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And Pharaoh Niko put him in bands at Riblah in the land of Hamath that he might not reign in Jerusalem, and put the land to a tribute of a hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold. And Pharaoh Niko made Eliakim, the son of Josiah, king in the room of Josiah's father, and turned his name to Jehoiakim, and took Jehoah as a way, and he came to Egypt and died there. And Jehoiakim gave the silver and the gold of Pharaoh, but he taxed the land and gave the money according to the commandment of Pharaoh. He exacted the silver and the gold of the people of the land, of everyone according to his taxation, to give it unto Pharaoh Niko. Jehoiakim was twenty and five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Zebura, the daughter of Padea, of Ruma, and he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his father sent down. Brother Jeff, would you pray for us? Dear Lord, thank you so much for the word of God, Lord, and all the truth. Thank you, Father, everyone, for praying now. You do the Passover. You pray the Word. You lay it on the Father. Lord, it gives us this year to be a part of the message. Take something from the message and change our lives. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. All right. Amen. Well, happy Father's Day to all you fathers out there. Today's sermon is going to be somewhat shorter, just so we can get to the tacos, right, brother? I love giving you a hard time, brother. I love the church. You guys have such great sense of humor. It makes my job easier. But it will be a little bit shorter, just so that we can get to that. The title of the sermon this morning is A Father Unto Generations. A Father Unto Generations. And what I mean by that is I want to show you from the passage here in Kings and elsewhere how you can have an impact, not just to your children, but beyond that, right? We shouldn't just be focused necessarily on our lives, our success, and just, you know, just our immediate children, right? We want to teach them how to teach these principles to their children, and to their children, and to their children. Because at the end of the day, it's the kingdom of God that we're concerned about, that we care about. And that's what we want to build up, right? And you're going to do that by having a long lasting effect. For example, how many of you here know stories about your great, great, great grandfather? All right. Some of you do. Some of you may not. I really, I can go back a few generations, but the stories I'm going to tell you this morning aren't really pertaining to the kingdom of God. It's just funny things I've learned, you know, that were passed down. But, you know, we need to learn how to pass information on to our children and to motivate our kids so that they don't turn out like Jehoiachim, okay? So, you read the chapter here, long chapter. Well, what the majority of it though is Josiah's exploits. I mean, this guy does some outstanding things. Josiah was a great man of God. I don't think anybody would debate that at all. Yeah, I understand the way he went out is not necessarily the best way to go. You know, he died on a hill that he didn't need to die on. You know, he didn't need to fight Pharaoh and Eco, you know? And now you see that even in more detail as you read through Chronicles. But we're going to take a look at what was it that made Jehoiachim and his sons not like him, okay? So, what we're going to do is we're going to start in verse number 21 here. Look at 2 Kings 23 verse 21. It says, And the king commanded all the people, saying, Keep the Passover unto the Lord your God, as it is written in the book of the covenant. You see, in 2 Kings chapter 22, it says that Josiah became a king at eight years old. So, you have to understand that he's been in leadership most of his life. It's what he's known. And one of the things that made him such a success was his adherence to the Word of God. So, when you're reading through 2 Kings chapter 22, they find the book of the law amongst God's things in the temple, and they begin to read it and study it, and they inquire about it, and they meditate on it, and then they follow it to a T. And that's what you're seeing here. And what does that do? That brings a temporary revival to Judah, and that's key to understand. It brings a temporary revival. Look at verse number 22. It says, Surely there was not holding such a Passover from the days of the judges that judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel, nor of the kings of Judah. Verse 23, But in the eighteenth year of King Josiah, wherein this Passover was holding to the Lord in Jerusalem, moreover the workers with familiar spirits, and the wizards, and the images, and the idols, and all the abominations that were spied in the land of Judah, and in Jerusalem did Josiah put away, that he might perform the words of the law which were written in the book that Hilkiah the priest found in the house of the Lord. And see, that's what the Word of God will do to you. It will cause you to get rid of the junk and the trash that is in your life. And, you know, it is going to bring revival. It will bring revival to a city. It will bring revival to a nation. It will bring a revival to a church that may have not been following these practices, you know, for very long. But one thing that we're going to learn here is that God hasn't forgot all the wickedness that Manasseh and Ammon have done, right? And you're going to see that this is kind of like America today. You know, some churches like ours are on fire, and we're doing a lot of works for God, and you're going to see temporary revival. But, you know, the iniquity of these presidents and these rich corporate CEOs and these shadow government type people, it can't go unpunished. It's going to have to happen, right? And that's important to understand, and I'll just tell you, I might be getting ahead of myself slightly here, but that information and that truth you're going to see is vital to share with your children, and you're going to see why. Look at verse 25. It says, And like unto him was there no king before him that turned to the Lord with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses, neither after him arose there any like him. So the Bible says we're kings and priests. You know, I like to look to the kings to see what they did, what they did right, what they did wrong, and this is a man who did some stuff right. Amen. This guy went to the book of the law and said, we're going to follow this to the T, okay? Now look at verse 26. It says, Notwithstanding, the Lord turned not from the fierceness of his great wrath, wherewith his anger was kindled against Judah because of all the provocations that Manasseh had provoked him with all. So you see, God's not going to let those things slide. Okay. Verse 27. And the Lord said, I will remove Judah also out of my sight as I have removed Israel and will cast off this city Jerusalem, which I have chosen, and the house of which I said my name shall be there. That's a verse that most churches today don't like to read and probably don't even want to admit that's in the Bible because what's the mindset today? Oh, Israel, oh, the temple, oh, the Jew, right? Well, he just said he's casting all that stuff off. Now jump down to verse 31, if you would. So obviously, you know the story. We just read it. Josiah was killed by Pharaoh, and he was killed in battle. Verse 31, it says, Jehoahaz, which was his son, Jehoahaz was 20 and three years old when he began to reign, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem, and his mother's name was Hamutel, the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah. Verse 32, And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his fathers had done. Obviously, he gets dethroned very quickly, and Josiah's son, Jehoiakim, who's given that name by Pharaoh and Eco, takes the reigns. He reigns for 11 years, and Babylon comes knocking on the door shortly hereafter. Now, the question that I have for you is why did Jehoiakim, why did Jehoahaz, why did they turn out the way that they are? Did you catch that when we read through the passages? There's a couple of reasons here, but I think you can find it if you look again at verse 26 and verse 27. Notwithstanding, the Lord turned not against from the fierceness of his great wrath, right? And then in verse 27, what does it say? And the Lord said, I will remove Judah also out of my sight. So what you have to understand here is that this truth, right, this truth that God was not done repaying Judah for the crimes that Manasseh did and some of the kings before that, the truth is that God's going to destroy them. That truth was spoken of throughout the land during the time of Josiah. It's not like that was a secret, right? But one thing you don't read about is that truth being emphasized to the people. They're focused on their temporary revival and hey, who wouldn't be, right? But what I think you're going to see here is that they neglected, I believe that Josiah neglected to really hammer that truth in to Jehoahaz and in to Jehoiakim. And so point number one this morning is as fathers, we need to be able to teach our children the harsh realities of life. As fathers, we need to be able to teach our children the harsh realities of life. Turn to Proverbs chapter number 22. And you say, well, what in the world do you mean by that? Well, here you have a situation where they have revival. Their country had been in ruins. They've already seen the Northern Kingdom of Israel get carried away into captivity. And now all of a sudden they're starting to follow the Bible. They're starting to follow the word and things are going well. They're going great. They're starting to get prosperity. God is happy with Josiah and the people that are obviously following the Lord. There's no doubt about that, but they neglected to remind the people and to continuously teach the people that, hey, guess what? God's still going to destroy Judah. It's too late, right? That's something I think they probably didn't want to talk about because that's bad news. And you know what? Sometimes the truth hurts, but I believe if Josiah would have spent more time with his kids and actually taught them this truth, that they might've been better prepared for what happened because you've all heard the stories about people who get shelter. They grow up sheltered and all of a sudden they get out into the world. What typically happens? They go nuts. They go crazy. They don't handle things correctly all the time. Amen. So you're there in Proverbs chapter 22. I'm going to read for you Psalm 100 verse five real quick. It says, for the Lord is good. His mercy is everlasting and his truth endureth to all generations. You see God's truth, whether it is a good and well-received truth or whether it's the kind of truth that hurts, that truth lasts through all generations. And as God's people, we need to make sure that we are able and strong enough to embrace that truth and teach that truth to our children, make sure that they understand it. Hey, it's not all going to be cupcakes and biscuits and roses for some of these kids. You know what? There's going to rise a generation that's going to come from us fathers. That's going to have to endure the tribulation. There is no pre-trib rapture. That's a fact. You are not going to get snatched out of here. There's no Bible verse to support that. Right. But think about all the people that believe in that lie. What are they going to react? How are they going to react when the going gets tough? You know, are they going to try to write that off? I mean, the jury's still out on that one. I'm sure some of them be like, okay, we were wrong. We need to just get on board here. Right. But it would be so much better. And it could probably do so much more for God and be so much better equipped if they were just told the hardcore truth right off the bat, man. Proverbs chapter 22, look at verse three. It says this, a prudent man foreseeeth the evil. So you say, what is a prudent person? A prudent person is somebody who looks well to his going. Somebody who can foresee danger, who can foresee trouble and respond to it in a godly, wise manner. A prudent man foreseeeth evil and hideth himself, but the simple pass on and are punished. And you know what? A lot of times it's simple, just like to pass on realities of life. And you know what happens? They get destroyed. I know this girl that I grew up going to school with. I remember her all throughout junior high and high school. She used to go to the local Nazarene church. And I just remember looking at her, you know, cause I had class with her all the time and thinking, man, she never has fun, you know, because she came to school in skirts and, you know, just looked kind of plain and never said any cuss words, never laughed at her stupid jokes. And I, and at that time, obviously it was very carnal. I was saved, but I was super carnal, you know, and I was just making fun of her and stuff like that. Well, later on in life, we all graduate high school. A few years later, I hear that she graduates from a, from a college, a four-year university and has just gone completely rogue. I mean, she just went into all manner of fornication, sin, trying this, trying that. And, you know, thinking back, I realized that her parents had kept her so sheltered from the world. They didn't teach her the dangers that were out there. And when she was exposed to those things, she did not know how to respond properly. And so what happened is she wound up really causing herself a lot of grief, a lot of anger towards God and, you know, the rest is history. And that's exactly what we don't want to happen. I think possibly the Jehovah has got, you know, his father got killed and maybe he was bitter or maybe he just heard too much about Manasseh, but either way, he was not mentally prepared for his role as a leader. And every father is a leader. Every one of you is a leader. If you think about it, you know, we're Kings and we're priests. You are a born again, Bible believing Christian with the truth that can snatch somebody out of eternal hell. You have someone to lead every single week. And you know what? We should never shy away from teaching our children or teaching people the truth, no matter how much it might hurt, because the truth is the truth and it's going to come out. Right? So think about if Josiah would have said, Hey, you know what? I'm going to teach my kids. Hey, I know that the revival is going well right now. I know things are going great, but you know what? God's still going to come and he's going to punish Judah. Let me prepare you for that. Let me get you ready for that. Let me teach you some things that will help you and get you through that. You know, listen to Jeremiah, the prophet, right? Listen to these guys go into captivity, go along with it because that's what God wants. Right? If he would have done that, I think you would have seen a different outcome, but he didn't. And you know, we're all human. We all make mistakes. I'm not down on Josiah. This was a guy who followed the Bible. He would have been an excellent independent fundamental Baptist preacher. Amen. He would have been. So let's sort of forget that. Now turn back to second Kings real quick. Turn back to second Kings and look again at verse number 26. And you say, well, what do we do about all this? How do we go about doing this? What's a great way to do this. And here's the answer again, one more time, these two verses now withstanding the Lord turned not from the fierceness of his great wrath, wherewith his anger was kindled against Judah because of all the provocations of Manasseh had provoked him with all verse 27 again. And the Lord said, and the Lord said, I will remove Judah also out of my sight as I have removed Israel and will cast off the city Jerusalem, which I have chosen and the house of which I said, my name shall be there. So what we have to do is we have to realize what God is saying. What is God saying about the attitudes of people in the last days? What does God saying is going to happen to this world as we know it, as time increases, we need to learn what those things are. And we need to make sure and prepare our children for those things so that they can prepare their children. Because look, a lot of us, you know, we don't know when the end times are going to be. I mean, obviously we're in the end times, you know, but we don't know if the anti-Christ right now is like, you know, at that perfect age, 25, 26 years old, and he's going to take over the world. We don't know that he could be 12 years old or it's possibly he's not even born yet. We don't know. Right. But we need to act in accordance to God's word and prepare our children for the hard times that are coming. Not just shelter them, not just be like, Oh, don't worry about it. Because what typically happens is when they find out the reality, they're going to respond in a negative way. You know, they might get bitter, hold resentment towards you because you never told them and decide, you know, I'm just going to go into the world then because at least they told me the truth. Right. They didn't lie to me. Right. They might go that way. So we need to remember that real quickly. Turn to second Timothy chapter number three. So what we need to do, what I see that we need to do out of those two verses in second Kings is hearken to what God has said and not deny that in teach our children. And I want to show you this here. Second Timothy three, we read these verses all the time, but let this sink in. Look at verse number one, this know also that in the last day, perilous times shall come. What does that mean? Perilous times, danger, perils, trouble, right? Days that are full of risk. Look, we're definitely headed in that direction in this country. Right. Think about Seattle. Think about the fathers that raised those little brats. You know, they probably didn't get spanking. They probably didn't get told the harsh realities of life. And so they grew up and say, Oh, you know what? I want everything for free. You know, my boss fired me. Now I'm upset. I'm going to go join this little nation called Antifa or BLM or whatever it's called and go take over some city blocks. And guess what? You have a governor of that state. Who's got no stones. Who's a wicked devil, right? Who wasn't taught anything about life or leadership from his father. And he's just like, hands off. Right. But you bring 500 people into a church service and he's probably going to do something about that. Right. Because he looks, he looks for the easy meal though. That's what those types of people do. They look for the easy meal. Oh, the Christians aren't going to fight back, but I don't want to mess with these Antifa guys. Either that or it's just all part of the, the, the, the script. Right. But either way, know this also that in the last days, perilous times shall come. Your job as a father guys is to make sure that your children realize that look, things may be going well here in Boise right now. Things may be going well in your life. You have revival, you have, you know, you have your, your, all your stuff at home. You're not begging for bed. You're not having to fight for your meals and stuff like that, but just realize, right? It's not always going to be like this. There will come perilous times. And you're starting to see that now look at verse number two for men shall be lovers of their own selves. Covetous boasters, proud blasphemers, blasphemers, disobedience to parents, unthankful and unholy. This is the culture that we have to train our children to grow up in. This is why I believe it is so important to come to church and to learn the principles in the Bible, because it will teach you how to live among these people. There are ways to deal with these people. You can still have success. You can still live a Holy separated biblical life amongst this type of crowd. If you couldn't, these verses wouldn't be in the Bible. There wouldn't be the call to train our children in the way where they should go. So when they're old, they will not depart from it. So verse number three, without natural affection, why don't you go up to Chaz and try to find somebody who has natural affection? They have no problems just killing people and, you know, raping and pillaging and doing all manner of evil. Just because you don't see it on the nightly news coming from there does not mean that it isn't going on. Because the Bible says that most of those people are filled with unrighteousness and you say, well, how do you know most of those people are filled with unrighteousness? Because there's a lot of homosexuals up there. That's how I know that, right? A lot of those people in that organization, Antifa or BLM are homosexuals or sodomites. And the Bible says they're filled with all unrighteousness and they don't have natural affection. They have zero natural. They will kill you for whatever they want because they're covetous, they're boasters and they're proud. That's why you see these fag flags up everywhere in June. Proud people. It's interesting here. So he says without natural affection, truth breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce despisers of those that are good. Despisers of those that are good. Those who are saved that have that new man inside of them. The Bible says that in these perilous times, the world will not like you. They will not like your children. They will try to take advantage of them. If you send your child to a four-year university, you better believe they will get tried in ways you may have never even thought of before. And that's why I say, you know what is better for the Bible believing Christians to just probably not even go down that road, right? I believe there are just some jobs that God's people don't need, right? Because they are going to take you away from his house, away from his people, away from his statutes and his teachings. And you know what? Once you go down that road as God's child, you're going to get devoured by the people who run these perilous times. And look, if we're going to keep this thing going and we're going to keep getting people saved and we're going to keep having this temporary revival that we're having, we've got to make sure that these kids in these know how it's going to be. And we prepare them because look, there's nothing worse than getting sucker punched. Well, guess what? There's nothing worse than getting sucker punched from life. Okay. It's the same thing. And I believe that's what happened to Josiah's children. Verse four, traitors, heady, high-minded lovers of pleasure, more than lovers of God. Isn't that the truth? Verse five, having a form of Godliness, but denying the power thereof from such turn away. Go back to second Kings chapter 23. Back to second Kings 23. So point number one is very simple. As fathers, we need to be able to teach our children the harsh realities of life. There is benefit in doing that. When we do that, when we're honest with our children, we say, Hey, it's not always going to be this easy. Guess what? They can mentally prepare. It will stick with them. And then they can in turn teach their children those same principles. Right. That's the goal here. Right. We don't want to just focus on us. We don't want to just hope that they turn out right. Because you did the right thing. Josiah, I mean, there's a whole chapters here of Josiah just kicking butt and taking needs. This guy went up to what used to be Israel, dug up these false prophets bones and burned them on their false prophet altars. Right. He went and took the bones that, you know, were buried in the ground where Jeroboam, the son of Ebat set up, you know, these altars and these golden calves and all this stuff. He went back there and he's like, I'm going to burn, I'm going to burn your bones and I'm going to burn your altars and stamp them into powder. Right. I'm going to finish the job. I mean, that is some super zeal. I mean, that is crazy. It's like, no one told you to do that. I mean, they're dead, man. You know, you could have just preached against them or something, but he's like, no, I'm making an example. We're going to have a super illustrative story thing going on here, but let's move on here. Look at verse number 19. So back up to verse 19. It says in all the house, also the high places that were in the cities of Samaria, which the Kings of Israel had made to provoke the Lord anger, Josiah took away and did to them, according to all the acts that he had done in Bethel. Remember Bethel was in Israel. That's where Jeroboam set up one of the golden calves. He set him one up in Bethel, one up in Dan verse 20. And he slew all the priests of the high places that were there upon the altars and burned men's bones upon them and returned to Jerusalem. So we're getting ready to look at point number two here. Here's another area where I see that Josiah failed. And this is an area where we as fathers can be greatly tempted to follow suit. And that is this notice what he's doing. He's doing the extra work, nothing wrong with working hard, nothing wrong with doing the extra work, right? But he takes it upon himself to go all the way up to Israel, to go all the way up there, have these guys bones dug up, you know, and start smashing all this stuff and burning these things. And then he returns to Jerusalem where he dwells. So here's point number two, get your work done, but not at the expense of spending time with your children. Get your work done, be a hard worker, but not at the expense of spending time with your children. Turn to Acts chapter 21. One of the regrets that I read that Jack Hiles had was not spending enough time with his children. And if you know anything about his children, you'll see that that is very, very true. In fact, a lot of them have, I don't know the full story, but I do know that they've turned on him and there's, you know, Ted talks where his daughter gets up and she's, you know, oh, my father was this and that, you know, I just think it's funny that it's after he died that these things supposedly come out. So, but the point here is obviously it's very obvious. Josiah failed to spend enough time with his children. He spent, you know, and that's why he probably didn't teach them the realities that he was told during his reign. Yeah, we're following the Bible, but during that time, there was still revelation from God. There were still prophets walking around saying, hey, thus saith the Lord. And one of the things they were saying was, hey, God's not done. Enjoy it, but guess what? Get ready because Babylon's coming. Right? Well, guess what? Here's the other area when he worked hard, but he did it at the expense of spending time with his children. So you're there in Acts chapter 21. We read this last week, but I think it's very applicable here. Look at verse five. It says, and when we had accomplished those days, we departed and went our way. And they all brought us on our way with wives and children till we were out of the city and we kneeled down on the shore and prayed. And when we had taken our leave, one of another, we took ship and they returned home again. So we talked about this a little bit last week, but it's so applicable today. See in the New Testament, we have the disciples here. We have these apostles. We have these believers and what are they doing? They're praying. They're doing the works of God. They're getting it done, but with their children, with their wives. They're not sacrificing that time. Right? And that's why one of the things I love about our family here is that, you know, Kylin, Kenlee and Kaiden, they work really hard. Jessica, she works very hard and we're able to do a lot of it by ourselves, you know, together. Right? It's not like I'm always going off. See, when I worked at the shipyard, it was always me going to Japan or me going to Everett or me going to San Diego or whatever. You know, I was always leaving. So I myself have fallen prey to this Josiah syndrome where I would go away for a while. I mean, I missed the first four months of Kylin's life because of Hurricane Katrina, but that was my choice. I signed my name on the dotted contract. The military owned me and they told me when I had to jump and how high, and I had to comply with that. You know, I missed a lot. I missed a full year of their lives because I went to Japan for Uncle Sam. Right? Now, thank God that, you know, they're doing great now, but what would have happened to them if I continued that trend? See where I'm going with this? You know, at that point, it's a gamble. They may turn out right, or they may not. Somebody is going to train your children. It's either going to be you, or it's going to be the world. And we all know who the lowercase g god of this world is, right? So we have to be careful. I think it's imperative that we follow this example here. Hey, go to these soul winning marathons, go to church, do these things, right? But not at the expense of spending time with your children, right? That needs to be the priority. Don't be like, well, I'm going to save up this money just so I can go and I'm going to leave my wife and, you know, constantly doing that. You know what? That could turn out very poorly for you if you do that. You would be better off just maybe using that money locally and just having some time with your children, with your family. You'd be better off. You can always go soul winning where you're at. You don't have to necessarily go to these other places if you can't afford to take your whole family, especially when they're at that young age, right? I mean, when they get older into the teenage years, I think they can handle it better. But that's only when you have done the preparation, when you have already spent that personal time with them. And don't always make it all work either, right? I do believe there needs to be some balance. If you can have some fun, go to this trampoline park over here or something with the kids or, you know, just spend some fun time with them. I think that's very important. They're going to remember that. That's what the kids are going to remember. They're going to remember the time that they had with you. You know what? And let's hope that that time was good. Let's pray that that time's good. Let's make that time good. Because look, I talk to people all the time and you know what they remember? The poor things about their childhood. Oh, my dad always did this. My dad always did that. You know, that's not the life that we want for our children. That's not what's going to, you know, that is going to impact the future generation, but not in a good way. If you want to teach your children to teach their children and so on and so forth, you need to spend that time because they're learning how to parent from you. That's how they're going to learn it. And when you spend that quality time with them, guess what? They're going to do the same thing with their children. Amen. So go to Isaiah chapter number 39, Isaiah chapter 39. While you're turning there, I'm going to read Proverbs 22 six, train up a child the way he should go. And when he is old, he will not depart from it. One of the things that that verse tells me is that, you know what? These kids are going to make some mistakes, right? They're going to grow up. They're going to make some decisions and you're going to be like, what in the world were you thinking? Didn't I bring you to church every week? Didn't I spend time with you? Didn't I teach you these things? But you know what? When they're mature, not necessarily old in age, but when they mature up, they're going to remember these things because those seeds and those things are planted in them, right? You've gotten them saved. You've taught them the truth. And when they're old, they're going to make the right decisions. But it all starts with you spending that quality time with your children. You know, I think about some people who have attended this church in the past. It seemed like every time they would come in here, they always talk about, oh, we went to the lake or, you know, we did this fun stuff and we went here and we went there. And they come to church like maybe two times a month. Oh, we're always, or another, another example where we're going to go hunting half a year, right? But we do everything as a family. But you know what? What you're doing is you're doing that at the expense now of God. You know, there ain't no debating this. God wants to be the priority. He wants to be the priority. And one thing that I've noticed about people is when they get just, well, okay, they get a false balance into mind. Well, I just need family time, family time, family time, family time. They got to have as much family time as possible. You know, even if it means excluding church and God's people. And now all of a sudden you've got no root. You've got no, you know, you're not, your skin starting to thin out and you hear a sermon, all that was about me. I'm going to cry me a river and float down it on my little raft. And you know, they float right on out of church, man. You know, you've all seen it. You've all seen, you've lived this. You know, it's true. I remember these guys coming in here all the time. Oh yeah, we're going to do this this weekend, do that this weekend, but you can't come to church. You can't even come to church four Sundays in a row. You can't even come to church two Sundays in a row, let alone a Sunday and a Wednesday. All right. Well, we did it once. Get out of here, man. No, you didn't. Isaiah chapter number 39. So what we're going to do now is we're gonna take a look at the life of Hezekiah real quickly, King Hezekiah. So you've gone forward in your Bible, but chronologically you're going backwards. So you have Josiah, the King before him was Ammon, the King before him was Manasseh, and the King before him was Hezekiah. And I want to show you something about Hezekiah here, an attitude that he has that we definitely want to stay away from. So look at verse number five, Isaiah 39 verse five. It says this, then said Isaiah to Hezekiah, hear the word of the Lord of hosts. So if you don't know the story, Hezekiah was about to die and he makes inquiry to the Lord. The Lord says, hey, I've heard you. I'm going to give you 15 more years, right? So Hezekiah, he's on cloud nine. He's excited. He's happy. He's like, yay, I'm not going to die. But Isaiah is like, got some bad news for you. Look how he handles it. Verse number six, behold the days come that all that is in thine house and that which thy fathers have laid up in store until this day shall be carried to Babylon. Nothing shall be left, saith Lord. And this is what I'm talking about. This is why I said that this message here was prevalent during the days of Josiah. I mean, Hezekiah had it. Manasseh definitely had it. Ammon definitely had it. Josiah definitely had it, but they didn't talk about it. They didn't mention it to their children. They didn't prepare them. And you can see that all the way back here with Hezekiah, verse seven, and of thy sons that shall issue from thee, which thou shalt beget, shall they take away and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon. Look, this is a command here. This isn't like an, if you don't do this, this is God saying, guess what? This will happen. You're going to go down this road. There's no turning back. I'm going to destroy Judah for the wickedness that they have done. It's over. Glad you're following the law, Hezekiah. I'm glad you're following the law, Josiah, but guess what? The nation of Judah has basically ruined itself and it's going down. First, number eight, then said Hezekiah to Isaiah, look at this here. Good is the word of the Lord, which thou has spoken. He said moreover, for there shall be peace and truth in my days. Think about it. He's just told that his future generations were going to be made eunuchs. And if you haven't studied that, I'll just tell you, it's not a very pleasant subject. It's not like this Johnny Nixon thing where, oh, some people are just, these homosexuals are just eunuchs in disguise, man. No, this is bad, bad news. Okay. Just remember that. And what's Hezekiah's reaction to this? Hey, glad it ain't happening to me. Sorry guys. Sorry. Hope you can make it through. No, that's the wrong idea. That's not working for the kingdom of God. Hezekiah is wrong here, right? He doesn't have that foresight. He doesn't have that prudence to think beyond his children. And that's why I titled this sermon, A Father Unto Generations, because we need to be a people that can think beyond your children. You need to have the urgency and the motivation to teach your children hardcore right now the truth. Be that example so that they will pass that on. Because look, I don't know about you, but I hate communism. I hate liberalism. And I don't want anybody in my family line to ever be subjected to that again. Because I actually come from a line of communists. That guy sitting back there was raised by communists. It is a fact. In fact, I'll just tell you the story right now. I think I was telling some of you guys this on Friday that his father threw his principal down two flights of stairs. You want to know why? Because they have the mindset that it's the job of the public school to teach your children and to raise them. That is a communist mindset. His father, so my great-great-grandfather, threw his principal out of the second story of a window in California. All this took place in San Francisco. Like father, like son. The apple didn't fall far from the tree. Now I haven't done that, okay? I got saved. I'm turning this thing around, okay? But that's what he did. And you want to know why? Because it was his philosophy, it was his mindset that it was the government school system's responsibility to raise the children. So what happened? Kids acting up, get sent home with a letter. Dad's like, oh, it's not my fault. It's your job, Mr. Teacher, to teach my child how to act in society. It's your job. Does that sound like a man that cared about his future generations? That guy didn't care about me. He could say he did all he wants. Didn't even know who I am. But he didn't care about me. Thank God that somebody did, that some Baptist got me saved when I was nine years old. And now we can turn this thing around. We can have a little Josiah moment. But I don't ever want that lifestyle or that mindset to come back into my family line. I want to make sure that Kylan, Kinley, and Kayden, when they have children, that they pass these things on to them with such urgency that they pass that on to their children because I care about them and so on and so forth because I want to see victory in the kingdom of God. Look, I get it. He's coming back. We win no matter what. But you know what? Let's go out and grab as many souls as we possibly can. Let's do these things right. Turn to Psalm chapter number 78. Psalm chapter 78. So point number three taken from Hezekiah's life is as fathers, we need to think beyond our immediate children. As fathers, we need to think beyond our immediate children, right? You need to plan ahead. You need to make sure that your children are being trained so that when they get married, when they move out, when they start living their adult life, that they are willing, that they're ready, willing, and able to teach the hard truths of life to their children. And I think that when we keep our kids sheltered and we don't teach them, hey, you know what? Bad times may come. You may have to deal, you may have to live in a society where people are going around and lopping off heads. I know it hurts. I know it sucks, but it's truth. That's reality. And they're going to only act one of two ways when they actually see these things. They're going to act like you betrayed them or by the mercy of God, they're going to get themselves right and actually fight on, right? But do you want to gamble with that? And I hope the answer is no. The answer is no. We are going to start today. We're going to start right now and teach our children the truth. Psalm 78. Look at verse number one. It says, Oh 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. You know what? Some of these dark sayings, some of these hard things, they're not only hard to just mentally understand, but sometimes they're hard to take in because the truth sometimes hurts. Verse three, which we have heard and known and our fathers have told us, we will not hide them from our children, showing to the generation to come the praises of the Lord and his strength and his wonderful works that he hath done. I think as a father, it would do you guys, it would do us very well to remember the victories, no matter how small they may seem and pass them on to your children. I think it's a good idea that you actually even write these things down in a book so that when age progresses, you can say, Hey, don't you remember 15 years ago we had this situation and here's what God did for us. That type of stuff is very encouraging because look, we often just get caught up in the moment and we forget those small things that God does for us, you know, throughout life. And we shouldn't, those things amount to so much that it can really just bring praise and wonderfulness to your children. Now what we're going to do is we're going to see two things that God has established in Israel and keep also in mind that we are the Israel of God. It's not these, these guys over here in the middle East, look at verse number five, for he 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. God has established his testimonies and his law. And you know what? Some of these testimonies, like I keep saying are hard to be understood. They're hard to receive, but you know what? He's established them. And what does verse five say? These, he has established these things so that we might make them known to our children because the word is everlasting. I mean, think about this guys, you have the opportunity to ensure that your children get something, get a gift that lasts forever. We're not a new evangelical church here. We believe that the word of God will go through all generations, that it's just as perfect today as it was 400 years ago, 500 years ago, that it was back in these days, right? You can pass on an everlasting gift to your children. The world can't say anything like that. All they can do is wish and dream and focus and hope. They've got nothing, but you have something. You give them these testimonies in this law and that will ensure, look at, that will ensure that their children will do the same thing. Where we go wrong is when we take that mindset of Josiah and we just focus on the good. Yeah, he followed the law. He followed that, which was right. But the problem is he neglected the hard truths and the reality that was prevalent in his day. And it ruined his children. Look at verse six, that, so he's saying, hey, guess what? For this reason, he's saying that the generation to come might know them. We need to be concerned about the generation to come and the generation after that, right? So he's saying, hey, don't forget about the law. Don't forget about the testimonies. Don't forget about the Bible. That the generation to come might know them, even the children, which should be born, who should arise and declare them to their children. And guess what? As you read the progression of Israel, what happened? That became less and less and less. Jeroboam said, hey, I just care about myself. I don't want to lose influence. I don't want to lose control. I'm just going to make up a whole religion. I'm going to make up these golden calves because it worked back in Aaron's day. And you know what? It worked in his day too. If you want to set up a golden calf and just please and placate yourself, go ahead, go for it. But you know what? Your children are going to be turned into eunuchs. You're going to have a rough time. Then you're going to be looking back like, what in the world did I do? Good verse seven, that they might set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments. You say, how can I get my children to listen? How can I get them to keep the commandments? Well, you can start by reading this verse here. You can start by realizing that your children need balance. They need the good and they need the bad. They need the truth and they need it from you because they trust you and you're the leader. It's your job. It's your responsibility to ensure that they have it. When you do that, then you will have success because then you're passing on to them something that is everlasting, which is the word of God. Verse eight and might not be as their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation that set not their heart right and whose spirit was not steadfast with God. And you know what? That story that I told you about my dad and about his dad and about his dad, right? They didn't have the word of God at the forefront of their mind, but they, you know what they did have? They all went to church. They were all Lutherans and Episcopalians and Methodists, but they adopted this mindset that, you know what? My job is to go to work and earn as much money as possible so that we can have the big home and so that we can have the nice car, right? And they said, well, there's this institution called the public school. And whatever happens to my children, there is the school's fault. No, it isn't. It's your fault, dad. They failed. I mean, think about it. I got a great-grandfather who chucked his son's principal out the window, and then his son does the same thing to his principal. And he never told me that he did something like that, but whenever I used to get sent home with a bad letter saying, you know, Joseph was naughty today. He did this today. He would get very mad. He would get upset. Look, I can think of all kinds of stuff that I did in public school that was horrible. I remember one time I took this bag of rocks, right? It was these pebbles. You know how the playgrounds got these pebbles? I took a Ziploc bag of those things, and I saw this kid on top about to go down the slide. And I was like, I feel like playing war today, right? And I got on the ground, and I just threw the thing up. It comes down. It hits the kid on the head and knocks him out cold. You know what? I get a little letter sent home, you know, because they were being, they were, I mean, the teachers and the principals, even in that day, they were filled with soy milk. They didn't want to, like, suspend me or something. They just sent me home with a letter, and they called my parents, and they're like, oh, yeah, yeah, playing rough with the kids and thinking he's in a combat zone and all this stuff. And it was just like, oh, you know, these teachers, they don't know what to do. And, you know, he started getting mad at them. I don't think he went down there and did anything because I never heard about that, but, so thank God for that. But what should have happened? I should have got a spanking. I should have got my butt wet, right? That's what should have happened, but it didn't. It certainly didn't. But what's the attitude here with Hezekiah? Hey, glad, glad nothing bad is going to happen to me. I just got 15 years of life left and life's good, right? He didn't prepare those children for anything. They go on to become wicked. And it's by the mercy of God that Josiah at a young, tender age says, you know what? I'm actually going to start reading the Bible. I'm actually going to start applying these things and make our nation do it, right? But it's a gamble, right? You had to, they had to go through Manasseh and they had to go through Ammon before they got to Josiah. You know, if Hezekiah wouldn't have had that attitude, maybe Manasseh would have been a little easier to deal with. Maybe Ammon would have been a little easier to deal with. See what I'm saying? And that's why I'm preaching the sermons because we need to think beyond just our children. Because if you just have this short-sighted goal, right? You know, you're going to wind up basically fooling yourself. You're going to wind up being focused on appearance. And we've had a lot of people come through these doors. They're just focused on that appearance. Well, look at me. I went to church today. Oh, look at me. I go to a church that goes soul-winding. I belong to that. I don't contribute. I backbite every chance I get and I talk trash. Let's not talk. Let's not mention that. But let's just not even mention that. But I'm part of it. Well, you know what? God eventually is going to expose that, that behavior. And He's going to expose you, dad, if that's your mentality and you young bucks out there that aren't dads yet, you need to pay attention and realize that. You know what? God has given you these children as a gift. The Bible says that God opens a woman. That is a gift. You know, children are a heritage from the Lord. They're a gift. You need to look at these children as if Jesus Christ Himself came down here and physically handed you a baby. That's how you need to treat those children. And when you can look at it like that, guess what? You might just have a different perspective. You know, you need to realize that, dad, you are accountable to God for the things that you do and you say. So you need to make sure that you have the right balance with your teaching. You know, because some of these bozos that used to come in here, when I would say stuff, you know, they would be squirming and jumping and practically going like this to their children's ears because they didn't want to hear what I was teaching. And you've all seen it. How do you think those kids are going to grow up? It's a gamble, right? We don't know. But the odds are stacked against them because their parents are trying to shelter them. Oh, I'm going to become Hamish. I'm going to move my family out into the middle of nowhere and we'll be okay. No, the drones will find you and they will kill you. You might as well just stone up now and start doing the works for God, right? How about that? Instead of just trying to put on this holier than thou, ultra separated, super duper righteous, look, you're weak, man. We have all got problems in here. And you know what? When you just own up to it, it's like, amen. Josiah had his problems. Manassa had his problems. Hezekiah had his problems, right? But we could still continue on. It's admitting that stuff that's important, right? And so that's why I said, you know, we need to think beyond our immediate children. And this principle applies for anything that you do. When you get somebody saved and they have an interest in coming to church, you need to think beyond that person. That's when you're like, okay, I need to invest in you and make you capable to go out and do these same things, right? See how this can apply to soul winning as well. It's being prudent. It's thinking beyond your immediate circumstances. And when you do that, that's when you're going to have everlasting effect is remember what's the goal here is to further the kingdom of God. That's we are working for the Lord Jesus Christ. And our goal is to further his agenda, right? And we're going to do that by being prudent for seeing the evil, teaching the evil, not hiding from it, not running away from it, right? But exposing that and saying, Hey, let's man up. Let's teach these children how to live right. And how to, to see these things coming. You know, we don't want to be hypocrites. I, I know some, I know a family where the dad went to church. Mom went to church, brought the kids to church, right? They were real strict in, in church with the older two kids, right? But later in life, they had a couple more and then they laxed off from that discipline. And if I were to show you this family now, you would see that the older two are still following the commandments are still teaching their children, the Bible, they're still doing great things, right? But the younger two are just full on in the world. And it's all because of that lapse in character halfway through their lives, right? We need to have that endurance. And you know what I think might have happened somewhere along the way, they lost that foresight. They lost that, that mission statement of us working for the kingdom of God. That's really what it boils down to. They just lost that. Well, look, when you lose sight of that mission, anything can happen. Now you're all over the place. And that's what I saw happen to that family and the older two, when they were old, they didn't depart from what they were taught, but the younger two weren't really taught. They were just brought once in a while, you know, because guess what, during that time, as mom and dad kind of got more and more complacent, they kind of slacked off, their church did the same thing. You see what I mean? And so now they've got lesser, you know, they've got easier standards at home, easier standards at church, going to public school, which is just out of control. What do you think is going to happen? So that's why we need to have that consistency. And so with that being said, I'm going to stop this here because I think I went a little bit longer than I promised, but we're about to enjoy some food. So we're going to have one more song and I'm going to pass all of the fathers out the gift during the final song. So if I miss you, just come up and see me after the service. Amen. All right, let's have a word of prayer. Thank you so much, Lord, for this church. I just want to pray for all the fathers here, Lord, and that you would keep us going strong. Give us endurance, Lord, please give us discernment in our lives. And we thank you for these things in Jesus name.