The Blessing of Children

December 20, 2012 in Abortion, Bible - OT - Psalms, Children, Meditations

Psalm 127:3–5 (NKJV)
3 Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, The fruit of the womb is a reward. 4 Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, So are the children of one’s youth. 5 Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them; They shall not be ashamed, But shall speak with their enemies in the gate.
This morning we meditate in the sermon on the nature of the songs we sing around Christmas – songs that celebrate the birth of the Christ Child. When Gabriel announced to Mary that she would conceive and give birth to a Son this was received for what it was – good news, Gospel, glad tidings of great joy. Why? Because children are a blessing from God.
It is this reality that the psalmist sings today. Behold children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb is his reward.
Increasingly as a culture we have come to the conclusion that children are a burden more than a blessing. Birth control has, under the Obama administration, become a right as near and dear as life itself. The insurance companies are positively tripping over themselves to assure us all that there is no longer any copay for birth control pills while coverage for maternity costs becomes subject to increasingly high deductibles. The system increasingly highlights the cost of children.
But the psalms focus on the blessing. Does it cost something to have children? Absolutely. Is it at times a struggle to bring up children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord? Absolutely. But the psalms orient us to the blessing. Children are a heritage from the Lord – children are God’s reminder to us that he intends to bless us and to cause us to inherit the earth. The fruit of the womb is his reward – a treasure far greater than second homes, new cars, expensive toys, or undistracted minds.
So, brothers and sisters, let us remember at this time that Mary responded in faith by rejoicing in the news that she would bear a child and let us imitate her by giving thanks for the children that God has given us and anticipating with joy the arrival of others. And let us confess that as a culture we have despised the little ones – let us kneel as we do so.

Obama versus Museveni

December 20, 2012 in Bible - OT - Psalms, Confession, King Jesus, Meditations

“I have found My servant David; With My holy oil I have anointed him, With whom My hand shall be established; Also My arm shall strengthen him. The enemy shall not outwit him, Nor the son of wickedness afflict him. I will beat down his foes before his face, And plague those who hate him. “But My faithfulness and My mercy shall be with him, And in My name his horn shall be exalted. Also I will set his hand over the sea, And his right hand over the rivers. He shall cry to Me, ‘You are my Father, My God, and the rock of my salvation.’ Also I will make him My firstborn, The highest of the kings of the earth. My mercy I will keep for him forever, And My covenant shall stand firm with him. His seed also I will make to endure forever, And his throne as the days of heaven.” (Psalm 89:20–29, NKJV)
Today is the first Sunday of Advent, the time of year when we recall God’s promises to our fathers that one day He would send a Son of David to rescue His people and rule among the nations of men. The words of Psalm 89 remind us that this Son of David, our Lord Jesus, will be victorious over his enemies and is Lord over all the kings of the earth. Listen to God’s promises to Jesus: “I will beat down his foes before his face and plague those who hate him…” – He will be victorious. “I will set his hand over the sea and his right hand over the rivers…” – His dominion will encompass all the earth. “Also I will make him My firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth…” – He will rule over all other rulers.
Given these promises that God has made to Jesus, what is the obligation of men and nations, what is the obligation of our nation? Our obligation is to worship and serve this One whom God has exalted to His right hand. It is to live in light of His rule. And it is to this that our Advent Call to Worship summons us – because Jesus is Lord those who trust Him can take comfort; because Jesus is Lord those who spurn Him must take warning.
For the fourth year in a row, President Obama has neglected to thank God in his annual Thanksgiving address let alone to request God’s forgiveness for our personal and national sins. This is a travesty of monumental proportions and will bring God’s judgment down on our nation. Jesus is Lord and will beat down his foes.
Contrast our current national pride and impenitence with the recent declaration of the President of Uganda. This last October President Museveni prayed the following:
I stand here today to close the evil past and especially in the last 50 years of our national leadership history and at the threshold of a new dispensation in the life of this nation. I stand here on my own behalf and on behalf of my predecessors to repent. We ask for your forgiveness.
Museveni then listed the various sins which have afflicted Uganda in the last 50 years and requested God’s blessing on their nation, closing his prayer thus:
We want to dedicate this nation to you so that you will be our God and guide. We want Uganda to be known as a nation that fears God and as a nation whose foundations are firmly rooted in righteousness and justice to fulfil what the Bible says in Psalm 33:12: Blessed is the nation, whose God is the Lord. A people you have chosen as your own.
I renounce all the evil foundations and covenants that were laid in idolatry and witchcraft. I renounce all the satanic influence on this nation. And I hereby covenant Uganda to you, to walk in your ways and experience all your blessings forever.
I pray for all these in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
This is how men and nations are to honor the Son of the Highest, our Lord Jesus Christ. This morning we need to confess that we as a people have elected a man to office who defies God and refuses to thank Him for the manifest blessings He has showered upon us. But the reason Obama refuses to honor God is that we as a people refuse to honor Him as well. We are a stiff-necked people and have rebelled against the Lord. So let us kneel and confess our sins to Him.

All Nations Shall Serve Him

November 16, 2012 in Bible - OT - Psalms, Eschatology, Meditations, Postmillennialism, Worship

“Make a joyful shout to God, all the earth! Sing out the honor of His name; Make His praise glorious. Say to God, “How awesome are Your works! Through the greatness of Your power Your enemies shall submit themselves to You. All the earth shall worship You And sing praises to You; They shall sing praises to Your name.”  Selah  
Psalm 66:1-4
When we look toward the future, what do we expect? And how does our expectation shape the decisions and investments that we are making with our time today?
For the last 100 years, the predominant Christian view of the future has been pessimistic. It is believed that we are living in the last generation before Christ’s return, that the world is destined to get worse and worse prior to this momentous event, and that there is nothing Christians can, or even perhaps should do to reverse the trend. After all, to attempt to reverse the trend would be to postpone the imminent return of our Lord.
The impact of this particular vision of the future upon our nation has been catastrophic. America has become, in many respects, an increasingly ugly place – sexual licentiousness, covenantal unfaithfulness, and governmental intrusiveness have become the norm. And a large share of the blame belongs to the Church and to our erroneous view of the future.
So how does this pessimistic view of the future mesh with David’s view in the psalm before us today? It is the exact opposite. Notice that David’s describes his anticipation for the future like this:
Through the greatness of Your power Your enemies shall submit themselves to You. All the earth shall worship You And sing praises to You; They shall sing praises to Your name.
Did you catch David’s vision? In light of the power of God, David sees the future full of hope: all the earth shall worship the Lord, all shall sing praises to Him, even His enemies shall submit themselves to Him. Why? Because God is Almighty.
How does this vision of the future shape David’s exhortations in this passage? Notice that David is issuing an exhortation to the nations – “Make a joyful sound to God, all the earth!” David calls upon all creation, upon all the nations of the earth, to worship and serve the Lord; to join him as he praises God for His might and power. Jesus is Lord so throw down your weapons and surrender!
It is in response to David’s summons that we have gathered here today. And we in our turn now join David in calling the nations to join us: smell the fragrant aroma, behold the goodness of God, come see the glory of our King and join us in praising Him. And this praise, which starts here each Lord’s Day, is to eek out of here and make its way into our lives during the week so that folks can’t help but declare – how good and how pleasant it must be to know the Lord. And in this way the world will be transformed into a better place, a more beautiful place.
This morning, then, as we enter the presence of the Lord to sing let us consider how David exhorts us to enter. Note three things:
              i.         We are to sing joyfully – Make a joyful shout to the Lord
            ii.         We are to sing loudly – Make a joyful shout
          iii.         We are to sing beautifully – make His praise glorious
And so let us fill this building with the praise of God – but let us begin by seeking His forgiveness for failing to live now in light of the glorious future that He has promised – let us kneel and confess our pessimism and doubt to Him.
Our Father,
You promised Abraham that through him all the families of the earth would be blessed – and Abraham believed you and you credited it to him for righteousness. This promise to Abraham you have repeated again and again and have fulfilled in the Person of our Lord and Savior Jesus. But instead of embracing your promise in faith, anticipating the day when all the families of the earth shall be blessed, we have responded in disbelief. We have grown weary and despondent and failed to look to you in faith. Forgive us our sin and doubt; enable us to trust your promises and so to act that all nations might serve You and bow before You. Through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

Christ and the Upcoming Election

October 30, 2012 in Bible - OT - Psalms, King Jesus, Meditations, Politics

Psalm 146:3–5 (NKJV)
3 Do not put your trust in princes, Nor in a son of man, in whom there is no help. 4 His spirit departs, he returns to his earth; In that very day his plans perish. 5 Happy is he who has the God of Jacob for his help, Whose hope is in the Lordhis God,
Recently my friend and fellow pastor Brian Nolder wrote a piece on the intersection of Christianity and the upcoming election. This morning I’d like to read sections of it for us in light of Psalm 146 that we’ve just read. He writes:
There is a lot of “doomsday” talk in this election.  “If candidate X is elected, this awful thing will happen.”  “If candidate Y is elected, America will not survive.”  And we frequently hear what we seem to hear every four years: “This election is the most important election of (my/our/your) lifetime!”

Now, I am not saying that the upcoming election is unimportant, insignificant, or inconsequential.  I’m not saying that Christians should retreat from politics or the public square.  Indeed, I think we should be far more active than we have been.

But for now, let us engage in a little thought experiment: what if all the doomsday predictions come true?  What if candidate X is elected (insert the name of your choice), and “America as we know it” ends?

Christian, remember that Jesus made a promise: “on this rock, I will build my Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.” (Mt. 16:18)  Read it again: “I will build my Church.”  Jesus was keeping that promise long before July 4th, 1776.  He is still keeping that promise today.  He will still be keeping that promise, even if there is no longer a spot on the map that says, “the United States of America.”

Will I be “happy” if America does not survive?  Not necessarily.  I consider myself patriotic; I count myself very blessed to have been born and raised in this country.  But I must always remember, as a Christian, that the kingdom of God is much bigger than America–indeed, that most Christians in the world today have dark skin, not light; most do not necessarily speak English–and that the kingdom of God does not, in the final analysis, depend on America.

If we take a long-range perspective, we realize that nations come and go–as do kingdoms and empires.  But while kingdoms come and go, and so do their kings, Jesus will still be building his Church.

Another reality check: go to persecution.com sometime and read about what Christian believers face in places like Saudi Arabia (a so-called “ally” of the US), North Korea, China, and even a seemingly “friendly” nation like India.  Do we think that these Christians, who are suffering, in prison, and even dying for the name of Christ, really care who will be the occupant in the White House next January?  What matters to them is that Jesus occupies the throne of heaven at God’s right hand.

I close with a portion of Psalm 146, 3000 year old words that remind us where our ultimate trust and confidence always needs to be:

Do not put your trust in princes, Nor in a son of man, in whom there is no help. His spirit departs, he returns to his earth; In that very day his plans perish. Happy is he who has the God of Jacob for his help, Whose hope is in the Lordhis God,
So reminded this morning that our great King Jesus is exalted to the right hand of God, let us kneel and confess that we have often put our trust in other kings.
Our Father,
We have put our trust in princes as a people. We have turned to government as the solution to our problems rather than turning to Christ. And so we have become subject to inreasing levels of intrusive government. We have thrown off self-restraint and so have brought upon ourselves shackles. Forgive us our sin – teach us to trust in you, to labor for your kingdom, and to look to the future in faith knowing that our Lord Jesus has conquered and will yet conquer again. All praise and thanks to you O Lord, Amen.

Harold Camping and the End of the World

May 29, 2011 in Bible - OT - Psalms, King Jesus, Meditations

“I will declare the decree: The Lord has said to Me, ‘You are My Son, Today I have begotten You. Ask of Me, and I will give You The nations for Your inheritance, And the ends of the earth for Your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron; You shall dash them to pieces like a potter’s vessel.’”
Ps 2:7-9

No doubt you all, like me, have witnessed with a mixture of mirth and mortification the failure of Harold Camping’s prediction that the end of the world was to have arrived a week ago Saturday. And now, apparently, rather than repent of his original folly, he has announced that really he was right. Last Saturday was the spiritual judgment of the world and come October it will all be wrapped up.

I say that I have witnessed this with a mixture of mirth and mortification. Mirth because it is hard to believe that any teacher of the Bible would be so ignorant of Jesus’ refusal to pinpoint the day or the hour of His return – either to judge Jerusalem within the generation of those living or to bring human history to a close at His second coming. How could he get something that Jesus makes so clear so wrong? And so I sometimes laugh.

But not only has sardonic laughter echoed in my head, I have been deeply mortified. Why? Because Harold Camping professes to be not simply a follower of Jesus but a teacher of God’s people. And his false prophecy, in company with the false prophecies of many others throughout history, has only served to undermine legitimate faith in the second coming of Jesus. “Can you believe these folks actually believe that Jesus is going to return again? What a fairy tale! After all, look how many times their teachers have gotten it wrong!”

And so I’ve viewed all this with a mixture of mirth and mortification. But our passage today reminds us why Harold Camping is all wrong, why it is certain that Jesus is not yet going to return in glory, and why we need not fear for the long term success of the Gospel despite the follies of false prophets like Camping. Why? Because the Father promised to His Son, promised to our Lord Jesus Christ, that He would give Him all the nations of the earth as His inheritance, and all the ends of the world as His possession. He promised His Son that all kings would bow down to Him, all would worship Him and pay Him homage as He subdues them through His power.

And given the promise that the Father has made to Jesus to give Him all the nations of the earth as his inheritance, how can we imagine that the state in which we observe the world at this time is the time of the fulfillment? The nations of Europe are in apostasy. America is under the sway of political polytheism. China is in bondage to communism. The middle east is trapped in the darkness of Islam and Judaism. Large portions of Africa are still in the grips of paganism. The nations have yet to acknowledge the supremacy of Jesus. But one day, our psalm assures us, they shall.

And it is to this end that we are called to pray and to labor and to strive. Jesus commissioned His Church, not to hunker down and await some cosmic rescue plan, but to march forth to victory, proclaiming the cosmic reign of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ whom the Father raised from the dead and seated at His right hand. We are to call upon all the nations of the earth, including our friends, families, politicians, business owners, and entertainers, to kiss the Son and acknowledge His rule, lest He become angry and they perish in the way. You see, at any time Jesus may come for us personally. Death may strike us at any moment and we may be called upon to meet our Maker. But Jesus will not return finally in judgment until all the nations of the earth have bowed before Him and acknowledged His rule – and so our job as the people of God is not to speculate about the date of his return but to get to work.

Reminded of our collective failure to bear witness to the Lordship of Jesus and our tendency to make the exalted Lord look foolish by our teaching, let us confess our sins together. We will confess privately and then corporately using the printed confession in your bulletin. Let us kneel together as we confess.

Mother’s Day 2011

May 10, 2011 in Bible - OT - Psalms, Ecclesiology, Faith, Meditations

Psalm 113:4-6,9 (NKJV)
The Lord is high above all nations, His glory above the heavens. Who is like the Lord our God, Who dwells on high, Who humbles Himself to behold The things that are in the heavens and in the earth? … He grants the barren woman a home, Like a joyful mother of children. Praise the Lord!

Sarai was barren. For nearly eighty years she had longed for a child, longed to cuddle and nurse and play. But now her hope was gone; she no longer dreamed. But God heard her. He sent his angel to announce that she would give birth to a son. And though Sarai first laughed in scorn, reasoning that this man in her tent didn’t know the first thing about barren wombs, Sarah later laughed in joy, understanding that the wisdom of God is foolishness to men.

Leah was unloved. Passed off as her more attractive younger sister she saw in her husband’s eye the torch of pity and resentment that broke her heart and made her weep. And when her sister was likewise married to her husband, her personal grief only increased. But God heard her. He opened her womb and gave her many children – and though her hope that her husband would love her was never fully realized, God loved her and raised up her son Judah to be the father of our Savior.

Tamar was shamed and scorned. Married to two men who had both been scoundrels, she was now being deceived by the father of those scoundrels, Judah. Though he had promised to give her his third son as husband, Judah’s promise was empty. He had decided, as most scoundrels do, that Tamar was the problem not his sons. So Tamar cried out to God and God heard her. He granted her success as she laid plans to entrap the worthless man Judah; and when she had conceived and Judah was prepared to destroy her, God delivered her from his hands, changing the scoundrel Judah into the man Judah. And Tamar’s son Perez became the ancestor of our Lord Jesus.

Manoah’s wife was barren. Her lifeless womb had given them no children and her grief was great. But God heard her. He sent his angel to announce that she would give birth to a son who would deliver Israel from her enemies – and she, unlike Sarai, believed and told her husband. And so Manaoh went in to his wife and she conceived and she bore a son whom they called Samson.

Elizabeth was old and barren yet full of faith and good works. She and her husband Zacharias served the Lord, loving him, cherishing his laws, delighting in his ways – all the while longing for a child. God heard her. He gave her a son in her old age and made him the last and greatest of all the prophets of the Judaic Age.

Mary was a righteous young woman, pregnant by God’s own power and facing the prospect of a betrothed who was determined to divorce her. She cried out to God and God heard her. He visited Joseph in a dream and Joseph remained with her becoming the human father of our Lord.

The Syro-Phoenician woman was desperate. Her daughter was deathly ill and no physicians could help. Then she received news that the Jewish prophet Jesus was in her town. She frantically searched for him and, humiliation of humiliation, begged him to heal her daughter. But he rejected her plea. And so she cried out to him, “Yes, Lord, but even the dogs eat the scraps from under the master’s table.” And God heard her. He healed her daughter and sent his new daughter home.

Clotilde was anxious. Her first child had died shortly after his baptism and now her second child, also baptized and only a few weeks old, was ill. Her unbelieving husband mocked and scorned – this is what comes of following this new religion of yours! Clotilde cried out to God and God heard her. He rescued the child from death and used Clotilde’s faith to turn her husband Clovis, King of the Franks, to Christ.

Brothers and sisters, the love of mothers has prompted God to move and to act from the earliest days of biblical history to today. So mothers – love your children and pray for them. God will hear you. Others – love your mothers and give thanks to God for them. Reminded that we have taken our mothers for granted, let us kneel and seek God’s forgiveness.

What are you doing with your fears?

March 11, 2011 in Bible - OT - Psalms, Meditations

“How long, O LORD? Will You forget me forever?
How long will You hide Your face from me?
How long shall I take counsel in my soul,
Having sorrow in my heart daily?
How long will my enemy be exalted over me?
Consider and hear me, O LORD my God;
Enlighten my eyes,
Lest I sleep the sleep of death;
Lest my enemy say,
“I have prevailed against him”;
Lest those who trouble me rejoice when I am moved.
Psalm 13:1-4

David lived a difficult life and seldom enjoyed long periods of peace and prosperity. It was left to his son Solomon to enjoy such things while he himself was a man of war.

Because he was a man of war, he routinely found himself in tight spots. Mocked by his brothers, harrassed by Saul, scorned by his wife, pursued by his son Absalom, David often found himself facing enemies – some outside his house and some, tragically, inside.

The psalm today was composed in just such a circumstance. David was in trouble, his enemies were surrounding him, his defeat at their hands was upon him.

Imagine, if you will, the turmoil that struck David in each of these circumstances. The pain and fear that must have confronted him. Well – we need not imagine. For we find his fears, pains, and anxieties expressed in the psalm before us today.

“How long, O LORD? Will You forget me forever?
How long will You hide Your face from me?
How long shall I take counsel in my soul,
Having sorrow in my heart daily?
How long will my enemy be exalted over me?”

Now consider your own circumstances. What troubles are you facing? Which enemies are surrounding you? What fears, pains, and anxieties are troubling you?

One last question: what are you doing with those fears? Notice David’s response – he brings his anxious longings to the presence of God. He does not suppress them; he does not fester over them; he does not wallow in them. He gathers them together and puts them in the best hands possible – the Lord’s.

“Consider and hear me, O LORD my God;
Enlighten my eyes,
Lest I sleep the sleep of death;”

Our Lord Jesus counseled us:

“Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?”

Reminded of our failure to entrust our worries into the Lord’s hands, let us confess our sins in Christ’s name, seeking the forgiveness of our Heavenly Father. We will have a time of private confession followed by the corporate confession found in your bulletin. Let us kneel as we confess.

What is the Good Life?

March 1, 2011 in Bible - OT - Psalms, Meditations, Word of God

“How can a young man keep his way pure?
By keeping it according to Your word…
I have rejoiced in the way of Your testimonies,
As much as in all riches.
I will meditate on Your precepts
And regard Your ways.
I shall delight in Your statutes;
I shall not forget Your word.”
Psalms 119:9, 14 – 16

What is the good life? And who has the capacity to define it? Is it a can of Michelob beer on a camping trip? Is it a good cigar? Is it fast cars and fast women? Massive biceps? Enlarged breasts? A full head of hair? Cocaine? The cheer of the crowd? What is the good life?

Among no class of men are these questions more urgently and ardently asked than those who are young. Children and young adults are gifted by God with an appetite to have their questions answered, a desire to find and secure the good life. As they gaze out over the future, they want to know, “What will bring me joy and pleasure in the course of my life?”

Because this is true, Solomon meditates on this very question in the Scripture that we have just read. How can a young man keep his way pure? What is more valuable than riches? Where should one find his or her delight? What is the good life?

At no time in history have the brokers of the good life been more prolific and skilled in their marketing. However, whether the good life is to come through technological advances, organic foods, high protien diets, treatments for balding, or exercise machines, these peddlers never ultimately know that their recipe for the good life will not end in disaster. Finite creatures are unable to identify what is genuinely good for them. for how do we know, infallibly, that some trend we have jumped on today will bring joy and happiness in the end? As Solomon reminds us elsewhere,“There is a way which seems right to a man, but in the end it is the way of death.” We are not omniscient and so we are unable, as humans, to identify the good life. The most that we can identify on our own is what brings momentary happiness or pleasure. But we can never be sure whether these momentary pleasures will bring devastating consequences in the future. One thinks of the radical reversal that has come in the last century over smoking cigarretes. Once admired as the mark of the debutant, the rich and famous, the discovery of its ill effects has relegated it to the addictive pasttime of the down and out. So how do you know that the microwave popcorn you’ve been sneaking after the kids go to bed won’t prove your undoing?

Do we then have no hope in the world? Must we live our lives in constant uncertainty, blown about by every scheme for the good life that fills the Sunday paper? Are our youth unable to answer the questions which they most hunger to know? Are we left without a sure foundation?

No – Solomon gives it to us. God has defined the good life. And because He is omniscient, He knows all the end roads, all the results of various actions. He knows that homosexuality is destructive; knows that sexual immorality saps one of character and strength; knows that life is more than what enters the belly; knows that humans can have no greater pleasure than when we find our satisfaction in Him. And the glorious thing is that He has revealed all of this to us in His Word. We can know what the good life is – for the Creator of all has revealed it to us and makes life understandable and meaningful as a result.

Despite the clarity of God’s revelation, however, we often spurn His revelation. Attempting to run our lives on our own sense of what is good and right, we find ourselves repeating the sin of our First Mother who, judging for herself, saw that the tree was pleasant to the eyes and desireable to make one wise. She spurned the Word of God in favor of her own intellect.

Reminded of our failure to rely upon the Word of the Lord and our tendency to trust in our own wisdom and wit, let us confess our sins together – first privately and then using the public confession found in your bulletin. Let us kneel as we confess together.

Not be like their fathers

February 7, 2011 in Bible - OT - Psalms, Children, Ecclesiology, Education, Meditations

Psalm 78:5-8 (NKJV)
5 For He established a testimony in Jacob, And appointed a law in Israel, Which He commanded our fathers, That they should make them known to their children; 6 That the generation to come might know them, The children who would be born, That they may arise and declare them to their children, 7 That they may set their hope in God, And not forget the works of God, But keep His commandments; 8 And may not be like their fathers, A stubborn and rebellious generation, A generation that did not set its heart aright, And whose spirit was not faithful to God.

Two weeks ago we considered this passage and its exhortation to fathers – fathers are to instruct their children in the ways of the Lord. Our task is to teach our children that they might put their hope in God, trust Him, love Him, serve Him, delight in Him.

This morning as we return to this text, I would like you to notice that the task of instruction is not only positive, it is negative. Not only are we to teach our children that they may set their hoe in God and keep His commandments – this is imperative and the central message that must be coming across – but we must also warn them of the dangers they will face in following Christ. Notice our text emphasizes that we are to teach our children so that they “may not be like their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation that did not set its heart aright, and whose spirit was not faithful to God.” The task of fathers is to point out the folly of their fathers and exhort the current generation to remain faithful to God, to – as the psalmist remarks – set its heart aright.

So what will this involve? Quite clearly this will involve a regular study of the Old Testament. The Word of God gives us numerous examples of the way that “our fathers” were not faithful to God but turned away from Him to serve other gods. Whether it is the worship of the golden calf, the defeat of God’s people at the city of Ai because of Achan’s sin, the apostasy of God’s people at the time of Elijah, the destruction of Jerusalem because of our fathers’ unfaithfulness, or the ongoing sin that threatened our fathers in Nehemiah’s day – all these stories should be objects of discussion and instruction. Look at our fathers, look how they were unfaithful to God, look how they went after other gods and worshiped them, look at the dangers they faced and the way in which God was faithful again and again to enforce His Word.

But not only must we talk about the way in which our fathers failed to serve the Lord faithfully in the Scriptures – the Scriptures, after all, are meant to be applied to our generation, meant to instruct us about the dangers we are facing. So as fathers our task is not only to read the Bible but to help our children see the way in which the rebellious spirit that our fathers’ manifested in their day is being manifest in our own. Fathers, your task is to identify the idols of our day and help your children see them and flee from them. We are in the midst of a time of cultural rebellion and apostasy – our children need to know this and be equipped to recognize the signs of it. So, fathers, rise to the occasion.

And not only must our fathers rise to the occasion, but so too must you children. Your calling is to listen to your fathers as they apply the Word of God to our current generation. Your calling is not first and foremost to imbibe the wisdom of the world offered in the form of movies, music, and literature – your calling is first and foremost to set your heart aright before God and have a spirit that is faithful to Him. And this type of heart, this type of spirit, will necessarily get you in trouble with our broader culture. Just last night our family read of the murder of John the Baptist – a man whose heart was set aright before God and whose spirit was faithful to Him. This is the challenge set before you – to be that kind of man, that kind of woman.

Reminded of our calling to learn from the errors of our fathers – both those in Scripture and those in our own society – let us confess our sins to God. We will have a time of private confession followed by the corporate confession found in your bulletin. Let us kneel together as we confess.