In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of prioritizing the spiritual well-being of our families over worldly concerns. He uses an example from a movie to illustrate how people often become obsessed with trivial matters while their families suffer. The speaker then references Deuteronomy 6:5-9, highlighting the command to teach God's words diligently to our children and to keep them in our hearts. He also discusses the negative influences in society, such as the music industry and secular education, that can lead our children astray. The sermon concludes with a call to faithfully observe God's commandments and to love Him with all our heart, soul, and strength, passing on this devotion to future generations.

We are glad to be able to be here, and we are thankful, immensely thankful for the presence of each one of you here tonight. We know that you could have chosen to be somewhere else, but we are glad that you're here tonight. It is without any conceit at all that I say that I think that the subject that has been assigned to me is one of the most vital, the most important, and I think the most crucial, critical one in our hope of being a part of the remnant of God, and that is to maintain purity in our homes, in our home life, and in our families. I want to begin by asking us to think for a moment with me, because as we go through the lesson tonight, we are going to try to get us to see and to appreciate the problems that we face in maintaining the remnant of God through our homes. And then I want us to be able to see and appreciate and accept the challenges that we have before us in doing what we must do in order to maintain and to preserve that remnant. And then finally, I want us to look at and to accept the processes that will be necessary if we are going to do that. The first thing that I want us to know tonight is that the remnant is of God. The remnant is of God. It is by the will and the grace of God that there is a remnant. In the book of Romans, the 9th chapter, the Apostle Paul writing to the Roman brethren in the context of the Roman Church comprised of Jew and Gentile, letting them know that it was by the grace of God that there was a remnant to be spared. The Apostle Paul says it in this way, "'Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, though the number of children of Israel be as the sands of the sea, the remnant will be saved.'" The context of that lets us know that what he is saying is that though you could go out and attempt to count all of the grains of sand on all of the shores of the seas and the oceans, that if you could scoop up just a bucketful of that, you would get the idea that though Israel be numberless as the sands of the sea, only a remnant will be saved. Then he again makes another statement. He says, as Isaiah said before, "'Unless the Lord of Tzabbaoth had left us a seed, we would have become like Sodom, and we would have been made as Gomorrah.'" When we go back to Isaiah 1, verse 9, where Paul is quoting from, or kind of paraphrasing from, we hear Isaiah actually saying, "'If the Lord had not left us a remnant, we would have been as Sodom and Gomorrah.'" We know Sodom and Gomorrah. We know what happened to them. We know that there was no sparing of those who were guilty. And Isaiah is simply saying, this is the way we could be. And the interesting thing is that after Isaiah says that, he turns around and begins to address not the remnant of Israel, but the whole body of Israel as, "'Listen to me, leaders of Sodom, and listen to me, leaders of Gomorrah.'" The remnant is of God. It is not of man. It is not by man's choice, it is not by man's designs that there should be a remnant. It is by God's decision. Whenever a Christian considers the foundation of society, what does he naturally think of? The family unit, doesn't he? The home. That's been ingrained in us. We've been taught that. We accept that. And we know that it is without saying that the family is the foundation of society, and as goes the family, or as goes the home, so goes the nation. So goes the Church. This concept is both revealing and it's very alarming at the same time, because it presents to us a scary realization that everything really does depend upon the home in preserving and preparing the remnant of God. Back in the book of Esther in the 4th chapter, in verses 13 and 14, as the Jews faced a terribly trying time, possibly the total wiping out of the Jews in the Babylonian captivity, the Mordecai sent to Esther, who had become the queen under the king, and told Esther, Don't think that because you're in the king's house you'll be able to escape. If you remain silent, do not speak up at this time, and here's the point that I want us to get. Relief and deliverance will come from another source. God will find another source. If we do not arise to the challenge before us and accept our responsibilities as Christian families and Christian homes to protect, preserve, and prepare the remnant, God will bring deliverance from another source, but we will not be apart. In our nation we are in troubled times in many areas. There are areas of health, crime, integrity, responsible government, and so forth. Now if it is true that the family, the home, is the foundation of society, and it is, then it is obvious that the family needs our concern and needs our attention. He which made them from the beginning made them male and female and said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, shall cleave to his wife, and they claim shall be one flesh. Wherefore, they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. This is the Lord's summation of what God's will is from the beginning. You can read about it in Genesis chapter 2, verse 24 following. Then you can read about this institution, this organization, this entity in Ephesians chapter 5, beginning in verse 22 and going through chapter 6 and verse 4, where he addresses husbands. He talks about the relationship between Christ and his church as the head over the church. He says, Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. He addresses the wife as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wife be to her husband in everything. Then he addresses the children and says, Obey your parents and the Lord, for this is right. It's the first commandment with promise. And you fathers, parents, provoke not your children to discouragement or to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord. This is the concept of the unit that we know of as the family and the home. And this is where God has placed the responsibility for the preparation and the preservation of the remnant. In a movie a few years ago, one of the characters who was having all kinds of problems with his family life and his home life had had a dream, and he was totally obsessed with this dream. He talked to his friend about the dream. Every time he'd get a friend, he'd talk to his friend about this dream that he had and everything. Finally, his friend confronts him at one time and says, Your family is going down the drain and you're worried about a dream. In our world today, in our country today and in many areas within the church of our Lord Jesus Christ, our families are going down the drain, and we're worried about what? Career, social status, recreation, new house, new car, stuff, stuff, and more stuff. And we watch our children going away. A few years ago in my educational experience, we had a young lady who was having all kinds of behavioral problems. She had all kinds of discipline problems. She was dealing with drugs and alcohol, and she was failing academically. We sat down and decided what we needed to do to help this young lady, and we decided that the only course we had was to funnel her into an alternative program. And so we called the parents in for a conference, and we revealed to them the problems that she was having and that we were having with her. And we told them that the only hope that we had for saving her academically and educationally was to put her into this alternative program where she would have more supervised instruction and guidance. And as the parents sat and listened to that, they were greatly concerned, greatly concerned with one area. If we put her into this alternative program, will she still get to go to the prom? That was it. That was it. The family is going down the drain, this girl's wife is falling apart, and what was the family, what was the parents thinking about? There are a myriad of forces today at work to attack our faith and weaken the family as an institution. The purpose is to destroy the family structure as we know it and as it is taught in the word of God, as I shared with you a while ago from Ephesians 5 and 6. There is a coalition of godlessness, Hollywood and TV, where we are told that 97 percent of the writers and the producers are about anti-religionists. Does it surprise you, then, what you and your children see on TV and on the movies? The majority of the stars are anti-religion, anti-traditional home. Look at their own homes, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. In the music industry, where the majority of the songs in any genre glorify what? Adultery, divorce, drunkenness, infidelity, drugs, nudity. In the field of education, where I've spent a great portion of my life, secular humanism disguised as higher order thinking skills and also values education, and also science as it is presented to us with its one-sided presentation of a system of theories presented as facts to sensitive and impressive young minds, molding your children and your grandchildren into a form that they want, not that you want. Unqualified evolution of life from lifeless matter. In the judicial circles, where non-elected judges render decisions that are supporting same-sex marriage, adulterous relations, generating contempt for just laws. You let a Christian sit down and write a letter to the editor decrying the sinful state of homosexuality and divorce and all of that, and immediately you get back a host of letters saying you can't legislate morals, and yet I challenge you to think that right now in our country we have unelected, appointed judges legislating immorality and passing that as the interpretation of our laws. Witness the attacks on the home being made in our country and do not ever, ever misjudge where they're coming from. They're coming from Satan. They're coming from Satan. And let me ask you, why do you think that Satan is attacking the fiber of the home? It is because in his subtlety, remember Paul to the Corinthians, reminding him of the subtlety of Satan in deceiving Eve in the garden, he's smarter than we are. And Satan in his subtlety is knowing that if he can destroy the nation and the church, he will do it through the home. And he knows that if he can destroy the biblical concept of the home, that his job is done. And as the archenemy of our God, any opposition that he can raise to that which is good and honorable is his goal. Now, the failure of the home in its duties to promote and maintain faithfulness to the principles and precepts of Christ is the foundation for the failure of the church and nation and our culture. And it is a death blow struck to any hope that we might have of being and maintaining our relationship to God as his remnant. In the Old Testament, at least six words express the remnant idea. In almost every case, it describes a leftover concept, but it's a leftover concept of righteous people of God after divine judgment. Examples can be seen that have already been mentioned before in the case of Noah and his family and the world, Lot after the destruction of Sodom, Jacob's family in Egypt, Elijah and the 7,000 faithful followers of the Lord. In the New Testament, there are at least three words that carry the idea of the same concept of the remnant, that which is left after something has happened. Now, we can be separated. We can be left over by the process of selection, assignment, epidemic, famine, drought, war, or at the hands of a God who demands godliness, holiness and purity of those who will ultimately find themselves in his loving arms of ownership, the remnant. We can become a remnant in many ways. We can become a remnant through trials, through acts of purification and through persecutions. Witness the wilderness wanderings. Why? God sent them into the wilderness to get rid of a generation and raise up another generation. We can be separated and become a remnant as the sense of purification, the Babylonian captivity. To send them into the Babylonian captivity from which only a remnant would come back, and this is what Isaiah was talking about in Jeremiah and Ezekiel. The divisions within the Lord's Church could very well be the providence of God in weeding out and whittling down to the remnant to see who will stand faithful. The Apostle Paul had something to say along that line. It is necessary there be divisions so that it may be known, in my words, who stands with the Lord. We can also become a remnant through neglect and carelessness, but through neglect and carelessness we do not maintain the remnant. We are excluded from the remnant if we are guilty. If we fail to teach, if we fail to encourage, if we fail to correct in the times when the gospel is out of season, we will fall prey to those who no longer endure sound doctrine. The people of God can become a remnant through attrition. It can be possibly, as has already been mentioned, the fact that we fight and bite and devour one another until we are consumed, Galatians 5.15. Many congregations today are only a shadow of what they once were. And if you look very closely and if you look at the history of the congregations, you will find these three major areas playing a part in what is left. And I'm not saying that what is left is not good. It may be the remnant, and it may be God's will, but the important thing for me is to be sure that I am within God's will and a part of that remnant. In the book of John, the first chapter, verse 11 and 12, the Bible says, Jesus came to his own things and his own ones received him not, but to those that received him. He gave them the right, he gave them the power to become sons of God, but I want you to know this, it was not by flesh or blood or birth. Our children will not belong to God just because they were born to us who may have been members of the body of Christ. It is going to take more. We must guard and strengthen that which remains. It was the Lord's word, I think, to one of the churches of Asia, wasn't it? Strengthen that which remains. Purity of life, purity of the church demands purity of heart, doesn't it? Matthew 5, 8. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Keep the heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life. We must have pure hearts, and the homes must be centered around pure hearts in order to have the purity that is going to be necessary for us to be acceptable to God. The home is the heart of the nation, the home is the heart of the church. Today the family unit faithful to the principles and precepts of Christ, for the home, the church and purity of life, is a remnant, I have no doubt about that. We are in the minority, we are apart, we are apiece. And we face the real danger of being divided and subdivided and whittled down to a non-entity by the forces of evil that are all around us in the areas that we have just discussed. How did we become a remnant? How did we get to be a remnant in the first place? Why are we not the majority? Why is not God's people the majority rather than a remnant? Why does it have to be a remnant? How did we come to this point where we are having a lectureship addressing ourselves as a remnant? How did it happen to us? How did we end up this way? How does the home figure in this condition that the church today has conceived of as a remnant? Let me see if I can make the problem as clear as possible for us. I don't want anybody to hold up a hand, but I'm going to ask you to answer a question for yourself. How many of the homes, as I said at the beginning, some of this is challenging, some of it is very alarming. But stop and think for just a moment, how many of the homes represented here tonight are homes where one hundred percent of its members are Christians? Moms and dads, grandma and grandpa, sons and daughters, grandsons and granddaughters, all of this are members of the family of God. How many homes represented here tonight can say that? One hundred percent faithful servants of Christ. How many of us can count on standing before the judge on the great day of judgment with the family circle unbroken? Now, there is a great sadness to that concept of the remnant. Do you think for one moment that every home of church members today is totally committed to the eternal principle of fidelity to God, of the perpetuity of God's will? Do you think that every home represented in the Lord's Church is one hundred percent committed to that? When Moses spoke in the book of Deuteronomy, and we're going to look at it in just a moment, when he had restated the Ten Commandments law and reminded the people of its formula for success, I want you to think about what he had to say, and as we think about that, I want you to also think how many church members and families composed of church members take advantage of every opportunity, every opportunity to be present for Bible classes, worship services, Bible studies, lectureships, gospel meetings, on and on, whatever. Every opportunity that is provided by the wisdom of the leaders of the congregation that this is how we fulfill God's will for us. How many take advantage of that one hundred percent of the time? Now, you begin to grasp the idea of why it is a true statement that though there be as the sands of the sea only a remnant shall be saved. That remnant must be proactively, doctrinally and morally pure if it's going to survive. And it is sad to say that as we assess today, many of our homes decay and deteriorate while we pile up the perishables. And then in the silver and the golden years, we sit alone among our perishables and grieve over the condition of our children's and our grandchildren's immortal souls, and oh, the price we pay contributing to the decrease in the size of the remnant. Turn to the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 5, and very quickly I want us to notice God's formula, God's formula. God started out with all of Israel. God came out of the land of Egypt with all of Israel. Do you think that it was God's will that there be only a remnant of these people saved? No. God gave them a formula so that they all could be His. Here's the formula. Of course, in chapter 5 and verse 23, Moses reminds them of how they had all heard the voice of God and everything, and then they pleaded with Him, You go, You go and listen to Him, and then You tell us what God wants us to do. And down in verse 27, they said, And we'll hear it, and we'll do it. And then the Lord, in verse 28, says, They are right in all that they have spoken. And then verse 29 expresses the desire of God. Listen and look into the heart of God and listen to Him. Oh, that they had such a heart in them that they would fear Me and always keep My commandments that it may be well with them and with their children forever. But then in verse 31, He tells Moses, I'm going to speak to you the commandments, the statutes, and the judgment. You will teach them that they may observe them. 32, Be careful to do as the Lord your God has commanded you. 33, Walk in all the ways that the Lord your God has commanded you. Chapter 6, verse 1. This is the commandment, and these are the statutes and the judgments which the Lord your God has commanded to teach you, that you may observe them in the land which you are crossing over to possess. And He's referring to the Ten Commandments and the ordinances. That you may fear the Lord your God, verse 2, keep all of His statutes, the commandments which I command you, now listen, you, your son, and your grandson, all the days of your life. All the days of your life, you, your children, and your grandchildren. Verse 3, Hear, O Israel, and be faithful and careful to observe it. Verse 5, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength. Verse 6, these are the words which I command you today. Here's the key. Now, we've often heard verses 6, 7, and 8. You shall teach them diligently to your children. You'll talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, when you rise up. Mind them as a sign in your hand, they shall be as frontless between your eyes. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. That would have maintained the whole population. But what happened? Look at verse 6, the very last part of it, verse 5, the last part of it. With all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and verse 6, these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. They've got to be in our heart first before we will ever teach them diligently to our children. And notice what he says, all the time, all the time, every opportunity, and make opportunities to teach your children and your grandchildren and anybody else. Verses 8 and 9 point out that they will be ever present and always be displayed, and he goes on and on and on in these chapters, reminding them of what their responsibility and their duty is. Now, I think it goes without saying, somebody dropped the ball, somebody dropped the ball. God said, if you'll do this, it'll always be what it ought to be. But it wasn't. And so, a few hundred years later, Isaiah has to cry, if God hadn't left us a remnant, we would be a sodom and gomorrah, we'd be nonexistent, and that's why. Most Christians that I know often think, determine, and plan to do better in improving their performance, their person, and those whom they love. On the basis of what God had told them, and the desire that I believe that we have, really, that we really want to be what God wants us to be, that we be the prepared remnant, I want to ask you something and show you something. At the time of Jesus, the Jews had been persecuted for 700 years by the Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Persians, the Greeks, and now the Romans. They had been persecuted for 700 years for this. Many Jews had been scattered, and they lived their lives as captives in these other nations and under these foreign people. But, at the time of Jesus, we still see Jews, right? Where are the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Ammonites, the Assyrians, the Persians, and the Babylonians at the time of Jesus? Where are they? They are nonexistent, but we still see Jews today, two thousand years after the times of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, we still see Jews. Now how is this to be, and how does this happen? Because the things that made the Jews Jews, their social structures that gave them their national identity, were unbelievably important to them. I submit to you tonight, my beloved brethren, that they should be just as unbelievably important to us that we be God's people, from grandpa to great-grandson. The Jews passed these structures down to their children, celebrated them in their synagogue meetings every Sabbath day, reinforced them with their rituals, because they knew if they didn't, there would soon be no Jews. Now you can draw the conclusion, if we don't, the remnant is not going to be as big as even you and I would like for it to be. What are some of the principles that we find throughout the Bible that will establish, stabilize, and mature and prepare the divine purity of the family relationship? The first one is the principle of personal responsibility, personal responsibility. You and me, personal responsibility. We live in a society, a world, and a culture that likes nothing better than to say, it's not my fault. Point fingers of blame, that's all we want to do, is blame somebody else. The worst dangers the family face today are those that strike at the most inmost being, beings created in the image of our God. The only strength to deal with these dangers comes from a deep, godly, personal character, renewed in knowledge according to the image of him who created him, Colossians 3. Much of the world has rebelled at the sense of personal responsibility before God. They've even taken God out of everything. The Romans 14 says each one of us shall give account of himself to God, and it's still there. If our families are to meet the modern challenges, we've got to cultivate deep, rich relationships in all areas of family life. These relationships don't just happen, folks, they're not there just because you're a mom and dad. They're not there just because you're a son or a daughter or a grandfather or a grandmother. They're caused, or they are not. And they're caused by the effective working by which every part does its share, just as it is in the body of Christ, Ephesians 4, verse 16. Then there's the principle of obedience. Determine always to obey God, always obey God, always obey God. It's always right to obey God. Determine always, moms, dads, sons, daughters, grandparents, grandchildren, obey God, always. Make that the very main element fiber of your being. I am going to obey God. Seek the divine comment on whatever situation arises, because it's there. Because God has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness, 2 Peter 1, verse 3. Respect God's word. Honor the principle of love in the home. Love never fails. Love never fails, but in the home, where it ought to be more than anywhere else, the love that God has demanded and expected of us never fails. 1 Corinthians, chapter 13, verses 4 through 6. Nowhere do these principles of sacrificial love have greater need of application than in the Christian home. Read it. Put your name everywhere love appears, and see how you measure. Husbands love your wives, as it's taught in Ephesians 5. Wives love your husbands, as you're taught. Children obey your parents. Parents love and train your children up in God's will. That's the only way we'll prepare the remnant for its own survival. The principles are stewards of God's trust in family relationships. You see, the marriage vows are a contract. They are, in Biblical terms, a covenant. Now you haven't read your Bible much if you don't know how God feels about covenant breakers. But if you'll read in Romans, chapter 1, verses 21, through the close of that chapter, you're going to find God listing, through the Holy Spirit, through the Apostle Paul, many despicable, horrible, abominable sins. And right in the middle of all of those, one of these God is a covenant breaker. Now I don't have time to read it tonight, but I hope that you will read it because it's very important. Go back and read Malachi, chapter 2, verses 14 through 17, where Malachi reminds the children of Israel. He first talks to them about how they have polluted the sacrifices and the offerings to God. And then he says, the second thing that you've done is this, and he talks about their violation of the marriage relationship. When a husband doesn't love his wife as he ought to, that's a violation of a covenant that he made with his wife and before and with his God, that he would love her as himself, as Christ loved the Church. And when a woman doesn't love her husband and submit to her husband as she ought to, that's a violation of a covenant and a contract that she made with her husband and with her God. And God doesn't appreciate, to put it mildly, covenant breakers. Remember God's attitude toward vows and covenants is better, and if you don't know it, get you a good concordance and look up covenants and vows and go back and read how God feels about it. And God, I don't think, has finally said, Well, forget about covenants and vows, they don't mean anything. The principle of the permanence of marriage. Jesus talked about it in Matthew 19. The question was concerning whether a divorce could be granted for any cause. Jesus told them Moses permitted divorce, and God commanded the writing of a divorcement, a bill of divorcement, because of the hardness of their hearts. God knew men, and God knew what men were doing, because God had given a law concerning adultery, and much of the activity of adultery brought consequences that no one wanted. But you see, men would just turn their women out and put them away, and that made their wives adulterers, and they came under a sentence of great bodily harm. And God says, I know you guys. And so from now on, they'd already been divorcing, you see, when this was given Deuteronomy. They'd already been engaging in this activity. But God said, You give her a writing of divorcement, because of the hardness of your hearts, I'm going to protect the rights of the woman. From the beginning, though, Jesus said this was not God's will, this was not the way God wanted it. It has not been so that marriage could be dissolved just for any cause, and so Jesus stated the only reason the marriage could be dissolved, and He says that is adultery, fornication, sexual unfaithfulness. Now then, there's only one other way, and that's death. In Romans 7, verses 1-4 and 1 Corinthians 7, verse 39, the Bible clearly sets forth, You are bound to your mate as long as that mate lives, with one exception, Matthew 19. That's it. We must reestablish in our own hearts and lives, and in the hearts and lives of our children and of the Church, the permanence of marriage to purify the remnant in the family. It's obvious that just about everybody that hears us knows that we've got to keep the faithful faithful if we're going to preserve the remnant. But among our young people, many are dropping out, exiting the Church. Now, it's my understanding that you can exit the Church really only by one way, and that's by dying, either spiritually or possibly even physically. But what's the problem? Many are giving attention to the problem, but they're coming up with the wrong solutions. What valid studies show about keeping our faithful young faithful? Well, think with me. You remember a time, or you remember reading about a time when all of the responsibility for positive teaching and reinforcement was concentrated in the home? I remember reading about that. And what was the product? Good, work ethic, honorable people and a nation to be admired. And then a time came along where we shifted that responsibility to the Church, to the school and to anybody else that would take our children. I think we've come to a time where we need to recapture and take back and accept the responsibility. And that responsibility is in the home. Several congregations have made in-depth studies of all the factors available concerning their young people with an eye to learning what may be done about this problem. What do we need? More youth programs, more youth rallies, a special teacher? Listen, from the material published on these studies, it seems that one great central truth has begun to emerge. Faithfulness of the young person to Jesus Christ doesn't have anything to do with special programs or teachers. I'm reading from the report. It doesn't have anything to do with that. It doesn't have anything to do with whether they're members of a large congregation or a small congregation. The single most important value is their own immediate family. I'm not done. One congregation found that where both parents were faithful to the Lord, and we're talking about faithful, really faithful, they were there at Bible studies, Bible classes, Gospel meetings. They take advantage of everything. Where both family members were faithful, 93 percent of their young people remained faithful to the Lord even when they got out on their own. On the other hand, if only one of the parents was faithful, really faithful, and the other one wasn't, that number dropped to 73 percent, a loss of 20 points, because only one was faithful and the other wasn't supportive. Where the parents were only what you and I call reasonably active in the Lord, they are there here and there, you know, reasonably active as the nominal most many Christians are, 54 percent, only 54 percent. There's that hat coming in and going out. But then, listen, here's the shocker. In those cases where both parents, both parents, members of the Church, only attended infrequently, the percentage of their children who remained faithful to the Lord dropped to a miserable 6 percent. You cannot rear up faithful members of a remnant by just haphazard, in and out, like a days ago Christian. Well, I've got more to say, but Oren won't let me say it. I know there are no perfect families. Give me just 30 more seconds. Several years ago I was assigned the task of presenting a lecture on the subject of great families of the Bible. And boy, I chomped on that. I thought, for once in my life I've been given a good, easy topic, until I went into the Bible to find those great Bible families. Have you ever really gotten down into the Bible and looked to find great Bible families, great families of the Bible? Well, consideration of the homes in the Bible reveals some interesting conditions that take some adjustment and thought. When I looked into the Bible to find this great family, where did you find it? Abraham? Well, now, what about Ishmael and Hagar, and the problem there? Well, look at Isaac. Well, you've got Jacob and Esau. Well, what about Jacob? Well, you've got Leah and Rachel, and on and on and on. Well, what about David? Well, you look at David, and he's got the wives and wives, and Bathsheba and Timothy. Well, Timothy's father wasn't a Christian. Where are the great Bible families? Let me tell you where they are, and then I'm done. You can't find it in perfect picture. You find it in the ideal of God. God gives us the ideal, and you find the ideal in the composite picture of scriptures that lay down the broad framework of principles and precepts that must be applied by those in positions of responsibility, such as preachers and elders and moms and dads. Applying the principles of God produces the family. It may not be ideal, but it's going toward the ideal. It may not be perfect, but it's going toward the ideal, and it is maintaining the purity that God will smile upon when he pulls in his remnant. And may God help us to commit ourselves to that. Tonight there is a great family, a great family that you should want to be a part of, that I surely want you to be a part of, and it's the family of God. And you may not be a part of that family as yet. It is not by flesh and blood just because mom and dad are members of the Church. You're not. Because they were, you're not. Because your grandfather and grandmother were, it doesn't make you. It is a personal commitment. And the song that we're going to sing says it, I am resolved. Your resolve must be this, that you will follow the Lord wherever he leads, wherever he leads. And if he leads you through the trying elements of faith in a world that is constantly bombarding you with doubt, that is essential. You must believe in Jesus. You've got to trust him. You've got to commit to him and his way of life. You've got to be willing to turn from sin in repentance. You've got to be willing to submit to your Lord in baptism and be united with him in that watery grave from which you can rise, a child of the King, a child of God. We who are God's children relish this. Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us that we should be called children of God. Now we are children of God. It does not appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. A child of God. Don't you want to be a child of God? Don't you want to be a part of God's remnant? Remember the remnant is of God. And your invitation tonight is come and be a part of that while we stand and sing. I am with all of you.