In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of being cautious about the entertainment choices we make, as they can lead to spiritual defilement. He warns young Christians to be careful about the friends they choose, the books they read, the music they listen to, and the media they consume. The preacher argues that 99% of entertainment today is defiling and urges listeners to flee from worldly influences. He also highlights the significance of parental guidance and the love of a father, using a powerful illustration to convey the depth of a father's love. The sermon concludes with a discussion on the importance of maintaining a positive mindset and offering praise to God, as well as the biblical principles of submission and sacrificial love in marriage.

Now let's bow and pray. Father, thank Thee for this convention, for each moment of fellowship that was meaningful and rich for learning, to know others outside of our little closed circle and a broader circle, people with perhaps slightly different backgrounds, different leanings, but their heart, their heart wants God, otherwise they wouldn't have come here, Lord, not the ones that decided and chose to come and bring their families. So we thank Thee for each other, that we're not alone in this world and for moments like this that we could come and share fellowship and learn to appreciate people from other denominations, other movements, slightly different convictions, but one desire, the pursuit of God with all the light they're given, and it's not for us to judge or to hurry people up to where we are if they lack in any sphere but to be examples, especially in love, God's love that covereth a incredible patience, long-suffering with others who haven't had the privilege of the light we've been given, the beginning we've been given, the examples we were given, and the time we've been given. So God, thank you that we can look at everyone in this whole place and just love them and thank Thee for where they are, what they are at the moment in the school of God that they are right now. We bless Thee for Don, Vicki, the Maranatha Baptist Church, and everyone that had any hand in arranging all this convention for us. And now, Lord, we ask Thee to take these closing moments and to speak to our hearts deeply. In Jesus the Christ's name, Amen. I'm going to read from a very staggering passage in the Old Testament that you all know, Malachi, the last book in the Old Testament, chapter 2, from verse 14, ye say, wherefore, why? Questioning what God said, because the Lord hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth. The Lord hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously. Yet is she thy companion and the wife of thy covenant. Did not he make one covenant, God said? Yet he had the residue of the spirit. There's something special about that verse. There was an excellent spirit, the right spirit, when he made that covenant with his wife. And wherefore, one, why did God enter into a covenant, allow this covenant to be made in the sight of God, between man and wife, that he might seek a godly seed? Why did God join thee and your wife, that he might seek godly children? Therefore, take heed to your spirit. Let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth. For the Lord, the God of Israel, saith that he hateth putting away, he hateth divorce. We can end there and go to the New Testament, to the book of Ephesians, chapter 5, where, of course, he speaks of a spiritual life from verse 18. The beginning, the continuing, the present continuous tense of being filled with the spirit, it starts at some point, not at salvation, where you're controlled, you're so yielded, the Holy Ghost can take control by his Holy Spirit. God takes control to the degree you yield all in the altar. And then the fruit of the spirit, the evidence, the proof God is in control is the love, joy, peace, long-suffering, steadfastness, self-control. And then there's the maintenance of the spirit-filled life, speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns, spiritual songs, singing, making melody. These things uplift the heart and somehow maintain our yieldingness to God. God gives special pleasure to beautiful singing, beautiful music, making melody, singing psalms, hymns, and giving thanks always for all things unto God. Isn't that lovely? Sing, it uplifts the heart. Don't become negative. Don't allow negative thoughts. Reject them and give thanks. Continue offering the sacrifice of praise to God. And no matter how negative the circumstances, your heart will be lifted up and maintaining the spirit-filled life. These are disciplines that have to be done after you're filled with the spirit, submitting yourselves one to another. This is the mark of the spiritual life, an ability to be in submission, subjection to those who fear God over you. 22, wives submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord. Staggering words, but God wrote them. It's not my standard. Husbands, verse 25, love your wives even as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. Now, I don't know of a more staggering verse in the entire Bible written to a husband as this. Love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself. Be willing to sacrifice your whole life for her well-being. That's how much you have to love her. It's only possible if you're filled with God, the Holy Spirit. Then he comes to verse chapter 6, verse 1, obey your parents. So here's the wives submitting themselves to the husbands, the husbands loving the wives, the children obeying the parents and the Lord for this is right. Honor thy father and thy mother, honor thy father and thy mother, which is the first commandment with promise that it may be well with thee that thou might live long in the earth. I think of my mother, she's 87. She is so remarkable that she staggers every single person in this world that knows her is stunned, literally stunned and no one's playing the fool. Her meaningful life, she is loved, revered, respected and meaningful in her life to everyone through her love, her wisdom. But my mother was the one who took her father and mother. Her mother died as a young lady, but my mother was the one who said, no, you're not putting daddy into a home, he comes to us. I watched my mother through the years as that man whose mind just went, my grandfather, his mind went when his wife was dead. How she carried him down the passage, this little lady, cleaning up his excrement and he just uncontrollably, how she would just on her knees, weeping, tired, washed it up. But never once did she ever speak to my grandfather with anything but love. She was unsaved. And in the last few weeks, two weeks before he died, that they actually took him to a home. It broke my mother's heart. She was so worried. Of all the children, mommies alive, well, strong, meaningful, and revered. Oh, that it may be well with thee that thou might live long in the earth. Ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath. Bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. There's something staggering about those words. Not with your own wisdom, but so yield to God that his spirit through you raises your children with the fruit of God living through a life. The heavenly father. Don't break their spirits, fathers. You can. Be careful. Oh, be careful. In Malachi, these staggering words of take heed to thy spirit. Be careful to let your spirit be controlled by my spirit. Now, this is one of the interpretations by one of the greatest of our church leaders in history of the meaning of this verse. So that you don't destroy what God wanted you to be to your wife for one reason, that your children are raised to fear God. It is attributed to the way you treat your wife. And in the light of the New Testament, the only way you can possibly do it is to be controlled by God, the Holy Ghost. Absolutely surrendered. There's a staggering verse in the Old Testament. Proverbs 18 verse 14. The spirit of a man is quite something to think to comprehend these terms, but you can't really just put into simple language and say, well, that's it. Let's, let's make it simple. You've got to be faithful to God's word as it stands. The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity, will carry him through and enable him to survive and face life no matter what weaknesses or sicknesses or setbacks or sufferings. There's something about the spirit of a man would sustain his infirmity. The margin says the Hebrew is sustain him in his sickness or weariness, but a wounded spirit, that thing that keeps us wanting to survive, that God gave a man, a woman, a child that somehow gets up and goes on, that pursues life in spite of everything, trying to destroy life. That spirit that sustains him, a wounded spirit, God says, who can bear? How can a man survive if his spirit is broken? It's literally what God's saying here. I would say very carefully though, someone who cannot face life anymore, who's lost this thing in the heart, in the soul of a man, that somehow faces life with dignity and hope when it's gone. How can a man survive if his spirit is wounded, God is saying, that which sustains a man through life and its problems. It's staggering that this verse is warning us it can happen. A wounded spirit, what causes a wounded spirit in this world? What could break a person's spirit that they can't get up anymore? There's no ability to survive. There are many reasons in this cruel world that could cause such a tragedy in life. But today I'd like to look at our homes, at our family, many parents, how many parents I have met whose children were the calamity, the cause, the undermining, the breaking down of their parents' spirit. It's tragic to what degree I've been in homes where they were the only reason a man gave up the will to live. He didn't want to live simply because his son, his daughter was a disgrace. Staggering. What causes one child to become a grief, another to become a joy in the same home to its parents? That's a question many parents have asked themselves in God-fearing homes. Being born into a godly home does not necessarily mean that a child will be godly or that the parents will not have continual deep concern about their spiritual well-being. Job was the godliest man on earth according to God, and the devil didn't argue. He just tried to prove that it could be broken down, this fact that there was no man on earth more godly than Job in his lifetime. But this godly man again and again and again and again, constantly, would bring all his children and make sacrifices in case they have sinned and cursed God, hardened their hearts against God. Being godly doesn't mean you don't have fear. Being the godliest man alive and God gives you that testimony doesn't mean you don't have deep, deep, deep concern to, in the light he was given, bring the blood that cannot cleanse from sin but was pointing to the blood of the lamb, slain from the foundations of the world in God's eyes for that moment to come. All those sacrifices were just people looking in their ignorance most of the time to what God would look at the blood of Christ that cleanses us from all sin. These men like Job would do what God says by blood, slaying and slaughtering animals and offering the sacrifice in case he had this deep concern, crying out for God's mercy, for forgiveness, in case. And he did it in front of them, continually. He would bring his children, who were all wiped out, swiftly, more swiftly than he ever knew would happen. He lost them, every one of them. It may be that my sons have sinned. It may be that my sons have fallen into sin and cursed God in their hearts. I've ministered in many homes and I've become fearful how many children from the godliest homes choose to reject the God of their father and mother in a most cruel and staggering way and bring that home into such shame and fearfulness that their parents age years in months. But it doesn't stop them in their cruel pursuit of sin and rejection and defiance of the God of their father and mother. 1 Samuel 2 verse 12, the sons of Eli were the sons of Belial. They knew not the Lord. Oh, being Eli, the high priest, didn't mean your sons. Being in the service of God, chosen by God, didn't mean your children weren't going to be sons who served the devil. There is no such a thing as history in the Bible. Of course, the unsaved academic will look upon the Old Testament as historic facts of a people. But there's no such a thing in the heart of God. It was not given for a record of historical events or dealings. It is the heart of God throbbing for you and me to know the mind of Christ in every single page, every single illustration, every single thing that God recorded was somehow to make you know his heart. And what could go wrong and what you can do to your parents? Don't think Eli fell back and died simply because the ark was taken away. That man, that was the last thing. It was his children. It was them that caused this to happen, that caused the people to go astray, that caused men to go, and this eventually was the last one. He just fell dead. They killed his father, their father. Those boys killed Eli. Don't doubt that. Terrifying. They knew not the Lord. Eli heard of all that his sons did and he said to them in 1 Samuel 2 verse 23, why do ye such things? Beloved Eli isn't the only God-fearing father to look at his children in shock, in shame, in fear, and to cry, why? Why do you do this to me? Oh, how tragically Eli's life and ministry ended, shamed by his sons. He died in tragedy, in shock, and God had to replace someone else in his stead because he was so destroyed. I have preached in a pulpit of a very large church in this land that is revered. The preacher, I don't want to mention his name, is so revered, Bill Gothard said, if I could choose to have a church to attend in America, that is the church I would go to if I lived close enough. Under that man's ministry, he is so revered. I have been very privileged to have preached in that pulpit on a number of occasions. It is a godly, revered man, revered by the godly across your land, not only here, not only there. But I was staggered to arrive there, to hear he had left the pulpit, and after all these years, with such ability with the scriptures, so revered and loved, building up the people, edifying them as few with his ability to expound on the word of God, that people flocked and flocked to hear him. He had an overall on, work clothes, a little packet, lunch packet, and went back to secular work early in the morning to get through the traffic, to stand there hour upon hour doing secular work and to bury the work of God. Because his two sons especially rebelled, and rebelled so terribly, he was too same to preach any longer. There are other co-pastors in that church, and they said I should have lunch with him, so we all went and had lunch, somehow picked him up at the workplace in his overalls. And I said, you know, brother, your other children follow Christ. It isn't a reflection on you if in the church the free will God gives man, two of your boys have done this. It doesn't mean you have to leave the pulpit of God. I don't see that. And he shook me, and he shook everyone at that table. Brother, I'm too sensitive to God's word to live in total defiance of God who says I lose the right to preach if I can't control my children. I cannot preach, brother, while my children rebel. I lose the right to serve God. Thank God last year when I went back, he had come back into the pulpit, but that congregation had lost many members, gone elsewhere, had gone through deep waters while he had gone back to secular work to have a clear conscience, though he is so greatly revered. Oh, what right is taken away from godly if your children choose the devil. In Proverbs 30 verse 11, there is a generation, there is a generation that curseth their father, doth not bless their mother. God says a foolish son, Proverbs 19 verse 13, is the calamity of his father. Do you know what that word means? The closest you come to our language of what that word means. A foolish son is the ruination, the ruin literally of his father. God's word says, Proverbs 10 1, a wise son maketh a glad father, but a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother. The grief, the margin says, is the literal Hebrew. Proverbs 20 verse 20, whoso curses his father or mother, his lamp shall be put out in obscure darkness. God warns. You think a child can't curse his father and mother in a godly home? I've been in homes where children curse, curse to the face their father. Proverbs 19 verse 26, he that wasteth his father and chaseth away his mother is a son that causeth shame and bringeth reproach. He that wasteth what God intended his father to be for him, the influences the mother to be, the influences that wastes it, that doesn't want it, that rejects it, refuses this influence on his life because he desires sin, he causes shame on that home and brings reproach to that home. I was astonished at the words of a young teenager in a very godly home who decided he did he wanted sin. The free will God gives man does not mean your child has to serve God because you're godly. Most parents immediately introspectively blame themselves of something that lacked, but brother don't. In the godliest of homes this can happen. The free will, this child so shamed his parents, so rejected their standards, their God, their convictions with hatred and venom and defiance and with such rebellion that eventually the shame that came in that home aged those parents as they were on their faces weeping night after night, sometimes wondering if he's dead or alive, for the places he would frequent in his pursuit of sin, though he was a teenager, uncontrollable. Eventually that father especially, his spirit was broken. It's terrifying to see a man, his spirit broken, he just lost something of the will to live. You can do that to your father boy, if you want to. You've got to want to, okay. You know you're doing it, but you can do it knowing and wanting to. That's how wicked a boy can come. Just give the devil a little bit, watch how far he takes of your heart. And that father, as that boy tried to put his life a bit right here and there, could never look at that boy the same. A father can forgive, all can forgive. Incredible mother, oh Moody said, who can love like a mother? And his illustrations in the way of God will bring anyone who reads that book onto their knees to sob of what love a mother has. But a father, it takes a lot to make him give up his trust and hope for a boy. He couldn't look with trust, for the boy would say he wanted to get right, he was going to be right. He looked with fear. He had loved him so openly and the love that flowed from that father to that boy, I believe, was something unique. The way he loved that boy, it was his joy, it was his delight. He couldn't love like that anymore. And one day that boy staggered me, when I was in the circumstance. He was confused and he said this staggering statement, why, why can't things be the same as before I did all this, before I fell? Why can't we just forget it and get on with life? Why is everything so changed? He was bewildered, a wounded spirit, who can bear? How does a man recover when he's totally, that thing that gives him the ability to survive, to get up and go on and try again, stops functioning, breaks, is gone? God asks, God asks, how will a man ever be able to survive again if it gets broken to that degree? I know a godly man in Pretoria, our capital of South Africa. I've stayed in his home, he's a lawyer. His name is Mike Vandenberg, very revered and respected in our land, an incredibly influential man in South Africa. But he sat me down once and he said these words of his godly father. And whenever he speaks of his father, something just seems to happen to him, like a tenderness, a gentleness, just comes on his face at the mention of his father. But he said to me, when my father died, he said these words to me, I am not leaving you with any inheritance, financially, nothing. And these were the last words the man said as he was dying, he died saying these words. I die though, I die leaving you with this inheritance, heritage. I leave you with a good name, I die leaving you with no debt, and I die having lived my life to point you to follow Jesus Christ, that is the only inheritance I've endeavored to leave you as my son. And he died saying those words, having lived a life to point you to Jesus Christ. What a heritage, what an inheritance to leave your son. Cursed be he that setteth light by his father and mother. Cursed be he that setteth light, that doesn't take things from their father and mother with seriousness, but just doesn't matter, it's only daddy and mommy's convictions. Cursed be he that setteth light by his father and mother. Deuteronomy 27 verse 16. There is a very confusing verse in the Bible, where God says in Romans 9, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. Now this has caused incredible controversy doctrinally between the Wesleyan Arminius and the hyper-Calvinist groups through the ages, Romans 9. I'm not trying to enter into controversy, I always try to defend God's integrity, justice, his name, by looking at the light of things in the light of all scriptures carefully, so that no one can blame God for a man choosing evil, and say God chose that, that's why he was that. Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. God's perfect holiness of character in his perfect, uncomprehendable foresight and foreknowledge. Being God, by the way, having foreknowledge doesn't make God guilty of what men did. Knowing the evil doesn't mean God has no right to judge. You don't blame God because he's God. There was never time in all eternity. Time began the creation of this world as we know it. Our human minds, our little finite minds, we cannot comprehend a world without time. We're limited to functioning by time. We're limited to understanding. Our minds cannot comprehend timelessness, but God says when the world ends, time shall be no more. There's a time brother, that we won't, we can't comprehend how eternity, an eternal God that never began, that never will end, there was no beginning, began time for us as we know it. We're limited, we're limited to grasp. How can we put God into little boxes to what we understand? You never explain God, but don't blame God because of your limitations. Before the world began, he knew the end. Before the world started, in his eyes, Christ had died. The Lamb slain, the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world. The forgiveness that was given to men was because in God's eyes it was done, but it still had to happen. But that doesn't mean God was acting out something when it happened. In his full knowledge that now it was all, when he wept, it doesn't mean he was acting because it was all known that he would weep. He wept, he grieved, he grieves now. Don't limit God, don't, because you can't understand him to bring him down to a human level, say God is guilty for knowing. Therefore, he is the guilty one for doing it. He's behind it. No, sir. This God of infinity cannot be judged on a human level. He is perfect in his integrity and the grief you cause him now is true grief. Even though he knew from the foundations, time never was limiting God. He knows beginning from end, but don't blame God for what you do because of his full knowledge. Right now as it happens, his grief is real and it's the first time truly it's happening. He's grieving, he's not acting because of full knowledge. Now, beloved, this God, perfect holiness of character in his perfect, incomprehensible foresight and grieved at what he knew Esau eventually would choose. He didn't just hate Esau for the sake of saying, oh, before he's born, I hate him. There's no such a thing. Don't hate God or accuse him for being God and not limited to you that he knows everything. Thank God he knew what's going to happen to the devil and tells us now he knew what would eventually if God isn't in control, if he isn't sovereign, you and I are in trouble because all these promises promising us of what's going to happen in the end that he knows. Thank God he knows what's going to happen, but it hasn't ever happened, but he's God greater than just time. He's sovereign, but that doesn't make him static or guilty of anyone's choice, sir. Beginning with Esau, it grieved God when he hated a man, it wasn't just a choice to simply have the... No, he grieved at what he saw Esau would eventually choose, that he would be careless careless of his privileges of having been born into a God-fearing home of Isaac and Rebecca. He would be careless of this uniquely Godly home he was born into with unique privileges and blessings from God, but God had a holy, righteous joy in foreseeing that Jacob would seek him eventually with such desperation for holiness of life, for God's will and ways, would pursue the God of his father and mother that he loved before they were born. He loved the name of Jacob. He didn't make Jacob be what he was. He just loved in his greatness what he foresaw before it happened, but as it happened, it was the first time that the joy really came to God's heart, but Esau would so disregard, so disrespect and place so little value on his privileges and birthright, his rightful inheritance, he would regard it as so little worth, all the blessings that should have and could have been his, that he sold his birthright to Jacob for a morsel of soup. That's how little it mattered. He wasn't dying. It just didn't have value. Don't think this started then. It started... This man chose wicked woman that grieved Isaac and Rebekah. The choices he made of the godless woman, the godless friends, the godless company, the godless wives grieved his parents, the Bible says. He broke their hearts. This isn't just the only thing that is against his name. This boy took no value from the things, the inheritance, the effect, the godly effect that should have been taken from such that Jacob did take, did embrace, did pursue, did desire. He disregarded his birthright, his inheritance, the godliness. God could have honored him through his godly appearance. He disregarded it as worth much in a weak moment. He wasted his father and mother's influences. It's tragic. He sold his birthright. He counted it as little worth, the New Testament says. Without hesitation he threw away the integrity, the honor. All that concerned him was the pleasure of the moment, the satisfaction of the moment, the consequences, the loss for the rest of his life he didn't even consider. That's how worthless it was, the inheritance of his godly, godly, godly father and mother upon his life. Tragic. Tragic. Let's leave that for a moment. I would like to place a warning to all children from godly homes. I would like to place a warning to all children from godly's home who know the privilege of god-fearing parents raising them. He gave up his birthright for a morsel of soup and Hebrews 12 warns, God warns us to be careful and prayerful not to do the same and to lose for all forever all the blessings he intended to be received through his parents upon his life. What is the morsel of soup that you would stoop to take at the cost of losing your purity, your integrity, all that your godly parents have tried to instill in your life? What in a weak moment would you stoop to take that could destroy everything and lose everything because you made light of that which God said, cursed is he that maketh light from a god-fearing parent. What is your morsel of soup that you would embrace in this world that would make you lose and don't doubt it the incredible honor and privilege and blessing God gave you and wanted you to receive by having parents like you have. Young people I implore you don't play the fool with God. I've watched boys and girls playing the fool with God not considering the consequences who lay dying. I could start now and go for hours and hours. Young independent Baptist preacher comes to South Africa. I was preaching he comes and there he is giving his testimony around the campfire to all the youth. Roy and all the young workers have all the young people around this big fire and they're singing and I was quite taken with this young independent Baptist American boy who's come to our country to work for souls. So I had a meal with him up at the dining hall the next day and I said are you an only child? He said no I have a sister. My father's an independent Baptist preacher minister in America. I said I've preached in a number of the independent Baptist churches across America. I know so many preaching many of their numbers of their theological seminars. I said uh does your sister love God like you do because this boy loved God it was like it just flowed out of him this love for Christ. No my sister serves the devil sir with all her heart. I said but why what did your father and mother do wrong was it something they did wrong? No. He looked down she was raised in the same home they didn't give me any preference any more time they gave her the same values the same amount of prayer they lived the same standards she just chose sin. I chose the God of my father and mother. Where is your sister now? She's a prostitute sir we don't even know she's alive. In Europe someone saw her in the red light district of Amsterdam a prostitute. You want to blame the father and mother sir? Well blame them for the godly son they raised a godly boy and they were no different that girl had a free will like Eli's sons and yes Eli and Samuel God rebuked them and said they didn't discipline their children as they ought to but I'm careful now I used to preach that you know strongly I've watched parents who discipline and discipline and discipline and discipline and discipline and love and in spite of the discipline the child hates them more. Some children sir so want sin that even if the child does the right thing their father does the right thing the devil gets entrance. Be careful how you judge a parent how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation if it was in our home if our parents lived it held it out to us implored us wept aged how shall we escape if we neglect so for what did we neglect or disregard or make light of this salvation and inheritance knowing these sins in weak moments that we could embrace can rob us of the blessing the spiritual blessing God intended us to have and receive through our parents if we will do. Entertainment today is 99% defiling to the media whether it's books magazines television films video games or music worldly music it is not just something tainted with the world it is totally defiling full stop 99% of it you want to argue go and take what percentage of books music anywhere you go stalls videos anything films and if you walk out and find one percent sir you're lucky in a month and I don't pursue these places but I got a good idea when I go near them I just start evil when I've got to walk past and just see filth and you want to take it into your home young man young girl what's the morsel of soup the music you have to have you know and mommy and daddy don't even know you're listening to can I ask you a staggering question young person is being entertained worth being defiled is being entertained worth being defiled answer God he's the one that met him tell him tell him now I dare you young Christians be careful be careful of the friends you choose the book you pick up the music you listen to just once flee flee from these lusts don't hesitate because it could draw you in like a magnet get close enough to anything that you think you'll hate all your life just get close long enough it'll draw you listen long enough to that music lady just in the wrong company you may think it's filthy but this is just listen long enough there's a magnet wow you've got it it's in your heart you think it isn't don't play the fool with sin young man don't play the fool with sin don't dare go near evil people carefully prayerfully choose your friends for God's sake and reject anyone that is evil you can witness to a person but you don't befriend them you keep the distance yes Christ went with sinners but he never ever got to the situation where anyone could say he was in a dangerous situation he just witnessed he witnessed he that walketh with wise men shall be wise but a companion of fools shall be destroyed proverbs 13 verse 20 do you think God's word says these things and they won't happen tell God tell God young man this cannot happen God said it but it won't happen he that walketh with wise men carefully choosing his friends shall be wise in God's eyes he's speaking about God's wisdom here not just ordinary wisdom okay but a companion of fools you carefully chose wrong people people who are foolish shall be destroyed God says proverbs 13 verse 20 fools make a mock at sin proverbs 14 verse 9 but among the righteous there is favor fools make a mock at sin you want to be with fools you start mocking your father just just long enough that's all the devil nods how long does that take of your free will you linger you'll be stunned how long it takes how little a time that you are swallowed into it don't play the fool with sin young person not if you've come from a godly home carefully select your friends and if you can't find a godly person be alone stay pure but don't lose the inheritance don't lose what God holds out through your parents for a morsel of soup for nothing but you really need it don't do it oh if a child becomes evil it destroys his father's happiness but if a child dies in his sin show me a father like David that like David won't cry at all would God I had died in my son you die breaking your father's heart my son why did you choose the devil why go on godly fellowship is a good thing if you've got a hunt and praying until you find godly fellowship find it it's edifying there's a protection there and God 99.999 percent of the occasions in your life that you need friends will give you will guide you if you want them enough and even if they're different and perhaps not perfect choose them but don't choose compromising christian professing friends you'll be stunned how fast you want what they've got and hate your father and mother for what they want you'll be stunned how who you choose makes you a fool and destroys your life God literally says and you parents be careful not to compromise if your children begin to stand up against you a godly man in South Africa said to me be careful when your children are really rebellious and you begin to think well let's compromise a bit here you we take two steps backward our children will take four steps backwards they won't just settle there brother they won't settle until you've got nothing once they want to compromise so don't ever compromise it's not going to help the situation at all don't stop loving them while you're still able to before your spirit is so destroyed that you can't function in love have patience with them remember it took God 30 years to make you what you are don't regard him as a destroyed rebel if he isn't what you are because he's saved as a young person he's not you 30 years of walking with God you have patience but if your child's pursuing God have long suffering give him love don't always make everything sin don't always look and say everything has to be sin if they're not exactly what we are in our convictions but don't compromise I'm not saying compromise they need to be given a life in place of the one they can't have so be careful they you don't want them to go to worldly places then give them such excitement at home take them to such exciting things that they couldn't believe the devil will tempt them with things like that you made life you substituted evil music with such beautiful music that your children delighted in the time singing and playing instruments discipline pursue put something in the place you know the man that cleaned out his life and then he went back and became how many times worse let me tell you something about that parable don't leave a void fill it up with good overcome evil with good give good books fill the house with good books give good music fill the house go to Bill Gofford he's got about a three four hundred of these the best quality in the world of orchestras choirs quartets a quality you want that the world can't even come near of giftedness of precision that's sanctified by the holy ghost give them that music fill your mind up with the good music fill your mind up with good books just say we can't have filthy magazines don't leave empty cells make sure all the biographies are there and if they're young don't give them the heavy biographies of every day of a man's life the journals of John Wesley go and give them an edited for young people book of the vital things that staggered the world but give them what will grip Wesley Hudson Taylor Whitfield Charles Finney and on and on Moody oh I took Moody's book when I just saved as these Christians said now this is the next one you read I had no hope I couldn't backslide with such people I remember reading Moody his life I just wept and wept and wept and wanted to pursue the way this man pursued God I identified it kept me ablaze for God the books that were there the music I was told of and warned not to listen to these other things I had all these records one day threw them away you cannot believe how much money a boy my age could have spent to acquire such music I threw them but why because we had godly godly singing put in its place listen to this sit sit on the floor as one man said Wesley and minister lie back down Ronnie Andrews puts this music on and they left me alone obeying them and I was like lifted to heaven I'd never heard such singing in my life I'd never ever I loved it they replaced it but they replaced they didn't just leave the void and say nothing everything's evil you know no take care give your child undivided attention we used to take these boys I think Jenny thought I was crazy that we used to throw stones but you cannot believe that what it meant to these boys because when I was a boy we used to throw stones and no one was as good as me with a sling I could hit a tree right over there so now I want to teach my boys and when they saw what I could do with a watch that tree bow on the tree it is all these forests now they've got to do this you know oh I kept them pursuing this with diligence but they didn't want to sit in wicked places but watch wicked things do what works substitute give them time give them things that are pure but give of yourself don't leave a void and say what on earth do you want to go there for what earth you choose such why would you choose such an agony what did you give them in the place of it overcome evil with good and don't make everything evil and another thing concerning the upbringing of our children in Christian homes you've got to give them roots but you've also got to give them wings or you'll destroy them that's not my profound understanding that was a plaque I saw in a secular shop and I thought goodness me but it's true you've got to give them roots but you've also at some point got to give them wings or you'll destroy them mother Thomas Carlyle in a letter to his mother 1795 who is it that loves me and will love me forever with an affection which no chance no misery no crime of mine can do away it is you mother what an amazing thing to say of his mother's love but I read this the other day about Rome I'm not advocating Rome with a pope believe me hmm don't let's start there please but Rome is against divorce they won't bury you if you're divorced there's no hope divorce is this anathema but Rome sanctions divorce on certain occasions I didn't know that in one year 1637 in 2005 were approved from the papacy downwards to be reasoned in God's eyes for a person to divorce what was the reason I was staggered on the grounds of the that overbearing influences of the mother or father can destroy a marriage and rightfully annull it divorces are not allowed under Catholic doctrine but in certain cases they feel they have to allow divorces overbearing men who were so in so dependent on their mother that there was no hope of being a true man in the home I thought to myself you know one has to be careful that you so make every decision every choice and never ever get them to the place where they learn to make their own decisions learn to stand alone you so guard them you so you so tell them be careful we can bring them up but you have to give them roots but there's a moment mother father you've got to give them wings or you'll destroy them you've got to they'll never be able to stand alone without wondering what would mother say where's mother wounded spirits instead of going there no appeal take it and what the holy spirit intends you to do young girl no matter what it costs before you're cursed according to this book by what you disregard and make lightly could have been yours marriage so that godly seed can come in this world god joined a man and woman so that godly seed could come from this union but it's both sides it's the parents but on many many occasions it's you young person who destroyed your life for eternity in spite of such parents it was your choice you'll never ever hear this again in your life some of you so you angry are you about the music are you don't worry young man you'll never hear it again in your life that's the tragedy of the school of god should i say the spiritual warfare between souls it comes a moment god seals your choice be careful it could be now can you stand please