Family Life Now and In the Millennium

Good morning to everyone, and happy feast! And for those that are Latins among us, buenos días a todos si feliz fiesta.

I've been asked first of all to update you on our Latin brethren.

Presently are in nine different countries. We also have nine ministers in Latin America, 600 brethren. They send you greetings from all the Latin American countries. This has been a very tough year. If you think it has been for the United States, you can imagine in Latin America with weak economies and a lot of high unemployment, what it has meant. Thankfully, we do see God's hands working with the brethren, providing them jobs where many others have lost their jobs. So we're very thankful. But at the same time, appreciate your prayers because of the ten nations that have more COVID cases, four are in Latin America. And so we're, of course, monitoring the situation. So far, we've had two pastors and their wives that have contracted COVID. Thankfully, they are getting over it. They have not had to be hospitalized. But certainly it has affected some brethren as well. But again, we're very thankful that so far they have all recovered. I'd like to begin here with the first slide.

And I hope you are enjoying a wonderful feast.

This is a representative image of the coming kingdom of God, where you will have peace, tranquility, and enjoyment. Nobody is going to frighten you. You don't have to worry about getting ransacked in your tent or many other things that happened today.

We look forward to Christ's return. Let's see here.

Did we get the slide?

There we are. We look forward to Christ's return, who will come to a shocked and frightened modern world. Yes, there will be skyscrapers. There will be people running around in cars when Christ appears in His glory.

In Matthew 24, verse 30, it says the nations will mourn to see the coming of Christ. The contemporary Jewish Bible has a translation, the nations will lament.

In God's word translation, it says they will cry and anguish.

The term in Greek is kapto, which means to beat your breast with anguish. We don't usually do that, but believe me, if you've gone through a very bad earthquake where people come out and your heartbeat is so fast and you are beating along with your hearts in this way and the world will be shocked, they will also regret seeing that. That's part of the term here. There will be fear, anger, regret.

Why? It will be the loss of rulership. We will no longer be governed by human beings. There will be a lot of people that will be out of business, a lot of rulers who will be dethroned at that time. They're not going to like it.

They will lament. There will be anger. There will be a loss of self-determination. We talk about the self-determination of nations. That will no longer be the case. People are not going to vote Jesus Christ into power. Also, the religions of the world, they will regret the coming and they will resist.

And also, all those with aberrant lifestyles, they will lament because it's over for them. They will not get to live their lives as they wish, but as they should live it.

As we see the signs of the times, the time will come when God will intervene in world affairs, and it will not be a pleasant moment. Far from it, it will wake and shake the world up.

The description of society when Christ returns is mentioned in 2 Timothy chapter 3 verses 1 through 4. I'd like to read it from the New Living Translation. It says, you should know this, Timothy, that in the last days there will be very difficult times. Well, we're starting to live very difficult times. We've never had to go to a feast with masks on, with all of the precautions. We've never had that. A year ago, that would have been unthinkable. Hardly anybody would have believed that worldwide this is a phenomenon.

That's how quickly things can change. No matter what technology and power and science can do, they're helpless against this tiny little bug. It goes on to say, for people will love only themselves and their money. That's certainly more the case than ever before. They will be both full and proud.

You see that? The headlines, all of the jostling for power and Hollywood there strutting like peacocks. And it says, scoffing at God. Oh, ridiculing God, denying his existence. It goes on to say, the characteristics of that end time. They will be disobedient to their parents and ungrateful. In other words, a very spoiled society.

They will consider nothing sacred. They're not thinking about religion anymore, in a very serious way, as many did years ago, decades ago. Many kids that were ready to go to colleges and universities, and then they heard the truth of God, and they, in that sense, dropped their nets and went to learn more about God's way. They were interested in it. I happened to be one of those when I was 17 years old.

They were in North Carolina, and I had a career ahead of me, been accepted to a prestigious university to study pre-med. My father was a medical doctor. We all left Cuba at a certain time, fleeing Fidel's communist regime, and so we're very thankful to be in this country. But we heard the cry. We heard the calling, and we dropped our nets and wanted to learn God's way first.

And we need children, we need youths to drop their nets and put God first whenever they feel that calling. They really want to serve God, and of course, you can pick up your nets later. You can continue your education. But it is something that today, they don't pay attention too much to religion. They don't study their Bibles. They don't seek to be guided by it. It goes on to say, they will be unloving and unforgiving. They will slander others and have no self-control. They will be cruel and hate what is good.

They will betray friends, be reckless, be puffed up with pride and love pleasure rather than God. And certainly, we have more gadgets to get distracted than ever before. Pleasurable gadgets. There's nothing that will substitute that relationship with God and a deep and abiding faith to guide you throughout this life. Similarly, in Luke 17, verses 26 through 30, we see two of the conditions in the end times.

Christ said, And as it was in the days of Noah, so it will also be in the days of the Son of Man. They ate, they drank, they married wives. They were given in marriage. Everything looked normal until the day that Noah entered the ark. Boy, then people are going to pay attention. Yeah, we're going to have a lot of people knocking on that ark when God starts to intervene. People want to be protected, just like they did in Noah's day. Did somebody enter the ark after? Noah closed the doors? No, they had all that time to change their lives. Nobody paid attention and started raining.

And Christ said, So it will be in the days of the Son of Man when Christ is about to return. It goes on to say, Until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Likewise, this is the second condition of society that Christ said you had to look at to determine whether it was the time of his coming. It says, As it was also in the days of Lot, they ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built.

Everybody was involved. Life is fun. Life is pleasurable. You've got a lot of pursuits.

But on the day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained, fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. Again, God telling us there's just a certain time to be able to get yourself right with God. There will be a time it will be too late. Even so will it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed. And we know how the days of Noah ended with a worldwide flood. And we know how the days of Lot ended with complete destruction. And there's going to be one more intervention by God, and it is coming soon. And there is a way of escape also.

So there was escalating violence and decadence in the days of Noah and Lot. Today we have horrifying statistics from the World Health Organization about the abortions. There are an average of a million point two abortions per year in the United States. You're losing over a million citizens that could have been born, could have developed per year just in the U.S. That's 50 million little babies that weren't born since 1973. That's approximately 3,300 babies dying per day. Not because they're sick, not because there's something wrong with the babies development, but because of voluntarily taking their lives. In the world, it's 43 million babies per year. That's the size of a sizable country.

That's about 115,000 per day. 115,000 little citizens that could have lived. What chance did they have? Thankfully we know in God's plan of salvation those little babies are going to be born. They'll have a chance in the future. It goes on to talk about how awful for God to witness this every day. Yes, we are in the days of Noah and the days of Lot. And believe me, if mankind does not change and repent, then the next steps will take place. God is going to start, just like it says, a woman that starts her birth pangs. At first it's slow. At first it is intermittent. Sometimes it can take days for those birth pangs to go on and off, but then steadily they'll increase until the birth takes place. And that's how Jesus Christ compared it. And so what is going to happen in the future? The Bible describes a time period, three and a half years period, before Christ returns. And this is when you formally enter the end time. The end time is formally three and a half years before Christ coming. Those 1260 days that it talks about, it is like entering a time tunnel. Once the countdown begins of those three and a half years, the world will not escape until the end of that tunnel. And there will be so much destruction that God said he will never allow this to happen again. It's a time tunnel that mankind enters. Thankfully, also in those three and a half years, Revelation 1214 mentions about the woman that was given the wings of the eagle and how she fled to her place, to place a protection. For how long? Yes, three and a half years.

And so everything coincides. Before God begins to truly punishing mankind, just like he did during the Egyptian period when those plagues fell on the Egyptians, God was there with his people. And this is going to be the same way, just one plague after another, getting the world's attention, hoping they will repent. And then for those three and a half years, the church will be taken to its place of protection. It's going to have like a protective dome. Nobody can attack it. No missiles can attack that area. It's going to be protected by angels. It will be protected by God. And even though Satan will persecute those up to the time that they enter into the place, and they will be fed, they will be given water, they will have a training period during those three and a half years. Unfortunately, it mentions that not all the church brethren will make it. There will be a remnant, as it goes on, to talk about that will remain behind, that for some reason, they just weren't interested. They didn't have the same fervency. They didn't have the same dedication. It talks about the ten virgins, five which were wise and had spiritually prepared and had reserves, and five that were foolish. And they just slept through the spiritual life and development. They just didn't take it very seriously.

So we are looking to a future kingdom, but the benefits have to be applied and are based on what we do now. So since this is a sermon on family life, now and in the millennium, there are five biblical rules to help us guide us, the family life today and in the kingdom. And we need to apply them in our lives now. These are principles not only for the millennium, but today. The first rule is to learn to rule your house well, to have a happy home, well ordered, with God-fearing children.

Notice in 1 Timothy chapter 3 verses 4 and 5.

It mentions here, 1. One who rules his own house well, having his children in submission with all reverence. For if a man does not know how to rule his own house, how will he take care of the Church of God? Of course, this applies to a single mother or grandparents who are taking care of the kids. Whoever is ruling that house has that responsibility and it includes both parents in this.

This is a lofty goal. When we marry and begin having a family, we assume a sacred responsibility to take care of those little ones that grow up in our home. One of the reasons we're commanded to live in temporary dwellings during the feast is so we can have an undistracted view of the world to come. And our home is like a mini-kingdom that we are managing, and we will be held accountable before God for it.

We all have a role and a responsibility. Whether you are a husband, a wife, or a child, you are also responsible before God. What you're doing with your lives. God is interested in children, how they are behaving and their actions.

Go to the next slide. One before that. Yes, Colossians chapter 3 verse 18 to 21. Here we see the roles of everyone in the family. That is very important before God. Not just the father or mother, but the children, too. Notice in Colossians chapter 3, verse 18, it says, wives submit to your own husbands as it is fitting in the Lord. That's part of a role of a wife. It's to be a servant leader in her home. A servant leader. Not a servant, but a servant leader. Just like a man learns to be a servant leader in the church, in his role, whatever job he has to be a godly servant leader, the wife has the opportunity to be a godly servant leader in her home. Husbands, love your wives and do not be bitter toward them. Because sometimes there are frustrations that build up. Sometimes it's tough to manage that team, but don't be bitter toward them. Don't get aggravated to the point where it's all negative talk and all kinds of insults. It says here, don't let your spirit descend to that. And then the children, they have a responsibility before God. Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing to the Lord. Parents are sort of a godlike figure for children. They are the ones, the parents are like Moses bringing the laws of God down to Israel. Well, the parents bring God's laws down to their children. And so the children should follow their parents' instructions, not defy them, not cuss and talk back to them, to be respectful. Because if you learn to be respectful in your home, you'll learn to be respectful outside your home. If you don't learn to be respectful in your home, you won't be respectful outside either. And you won't develop friendships and you won't be given many responsibilities for a disrespectful person. It goes on to say, fathers. And here the word in the Greek patres actually means parents. It's not just talking about the father. In Spanish it's easier because it says padres, which is the equivalent of parents, and many translations have it. So it's talking about the father and the mother here in verse 21. Do not provoke your children lest they become discouraged. What is your family life like? Are their kids discouraged? Are they frightened? Are they timid? Are they beaten down to the point where they don't feel they're worth very much? And one of the worst things parents can do is tell children that they're not worth very much. They start feeling that. They start getting a complex over it. It should never be that way. And so here the first principle is learn to rule your house well because you will be able to be given more responsibilities according to how you manage your mini-kingdom. Then that can extend to others, and you're going to do the same thing wherever you're at. Whether you're handling thousands of people or not, you're still extending the same principles that you did in your home.

In Proverbs 20 verse 11, here we see again how God is interested in what the child is doing. God can respect what a child does and says, you know that little boy, he's really doing the right things. I'm going to remember him. I'm going to bless him. In Proverbs 20 verse 11, in the amplified version, it says, even a child is known by his acts, whether or not what he does is pure and right. Even a child has an accounting to do with God. God is interested in how a child behaves and whether he's going to be blessed or not by God. So then we go to rule number two.

Ephesians 6, 4 says, parents do not provoke anger to your children. Do not provoke this. Again, the warnings that God gives is that children should not be intimidated by their parents and fear their parents and be frightened of their parents. Adam Clark's commentary has a good explanation of this verse. It says, do not let the anger of the child build up against you. Avoid severity. It will damage their own spirit, and you will not do them good. On the contrary, if they are punished with severity or cruelty, they will only be hardened and desperate in their sins.

Cruel and overly strict parents usually have bad children. That's the quote. So we have to remember that children react more emotionally. They don't know yet how to control their emotions through their minds. That's what an adult does. You can be provoked into anger, but then in your mind, you already have a pattern and a habit of saying, I'm not going to get provoked into this. I'm not going to follow this lead into being provoked that way. No, because your mind can control your emotions and guide them properly. But a child, they don't have that. So they're just a bundle of emotions at first. They need to go from the discipline of their parents, eventually, to them developing self discipline, where they can control their own emotions and lead them properly. Society helps create anger. You see that in the news, in the movies, whatever. It's a person that goes out and gets vengeance for what is done to him, tells you to do something about it, use the blame game. Everyone else is to blame for your problems. And there's a brainwash and there's a brainwashing going on in schools, in colleges, where they teach you the false theory of evolution. Which, by the way, anyone that has good knowledge of God's truths, that go along with science. Science is putting on the wool over people's eyes. There's more evidence against evolution than ever before. There's one great refutation that no professor of evolution has ever been able to answer. Where is the origin for information inside the DNA molecule? Where did that information come from? Nobody's ever been able to explain the origin of genetic information. Three billion genetic letters, all exquisitely structured with grammar, with editing molecules to get the right lettering in. And they can't explain where that origin came from. So, there in schools, in colleges, they teach you about free sex.

All the terrible venereal diseases that are just multiplying because of that. Drugs, see, that's a substitute for God, for a good relationship with God. And a lot of kids lose faith and drop out. In Matthew 13, verse 22, in the Revised Standard Version, it talks about the seed that fell into the weeds. And it says, these symbolize falling into the cares of the world and the delight of money. They choke the word of God and it proves unfruitful in a person's life. I really was stunned by that translation. The delight of money. Have you ever delighted in money? Oh boy, you get this windfall and, oh, what am I gonna get and all this stuff and I'm gonna do this and that. You know, the delight of money. There's nothing wrong if you apply it and you put God first. But you can be swept away in the pursuit of that delight of money. You know, just like that Uncle Richard that came out and he had a pool full of money, gold coins, and he just jumped into the pool. Remember that Disney character before? People can virtually do the same thing. So we need to be very careful and remember to develop that proper self-discipline.

Then the next slide over tells us to, in Proverbs 22 verse 6, it says, train up a child in the way he should go. And when he is old, he will not depart from it. So teach the children in a way that fits their needs. And even when they are old, they will not leave the right path. That's the easy reading version. Train up is a Hebrew term which comes from agriculture because people usually were farmers in those days and it refers in one of the definitions to the shaping of a tree or a vineyard so that it grows into a certain shape or direction. And have an example if you visited Disneyland or Disney World. You see how they shape the shrubs and hedges. From the beginning, they use a wire mesh to guide all the little branches to go around that wire mesh and it's easier to bend a sapling than a large trunk. In those early years, the child's will is like soft clay. It can be shaped and you can establish their way of life and then you build that wire mesh around so they learn. Self-discipline, they learn to apply proper values to straighten themselves. The greatest achievement that a parent can do is to shape them in such a way that when they become mature young adults, they will continue growing the same way they were guided by their parents. They will become more mature. They will become more mature. They will become a great wonderful figure just like you see there and not some gnarly knotted up and all these bushes and all these wrong habits have gotten involved. The other term, it says teach or train up a child in his way. The word way is also instructive.

One definition refers to it as the shaping of a bow. Bowes have to be gradually bent with steam, with presses, with molds. That is, guide the children according to their personality and interests and when they mature they will not stray from God's way. In other words, see the natural tendency of each child. No one child is born exactly with the same personality and temperament as the other one. So you have to learn to adapt for that natural tendency of the child to grow as it should. The personality, temperament, and interests. That way they will mature at each stage of growth with their personality and talents and natural inclinations. One of the greatest challenges for a parent is to successfully manage a strong-willed child. Sometimes, you know, the wire meshes there, but it's always unwielding. It's trying to go the other way and that's where the wisdom has to be applied. You don't want to just bend this to this where they will break. No, you have to gently guide. Some don't need so much guidance as others. It's up to the parents to apply the proper influence. It also means not trying to live your life through your children, but according to their own way. Not how one would do it. Duraami 6, verse 6 and 7, it explains a little more how to teach your children in this way. Duraami 6, 6 and 7, 6 and 7, it says, And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart, you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in the house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. In other words, you're always aware when is the teaching moment, when can you inculcate the right values at the right time, or maybe they make a mistake, and you say, you see here, honey, this is the way, this is what happens. Do you understand? You know why this shouldn't have been done that way, and be guiding them in the proper way. The next slide.

This is rule number four. I learned this from a member in the Garden Grove Church, Dr. Van Lisman. In Family Club, one day he talked about his life, and he was in the Navy in World War II, and he was assigned to two similar battleships. The first one, the crew came to him, introduced themselves, and said, hey, you're in a happy ship. This is a happy ship, and he said, what do you mean? What is it to the destroyer that is happy? Oh, he learned. It all depended on the captain and the crew and those officers. If they were happy, if they were motivated, if they were respectful and good to the rest, it was a happy ship. And then three months later, he got transferred to another same type of battleship, and they said, this is an unhappy ship. Why? Because they had a captain that was dour and negative and scolding and severe, and so nobody enjoyed what they were going through there. And so this is the rule in the home. Do you want to have a happy or an unhappy home? Is that going to depend on the children? No. It's going to depend on the parents, how they guide it, what kind of atmosphere they create in their home for the kids to flourish or to wither away.

We have a long-term relationship that we need to develop. Notice the next slide. Here is a graph of child development, as it should be. I'm going to use here my, hopefully the laser will work properly.

See here. Don't have it with me right here. I don't think it's, it's not. Well, on the upper right-hand side, you will see there that, yeah, yeah. It says the dependency of the child, it is 100% dependent on the parents when they are born.

And look at the bottom right-hand side. That is the level of independence of the child, zero. If you lay the baby by itself, it can't pick itself up. It can't feed itself. It would die in a matter of hours. But as they grow, and you see the graph of the age, the independence of the child should be growing, and the level of dependency of the parent should be diminishing, where around 11 or 12, it's halfway. The child can do half of the things on its own. And then around the age of 21 or so, they should have gained enough independence where they can go out on their own if necessary. But notice that as they grow in independence, you get to the point where you come to the third level, from dependence to independence to interdependence, where your relationship with your children is not dependent on the parent ruling them and telling them all what they should do. No, it should be a mutual respect. Each one has a role, and that it is voluntary loving each other. It's not an obligation or something that a child has to do because he's so small. No, now we are all peers. Now we are all sharing responsibilities. That is the goal. And by the way, there's a spiritual application as well. That's how God deals with us. We begin 100% dependent on God. And then as He gives us His Holy Spirit, we grow and develop it in His kingdom, and He wants to have an interdependent relationship. He's not going to want to be a father-child relationship forever. That's the way He's developing us. So let's go now to the last rule. Rule number five. To be an encourager instead of a discourager. Because there are always going to be naysayers. Naysayers are the ones that are just saying, you can't do this. You'll never amount to much. Oh, why try this? Or you should just give up. No, you should be the encourager. Tell your children they can do it with effort, with sacrifice. The sky's the limit. And children can develop so much if they thrive in the home. They will thrive in society. Teach them mainly through positive reinforcement. Remember, bees are attracted more to honey than to vinegar.

Proverbs 16 verse 24, God's word version says, pleasant words are like honey from a honeycomb, sweet to the spirit and healthy to the body. Pleasant words. Is that what family life is about? Encouraging a pleasant, positive atmosphere.

And then again in Colossians 3, 21, which we already read, parents do not provoke your children unless they become discouraged. Whose fault is that? It's not talking about the children being at fault. It's the parents that have the great responsibility. I'm not saying all because some children, they just will not pay attention, whatever type of training, but that usually is very rare. So let's go and we're finishing up here now.

Reiterate these five great principles of family life now in the millennium. Number one, learn to rule your home well. A happy, well-ordered, and God-fearing home all have a role and a responsibility in it. Number two, don't provoke your children to wrath. Don't let your anger overpower you where you lose control. Number three, train up a child in his way according to their temperament and interests. Remember the shaping of a bow. You don't just take a bow and just just try to bend it completely. It's going to snap, but if you do it slowly, and that's the way they build ships, they bend the wood slowly until it stays that way. That's the same way you want the child's character to develop. Number four, true happiness depends largely on a long-term relationship. Remember that child development graph. I'm planning to have that relationship with my children. It doesn't matter whether it's 20, 40, 60. It's still the same relationship. It just gets better because it gets to be that interdependent relationship. And finally, number five, become an encourager instead of a discourager. Remember, there will always be plenty of naysayers, but don't let that be in your home. Don't be a naysayer. Don't let people tell others, oh, you can't do it, or you're not going to end up. That's the worst thing we can do. No, we have to be the encouragers. You know, of all the people in my life, who do I remember the most? Those that were the encouragers. I still remember my first grade teacher when I came from Cuba. I couldn't speak English. I was there in Miami. You know what the first three words that I learned? You know, where is bathroom? That's what I learned in school real quickly. But the thing is, I had a wonderful teacher. She was so loving and forgiving. She made me, I passed first grade. I don't know how, but she did it. Mrs. Sizer. I still remember her name. I can't remember any of the other teachers' names, but I remember her. Mr. Vitale. He was the one that saw that I could throw a baseball. I was just going across the field, and some guys were playing baseball. You know, I was just Cuban American, you know, didn't have many friends. And somebody hit the ball real far, and I picked it up, and I threw it all the way to the catcher. And he said, hey, Sonny, come over here. It became a picture for the Little Eagers. Never forget Mr. Vitale. He believed in me. Have your parents believe in you. They have to be the greatest encouragers. And so, as we end up, wrap up here, the last slide. This is a symbol of the millennium. You know, God isn't going to have all that strictness and harshness. God's kingdom is going to be fun. It's going to be enjoyable. The symbol in Zechariah 8, 3, and 5, it says that the children will be playing there in Jerusalem, where Christ is going to be. He always loved children. God loves to see this, a world of families in peace and happiness, hopefully now and in the millennium.