Today is Mother's Day, and when
Dan called and asked if I would speak, and I said I'd be only
too happy to, he said, can you bring a message that would be
fitting for Mother's Day? When I first graduated from seminary,
I am so committed to verse-by-verse exposition of the Scripture sequentially
through a book in the Bible. Literally, the second year I
was out of seminary, I was preaching through the book of Revelation,
And on Mother's Day, I preached on the whore of Babylon. And
so I am committed to preaching the next passage of Scripture.
And so the flowers on the altar just kind of wilted, and you
could hear the grass growing outside. So I have learned a
little bit that on Mother's Day, you need to soften the message.
Go ahead, Dan. Do you have something brilliant
to say? So, I will not be doing that
to you today. In fact, I want us to look together
into Psalm 127. So, if you have God's Word, and
I'm sure you do if you're a member of this church, let's be turning
to Psalm 127 for our time together in God's Word today. In fact,
I'd like to begin just by reading the psalm, reintroducing you
to this psalm. It's one I think that you are
familiar with. And it speaks so much to the
Christian home and what a Christian home looks like. And I think
that this will speak not only to our moms by way of encouragement,
but also to the men here, to the dads. And we have children
here. I think it speaks to all of us
today. Psalm 127. This is one of two
psalms that Solomon wrote. And Solomon, being a man of great
wisdom, Psalm 127 really is unique in the Psalter, one of the two
Psalms by Solomon. The Word of God says, Unless
the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it. Unless
the Lord guards the city, the watchman keeps awake in vain. It is vain for you to rise up
early, to retire late, to eat the bread of painful labors,
for he gives to his beloved even in his sleep. Behold, children
are a gift of the Lord. The fruit of the womb is a reward,
like arrows in the hand of a warrior. So are the children of one's
youth. How blessed is the man whose
quiver is full of them. They will not be ashamed when
they speak with their enemies in the gate. I think what we
have here really is a blueprint for the Christian home. I was
very privileged growing up, as many of you, to grow up in a
Christian home. I know what it looks like and
feels like to grow up, to have a dad who's a Christian. It led
me to faith in Christ when I was a young boy, to have a mom who
was born again, who knows the Lord, and to live in a house
where there are Christian values, where the conversation revolves
around the things of the Lord, and I grew up being continually
pushed towards spiritual things in my life. To have a dad who
embraces the Christian faith. In fact, I spoke in this very
room this past January. I taught the Winterim class for
the Master's Seminary on Expository Preaching on the Psalms. And
my father, who is 80, flew out for the week and sat right back
in the back part of this room. And he just sat there and just
cried all week, just proud of his son to have grown up to be
a preacher of the Word of God. And has the DVDs from the class
and he sits at home and literally every day almost just watches
the replay of the week. And so I know what that is like
and I'm the product of a Christian home. It doesn't always work
out that way and some of you come from a different type of
background, and you are a trophy of God's grace, and God has snatched
you as a brand out of the fire, and by His grace, you have been
snatched out of an unchristian type of home, and now you want
to establish something totally different from which you grew
up. And so, it is of deep value for you to have a Christian home,
but you didn't grow up in one. And so I think what we look at
today, we'll lay some tracks, we'll frame the picture, we'll
set a skeleton that we can put some flesh on for what a Christian
family looks like. And so for all of us today, I
think this psalm really has so much to say. Psalm 127 is extremely
helpful in painting this picture. The occasion is unknown. The
message is very clear. regarding what Psalm 127 is. I want to give you an overview
of this psalm. I want to get in the helicopter, go up, give
you the bird's eye view of this psalm, and then we'll work our
way through it line upon line. But this is, as I look at this
psalm and have pored over this psalm, for me this is how this
psalm breaks out. For those of you who like to
jot down an outline, this is the tracks that we'll run on.
I want you to see first in verse 1, the first part of verse 1,
the builder of the home. And what we're going to see is
there are two builders for every Christian home. There's a primary
builder, there's a secondary builder. And we're going to look
at the builder of the home. And then second, we're going
to look at the battle for the home. The second part of verse
1. In everything that God builds,
Satan attacks. And as God builds homes, Satan
has Christian homes in his crosshairs. And so we need to be aware of
this. have the Lord's protection. Then
third, I want you to see the breadwinner of the home. That's
in verse 2. How it's vain for you just to
keep rising earlier and earlier and staying out later and later
to provide for your home if in reality the Lord is really not
in the center of what you do. And then finally we'll look at
the blessings of the home, verses 3 through 5, and Solomon who is a master teacher, obviously
the pearls of wisdom in the book of Proverbs just drip from his
lips. When we study the Psalms, the
psalmist is always painting pictures in our mind. And there are three
pictures that he will paint for us regarding the blessings of
the home and children. And I neglected to say I've got
my three boys here with me today. So this is special for me to
preach this with My three boys, Andrew, James, and John, we're
committed to discipleship at our home, and their sister is
named Peter. So, we're very committed to New
Testament discipleship. So, the blessings of the home,
and they are pictured in verses 3 through 5 as a gift, as fruit,
and as arrows, and those are vivid pictures for us to have
in our mind. Let's begin where the psalm...
psalmist begins in verse 1 with the builder of the home. This psalm begins by speaking
of the fact that God must be the one who builds your home. I think some of the most simple
truths in the Bible are the most profound truths of the Bible. And I know sometimes I feel as
a preacher I need to come tell you something that you haven't
heard before or something that you don't know. And the fact
of the matter is we so desperately need to have reinforced the most
basic truths of the Christian life. And so it begins at this
point in verse 1. Let me read it again. Unless
the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it. Very
clearly we see that the Lord must be the builder of the home.
In fact, He expresses this in such a way, literally in the
Hebrew, the order of the sentence reads this way, in vain, is at
the beginning of each of these lines. In vain they labor who
build it. In vain they keep watch over
the city. And the emphasis in verse 1 is
really on this word vain. How utterly futile. It is for
you to have a home and a family if God is not in the very center
of all that you do. And by that, I do not simply
mean just in name. But in reality, it is totally
vain, he says. This word vain means useless,
meaningless, empty, futile. And what he is saying is everything
that you will do as a parent, will be utterly vain unless the
Lord is the one who builds your home. And this really is a fundamental
principle of the Christian life. I can say to you that anything
you do in your life is totally, completely vain unless God is
doing it in you and through you, right? At home they amen when
I say right. Amen, amen. I know you're used
to Dan, so... Just kidding. Maybe, but... John 15, 5. Jesus said, apart
from me, you can do how much? Nothing. That's a zero with the
edges trimmed off. Nothing. Vilge. Nothing of any
spiritual, lasting, eternal significance will ever come from your life
unless it be God who is at work within you, both to will and
to work for His good pleasure. And nowhere is this more evident
than in the home. But Philippians 4.13, and when
I was in college, guys, I had this on my dorm room. Philippians
4.13 says, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens
me. And everything that God calls me to do, God empowers me to
do it as I yield my life in humble obedience to Him. So the builder
of the home, he says, it is totally vain for anyone else to be putting
your home together apart from the Lord. I do want to draw to
your attention, there actually are two builders here. As I alluded
to earlier, notice again in verse 1 in the text, it says, unless
the Lord builds the house, that's builder number 1, they labor
in vain who build it, that's builder number 2. Don't miss
that. I read this psalm many times before the obvious jumped
off the page. The Lord is builder number 1
and they are builder number 2. So there is a partnership that
is going on here, and this is not a let go and let God approach
to the Christian life, where we become passive, there's nothing
that we do, and God just does it all. Now, make no mistake
about it, God is the primary builder, and we are the secondary
builder, but it involves two. And I think the point that Solomon
is making here, that if you simply try to build your home with your
your ingenuity, your insight, passing on how you were brought
up, or going in the opposite direction, and that's all that
it is, it'll be totally futile, empty, and vain. But if the Lord
is in the midst of it and empowering you, then it will greatly succeed. I think it begs to be said at
this point that you can have two jobs and do all that you
can to provide for your children. You can put them in the best
schools. You can buy them a new car. You can coach their ball
team. You can send them to the best
camp. You can help them get the best job. You can drive them
to piano lessons. You can help them with their
homework. But if God is not in the center of your parenting,
it is totally, completely useless and vain. So really, what constitutes
the house that God builds? And I really don't even want
to allow myself to drift, but just for a few moments, I want
to just line up some key words that I think really constitute
the house that God builds, and I think it's worth noting. I've
tried to alliterate these to start with the letter C, just
to help you jot these down. I think it begins with conversions.
You can't have a Christian home unless you have Christians who
are in that home. It just makes sense. There needs
to be a mom and a dad who are born again and who know God in
their heart of hearts. And until both mom and dad have
come to the cross and have surrendered their lives and repented and
embraced the Lord Jesus Christ by faith, there is not a Christian
home. And so it begins with mom and
dad being surrendered to the cross. of the Lord Jesus Christ
and being forgiven. And then mom and dad become evangelists
in that home, who are after the hearts and the souls of their
children to bring them to faith in Jesus Christ in God's perfect
time. So the house that God builds,
it begins with conversions. And that's why, of course it's
too late now, but that's why you had to marry a Christian
when you got married. Because A Christian home requires
that there be two people who know the Lord Jesus Christ. How
can two walk together except they be agreed? Be not unequally
yoked. You're going to have people pulling
in opposite directions. So it begins there. Then second
commandment, there is an embracing of the Word of God that the commandments
of Scripture are the blueprint for your home and all that you
do in your home is to be done by the book. And you desire to
raise your children by the principles and the truths that are found
in God's Word. And third, consecration. That
there are parents whose lives are week by week and month by
month being lived in consecration to the Lord, where they are presenting
their lives as a living and holy sacrifice to God. Their spiritual lives are not
just plateaued or in regression, but they are pressing on to the
upward call of God in Christ Jesus. So, conversions, commandments,
commitment, that the talk in the home is Christian conversation. There's a Christian vocabulary.
And when you sit down at the dinner table, the conversation
in one way or another has the Lord involved in it. Spurgeon,
you say all roads lead to London and all conversations lead to
the cross. And really, some of the greatest
life lessons are imparted to our children in these informal
times as life is just unfolding before us. And you as a dad and
you as a mom are framing that picture and that situation, that
circumstance with the truths of the Word of God. And you are
teaching them throughout the day. And there are Christian
conversations. And then fifth is the word charity
or compassion. There is a Christian love within
your home. There are displays of Christ-likeness
towards one another. There is an atmosphere of forgiveness,
an atmosphere of acceptance. an atmosphere of love that's
in the home and the children speak to each other and address
one another in certain ways. And I'm so grateful, I can tell
you as I grew up, I've never once seen my mom and dad have
an argument. I've never once heard them say
something harsh to one another. I never had to see my mom cry
as a result of something that my dad said and snipped at her. There was a purity about the
conversation. Now, my dad said something to
me a lot of times that brought tears, but not just mom. And
I deserved it, but that's another message. But there is this Christian
love. And you know, the Bible says
that if I speak with the tongues of angels and of men but have
not love, I mean, I'm just a noisy gong and a clanging cymbal, right?
And if I give my body to be burned, and if I have all knowledge,
etc., etc., etc., but if I do not have love, it all accomplishes
nothing. So how vitally important it is
that there be Christian love in the home. And then cleanness. And by cleanness, I simply mean
that the that the forms of entertainment, the TV watching, the movies,
the games, that there is a purity standard. The standard for every
one of our homes needs to be Philippians 4, verse 8. I mean,
whatever is pure, whatever is honorable, whatever is of good
repute, I mean, it needs to pass through that grid. And moms and
dads are on top of what their kids are watching, and there
is a purity. chastisement. There is Christian
discipline in a Christian home. My dad used to tell me, I'm only
spanking you because I love you. And I know I was my most my dad's
most loved son. I learned to turn the cheek very
early as a as a young person. But there needs to be Christian
discipline in the home. I mean, we're not just giving
advice. And there needs to be the understanding that there
are painful consequences to wrong decisions. That's a mark of a
Christian home. And finally, church. And I can't
really even allow myself to elaborate on these points, but church.
You're bringing your children to church. You're not just sending
them, you're bringing them. And church is at the center of
your activity. I think what an extraordinary
thing that That, you know, Mark MacArthur, Matt MacArthur, I
mean, that there is an embracing of their dad's not only love
for the Lord, but the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. So
this is the building of the home. And I must really proceed. I
could stay over and do a two part series. Come back next Sunday,
Dan. Just kidding for you. But that's the builder. of the
home. And I guess I really need to
stop and ask right now, is God building your home? It's not
an automatic. Unless the Lord builds the house,
they labor in vain that build it. You know, life is so short. I don't have, there's no mulligans
in this Christian, being a Christian parent, you know. You understand
what a mulligan is, Herb. I mean, when you're out on the
golf course, you don't like that shot. You just drop another one
down and hit another ball, and you can just have a redo. You
don't get to have a redo with your kids. You get one shot at
this. It's got to count. You've got
to have God sovereignly, supernaturally building your home. I must proceed. Not only the builder of the home,
which is God, and I think you get the point there. The battle
for the home. The battle for the home, that's
the end of verse 1. It says, Unless the Lord guards
the city, the watchman keeps awake in vain. We need to see the picture that
the psalmist is painting for us here. What is a city but a
collection of families? What is a city but a collection
of homes? In this picture here, where there
are a collection of families who live together, there's a
collection of families here this morning, is that there is an
enemy that is encroaching and these families are raising their
children in an atmosphere of warfare and there is danger that
is lurking so much so that there have to be watchmen who are put
up on the walls who are looking for the advance of the enemy
and the surprise attack of the enemy so that the watchman can
sound the trumpet and the families be protected who live on the
inside of the walls and Ultimately, he says, it's not enough simply
to have human watchmen who are sounding the alarm to your ears,
telling you when there are advances of the enemy that would come
against your home. But ultimately, the Lord must
be the one who guards the city. We see this unless the Lord guards
the city. And the city, again, just referring
to a composite of families, God must guard your home. I want
to tell you again, everything that God builds, Satan is attacking. Let's not be naive. We're basically
all adults here today. God is the greatest home builder
there is. Satan is the greatest home destroyer. that there is. And unless God
is protecting your home, Satan will destroy what God is building
in your home. Now, I think this speaks of physical
attack in the days of Solomon, but I think that there is more
than just surrounding nations that would come against Jerusalem
during the reign of Solomon, but that there is also an ongoing
internal threat as well, a spiritual warfare, if you will. And I want
to say that every home faces three great enemies. Your home
faces three great enemies. There's the world, the flesh,
and the devil. There is the flesh within, there
is the world around, and there is Satan above, and we all raise
our children under attack. There is the attack of the devil,
certainly. We wrestle not with flesh and
blood, but against principalities and powers and spiritual wickedness
and the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Hey, I want you to know
something. I want you to know there are people on Madison Avenue
today who are avowed homosexuals who are advertising executives
who are after your boys. And the ads they put in the magazines
And what comes into your home through cable? There are militant
homosexuals who are after your kids and people you'll never
meet. How naive to think that you can just raise your kids
in isolation today. And it's all around us, the satanic
attack. And then there is the world system,
the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the boastful pride
of life. All that is in the world, it is constantly coming against
our children. And now with the proliferation
of the media and the computers and cable, etc., etc., it's impossible
to isolate yourself anymore like Little House on the Prairie. And then there's the flesh within. And so, unless God protect our
families and God protect our children. I mean, for us, we
live in L.A., lower Alabama. And, you know, for us to bring
our boys out here and just drop them in the other L.A. and then head back to Alabama. how we have prayed that God would
protect the purity and the devotion of our boys. But they can get
in trouble in Alabama just like they can get in trouble here.
There's trouble everywhere and everywhere your kids will go.
So there must be this protector who is ultimately the Lord. I would love to say more about
this at this point. Just a couple of verses, though,
to encourage your heart. 1 Samuel 17, verse 47, the battle
belongs to the Lord. 1 John 4, for greater is he who
is in you than he that is in the world. Ephesians 6, verse
11, put on the full armor of God so that you may be able to
stand firm against the schemes of the devil. Moms, dads, when
you put a lunchbox into the hands of your kids, you need to put
the full armor of God on them as well. And send them out clad
in the armor of God. My boys grew up in a Christian
high school. I've got kids back home in a
Christian high school. Even in a Christian school, there
is no safe protection. You've got to have your kids
dressed in the full armor of God. But I must hasten, not only
the builder of the home and the battle for the home, the psalm
unfolds. I want you to see the breadwinner
of the home, verse 2. It is vain, third time this word
vain is used in the first verse and a half. I get the emphasis
Solomon is making here. And the idea of vain is that
you expend yourself, you go through all the motions, you invest the
time, you invest the money, you jump through the hoops, you go
to all the activities, all the programs, your calendar is full,
your daytimer is full, you go through all the stuff, you go
to the seminars, you read the books, listen to the tapes, etc.,
etc. But it's vain. It's vain, he says, for you to
rise up early. to retire late, to eat the bread
of painful labors, for he gives to his beloved even in his sleep."
What is this saying? Let me tell you what it's not
saying. This is not demeaning hard work. Solomon had much more
to say about hard work in the book of Proverbs. Proverbs 6,
for example, he commends the ant who labors hard and works
hard and prepares for the winter and spends the summer gathering
food and planning for the future and laboring and perspiring and
hard. And part of being made in the
image of God is the capacity to work and a sense of pleasure
that we derive from doing our work well and heartily as unto
the Lord. Slothfulness is a sin. Laziness
is a sin. It is day, and we must do God's
work while it is day, for night is coming when no man can work. And even when we go to heaven,
we're going to work in heaven. We're going to labor in heaven.
I don't want to just sit in heaven and sit on a cloud and pluck
a harp and, you know, that has no appeal to me. I want to do
something for God and bring honor and glory to God, even through
the ages to come. to express my love and devotion
to the Lord. So let me just say on the front
end, this is not trying to put any of us on a guilt trip here
today, that you shouldn't be working hard at work. You ought
to be the most efficient person wherever it is that you work,
and you ought to be known as much for your perspiration as
anything else. But what this is saying is that
good things can become bad things. when priorities are out of whack.
And you can try to wake up earlier and earlier, even with the noble
desire to provide for your children, and the catch-22 is you're gone
more and more and more, and stay up later and later trying to
work and to provide for your children When in reality, sometimes
what they need more than the things that you can provide for
them is what money cannot buy and death cannot take away. They
need you. And it's not worth it to have
a nicer third car, it's not worth it to have a second home, it's
not worth it to have these things if there are misplaced priorities
in your home. That's what he is saying. It's
vain for you to do this. To jump through all these hoops
and you get to the end and your kids are like everybody else's
because you're not even there. It's vain for you to rise up
early and to retire. That's what the text says. And
to eat the bread of painful labors. And it's painful because it's
taking you away too much from the home. So there needs to be
balance and there needs to be A sense of priorities that are in place.
How sad. The more you do, the less you
accomplish. The harder you work, the more your family suffers.
The earlier you rise, the more behind you fall. The later you
retire, the emptier is your family. And he says, don't let that happen. to by saying, for he gives to
his beloved even in his sleep. Let me tell you what this does
not say. The New American Standard, which I use, that's what the
Apostle Paul used, you understand. I'm waiting for the MacArthur
Study Bible and New American Standard. In italics, you'll notice in
the text it says, even in his, meaning it's not in the original,
literally the verse reads, for he gives to his beloved sleep.
What this is not saying is just while you're asleep, your bank
account is getting better if you'll just go ahead and go to
sleep. And he gives to his beloved in their sleep. Sometimes God
does do something like that, but that's not what this is saying.
What this is saying is he gives to his beloved sleep. Meaning
if you are rising earlier and earlier and staying up later
and later and your priorities are out of whack. I know I'm
not immune from this. It's hard for me to go to sleep
at night. I'm so wound up. And I'm waking up all through
the night just knowing I've got to get up at 430 to hit it hard. I mean, it was this way this
morning for me just to review my notes here. What he is saying
is, is if you will put God first in your life and be willing to
make whatever sacrifices needed to keep your priorities in order,
you will live a life of peace and refreshment and God will
give to you sleep through the night. Because you're not trying
to burn the candle at both ends. There was a book I read a couple
of years ago, I think it's worth noting, by NAF Press, a book
called Margin. I would encourage especially
you men to get a copy of that book. I read it a couple of years
ago. I had a sabbatical. I came to the elders of our church.
I just said, I am beyond exhausted. I can't put my thoughts hardly
even together. I'm just drained. And they were
so gracious to give me some weeks off. Recharge my batteries and
I picked up a book called margin Dennis Swanson Swanson Swanson. I think is the author And what
he says that Swanson all of our all of our lives really need
to be like a page in a book where there's margin around the edge
and Most of us live our lives with the type all the way to
the edge Where there's no? excess time." And he says, we
do it with our time, we do it with our money. He said, in fact,
most people live beyond their means rather than within their
means. And he was arguing that we need
to have excess time, excess money, excess whatever, so that we're
not living full throttle 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We
can't function for God that way. Certainly not raise our kids
that way. And so we need excess time, a Sabbath principle just
to rest and for when crisis emerge. Maybe you need margin in your
life. I don't know. Maybe your wife
is elbowing you right now and wanting you to slow down and
to throttle back just a little bit, to smell some of the roses
as you are shifting into fifth gear to go full throttle. The Lord gives to his beloved
sleep when the priorities are right. Well, let me conclude
with the blessings of the home, verses 3 through 5. And I'll
have to tell you, I love these verses. Verses 3 through 5, Solomon
paints the pictures, three pictures of the blessing of the home,
and they deal with children. Children are such a blessing
that the Lord gives to us. He uses three metaphors here.
that I think you see in verse 3a, they are a gift. In 3b, they
are the fruit. And 4, they are arrows. Those are the three pictures,
the blessings that the Lord gives to us. Verse 3 begins, Behold,
which means, hey, look at this. Don't miss this. While you're
busy frantically dashing around, have this eternal perspective.
Behold, children, are a gift of the Lord. They're on loan
to you. They are God's children who have
been given to you, his possession entrusted to you, and they really
are a gift. Notice it does not say some children
are a gift of the Lord, nor even most children. It just simply,
I heard the laughter on that one, four out of five is not
bad at being a gift from the Lord. But just simply children. The implication is clear. All
children are a gift from God. Only God can create life in the
womb. Your children are a gift from
the Lord. There are no accidental births.
There are no surprise pregnancies with God. They all come intentionally
from a sovereign God in heaven. And we receive them as gifts
from God. They are so precious. Because
of the giver of this gift, anything that God would bestow to us is
special because it comes from God. How much more are children? And then they are a reward. The fruit of the womb is a reward
and reward here is the idea of God's positive blessing upon
our lives, rewarding us God is a good God. He pours out His
favor and His grace and His mercy upon us. And in most situations,
He bestows children to be a reward. I remember when Andrew and James
were babies, and we used to go to the grocery store, which was
like a major event to get twins ready to go to the grocery store.
And inevitably, we'd be checking out, and there would always be
some well-intended woman behind the cash register and would always
say this, oh, double trouble for our twins. And I would love
to say, no, ma'am, double blessing, double favor, double mercy from
God. In fact, I was in there when
we went to the OBGYN. My wife had the x-ray, and I
remember the nurse all of a sudden, it was the first time I went
to, I want you to know that, and was there that time and I
remember the nurse just saying, oh my goodness. And I said, what? She said, there's two heartbeats
in there. And I said, well keep looking,
maybe there's three. What a gift, what a reward from
the Lord. And that's how we see our children. They will not make a rich man
poor. They'll make a poor man rich to have children. And then this third image, the
arrow. I love this. Like arrows in the
hand of a warrior, so are the children of one's youth. And
the imagery here really goes back to the end of verse 1, this
warfare image that we've got watchmen on the towers and on
the walls. and the enemies surrounding us
and there's warfare in the air and it's in this atmosphere that
we raise our children. In verse 4 he comes back to this
warfare image and he says parents are like warriors and their children
are like arrows and arrows are absolutely indispensable for
victory. And our children are absolutely
indispensable for victory. I want to tell you three things
why children are like arrows, and then I'm finished. I know
I need to wrap this up quickly, but first, arrows must be carefully
shaped. You know, arrows come from wood,
the wood of a tree, limb, or a branch, and they're crooked. You have to whittle them and
shape them in order for them to be propelled in a straight
direction. And I want you to know that all
of your children are handed to you crooked." I just want to encourage you here
today. They are. At the moment of conception,
Dad, they've got your sin nature. That's their problem. Psalm 51, verse 5, Behold, I
was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived
me. Psalm 58, 3, The wicked are estranged from the womb. They
who speak lies go astray from birth. Listen, our kids lied
to us the first week they were born. They did. I mean, they would cry. They'd
just been fed. They just wanted to be held.
They were giving the impression to us they needed to be fed.
I mean, they came by this very naturally. Proverbs 22 says, Train up a
child in the way he should go. Even when he is old, he will
not depart from it. I want to tell you, if your children
are not shaped in your home, they probably are not going to
be shaped at all. And it's a hands-on job. And
it requires time, and it requires persistence. You're going to
have to shape Christian values and virtue into the lives of
your children, or when you send them out from your home, they're
going to go in the wrong direction. They may even boomerang and come
back and nail you. So your arrows must be carefully
shaped. Second, arrows must be correctly
aimed. After a warrior would shape his
arrows, he must aim them in the right direction and he would
place them in his bow and rightly point them at the enemy if they
are to be used effectively. And you know what? You don't
have enough kids to fire one up in the air and not aim at
anything. Do you know that? You don't have
enough of them to fire some blanks. You need to know where the enemy
is. And you need to take dead aim
on the enemies in the world and send your children out at the
enemy. The arrow can go where the warrior
cannot go. And part of the legacy of your
life long after you're gone is your kids will be fighting your
battles for you and being a force for God on this world. And so
you've got to aim them in the right direction. I'm going to
Russia next week. I'm taking my son James, and
that's a part of just helping aim him at a nation that is without
expositors and without the truth flourishing. Perhaps God would
put upon his heart to spend his life passing on the Word of God. My other son is going to be going
to South America someplace this summer, and just trying to take
the gospel someplace, and that's a part of our aiming these arrows
at the enemy. And so arrows must be aimed correctly. Henry Smith said, if children
be well-bred, they shoot at their parents' enemies. If they are
ill-bred, they shoot at their own parents. They'll either up
either attacking you, are attacking your enemies, one of the two. The last thing to tell you about
this, not only must arrows be shaped and directed, they must
be duly released. At the right time, your kids
need to be released from your tight bow and fired at the enemy,
and you cannot hang on them forever. And when you let them go, they
need to be right on target and send them out with spiritual
direction and eternal purpose and a divine mission that will
bring a direct hit for the kingdom of God against the kingdom of
darkness. That needs to be number one on
the agenda for what you want your child to grow up and do.
There's something more important than for your child to be a banker,
a lawyer, a doctor, a housewife, whatever. As great as that is,
number one on the list is for your child to be an arrow that
will attack the kingdom of darkness. And so he concludes in verse
5. Thank you for just these extra
minutes. Verse 5, how blessed is the man. And we can say how blessed is
the woman today as a favor of God, the happiness of God upon
the man, upon the woman whose quiver is full of them. That's because you've got a lot
of arrows to fire and to leave your mark in this world for the
kingdom of God. They, referring to these fathers,
shall not be ashamed when they speak with their enemies in the
gate." The gate was the place where the business transactions
of that city occurred. As the watchmen were up on the
wall, the front gate was where the men gathered, the elders
gathered, and where the business of the city was conducted. And
for these men who were openly committed to God and who lived
with spiritual priority, they made enemies. They rubbed people
In the wrong way, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus
shall suffer persecution. What he is saying in verse 5
is, is your children, if they are raised in such a way that
they embrace your Christian values and they live in a way that honors
the Lord, they will silence your enemies. Because the proof is
in the pudding and the way your children have have been raised
and the way they exemplify the Christian faith, your enemies
will be silenced as they look at your home and they see the
virtue of your own children. You know what's exciting? I'm
old enough now and my children are old enough now. It's exciting
to see my children silence my enemies. I've been preaching
the gospel Long enough, I've made a lot of enemies. And the way my children followed
the Lord and embraced the cross and stand for what is right and
for God, it is a joy for me to even have these enemies, to see
my children silence my enemies when they would bring accusation
against me. because my children are my first
ministry. And the fruit of my ministry
has had the blessing of God upon it because of my children's walk
with the Lord. On the other hand, you can be
greatly discredited if your children are not embracing what you believe. Invest the time now. There'll
be a great return to come. I know I need to conclude by
just having a short word of prayer and then I suppose we're dismissed. Let's pray. Father, I thank you
for these men, these women who are so committed and devoted
to you and to their children and to raising their kids. And I pray that from this class
there would be many arrows that would be propelled as missiles
from this class that would score a direct hit for the kingdom
of God. I pray you would raise up children
out of this class who are Daniels and who are Esthers, who will
rock this planet for the gospel of Jesus Christ. I pray you'll
strengthen the arms of these men as they pull the bow and
put their children into that into that arrow. And I pray for
the moms here that you will use them in the shaping through the
influence of their lives and being with their children so
much during the day that you will bless their efforts. And
the result will be that there will be an assault on the gates
of hell from the arrows that will be sent out from this class. And may you raise up godly men
and women under the ministry of these parents here that will
leave its impact upon eternity. God, we do bless you, and we
know that it's vain for us to do any of this and all of this
in our own strength, in our own wisdom, in our own ingenuity. We humbly bow and acknowledge
that apart from you, we can do nothing, but I can do all things
through Christ who strengthens me. Father, I pray this in the
name that is above every name, the name of Jesus Christ, our
Lord and Savior. Amen.