Again, we're in the book of Titus, the Apostle Paul, writing to this man that he has assigned to stay behind on the island of Crete and with the various churches to appoint elders in every city. And then in really the second chapter of Titus, where we're at, he's giving very specific instructions to various categories of individuals within the church, within the local church, within the body of Christ. He begins with instruction to the men, to older men, early in the chapter, in verse one and following, where he gets to talk about speaking about sound doctrine, older men are pretemperate, dignified, sensible, sound in faith and love and perseverance. Then, in verses three and four, Paul gives instruction to older women, and part of that instruction to older women leads naturally into instruction to the younger women. We see the older women addressed at the beginning of verse three, and then younger women addressed in verse four, where the older men teach the younger women that they might encourage these younger women to love their husbands, we've looked at that already, and then tonight to love their children. We're taking some small bite fragments of this instruction to spend a little bit of time really delving into the different commands that God gives through Paul to those who are within the church. And I feel like especially, as I mentioned at the very beginning, since there is such a negative attitude today toward children, toward having children, that we really need to understand what God says about the importance, the value, the blessing of children. And so we're going to start off looking at some of the elements of verse three and four, where older men are told to talk what is good, which includes teaching younger men to love their children. And then I want to look together at children being a blessing and a heritage from the Lord. And then if we have time, I want to get into how we are to instruct them. God says that The aldermen are teaching them to love their children. How do you do that? What exactly does that look like? That's at the heart of the instruction. It's not just that they would just sort of have a general affection for them, but they would have a true, biblical, godly affection for the children that God has blessed them with. So that's where we're headed tonight. Would you join me in a word of prayer? And then we'll read verses three and four of Titus chapter two. Father in heaven, we thank you for this opportunity to again, open your word together. Your word is inerrant. It is totally trustworthy. It is without fault. It is sufficient in giving us everything we need to know for salvation, life, and godliness. And we can trust everything that is said. And in a day and age where many. who profess faith in Christ don't feel in any way bound to submit to scripture proving that they really don't know Christ. We want to be a people who goes against the tide of the world and its current trend toward mocking and rejecting marriage, the role of men, the role of women, who men are, who women are, and the beauty of marriage and the beauty of children and their blessing and how it is that we are if you bless us with children to be used of you to raise them up, to train them up in the fear and admonition of the Lord. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Okay, again, let's read verses three and four of Titus chapter two. This is, again, in the midst of Paul's instruction to various categories of believers within the church. Again, older men are mentioned in verse two. Older men are mentioned in verse three. We see younger women mentioned in verse four. We see young men mentioned in verse six. So you see the kind of the flow. We see bond slaves addressed in verse nine and so on. So the categories of individuals within the church and very specific, helpful instruction from God as to how they are to conduct themselves. And here, the instruction to older women spills over into the instruction for younger women, because the older men are to teach the younger women. So let's read this together. Older women, likewise, are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips, nor enslaved to much wine. And we've covered all of that already, all of verse three. And then we really read a statement, a command at the end of verse three that takes us through. Verse four, all the way to the end of verse four, that these older women are to teach what is good. And part of that instruction is that they might encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children. Now, we've mentioned already a couple of times, but by way of reminder, we have to realize that when we're talking about older women here, we're probably talking about women in their early 30s and up. Which is kind of surprising because when we think of older women, we think of gray hair, wrinkles, retirement age. But the reason this would have been understood as women about 30-something and upward is that when were women typically married first in the first century? How old were they typically? They would have been 14, 15, 16 years of age. which means if they were married at 14, they probably had their first child at 15. If they were married at 15, they probably had their first child at 16. I have a Christian friend of mine who is from an Islamic country, and he was sharing with me that in that part of the world, if you're married and don't have children within the first two years of marriage, Most of your family and friends think there must be something wrong either medically or relationally in your marriage. It's very much expected that husbands and wives would have children fairly quickly. The idea of sort of limiting the number of children sort of voluntarily is not something that would have been known of in the ancient world. And I would argue that it's a problem that we've adopted, that sort of limitation of children, unless God sovereignly limits. the number of children. That's fine. If God does not provide any children to a husband and wife, and that's his provision and purpose for medical reasons, there is nothing shameful about that because God is the one who provides the children. And if God provides only one, An example of that would be my sister-in-law, who was only able to have one child. It's a privilege, it's a blessing. It's not a shame if you have none, if that's God's purposes in working that out in your life, or one, or two, or three. But the point is, deliberately limiting the number of children when there are no medical issues is really something that we've adopted from the modern world, the idea that Well, children are expensive. I've addressed that a little bit. We need to understand that God is going to provide for whatever child you have. We have seven and we literally saw our income stream or our expenses drop every single child who was born. God provided every single time. And not before the child was born. Usually it was like right around, right before or shortly after the child was born that we had the extra provision. So we have never, God has never failed to show his provision for the children that we have. And I say that not to in any way embarrass anyone who hasn't had children, or who can't, or who can't have more than one or two or three, that's not the aim. But what we do want to uphold is the general biblical principle that children are a blessing from the Lord, they're a heritage from the Lord, and it's a good thing to have children. And if the Lord blesses you with many children, that is a good thing as well, okay? So, the women who get married, 14, 15, 16, have their first children, 15, 16, 17, which means by the time that, say, their daughter was 15 and ready for marriage, how old was the mom? 30. So she might be a grandmother by 30, 31, 32, 33 years of age. So a grandmother would have been in her young 30s. And this is why we're talking about older men teaching younger women. In other words, the women who have experience in life, who are godly women, part of God's calling to them is that they are to be teachers of what is good, okay? Now, this is a really interesting word here. Notice the phrase at the end of verse three. They are to teach what is good. Teach what is good. In the Greek, that's one word. In English, it's four words teaching what is good, but in the Greek, it's one word. It's kala didaskalos. Kala didaskalos. The first part, kala, comes from the Greek word kalos, which basically means good. It means good. And then the second half is the word didaskalos, which means to teach. So kala didaskalos literally means to teach that which is good. And what is good is what is God's will, what is God's purpose, what is God's design for the younger women, for their marriages and their attitude toward their husbands and their attitude toward their children. So the older women, which could be 30 something and upward, are to instruct what is good to the younger women, that is, young ladies who are starting in their married life and raising children. They're to teach them to do two things, to love their husbands and to love their children. Now, we've already looked at the command teaching them to love their husbands. Let's look at teaching them to love their children. I want us to notice, first of all, in verse four, that in this teaching in what is good, The goal is to encourage them. Do you see that? That they might encourage the young women to love their husbands and to love their children. A lot of times people can get discouraged in their duties in life, in their responsibilities, in their giftings, in their callings, in their jobs. in their marriages, in their children, and it can be a temptation for human beings to want to avoid challenges, to want to avoid that which is difficult, which takes work and effort and sacrifice. And by the way, this is one of the reasons why I think Jesus said, I want you to love one another as I have loved you. The Lord has taught us sacrificial love, God-glorifying love. Jesus-exampled, self-sacrificial, others-centered love, so that what is being encouraged by the older women to the younger women is that they would truly be thankful for their husbands, for their children, and that they would truly love them and love them in the way that God would have them to love them, to learn to go past any type of discouragement and doubt. and fears and to really, really learn how to love. The word encourage here means to, literally means to instruct someone prudently toward wise behavior and sound judgment. So they're to teach what is good, And in that teaching, they're to teach and instruct in such a way that they encourage others toward wise behavior, toward sound judgment, right? How are you to view and treat your children, ladies? And specifically, the command in the second part of verse four is to teach them, to encourage them to love their children. What's interesting is, just like the word teaching what is good at the end of verse four, which is one Greek word, the word to love their children, is also one word in the Greek, philoteknos. The first part of the word of philoteknos, if you want to spell it in English letters, would be P-H-I-L-O-T-E-K-N-O-S. T-E-K-N-O-S, P-H-I-L-O-T-E-K-N-O-S. The first part of the word is from the Greek word phileo, which is one of the major words for love in the Bible. Does anyone want to venture a guess, maybe from past studies, what the meaning of the word phileo means? Okay, that comes from Philadelphia, the city, Philadelphos, to have an affection for. This is the word affection, to have a deep, deep affection for your children. So that this is not just agape, which is, really how you love. This is actually a quality of love that has a deep affection for your children, that really cherishes them, okay? And so phileo means to have this affection toward your children. And the second part of the word technos is literally the word for child or children. To be children lovers, to be someone who loves children. who loves their children that God has given to them. Is that not very different from what we see in much of the world today? It's becoming increasingly popular. Sadly speaking, for both young men and young women to deliberately avoid marriage, to put off marriage, to put off having children, and maybe not get married at all, or maybe not have children at all, when really God's design is biblical marriage with the fruit of children according to God's provision, Which, as I mentioned, may be none if that is what God accomplishes medically. There's reasons. Again, God opens and closes the womb. There might be issues. We understand that. But if there's one, two, three, four, five, in our case, we have seven. We had a family here. At this church, the Deroshers, they have 12 kids. And I would like to say that, biblically, as many kids as you can have is, I think, the biblical model. So we need to really see that. So I wanna talk about really cultivating an understanding and appreciation for children being a blessing and inheritance from the Lord. And to do that, I wanna look at a number of verses this morning. Go back to Genesis chapter one, verse 28. To really establish a proper perspective as to what parents, mothers, and fathers are to have toward their children, we want to go back to the opening chapters of, or the opening chapter of Genesis and what God says to Adam and Eve regarding children. He says that God blessed them and said to them, now notice this, The call to have children is framed as a blessing, as a good thing, as something that is considered a kindness, a gracious, merciful kindness of the Lord. And what he says here is, be fruitful and multiply. Now, The reason I think that the general provision, as far as the provision of God, is probably more than two children on average, is that if you have two parents, who have two children, that's not actually multiplying. That's keeping the status quo. Now, again, please don't hear something I'm saying. I'm not saying you're sinning if you only have two kids. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that we wanna see the general principle of Scripture, and the general principle, it's a blessing and a blessing from God where he says, multiply. Increase in number, which for a couple would be three or more. Okay, don't begin to hear anything that I'm saying. I'm not saying any negative stigma toward less than three or less than two or less than one, but I'm just saying that the text indicates a multiplication and that we are to, you see this, fill the earth. Now, this is something that the liberals love to talk about, how we're going to overpopulate the earth. We will not overpopulate the earth. The Lord promises that until Jesus comes back, there will continue marriage and seed time and harvest all the way until the end. There is way more usable land on the earth today. We're not even close to filling the earth. If you were to stand today's present world population shoulder to shoulder, they would fill the state of Rhode Island, which is the smallest state in the United States. You could house the entire world population with a small road going between every house in the state of Texas. The whole world. And there's a lot of land that isn't being used. And a lot of times when we look at some countries like China and so on, that appear to have an overpopulation problem, a significant cause to that is actually the politics of the nation, where there is a lot of good usable land. for farming and so on that is available in China, a lot, a lot more land where you could give every person in China multiple acres of good land and they would not even come close to overpopulating China. What's happened is that socialism, communism, has made it very unprofitable to be a farmer or a rancher. And so people keep moving into the city centers, and they keep crowding the cities, and they're not using the land that is actually available to them. We are not even close to overpopulating the world. We're not even close to running short on being able to feed the world. Just the United States alone has enough to something like feed the whole world over four to seven times a year in what we produce. And that's not even talking about what else the world itself produces. So this is not an issue. And I bring this up because a lot of the negativity toward having children is the result of a lot of fear-mongering. regarding the environment, regarding the land available, regarding food and water, and it's just not true. It's just not honest. We have plenty of land, plenty of food, and it will continue to be available until Jesus returns. We wanna be good stewards, but there's no danger of overpopulation. So important is this command to be fruitful and multiply that after the flood, In Genesis 9, God restates the command again. He says, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. This is the command of God. Let's look at some further scripture passes and talk about the blessing of children. Genesis 33, five. This is when Jacob and Esau are meeting up again, and Esau lifted up his eyes, saw the women and the children, and said, who are these with you? And he said, the children whom God has graciously given your servants. So that it is stated by Jacob that the gift of the children are a gracious gift of God. By the way, how many kids did Jacob have? 12. And, well, you're right, he got married later. Well, no, 12, right? Did he get, yeah, okay, so I think, but with the first four wives, he had 12. And I don't recommend that. I think having lots of kids by biblical design is not with lots of wives. You all know that story. But apart from the problematic reality of the relationships that were going on there, still, Jacob regarded the children as graciously being given by the world. Thank you for that reminder there, Michael. Deuteronomy, same thing with Abraham too. He had children later on after Sarah died. Deuteronomy 28 verse four, blessed shall be the offspring of your body. and the produce of your ground, and the offspring of your beasts, the increase of your herd, and the young of your flock." Just the blessing of God to the people of Israel. Psalm 22.9, yet he who brought me forth from the womb, you made me to trust when upon my mother's breasts. In other words, who brings us forth from the womb? It's God, who permits conception. It's God, and life begins at conception. I believe that not only does physical life begin at conception, but that God literally implants the soul of an individual within them whenever they are conceived in their mother's womb, so that life begins from conception. not some phase of development, not after birth. That's all the world's attempt to justify abortion. By the way, did you know that the terms trimester are not biological terms? Did you know that? It's used by the medical community, and originally it was developed to justify the idea of the developing fetus, which is Latin for small one or infant, by the way. People are like, it's not a baby, it's an infant. Well, I mean, it's not a baby, it's a fetus, but fetus means baby in Latin, so there you go. And part of it was to sort of like imply stages of development that, okay, well, the kid's only here at this stage, so they're not really human. And then later on, they're at this stage and they're getting closer to being human and so on. And in reality, the growth process, the gestation period is one continuous growth. There's no real actual trimesters. It is God who provides the conception. It is God who brings us forth from the womb. Turn to Psalm 127. which says there, behold, children are a gift of Yahweh. You see, in that verse, if you're not looking at the legacy standard, the capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D, and what is that name when we see all capitals? Lord, it is the name what? Yahweh, which means I am, which means God doesn't change. Wasn't it sad and interesting this morning when we saw this poll of confessed evangelicals, a majority of them believing that God does change, which means they don't know the God of scripture, okay? I'm not suggesting that a genuine believer couldn't have a season of error. and then grow out of that. Peter and Barnabas had a season of denying the gospel, but God confronted them and delivered them from that. But by and large, God's covenant revealed name is Yahweh. And remember, we've talked about it a lot recently. Whenever you see Yahweh in the text, that is telling you that something doesn't change. God doesn't change, but something else in the text is telling us, God, that something doesn't change. If children are a gift of Yahweh, what does that continue to mean? That children are a gift of Yahweh today and every generation. Because Yahweh gives the gift of children, it is always true. that children are a gift of the Lord. Always, always, when you see the name Yahweh in the text, it is gonna tell you something about the text. And then he says this, 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. So let's stop there for a minute. Again, no shame toward those who can't have children or can only have one or two. I hope I've said that enough so that it's super clear, because God's in charge of that, okay? But the principle generally is multiplication. And you think about children, and compared to the arrows in the hand of a warrior, you go into battle, right? Michael, do you want just two arrows at your one? How about you want an empty quiver? You want a full quiver. And I'll say, as a parent of seven children, We love those kids that you literally have a workforce available to you. It's amazing the help and the provision and the work that's available for the household as they prepare to head out into the world. that is available to the whole family because of lots of kids, right? By the time the younger ones grow up, you've got built-in babysitters, right? One of the temptations when you have lots of kids is don't get lazy as a parent because you might want to sit back with your feet up and say, fetch me my slippers. You know, you always have someone there to help you. You don't want to do that. But the fact is, one of the things I've argued about is people seem to have the idea that the more kids you have, the more chaotic. it's going to get in the household, the more difficult it's going to be. And I would actually argue, if you train them well, the more peaceful it becomes, the easier it is to manage. It's not more difficult, it's actually a lot easier for the whole family. It really helps the children to be prepared for their future life together because they've been around older siblings and younger siblings, unless you're the youngest or you're the oldest, you're always the oldest. But the fact is that, you know, Stephen, when he went out to get married to Deanna, he was basically an adult and he used to take little Joshua and put him in his crib when it was time to go to sleep at night. I remember Joshua just crying whenever Stephen was going to go off and get married, because he was going to miss that time when Big Bubba was going to put him into bed. But do you see how that is helpful to Stephen? Same thing with Deanna, who has lots of brothers and sisters. Now that's going to really help you when you have your own children, because you're already sort of used to it. I mean, our older kids have changed diapers and all those things. They know how to do that stuff. It's not like the first time out, they're like, I don't know what to do. Right? So in general. The biblical principle is you would want a multiplicity, you'd want a quiver full of the arrows, and as a result, you will not be ashamed when they speak with your enemies in the gates. I've often thought, you know, whenever it comes time for our daughters to court someone, that, you know, there's me and five brothers, and to welcome the man, to get to know him, to put him through the third degree, and then to let him know she has a father and five brothers, all of whom, all of us, the older brothers, we all have guns, multiple guns, and don't take that too far, but you understand what I'm saying. Like, there's literally a small little legion of men to guard our daughters, and so we're very thankful for that. Turn ahead to Psalm 139. I want to look about how really being formed in the womb is the work of God. This is a wonderful chapter where the psalmist here, David, is recounting God's creating him in his mother's womb. Again, starting in verse 13, Psalm 139, verse 13. For you formed, you, speaking to God, you formed my inward parts. So that not only is conception and birth from God, the whole developmental process is from God. This is another reason why, as Christians, we are not just pro-life, but anti-abortion. I am personally what is called an abolitionist. I am for the complete abolition of abortion entirely. And because I know we should no more justify the murder of anyone, than we would the murder of an unborn child. And so we value life. We find God in scripture speaking to those who are not yet born, before they were ever formed. God says, I know you, I knew you. We'll look at that a little bit. So here's David talking about himself and God before he was born. And he says to God, you formed my inward parts. You wove me in my mother's womb. And by the way, when they look at the various parts of our body, the skin and the muscles and everything at the microscopic level, there's kind of a weaving that takes place in human flesh that's really, really interesting. And notice he says at the end of verse 13, you wove me, where? In my mother's womb. Because he figuratively is about to say, I was put together by you in the depths of the earth. That's figurative. He means out of sight, because he's already said, I was woven in my mother's womb. That's the biology of it, but he talks about the fact that he was skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth at the end of verse 15. He is not making a biological argument there. He's using illustrative language to say that until I'm born, I'm basically hidden. We have sonograms today, We had seven children. Our baby doctor, Dr. Doreen Mosier, used to do a sonogram every doctor's visit. And if the insurance didn't cover them, she didn't report it. So I've seen, I don't know how many sonograms, a hundred or more? I got to the point where The nurse would be like, well, this is, yeah, that's the spine. And here's this, here's the kidneys and that, and that looks good. And then, you know, I got to the point where I could, I could look at a sonogram of a preborn baby and know exactly what I was looking at, because I had seen so many of them. We had the ability to actually kind of look into the womb, but even before they could look into the womb, God says, God put me in my mother's womb. He was the one forming and knitting me together. And he says of himself, I am fearfully and wonderfully made. That means from conception onward, as he's knit in his mother's womb, there is a fearful, wonderful process, fearful in the sense of awesomeness. And this is important, too, because one of the lines of argumentation of the abortionists, the child murderers, is that, well, you're not really fully formed yet, so you're not really valuable. Have you ever seen, for example, the details of the development of the nervous system? in a child only a couple of weeks old, it is so intricate, it is mind-boggling. And you know abortionists will often say, well, they're just a clump of cells. Well, you're just a clump of cells, and it's a very precise, perfectly arranged group of cells. Clump gives the impression of what? It's just a random blob of nothingness. But if you know anything about development in the womb, you know how rich, how detailed, how wondrous, from conception onward, is the creating of a human life in the womb. There's a wonderful video put out by Answers in Genesis that actually talks about the biological glories of when you have that beginning first two cells. It is so complex. It is so complicated. It is staggering how complicated it is at the very start. The idea that you're just some random bunch of cells that are clumped into meaningless globs is nonsense. In fact, that was one of the problems of Darwinian evolution, is that when he originally looked at cells in the older microscopes of his day, the cell looked like a little blob of protoplasm. He thought it was just skin with something in the middle. But we look at cells today and the complexity of one cell and its ability to take in oxygen and put out carbon dioxide, its ability to take in nutrients and put out nutrients, its ability to reproduce, to multiply I should say, its ability to create proteins and DNA. I mean, it's just, it is so sad. The DNA in a single cell, I don't have the stats before me, but we've talked about it before, is so staggeringly complex that if you've got that much complexity in one cell and you start messing around with the language when you've got already millions of cells, you're saying it's just a clump of cells. That is such a lie from the father of lies. We are woven together. We are fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works. My soul knows it very well. In other words, there should be an awareness in the mind and heart and soul of the believer that being created in their mother's womb is the hand of God and that that making of us in our mother's womb was wonderfully, fearfully a work of God. And we know this very well. My frame was not hidden from you, says David, when I was made in secret. and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth. The idea being that God is intimately aware of us and present and working while we're in our mother's womb. Isn't that just amazing? Not only has God known you as far as his purpose to create you, if you were in Christ, to save you from eternity past, but from the instant of conception, the conception was by his hands, and every single moment of developmental process is all the hand of God. We are in his presence. He sees us. Not only does he see us, but our whole life ahead of us is written out. That's what David says next. In your book were all written the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them. Isn't that beautiful? It's so wonderful. Your life is not an accident. I tell people sometimes who will say, my parents told me I was a mistake, I was an accident. I said, not to God you weren't. God had intended you from all eternity, and he was there when you were conceived, and he was there when he wrought you in your mother's womb. He was there intimately watching over your development, and before you were even born, before you took your first breath, all the days he had purposed for you were laid out as if in a book. And this is critical as well, because so many seem to devalue the human life, that if the person is not born yet and has not experienced life, that therefore they don't have value, supposedly. But God says, no, I'm there with you, I'm forming you. All the days that were appointed for you were written out before you were ever, ever born. And we see this awareness of the life that God knows in the womb. Elsewhere in Scripture, Jeremiah 1.5, God's speaking to the private Jeremiah. He says, before I formed you in the womb, so we're going back before conception. In a sense, not biologically, but theologically, for the Christian, life begins before conception. not actually in space and time, biologically. That starts at conception. But as far as the purpose and plan of God, God says to Jeremiah, before I formed you in the wood, I knew you. so that the reality of our existence in the eternal purpose and mind of God was just as real as if we had actually been conceived. I knew you. And this is the word for intimate knowledge. God intimately knows someone before they are even conceived in the womb. Isn't that beautiful? Let me address one quick thing since I've touched on the issue of abortion. One of the, staggering lies that you're hearing today is this lie. Well, the Bible teaches that life begins at first breath. So when you're born and take your first breath, that's when life begins. That is an utter distortion of the creation of Adam. Because they say, oh look, God breathed into Adam the breath of life and he became a living soul. So there's proof, they say, that life begins at first breath. Eh, wrong answer. What was true of Adam that is not true of the child in the womb? He was not in a womb. Literally, this was the start of his life. And if you're gonna argue for that, even though he was one second old, if you brought him into a doctor's office and asked that doctor, how old is he? He might be incredibly healthy and show no real signs of aging, but what do you think the doctor would say? If you brought Adam in, he would say, I don't know, 18, 20, 21 years old from conception. because he wasn't conceived in a womb, he was conceived by God. So of course his life began with first breath because he didn't exist as a life form prior to God breathing life into him. But for the child, from the first cells, every cell exchanges oxygen and carbon dioxide. There is a form of respiration long before the lungs ever developed that takes place in every living cell. or there's the exchange of gases. So if your standard is being able to breathe, well, there's that exchange of gases going on, even by single cell life form, certainly when there's two. And by the way, the multiplication happens so fast that it's hours and days when you've got millions of cells in the womb. None of the arguments fly. that the abortionists use and we need to stand against them. And I'm emphasizing this because in a text that's telling the older women to teach the younger women to love their children, to have an affection for them, what is the main cause given for why people seek abortions today? Just simply unwanted. One of the things, we had a friend who worked outside an abortion clinic pretty frequently, that was often said by women is, I don't want to mess up my figure. I don't want to mess up my figure. Some women would come in and say, I do porn. I don't want to ruin my figure for my porn channel. That happens more than you think. when it's something like a million plus women in the United States have their own porn channel today that they create content for. Do you realize how debauched our society is getting? That's horrible, isn't it? It's unbelievably horrid. And so, the idea that the liberals and the unbelievers had, well, if we can just abort unwanted children, then that will give women, quote unquote, sexual freedom, just like men have. First of all, the irresponsibility of men does not validate the irresponsibility of women. Guess what's happened? Men are more irresponsible today than ever because they're like, just kill the kid. And at abortion clinics, one of the main reasons also given by women is my quote, boyfriend or my husband doesn't want this child and he has threatened to leave me if I do not have, if I have this child. which is not a reason to have an abortion, but just understand that we have a world that hates children. Where, going back even to the late 50s and early 60s, there was the developing narrative of you really shouldn't have more than one, maybe two children, two and a half at the most. There's no such thing as half a boy, but half a girl, you know what I'm talking about. So that the narrative, because of the world, we're going to run out of food, we're going to run out of energy, we're going to run out of space, we're going to overpopulate. The narrative was, you know, we're going to run out of money, limit the number of children you have. So that narrative's been really, really pushed from the 50s and from when the legalization of birth control came into existence. and the legalization of abortion. By the way, legalization in the world's eyes, not before God. Abortions are never legal in God's kingdom. So, they are a provision from the Lord. God says to Jeremiah, I knew you before I even formed you in the womb. I knew you, and before you were born, I consecrated you. In other words, I actually had your ministry laid out for you before you were ever born. And I actually had someone say to me, well, that's just the big people in scripture like Jeremiah. And I was like, that is not the God of scripture where everybody is known in the mind of God from eternity past. Can you think of someone else that is spoken of in the womb? A couple of someone's, how about John? How about John the Baptist? You remember what happened whenever Elizabeth was expecting, and I think she was, about six months along or so, whenever her cousin Mary came, and Mary was expecting baby Jesus, and so unborn Jesus was in the womb of Mary, unborn John was in the womb of Elizabeth, and what does the text say? That the baby in her womb leapt for joy. Now, obviously, it wouldn't be the kind of complexity of joy and understanding that we have, but still, whatever was going on, the baby leapt with joy. before John was ever born, as the Savior drew near. That's God doing that. And of course, Jesus, conceived in Mary's womb, was Jesus as far as the ordained purpose of God from eternity past. God the Son had taken on human flesh. So, Another couple of verses, and then we might just say a little bit about raising children. Proverbs 17.6, not just children, but grandchildren are the crown of old men, and the glory of sons is their fathers. Dear beloved, your grandchildren are a blessing. I told Stephen and Deanna before you get married, when you start having your own kids, Anybody who's a parent, you know, there's nothing like having your own children, right? It's like, can you imagine life before your children? It's like they're always like, once they're born, it's like they've always been a part of the family. And you can't imagine life without them. And people are so afraid of what it's going to be like. And in reality, it's so natural by way of creation that the children would be there, that you feel like they should have always been there. And the same is true of grandchildren. Just like I told Stephen and Deanna, once the children come, first when they're developing, and then when they're born, the love you have for them, especially as a Christian filled with the Spirit who understands God's love, is unspeakably glorious. It's also true of a grandparent. I never knew how much a grandparent could love a grandchild until we now have, by the grace of God, three of them, two little boys and a little girl. By the way, we try to not do the typical grandparent failings because Older men teach younger men, older men, you know, so that means when a grandkid does something and Stephen and Dan are not around and they're being disobedient, we're like, no, we don't just let them get away with stuff. And, you know, because we love them. Okay, so it is a privilege and honor, a blessing from the Lord to have the gift of children, however many they may be. And typically, the thought is that many are a blessing, okay? So let's just dive into a little bit the instruction to our children, because I want to argue this is a part of loving your children, that as parents, leading and loving your children are a critical part of your parenting, that this is how you love them. You love them by being an example. You love them by evangelizing them, You love them by teaching them the full counsel of the word of God in season and out of season. From infancy with our children, even before they were born, we would read Bible verses to them. From infancy, we would pray with them and we would read the scriptures to them. We, one of the things that calmed Stephen down was to take him in his baby carrier and put him before a video of R.C. Sproul. He loved R.C. Sproul's voice. And he would just calm down. Now, does the child understand what they're hearing? No, of course not. But let me ask you, when you teach your children how to speak, are you like, I'm not gonna talk to them until they're like three because they won't know the words that I'm speaking. That's stupid. That's ridiculous. You talk to them because they learn by listening to you speaking, right? And you talk to them as parents in a couple of, a few different ways. When they're infants, you might do baby talk, you know, but they're also around the adult talking and the older kids talking. That's how you learn your language. So I would argue that the child who hears the word propitiation when they're one month old won't know what you're saying, but if they hear it at two months old, and three, and four, and six months, and one year, and two years, and you're explaining to them what propitiation means, that is the satisfactory work of Christ wherein his work satisfies the demands of God due against our iniquity, by the time the kid is like four, you can say, what's propitiation? They say, they'll give you an answer. You start them young, and they'll start to pick up when they're young. And even if they're not into knowing what propitiation means, they're gonna start saying things and asking questions that are theologically rich and deep. And I emphasize this because I've had parents and even Sunday school teachers who are like, well, I don't wanna go too deep for the kids. One lady said, I don't wanna talk to the little kids about hell. It's too frightening. And I said, well, I mean, you don't wanna like, stand over them and do that kind of, but do talk about the danger of eternal condemnation. Because impressing on their little hearts the reality of the reward of knowing God and the dangers of rejecting God should be something they know early on, okay? So don't hold back instruction. Do teach them according to the level they're at, but also expose them to teaching that is beyond their level. Because that immersion is a key part of learning. So you want things at their level, and you want things above their level. And that's how you learn any language. So with your children, with your grandchildren, don't be afraid to say things that they don't yet understand. Don't be afraid to explain something that they don't yet understand, because they will literally start understanding those things way younger than anyone else their age. So, by the time There are teenagers, they already have a really good grasp of the Bible that many people in their 60s, 70s, and 80s don't have. Because you've been reading to them, having family worship, talking to them about the things of the Lord, encouraging Bible reading time, exposing them to good preaching, even theology books. Not in boasting, I think all our kids are currently reading in scripture and reading a theology book as well, and encouraging them in that. Let's look at this one text and we'll wrap it up. Turn to Deuteronomy chapter four, starting in verse nine, instruction to parents. This is how to love your children. This is not all there is to say about loving your children, but we read there, Deuteronomy 4.9, only give heed to yourself. and keep your soul diligently. So first of all, parents, grandparents, watch over your own self, spiritually speaking, so that you do not forget the things which your eyes have seen, and they do not depart from your heart all the days of your life. Look at this, what does it say? Make them known to your sons, and your grandsons, and the implication obviously is daughters and granddaughters as well. Daughters and granddaughters are not being excluded whenever it says sons and grandsons, any more than when it said of Eve in the creation that she was man, okay? Let your children know and your grandchildren know the truth of God. Your household should be like a mini Bible college, a mini seminary to train up the children in the fear and admonition of the Lord. You gotta evangelize them. Now, if they're gonna get saved, God's gotta do the saving, but you keep evangelizing them, you keep teaching them, you keep training them. Remember this morning we talked about the most urgent need that we have is to be reconciled unto God. So the most urgent need your child has is to know how to be reconciled unto God. God'll change the heart. but you be that mouthpiece to proclaim and live the truth before your children. I love sharing this. I hope it doesn't embarrass Elizabeth, but she was raised up with family worship and hearing the gospel. At a certain point, though, the Lord actually saved her. We can't save her. God did that, okay? And one of the things she said, she came and talked to us, and she said, You know, she said, I really didn't like it when you were talking to me about God. It was before she was saved. Just sort of didn't like it. I don't remember whether you said resented or whatever you said. She would sit, she would listen patiently, she would read the verses and so on, and you would have no awareness as a parent that the child didn't like it. But if you're not saved yet, then you're not gonna like it, right? Even if you believe it's true. And she talked about how when the Lord saved her, he transformed her whole heart and affections toward God and his saving truth. So we could teach them, they're not gonna believe, how are they gonna believe unless they hear, right? How are they gonna hear unless someone's dead? So we're the teachers, just as we're to encourage one another, our children and their grandchildren, that God does the transformation. So at some point, if he's gonna save them, he's gonna awaken that child. But I will say this, that providentially, neglect of parental teaching, and neglect of good pastoral preaching and teaching, and neglect of grandparent teaching. If you're a grandparent, you better be teaching your grandkids. And don't just say, you need to believe in God. You need to teach them the things of the Lord. If you're children, if you're parents, you need to be doing that. If you're an uncle or an aunt, you need to be doing that. Teach them, make them known to your sons and your grandsons. Remember the day you stood before Yahweh, your God at Horeb, when Yahweh said to me, assemble the people to me, that I may let them hear my words, so they may learn to fear me all the days they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children." I don't know if you've ever thought about this. Have you ever thought about what is one of the reasons why God allows us humanity to be generational. Why not just have one generation and be done with them? Well, by having multiple generations, it allows for the older generation to teach the younger generation, which they need, but which is also a wonderful exercise for a believer. to teach her children, her grandchildren, to teach the church, to teach other Christians, to exhort one another. And in this context, what is the context? Older women teach the younger women. So that there has to be the age gap of age and experience in one group. to pass on the wisdom to the children. We're not like aardvarks or horses where there's a lot of instinct that God has just woven into the younger version of the parent, if you will. We have to be taught and we have to be trained. And something that's very different about us is that foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child. So there is natural rebellion there that the parent has got to begin to address and bring correction. But what you don't want to do is to create a bunch of legalists. How do you do that? Their whole growing up, like, do this, don't do that, God says to do this, God says not to do that, and you do that outside of the context of the gospel. So, I'll give you an idea. When talking to our children, if they fibbed and told a lie, we wouldn't just say, well, God says don't lie. we would explain to speak a lie is to believe and to speak what is not true. And to believe and to speak what is not true is to align yourself at that moment with Satan, who is the liar and father of all lies, and it is to align yourself against God, who is the God of all truth. And lying brings about sin and death and real consequences in your life. And when you believe the sins and the lies, and the sins that come out of it, it is going to create ruin and death in your life. And God wants you to know the truth, and the truth to set you free. And that comes first and foremost through faith in Christ and His work, and He is the way, the truth, and the life. And so you don't just like say, don't lie. God says not to lie. Yes, tell them that, but tell them that in the context of the theology of the Bible and the theology of the gospel. So you're not just laying down fairer, safer rules. Do this, don't do this, do this, do. Because God says so, God says don't do this, do that. You do want to tell them what God says to do and do not do, and to warn them of the consequences. You need to lay everything down for them in the framework of biblical theology and the gospel. You have to do that, or your children will not know well the fear and admonition of the Lord. They will not be wise in the scriptures. Their spirit, will very much reflect the world, especially if they're getting a lot of input from the world. Before we wrap it up tonight, and they've got a lot of other texts about teaching your children and a lot of texts about how to love them. So you're gonna wanna come back for that next week. Parents, you wanna not only instruct your children and grandparents in the ways of the Lord, be very, very, very careful about their friends and about their influences from the world. Be really careful about that. Our children basically don't get phones until they're grown up. They don't get tablets until they're grown up. In fact, except for our daughters, all the boys, we require them to buy their own cell phone and to be able to pay for it, the monthly expenses. We don't just hand phones over to them. We don't hand computer access over to them. By the way, which makes them very interested in a lot of other things other than computers. But we just, we don't do that because there's way too much influence from the world. I fear very much in the public school system that's going on as well. One of the ladies here at the church left as a public teacher, I believe it was here in Lompoc, because they opened up sort of gender neutral bathrooms in the local Lompoc ISD, right? You're gonna hand your kids over to that? going to hand your kids over to a bunch of pagan people. And by the way, this is a problem with a lot of youth groups because a lot of youth groups are in generally unbiblical churches and they got a lot of lost young people who were driven by their hormones and and you throw them into a group of 20 kids like that, and maybe only one or two of them are actually saved, and it's a youth group. I remember years ago when we were at Hoey Falls at a picnic. It was 4th of July or Memorial Day, I don't remember what it was. And the young people at our church went to talk to the young people of Calvary Baptist. And there was a bunch of them. And our kids came back and they said, they're lost. They're all lost. They don't know the gospel. So our kids went over and started evangelizing the kids from Calvary Baptist. And I thought, I gotta go talk to the youth leader. And I went and found the youth leader and talked to him for a while. And one of the things he said to me is, he goes, I deliberately never share the gospel with anyone until I'm able to take them to putt-putt golf or Six Flags, because you got to win your way into their lives. And I was just like, okay. I tried to bring some correction there, but just because there's a youth group doesn't mean that it's as edifying as it needs to be. So I'm gonna argue that a couple of main ways that you cherish your children and have great affection for them is to realize they are a gift of God. And that even before they were conceived, God knew them and God had a purpose for them. And he wove them together in the mother's womb and all the days that were written for them were written out before they were even born. And therefore they have supreme value because they're created in the image of God. And the way you begin to really love them is to cherish them and to begin to teach them the gospel, to teach them the truth, to teach them the ways of the Lord. So that just as older women are to instruct the younger women, parents, grandparents, you're put there to instruct your children. Not just to let them do whatever they want to do. Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child. I'll give you one other kind of funny illustration. Years ago, I think we were at Cheddar's, maybe, in Texas. And at that point, we had five of our seven children. So all of our children were way younger. We're all sitting around the table. And the people next to us had one kid. And that kid was a terror. He literally got up on the table at one point, was dancing around and shouting and stuff like that. He's like standing on the table. He's like a two year old or something like that. And the parents had no control over this child and they were doing the bargaining. If you behave, we'll take you and get you a toy and all that stuff. Don't bargain with your kids like that. That's ridiculous. Why would you do that? You know, God doesn't bargain with us. So, and the hostess and a couple of the waitresses noticed our table. And you know, by the way, you know what our kids were doing? When they looked over at that kid, they were all going like, what is going on with that kid? And they're kind of looking at me like, I know what would happen if we did that. And actually, was it one or two of the, I don't know if it was the hostess or one of the waitresses came over, she said very quietly, your children are so different. They're so different. And I think that's why a lot of people fear children. They haven't been around a household of children raising the fear and admonition of the Lord. It's not that they're not the sinners, they are. It's not that they have the spirit before they're regenerated, they aren't, they don't. But the fact is, though, that even worst case scenario, if someone grows up and they aren't saved, there will be some real restraint on their lives they received, typically speaking, from what their parents taught them. So at least there won't be a horror to society in most cases. But God may well use that teaching and influence of the parents to save that child, perhaps at a very young age, and to bring that truth to the grandchildren. And man, it makes a difference. And I would argue, if you're a grandparent or a parent, the main reason you're a grandparent or a parent is to train those children in the ways of the Lord. To make Christ known to them, Him crucified and raised, and to tell them who the true and living God is. Remember this morning, you gotta have the right God, you gotta have the right mediator, right? His right work. Teach them all of scripture. Kimberly, in homeschool, does scripture reading, and has been through, I think, the whole Bible more than once with our children, and we have family worship as well. And like Joshua, during homeschool, we'll tell him, go watch a John MacArthur sermon, go watch an R.C. Sproul. It's a part of their homeschooling, right? Go read your creation science book. It's a part of the schooling that they have, because we wanna fill their world with those kind of truths. And then the opposite is when it comes to any entertainment, we're very, very careful. We don't show any, we don't have streaming cable or anything. They can't see a commercial on our TV screens. I'll wrap up with this. I keep telling you, keep giving me more illustrations. Our children literally grew up never seeing a commercial because anything they saw was only because we put a videotape or a CD or a Blu-ray into a player and knew what they were gonna watch. And we were over at my sister-in-law's house in Texas, and a TV program was on, some cartoon show, and a commercial came on. And like two of her younger children were like, what? what just happened. They both were like, the show's not over, and they just changed it right here. They didn't know what a commercial was. They were shocked that, right in the middle of the story, they didn't finish the story, and they just stopped it. I remember one of the kids going, why'd they do it, Dad? They were right in the middle, and they stopped it. They didn't know what a commercial was. And so, I mean, today you could watch even an appropriate program and end up with who knows what in your commercials. So don't just plop your kids in front of the TV or a movie or the tablet or a cell phone. You have two, I think, two responsibilities in your loving your children by way of teaching. Teach them the truth and the ways of the Lord. Guard them from the influence and lies of the world. That is your duty, parent. That is your duty, grandparent. You have one season to raise them. Take full advantage of that. Train up your children in the ways they should go. It's a verse we're going to see next time. When they're older, they will not depart from it. Your house is to be your seminary, your Bible college, the home that worships God. Let that be your hope. Let's pray. Father, thank you for this time together in your word. I pray for the parents and the grandparents here in this church, that we would really be examples to teach our children to also guard the input. Even those who may not have children as they interact with children at the church or elsewhere, that they would be very mindful of their witness for Jesus Christ and their witness for the true and living God, you, the true and living God. And Lord, While you do the actual saving and you do the actual sanctification, you have ordained in purpose the means by which that would come about, and that includes the parents and the grandparents. That includes godly men and women who are around those children in the church. May we be stewards to regard the younger generation and young people as an example that we are to encourage them and teach them. Help the ladies in this church, those who are a little bit older to be able to really minister to the younger ladies, the young moms, to really treasure their husbands, imperfect as they are, to treasure their children, little sinners as they are, and that we would be those who value marriage and value spouses and value children and value grandchildren according to the biblical perspective as the world is rushing hard and fast under satanic influence against everything related to the family. The world is against marriage. It's against who a man is and who a woman is and what marriage is. It's against marriage. It's against children. In the midst of that venom from Satan, may we be a people who love children, who love grandchildren, and who see the sacrifice involved with raising them up with being well worth it. For such is biblical love. Biblical love sacrifices for the well-being of others, beginning with our children and our grandchildren. We pray and ask all this in Jesus' name, amen.