Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / June 4, 2017 | Really? - Godly Homes Guarantee Godly Kids

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June 4, 2017 | Really? - Godly Homes Guarantee Godly Kids · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:01
SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
0:05
SPEAKER_00: I went, morning, Jeff.
0:08
SPEAKER_00: I heard worship at both buildings this morning, and they were very different, both of them, however.
0:15
SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
0:17
SPEAKER_00: So here in the Mulvane building, do you guys think that there's any chance that victory in Jesus is right in Jeremiah's wheelhouse?
0:28
SPEAKER_00: Is there any doubt about that?
0:30
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
0:31
SPEAKER_00: So we're starting a series this morning entitled, Really?
0:36
SPEAKER_00: Dumb Things Smart Christians Believe.
0:41
SPEAKER_00: So it's a nine-week series.
0:43
SPEAKER_00: We're going to go through this fun series this summer, and starting this morning, and our first dumb thing that smart Christians believe is godly homes guarantee godly kids.
1:00
SPEAKER_00: So a month or two ago, I was watching, I went online because I wanted to see the two-hour memorial service for Cliff Barrett.
1:06
SPEAKER_00: Cliff was the song leader for decades for Billy Graham.
1:10
SPEAKER_00: And it was a wonderful service in Carolina.
1:14
SPEAKER_00: Don Wirtschon, whom we had here a couple weeks ago, played his favorite, his famous song on piano, but they had a number of speakers and so forth, many, many people there.
1:24
SPEAKER_00: And wonderful service.
1:26
SPEAKER_00: And then I watched carefully as the family came in, and then as they sat there in the front row and so forth, family of his widow there, far left, his five children, his oldest son, Bob Barrows.
1:37
SPEAKER_00: And as I thought about Cliff and I looked at Bob Barrows, my former roommate at seminary for a couple of years, I uh I remembered something that happened.
1:48
SPEAKER_00: Bob and I, uh, when we were the same year at Dallas Seminary, and when we turned juniors, we decided to get out of the dorm, decided to rent a house, and uh and so we did with with a friend named Bruce, and we lived a couple years uh together.
2:04
SPEAKER_00: And great guy.
2:07
SPEAKER_00: Um so I remembered vividly the time that first year, 1974, when Cliff, Bob's dad, came to see where his son was living.
2:17
SPEAKER_00: And uh it was kind of a small house there, and uh so the tour did not take very long.
2:23
SPEAKER_00: Bruce wasn't there, it was just Bob, me, and Cliff.
2:26
SPEAKER_00: And before he left, Cliff said, you know, I'd like to sit down in the living room and pray together.
2:30
SPEAKER_00: So we pulled together three chairs and we sat and we prayed.
2:33
SPEAKER_00: And what I vividly remember is that Cliff asked us if we could have a special time of prayer for the son, the oldest son of his close friend Billy Graham.
2:45
SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, he told the story of how Franklin was Billy's oldest son, how he'd grown up and they'd done their best.
2:51
SPEAKER_00: Billy and Ruth raised him, but Franklin had wandered away from the Lord completely.
2:55
SPEAKER_00: High school, he got involved in some bad stuff, some alcohol and smoking, and just completely drifted away from the Lord.
3:05
SPEAKER_00: You know, he was into leather and motorcycles and guns, all three of which I think are cool.
3:10
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, um, but anyway, so so wow, I didn't mean to add that, but so but anyway, some of the other stuff not so good.
3:20
SPEAKER_00: And so we prayed for him, and interestingly enough, not long after that same year, Franklin had, and he was 21, 22 at the time, he had what he calls this conversion experience when he came to Jesus Christ as his savior.
3:33
SPEAKER_00: And about 10 years later, there was a cover story.
3:35
SPEAKER_00: Time magazine ran a cover story entitled The Prodigal Son, with a picture of Billy and his son Franklin, for whom I'll never forget pray.
3:44
SPEAKER_00: And the subtitle on the cover of Time magazine was Billy Graham's son was a rebel into whiskey, guns, and motorcycles.
3:55
SPEAKER_00: Again, I think two out of three are pretty good there, but um now he's poised to take over the world's most famous ministry, the story of his redemption.
4:07
SPEAKER_00: So this is a story about uh uh a child who grew up in perhaps the most famous Christian home in the world, where his parents, his mother had grown up on the mission field, a missionary's kid, father, the most famous evangelist in the world, they had done their best to raise him well in a godly home.
4:27
SPEAKER_00: And he had wandered away.
4:29
SPEAKER_00: But then he had come back, and as you know, some of you know at least, Franklin Graham is not only the chairman of uh of the Billy Graham Association today, but it's even more famous for being founder and CEO of Samaritan Spirse, this wonderful organization, which not only shares Christ around the world, but helps uh people, especially children, and especially in Africa.
4:52
SPEAKER_00: Now, the story of Franklin Graham is, you might say, the perfect story for our text this morning.
5:00
SPEAKER_00: Most people would say that this story is a perfect proof or evidence of the most famous child rearing verse in the Bible, the most famous parenting verse in the Bible, which is Proverbs chapter 22, verse 6.
5:14
SPEAKER_00: Train up, say it with me, train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
5:22
SPEAKER_00: That's the King James Version, but is re is pretty much mirrored in the New International and the New American Standard Bible.
5:31
SPEAKER_00: Now, this is a verse that seems to promise, doesn't it, that if that if you raise your child in a good and godly home, that child will inevitably grow up to be a good and godly Christian adult.
5:48
SPEAKER_00: But over the years I have seen that that doesn't seem to always happen.
5:55
SPEAKER_00: Let me take the illustration of two couples in our church over the years.
6:00
SPEAKER_00: I'm just combining stories here.
6:03
SPEAKER_00: I'm not thinking of anybody specifically.
6:06
SPEAKER_00: Husband and wife, say two kids.
6:10
SPEAKER_00: Husband, wife, two kids.
6:12
SPEAKER_00: Here's couple number one: a son, a daughter, little children, they raise them in a good and godly home.
6:20
SPEAKER_00: But as the children grow older, it becomes clear that the daughter is more compliant, and the son is a bit of a rebel, gets in high school, starts running around with the wrong crowd, starts drinking a little bit, and when he goes away to college, the daughter continues with the Lord, gets involved in a campus organization, and after she gets out of college, she marries a wonderful Christian man.
6:40
SPEAKER_00: She's raising a good family, she's outspoken Christian, she goes to church.
6:44
SPEAKER_00: Wonderful girl.
6:45
SPEAKER_00: Son, no.
6:47
SPEAKER_00: Son drifts away from the Lord, stops going to church in college, hangs out with the wrong crowd, gets involved with well, with alcohol pretty heavily.
6:58
SPEAKER_00: And now that he's out of college, he still hasn't gone back to church.
7:02
SPEAKER_00: He's uh he's on his third wife, he he he even has doesn't care to spend time with or communicate with his parents.
7:14
SPEAKER_00: Couple number one.
7:16
SPEAKER_00: Feels absolutely ashamed and guilty.
7:21
SPEAKER_00: Believe that they were failures as parents.
7:25
SPEAKER_00: They may have tried, but they must have tried the wrong way.
7:28
SPEAKER_00: And they they are humiliated when people start talking about childring or when other parents in their Sunday school class or small group talk about how their kids are just going on with the Lord.
7:40
SPEAKER_00: Couple number two is very much like couple number one in many ways.
7:43
SPEAKER_00: They also, good Christian couple who love God and want to train their son and daughter in the things of the Lord.
7:53
SPEAKER_00: And as their children grow up, they are, you know, doing their best, talking to them about the Lord, taking the church on Sunday school.
8:01
SPEAKER_00: In this case, the son is actually more compliant, seems to take to the things of the Lord a little bit better.
8:08
SPEAKER_00: The daughter seems to be a little bit of a wild child when she gets to high school, you know, she's wanting tattoos and extra rings and so forth, and hangs with the wrong crowd, doesn't like that.
8:20
SPEAKER_00: She fights them about going to church and Sunday school.
8:22
SPEAKER_00: And when she goes to college, she stops entirely, hangs out with the wrong crowd, gets involved in some light drug use, certainly doesn't go to church at all.
8:32
SPEAKER_00: And years later, she is still unmarried, though she lives with her latest boyfriend, and she too is uncomfortable coming home.
8:44
SPEAKER_00: But couple number two, though, like couple number one in many ways, does not feel this shame or this guilt, though their children have, you know, in both cases, one child's gone on with the Lord, one child has completely gone away from the Lord.
9:03
SPEAKER_00: The second couple doesn't feel shame or guilt, but if you talk to them, they're they're hopeful, they're confident.
9:10
SPEAKER_00: And interestingly enough, both parents base either their guilt or their confidence on exactly the same core presupposition that godly homes guarantee godly children.
9:27
SPEAKER_00: For the first couple, since the children aren't godly, they they rewind the tape and say, therefore, our home must not have been what we thought it was.
9:36
SPEAKER_00: We must have blown it in our home.
9:38
SPEAKER_00: The second couple, no, no, no.
9:40
SPEAKER_00: They're sure they did a good job, and therefore they're convinced that eventually, you know where I'm going with this, eventually, that child will return.
9:49
SPEAKER_00: For after all, that's God's promise.
9:51
SPEAKER_00: After all, God says, if you train up a child in the way he or she should go, that child will come back to the Lord.
10:02
SPEAKER_00: So, my problem with this is that in my view, both of these couples, though that second couple is better off because they're confident and they're not laboring under this load of guilt and shame, temporarily they're better off, but they are both basing their view on what I think is a house of cards.
10:21
SPEAKER_00: I think they're both going down a wrong way.
10:24
SPEAKER_00: I think they're both misinterpreting Proverbs 22.6, because like many people, they both think this verse is a promise, a guarantee that a child raised correctly will come back to the Lord eventually.
10:39
SPEAKER_00: If I only have a minute to talk, just briefly, if I only have a minute to talk with people who are struggling like this, and they they are basing their view on Proverbs 22.6, the one thing I'll tell them before they leave, if I only have a second, is listen, this is in the book of Proverbs, and the book of Proverbs is named Proverbs, not promises, for a reason.
11:02
SPEAKER_00: A proverb is a brief saying that offers a moral lesson.
11:06
SPEAKER_00: Stitch and time saves nine, early bird gets the worm, etc.
11:11
SPEAKER_00: It is a timeless truth about common experience.
11:14
SPEAKER_00: It's a practical word of advice for daily life, but it is not a promise or a 100% guarantee.
11:24
SPEAKER_00: Because sometimes, I mean, it is true that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but as you know, it's also sometimes true that out of sight, out of mind.
11:35
SPEAKER_00: So sometimes general truths war against each other.
11:39
SPEAKER_00: And we know that Proverbs have exceptions because, for instance, the very next verse, if you had your Bible open in Proverbs 22, 7, is a famous verse that says, and I'll quote it, the rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is the servant to the lender.
11:56
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever heard that verse?
11:58
SPEAKER_00: You've heard that verse, haven't you?
12:00
SPEAKER_00: And generally that is true, isn't it?
12:01
SPEAKER_00: Those of you that owe money, mortgage money to the bank.
12:04
SPEAKER_00: If you all that might you feel like the bank, you're a slave to the bank.
12:10
SPEAKER_00: The bank owns you.
12:11
SPEAKER_00: So, yes, it's true that if you borrow money and you owe someone money, you in a sense are a servant.
12:17
SPEAKER_00: But you know there are exceptions, don't you?
12:20
SPEAKER_00: You know that sometimes poor people rule over the rich.
12:24
SPEAKER_00: Proverbs even says, sometimes a servant ends up being on horseback, and the real classy people end up walking.
12:32
SPEAKER_00: You see it in government, where sometimes a poor general, you know, uh and sometimes you see it in a democratic society where the poor actually raise taxes at will upon the rich.
12:43
SPEAKER_00: So it's not always true that the rich rule over the poor, and it's not always true we found in the banking collapse in 2009.
12:51
SPEAKER_00: It's not always true that the borrower is the servant to the lender.
12:57
SPEAKER_00: Or, for instance, a proverb, very famous proverb, the most famous proverb in the New Testament, Ephesians 6, 2 and 3, that if a child will honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment, with a promise that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth, there is a sort of a what appears to be a guarantee that if a child, a little child will obey his or her parents, honor his or her parents, then two things will happen.
13:24
SPEAKER_00: That child will live a long life on the earth and will prosper, it will go well with him or her.
13:30
SPEAKER_00: And you and I know that there are exceptions to that rule because you and I know that there are wonderful little children that God takes home.
13:38
SPEAKER_00: Children who obeyed their parents, children who love Jesus, and yet for some reason around the world, we see that sometimes this is a proverb, it is not a guarantee.
13:49
SPEAKER_00: So I ask you, what then is this first saying?
13:52
SPEAKER_00: This is a great verse, it's an important verse.
13:54
SPEAKER_00: What can we gain out of this verse?
13:57
SPEAKER_00: Well, let's look at the words of this verse, and I'll share it with you.
13:59
SPEAKER_00: It happens to be a verse about which there are more articles written that contradict each other, more radio preachers that say opposite stuff.
14:08
SPEAKER_00: Uh so let's work our way through this verse and I'll tell you what I believe.
14:12
SPEAKER_00: In fact, it's not just what I believe, it's the actual truth.
14:15
SPEAKER_00: Take my word for it.
14:16
SPEAKER_00: What this verse actually said, okay?
14:18
SPEAKER_00: Now, this verse is about how to raise children, and one of the first arguments is since the word child, na'ar, is is a word that is used to refer to newborn babes, as well as uh Esau and Jacob when they were teenagers, you know, it can refer to any age, so it's not talking, some people say, about young children.
14:37
SPEAKER_00: But uh I I think that's that's not true because this verse, it seems to clearly be about elementary children, about how you start children out.
14:48
SPEAKER_00: And the verses right in context underline that.
14:51
SPEAKER_00: Even a child, Proverbs 20, 11, is known by his doings, whether his work be pure and whether it be right.
14:59
SPEAKER_00: Or just nine verses later, foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.
15:06
SPEAKER_00: This is not a verse about 16-year-olds, this is a verse about six-year-olds, okay?
15:11
SPEAKER_00: That's the kind of child we're talking about when we're talking about train up a child in the way he should go.
15:19
SPEAKER_00: We're talking about early moral education.
15:22
SPEAKER_00: The most controversial word in the verse is the first word, train up.
15:27
SPEAKER_00: Train up a child.
15:29
SPEAKER_00: So here's where you hear a lot of disagreement, and perhaps for good reason.
15:34
SPEAKER_00: In Hebrew, the first word of the verse, translated in the King James and N I V, New American Standard, is train up, is the word hanak, H-A-N-A-K, Hanak, which in its other 17 uses in the Old Testament always is translated, dedicate.
15:51
SPEAKER_00: Hanak the temple.
15:53
SPEAKER_00: Solomon dedicated the temple.
15:54
SPEAKER_00: They dedicated an altar, they dedicated, they had a ceremony, sort of like our baby dedication, a one-off act where you simply dedicate something, except in this case, dedicate your child in the way he should go.
16:11
SPEAKER_00: Clearly, it's not talking about a TBC baby dedication.
16:15
SPEAKER_00: Now, by the way, uh if you're familiar with the Feast of Hanukkah, have you heard of the Feast of Hanukkah at Christmas time pretty much for the Jews?
16:23
SPEAKER_00: That's the feast of dedication where they dedicated the new altar and the temple.
16:28
SPEAKER_00: The Jews did three years to the day after the Antiochus Epiphanes soiled and defiled the altar with a pig.
16:40
SPEAKER_00: And this is a very famous holiday for the Jews dating back from about 150 BC.
16:45
SPEAKER_00: So when you think of Hanukkah, think think of Hanukkah, dedicate.
16:50
SPEAKER_00: So if you translated this verse, dedicate a child in the way he should go, what it's really saying is not a one-time act, but you need to view all your parenting every single morning, every single night, every single day with the children as a dedicating of your child to the Lord.
17:11
SPEAKER_00: In the same way they dedicated a temple.
17:13
SPEAKER_00: This child is like a temple.
17:16
SPEAKER_00: You're doing a great thing by raising this child, and you need to dedicate that child constantly to the Lord.
17:24
SPEAKER_00: Now, remember the second word there goes along with dedicate, and that's really initiate, because to dedicate something is to initiate, to start the altar, to start the operation in the temple.
17:36
SPEAKER_00: Sort of like why we call commencement is sort of at the end of education, but we call it commencement because it's a starting of a young person into the future life.
17:46
SPEAKER_00: And so initiation is also a key element in this word.
17:51
SPEAKER_00: Dedicate and initiate a child in the way he should go.
17:56
SPEAKER_00: It reminds me a little bit of the Indy 500.
18:00
SPEAKER_00: Ladies and gentlemen, start your engine.
18:02
SPEAKER_00: So this is, ladies and gentlemen, start your children.
18:05
SPEAKER_00: And the picture is here that parents should view all their parenting as an initiation of their child onto the path of wisdom.
18:16
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
18:17
SPEAKER_00: The least common meaning is the c is the meaning train up, but it's implied in the others, train up or educate your child.
18:24
SPEAKER_00: It's primarily, you're dedicating my, I'm dedicating my child to the Lord every day.
18:29
SPEAKER_00: I'm initiating or starting my young child onto the path of wisdom.
18:35
SPEAKER_00: The very controversial, however, is the is the next phrase: train up a child in the way he should go.
18:44
SPEAKER_00: In the way he should go.
18:45
SPEAKER_00: The reason that's controversial is there's a good reason because the Hebrew literally says, dedicate a child according to his way.
18:56
SPEAKER_00: Or according to the way for him.
18:59
SPEAKER_00: That's the last word, the word on the left on your screen.
19:02
SPEAKER_00: Those five Hebrew letters are pronounced Derek.
19:06
SPEAKER_00: If your name's Derek, your name means way, and Derek O means his way or the way for him.
19:13
SPEAKER_00: Dedicate a child either according to his way or the way for him.
19:16
SPEAKER_00: Well, a number of people, as you can imagine, say Christian counselors and family type people, have latched on to the idea that the way here is the child's own way, that you should dedicate a child according to the child's way, meaning his personality.
19:35
SPEAKER_00: I quote one of them, he's famous from James Dobson, for example, and from a couple others.
19:40
SPEAKER_00: We are to train a child according to his or her way or characteristic manner, artistic, athletic, or academic.
19:50
SPEAKER_00: Whether they be strong-willed, compliant, or adventurous, each child is one of a kind, and we are to adapt our training to his or her way.
19:58
SPEAKER_00: Now, don't misunderstand me.
20:00
SPEAKER_00: I completely agree that we ought to raise children according to their personality.
20:08
SPEAKER_00: That we should, if a child is what, artistic and academic, loves to sit inside the house and read books and draw pictures, that dad shouldn't be determined to make him a Major League Baseball player or something, or an NBA basketball player.
20:22
SPEAKER_00: That you should look at how each child is geared.
20:26
SPEAKER_00: And on, by the way, on the converse, if a child's extremely athletic, don't force that child.
20:32
SPEAKER_00: You want them to become academic and artistic as well, but don't force them against that.
20:38
SPEAKER_00: And take strong-willed and comply it.
20:40
SPEAKER_00: Every parent in this room, every parent listening to me knows that you do not treat a compliant child.
20:45
SPEAKER_00: You do not speak to a compliant child the same way you speak to a strong-willed child.
20:51
SPEAKER_00: Am I right about that?
20:52
SPEAKER_00: You make the compliant child just sob, you know, and on the other hand, uh, well, no need to get into it.
20:57
SPEAKER_00: So I fully agree that you need to look at your children and treat them according to their personality.
21:03
SPEAKER_00: The question is, is that what it means here?
21:05
SPEAKER_00: And I say that can't be what it means here that you should dedicate a child according to your child's natural way, because in this book, a child's natural way is folly.
21:20
SPEAKER_00: As Bruce Walkie writes, this is the regarded as number one commentary in the world on Proverbs, two thick volumes, thousands of pages.
21:29
SPEAKER_00: He was my Hebrew teacher, in fact, uh, at Dallas Seminary.
21:33
SPEAKER_00: He states in this verse, this cannot mean to raise a child according to his, the child's way.
21:40
SPEAKER_00: For in Proverbs, the other six uses of this word, naar, child, state with one voice that the child's way is foolish.
21:48
SPEAKER_00: He is gullible, lacks sense, has folly bound in his heart, and so needs correction left to himself.
21:56
SPEAKER_00: He will disgrace his mother.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: And so Walkie continues.
22:02
SPEAKER_00: He must be trained up, quote, in the way for him.
22:07
SPEAKER_00: That is the way he should go, the way of wisdom, God's way.
22:12
SPEAKER_00: So this is the traditional, this is the King James Translation, NIV, New American Standard, and so forth.
22:19
SPEAKER_00: And you can see this reflected in parallel verses.
22:22
SPEAKER_00: Listen, my son, Proverbs 1.8, to your father's instruction.
22:27
SPEAKER_00: And do not forsake your mother's teaching.
22:31
SPEAKER_00: Because one of the two great tools that God has given parents, He's given them two great tools for initiating their children into the way of wisdom, for dedicating them, and the one tool is instruction, and the other tool is discipline in this book.
22:46
SPEAKER_00: Instruction is where you teach your child, this is right, this is wrong, this is good, this is bad.
22:53
SPEAKER_00: Discipline, of course, is either verbal, stop that, that's wrong, this is right, or it's in this book physical.
23:03
SPEAKER_00: Discipline your children, says Proverbs 19, 18.
23:07
SPEAKER_00: While you still have the chance, indulging them destroys them.
23:13
SPEAKER_00: You need to look no farther than the story of Eli, priest Eli, and his sons in 1 Samuel.
23:19
SPEAKER_00: Remember, his sons went left, they went bad.
23:22
SPEAKER_00: And God criticizes Eli for the fact that when they were young, he says, you never said to them, stop, you never said to them, don't do that.
23:32
SPEAKER_00: Eli was like some parents, desperate for his child's approval and never wanted to cross them.
23:39
SPEAKER_00: Now, God judged those sons when they grew old and he killed them.
23:44
SPEAKER_00: But he judged, he criticized Eli for not disciplining them verbally when they were young.
23:52
SPEAKER_00: And then there's, of course, physical discipline.
23:54
SPEAKER_00: I know it's controversial.
23:56
SPEAKER_00: I think this next verse must have been my dad's theme verse when we were growing up.
24:01
SPEAKER_00: Don't fail to discipline your children.
24:04
SPEAKER_00: They won't die if you spank them.
24:06
SPEAKER_00: I took issue with that line when I was growing up.
24:09
SPEAKER_00: I thought I was going to some.
24:11
SPEAKER_00: Physical discipline may well save them from death.
24:15
SPEAKER_00: So the picture in Proverbs is that unrestrained children will always go wrong, and they may even go to death if they're not verbally and physically disciplined, and if not instructed.
24:31
SPEAKER_00: So the summary verse, I think, in all of these, one chapter after Proverbs 22, 6 is listen, my child, be wise and keep your heart on the right derrick, on the right path.
24:43
SPEAKER_00: Listen, be wise and keep your heart.
24:46
SPEAKER_00: That's what the parent is to do, to dedicate, to initiate his child in the way he should go.
24:52
SPEAKER_00: And then comes what appears to be an ironclad guarantee, what appears to be a promise, train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
25:05
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you stop for a second and look at that, you will notice it doesn't exactly say what it's usually thought of as saying.
25:12
SPEAKER_00: It says he will not depart from it, meaning that if your child raise your child in a godly home with education, instruction, discipline, then he won't go astray.
25:24
SPEAKER_00: We have changed that somehow.
25:25
SPEAKER_00: What you oftentimes hear is he will come back to it.
25:29
SPEAKER_00: That second couple I talked about above are confident that their child will come back because God has promised they will come back in Proverbs 22, 6.
25:38
SPEAKER_00: But of course, God doesn't say anything about them coming back.
25:43
SPEAKER_00: He just makes a general rule that a godly home will produce children who remain godly.
25:50
SPEAKER_00: And we remind ourselves, right, that this is a proverb.
25:54
SPEAKER_00: This is not a 100% guarantee.
25:56
SPEAKER_00: This is not a promise.
25:58
SPEAKER_00: That we must put our trust in the Lord with all our heart and lean not on our own understanding or on our own parenting and all our ways acknowledge Him 3, 5, and 6.
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SPEAKER_00: And even in looking in the Bible, you can see that there are serious objections or exceptions, exceptions to the idea that somehow godly homes always raise, produce godly children, inevitably.
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SPEAKER_00: For example, the first godly parent we find in the Bible is named Abraham.
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SPEAKER_00: And Abraham is is so praised by the Lord for his parent, and God says, I know him, that he'll command his children and his household after him, and they'll keep the way of the Lord.
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SPEAKER_00: The way, there it is, of the Lord to do justice and judgment.
26:47
SPEAKER_00: Abraham had a son named Isaac, as you know, Isaac had twin sons, Esau and Jacob.
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SPEAKER_00: Abraham lived until Esau and Jacob were 15 years old.
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SPEAKER_00: And in those days, the patriarch, that would be Abraham, and all the extended family all lived together.
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SPEAKER_00: And Abraham was the leader, and he raised that extended family, and he's the one who led in devotions and had a godly home.
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SPEAKER_00: And yet, what happened?
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SPEAKER_00: His grandson Esau, whom Abraham taught, instructed, disciplined from ages one through 15.
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SPEAKER_00: Esau never, as far as we know, ever became a man of faith, never believed, and wandered away and became an enemy of God.
27:35
SPEAKER_00: And then what I find is a little bit of a humorous illustration.
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SPEAKER_00: When you look at the lists of kings, the fathers and sons, you can find five kings in a row in ancient Israel, which make you think that it doesn't matter how you raise your children, those five kings being Rehboam, his son Abijah, his son Asa, his son Jehoshaphat, his son Joram.
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SPEAKER_00: Rehoboam, a bad father, had a son of Bijah.
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SPEAKER_00: Abijah, bad father, bad son.
28:04
SPEAKER_00: Abijah had a son named Asa.
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SPEAKER_00: Bad father now produces a good son.
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SPEAKER_00: Asah.
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SPEAKER_00: Gave birth to Jehoshaphat, who grew up good father and good son.
28:15
SPEAKER_00: There we go.
28:15
SPEAKER_00: There's Proverbs 22, 6.
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SPEAKER_00: But then we have Jehoshaphat Joram, good father, bad son.
28:22
SPEAKER_00: You'd be forgiven for thinking it was a slot machine.
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SPEAKER_00: You know, one out of four.
28:27
SPEAKER_00: That's of course not true, because it is a general rule that godly homes will produce godly children, but Walkie concludes this proverb must not be pushed to mean that the parent is ultimately responsible for the youth's entire moral orientation.
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SPEAKER_00: Other proverbs recognize the youth's freedom to choose sin and become apostate by taking up with villains and prostitutes.
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SPEAKER_00: Solomon himself stopped listening to wisdom and chose folly, the author of the book.
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SPEAKER_00: In sum, this proverb promises the parents that their early moral teaching has a permanent effect on the child for good.
29:10
SPEAKER_00: But that's not the complete story.
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SPEAKER_00: Let me leave you with three applications and three challenges.
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SPEAKER_00: The first application, good parenting from this verse, does matter.
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SPEAKER_00: As a general rule, godly homes do produce godly kids.
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SPEAKER_00: Your instruction does matter.
29:33
SPEAKER_00: It was years ago, Millet and I were driving our kids down a family camp.
29:38
SPEAKER_00: It was about the fifth family camp.
29:39
SPEAKER_00: It was years ago.
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SPEAKER_00: We had three children and driving south on Highway 70 and excited about family camp, and my children will tell you, tell you, it's now a big joke I get made fun of.
29:53
SPEAKER_00: That I was nonstop.
29:55
SPEAKER_00: I was a nonstop educator and pastor, whatever.
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SPEAKER_00: I was constantly at them, teaching them stuff and so forth.
30:02
SPEAKER_00: So we're down south of Highway 70.
30:04
SPEAKER_00: Some of you know on the right hand side there's a cemetery.
30:06
SPEAKER_00: Saw that, and I I call out to my oldest son, Marky, four years old at that time.
30:11
SPEAKER_00: I said, Marky, do you know what that is over there?
30:13
SPEAKER_00: You have any idea what that is?
30:15
SPEAKER_00: He looked over and he said, Yes, it's a literally, he said, it's a place where they cover up dead people.
30:22
SPEAKER_00: Which is a little gross, but I thought, great.
30:26
SPEAKER_00: I said, good, good.
30:27
SPEAKER_00: Do you know what they call it?
30:30
SPEAKER_00: Wow, and now he struggled.
30:32
SPEAKER_00: He stuck his little face over with a station wagon between me and Melody, and he's going, it's a sim, it's a seminar, it's a siminary.
30:40
SPEAKER_00: So at that point I was reminded, reminded that it's that our education, our background, our award, the awards you've won, right?
30:50
SPEAKER_00: The prizes you've won, the recognition you've gotten, the degrees you have, and so forth, they don't matter at all to your children.
30:58
SPEAKER_00: It's not your training that matters.
31:00
SPEAKER_00: What matters to them, and what matters to God, and what should matter to you is how you train them.
31:06
SPEAKER_00: That's absolutely critical.
31:08
SPEAKER_00: Proverbs 22, 6 says, good parenting does matter.
31:11
SPEAKER_00: And as a general rule, godly homes do produce godly kids.
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SPEAKER_00: But this principle number two application is only a general rule.
31:22
SPEAKER_00: So you need to lose that unwarranted guilt or that foolish pride.
31:30
SPEAKER_00: Children were young, maybe really young, like newborns, I would have been glad to preach a message entitled The Ten Laws for Successful Raising of Godly Children.
31:42
SPEAKER_00: Five, six years later, I was down to five ideas for how to raise good kids.
31:52
SPEAKER_00: When they were teenagers, it was down to three suggestions for how to survive.
31:58
SPEAKER_00: So, because you, you know, every one of us learns what it's really like, and hopefully your pride seeps away.
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SPEAKER_00: And if God should bless you so that you end up adding four for four, five for five, my parents, I don't know, ten for twelve.
32:20
SPEAKER_00: I better be careful here.
32:22
SPEAKER_00: Some of them might listen to this message.
32:24
SPEAKER_00: Oh, 12 for 12.
32:25
SPEAKER_00: No, you know, then you just thank the Lord and you say, Lord, I trust you.
32:29
SPEAKER_00: You know, I can't trust in my parenting.
32:32
SPEAKER_00: In fact, in fact, that's the third principle.
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SPEAKER_00: God holds parents 100% responsible to start their children in godly wisdom.
32:41
SPEAKER_00: But God holds adult children 100% responsible to live in godly wisdom.
32:47
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't then, he doesn't go back to the adult children to say, well, you know what?
32:51
SPEAKER_00: God's no therapist.
32:53
SPEAKER_00: He says, you know what, you wouldn't be the way you were if it wasn't for your parents.
32:56
SPEAKER_00: You need to blame your parents, and then you'll be fine.
33:00
SPEAKER_00: God holds adult children 100% responsible for their behavior.
33:06
SPEAKER_00: So I'll give you a challenge, but first of all, I'll mention, I'll ask you the question: can you look at a seven-year-old and know how he'll turn out as an adult?
33:14
SPEAKER_00: We'd like to know that.
33:16
SPEAKER_00: So famous movies, they were made years ago in Great Britain starting in 1964 that have in the last few years made it over to the States.
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SPEAKER_00: Quite famous.
33:25
SPEAKER_00: It's an eight, eight of these have been made.
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SPEAKER_00: It started in 64 when a man decided, you know what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna grab a bunch of children across different socioeconomic backgrounds, races, beliefs, and so forth here in England.
33:39
SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna interview them at age seven, and then seven years from now I'll interview them again at age 14.
33:44
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna see if there's any connection between when they're seven and 14 and 21 and so forth, and that's happened.
33:50
SPEAKER_00: He's just passed away.
33:50
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if it'll continue.
33:52
SPEAKER_00: But he's made eight of these: seven up, fourteen up, twenty-one up, twenty-eight up, thirty-five up, forty-two up, forty-nine, and most recently, 2013, 56 up.
34:02
SPEAKER_00: It's very interesting that those children at age seven, what they were like.
34:06
SPEAKER_00: One of the children wanted to grow up at Christian home, wanted to be a Christian missionary in Africa.
34:11
SPEAKER_00: Another child said he wanted to be an attorney, a solicitor, he said.
34:15
SPEAKER_00: He wanted to be a solicitor.
34:16
SPEAKER_00: Another child was so wild they could hardly interview him, and so what in the world was gonna happen?
34:23
SPEAKER_00: And so they made these movies, and they're quite fascinating because there is some, but of course, not a perfect connection today with what they are today, with what they were at age seven.
34:32
SPEAKER_00: That Christian missionary boy wanted to be a Christian missionary?
34:35
SPEAKER_00: Well, it turned out he was really smart, and so he went to Oxford University and got a math degree, was majored in math, and instead of going overseas, he went to the East End of London and worked for years with poor immigrant children teaching them.
34:48
SPEAKER_00: He got almost burned out on that, so now he's become a teacher at one of the most prominent private schools, St.
34:54
SPEAKER_00: Albans in all of England, the oldest, in fact, public school in all of England.
34:58
SPEAKER_00: How about that boy that uh at age seven said he wanted to be a liar?
35:01
SPEAKER_00: He's become a liar.
35:02
SPEAKER_00: Oftentimes we find that children who know what they want to do strongly at that age do become what they wanted.
35:08
SPEAKER_00: That boy who was a wild child, absolutely incorrigible, he's a London cabbie today.
35:15
SPEAKER_00: Which fits.
35:16
SPEAKER_00: So, well, wonderful.
35:18
SPEAKER_00: Can you tell?
35:18
SPEAKER_00: No, you can tell.
35:19
SPEAKER_00: It reminds me of the book of Proverbs.
35:21
SPEAKER_00: There's some connection, but it's not absolutely a perfect connection, isn't it?
35:27
SPEAKER_00: So I'd like to urge you to make a couple, make three commitments today.
35:30
SPEAKER_00: Will you do that for me?
35:32
SPEAKER_00: Number one, I want you to make a commitment.
35:33
SPEAKER_00: Whether your parents or grandparents or work in a children's ministry, make this commitment.
35:38
SPEAKER_00: I will train up, or dedicate, or initiate, the children or grandchildren that God gives me in the way they should go, the way of wisdom, the way of Christ.
35:50
SPEAKER_00: Will you make that commitment?
35:51
SPEAKER_00: I'll train up the children God gives me in the way they should go.
35:55
SPEAKER_00: Second commitment, I'll lay my unwarranted guilt and pride at the feet of Jesus.
36:01
SPEAKER_00: I will lay my unwarranted guilt and pride at the feet of Jesus.
36:06
SPEAKER_00: And third, I will trust God for the results.
36:10
SPEAKER_00: I'll trust God for the results.
36:12
SPEAKER_00: Will you do that?
36:13
SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we thank you for the opportunity you give us to partner with you in the birth and in the raising of children.
36:24
SPEAKER_00: We thank you that you trust us with this.
36:26
SPEAKER_00: We know we don't always do a great job of it, but we do really want to move our children to the pathway of wisdom, to the pathway of godliness.
36:37
SPEAKER_00: And we ask, we put it all on you, Heavenly Father, we trust that you will bring them.
36:42
SPEAKER_00: Some of them bring them back.
36:44
SPEAKER_00: Many of us sitting here, Lord, right now, we wouldn't be here if we hadn't come back.
36:48
SPEAKER_00: Almost all of us drifted away.
36:50
SPEAKER_00: None of us has been godly the whole time.
36:53
SPEAKER_00: Some of us have just become believers later in life.
36:57
SPEAKER_00: And Lord, we thank you that you've drawn us to yourself.
36:59
SPEAKER_00: And what we're praying is that by your Holy Spirit, you draw our children, our grandchildren to you.
37:05
SPEAKER_00: Those who've drifted away, Lord.
37:07
SPEAKER_00: Would you listen to us this morning and draw them back in Jesus' name?
37:13
SPEAKER_00: Amen.