Please take your Bibles with me this morning and turn to Malachi chapter 4. Malachi chapter 4 and follow along with me as I read verses 4 through 6 of Malachi 4. Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord and He will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the land with a curse. Let's pray together. Our Heavenly Father, we thank You that You do bring to us prophets and messages from heaven. And we ask that what you promised in the prophet of Malachi about turning the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to the fathers. We pray that this hour would go a long way to that end. We need the help of your spirit because without him we're helpless. So we plead it in Jesus name, amen. A man named Philip Morley gives an account regarding a fishing expedition to Alaska. Just listen as he tells this account. The fishing party climbed aboard their small seaplane and skimmed over the Alaskan mountains to a pristine secluded bay where the fish were sure to bite. They parked their aircraft and they waded upstream. where the water teemed with ready-to-catch salmon. Later that afternoon, when they returned to their camp, they were surprised to find the sea plain high and dry. You see, the tides fluctuated 23 feet in that particular bay, and the pontoons of the plain now rested on a bed of gravel. Well, since they couldn't fly out till morning, they settled in for the night and enjoyed some of their catch for dinner, and they slept in the sea plain. In the morning, the seaplane was adrift, so they promptly cranked up the engine and started to take off. But too late, they discovered one of the pontoons had been punctured and was filled with water. The extra weight threw the plane into a circular pattern, and within moments from liftoff, the seaplane careened into the sea and capsized. Dr. Paul Littleford determined that everyone was alive, including his 12-year-old son, Mark. But no safety equipment could be found on board, no life vests, no flares, nothing. And the plane gurgled and submerged into the icy sea. Fortunately, they all had rubber waders, which they inflated. The frigid Alaskan water chilled their breath. And they began to swim for shore in that bay, but the riptide countered every stroke, and the two men alongside Phil and his son Mark were strong swimmers, and both made the shore, just catching the last tip of land. But Phil and his son, carried away by the riptide, were last seen as a disappearing dot on the horizon, swept arm and arm out into sea. The Coast Guard reported they probably lasted no more than an hour in the freezing open waters. Hypothermia would chill their bodies to sleep. Mark, the 12-year-old with the smaller body mass, would fall asleep in his father's arms. Phil, the father, could have made the shoreline too, but that would have meant abandoning his son. Their bodies were never found. Now Morley, who gave this account, asks these two questions. What father wouldn't be willing to die for his son? Would you? Would you? Would you? You nod. You say, who wouldn't? Then Morley asks the second question. If we're willing to go so far as to die for our children, why is it that we often don't seem willing to live for them? This is the theme of our message this morning. Men, we need, we say we're willing to die for them, we need to be willing to live for them. And you know what that means practically? Live for them by getting up off our lethargic sofas and rising to the occasion and fathering them with a godly and heroic passion. I consulted the Google search engine this morning, and they oftentimes have a little picture of something if there's a special day. It's Father's Day today. You know what the picture was, strung between the G and the L? It was a hammock and a father laying, snoozing in the hammock. And too often that is the posture of fathers who should be up and out and living for their children, but instead hiding and sleeping in the presence of their children. We need to live for them, but too often we're like chips off the old block, as Adam, the chip We are the chips off the block of our father Adam, who was found hiding in the bushes, when he should have been out fighting for his family. Remember that in Genesis chapter 3? Where was Adam? There's one writer who comments about this whole theme of Adam in Genesis chapter 3, when the horrible fall took place. Where was Adam when all that destruction was going on? The writer says this, where is Adam while the serpent is murdering his family? He's standing right there in Genesis 3. He's watching the whole thing unravel. Look at Adam. He won't risk. He won't fight. He won't even rescue Eve. Our first father, the first real man, gave into paralysis. He denied his nature as a man, and instead he went passive. And every one of us that his father's sitting in his burgundy chairs. Every one of us has a sinful propensity to do the same. The propensity where we won't risk, we won't fight, we won't rescue our eves. Sadly, it's true in many ways, we are chips off the old block. Now maybe this is just a sermon for me. Maybe it's just my problem. Maybe I'm the only one here in this room who has needed these meditations to revive my fatherly heart this week. But I suspect there may be others in the room who need the same tonic and the same medicine. So what I want to do in the time we have together is to lay out four duties. given in the Scriptures to fathers whereby we can truly live for our children. Four duties given to us in the Scriptures whereby in carrying out these duties we can truly live for our children. And this is for everybody here. It's not just for fathers. You're a young man here. This is for you. Because you're, God willing, going to someday be a father. And you need to see what it is that you're aiming toward. And young ladies, you're here. And you need to be able to see what kind of a man is worthy of fathering your little babies. And there are some older ones here. You say, I'm into grandfathering, I'm done with this fathering business. This is for you too, because you need to instruct the youngers how to be fathers. And children, this is for you too, because you need to see what a good and godly father is. And you need to see that such an individual is not one to be resented. but he is one to be cherished and to thank God for. This is relevant for everybody, even mothers. You who are helpmates to fathers, in listening to this you can help them be better daddies. So let's go to those four duties given in the scripture whereby in implementing them we can be godly fathers. The first duty is by boldly confronting them, our children. How can we well father our children? Firstly, by boldly confronting them. Please turn with me to Genesis chapter 18. Genesis 18 and verse 16. In this account, there are three visitors who have passed by the tent of Abraham up at Mamre. Two of the visitors are angelic, one is divine. They're on a mission. They have their crosshairs set on something. It's in the 19th chapter. They're heading toward Sodom. and Gomorrah. And their mission is that they are going to eventually bring judgment, fire, and brimstone upon these corrupt cities. Look what is said here as the angels and the divine being talk among themselves. Then the men rose up from there, that is, the table of Abraham and his tent, and looked towards Sodom, and Abraham was walking with them to send them off. And the Lord, the divine of the trio, and the Lord said, Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do? Since Abraham will surely become a great and a mighty nation, and in him all the nations of the earth will be blessed. For I have chosen him, Abraham, in order that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice in order that the Lord may bring upon Abraham what he has spoken about him. And the Lord said, the outcry of Sodom and Gomorrah is exceedingly great and their sin is exceedingly grave. So what's happened here? The three angels are going to Sodom and Gomorrah, and they have a plan. Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, which is bring fire and brimstone on this city whose sin, as Sodom, had become exceedingly grave? And what was Sodom like? Well, we read in the next chapter, it's a cesspool of immorality. That's what Sodom is like. And we get this little keyhole glimpse as we look into the life of Sodom. We get one day glimpse of what it's like there in that city, in that culture of Sodom. We find that Sodom is a place, we learned about it earlier in 1310, that its prosperity captivated the eyes of Lot. It says, Lot looked up with his eyes and he looked to the cities in the valley and he chose them as opposed to the high ground of the wilderness of Mamre. It was a prosperous river valley and Lot was drawn to it in his lusts to the merrymaking. and the eating and the drinking. What was Sodom like? It was the Las Vegas of the ancient world, wasn't it? In that keyhole glimpse in the next chapter, we see that as the angels come, these two angels come into the city. Did the inhabitants of Sodom invite the angels in? No. These angels were light. This is the judgment light has come into the world, but they love darkness rather than light. No one wanted to bring these men of light into their darkened homes. They despised them. They recoiled from them. Further we find, later on in the night, that the men of the city are fevered with immorality. fevered with perverted lusts, not only interest in the virgin daughters of Lot, but also interest in homosexual activity. And they even, in 19.8 of this next chapter, they say, who is this alien that he comes among us, Lot charging him with evil, that he should judge us. Now what happened by the end of the chapter? What did Sodom look like? There was a mushroom cloud of the wrath and curse of God that was rising up over Sodom and Abraham saw it as fire and brimstone came down to destroy all the inhabitants of that godless culture. And we see here, we see here in verse 19 that if Abraham see, look at verse 19 of chapter 18, If Abraham see... is to avoid the doom and the destruction that came upon Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham himself, it mentions, he will start a nation. He is living in the land of Canaan. How is he going to be different? So the result of his family's endurance is not fire and brimstone destroying them, a mushroom cloud of God's wrath devouring them, but instead, on the other hand, the blessing of God shining and showering down upon them. What measure will be used? How will they avoid the same destruction of the city of Sodom? God gives here His ordained strategy. and God's ordained strategy for the nation of Abraham, the family of Abraham, to avoid the destruction of Sodom, it is employing confrontational measures. It is a father, it says, I have chosen him, Abraham, in order that he may confront, command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord. How are they going to avoid the same destruction as Sodom got? Because a father is going to step up and he is going to not suggest, not merely give counsel, but He is actually going to command them to avoid the broad road that leads to destruction and to keep the way of the Lord. This word command here in 1819 is the Hebrew word tzavah, the same word that is used when speaking of God's commanding Adam not to eat of the tree in the garden and commanding Noah to build the ark. Abraham, the father of this new nation, is to command his family so they won't be destroyed. See, how is Abraham's family to avoid that same destruction? Is it by leaving the nurturing of the children to Sarah? Was that the plan that God gave? Was it by leaving it to the clergy? I mean, there was a clergyman in the region, remember Melchizedek, who was the priest in Jerusalem? Leave it to Melchizedek so that he can avert and detour the children from the broad road that leads to destruction? Was it in gently suggesting to your children that they really ought to go the way of the Lord? No, that wasn't the strategy that is given. The strategy and the design of God is a Father standing up, getting out of the bushes, climbing out of His hammock, and boldly, the Word is commanding His children and His family with a bold authority that they are to, the text says, keep the way of the Lord. You see, the strategy God gives for a man and for his family to avoid the wrath of God destroying them because they conform to the godlessness around them, the strategy is a strategy of valiant fatherhood. an aggressively asserted father who presses the consciences of his children and his family to keep the way of the Lord. Joshua 24, as for me and my house, We will serve the Lord. That is the God-designed method. Valiant fatherhood for restraining the next generation from going the way of Sodom and Gomorrah culture round about. That is the recipe for victory. The mightiest weapon is a valiant father. Some of you know of battles and victory like in World War II there was the Battle of the Bulge. What was it that won the Battle of the Bulge? It was the Sherman tank. The Allied Sherman tank was the chief weapon in winning that great battle. And beloved men, the great weapon in winning this battle for our families, what the Sherman tank was to the Battle of the Bulge, so is an aggressive confronting father in the battle for the family. That's why Abraham, Abraham, you and your family will avoid the destruction of Sodom by your commanding your family. You know, this whole theme and this picture that's drawn there of Sodom in the low country and Abraham in the high country is as relevant as if it were written just yesterday. So fitting for our culture. 21st century families face an eerily Sodom-like culture. And if we're going to save our Eve's and her babies from it, we got to get out of our hammocks. We got to get out of the bushes and we got to do something. And what we got to do is not to trust in the sex education programs over at the public school. We don't trust in the DARE, D-A-R-E, police officer to instruct our children that they would avoid drugs. You know what? We also don't need to hire a youth pastor, a clergyman in this church to detour our children from destruction. Summer camp or summer retreat is all fine and well, but what we need to do is we need to get up and move like Sherman tanks. As valiant fathers, we need to take our stand in the battlefield and not just say we'd be willing to die for our children, but we need to live for our children and we need to fight for them. And we do that, men, by confronting and by commanding. not by fearing and not by trembling. Oh, Pastor Jansky, don't you understand that if we get into their faces and actually thavah, command, they won't like us anymore. In fact, if we actually get into their faces and we actually command them to do things, they might turn away from our God, our church, and Christianity altogether. You see, instead of commanding fearlessly, we end up hiding in the bushes, fear fully. But we need to do what the Word of God tells us to do. We need to rise up to the occasion, we need to take our stands, and we need to valiantly live for them. How do you do that practically? We need to rise up off our sofas, and we need to say things to our littlest children. You, young man, will never throw a tantrum like that again in the presence of your mother. And you, young lady, you will not dress immodestly like that. And you, young man, as for me and my house, you will Attend the worship services of the Lord on His day. And you will talk to your mother in a respectful way. And you will work hard at your chores and in your classes. and you will not watch those kinds of television shows and those kinds of CD videos or movies in this home. You will, you will not command them to obey the way of the Lord. It may not be fashionable, men, but it is biblical. And the biblical formula is the safe and victorious formula. Trust God and not the tongue-clicking sociologist around about us. Mr. Bush says this, commenting on that 19th verse where it says, Abraham was chosen to command his children after him to keep the way of the Lord. Bush says this, how many alas are they who never employ their influence as heads of families for God or who do it in a tame, timid and feeble way. They may perhaps occasionally give their children some good advice But what good is that alone? God tells us in this Sodom-like culture that we are to command our children and our households to keep the way of the Lord. Beloved, in Christian circles there has arisen a whole priesthood of Eli-like fathers. And now we're going back to 1 Samuel chapter 2, where Hophni and Phinehas, remember they were stealing meat in the temple, and they were fornicating with women in the temple, and high priest Eli, it speaks about how he dealt with them. I've heard this report from you, my sons, and this is not a good report that I hear." He scolded them, he warned them, he nagged them. But he refused, the actual Hebrew says, to darken his counsel upon them, which meant to confront them, to grab them by the lapels and say, you will not act like this. He refused to confront them, to command them, to restrain them. And what did God call this? Did God call this sensitive fathering? In verse 29 of 1 Samuel 2, God says, this is a stench in my nostrils, and He says, because you honor your sons above Me. And what happened to the man who took that course of fathering? A mushroom cloud of God's wrath rose over his house, as the whole house of Eli was destroyed, and was wiped out, and was cursed by the wrath of God. Beloved, that can't be you. And that can't be me. It can't be the man who sits reading the sports section on a nice soft sofa or on a hammock and hears conflict in the next room or conflict through the deck screen door and he lays there with an aversion to leap up and to jump into the fray. I mean, who needs an adrenaline rush? when we're weary and we're tired. Who needs to have to get up and sweat and perspire on our brow and confront something that's going on in our households at a time when we're trying to relax and just wind down after a long day at work. But many men just stay in the hammock and sit back as they hear the mother jousting with the son and hope the conflict passes over. Angel James writes in A Christian Father's Present. It's a book. A Christian Father's Present to His Family. Listen to what he writes. Over a century ago, he says, Every father is a sovereign. He is a legislator, not merely a counselor. And his will in the house should be law and not mere advice. He is to command, to restrain, to punish, And children are required to obey. He is, if necessary, to threaten, to rebuke, to chastise, and they are to submit with reverence. Children, that's why the Lord says, honor your father and your mother, for it will go well with you in the land. You won't be destroyed by fire and brimstone and the lake of fire, but you will live in the land, this life, but primarily the land of milk and honey, the promised land to come. And the best means of your doing this is submitting to and honoring a father who has the guts and the heroism to confront you. James goes on to say this. He may be a good prophet as a father. In other words, he instructs. He may be a good priest as a father. In other words, he prays for. But if he be not a good king as a father, all else is in vain. And one little fragment of wisdom that he gives is this. Listen up, dads. Pay careful attention to the elder children in the family. for one rebellious son may lead all of his younger brothers astray." Keep this in mind. Children, listen to me. If you have a valiant Abraham-like daddy, don't resent him. Bless God for him. And may this sermon be an occasion where not only are the hearts of the fathers turned to the children, because there are some daddies who are stuck on the hammock and they need some help, but may this be a day where the hearts of the children are turned back to the fathers. Oh, to have a daddy who so loves you as to fight the serpent! in your behalf, and to tell you to detour fire and brimstone, a father who basically straddles you in the path, and he says, over my dead body are you going to hell. And there are times, dads, when we need to see that the hour is so crucial, that they need us to valiantly, boldly confront them. Four things, I promised. duties that we need to employ to be godly daddies. First, by boldly confronting them. Secondly, by affectionately loving them. By affectionately loving them. Listen to a sermon I listened to about 15 years ago by Pastor Albert N. Martin called, The Affective Father. And he says this, very perceptively. He says, Pity the child whose father has melted into a pathetic, manipulatable puddle, but pity also the child whose father is all stone but no heart. Referring to the biblical picture of a father, we sang about it in that first tune. that in Psalm 103, as a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him, for He knows how we are formed. He remembers that we are but dust. Turn with me to 1 Thessalonians chapter 2. Paul's ministry to the Thessalonians was a very father-like one. And he uses the imagery of a father the way that he dealt with them when he was among them for his weeks and months. Actually, it was just a few weeks in Thessalonica. Look what he says. In verse 10, you are witnesses. Verse 11. just as you know how we were exhorting and encouraging and imploring each one of you as a father would his own children. We were out there. We got up off our hammock, and we were drawing you, and we were luring you, and we were exhorting you to heaven. But notice how this intense, aggressive, adrenaline Testosterone fathering was also accompanied by a blessed tenderness. Look at verse 8. 1 Thess 2, 8. Having thus a fond affection for you, we were well pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God, but our very lives, because you had become very dear to us. And even flanking his intense fathering, he uses in verse 7 the image of a nursing mother and the gentle treatment. And so it is that there is to be, yes, the steel of fathering, but also there is to be the cushion of a gentleness and an affectionate loving of our children. I was once at someone's home and this daddy had established and put in his driveway this big heavy-duty basketball hoop. Now there's a man after my heart. It was heavy-duty because the pole that held the hoop was a square steel that was about this wide and it went straight up. And I looked at it, and I saw that it had this cushion around it. And I asked his dad, I said, man, that's a piece of work, that structure holding up that hoop. And basically what the father said was this. He says, I want it sturdy enough to endure the dunks, but I want it soft enough to spare the boy when he slams into it. Now that's a wise father, one who knows what it is to be a daddy of padded steel. And that's what we need to be. We need to be men of steel who are willing to confront, but also a daddy of affection, who have this cushion-like dimension to our lives. We see this in 1 Corinthians 13 as it speaks of loving, We ought to love our children. Sometimes loving our children is straddling their path and saying over my dead body, you're not going that way because we love them enough to keep them from going headlong into hell on the broad road that leads to destruction. But there's also that dimension of love which is tender and affectionate. 1 Corinthians chapter 13 verse 4 and following speaks of love. Love is patient, It's kind. It's not arrogant. It doesn't act unbecomingly. Fathers, it's not provoked. It does not take into account a wrong suffered. It bears all things, believes all things, endures all things. There are some men who don't really need all that much emphasis on being men of steel, but being men of a holy cushion. Men who need to cushion their relationships with their children with a tender, loving kindness. And that's how we need to fight for our children so that they might avoid destruction. Last Father's Day, I got a book. It was put out by Vision Forum. My wife gave it to me. Teddy Roosevelt. Letters of Teddy Roosevelt to his sons, it says. I read a couple, three letters a night before I go to bed. And he's, by the way, Teddy Roosevelt was the president of the United States at this time. Let me just refer to two letters, two letters that were written from the White House. Now here's a man who had a tight schedule. Time was at a premium. He would come home and he would be absolutely exhausted. Let me just refer to two letters written. One is called, Pillow Fights with the Boys. Listen to this, it's written March 19, 1906 from the White House, it's a letter to his older son Kermit, who is in college, about the two younger boys who are still at home. It says, during the four days mother was away, I made a point of seeing the children each evening for three quarters of an hour or so. Archie and Quentin are really great playmates. One night I came upstairs and they ambushed me. And we had a vigorous pillow fight. And after five or ten minutes of this, we went into mother's room and I read them the book mother was reading to them, The Legend of Montrose. Do you have a pillow fighting dimension with your children? I know you're busy. You've got a lot of responsibilities. But do you have that affectionate love that you display to your children? I'm not telling you things that I don't need to hear. Or further, another letter. This one's called Playing Tickly. It's written April 12, 1906 from the White House. Letter to Kermit. Quote, Last night, Kermit, I played tickly in their room with the two little boys. As we rolled and bounced over all three beds in the course of the play, not to mention under the beds, I think that poor mother was appalled at the result when we'd finished. There was that cushion dimension and you know TR he was a man who demanded you read these other letters He's demanding things of his son about their football playing and about their Latin learning and about their mathematics studying There's also this dimension of this cushioning his relationship with them as a father as compassion on his children being godlike You know, man, it's possible to discipline our children with the demanding precision of a marine drill sergeant, but to neglect registering with them the fondness of a father. And that's a bad miscalculation. When we would father in that way, it can be very costly. Old John Angel James writes this, Father's gift to his children, he says, remember this, he says, the cords of love are the bands of a man. The human mind is so constituted as to yield to the influence of kindness. Men are more easily led than driven. to it. Remember the old story of the sun and the wind and the traveler, he says, and he goes on. Did you know the story of the sun and the wind and the traveler? It's the traveler who has a coat on and the north wind and the sun discuss and they make a bet who can get him to take off his coat. And the north wind says, I can, the sun says, I can. The north wind started and blew hard and hard to blow the coat off. But with a hard blow and the man just clung all the more tightly to the coat. When the north wind was done, the sun came and the clouds parted and the sun beamed down warmth. And he melted, he sweated, and he readily, willingly took off his coat. You know, isn't it true that that's the way the Heavenly Father so often deals with us? There's a passage in Romans 2, 4 where it speaks of, the kindness of the Lord leads us to repentance. Have you ever thought of the way your Heavenly Father deals with you? I have often. Even a couple of weeks ago, I was in a sour and resentful frame of mind. One of the elements was that things just were not going right. Things were going very wrong. And one of the things was that I have this lawnmower and it wouldn't start. It always started, but it wouldn't start. It wouldn't start. I even had my son take it over to Woody's Small Engine Repair in Zealand. And once he looked at it, because I said, just take a peek at it, because he said two weeks before, I said, just take a peek at it. My son took it and he brought it back and said, Dad, this guy said, this thing is going nowhere because the carburetor is falling off. Oh, it was so sour. And I was running and preparing things and I finally went upstairs into the garage and I said, carburetor. I don't know that much about engines, but I looked at it and the carburetor is falling off and I put two screws in and it all started up. The way that that melted me regarding my resentment that I had toward my Heavenly Father. What a kindness! Have you ever had that kind of experience? God giving you something. You don't deserve it. You deserve to be slapped down for your insolent attitude. But God giving a kindness and melting and saying, Lord, how could I have ever thought such bitter thoughts about you? And so that's the way that we also need to, in a heavenly father-like imitating deal with our children, James goes on to say this, love seems so essential to the parental character that there is something shockingly revolting, not only in a cruel, but even in a cold-hearted father. Isn't there something that is exquisitely touching and instructive in that picture of the prodigal's father in the scriptures? In the way in Luke 15 it describes the prodigal's father, what's he doing? He's watching And when he sees, he's running to his son. And when he gets there, he's hanging on the neck of his son. And when he's hanging on the neck of his son, what is he doing? He's kissing his son. And when he's done kissing his son, what does he do? He's killing the fatted calf for his son. Isn't that instructive to us in the way, fathers, that we need to be dealing with our sons and our daughters? Let me ask you, do your kids know that side of you, Dad? They ought to. They ought to, because in this biblical prescription, we need to, like we said earlier, we need to live for them by boldly confronting them, but also by affectionately loving them. And that leads us to our third duty, by faithfully instructing them. By faithfully instructing them. They need to have someone tell them which way to go. They need it. May 24 of 2001, a man named Eric Weyenmayer, a man who was born with a genetic disease, blindness, and he was the first blind man to summit Mount Everest. Now he didn't get to the top by himself because he had an experienced guide who knew the way and that experienced guide was looking at this diseased blind man and was continuously talking to him throughout the treacherous climb. Always talking to Him. This is how you get to the summit, okay? Up ahead now is an ice sheet. You've got to walk carefully. Five feet to your left, there's a deep crevasse. You've got to avoid it. Lean to the left. Look up ahead there. There's a foothold that looks fragile to me. Put your foot on it. Just step lightly. If it gives way, lean back on your other foot. Your oxygen tank is low. And sometimes, here, you've got to take my hand, and you've got to hold real tight. Now there's a good and experienced, ever-talking guide. And you know what, Dad? Your children are born spiritually diseased. They are. They're born blind. And they don't think so, but they're also born ignorant, chiefly ignorant of the way to heaven. There are lions prowling, seeking to devour, mountain lions who would destroy them. There are pitfalls that litter the trail. And guess who is the God-appointed guide who's been placed chiefly at his side to be ever talking to him, talking to her, telling about the pitfalls, telling about the lions, come on, take my hand here, you need me. Guess who it is? It's you. It's me. We are the dads. It says in Ephesians 6, 4, Fathers, bring up your children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. It doesn't say fathers. It doesn't say mothers. It doesn't say youth pastors. It doesn't say public school or even Christian school teachers. It says fathers. Raised up in the instruction of the Lord. The Greek word is paideia, which means elementary training. We're to train them up. We're to ever be talking to them, talking to them, talking to them. But I'm not the talking gender. My wife is the talking gender. Our assignment is to raise them up in the paideia, the instruction of the Lord. We've got to get out of our natively, fleshly, sluggardly hammocks and get up and talk to them as we're leading them to the summit of heaven. It's a dangerous trip. And the centerpiece of that talk in Franklin, I believe, is our family devotions. talking to them, gather your little flock together, divulge the secrets of the trail and the passages to get to heaven, warn them of the pits and the snares and the lions. We can't be silent as they stumble to hell, stumble into a pitfall, are devoured by a lion because we may have seen it coming or they were snoozing and weren't watching for it and didn't say anything to them about it. Some dads, maybe even here, would talk. Talk a lot. But talk about worldly things. Yesterday my son had a baseball game. I'm his baseball coach. I throw him thousands, tens of, hundreds of thousands of pitches to him. There's nothing wrong with it, that's fine and well. I was even yesterday at a ball game, there was a daddy, he went over to the batting cage and he was throwing, he was throwing the batting cage to his son, they were one on one. That's all fine. He was telling him how to hold his elbow, telling him how to snap his wrist, telling him how to lean back and get the leverage. But I hope that that dad was talking to him more than about how to raise his batting average. Talking to him more about how to shoot the jump shot so you get proper backspin so it hits the rim softly and bounces in. I hope it's more than talking about how you get good grades, or how you can become a good businessman, or how you can shovel snow in a proper pattern with diligence until you're done. I mean, all those things are fine and good. Chiefly, we need to be men who are talking about spiritual things. Oh, Pastor, my wife is better at that, not me. We need to get rid of our aversion. We need to talk to them, raising them in the fear and instruction of the Lord. What does it profit our sons? What does it profit our daughters if they gain the whole world? If they get their names in the Holland Sentinel and the Grand Rapids Press or even Sports Illustrated? If they gain the whole world, but lose their soul. Imagine a son, I read of a boy who plays for Michigan State, and he talked about how his dad worked for him hours and hours and hours. I don't even know if he's a Christian, but what if he's not a Christian? And his dad worked for hours and hours and hours. He got fame and into the NBA. He was all everything. But on Judgment Day, he looks at his dad and said, Dad, you talk to me so much, but all you did is fatten me up for the slaughter. And I'm about to be bound hand and foot by the angelic servants and cast into the lake of fire. What kind of a dad is such a dad? unwilling to talk. May we not be that kind of a dad. You've got to be talkers, telling them the things of God. Turn to Proverbs with me here. You know Proverbs and all the talking, all the talking that a dad has got to give. Proverbs 3.1, My son, don't forsake my teaching. Let your heart keep my commandments for length of days and years of life, and peace they will add to you." 4.1-4, Hear, O son, the instruction of a father. Give attention that you may gain understanding For I gave you sound teaching, do not abandon my instruction. When I was a son to my father, tender and the only son in the sight of my mother, then he taught me. And he said to me, let your heart hold fast to my words, keep my commandments and live." And you know how it goes, my son, my son, my son, my son, my son. That's got to be us. We've got to be the talking daddies. Even to the older son, chapter 5, he's even speaking to a son about causing his wife's beauty to satisfy you always. Let her beauty and her form satisfy you always. Some fathers say, well, they're 15 now and I just don't give them all that talk. I leave them to themselves because I don't want to be in their face. Well, here's a boy who's already married. He's got a wife of beautiful form. The daddy's saying, my son, let her body satisfy you and not someone else. He's still talking to his 25, his 30-year-old son, my son, my son. And that's what we've got to be, talking, daddies, talking to them, not just about worldly things, but about getting to heaven. There's an account of a particular boy, he was in college, and his father asked the minister to go to the town where his son was and said, would you talk to my son? And the minister got there, the son reported this, My father taught me well how to gain worldly honors and riches and pleasures, but he treated me as if I didn't even have a soul." That can't be us. Can't be us. In contrast, Moody gives an account of an older son dying in the bed. Dad comes home and his older teenage son is dying. And the dad comes up alongside of him and puts his hand in his fevered brow and says, my son, you know, you're dying. And the boy responds this way. Well, then I'll be with Jesus tonight, but don't grieve for me because when I get to heaven, I'll go straight to Jesus and tell him, dad, that you brought me to him when I was a child. Can your son say that? Can your daughter say that? You've got to be faithfully instructing them. Fourthly, and lastly, by consistently modeling before them, by consistently modeling before them, we go back to that 1 Thessalonians 2 passage. And there we find that account of Paul saying in verse 11, We're exhorting, encouraging, imploring you as a father would his own children. But the previous verse says, And you are witnesses, and so is God. How devoutly and uprightly and blamelessly we behaved toward you believers. You saw our devout, upright, and blameless behavior. You see, unless we behave devoutly and uprightly and blamelessly with our example, we neutralize our words. Paul did both. You see, there are very few pawns of the devil more effective in damning souls to hell than fathers who with their mouths, they teach the truth. But with their hands and their feet, they live a lie. Very effective tool in the hands of the enemy. I've told you before about Mark Rains in your country, United Kingdom. I read in the Banner of Truth many years ago. A critique about why this generation, the former generation, was a God-fearing one and this generation is a God-less one. A young person was interviewed and said, sure, our parents taught us about God. Orthodox doctrine. He says, by their lives they taught us that He, God, didn't matter. Far better to say nothing than to live in an inconsistent way before our children. We can't teach our children, God is a sovereign God, let's talk about the doctrines of grace, and the way there is limited atonement, and the way there is total depravity in election, get this down son, and also without holiness no man will see God with our mouths. But then our kids see us watching filthy stuff on television. Or you can quick change the channel with the remote, right? Or your kids find these filthy tracks that you left on the computer because of what you viewed before your eyes. You see, we have to be consistent. You know, I talked when we had a new pastor brought here. A decapitation strike. I said there's going to be the crosshairs of the enemy on Jonvenet. He's a pastor in this church. You take down the head, the whole body can go limp. You know what, fathers? In the family, the enemy has his crosshairs on you. There's John Vanette right there, but his crosshairs on you, dad. Because if he can take down the father, and you've seen families devastated by fathers who were taken down and seduced by the Jezebel and the serpent, just, all I gotta do is get the daddy. I get the daddy, that whole fame is gonna tumble like dominoes. Realize what an influential position it is that you have. And then Doug Phillips wrote a poem about the nobility of fatherhood and the way that we are seduced, men, to leave our post. I don't know if you felt that seduction, men. You felt that to leave your post. The Jezebel, the serpent is out there playing a sweet song. Come on, men, come away there. Other more delightful things. Other more shapely things. Other more beautiful things. Other more pleasant and enjoyable things that are out there in this Las Vegas of a Sodom and Gomorrah-like world. You hear that? Listen to this poem written by Phillips. More noble than the valiant deeds of shining knights of lore, more powerful than earthly plights that make the rich man poor, more kingly than a royal throne or a lion with his pride, is he whose babes sleep well at night. Sure, daddy will provide. There is a spirit in this land and Jezebel's her name. She's calling you to leave your home for power, fun, and fame. She wants your wife, your children too. She'll never compromise until your house is torn in two by listening to her lies. Amen. We need to stand up and fight. The crosshairs of the enemy are on us and we need to put up the shield of faith and the breastplate of righteousness and to fight with all of our might. There's an account I read in the newspaper, Grand Rapids Press, just yesterday. Maybe you saw it. It's an article by a man named David Murrow entitled, In Spiritual Matters, Kids Take Their Cues from Dad. And the statistics show that if a mom attends church all the time, but a dad attends church only frequently, guess in the outlying years what percentage of the kids of that family will go to church? Three percent. Because though it may be an important thing for mom, it's not important to dad. It just ain't important. You see the effects of our modeling. In contrast, very refreshing contrast, a young man when he was about to be ordained as a Christian minister started, he stated that at one period in his life he nearly leaped over the edge into worldliness, but he added it as ordination, there was one argument in favor of Christianity which I could never refute. the consistent conduct of my own father. Let me ask you, fathers. It's a tough question. Can your children and your wife sit at Father's Day dinner in just an hour or so? And can they sit down at that table and with sincerity say, oh God, thank you so much for giving me a husband who is a true father. And oh God, thank you for giving me a daddy who is a valiant, consistent man of God whom I can follow to heaven. Can you have that kind of a Father's Day dinner? Let me just close with this. I trust there are some here who are feeling a bit easy about their battlefield performance as daddies. I am. It's led me to some real soul-searching because of the sins and the shortcomings. You know what it makes you want to do? It makes you want to curl up under a bush. It makes me want to hide in a hammock. But come here with me for a minute, just in your minds. It is June 6, 1944. It's D-Day. You see it? Soldiers are pouring off those amphibious boats. They're getting into water that is blood red. They're stepping onto the beach and they're seeing broken and maimed dead bodies of their buddies. The bullets and the artillery is hissing and exploding all around them. They get down on their knees and they crawl toward the cliffs. And you see that group of 20 men, maybe two dozen men over there, behind that rock, you see them hiding there? They're cowering, they're fearful, they're paralyzed, they can't even move, they're shell-shocked, they're overwhelmed by what they have seen, and their own defeat, and their own poor performance in the past. You see them there? I feel like that. It's a battle, it's a battle for the souls of our family, the souls of our eves, the souls of our children. Now think about this. Coming upon those two dozen men is this combat-seasoned captain. And he comes upon these men who have never been in battle before. And what does he do? He says, Get up! Get up! This is your hour! You're soldiers! You're fighting men! You see those dead bodies there in that sand? Those men died in that sand so you men could get up and take those cliffs! There are people who are depending upon us! There's a nation that is watching us! We need to get up! This needs to be our finest hour! Now get up and attack! And man, you know, I feel the same way. My sons and my daughter and my wife had to hear this sermon, and they've seen and heard my pathetic shortcomings. But I hear in this book, the captain of my salvation, Hebrews 2.10, my captain, King Jesus, saying to me, Mark! And he's saying, Ken! And he's saying, Chris! And he's saying, Luke! And he's saying, Get up! Get up! This must be our finest hour. We need to get up off from our hammocks, get up out of the bushes and get up and fight for. We can't just emotionally say, I would live for, I would die for my son. We need to practically live for our sons and for our daughters. May the Lord Jesus help us to have a holy resolve that we're going to get up from this sermon and go off and live for our families. Rescue our eves and lead our children heavenward to the glory of God. Let's pray together. Our Lord Jesus, we thank you that you come and visit us in our hours of need. And we pray, Heavenly Father, that you would give us the heart of a lion and the resolve to lead our families by confronting them, by loving them, by instructing them, and by modeling before them. Have mercy on us, we pray, in Jesus' name. Amen.