(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

All right, so I'm continuing on with the sermon series on our core doctrines of the church and one of those core doctrines being that we're supposed to be separated, a peculiar people and separated unto the Lord and I've decided to split this up into many different areas and most of these areas or all these areas I'm going to be focusing on are going to be visible externally. So this isn't just every issue, especially when it comes to having standards and things like that, it all is going to start in your heart but these are all things that are going to be seen and manifested outwardly that other people in the world are going to view a church like ours and people who actually believe the Bible and believe all of it and start practicing and putting into practice God's words, they're going to see a difference in your life versus the rest of the world. They should and I'm going to be focusing on some of the areas where they will probably see a big difference between you and the world. So what I'm focusing on today is, I call it family life but there's a few things that kind of go along with having a family and in regards to the family size, the first thing I'm going to be hitting on and using birth control and homeschooling and just things along those lines is what I'm going to be hitting. So I kind of group this as just calling it family life and disciplining, there's things that we should be doing that the Bible teaches that we ought to incorporate in our life and we will be different than the world because the world teaches very different on this subject. So look at Psalm 127 verse number 3, the Bible says, lo, children are an heritage of the Lord and the fruit of the womb is his reward. Now the very first thing that's different from the world that the Bible teaches is that children are actually a good thing. It's a reward, the fruit of the womb. Having children is a reward, it's a good thing, it's a positive thing. But what happens today, you know, even to this day with my wife and I, when I say, hey, my wife's pregnant, we're going to have a child, it's like, is that a good thing? You know, you tell people and they don't know how to respond. They don't know if that's, you know, should I be happy? Should I be subset? Is this a bad thing? Is this a curse? Oh man, you're having another child? But this is the way that the world thinks. But this is not the way that we should be thinking as believers ever. We trust God's word. The Bible says that children are an heritage of the Lord and the fruit of the womb is his reward. I believe that. We don't have to be scared about having kids. We don't have to just, you know, think about them. And here's, you know what, you have a problem in your family if you think that your kids are a problem for you. Like if you look at your children and you look at them as just, you know, oh, they're costing me money and they're just a burden and this is just a hassle to have kids, then you've got something wrong with your heart and you've got something wrong in your family that you need to fix. You should never be viewing your children as just a burden when God has blessed you with them. When God has given you that as a reward and you are looking at your child as just some food eater, some money consumer, some mess maker, right? Now look, they may be all of those things, but they are definitely a reward. And anyone who has children hopefully will know that and understand that they provide so much blessing. It's worth the work and the effort that you need to put into your children in all the messes and whatever money and everything else that you have to do to support them. It truly is a blessing. And the Bible goes on further to explain, you know, the thought process of just having children. Verse number four says, as arrows are in the hand of a mighty man, so are children of the youth. Now think about a mighty man being a man of war. If you're a man of war and you're an archer, right, that's your specialty and you're good with the bow. How many arrows do you think you'd want to have in your quiver if you're going into battle? Well, just two. Two point two arrows, you know, and I'm good and I'm complete and I can kill two people and we're good and then I'll be done and I'll go home, right? No, that's not the way it works. If you're a mighty man, mighty man of war, you're an archer, you want to have as many arrows as you can have, right? You want it, man, I want my quiver full. I want to have as much ammo as possible. That's the thought process that God is illustrating here is that as arrows are in the hand of a mighty man, so are children of the youth. Verse number five, happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them. You have a lot of children, you ought to be very happy. They shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate. Having children is a blessing and not a curse. This is what it all starts with is having the right mindset. I wonder if you went to Genesis 24 and you'll find this all throughout scripture. You're not going to find one instance of children being referred to as just some big burden and not being a blessing. Or you're never going to find someone, oh, you're cursed with children. But you can ask my wife, we know firsthand that that's not the way that the world thinks. My wife goes out shopping, at least she did. We have yet to experience a lot here in Georgia and we're hoping that the attitudes are a little bit different here. But in Prescott Valley, almost every single time she'd go out shopping and come home, she'd be upset when she came back home because of some rude, nasty comment that someone gave to her when she was out with the kids doing her shopping. It's just like, oh, you know what causes that, don't you? Oh, well, hopefully you're done, right? And just the rude comments on the number of children instead of, you know, wow, you know. Because when I go out, when I would go out with a family, I didn't experience this as much, we've heard it, I've heard it a little bit, but I'm used to just, oh, wow, your family looks great, your kids are so cute or whatever and that's nice and that's great and whatever. But I don't know if it's because they thought maybe she's like a single mom and they just had to berate her even more for having kids when, I don't know, I don't know what their thought process is, I think it's just the thought process of the world. They don't view children as being something good. We talked to someone the other week or two ago and she had two children and she's like, I didn't even want to have the second one and it was just this whole, this kind of a rotten attitude, just like, whoa, like no love whatsoever. And that's not what the Bible teaches. Our culture is completely backwards when it comes to large families. People have a lot of children. Look at Genesis chapter 24, verse number 59. In Genesis 24, this is when Abraham's servant goes to kind of find a wife for his son, for Isaac and he goes and he finds Rebekah and Rebekah's being sent out now from her family. And they give Rebekah a blessing in verse number 59. Look at verse number 59, the Bible says, and they sent away Rebekah their sister and her nurse and Abraham's servant and his men. And they blessed Rebekah and said unto her, thou art our sister. Be thou the mother of thousands of millions and let thy seed possess the gate of those which hate them. So this is the blessing they leave her. Be the mother of thousands of millions. Be like, some of you ladies are probably like, I don't want to be a mom of thousands of millions. That's a lot of, you know, obviously they're talking about her descendants and things like that. But the blessing is to have a lot of children, that it's a good thing. We hope that you have a huge family that you can spawn a nation. You can be the mother of thousands of millions. That is a blessing. That is a type of blessing you're going to find all throughout scripture. It's biblical to want that or to wish that upon people that it's viewed on as a good thing. So don't be looking at these families that have, you know, six, seven, eight, nine, ten plus kids and be distaining them or talking down to them or don't you know what carbon footprint you're going to be leaving with all those kids. You know, like, look, God made this earth to be inhabited and he's given us dominion over the earth and God's not worried about the carbon footprint because that's not how things are going to end anyways. God's already determined how things are going to end here. We don't need to worry about overheating the earth because we're breathing the air. God made the air for us to breathe. We see an example here also in, you don't have to turn there, but in 1 Chronicles 25 verse 5 there is a man, his name was Heman and the Bible says all these were the sons of Heman the king's seer in the words of God to lift up the horn and God gave to Heman fourteen sons and three daughters. So he had seventeen children. And what's interesting about that is the Bible says that God gave to him. God gave that to him. That was a good thing. He was blessed. It was the fruit of the womb was his reward and he was blessed with having these children and that was a good, look, seventeen children. Today people will just, that's beyond like a TV show, right, I mean that's just like people would probably look at you like you're insane. I can't believe you've had that many children. But I'm sure he looked at it as a blessing and we know that God did because God gave him those children. Now, I do want to point this out though. Not everyone is blessed with the same number of children. Okay, so I'm not saying that, you know, if you only have one child or two children or whatever, that that's bad. I'm not saying it's bad to have a small family. I'm not saying that at all. What I'm saying though is that whatever God blesses you with, that is a good thing and it's happy and children are a blessing and it's a good thing to have children. Now we see, and this is a very important point that needs to be understood and comprehended because I don't want anyone especially to feel bad about themselves or feel bad about their situation, especially if you haven't done anything and God's only blessed you with one child. It's not like it's your fault or that maybe it doesn't even have to be because you're in sin. God might just choose that this is what he wants for you to have. We see some really good men of God in the Bible that have been blessed with one or two children and that's what God wanted them to have and that's what God gave unto them and whatever God gives you, you ought to be thankful for and appreciate and praise the Lord for that blessing. If God blesses you with many children, praise God. That's great. If God blesses you with one child, praise God for that blessing. But it's of God that determines this. We shouldn't be trying to take matters in our own hands. So if you go to Genesis chapter 20, we're going to see this very clearly in scripture that who is responsible for opening and closing up the womb is God. The Lord is in charge of whether or not you have children. Obviously there's some physical things that have to happen in a relationship in order for a child to be produced, but at the end of the day, even science can't tell you how life develops. They can watch it happen, but it cannot be reproduced. God is the giver of life and the scripture very clearly states that God is the one that's going to allow you to have children and not. Now we know just by looking around us that some people do have children outside of God's perfect will. God's will would be that you'd be married, that you have a family, that mom and dad are both saved. That's God's will and that you would have family together and that he'll bless you for that. But we know that other people have children as well, but at the end of the day, God is the one who's responsible for opening and closing the womb. Look at Genesis 20 verse number 17. Verse number 17 reads, So Abraham prayed unto God, and God healed Abimelech and his wife and his maidservants, and they bare children. For the Lord had fast closed up all the wombs of the house of Abimelech because of Sarah, Abraham's wife. Now if you remember that story, Abraham and Sarah go into this city and Abraham tells Sarah, he says, hey, tell everyone that you're my sister. Because he was worried when he got into town, he's like, surely these people don't fear God. And because they don't fear God, and because I have this really beautiful wife, his thought process is, you know what? They don't care about God. They're just going to kill me because they're going to want to have my wife. So his thought process, again, which wasn't right, because God was there to protect him, but his thought process was, well, if he says that I'm her brother and not tell them that we're married, then I'll be okay, because they'll actually treat him well, because they'll try to treat him well for what they think is his sister. And what happens is, of course, Abimelech sees Sarah, and he's like, hey, I think his servants tell him about her, and she's kind of taken from Abraham, but nothing has happened. He hasn't gone into her or anything like that. But what happens is that God curses Abimelech and his family, and that they're not able to have any children at all because of what's going on now with Sarah. And what God tells Abraham to do then, when it all gets sorted out, God appears on Abimelech in a dream. You could read the whole story of yourself in context later. But Abraham then prays to God for Abimelech and his household so that the curse can be removed so that they're allowed to have children again. And we see very clearly here that says that God healed Abimelech and his wife and his maidservant, so everyone in his whole household, and they bear children. That's what was withholding from them because he didn't like that Sarah was with them. And it says also that God healed Abimelech. See, our backwards culture is going to say that someone is fixed if they can't have children, right? They can't have my dogs fixed, or guys go out and get vasectomies and say, oh yeah, I got fixed. No, you're broken. You're not fixed. God healed Abimelech. He restored him and made him whole to be able to have children. When you go out and have these procedures done and have your tubes tied or whatever, you're not fixed. You're broken. You've taken what God has given you, an opportunity to be blessed with children, and you've completely just got your hands involved and said, you know what, I don't want God deciding for me when I'm going to have children. I'm just going to take matters into my own hands. And you're cursing yourself by doing that, by the way. Flip over to Genesis 29. We're just going to see a few more examples of God opening and closing the womb as he sees fit, as being the one who gives children. If you haven't figured out where I'm going with this yet, it's not biblical for a believer to practice birth control. If you're married, you should not be taking matters into your own hands and determining whether or not the womb should be opened in your family. I believe that firmly. And we're going to get into some other issues with that, but just right off the bat, the number one reason why people that are married in a normal relationship don't want to have children is because they feel like they can't afford it. Because children cost money, and you might feel like, oh man, we're struggling now. I don't know how I could ever, how could we ever feed another child? How could we do that? Well, you know what? God knows what your needs are. We see that throughout Scripture. God knows you have need of these things. And if you're a child of God, do you think God's just going to let you go hungry? You're working, you're doing what you're supposed to be doing, you're putting first the Kingdom of Heaven and His righteousness. You think God's just going to let you starve and let your children starve? Absolutely not. Just as much as you're not going to let your children starve. You're going to do what you can. God will see you through. So if you leave it up to God, just say, God, you know, in my mind, I don't see how this can happen. I don't see under these given circumstances how I can support another child. But if you say, God, I'm just going to trust you and just count it a blessing if you open up the womb and give us another child, He'll make sure you're taken care of every single time. But just to show you more Scripture about God being the one opening and closing the womb, Genesis 29, verse number 31, the Bible says, when the Lord saw that Leah was hated, He opened her womb, but Rachel was barren. Flip over to chapter 30, verse number 1, the Bible reads, and when Rachel saw that she bared Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister and said unto Jacob, Give me children or else I die. And Jacob's anger was kindled against Rachel, and he said, Am I in God's stead who hath withheld from thee the fruit of the womb? So here, of course, we have this situation with Jacob having multiple wives, which is never a good situation anyways, there's all kinds of problems as a result of that. But God sees what's going on and He sees that Leah's being hated, so He decides to open up her womb to bring the heart of Jacob back to Leah a little bit because she's having his children. And God opened up her womb, but Rachel was barren, she was not able to have children. So what did she do? Did she go out and go to the doctors and try to splice all of her eggs and get a lab kit out and try to have children anyways? No. And notice, Jacob understands that God's the one that gives children because she goes to him and says, Give me children or else I'm going to die, right? You need to give me a child. He's like, I don't have responsibility over that. He said, Am I in God's stead? Am I in God's place? Do you think I'm God? Do you think I could just give you a child? We know they're having a regular relationship, but He's saying, I'm not God. He's the one withholding you from having a child. Now I know what it's like a little bit, at least, to be married and to want to have a child and to not have a child. I think everyone, when you get married, if you haven't had children already yet, understands the excitement. You want to have a child and you could go along a while and it could be maybe disappointing or depressing the longer you go without having a child. But if you find yourself in that situation, especially ladies, God's the one in charge of that. All you can do is have a regular relationship, your husband and wife, and let God bless you and give you what He thinks is right for you and what He wants to give you and who He wants to give you. It'll always be right if we just follow God's plan. Then Genesis 30, verse number 22, the Bible says, God remembered Rachel and God hearkened to her and opened her womb. God opens Rachel's womb. She was barren, but then how did she become, you know, today's world will probably say she's infertile, right? She's not able to have children. The reason why she's not able to have children is because God closed her womb. But then when God opens the womb, she was able to have children. When God decided, because God wanted Abraham to have one child. Abraham took matters into his own hands and he had more children, but God only gave Sarah one child. And He gave that to her when she was barren. When she couldn't even bear anymore, God miraculously gave her a child and God opened up her womb. Just to demonstrate, no, I am able to do this. And that is what God had for him. That is the will of God for them was to have that one child. Isaac prays, and I don't have all the scripture references right now, but when you read the scriptures carefully, you see Isaac praying to have a child. He prays for twenty years. Twenty years goes by before he has Jacob and Esau. And that's a long time. But he stayed faithful and left it up to God and you know what? That's what God blessed him with. And praise God for those children for him, right? That was a good thing for him. And we see Jacob got himself into all kinds of problems. He had a lot of children, but he wasn't doing it the right way. And he had children that, you know, ended up doing some wicked things. A lot of his children ended up doing some wicked things. Anyways, I don't want to get too far off into all, there's a lot of different sermons that can be preached, a lot of things to learn from all those examples. Turn, if you would, to Hebrews chapter 11. Hebrews 11. I'm laying the groundwork here of having children is a good thing, it's a blessing. God's the one who decides how many children you're going to have. And we're going to see that life begins at conception as taught in the Bible. That that is when life begins. And the reason why we're going into this, of course, is to show you that using birth control is going to be sinful because when life begins at conception and you use birth control, it's going to end up stopping that life after conception. That's killing a life, that's killing a child. And that's wicked, and it's wrong, and people need to be educated about what they're putting into their body and what they're doing to prevent themselves from having kids, which they shouldn't even be doing in the first place. In Hebrews 11, verse number 11, the Bible says, through faith also Sarah herself received strength to conceive seed and was delivered of a child when she was past age because she judged him faithful who had promised. Now, the reason why we're looking at this verse is because we need a definition for conception. Because what the world will do is try to change definitions on you and they'll say, oh yeah, life begins at conception, but they changed the conception part to being implantation because what happens is, I'll give you a little bit of an anatomy lesson or a health lesson here, when the seed and the egg come together, that's conception. And then after that, the life that's formed has to implant into the mother in order to receive nutrition and to continue to grow and everything else. And the medical industry will come up with different terminology and different phrases for these things and they'll call it a blob of tissue or blastocyst and an embryo and all these different things when it's really a child, it's a life. And what we see in Hebrews 11, 11, the reason why I bring this up is because the conception is conceiving seed. It's the process where the seed is still there from the man. That is what's being conceived is that seed and that's where the life begins is at that moment. So even when that life hasn't implanted yet, there's still a life there, conceived seed is there. Now, we know for a fact, and this is where I'm going to prove it, sometimes you'll see verses in the New Testament that quote the Old Testament, and this is actually a really good way to learn, and you might notice that there's some different words used in the New Testament versus the Old Testament, but they're synonyms. They'll mean the same thing. It's still quoting the Old Testament, but one of the things that we can gain from this is just a really good understanding of two things that are identical, the same thing being revealed here. We have an example of this, and if you want to write down a reference, you can. I'm going to go through this pretty quick though. Isaiah 7, 14 is a prophecy of Mary having Jesus in her womb, and Matthew 1, 23 is the quotation of that verse. Isaiah 7, 14 says, Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign, behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call His name Immanuel. So it's saying there, a virgin is going to conceive, a virgin is going to conceive and have a son, and basically it's going to be Jesus, His name is going to be Immanuel. Matthew 1, 23 says, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call His name Immanuel, which being interpreted as God with us. The exact quotation of the verse, instead of saying, conceive, says be with child, why? Because conceiving and being with child are synonymous. It means the exact same thing. So when a person conceives, they're with child. At that point, at conception, they are with child, there is a life there. And then in Luke 1, 36, the Bible says, And behold, thy cousin Elizabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age. She conceived a son. At conception, it was a son. Before science can tell you the gender, she conceived that son because God gave her that life. Turn to Exodus chapter 21. I'm bringing all this up because the most common form of birth control is for women to take the pill. And you may think that the pill is just going to prevent the egg from being produced from the body, but that's not all that it does. And I don't have all of the statistics and I don't have them all memorized. But if you are taking the pill, and I looked all these up before, I should have included it today, but not only does it attempt to get your body to not produce the egg, it also then has a backup method of making the mother's uterus a place that's hostile for implantation to take place. And what it's doing is it's making that an area that it's going to make sure that if there is conception, then that implantation won't happen. And because this is going on, there are many, many silent abortions that are happening from women taking the pill, they don't even realize it. Because you don't always know, you won't physically know that that seed has been conceived in your body, and women don't always know, you can't know, you can't tell if an egg has been produced or not. There's things that you can't always sense or know or feel. And by taking the pill, what you're doing then is if that conception happens, if there's a life that's been given to you, now that you're making it so that life can't survive. And you could try to lie to yourself and say, well, I mean, that must not be happening to me. But this is why I wish I had the statistics. Because statistically, if you're just taking it regular and you have a regular relationship with your husband, it is happening. And you can pretty much be guaranteed that it's happening. And that's a life. And what we're going to see in Exodus chapter 21 is that God puts the death penalty on killing the life of an unborn child if it's intentional. Look at verse number 22. And it's still a crime. If it's not intentional, it's still a crime. I want to make that clear. It's not like, oh, it's no big deal if I didn't intend to do it. But here's the thing. If you're taking that type of medication, and you can claim ignorance before, but now you can't claim ignorance. Maybe you've never heard that before. Maybe you never read the insert. Maybe you don't know how the process works. You're just going off information that someone else told you. Well, shame on you anyways. You need to be looking at what you're putting into your body, especially when it comes to reproduction and having children. Because that stuff, you take that drug, if you've been taking that drug for a long time, you could stop today and it's still going to have those effects on your body for months, even years to come. It's not like, oh, I want to have a child now. I'll just stop taking the pill and I'll just have a child. That's not the way it works. Exodus 21, look at verse number 22. The Bible says, if men strive and hurt a woman with child so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow, he shall be surely punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him, and he shall pay as the judge is determined. So this is saying if you've got two guys fighting and a woman with child gets hurt, she gets injured so that she loses the child, child dies. If it happened, when it says no mischief follow, it means it was accidental. These guys are fighting, it got a hand or whatever, and she gets hit, she loses the child. It says, you know what, that guy's still going to be punished. There's still a crime that's taking place. Just like with manslaughter, when someone kills somebody accidentally, it's a crime. Even if you didn't mean, you weren't lying in wait, you weren't out to get them, but you're working or whatever, your ex head falls off and hits them in the head and they die. That's still considered manslaughter and there's still a punishment that's paid for that, there's still consequences for that happening. And here we've got someone being punished, but if it was an accident, there's one punishment. But look at what it says in verse 23, and if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life. Meaning if this was planned, or if this was in any way intentional to get that woman to lose her child, then you're going to give life for life. Then the person that did that is going to lose their life. According to scripture, if God's laws were in place, every single abortion doctor ought to be put to death. That would be according to God's law. Because he's doing something to a woman with child to cause that child to die, his life ought to go for that child's life. But it's not just the abortion doctor. When you get brainwashed by this society, by this world into thinking that, oh I can't have another child, or children are a curse, or I shouldn't have a child. And then you start thinking, I need to control that because I still want to have a normal relationship. Look, you usually ought to have a normal relationship. That's why I don't like this, you know, the only time you should be involved in abstinence is if you're not married. The Bible says that you ought to come together, that you should be apart from one another for a short period of time, basically just for prayer and fasting. That Satan tempts you not for your incontinency. If you're married, you ought to be having a regular, normal relationship with your spouse. God has given you marriage, he's given you that gift as well, being with your spouse. You shouldn't be thinking about having children as being a bad thing ever. And saying, well I don't want to have children, and I don't want to be murdering my children by taking drugs and doing other things, so I'm just going to not have that relationship. That's not a good choice either. There's an instance one time of a person, Onan, performing birth control, and what happens to that guy is he ends up getting killed. Now that's the only example we have in the Bible of birth control being practiced, and the guy dies. And you can say, well God killed him for other reasons, it doesn't matter. He didn't want to raise seed up to his brother. He married his brother's wife after his brother died. And he didn't want to raise seed to his brother, so he still wanted to have that relationship and take the wife, but he didn't want to raise seed. Well you know what, people have a lot of different reasons why they don't want to have children. Why they don't want to raise seed. And it doesn't matter what the reason is. God still killed him. That's our example, and I believe that we can get everything that we need to know to live this life out of God's Word. That He gives us all the instruction that we need. If there's anything you want to know about anything, it can come from the Bible. And if that's the only example we have to look at, then what does that tell you? In addition to all of the other verses, and I'm not even turning to everything because there's a lot of different subjects I kind of want to get into in this sermon. These can all be stand alone sermons. There's so much content regarding all of these things in Scripture, I'm just giving you the highlights on some of these. Turn if you would now to Deuteronomy chapter 6. Our view of having children in general should be a positive one. We should look at them as blessings, not cursings, and we should not be doing anything to change God from opening and closing the womb. Whether you want to open or close the womb. Leave that up to God. We're going to switch gears now just because I said there's a lot of different subjects I want to get into. Deuteronomy chapter 6. We're going to see in Deuteronomy 6 the responsibility of the parents to teach children. Verse number 1, Deuteronomy chapter 6, the Bible reads, Now these are the commandments, the statutes, and the judgments which the Lord your God commanded to teach you, that you might do them in the land whether you go to possess it. That thou mightest fear the Lord thy God, to keep all his statutes and his commandments, which I command thee, thou and thy son and thy son's son, all the days of thy life, that thy days may be prolonged. Here, therefore, is real and observed to do it, that it may be well with thee, and that ye may increase mightily, as the Lord God of thy fathers hath promised thee, in the land that floweth with milk and honey. Here, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord, and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart, and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up, and thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes, and thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates. So he's saying, you know, you've been given the law, you've been given my commandments, you've been given the commandments of the Lord, and he's saying, this is extremely important, and you need to teach them diligently unto your children, as it says in verse number seven, and you need to be talking about it with them regularly. So what does that mean? It means that you can't rely on bringing your kids to church to teach your children about God, about his commandments, about everything they need to know. You can't just say, oh well, they got their dose. I brought them here, that's it, and you go home, and you just, no. Is that very diligent? Well, so I diligently bring them to church every week. Well, no, he goes on to define what he's talking about, but about diligently teaching them. He says, talk about them when you're sitting in your house. Talk about it when you're walking by the way. Talk about it when you're lying down to go to bed. Talk about it when you're getting up in the morning. So you talk about it all the time. Why? Because it's that important. Remember, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God shall man live. It's that important, and we need to teach our children, and God has blessed you with the children that you have, and has made it incumbent upon you to teach your own children. You cannot rely on someone else to teach your children. Now, is it work? Yeah. There's always other things that are going to be trying to get your attention and other cares and pleasures of this world that you'd probably rather be doing, but you have to decide for yourself what's important to you. How important is God's word to you? How important are your children to you? What are you willing to sacrifice? How much do you really love your children? If you love your children, you're going to be making sure that they're taught truth and not lies, that they're taught how to walk in the right way, and not getting into all kinds of messes for themselves, and if you really care about your children like that, then you're going to make sure that they understand it, that they know it, and you cannot be sure that your kids know anything if you're not talking to them about it personally. Just because you pay someone else to do it, just because you drop them off and they spend hours every day on end, you still can't be sure of what they know and what they're being taught and anything else unless you do it yourself. It's the only way you're going to know. It's the only way you can be confident in what you're teaching them, in what they're receiving and what they're learning. If you go to Psalm 78, it's a good time also just to make mention, if you already have grown children or if you have children that are older, and you didn't do these things or you've made mistakes with other things, this sermon isn't to bash you at all. The sermons, as with all sermons, are meant, one, to instruct and just to teach good, solid doctrine of just what the Bible teaches. I know that there are situations, because we live in a sinful world, that are not going to be ideal, and sometimes there are situations that will prevent God's perfect will from taking place because something else has already screwed it up. I recognize that, but I'm not going to teach that that's the way to go. To have children out of wedlock, to get yourself involved in situations that because of sin or whatever is going to make things not work out the way that would be ideal and optimal. I realize that there are single moms out there that aren't going to be physically capable of teaching their children and being able to provide for them because they're all by themselves. I get it, but what we're doing is teaching the instruction that is the overall rule. This is what God wants for us to have. When God has given you children, God expects you to be able to teach them. God expects you to train them. That burden has fallen to you as parents. God wants you to be in a relationship where you're married. One man and one woman are married to each other and raising a family. That's what God wants. God wants the man to be out working and providing for the family so that the wife can be at home and directing the house and raising and teaching the children and preparing the food. That's what God wants. That's what the Bible teaches. Just because there's other situations out there doesn't change God's Word. And this is what I'm going to be focused on and teaching on. So if this doesn't fit you for some reason, this is still what we're teaching. The whole purpose and the goal is that maybe if you've made mistakes in your life, well, you should be praising God that at least other people can hear this that haven't made the mistakes and can hear what God's will is and hear what the Bible teaches on these things so that they can do things the way that the Bible is prescribing here. Look at Psalm 78, verse number 1. The Bible says, Give ear, O my people, to my law, incline your ears to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in a parable, I will utter dark sayings of old, which we have heard and known and our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from their children, showing to the generation to come the praises of the Lord and His strength and His wonderful works that He hath done. For He hath established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which He commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children. That the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born, who should arise and declare them to their children, that they might set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, but keep His commandments and might not be as their fathers a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation that set not their heart aright and whose spirit was not steadfast with God. So we see here, there's a generation to come, we need to teach them, we need to make sure that they're being taught about the Lord and their children's children need to be taught about the Lord so that they don't forget the commandments and that they can follow the commandments unlike the generation previous that forgot them. It is incumbent on the parents, that's why you see the fathers or the parents and the children. The fathers need to be teaching the children about the Lord, about God's commandments, about the ways of the world. We need to learn from, turn if you would to Proverbs, we're going to look at a lot of different Proverbs. Turn to Proverbs chapter 1. I'm going to read for you from Job 39. Job 39 talks about the ostrich, the ostrich that has no wisdom. Verse number 13 of Job 39 reads, Gavest thou the goodly wings unto the peacocks, or wings and feathers unto the ostrich, which leaveth her eggs in the earth, and warmeth them in dust, and forgetteth that the foot may crush them, or that the wild beast may break them. She is hardened against her young ones, as though they were not hers. Her labor is in vain without fear, because God hath deprived her of wisdom, neither hath he imparted to her understanding. We get a lot of teaching and instruction just from this example or parable of an ostrich. Now this is the way an ostrich acts. They bury their eggs in the dirt and they leave them. You you you you you you you Real quickly, but we're gonna look at Proverbs 1, Proverbs 2, Proverbs 3, Proverbs 4, and we're gonna see the instruction What is the book of Proverbs? A book of wisdom? Being taught, right? Mostly from Solomon, but it's a book that's that's designed to give wisdom, to give instruction, to understand things, to give knowledge. The book of Proverbs. Well, look at Proverbs 1, verse number 8. What does it say? My son, hear the instruction of thy father and forsake not the law of thy mother, for they shall be an ornament of grace under thy head and chains about thy neck. Proverbs 2, look at verse number 1. My son, if thou wilt receive my words and hide my commandments with thee. Proverbs 3, verse number 1. My son, forget not my law, but let thine heart keep my commandments. Proverbs 3, 21. My son, let them not depart from thine eyes, keep sound wisdom and discretion. Proverbs 4, verse number 1. Hear ye children the instruction of a father and attend to no understanding, for I give you good doctrine, forsake ye not my law, for I was my father's son, tender and only beloved in the sight of my mother. He taught me also and said unto me, let thine heart retain my words, keep my commandments, and live. Verse number 10. Hear, O my son, and receive my sayings. In the years of thy life shall be many. Proverbs 5, verse number 1. My son, attend unto my wisdom and bow thine ear to my understanding. Do we need to keep going on? My son, my son, my son, listen to me. I'm giving you wisdom. I'm giving you instruction. You need to understand this. My son, my son, wisdom is given from father to child. That's the Bible way of doing it. With your family, with your children, dad, mom, the law of the mother, the law of the father, they need to be given to your children from you. Nothing is a substitute from your teaching. Church, school, nothing. Obviously there's a place to come to church, there's a place to learn other things, but you are the primary person to instill wisdom and knowledge and instruction in what your children need to know needs to come from you. And if you're dropping your kids off for eight hours a day in someone else's care, where in the world are you going to have time to provide all that instruction for them? Are you really being diligent to making sure, nope, when we lay down, when we rise up, when we're by the way, when we're on that road trip, when we're go, you know, wherever we are, we're going to teach that to you. It's the Bible's instruction. God's given you those children. They're a blessing. Treat them as such. Care about them as such. The Bible says in Proverbs 22, 6, turn if you would to Proverbs 23. Proverbs 23. Proverbs 22, 6 says, Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it. What a great promise. God's saying, no, if you do your job, if you do the proper job of training and teaching, when your children grow up, they're not going to depart from it. Amen. That's good news. That means there's light at the end of the road. All the work that you're going to invest in raising your children and teaching them and everything, it's not going to be in vain. It's not in vain. It will stick. Even if it doesn't seem like it is at first. But when they're young, keep doing it. They will receive it and it will stay with them for the rest of their life. Look at Proverbs 23, verse number 19. The Bible says, Hear thou, my son, and be wise, and guide thine heart in the way. Be not among winebibbers, among riotous eaters of flesh. For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty, and drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags. Hearken unto thy father that begat thee, and despise not thy mother when she is old. Buy the truth and sell it not, also wisdom and instruction and understanding. The father of the righteous shall greatly rejoice, and he that begetteth a wise child shall have joy of him. Thy father and thy mother shall be glad, and she that bear thee shall rejoice. My son, give me thine heart, and let thine eyes observe my ways. One of the important parts of teaching and being diligent about teaching wisdom and instruction is being able to lead by example. Making sure that you are becoming wise and that you are living a life because your children are going to be learning from you. Sometimes you're going to learn more through your actions than you ever say to them. So if you are truly going to be diligent in the instruction of your children, it's more than just do what I say. Do what I say as I do. That's what's going to hit home the most. Flip back to chapter 22. It's the last point I got for today on this subject. We see a family size. The Bible teaches that children are a blessing and having a large family is a good thing in the Bible. It's a great thing to have. It's completely polar opposite of what the world is going to tell you. We see that using birth control is not only un-biblical but it's wicked and it's a sin and it's not something that should be practiced. Again, something that the world is going to think is you're crazy if you don't practice birth control. Like people always ask us, are you done? I don't know, am I God? Are you saying, I hope not? That's what I always say, I hope not. I don't know. How many are you going to have? I love that one because that's the best thing. As many as the good Lord blesses me with. That's how many I'm going to have because they're a blessing. But teaching our children, it's our responsibility as well. Now this is something that's actually becoming, it's kind of nice that it's becoming more acceptable in the world because it makes it a little bit easier to get some resources and stuff like that. But still by and large it seems to be more of like a Christian thing of people doing homeschooling but it should be a Christian thing because it's an incumbent responsible for us. What's your alternative? Government run education? You just want to have government propaganda, talk to your kids all day? That doesn't sound very appealing either. The last point I'm going to make on family life and how we ought to be different is this used to not be different at all. This used to be the way things were up until very recently and that's with the disciplining of your children. And biblical correction has to do with spanking. That is the biblical method of disciplining your child. It's not a time out, it's not a take something away from you because you did this or whatever, it's not yelling, it is spanking. And we're going to see this proven from scripture, Proverbs 22. And you guys want to mention this as well, we're going to talk about it a little bit more tonight. I'm going to stay kind of on the same subject and explain that we're a family integrated church here. But I just want people to understand because this is something that people are getting hardened against as spanking and the world has this big brainwashing campaign to try to teach you that you're abusing your children if you give them the spanking and try to get this to be really looked down upon. But I am very firm with the opinion that if my child needs to be disciplined that it's best to do it right away and if they need to discipline no matter where we're at then they're just going to get their discipline right then and there. And if it makes people uncomfortable then you need to get comfortable with the Word of God. Especially if it's at church. If my son needs a spanking, now I'm not saying he's going to be brought up in front of everybody and make a big spectacle about it. But if my son or your son or your daughter or someone needs to have that correction done then we ought not to be looking down on that correction or being averse to it because it needs to be done. We ought not to be looking down on God that people are loving their children enough to give them that correction that discipline that the Bible prescribes. We'll go into that a little bit more tonight. Look at Proverbs 22 verse number 15. The Bible says foolishness is bound in the heart of a child. They're going to do stupid things. We know this. Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child. But the rod of correction shall drive it far from him. The purpose of the correction of using a rod to discipline your child is to drive the foolishness away. I mean who wants their child to just continue to do stupid things? And that's what I mean. They're doing foolish things. They're doing stupid things. The rod of correction. We're going to get more explicit as we go here. Turn if you would to Proverbs 29. We're going to start reading verse number 15. Because you always have people, these apologists, that want to try to teach you that the discipline being taught here isn't a spanking. Oh, oh, the rod. That's just a parable. That's just... What? What? Look, we know what parables are in the Bible. We know when analogies are being used. It's pretty obvious and pretty apparent. Right? But when you have just direct statements. Like, hey, a child's being foolish and the rod of correction is going to drive it from him. It's hard to come up with any other explanation other than, well, what is a rod even being used for? The Bible talks about the punishment of other foolish people at the rod for the back of the fool. Talk about an adult, like a grown man, who commits a crime that's, yeah, maybe it's not the worst thing in the world, but it's something that he needs to be disciplined for. Punished for. They get a beating. They get a flogging. That's a Bible punishment. That's what the rod is used for. Look at Proverbs 29, verse number 15, the Bible says, the rod and reproof give wisdom. So, again, when you're disciplining your children, it's not just the rod. It's not just the pain aspect. It's also the reproof. It's also explaining and telling them why they're wrong. What they did. They need the instruction as well as the pain aspect to help them to fully understand what they're doing. It says, but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame. Now, the number one reason, I think, why parents who actually believe in spanking don't do it is because of laziness. Because you may be doing something else, and you don't want to have to stop what you're doing in order to discipline your child. And I'll tell you what, it may seem like it's not that big of a deal, oh, it's just this one time, you know, but when you get into that habit, when you make the allowances, well, I'm busy cooking, I'm busy cleaning, I'm busy doing this, it's going to be that much easier just to never end up doing it. And then you're leaving your child to themselves, and then it's going to bring you to shame. Or maybe you don't want to do it because you don't want to hear the crying. You had it, I don't want to hear their crying, but you're making it worse on yourself. Because if they need to be disciplined, there's going to be a good reason for it, and if they're not already whining and fussing, they're going to be doing it even more, so you're going to be hearing that anyways. You might as well just have the crying, and then you actually give them the proper discipline that they need to receive. Let's keep reading here, verse number 16, the Bible says, When the wicked are multiplied, transgression increases, but the righteous shall see their fall. Correct thy son, and he shall give thee rest, yea, he shall give delight unto thy soul. See, the correction is actually very, very useful. I can't tell you how many times we've been out in restaurants and people will say, Wow, what do you do? Your children are so well behaved. Why? Because in a world where people have just completely abandoned giving appropriate discipline of spanking the rear end, children are turning into monsters, and they have no respect, they can't sit still, you can't bring them anywhere without running around and causing all kinds of chaos and everything's out of control. And that's what people are getting used to these days, to the point of where they're making a comment, that ought to be the norm, that ought to be the standard. Yeah, they better not get up and cause a problem, because if they do, they're going to get a whooping. And when people say, What do you do? I say, I beat them. They better not cause a problem. And that's how they give you rest though, when you correct them appropriately, they're going to get rest, you will have rest. Why? Because you're going to teach them how to learn, how to sit still. Because they won't keep doing it. I guarantee you, if you are disciplined properly, they will not continue in their bad behavior. They will learn how to be good. They can and will learn how to be good. If you go to Proverbs 23, Proverbs 19-18 says, Chasing thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying. No kid likes being spanked, they don't like the discipline. Of course not. If you're doing it right, they're going to be crying. Now look, I love my kids, I don't like to see them in pain, I don't like to see them crying, right? It's not like a pleasant thing, and I just get all this joy out of my children, crying and hurting. But it's a necessary thing that needs to be done, because I do love them. And I'm not going to spare for their crying. Just because they're crying, I'm going to say, nope, I still need to do this anyways. It needs to be done. As a father, as a mother, they need to be corrected, they need to be chastened. And the Bible talks about their saying, while there's hope. Because if you let it go too long, and you don't give them the correction, and they don't get the discipline, you can get to a point to where, well now there's no more hope, now you're not going to be able to correct them because you didn't do it when you were supposed to. You didn't do it early enough, you just let everything go, you let them continue on, they didn't get their discipline, now there's no more hope for them. And they get old enough, and I can't tell you exactly what age that might be or whatever, but we need to make sure that we're careful about this and not just letting things slide too much. Not just letting it go, and dealing with it another day, and I don't want to hear their crying. Proverbs 23, look at verse number 13, the Bible says, and this, you can't get any more explicit than this, that's why I love trying to point this out to people. Good luck trying to twist this scripture into saying something other than spanking being what this is talking about for discipline. Proverbs 23, 13, the Bible says, withhold not correction from the child, for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell. If you want to try to tell me that means something other than what it says, then I don't even want to talk to you. I can't even have a discussion with you about that because the Bible means what it says and it says what it means. Now the only thing that I would discuss is that when we commonly in, like today, might hear the word beat, you might think of someone getting beat up. Right? And just being totally pummeled or something like that. That is not what the Bible is talking about. It's about beating your son with the rod. Okay? It's not like this, it's not like a Rodney King beating. Okay? That's not even close. But we hear that word used in association with those types of things, like beating, beating, or someone beating their children. And you know, they gave their kid a black eye or a bloody nose or whatever because they are abusing them. They're beating them up more than they're just actually supposed to discipline them. See, your discipline shouldn't be injuring your child. That's not the point at all. There is supposed to be no injury. That's why God has provided the padded part of our area that has nerve endings on it. So that the children can feel the pain. They can experience the sharp pain without having any injuries. And the reason why it says, you know, the rod, and I believe that we use a rod. I don't like using anything else. If you use your hand, you could actually end up causing injury to your children if you're not really careful with that because, it's hard to demonstrate, right? But when you use your hand, you're going to get a lot more blunt force behind your hand as opposed to being able to kind of flick your wrist with the rod to get just like a nice snap to give you that sting. As opposed to, you know, maybe potentially doing some more harm internally or something and kind of moving their bones or things that you don't want to do. Because even if I ever have to use my hand, I try to do the quick slap on the skin. Because what's the point? The point isn't to injure your child at all. You love your children. You don't want to injure them. No matter what they did, you're not out to injure them. You're correcting them. You're correcting the action. And the way you correct it is by letting them know that they can't do whatever they want and there will be a consequence that is very unpleasant for them. And it's not going to feel good. And they ought not to do it again. That's the correction. Now, the reason why I believe this is actually really important and child-rearing and that this is the method I'll be using is what it says here in Proverbs 23, 13. It says, first of all, don't withhold correction. And when you're withholding, it means you're not beating them with the rod because that's what it says. It says, look, if you beat them with the rod, they're not going to die. You're not going to kill them, okay? What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger, right? But then it says in verse 14, thou shalt beat them with the rod and shall deliver his soul from hell. What does that have to do with salvation? Here's what it has to do with salvation. Obviously, you don't have to receive a spanking in order to go to heaven, okay? But what you're doing is you're teaching that consequence and the pain aspect of consequences to your action. Unfortunately, these days, we have probably an unprecedented number of children, definitely in this country, who aren't even believing in the reality of hell. They don't believe it. What do they say? What are they going to say? It's like the Jehovah's Witnesses. Well, a loving God would never torture anybody or send anyone to hell and experience that level of pain or that, you know, it's unfathomable. How could a loving God do that? Well, how could a loving parent cause pain to their children? I mean, I could do it. Now, I'm not going to send them to hell. Of course, God's not going to send any of his children to hell. But the concept that there is a physical feeling of pain associated with doing wrong and breaking laws is just this fundamental concept that needs to be taught to children. It's a lot easier to accept there's a hell where souls go to burn and be tortured and tormented forever when you've already been taught that, hey, when I break the rules, when I break the law, this is what happens to me from a very young age. That concept of right and wrong and laws and punishment is ingrained in them from a young age when you're disciplining them appropriately. And them just having that understanding and that knowledge is going to go a long way. I know this firsthand just from going out soul winning. It's a lot harder. When someone doesn't even believe in hell, what do they need a savior for? That's why one of the very first things I show people is just to see if they'll accept the fact that they've broken God's law and that they deserve this punishment. Because if they can't even get that far, then they don't need a savior because they don't think they do. It's very rudimentary stuff and this is what the Bible teaches. I think we've gone to enough scripture already proving these things, but your family life, whether or not you have a family right now, just keep these things in mind. We ought to be living different than the world. We ought to be disciplining our children the way God says that we ought to discipline them. We ought to be teaching them the way that God says we ought to be teaching them. We ought to be looking at them and viewing children the way that the Bible says we ought to be viewing them. And not allowing for the brainwashing that's going on out there that would call children some big burden and you don't want to have too many of them. I do. I don't think there is such a thing as too many. I love all of them. I'm glad every single one of them is here. I'll close on this. Whenever someone says something about, oh, you're going to have another kid, especially if it's a family member, they'll say, well, which one do you wish wasn't here? Because once the next one is born, I guarantee you're going to love them and you're going to wish, you're going to be glad that they were born. Why can't you have that foresight and just understand that once we're a child again, that yeah, we're going to love that child. That child is going to be awesome just like the other ones. We love them all the same and I thank God for every single one of them. Let's have a word of prayer. Dear Lord, we thank you so much for the teaching and instruction that you give us in all aspects of our life, dear Lord. I pray that you would please just help us to have the faith. Sometimes we need that faith to act and do things and to make changes in our life. To go along with the principles that you teach here in your words. I pray that you would please strengthen us to do that. Lord, I pray that you would please bless our church. Bless everyone in our church. God, I pray that you would please help us to raise godly families and have children that learn to love you and that will serve you for the rest of their lives, dear Lord. I pray that there is some teaching and something from your word that was able to help people today. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.