You might remember that in the first sermon of this series I tried to show you from the Scriptures the awesome responsibility vested in you and me in regard to child rearing. That we are rearing someone who is potentially a son of God and God allows us to have first crack at training a future God, first crack at developing that awesome potential that lies in each little child that is born.
In the second of the series, we showed you that child rearing is government in action right inside the home. We found that it is also possible to analyze government, to tear it apart and find out what its fundamental elements are. And we found that there are three elements in government that have to be there if one is going to have a balanced approach to government.
The first is that there must be a hope of reward, that is, to give one the incentive to make lawful gains, lawful efforts toward gains. The second thing is that there must be a fear of disadvantage in order to restrain the impulses in individuals to get for themselves regardless of the consequences to others. And then finally, and most importantly, there must be that quality that I called charisma, a magnetism or an attraction, a love, a respect that produces voluntary cooperation and loyalty, and a willingness to submit.
This last one in the Bible is called "the fear of God." And that is not a terror in any way, but a deep and abiding respect for all that we know that God is. Now the problem for you and me is, how can we have more charisma?
Now, child rearing might be defined as that effort made by the older generation to internalize its values and ways in the younger. What is so frightening is, whether we like it or not, whether we make much effort or not, we are going to internalize our values in our children. We do not have to make much effort because they can learn from our example. I think you realize that children, when their minds are not cluttered with a great deal of the riff-raff and distractions that you and I have as adults, that their mind is like an open book and they can just absorb information even though no one is verbally teaching them. They see and they do, or they hear and they do.
Our son-in-law was just telling us that a couple of days ago he was working on a fireplace and he scratched himself and he said, "Oh, shoot!" He did not even know, I guess, his daughter was around. But about 10 minutes later she said, "Oh, shoot!" Well, he did not teach her. There was no conscious effort made on his part. But this little two year old mind just picked it up and it became a part of her vocabulary.
That is a major problem that we have to deal with because if we are going to produce the right things, we are going to have to be making the right efforts. Whether, again, we are consciously aware of it, we are still going to have to understand that we are going to be teaching our children.
We are going to begin here in II Timothy 3, a set of scriptures that we have used quite a number of times.
II Timothy 3:1-2 But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, . . .
I believe, in the first sermon, I showed you at least very briefly how those terms in there are linked together and how the four of them right in the middle are in a family situation: where it says disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving. And then
II Timothy 3:3-5 . . . unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away!
Well, the terrible thing about that is that not one of us has escaped having some of those things impressed upon us. Indeed, most of those characteristics are in all of us to some degree—some more, some less. But all of us have come out of this world. All of us have had those things impressed on us and their intensity will vary from person to person.
But the thing that we need to be concerned about is that, again, whether or not we make the effort it is very likely that some of these characteristics are going to wash over on to our children. I will give you more information on that a little bit later.
Let us go to Romans the first chapter, verse 28 where there is another list that is given by the apostle Paul. And it is interesting in verse 28 that it even begins it in a way that is very interesting.
Romans 1:28-32 Even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge [that has something to do with the sermon a little bit later], God gave them over to a debased mind to do those things which are not fitting, being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful; who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, not only do they do the same, but also approve of those who practice them.
We were reared in a society with these attributes, and without any reason to make any change, it is very likely that we are going to automatically pass them on to our children to some degree. Now, the question is, why? How can I make a statement like that? How is it likely that we are going to be passing these things on unless we find some reason to change so that we do not pass them on?
Well, the answer, at least the basic answer, is given to us in the book of Ephesians. Again, another very well known scripture. But in Ephesians the second chapter, verses 1 through 3, where the apostle Paul says,
Ephesians 2:1-2 And you [you Christians, you Gentiles specifically] He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked [or conducted your life] according to the course of this world, . . .
And what we saw in Romans 1 and what we saw in II Timothy 3 were descriptors of the way that this world conducts itself. Now, not everybody conducts itself to the worst degree, that is, everybody does not conduct themselves having every one of those terrible qualities that we just read, but yet every one of those terrible qualities is out there and you know that it is out there. And so Paul is making a general statement here.
Ephesians 2:2-3 in which you once walked according to the course of this world [now here is why it can be passed on so easily], according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works [or the spirit who works, as my Bible says] in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lust of the flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as others.
Now, the reason we can pass these things on so easily is because the same spirit is driving, guiding, leading, motivating, both parents and children and so it makes the passing of the characteristics that we read in Romans 1 and in II Timothy 3, a very easy thing to do.
Let us start off in a little bit of a tangent from this principle but yet it is the same basic principle. In John the fifth chapter, we will see this in a good aspect in regard to Christ and also in regard to you and me. The situation in which this took place is shown in verse 18.
John 5:18 Therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God.
We know that He did not break the Sabbath; He never sinned. But according to their thinking, according to the way they looked at it, according to their standards, according to their laws, all of which of course, were generated out of their own mind; you see, according to the world standards, He had broken the Sabbath. Now, in verse 19 it shows here how He defended Himself.
John 5:19 Then Jesus answered and said to them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner."
Now there it is in a good sense. Here, we have the Son of God watching His Father-God and from His Father-God He then imitates His Father and He passes that imitation on to you and me. And so we see God in the flesh doing exactly as God the Spirit, God the Creator, God the Father, would do were He here. But where did He get it? See, it was passed on to Him by His Father. And so then He exhibited that out in the world exactly the same way as we do. We exhibit the family way before the world and where did we get it? We get it from our father and mother. Did our father and mother actually sit down and teach us that? Probably not. But where did we get it then? We observed it. We watched our parents doing it. And like that little episode with our granddaughter and our son-in-law, we just pick the things up.
John 5:20 "For the Father loves the Son, and He shows Him all things that He Himself does; and He will show Him greater works than these, that you may marvel."
Let us just bring that down to earth a little bit more. Just about every person in here at one time or another has heard someone in the church—evangelist, Pastor General, whatever—they have gotten up and said, You know, I was in a congregation in Holland or I was in a congregation in Germany or I was in a congregation in Africa or maybe it was in England, you see. And you know what? They are just like you. That no matter where you go and no matter what language they speak, no matter how different they look from us, they behave, they have the same general attitudes, as you do.
Now, why is that possible? It is because the same Spirit is in those people as is in you and me and those people are being guided by, led by, and are producing fruit according to the Spirit of God. And what we see and what these people report is really a minor example of the same thing that Jesus Christ was talking about right here.
It is this principle that makes possible the national characteristics that we are aware of. For example, you may see it in a very broad way in something like a political cartoon, you may see it stereotyped in a movie, in a stage play, or whatever. You have the typical German, see, the typical Englishman, the typical Norwegian. Now, whenever this typical person is portrayed, they have characteristics in the actor, you see, that portrays what the typical German, let us say, would sound like when he talks or the typical Norwegian, what he would sound like and act like when he talks and acts. Now that is possible because, again, the same general spirit is producing family characteristics in the German people, in the English people, in the American people. I do not mean the German, the English, and the American have all the same characteristics. I mean that we become stereotyped because of this family spirit that we have.
I will give you a very simple and easily understood illustration. Nobody has to teach a kid in Brooklyn how to talk through his nose. Does his mother and dad sit down and say, "Sonny, I want you to talk like this." No, that does not have to be done. Well, how does he get that way? By this process that I am talking about. Nobody has to teach a Southerner to say y'all, nobody does that. Nobody has to teach a Southerner how to speak in that slow drawl. It is just there. And why is it there? Because everybody around him is talking the same way.
That is what I am talking about here; and that if you do not teach your children, if you do not consciously make the effort to do so, then as Mr. Armstrong said, someone else will. You see? And that someone else is Satan the Devil and that spirit is going to be in them and that spirit is then going to produce its characteristics in your children and your children are then going to be wide open to the things that are out there in the world.
Let me read something to you. This is a book entitled, A Child's Mind. It is written by a lady named Muriel Beadle and it deals with the early education of a child from birth until age five. In it, she gives a long series of tests that were made on children in order to determine how much they can learn, when they learn best. Do they learn consciously or unconsciously? And of course, we understand that whether we make any effort or not, they are going to learn. But she makes a couple of very interesting statements, many interesting ones, but I am only concerned about two for the purpose of this sermon.
On page 70 she says,
There are many theories as to why early learning has such a powerful effect and is so difficult to alter later. As indicated in this chapter, the imprinting studies. . .
Imprinting has to do with what is impressed upon a child's mind, even though no conscious effort is made to impress it. I do not know whether you know it about or not. But this is just an illustration.
If a human being happens to be in the presence of a little duck when it comes out of the egg, that human being will imprint on that duck's mind and that duck will follow that human being everywhere, like that human being is that duck's mother. And what they have done is, they have imprinted a duck on a human being. Then they waited till the next one cracked and they imprinted that duck on the other duck, and then they wait till another egg is ready to crack and then they imprint that duck on the other one that was just before him until they can get a whole train of ducks who will not separate from one another. They will just follow one another around like a train, followed by a human being. Each is impressed on the one or imprinted on the one that is before it.
The issue here is not the fact that imprinting can take place. The question is: how powerful is the effect when the child does not even know that it is learning? And in many cases, the parent does not either.
Some psychologists theorize that the things we learn before we can talk are buried in the unconscious and therefore cannot be tested for validity against the perceptions we store in conscious memory. Others ascribe the persistence of early learning to its constant repetition over a long period of time, as would take place in a home. If in countless ways and every day from birth onward, a child is not responded to, he will come to school age with over 2,000 days of that kind of learning behind him. And no one should be very surprised if a teacher's efforts to give individual attention to each child is not a huge success with that particular one.
Because the child is unable to respond to the teacher because of what went before. Now on page 20 of the preface connecting these two statements together.
Yet another change has occurred in scholarly thought about child development in the course of the past few decades, is an awareness of the importance of the early years of life. It is not new to say, train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it. [Proverbs 2:26. We all know that one.] But today, the proverb would be amended to read, and when he is old, he will be unable to depart from it.
Very interesting. How powerful are those things that we learn before we can even verbalize?
Now, we all know from God's Word that a change can take place in the presence of another spirit. You see, the Spirit of God. Mr. Herbert Armstrong made this statement in my presence in a ministerial conference, probably way back in about 1970 or so. But he said,
You parents [speaking to the ministers and their wives who were there] are your child's greatest protection from Satan. That is, the Spirit of God in us, if we are being led by it, will deflect the influence of the spirit of Satan on our children.
You see, train up a child in the way he should go. That is, the way of God's Spirit, not the way of the spirit of this world. Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it. That is what God says. Because it has been imprinted in his mind, inscribed, engraved, and almost impossible to make a change.
Let us go back to Timothy again. This time to I Timothy the fourth chapter.
I Timothy 4:12 [Paul wrote to Timothy] Let no one despise your youth, but be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity.
Certainly, this was something that was written to the ministry, but is that not a good principle for every single one of us, especially those of us who are parents? Is that not a good principle that everyone should follow, that we should try to be as good of an example as we possibly can?
This word "example" is from the Greek typos. It means "figure," "image," "pattern," or "example." When you feed that in, it says that we ought to set a pattern in speech, a pattern in a manner of living, a pattern in love, in attitude, in faith, and in purity, which has to do with chastity, morality, modesty, has to do with being innocent. Every single one of them is a vital constituent of Christian life and they are the kind of things that we want to pass on to our children. And it is those kind of things which produce the kind of charisma that we want, that our children will respond to.
Let us go back to the Proverbs.
Proverbs 13:20 He who walks with wise men will be wise, but the companion of fools will be destroyed.
Parents, we are our children's companions, we are the first companions of our children. And in the first five or six years of their life, we are pretty much the only companions of our children.
When we begin to understand how important early learning is, it is the parents who are pretty much going to determine whether or not their children are going to turn out to be fools or wise, depending upon how the parent is. And if your child is walking with a fool in his home, then what chance does that child have? If your child is walking with a wise person, then he has a great leg up on, one foot up on being a very wise person himself because he is witnessing it day in and day out, activity in, activity out. From the time he gets up in the morning to the time that he goes to bed at night, he is in the presence of someone who is wise. And as we just learned, what you learn in the first five years is almost impossible to change and it takes a miracle from God to convert us to someone who is like Him.
The apostle Paul agrees with this because back in I Corinthians 15 he wrote,
I Corinthians 15:33 Do not be deceived: Evil company corrupts good habits.
Now, if an evil example can corrupt good habits, what is an evil example going to do to somebody whose mind is open, someone whose mind is defenseless, someone whose mind, patterns of speech, patterns of conduct, patterns of purity, are being imprinted upon daily? Day in, day out, whether we like it or not, that little sponge is soaking things up. it is awesome!
So he says as a way of a warning:
I Corinthians 15:34 Awake to righteousness, . . .
That awake is interesting too. It is not the kind of awake that a person does in the morning. Everybody does that. But this describes a person coming out of a drunken stupor. It is almost as if the apostle Paul was implying to these people, "You've been drunk with the wine of the wrath of her fornication. Now come out of that, wake up!"
I Corinthians 15:34 . . . and do not sin; for some do not have the knowledge of God. I speak this to your shame.
He is saying there, in effect, that the people most likely to be affected by the example are those who are innocent or ignorant of truth. A little kid. They do not know any better. They do not have the material by which to make an evaluation of whether or not your example is good or bad, so they just absorb it. So Paul says, "I speak to your shame."
So I need to ask you some questions. At home, do you always show respect for God's law? Do you kid about law-breaking, about fornication, about stealing, about adultery? Do you know that it is extremely difficult for a child to tell whether or not you are kidding? They cover that in that book. Especially young children. They cannot tell the difference between a scary false face, a mask, and the normal face of a human being. They cannot perceive that that is evil. I mean the bad one.
How do you treat the Sabbath? Do you try to steal time from it? Do you moan about how long it is? Are you giving the child indications that might give him the idea that you are not very pleased about having to keep it? Do you compromise with it? Smoking? Has your child witnessed any of that? Fighting in the home, foul language in the home, excessive drinking or eating? What is your attitude toward people in authority, police, political figures, teachers, ministers? Is there backbiting there? How about the doctrines of the church?
Men and women, do you openly love your mate and show a great deal of affection, hugging, kissing, being concerned for one another? How about your voice? Is there a whine in it? Does it have an edge of anger all the time? Is there irritability? Nobody had to teach those kids in Brooklyn how to talk through their nose and neither will you have to consciously teach a child to whine, to be irritable. He will pick it up from what we are.
Well brethren, I hope that it really concerns you about how your children turn out, concerned enough to be motivated to action. We certainly have to understand that these are unusual times. Extenuating circumstances certainly exist in this world. According to Jeremiah, there has never been a time like we are living in right now. Even Jesus said in Luke 21 that it is going to be a time that is filled with all kinds of distractions, all kinds of things impacting upon our lives. Never has it been possible until these last 20 or 30 years to invite the world on a daily basis—on an hourly basis, on a minute by minute basis—right into our house, by way of television. Those things certainly make our job a great deal more difficult. I am sure that God will take those things into consideration in His judgment. But I am also sure that He does not want us adding to the problem by setting a poor example or maybe ignoring our responsibilities altogether.
Now, through observation, and I hope a spiritually based logic in God's Word, I feel that there are four major areas that impact on the quality of child rearing. Actually, in a way, there is one major one and then the other three flow from that one.
The most important of all is the parent or parents relationship with God. Remember that thing about the spirit that I began with. If Satan's spirit is going to be dominating in our home, then there is no hope that we can produce anything except some kind of a modification of what is in this world. And so our relationship with God, which I will show you a little bit more of later, is of primary importance.
Second, flowing from that is the attitude of the mates regarding their relationship, marital relationships. If a child is living in a home that is filled with bickering and backbiting and irritability and anger, well, I do not need need to answer that. You know what the result is going to be. The third thing is the attitude of the parents regarding children or child rearing. I will give you some horrifying things on that just a little bit later. And then fourth and of least importance of all is the technique of child rearing. You see, if you have the first one right, the other three have a chance of falling in line the right way. But if we do not have the first one right, then everything else is going to suffer in quality.
Let us begin to examine our relationship with God and see why this factor is so important. Let us go back to the book of John in chapter 15, and we are going to begin in verse 8. Jesus said,
John 15:8 "By this My Father is glorified, that you [meaning the disciples] bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples."
You know, there is the object of a Christian life, to produce a great deal of fruit and bring glory to God from what is produced.
John 15:1-5 "I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing."
Now, the human family is a type of the Kingdom of God. You see, when we are begotten of God or called of God, and that relationship begins, it begins with us knowing little or nothing about God and it grows to a spiritual maturity and a knowledge of God over a period of years. In like manner, that is the way we all come into the world. As Mr. Armstrong used to say, we come into the world knowing absolutely nothing. The mind, of course, has in it the things that God put in it to enable that little baby to sustain life for a little while away from the mother's body, but we are completely dependent from that time on, on mom and dad. And so they provide for us, they feed us, they correct us, they keep us clean. They are also responsible for educating and correcting and developing our personality. Thus, it says in Proverbs 29:15, that "a child left to himself brings his mother to shame." Implying of course, that God expects us to have a hands-on operation, otherwise that child is going to grow up entirely like the world.
As we begin to feed this back into John the 15th chapter, Jesus shows us that in order for us to produce the correct fruit, there has to be an attachment to the Family of God. The vine, you see, the trunk of the tree is Christ. He is God. And we are branches on that and no branch can produce any better fruit than the quality of the vine. Remember, that if the vine is no good, the branches are not going to produce good fruit on its own. If the vine is good, then the chances are very great that the branches can be good as well and they will produce good fruit.
Again, if you put that into a worldly situation where the branch—the human being, you and I—are attached to a worldly vine, then we can produce no better fruit than the world can produce. Now, if we are then attached to the God Family through Christ, we can then produce the right kind of fruit. Let us look at verse 4.
John 15:4 "Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in Me."
So continued production depends on constant union with the Source. Put that in your mind. It is not just a matter of being plugged in. The plugged in has to be constant, there cannot be a breaking away and then a rejoining, a breaking away and a rejoining. So the effectiveness of our efforts depends on receiving a constant flow of life, you see, through Christ.
John 15:5 "I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing."
He is talking about producing the right kind of fruit. That connection with the vine, with the God Family, absolutely has to be there. And He is saying that if we remain in union with the God Family through the vine, Jesus Christ, then the production of fruit is inevitable. Nowhere though does He promise that the quality of fruit will be consistent because some are going to respond better than others, some have more gifts or more talent or whatever. But He is promising that as long as we are connected to the God Family, fruit will be produced, at least some measure of it.
Let us go back to I John 4.
I John 4:19 We love Him because He first loved us.
We, being Christians, love Him, God, because He first loved us. Now, this love that He is talking about here is not a general benevolence which God gives to all mankind. It is the personal love of a personal God for individuals that He has called. This love that he is talking about here absolutely must not be confused with the natural experiences of a natural man. Because there is a natural love that is possible, but do not confuse it with this love. This is the divine love, the agape that he is talking about here. This love that John is talking about here originates with the Father and comes to the children through the Son.
Did you get that? That without the connection to the vine, you see, the God Family, then it is not possible for us to love the agape love. It is something that is given to us from God and therefore makes it possible for you and me to love.
Now, what God expects then is that this love becomes the characteristic, the major characteristic of our life, even as it is the major characteristic of God's life. God is love and so it becomes the major characteristic of our life. And we only have it because the spiritual Father is involved in our lives. Now begin to put that principle back in the sermon last week. The hearts of the fathers have to turn to the children. The heart of our spiritual Father has turned to us. And because it has turned to us, we now have the possibility of loving with the agape love.
Back to Romans 5. One thing that I want you to think about here is that the divine love that we do have, or maybe it would be better to say that the divine love that we are able to give, is merely a reflection or a response to the love that God has already given to us. That is what he is saying here, we love because God loved us. We responded. It was not in us in the very beginning.
Again, that is the way it is in a natural situation. When a baby is born, it knows absolutely nothing. It does not even have the natural love of a natural man. It learns how to love from the parents if the parents give that child love. If the parents do not give that child love, then the child does not know how to love. There is an exact, almost perfectly exact parallel [break in audio] It has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which was given to us.
Now, this phrase, "the Holy Spirit was given to us" has two aspects to it. Again, they are important. The first one is that this love that we have is not merely a fact that we have about God, but rather it is a consciousness. It is an awareness in the child of God, in the one who is begotten by God, that he is the object of God's love and therefore he has hope. He knows he is loved. There is no guess about him. The Father loves him and therefore there is hope! And that is why a Christian can be positive and be filled with the right kind of self-esteem in this very crazy, vicious, cruel, and evil world that we live in.
The second one, the second aspect is the implication that this godly love becomes the central and determining motive for our life. In other words, because we have it, we pass it on. Because we have it, it becomes the basis for our actions. Therefore, we are able to love because He first loved us. If He had not loved us, there is no way that we could pass it on.
Again, feed this right back into the natural family. Unless we show our children how to love, they are not going to be able to love. And so the parents' responsibility is to teach the child how to love. Now, if that child is loved, then that child is going to show characteristics of confidence, they will feel secure and be at peace, they will have the willingness to endure, to persevere, to have the willingness to build character. I can say that because that is exactly what God says in the first four verses that lead up to verse five. If you did not know that God really loves you, you would not endure your trials. And if you did not endure your trials, you would not build character.
We are beginning to see parental responsibilities and why the connection with God is so important. The connection with God is important in the case of child rearing because the right spirit has to be guiding, leading, motivating the one who is doing the teaching and training and correcting and cleaning up and whatever. That is the only way that the child can get the right example of love because the child is going to reflect the kind of love that his parents give to him. That is all he knows. He does not know anything beyond what he has been taught. He was empty when he came to this world. And so it is with us. Again, in our relationship with God, we are only able to love because He first loved us.
Quoting Mr. Herbert Armstrong. This came from a Bible study that he gave on Ephesians probably about 1980-81 when he was going through the books of the Bible in the Friday night Bible studies. He says,
Human nature is nothing more than acquired habit—Satan's—acquired by us. If that were not so how could we put it off [In other words, if it was something that was inherent, it could not be put away, but rather it is something acquired.] and acquire another nature, as the Bible says. The divine nature.
Now, this human nature that we acquire are habits that are acquired primarily through the parents because, as we saw earlier, they have them too, so the child just mimics them. But if the parents are exhibiting the love of God because of their close relationship with God, because the love of God is in them and it is shed abroad in their hearts, then the chances of a child acquiring substantial amounts of human nature are very greatly diminished.
The second one, the attitude of parents toward the marital relationship. I think the fact that this point flows from the first one is indisputable. The source of our beliefs, ideals, standards, practices, ways, manners, customs, perspectives, attitudes, is pretty much going to determine our conduct. The key word there is source, the source of these things. In Galatians 1, verse 4, the apostle Paul makes a very interesting statement. Twenty-eighty years I have been in the church and I did not realize this said this until yesterday.
Galatians 1:3-4 [as part of his introduction, he says] Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father.
We have been reared in a nation that does respect the Bible, at least to some degree. However, unfortunately, we pay a lot of respect to a lot of other things as well. I think you are familiar enough with the Old Testament to recognize that God frequently accused Israel of wanting to be like the people of the land so that when they went into the land of Canaan, they copied the Canaanites, the Hivites, the Perizzites, and so forth. That has never gotten out of the Israelitish mind and way. When we went through the 60s and 70s, the young people were sold on Oriental religions, Buddhism, the bhagwan. They were following these people all over the country and establishing communes. They wanted to worship like the Orientals worship. Well, it is just a continuation of this proclivity that we Israelitish people have had in us from time immemorial. What it has resulted in is a confusion of ideas, concepts, ways regarding how a person should live and that of course, includes marriage as well.
Now look at what Paul said here, verse 4, "who gave Himself for our sins." That is something we all recognize, that Christ died for our sins. But notice the next phrase. Why did He die for our sins? "That He might deliver us from this present evil age." I will read that thing without that phrase about the sins in there. "Who gave Himself that He might deliver us from this present evil age." Now, that word "deliver" is kind of interesting. We think of people being delivered from bondage. We might think of the Israelites being delivered out of Egypt, how that God divided the Red Sea and they walked through and were baptized and next thing they knew they were standing on the high ground over there. Their sins were forgiven and they were a free people. They had been delivered from Egypt.
Well, this word that is translated in my Bible "deliver" does not mean that kind of delivery. It means instead "rescued from the power of." That is an altogether different thing with "delivery away from" in the background somewhere. It may be implied, but the primary meaning is "rescued from the power of this present evil world." Brethren, the power of this present evil world lies in its ability to impress upon us or its power to make us conform to its way.
Remember how Paul said in I Corinthians 5:11 after telling these people that they ought to put that sinner out of the church (verse 6) and they should not fellowship with that kind of a person. Then a little bit later, he added a little bit of refinement to it. He said, I did not mean that you should go out of the world, but rather that you should not fellowship with one who is a brother and who has this sin. So that is what he is talking about here. He is not talking about leaving a place. He is talking about being rescued from the power of this world to impress its ideas, its manners, its ways, its customs, its traditions upon you and me.
Remember what Paul said in Romans 12:2. I think it is really graphically translated in the Phillips translation where he says, "Do not let the world squeeze you into its mold." That is what we have been delivered from, the power of the world to squeeze you and me into its mold.
You are probably wondering, what does this have to do with marriage and child rearing? Let us go back to I Peter. I am kind of going in a circuitous way here.
I Peter 1:17-19 And if you call on the Father, who without partiality judges according to each one's work, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your sojourning here in fear [with deep respect]; knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as a lamb without blemish and without spot.
All that you have to do is turn around verses 19 and 18 and you will find that what Peter is saying is essentially the same thing that Paul said in Galatians 1:4. That our redemption with the precious blood of Christ as a lamb without spot, was in order to redeem us from aimless conduct received by tradition from our fathers. In other words, the things that are out there in the world.
Now, what he is talking about here is not just Sunday worship, it is not just Christmas, it is not just Easter. But he is talking about the whole range of things that have to do with life itself in this world. And that includes the attitudes, laws, approaches, ideas to marriage, to divorce, to child rearing, or everything that has come out of this world with all of its imbalances and all of the things that make it destined not to succeed.
This is very important in regard to marriage, our ideas about it and what our relationships ought to be like, because marriage is the most basic and important institution to communal life. There is nothing more important than marriage. Brethren, the Kingdom of God is a community, a community of God's sons. The church is a community. The city that you live in is a community. The state that you live in, the nation you live in, is a community just on a larger scale. But marriage is the most basic and important institution to communal life.
I do not know whether you ever stopped to think that even before there was sin, there was marriage. It is so important that immediately after the first man and the first woman were created, the first thing that God did was create the institution of marriage. Its relative importance to everything that follows after it in the Bible, from Genesis the second chapter to Revelation the 22nd chapter, marriage preceded every bit of it. It is fundamental. It is the foundational institution upon which all community, all government, practically everything in life is based upon because that is the means through which God is going to pass His education on to the younger generation. At least the education and the most important things of all.
Marriage was created before the foundation of the world. The world did not begin until Adam and Eve sinned. Now that ought to give you some sort of an idea of how important it is and we cannot be conducting our marriages according to the precepts and the ways of this world, according to the traditions of men. Because if we do, then the right kind of product is not going to be produced from those unions. And again, it begins to point out how important the relationship with God and the Spirit of God is to producing the right kind of fruit. How important our relationship is our great High Priest Jesus Christ.
Let us go to Malachi the second chapter and we are going to read through that. This time I am going to read it to you from the New International Version. We went through it before but it is a little bit clearer here.
Malachi 2:10 (NIV) Do we not all have one Father? Did not one God create us?
Think of yourself as being addressed, first of all, maybe as an Israelite in this time and He is talking about the Israelite nation, particularly the Jews that remain. But of course, it is intended primarily for the spiritual Israel, the church.
Malachi 2:10-15 (NIV) Do we not all have one Father? Did not one God create us? [So he asks] Why do we profane the covenant of our fathers by being unfaithful to one another? [You know what the subject is? It is marriage.] Judah has been unfaithful. A detestable thing has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem: Judah has desecrated the sanctuary the Lord loves by marrying the daughter of a foreign god. [Be not unequally yoked together. He says] As for the man who does this, whoever he may be, may the Lord cut him off from the tents of Jacob—even though he bring offerings to the Lord Almighty. Another thing you do: you flood the Lord's altar with tears. You weep and wail because he no longer pays attention to your offerings or accept them with pleasure from your hands. And you ask, "Why?" It is because the Lord is acting as the witness between you and the wife of your youth. You have been unfaithful to her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant. Has not God made you? You belong to him in body and spirit. [they are His] And what does the one God seek? Godly offspring. [now notice this admonition] So be on your guard.
You think it does not matter what spirit is driving you, guiding you, directing you, leading you, inspiring you? If it is the spirit of this world, there is no hope that godly offspring will be produced. So he says, guard yourself in your spirit. We might translate that or interpret it to be attitude. But again, the attitude is going to be subject to the spirit that is leading and guiding us.
Malachi 2:15-16 and do not be unfaithful with the wife of your youth. "I hate divorce," says the Lord God of Israel, "and I hate a man covering himself with violence as well as with garments," says the Lord Almighty. So be on your guard, and do not be unfaithful.
So I think the conclusion is inescapable that the prophet is quite sure that the distress of the times that he was living in was in large measure do to the Jews' contempt for the solemn obligations of marriage. Marriage is not a matter of private arrangement or a personal convenience but is a solemn covenant entered into before God. God wants godly seed, not just any kind of seed but godly seed. And therefore, I have to conclude that what He is interested in is quality. I think that is very clear.
Now the reason, of course, is that one of the major reasons for marriage is the strengthening of God's chosen people Israel, or spiritual Israel, His church, and eventually His Family through the godly offspring who will hold fast to His ways. What He is implying here very strongly is that anything that would destroy the essential unity of husband and wife is therefore also going to have a telling effect on the quality of the children produced.
That is God's point of view, but sometimes, of course, men think that there is a better way.
The third thing here is attitude toward children and child rearing today. Today, there is working one of the most devastating movements to the safety and the security of this nation and perhaps spiritually to the effectiveness of this work and possibly, maybe, even some people's salvation might even hang in the balance. I am talking about the pressures that are being exerted on men and women to make them feel that homemaking is unimportant and uninspiring. And that the wife especially should seek fulfillment in a career outside of her home.
All of us have fallen for Satan's siren song, at least to some degree, because he makes it so appealing. He appeals to our desire to have a lot more things. He makes it appear so logical, so financially necessary. We feel that it is just something that we have to do. It is extremely difficult to resist. And has he ever been successful! In the last 40 or 50 years a revolution has taken place in the United States of America.
I saw an article in the magazine Behavior Today and I will tell you, to me it was hair raising. And it went along these lines: that if you are a child today in America, what do you feel? What do you see? What does it mean to be a young person in America today? The title of this article was, "Children Are Running Behind Automobiles as a Consumer Preference." In other words, an automobile is more important to a couple than a child is.
What the article went on to show is that we are living in an anti-child society, that things are geared against children and they are helpless before the onslaught. Now, listen to these things:
For the majority of today's young people, being young means that you are going to spend a lot of time wondering when your parents are going to split. The break up of homes in the United States has been stunningly swift. So much so that one half of all children will live a portion of their lives in a single parent home. One out of five families, 20% of the families in the United States, is now a single parent one. And this is the one that really curls my hair: that only 13% of American children now live in a normal family situation. The normal family situation is that a father and mother are together. They are not divorced and they have never divorced and remarried. Not only that, the father is the only one who leaves the home to go to work and the home is the center of the wife's occupation. Only 13%. That is, one out of every eight children lives in a normal family situation. They find that those children who are affected by this feel guilty, they feel as though they are the cause of their parents breaking up.
For the majority of today's young people being young means being lonely lots of times. Most of us have grown up in city areas, I believe, and in a city you really do not have a very good place to play. You either play out on the streets or you play in a park somewhere several blocks away. And that park is very likely also the habitat of perverts, of queers, of homeless people that you have no idea what kind of character they are, what they are going to do to your children. And so you have to warn your children whenever they go out or whenever you feel as though it is safe for them to go out. You have to warn them to be careful. Do not talk to strangers. Do not go to this place, do not go that way, do not go on that street. I want you to go along a certain way and I want you to stay there and I want you to be back at a certain time. A far cry from the way I grew up.
Do you know that these big city schools with 2,000, 3,000 people in them that they actually cut off and hinder the development of friendships, that they find that children who go to country schools know everybody in the school and they have a relationship with those kids. Not only that, they know the parents of all of those kids as well. And not only that, they know the names of all of the tradesmen who live in the town, the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker. But kids in city schools associate with 10, 15, 20 kids, a close circle of children that they feel that they can trust, and that is it. And the chances are very great they do not know their parents and you do not know those other kids' parents. Our kids are lonely.
Not only that, we are a nation on the move. I think the Ritenbaugh's are a good example. This creates loneliness too. The Ritenbaugh's, because of things within the work, moved in 1983, they moved in 1984, they moved in 1985, and they moved in 1986. And each time Sharon, Richard, whoever was at home, have to establish new friendships. You cannot become close to somebody that you only see in school for one class. There is actually a term now: corporate nomads. People who move frequently and their children are lonely.
For the majority of today's young people, it means that you are very likely to be a latch key kid. Do you know that there is an estimated 20,000 children under the age of six who spend all day alone at home? A YMCA study says that there are 10 million latch key kids in the United States, all of them coming home to an empty home for a number of hours in the afternoon after school, empty because mom is not there. And they find that these children are frightened. They find that these children are so frightened that in some areas they have actually set up hotlines for these children. If they hear a funny noise or something and they are frightened, they can call up and be comforted by a voice on the other end of the line.
If you are in the majority of children today, it means that you are going to see a large number of signs that say "no children wanted." Apartments, mobile home parks, things of that nature. We are even creating a group of young people who are in boarding schools for this very reason. Their parents want to live in that very nice condo. But the condo complex will not allow children there, but the parents want to live there anyway. So they move in and they send their child off to a boarding school. The child is separated away from the family because the parents want to live in a place that does not accept children. So what does that teach a child? Well, he is learning how to be a liability to his parents.
If you are in the majority of children today, it means being put into a daycare center because mother is working. One quarter of the children under three have mothers who work outside the home. One half of preschoolers have mothers who work outside the home. There has been a 200% increase in this in the last 12 years. And forgive me for this analogy, but our children are being put into nothing more than a garage for kids. You drive to work, you drop the kids off at the kid garage, and then you drive to work, you see, and put your car in the automobile garage. And I do not care how sincere, how nice those people are that run the daycare center, they cannot take the place of mom and dad. No way.
If you are in the majority of children today, it means eating food that has been left for you or food you must go out to get. There was a time when American families ate every meal together. Everybody got up in the morning, mom got up and went into the kitchen, Dad and the kids went out and took care of some chores. Maybe they milked the cows, fed them. And then when everybody had a good appetite worked up, then they came in, mom had a meal prepared for them and they ate together. And then they went out and worked together on the farm. Once again, they came in at lunch and they ate again, then they went out and worked again. And then at supper they came in and ate again together, talking things over, discussing what went on, talking about their hopes and dreams, binding themselves together as a family, loving one another and sharing one another's experience.
The first meal that left the scene was lunch because the kids went off to school and the school was so far away that the child could not come home for lunch. So mom had to pack a lunch and now there was one meal that the kids were not eating together with their parents. The next one to disappear was breakfast because now mom was working, and because she was working and dad was working outside the home and the kids were going to school, everybody had a somewhat different schedule. They had to regulate everything in the bathrooms and also in the kitchen. So Johnny eats at one time, mom eats at another time, Dad eats another time. Everybody splits and goes in another direction.
And then finally we come to supper, that because the previous thing is also in existence everybody comes home at different times. Johnny comes home from school at three in the afternoon, a latchkey kid. He spends the time alone. He nibbles on what happens to be around the house. Mom comes home at her time and eats. Dad comes home at his time and eats. Do you know that a University of Pennsylvania study showed that even 50% of the meals that are eaten in American families together are eaten in a dim living room watching the television set!
Being in the majority today as a child means coping with parents who are self-absorbed or uncertain about their role as parents. A Daniel Yankelovich poll shows a new breed of parents has emerged with 43% of Americans polled holding to this, "Self-fulfillment is more important than worldly success and duty to self is more important than duty to others, including children." What are the parents telling their children? "We won't sacrifice for you because we have our own life to lead." Incidentally, they found this attitude strongest in women who work outside the home.
And finally, most of the the talk that children hear today is coming from machines rather than from people. Coming from television, radio, and phonographs. Television has become the single most important child care arrangement in this country. The average preschooler spends four hours a day in front of the television set, the average elementary school almost four hours a day.
Now, the result of all this is insecurity and self-absorption on a massive scale. It is a very poor foundation for adulthood.
Turn with me to Psalm 127 just as a contrast. We will conclude with this scripture.
Psalm 127:3-4 Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb is His reward [or His gift]. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one's youth.
Children are a gift from God. They are a reward. Is that your attitude or is your child a burden, a mistake, an accident that you would rather not have to deal with? Brethren, we get first crack at training Gods! What an awesome privilege that you and I have! But if your attitude toward that child is similar to what is out there in that environment that we have come out from, then it is very likely we are going to look upon that child as something that we would rather not have to be burdened with. And we are certainly not going to be making any sacrifices for.
I hope, brethren, because of your connection to God, because there is a relationship there, that you can have the kind of relationship with your mate and attitude toward your children that will make it possible for you to set the right kind of example before them. Because whether or not you have any technique at all in your child rearing, you are nonetheless rearing those children by your example. And I hope that you are trying hard to really seek God and make sure that you have a connection with the right Spirit.
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