In what ways is a man the priest of his home and what priestly roles does he fulfill on behalf of his family? A man engages in his priestly work through intercessory prayer for his family, directing his family in worship, mediating divine blessings, instructing his family in scripture, and applying scripture as a judge.

The National Center for Family Integrated Churches welcomes Sam Waldron with the following message entitled, The Major Roles of man as priest in his home. Modern infantry are equipped with night vision gear to enable them to see more clearly when they are fighting at night. My first two messages on the man as a priest in his home, I've been fitting you men with night vision gear so that you might more effectively fight the good fight of faith as a man who is a priest in his home. It is night in our culture, and such gear is necessary. But there's an important difference between the night vision gear of our infantry and our armies and the night vision gear with which I'm attempting to equip you.

That gear is issued to them that they might see the enemy. The United Vision gear I'm trying to give you is issued to you that you might see yourself, that you might see yourself as priest in your home. Now, in this hour, we come to the third section of thought about the subject of the man as a priest in his home, the major roles of the man as a priest in his home. My thesis is that since men, as I have proven, are to be priests in their home, we may learn not a little about their special or distinctive roles, our special and distinctive roles as priests by setting the distinctive roles of priests in Israel and other biblical priests. Now I have made clear, haven't I, that there are priestly roles that we ought no longer to fulfill as men.

Those originally fathers who offered burnt offerings on real altars to God. Redemptive history first restricted offering those burnt offerings to the priest of Israel and then to the Lord Jesus Christ of whom they were the Old Testament types. After the coming of Christ, Christ himself, who is the temple of God, made his church into the temple of God as well. The New Testament church was organized with pastor-teachers. Now the man's priesthood in the home is to be exercised in cooperation with and appreciation for the church and its pastor teachers.

There remain, however, five distinctive roles of priests in the Old Testament, which I'm convinced that men must fulfill in their homes today. The time constraints of this conference forced me to deal with all five of those roles in one message. This is gonna sound like an advertisement, but it's just the truth. If You want to see all the text that I'm going to refer to and to have this dealt with in a more laid out, comfortable and less hectic kind of fashion. You just need to buy the book, A Man Is Priest in His Home, because the Miss message covers five chapters in that book.

So believe me when I say that there is much more that could be said and much more that I'm gonna be able to say here. So the first of these five roles. The man as a priest in his home is an intercessor in prayer. The man as a priest in his home is an intercessor in prayer. And I have deliberately put this first because I think it's probably the most important.

Under this head I'm saying that you as men are to be engaged constantly in the work of intercession on behalf of your families. Not just prayer, not merely prayer in general. You to be engaged in that specific kind of prayer we call intercession and you are to be engaged in that prayer we call intercession, particularly for your families. Your wives and your children, or in my case, my nine grandchildren, Seth and Charlie and Eden and Micah and Jude and Clara and Tali and Lucy and Naya. Those nine, those are my nine grandchildren and now I have to pray not just for my wife and my children and their spouses or their spouses to be, but their children as well.

Now there are several proofs for the intercessory role of priests that can be offered to confirm this point. Let me just remind you of them quickly. Job was as a priest an intercessor. In Job 42a, please turn there, Job 42a, Job offers sacrifices for somebody besides his family, but this passage is instructive in teaching us what his sacrifices for his family were like as well. Job 42 verse 8, now therefore, Job is told with regard to his three friends, now therefore take for yourselves seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and offer up a burnt offering for yourselves and my servant Job will pray for you for I will accept him so that I may not do with you according to your folly because you have not spoken of me what is right as my servant Job has." And so the three friends of Job are told to offer sacrifices and at the time of those sacrifices, ascending to heaven along with the smoke of those sacrifices is to be Job's prayer.

It's impossible to think then that when he offered sacrifice on behalf of his family, that ascending to heaven with the smoke of those sacrifices was also the prayer of Job, the intercession of Job for his family. We must conclude that such intercessory prayer accompanied his priestly offerings for his children as well as in, as well then in Job 5. The priests of Israel were intercessors. The priests of Israel were intercessors for Israel. The intimate relation between Job's offerings and his prayers prepares us to see that the priest in Israel, who are supremely those who offered sacrifices, would also be regarded as Israel's intercessors.

It's not surprising then to find that their offerings and their prayers are spoken of together. Turn please to Ezra chapter six. Ezra chapter six, verses nine and 10. Whatever is needed, both young bulls, rams and lambs for a burnt offering to the God of heaven and wheat, salt, and wine, and anointing oil, as the priests in Jerusalem request, it is to be given to them daily without fail. These are the commands of the Gentile king.

And here's the reason for it. That they may offer acceptable sacrifices to the God of heaven and do what those sacrifices symbolize and what should always accompany those sacrifices, pray for the life of the king and his sons. The Gentile king here was making provision for the restoration of the temple in Jerusalem and his sacrifices so that the priest there might pray for the king and his sons. The incense offering offered on that golden altar that was set right at the entrance of the Holy of Holies, those incense offerings presented by priests were symbolic of prayer. Hebrews 9, 4, Revelation 5, 8, 8, 3, and 4, which speaks of the incense, which is the prayers of the saints.

Now, the association between the incense offering offered by priests and the intercession that accompanied that is beautifully outlined and associated in Luke chapter 1 verses 9 to 11, if you turn there. Luke 1, 9 to 11, as we see that the priests of Israel were intercessors in behalf of the people. Luke 1, verses 9 to 11, according to the custom of the priestly office, he was chosen by lot, speaking of Zechariah, to enter the temple of the Lord and burn incense. This was a very great duty and one that took him right to the brink of the holy of holies. And the whole multitude of the people were in prayer outside at the hour of the incense offering.

Notice the association. They were in prayer outside at the hour of the incense offering and an angel of the Lord appeared to him standing to the right of the altar of incense. So the offering of these incense offerings was associated with prayer in Israel, prayer by the people, but it was a symbolic prayer by the priest of Israel. And of course, our great high priest is peculiarly an intercessor, isn't he? He's called an intercessor in Romans 8, 34 and Hebrews 7, 25.

But especially in Hebrews 7, 25, the emphasis is on the fact that Christ as our great high priest is able to save, quoting, forever those who draw near to God through him since he always lives to make intercession for them. The word translated intercede here and used of our Lord may be variously translated as approach, appeal, petition, and pray. It portrays our Lord as constantly engaged in the work of intercessory prayer in heaven on behalf of his people. Priests were intercessors, And if we are in any sense priests in our home, we will be intercessors. All of this then simply italicizes what the light of nature and common sense sanctified should already have taught us.

How can we possibly claim to be priests or heads or providers or guides or protectors of our families If we neglect to pray for them, what duty more basic than that to this role that God has given us? And several particular lines of application come out of this fact that we are to be intercessors. The first one is this. A priest intercedes sacrificially. A priest intercedes sacrificially.

Sacrificially. By this I mean that he prays in explicit association with a sacrifice which he has offered. So if we are to intercede, our first question should be, where is our sacrifice? The answer to that question is of course that it's at the right hand of God in heaven. What priest prays without a sacrifice?

What is the sacrifice which accompanies my intercession? And the question immediately points us, must point us to the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We come to intercede on the basis of that sacrifice which ended all sacrifices, the sacrifice he did once for all when he offered up himself, Hebrews 7.27. What a helpful encouragement then, and a timely reminder, our priestly identity is to us so that we might be reminded of our great high priest and believe and plead as the only ground of our acceptance for our prayers, his sacrifice that our prayers might be heard, our intercessions might be heard in heaven. Do you come boldly to the mercy seat of God, walking self-consciously on the trail, spattered with the blood of Christ?

A priest also intercedes, not just sacrificially, but particularly. A priest is always a priest for certain particular people. Job offered sacrifice as a priest in his home for, of course, his sons and daughters, and he interceded particularly for them. The priests of Israel sacrificed and interceded not for the Gentiles normally, but for the people of Israel. Our Lord by his death, perfected for all time.

Not everyone, but those who are sanctified. Now he is able to save forever those who draw near to God through him since he always lives to make intercession for them. Intercession as a priest in your home means that you pray particularly for your wife, children, and the needs of your household. You may pray for other things. Of course, you must pray for other things, but you must pray particularly and with a special focus for your wife and children.

Their salvation and their spiritual and temporal needs must find a daily place in your prayers. In this matter, you've got to be like the Christ of whom we sing. We sing my name from the palms of his hands, eternity will not erase, impressed on his heart, it, my name, remains in marks of indelible grace. And in a similar way, the names of our wife and children and grandchildren need to be impressed on our hearts so that we bear them every day to God and to the throne of grace. A priest intercedes particularly.

A priest intercedes consistently. A priest intercedes consistently. A faithful priest, I will raise for myself, we read it in the previous hour, didn't we? I will raise for myself a faithful priest. Remember the remarkable comment about Job, thus Job did all the days.

And remember what it said about our Lord. He always lives to make intercession for them. A priest intercedes consistently. Two things it seems to me are included in such consistency. A family priest should pray regularly for those over whom he is placed.

He should play regularly for them. Personally, my conscience and my heart are not satisfied unless I pray almost every day for my family by name. And such consistency also means that a family priest should pray perseveringly. There may be hindrances to praying for some of our children perseveringly. There may be discouragements to pray for them perseveringly.

There may be things that seem legitimately to keep us from the place of daily prayer. But such hindrances demand not capitulation or compromise, but they demand perseverance. And as I said, there may be provagations which tempt us not to pray for our wife or children, or attitudes in ourself that make it difficult to overcome and speak honestly in intercession for our wife or our children in the secret place. Still, the sovereignty of the throne of grace and the power of the blood of Christ must make us say as another said, far be it for me that I should cease to pray for you. A priest intercedes consistently.

A priest intercedes sensitively. Sensitively, Such sensitivity is one of the great traits of a true priest. Hebrews 5, 2 says of the high priest, he can deal gently with the ignorant and misguided, since he himself also is beset with weakness. This gentleness, this understanding of his own weakness should make him sensitive to other people. That's the point.

Our Lord is such a compassionate and sensitive high priest, for we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses. No, his humanity is real. It's full-orbed. He was made like us in all things except sin. And so he is not a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all points as we are, yet without sin.

Now associated with such sensitivity is discernment with regard to the possible spiritual needs and sins of our families. We're sensitive, we'll be discerning. Job was perceptive in this way, and those remarkable words that Job uttered, perhaps my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts. He knew that even times of legitimate celebration and partying may be times in which people kind of let go of the reins that normally exercise control over their lust, their sinful, the sinful principles that don't dwell within them. He knows that, he knew that that might lead to sin, might lead to some breakaway thought or attitude or action that would amount to cursing God in their heart, and so at those times particularly, being a sensitive high priest, he prayed for his sons lest they would have cursed God in their heart.

There we see in Job a sensitive, perceptive, discerning, and compassionate eye, the kind of eye that a sensitive priest has. Now what a need we have as men, as men particularly, to cultivate such sensitivity. Because We are not sensitive by nature. We are Mr. Oblivious.

I'm afraid I have one of my sons who's Mr. Oblivious. He's a wonderful son, but he's Mr. Oblivious. He just kind of doesn't see things that he needs to see.

He needs to be reminded of some things sometimes. What we need, what a need we have, that is to say, particularly as men, to learn such sensitivity. We are block-headed and we are self-centered by nature, particularly as men, I think. So to intercede a right for our families, we must ask God for deliverance from that kind of block-headedness and insensitivity. On the other hand, if we have an earnest and determined embrace of our duty to be priestly intercessors on behalf of our families, if we're really taking that seriously, don't you see that that's gonna help us overcome our blockheadedness, chisel off all those right angles in that blockhead of ours, right?

The basic defect in blockheaded men is a lack of yearning and concerned love for their families. Once a man begins to biblically love his family, once a man determines that he is going to love his family and take his responsibilities as a priest in his home seriously, it's going to help him remarkably not to be so block-headed as he was born. And closely related then to that is my last application of this whole matter that a priest is an intercessor. A priest intercedes earnestly. A priest intercedes earnestly.

Job concerned and burdened for his children, Job saying, perhaps my sons have sinned. That Job you know, you know prayed with great earnestness. True priests pray that way. The Samuel who said, may it never be that I should cease to pray for you, according to 1 Samuel 7, 9, cried to the Lord for Israel, lifted up his voice. How often do our prayers, and for our wives and children, thankfully we are praying for them, But those prayers become part of the dreary and weary routine of prayer life that is almost as bad as doing the rosary, right?

We need to make sure that that doesn't happen. Are our wives' burdens and needs so heavy and shall we not pray in earnest for them? Do our children need to be saved from eternal punishment and have we never prayed and fasted for them? Do our children need direction concerning education, college, vocation, profession, and spouse? And are all these decisions facing them at a time in their life when they're least able to make them wisely, and shall we not pray for them?

Shall we not cry to the Lord for them, as Samuel did for Israel? The priest was an intercessor, and so must we be. It is the first thing we must be if we are to be priests in our homes. The second of the five major roles is this. The man is a priest in his home is a director of religious worship.

Now, I kind of feel silly trying to prove this to you. Of course a priest is a director of religious worship. Job was a director of religious worship in his home. We saw it last night. The priests of Israel were directors of religious worship in the nation.

I've got 12 texts here that show that. I'm not gonna turn you to any of them. And Our Lord as a priest is, according to Hebrews 10.21, a great priest over the house of God, which means he rules and directs the worship of his church, a great priest over the house of God. The man as a priest in his home then must be a director of religious worship, and that has three applications. First, the man must exercise leadership with regard to the personal worship of each member of his family.

The man must exercise a leadership with regard to the personal worship of each member of his family. That is to say, He must be concerned that each member of his family, both his wife and children, not only be brought to know the Lord, but also consistently engage in those personal disciplines of Bible study and private prayer in which personal worship of the living God consists. True worship begins only when a sinner bows down in worship to the living God, John 4 21-24. If a man would be a director of religious worship in his home, he must privately engage his children in conversation about their souls and seek to bring them to the Lord. He must seek to bring them by that conversation to a true and genuine experience of their sins and God's grace.

This also means that at the appropriate age, when children are able to read, he must make sure that his children begin to develop the holy habit of spending part of each day in private prayer and the study of their Bibles. What, even before they're Christians? Yes, even before they're Christians, yes. I am not among those people that can take the position or take the position that well, private devotions can wait till we know our children are Christians. Well for one thing, that's a very hard thing to know in some respects.

If they're being raised in a Christian home, raised to be obedient as we're learning in this conference. But the other thing is this. Our confession of faith is right when it says that prayer is a part of natural worship. Prayer is a part of natural worship. Prayer is not something that only Christians have to do.

Prayer and seeking God, reading the word of God, which are also means of grace and could be the means of our children's conversion, are things that all people are obliged to do. Oh no, oh no, please don't take the position that our children have nothing to do with private devotions, have nothing to do with private prayer and reading the Bible until they're Christians. No, no, no, no, no. And so we must oversee those children to assure ourselves that these disciplines are being observed by them. This means that we must talk with our wife to make sure that she's keeping a good conscience by having daily times of private prayer and Bible study.

Now I did this, I have to admit, sometimes not with the best motivations. I come home from work, my wife's there with the little ones, a little grumpy, you know. So out of self-defense, I would say, have you had your time of prayer and devotions today? Well, no. Okay, I think what I'll do is I'll watch the kids here for a half hour and you go pray and read the Bible.

That was a lot better for me and a lot better for her, okay. So, but admittedly it wasn't the highest motivation as it should have been. But Estelle got her into the word and prayer, and that was good for her, good for the, and good for me. So a man must exercise leadership with regard to the personal worship of each member of his family. The man must also exercise leadership with regard to the domestic worship of his family.

By domestic worship, I refer to the worship of God in family units. I am assuming that it's the duty of every head of a household to gather his family together, statedly to worship the living God. And there are a lot of good books and booklets out there to underscore that responsibility scripturally for you, and I'm not gonna do it here. If it's true that we must gather our households together to worship God, if this is true, then how can you think of yourself as a priest in your home at all? How can you know anything about the scriptures and what they teach about priesthood?

How can you know any rest for your soul until you've begun to have consistent family worship in your home? If you are a priest, you are a leader of worship. Where is the worship then that you conduct? Family worship is not everything. Family worship may become very formal.

I know people that were having family worship in Dutch Reformed Grand Rapids before they were even Christians, but they read their chapter at every meal. So I know that family worship is not everything. Family worship can be formal, but it is a first and vital plank in the spiritual foundation of your priesthood in your home. A third application of this is that the man must not only exercise leadership with regard to the personal worship of his family, it's domestic worship, but also a man must exercise leadership with regard to the public worship of God. In Job's day, you remember, there was no apparent public worship of God except what he carried on in his own family.

Now that God's worship has been set up in the church, Now that God dwells in a special way in his church, now that the church is the house of God, the church of the living God and the pillar and support of the truth, 1 Timothy 3.15, we live in a different day than Job. We exercise our priesthood now in connection with and with the support of the ordained public worship of God in the church. And I want to apply that in two slightly different directions. First, the man who is a priest in his home ought not to resent or neglect the church as if it were a competitor to his priesthood. Now I acknowledge, I believe, that some churches, by the multiplication of stated meetings and functions, may become, in fact, competitors with the family.

I heard of one imbalanced pastor once who wanted the people in his church to meet every day. In normal circumstances, however, that would interfere with The integrity of the family and the man's priesthood in his family, by the way, it goes about its business. But we live in a day where some men have imbibed a jealousy for their priesthood or leadership in the home that have made them begin to view the church as somehow interfering with their leadership. The man who is a priest in his home must as part of his priesthood, however, wholly support the worship of the church. Public worship supports and supplements our family priesthood.

Family priesthood is to be exercised in the glorious harmony with the church. The true man in his home should endeavor in every way possible to support and promote the legitimate ministries of the church in his home. Our children ought not to have a question on Sunday morning, what's happening that day. The family is going to church and so are they. It should not be a question.

Well I want to come to a third role of a priest in his home. The man who is a priest in his home is a mediator of divine blessing. Now, I want to admit up front that this is where this very brief treatment is the most inadequate. Because I think at this point of this matter of the priest being a mediator of divine blessing, it is the most difficult role to know exactly how to apply to us as husbands and fathers. But that there is an application to us is clear.

Hebrews 5 one says that priests are appointed on behalf of men in things pertaining to God. In Scripture, Christ is the great mediator. And of course, he mediates in a way that we dare not infringe upon or take to ourselves. But nonetheless, I say again, there is an application to us as priests in our home, and I say this on the basis of, well, I'm gonna tell you five things quickly that make me say that. First, Job attempted to mediate spiritual blessings for his children, didn't he?

That's why he called the family worship service. That's why he called them, sent and sanctified them, and offered sacrifices for them. What was he doing there? In some sense, he was trying to mediate divine blessings and to draw them away from the possible cursing God in their hearts, which he feared. Second, the patriarchs who were priests in their homes pronounced effectual blessings upon their children and in some sense mediated divine blessings to them.

See this often in the book of Genesis. I'm just finishing it again in my own devotions, but in Genesis nine and 27 and 28 and 48 and 49 we see the patriarch's blessing their sons. Now it's perfectly evident I think in these passages that these patriarchs like Noah, Isaac, and Jacob were exercising a power and privilege that was prophetic in character and which is not given to us. The blessings with which they blessed their children came ultimately from the spirit of prophecy which dwelt within them. But still and nonetheless, I ask you the question, I ask your own consciences the question, is there nothing that we are to learn from their example and blessing their children?

Does not their example instruct us to aspire to be a source of blessing to our children? Does not their example instruct us to speak positively and encouragingly to our wives and children wherever and whenever we can? Does it not suggest that we should verbally and scripturally bless our children? Does not the example suggest that we should attempt to discern and recognize in our children the peculiar gifts and talents God has given them and which properly developed and sanctified could be a channel of divine blessing to them and to others. So I think we too should attempt to point our children in the path of blessing for which their peculiar God-created natures fit them.

Because there is such a thing as natural gift that points to natural vocation, just as surely as there is such a thing as spiritual gift that points to spiritual vocation. This is kind of a personal illustration and I'm not into that kind of thing, but it may help you to understand the kind of thing I'm talking about here, so I'm going to give it to you. And it may sound like I'm a proud father and I am a bit proud, but that's how you accept that you are too, right? I have a son, one of my sons who just made us all very proud by graduating with a PhD in cancer research from the University of Minnesota. He has gifts that I don't have.

He has gifts that most people don't have when it comes to the kind of biological and chemical things that you have to know all sorts of things about to do cancer research. And God has peculiarly led him in his life in directions that pointed very clearly to the fact that this is what God was gifting him in a natural sense to do. And after graduating, had a couple of good job opportunities, several interviews, but neither of those situations worked out. And so Dad's sitting down here in Owensboro, Kentucky. Of course, we'd love him for him to be closer to us, but Owensboro's not a good place for cancer research jobs.

And we know that his wife has a sister there in Minneapolis, and they would love to stay there. But I'm sitting down there in Owensboro saying, look, he cannot, with these natural gifts and this clear natural calling from God, he just can't make that all depend on living in one place. He's gotta follow his calling. He's gotta use his gifts. It's clear to me.

So I'm praying and praying about this. Of course he's married. He's out of my home. I'm reluctant to say too much. But on the other hand, I believe I still have a responsibility.

So what do I do? Finally, after several weeks of prayer, I call him up and say, hey Nate, you know, I'm concerned about this. God has clearly given you these gifts, it points to a calling that he's given you peculiarly, and you need to follow that calling. And if it means moving to Boston or California to get the job where you can do what God has clearly called you to do, then I think that's what you have to do as long as there's a good church there. And thankfully, my son said, you know, Dad, I've been thinking that same thing myself.

And he began to look for those other jobs and began to apply in places where those kind of jobs are more plentiful. But three or four days later, out of the blue, one of the principal investigators at a lab for the University of Minnesota called him and had a wonderful job for him. But it wasn't until he'd committed himself to follow God's calling for him, even if it led him someplace where he might not want to live that God blessed him with that job. Isn't that a remarkable thing? But this is the kind of thing I'm talking about.

We need to recognize our children's gifts, point them in the direction of where those gifts would take them because it's what's going to be a blessing to them and a blessing to other people. Let me give you a third reason why I think we have to be blessers or mediators of divine blessing. And it's because the priest in Israel had for one of their foremost duties the blessing of God's people. It's there in Leviticus 9. It's there in number 6.

It's there in one, two, three, four, five more passages in the Old Testament. Thus you shall bless my people Israel. One of the great duties of a priest was to stand at the conclusion or at some point in the worship of God's people in Israel and utter the blessing of God's peace upon his people. It's such a prominent thing that it's difficult to think that We don't have that same responsibility for our families if we are priests in our home. And fourth, our great high priest is a mediator and pronouncer of divine blessing.

We know that. Melchizedek, his great type, raised his hands and blessed Abraham when he was returning from the battle there in Genesis 14. And we're told that he's a mediator of blessing in Hebrews seven. But the most remarkable illustration of This is the last sight that Christ's disciples, his apostles had of him as he left planet Earth for heaven. You know what that sight was?

It was of our Lord with his hands raised in blessing upon them. So our great high priest is a mediator of blessing and I think we should attempt to follow his example. And fifth, the man as the head of his home, I said this briefly yesterday and I'll say it again here a little bit more at length. The man who is the head of his home will be a means of either blessing or cursing upon his home depending on his own character and conduct. You can't help it.

You will either bless your family or you will curse them. You can't get out of it. If you wanted to get out of that, you should have never gotten married. You will bless your family or you will curse them. Make up your minds now what you will be.

Now let me carefully qualify and limit this. Some have taken the scriptural fact as an argument to or grounds for baptizing their children. I am a Baptist. I don't believe it's grounds for that, but I still believe that there is an influence that the head of a home has on his home. I believe that on the basis of the Bible.

I don't believe that the man's position justifies conferring the sign of the new covenant on all the seed. If you're here and disagree with me, that's all right. I'm just making myself clear. But though it is no argument for infant baptism, there is a doctrine of house solidarity in the Bible And there is a doctrine of house solidarity in the book of Proverbs. This doctrine teaches that a man's conduct profoundly influences the welfare of his house or family.

And so please turn to the book of Proverbs. I want to show you this very quickly. Proverbs 3.33. The curse of the Lord is on the house of the wicked, but he blesses the dwelling of the righteous. Proverbs 11.29.

He who troubles his own house will inherit wind and the foolish will be servant to the wisehearted. Proverbs 12, seven. The wicked are overthrown and are no more, but the house of the righteous will stand. Proverbs 14, 11. The house of the wicked will be destroyed, but the tent of the upright will flourish.

Proverbs 15, six. Great wealth is in the house of the righteous, but trouble is in the income of the wicked. Proverbs 15, 25. The Lord will tear down the house of the proud, but he will establish the boundary of the widow. Proverbs 15, 27, he who profits illicitly, notice the singular, he who profits illicitly troubles his own house.

But he who hates bribes will live. Proverbs 17, 13. He who returns evil for good, notice the singular again, but the singular act of a man affects his house. He who returns evil for good, evil will not depart from his house, Proverbs 21, 12. The righteous one considers the house of the wicked, turning the wicked to ruin.

Add to this the clear duty taught in the New Testament, The man is to be the head and savior of his wife, Ephesians 5, 23 to 29. And clearly, if a man performs his duty as a priest in his home, if he does that, he will be, in some sense, a mediator of divine blessing to his family. But if he fails, it certainly cannot fail to result in evil for his house, evil for his wife, evil for his children, evil for his family. That's heavy, isn't it? That's really heavy.

But it's the truth, brothers. It's the truth. Now as I admitted at the outset, There is mystery with regard to the way a man is a mediator of divine blessing to his home. And we must be cautious in the way we apply this, but what we do know for sure teaches us at least two clear lessons. First, your conduct as a priest in your home will have a profound spiritual impact on your wife and your family, your children.

Therefore, you must, must, must aspire to be a blessing to your family. The second thing it teaches us is again addressed to our tendency to be the typical, silent, non-communicative, block-headed male. Okay? If you are to bless your family as you should as a priest in your home, you must verbally and non-verbally communicate blessing to them. This rebukes the man who doesn't communicate at all.

This rebukes the man whose communication is predominantly critical. This certainly rebukes the man whose communication is predominantly sarcastic. And it also, as I said, rebukes the man who says nothing at all. You're not blessing your family verbally if you don't say anything. This calls for us to be men of faith.

How can you communicate blessing when there's so much to be scared of, so much you're fearful for? How can you do that? How can you bless when there's so much out there that scares the living daylights out of us? Only if we're men of faith, how much your family needs you to be a man of faith who can encourage and bless in the midst of threats and things that seem to call for fear. This calls for us to be men who communicate faith and vision and encouragement to our children.

So, we have so much to say to our children that's corrective, so much to say to our children that's reproving. Boy, we've got to look for opportunities when they do something right to commend them. We have to look for opportunities to show them the way of salvation, of repentance and faith that will lead to blessing for them. And we have to call them to that blessing. This is what it means to be a man who is a priest in his home.

Fourth role, the man who is a priest in his home is an instructor in sacred scripture. Many, many passages here that we can look at. Turn to Ezra chapter 7. I've got one, two, three, four, almost about a dozen here in my notes and I'm certainly not going to turn you to all of those. But turn to Ezra chapter 7, look at verses 6, 10, and 11.

This Ezra, Ezra was a priest, according to the previous context. This Ezra went up from Babylon and he was a scribe, skilled in the law of Moses, which the Lord God of Israel had given. The king granted him all he requested because the hand of the Lord his God was upon him. Some of the sons of Israel and some of the priests, the Levites, the singers, the gatekeepers, and the temple servants went up to Jerusalem in the seventh year of King Artaxerxes. And then look at verses 10 and 11.

For Ezra had set his heart to study the law of the Lord and to practice it and to teach his statutes and ordinances in Israel. And then it goes on to speak of Ezra. Now this is the copy of the decree which King Artaxerxes gave to Ezra the priest, the scribe, learned in the ways and the words of the commandments of the Lord and his statutes to Israel. And many such things are there in the Old Testament Scriptures. These passages make plain that it was one of the great duties of the priest in Israel to instruct men in the precepts of the Lord.

And who can doubt, who can doubt at this point that there is again a parallel between the priest in Israel and the man as a priest in his home. Deuteronomy 4, Deuteronomy 6, Deuteronomy 11, Ephesians 6, 4, bring your children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. There are many applications of this to us. Let me just give you two. One, if a man is to be an instructor of his family in sacred scripture, he must himself be learned in the scriptures.

The first discipline of a godly man must be to teach himself the truth of the Scriptures, to teach himself an understanding of the Christian religion that then he can communicate to his wife and children. This requires him to use the two major means that God has appointed for becoming learned in the Scriptures. Those two major means are a private study of Scripture and a use of the public means of grace. Deuteronomy 17, Ezra 7, Acts 17, 11. The man who would be a priest in his home must use diligently both the opportunity to study his Bible privately and the opportunity to put himself under a faithful ministry of the word of God.

The kind of ministry under which one places oneself can be a matter of indifference to no man who would be an instructed priest in his home. You are not intended to live solely on your own Bible reading. You are intended to do that and to use the public means of grace and the faithful teaching of the pastor-teachers that God gives to his church. You must be careful to place yourself then under a faithful ministry of the word of God. It must be a life priority to you to know the Scriptures and to be taught the Scriptures.

But a second application is this. If a man is to be an instructor of his family in sacred Scripture, he must develop the grace of being spiritually minded. And I have to admit that this is not something that I feel like I'm so good at, but the Bible makes clear, Deuteronomy 6 makes clear that it's not just in stated times of family worship, but all the time, everywhere, walking by the way, sitting in the house, working in the field, whatever you're doing that you're gonna be talking about the Scriptures and communicating this knowledge that you're so diligently seeking in life. That brings us to our fifth and last rule. The man is a priest in his home, is an adjudicator in holy things.

And when I speak of an adjudicator, I mean simply a judge. What does a judge do? Well, clearly, he's not a mere legal scholar. He is not merely an instructor in a law school. To be a judge, he has to be both those things.

He has to have a knowledge of law, but he's got to be something more. A judge takes the law that he understands and applies it to specific cases, decides these cases, renders a verdict with regard to them, and even apportions appropriate punishments on the basis of his judgments. In the same way, The man as a priest in his home must be more than an instructor in sacred scripture. He must be a judge. Now perhaps you can begin to see why I think it's necessary to distinguish these two points, knowing the scripture and applying it as a judge.

Men have a common failing in spiritual things. It is be carrying away with theoretical, complex, and abstract doctrine and being unable to apply what they know in a practical way. Such men will talk to you about the different theories with regard to the imputation of Adam's sin while their children wreck the house and make a wreck of their mother. This is why it seems crucial to me to emphasize that a man as a priest in his home must be an adjudicator in holy things. Now with regard to this special role of the priest and the man as a priest in his home, two things are abundantly plain from scripture.

One, the priests of Israel were to be the judges or adjudicators of questions related to holy things. There are many passages here, but one very interesting one, and I'll turn you just to one for the sake of time, is Haggai chapter two and verse 11 and following. Notice what is assumed about the role of the priest here in these words. These are the words of the Lord to Haggai the prophet. Thus says the Lord of hosts, ask now the priest for a ruling.

See the language? Ask the priest, not for theory, ask them for a ruling. Ask them for a ruling. If a man carries holy meat in the fold of his garment and touches bread with this fold or cooked food, wine, oil, any other food, will it become holy? And the priest answered, no.

Then Haggai said, if one who is unclean from a corpse touches any of these, will the latter become unclean? And the priest answered, it will become unclean. Then Haggai said, so is this people. Ask the priest for a ruling. It's right for mom to say about this situation or the other that calls for some application of the law of God to your home, go ask the priest for a ruling.

I wish my wife wouldn't bother me with this. Why can't she leave me alone? Why can't she just let me watch TV or read the newspaper? Why do I have to get involved in this? Can't you just settle it yourself?

No! You're the priest and it is scriptural. For the wife to say, go ask the priest for a ruling. It's your job. And the man as a priest is to be the judge also because this is clearly involved in 1 Peter 3, 6 and 7.

It's an implication, but I think it's a clear implication. 1 Peter 3, 6 and 7, Just as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord, and you have become her children, if you do what is right, without being frightened by any fear, Your husbands, you husbands in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way. Look, take what you know and apply it to how you treat your wife, okay? Don't sit there in your armchair and be a theoretician. Apply it to how you live with your wife.

As with someone weaker, since she is a woman, and show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life so that your prayers will not be hindered. Okay, so what's the point? The man is a priest in his home, can't afford to be an armchair Monday morning quarterback. His instruction must be applied to specific cases and enforced by verbal warnings and even appropriate penalties. He must not be only a legal scholar, he must be a judge.

What does all this say to us practically? Well, there's a caution here. You're to be the judge. You're not to be a jerk, okay. Your duty to be the judge does not negate your need for wisdom or counsel.

Don't be an arrogant jerk. On all is said and done, you must do what you believe biblical wisdom demands. But please think about it. Please seek counsel. Please get all the information before you hurl some ruling out there?

Caution. Caution secondly, your duty to be the judge does not mean that you become super strict or determine always to err on the side of severity. Well, we want to err on the side of, no you don't want to err at all. We don't get the option to err on the side of severity. That will only exasperate our children.

There's rebuke here. Your duty to be the judge reproves Our, I say it deliberately, our selfish native male desire to be left alone and not have our personal peace disturbed. Part of being a priest in our home is being disturbed. Fourthly, direction. You've got to follow through on your teaching with practical application and enforcement.

I always think of this to myself as the idea that we have to be a Kelvin and not a Luther. You know, Luther was satisfied if the true doctrine was preached in the church, then he could go, well, in the words of one writer, Luther when he had preached and sowed the seed of the word left to the Holy Spirit the care of producing the fruit while his friend Philip and he peacefully drank his glass of Wittenberg beer. Kelvin couldn't take this view of what the church should be like. Kelvin could not take this view. What other others may hold, he observed, we cannot think so narrowly of our office that when Preaching is done, our task is fulfilled, and we may take our rest.

In his view, the mark of a true church, it's not merely that the gospel is preached in it, but that it is followed. And on our view as priests in our home, it's not enough that the Bible be read in our homes. We are not going to be satisfied unless it is followed. There's also direction here. You must seek to create in your home a climate of holiness and ethical righteousness.

This was the whole point of the priests' function as adjudicators in Israel. And so we must adjudicate TV and radio and CD and internet and DVD players in our homes and our cars. And finally there's encouragement. There are some men that don't need this encouragement. I know before I say it.

But there are others that do need it. I'm one of them. We need to say to ourselves, some of us, that we have the right to be the judge in our home. God has clothed us, we need to remind ourselves, with the moral authority to make the final decision about what will be right and wrong in our home. Some of you may say, well, why do you say that?

Because it's tough to be the judge. It's tough. Where do you get to be called on to be judge? When your wife is angry at one of your children. And you have to walk into that pressure packed situation of course, you assume your wife has a case, but on the other hand, you can't discipline that child until what?

Until you know the facts, until you understand what's going on. Your wife may sit there steaming and saying, why doesn't he just do what I say? Well, it's because you can't, You're the judge. But you see, all sorts of situations where we have to be the judge and adjudicator. They're not these calm, lovely situations that everything's just flowing downstream.

They're rapids. And it's into those situations men have got to step and say, here's what we're going to do. That's tough. That's not easy to do. But it's what we have to do.

And we're only going to do it if we realize that this is an authority God has really given us and we can't get out of it and it is clearly our job even though it means we're acting with a kind of leadership and authority that we may be personally a little uncomfortable with because we're just not that kind of person. Now, one of the things I'm really conscious of, and in the latter years of my ministry I've tried to rectify, is that you can preach this kind of message with all these exhortations and all these imperatives and all these admonitions and it can be really heavy and discouraging. And I can't change the law of God, and I can't change your responsibility, and so there's a sense in which I can't feel bad about that. We just need to man up and do what we have to do. On the other hand, it's clear that these kind of things should not be preached divorced from the gospel of Christ.

The law is the law, but the gospel is the gospel. And so I want to end with gospel because you're not going to get these things done unless you live in the gospel of Jesus Christ. No one preached the gospel of Jesus Christ better than Charles Haddon's virgin. I'm going to leave you with an illustration of the importance of writing checks on the checkbook of faith and on the promises of God and putting them in the bank account of your own life. All right?

Here's what he said. Some persons never question the doctrine. That is not their line of temptation. They accept the gospel as true, but then they never expect to see its promises practically carried out. It is a proper thing to believe, but by no means a prominent practical factor in actual life.

It is true, but it is mysterious, misty, mythical, far removed from the realm of practical common sense. We do with promises, now here comes the illustrator Spurgeon, we do with the promises often as a poor old couple did with a precious document which might have cheered their old age had they used it according to its real value. A gentleman stepping into a poor woman's house saw framed and glazed upon the wall a French note for a thousand francs. He said to the old folks, how came you by this? They informed him that a poor French soldier had been taken in by them and nursed until he died.

And he had given them that little picture when he was dying as a memorial of him. They thought it such a pretty souvenir that they had framed it. And there it was adorning the cottage wall. They were greatly surprised when they were told that it was worth the sum, which would be quite a little fortune for them if they would but turn it into money. Are we not equally unpractical with far more precious things?

Some of you men here this message say, I'm so poor, I'm so weak, I can't do all of this and your knees are crumpling and you're sinking to the ground and right there on the door of your cottage, old woman, is a thousand pound note for Franks that would make you wealthy, that would make you strong. It's the promises of the gospel of Jesus Christ which you are to believe and apply to your practical situation. And so I say to you, what Spurgeon was saying to his hearers in this illustration, take the gospel and turn it into money and use it. Use it to be a priest in your home. Let's pray.

Father, we do pray for each one of us. Help us to be practical about the gospel. Help us to take our gospel notes and turn them into money. Turn them into the spirit of wisdom and understanding to replace and to help our folly. Turn them into counsel and strength to help us in our weakness.

Turn them into the spirit of the fear of the Lord to help our native depravity in our remaining sin. Help us, come to us through Jesus Christ, O Holy Spirit, Spirit of Yahweh, come and dwell in us because of what Jesus has done and freely purchasing you for us. And come, we plead, not our works. We remember the Apostle Paul saying that you receive the Spirit of God by the works of law or by the believing of faith. And we remember that it was always by the believing of faith.

And we ask that you would come Holy Spirit to us. Make us in all the different things that it means, in all the multitude of its responsibilities, in all the demands it makes on what we are inside, oh come and help us. Make us the priest in our home that Your Word calls us to be and that our wives and our children need us to be. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.

And for more information about the National Center For Family Integrated Churches are you can search our online network. To find family integrated churches in your area, log on to our website, ncfic.org. You