Drop Out Dads

I believe we are living in the end times, friends, and I believe the spirit of Antichrist is already in the land. I believe the devil has the highway, and because of compromise with the world, the church has lost her authority. I believe there is an all-out war in society upon the family.

Our families are being attacked. Our families are being torn down and torn apart by the world, the devil, and sin. Hallmark movies, which used to be wholesome, now won't make a movie unless they showcase a homosexual married couple in the movie in an attempt to normalize that lifestyle into the traditional family unit.

You weaken the family and you weaken a nation. I believe we have a lot of dropout dads out there, and that's the title of my message today, friends, Dropout Dads. I was walking down the hallway at work years ago, and I passed by my boss's office, and I noticed him standing at his desk looking sad.

I poked my head in and asked, Is everything okay? He motioned for me to come in, and this is what he told me. He said, I just returned from dropping my daughter off at her college dorm room for her first year in college, and as I hugged her goodbye, I realized I didn't know her, and now she's gone. Here was a man who was successful in the eyes of the world.

He worked 80 hours a week. He lived in a million-dollar mansion. He drove a $100,000 BMW into his family.

He was a provider, but as a father, he was a failure. He didn't know his daughter, and now she's gone. That's a pretty sad commentary, friends, but it's not isolated.

We've got dropout dads out there in the world and in the church. In the church, there's dropout dads as well. They have regulated their responsibility as spiritual leaders of the home to their pastor.

They feel all they have to do and that they've done their duty if they just drag their family to church on Sunday so the pastor can teach them. As fathers, we have responsibilities for our families, but as Christians, we fathers have an even higher responsibility to our children regarding their spiritual welfare. In Proverbs 22, 6, we read, Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

The Word of God is clear, friends, that the spiritual life of a child is dependent upon the spiritual input of the parents. Our verse from Proverbs says we are to train up a child. This takes discipline on our part to be there for our children and to make a difference in their lives for God and eternity.

If you're a parent with young children, ask yourself the following question. Were you spending all your free time? Is it on your hobbies? Is it with your friends? Is your Saturday morning tea time at the golf course more important to you than playing with your kids? Do you take time to have one-on-one time with each of your children? Are you teaching them the Bible? Are you teaching them about God? Are you praying for them? Do they see you and hear you praying for them? Or are you the kind of parent who raises kids with the philosophy of do as I say rather than lead them with a godly example of do as I do? Do your kids see you one way at church on Sunday and another way the rest of the week at home? Do they hear you tell lies? Do they see you laugh at dirty movies? Do they see you drink booze? Do you lose your temper in front of them? Are you interested in their daily spiritual growth? Can they see Jesus in you? When my daughter was four years old, we would have Bible time every week where we would get out crayons and paper and the Bible and I'd read a story from the Bible like Jonah and the whale and we would draw out and illustrate that story. Then my wife would vote on who drew a better picture and my daughter always won, much to her delight because she loves beating me in games and sports anyhow.

Then after that, I'd lead my daughter in singing a hymn like Christ the Solid Rock until she learned it. This was my daughter's childhood after my wife's tragic death. When my daughter was 14, I was left with the duty of raising her as a single parent.

I know how hard and challenging being a single parent can be but I made sure that every morning before breakfast in school, we would hold hands and read a Bible verse together and then pray. We'd then go get up early and take a 45-minute walk in the neighborhood woods where I'd give her a chance to talk to me and share things with me that she needed to talk about and we did this every day until my daughter became an adult. It's up to the man in the family to be the spiritual leader, friends.

This is God's ordained way. If the husband and father drops the ball in this important area of the home and fails to pray with his wife and have daily devotions with his family, then he shouldn't be too surprised if his kids become rebellious and disrespectful and trouble and in trouble all the time. Be honest with yourself, friend.

Are you a dropout dad? Have you dropped the ball as the spiritual leader in the home? It's not too late to change. Establish a daily quiet time for yourself where you meet God regularly every day. Then set up a family altar in the home where you pray and have devotions with your family every day.

Make the study of God's word fun for the family like I draw those crayon pictures of the Bible lesson for that day with my daughter. Make it regular. Make it rewarding.

And when my daughter was eight years old, she could recite from memory the name of every book of the Bible in order, all 66 books. Let your kids know how proud you are of their accomplishments and achievements. Not only should that family devotional time be regular and rewarding, but it should be reverential.

Let your kids see you bowed before God in prayer. Let them know how much you love God, how much you honor God with your life. I remember reading a story of how a grown man was describing his childhood and he said one thing which always stuck with me.

He said his father was a blue collar worker who worked hard with his hands all day in construction and they would have family devotions in the home before dinner where his father would read out loud portions of the Bible. And if he would read Isaiah 53 about Jesus on the cross before he got to verse 5 where the text says he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities. This man, this father would always break down and cry and never be able to finish the passage.

He was so broken up and in love with God and overcome with the word of God. I've never forgot that scene from hearing it. Is there a reality of God in your life, friend? Is there a reality of God that touches your family life? Do your kids see you with your Bible in your lap, studying it and obeying God with your life? The following incident changed the entire way of how I viewed myself as a Christian parent.

I had been praying for revival for six months where me and another man would meet three times a week at the chaplain church from 6 a.m. to 7.30 to pray for revival before we would go to work. We were praying for God to send revival to our church. But we heard about revival taking place out of town in a neighboring state.

Well, we hopped in my car and we drove down there. On a Saturday night, we heard they were having a meeting. The church parking lot was full.

We entered the church around 7 p.m. and a lot had taken place before we got there. We took our seats up in the balcony and we looked around. It was complete silence and we noticed people were crying.

No pastor was on stage. The choir members just sat there passing a box of Kleenex back and forth as they wept. Suddenly, I felt like crying.

And I turned and looked at my friend and a big tear was rolling down his cheek. The sanctuary was filled with the awful presence of Almighty God. What was going on, we wondered.

And we sat like that until people began to leave around 10 p.m. Well, out in the parking lot, I tracked down the pastor of the church as he was walking to his pickup truck and I ran up to him and said, can you tell us what's going on down here? He said, I had a sermon to preach but the Holy Spirit showed up and so I just sat down. That's all I can say right now. I grabbed his arm and I said, can't you tell me more? He said, all I can tell you is that we're a bunch of dead people.

And with that, he walked away. Well, that Monday morning, I called the church and I got the church secretary to tell me the whole story of what was happening to that church. She said, three months ago, the men of the church went on a weekend retreat led by a visiting missionary.

And during that weekend retreat, God got ahold of the men and the men got ahold of God and they experienced change. And when they returned home, they shocked their wives by their new behavior towards them. They were now spiritual leaders in the home.

They were now gentle and tender with their wives. They held their wives' hands as they prayed with them each day. Well, after about a month of this, the women of the church got on fire for God and rededicated their lives to God at church one evening.

And became the godly woman of the home, treating their husbands like kings. Well, this apparently was too much for the teenagers to see a godly father and a godly mother in the home. In the night, me and my friend were visiting that church where everyone was crying right before we got there.

That was the night the teenagers broke down and came down front and gave their lives to Christ because of the reality of God in the lives of the parents. It breaks me up to tell it, friends, but I was there. I saw with my own eyes.

The teenagers been saved because their parents were living for God. That's the reason why everyone was broken before God and crying. That church was in the midst of revival because the men of the church began to live as spiritual leaders in the home.

And that thousand-member church stayed on fire for God. And within a year's time, it pooled its money and bought the community abortion clinic and turned it, this is the best part of the story, they turned it into a Bible bookstore. But that's what can happen, friends, when God shows up in the life of a family and in the life of a church.

It's up to the dads to be the spiritual leaders and not be dropout dads. You know, friends, God gets serious with those who get serious with him. Our verse says to train up a child in the way he should go.

And when he is old, he will not depart from it. Are we dropout dads or are we godly dads? Are we godly examples in the home? Our kids are depending on us to be Jesus to them. Let us pray.

Oh, great God, I come to you now in the name of that dear son, Jesus, who hung naked on a cross for my rotten sins. Lord, I wanna be a better parent. Help me to be a godly parent.

Make me the best parent I can be. Make me a more obedient servant to you, Lord, so I can be a more effective parent to my children. Make me a better son to you so I can be a better father to my children.

Show me how to get more involved in the life of my family to better impact them for Christ and eternity. Give me, Lord, the grace to have a closer walk with thee so I have a more spiritual, impactful influence upon my family. Oh, great God, do these things, I pray, in the strong name of Jesus, amen.