Hello, this is Brother Denny.
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Let's stand before the Lord for prayer.
Our God and our Father, we stand before
you.
We praise you.
We worship you, O Lord.
In spirit and in truth, Father.
Thank you for loving us.
Thank you for saving our souls, Lord.
You have brought us to this place this
evening.
You have put desires in our heart, O
God.
You will not let them fall to the
ground, God.
You have put them in our hearts.
We do believe you put them there because
you want to fulfill them.
O God, tonight again, we pray that you
will open the eyes of our understanding, God,
that you would wipe away the sickness that
is upon our eyes and let us see
you, Lord.
We commit this meeting into your care, Father,
and pray that you will fill us with
the Holy Ghost and power, every one of
us.
We may hear that we may speak.
We pray in Jesus' name.
Amen.
You may be seated.
My heart thrills at the potential of the
ancient promises which we looked at this morning.
They are ancient.
Three thousand plus years old is pretty old
promises.
Yet, because it is the Word of God,
it's new and alive and quick and fresh
as if it was just given today.
That's the way the Word of God is.
It's still full of life.
It's still full of vision.
And it's still full of hope for those
who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not
after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
Romans chapter 8, verse 1.
This evening, I want to share with you
on the subject a godly heritage today.
Yes, it stirred our hearts this morning to
look and see what God did with those
Old Testament saints way back there three thousand
years ago.
What about us?
What about today?
We're living in a different world than they
lived in.
Can God do for us what He did
for them?
We want to consider that subject this evening.
Modern America can hardly think in terms of
many generations.
We are a scattered people.
We are a people that move and crisscross
the nation.
We transfer all over the place.
We can hardly think of generations of children
who continue to walk in steadfastness with God.
God is going to have to change our
mind on that.
Because I do believe that those men that
we learned about this morning, they saw that.
It was their dream.
It was reality to them.
It's something they lived with.
It's something they long for.
According to Isaiah 58 and verse 12, God
says, If we will walk not after the
flesh, but after the spirit, thou shalt raise
up the foundations of many generations.
According to Isaiah 61, If we will walk
not after the flesh, but after the spirit,
thou shalt repair the desolations of many generations.
Well, that's where we are today, isn't it?
We look around us, we see the desolation
of many generations.
But it's time that somebody would wake up
and rise up and change that whole thing.
It doesn't have to be that way.
It's not God's will that it be that
way.
We don't have to go the way that
others have gone.
We truly can believe God for the generations
of our children and many generations to come.
If we can't believe that, then we can't
believe this book.
Because that's what God says in His Word.
Jackie and I are first generation Christians.
We had no godly heritage.
Most of the time we can't even think
much about our past.
It's not allowed according to the Scripture.
Because the Bible says, Whatsoever things are pure,
whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are lovely,
whatsoever things are of good report, think on
these things.
So much of our past, we're not even
allowed to think about it.
Oh, what a treasure we give the next
generation.
If all their days from middle up, they
have multitudes of precious things which they can
think on all their days.
Why for us, we had to just kind
of cut off all of those things and
go from there.
We look back with regret.
Yet we look ahead with faith and confidence.
And we hope for a better way for
our children.
We plan to give them a godly heritage.
Something that they can think about.
Something they can remember.
Something that will influence them long after we're
gone.
What do I mean when I say a
godly heritage?
Let me just give you a few brief
definitions.
A godly heritage.
Something that you can look back on.
Something that the children can remember.
Thousands of family devotions where there was singing
and teaching and anointed prayers that prevailed in
the home.
Hundreds of verses from the Bible stored away
in their little hearts by many different methods
in their home.
Sweet times of doing God's work together and
building God's kingdom.
The memories of growing up in a home
where there was a spirit-filled atmosphere most
of the time.
And they sensed and knew that God is
in this place.
Volumes of memories of godly living.
Holy activities.
Heartfelt love for one another in the home.
A multitude of prayers stored up by a
father and a mother in vials in heaven.
Waiting to be poured out on the next
generations long after we're gone.
Hallelujah.
A deep assurance that Grandpa and Grandma Tennyson
loved God with all their heart.
And there was no question about it.
They might not have done everything right.
They made their mistakes in their time.
But Grandpa and Grandma Tennyson loved God with
all their heart.
That's a godly heritage.
That's something that will affect the generations to
come.
That can't be measured in money.
Amen?
By God's grace, we will leave this for
our generations.
Can you see it?
Can you imagine leaving this kind of a
heritage for your family?
God wants you to imagine it.
God wants you to dream it.
God wants you to set your sights on
it.
God wants you to engage your will and
go for it.
It doesn't happen by accident, dear brothers and
sisters.
It doesn't happen by accident.
They say, and it's true, the test of
a man's Christianity is his children.
And that's true.
We'll see that.
We'll look at it a little bit later
on in this series.
The qualifications of church leaders.
It speaks about looking at their children before
you put them in a place of leadership.
But may I take it just one step
further here?
Looking at a couple of portions of Scripture
in the Old Testament, which stretches it one
more generation beyond the man.
Proverbs chapter 17 and verse 6 says these
words.
Amen.
God bless that little one.
Hallelujah.
That's what we're all about around here anyway,
so praise God.
Proverbs chapter 17 and verse 6 says, Children's
children are the crown of old men and
the glory of children on their fathers.
Listen to this one.
Psalm 103 verse 17 and 18.
But the mercy of the Lord is from
everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear Him.
And His righteousness, the Lord's righteousness unto children's
children, to such as keep His covenant and
to those that remember His commandments to do
them.
Oh, these are precious promises to us, dear
brothers and sisters.
But the point I want to make here
is, it's not just a man's children that
are a test of his Christianity.
But as I see it in the Word
of God, it's my children's children that are
the true test of my Christianity.
If a man's Christianity is deeply in his
heart and his life, he will so influence
his children that they will be motivated to
rise up and do the same thing.
His life will reach out into his grandchildren
through his children.
Hallelujah.
I've seen this so many times as I
study these home histories for the Remnant magazine.
Many times I have sat stunned as I
looked again and saw, here it is, here's
another one.
Here's another man and his wife who loved
God, who burned with a fervor for the
Lord Jesus.
And it was taught by the next generation
and passed on to the next generation and
even passed on to the next one.
I've sat and marveled and said, Yes, Lord!
Yes!
Mine also!
William and Catherine Booth are a good example
of how we can have a godly heritage
and pass it on today.
You don't have to go back 3,000
years to find somebody who did it.
William and Catherine Booth, they were the founders
of the Salvation Army, which was a mighty
force for souls for over 100 years in
this world.
This couple, they were sold out for God.
They were fanatics.
I don't know what else to call them.
They had a powerful home.
They loved God with all their heart.
God gave them eight children.
Those eight children caught the fire of their
fanatical father and mother.
Zeal was there.
The example was clear.
This father and mother saw very clearly those
two ways that I talked about earlier today.
They saw them.
We're going to raise up a godly seed
in our home and we're going to go
after the souls of humanity.
They saw them both.
They passed that zeal and that fervor and
that fire on to their children.
Those eight children scattered themselves all over the
cities of the world to reach the down
and outers.
And God used them to reach them.
Those eight children had 45 grandchildren for William
and Catherine Booth.
And what do you think those 45 grandchildren
did?
They saw the fervor and the zeal that
was caught by those eight children from a
father and a mother that were on fire
for God.
They saw it in their father and mother
and picked up the same zeal and they
rose up and said, We want to follow
the Lord with all of our hearts.
They lived in powerful homes where the zeal
of the Lord was there.
The right ingredients were there.
They said, I will follow the faith of
my father and my mother.
And those 45 grandchildren scattered themselves all over
the world, every one of them, to reach
the lost.
On a plane some time ago flying over
Africa, I met a Salvation Army lady.
They call them lassies.
On the plane, dear old sister, she was
there dressed in her uniform, had her covering
on, her head.
And we began to talk and I started
sharing my respect for William Booth and all
that God used him to do and his
zeal and his fire.
I told her he's one of my heroes.
And I began to share my burden for
Holmes.
And she opened up her heart and began
to share with me.
And she said, Well, let me just give
you a little more information to help you
along your way.
She said, I went to Bible school with
several of their great grandchildren and they're on
mission fields around the world today.
That was about 10 years ago that I
heard this.
God wants us to pass on a vibrant
living faith to our children just like that.
That's generation by generation by generation.
God is no respecter of persons, my dear
people.
What He did for William and Catherine Booth,
He will do for me.
And what He did for me, He will
also do for you.
He is no respecter of persons, not one
bit.
God is longing, He's waiting, He's looking for
parents who will rise up in the zeal
of the Holy Spirit and do the same
thing all over again.
He's longing for it.
He's looking for them.
Will you be one?
God wants us to pass on a vibrant
living faith to our children.
Then they will pass it on to the
next generation.
Then that generation will pass it on to
the next generation.
And only one thing will break the chain.
That shin and lukewarmness in the parents, wherever
they are in the generations.
And that does happen.
And the chains are broken.
And if you track down all the children,
you'll find holes all over in the generations.
But you'll always find them there for the
same reason.
Because a couple of parents lost their zeal
and love for the God of Heaven.
That's how it happens.
Let's look at Hudson Taylor.
Another example.
Hudson Taylor was the founder of the China
-England Mission.
Much of what is happening there in China
today can be traced back to the work
of that dear man and those brothers and
sisters who labored with him in China 150
years ago.
Hudson Taylor.
Let's look at his heritage.
Three generations of fiery Methodist preachers preceded Hudson
Taylor.
Great Grandfather James laid a many generation foundation
as he established his home.
That dear man, I mean, on his wedding
day, he was late for his wedding because
he was getting right with God.
He made a mistake the day before his
wedding.
He went out to hear John Wesley preaching
in an open air meeting.
And John Wesley preached on this subject.
As for me and my house, we will
serve the Lord.
And the Spirit of God gripped that man
so deeply in his heart as he realized,
I'm going to get married tomorrow.
He found himself in the barn praying through
to God.
And the old clock was ticking by.
And his wife, the bee, was waiting there
at the church.
And all the people were there.
And the preacher was there.
But the bridegroom wasn't there.
Bless God.
Who cares?
He was establishing a home.
That's what he was doing.
Like we said the other evening, he was
laying the foundation of a godly home.
He was getting thoroughly right with God.
Well, his dear wife, she didn't know what
she got a hold of when she married
him.
But in a few weeks, she caught up.
She caught up.
That was the beginning.
Beautiful.
They had several sons.
And they were all zealous Methodists.
And those sons had several sons.
And they were also zealous Methodists.
Lay preachers.
They didn't have any of the other kind
back in those days.
One of them was Hudson Taylor's father.
Hudson Taylor's father was a man of prayer.
He was a man of God.
He was a man of zeal.
He loved the Lord with all of his
heart.
And he used to pray.
He had a burden for China.
And he used to pray.
Almost daily, he would pour his heart out
before God and say, Oh Lord, would you
send missionaries to China?
That was back when nobody went to China.
And there was this little boy named Hudson
listening to those words, you know.
And those words fell like mercy drops on
the heart of that little boy.
And when he was six years old, he
got into his closet and got down on
his knees and said, Oh God, I'll go
to China.
And from that day, his heart was set.
And he went to China.
And he shook that place and established churches
all over China.
And there are millions of Christians there today
because some dear old godly man got down
on his knees in the hay up in
the barn before his wedding and cried out
to God to establish his home.
Can you see it?
Do you see it?
Oh, hallelujah.
What a beautiful picture it is.
Well, the rest is history, but the his
-tory doesn't stop there.
In total, there are nine generations of preachers
in the Taylor family.
And one is a missionary in Thailand today.
May God inflame us to raise up generations
of soldiers for Jesus Christ.
May God do that.
Do you see the potential?
What do you think?
Are these just special men that God chose
to put an extra blessing on?
Or is this something that God would want
to do in every home that is represented
in this room?
And those that listen to these tapes, which
one do you think it is?
Did God just say, I want to do
something special with this person so everybody else
can look on longingly and say, isn't that
lovely what God did?
Or is that simply the result of faithful
men and women who believed God and followed
His Word?
Which one do you think it is?
Well, I believe that it is simply faithful
men and women who decided they were going
to follow God.
And that was the result.
Open our eyes, Lord.
Open our eyes.
So many times, so many times we sit
in such a slough of unbelief that we
hear stories like this, which is history by
the way, which is inspired by God.
We hear these stories and we just kind
of sit back and say, oh, that's a
nice story, but it's not for me.
Oh, you wouldn't say that out of your
mouth, but in your heart you say that
in your heart, and it's not true!
The devil is lying to you!
It's for you as much as it was
for him.
Do you believe it?
I do anyway.
Give us a vision, Lord, one that consumes
us, one that drives us to action, one
that changes the priorities of our life, one
that draws us back when we get too
busy at times, one that cannot be dimmed
by this world and all the pursuits that
this world has to throw against us.
God, give us a vision like that!
What about Jonathan Edwards?
God used Jonathan Edwards in revival 250 years
ago.
His heritage and his wife's heritage goes back
three generations before the two of them came
together in holy matrimony.
Jonathan and Sarah Edwards began their home with
a vision of a house full of godly
children, I mean, from day one.
Lord, fill up our house!
We're going to raise them for You!
Give us a bunch of them!
That was their goal.
That was their dream and their vision.
They were both anointed with the Holy Ghost.
If you read their writings, you can tell
it without a doubt.
Some people say that Sarah was more spiritual
than Jonathan.
All we know about him is because he
was the man that God used in a
revival.
He preached sinners in the hands of a
mighty God.
But his dear wife was anointed with the
Holy Ghost.
God gave them 11 children.
They had a home that was exemplary.
People noted it from far and wide.
George Whitefield came to the United States.
He was single.
And he was planning to be single.
He saw the beauty of this home, the
order of this home, the godliness of the
children, the order, the love, and all those
things.
And he went back to England and said,
I'm going to get married.
I like what I see.
The posterity of this home is astounding.
It is truly an example of a many
generation home.
Please look at it with me.
Five generations of light.
I think it's about 1900.
The state of New York did a study
on five generations of the descendants of Jonathan
and Sarah Edwards.
They found 729 males that they could trace.
Out of those 729 men, 200 were preachers,
65 were teachers in Bible colleges, 13 were
Bible college presidents, 60 of them were authors,
80 of them held public offices, 100 of
them were lawyers, 60 of them were doctors,
a few of them were senators and governors,
and one of them was a vice president.
Five generations of light with three behind it.
Now let's look at five generations of darkness.
You know, this thing works both ways.
The state of New York also did a
study on the lives of two evil brothers
who married sisters.
Five generations of these men were trapped.
1,026 descendants, men and women, were trapped.
Of those 1,026 descendants, they discovered 300
of them died an early death because of
a sinful life.
140 of them spent an average of 13
years in prison.
190 of them were public prostitutes.
100 of them were alcoholics.
In the year of 1900, it was estimated
that the state of New York spent 1
.2 million dollars to take care of all
these wayward people who lost out with God
because one generation said, I'm not going to
follow God, I'll go my own way.
Truly, righteousness exalts the nation, but sin is
a reproach to any people.
It seems very evident when we look at
the comparison between the two of these families
that with Jonathan and Sarah Edwards, many sanctifying
seeds were sown from one determined couple who
decided they were going to love God with
all their heart and live it out in
their home and give it to their children.
And that's what God wants to do with
each and every one of us and that's
why we're here.
Would you allow me one more exercise in
statistics here this evening?
This shocked us a few years ago with
the older children.
But one day we were having school, homeschool,
and I was teaching and we started talking,
just having a little discussion there in the
schoolroom about the blessing of having children and
the blessing of having many children.
And we were discussing this going back and
forth and of course everybody was excited about
it.
We believe in having a quiver full of
children.
And we decided if one of the children,
I don't remember who, got the bright idea,
well let's just figure out how many this
would be if such and so happened.
And so we put a couple little marks
on the board.
One little mark for a papa.
One little mark for the mama.
And then we decided we'll take a conservative
approach to this and we'll say that all
of them are going to have six children.
So the papa and the mama, they had
six children.
We put our six little marks there on
the board and then we put six marks
underneath each one of those six.
We put six more under each one of
those.
Well, we quickly ran out of room on
the board and had to go to our
math.
Amen?
And then, we went to our math and
we started adding and multiplying.
And when we got down five generations, which
we were studying Jonathan Edwards' five generations, when
we got down five generations, we were shocked
as we realized that five generations of children
who all had six children makes ten thousand
descendants in five generations.
Ten thousand descendants.
Ten thousand.
I'm greatly moved by these numbers.
I don't know how you look at that.
Maybe statistics don't mean anything to you.
Hey, cut it in half and it'll still
be five thousand.
But I'm greatly moved by these numbers.
I'll tell you somebody else who's moved by
these kind of numbers.
Satan is.
You can be sure that he's moved by
them.
And I want to tell you, brothers and
sisters, God is also moved by these numbers.
He is.
God knows if He gets a father and
a mother, He gets their whole heart, He
gets them totally dedicated, consecrated to Him, sold
out, locked stock and barrel, and God knows
if He gets a father and a mother
like that, and He puts into their heart
a dream and a vision of passing that
on to the next generation, God also knows
He's going to get a lot of generations
out of it.
Much glory and honor will come to God
through it.
Well, if it's too much for you, if
it seems too idealistic, just cut it in
half and make it five thousand.
It's still powerful.
Oh, we need to see things the way
God does.
You know, He looks at things so differently
than we do.
So differently.
You want a ministry?
You go for that one.
And just let it go.
Just let it go.
Just let it keep on going.
Keep on going.
But you know, you've got to be the
real thing at home to do that.
24-7 they say, walk with God, be
a godly example, have a fire burning in
your heart, get consumed with raising your children
for God, and you'll have a ministry.
You'll have a ministry.
Without a vision, the people perish.
But with a vision, God's work prospers unto
the third and fourth generation.
I want to share an experience with you
that changed our lives forever.
Twenty-two years ago, I read a living
epistle.
2 Corinthians 3.2 And I've never gotten
over it.
I met a family that was doing many,
many things right in their home.
I'm sure there were some things wrong there,
but they were so far beyond me.
In those days, a vision came to my
heart as I met this home.
God used this family to implant some things
in my heart that have changed the destiny
of my children without a doubt.
And inflamed me with a vision for godly
homes.
I was up in Minnesota many, many years
ago, 22 years ago, helping two dear brothers
hold revival meetings, revival crusades for three weeks
in a town up in Minnesota.
Each night, this family came.
It was an unusual family.
They were a bit different.
They looked different.
The ladies had a covering on their head.
The men dressed more simple than everybody else.
And I noticed this family as they came
night by night.
One evening, they had the family get up
and sing a few songs in four-part
harmony, just like we had the blessing of
hearing here this evening.
I was impressed.
I looked at that.
One night, this father came up to me
after the meeting, and he said, I'd like
you to come to breakfast in my house
in the morning.
He invited me and one of my friends.
Well, I told him, yeah, I'd be glad
to come.
I got some directions and we parted.
I started moving around and visiting with others
and I said, well, I'm going to this
certain family's house in the morning for breakfast.
And the people got a big old smile
on their face and said, oh, you'll enjoy
that.
You'll enjoy that.
I said, okay, good, great.
I didn't know what that meant.
Well, Tuesday came.
I and my friend, we headed out, crossed
over the border into Canada, started trying to
follow these directions that were given and somehow
we got lost.
As I look at it now, God got
us lost.
We got lost.
Didn't know where we were at, so we
decided, what are we going to do?
Strange city.
Well, we'll stop and ask.
So we stopped somewhere at a business and
asked them.
I said, could you tell us where these
people live, giving their name?
Man just got this big smile on his
face and he said, oh, sure.
Yeah, I know where they live.
Yeah, you just go down the road this
way, so far, make a left-hand turn,
you go in there on the right and
the farm's back in there a ways.
So we jumped back in the car and
headed down the road and somehow we missed
that left-hand turn and you know how
that is.
You go and just keep on going, just
keep on going.
Finally we said, whoa, I think there's something
mixed up here and we turned around and
stopped in another place of business and said,
sorry, we lost our way.
We're trying to find this place.
Do you know where these people live?
This guy got this big smile on his
face and he said, oh, yeah, I know
where they live.
You just go up this way, make a
right, go through this residential area and it's
down that way.
We kept on going, got into this residential
area and somehow got lost in there too.
Residential area, what am I going to do?
Well, we knocked on a lot of doors
going soul winning, so we knocked on the
door and asked somebody in the residential area
and this person got this big smile on
their face.
Same story.
Oh yeah, sure, right down here.
Well, we ended up at the farm, typical
farm scene and boys were still doing their
chores.
Girls were in the house with mom, you
know, making breakfast and all of a sudden
the boys came in and sat down at
the table and going to have a nice
country breakfast there and we did.
We sat down and started eating and after
we finished our meal, had a nice spiritual
conversation, the Father, He turns to me and
gives me the Bible and says, you're going
to have the devotions this morning.
And I thought, oh, incident season, out of
season.
I opened up Ephesians chapter 1.
That's a good place to start if you
haven't studied and started reading in Ephesians chapter
1, you know, and I looked around the
room a little bit to see how things
were and I noticed every one of the
children had their eyes shut as I was
reading the Scriptures.
They were squeezing to get whatever they could
get out of what I was reading.
Well, we had our time of sharing and
after the time of sharing was over, then
they passed out the song books and we
started singing.
I never heard singing like that before.
It was beautiful.
I mean, a family who's been singing together
from year after year after year and we
all sang together and the heaven came down
and the glory of God came into that
little dining room while we sang those songs.
It was beautiful.
After we finished singing, the father dismissed the
breakfast table there and as soon as he
was done, I mean, all the children, you
know, the boys, they jumped on me.
They had tracts in their back pockets and
tracts in their front pockets and they were
giving me a tract on the verbal inspiration
of the Bible and they wanted to know
what I thought about Billy Graham and they
were just going on like this and I
was kind of taken aback by these fellas,
you know.
They were so zealous and as soon as
I finished with them, then the mom dragged
me into the next room and started weeping
and said, oh brother Denny, pray for revival.
We need revival in our town.
And I'm just taking all this in, you
know, I'm thinking, wow, this is different.
So then the boys, you know, they're going
to take me on a tour and we're
going to go around and look at the
things on the farm, you know, and I
didn't know much about farms so we started
to go around the farm and while we
were walking and sharing about the Lord, why
the milk truck pulled in right there in
the middle of our conversation and one of
the fellas had stopped talking and got a
tract out of his back pocket and jumped
up there on the truck, sucked the tract
through the window and said, hey, have you
been born again?
You know, and I'm just watching, I'm just
watching all this.
We finished the little tour and I got
back in my car and said goodbye and
the little lady of the house, she came
out with a loaf of German bread and
a dozen eggs, you know, that was her
little gift that she gave, you know, to
those that visited and she gave them to
me and I didn't know what I was
going to do with them, you know, I
was grabbing revival for three weeks and my
wife was at home, so I just put
them in the back seat of the car
and we started driving and we drive back
and came to the border to go across,
you know, back into the United States and
here comes the customs officer, you know, he
walks up there and, you know, they kind
of put on a gruff face, you know,
that shakes out all the dishonest ones and
he walked up to the car and he
said, where are you going?
And I told him, we're going to the
United States, we've been visiting friends, you know,
and he said, you got anything in the
car?
And I said, no, no sir, we don't.
And all of a sudden, I remember, oh,
got that bread.
And I said, oh, we do have something
in the back seat.
Oh, what's that?
Oh, I said, we have a loaf of
German bread and a dozen eggs.
And this guy's face just got a big
smile on him and he said, oh, I
know where you've been and he named the
name of that family.
Yeah, you can go on, he said and
he sent me on down the road.
We drove down the road and I'm just
thinking, Lord, what mean is all of this?
What mean is all of this, God?
Well, it took a little while for the
dust to settle and for those things to
settle down in my poor, blinded heart.
But after a few days, I began to
cry to God.
I said, God, I want that, Lord.
I want that.
I saw something there, God, that I've never
seen and I want it, Lord.
I began to pray like that and back
then, we just had three children, you know,
Rebecca was four, Daniel was two, Elizabeth was
a little nursing baby and God took His
finger and wrote upon the table of my
heart that day a picture that I never
forgot.
Well, I went home.
By the time I got home, my heart
was fixed.
Jackie didn't know what happened to me.
She didn't know what to do with me.
And it's been that way a few times
since also.
She has been a faithful wife to follow
this fanatic, I'll tell you that.
But anyway, I came home and I shared
these things that I had seen and heard
with my dear wife and I said, Honey,
we're going to go for it.
We're going to have devotions.
We're going to get the children together.
We're going to sing.
We're going to teach them the Bible.
We're going to have a godly home.
I didn't know if I used those terms
or not, but I told her, I want
to have a home like what I saw
there.
I want a home that has an influence
in the community.
I want to have a home that the
community knows there's something special about that family.
That's what I wanted.
And we didn't know what we were doing
back in those days, but we sat them
all together, you know.
Little Rebecca, she was in her little rocking
chair and Daniel, he was sitting in his
crib, you know, sucking his thumb.
Sorry, Daniel.
And little Elizabeth, you know, she was nursing
yet.
And we took three songs.
That was it.
Three songs.
We're going to sing.
We're going to sing like that family sings.
Someday my family's going to sing like that
family sings.
And we're going to start with three songs
and we sang the same three songs again
and again and again.
We made a lot of mistakes, you know,
but our hearts were set and our hearts
were right and we wanted something that we
never saw before.
Well, the vision has expanded.
Surely it has, but I still remember the
wholehearted passion that we had in those days.
I still remember.
I won't forget seeing my little children sitting
in those places, wondering what happened to Daddy.
I mean, here we go.
And we didn't miss.
I mean, we did it every day.
We're going to have it.
We're going to go for it.
Well, there's a dearth.
There's a dearth in the land for families
who can affect a community like that, where
the community all knows who they are by
the testimony of their family.
There's a dearth in the land for that.
God wants hundreds and hundreds of families like
that.
Dear brothers and sisters, do you realize that
that is the will of God for every
family in the church to be like that?
It's not supposed to be some special family.
It's supposed to be all the families.
It's the will of God that it be
all the families.
It's not right that it's hard to find.
God wants to do it again.
He is able to do it again.
He will do it again.
He will.
God is saying to us, My people, I
want to leave a godly heritage to your
children.
My Spirit is moving on the hearts of
the fathers.
Will you open your heart and allow My
Spirit to go deep inside of you and
work you over and change you and give
you a vision that you will not be
turned away from?
You know, I get weary sometimes.
I get weary of hearing, you know, when
a sermon is preached on the home.
I get weary of hearing everybody stand and
give the testimony after the meeting, you know,
and you open it up for people to
share and they all stand and say, I
kind of lost my way.
It's good to hear another sermon on the
home, you know, we forget these things.
And I think, God, when are we going
to stop forgetting?
When is it, Lord, that it's going to
so consume us that we do it every
day and we don't need to hear a
sermon on Sunday morning to wake us up
one more time?
God, when?
When is it going to go deep enough
that we don't have to be reminded again
to love these children and raise them for
God?
Well, by faith, Denny and Jackie rose up
believing God for the next generation and we
are believing God for the next generation now
also.
Will you also, by faith, rise up and
believe God and believe His Word and know
that He truly wants to do all of
that and more in every one of your
hearts and lives?
I hope you will.
Let's stand for prayer.
Oh, God, we see it.
I see, Lord, I see.
It's beautiful.
I want it, Lord.
I will have it.
God, I pray, put that in every one
of our hearts, Father.
All these parents, Lord, the dads and the
moms, put it in our hearts, Lord.
We see it.
We want it.
We're not going to be satisfied.
We're not going to be, Lord.
Not from here forward.
We're not going to be God.
Oh, I pray you'll just continue to work
in our hearts in the next meeting.
In Jesus' name I pray.
Amen.
You may be seated.