The health and strength of the local church are directly linked to the health and strength of the families within it, emphasizing that families should be fertile ground for spiritual growth. It contrasts the modern evangelical focus on morality and techniques for raising children with the biblical emphasis on Christ-centered spirituality and a personal relationship with God. Using examples from Samson's parents and the Israelites' failure to pass on faith, the message concludes that the most crucial element in raising godly children is for parents to live out a consistent, visible, godly life, allowing children to witness God's power and glory firsthand through prayer, faithfulness, and outreach.
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This Wednesday, and it's my privilege, it's been my privilege all week to be with you. I'd just like to give you folks a thank you for your warm hospitality, your kindness, and your friendship. I was telling somebody today that I feel like I'm part of this assembly. I feel like I've known you folks for longer than, what, one week, Sunday, not even a week, but it's great to be with you. Tonight, I'm going to ask you to turn in your Bibles to Colossians. Chapter three. And tonight, what I want to share with you and speak to you about is the family. But not only just the family, the responsibility of the assembly, the church. We've been singing tonight about the family of God, and that's been really what was on my heart.
How the family of God has an impact, has a responsibility to the family. And so we want to read, first of all, beginning in verse fifteen of chapter three and going on to verse twenty one. of the book of Colossians. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts to which also you are called in one body. That's the church of God, the one body, the universal church of God. And be ye thankful. Let the word of God, word of Christ, dwell in you richly, in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms, in hymns, in spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.
And this is the activities that take place in the local meetings of the local church. And whatever you do, in word and deed, do all in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, giving thanks to God and the Father by him. Verses fifteen, sixteen, and seventeen are all about the local church and the body of Christ and the activities, the ministry through the word and the ministry through song and the ministry of worship and the ministry of teaching. within the local church. And then lastly, we're exhorted by Paul all the things we do, whether it be music, whether it be teaching and worship and fellowship. It says, whatever you do, do in word or deed, do in the name, do because of the will of Christ, giving thanks to God for him.
But right after that, we move right in in verse eighteen to the family, to a husband-wife relationship. Children and husband and children in mom and dad relationships. It says in verse eighteen wives submit yourselves unto your own husbands as it is fit in the Lord. Husbands love your wives and be not bitter against them. Children obey your parents in all things for this is well pleasing unto the Lord. Fathers provoke not your children to anger lest they be. discouraged. I want to pose a question to you at the outset tonight.
Do you think there's any relationship? Is there any reason why the Apostle Paul would link these two together? The ministry of the local church, the one body, the teaching, the worship, the fellowship, the singing of the local church, and then husband-wives and parent-children relationships, and the love that should be in a family, and the headship order, and the roles of the husband and wife that should be in a family. And children that are respectful and children that are obedient to their parents. And fathers that love their sons and daughters and don't provoke them to anger, but love them and encourage them and strengthen them.
You know, I think there's a relationship. I think there's a relationship between the local, the family, families in the local church and the local church itself. And I think there's a relationship between the health of a local church, the strength of a local church, and what the families in those local churches are like. It's a relationship. There's a responsibility. And I want to say, too, at the outset that we have a trend within the evangelical church that the church should meet almost every need of the family. And I don't really believe that. I believe that church is going to meet a lot of needs, mostly spiritual needs, but other needs too. But it's not the role of the church to meet all the needs emotional and social and physical needs of the family.
It's impossible to do that. Although there are churches that are doing a great job and doing a lot of those things. But I don't think that's the role of the church. The more we begin to do that, I think the more we move away from the purpose and the design that God has for the church. But I do think this. I think the church has a tremendous impact, tremendous responsibility and can influence children and mothers and fathers and young people in a tremendous way that as they grow up, as they grow in the Lord, as they grow in the things of the Lord, as they begin to think themselves about how they can serve the Lord and worship the Lord, the Church of God has a tremendous impact.
And I think as the Church is, I think so are a lot of those children within the Church. For a number of years, I would visit an assembly in Pennsylvania. And at one time it was a thriving church, thriving assembly, quite large. Eventually it sold its building, built a smaller building. And then things began to unravel a little bit. And one day I was having dinner in a home. And I may just mention this. I said, you know, I said, it's interesting a little bit. Where are the couples that are here, mostly older couples, where are their children? Are they living in the area?
Have they moved out of the area? Are they saved? Are they not saved? Where are some of the children? Oh, they're saved. Some of them are saved. Some of them aren't saved. They've just gone to other churches. I said, well, why is that? Why have they done that? And then they told the sorry story, a couple of occasions where there were splits and discouragements and struggles. And the children, as they would grow up, They decided not to be a part of that church. That church goes on and the Lord has blessed to some degree. It's getting stronger and there's families with children now and so forth. But, you know, I thought about that. I thought about that over the years.
You know, of the children, of those couples that were there, there wasn't but one. One person that continued on in that church of the couples, of the older moms and dads. That should not be that way. Our churches, our assemblies should be nursery, should be fertile grounds, cultivated fields for our young people. As they grow up, as they grow strong in the Lord, they look at brothers so-and-so and sisters so-and-so and their Sunday school teacher and the elders and they have respect and they have esteem for those men and those women and their models and their examples to them and they encourage them and they strengthen them and they're the kind of people that they, those older ones are the kind of people that the children want to be like.
when they get older. The church has such a great impact upon children. And families, healthy, strong families, have such a great positive impact upon the functioning of a church. It's those young people that bring other young people. It's those teenagers that encourage the older ones as they see them coming up behind. Families, strong families together, worshiping and teaching and bringing along other families. It's such an encouragement and it strengthens the local church together. But you know, I have a little thing that I do sometimes as I travel from place to place. When I see a family, when I see a husband and wife and I find out their children are all saved and maybe they're older couple and even their grandchildren are saved and the children and grandchildren are all going on and they're active.
in local churches and local assemblies, I often ask them, what did you do? How did you raise your children? What one thing or two things or three things was it? What are some of the leading things as you look back that you did as a mom and a dad as raising those children that you think contributed to the strength and to the salvation of those kids? And it's interesting, it's never the same thing. You'd think it'd be two or three of the same things, but it's not. One brother, he said, it's prayer. We just prayed with our children after dinner. We prayed often with our children. Another brother, who I greatly respect, they had eleven children, all saved, all going on for the Lord.
He said, we never argued. We never argued in front of our kids. And so that was one of the most important things. There was harmony. There was agreement. There was submission. There was respect for the mother and the father and the husband and wife. But, you know, I think today there are certain trends, and I just want to point this out at the outset, that I think are harmful to the family. And I'm not sure all how it has come about, but instead of being strong spiritual families, there's an emphasis, there's two major emphases, I think, that you hear from the radio, that you hear from popular evangelical sources, radio, TV, books, magazine articles. And these two things are this.
Here's the message. The message is, first of all, is that we want to have moral children. We want our young people to be moral. We don't want them to drink. We don't want them to be engaged in premarital sex. We don't want them to take drugs. We don't want them to get involved in gangs. We don't want them to have abortions. We don't want them to do all these immoral things. And so they stress morality. Morality is a big message. anti-pornography, anti-abortion, all of these things. We want our young people and we want our families to be moral, and I'm not preaching against morality. That's the farthest thing from what I'm trying to do tonight. But it seems that our goal should be spirituality. Our goal should be biblical families.
Our goal should be Christ-centered families. And I always thought as I was growing up, my mother and father never had to tell me too much. You know, don't do this or don't do that. We taught the Bible. They shared us biblical principles. And I knew those things were wrong. Not by stressing don't do those things. I knew they were wrong because of the biblical foundation that I had. And today you hear that message. Anti-gambling, anti-pornography, anti-all of these moral principles that are pervasive in our society. And young people get caught up in those things. But I wonder if we preach a biblical, spiritual, Christ-centered message and that our families are Christ-centered, that we will get both of those thrown in together.
The morality will come along and the Christ-centered, the strength that we need to be moral people will be there as we walk with the Lord Jesus Christ. I get a evangelical magazine. You may get it in your home. And there's an oracle. It just struck me, this point struck me so powerfully. It's an article that came in there a few years ago. It's about the family. It's about teach your children well, how to raise your family. It's the ten principles to stand on. And the first one is responsibility, work ethic, determination, attitude, honesty, generosity, All of the items in here have really nothing to do with a living, ongoing relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.
There are things, I think, that will be there if we do stress knowing the Lord Jesus Christ, having a quiet time, living for him, walking with him. But I think we've gone away from that. And what we find a little bit is we find some of the children don't do certain things, but do they have a heart? a heart for the Lord Jesus Christ so they love the Lord Jesus with all their hearts you know as a family as a father we pray together with our kids pray before bed pray after dinner other times too and from the beginning when they were first born I don't know where I thought of this but I never prayed that they would just be saved I pray with them when I pray often pray for them right in their presence I pray I said Lord help Mommy and Daddy, help us to be good parents, help us to teach our children what's right and what's wrong.
And then I say this, and help our children to love the Lord Jesus with all their hearts. That's what I want from my kids. That's what I want. I think we all want that from our children as they grow up, not to just be Christians sitting in a pew and attending church, do we? We want them to be leaders. We want them to have impact. We want them to have a ministry to their friends and their schoolmates and their teammates on baseball teams. And we want them to communicate Christ to them. I want to be an example to the world round about them. We want them to be an example to older believers. We want them to have a strong Christ-centered spiritual walk with the Lord Jesus Christ.
And as we do that, we want them to love the Lord Jesus with all their heart. And I think if we just teach them morality or... We just teach them certain techniques and teach parents certain techniques of how to bring to pass children who are believers. I think we fail parents. I think we fail our children. You know, the two great messages is have moral children and there are techniques to get us there. There are certain techniques to buy this book or buy that book. And if you follow certain things, then your children will be believers. Your children will be, go on for the Lord. And I think both of those messages, there are certain techniques. And the morality is a good thing.
But somehow the message of walking with the Lord Jesus and having a spiritual walk with him that's lost somehow in all these things. I'm going to ask you to turn with me over to the book of Judges, Judges Chapter Thirteen. What does the Bible say about what the most important thing, or one of the most important things, in raising children. If the Lord was, if you were to ask the Lord for advice on raising children, when your children were born or when my children were born, if I could ask him for a couple of techniques or a couple of principles, what would he tell me?
What would he say about raising children? What would be the way to go about it? You know, that happened in the Scriptures. There was someone, a husband, a wife, who tried to do that. Try to ask God. Give us a technique. Give us a number of principles so as we teach our children and teach our child that's born to us, that he could grow up and grow into a great deliverer, a great leader, a great judge in Israel. And that was the life of Samson, the mother and father. We don't know the mother's name. We know the father's name was Manoa. And it says in verse two, it's a certain man of Zor of the family of the Danites, whose name was Manoa, and his wife was barren and bore not.
And the angel of the Lord appeared unto the woman and said unto her, Behold now, thou art barren and bearest not, but thou shalt conceive and bear a son. Now therefore, beware I pray thee. Drink not wine or strong drink, and eat not any unclean thing. For lo, thou shalt conceive and bear a son. First of all, The angel of the Lord who was Jehovah himself comes to the woman and says to her, you're going to bear a son. But I want you as a mother to take upon yourself the vow of a Nazarite. We want you as the mother to be separated unto God. We want you as the mother to be devoted first of all to God.
And then in verse five it says, and your child. Lo, no razor shall come to his head, for the child shall be in Nazareth unto God from the womb. And he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines. Now the woman came to the husband. She was thrilled. She was barren up to this point. Now she is thrilled. She goes to her husband and she says, listen to what the angel of the Lord, the man of God said to me. Verse six, a man of God came. His countenance was like the countenance of an angel of God. Very awesome. I asked him not where he was from, neither told me his name. But he said, Behold, you will conceive and bear a son, and so forth and so on.
And then in verse eight, Manoa entreats the Lord. And he says this, O my Lord, let the man of God whom thou did send come again to us and teach us what we shall do unto the child that shall be born. What are you saying is this? Lord, I'm praying and I'm asking you. Give us a manual of how to raise this child so when he grows older, he will be a great deliverer. We don't want to mess this thing up. We want to do it right. So tell us exactly how to do it. Now, each parent would love to have that book, wouldn't we? I never got one, and maybe you folks didn't get one either. But that's what Manoa is asking for, a manual, techniques, principles of how to raise a child.
And God harkened to the voice of Manoa. And the angel of God came again unto the woman as she sat in the field. But Manoa, her husband, was not with her. The woman made haste and ran and told her husband, Behold, a man, the man hath appeared to me and came to the same one that came the other day. And Manoa arose and went after his wife, came to the man and said to him, Art thou the man who spoke to the woman? And he said, I am. Listen to his verses. Listen to his words in verse twelve. He says, now let thy words come to pass. How shall we order the child and how shall we do unto him? He says, how do we raise this child?
What are the principles? What are the most important things we have to know and not forget that this young man, Samson, becomes the man that you want him to be? What are we to do? I love the answer. This answer you don't find too much in the modern books on raising children. It's in there. You have to look hard. It's in there. But here's the answer. He says, and the angel Lord said to Manoa, of all that I said unto the woman, let her beware. Let her be aware of. What did he tell the woman? He said, I want you to be devoted. I want you to be godly. I want you to be separated.
I want you to take on yourself the vow of the Nazarite. The most important thing is that you are a godly mother. that you're a mother of prayer, that you're an obedient mother to God, that you're regular in your devotions and in your faithfulness to the things of God, that's going to have the greatest impact upon your child. There are techniques, there are good things to learn from others, but primarily the way we raise, I think, spiritual young men and young women is that we ourselves have to be spiritual. We ourselves have to be godly. We ourselves have to be faithful. And as I look back in my own life, I'm thankful to my parents. They made mistakes, you know, but I can't remember what they were because they loved me and they were faithful and they love the Lord Jesus.
And I don't remember, you know, I don't remember back if they were to ask me and say, you know, Dave, we did some things wrong. Can you tell us, can you remember some of the things that really stick out in your mind? You know, I can't remember. I really can't. But I can remember seeing my father reading his Bible under the lamp by that special chair. I remember every Thursday night in our home having a Bible study every Thursday night. It could have been the Fourth of July. It could have been Thanksgiving. No one came or twenty-five came. We had a Bible study. We were on vacation. No matter if we were near a church or not, we were on a campground in our camper. We had a break in our bread. They were faithful in Bible reading.
They were faithful in prayer. They were faithful in loving the saints. They were faithful in hospitality. And those are the things I remember. I remember godliness and I remember faithfulness. I remember a love for Christ. You know, when I was older, I didn't remember all that much of all the things they taught me about the Lord, but I knew their faith was real. I knew they were real Christians. And as I began to search and struggle for the things of God, I knew that they had the real thing. They had the real deal. And I wanted that. I knew it was real. It wasn't just for hypocrites. I knew it wasn't just for church cars. I knew there was a real living relationship that I should have, and I didn't have, because I saw my parents.
And that is the greatest principle. That's the greatest technique there can be, living a godly, holy, visible life in front of our children, reading the scriptures in front of them, living it out, talking about spiritual principles, being a godly and spiritual father and mother. This is what the angel of the Lord, this is what God says to Manoa and his wife. She may not eat of anything that's unclean or the vine and so forth. She's going to be a Nazarite. And the most important thing about a Nazarite wasn't the things that they could or couldn't eat. But the person was separated unto God. They were devoted to God. And I think as we think about raising children, that to me, as we go through the scriptures, that's the greatest overriding principle.
godly mothers and godly fathers and i think today we think a little bit that we can send your kids off to christian school and we can send them off to camp and we can send them to sunday school and we can be irregular here and unfaithful there and it won't affect our children but i think it does you know i see that parents that are half-hearted even in good assemblies and good christian schools they can't overcome the lack of a real consistent spirituality and life for God and regular spiritual life within the home. Christian school and Christian ministries, they can't overcome that.
That's the greatest influence I think children will ever have. I tell some folks in our assembly, I have twenty years to raise my children. And I have the other time for myself and to do the things I want. I'm going to devote myself to the Lord. I'm going to devote myself to my kids. because that's the greatest thing I can give them, a consistent spiritual life, and let them see that, let them see it's real, and let them see that I love the Lord Jesus. But what are the things that the church can do? What is the church to do? What kind of impact is the church to have on young people, on our children? I'm going to ask you to turn over with me in the book of Judges to chapter two. Chapter two of the book of Judges.
As we go there, I want to say to you first of all, there are four things I think a family is to be spiritually or biblically. Four purposes of the family. I think one of the purposes of a Christian family is to test us. It says, if a man does not know how to rule his own house, how shall he then take care of the church of God? It's a great testing place, spiritually testing place for leaders, for teachers, for preachers. For elders, for deacons, it's a great testing place. And it's a hard place to be tested. Because our children see us and our wives see us. We can't rule our home.
If we can't run our home, how can we take care of things spiritual? You know, it's interesting that sometimes we're so active. What does Song of Solomon chapter one, verse six, says, They made me the keeper of the vineyard, but my own vineyard did not keep. Sometimes it's so easy to be active in spiritual things, but not active in the home. The home is that great testing place. The home is also to be a nurturing place. It says in Psalm sixty eight that the God has set the solitary into families. He wants us to be in families. He wants children and young people to be in families. One of the greatest disasters, I think, in our country is broken families and divided families.
and families get smashed up and tossed around and you see the children bitter and angry and isolated and confused even at a young age it just tears your heart when you see that another role I think that the family has is for protection it says that women are to be keepers at home and I think for a lot of years maybe still many believe or many understand that verse to mean that they are to be the housekeepers at home the ones who clean and cook and and run the household but you know really as you think of and you look at the word keeper it has the sense the root of that word is the same as a guard at a jail I think that that those who are keepers at home those are ones in garrison the influences that come into the home the keepers at home Keep the atmosphere that is spiritual.
Keep certain things out. Keep certain things in. Keep influences that should not be in the home. Keep them out. Keep influences that should be in the home. In the home. The atmosphere, the love, wrong influences, wrong attitudes, wrong friendships. Keep those things out and keep other things in. You know, the other day, a boy who lives next door... Down the road a little bit, next door, a few houses down. He's fourteen years old. He brought some pornography into our house to show my son, who is nine years old. And my girls, who are seven and eleven, came to see it too.
I'll tell you, the first person who shot into action, I wasn't home. But my wife, she was on top of that so fast, made your head spin. That's what she's supposed to do. She's a keeper in the home. She went next door, talked to that mother. That mother was apologetic and that young man is going to be dealt with. But that's what keepers at home should be. The atmosphere, the spiritual life. Keepers at home, one of the roles of the family. And then training. Genesis chapter eighteen and verse nineteen says this. The Lord speaking of Abraham, for I know him that he will command his children and his household after him. And they shall keep the way of the Lord and do justice and do righteousness.
It's a time where we train our children. They learn what's right and they learn what's wrong. And the best place for them to learn that is not at school and not at a Christian school and not in Sunday school. The best place and best environment is to learn from their mother and father. Learn from the scriptures, learn from their lives, but learn in the home. But what role does the church have? What role did Israel have? I think as we look at the church and think of the role the church has, I think we look at Israel. Look at the failure in Israel. And one of the reasons is God speaks to Israel and speaks about certain situations. It points out the failure of Israel, failure as a nation to be the kind of nation they should have been so that the children, so the children could follow on, the next generation, the generation answered that, could follow on to know the Lord and walk with the Lord.
And because they failed in that, God rebukes them. In chapter two of Judges, beginning in verse seven, it says, the people of the Lord served all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders that outlived Joshua, who had seen the great works of the Lord that he did for Israel. And Joshua, the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord died being a hundred and ten years old. They buried him. And in verse ten, and all that generation that were gathered unto their fathers, And there arose another generation after them who knew not the Lord, nor yet the works that he had done in Israel. What was the result of that one generation not passing on to the next generation the things of the Lord?
Whose failure was that? The failures of the leaders, of the Levites, the mothers and fathers, but the Levites and those who were the elders and those who were the teachers in Israel. They failed in that. How did they fail? We'll find out in a little bit in this passage. They failed in not allowing the children to see the might and the mercy and the grace and the power of God firsthand. They were kept behind the scenes. They weren't allowed to see those things. They weren't allowed to be involved in the fight and to see the victory. They weren't allowed to exercise faith and see God mightily come in and do a great work on their behalf.
And it says in verse eleven, because of this, the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord and served Baal. They forsook the Lord. They followed other gods. They bowed themselves down to those gods. They forsook the Lord and served Baal and served Asteroth. And the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel. Why was it? How did this all come to pass? And what was the solution? What does God say he's going to do? He's not going to turn his back on Israel. He's not going to turn his back on us. What is he going to do? How is he going to bring them back to the right place? What do they need in their lives at this point? He says in chapter three in verse one and two, the answer or one of the one of the solutions or one of the one of the aspects in the solution to the problem is that they have to see.
the majesty and the power and the might and the faithfulness and the love of the Lord Jesus Christ of Jehovah God of the Old Testament firsthand up close they need to be involved in seeing what God can do that God is a merciful God and a powerful God and a faithful God and so he says this in verse one now these are the nations which the Lord left the Lord and his sovereignty did not root out all the enemies that are the promised land Why? To test Israel. Even as many of Israel as had not known the wars of Canaan. They didn't know the victories. They weren't there in the battle. They weren't there in the fight.
They didn't see what God could do. Only that generation of the children of Israel might know to teach them war. At least as such as knew nothing of it before. He wanted them to see victory. He wanted them to be in the heat of the battle and the fierceness of the battle. And as they would pray and as they would fight, as they would trust God and see victories, it would turn their hearts. It would turn them back to God. You know, I think that's one of the great roles of the church is to get our young people involved in prayer and faithfulness and outreach and worship. Get them to be involved in seeing faithfulness, seeing them answers, seeing answers to prayer.
handing out tracks, being involved in the outreach of a gospel outreach, having them give their testimony, whatever it was, being involved and seeing God do a great thing. One thing we do in Tampa is get young people, get high school kids and college age kids, and even younger sometimes, sometimes twelve and thirteen, to be involved in a door-to-door campaign. They hand out tracks, and that very night, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday morning, they give their testimonies. And they hand out tracks and knock on doors and hand out flyers. And sometimes we do puppet shows in a park and go and play basketball in a park and witness to as many people as we can. And we invite them that night, Friday night or Saturday night. And I know when the greatest, most powerful thing for a young person to see is to see somebody they talk to in a park or somebody they knock on a door.
A young person they talk to or an older person they talk to is him get in their car or get in their bicycle. and drive or ride a couple of blocks or drive a couple of miles and walk in that door in the evening or on a Sunday morning and you look around, you see you are the one that knocked on that door. You're the one that talked to that young girl. I can think of a girl named Desiree. She came, she was scared to death, came to St. Petersburg, and there was a girl home from school on a Friday, Friday afternoon, home from school sick. She talked at that door for an hour with that young girl. And that young girl came out with her mother and father that evening. And at the end of these little outreaches, we asked him to write me a letter. Just a little note, what you learned, what benefit it was.
And she said to me in that letter, still kept it, she said, this weekend, change my life. Change my life. I think she saw for the first time she could witness for the Lord. God could use her. God could use a testimony of a sixteen-year-old girl at a door. to another young girl who was fifteen or fourteen or sixteen and to see that girl come out she said she saw the faithfulness of God just her little exercise she was trembling but to see God used her life it impacted her about a year later we had another outreach in Ocala she came and her father came they came together they said we want to go door to door together and so they took certain portions they went door to door together it's a tremendous thing to see young people begin to see God working through them on the front lines of the battle seeing God's power and God's strength and God's love and God's transferring power in the lives of other people answers answer to prayer and just so many different things our time is fleeting I just want to go to one more verse and that is in Psalm ninety and verse sixteen Psalm ninety and verse sixteen this is the crux I think of all that I want
to say tonight It's a great verse. Great verses for moms and dads. It's a great verse for our family. Something we try to put into practice. It says, let thy work appear to thy servants. I think this speaks of leaders. It speaks of spiritual leaders in the home. Maybe the mom and the dad, spiritual leaders in the church, the elders, the teachers, the preachers. It says, let thy work, let the direction of how the work should go Let the yielding to God in the work, let it appear to your servants, and let thy glory, let thy glory unto their children.
It says, let God show the leaders where to go, how to execute the work, what God's will is in the work. But let God's power and glory not be shielded from the children. Let the children see the answers to prayer. Let the children see the glory of God. Let them see all of those things. When the children of Israel crossed over the Jordan, they put the twelve rocks in the bed of the bank of the river and on the edge of the river. He said, these stones are a memorial to the generations that are to come that they might know the power of God, that they might know what God did. Who is the one to see that? The children, that the children might know the power of God.
And now he says in work in the local church, work in Israel, work in the family. He says, let the work appear to the fathers and the mothers and the elders and the teachers. Well, let the children see the glory. Let the children see the power of God and the mercy of God. Let them be right close to what is happening in the church. I'm going to read you two, closing with this, two commentaries on this by respected men. John Phillips in his commentary in the Psalms, he says this. God is intensely interested in our children. We need to see God's mighty arm made bare in their lives. We need to pray that he will do his work in them.
They need to see his glory for themselves. Let us plead for a fresh expression of the might of God, for a work pointed by God directly into the hearts of our children and young people. I think that would change their lives. we would see young people totally changed totally on fire for God as they can see God's hand God's might and God's power working in their lives and working around them Matthew Henry says this in praying for God's grace God's glory must be our end and we must therein have an eye to our children as well as ourselves that they may experience God's glory appearing unto them so to change them into the same image from glory to glory.
That's one of the great principles, I think. One of the great, one of the aspects of the answer or the solution to raising godly children is let them see God's presence and God's power and God's might and God's grace. Let's pray for needs in our families and in our assemblies. Bring them out to the meetings. Let them see people who are getting saved. Let them see changed lives. May God do a wonderful work. And our families, the families that are represented here, my own family, and you that are here, that are grandparents and grandmothers and aunts and uncles. Pray and show your children. Tell them what God is doing in your life and what he has done in different ones.
Let's close in prayer. Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for your glory and your might and your power and your love and the way you've revealed it to us in different times in our lives. how you've given us a greater faith and a greater strength and a greater trust in thyself. And Father, may we, may the glory, thy glory and thy might appear to our children. May they see answers to prayer. May they see souls saved. May they see transformed lives. May they see through prayer, men and women healed. Families, marriages healed. Rebellious children brought back to the Lord. May they see the hand and the power of God, Father. have a tremendous effect in their lives.