Now in the previous hour, I attempted
to set before you what I called a condensed biblical theology
of fatherhood. In that message, I asserted that
in order to fulfill your role as a Christian father, there
are three things that you must understand, internalize, and
by the enabling power of the Holy Spirit, make them regulative
of your role as a father, your identity as a Christian father,
that is, who you are by divine designation, your task as a Christian
father, what is your job by divine description, and your resources
as a Christian father, what are your enablements by divine donation. Now in this hour, assuming the
validity of the foundational issues of the previous hour,
I want to set before you some miscellaneous pastoral exhortations
to Christian fathers. These are vital issues, some
of them matters that have caused me deep and increasing concern
in my own pastoral observations and interactions here in this
assembly and in my contact with brethren from other assemblies. And the things that I set before
you are not just my burden. I went over these headings, all
but one of them, with my fellow elders in our regular weekly
elders' meeting on Thursday. And both Pastor Smith, who is
now on his way to Pakistan And Pastor Carlson said, you speak
for us in unburdening yourself on these matters. And so, as
time permits, I want to set before you eight pastoral exhortations
regarding your function as a Christian father. Number one, all of them
begin with the words, determine by the grace of God. Determine,
that's what you're to do. But by the grace of God, that's
what we trust God will do. Determine by the grace of God
to earn and maintain the respect of your children by a commitment
to live by the principles of Acts 24 and verse 16. Determine by the grace of God
to earn and maintain the respect of your children by a commitment
to live by the principles of Acts 24 and verse 16. Turn to that passage with me,
if you will. The Apostle Paul, standing before
the secular potentate, giving a defense, writes, or speaks,
and Luke writes, Herein I also exercise myself to have a conscience
void of offense toward God and men always. Now let me briefly
expound the text under three heads. First of all, Paul speaks
of a conscious and continuous spiritual discipline. Herein
do I exercise myself He uses a form of the verb that we call
a present indicative. It speaks of continuous activity,
and the sense of the verb is that of a strict discipline. It's a word that was used in
some settings to speak of the discipline of an athlete or someone
in a military setting. And the Apostle concludes the
statement with the words, Deopontos, which means at all times or continually. So here Paul is speaking of a
conscious and continuous spiritual discipline. Secondly, he speaks
of a discipline that had two distinct directions. It had a
direction Godward and manward. Herein I exercise myself to have
a conscience void of offense toward God and man always. So it was a conscious and continuous
spiritual discipline. Secondly, a discipline that had
two distinct directions, Godward and manward. Thirdly, it was
a discipline focused on maintaining moral equity with God and with
man. Conscience is that divinely implanted
moral monitor who only has two words in his vocabulary, right
and wrong. And standing before God as conscience
is enlightened by the law of God, when we do wrong, conscience
says wrong. When we do right, conscience
says right. And though the voice of conscience
in our fallen humanity is not perfect. Conscience is cleansed. Conscience is quickened in God's
regenerating work and by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
As conscience is more and more informed by the truth of God,
conscience becomes a great ally in our walk before God. And what
I'm asserting, building upon the foundation of a biblical
theology of fatherhood, that you and I will not be able to
execute our task as governors under God in our families, and
particularly with our children, unless we are determined that
by the grace of God we earn and maintain the respect of our children
by a commitment to live by the principles of this text, committed
by strict spiritual discipline at all times to have a conscience
void of offense Godward and manward. that when we are conscious we
have sinned, that we go immediately to the fountain open for sin
and uncleanness, asking God to fulfill His promise of 1 John
1, 9, that if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just
to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. However, Paul said, I also was
passionate to keep a conscience void of offense to my fellow
man, not only at any time to look up into the face of God
unblushingly, because I had no conscious controversy with God,
but to look out in the faces of my fellow men, unblushingly,
that there was no reason for them to think he's not the real
deal. He did this, but he's not owned
it. He said this that was obviously
sinful, but he's not been willing to own his sin. I am asserting
that foundational to respect of your children is living by
the principles of this text. Let me focus in on three specific
areas in the domestic realm. Number one, the way you deal
with your domestic sins. By your domestic sins, I mean
your sins that are evident to your wife and to your children.
Whether it was the impatience when something frustrated you
from accomplishing a given task in a certain frame of time, you're
getting ready to go out to church and your shoelace breaks and
you... and you manifest a spirit that is unchristlike and ungracious,
whether you've spoken sharply to your wife in the presence
of your children, whether in the discipline of your child
your own spirit condemns you that you stepped over the line
and your discipline was mingled with sinful anger, how do you
deal with your domestic sins? If you do not deal with them
quickly, seeking the forgiveness of God, and transparently openly
asking the forgiveness of your children when you've sinned against
them, or when you've sinned against your wife in their hearing, forget
having any moral clout in the government of your children.
Forget it. Your kids have a deep-seated
sense of what Papa ought to do when he's blown his cork. when
he's been irritable, when he's been unchristlike in his response
to this, that, or the other. And frankly, I am both appalled
and amazed how few men are willing to say, look kids, I sinned,
period. Will you forgive me? Daddy's
response to that situation was ungodly and inexcusable. Not, well, kids, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. What's that tell me?
That just tells me how you feel. That's all it's telling me. No,
you don't say, I'm sorry. You say, I sinned. Will you forgive
me? I did not set the example of
a Spirit-filled Father, a Spirit-filled man, the fruit of whose life
is patience, long-suffering, self-control. I did not manifest
self-control in the way I responded to that frustration, that irritation,
that disappointment. I sinned it. Will you forgive
me? My children have reminded me
of the many times when I woke them up. They had gone to bed,
and when I went to bed and reviewed the day and thought, oh my, that
situation, I blew it. And for some reason, My conscience
was not awake enough and alive enough to reprove me, and there
lying upon my bed it did. Go in and wake up that child.
I don't know that I'll sleep till the morning. I may be taken
home. Do I want the last memory of my child that Dad clearly
sinned and didn't own it? Wake up the child and say, Dear
Daddy, sorry to wake you up, but you remember in that situation
this evening after supper, the way Daddy responded was sinful. Will you forgive him? and then
to go to bed with a conscience void of offense toward that child. Brethren, if you want the high
ground of moral influence upon your kids, you'll only get it
in dealing with your sin by the principles of Acts 24 and verse
16. Your domestic sins must be dealt
with quickly, honestly, thoroughly before God and before your children. Second area, is the way you relate
to your wife. If you are to administer Christ's
rule as a father, you must back up a few verses into Ephesians
chapter 5 and make it evident to your children that you are
taking seriously God's government over you as a husband. And your children must see that
you honor your wife that you are seeking to love her with
the sacrificial, sensitive, caring, purposeful love wherewith Christ
loves His church. And when your actions belie that,
that you openly acknowledge it before your children so that
they are learning two things. They are learning Daddy's not
a perfect husband, but he wants to be, and Daddy's honest in
dealing with his own sins. And then a third area that you
must live by the principles of Acts 24-16 is in the way you
discipline yourself with respect to food and the use of discretionary
time. In my observation, pastorally,
these are two areas of chronic failure with a lot of men. How
can you call your child to a life of self-control and self-denial
when your physical appearance says, I have no self-control
over what I put in my mouth? I have no pattern of self-denial
when it comes to what I reach out for and stick in my mouth.
Brethren, this is not a hobby horse with me. It's an issue
that I fear too many men push under the rug, refuse to face
it. But your kids don't buy your
rationalization. They know you're like this because
you're not self-controlled with what goes into your mouth. Face
it, men. Stop conning your own conscience. Look it straight in the eye.
Go home today and say, the man in the mirror lacks self-control,
which is the fruit of the Spirit. He lacks self-denial, which is
an essential element of true discipleship. And by the grace
of God, that man is going to change. And then tell your kids
that. Say, here I've spanked you. for
lack of self-control in the way you responded to this or to that. And all the while, I did it with
this hanging under your nose, and I want you to know I'm ashamed
of it, I'm repenting of it, and by the grace of God, I'm going
to change. I'm not driven out of this pulpit
with a bunch of amens, but frankly, I'm not preaching to the gallery,
folks. I'm trying to be faithful to
your souls. Determined by the grace of God
to earn and maintain the respect of your children by a commitment
to live by the principles of Acts 24-16, exercise yourself
at all times to have a conscience void of offense towards God and
towards man. Number two, determined by the
grace of God to cultivate a pattern of appropriate verbal and physical
expressions of affection between yourself, your wife, and your
sons and your daughters, determined by the grace of God to cultivate
a pattern of appropriate verbal and physical expressions of affection
between yourself, your wife, your sons, and your daughters.
According to 1 John 3 verse 18, there are two ways to show our
love. John says, let us not love in
word, but indeed and in truth. That's an absolute for the relative
because in that very epistle, John speaks of his love for his
spiritual children. So what he is saying is let us
not love in word only or in word primarily, assuming that's the
easy thing to do, but let us love indeed and in truth. If we love in words and not in
deeds, our words become meaningless. If we love only in deeds, our
deeds often then are uninterpreted. God loves in word and in deed. He tells us of His love, and
then He manifests His love by His deeds calculated for our
well-being. And God calls upon us to mirror
Him in our love. Ephesians chapter 5 and verse
1. Here's the standard. Be therefore
imitators of God as beloved children and walk in love. And God's love
is manifested in word and in deed. You remember Jesus wanted
both from Peter there by the lake shore after his resurrection. He's restoring Peter to a place
of usefulness after his denial. And he says, Peter, do you love
me? He wanted from Peter's lips the
expressions of his love. And three times he draws it out
of him. But he wants love not only in
word, but in deed. Because after he secures Peter's
love in word, he then tells him what his will for him is going
to be. When you were a kid, you ran
where you would. You had nobody to restrain you.
When you're old, people will take you against your will. This
he spoke signifying by what death he should die. Then he said to
Peter, follow me. Prove your love by deed. Peter
turns around and says, yeah, Lord, and what shall this man
do? What about John? The Lord says, none of your business.
What is that to you? Follow me. Peter, I want your
love in word. I want your love in deed. And as image bearers of God,
the God who expresses his love in word and deed, who elicits
from his disciples expressions of love in word and deed, we
as fathers, ought to cultivate a pattern of expressing our love
in appropriate ways. And there we need God's wisdom.
What is appropriate for one child is not for another. What is appropriate
for a prepubescent daughter is not appropriate when she's a
fully developed young woman. And we need the wisdom of God
to express our love in both word and deed. Now some of us grew
up in a home where our fathers never used the words, I love
you. Our fathers never hugged us,
never hugged us. And we determined that that pattern
would stop with this generation. My father's father died when
he was 13. He was reared by his mother and
an aunt up in cold, reserved New England. with a Scottish
background, and so there was nothing to flow into him that
would make it easy for him to love in word, and he loved much
in his deeds, so I never doubted I was loved. But to the day my
father died, I cannot ever remember him ever saying the words to
me, Son, I love you. And even some of you who know
the spiritual history of my son, he would not think of calling
me and hanging up the phone to this day, a man in his forties,
unconverted, away from God, without saying, Dad, I love you. I'm urging you men to follow
the pattern of God. Yes, love by your selfless, sacrificial
deeds in seeking to give responsible provision and guidance to your
children, but love them in word as well. You say, well, I feel
uncomfortable. Well, try it. You'll grow to
like it. Most of us feel uncomfortable
doing something we've never done before, but after a while we
can do it just very naturally. Then ask your son, ask your daughter,
say, does it seem strange, dear, for Daddy to say before he sent
you off for your bed at night, to put a kiss on your cheek and
to tell you he loves you, yeah, it seems a little strange, Dad,
but you know what? If you've not been doing it,
may I urge you, you're helping to create a climate in which
there never need be any serious question about your love. Thirdly, determined by the grace
of God, carefully to monitor the conduits of worldly influence
that you allow into your children's lives. And here I labored long
with the wording of this exhortation number three. I struck out words,
I started all over again, and this is the best I've come up
with when the time came that I had to finish the notes and
make my way here earlier this morning. Determined by the grace
of God, carefully to monitor the conduits of worldly influence
that you allow into your children's lives. Let me pause and give
several scriptures that I think many Christian men refuse to
look at and take at face value. They pertain to the matter of
the world. This world system, this system
of things with its values, its standards, its goals, its perspective,
its influence, it is not morally neutral. 1 John 5, 19 says, the
whole world literally lies in the lap of the evil one. This world system, by the permission
of God, is under the control of a malevolent, evil, anti-God
spirit. It is not morally neutral. Paul could say in Ephesians 2
and verse 2 that all of us by nature framed our lives by the
course of this world, a world system, Paul says, that is under
the control of the evil one. Listen to his language. According
to the course of this world, according to the prince of the
powers of the air, of the spirit that now energetically is at
work in the sons of disobedience. the sons of disobedience who
are the pacesetters of our economic perspectives, the pacesetters
of our styles, of our entertainment, of our sports enterprises. Behind that there is an evil
spirit called the Prince of the Powers of the Air. And the whole
world lies in his lap. And this system is not neutral
toward you as a believer, nor toward your children as those
whom you are seeking to influence in the direction of truth and
of God's way and of righteousness. Romans 12 says, Be not conformed
to this world. Philip's translation or paraphrase
is quite well known. Don't let the world squeeze you
into its mold, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Add to this Psalm 1. What is
the way of blessedness? Blessed is the man that, and
you have three negatives. We have people who say, well,
I don't want a negative Christianity. I want a purely positive Christianity. I don't mean to be cheeky. Then
go up to the throne of God and tell him to rewrite the Bible.
Without the negatives, we have a very fragmented perspective
of what is pleasing to God. Blessed is the man that does
not walk in the counsel of the wicked. nor stand in the way
of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers. In other words,
he doesn't plunk himself down amidst the godless mindset and
all that it produces to be influenced by it. As we heard some allusion
early today, there in the book of Revelation you have the picture
of the great whore of worldly seduction That's Babylon, the
whore that wants to seduce and ruin all that fall into the lap
of her seduction. And that system uses as conduits
to feed its influence into your home so many matters, so many
things neutral in themselves, but out there for the prince
of darkness to seize upon and make them conduits of worldly
influence in the lives of your children. Therefore, determined
by the grace of God, carefully to monitor the conduits of worldly
influence that you allow into your children's lives. And specifically,
what are those conduits? All the electronic gadgets. Their
Walkman with their earbuds and their CD. their MP3 players,
their iPods, their cell phones that are not just phones. They
can bring up all kinds of images. They can access all other forms
of media, including pornography. Computers with their chat rooms
and MySpace and YouTube. computers that are the devil's
instruments in many cases to sell people and to hook people,
not only upon the pornographic and the unclean, but the materialistic
and the grasping after stuff and things, aggressively coming
after any who sit before the screen. And when you've had to
sit, as I have as a pastor, and deal with young men of godly
men in this church addicted to pornography? You say, how can
it be? Where were the fathers that allowed
their sons that kind of access? Well, they were off to college.
Do you relinquish your paternal responsibilities because they're
off to college? Or do you, determined by the
grace of God, to continue to monitor as much as you have the
power under God to do so? The TV? Once in a while I force
myself. I can't hear usually, so I have
to put it on mute and get the closed caption. I just get little
snippets of primetime TV. the glut of sheer smut and coarse
ungodliness in half-naked women, and the ease with which sacred
and noble and lofty matters are discussed in such a coarse and
ungodly manner. The videos, the TV games, and
the addiction that they produce, and the DVDs that brings Hollywood
smack into the house, And then the magazines that can come to
the homes that may not have salacious stories in them, but the images. When you've dealt, as I have
as a pastor with a young woman who's become anorexic, and as
I was probing as to where did she get the notion that skinniness
was something noble. I began to probe around. I know
the family well enough to know they didn't have Cosmopolitan
and Ms. and some of these other women
magazines coming in. I said, was it the pictures of
the housewives in Good Housekeeping and in Family Circle that are
always skinny, skinny? She said, yes. Folks, I'm not some kind of an
alarmist living out on Mars. I'm a working pastor. seeking
to help people. And I wonder where were the dads
who weren't looking through the magazines and saying, that doesn't
come into this house while I have young women in this house. Advertising
flyers, the stuff that comes in a Kohl's or a JCPenney's full-color
advertising flyer when you get to the panty and bra ads 25 years
ago, that was considered pornography. and you let it come in unfiltered. God help you, man! God help you! No wonder the preaching that
some of us do is neutralized. In the ears of the people we
pour out our hearts to, Sunday by Sunday, it is all being neutralized
by the clot of these worldly influences coming in upon your
children. That's why Peter says, be awake,
be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, as
a roaring lion walks about, seeking whom he may literally swallow
down. Your kids are swallowed down
material for the devil. Wake up, man! Be watchful, Dad! There's a devil out to swallow
them. Fathers, don't passively and
carelessly allow these influences into your home. But don't arbitrarily
and crudely keep them out. Sit down with your kids. Tell
them who you are. what God expects of you and why
you are determined that this influence will not impinge upon
them, why that influence will not impinge upon them, why you
are not entrusting them with this particular electronic gadget
or that gadget that you do not believe they are mature enough
to handle it, that as a mature man you struggle to keep it in
its place. As a mature man, a married man
with normal sexual fulfillment, you're tempted to follow that
icon that popped up inadvertently on your screen. What about that
single son of yours with all his hormones raging, and yet
you trust him to unfiltered online access? Shame on you. Shame, shame upon you. I don't mean to demean you, but
I do want to shame you, for there is a biblical doctrine of shame
that can awaken us and arrest us and cause us to say, God have
mercy upon us and help me by your grace. I've asked Pastor Carlson. He's the man that's most computer
savvy on our eldership. to access some of the materials
that tell you what's available in the way of all of the filters
that will help you to be a good monitor if indeed you believe
it's a duty. And here's the challenge I want
to lay out. If it is not your duty to have online access in
your home, follow me closely now, if it's not your duty, it's
just a matter of convenience, not your duty, I believe you
are tempting God because God's promised grace for temptations
we face in the way of duty, but he's not promised grace for temptations
we face in the way of presumption. You got me? Dr. Martin said, if you've got online
access in the home, you're sinning. No, he didn't. No, he didn't.
He didn't say that. What I said is, If it's your
duty, and that could be determined by a number of factors, to have
online access in your home, you can trust God for the grace that
it will not become a snare. And that grace will be found,
for most of you, in the judicious application of the available
filters, of setting up what Pastor Carlson told me to me is one
of the best things where you can have an arrangement where
you designate someone at any time can find out every single
site you have accessed and you have no choice as to whether
or not they can do so once you've made the commitment. If I felt
it was my duty to be online, one of my fellow elders would
have that arrangement with me. I've come too far. to go down
the tubes and out the way many men have gone out. And I know
what's in me, and I don't trust it for a minute. Yes, I may go
to heaven ignorant of a lot of things because I've refused to
cave in, but I don't think the Lord will whack me around for
being ignorant of a lot of things if I get to heaven safely in
the way of purity. So, fathers, if you judge you
should allow these devices, then be awake, be watchful, monitor
them, not just the grosser ones. Imagine how I felt one day some
months ago when between Sunday school and church I'm in the
social room where we can mingle for 20 minutes before the morning
service. And there's a young lady and
I'm just talking to her, how are you doing, all the rest of
it, and I'm tired, Pastor Martin. I said, why are you tired? I
didn't get to bed until after 11 o'clock last night. I said,
why was that? She said, the family was up watching
the video. And I have to try to preach over
a tired child's mind because a church member in Trinity is
keeping up the family, watching a stinking video, a movie, until
11 o'clock Saturday night. Those are the times when you
feel like saying, what's the use? Let me go do something that
has more fruit to it. Men, the circumstances of the
pressures upon us are such we cannot sit back. We've got to aggressively determine
to be awake and to be watchful as Peter commands us. Determine. by the grace of God carefully
to monitor the conduits of worldly influence that you allow into
your children's lives. Fourthly, determined by the grace
of God to establish and maintain a consistent pattern of family
worship. Determined by the grace of God
to establish and maintain a consistent pattern of family worship. Jeremiah has a statement that
to me is a horrible indictment with respect to those that carelessly
and wantonly neglect family worship. He says in Jeremiah 10.25, Pour
out your wrath upon the nations that know you not, and upon the
families that call not on your name." That's a mark of an ungodly
nation. The families that call not upon
your name. And you men know the directive
of the book of Deuteronomy. You know it as well as I, where
God, having given His law to the nation, then says to the
heads of households, and these words which I command you, Deuteronomy
6.6, shall be upon your heart. You shall teach them diligently
unto your children. Talk of them when you sit in
your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie
down, and when you rise up." Yes, the official teachers in
Israel are to teach them, but he says to the heads of households,
you are to teach them to your family. and you've got to rear
back on your hind legs and say little league baseball and whatever
else they call the soccer leagues and all the rest, they are not
going to determine the rhythms of my family life. I, under God,
will determine the rhythms of our family life and family worship
as a consistent daily practice is non-negotiable under this
roof. I don't care. You can cry until
you float us all out the front door with your tears. As for
me and this house, we're going to serve God. Non-negotiable. And so you determine, here's
the time. The family gathers. I don't care
if you've got a test tomorrow, and if you flunk it, you don't
pass this or that, and you miss. That's all right. In this house,
this family gathers at this time around the table in the living
room for the reading of God's Word or books that are rooted
in the Scriptures to sing the praises of God and to seek the
face of God non-negotiable. Telephone gets turned off, answering
machine gets turned on, and the volume turned down. It was a
standing practice in our house for years. We had a wall phone. A towel went over the phone,
the right-hand button had turned down, the bell went down, and
family worship was conducted immediately after supper. No
counseling sessions immediately after supper. None of these other
things. You have to say with a rock-like
determination, this house will gather for family worship. You need to cancel some activities,
do it. If you need to readjust people's
schedules, you do it. Men, it isn't just going to happen. And then as you establish that
time, seek to be flexible regarding the age and stage of your children. Seek to be varied. Seek to be
reasonable in the content and in the time of your family worship. I have been in some homes where
I had to say if I was one of the kids, I would need to not
only be saved full of the Spirit, but doubly full, to endure the
family worship that was conducted. A well-meaning father, he was
going to catechize, and he was going to read the scriptures,
and he was going to do... He tried to squeeze so much in,
I really felt for the kids. Now, I never told the kids, of
course, And I didn't have a heart to tell the dad. I figured maybe
the next time I go in the home he will have learned the hard
way and a little more reasonable in terms of what was packed in
and how long. Be sensitive to these things
so that your children look back upon family worship as God is
pleased to work in them with a measure of delight and with
gratitude. Exhortation number five. Determined
by the grace of God to demand to demand that your children
be outwardly engaged in public worship, determined by the grace
of God to demand that your children be outwardly engaged in the public
worship of God. Once they are out of the nursery
and sitting with you in what we commonly call the sanctuary,
the meeting place, the worship hall, whatever term you want,
you must train them by the rod and by admonition, by the use
of the rod and the use of instruction for appropriate engagement in
worship. And what do I mean by that? Just
this, that they must learn to give attention to the one who
is leading the worship. They must not be allowed to look
around, look at people behind them, make faces, grin, stick
their tongue out. No. You can very gently reach
over, turn their faces upward, train them. Oh, that's oppressive. No, it isn't. It's training.
You are teaching them that the worship of God is something special. And long before they are absorbing
much of the content of the worship, they're absorbing a climate of
worship. that to worship God is a serious
thing. To worship God demands their
attention. Don't allow them to take a nap
on mommy's lap. Demand that once they begin to
read, that they sing, that they not sit there or stand there
mute when Almighty God commands them to praise Him. And though
you cannot put praise or prayer in their hearts, you can insist
upon engagement with their mouth, with their eyes, with their ears. You can demand that when prayer
is offered, they bow their heads and close their eyes. Remember
what was said of Abraham, I have known him to the end that he
will command his children after him. Don't buy into this nonsense. You're going to warp your kids.
You're going to make them resent worship if you instruct them
and demand that they be outwardly engaged in the public worship. Some years ago, an internationally
known Christian leader showed up here one Sunday morning. in
this building. And apparently they were very
impressed with the way the children paid attention, entered into
the worship, that they were not off in children's church somewhere.
And word got back to me that the next day at a conference
where this leader was speaking, This was mentioned publicly that
this leader went down into the foyer and was speaking to one
of our people and commented on this, said, this is unusual.
I don't think I've ever seen this in another evangelical church.
Can you explain to me why this is so? And this person, she asked
the right person. I was trying to keep it gender
neutral. She asked the right person because
she then publicly, before 800 women the next day at a conference
south of here, She said that this person said, well, Ms. So-and-so,
the answer to your question, how is it so, we believe it can
be done. We start early and we stick with
it. Very simple. We believe it can
be done. They should have said, and must
be done. We start early and we stick with it. Fathers, it's
your responsibility. When you sit there with one of
your kids looking around and just occasionally tap him or
her on the shoulder, you're not doing your job. You serve them
notice before you come in. Now son, now daughter, When it's
time to worship, this is what you do, this is what you don't
do. If you don't obey, after one reminder from Daddy, we're
going out, we're going downstairs, and you're getting your backside
really warmed, not a little wrist flick. You're going to make it
worth your while to be engaged in the worship of God. And you
do it, and you stick with it. Men, I exhort you, this is part
of the nurture of your children. Now, 5, 7, I'm sorry, 6, 7, and
8. These bring us into some of the
most sensitive areas, and I urge you to gird up the loins of your
mind and seek to listen carefully. Determined by the grace of God
to instruct your sons concerning their emerging sexual drives,
and matters related to the nitty-gritty of becoming and living as a man
in a fallen world. Fathers, determine by the grace
of God to instruct your sons concerning their emerging sexual
drives and matters related to the nitty-gritty of becoming
and living as a man in a fallen world. Fathers nurture them. Who are they? They are little
boys. They are prepubescent boys. They
then become young men, and they begin to experience the emerging
of the hormones that make them conscious of sexual drives and
sexual urges. And I remind you that in the
book of Proverbs, it's the father who's giving sex education to
his son in chapter 5 and chapter 7 and other portions of the first
nine chapters of the book of Proverbs. As I said, I don't often give
testimony in preaching, but in a men's setting, I feel the liberty
to do more of it. I recently took Dorothy with
me up to Stamford, Connecticut, where I was reared. I hadn't
been there in years. And when I finally found the
street that would lead up to the street we lived on, I came
to a corner. And when I did, it's like I was
shot back in 73, 60 years ago. It was on that corner that one
of my buddies told me what my dad had to do to my mom to get
me started in her tummy. Because a baby came along every
two years and I was the second oldest of ten, I had some good
basic understanding that babies didn't get dropped down from
the stork. I saw my mother and she nursed them in front of the
children so that I had wonderful, lovely connotations of a baby
developing. She'd let us feel the baby kicking
in her tummy and the rest But neither my dad nor my mom ever
told me how to baby get started. And on that spot, when we drove
by that a few weeks ago, and that came back to me, I remember
all the emotions. I wanted to go home and punch
my father in the nose for doing that to my mother. I remember
that. I felt the emotions just raw. They've been lying dormant for
decades and decades. And I determined when God saved
me, I said, my kids are not going to get a knowledge of these things
that way. And by the grace of God, they
didn't. Now, what they've done with that is between them and
God. But I can remember when upstairs in my special time with
my son, in addition to family worship, when he began to come
into puberty and going through the Proverbs together with him,
that when it was evident that no longer was it enough to speak
in general terms, but it was time to let him know the anatomy
and physiology of the male and female body and how it is that
God plants the seed of a daddy in a mommy's tummy. And that
morning, when I took out an anatomy chart, and we had Susie's Babies,
that lovely little book by Margaret Clarkson, and had read some sections,
we got on our knees, and I can still remember our mass son saying,
Dad, isn't it great the way God has made us? And when he saw
in the anatomy chart the difference between what happens down in
his gonads and what happens in his bladder and realized he had
that all mixed up, he was amazed at the way God made us. And we
praised God on our knees for the wonderful way that God has
made us. Dads, it's your privilege as
well as your responsibility to impart sex education to your
son, create a climate in which it should be easy to speak of
these things. I can also remember the tremendous
struggle. I wish there was someone I could
have talked to about the problem of masturbation as a young man.
But who should I talk to? My dad and I didn't talk about
those things, and I wasn't about to talk to someone else's dad. Fathers, talk to your sons. Ask them. what they're experiencing
of the emergence of their sexual urges. It may be they've already
begun to have wet dreams, already begun to struggle with masturbation,
and yet the climate is not such they feel free to come to you
as their dad. I beg you, leave this place today
and find some time to sit down with your son and speak to him. And then when I say the nitty-gritty
of becoming a man and living in a sinful world, warn them
about what they look at. Take them to Job's words, I've
made a covenant with my eyes. Tell them how God has put them
together as men, that just one look can trigger things in them
that causes their sexual urges to rage. and leave them vulnerable
to masturbation or to begin to lust after a woman. Be honest
with them. Tell them the struggles that
they will face. Hold out the beauty of virginity. What it will be like to present
themselves to a wife on the wedding night and say to her, whatever
her name is, my beloved bride, all of the struggles, all of
the battering from the world, God help me to maintain my purity
for you. Tell them, tell them what a privilege,
what a reward to give their bride on their wedding night. And as
they prepare for marriage, you should be the one to take them
aside and talk to them about what it is that they should be
and how it is that they should lovingly and tenderly woo and
enter into sexual intimacy with their bride. Why should they
get it out of a sterile book? And why should I as a pastor
have to take people aside when there are Christian dads who
could have that privilege with their sons? Determine, men, by
the grace of God, to instruct your sons concerning their emerging
sexual drives and matters related to the nitty-gritty of becoming
a man in a fallen world. Then, number seven, determined
by the grace of God to instruct your blossoming daughters. How
I struggled with how to word this, and this is what I came
up with. determined by the grace of God
to instruct your blossoming daughters concerning how men view women,
now hear me men, and here I pray God will restrain my spirit,
and carefully and authoritatively monitor what they wear as long
as they are under your roof. Now what do I mean by blossoming? Well, you read Ezekiel 16 in
the Song of Solomon, chapter 8, in verse 8. And there you
have the picture in Ezekiel 16 of this baby that God finds in
its birthblood and washes it, and it's beginning to come to
maturity, and God speaks of her breasts developing. And in Song
of Solomon 8.8, these brothers have a little sister who hasn't
blossomed. Her breasts have not yet developed. So I'm saying, by the grace of
God, instruct your blossoming daughters. They have begun to
be no longer your little girl, but young women. And they are
blossoming with their hips and with their breasts. And it is
evident that they are no longer your little girl who curled up
on your knee when she was prepubescent. And I'm saying, Dad, she doesn't
have a clue. of how men are put together.
And it is your responsibility to train her and to teach her. For example, sit down with her
with Luke 17 and read the words of Jesus to her where He said,
It is necessary that offenses come. This is a sinful world. Men are going to sin with lust
and with impurity. It is necessary that offenses
come. Woe to him through whom they
come. My dear daughter, God is developing
you into a woman, and with that comes tremendous responsibility. Your body can be the occasion
of men thinking lustful thoughts and having lustful desires. And therefore, the way you clothe
and drape your body, you have a great responsibility before
God. Yes? When men lust, they'll be
held accountable. It's necessary that offenses
come. The offender will be held accountable. But Jesus said,
Woe be to him through whom it comes. You can't adopt the attitude,
I can dress any way I want to. If men have a problem, that's
their problem, not mine. Yes, it is yours, dear. And I
want you to have a conscience sensitive to the responsibility
and tell her that how her body is draped, how much of it and
where it is exposed can be an occasion of stumbling to men
And then you say, and because, dear, you would never fully understand
this because you're not a man, you may understand more after
you're married and you have a husband who further instructs you, but
until such time you are under my roof. I know how men think
I'm a man. I know how men react, and you
will not go out that front door into any circumstance outside
of this house without my approval of your dress. Period. End of discussion. Non-negotiable. Now, I fear that some of you
men have either willfully forgotten what it's like to be a man, you
refuse to look at your daughter as one who has indeed blossomed,
or you lack the moral courage to get in her face and in her
mother's face and say, I am the governor of this home and I will
demand modesty in the dress of the women of this Period. End of discussion. I have a dear
pastor friend who, when his daughters became legally of age, he would
have kept them in his home until such time as they married or
moved to another state. But they would not conform to
his reasonable standards of modesty of dress. and the purity of the
literature brought into the house when there were still several
minor children in the home. He showed them the front door. He showed them the front door
because he said, when you go out of this house dressed like
that, that is a reflection on my headship in this home. And I will not have my testimony
ruined as a man determined to govern my home by the Word of
God. My brothers, I'm challenging
you, and more than challenging you, in Trinity Church from this
retreat onward, when we see young women who are under the roof
of some of you men, dressed immodestly, we're going to come to you men
and we're going to say, brother, do you not see that what your
daughter wore today was immodest? Well, no. Well, let me sit you
down and talk to you and give you some instruction. Then if
you say, well, yeah, but... We are not going to allow it.
We have a responsibility, according to 1 Timothy 3, 15, for the behavior
in God's house. And when single men are coming
to us as elders, distressed at what they see, it has got to
stop. And it's going to stop. And if
we get accused of being legalistic, so be it. So be it. But men don't put the onus on
us and make us the uglies. Play the man. Be strong. Acquit yourself like men. firmly say, in this house, modesty
will mark the dress, not only of the women, but of the men.
I'm not going to have my sons go out of here with the baggy
pants showing the top half of the crack of their buttocks.
It's shameful, and it won't happen under my roof. I have to speak plainly. Some
of you aren't getting it in generic terms. Can I be more specific
without being coarse? My last exhortation. Determined
by the grace of God, carefully to monitor the circumstances
in which sons and daughters interact alone. Determined by the grace
of God, carefully to monitor the circumstances in which your
sons and daughters interact alone. I'm reluctant to address this,
but my Bible demands it. 1 Corinthians 10, 11 says, The
things written aforetime are for our admonition. And we read
in 2 Samuel 13, David's stupidity. He sends his daughter into the
bedroom of his son. and she's raped. And all the
grief can't give her back her virginity. And because of the
glut of suggestive stuff, kids are sexually awakened far earlier
now than they were 25, 30 years ago. Your kids inevitably are going
to have interaction with 10- and 11-year-olds very much sexually
awakened, if not already sexually experienced. You and your wife need to sit
down and talk very carefully about what you will allow of
your sons and daughters having time alone, certainly never with
a closed door. Men, don't be naive. David's
naivety was tragic. I trust yours will not be. And some of us have had pastoral
experience in this area. That's why I'm talking to you
the way I'm talking to you. I would spare you. I would spare
you. Well, my brothers, those are
my eight exhortations. resting down upon various dimensions
of what it will mean for us at this stage in human history,
here in our culture, in this church and in the churches represented
to be the kinds of fathers who are nurturing our children in
a manner that glorifies God. And remember your resources as
you think of areas where you've sat here and said, How in the
world I can do that and do this and do the other? Remember your
resources. You have a sufficient Bible,
a mighty Savior, a throne of grace, a Holy Spirit, churches
that are ready to support and encourage you in every effort
to be godly fathers for His glory and for the benefit of your children. Our Father, how we earnestly
pray that You would take the concerns that I have sought to
lay before my brothers and weed out of them anything that has
been carnal, unwise, untimely, but whatever has been timely
and rooted in the wisdom of Scripture, commensurate with the reality
of the circumstances in which we find ourselves, O Father,
bless it to the hearts of these men that they may be faithful
fathers and grandfathers and uncles, and for the single man
that you will fit them and equip them in days to come to be godly
husbands and godly fathers. So, Lord, we commit to you all
of the endeavors of these past hours and trust your blessing
to rest upon them in Jesus' name. Amen.