Welcome to the Church and Family Life podcast. Today we've got Paul White with us, and we're going to talk about prayer in the family, and we're going to talk about two articles in Theology of the Family, one by George Swinick, A Father's Prayer, What a Father's praying for himself and his family, and then seven reasons for families to pray by Thomas Doolittle. Hope you enjoy the discussion. There's just pure gold on really increasing the prayer life of your family. Hope you enjoy the time.

You know, Jason, for years we've talked about a recovery of biblical fatherhood, and one of the pivotal duties of a father is to lead his family in the Word of God and in prayer. And prayer's kind of dependent on the head of the household, really. That's my experience, and it's my experience with most men. If you have a father who is not leading in prayer, then the rest of the family is going to languish in prayer. Yeah, and if you have a father who's not praying himself, he's not leading his family in prayer So hey, we've got Paul white with us from Taylorsville, North Carolina Who's a pastor at Covenant Bible Church there?

Long time friend long time friend. Yeah, we remember I remember the day we met this man. It was a joy. Yeah, it's been a joy ever since. So, hey, what we want to do is discuss first a Father's Prayer briefly, and then we want to move on to seven reasons a father should pray here from theology of the family.

So I just want to kick off on this matter of a father's prayer here. This is by George Swinick, and He actually itemizes the things that he's praying for. And the paragraphs start with, I pray, I pray, I pray. So I'm gonna jam through them, and then maybe we can just make some brief comments about it. I pray that the word of Christ may dwell richly in my heart and house that my whole family may have their set meals every day of this spiritual food." So it's the Word of God.

Then he says, I pray that the voices in my house will be singing praises, " he says, like trumpets and pipes. And then he says that he prays for himself, to take heed to himself. He prays for the Lord's Day, that it would be a day truly set apart to the Lord. He prays that he would be a loving father, but part of what that means is to deal with sin in his family. He prays that he would not be a lazy father.

He prays that his family would be kept in peace from strife. So, they're just fantastic categories that he prays for. So, What are your thoughts about this? So first of all, we're going to be on two chapters from a theology of the family, one by this one, a Father's Prayer by George Swinick, and then Seven Reasons that a Family Should Pray by Thomas Doolittle. Both of these men lived in the 1600s, and wow, the richness of what's written here.

Most of us assume that we're evolving. When you read these men from the 1600s, you'd say, no, I think we're devolving. They were actually thought about these things very deeply and in ways that we should try to reclaim. Here from this father's prayer here was a line that struck me, Lord never let me be so fond and foolish as to kill any of my family with soul damning kindness." Whoa! So, I think every father has felt this desire to be all kindness at the expense of confronting things that dishonor the Lord in our home.

So he was actually praying. The sense of it is he felt that in his own heart, too, and he was praying that God would help him to resist this soul-damning kindness that has us only kind all the time, which is really no kindness at all, and that he would have power from God to resist that impulse. Yeah, I jotted down four things as I read this prayer. I said, This Father knows his priorities. He knows what's important.

This Father knows his inability, and that's why he's praying these things. As you just said, he knows the weakness of his own heart. He knows his responsibility before the Lord to be an example and to set an example for his family. And he also knows his liability, that is, that he will, he is liable before God for how he leads and instructs his family specifically in this area of prayer, but in every area. This prayer teaches us very much about the man himself.

Yeah, that is so helpful. I love your points, but I just want to recommend this as something for every father to read through and just pray each one of these things. I found it very convicting, but really, really helpful. Anyway, we want to turn over now to seven reasons families should pray by Thomas Doolittle. And of course, he's going to itemize, you know, how critical it is that we pray.

So let's just take him, we're going to try to take these one by one and go through all of them. Reason number one, because we receive every day family mercies from the hand of God. Yeah, he wants us to start with thanksgiving. Here's the very next line. When you wake in the morning and you find your dwelling safe, not consumed with fire, not broken through by thieves, is not this a family mercy?" And then he just starts to pile up the mercies of God that families experience and says, we should be praying families because of this, because of God's goodness.

Yeah, God's mercy is so constant to us that we have to be trained to notice it and to thank God for it. It's so steadfast. I pictured it like the sound of a flowing river. If you live beside a river, you know, you, you don't think about it. You don't think, Lord, thank you for keeping the river flowing through the night.

And God's mercy is this way. And our children, going back to the previous prayer, our children have to be trained to notice God's mercies because they are so constant that we would just assume them. You know, he says, when you woke up today, you didn't find any of your children dead in their beds. Give thanks. Welcome to the 1600s.

Right, right, exactly. Yeah, he quotes Psalm 127, except the Lord guard the city, the watchman stays awake in vain, for so he gives his beloved sleep. But he just gets down to the really basic things we take for granted. I think that's what really hit me in the first one. How much do we take for granted?

Well, none of my kids were dead in their beds when I woke up. Praise the Lord! You know, it could have been different. Any more on this one? I thought of Psalm 121, behold, he who keeps Israel shall not slumber nor sleep.

Though we sleep, God doesn't sleep and He's keeping us. Yeah. Okay, let's go to the second reason to pray. He says you should pray to God daily for your families because there are sins committed every day in your families. So, you know, dealing with sin.

We often act like there's no sin in our family, we don't pray about it. There's repentance unto life where an unbeliever repents and believes in Christ in a saving way. But then, that's only the starting line for the Christian. The rest of life is a continual life of repentance. And we need to repent, and there's a lot to repent of, and there's so much to repent of that we're so insensitive to on the day that we're saved.

And so, Doolittle is calling us here to remember that. That we're insensitive to these things, and we need to sensitize ourselves and do something about it, repent to God. Yeah, yeah. Just as God's mercies are common, our sin becomes so common that, especially in families, I think a lot of times we we almost excuse family sins is just are our family personality you know that's just a we are and and we become as you just said the sense that eyes when and then that leads down to the individuals in our sins are just who we are rather than things that need to be dealt with before God. He says, what?

So many sins every day under your roof within your walls committed against the glorious blessed God and not one prayer. He says, you should cry a thousand tears, you know, for a thousand sins. But he doesn't leave it there. He says, what is your pillow made of that your heads can rest upon it under the weight and load of so much guilt. Is indeed your bed so soft or your heart so hard that you can rest and sleep with all the sins of commission in your family?" It's brutal.

But helpful. But yeah, very helpful. I mean, you know, he's talking about just losing our sensitivity to sin. And you might think of the greater progress in sanctification we might make if we were more conscious of our sins when we prayed with our families. So, pray daily because of your sins.

And then third, you should pray in your family's daily to God, because you have many daily family wants, which none can be supplied except by God. God. If you just think in the most basic terms, what do I actually have true control over, as opposed to what is completely out of my control? The ledger is not nearly balanced. We control so very little and so much is out of our control, but all of it is in God's control.

And this is such an obvious reason to pray because He can do the things that we need that we have no control over. Yeah, I think we, this came to my mind, there's this modern reformation towards the hobby farm homesteading crunchy mom thing. We get this idea that we can fix everything with the right diet and with a little bit of work, you know, here and there without what was true of the actual hardworking farmer, the utter dependence upon God for everyone's brain. And so we get in this, I started taking a daily probiotic at one point and it really helped me a lot and I found myself when people would talk about sickness I would say I would attribute my health to a daily probiotic rather than actually God is using that and somebody else may not use that and may be far more healthy than me. Our dependence is upon God, whether it be health or food or wisdom.

God uses what He wills as He wills, and we are at his mercy. So I think we ought to express that. It made me think in my family, what family needs and wants we never pray about. And that's my fault. It really is my fault.

And to bring those before the family and ask the family what are their needs and what are their wants and lay them out. My prayers are often so general when they really need to be specific. And I just like the way he frames this, many daily family wants things that your family wants. Yeah, the book of James says, you don't have because you don't ask. What a shame!

Because the implication of that is, you would have it if you asked for it. It was yours for the asking. Yeah, he says, don't you want wisdom to manage your life? He says, if you think you have enough wisdom, it's plain that you don't have any. So then the fourth reason, you should pray in your family's daily because of your family's daily employments and labors.

And here he's talking about work. He's talking about the way that the family is working. He says, for will not your trading be in vain and your laboring and working, your toil and your planning for the world be of no purpose without the blessing of God." So here he's talking about praying for prosperity. We are not in a covenant of works with God like Israel was. And so God is not obligated just because we work to bless.

You know, our cabinets are not guaranteed to be full, or our lives fruitful just because we work. Again, we're at His mercy, and if we really believe that, then we ought to be pleading, Lord, I've worked, but now you have to give the blessing, or it will be fruitless. So here's what Doolittle says, and I think it's so helpful. He says, And yet is it not necessary to pray to God to prosper and succeed you in your callings? Prayer and labor should both promote what you aim at.

Excuse me, prayer and labor should both promote what you aim at. To pray and not to do the works of your callings would be to expect supplies while you are negligent. To labor and trade and not to pray would be to hope for increase in provision without God." So he's holding up prayer and labor and saying, it's crazy to pray but not labor. That's presumption against God. But it's crazy to labor and not pray as if you didn't need God for the blessing.

So He's calling on us to join together, prayer and labor. Yeah, yeah. What we work for, pray for. Right? Yeah.

Now, that's really good. And then the Fifth reason to pray, you should pray to God in your families daily because you are all every day liable to temptations. I can't improve on what he says here, I'll just read it. As soon as you wake, the devil will be striving for your first thoughts. And when you are risen, he will be urgent with you to do him the first service and attend you all the day to draw you into some heinous sin before night.

And is the devil a subtle, watchful, powerful enemy and unwearied? And do you not all need to get together in the morning that Satan might not prevail against any of you before night till you come to your God together again? So you just talked about the diligence of the devil in his work and how this should drive us to pray, knowing that God can shield us from all his fiery darts. Yeah, and we're never more comfortable than we are at home with our families. And that's usually when we let our guard down for temptations, and that's why family sins are typically so prevalent.

And the devil knows that. Wait till they get home, wait till they get their feet propped up, their shoes off, wait till they get their phone in their hand, and then comes the temptation to lash out at your wife, your children, to neglect duties. And so we ought to be all the more prayerful to avoid the temptations that come when we're the most comfortable. He had a terrifying sentence in here. And he's talking about when you're going out, he said, how you might fall, how you might dishonor God, how you might discredit your profession, how you might defile your soul, disturb your peace, and wound your conscience.

So, you know, pray that you would not fall into temptation, I think is the basic idea there. But, you know, to be protected when you go out into the world from temptations that might destroy you, might destroy your ministry, might destroy your job, your friendship, your marriage. I mean, how many possible scenarios are there out in the world to really cause the good things of your life to disappear. And then six, reason six, you should pray in your family's daily because in all your families are liable to daily hazards, casualties, and afflictions. And then he says, and prayer might prevent them.

So I'm, I know it's not more true now, but I'm more aware of this now that my children are older. My oldest will be 30 soon, my young, my quote-unquote baby is 18 now, and we're pretty far-flung, you know. A decade ago, we had them under our roof more hours than not. Now they're not under our roof more hours than not. They're with different people.

They're driving different places. There's just a lot more hazards on my mind now than ever before. If you think of all the things that could happen when your family starts to get far-flung, people going in different directions, it puts you in a frame to pray. Amen. Yeah, he says, if your houses were built upon foundations of stone and the walls were made of brass or adamant and the doors of iron, yet you would be no longer safe than so long as God protects you from all dangers.

We can set up all of the defenses that we want, and yet without God's protection, they're nothing. And The opposite of that is also true, that though we may not have all of these temporal protections around us, with God protecting us, He's our fortress, our refuge. We have nothing to fear. So we ought to show that in prayer. Yeah, amen.

He says, how do you know if you send your son out that he might not come back dead? Pray. He said, how do you know if you go out, if you're gonna return alive? Again, and then he cites the story of this Greek poet who died by a kernel of a raisin going down the wrong pipe and choked him. So you just never know.

So he's just saying, pray for safety, pray for the daily hazards. You know, I have a friend that when you get in the car with him, he says, let's pray. Every time I've ever gotten a car with him, he says, let's pray, even if we're in a rush. He says, let's pray. I don't know anybody who does that.

Hi, Jeff. It's Jeff Fowler. I've got a guess. That's wonderful. Exposing the strengths of our friends in public.

Was that all of that? Oh my. Okay, so yeah. Reason number seven. You are going to forget reason seven.

I know this is a really good and important one. Yeah. Reason number seven, you must pray to God in your families daily, for the very heathen will rise up against you Christians and condemn you. So here's the next line, you'll love this. Those that never had the means of grace as you have had, nor a Bible to direct and teach them as you have, nor ministers sent to them as you have had in abundance, do shame many that are called Christians and go for great professors too.

When I have read the sayings of some heathens showing what they were want to do and consider and know the practice and negligence of many Christians and their families, I've been ready to conclude the heathen to be the better men." Oh my, does that smite the conscience. Oh boy. Yeah. Yeah, if you pay attention to the world, even unbelievers have their routines that show what they prize and where they think they get their strength from, self-help books, meditation, life coaches, workouts, morning routines, foods, music, all these things that they say, I have to do this thing. If I don't have this, then I won't be able to make it." And they are devoted.

And yet, again, very often we Christians, we say, apart from God, I can do nothing. Well, then should we not be calling out to Him and proving that with our prayer? You know, he really goes hard here, you know, he talks about, you know, saying, oh, it's time to go to bed. Well, let's play a game of cards or two and then go to bed. And he says, are you swine in the shape of men?

And he says, he saw William Perkins, likened such to swine that live without prayer in their families. So anyway, pretty hard-hitting stuff. And so here they are. Number one, we should pray because we receive family mercies every day. We should pray every day because of the sins committed in our families.

We should pray because we have wants, we have family wants, we should pray daily because we are going out to work and we need our work to be prosperous. We should pray because we're liable to temptations when we go out. And number six, we should pray because there are daily hazards and casualties and dangers when we go out. And we should pray because our lifestyles, our prayerless lifestyles, would condemn us. So dads and moms, if you're like me and prayer can often be a struggle, this is a great outline.

Yeah. This would be a good outline to pray from time to time. Just put these seven things in front of you and just pray through the outline. Yeah, put them in your phone, pull them up, you know, have a little piece of paper in your wallet. Those would be really, really good ones.

Amen. Yeah, when the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray, He didn't say, that's a stupid question. Every Christian knows how to pray. He said, when you pray, say this. And so I think that we ought to be humble enough and willing and desire to pray enough to say, if I can have helps and teachers, please give them.

Interesting you bring the Lord's Prayer up, because when you go through the Lord's Prayer, so many of those categories are right here in what we just read. Yeah. Yeah. Well, brothers, thank you so much. May we be fathers who lead our families in prayer better?

That's what I want. But thank you for joining us. I really appreciate it. That's great. And thank you for joining us on the Church and Family Life podcast.

Hope you can be with us next time. If you found this resource helpful, we encourage you to check out ChurchandFamilyLife.com