Good morning again. Do we not all have one father? Has not one God created us? Why do we deal treacherously each against his brother, so as to profane the covenants of our fathers? Judah has dealt treacherously, and an abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem. For Judah has profaned the sanctuary of the Lord, which he loves, and has married the daughter of a foreign god. As for the man who does this, may the Lord cut off from the tents of Jacob everyone who awakes and answers, or who presents an offering to the Lord of Hosts. This is another thing that you do. You cover the altar of the Lord with tears, with weeping and with groaning, because he is no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand. Yet you say, for what reason? Because the Lord has been a witness between you and your wife of your youth, against whom you have dealt treacherously, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. But not one has done so who has a remnant of the spirit. And what did that one do while he was seeking a godly offspring? Take heed then to your spirit and let no one deal treacherously against the wife of your youth. For I hate divorce, says the Lord, the God of Israel. And him who covers his garments with wrong, says the Lord of hosts. So take heed to your spirit that you do not deal treacherously. Sit down, please. Dear God, I thank you for your word. I thank you for your correction, even your harsh correction. I pray, Lord, that I could be your vessel this morning. I pray that I could be an avenue of truth, guard my heart, my mind, and my tongue from evil or error. I ask these things in Christ's name, amen. All y'all who know me know that I have always been meek, mild, and unabrasive in any way. And that I never say anything offensive, ever, for any reason whatsoever. But in the South, especially, I have seen, and in these modern years, I have seen an abandonment of something that God has called all fathers to do. It is a generational command. It is not simply for individuals. And this is especially, unfortunately, true in Baptist spheres. And so that leads to my first apology of the evening or the morning. I'm going to be quoting only for Presbyterians this morning. So don't be too offended. While we we. disagree with our Presbyterian brothers, there is one thing that they are absolutely correct about. And they have a doctrine of family wherein they catechize and teach their family consistently as a matter of generational education. And this is not so much a formal education as it is a practical and a very intense education that especially a father is responsible for. And they got that from the scriptures. And so the title of my sermon this morning is the image of the father. And I'm going to quote again from Malachi, but this time. Chapter four verses five and six. Behold, I am coming. I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord. He will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children. and the hearts of the children to their fathers, so that I will not come and smite the land with a curse." Now, everybody knows my father. They know me. They know that I'm pretty big about reading in terms of economics and politics. And one of the biggest issues today has been fatherlessness. Doug Wilson has an excellent book on this topic. It's named Father Hunger. I would recommend anybody who has an understanding that this is a problem, read that book. It's a long read, so you're not going to read it in one night. But he goes over all the practical problems that come from having no father. And there are two ways to not have a father, where your father is just not present. and the other is where your father neglects you and does not teach you. In 1 Corinthians 3, Paul provides an analogy for the construction of one's life. He says in verses 10 through 15, according to the grace of God which was given to me, like a wise master builder I laid a foundation. and another is building on it. But each man must be careful how he builds on it. For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each man's work will become evident. For the day will show it, because it is to be revealed with fire. And the fire itself will test the quality of each man's work. If any man's work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. If any man's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire. Paul is telling us here that any other foundation will fail to provide eternal rewards. It will fail because it will be tested with fire. If his foundation is anything other than Christ, he will lose everything, regardless of what he gains. You will leave something behind when you die. The question is if the remnant of your life will go on to glorify God or to fight against his kingdom and be burned up. Men are builders. We build our houses, small kingdoms constructed to honor God through our little lights on the hills. This is a dreadful responsibility with potentially glorious or disastrous ramifications. We make or break our homes by how we build them. But to build them, we must be men of many trades, so to speak. We are the carpenters, brickmakers, delegators, administrators, masons, and on and on. During the course of this sermon, I want to pull out of the text the disciplines that we as men must be competent at to build our houses to God's glory. But before I do that, I must first speak of the effects that a father has on his home. What are the potential consequences of bad fathers? And the first five chapters of the Bible gives us these extremes. Sinclair Ferguson had a sermon on how to study the scriptures, and he says the scriptures are a story. To talk about the scriptures, you've got to start at the beginning, because the thing at the beginning sets the foundation for everything that comes after. And there's Genesis is so packed full of stuff. It has layers upon layers. And so we have to go back to the beginning to understand what the ramifications of fatherhood are. In the first chapter, God, the good father of all, creates all things. All the things that he made were good, except for one thing. That was man was alone. And so he cut the flank from Adam's side and he created woman out of that flank. And the scriptures say he fashioned into a woman the rib that he had taken from man and brought her to him. And so Adam speaks the first poetry. This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. she shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. And here we have the first marriage, the archetypal marriage, in fact. And the scriptures even lean into this saying, for this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife. The King James says cleave to his wife and they shall be one flesh. So in Genesis we have the perfect setting, a man given all the opportunity and even the perfect help meet in a garden paradise, and he was given only one command, do not eat of the fruit of this one tree. But this was spoiled. When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate. And she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. The emphasis on with her is that Adam was sitting right there. I love John Milton's I love his work, but he got this wrong in his poetry. Adam and Eve were not separated. At any point of this story, Adam could have stopped Eve from sinning. He was sitting there when the serpent was talking to her, telling her lies. He was sitting there when she responded with an error, saying, we can't even touch it. That's not what God said. And he should have stopped her when the serpent lied again. When she reached out and had it in her hand, he could have taken it from her. He could have told her no. He could have told her stop. But he didn't do that. He abdicated his responsibility as a husband to protect his wife. And I will call back to these passages in Malachi, dealing treacherously with your wife Adam did not protect his wife. This is the first sin. So then they knew that they were naked now. They ran and tried to cover themselves with leaves. By the way, they're trying to cover their own sins. So God comes to the garden and challenges Adam. Him asking where Adam was was not because he did not know. It was a challenge to Adam. What is Adam's response? Oh, it's that woman you gave me, right? I mean, you did give her to me, right? I mean, it's kind of your fault, too, right? For the woman's part, she answers honestly. Listen, I was tricked. I was deceived. And she really was. But notice that God never asks the serpent, why did you trick them? It never comes up. The focus here is on Adam's sin. Adam is responsible for this. So God curses man, woman, and snake all while foreshadowing the coming of the seed of the woman. God curses the woman with childbirth. and a desire for her husband's authority. But then he curses the ground for Adam's sake. Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you saying you shall not eat, cursed is the ground because of you. In toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life, both thorns and thistles it should grow for you. And you will eat the plants of the field by the sweat of your face You will eat bread till you return to the ground, because from it you were taken, for you are dust, and to dust you shall return. So God removes them from the garden now. But just before that, God kills an animal and covers them with the sin, this first looking forward. First, it is a denunciation of them trying to cover themselves with leaves, is a rejection of their ability to cover their own sin. And then now it is a looking forward to Christ who will come as the sacrifice for his people. So we're going back to the beginning and Adam is the first father. In his commentary on Genesis, John Calvin sets the tone for the story of Cain and Abel. He says, For the cultivation of the earth was commanded by God, and the labor of feeding sheep was not less honorable than useful. In short, the whole of rustic life was innocent and simple, and most of all accommodated to the true order of nature. This, therefore, is to be maintained in the first place. that both exercised themselves in labors approved by God and necessary to the common use of human life. Whence it is inferred that they had been well instructed by their father. The right of sacrificing more fully confirms this, because it proves that they had been accustomed to the worship of God. The life of Cain, therefore, was in appearance very well regulated. inasmuch as he cultivated the duties of piety towards God and sought maintenance for himself and his by honest and just labor, as become a provident and sober father of a family. In other words, the ritual sacrifice given by both Cain and Abel are the best proof that Adam taught their sons, taught his boys. And in outward appearance, Cain would have looked like a good father and husband. Furthermore, they were in the presence of God. Cain leaves the presence of God in Genesis 4.16. This entire time he would have known what God expected because God was there. Cain had no excuse. Calvin believes that Cain was married because after he murders Abel, it is said that he sired a child and there is no mention of his wife. But whether he was or not, Cain would have looked the part. But all was not well. Cain offered God an offering of fruit, while Abel offered an animal. So let's look at the two brothers compared with Matthew Henry's commentary. First, the character of the person's offering. Cain was a wicked man who lived a sinful and worldly life while outwardly looking like a faithful believer. Abel was a righteous man, as Christ called him in Matthew 23. Second is the differences in the offerings themselves. Cain brought fruit and shrubs, whatever he could find on the ground along the way, as an atoning sacrifice for his sins. It was a strange sacrifice, unlike that which God had already established in Genesis 3. Abel brought the choice firstborn of his own flock, the best that he had, but it was also the exact kind of sacrifice that God expected of him. The third, and the greatest difference between the two, is the intent with which it was given. Cain gave whatever he had, and not with faith, not in faith in the works or the teachings of God. His brother had animals, and Cain could have spoken to his brother to get an animal. God honored what God had already ordained and instituted, and giving an offering in faith. As we as moderns often overlook, Cain was the first born More was bestowed on the firstborn, but more was also required of them. However, like Ishmael and Isaac, Esau and Jacob, Manasseh and Ephraim, here the eldest brother is found wanting, and he is subverted by the younger brother. Cain, of insufficient character, is offering strange fire with no faith in the words and commands of God. He valued his place of honor so little that he put no effort into the work of providing a sacrifice for himself and his family. Thus Cain, with knowledge, refused to give God the sacrifice that God required for the covering of sins. Cain, like his father Adam, now defers that responsibility onto Abel. Abel's sacrifice was accepted, while his was not. And Cain kills Abel. When God challenges Cain about the murder, Cain just smarts off. Oh my, my brother's keeper. So God curses him in response. So he complains the curse is too great. How am I able to bear it? People are going to kill me. So God gives him a sign that no one will kill him. And Cain's response is to leave the presence of the Lord. At every moment, Cain shows contempt for God's laws, blessings, punishments, and even his questions about Cain's sin. By all accounts, Cain hated God. At every instigation he gave to God and others, he doubled down on his own sinfulness. So what was the result? Cain to Enoch. to Eilad, to Mehujael, to Methushael, to Lamech. Lamech was the first polygamist. And he boasts before the Lord, Adah and Zillah, listen to my voice, you wives of Lamech, and give heed to my speech, for I have killed a man for wounding me and a boy for striking me. If Cain is avenged sevenfold, then Lamech 77-fold. He thought himself better capable of defending himself than God was able to defend Cain. So now we get to chapter 5. Chapter 5 starts over. Completely different genealogy. The chapter break here is a restart on the family account. The significance here is not understated. This is the family of God. From God, to Adam, to Seth, to Enosh, to Kenan, to Mahalalel, to Jared, to Enoch, to Methuselah, to Lamech. There are nine men in this genealogy. The description of each has four main parts. A number of years until the notable son, the remaining number of years, the number of years from the birth of that son to their death and then the total account of their years from birth to death. And so we see three notable men in this lineage from Seth. Adam, Enoch, and Lamech. There are two Lamechs here. Adam is notable because he was made in the image of God. Enoch was notable because he walked with God and God took him. Lamech was notable because this Lamech was the father of Noah. Lamech said of Noah, This one will give us rest from our work and from the toils of our hands arising from the ground which the Lord has cursed. When we consider Genesis chapter 4 verse 26, where it states the birth of Enosh, the third man, and this genealogy, that marked the time when men started to call upon the name of the Lord, we see a family who tried to walk with God. Of the two sons we now have two lines of secession, ending with a son called Lamech. One from the firstborn of Adam, who followed his father's perdition, resulting in a murderous, boastful, covenant-breaking son. And the other, men whose births, lives, and progeny mark the image, walk, and hope of God given to man for his own sin. These two families come from the same sinful father, who knowingly sinned against God. One carried on the evasion of responsibility, the hatred of God's laws and expectations, while the other made honest attempts to love and serve our creator. One of these men built their house on their own desires and wickedness, while the other built their house on Christ. This is how God opens the history of mankind. A story of one sinful man siring two families. One family that has hatred against God and the other seeks to honor God. This dichotomy, the family of God, the family of Cain or Satan, is the foundation of everything that comes after, including everything that we have today. In John 8 Christ used this exact theme against the false teachers. And Jesus said to them, If God were your Father, you would love me. For I proceed forth and have come from God. For I do not even come on my own initiative. He sent me. Why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear my word. You are of your father, the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I speak the truth, you do not believe me. Which one of you convicts me of sin? If I speak truth, why do you not believe me? He who is of God hears the words of God. For this reason, you do not hear them because you are not of God. He's calling them children of Satan. Remember that passage in Matthew 23 where Christ calls Abel righteous? He says, therefore, behold, I am sending you prophets and wise men and scribes. Some of them you will kill and crucify. And some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city. so that upon you may fall the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation." Here Christ is identifying the scribes and the Pharisees with the family of Cain. This principle here applies in two regards, the spiritual and the temporal. Spiritual lesson here is that the Scribes and Pharisees were children of Satan. They loved the things that Satan loved, they acted in the ways that Satan acts, and they looked like Satan. In contrast to that, those who are of God love the things that God loves, and they act in the way that God acts, and they look like God. The second principle that we derive from the first is the very real and waiting realization that our children will love the things that we love, they will act in the ways that we act, and they will look like we look. Our children will look like their fathers, be it from good teaching, pointing them to God and to worship God, or bad teaching and or neglect will cause them to reject the ways of God. It's important to understand this distinction between the spiritual and temporal because I am not saying that you will cause your children to be saved or lost. You do not have that power. Only the spirit can regenerate the heart. But you build your child's understanding of life, wisdom, and God himself through the teachings and actions that your children see. Direct or indirect, they will carry on your teachings to future generations. So we see the spiritual principle applied to a natural truth and arrive at the very serious conclusion that a father has a profound effect on his children for ruin or righteousness. God has built into the nature of fatherhood the responsibility and practical generation of habits and perspective that drastically affect our children. Robert Louis Dabney was the pastor of Stonewall Jackson. And he has a sermon on parental responsibilities where he says, seeing the parental relation is what the scriptures describes it, and seeing Satan has perverted it since the fall for the diffusion and multiplication of depravity and eternal death. The education of children for God is the most important business done on earth. It is the one business for which earth exists. To it, all politics, All war, all literature, all money-making ought to be subordinated, and every parent ought to feel, every hour of the day, that next to making his own calling and election sure, this is the end for which he is kept alive by God. This is his task on earth. On the right training of the generation now rising, turns not only the individual salvation of each member in it, not only the religious hope of the age which is approaching, but the fate of all future generations in a large degree. Train up him who is now a boy for Christ, and you not only sanctify that soul, but you set on foot the best earthly agencies to redeem the whole broadening stream of human beings who shall proceed from him, down to the time when men cease to marry and give in marriage. So important is this duty of correct teaching that God saw fit to add two books of wisdom to the Holy Scriptures. Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. The two books work in tandem with each other in that they are both teachings of a father to a son, and they are bookended with a reliance on a fear of God for all knowledge and wisdom. In Proverbs 1 Solomon counsels his son The Proverbs of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel, to know wisdom and instruction, to discern the sayings of understanding, to receive instruction in wise behavior, righteousness, justice, and equity, to give prudence to the naive, to youth, knowledge, and discretion. A wise man will hear and increase in learning, and a man of understanding will acquire counsel. To understand a proverb and a figure, the words of the wise and their riddles. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and understanding. Hear, my son, your father's instruction, and do not forsake your mother's teaching. Indeed, they are a graceful wreath on your head and ornaments around your neck. And at the end of Ecclesiastes, in addition to being a wise man, the preacher also taught the people knowledge. and he pondered, searched out, and arranged many proverbs. The preacher sought to find delightful words and to write words of truth correctly. The words of wise men are like goads, and masters of these collections are like well-driven nails. They are given by one shepherd. But beyond this, my son, be warned, the writing of many books is endless, and excessive devotion to books is wearing to the body. The conclusion, when all has been heard, is this. Fear God and keep his commandments, because this applies to every person. For God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil. While Proverbs, filled with everything from pithy sayings to these symbolic parables, builds up wisdom from the foundation of fear of God delivered through the counsel of a father and mother, Ecclesiastes puts all practical wisdom under subjection. to a love of God and an obedience to His commandments. All things come from God and go back to Him. In our modern world, the second greatest sin against children, overshadowed only by the systematic slaughtering of infants in the mother's womb, is that fathers have abandoned their duty to teach their children. Passing that responsibility off to the state, which often hates God's, his commands, his word, and your belief in him. The past four generations have created a social environment where it is the norm to pass your children off to Caesar so that both parents can work to purchase or produce the most goods for the cheapest price that are delivered on time. But this takes us back to our opening scriptures. Embedded in the gospel is a pattern for life whose original seeds were planted in Genesis and persist until today God in his omnipotent omniscient plan of all the things he could have used made the herald of his advent the prophet who would turn the hearts of the fathers to their children in Luke 1 5 through 17 You have the account of Zechariah and It says, in the days of Herod, king of Judah, there was a priest named Zacharias of the division of Abijah who had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. They were both righteous in the sight of God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and requirements of the Lord. But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and they were advanced in years. Now it happened that while he was performing his priestly service before God, In the appointed order of his division, according to the custom of the priestly office, he was chosen by lot to enter the temple of the Lord and burn incense. And the whole multitude of the people were in prayer outside at the hour of the incense offering. And an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing to the right of the altar of incense. Zacharias was troubled when he saw the angel, and fear gripped him. But the angel said to him, do not be afraid, Zacharias, for your petition has been heard, and your wife, Elizabeth, will bear you a son, and you will give him the name John. You will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. And he will drink no wine or liquor, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit while yet in his mother's womb. And he will turn many of the sons of Israel back to the Lord their God. It is he who shall go as a forerunner before him in the spirit and power of Elijah. to turn the hearts of the fathers back to the children and the disobedient to the attitude of the righteous, so as to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. Zechariah would be made silent like the heavens were, For 400 years the heavens were shut as God bore witness to the Levites and the Judeans and the wives of their youth as they educated their children on how to be treacherous husbands, blaspheming God's holy name that they were meant to represent in the marital covenant. He saw the evil that they had invested in and perpetuated, and he brought a cure with him. His change in the hearts of the fathers brought through the work he did was a redirection of the love of the fathers to their children through the means of loving your wife. Long ago the command of God to fathers was this. Now this is the commandment, the statutes and judgments which the Lord your God has commanded me to teach you, that you might do them in the land where you are going over to possess it, so that you, your son, and your grandson might fear the Lord your God, to keep all his statutes and his commandments which I command you, all the days of your life. and that your days may be prolonged, O Israel, you should listen and be careful to do it, that it may be well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, just as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has promised you, and the land flowing of milk and honey. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. These words which I am commanding you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons, and shall 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. You shall bind them as a sign to your hand, and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates." That command given to Israel in Deuteronomy still holds on fathers today, and many of the temporal blessings, including a sanctifying influence on one's children, flows from it. This command is not a suggestion or a best practice. It is a royal edict from our king. So then, we are to build our houses, and the greatest construction tool we have is the education and love we provide to our children. In Mark 12, 29 through 31, Christ proclaimed that all the law and the prophets were summed up in two commandments. The first is here, old Israel, the Lord your God is one, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength. And the second is like unto it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. This second commandment links all of what I have covered here today. In the two families of Seth and Cain, we see how the actions of fathers can bring a vastly different results in his children, for ill or for good. This dichotomy of the family of God and the family of Satan relates to these two families, and we see in Malachi how the family of Satan seemingly won, so much so that God shut the heavens. He would have rathered them not sacrifice than to sacrifice dealing treacherously with their wives. But the prophet Malachi told of one who would come in the spirit of Elijah. and would turn the hearts of the fathers to their children. This man who was John was the herald of the one and only God-man, Jesus, who took on flesh and dwelt among us. He lived, Christ lived, died, and raised himself from the dead for our sins. The prophet Malachi linked the love of a father to how the man treated his wife. A man who deals treacherously with his wife does not love his children. While women are used of God throughout scripture to teach and give guidance, and this of course is all over Psalms and Proverbs, Proverbs 31, the woman that was given, this is advice from a father to his son, as was given to him by his mother-in-law. It is still the primary duty of the father to educate his children. He does this first through good practice in his own life and then through diligent attention and correction given to his children, with the end of showing them how to love God and how to love their neighbors. A man's wife and children are his nearest neighbors, and his greatest duty is to them. In 1 Timothy 5, Paul gives an outline of how a family ought to interact with itself, and he speaks of widows, children, and grandchildren, and how they may be of benefit to their own families. But in verse 8, he speaks directly to the heads of houses, saying, But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his own household, he is denied the faith, and is worse than an unbeliever. The scriptural witness is clear, the foundation on which you build your house will be tested. This is not just true economically, but also educationally. This does not mean that you must be an academic, but it does mean you have to read. This does not mean that you have to have all the knowledge in the world, but it does mean you have to be wise. This does not mean that you must know all the theological nuances and frameworks, but it does mean you must know the Word of God. And this does not mean that you have to have curricula and piles upon piles of books, but it does mean that you diligently approach your children and the teaching of your children with persistence and care. That you work to instill the good teaching of scriptures into the hearts and minds of your children. In this, you are sowing the seed of belief and watering it constantly. Our houses must be fireproof. A home where children are taught the truth and are able to develop into wise people in their own right. We see the weight that scripture puts on us as parents to see that it is done. But how do we do this? How does scripture instruct us to this end? There are several formats, a lot of them in Proverbs. But the one that I want to take today is I want to go through the Shema. There's several principles that we can pull out of the Shema. So I'm going to start with reading it starts in Deuteronomy six, four through nine. Here, all Israel, the Lord, our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons, and shall 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. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. You shall write them in the doorposts of your house and on your gates." So there are principles we're taking from this, and I'm going to walk through each section of this passage and see what we can learn from it. In verse 4a, Hear, O Israel, this is a call to attention. It's a call for reasoning and wisdom. It's the same kind of call that Solomon puts into the book of Proverbs all over the place. But in the beginning we heard it, Hear my son your father's instruction and do not forsake your mother's teaching. Indeed, they are a graceful wreath on your head and ornaments about your neck. Each time you have a moment for teaching, you identify it as a moment for teaching, and that your child should listen. Verse 4b, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one. We are identifying God as the only one we worship. We point to catechisms, confessions, scripture, and teachings. Link the action and the mindset back to God and his goodness. In my own home catechism that we review every night, we've pulled from the Nicene Apostles and Chalcedonian creeds. In verse five, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment as of Christ. You must point back to God's expectations and teachings. and how the action, mindset, or disposition that you see is honoring or dishonoring to God. The important thing, especially that I have noticed in myself, is this is not about what I like. This is about what's honoring to God. And so in my own life and in my own heart, I have to guard myself and make a distinction between I don't like this thing that you're doing and this thing is not honoring to God. Verse 6, these words I am commanding you today shall be on your heart. The first step, and what Malachi was addressing, you must first change yourself. You must be someone who is worthy of being listened to. Then you instruct your child to be someone who is worth listening to. The lesson needs to be in their hearts, not just in their heads. It requires a unity of the heart, the mind, the soul, and the body. This reminds me of a quote from David Hicks, who is a scholar in classical education, and in his book, Norms and Nobility, he says, education must address the whole student, his emotional and spiritual side, as well as his rational. The aims of education all must address not just the ideas, but the norms, tending to make young people not only rational, but noble. While Hicks' quote is specifically related to classical education, it does show a very real principle from the scriptures. We are teaching our children to be good at whatever they do, but to be good to the end of glorifying God. a true nobility and excellence for God. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your sons, and shall talk with them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up. This is not only a command to the fathers to teach their sons, this is also a command to the fathers to teach their sons how to educate This carries on the education from generation to generation. And we see this before Ishmael. He says this is a commandment. This is the commandment. The statues judgments with the Lord your God has commanded me to teach you that you do them in the land where you go, that you teach your son and your grandson. This is not just for you. This is for your family. You must be systematic and intentional in your teaching. Every mistake and every triumph is an opportunity for teaching. Praise and correction go hand in hand here. When they fall, you teach them to walk better. When they walk well, you teach them how to jump. When you sit in your house is a reference of you sitting in your home about your business. We go over catechism, singing, and prayer every evening in my home. When you walk by the way, think of when you're driving to the store, when you're driving to the mall, when you're going to the ball game. When you lie down and when you rise up, these should be bookends on your day. Start at a time and incorporate it into your schedule that every day You bring home the truth that God is the one we worship. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. Here Moses is using figurative language to express certain modes of action and thought. The right hand was the hand of dominion and action. Christ, for instance, sits at the right hand of the Father. The frontal's mention was taken literally by the Jews who wrote and wore four separate passages on their heads and on their hands. The four passages were Exodus 13, 2 through 10, which commands Israel to sanctify their firstborn sons and beasts as unto the Lord and to remember that God brought them out of bondage and swore a covenant to them in the Passover meal. And Exodus 13, 11 through 16, which is the promise of God to give them a land for their children and the command to retell the story of how God delivered them out of bondage. Deuteronomy 1 through 8, which is the Shema, which we're going over now. It's a teaching format for his people. And Deuteronomy 11, 18 through 21, which is a command to remember the law and the promises associated with the law through the teaching method in Deuteronomy 6, 1 through 8. Reading this in our modern setting, we do not write these down like talismans and wear them. What Moses is saying here is that we have to internalize these truths and put them at the forefront of our thought and our action, so they guide you both in principle and in practice. To rephrase and to put these truths into the New Covenant context we are all in, remember that God has adopted you into the family of God. You are a joint heir with Christ. He has taken you out of the bondage of sin and into his kingdom. As your children see the truth through the teaching you are supposed to give them, they should be reminded of God's grace to us all and his love for his own. Two, God has promised that we will all share in the new heavens and new earth who have been redeemed. But also, because Christ is ruling and reigning now, and because we have a command to go into all the world and disciple the nations, and because we are told to let our light shine before men, we retell the story of God's salvation both through our words and through the changed actions that reflect His goodness and mercy. When we act like God and we look like God, we show that to the world. Three, we teach regularly and often, pointing back to the one Triune God and His goodness, and commanding each other to love the Lord our God with all our hearts, minds, souls, and strength. And fourth, remember that God's laws also come with temporal promises. God's law is not just good, it is good for us. In Matthew 6, 23 through 33, for this reason, I say to you, do not be worried about your life as to what you will eat or what you will drink, nor for your body as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air that they do not sow, nor reap, nor gather into their barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? And who of you, by being worried, can add a single hour to his life? And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow they do not toil and they do not spend yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothes himself like one of these But if God's if God so clothes the grass of the field which is alive today and tomorrow was thrown into the furnace How much more will he not much more clothes you I O you of little faith, do not worry then, saying, What will we eat, what will we drink, what will we wear for clothing? For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things, for your heavenly Father knows that you have need of them. But seek you first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. We must teach our children to love God, to demonstrate God's goodness in all things, great and small, to praise God's mercies and forgiveness of sins, to praise God's patience with our failings and his diligence and wisdom in teaching us through his many means, and to know that God's word is a source of goodness and vitality, correction and wisdom. In closing, teaching our children will not guarantee their salvation. You cannot change their hearts. But you can teach their mind and heart to act in ways most inclined to hear and believe in God. If the word preached to pagans on occasion may bring about salvation, how much more may your personal witness through deed and wisdom delivered to your children be used of God to bring them to faith? But in this Malachi's words to the Levites and the Jews come back to us. You cover the altar of the Lord with tears, with weeping and with groaning, because he no longer regards the offering and accepts it with favor from your hand. Yet you say, for what reason? Because the Lord has been a witness between you and the wife of your youth, against whom you have dealt treacherously, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. If we as men do not deal rightly first with our wives and be to her as Christ is to the church, our wisdom will be seen as lies. We must better ourselves and then teach our children. We must live in the way that we say that we believe and God will bless the outcome. God's renewing of our hearts and his sanctifying work in our lives does not destroy the love that a father has for his children. It enhances it. Christ says in Luke 11, I say to you, ask, and it shall be given to you. Seek, and you shall find. Knock, and it shall be opened to you. For everyone who asks and receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks, it will be opened. Now suppose one of you fathers is asked by his son for a fish. Will he not give him a snake? Will he give him a snake instead of a fish? Or if he is asked for an egg, will he not give him a scorpion? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him? But to put this in context with this specific topic, if evil men will give their children wisdom on the practical and tangible things of life, then how much more should a father, should we as fathers who love Christ, not give to their children the message of salvation from the sins that beset us all? Amen.