Equipping Our Children For Life

Parents are usually—well, in my experience, not necessarily speaking about myself, but Dr. Horst speaking about his parents and made me think of mine—parents are usually quite good at equipping their children with the things they need in life, aren't they? Parents have a way of always making sure that their children have enough food, clean clothes to wear, and new shoes for school each fall. At the start of each school year, they also, especially nowadays, they manage to send their children back to school fully equipped to that entire list—and if you're a parent, you know what I'm talking about—that nice long list of pencils, crayons, notebooks, Kleenex boxes, and book bags. And parents, somehow, having those that don't have a lot of money, they manage to make it happen. And moms and dads have a knack for sending their children to all those other activities they're involved with, again, with just the right equipment—tennis rackets, black binders, Boy Scout uniforms, and all those badges, ballet slippers, bathing suits—they do it. Parents are good at equipping their children. And then, after all those many years of equipping them, the children are really suddenly all grown up, and they begin that long-anticipated convincing of their adult lives—what they've been waiting for. And the parents' time for equipping is done, and the children must face challenges all on their own, more or less.

In all of our efforts to prepare our children for what their future holds, though, I wonder, are we doing the best we can to equip them spiritually as well? For example, are we equipping our children the best we can with the instruction and experiences that will help them develop good judgment, help them develop trust in God and strength of character? Are we equipping them with the knowledge and understanding of God's Word, the Bible, and how to use it as the source of understanding right from wrong, understanding good from evil? Are we equipping our children with the know-how in building and maintaining a right relationship with God and with neighbor? The title of today's sermon is, Equipping Our Children For Life. Equipping Our Children For Life. Now, this sermon is for fathers and mothers, and future fathers and mothers, and all the fathers and mothers in heart. This sermon is for all of us. I'm not going to leave anyone out.

Now, if we were to make a list of all the things which we would need to equip our children for a truly successful life, where would you start? What would be on that list? Now, while there are many things to put on our list, and I started and I realized it was getting too long in my own head, while there are many things to put on our list, I would suggest at least these three things to start with. So I'm going to suggest three things to put on our list to help our children be equipped for their lives ahead. Number one, equip our children with a love for God and His law. Equip our children with a love for God and His law. A truly meaningful and successful life requires, we know this, a right relationship with God or Father, as we've heard today already, and Jesus Christ, His Son. If we have a right relationship with God, then no matter what comes our way in life, both good times are difficult, and we will have both. No matter what, though, we will make it through. We will make it through because we stay close to God. A right relationship with God requires that we live according to His commandments. If you turn to me to John 15.10, that's what Jesus taught His disciples. And we can read that. John 15, verse 10.

John 15.10, If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, Jesus said, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in His love. We must be keeping God's commandments. And, of course, back in Ecclesiastes 12.13, I suspect some of you know this by heart, but in Ecclesiastes 12, verse 13, King Solomon, after completing his very exhaustive study and analysis, trying to discover what's the meaning of life under the sun, he stated this as his conclusion. Ecclesiastes 12.13, Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is man's all. For God will bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing, whether good or evil. Reminds us that all of us, every human being, is going to be held accountable before God. And then, Deuteronomy 7, verse 9. Deuteronomy 7, verse 9, God gave this truth through Moses. Deuteronomy 7, verse 9, Do equip our children for a successful life in God's hands. We must teach them to love God and to keep His law. This task God has given to dads and moms, fathers and mothers, and all those who find themselves in the place of moms and dads. That happens, too. We mustn't forget anyone. Let's look at Deuteronomy 6, verses 5 through 7 as well. Page in the opposite direction. Deuteronomy 6, verse 5 through 7. Again, God commanded through Moses. Mr. Carmichael mentioned this in his sermonette. Deuteronomy 6, verse 5, And these words, which I command you today, shall be in your heart.

You shall teach them diligently to your children. And you shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. And as Mr. Carmichael mentioned, the Lord has given you the power to be a part of God's life. And when you rise up. And as Mr. Carmichael mentioned, this is something we're to be doing all the time. It's to become our lifestyle. It's just what we do. We and our children won't see it as being odd. Now, people who don't know us very well and maybe are not part of our family, that'll probably turn a few heads. But for us, God wants us to be very much our lifestyle, talking about His law. And so we must make talking about God and living according to His way of life just our normal part of our conversation and the way we do things. Talking about God with our children really should become as easy and natural to us as breathing itself. It's just the way we do. It's the way we are. It doesn't seem strange. And it also means there needs to be no restriction as to when we talk about God. Sometimes people get it in their minds that, oh, well, the Sabbath is when we focus on God. The other days of the week, we don't need to bring up God. Of course, we know better than that. In the Scripture, these sets of Scriptures here make that clear. Of course, when you look at these Scriptures in Deuteronomy 6 and think a little bit more about it, it tells us that we parents must be striving to love God and keep His commandments, too. And that does make sense.

It's very hard to teach something with confidence and with knowledge and thoroughness if you are not well-experienced and educated in it yourself. Children are very good at seeing hypocrisy. And very quickly, they know if mom and dad or others maybe don't know those Ten Commandments and maybe don't know exactly what God says. We have to be well-versed in God's law ourselves as parents, especially. Another thing we learn here is that learning to live God's way, it's a family activity. It's something all the family does. Yes, the father and the family, the dad, sometimes it may be a single mom, but the head of the household should be setting the right example. It should be taking this part of teaching the children and learning and living that way of God. It's not something the children only must be doing. So that means if you have little ones in Sabbath school or in a teen program, and they're learning their Ten Commandments, if they're learning something about God as parents, it really behooves us to also be learning with them. Some of our families enjoy having Bible studies. Not everybody does, but you find what works for your family and for the makeup of your kids. Maybe it's some kind of activity outside where it's a game, and they have to be able to remember Scriptures. There are various things we can do to make God's way a normal, natural part of our lives, our children's lives. And of course, as they get older, what I've enjoyed personally with my own children, and I know a lot of you would say the same in your families, it's nice when the conversations actually focus on God, and they bring problems to our attention. They're having a school or at work, and they say, well, this is going on, how should I handle it? And then, together as a family, we can consider God's Word and turn to Scriptures and find the solutions. And that's such a wonderful way to equip our children with God's Word, to show them what it means and how to apply. And of course, our children can also teach us through God's Word, which is very much appreciated as well. To live God's law and to practice it, it also means we'll be teaching our children about repentance and forgiveness. They must be taught to say they're sorry while we're helping them to also mean it. Words are easy to say, but how do we help our children understand what it means to be sorry from the heart? In teaching about obedience, repentance, and apologizing, it can be easier to teach when we also practice it ourselves as fathers and mothers. I didn't always hear grown-ups saying they're sorry a lot when I was a kid, but after learning God's way, I've been trying harder to say it and to mean it when I make my mistakes. For example, when we dads, and in honors of Father's Day, I will be picking on the fathers today.

We as dads sometimes, we need to make sure especially because we're dad. We are dad.

And so if we make a mistake, what powerful lesson does that send to our children when we apologize? When we apologize for perhaps—I'm not claiming this is something I have done, but—well, forget it. For example, if we correct the wrong child by mistake. Oops! I thought you did that. No, I didn't do it. Okay, sorry. Get over here. You. Or perhaps—and I will admit it—even perhaps knowingly eat our child's popsicle when they are saving in the back of the freezer and you didn't know it, necessarily. So there are times, you see, when we need to be able to say we're sorry and to really mean it. It may seem like a little thing to us, but I feel safe to say in the eyes of a child that is a very big apology and it is remembered and they'll not forget it. And we pray they'll live it themselves one day. Setting an example of apologizing is necessary. And so, yes, to equip our children with a love for God and His law, we as parents must be making that way of life an indelible part of our family's life, of their life, and very much a part of our lives. Together as family, we're to be striving to live God's way of life, including the repentance and the forgiveness, which is also a very beautiful thing to experience forgiveness from one another in your family. And of course, that leads to this beautiful segue, number two. That segue here leads to number two, equip our children with a love for family. This one can be challenging at times. Families are made up of imperfect people facing imperfect situations, and yet trying to do so with a more perfect attitude of sincere love for family, a love that is inspired and comes from God. No family on this earth is perfect. But we must be doing the best we can. Notice I'm saying we try to do the best we can to be a family as God intended. Fathers, again, have a powerful influence on how children view family, whether they come to view family as something wonderful or whether they may see family as something terrible. We fathers bear a great responsibility in that. Let's look at Ephesians 5, verse 25.

Ephesians 5, verse 25.

And if we want to think of it this way, fatherhood is like motherhood. It's a sacred duty. It's a sacred thing. God created family. In Ephesians 5, verse 25, Paul instructs husbands to love their wives with a sacrificial love. Sometimes we fathers, we husbands can forget. Paul says, in Ephesians 5, Husbands love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for her.

Verse 28, chopping down a few. So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it just as the Lord does the church.

Some of his husbands maybe didn't have the greatest backgrounds and families. Maybe we didn't have the best examples of seeing how husbands are to love their wives. But it isn't a kind thing from God to through Paul to give us an example through Jesus Christ, to remind us that Jesus Christ is our example, as husbands, as to how we should be loving our lives, putting our lives down for our wives. And so that means husbands are to put aside the self. And the self does get in the way. We need to put aside our self-centeredness at times. Especially when we're maybe at times rubbing our wives the wrong way, and maybe because we're just too much of our old selves. Often, and perhaps without always being aware of it, we can be a little bit neglectful as husbands in how we love our wives, and even simple little kindnesses.

Well, I won't. Okay, I almost said something about what my wife's trying to train me, but I won't say that. Okay? But we all have things to be working on. We husbands don't always need to do things our way. In fact, our wives' suggestions are often far superior than our own. And if I had a hat, I'd take it off to my wife. She helps me a lot. And let's face it, we husbands, we don't always need to control the remote for the TV. It is hard to let it go, but we can do that. And I've learned, without hurting my masculinity, it's really okay to watch a tearjerker of a movie from time to time. It's actually quite nice to have a special moment with your wife, watching a movie that's meaningful. It can actually really be nice to lay our lives down for our wives in the big ways, but I find what they would really prefer at times is just in the little ways. And again, that's something I am sure a lot of us are working on. Our sons and daughters also need to see a right example of how a loving husband loves and serves his wife, as Jesus Christ says we should. Our children watch and learn from us at a very young age. They watch everything we do. And as they get older, our sons and daughters watch to see how they should treat others in relationships as they grow in age, and that becomes appropriate and timely for them. We need to set a right example of how God wants families to be. Now, children also have a role in a family. They are to honor and obey their parents. Let's read about that. A few pages over Ephesians 6, verses 1-4.

Paul writes, This is the correct thing to do.

The children have a role there. The children are supposed to be obeying mom and dad. And then we read on here. I'm going to elaborate this a little bit more later. And you fathers, do not provoke, and that word can also be translated as, Exasperate your children to wrath. But bring them up in the training and admonition and instruction of the Lord.

Let's look back at the honor part. Honor means to respect one's parents.

And that means that respect should never go away. Not even when our parents get old. There is no time limit here that I can see as to when we're supposed to stop honoring our parents. In fact, we can even honor our parents on after they've died. And they're no longer with us by the reputation we bear in our name, by what we do, by how we live, and being faithful to those wonderful things they taught us.

Parents ought to act, however, in a way that helps children to respect them. To be honored means you have to make sure you're not doing things to make people want to dishonor you. That's how I kind of look at it. And so as parents, it helps our children if we are being reasonable, we are being kind and following along in what Scripture shows us. We try harder to be understanding and very patient. We have to be very patient as parents. And it also means we have to be firm. Discipline means to be instructive. It doesn't mean beatings and that sort of thing. That can become part of it at times. But really it means instruction, setting boundaries and sticking to them, being firm when you need to be firm, proving to your child that you are trustworthy, that when you say something, you follow through. Our children really need to understand that. That helps them to honor us.

We have to be fair as parents. That will go a long way with our children in helping them to honor us. Of course, I would throw this in. We have to be careful wanting to be our children's best friend. It does not work.

If you've had children, I don't know what the real answer is, but how long do our children have best friends? The same best friend.

When they're really little, maybe two days? As they get older, it can be a month or two. It might even last a year or so. It's rare that it may go the rest of their lives.

If we're our child's best friend, it could suggest they can easily dump us, as best friends might dump them. We need to be firm. We need to be better than just a best friend, although those are very important to have. I understand. We must be their parent.

There's much more to be said about honoring our parents, both as adults and as children. There's a wonderful article. Hopefully you've seen it and maybe read it in the latest United News, a church newspaper by Don Hooser. I'm just going to make reference to that. It's a very good article. Well worth your read. Paul also addresses some of these same points in Colossians 3, verse 18-12. Let's turn there, please. Colossians 3, verse 18-21.

In Colossians 3, verse 18-21, we hear some of the same things he mentioned to the Ephesians in this letter. Paul writes, wives, submit to your husbands. Again, there's more of the structure of the family unit, the order. Submit to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord. This is the way God has set this up, proper order and structure. Again, we see this. Husbands, love your wives and do not be bitter towards them. This word can also mean harsh, maybe heavy-handed. Verse 20, children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing to the Lord. And, fathers, again, get this little reminder from Paul. Do not provoke your children. Do not exasperate them. Be harsh. Lest they become discouraged. Lest they become feeling with a sense of hopelessness. Again, husbands must love their wives, and lives are to submit to their husbands. That is very unpopular in today's society. That part of the wedding ceremony, wedding vows in many churches I've noticed and elsewhere, submit is taken out. That word isn't part of it. But it is not an ugly term. Submission is not an ugly term, not when it's practiced willingly out of love for one's husband, and not out of love for God. That's what God expects us to do with him. But in both Colossians and Ephesians, husbands' fathers must take charge of the family out of love for them. They do it not because they want to be boss, but because they want to do what's best. And as a husband, that gives them that great authority and ability to do that. They answer to God.

We are not to be harsh on how we treat or speak to the ones we love. We must be careful to control our emotions and anger when conflicts occur. And conflicts do occur. Families are imperfect things, and communication is an imperfect thing, and troubles arise. But we can do a lot as husbands and fathers to keep peace, to keep things calm, and to make remedy very quickly if we keep our own emotions under control. If we don't go flying off in an emotional way, not doing insane things we don't really mean, or would never intentionally do otherwise. We can get huffy when our children are no longer easily corrected like the little deers they were when they were just toddlers. It's easy to correct and to guide. As we feel like we're getting younger, we have to change our tactics. We have to sit down and give them more time. Let them talk to us. Sometimes all our children want is just to be listened to. And most times they solve their own problems because you've already been bringing them up according to the way of God. They know the answers in most cases. They just need us to listen to them, to hear them. And that's something very important for fathers to do. As heads of households, we must set the example of love even when we're under pressure and great distress, even when we might not feel like being too loving. We have to love. We have to love. We have to do that so our families never become a place that our children don't like so much. And if we have things to fix, we can do that. We can make our apologies. We can start changing our ways. We can take the steps it might take. And of course, I'm not saying it's all the father's fault, right? Yeah, there's blame to go around. Children, wives, husbands, all of us. There are things we need to be working on together in obedience to God, in submission to God, in working on problems together as a family. I suspect we can more quickly resolve things and get things back to the way God really loves to see. Practicing repentance, practicing forgiveness, working together, having greater love and appreciation for one another, and greater appreciation for God who created the family. Again, parents, especially husbands, bear great responsibility in equipping their children with love for family. The third one I'd have on my list, the third item, would be to equip our children with an understanding of the two ways of life.

To equip our children with an understanding of the two ways of life. We may take this concept for granted. Many in the world, it doesn't exist. This concept. We need to be sure to teach our children that there are two ways of life. God holds each person accountable for choices he or she makes. Now, these two choices are found throughout Scripture. The imagery, the figurative language used, varies, but it's the same in its meaning.

In Genesis 2, verse 9, you can turn there. You don't need to. I think you know this one. In Genesis 2, verse 9, we remember that God reveals two ways of life as two trees growing in the Garden of Eden. Genesis 2, verse 9, I'll read it for you. In and out of the ground the Lord God made every tree to grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.

The tree of life was also in the midst of the Garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and of evil. Of course, we know that Adam and Eve chose to eat from the tree of knowledge for good and evil. They preferred to set their own rules. They preferred to decide for themselves what would be good or evil, let self-knowledge, rather than to be ever fearful, or rather reverential, worshipful towards God and obeying God, loving God. Deuteronomy 30, verse 15-19, let's turn there, a little longer scripture.

Deuteronomy 30, verse 15-19, God presented the children of Israel with a similar choice as he did to Adam and Eve, either to love and obey God or not to, in essence, either love or obey God, or you're finding yourself in a place where you're actually hating and disobeying God, the choice of life over death. Deuteronomy 30, verse 15-19, see, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. In that I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in His ways and to keep His commandments, His statutes, and His judgments, that you may live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land which you go to possess.

But if your heart turns away so that you do not hear and are drawn away and worship other gods and serve them, I announce to you today that you shall surely perish, and you shall not prolong your days in the land which you cross over the Jordan to go in and possess. I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Therefore, choose life, that both you and your descendants may live. God wants us to choose life, but it's our choice.

It's our choice. Matthew 7, 13 through 14, Jesus Christ presented these two ways as either the narrow gate and way leading to life or salvation, or as the broad gate and way leading to destruction and death. Matthew 7, 13 through 14, answered by the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction. And there are many who go in by it, because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.

God has called us to this narrow way of life. It's already there. And as children of parents called of God, God has already called you, too. You just have to make the choice to stick to it. Then in Revelation 22, verses 12 through 15, from beginning to end of the Bible, Revelation 22, verses 12 through 15, here in Revelation we find a description at the end of the Bible that again emphasizes these two ways of life. Revelation 22, 12, And behold, I am coming quickly, and my reward is with me, to give to everyone according to his work.

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. Blessed are those who do his commandments, and that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates into the city. But outside, outside are dogs and sorcerers, and sexually immoral and murderers and adulterers, and whoever loves and practices a lie.

Those who are inside New Jerusalem will receive eternal life, and those outside will be excluded and receive the second death. It's very clear. Two ways of life. When we equip our children with God's perspective of good and evil, something the world now argues doesn't really exist. When we equip them with God's perspective of good and evil, that God defines for us, not sociologists, not politicians, or popular survey says, and not our friends, not our peers, but when we turn to God's word and let him define what good and evil is for us, then our children will be better equipped spiritually speaking, spiritually in many other ways, to comprehend the world around them and how they fit in it.

They will also have greater reason to revere and love God, and to love their parents, and to love their family, and to choose God's way of life. Now, these three truths of God are foundational to all of the equipping parents need to be doing for their children, so that their children will be strong in God, that children will be loving and kind to others, and that they'll be resilient in all of life's trials that they will face.

These truths of God will allow them the means to make choices that they alone will need to make. We can't keep making choices for our children. That ends one day.

Godly parents have always endeavored to equip their children for life, and even in these three ways. I'd like to show you an example of that, and it's found in the book of Proverbs. Let's look at an example of a Godly family who equipped their child for life. Back in Proverbs, and we're going to begin in chapter 1. In Proverbs 1-9, we find a father's discourse, a rather long speech, nine chapters. We find a father's discourse or speech to his son, who is about to take on the duties and responsibility of adulthood. In today's vernacular, this father's son is grown. He's grown.

The father equips his son with some final words of wisdom. In essence, he reminds his son to be true to God, to love family, and to never neglect that there are two ways of life. Throughout this discourse, the father counsels his son to choose wisdom, which alone comes from God. How does this father talk to his now-grown son? He does so with love, earnestness, and firmness. Because he knows the choices that his son will be making, he will now be all his own. No longer dad's choice or mom's, it is his son's choice. His son has grown. Starting with verse 7 in Proverbs 1. The father reminds his son that he and his mother have taught him since a baby to revere and to obey God. Proverbs 1.7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction. My son hears, meaning heed, listen to the instruction. This other word, instruction, here could be training or discipline of your father. He continues and he says, Do not forsake the law or teaching of your mother. This word, Hebrew, is Torah. Do not forsake the teaching of your mother. For they will be a graceful ornament on your head and chains about your neck. These are not chains of bondage, not that sort of chains. These parents love and obey God. They have reared and equipped their son to also love and obey God. And by following in the instruction they have parents have given him, he will find honor and dignity in the eyes of other people. He will be esteemed, he will be honored by others for his godly wisdom.

And yet they recognize that he alone can choose whether to remain true to their instruction. They can only plead with him to make a good choice. They cannot make him. And so his father warns him that so-called friends will come along in your life, son, and they will entice him to sin and to reject their instruction. And we see this in the Father's description in verses 10 through 16, still in chapter 1. The Father is very wise. He knows what his son is about to face. Verse 10, My son, if sinners entice you, do not consent. Don't go along with them. If they say, Come with us, let us lie in wait to shed blood, let us lurk secretly for the innocent without cause. Let us swallow them alive like sheol, the grave, and whole like those that go down to the pit. We shall find all kinds of precious possessions. We'll get some good stuff. It'll be fun. We shall fill our houses with spoil, cast in your lot among us. Let us all have one purse. These people, in a sense, are going to tell you, my son. Verse 15, the Father says, My son, do not walk in the way with them. Keep your foot from their path, for their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed blood.

His Father provides this frank description of what people can be like. Not all people are like this, but, son, you're going to meet people like this one day. They're going to try to entice you to do evil. There are people out there in the world, and we know it. It's the same world today. They have no fear of God. They have no fear of doing wickedness. As parents sometimes do, perhaps the Father intended to shock his son with these rather frank and blunt statements of what's out there. Perhaps the Father meant to check his son's naiveté, his inexperience. He is an adult, but he hasn't experienced a whole lot about real life yet. He hasn't experienced a whole lot about people who live foolishly and without a fear of God, without reverence for law, without reverence for life itself.

So what is wisdom like? His Father is going to be talking to him about wisdom. What is wisdom like? When Proverbs 1, verse 20, the Father is now going to set about to equip his son with an image of wisdom. He equips his son with an image of wisdom as being like a noble woman, a noble woman, who counsels the simple and the foolish to come and follow her. Verse 20, the Father continues in his speech. He says, She raises her voice in the open square. She cries out in the chief concourses. At the openings of the gates in the city, she speaks her words. She says, Simple can also mean immature, young. It doesn't mean you're stupid. You just are immature. You don't know a lot yet. Wisdom says, How long, you simple ones, will you love simplicity? For sconers delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge. Turn at my rebuke. Surely I will pour out my spirit on you. I will make my words known to you.

The Father teaches him that wisdom does not lurk in secretive places. Wisdom is found in the public squares, in the city gates, amidst thoroughfares where people do business. They teach one another. They uphold justice and righteousness in the land. Wisdom especially calls, then, to the naive, the gullible, and the young. Now let's turn to Proverbs 4, verse 5-9. The Father again continues. He's describing the life qualities of wisdom. In fact, here in Proverbs 4, verse 5-9, the Father describes wisdom as having attributes that a young man like him should find desirable and a loving and capable wife. This young man is about to sit out in adulthood. In this time, in that culture and that time, it meant it was time to find a wife. It was time to make a family of your own. Look how his Father describes wisdom. Proverbs 4, verse 5. Get wisdom, get understanding. Do not forget nor turn away from the words of my mouth. Do not forsake her wisdom, and she will preserve you, love her, and she will keep you. Wisdom is the principal thing. Therefore, get wisdom. Do you think he wants him to get wisdom? Yes, very much so. And in all you're getting, get understanding. Exalt her, and she will promote you. She will bring you honor when you embrace her.

She will place on your head an ornament of grace, a crown of glory she will deliver to you. In fact, again, the Father is suggesting that wisdom's son see her as a sort of loving and capable woman who could become a fine wife for you. Continue reading, verse 10. Hear my son and receive my sayings, and the years of your life will be many. I have taught you in the way of wisdom. I have led you in right paths. When you walk, your steps will not be hindered, and when you run, you will not stumble. Take firm hold of instruction. Do not let go. Instruction and wisdom do not let go. Keep her, for she is your life. In essence, when you read the intent of the words, the imagery, in essence, the Father is encouraging his son to marry wisdom, to be at one with wisdom. To make wisdom your wife. Make a lifelong commitment to her. Now, let's turn to Proverbs 6, verse 20-24.

Proverbs 6, verse 20-24. Just as our children must make choices between the two ways of life, the Father makes wisdom even more appealing to his son when he contrasts her with another woman his son will certainly encounter in life. This other woman is a strange woman. That's what the Hebrew means, a strange woman, a foreign woman. She is the seductress, the woman who would entice him away from the way of wisdom and godliness. She would seduce him into ruin and destruction. Proverbs 6, verse 20.

Doesn't that sound like what we read in earlier Deuteronomy, day in and day out? We live by the Word of God. Verse 23. For the commandment is a lamp in the lawy light. Repruce of instruction are the way of life, to keep you from the evil woman, from the flattering tongue of the seductress. Do not lust after her beauty in your heart, nor let her allure you with her eyelids. What is it about men and women's eyes? They flash their eyes and... The Father knows these things, and He is warning His Son, Do not let false beauty, do not let a foolish woman entice you away from the ways of God, even figuratively here. For by means of harlot a man is reduced to a crust of bread, and an adulterous will prey upon his precious life. Now, symbolically, we know from Scripture that, or as we see in Revelation 17, I'm not going to turn there, but symbolically, the harlot can represent idolatry, false religion, the harlot can represent all that is sinful and abhorrent to God, rebelliousness against God. And ultimately, as the Father makes clear to tell His Son, remind Him that the way of the harlot, the falseness, is a way of death and destruction. And so, she is described to His Son as a way of lawlessness He must avoid in life. And finally, in Proverbs 9, as the Father is ending His long speech, He is trying again to make sure He has done the best job He can as a dad to equip His Son for his life ahead.

In Proverbs 9, the Father ends His discourse with one last contrast between these two ways of life. Here, wisdom and the foolish woman make a final appeal for the simple and mature. It's as if wisdom and the foolish woman—you can almost read this like an ad campaign. Politicians, vote for me. Come with me. No, vote for me. Follow me. The Father sets this up for His Son to understand very clearly what your choices in life are. We'll begin with wisdom in verses 1-6.

Wisdom has built her house. She has hewn out her seven pillars. The seven pillars seem to represent wisdom's qualities of righteousness, wholeness, and permanence—all that is good, that perfection of setting the number seven and is related to God. Verse 2, she has slaughtered her meat. She has mixed her wine. She has also furnished her table. What a sumptuous table this is, representing the rich blessings that wisdom offers. She has sent out her maidens. She cries out from the highest places of the city. And what might the highest places of a city be? If we were in Jerusalem, what at that time would have been the highest place of the city? The temple. The temple. Temple Mount. She cries out, wisdom does, from the highest places of the city. And she says, whoever is simple, let him turn in here. As for him who lacks understanding, she says to him, Come, eat of my bread, and drink of the wine I have mixed. That sounds similar to anyone? What we read during the days of Unleavened Bread and Passover? Is there a similarity here to partaking of the body and blood of Jesus Christ?

Let him eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. The Father concludes this description by having her say, Forsake foolishness and live, and go in the way of understanding.

That's wisdom, begging the Son, the Father's Son, choose me.

Now down in verses 13-18, we're going to read what the foolish woman has to say about herself and why the Son should follow her. Verse 13, a foolish woman, some Bibles call it folly, is clamorous, meaning loud. She is simple, undisciplined, and knows nothing. For she sits at the door of her house, on a seat by the highest places of the city, to call to those who pass by who go straight on their way. It seems when you read and think about what's being said, the foolish woman is sitting along the way where people go to the temple. She's trying to allure and catch the naive and gullible on the way to the temple, and their way to worshiping and being with God. Verse 16, whoever is simple, let him turn in here, she says.

And as for him who lacks understanding, she says to him, stolen water is sweet and bread eaten in secret. It's pleasant. What does she offer in comparison to wisdom? Measly bread and water. Just bread and water. And even the water is stolen. Even the water is stolen.

Verse 18, but he the simple does not know that the dead are there, that her guests are in the depths of hell. In other words, the foolish woman only offers sinful pleasure and death. That's what she offers. That's her way of life. And so the father contrasts wisdom with the foolish woman, and the contrast is quite stark. Wisdom's guests live. The guest of the foolish woman die. And what choice did the son make?

What choice did his son make? We're not told. We don't know. But what we do see, and this is very important for us to understand, what we do see is that the father equipped his son to make his choice.

The son has to make his choice. Our children have to make their choices.

Parents must make the choice very clear.

Equipping our children for life is not an easy task, but one that takes much effort, planning, sacrifice, and, dare I say, much prayer.

Then there comes a time when we, as parents, must step back and let our children build their own lives.

We will have done about all that we can do, we'll say. And then we'll pray that God fills in the gaps of what we failed to do, what we didn't know to do, where our best efforts were our best, but maybe not the best. We pray for God to help with that. And yet, perhaps like Proverbs' father to his son, we will also have time for those talks, and we can encourage our children to remember what we've taught them about God's law and ways. We will need to encourage our children along the way, always, I think, to make the right choice in their lives. However, we cannot control or force their conscience any more than God can force or control ours.

And to our children who are here and listening, I say this to you. Stay true to God.

Stay true to God no matter what happens in life. Stick with God. God is blessing you, and through your parents, He provides you what you need to succeed in life and to endure the trials you will face. You have the equipment you need for life.

Now, I'd like to conclude by reading a poem by Edgar A. Guest. It's a father-to-son poem, but it's meaningful, I believe, to all of us. It's entitled, appropriately, equipment. It's called equipment.

Figure it out for yourself, my lad. You've all that the greatest of men have had. Two arms, two hands, two legs, two eyes, and a brain to use if you would be wise. With this equipment, they all began. So start for the top and say, I can. Look them over, the wise and great. They take their food from a common plate. In similar knives and forks they use, with similar laces they tie their shoes. The world considers them brave and smart, but you've all they had when they made their start. You can triumph and come to skill. You can be great if only you will. You're well-equipped for what fight you choose. You have legs and arms and a brain to use. And the man who has risen great deeds to do began his life with no more than you. You are the handicap you must face. You are the one who must choose your place. You must say where you want to go, how much you will study the truth to know. God has equipped you for life, but he lets you decide what you want to be. Courage must come from the soul within. The man must furnish the will to win. So figure it out for yourself, my lad. You were born with all that the great have had. With your equipment, they all began. Get a hold of yourself and say, I can. You and we can do it. Choose God and live.