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you you you you you you you you you you you you All right, good morning everyone welcome to stronghold Baptist church if you can grab your handles and open up the song 424. Song 424, O Come All Ye Faithful. Song 424. ["O Come All Ye Faithful"] My church is singing of this great Christmas hymn on the first. ["O Come All Ye Faithful"] ["O Come All Ye Faithful"] ["O Come All Ye Faithful"] ["O Come All Ye Faithful"] It's a beautiful singing. Brother Brian, if you'll press up, the word of prayer. We thank you, Lord, for the opportunity to come share your word today. We pray that you please bless the singing. We bless the soul winning this afternoon. Please bless the three, Lord. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Amen. All right, let's turn to our next song. Our next song is going to be in our Songs, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs book. It should have been nearby. We're going to sing What Child Is This? Try to find that there in your book. Looks like it might be on the last page. Who doesn't have one? All right, we can get one over here. Little Lindsey, please. Song is What Child Is This? ["What Child Is This?" playing on piano.] All right, What Child Is This? ["What Child Is This?" playing on piano.] On the verse. ["What Child Is This?" playing on piano.] ["What Child Is This?" playing on piano.] ["What Child Is This?" playing on piano.] ["What Child Is This?" playing on piano.] ["What Child Is This?" playing on piano.] ["What Child Is This?" playing on piano.] ["What Child Is This?" playing on piano.] ["What Child Is This?" playing on piano.] ["What Child Is This?" playing on piano.] ["What Child Is This?" playing on piano.] ["What Child Is This?" playing on piano.] ["What Child Is This?" playing on piano.] All right, great singing this morning. It's great to have you all here with us at Strong Old Baptist Church. At this time, we're going to go through our announcements. If you do not have one of these bulletins, just slip your hand up real high, and one of the ushers will make sure that you get one. And if you open up to the first page, you'll see our service times listed there at the top of the page. Sunday morning at 1030, Sunday evening at 5 p.m. Wednesday night 7 is our Bible study. We're going to be in 2 Corinthians, chapter 5 this week. We have the soul-winning opportunities listed there, as well as the salvations and the baptisms for the month of December, as well as for 2022. Let's go ahead and count up. If anyone has any soul-winning numbers to report for the week, just slip your hand up real quick. We'll get those counted. Yes, sir. One on Friday. Anybody else have anything to... Yesterday? Come in. Anyone else have anything to report? Well, very good. Keep up the good work. Soul-winning, if you're new here, if you're visiting our church, is where we go out and we preach the gospel of Jesus Christ to every creature as the Lord commanded us at the end of the gospels. And that is the primary function of this church, is to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. There's a lot of other things we teach and preach and believe, obviously, but the number one mission and objective is to spread the good news and preach how Jesus Christ brings salvation through faith in His name. So, that is what we do. We would love to have you join us in this effort as well. Things are set up very easy for you if you've never done this before, if you'd like to see how we do things. All you have to do is show up to the time. You could come out with us and you will be a silent partner. You don't have to say anything at all. You could just come and see how we approach people, how we talk to people, how we try to show them from the Scripture, if they're interested in hearing what the Scripture says about their condition, about sin, about judgment, and about our Savior. So, we would love to have you join us for that and in that effort to reach people with the gospel. That being said, let's continue on in our announcements. We've got the offering totals down there at the bottom of the page through the month of December. Prayer requests, I don't have any updates for anyone on the list. Does anybody have any updates to report for people that we're praying for in our prayer list? All right, well, remember to bring these home with you and pray for the people on our list here. Of course, we're praying for Shield of Faith Baptist Church. Again, this week, Pastor Joe Jones there in Boise, Idaho, they've been facing a lot of persecution from people threatening the church and things like that. So, continue to pray for them and for their safety. On the next page, Christmas potluck. So, next week is Christmas Day. So, next Sunday is Christmas Day. We are going to be having our regular church times with the exception of the evening service is going to be moved up. It'd be a little bit earlier. So, instead of being at 5 p.m. like it normally is, we're going to hold it earlier, approximately 3 p.m. So, if you didn't want to stick around for the potluck in between the church services, you could come back at 3 if you wanted to come to our evening service. But I encourage you to just stick around with us if you can. Everybody's welcome to eat a meal with us. Even if you don't bring anything, it's not mandatory to bring something in order to eat. We just want everyone to enjoy a meal together, have some good fellowship. If you do want to bring a dish, please coordinate that with my wife. And we'll get squared away on that. I know a lot of people are bringing something, looking forward to it. We should have a great time next week. We also have some gifts for every family that's in attendance on Christmas Day as well. So, one more reason to come out to church as we, you know, it always boggles my mind when people don't want to come to church on Christmas. It's kind of like, what are you celebrating? Well, of all days in the year, at least with the way we celebrate Christmas, there's a big deal made about it because the birth of our Savior that we're celebrating, well, that would be a day, I would think, that you'd want to attend church and not skip out. So, come to church on Christmas. We'd love to have you here. And then you could join us for a good time, a fellowship afterwards, and a nice meal. And then continuing on here, we've got the December challenge. So, every month, almost every month out of the year, we have one break throughout the year. We do challenges. And this month, the challenge is twofold. One is to stop listening to the worldly music that's out there. So, the entire month of December to just turn off your radios, turn off the CD player, the MP3s, whatever you do, the streaming. The world's garbage. Turn that off. Stop listening to that stuff. And instead, sing four hymns every day. A hymn, psalm, spiritual song. Take a songbook home with you. You're welcome to take these with you and have them so that you can sing songs free of charge, like everything is here, by the way. You want a Bible? We've got a Bible for you. You want some other materials? We've got material. Well, everything's not set out yet. We still have a lot of stuff. But if you're interested, ask. We've got DVDs. We've got all kinds of things that we give out for free resources because it's all about spreading the message here and not charging for stuff like that. We want you to have that material available to you. Continuing on, Bible memory passage, Hebrews chapter 6. We are on week 4 of the 11 weeks that we're taking to memorize all of Hebrews chapter 6. If you could memorize this entire passage, the whole chapter, without making any errors, quote it out loud to someone else, then you will earn a prize for being able to do that. In addition, we are going through the book of Hebrews, chapter by chapter, doing this memorization with the goal of, in the end, being able to quote from the entire book of Hebrews from chapter 1 all the way to chapter 13. You get all the verses right, and you will get a special prize for being able to do that if you're able to quote the entire book word perfect. So that is the bigger picture when it comes to our Bible memory. It's going to take a while to get through that. Of course, our pace here in church is roughly two verses a week. It's kind of the pace that we set ourselves to for doing the Bible memory. Some people do faster than that. That's up to you how you want to deal with that. But just to give you a heads up on how we deal with things, how we've been doing things with our Bible memory here in the church. The coming birthdays and anniversaries are listed down there, kind of near the bottom of the page for the month of December. I had to add, I apologize for not having Jude Taylor in there. My list wasn't updated. Is there anyone else that we've missed that has a birthday or anniversary in the month of December that is just not in here? I know that I have some people I need to get information for. And as I always say, you know, I apologize if we don't have you listed. It is definitely nothing against you, nothing personal. It's just a matter of my record keeping not being up to date. So I don't see anybody saying that we've missed anything unless you're just being shy. But we've got some birthdays and anniversaries coming up this week. And then the upcoming events down there at the bottom of the page, of course, we have the potluck in between the church services. Then New Year's Eve on that Saturday, we're going to have a fellowship from 2 to 7 p.m. We'll have you out here for that. We're going to play some games, hang out, and enjoy some snacks. And then the homeschool field trips. We've got two homeschool field trips scheduled already, one in January, one in February. You can see the details there. And again, speak to my wife if you want to come. We need you to RSVP and we need you to show up on time. Church pays for these events in full. They are free for you. So please do us a favor and let us know when you plan on coming so that we can schedule and plan for it, as well as just show up on time so that everybody can get through and see these events and enjoy them together as a group and no one has to be left behind waiting for stragglers to show up and then cut into their time. So we appreciate you all coming, all the participation we have. And let's see, that's about it for the announcements. Don't forget, you've got the notes on the back. So as we preach, write down the references. Study them out for yourselves. Make sure that what you hear is actually what the Bible says. Take that home with you and look into and do your own study on these matters. And that is about it for announcements. And again, I apologize that we're not done yet. I was hoping that the construction crew would be finished. We just expanded into this new space. So we're at the stage of where we need to get all of our inspections completed. So it's a 50%, which is why you see things in disarray. It's not normally like this, but God's blessed our church. We've been growing and we're expanding. So please just be aware. We've done our best to try to make everything as safe as possible, but there are little things. There's breaks in the carpeting, so just watch so you don't trip and be aware of your surroundings. And please keep an eye on your children. So that they're not getting into any type of construction materials, especially that storage room back there is probably the place I really don't want anybody going into for any reason. Just stay away from that area as there's a lot of materials and things back there that I don't want people to be exposed to. But we appreciate you and your consideration with everything that's going on. And with that, I'm going to turn the service back over to Brother Peter, and he's going to lead us in our next song. All right, church, again, the next song is going to be in our Psalms, Hams, and Spiritual Songs book. The song is Go Tell It on the Mountain. Go Tell It on the Mountain. So just want to explain real quick how this hymn works. We're going to sing that Go Tell it on the Mountain part, the refrain part at the top. We're going to get to that first verse, then we're going to go back up to the refrain as the chorus. Okay? Go Tell It on the Mountain. Has everyone got one? All right, Go Tell It on the Mountain. Go Tell It on the Mountain. On the verse. Go tell it on the mountain. Over the hills and everywhere. Go tell it on the mountain. Where Jesus Christ is born. While shepherds can't bear by cheek. For siren flocks by night. People throughout the heavens. Where show the holy light. Go tell it on the mountain. Over the hills and everywhere. Go tell it on the mountain. Where Jesus Christ is born. The shepherds fear and tremble. When all are on the earth. Hang out the angel forests. And hail the Savior's birth. Go tell it on the mountain. Over the hills and everywhere. Go tell it on the mountain. Where Jesus Christ is born. On the last countdown. In her holy nature. The humble Christ was born. And blessed was salvation. And blessed was Christmas born. Go tell it on the mountain. Over the hills and everywhere. Go tell it on the mountain. Where Jesus Christ is born. That's the book of Proverbs chapter 1. And as we do customary here at Strong Old Baptist Church, we're going to read the entire chapter. I'd like to ask Dr. Devin if he can please step in. That was Proverbs chapter 1. And as we do customary here at Strong Old Baptist Church, we're going to read the entire chapter. That was Proverbs chapter 1. Proverbs chapter 1. Proverbs chapter 1. Proverbs chapter 1. Proverbs chapter 1. Proverbs chapter 1. Proverbs chapter 1. Proverbs chapter 1. Proverbs chapter 1. Proverbs chapter 1. Proverbs chapter 1. Proverbs chapter 1. Proverbs chapter 1. Proverbs chapter 1. Proverbs chapter 1. Proverbs chapter 1. Proverbs chapter 1. Proverbs chapter 1. Proverbs chapter 1. Proverbs chapter 1. Proverbs chapter 1. Proverbs chapter 1. Proverbs chapter 1. Proverbs chapter 1. Proverbs chapter 1. Proverbs chapter 1. Proverbs chapter 1. Proverbs chapter 1. Proverbs chapter 1. Proverbs chapter 1. For that they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord. They would none of my counsel. They despised all my reproof. Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way and be filled with their own devices. For the turning away of the simple shall slay them and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them. But whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely and shall be quiet from fear of evil. Let's pray. Brother Denzel, can you pray for us please? ... ... ... Amen. Alright, so this morning I'm going to preach the counterpart to last week's sermon and as I did last week I'll give the disclaimer that I gave from time to time just when sermons are preached that might seem controversial because of the time that we live in. It doesn't matter how controversial it seems against the world. Always verify what is being said against what the Bible teaches. So we don't care what the world thinks. We shouldn't care what the world thinks about what the Scripture says and what the pure good doctrines of the Bible teach. What we can learn from Scripture. We care about what God says and how we're supposed to live in this life regardless of what the world thinks about these subjects. But I do like to just make a brief statement in the beginning just to get your mind right so you understand even just the spirit with which this is being preached. You know we believe in hard preaching here because we like it when the Word of God can stick in our minds and that we can combat the satanic influences of the world with some truth and it's needful. So I'm not apologizing for anything that I say or anything that I preach unless it's wrong. If you find where it's in error according to Scripture then yes I will change my mind because what matters is what the Scripture says. But what I'm teaching today again you decide for yourself whether or not you believe this or not. Last week I preached on raising godly daughters and this week I'm preaching on raising godly sons. So that disclaimer is probably more necessary for last week's sermon than it is for this week's sermon just because of the attacks on women and femininity that have been going on and been pressured for so long. It's been much more focused on the women than the men. However it's focused on the men too. It's focused on the boys. It's focused on the children and there's this merging of the sexes that Satan is trying to do. This androgynous society. Neither man nor woman. Trying to make them not different. Trying to make them all equal. Obviously we believe in the value of men and women. God values men and women but He's made them unique and He's made them different for very good reason and it's almost silly to me, ludicrous to even have to say something like that in public and take the time to make a statement like hey men and women are different. Yeah. They're different. They're not the same and we shouldn't be trying to make them the same. We should be celebrating the differences between men and women the way that God made them. And instead of trying to force one way or another of like oh women because what the world does and they didn't even realize this, the feminist movement is trying to make women more like men. Like that's what's going to hold the value. But no the Christian should say no we want our women to be like women and we want our men to be like men. Old fashioned values. Old fashioned meaning this old fashioned. Old fashioned in scripture. Not necessarily old fashioned in American culture or any other culture throughout history but old fashioned in the sense it's from the word of God. We need to be preparing our sons for a godly life. Getting them ready and taught and trained to live a godly life which is why we're looking to the Bible for everything that we should be seeking when we want to raise godly children what does the Bible say? And there is definitely a difference I believe in how sons are raised versus daughters. Okay and I'm not going to re-preach last week's sermon but essentially I went over the authority structure and you can see last week's sermon if you're more interested in this I'm not going to get into detail about it but there's an authority structure in the world in the home in church where God has placed men in authority. In the family dad is the head of the household. And he's the boss he's in charge. He's also in charge of his wife not just the children. So when we're raising godly children they ought to be raised to be obedient unto their fathers as well as obedient unto their future husbands if they get married. And sons they need to be raised to be obedient unto their fathers yes to be obedient unto their parents but also then trained to be able to be good leaders or good bosses when they leave the home so that way they could find a wife if they get married and know how to be a good husband for their wife and for their family be good fathers and be good leaders at home because that responsibility of being in charge and being able to be the leader is on their shoulders. So the training is going to be a little bit different. There's different roles that men play versus women so we should be looking at our sons and teaching them to be raised. Daughters are raised to be more dependent on the provider. They're going to be dependent on the husband that's going to provide for them. They're dependent on their father who's going to provide for them. They're supposed to be staying with their parents until they get married and then they go off and become one flesh with their husband and then they're going to serve in that capacity there whereas men they're going to need to be independent. The children boys' sons need to be taught to be able to go out and make that living, go out into the world, be a hard worker, be strong and be the strength for the family, be the leadership for the family, be able to guide not just in the physical decisions but also in the spiritually as well. They need to have that knowledge. Sons need to be strong. They need to be tough. They need to be masculine. They need to be more like God made them to be because of their role, because of their job. It requires strength to go out and provide for the family. It's going to require not just physical strength but emotional strength too. You need to be able to keep things together. It's your job to be able to keep the whole family together and when times get tough you need to be the one that's a rock for the family. That is the male role. That is the man's job to be able to provide that strength for the family. And this is taught in scripture. I know I'm just, I'm kind of giving a brief summary here but let's look at some scriptures to back up what I'm saying right now and stay if you would in Proverbs chapter 1. I'm going to read just a few passages for you about the virtue of men being strong. Okay and again you could look up these verses later, get them in their full context but 1 Corinthians chapter 16 verse 13 the Bible says, Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong. It says, quit you like men. Not quit you like women, not quit you just in general. It says, hey, quit you like men. Why? Because men are supposed to be strong. Men are supposed to be the ones that are going to stand fast, remain resilient and be there in the face of opposition no matter what because they have strength. That's what it means to be a man. That's part of what it means to be a man. 1 John chapter 2 verse 14 the Bible says, I have written unto you fathers because you have known him as from the beginning. I have written unto you young men because you are strong and the word of God abideth in you and you have overcome the wicked one. Okay, again we see that reference to strength in the young men that that is something that's being called out as a virtue because all of these things in 1 John chapter 2 he calls out the aged man and the younger man and the aged women and the younger women. These are values that they have. He said, look, I have written unto you because you are strong because the word of God abideth in you. Proverbs 20 verse 29 the Bible says, the glory of young men is their strength and the beauty of old men is the grey head. And then in 1 Corinthians chapter 6 we get the opposite of being strength, of having strength or being masculine as being a sin. 1 Corinthians 6, 9 the Bible says, know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God. A lot of things listed off there, a lot of sins, but the one I'm focusing on is the effeminate. What does it mean to be effeminate? Well this is obviously talking about a male because if a woman is feminine or being effeminate that's what she's supposed to be. So the man that's being effeminate is a man that's acting like a woman. A man that has the mannerisms of a woman. A man that's talking like a woman. A man that's acting like a woman. That's being effeminate and you know what? That is a serious sin according to the word of God where we see listed with fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, effeminate. It disgusts God to see men acting like women. You ought not to be effeminate. And beyond that, I've covered this verse last week as well Deuteronomy 23 17 the Bible says, There shall be no whore of the daughters of Israel, nor a sodomite of the sons of Israel. Thou shalt not bring the hire of a whore, the price of a dog, into the house of the Lord thy God for any vow, for even both these are abomination unto the Lord thy God. And notice how the Bible is equating a sodomite with a dog. This is how God views the sodomite. And this is where the effeminacy can lead to someone just becoming, you know, they start acting like a woman and God forbid dressing like a woman and then pretty much before you know it they're engaging in sodomite activities and in God's eyes they're a dog. And you know there ought not to be any whore of the daughters of Israel or a sodomite of the sons of Israel. They say, well what's a sodomite? Well, have you ever heard of Sodom? That's where Sodomite comes from. It would be like someone who's from Sodom. Now, Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed, right? So how could someone be from Sodom? Because they do the same things as the people from Sodom. That's how. It's not that complicated. And what did they do? Men lay with men. That's what was going on in Sodom. And that's why God destroyed them. For their extreme wickedness. Now, you're in Proverbs 21. So we need to be teaching our sons to be strong. We need to be teaching them to be masculine. To not be like women and dead sure teaching them, hey, men go with women. Women go with men, right? It's not something that really needs to be taught. It shouldn't need to be taught because it's the natural way of things. God made men and women naturally to be attracted to the opposite sex. That's how God designed us, which is why Romans 1 talks about men who lie with men. That's being unnatural. They're choosing to do that stuff when their mind is given over to that reprobate mind to do those things which are inconvenient, which means not natural. They don't come naturally. They're doing things that is not the way that God designed them, which is why any normal person is repulsed to see the actions of men with men, women with women doing that stuff because it is disgusting. It is repulsive to do those things. And unfortunately now that subject even has to come up when you're teaching your sons and daughters because you have people trying to cram it down your throat that the opposite ought to be tolerated, accepted, embraced, and even promoted. And you better believe they're targeting your kids. That's why they're sending the cross-dressing freaks into the libraries to have these study school times with your children and sending it into the school and everything else. They've been infiltrating all the areas where children are being taught and we need to be as parents, look, you have the most control over what your child is going to learn and you need to have the due diligence with your very own children to make sure you know what they're being taught. In announcements we're talking about homeschool field trips, that's because I promote homeschooling for your children. That is one way you are guaranteed to know what your children are being taught. You're not sending them off to go with someone else where who knows what they might be saying. We had a parent-teacher conference and they said okay, are you there every day of the week that they're learning and being taught? You know exactly everything that's going on in that schoolroom? I doubt it, I doubt it, but you know who's responsible for your child? You are. You are. God blessed you with children and God placed the responsibility on your shoulders. Mom and Dad are responsible, but you know who's responsible at the end of the day? You know, people want to say, oh yeah, with you, the man just, they're in charge and they're like these tyrants and everything else. No, with the role of being in charge also comes with the responsibility of being in charge. So you know, people want to say, oh well that's way more important than the wife's job or the woman's job. No it's not more important. It's different. But it is you know, while yes you are in charge of making the rules and decisions, then all the blame relies on you as well. You're taking that responsibility. As the head of the household, you are responsible for how things are run. At the end of the day, you have to figure out how to make things, if things aren't working, if people aren't working for you, your job is to make sure that they do. That relies on your shoulder. Now obviously there's always situations where a sinful person may just never come under you know, in their role or do things against you. Of course that's impossible with sinful human beings, but that still doesn't alleviate the responsibility of what role that you play in your family, in your marriage. God has given you a role of responsibility. When you're in charge you're responsible. It's like the boss at work, you know, at the end of the day, the highest boss is the one who's in charge of everything that runs. Now they may have some bad employee that's just not listening to anything that they say, but at the end of the day he's still responsible for their actions. So we're going to spend a lot of time in Proverbs, because Proverbs is a book of wisdom. We started off reading there, and we see at the end of Proverbs, I'm not going to go through this, I've gone through this passage many times, what is the result of people who are just going to forsake the wisdom of God? We see the destruction then that's going to come along, people who just want to have nothing to do with God and with God's wisdom. We, on the other hand, are going to seek the Lord, seek His wisdom, and seek what we need to do when we raise our children, and let's see how we could raise godly sons. And you'll notice in Proverbs, especially the first eight, nine chapters, they start off, almost every single one starts off with, my son, my son, my son, my son, hey, my son, attend unto my wisdom, my son, listen to what I'm saying, my son, it's throughout most of the Proverbs here, especially the first half of the book of Proverbs is all addressing my son. So if we want to know how to raise godly sons, why don't we look at the teaching that is directly applied to the sons. Now of course, I don't have time to go through every single teaching in the book of Proverbs here, where he's talking about my son, but we're going to hit some of the highlights and some of the things that are brought up maybe more frequently than others, or maybe generalize into bigger categories the specifics that are taught in Proverbs. But if you want to raise godly sons, yeah, start with the book of Proverbs. It's a great book to help you understand what is truly important when it comes to the raising of our sons. We need to raise our sons to be righteous people that care about the things of God that want to do what's right. They also need to be temperate or have self-control over their body and over their impulses and over their flesh in order to be those good leaders, in order to be people who are going to be responsible, able to provide for themselves, provide for their families. They need to have righteousness and temperance and be able to say no when faced with decisions to sin, even if it makes you look like, oh, you're some goody two-shoes or whatever, and people are going to talk down to you in the world because of the stands that you make for righteousness. And as children, our sons need to be taught these values and need to be positively reinforced when they're doing the right thing so when opposition comes, one, they can be prepared for it and even expect it. They need to be taught about that. You don't want them to be caught off guard of, wow, everything was great here, now all of a sudden I'm facing things where nobody likes me or where I'm being made fun of. We need to teach them this is right regardless and the Word of God will help to do that. Proverbs 1, verse 10, look at what the Bible says right here. My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not. And then it goes into more of their wicked ways of stealing and setting traps for people and things like that. Hey, we need to monitor, one, also who our children are friends with and keep them away from the wicked influences of people who are going to try and entice your children to do these really wicked things. Now on the one hand, everybody's a sinner and everyone's going to have some imperfections, but you need to be on guard now more than ever with your children, with your sons. Who are they becoming friends with? What type of influence do they have? And unfortunately, there's an entire world out there with the digital age and with the internet where it becomes much more difficult oftentimes for parents, especially when you don't know how to be able to monitor those influences and those friendships that they may be making online. It's a lot easier when you could physically see a person who's becoming friends with your child and see how they act and see how they are, but nowadays with the internet, you might not even know that they have friends. And look, I preach an entire sermon about the digital age that we're in and how to safeguard against those things, but you need to be aware of that, and I can't go too in-depth into that this morning, unfortunately, but you need to watch out and ultimately train your child because there's going to come a time where they're going to be faced with things anyways. You're not always going to be there to be able to help them make the decision or make the decision for them. They need to be taught right from wrong, and they need to be given the strength and taught the strength to be able to make the right decision because they know it's right. And it has to be something that they learn and are taught but encouraged that it's their own belief as well. Very important, because if it's not their own belief, they're only going to listen to you as long as they have to. That's why raising your children is not just beating them. They need instruction. Now, is beating them part of it? You better believe it is. The Bible says not to spare the rod for their crying. The Bible says, thou shalt beat them with the rod and deliver their soul from hell. There is a time and a place for the spanking that's necessary in order to teach your children, but at the same time, they need the love, the attention, the instruction of their parents to teach them the right way so that they know why. They know what to look out for. They have more understanding than just the physical consequences. Oh, when I do something bad, then I'm in pain, right? That's important to have that understanding. It is. That needs to be there, but that's not the only thing that's necessary when it comes to training your children. The Bible says in Proverbs 4 verse 14, enter not into the path of the wicked and go not in the way of evil men. These are things that are being taught unto a son. Don't go in the path of wicked. Don't go in the way of evil men. Who you hang around with? Your friends matter. Turn, if you would, to Proverbs chapter 13. Friends influence people. Friends are going to influence the decisions that your children make. They could influence very significantly. I mean, in Proverbs 1, these are people who are saying, hey, come on, cast in your lot with us. We're all going to share one pot, and we're going to go and steal from these people and wait for them, and we'll all work together, and then we'll have this great income from stealing from people. Look, watch out for that. Obviously, the end of that life is destruction. The Bible says in Proverbs 13 verse 20, he that walketh with wise men shall be wise, but a companion of fools shall be destroyed. Watch out who your children are friends with. Don't let them become companions of fools because their end is destruction. Seek out wise friends for your children, and teach them, hey, be a wise man. Hey, be around wise people, people who are smart, people who are knowledgeable, people who know the Bible, people who are godly, because those are going to be the good influences in their life that's going to ultimately help them to succeed in this life. Turn, if you would, to Proverbs chapter 4. The Bible teaches in 2 Corinthians chapter 6 verse 14, Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness, and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? What part hath he that believeth with an infidel? Your children's friends, the people they spend the most time with, should not just be a bunch of unbelievers and just be yoked together. Now, look, we live in the world. We're not of the world. We do deal with unbelievers, but that's not someone that you should be choosing to spend all of your time with and be really close to and have your closest friends be people who are unbelievers and you're yoking yourself together with unbelievers. I mean, what fellowship and what communion could you possibly have with people who are rejecting the Lord Jesus Christ? I don't know if they're rejecting. Well, are they your friend and you're not even telling them about the gospel? If that's the case, how much do you even love that friend? How much do you care about them? No, as a believer, you ought to be talking about the Lord Jesus Christ. That ought to be coming up and you're normally, that alone is enough to filter out your friends that don't want to have anything to do with Christ because they don't want to hear you talk about it. It usually comes out, you don't even have to terminate friendships. They'll terminate naturally if you're living godly. Because you're going to start to realize, yeah, hey, we have nothing in common. Hey, do you want to go hang out with me at the bar? No. Hey, do you want to do this or that? Do you want to see this wicked movie? No. But children, you have to watch your children. Don't let them become unequally yoked because what's going to happen is they're going to have these friendships and care about their friends and then be influenced and they see the way that they do things and go like, oh wait, well why don't I do things this way too? And if they're ungodly then that's what they're learning. Proverbs 4, look at verse number 23, the Bible says, keep thy heart with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life. And again, these are the instructions to a son. Proverbs 4, keep thy heart with all diligence. We need to teach our sons, teach our children to guard their hearts. Keep it. It's very important. What is in your heart? What you believe? Who you are? Out of it are the issues of life. Put away from me a forward mouth and perverse lips. Put far from me. Let thine eyes look right on and let thine eyelids look straight before thee. Don't get distracted with all these other cares of the world. Look, just stay focused on what's right. Look straight ahead. Ponder the path of thy feet. Think about what you're doing. Think about what direction you're heading. Think about where your life is going. These need to be spelled out and taught to our children. And it's not enough for them just to sit here and say, well, he heard your sermon, Pastor Berzin, so that's good enough. No. No. Not even close. Spend the time with your children pointing out, hey, what way are you going? What is your direction? What are you trying to do in life? What are your goals? And help them to formulate the ways of their heart so that they could be going the right way. To let their eyes look right on. Turn not to the right hand nor to the left. Remove thy foot from evil. Go forward to Proverbs chapter 11. We also want to be teaching our sons that righteousness is more important than money. They're going to spend a lot of time in their life to provide. That was one of the main principles, one of the main characteristics of being a man is providing, working, supporting your family. So that is important. But there has to be a decision made. They have to be able to have the integrity that righteousness is going to supersede money. And you don't want to have them get their values screwed up and say, well, no, but I need to provide for my family and then choose some wicked occupation or some wicked means to an end. And they need to understand and be taught that, no, the righteousness is more important than whatever money you're going to get. Yes, you need to work. Yes, you need to provide. But the way that you do that is also very important and it's even more important than the amount of money you receive. The Bible says in Proverbs 11, verse number 3, the integrity of the upright shall guide them, but the righteousness of transgressors shall destroy them. Riches profit not in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivereth from death. In the day of God, when God's angry, when God has wrath, riches do nothing for you. Nothing. They can't save you at all. But you know what can? The righteousness. If God is right with God, then God's not going to have reason to be angry with you and potentially even destroy you on this earth when you're doing what's right. See, oh, but I'm just doing this to make money. I can make a lot of money by going and serving booze to people all day that are getting drunk. Yeah, you can. That's an occupation where you can make a lot of money serving booze to people and get drunk, but you know what? You ought not to be participating in the sins of other people and making it possible for them to do that and just blow it up and say, well, I'm making money at it. No, the righteousness is more important. The righteousness of the perfect shall direct his way, the Bible says in verse 5, but the wicked shall fall by his own wickedness. The righteousness of the upright shall deliver them, but transgressors shall be taken in their own godliness. Go back, if you would, to Proverbs chapter 2. There's actually quite a few verses on this, and I spent a lot of time last week on raising of our daughters not to be whores, to be pure, to be chaste. But, sons, it's just as important. I don't believe in a double standard of like, oh, women are supposed to be pure, but not men. No, of course men need to be pure, too. And that's been another aspect of our culture that's been wrong in the past. Now, hey, for a long time, women being pure has been upheld and praise the Lord when it has been. But then men, it's just kind of overlooked as, oh, well, that's boys being boys or they're sowing the wild oats or whatever wickedness the world wants to teach. Hey, that's wrong, too. We ought to remain pure and righteous. The Bible says in Proverbs 2 verse 16, and this is one of the themes, when you look at the book of Proverbs in teaching to young men, one of the themes that comes up probably more than just about anything is being aware of the strange women. Hey, watch out for the strange women. Watch out, son. You're going to be out in the world. You're going to be wanting to find someone to marry. You'll be wanting to find someone to date. Watch out for the strange women. Watch out for these women that just want one thing from you. And of course, it should go without saying, you shouldn't just be looking for one thing out of them. We need to teach our children to have these relationships. They ought to be seeking the godly wife. They ought to be seeking the Proverbs 31 virtuous woman that I preached about last week. That's who we need to be teaching our children of who to be looking out for and not be so interested in just the outward physical appearance of a beautiful woman that gets to understand and get the wisdom from the Bible about, hey, you might see someone that looks really appealing outwardly, but they're actually really wicked and you want to avoid them and have nothing to do with them. Proverbs 2 verse 16, the Bible says to deliver thee from the strange woman, even from the stranger which flattereth with her words. And without going too in depth, again, the stranger could just be anyone that's not your wife. When it comes to a man having a relationship with a woman, that's who a stranger is to you. Flip over to Proverbs chapter 5, and I'm not going to go through all of the teachings in these books. I'm just going to point out how many times they're referenced and get a little bit from each one. So there's warning, hey, watch out for the strange woman that flattereth with her words. It's going to try to say all these nice things to you. Sons need to know that women might try to say a lot of nice things to them, but they have a different motive. That they say things and don't even necessarily mean it. Be aware of that. Don't let women come along and stroke your ego in a way where you're just starting to think like, oh wow, she must really like me. No, watch out for the flattery because when people use flattery, it's not because they care about you, it's because they want something from you. And it doesn't matter what their intentions are, if they want to use you by trying to butter you up and use flattery on you, you don't want to have anything to do with them because they don't care about you. They just care about themselves, whatever their motivation is. Proverbs 5, look at verse number 3, the Bible says, for the lips of a strange woman drop as in honeycomb and her mouth is smoother than oil. The traps to look out for don't just appear as these jagged, like a bear trap. You see a bear trap in a wood, in the woods it's got all these spikes and you can see the round circle, you step in that and it's going to hurt. For the human being, that's pretty obvious. You can look at that and be like yeah, I know that's a trap. There's no going, I don't know, is that a trap? Yeah, of course it's a trap. It's rusty and sharp and I don't want to go anywhere near that. But the traps that are laid forward in this life oftentimes look nothing like that. They're actually going to look really appealing. They're going to look desirable, it's going to be like wow, hey, a honeycomb and her mouth being smoother than oil, those things sound good those things sound like something, hey yeah, I want to have some honey. But her end is bitter as wormwood. Wormwood's poison. Sharp as a two-edged sword. So yeah, it is sharp, it is a trap. But it's disguised, it's covered well. And the sons need to learn about this, that there are women out there, like the Bible describes in verse 5, her feet go down to death, her steps take hold on hell. Make sure your sons have a good understanding that these people exist so that way he could really take the time and think about who he wants to marry and not be deceived by the wiles of someone. See, if someone doesn't even know about this and they've never been taught about this, it's going to be a lot more likely that they might fall into these traps. They might fall for the flattery, they're going to fall for the smooth talk because they've never even known otherwise. And especially with young, you know, raising sons or raising daughters, they don't have, they're not going to have all of the experiential knowledge and wisdom that you're going to gain through life. We need to teach them that wisdom and that knowledge without them having to go through the experience. See, eventually, everyone ends up learning, oh yeah, these people exist, these people are real. Unfortunately, for many people, they have to go through the experience before they realize, oh yeah, this is a real thing. But you've already made mistakes, you've already fallen into that trap, you've already succumbed to it, which is why we focus on teaching our children in advance to help them as much as possible to not have to fall into the same traps. And that's why so much time is invested in proverbs of teaching the son. Hey, watch out for this. Jump down to verse number 10. Again, I'm not reading through all of the teachings here, we're just going to get some highlights. Lest strangers be filled with thy wealth and thy labors be in the house of a stranger. This is some more of the results of going after these women. And they'll mourn at the last when thy flesh and thy body are consumed and say, how have I hated instruction and my heart despised reproof and have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined my ear to them that instructed me. So you don't want to be, teach your children, you don't want to be in that position where you disregard the teaching that you're receiving. Teach your children, look, this is going to happen, don't wait for it to happen before you go, oh yeah, I wish I would have listened. Now that my flesh and my body are consumed, you know, maybe from getting some STD or something, now that I'm working for other people because now I've got to pay all this extra child support and everything else for this woman that doesn't care about me at all, but now all my money and my substance is just going off and just, and she's with some other guy, but I'm still throwing money out there to keep paying for that. Watch out for that. Proverbs chapter 6, flip over one more chapter, verse number 24. To keep thee from the evil woman from the flattery of the tongue of a strange woman, lest not after her beauty and thine heart, neither let her take thee with her eyelids. For by means of a whorish woman, a man is brought to a piece of bread and the adulterous will hunt for the precious life. These people exist, your sons need to be aware of this and not just drawn in and enchanted with some beautiful outward appearance of a woman. When you teach your children what are the good values you should be looking for in a woman, then this should be less of an impact on them. They should be able to look for, no, get to know who they are, get to know what they do, that you want a godly woman, you want the Proverbs 31, study and teach them Proverbs 31. Yeah, teach your sons Proverbs 31 so they know what to look for in a woman. Teach your daughters Proverbs 31 so they know how to be. Teach your sons Proverbs 31 so they know what they're looking for. Teach your daughters these passages in Proverbs so they're not acting like the whore, even if they're not the whore. Don't act like this, you don't want to be confused with someone that's hunting for the precious life. Don't go around flattering men, because a godly man's gonna look at you and go, wait, you got something up your sleeve, I don't want to have anything to do with you. Proverbs chapter 7, verse number 5, the Bible says that they may keep thee from the strange woman, from the stranger that flyeth with her words, jump down to verse 25, Let not thine heart decline to her ways, go not astray in her paths, for she hath cast down many wounded, yea, many strong men have been slain by her. Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death. I mean, if you wanted to use strong language to try to warn your son about something bad, can you get any stronger than saying, hey, her way is the path to hell? I mean, what's worse than that? And how much, how many times do we have to see this? Proverbs 5, Proverbs 6, Proverbs 7, and go through this and see how much of the passage is even dedicated to this one subject. It's a big deal. Don't overlook this in teaching your children. The more repetition you see in the Bible, the more important it's going to be for you to make sure that you have it down for yourself and you can teach for your children. We see this over and over and over and over again. Okay, it's very important. Very important. Especially in a passage that is designed to teach wisdom unto a child, unto a son. Flip back if you would to Proverbs chapter 6. So teaching your children what to look for in a spouse and what to watch out for so that you don't end up making a really, really, really foolish decision. And as I mentioned before, I brought this up I think last week, you know, men and women have different struggles with their flesh because God has made them different. There are certain sins and certain lusts that men feel more than women and women feel more than men. Women in general are going to be more prone to a lot of sins with their mouth, with gossiping and things like that. That's just one example. And men, one of the reasons why we see so many instructions here, unfortunately can be very drawn to the lust of the flesh through things like fornication. And drawn to women and wanting to have that relationship and pushing to have that relationship. And the daughters need to be aware that men are like that. To keep themselves pure because men might be trying to push their way on them. I taught that last week. But you need to keep your sons raised properly to keep their flesh in check because you can have all these other bad things that happen to you. You don't want to be some whoremonger and get judged of God that way. Switching gears a little bit in Proverbs chapter 6, I talk about strength but our sons need to be taught to be hard workers as well. And daughters, hard workers, but focusing on the sons here. Look at Proverbs 6 verse number 6. The Bible says, Go to the ant. Excuse me, thou sluggard. Sluggard is someone who is lazy. Go to the ant, thou sluggard, consider her ways and be wise, which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, provideth her meat in the summer and gathereth her food in the harvest. So the ant doesn't need a supervisor. The ant to get to work, get things done, doesn't need anyone watching over them and is able to provide food for the harvest. Is able to provide for themselves. This is how we ought to be teaching our sons. Look, you ought to be able to work without anyone watching you. And it starts in the home. Teaching your children to be able to get work done and mom doesn't have to be over your shoulder every minute in order for you to get things done. But you know what, that takes a lot of time and effort to get them to that point. Yeah, it's a lot of work. But they need that instruction to be able to succeed later because you know how much more valuable that employee is going to be that's able to get work done with no supervision? I mean, those are the people who get promoted. Those are the people who become the boss are the ones that don't need to be bossed around and told what to do. They're just doing. They're just working. You're going to help them succeed even just physically in this world by teaching them these good values and to be self-motivated, self-starting, driven, and just doing it because it's right. Doing it because they know they need to do a job. Working is unto Christ. How about that? In any job that your children do, your sons, you'll be teaching them to work as if they're serving the Lord Jesus Christ. Whatever their job is, do it to the best of their ability. And don't be lazy. Laziness needs to be driven out from our children. Look at verse number 9. How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? When wilt thou arise out of thy sleep? Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep, so shall thy poverty come as one that traveleth and thy want as an armed man. You can't just lay around in bed all day. Oh, I'm tired. I stayed up too late. Too bad. Get up. It's time to get to work. And you instill this behavior and these values and these truths in your children from a young age. Obviously, it needs to be further and further reinforced. The older they get, the more they're capable of doing. There's always going to be varying levels to which you're teaching things with their understanding, with where they're at in their own personal growth. A two year old isn't going to understand these things nearly as much, but the patterns ought to be put in place. Even a two year old, a three year old can be taught to do work. Not as much as the twelve year old can, but they can still do something. They could carry a rag. They can wipe things on the floor. They can do some stuff. And you know what? They ought to be taught those things. And it ought to be something that's normal. It ought to be something that's, yes, that's what you do. Turn, if you would, to Turn to First Timothy, chapter five. The Bible says in Proverbs twelve, verse twenty-four, the hand of the diligent shall bear rule, but the slothful shall be under tribute. You're diligent. You get things done. You're on top of things. That's the person who's going to be bearing, that's going to be the person ruling and in charge. Whereas the lazy person, the sluggard, the slothful, they're going to be under tribute. They're always going to be, you know, under the hand of someone else. And you see this in the world. The people who are lazy, they're never going to be in a position of being a leader or being a boss or anything like that. They're always, the ones that, oh, you want me to do that? That's not in my job description. That's, you know, they're never, never going to be succeeded. They're never going to be put in charge of anything. And you see, and look, I see this. We see this. Brother Peter sees this. But we ought not to have, you know, one, for your children's own benefit. They need to learn that that's not right. It's not going to serve them. But also, how about for the sake of Christ, you know, if they're going to be a godly person, they're going to claim the name of Christ and say, hey, I'm a Christian. And this is how they act and this is what they do. How about you have a good testimony for the cause of Christ where Christians can be known by and large as people who are hard workers. As people who don't need to be supervised and don't need to be monitored and they do the right thing and they can make good choices and they choose not to lie or to steal, to gain an extra buck, but they're going to have integrity of saying, no, I can't do that because that's not right. Even if your boss is telling you, oh, hey, you just got to tell them this in order to sell more insurance or sell more of this, you say, no, I'm not going to do that. If it's not truthful, I'm not going to do that. And your children need to know, your sons need to know that even if that costs them their job, God will bless them for that. God sees what happens. God sees you standing for the truth. God can, you already are showing a good pattern and a good reputation and you've explained to someone, hey, this is why I got fired. Unless the employer's crooked, they'd be crazy to let you go. Another employer. Well, that sounds great to me. Oh, you got fired because you wouldn't lie for them? Then you could lead you to find the right employer anyways. Someone who holds that value as well, someone who's not going to try to make you do more because once you start opening that door anyways and making these compromises in what's right and what's wrong, there's no end to that. A little leaven, leaven at the whole lump, I mean, it's just going to keep on going. Wherever you thought your boundary was, you start consciously just stepping over that, you better watch out because that turns into a big backslide that you don't want to be in. And you know what? Your children need to be taught that before they experience that for themselves. Did I return to 1 Timothy 5? Look at verse 8. The Bible says, But if any provide not for his own, especially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith and is worse than an infidel. An infidel is someone who has no faith. That's what that word means. It's like an unbeliever and you say, look, if you're not providing for your own house, or for your own, but especially those of your own house, the Bible says you've denied the faith and you're worse than an unbeliever. I mean, hey, children, let that sink in. Right? Parents, teach this to your sons, especially. Your job is to provide. You need to be providing and you're worse. In God's eyes, you're worse when you let these things go and you're not taking that responsibility seriously in doing that. Turn to Ephesians 5. We're almost done. I'm going to read for you from 1 Corinthians 14. You might want to take note of this. We need to teach our sons to be knowledgeable in order that they may be able to lead, because they are the ones that have the responsibility of being the leaders. Leaders on the job, leaders at home. I'm going to read from 1 Corinthians 14 where the Bible demonstrates that the husband is the one who's supposed to be leading and teaching in the home, especially with spiritual things. 1 Corinthians 14 verse 34, the Bible reads, by the way, this is the Bible, let your women keep silence in the churches, for it is not permitted unto them to speak, but they are commanded to be under obedience as also saith the law. You believe in Sharia? No. I believe the Bible. Do you? Do you? Because I do. Let your women keep silence in the churches, for it is not permitted unto them to speak. Oh, you are so arcane. That is so old. I mean, I can't believe you would say that. Look, it's what the Bible says. And I'm not going to make excuses for it. I'm not going to try to make it say something it doesn't. I'm going to preach what it actually says and believe what it says, and I'm going to teach that to my children, too. I'm going to teach that to my daughters, and I'm going to teach that to my sons. Because it's the Word of God. Let your women keep silence in the churches, for it is not permitted. That's why we don't have women preachers. It's not permitted unto them to speak, but they are commanded to be under obedience is also said at the law, and if they will learn anything, verse 35, if they will learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home, for it is a shame for women to speak in the church. And you know, ladies, the number one source for you, for your spiritual guidance, is your husband. Not me. Your husband. You want to learn anything? Ask your husband, because that's his job to guide you and lead you and train you. And if he has questions, great, come to me. But you're married, look, you want to learn anything, ask your husband. He is who God has placed in your life as your authority. Ephesians chapter 5, look at verse number 22. So if the husband's going to be the one that the wife is looking to, then our sons, they ought to be raised with good knowledge of the word of God, so they could be a good husband, so they could actually provide the teaching and the answers to the wife who's supposed to be asking them, hey, I want to learn something, can you teach me? Well, you can't teach someone anything if you don't know anything about it. So our sons need to be taught the word of God, they need to learn it, they need to know it, they need to understand it, they need to be taught good doctrine, and it can't just be something that's put on the back burner. It's primary. It's extremely important. If your kids are going to learn anything, teach them the Bible. I'm one who thinks that learning history is important. I think there's a lot of subjects that are important, but you know what's the number one important subject? It's the Bible. So if anything's going to go by the wayside, if anything, well, we don't have enough time for that in our day, you know what it's not going to be? The Bible. Oh, we don't have time for that. Oh, it's too late. No, you know what? There's always time. You ought to make the time. That ought to be your priority. That ought to be the way that you're raising your children, is that they understand every day we read the Bible. This is important. This is taught every day. Ephesians 5, look at verse number 22. The Bible says, wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, and he is the savior of the body. Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Now, I'm not going to go in depth about the submission of the wives. That was last week. Okay, but we're pointing out here more to reinforce that the sons are given this role and this responsibility, so it's not just a title, it's not something, oh, cool, I could just make everybody do what I want them to do. That's not the motivation behind being a leader. And in fact, any leader that's just, it's all about them is a bad leader. I think, does anyone here disagree that probably the best example of leadership we could follow is Christ's example of leadership? Right? Let's just go to the best right away. And of anyone who could have made everything all about himself, it would be Christ, son of God, but he didn't make it all about himself. A good leader, one, isn't just telling people what to do, they're doing. A good leader has their heart in it, and it's not just for their own benefit. In fact, they're going to have a self-sacrificing role of saying, hey, I want everybody to benefit, and even if it's at my detriment, I am going to make sure that we succeed. That the family is going to succeed, that my wife is going to succeed, that my children are going to succeed. I will sacrifice to better you. That is the role of a husband. That's what we're going to see here. Look at verse number 25. Husbands love your wives even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it. In the role of the husband, look, just like Christ gave himself for the church, you love your wife in the sense that you give of yourself for her betterment. That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself to the church, a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish. Hey, husbands also need to be caring about the spiritual wellness of their wives. That they can be cleansed and without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. And don't just have nothing to do with your wife's spiritual life. Guide them. Teach them. But how about you lead by example? Verse 28, Sow out men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherishes it even as the Lord the Church. Okay, that's the husband's role. Our sons need to have this understanding. So when they get in their position of power, right, they understand that it's not just power, it's responsibility. And that your role in the husband's role is one, yeah, you're determining what things are going to be done in your household. You're going to make those decisions. You're going to make those rules. But it's coming out of a love for your wife and a love for your family and being able to say, hey, if anyone's going to go without, I'll be the first one to go without. And I'm going to love my family and make sure that they are better. And I'm going to make the right decisions. It may be the hard decision to make. It may cause some problems. But you've got to do what's right for your family. Because God has put you in that role. It's a huge responsibility. And our boys need to be trained. It's not just about telling people what to do. Because that's the first thing, I know it's the first thing my son picks up on. He just wants to be a little boss. Right? But it's because he's trying to imitate, he's trying to mimic, which that's what children do. And you as parents your children are going to be looking to you for how should they act? How are they going to do? And the more godly you can be as a husband or as a wife, that is going to have probably some of the most impact on your children because they see what you do even more than they hear what you say. That example is extremely important. But they do need the teaching and the instruction of course. And even understanding, hey mom and dad may not be perfect. We aren't perfect. So you need to understand that this is perfect. The word of God is perfect. Let this ultimately be your guide and be your light in your life to teach you the right ways. And sons It's not just about bossing people around. It's about caring. It's about loving and making the right decisions because they're right. Because it's of God. Because it's godly. Because it's righteous. And it's not just to be self gratifying. It's not just about you. It's about a greater cause. And you know families, you ought to have a purpose. Right? A greater purpose. Hopefully it's to serve God ultimately. And then everybody makes sacrifices for that purpose. But the husband needs to be unifying the family under that one main purpose and that goal. That's your job. And everyone else has their own roles given to them as scripture outlines. God's plan, God's design, things work the best. 1 Timothy chapter 3 is the last place we're going to look. Obviously Christ is our example. I brought up Christ being the best example. But I want to just go through real briefly here. I'm just going to skim through this. But raising godly sons, you know, your son might never want to be the bishop or the pastor of a church. Right? They might not ever have that job. But when we look at the qualifications for a bishop, for a pastor, these are good attributes and good qualities and good characteristics that ought to be applicable to every son. You ought to at least be able to say, hey, I mean, I don't know where God wants me, but if he ever wants me to preach, I can. Because I've met at least that requirement. I've met at least that standard of being able to say, okay, I can do this. Maybe that's not where God wants your son. But at least you're able to have these qualities and these attributes and work at these, and these are true virtues and values to be able to say, yeah, you know what? Let's read through this. Verse 1. This is a true saying of a man designed by the office of a bishop designed with a good work. A bishop then must be blameless. Hey, it's good for your children to know they should be blameless. The husband of one wife. Vigilant. On guard. Pay attention. Sober. How about that? I mean, that's another thing that the Bible talks about and Proverbs talks about, too. Not drunken. Being sober. Sober's got a couple of different definitions, but they all apply here. Sober, meaning serious. Life isn't just a big joke, but also sober. How about refraining from controlled substances and poisons like alcohol and drugs and not having anything to do with that and get involved in those lusts of your flesh. Be sober. That's good for all children. Of good behavior. I mean, that's something that parents, I think, are always trying to teach their children. Be good, right? Give into hospitality. Care about people. Man, be there. Be friends. Be willing to give to other people. Be hospitable. Be friendly to them. Teach your children to have that. Not to just, oh, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, right? No, hey, be hospitable. Act to teach, and again, you might not be in the role, they might not be in the role of being like a teacher in the sense of like a pastor, but we all ought to have still, your children, you ought to be teaching them to be able to teach to some degree because your sons especially, they're going to be teaching their wives. They need to be able to teach their wives. They need to have that ability to teach their children and their wives at home at the very least. Even if it's not in some greater grand scheme of maybe being able to teach a lot of people at once, it's not that much different though. Getting that ability to be able to teach. Teach your family. Teach your children. Teach your wife. And how about just teach a stranger how to be saved. Not given to wine. No striker. Not greedy of filthy lucre, but patient, not a brawler, not covetous. Again, I could easily just keep on going on and on about every single one of these attributes. These are all good attributes to be teaching your sons. Teaching your children. One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity. That's one of the qualifications of being a bishop. Being able to run your own house. And then it says, for if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God? Again, just further illustrating that God's plan and God's design is that a man rules his house. Not a novice, lest being lifted up with pride, he fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover, he must have a good report of them which are without, lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil. And, oh man, I could go on and on about that one. This is a big deal. Again, going back to digital media. Okay, having good report. It used to be you could make mistakes and people, only a certain number of people would even know about it and then it just gets forgotten. It's so much more important now that your children aren't getting themselves into trouble where now there's photos and videos and everything's just going worldwide and then everyone sees about this. Man, that's going to be tough. I mean, it's hard for kids these days because children do a lot of foolish things. Look, I know and I thank God that half of the foolish, I mean, even half the foolish things I've done in the past weren't recorded and just posted on social media for the whole world to see. So much more important now. I mean, it's always been important, right? You never want to act the fool. But some of this stuff that, I mean, you start doing things, it might never, it might never go away. And even then, the qualification for Deacon, there's a lot of overlap there. But I'm going to cut it. I've been going on too long. We're Bible believers here. We believe the Word of God. The Word of God gives us our wisdom, our instruction, the ways of life, how we ought to be raising our children, how do we ought to be raising our sons in a weird, perverted world that's trying to gender bend and change all these roles and call things that are godly wicked and push all manner of evil. Look, we're not going to have it. We don't stand for that. And you know what the world's going to do? They're going to call us hateful. Yep. I'm hateful. I hate Satan's ways. That's for sure. I love God's ways. You can't just love God's ways and then just say, well, I love everything. No, because there's going to be a lot of things that you hate then if you love God's ways. You're going to hate every false way. Let's apologize for a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you so much for your word, for the instruction. God, I pray that you please help us to be diligent in teaching our children. I pray that you please help us to raise up a generation I mean, even in our small influence here with our own families, with our own children, Lord, help us to raise them properly. Help us to just be very vigilant in our teaching and training with them. Lord, that we could give them all the information that they need and just be able to provide them with the best ability to live a godly life as the world gets worse and more wicked, dear Lord, that they can have this good light. I pray that you please help us to be very influential in helping our children to have their own beliefs, their own relationships that they're able to form with you where they're looking to your word ultimately for their guidance and instruction as they continue to grow. Lord, we love you. We thank you. Please keep our children from evil and God, it's in Jesus' name we pray these things. Amen. Alright, we're going to sing one last song before we're dismissed. Brother Peter, please lead us. In church, again, our next song is going to be in our song seems in spiritual psalms. The song is Good Christian Men Rejoice. Good Christian Men Rejoice. Anyone have one? The song is Good Christian Men Rejoice. Alright, good Christian men, let's sing this out. Good Christian Men Rejoice. With heart and soul and voice. Healing into what we say. Jesus Christ is born today. Us and us before Him only, He is in the kingdom now. Christ is born today. Christ is born today. Good Christian Men Rejoice. With heart and soul and voice. Jesus Christ was born for this. Christ was born for this. Good Christian Men Rejoice. Well, we need not fear no pain. Jesus Christ was born to save. All the one who was born to be his everlasting one. Christ was born to save. Christ was born to save. Amen church, great to see you. Thank you so much for coming, you guys. Thank you.