All right, if you turn with me, please, to Joshua chapter 24, Joshua chapter 24. We will look, read rather, verses 14 through 18, 14 through 18. Now, therefore, fear the Lord and serve him. This is Joshua's farewell dress to the people of Israel in sincerity and in truth and put away the gods which your father served on the other side of the flood and in Egypt and serve the Lord. And if it seemed evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom you will serve. whether the gods which your father served that were on the other side of the flood or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me, in my house, we will serve the Lord. And the people answered and said, God forbid that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods. For the Lord our God, he it is that brought us up and our fathers out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage, and which did those great signs in our sight, and preserved us in all the way wherein we went, and among all the people through whom we passed. And the Lord drave out from before us all the people, even the Amorites, which dwelt in the land. Therefore will we also serve the Lord, for he is our God. May God bless the reading of his holy word. Every church desires church growth. Today, there are hundreds of books written on church growth. As you peruse those books, you will be astonished to notice that one thing is absent from nearly all of them. They're all talking about how to get people from the outside in. But they're not talking about how to keep the children and the teenagers who are inside in. Do you know that 75% of young people that grow up in a church abandon the evangelical truth and evangelical churches for unbiblical doctrine and modes of worship when they reach adulthood. Something is drastically wrong. We can't just attribute this horrendous failure to the worthiness around us. That's a part of it. the allurement of the world, the enticements of Satan, the wickedness of our children's own hearts. I believe that a very real part of children abandoning the faith is the lack of fatherly leadership in the home through daily, prolonged, sustained family worship. Let me explain. If family worship is only an optional thing done on occasion, or perhaps not done at all, or done as only a superficial exercise, as a brief grace said before the meals, children will grow up seldom, if ever, hearing their dads speak to them about the things of God on a daily basis. And so the one real arena of life, which is the family life, will be conveyed to children as something you can live basically without God. Well, maybe with some morality, maybe with some general principles, but around the family table, In the family interaction, it's always about things or maybe about churches in general, but never about their personal soul, never genuine truth expressed by their father to them and training them in the nurture and the fear and the admonition of the Lord, never a genuine spirituality. When that is missing. Children will abandon the truth. I've been privileged in my life to serve three churches. All three churches had between 700, 800 members, basically. And so I've had opportunity to observe a couple of thousand people close hand in their family life. And what I've noticed in all three churches, when I look around over the congregation, Those children that have stayed with the church, become adult professing members, become the backbone and become the stalwart sons and daughters of the Church of Jesus Christ for the next generation, most of the time they come from families where their fathers have led sustained, daily, continuous family worship. There are exceptions, but not many. When my own parents commemorated their 50th anniversary a couple of years before my father passed away, we five children decided to express gratitude to my mother for one thing and my gratitude to my dad for one thing. And we wouldn't talk about it ahead of time, what we were going to say. All five of us thanked my mother for her secret prayer life. She was a great prayer warrior. And all five of us thank my dad for leading our family in family worship, particularly for the prolonged Sunday night family worship in which he would read a portion of Pilgrim's Progress every Sunday evening and then discuss it with us. And we'd sit at his feet and ask all kinds of questions. What does it mean that the house of the interpreter? How does the Holy Spirit work here? Dad, what does Mr. Talkative mean? What's this relationship between faithful and Christian all about? And my dad would sit down the book and with tears, he'd teach us literal tears about the preciousness of God, the Holy Spirit working in the hearts of the children of God and leading them to Jesus Christ. And when I grew up, I actually thought all dads did that. I thought that was normal. When I became a minister, I was horrendously disappointed to discover that most dads don't ever do anything like that. And it was a very sad experience for me. But my brother, three years older than me, when he thanked my dad, this is what he said. Dad, I want to thank you that the oldest memory of my life is sitting on your lap, looking up into your face. I can't remember what you said. I only remember your tears and your sincerity. And I remember thinking as a three year old boy, God is real. So I want to thank you, Dad, that I never had to struggle with the reality of the existence of God. Family worship. How critical is family worship to you? Is it the most important part of your day? I can say to you, though I don't do very well many times either. I can say to you that the most important thing I do in life is leave family worship. Miss that, I miss everything. You may remember how the space shuttle Columbia tragically disintegrated during its high speed reentry into the atmosphere in 2003. What you probably don't know is that the commander of that space shuttle was Colonel Rick Husband, a very devout, godly Christian. Did you know that before he launched into space, he prepared 18 devotions and video for each of his two children? 36 videos. and said to his children when he left, I can't bear to have you go without family worship for 18 days, so I've prepared a video for you each day. You can have family worship each day when I'm gone. How important do you think those 18 videos are to those two children now? Family worship is not the only factor of the home, of course. We believe, and I'm sure we all agree on that, as goes the home, so goes the church, and as goes the church, so goes the nation. But family worship is the most central, decisive factor of the most essential relationship by which this entire world functions. If you fail here, There's a tremendous flaw in your entire family. If you do family worship well and you fail in other areas, that too is negative, of course, but this is the foundation of the foundation. Family worship. If you're a minister sitting here this morning, I want you to know I've got three goals for you. First, I want you to examine your own practice of leading family worship. Get your own house in order here. Second, I want to encourage you to preach sermons on family worship. And third, I encourage you to model what the Puritans did, that they would actually go into the homes of their people and model family worship for fathers, so fathers can see how it's done to their own children and then take it over and do it themselves. I want to look with you this morning at four things. The duty of family worship. The implementation of it. That'll take up half of our time, number two. Objections to it. And then some concluding motivations for it. So four headings. Duty, implementation, objections and motivation. said, as for me, Joshua 24, 15b, and my house, we will serve the Lord. That word serve there can also be translated worship. Joshua was speaking about a daily worship, about a regular habit, a regular custom in which he engaged. And when you first read verses 14 and 15, You may think he's saying that family worship is optional because he says, well, you choose who you want to serve. But you see, it's not optional. He's he's doing much like Elijah did on Mount Carmel. If you want to serve Baal, go ahead and serve him. Choose you this day whom you will serve, Baal or the living God. It's actually a rhetorical question. Of course, you're not going to go back to the foolish gods who are no gods. The gods who don't have eyes that can see and ears that can't hear, as the psalmist said. You want to worship God. There is no other option. As for me and my house, we will serve. We will worship every day the living God. Now, Josh was 100 years old when he says this. He has remarkable zeal. as an aged man. But who does he think he is? He's passing off the scene. How can he be so confident that his children are going to serve the Lord, are going to worship, are going to continue the practice of daily family worship? After all, there's all kinds of idolatry going on in Israel. And when he leaves the scene, there will be more idolatry. How can he be so sure? Well, he has confidence in the promises of God. He has confidence in the covenant-keeping character of God. And he has confidence that when he has implemented family worship on a regular, daily, sustained basis in his family, that his children will continue it in the next generation. In fact, he actually believes that if the nation of Israel is engaged in this daily worship of God, the whole nation will persevere in the ways of God for at least the next generation. As for me and my house, the future generation, we will serve the Lord. Now if you turn to that same chapter, Joshua 24, and look at verse 31, you read these remarkable words, and Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders that outlived Joshua, that is the next generation, which had known the works of the Lord that he had done for Israel. What an incredible encouragement for fathers who engage in daily family worship to know that here you have an example that God will bless it, at least for the next generation, and who knows, maybe for many generations. I can tell you in my household, if we get up from the dinner table and I went and sat in the living room chair and started to read the newspaper, my kids would think I'd gone out of my mind. Let's get into you, Dad. How are we going to do family worship? Oh, yeah, but I'm tired today. I don't feel like it. Dad, what is wrong with you? That's what they say. They wouldn't think of escaping family worship for a day. Well, your children can help you. Once you get in the habit of it. You see, the question isn't, shall I do family worship or not? That's a no brainer. The question is, how can I do it better? Lord, help me. You don't question whether you should brush your teeth every day, do you? Whether you should eat a meal every day? Of course you have to do these things. Your body needs daily sustenance, your body needs hygiene, cleanliness. Why should you question family worship? Your children, your whole family needs spiritual food. Of course they're going to do family worship. That's what Joshua is saying. Now, what do you need to do in family worship? Well, the Bible says you need to do three things. First, you need to give daily instruction in the word of God. That is, you need to not only read the word with your family, but you need to talk to them about it. questions, answers, dialogue, instructions, challenges, whatever. Deuteronomy 6, 6 and 7 says it this way. I command thee to take my word and to put it in thine heart, and thou shalt teach my statutes diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy house, when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, when thou risest up. How often do you rise up? Every morning. How often do you sit down? every day. How often do you walk around? Every day. These are daily activities, brothers and sisters. This is not something you do once a week, on the Sabbath, or when you feel like it. Every day you instruct your children in the Word of God, diligently, from the heart. That's what Moses says. daily prayer to the throne of God. Jeremiah tells us that the fury, and in Hebrew it's the strongest possible word for wrath, the angry, furious wrath of Almighty God will rest on the home that does not pray together. That is amazing. Thomas Brooks said, the Puritan Thomas Brooks, that the father does not pray daily with his family, is leaving his family like a home without a roof, exposed and open to all the storms of heaven. The wrath of God. You know, a 30 second prayer before a meal Doesn't cut it. You can't say you have a good relationship with God in your family when you when you talk to him for 30 seconds a day. I'm not saying you have to pray like the Puritans a couple hours a day. Longevity is not the ultimate answer. What would you think of me if I said, you know, I've got I've just got this wonderful relationship with my wife. You know, when I'm gone, I don't even bother to call her. We've got such a good relationship. And when I'm home, you know, it's so good, I only need to talk to her about two minutes a day. And so you're crazy. You have no good relationship at all. You can't cultivate a good relationship with God in your families if you're not letting God talk to your family through his word and you're not talking back to God, representing your family through prayer. Communication is a two way street. And in Christianity, that two way street is God speaking to you through his word, you speaking back to God through prayer. Paul wrote to Timothy, everything is to be sanctified by the word of God in my prayer. And we're to do everything to the glory of God. If you eat and drink, you're to do it to the glory of God. Man shall not live by bread alone, says Deuteronomy 8, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Don't you need to teach that to your children? That precious word. You commit sins every day as a family. Don't you need to confess them as a family to God? You get blessed by God every day as a family. Don't you need to thank God for those blessings? Every day, you need to instruct your children. Every day, you need to pray with your children. And thirdly, every day you need to sing the praises of God, not only instruct the word and pray to the throne, but sing the praise. Psalm 118, verse 15, says the voice of rejoicing and salvation is heard in the tents of the righteous. The right hand of the Lord doeth valiantly. Philip Henry, the father of the famous commentary, and Matthew Henry said this is a clear reference to daily singing of songs in the tents of the Israelites. This is not public temple worship. This is church worship. This is family worship. As you walked among the tents in the wilderness, you could hear the families singing songs of praise to God. The Lord is to be worshipped through singing. Colossians 3, 16, that the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, how teaching and admonishing one another in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. The Puritans said. Singing should always be the last part of family worship because it stays on the heart the longest and you want to go into today's activities. Humming that tune. Singing those words. Letting the same reumption of family worship go with you into the day. You see, we owe to God family worship. We owe it to our wives. We owe it to our children. The Lord Jesus is worthy of it. God's Word commands it. And your conscience affirms it. Our family owes its pledge of allegiance to Almighty God. And you, Father, are placed in a position of authority to guide your children in the way of the Lord. You're not just friends and advisors to your children. As their teacher and ruler in the home, your example and your leadership are crucial. So clothed with holy authority, you owe to your children prophetical teaching, priestly intercession, and royal guidance. Tonight, we'll hear more about that. But that means you must direct your children. through family worship, by way of scripture, prayer and song, you must, like Abraham, command your children, your household, to follow in the pathway of God after you, keeping the way of the Lord. All right, you say, well, I'm convinced. I've got to do family worship. Now, how do I do it? How do you implement it? Well, I'm going to avoid two extremes here. I'm going to avoid an idealistic approach that is beyond the reach even of the most God-fearing home in our day. And I'm going to avoid the minimalistic approach, which says, how can I get away with doing it in the least possible way so that God's not upset with me? That's no way to serve God either. Can you imagine a wife saying of a husband, a husband saying of his wife, how can I be, well, do the minimum amount to sustain my marriage? What kind of marriage do you want on a scale of 1 to 10? A 5? You're going to be satisfied with a 5? That's not what we heard last night. It's not Ephesians 5. What kind of a Christian do you want to be? What kind of a Christian home do you want? Are you going to be satisfied with a 5? Pray God you have an excellent marriage. Pray God you have an excellent Christian home. And then go out and use the means that God uses to bless, to make excellent marriages and excellent Christian homes. So let's look first at preparation. What do you need to do to prepare for family worship? Well, that will cost you a little time and energy at the very beginning. You need to get organized. You need to have a place in your home. It will be second nature after a couple of weeks. A place in your home where everyone has a chair and you've got books. Everyone has a Bible. Let them all be set up so you don't have to go find them every day. And perhaps if you're using a daily devotional or you're using some other book you're going through, those books, we've got three children, so you get five copies and you line them up. Everybody has their spot. And as soon as it's family worship time, you go sit down. You know what you're going to do. You know what sources you're following. You're organized. Second, aim for brevity in family worship. Don't provoke your children. When your children are very young, probably 10 minutes is about all you can do. Their attention span isn't that long. They get older, like my children now, 20 minutes usually we spend in family worship. Often they have to go away in the evening. That's become a bit of a problem. And sometimes it's squeezed down into 15. But if they're all sticking around or sometimes maybe we end up singing and then we end up talking with one or two of the children a little bit longer, 20, 25, whatever. But the whole Puritan idea of 45 minutes in the morning and another 45 minutes in the evening is so idealistic. I doubt many families can reach it today. So don't provoke them by forcing them to stay away from other activities because you have this long family worship. If it's spontaneous, great. Third, don't indulge in excuses to avoid family worship. I've heard of fathers who said, well, I've lost my temper today, I don't dare have family worship with my children. Actually, brother, you need it all the more. You need to say, my dear wife, my dear children, forgive me, your dad did wrong. Let's go to God, ask for forgiveness, confess your faults and then go to family worship. The way to deal with sin is never to run from God, but always to run to God. My oldest son was naughty one day when he was about six years old, my wife approached me at the door, the first thing she said was, you won't believe what Calvin did. And it wasn't it wasn't really something outrageously bad, but it wasn't good either. It was a moral infraction. And so I was sitting at the supper table thinking about how to take him into what we call the sunroom afterward, the place where I discipline children out of windows in the room and you can shut the doors and do it privately. What was I going to say to him in that sunroom? And all of a sudden I felt some arms around my neck and I felt something wet and he was weeping. Daddy, I've sinned, I've sinned, I've sinned. Everything I was going to say and do went out the window. I mean, I still had the discipline, but it was altogether different because it was repentance. That's true of us as adults, too. You see, what will ultimately lead us to hell is not sin per se, but unrepentant sin is what leads you to hell. And so you never allow sin in your family or in your own life to keep you from family worship, but make it drive you to family worship. And don't say, oh, I'm just going weird. I'm so tired. I don't have the strength to do it. Oh, come on. Quit being a sissy. If Jesus Christ could bear the cross for you to death, can't you bear up 15 minutes and feed your family the words of life? You can do it. And fourth, lead family worship with a firm fatherly hand and a soft penitent heart. Speak with hopeful solemnity, talk naturally, yet reverently during this time, using the tone you would use when speaking to a deeply respected friend about a serious subject. Expect great things from a great covenant keeping God in family worship. and put priority upon it. If the phone rings, don't think about answering it. Don't even think about it. You are worshipping the living God. This is your sacred private family time. That person will call back or leave a message on the answering machine. It's going to be okay. This is priority. You wouldn't walk out of church for a phone call, would you? Why would you walk out of family worship for a phone call? So let your children know through all these actions that this is the priority. Actually, if you have little children, this is a great time to prepare them for for sitting in church. Because once they can sustain 15 minutes in a reverent posture and a reverent manner, well, then they can stay a little longer, so they can be sitting in church with you. So as you do family worship, don't let them slouch around. You're serving the living God. Son, would you please take your legs off of the end of the couch there and sit up? Remember, we're worshiping God. You see, you set a tone in family worship. It's not that you make it burdensome, but you do make it reverent. Our Father, that's intimate, who art in heaven, that's reverent. And you bring the two together in family worship. Well, let's get more specific. Let's walk through these four things we need to do. Number one, reading scripture. I'll give you a few pointers for each of them. This is practical stuff. Have a plan. Read 10 or 20 verses from the Old Testament in the morning, 10 or 20 verses from the New Testament in the evening or something like that. If you only do one family worship, maybe alternate. Puritans always said you should do two family worships a day because in Israel they offered a morning sacrifice and they offered an evening sacrifice. Some families have a hard time doing that. We have a really hard time in the morning. Every single family member in my family is an evening person, including both of us. But we do a small one in the morning and we do a longer one in the evening. You find your own way. We're not going to set down legalistic rules, but read systematically. If your children are very young, maybe you want to read the parables. Maybe you want to read the miracles. Maybe you want to read historical portions they can understand. Just be sure that as they get older, you read the whole Bible over a period of time. J.C. Ryle said, a whole Bible makes a whole Christian. Fill their minds with the Word of God. Now, in our family, I've often tried to break into our family worship. We've used books when the kids were young. The last 12 years or so, my kids have always said, Dad, we just want to read from Genesis to Revelation. And we just don't they don't like it when I try to skip around and they don't like when I try to use a book, they just want me to talk to them. And so that's what I try to do. But I have a plan. Second, account for special occasions. If you're going to have Lord's Supper that morning, you might want to read from Matthew 26 and break out of your normal routine. Or on a Sunday morning, you might want to read Psalm 48. Or before you leave for home, we have a custom that we read Psalm 91 or Psalm 121 for a vacation. I got that from my dad. Every vacation in my entire life that our family went on, my dad would get us all in the living room. We'd all get on our knees. He'd read Psalm 91. And then you go to prayer. Well, we naturally take over that custom. And even if we're going 100 miles away, we'll pray together in the car, in the driveway before we leave. We need protection. Being on the road is the most dangerous thing you can do in this world. Involve the family. Another point. Involve the family. As soon as they can read, even before they can read, they should have their own Bible on their laps. And when they're just beginning to learn to read, they should read the portions as well. So if we're going to read 20 verses, I look around, we've got five family members, everyone reads four verses tonight. Very simple. Just do the math. Now, if the child is six or seven years old, it's going to take a long time to read four verses. Maybe then, you know, break it down to two verses or something. But we've had to exercise a lot of patience in family worship, as those little children would read very slowly. But you do it. They want to feel included. They want to feel part of it. It's worth the effort. As they read, you teach them how to read the Word of God reverently. Oh, you're mumbling, son. Remember, this is the Word of God. Speak clearly. Well, that's too fast, my dear daughter. This is the Word of God. Read with more expression. Listen to Daddy now. Let me let me do it for you. I'll read that verse. Will you repeat that like that? And you teach them how to read. You don't have to do it very often, just when they're seven, eight years old, a few times and they catch on. And as they grow up, they read the Bible better and better and they sound like you and they read it with reverence and they read it with passion and energy like it is a living book. And so through having them read with you, you train them to read the word of God so they don't have to first start to read when they get married. That is first start to read along. Secondly, biblical instruction. How do you instruct them day by day? Well, primarily for Q&A. Ask them questions. Pick out questions, say their name. Don't let the 18 year old answer the four year old question. And don't let if the 12 year old doesn't know the answer. Don't let an eight year old humiliate the 12 year old by giving the answer. So you just you just approach each child and you train your children. Others are not to answer this. And then you dialogue with that child, just father, child, father, child. For a minute or so, and then you can open up to the other children. But try to think of questions that relate to each age group. Now, I know and I'm sad about this, there's no really, really good family worship study Bible. on the market today. And the good news is that I've been so burdened by this over the years that I finally have bit the bullet. And with a whole team of people, we're undertaking this effort. My colleague, Dr. Vilkas, is the general editor of the New Testament. Dr. Michael Barrett is the general editor of the Old Testament. I'm the general editor of the whole project. And we've got 14 men who are making study notes for KJV. FWSB, Family Worship Study Bible. And at the end of each chapter, you're going to have a gray box with two to four family worship helps. So you as a father can simply sit down. I know you don't have time to prepare for family worship for 15, 20 minutes every night, but one minute you can read that little box. before your family engages in family worship. And you'll have a good idea of what subjects to bring up, what questions to ask your kids. That should be coming out in about two years. It will all be written by this fall. It's most of it's written right now, but by the time it's all edited and published, it'll take some time. But I felt the need for this for a long time. But in this instruction, be plain in meaning. If your question is above the level of that child, then keep asking questions around it that bring the level down. And after some effort, you'll get to understand where your children are at. This will help you understand how much they know and help you dialogue to instruct them further. And then encourage family dialogue. If your children then begin to bring questions off of your question, and the whole family worship goes in a different direction than you expected, praise the Lord. They're involved. That's great. So over a period of time, say over a five year stretch, you should, because the Bible is full of diversity, you should actually be speaking about every major subject in natural life and spiritual life with your children. So they have your advice on every subject area in the entire world. That's awesome. I'll never forget my son was I guess it was 10 years old, and I read a couple of books, how you're supposed to approach your children with the facts of life and the age and how much you're supposed to say. And I thought, man, I'm supposed to get I heard everyone else was nervous about this. I supposed to get a little bit nervous talking to my son about the facts of life. So I got just a tad bit nervous, approached him one time. Oh, he just had a great talk. It was just wonderful. When I got done, I said, do you have any questions? He said, not really. I said, if you ever have any questions, I said, just come to me and we'll talk more. He said, OK, no problem. What's for supper? He said. It's just so natural for him. And something had dawned on me. We talked about intimate spiritual things all our lifetime in family worship. So to talk about intimate physical things was actually a step down. It was no big deal. I can talk to my son now. He hopes to be married in a couple of weeks, a couple of months. I have no trouble talking to him about how he should handle himself sexually in marriage, how he should deal with his future wife in all kinds of areas. We have these talks and it's just natural outgrowth of family worship. Does it make him nervous? Does it make me nervous? He's used to being able to talk with his dad about anything. That's no credit to me. That's just a credit to family worship, what family worship does, you see. It helps you in all kinds of areas of child rearing. A couple of years ago, my son went with my daughters to Mexico to a family mission. There was a man there from our church, adult member, who was kind of curious, and he talked to my son about what it's like to be a PK, a preacher's kid. My son says, I don't know. Oh, feeling different being a PK? No, you don't feel. What's it like to be a son of your dad? This man told me this afterwards. And my son said, Oh, I like my dad. Yeah, but what's it like? I mean, can you talk to him? He said, my son, I can talk to him. I can talk to my dad about anything. Really? How did that all come about? Well, we do family worship. That's great. That's great. You can talk to your kids about anything if you do family worship, if you expound the Word of God to them. What subject doesn't the Bible talk about? Everything. Be pure in doctrine. It doesn't mean, as some people think somehow, that you've got to be a quasi-Arminian when you talk to a six-year-old. You'll be reformed in your theology, be biblical in your theology, no matter what age your children are. They can understand the simplest principles. Bring it to them. Be relevant in application. Don't be afraid to share your experiences. Like my dad, I took over this custom. If there's a verse that we read tonight in family worship that has been made very special in my life at some point, I'll tell my children. I'll tell them what happened. Or someone else I know. Any child of God I know around the face of the earth. If something was made special, and they talk to me about that verse, I'll say, do you know there's a man over in New Zealand, and this verse was made precious to him, and he was in this circumstance, and God applied these words to his heart. You see how precious this is to children? I want them to feel that God's Word is so real. It's helping people today everywhere around the world. And it helps me as their dad. And then I try to give concrete illustrations. I tell them about stories about the Puritans, the reformers, the ancient church fathers, and how Spurgeon expounded this text. Say we're reading Luke 15, like just the other day. We're into Luke right now. And we came across, this man received his centers. I say, this is an amazing text, children. Do you understand this text? Do you know Charles Spurgeon has a sermon on this text? You know what the title of the sermon is? The Approachability of Jesus Christ. He's an approachable Savior. You can go to Him anytime. He receives sinners, the worst kind of sinners. He's open 24-7. Go to Him, children. You see, this type of thing. Make it real. Make it relevant. And be affectionate in manner. Be affectionate in manner. One of my favorite books in the Bible is the book of Proverbs. Don't you love the affection of Proverbs? My son, come sit here, my boy. Come sit here. Learn of your father. It's like a father-friend relationship. And you're bringing the men of Proverbs, bringing all his wisdom to bear, the whole counsel of God to bear on his son. And there's so much affection there. That's why And our kids were very little, probably up to the time they were seven or eight. I'd always have them on my lap in family worship, one on both me and one sitting beside me, talking to them in family worship, looking right in the eye, nice and close. It's great. And you're warm. They feel the warmth of daddy's lap. My youngest daughter was very affectionate by nature. When I come home from trips, that's stopped now, but when I came home from trips when she was younger, she used to try to give me a few more kisses than she did last time. We got up to 500 kisses at one point, so that was great. Every time I come home, it takes 20 minutes, and she kisses me 500 times. But she'd come on my lap, and she'd have friends over, and they'd look at her, but it's time for family worship. She goes to sit on my lap when she's eight or nine years old. And they're wondering what's going on. But for her, you see, family worship was associated with warmth and daddy's lap. And to me, that's an important concept, because when your children are very young and they look at you as a father, their image of God is their image of you and their image of you is their image of God. And when they can think of God as a warm father, that is a profound concept to put into the mind of a child. In fact, did you know that John Calvin once said, prayer is coming and climbing into the lap of our heavenly father and whispering our needs into his kind and loving heart and ears. Well. Children need this warmth and family worship. They need to feel that their dad cannot miss any of them in heaven, that they must all be prepared all be prepared. So many times the family worship, my dad would look at us and say, children, I can't miss any of you. I need you all on the right side of Christ on that great day. Sometimes he'd weep as he's saying. And then when we all got converted, my youngest sister got converted when she was a teenager. The older ones were out of the home already and they already had children of their own. And my dad would say, no, Lord, we can't miss any of the grandchildren. You see, and he modeled that for us, that loving warmth. Well, what about praying? Be short in your prayers. Five minutes is usually long enough. Don't go on and on. But don't do another 30 second thing either. Tedious prayers do more harm than good, and short prayers that don't really say anything don't do any good anyway. Aim for a middle approach. And don't try to preach in your prayers. Be open with your children. If you have something to say to them, say it to them directly. You build internal resentment in your children if you try to tell them something in prayer and you don't tell them when your eyes open. Teach with your eyes open. Pray with your eyes shut. Mary Winslow wrote to her son, Octavius Winslow, in the 19th century, this wise piece of advice. Do less preaching in your prayer and more praying in your prayer. Be simple without being shallow. Pray for things that your children know something about, but don't allow your prayers to become trivial. Don't let them become a grocery list of things you want. Be direct in your prayers. Spread your needs before God. Plead your case. Ask for mercy. And be varied in your prayers. I advise people to follow the simple acts acronym, which I'm sure you know. Adoration. You first adore God. Lift Him up. Spend time expressing the glory of who He is. They can learn that from People in Northern Ireland especially, you hear Northern Ireland Christians pray, oh, three, four minutes at the beginning of their prayer, just exalting God for who he is. They could say amen at the end of that and you'd say, wow, I was in the presence of God. We haven't gotten any petitions yet. And we miss that in America desperately. You know, you can learn from different cultures. They pray differently around the world. You learn, pick up things that are really valuable. Then see confession. Confess your sins. Spend time doing that. Thanksgiving tea. How many things we have to thank God for. And then supplication. Then your needs. Don't begin there. End there. Now, as you pray, teach your children to praise God. And the way we do that is we have an opening prayer to family worship and a closing prayer. I always do the opening prayer. And my wife and my children, I assign to take turns to do the closing prayer. And I begin, and our children are three years old. Remember, they're on my lap. And I say to them when they're three years old, OK, now it's your turn, Lydia. to do the family prayer tonight to close. So Daddy will whisper a few words in your ear and you repeat them. And for about a whole year I do that. She repeats them. When she's four, I say, now you start out. And when you get stuck, you give Daddy a little poke in the stomach. And Lydia could really poke. And then I would pick up and whisper a few words. And so by the time she got to seven, and this is true of all three of my children, they could pray the entire prayer. And then once in a while, you know, I might pull them aside privately and explain to them that they weren't very theologically sound in a certain part of their prayer. But, you know, you let something slip under the rug there because you don't want to discourage them. And they learn as they as they grow older. I finally had to tell Lydia once when they were building our house and we prayed. One day I prayed for the roofers not to fall off as they shingled the house. So she kept she picked up on that. She kept praying for that. And the house was all built and we're living there. She kept praying for the roofers falling off. You know, they're long gone. So finally, the roofers are long gone. You know, you don't need to pray. OK, Daddy, OK. So you train them to pray. No. Some people say, but the Holy Spirit alone can do this, but the Holy Spirit uses means for everything else. Why can't he use this as a means for the Father? The Holy Spirit alone can teach them to truly pray. I know that. But when you teach them the mechanics and you teach them the words and the concepts and the ideas, you say, then they have the basic groundwork from out of which to cry to God. They won't have to be embarrassed in front of their friends. Your friends all come over, they're nine years old. You say, Lydia, it's your turn to pray. OK, Doug. She prays. She's been doing it for six years. What about singing? Sing doctrinally pure songs? I would argue, sing psalms first and foremost, because it's biblical. And as Calvin said, psalms are an anatomy of all parts of the soul. And sing heartily. And with feeling, Colossians 3.23, whatsoever you do, do it heartily as to the Lord and not unto men. Oh, I know what some of you are going to say. My teenage son, he will never sing. He wouldn't sing. Oh, yes, he will. How can you make him sing? Very simple. Son, no singing, no food. You need spiritual food through instruction in the Word, through prayer, through singing, and you need physical food. And you're under this roof. You're in my home, our home, and we worship God together. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Not all of us, but you. I love you, son. And I'm sorry that I didn't implement this earlier. Please forgive me. But from here on in, we're doing family worship and we're going to sing together. After family worship, when you retire for the night and you get down, I hope you do anyway, I hope you get down on your knees beside your bed with your wife before you go to bed and you pray together. I hope she takes a turn one night and you take a turn the next night and you hear each other pray and you have your little mini prayer times together, which is so important for a marriage. Then you pray together. Lord, use this family worship that we've done today with all its frailty. Use it. And bless it to the well-being of our children. Lord Jesus, breathe upon our family during these times of family worship. Make them life-giving times. Well, that's the implementation. Now let me be very brief. What about objections? Our family doesn't have time for this. I'll just read to you what Samuel Davies, the great Southern revivalist, said. Were you formed for this world only, there would be some force in this objection. But how strange does this objection sound coming from an heir of eternity? Pray, what is your time given to you for? Is it not principally that you may prepare for eternity? What? Have you no time for what is the greatest business of your life? Another objection, there's no regular time in which we can all be together. Well, that can be a tough one when your kids get to be in their upper teens, I'll tell you. That's tough on me right now. But you do the best you can. Encourage your children to be there. And really, when they're not there at family worship time, if possible, try to do a separate family worship with them when they come home. It takes extra time. I don't know I succeed here, but if they're missing for more than one or two nights, certainly you need to take them aside and do it. Try to bring them all together. When they're young, it's easier. I remember when my son was 10 years old, he wanted to play on a soccer team. And it was just over the whole family supper hour and family worship hour. And he came to me and he said, Dad, I've got a problem. I want to play soccer, but this coming year, they changed the time. It's no longer from 4 to 5 in the afternoon, but now it's from 6 to 7, right during supper and family worship. Can I still do it? So what do you think, son? He hung his head for a while. Yeah, he said. Family worship is more important. Maybe I can play next year, dad. Good idea, son. Our family is too small. You only need two to do family worship. Or two or three are gathered in my name. If you've got a wife, do family worship. Are families too diverse for everyone to profit? No, you can all sing together. You can all pray together. You just have to have some diversity in the religious instruction. And besides, if I'm talking to a four year old, my 19 year old hears what I'm saying to a four year old, that 19 year old is going to be married in two years, three years. And he needs to know how to talk to his future four year old, so he's being trained by me for his future. I'm not very good at leading family worship. Well, neither am I. God doesn't ask us to be good. He asks us to do it and be faithful. And guess what? The more faithful you are, it's like swimming. Throw you back into the pool, you learn to swim. The more you do it, the better you will get at it. And pick up a few good books. I just wrote, some years ago actually, I wrote a little book on family worship. Just the how-tos. It's an extension of my talk to you this morning. You can read it in an hour and a half. Or get Jerry Marcelino's little book. Or Don Mookie's little book. Or read the old books. The Matthew Henry, J.W. Alexander on family worship. It'll help you. And just get started. Start with two minutes. Three minutes. four minutes, build on what you're doing. George Whitfield said, where the heart is rightly disposed, it does not demand any uncommon ability to discharge family worship in a decent and edifying manner. Too often we use it as an excuse when our real problem is we don't desire to do it. Motivations. Let me conclude with a few motivations. Number one, the eternal welfare of your soul, the souls of your loved ones. Can you imagine what it will be on the day of days to stand before Almighty God with your family and have some of your children on the wrong side of Jesus Christ? And hear those children say, as one old Puritan, Richard Mather, said, Father, You were saved yourself, but you never taught us how to be saved. Father, you were to instruct us and you did not. Father, you have only yourself to blame that we are on the wrong side of Christ. Now, that's a fictitious story, of course, but you understand what Matthew is doing. He's convicting fathers of their neglect and calling them to change their ways. My friend, in family worship we are to do everything we can possibly do to lead our children to Jesus Christ, so that they may be stashed as brands from the burning. We pray with them. We teach them. We sing with them. We weep over them. We admonish them. We plead with them. We invite them. We remember at every family worship we are ushering our children to the very presence of the Most High God. We are seeking grace to bring down the benediction of the Almighty upon our children. Let that motivate you. The eternal welfare of your loved ones. And secondly, the satisfaction of a good conscience. I charge you, Father Sir J.C. Ryle, take every pain to train your children the way that they should go. I charge you not merely for the sake of your children's souls, but for the sake of your own conscience and your own future comfort and peace. Matthew Henry, when he came to die, gathered all his children around him. This is what he said. I'll give you a paraphrase. Children, your dad's dying. In my farewell words to you, I want you to know that I've not been the perfect father. Please forgive me for my shortcomings. But you also know that despite my shortcomings, I've tried to lead you to Jesus Christ every day. Jesus Christ was not a strange word on my lips. I've trained you in the ways of God in this household and children. I command you. Don't meet me on the wrong side of Jesus Christ on the great day. How did he have such courage? Because he had a clean conscience. And he had talked to them. And he knew that they knew the way they had to go. And then he went on and he said this, we've sung together, we've prayed together, we've talked together. And if you turn away from these lights and these privileges and insist on going your own way, I can only pray that all your Bible study, praying and singing will not rise up against you in the judgment day and that you'll come to your senses before it is too late. Thirdly, be motivated by the fact that family worship gives you assistance in child rearing in all kinds of ways. I already spoke about some ways. Openness to speak about meaningful questions. But also, there's strong bonds established in family worship. So that children grow up thinking, how can I offend a father who daily wrestles with God on my behalf? Or a mother at the throne of grace? You know, when I was 13 years old, I wasn't converted till I was 14. When I was 13 years old, I was just beginning to get into some wrong things with a friend, beginning to get just a tad bit rebellious. And I wasn't going in the good direction. And I remember my friend wanting me to take me into a place where I really didn't belong. It wasn't good for my soul. And we were going to go there. And all I can tell you, it sounds mystical and it sounds strange, but as I was about to walk in that place, In my mind's eye, I saw my mother on her knees. And I turned around and instantly I said to my friend, let's do something else. I didn't dare tell him why. But you know, when you have an open family worship, the godliness of that time each day has an impact on even unconverted children. Even impressions are left behind. But they can never wipe away. and be motivated by the shortness of time. What is your life, says James 4? It's a vapor, a little time, and it vanishes away. Most of us don't have our children for much more than 20 years in our home. You understand how quick 20 years passes by? It's gone in a moment. Don't miss all these opportunities. 20 years, 365 times, times 20. That's 7,300 opportunities to bring your children to choose of God's Word. Don't miss them. They're important. And who knows whether you'll live that long or your children will live that long. Seven, eight or nine years ago, I guess now, I was in Latvia. I came back from lecturing and went into my flat. Two guys came bursting through the door. One guy hit me in the face. The other guy was brandishing a knife. They took the sheet off my bed. They cut it up. They tied me, bound me. Hands behind my back very tight. Feet, face. Laid me on the floor. Took everything. Kept running the knife up and down my back. Kept shouting, neighbor the mafia. Slapping my face with the knife. I thought I was a dead man. People had told me the day before. If you're ever in the hands of the mafia, you are a dead man. I actually didn't even pray in those moments I was laying there that my life would be spared. I just knew it wouldn't be. I didn't think about the possibility of living. But in those moments, 45 minutes, as a third fellow I didn't know about, took the keys out of my pocket and went and stripped the entire seminary of all of its computers. That's why it took them so long. In those 45 minutes, I'll tell you, my friends, never in my life did I see the value of family worship as in those moments. I looked at my life. I saw I was saved only by the blood of Christ. Promise after promise of the blood of Jesus flowed through my mind. Promises I didn't even know I had memorized. It was a sweet time of communion with God. I commended my wife, my children, my seminary, my church, my book ministry to the Lord. My life's work was over. But I remember laying there and thinking, Lord, your timing is right. I really don't know anything that I would want to say to my children that I haven't already said to them. And I can't think of anything to bring to my congregation that I haven't at some point said, this is the Lord's timing. It is good. And when I said those words, I was so calm and so peaceful that it surprised me. I was ready to go. And then I would think, oh, but wouldn't it be nice to have a little more time with my wife and kids? And as soon as I started thinking about them instead of Jesus, I get a numbness that would come up like my hands. I thought it was actually a miracle. It would come up to my elbow. And when I thought about Jesus again, the numbness would go right back away. Doctor later explained to me it was just a normal reaction to not having fear. When you rest in Jesus, the fear is taken away. You don't hyperventilate then. Well, so much for my miracle. But the point is this, you see. Family worship is really what gave me that calmness. But you see, I didn't know ahead of time that maybe I'd only have 10 years for my youngest daughter. Not very long time to teach. Remember the shortness of time. And remember love for God and his church. That's motivation. Love for God and his church. You want your children to stay in the church? You want them to be the next generation? You engage in daily family worship. Now, what if you're too late? Some of you are going to say that now. You're going to say, I failed. My kids are old. I've got grandkids now. Well, ask God for forgiveness. Ask your children for forgiveness and then begin with your grandchildren. Pray for them. Talk to them. Disciple them. Speak with them. Begin family worship with your spouse today. Don't give up. Don't be discouraged. God is a forgiving God. I want to close this talk with one illustration. If you forget everything I said this whole time and you remember this illustration, you will have gotten the heartbeat of my entire address. This is an illustration taken from John Payton. John Payton was a missionary to the New Hebrides. His wife died there in childbirth and the child died as well. And John Payton had to bury them. He had to shovel the dirt of their graves with his own hands. Bury them, cover them up and then sit on their graves so the cannibals wouldn't dig up their bodies and eat them. And then one of the local natives went and burned down his house. And he had nothing left, no wife, no child, no home, and he was afraid to take his life next. And so that night he climbed up into a tree to hide himself and slept in a tree. And in that tree, he said it was as if it was written across the sky in golden capital letters. Jesus Christ spoke to his soul. I am with you always, even to the end of the world. How could a man, how could a man go into such a situation and give his life in such a way and still have such a faith? Well, what you don't know about John Payton as he had a father who loved him, a father who engaged with him in daily family worship, a father whom he cherished. And when he was old, he wrote these words about his father. He said, My dear father, when I left home as a young man for college, walked with me for the first six miles of the way to say goodbye. His counsels and his tears and heavenly conversation are as fresh to me now as it were yesterday. Tears are on my cheeks as freely now as then, whenever memory steals me away to the scene. For the last half mile, we walked almost in silence. My father, as was his custom, carrying hat in hand. His lips kept moving in prayer for me. His tears fell fast when our eyes met each other and looks for which all speech was vain. We halted on reaching the appointed parting place. Then he looked me in the eyes and he grasped my hand firmly for a minute in silence. And he said solemnly and affectionately, God bless you, son. Your father's God bless you. And keep you from evil. And then unable to say more, his lips kept moving in silent prayer for me. In tears, we embraced and parted. I ran as fast as I could and went about to turn a corner in the road where he would lose sight of me. I looked back. I saw him still standing with head uncovered. Knowing he was still praying for me. And yet gazing after me. Waving goodbye, I was around the corner in an instant, but my heart was too full and sore to carry me further. So I darted into the side of the road and wept for a while and then cautiously I rose and climbed the dike to see if he had stood there. At that moment, I caught a glimpse of him climbing the dike, looking after me. He had not seen me, I thought, and after he gazed in my direction for a while, he got down and set his face towards home and began to return. But I noticed his head was still uncovered, so I know his heart was still rising in prayer for me. I watched through blinding tears until this form faded from my gaze. And then, hastening on my way, I vowed deeply and often, by the help of God, to live and act so as never to grieve and dishonor such a father and such a mother as he had given me. The appearance of my father when we parted, his advice, his tears, his prayers, the road, the dike, the climbing up on it, the walking away, head uncovered, have all throughout my life risen vividly before my mind and do so now while I'm writing as if it all happened one hour ago. And in my earlier years, particularly in education, when exposed to many temptations, his parting form would rise before me as that of a guardian angel. It is no Pharisee ism, but deep gratitude, which makes me here testify that the memory of that scene has not only helped by God's grace to keep me pure from prevailing sins, but also stimulated me in all my studies that I might not fall short of his hopes. And in all my Christian duties, I might follow faithfully follow his shining example. And then this. How much my father's prayers meant to me and impress me, I can never explain, nor can any stranger ever understand. When on his knees and all of us kneeling around him in family worship, he would pour out his whole soul in tears for the conversion of the heathen world to the service of Jesus Christ and for every personal need. And we would all feel as if we were in the presence of the living Savior. And we learned to love and to know Him as our divine friend, even as children. And as we would rise from our knees, I used to look at the light on my father's face and wish I were like him, in spirit, hoping and praying secretly that in answer to his prayer, I might be privileged someday to carry the gospel to the heathen world. It's not a coincidence that John Payton went to the New Hebrides. Let's pray. Gracious God of heaven, Please forgive all our sins as fathers, all our shortcomings, and not engage in our family and daily family worship with love and affection like John Payton's father. Help us to be more like that, Lord. Wash and cleanse us in the blood of Jesus. And please, bless this talk in every way. That family worship, where it is not engaged in, would be engaged in. and where it is engaged in, that some of the practical helps this hour would help fathers in our midst to carry it out in a way that brings thee more glory and better good for their children. We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.