Welcome to the Church and Family Life podcast. Are you ready for a lightning rod? We're gonna bring lightning rods back from the Puritan era to challenge, chastise, and rebuke fathers who are not doing family worship because That's what they did. Hope you enjoy the discussion. So Jason, there are few things that are as pivotal in a family life than opening the Bible and worshiping God with the Word of God.

And so that's what we want to talk about. Again, we've been talking about this for a long time, but I was very struck this last week reading the introduction to the Baptist Confession, a copy that we put together a long time ago. And the question is, what is the one spring and cause of the decay of religion in our day? And the answer is the neglect of the worship of God. And in this introduction, it's very interesting.

It's an introduction to the Baptist confession. And the author who's introducing it is making it very clear this confession is for children. This was meant to be taught to children in family worship. And people often think of these confessions as highfalutin theology. Well, they are, but at the same time, they were actually meant to be taught to a younger generation.

And so we've got Jeff Pollard with us to talk about this whole matter of family worship. And we're going to be, you know, pulling out references from the book that we put together a long time ago, Theology of the Family, a section that Oliver Heywood wrote. In Theology of the Family, one of the best parts of that book that we put together is the first chapters about family worship. There are 12 articles that are pure gold, and we're going to talk about one of them. The Oliver Heywood article.

So we're pulling from an article in Theology of the Family. What I love about the book is it's a fat book but it has skinny articles that can stand alone and so it may makes for a wonderful reference to just sit on the shelf until you need it and then it's really easy to go to the article that that you need This particular article is written by Oliver Heywood for our listeners and viewers who don't know Oliver Heywood like I don't know Oliver Heywood. The theology of the family gives a brief description here's what it says he lived 1630 to 1702 it says non-conformist Puritan divine ejected from his pulpit in 1662 and excommunicated Haywood preached mainly in private homes after the Great Ejection So all these faithful pastors got thrown out of their churches because they wouldn't conform to things that they shouldn't conform to and then they spent their lives preaching in the open air and in homes after that and he's one of them in the late 1600s early 1700s. He says something really shocking right at the beginning of this he says the minister's best use of time is to press upon householders fathers to crank up family worship.

Yeah yeah and and he he's making the argument that decay of religion in a nation is actually related to that. It's really just a symptom of the real disease and the real disease is a breakdown of religion in the home. When they use the term religion, they meant the real, true, warm-hearted faith. They're not talking about anything other than true Christianity. It is quite clear that all around us is a culture in decay.

What we see in many of the churches today is so utterly foreign to our ancestors, They would not recognize it as the faith of Jesus Christ. And so a great deal of that once again has to do with the fact that there is so little true instruction in the homes about the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. Yeah. Heywood says, in vain do you complain of magistrates and ministers while you that are householders are unfaithful to your trust. You complain that the world is in a bad state.

That sounds like our country. What do you do to mend it? And it isn't just voting Republican or something like that. Do not so much complain of others as of yourselves and complain not so much to man as to God. Plead with him for reformation.

Second also your prayers with earnest endeavors. Sweep before your own doors and ask for God within your sphere. In other words, be godly in your home and everything that you do, but especially be godly in your home. And that is fostered by worshiping in your home. He goes on to say, as you have more opportunity or familiarity with the inmates or those who live in your house is not talking about being prison.

So you have more authority over them from their dependence on you to influence them. And if you improve not this talent, you will have a dreadful account to give, especially as their blood will be required at your hands because their sin will be charged upon your neglect. That's powerful. Every husband, every father that professes to be a Christian needs to hear that and understand it. Going back to the Westminster Confession and the directory that it has for worship, it even recommends the discipline of fathers and husbands who do not take the responsibility for teaching their home the doctrines of the faith.

And that is one of the reasons that theologians made catechisms and confessions. So this is where, if Vody were with us, this is where he would say, if you can't say amen, say ouch. And essentially what Heywood is saying is don't whine about the big picture if you're not attending to the little picture. We complain about things that are happening nationally, but really so few are even lifting a finger in their own homes. And Heywood is making the argument, if we would actually attend to our houses, then we would see the bigger picture improve because it's really the the building blocks, which are homes where these that where the real breakdowns are happening and the larger societal breakdown is just a symptom of what's happening under our roofs.

Yeah, it's very interesting. He's identifying really the way that God created the world. He created the world in microcosm. He focuses families together as these small units. And yet our whole culture is pushing the people out of the family.

God has a completely different view of the way the world should be governed And it begins in families. And of course, Heywood is really identifying how hard it is on society when fathers neglect family worship. And God gives dads and moms just tremendous influence within their homes. I mean you think about how much impact, what you model and what you've been teaching to your children. If you model it well and teach well for the 20 years or whatever God gives you with them then you can have the greatest impact over any any human being in the world and so Heywood is saying take this place where God has given you such influence and use the influence that you have.

And in a way, it's much less important that your concerns over places where you have hardly any influence are inconsequential compared to that. If I could take just a moment and read what our Reformed Baptist brethren said in the introduction to the confession, this is playing right off of what Scott said. I would just like to read this one paragraph. It is the most powerful single paragraph regarding the importance of fathers and husbands taking their responsibilities as the guides, the leaders of their home in the things of God. It says, and verily, there is one spring and cause of the decay of the religion in our day, which we cannot but touch upon and earnestly urge a redress of, and that is the neglect of the worship of God in families by those to whom the charge and conduct of them is committed.

May not the gross ignorance and instability of many with the profaneness of others be justly charged upon their parents and masters, I mean teachers, who have not trained them up in the way wherein they ought to walk when they were young, but have neglected those frequent and solemn commands which the Lord hath laid upon them, so to catechize and instruct them that their tender years might be seasoned with the knowledge of the truth of God as revealed in the Scriptures, and also by their own omission of prayer and other duties of religion of their families together with the ill example of their loose conversation. That means they're loose living, going to church, but they're living like the world. Are they not dragging their children into darkness? That's what they're talking about here. And having inured them first to a neglect and the contempt of all piety and religion, if mom and dad don't do it at home, why in the world should the children, why in the world would they even be attracted to do so if they sit and listen to the pastor preach, their parents nod their head, but then they go home and live the way they want to.

It says that you are teaching your children, you are bringing them out of the ways of God. We know this will not excuse the blindness and wickedness of any, but certainly it will fall heavy upon those that have been thus the occasion thereof. They indeed, the children, die in their sins, but will not their blood be required of those under whose care they were, who yet permitted them to go on without warning? Yea, lead them into the paths of destruction, and will not the diligence of Christians with respect to the discharge of these duties in ages past rise up in judgment against and condemn many of those who would be esteemed such now Like the first time I read that it completely Stunned me left me overwhelmed realizing what the responsibilities I had before God was to my children. We all know the verse, bring up a child the way he should go.

But there's more to that than what we often see in modern congregations. Most of the time the children are just being turned over to somebody else to be taught. Whereas mom and dad ought to be the first teachers, like first responders to an emergency. Mom and dad ought to be the ones that are standing for Jesus Christ, teaching them the word of God and with catechisms and confession to faith, teaching them what we believe the scriptures to plainly teach. Jeff, one of the reasons that paragraph that you read is so important is that it makes it very clear why it's critical that the modern church, not hang their hat on modern books about family life.

They need to go back to previous generations where the doctrine was understood and the consequences were understood more clearly. And to read a paragraph like this in a in a local church would be very offensive to people oh aren't you being a little bit too hard and yet these authors are saying your blood their blood will be on your hands if you don't bring them up in the training and the admonition of the Lord. The sternness of it, the consequential nature of it was so well understood in the Puritan era and that's why we've tried to publish these kinds of resources because they actually shake us into a sense of reality. If all you've, if all you've read is the modern stuff, reading this afterwards is really shocking. So here's, here's an example.

Here's, Here's what Heywood says. He says, I cannot judge that that man worthy to be a fit communicant at the Lord's table that maintains not the worship of God ordinarily in his family. So we sort of think of family discipleship as extra credit. Well, I take them to church, but you're going above and beyond if you were to do something in the discipleship category in your home. But what Heywood is saying is, if you don't do this regularly in your home, I think your pastor should deny you the Lord's Supper.

Wow, that is shocking to the modern dad in a complete paradigm shift that says, whoa, wait a minute, something more is being expected of me if these guys are right than I ever had a sense of. I think it just an added awareness or becoming aware that there are voices from the past who said this is so fundamental that if you're not regularly doing it in your home they should probably keep you away from the Lord's Supper because you're not acting like a Christian no one should think you're a Christian. Yeah. In the 20th century, the most exemplary father was the father who bragged about going to his children's recitals and sports events. That was pretty much the high performing father.

And so we really do need the Puritans to pull us out of that. Yes. Heywood goes on to say, brothers, he says, Oh, sirs, have you not enough of your own? Have you not sin enough of your own, but you must draw upon yourselves the guilt of your whole family." They clearly understood paternal headship. This is plain and clear.

And he says, it is you that make bad times and bring down judgments on the nation. Well, we want to look at all the things around us, the drug dealers, the LGBT movement, the transgender ideologies, all of these kinds of things. And we point the finger when the biggest problems in our country is first the pulpits and second the homes where the homes should be a place where Jesus Christ is loved and exalted and the lives of fathers and mothers are instructing those precious little ones every single day. And so that we should be giving them a huge God-filled life, a huge Christ-exalting life. Because either this man has lost his mind or he understands that the reason the nation is crumbling is because fathers don't take their responsibility to teach what they hear from the pulpit and in their own studies to their children and to live it before them and to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

I mean, you see it beautifully in Solomon, in Proverbs chapter four, where he says, hear ye children the instruction of a father and attend to know understanding. For I give you good doctrine. He doesn't say the experts give you the good doctrine. He says, I give you good doctrine, forsake you not my law, for I was my father's son, tender and only beloved in the sight of my mother. He taught me also and said unto me, let thine heart retain my words, keep my commandments and live.

Get wisdom, get understanding, forget it not, neither decline from the words of my mouth." Every father that professes to be a Christian has the word of God. He can read what the word of God says to his children, whether he's been to seminary or not. He won't be able to explain everything that he reads, but he can be showering God's word upon his children daily. Well, I thought the doctrine of headship meant that I get to be the boss. Well, there's good news and bad news, friends.

You are the boss, but that comes with all sorts of expectations and things that you're responsible for and there's going to be an accounting for it. And by the way, you need to act as a boss like Jesus acts in the exercise of his authority to fathers need to have this sense that they have been given authority in their home for the purpose of being a blessing to the people who were put under their authority that's how it works in the kingdom of God is God raises up people to maturity and then he sets them as servants over people to help them make progress in the Lord that that's our responsibility and he's saying if you don't do that he calls that person quote a brute at home. Okay. Yeah. By the way, by the way, we're not here to give a bunch of techniques for family worship and, and, and bring any kind of, we're not here to bring any kind of comfort to anybody we're trying to bring a lightning rod because the because these writings are lightning rods and we need them from time to time and You know what should a man do?

Well it's actually very simple. He should open his Bible and fill his house with the knowledge of God and do it every day and do it like the Puritans did it, not like the people from the 20th century did it. So we don't have a lot of, you know, fancy counsel in this session about how to do this, but we really want to lay down some realities that we need to recover in our own times. Amen. Thank you, Scott.

And that is exactly why we do the Free Grace Broadcaster. We have a Free Grace Broadcaster on Family Worship. And in this edition, All of this is free, by the way, those of you not familiar with Chappell Library, we give our literature away, just contact us on the internet. But this has a wonderful article by Joel Beeke called Implementing Family Worship, and it steps you through beautifully and simply how a father who's never even heard of this can be able to take this and begin to teach his wife and his children the truths of God's word and of our confession. Now that's a wonderful article that really, that should be read by everybody.

You know, it's interesting here in the, particularly in the last few years of the 20th century and the first years of the 21st century, there really has been a resurgence of writing about family worship. And very much like the Puritan era when there was a real resurgence of that. And you know, I just wanna close with this. These are the first words of Oliver Heywood's article. He says that, I presume again to appear upon the public stage to be your faithful monitor, to prompt you to your duty, and to promote the work of God in your souls and the worship of God in your families.

So that's really the heart of everything we wanted to say and that is recover, get back to it if you need to and and go beyond where your peers are going because usually as it turns out in the 21st century your peers aren't going very far. And I think articles like this are really really helpful. Any parting shots Jason from you and then Jeff will give you the last word. Well I would just say it's such a blessing to a home and it becomes bedrock for a home when a father makes it a priority to gather his family to worship God every day with very few exceptions. It adds a kind of stability and happiness to a home if it's done right.

If this sounds like a drag to you, you're not doing it right. This should add joy to your home. Amen. And I would say for clarification, we're not replacing the church with the family. We're not giving priority to the family.

We're talking about the fact that churches are made up of individuals and families who all ought to be worshiping God six days a week in their homes and then coming together for gathered worship on the Lord's day. If every family, every father, every husband, every individual took seriously prayer and crying out to the Lord to meet with them on the Lord's day. Our worship in this country would change. Amen. It sure would.

It sure would. Okay. Well, Jeff, thank you for joining us again on the Church and Family Life podcast. We really, really appreciate you coming on. Glad to be here.

Good deal. And thank you for joining us on the Church and Family Life podcast, and we hope you can join us next time. Life dot com.