Building Godly Families in the Millennium

Well, good morning, everyone. It is great to be here. It's hard to really think of how to express the joy of this undeserved privilege to be here with all of you. We have been called to an elite group of which nobody's qualified to be here. We have this huge blessing, and it's just wonderful to be able to be called to keep God's feast. I'm going to check the time here. Okay. Important.

I'd like to thank the children. That was just excellent. I appreciate the introduction, your introduction, to what I'm going to say, which is to a great extent directed toward you.

But when you see the children up here singing in unity, it just goes right to the meaning of the feast. It reminds me of Psalm 133, brethren dwelling together in unity. It's a spiritual service, and we really appreciate it. It's just a note to you kids who are just getting started in your service to God in His work. I entitled this particular sermon, Building Godly Families, now and in the millennium, a message on child rearing. Start with a story, true story.

You've heard of Jonathan Edwards, the preacher from the 1700s, an American preacher, very prolific, very great writer. He was also an entrepreneur and inventor and everything else, but he had a tremendous influence on his family. By the way, he and his wife bear their children.

He married a God-fearing woman named Sarah, and they produced 11 children. This has been reproduced since 1900, over 100 years ago, when the study was made. And it's interesting. It illustrates something, anyway. We'll see. But about 100 years ago, they did a study on his family and his descendants up to that point. It was about 150 years after they lived, and it was absolutely amazing. Even more amazing is a comparison with a local slacker who lived at the same time. A study was made of his descendants, and his name was Max Jukes. He did odd jobs. He worked in town and in the woods logging. He drank for recreation, spent time in jail and in debtors' prison. He fathered quite a few children, unknown exactly how many, by various women, and generally lived a disreputable life. Here's a comparison made about 100 years ago of the 150 years of their descendants. Jonathan Edwards and Sarah's descendants included one U.S. Vice President, three U.S. Senators, three governors, three mayors, 13 college presidents, 30 judges, 65 professors, 80 public office holders, 100 lawyers, and 100 missionaries. And Mr. Jukes' descendants, by contrast, included seven murderers, 60 thieves, 50 women of debauchery, 130 other convicts, 310 poppers with over 2300 years lived in pore houses, and 400 were physically wrecked by indulgent living. Quite a contrast in families, huh? There are several possible lessons that could be taken from this, and of course several have. The importance, one thing for sure is that the importance of strong, stable families with righteous, godly values can hardly be overemphasized. Family is really important, and family goes directly to the meaning of the Feast of Tabernacles.

The family of God, our families being types and teaching methods for that. Now, the family, you've heard this, is the basic building block of any stable society.

Satan hates the family, and right on schedule, and these end times here we see that the family unit is under pressure and disintegrating all over the world, not just in the western advanced cultures, which we saw for a long time, but now even in the backwoods areas they have TV and they see other possibilities, and the family is under a lot of pressure, and not doing so well right now. And we know the reason for this. The world following is following its great fallen spiritual leader, and they have just rejected the laws that produce family peace and unity, which of course we heard some of just a while ago with Mr. Ronsby's comments there. And those things are just being rejected by the world. One of the first basic reforms that we will have to make in the millennium will have to be the re-establishment of stable families, because a stable family with strong relationships is where stable, sound-minded, balanced adults with a strong emotional foundation are produced. Stable, peaceful families will be building the building blocks of the world of peace tomorrow. Now at this point we have to have a caveat, make this an interesting and important sidebar. That is that God has called many in this life with serious difficulties from dysfunctional families to overcome and rise above those things and become part of his perfect family kingdom.

And this started with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Have you ever read and just noticed how absolutely dysfunctional those families were? They had family problems. It should be encouraging to us. God has called those who will listen and can see and want to have his way.

And then he gives the power to overcome. And these three families, we call them the patriarchs, the first three, have become the patriarchs. They will be pillars in his family and the kingdom.

So don't be discouraged. If you have this kind of problem, it's our calling. Not many, wise, noble, and so on. It's part of God's plan. So don't be discouraged. Just be strong in the Lord, as we are told. So we will need stable families to build a stable and peaceful society in the millennium. And so how will God and his family, his first-root leaders that would include us, accomplish this? How do we do this? Create strong, stable, productive, happy families for the world tomorrow. Have you ever considered exactly what you will teach under those under your purview, those that you're over? Your one city? Your ten cities? Well, let's say you are 13 years old now, but this is in the future.

It's in the first year of the first six months of the millennium. You are the leader. You're the teaching priest. It's the Sabbath. You've got the main sermon. And the message is, building your godly family. People are waiting to hang on your words because they want to know the knowledge that we have so badly, and you have it. And you begin by saying, now, what is it you're going to say? Before we get into what you and I will say, I'd like to make this point, just focus the message. This message is for everybody, of course, of all ages. But it's mainly directed to those of you between 10 and 12 around there, up to around 25 or so years of age. And the question is, why? Well, because you haven't started having your own families yet, or perhaps you're just starting. And, you know, we can all learn and improve at all times. But those of you who have a 10-year-old, for example, are a little more than halfway through the job of rearing that child. You don't have much time to go. It's scary. There's a lot of work to be done. So what the church needs to do is to teach God's family-building laws and principles starting well before children approach the age when they start their own families. That's when people begin to think about these important things, you know, 12, 13, teenage years.

Think about those things. And that's when we need to be teaching about them. And so this is a youth message, if you will. It didn't start out to be that way. It's going to be child rearing, spoken to the parents, like I've given many sermons on and heard many more on. But in fact, child rearing and married sermons really need to be focused on those who are young, not those who haven't started yet and who are just getting started because those who already are there are halfway through. We can all change it anytime. It's good for everybody. But that's the focus. So I would like to address those of you, and I know that children's choir had some pretty young ones. There's probably above a lot of interest there. But certainly 11, 12, 13, and on.

Certainly by that age. That's who I'm speaking to today. So I said, what will we begin to teach on that day when you have your first address to your people on this subject? How are we going to approach this? What do you say first? There are three great underlying principles or laws of family building or child-rearing that God has given to us. There are many, many principles, instructions, and so on, but they all fit into these three categories. And so what I'd like to do is look at the three great laws of family building and draw some conclusions from them.

We'll find that they are relevant to the millennium. They're relevant to our calling, and they're relevant to keeping the Feast of Tabernacles now and to our families now.

So principle number one, put God first.

Sounds pretty trite, doesn't it? I mean, simple, simple. It's not when you study into it.

It's really important, and without this, nothing good is going to happen. Exodus 20, verse 2 and 3, First Commandment, I am the Lord your God, which have brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. I have saved you. You shall have no other gods before me.

The First Commandment is respect and obey the true God only, nobody else.

Christ quotes himself. He gave the law, but in the New Testament, Matthew 22 and verse 37, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.

This is the first and great commandment. Observing the first commandment as a family is the single most important principle in child-rearing, as in all life, really.

But it's the bedrock on which every godly family is built. If children see parents sincerely putting God's ways first in their lives, praying, studying God's words, seeking to change and grow, then they will learn what they live. You might remember there's a famous poem, Learn What They Live, a very charming poem. Whatever the children are living within their family, they learn those as those core values, good or bad.

And they go forward from that. You can Google that poem, and it's a lovely poem, with a great lesson. Now, if the children see their parents saying this, but actually putting other things before God, you know, spiritual things kind of are put off to last, then they'll also learn what they live. And their kids are especially sensitive to that type of thing, hypocrisy or maybe just inconsistency. We don't go all the way to just rotten hypocrisy, but a lot of times we're inconsistent and not diligent and so on. And children just soak that up. Underlying the Ten Commandments in all of God's laws is the principle that God has the right to tell us what to do, to give commands and orders. He is the creator and the author of life, and that gives him the right to direct what he has created. Human beings need to know this first before we have any understanding of anything practically in life. God does have the right. He's the Father. A brief study of this, the word Father, it basically means source, a quote from the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia you may have heard of ISBIE for short. The biblical concept of fatherhood, whether applied to God or to man, to the devil, like the devil is the father of murderers, or to evil itself, or whether used biologically or spiritually, literally or figuratively always expresses the notion of source or fountain of procession. A couple of examples, every word that proceeds from the mouth of God we're to live by, the spirit of truth proceeds from the Father. He is the source of absolutely everything. Romans 13, 1, very specific, let every soul be subject to the higher powers for there is no power but of God. This is Romans 13 in verse 1, fairly commonly quoted, the powers that be are ordained of God. The Greek word power simply means authority and some other aspects, but God is the source of all authority. Paul brings this out here in Romans 13. Authority is a gift from God. We can see this without going to the scriptures that talk about his gifts. We can just look around. Authority produces stability for society or family or a company for an army. For a ship, you better have a captain with authority.

You know, if you're on a ship, just for safety of nothing else, provides stability for a church. Without authority, things we need to be able to count on become unpredictable and unsafe. We see that directly in the family as well as in society in general. And I was thinking, current example, what can I give? Syria. You know, when authority and the power of the government, even a bad government, is undermined. What happens? Trouble and tribulation ensues. Death, destruction, tremendous loss. Excuse me, many people, homeless, anarchy, unhappiness, stress, and death. So authority is a real gift from God. One of his greatest gifts, well, he's the author. He's the source. And of course, authority would come for him.

And so this certainly goes for the family. All those principles apply directly to the family. Take authority away from everything or anything, and everything starts to fall apart and come unglued and just corrupt. So Satan started at the garden, you know, his anti-family, anti-God campaign with a little lie. He told Eve, you just don't have to do what God says.

You don't really have to respect God because he doesn't deserve it.

And so if God didn't deserve it, well, her husband didn't. So Eve bought into that, and Adam bought into that, and followed. And so their family was doomed to have tremendous conflict and sorrow because they chose to respect and follow Satan, not God.

So 1 Corinthians 11, verse 3, But I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is the man. And the head of Christ is God. There is an authority structure there. Part of respecting and following God and putting him first is for each father to take the leadership and the servant leadership responsibility in his own family. So God is the author of all authority, and the family unit is built on the authority of the heavenly Father. Otherwise, we wouldn't even have family. We wouldn't know about it. And then, so we have another man sitting here. He's not full grown yet. Let's say he's 15 or you know, somewhere young. But those of you sitting here can think about this. And sometime in the future, not too many years hence, a godly man like yourself marries a godly woman, possibly one of the girls sitting right here, maybe somewhere else. But and then he authors a family. He becomes a father. The whole idea is the physical father symbolizes the heavenly Father. And his wife, by becoming a mother, begins to teach her children about Christ and the church even before the exit the womb. Symbolize the God family. And that's, you know, probably that's going to happen to most of you young people here. It's in your future. In order for us to succeed in any way at having a godly family, God the Father has to be in first place in that family. It's so important for Dad to fulfill his responsibilities and Mom to come along and support him and fulfill her responsibilities.

And why? Because Dad represents God the Father and Mom represents Christ in the church.

Parents are the first gods we know. They're big, they're tall, they have all power in our little lives.

They represent God. And the attitudes that the children develop toward their father and mother are the attitudes and concepts they will have toward God the Father and Jesus Christ in the church and authority in general. It is so important to fulfill those rules. You don't have to be perfect, but you have to be striving to fulfill those rules for your children. We are prophesied to have some real trouble with this. Isaiah 3 verse 5, commonly read scripture, the people shall be oppressed, everyone by another, everyone by his neighbor, general trouble in society. And the child shall behave himself proudly against the ancient and the base against the honorable. So there's a general attitude of rebellion and suspicion and disrespect for constituted authority. And these attitudes start at home, and of course in ungodly homes, and those just homes just cut off. They don't even know about this. I have one example from the Old Testament, and I really wanted to give this, but I didn't think I'd have time. I don't really have time for it. It's 1 Kings chapter 1, and if you want, take some time. It's so interesting. It reads like a novel. It doesn't have that many verses. Fascinating story. It's where one of King David's sons tried to kill Solomon, who was the rightful heir, and have an insurrection and take over.

And he was caught, but it tells why this young man had such a rotten attitude towards his father, a disrespect toward the nation, and a disregard for God. It's verse 6, 1 Kings 1 verse 6, and then it tells a story after that. His father, David, who was gone fighting the Philistines for about 20 years, he was an absent father to a great degree. His father had not displeased him at any time, saying, Why hast thou done so? He was also a very goodly mean man. It means handsome, strong, and just well-mannered. Somebody you were drawn to, charismatic. His mother bore him after Absalom, so he tried the same thing to rebel. And so he did. The story is very interesting. A great suggested reading. But he was never told no. He had never learned respect for authority.

Always got his way, so he assumed he deserved it. The lesson is that we humans have to be taught respect, or we will not have respect. So the first law of family building is that God has to be first in every godly family. Now, the second one is also a very, very large study or principle.

But we don't really have to take a very, very large amount of time to go over it. It's a good thing we don't have the time, but we don't have to. I'll just mention it'll be fairly obvious, I think. And the same with the second and third. Let me draw some conclusions.

The fifth commandment. Put parents first. That's principle number two. Put parents first. Put God first, and in the home put the parents first in their worship toward God. This is extremely important. Honor that your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land, which the Lord your God has given you. This is a major key to success, and that is to make it a parent-centered home, not a child-centered home. It's the child-rearing disease of the age for parents to run around in desperation, thinking they have to take care of every little need and make their children happy. But look at this commandment. This is the basic statement of God on this. Honor your father and your mother, not the other way around. Society has it all upside down. It will continue to produce worse rebellion and worse anarchy and worse mess for everybody and unhappiness and so on. The commandment says the children honor their parents, and then things go straight. It's the key to a peaceful family life. Kids please the parents, not the opposite. Observations by God on modern family life and modern families with this problem. Isaiah 3 verses 4 and 5. I will give a pardon me, not verse, I want to go to verse 12. Verse 4, comments on it. Verse 12 in Isaiah 3, As for my people, children are their oppressors or their taskmasters, and women rule over them.

This may mean that there are so few leaders that are men, that there are a lot of women in politics, and that's generally an exception to think of Deborah and some of the great Haldas, the great, wonderful, powerful, and strong leaders that were women, but the generally exception, mostly men rise to those positions because women have important work to do with children and other things at home, a priority for God. But it may mean that the fathers are just not doing their jobs and the women have to rear the children alone.

That may be even a bigger problem than otherwise. But at any rate, it's upside down, the fifth commandment directs that we have parents-centered families. One man, and it's been quoted quite a bit, put it, the parents are in charge and the kids are the satellites. The children are circled around. The center of the family is the parents. And they don't say, one of my pet peeves, I guess I'll mention it here, is, you know, you give a choice to your child.

Well, you go to a rescue. Well, would you like, you know, eggs or cereal or banana or, you know, 15 choices? And the kids aren't ready to decide those decisions most of the time until they're older.

It's so much more peaceful if you say, well, we're having mac and cheese. Or we're having, whatever it is, and make those decisions. It's up to a certain age and you begin to give more. But here's my pet peeve. Well, daddy's going to do something and so on, and you can wait over here, or you can go do something, whatever it is, an instruction. Okay. Okay. You know, when your voice rises at the end of a question in English, and probably another language, it means you're asking.

Okay. Like, you have to get your permission from your child for every single little thing you tell them. No, you don't. You don't want to be in the other ditch, you know, and just order kids around always. But there's a balance. But a lot of people, and this is a societal problem, have come out of that ditch, jumped, vaulted over the middle of the road, and right into the other ditch.

And this just creates a lot of havoc. So just tell your kids pleasantly and be on with it. Life will go better for them and for you. So the second great law of family building is put parents first within the family.

It's a law of God. It's a major commandment, the fifth one. Principle number three, as I say, not much time on it. Huge principle, as you will see, is teach all of God's laws in His words. God actually instituted the job of teacher of His law and assigned it to parents when He founded the nation and gave the law in the first place. Deuteronomy 6 in verse 6, and these words which I command you this day shall be in your heart, and you shall teach them diligently unto your children.

You shall talk about them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down when you get up just every all the time.

Bringing out principles doesn't mean some parents, you know, have preached constantly driving their parent their kids bananas, but it doesn't mean that. It means talk. Kids learn so much even just by hearing their parents come. What if you spend time around your kids whether they're listening to the adults talk or whether you're talking with them, they learn how you think and parents say, I don't know what I don't know where this guy came from. He's 15. He doesn't think like me at all. Well, he's learned how to think from TV or various other things.

The key is to spend a huge amount of time with your children so they learn how you think. You don't say, now, when it comes to this, I think such and such and so forth. You know, you're just talking converse and it's absorbed. It's automatic and it's successful. So every parent, every couple who creates a child come under God's requirement. This is a commission to teach not some but all.

Interestingly, this is an Old Testament and a New Testament command. Every family is directed to do this and the family of God, the church, is directed to teach and observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And lo, I'm with you always. Remember that from Matthew 28. The church is also responsible for teaching everything, no limits.

It's certainly a lifelong project and that's the third great law of family building. Sorry for an abbreviated presentation, but we don't really need to go into detail. You'll be at 29,000 details that there are, you know. Those are the three principles. Put God first, put parents first at the center, and teach all of God's laws. Okay, now some observations. And this has to do with children in power.

I'd like to go back to the fifth commandment and notice something we skipped over because there's another huge lesson here, and it's big. Honor your father and your mother, that they days may be long and so on.

Notice this commandment is not directed to the parents. This is directed to children. There's a huge lesson there. Huge principle. When children are young, they have almost no power. They grow and they become, you know, they gain more and more power. They're more capable. Parents are delighted.

And then they move out and they start their own families and so on. And parents are still bigger and, you know, more powerful. But that changes. The years go by and youth always prevails in this world. And they have more and more increasing power. That starts even when they're inside the home.

Looking closer at the fifth commandment, it empowers children and teens even before they are on their own to have a great part in God's work. It empowers those of you who are young to have a great part in God's work before you even leave home. Because family is the work of God.

Our families picture what God is doing on a grand scale, and God's work is creating his family.

We find Christ telling us to become like little children in a spirit of innocence, trust, and humility. Matthew 18. He called a little child to him one time, and the child just came over. He said him in the midst, cooperative of a little kid. Verse 3 of Matthew 18, he said, Truly I say unto you, except you be converted and become as little children, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever shall humble himself like a little child. Same as the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. So children from every age, from infants all the way through the teen years, can have such fine examples and fine attitudes and be so inspiring and their examples of service and consideration and helpfulness, striving for excellence, sportsmanship.

Because the youth have energy that the older adults don't have anymore. Innocent, inspiring.

The youth can inspire their parents and everyone else.

By your fine example, speaking to those of you who are young, by your fine example, you have the power of great service, inspiration, encouragement, all those things. You know, if a congregation, a small congregation, has only one child, he or she can inspire and lift up the whole church. It's just a glorious thing.

I have, you know, we've been in various congregations, seen this principle.

It's through attitude, mainly the attitude of the child that Christ talks about here.

So you, as a youth, you know, like I say, a broad spectrum of age, maybe up to 25, you contribute a lot to your, well, this is mainly what I'm talking about before you left home, you contribute a lot to your family. Now, it's possible to do the opposite and cause a great problem, nothing like a screaming kid that won't stop, especially in a restaurant, you know, it's possible there's power to do that. But I'm talking about the power to do good that you have as a kid or as a teenager in your family. You haven't started your own, this is in your family of origin. Now, I would say this, but well, so you're doing a lot. The question is, is it all good?

Or are there some areas that you might improve? I think about, you know, if I could time travel, you know what I'd do? I'd go back and I'd change some things, I would become a better kid. I would help my parents so much more and I'd try not to be so selfish. You know, you look back and say, oh man, I could have helped so much, I could have done better, I could have, I would try to encourage them more than I did. I was mainly just thinking about me. And it's so inspiring to see a lot of you teenagers here and your example, because you're not thinking just selfishly. And it really shows. You're serving and it's wonderful to see the kids up here and the youth choir teenagers and helping in the band and everywhere. It's just, it's good to see that. And out on the floor, I mean, it's just a wonderful inspiration. Could you make your parents' life easier by helping more? You think if you did that, you could give that a try? You think you'd be successful? Could you appreciate and encourage your parents more? I have two examples that I'll just mention just in general. I talked to these two sisters. One was a sophomore, one was a senior in high school. They wanted to counsel with me because of their problem parents. It was a long time ago. So I said, sure, and the parents fine. Maybe you can do something with them. No, actually the parents were saying, well, maybe we can improve. They were very humble. And so they were talking about how bored they were with them, how boring. They didn't want to do anything. They were just had all kinds of complaints, basically, which added up to a total of zero. So I listened patiently. And then I said, well, let's see now, you kind of mentioned some of the negative things. How about the positive things? You know, you're satisfied with your house? Yeah. Do you like your car? Well, it's okay. Well, how about you have enough food? How about your clothes? They had nice clothes. So I went down the line and I said, you know, I don't know how to fix this. I'm not, I can't fix stuff. I can't fix your parents. I don't know how. But it seems to me I'd like you to consider not just what kind of parents you have, but what kind of daughters they have.

And they hadn't thought that. And so they thought, and I was respectful, you know, and they say, they decided, well, maybe you're right. Yeah. And then they decided, well, yeah, we're not very, one of them said, you know, actually, I'd hate to have a kid like me. Unappreciative.

Anyway, long story short, they went, they started, they changed their attitudes, both of them at the same time. And the whole family just improved. And in three years, they were, they were both out and on their own. But because they changed, the children have power to change. What do you contribute to your family or what you do contribute to your family of origin? Big point here. And its godly character will have a lot to do with the family that God gives to you, starting with the mate that he will bring to you. Proverbs 1822. If you find a wife, you find a good thing, and you have obtained favor of the Lord, our lives come from God. So, we don't want to miss out on God's blessings. You have power to work in the work of God as a kid, as a teenager. Great power. And it increases as you go to do good in his work because your family is his work. And the good work that you do in your family will contribute, that is, your family of origin, will contribute to your marriage and family later. It is a wonderful principle of God. It's true. It's going to happen. So, I encourage you to do good. Take the power and do good. Okay, one other observation here. I would like to complement and bless our grade A, number one, highest quality, super duper, youth, our kids and teens and young adults. I was privileged to go to camp this year at Pinecrest. There were 70 young people. They were interested in listening to God. They wanted to know his way. What a rare thing. I was able to just talk to them at one point and just said, what a privilege it is, how pleased God is, and how pleased we are. It's just a wonderful thing. God calls you, as a part of the church, his jewels who are looking toward him for guidance. As you, as young people and kids, teens, not young people, kids, teens and young adults, have a lot of power in God's family.

You can be so inspiring to older folks in the church. We know our own shortcomings, and we don't expect you to be perfect. That doesn't matter. It's just wonderful to have you here.

It's a real joy to have you as part of our congregation.

It's just wonderful. It helps us rejoice in the feast. It makes us happy.

Thank you for your fine example. I tried to figure out a clever way to say this. I just didn't. It's just just unclear. It's just the way it is. We thank you. We're so happy you're a part of God's church with us to inherit the kingdom with us. It's just wonderful.

Please remember the three great laws of family building.

Please remember that as youth, you have great power and growing power to do good in God's work right within your family, then expanding beyond that.

Please remember how greatly you as youth are loved and appreciated by us.

It's true. Which I can say it better. It's just true.

It's been lovely.

Happy feast to you, brethren, and God's richest blessings.