In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of diligently teaching the word of God to our children. He highlights the need for continuous instruction and conversation about God's teachings throughout our daily lives, rather than confining it to a specific time or place. The speaker also discusses the concept of "teaching in the midst," which means integrating Christianity into every aspect of our lives. He shares a personal story about his son's conversion and emphasizes the role of parents in guiding their children towards a genuine faith in God.

Again, I'd like to ask Brother Paul Washer just to address how do we go about presenting the Gospel to children, whether they're our own children or in a children's ministry situation, it's going to be right here in this place in about a week and a half. How do we do that without watering down the Gospel? That's what I've seen happening. Brother Paul. Thank you. One time someone asked me, how do you preach the Gospel to a tribe, a primitive tribe in the jungle? And I said, I don't. I preach the Gospel to men. Men are the same everywhere. The Gospel should be the same everywhere. And even with regard to age, it's the same thing. I would not let my children attend probably 95% of the Sunday schools in the churches today. I would not let my children attend. I would be terrified because some well-meaning teacher would get in there and say, how many of you little children want to go to heaven? They'd all raise their hand. How many of you would like to ask Jesus into your heart? They'd all raise their hand, or most of them. How many would like to pray with me? Most of them would raise their hand and pray with the teacher. All of it thoroughly unbiblical. There's no biblical grounds for it whatsoever. Not only is there no biblical grounds for it, there's no historical grounds for it. The church never did that type of thing. Child evangelism is extremely important. I'm not against it. I do it all the time. I'm just against the way children are evangelized today because it's not biblical. And what happens? In the end, you have the child kind of stays under a little bit of the tutelage of their parents. Then when they start feeling their oats about 15, 16 years old, things like that, they start getting into drugs and alcohol and immorality and leaving the church and everything. And then their parents go to them and say, but you're a Christian. You shouldn't act this way. That in itself is also unbiblical. The biblical approach would not be to go to that young person and say, you're a Christian. You shouldn't act this way. The biblical approach would be, even though you made a profession of faith, since you are acting this way, all the evidence points to the fact that you were never truly converted. Now, how do you present the gospel to two children? Well, first of all, there are other things that need to be considered. Most people really don't spend a lot of time with their children and are not the primary educators of their children. And the children are influenced by so many other people. It's like even at this camp. I prayed when I came to this camp. And I'm watching my children like a hawk because they're both, they're 10 and 8 and 4. All there has to be is one perverted young boy here whose parents has allowed them to watch too much filth, get along with my children and tell them things that my children should not know. After all, that's the way most of you learn bad things. You didn't learn them from your parents. You were turned over to young people and allowed just to run with them. So it's not just thinking about evangelism, it's a whole mindset. First of all, number one mindset. The father is the number one preacher, discipler, trainer of the children. If you're not willing to assume that role, you should have never married. You should have never married. If I were to go to your church and I were to say this, how many men are purposefully, systematically, throughout the week discipling their wives? How many men are purposely and systematically discipling their children? Almost no man would raise his hand. And no one would think that too bad. People might even laugh a little bit about it. But then if I said, OK, as the new pastor, the first thing I'm going to do is cancel your Sunday school and I'm going to cancel your youth group, you'd fire me. And you're just like the Pharisees of whom Jesus said, you will annul the commandments of God for the sake of your traditions. Your tradition is to have someone else teach your children. The commandments of God in the Old and New Testament is that the father teaches children. And if the father says, I'm not equipped to do that, then he should be ashamed. He should be ashamed. He should have never, whoever his wife's father was, that father should have never allowed his daughter to marry such a person, such a man. Because that was unbiblical. You see, a lot of things I'm saying, some of you are saying, man, I don't agree with this guy. Yeah, but can you show me Scripture? You see how powerful tradition is? Children evangelism begins. Look at Deuteronomy chapter six and verse four. It's the Shema of Israel. 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. Now, he's addressing primarily men here, fathers of families. He said, these words which I am commanding you today shall be on your heart. So the first step in children evangelism is to have a dad who is seeking to love the Lord as God with all his heart, soul, mind and strength. And that it's obvious to his wife and it's obvious to his children. This is not just something dad does on a weekend. This is not just something that that good people do. This is my father's life. My father lives to love the Lord his God with all his heart, soul, mind and strength. And everything else is secondary. That's the first step in children evangelism. Deuteronomy six, four. So you see, a father who is just goes to church on Sunday may even be a good man. He doesn't disciple his wife. He doesn't disciple his children. He turns that responsibility over to someone else. And he's really concerned about houses and hobbies and cars. Don't expect that. OK, now you can do evangelism. You see, it comes down to life, man. Comes down to life. Now, he says, look at seven. You shall teach them diligently to your sons. And he says, you, the father. Ephesians backs that up. Fathers are to instruct their children. Fathers, not mothers, fathers and mothers play a great role and also instruct the children. But it is not the primary responsibility of the wife or the mother to teach the children the Bible. She helps her husband. Her husband carries the whole load. He determines what ought to be taught. He studies to teach. He does everything else. And his wife enjoys, enjoys it. And helps because we see in Proverbs, we also see not only the commandments of your father, but your mother also. OK, now here's what he says. He says in verse seven, you shall teach them diligently. It doesn't mean just evangelism. You shall teach them diligently to your sons and you shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way, when you lie down and when you rise up. Now, here's something that's very important. We call it teaching in the midst. Even though I meet with my boys probably on an average of four to five times a week and the lessons can can last anywhere from a half hour to an hour and a half in the Scriptures. That's not good enough teaching in the midst. And what that means is Christianity is not something we do in our quiet time. It's not something we do for an hour a day. It's not something that we do on Sunday. What he's saying is here when you when you are in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up, if we're out hunting, God's going to be in the middle of it. If we're kayaking down a river, if we're wrestling, you see, you can't just segregate your life. You have to you have to think, look, this is real. This my whole life as a man, I am only one thing. I am a servant of the most high God. That's what I am. You don't separate your life from that. It's like I don't have a life apart from that. And don't think just because someone's a missionary or preacher, they're supposed to be that way. All of us, men and women, our whole lives revolve around one thing. We are slaves of Christ to do his will. Now, if you're a welder or carpenter, makes no difference whatsoever. We are slaves to him. So everything is about him. Everything. And so he goes, you shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. The direction of your home is determined by Scripture. What you do in your home and your life with your hands is determined by Scripture. You shall write them on the doorposts, your house and on on your gates. You see, I mean, we're talking about a house that is directed by this. Love the Lord, their God with all their heart, soul, mind and strength. And the foundation of all its knowledge and its instruction is the word of God saturating the house and the word of God. Here's what happens. You begin to do that. Let's say your child. Let me just share with you what I do. And some people would disagree with this. That's fine. But what I do is is when when Ian and Evan were very, very young, couldn't read. I would read to them out of a small children's Bible. Now, a lot of people would disagree with that, but I did. And not only a children's Bible, I would use a rhyme Bible. I don't know why, but the fact that that little rhyme Bible rhymed, they would they would listen. Now, after I would read a story, whether it be about, you know, they're not a whole lot of theology in a little children's rhyme Bible. So daddy would just fill in stuff with stories and acting things out and just you name it. OK, this is my children's life, people. It's not like this is just some little thing you're supposed to do. My children are going to live or die. And so you sit there, you look at the story, you talk about Noah's Ark. I mean, we've done all kinds of things. And then and then after that, go through it maybe twice, a couple of months, three months to get through it. Then I'd go if they would advance, I'd go through just a little bit more advanced, advanced Bible. Now, the time that Ian was five and a half, he started reading First John. So he was in First John and he and I started doing line by line exegesis commentary on First John. Now, Evan has come along and Evan has joined us. And what we do is. I sit at the table and I have my Bible and both of them have their Bibles. Now, I use New American Standard. They both have New American Standard Bibles. What I have found out just as a note for those of you who have little children. It seems to me that when Evan, who's little, reads his Bible with the small print, it's very hard for him to read and understand. If I put it on my Kindle and I make the font bigger, like about this big. For some reason, children can understand and read larger fonts, even if it's the same material. So doing something like that digitally, which I've done, or getting a large print Bible will make it very helpful. Now, don't make your child carry that large print Bible to church on Sunday because it's probably this big. But you see what I'm saying? Look at this. This is intentional. This is thinking through problems. Why? Because, you know, this is their life. I mean, this is nothing more important than the eternity of your child. And so as they go through these little Bibles and then they start to read, then we start. We'll choose a book. And we'll actually we do two books. We work on two books in every Bible study. My plan is, is that with Ian and Evan and Rowan, that we will be constantly going through. The goal is seven verses a night in the book of Proverbs. And when we finish the book of Proverbs, which we have, we'll start it again and we'll start it again and we'll start it again until they leave my home at 18 or 20. As long as they're in my home, we will be doing the book of Proverbs every day that we meet. But we also take and study other books like we study the book of Romans. These are the books we've gone through so far. First, second and third, John, the book of Romans, the book of Colossians, first Peter, the book of Matthew, the book of John. And what I simply do is I read, I start in verse one of chapter one. Paul, a bondservant of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God. And I go, all right, kids, you know who Paul is? Who is he? Well, he's the guy that got struck down. Yeah, he got knocked down. Why did he get knocked down? This happened. OK, now he's a bondservant of Christ. What does it mean to be a bondservant? I don't know, dad. What's it mean to be a slave? You know what a slave is? And we work our way through. Now, guys, you know, the study in Romans may last 15 minutes or it may keep asking questions and we'll just keep going. I don't try to finish a chapter or finish even a section. I'm just doing a few verses at a time. And we go through there and they go through the whole book. And and so we do that about 15 minutes, then we go to Proverbs and do that about 15 minutes and then we pray together. That's that's what we do now. They're starting to learn concepts like God is holy, that men are sinful and all these other things. Now, let me just say this is a side note. Did you know that among the Puritans, you could be disciplined and put out of the church and some of the Puritan churches? If a father did not catechize his children. He would be publicly put out of the church. As a matter of fact, I think it was in John Owen's church. In the church, men were required to write. Each man was required to write his own catechism and to present it to the pastor for checking the catechism or the teaching tool that he would use for his children. You see how far we've fallen? Men, men rise up. That's all I got to say. Rise up, men, rise up and do what you're supposed to do. This is what we're supposed to do. Now, when I was looking for material in order to teach my children and and catechize them. Are you all familiar with what I mean by catechize? In a lot of people, when they hear that word, they think of Catholicism. But actually, the Puritans and others, what it is, it's a series of questions. Let me give you the first one in the 1689 London Confession, the catechism based on it or the Westminster. It would be first question be who made you? God made me. Prove it. In the beginning, God created heaven and earth. Why did God make you? God made me for his own glory. What does it mean? He made you for his own glory to worship him, serve him. Prove it. Whether you eat or drink or any other thing, do everything you do under the glory of God. You see, that was a catechism. Now, as I was trying to figure out how to teach my children, here's a problem. I'm kind of a perfectionist in a way. So I would look at something and I'd say, well, this is good, but it's missing here. And this is good here, but it has holes in it here. And I was just real upset. You know, what kind of material should I use to teach my children? And then one day it dawned on me there's only one perfect book. Teach them the Bible. Just go through the Bible. And so Ian's not here right now, but which last year we get to a thing on. I think it was on propitiation in Romans chapter three. That that Christ was publicly put forth or displayed as a propitiation, which is probably the most important verse in the Bible. So I said to Ian, I said, Ian, what's a propitiation? He said, well, I don't know. I said, well, and I begin to explain. Well, propitiation is a sacrifice. That is given in order to satisfy justice, divine justice, so that God's wrath can be appeased. And so we begin to see how God crushed his own son. God crushed his own son under the full force of his wrath in order to satisfy his justice so that he could forgive sinners, because the greatest problem in all the Bible is this. If God is good, he cannot forgive you. Because a good judge does not let criminals go. So Christ satisfied God's justice. Well, we begin to talk about that. And Ian began to get a little teary eyed. And I said, son, what's wrong? He said, Daddy died for me. I said, yes, son, he died. Tell me what's going on. Dad, I just. I just he died for me. I'm a sinner, Dad. He died for me. I said, yes, he died for you, son. Dad, what do I do? I said, call on the name of the Lord. And he said, Dad, I can't. Now, most parents would have said, well, I'll tell you what. Would you like to repeat this prayer after me? That's so sad. I looked at him and I said, son. You must call on the name of the Lord because I cannot do it for you. I cannot, as your father, help you any further. This is between you and God. He said, Dad, what do I do? I said, well, if your heart is so burdening you and you really sense the reality of what's going on, then, son, I would suggest you retire to your room. And deal with God. So he goes in his room. After about five minutes, we just hear he's crying in there hysterically. I'm not going in there. God's dealing with my son. I'm not going to touch the ark of God. I'm not going to interfere with what God is doing. After about 15 minutes, he came out. He said, Dad, Dad, I'm new. I'm saved. All my sins are gone. I know I'm saved. And then he saw his two his brother and his little his little brother and little sister, and he fell down on his knees and he cried out, oh, God, that they would have what you have given me, that they would have what you've given me. Oh, Dad, this is the happiest day of my life. He has saved me. Now, what should I do? Do I go to him and go? Yes, son, you're saved. Let's baptize you. Now, I say, son, if you have truly believed. And you give me now no reason to doubt, but if you have truly believed, you are saved. And now what we're going to do, son, because I am your father and I am responsible for you. You and I are going to continue on in our studies. We're going to continue on walking together as brothers in Christ. And after a while, if this faith perseveres and grows and bears fruit. Then I will speak with the elders. And then the elders will come. And examine you. Regarding your knowledge of the gospel. And if they approve afterwards, son. Then you can you can be baptized. But son, as your father, I'm responsible for you. So now it's been, I guess, over a year or so. He's happy in the Lord. He seems to be growing. He's 10 years old. Seems to have conviction of sin and different things. Like yesterday. That sermon yesterday really impacted him. He came to me last night. He said, Dad, Dad, he's right. It's just all about relationships. It's all about love, isn't it? It's what it's all about. I said, yes, son. That's that was right. That was right. What that man said. And so there's great hope I have now. If he continues walking in this way, he'll be baptized. Now, notice that when he came to me and said, Dad, I've been saved. I didn't say, yes, you have. But I said, if you truly believe you have been saved. But I also didn't say, no, you haven't. I'm not going to quench the fire that's in here. I'm not going to break his little heart. That would be wrong to do that to anyone. But I say, son, if you have believed and I have no doubt. From a human point of view, I rejoice in this. And if you believe you're safe, but we're going to watch you. We're going to help you come to a greater and greater assurance. To the point where you can be baptized. Now, let's say he's baptized when he's 11 or 12. And then when he's 16. He starts rebelling. And I mean, it's not what he's just apathy. And it doesn't have to be he's on drugs, folks. Just be apathy, not wanting to do anything with Christ, not wanting to go on. I'm not going to go to him and say you were saved when you were 11. You need to act like it. But rather, I'm going to say, son, when you were 11, you made a profession of faith in Christ. And it appeared sincere enough so that both I and the elders agreed with your baptism. And for a while, it seemed that you bore fruit. But now you are walking. As an unbeliever, if this becomes a settled practice. Then you need to understand something. You were not converted. Your faith has been false. Now we bring in the verses, don't we? Make your calling and election sure. Examine yourself, test yourself to see if you are in the faith. Repent and turn back to God and demonstrate. Bring forth fruit of repentance. You see. Now. Men. When a guy is learning even to fight or to shoot a gun or even shoot a longbow. He doesn't just go like this and say, I want to do it and pick up a longbow and shoot it. Or he doesn't just. Someone throws a punch and he blocks it. He doesn't do that. It has to become a settled practice in his life. So that means he'll stand there for hours a day and do something like this to learn to block a punch. Or he'll learn to draw a bow or he'll learn to properly lean in to shoot a gun with both eyes open. Things like that. It's the same way. If you just neglect every aspect of being a dad, except having some fun every once in a while. And then you want to jump in and do evangelism. It's just that's just not right. What an old man told me, he called it making bindings. Binding yourself to your child and binding your child to you. And that happens through relationships. It happens through relationships. But these children. Your wife should be the most important person in your life above your children. But second, only to her are your children, not your buddies, not your good friends. Listen, I don't spend time with a lot of other guys because I don't have time. I have a wife and children and I go to bed tired. That's what we're supposed to do. We serve our wives. We serve our children. We serve the people of God and we go to bed tired. That's what we do. So evangelism has to be a lifestyle. Now there's a now we you know, we go through the scriptures and with Evan, who is yet to make a profession of faith. We'll talk, Evan. What do you know about this? What do you know about Christ dying for you? Instead of asking him questions where he can just answer yes or no. You want them to be able to talk to you. And I can see now in him that God is beginning to awaken him to certain things. Now, another thing that's very important, just because you share the gospel with your child and your child breaks down crying. Doesn't mean they're converted. They may just be crying out of self-preservation. I don't want to go to hell. Do you realize how many people think that that is genuine repentance? And you should have seen him. He was broken. All the pieces terrified of hell. That's not repentance. That's self-preservation. I tell you, on the day of judgment, when the devil's thrown into hell, he'll be doing a lot of weeping himself. The question has is, has his heart changed toward God? Is this is his heart broken over sin? Does he begin to hate sin? And don't think that's beyond a child. I was preaching several years ago in Ohio. Now, never forget this. And I was maybe three quarters of the way through my sermon. All of a sudden, a little nine year old boy stood up and I don't give altar calls. He stood up and started walking down the middle of the of the church just like this. And I just walked down and I met him about halfway. And I said, son, what's wrong? He said, can God save a vile, wicked, filthy sinner like me? And I said, well, son, he can. Now, whether he will, I do not know. I said, what have you done? This is what he said. I have disobeyed my mother. Now, what happened? The Holy Spirit and only the Holy Spirit can do this. See, we don't think that's a great sin. That sin right there will send every human being in the world into hell. The Holy Spirit had opened up that little boy's mind to the way God sees rebellion against parents. See, it's the work of the Holy Spirit, man. It's the work of the Holy Spirit. You can just about get anybody to pray that prayer, especially children. Don't do it. Don't do it. Leave them alone to God. We have authority to tell them how to be saved. We have authority to tell them they must be saved. We have authority to teach them biblical principles so that they might have a biblical assurance of salvation. But you do not have the right to tell someone they are saved. Because they prayed a prayer. All right, next question. Yes. OK. First of all, God gives a special promise. To, you know. Being considered as a widow and an orphan. That God takes up. The slack on that. And he says that he will be a father. To the orphan, he will be a husband to the widow. Or any mother who is single and raising children and the father's not involved. But you are going to have to carry a burden. That will mark you. It will make you old before your time. It will make you very tired. You are going to have to. Do a lot of things. Keep teaching them the Bible. Imagine, do you have to work? So be very hard. You don't homeschool them. Pardon me. OK. If you if you still have the desire. To pray and pray for a godly man. If you are in a church. Which I hope you are. See, we've lost the idea of what pastors are supposed to do. What pastors and elders and men of the church are supposed to do. When a pastor, when a group, when elders see that there's a woman in the church. Trying to raise some children by herself, especially when they're boys. Those men, they come together and they say, how do we deal with this? This is the way the modern day church in the West helps widows and orphans. You see, most of most of most of our churches don't have people starving to death in them. But this is the way that pastors, elders, whatever you want to call them. And the men of the church are supposed to minister a true, true and undefiled religion. Which is helping widows and orphans. Men need to say, look, we need to be very careful here. We have a woman who is single at the same time, though. We have these little children who have no influence of a man on their life. We can't just think about our own families. No, say it's two boys or whatever. All right. Those boys are like six, seven years old. They've got to be fishing. They've got to be doing this. They've got to be doing that. And men from the church need to step in and help that. Even the older men who are retired can be of greatest benefit here. Great benefit by taking children and helping them. You see. Go ahead. Well, if the man is a member, let's say it's the man who left. And there's separation going on. And that man's a member of the church. The church should be practicing discipline. Now, discipline is not does not start off with putting the man out of the church. But the pastor should be greatly involved in what's going on. They should be dealing with that man, counseling that man, going to that man, doing everything in their power to restore the relationship. If the man's not a believer, there's very little and he's not a member of the church. There's very little that the pastors can do. Well, here's the thing. We have to abide by the things of the law unless it can be proved that that father is being abusive. And this is the burden that a woman. This is why God hates divorce. God hates separation. God hates separation. All these types of things, because men, you know what I'm doing here? I'm trying to put a bandaid on a on a dam that's already busted. You know, the bigger picture is so many even before. This is why now I've moved like I preach. I do two things. I preach on the gospel and I preach on the family. Why? Some of these problems occurred because the people should have never gotten married to start off with. Because the father and the pastors did not step in and do what they were supposed to do. And the fathers and the pastors, when they saw problems, did not step in. We were just a culture that has. There are so many things wrong biblically in the evangelical community that to try to deal with one situation where maybe a woman is separate from her husband. It's almost an impossibility because there's so many other things wrong. For example, someone says, how can we deal with this divorce in the church? My first question is, well, explain to me how you practice church discipline. Well, we don't. Well, then there's the problem, because that's the way God said to deal with divorce in the church and you won't do it. So then we have to think of something else. And that's one of the great problems here. One of the great problems. Yes. Well, even even children. That have been. Raised in a perfect. Family. And there isn't one and I don't have one are under a perfect dad. May become hellions. They become reprobate because that is out of our hands. That is so far beyond us. You see. A successful Christian parent. Is not someone whose kids become missionaries in Guam. You see, your child may become the greatest preacher in the world. And then you think you were a great Christian parent when, in fact, you were a horrible parent. Or someone may be actually a horrible parent and their child or someone might be a great parent and try to do everything Scripture says. And yet their child turned out to be a hellion. You see what we do as parents. We do care for the well-being of our children. But what we do, we do unto God. We don't teach our children the Bible because we think if we do, our children are going to be converted. We primarily teach our children the Bible because God commands us to teach our children the Bible. None of us have any certainties. None of us. But we seek to be obedient believers. This is not about pushing all the right buttons and your children will get saved. It's about obeying God. John MacArthur had a great book on this. I think it's it may have changed titles, but it was called Successful Christian Parenting. And he brings out this point. He said, I've known parents that were horrible, that their children turned out to be just great Christians. And I know vice versa. So I have to keep it in my mind that although I love my children and I want to see them converted, my primary motivation is not my love for children, but obedience to God. And I must now. Here's the thing that again, and this may sound harsh, but young ladies, listen to me, dads, listen to me. Here we have, you know, you marry unequally yoked. I'm sorry you made the decision to do that and you're going to suffer for it. You are going to suffer for it. I'm sorry. It's it's it doesn't mean your children aren't going to be converted or things like that, because the sins of the parents are not thrown down on the sins of the on the heads of the children. There are no illegitimate children. They're just illegitimate relationships. But the thing about it is you're going to suffer. I can't tell you how many people I have counseled, how many young ladies I've said, don't do this, don't do this, don't do this. And then they come back into the office after doing it. They're suffering and everything else, and I have to look at them and say the most terrifying thing any pastor can say to anyone. I can't help you. There's nothing I can do to fix this situation. You made your decision. See, we live in a culture now. I don't know how it is in Canada, but where if a kid just does nothing in class the whole semester and he knows he's flunking, he can go to the teacher and say, give me some makeup work. Give me something I can do. Write a report or something that'll get me to pass the class. Well, I'm sorry with God that doesn't happen. It doesn't happen in life. There's not going to be something you can do later on to fix it. Now, God may save the man and it turned out to be a blessing. But you've got to take these commands seriously. They're fearful. They're true. Yes. Well, first of all, yes, yes. But here's what I want you to understand. Most people's idea of what a Christian is, is so unbiblical. What you have to understand is most people call themselves Christians or not Christians. That's the first thing. Like I hear preachers preaching against the church all the time. And they say the church is full of sin and immorality and all these different things. That's not true. I'm sorry. That's not true. They call the church a whore. It's prostituting itself. That's not true. Don't say that. I would. You call my wife a prostitute. I'm going to fight you. I imagine you call the wife of Jesus a prostitute. He's probably going to fight you. The Church of Jesus Christ in Canada and in America is beautiful. She's beautiful. She's learning to walk in holiness. And though she stumbles, she has a broken heart and she's always seeking after her master. You say, how can you say that in light of? I can say it because that's what the Bible says. You see, what you're looking at is not the church. You're looking at a bunch of religious people who are unconverted, who identify themselves with Christianity. God says that's what the whole new covenant is about. The whole new covenant is I am going to make God stands up and says, look, I'm going to make myself a people. I'm going to change their hearts. I'm going to put my spirit in them and they are going to walk according to my commandments. That's what I'm going to do. I'm going to make for myself a people. All right. So a lot of people, because they have such a this idea of a carnal Christian. Well, he's a Christian. He's just carnal. That women will marry a guy who has got enough Christianity to marry her. In the eyes of pastors who don't know better and what she ends up doing is marrying an unbeliever. And it happens all the time. So you can also, though, be unequally yoked with a believer in this way. I have a whole sermon series, I brought it, as a matter of fact, I thought there'd be a lot more young men here on what is a man on how? What do you what level do you have to achieve before you can even think, think about courting a girl? And I say courting because dating is unbiblical. If you let your children date, then don't don't come crying to me. All right. That's another thing that was it's part of our culture, has nothing to do with the Bible and has nothing to do with most of history. So if they're dating, you just keep going ahead with your unbiblical ideas. But it's going to it's going to hurt. But what does a young man have to be in order to begin courting? And if you look through Scripture, you can see a whole bunch of stuff. And if that young man isn't there, then then he's not he shouldn't see your daughter. Not at all. Now, he may be the man, but he needs to come back in four years when he's grown into one. You see all these things, it seems like even in evangelical Christianity, where you have these people who really love Jesus, it's like I really love Jesus and I go to church. But when it comes to taking what the Bible says and applying it in their daily life and their marriage and their relationships and their children, throw it all out the window. And now it's all popular psychology instead of Scripture. And that's what that's what it just kills us. You know, parents will comment about this dating thing and they'll talk to me and I go, well, yeah, your children fell. I'm sorry. They said, but why we did this. I said, why? Well, I said, even the best raised children can fall. I said, but I can tell you, you violated the Bible here, here, here, here, here, here and here. But no one ever told me. Yeah, I know we don't talk about this much anymore. Let me ask you a question. How many of you parents have studied the Scriptures from Genesis to Revelation to discover what it says about dating? You didn't. You just did what the world did. Dating is defined as what we would call recreational dating. That's when, let's say, let's say a 16 year old boy walks into my office and he goes, man, I want to want to go out with this girl. I go, OK, sit down. So tell me, when did God show you that this is the girl he wants you to marry? And when do you plan on marrying her? He says, what? What are you talking about? I just want to go out on a date. And what? Why? Why? I'll tell you why. Here's what's going on. He is asking to participate in the privileges of a woman that only belong to a man who's willing to assume the responsibilities of that woman. Recreational dating like that is ungodly and it has led to more harm in both our countries than probably anything else. And most Christians don't even understand it. You don't recreationally date. Nowhere. I mean, if you if you would do that in the scriptures, you'd be condemned. You think they just went around and the whole thing is just our culture, you see. That's not practiced at all. And then and then a young man, you see, here's what we need to understand. When when a young man is awakened to the opposite sex. Now, today, it's at seven. No, really. You go into some of these public schools and you'll hear seven year olds talk about the most filthy things you've ever heard of in your life. All right. But let's say that the child has been raised in a Christian, really Christian home. And he starts awakening to the opposite sex around 12 or something. He starts saying, this girl is pretty. Now, first of all, my two boys, we pray about we pray together about their future wives and we also pray together about their in-laws. We do a lot of men have married godly women with ungodly mothers. I'm American, OK? I just I speak too straight. But they know not to laugh about it. They know only fools laugh. At things like that, they know as little boys, this is a great privilege. Now, let's say at 12, they awaken to the fact of, OK, now I understand what we were praying about. God has awakened love in that child's heart or awakened the idea of opposite sex in that child's heart. That is not a sign for that child to participate. It's a sign for that boy to prepare. It means now he is really to be brought in to the fellowship with other men. Now he's really going to. He's going to start. Now he's already working beside men. He's already hanging out with men, doing stuff with men. But now his preparation really starts into manhood. His dad goes full bore now, full gear into manhood, because in order for that boy to start thinking about courtship, he can't be a boy. He has to be a man. A man shall leave his father and mother, not a boy. Now, here's the problem. Adolescence is one of the most unbiblical terms that have ever been created. It's another place in which the church has adopted popular psychology. There's no such thing as adolescence in the Bible. It's a lie. As a matter of fact, adolescence is it comes out of the model of evolution. If you want to know where it comes from, that that there is to be a time in every species, every child's life where that child begins to feel its independence, begins to feel that its own identity and will even begin to rebel. That's not taught in Scripture. The wise son doesn't do that. Just the ignorant, foolish, naive, simple minded son does that. But they've been taught they're supposed to do it. Do you realize that? Well, your adolescence, you know, you're trying to feel your oats. Where does it come from? It doesn't come out of Scripture. It comes from Freud and all the other psychologists that invented psychology out of their hatred for Christianity. So what you've got now is what have you got? Look, you've got adolescence is this period of time where little boys demand to participate in the things of men without being willing or able to assume the rights of those privileges. Well, I'm 15. You can do what? You can't feed yourself for a day. Well, I want to go out with her. What and do what? And do what? You see, it's just it's pathetic. That's why it says when the judgment of God comes upon a nation in Isaiah, chapter three, that the little boys will rule over men. And that's basically what happens in most of our families. And so what you do is you prepare your child so that he can, if he so desires and God says he can, he can marry at 17. Now, see, a lot of you would say 17. I mean, if you ever seen the movie Master and Commander with Russell Crowe, where it's the British fighting the French privateers in open sea and they lash the two boats together and the English military men are going to jump over into the French boat and fight. It's amazing that the boy standing guard, the man standing guard on deck handling the helm is about 15 years old and the boy leading the charge is the same age. Because of adolescence. Now, boys don't get married when they're 17. They buy their first Xbox with the money they saved up from their allowance. You see what's happened to our culture. It's insane. And so the boys are there are certain standards in Scripture. A dear friend of mine, Vody Bokum. I don't know if you haven't heard of him. You need to download his messages. He's a he's a great guy. Teaches a lot on the family. Big African-American about this big makes me look like a runt. I mean, and he told me he goes, Paul, after I discern the spiritual nature of the boy asking to court my daughter. The second question I will ask him is this. Do you delight in God honoring labor if you do not get out of my house? Do you delight to work hard, to labor hard for the glory of God? You see, there's there's so much that let's put it this way. If a man eating lion got lost in North America, it starved to death because there's so few men to eat. Because back in the back in the late 60s and early 70s, we became convinced that a bunch of homosexuals and feminists ought to be the ones to teach us how to raise boys. And we have to see it's not enough to say we got OK, we got the gospel right. We understand Jesus is the only way. What you need to see is that the genius of the reformers and the Puritans is OK, we understand the gospel. How does that affect marriage? How does that affect family? How does that affect society? We don't follow society. They're supposed to follow the church or at least be in conflict with it. So all these types of things like I'm just lamb blasting, you know, you're saying I never heard dating was wrong and this and that and everything else. But maybe it'll just kind of spark a fire to get you thinking, maybe I need to study scripture a lot more. OK, next question. Yes, divorce and second marriages. Wow, that's a big one. When we practice church discipline, people think, oh, they practice church discipline. So if someone sins, they kick them out of the church. No, that's not church discipline. Church discipline begins with teaching people the scriptures. Then it begins with when you see your brother at fault, you who are spiritual restore him in gentleness. And the only person who's ever disciplined in a church is not the person who sins, but the person who won't repent of his sin. I mean, I don't care what you've done. If you repent, you will not be disciplined in our church. Now, why did I say that? A whole lot of things have to come into place before you can start thinking about the final thing of church discipline. It's the same way with divorce and remarriage. I believe that if we would preach a true gospel, counsel people with regard to genuine conversion and then practice church discipline, we would have phenomenally less divorce within the church. Phenomenally less divorce. So there's all these other outstanding problems. If someone comes to our church and says, you know, a couple and they're members of our church and they say, we're getting a divorce. The elders will look at them and say, you can't. It's not a biblical option. Now. They'll counsel them and let's say after a few a few sessions, the lady says, pastors, you're right. This is wrong. All right. I'm willing to work this out with my husband. I'm willing to work it out. We say, OK, wonderful. And we look at the man and he says, look, you bunch of little pastors. I don't care what you say. I'm out of here and there's nothing you can do about it. And we say, well, sir, please reconsider. We go back to him. We give him time. But finally, he says, you know, starts cussing us out, throws us out of the house as I'm getting a divorce. And he does. What do we do? We put him out of the church. And now here's what's important. That woman. Even if she. Was part of the cause for the problems between her and her husband, when she was confronted with the truth, she repented, didn't she? She repented and said, I'm willing to do anything that I can do to save this marriage. When they put him out of the church, that is what's called binding and loosening. You know how it says where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I also. And people take that as if we pray for anything together, that God's going to answer it. That's not what it means. That text is used in Matthew 18 with regard to church discipline. And what it means is the church has the power to put someone out, to bind them. It has the power also to exonerate a person, to loose them, to set them free. So what would happen in our church is we would we would tell everyone this man has been publicly disciplined because he refused to submit to Scripture. He's hardened himself in his way and he's left his wife. He's divorced her, divorced her. But then we would bring up the wife. And we would say if we have counseled her and she has truly submitted to God's word, we would say as we have bound him. We want to loose her and exonerate her. This woman has submitted to godly counsel. She's wanted to do everything in her power to be right with God. And we do not want this hanging over her head for the rest of her life. And we, in a sense, loose her as a woman who has been abandoned by an unbeliever. Now, would we recommend that she marry? Not immediately, no. We would counsel, spend time, make sure that whatever problems happened that she contributed to, that at least were gone over and that she had time to walk with the Lord and grow. And then if God did something by bringing someone else into her life, we wouldn't stand against that. If it was in the Lord. She has been divorced. The man is probably already committed adultery on her because usually if he's going to leave a woman, he's going to leave her for that reason. And so she's free. But every case has to be handled with a great deal of wisdom. Like I was just talking to a lady the other day who whose pastors. Are trying to obey God's will, but I don't think that they understand it. She's in an abusive relationship in which her daughter. To me, it seemed that her daughter's life was being threatened by the husband and everything else. And yet they said, you need to divorce this. God hates it and you've got to stay in that family. And I said, I said, ma'am, I said. I'm not recommending divorce, but you and your daughter need to get out of there right now. And if you were in our church, we as elders would would protect you. We would go make sure that nothing happened to you, but you need to get out of that situation. You see, so every situation has to be handled with a great deal of wisdom. And the reason why there's rampant divorce is because there's so many lost people in the church. Another question. A little bit easier.