Revival Conference 2007 - Harold Vaughn - Part 5

We need to go by the store. He said, I know exactly what store I need to go by. She went shopping and he went on a mission for God. And he found the manager of the store, confessed what he had done, paid him back, asked for forgiveness. And brother, he came to church the next night. He was happy as could be and he told me that story. But you know something, my friend? He obeyed the prompting of the Spirit of God. When I was a teenager, I backed my father's 1950 Chevrolet pickup out of the shed and ran over a toolbox. You know what 3,000 pounds does to a toolbox even made in the 60s? I'm telling you, it was flat as a pancake. I got on the anvil, I beat that thing back in shape to the point where you could even put the drawer back in it and it would close. The only thing that was wrong was the paint was knocked off. I never mentioned it to my father. I'm off preaching at a meeting one day and I said to a friend of mine, I said, you know, my conscience has been bothering me about this incident where I deceived my father by running over his toolbox. I never put it right with him. And I said to my friend, I said, hey, would you pray that God would open the door for me to get my conscience clear? And you know what my good friend looked at me and said? I don't think we need to pray and ask God to open the door. I think you need to go open it yourself. Thank you very much. And you know he was dead on that point. So I went and found my father, recreated the whole story. He was oblivious, told him the whole thing. And I drove two hours one way and I went back to church that night and nobody else had Revival. At least I did. And brother, I want to tell you that obedience is not always convenient, but it's always profitable. You say, well, it'll cost me too much to put these things right. It'll cost you more if you leave it undone. We had a guy in Florida who burned his house down, who went to the insurance company after the meeting and confessed that he had burned down his own house to collect the insurance money, for crying out loud. I want to tell you, no price is too great to pay to have a conscience void of offense toward God and toward man. What has God been speaking to our hearts about, men and women? Perhaps tonight God is prompting us to some neglected duty. Perhaps there's a conscience that needs to be cleared. Maybe there's a compelling witness that needs to be given. Perhaps there's a forgiveness that needs to be granted or a forgiveness that needs to be sought. Perhaps there's a gift of encouragement that needs to be made. My friend, I want to tell you that before the glory departed from Israel, they ignored the voice of God. They silenced the voice of God. They just sat on it. And I want to tell you, when God speaks, it's not time to call a prayer meeting. It's time to get up and move and pray while you're going and sit to put that thing right. Because before the glory departed from Israel, they ignored the voice of God. Let me give you this final thing. Before the glory departed from Israel, there was a forfeiture of parental authority. A forfeiture of parental authority. Look in chapter 3 and verse 13, if you would. Notice what it says here. Chapter 3 and verse 13. R.G. Lee said that parental authority has not disappeared, it's just changed hands. The children have taken it over. You know, the main thing missing in child training today is the trainer. The main thing missing in parenting today is the parent. Eli... Eli failed to use his parental authority to govern his children. And Eli's children followed suit and refused to obey their father. In chapter 2, verse 29, God said to Eli, You've honored your children above me. You've preferred your children before me. He loved his children more than he loved God. But my friend says in Malachi, the book of Malachi, that God will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children. And turn the hearts of the children back to the fathers, God said, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse. This unity in the home brings a curse upon the earth. Do you understand that before the glory departed from Israel, there was a forfeiture of parental authority. You know, there's a new idol in evangelical Christianity today. You know what the new idol is? It's family. It's family. Well, Pastor, we can go to church. Our kids have ball practice, fiddle practice, excuse me, violin practice, flute practice, ballet practice, tobacco spitting practice, race car practice. They've got all these. Oh, we cannot come to church. We can't stay out late. How many children? How many children? You know, they get up early for school and they're involved in everything except that which is spiritual. You know, I think we've underestimated the capacity of children for deep spiritual experience. They don't have to have six flags over Jesus all the time. They can get involved in Holy Ghost prayer meetings when their hearts are clear. I'm telling you, they can be in a place of usefulness, and they don't have to make all the mistakes that most of us did. This is not true. A forfeiture of parental authority. You know, when the television became the nation's babysitter and education became the surrogate parent and rock music became the form of entertainment, we've been on a free fall ever since all of that came into play. And we can dismiss all of this. Well, that's just relative. That's not our moral. It doesn't make any difference and all this kind of stuff. Look at the position today when they tell us that the morality factor among evangelical Christian young people is identical to that of the world. There's something wrong with the message, and there's something wrong with the method, and there's something wrong with the manner in which we're doing it. And if you want a different result, you're going to have to do something different than what everybody else is doing. A forfeiture of parental authority. You're responsible for your home, sir. Of course, we educate their minds, train their bodies, but we dare not starve their souls. I was in a meeting, and they said, there's a man that was having a terrible time, a very successful man monetarily, but having a terrible time in the home. One of them and I talked to him. I said, I'd be glad to talk to him. He came in. I think he was having a nervous breakdown. He told me about his wife had been in for counseling, and the counselor told the wife to abandon her husband and children and to go and seek her own happiness. How many of you think we've heard enough from the counseling community to last us from now to way past when Jesus comes back again? The key to understanding life is not psychology. It's theology. Quit listening to the Freudian flops, and even the Christian ones that spout off this mess and then put a Scripture verse at the end and try to dress it up and make it like it's the Word of God. Brother, we don't need all this garbage and behavioral modification. We just need to get back to the Word of God. The wife was leaving. The daughter had crammed up. The boy had seen apparitions of demons in his room. He was involved in dope and total rebellion. The man was fit to be died. He came in. He wept. He told me the whole story. I said, Sir, why don't we get on our knees right here, and why don't you just tell God everything you just told me? So we got on our knees, and that man began to heave up hurt, pain, brokenness, bitterness. Oh, he began to unleash all of this stuff. He was weeping and wailing. I didn't know whether he was going to even stay alive or go absolutely berserk. I didn't know. I looked at him and the agony that was on his face, and I was weeping my heart out as I knelt with that man. And I was sitting there thinking, Oh, God. If this man had wept like this five years ago and gotten thoroughly right with God, we wouldn't be doing this kind of weeping right here, right now. But it was too late then. Can I tell you, friend, don't wait until your wife walks out on you. Don't wait until your children are in trouble to get thoroughly right with God. My brethren, there's a crisis of fatherhood in the United States. Strong male leadership has not been the defining feature in our country now for at least six or seven decades. We've got women going off to war to fight in Iraq and husbands staying at home to take care of their children. There's something wrong and perverse about this picture right here, my friend. More and more people want to pay somebody else to do for money what they're not willing to do for love. Two-thirds of all mothers of small children are in the workforce somewhere, a forfeiture of parental authority. I know we're living in tight times. I know that some people are in difficult circumstances. I know all of that, dear people. But what I'm telling you is we're in a crisis today. I believe it's the parents' duty to teach their children about decency, honor, truth in industry. Don't send your child to Sunday school. Take them to Sunday school. Don't trust somebody else to teach your child about character. You do it because children will not do what you say. They will do what you do. Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he's old, he shall not depart from it. Brethren, we can believe God for better things. Listen, Noah got his family on the ark in those wicked days. Brethren, we can get our children on the ark in our days as well if we can believe God. We're going to have to readjust some things. We're going to have to rethink some things. Follow me now. A forfeiture of parental authority before the glory departed. I think we need to stop explaining our sins and start repenting of our sins. Live the way God wants you to live. Be what God wants you to be. I was in a meeting one time and three ladies, single moms, were around the table, weeping, talking about how their children were out and out in the day.