It's a tremendous privilege to be here this
morning, I feel like probably somebody else should
be up here, because all of us have
so much to learn about everything that has
to do with being a man, everything that
has to do with raising men.
Just for a moment before we get started,
we have to realize that we live in
a culture that knows absolutely nothing about manhood.
Back in the 70's we decided that people
like Alan Alda and Phil Donahue would teach
us what it meant to be men.
Then there's all these misconceptions about what it
means to be a Christian man.
For example, if you look at most of
the paintings, which in my opinion are an
abomination anyway, if you look at most of
the paintings of the person of Jesus Christ,
what do you see?
Do you see any manhood there that you
can identify with?
Most of it is a very feminine, grotesquely
feminine depiction of somebody that they call Jesus.
Now what is the reason for that?
Well, most ideas of the way Jesus Christ
looked comes from medieval, 15th century, 14th century,
13th century art from the Catholic Church, primarily
painted by artists who were homosexuals.
And that's why the pictures look the way
they do.
You see, we live in a culture that
knows nothing about manhood.
You say, yes, that's right, you know, John
Wayne was the last real man.
Well, if you're spirit filled and you go
back and you watch a John Wayne movie,
you will see that the man was full
of self, carnality, self-centered, rude, crude, about
everything else.
So he's not the picture of manhood either.
Jesus Christ is the picture of perfect manhood.
But we have to be very, very careful
with the way we look at Jesus Christ.
We have to look at Him through biblical
eyes and try, even though we'll never be
able to do it, try to shed ourselves
of looking at the Bible through eyes or
glasses that have been remarkably painted by our
own culture.
We have ways of looking at things because
we are humanistic.
We are man-centered.
We are many, many things that totally oppose
Scripture.
And so when we go into Scripture, we
begin to interpret it wrongly.
I'll never forget a few years ago, a
man by the name of Richard Owen Roberts.
He was preaching in a conference where I
preached the following year, and that's how I
heard this story.
Richard Owen Roberts is an old kind of
Puritan reformed guy up in Chicago.
And he was teaching up in Canada, and
he happened to make the remark that AIDS
was the judgment of God.
A woman stood up in the middle of
the sermon, screamed out, That cannot be true.
And he said, Dear Madam, why can it
not be true?
And she said, God would never kill a
bunch of babies.
Babies die of AIDS.
God would never kill a bunch of innocent
babies.
Richard Owen Roberts, an older man, looked over
the pulpit and said, Madam, how many babies
do you think God killed when He flooded
the earth during the time of Noah?
The whole point is this, not that I
want to portray God as mean or not
just, but the point is we have so
many concepts of the way we think God
ought to be or manhood ought to be,
and they're not based on Scripture, they're based
on our humanism.
Our humanism.
Now, another great problem, one of the greatest
problems to becoming a man and raising men
in this generation is this.
It's the idea of adolescence.
Adolescence is a lie.
There is no such thing as adolescence.
Adolescence is based upon a false evolutionary formula.
And it is used as a buffer in
our culture today.
You see, in almost every culture, even in
our own, prior to the advent of adolescence,
you had simply this.
A boy, and I want to say it
that way, a boy and a man.
You were either a boy or you were
a man.
Okay?
And that transference, that change, that transformation usually
occurred somewhere around 12, 13, 14 years old.
Okay?
Now, how did a boy become a man?
The boy became a man because he stood
beside the other men and did what other
men do.
He could defend his farm.
He could farm his farm.
He could manage his farm.
He could even take a wife.
Because he was no longer a boy, he
was a man.
Now, you have the advent of adolescence.
And what happens?
He's a boy until he's about 12 or
13.
Then he's an adolescent.
And adolescence is supposedly a time of finding
yourself, of rebelling against authority in order to
establish your own, and all these other things
that have been brought in.
And they never mature to manhood.
Never.
Until maybe after college and they get married
somewhere around 35 or 40.
They start sort of entering into manhood.
Up until that time, they're just a boy.
Plays video games.
Walks through malls.
I mean, no concept of responsibility.
I love to hunt.
And I make bows and things like that.
And when my little boy turned about, well,
just about when he was born, I made
him a bow.
And he goes out even today.
When I get home, one of the first
things we'll do is we'll go out and
shoot.
He's four years old.
My two-year-old is now starting to
learn how to pull back a string.
But he shoots field points.
Field points, they're used for targets.
I shoot broadheads.
My broadheads are so very, very sharp because
wooden bows are not that fast.
So the broadheads have to be so extremely
sharp that you put them on with a
broadhead wrench because you don't even want to
touch them.
Now, my little boy, he does not use
broadheads.
The other day, I was teaching him how
to shoot a BB gun, and when I
turned my back on him, I was holding
this can in my hand.
He goes, Daddy, just hold the can in
your hand.
I'll shoot it.
I said, No, son.
The fact of the matter is he cannot
have broadheads because he's a boy.
One day when he becomes a man, he
can use broadheads because until that point, if
I give broadheads to a boy, he's going
to kill himself.
Now, that's the culture we're in.
We're in a culture where boys stay boys
until they're in their 30s.
And almost never really become men.
And that's what we're up against.
And then you throw this in.
Just a few generations ago, not even a
few generations ago, when a man went out
to work, he took his son with him.
I have a rule in my house I
told my wife.
I said, As long as they can't walk,
they're with you.
When those boys start walking, they're with me.
You see, there used to be a culture
that when the man left the home in
the morning to go work, his boys went
with him.
And they learned to be men.
The Mennonites.
I go to several lumber mills looking for
good wood to build bows and other things.
I build furniture or whatever I'm doing at
the time.
If it's for me, it's a bow.
If my wife gets a hold of me,
it's for furniture.
And I go up to the Mennonites and
I'll talk to them and witness to them.
You know what they say?
From the time a child is born, a
boy, until he's six years old, he's a
drain on the family.
It will cost the family to have him.
From the time he is six years old
until he is 12 years old, he pays
for himself.
And after 12, he is a profit to
the family.
We're still putting them through college.
Do you see what's going on?
In the Aguaruna tribe where I worked in
Condorcanqui in the northern departamento Amazonas in Peru.
It was very common for a man to
get married when he was 14.
Because he could go out with the other
hunters.
He could hunt.
He could fight.
He could do all the things he had
to do.
Our primary responsibility as men is to raise
men.
To raise men.
That's our primary responsibility.
Now if you don't want that to be
your primary responsibility, don't have children.
You know, some people ought to be neutered.
Really.
They ought to be.
I don't even know why they have children.
I guess it's just what you're supposed to
do.
I don't know.
But the whole goal of our life, gentlemen,
when our sons and daughters are born, is
to pour ourselves into them.
Now here's the problem.
We're also, those of you who are men
here today and have children, we are also
products of our culture.
We know so very little about being men.
So what are we going to pour into
our children?
More of the same corruption?
There is, I believe, without a shadow of
a doubt, persecution.
Our national crisis is coming.
And I'll tell you why.
Not because I'm a prophet or anything like
that.
It's because I'm a student of history.
Every time that there is coming persecution or
national crisis, a reformation occurs prior to that.
It's almost as though God is getting His
people ready to go through hell.
Now, you might not know this, but I
know this.
It's a fact.
The universities I go to and teach, the
seminaries, the different places where I go, it
is astounding.
I'm seeing young university guys studying in secular
universities.
I'll go speak.
Two hundred of them show up and they're
all reading Jonathan Edwards and the Puritans.
It seems like all the truth that has
been lost, historic, biblical Christianity that has been
lost, there is a reformation.
It's coming back.
And part of that reformation deals with family.
Family.
Now, most people forty years old and above
are not getting it.
Really.
Theologically.
They're not even understanding what's going on.
Some are.
But most my age and up aren't.
That there are so many things we have
done in Christianity in the last forty years
that's no more biblical than a man on
the moon.
The way we do church, the way we
do our families, just about everything.
I mean rotten to the core.
But changes are occurring.
And part of those changes are with family.
Now, I have two boys.
It is my responsibility.
They were given to me that they become
men.
But I have to be a man.
I was raised in a culture that was
not Christian.
Yeah, I was in America.
Yeah, I went to church as a boy.
That doesn't mean anything.
It is my responsibility to go back into
the word of God and discover what it
means to be a man.
So that I can pour that into the
life of my son.
Much of the activity that used to be
so important to me, even ministerial activity, is
no longer important to me.
One of the chief things in my mind
is this.
What does it mean to be a godly
man?
And how is that supposed to be transferred
to my children?
To my children.
And I want us to open up our
Bibles to Deuteronomy 6.
A passage that you probably are all familiar
with.
Before we get into that, let me say
one other thing.
We've got some young men in here.
Sometimes there will be a young guy in
a church or something that maybe his father
has passed away or his father is derelict.
And sometimes a mom will say, you know,
Brother Paul, would you take them out to
your wood shop and beat the living daylights
out of them?
Would you take them out to your wood
shop and build a bow with them or
something?
And just be around them a bit and
say, sure.
I'll never forget the last guy, a 14
-year-old kid.
And I sat him down in my office
and he was kind of scared.
And I said, son, look at me.
He kind of looked up and I said,
no, look at me.
There's a proper way to look at someone.
You look me in the eye when I'm
talking to you.
I said, now, here's the way it's going
to be.
I am not going to treat you like
a boy.
I am going to treat you like a
man.
Like a man with whom I would jump
into a foxhole if there was a war.
I am going to treat you like a
man and I am going to expect you
to act like one.
Guess what?
It's never failed.
They do.
I don't believe in adolescence, so make your
choice.
You're either going to be a little boy
or you're going to be a man.
Now, which do you want to be?
Guess what?
They start transforming.
But let me say something to the young
men.
I teach a lot.
I'm 44 years old, which isn't old, I
mean, compared to your pastor and stuff like
that.
You know, I'll teach sometimes and I'll have
young guys, they'll be sitting in there.
I'll never forget, we were in this town
of maybe, I don't know, 10,000 people
or something.
And there was this one whole section of
young people and they just thought they were
so cool.
I mean, it's unbelievable.
It's like they thought they were living in
a ghetto in New York or something.
They thought they were so street wise and
they knew everything.
And I'm 44 years old, you know, and
I'm a dumb old man who's never seen
anything.
And I'll never forget this one boy.
He was just, he was causing so much
trouble, trying to distract everyone and everything.
And he had his pants, you know how
they wear their pants down with their underwear
showing type thing and everything.
And I thought, Lord, how can I reach
this guy?
I mean, he just thinks, I mean, he's
from this little podunk town and he thinks
he just knows everything that's ever to be
known.
And so, I saw him over by himself
one day and I kind of walked over
and I sat down and I said, how's
it going?
He said, alright.
I said, I have a question for you.
He goes, yeah.
I go, do your parents know?
And he said, know what?
I said, come on.
I've been around the world several times.
Obviously, you're a guy who knows what's going
on.
Do your parents know?
He goes, know what?
I said, look man, I mean, I'm pretty
open minded, alright.
Don't be embarrassed.
I'm here to help you.
Do your parents know?
And he goes, know what?
Do they know about your alternative lifestyle?
He goes, what?
I said, come on.
Do your parents know you're a homosexual?
I mean, I have dealt with a lot
of guys that are homosexuals and I've really
kind of helped them, you know.
Some of them have even been set free
through Jesus Christ.
Do your parents know you're a homosexual?
I'm not a homosexual!
I go, look, of course you are.
Look, I know, you know, you're a guy
of the world.
You know, obviously, you've been around.
I'm a guy of the world.
We know these things.
You're homosexual.
Now look, how can I help you?
The guy's head almost exploded.
He was so mad.
And he said, why are you saying this?
And I said, listen to me, young man.
You think you are so wise.
You think you are a fool.
You see the way you're wearing your pants?
He said, yeah.
I go, do you know where that comes
from?
Obviously you don't because you haven't been around
as much as this old preacher who you
think is so stupid.
That comes from prison, young man.
And when a man in prison who is
a homosexual breaks up with his boyfriend and
wants everyone else to know in prison that
he's available, he drops his pants like that.
That's where it comes from.
You see, young man, in the name of
being cool and following your culture, you think
you know what's going on, and you're going
straight to hell following the devil there.
Now why did I say that, young man?
I'll tell you why.
Because most of the things that's going to
be thrown on your plate and put in
front of you, even by your friends, that
they think is so cool and you think
is so cool, you don't even know where
it comes from.
And you look at your father and you
think he doesn't understand anything.
Your father has been through things that would
terrify you.
He knows more than you could ever, ever
know.
And many of the reasons he will tell
you no is because he's been there, done
that, got the t-shirt, and he knows
how much it hurt him.
Never forget that.
That is a lie of the devil to
tell you, my father is old and he
doesn't understand what's going on.
Your father does understand what is going on
because he's been through a thousand times more
than you've ever dreamed of.
And that's why you listen.
And not those stupid little friends of yours.
Now let's look at Deuteronomy 6.
Now, I have seen a few different things
in this return to manhood.
Some several extremes.
You have on one side these guys who
say, I want my son to be a
Christian man.
And that Christian man almost looks effeminate.
On the other side, you have these guys
who say, I want my son to be
a Christian man, but their idea of a
Christian man looks something like a carnal bully.
The only way we're going to find out
what it's like to be a true man
is to study God's Word and to seek
to be conformed to the image of the
only true man who ever walked on the
face of the earth.
And that's Jesus Christ.
But here in Deuteronomy 6, there's some wonderful
things that we can learn.
Now, I'd love to go through the whole
text, but let's just start in verse 4.
Here, O Israel, the Lord is our God,
the Lord is one.
Now, take that in the context of verse
2, so that you and your sons and
your grandsons might fear the Lord your God
to keep all His statutes and His commandments,
which I command you, all the days of
your life, and that your days may be
prolonged.
Now, look at this, gentlemen, your son and
your grandson.
There is a sense in which we need
to be talking about leaving a legacy.
A legacy.
Most men are all about them getting the
most out of life.
Our goal is to leave a legacy, not
just of our own life, but of the
lives of our sons and our grandsons.
We are thinking about...
You know, we always hear back in the
70s and 80s, multiplication of disciples, multiplication of
disciples.
Well, this is the real thing.
I can leave a legacy.
It's like I decided a long time ago,
I could go around doing evangelism everywhere, or
I could plant churches.
You do evangelism, it's here today, gone tomorrow.
You plant a church, it could be there
for 150 years.
It's the same way.
If I can pour my life into my
two boys, and if they are the elect
of God, and God has grace, and God
regenerates their heart, and calls them to Himself,
I have given them a wealth of biblical
information, a wealth of biblical experience.
I knew one fellow, it's the Dickman family
in St. Louis, and it's a man who
has done everything that he could to raise
his children.
One of his boys was not converted until
he was like 23.
But I was talking to the boy, a
man, and he said, you know what's amazing?
I was not converted until I was 23,
but the moment I was converted, everything my
father had taught me for 23 years, it
turned on.
And in that moment, I knew more than
most pastors.
My father, see, here's something gentlemen, even if
you cross all the T's, dot all the
I's, and raise your children by the book,
homeschooling and everything else, it does not mean
that child is going to be converted.
But, you're still commanded to do it.
And if you do do it, and then
they are converted, my goodness, what a jump
start they've got.
Why?
Because, I can go around the world teaching
stuff, but, I have the opportunity, for at
least 18 years, to not just teach things
to my sons, but primarily model them, in
every aspect of life.
And the desire is to leave a legacy.
You see, I hear men all the time,
that are working a lot, and they say,
well, I just want to give my children,
the things I never had.
God never commanded you to give your children,
the things you never had.
As a matter of fact, it's the things
you never had, that's made you the man
you are.
Things you don't have, never hurt your character.
It's the things you do have.
So my father went off to fight World
War II.
He would be in his early 80's right
now, if he had lived.
I want to tell you something.
I'm not sure we could fight World War
II again.
My father grew up, dirt poor Kentucky, and
then streets of Detroit, selling newspapers.
Those men, what made them men, was not
all the things they had.
They had nothing.
It was the things they did not have.
Your job is not to give your child,
the things you never had.
Your job is to give your child, you,
in Christ's name, to leave a legacy.
Now, verse 4, let's look at that legacy.
Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God,
the Lord is one.
The one thing I am to transfer to
my child, I mean truly transfer to my
child, is that there is a God, and
He is Lord.
Now, here's something that's very, very important.
You will hear, you know fathers will hear
something like this, and they'll go home, and
just start giving lectures, and all these different
things, and Bible studies, and pounding it into
their kid's head, and that's not what I'm
talking about.
My child needs to be able to look
at me, and realize, my dad knows there
is one God, and He is Lord.
I can look at it.
In my father's face, I can see it.
He knows it.
He lives it.
My sons, like sons should when they're little,
they think that their dad is Superman.
You know.
Dad, did you go wrestle a bear?
I'll come in from hunting, have all my...
Dad, did you kill a bear today?
No son, not today.
But he thinks I can.
He thinks I can.
But, it was a few months ago, I
was praying, and the Lord really moved upon
me, and I started crying, and crying, and
crying, because the Lord had showed me, His
goodness to me, and my sin.
And my little boy walked over to me,
and said, Daddy, why are you crying?
Why are you afraid?
Because of Him, son.
And I began to explain to him, and
sat down with him, and he started crying.
Not that I pound into his head, there's
a Lord, there's a God.
No, that he looks at me and goes,
Whoa!
Dad fears something.
When dad talks, you know, dad laughs, and
dad talks about, you know, beating up bears,
and everything else, but when dad talks about
God, his voice changes.
It's really serious.
This is not a game.
This is not make-believe.
This is not Santa Claus.
This is not Easter Bunny.
Whenever dad starts talking about Him, his face
changes.
The greatest gift you can give your child,
is have your child wake up at 3
o'clock in the morning, go downstairs to
get a glass of water, and they see
you in your study, with the light on,
down on your knees, crying out to God.
That's the greatest gift you can give your
child.
Because I want to tell you something, there's
a man, I don't agree with, you know,
you never agree with everything every man says,
because men are fallible.
One of the things that when I had,
when my child was born, I was thinking,
okay, you know, I'm going to have this
regiment of all these different things, and I
read a guy down in Tennessee, by the
name of Michael Pearl, and he said something
that just stunned me.
He said that he really didn't have much,
you know, like, devotion times with each of
his kids every day, or this regimented process,
but that all his kids went off by
themselves, and studied the Word on their own,
and what he said was basically this, that
the Word of God was in every aspect
of his life, and everything he did, so
his kids would watch him, and just see
it.
You know, I don't want to just sit
there and go, okay, you know, we're having
our 20 minutes today in the Word, even
though part of that is very important.
But it's more of a thing if your
child just looks at you and knows, my
dad believes there's a God, and believes that
He is Sovereign Lord of all things, and
my dad fears Him.
This is real.
There should be a sense in which your
boy goes, my daddy isn't afraid of anything
except God, and that fear is a healthy
fear.
And he goes on, and he says, Hear,
O Israel, the Lord is our God, the
Lord is One.
You shall love the Lord your God with
all your heart, and with all your soul,
and with all your might.
These words which I am commanding you today
shall be on your heart.
You shall teach them diligently to your sons.
Now look at this.
Look at the context.
Even though in the greater context He's talking
about teaching your son all the commandments of
God, isn't it amazing that He comes to
this one command which is the primary command,
the great command, Jesus says, and then right
after said, that's what you're to teach to
your son.
You're not to teach your son to be
a Pharisee.
You're not to just lay out rules for
your son.
Do this, do this, do this, do this,
do this, do this, and you'll be spiritual.
No.
If you're spiritual, you will do this, do
this, do this.
The rules never make anybody spiritual.
You desire to follow the commands because you
are spiritual.
And it flows out of a heart that
loves Him.
What is the primary thing to teach your
son?
To love the Lord, His God, with all
his heart, soul, mind, and strength.
And how do you do that?
Again, by example.
My dad not only fears God, my dad
loves God.
I say this quite often and it's true.
Another gift that I can give my son
is for him to look out the window
one day and see me out there by
the wood shop or standing in a bean
roll some day or out there in the
cornfield with a pair of bib overalls and
dancing with all my might.
Say, Mom, what's Dad doing?
Well, son, your dad was a very wicked
man.
He was going to hell.
And the Lord, His God, saved him through
the death of His only begotten Son.
And your dad is just happy in the
Lord.
He just loves Him for what He's done
for him.
He shed His blood for your dad.
Your dad loves Him.
Now sometimes your dad gets a bit carried
away and I'm glad we live on a
farm.
No neighbors can see him.
But that's why.
You know, if this Christianity thing just becomes
a moral regiment, it's puke.
It's horrid.
It's grotesque.
Now there is regiment.
There are rules.
But that's not the main thing.
And here's the thing, you know, it's like
Song of Solomon, okay?
The king comes and knocks on the door.
She's already in bed.
She doesn't want to get out of bed
and dirty her feet again.
So she says, no, no, I'm not going
to answer the door.
And so he goes away.
She gets up and decides, well, yeah, I
need to answer the door.
She goes to the door.
He's not there.
So she starts running around in the streets
and she finds these other virgins in Israel
and she bumps into them and she says,
please, help me look for my beloved.
Where has he gone?
And their attitude is, well, why should we
look for him?
He can't be all that special.
He came knocking at your door and you
wouldn't even open the door, so why should
we go look for him?
It's the same way, gentlemen.
Tell your sons, you need to love the
Lord your God with all your heart, soul,
mind, and strength.
The child might be looking and saying, they'd
probably never say it, but they'd go, well,
why?
I mean, you don't.
He can't be all that great if some
golf clubs that aren't even alive mean more
to you than that, or fishing or hunting
or your job.
I mean, why should I go out of
my way to seek this God?
He can't be all that great.
You know Him and don't even want to
seek Him.
You see?
So it's more than a commandment to, hey,
you need to love the Lord your God.
Why?
He can't be that big a deal.
I look at your life.
He really can't be that big a deal.
You see, one of the most dangerous things
that can ever happen, pastors, I've heard pastors,
I've talked to them about this, and they'll
say, you know, someone's not in church anymore,
and so you go visit them.
And since you're in the Bible belt, you
know, you go visit them, you knock on
the door, they're very polite to you, come
on in, you know, and start talking to
them.
You say, you know, you need to be
in church.
The person puts their head down and goes,
you're right, pastor, I need to be in
church.
I need to get back in church.
I need to start reading my Bible.
I need to do this.
It's the right thing to do.
Whenever I hear that type of language, you
know what I know?
I know I'm talking to a lost man.
Their Christianity is nothing more than, it's like,
yeah, I need to take this really bad
medicine so that I don't get sick.
Yeah, I need to go back to church
because it's the right thing to do so
I don't go to hell.
Yeah, I need to read the Bible.
I mean, I really don't want to, but
I know it's good for me, just like
taking really bad medicine.
That's not what you want to portray to
your children, that Christianity is the right thing
to do.
To hell with religion.
That's where it's going anyway.
To hell with morality.
And all these guys want to put the
Ten Commandments back in schools.
I mean, what's that?
Tell me, what is that?
The Ten Commandments going to save somebody?
I know some of you probably disagree with
me, but please understand the point that I'm
trying to make.
You can put the Ten Commandments, you can
wallpaper it all over the room of your
son if you want.
The question is this, do you love the
Lord, your God, with all your heart, soul,
mind, and strength?
Does He see it in your face?
Is your Christianity a wonder?
Something they would desire to look at?
Let me talk to you about Harry Potter.
Very, very important.
You all, I guess, familiar or at least
know about the Harry Potter books and how
they've, you know, everything.
We as Christians rightly point out that it's
all wrong and no one should watch it
or read it, and that's true.
Let me just tell you something.
First of all, it's very interesting that all
the witches in Harry Potter are Christian witches.
Now, what do I mean by that?
Real witches eat babies, okay?
But the witches in the Harry Potter books
and the Harry Potter movies, you know what's
amazing?
They all have Christian virtues.
I find that quite amazing, quite hypocritical, that
they're portraying witches, but these witches, I mean,
basically bear the fruit of the Spirit, most
of them.
They're kind, they're loving, all the things Jesus
commands us.
You see, they hate Jesus, but they cannot
deny that what He says is right.
And the things that's attractive to your kids
in there are really Christian virtues that they've
stolen.
But that's not really my point.
I mean, I've got a whole thing on
just doing Harry Potter, but I want you
to think about something for a moment.
A kid gets to look at a Harry
Potter movie, which hopefully never will happen, but
he gets to look at a Harry Potter
movie.
What does he see?
He sees wildness, wonder, adventure, the miraculous, life,
an explosion of excitement.
And then what does he see out of
your Christianity?
Sunday morning.
Getting to church late.
You and your wife have a spat in
the car.
You get out of the car.
You put your religious mask on.
You walk in.
And most of the time Sunday morning is
nothing but a long prayer for lunch at
some restaurant.
Well, we got that over.
Well, the sermon's over.
Now let's talk about fishing.
Let's talk about the football game.
I mean, goodness gracious.
The other day my little boy was looking
at something that had a picture of a
dragon on it.
He goes, Daddy, you ever seen a dragon?
I said, yeah.
He said, you ever fought a dragon?
I said, yeah.
Did you have a sword?
Yeah.
Was it hard?
Yeah.
Can you tell me about it?
Yeah.
He thinks his daddy fights dragons because his
daddy does fight dragons.
I do fight dragons.
I fight them every night.
I fight them in the morning.
I fight them when I preach.
I fight them when I fast.
I have armor.
It's the most beautiful sort of armor.
Strong.
I have a shield.
I have a helmet.
I'm in a war.
I've got scars.
I've got stories.
They would make the hair on the neck
of a little boy stand up straight.
Christianity is all too tame and civilized.
It's very proper.
It has no attraction to a boy.
You see?
You say, well, no.
The way you're saying that, that's not right.
I'm saying it just like the Bible says
it.
You're not right.
Christianity is the wildest thing.
It makes a Harry Potter book look like
a dull piece of boring literature.
See, the point is, it's like Michael Card
said one time, there is a joy in
the journey, a light we can follow on
the way.
There is a wonder and wildness to life
and freedom for those who obey.
There should be a sense of wildness and
wonder to follow Him.
To follow Him.
We were out in the woods one time.
We live where the sloughs come up off
of the Ohio River.
And we're down there.
I used to, as a boy, I just
basically lived in those swamps catching snakes and
about every other thing.
Take my boy down there.
We wade through that stuff.
I say, son, maybe one day, maybe one
day you'll have to wade through the Marañon
to preach the Gospel to someone in the
jungle.
Daddy, have you ever done that?
Well, let me tell you about the time
I drug a boat through the black water
just out of Iquitos in the jungle.
We were trying to make it to a
place to preach the Gospel.
And your daddy was scared to death because
it was midnight and I didn't know what
was in that water with me.
You see, what we want to portray is,
first of all, something we can't portray unless
it's a reality to us.
A reality that we are more than what...
Let me give you this example.
Do you know if you take a baby
eagle and it never sees another eagle and
you put it with a bunch of turkeys
or chickens, it will never fly.
Did you know that?
It will never fly.
Not only will it never fly, it will
begin to eat, walk, and everything just like
the chickens or the turkeys it's with.
That's true.
And that's what's happened to you.
You grew up in all the wrong ways.
You became mature.
You became adult.
You became boring.
The point that I'm trying to make is
this.
What does the Bible say about you?
Not what does culture dictate about you.
The Bible says you are a child of
the living God.
It does.
Like, I'll hear people say, you know, Christians,
well, I'm just an old sinner.
And I always say, oh, you're lost then.
I thought you were converted.
Well, we still sin.
Yes, we still sin, but that does not
mean we're sinners.
That old nature has been destroyed.
It has been crucified through regeneration.
That heart of stone has been removed and
a new nature has taken its place.
You sin because you live in a body
of flesh, but that is not who you
are.
Do you ever fight any battles, Daddy?
Yes, son, on my knees I fight battles.
You see, we ought to be living with
this idea that we're children of the King.
We ought to be living with this idea
that we are behind enemy lines.
We ought to be living with this idea
that we're fighting in a magnificent war.
We ought to live with this idea that
our King is coming and His triumph and
will continue to triumph until He consummates all
things in the mighty triumph.
Be living with this idea that no, it
is not our goal to go to college
and get a good job and have insurance
and benefits.
It is our goal to fight in this
battle no matter where He places us, whether
it's the jungles of India or whether it's
the jungles of some research laboratory in Huntsville,
that we are following our Master, we're following
our King, we're following our God.
And we do so not out of drudgery,
not because we are compelled by some moral
rule, but we do so because we love
the Lord our God with all our heart,
soul, mind and strength.
And the reason why we do that is
because He loved us first and He shed
His own blood for my soul.
Do you really want to die puttering around
on a golf course while others like yourself
are being shot down in a firing squad
in North Korea?
Do you really want to piddle away your
life?
Oh, Leonard Ravenhill.
Have any of you ever heard of Leonard
Ravenhill?
He was an old prophet.
I had the privilege of knowing him a
little bit.
Just one of the old school preachers.
And he used to say, the world is
not looking for a new definition of Christianity.
It's looking for a new demonstration of Christianity.
So is your family.
So are your children.
Now, I want us to look at some
things here really quick.
He says, These words which I am commanding
you today shall be on your heart, should
be into your innermost being, should literally make
up part of who you are.
And what are those words primarily?
Sir, we need to constantly be bearing in
mind, constantly memorizing, constantly thinking about, plastering it,
placarding it everywhere.
What?
That I'm to love the Lord my God
with all my heart, soul, mind and strength.
That should be everywhere.
It should be everywhere.
Because everything is annulled in our life.
If that's not the main thing seen, I
would much rather have someone talk and see
my passion and my love for Jesus Christ
than my morality.
I would submit to you that there were
priests and all sorts of religious people that
were sticklers with regard to the law of
God, but God never said of them, there's
a man after my own heart.
Now, I'm not saying that you can love
the Lord without keeping His commands.
That's not what I'm saying.
But you know what I'm saying.
There are people whose entire Christianity is just
doing the right thing, crossing all the T's,
dotting all the I's, looking just prim and
proper and civilized and precise and clean and
everything else.
It would be better to be a madman
with passion for Christ.
A bull in a china shop.
But who is moving around that china shop
with zeal and passion?
So you keep this in your mind.
It's a corrective to everything.
It's a corrective to an antinomian lifestyle.
A lawless lifestyle.
Because if it flashes before you, you are
to love the Lord your God with all
your heart, soul, mind and strength, and yet
you are not taking seriously the laws and
commands of Christ.
That will make it evident.
It's a corrective to a legalistic lifestyle.
Okay, you're doing all this stuff, but do
you love the Lord your God with all
your heart, soul, mind and strength?
And then he goes on and he says,
You shall teach them diligently to your sons
and shall talk of them when you sit
in your house and when you walk by
the way and when you lie down and
when you rise up.
Now, what is so wonderful about this?
Most men who really take seriously the idea
that they really need to teach and train
their children, they turn it into an academic
setting and a thing in which it's almost
like always a class.
Now, we need to sit down with our
children.
We need to teach them the Bible.
We need to help them memorize Scripture.
All sorts of things.
But that is not all it is.
Most men say, Well, I'm discipling my son
or I'm doing this, but to them it
means I am meeting with him for an
hour three times a week and we're going
over Scripture together.
But look what he says here.
How do you teach them to your children?
You talk of them when you sit in
your house, when you walk by the way,
when you lie down and when you rise
up.
That you communicate truth not just by having
some discipleship time with your son.
You communicate truth in absolutely everything you are
doing.
Everything.
Ian and I went rock climbing.
There was kind of a warm day a
couple of weeks ago so I took him
up to a place, have some really good
rocks and I was teaching him to go
up this little embankment and he got afraid.
Now, think about this.
The idea in most men's head is, Son,
you need to be courageous and do this.
You need to be brave.
No.
Son, you need to do this because your
father has told you to do it and
you need to trust that your father would
never tell you to do something that's bad
for you and if you do fall, your
father will catch you.
So I'm not talking about a John Wayne
bravery.
I'm talking about an Abraham faith.
I don't want him to do it because
he's not afraid.
I want him to do it because he
is afraid but he trusts that what his
father tells him to do is right.
You see?
And that lesson was greater than if I
had just sat down with Bible verses.
Now, don't get me wrong.
You need to sit down.
You need to teach the Bible.
You need to have an academic sort of
setting at times.
But also, what it's talking about here in
communicating these truths is a lifestyle.
Now, here's the kicker that I want you
to understand.
Have you ever heard somebody say, well, I
don't have quantity of time with my children,
but I have quality of time.
Have you ever heard someone say that?
That is the biggest bunch of...
I can't even use the word I want
to use.
That is the biggest bunch of baloney I
have ever heard in my life.
As a matter of fact, around the area
where I'm at, and I can do this
because, well, I'm among my own people.
I carry a two before and every time
I hear a man say that, I hit
him with it.
That is a lie.
It's just an out-and-out lie and
I'll prove it to you.
Have you ever had quality time with the
Lord?
I mean, a special time when...
It's a very special time when you're praying
or reading His Word and all of a
sudden, He just seems to come and speak
to you.
Now, let me ask you something.
Isn't it true that quality time with the
Lord always comes forth from a quantity of
time?
You spend a ton of time with the
Lord, but in that ton of time that
you spend with the Lord, there's a few
times when He seems to really show up.
And He seems to really show up a
lot more the more time you spend with
Him.
It's the same way with your son.
You're going to spend a ton of time
with your son that's really not going to
seem like much is going on, but born
out of that, every once in a while,
a door will open up to teach a
spiritual truth, to teach that child something, and
it will just be amazing.
You need to endeavor to spend a ton
of time with your children and you have
got to work at it.
It is hard.
Why?
Unless you're a farmer or Amish or Mennonite
or something, and those kids are there with
you every day, you're going to be out
of that household, sir, for at least 8,
9, 10 hours a day.
Five days a week.
So what does it mean?
This is what it means.
Now listen to me.
This is just the way it is.
I'm sorry.
I'm really sorry, but there's nothing I can
do about it.
And I have to go through the same
thing.
You go to work, and I know it's
hard, especially if you have a job where
you have to just deal with problems all
the time.
It's better if you have a job where
you're out there working with your hands.
It really is.
Because, I mean, at the end of the
day, you're physically tired, but your mind is
refreshed.
A lot of you, you know, a lot
of you are brainiacs, and you work at
different places.
You're here in Huntsville.
You're always building rockets or something.
All right?
Your brain is just about, you know, it's
scrambled eggs by the time you get home.
Okay?
At least that's the excuse I use.
I leave the house with scrambled brains, you
know, but here's what you're going to have
to do.
You're going to have to have your little
vacation time in that car.
The time you pull out of that parking
lot, the time you get home, that's your
time.
Okay?
Because when you hit that door, it's your
children.
It's your children.
I don't care if projects around the house
have to not get done as quickly.
I don't care if...
I just don't care.
Let the house fall to the ground, for
all that matters.
When you get home, it's your children.
And you've got to invest your life in
them.
And you're going to be tired.
Also, if you have younger children, here's what
you also need to realize.
Your wife, especially if she homeschools, she's been
with those children all day.
She could be voted most likely to become
a serial killer at this time.
What I mean is that...
Alright, she's been doing this all day.
You come home, they're yours now.
They're yours.
And you've got to be creative.
You can waste so much time with your
children.
What do you want to do?
Watch a video or something?
No, think of something.
Okay, son, we're going to tear this engine
apart and rebuild it.
Or what do you want to do?
You like this?
Okay, let's go do it.
Let's learn something.
I'm going to teach you how to do
things.
Here's something that I learned this Christmas.
It was very, very astounding.
I don't know how it happened, but certain
people slipped up on us this Christmas and
bought our children things that we usually don't
permit and got them to our children.
It was my fault.
I just wasn't paying any attention.
But like grandma and aunt and things like
that, and they bought our kids stuff and
I went ahead and let them.
And you know what?
My son got more whippings Christmas Day than
just about the entire year because he got
a whole bunch of stuff.
And the more stuff he got, the more
selfish he became.
But you know what was amazing?
I was sitting there and told my wife,
I said, I've really dropped the ball.
Because what I usually say is his mom
and I, we can give him one gift
that he might like as a boy to
play with, and then everyone else, just give
him clothes or something that he needs if
you want to get our son something.
And I didn't do it this time.
And I just saw a selfishness take over
that was just astounding.
And I'm just sitting there going, Lord, what
do I do?
What do I do?
And then I thought, I know what I'll
do.
I took him out and we built something.
We built something with his hands.
I said, son, you're going to make something.
I didn't forget what it was.
We went out to the shop, did some
things, cut some boards.
And I got my son back.
He forgot about his toys.
He made something.
Look, Mom!
Look what I did.
And I told my wife, I said, you
know, wife, this is what we're going to
do.
He wants something.
If he's 14 and he wants a boat
to go out in the slough fishing, I'm
going to buy a catalog or whatever it
is, a manual, and he's going to build
a boat for himself.
He wants it, he can have it.
He's just going to have to build it.
Because all it was when he got a
whole bunch of stuff was just, okay, what
else?
Okay, what else?
But when he went out there and built
some little puny thing that wasn't worth five
cents of lumber, he was like forgetting about
everything else and reveling in what he had
made, what he had done, what he had
accomplished.
Your child is like a sponge in the
beginning.
If you don't feed that thing, pretty soon
that sponge is just going to dry up.
It's amazing.
And I know I'm rambling, but I just
have a few more minutes here.
I go to the park with my son.
And I saw this.
It's one of the things that most shocked
me.
I go to the park with him, and
he was probably about two and a half
or three years old, and he did something.
I don't know what it was.
He killed a squirrel with his bare hands.
Something, I don't know, something really incredible.
And I said, Son, that is...
Man, that is...
All of a sudden, every young boy that
was in that place, in that park, that
heard me.
I mean, there were several of them.
And we're all there with their mothers.
Come running up to me and said, Look
at me, mister.
I can do it too.
What did that tell me?
A boy wants the affirmation of a man.
He wants the affirmation of his father.
He wants that affirmation.
Look, mister.
I can do it too.
Until finally, what happens is, dad keeps ignoring
that desire, keeps ignoring that, keeps ignoring that,
doesn't pay any attention to that, doesn't care
about that, isn't applauding, isn't affirming, until finally
the kid's like, What the hell with you?
I don't want it anyways from you.
I'll go get it somewhere else.
Oh, and there's a lot of places he
can get it.
And it's all bad.
He's going to get the affirmation of some
man.
And usually it's going to be a boy,
his own age, who's just as much a
fool as he is.
And he's going to become a companion of
fools, as Proverbs says.
But he's going to want somebody's affirmation, some
male affirmation.
He is.
You see.
Now guess what?
You feel like you've failed in a lot
of these areas.
So have I.
That's not what this is about.
This is about, okay, start now.
You know the passage, Raise up a child?
No?
In the way that he's bent, literally in
Hebrew.
When he's old, he'll not depart from it.
Most people today take that as a promise.
The old scholars never took it as a
promise.
They took it as a warning.
You realize that?
J.C. Ryle has a good thing on
that.
It's not a promise.
It's a warning.
You raise up a child and let him
go in the way that he's bent since
birth.
And you let him go in that direction.
When he's old, he'll never depart from it.
So what is it?
From the very beginning.
They say the personality of a child is
formed by the time he's six years old.
I believe that.
Most guys are saying, oh, he's a little
boy, and well, you know, when he gets
old enough, then daddy will take over.
Really?
After he's already formed?
After who he is has already been established?
Or should daddy take over now?
Because here's something.
It doesn't matter how good your wife is
at being a mother.
She's not a dad.
She's not a man.
And at the same time, my wife has
gone through the Amazon with me.
She and I together wrestled down one time
a 14 foot anaconda.
I've got it on film.
Thing come up three feet off the ground.
Almost took her hand off.
She's a tough lady.
But you know what?
My sons, both of them, break out in
the awfulest wrestling match you've ever seen in
your life.
And she tries to put a stop to
it because she's a woman.
And she's not supposed to put a stop
to it.
Because sometimes they just need to flat out
wrestle.
She doesn't understand that because she's a lady.
Sometimes they need to get in the awfulest
pillow fight you've ever seen in your life.
And sometimes they need to bungee jump from
the bunk bed.
She doesn't understand all those things.
And I tell her, I said, there's been
a few times, and she knows I'm going
to share this, there's been a few times
when I said, Charo, this is not your
place.
You don't know what's going on here.
I do.
And she says, well, whatever's going on in
here, it better go out in the barn
and not in my house.
She doesn't understand.
It's like when I come in from hunting.
It's two feet of snow.
It's two degrees below zero.
And I walk back in with frostbite.
She stands there at the door and goes,
boys just want to have fun.
She goes, so this is how men enjoy
themselves.
Yes, this is how men enjoy themselves.
This is what we do.
We're brain damaged.
This is what we do.
Now, someone asked me the question, well, what
about you're not an outdoorsman, you're not this,
you're not that.
Well, first of all, understand this.
That's not the point.
Because it seems like my older boy is
given more towards reading and he loves art.
And it seems like he's going to be
maybe gifted in music.
He likes music.
So, you know, the thing is you're not
trying to turn them into John Waynes.
You're trying to turn them into godly men
like Jesus Christ.
Now, you might not have the gift of
giving, but you're commanded to tithe, right?
Sir, you might not be an outdoorsman, but
you are commanded to take the boy out
and do things with him outside.
It might not be the bent of his
life.
It might not be who he is.
But he does need to have a taste
of that.
You might not work with your hands, but
do something with your hands with that boy.
And sir, you might not be given to
drawing or music or writing.
If that's what your boy likes, then get
into it.
You see what I'm saying?
Just try to be balanced.
And also realize that God made you a
certain way.
God made you a certain way and He
gave you specific children in His providence.
Maybe He's going to direct you and your
child down a different road.
So don't get into this thing.
Because I read a lot about these guys
who are specialized in raising their sons and
all this stuff, and it's like I always
want to go to them and ask them
a question.
Okay, I see what you're doing.
You've got this huge garden and you're growing
your own wool for sweaters and your little
daughters are out there stomping grapes with their
feet.
How do you do this in New Jersey?
You know, not everybody lives on a 300
-acre farm, so how do you really do
this kind of stuff?
So be careful because a lot of the
stuff on raising boys, there's a bit too
much John Wayneism in it.
Look at who you are as a man
and seek to be balanced.
Realize that God made you a special way
in His providence and in His providence He
gave you...
You know, if He wanted your son to
be with Jeremiah Johnson somewhere out in Montana,
He would have gave him to Jeremiah Johnson
somewhere out in Montana.
The fact is God gave your child to
you.
You see?
And so don't get caught up in that.
We have to close and I apologize because
one of the biggest problems when I only
have like one time or a few times
to share with people, I try to cram
in a gazillion things.
But some of these things that I've said
hopefully will help you.
You men know better than I do.
Those boys are only going to be with
you about this long.
About this long.
That's it.
And you just can't...
I've never, never heard an older man say,
Man, if I could just turn back the
clock.
I just spent too much time with my
wife and my boys when they were around.
If I could just turn back the clock
and have worked more at the office.
I've never heard a man say that.
I wish I'd have spent less time with
my boys, you know, because I could be
driving a lot better car and my retirement
would be a lot...
I've never heard a man say that.
But I've heard countless men say, I'd give
anything to turn back the clock and invest.
I said, my son...
One last thing.
Gentlemen, God is more likely to use a
bumbling half pagan father to give the world
a great preacher.
If that man acknowledges he doesn't know what
he's doing and is totally dependent upon the
grace of God, then he will use an
expert homeschooler who has all the answers and
believes that if he passes his child through
this excellent program of homeschooling and follows everything
some great teacher says about how to do
a family, that in the end, he's going
to produce a godly offspring.
God hates that type of mentality.
Hates it.
I don't care how great a homeschooler, how
great a dad, I don't care what institute,
what program, what plan, or what man you
follow like he was God Himself.
I want to tell you something.
If the grace of God doesn't work in
the heart of that child, that child is
going to hell.
Because I have seen the best of missionaries
come out of the greatest pile of garbage
you've ever seen.
And I have seen just moral filth come
out of the best families.
It is the grace of God.
And if you ever take pride in the
way that you did it and how you
produced a godly offspring, you've done a terrible,
terrible thing.
There are, and I'm going to say this,
but there are groups and there are people
that have literally taken the Bible and they
will tell you biblically what side of your
scalp you should part your hair on.
And I want to tell you something.
There is a great difference between living based
upon the commands of God and living based
upon the inferences that some man has made
from Scripture.
And you need to be very careful.
Because God doesn't give you all the answers.
And there isn't a biblical way of how
you part your hair.
Don't part your hair.
There are just a few basic biblical principles
laid down with regard to how to raise
children.
And if you try to split hairs and
do everything just perfect, that's never what's taught
in the Bible.
It's just not.
Recognize the difference between a biblical principle that
is a sound truth that is what is
written in Scripture and some inference.
Because those inferences are from men.
They're not from God.
Let's pray.
Father, thank You for Your kindness to us
and thank You for Your Word.
And Father, as I teach this, I look
at my own life and I think I
only have authority to say this because it's
true.
But I myself have failed in so many
ways.
I am so sorry for all my failure,
but I will not be discouraged because I
know that You who began a good work
in me will finish it.
Yes, I have failed in many ways.
Where sin abounds, grace abounds.
And I know, Lord, I do not trust
in my ability to hear, but I do
trust in Your ability to speak to me.
I do not trust in my ability to
follow, but I do trust in Your ability
to lead.
And I do pray for Your own glory.
Oh God, You would regenerate the hearts of
my sons and bring them into Your kingdom
and give them to Your Son.
Lord, I don't ask for gifts for my
sons.
I don't ask for ministries.
I don't even ask that they become preachers
or missionaries.
But I ask that their heart would be
devoted to Your Son, that they would love
Your Son with all their heart, soul, mind,
and strength, and that they would honor Him,
that they would desire to be with Him
more than do things in His name, that
they would be infinitely more than their father.
In Jesus' name, Amen.