the parallel, "...ought also to love their
own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves
himself." One plus one equals one. The two become one flesh. And that is what he will tell
us in verse 31. For this reason, a man shall
leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife and
the two shall become one flesh. That is God's design for our
Christian marriage. In this post-Christian world,
it is unity, oneness. with our wives. Thirdly, this
speaks to oneness physically, the intimacy of the physical
relationship reserved only for the husband-wife relationship. But it must go deeper than this.
Surely included in this is an emotional oneness as well, to
laugh together, to cry together, to hold one another up. when
you're discouraged and when you're down in the ministry for your
wife to come alongside of you and to remind you of what you
have preached yourself so many times and to be a Barnabasette
to you and to encourage you in the things of the Lord. And when
she is down and when she is discouraged, for you to come alongside and
to lift her up emotionally, to have this mutual reciprocal relationship
of encouragement, but it must go deeper. It's not enough just
to have physical oneness, and it's not enough just to have
emotional oneness. If this is a true Christian union,
there must be a spiritual oneness, where we worship the Lord together,
we pray together, We lift up our children to the Lord before
His throne of grace together. We hold up one another spiritually. We minister and speak of the
things of the Lord to one another. This is the ministry that we
are to have with one another. Listen to Ecclesiastes 4, verse
9. Two are better than one. because
they have a good return for their labor. In other words, two can
do better than just one. It's a leverage principle. Two
shoulders to the same plow, there'll be much more inertia than if
it's just one shoulder. And verse 10 in Ecclesiastes
4, for if either of them falls, the one will lift up his companion. But woe to the one who falls
when there is not another to lift him up." Verse 11. Furthermore, if two lie down
together, they keep warm. But how can one be warm alone? And if one can overpower him
who is alone, two can resist him. How important is our wife to
our ministry, I think it would be virtually impossible for us
to overestimate the stabilizing effect that our
wife has in our ministry. I think at the time Martin Luther
– in fact, just last week, or a week before last, I was in
Germany and I went – I was in Wittenberg, preaching at the
University of Wittenberg, and I went to Luther's house. There in that house, Luther was
subject to bouts of discouragement. Do you know anything like that?
I do. And one time Luther was so down that Katie, his wife,
said to him one morning at the breakfast table, Who died? As only a wife has permission
to ask such a soul-searching question. And she said, you're
acting as if God has died. Well, that was the slap in the
face that he needed. Just like you and I need that
from time to time. I think of Charles Haddon Spurgeon
in his early years when he faced such opposition there in London. He was under just extraordinary
stress, and he came home one night feeling that the weight
of the world was upon him. He came slithering into the bedroom,
and he laid down on the bed, and he looked up at the ceiling,
and his precious wife, Suzanne, had needle-stitched, Matthew
5, verse 10, Blessed are you when you are persecuted. It just
lifted his heart to the heights of heaven. One time I was run out of a church. I don't think any preacher is
worth his salt unless he's been run out of at least one church.
They must not have understood you. Calvin only lasted two years
in Geneva. He was run out in 1538. Jonathan
Edwards run out by a 90 to 10% vote. I remember before I resigned,
before they could run me out, some sense of self-preservation. I remember being so discouraged.
And I remember my wife saying to me, we're not going to turn
this church over to a bunch of rogues. Boy, that was a shot of adrenaline
in me. I said, well, yeah, we're not
going to. And how we need our helper suitable
for us. This is a part of a family life
that in the valleys, in the difficult places of life, to have someone
on their knees alongside of you and encouraging and lifting up
Men, do we truly love our wives tonight? Do we truly cherish
and nourish them? Is there room for more sacrifice?
Have we become too focused upon our books and upon our activities
by chance as we've come to this conference tonight? Have we taken
our eye off of our precious wife? There's a final heading that
I want to set before you in chapter 6, beginning in verse 1, the
ministry of leading your children. I need to rather quickly pull
this together. With the ministry of leading
your children, there's a logical progression, there's a theological
progression, there's an exegetical progression here from being filled
with the Spirit to loving our wives, now to our children. And before we look at this, let
me say the greatest thing you can do for your children is to
love your wife. And the greatest thing you can
do for your wife and for your children is for you to be filled
by the Holy Spirit of God. But as we look at verses 1 through
4 in a summary fashion, I want to tell you four things that
every father must do in leading his children. Number one, in
verse 1, teach obedience. Notice he begins, "'Children,
obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. If children
must obey their parents, then it is clearly implied that parents
will teach their children to obey them.'" Children here refers
to both sons and daughters, and the word obey means literally
to listen up, to hear, to pay attention, to give undivided
attention with a view to doing what is required. Men, we must
be teaching our children obedience. Immediate obedience. Delayed
obedience is disobedience. And we need to teach them full
obedience, half obedience, is disobedience. Children, obey
your parents. Please note, both parents. This
means dad and mom must stand together and speak with one voice.
The only way that a child can obey their parents is for their
parents to have the same standard, to have the same values, to be
speaking out of the same book, to have the same requirements
in the house, Obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right."
Even Jesus learned obedience. Hebrews 5, 7 and 8 tells us. Obedience to parents becomes
the priority human relationship in which obedience is learned. It needs to start early in the
home. And when there is obedience to mom and dad that is taught,
it naturally leads to obedience to a school teacher, obedience
to a sports coach, obedience to a police officer. It cuts
a path for obedience for the rest of a child's life. This
must be learned at home. The Duke of Windsor once came
to the United States and was asked his impression of the United
States. And he said, the amazing thing
about America to me is how well the parents obey their children. And sad to say that goes on in
too many Christian homes. And with this passive sanctification
view that is leaking out in some young restless and reformed circles,
the word obedience has almost become a cuss word. They just
want to stare at their navel. And we need to put obedience
back into the Christian life, and obedience back into child-rearing,
because obedience is still in the Bible. Number one, teach
obedience. Number two, require respect.
Look at verse 2. Honor your father and mother,
which is the first commandment with a promise. Honor is the
attitude behind the action of obedience. Obedience in verse
1 is the action. Honor in verse 2 is the attitude
behind the action. In other words, it's not enough
simply to do what mom and dad would require, but there must
be a heart of respect and a heart of honoring mom and dad and even
honoring God as well. As the heart goes, so goes the
entire life. It is important what children
say and how they say it, but it is also important the attitude
that is behind it. Number three, develop discipline. Look at verse four. Fathers.
And he zeroes in on fathers here. The buck stops at our desk. Fathers, do not provoke your
children Why would he say that? Because when fathers are not
filled with the Spirit, they can be overbearing and intimidating,
and they can abuse the spiritual authority that is entrusted to
them. And so Paul says this so that
fathers will not go too far and be harsh or too strict. Colossians 3 verse 21, fathers
do not exasperate your children so that they will not lose heart. It's been said for every one
critique or rebuke, there needs to be five encouraging words
to build up. Fathers, do not provoke your
children to anger, but bring them up. You see that in verse
4? Bring them up. Children must
be brought up. Children do not raise themselves.
Televisions do not raise children. Computer screens do not raise
children. Dads raise children. Dads must
bring them up. Proverbs 22, verse 6, train up
a child in the way he should go. And even when he is old,
he will not depart from it. Not a promise, but an observation.
Bring them up through teaching, through training, through modeling,
through encouraging. Luke 2, verse 52 says, Jesus
kept increasing in wisdom and stature and in favor with God
and men. Jesus had to be brought up socially,
physically, emotionally. Note, in the discipline of the
Lord. Bring them up in the discipline
of the Lord. And this word discipline speaks
of the self-control of the child, that the child will be disciplined.
This does not necessarily refer to remedial correction as it
does a coach would discipline an athlete, or a military officer
would train and discipline one under that control. And to discipline
really begins with positive reinforcement, affirmation, praise, extended
privileges, even reward. And it would also include painful
consequences to wrong choices, verbal correction, verbal rebuke,
withholding privileges, reparations, isolation, additional duties,
all the way to spanking. A father must bring up a child
in the discipline of the Lord, that the child would be under
control. And by the way, the father needs to be under control
when he teaches the child to be under control. And fourth
and finally, as we look at this, instill convictions. In verse 4 he says, but bring
them up in the discipline and instruction, and instruction
of the Lord, to put within the child the truth of the Word of
God, and to build a deep belief and a sense of right and wrong,
and a holding fast to sound words, to put that into the child, Today
it would include catechizing the child and family worship
and bringing the child to church and all of the different means
by which the Word of God is being built into the child, both formal
times as well as informal times as life is being lived out before
them. It's really what Deuteronomy
6-7 says, when it says, you shall teach them diligently to your
sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your home, when you
walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up. This is the responsibility that
the Lord has laid at our feet. that we are to lead our children
and love our wives, and what a high calling this is. And the only way that we can
do this is not in our own energy and not in our own ingenuity,
but only in the supernatural dynamic power of God by His indwelling
Holy Spirit within us, And I want to conclude by encouraging us
of the sufficiency of the Holy Spirit of God in our lives, that
he is more than abundant, more than sufficient to provide for
us everything that we need to succeed as husbands and fathers. We are not left as orphans to
fulfill this duty and this task. Men, tonight, as I bring this
message to close, let all of us be reminded of how much we
need the Lord in our lives to enable us in carrying out the
spiritual leadership in our families. Let me also remind us that there
is no demand upon us tonight, but that the Holy Spirit is fully
able to meet every need that is before us. We have more than
abundant resources in the person of the Holy Spirit who indwells
us. Think of your family right now.
But think of the Lord who has given these families to us and
who is more than sufficient to help us in the number one ministry
that God has for us. Tonight, you may feel as if you
are in a hole and there is no way to crawl out. You may be
up against an impossible situation at home. I want to remind you
that just as every time you step into the pulpit, you are never
alone. There are two who are in that
pulpit. So when you step into that child's
bedroom or when you step into the den to be with your wife,
the Lord is with you and the Holy Spirit will empower you.
You remember what Spurgeon said every time he entered the pulpit? 15 steps up from the lower platform
to the higher platform. I believe in the Holy Spirit.
I believe in the Holy Spirit. I believe in the Holy Spirit.
I believe in the Holy Spirit. Tonight, as we consider our families
and what God requires of us, let each one of us reaffirm this
confession of faith. I believe in the Holy Spirit
to enable me to do all that God requires me in my home. Let us pray. Father, tonight we reaffirm to
you that you have laid your hand upon us and you have set us apart
to be your servants, to be your shepherds, to be your mouthpieces. And we understand that in so
doing, our first ministry is to our own family. Lord, how
challenging this is to each and every one of us. We thank you
for placing the deposit of the Holy Spirit within us, who is
co-equal and co-eternal with you. I pray that there would
be a renewed sense of confidence and encouragement that this paraclete,
this one called alongside of us, that he will counsel us,
he will comfort us, he will direct us, he will teach us, he will
energize us and empower us and give us the fruit of the Spirit
as we carry out our pastoring. Father, we yield ourself afresh. We know the wind blows wherever
it wills, but we ask tonight that in this room, that we as
your men, that there would be the inward ministry of the Holy
Spirit in our lives that would renew and revive us. Father, we pray this in Jesus'
name, amen.