In this sermon, the preacher focuses on the importance of diligence in the Christian life. He begins by handing out a handout with notes and scriptures on diligence. He then shares a story about an eight-year-old and uses it as an example to illustrate the concept of diligence. The preacher emphasizes the need for believers to work diligently in the service of God, using verses from the Bible to support his point.

Hello, welcome to Charity Ministries. Our desire is that your life would be blessed and changed by this message. This message is not copyrighted and is not to be bought or sold. You are welcome to make copies for your friends and neighbors. If you would like additional messages, please go to our website for a complete listing at www.charityministries.org. If you would like a catalog of other sermons, please call 1-800-227-7902 or write to Charity Ministries, 400 West Main Street, Suite 1, Ephrata, PA 17522. These messages are offered to all without charge by the freewill offerings of God's people. A special thank you to all who support this ministry. As Father, we come to you in the name of our Lord Jesus. Lord, help us, Lord, as teachers. Help us as dads and help us as moms, Lord. Help us with our children, that you might receive the glory and the honor due unto your holy name. So, Lord, it's for your sake. We pray, help us to hear, help us to understand and help us to know your will and give us the grace and the power to live it out. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, I have been so blessed just to be here and to listen and recognize the need to push the reset button in some areas. My responsibility or thing given here is diligence. So, I'm supposed to be a little more practical about it. So, I brought something along to show something here. Here, come here. Here. Here. Come here. Here. Hey, come here, I said. Here, come on. Come here. Okay. Sit down. Sit. Sit. Sit. Stay there. Shake a paw. Shake a paw. Come on. How many feel bad for the dog, right? Here, take her out again. I've likened child training to training dogs. When I was a teenager, I got myself a German Shepherd and I had a really good book on training dogs. And I trained that dog and trained her well. And I've come to realize since then that it is almost impossible to teach a dog something if the dog has not learned obedience. How can I teach this dog something if the dog has not learned obedience? And I do not know how you can run a proper home without having obedience in your home. How can you teach your children? How can you run a home school if your children don't obey? How can you take your children and teach them the things that they need to know if they don't have obedience down? It is frustrating, isn't it? Very frustrating. And so obedience is very, very important. Going back to Brother Rick's message on obedience and love. Very good message there. Very good to put down. And that has to be the foundation. That has to be there before you can really move on to other areas. I'm supposed to teach on diligence and I have a number of verses. I also have a handout here. Who wants to give a handout? Okay, Matthew. My wife will give that to you. It's just a handout. And basically it's the notes that I have written down. Very simple notes and just a few things in scriptures on diligence. You can take it home. You can study it. And you can just also follow along during this message if you want to. I thought I would also begin with a day in the life of an eight-year-old. Going back about 42 years when I was eight years old. And I want to do this to help you recognize the importance of teaching your children diligence and also the importance of setting perimeters into their lives which bring security. If a child knows that that's the fence there and he can't go beyond the fence, then as long as he's on this side of the fence, it brings security to him. But if a child has no fence, if there's no stopping point out there, if you say, well son, if you do that, I'll then spank you or whatever, but if the child crosses that line, you'll spank him, then that brings so much insecurity in that child's life because he doesn't know where the fence really is. It's supposed to be here, but he knows when he crossed it, it still wasn't there. And so the area that I see is so important for parents is to have godly order, structure, and to be consistent in holding to those things. And I want to just share about a day in my life when I was eight years old. And I believe that that has a lot to do with where I have come to today because there was a consistent daily pattern of things that I knew were set before me and I knew that I had things to do and that helped me to realize that I'm responsible. And it brought security into my life. It also has to do with being diligent in rising up, going to bed, and being consistent in doing your chores. One day in my life consisted of getting up, being called. I would be called around 4.30 or quarter of five and expected to get up. Milking always started at quarter of five or maybe ten till five in the morning. We were up on a dairy farm and I was expected to be out there at that time. I was a hard one to get up so I didn't often make that day. I say often, I would like to say not always, but I actually didn't often make it. Shame on me. We would milk, we would do our chores, I'd feed the calves and by quarter of six they're finished milking in the morning and then I would be there to help wash the milkers real quickly and on six o'clock mark we would head for the house for breakfast. Breakfast was eaten rather quickly and by 6.25 we'd be heading back out in the barn and then we had the manure out the cow stable with a fork and a shovel and a wheelbarrow and it was dirty and smelly and it was a daily thing. After we'd done the manure and the cow stable out, it was about seven o'clock by then and then we would rush back into the house and change clothes and wash up a little bit and we'd grab our lunch pills and we'd head down the road a mile and a half or so to school and we'd get to school about 8.15, school starts at 8.30 and we would have a day of school there. It was just like clockwork. This was daily in my five days a week and Saturdays of course were a little different but Sundays were other things, but my daily life consisted of that. We'd go to school, dinner was at 12 and then we had lunch break, an hour for recess and lots of fun at school and we'd have more lessons and another break at 2.15 until 2.30. By 3.30 school was over. We would grab our clothes and out the back door we'd go and head back home for another half an hour, almost a three quarter hour walk home and we would arrive home about 3.00. School ended at 3.00 or so, we'd get home around 4.00. We'd get home just in time for supper and supper was at 4.00 sharp. Our meals were just as on time as can be. If I was out in the barn and didn't have a watch and I was like, I think it's dinner time and I would take off. If I was a minute late, that's how on time it was. And like a building clock began to function in me and I began to realize that it's past dinner time. And I'd race for the house. But we'd come home from school around quarter to four. We'd change clothes. We might have time to run out quickly and throw silage down or throw some hay down before 4.00 being back in the house for supper. We'd have supper by 4.25 or so. We'd be back out in the barn. The cows have to be brought in and the milkers put together and we'd start milking at quarter to five. It's right on time, just about every day. And I hear the neighbors' diesels start at 5.00 and sometimes 5.30 and sometimes 6.00. And the cows, they just have to wait. But it's best for cows to milk around time. Anyhow, we'd be finished milking by quarter to six again. There's milkers to wash and then there's other things to do in the evening. We'd have to go out in the fields and put tobacco away or fill silos or something like that. And finally, especially this time of the year, we were late nights. We'd be out in the field till it's pitch dark almost. Come back home, get our lanterns, put the horses away. Then we'd go and unload the corn yet or something like that till like 9.30, 10.00. Then we'd get back in the house, have a great big feast of a snack, you know, and drop in bed. Next morning, we'd wake up again, the same thing over again. Somehow, I grew up secure. There was a consistent daily pattern that really did not alternate much at all. I believe that had a lot of effect in my life. I really believe it did. I learned diligence. I learned how to be consistent. I learned how to do my chores and do them quickly. They had to be done anyhow. What's the use poking around? Let's do them and then I can go do my thing. I can go play. And I just learned to be, because I had to do them. Somebody had to do them. It was just the others had their chores to do and I was expected to do mine. I'm sure I failed many times, but that's the picture that I have of my childhood. As day in, day out, year in and year out. I believe that affected me in many, many ways. And I believe that that prepared the way for the Lord in my life. I believe that that has prepared me for what I am able to do today in the name of the Lord for Christ's sake. I believe that has affected me to be consistent in my Christian walk and life. It's not so hard for me to get up in the morning and to be consistent in my devotions. It's not so hard for me to get up and to sit down and to read the word of God every morning. That's not so hard. Let's look at some of these scriptures that we have on our paper in front of us. Some of them Rick read this morning. But let's look at Deuteronomy 6, 7. And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children. Talk of them when thou sittest down. Walkest by the way and thou liest down when thou risest up. This is a very clear verse and most of you probably know it. But it's diligently. Thou shalt teach them diligently. Speaking of the words of the law. Mark 1.35. This is Jesus. Jesus also was disciplined. If you're going to be a Christian, you're going to need to learn discipline. Discipline comes along with the word disciple. And to be a disciple means to be a disciplined one. That's what Jesus... He took twelve men and he discipled them for about three and a half years. He slowly but surely brought discipline into their lives. Day in and day out. And I don't think they had cows to milk, but they were disciplined. And Jesus was an example of discipline. In the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out and departed into a solitary place and there he prayed. Jesus was disciplined in his rising and his going to bed. One of the things that we as parents need to do is we need to exercise discipline in getting our children to bed. Amen? Some parents complain that they can't get their children up in the morning. Well, I wonder why not? What's wrong with getting your children to bed consistently around summertime, maybe 9 o'clock or 9.30, sometimes 10. We don't have a law. But you know, it's time to go to bed, children. We're going to get up in the morning. In the wintertime, we'll go to bed at 7.30 or 8 o'clock if we're at home and no company or nothing happening. It's just one of those things we do. Why? Because we want to be able to get up in the morning refreshed and awake. It's a grief to me to hear of teenagers who don't get up in the morning until 9 and 10 o'clock in the morning. That's just... Don't you think that those teenagers are very, very insecure? Well, yeah, they're supposed to get up at 8 for breakfast, but, well, if they want to stay in bed, they can. Somehow, they're allowed to. I just... I don't understand. And it's no wonder that they're insecure. Because there's no perimeters. The perimeters are said to be there, but it doesn't matter. So there's no place for them to really know what's right and what's wrong. And that's what happens in the world today. They want to put away with the perimeters and say, it doesn't matter, it's all amoral, right? Jesus was disciplined. Hebrews 11.6 says, It is impossible to please Him, for he that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently, diligently seek Him. Do we know how to seek God diligently? If there's no diligence in our life, if there's no consistency, if there's no other areas of diligence in our life, how are we ever going to be diligent in our Christian life? You see, this is a means, this seminar is to prepare the way of the Lord for our children. And so we need to do everything that we can to prepare our children. They're not born of God yet, they're not in the spirit, may I say, but they're in the flesh. And you can give guidelines and give directions so that the patterns in their life can become consistent and disciplined so much so that then when they do become to Christ and they do get born again, then that consistency, it just kicks right into giving them spiritual life and they can walk straightly. One of the biggest difficulties I had in street ministry in Lancaster in our earlier Christian life was bringing these drug addicts, these Hispanics especially, bringing the Hispanics to Christ and trying to help them through. But guess what? They are so absolutely undisciplined that they couldn't walk the Christian life. They could not continue in it. It was discouraging. Why? Because the Hispanics especially, and I love Hispanic people, but there's a culture that they're living in which is totally undisciplined. And that affects their Christian life. And I saw many of them, yes, they want to follow Christ. They want to go the way of the Lord. But their undisciplined lifestyle, it just doesn't work. And we, as Christians, really need to consider being diligent in this area of our home life so that our children can be prepared in the way of the Lord. Down there, the word faith, 2 Peter 1.5, and besides this, giving all diligence add to your faith virtue and to virtue knowledge. And there's numerous verses of diligence here. You can take these home and look at them. 2 Peter 3.14, Wherefore, beloved, seeing that you look for such things, if we learn diligence as children, we can also learn to be diligent that you may be found of Him in peace without spot and harmless. If we learn diligence as children, we can also learn to be diligent in our Christian life in every area. That's, I believe, what the heart of God is. Proverbs 4.23, Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life. Keep your heart with all diligence. What does that mean? How does that look? What does it look like to keep your heart with diligence? That means to walk carefully every step of your life with diligence and say, like Brother Jeff's example was excellent, reconciliation, diligently keeping his heart and the heart or the soul of his home. Beautiful example there. 2 Corinthians 8.7, Therefore, as ye abound in everything, in faith and utterance and knowledge, and in all diligence and in your love to us, see that ye abound in this grace also. I just picked out some verses there quickly. Then required in the service of God. John 9.4, Jesus said, I must work the works of him that sent me while it is day. The night cometh when no man can work. Very good picture of Jesus saying, while it is daytime, I must work. There's work to be done and we're going to press into it and that's what we as fathers need to say to our children. Children, it's daytime now. We have time to work. We're going to press into it. We're going to keep going. Because night is coming. The day comes when no man shall work. Galatians 6.9, Let us not be weary in well doing, for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. It could just go down through their health. Exodus 15.26, If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, wilt give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians, for I am the Lord that healeth thee. Diligently listening to the voice of the Lord. Diligently hearkening to God. There are so many promises that are ours and benefits and blessings if we diligently walk with the Lord. As for salvation, Hebrews 6.11, We desire that every one of you do show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope in the end. That every one of you be diligent in what? To the full assurance of hope. Be diligent, brothers and sisters, with your salvation. That's one thing you don't want to be inconsistent with. That's one thing you don't want to be undisciplined with. You want to be diligent to affirm, to assure your eternal life, your eternal home. Be diligent in that. Keep that way. Prayer, likewise. Business. And that's one area that I see that we, that God many times uses business or money to show us our needs or to teach us lessons. I've watched in my past 22 years as a Christian, I've watched numerous brothers make financial mistakes and hurt for it for 5 or 10 years. And I myself was one of them. When we make financial mistakes, when we go in a direction that God has not directed us, and we do it because I want to do it, maybe it's for prestige or maybe it's for something like, you know what? God is able to humble me and God is able to bring me love so that I will hurt and smart for years because I was not diligent in my business. Be thou diligent to know the state of thy flocks and to look well at thy herds and you can just put your business in there. Basically, this is a verse that says be diligent in business. Be faithful. Be consistent. And we do need to teach our children to be faithful and consistent and to be diligent in their work. And we want to get into some of the more practicals later on. I don't know why, but this keeps coming to my mind so I'm going to share it. I remember one time my dad was away. I was probably four or five years old. Grandpa came with his buggy and his spring wagon and he wanted something from our shop. The scene is just before my eyes and we helped him load something onto his buggy. And then for a reward to my brother and I, he gave us a dime. And this was just wonderful. I mean, if we called a mouse, we'd get paid a penny per mouse. And so if we called a rat, that was five cents. And so a dime was really a big chunk of money. But grandpa said that when dad comes home, have dad divide it for you. Great. Well, I couldn't wait till dad came home so we took that dime, we stuck it into the vice and took a hacksaw and we hacked it through. Look at those two pieces of dime. We're saying, hmm, something doesn't look quite right. And dad came home. He says, no, you ruined the dime. Well, I said, well, I think granddad should give us another one. I don't know why that comes to me, but anyhow. Be diligent in your business. Proverbs 10.4 He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand, but the hand of the diligent maketh rich. And I don't want us to have a desire to become rich, but to be lazy and to be slothful is ungodly, I believe. It's not right. And so we need to be diligent in our business. The soul of the sluggard desires and has nothing, but the soul of the diligent shall be made fat. These are promises. And it might not mean that I have millions, but it might mean I have contentment. That's something we need to learn also. The hand of the diligent shall bear a rule, but the slothful shall be under tribute. This is honor. Diligent people, they retain honor. They're diligent. They're consistent. They're dependable. You can depend on them. And in business, who wants to do business with someone who's not dependable? God honors us in these things. So, for us, in our roofing business, our goal is to keep our customers happy. Even if it means we might not make them money or might lose money, if a customer is unhappy, it's our goal to satisfy that customer. Whatever it may cost us. The slothful shall be under tribute. Seeth thou a man diligent in his business, he shall stand before kings, he shall not stand before mean men. And so, there's just a lot that we could learn. And take these with you, study them. Then we have slothfulness, which is the opposite of this. Proverbs 6, 6. You have the ant there for an example. Go to the ant, thou sluggard. Consider her ways and be wise, which having no guide or receiver or ruler provides her meat in the summer and gathers her food in the harvest. Then I have some examples here exemplified of Ruth. And you could take these examples here and study them if you want to and ask yourself questions and say, how was Ruth diligent? And what was the outcome of the diligence in her life? Right? How did it work out? How did God bless her for being diligent? Same with the Hezekiah and so forth down through there. You can look at those things. Now, some examples. I could give some examples of things that we did as a family. What have we done that has enabled us to teach diligence to our children? And everyone's situations are different. Your home will not be the same as ours was. This is something that came to me just in the last 10 years. I remember Brother Denny in a message he preached one time. I don't know for sure where it was but I picked up on it. And ever since then it's been happening in our home. And that is the simple thing of having the little boys take out the trash. Emptying the waste cans. There's a waste can in Daddy's office. There's a waste can in each bathroom. There's a waste can in the kitchen. And it is... I don't know who was the little boy that was ordained to that job at that time. It might have been David who's now maybe 13 or it might have been Joe. But each one as they came along they were ordained to take those and clean them out and take the trash out. And then when that boy grew older then he taught his younger brother how to do it. And then so forth. And so today it's Eric's job and he's 7. He's the youngest of the boys. And so I don't know how long he'll be doing it. But just a little bit and then he shared a message. Yeah, teach that boy to take the trash out. And every morning that boy is to take the trash out. It's his chores. Have chores for your children to do daily. And that's very good for them. For the girls it's of course the dishes. It's sweeping. It's cleaning and so forth. And I encourage you to teach them to do it right. Children will want to... they'll try you out. They'll round the corners like my mom would say. You didn't sweep the kitchen right. You just made round corners. You're supposed to go in the corners and get the square out of it. Clean it up properly. But have them do it right. Thinking back to dog training. When I was training that German Shepherd I could tell that dog to do whatever I wanted to do. And it became such a habit in that dog's life. If I'd say the word immediate obedience. Just no question about it. Just immediately that dog would obey. Just over and over again. It became a practical... It became a practice for that dog to just immediately obey. There's no questions about it. And that's the way our children should be trained to obey immediately. Just out of a pure heart. Out of a clear heart. Just do it. Sometimes I think it's... I agree that at the spirit in America that people would rather have dogs and cats for pets than have children. Why? They're probably a lot easier to train. A lot easier to keep and they won't talk back. But that's not what we're about. But we should be able to teach our children these type of things. So I would say we have purposely done things to give chores make work for our children. We have goats at our home. We've had goats for the last 20 years. And so all our children have had a turn at milking the goats. Except the youngest ones still aren't doing it. It's a daily chore. It's not something that they really love to do. But it's a chore that they're learning to do. And those things need to be done. The fun things they like to do well, that's fine. But chores need to be done willingly and cheerfully without complaint and without being told to do them. They know it's chore time. They know what to do. Why does mom and dad have to say, son, did you do your chores? Go milk those goats. Did you do it? Did you milk those goats? Go milk your goats! No, Melissa. There's no need for any of that kind of thing. There really isn't. But we have goats and that's one reason why we have them also. I do enjoy the fresh milk. Something that just happened this past week in the morning I was telling the story to the two little girls, Riley, who sometimes stays at our place and our daughter Janelle. And they picked a story on the one picture Bible of the man who sowed seeds. It was a story of sowing the good seeds in Matthew 13. So I went through the story and I read the story and I talked about the story and of course I wanted to somehow example that to them. So I said, let's go out in the garden and we're going to get the garden ready. We're going to sow some seeds. And some seeds will fall out in the lane. The birds will get them and some seeds will fall in the weeds. So we actually dug the potatoes out and I got the tractor and we plowed the garden and then we worked the garden down and then we went and sowed seeds. And these little girls were there to help sow seeds. And it's been exciting to them ever since. She keeps running out to the garden. Daddy, are the seeds up yet? Doing things together. She loved to do that. And I'm doing that on purpose to teach them something. I want to encourage you as parents begin to pray about something that you can do have for your children to do. If you don't live on a farm which we still live on a farm which I'm very grateful for but if you don't live on a farm or you don't have things for your children to do Fathers, take the responsibility to pray about something for your children to do. Don't leave your 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 children at home with your wife all day long and expect her to give them something to do. It just doesn't work out. Take some responsibility in that area. I think it was when our oldest was about 16 we had 3 girls first and then 2 boys the boys would have been like 12 and 13 maybe and then the 3 girls were like 14, 15, 16 or something like that. And they needed something to do. I was still daily going out in the job doing roofing. The boys were too young to take it along very much and I just couldn't take it along but they really needed something to do in the afternoon. So, somehow we got started painting little square blocks I think you might have seen they were to sell for the tourists. My wife's niece they had a retail they had a wholesale business of making furniture and all these little stuff these little knick knacks that the tourists buy and so we would paint these little blocks and these little hearts and all these little letters put on there. Everything was it took a lot of time a lot of piece work. And when that door opened up for us we got started with that they supplied the paint they supplied the brushes they supplied the box and everything we just did the time. And they would pay us so much for each little block or something like that. I don't know it was like 50 cents or so a block maybe. And so it was something that they could do. Well, the first couple of weeks it was exciting them to get started and we had talked about painting the children so much per block. Well, in the first two weeks there was so much there was so much tension or contention about how many blocks I painted how many blocks you painted and it just wasn't working and besides that I thought that I don't want to teach the children to think that they always have to be paid for whatever they do for Dad. So we just finally one day my wife and I just sat down and we said we're not going to do it this way and we told the children there's no more pay for painting. They were disheartened. But you know what things went a lot smoother in the painting room after that. But we had been painting for what? Four years? About four years. And they painted thousands of little pieces of block. They would have school in the morning after dinner they'd go back out in the paint shop be out there about two or three hours and they would they would put in the into a tape player put in the children's progress and they all learned those pretty much by heart by listening to them over and over and over again. But they had something to do. And it actually was very profitable. It did pay it did help pay some of the bills it was a blessing. And so God was able to provide a means that our children could do something and something that was even it actually brought in some income. But the thing that they really needed to learn was they need to learn to be diligent with hundreds of little blocks daily every day again and again and again. Somehow I want them to learn diligence. It's pretty easy for children to get discouraged when they see all those blocks there. And you know each one has to be painted twice over the whole way. Then one of the girls needs to put letters on them. And another girl needs to go and put the the highlights on them and so forth. This is just day in and day out. But you know what? When I was a young boy I hated hauling manure. I hated that job. But by the time I was 15 or 16 my dad somehow got me told me that sometimes you just have to learn to enjoy the things you don't like to do. And so that was one thing I told the children. You need to learn to enjoy this even though you get tired of it. And to be diligent. And they learned diligence that way. And so I don't know what your situation will be. I don't know where you're at with your children with your home. But do begin to pray and say, Lord, I don't want to leave my sons at home all day with my wife because they really need something to do. They really do. I would also like to and if you there's so much that you as mothers can do you can give your children things to do just cleaning up. Just getting things in order. And sometimes you might need to give that 10 year old the responsibility to clean up the garage and to put things in order. And once you somehow get him thinking and he can visualize and dream what needs to be done he can carry it on. You can come back and just praise him for what he's done even though he didn't do it all right. But they need something to do. And so I think there are some places that I get into family's homes and the father is out working the children are around they're just kind of not doing anything but there's so much cleanup that could be done. You can teach diligence in being clean. Teach your children how to keep the house clean. Diligence in that area is very needful. The other very important thing that I would like to make note of here is that it's important to teach your children to complete their jobs. Don't let them off when they're three quarters or 90% done. Teach them the importance of completing the job. Of course I was preparing this yesterday so I knew I'd be gone today and I knew the boys at home would need something to do. So yesterday afternoon I purposely prepared some work for them to do today. And we have some wood that needs to be stacked at home so I made two carriers of wood about a quart of wood for each and I told the boys, I said you boys I want you to fill those both with wood today while we're gone and I want you to do it nice and to do it very well and completely make it look finished make it look real nice so that when I come home it's finished and I can say it's done right. And so in pondering this I didn't just tell them I want you to fill those things with wood. No, I gave some specific instructions. I said son I want you to do it right. You start this way and you do it this way and then you finish it up like this and when it's all done you look at it and say it's done well. And I said if it's not done well, you know what's going to happen. Right? So if I come home and it's not well done, what should I do? Dump it all out and have them do it again before they eat supper, right? They'll learn. I think of some of the stories brother Rick told about what his dad would do to him. But God bless the fathers who won't let their children off because if you let them off they'll learn it really doesn't have to be done right. It really doesn't need to be done completely because you're laying the tracks for your son to run on when they get converted. That's what you're doing. Do it right. Alright, I'm going to close with another example here. This just really struck me. We were I think it was last fall or so our family was invited to Central Pennsylvania church out there on a Sunday evening No, it was one evening through the week. We were meeting with Mark Zook who is the one who's the missionary featured in the video called Etow by New Tribes. How many of you have ever seen that? Mark Zook. He was raised in a Mennonite church. His parents are still in that Mennonite church there and I don't know what church him and his wife but he's the one who years ago felt a call in the mission field went to a mission agency and let them know he wants to be a missionary and they said now you're too old, until you go to school and so forth, there's no use and they just passed him off. Well he went to another mission agency and they picked him up and they trained him and taught him and he went out there to Papua New Guinea I believe it was and there he translated the Bible. He translated the Bible and he taught the word of God to these totally heathen people and brought a tribe to Christ. The whole village basically came to Christ by the word of God that he translated there and you can see it on the video. It's a powerful move, powerful video. But we went there, we met there because we have interest in setting up an Anabaptist foundation whereby the Anabaptists, young people who have a desire, can go and translate a Bible somewhere in a mission field. That's what we're working on. So we met with Mark Zook and he did a presentation and shared some things there that evening. Then for questions and answers, someone asked him this question and said, Mark, how long does it take to translate the Bible? And I'm not sure if it was the New Testament or if it was the whole Bible. It might have been the New Testament. The New Testament takes about what, 10 years, 12 years, so he said it takes about 10 or 12 years. He said that is if you're diligent. And he said I grew up milking cows in the morning at 4.30 and he said there's no reason I can't get up and translate the Bible at 4.30 in the morning either. And that's why he was able to bring a tribe to Christ. Here's a man who learned diligence in his youth. Here's a man who grew up getting up early in the morning. Day in, day out. Growing up that way. So much so that he was farming here. His own farm was milking his own cows. He sold all those things and he went to the mission field and began to translate the Bible. And the diligence that was placed into his life of the youth continued right through there to the translation of the Bible and to the salvation of many, many souls. That's what God really wants. Faithfulness is really what God wants. How can we be faithful if we're not diligent? I don't think we can. So questions? Anything? And while you might not have the same opportunities that we've had as far as painting blocks for our children, God can open up doors for you. I do still take the boys along out on roofing sometimes just on Thursday. We went out and did someone's minibar, a little storage shed. I took the two young boys along. We went out there, just a little off the ground thing and they loved it. And I loved it. Wonderful opportunities. Yes? At what age did you start giving your children chores to do? What do you say, Mom? Four or five? She takes care of the little ones that way a little more than I do, but yeah. Go ahead. At what age did you start getting them up every time the same in the morning? At two years old. There's no better time to learn. I would have to say that it's much more challenging for us to be consistent with our time since we're not milking cows anymore. It's much more challenging. However, we have other things that kind of guide our days, which we have the roofing company there and the roofing guys, they come at seven. And so, that means we need to be through breakfast and devotions by seven. That kind of sets the, you know, it keeps us going, keeps us getting up. If there's nothing there, it's really easy to just get later and later and later. If you don't have to go to work, but if you have to go to work then you have to get up to go there. If you can't be late for work you might lose your job. Yes? This is not a question, it's more of a testimony. Is it okay if I share it briefly? Sure. I think it ties in well. I grew up as well getting up to milk the cows and after we were married, we milked cows for three years and then we moved off the farm. I knew we were moving off the farm and I told the Lord that I will get up every morning at quarter of five to spend the first hour and a half with Him when we move off the farm that I did while I milked the cows. And that was my goal when we moved off the farm and it went about a three quarter year and I probably only got up maybe once or twice in that time to really spend the time with the Lord. So it was January of this year Brother Paul preached a message on loving Jesus and I knew I should get up and confess my sin of not being disciplined in reading the Word. But I was too proud and this was about April, I confessed in a small group and I became diligent. I said, Lord, I will get up at five every morning, not to milk the cows, not to go work, but to read the Word. And I said every morning, I said, I don't get up, I will fast that morning. And so my goal in life is to teach my children to get up to be diligent in the Lord and I'm not there. So, I was diligent in getting up to milk cows and I agree with you there. And I want to learn that diligence, so I'm not there yet but I want to get there. By God's grace we can do those things. We can't do them by the law, but we can by the grace of God. If the grace of God flows in us, we can. Again. I was just going to ask you, brother, how do you incorporate ministry, being there on demand, phone calls, emergency, leaving with a scheduled life, I guess. I'm talking especially about evenings, doing activities evenings and so on. Personally for me, I'm not putting much time into the roofing anymore, so my day times are basically all free for ministry things. I try to get all the ministry in during the day time that I can in only a few evenings. Right now I think I'm going about two evenings a week. That's where I'm at, but I'm not out there putting my 40 hours in a week, so I know that's very difficult. You can't take that time during the day like I am. That's where the Lord has me today. I'm very grateful for that. I do try to prioritize my things with the family. Right now in the morning, normally I'm teaching school. I teach math to the children for the first hour of school usually nowadays. That is if I'm not gone, but most times I'm able to do that. But that's just where I'm at, but how you're going to work that out, I don't know. Because it's difficult when you have when you're involved in ministry and you have a full time job or full time responsibility there, how do you handle those calls and then evenings are you could easily spend every evening out there, but you must hold your family as number one. Does that answer your question? Okay. As far as getting children up in the morning, is it more important to be consistent on let's say 7 o'clock for little ones or is it important to teach them to get up early so that when they become an adult it's easier to get up early? I would say to get them up at 5 o'clock when they're 4 and 6 years old or I would say it's more important to be consistent. Set your time and I don't think you need to be embarrassed if you don't have it until 7 o'clock, whatever fits your schedule. I'm not saying you have to get up really early, but I think consistency is the key. That's how I see it. Maybe some other of you older ones could Yeah. The discipline like Rick said begins by getting to bed on time. Now what do you do if you go to the Bible study Wednesday nights or something like that and you don't get to bed until 10 o'clock or 10.30 or 11? Well, if it's possible for your children, you could let them know tomorrow morning we're going to sleep one hour later. We get up one hour later. But let there be consistency. That's more important than just, okay, we're out late last night, so we're not going to hold to the law this morning. We're just going to sleep until we feel like getting up. No, keep it diligent. Keep that diligence there. Keep the consistency. That's why I see it's very important. Our children will feel much security if we're diligent in keeping those things. Well, the Lord bless you as you endeavor to prepare your children. Lay those tracks, those foundations that they can run on them when they come to Christ. God bless you.